BOE Meeting (7 April 2022)

001has everybody had a chance to review the agenda all right um i'm looking for a motion to approve it with the amendment that we move item number four under review and discuss which is the winter sports wrap-up to the first item under review and discuss so moved there with that amendment all right thank you for a second second thanks pam all in favor uh comments from the public i just want to make my usual statement which is that we welcome public comment and if you wish to make a comment please state your name and address for the record and be aware that comments are limited to two minutes each and that the board will limit comments on any one topic to a total of 15 minutes please know that we do not respond directly to

002comments instead we listen carefully and we'll provide individual follow follow-up if appropriate is there any public anybody wishing in the room to make a public comment so come on forward thank you sure if you're sitting in front of a microphone all right introduce yourself and tell us good evening everyone my name is ted young i live at 85 highfield road and i wanted to come out tonight to underscore the importance of special education to certainly to our family and i think to many of the other families in the special ed program uh our 20 year old son is autistic he has been in special ed since the age of three so basically you know we've lived in the town for 20 years and it's been really nothing short of miraculous to watch how our sun

003has developed you know if you told me that he was going to get the math award in uh middlebrook in each of sixth seventh and eighth grade no special accommodations just all you got was you got the same amount of time and everybody else and he got it um you know that he would go on to high school and succeed and have friends and have fun and take a normal course load i never would have believed you if you had told me as he is now he's attending norwalk community college and actually will get it probably get a diploma i would have said not my kid and the only reason that all that success has been possible has been because of the folks in the special ed department and i've seen two administration well three

004technically but um i saw anne paul and i've seen andrea leonardi and the work that they have done and their team and a lot of the folks are here in the room is spectacular and i and i don't know if everyone who doesn't have a special needs kid appreciates the scope of what these professionals do for our kids it's not look my son is actually relatively academically gifted he didn't really need a lot of help academically but he struggled socially he struggled with speech he struggled with executive function um he struggled you know interacting frankly normally and not being weird for lack of a better term in public settings and the folks here um you know two of his case managers are in the room three of his case managers in the room tonight and

005you know because of their constant support and by the way constant is not just you know during school days these folks are always reachable and that's not in their contract they work incredibly hard they're incredibly supportive of those of us who have that need and um the results um you know speak for themselves um unfortunately there's no decline in demand for uh special services um it's a it's a nationwide trend i think many in this room are quite aware of statistics probably better than i am so uh i'm obviously a wilton taxpayer um you know and and uh you know i wish i could walk in every time to special ed and say well i want this and that and please give it to me they don't because it's not responsible and it's not even

006practical but the result is they're able to do an amazing job on what i consider already a shoestring and the leverage effect if you will on these kids lives is incalculable um if other parents were here tonight they would tell you that the trajectory and arc of their children's lives has changed in ways that none of us ever could ever could have fathomed look we don't have the luxury of having some of the the some of the the gold-plated services we don't have a bcba on staff um you know they're the rock stars of the industry um you know ot and and pt and all look they get it done their stretch is all pretty thin but they do an amazing job so i guess in my probably probably gone over i apologize but i

007would implore you know the board of ed and the board of finance to recognize that cutting any cutbacks in this area will have a significantly disproportionate effect on the most vulnerable portion of our school of our kids and i hope they'll refrain from making any further cuts thank you [Applause] anyone else in the room wish to make a public comment lucille do we have anyone who's uh raised their hands on zoom no all right thank you um consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent agenda all right nicola sarah's second second thanks ruth all in favor okay that leads us to salute to excellence uh dr smith all right well so as you know uh several years ago the board started this exercise of periodically recognizing individuals programs others that really exemplify the

008strength of our school system and so in some conversation we had recently the consensus was that the next obvious group of recipients that ought to be recognized through the salute to excellence is indeed our staff our teachers and so we have representatives um from the wea here um peg muir is here and we have several from each of the other buildings uh online susanna carlin's here jen kaminski from middlebrook is here and everybody's favorite uh kindergarten teacher that we were talking about just an hour ago salgino is here so they're here representing their schools we also have an army of our finest special educators in the room so how lucky are we so um by format i'm going to start and then um we're going to um ask our administrators that are going to say

009a few words on behalf of their staff and then these board members are the same so i was thinking about this and recognizing that we also want to manage time recognizing two that april is national poetry month um i have a small poem for our staff now it's not a kevin smith's original i did not know let me properly credit uh joanna fuchs in that her poem is entitled number one teacher so to our wilton teachers i'm happy that you're my teacher i enjoy each lesson you teach as my role model you inspire me to dream and to work into reach with your kindness you get my attention every day you are planting a seed of curiosity and motivation to know and to grow and succeed you help me fulfill my potential thankful for all

010that you've done i admire you each day and i just want to say as a teacher teachers you are number one so thank you wilton education association why don't we start uh hesp sure okay happy too i'm privileged to be here um some say it takes a village to educate a child we say it takes a galaxy of star teachers and staff and that's exactly what we have at millendra school let's start with our nurses who care for our students and staff each and every day in addition they have been incredible in their communication with parents about timelines for quarantine and the ever-changing guidelines when it comes to coven kudos to our teachers and staff for navigating a very complex year they're not only teaching the students we have coming to school but also working

011diligently to provide remote resources for those who need to be at home in addition to the work they tend to each student's social emotional needs which are particularly great since the students have yet not yet experienced a normal we'll put that in quotes school year they collaborate with each other to plan instruction that's both rigorous and engaging they communicate with parents to be sure the homeschool connection is strong in addition interventionists special education teachers and related service providers are working with students to address their unique needs our instructional coaches support all of our teachers as we integrate new and exciting curriculum to strengthen our students foundational skills from our custodians to our secretaries to our para professionals everyone is willing to lend a hand at all times it's really remarkable so thank you again to

012our teachers and staff for their out of this world [Applause] all right um so to all of our faculty at cider mill school today as we celebrate be kind day we are forever grateful for each and every one of our cider mill staff members over two years ago we began an unprecedented journey as we began to navigate the coven 19 pandemic never could we have imagined the constant shifts the new learning and the adjustments that would be required to meet the needs of our learners while we kept everyone safe teaching in a digital learning environment required each of you to adapt all of your curriculum learn a ton of new teaching platforms form connections and classroom communities over zoom constantly troubleshoot and somehow balance your home and personal lives all of you dedicated countless hours

013to provide exceptional instruction simultaneously to students in your classrooms and those who learned remotely from home throughout all of this you prioritize your students well-being thank you for your selflessness your grit your perseverance and the love you shared with each other and all of our learners most of all thank you for continuing to show up with a smile and for being part of our cider mill family warmly catherine lauren sharon jeremy and jen thank you [Applause] our staff at middlebrook is simply amazing in the midst of near and possible circumstances they have created learning experiences which are engaging meaningful and fun due to their efforts our students are continuing to grow think at high levels and take risks in their learning our staff is tremendously dedicated and hard working middlebury middlebrook staff always keeps our

014students at the center of everything they do they focus on students well-being in all areas physical emotional and social at the same time they maintain focus on student achievement staff has made the best out of challenging situations through mitigation strategies during mass great breaks they look at those that time as an opportunity to build connections with our students middlebrook teachers are a family who support each other through challenging times and life's transitions and they show that same care to their students jory damien nicole and i are truly honored to serve among the staff each and every day as i speak on behalf of the high school i want to take a look toward my colleague peg tansman where's peg right behind me is there anybody else you would want teaching your child math or serving

015as a role model than a peg tansman absolutely not right peg epitomizes the wilton high school faculty their ethos is they do anything for students and their success they are passionate about their discipline and fundamentally students learning the learning is meaningful and related to their real lives and the way they participate in the future under trying circumstances they continue to engage in professional learning they always want to get better on behalf of our students and families that is an unending work ethic on their part i really appreciate it they just have supported each other this faculty has stuck together as some might say through thick and thin they're amazing teachers they are growing and developing students for the future and no greater charge for an educator so on behalf of peg and the wilton high

016school administration thank you so much wilton high school faculty [Applause] and anybody wants to jump in and say something i've always felt that teachers were agents of change and i think in the last two years you all of you have created a community for your students to be held up and i can't even imagine what your jobs were like between the remote learning between the in-person learning between trying to navigate some of the emotional components that you've had to deal with some of the stresses that your children have brought to you so i commend you all because i think what you've done is kept the school system going when it could have collapsed on itself and i think i think you've done a yeoman's job so i couldn't be prouder of all of you and

017i couldn't be prouder of being a part of the school system so thank you i think over the last two years you guys have really all made lemonade out of the dud lemons and i am i'm so grateful to all of you um thank you tom koch you've made a massive difference in one of my children's lives and tanya leonard who isn't here today i hope she's listening they're truly wonderful educators wilton public schools is what it is in large part because of you guys i appreciate you and everything you've done and i am so grateful to be involved with you guys um you make more of a difference every day than you know thank you [Applause] um i just mine's really short i just wanted to say i'm thankful for those of you who

018truly love what you do and the passion for your job comes through in your teaching every day and when my kids come home and can share some of those things with me that's when i get excited so thank you [Applause] so i just want to say that while the two year last two years have been tremendous i also look back on my own education and my own teachers and experiences and how they helped me come into my own and realize my own path and i'm just grateful that my children and all the children and william get to experience that when they walk through the doors or turn on the computer screens and that they have the same encounters with mentors and guides if you will that i had and you know my family had and

019that as much as the world is kind of topsy-turvy it's still the same and i look at my fourth grader right now and i remember i stole christmas card exchange with my fourth grade teacher and her experience is just as wonderful as mine and i'm just really grateful for that so thank you for showing up every day for not just showing up like giving it your everything thank you [Applause] yeah senator ruth um it's so funny my daughter was just asking me about mrs carlin's today now i'm sitting here looking at mrs carlinson the impact that you all have is just unbelievable and i think about my own education similar to ruth i remember my favorite teachers my least favorite teachers but i remember them all and i just love hearing the stories of my

020kids and how all they want to do is go back to miller driscoll to see some of their favorite teachers and go to cider mill and the stories that they share so thank you all so much i know it's challenging at times but it means so much thank you [Applause] well i just want to wrap up by saying um and i said it recently at a presentation that um our teachers and faculty you are the heart and soul of our district's excellence i've said it often that you make the magic happen every single day the past two years you have been beyond extraordinary so we thank you we owe you a debt of gratitude and we salute you thank you all right for a little challenge here friends in the back one of our uh

021traditions as part of salute to excellence is to grab a photo so i'd like all of you to come and stand right i'm trying not to make this a super spreader event right here we're going to take a picture we have some certificates i want to hear kevin roses are red teachers are crazy keep going mandy i know we're [Laughter] oh my gosh i love the genesis sweatshirts right you have to come and make a second round kevin do you want to get in the picture i do i'll take a picture yeah i'm trying to figure out how to get to the middle yeah yeah hold on hold on you might be okay yeah you might need to do count of three everyone say wilton one two three let me take a couple hold on

022let me just check wow i like did not do that well hold on oh my god we can wheel it back awesome thanks man [Applause] will they introduce themselves because they're here oh they're gonna get them oh good okay since i only know like like three of them um all right moving on to the board chairs report mine is very brief but i did want to take a moment and build on the salute to excellence just a little bit because for anyone who missed it the board would like to officially congratulate dr smith for being named outstanding superintendent for 2022 by the connecticut pta he was judged on the criteria of leadership for learning communication community involvement and professionalism this is a very well deserved award and i want to thank the pta presidents for

