BOE Budget Workshop (24 January 2023)

001okay it's uh 103 on Tuesday January 24th um Board of Ed budget Workshop and can I have a motion to change the agenda move the Middlebrook meeting to Thursday yep and the today we'll add the technology right yes in District so check the district discussion I can handle the rest of them to today's agenda I move that way alter the agenda just the way you described hello is there a second oh second um ah a let's see that thanks you're welcome okay we're gonna have a hard stop because I have to pick up a kid I have to pick up a kid at 3 15. [Laughter] great all right sorry I just wanted to capture that change good all right so welcome here we go um this is as we have done for now on

002the last five or six years we take the opportunity over three afternoons to really dive into the different cost centers and so today we'll start with Mrs followed by Dr Falcone and then Eric Chuck Marie and I will pick up the rest um just as a as a highlight we'll give you the highlights of what we're trying to do but in terms of substantive changes as you already know because I'm sure you've been into the budget books there's not much in the way of substantive changes with you know maybe the couple of differences in technology and so when I asked the administrators to do was to highlight continuing budget priorities just to really refresh you about what those are and then also spend a little bit of time talking about things that either were moving

003onto the button down to the budget proposed the original budget proposal or items that they may not even have proposed that I'm not aware of because they just assumed they were going to be cut anyway so we could have a little mystery and suspense here as part of the conversation today and then of course this is intended to be informal it's intended to inform your deliberations and so please feel free to jump in at any time with any question foreign great anything else before we begin and otherwise we'll go to Mrs okay well thanks for doing it I thought I would start with something funny cute pictures of cute children so I thought I would start with something funny because we took some time to we're making a military memory book and so we had

004people take a walk down memory lane a few thousand years ago and so I thought this one was super cute because it shows us it shows me how precocious some of our students so uh one of the teachers wrote down that um she wrote down she had a student a few years back who pretended that she was her mother and called the absentee line to say that she was going to be out sick today and when she left the message she ended it by you know saying well she started by saying she was going to be up sick and she ended it with I love you bye I thought that was pretty cute that's amazing it does take a million times there's a good skill set I know she's getting them ready later for high

005school right exactly bag I'll start with that yes so anyway I divided my presentation into three sections so what we were what we've been able to do this year how will our budget for next year and what we would like to do next year and Beyond AKA um so my presentation is going to be pretty quick so feel free to stop me if you have questions along the way but in a lot of this you already know about this year this year we're piloting illustrative math in second grade um we are implementing the new TC reading units in grade one we've added played workshops to kindergarten we've implemented everyday speech which is a social emotional learning program in kindergarten we focused on Executive functioning and play in preschool we've implemented CT set which is the

006new state IEP program it's free we've implemented Dessa which is a universal screener that the teachings is around social emotional learning we have significantly enhanced our diversity Equity inclusion resources and have a Dei calendar now and all the children are getting assured experiences in regards to diversity equity and inclusion through Google labs we've made some changes in our instructional coaching model this year so that we could support the illustrative math pilot and so that we could also create a lab site classroom so we took two of our coaches these they're sharing a classroom and teaching that together while also coaching for the other half of their of their day which has been great to be able to have teachers and to kind of see them work in action we've added a phonic lending assessment to

007kindergarten we had that before only in first and second and so now that's K to two as you know we're focused on our plan to study act cycle for continuous Improvement and we're doing it across the whole entire School we are a TC project school for year five and again that supports these changes with the leading units our TC staff developer is actually here yesterday and was here today even with the grades who are not implementing the new reading units she is previewing a springtime unit with them and talking about what's different between what they're doing now and what the new units include and then each teacher at the end of the day was setting the goal for two things they were going to try for the end of the school year so we're excited

008about those changes um and then other just fun things we've been able to resume School assemblies and a lot of other pre-coveted activities so I'm super excited so we're doing all of that based on you know the limited amount of money that you gave you here and the current budget freeze which is definitely been impactful given that it started but in October um so that has had a huge impact we've been able to do so cat can you give some examples well I think a lot of Professional Resources for example um so we had bought um you know early on in the year Shifting the balance which is a book that we're using with the first grade team we had bought saving play which is a book that we're using with the kindergarten team but

009other resources that you know have been recommended to us you don't have them you know we don't have the money now available to us to purchase those things um Furniture is always an issue and some people think oh Furniture you have this brand new building you know what do you need furniture for well we have this brand new renovated building and we very much love it but we didn't get all brand new furniture and so each year we put in a small amount of money to again be replacing a furniture that is old old gas old kidney shave tables all those things and so none of those you know are able to be purchased other purchases around you know read alouds different texts too again improve fostering libraries to you know help our library collection

010become more diverse all of those things the things that you know we haven't been able to do this year some professional development so we have practically so that that money was encumbered before the free but we had other money in our investment for people who aren't classroom teachers and so that's definitely you know limited what they've been able to do so what were some things after the pairs the professional development no um for like our teachers PE teachers like you know so Mental Health um so those have been some other things that we've you know just put off for this year we're trying to design administrators are they trying to go to something or were you guys trying to have somebody come talk to them or are they doing something online a little of each

011okay so all of those different things so a lot of things are online now which is great um because it saves none of the travel um but it's just kind of picky and choosing what those things will be um all right so when we built the budget for this year I was told by my boss [Music] I feel a guy in the room for the next three days it's okay yeah go ahead it's okay I just want to tell you like what we were asking yeah he told me I was allowed to say it okay are we ready to move on Saturday [Music] um so we were told that we needed to cut the money that we have you know control over by 10 percent so um yeah being the cool followers we are over

012we did it um we actually cut and everything that we had control over it turned out to be for a total of 10.47 percent um that also didn't include any of our increased revenue for preschool so even though it was budgeted um previously that we would have 250 000 for now like we make over 300 scroll back we didn't count that in because we thought that might be gaming system so we did cut our our a little more than our 10 so we kind of took our share um that did obviously have an impact on everything right so when we talked to our special teachers you know people who have they did you know give us information for budgets we basically said okay here's your total that you had for music Here's your totality for

013art PE Etc um you can pull it all up but there needs to be a 10 decrease you can decide where you want that to be so you know in some areas there are multiple different lines that make up the total for that area some people only have General supplies like art for example um so they took the cuts and then you know just kind of shared with me what that what that would impact and what they wouldn't be able to do so art for example clay I guess super expensive and is getting more and more expensive so as things keep getting cut and cut you know those were the things where they're like okay well maybe we won't be able to do a clay project you know that's just you know an example there

014were some big areas where we had to take Cuts because we had significant increases in other areas for example are we hope to do the illustrative math pilot in first grade next year so that would be first grade and second grade that would be doing illustrative math which means there needs to be an increase in the textbook workbooks you know the workbooks that we buy for that program so to be able to do that we took a significant cut to General supplies for science so that definitely will impact what we're able to do you know in our steam lab and in the classroom that's in the science 21 program we're going to you know see our closets and things like that but it's like but that was a big cut to General supplies there and

015again that's on top of the of the budget being frozen now which makes it um thank goodness that duck comes every year and lays her eggs in our Outdoor Learning Center because we had to cut out hatching uh but the duck comes so as long as she comes but no chicks they were helpful but so those are things that again little by little have to get cut out we did um cut as much as we could out of the TC professional development while still remaining a project school because the access that you have for resources and materials or project school is amazing um but we did take about a three thousand dollar cut to that and then pretty much every year much to free income ours dismay what we put in for library books and

016things like that kind of has consistently been cutting over the last five years um but our collections were already pretty cold and so when you cut they are it just prolongs you know us our inability to bring the selection up to see um it also limits the efforts that we have to improve the University we did get get some things that we asked for thanks Kevin it's my pleasure um so as you know this year we had to add another preschool teacher so we went up to six teachers um and we worked really hard to um support that program with the paraprofessionals that we were allocated um but we put in the budget for this year to go back to have our model you know upheld which is a preschool teacher and 1.75 um and

017so that was something that that was granted in our budget and then also in the for the past couple of years we had two classroom teachers and a 0.45 interventionists that were paid for through the Essa Grant um and so those things were also kept in our budget the two classroom teachers I know they were paying for through the grant um but there's something that we need based on our enrollment because we already sort of that bone bubble went through Miller Driscoll and now um kind of on the uptick and it's just to maintain the 39 teachers that we have so it's not issue oh we we also were unable to replace the iPads uh that we were looking to replace for next year and that's the kindergarten for kindergarteners correct yeah we needed about

