October 23, 2025 Board of Education Business Meeting

001Okay. So, uh, now that we have quorum, I'm going to call this meeting to order at 706 and ask that people stand to say the pledge of allegiance. God, indivisible with all. >> Thank you. Um, now we have the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Kathleen, anyone want Okay, Sophie will second. Uh, all in favor? Okay, that's 6 nothing. 6 nil at the moment and then we can move on to the public hearing. I see our two GHS student government leaders here. Come on up. Uh good evening distinguished members of the board of education and Dr. Jones. I hope all has been well in the time since our last BOE meeting. Since then, we've successfully identified our subcommittee chairs. At our next mass meeting, all representatives will join their

002chosen subcommittees and begin thoughtful discussions led by subcommittee chairs. Moreover, each class has been successful and accomplished a lot. The freshman class officers have been elected. Congratulations to Anna, Maya, Sanjay, and Jack. They ran excellent campaigns, and we're excited to see all they accomplish this school year. The sophomore class has continued their dedicated efforts. brainstorming a schoolwide house-based competition called the Cardinal Clash. Earlier this month, they hosted a big sale as well. The junior class has been working on their upcoming pie fundraiser and their pumpkin decorating contest. The following day, pumpkins will be on display for the school to see and vote for the favorite, which will of course be mine. The senior class has had remarkably successful concession stands for football games and has officially secured November 24th for the Harlem Wizards basketball game.

003Additionally, our home our homecoming spirit week was fantastic this year. We began with a pep rally to intro introduce the week's themes, present fall sports teams, and recognize captains for all seasons. While some felt it ran a bit too long, overall feedback was positive, especially from winter and spring captains who were recognized for the first time in years. Furthermore, there was a faculty inflatable costume race which stirred up lightigh-hearted and spiritfilled debate over who really won. Throughout the week, dressup days like Beach Day, Rhyme Without Reason, and class colors all had great turnout. Senior dressup day was exceptional with many seniors dressing in groups this year. Lastly, the new cafeteria options, including Domino's and garden catering, have been wellreceived. While the recipe slightly differs due to national regulations, students remain grateful. Thank you for your

004continued support of student initiatives. We've had an excellent start and a great foundation for the rest of the school year. Thank you. >> Uh good evening members of the board of education, Dr. Jones, and community members. I'm Gabriel Lesa, the student body president at Grenwich High School and I'm happy and I'm happy to speak before you this evening. As we kick off this school year, I can say that Grinch High School is thriving as usual. I personally have found the events to be fantastic and commended the efforts of the GHS administration. With this, I also give thanks to the BOE for placing the full year 2027 capital budget action item on tonight's agenda. On behalf of the students, we appreciate the investment into high school improvements from spark boards to kitchen equipment and to the

005grand pool project. uh these stand as tang tangible reflections of the work done here. Uh moving on to curricula regarding the change to adjust freshman English from 112, 113, and 113A to solely 113 and 113A seems like an interesting proposal. Uh it would align with how other classes like uh it would align with how other classes have two levels like freshman biology. And so we're not opposed to this change. I would however like to urge more student and teacher input. The three-way divide ensures that each of the classes can move at a pace adequate for the class and this change may generalize too harshly. There should be more discourse regarding the differentiation that would make uh that would make be made before uh this policy is adopted. Relatedly, the AP waiting policy decision felt rather

006rash. Uh during recent in-depth discussions, there appear to be issues that have not been addressed. This change could push people to take classes that they are not ready for, both slowing down the class and disadvantaging the student as a whole. Alongside this, the change pushes students to prioritize their GPA over actual learning needs, which would negatively impact their educational experience. Though there are many pros to this proposal, and this is not to say I'm against them as a whole, it would simply be more fit to get feedback from the community and then revise the policy in an attempt to avoid pitfalls like these. Now, a harsh pivot from class to cards on the action item modify the conditions for lights at Cardinal Stadium. Students are strongly in favor of increased night games at Cardinal Stadium.

007In a student government poll of roughly 300 students, over 80% supported more night games. 10 per year is simply too few. And I've read in some BOE campaign statements, this is supported by some of you. Uh, this change would be a great way to improve school spirit and that classic high school experience for both students and athletes alike. to this school spirit in the cafeteria has moved beyond just our muffins and pancakes. I would like to comment on the new initiatives of the food services department as in another 300 person poll over 90% of students found that high school food has gone better. Uh we are very grateful to the Domino's hot food improvements and most of all garden catering that has come to the Cardinal Cafe. Uh with BOE and BET elections approaching fast

008fast, I would like to wish all the candidates the best of luck and thank you for the hours you put into our schools. I would also like to conclude with a quote from JFK which is if not us who if not now when? Uh that's all. Have a good night. [Music] >> Thank you gentlemen. Um I don't know if anybody is here speaking on behalf of GA as I know our Okay. I was I know our GA president is unable to attend this evening and had sent her comments. >> I am the G >> Oh, you are. Who sent me the comments then? Never mind. >> I assume that's who it was. Sorry. Good evening, members of the board of ed, Dr. Jones, and members of the community. Yes, my name is Margaret Atkins, and

009I am the president of the Greenwich Education Association. Now that we've entered budget planning season, I need to make one thing very clear. Regardless of statements made at recent board of education retreat meetings, GA does not in any way support program or budget budget changes that will result in a loss of FTE. Over the past few years, GPS has lost over 30 FTE and that is far too many positions and the people who suffer the most from fewer teachers in the district are the students. Larger class sizes results in less individualized attention because let's face it, the amount of teaching time doesn't grow. Dr. Jones brought up the possibility of changing the high school schedule from the current eight block rotating schedule to a sevenb block fixed schedule. Again, the students lose. Eight blocks versus

010seven. That one is easy. Fewer class periods mean fewer course opportunities. A sevenb block schedule may seem economically more efficient, but will it be more effective for students? Maybe not. Rotating schedules have been shown to lead to better engagement and deeper learning, a plus for students. Rotating schedules provide better learning opportunities for all students in that all students do not learn the same way at the same time of day. Rotating schedules have been shown to improve student independence and executive functioning skills. How is that not a win for our students? Perhaps those who will benefit the most from our rotating schedule are those students for whom getting to school is a daily challenge. Post pandemic, we have seen a marked increase in anxiety of all kinds, but especially school avoidance. A rotating schedule means that

011students who struggle to get to school on time will not be missing the same class every day. Now, let's talk about long-term substitutes. There will always be teachers who need extended leave, be it maternity and child rearing, personal illness, family illness, or any other related situation. Currently, the district policy is to put certified certified long-term subs in place when a teacher's leave is going to be 40 days or more. With a leave of fewer than 40 days, subs do not have to be certified. We understand that there's now a proposal to lengthen that time frame to 60 days. Frankly, I find that puzzling. This summer during our negotiations, we kept hearing how important it is for us, the certified teachers of Greenwich Public Schools, to be in class whenever possible and not take our sick

012and personal days. Yet, here we are faced with the possibility of students going even longer without a certified teacher when an extended leave is needed. Where is the logic in that? How will students benefit from even more time without a trained teacher? Daily subs don't write lesson plans and neither do teachers on leave. So, who writes them? And what if it's a special education teacher on leave without a certified substitute? Are those students going to receive the services to which they are entitled? Think about it. Speaking of special education, let's talk about our paraprofessionals. Their presence or lack thereof has a direct effect on both teachers and students. Our paras are essential members of our educational community, helping teachers deliver and students process information vital to their education. The problem is there are just not

013enough of them. Now, I was thrilled to learn this week that there are some new power positions that have been approved and I send my deepest thanks for that. We need them. However, those few new positions don't make up for the considerable number of paras that we truly need. Imagine you're a teacher who has four students with IEPs in your classroom. Two IEPs say that the specified child requires a onetoone parah and the other two IEPs say that the students may share a parah. It doesn't take advanced math skills to know that 2 plus 1 adds up to three paras which should be in that classroom. However, there's only one because an administrator has decided that these students can all share the same parah. Then when the teacher raises the question about meeting the IEP

014requirements that call for those onetoone paras, they're told that well we can change the IEP to meet the availability of the paras that we have. Now, how is that fair to either the teacher or the students? Not to mention the fact that an IEP is a legal document. Right now, Greenwich has great schools, and it's the people that make them great. Unfortunately, great things cost great amounts of money. Think about the cars you drive, the vacations you take, and the houses in which you live. The great ones cost a great deal. Unfortunately, the people who hold the budgetary purse strings here in Greenwich seem disincclined to provide all the funding necessary to keep Greenwich schools great. There are a lot of decisions to be made in the coming weeks, and I urge you to make

015them carefully and think about how important great schools and their teachers are to the students they teach. Thank you. >> Thank you. And sorry, Margaret. Um, I see our president of PTA Council back there. Come on up, Lisa. >> Good evening everyone. Dr. Jones, board of education members. As you know, my name is Lisa Sylvester and I'm the PTA council president representing all 15 schools in Greenwich. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight on behalf of our board. We know that this is the last regular board meeting for the current board and we want to thank all of you for your time and commitment to the Greenwich Public Schools. To those leaving the board, your years of dedication and service to the town are deeply valued. So, thank you. We understand logistics are difficult,

016but two months into the school year, there are still bus transportation delays and parking issues. The continued presence of buses parked at Western Middle School and now Julian Curtis is disrupting the students learning environment and school facilities. We strongly urge the board to step in and work with the administration to find a prompt and permanent permanent solution. On the topic of policy changes, it is extremely important that any significant changes be developed with full collaborative input from school level administrators, staff, teachers, and parents. This is especially true for critical structures like the GHS house system, grade point waiting, and freshman English and social studies. PEC fully supports keeping the current house structure as is at Greenwich High School. I know current GHS PTA co-president John Fischer will speak more about the GHS PTA stance this

017evening. We understand enrollment numbers are being looked at, but please keep in mind that enrollment is like a wave. So, we ask that you please take a full look at overall numbers before making decisions. We need to ensure that academic excellence is prioritized for all students. To effectively to effectively support every student from those who struggle to those who excel, we need complete transparency. We request the administration provide detailed disagregated academic data specifically including average SBA scores. This is crucial because looking only at growth metrics tells us about our underperforming students while average scores reflect how effectively we are serving our entire student population. We are incredibly proud of the success and positive momentum at our current priority schools. This demonstrates what we can accomplish with t targeted focus. To extend this benefit, we ask

018you to review and advocate for the inclusion of more schools on the priority list to expand these effective programs. And just to plug a few things while we have so many listening in. This is election time, so please do your due diligence and head to the polls to vote. And while you are there, please support the student bake sales and the eighth grade DC trip bake sales because we all love and support our community and we need their support. So, thank you all for making this district exceptional. Thank you. Appreciate hearing from all of uh all these fantastic leaders in town. Um and now we will be hearing from our public speakers and uh having community comments. So, I will be turning the mic over to our secretary, Miss Cen. >> Hi there. Uh, our

019first speaker is Alyssa Langel, and I just want to remind all the speakers we have three minutes. >> Good evening. I'm Alyssa Langel, a Riverside School PTA board member and me mother of two students at Riverside Elementary. As you all know, when the facility's master plan was unveiled, Riverside was identified as one of the school buildings in greatest need of major upgrades. Nearly a decade later, the building's key issues remain unchanged, particularly around safety, security, accessibility, and lack of space. The Riverside School community is excited about the upcoming renovation project, which in accordance with the approved EDS specs will build bring the building up to code and equip it for 21st century learning, as well as provide room to enlarge small spaces, create additional designated areas for specialized instruction, student support, and large group programming.

020In short, this will give the building and the more than 500 students and staff members inside it each day what it has needed for many years. We understand the difficult decisions you must make to prioritize the seemingly unlimited wants and needs in a school system as big as ours, particularly within the context of the other major projects currently happening elsewhere in the district. To that end, this board's unanimous approval of the project's EDS specs earlier this year is a testament to your commitment to creating the best learning environment for all our children. Our community wants to thank you for continuing to make this project a priority. As you vote on the district's capital plan, we ask that you remain committed to prioritizing this project with the $43 million placeholder for the 2728 fiscal year. Riverside

021school parents and neighbors continue to follow this project very closely. And in the coming months, we look forward to a building committee being installed, municipal improvement status received, and design work commencing. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Khan Aslan Alansson. Oh um they may be online. Um if you are there I would suggest you raise your hand. Are they unmuted and able to speak? >> Um I think you're a you've been uh elevated to speak. >> Oh, hi. Are you able to hear? >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Oh, terrific. Hi. Um good evening everyone. Um this is not Khan. This is Jenny Floren Sausi. I'm speaking on Khan's behalf. He's on an airplane. Um but he and I um both would like to share the same message. So, I'd like to start off

022by saying good evening to everybody. Thank you for having us. Um, my name is Jenny Florence Sazi and I am a lifelong Greenwich resident. I grew up here, went to public school, played tennis at Greenwich High and other um, youth and high school sports and I now lead the Greenwich Girls Flag program here in town. Um, I'm here tonight because I care deeply about the future of youth sports in our town and especially um, for our uh, football tackle football and flag and cheerleading programs. um as the director of the Greenwich Girls Flag um program here in town and we'd like to ask that you support the installation of lights uh for our fields. So, the Greenwich Youth Football League or GIFL um and the Greenwich Girls Flag uh serve more than 1500 kids across

023uh tackle cheer and boys and girls flag programs. We are nonprofits that bring together families from every neighborhood and every background, every school in our town. And our mission is simple, to build good character, discipline, teamwork, and confidence through sports. Um, but right now, we are literally running out of daylight. As the fall season gets shorter, our kids lose valuable outdoor time, and our volunteers, most of whom work full-time jobs, struggle to make practices uh before dark. These are parents and coaches who give up their evenings to mentor our kids and to teach them teamwork, resilience, sportsmanship, and help them grow, not just as athletes, but also as people. And without lights, that's becoming harder and harder to do. At the same time, the field space across town is shrinking as more youth sports programs

024grow. Our kids deserve a chance to be outside away from screens and instead exercising and learning and building friendships the way generations before them have done. And this is about more than just our football programs. It's about giving kids their time together in person and doing something positive. And right now, we're at a disadvantage compared to neighboring towns that have lights and stronger partnerships between youth and high school programs. Our players miss opportunities to work with high school coaches and families start looking elsewhere to private schools or private facilities um because those offer better access. But not every family can afford those options, and nor should they have to pay extra for their children to have safe, quality athletic experiences in their own hometown. So adding lights specifically from 5 to 8:00 p.m. would make