023organizing the nomination process and for keeping it a surprise [Laughter] and another thank you goes to the pta tonight they hosted a wonderful dinner for us and the team who usually attend board meetings the pta wanted to show us their appreciation of our board and the district team and we know the preparation on the pta members part took time out of their already busy schedules and our board really appreciates them for their efforts and finally uh just take a final moment to recognize the wilton high school wilton high school wilton high school musicians i was able to attend virtually for part of the last band concert which was excellent and congratulations to the jazz ensembles for performing and for jazz one being awarded the top prize at the ellington jazz festival in greenwich and if

024you can please drop in on the jazz symposium being hosted at the high school tomorrow beginning at 4 30. so anyway thank you there's so much wonderful things going on um superintendent's report great well first before i get into it um some of you have to stay because you're presenting later but some of you unless you want to you don't have to stay uh folks online like jen and sal and suzanne don't fit we don't want to punish you with a long board meeting after thanking you for 10 minutes so don't feel like you have to stay all right so on that note um so we want to also recognize um a number of students so at the um at the the ellington jazz festival in addition to the jazz band um taking top honors

025um students allison aaron famous sierra garcia and finbarro halloran also earned outstanding soloist aaron earned outstanding bassist and george huberty earned outstanding pianist so they had a really really strong showing after you know not having many of these competitions for a couple of years we got some great news a couple weeks ago from the connecticut science and engineering fair that took place in mid-march several of our middle brook students took top honors so leonardo uh coolin sonaka dash in grade seven won first place for their project school bus approach alert system so they were invited to compete in the broadcom masters later this summer preethi vijay and trisha prabhu went for their project a novel way to solve coral bleaching they were also invited to compete in the broadcom masters this summer and william olmstead

026was recognized for his project revolutionary 3d printed shoes to change the way we think about footwear and then arista sullivan and meredith sullivan were finalists for their project illusion versus reality so terrific showing at the connecticut science and engineering fair on the part of our students so congratulations to all of them we also want to recognize our community steps program for their successful supply drive to support ukrainian refugees they launched this campaign several weeks ago and students in the program collected 468 backpacks purses and diaper bags filled with supplies to support ukrainian families so bravo denise is in the room and then finally i just am very happy to share that next week the high school will hold for the first time in two years it's art music and world language festival also known as

027the festival so the week is going to be filled with exhibitions from various clubs groups and artists and students i guess were sent to form and they've been able to sign up for those activities so we're happy to welcome the festival back after a covert hiatus and we're looking forward to a good week [Applause] uh thanks reports uh did teaching and learning meet a long time ago it seemed like a page it was almost it was a month weren't you um i'm going to give the brief and you guys if you want to read more about it you can read online um we had three things that we talked about such emotional learning um kim zemo was there to present and we talked about what our curriculum consists of um we also talked about trying

028to find some sort of balance between asking our kids how they're doing and not asking them too many times how they're doing um we talked about there's a bunch of different questionnaires and surveys that go out we talked about maybe letting parents know ahead of time if something is going out so that they know what to expect when their kids get home and the last thing we talked about that there was a great communication that went out to parents that talked about the ukraine and russia events and we were just i was just asking that maybe um to have it be a positive initial comment um and then focus on if our students were feeling stressed or whatnot this is what we can do to support them update on middlebrook's schedules um if you guys

029haven't heard we're sticking to what we have there was no option at this time that didn't decrease world language and arts and still didn't achieve the increase in math minutes so the team has been working forever on this and they're going to continue to work on it and troy shared that this is kind of ongoing he's on with like 14 i think connecticut schools in the southwest and they're all having similar struggles for different reasons so they're going to continue to work on it in terms of math and how do we support math at this point they're going to continue doing what we are doing so it'll take place in a stride the only downfall to that is that when we do some of our testing since you go to your strides in certain quarters

030that means some of our kids will not have had the information prior to taking a test so it might impact test scores so as long as we all know that looking at the scores to be fair but the committee will continue to work work on it and then we talked about math instruction at the high school um trudy denton spoke evelyn staples i say that right and cindy cherico we're there to talk evelyn and cindy were awesome um super energetic and if we could clone them and make every teacher be that passionate about what they do and express that with all of our kids i would be thrilled they shared kind of what the philosophy is and our philosophy is in general that every student can learn math and that there are specific things that

031every class is supposed to have which i won't go through but they're listed here and then we talked about iet meetings and how they've been really successful recently and that they've been talking about different strategies that different ways to help different students and then the teachers are kind of sharing that to try to support them in their own classes and they're kind of regrouping and it's been positive and it's been working we also talked about possibly finding a way for teachers to observe other teachers um that sometimes we all learn best by watching somebody else and we get great ideas and tips from them which is kind of tricky with their schedules so we brainstormed about some other ideas and hopefully they'll keep thinking about that and the question that i know i get a

032lot from people about why do so many of our kids have tutors this was the response help is available for students math lab was discontinued because it wasn't utilized and prior to school starting some people already have a tutor in place some seem to find it easier and fairfield county isn't okay with a b so which is true yeah but that was it okay thank you um what's policy yes policy met um several times twice since the last um meeting and we continue um to focus on diversity equity and inclusion policy which should be before the board within i think a week or two and in addition to that we are looking at our library collection procurement and maintenance policies and procedures and updating covet policies to reflect current circumstances and situations uh business ops

033had a meeting we're surprised we talked about the budget and kevin uh highlighted some of our cost-saving measures that um were explained in more detail in our in our committee with them and that was important because some of the board of finance members are members of that committee yeah um what's next but do we have a claim we do and we also want to say good evening and welcome to her first board of education meeting our new cfo don norton um so don welcome uh dawn started you know close to him is it has it been a month the 14th almost yeah and so i mean hit the ground running and then some um so we've kept her busy spending a lot of meetings like 18 days and four hours yeah we spent a lot

034of time together in the days that she's been here um so dawn's gonna walk us through um yeah i'm happy too first i want to just thank marianne i i see that she is on the screen and she has been in as many meetings as i have um keeping track of everything i want to thank her for answering all my phone calls and texts and spending as many hours that she has helping me just comb through all the financials and get everything in my mind straightened out so that i can present and we can move forward as we head into the final quarter of the fiscal year one of the things that we start to do is we reach out and ask all to review their purchase orders their conferences do they need to have

035them open have they purchased what they're going to purchase and start closing that out um we do have quite a few encumbrances still open out there we expect to have that process done by the end of april that will help us understand where some of our numbers are going to land at this point we have no doubt that we will be fine coming in within the full appropriation that was appropriated for the budget for this year we are watching a few areas over time we're watching overtime utility i'm sure everybody's watching the utility of their home costs as well as here special education expenses are turning a little bit over budget but we feel that the ecr money the excess class reimbursement that will be coming in from the state will be able to cover

036any overages in that area transportation costs for the high school athletics sta doesn't seem to be able to cover a lot of the transportation needs so that we are reaching out to other providers and that does cost a little bit extra so we're watching the expense in there and then we do have some unbudgeted um repairs that we had to the facilities mainly we had one for about the elevator we have in the lobby i believe it is a lot about an elevator yeah it goes up and down and then a few other areas we had some electrical work done um so we are over in some areas under and others and as we finalize the financials for the year we'll be truing all those accounts up thank you kevin two quick questions overtime is

037being watched do we um like do people submit saying can i have overtime or is it retroactive it all has to be approved in advance okay yeah and so a lot of the overtime you know we had some overtime um through the winter months with some of the custodians because we had you know late evening early morning storms yeah and then we've also had to cover vacancies with some custodians and some others so um sometimes we'll have to tap into overtime to cover those um absences so it's mainly the custodial staff and then the high school athletics buses i've noticed they're traveling on very luxury they which whatever we can get so this is where you know when you think about the uh our busing contract if you remember all across the state um communities

038were suffering lack of drivers trying to patch together their regular routes we've been really fortunate with sta that while we've had a small shortage of drivers we've been able to cover our primary runs but because the margin is so thin they don't have extra drivers we've really struggled to cover the um the athletics and so now it's who's available so you know the one we use ecs quite a bit across the street and it's you know what driver and what bus is available so you know they have a couple of those fancy like wedding type movements yeah i've seen them so you know some of our teams have because that's what's available that's what some of our teams have been traveling on and uh it's been i mean this is the number one area you

039know where i'm signing transfers and is there a way to mitigate that for the future like sign a contract with acs to like anything we can do to you know i think i don't know if signing a contract would be i mean frankly you know we'd like to work with sta because in the past before covid they were able to have enough drivers enough buses and we really managed and it was the one-off that we had to pay you know an outside service for so i mean we're definitely looking at i think that would be you know the first strategy and then if we need an outside provider we could try to bid it yeah we've done that with special ed services do we pay for whatever is available or is that a set cost

040like if the party bus is the only one available do we pay for the price i don't know that's a great question i don't think i can find out but i don't have the answer tonight and could we ever let parents drive or is that just a liability issue there's a um there's a liability issue i mean we do allow through a waiver to have parents you know drive their kids usually back from uh yeah from the games but we don't typically have parents drive two games can i ask a question about special ed you said special ed expenses are trending over budget but then you say ecr is anticipated to be lower so let me explain that sure um i'm sorry yeah the reimbursement rate from the state has a higher sailing this year

041than it has in the past um so and i think it's 90 i don't have it upcoming it's 95 or 97 so we have to cover the first 95 97 of all expenses for students before we could send anything to the state so that is higher than it was last year um i believe that the reimbursement rate should be around 86 or so which is a little bit higher than it has been um in the past but we have less expenses that we can submit so the overall i believe our first reimbursement amount was about a million dollars and we expect to be able to get enough hopefully um unless i'm wrong with the calculations to cover um the tuition and the out of district that we have okay so we're going to be okay

042you said that but i was just trying to say well how can that be if ecr is less so thanks well there's less expenses and the easter is coming in less because there's less to see and then the calculations a little bit different than it has been in the past for the reimbursement this is where one of the challenges communities like ours have because the threshold for ecr is four and a half times as our per pupil ticks up some of those uh kids who a couple of years ago would have qualified for ecr and now don't qualify and so we have been pushing for legislation to lower the threshold for a year so um will haskell on our behalf and have you know some of those other constituencies had submitted some legislation to drop

043the threshold to i think two times per pupil and we'll hopefully that will get someplace anything with you really thank you any other questions all right thank you don um we wanted to hear ace uh winter room yes winter sports update i was asked to sort of move it up on the agenda happy to do that we're moving it up because chris has to go and stand on the sideline and the pouring rain exactly i'll play in the rain we'll be dancing in the rain though unless we're winning which i'm sure we are so thank you very much for moving uh moving me up in the agenda um looking forward to going out there and watching our boys win another one so that is actually the first one for the year um [Music] to start

044with the wrap up we actually had good news right at the very beginning of the winter season when um the cic gave me a call and told me that we were going to win our fourth michael's cup um for exemplary athletic programs um and then it just continued from there our entire as you can see on this our entire winning percentage was outstanding for the uh for the winter season with 168 wins and only 64 losses um and never being blown out of any game results standing one of my favorite sports if not the favorite sport of mine is our unified sports program and that is building unbelievably we have 15 athletes and 15 student mentors in the program um adults are coming out of the woodwork to help out these kids um and uh

