001Miss Nancy. >> All right. Good evening everyone. And I'd like to welcome you all to the Winchester Public School Board of Education regular meeting for February 10th, 2026. Uh item one, call to order. >> Pledge of Allegiance. >> Can we all stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. >> All right. Roll call. Joseph Santoro, >> Chrissy Rylander, >> Frank Olivery, >> Shane Centrella, >> Kurt Warner, >> Julie Lubby, >> Nora Mukurski, >> Elanor Bishop, Carol, >> Jonathan Mor. >> Okay. Uh, like to move on to item two, approval of the agenda. >> Would anyone like to >> make a motion to approve
002the agenda? >> I'll give Joe the second. >> All in favor? >> All right. on to what we're really here for. Item three, student showcase. >> We very recently, I believe Friday, had the absolutely most exciting day of the school year, the hundth day of school. >> As you could imagine, um, a lot of early learning is math and numbers and the idea that after nine you hit 10 and then you hit 100. though the 100th day lends itself to a lot of great learning activities. So we have some sharing for you of all the different amazing things when we celebrated the 100th day of school. All right. Good evening, Board of Ed members and families. We are so excited to be here today. I've brought with me some first and second graders who are
003going to share a little bit about some of the celebrations they've done on their hundth day of school in their classrooms. But most importantly, how much they have been learning in these and now 102 days of school as they told me today. Um, but first we're going to do some introductions. So we're going to start down here. Hello, my name is >> Hello, my name is Nola. I'm in second grade and my teacher's name is >> Miss Okay, nice job introducing yourself. Thank you. >> One thing that I want you to notice is how our students are dressed. Many of them are dressed in some of the things they wore on that day or they brought posters. So, we're going to tell you a little bit about that. So, let's start over here. What's something
004your class did on hunger day? >> The 100th day of school. Our class needed to look um um a lollipop 100 times. And if you um lick it 100 times, that means you won. Sounds like the lollipops. >> We ate them. >> Sounds pretty good right now. >> We could have been bribed, you know. >> We um stapled them together. Before we did that, weeded And you see that here before you. >> So they wrote all the things they've been learning all year >> and they created this 100 day chain >> that the teacher let me bring to this meeting. Is that amazing? >> Are there 100 links in that chain? >> There are 100 links, right? >> Yes. All right, Daniel, >> want to tell them what you your class did? >> One thing
005for the 100th day of school, uh, we made a popsicle tower to see who could put the most unifix cubes in there. And we're supposed to put fitund of them in there. >> Amazing. 100th day of school. We did we um dressed up >> dressed up in different things, right? What are some examples? Did some people dress like a hundred-year-old people >> like you see here today and some people wore special shirts, right? >> Like we have here. >> Oh, that's great. >> All right, next. They have four crowns. >> She even kept hers. >> That's wonderful. Virginia, >> they made 100 day of schools, too. >> They made 100 day of school crowns as well. >> And want to tell them about your shirt? >> 100 pom poms. >> Wow. >> So cute. Wow.
006>> And Ellie, what's your poster? >> days of school. >> And I love his shirt. >> I know. >> I survived 100 days of school. I'm fine. I'm fine. >> Are you fine, Ellie? >> Yeah. >> So, we'd like to tell you one more thing because this when we were practicing this really warmed my heart. I asked them, "What's your favorite thing or the most important you thing you learned in the hundred days?" Every single student thought of something right away. So, we're gonna start over here. What's your favorite thing that you've learned in a 100 days? >> Learning new things. >> Nice. person about um >> the legend >> cultures, right? >> Nice job, >> right? a lot of math, right? >> And what's your favorite thing? >> All right. And a round of
007applause. >> That's awesome. Every day of the school year, the kids count what day of the school year it is. And they might do it with popsicle sticks or coins, 10 pennies. And when they get to day 10, they swap it for the dime and keep it in the bag on the bulletin board so that they're really learning place value as part of learning the 100. >> That's a good idea. >> Yes, calendar math allows a lot of really cool stuff. >> Awesome. Thank you very much, guys. Um, we'd love to have you here. Appreciate you coming. Um, you are welcome to leave if you'd like. Um, we'd love for you to stick around, especially for public comment. Um, regarding the budget coming up, so feel free to do that as well. Um, all right.
008Uh, moving on to item four. This is our public comment time. Uh, the Winchester Board of Education welcomes you to its business meeting. Um, there are two opportunities set aside to hear comments from the public. We welcome and encourage public participation as a valued part of communicating input with the Winchester Board of Education. We appreciate your adherence to the following. Please complete the requested information on the sign-in sheet if you wish to speak, which includes your name, address, and email. Please state your name and address when called upon to speak. You will be allotted three minutes to share your comments. Please be advised that is not the practice of the board of education to engage in dialogue regarding commentary. The superintendent of schools will be directed by the chairperson to prepare an appropriate response in
009a timely manner. We appreciate your time and thoughtful commentary. At this time, does anyone wish to speak? Does anyone wish to speak? >> Seeing none, we will move on. All right. Okay. Moving on to item five, approval of the minutes. Uh item A, minutes of the regular board meeting. Does anyone have any corrections or would anyone like to approve the meeting minutes? >> Just a little typo on page six. You just have a typo. It looks like under item uh seven information items a eee enrollment reports. Okay. >> Eliminate that first E. >> strike the first E. Item enrollment reports. Anything else? Okay. Would we like to >> make a motion to approve the minutes from January 13th? >> Would that change? >> Can we have a second? >> Second. All in favor? >> We
010weren't there. >> Okay. U so all in favor seven two extensions. >> Okay. >> Perfect. >> Are there all nine of us here? >> Jane and I >> at the regular meeting >> at that meeting. >> There were only seven. >> Yep. >> So you have two abstensions. >> Yep. >> All right. Uh approval of the minutes of committee meetings. Uh first committee meeting on January 27th is the teaching and learning committee. Anyone make a >> make a motion to approve? >> Shane second. >> I'll second. >> All in favor who were a part of that. One, two, three, four, five. Five zero. One, two, there's only four. Oh, yeah. Five. All right. Perfect. Uh uh budget and finance committee. Anyone like to make a motion to approve? >> I'll make a motion to >>
011All right. Chair will make a motion. >> Jonathan second. All in favor 8001. All right. uh policy and bylaw committee. Anyone like to make a motion to approve? >> I'll make I'll make a motion to approve. >> Okay, >> Jonathan second. All in favor. >> Three 06. >> All right. On to the minutes of the special meeting board retreat on January 31st. Jonathan makes a motion to approve. Second. >> Second, >> Shane. All in favor. >> Sorry. I had I had >> All right. On to minutes of special meeting budget presentation on February 3rd, 2026. >> Make the motion to accept >> Shane. Second, >> Joseph. All in favor? 90. And then finally, minutes of the special meeting budget workshop on February 5th. >> Jonathan second. >> A second. >> Nora. All in favor? Zero.