01880. because we those the ones that are there need to be replaced they can't be managed we can't add additional applications to them and if we're stuck where they are right now okay we were out had to remove those as well so it's not that they won't be able to be used they just won't be able to use be used in the way that was preferred correct yeah okay we're trying to have a grade level set okay we have two-thirds of a grade level set okay oh I hear what you're saying so they don't all have the kindergarten applications on them so that affects equity in the classroom thanks dump it okay um things we requested but we're not branded um we did request additional um foreign so we have been caught in that area

019when our kindergarten sections got cut as our kindergarten sessions have gone back up we've never been able to add back in So this year we have 12 kindergarten classes we have five kindergarten Paras the two team leaders and Jimmy Carly work really hard to schedule them to make the most of their support but as you can imagine five people across 12 classes is a little tricky next year we're slated to have 13 kindergarten classes so that's tricky so it's 13 still to the five for next year well right now we have 12 to the five right yep and next year we're slated chapter 15 to 5. so that was something that that we didn't get do any of the sped parents operate in kindergarten do any of the sped pairs are they um mandated service

020in kindergarten um but we really have um then this is hard because some of you haven't been on the board for very long but we really have decreased our staff at Maryland Driscoll in regards to special education paraprofessionals in regards to relating service we did go up a special ed teacher a few years ago we traded in a couple of pairs to be able to do that but when you look overall kind of year by year every year usually we have had a cut especially in related services and we took a significant cut in Perez when I first started when we kind of put Pre-K made it a Pre-K to two school so there were a lot of efficiencies we looked at it's funny when you look back at the numbers because when I look

021back at the numbers of how many kids were in pre-K first got here and then when we moved to this integrated model fewer kids probably twice as many staff and even we would look at kind of class photos old class photos of pretty almost as many adults if there were kids so now we have probably you know more than twice as many preschool children unless we've left staff yes but the model really does the teacher in the 1.75 para for the most part that model works very very well if we have a student move in who has significant needs or needs you know more of a personal Sarah that's where we might have to add on um but the model works really well and those are juice anything so we're happy to have our bottle

022of help for next year what would be the model numbers for kindergarten it'd be nice if we had a pair for every two kindergarten classes that was the idea because then you can also schedule you could have you know two two kind of teachers and when we do their schedules we can schedule you know academics opposite of each other and to probably go back and forth yeah so that you'd be able to have that more of a shared you know a share time we do tons of training with our prayer professionals the red ones in kindergarten the Middle School ones and the special education ones so they're really highly trained and the teachers rely on them a lot to do a lot of you know kids after they've done instruction but it's just sometimes you

023know some pair of schedules it's sort of like came 45 minutes or hands fast and then they go for five minutes ago and then on Tuesday or we have a six day schedule now it's like on day three and uh and then I go back um and hard educationally to not have a consistent person right because again across three classes so you don't have a consistent schedule without getting to know about yeah so we do try to adjust too based on what you said Kevin if we have classes where there's already a higher professional at least you know then we do kind of makes them a little a little bit of adjustment there but It's Tricky okay um as we go into next year uh one really big wish that we have at Miller Disco

024speed up the implementation of the pilot of illustrative math initially the thought was we would pilot in second grade this year we would move it down to first grade next year and then down to kindergarten we've had some really great results from our illustrative Mount Pilot I've been nuclear map scores for second grade probably higher than they've ever been open and so we would like to maintain the instructional coaching support that we have right now to be able to look at ways where we can speed up the implementation and pay in one the other nice part about doing K and one together is K and one the program looks very similar whereas then two through eight it looks a little bit different so we've had conversations with treating Denton about what would be some professional

025development that we already have you know kind of plotted out for first grade how could we include kindergarten you know in that professional development what kinds of coaching support would we need to support the teachers across K and one to be able to implement it um we need to have you stagger that centers are a huge part of kindergarten and first grade illustrative math so we're doing some things even this year to introduce the teachers to that and first grade is going to all of her space is going to Pilot a unit just like second grade did last year but hope would have been to accelerate that implementation and [Music] supports for that this aim is true with the can I share a question about that so typically when we've asked in the past when

026things have things actually specifically truly about pushing forward and having more of our you know grades learning at the same time she's always told us no so my shoe saying that we can handle it and we can make an implementation faster I think given the begin the similarities with K and one I think that's why it would work in km1 I know that you all have conversations inside around but I just think given you know the standards that are addressed across one and given that um you know kind of structure of the program she thinks that we would be able to do it if right now again we adjusted our instructional coaching support so we have 1.5 coaches because of this classroom split and so if you think that with that 1.5 and then with

027the better lessons professional development that we would be able to do it I were initially in favor of doing it just giving the resources that we have the cap is persistent it has come with it come up with an idea that I think we can have a conversation at a time but this like kind of goes back to all of our frustrations about us never being able to think outside the box and being so nope this is the way it is it's great and now we've got Kathy has come up with outside the box a way to get it done it's a risk I'm not confident that there will work but again I think Kathy has made a consistent and valid argument for how to proceed I'm going to say that it's a risk um

028when I first got here we implemented math and focus K-12 minimal training and we have been suffering for that for a long time right I much prefer that we'd be very thoughtful and systematic in our implementation most districts don't Implement K to 12. we do at grade level by grade level just give me another coaching support and fiscal resources right well packing a gem because of our results our anxious to accelerate that which is a good thing if you recalls and I first talked to you about I am you're like me not sure right so it's good that they are are accelerating I just want to be cautious that we do it wrong that's all um as I said Kathy's very persistent this is the course that I would take but she seems confident that

029she can make it work also the several hours between first and 10th probably is a more compelling argument than either third or fourth grade and I can rely on Kathy that if she wants something to work she will make it work so that's kind of why I agree [Laughter] it's another skill my my elementary school kids are left persistent persistence persistence so let me ask you a follow-up question then so if we're gonna if you're gonna go forward with that does something need to change in what you presented to us terms of your budget if we can maintain our instructional coaches then you're okay yes okay so I'm also explaining with the idea of supplementing that with some external approaches so if our coaches are feeling a little stretched you might have enough room in

030my budget to supplement that coaches okay okay what's the persistent Kathy apologies for my being late what is what are you what do you suggest with number one um I was just saying we would like to accelerate the implementation of the illustrative math pilot based on the results we got in second grade yeah so and K and one are very similar in the way the program runs okay and one runs a certain way second through eight from a little bit differently yeah also just looking at the standards across K and one yeah you know you know there isn't a huge difference there it's much more similar so that's why I think it's easier in the lower levels and I did the teachers will be very excited about the centers that are a huge part of

031what came on here so okay um yeah just you have enough support to implement in second next year next year we've already implemented so but I mean sorry I'm sorry I'm first okay yeah yeah so it would be accelerated and there are things that you know we're starting to do this year just because of the results that we got from second grade so like we did last year in second grade we kind of primed the pump to be able to you know pilot with the whole grade level for this year we're doing those same things with first grade but we're figuring out again we have illustrative math coming I think it's that Friday before vacation early release day um to talk about the centers part within first grade and so we're talking about okay well

032then could we just have kindergarten also be a part of that because again it's very similar it's similar in the way that we had second and third grade doing training last year you know together together okay um another new thing that's coming down the pike here are the TC writing units so we have all the new leading units we've implemented them in first grade this year again just because we have different areas of focus um for each state level this year but there are the writing units coming down that we should have next year and so that's another piece that will utilize our coaching support for but we'll have to look for the best way to do that especially if we're if we do decide we're going to accelerate the math then the best way

033to do that just so we don't overwhelm the teachers this year in second grade we spent pretty much the first half of the Year focusing on that and now they're moving in to the changes for the second grade reading units which has been really nice and so we would look at how we would do that next year so I'm glad you brought that up so Jim that's another thing about new teachers and I knew that there were new units coming out and reading my writing and that kind of informed my reluctance to accelerate the math but again that is cleverly [Music] make a word bank for you um so Kathy maintaining the current coaching support that you have now would give you the space to yeah okay but it would give you the space to

034pursue both okay and again that's where we look across the years say yeah okay where are the teachers going to start how are we going to use iet's how are we using faculty meeting time you know and how are we differentiating based on the grade levels depending on how much yeah what sorry what would be the I'm going to ask a question for you and Chuck what would be the impact of one fewer coach at Miller Driscoll next year well it would have I think it would have a huge impact because I think I've said this before but elementary teachers teach everything um so that's tricky I think there are a lot of changes in whether we whether we get the waiver and have TC or not there are changes that are being made to