025an enormous difference. It would let our kids practice safely, let our volunteers effectively um and our community make the most of the limited field space without impacting nearby neighborhoods. So this is not just about an investment in football. It's an investment in our kids, in our families, and in the values that make Greenwich such a special community. So, I respectfully ask that you prioritize field lighting for the benefit of every child who calls this town home. Thank you so much uh for your time and everything that you do for our community. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is Francis Nove. Good evening, men. Too short. Good. Good evening, members of the board. This is Francis Wobb. This year, I serve as PTAC facilities committee chair and speak on behalf of the 15 Greenwich

026Public School PTAs and their facilities representatives. First, a sincere thank you to Ben Bran, Dan Watson, and their team for the tremendous work they do to keep our schools safe, secure, and strong every day. The PTA reps really appreciated getting a few minutes with them to learn about everyone's roles, responsibilities, and the rigor behind the process. We see that tonight's agenda is packed with capital and facilities projects. And so here I am regarding the upcoming major projects in the longer range capital plan. We understand that the ghs pool project is moving into FY28. That's fine. That's great. But we want to be very clear that the Riverside school project must also stay in FY28. Please don't bump Riverside School to make room for other projects. The community has been waiting for years. Classrooms remain overcrowded

027and it's critical that this commitment, as previously mentioned, remains firm. It's also great to hear about the continued progress at CMS. Thank you for keeping that work on track. We uh looking at the rest of the agenda, we also urge you to vote in favor of the Hamilton Avenue School HVAC interim funding request. As we all know, the air quality and climate control are not luxuries. They're prerequisites for learning, student, and staff well-being. I see the GHS stadium lighting issue on the agenda, and I'm curious to learn more about it, hoping there's a clear plan to address whatever is causing the concern there. And acknowledging, I did read all the way to the very bottom of Mr. Ting's uh report acknowledging the GSS GHS cell tower update. It's good to see that project advancing with

028the appropriate oversight. That said, we remain deeply concerned about the lack of bus parking and the ripple effects on staff parking, student recess safety, not to mention the environmental impact. I understand the argument that it's easier to negotiate bus contracts deals when parking isn't bundled in, but at this point that approach feels shortsighted. The current situation is simply untenable. At the board retreat, you mentioned parking at the Hyatt costs roughly $100 per day per bus, which adds up to about $3 million per year when you include drivers cars. For comparison, I recently looked up 1acre commercial lots in the neighboring areas, and I saw a lot in Stanford about $6 million. In just two years, the cost of renting equals the cost of buying. It's time to seriously look at permanent solutions with the town.

029Finally, I'd like to ask whether CMS and WMS are receiving periodic proactive safety checks. Families want to know that regular preventive assessments are happening, not just reactive measures after incidents occur. Thank you for your time, your commitment, and your care to ensure our school spaces stand strong for our students and staff. Thank you. >> Thank you, Francis. Our next speaker is John Fischer. Chair Hirs, BOE members, Superintendent Dr. Jones, everyone here, and everyone online. Uh, I'm John Fischer, co-president of the Greenwich Pi School PTA. Uh, I'm speaking on behalf of myself, my co-president Monica Hong, and the GHS PTA board. We're talking about the quote unquote program adjustments that were discussed after everyone's bedtime at the October 9th meeting. Let's start by recognizing that good things are happening with academic achievement and student outcomes at

030GHS. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. On the agenda tonight is a that doesn't count on get to my time. Um to on the agenda tonight is a vote on consolidating 9th grade English and social studies from level from three levels to two. As the student leaders said, um we don't we don't have an objection to that. Um it perhaps makes some sense as long as all of the students are appropriately supported at all levels. What doesn't make sense was the discussion on grade realignment and advisor structure and on the GHS scheduling. With Halloween right around the corner, these look like budget cutting masquerading as policy. Replacing the five houses with four grade level groupings was a regrettable budget cutting idea that incited broad negative public outrage. Ignore that history and this board will

031be doomed to relive it. To remain a top tier high school, we need to figure out how to provide more student counseling and support services, not how to cut one out of five 20% of the houses that provide those support services. Another terrible idea is changing the current eight block drop scheduling to a fixed seven blocks per day. This is also sure to elicit public backlash. We call out the comment that this would quote cut total sections approximately 12.5% which is where most FTE savings come from unquote. Even dressed up in fancy policy costume, it's walking and it's talking like cost cutting. It's not good policy. In plain English, cutting 12.5% of the sections means more than 1 in 10 classes would be eliminated. It will be much harder for students to get classes they

032need to follow their chosen curriculum sequence, to get required courses, to get elective courses, to graduate on time, and to have the academic record they need to get into the colleges and the careers that they aspire to. There is no support for anything masquerading as efficiency. That's really just reducing or eliminating academics and counseling. Our students need full complement of professionals providing instructional support for the students who need support, providing advanced academic rigor for the students who need that and boosting student outcomes across the board. That's what a top tier school does. Thank you for this opportunity to speak and thank you for your public service. Thank you, John. Our next speaker is Jessica Vonra. >> Hello. Good evening and thank you all for everything that you do and thank you for listening to all

033of us. Um going to start with a little background. I'm the parent of two GHS graduates. Um, by the way, Jessica Fraal, sorry. A former PTA president, a GHS graduate, and before I became an English teacher at the high school about 14 years ago, I worked in the corporate sector. I speak for myself tonight, but I think that some of my thoughts are shared by my colleagues. Like you, I believe that we have to be efficient and responsible as we do all we can to deliver an exciting, rigorous, and supportive program to all students. That's why I'm asking you, please do not make your decisions in haste. I'm concerned that as these major decisions are being made about how our students learn, we're missing the process. Complex and nuanced topics like leveling, waiting, schedules, elimination

034of courses are being discussed without enough careful study of best practices and without a clear articulation of the purpose of proposed changes and without time for real input from teachers. For example, I'm concerned there's an action item on the levels of freshman English. I'm glad Mr. May I was there to respond to the many questions that came up at your retreat, but as board members acknowledge during the retreat, there's still room for input from teachers. I'm not here to propose that I know the best answer, but to support my point that we need a closer look at these big initiatives. I propose that you postpone that action item and take your time on it and the many other major programs that were proposed at that retreat until there's a careful look at the ramifications of

035each one and more input from teachers. A few examples of things that came up. It's hard to watch sometimes because I know you guys are you're awesome. You know so much, but there's so much that we know every day on the ground in the classroom that is just being missed. So, a couple of quick things. It's not just English, it's social studies. Um, I don't know if it was accurate 10 years ago that the courses uh 113 courses weren't rigorous enough. So, I think maybe go back to that data. Rigor versus more work is a really complicated conversation for a very fluent reader and writer with a high vocabulary. You have rigor and maybe not more work, but an ambitious kid who wants to take a higherleveled uh you know weighted course, it is more

036work. So, you've got a lot of uh complicated nuances there that you have to take a look at. Um, when you weight the courses, you make them appealing to kids who are ambitious but might not be ready. >> 30 seconds. >> Oh dear. Okay. Um, but uh I think that awesome that that often causes them a lot of stress and I think that's really important for you guys to think about. Also, the number of the 300 students taking AP um they're not all coming right out of nth grade. They're also juniors and seniors. And I think you can't have a conversation about 113 and 112 and mixing it all up without talking about SEM skills. U and I also think that consolidating 112 and 113 is completely different than consolidating 113 and 113A. And you

037have to really ask us the specialists, the people who are in the thick of it to get the full picture before you go forward with these major types of initiatives. Thanks. I was also going to say, um, Jessica, if you have more comments that you didn't get to read, you're more than welcome to send them in. Thanks. >> Uh, our next speaker is Amy Balish. Good evening. I'm Amy Bolash and I am a biology teacher at GHS. We are a datadriven evidence-based arguments crew of individuals over in the science department and I am here with a response to some recently shared data. At the Thursday, October 9th board of education retreat. Dr. Jones initiated discussion regarding a move to a sevenb block non-rotating schedule in which class blocks would be 47 minutes in length. Dr.

038Jones stated that with this schedule, quote, over an 8-day cycle, you actually gain instructional minutes. So, you have about 14% more instructional time, which in things like AP can be positive. This statement is not supported when considering AP science courses and would have the opposite impact if no extra lab blocks or doubles are included in the proposed sevenb block schedule. From the first day of school until the Friday before AP exams begin, our 489 AP science students have 144 instructional blocks at 55 minutes per block for a total of 132 hours. A move to a sevenb block schedule without lab blocks would allow 144 days of class at 47 minutes per block for a total of 112.8 hours. This is a reduction of 14.5% instructional time in AP science classes prior to the beginning of

039AP exams. This considerable loss in instructional time must also be considered in the context that the College Board requires all AB science courses to spend at least 25% of instructional time engaged in hands-on laboratory investigations. The current 1,047 students in our honors level courses fare even worse. The impact of a sevenb block fixed schedule over the full school year would be a reduction of 15.5% instructional time on level and practical courses will see a 3.2% reduction in instructional time. This is raw instructional time lost and does not factor in the other far-reaching impacts this proposed change could mean for our science program. Here are a few examples. It could be challenging for students to fit two science courses into their schedule in the same year. 291 students have elected to take two science courses this

040year. Our marine science program with almost 200 students would be unable to run their engaging, immersive, and highly popular field experiences, to Todd's point, without laboratory double blocking. The proposed schedule does not feel like a step forward into a 21st century schedule and is the same schedule that GHS had in the 1970s. Science teachers are not opposed to change. We embrace it every day in our classrooms. The ability to pivot is a science teacher superpower. When it comes to our schedule, teachers share a common goal with our parents, administration, and the board of education. A thoughtful schedule that is supported by evidence, includes stakeholder input, and gives our students and teachers the flexibility and creativity they deserve. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Our next uh speaker is Alyssa Staff. Good evening, board

041of ed members and Dr. Jones. My name is Alyssa Stack and I am a social studies teacher at Greenwich High School. Since starting there in 1999, I have taught global studies 112, 113, and 113A. Before the cut, I was also served for six years as the department's instructional coach, so I'm very familiar with our curriculum and instruction. Tonight, I am speaking as a representative of the social studies department on discussion item six from the board retreat and the proposed changes to SEM skills. So, what exactly happens in SEM skills? On any given week, one class may focus on SAT prep. For some students, this helps them reach a graduation proficiency. For others, this helps them raise their scores to apply to highly competitive colleges. Another class may focus on passion projects. When a business executive

042spoke to the social studies department several years ago, he remarked that self-awareness and intellectual curiosity were among the soft skills that he looked for in hiring. And this week, ironically, my SEM skills class has focused on rhetoric. Even with all our available technology, students still need to figure out what they believe in and how to communicate their ideas effectively. And I'm a perfect example of that right now. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Media literacy, time management, executive functioning, study strategies, and so much more. In SEM skills, we teach skills not addressed in other classes. In SEM skills, we teach skills to help all students at all levels excel in all their classes. In SEM skills, we teach students skills they will need in the 21st century job market. Students do not

043learn these skills in a prescribed order because teachers as professionals determine which skills their students need and when. Planning is a reciprocal process as one of my mentors said. But by the end of the year, students at all levels have elevated their critical thinking, reading, and writing skills after the entirety of all their SEM skills lessons. By voting to save savekills, you will preserve this special program that distinguishes GHS from our peers and helps our students succeed in high school, college, and beyond. 30 seconds. A lot has changed since I started teaching in 1999, but a few fundamentals remain. Our graduates still need to read, write, and think, and so our students still need STEM skills. Thank you for your time and service. Our next speaker is Cara Peters. another SEM skills proponent. Good evening,

044members of the board. I'm here tonight to speak for the preservation of our STEM skills program, the interdisciplinary writing and research labs that are a cornerstone to Greenwich High School academic experience. If you take away SEM skills from our students, you'll be taking away our writing and research labs. labs in which we conference with students. We pinpoint their areas of need and hone in on grammar skills, study skills, speaking and listening skills, and media literacy skills. Students also practice responsible, effective uses of technology. They learn to synthesize multiple sources of information from diverse media formats, evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source. They even have the opportunity to create, develop, and present passion projects on topics of their choice. You would be taking away individualized instruction in reading and writing. At a time when

045budget cuts have swelled class sizes and students can choose levels now that require extra support, this is the class that provides the time and support. You would be taking away one of the only interdisciplinary spaces where English and social studies truly meet. A hallmark of Greenwich High School has always been our collaborative community of learners in 9th and tth grade humanities. You would be taking away a learning environment that helps our most struggling students find success and our most advanced students reach their full potential. And I fear our community is so misinformed about SEM skills that you are considering capriciously cutting it. I'll give you three reasons why eliminating SEM skills would be a mistake. First, our students are ready for college classes because of the work they do in SEM skills. We teach them

046to write at a college level before they even apply. Alumni return year after year to tell us the reason I'm so confident in my writing skills today is because of the work I did in SEM skills. Mrs. Peters, learning to write well takes time, and this is skill development that sticks. Second, SEM skills is a test preparation engine. We don't teach to the test, we teach beyond it. The PSAT and SAT reading and writing scores at Greenwich High are very strong, and we've exceeded our benchmarks for sped students in reading. That growth didn't happen by accident. It happened because we built a system that works and SEM skills is central to it. Third, SEM skills develops the transferable and professional skills that colleges and employers are desperate to have. Time management, executive functioning, public speaking,

047and collaborative problem solving. These are extras. They are these are not extras. They are essentials. When you remove SEM skills, students won't stop doing the work. They'll just do it without support. Sophomores will still have to write their 10-page research paper, but without SEM skills, they'll lose an entire unit of American history to make space for it. Freshmen will will lose the foundational skills needed to transition to high school learning along with the intervention support and extended time required to succeed. SEM skills is not a luxury. It's not an add-on. It's a lab. The humanities counterpart to science labs. It's where struggling learners receive close reading support. Where we deepen learning from our academic classes and where we teach writing that's meant to be read, shared, and critiqued, not just graded. We know the work.