012All right. Perfect. Moving on to item six, communication. uh chairperson's report. Um I just want to to the parents that stayed around um and to all the parents watching or that will be watching um this is an important part. We're right in the middle of of formulating our budget. Um so I please ask uh we have another workshop uh on Thursday. Um hopefully we will be getting and approving a budget soon to present to our board of selectmen. Um so please come out voice. We will have public comment. You can bring your public comment to our board members as well. If you if you can't make it to a meeting, please reach out to any of the board members here. Um so we can re they can relay the messages to to our board. Um
013it's very important that we understand what's in our budget for our kids. Um it's very important to get parent involvement in that so we know that we're presenting the right budget for our kids. So please, I beg, come out, support, give vocal, give it, let us know what you need, what you want. Um, so we can provide the best education for all of our kids. And that is all I have. All right, on to item B, student representative reports. All right. >> Welcome, Emilyn. >> Hi, Emilyn. >> Hi. Make sure you're big and loud so we can hear you. Okay. >> Good evening, board members. Hello. My name is Emilyn Wall. I am a third grader in Miss Maker's classroom. For school activities and events, we had fun celebrating the 100th day of school. Last
014Friday, I'm going to share some highlights of what students are learning in unified arts. In physical education, students are working on pro on the state testing. Then they will be doing push-up testing and finally the pacer test will be in March and April. During library innovation, students are launching coding projects. Students are learning that they can modify a digital project to make it respond the way they want. They are testing their code and fixing mistakes when it does not work. They will be able to explain how their code causes something to happen. The the essential questions they will be asking are how do small changes in code in code affect what happens on the screen? How does testing and debugging help improve a program? Here is what Pearson students are learning in art. Third graders
015are working on echo drawings, getting their eyes and hands to work together in order to notice small details and strengthen their observation skills. Fourth graders are creating an OB art loom, learning their war. What is it? warp >> from their we >> and carefully crafting a showstoppping pattern. >> Fifth graders are working on their point perspective unit where they are learning how to create the illusion of space on paper. A tricky concept for any age. >> Sixth graders are thinking outside the box with their >> Not not >> collage designs. A Japanese designed concept that shows harmony and >> contrast. contrasting colors. School improvements are needs. Third graders would like more choices for hot lunch. One great thing about Pearson. Third graders were asked what they like about Pearson school. Our teachers are nice to
016us. The kids are good. I like to study history. We are learning about Roman history and the Justinian code. The Justinian code is like there would be a law that says it's illegal to do this and and then there would be another law that says it's perfectly fine to do this. Then people would get confused. They they would be put into jail for not doing anything not doing anything at all on the law because say it's perfectly fine to do this and then it's illegal to do this. >> And the zen code helped because it >> because it organized the laws and and then they better understood it. >> Thank you for inviting me to share Pearson school happenings with you this evening. >> All right. Thank you. Before you go, who is your teacher?
017>> Miss Maker. >> That was wonderful. Fantastic. >> Right. This is your >> uh the art teacher made that one. >> Oh, good job. >> Thank you. A little harder than you think, huh? >> Oh, yeah. >> Hello. Hello. My name is Marley Joe Mlullen. >> I'm in second grade. >> This mom, >> our school is focused. Our school is focused on >> spreading love >> and kindness >> through our community >> community. Students are learning >> Students are learning >> simple ways >> to show kindness >> care >> respect >> and respect >> for others >> together we sharing >> we're sharing >> acts of kindness >> highlighting >> and highlighting >> displays >> and displays >> around the building To celebrate >> to celebrate >> the many ways >> show we care. >>
018We show we care. >> Each grade level is busy learning. >> Each grade level are are busy busy learning. >> Preschoolers are >> having fun >> learning >> with teddy bears. >> They're counting. They're counting >> to 10 >> and learning about the animals. >> Kindergarteners >> are learning >> Native Americans >> about Native Americans >> and how to measure >> and compare math >> and comparing math. >> First graders >> are stories >> are reading stories >> zoo >> from the green fern zoo. math. >> And in math, >> they're learning about shapes. >> Second grade. >> We're reading stories from the job. >> And learning to measure >> and learning how to measure. >> We went on a fun field trip >> to the Institute of American >> Indian Studies. Indian studies >>
019where we applied >> and explored >> our learning >> about Indian culture about native Indian one >> thing I can't >> I'd like to see happen >> at handst is >> continuing continuing >> to be respectful >> safe >> and engaged. >> Thank you for having me >> tonight. >> Awesome job. >> Good job. >> Great job, Marley. >> All right. I'm sorry, Julie, but it's all downhill from here. >> I know. >> Moving on. >> Isn't that true? >> Moving on to item C, superintendence report. >> Okay. Um, I'm just going to highlight a few things from my report. Um, I want to show you just a little bit of what literacy night looked like. Last week, Monday night, we had a ball. It was a district-wide event at Pearson School. Um, Miss San
020Helair and uh, Miss Ball really ran with the ball on uh, this event which was grantf funded. We um, Shannon had written a grant to Dollar General who granted us about $4,500 I think u, which allowed us to buy books. Um what you see in the top right corner there is as the kids were leaving they were allowed to um select one or two books to take home with them which we felt really good about. The idea that kids have books in their hands and books in their home is not only exciting to think about but there's so much research that says that kids who see themselves as readers, kids who see themselves as people who own books make greater gains throughout their lives. Um the reason they were able to make choices between those
021books is that all of the activities throughout the event highlighted those books. So there were activities where they could sit down and interact with the books um both in the gym and in the cafeteria. There were authors. There were students running activities. There were games. Um there was even um an infant toddler corner set up with sort of plushy things to keep babies safe. and they were looking at books and listening to stories. Um, everything about this event was spectacular. The theme of it was um a book tasting, thus the chef uniforms that you see. >> Um, and there were um little creatures all around um cut out on the walls and the ceiling sort of leading the way through the building. The picnics at you know the ants that would be at the picnic.