035reading and writing based on um I feel like we're ahead of the curve um when it comes to those changes based on some things that we have done and they'll adjustable by adding adding Integrity by doing the TC phonics units even looking at the new TC reading units where the the decoding and the phonics is is woven into those units um so I feel like we're in a good place there but there still are shifts that we need the teachers to make just have the support to do that and then when you add in this writing piece it's sort of like okay so there's some changes to reading there are these brand new rating units and then there's this change to the math so I think it's a lot um and I think if they

036have the support they can do it and if we utilize our professional learning time in a you know strategic way I think that we can do it but they need the coaching support because those are the people who are coming in saying okay so here's how I'm going to model like just like we do with kids right I'm getting a model for you then we're going to do it together and you're gonna do it and I'm gonna watch you and then you know and then okay go ahead and apply but teachers rely on that and even if they're not in a coaching cycle teachers are signing up for response time teachers are signing up to do a lot of planning so this increase you know how we readjusted our math and Ela we have Joe

037scholes as a 1.0 math coach now he is masterful and people sign up for him to come in and model lessons for him to teach with them but then also for a lot of planning time which to me speaks volumes if a teacher is like I'm gonna I can spend my 40 minutes of planning time you know planning with you so I do think it's different um at the elementary level because again the onus is on these classroom teachers too every day with one letter about that though I mean I agree about the elementary level and the importance of coaching but if they were if you did not have coaches because so many schools don't what does that look like I think it would take longer to implement I think make the changes that we

038want to make like that's the biggest piece like 2x twice as long would you say or three times like I think it could be up to three times as long because I feel like you know you have you you missed this part but right now yesterday and today we have the TC staff developer there right and so those coaches are right along with you know half a grade level of you know teachers um we have a whole rotating schedule so they go in they have these two hours with the TC staff developer who's unpacking the new reading unit but that's an external right there the TC staff is an external consultant correct but the coach is there with them so it's sort of like I'm going to give you so much information in this two

039hours and now you're gonna and now you with your coach right you're going to be able to now talk about okay how are we going to implement the Avid readers unit in kindergarten in April right what supports do you need what again is the same you know is what you've been doing in the past what's different um what do you need me to model um what are things that are different you know from just materials that you're supplying to the kids versus how you're even structuring your readers Workshop so I think because there is that coaching support there's just this reality of you go oftentimes if you go to a workshop I'm going to say if I go to Workshop I'm like I'm sitting oh that's a good time and then you go back and

040it's like okay right yeah I know I get it so I don't I think you know the support for the coaches in the classroom with the teachers the support for the coaches planning with the teachers and the support the coaches provide through instructional Effectiveness teams is like it's amazing yeah and I do think that's why we've been able to make the changes with this illustrative math because we've had that coaching time to subvert it they go and do the better lessons you know PD but then it's like okay but then how do we put that into action classroom we're like I said you don't you know you're not teaching that same you know course or lesson over and over and does that math program because I cannot say that word I need to go back

041to Miller just go and say that word the I word illustrative yes does that have like external coaching uh people as well so like TC has external people who could come in like does that have Consultants who can come in as well that's like do all these programs offer a consultant who works for illustrative math or who works for TC the illustrative math program is supported through PD through this company called better lessons so again right I guess no no I get that I just didn't know if there were no no I understand yeah PD is different than coaching right yeah I mean coaching does involve some professional development but this is more of the traditional sit and get information type of learning mrtc too you guys do something demonstration but it's they're not comparable

042the modeling model is a professional learning but at the end of the day you're going to have more solid Learners coming out of second grade going to Cider Mill with all that input over those years coaches with the with all of that input that those kids are getting from kindergarten to second grade you're going to have a solid learner going in to third grade where the shift is completely because you're not learning to read you're reading to learn and you have to have those skills so to me that it's invaluable what you have gone there now yeah just the support and just the f I mean Rosemary alone she's a slow talker though she's so slow she's like a machine gun yeah okay okay your question though Kevin if we didn't have coaches we'd have

043to rethink the basic which we Implement new units and new instructional strategies I don't really have to think about it's not just the pace it's equality I'm not so sure that's what I was going to say I can't two times right right and so if we like decrease the quality I'm not Driscoll that will see the ripples all the way through traffic because that's where it all starts you know that's the bottom and then we build from there and you're just building Learners all the way up no I'm just trying to be cognizant of time um the other thing that we had put in the budget and that didn't stay in the budget we did want to have um one of our leading interventionists trained to become an organ Gillingham fellow with the hopes of

044then being able to have her train other people and so that was something that we had to take out of the budget um I mean you still have a lot of people who are idealingham trained but I think over time it would be really helpful to have a fellow trained in District who could then provide the training from others at some point Kathy can you maybe just get to us the percentage of kids who are now using or taking up up Warren Gillingham intervention or in Gilliam yeah so it's I the person that was going to be able to train others how to use it within the curriculum but then also separate for intervention services the person who would be trained would be a fellow yeah that training is that and then train others is

045that used in the classroom or is that used in intervention you could use it for both for both okay as a classroom educator right Level Training okay um that when I was in Greenwich we had a lot of class of kindergarten and third grade correction teachers get that little bit of training um so that's what I would look at okay just I feel like like I always say it's sort of like that's you okay if you improve the classroom instruction they would also do training for you know Specialists of interventionists new people you know okay um so basically just to summarize a meme for us to maintain I think the progress that we've made over the years at least since I've been here I would ask to maintain our instructional coaching support that we have

046I'd like to maintain or you know me I always like to reduce class size right um I would like to maintain the support staff that we have because we've had again significant cuts when you look across the seven years that I've been here and I really would like to increase the kindergarten apparent airport um and you guys have six classes in preschool now we do and we're gonna keep six next year um and so I had said before what did what was included in my budget was putting in that 1.75 para to maintain that model got it then is there like in a perfect world would you have more classes in preschool we'd have to see what the numbers are um like Kevin are the numbers the enrollment is that the same numbers that these

047numbers look much higher the enrollment numbers at the top so like into 2025 maybe 83 is that what I'd have to go back and look and see where that is okay probably yeah yeah but right now in preschool we have 72 students seven itinerant students um anywhere from three to five at least um who are anticipated to start between now and June and so we'll look at um right now we have three threes and three fours but based on that number of Threes next year we might have to have two three and four fours right um so if they move up across the numbers just getting it yeah that's a big bubble of threes ready Jen sure all right over here um you know very um my teachers have been doing the accelerated learning framework

048they've made significant gains you're going to hear a lot again we're here saying the same thing it's been multiple years of cuts and that's felt through specific ity um our inability to kind of move forward with any new programming but also just in regards and I'll just pick the supply line like multiple Cuts year over year it just it makes a huge has a huge you know curriculum wise it starts to impact for example classroom libraries to go with any of the new meds to change the library has been cut multiple times so we're not we're at I had a friend give me the the updated age for the averages is up to 2007 um you know seven years ago it was it was back in 98 so it definitely made improvements but that's a

049line that you know end the year it's cut and you know they're living in a different world books for our for our kids and we really have not been able to come up with that and it's a little Cuts you know like right now it sounds so silly but I'm looking forward to pay to play for the concert that's a huge I've now got to come up something I have no there's no space inside and it makes every little decision that you make as far as a school year allows extraordinary challenging but right now I'm trying to figure out where to find three hundred dollars like that's not a lot of money but like it's something that was not anticipated and now the project Frozen and not being able to have any you know money

050to move anywhere something like that becomes a huge struggle to kind of to work through that was just us um we have a similar issue with Furniture um year over year that's not something that we keep up with and that's something that over time just like anything in facilities you start to see like wear and tear and you know things like around we're coming to the library which I want to thank good life for another reason but when you actually stop and look at the furniture that it is in our rooms most of the bookshelves teachers have gone to their to their classrooms when we move people around that continues to kind of break and pray and you know Jose a few years ago um I think Kevin you worked with him quite significantly come

051up with like a multiple year plan about every year that's an easy place to get cut and so I can't remember the last I don't even know if we ever I think we came up with the plan never fully find a day yeah we've never been able to find like basically if you were a place like two classrooms every year with full kind of like chairs shelving everything eventually you'd kind of like catch up but unfortunately if people that's the first place that we go to to kind of cut and it's it if you just physically walk into our classrooms [Music] around here year to year has a big impact we've made um some great strides with a lot of our SEL work there are things that we've been able to do in a very