045we got to play in the fairfield basketball tournament it's first time in a couple years because of covid we hosted westin they brought their unified kids over for just a quick basketball game at the end of the season it was amazing just seeing these kids and their smiles just getting to do what they want to do this spring they're going to be doing track and field and and um and baggo and multiple some other sports too there'll be a few different track meets um out there so we're looking forward to that um with a new coach our girls basketball team um brought a record of 17 and nine um coach was awarded a coach of excellence award by the fcac and obviously they went all the way to mohegan sun and just coming up just

046a little bit short of the uh the class double l uh state championship so but runner up isn't too bad um and they were ranked eighth in the entire state of connecticut for top basketball teams this is unbelievable boys basketball team had a had a great run as well had their best record um under coach gary act that he's ever had 21 wins five losses they were the fcac runner-up to that school just north of us that i won't mention [Laughter] uh cic division two semi-finalists um beating a very very tall individual losing to a very very tall individual seven foot two young man from bristol central um coach garriak was chosen to coach the all-star game as a connecticut all-star game which was an honor and luckily for us one of our players was

047also in that game um kevin heisey coach was also awarded the coach of excellence award for the um for the fcac and they were ranked in the top ten so i believe it's the first time in school history both of our basketball teams were in the top ten in connecticut which is outstanding our girls key team it will never get boring wins another state championship class last chance state championship they were third in the opens um very narrow margin um could have probably won the whole thing but just a few seconds off um and the boys were in sixth for class s girls indoor track which we host half of the meets here throughout the season they finished right in the middle but they did have us um a league champion with emily marakovic winning

048the thousand meter race um and she ran that in under three minutes which is an amazing feat she finished third in the class elm championships fourth in the state open and she was all new england finishing top six in in all of new england this is unbelievable boys indoor track finished ninth in the league 15th in the state ryan johnson was fca champion and um class l champion and this was his first year ever trying long jump he's been very good um and he this year with coach egan wasn't too happy our baseball coaches but ryan stopped doing baseball and started doing track and we'll see how he goes from there as a senior so um very very good young man and his first indoor or outdoor track meet this is unprecedented i've never seen

049somebody learn the triple jump as fast as he did he's already jumped over 40 feet in the truck zone which is unbelievable um that's from as a former track coach myself uh boy swimming also had a state champion and sophomore chris griffin casey who won the uh class m diving championship um wins and losses for boyce swimming was a was hard to come by but they're building back up as a as the year is coming but griffin's going to lead that team with his diving abilities girls we didn't have boys ice hockey this year but we are already making plans for next year looking into possible co-ops which we'll talk about um staples is uh is has been calling us so i will uh we'll fill you in more on that as as we progress

050but our girls team did well um don't let the record fool you they started the season with more than half the team having copied so but they bounced back they were able to get uh four wins in their record um and their goalie is graduating so they are taking on anybody that wants to learn the goalie position our gymnastics team uh finished seventh we're used to our gymnastics team you know with a better record than they are but they still no matter what their where their finish was they still scored high enough to qualify as an all-american gymnastics team for the 13th year in a row which is outstanding our wrestlers have a brand new coach coach chase patrick the season started with a um a very quickly quick growing team um they had about

05115 wrestlers to start we finished with about seven um and it's because of the covet started wreaking havoc on the wrestling team but they um they battled through um cic did ask us to host our first ever class l championships for the cic which we did and i have a feeling we may have done too good of a job because they want to keep coming back which is just fine spring season is underway we are currently undefeated at every single sport we've had 12 contests we've had 12 wins and we're about to have our 13th out there's no doubt um we are at 58 of our student body is um participating in athletics and at least one sport which is down it's still a little bit we're usually around 61 percent but i have no

052doubt they're gonna pop right back up where they were um in the years to come any questions well that's a lot of good news so thank you great thank you thank you thank you [Applause] special ed program update terrific so we have um our fearless leader um andre leonardi is um home uh tonight um she has to be unfortunately otherwise she would be here but we have a star-studded cast who are going to support her so andre you want to kick us off thank you there's really only one thing that could keep me from you tonight and unfortunately it's struck this week so i am heartbroken not to be able to be there in support of the team in front of you and the team out there um supporting our students with special needs when

053kevin asked us to pull together a report we thought long and hard about how to best present some of the work we do and to give a full picture of the work that's done by the the department of student services in collaboration with the entire district in support of our students with disabilities pre-k through 22 and whenever we report on academic skills and the academic data reports students with disabilities are always incorporated into that data and so we felt that tonight we really wanted to show you the full breadth of the continuum of services and kind of focus in on some of the programs and supports for some of our most complex learners pre-k through 22. and so with that um and in support of the many many many people the village as they say

054that it takes um to help a young person with complex learning needs reach the portrait of the graduate develop the skills and competencies necessary to live a life of independence and choice and community participation it takes 18 years for that to happen it begins on their third birthday and so tonight we're going to we have a leadership team of individuals there present with you we're going to walk you through some of some of the varied work that goes on pre-k through 22 across our district um you'll see testimonials from parents and families you'll see videos and photographs of students at their work and we could be not we couldn't be more proud of the partnership we forged with the families with the students and the vast array of staff certified staff related services staff and

055paraprofessionals who work every day to help our young people realize that dream of the portrait of the graduate and realize their potential and set them off into the world ready to conquer [Music] their community and be full participating members of that community so i couldn't be more proud to introduce melissa barrett and sharon deangelo who are going to lead the team through tonight and again my heart breaks that i'm not there with you but i am there in spirit and i'm very very proud of this team you guys will introduce yourselves and my former middle school student yes of course i'd like to say that her middle school principal inspired you know that's not true i'd like to say that we believe it's true thank you so much for having us today so we're going

056to start with um as andrea said we're going to kind of highlight our collaborative center so some of our students with more complex needs we're going to focus on tonight and we would like to start with preschool and we're just going to go chronologically through we we have a small team here for elementary um but nonetheless we are the work that we're doing is is very mighty we're small but mighty in the elementary but um we're down two of our teachers who are homesick unfortunately um who i i would love for you to all be able to listen to instead of instead of me because they're in the trenches doing so much hard work so i'm going to step in and talk through their slides but what we're going to do is start with jessica

057wade who is one of our preschool teachers as well as our preschool team leader um jess i can't possibly say enough i'd be here all night if i was going to start talking about jess so she's going to lead you through the preschool work that we're doing for our students and i just kind of want to remind everyone to focus our focus tonight is on as andrea said our students with complex needs and how we really integrate them with all of our students in the regular education setting and how we take the skills that they work on through our collaborative center and then bring them back into the classroom and i really hope you get a picture of just how much of a part of the community they are despite how hard they're working on

058some very basic skills so jess without further ado you want to go ahead and you can start with the preschool sure so i actually made a video to share with you all and then i'm happy to answer any questions afterwards [Music] it is hard to talk about the collab center students in preschool without speaking of the md elc preschool program as a whole in preschool we do not have a separate program for these students i have a separate program for the student preschool program as a whole in preschool we do not have a separate program for these students instead they are integrated into our five preschool classrooms this year we have one collab center student in each room [Music] our collab center students spend the majority of their day in an integrated classroom each class

059is led by a dual certified special and general education teacher and stocked with two paraprofessionals our classes are made up of children with and without ieps all learning together only our most significant new students by eps are considered members of the preschool collab center these students work on targeted goals and objectives within the classroom settings through play routines and direct instruction our students also receive therapy and support from ecba within the classroom setting we work on generalization of skills learned in therapy sessions in addition to iep goals and objectives we focus on functional communication independence and school readiness we are most proud of our ability to include all of our learners in the preschool classroom all of our students spend the majority of their day in the classroom with their peers for many of her

060students and their families this is their first school experience we aim to make it a smooth transition from the family based model of birth to three to a school-based model for many of our families this can be a really scary transition to support communication with families we hold monthly team meetings for each collab center student with a teacher therapist and bcba families and sometimes even outside providers collaborate and discuss student progress our parents love the elc here's a video from one of our current preschool parents the therapists and teachers at military school early learning center changed our subs trajectory at three years old our son entered the program with many significant delays we were very concerned about his future we were also overwhelmed by the idea of our son leaving birth to three and entering

061an early learning center program but we soon found out that we would be grateful it was a program at millardra school at his initial ppt meeting we were beyond impressed with his entire team the therapists and staff presented a strong and comprehensive iep i also felt that all our concerns about our son were not only heard but that an appropriate response followed there have been many times throughout the last few years that therapists or teachers have approached us and asked to alter his iep to better serve him even during covid we have been impressed with the services that our son has received i got a firsthand view of the quality of his therapy sessions and i could see how much he learned between march 2020 to march 20 21 given difficult odds during covet his

062team continued to provide services to him virtually and support us as parents in how to help him grow our son is now five years old and has grown leaps and bounds he has skills that we were told by his doctors he would struggle to do if at all i believe this is entirely due to the impressive and tireless work from his team early intervention has given our son a brighter future and we are grateful that he has been able to attend such a stellar preschool program all right that's it does anyone have any questions [Applause] how many kids in a classroom so it ranges but we try to keep it 15 or less with three adults with three adults yep i don't have any questions i just wanted to say many of my birth three

063kids end up in your program and have always had many many many positive things to say so it's a treat to hand them off to you so thank you we like taking them thanks i have also sent several kids to your program and they've done remarkably well there you do a great job ppts are professional and well thought through and and your ots and pt's there and your speech people are just terrific and thanks to bring it up [Applause] so lucille if you go to the next slide i'm going to talk you through our collaborative center grades k through two um sarah marcus who's our instructional leader and one of our speech pathologists was going to be here along with megan garcia who is our case manager of that program both of them unfortunately could

064not be here tonight so i'm going to talk you through um our k2 program so we have some parent testimonials up there which i'm obviously not going to read through for you but certainly reflect on those afterwards when you have a minute because i think it really speaks to all the work that we're doing in the k2 program we do we have the same approach in in grades k through 2 where we take uh the needs of the students first and we outline their program from that each student is individual and that's why we consider it a continuum of services and not just a placement or a room or a program all of our students individual needs are met and a combination of in-class work along with direct instruction either by the teacher bcba or

065combination is done so that they can then generalize those skills in the classroom so we have the same exact approach in grades k through two and similar to preschool there's there's a great there's an enormous opportunity to include the students because so much of it is play based and the best way to get communication from students is through play and we do a lot of that and um it really you can see the growth i i want to emphasize that in at this level the small what would seem to be small areas of growth are just enormous so the first time you hear a child speak the first time that they're able to access an ipad to communicate just unlocks a door that may take us months to to open and it seems like a

066small reward and really it's just the beginning of what they're able to do as you guys will hear later on so we get a lot of that in in pre-k through two their first words their first ability to use an ipad their first time that they're interacting with peers and we have a lot of firsts and it's just really remarkable we'll see if we go to the next slide i think we do have these are a couple there's some more pictures and then some more testimonials that you guys can read um and we do have a video of one of our students um on the next slide who worked tirelessly to try to use an ipad so that he could communicate with his peers so a lot of this work is done behind the scenes