022Everything about it was spectacular. It was a bitter cold night in the dark in January and we probably had a hundred people there. >> Great. >> Um my thought is nobody knew what it was other than the flyer that we sent out because it was a first for us. My hunch is when we repeat this next year. Even if it is -10 degrees, you will see double the amount of participants because it was just amazing. The kids all had little passports and every book that they tasted they got a stamp in there. It was just amazing on every level. So, great job to Renee, to Shannon, to all of the administrators, and so many of our staff came to help um run the event. It was just a great night for our district. >> Has
023that grant been opened up again? >> I think it's a fall grant. I think we got it this year to use this year. So, needless to say, we and I think we may have gotten it in the past. >> No, that was the first year. That was the first >> I think >> maybe we looked at it last year and it was too late. Um so we will clearly be looking to do that again. >> Perfect. >> Um I'll also highlight for you um as I think you all know we are back in the life of Oh, there's some pictures from 100 day um which I didn't highlight necessarily just because you've already seen a little but isn't that awesome? You know, the thing that strikes me as I look, these kids are happy. >>
024They are learning, they are engaged, and they are having a ball. And that is the goal. We all know that when we're doing something we're enjoying, we're going to engage with it differently. And so, we really are focused around rich learning experiences that are really intellectually engaging, that make kids smile and laugh and think. Um so the next thing I want to highlight in my report to you is that we are back in the business of drones. We have um a group of children who are participating after school twice a week um as part of a club that is a competition team. I think we have three teams that we can take to competitions. We went this past weekend and by we I mean Miss St. Hair. >> Mhm. >> Um took the kids, well,
025the parents physically took them, but she led our crew down to Brford of all things while it was um doing yet another weather thing on Saturday morning. Um we were able to go since it's parent transport, but um the kids went down there. This was their first >> their first competition. And as you know with any athletic or dance or you know any activity that kids do, the first competition is a little daunting. Um they got to see really what it was all about. Uh we had one of our teams make it into a playoff round which is fabulous. It is um these are all I'll say green droners if you will. You know when they began this fall they didn't know how to do an emergency stop. Please don't ask me to explain. I
026have no idea either. I'm just repeating. Um but they really did not enter this activity with drone skills. Much like perhaps a high school golf team. Sometimes people show up who barely ever touched a club, but Right. But we can teach them. >> So, what grades were there at that competition? >> It's mostly high school. >> Mostly high school. Yeah. Sure. >> And our team is >> fifth and sixth, right? >> Yeah. That's impressive. >> And they don't In a large competition, they would have a middle school and a high school um division, but in the smaller competitions, there's just one division. So even at the easiest, if you will, we'd be competing against middle schoolers. Um, and in most of the competitions, we're probably just mixed in with everyone. >> Um, and we are
027hosting an event on March 14th. >> So you'll have the opportunity right here at Pearson School. So, um, I hope that many of you, it's a Saturday. I would hope it would be awesome if you could participate or at least come by and see it in action. I believe Sandra said she wanted to be a judge. >> Sandra has signed up to be a judge. >> Is she really? >> Oh, yes. Oh, there was no stopping that. Absolutely. Sandra has been excited about that from the minute that I started working here. It was the first thing she said to me, I think. >> Um, and is this is this through Champs or is this through the school? >> So, Champs is the school. The >> Yeah, the the stipened for Mr. Healey who's co- facilitating
028it with uh Renee is being paid through Champs. Okay, cool. >> So, yes and yes. >> Yes and yes. >> It's us and champs together. >> Perfect. >> Um, >> so again, huge thank yous to Renee and to Mr. Healey because it's really cool for our kids. And again, it's the kind of thing the kids get to go compete around the state and participate and see themselves on that playing field and just grows their sense of efficacy. you know, they can get out there and do things and that just makes them >> so much world readyer. >> Thanks. Thanks for getting this out on Facebook as well. >> Just to add, we also have had received a grant. So, all the drones, the drone equipment, the fees in order to compete because there's a fee
029for each team or all grant funded this year. >> Awesome. Nice. Do we anticipate is that a grant that we might be able to get again? >> I will certainly do my best. >> It's not a oneand done. >> It doesn't have to be. Um, but they do they do give preference to beginning teams which is why I was able to get it. But >> I'm making sure that I volunteer at lots of competitions and um I've already spoken to the Northeast Regional who sort of gives out the grants and said how can I help >> and that was the company that's behind this wanted to talk to you and our kids and >> she interviewed us so she I felt good about that but perhaps we can continue. >> Good. >> Thank you. >>
030Awesome. Thank you. >> Um I'll highlight just a couple things under operations. Obviously, if you have questions about anything on here, I'm happy to go on all night. You know, I will happily, but um some of these are self-explanatory. As far as the roof goes, the board of selectmen did vote um to put it out to referendum. So, it's sort of out of our hands at the moment. Paul is figuring out what the referendum would need to say, and they are targeting potentially a March referendum. 24th I believe. >> Well, March 17th is the meeting to accept to vote on the referendum and then March 4th. March 17th is the day you vote on it. >> 24th, I'm sorry. >> So 17th and 24th. >> Um so that's an update on that. the preschool. The
031night of the board of selectman meeting, the board of selectmen approved using um some of the leftover funds that had been set aside to research the roof project, to research the preschool project. Um our town manager, Paul Harrington, um reached out to uh Downs Construction, who is um very active in school construction in Connecticut. I'm meeting them at the school Friday morning. Um the service that they would provide the town um is under the budget that the board selectman allocated um and would provide us with conceptual drawings and a conceptual estimate so that we'd know what we were really saying if it goes forward. >> How does that work with Silver Petra Sally which was the former concept designer and construction company? Because if this is a preschool program that would be built on Hinsdale,
032Hinsdale was largely built by silver >> for the roof. >> I mean, so it's a new project. >> It's um it would obviously go out to bid, right? >> Yeah. This is just the spec. >> You can't get any further without this isn't like the big specs. This is conceptual. This is a cut above what we had at our meeting where we had like a pencil drawing. So who who decided Downs Construction versus say Silver Petraeli who had already built the building? >> So these are professional services which don't require a bid and they're also I think the fee for this is about $13,000. I could be way wrong on that. That is truly just a memory. >> I think it was well below what was expected, >> right? So it doesn't require a bit
