001So, I'm going to start this evening. I'm going to call the meeting to order at 7:02 p.m. Uh, and I'd like to ask everybody to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. Um, I know that prior to us uh going towards the election of the board, I would like to call up Miss Jackie Budkins so she can swear in our fantastic new members of the board of education. So, I'd like to welcome our new board members, Bob, Paul, Veronica, and our returning new member, Michael, to stand up and uh Oh, Karen. I'm sorry. I'm like Veronica. It's because of the same name. Karen to stand up and be sworn in. [gasps] Uh why don't you guys head up over there so that you can better photo op for all of you guys to to frame
002your Christmas cards or holiday cards I should say >> here. >> Yeah. And then I just stand in front of it. Is that okay? >> Yeah. Ready? >> Awesome. It's um as far as activism. Oh, thank you. Thanks. Thank you, Miss Budins. Always welcome uh to see your smiling face here. And a big huge congratulations to our new members, Bob and Paul and Karen, and our returning member, new member, Michael. and a big apology for and Veronica. I'm still like I'm looking down the table and I'm like there's five. That's why I keep getting confused because it's usually four. So sorry. So, um before I move on to the next, which is the board of officer elections, procedures and overviews, um I would just like to say I'll just keep it very short and sweet.
003Um I'm not running again as chair, but I have uh really enjoyed the opportunity to serve um our community and our schools in this role. It's been my honor um to to sit here and to to help work towards the betterment of our schools and our district and work with the incredible board members I've had the chance to work with um this past year and in years prior and looking forward to working with the newest members, all four new members and our fifth returning member uh for this coming year going forward. So, thank you for the opportunity and I look forward to um a fruitful year ahead. So, with that, I am going to turn to the election of board officers. It's policy 9121 which off outlines the procedures for officer elections. So as the
004beginning per as I said per board policy 9121 the elections of officers shall be in writing and the vote of each member shall be made for available for public inspection within 48 hours and recorded in the minutes of the meeting. If a chairperson and/or secretary is not chosen within one month, the town selectmen shall choose such officers from board membership. Each board of ed member will write down their choice from the nominations on the board of ed on your memo pad has your name on it so you don't have to write your name uh as who your the nomination is from or the votes from. Um but each board member will write down their choice from the nominations on the board of ed um on their board of ed memo pad fold it and pass
005it to the individual coordinating the election. The member running the election will then read aloud each vote cast and tabulate the results following the election of the chair. That individual will then become will preside over the election of the vice chair and the secretary. You guys all most of you have been through this before. You're all good. Okay. So, at this time I will open the floor for nominations for board chair. Does anyone have a nomination? >> Miss Coven. >> Thank you. Um I would like to make a motion to nominate Michael Joseph Meranti Anthony to serve as the chair of the Greenwich Board of Education. Are there any other We don't need a seconder for that. Is are there any other nominations? No, there are no other nominations. So, at this time, please register
006your vote. Each member of the board, write down the name of the person that you're voting for on your pad with your name and then pass it towards me. I will read those votes out. Okie dokie. Here we go. I'm sure it will not be a surprise what the answer here is. So, Ms. Vizu Walsh uh supports Michael Joseph Mercanty Anthony for chair. >> Well, here I I was going to say Dr. Michael Joseph Merante Anthony says MJMA Karen Krauss says board of ed chair Michael Joseph Merante Anthony. Miss Karen Hir says Dr. Michael Joseph Meranti Anthony. Miss Veronica Chiai. Dr. Michael Joseph Meranti Anthony. A little heart. Just adding that in there. Paul Capielli, MJMA Anthony. I'm assuming that's you trying to get there quickly. I see. Um Bob Cheney, Michael Meranti Anthony. I
007think that's Michael Joseph Merante Anthony. That's all works. And then finally, Sophie Coven, Michael Joseph Meranti Anthony. So with that, I'd like to welcome the new chair of the board of education, Dr. Michael Joseph Meranti Anthony. Unless you'd like to stay there as you're still next to >> Okay. Oh, I guess that's true. I can just Yeah, why don't we just pass the gavl? >> So, I'm going to pass the gavl >> and the instructions over to you. >> Okay. I I did have a nominating speech, but in the interest of I know there are a lot of people here, so I'm going to skip it. But but um we're really pleased. >> All right. Are there any nominations for vice chair? >> I would like to make a nomination for vice chair, but I
008see you here. Hold on one second. So I would like to nominate uh Sophie Coven for vice chair. >> Okay. I was also going to nominate Sophie, but I have a little speech. Is that okay? >> Go ahead. So, I was I was I was going to be say I was pleased to nominate Sophie Coven, but I'm pleased to also nominate Sophie Coven for the position of vice chair for the board of ed. Sophie will be a thoughtful, steady, and highly effective vice chair for many reasons. Her commitment to our schools, our student and our students has spanned more than 13 years. All four of her children have attended Greenwich Public Schools, and her volunteerism extends far beyond supporting her own children. As both an attorney and professional mediator, Sophie brings refined skills in analysis,
009communication, and conflict resol resolution, skills that prove invaluable in board leadership. Prior to joining the board, Sophie served on the Riverside School PTA, coached youth soccer, served as and served as a treasurer for her neighborhood association. In her tenure on the board of education, she served on many committees including negotiations, policy governance and strategic plan and has served as a liazison for the Riverside School Building Committee, GHS pool committee, feasibility committee, which we'll hear more about later. And her hands-on experience with all these major capital projects will be invaluable as we continue to advance the major facility initiatives currently underway and those nearing completion. Equally important is Sophie's ability to build and maintain strong collaborative relationships across town government and across the table. She's fostered constructive working relationships with members of the BET, RTM, and
010numerous community parties. And beyond her professional and volunteer accomplishments, Sophie will bring a deep understanding of policy, procedure, governance, law, and finance. All of which will serve her exceptionally well as our next vice chair. For these reasons and many more, I'm honored to nom co-nominate or also nominate Sophie Coen for vice chair of the board of education. >> There any are there any other Nominations are now closed. Please fill out your ballot and pass them this way. Paul Capielli votes for Sophie Coven. Bob Cheney votes for Sophie Coven. Sophie Coin votes for Sophie Coven. A little self-centered. Uh Karen Hirs votes for Sophie Coven. Mike Anthony votes for Sophie Coven. Karen Krauss votes for Sophie Coin. Um, Veronica votes for Sophie Coin. And Wendy votes for Sophie Coven. Congratulations, Sophie. I'll note for the record
011that Sophie got a speech. The I did not. Um, Okay. They will now entertain um nominations for the position of secretary. Yep. >> I'd like to nominate Karen Krauss. >> Any other nominations? >> All right. The nominations are now closed. Please pass me your ballots. Okay, I know this is riveting for all of you. So, I'm talking they um so Bob Cheney votes for Karen Krauss. Paul Capielli votes for Karen Krauss. Karen Hirs votes for Karen Krauss. Sophie Coin votes for Karen Krauss. Karen Krauss votes for Karen Krauss. Um, I vote for Karen Krauss. Veronica votes for Karen Krauss. And Wendy votes for Karen Krauss. Congratulations, Karen. you get the official timer. There we go. >> So, so if I can just say say um a brief comment here. Um I very much appreciate um
012the faith in in in all of you and and the voters and [clears throat] everyone else. Um, and as we start the meeting and the start the new term, um, I just want to make two quick points if I could. One, um, to all of you and to the public at home and everyone listening and reading this, um, we ask for your your grace. Um, we have a new board. Half of us are brand new. We have new leadership. And, uh, I think it's easy to forget that, um, we are all in this together. Um, all of us are parents. All of us ran for the board because we want the best for our children and our community. Um the nature of boards of education, if we're doing our job right, we we we make
013people upset. Uh because there's the nature of board of education debates and the B board of education decisions is there's no decision that's going to make everybody happy. And I don't say that to prejudge any decision tonight because my mind certainly isn't made up. but that whenever we enter a spirit of dialogue and a spirit of conversation in this town, I think it's important um that we all remember that all of us are neighbors. Um all of us on either side of the official skirted table here only want the best for our kids. Um and I think that's an important note to start the new term on. Secondly, um I also want to note because I always read because we in Greenwich tend to get so caught up in whatever the issue of the day
014is, whatever the challenge of the moment, um I think we sometimes lose sight of the very real success and progress um that we should all rightfully be proud of um in in this district. um like what our kids, what our teachers, what our staff, what our administrators do on a daily basis is u phenomenal um short of miraculous. And I think we realize that sometimes you read on social media, schools are falling apart or the schools are failing or they're not what they used to be. And reality is the data doesn't even remotely um we don't remotely support that. Um, we are the only district in Connecticut that has complete just about completely wiped out the the gaps from COVID and gotten back to pre-COVID learning levels. No other district in the state can say
015that. We are the only district with 10 schools of distinction this year. Um, we are the we are in the top five statewide and there's no one else statewide that has nearly the socioeconomic, the linguistic or the neurodeiversity of our population. Um and that's a testament to the hardworking staff at students that work every day with our kids. The um and then on the note that our schools are failing the um this board in the last or that our infrastructure is failing. I think it's worth noting the very real progress and we don't champion this enough that we've made over the last four years that is from this board that we have an unprecedented level of building projects around town. the um obviously we're about to finish the um central mil the new central middle
016school which is the single largest capital expenditure in the history of the town. We have building projects at Old Greenwich, at JC, at Riverside. We just finished two projects at the high school. We're about to talk about the pool. We don't talk about enough about where we're in the third year of an extensive ADA program across the town that after decades of talk is going to bring every school into ADA compliance. Um we are doing all this um as a community because of the faith and the support and the belief in public education that all of us in this room share and I know it's a commitment that all of us in the board are going to continue to work towards this term and I look forward to working with all of you on it.
017So thank you >> and With that, um, where the and then without the most important speakers of the night, we have GHS student comments. So, the GHS president and vice president, come on down. Oh, student body president, come on down. Good evening, distinguished members of the board of education and Dr. Jones. I'm Colin Reynolds, GHS's student body vice president, and I hope all has been well since the last board of ed meeting. I would like to first welcome the newly elected board members, Mr. Capawi, Mr. Cheney, Mrs. Chavaroi, and Mrs. Cross. Thank you for volunteering your time to make Greenwich Public Schools the best it can be. I look forward to working with all of you for the rest of the school year. I would also like to thank the former members for their years
018of dedication and service to the students of Greenwich. Earlier today, student government had another mass meeting of all representatives. This mass meeting was our first meeting where every representative knew their respective subcommittees and responsibilities, ensuring efficiency and order from here on. Furthermore, each class has had yet another month of successful fundraising. The senior class had some of its most successful football concession stands. Additionally, the Harlem Wizards basketball game is this upcoming Monday, November 24th. This event has gone through months of preparation and I highly encourage all of you if you're available to support the senior class and have an exciting Monday night. The junior class had a successful pie fundraiser last week along with a pumpkin decorating contest. There are many notable designs, including the 67 pumpkin, with the overall winner being the self-portrait pumpkin,
019which happened to have been made by the junior class president. The sophomore class had many successful bake sales and is planning a Carninal Clash Olympic style event, plus a February cooking cookie decorating event. The newly elected freshman class has already begun forming its plans for the upcoming hot chocolate sales and a trivia event. Next, I would like to bring up details regarding the proposed new swimming pool. Option five is likely the superior choice to option four as it maintains the pool availability during construction, which is the biggest priority from the perspective of students. However, option four is still a strong contender and can't be ruled out yet until all the small details are ironed out. I'd like to mention another point I've observed from this study. The tennis teams will no longer have their onampus
020facilities. If I'm not mistaken, nonvarsity players have already had to utilize Central Middle School's tennis courts, and the tennis courts being built at North Street will be a great inconvenience and require transportation for more students. This appears to be an underdised topic, and I'd encourage the board to look further into it. Lastly, I'd like to address the consideration of teacher and administration cuts. Without teachers, we have no education. You can remove Chromebooks, smartboards, textbooks, microscopes, and so many materials from the classroom. But when you take away teachers, you take away our learning. The staff at GHS and Central Middle School do so much more than just teach. Earlier today, in fact, a student was upset, crying, and our teacher immediately recognized this and comforted the student outside in the hall. There is nothing that can
021replace this. The teachers are role models, mentors, trusted adults, and so much more. They inspire, challenge, and shape us into being better people. Cutting staff isn't just removing positions. It's removing the core of Greenwich Public Schools. Thank you all for your continued support of student initiatives. I again welcome the newly elected board members and thank you for your interest in supporting us students. And please attend the senior classes Harlem Wizards basketball fundraiser on Monday if you're available. Thank you. >> Uh thank you Colin. Uh good evening members of the board of education, Dr. Jones and community members. I'm Gabriel Lesa the student body president at Greenwich High School and happy to speak before you this evening. To start off I would like to congratulate the new members of the board of education Mr. Japielli Janie,
022Miss Chioi, and Kus. Uh, also, Mr. Chair McKenna Anthony, Vice Chair Miss Kovven, and Secretary Krauss. I look forward to seeing the good work this new team will do and look forward to working with you. As for Greenwich High School, it's been an eventful month where students, as usual, are seeing great success both in and outside the classroom. Our freshmen are finding their way and the glass to corridor traffic has decreased accordingly, while seniors submit their early action and early decision applications. uh more specifically in the freshman class, their officer elections went smoothly and great campaigns were run. They've hit the ground running and are already prepared to better their class in school as Colin had said. Uh and on the topic of class leadership, this year's group has been nothing short of phenomenal in
023their first few months. It goes without saying that there has been a great effort by the officers and adviserss in this rather short time frame. Since the start of this year, each class has seen various fundraising events and many planned, raising thousands in the process. Uh this is the result of hundreds of hours of work already invested by our school community. Though the work is demanding, it is the norms of hard work and dedication that drive this crew. And on this note, our subcommittees are just ramping up their work as well. This year, the subcommittees and leadership structure within them was changed in order to create for more accountability and straightforward duties. Uh while reading through the applications though was hard to cut so many people and we added vice chairs in order for newer
024members of student government not only to gain more leadership but also to encourage and train the future. With this dedicated group, we have set out on ambitious goals for this year and I would like to share one with you all. We have proposed a townwide all high schools uh research symposium for high schoolers which would allow students who have not been able to present research in any discipline to do so in a non-competitive manner from any public or private school in the town of Greenwich. At the end of this year, I hope to look back on this speech with pride in knowing that we accomplished this in addition to other ideas we have. So, with that, I would like to thank you for the time and for the work that is done to better our
025school so that Grunge Public Schools students can continue to become global leaders and innovators. I'd also like to state appreciation to Dr. Jones for one maintaining our renowned house system at GHS and two for keeping the our dynamic rotation schedule intact. Students have always felt that these are integral to building community and pursuing a variety of interests and courses at Grunch High School. This does not supplement though the possible changes to who is in the building next year. I find the possible reduction of FTE greatly regrettable and hope these unnecessary and harmful changes will not go through in the coming budget season. We have already seen the harm to our uh shoestring media centers which should be restored to original levels and we cannot continue to educators and administrators. The schools have already the schools
026are already strained from last year and many previous years of cuts. The town can be fiscally responsible, but this is simply not responsible nor is it sensible. And I think this turnout speaks to that. The ripple of these choices may help bottom line. Uh but they hurt student teacher ratios and when we hurt student teacher ratios, we hurt student outcomes, clubs, achievements. And when you start on this slippery slope, it is very hard to recover even if it's all restored immediately after. Uh, but with that, I hope to see you all at the Harlem Wizards game Monday, courtesy of the class of 2026. Tickets are still on sale, and I would like to give a special thanks to uh Dr. Jones and Mr. Cheney, who I look forward to seeing on the court uh that
027Monday. And so, with that, thank you, and good night. >> Thank you. Thank you, Colin. Thank you, Gabriel. the um the research forum in particular sounds like a great idea. So, good luck with that. Look forward to hearing more about it. Um I I made a rookie mistake in that we forgot I forgot the consent agenda. Um so, do I have a motion to um approve the consent agenda? >> I'll make a motion. >> Mr. Chair, I I have a correction to make on the minutes. >> Okay, just give me one minute. Let me um get a motion on the table then then I hear. Okay. So, um a motion uh >> I have a motion to uh vote on the consent agenda. A second. Okay. Wendy, you have an objective. Objective. Go ahead. >>
028I do. I have a correction to the minutes. I request I request that they be removed from the consent agenda. >> Okay. The um I know Roberts rules you um if there's a we have to honor that request and take them up one at a time. Um >> okay. >> so do we have a motion to do so? We want to So the consent agenda had three three the consent agenda has three minutes on it. >> Um >> it actually has five >> five minutes on it. Okay. So we're taking up five at a time. One one um all >> it's it's the same correction for each of the five. >> What's your Okay. What's your cor What's your suggestion? Um my objection to the miss the minutes should reflect that Miss Beette was present
029but not a member of the board and she should not be listed or recorded as participating in that capacity. The minutes should also indicate that the board member Mr. Capielli a duly swornin board member was denied access to the meeting. >> Okay. So my um my suggestion is um why not is um I'd like to move to table the consent agenda all five of th those tonight um uh that might make the most sense and move forward um so we can move on with the the meeting. I I appreciate the I appreciate your objection um Wendy and it's noted for the minutes. Um I think it might make the most sense. Um, I'd like to move to table um I'd like to move to table the consent agenda um so that we and then pick
030them up at a later meeting. That's okay. >> Okay. Do I have a second? >> All in favor of tableabling the cons. >> Michael Joseph Cara needs to um withdraw her motion first. >> That's the motion on the table. >> The voice of God. the he interjects sometimes when we make a error of Robert's rules of error order. >> I mean you well if we don't want to table them then if then I have to remake the motion. >> No zel if um you have to withdraw your motion. >> That's what I'm asking Mike. >> Yeah you have to withdraw your motion and then because that's the motion on the table or so you have to act on it or not act on it and then you could either table it or vote to table
031it but you don't need to vote to table it. you can just move on. >> Well, I I don't want to withdraw the motion. I want to just vote on them and move on. That's why I was I put them forward. >> I mean, so withdraw opinion is not going to change, but >> Okay. All right. So, we're going to the um in that case, we're going to take them up um one um at a time. Um, so the um we have to how do we voice of Robert's rules. How do we do that then? Do we um do we need >> So are you making it an action item and then taking the minutes up one meeting at a time? Is that >> I think that's what we I think that's what we have
032to do. >> Well, her motion would be to she making me a motion to amend. Yeah, >> that would be Yeah, Wendy's motion is to amend the minutes to reflect what she had talked about and then you would if there's a second for that, you would vote on that up or down and then goes back to either as amended or as presented. >> Okay. >> Unless you want it unless the group wants to table it. >> Okay. So, is there a second to amend Wendy's um motion um amendment? >> I second the motion. I don't Yeah, I don't think people can vote on it if it was on the board either. >> Well, the other ones aren't here. So, what do you want to >> Can we vote to >> I think or not? >>
033Only the people who were on the board at the time that the minutes were taken would be able to vote on the minutes because that's how it works. You can't vote on the minutes if you weren't in attendance at the meeting. Only the people who are in attendance at the meeting can vote on the minutes. >> Well, can we vote to table? >> Mr. Merkanti's motion was to Can we just um >> Can can I make a motion to move this item to the end of the agenda so we can move on with everybody here? about that >> need to then withdraw still needs to withdraw her motion then because that's the motion on the table. >> Okay. >> I can withdraw that to discuss for later. Um the only question is it's not just
034the minutes. Correct. It's also the actual agenda that we're voting on. >> We're going to move that. >> No, it's just the minutes. >> Okay. And then I will withdraw. Okay. >> Okay. So then there's a motion to move this agenda item to the end of tonight's agenda. >> Okay. I need a second. >> I will second that motion. >> Thank you. Okay. All in favor of moving this to the end of the agenda. All right. Looks like that's unanimous. All right. Motion carries. Now we will welcome Marggo Jenkins the um to um uh for GA comments. >> Good evening board members, Dr. Jones, and community members. My name is Margaret Jkins and I'm the president of the Greenwich Education Association. I extend welcome to our new board members and congratulations to our new officers.