067one-on-one and then our students are able to go into the classroom and then utilize their skills in the classroom so this is just a quick video of one of our students using their ipad in the classroom for the first time we might have to watch it twice while we sort out the audio but it's worth it so in this video he is going to the window his job is the weather man so he's going to the window oh here we go [Music] get that um and gavin's mom was so nice to let us share it tonight um and so we're really appreciative um to her for that too because this is just an example of how you know some of the great work that we're doing and that type of a situation leads to that

068once that happens the communication just typically can take off and just unlock so many doors so you can go to the next slide so now this leads me to introduce abby sir foss who you may or may not already know but abby is one of our special education teachers at cider mill she's also the instructional leader for special education at cider mel she's also one of my favorite people in the entire world and i don't know what i would do without her but that's just a personal thing i'm adding um megan ingus who is our case manager for the collaborative center grades three through five unfortunately can't be here tonight because she's not feeling awesome um we're a little plagued at the elementary school right now you know any substitutes no no we can talk

069about that later i have some ideas um so abby is nice enough to be here tonight to speak to our 3-5 program yes i'm so excited to be here to celebrate the work that the klopp center does spearheaded by the incredible megan angus but all of our special education teachers really pitch in they're also supported by a wonderfully talented and dedicated group of paraprofessionals who are so committed to supporting the students both in the support center as well as across their day and through their school experiences in addition to that the wraparound services really come from the related service providers as well so a team of school psychologists speech and language pathologists occupational and physical therapists our bcbas are there to support our students success throughout their days so here you'll see some pictures of

070our students really focusing on and embracing what what the program is focusing on this year which is really creating and embedding meaningful inclusion opportunities um for our students throughout their day before school during school and after school in addition to you know the the academics and the therapeutic grant brown services that they receive um we're also really focused this year on increasing their independence and finding ways to do that so um you'll see pictures from day to day activities um lunch recess their work in and out of the classroom to big milestones like riding the big bus um walking to after school activities with peers and then in that bottom left corner you see a great example of one of the um the really functional activities that that the collab center provides for our students

071and they do frequently um that not only hits on iep goals like measuring and pricing items out but also lets these students build something that they're going to use and can take some pride and they're they're making a sensory bottle that they can use when they need it so like everyone here has already talked about a huge piece of the cloud center's work includes the parent the teaming with the parents and the parent communication day-to-day through ongoing communication logs monthly team meetings and that's in addition to the frequent um cross-disciplinary meetings that we have within our school buildings with all of those supports that we talked about megan and our cider mill team really wanted to to emphasize that such a huge reason that this program is so successful for our students is the inclusive

072culture that exists in our district and especially at cider mill where we live it of the classroom teachers and the peers and that that really helps to embrace these students and you know there's never a hesitation to include any of our students in learning our social experiences and that really allows everyone to thrive in all of our cider mill students to benefit so thank you guys do you have any questions for elementary what grade do um the kids start riding the bus is that kindergarten or do the preschoolers do the preschoolers ever take the bus yes personally yeah our pre-schoolers yeah they do they too yeah it's pretty impressive yeah that's awesome um definitely one of the milestones and then as soon as we can as soon as they're able to take you know the

073large bus with all of their peers it's something that we strive for too yeah and the joy that they get from being on the bus with their peers oh yeah and i just want to say as a mom with elementary school kids who have had um who are peer relations with students in their classes i just think that it's an amazing job what the schools and the special ed program does with the um school climate and the inclusion and i think that it's not only um the kids in the collaborative center that benefit from that but i think it's the general population kits too and i see it with with my with my kids so i just think it's a really um wonderful program for everybody i agree and thank you for saying that yeah

074that's a good question we heard the word bcpa a couple of times yeah i also heard a public speaker um referring to it so is that a contract and service then is that it it is we um we're we are lucky to contract with the center for children with special needs who has been with this district um for quite a while at least eight years i think more i think 10 has definitely um predated my arrival here well and they work with many schools in fairfield county um very reputable very consistent solid just you know we continue to utilize their skills with each of the buildings so we started only having them in the pre-k through three and now we have um bcbas in all four of our schools and so they're working with all

075of our collaborative center students all the way up through um 22. so we're really thankful to have them thank you guys thank you thank you so i'm gonna i'm gonna turn it over to secondary now so you get melissa and and this very giant team [Applause] all right melissa we'll start with the introductions um so we have a larger team we got over coveted in the fall so we're you know not to be redundant on what anyone said but we're really going to talk a little bit about this team is going to talk about our middle school and high school model and then we'll hear from community steps in genesis i think one thing that's important to bring up tonight before we do introductions that a lot of this work at secondary really started from

076a continuum of service model in 2016. so we've done a lot in a short period of time working with our young adults with complex needs and how to really get them integrated into a larger community than just school so we're going to start with middle schools we have polly metz our wonderful il at middlebrook and then two of our talented teachers betsy creedy and sarah lorello who run our collab center program and then we have emily rappell who's their counterpart at the high school and joy lawrence who is our magnificent instructional leader at the high school a lot of other things as a speech and language pathologist um so if we go to the next slide sarah and betsy put together um a video a little cider mill testimonial for you so we'll go one

077more so a video that kind of captures what the work they do currently the middlebrook collab center includes nine students and is expected to grow to 12 in the next few years we have a wonderful constellation of services for students with complex learning profiles that allows the children the opportunity to learn and generalize real world skills we work collaboratively with the general education teachers in grades six through eight to ensure our students success while learning skills in language arts science social studies math and foreign language here are a few examples of our students being an inclusive part of their grade level classes this year the thing we are most proud of is a coffee collaborative this initiative further strengthens our students connection to the school community while they make and deliver coffee and snack orders

078collect payment and make change it is also important for them to keep track of the inventory in addition they provide customer service increase communication and socialization skills and overall establish themselves as an essential member of the school community not only do our students work on targeted goals and objectives but also the why behind each skill this year we have also implemented a collab center reading and writing lab in which our students are able to strengthen and generalize literacy skills in a small group setting in this way we are able to meet the specific and unique learning styles of each student the cafeteria staff depends on our students to do important jobs such as restocking the chips and the milk each day the front office staff depends on our students to sort and deliver the mail

079in addition the llc stack depends on our students to complete upkeep of many chromebooks during these times each student is able to work on independent skills that may become a potential job skill as an adult we believe that each and every one of our students has an incredible amount to offer we gave our families the opportunity to share their thoughts about the middlebrook collab center they wholeheartedly accept it here is what they had to say the collaborative center at middlebrook has provided my son alex with unique opportunities to work on his educational goals using practical life experiences that resonate more than using a pencil and paper the coffee collaborative is one example where alex's tasks are tailored to his skill level and iep objectives such as math and money but also for building much needed

080socialization skills independence and confidence lisa strasser hi my name is hasan karashi i'm the founder of ibrahim karashi grade 6 in middlebury few experiences with the collab center uh once when the bus got delayed which if you know about any anything that you bring he goes by the schedule and how things are planned and having the bus on our show was a big problem but thankfully era from collab center took him in um it was winter got him hot cocoa made him comfortable made sure he understands where things changed and you know he did not throw attention until i showed up and then he basically [Music] currently i have two children that benefit from the collaborative center which qualifies me as an important testimony the collab center is vital to the community it is not

081just a large room for our kids to practice academics or take their breaks it is their home base it is a room that settles them if they are having a hard time it's a room where they can work on their academics if they are having a particularly hard day and don't want to be in the mainstream to be a public school with an inclusive environment for all learners it requires adaptability due to students ever changing needs on a given day our kids thrive off of predictability and structure often at their own pace and time i love the idea of two teachers case manager in one big open room it allows for easier transitions for these kids and they are comfortable with all staff betsy and sarah have done a tremendous job navigating these unprecedented times

082and provided a loving inclusive environment to everyone i may be biased but their jobs are the hardest in the building but also the most rewarding tiffany burton hey there it's maggie feltz i wanted to take 30 seconds to tell you why i love the collab center 30 seconds isn't a lot of time so i'm going to give you two words coffee carts what a genius idea the staff of the collab center got the students involved in running a coffee cart and that may seem like something really easy but it is a hugely functional task that gives the kids opportunities to do things like understand orders make change understand how to prioritize things and really get out there and interact with members of their community it's functional activities like this that i think make the collab

083center so special so bravo well done and thank you very much i feel that the collab center works very hard not only with my son but with all kids i'm really thankful to all of you for this maria polyak [Music] any questions for middlebrook before we move on to the high school that's awesome yeah that's really great coffee from the coffee there's a google form that you fill it out and then they take inventory income but sometimes if you can't find the google form you can email surface that's amazing so now we'll turn it over to our high school model which joy and emily speak to currently the middlebrook collab center includes nine students and is expected to grow to sorry so um at the high school emily rappell is the uh head teacher i'm

084one of the speech pathologists in the in the classroom we currently have five students um growing over the next few years to about 10 to 12. as with all the other collaborative centers that you've heard about tonight we also provide a broad range of educational opportunities social experiences and direct instruction our students access learning in general education classrooms community settings and have assured social experiences at the high school special education teachers paraprofessionals speech language behaviorists we all work collaborative collaboratively with the entire school all general education teachers in the core content areas including culinary arts pottery concert choir and photography just to name a few our students also connect to our school community through job experience this is like you saw in the video from middlebrook we continue on that path with mail um our

085there we go our students are um deliver the mail for central office staff and for our secretarial staff at the high school um daily which can be a huge undertaking um triple the size of the mailbox room but they memorize it and really um and deliver packages and work on their social skills through that way too um they also run the school store which is in the cafeteria and do similar activities to what they do at the middle school they practice their skills in a natural and kind of spontaneous environment because the kids during the lunch waves and during other periods come into the school store and buy pencils erasers candy t-shirts notebooks whatever is for sale they are in charge of customer service and small talk opening and closing the store stocking shelves cashing

086out making change and inventory the post-secondary transition focus really starts day one as freshmen and it is a pleasure to see them grow into young adults with so much to offer to the world throughout our learning experiences at the high school each student is able to work on their independent educational goals and objectives within a very positive kind of inclusive environment um given all the embedded social supports found at wilton high school especially in the collaborative center students are naturally included and are proud to become a wilton warrior which you'll see on the next slide this is gonna be tricky [Music] i don't think at all this is his request access so i'm only going to request access you can watch it but we have a student who at homecoming alan did um the national

087anthem um um unified sports yeah um and and spoke at the pep rally um um and it's pretty good it's okay um i'm happy to sit here and wait for it i'm so amazed and there's another video of a young lady you've heard tiffany burton has younger students she has an older daughter at the high school who um again following that level of continuum of service of inclusion she is a part of a world history class so she did a presentation alongside her peers and like the little guy you saw do the weather she also has a device and you can see the girl from um if we can get its play i think if you hit present there we go now you have to hit present another button a slideshow slideshow sorry slideshow see

088that on the right all the way to the right this one sure yeah no that one yeah there you go a lot of stress over there [Music] [Applause] group [Music] is [Music] [Applause] we did send that to his elementary speech pathology we did after to say bravo all your work paid off um and then to sharon's point you know when they showed the younger student learning the ipad for the first time this is a student who's been with us since preschool who's now obviously in high school and you can see how unlocked her world's become using augmentative communications and on him as a civil rights leader he's afforded change in equality he is greatly respected tomorrow is inauguration day inaudible [Music] and so she pro everything you heard her do there she programmed and wrote