033at this stage because this is really just getting enough to know what you're talking about. >> But you're asking, >> right? But why not Silva Petraelli giving us enough so that we're talking about >> why don't um because Paul has worked with them in other districts and they've just recently done a huge preschool project in >> I won't remember the name of the town right now but they've just done like a hundred million dollar project >> um with a similar concept for preschool. So he felt they had the knowledge, the background and could step right in. And in fact they've made themselves available. They got us um uh um quote within days and they were there coming out this Friday because they understand our timeline said it's totally reasonable. >> Um hopping down to uh
034principal search update. I just wanted to let you all know we have posted the position on CT reap which is the educator dashboard. um we're going to get it up on our LinkedIn and we are promoting it as widely as we can to um rustle up a good candidate pool. Um at the same time, I've launched a survey to staff uh different version of a similar survey to families and a different version of a similar survey for students to sort of create that profile. So, we'll hear from families what's most important to them in the next principal, from the staff. Um, I also offered next Wednesday we have a PTO meeting and immediately following that I'm and I'll send a reminder to families, but I'll hold court if you will for anybody that would come
035in and want to discuss it rather than just do a Google survey. Um, so we're giving it a minute to gather the applications and then we'll go into a process of culling the applications down to a reasonable list, doing a very large committee process that will include um I'll be talking to you tomorrow when we meet about I'd love to invite one board member to participate on the committee and then Kurt will participate with me in the finalist interview at the end so that there's some board participation. administrative positions ultimately you all have the approval for. So once we have our finalist candidate, it'll be on a board agenda. Um if depending when we get there if you want to go into executive session um with that candidate have to double check if you could
036do that person. probably could interview them in an executive session or we might just present. I'll leave it to Kurt probably when we get to the end to decide if if we're just so thrilled and we know we've got our one person, maybe we just have them come to the meeting like we've done with other positions and let them say hello at that point. But ultimately, I'll bring their materials, their resume, and you'll all vote on if they're the right person. Um, but in before it gets to that, we'll do a large committee. I was starting to say with the teachers union, teachers, parents, a board member. I'd like to include a student. Um, and then other staff from the building, probably Pearson's main office, um, executive assistant, uh, maybe one of PAR educator really
037try and get people from every aspect of our district. And there'll be a performance task when our candidates come that day. And then we'll bring them back for a second time. Narrow that down from a larger pool to maybe three, four, depending on what the pool looks like to come back and do something where they interact with students and staff. So we can sort of see if they walk the walk because there's I feel a huge difference between what a candidate shows you in an interview. Um, oftentimes someone who doesn't interview fabulously, but you just have a hunch they come back and they just knock it out of the park once you put them in front of kids and teachers. And so um thus the multi-step process so that you don't uh fall in love
038with someone who is a great interviewer but actually can't do the job and vice versa. >> I mean is it is uh current teacher staff part of that pool? >> Can they be part of that pool? >> Sure. They have to hold administrator certification. Um, so they'll come back for that second visit and then, um, if the committee is able to narrow it down to two top candidates, um, Kurt and I would do those last two interviews and figure it out working with the recommendations of the committee and then bring you the person that we want to hire. Um, it's a very confidential process. Sometimes people who apply either already work here in district and we want to protect their privacy or they might be administrators in another district and that other district sadly might
039feel offended if they knew they were interviewing. So, we try really hard to convey to all the people involved that it is confidential and that's why by the time we're bringing someone to you, it's one person and we're pretty certain because we don't want to bring two people to you and have one person have to be, you know, ousted in public and then >> Yeah. So, that's the update on that. Um, >> I'm sorry. What was the due date? You think you'd bring somebody to us? >> Um, if all goes well, I'm hoping to bring someone to the board at the April board meeting. >> April. figure the applications will be coming in throughout um February. By late February, beginning of March, we could be doing um that first stage, middle to late March, we're
040doing the second round um and finishing up third round as we're moving into April. I'm thinking that our board meeting is probably right before the April break, but I can't swear that. So, whenever it is, we would be that's what we're aiming for. >> Um April 7th. >> April 7th. Okay. Maybe. If not, there's always May. Um should make it. Um community cafe. Uh I think you know I have a superintendent advisory committee that I've been meeting with our advisory council. Um that is just fabulous. um real powerhouse group of parents who've stepped up and are coming and really just being a think tank for me about the district and where we're headed and the things we need to focus on. Um, and one of the things we talked about is that the world has
041changed an awful lot since the last time um, the mission and the vision statements were looked at and that it would be a really good time to launch a conversation around who we are and why we exist. Um, so it's my intention to I think I put it on here February 28th on a Saturday afternoon at the end of February. um sort of kick that off and host and I'll be getting invitations out to um faculty, staff, board members to get a lot of people in a room and just ask good questions about why the Winchester public schools exist and what we hope to be in the community and for kids. Um and I think that will really help guide everything we do throughout the budget season as well as in the coming years. It's
042just time to give it a little refresh and see where we are. >> That's a Saturday. >> Yeah, I thought that was our best hope of getting good attendance from the community. Um, we thought Saturday afternoon the basketball games are over. Maybe one parent can take some kids home and other parents could stay. Um, evenings we know are hard. Nobody wants to come out in the evening. So the the advisory group thought of Saturday afternoon, but if someone thinks there's a better shot, I'm wide open. >> Um >> for me to say, >> let's see. Um I wanted to briefly just tell you I'm so excited that um we have um a lot of different groups within the staff. We have PAR educators and we have um the custodians and we have the executive assistants
043and the teachers. And at this point we have updated the performance review plans I think for every single group. Um we had some groups that at some point in the past years there had been a little uh fruitful with the union and they had been sort of told cease and desist you can't do evaluations. And so I worked closely with um that union to push past that and figure out what the issue was and create um performance reviews where they didn't even exist um previously and worked with the PAR educator group to um redo their the model they had was sort of like a point system like checking off boxes and totaling it up. and um the administrators as a group work to um figure out what the essential components of each role was and