048We live it. And we know what's being proposed will hurt our kids. Please don't make these decisions without us. include us in the conversation and let us keep working toward our shared goal, preparing our students to thrive. >> Thank you. Our next speaker, our next speaker is Jackie Hman. >> Good evening. The Freedom of Information Commission ruled yesterday that the actions board Democrats Karen Hirs, Laura Cen, Soie Coven, and Kathleen Stowe took at the October 21st meeting last year, the sham emergency meeting where Democrats pulled their coup, have been declared null and void. Kersh, Cen, Coven, and Stowe not only conspired to illegally install their own preferred candidate, Jen Beahet, into the open Republican seat against the will of board Republicans, but after that, board Democrats held sham officer elections and conducted board business, taking

049votes for nearly a year with an illegitimate BOE member. The preliminary ruling came out 13 days ago, so surely the board of education and school knew the final decision was imminent. And yet, for some reason, you're all sitting here pretending what you did was legit. Continuing the charade, even the imposttor board member is here. Acting Chair Hirs, is it BOE policy to reject a ruling from the Freedom of Information Commission? Is it also BOE policy to deny the online meeting link to a swornin board member, Paul Capi? You seem to have had no problem providing that link to an illegitimate board member for nearly a year. But since your side of the town vtown lawsuit doesn't think Capi is legit, you seem to think it's okay to deny him the ability to participate in meetings.

050Why not afford the board Republicans the same privilege you gave to yourselves? Why the hypocrisy? Also, when I go on the school's website, I see Hirs listed as chair, Beette as vice chair, and Cen as secretary. Is it BOE policy to knowingly post sham officer appointments and misinformation on an official government page and at the same time restrict information on a sworn in BOE member? Also, I just want to say to you, Ms. Hirs, Ms. Beette, Ms. Cen, Miss Coven, and Miss Stowe, that what you did was absolutely disgusting and despicable. And I don't know how you sleep at night after you attempted to screw over the good people of Greenwich, your own neighbors, by installing a crony in a blatant power grab. Then you had the audacity to sit there for nearly a whole

051year and pretend like you had the moral high ground despite the illegitimately appointed member and your sham officer elections. And then after the preliminary ruling came out, instead of apologizing, you doubled down. You should all resign in shame except for Ms. the hat because I don't know how you resigned from a position to which you were never legally appointed in the first place. And in addition to apologizing for your outrageous behavior, you the board democrats should cover all of the legal expenses the town has incurred on both sides because the taxpaying citizens of Greenwich absolutely do not want to get stuck with the bill for your now failed coup. Shame on you. Okay, our next speaker is Jessica Puchaz. >> Good evening. >> Can you hear me? >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Yep. Thank you.

052>> Okay. Good evening. I'm vice president of membership for GA and I want to speak about a critical issue impacting our classrooms and ultimately our students. the proposal to amend board policy 4121, which would delay the hiring of long-term certified substitutes for extended absences from 40 days to 60 work days, essentially another full month of uncertified coverage. When a classroom lacks a consistent certified substitute teacher, the effects ripple far beyond one temporary vacancy. Instructional continuity is disrupted, lessons become fragmented, pacing is lost, and student learning suffers. Certified subs bring the planning and assessment experience necessary to sustain academic progress. Without them, our teachers and students experience ongoing instructional interruption. The impact is even more serious for our special education students. Without certified coverage, legally required services such as IEP and 504 supports often go unmet.

053This places the district at risk of non-compliance and undermines the trust families place in our system to provide equitable access to instruction for every learner. To fill these gaps, our certified teachers and specialists are frequently pulled from their own duties, prep periods, and team meetings to provide coverage. The result is lost planning time, canceled special split classes, reduced small groupoup instruction, and diminished intervention services. Teachers must spend additional time supporting uncertified daily subs, providing plans, materials, and even setting up classrooms. This practice strains our staff and weakens the overall system, not just the classrooms left uncovered. The human toll is equally significant. Each time teachers are asked to step in and cover another class, morale declines. Educators are already operating at full capacity, feeling undervalued and overextended. This erodess collective efficacy, increases burnout, and threatens

054teacher retention in a profession already struggling with shortages. As shared with the board over the summer, staff perceive these situations as a lack of administrative support and student prioritization. Vast research by Mzano, DA, Miller, Manin, and more consistently show that faculty trust, staff morale, and teacher expertise are key drivers of student success. To bring this policy change forward tonight signals a step away from partnership and from keeping students at the center of decisionmaking. Finally, there is a reputational cost. Parents notice when classrooms lack consistency. Students feel it. The perception of instability undermines community confidence and distracts from our shared mission of providing highquality education to every child in Greenwich. In short, delaying the hiring of long-term certified subs may save short-term dollars, but it does so at the expense of long-term academic, legal, and human

055outcomes. Ensuring qualified, consistent coverage for extended absences is not just a logistical matter. It is a commitment to the integrity of teaching and learning in our district. I respectfully urge the board to vote against this proposed policy change. Thank you for your time and your continued commitment to supporting our teachers, our students, and excellence of Greenwich Public Schools. Thank you. Our next speaker is Randy Caravella. Randy. Okay, Randy, you've been elevated to speak. >> Hi, can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Okay, great. Uh, my name is Randy Caribell. I'm one of the founding members of the Greenwich Athletic Foundation. I'm here tonight to ask for your help to correct a mistake that has limited the rights of our community and the opportunities available to our young people. Right now, one individual has been allowed

056to control access to the athletic fields that should belong to everyone. That's not right. That's not how Greenwich should operate. This isn't about lacrosse, football, soccer. It's about our kids, all of them, and their needs for fields that support teamwork, friendship, and lifelong benefits that come from playing sports together. Participation in athletics teaches discipline, respect, leadership, and community. It gives our kids a place to belong. And yet, because of a restricted settlement, our fields, the public fields are being held back from the very purpose they were meant to serve. The board of education has the authority to fix this. You can, and you should authorize a town attorney or an independent attorney retained by this committee to take legal action to resend the restrictions and restore the town's rights. Doing so will not only send

057a clear message that this community stands behind its youth would also encourage a fair and reasonable negotiation with the private beneficiary of the restriction. The public sentiment is clear. People across Greenwich believe this limitation is unjust. It was a mistake in a prior negotiation and needs to be corrected. Our children deserve better. Our coaches and schools deserve better. And our town deserves leaders who will act in the interest of the many, not the will of the one. Please take up this issue. put on your agenda and let's move forward together for our students, for our families, and for the community spirit that defines grad. Thanks for listening. >> Thank you, Randy. Our next speaker is Kimberly Steinhorn. >> Hi, thank you for having me. Good evening, Dr. Jones, uh, board of ed, Grenwich community, my

058fellow GA members, and the students of GHS, the most important stakeholders. I've been at Greenwich High School for 20 years, proudly serving this amazing community. The 48 block rotating schedule A through H at GHS is an effective way for students to take a wide variety of classes while earning the required 25 credits for graduation. Four years ago, I served on a year-long schedule evaluation committee when Dr. Jones first p proposed the idea of changing our schedule. The rigorous schedule analysis process with Dr. Jonathan Costa, an external advisor from Ed Advance, paid with money from our GPS funds, determined that our current schedule provided students with the most choices and opportunities to take classes that are challenging, exciting, and required at GHS. One thing the schedule provides for students is opens and learning centers. Those blocks

059are invaluable time for our heavily scheduled students such as musicians and athletes who need to complete their homework. Students with 504s and I IEPs who are legally granted extended time. The majority of teachers and students would say that the schedule serves them well. My current students who actually asked me, please you need to name us. They wanted to tell you that um that uh teenagers get bored very easily and they need a rotating schedule. This comes from Jackie, Anthony, Anhik, Julieta, Ulissiz, Arnold, Marvin, Edwin, Gaku, Valentina, Lizbury, Raphael, Eay, Mate, and Nielli to name a few. They don't want this schedule to change. They said, "With opens and days where class drops, we have time to do homework or study for a test and hang out with our friends." They implored me to tell you,

060"We need the electives: music, photography, theater, design, uh, culinary arts, video production, and so on." One, one student, Jackie, she even said, "Look out. I'm starting a petition. We need to keep the schedule the way it is." Having a stagnant sevenb block schedule does not fuel the need for creativity and novelty, which has been um studied as a contributing factor to teenage success. In a community like Greenwich, one that we love, it breaks my heart to think that you would put the financial bottom line ahead of student success and student choice. Listen to the students before making a capriccious decision about changing the schedule. Please keep the schedule the way it is. Thank you. And our final speaker is Maria Buano. Thank you. Good evening. Um members of the board, Dr. Jones, I'm Maria Bueno

061and um I've been a mathematics teacher at GHS since 2001. I am a GA leader at GHS and I coach the CMS and GHS science bold teams. Um I do yield my time to the experts who have already spoken this evening. So thank you very much. Thank you to all of our speakers. Uh Miss Buono was our last speaker. So we are moving on to monthly reports and that begins with the superintendent report. Take it away Dr. Jones. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um first of all, if you weren't if you weren't able to make it today, um it was the JC um Parade of Nations, their UN parade. It was just fabulous. Um 52 different countries were represented and I think it was the best one yet. Um also just want to note that

062K5 uh brand new report card is going out. Um, and you know, we have a video to help parents understand um, how to utilize that. But I encourage you to also look at the Spanish version because it is really it is impressive how AI is helping us to be able to communicate with our families and we do have the citation on there that it's uh, AI generated because I do not speak Spanish. But when you if you see the video, it it truly is amazing because your mouth is moving like you like I'm speaking. Um, and I wanted to make sure it was really big on the front because I don't want people coming up to me and speaking to me in Spanish. Um, but we're going to be doing more of that to help

063our families. Um, also just a special thanks to those who serve on the PDK, which is our evaluation committee. Um, they're doing a lot of work. We had an update to the website this week for teachers, which was great. Um, I'll also just mention that the BET did meet on the guidelines, and I know the meeting went until about midnight. um the guidelines where they're sitting right now, they're not published, so we really don't understand exactly what they did, but we know that they're at 3.25%. Which would be about 3.7 million reduction um to not cover our contracted costs again. And the two big drivers are transportation and salaries. And just those two items alone put us at about 4.9%. So, I I'm hoping um that maybe it'll change by the time they're published, but

064we we will see. Um I do want to mention somebody was asking about Riverside or or mentioned the Riverside building committee. We did make that request at the end of last year. We're still waiting on the first selectman um to put that forward to the RTM. So, we'll go back and check on that again. It's moving a little bit slower um than we thought that we would. And as I was sitting here, I was thinking Margaret and I can probably do a better job of working together before on the board agenda because things like policy can sometimes be misunderstood. And so I think we'll work on that, Margaret. But that 40 to 60 days is just matching the state law. And the reason we want to make that change is not to have daily subs

065in classrooms when teachers are out for 40 days or 60. But sometimes what happens is we have a French teacher who goes out on, you know, for two months and we don't have a certified sub that can step in and teach French, but we may have a daily sub that's not certified that actually was born and raised in France and actually can keep the class going. And that happens more more often than you realize, especially in areas like math where somebody's highly capable of teaching the math, but they're not certified. So, we want to take advantage of the law because otherwise at 40 days, we're pulling the French teacher out that was actually speaking French with the kids and putting in another sub that doesn't speak French. So, that's really all that is. Our goal

066is not to have daily subs in there every day for 40 days. Um, I I I think that's enough. I'll leave it at that. >> Thank you. Um, and now we are Anyone question? No. >> Laura, >> I was just wondering because we keep hearing about bus parking. Is there any progress? >> Uh, no. I mean, I'm just being honest. There's no, we've looked at like over 40 places. We have also looked at acorage um, you know, within driving distance. So, that is on our radar as well, uh, with the real estate developer. It's been much more difficult, I think, than anybody anticipated. Um, we get very close and then the developers will just change their mind. Uh, we still have a few places in play. Um but again we are also looking at acreage

067because that is you know another option >> Kathleen I saw you had a hand up. >> Sorry first I was going to ask about busing but then I had one other question. The K to5 report cards. Um, I no longer have a child in elementary school, but is there any value? And I I can't believe I'm like going backwards cuz I love how you're using AI and um I mean I use that in my work every day, so believe me, I'm a big proponent of it. But for those that aren't as technologically savvy, is there any value to also sending it via mail? Still, do you think I'm crazy for asking this question? But I feel like Okay, Sophie Sophie seems to not think I'm crazy. No, I'm just going to say I agree with

068you. I I I'm concerned over the years. I've heard about so many parents who have challenges with logging into Aspen and then have challenges with finding the report card and I feel like it would be make sense to send a hard copy home at the end of the school year, which is what they used to do. >> I think the report card itself is being sent home or is it only digital? H >> which I feel like is fine for like the middle school and high school because frankly we have our children helping us at that point. >> Um but I do worry for those like like I loved those elementary school comments that you got from the teachers and if someone's missing that because they don't know how to log into Aspen. >> I

069think if you maybe we try it this first time and then let's survey our parents and ask them and and let's get feedback because again we're having to run so efficient everywhere. We don't have a print shop anymore. We're trying to cut mailing costs. So, you know, I I really the vast majority now, I do know we have at least one title one school that probably will still print for sure because they tend to not have access the same level of access. Um, but let me let us we'll go back and talk about it. >> Okay. Any other questions for Dr. Jones? Anyone? Nope. Okay. Laura, um, uh, regarding the buses, is there any way to spread them out so that, um, because we just keep hearing it everywhere I go, even like the food

070store, the, um, parents at Western are asking, why can't we spread them around? maybe to Eastern and Western, you know, why does it all have to be born by uh one school that then doesn't have access to their green space for the students? So, I just figured I would ask. Yeah, it it it has been tough, but I think there's also been a misunderstanding that all the buses were there. Um we've all since the beginning of the year, we've also had buses at the old Grenwich train station. Uh we worked with the town. It that's where our small smaller buses are because you can't park the long buses there. Uh we moved buses a couple maybe two weeks ago actually. JC has some and it's tough. We've had buses since the very beginning of the

071year at Parkway. So we're actually east west where we are around the district but we're very limited on most of our sites with the amount of buses and teacher parking and then you have to have parking when they're in their bus for the driver themselves. And that's why like now we also have the drivers for Western. They actually park at one of the commuter lots and take a shuttle to Western to actually access their buses. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Yep. Cody, >> I just think it's worth pointing out as I heard the comment was uh that we were being shortsighted with the bus approach. I think it's uh almost exactly the opposite of that in that the short-sighted approach is to say, "Oh, there's temporarily this challenge, therefore, you know, undo everything." But it's

072important to recognize that the uh when we when we were dealing with the old bus company, the reason that they scrapped the existing contract we had with fixed pricing is they felt like they had a monopoly pricing power over us. And the long-term implication of sticking with that would be exorbitant price increases every year because we wouldn't be able to do anything else. So Ben is and I think the whole team they've spent uh I mean I think it's painful. It's a lot of work. It's probably not their favorite use of time. But once we get to a solution being focused on the uh long-term impact, it's going to be so much better because we won't be subject to monopoly price increases. Uh so I think it's short-term pain, long-term gain. Uh and it's just

073important to and also they're really on top of it. I mean, you could almost do a trivia game with Ben of name any random lot in, you know, within X miles of here and he can tell you the story about it. And I'm sure that it will, you know, it seems like something that will be worked out in the medium term. >> Thank you. Any other questions for Dr. Jones? Sophie, >> I I just had sort of an update. I believe that actually they did have a meeting about the Riverides U building committee today. So I I just for people who are tracking it, yeah, I don't have all the details, but I know we are making progress and I believe that they um had a meeting about it today and have gotten members organized.