052positive way that haven't cost money um these included the SEO to find extra time to really have teachers focus on so again it's not like there's not a lot of positive things going on but um the budget definitely is having an impact um coaching and iet's I would say have really contributed the most to the work that or the student achievement gains that we've seen I will say I'm very concerned with the narrative around coaching lately when you think about the number one indicator for any student is teacher Effectiveness it's very concerning just listening to The Narrative narrative from your teachers not for my teachers I think in this District what I hear what's concerning to me is that you know to not recognize how coaching could make anybody become better I think it's concerning

053and I think we should be asking questions of this conversation why you know if people feel like it's not effective I from being an administrator in my building I would like to know more about why I mean um to me it is the number one it is research based it is more than any outside training more than any one shot anything having that coach move you along in your practice is the number one best way of doing so so you know I just ask as a board for you guys to maybe learn a little bit more about it and so maybe ask questions because I'm very concerned that every budget meaning that I'm at it seems to be very easy for people just to kind of Target that as a you know we're adding coaches

054we're not adding teachers and I just I'm just going to share that I'm very concerned with some of the The Narrative that I hear around it and I would start asking questions about why do you not find it valuable um because to me that [Music] indicates there's potentially some other there's something behind that if it's not being valued um so as I think about professional Capital um and you know knowing that teachers are number one kind of most prized possession in our district we are also moving forward with the math program unfortunately the amount of money that we would need to do two grade levels because I also would like to do two grade levels but financially we we can't add the I was able to add the um materials so um I want to

055say like it's not really a workbook it's more of like booklets and things like that but I would have been able to figure out the professional learning part of it but um at this point I have not been able to budget for the materials for two grade levels so at this time I'm still going forward with um only one grade level which is going to be grade four obviously grade three is going to move into grade four and then obviously grade three is going to continue because they'll take on the second graders coming up I would like to I would prefer to not wait for fifth grade um but if I could have squeezed in the materials I was also requesting a math coach I only have one math coach not 1.5 so it would

056have been a hard for me to do two different grade levels with one coach but that didn't that didn't even make it into the budget so um that was cut before we got to the stage so the next next year the plan is I know grade three is doing it now so they'll grade four they'll do it with grade four will be the ad on grade three we'll maintain and currently grade four the current grade four that's moving to grade five doesn't have any I hasn't had any eyes they've been piloting one group one one unit and I know the fifth grade this year is piloting one unit and they'll pilot another unit next year but it's just a unit correct okay and you have one math coach for the home school yeah um okay

057so that would be my wish I'm kind of going a little out of one of the Kathy had her nice and organized but that would be um that would be my wish is to put that back in um both the materials and the coaching so just so it's the materials and then a 0.5 additional coach I was asking for a one point or at one okay yeah just because okay um right now my one coach is fully allotted to grade three and it's just is full time on that so the next year it will be a lot it's great for okay yeah I'd have one for each grade level I remember their math science yeah yes yeah yeah um for ELA um we are timing wise um I had hoped to get the new reading

058units um so at this point I don't know where we are with budgeting for that um number one they're hoping that it's there that the materials are ready for the spring because I'd like to put those out for the teachers to be able to review and to look at so as you know greeds the lower grades TC had all the new units this year in reading for the upper grades we would be next so it's kind of they start at the primary grades and then it would move up to grade three next year Trudy and Karen are both working together to make sure however it ends up at the end of this budget year um with which new math units are going to be implemented then trying to offset that for reading and writing because

059we have new just like melodresco will have new reading and writing units and so depending on exactly what's budgeted and who we have coaching and all of that we'll make our final decisions but those are two areas that I'm not sure where they're going to land right now with the budget um when you when you say final decision does that mean whether both move forward one moves forward first one goes second like what so right now we would start with reading okay what is my priority um but they have new reading and writing okay um that are being so it's whether you could do the reading and right okay yeah and again their current I'd be requesting more um it would be a huge impact on our schools and the way we operate specifically with

060our iet's the way they're embedded with everything all of the new curriculum and again I think it's easy to say okay well at some point we're going to be done with new curriculum that's not the way it works again when you think about Effectiveness there is always something for a teacher to get better at and there are some um districts that I guess don't have coaching but I can tell you um there are a lot that do and um it would be a huge service to the work that we've been doing if that was to change Kevin just to clarify that statement in the drg do most districts have or have not coach most have or they're adding Darien is the district that at present doesn't have instructional coaches when we visited them to look

061at their math classrooms last spring that was with the math coordinator like her number one priority I haven't looked at their budget to see if they've added coaches definitely adding them in their budget there was a report that they were but I don't know what the final question was I'm going to see all of them on Friday so I'll ask you got it I think it was more for the Behavioral support though right yeah I don't know okay so then the next piece of that um like I said we made a lot of changes with SEO um to really focus on that as you've heard and many of our conversations here the um so the easiest way of saying is like I feel like our kids forgot how to be kids um you know there's

062a lot of low level angst that is out there with our with our children right now that creates some bigger problems um it's part of what I think our special ed group when they come they're going to be presenting I believe a model that they've been brought up you guys have talked about that right at different meetings I'm not sure so um there has been a focused effort to think about um I think they've been using they originally started the word genesis-like uh programming which it's a very different so I it's I know that's how it was originally brought up so it's just baby Genesis something something like that and it's so not like what we were trying to do it's not even a separate place that's within our school so to me they're not

063I would use that language but the idea is that like you have in secondary um you have kids kiddos that need a little extra sport they need a different um a different structure I won't say environment um and they they need some additional support so um Sharon D'Angelo and we have worked to think about how we can create a similar structure but within our school environment and setting up a space where we might be able to have some more um a more targeted support with the mental health support so we would have a special ed teacher but also a behavioral kind of psychologist BC or a bcba that would work together to really focus and support these students who we have seen in the in recent years and uptick in some pretty significant behaviors Sharon

064D'Angelo I believe has shared kind of the number that increase in outplacement in 2-1-1 calls we've had a significant increase in DCF calls and all together 2-1-1 9-1-1 we've even called couple times this year and last year and so just all together it's just paints a picture of you know I'm a much higher need mental health wise that we have in our schools and again that's something that we were not able to even proceed with to be in this in this budget and again that's a concern as far as I mean are we even putting that on the table for this year's budget that's not at this moment yeah it's you know it's it's still I it's a concept and that concept really needs to be distilled in the same way that Genesis was developed

065but I think you know what's important is we're hearing the needs and starting to amass the data to better understand the need but the biggest cost in that concept besides everything else would be happy even right so then it's the staff so it was a special ed staff and it was interested it's what that proposal would be yeah um so yeah so I think those were the two victims um that didn't get put in um again I think I mentioned the library text and um again just an ongoing concern that we just find ourselves in this pretty tough budget position year after year it's it is impacting it's like I feel like for the last few years we kept saying it's going to impact it's gonna but it's impacting like it's it's um on a

066daily basis it's impacting decisions we have to make at the school level so you need to give some more details about that though you know like because you're kind of talking in you named like the the search for the accompanist and trying to come up with that box I think like that's a great example I know that just happened this morning you know it's like everybody I mean think about it like everything that was in our budget last year I mean I'd have to look at it like every single thing that we were supposed to be able to buy we've not been able to buy so we haven't been able to move forward with any of it well so when and I'm not challenging that but I think just for the sake of the conversation

067yeah like getting really specific about what is going to be important because I sit back yeah I'll speak just for myself like I am in this budget as much as anyone except for probably Marianne yeah and we come to the end of the year and say okay we didn't do that Z like you know I might have you know kind of label level information but not impact level information right so I'll give you one example um the win studio right so I think I finally had to come maybe ask Chuck for approval like we would have art supplies right and we've always been able to like say okay if something comes up and I didn't budget for like the win supplies um dirt for Studio you know how studio and so student well let me

068studio this year we've been able to optimize um our schedule and some staffing to allow kids some Choice during recess so we call it studio and um in the past we've done wind enrichment same kind of a thing um but kids can choose to go indoor for either art or music or PE AK a couple times a week different houses different times obviously everybody can't go in at once right so um but we're doing that this year and we just don't have supplies so literally I had to ask for a special request for to be able to purchase art supplies because I don't have any Financial funds in that of our unfrozen for us to be able to purchase anything so that's that happened last week um I could start writing them down it's like