035I look forward to getting to work know you and to work with you. But for more important things, there's a word that's been bouncing around over the past few years when discussing how teachers feel about their work here in Greenwich. That word is morale. It's an important word. The Miriam Webster dictionary defines morale as the mental and emotional condition as of enthusiasm, confidence or loyalty of an individual or group with regard to the function or tasks at hand. Now, if I were giving this speech 10 years ago, I would have been standing here telling you that teacher morale was good. We loved being in the classroom, had confidence in our leaders, and those who were choosing to leave were comparatively few in number. Sadly, I can't say any of that today. Teacher morale in Greenwich
036is extremely low. The worst thing about it, however, is that our leaders don't seem to understand why. Over the course of negotiations this summer, I heard time and again that our teacher morale was low because we were being asked to cover classes for absent colleagues and that teachers were leaving Greenwich because the commute was too long. Let me clarify some things. Research shows that absenteeism is a symptom and a direct result of poor morale, not the reverse. As for long commutes, do you really think the length of a commute would matter so much if teachers were happy? Teachers are leaving Greenwich public schools and taking minor cuts in pay to go to districts where they are appreciated, respected, treated like professionals, not drones who need to be constantly micromanaged. [gasps] The number of sick days
037that we take is being closely monitored. If you take too many too early in the school year, you may hear about it from an administrator. Then there are personal days. We're allowed to request them with no guarantee that they'll be granted. We hear things like, "Why can't you do this on a Saturday?" or "Ask me again closer to the date." or even worse, I know you input for a no reason required day, but if you give me a reason, I might change my mind. The lack of trust in how we use days allowed by our contract just fuels the negativity amongst our teachers. Treat us as professionals who know how to use our time. Now, you may have noticed the folks here wearing blue rather than our typical red for ed. They're here representing and
038supporting Central Middle School and there are more logged in from home. In February 2022, CMS was closed for a while because of concerns about its structural soundness. But for the past 3 years, those dedicated teachers have remained in school. While student numbers have declined somewhat, 2.4 teachers were cut from the CMS roster for this school year. teachers became itinerant or took on new certifications in order to keep a full-time job. And consequently, some students don't have as many elective opportunities because of the resulting schedule constraints. And now the CMF staff have learned that this proposed fiscal 2027 budget calls for cutting four more teachers. How much more can this CMS community be asked to endure? Are these sound educational decisions? And Greenwich High School stands to use 6.5 teachers and an administrator. Teachers ask me
039every day, "Is my job, my program, my school next?" Does that sound like confidence to you? Is it any wonder that people leave? Or even worse, stay silent for fear of repercussions? The people who are going to get up and speak to you tonight have my utmost respect and admiration for making use of their constitutional right to free speech. These concerns are just the tip of the iceberg. So what can you, the board of education, do to improve teacher morale? Start by talking to us and more importantly listening to us. No one knows better what happens in the classroom than the teachers who see your children every day. Remember, teachers don't burn out because they care. They burn out because they care too much. Thank you. >> Thanks, Barbara. One of the things we talked
040about for the meeting we talked about this summer was a um a board committee um that we're going to be talking about to support um um ongoing dialogue between the board um and the faculty across the school. So I know that's something we're going to continue to to to your point. Um next PTAC. So Lisa, let's welcome Lisa Sylvester to this. Sorry. Good evening, Dr. Jones and board of ed members. My name is Lisa Sylvester and I'm the PTA council president. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of my board. We're excited to work with you all and we extend a very warm welcome to Bob, Veronica, Karen, and Paul. This is a new era, if you will, and it is time to let go and move on. Let us all begin tonight with one goal in
041mind, to work collaboratively to do what is best for all Greenwich Public School teachers and students without distraction. This is the only way that things will be accomplished. Tonight, you will hear a great deal about the buses parked at Western Middle School and Julian Curtis. This has been discussed for months now by all of us. The impact this has on the students and teachers is simply not okay. Western Middle School fields are a mud pit. Julian Curtis teachers have to park on the street. Students are at the risk of getting hurt at both locations, but at this point, it feels like we're on a hamster wheel just going round and round. We are hopeful a resolution happens soon. The BOE and the town need to work together because this is not just a BOE issue,
042it's a town issue. You will hear directly tonight from the Julian Curtis PTA with more detail. You will also hear from the Central Middle School PTA teachers and parents and from the GHS PTA tonight. They will be here advocating against the proposed staffing cuts. We support them and we oppose cutting teaching and administrative positions. We hear you when you say that the cuts are due to declining enrollments, but we insist that the highly experienced core teachers remain in place with the students and families they know. Central Middle School is a commu school community that has had to deal with a lot of disruption over the past few years and will open a brand new school next year. It's a priority school with achievement gaps. We do not want to see anything taken away and we
043do not want to see any more disruption from staffing changes. We should all be working towards lifting Central Middle School up. Let's make a short-term investment to increase academic achievement by giving them the resources needed. As we said at the last BOE meeting, enrollment is like a wave. While numbers may be down right now, we all know that Central Middle School has had a number of families leave due to the building's condition. Some families have left to the ongoing construction and some have left for other reasons. Once the new building is open, we believe that enrollment will rebound as it did at Glenville and New Leb. All those come up. Let's all come up with ways to help bring more students to the school. Let's reach out to those that left and find out if
044they plan to return. Let's survey the feeder schools to see who is coming, and if not, ask why. Consider open enrollment or a magnet school option. Together, we can and should find a way to increase enrollment to take advantage of the experienced teaching talent in the new facilities. We look forward to hearing those school communities talk more about that tonight. Francis, our facilities chair, will speak about the muchneeded renovations in town. The pool, we fully support Riverside school renovations. Let's please get that ball rolling. Please find a way to get all those things moving forward. Thank you all. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I hope to see you all at the Turkey Trot. Right. Up next is community comments. Um we have 43 um which I think is a record um at least during my
045last four years here. Um we have 43 um members of the public signed up up to speak. Um typically we go for about uh per board policy uh we go for about an hour um and then we go on to the other items and then the rest of the community comments um are at the conclusion of the meeting not um and that's because we have a lot of other things that we need to get to including a lot of folks a lot of community members here um about items like the pool that are on the agenda. Um, so we're going to move as quickly as possible. I if um um and I appreciate um obviously people allowed to speak speak their mind and their heart. If the comments been made a few times and you
046want to be able to yield your time to someone else to get more speakers in more quickly, uh we'd certainly appreciate that. Um that said, um the other thing we do try to do is we try to put any student who signed up to speak first. Um, so we're going to start with the students who signed up because I know we have a number this evening. Um, so Madam Secretary, >> great. First on our list is Riona Kery. Uh, just as a reminder, you have three minutes. >> Good evening, members of the board of education and Dr. Jones. My name is Rihanna McCursy and I'm a senior at Greenwich High School. Over the last 13 years as a student in Greenwich public schools, I've had amazing experiences, had some wonderful teachers, and have had the
047chance to collaborate with smart students. Yet, some of these amazing experiences have been shadowed by the amount of speeches that I've had to write, asking you to allow teachers to keep their jobs, fighting for classes to continue, and advocating for many GPS students behind me. Tonight, I'm speaking in opposition to cutting four FTE at Central Middle School and 6.5 and one administrator at Greenwich High School. My teachers at Central Middle School prepared me extremely well for the rigorous honors and AP classes at Greenwich High School. Without the consistent, thoughtful, and guided preparation from my teachers at TMS, my peers and I would have struggled upon entering GHS. But we didn't. From grammar to algebra to physics to American history to orchestra, my teachers worked with each and every one of us to make sure that
048we would feel ready and prepared for GHS. And part of this preparation came from never having to choose between classes. As a member of the CMS orchestra and a student in seminar throughout my time at CMS, I never had to choose between the two. But that is exactly what my sister, a current sixth grader at CMS, will have to do. In fact, when my sister first found out that the four FTE may be cut from CMS, she said, "It makes me feel sad. My teachers helped me a lot in school, and their hard work has helped me grow as a student. How is it possible that when GPS continually strives for the betterment of students, we feel like we are sliding backwards? Asking a student to choose between two highle courses that not only increase
049their test scores through additional preparation, but also establish those foundational skills necessary to high school would limit their success at GHS. It doesn't make sense the students behind me would have less opportunities. If anything, they should have more. And now I have a physics test to study for and crime and punishment to read. But before I go, I implore you to keep the four FTE at CMS and 6.5 FTE and one admin at GHS because the people who prepared me to read Crime and Punishment and introduced me to the concept of physics were my teachers at CMS. Thank you. Okay, next up we have Taylor Grross. Uh, and following Taylor will be Rile Shaw. >> Hello, my name is Charlie Pedin. I'm an eighth grader at Central Middle School and have attended the Greenwich Public
050Schools for nearly my entire academic career. Throughout my time here, I am consistently reminded of how exceptional this community is and how fortunate I am to be a part of it. When I began attending Central Middle School in sixth grade, I was introduced to the concept of teaming. However, it was not until this year that I truly recognized how significantly it supported me and other students throughout the day. With teaming, my teachers have the chance to talk about me and my classmates, what we may need help, what we may need help with or excel in. This helps ensure I am learning and challenged appropriately while also giving time to discuss social and emotional concerns. Finally, I want to emphasize how much chorus has contributed to my personal development since sixth grade. Singing every other day
051in a supportive environment has always inspired me. Unfortunately, due to staffing and scheduling changes this year, I was unable to take that class, something that has devastated me as the class provided me with so much encouragement and fun. Though next year, I will be going off to the high school and this might not directly affect me. I want the best for all future Central students. My name is Taylor Gruce and I'm an eighth grader at Central Middle School. Like Charlie, I have attended Greenwich Public School since kindergarten and it has been one of the best experiences of my life. All of my friends have been the ones who I've made over these years and my f my teachers have helped me thrive, become a better student, person, and learner. I love my school community and
052I would change nothing to make it better. This year on my elective form, I put in for seminar, a class focused on public speaking skills. I enjoyed this class last year and was excited to take it again. When I saw my schedule without seminar, I was heartbroken. Then I found out that this was a consequence of last year's cuts. That 2.4 electives teacher spots were removed going into this year. And some of my teachers weren't even going to be there the whole day. When I talked to my older friends, the best time in eighth grade besides DC were the field trips, specifically I fly and indoor skydiving experience. When my classmates and I found out that this trip was being removed, we were devastated. It felt like one of the best parts of previous eighth
053grade years had been taken out of our hands. In sixth grade, the teaming model just felt like a way to divide me from my other friends on field trips. But the longer I'm a part of the central community, I realize how beneficial this is to my learning. It enables me to learn to my fullest extent. If there is a problem between students, teaming allows teachers to have important conversations and ensure we are safe and welcome. As I look back on my CMS career, the teachers are what made it so special. They are the reason kids want to keep going back to school every day. All of them are keep learning, engaging, and fun. Please don't let any of them go. Thank you. >> Sorry, before you sit down, Charlie, could you spell your name for
054the record? >> Sorry, just before before we have um Relle come up, could could you spell Charlie's last name for the record? E D E N. >> Um, so now we'll have Rashelle Shaw followed by Anita Damote. >> Good evening, distinguished members of the Granch Board of Education. An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. A key principle reiterated by Benjamin Franklin in the way to wealth is a description that highlights an absence in Grunch's future. The new state-of-the-art Central Middle School is going to serve as a beacon to a new generation in Greenwich. A key element is missing from all of these accomplishments. Something that could make our new school worthless. In this new school situation, there's a pretentious outlier that can negate all the time, effort, and countless meetings to fund the school.
055Our student life in Greenwich is considered the creme de la creme in terms of the standard of education. Greenwich's education system is boasted as one of the best, the guilded glory compared to all in other public education systems. Presently, it's the contrary. The kids in the school system will not will soon not receive the quality of education that is commonly associated with the gold standard of schools, a prestige that Greenwich presents pompously. As we are well aware, Central Middle School is facing severe budget cuts. A building where children should be fostered to learn and pursue their own interests is now becoming a facility where learning opportunities go to waste. With the withdrawal of classes that these new budget cuts are presenting, many students who will want to take certain classes will be stripped of doing
056so as the funding will not be sufficient to have a teacher or fund materials to lead a class. With the years ahead, the new school comes years of pragmatic, creative, and passionate minds who want to leave a positive impact with their learning. The new school will not be able to provide this fostering and nurturing environment for kids to grow. Another blemish is the withering of teams due to fewer teachers. This leads to more packed classrooms where individualized learning opportunities dwindle. The reduction of teams means less focus on students resulting in diminished bonds between the student and the teacher. At such a pivotal age in a student's life, there would be limited occasions where a student could reach out for guidance beyond the classroom. School is a big family where students can live all together for
057most of the day. They eat, talk, learn, and most importantly bond to form a strong community, a strong CMS community. This will all just disappear once the budget cuts are in our school. To conclude, these new budget cuts will inflict a severe toll on the central middle school community where unalterable protocols such as the GPS vision of the graduate will be violated. As representative of students of our school, there's one final message to convey. A better budget will lead to a better future. I suggest you all to handle this m matter urgently in a diligent manner to restore our promising future. Thank you. Next up, we have Anita Damote followed by Ana Gayi. Good evening, school board members, concerned parents, and everyone in this room. My name is Anita Deamoda, and I'm an eighth grade
058student at Central Middle School. I've been in the school for three years and for the first time in these three years, I've never been so worried about the future of CMS. The reality of your actions is simply not thought of. Even if you feel like it's frugal, you're discussing massive, devastating cuts to our school, taking away our teachers, gutting our programs. This isn't just budget talk. It's an attack on our education. Our teachers aren't just staff. They are lifelines. There are patient guides who stay after class to help us with fractions and the mentors who we trust when we have problems with friends. If you take them away, our classrooms explode in sizes and that crucial human connection vanishes. I came to Greenwich from Brazil. I know you all understand that Brazil doesn't always have
059a safe environment or the funds for every child. When my 5-year-old self heard I was moving here, I cried. Tears of pure happiness. I was safe. I wouldn't have to learn it. I wouldn't have to worry about survival while trying to learn. Over the years, I've watched as more and more opportunities to learn and grow have lessened. Kids won't be able to take electives because of fewer teachers or they can't get extra help because the they will be in another building in the mornings. And why? Because of the budget, because of your decisions. I have watched as my peers dreams such as emotional stability and bonds crumble at their feet. Their support is being showed away like nothingness. discarded because you think taking our budget is necessary. Overtaking our ability to learn isn't necessary. It
060won't help us or you. Our ability to connect with the teacher is really important and vital. Teachers help students build essential life skills, character, and social development. Beyond the academic curriculum, that ability will be gone because access to teachers who will help us achieve our dreams will be taken away. Feeling safe and supported at school is crucial for adolescence development, especially during middle school. Beyond academics, students need environments where they can form vital emotional bonds with trusted adults like teachers. These relationships create a safe space to share feelings and needs. Reducing teacher availability, however, strains these connections, making mentorship harder to achieve and potentially cause causing emotional distress when students lack access to adult support. My parents taught me that school is in an investment. You are supposed to be helping be helping us become
061smart, capable adults ready for the world. But these cuts, this feels like you're actively shrinking our future. It feels like you don't think we are worth it. But I have a voice and I'm using it. Please, I am begging you, find the money somewhere else. There has to be another way. Do not take it from our classrooms, our teachers, or our activities. Do not take our future away from me or the children in lower grade who look up to me. This isn't tough choice. It's a low blow. Please do not limit the resources available to Central Middle School and ensure that these students have everything they need to learn and succeed. Although my individual influence is limited, I trust that my words will resonate with you long after our conversation. Thank you for listening to
062my reality. >> Next up, we have Ana Gayeski followed by Adelina Pon. Good evening. My name is Ana Geski and I'm a current sixth grader at Central Middle School. This is why you should not cut any teachers or make classes bigger. We recently went on our sixth grade outdoor classroom trip 4 days away in the woods. I get bad anxiety at night. I always have. Never thought I'd be able to go on an experience like this with my peers, but I took the risk cuz I trust the team of teachers I was going with. The one thing that helped me power through was all of them there comforting me, knowing me, and encouraging me. So pure and simple. Less teachers are not a team of teachers. Students would build trust with means there are kids
063that would miss out on these life-changing experiences. Academically, too. It is important that our classes remain intimate during these developmentally challenging years. You increasing our classroom sizes would mean the students need help wouldn't be able to get it. I'm a middle tier student. I need extra support on concepts. You increase my class sizes. What they already that means more students. But I can't. >> Take your time, sweetie. You got plenty of time. And if you want, you can always email your comments if you don't get through it. Okay. >> I don't think. >> Can I go? >> Do you want me to call you later? Why don't you take 10? Okay, next up. >> Can I finish? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> I do need glasses. Thank you. >> This wasn't planned. Where did you finish?