074So that's pushing forward. So hopefully people can breathe a sigh of relief on that. And I agree with Cody by the way. I think necessity is the mother of invention and this is I'm glad we're tackling the bus issue. [Music] Anyone else? No, I was going to say I I do the amount of work that has gone into busing this year. Um it's a perfect storm. stom. I know we were talking about it uh at other at a lot of other meetings, but it was a perfect storm with the reduction to our you know the cut to our budget um meaning we had to you know make a lot of changes. We changed school star town. We had to change new uh we had to change buses uh busing companies. We had an entirely new

075um transportation um system put in. We had a new transportation manager. So it was unfortunate that all of those changes happened at once. And I think we are trying our best um and the administration is trying our best to hear and listen and um manage all of these issues as they crop up on a daily basis. Um and just know if you've sent an email that they are being read, they are being heard and we are trying to make adjustments. Um, trust trust us when we tell you it's not in anybody's best interest to have all of our buses parked at our schools. And we are doing everything in our power or humanly possible to try to find um a better location for for our buses and our drivers that's safe um and provides what's

076needed for the the drivers, the buses and our students and families. So um with that, does anybody else have questions for Dr. Jones? If not, I'm happy to move on to reports of officers, committees, and liaison. anyone? Okay. Do any of our board members have a report for a committee that they lean? Kathleen >> um so teacher uh contract Michael Joseph Sophie and I spent a lot of time over the summer with Margaret and some of her team. Um rather than going to the beach, we spent a lot of time at Havier. But um the good news is that sort of at the final hour we did come to an a stipulated agreement as we were entering arbitration. We have um been doing the rounds with the RTM committees. We went to the BOC. Um

077then we spent some time at the finance and the education committee and then on Monday we will be presenting um the final or the final contract for a vote. Um the sort of um numbers that have come out of the committee have been all over the place, but effectively they're either sort of voting to postpone or they reject it, which means that they're in favor of it. So, um we'll see how things go on Monday night. But obviously, um I'll be there as a proponent for it. Hopefully Margaret will be as well and um we will take it from there. But um as a board and as a town and for the teachers and for our students, um I think Michael, Joseph, Sophie and I were very happy where we ended up. >> Okay. Sophie,

078>> just wanted to clarify what when people have um sort of been opposed to it, they've seem to be opposed to the process, not to the outcome. So, that's just an important thing to clarify. No one seems to be unhappy with the terms of the contract. There's just been some questions about how the negotiation, mediation, and arbitration process works, which is more of an issue of what the state statute allows for. Thank you for that uh clarification and information from both of you. And I know I said this last week, but I'll say it again. Um I know Michael Joseph isn't here. Um but I wanted to thank you guys for committing so much of your time this summer. No, he's not online. Um thank you guys so much for all the time and energy

079you spent this summer working on that, having spent every summer working on some committee or another. um I know what what that means and I wanted to thank you know our uh head of GA as well because uh you know we we love working together and uh supporting our students. So thank you all. Um does anybody else have a an update from committee? I know Lauri, you're going to be discussing during CMS. I know budget we'll be talking about budget time. No. Anyone else? Okay. Um I will say I met with the high school's um you know XCOM with their their committee uh student government and um it was as always a fantastic meeting and I did want to note um I know um Gabe Elzai had mentioned they do a lot of student polls

080on things and one of the things that they had uh pulled their students for um were their thoughts on school start time and uh he said you know was it was a good 5050% um this was area at the beginning of the school year, 50% really actually preferred the earlier school start time. They're going to do another hopeful update um now that the kids have had a little bit more time in school to see how they feel. But the majority of students that responded had said that it, you know, yeah, it's a little little early, but they actually appreciate that they actually have more time after school when they're awake and alert to be able to do sports, to do, you know, have their jobs after school to get their homework done and have more

081time with their families at the end of the day. And whether school starts earlier or later, they're still going to bed at the same time. This actually allows them to get stuff done earlier and go to bed earlier in order to wake up earlier. and they said it really didn't change anything for them. Um the students I guess that responded. So um I was really pleased to hear that and I did ask if he wouldn't mind doing another uh survey on that closer to uh you know to the middle of the year to see how kids still felt about that. Um because I do think it's important that we hear back from them much in the way we were hearing from um our public speakers tonight about getting um input from staff and and so

082forth when we make some of these decisions going forward. They also talked to us about the changes um for waiting in AP and we had a very healthy uh discussion on that. Um and there were a lot of students had pros and a lot of students who had cons on that and we certainly did say we will keep keep uh keep hearing uh feedback from that because it's uh you know we made the decision now but you know if if it really is not supporting the students um you know we will certainly look at that again. So, um, all in all, like I said, I think our students are really taking, uh, taking the lead in their, you know, student government and and trying to make changes and creating an incredible community at the high

083school going forward. So, um, I was really pleased to be able to sit there and discuss that with them. So, I think that's it. Are there any other committee updates for anyone? No. Anyone? Buler. Okay. Also, if you're you did hear them mention the Harlem Wizards that they're having come in November. I was going to say I think I think they're doing that and having staff and others in the community participate and compete against the Harlem Wii Wizards. So, it's not just a you know student teacher event. It's for the whole community to come and and participate and watch. So, um I highly recommend that when more information comes out, we'll share that with you as well. Um it'll be an interesting and fun experience, I'm sure. Um so with that I believe we can

084move on to action items. Um and the first item we have uh is the capital budget. Um I will make a motion to put this on the table so that we can uh discuss it. So I'd like to make a motion to approve the FY20 27 capital budget as presented in the amount of 17,823,000. Do either of my any of the budget committee want to second that or no? Cody. Okay. So, now it's on the table to discuss and I will hand this over to our budget chair and other members of our budget committee. >> I just want to say that I feel very lucky to have this as my last capital budget to approve and not next year because this is an easy one and the future years are going to be lively conversations.

085But I think this is about as uncontroversial as it gets. It's easier to say when the numbers low, but there's nothing um I mean, we've already gone through this a few times. I don't think there's anything new to report. Um and uh thank the heavens that the pool issue got delayed because I would not want to be involved in that one. Good luck to you all. >> Yeah, well said. I think it's this is probably the lowest capital budget in the eight years that I've been on the board that I'll ever sort of put forth and approve. So, um, go forth. But I I I wish I could help, uh, with the next year because I think that the pool is important. Um, but I will leave it as all I can do is vote

086on the one for this year. Um, I know Ben, is there anything you'd like to want to go through anything or is there anything you'd like to add? >> I know the third time. I'm just asking. I'm I'm offering the opportunity >> like third time still no questions. >> Third time no charm. I mean I just I just put it forward. Does anybody else have specific questions? I do feel like we've sort of gone down the road with this before. So >> yeah, I saw a couple of $5 things along the way. No, I'm just kidding. Anyone else have thoughts, comments, questions that they'd like to make? If not, then uh I will put it forward to, you know, either of our chairs to call for our chair or other budget uh members to call

087for a vote. Yeah, sure. I just call for a vote. >> Yeah, I'm I just want to give the opportunity. >> All in favor? >> Okay, looks like that passes. >> Yeah, >> Michael just not online. >> Is Mike Is Mike >> Mike is not online now. That's that is 6 nothing and it passes. So, thank you and thank you again to all of our budget um committee members for all the work that they've done for our chair, especially those who are also going to be stepping off. Um we appreciate the work that you've done and you know how well you have led us in the budgetary discussions and looking deep and dark into all the corners for every penny we could find in the sofa cushions. So, I appreciate that. So, next up is

088the Central Middle School building committee plan completion review. and I'd make a motion, but I'm not entirely sure what it is. So, I'll let Laura if there's a motion to be specifically it's an action item. So, >> well, I I do have two motions, but I do want to give the floor to our >> You have to make a motion to put it on the table to have any >> both motions. >> Uh yes. >> Okay. >> Well, you can do one and then we have to discuss that particular one or you can do both and then we can discuss both at the same time. >> Okay. Well, the first motion is a motion to authorize the certification of final plans and documents for the Central Middle School project state project number 057-0114N like Nancy.

089>> I'll second that. I don't You'll have to send me the exact uh wording that you have. >> Um and I will read the next motion because they are sort of related. authorized the superintendent of the Greenwich Public Schools and the chair of the Greenwich Board of Education to certify the C Greenwich Central Middle School Building Committee's approval of the final plans project manual and professional cost estimate for state project 057-014N Central Middle School Phase 3 of three. >> Anybody else want to second that? Because Okay, Sophie. Okay. Uh and we do have our project professionals and our building committee chair here to talk us through um this very robust package of documents. >> Okay. Good evening, Board of Education and members with the red t-shirts on. I feel a little bit lost, but way

090to go. I am Joe Rosetti, chairperson of the Central Middle School Building Committee and Laura Cen is also my colleague on the committee. And uh I have Steve Marcio from SLAM Collaborative, our architect uh lead project manager here to discuss this issue with us and Jose Cardardos from JLL, the owner's representative uh day-to-day management of the project. So, uh, what we have tonight is really, uh, pretty straightforward is the presentation of what we call the plan completion review number three for our FFN package and our technology package for the new school. And it's been about a year that we've been working on this part of the or phase, if you will, of the construction of the project. and um that we've had a subcommittee of a design review committee that's been looking at the FFN,

091the furniture fixtures and equipment, benches, chairs, desks, tables, those sort of thing, bookshelves that go into the school and also the technology. And uh our committee on October 14th, I think right? >> Yep. a couple weeks ago just about uh approved uh the release of this to go to the state to get their approval which we hope to do in I think it's November 4th or fifth >> fifth and um then once we do that be able to go out and bid the work and get it purchased so it's all ready for the uh October October August opening uh in and uh our building committee approved approve this uh prop this submission uh unanimously. So hopefully you all uh do as well. Thank you. And I'm going to let uh Steve Markio >> kind of

092talk a little bit about the process. >> I am logged in as Kemp Moheart right now. I can raise my hand if we need to change name. That one's me. Uh, I'm going to share screen. Want to present to you folks our executive summary presentation. Um, you guys, I think have seen this, but to those on the phone or on the call, this is sort of how we got to where we are. Uh, this is how we pulled together our information to create our bid package for this. It's also worth pointing out I have Amanda Hastings Sheay who is our interior designer on the call and Kent Morart who is the principal of our project. As we worked our way through this process um we worked very specifically with principal Healey and his users. We

093went sort of space by space, room by room, and we what we did is we converted in our early construction documents a bunch of placeholder elements and rooms into real furnishings and equipment. Um, talking with them in design gave us a good idea of things we put in place. Um, but getting down to the nitty-gritty of these meetings were making sure we got in the documents exactly what they needed. So, some of what you see here on the screen are examples of sheets that we used to get there. So we would take a space and then we'd give them sort of a survey list of items that were in that space. From that space, we would sort of get to the photographic element you see in the bottom right hand corner to help us choose

094and select finishes, heights, sizes, styles. As we worked our way from one space to the next space, we got further into very specific colors. um how the how a chair might function, how a round table versus a rectangular table might work. Um and we did this with with each of the user groups very successfully. Met a bunch of different times, answered a lot of questions in between and at each meeting we got a little bit further along the along our path to be able to get to the documentation phase. Can see more examples of colors, rug selections. getting into now the specialty spaces like a media center and cafeteria furniture, uh outdoor equipment, um spaces that will become huddle spaces or study areas outside of classrooms. Again, a lot of this was just to convey

095to them, here's the options. Here's what we thought. What do you think? We got down into wood shop, family, consumer sciences, art rooms. So, we covered all of our spaces, band, orchestra. From there, we're able to then create the documents that we're putting in front of you and asking you to to sign off on. So, what we will put down to the state is a set of construction documents, which are the drawing aspects, and then we will get into two specifications. One is going to cover the public bid portion of this phase, and the privately bid portion of the phase that is pulled right off of the state contract. It's advantageous for the project to use as much of the state contracted pre-negotiated pricing as we can for the project. That allows us to guarantee

096an estimate to you guys what the value is as we head towards this and it and it minimizes a lot of questions and fluctuations in prices. It's sort of a controlled set. So about 85% of the furniture and equipment and technology is getting pulled off of the state contract for this project. leaves a very narrow scope that is just open to public bid um for us and that allows us to feel comfortable as we go to this phase where we feel like we are under budget. What we're asking from you guys tonight is to take a look at those construction documents. We can dive into those if you want. So you know the things that we put in there are these spacebyspace requirements. We clarify for the state that we've got all the ADA clearances

097that are important to the building code. Um, we tag each element so it it talks from construction document back to the specifications that the biders are using. Everything is very clear. State doesn't let us do it any differently. Um, we find that when we work with the state as much as we do, we know what they're looking for. Biders understand what it is that they're putting a price to. That's where we're at. If anyone would like us to jump into a spec or a drawing, we're able to do so. Or if you'd have any questions, we're here to answer them. >> Looked like you had a lot of good options for chairs. I hope all the committee members had an opportunity to sit in each one. >> We did. We actually had some chairs at

098the school at one point for everybody to sort of see and take a look at. Um, so it was one of those things we were able to to to handle some physical samples, bring them to the school, and make sure people knew what we were sort of asking of them. >> Perfect. comfortable but not swivellly because swively you know what's going to happen no attention paid to the uh the drawing board see teachers are nodding >> um does anybody have any specific questions anyone no >> Kemp or Amanda I'm not sure if e either of you have anything to add to the conversation >> not me thank you Steve great presentation >> I oh sorry I I was just going to say I will add that you know we we worked with uh the principal

099very closely so it was really great to have his support through this. Um he has been a great liaison between us and the faculty. So that was a huge part of this. I give a lot of credit to him for making this a really smooth uh transaction to get all of this documented and figured out. So principal Haley has been great through this whole process. >> And Amanda is our rock star. She's been through this a hundred times on public schools and really knows how to make sure that we get from the users all the answers we need. She was excellent in this phase and certainly the help of Principal Healey was as she said couldn't have gotten there without him. He wrangled the troops and really got us home. If >> I could comment

100a little bit on that. >> Yeah. >> As uh Oh, excuse me. >> Yeah. I as I was part of the subcommittee for the design review committee and we did see a lot of interaction between I call him principal Healey staff or and the other uh key key members and there was a lot of iterations and push back and no we want this we want that so there was good solid discussion and uh over really what last a year >> yeah it was I mean over a course of a year and specifically about a 4 and a half month stretch >> to get us from placeholders to documentation. >> So there wasn't just like okay this is what we're going to do and yeah get everybody to vote. No, there's like we don't like that

101make a change. So there was a good dialogue and so uh >> it's great. >> Hopefully it'll be the best for everybody. >> Uh do I need to make the motion again since >> No, no, we had the motion. Um, but I just didn't know if there was anything you wanted to add. >> Uh, there's nothing I want to add. So, I think we just move on. >> Anyone? Okay. Well, then I'll let you since you're the building, if you want to call the question, >> you want to do them one at a time or >> I'll do them one at a time. Um, I would like to move that we uh a motion to authorize the certification of final plans and documentation for Central Middle School projects, state project number 057-014N. All in favor?