044move to something more narrative and um growthbased. So people are doing a self-evaluation or a self-re midyear where they look at the different areas of the job and say, "Yeah, I'm doing a good job with this. Yeah, I could work on that." And the administrators follow suit um just with narratives. Um, performance reviews are not, you know, there's probably some industries where it all adds up to a point scale and you get fired if you're not hitting it. That's not who we are. We're a place of professional growth and development. And so, at this point, we're able to evaluate or provide feedback to all the people who work for us in a meaningful way. And I think that's a great shift for us and we're very excited. Um, we're piloting everything um for our midyear
045cycle right now. and then we'll regroup again in the spring and tinker if anything if we didn't quite hit the right categories. But it's been really good teamwork from all of um the people involved, all the unions and the administrators. Um Northwest Community College each year hosts a legislative breakfast. Um they get all the area legislators in a room I think just to promote the importance of um the community college system here in Connecticut. They do a really nice job. They always have students speak about their experience. Um, it was an awesome experience and it always is. Um, and I just wanted to commend all of you for the board of ed retreat. I thought your um, participation was phenomenal. I thought it was really valuable and I enjoyed listening and watching and really appreciated
046your um, presence. not just your physical presence but your intellectual presence and engaging with it. So I just wanted to give you kudos for that. >> Um the SSO hiring. >> Oh yes. So actually um we have an SSO for Pearson school. Um, I didn't highlight it because when I did this this afternoon to prep, I wasn't 100% sure, but we have um an accepted offer to the SSO for Pearson School and tomorrow we will start doing onboarding and all the things. We anticipate a February 18th start date and um I will invite him to the next regular board meeting to be introduced. >> Um I think we found a really good guy. So this would be March >> probably. I can't remember but probably >> okay. >> Great. >> Anything else? Any questions on
047that wasn't highlighted? >> Julie, just so I understand the review plans, these are the ones that are filed with the state of Connecticut for teachers and >> so or is that different? >> Teachers, you have to provide your PD plan. >> Yep. >> To the state. nothing else. Well, so we did continue to work on and improve our teacher >> growth and development plan. >> Okay. >> But this in particular, in addition to continuing to work on our teacher plan, we've taken on par educators, BTS, speech and language, uh custodians, secretaries. >> Okay. >> All the people. >> Good. Okay. Thank you. >> Anything else? >> Okay. Moving on to item B, committee reports. Uh finance committee, we are ongo ongoing in the budget process and um we are hoping within the weeks to within
048the week possibly to uh get to a budget that we can vote on and approve uh so we can pass along to uh the board of select to their job um and move this forward to get it to referendum. So, uh got a lot of work to do between now and then, but hopefully within the next few days, next week, um we have something to bring forward. Uh teaching and learning committee. >> Yes. Uh we met and Dr. Luby had us play a game with uh acronyms that are commonly used in education. So, it was really fun to learn that way. Um and then um Miss St. Heler also gave us a presentation about uh different testing uh ways that we use the data and kind of how things look for the students. So, that
049was really helpful as well. Thank you for that. uh policy committee. >> We have various policy updates on our agenda brought to the full board along with uh the meal charging and purchasing policies being brought to the full board for. It was a pleasure to meet with Dr. Luby to uh go over these policies and I look forward to working on. >> So you're the reason we're going to be here late tonight. Cool. Jonathan and I are so determined. We are finishing the switch over. >> Awesome. >> We are. It's a board goal and we're going to make it happen. >> Uh the Gilbert School Committee, we have not met. We do not have anything to report as of yet. I know the budget is >> actually uh Michael Susy and I met this morning
050and talked a little bit. I can update you tomorrow and the next time we do committees, we can >> perfect. Go a little further. >> Awesome. All right. On to item E. Leaison report. Gilbert school court. >> Policy 7551 naming of facilities was approved while an abundance of others uh went to second read last meeting. Head of school Mike Susi presented his budget to the Gilbert Corps on the 6th of this month and a following meeting will be held tomorrow evening. And Tony Sullivan was also celebrated for his 40th anniversary of his continued service to the Gilbert school. He was there when I was there. >> Not that I'm that old. Don't laugh that that was even. Um, all right. On to item seven, information items. Uh, enrollment report. >> Super. Okay. Enrollment data is
051um here for you. I'll just point out that not a lot of movement since last month. Pinsdale is up one, Pearson's down one. Um, so nothing particularly exceptional to note there. May I go on to attendance? >> Yes. >> Okay. On the attendance, I will point out to you that average daily student attendance, which again, if you look at um the January number, 93.1% that means that um on average in the month of January, 93% of our students were in school every day. Um I'm not saying that well, but if you take any day and the month, the average is 93% would have been 93% of the students would have been there that day. Um, in my mind, a great target to shoot for is 95% um, overall. So, we're working on that. Um, you're
052always going to expect your winter months to be a little bit lower. So, I was pleased to see that in January the average daily student attendance was a little better than it was at the same time last year. Just a little bit, but nonetheless better under chronic absenteeism. Um I think the state would like us to be under 10. I would like us to be under 5%. And that again is the number of students who were absent um 10% or more during the window of time. So in any one month, two absences will make you chronically absent. So, this is one of those funny statistics that smooths out by the end of the year because out of 181 days, you have to be absent um 19 days, I guess, to hit chronically absent um versus
053the two in any one month. So, you know, it just it does smooth itself out. um we're not particularly far off of where we were at this time last year, but I would point out that Pearson has shown um had a really good month in January. So, keep up the good work, Barb. And um know that this is a front and center topic for both schools and they're working really hard to improve those numbers. >> Okay. Personnel report. Um, the only thing I want to highlight to you here is again the safety officer will come off the list because as of about 4 pm today, we had that tied up. And under new hires, I'll just point out to you that we um are always looking to bring on substitutes. If anyone wants to be
054a substitute teacher, secretary, nurse, para educator, we um welcome you to uh get on board to substitute in any areas for which you're interested and qualified and you can be more than one and then go into our attendance system and pick and choose um jobs across groups. So, we are always eager to bring on board more substitutes. our new hire uh was in there in Pearson yesterday and part of her job was to be cafeteria aid and then she had to sub for one of the sixth grade teachers and she told the other sixth grade teachers you guys deserve more money than you get. So, um, if anyone wants to know what goes on in our schools, please feel free make an appointment, come see what goes on every day and and see if what
