Board of Education - June 12, 2025 Special Meeting 7PM

001Hi, there are all the handouts that I promised that were not in okay Nancy shirts It's on. You sure? Oh, now it's on. There's quite a delay before it pops up. Okay, you guys ready? We are not right. Okay. Good evening everyone. will call to order the June 10th 7 p.m. regular well now special board of education meeting uh here at town hall in Hicks room. Please stand as we share the pledge of allegiance. I aliance 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 everyone. This uh we'll at this time roll call. Jonathan Moore, Janette Broer, Nora Mccurski, Julie Lubby, Renee Waldron, Kurt Warner, Shane Centrella, Tori Levventry, Allison Pierce, and Sandra Stubar

002are excused. Okay. Item two of the agenda is the approval of the agenda. Do we have any additions or reorderings of the agenda at this time? Okay, seeing none, we move to item three, student showcase. Tonight's student showcase, uh, Miss San Hilera is gonna kick us off. I think we have students who are coming to tell us about our recent steam night that we had. These are students who helped plan it. Um, I don't know if any of you were able to be there, but it was a phenomenal event. And probably most exciting about it was just how student led it was. So, I know the kids are going to tell you all about it, so I'll stop. So, thank you for having us this evening. I actually had 11 sixth graders who helped participate

003in designing, researching, executing our amazing steam night. It was attended well attended over 450 people and uh these students are going to tell you a little bit about what they did but I do want to brag on them. They worked with me two or three times every single day for about six weeks to put together the showcase. They actually picked out what the activities were going to be. They researched the science behind some of the work that we did and they put together the materials, the directions, and they hosted many of the activity stations. So, I'm going to give them a chance to tell you a little bit about what they did. Sarapim, would you start us off? Can you guys introduce yourselves? Hello everyone. My name is Sarapim Joseph and I was one of

004the helpers at this year's family steam night. There were about 450 people there and I helped run the lava lamp station which was one of the most popular stations. This was difficult because not everyone followed directions, but Overall, I had a very fun time helping the students and learn to be more patient with others. Thank you. Hi, my name is and I did a lot of public speaking on night. It helped me kind of get over the fear of speaking in public and also learning how to address the crowdfunding. Hi, my name is Amy Alcantara and I helped with building the drone fields and um doing the lava lamps and it was all in general just fun. There's a lot of people. It got a bit difficult sometimes. Additionally, I just want to add uh

005many of the students wish they could be here this evening, but due to the change and the softball and soccer games, I had many who had to give me their regrets. Um, and I'm also really proud because our drone team uh that went to nationals last year all participated in the steam night and they ran two drone showcases which truly the students led as Amy said they designed the drone field. They ran the all the skills and even when a couple of the drones broke that evening and they came running to me and they said, "What are we going to do?" And I just said, "Just fly the ones we have." They weren't really satisfied with that. They went off at the intermission and they fixed the two drones on their own and ran it.

006So, I'm incredibly proud of them. Oh. Come on up here. Thank you for coming. Mias also is a part of our steam night. Do you want to introduce yourself? Uh, sure. I'm I'm Swenson. I grade I forget what you talking. I feel like so we did a lot of stuff there, but I feel like the favorite one in general seemed to be the lava lamps going on in the cafeteria. You could like put like oil and water and selzer in a bottle and add like glitter and stuff and then like it looked really cool. And like since it was in the same room as the drone show, you could also sit there and watch the drone showing the thing. So that's added added bonus. Absolutely. And that's great. Thank you so much. Stay right there,

007Matias. All right, a round of applause. Yeah, very good. [Applause] Super. Um, to the four of you, thank you so much for the hard work that you did putting together Steam night and then also for coming here to tell us about it. I think it was probably one of our favorite events of the school year and we know that we couldn't do it without your hard work. It's really great to see you out active, to see your families here to support you. I think that's fantastic. and the community is seeing the the work uh in front of us in our eyes developing scientists and people interested in general science. I think that's fantastic. Keep it up. Keep it up. Do you want to remind um the community and the board what makes today a little

008bit special for the four of you and you're officially And you're officially middle schoolers. All right. Moving up. Moving on up. Thank you guys. Nice to have a second group here as well. Oh, super my Winchester Land Trust crew. Come on up. Miss St. Helier, maybe you can bring them closer to the mic. This is a microphone, so loud. Okay. No, it's okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna help. We do have a couple of missing people, but it's okay. Um, so our fourth and fifth graders were treated to a field experience going to the Winchester Land Trust hiking field. And we were so fortunate uh this year when the Winchester Land Trust folks contacted me and asked would we want to go and they uh developed a grant which they were able to get to help

009us get the money to be able to go there on with the buses. And in the beginning we all weren't so sure how is this going to go but I have to say it was a huge hit. We have some pictures I'm going to pass around while our students are talking. Okay, Brody's going to lead us off. Hi, my name is Brody Landry and I'm here to tell you what human activities have happened in the park. For example, the stone wall. The stone wall was built by people maybe to keep small predators away. Things to notice while in the field. birds nest are on the ground and it's important to make sure you're on the you're on the trails and stay safe and have fun with your family. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, Brody.

010Okay. Hello, my name is Logan Roy. I'm going to be talking to you about the importance of nature. So, as you can see in those photos that you're passing around, you can see a lot about the land and There is many trees and birds and and there's a ginormous meadow there and the bird and it really shows you a lot about nature and why we need to why it's very a very important part of our life. So that so that is why I'm talking about the importance of nature. I don't know. You did a great job nice job. Hello, my name is talking about future great. Thank you so much. That's great. So, as they've all that this was not only a great trip that they learned about the science and the nature, but also

011the history of Winstead. Uh, as many of you may be aware, in the 1955 flood, they did use the meadows as a landing field to bring food and water to the people of Winstead. So, they had a great time learning all about the history and a great experience outside. And the trails were not simple trails. So, I was really proud of how well they did with the hiking as well as the adults. Did you wear those shoes when you went? Oh, yes. I wore these shoes. That's why. All right. Very good. Thank you for coming. Yeah, it's great to be outside. [Applause] Great job. Yeah, it is. Okay. Thank you for the photos. It's really great to see the diversity of activities that students are getting involved in. I think that's a real well-rounded education

012our kids are starting to, you know, engage in. Um item four, public comment. Um the Winchester Board of Education welcomes public comment from the community. There's two opportunities set in our our agenda tonight. The moment is now and then later towards the end of our agenda. We welcome and encourage public participation as a valued part of communicating with uh with our community for the input for the for the board. We appreciate you adhering to the following. Complete the requested information on the signin sheet up here. We would ask for your name, your address, and your email. State your name and address when called on to speak. And you'll be allotted three minutes to share your comments for the duration. Please be advised, it's not the practice of the board to engage in dialogue regarding commentary.

013The superintendent of schools will be directed by the chairperson to prepare an appropriate response in a timely manner. We appreciate your thoughtful and commentary and your time. Does anyone wish to speak? Hi, I'm Jen Perga from the Winchester Land Trust. Um, I just want to tell you that the Winchester Lent Trust board was so pleased about this field trip. Um, we've already submitted our grant for next school year. So, um, I just want to thank Renee. Um, she did an amazing job organizing everything on the school end and Caroline Christensen who's the education coordinator for the land trust. Um, we had a lot of volunteers who accompanied each group of students who did a great job and the teachers really prepared the students. They were inquisitive and they had a lot of background knowledge when

014they got to the property. Um, I accompanied one of the groups and I was just so impressed. Their their joy was infectious. They had so much fun. Um, and I just want to thank the Northwest Community Bank Foundation because they paid uh for the buses. All the students got a snack at the end of the hike and then they also got um a map to bring home so that hopefully they can go back to the land trust property and show their parents where they went. So, thank you. And I'll just leave one for each of you. Don't forget to sign. Okay. Is there anyone else wishing to speak? If I can echo that comment, I want to say when the kids and teachers got back to school, they were equally or more so complimentary of

015your team saying just how many volunteers there were and how helpful everyone was and knowledgeable and what a great partnership it was. So, we're very grateful to you. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Anyone else wishing to speak? Okay, seeing none, item five, approval of the minutes. We received a copy of the completed minutes for May 13th, the regular board of education meeting. Is there a motion to accept? I'll make a motion to accept May 13th, 2025 minutes of the board of ed meeting. Thank you, Renee. You have a second. I'll second. Sorry. Thank you, Janette. All right. All in favor? That's five to zero. Lenise. All set. Item B, minutes of the special meeting, May 19th, 2025. I'll take a motion to accept that. Thank you, Jonathan. Have a second. I'll second. Renee.