069if I looked at the budget like that's one example um yeah books like somebody was looking for a book like we would be able to go buy a book if we need a book somebody you know teachers are having to ask you know to borrow books from other classrooms because they can't buy the books that we would have bought to go with a new unit or what have you I'm just trying to think of what's recently happened here's here's my point yeah I think those are great examples yeah um and it's everyday functioning as we're saying it's having an impact yeah like that when I hear that that means something and I want to know what what is it yeah I mean those that's just happened like the last three days like I'm just trying

070to think what else has um that I've yeah the studio examples like is it is it good one this is a really talk about thinking outside the box and being Innovative it's you know as you had heard earlier in the year um part of the Social Development of kids was impacted through covet and so so we're trying to managing spread out as much as we can creating new opportunities for really constructive plan engagement yeah Studios age the kids love it every kid I talk to ask about it they're they it's the best thing about the year and so being able to Resource it appropriately really is a wise investment and so having the book but now also that's have that's had an impact on our regular art classes because we were big borrowing stealing you

071know what I mean it's just like it's like this domino effect we keep trying to like take from somewhere and that's what I'm saying it's it's all catching up and here's another reality of the budget right so Stu you didn't Studio wasn't a concept correct January you know is there a problem solving around this this summer Studio became a conflict so it just speaks to again how the budgets planning cycle it doesn't matter with program Improvement planning because they're such an organic element to the way that we plan program Improvement and Kevin I'm putting my totally naive hat on here but if I was like a taxpayer in Wilton who says you know can't you ask the PTA for that or can't you send an email to all the parents saying due to budget constraints

072we are looking for art supplies if you want to donate twenty dollars fifty dollars a hundred dollars like can we can we not get to that point of just I love the creative I love the thinking outside the box but I also like oh my God I'm getting inundated by people being like how come the schools can't figure out 90 million dollars when it comes down to like art supplies how in our 90 million dollars can we not get paid and again this is like I'm not saying I agree with this but this is what I hear so are we at the point of saying to the PTA like can you do a fundraiser targeted to win to put that money I mean in the past we've always operated on that this is the board's

073responsibility to provide an education for our kids we've been very careful not to ask the ptas to fund what should be funded in the budget we've actually been very careful yeah um to separate our requests out yeah and so whatever that would be my answer is so thinking like short-term need versus right long-term sustainability no it's like plugging a hole with a fingernail yeah correct two different philosophically generate on point like if this is programmatic then you know we ought to be able to fund it through our algorithm every budget but if we're not and you know as someone who grew up in the 70s where everything was cut like constantly I mean this didn't run through very much of that is you know we couldn't do Labs because no one would buy a beaker

074like and I hate to turn to the PTA or to the parents and say but like if we need clay like what candy or it doesn't do a clay project or you know um maybe we have to do that even though it's not what we want to do it's not how we Define public education it's not what should happen well it just makes the whole thing better you know I wouldn't say it's in Richmond though I just I would be careful with saying yeah it's just day-to-day yes operating that's what I'm filming a book you want to be able to get the book so that the classroom can do their work so this is just normal day-to-day school like I wanted some pink paint like just I would say that's the least of my concerns

075and I know I did like in an ideal world and how we look at public education absolutely the public should pay for it it's not a parent issue and I'm on your side you know that I hope you know that yeah but you know but sometimes like we're in this place we're we're asking for 5.99 and I don't know that the town will understand it or want to do it no I'm just saying so why can't we maybe and you know because again you know sorry forever and I've seen this come and go and so I grew up in a time when we have this kind of budget cuts that people have to supplement and then it went away right like when the economy gets better and the class you know and things change I

076mean I think you know and we catch up the public catches up to what all you are doing I mean Joy keeps saying oh it's not our grandparents at public education but I don't think people who like my youngest is 22. I don't think I can even understand all the things you're talking about right and I support you right right but if people are just yeah I mean if that's something we were going to do as a district we just have been careful not to do it and I've been I've been resistant to it myself yeah I think I actually think there's a state law too that for like not maybe not um like if we were to fundraise for certain events I think that's different but I do know um when you think when

077you talk about supplies like we've always come into this issue where like we're at the point where our like Supply kids they're expensive at this point because um of everything that we've taken out of our budget right has to get added somewhere and so we keep adding to these numbers so the parents are like exactly like like seriously seven thousand right and then somehow it like gets pulled together but like so this is in a different place yeah but I think it's also incumbent upon us to think about the resources we're using and I would not sit here and suggest to you that universally across this District we really give a lot of thought to the kinds of supplies we shove into that box I have five kids and five backpacks and I look at

078what's in those backpacks and in January what has not been used and so I think we have to test our own assumptions you know before we just shift the burden to somebody else and I think again we've talked about this in other places but sometimes the the budget and the budget pressures can be a positive pressure to re-examine our assumptions and I just I asked as part of this ongoing process we continue to do that I think to answer um Mandy and Laura's concern if we were going to shift and this would be a philosophical shift even if it was temporary um I wouldn't do it just for playing third grade I would this would be a conversation with all of the ptas to say all right look here's given where we are today we're

079reconsidering how we view the PTA and the potential fundraising that the ptas do Beyond enrichment which is or you know and so you might see requests from your principals for things that you know otherwise might live in a um live in an operating budget and so but I would do that kind of wholesale district-wide yeah changing their products right now of course yeah of course I just remember when Miller Drisco is being built the PTA they wanted special speakers and we did like a special PTA vote to get the upgraded speakers so those kinds of things we still do um but those are for special like one-off right right kinds of things we'll write grants for that kind of stuff um so for example like we did the playground stuff right so they did us

080they were gonna they did a huge fundraising thing for that so those kinds of things our ptas are fantastic we've just been careful for regular supplies things multiple things that an offering budget should be supplying for you we have stayed away from that right so can I ask Kathy started off by saying she cut she overachieved on her 10 percent request to cut okay yes I was just wondering um do you have a number where I am my final kit calendar but we had done this gone through the same process of telling everybody to cut ten percent um I don't know if mine ended up coming in as nicely Cider Mill was doing well until you added the books oh yes so I think we were under 10 and then the words that are you

081talking about the words their way still yeah okay so that pushed you back over to the others so we did come under and then um got at it and that put you back into being over okay so as part of the um reading and here's why I mean so yeah this brain wreck right and so when we started the process I asked all these guys to set a Target below spending yeah from this current year and you know to the best extent they were able to they would and we've heard a lot of talk now about you know kind of on the margins how this is impacting operations and I think the story is really important right and it's I think you know man it's a great point you raise about you know you're you

082know kind of a peripheral Observer and you're looking at a 90 million dollar budget it's like why can't you buy a pot of collect yeah it's popped up in energy costs and stuff yeah that's why yeah yeah so yeah I guess Cider Mill over the last year like growth has just been tremendous and some of the do you feel like you have the resources for next year in this budget to help move some of that growth into the overall kind of achievement you know pushing that growth up to like the next level in terms yeah like our Focus will remain the same and like I said with the current Staffing and the coaching support and all of our iuts and all of that will remain the same again I'd like to move faster with the

083math um so if I don't know how we'd ever add that in so you know I guess I would like to like move forward with that so I feel like we've had success we will do what we can and um I think that's what kills me though right we all talk about math math math math math math and here we're saying oh we could do this but now we can't find the money to support it right if we're if we're off the hey we can't move our school along fast enough and we're on to now it's a budget issue like that's a bigger in my mind right it's the same thing with the words their way so words are away is part of this whole science of reading and these new books are Words Their

084Way teachers manuals were from the old and so so much has changed and so you know we're in a position where you know we're still looking at words their way as a program itself but at this point it's it's what we have and there's a but a better version a much better version it's more explicit it's you know instructionally for for the kids to kind of better align with what the science of reading is this matches that's what um Marianne is sharing was added afterwards because we did we realized that we didn't have the right version so that is added into the budget but it doesn't we don't have the math we have a question about these enrollment I was looking over these last night so in the enrollment at consider Mill as you look

085over on the first page like the main the very first page so the enrollment goes 774.7 like that oh yeah yeah the teachers stay the same grows so by doing that are we saying we're expecting class sizes to increase I have to look at that I'm not sure that the Assumption about head count we've never I've always just kept the head count perfect excited to know if we're already putting that assumption out there because we're going up two sections together I just didn't know if that hadn't been yeah I can figure that out pretty quickly but um yeah so don't don't assume that there's a relationship between Staffing okay I know if that was the purposeful or not and then Jen is some of these question coaches I just want to what you were saying