089and then played out so if you look at that and if you ever in the high school and happen to see her it's amazing to watch how quick she is um wow um so any questions for high school i can't believe that we're just awestruck they're amazing amazing young adults and this team makes it work um and just you know that pure response you hear when he does it is just amazing um and there's some parent testimonials but um there's no other questions for this team i'll bring up community steps in genesis [Applause] all right this is another part of our secondary team that is amazing so we have denise arnaugis who i would not be able to survive life without who runs our community steps program alongside naomi williams who's one of our speech

090and language pathologists and then we have our genesis team so we have eileen wheeler who's one of our special education teachers tom koch who's our humanities teacher anne-marie meehan who has been with us at the high school for quite a while and now has joined us at genesis because of our growing enrollment brett amero our stem teacher and then allison hirani our amazingly skilled social worker um so i think we'll start with a little information from genesis there's one slide we put in there that was from our high school so we have around 57 58 students in our senior class right now that receive support services and they all have finalized their post-secondary plans so it just gives you a little scope into what the plans are for some of our current seniors accessing support

091services and our next slide will bring us over to genesis and i will let the team take over okay hi everybody thank you for reporting us an opportunity to highlight genesis uh we can go to the next slide so we'll start with the most critical highlight enrollment and graduation success so what we have here what you're looking at is a set of three years since our inception in 2019 and the light blue bars represent our student enrollment in august at the beginning of each respective year the darker blue bar represents our enrollment by the end of that school year and the smaller orange and blue boxes really they look like represent the number of seniors that year and how many seniors graduated so we believe that this graph shows uh some pretty incredible success of

092the genesis program we're not only retaining our students we're growing exponentially each year and if we head over to the 2021-2022 section we are currently at an enrollment of 27 students and we are projecting that all of our seniors will graduate by the end of the summer program we're really proud of them um we are if all goes well our third year we will have 100 success of graduating seniors which is remarkable so speaking of our seniors we'll go to the next slide bam zoom pow well you all have videos we're gonna have to make this advance here okay so what you're looking at here is a collage of all of the amazing universities and colleges across america that have offered our genesis students our seniors acceptances and um we're really proud of them of

093their hard work but it should come as no surprise they are receiving incredible presidential scholarships merit awards into some of the most challenging universities in the country so that's awesome okay and then now outside of enrollment and graduation success this is the day in the life of what we do i could pass it over to miss anne-marie man we can talk about something so i um as the new the newest member of genesis i'm very excited to be here also a nervous wreck but i'm here that's why we're making our talk they always make me totally all nervous um as a special ed teacher one of the um proudest things that i see at genesis is that we have our students run their own annual review meetings um so they're yearly meetings so that is

094in the corner one student who um happens to be on my caseload did a beautiful job um just representing herself and her strengths and her weaknesses and what what helps her and what helps her to learn the best and what works for her and the struggles she has and she had no qualms and she made this beautiful slideshow it was actually one of my proudest moments um and then some of the other um pictures will show a lot of team building that we that we have um uh the one in the top the top well uh top row where um students had to um you know make out of newspaper they had to make some kind of a garment of some sort and and they had a lot of creative input in there we do

095take the kids out and get them exercise every day unfortunately sometimes the inclement weather does not allow us to do so so we do yoga which i happen to love very much um so it's wonderful to get an opportunity to do that we have students who have so many different interests and we have a young lady there um who loves science and the moon and she's you know afforded the opportunity to study a lot of that um we have we have had numerous guest speakers the bottom there is a veterans day where we had a veteran come in and speak with the students and meet with the students and answer any questions it was really nice every friday we have not every friday but um on one friday month we have um an art teacher

096comes in and does art with different art projects with the kids and um them on alternating fridays we have a running club um come in as well so that's it's really a nice thing and then we get an opportunity to go to the because of our location we get an opportunity to go to the river often and do a lot of um you know studying right there in the in the environment and in the community um speaking of the community um we've had we had an opportunity to go to the name is going to escape me thank you the wilton food pantry see i told you i was nervous on the wilton food pantry um where we um had wilton give genesis gives back program one of the students had started one of our seniors

097started where she said she wanted us to be able to give back to the community our program and so what we did was we did a food drive and then we walked down and delivered all the food to the wilton food food pantry um so that's just some of the some of the wonderful things that we um that are happening down at genesis any questions for our genesis team so when we started yeah take it back only doing feels like a lifetime ago but we were tracking daily attendance because when we put this program together our target population wasn't even coming to school so in three short years we have because now we assume 95 98 100 daily attendance about on average and so we don't have to talk about that anymore we're talking about

098graduation rates to me that's remarkable later on we'll talk about cost avoidance and not a lot of those students that are there now are students we were able to bring back from out of district placements and give them the support here and i really have to highlight they're not here tonight but within our genesis continuum of service we have some really critical staff in our buildings that give the opportunity for these students to still have blended days so a lot of our students at genesis are still able to access middlebrook or access the high school for courses they're interested in and be really welcomed into that community so i think you know tony leonard and bonnie schnitzel at middlebrook are critical in that and i think at our high school emily montgomery and kathy weiss

099and christina dinaj and beth anzarella run our flex program are just that again it's a whole continuum and it's just wonderful to see students you know the student at middlebury today having lunch with his friends and then coming back to genesis and students taking sign language at the high school and coming back so just that they are still part of both communities is really meaningful um i think they have like 90 of the kids are shared next year which just speaks volumes that they feel welcomed in both spaces what's your enrollment expectation for next year uh well i'm whole you know they're at 27 right now which is is you know that's a big number um again we're in some shared schedules for next year that are increasing so i think you know we have

100three students who are really interested in joining next year so um and look you're graduating four seniors three seniors yeah um so we'll probably be around 27 if not a little more and then we usually see a pretty big uptick second semester and what's your max number um well it really depends on the service the student requires um in terms of special ed hours i think you know when we start to approach that 30 number then we have to kind of look at our student staff ratio i mean anne marie joined last year because we saw an uptick in some of the support services we needed and that decreased some of the population at the high school so we shifted that fte but once we get around 30 we'll probably have to look at that

101a little bit more and there's trap side working for you guys it's a great space yeah it's been a good space great location yeah location um and then community steps um i'll let denise speak too which again is a really relatively new program that we started with four students and we're expected to have 13 next year um and again these were students before communities actually weren't fortunate enough to keep within district um so it's really exciting that we get to have them and be part of our community which i know a lot of you see out and about so let's do this so like all the other programs community steps offers a constellation of services and our services include transition goals which are like vocational so the students go out to different vocational locations and

102can work on some job skills we have post-secondary goals and objectives we have um i'm sorry um independent living they work on and um like melissa just said our program currently has nine students and we're projected to have either 12 or 13 next year thank you here are some parent testimonials um and i think you know the later parent she's had a student again in districts since preschool so again has really been through the continuum of services and laurie sun liam is a student that we were able to bring back from out of district in emily's program and then keep with us through community steps [Laughter] so here are some of our partnerships for our vocational settings within our community ambler farm wilton cbs bob store rising star chartwells stew letters paws wilton library so

103we're able to go into all these locations every day and give our students the opportunity to work on those job skills job readiness skills so that's great here are some pictures of our students the top corner that's one of our students at stu leonards and he just had an interview and we're pretty confident he secured a position there so he'll be starting there in may which is amazing [Applause] one of our students who works at paws she goes there twice a week and it's like a therapy session for her every time she goes there and she's working on those job skills and just amazing to see the growth there let's see chartwells so we're at both wilton high school and middlebrook and we're able to work in the kitchen there work on those skills being

104at bob's store that's a new location for us this year so we were pretty excited to land that location anybody owns a business or work somewhere give me a call we can have some students come in and do some vocational work for you some internships and we are we love doing community service we've done socks for soldiers in the past i had a trunk filled with socks and i was finding them under my seats for a couple weeks after our holiday food drive this year was tremendously successful we collected over 300 in cash and bundles and bundles and carloads to bring to the food pantry this past holiday and then we did boxes of hope and happiness for ukraine so we filled shoeboxes for kids and then we also collected backpacks and that was the

105drive that we were able to collect over 500 backpacks for women and children refugees of ukraine we um practice our independent living skills so we travel train so we learn how to um use the train schedules the bus schedules um we participate in a lot of events that bolton community has so their schedule contest every year we enter our scarecrow and then we go for a scarecrow walk and we have our own little junjie contest down there we have um currently we have four students or five students i'm sorry who attend ncc so they're taking some classes there and they've all been really successful so it's a great environment for our students any questions so the goal is to get them placed somewhere in a community with a job and some kind of viable work

106for them yeah it depends on what their independent their goals are i mean we have some students who want to transition to a four-year college so our work is to kind of scale them up on some of those executive functioning and management skills other students their goals paid employment so we work really hard to get them a vocational job and then denise does a phenomenal job working with families and agencies so whether a student is eligible for support through a federal agency like dbs or demis that anybody who's been through that process it is a lot of acronyms and extremely overwhelming for family to go through and denise along with naomi and liza cernino a social worker at the high school really helped families set up a continuum of services um andre's word so families

107can have a bridge and not a cliff yeah that's great so cool yeah thank you so much it's great [Applause] uh part of what you saw tonight really does represent an army of individuals general ed teachers special education teachers fair professionals and the 18-year work it takes with these families and these students to develop this life of independence choice and dignity what's happening here in wilton is being recognized uh nationally uh and internationally one of the teachers sitting in the audience tonight uh betsy currie will be traveling to africa um to work around here [Applause] and then the entire program for working with our most complex needs students with our most complex needs has been recognized by the university of cincinnati as one of eight school districts in the nation um to work in their

108study of understanding what best practices in equity and inclusion for children with the most complex needs and what we can do to help other school districts develop opportunities for equity and inclusion of students with the most complex needs in their school districts so what you saw tonight is is really the people who spoke tonight did not uh did not take the credit they deserve for the work they do every day each and every day with these with their students and with their families um to allow our students to develop the life they want and they choose and so i am incredibly proud and honored to serve them um and the work they do is uh most days quite miraculous so i thank them all for their work uh and salute them every single day so

109thanks thank you thank you [Applause] um i i just have to say that one of the most powerful things about the presentation and there were many was the number of parent testimonials i'm not sure 10 15 years ago that programming was such a strong partnership that we would have heard the same things so um you know kudos again to building that that team approach because it's all won or lost with family communication so thank you yeah bravo to this wonderful staff and all of their colleagues in all of our buildings keep it up please [Laughter] forever good thank you we don't want to give you anything no we yeah so some of you at cider miller millbrook want to hang around for the late breaking news announcement i'm sorry for the disruption a moment ago

110so i just learned there is an electrical issue right nice cider mill and the middle brick it sounds like maybe a tree hit some wires but caused some damage to electrical panels in those schools so we can't open those schools tomorrow so jen toby are alerting their respective school communities now lucille's putting out an announcement we're going to flip to remote learning for those schools to the best that we're able tomorrow and try to have some kind of day for kids so i don't want to set expectations very high we're going to do the best we can but it will count as a school day we are going to work very hard to make sure it cancels school day lucille informed me there was a provision in the carve out for emergency days so i'll

111verify that in the morning but let's set it up let's plan on it and then you know we need to argue with the state about it even if you can get so it's both schools that are built so something must have hit so there was a wire that feeds into both those schools yeah so somewhere i think that maybe on school road we've had issues in the past where um like a breaker has tripped and knocked out power to both those schools to comstock so it's somewhere in that same area but it sounds like there's some pretty substantial electrical damage to the to the um you know if there's an adage in town around those like families like houses or i don't i don't that's just so they um they i don't have complete information