016Thank you, Renee. All in favor? Five to zero. Okay. Item C, minutes of the ad hoc negotiating committee meeting May 19th. Have a motion to accept. So move. Thank you, Jonathan. I have a second. Second. Thank you, Kurt. All in favor? Five to zero. Item D, the minutes of the curriculum committee meeting May 27th. I have a motion to approve. I'll make a motion. Thank you, Jonathan. Second, Renee. Thank you, Renee. All in favor? I'm to Okay. And I'm abstaining. You're abstaining. Absent. 41. Lenise. We're a 401 on item D. Actually, on item C, can you just do 401 again because I wasn't at the ad hoc negotiating committee meeting. Okay. So, let's remotion then on the 19th. Sorry about that. Okay. All right. So, let's make sure we're okay with the D. Minutes of

017the curriculum committee May 27th. Jonathan first, Renee second. 401. Okay. All right. Back to the minutes of the ad hoc negotiation uh meeting on C. Do I have a motion to accept the minutes? We we had uh Jonathan Kurt. Okay. All in favor? That's four opposed. Zero. Abstain one. Okay. 401 on C. Okay. Item E, minutes of the special board meeting May 27th. Do I have a motion? I'll make a motion for the meeting. Special board meeting May 27th. Thank you, Vene. Thank you, Jonathan. All in favor? Four. Abstain is one. Okay. 41. Okay. On item E. All right. Thank you everyone. Um, okay. At this point, we move on to item six, communications. Chairperson comment. Um, I would just like to say wow. I'd really like to say wow to the community, to the

018persons that went out to vote for the budget. Uh, that was a nailbiter. And I I think perhaps people heard that, you know, the homework assignment was to go out and and be a voter. And I think that's fantastic. Um, more importantly, I'm also we're also seeing on behalf of the board more and more students come out and be a part of the public speaking piece, to be a part of the presentations, and that's the future. That's our generation that's coming up. And I think participation, knowing where this room is, knowing where this building is, knowing what an agenda is and how we go through things is half the battle. Um participation of course and running for office someday is the other half of the battle. We'd love to see that. Um I just want

019to express um on behalf of the board a heartfelt thanks to the faculty, to the administration, to the staff, and to the parents, and to the kids because we are here for the kids. And I know we're all exhausted at this time. This was the last day of school today uh for the kids and and I know we've had a whole myriad of different events during the course of the year and we're tired and we're tired. Um I I just want to express the need for everyone to take the break necessary so you get that time off to do those things that you need to do to get re-energized because you got to bring that battery back up. Um I was reminded today without the weekend per se, school starts in about 51 days. Okay.

020I you know I I I know I know so sorry buzz kill. Exactly. But I do want to say how important it is to turn it off and relax and get those batteries re-energized to do the thing you need to do so that way you're ready. I'm sorry. [Laughter] These are mine. It was awesome. But that's how important time is because I know people in the f in the community um are so focused during the course of the year there really isn't any much downtime. So that's something that everybody needs to find is their off switch. Um and that's very important for us as a community to be able to be re-energized to come back. Um, but that's that's really one of the key pieces that I'd like to say tonight for for the comments

021and it's wonderful to see us moving forward to be the best district in the state of Connecticut that we can be. Okay. Appreciate that. Item B, student reps. So, tonight we have Luna Johnson representing Hinsdale School. And I have to say to all of the students participating here tonight, um, extra super credit for coming out when technically school's already over, but we're really excited to hear about what's been going on at Hinsdale School lately. So Luna, take it away. Hello, my name is Luna Johnson. I'm going I'm in second grade. I'm going to to tell you about what what's been has been happening at Hensville School lately. Recently school events are grade two visited Pearson Pearson to learn about third grade. We took a tour, meet the third grade teachers and current third grade played

022on the playground and enjoyed a special snack. We had our art and music showcase in Midmay. There were 82 guests, Fiona in second grade and Mason in prek. We're the we're the winners of the scavenger hunt basket. Um second um on May 9 19th we held steam night in at Pearson school and on May 21st we had our prek prek kindergarten 2 music concert concert also a at Pearson school. I'm going to share something neat that students in in each grade have learn been learn learning in reading in science. Preschool students are learning learning about animals habits habitats and living things in our world. Students have planted seeds and track their growth. In math, they um are working on simple addition and subtraction using the themes like ladybugs, butterflies, and flowers. This month, kindergarteners put

023on a play for three little pigs to show all they've been learning. They they learn to read simple words and tricky words which help them read their scripts. They also learned to read different pun pun punctuations to know who was talking and who they how they were talking. They also used what used what they learned in knowledge to build the sets. Build the sets. If in first grade they are reading and answering questions in complete sentences and about stories during knowledge they are learning about for frontier explorers like Daniel Bony Bro and Louis and Carl and Clark in math. Math first grade graders are working on addition twodigit numbers and telling times to the nearest hours of half hour. In science they are explor exploring how plants and animals adapt to survive. In second grade,

024we we are learning about the human body and knowledge. In skills, we are reading and writing about the national anthem. In math, we are working on the on measurements. In triple digit edition, triple digit edition. In science, we have planted seeds and we're talking taking care of plants. One thing I like to see happen at Hinsdale Hinsdale is that everyone is kind and helpful to each other. One thing I really like about school is that I get I'm able I am able to make friends and learn. Thank you for inviting me. That was fabulous, Luna. Thank you. Lots of things happening at Indale. It's great. So polite. And from Pearson School, Logan and Dakota Roy. All right. Hi guys. Hello. Are you guys gonna take turns? Yeah. I'm Hello. My name is Logan Roy and

025I am Dakota. I'm in grade four. We are twins in the fourth in fourth grade. I'm going to tell you about what has been happening at Pearson school lately. School activities and events. Describe one or two. Oh. The first one we went to field day which was a lot of fun. We had a family barbecue and we had awards ceremony for our hard work. We had some this is what we've been doing in the our school so far. In third grade ELA, they were doing e ei ma in math. In third grade, they've been doing distributive factions. Oh, in ecology. Oh, in fourth grade Eli we were doing the revolutionary war patriots versus loyalist and writing option for debate in math. We've been reviewing for multiplication thinking classrooms and division in maths of strategies strategies

026in fifth grade ALA. They learned about the reformation and why Martin Luther created the 95 thesis. In fifth grade math we are oh they are doing decimal multiplication. Oh gosh. School improvements or needs. My class some ways to improve the school day. Brain breaks in between subjects. more group work like building thinking classrooms. You can figure out the problem with the help of others people's brains and transfer knowledge. It is a great way to learn. It makes learning more fun and it is easier to get through the work. We can get it done a little faster working together. One great thing I like that we have some activity choices at the end of the day during when teachers and students are really nice. Thank you and thank you. Thank you for inviting us. We got

027to say thank you for inviting us. [Music] Thank you for inviting Well done, Logan and Dakota. That was fabulous. Thank you. Great job. Now you guys can have summer. That's right. Now it's officially officially summer. The Reformation, Revolutionary War. This is fantastic. Great. You've been waiting for this. I know. I've been waiting for a while. This is great. That's fantastic to hear. Okay, thank you everyone. Item C, superintendent report. Okay, I'm never as exciting and interesting as the kids. That's a tough act to follow. I'm going to have to rebuild the agenda next year so that I'm not right after that. Um, I'll just highlight a few things because you have my written report as part of a packet and the kids shared so much of what I would tell you about, but I will