064Academically. >> Okay. Uh I'm Leslie Palange, her school counselor here at Central. Uh academically too, it is important that our classes remain intimate during these developmentally challenging years. You increasing our classroom sizes would mean the students needing help won't be able to get it. I'm a middle tier student. I need extra support on concepts. You increase my classroom sizes from what they already are. That means more students, more hands being raised, more questions, less time to answer them. I sit and wait. The teacher finally gets to me. The bell rings. That means I don't get the concept and I don't learn. I go home, can't complete my homework, and my grades slip. Where's my team to catch me? To pick up on the fact that I'm struggling. I get lost. And you know how the
065story ends. I just want to end this with how all of our teachers have a place here and just make coming to school feel so special. We need our team of teachers. It's what makes coming to school worth it. Please don't take that away. Uh Anya ana you should you should know it is um I I think you had some one thing wrong. There's no such thing there's no middle tier student who would come in here and address an audience like this. So I think you're selling yourself short. Well done. >> Okay. Next we have Adelina Pon Pon. uh followed by Giorgio Mikus. >> Hello, my name is Adelina Pon and I'm I'm in seventh grade at Central Middle School and an AVID student. I know Dr. Jones has made a lot of tough decisions
066and I truly believe she tries her best. She tries her best to do what's best for the students. I'm proof of that because Dr. Jones, my teachers, and other adults have supported me thanks to her caring leadership. Last year, I was accidentally hit in the head with a hockey stick, and I had serious concussion injuries to both knees and ankles. For months, I had 8 to 12 medical appointments a week, and I'm still in physical therapy and oxygen therapy. Our team model, which I'm crossing my fingers, doesn't get cut, allowed my teachers to regularly meet to regularly talk meet and talk about how I was doing academically, physically, and emotionally. They checked on me and helped me catch up because they had time to meet together and discuss what I needed. In central in middle
067school, we're not little kids, but we're not in high school yet. We are in the loading, please stage of our life. I hear you pop up a lot before everything got fast. These years shape who we become. The teacher model works because because teachers have time to work together to help support us. Even with my injuries, foggy memory, and my medical appointments, I made honoral last year. This marking period, I earned straight A's, and I couldn't have done it without the team model, my parents, and God. This it's what makes Central Middle School feel like a blessed community. But with these proposed cuts, teachers would split across grades and be unable to regularly meet and have less time to work together or support us. They'd be stretched too thin, creating a last girl teacher situation.
068CMS already lost 2.4 teachers last year and I'm not sure what point4 of a teacher even looks like. Do they only teach Do they only teach on Tuesdays or is that someone's left arm? Now four core teachers could be cut. Sixth grade has 14.2 students. Seventh has 17 and eight and eighth has 18.1. I've never seen 2 of a student, but I'm guessing they're very quiet. Our cl Our class sizes are normal and enrollment will rise again once we open our new building. CMS is a priority school, which means we're supposed to be getting more help, not less. Temporary open enrollment is another option that could help. I know money is tight and these decisions are complicated, but I'm asking the board to please protect the team model that keeps us learning safe and connected.
069We want the same opportunities and the same support as other students get at other middle schools. Thank you for listening and caring about us. May God bless you and protect you and everyone at Central Middle School. >> Next up, we have Giorgio Mikolites, followed by Sasha Rothstein. Good evening, Dr. Jones and members of the board. My name is Georgio Malletes and I'm a senior at Greenwich High School. I've been swimming since I was four years old, competitively swimming since I was six. I've swam in every kind of pool that you can imagine across Connecticut, even internationally. And I've seen what elite facilities look like, and so does all of my team, considering that we almost all compete in um programs like the Olympic Development Program or Junior Olympics. And I've seen what these facilities can
070allow athletes to achieve. GHS aquatics program is a top tier um development program that competes and dominates at the highest level. However, our facility is more than 50 years old, and many of its issues aren't just inconveniences. There's serious technical violations that qualify us um to be below the standard. The pool has blocked drainage lines, a filtration system at the end of its lifespan, and mechanical systems that are no longer compliant. The deck proportions do not meet the Department of Public Health regulations, and the ceiling height is below both diving and water pole standards. We currently compete in a shallow, deep pool, which greatly limits us compared to the national standard. And in short, the facilities doesn't meet today's safety codes. Competitive guidelines are the basic expectations placed on a program of our caliber. GH
071GHS itself competes at the highest level, not just in the FCA, but across the state and even nationally. Our team traveled to California this year, participated in the highest level high school tournament possible against teams with facilities significantly stronger than ours. We still managed to perform greatly because of the leadership of my water polo coach, James Ramllay, and because of our athletes who train with a level of intensity that only a few high schools can match. But if we're going to continue being a top tier, nationally respected aquatics program, we need a facility that keeps up. Right now, even compared to the Brunswick Natitorium, which is exceptional, we are far behind. Their success is strongly supported by their worldclass pool, and our athletes deserve a facility that is least comparable because our programs are equally
072as strong and rigorous. These programs provided through the pool open many doors to students. Just this year, we already had four water polo players commit to playing in college. One of our athletes, Robert Nurell, committed to a Brown committed to Brown University, an Ivy League school with an exceptional water polo program. One of our other athletes, Charlie Coven, committed to Bucknell, a division one high school or college with an exceptional business program. Last year, we even had an athlete move from Texas just to be part of our dominant program. Every year, multiple boys and girls swimmers continue their athletic careers in college at the highest level. These opportunities are life-changing, but they depend on us having a consistent, regulation compliant, competitive home pool. >> Given that we push the Nitorium forward, our facility will be
073able to host far more competitive tournaments at superior standards such as the FCA trials for our swimming or our annual Cardinal tournament for water polo. I'm proud to be a part of this amazing successful program and I hope that future students can share the same pride. But an underdeveloped, underclass pool is inhibiting our athletes from competing at their full potential. We need this product to be pushed forward to send dozens more athletes to compete at this next level. I want to thank my coach over here, Mr. Low. He's gone now. He's gone now. But I would like to thank >> I'm sorry, Georgia, you're you're out, but you can email us the rest of the comments. >> Sure. Yeah. Thank you. >> Okay. Next up, we have Sasha Rothstein followed by Campbell Sipple. Hello members
074of the board of education and Dr. Jones. My name is Sasha Rossan and I am an eighth grader at Central Middle School. I would like to address the effects of the budget cuts. You are cutting teachers, spreading teachers across schools. This will not only lead to the removal of beloved teachers, but will also lead to the classes being up to 10 people more. Now, this might not seem like a lot, but it actually is. And just know that we are in the in these classrooms for 5 days a week around 35 weeks a year. And no disrespect, you might have not been in a middle school classroom in a while, so times might have changed. This makes classrooms much more crowded, noisy, and overall more chaotic. This is a problem for many students and teachers
075because it makes it harder for teachers to individually help students and for students to learn and to focus. And this doesn't just affect the general population of the schools, but it also affects me great in a greatly negative way because for me especially, it is extremely hard hard to focus in a noisy room. Additionally, when I'm in a crowded room with a lot of talking and a lot of noise and chatter, I get extreme anxiety. This is already prominent in some classes, but even with an extra five, eight, or even 10 kids, it would just be unable to for me to learn. In math, it might not seem like such a problem. The teacher stands up in front of the class, writes a problem on the on the board, calls on a kid, they answer
076the question. This is what happens, but not really. a classroom of 30 kids. If someone, let's say, doesn't understand the problem and they have a question, but everybody else understands it, how are they supposed to get the teacher's attention? 30 kids would just be way too crowded. But in science, it would just not work at all because this year I have Miss Bonassic, a truly phenomenal teacher. But off topic, but still is an effect from budget cuts. She might be spread across all different middle schools, maybe central, maybe western, maybe all three. So if someone has a question and she might be the only one who can answer it, they will and she's on she's at another central she's at another school, not Central Middle School. It will just eliminate their chance at answering the
077question. But my original point still stands. If we get a stroke of luck and Miss Panassa can stay at Central, then she will have to deal with so many more kids. In my class, we only have 16 kids, so she would have to teach almost double the amount of kids. And the thing about Miss Manassic is she's amazing. She does these thing, these little mini talks throughout the week. She individually talks with each of the students to better help them to learn. It's going to be impossible for her to do that with 30 kids. Um, that's the end of my speech. Thank you. Uh, now we'll have Campbell uh, Sipple followed by Nora Mendelson. >> Good evening, Dr. Jones and board members. My name is Cal Polizzizy. >> Um, my name is Theo Ho and
078we are two freshman on the football team. Uh, Cal Campbell Sipple isn't here today, but we will explain that in a second. >> We just had our last game earlier today that ended in darkness. We just played our last game and in order to get it in before complete darkness, we needed to cut halftime to two minutes, giving our team little recovery and charity time. The last quarter of the game was played in dusk, changing our ability to see the ball. When the game ended, we were walking out into darkness. Our game against Derenne, one of our biggest rivals, was scheduled to play at home. But because we were unable to use the lights, we needed to go to Darianne to play the game under their under their lights. As you all know, playing on
079your own turf with your own with your home crowd is a definite advantage and one we go gave up that day. It was a close game that we ultimately lost. Additionally, the time and stress would put on our team and our families to travel as well as the cost to bust our players to Darrienne for what should have been a home game. Um, since daylight savings kicks in, it gets dark around 4:30 p.m. which cuts our practices short by at least an hour. Without lights, we often can't finish our games or run full practices, limiting our ability to improve as a team. As it gets darker, the risk of injuries increases. We simply cannot see well, making it harder to practice safely. Our QB was scheduled to be here tonight, Campbell, but he incurred a
080late injury. Oh, a late hit causing injury late in the game and is being monitored for a concussion. Stadium lights would allow us to practice, play, and compete at our best, helping us grow as athletes and stay on the path to becoming successful both on and off the field. We ask that you give Ben Brandon and the RTM the authority to pursue this legal matter on behalf of all athletes at GHS who play field sports. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, next up we have Norah Mendelson followed by Joseph Tay. Uh, Nora Mendelson. Is she online? >> We're going to Joseph while we wait. >> Yep. Joseph Tay, why don't you come up? Uh, and then we'll hopefully have Nora. Uh, and then next after you will be Kyle. Oh, K. >> He just
081went. Okay. Oh, got it. Uh, then Logan Young would be after that. >> Good evening everyone. Today I address to the board of education authorities and Dr. Jones with a request to discuss the Central Middle School teachers you are considering cutting. They're not simply employees but mentors and guides for our future who have dedicated themselves to us day after day with effort and enthusiasm after hours correcting mistakes and nurturing our knowledge. Many of them are role models and a source of inspiration for us students who see the school as our second home because we spend so much of our time here. They are part of our community there. Therefore, leaving us without teachers is a serious problem for our learning. Classes would become overcrowded and it would be difficult for the remaining teachers to provide
082us with a comprehensive and often personalized education. Today, I sincerely ask you to not cut any of our teachers. Remember that the best investment you can make in life is in education. At Central Middle School, we love our teachers because each one of them is leaving a learning memory in our lives and an indelible mark on our hearts. Thank you very much. Were we were we able to track down Nora? >> No. Okay, we'll keep moving then. Uh next next we have uh Logan Young followed by Fischer Hogan. Logan here. >> Logan Young online. Do you know >> he's online? Uh, he should be able to talk now. >> Good evening. My name is Logan Young and I'm a student athlete at Greenwich High School. The light restrictions at Cardinal Stadium affect our experience and
083unfairly limit us as student athletes. Once we change the clocks due to daylight savings, we have to cut our practices short by an hour. Without the use of lights, we can't finish games or run full practices. It also increases the risk of injuries. Allowing us to practice and play under the lights makes it possible for us to develop as athletes and to improve as a team because we can practice safely and compete at high level. This will make it possible for us to compete at the level our school community expects us and deserves. Neighboring towns have stadiums with lights available for safe practices and evening games. Greenwich students are at a real disadvantage. This is about students first and giving us the same opportunities other communities already enjoy. Thank you for your leadership and I
084ask that you take action on this issue. Now, >> next up we have Fischer Hogan followed by Francis Nove. >> Hello respected members of the board of education and Dr. Jones. I would like to address the recent budget cuts targeted at Central Middle School. These cuts are unreasonably taking out systems made for students well-beings. Um, these proposals are unfairly directed at Central Middle School. The fact that we're taking all these things away from Central Middle School, I feel like the budget cuts should be divided among many of the schools. One of these programs that is being taken away is the team system at Central Middle School. In summary, the team system allows the teachers to meet with the or meet with each other and discuss the students. So they can understand the students better even
085if they don't necessarily teach the students. This allows the students to have many trusted adults that they can go to and have countless people in the building that they will always feel safe with. If we remove this team system, then the students will have much fewer teachers that they feel safe with and just less communication overall and allowing them to understand everyone less. Another cut on top of this would be with teachers being forced to go to different schools. This on top of the team system removal would be devastating for the school as if you have a teacher that you feel safe with with the team system they can communicate other teachers what you need. But with the team system being removed, that is the only teacher who understands you and what you need. And
086if that teacher is per se at Eastern this day, then you have no one who can understand what you need right there and you are alone. This problem would be resolved with the team system being implemented and hence it is one of the most important features that the school systems have. With the removal of the team system, it would be just devastating for everyone involved. Imagine you're a 12, 13, 14y old student. Finding out the teacher who helped you believe in yourself. The teacher who stayed after school when no one else did. The teacher who told you that your voice mattered is gone. No one there to support you, no one there to help you, and for the rest of the day, you're just alone. You would feel like your voice doesn't matter. No one's
087there to help you. And that is not what we want to encourage in our students. We want our students to feel respected and like they matter in the community. with the removal of the team system that would just be devastating to the students. Thank you. >> I'm sorry, Mike. I think that uh there's one more um student, Everett Tyler. Is that correct? >> Uh yes, I just been advised Everett Tyler. Um but if you need a minute to prepare, we can have Okay, perfect. And we'll have Francis right after you. Good evening, board of education members and Dr. Jones. My name is Everett Tyler and I'm in sixth grade here at CMS. Middle school is a big deal for kids. It's where we start figuring out who we are and where we're going. We need
088our teachers and counselors to be there for us as a team so we feel supported and ready for high school. Right now, there are plans to make cuts that could break apart that team. And honestly, that scares me. I don't want to lose the people who help me when I'm struggling or the chance to be part of some electives that make school exciting. CMS is called a priority school, which means we need extra help to grow stronger. Taking away teachers doesn't make us stronger. It makes us weaker. We want to be proud of our school and we want to know that we're getting the same chances as other kids. So, I'm asking, please keep our teachers. Please keep our teams together. We want CMS to be a place where every student feels seen, supported, and
089ready to succeed. Thank you. All right, I think we've gotten through all of the students. So, to to parents and educators, thank you for your patience so we can get these students home to the to uh to study. Uh so, next up, we have Francis Nov followed by Serita Bjork. Francis, just before you you start. So, um, now that all the student speeches are done, um, if we could try to keep applause to the minimum, it'll allow us to get to more speakers. Okay. Thank you, Francis. >> Good evening. My name is Francis Wobb and this year I serve as the PTA Council facilities committee chair representing all 15 public schools. I begin tonight with the GHS pool feasibility study. Wow, truly impressive work. expansive, thoughtful, and grounded in details. Option five stands out immediately.