055our teachers and everyone our staff is earning, if they're actually earning what they deserve to earn or they deserve more. So, >> it is hard work for sure. We actually >> make an appointment. Yes, I will happily take anyone for a walk if they want to sort of be in the schools while the magic is happening. >> That goes for us too. >> Absolutely. And I did I should mention I did write to the board of selectmen and invite them to come and walk the schools with me and also walk through the budget line by line. >> Great. >> Um, so far two board of selectman members have responded to make an appointment. So, All right, on to monthly budget summary. >> Yes. Um the first page which of course captures the highest level look
056of all the things. I'll just draw your attention to um the projected year-end balance as it sits today. Looks like we will escape with $12,000 to spare. Um Nancy, you're the math guy. $12,000 as a percent of 20. Well, on that line, 24 million. Oh, that should be easy math. Is that one half of 1% or >> um that is um incredible budgeting because to come that close is takes some doing. >> Yes. Not all in exactly the ways that we planned it. I'm going to highlight that on page 23 of your packet. Um, I think one of the questions last budget meeting was about, well, don't we have some vacant positions and how does that work itself out? So, I'll just draw your attention. If you look, the personnel expenses show that we would
057have $565,000 left. But then when you get down to the bottom of the page, you'll see that the non-personnel expenses are over by 553,000, leaving that 12,000 balance. Again, these are estimates at this point with projections because obviously we're only halfway through our year, but I wanted to show you where that overage is going. So for example um for people when we have not filled the position whether it's sub nurses whether it's a speech and language pathologist who we've brought on through an agency which then becomes a professional technical service in the 300 line. So, as an example, we have a speech teacher coming out of there instead of personnel. Um, for the remainder of this year, we are contracting um for someone to do all of our student information system work, power school, state
058reporting. So, that's moving from a salary line to a um professional services line. But the biggest um place where we would have come up short is the pupil transportation which is not a reflection of our local daily buses. We know going into the year what that will cost but that is the um unplanned expenses for special education out of district tuition and transportation. >> Mckin Vento >> um in this budget that probably is in that number as well. the pupil transportation line would have the Mckin Vento which um I think we're at was it about 80,000 this year so far for Mckin Vento? >> 60 so far. >> I think we budgeted like 10. >> Yeah. >> 60 over. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah. And next year you've changed that for this current. >> Yeah.
059Um, and then I'll just bring you over to the grant page and I'll just highlight for you because I know we're looking for um potentially ways to defay next year's budget. Um, and I appreciate the idea of considering if we would um use the 440 line to that end. And >> so that's 682, >> right? And the worry with that that we have to just be mindful of is if you do that you're creating a hole in the following year. >> But you know as a pie optimist as Paul Harrington said to me one time um I only worry about it one year at a time. Um it's not great practice to create budget holes like that, but we do know that we are faced with incredible um health insurance increases that they tell me
060are worse than everyone else's because we were paying less than everyone else. So if we've had our local market correction, hopefully our increase next year in health insurance would look more typical like everyone else's. Um and hopefully ECS goes up and hopefully the grand list goes up and so it's a gamble if we do that and it may be you know the board will have to decide an appetite for that but that's what I wanted to point out is if you look there are some other lines where we're projecting some money left so I wanted to show you if you look at the 634 line for example that is IDA which is special education funding we're looking at 108 carryover funds for next last year. I want you to go down one line and back
061up to the column fourth one in where it says fiscal year 2026 budget. And I've explained to you um at a previous meeting, but I just want to show you again that the way we manage our federal grants um as a safety net is that we spend half of the last year's and half of the current years. So we're spending the full amount in each year, but we are living across two budget years so that if the sky ever fell, we would have half of last year's and all of this year's and then the crisis would be postponed till the following year. >> Um so when you see 108 left in IDA, that's because that's exactly almost to the penny the amount that we brought into this year. So again, that's that swing. Similarly with
062the title one 44,000 left over we came into this year with 34 the title two 9,000 going to 12,000. So you see the pattern there that that isn't like leftover of what we plan to spend. That's what we intended to leave over for the following year. Um the 440 is the only place where it's just there. We on 639 line 6 alliance the wind is still such that we should get the 200,000 from the state. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> At least for this year, >> you know, for the current for the fiscal year >> 2727. Okay. >> There are threats. The state is questioning alliance. They're considering disbanding it or throwing out the graduates. Um we are graduated if you will because our um achievement data is relatively solid compared to alliance standards, >>
063right? But so far we are still grandfathered in. >> Okay. >> So just just understanding if we're kicked out of the alliance we join a larger pool state for funding for grant >> we lose that money. >> Neither one of those things. Wow. >> Well, we lo So my belief, my understanding is that 200 is actually carved out of our ECS allocation. >> So if we weren't an alliance district any longer, I believe that that 200,966 would actually go would revert back to the town as part of the ECS allocation. >> Okay. >> So it would go into Frank's conversation. It would become money we can't put towards our budget except in the narrative. Gota. >> Okay. Um, >> quarterly food service financial summary. >> So, you may remember we used to do this monthly
064and it was just a whole lot of crazy because it doesn't not a lot happens in a month and we have to wait for advance to get the receipts to us. I mean, it's literally counting ice cream money. So, we went with a format where we would bring this to you quarterly for a more meaningful look. Um, so what I want to point out to you on this first page is just that we budgeted this year a 6,000 um subsidy, you can't not cover your food service program. So, whatever it doesn't bring in against its cost, we have to make up the difference. In the coming year, I believe we've budgeted 20,000 10 for 10,000 in the supply area, which is like the food and forks. Um, and 10,000 in the salary piece, the wages
065line. So, currently we're projecting that we will have to contribute 20,000 to make the program break even. Um, and Nancy and I are going to continue to do a little bit of analysis. If you turn the page, I'll show you meal volumes. So bear with me. The left side of the page, the left four bars reflect the first quarter of 2026, which is actually July, August, September. So that involves, if you'll remember, we um give out meals every Wednesday in the summer. So there was not a lot of difference between um the first two columns, the blue and the orange are breakfast 25, breakfast 26, and then it's lunch is 25, lunch is 26. >> Um I'm not sure how one could go up and the other goes down when we're handing it all out
066together, but I'll work with Nancy to understand that better. Um the right hand set of bars is the second quarter which is October, November, December. And you'll see that our daily lunches are almost identical to last year. Our breakfasts um are less. I would expect that our um supplies line should also then be trending less than last year because we're selling less. Um speculations around that have to do with two things and we're looking into both. One is we did make a change in the way we distribute breakfast. Um >> we went back to what we used to do before CO but at CO we started eating in the classrooms. Um that was wildly unpopular and unclean. >> Um >> unpopular for who? >> I think maybe everybody. Um, it was causing the start of