112um our folks are on site it sounds like we're trying to get market electric into the schools um the police are managing whatever's happening you know kind of outside the school world so you'll be sending an email out like i think it's happening as uh as i'm talking to you here never a dull moment that's exciting can't make it so exciting stay to that moment just stay here for a couple more hours oh dear um that's then we're messaging the families every which way we can because they're going to be taken totally by surprise yes i think like me yes you yeah and you said cider milk cider mill and middle brook one out of three okay so do you want to talk about coconut on top of that why don't we just so um

113listen it's been a great run so far you know the uh late february early march was pretty spectacular uh the last couple weeks we've turned the corner in the wrong direction uh the state has and so i think you've probably heard um or read some media reports about this news variant maria and i maybe some others were on a call with dph and so they were reporting they're starting to see the presence of this new variant here in the state of connecticut consequently we're seeing active case rates tick up again and so we um you know the last couple weeks we've seen our numbers increase um as a uh for the since april first for us in our schools we've had 34 cases they seem to be you know concentrated around cyber mill again um

114you know spread across you know some adults primarily kids we had two classrooms one at miller driscoll a week ago and one is cyber mill this week where there seems to be some cluster and you know we're i don't think we can conclude definitively that it's all in school spread because we do see some parent-to-child transmission but we're definitely seeing it in classrooms so we made the decision uh last night in consultation with dr mackin to allow for temporary remote learning for that cider middle class so i think that started today and so we have some families who are participating in terms of how we're responding you know we're not at a point yet where we would turn around and say we need to require a mask so masks are going to remain optional and

115i would certainly encourage you know families to continue to watch the numbers continue to watch for letters continue to check for symptoms and certainly engage in those mitigation strategies we know that work so vaccination if people are eligible we still provide our surveillance testing we have home test kits that are readily available if people need n95s or candy five masks we have those available we would ask people to just you know monitor for symptoms be in touch with our nursing staff and you know we will you know continue to monitor the situation numbers continue to increase we'll just like we said we're going to do revisit all of our strategies working on setting up a conversation i think for early next week with dr shaw dr mac and maria so we can just um again

116look at the landscape again look at our trends and then you know just assess whatever other recommendations there might be when we're on with the dph on tuesday those epidemiologists also made it clear that there's no decision at this point at the state level to alter any of their recommendations and so i think you know we're going to stay the course um again just you know without editorializing you know the sense of what i've read is you know as we continue to live to learn to live with covid these are the kinds of patterns we're going to see and so you know while we want to make sure our school environments remain as safe as possible we're going to do that with you know with the mitigation strategy are you seeing a corresponding uptick in

117staff outages as well that no we're not even if you see we published you know there's definitely a higher concentration among students we have seen an increase i mean it's small but you know there is we are i mean you heard it tonight right yes there is definitely covert activity among staff and that's something we'll you know again continue to pay very close attention to um is if we hit a point because we have you know so many staff out because i've coveted that you know we have to consider different decisions as well so last friday you emailed that there were 82 members out on that date how's the number been this week um i haven't looked um in the last couple of days so i think the end of the week you know we

118see the larger numbers um and it's you know something we've been talking about for you know for weeks and weeks and weeks and you know people are out for a variety of reasons you know they're sick it's not necessarily a copy related illness their children are sick they've got other things going on so um this is you know we're coming into the time of year where you know historically we see an increase in staff absences and so we're you know we're going to manage it as best we're able to and we didn't get to a point where you know again we can't operate our school buildings um but i think it's a it's a serious reminder that we're still in an environment where there are you know considerable impacts on staff well being you know

119for a variety of reasons you know whether it's covet whether it's again i don't you know what the list is so we're going to continue to operate our schools and you know we're on the search for additional substitutes um and you know i think we're this is just part of the landscape today in our schools and so we're going to manage it well i think the board would be open to hearing ways to attract more subs and that's possible with resources yeah well we're i mean so we're gathering some information i mean we do know of a couple of districts um in the i think that the region here along the corridor who have substantially increased their um subpay what we haven't been able to connect to yet is any kind of correlation to fill

120rates right so it is worth yeah and so very true you know so it seems like it would lead to better fill rates but the sub shortage is everywhere and it's a conversation that i have all every time i speak to the hr directors and we meet fairly regularly all of the hr directors in the area could you put something in like good morning wilton because i think yes i'm shocked how many people i talk to who are like oh my god i would stop i had no idea we needed subs yes i think like promoting that and marketing that should be awesome and even talking about how much you could pay for the day yes yes we were talking about this at dinner but i think that that would be grateful yeah to keep

121doing that yeah we've we've um we've advertised good morning welton we've placed signs out of the schools we've um we've put out something every now every week and update um but we can we're not sick so yeah but i think even like an email that just says subs needed yeah because i think sometimes by the time you get to the end of the cove it's like sure yeah can we use the town's electric signs not a bad idea i just think marketing i think that to get people to see it i mean i've talked to four people and three of them have now applied to be successful right yes so we have seen an increase um over the past several weeks yeah things out i will take credit for yes that's pretty good i was

122pretty impressed i was like what's my referral theme maria's like a cup of coffee a big high five yeah got on the back part anything else we should know well so i think i will you know i'll continue to update um so i look forward to a conversation with dr shawn dr mackin next week i think i just have one you said that the sidearm middle class was given a remote option right so is there a kind of like is that a case-by-case system is there a procedure around that yeah so this is a great question and we don't have thresholds you know so and i think this is again we're we're in relatively new territory here as we're trying to sort out this phase of the the pandemic um so i think we're feeling

123our way through it but when we get to about half a class i mean that's pretty substantial and i think that's probably the tipping point give or take on either side of that okay would you i mean you're in the middle of this so would you ask right and so i would just add that you know we monitor every case very carefully and even when there are two cases in a class we're asking those kinds of questions about what else we can do and that's triggering communication with dr mackin so we we did that last week when we had you know four cases in a miller driscoll class we we did that several times this week as we saw the case numbers rising in the classic cider mill and you know it's a fluid process

124so we're adjusting our approach as we go we started with recommending to families that they test and and that we had the test kits here available at school and then we moved to sending the test kits home and offering the remote instructions so we're monitoring all of the cases carefully and really trying to be responsive but you know dr mackin also made a very good point about the fact that uh some of the spread could be happening outside of school and shared activities because many of these kids have gymnastics together or theaters or other kinds of things worse spread could be happening so you know it's really difficult to isolate the variables and point to one factor kind of about like the continuity of the classroom and the and right and the learning yeah so

125that's more right was sure yeah yep no i think we have to kind of feel our way a little bit okay um that brings us to our budget update well where would you like to begin uh so i think when when last this board met we hadn't yet received the good news about the opportunity to bond which we talked a lot about this week so within the final number that was approved we are able to reduce that number by two hundred five thousand two dollars that was the you know composition of whatever floors and lighting we were going to try to do this year so that automatically can come down you know you were either there or you know at their monday meeting the board of finance further revised our operating budget and so what

126i sent to you earlier today was a proposal um to reduce um the current operating proposal by an additional 485 thousand um and so you see the list i'll just walk you through it so you understand you know what i'm looking at here some of these reductions you'll see there's kind of by magnitude you know relatively small and then you know incrementally larger with respect to the smaller reductions i would just underscore the point as we've been talking about now for a couple of years that we have squeezed our non-personnel accounts pretty tightly and so you know while we can do a little bit you know there just aren't buckets of money unless we're willing to um choose to sacrifice programs and i don't think that's wise um so in some of those places we

127are you know kind of working on the margins and then we have some other just you know a couple of opportunities that have emerged through you know natural changeover so at the top of the list i think we can easily realize about fifteen thousand dollars in savings simply with the transition to a new athletic director and the transition to a new assistant principal at cider mill the folks that are leaving us were paid at the top of the administrator scale the newer folks coming in will be paid toward the bottom of that scale and so there's just a natural differential that we can take advantage of kevin what if someone coming in has a lot of experience and it's just an a.d moving from another district or a ap moving from another yeah we would

128i don't think we would um we wouldn't necessarily credit them by putting them at the top because it's experience in wilton am i correct on that maria well it's typically it is however there is room based on the qualifications of the person and trying you know it depends on you know how competitive we might want to make the offer so generally speaking we start the person at a lower rate which is typically at about 92.5 percent of the max however there is room for movement based on the qualifications in years so that number is not like a guaranteed it's like an estimated yeah i think it's a very good reasonable i mean in the years that i've been here and i've i've hired a fair number of administrators now i don't remember a single year

129we've ever started a new administrator at 100 so i think okay i think we're i think i feel comfortable with that okay and this wasn't already figured into your staff turnover no because these were unanticipated okay because sometimes you just you do an estimate so this is about you're comfortable this can be above and beyond that we're going to meet that target plus this maybe this yeah i think so too i mean i'm thinking of the the list we have the vacancies listed on the whiteboard and maria's office it's a long time it's growing it is okay okay all right i just want to make sure that we're not yeah they they were not in my projection for the staff replacement okay great thank you or not right the next item there is also you

130know that's a bit of a freebie we just signed a contract for a new uh website service provider so we'll be leaving final set at the end of this year and our new service provider is a company called gabert and we're able to realize ten thousand dollars in savings just from you know achieving a new contract and that only happened in the last week so that's you know very recent good news um we went back and looked at the technology budget um and i asked eric hawkinson you know if we could take a reduction there and so we are going to take a ten thousand dollar reduction there and what that means is we're going to buy slightly fewer chromebooks so typically we replace whole classes and then we pick up a few additional so

131we have some spare chromebooks because we oftentimes will ship them up here so we can do testing and things like that so we'll just have fewer new chromebooks next year um ten thousand dollars isn't you know we're talking about 25 or so you know 350 each kevin could we ever and i don't want to open a can of worms look into offering students to buy their own books like they do at the high school at the middle school um yeah i think we could i'd have to go back and just you know retrace our steps we had you know i think good reasons why we were choosing the chromebooks for those kids at that age because of the programs we run because the way we're able to um control the the google um environment but

132we could certainly look at someone another drg school we can talk about another time but i thought that was interesting that they give you the option yeah i like i just need to know more about that i'm not aware of i just haven't looked into you know other schools bring your own device that's mandy's question yeah so i when we were you know first set this up some years ago you know we were thinking about the the kind of testing we do map testing sba testing and so we needed capacity to be able to control the browsers to do the secured testing so i just have to look at how that were and here at the high school you know kids don't use their own devices for the standardized testing we do so we just

133have to understand you know all of those factors but we can certainly ask that question um so we're going to take a bite out of the transportation budget and so um you know the areas that were you know we're just looking to target within that large budget are athletics transportation field trips and in districts special education transportation so you may recall that line the in-district special education transportation increased pretty dramatically year-over-year this year so um i can't tell you today what that means and net impact is it you know a couple of fewer um trips to out-of-town games possibly is it a couple of fewer field trips possibly um and then you know on the in district especially transportation you know that we might have to just restrict some uh midday runs so how can

134we not go to awakening well we might have to cancel that i know listen it's ten thousand dollars so i'm not sweating it right now um but we're at a point in our budget where we have to make choices but can we get can we move to a point to think outside the box a little bit for these field trips of looking into the liability insurance of having parents i think most parents if you have the option to cancel an away game or have 10 parents drive yeah i'm always amazed because like all the parents are going anyhow and we're all behind the bus yeah it's a i think it's a reasonable question to ask um and i don't want to get ahead of myself in this conversation tonight no i agree it's just sad