102>> Unanimous. Okay. Uh and >> 6 nothing >> 6 says uh the second motion is a motion to authorize the superintendent of the Greenwich public schools and the chair of the board of education to certify that the Greenwich Central Middle School building committee approval committee's approval of the final plans project manual and professional cost estimate for state project 057-0114N comma central middle school phase It's three of three. All in favor? >> That is also unanimous at 6. Thank you all. >> Okay. We are now going to be moving on to the HVAC interim request. And I'm going to make the motion to authorize the administration to request an interim appropriation for Hamilton Avenue HVAC. Do I have a second? Okay. Sophie. Uh, anybody have questions, comments? Uh, Mr. Ben, do you want to have anything

103to discuss? >> No. Hopefully the the packet's relatively straightforward. Uh, we're very happy that the preliminary construction design and then now our 50% construction cost came in incredibly close. So, we're we're happy we're on we're on target with the schedule. And if all goes well through the funding, we should have uh this complete by the fall of uh next year. This sounds good to me. Does anybody have any questions, comments? I know this has been presented before. It's nice to see that the cost for some things came down um even though we had to add a little something in there. So, it's uh you know, win-win in that regards. Anyone? Anyone? No. Then I'm happy to make a motion to uh to call the question. I mean, well, I made the motion, but calling the

104question. All in favor? Okay. again 6. Now comes the the fun topic for the night. I'm going to make a motion uh for our next agenda item. Motion to request the proposed modifications to conditions placed on Cardinal Stadium by the RTM approved municipal plan number 485 PZBA appeal number 8697 and planning and zoning final site approval number 2278. Is there a second? Kathleen still. Okay. Uh questions, comments? >> Tony. Yeah, I know. I was going to see who's gonna what's >> I'm going to let um Ben walk you through the document, but just as a reminder, I do want to say thank you to the town uh legal. Um Rose Brea was um was assigned this back in March. And so, you know, it's been almost nine months of work and Ben did a great

105job, I think, structuring it tonight. So you can see what the legal process is. And that's really what we're talking about tonight is just process. >> So Ben, do you want to lead us and uh those watching through this because I know there's a lot of interest. >> No, absolutely. Uh if you decide to take action tonight, uh on page one of the packet, uh there's three relatively lengthy motions uh that we would like you if you feel comfortable, you can certainly take them all in in one fail vote, but those are the three motions on the top of the page. But I think everyone recognizes the what we're trying to accomplish. Uh just to manage everyone's expectations, this will be a very lengthy process. It's a very linear process. the doc what what we

106need to go through is you're the first step and then if RTM if we're su if we're successful at the RTM then it's the planning zoning board of appeals then is planning and zoning then is board of selectman and then it's the court uh in that order uh and you need to go through each one successfully to move on to the the next one uh I would really have you focus in on page three of the the document uh I think that's the most central piece of it that's the uh the six conditions that are approved is by the RTM through the MI process. And condition number three, yeah, I'll wait for the the page to show. Thanks, Mike. Condition number three really is the one that uh has the is the one we're trying

107to have relief from and that's where the uh RTM approved MI from December of 2000 uh had the limited of 10 games and we're proposing to have flexibility with all of the sports listed on the left hand column. All three or actually four pages here are set up by the on the lefth hand column would be what's currently there and then what we're asking to be modified. Uh we really attempted to have as as minimum change if possible but really number three is the is the biggest one that will flow through. So on page three is the six recommendations or uh uh for the MI. Then if you go to the page four, we then cross reference what planning and zoning the board of appeals did. And you can see really we the P uh

108PZB and A uh address both MI comments and then planning and zoning incorporated what the planning zoning board of appeals put in. So you we we attempted to just cross reference those two. But I think if you just hone in on the MI application approval and then page five, six, and seven is what planning and zoning. So, planning and zoning had uh 14 conditions. Most of them do not apply because they're mostly related to the application that was before them in 2002. Uh but we went through there to make sure again the biggest issue with P&Z is uh the number of games but also PNZ put conditions on as long as as well as PZBNA put conditions on that the lights uh lights will be removed and we're asking those to be uh that requirement

109to be eliminated. Modern technology uh I think no longer requires that and it puts additional stress on the the asset. The last thing I'll point out is just on page nine is the terms of the court stipulation. We we purposely left those blank. Uh there's uh but the two the three relevant uh stipulations in the court document is 2, three, and five. But if we're successful going through uh you tonight, the RTM, the zoning board of appeals, planning and zoning, the board of selectman will come back uh before we go forward uh with the final step which will be to the superior court. And then all the rest of the documents are just the source documents uh that pertain to the uh what we attempted to summarize in the matrix. >> Okay. Go ahead. Did

110you have anything else to add, Ben? >> I'm good. I'm happy to answer any questions. I know there's there's a lot there, but we tried to hone in just on those what we're trying to make uh the minimum changes, but number three is a big one. >> Okay. Yeah. I mean, I I know I had a question. Did Cody, did you have one? Oh, no. I was just going to say, look, I I know I'm very uh familiar with the uh the stipulated agreement from 2000 time 2002, which states in perpetuity. Obviously at that time there was really no understanding of the future improvements to lighting and to light pollution uh light pollution you know considered um at the time of that discussion and and time in court. Um, I'm just sort of wondering, you

111know, I don't know if we know for sure and if if town legals looked into, you know, the likelihood that the court would be willing to consider reopening the agreement. Um, and what the cost for legal for this might be um if we if we uh go or, you know, get through the town first right now, because we're using town legal, there is no cost. Um, and and again, Rose has done a fantastic job for us. And so, if we end up in court, will she be prepared at that point to actually represent us in court? We'll make that decision. uh when we get closer to that time. >> Okay, that's good to know. So that that that helps us with that coverage. Cody, did you have a question? >> Okay. Um and I know

112this isn't, you know, I just want to put this out there. I know we're trying to not make as, you know, push to make a lot of changes, but I do want to make sure that, you know, if we do get for going forward with this that we really do, you know, consider making sure that we add um some sort of detail about lighting for the fields for evening practice because it, you know, as it gets darker earlier. I know um a lot of our teams are out there practicing um in the dusk and and when it gets dark and accidents happen, I know as mine had a crushed finger from a dark practice. um it happens but you know if there's a possibility down the road that we can can mention that as well

113that would be fantastic. No no you know once if we're able to even move forward with more games. Anyone else? Um so the question then becomes um since we made this as a motion the question is is it something that the board would like to take up tonight? I mean, happy to make, you know, call this into question. Um, you know, we obviously have longer time to discuss this, but this is just a motion for us to be able to move this discussion forward through the town's um process and right. >> Yeah, I think it's a no-brainer. This is something that I've been hoping to see for a very long time. I'd love it to make it one of my last votes. Yep. Let's go forth. >> I'm happy to item. Um I'd like to

114be able to then so I'm happy to put this motion on the table. Um you know so again this is just our uh wanting to move this forward and I will read each motion as it is because I believe right Ben you said I have to read it via those three recommended motions as opposed to the one I read to to open the discussion. >> Yeah I think just for uh clarity moving forward th those three uh as presented. >> Okay. So, I will make a motion to authorize the administration to submit an Wait, does that mean I need to withdraw my initial motion and make these three instead? Uh, so I'm going to authorize the administration to submit an application to the RTM for modification of the conditions for use of the Cardinal Stadium

115lights with respect to municipal improvement plan 485 which was approved on December 11th, 2000 subject to the approval of the Superior Court related to the stipulation and order of judgment. Would somebody um who wants to make this one of their last votes want to second this? All right, Cody is seconding that. So all in favor nothing to see. Okay. So that is 6. Fantastic. So then I will move on to the second motion. If successful at the RTM, I'd like to make the motion to authorize the administration to submit an application to Planning and Zoning Board of Appeals to modify the conditions for the use of the Cardinal Stadium Lights with respect to appeal number 8697 dated January 9th, 2002 subject to the approval of the Superior Court related to the stipulation and order of

116judgment. Somebody want to that want to second? Kathleen is seconding it. Fantastic. Uh all in favor another unanimous 6-0. Fantastic. That leads me to the last motion in on this. So, if successful at the planning and zoning uh board of appeals, I'd like to make the motion to authorize the administration to submit an application to the planning and zoning commission for a modification of the conditions for the use of the Cardinal Stadium lights with respect to final site plan number 2278 and related decision dated June 28th, 2002 subject to the approval of the Superior Court related to the stipulation and order of judgment. Do I have a second? Okay, Sophie. [Music] Um, so all in favor 6, another um unanimous decision. Thank you to the members of the board. I think that this is going

117to be something uh people are going to be interested in going forward. Uh moving on to policy 9311. Um I know our policy chair is unable to be here tonight. Um, I will make a motion to approve policies 2161, 3280, and 4121 as presented. Sophie will second. Um, and I know that Sophie, uh, you would like to present these. No, we have to make a note to change that. >> Um, sure. The first one um is the hiring of senior level administrators and we spoke about the desire to have the board potentially play a role um with these senior positions. So the new language allows for the board to um be involved in the process in terms of being on the hiring committee. Um it's not a requirement, but it's an option. um and for

118the superintendent to inform us about the selected candidate before the decision is announced publicly and the superintendent may provide an opportunity for the board to meet with the new hire. So those are kind of the three conditions or sort of three new um uh additions that we're making to our existing policy. Does anybody have any questions on that particular policy? Okay. Nope. Laura, >> was the vote in the policy committee to put this forward unanimous? >> Yes, the vote was unanimous. >> Um, so turning to gifts and grants. Actually, I would need to make a motion for an amendment here because there's a typo. Um the desire was to change when you go down to the fourth paragraph um it should be donations above $10,000 in value made by an individual or entity not considered

119a partner organization will be um will be subject to board approval above 10,000. So it says right now 20 in this written document but it should actually be 10. So, if I could make that motion, >> I'll motion because that was what we put forward as uh as the policy committee and somehow it ended up as 20. So, I I will make that motion to make that modification. >> Can I ask why not 20? >> Yeah, let's just keep it at 20. That's a good typo. Or add an extra zero on it. I mean, if someone comes along and says, "I want to give you 15 grand." Do we really want to tie them up? like that's >> it's about preserving equity um across the board. >> Is equity preserved at 10 and not at

12011. >> You have to put it at some number and going from 0 to 20 is big. We had this discussion at the meeting in June and you know it was it was noted that the board actually had the policy governance had put 10 not 20. So it was a typo then too. If it's equity, then we're comfortable having no cap for Greenwich High School since everyone benefits from that. >> There's never been on cap for Greenwich High School because it's the only high school in town. >> So you can Oh, I didn't really. Someone can go and just do a hundred grand million. >> No, it's it's notion. >> No, no, no. So people can donate from a dollar to a million dollars, but up to a certain number, it comes after a certain

121number comes to the board for approval. So if somebody wants to donate a million dollars to redo a cafeteria or a playground at one elementary school, it provides inequity to all the other schools that don't have a million dollar whatever at the school. So that was why it always just came to the board to have that. So to provide that equity across the 11 elementary schools versus and the three middle schools, the high school is the only high school. So any donation that went to the high school, for instance, we've had some incredible donations from educational partners throughout town. Um I know we had uh the Greenwich Sports um you know team Grenage I can't even speak athletic association um speaking earlier about lights. They've made incredible donations at the high school that just needed

122to be approved by us because it was above the gift cap but it wasn't questioned because it's the only high school down. >> Does that make sense? >> That does. >> Okay. >> I still don't know why 10 is the magic number instead of 20. Well, you know, >> I would say a hundred, >> but again, so would you and again, this is just for it's it's making sure that there's equity among so you can't have one school that can provide $100,000 of gift to one school and the other schools don't have that option. So, I think that was really what it came down to. It's not that >> horrible basis to make decisions because there's no limiting principle to it. And on top of that, it's extremely arbitrary. We allow PTA some PTAs can

123raise we I I think the PTA caps are also silly but some PTAs raise more money some parents offer more time there's all kinds of other things that are inequitable in the eyes of that uh certain lens of looking at things and we know that the way the budget works is if you have more money at one school it probably ends up leading to more money being freed up for the rest. So it's just it seems so silly to me. It's like only government would have trouble taking free money in. Uh but it it's >> well I'll just say while it's true that some schools have the ability to raise more funds than others um they're only allowed to use those funds for certain things, right? So it doesn't always help necessarily for for us

124board of ed wise budgetarily. But this was also helping to remove the gift cap for the PTAs. So instead of having any gift cap, there's no gift cap, but if there's a donation above a certain So we've removed that. So that should make you happy. >> No, no. I mean, I've been It only took two years of asking for this, but just sad to see the 20,000 and go, "Okay, that's something." And then have it cut in half for no reason. >> It wasn't cut in half. It was put there. It was accidentally. It was a, you know, scribner's error. the divine intervention to raise it for the benefit of students is being interrupted. >> Um, are you going to be the if I I'm happy to have a discussion if you're the first one

125to write the check after off the board. >> If I give 20 grand to a school, I'll spin a wheel. Will you change it to 20? >> I'd need to see a check first. I'm kidding. I'm not gonna play I'm not gonna play that. I'm not I you know but realistically for me I was to be fair I will say that when we had this as a vote in policy governance it was not unanimous because I still do believe in providing equity amongst the schools and so yes I was the person who did not support this because I do feel that there are opport you know I know PTAC is still here and being a member of PTAC I can tell you that there are schools that have the ability to raise millions of dollars

126and some that have you know every year have fight to just raise this the amount needed just to to cover a few after school things. And we want to make sure that all the students in our 11 elementary schools have similar experiences by the time they get to middle school and then similar experiences in the middle school when they get to high school. Um, you know, >> should we ban private schools? >> Well, we don't have anything to do with private school. >> I'm just saying like it's I just there's no limit to it. There's no it's so arbitrary. saying, "Oh, that somehow someone might end up with something more, and because of that, we should take that away." I just I find it I I would love to put it up for a vote

127for the 20,000 and see if it fails. And then if you want, go to the 10,000. >> Again, it was a scrier's error, so you'd have to change it, but the policy committee put forward 10. >> Okay. Can I offer an amendment or whatever the policy is to let us vote on 20? Well, I don't I think we can put forward what's put forward and then you can not vote or you can offer. >> But this is what's put forward. You guys had to make a motion to amend what was put forward. >> Well, it was never No, I think my motion to we can vote on my motion to amend and see if it is successful or not. I mean that that the motion on the floor is to change 20,000 to 10,000. Should

128we call the question? >> You can do that. Mike supported 10. Sorry. He can't jump in halfway through a, you know, but >> Okay. I'm calling the I'm Do you want me to call the question? Okay, I'll call the question. >> This is to support the motion to amend for changing from 20 to $10,000. >> I'm the only one. Okay. Well, I'm supporting the motion. There's two of us. All those. So, okay. So, then we're not amending that. Do you want to go to the next one? >> So, now I'm going to make a motion to accept the policy on gifts and grants as >> Well, no, we have to do We didn't vote for the first one yet. So, we I thought you were going through all of the >> Nope. No, we didn't.