067the school day to be murky. Kids would be coming in and sort of eating breakfast throughout the morning, interfering with like, hey, we're here to learn. Um, it was creating dirty classrooms. The custodians with only two people in a building the size of Pearson school are not vacuuming closely every classroom every night. Um, so it was considered a great thing to move it to the cafeterias. We know that that probably to some degree decreased this number, although we are working heartily to grab the kids as they come in the door and shoe them to the cafeterias where they're eating. Um, the other piece is I'm getting a lot of feedback that the quality of the breakfast is a lot of um, prepackaged sugary like donuty danishy kind of stuff. And so another conversation we're having
068is what could we do to improve the quality of the breakfast so that perhaps the numbers would go up because the kids would value it more. >> Okay. Shipment policy first read meal charging policy. this policy and we talked about these at the policy meeting, but I know you weren't all there. Basically, um, doesn't really apply to us a whole heck of a lot because we don't have a lot. You know, we provide free breakfast and lunch for all students. Meal charging policy really kind of came about because of like um shaming that was happening in schools where they would say, "Sorry, you can only have a cheese sandwich or sorry, you can't have anything. you you've overdrawn your lunch account. Um and so it became necessary to create policies to prevent schools from, you
069know, withholding things from kids if their lunch balance was negative. If kids have more than one meal, they have to pay for it. Um but largely this is not a thing for us, but it is a required policy. >> It's a thing for us when it comes to ice cream, isn't it? >> So that's a little different. Yep. They do have to pay for the ice cream. And boy does that cause a lot of nashing. >> Um the purchasing policy again is a required policy. We have an existing policy. This is fairly similar, but again we're going from the reason we're looking at this is from the transition between the cave policy and the shipment policy. Our existing cave policies had not been updated um all that recently. So they probably were not adhering to
070all of the most recent >> rules and laws. Um so those two are I'll say new in the sense that it is our first time with the shipment policies which is why it's on tonight as a first read to give you an opportunity to sort of absorb it and then at the next meeting it'll be under an action item um to give you the opportunity to um adopt it at that point if you choose to. Okay, on to speaking of action items on to item eight action items existing policy updates. First one is nondiscrimination community. >> I'm going to suggest with your permission all of the items in this list are on for a single read. These are all policies that you recently adopted. So you have recently scoured them and done all the things
071with them and then yet even after we recently adopted them laws change. So they have all been updated either to match the law or in some cases they have very specific information in them like where to make a complaint about title nine and so they had to update the address for that. Um nothing in here changes um any decisions that you had made as a board at any point. You know, there's a couple policies like transportation. You have some discretion where we decide what our walker zone is. None of these are those. These are all policies. Um, enormous thanks to Tiffany who's took all of these alongside our existing shipment policies that you perused and approved to see if we had altered them in any way previously so that we didn't lose that and there
072was nothing like that. So these are what you already approved with only required updates. the budget the line item transfer budget question the series 3000 on business why is it asked that the um bargaining unit look at that annual I mean what they're doing is requiring a >> compile an annual report but any idea why an executive bargaining or exclusive bargaining group would look at that >> is it for negotiation purposes >> just out of curiosity >> they must have lobbied legislator and asked to be written into it I they might could want it for Exactly that for bargaining >> salary benefit negotiation. Okay. >> Okay. We'd like to make a motion to approve items 1 through 12 in the existing policy updates. Motion made by Jonathan. Make it a second. >> Second. >> All
073in favor? Unanimous. I love you guys. Thank you. >> All right, on to item B, PAR educator contracts. >> Perfect. Um, you have a summary here. I'll just highlight a couple things. This was the um scheduled three-year um negotiation of the PAR educator contract. Um, big thanks to Nancy who every time we go into a contract negotiation has to do a lot of number crunching and figure out how many people on each step and what every possible outcome would cost. Um, we had a very positive experience with the PAR educator union, our local PAR educator uh, union representatives Lois Kerry and um, >> Sandy Garcia. Sandy Garcia, thank you. I could picture her face. Couldn't get it quick enough. Sandy Garcia were lovely to um interact with and Emily Demo or something close to that.
074Um from their larger group also was great. Um we were able to put some things in that were important to us. Um the one thing I'll highlight to you is in the past there's been a lot of changes over the years to the PAR contract going from like 13 steps down to four steps and there was no um rhyme or reason to I think the idea was you would move a step every year except that ours was always frozen. That is very um defeating to employees to be stuck on step. And so what we negotiated was that each step is five years. So we don't like you kind of are frozen, but we don't have to freeze it. People can look at that and say after I've been here five years, I will move to
075step two and after another five years, I will move to step three. Um there were a lot of things we liked about that, but we felt it would um build longevity with PAR educators. You know, if you're in year four, you're not leaving. you're just about to take a step and get a raise. Um, what I do want to say to you is that the starting rate for a PAR educator in our current contract is $18.91 an hour. If you've not looked at it lately, minimum wage is $16.94 an hour. So, we are just shy of $2 above minimum wage for a job that while it doesn't have enormous requirements in terms of like you don't need a college degree um but it requires an enormous amount of patience and skill in working with some
076of our um most needy students. If you take 183 days that the paras work times their hours, their salary is $22,493. So I just I wanted to say that out loud lest anyone think that um our paras are you know getting a free ride with the 3% increase or something. The reality is >> do they get that every year or only on the fifth year? So you're saying a step is uh five years. So they get a total annual increase of 3.745 years. >> So each individual doesn't get that. The way NY's got this here is to show you like what the cost to the district is of this contract over three years will be 10 11.7%. >> So it's every it's annual that 3.7% is annual. >> No. So the 3% is annual. Everyone
077would have a 3% raise regardless. And if you hit a fiveyear um marker that you would also switch columns. So right now >> you go to 4.1 then >> no the 4 point those on the right are calculated by saying based on the people who work here today everybody's going to get a 3% increase and the number of people who happen to also move columns >> so they five years >> right so if let's say 11 people are hitting five years where I said 1891 is our starting number there's a different number that's like 50 cents more as step two Maybe 50 cents more as step three and 50 cents more as step four. >> Got it. >> So everybody would have a 3% increase >> again on an 1891 base. >> So >> a