028just say we've had so many amazing events at the school where we were able to showcase the talent and hard work of the kids. Um, and it's such a reflection of the care and dedication and professionalism of the staff. Um the steam night, the concerts, the art music showcases, uh the being in the parade are all just opportunities for kids to shine and through them for us to recognize all that the staff is putting into it. Uh we ended the year as we always do with lots of assessments to help us um look at the progress the kids have made. Uh there are summer reading opportunities that went home with the children and we'll make sure on our website in case they didn't make it home. We're participating both in the local library summer reading

029program as well as the governor's reading challenge. Um and we did end the year with celebrations and awards ceremonies at every grade level and of course today our um promotion ceremony for our sixth graders. Operationally um tonight actually I can update since I wrote this. We are no longer negotiating with nurses. We have a contract um here tonight to tell you about and hopefully approve and custodians and secretaries are ongoing. Um the CHAMPS grant which was late in being dropped from the state. It's a two-year grant and we were starting to get nervous but the um grant window opened. We uh with the help of Teresa Payton before she left put it together. We hit submit. I don't if it was yesterday or the day before, but we anticipate being able to continue to receive

030the CHAPS grant and continue that great programming. Um I met recently with Chief Susi and um he is taking the lead on putting back in place the townwide safety committee which we obviously will be active participants in and glad that we're doing. Um the voting while school was in session went very smoothly. I think the registars felt everything worked well. I don't think it was at all disruptive to the school day. Um so note to the file when it happens that way. We're fine. We can make that work. Um in the board packet and again if it's not already on our website, it will be information um there are meals available throughout the summer. They're federally funded. It isn't Winston tax dollars, but we get our staff together and get it put together and provide

031um meals throughout the summer. So, information went home to families. It'll be repeated on our website, but for people who need to grab that, it's available. um briefly um because we had two openings at the same moment of two roles that had some blended responsibilities. I did a little restructuring. Our footprint didn't get any bigger. It was two people. It remains two people. The dollars remain the same, but we my assistant and human resources roles were really blended across two people. So, we did like that. And now we have a specifically dedicated HR person and a person whose role it is is to support superintendent and all the people around. We don't have an assistant in the business office. So things like when we're working on negotiating a contract, there's no support for that work.

032So um Tiffany, who's here tonight, is my assistant and will be supporting all of us in the central office and she's already doing a great job. Um, okay. So, what else do I want to point out to you? Oh, while you're looking, just um does anybody have any questions on the operations? I just want to double check. The CHAMP grant is that the same amount as so or does the ask increase because of say inflation or anything like this or No. So, I don't think there was more available. They actually made it a little trickier. We're going to ask just a little bit less. still able to do all the great things we do. But they condition it upon there's some very significant formulas. Tiffany, you'll tell me if I get it wrong, but they

033talk about you must have a certain percent of your students attend a certain amount of the time. And because we allow people to do less than a full-time participation, we're applying for what we know we can hit based on our historical attendance data rather than plan a budget and then not be able to hit our marks. So, y but the funding will be adequate to run the um after school program that I'll say is sort of like the daycare more so component of it as well as um the choice activities that we run. Okay. Uh let's see. I met Superintendent Susi briefly. He's starting uh in late July. It was really nice to meet him. Quick reminder of the board. If you haven't already responded to the survey to pick a date um for our

034summer retreat, please do. And um so if you haven't heard about this, I I'll send the board a link and the Northwest Connecticut Housing and Innovation Center is this fascinating thing going on. The building next to Explorations, it's the old hospital building. Am I right about that at some point? is becoming all kinds of really neat things. There's veterans housing going in. There's a maker space going in. Um Renee and I went up and met with them and they are lifting up like steam in the community. Science technology engineering. Um and they've set up a professional learning opportunity that's going to be held at Whiting Mills I think was it? And so we've sent that out to see if any of our staff want to participate. But the it just going to be a really

035neat connection for us. I can't say a lot more because I don't entirely have it yet, but uh their website has great information and it just it's going to be another great partnership for us. And yeah, um just so I understand, Tiffany, would she be handling the policy, the housing of the policy, the updating of the policy? Okay, so that'd be Tiffany. And then the minutes of the meetings being posted. Yep. That would be through you. So as we draft minutes, we would CC you on those minutes. Okay. Okay. Great. Um just so the community knows, annually we do a summer retreat as a board of ed where we come together for about five hours where we talk about district goals um for as a community. We put our heads together and that drives instruction,

036assessment, learning, everything that we do in the buildings. across the district. And so we're settling on a date that we do that just so you're familiar. Um how many people showed for the end of the year barbecue? Oh, well over 500. Okay, that's fantastic to see that. That's really great stuff. Okay, any other questions for Julie on the Julie on the roof piece? Where are we on the roof? Can you um give us a little bit more there? Sure. So Paul and I have met a few times with um the company that um one of the board of selectment members have recommended and got some information about their best thinking about what we would need to do. Um we're also talking to solar companies. In the midst of that, I did reach out to um

037DAS, which is the state department's branch for school construction, and got some confusing information saying that we had done a roof in 2009, I think it was, which is not the information that we have. That would mean we have a roof that's only 16 years old, which means they would not be interested in supporting a new roof. But it also means we should have a warranty on a roof if we had a roof that was only 16 years old. So we are working with the town finance office, our own finance office. Not many of us in district worked here back then. So we're struggling a little for like human memory, but we are trying to figure out why the state thinks we did a project in 2009 and we think we did it in 1999.

038So, we're unpacking that to make sure that we would be eligible for reimbursement or that we would be eligible under a warranty because one of those two should be true. Would a warranty, if let's just say there was documentation that there was a roof, um would a warranty provide us a whole new roof or to fix the holes or the leaks that we've got. I think we'd have to cross that bridge once we figure out when it was actually done, what the terms of the warranty were, if we've done anything to avoid it by other people work on it. I Okay. If in fact the state's information is correct. We're a little confused at the moment, but we're determined to untangle it. Okay. So, we're sort of continuing to figure out what we need to

039do and what our best course will be to do it while we're also trying to figure out when last we did it. Okay. All right. Very good. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for coming out. Thank you. Okay. Um, any other questions for the superintendent? Superintendent Ruby. Okay. Seeing none, we'll go to item D, committee reports. Finance committee did not meet this last time. Uh, you might remember we were in the Pearson Library the same day as the uh, referendum, which did pass. And once again, I'd like to express a thank you to the community, to persons uh to support us here moving forward in our budgetary endeavors. Um it takes a village. We're all rowing in the same direction and it's really great to see. So we can move ahead and conduct the business of

040educating our kids because we're in the business of kids. Item two, curriculum committee. Renee. Um, recess. Yeah, we talked about recess and that was pretty much it. Still a topic that we're going to discuss at the next curriculum committee. So, um, looking at time outside for kids and so forth. Thank you. Policy. We do have some policies on the agenda today that will be looking towards a a vote for implementation. Okay. Um, I look forward to working with you, Tiffany, on policy because, you know, it's we want to be up to date. Obviously, it's one of the roles of the board is to make sure our policies are golden and and posted and clear and up to date. So, I appreciate that. So, we'll see those policies in a little while. And then finally, for

041the negotiating committee, Kurt, yeah, we met on Monday. Um, we looked at past contracts to kind of guide us towards what we want and we talked about non-negotiables for us. Um, and I think we have a path of where we want to be or what we want to see the contract to look like before we present it uh at meet with Gilbert. Do you have another next meeting? We haven't we haven't uh we haven't determined a next meeting yet. Okay. Determined. Okay. Great. And then finally, E, Le layison reports, Gilbert School Corp. So, at the last meeting, uh, we made a motion and passed it to create a negotiating committee, uh, to develop contract uh, with WPs for, uh, basically the Gilbert version of the uh, committee we created and uh, we assign members. Do