129We just we didn't vote on it. It was a motion to vote on all three. She made the motion to revise the one. That's what we just voted on. >> Okay. So now you make a motion to pass the first one. Is that >> No, at the end we have one more policy to present. >> Oh, I get it. It's one. Yes. Got it. >> Sorry. The last um the last policy is on substitute teachers and the pertinent change was about the changing it to 60 um continuous days which some of the teachers spoke to earlier. Um I believe that and I hope Dr. Jones can clarify this but this is also um is bringing our policy in line with what is required by the state. >> Yeah. Section 8 of public act 2359 allows

130for local boards uh under circumstances to employ substitute teachers for up to 60 days without obtaining the state department of education issued substitute authorization. Um and so it was basically to keep us in line with that state regulation that we had to make it. It doesn't necessarily mean that we have to have up to 60 days. It's just that that is what the state has required the language uh to be. It says you know that teachers uh We're now permitted to employ a person who lacks substitute teacher authorizations to a substitute in the same assigned assignment for a period not to exceed 60 school days. [Music] Does anyone have any questions or comments? >> Um I know I made a motion to add all, you know, to to approve all three. Um, I'm not sure

131if you guys want to do them all together or separately. >> I have one comment. We should justify the text in these documents when we format them. Make them easier and more pleasant to read. >> Okay. Um, does anybody have any thoughts on the motion? I mean, I will happily tell you in advance I will not support the gifts and grants change. So, I don't want to vote no on the other two, but I will not support the change to gifts and grants. So, I'm happy to separate them. If that's the case, I'll withdraw my motion to approve policies 2161, 3280, and 4121 is presented. You want to make You're welcome to make the motions if you'd like. >> I'll make a motion to vote on the gifts and grants one. >> No. No. What?

132>> Look who just joined us. >> Yeah, you I have to double check uh Robert's rules, but I'm not sure you can join mid meeting once we're mid discussion and vote on something. >> I'm not sure. Now we're concerned with the proper way to do meetings. >> it's totally allowed to join and vote on something. >> You don't I >> you don't have people that join and vote and then if they I >> I have done that. You'll have to go back and invalidate my votes from the past. >> I don't think you've joined to vote for one for one. >> You literally have actually done exactly that. >> I mean I I will double check, but I mean >> I don't know. No, I we just had the entire discussion. So, and I know

133he is our policy chair. So, I'm happy to if you have anything you want to weigh in while I do the little research here. Mike, >> I didn't I didn't I didn't realize I meant to I did not mean to time my um arrival dramatically. Um I know before us are the second for those who are texting >> uh free policies um and uh um I guess we've been having a discussion on on the policies. I know um the two of the policies passed the policy committee 30 um the gifts one passed 21 but was um um the the guess one it was the one that was uh uh championed in June. on the word that was the one where the champion June was championed by by PTAC and then um um was also in

134their annual report I guess. Is there a concern about the their concern about about that one? Is that what I'm walking into? Yes, there's just a discussion because it was the 20,000 is as it's written here and then there was a question of reducing it to 10 and the discussion was that some of the members of the board are opposed to reducing it from 20 to 10. And so I made I made an amendment >> I made a motion sorry to amend it and that motion failed. So now we would be voting on the gifts and grants with the 20,000 in value, not 10. So that's >> Oh, that's nuts. Oh, that's too bad because that um that was actually that's that's a confusion. That's totally my my fault. The um because we did we

135did mean to that was a clerical error that was been meant to come out um that did mean to come out at 10 at 10,000 net cap at um from the policy committee. But Mike, you missed you missed a lively discussion around that and there was not not support to decrease it. I think the support is to keep it at 20,000. So it might be a a lucky uh a lucky error. >> Fair enough. Fair enough. All right. >> And I will say I did take a quick look under Robert rules and yes it does note that even though I had been erroneously told earlier but a not earlier today but earlier in life but a board member can join after it has started to particip and can participate in voting. So I did want

136to note that I was incorrect in stating that. >> My apologies. >> Historical votes are safe. >> Jen, >> just a question on on this number. So to be clear, the correct number, the number that should have been written in the document was 10,000 or 20,000. So at the in our um discussion when this was at a first read last um June um we we we talked about we talked at at the board table of reducing it to 10 grand and that was kind of the sense of the meeting. Um then between June and now um that number did not get reduced which was more of a cler more of a clerical error. Should I have been here in full disclosure and I did have this conversation with Karen earlier um I would have um

137and to be able to introduce it I would have amended it um I failed to um prep Sophie and I apologize for not this is totally because this confusion is all because I couldn't be be there earlier I apologize for that >> to to be fair I it came out of policy governance at $10,000 and the notes that I have from our meeting a board meeting in June when we talked about it because I had asked then in the meeting and you said that it was typo. It was supposed to be 10,000, not 20,000 even when it was presented in June for our first read. >> That's what that's Yeah, that's what that that is what I meant to convey. The um I I I do not I do not dispute that. >> It seems

138okay now. I promise I won't amend it, offer an amendment to raise it to 50,000 if we can just move on to vote on it. >> Some questions. >> Yes, Jen. Laura, then Jen. Well, I guess my question is, is there a reason, Mike, you feel strongly about the 10,000 versus 20? Do we need to amend it to 15? Like, what do we got to do? Split it down the middle? >> Personally, personally, no. The um 10,000 was what um um we had discussed um last June. Um personally, I am um I think the more important um aspect of this policy is the waiver of the gift cap than than anything. And this is just a threshold number for board approval. >> That's that's really all this is is a threshold number. So whether it's

13920 they can >> a million dollar if this comes to us >> it would come to $10,000 or 20,000 >> at a lower point. It's just adding friction when someone wants to give us free money, which is I don't know. >> Well, I guess one could argue at, you know, $100,000 you could be like really moving something. I think between 10 and 20, it's sadly the way costs are right now, it's not going to be a meaningful change. So, I think I'm comfortable with where it is at 20. Should we go back to the first policy that we were going to vote on? >> Yeah. So, okay Mike, basically we decided to vote for them separately. >> Okay. >> Right as you logged on. >> Yes. Sorry. So, that we were just at I was

140making a motion um to um vote on the hiring of senior level administrators that policy as amended. I'm not going to read the whole thing. Wait. Um can I have a second? I'll second that one. >> Okay. Karen, everyone in favor. >> All those in favor of approving 161. >> Yeah. 2161. >> Okay. >> That Wait, I just didn't see Wait, >> a seven. >> I just have to pull up mic. Did you have your hand up, Mike? >> I did. >> Okay. I think we have to get you verbally, but So, yes, you're in support. So, it's 70. I'd like to make a motion to adopt the gifts and grants policy 3280 as amended. >> Do I have a >> As it is as presented. Do I have a second? And Cody. Okay. All

141those in favor? >> I >> Okay. So all those opposed Karen and Jen. Okay, the motion passes. And lastly, I would like to make a motion to adopt the policy 4121 unsubstitute teachers as presented. Can I have a second? Cody. All those in favor? >> I. Okay, that's that's 70. >> Want to get all the seconds in for our last meeting. >> And just a reminder for I know the staff who spoke at this it's important to note that just because we can go to 60 days doesn't mean we necessarily will. We've never done that. It's just to be in line with state leg language. Um, so the next item up for uh action is a MOO and I will make the motion is as discussed at the board of ed student achievement retreat, the

142board of education moves to adjust freshman English from 112, 113 and 113 advanced to a freshman English model of 113 and 113 advance. Both courses to remain unweighted. I will note it isn't just English, it is social studies as well. >> Is there a second? Okay, Kathleen. Uh, I believe that's up for discussion now. Anyone comments? >> Laura, I am opposed to this motion because I think I value all three levels and I don't think we should consolidate or eliminate any of them. I think we provide an opportunity for everybody to learn at a at a pace and rigor that is comfortable. It's a system that it's working and I don't see any reason to break it. Um, Jen and can um Dr. Jones, can you just remind me what happens at the sophomore level

143with these courses? Is it the same three? >> Somebody in the audience could answer that better than me. I think I I've been looking at their schedule, but because you also had doesn't AP count also for some of those students. So, >> so I think it's 211 212 >> 211 2123 and then AP >> Yeah, Lucy's on. >> Yeah, I was going to say I believe we have some of our >> Can I Can I ask a question? >> Okay. Well, I'm going to let Miss Barry speak first because I think she's going to be answering that question. I see Mike's hand up, then Kathleen's, and then I have a question, too. >> Yes. I just want to make sure you're clear on the um levels in 10th grade. And those are >> we have

144a 211 which is um very supportive for kids who are maybe a little bit low on the proficiencies 212 which is the on level college prep the 213 which is an honors and then there is also um an AP level in 10th grade. >> Thank you Miss Barry. Uh Mike you had your hand up and then I knew Kathleen. >> So actually I now I have a question. So, Miss Barry, so that mean we're going we'd be going if adopted, we'd be going from two levels to four in ninth grade, two levels for 10th grade, four. >> That's right. >> Right. And then how so how do you see that um um how do how do you see that playing out? How do you see that um students adopting that way? Um I think I

145I'm speaking for most of us when I say that I think in the ninth grade we do believe it whether it's two or three levels we could adjust to either where we could work with two levels with lots of differentiation. We really strongly feel that it shouldn't be weighted because it's a foundational year. It's a transition year. We think students need to really grow in their skills. skills heavy and we love to build students and we don't want to get them into a groove where once they're in it they'll never be able to um go up to other levels. So students make growth tremendous growth in that year and in the next year they can sort out into a variety of levels. It seems to work well. Students do go to a variety of levels

146and they we have kids who were in the on level that go to the honors. We have students that were in the accelerated that go to the on level. that seems to happen naturally and two students benefit. >> Okay. Awesome. Thank you. I I appreciate that. That's what I was kind of kind of hoping um um you would say. Um uh for the record, I I I I support um this this um measure based on based on what what I've heard in the conversation. I'm hearing I always appreciate it when I can take a more progressive position than Miss Cton. Um I think the the elimination of um of levels here um is really kind of eliminating some tracking and instead supporting students to to higher expectations. And nine times out of 10 when you

147set those expectations um students rise to the occasion. It sounds like based on what what Miss Barry was just saying um we we have supports in 10th grade um for those few students that might not rise to the occasion. But it sounds like also this might give more students the opportunity to end up rising and moving into the accelerated um levels. So So I I think it makes a lot of sense. >> Um I know I said Kathleen had a question next, but I see that MOO has her hand up and I assume it's in response to a specific question. >> Yes. I just wanted to comment that uh my hope is that we could change the names of the 9th grade courses because I do think if they remain 113 and 113A that would

148cause some confusion when students are um moving on to 10th grade. Um, I think I don't know if we have to decide that tonight, but uh, Bridget and I had been discussing um, calling them English 9 and global studies 9 and English 9 accelerated and global studies 9 accelerated. >> Okay, >> yeah. No, I I actually completely agree. It's funny. I was talking to a bunch of people about this at other schools and they're like why wouldn't you just call it you know what what's with the number system right why I mean we have bio we have honors bio right I mean you look around this kind of came out of again I think this was this 10 year ago where this 113A was a pilot and we need to now sort of look at

149how we've adjusted other things I too um I at one point had been an advocate for waiting it but I actually understand what you're now saying Miss Barry I appreciate your perspective on this um at the retreat for those that stayed up late. I also think that Ralph was supportive of this change. And so, um, I'm kind of happy to listen to the the principal, um, and sort of the heads of the departments on this one. Was that your comment or did you also have a question? >> No, that's all. >> Okay. Um, well, I'm going to Yeah, I know. So, I was just going to say I, you know, I know at the last meeting that I attend, I wasn't at the retreat, unfortunately. I was lying in a in a hospital bed. It

150was real fun. Um, so but the meeting prior to that when we started talking a little bit about waiting, you know, it was the waiting at least for 113 versus 113. I know we had talked about it. I noted it was going to be discussed in a policy meeting um we policy committee hasn't met yet. So I just was hoping that we would still have an opportunity um just to discuss in general. um and wondering why we would sort of revise it to be 113 and 113A um as opposed to 112 and 113 um only in the fact that you know I know it's re the transition to come from middle school to high school the rigor the speed um the lack of parental involvement and oversight for some students is really difficult and a

151really big challenge and it's not just one course this isn't just English it's also social studies so it's it's really two courses and They're not just learning English and social studies in these courses. Um, they're learning how to be high schoolers. They're learning how to study and turn in homework as a high schooler. They're learning the rigor and what is expected to of them as high schoolers um in taking exams and weekly tests and they're learning how to prepare work and and site, you know, external documents and it's it's so much more. And I think it was partially discussed earlier mentioned regarding STEM skills, but there is so much that's learned in these courses. And I and I understand that we offer students a lot of opportunities to move sideways, upwards, downwards during the school

152year and from year to year. But that transition year from 8th to 9th grade is huge for most students. there is and to me I mean I I I missed the the opportunity to have this discussion at our at our retreat and I'd love to have the opportunity just to have a little bit more discussion. I didn't know it was going to be on tonight's agenda to be able to reach out to some of our you know educational community just because I know we have a lot of students where special needs come into play especially from high school middle school to high school. It's the rigor you see in 8th grade, especially when they come into nth grade and that hits is when you start to see a lot of students where we discover a

153lot of learning differences in them. And I don't want to take away the opportunity for students to move at a at a pace if they're not really ready to move at the high school pace for two courses, not just one. Um, so I'd really love the opportunity to just take a little bit deeper of a dive if that's just my opinion. So I'm just putting that out there. I know Jen had a I don't know if any you know >> to your to your point about some of the challenges when you're going from the eighth grade into the ninth grade if a student is if one is removed and those students are placed I guess in 113 and then 113A or whatever we're going to call it. Can you talk to us um anybody actually

154who wants to field the question a little bit more about the supports that are in place? I know we've heard about STEM skills um as far as the counseling extra help. Could you let help us know you know what's available for those students should they go into that course? what other supports are available for them if 112 um if it's decided that you know it's no longer um I don't know if Bridget wants to speak to that since we're talking about English but you know Ralph did share at the retreat one of the challenges with 112 from his perspective and he may still be on I know he wasn't feeling well today um but you know part of it was that the parents are not choosing 112 because they don't see it as college prep.