090It's a smart threein-one plan that brings together the new pool, the second egress, and the tennis courts in a way that's practical, efficient, and genuinely forward-looking. This is the kind of comprehensive thinking our students and our town deserve. And although we're talking about the ghs pool, we must not lose sight on keeping Riverside school top of mind and budget. pool and school are not a zero- sum game. Both can and must continue to move forward. Now, the elephant in the field, or really the school bus in the mud, we are five months into the new contract, and we still don't have a long-term bus parking solution. We need answers in weeks, not months. Winter is here. The photos circulating show buses sitting in deep mud on the temporary field at Western and teacher cars on
091grass at Julian Curtis. Families, drivers, and schools all deserve a solution and a plan. And just as important, what's the interim backup plan? Because the current contingency plan was shaky weeks ago. And with snow and ice coming, it's not just unsightly, it's unsafe. Now, Central Middle School. We're thrilled to see this building nearing completion. In the center of town, it will be Greenwich's first new middle school building since the 1950s. A true community investment. Let's let everyone enjoy this jewel. Please consider open choice enrollment for Central Middle School and make this new building available for all the students who want to attend. Board of Education, a threein-one solution for the pool to include new tennis courts at second egress, always remembering Riverside School, a real answer on bus parking, open choice enrollment at Central. These
092are thoughtful and forward-looking decisions that put students first and strengthen our entire town. We can do this. Uh, next up is Serita Bjerk, followed by past BOE member Laura Cen. >> Good evening. My name is Serita Bjerki and I have lived in Greenwich for nearly 30 years. By the end of my public school parenting career, my four children will have used the ghs pool from 2004 through 2030. That is 26 years consecutively. That's a lot, but honestly, we are just one of hundreds of families whose lives have been shaped by this pool and by the remarkable aquatics community that surrounds it. As you've heard from us many times before, the aquatics program at Greenwich High School are not simply teams. They're family. The relationships formed on that pool deck grow into friendships that keep students
093connected well into adulthood and often bring them back to Greenwich to raise their own family. There's several of those families here tonight. But the heart of this community, the GHS pool, is now at the end of its safe and functional life. The long list of issues we've brought to your attention before are not cosmetic. They're structural. They're critical. And any one of them could force a closure of the pool without warning. And that would be devastating to our aquatic students. Yet, our students, they show up every single day. They train in crowded lanes, at late night hours, at pre-dawn hours in a facility that has far outlived its intended lifespan. And yet, they continue to excel. GHS has now earned 145, yes, 145, state championships in swimming and diving thanks to the girls team that
094just won state opens at Yale this past Sunday. We have the most state titles of any athletic program in Connecticut. And our water polo teams, as you've heard, are amongst the strongest on the entire East Coast. These achievements, they reflect talent, they reflect hard work, resilience, dedicated coaching, and extraordinary teamwork. To sustain this legacy, the GHS pool feasibility committee has spent the last past seven months to design an aquatics facility that supports rather than limits this continued excellence. They have presented a responsible long-term solution a new championship caliber nadiatorum that is the most efficient costeffect effective plan our students and our town deserve. It meets modern safety and compliance standards and most importantly it can be built while the pool that's currently in use, the existing pool can remain open. It protects continuity of training
095for all our aquatics teams and will serve the entire community for the next 50 plus years. I urge the board to please approve the educational specifications for the GHS Nadiatorum and to request design funding in the fiscal year 2026 budget. >> Our students cannot afford to wait for the current pool to fail. And just as I conclude, I'd like to congratulate the newly elected board members. Thank you for stepping up into this work on behalf of our students in our town. We look forward to partnering with you with this and many other projects as uh we move forward. Thank you. >> Uh next up is Laura Cawson followed by Terry Low. She thinks she's online. Hi there. Can you hear me? >> We can. >> Awesome. Um, I didn't plan to speak tonight, but given
096the petition circulating against more cuts to Central Middle School with over 600 signatures, I felt compelled. As many of you know, the lame duck bet provided guidelines for the budget that are well pretty lame. Because of those guidelines, Dr. Jones, true to her charge, was forced to craft an operating budget with those guidelines in mind. And no surprise, it's going over like a big old rotten egg. And I swear I won't talk anymore about ducks and eggs, but as you heard tonight from all these incredible students, our school community does not want to lose any more educators at GHS or Central Middle School. And I think at this moment, parents and the students have a lived experience with reduced staff this year at CMS. It is a problem that um budgets can't solve, but they
097can alleviate these pressures. Right now, with more staffing cuts in the offing, we face an impass. Solving this problem is really free and easy. Allowing all students at Parkway to attend CMS this year if they want to is a great first step at alleviating an enrollment decline. And allowing say 50 students from the east side or west side of town to attend CMS if they want to is a great second step. Imagine you build a great new house in a great neighborhood. Wouldn't you, I don't know, in invite your neighbors? It's the neighborly thing to do, right? We've been trying to cut our way to greatness for too long. We should be investing in our schools and the people in them, the students and the educators they depend on. we can solve for an enrollment
098decline very easily. >> 30 seconds. >> So, I thank you for your time and I hope you will use all the tools in your toolbox to solve this problem. Thank you. >> Uh, next up we have Terry Low followed by James Waters. I'm Terry Low, currently the boys swimming coach at Granch High School. I would like to speak on behalf of all of the GHS boys and girls swim, dive, and water polo coaches. We are excited about the prospect of a new pool facility that meets the competitive standards of all three of these sports, as well as meeting all of the current health, safety, and ADA requirements. Currently, the pool has already been closed for our divers due to the building's failure to meet state standards for ceiling heights for one meter diving board. The
099nearly 60-year-old facility fails to meet an array of today's health, safety, and competitive standards. Moreover, it has been judged to be in its final years. It is our greatest hope to enter a new facility without interruption to the school's most successful boys and girls athletic teams. For decades, those programs have flourished, producing over 200 Fairfield County League and state class and state open championships, along with scores of all-American swimmers, divers, and water polo players, many of whom have gone on to outstanding collegiate careers. Please put this project in the express lane to guarantee the continuity of these programs that are at the heart of which make Greenwich such a great aquatics community. Thank you >> James Waters followed by Katherine McCerie. >> All right. Good evening Dr. Jones, Mr. Chairman uh and members of the
100board of education. Uh, congrats to the new members and I look forward to a productive term ahead. I'm James Waters and I wanted to highlight a few points about the ghs nitorium feasibility study. The ad specs that are before you are the product of detailed consideration over seven months. They do incorporate lessons learned from major re uh recent major school projects. As the RTM rep to the feasibility committee, the current budget overview committee chair, and the chair of the Old Greenwich School Building Committee, I thought this was important. You'll see that we codified options considered using a scorecard matrix to compare them. We considered a range of factors and found that there are no simple fixes here. We looked at project costs and the impact on the school itself, including utilities, parking in the GHS
101courtyard. We considered the feasibility of getting municipal improvement and zoning approvals and were sensitive to neighborhood priorities and other school sports programs and we looked how to man how to minimize or avoid disruptions to both school and sports. The option recommended is a clear frontr runner. It incorporates the cardinal access driveway or second egress and ensures our tennis program get the new courts they need too. While I expect you'll have great questions, you should have confidence in the rigor that went into these EDS specs. In my view, they set a new standard for projects like this. The pool specified is a standard championship pool for championship programs. As you know, the GHS aquatics programs are the the most decorated sports teams at GHS. 145 state championships. Think about that. They've helped hundreds of kids get
102into college with many going on to compete at the division NCA Division 1 level and even the US Olympic trials. If GPS wants championship aquatics programs, the high school needs a natitorium like in the EDS specs. Many public high schools across the country have pools just like the one specked here, though their teams may not be quite as accomplished. The concept in the EDS specs is no frrills and certainly not the most expensive choice. Yet, it will be a facility for the town to be proud of. What's outlined avoids disruption to our aquatics and tennis programs and the school itself. It avoids the soil problem at GHS. It has the support of the hillside neighbors whom we briefed last week. A few of them spoke in support at last week's public hearing on capital projects.
103The urgency here is real. We are in a race to get this built before the current pool expires. That might happen tomorrow or in 3 years, but it won't be much longer than that. If we're slow to act, this becomes a more costly problem and it will have a negative impact across town. Finally, I've mentioned to several of you that this project is perfect for a public private partnership. There is a track record of raising money for pools in Greenwich and a material and a material PPP should be a core part of the project. We should articulate the objective now and work on the capital campaign with a goal of having it ready by the time construction funding's on the table as soon as a year from now. Thanks for your consideration. I look forward
104to working with you on this project. Next up, Katherine McCaryie, followed by followed by Carrie Gruss, and just as a heads up, we've got about 10 minutes left in the public comment period before we need to move on. Good evening, Chair Mante Anthony, members of the board of education, Dr. Jones, and community members. To the new board members, welcome aboard. My name is Katherine Mccersie. I'm a parent of a current CMS student and a senior at GHS that you heard from earlier. I'm also first VP of the PTAC board of directors, but tonight these remarks are my own. Respectfully, I'm here to express my opposition to the elimination of four FTE core positions here at CMS. This action would divert resources from an underperforming school in priority status, preemptively eliminate staff, disrupt the already disrupted
105mechanisms of team modeling, and all before taking possession of a new building. I have come to the conclusion that eliminating four FTE for next year is not supported by the data and it signals a dis disinvestment from the new building itself. In addition, this action does not take into account the waivers that were issued for families who did not wish to remain in a building they felt was unsafe. Understandably and with compassion, GPS issued waivers to students due to the building's status. But this continues to exacerbate low enrollment status at CMS. And eliminating four educators on top of last year's elimination of 2.4 places our children who remained in the school at an increased disadvantage. In essence, you are punishing the students who remained in the school they were districted for. So, I urge you
106to support a nonprecedented setting, timelmited 1 to threeyear open enrollment to CMS beginning in advance of spring 2026 orientation. This open enrollment option has support broadly as evidenced by the petition urging this option which is at 659 signatures and counting. I want to close with a few words about the community of CMS itself. Our family has been a part of this community since 2019. During COVID and closure and condemnation of building, we experienced the teachers of CMS firsthand and saw what they are truly made of. Yes, lately there have been emotions and passion for CMS. Tough times and worry can make people emotional, but it also signals a passion for education. Board of Education members, I implore you, support a one-time open enrollment for CMS. Let the new building itself be the magnet and help
107CMS move forward with this simple, affordable, doable option. Disruption, distraction, and underperformance must be things of the past. And on your watch, let's watch CMS soar. Thank you. Okay, next up we have Carrie Gruss, uh, followed by Allison Walsh, who is probably the last for this section. Maybe one more. We'll we'll keep an eye. We have until 8:42. Okay, I'll try to talk quickly. Uh, good evening. Before I even speak, I just want to note to please, if you could remove the buses from JC um property immediately, our teachers deserve to be able to park. Uh, so, good evening. My name is Carrie Gr and I'm a parent of an eighth grader and a CM at CMS and a fifth grader at North Street as well as the PTA president of CMS. But tonight, I
108will be speaking as a parent. I'm extremely upset by Dr. Jones's proposal to cut four core academic teachers from CMS. If this were to go through, there would be grave consequences for our CMS students, and it would break down the teameing model. CMS, like EMS and WMS, currently is forced to cross teamam some teachers already. But this move would go far beyond what any other middle school is doing at this time. The elimination of that many teachers would cause a full breakdown of an entire team, leaving teachers not only to have to teach in seventh in sixth and seventh grade, but to have to move from room to room throughout the building to teach, allowing zero time in their schedules for that group of teachers to ever meet and discuss students in either grade. This
109is the breakdown of the team. The team model is referred to as the gold standard for middle schools. And without that time factored into teachers schedules, the actual to actually team the model is dismantled. And furthermore, CMS is identified as a priority school. Our current successful academic plan relies crucially on targeted feedback on high lever instructional practices and dedicated weekly team time for instructional conversation. Implementing a cross team model directly undermines the core rec requirements and the dedicated team time essential for our success as a priority school. CMS has already come upon hardship from the 2.4 FTE cuts made to our electives this year. Central was the only middle school to take on teacher cuts and our students have suffered from them. We have four shared elective teachers to other buildings in the district every
110morning. And this makes it incredibly difficult for there to be enough classes offered for students to take electives. Currently, 20% of our eighth grade class sits in study hall because there are no elective teachers available for those students. This is unacceptable. It's unfair to our kids and it is far from equitable to other middle schools. Cutting even more teachers attacks our kids access to a quality and well-rounded education even further. Last, we recognize that enrollment for the next two years will decline slightly, but we're disheartened that the first approach is to cut experienced teachers instead of looking towards the other ways to tackle this bump in the road. CMS community would welcome more students through an open enrollment lottery. The CMS PTA started a petition on Tuesday evening to gauge the public interest and it
111has been met with over signatures. In closing tonight, I urge you to please listen to our families, our teachers, and our community and do what's best for Central Middle School. Thank you. >> Okay, we've got Allison Walsh and I think we'll be able to fit in John Fischer. Uh but after that we've got we have speakers 26 through 43 uh at the end of the session. >> Thanks. Good evening members of the board of education, Dr. Jones and attendees. I am Allison Walsh and I am a CMS parent and co-president of the CMS PTA. Tonight I am speaking as a parent. Myself and the CMS community respectfully request that the proposed changes to CMS, a priority school, announced at November 6th budget proposal, not proceed. The proposal will remove four full-time teachers from CMS. Thus,
112changing the team model from two teams to one and a half teams for sixth and seventh grades. Fewer than two teams dismantles the team program as it was intended and will negatively impact students. This year, CMS was down 2.4 teachers, creating schedule changes, resulting in uneven class sizes and many students inability to take electives of their choice and in some cases, none at all. Reducing teaching staff by an additional four teachers would only further negatively impact our students. These proposed changes are based on enrollment data for two years when best practice argues that four to five years of enrollment data be considered for changes of this magnitude. Additionally, these numbers fail to include CMS districted families given a waiver to attend an alter alternate middle school to avoid attending class during construction. The CMS community
113has been more than patient. My oldest child by the end of this school year will have completed her entire middle school experience in a condemned building. My youngest child is set to begin sixth grade next year in what all CMS parents, myself included, believed to be a new building with the same incredible Greenwich Public School educational experience as its peer middle schools. A change to the current team model and the loss of four teachers will not be the same educational experience. Therefore, we respectfully request that CMS students entering this long-awaited building enjoy a two team model at minimum as intended and retain its current number of teachers to further reduce scheduling, class size, and elective disruptions. Thank you, >> John Fischer. EOE members, Superintendent Dr. Jones, everyone here. Uh, I'm John Fischer, one of the
114GHS PTA co-presidents. I'm speaking on behalf of myself, co-president Monica Hang, and the GHS PTA board. This is a couple of soon to be disappearing pennies. Meanwhile, at GHS, staff have been disappearing over the last three years. In the 2324 budget, five and a half instructional staff disappeared. 2425 budget. Six instructural staff, six learning center aids, five instructional coaches disappeared. In the current 2526 school year, one administrator, four administrative assistants, media center assistants, and 18 learning facilitator stipened roles disappeared. But ghs enrollment has not disappeared. There were 2,631 students in October 23. There are 2599 now just 32 fewer students. The guess is that enrollment will be 2531 next year just 100 less in three years. 100 fewer t students. Meanwhile, while we've disappeared 11 and a half instructional FTEES, five administrative FTEEs, and two
115dozen educational support roles. We have already pinched pennies until they scream. And yet on November 6th, we heard the proposal to disappear another 6.5 teaching positions and one administrative position. Eliminating positions doesn't make the work disappear. It just moves it around. It piles up and it gets backed up. There are there are a few underutilized classes, but I'm willing to bet these magic pennies that we have many more crowded classrooms than we have classrooms with too few students. GS GHS is very large, very diverse. Our students have a huge range of learning levels and college and career goals. We need very robust staffing to ensure that we continue to increase educational outcomes for all students. Trimming a few chronically underenrolled classes might be reasonable, but 7.5 FTEES on top of the many that have already
116disappeared is too much. It will impact students. We have already pinched the pennies until they scream. It is time to give it a rest. Last but not least, for the sake of the great GHS aquatics program, the neighbors and the whole community, we urge the BOE to very quickly move forward with the proposed GHS pool and the second egress. Thank you for this time. Thank you for your community service and welcome to all the new members. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you for all those um that spoke during during the first first hour. Of course, everyone is welcome to stay uh for um further committee comments at the conclusion of the rest of the agenda. Um that said, um before we're going to move on to the superintendent report, folks should know, I know
117a lot of comments from CMS um and the budget in general. The budget is not on our agenda tonight. We appreciate all the comments. um the budget so folks are aware and it's clear um the budget decision is uh conversation goes on over the next month and then we make a decision on the budget in our December meeting um at the end of December and with that we're going to go to the superintendent. >> Thank you. Um just a couple of items tonight. First of all, um just thank you to all of our schools that honored our veterans and um I'm I'm always really proud that we're actually in school because every single student in Greenwich Public Schools does attend a Veterans Day ceremony and I honestly believe when you're out of school, um a
118lot of kids don't. And so just fantastic job to all of our schools. Next week we do have an early release on Wednesday. Hard to believe that it's already Thanksgiving. Um, also just I know it's been mentioned tonight, but if you can make it out for the Wizards, uh, to support that Monday Night Basketball, that is a fundraiser for the seniors. Um, we also just want to encourage you to catch as many of those holiday concerts as you can. Um, there's just some phenomenal music that will take place over the month of December. And last but not least, I will mention the buses because you're probably going to ask me anyway correctly. Um, we are working um, we're working very, very hard. I would say I'm more optimistic at this meeting than I was at
119last month's meeting when you asked me if it was getting better. I said no. Um and that was it because it wasn't. Um but I feel like this month we're actually in a better place and I'm very hopeful, you know, in the coming weeks that um we'll we'll have a better solution. >> Any questions for Dr. Jones? Are there other budget uh board committee reports? >> Let me I saw Karen over here first. So let's go to go to Karen. >> Wendy wants to do JC. Mine's not exactly the same thing. So she can certainly >> Wendy. JC. Thank you. >> Um the Julian Curtis building committee continues to make excellent progress towards its goals. Phases one and two are nearing completion. The ADA compliant and secure front entrance is almost complete with a few
120outstanding items such as the long lead glass which was delayed in shipment um for the front office. Meanwhile, the elevator is currently being installed as we speak by the co elevator operator and this should be completed and functional within a couple of weeks. Uh meanwhile, bids were just opened up this Tuesday for phase three, which is the cafeteria, and we expect bids in the coming weeks with the general contractor selected by early January. So stay tuned. And I don't know, do my other two um members on the committee have anything else to add? Is that it? Okay. Okay, >> Mr. Hersh. >> Oh, this is just a comment. Um, as former chair duties, um, we have well, four outgoing members who typically we would have honored um, but they had not been able to we
121we had not been able to do it um, at the budget meeting as we didn't have a quorum. And um, so I know that uh, Dr. Jones and I were planning something super special uh for the incredible outgoing members um to be hosting um something at Havomire in the morning hours sort of um of the 4th of December. Correct. Yes. Um and so we'll be sending Dr. Jones I'm sure will send something out and we'll an invitation and we'll we'll continue that. But I know people have asked cuz it's was sort of unusual that we hadn't done it yet. And um those four individuals have spent so much time, energy, heart, and soul and put in to our to our board, to our schools, to our district. Um and they deserve every ounce of honor
122honoring we can give them um for all that they have done over some from one year, some for for eight years uh and others in between. So, um, I did want to acknowledge that their presence here tonight, uh, lack of presence here tonight, uh, is not indicative of the fact that we don't respect them and the work that they've done. And, um, Amea Kulpa, I will publicly, um, apologize to them. I sent an email earlier, too, for uh, mistakenly not uh, confirming a date, uh, to do it in advance. So, I will be also reaching out to them individually and and we'll be honoring them uh, for sure then, if not at other events. So, thank you. Thank thanks for thanks for mentioning that. Um I will give my um old Greenwich building committee report.