042you have those names or uh, I don't have a list on me. I believe Reita is on it and some me. Oh, I'm not on that committee. Holly Cassidy would be the chair. Um Teresa Peyton, um Ellen Marino and Tara Sundi. That's okay. Okay. Thank you. Oh, and what else? We voted on that contract to fix the they're going to be working on the gym gym renovations also. Yeah. Is they also graduated the class of 2025. Correct. Yeah. And um the students came in and they did an awards ceremony too for students there. So that was great to be a part of and yeah all good stuff going on there. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Item F, correspondence to the board. Does anybody have any correspondence they'd like to share? Okay, seeing none, item seven,

043information items, enrollment. Okay, Steve. So, we have one student who's just arriving who had hoped to participate talking about the land trust. So, how about I'll keep going for now because I think she needed to just maybe clean up some softball. It looked like if I were a betting man. Okay. Um, but whenever she comes back, if you don't mind, we'll pause. Go backwards. We'll take a little bit of a recess during always for the kids, right? Okay. Very good. Um, yes, I will happily seed my time to her. Um, enrollment reports, we are ending the year, where are we? um with 12 more students in the preK6 program than we started the year and four less at Gilbert than we started the year. And that's a wrap on that. I'll flip right to the

044attendance report. I'll just point out to you that I made a couple of changes to this report by adding some information for you. Um, and before next year, I'll think about formatting if there's any way I can make it easier to read. But each month when we look at the average daily student attendance in the top table, you'll see the top three lines of the current year, district, and then each school. I've added for you the previous year so that you can see along the way just how it's tracking by comparison, right? Um, I know we often wonder about that. So that's a way to get a little bit of a baseline to look at it. In the second table for chronic absenteeism, I added two things. Down the bottom, you'll see again I added

045um the district data from the previous year. I'm not breaking it out by school because there's just too much information. I don't think that the schools are significantly different. It was my thought that you could compare district to district and with only two schools. The other piece I added though is the days in the month which is really important because chronic absenteeism the the end ofear information is um based on all the months combined but the individual months are just that month. So for example in February when there's only 17 days anyone who missed um let me think about that. If you missed one day would that be greater than 10%? No, 10% of 17 would be 1.7. So, no, but if you miss two days of school, you're chronically absent. So, in a month

046with 21 days, it takes 3 days to be chronically absent. But when it's less than 20 days, it's two days. So I share that there just because for example like December with 14 days and February with 17 days. These numbers are really hard to look at and say wow we had in February 50% of our Hinsdale students were chronically absent. We have to remember that means that half the kids missed two days of school. Not that I want anyone to miss two days of school but it doesn't necessarily mean that those kiddos missed two days every month. It means they missed two days that month. And in fact, just it comes to mind as I say that we have the week where we have off the Monday Tuesday. And I think an interesting thing to

047look at this summer would be do we have lots of kids who take the rest of that week and go somewhere maybe we don't but it gives us something to look at in the months that are worse. It's also when kids are sick. So that's there just to lend a little context the information. We um are committed to doing some work this summer on figuring out how to improve attendance. Um we think there's a lot of ways to do that. Some of it is the reactive and working with our social workers. We're looking at creating a DCF um outpost office in the building. Um which for them is really just an office and a partnership, but having that person will be an extra social worker who can participate on our attendance committee and maybe bring

048some new ideas. Um, the state also recently sent a bunch of resources that we're going to work with. And uh, what was the other thing I was going to say to you? Oh, go ahead. Sorry. Nope. Go ahead. Are we doing home visits? Don't we have a we adopted a policy procedure protocol for um, we're still doing those, I'd imagine, without getting into discovery of information. Um, have you seen a return on investment for home visits? It's like is there a benefit to that? Is it working? Okay. It's very individualized. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think some of what we hope to do is the proactive piece looking at um you know really reading some of the research on what are some of the things that increase attendance. Is it maybe home visits before school

049starts? Um proactively for, you know, anyone who was chronically absent the year before. Or also looking at from the standpoint of what are we doing to entice kids to come to school, if you will, like do we have some cool stuff going on that, you know, nobody just wants to miss, you know, when you have a beach theme and everybody's wearing whatever crazy hat day or whatever those things are. but are we, you know, adding just a little extra spice to make sure that kids, well, I can't stay home today because it's such and such day. And so, we're going to try and think about it both from a learning standpoint as well as the reactive. What do we do for kids who are not coming and really understanding the why behind it? Yeah. So,

050know that we're not satisfied with that data and we're definitely going to Good. Neither am I. Yeah. Not Not a good have a colleague who's fond of saying I can't teach an empty seat. That's 100% true. Okay. Um as I launch into the personnel report, um I just want to give a shout out for Lisa Brochu who is our PE teacher at Hinsdale. Uh tomorrow, I guess technically will be her last day before retirement. We celebrated her yesterday at the district end of year celebration. Um she her grin is a mile wide. She is retiring to take care of two beautiful brand new baby grandchildren. Um and she couldn't be more excited. She's had a long career with us. She's wonderful. We're sad to see her go for us, but we're thrilled for her because

051she is joyfilled at what's ahead for her. Um congratulations, Lisa, if you're listening. Yes. Well earned. Would have been here on Tuesday. I apologize. Um and I mentioned about um so Mary Stempion is the second part of that story I told you um HR and executive assistant untangled with Teresa and Darlene's position. So Mary is our HR person. She's been on board for a couple of weeks. She is figuring it out as quickly as she can. She's not experienced in education, but she is very experienced in HR. And so she will bring a wealth of knowledge about all things ADA and workers compensation and just she's going to be fabulous. Um okay and obviously the current vacancies as long because we stopped filling things that could wait as it got towards the end of the

052year. Okay. Um oh budget. The budget. Okay. Okay. Um, item D. Item D. Item D. Yep. Oh, you're back. That's so funny. I keep looking at your empty chair and thinking you're not back. So, we're gonna pause and take it away, Renee. Tell us who you got. All right. Well, come on here. Um, thank you for letting her speak. I have to say, Cora left her game in the middle of the game because this is how important this was to her. So, Cora is one of the students who are representing our Winchester trust hike and she is going to tell you introduce herself and tell you what she's here to talk about. Nice and loud. Hello, I am Chlora Smith and I will be talking about the connection to our curriculum that the Winchester Land

053Trust Hike had on us. The connection to our curriculum happened with the fifth grade unit of the road unit aka the um aka the food web unit which was mostly all about the food webs and how and how other animals eat other animals. And this and this the hike helped us look at different food webs and different parts of the land that help that um had animals eating other animals like like an like I saw a chipmunk eating a nut that came from a tree which is technically Really? Wow. I learned something tonight. That's fantastic. Cora, what was your favorite part of the trip? Um, my favorite part of the trip was definitely walking around and finding all the different parts of nature and all the different animals. Wonderful. That's fantastic. Wow. Thank you so

054much for coming here. [Applause] Very cool. Awesome. Good. Road the food kill unit. She say roadkill. Wait, she said roadkill. She did say roadkill, right? Yeah, they do a roadkill. It is a roadkill unit. In all my ears have never heard that term as such. That's fabulous. Okay, so flying right along. Monthly budget summary. Um, I think what I'm going to do is just highlight a few quick points for you. I won't belabor it. Um, so on page 13, the snapshot, I'll just remind you that um we were very fortunate that um we've learned I don't think we've already received probably but will receive $17,000 give or take um extra in our excess cost grant which is the special education reimbursement um that we get from the state of Connecticut. I would love to tell

055you that that puts us ahead of the game, but what it does is um minimize how much behind the game we are, if you will, but it further defays um the cost of special education. And we have no news yet on whether we've been successful in recouping the $40,000 highdosese tutoring that was shut down early. Right. Um, the other thing I'll say to you that we're watching very closely is that the title two grant, which is the only funding um that we have for professional learning, we don't carry it in our budget. I guess technically there's a line there, but it's a big fat zero. um all of our professional learning um for staff, much of which is contractual and all of which is really important, lives in our title two grant and in much

056of what I've been reading um in Edweek and other publications is saying that title two is potentially on the cutting block um from the fed from the federal government. Title two is a two-year grant and so we have um we'll be finishing out last year's grant by the end of this year. We already have, if you will, this year's grant that we'll be using in the coming year. Okay. So, we'll wait to see if in the fall they issue it again, but if not, we limp through the current year with the grant that we're living in now. But we would have to build into our own budget in the fall if they don't open that grant to us in the fall. Is the state of Connecticut doing anything to help us out in case they