086earlier I think coaches are amazing if everyone could have an age I come from a world of coaching there's nothing the impact is incredible to me it's a question of how much can two or three people do an entire School versus having an outside consultant come in and not having to pay the FTE and the insurance so that to me I mean I'm a huge fan of coaching I just don't know that three people can help 50 teachers and have a stress it's depend on so that's that's that's where I come yeah we're going to show you to model that out cost wise you know that's just something I've been thinking about yeah um because I used to work for a company that everyone had a coach and now they're going to um they're not

087having full-time employees be coaches they're now doing it helps or sold it yeah so that would be interesting to see we've done a little bit of that with the better lessons people um particularly a little Brooke and the high school um it was virtual coaching I find it to be particularly it's hard to develop a relationship with an outside person 100 but again like in a world of budget you're looking at a pretty large budget item and when I get stopped at the salad bar wondering what's wrong with us that we can't figure out a 90 million dollar budget it that comes up often I would say though if we were to talk to most of our teachers in this district there would be one school aside they would tell you that there's the coaches

088pivotal to their success yes it's invaluable it's just you know but again it's at what cost I get the cost I agree in a perfect world that's invaluable it's wonderful everyone should have one well the idea of modeling and role playing that's how you learn that's what adults learn it's just the cost you have to put it somewhere you have to put the money somewhere and if you don't support your teachers and you don't invest in them getting better and invest in them learning and how to be better teachers than than we're doing the wrong thing so yeah I want to invest in the teachers but again I don't want to turn this into a coaching conversation but it would be interesting to see a cost benefit of having external coaches but I just wanted

089to feel like you looked at me when you were talking I was looking at everybody I'm just concerned with the narrative that I hear it's not it's just it's gotten really loud in some places and it's concerning to me the whole budget is that's Kevin used train wreck but I don't know about you but when we meet with our teachers yeah for mid-years and end of years you know we send them a sheet of here's what we're going to ask you ask you and when we say what's been the best you know professional development what's been the best support that you've had I mean classroom teachers all talk about the coaches yeah it's just that everything and I get it different but it's like but like teaching evaluation one you know so if you have

090that relation and you have someone who's actually supporting you and gonna come in and help you teach there's nothing better than that you can go to a thousand professional developments get in a car and forget half of whatever what you did yeah I've given workshops where I know they did just give us three things to go on with I give them three things and I know two are out the door gone we'll be lucky with one yeah this way it's right there intimate right it's just different yeah totally anyway anything else Jen that you want to point out to us okay thank you thank you so um we're gonna move on to Eric hawkinson's here he's coming on pinch him for the talking through the technology budget and then we'll see how far we get

091we have time and I'll just we'll make a game time call here whether we'll talk about curriculum instruction Human Resources Jose is also here facility you know that's also on the docket for Thursday okay all right Eric you're up all right well thank you very much um just talking about technology technology we're here to support the district from this in the district of course administrators facilities and Athletics our goal is to make sure the systems are up and running and accessible pretty much 24 7. when you're at school and when you're home for all of our digital resources we're also looking to leverage a lot of systems we've been looking at a lot of automation over the years so we are synchronizing systems one of the pieces that we were finally able to synchronize is

092well this missile manager was something that we were finally able to do it was it was a little bit of a challenge at the start of the school year but I think it's been working very well since then but as we're talking about systems that that are rolled out CT saids we've worked with special education in the schools to work on that implementation we've worked on Dessa we've worked on some of the security systems and we've been working very diligently on our cyber insurance policies to make sure we stay ahead of the ever-changing security requirements that we we need to meet in order to maintain our insurance here in the district so our budget is looking to support a lot of those initiatives and maintain our systems when you walk into a classroom you may

093not notice all of the systems that that we're managing but all of the student devices all of the teacher devices all of the interactive boards our cameras our Wi-Fi all of those systems are you know we're managing and maintaining and in the background we're working with food services and the state reporting so a lot of that's unseen but um all is all of it is important and when it doesn't work it becomes very uh problematic for the district when you look at the budget this year the original budget that we came in with was about 250 000 higher the items that we pulled out this year we pulled out iPads for Miller Driscoll we pulled out laptops for Cider Mill for the replacement laptops for the staff and we're going to push those into next

094year's budget the one thing that did make our budget this year that was very exciting is the presentation space for The Cider Mill gym which has been cut the last three years I believe so yeah so it's it's survived the first round some of the things that that aren't in the budget though and we didn't even start to put them in the budget is seven years ago we looked at what would we need in the I.T budget in order to manage and maintain all of the infrastructure and we really needed about a million dollars a year in the equipment line to make that happen and that allows is to replace switches and the wireless when it needs it but also all of the interactive ports so two years ago we were looking to replace all

095of the interactive ports of high school this budget cycle we were looking to replace all the interactive ports at Middlebrook what we're doing is we're replacing 10 to 20 a year as they fail and then we scavenge parts and move them into other areas so that's really what we've been doing is Recycling and reusing parts and pieces out of some of the equipment as we replace them with with new and operator equipment so that's a number of items that didn't make it into this year's budget but the laptops for Cider Mill and the iPads will be moved into next year's budget which it will then push our equipment line up you know another 250 thousand dollars over where it is which you know next year I imagine we're going to have to look for some

096savings on that line as well so is where we are right now the the current budget is up um 1.26 which is a 31 000 increase over last year um our big move in the I.T Department were we had one staff a one FTE reduction of 63 232 that position was moved into contracted services and it was from a 200-day position to a 12-month position one of the pieces we have in technology is most of the work happens over the summer operation for the fall that's when we turn over all the classrooms roll out all the new equipment and get prepared for the start of school which is very different than business in business you have people constantly working on equipment and systems over the summer we pull everything out of every classroom we turn

097over the buildings clean all the buildings then we put all the equipment back in and we put all the equipment back in we have to reconnect reset up and make sure it's all tested and ready to go and we go over a period of three to four days from our 12-month staff to you know 4 500 people in the district all using everything on day one and we want ready access and we need it to work the first day of school when it doesn't work on the first day of school that's very problem it doesn't work on any day school I just if I can add just a little bit of color commentary here one of the ways that Wilton is different than I think just about every other school district in the state is

098we Outsource our entire back end I.T operation so Eric comes to us under contract Service we made that change six or seven years ago um and the benefits are as he described and you can give some more detail in addition to the on-site Staffing we also have virtual support we have 24 7 kind of back end support we pick up efficiencies the example I just gave is a great indicative of how the whole contract works but moving the Ft out of our Personnel contract allows us to get more time from a contracted Service employee than it would otherwise and as you rightly said we do all of the work in the summer one when Eric and our first talking conceptually seven or eight years ago one of our kind of shared goals was that we

099didn't we didn't want to talk about I.T we wanted it to live in the background and you know we had some really hard days years ago when we had cat 3 cables running through the eaves and um uh you know one of my Watershed memories here about I.T was that um the um document I got from the high school staff do you remember this chapter it's called technology and they were so fresh it was terrible you were on the board so we're asking our folks to do all kinds of things as we're you know moving into the digital world and nothing worked everything was Antiquated and I look around today and you know again you can speak go far better than I can but we have a A system that really serves our kids and

100our teachers really really well you know it goes down periodically but not like it had in the past people have good tools that are quality except for apparently the kindergarten and their iPads they have to wait another year but you get the you get the point and and every year you know we're on a planned replacement cycle and we've had to make some changes and things like that because of the shift in how we're funding and budget constraints but on the whole it's a part of this School District operation that works really really well and then you know most recently when I look at how we had to leap forward through the pandemic you know it was painful for staff but you know on the tech side we made that transition seamlessly where the infrastructure

101was there and I don't know that that happened in a lot of other places and so I just I'm this is one of those areas that we we really don't talk about or highlight enough it's expensive but we get a lot of service for a very efficient model so that's all thanks so Kevin where in the budget does Eric's team fall under it's contracted services and so you would only see the bottom line there I can send you the details so Contract Services is Personnel well anything in his in the Novus contract PowerSchool and Gaggle and all of the other District systems and software systems good personnels in that Personnel yes the contracted personnel with being online as well and then negative 263 to 12 that falls under uh lineup and 83 7 5420 for