123Um as existing board members know and probably our new members know as well uh we went out back out to bid um on old Greenwich. Those bids are due um at the end of the first week of December. So in a couple of weeks at that point we will know have a better sense of the pricing for the entire project. Um we have a full set. Oh, here comes Chairman Waters back just in time. We have a um we are in in we had to go back out to bid for the project because um when we first went to bid the project, it was right in the height of a lot of the tariff uncertainty last spring and we didn't we simply did not get enough bids because people didn't want to bid in that
124climate. Um we are much more confident based on the bids that are coming in, not that they're opened yet, that we don't have that problem. Um and we are hoping that we will have a a final price for the whole project um by mid December that may um uh result in a needing us needing to have a special meeting of the board um if um when all the bids are are totaled um because of this delay um we need to talk about an interim to to to complete funding of the project. So stay tuned on that. Any other board idea? Most of you aren't on any committee, so I don't know if there any other committee reports yet. >> Right. >> Well, I'm on the pool committee, but we're about to do that. >> There
125we go. Why don't we do that? So, discussion items, the we're now on the discussions item. The first one is a GHS pool feasibility study. So, I turn things over to Dr. Jones and Miss Co, Vice Chair Co. >> And I'm actually going to ask Mr. Bryant to kick it off for us. and thanks for coming in person. I'm assuming this is to honor my election as chair as why you're here. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. My my pleasure. As we have two people joining us tonight, I'll introduce them very uh in one quick minute. I just want to refresh the just for the whole timeline. Uh we had the facilities assessment report was March of this year, early March. The board of ed at the time of March 20th business meeting uh was presented the facility
126assessment. Uh several weeks later, April 8th was their very first meeting of the feasibility committee. Uh they've met uh almost between meetings and focus groups over 15 times between uh April and now. Uh when we get to slide four of the presentation, I really would love to just have a pause to see them all the members that are part of that committee. Uh we had we had amazing attendance at all of the meetings and I think the work product shows uh the diligence that went into it. So I have the easy part of just introducing the the design professionals. So we do we have Lisa Yates from Antonazi Associates and Mike Fortuna from TLB Architect. I'm gonna turn over to them to walk you through the the slide deck and afterwards the slide deck will
127be posted on uh the board's agenda but also we have a project website page. So Lisa, the floor is yours. >> Thank you. Um can you all see my >> point of order for rookies feel free to go sit out there so you can see the the slide the slide so you don't >> so everybody can see my screen. >> Um I'm gonna assume that's a yes. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Um, good evening everyone. So, this is a short presentation, but it has a lot of information. Fortunately, um, based on the comments I've heard, you have the EDS specs and and everybody seems to have done their homework. I'm going to try to shed light on our process and how we came to the recommended option. Um everybody's very familiar with um my colleague
128Mike Fortuna who's here TLBA um is on our team uh performed the study in March uh uncovered all of these issues including issues with the piping and and we have the pump room is next to your electrical distribution but we want to focus on um the items that really informed our process. So, and and a major one of these is is the headroom issue related to diving. So, if we have say 15 16 feet to this girder, uh not only are we going to have a hard time with diving, but we're also going to have a hard time with water polo, which requires seven meters above the water line. And similar similarly the issue with the the pool deck um you know solving this issue of the narrow space here requires uh raising the pool
129deck itself. Um it's you know an existing building. You can't exactly move the pool over and has been requested. We'll pause. Um this was a great committee with Coach Low leading the uh the Cardinals Aquatics Brain Trust. Um there was a lot of great engagement. I really appreciate everybody's um engagement and um some some things that came out immediately. Um we understand there's a great urgency behind addressing the issues with the pool. But at the same time, that's not an excuse to to fail to address our long range planning options and to sort of keep a level head about the whole thing. And also loud and clear from many quarters we had focus groups in addition to the committee meetings. Closing the pool is not acceptable. So a rationale for our project educational specifications are
130like a road map for the project or like a recipe for a successful project. And the analysis criteria here on the right are sort of like ingredients, right? and they formed the basis of how we looked at each option. And as um James Waters mentioned earlier in the comments, we used them to establish scores for all of the options that we looked at. And we start with program. Um this is an edspec. There is an educational curriculum that includes swimming electives, uh which you can't have unless you have the pool on site. And obviously we don't want to the the teams themselves. Congratulations to the girls varsity um winningest uh tradition here in in Greenwich. It's wonderful thing. We are also looking at you know this is an expensive endeavor. No matter how you look
131at it really it's important to improve the function and the capacity of the natiatorum while while we're at it. The site is a complicated site. There are lots of utilities everywhere. You have issues with soils. It's not a small site, but it's absolutely packed. And so, so that's, you know, there are multiple areas for ranking here. As far as cost, the total project cost is weighted five times more heavily than any other item on here. We're also looking at, you know, if if you look at offsite, you have additional transportation. Um but when you get into the sort of the bigger more um championship level madiatoriums you get into the private donation potential and also additional monetization. So that's rental but that's also community use. So it's it's all very integral. So our first first
132four options focus on the site at the at the location of the existing pool wing and sort of for lay of the land. We always talk about soils at the high school. Um this area in orange is the area of fill that was placed in the 1970s which have been giving you headaches for years. And while they're managed, we still want to stay away from them. There are utilities all over the place um around the school connecting utilities between the pool wing and the mechanical space to the south. There's a big retention basin under the parking area. So, we start with the most basic of options and we sort of build our way up. We call this option zero because it really does just about nothing. Um, it does repair the issues with the pool
133and raises the pool deck to address the issue at the deck and make the water a little bit deeper for water polo, but it doesn't address headroom and it doesn't re reintroduce diving to this pool, which though this was, you know, summed up as a non-starter on all of these options. You'll see because the score is hard to look at in this presentation. I we placed, you know, how how they did against all of our options. We looked at six approaches with variance. It was 11 different options and this one ranked ninth. So, building from that, we looked at adding a diving well to the east, which when Mike Fortuno was looking at this initially, this was one of his first options because it's simple. It's like option one, but we're adding the diving function
134back in. You still have headroom issues associated with water polo and you're still raising raising the deck. Does a little bit better. It's ranked eighth. It's utilitarian like like option zero, which I didn't cover this. It focuses more on summer construction. So, you're keeping the pool open, sort of, you know, limping along through the year. Um, some interruption to the spring schedule is likely with this one. This is very similar. It's a little bit of a heavier lift. uh slightly bigger pool diving diving well is introduced to the south which could be used for practice laps. This also keeps the existing pool and keeps it in in use. The schedule is longer, a little bit more disruption because we have to pull out the structural wall at the south of the pool and this one
135ranks sixth. So, we're creeping up. And then we looked at an Olympic size swimming pool, a 50 meter pool in this location extending to the west. And you know, the high school teams don't compete in a pool of this size. They compete with using a 25 yard lap. So it's it's more than they require. And it is this one would completely remove the pool. It would be new. It encroaches into the parking area, removes some parking. Um and this this these dashed lines here are the newly installed retention basement in basin in the um area of controlled soil. So there are a lot of sort of it's a can of worms and major cost. It would be a great regional facility. Um but it's you know has has issues. It didn't do so well in
136the rankings. Then we get into the option four series which is where we start hitting the sweet spot. It's a short course stretch pool. So 75 ft by 115 ft. You can um you you have you have uh deep water for for your lanes. You have a movable bulkhead. You have a shallow end which is required for swimming electives. Um this one is this one is a renovation so we still had some of the headroom issues. for water polo, although we were able to escape them for diving and we're still encroaching into the parking area ranking is continuing to improve. And so then we get into option 4.1, which is one of our front one of our two front runners. And this is a new facility in place of the existing facility. It extends to
137the east and it has this sort of sweet spot pool. um nice entry sequence. We have to deal with it makes the lunch courtyard a little bit smaller. We have to deal with existing utilities. It stays out of the worst of the soils areas and preserves the retention basin. Um the biggest issue with this is that it requires closure of the pool for at least 18 months. And uh we reached out to all of the feeder community pools and everybody's willing to help, but it's still a lot fewer hours in the pool. And we also looked at a temporary pool option. It's extremely costly, which I will show you that later. This is also where we started thinking about upper level seating. So if we're raising the headroom, we have room for a second level.
138Um public spectator seating has to be separated from the athletes on the pool deck physically anyway. Uh lifting up the spectator seating level is is the modern answer to this because it also keeps the spectators dry and safe which is really important. You have people of all ages up here and all abilities. Uh this one is ranked third. That'll take us straight into option five, which gets our committee seal of approval. This is an all-new pool facility on on campus. And one of its major benefits is, you know, like like with many school projects, we really like when we can build the new facility before we take the old one offline. uh high high schools in particular, the sites are very active. And this enables you to take the money that you're spending on this
139project and really focus it on the building, on the amenities rather than um spending money on a temporary pool, doing multiple enabling phases in the high school, moving utilities around more than once, moving students around, that kind of thing. So this this is very similar to the four series 4.1 option except for that we introduced locker rooms because we're no longer adjacent to the high school's locker rooms. And in in doing this we were also able to introduce two smaller visitor locker rooms which is a great amenity for a big meet but it's also really helps with that. U the youth groups that come in and use the pool they'll have a space to go the town will have a space to go. really helps with uh the rental monetization opportunities and also makes it
140a real community pool. This is the upper tier seating for option five. And then these are building sections. And you will notice this is diagrammatic. So, this might not be this high, but the whole pool deck is raised because where we're planning to place these in the area of the tennis courts, we know that there's ledge there, which would seem to be a problem, but compared to the soil that you have on the rest of your site, it's actually less of an unknown and something we can deal with a little bit better. The amount of space that's under here, we're treating it as shelf space. So, it's potential residual space that you could use for something else. Um, we know that when Cardinal Stadium was built, uh, there were plans to include a fieldhouse with
141that at one point. So, it might be, you know, something that could be used in in joint session for athletics. It could be a great thing. We've in carried the cost for this within the price of of option five. It's possible that the way that it's placed on the site, we could minimize this area. This is looking the other way. And so to get into the site, the Cardinal access driveway, second egress from the high school. We know that's something that you've been working on for a long time. I had plans from 2021. I know it was going on for at least five years before that to to address the traffic on Hillside Road. And just the idea of having this many kids with with you know with one access road is is difficult or
142the niatorum site here on the tennis courts that you know that's it's a real opportunity to address multiple issues together. First, however, we really had to take a close look at the tennis courts because just just because this is the pool committee does not mean that um you know we want to give the short shift to any of the high school athletes. We um looked at this. So, AECOM is is assisting us with this. We looked at the the access driveway in conjunction with eight courts which we understand that eight courts are necessary for competition in tennis. This is a real sort of change to this this peninsula. It really increases the impervious area close to the brook and it removes a lot of trees. I counted the tree removal for this option and it's
143over 60. So that's you know in in contrast the footprint of the natiatorum is is the size of about four of these courts. So it's about half of of the uh impervious area not related to the roadway. Um mention has been made of looking at a home for tennis courts at North North Street School. This shows what that might look like. It's a mile and a half away. And this this shows we we included two sort of test fit site plans worked out with AECOM in the educational specifications because as a as a design team truly digs in deeper um we wanted to give them the flexibility to really site the building properly but we wanted first to make sure that we we knew it worked. the option on the left. There's some topography over
144here. And I know you're familiar with this area. The the tennis courts are up a little bit higher and then this drops as it goes over to the waterway. This gives us the opportunity if we set the pool in this way without doing a ton of ledge removal, we might be able to lower the profile and reduce some of the shell space area if that proves to be a desirable thing. Um, this option when I did the tree tree removal count, it was up around 25. Both of these when the when the building is placed on the site, we can massage the massing a little bit to help rem reduce the amount of trees that need to be removed. We think this one will remove fewer trees if we can if you can take care
145of where it's clipping a few of the bigger ones over here. This option is is up higher. So you would be really using the space underneath the deck as an amenity. The proximity to Cardinal Stadium is nice. Kind of facilitates that. And this is uh cost summary. It's helpful. So So option 4.1 and option five as the two front runners. We used a professional cost estimator. Tom Harden at PAX um looked at both of these through the same lens. And while option 4.1 is significantly less expensive, when you look at the temporary pool, a temporary pool, which is something that can be provided, and we used, you know, historical examples of this, it's very expensive. It's close to $8 million. And this is for a pool that still doesn't have diving, can't um accommodate assembly.
146It can only have 50 occupants in the building. And it's, you know, it's technically permanent under the building code. So sometimes frowned on by planning and zoning and the building officials for that reason, but it's it's also money that you're spending that you don't get in the final product. And if you also look at we we isolated $3.6 million is the approximate cost of the shell space below the deck. Chances are you won't eliminate it all, but you could you could achieve cost savings to this 57 million by looking at this more carefully. And if you look at the total delta of the um option 4.1 with the temporary pool versus option five, you have about 2.6 million delta um which is less than the cost of the area under the pool deck. So there
147are some equivalencies that can be worked out there. This is a conceptual schedule broken up by fiscal year. This is what we use to um coordinate with our cost estimates. This one is for option five. We are anticipating if things if things get moving through pre-esign um and we get a you know design team on board by the summer of 2026 we can get to construction around the summer of 2027. We think this would be a great time for tennis court relocation also doesn't take as long as the pool pool will take about two years but um we could start at the end of the tennis season so they don't face any interruptions either. So this is this is our reward for getting almost to the end of the presentation. Um this is this is
148a conceptual view of option five from the shallow end. You can see the upper tier seating area. Uh in the middle under the signage here there's there's an alumni room. This is the movable bulkhead. This is the view from the upper tier seating looking looking at the deep end which is where the competitive swim lanes would be water polo and we have two onemeter boards. We did talk about higher boards but that's not something that is um you know currently used in competition for high school kids. So and again I mean it's it's great. It's it's durable longlasting facility. It's not uh goldplated. You know, we we didn't go crazy and and um add things that were costly that were not needed. These last few slides is are really here to help facilitate discussion. This
149is the program. Uh it is reflected in the plans for option five and we also include comparison to existing I'm just going to blow through these and we can we can talk about them at the end if anyone has questions. So we talked about all of these points of analysis. So we started by sort of addressing them the design team addressed them in a narrative form to go through with the committee. And so we went through the site then we went through the cost impacts overall feasibility. We included some cost information. We have um option six looked at offsite. Option 5.1 looked at an Olympic pool in the same site as the tennis courts. So we didn't, you know, just pick the most expensive thing. And this is the scorecard that went with it. It's
150not the easiest to read, but that's so we included the summary on our our different option option sheets. And it's colorcoded, which helps a little bit. And our winner is circled with our 56 points. And that brings me to the end of our presentation. If there are any questions, we can have a good discussion. Thank you everyone. >> We'll open it up. Any questions, comments from board members? Go ahead Bob up. >> I was just curious as to what would happen to the where what's where the pool is now if we did go with project I'm sorry option five. >> Um thank you Bob. So in terms of the cost estimate we carried a cost to demolish that wing. However, we believe that the cost to retrofit it for any other use would be really
151similar to that demolition cost and that's more likely what would happen. There are multiple possible uses for it. Uh Dan Watson has indicated an interest in using it for mechanical and facilities. Um it's in a great location um within the high school uh with relation to the other mechanical spaces that are there already. Um I think that the principal might have some other ideas, but but we also understand from planning and zoning that they're usually in favor of keeping existing fabric there if um if it's already there. The pool would obviously need to be filled in. Um, well, seeing as how we have our GHS pool liaison sitting here and I was hoping just because I know you didn't get to give your update [clears throat] earlier because we were going over this. I was
152just wondering what your thoughts were um relative to the discussions that took place in the you know at the committee level uh as to option five and then I have a one follow-up question. >> Um well I think that the team has been incredible. The committee was great. Um, Lisa already talked about the amount of times that we met and there was such good attendance and um it was just an incredibly deliberate process and and I think we really carefully arrived at she showed that matrix. Um there was a lot of analysis of many different factors. I think one of the key things that we're all, you know, this been mentioned several times is just wanting to make sure that the kids have access to a facility and that that is maintained because we talk
153about 18 months, 24 months for construction, but that's, you know, half of a high school athletes career, right? And that can make a huge difference for their high school experience. And then potentially, as was mentioned, um I think we have something like 10 or 11 water polo players now going to play um division one next year in this year's senior class. So it, you know, we have a lot of very talented athletes in all of the aquatics programs and we wouldn't want to sort of derail their high school experience, but also their potentially their college careers. and and that's really I think how we landed on um the option five is that it is the most likely to allow for an uninterrupted experience for our students. And then also I think um it was Francis
154mentioned it in her public comments earlier just I I love that we took a much more holistic approach I think than has been traditional of trying to look at okay what are a bunch of things that we're trying to achieve on the high school campus and how can we do them um coordinate those efforts and so I think we really have achieved that here um with focusing on the driveway which is really been a priority for the neighbors, but also is a major public safety issue, major school safety issue. So, I'm really excited about getting that done. Um, the tennis courts are also unfortunately at end of life. So, they need to be we need new tennis courts and once you put the driveway in, there is no great place to put them on the
155campus. Unfortunately, eight tennis courts is a huge footprint. So, this is kind of a nice solution for that. I do think it's interesting and won't it's not part of the ads and Lisa made that clear, but the idea that having um option five where a facility is right next to the stadium could also allow us to do some interesting things that would support a lot of our other sports programs which is something that I like and that we can continue to talk about. And so just my other quick follow-up question is because option five we you know as me mentioned talks about moving the tennis courts off of the high school campus and mean obviously that's not something that we'd really like to do because it sort of has a negative impact on our tennis
156players and certainly that's something we talk about down the road. I know at one point Central Middle School, we also knew that their um tennis courts were cracked and and needed to be upgraded and it wasn't included in the Central Middle School um redoing of that. Um I don't know, did the committee look at options to maybe add tennis courts there as well since th those needed to be redone anyway. Um only because I'm just trying to, you know, this is going to be obviously a large project. I saw the numbers up there and it's as you said, it's not just the pool. covering three different things at once and we've saved money by not by purposely not doing some of those projects knowing that they were going to have to get ripped out and
157redone anyway as in the tennis courts at the high school and it's central. So, I just didn't know if if that was looked at or we looked at all of the different school campuses. Um, I don't know if Ben looks like he wants to get up if you want to talk about it, but yeah, we did look at the different campuses and where there's space to put in eight brand new tennis courts and really North Street is the only campus that has the space to do that. And you need to have eight tennis courts to do competitions at the high school level. Um, and there isn't space. You know, Central Middle School, as we all know, is fully under construction and is already planned. So, it was a little bit unfortunately was it was too
158late to consider whether you could put a tennis courts here because um those fields are spoken for. So, I I mean I think this I I definitely think it's very unfortunate to move a sport off of the campus, but it but the driveway is actually what would require tennis to move off of the campus. And I think the driveway is something that really needs to happen. And without getting too distracted, um, some people know there's a bridge project that is going to happen at some point on Putinham, which is going to greatly reduce the flow of traffic on Putin. So, if we could get this driveway project done, that would be really important um, actually for the whole town to have this new um, egress um, into the high school. So, tennis unfortunately is going
159to have to move regardless um, nothing to do with the pool, but because of having to put in the driveway. And so I think hopefully, you know, the positive way to think about it is tennis will have a beautiful new facility um that will be much better than what they have today. I mean, I know we have other sports teams at the high school that are offsite anyway. And this is just a comment for the chair and I think that's something that we should question, look into, especially since we have new board members. I'm just mentioning this because this is we are looking at the pool but the pool with option five is now going to encompass at least two other projects that we had been looking at at the high school which is the
160you know the the secondary egress it's looking at t the tennis courts there it's looking at the tennis court elsewhere I think the question is then how we approach this because it's an it's unusual we've never really had something where it encompasses so many different uh things that have been on our you know uh list to do anyway so I don't know I think it may be a board discussion as to how we want to tackle that project. If it's you know the pool committee then becomes the campus committee and or you know the the tennis the tennis you know being moved to an off-site location what that does to money that we could ask for from the state etc. But I I definitely think it's a question and I'm just putting it to you
161know as a reminder we we haven't done this this way before. So I think it's just before we go down too far the path we should just make sure we you know, we're we're figuring out h how to do this properly so it gets done that way. >> I may I throw in I I um I don't know if I stressed this enough. >> The the egress driveway and the natiatorum in that location are inter interdependent because the driveway is now providing egress for the pool facility. You know, it's something that the fire marshall is going to want to see. It's how you get emergency staff to the niatorum. And also, you know, you would really want them to be tightly coordinated. Anyway, um the the tennis courts, Ben, um I think you could talk
162about the history of all of the different places we look to put tennis courts. >> Go ahead, Sophie. >> I just going to say my strong recommendation would be that it would be a building committee that's handling all three of these projects because they have to be very tightly coordinated um in terms of sequencing. So, I think that that would be the right way to do it. I know that maybe that's not typical for how we normally do these things, but I I think it would actually be a big improvement to do it that way because if you had three different building committees, I don't I don't know how you would get it done honestly. >> Given the number of building committees we already have, I don't know if we we have that kind of
163capacity. Um Karen, you have a question? >> Uh yes, I have a couple questions related to cost and one about input. Um so first question related to cost and apologies, I didn't have a chance to send these to the committee ahead of time. Um, how you you've done outreach to community pools for short-term solutions. Um, I'm curious, have you reached out to community pools for a long-term solution? I know there are many high schools in Connecticut and elsewhere that don't have their own pool, but use a local Y poolool, for example. We talked to all the community partners like the YMCA and the YW.CA DCA and Boys and Girls and we actually I mean Tony could speak to this if she wants to but we all I mean we looked at all the local pools.