155And so when we went and we we looked at the numbers, we have about 80 students and you're talking class sizes of 600 and 700 students. So that was part of what he shared at the retreat. Um that was very helpful. I thought if you had 112 and 113, he's afraid. Oh, there he is. He's he's with us. Take it away, Ralph. >> Yeah. Well, thank you Dr. Jones and uh good morning everyone on good afternoon everyone on the board of education. Um yeah my point being that uh once we added 113A uh parents students started looking at 112 as a non-ol prep class. It is a college prep class but that's not how it's perceived. And uh that's one of the things that 13 one of the downsides of 113A was um we have

156a lot of support to answer that other question in the 112 classes right now. We would not take that support away. Uh a number of those uh classes are co-taught uh by an English and uh or social studies teacher and a special ed teacher. So um that wouldn't go away but uh just to you know allay anybody's uh fears about these are survey courses um they're talking about uh different genres in in English and they're talking about different uh uh aspects of history in uh global studies. So I think that having two levels is much more appropriate for our students than three. And um and then I think that when they go into 10th grade, that's when we should be talking about and we are honors AP whatever or or at regular level or 212

157level which is what I taught when I was at Ganch High School when I was teaching at Ganch High School. So I I really believe that this is a a great move and I I thank the uh the uh superintendent for uh moving this forward. I know. I'm sorry. I thought Miss Barry, did you have your hand up? Did you have your hand? >> Sure. I I quite agree with Ralph and I do think that the um calling the courses, but the numbers are an oddity. That's been an oddity for as long as I've been at school, as far as I know. But it doesn't mean that much. And I think that when you call a course English 9 and the other one is English 9 accelerated or global studies 9, it's much clearer. And

158um we will support students at whichever level. We always want kids where they will be um appropriately challenged and supported and supported such that whatever level they're on, they could have more choice of level the following year. Cody, >> do we want to amend the motion to change the name as well? Is that a necessary thing to do or >> I mean, I think if if you want to make a motion to amend it to going from three levels to two levels and allow the high school to fiddle with the naming of how they want to do that, I think that that would be appropriate if that's the case. I mean, I I'm like I said, I'm not necessarily for or against. I just wasn't at the retreat in order to have a deep dive.

159I listened to the discussion. I just that's why I said I I feel like we didn't have it. I didn't know this was coming tonight, so I didn't really feel like we had an opportunity to gain input from our from our teachers. Um, and and I was going to say I I agree that levels 112, 113, 113A makes it confusing for a lot of parents who are new to the, you know, education uh, world in Greenwich. And so, of course, they want something with an A on the end or what 112 doesn't seem as exciting as 113. So, changing the names makes perfect sense uh, with whatever it is that the high school then decides if that's what they would want to do. For me, it was just about having the opportunity to get a

160little bit more input. Um, and ensuring that the students that are coming in, like I said, I feel like because it isn't just one course, it's two that we're talking about. It's it's English and social studies. But that's just, you know, again, that was why I I was hoping to just see where people were sitting. >> What speed do you listen to the meetings at? Just 1x or do you do 2x? >> Um, I listen at 1x. I have ADHD. If you go at 2x sometimes I miss miss a statement or something. So I I listen to general speed >> just to make a comment about this. I was uh skeptical of this because the idea of reducing the you know my impulse is always anti-progressive. So, I was questioning this one, but in on

161further digging into it, I think it's quite compelling, especially the idea of, you know, it's one thing if you're taking out the top class and pulling people lower, but if you're taking out the bottom and pushing people up and having higher standards, especially when you think about the smaller numbers involved here, I think it makes a lot of sense. So, I changed my mind on this from our our last meeting. And I think we should name them by colors like they do in karate. Should be like orange class and blue class. But I'll let you guys decide that. >> Um, so are there any other comments or questions? Cuz I'm happy to >> No, but would you do you mind withdrawing it so we can try to do that new motion that you had suggested?

162>> Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'm happy to withdraw my initial motion. Um, do you want to make the motion or amend it or I'm happy to make it if you'd like? >> Um, >> I'm happy to make it if you like. It sounds like you have it, Karen. >> Um, I don't, but I will. Um, so I will withdraw my initial motion and say as discussed at the board of ed, I'd like to make a motion that as discussed at the board of ed student achievement retreat, the board of education moves to adjust adjust freshman English from 112, 113, and 113 advanced. I should excuse me. Moves to adjust the three sections of freshman English from 112, 113, and 113 advanced to a freshman English and social studies model of two sections renamed at the high

163school's discretion both courses to remain weighted unweed. >> So I think it was you did such a good job. As discussed at the board of board of it's as I'm like to make a motion as discussed at the board of education student achievement retreat that the board of education moves to adjust the three freshman English and social studies courses 112 113 and 113 advanced to a two section freshman English and social studies model of course is to be named at the high school's discret renamed at the high school's discretion both courses is to remain unweed. >> Happy to second that. >> All right. On the fly. So, I will uh all in favor. Okay. Four. Oo. Oh, sorry. I can't see Mike. Mike, is your hand up? >> Hi. >> That's why we do vote.

164Okay. So, five. All opposed. One. And all who abstain. Excuse me. So it's 511. Motion passes. Okie dokie. Well, that is our last action item and now we get to move on to discussion items. The first discussion item tonight is the monthly financial report. Ben, Mr. Lie, are you guys there to take it away? >> Yeah, this is the first report of this fiscal year. The last month you had the fiscal year end. uh from a financial report standpoint, relatively straightforward and pretty early in the year to have any um uh concerns right now, but happy to answer any questions you may have >> questions anyone anyone no one okay uh so thank you guys for presenting that documents online uh I guess we can move to budget transfers you guys are still Uh, I

165just say as presented relatively uh benign transfers. >> Any questions, comments in the peanut gallery now? No one? No one. Mike? No. Okay. Okay. Perfect. So then I guess we can move on to the October 1st official enrollment update. Dr. Jones. So this is um a very thick big document. So we won't talk about every page. It is online. It is a a hot item always every year. Everybody waits for it. Um just you know a few of the highlights where enrollment is as of um you know 2025 versus 2024. Uh prek through 12 plus at our 17 schools and programs. And again we have 15 schools. Then we have Windows and Community Connections and we're down by about 120 students. And while some people think that's a big number, again, when you spread that

166across all the many grades that we have in all of our buildings, it really is not super impactful. Um, when you look at some of our profile on on page two, people are always interested what's happening with our outplacements. Uh again looking at the district enrollment, what's happening um with our settlements and again as you know last year um at the very end of the year we were able to recapture some of that outplacement funding. Um so it's nice to not see this going up year after year. Um so on page three uh again you can kind of see where we are on just our enrollment by grade for those of you who are interested in that. Um you'll notice that we still have some larger classes at GHS um that are 676 674 smaller

167than they were you know five uh eight years ago 10 years ago um but still larger in comparison to the to the district. So the high what's going to happen in the high school is um over the next couple of years their enrollment is going to continue to go down. Um, next year it's down I think another 80 odd and we can look at that in a minute. But um, because you're going to have when you look at sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, uh, pretty small class sizes that are going to come through. Our sixth grade class is only 563 students. Um, we're used to again seeing sixes and and 700s. Um, and if you look at the seventh grade, they're 611 and 8th grade 596. So again, we're going to we're going to see

168enrollment continue to go down at the high school. And then when the younger grades that are now second grade, third grade, they'll start it'll start going back up, but it's going to take a little while and you'll see that in the enrollment report. Um, just to point out, um, the high need students, uh, that's on again page five right at the top and you can see where we're sitting um, for special education. And, um, we've had a change where, uh, it's about 16 student change. Our EL students are down this year um by about 58. Um but that's kind of uh something they're seeing in the region. It's not just us. Um let me see what else would be high needs by school. If you look on page nine, you could kind of get an

169idea um of what it looks like across like our title one schools versus for instance Riverside. Um again just the number of high needs uh students and you know a lot of people do not realize in Greenwich that we're right around that 30% mark of high need students um and it is pretty high. So um um if you look at there there is information on racial balance uh which is on page 11 and again you know it doesn't look radically different than it has on all of the other years but this year um we had two years where it was kind of on pause this year it's back but there is discussion about having uh legislation that will go in and study this and what I am really asking for from our state representatives is

170that if the will is not there to pause it or to eliminate it alto together because it really impacts West Hartford, Fairfield and us that they need to come up with a better formula because it really is um it's disappointing to be saying that Greenwich is out of balance when we actually have a very diverse community and a very diverse school district and you look at the high school where they all converge. Um it's pretty amazing compared to some of the other communities around us that are completely homogeneous. So I'm hoping that they'll look at that for a new formula. Uh on page 12 you're seeing the magnet students um the tuition students out of attendance exceptions. Um remember out of attendance uh exceptions could be for a number of reasons. It could be um

171a student who needs to be in our cot uh classes at Costco Cobb, the unique program at North Street. Um you also have situations where it's wonderful at elementary if they're having like an issue where like children are not getting along or a child is just feeling bullied and you know we're trying to help come up with a really good plan. We work with the parents sometimes to move the student and it kind of gives them a whole fresh start. Um, so that's what that category is. Um, on page 13, you're looking at some of the kindergarten data. And again, with the change in legislation, it kind of gives you an idea uh what we're seeing. And and you might want to go in and read that text. Um, what's getting ready to happen is

172we've had waiverss where children um if they were not five, but they used to be up until December, now it is um September 1st. uh we are moving uh to September 30th with a hard cut off this year and again that's not they're we're not going to be dealing in waiverss and the state is saying that's where they're going. Uh they're giving us one more year so we're going to implement that this year so that we're on top of that. Um the other thing to look at is on page 14. People always want to know how good are our projections and you know projecting school enrollment is very challenging to do and when you look at our projections to be 98.3% of the projection that that's very very strong that's good I mean we for

173the most part part are on top of our cohorts on top of our um enrollment and incoming enrollment the prek to kindergarten has been challenging um the last two years and we saw that again this year Um, again, you can look at the uh GPS 10-year enrollment projections on page 16. I know some of you kind of enjoy just watching that. And it depends on the building. Um, I was in a meeting today with middle school. Central is actually going to go down uh over the next couple of years just by the feeder pattern that's going to Central, but then it does go back up. So when you get to central, you're going to see where western and eastern are pretty flat. Um just and again it has to do with their feeder bill uh

174their feeder skulls. On page uh 17 you're looking at the children who are born in Greenwich um that actually the number of Greenwich births and you can see that the birth rate is went back up again. Um, and so that's why you're seeing that influx in kindergarten. On page 18, what you're looking at with that orange line, um, is the in migration of the families that have moved into Greenwich. Their children weren't born here. So the blue line are the children that we know from birth rate data. The orange line is what we know for the students who were not on that birth rate data, but they've, you know, moved into Greenwich. And I think if you watch the real estate market, you know, um the houses go fast and um they're not sitting very

175long and many of them have children in them. Um so we'll skip over again. You can look at the residents attending private school. That's on page 20. Some people just find that interesting and it's a question that I get asked um around town. And what you'll see is Greenwich Country Day because they've added classes, you know, they've expanded their offerings, um they've been going up, but most of the private schools are either flat or in decline. Um enrollment in their, you know, private schools look similar to enrollment across the country. Um so again, if you look at like Whitby was at 263, now they're 194. Um, you know, if you look at the King School, they were 156, now they're 101. Um, so again, they, you know, that's justformational. Um, I'm going to skip over

176the district enrollment. >> Can I some one question on the private school thing? I I'd sent you this in an email, but is it um do we track when someone leaves one of our and this is a little different than this broader report, but I know some of the principles keep track of reasons why a student will leave to go to a private school. Do we have any like aggregated data for that across all the schools? >> If we know where they're going, then like we're transferring records and stuff like that, but we don't always know. And we do have the Q&A that you sent. We're working and finishing that today. So, we'll answer some of those questions that you you had and I'll send those to the full board. >> Yeah. I know just

177to tag on to that, I know I've asked a couple years in the past also about if we ever do exit, you know, give them exit surveys when we know somebody's leaving the district because I think that would be very important data to know um if they're leaving to go to from public to private locally or if they're just moving out of state, you know, I think it's helpful to know. >> I just realized too this is just the Greenwich residents because some of these I was looking at going, "Wow, these look small but then it's got it. It's not it's not all their student body, >> right? Um so on page 23 and 24, you can see our current enrollment. You can see again where we anticipate to be next year at all the

178different levels. Um again, preK remains one of our fastest growing areas. Um so we're, you know, we're working on staying on top of that. Um so I'm just going to what might be relevant. So when you start on around page, it's a second section and you'll see there's a brand new section and it starts with page one again if you once you see the that's where you start looking school by school. So it's giving you K12, you can look at the middle school, but you start going school by school and what's actually happening. Um on page seven, like if you look at >> Tony, I'm so sorry to interrupt you again, but this just really stood out to me and I just wanted to know if you had a read on it. It's like if

179if you said to me that the even with country day opening a high school in this period I think they it was in this period like the 1617 versus 2425 there's 300 fewer students in from Greenwich in private school it's in a period where the student age population I would guess postcoid has gone up quite a bit here. I'm just guessing on that part but that seems very like surprising to me. Do you have any just thoughts or observations on that? >> I'm not surprised because our education is outstanding. We're getting great results and we're free. >> Ah, it's that's a sweet mic drop moment. >> Well, I was also going to say I think it's in line I think a lot of it is also just looks in line if you look at the