057were like plan B to float us? That would be lovely. You know, at this point, hasn't happened. So, I'm going to go out on a limb and say they're probably not making contingency plans yet. If it does happen, obviously towns will be wishing for that, but it's not in anybody's budget because it hasn't happened. Um, but and I do think in a lot of districts, they have money in their own budget for professional learning and then it's supplemented by title two. So, it might hurt a little less than us where we have literally zero without it. Okay. Um, so this is one we're waiting and watching and by next year's budget cycle, we'll presumably know. If they didn't open it in the fall, then we'll have to build something in. So, no news from the

058commissioner or any sort of statement made or any only that they're watching it. Okay. It was mentioned on the superintendent call. Um, what's our exposure about? How much the grant total I think is about 35,000 of which we spend 20,000 and Gilbert gets 14,000 15,000 I'm rounding but loosely it's 20,000 which is our entire professional learning budget. Yeah. Um Gilbert uses theirs I I actually don't know. I was going to say New Zella but that can't be right. That must be title four. I'm sorry. Gilbert uses title four probably for New Zeal 14,000 that they do as well. Um so for us it would be all of the workshops and and again in the teachers contract we're supposed to be providing for and obviously we need to do professional development each year. In fact for

059example in the climate legislation it says we're responsible every year to provide professional learning in restorative practices and um seal. Obviously not everything has a price tag but much of it does. though um on the PD in the teachers contract is there a dollar amount or is it just uh I don't remember seeing it there's like up to a certain amount per person the reality is we provide things for all staff together so everyone is getting things um and we are trying to have a more unified approach to professional learning as well so that we're sort of all rowing in the same direction um okay so we're not panicked yet because we have money for the coming year, but we are watching closely. Okay, I'll take you to page 14 just for two quick seconds.

060Um, I'll point out in the column titled balance. I'm still each month when I sit and torture poor Nancy. Um, trying to figure out where I look to really know how we're doing. So, if you want to join me at the balance column, that sort of shows you where we are compared to what we put into the budget and plan to do. Page 14. Sorry. page 14 balance column. So, you know, certain things balance each other out a little bit like that wages and professional technical services lines because for example um a superintendent salary for Freeman is down on the professional technical line because he was paid as a consultant not a employee. So little things like that sort of cancel each other out a bit. Um, a big driver in that professional technical services

061line is um, of course Freeman, the superintendent search. Um, sub nurses. We racked up a little bit of a bill there. Um and then the other two areas where we're underwater, if you will, are pupil transportation, which is um partially special education um transportation and partly Mckin Vento homeless student transportation. Um that went from 0 to 60 overnight and unfortunately it really kicked in in the back half of this year. So, it's not budgeted anywhere near at the right level in the coming year, but we'll be looking to see if we're eligible for any um state grants around that and clearly planning for it next year in the budget when we build it. And then of course the special ed out of district um tuition. What's um back in the 300 professional technical it says

062outside evaluations is that's the specialist who comes in to evaluate a student right that we don't have on staff send them out for evaluation if you agree to it okay so psychiatric I think you're saying the same thing though the child may go to them but yes it's paying someone who's not our employee to do an evaluation okay all right thank you Um, and then I'm going to jump to page 16. Um, here's our title too, right? And this actually my note on here that I wanted to draw your attention to is um, you know, the IDA grants and the title one grants, those go almost completely to wages. Um, title two, there's the 34,500 appropriation that I was mentioning. Um, so we're watching all those. The big piece to draw your attention to is

063page 17. Um, oh, you know what? My pages I'm so sorry. Sorry, my page numbers may not be matching yours because the packet moved probably, but No, it's the same. Is it matching? I'm so I'm on the food service budget. That's what I'm good. Okay. Um so for food service budget um we started the year thinking that um the board of ed would have to supplement the food service program $14,000. At last month, we thought it would be about I think we were at like 29,000 when we looked at the board report and now it's up to 72,000. Um we're looking at wages and supplies is the two big drivers there and Nancy is working closely to um figure out why we are trending so poorly. Obviously, part of it has to do with how

064much food you sell, but it also has to do with um you know, how much is it a result of like staff absences? So, you're paying staff who work for you and then also paying substitutes, but this needs some fixing for sure. The prices for food goes up next year though, right? We voted to increase a little bit this year too. So, okay, we're trying to work both sides. So, where are we pulling the 72,000 from? It's coming from the appropriated figured. It's not coming from that 660. It's coming from the appropriated. Absolutely not. Okay. It's actually part of the projection line that is the wages in the appropriate wages. Yeah. Okay. Because it is wages and supplies. Yeah. I mean those are the two areas. Yeah. So that I understand. Can we go to

065page 15? 15. Back to 15. It's a summary summary of the operating budget. Um, sir, in the end, after all the magic, Nancy, our head is above water, $4,600. Okay. Now, bills still come in after July one, right? Yes. And the projection is trying to anticipate all. Okay. And if we had anything left over, we'll put it in our 2% nonlapse, even if it's a penny. Over 2,000, right? Okay. We're not going to have a party. Won't be a very good party. Okay. Okay. Can we get to the good stuff? Sure. Reading. Oh, wait. Sorry. Nope. So, we're going to go on to of the year. Oh, right. Okay. Item E, everybody. Item 7E of the year recipient re recognition. Thank you. So, I'll just um provide a little context. We um this year, every

066year we participate in the Connecticut uh teacher of the year program. And basically to be selected as a state teacher of the year and then be considered for um a nationwide teacher of the year, you have to meet certain criteria which includes um working with kids at least half of your position. You have to be tenured, stuff like that. And so we select a local teacher of the year with that criteria in mind so that our person can go on to the state level. Whether or not they're recognized at the state level, we participate. They oddly call it a banquet, but it's simply sitting in an auditorium for a beautiful ceremony. Maybe it was once a banquet. I don't know. But so we'll go to the state uh program with our teacher of the year.

067We also um participate in the states program for parah educator of the year. And then we have a third category award called staff member of the year. And we instituted that because we felt that while teachers and paras represent a lot of the people who work in our district that there are also a lot of other people who work in our schools who don't meet the criteria for either of those two awards from secretaries and behavior texts and speech and language and coaches and um our custodians and there are just so many other people that we said well we would want people to be able to nominate. And so our process was that we sent out to all staff the opportunity to make nominations. We had a committee that came together and reviewed all the

068nominations and made some really difficult choices. And tonight I am really pre pleased to present um I'll tell you our parah educator of the year briefly although she was not able to be here tonight. She had a event with her child but she would have loved to be here. She's lovely. We have a PAR educator, Heather Reynoso, who uh works up at the Gilbert School and she is fabulous. Um so I'm just going to gush for a moment about our staff member of the year and then finish with our teacher of the year. So the staff member of the year that was selected is none other than Renee St. Heler. Uh the nomination said, "Renee has truly distinguished herself this year through her unwavering commitment, adaptability, and leadership. She has stepped into multiple roles with

069grace and purpose, always focusing on supporting students and staff and the broader mission of the Winchester public schools. As a stellar steam coach, Renee not only brings innovation and enthusiasm to her work, but she also consistently steps up to problem solve with clarity and a collaborative mindset. From organizing a successful steam night to attending every board of education and budget presentation, serving on the leadership and climate committees, and coaching colleagues across the district, she exemplifies what it means to be a dedicated and impactful staff member. Her positive influence on school culture and her tireless support of the district make her a truly deserving candidate for staff member of the year. And I'll add that as I'm sure you all remember Bnee stepped in this year and was acting principal when we needed support at Hinsdale

070School. And she did that so selflessly. There was a point where she declined the opportunity to advance her own career because she had committed to doing that. She has worn countless hats in our district. She's been an assistant principal, a library media teacher, a coach teacher. She just exemplifies professionalism and grace and we are tickled pink that she's ours. [Applause] Well done. I just want to say thank you Barb you know thank you Dr. for those kind words and really truly for all the opportunities. I I have to give a special shout out to Barb because when I first came here in Winstead, she kept saying, "And just wait, we have more. We have more." And um I've really truly loved every single minute of it. I've fallen in love with the Winstead schools, with