164I mean part of the problem is that they don't have pool time and and then at some point you know once you look further a field than sort of the obvious players and you just have kids on buses and then first of all you don't want kids on buses for long periods of time. Second of all then that becomes a major expense that you're busing kids all over the place. um to and and you know the nice the great thing about our aquatics program but the complicated thing is it's three seasons the pool is in use. Um so there's no break. >> Um and second question uh tangentially related to cost is uh you mentioned the possibility of private donors. Is this an area you've explored yet to defay the cost to the town? >>
165Yes, absolutely. I mean this is something that we've been in conversation. I don't know if I can invite James Water to talk about it a little bit. I think he would be the best person to um speak to that. >> You're if you're up for it, Mr. Waters, >> what's what's the what was the specific question? >> So, I think the I think the um um this is not this is not an expensive project and I know you the committee talked a lot about um um alternative funding possibilities. >> Yeah. So, I mean, look, I think the u in the in the town of Greenwich, um there is a track record of raising funds uh privately for projects. Um two that I know of um that come to mind are the YMCA and the YW.CA.
166Those projects were were roughly about 20 years ago. um at you know significant expense and um you know I want to say this is again 20 plus years ago I the YMCA project uh I think raised in excess of $25 million for their pool their pool um uh you know the the YWCA was a smaller project um but the there's a track record there's there is a dedicated community um for these uh sports So, I I you know, it's definitely something that where there's it's not we're not talking smoke here. >> Okay. Uh last one, I promise. Um just given the potential significant impact on our highly successful varsity tennis team, I'm curious to what extent you have sought input from the tennis players, the tennis coach. I I didn't see anyone tennis related on
167the on the list. we we need to do more outreach with the tennis because I think we wanted to kind of see where this is all headed. Um the tennis would come first. I mean that's always been the understanding is that you would do you know the happy news is the tennis courts are relatively inexpensive to build as compared to a swimming pool. So the idea would be that you do the tennis courts first. So again their their training would not be disruptive and and also the happy news is that tennis is only a one season sport. So, it gives you more flexibility in terms of of making a new facility for the tennis program. And I did want to add and Karen referenced as Karen Hir referenced it um you know the tennis team
168already practices at Central um middle school and at Eastern Middle School. So, they are already um spread out at various different campuses. So, this would be a change, but it wouldn't be like a total departure from what the normal practice has been. They also practice at Benny Park as well, the JVB team. >> Um, Dr. Jones, can you make sure we're all clear on the process moving forward? Obviously, this is a discussion item um tonight, but if we were going to follow the the time frame up here, what what what is what is the what is the kind of roll out here? >> So, right now, we're just at the feasibility phase. So, the goal is to get the board of education to the the point that you're ready to actually approve um the EDS
169spec. And once you are able to approve the EDS spec and and it's basically saying this is what um we want to build, then we would in fact request a building committee that we were just talking about and it could be a pretty complex um building committee because it's going to need different expertise than what we would have on some of our school um committees. And so, uh, once we get that building committee, then the whole building process would start just like it does for any of your other building committee, um, for schools. >> Other questions? >> Um, I have a quick question. Sorry, there was this um point where Lisa showed that the there's educational requirements related to the pool. Uh, what are those? though there there are um swimming electives in the curriculum.
170There's a swimming class and a lifeguarding class and they both require shallow water. >> Right. So my my suggestion obvious is a discussion item but we've done this a lot in the past well as we've had time to absorb um the report and whatnot. um we compile a list of questions and and send them in so that's something we can talk about. This isn't a um this would be a significant project for us. So as urgent as this is obviously we have to we have to do our due diligence. Um I will say just speaking personally um because I think it's important the irony is not lost on me that we've had um an hour worth of public comments about our operating budget and um the cost of the operating budget um and cuts the
171operating budget and and we're talking about a significant capital expenditure that is dwarfs any cuts we're making or reductions we're making. So I think it's worth noting that um even though we do not control um the the budget in this respect that if we're talking about conditioning um this project that's a BET decision not our decision. Um I I I don't think we're talking about at least I'm not personally talking about um supporting any project this price range um without a significant uh private private donations and private support. This is not something where I think we're looking at the the entire expense coming out of the capital budget because there'd be a lot of other things that personally I think we'd have to prioritize versus urgent as this is. So there is a there is
172there's a balance here. There's a reason why we're moving forward with a when we're talking about a proposal of from my perspective proposal of this size and part of it is because we feel like there's a strong community here behind it and get this done in a way that's that's unique um compared to other projects. >> That said, moving on. Next, we have the U Mr. Banyan returns in person for the monthly financial report. Sir >> Patrick will be joining to to present the financial as he comes down. I'll just mention that the capital budget that was approved by the board of ed of 18 million includes 4 million for A&E for this project and we carry in year two the balance of the project for the option five. Uh but so the four million
173is included in A&E and if as the superintendent mentioned if all goes well that we would have access to the A&E funding in May uh if it goes through the BET and the RTM. Just wanted to put that out there. We have we've we're anticipating this and it is in the capital plan that will be for the bet in uh February. But I'll turn it over to uh Patrick and just for the new members uh you see either Patrick or myself once a month on the monthly financials and we'll happy to answer any questions you may have but you have a monthly financial Patrick will walk you through that uh and then also the uh transfers as just as well as housekeeping items. But I'll turn it over to our director of finance uh Patrick
174Lie. >> All right. Thank you Ben and um good evening everyone. I think um for some of you it is the first time of going through this financial monthly report. So I want to get you all orientest to the information that we put togethers. Um so when you flip through the uh monthly financial report we organize this to kind of like captures the operating budget status, the capitals, the grant and then the school lunch fund. And then we also touch on uh the revenue and then finally touch on the contract greater than 100,000 that we have with the vendors. uh when we look at the operating we also separate out kind of like the uh out of district the special education out of district uh tuition and the settlement because this is a significant amount
175in our non-sary budget that we have and so for this month uh if I look at the report I would like to highlight the operating budget year today we spent 69.5 million up to the month of um October the end of October It is 35% of the budget used for our current operating budget comparing to the last year percentage use. We are 1.5 1.2% lower than that of the same period of last year's. It is mainly driven by the special education out of district tuation and the settlement amount. Uh otherwise the other spending is pretty much in line with the prior years. the lawnapsing account that we have 2.5 million. It is still in there for the 2.5 million but we are expecting the full amount will be used for the bus contract in this
176school years. We continue to keep our attentions to the bus contract spending this year to make sure that we understand how much we are going to be for the rest of the years. Uh and then on the out of district tuition and the settlement uh we have a budget set aside this year for 10.8 million. Uh our current uh view of our assessment is at $8.7 million which is kind of like giving us a potential possible savings of around 2 million versus the budget. But the out of district tuation as as usual is is kind of like very dynamics. one or two kind of like uh additional student will kind of like swing the numbers. So we will keep uh attention on this one. Um on the school lunch program um so far uh we
177have seen up to October the cafeteria transession has actually increased compares to the last years where you can see on the school lunch fund uh page on the financials the cafeteria receipt is higher than that of the last years. Uh this increase is largely driven by the Greenwich High School earlier start times. uh students uh are kind of like coming to the school and having having the breakfast at the school before the the class starts. >> Thank you, sir. >> All right. >> And any questions for Patrick? >> Okay, hearing no questions. You want to talk about transfers? >> Good. Yes. So next one is on the transfer. Uh it is going to play a one page uh on the transfer. Uh again on the transfer we kind of like highlight the budget transfer request
178greater than $10,000 in here. Uh and then if it is within the major object code uh meaning the 51 xxx 52x we call the major object code. when it is within the major object code for the transfer even if it is greater than $10,000 $10,000 it is a for information items only when it is over $10,000 and it is across the major object code we will ask for the board of education approval in this month the transfer is within the major object code so these item are kind of like just reallocating the expense within the same major object code for the school requirements to uh to satisfy the purchase that they would need to do. So nothing abnormal in here for your intentions questions. Everybody good? All right. >> All right. Thank you, sir. >>
179Thank you. >> You see? >> All right. So now we're going to talk about the BOE meeting calendar. This is the calendar of our BOE meetings, not the school calendar is a first read. So Dr. Coats, this is your item. Um so for the last two years the board has you know made little tweaks and where we have the retreats at the beginning of the year which have been tiring for the board because we have a quite a few meetings at the beginning. Um but what it does do is allow us time to really talk about academics which we've had great feedback when we're actually at those meetings. So this models after what we have done uh and what we are doing this school year. Any thoughts, comments? Go ahead, Karen. Uh >> yeah, just
180a question saying at what point do are the topics for the retreats determined? >> Uh the agenda plan will will come the board will vote on that as well. And it tends to be quite similar. Sometimes we move something from month to month, but um like our academic achievement report comes at the beginning as soon as we get the results. So it usually falls in I believe it's October. >> It's October 8th May. Yeah. Yeah. >> Um I had a a thought. So if memory serves the this first meeting in September this year, um I believe we if I remember we made that meeting because we thought we might have tell me I'm wrong here. We originally scheduled that meeting because we thought we might have a settlement contract to to vote on and that's
181why we made it in the spring. Um and we ended up not having it. Um and that was a kind of a light agenda. >> It's actually the capital summit. >> Isn't that the next week? >> No. 10th. >> We added it because we had one was a capital summit and one was focused on academics. >> No, academics is October. >> Yeah. If you look back at this year switches in the packet, you'll see that the September the 4th was our capital summit, but we also down at the bottom had like feasibility and contract on there. Just to note that we may be dealing with those, but that was actually when we had our capital retreat. >> Yeah. >> And then we on the September one, we did assessments, curriculum institute update goals. So there
182was we did, you know, we didn't have the the state standardized testing to go over yet, but we did all the other stuff. >> Yeah. Okay. I mean, I think we look I I remember that first meeting being light um in September. Um I'm I we can go back and look. I'm not convinced we need both of them in all honesty because um um I remember in the spring us adding it for the for the sort of settlement because we have a capital we have one for capital and we have one for the other I don't know I don't know if we need both but we can talk about it >> I think and I can go back and look at my minutes or my notes but I think we ended up adding this the
183the one early in September for capital because the we had to move the capital the vote for capital up so much earlier and so they wanted to go through all of those documents with us. >> No, I agree. That's why I don't think we need that's why I don't think we need two we have we two retreats one week apart because we can do capital at one of them. I don't think there's enough I don't think there was enough material for two two meetings but we can look we can look over let's go back and look we don't we take okay any other questions on this right um um Dr. Bud, I'm assuming is online to talk about the teacher absenteeism monthly report. There he is. I know he appears. >> Hi everyone. Can you
184hear me? >> Yes sir. >> Yes. >> I thank you. Thank you. I Good evening everyone. I think you'll see the document that is in your packet and in your materials for tonight. And uh I will just highlight it structurally for you. Uh some of you are new tonight and welcome. But I was asked starting last month to give a regular update on staff absenteeism. And we've done it with our two largest employee groups, teachers and uh paraprofessional security personnel. And uh extracting the main data points allows me just to say a couple of things that we'll obtain for all of these reports. Uh what we're tracking here at your request um are personal sick day, family illness sick day, and personal day usage uh among the teacher groups uh and the professional assistant security
185groups. And the reason for focusing on those categories is because the bulk of our absences are in those categories. and uh the uh many of the other categories that are smaller are also much less controllable such as bereavement, jury duty or things like that. Um secondly, when we are looking at sick leave or personal leave in this category, uh we extract any data from individuals approved for longer leave. Uh that could range from child birth or child rearing all the way up to caregiver kind of leave. So these are more of the day-to-day type of absences. What you see in the first graph on page one is the uh weekly average trend of both groups since the year began uh with the upper group being the teacher group and the lower line being the parascurity
186group. In the bottom of page one, structurally, you see how these first 11 weeks of the year compare o to the first 11 weeks of the past two school years. And I would point out at the very lowest uh level on the left uh that our teachers um absenteeism uh is in a is in a positive direction. Uh although then when you turn to page two or the back depending on how you're looking at it, you'll see a couple of other pieces that are of interest to you. Um you see that our average when you take our weeks 1 to 11 into account is approximately 3.7% of teachers absent for the reasons I mentioned um uh on average in those first 11 weeks and um a little bit over 5% of the paras and security
187personnel and I would continue to say what I said last month which is at some point that is a relatively reasonable percentage those are relatively reasonable percentages for employee groups, particularly um those who are working in school environments with lots of people who come in close contact with them, including some children who bring germs to school. And then I was asked uh to periodically show uh data that might illustrate days of the week and any trends that are interesting there. And so um of this past month of data since the last meeting, the uh highest absentee rate was the week of uh October 13th through the 17th. And you're seeing Monday through Friday represented there. Uh, I will just make one qualitative note that Monday is slightly unusual in that week because Monday the 13th
188was Columbus Day and while our schools were open for work, um there were other schools in the area, other districts in the area that were not um open and that caused some particular child care issues for some of our staff who needed to be home with their own children on those days. So, I wouldn't say that October 13th in particular really represents a lot since uh it over overlapped with the holiday. So, happy to answer any particular questions or happy to just have this be a standing item of interest to you all. >> Um can you speak um Dr. Bud to what happened on the 17th, October 17th? I understand the Monday was the Columbus day, but Friday it's extremely high, >> right? We we did look at de in detail actually at both the
18913th and the 17th and um on the 17th there were um besides uh people being ill. Uh there were a number of personal day requests that fit into the uh contractual language for personal days and u on an individual basis. Um I know building administrators have had conversations with individual staff and um I've had conversations with some individual administrators in the same vein u to clarify that absences are really for the teacher group um the largest group here um bonafide personal or business obligations that can't be taken care of um at another time. uh absences that come to me from time to time um do show um staff attempting um to not take entire days if they can avoid it. But sometimes um you know the personal demands of life do intrude and I think
190a lot of that happened on October 17th this week anyway. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? Okay. So, next on the agenda is the agenda plan discussion. So, this is what um this this is the current this is where we the topics for specific meetings. Uh this goes to your question. Um so, Dr. Jones, >> sorry, I'm just finding my way here in the packet. Um, so we will have a couple of items just just to note that will be coming on here. Um, the alliance has asked um just to have a short presentation for us to bring everybody up to speed on the various grants and how they've supported the schools. We also have um the United Way who the last couple of years um have presented about the early intervention programming um
191that they do and so uh they will be getting added on here but I'm trying to work with them on the best date. Um, other than that really we're starting obviously the budget conversation the month of December. Uh, sometimes we do have to add an extra meeting depending on, you know, how far along the board gets. Um, I would say just as a reminder is a good good time to remind you to send your budget questions. Um, because we'll be much more productive on our agenda if we have all of those questions answered for you as quickly as possible. So, I will leave it at that. Um, again, our next meeting is December 11th, >> right? And um also the um because we it is conceivable that we might need a special meeting for RTM
192timeline uh to make the RTM call and whatnot. We might have to have a special meeting um in early January for for Old Greenwich. Um, I was also going to see if you could add I mean I know it's just a it's not a board meeting technically, but I don't know if you you know if there's a quorum of us if we need to list it as a meeting for doing a little celebration for our outgoing members on the 4th just just in case there happens to be a quorum of the board. I don't know if we have to you know it's not a meeting but I just I'm double checking. So >> we could actually do it before the meeting and it's not part of the meeting. >> Pretty sure I'm pretty sure the
193outgoing members are going to be perfectly happy not to continue to discuss. [laughter] They've had like I said one, four, and eight years worth of it. So I'll just leave it to however you guys want to handle that. But I just wanted to point that one out. And I know I suggested last meeting um seeing if we can get Chief um um Eevee here at >> Okay, good to talk about the um safe school zones. >> Okay. All right. Any other any any other um suggested agenda items moving forward >> for this in the future? Okay. So, with that said, we're going to resume. I think we're time to resume public comment. Um the public comment portion >> actually agenda. >> Oh, we have the consent agenda. Sorry. >> Sorry to get you on. >>
194I withdrew. Just sorry before we go to that. I I withdrew it earlier and I will I'll withdraw it now. We can since I know we have a lot of people here speaking and I think we can put it on for next time. >> Okay. So just to keep that clear then. So, with the with your motion withdrawn, then I'll make the move to table the consent agenda to um a future for for meeting. >> I'll second that. >> All in favor of tableabling the consent agenda. >> That is um seven. >> Can't see. >> Well, just only because there's other corrections that needed to be made in there. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Eight 8 nothing. Okay. 8 Z. Okay. And thank you, Wendy, for pointing that out. Um, now we will return to public
195comment. Um, so, uh, Madam Secretary, where did we, uh, we'll give you a moment here to to get back here where we where we left off. Thank you for your your patience. >> Okay. Next on the agenda, we have uh, Mia Gi followed by Jessica Punutz. I do think before I get timed on the mic, I want to say that I think that my daughter illustrated beautifully why a team is really important when Miss Leslie Planch got up and finished her speech for her. So, I don't think there's much more that you can say to that, but I'm going to give it a go under three minutes, right? Okay. Hi, Mia Gesi. I'm a social emotional learning specialist and a mom here. What is a team? A team is a group of people who work
196together towards a shared goal, combining their skills, perspectives, and effort to create results that they couldn't achieve alone. It is not lost on me that the last time my daughter stood here before you, she was begging for you not to cut sports teams from school due to all the social and emotional benefits a team provides to children during this period of development. So much of our children's education is becoming individualized through the overuse of tech and Chromebooks. Children are feeling purposeless and have lost lost a sense of belonging. A team is what provides that connection, that rootedness. The connection between a child and their teacher is the cornerstone of effective education. I know cutting budgets is a normal part of running a business, but it requires precision. A healthy for forecast isn't just about trimming
197expenses. It's about understanding where to cut, how much to cut, and what must never be cut if you want to grow. With the decision to potentially eliminate four teachers at CMS, and to move more into a cross team model where you're essentially destroying the integrity of a school, and in business terms, a brand that Mr. Healey and his co-workers have worked tirelessly to build right before we are getting ready to launch our newest innovation, a state-of-the-art, beautiful, and much bigger and better Central Middle School. Has it occurred to you that enrollment at CMS is down because our current school is outdated and falls far behind what nearby schools offer? A physical environ environment plays a huge role in how a child feels, learns, and thrives. Hence why I believe we became a priority school and
198hence now why our enrollment is deeply suffering. The true path forward is not to continue to make negative choices for our children's learning environment but to completely change the narrative of what has become central story. By doing so we must hype our community about the wonderful benefits of our new building and the strong leadership and teaming models that are currently in place. Like my daughter Ana that you saw before mentioned, she is a deeply emotional child and no matter how fair she may be on a soccer field, she does not like to be away from the core of our family. Oh boy. Well, it blew me away that she was able to go on that trip because of her team of of teachers that stood for her, cheered for her, comforted her. Okay. Who believe
199I wrote you a letter last week BOE who believed in you enough to power you to step into the current roles you want to play in your lives and just let me finish on this question who was part of your team when you were growing up don't let our children fall short on that >> thank you uh next up we have Jessica Punots followed by Ryan Piro Good evening. I'm the GA VP of membership and I'm here because our district is at a critical moment, one that requires honesty, collaboration, and a genuine effort to understand what is happening in our schools. Despite deep budget cuts that have reshaped instruction, the superintendent has not met with stakeholders. Liaison meetings with GA so far have been cancelled. yet ongoing celebration about coming in under BET guidelines even
200though cuts were made without consulting teachers support staff or students most affected by the cuts. This is not a success story. It is not what's best for students. Teachers in Title One elementary schools can no longer collaborate across town. Start time changes have made teamwork nearly impossible. Departments cannot meet cohesively and already strained professional development is further fractured. Media specialists in large elementary schools cannot teach the full curriculum. Reduced staffing and required checkout blocks now consume instructional time. Students are losing digital literacy lessons, tech integration, and access to books, undermining ISTY standards, and 21st century learning goals. Special ed programs are understaffed and increasingly unsafe. We are hearing from admin that teachers cannot recommend or assign paras unless the need is medical or behavioral. Let me be clear. Predetermining services is illegal and our new
201programs are already dangerously understaffed. Schools are being pitted against the system. Buildings are told they must cut positions due to enrollment changes that the district itself created when students were moved and are continuing to be moved from CMS to EMS. Manufactured conditions are being used to justify further cuts. Specialist cuts at CMS have overcrowded classrooms and reduced opportunities. Students cannot all enroll in programs they love. Many cannot access morning help because teachers are assigned to other buildings. Home rooms are overcrowded and specialist programs are stretched beyond productivity. This is not efficiency. This is austerity. It harms children. These are not numbers on a spreadsheet. These are learning conditions, safety conditions, and the daily experience of our students. So tonight, I urge you, do not continue discussing the budget. Do not move forward with the budget
202until you have met with all of the stakeholders, the teachers, staff, families, and students. You must hear directly from those living with the consequences of last year's cuts. Before celebrating compliance with BET guidelines, we must ask, what is the cost? This is not sustainability. It is not aligned with our mission to serve every child. There is real work to do, real harm to repair, and much that must be restored. Our teachers are ready to collaborate. Our students deserve better, and our community expects leadership grounded in truth, not optics. Thank you very much. >> Next up, Ryan Piro, followed by Kyle Stevens. >> Good evening, everyone. My name is Ryan Piro. I have taught uh English at Central Middle School for 12 years and I've been a team leader and learning facilitator here for 11 years.