135thinking of production field trips because i know they've been reduced already so much yeah i mean covet has impacted that as well so stand by but i'm just you know i think that the storyline for you tonight is um we're at a place in our budget where you know there's just not room to give and so you know we are making choices so sped contract services um so this is an area andre and i work together and so she's going to look at reducing about 70 thousand dollars in those contracts and so um she'll alter contract some of those maybe we find different uh service delivery methods um some of this might be a reduction in some of the contractor support that is you know dedicated to supporting our adults um so she'll be able

136to fill us in a little bit more as she refines that but she felt like that was a reasonable number that we could we could retract the um point eight school social worker that's a pretty broad brush um i think we would need more details about what that means okay yeah she's she's in going back through her her contracts now and so as we've had the conversation i can't see if she's actually on or not andre do you want to speak to this line yes that that line supports um a wide variety of consultative services and direct services to the teams at the building levels working with a broad variety of students so what we'd be looking to do is to reduce some of those services and tighten our belts with some of those services

137to the staff some of those consultative services across the year it would be it would be a reduction but it wouldn't be a a deletion by any stretch so the student staff and students would still get the support it would just be done with a tighter budget much tighter budget okay i just for my sake i would just need a little bit more details because you either need a service or you don't and i'm just trying to figure out how you i just have to wrap my hands around your all the direct services required by ieps would be provided as they always are these are consultative services when we have a student who experiencing explosive behavior for example we might bring in some consult consultative services to that team to assist in addressing that student's

138needs and helping to diminish the impact of that behavior if we had a student who had a very complex communication system some technology that needed specific staff training this account would serve that so if we would still bring the resources to bear they would just be brought to bear perhaps less frequently or perhaps with less intensity perhaps move some to virtual versus on-site service so that's how we would trim that budget and tighten those rates okay all right thank you the next item is the proposed 0.8 social worker that we had slated for middlebrook you've heard me talk earlier this year in the arp esser grant we had carved out some dollars with the intent of contracting with family and children's aid out of norwalk to provide social work service they have struggled to fill

139the positions and so at this point we're just not going to go forward with that contract so working with marianne what we think we can do is move we'd have to we're going to have to reduce the amount of social work support that we can afford but we can move a 0.5 of that into the grant and cover a 0.5 for one year so that would give us some additional support it wouldn't give us the 4.8 we were hoping for and then when we get to the end of next year that grant expires and so we'll have a decision to make about whether or not we keep that position and build it into the budget or if we just eliminate it my question about that is going to be it's this board has been very

140much about data how are you guys going to show that we need that person or don't need that person you guys have something measurable in place that will you know what it's about i think we've been we've been um just with you know mental health care support in general we have lots of anecdotal data and so you know we can and i think you know we've been trying to come up with an efficient way to gather that so drop in services the number of service hours provided the kids those are the kinds of things that we can do the number of uh referrals estimates around crisis response that's a lot of what our social workers do so i don't think we have a clear model of how to best demonstrate that yet but that's we've

141certainly had plenty of conversations about how to try to get our arms around it and i think that's probably how we would approach it okay the next item on the list is a half of lms para fte we had a retirement this year here at the high school and so um we're going to fill that partially but we're not going to fill it fully and so we're just going to eliminate um moving on the list andre had requested a sped pair professional um you know this is another area where you know we're going to have to reorganize our existing staff as you're well aware there's risk here too always because we you know at least in recent years we have families moving who require one on ones so that's you know we may find ourselves

142three months from now scrambling to find a para but for the moment we think we can manage the reduction so if we take that out of our budget and then we find out we need it how do we get it where are we getting the money that's where you know we scramble again and we have to go back to other lines and we have to cut or freeze we have to you know not spend on whether it's you know some of those non-personnel accounts supplies books you know other areas i mean we've found ourselves in the situation in the past and you know we manage it but it's not ideal by any stretch of the imagination kevin i know you've looked into this a lot but it just it kills me that almost 400 000

143is from interfacing student services and teachers is there is there any way for us to like look at other options or is this pretty much these are the options yeah and i understand where you're going with that mandy um i think there are some folks in our community who have adopted this idea of like student-facing versus non-student-facing staff and i reject that because it's not accurate and i think what i would encourage all of us to do is to consider the entire system you know and so it's not just the teachers in the classroom or the support services in the classroom there's also a human infrastructure around them that they need to have right and so you know we'll just let's you know talk about instructional coaches because that's been the topic du jour this

144week we have set a very aggressive improve academic improvement agenda and our coaches are vital to that they've been vital since the day that we've hired them you know it's taken a couple years in a couple of our buildings for them to really gain a foothold with our staff but they provide an essential service and i if i thought we could um reduce the instructional coaching staff or some other related staff member that's not on this list it would be on this list but do you think that they're as important as a math specialist i do because they're capacity they're capacity builders you know we have to you know we have to lift the entire ship here right and so our um our coaches work across teachers to build capacities of entire departments um and

145so you know again there are no good choices here you know this is none of these were in my original proposal right to be reduced and i totally understand that i just would love to get a survey at some point there has to be some way that we can define that this is working or not because it's a lot of money it is working i mean you see it in the instructional the achievement data and i think in the note that i sent to you the other day um i would invite you to go see for yourself right you know and like just go watch and then you you can talk to teachers um and you can talk about the impact we had a couple of the elementary teachers on before who um well anyway

146i just i think i just wanted to make sure that we were clear that it just kills me to see a math specialist when we're all doing is really concentrating on that yeah and i would say we're keeping our math coaches yeah and so i i i i feel i share your pain right this is you know this right now i understand it wasn't easy didn't drop out of the sky yeah um yeah and so you know to that note so we had proposed a math specialist for middlebrook um we can't do that with this 485 000 reduction so that is a proposal that needs to be deferred um and then kind of next on the list we went back and we looked at the um the fda the high school and the based on

147the sectioning that bob is anticipating for next year we're proposing that we take a little bit out of science and a little bit out of art and so there's one forensics class where we'll see that class average move from i think 19 to 22 and then there is an art class or two where it'll be about the same it might be i think the this the class side a little bigger than that maybe 23 24. and so looking across the entire distribution of high school staff and what the class average is worth this seemed to be the least impactful so i won't say it's not an impact it's just the least impactful yeah it seems reasonable in a budget crunch yeah um and then the last piece here is the 0.4 art out of middle

148brook and so i think just you know kind of on its face because of the teamed model it's not as easy to reduce staff there because of the cascade effect because if kids aren't here they got to be over here it functions a little bit differently at the elementary schools at the high school because the high school you know organizes by section and then at the elementary school it's by class and by section so a little bit easier to take reductions there we're looking at an incoming sixth grade that's a little bit smaller so i think 275 kids is what the estimate is today we have uh an art vacancy and so what i'm proposing is that we we just don't hire a full-time art teacher so what that will mean is that class sizes

149will be larger in art and so i think we're talking in the realm of 22 maybe 23 kids in those classes and then there's going to be a bit of a cascade in some of the other classes so i think art's paired with some of the music classes so for sixth grade we'll see some increased music classes as a result because the distribution of kids um the way it's organized but talking with damien today who really you know builds that schedule um he thought if we were going to reduce this would be the place to do it and it wouldn't be it's not going to crater the program or create class sizes that are so large they're unwieldy what is that like 25 well in an art class you don't i don't think you you

150don't want a class of 25 in north carolina yeah that's when i'm at um yeah yeah so i think you know 20 22 2022 yeah 23. and we've had i mean in years past when we had larger enrollments we had class sizes that are about there can we go back to the math specialist sure so what do we currently have at middlebrook that we are losing because of grant money um i know we went through all this i just don't remember yes so we're um we're not and we think of us so we had a 1.45 interventionist and you have to help me with this if my memory is off i think we had 1.45 interventionist for this year right but there was never an intention to keep that individual passed this year and that's

151that person was funded through armed esser so we have in the other i don't think there are any other grant funded people in that building you know we're we're holding on to our um our aim teacher our other math interventionist that we added uh a year or so ago we're holding out to our math coast and so this was a proposed new that we're just not adding so we'll have two math interventional teachers like the aim and the so we have a name and just again if my memory is not working right help me there's a math interventionist and the time math interventionist and a full-time teacher and those are staying co yeah and then the full-time coach yes one math coach right but we look at the coaches sort of being separate because the

152coach supports stem not just math and it's not just math intervention math intervention and aim are sort of two very specific focus areas whereas the coaches is supporting all of stem all math and science is it ever a possibility to reduce if we need to keep our coaches is it possible to reduce our fte for a coach to then keep an interventionist or get an interventionist so we can kind of have our cake and eat it too i'm not sure i understand the question so we would reduce coaching fte and so transit so you're talking transfer from part of our coaching fte to our math interventionist yeah i think you know so you know these are questions and that we've kicked around previously um certainly among you know the the administrators and you know right

153now we have um you know i mean twice the number of literacy coaches than we do math coaches and so you know that was an investment we chose to make from the get-go i would be loathe at this point to reduce our literacy coaches um especially as we're just you know kind of gaining traction again coming out of covid and with our math coaches you know there's one for building and so they're already spread thin so i would not be recommending reducing math coaches so i guess my long-winded answer to you jen is today i wouldn't recommend that but i wouldn't wouldn't certainly close the door on the opportunity as we continue to move forward here i think we want to you know continue to watch our achievement progress i pay really close discreet attention

154to the skills and the achievement of our kids at the lowest grades you know that's where the heaviest concentration of our instructional coaches are and if we come to a point where we feel like we're firing in all cylinders and that we're pretty comfortable letting that kind of support go or reducing that support i think then i would be comfortable kevin what does that metric look like well i think we've set some goals around achievement and so i think if we're meeting or exceeding those goals um you know then i think that opens the door to that conversation i think the tricky part for us is how do you then tease out what was due to a coach versus what was due to a teacher and that's why i say you have to look at

155the whole system of support i think that's what our community has a hard time understanding yeah and that's the how many literacy coach or uh are they coaches how many literacy coaches yeah so we have um three at miller just going to a middle a two at cider mill and then one um at middlebrook and if we took point one away from each of them and made up 0.5 math is that ever a possibility like how would that actually work i don't really know i don't think it would work and i say that because um you know who wants to work 4.9 when you can go work for a 1.0 what's the difference yeah i mean it's what does that mean to me i'm 12 15 no it's not nothing you know and i think

156the high school is a good example of a place where you know while that model can work they also struggle to fill their less than 1.0 vacancies annually um and we we see it with the section and you know sometimes people drop to a you know 0.9.8 and we lose people right it's 10 of their pay yeah so do you get better that's significant do you get benefits of your 0.9 or 0.8 yes you do for as a teacher you get benefits at 0.5 so um you know but but it makes a difference even to cut someone at 0.1 and we have lost people or not retained them you know if they started as a 0.9 then they're looking for that point one somewhere and if they can't find it here sometimes they go to