071the teachers, with the students, with all of the administration. You know, there really isn't anything that I'm not willing to do because I'm humbled and honored by the work that people do here and I just love being a part of it. So, thank you for letting me have this opportunity and the recognition, which I'd also say I would like to dedicate that to my mom because my mom was the person who was the helper of all and I only wish I could be half as kind as her. Thank you, Renee. [Applause] [Laughter] Although that wasn't the professional opportunity I was going to leave for, but maybe In my retirement, I would like to go on the circuit. So, she took you to the cleaners. No, she told me about it. I'm going to need to

072take some lessons because my kids decided we should play poker and they bought the chips and my son took all my money. So, 19year-old. Yeah. So, finally, I'm so excited to share with you and I'm so grateful that um Jenny that you're here and that you waited. I feel badly that it got this late into the night. I'm sorry. Um Jenny Frell, who is a second grade teacher of Kingsdale School, um is our choice for teacher of the year and will um go on to the state level. Um her nominations said, "Though newer to the district, Jenny Ferrell has quickly distinguished herself as an exemplary educator and team leader. her thoughtful organization and unwavering commitment to meeting the diverse needs of her students, including some of the most challenging students and conditions set her apart

073from day one. Jenny creates a classroom environment where every child feels seen, supported, and challenged. She's a reflective practitioner, always seeking new ways to grow and improve in order to better serve her students. Her dedication goes far beyond the classroom. As well as a Girls on the Run coach and an active contributor to the Hinsdale community, Jenny brings learning to life through engaging events and initiatives that involve families and neighbors alike. Her leadership, compassion, and ability to build meaningful relationships make a lasting and positive impact on both her students and the wider school community. We truly are proud to recognize Jenny Ferrell as our teacher of the year. She is a shining example of dedication, innovation and heart in education. Congratulations. And I want to tell you when I went to see Jenny in her

074classroom and share the news with her, you should have just seen her students sort of like started popcorning. Oh, what is this? What did she do? And yet none of them really seemed surprised. like they were all little non plus like yeah of course she's the best. So um we think you're awesome and we are really grateful to you. Um I just want to say thank you coming here last year when I was looking for jobs. I saw a position for second grade. I was super excited. I was working with the older kids but knew that I really wanted to teach early reading and math skills. And coming to Hinsdale, Rosie and the whole team have just been so welcoming. There's been a lot of challenges that have been in my classroom, but coming to

075see them and how far they've come has really just been a dream come true. So, thank you to everyone. Great. Thank you. Fantastic. All right. Very good. And thank you for recognizing them and celebrating them. Um, we had a you had organized a program at AMP and I think that that was a great support group there of of community members willing to participate in honoring our teachers in the district and the staff and and uh the Paris in our district. I think that was a great community event. Thanks for organizing and getting that done. Nora is referring to the event I think I sent out to everyone. We did have um we celebrated at AMP which turned out to be a great choice. I think unanimously were thinking we'd do that again for sure. They

076were gracious hosts. It was a perfect venue. People were thrilled to see um the mural. Many people hadn't seen it yet and we had a wonderful turnout of staff from all around the district coming to celebrate their colleagues. The awards that we mentioned here tonight and the retiree and then also uh years of service awards for people who had been with us for five years, 10 years. We even had two staff members with 45 years of service to our school district. Yeah, that's sticking power. It's a great list. Okay. Item item uh F, climate study. So, as I got here in the fall, we um were lifting up a conversation around school climate for a lot of reasons. Um, not the least of which was the fact that there would be uh new legislation, new

077policy, new procedures going into effect for July one. And in fact, the policies are on tonight's agenda that will require us to shift some of our practices, obviously, shift our policies, um, require of us some data collection action plans. So, it was really timely to um take a good look at ourselves. There's a lot here, so I'm not going to drag you through this on the spot. What I'm going to do is suggest that you enjoy this um perhaps on a beach or something lovely. Um much of this you've been hearing about because we've talked to you um throughout the year about the study, but the first couple pages will give you strongly like what the process was, what we did, and then the findings um are there by the four strands that we looked

078at. And then if you fast forward, there is a summary on page 12 into page 13 with next steps. Um, and then at the very back, we've included what the questions were in each of the surveys. Um, we will put the full report on our website and we will probably extract maybe a very condensed version that we can get into just a couple paragraphs to send home to families and guide them towards the longer report on our website. Um, and we'll be using this uh over the summer as we work on um school climate work in the summer, as we develop committees in the fall at the school level, and as we develop our school climate plans. But it offers areas for improvement. It points out strengths. Um, I could draw your attention to um

079page 13. next steps I would well let me go backwards let me stay right there so page 13 I'll say to you that we will be developing a plan um the next steps are really to create goals and we'll be doing that based on the holistic look that we did but also looking at individual statements within the surveys some of those as indicators and saying why is that if we feel we know what it is then we can just talk about how do we improve upon it and if we don't what do we need to do to understand it better. Could we find like followup groups um what do you call that? Um focus groups, you know? Well, so we did some of that after the surveys came in. We did with parents and asked

080a lot of follow-up questions as an example. Okay. Um and then with the kids, we went in and did um circle discussions with them, digging in further to some of the things that had come out as some themes. some of the themes that came out um that were interesting. The kids talked about the fact that they felt the adults were kind to kids, but that kids were not kind enough to each other and that kids were not kind enough to the adults. That was an interesting fact for us. And so that was part of what we went in to try and understand what that looks like. Um so that's something we're working on. and talking to parents, we learned that um by the time we talked to parents, which was well into the winter, I

081think they were feeling like they were getting information from the schools, you know, when things happened. Um the unfortunate things where we have to send those very obtuse emails that just say something happened and we're fine. Um but they were wanting more information about their kids dayto-day, the kinds of things so they would know what to ask at the dinner table, like curriculum. Yeah. And not necessarily like a curriculum overview or a curriculum night once a year as much as like maybe a weekly or a unit preview or something that just gave parents so they'd kind of know to say, "Hey, you've been learning about ecology. What's that all about?" Or, you know, just little tidbits on how to be more engaged with what the kids are doing all day every day. Um so that

082was helpful information for us. Uh we know um There are concerns across all the groups about um behaviors. Uh one thing that came out from the staff is that we can do a better job with professional learning and making sure that it meets people's needs. I guess that'd be a good point if we have no money for it, but um so those were some of the areas that we'll be targeting when we develop our plan. And again when we go to develop plans we'll create some goals and some specific objectives as digging back into the data but this has sort of brought it back up to a level so that we have something to share. So I encourage you to enjoy this at your leisure and so we can put this on the agenda for

083our July retreat. Absolutely. Because I want to probe some more like for example the staff piece of it all. Um, that's interesting to me. Of course, families. I mean, that's an important piece. We want to keep people on. We want to retrain uh retain staff. You know, we've got this great list of people that have served this community for a number of years, but we need to bring in young people and keep young people as others retire on. So, I think this is important. Yes. And I would say that across the three groups, the staff responses um were the weakest. Not in terms of their responses or the size of their response, but in terms of their ratings, their consistency in their rating. Yeah. Yeah. Um you know how we have this new policy coming

084up that has that talked about a coordinator for climate. Um and that seems like it's a new law. Uh this came before that. Will we be asked to use a different tool to assess climate going forward or can we use the same tool and compare year one to year two using the same dock? So our intention is to use our same survey although I think we may make modest improvements by adding a couple of questions where there were things that we thought we didn't get enough on that. Okay. um the legislation or the policy actually requires bianial um surveying only every other year. Our group may decide we want to do one survey each year. Um so and it is our intention to continue to use the same tools so that we can compare apples