078dollar something. >> Not even. >> Yeah, >> not even. >> Um it's 18 cents times three, so 54 cents. Like it's a 60cent raise. Um, and it's real money and people are happy to make it, I'm sure. But, you know, these are very hard jobs to fill and without people in these jobs, we can't run our school district. So, um, you know, I wish I was in a position to have negotiated against interest and provided more increase so that we could hire more easily. But obviously, I can't do that. But I thought 3% on these low numbers was very fair. Um, and we did get some things. Uh, we were able to increase the premium cost share for insurance. Our goal, Nancy and I, is to have all of the groups um, contributing 20%. So,
079we're every time we negotiate a contract, we our opening bid is we want 20% each year. We don't need to go beyond that, but that is like an industry standard, if you will, and we're trying to get there. Um, >> how many people does this affect? >> Uh, PAR educators, we probably have >> 35. >> Oh, yeah. I knew that we had 34 in the budget and yeah, still got 35 now. >> Okay. >> I knew that one. This obviously has been our budget has reflected this like >> it is allowed for in the budget but it's not reflected in the line because when we made the budget we hadn't finished negotiating. So there's a line in the budget called unawwarded reserve. Okay. >> And that's where we um put funds for contracts that are
080not yet settled. So that because if you put the amounts in the line like par educator wages then you wouldn't have very strong negotiating position. So um what's so you have the GWI right >> which amounts to 11.7 over three years and then you have step costs >> no it's 9% GWI over three years >> 3.7 plus 4.1 >> plus GWI right there >> this part% >> 3% a year >> okay so total increase with steps is 3.7 >> and 4.1 and 3.9 Right. So 11.7% >> over >> increase in our cost over three years. >> Three years. >> Okay. >> Which is not a high settlement. It's less than our teachers contract last year I think was 11.9 maybe or 12.9 something close to that. >> Other districts across the state that I was
081able to get from like 12%. So we actually Okay. >> And again, it's sort of against interest because I wish that we were paying more so that we could get people and they would feel compelled to stay and feel like it was worth their time. People who work for us do it um because they are mission driven. >> Obviously, no one's working here to be wealthy. Um, and so that is on as an action item. If you feel satisfied, you would make a motion to approve the PAR educator contract for the upcoming three-year period. Um, the PAR educator union has met and ratified the contract. They've accepted it on their end. So, they would just need a motion from you all that you also accept it. I make a motion to accept >> as presented.
082>> Second. All in favor. >> Unanimous. >> Awesome. >> Moving on to item nine, public comment. >> I got one. >> Oh, hold on. Let me read it. >> The Winchester Board of Education welcomes you to it business meeting. There are two opportunities to set aside to hear comments from the public. We welcome and encourage public participation as a valued part of communicating input with the Winchester Board of Education. We appreciate your adherence to the following. Complete the requested information on the signin sheet if you wish to speak. State your name and address when called upon to speak. You'll be allowed three minutes to share your comments. Please be advised that is not the practice of the board of education. to engage in dialogue regarding commentary. Superintendent of schools will be directed by the chairperson
083to prepare an appropriate response in a timely manner. We appreciate your time and thoughtful commentary. Would anyone wish to speak? >> I do. >> Awesome. Glad to give you everything for 82 Street. I'm here representing you guys as your liaison. Um I don't know if you guys talked about the roof or not before. Sorry, I was across the street. the town uh approved it. It's going to go to a referendum. I believe that's going to be in March. So, we have to get that passed. Um the other thing is that the board of selectmen um with the mayor signing a letter to the state of Connecticut to the uh to the governor and everyone to try to get some extra money with the ECS. There was a um press conference today with a bunch of
084the people, the president Connecticut Council of Municipalities, Mayor Malino spoke about. So, it's not just this district that's hurting, it's all the school districts. Um, they say, "Do you would you like to increase your budget by 40%. Then pack up and move to Massachusetts because they are getting 40% more than we are here in the state of Connecticut." >> Wow. So we need to keep reaching out to our legislators which I know some of the other board of sele are doing that. I will be doing it myself as well reaching out that it's time um that the state starts dishing out all the taxes that we're paying because I was here for your budget meeting and we can't keep pushing this off on homeowners um to be increasing this because we're going to be taxing
085our home owners right out of their homes. And that's exactly what they said today. Uh the the mayor of New Haven was there, the mayor of Harford was there. So, it's not just us, it's everybody in the whole state. The state of Connecticut is sitting on a $4 billion slush fun. I think it's time that we get some of our money back. So, I just wanted to share that with you guys that that's what we have to do and hopefully they'll do something. And it's not like let it come in increments. Like the mayor of New Haven said, we need some relief now. >> Now, not later, not. So, I just wanted to share that with you guys. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, that $200 credit I don't think. >> Yeah, they'll hit that on
086your public service, which by the way is a tax. >> Would anyone else care to speak? Not seeing anyone. Move on um to item 10, future agenda items and board member comments. I did want to add a future agenda item. I wanted to just pick up that conversation about the joint Facebook page. Again, I think it'd be really valuable to get all the information out to families. When I was campaigning, one of the things a lot of parents said is it's really difficult to get to the meetings um and then to watch a two-hour meeting is also difficult to for busy parents. I think a nice little summation that we share um would be really beneficial just to get information out to the community. >> Okay. Um yeah, and as I told Christine, the reason
087we left it off this agenda was we were going to have backto-back meetings and I figured be So leaving it for March was I thought the best option. So and that will give us plenty of time to still get it out to the public before the before we need to get the vote out. So okay, anything else? Any board member comments? >> Well, there you have a model for the Facebook page. I think um kudos to you Christine and um putting out something that's already been a summation of the the matter of facts. >> What I would do is I would take um Tiffany's minutes and just make a summation. I would actually use chat GPT because that way it keeps it very information only and there's no like opinion or anything slipping in. It's
088just purely information and then we're just getting the information out. >> Just make sure you proofread it if you're putting it in chat. >> Goodness. >> Yes. Yes. Well, cuz there's also some things that chat GBT leaves out >> or some Yeah. Like you always read through everything and I believe we talked about how there'd be multiple hands in these things before it goes anywhere. >> Yep. >> Perfect. Anyone else? Okay. Would anyone like to make a motion to adjurnn? >> Make a motion to adjurnn. >> Shane, >> Jonathan. All in favor? Unanimous. I think Frank. >> Yes. >> No. Frank wants to stay. >> You were out. >> Wait till I got to take my pills at 9:15. We got to send you. >> What did I What? When I