157another district okay and i know that we um we saw a lot and of questions mandy for articulating some questions around the whole coaching process program and then i think to jen's point you know to understand it better ourselves as board members and also then be able to explain it better to the public would be helpful i just i hate to tinker around an entire program without having full comprehensive understanding we've built this budget as carefully as i know how to do it as a board we know how to do it and the superintendent has never said you know this program it's time to revise it this program is time to go this program whatever um and it's our prerogative as board members to certainly look at all our programs but i do think we

158need to do it in a really thoughtful manner i don't like this last minute pressure why don't we grab here and grab there i i just don't think that's well that's what this is yeah i get it this is a budget reduction um i think the approach here is something that hasn't started yet that those are the tough choices we're making i mean i i agree like i would like to better understand but i also think that throughout this entire budget process we heard from school principals in our workshops about the things that they trade-offs that were made even before the budget was brought to us and i don't in all those trade-offs i never once heard a discussion about coaches or thinking about how that model or works and um benjamin you heard about

159math interventional is that's what kills me yeah and the importance of them yeah well this whole thing does the whole thing tell us like the you know the whole thing the whole the whole thing that um that there's no there's no good no good choice there's no good choice um starting with what was going to be new and not embedded and already you know working it's i think of the of the evils on the table um the lesser and i also think that you know from an investment and point of view like investing in our teachers which is what i see the coaches is doing as being something that you know making sure that their professional development and their education is continuing and ongoing as the enterprise of teaching grows and changes over time is

160a vital importance too i think of what to what happens in the classroom you know i look at corporate models where you have you know chief learning officers and there's yeah i i would hope that the teacher that is in the classroom who was maybe certified 15 years ago is still having access and resources to newer and newer and better ways as we learn more about how our children grow and develop and learn and um so i i think that that's an equally as important part of a successful you know education model no it is in in my opinion we have lost the narrative around um instructional support it is we talk about wanting to be or being a district that embraces innovative practices and providing and job embedded coaching and support to teachers is

161is the best model and it's not kevin telling you this this is research supported it's vetted it's widely popular and we invested significantly early on and that was a really intentional choice we had opportunities because we were experiencing enrollment decline we were taking advantage of attrition and i i in my opinion we serve our teachers the teachers that in language arts and mathematics that participate in some of the humanities here we provide them a very very high level of service and support and if you're a new teacher coming into this district you know that's always one of the questions we get so what kind of professional learning opportunities are and when we talk about the opportunities around coaching that's cadillac level and if we're going to continue to work on an improvement agenda to me

162these are essential services and we do it really really well here it's something that we've invested in and we should be proud of it so how do we make the general population understand that because i there there doesn't seem to be an understanding of the value of that how it works how it functions and i think that's where we were losing the narrative on the board of finance was that they there was a lack of understanding of what that was i'm also a little bit hesitant to say that there's a lack of understanding throughout the entire community no but okay not that i don't think that it's incumbent upon us to make sure that our community does understand how the entire school ecosystem functions and works together to create what this community does demand out

163of a durge school but at the same time um just i'd go back to remember in september or maybe it was august it was 2021 i and we've heard this whole workshop on accelerated learning and we're going to just change the model and you know get all these covered learning gaps and we're going to you know just kind of need to like emphasize this instead of that and and then never mind you know two years ago when we had to do the whole hybrid model to me it just seems that that coaches support those kind of program programmatic goals and strategies that have to change and sometimes they have to change quickly and they have to be done consistently um and so when you read research about okay is it better to go to a

164workshop or is it better to have coaching typically the coaching model stands as the more individualized you know kind of approach and that would seem intuitively to make some sense and when i first came on the board was early early years on coaches it had already been done but there i there was still a lot of hubbub um some of what you know we're hearing also now and so i was going yeah what are these things um and so we had to go not had to but we were invited to go and watch reading writing workshop at the reader's workshop at the time so we went some of us board members got to go that had had the time in their schedule and we were observing just reader's workshop which is another whole thing that

165is very complicated and i'm just going oh wow and then we were sitting around the teacher's lounge for lunch and these teachers just kept coming in not they weren't i swear to god i don't think they were paid to do this they came in and they were saying oh yeah we like this we like that and i couldn't do this without my coach and that's where i just kind of saw oh okay so i think that helps and i so i think maybe a workshop for a current understanding and i totally agree that we need some more data like looking at how teachers feel about this what our test scores are i totally agree with all of that we should have data in school systems sometimes we don't have enough of it but um i

166just remember three years ago talking about surveying i would love to survey the teachers to hear yeah that's the whole point and i think i think we talked about this like three years ago i think one was done wasn't it that happens yeah it's just life happened yeah all right i would love to hear from instead of uh right the users absolutely i totally agree with that i think there's been a lot of support at the younger at the earlier grades i think it's the upper grades that we start to hear from people that it's not as beneficial yeah and i think that's where and don't don't confuse like effective coaching with change right because that is also part of the challenge that we've experienced at the secondary level with new models new approaches you

167know we have folks who were and are you know very accomplished but i mean think about you know the folks you know and you've worked with um you know who are committed to a particular way of doing things and so change is hard and when you introduce the opportunity for coaching that can feel threatening and so i think that's a dimension that you know we've worked really hard to manage um and i do think you know chuck i think can speak to this probably better than i can but i wouldn't say it's true for everybody but i think we absolutely turned a corner with that and i think specifically you know here at the high school um with the role that eric mendelson is currently playing as our humanities coach i mean he's been absolutely

168instrumental in supporting a host of teachers um and they would tell you and so i think you know yeah that exactly would be what you would hear certainly coming through the last you know 24 months with covid you know the work that he has done as teachers have had to you know have been forced to change their practice yet again um absolutely vital all right well we're sort of getting into workshop material and i'm going to go back to the math specialist are you sure there is nothing else in your budget if jennifer if there was it'd be on this list and so what i'm looking at here is for next year we are not going to be able to increase intervention services we're going to maintain the status quo that we have and we're

169going to you know work the daylights out of our kids who are getting intervention if there was another way to keep this it would be in front of you well the other thing to remember is that this number is not necessarily final the board of finance doesn't yet have a final number for our budget um they have to do that on april 12th the 12th and also this whole list here assumes that the infamous elevator costs will somehow be restored to our budget and if that does not happen yeah then we're going to have to add another 200 000 it's like two additional ftp yeah so this um so i think i think at this point in time what we have to do and i kevin i do hope you hear jen's plea i do

170that if there is a way of saying mine especially everybody yes yeah yeah i'm sorry brooke is taking a hit it's just what if we come up with what we come up with and go back to the board of finance and say we have come up with all of this but we are now to meet your number that means we are cutting our math interventionist send them this and will you consider they're watching tonight to be honest because it's a little you know when they say well what's you know 400 and something on an 87 million dollar budget right that's what it is this is what it is or 688 000 depending on that elevator if that if they do not restore the elevator money um because the bonding stuff is dead that's just it's

171not going to happen so hopefully the board of finance can understand that and and decide what to do with the elevator money i just when i said it's a reason and that that has to happen if we could if we could post film that elevator maybe some of us would want to do that but we literally cannot do that right okay so anyway so hopefully um even this list doesn't happen but i just we don't know yet because the board of finance hasn't determined our number and also we we don't know what's going to happen with those elevator funds what we do know is that 202 000 that we announced on march 23rd at the public hearing that that can be you know that that all those things can be bondable down the road so

172we don't have to put it in our capital operating budget but we still have the 253 thousand dollars 200 and some five two hundred thousands for the elevator and fifties for the floor study or whatever okay so we still have some things outstanding so we won't be able to really decide on anything until our next meeting am i right that's right yeah i think we need to see during spring break no so our next the next meeting is april 28th okay and then we'll have a very clear picture of what our numbers where we are yeah and if there's any movement between now and then i'll come back with a different one if i can and uh and anybody watching at home yeah feel free to write in a letter or an email and april

17312 um and to jen's point there we can send this list to the board of finance and say here's what we're discussing because it's absolutely true i mean i can wrap my head around everything else i trust andrea and what she can do with her team that's my one issue is your math understatement well i think i don't know i think stretching special ed is also yeah me too well you're 60. you know the social worker i find concerning as well giving yeah at least we have that you just lost a point three yes it's better than not having anything right i mean at least you can say in middle brook right now they don't have this math interventionist so they are making it work right now i would love for there to be more

174[Music] but you have your 0.45 that is there right now i don't know how much they're making it work i mean it's it's not well it's they are i mean it's in the we saw a several weeks ago that um but i think they really wanted this yeah i mean they're building on their building on success kevin you heard our thoughts which we don't need to go through again but we're in a tough situation yes um okay and again this is the assumption with this list is that the uh elevator money is taken care of also they have not voted on a final number yet so maybe they will hear some of the difficult choices we are wrestling with okay let's move on to the bonded capital yeah so um this uh bonded capital plan

175was um reviewed i believe last night also at the border selectments so just want to highlight for the board of ed with respect to the board of ed proposals we've had for a number of years money on the bonding list for our root replacements so i think we're you know maybe three or four years in at this point so there's a little bit left to go so for the fiscal 23 we're looking at bond proposing to bond 600 000 to continue to work on roof replacement and then an additional hundred thousand dollar to conduct a study of the hvac mechanicals at cider mill and middlebrook in anticipation of doing you know complete changeovers the following couple of years and then you'll also know looking and so that's so i think uh just in terms of

176what the board needs to do is understand what's happening in fiscal 23 and then looking at what's proposed in the out years we have additional roof replacement money in fiscal 24 and 25 a million each anticipating hvac replacement at middlebrook insider mill and then you'll note the new ads are the final two elevators that need to be replaced for 24 i believe that's the cider mill elevator and then for 25 i think it's the elevator here in the media center at the high school those are uh anticipating uh 275 each the initial um estimate yeah for the elevator was 250 um chris and landing company are anticipating um inflation so that's why that number is sitting at 275. and then we've a placeholder has been added for the middlebury high school renovations and so um

177we've got some time to fill in those numbers and so you know that'll happen don't go ahead just for full transparency on the numbers that you have there chris did increase both the hbac numbers up by 250 000 each okay so he did that at the meeting last night all right so um all right so this was what was on the agenda so the so you're looking at um 1250 for each of those okay all right so we'll have to just get the code 24 and 25 right yeah right the study was saying the same study study the same thing if you said okay all right good to know so based on this i'm okay great so based on this we're not doing any renovations at middlebury at the high school this year no no

178and that's once we learned that that the bonding was available in the conversation that i had with lynn i was in agreement with her that the police station was well down the road at this point and the police station needed to get done i don't we you know just i don't even think best case we would have been ready to do work this year so i you know to me i'm very comfortable with where these are living i think we can wait one more year and putting it in bonding also ultimately because i've got your timeline in my head sooner it gets done faster yes exactly that's what i'm wondering is that if we had kept it in the capital operating budget it takes forever five years seven years this at least maybe it gets

179a slightly later start but it also gets a much okay and i think that's nice right i agree i think that and that's the good news is that you know we have a funding mechanism that's reliable and you know we have some target dates also and okay i think that's yeah even given where we're three months ago this is really good news yeah okay okay so we need a motion to approve the fiscal year 2023 portion which is key point number one i shall move thanks pam is there a second second any more discussion all in favor aye opposed okay that's approved i think uh we are at the end of our agenda we see some meetings i know lucille was kind very kindly sent us all the sort of remaining board of ed meetings

180and workshops and executive sessions plus some end of the year celebrations so let's go to comments from the public unless [Laughter] [Music] then this meeting is adjourned and thank you everyone