085to apples and Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to see the improvements in Exactly. We can see the movement. Yeah. Yeah. Very important. Okay. Anybody have any questions for Julie? And I'll be sending this to our staff um with a note saying you don't have to do anything with this, but we wanted you to have it in case you wanted it now. And again, we'll be dealing with it either in committee work over the summer or when folks get back in the fall. Um but it was a labor of love and it's done. Thank you for that. And I know we've been talking about that for several iterations of the meetings throughout the year. So I think that's good for producing that. Okay. No other further questions. Okay. Item G. Are you ready? Okay. So this is

086just really a quick initial analysis snapshot. We will do um obviously a much more in-depth look at data when we come back in the fall, but because the ESPback scores aren't available and fully analyzed yet, even at the state level, so we don't have like growth scores and things we want. But this is just a quick down and dirty set of information. This is the same information that we shared with you midyear out of Ready. Um, and you'll see the top is reading, the bottom is math. The three columns on the left, and the reason I brought you colors is because otherwise this is really hard to look at. But, um, the green is kiddos that were on or above level, so beginning, middle, and end of the year. And the red is the percent

087of kids um, two or more below level. So, Uh, that should be the dark red. Or maybe the red and the dark red. Somebody with better eyes may remind me. I'm sorry I didn't get to look at it again today. Two or more levels below is the any is the red, right? No, it's all of the red. Light red, dark red. So, you would want the green numbers to go up. You would want the red numbers to go down. Um, on and then I'll just explain median growth percent. So median growth percent you would ideally want 100% meaning um that the kids made a year's growth in a year's time basically on average. So you can see the median growth in reading, you can see the median growth in math and you can see the

088percent of students. Um and you can see the movement. I especially like for example in the bottom line if you look at kindergarten now I read in kindergarten you look at that you say wow but I will remind you that in kindergarten like you mean the 22 61 to 81. Right. Right. So I mean that's huge growth. That's fantastic. Right. Yes. However, but it doesn't carry forward quite the like you can't expect that that 81% will be 81% in the fall. Like the bar moves quickly. Yeah. In the little years like there just the expectation starts very low and you know it gets obviously much harder as they go. Um but the challenges get more intense. Right. Right. Um you can see where we are in reading. Um so going down that spring percent on

089level in reading you see the percent of students 81 going down 48 47 57 we typically for our district and correct me if I'm wrong Barb and Rosie but I would characterize us as being right around the 50% line lately of kids meeting goal in reading and math and I'm ready on I thought we were in the high 40s. No, it's more our typical. Okay. Well, last year, yes, this year, right? So, one of the things I'll draw your attention to is you can see some of the grades look like where you'd want them to be. Um, interestingly, the grades five and six are strong in reading on here and super strong in math. Yep. Um, fourth grade is, you know, how you're tracking a group of kids from COVID. So, third, um, so our

090current third grade is our grade level that has five sections. They are the kiddos who would have been three I think um like the young preschool age at CO and the fourth grade were probably about four years old at COVID and also preschool aged. I would consider the current third and fourth grade groups to be probably the most at risk grade levels and the most academically impacted by CO. Yep. Um those years when kids are typically going to daycarees and preschools and singing alphabet songs and holding a book. I remember we were talking about how that got cut when we shut down in March. Like they were just learning how to hold a book or something at that point. So those are the groups. And interestingly, I think um the third grade is large and

091the fourth grade is small because I think people held their kids out that year because coming back was questionable in people's minds. So, we have some factors going on there that we're looking at and trying to figure out like just doing what we always do probably isn't going to change their trajectory. So, we really need to be thoughtful around what could we do more or differently to try to lift those two groups up. Um, you also examine the maximum number of the not maximum, the the ideal number of hours a teacher should be spending on I Ready Prep work materials, right? because it it sort of you know how how often a teacher works with a kid online with this software and there's like that sweet spot. Yeah. Right. So, and I Ready is just

092one piece. I mean the I Ready assessment isn't just assessing I Ready. It's assessing reading and math generally. The work that the kids do. In fact, some districts just use the assessment and don't use the I Ready pathways. But what we do like about that is that when you take the assessment, it creates pathways that are personalized to your individual needs. Y and there is a sweet spot is exactly what they'll describe of roughly 45 minutes per subject reading and math. So roughly 10 minutes a day. So if kids were doing 20 minutes a day of I Ready, 10 reading and 10 math, they would say that's where you're going to see your optimum growth. Um, but you also have to factor into that that the growth we're seeing isn't caused specifically by I Ready.

093It's caused by instructions. Sure. Sure. So, that's a piece of the puzzle, but it's Okay. But we have a finger on that piece. Yes. Okay. Okay. And again, this is something especially when we have the ESBACK to layer into it and when we have our um leadership retreat this summer, we'll probably spend uh one full day just digging into data and trying to look at the global level, at the grade level level, at the individual class level, and try and understand um if we see any patterns looking back at previous years and really try and figure out what we can that will give us good information to be planned for going into next year. Do you guys have your date set yet as admin? So, we have a week reserved um it's the last week

094of July. Okay. Yeah. It sort of rolls right into the beginning of August. So then we would meet before you would meet as administrators. Our board retreat will be before yours probably. Okay. Your options were either sort of right before or right after. Yeah. Um, okay. Thank you. But this will be something we do a deep dive into and we'll be able to talk a lot more about probably like a curriculum committee when it meets. I don't know if it meets in August or September, but when it does. Okay. Thank you. Anybody have any questions? Okay. All right. Thank you for that information. Uh item eight, action items, policies for second read. Uh policy school security and safety. Okay. Um this policy was well obviously this is the second time we're looking at this. It

095was discussion about not just uh school security but visitors that would come into this community. Um and not just federal immigration authority members. That's the sec the third paragraph. This is from Shipman and Goodman. But just generally what is the process and procedure for visitors in general. So um as you can read on page 19 name badge asking for a warrant if it warrants a warrant uh review of that warrant consult with legal counsel and speak to the administrators like the protocol if anybody were to come to the school. But visitors as well need to provide their name, their badge, and their information to the school. Okay. Anybody have any questions about school security and safety? Okay. I'll take a uh motion to adopt. I'll make a motion to adopt school security and safety policy.

096Okay. Thank you. Second. I'll second the motion. Jonathan, any discussion? Okay. All in favor of school security and safety. Say that 10 times fast. Thank you everybody. Five to zero. Denise, you okay? Okay. That's A1. Item two, visitors observers agency in schools. Okay. Kin to the first speaks to again visitors observers. Um, of course I would imagine observers would need permission to observe if they wanted to observe because it spoke about coming into classrooms and that sort of thing. Um, receiving prior approval for visitors specifically. Um, and then adherence to the guidance of the public schools pertaining to immigration activities developed by the statement department of education working with Department of Homeland Security Immigration Nationality Act. That's on page 22. Again, it's a it's a shipment policy. So, I would say it's more or less

097boilerplate. Um, does anybody have any questions for that? Okay. Do I have a motion for adoption? I'll make a motion to adopt the policy regarding visitors, observers, and agency officials in schools. Thank you, Janette. Second. A second. Thank you, Kurt. Any further discussion on visitors, observers, and agency officials? Okay. All in favor? Okay. Five to zero. Item three, Connecticut school climate policy. Um, this has already been mentioned. As discussed, the state of Connecticut has asked for a school climate improvement process. I think the survey that we just went through would be part of that. Um, it defines certain terms for school climate, which I think was helpful. Bullying, cyber bullying. I think that's kind of clear. Um, I did have one question. Who would be the climate coordinator that's mentioned on page 27 or do

098we already have one? So, climate coordinator would be myself or a designate and then the schools have I don't have the terminology in front of me, but there's a district person which is me or a designate and then the schools have their person which is the principles or their design. Okay. And I'll just mention the policy was written by CABE at the request of the state and it is there is nothing about it that is optional or malleable. In fact, it was provided only in PDF. Okay. So um like we have literally no say about any aspect. That's what it is. um is so they use two different terms 27 and 28 under school climate coordinator roles and responsibilities. That's school climate coordinator which you said would be school climate coordinator is going to be

099you and then the designated principles but then there's the school climate specialist on page 28. Oh you guys the principles and the specialists. Roger that. Okay. So, we don't need a new higher unfunded. Well, there's no funds here, but just another hat. It's just another hat to add on to your hats. Got you. I mean, we were doing it anyway. I just didn't realize it's a designated person, per se. Certified person. Um, and a committee. So just so you all know on the board in page 28 speaks about a committee that would be formulated with families and two members from the school community. They would meet by annually but I like the idea of annually for this new instrument if you will but that's just me. Okay. And training and the like training title the

100grant money. Okay. Training without title two. Okay. Um, do I have a motion to accept what is more or less the policy that we have to accept without any motion to accept the policy we have? Thank you, Renee. Second. Thank you, Jonathan. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? Five to zero. Okay. Item four is restorative practices. Okay. Let me see. Page. page. It's buried in here. Here we go. Page 32, restorative practices. Um, again, it it speaks to definitions inside the process of restorative practices inside the classroom, inside the school, and the community. Um, this too, is this cape? Uh, I didn't see shipment at the bottom of this out of curiosity. It's really just Syria. It looks like it's attached to the climate, you know, as a not an addendum, but like a continuation.