203My request tonight is straightforward. Please eliminate the proposed reductions of four full-time teachers at Central Middle School. Instead of cutting staff, the board should address the underlying issue of declining enrollment at our at CMS by welcoming students from across the district to attend our new school through an open enrollment system. This will also retain our teachers and our current instructional model. Next year's staffing reductions would introduce cross-grade teaming to CMS as others have stated. Under this proposed plan, approximately 20% of CMS students would be on a crossgrade team, which means that their teachers will instruct multiple grade levels instead of focusing on just one. This crossgrade teaming could have broad negative implications for teaching and learning in our building and would stray from the ideals of the teaming model. For example, while our current teams
204generally instruct three levels of math, three levels of English, and two levels of science, the proposed plan potentially doubles that demand on the crossgrade team to instruct six levels of math, six levels of English, and four of science without an increase in planning time or resources. Under this plan, coordinating team meetings, parent conferences, and co-planning time for teachers becomes much more complex. Scheduling students so they remain with a single core team of teachers while also maintaining our course leveling options will in many cases likely not be possible. The loss of our current teaming model, the loss of valued teachers and the challenges posed by the transition to a new building would create a perfect storm of uncertainty for our for our community next year. Therefore, we urge the board to table these cuts and address
205the underlying issue. the shifting enrollment patterns at the middle school level rather than rushing into reductions that would affect teaming, teaching, and learning at central. I joined my fellow community members in asking the board to consider implementing an open enrollment period for the new CMS building. The new facility was built with the mantra, if we build it, they will come. So, open the doors and let them in. Thank you. Next up is Kyle Stevens followed by David Lavine. >> Good afternoon. My name is Kyle Stevens and I'm a teacher at CMS. Thank you in advance for listening to my concerns about the proposed budget cuts at CNS and the impact it'll have on students. One of my concerns is around the one and a half teameing model that's been proposed for sixth and seventh grade
206in order to absorb absorb these cuts and the consequences those decisions are going to have on students. Teaming in middle school is essential because it creates a smaller supportive community within a school helping students feel known, valued, and connected. When teachers collaborate as a team, they can coordinate instruction, share insights about students strengths and weaknesses, create consistent expectations. This leads to better communication, more personalized learning in a safer, more supportive environment where students can build confidence during a critical stage of their academic and social development. However, if the proposed budgets enacted and CNS moves to a model that has one and a half teams for sixth and seventh grade, many of those benefits that come from teaming will be lost. For example, a science teacher on a sixth and seventh grade team will still only
207be able to teach five sections. That means one grade level will only have two sections of that class available. Furthermore, because science and many of other classes are tiered, that means one teacher may be only only offer one advanced course in one grade level. This will impact students at CMS by creating larger classes than their peers. It'll also make scheduling less flexible. Many times throughout the year, schedules seem to be changed due to a change in the IEP or because parents and staff have decided that change in is in the best interest of the student. Because that math that model lacks scheduling flexibility, it will cause student staff to switch teams or become cross team far more often than what's currently happening. Exceptions to the team model will continue to increase and our students will
208lose the benefits to teaming. In short, the one and a half T model for all intensive purposes is an elimination of the T model. In addition, CMS has already absorbed cuts that have negatively impacted our students. Just last year, CMS absorbed 2.4 FTE cuts. As a consequence, one of the sixth grade teams have lost their special education teacher. This uh to make up for this, special education teachers from across our school have taken students onto their case load. As great as those teachers are, they are not members of our team and our contact and coordination time has been lessened due to conflicts in the schedule. This has already impacted our team's best ability to serve our students. It's also important to understand the context in which CN CMS enrollment has declined. We have been working
209in an outdated building next to a construction site for the last year. Next year, we plan on opening a brand new state-of-the-art building that has been designed for grade level teameming. There are ways to encourage students to attend CMS in the short term before our projected enrollment is expected to pick back up. One idea, as we've heard today, is to implement an open enrollment policy for a limited time to increase CMS uh enrollment. There are always tough decisions to make around budgeting, but I urge you not to adopt the proposed cuts to CMS. Our students have been negatively impacted by budget cuts in the past and we know cutting 4.0 FT from our staff will only make matters worse. I urge you to consider alternate ideas instead of reducing our staff and support policies aimed
210at increasing enrollment at CMS. Thank you for your time. >> Uh next up is David Lavine followed by Lauren Teretta. feel lucky I get to speak before my beautiful wife. Um, good evening Dr. Jones, chair McKanti Anthony, uh, new board members. Uh, my name is David Lavine. I'm the chairman of the Julian Curtis building committee with some of you and representative for district 1 and the RTM. Um, most importantly, I'm the father of a of a son at Julian Curtis and a daughter here at Central Middle School. As a parent, we're always trying to be a good example to our kids and and sort of teach them about leadership. And one key aspect of leadership is planning and being proactive. And my daughter really wanted to speak tonight, uh, but I failed to plan ahead.
211I forgot to sign her up. So, I know that sometimes planning is easier said than done. Um, and we know too well what can happen when we don't plan ahead. like in this building we were in, it was condemned and then thankfully now we have planned ahead to spend $100 million to modernize this school. But there's two issues uh that I wanted to speak about tonight that are before the board of education that are both a result of a lack of planning. The first we've been hearing about a lot is the decision to cut teachers at CMS. It seems reactive, not proactive based on short-term enrollment trends. Um I think we should be investing in talent ahead of the new era and not slashing. We should be proactive. Similarly, I think it's reactive to send
21211 buses to um Julian Curtis school because there was no plans of where to put them. Uh putting teachers and students in harm harm's way. It it's dangerous. There's little preschoolers that are literally getting uh out of their uh their parents uh vehicles navigating narrow streets with 11 buses going by every morning. Um, now that all of you are in your seats, I know that you will be thinking more about these issues and and you'll be doing some planning. Um, and so I I I ask you these few questions. The first is why is North Miamiis which is overcrowded and closer to central not being considered? Uh, when we're thinking about students to come here, I'd urge you to consider and think about why not have the open enrollment. I think it's been suggested. It
213seems great. Uh, for Julian Curtis, these are really urgent questions. I urge you to think about very soon what happens in the winter when the teachers who currently park in the dirt have to park in the snow. Uh what what are we going to do when these preschoolers are getting out of their vehicles by 11 buses that are driving down a narrow road with ice? You guys know what Julian Curtis looks like. Um have we looked into the fact that maybe state law is being violated right now according to chat GBT? Maybe. I don't know. Um I I know that we can all plan better and I know with this new board um we did a great job uh and will do better on these uh two issues. So thank you for considering um not
214cutting the teachers at Central and please do something about the buses at Julian Curtis. Thank you. >> Next up, Lauren Treta followed by James Walsh. and we didn't even know that we signed up at the same time. Very coordinated. Anyway, as you may have heard, I'm Lauren Tretto, the wife of uh of David Lavine, but also the the co-president of the JCPTA, also a parent at uh at CMS and alum alumni of both actually. Um thank you so much for your service to our great district and our great town. I hope that you had a chance to look at the email that we sent yesterday with the slides to provide visual context for what the JC parking situation actually looks like and and the note that was accompanying it. As you can see from from
215the slides that we sent and a lot of your own experience of Julian Curtis, this uh using Julian Curtis as a bus depot essentially for the 11 plus buses that park there is creating a very unsafe environment for our students and our teachers and it really cannot continue. The the building and the driveway were not designed to be able to handle that type of volume, that type of bus that can't even make the turn. It also coincides with the drop off and pickup for the prek and also for students going in and out to gym throughout the day. It is a very dangerous situation for our teachers. I'm sure you saw the pictures. It's kind of hilarious. They're very creative. They're parking in all kinds of half-hazard way. We've been lucky with the weather. This
216will not continue. It's we're very close to having some kind of issue with the with some kind of uh inclement weather or teacher fall. This is not something we want to have happen. This has been going on for many months now. We've been very patient. We're we're on the the the precipice of winter and we really need this to be addressed uh sooner rather than later. I know there's a lot of discussion. I'm very pleased to hear, Dr. Jones, that seems like something's imminent. We are cautiously optimistic that this is the case. So, please keep this top of mind as we head into this situation with the weather. Um and and thank you for your time and listening to all this and looking at all the slides and pictures that we took expert expertly over
217the course of uh the past couple of weeks and months. Um lastly, as JC is a feeder for Central Middle School, we are obviously very concerned with the cuts uh proposed for the teacher and the teams um model. This has been a very successful transition from Julian Curtis to Central. We'd really like to see that continue. Our students are very excited about the new school and having the successful transition that their peers have gone through for them having to experience that same kind of support. So, thank you for your consideration on that as well. Thank you, >> James Walsh followed by Colleen Alfano. >> Good evening all. Congratulations to the new members and welcome back uh to you familiar faces as well who have been on the board. Um I'm James Walsh, current CAS Cobb
218and CMS parent and tonight I want to speak about the enrollment estimates for CMS. The budget proposal earlier this month said it's a false narrative that enrollment projections are way off and that in fact the projections are accurate. However, I believe the projections are not accurate for Central Middle School. And here is why. The enrollment projections are based on the cohort survival method, which predicts future enrollment based on historic ratios. This works well for schools and communities with relatively consistent inputs, but unless the model is specifically adjusted fails when shifts in demographics, redistricting, open enrollment, or any other anomaly occurs. Over the past few years, we've experienced one such an anonym at Central Middle School. Um, we've experienced one such anomaly at Central Middle School uh that has not been accounted for in the model,
219CMS waivers. As stated in the report, the data used in the model was actual enrollment numbers taken from the CD Department of Education. As the model was not adjusted to account for the issued waivers, individuals who for the purpose of future enrollment projections should have been considered CMS students were in fact counted as either Eastern or Western students. We don't have to look too far into the past to see another time when a school under construction resulted in an inaccurate enrollment projection. New Lebanon broke ground in the summer of 17 and experienced a steady decline in enrollment during its construction period with which ended in the spring of 19. In October 2018, according to that year's GPS enrollment report, New Lebanon had 230 K to5 students, down from 258 the year before. And it was
220forecast that just 218 K to5 students will be attending when the new school would open the following year. A forecast which by the way was created by the same consultant who made the CMS forecast this year. Fast forward to October 2019, 260 K to5 students were enrolled. It should also be noted that this year's enrollment report came with the following warning. And I quote, "A bit more caution than usual should be exercised when using these projections to make policy decisions. It is important to remember that the cohort survival method relies on observed data from the recent past. Its key assumption is that those conditions will persist. This projection should be used as a starting point for local planning. Examine the factors and assumptions underlying the method. You know your community best. Apply your knowledge of
221the specific conditions in Greenwich and then make adjustments as necessary. Given the numbers given the number of waiverss granted over the past few years, the similarities between Central and New LE during their respective con construction periods, and the fact that the model used a three-year average of cohort survival rate to forecast future enrollment, it would make sense to apply your knowledge of these unique conditions that were not accounted for in the 25 enrollment projection model and reverse the 4.0 FTE reduction proposed at Central Middle School next year. I would also like the board to immediately implement an open enrollment lottery for CMS. These two actions will ensure the CMS community has educators, students, and resources available to thrive in their new campus next fall. Thank you. >> Uh, next up is Colleen Alfano, followed by
222Dena Erso. >> Good evening. Thank you for your time. My name is Colleen Alfano and I have been a Greenwich resident, educator, and parent for 37 years. I currently serve as a school counselor at Central Middle School. Tonight, I want to speak specifically to the proposed reduced teaching staff at Central Middle School. I understand that on paper, temporary declining enrollment can make reduction seem logical. However, it is not. The developmental needs of 10 to 14 year olds are distinct and demanding. These students experience profound intellectual, social, emotional, physical, and hormonal changes simultaneously. It is in many ways the perfect storm. The team-based middle school model is how we anchor them during these years. It is not a luxury. It is the structure that enables us to understand the whole child and respond holistically. As a
223school counselor, I attend more team meetings than anyone in the building. And I want to make clear what we lose when teachers are split across grades and cannot attend team meetings. CMS has already responded to the reduction of staff over the past several years by scheduling teachers across grades. In fact, 63 of my 167th graders have core teachers who can never be present at their team meetings. This is not sustainable. Team meetings are where we conduct parent conferences, review academic and behavioral concerns, coordinate MTSS interventions, collaborate on 504 plans, discuss special education needs, plan interdisciplinary learning, and design PBS celebrations. These meetings require all core teachers who share the same cohort of students. Without that, we lose the shared expertise that allows us to see patterns, understand struggles, and act quickly. Crossgrade staffing, which is
224really what is being proposed, breaks this system. It eliminates daily common planning, disrupts curriculum coherence, weakens intervention work, and contradicts best practices as outlined by the Association of Middle Level Education. The research is clear. Effective middle school teams must teach the same students at the same grade level and meet together regularly. The new $112 million CMS building was designed around the team model. Yet, the current proposal undercuts this. If enrollment is the concern, there are creative temporary solutions. Allow the full parkway cohort to attend CMS rather than splitting them between CMS and WMS. open CMS to limited lottery seats with transportation from existing EMS and WMS hubs. We only need roughly 17 additional students in both sixth and seventh grade to fully support two complete teams per grade. That is an achievable target. The needs
225of our young adolescence and structure have proven to serve them must remain at the center of this decision. Thank you for your time and consideration. Is Dina here? >> Students. Uh, next up we have Dena Erso followed by Maria Juk. Um, and I would just remind everyone that you have a maximum of three minutes and please be respectful of the others in the room. >> Can you hear me? >> We got you. >> Oh, hi. Good evening. My name is Dina Erso. I'm a parent of three boys. One at Greenwich High School, one at Central, and one at North Street. Uh, first I'd like to thank uh those volunteers who have served the board um and are finished up with their terms now and welcome those who are starting theirs this evening. The amount of
226dedication that this position requires is is extraordinary and I'm so appreciative of everyone's willingness to give the time and attention that it deserves. Uh please continue to show parents that you are stepping up for the right reasons throughout your term, not just when it's convenient or easy. Tonight I'm speaking as a concerned parent specifically about Central. Although for the next two school years I will not personally have any children at Central, I do feel a deep affinity for its teachers, administrators, and students educated in its classrooms. I served at the C as the CMS PTA president from 22 to 24. During that time, I heard countless educators and board of ed members discuss the importance of a teaming model at this age. I've had conversations and exchanged emails with people who are looking at how
227to best address the lower enrollment numbers for the next two to three years and I think I have a pretty good handle on each one's point of view. This decline in enrollment is not unexpected. Quite the contrary, it is something that has been anticipated and discussed at length. I am aware that there already is some cross teaming that goes on in all three middle schools currently. But what is being discussed for CMS next year and for the year after would be much more problematic than the current state of affairs. Even though a two-tier model may sound it like it's not necessary looking solely at the numbers at CMS for next year. Middle school students are not just numbers on a page. They are young adolescence going through some of the most chaotic and emotional years
228of development. The TBI model, as we have heard, is the gold standard precisely because it alone allows teachers to best address issues that may be brewing and need addressing in this population of students. So, tonight I would encourage you uh as the board and as an administration of the GPS to do two things to help ensure a two team model would remain. One, open a lottery. and two, survey families with elementary age students to see if you can get a more accurate number of rising students who would be attending Central in the next couple years. Without doing more, the alternative would be to cut the four teachers in addition to the two and a half that were cut this year. And as we've heard, that will surely prevent teachers from working as a coherent group,
229especially for those students who draw the quote unquote short >> stairs. That does not sound equitable among students who would be educated in the same building, let alone in the same town. So, I urge you to look at options to avoid that result. I see no downside to either a lottery or a survey and hope you do not either. Thank you so much for your time. Good night. >> Next up, next up we have Maria Juk followed by Lorie Mulligan. >> Good evening, members of the board of education, Dr. Jones, and members of our central community. First, I would like to congratulate our newly elected board members. We appreciate your service, your time, your dedication to the children of Greenwich. My name is Maria Yukich and I have been a teacher at CMS for 20
230years. During that time, I was also a parent of two children who went through the Greenwich public school system. Today, my children are also teachers at CMS. My son, aunt, is a physical education teacher and my daughter, Victoria, who's on maternity leave, is an eighth grade math teacher. My family, my career, my heart are rooted in this school. Tonight, I am asking you to reconsider the proposed reduction of four full-time positions at Central Middle School. The request comes after CMS has already lost 2.4 four full-time positions last year along with a 1.0 special education position that was never filled. That is a total of 3.4 full-time positions. My sixth grade team no longer has a dedicated teacher, a special ed teacher. My students are now served by four case managers across three grade levels. The