102leases for leases so uh seven years ago when we started the process we were leasing we were using five-year leases uh The Five-Year leases were 200 000 leases which allowed us to do about a million to a million two in purchasing yeah um a few years back we were we stopped Leasing and we were told we couldn't lease anymore so this was the last lease we had on the books this is just the ending this is the ending of the leasing and we took the lease funds and we moved those right down to the equipment line so if you look at the equipment line it's not quite a million dollars and that's really where we need to be in order to maintain um next year we're gonna have a little bit of a budget challenge

103going into next year with our e-rate funding we have the last two years of e-rate funding which we have to show up with actually uh we have to put 50 of the purchase in so we'll need about four hundred thousand dollars to leverage the e-rate funds that we're eligible for and we'll need that over the next two years so um that's going to allow us to upgrade all of our infrastructure in year seven and eight which is uh our timeline for our switches and wireless to to be upgraded and under equipment that's also falls under all the iPads and uh yes yes so the the equipment for this year we're replacing 575 Chromebooks we'll have 125 laptops for support staff and the Middlebrook staff um we have 50 iMacs uh that are coming in for

104the high school or the art Department those units are I think in year six seven and eight and they've been they've been pushed a number of years so we've been able to keep those in presentation spaces at Cider Mill gym and the Middlebrook cafeteria one of the pieces we've really worked on over the last six or seven years is coming up with a standard presentation space and we've worked through the district so any space you go into the majority of spaces right now you walk into it's the same amplifier microphone HDMI configuration so you can present throughout the district using the same tool set so um we have two large spaces that we still need to address at at Middlebrook in the cafeteria and also at Cider Mill but most of the other spaces we've

105completed in the district and interactive Sports pilot one of the pieces that that people will be doing is we're going to roll out uh sort of core spaces in each of the each of the buildings with some of the new interactive port words and look at an instructional pilot next year that will allow us to really leverage how we're putting classrooms together going forward so the new interactive forwards allow teachers to actually you can walk around the classroom and you can work off of your tablet with your stylus you don't have to be connected to a wire the sound the microphones you can actually have you know all the students can connect in you can see all their screens on some of these interactive boards so it's all built into the it's a feature and

106functionality that has been there for years just didn't work very well three four years ago and we finally have the speed in the interactive displays that we can leverage that technology and are we using that technology we're currently specifically because at Center mallard we're not currently using it um we're starting the pilot this next year this next Generation actually has the you know it works so four years ago when you did it was very clunky it was slow it didn't work consistently we now have equipment that it does work consistently it's it's fast and it's now ready for us to start piloting and use and just there's a is there a dollar for dollar difference between the interactive whiteboard and then a more typical setup of projector and yes it's about two-thirds of the cost

107um if you're looking at a new installation we're able to reuse some of the cabling uh which actually brings the price down um but it's about two-thirds of the cost but the lifespan is is about 20 to 25 longer with the flat panels one of the interesting pieces about this is is and this actually goes with facilities so I just want to thank the board for allowing us to bring Lewis in to the facilities who's our district electrician the amount of wiring and cabling you've been able to do because he's on staff has been phenomenal the cost savings on projects is I'm scared to actually add it all up it's amazing what he's what he's saved on the projects but all of the new interactive displays when they go in are centrally managed so we

108were able to turn them on turn them off monitor them push the updates out manually right now we go work the board and push updates out and we've been able to do that in a number of areas so we used to have desktops set up for all the teachers and they had a laptop we now just have laptops with the docking station so we eliminated almost 700 desktops that we were replacing every five years that's 700 000 worth of equipment we don't need or use in the district anymore um so that's not even in our replacement plans anymore so um that's really our one of our goals but for us to put in the the flat panels without having Lewis to help us do the wiring for that because we buy the cable Lewis puts

109it in it would be almost cost prohibitive for us to add that into the project our costs would be as much if not more than than what we were doing with an old Smart Board we have 35 cameras we'd like to have in at Cider Mill we don't have lots of drops but we put all the drops in so all the recommended camera drops at Cider Mill they're wired oh I didn't open that up that's right we just saw the budget we just you know once we find funding for that then then security cameras for each room no no out in like the hallways got it so whenever we have a bathroom incident it's nice to be able to track who's going in and out yeah but if we're just missing so many kind of

110around the building right one of the major we'll talk about this when we get to Jose's budget there's an ad a proposed ad of 234 thousand dollars to address Canada security yeah I think the cameras if we're looking to make reductions that's going to be one of the areas we want to talk about and we get into that for technology question and I know this might be um it's just a high fly in the fine question I know for the high school when you bring your own advice could we ever consider moving that down a little bit for cost savings the price is talking to a school that in second grade you get your own advice you're expected to bring your own defense yeah I mean second grade might be fine but the challenge is

111in the tested grades um we can't do that State Testing on student-owned devices right there's a particular um whatever desktop that's live yeah in fact we're going to have I was going to ask you to speak about that anyway so we um through the pandemic we got a bunch of Chromebooks donated to us or given to us from the state that we've used for testing here at the high school and those things are going to um the age out on us three years three sale so we're getting the cost benefit to get a touch of like desktop computers for testing and then have everyone bring your own so one of the challenges that we have with them so we seven years ago we tested great class really class level or or we have three or

112four classes testing at a time we're now able to compress all of our testing into one day so we can actually test the entire grade level in school in one day so the amount of time savings that that we have by being able to compress our testing windows so we are able to test the entire High School in one day for the testing that we do so the testing window instead of being a week of testing but the test the high school has their bring your own device they do during the during the pandemic we had devices that came in from the state that um so they're testing so they're testing on the state devices they're not on their own devices so we have in three years um those units will no longer be under

113warranty or supported so in three years we really have to have a discussion as to whether we continue with that model do we do do we provide devices for the high school do we have an option that we can test on student devices now so that that's a conversation we have to have in two years to really determine how we're going to move forward with with some of the high school testing now for State grades two through eight is it possible for them to test on their own device right now it's not because well it's um we don't have secure browsers we don't have the ability to Monitor and manage the devices one of the one of the the big benefits about having devices in k through eight is every student has the same device

114with the same software product the same version we can manage everything centrally so if you could imagine a teacher with 17 second graders on 12 different devices with no passwords to do updates or patches right with different parental controls trying to teach a lesson it's it it will be quite exciting right now if a student has a device that's not working they go to the library the library gives them a replacement device and they're up and running within you know 10 or 15 minutes same thing with our staff if the staff member has a device that goes down they walk to the library they hand the device in they log in they're back up and running and and you know five ten minutes so um and if they put a ticket in it you know

115we usually get to them within 24 hours so um we we have the ability to manage and maintain the the devices the challenges will be there'll be many challenges if we're trying to bring your own device grades two through eight what if we just did seven eight I mean would that be another would that be a significant cost savings are we talking a couple hundred thousand dollars um so what's 300 times 300 right that's the cost that's about 300 a device I think the the replacement plan that we have that are put in place which makes sense to me is kids get them in third grade and then again in sixth grade yeah so um I don't think you wouldn't do BYOD in eighth grade because you've got a Chromebook in sixth grade right right

116carries you through middle school and into high school if you need it right um I'm just again like thinking yeah budget cut ways I was interested talking to this person in second grade you bring your own device and that's that's it yeah is that a public school private school Public School in South Carolina yeah well one of the things we we do have is that the devices last three years so you're issued a device uh when you start in grade three and then it's three four five those devices then come offline um we don't have parents uh purchase insurance on the devices because as those devices come off of warranty we have our team going through and we take screens keyboards cases and then any of the new devices that are breaking we're using those

117parts to do the repairs so we're using those parts and pieces to manage and maintain The Fleets and the non-warranty non-warranteed items as we move forward and the same thing we get to middle school is you get a device and you carry that for three years if you need that in high school you take the device to high school with you we have students in at high school that need devices and are eligible for devices and we provide those different devices as well so that that's and then the last two items we have are some sound field Replacements in the budget and also we have replacing the firewall and some additional server storage um we TV we just brought in um gosh we brought them in in January so they're just we just bought all

118of their data over to back up and they are producing a lot of data terabytes and terabytes of data with all of the games and videos and things that they're doing right now which it's a phenomenal amount of work they're doing but we wanted to support them and make sure that we're managing and backing up and securing that data for them so we brought them across we need a little bit more server storage for just the regular District work for next year as well are there any other technology questions or things that I could I trust all right so just the last piece for me is one of the questions that came up when Ruth and I were with board finance a week ago was the difference between purchasing equipment outright and leasing equipment and