101They're both the 5000 series. Reads sort of and looks the same as the previous policy, but once again, anybody have any questions about the policy? which is new. It's new to us. So, um I mean I would it's short. I would recommend implementation. Do I have a motion to implement? I'll make a motion to implement the restorative practice response policy. Okay. Thank you, Janette. Second. I'll second. Further discussion on item four. I would think we do this anyway, right? Yes. There's nothing really drastic about it and it's part of um the previous policy. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um All right. All ready to vote. All in favor? Okay. Five to zero. Thank you everyone. That takes care of the four policies. And then finally, item B, soul source bid waiver for ed advanced child nutrition

102program services. Nancy has with her a original for you to sign, assuming you're willing to do so. Um, Ed Advance is currently managing our school lunch program for us. They are willing to continue. We would like them to um because of our size, it's not like we're likely to attract like the Marriott and Sedexos of the world. Um, so it's kind of do it ourselves or use that advance seem to be the options that are available to us and what we do anyway. But I felt it was better to officially do a bid waiver sleource form rather than make the assumption that we would I mean it's what we're doing now and we recommend that we continue but if we do that we thought it prudent to do the sole source form just just to

103make sure we're okay cross the te's out of curiosity is Gilbert using it advance yep okay in fact we beg them to As part of the budget process, we called and said, "Pretty please, can we pay you less since you have us? Can you think of us as didn't get anywhere?" They said, "No." Okay. Shocker. Okay. Kind of like Cabe, we had a conversation. Okay. All right. Um, we made we need to make a motion to adopt the bid waiver, the soul source forum rather for ED advance. Okay. For the child nutrition program services. So, do I have a motion to um accept the sole source bid waiver to to sign off on it? Directing me to sign off on it. I'll make a mo I'll make a motion to accept the soul source bid

104waiver and have Nora, the chairperson, sign off on it. Thank you, Renee. I'll second that. Thank you, Janette. All in favor? Okay. Five to zero on that item. Thank you everyone. Finally, item C, the nurse's new contract. Okay, so um as Nancy does, she's prepared a highlight sheet and I'm going to just point out a few things um about this. Um I'll remind you for starters that we have only two school nurses. So our decision making here is influenced by the you if we had 40 school nurses, everything we do has extraordinary impact. But because we have two, the dollars aren't huge because there are only two. Um, so one of the things going into negotiations that we did was do a little um, reconnaissance and research on what the starting rate for a nurse

105is in the world. Not in the world, but in our corner of the world. Um, and I can tell you just as a point of reference that my own child who graduated a month ago and has not yet passed the test already has a job lined up for $39 an hour. Our starting rate was $36 an hour. She literally isn't even a nurse yet. They're going to pay her $39 an hour waiting for her to take and pass the test. So, we felt it was important um since we were in a moment of needing to hire that we increased our start rate enough to be able to hire someone because why would anybody take a job that much less, $3 less than the going rate. Um so, we didn't go all the way there, but

106we did increase the rate, which was 3621, um up to $38 for new hires. And because We have a nurse going into at least year I think three with us four who's fabulous and taking the lead role. We knew we couldn't pay her the same as someone starting new. Um so we created two c two tiers people new to us and people who are now not new to us any longer. Um so there is that first year of the contract that says 7.7. it is that, but what you're seeing is a market correction to get us to a starting rate that will we would be able to hire and then you'll see more normalized years after that at 2.6% in each of those two years. Um, we added one more workday because the nurses do

107need to come in. Um, for example, the Hinsdale nurse has a lot of work to do before school starts in making sure that our kindergarteners have all the things they need to be able to start school. Um, the nurse at Pearson has to take all of the files that come up from Hinsdale and make sure she's aware of all the things in those files. And then at the end of the year, they've got to get the files ready to go to the next school, clean out the office, um, return all the meds. So, there's a lot of stuff to really do. Um, one of the things that was important to us to do, um, they had a child rearing leave part of their contract that said they could stay out like the whole rest of

108the year if they had a child after I think it was like October 1st. Um, subs cost Nancy, what's a sub nurse cost a day? Was it $400 or it was close to three. So, we saw that as really untenable. So, we drop that from the 90 days or the rest of the year just down to 45 days. Not because we don't want people to have kids, but we want to be able to not be paying nurses for extended periods of time. Sub nurses, I mean. Um, and we did create um like a head nurse position because we realized we were missing a lot of procedural stuff. We didn't have like something you give a nurse when they start that says here's our policies, here's our procedures, this is how you do that, this is

109how you do the other. Um so we thought it was important to get more organized in that way. So, um, Jessica at Pearson School has been doing a lot of that work and she provided orientation for our new nurse, Francesca, at Hinsdale, who is on the job and doing a great job. Um, and then we did other little things in there, um, like with the grievance process, just cleaning up the number of days and defining calendar days versus school days. um we increased their cost share of their insurance working towards in fact this will be one of the first groups we're getting to that magic number we're trying to get all the groups to 20% contribution um and we did agree because it is market practice that we would pay every two years for them

110to update their CPR certification that they're required to have for the job and similar similarly that we would um reimburse them for keeping their license current. That's a one-time thing, the license current piece or every time they be up. Yeah. Like that's how often? I think that one is annual. And our hope is that we're still um I'll say like on the bottom end of financial packages, if you will, but at least we can fit on the same page. Maybe with other places, our hopes are to um have these two people love what they do enough that this is just enough to keep them with us so that we don't have that turnover and end up having to pay subs and and having a good nurse is really important as we see on a regular

111basis when kids fall off of jungle gyms and things. Okay, anybody have any questions? Okay. Um All right. So, you need a motion for this? I need a motion from you all to accept the uh revised nurses contract. It's a three-year contract um between the Winchester Board of Education and our nurses. And we would have um you make a motion to accept it and we would sign it. I think they've already ratified it. So, we would sign off and have it in place. How much is the um yearly license renewal? I don't recall, but I think it's around $200. And the CPR 110 110 110 um CPR is less she said. Okay. Not a huge driver financially, but that's more of a um commitment. Right. Right. It's more of a statement than Okay. I'll take

112a motion to accept the new three-year contract July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2028. Who'd like to first? I'll make a motion to accept the revised three-year nursing contract. Thank you, Janette. Do I have a second? Any further discussion? Okay, seeing none. All in favor. Thank you. Five to zero. Thank you for that. Thank you, Julie. Negotiators and Nancy. Okay, that was item C. Item nine, public comment. Um, as you know, we welcome public comment. That's part of our policy. And the board chair will direct Dr. Lubie to respond to any persons. Please sign in. if you're interested in speaking. Anybody wishing to speak? Anybody wishing to speak? Anybody wishing to speak? Seeing none, item 10, future agenda items for board members or any other comments. Okay, seeing none, item 11, adjournment at 8:48. Do

113I have a first? First, I'll make Jonathan. Thank you. A second. A second. Thank you, Kurt. All in favor? Five to zero. Thank you everyone. Appreciate your time tonight and the um the rescheduled day.