231advanced learning program is also split across two grade levels with no common planning time. I want to acknowledge and thank my principal, Mr. Healey. He continually finds ways to carve out time for us to meet about our students. But creativity has its limits. They he along with his assistant principles cannot create hours in a day. Currently, I meet with my four case managers once every two weeks. If we want additional time during the school day, substitutes must be pulled to cover both of our classes. That means that while we meet about students, we are simultaneously not teaching students. What happens instead is that we meet during lunch, before and after school, evenings on the phone, way past our contractual time. Middle school thrives when the teaming model is strong. When staffing cuts, weakens teams, instruction
232becomes isolated, collaboration becomes rushed, and students lose the consistency they desperately need. 30 seconds. You know the solution. Everybody said it. I love this school. I love our students. I love our community. But we cannot continue to do more with less and expect the outcomes to remain the same. I respectfully ask the board to reconsider the proposed reductions and to work with us to find thoughtful creative solutions that protect the teameing model and the future of CMS. I thank you for your time. >> Next up, we have Lori Mulligan followed by Francis Norris Oliva. Hi, I'm Lori Mulligan. I'm the vice president of secondary schools of the GEA. I teach at Greenwich High School, but this was my first home when they stole me away from Pmparok. Um, I'm reading this letter tonight. Um, it's
233a letter of concern on behalf of a Central Middle School colleague. Being a middle school student is hard. It is a time filled with new responsibilities, new pressures, and constant change. Students leave the comfort of one classroom and one teacher, and suddenly find themselves navigating multiple adults, shifting expectations, and the challenge of discovering who they are. They meet new peers, form new friendships, and face the daily ups and downs of growing up. Middle school is a journey and not an easy one. But at Central Middle School, we have built something that makes that journey not only manageable but meaningful. We have built a family. At the heart of that family is our teaming model. Each grade level is divided into two teams, tightlyknit groups of teachers who collaborate purposefully. These teams meet two or three
234times a week to ensure every student receives attention, support, and guidance. No student is ever just a name on a roster. They are known. They are seen. They are cared for. This model allows us to support far more than academics. We discuss students social and emotional well-being, their friendships, their struggles, and their victories. We celebrate growth. We plan interventions. We help students become confident, capable young people. And most importantly, we build relationships that matter. Students know they can go to anyone, any teacher on the team, even ones they don't have in class, for help, advice, or simply a familiar face. These everyday interactions that create trust and belonging. In a time that often feels unsteady, our students know we are their constant. The model, the power of this model is so fundamental that it shaped
235the design of our new building. The architecture intentionally places teams together so teachers res so together so teachers responsible for the same students could collaborate easily and often. This reflects a core belief that students strive. When adults work closely together to support the whole child academically, socially, and emotionally. We've seen what happens when teameing is strong. Students flourish. They grow more confident, more connected, and more prepared for adolescence. And we've seen the early signs of what happens when teameming is weakened. When teachers can't meet consistently, or when students are divided amongst adults who rarely share time. The web of support begins to fray. Teachers lose the ability to coordinate care. Students lose the unified team that helps them feel anchored. Even simple parent meetings become nearly impossible without pulling multiple teachers from different classrooms. Now
236we are being asked to consider a cross state crossrade model where teachers would share students across grade levels. In such a structure the collaboration that defines an effective middle school teaching >> 30 seconds >> becomes nearly impossible. Teachers lose shared knowledge of the same groups of students. They can't spot patterns, address concerns early, or plan meaningful supports. Relationships become incidental instead of intentional. The structure simply cannot deliver what middle schoolers need most, consistency, connection, and coordinated care. Greenwich has always been a district that puts students first and one that values research, honors child development, and builds environments where young adolescence can succeed. The rest of this email will be sent to you so that you could hear all of her words. Thank you very much and good luck to the new board. >> Next up,
237we have Francis Norah Oliva followed by Sam Taylor. Thank you. Good evening, board members, Dr. Jones. My name is Francis Norris Oliva and I've been a history teacher in Greenwich since 1999 and here at Central since the winter of 2000. And for probably more than half of that time, I've also been a team leader here at Central. And I have never been more proud of this community than tonight. I had some prepared words, but I really can't say it any better than my students that already spoke tonight, Taylor and Fiser. I can't say it any better than my colleagues, my fine colleagues who spoke tonight. They gave you all the evidence you need to reconsider this decision. So, I ask you to take my three minutes here and think about what you heard. Think about
238what we'll lose if we abandon our current teeming model. Think about the impact it will have on our children, our students. Thank you. >> Uh, next up we have Sam Taylor, followed by Jennifer Taylor. >> Hello board. Um, thank you very much for uh all that you do and I know uh from the bottoms of your hearts, just like us, you value our students in Greenwich Public Schools uh tremendously. Um I am a graduate of Greenwich Public Schools. Uh graduate of Central Middle School. I love Greenwich Public Schools and that's why that's why we're back in town and that's why we have our four kids here. Uh the two things that I I want to talk about very briefly. Uh first is the bus situation at Julian Curtis. Frankly, it's just dangerous. I mean, it's
239been brought up before, so I won't belabor the point. Um but just like it took uh literally buildings being condemned to get a new a new school. Do we really have to wait until somebody gets hurt? whether it's a a a teacher or whether it is a student uh in a dangerous situation to affect change. Um I think the answer is no. Um the the other side of that is um I mean there there is real optics of it too. Um, we currently are are sticking all of these uh buses at uh Julian Curtis and Western Middle School, two of our most uh socioeconomically diverse schools. And the optics of that uh is also uh not pretty. Um and then finally turning here to Central Middle School. This is this is a school that has
240a team system that works. And I can tell you from just seeing the growth in our daughter from uh sixth grade uh to seventh grade currently uh that this system does work. And um to take away something that is working is really it's tragic. And I think that um also we're kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy as it comes to uh declining enrollment because we have antiquated facilities and we continue to make uh budgetary cuts that affect our kids uh education and that infects uh affects enrollment as well. So, as we continue to do things that are reactive rather than proactive, as Dave talked about before, uh we continue to uh affect the way the public and and uh other families entering the town of Greenwich and what their decisions are in terms of where they
241want to send their kids to school. So, I believe Greenwich Public Schools >> is a gem and I'm here uh with my children for that reason and I know that uh you all carry care care very deeply about uh about the Greenwich Public Schools and I just ask that you continue to do the right thing. Thank you. >> Next up is Jennifer Taylor followed by Kristen Rice. members of the board, thank you for listening. I'm Jennifer Taylor, Sam Taylor's wife. Um, our daughter Hana is at Central and we have two boys who are six and eight at Julian Curtis. I'd like to talk about two issues currently putting our schools, let's say, creatively under pressure. First, JC has apparently become the unofficial [clears throat] GPS bus depot. We now have more than 10 buses parked
242in the primary lot. So many uh that the teachers are parking on curbs, grass, and possibly anywhere that looks vaguely flat. Teachers are talented, but parallel parking on a hill shouldn't be part of the job description. And these buses are coming and going all day long during drop offs, pickups, recess, gym transitions, basically every moment when small humans are walking around unpredictably. It's a safety concern wrapped in a chaos burrito. [gasps] Second, the fact we are planning to cut additional teachers at CMS and break apart the team model that has actually been working is not good. CMS is the only middle school getting this special treatment and there is no clear budget reason for it. When something works well in a middle school, that's practically a miracle. Maybe we shouldn't break it. So, we're asking
243for transparency, common sense, and a little less chaos. Our kids and our teachers car bumpers deserve better. Thank you. Uh, next up, okay, home stretch, folks. Hang in there. Next up, Kristen Rice, followed possibly by Joseph Tay, which is the same name as a student who spoke earlier. >> Thank you. Um, I'm tired. I imagine you guys are, too, so I'll try to be brief. Um, good evening, Dr. Jones, our board of education, seasoned veterans, and congrats to those that are new to the role. Uh, my name is Kristen Rice. I'm the parent of a current CMS sixth grader. Go Cougars. Um, and a fourth grader at North Street School who will be at CMS before long. Like many others, I'm here to voice my serious concerns about the proposed budget and staffing cuts at
244CMS. I urge this board of education and Dr. Jones not to move forward with these staff reductions as proposed. I was going to talk to you all about the importance of teameing and why it's a best practice, but I couldn't possibly say this any better than the amazing sixth grade teachers behind me who have promoted these concepts and live and breathe this every single day for my son and so many others. But I don't need to sell this group on the benefits of teeming. Uh just two and a half years ago, I think Dr. U. Uh Meranti Anthony, you presented a new CMS uh to this very board and acknowledged that the teameing model isn't the most efficient use of space or of staff. But this same body also affirmed that the trade-off is worth
245it. Why abandon that commitment now? The consequences are clear. Families with means are leaving for private schools while those without are left with the bare minimum and sometimes less. Is that the standard that we want for Greenwich? Not long ago, Dr. Jones, I stood here with you chanting, "Vote yes for CMS in this very building." We fought for a worldclass building. Now, let's deliver a worldclass education to match. Thank you to this board of ed for your consideration in rejecting this proposal, asking the tough questions, and exploring alternatives instead. Thanks. Uh, next on the list is Joseph Tay, which might be either a parent with the same name or someone who signed up twice. >> We'll see. >> Okay. Um, last two in that case. All right. Jennifer Young followed by Rose McKay. >> Is
246Jennifer here? >> Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yep, we hear you. >> Thank you so much. Um, good evening. My name is Jennifer Young. Um, I had prepared remarks for this evening. I'm not going to use them. I'm actually going to speak at your next board meeting um on the same topic, but I really wanted to speak candidly as a resident and member of the school community. This afternoon, the Greenwich football team played their final home game at Cardinal Stadium. And the players were really excited, energized, and really full of school spirit to be and proud to be playing in the stadium. By 4:45, it was already so dark that they could barely see the ball. Players were getting injured, as mentioned earlier today, by some of the young men who spoke. Coaches
247were concerned, and quite honestly, the spectators were just really stunned. It was it was frankly an embarrassment for everyone involved. And while the board of ed, Tony Jones, and Fred Camilo were not there, you should all be embarrassed as well. Even the visiting team couldn't believe that Greenwich, Connecticut that prides itself on excellence, had no lights for this game. We've invested millions of dollars in upgrading Cardinal Stadium, yet we have not addressed the lighting issue. So, that investment really just remains incomplete. This is really fundamentally about putting students first. It's about safety, fairness, and opportunity. Our kids really deserve the same um access to safe, the modern athletic facilities that other students across Fairfield County and throughout the state quite frankly um have. Most communities not only have lights at their main stadiums, but they
248have lights on their other fields to cover other sports like soccer, lacrosse, field, hockey. Um, and while I won't speak about field six and seven this evening, I will be back once we get the lights turned on turned on at Cardinal Stadium to address lights at both field six and seven. It's really the responsibility of this board of education to represent, advocate, and really support our students. I'm asking you to please do your job and act now. Our students deserve better. Thank you so much for your time. >> Uh, and last on the list, Rose McKay. >> Okay. Good evening everyone. My name is Rose Mcai. I'm a former Glenville Elementary School and Western Middle School student and I've spent eight out of my nine years proudly being a special education teacher at Central Middle
249School. When I secured my first teaching teaching job in my home district, I felt like my childhood dreams were coming true. I never could have imagined the district I knew and loved that raised me would gradually strip teachers of their ability to teach effectively year after year. These problems of the day have actually become problems of years. They affect our students and teachers futures. Although my focus tonight was going to be the two team model, I do want to address special education services that have already been discontinued during my eight years at CMS. Not because students no longer need them or benefit from them, but because of staffing and scheduling conflicts. We no longer provide an activities of daily living class once offered to students with significant cognitive disabilities to address vocational training and independent
250living skills. We no longer offer ELA and math skills level classes which supported students who are performing two or more grade levels below in reading, writing, and math with alternative content in small groupoup instruction. We no longer provide grade level or team-based paraprofessional support across a single curriculum. We've also been given new guidelines for next year about more restrictions that we have about paraprofessional support that will be available to students. And with the introduction of CT SDS, we were given direction that we can no longer document paraprofessional support and special education service hours. This deflates the appearance of the time and personnel actually required to meet each student's needs in the classroom. This brings me to the heart of my speech why we must preserve the teameming model. Teaching is not just a job. It
251requires knowing each student's personality, connecting with families, wiping tears after lunchroom drama, being the person a student asks for their first feminine product, giving extra help outside paid hours, and serving as the homebased students count on to say hi each morning and goodbye each afternoon. The team-based model ensures that each grade has one special education teacher and one set of general education teachers dedicated to its students. Even being only partially split split across two teams this year has made it incredibly difficult for me to ensure my students accommodations are met and to find time to collaborate with both teams. Parents expect special education teachers to understand daily assignments in classroom activities. Under the proposed 1.5 teaming model where teachers could be split across two grades, general education teachers would have to track double the curriculum
252content and have a greater number of students with IEPs and 504s to keep track of. If this proposal becomes reality, teachers will not be able to offer enough extra help, manage redo opportunities across two levels. Lead grade level field trips are fully support students during inevitable crises that arise in the middle school day. Who becomes the students home base when teachers are scattered across the building and potentially to the district because we're treated like numbers on a spreadsheet. I became a special education teacher to foster the sense of home and love for learning that Greenwich Public Schools instilled in me. I became a teacher so my students would have someone to come to for more than just help on grammar or fractions. If I did not stand here today and fight for my students right
253to have a team-based teacher model, I would not be the teacher they deserved. >> I I'm really sorry. I signed up. I did the Google form and I've brought my 11-year-old sixth grader from Fairfield. So, I implore you. I can talk really fast and I have no >> Please state your name for the >> Can you just state your name and >> My name is Jamie Previs and I am a super proud Sit down. Thank you. >> A super proud I am a super proud seventh grade teacher here under Mr. Tom Healey. I'd like to speak to you really briefly but really quickly about three things. Number one, this young man came to me yesterday with a a sneaker that he had drawn in art class. He drew this sneaker. He is not an artist.
254All right, that's not his forte. He's a really good athlete. We're going to go to an NCAA school. We'll get there. But anyway, he's talking about how he did an art class and this perspective. We're going to add color in these things. And all of a sudden, it hit me. Hit me like a bus, maybe one parked at JC. >> It hit me and it said, I teach kids in an academic support class because there is no art teacher in the building that period who can teach them art. The the hit that we took with exploratories, as you commented and stated, some believe schedules were impacted and we immediately began to investigate because there's no reason for that to happen. But there's a reason for it to happen because there are no physical bodies at
255Central Middle School during those exploratory times. So those children are sitting in an academic support class that are in double jump math and don't need an academic support. They need welcome to central middle school, not junior high school. They need that fundamental transitional period to explore all those different areas that they didn't even know they had. And that is what a middle school model provides them. The other thing I wanted to comment on again tons of teeming and I appreciate that and that is the middle school model. But as you targeted the student teacher ratio, this Connecticut Post boasted that Riverside Elementary School is number one and that is a credit to our district, a district I've taught passionately in for 20 years. How I do anything is how I do everything. That school boasts
256and in the paper proudly a 13:1 ratio. And I can only suspect that the achievements because there could be no other reason comes down to that dedication and specialization to those students 13 to1 is low by the standard that was put out in the in the recent study but it's extremely effective and we're above that. I teach a class of 26. There are 29 of us in the room last period. we are really doing our best under these conditions and if we're cut even further, it becomes impossible. So, I implore you to reconsider any other model. And I super appreciate, thank you so much to those new members who really came in and got their money's worth tonight. I appreciate everything you've done. I appreciate you letting me speak. I promise to God I I
257signed that form and my poor son, you're the best. All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Right. And so and so with that, we're going to uh conclude our our our public comment. Thank you all uh for coming uh and for sharing your thoughts. We really appreciate it. >> I'm sorry, Mike. Is there money involved? >> Yeah, [laughter] >> I'd be happy to make a motion to adjourn. >> Well, before we do, just a couple things. Um we um I will send out um notes. Uh folks, uh if you don't mind, we're still we still have we're still meeting, so if you could just kind of keep it down. Okay. The um we Thank you. Um I'll send out um um obviously there's a lot of committees and a lot of board reps
258to different organizations and sort of towns. Some of you have mentioned um in conversations we had about different things you might want to do. So um but uh please reach out. I will send out. We're going to develop some kind of Google form as well uh to send out to all of you. Um Sophie took the lead in developing a whole list of of all the different assignments, but um we want to get up we want to get those up soon um rather soon, especially the building committees that are currently meeting. So we need some folks for that um because those meetings ongoing. The other thing um to keep in mind um as you think about building committee uh as you think about committees um we want to try to restructure that a little bit
259in that um the chairs I'm going to ask the chairs of anybody who's serving committee to develop um a cadence of meetings with dates. One of the historic challenges we've had is that um scheduling committee meetings um ad hoc. So instead like setting the like we do for the board setting uh meetings for the whole year. So that's going to be responsibility of the chair. So um that's something that we want to try to coordinate um sooner rather than later. And now does anybody have a motion? >> Well, I happily to make a motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> Okay, I hear a motion and second jump right in there. >> Any um all in favor? >> Uh opposed. That passes 8 Z meeting. Thank you. Wendy wanted