119if we were um fully fun we're pretty close to fully funding our equipment budget um from my perspective it makes sense to kind of maintain that and to continue to purchase outright rather than to go to lease now especially um interest rates are we had dawn like a couple weeks ago the interest rates were about 3.75 or something five years so it I think we're at a point now where we would continue to um to try to maintain the investment and not revert back to leasing um the issue came up a couple years ago at the board of selectman table and they were questioning some of the values of the lifespan of the equipment versus the life abilities we started to phase out the leasing of Chromebooks first and then we've just been steadily moving

120away from this is I I would say though the only you know the one concern that we have to be careful of is with technology it's working it's in the background we're not talking about it a lot um when we start pushing some of the infrastructure pieces past their useful life and pass their warrantied life that's where we really start and start chasing our tail so you just want to be careful that uh we don't we don't push things out too far [Music] okay thank you thank you you had me at 17 second graders I don't even know what I said she's being relentless great all right other questions for Eric oh wait one more Eric what's the training conference increase in eleven thousand dollars oh so the we tried something last year with Miller

121Crystal and we had instead of sending people actually to PowerSchool University for half the cost we could do a week-long training session here in the summer and so we sent uh two of the front office staff for melodresco and what they were able to accomplish this year they had some problems with PowerSchool and it wasn't really a problem with PowerSchool they just they they were able to ask some questions how can we do this differently in the training they were able to actually identify figure out the new process implement the new process and then roll out the new process one of them had to do with the substitute teachers which saves 20-25 minutes a day every day all year long um just with that one piece that was implemented so what we have in the

122budget this year is we put in the budget project for two people from each of the schools to attend the summer session because we really we got a lot out of it last year and we have a number of people that we think will benefit greatly from from that training because it's really being able to sit down sort of go over an interview and then take your problems of practice where you have some some things you think you might be able to streamline and do better in the building and then work with the team to actually make those changes and and modifications so you can hit the ground running at the end of the week they loved it they also got to pick different modules depending upon how you feeling you got 13 more minutes

123[Music] stop if you've had enough or we can uh you know Chuck's got a little bit in his budget Maria um there are no substantive changes in the HR budget um there's nothing substantive in my budget we can walk through some of those if you have particular questions or things we wanted to hear about I think mine would take maybe five ten minutes yeah okay so then let's get our trucks all right it's not going to get any better any other day sorry Jose yeah all right so I'm just going to pass around my kind of cheat sheet here yeah so we'll pick up this evening on Thursday yeah [Music] so as uh my friends to the left of me here mentioned we were all tasked with coming up with 10 reduction which I was

124able to do um in my controllable costs you can see that at the top here in the testing budget we were able to decrease by four thousand and my department instruction Improvement by about twelve thousand which brought us to sixteen thousand uh which is a six point six one percent overall between both testing and instructional employment unfortunately or fortunately I needed to add summer school into the operating budget I don't know if you remember but summer school used to be funded by the grant and the grant is going away so I got to ten percent but then had to go back up so that's where the increase comes from summer school I think is a worthwhile investment we were able to demonstrate you know pretty significant Improvement for the kids and a lack of progression

125when they got back in the fall so I put it in the budget because here or more pretty much the same numbers I mean we offer it but not everybody takes advantage of it we're anticipating the same number that'll be four weeks ago yes we're debating whether or not to start at the end of June I'm having some difficulty getting staff to work in August and just where the Fourth of July Falls I didn't want to start the week after because then I might not have staff the beginning of August yeah so we're toying with the idea and exploring it with the staff if we start at the end of June then take a week break and then do three weeks I think that's probably how we're going to end up doing could we have

126our continuing education used to run some sort of summer school here at the high school for the Middle School oh I gotta figure out what that was that's the worst I'm sure yeah I can I was just curious if we could ever put some of that on continuing education or um on what's it fall under he'll be continuing it I mean the difference would be it would be a pay for service as opposed to a service we provide and I think you know again it's it's philosophical if we feel strongly that kids need it and it's important to their program I don't I wouldn't want to tax parents for it this was more like an accelerated um for the other again yeah they've had those different but I just was curious if we had been

127working with continuing ed to try and do yeah it's an interesting question I mean let's let's talk about what I find out what people would want that class got sold out really quickly you were just saying it's like step into the third grade sixth grade yeah yeah that's exactly what and they would have like that grade level teacher yes yeah teach it but I don't think they do it anymore so I was just curious if the schools if this I'm just curious what happened or at this I'll ask Dolores I don't recall why they stopped doing it I don't know if it was enrollment or that yeah so that's really my my budget unless you had specific questions you want to talk about what some of what we're paying for under instructional Improvement sure um

128so basically most of the costs to put into the schools what's in my budget are things that make sense for the district to take care of so for instance the assessment budget is mine because we test district-wide so I assume that cost professional learning again a lot of the costs live in the buildings I keep a certain amount in my budget for unexpected things a lot of the fapa professional learning is in my dis in my budget because it's district-wide things like the art show the library show those are district initiatives so they're in the District budget um summer curriculum days are in my budget I do keep 200 of those for the subject areas that we're reviewing that particular year I take the remaining 500 and I divide it equally among the buildings they

129get about 125 each uh to do some of the follow-up in the years after the curriculum review so we're always continuing continuing to revise the curriculum Chad what's ell English language Learners and I should change that because it's now a multilingual articles yeah yeah we should talk about that too yeah so we do have many more students coming in our multilingual Learners and some of them are what are known as New Peppers so they have very limited English proficiency and require a great deal of support Laura you may remember we for years only had one ell teacher we added a second one and they're being stretched very thin right now and that's that those teachers are at what schools they're working all four schools certainly Miller Driscoll is the place where the bulk of our

130students are but we we still have students entering and continuing to need services in the upper level it kind of decreases speak little to no English they could come in at any grade level like we had a number of students come from the Ukraine some did have some English some difference [Applause] but even if it's one student yeah to support them in the general leg curriculum it can be very intensive work particularly like at the high school like I think we have two kids they're in different grade levels different languages so that that's a heavy workload for the teacher even though they were only two students so how would one and health teacher teach that not knowing what the origin language we could do a workshop on that it's not is it so that those

131do we do we bring in extra no because teachers are able to yeah we we don't approach working with multilingual Learners by trying to teach them in their native language okay we're trying to teach them English um certainly um our ml teachers have access to translation services particularly in communicating with families but with the students the mode of instructions primarily in English we do have one ml teacher who speaks Spanish um Talia I believe speaking Spanish so she for our Spanish-speaking Learners can keep up with that a little bit anyway we're having difficulty covering everybody um I started a conversation with Kevin to see whether or not we would consider uh uh an ml paraprofessional that way as the kids come in in the middle of the year and without having to Jen and I

132had to be in a meeting recently where I was shifting schedules around to try to cover everybody if we had a power it would make it much easier and I think it would be more effective I mean some of the kids you know it's how you feel she should be seeing every day she just doesn't have excited to see them every day our newcomers that we've had an interesting newcomers so with a power we would be able to better cover some of the kids but at this point I we didn't put it in the budgets because would you call it a China the budget actually performs really well it's just gone the proposal is huge yes it's the growth that's the train wreck not when it actually does yes I think we need to clarify

133what we mean by train wreck foreign languages we have oh I think it's up in the 20s it's amazing yeah oh yeah and it's incredible almost 30. yeah yeah it's so cool that's great it's amazing that's great we have some kids who speak foreign languages I have my kids just trying to get their English the 235 250 and 40317 is that all the summer that's how much the summer costs it says um yes it's about 50 Grand is that what is that that says well it says 230. okay the the summer program is on the line for the 40317 so it's 55 about 55 000 and the rest is the summer curriculum days it's all on the one line adding those three lines together that is not got it got it okay all right anything

134else thank you well thank you yes your presentations you're welcome Laura the train wrecks I'm the person's career [Laughter] all right um other comments questions feedback in terms of um format or conversation are you hearing what you think you need to hear is there anything kind of just generically within as we're going through these cost centers that you want subsequent folks to focus in on a little bit more granularly I sent some questions great so whenever you guys had a chance okay terrific can we just review the agenda again because um so tomorrow is Athletics and High School athletics and then special services and we're going to dedicate um the majority of that time to Andre and Company you know that's where I mean most of the growth is in that budget overall and then

135um Thursday um Fran will be here we'll do the remainder of the District budget and we'll um try to address facilities and Middleburg right yeah great