180if you compare this to our numbers, right? You so our numbers are going down. We talk about nationally national enrollment like birth rate datas are going down nationally at this stage in age. It tracks at the p private schools will also see a slight decline in that regards too just because there's there's less uh you know tushes to put in seats private or public so to speak. So, I think that also is is part of it. If I'm not so political, >> I guess I'm I'm I'm I don't know this, but I also It seems like maybe the private schools are also just enrolling more people from >> Yeah. from New York and elsewhere, right? >> I mean, because they've definitely grown their overall enrollment during this period, but the number of students coming from

181Greenwich hasn't grown >> because Greenwich schools are a public schools are awesome, which Dr. Joan just said and I want to highlight that she said it because it's true. >> Um so then you go school by school and if you look on like page seven where you have Costco you know sitting at around 400 they will be back up. They'll start kind of uh getting back up there again. Um you look at Glennville. Glennville is an area of town where there has been increased um number of sections just the the number of children that are that live in that area. If you look a couple years ago where they were 380, 385, um now you're talking 460, 470, 480. Um so, you know, they they are they're out of space for the most part. They're

182full. Um Hem again, very stable. Um we expect it to stay pretty much where it is right now. Um ISD is relatively stable as well. They may lo be down 10 students or so, but ISD, as a reminder, is a magnet school. So, it's a little unique because we do control somewhat the number of students that can, you know, be in kindergarten um or first grade, the different grades. Um Julian Curtis, again, relatively going forward about where they are now, they'll grow a little bit, but but nothing radical. Um New Lebanon is um you know, sitting at that 370. Uh again, when you look at 2035, they're still at the same number. Um, so I I'll let you just kind of you can look through those and just see where we are. And if you

183look at Parkway, which is one that is interesting because we know that during CO a lot of houses sold in back country and um the numbers have been going up there and so when we look at that uh by 2035 they're going to be up a 100 students in that building. Um, and again, this is taking the birth rate data, everything we know, and I'm on page 16. Um, where right now they're at 233. The other thing to note, if you go back a few years ago, and you're looking in the budget, um, it's it's been about four years ago, they did have prek there. That used to get added into their number. This is just K5, you know, so they they are growing in in the back country area as well. Um, Riverside, again,

184going all the way out. um we're not going to get much relief there. So, I think it's wonderful that we have this construction project um getting it needs to get done um because again they're going to start hitting 500 um you know towards the end of the projection and uh and start to go back up. Middle school starts on page 18. Um again, if you look at central um they are going to go down. Um it's going to continue for about three. Again, it just has to do with their feeder schools. But then if you look out, they start to get back up to those 500 numbers again. So, it's a very small kind of blip where again smaller uh classes are coming in there. Eastern is stable. Uh Western is relatively stable. And when

185you look at the high school enrollment, uh they're they're going to have a continual, which we just talked about, little continual decline. um they'll be all the way down to 2400. Uh which is really small for us. Um when you think about over the years um and I might just leave it at that and see if you have questions because I don't think I need to go through every one of these projections. >> Anybody have was >> Cody, do you have a question? >> Just Yes, sorry. I had one. >> No, no, it's fine. >> The uh the I just lost the table. I was looking at the parkway projection is that that was off by 26. I'm just >> What page are you on? >> Sorry, page 23. >> First section or second. Okay.

186>> Oh, there's Oh, yeah. First section, I think. Uh, right. Hold on. >> No, then a different not that page. I'm I'm just using the PDF from the It's a It's called Appendix A, October 2025 enrollment. It's like that chart we always for class size stuff. This this one >> Oh, >> this Yeah, that Yeah. >> Okay. And you're talking about 25 26 this current year. >> Yeah. I was just looking at the actual versus projected the minus 26. >> Yes. Yep. And most of those again what on the elementary when you've got 10 to 20 students, most of it is attributed to kindergarten. Um, you know, they call it red shirting, but now that the the really the age has changed, we are seeing they're coming in older. There are parents still holding they

187don't they're not starting them early. They want them to be fully five and not be the youngest in the class. >> And so, do you think you get an offset next year where you get a bunch of like a surge of kids next year? >> We we think so. Um but again it's you know we're going to be tighter on enrollment and who who actually can be retained and because we had for a long time we had a policy you couldn't retain students coming out of COVID because the early childhood had masks on and just some of them didn't cope with that as well. we were a little more open and then when the state changed the age for that legislation that impacted us as well and so next year we're ready now we're just

188we'll be back to normal and they need to be uh five on or before September 30th which ma matches most school districts in the country I answer your question >> yeah I was you know the confirmed thing >> does anybody else have any questions? Michael, Mike, Mike, Mike mic. >> Thanks. Yeah, let me um um let me just point out point out two things. Um because everybody likes to use their enrollment port to enrollment report to make their own points and whatnot. So, you're looking apples to apples, right? The um let's be clear here. It is a um it is a a slow enrollment drop, not a major enrollment drop. Um I went back and looked based on tune based on if we compare everything from precoid, right? So there was 9,57 students um all

189in back in 2019 when you count out of district placement and everybody else. So that's an 8% difference uh from 2019 to now which is significant but it's also not taking the whole um you know the the whole center out of the system. Um and so so I so I think that I think that's a that's a fair perspective to to put it in. So it's a it's a slow shrinkage over the last five years. Um the other point which I know is less popular but I do think it's worth us as a board continuing to monitor it and look at it because the um there is a there is a large disparity here in enrollment between across our three middle schools. We're not going to make any decisions this evening. Um but um as

190we as the construction projects finish and if these numbers continue at some point, I think we have to look very closely at considering the um the the catchment areas and the very large number of students at Eastern compared to the very the much smaller in the hundreds of students numbers of students going to Central Middle School. um that's not something we can spring on the community and I think we probably need to wait for the construction to be finished completely. But um that's a that's a size disparity that um over the next two three years I think we need to be mindful of and and and and can consider changing. >> Yeah. And I might just add to the same conversation was happening in 2018 2019 when New Lebanon was built >> and everybody said

191you build it they will come. And if you go and you look at their projections um you know 2017 2018 they were 280 250 um and now I mean they're you know 370 and and we tend to have people that still want to apply and magnet in there. Um, so I think in central, as a matter of fact, one of the PTA members made a comment the other day, so it's, you know, just it's it's a comment. I don't have the quantifiable data, but that she knew probably 20 families herself that chose not to go to Central because of the emergency solution or they were nervous about construction. And again, when you look at some of those students out of district, some of those families that I worked with to move to another middle school

192if I had space because the parents were nervous. So, some of those siblings being in brand new middle school may want to come back um to their home school. I was going to >> Yeah. No, I don't disagree. That's why I don't think we rush into any decision, but over the next two, three years, it's something we definitely have to monitor. >> I was just going to make the comment that I think it's really important that we look not from year to year or even, you know, two or three years. We really do need to look at these, you know, enrollment projections at five to 10 year trends. you know, especially when we're looking at facilities, we're not looking to change things this year for next year for five students or six students because we

193all know it's, you know, five or six students across an elementary school across six grades is is really not significant. Um, you know, when you're looking at larger numbers at the high school, you're looking at at things, you know, over a five or 10 year thing, you know, we're building things for the future, not for a two or threeyear dip. Um, and we've seen those numbers dip and then come right back and then dip and then come right back. It's a it's a wave that happens. You know, it's a whatever is it I think it's a 10-year phase. I think that we consistently see um not just here, it's it's nationwide. Um, and not, you know, I know that Mike's statement in regards to we have to keep an eye on Central and their numbers

194versus Eastern. I know that was one of the discussions I was saying when we were looking at the size of Central. I said, "I think we should build it bigger because we know we have a overcrowding at Eastern and and some of the students might want some relief." Um, and I know it's we're we're not even close enough to have that discussion. I would caution against changing a catchment area again because we see a 10-year we typically have these 10-year waves. I would say though if we are overcrowded in one area and have the opportunity for moving students you know to a different school like we we've done it before where we ma offer as a magnet program or we offer a short term for the next year or two you can have the option

195to opt into a program if that might help I think that we have the time now to start looking into if those options could be possible if there's space down the road. Yeah, and I might because you mentioned Eastern. Um, you know, people tend to think of Eastern as bursting and that it's like really overcrowded. The reality is our moment's been going down in that school, Port Eastern, which has given them some relief actually. And if you go back like the first year that I started, um, we were at 862, you know, we were just shy of, you know, 900 students. That's when we put in that assistant dean to help out instead of adding additional principal to get through the growth. Um, but when that started falling down, the we took out that assistant

196dean a year or so ago. Um, and again, they're sitting at 773 right now. And so they're not. And from a mentality standpoint, a lot of people think they're bursting, but they're actually much better um because we're down. And it's kind of like the high school. A lot of people still think of the high school as 29 or they'll say we're 3,000 students, but we're, you know, we dropped just below like two kids of 2600 this year. >> Any other questions, comments? I know that we'll be taking a lot of time going through this at some point. Cody, >> do you have um the chart on page 20, the Greenwich residents attending private school? You have it broken out by elementary, middle, high school. is do you have though another layer of detail to see

197what it is by specific school? >> I'm sorry, say that again. I'm >> sorry. I know there's like uh on page 20 the private school share in Greenwich. Do you have um we have it we know the number of uh residents attending private school by just the category of school like elementary, middle, high school. Um, do we have that down to the school level? >> That's a Jin Lao question, so I'll check with her on that. >> Okay, cool. I The reason I'm interested in it is I feel like it's always a good measurement of like how to your point that it costs money. It's interesting to see how people vote with their feet and what, you know, what insights, if any, you can get by looking at that. The other thing that I wanted

198to flag is on the previous page and it's one thing that might be an issue in our forecasts, but the um the 10-year survival ratios, what we're using versus the one that stood out to me was the 8 to12 survival ratio has not been at 105 since 2021. And that trend has stepped down or it's sustainably been, you know, 97 98 and we're using 105 on the forecast. Um, and I wonder if that change is a more structural change that isn't reverting or if we have any reason why we think it's going to revert because I think historical averages are good to use if you have volatility around some average. But if it's just a step change down that hasn't moved, probably don't want to we'll probably end up with the wrong forecast. I don't

199know. Just an observation. Anyone else on enrollment? No. Um, okay. Thank you for for going over those numbers with us. I know it uh it's a big document and I'm sure that there will be questions um asked going forward at some point um as well. So, I think we can move on to the tech program executive sum summary. Uh Mike Ting, yeah, come on forward. Thank you for sitting through this whole meeting uh in person waiting to present >> what I always feel bad for the random civilians who have to wait behind all the annoying things we do to then present something. >> He's he's not a random civilian. >> No, no, I know. But like some of these we can just bang out right at the beginning. I >> I will I will note

200that the next two one by Mr. Singh and Dr. Bud is following they they're not random civilians. They're incredibly honored and valued staff members. >> No, I meant that in a nice way, like all the silly stuff that we do. >> I was just appreciating that he's here physically. So, take it away. >> This last year or the year before, but happy cyber security awareness month. That's right. Every October for the past 20 years, the Department of Homeland Security has recognized this month as Cyber Security Awareness Month. So this year's theme, stay safe online, focuses on simple ways to protect yourself from online threats. According to their website, small actions can make a big difference. That's why the focus is on the core four. four easy steps anyone can take to boost their online safety.

201So, step one, use strong passwords and a password manager. Step two, turn on multiffactor authentication. Board members who don't have this turned on, please take note. Number three, recognize and report scams. And number four, install software updates regularly. Now with that, hello. My name is Michael Teng and I work in the board of education IT department. Before we begin, I'd like to thank the board and Dr. Jones for the opportunity to speak tonight. I know it's late and we still have more items on the agenda, so I'll simply highlight a few key points from this year's technology executive summary report. So from an IT perspective, our school district is a large and complex environment. We manage technology across 17 locations throughout the town of Greenwich, including over 3,000 computers, more than 600 classroom display systems,

202over,00 wireless access points, and on any given school day, up to 15,000 devices could be connected to our Wi-Fi. So, with all that equipment, our help desk stays busy. Last year, we received more than 14,000 documented IT support tickets, right in line with our averages from previous years. Now, the key question, how satisfied are our users? We track that through voluntary surveys sent after each ticket is closed. Last year, we received 454 voluntary survey responses and 454 of them were positive, giving us a 95.6% satisfaction rating for the department. So, um, speaking of great support, I want to give a special shout out to Anthony Stampion, who works countless hours and is actually still here helping to make sure this meeting runs smoothly. Fun fact, 17 of those positive surveys came from teachers who mentioned

203Anthony by name. So, thank you, Anthony. Keep up the great work. >> You're welcome. >> Always good to thank the man behind the uh behind the camera who makes us look good. >> This year, our most important IT project is the Greenwich High School Cellular Improvement Project. This is a long- aaited upgrade and I want to thank the board for approving it. This project will bring reliable mobile service to every corner of Greenwich High School, including those tricky basement classrooms. As an IT guy, I'll admit I'm so excited and I can't wait until this project is up and running. So, speaking of projects, I want to take a moment to thank the board for your ongoing support and thoughtful investments in technology over the years. Your smart budgeting decisions ensure that our students and staff

204have access to fast, reliable, and modern technology year after year. So, on behalf of my department, thank you. So, I'm almost done. Before I close, I want to recognize one of our longtime team members, Karen Martin. Karen has been part of the Greenwich Public Schools family for more than 30 years, but her support for our schools goes back even further. All of Karen's children are proud graduates of Greenwich High School. Over the years, Karen has worn many hats. She has been the president of the PTA, a GMEA union officer, and most recently, Karen was named a difference maker for the month of October. Karen began her career as a media technical assistant at Julian Curtis Elementary School. From there, through hard work and her natural ability, she rose to become a tier 2 network specialist

205at the central office where quite honestly, she's considered the IT department all on her own. So Karen, if you're listening, you are truly amazing. Thank you for everything you've done and continue to do for our schools. And please, while I know that Danny is retired and he's waiting for you, don't retire just yet. We're not ready to lose you. So, to wrap up, I just want to say how proud I am of our IT team and the work they do to empower education year after year. Um, I hope you found something in here useful. Thank you for listening. I'm sure there may be some questions or comments, but I will say that it's I'm constantly amazed and incredibly impressed by the work that you and your entire team do that every student in our schools

206has at least one if not more devices. Every staff member has multiple devices and typically when there's issues, you guys are on top of it and they're back up and running almost instantly. the fact that our students have to use all of these devices to to access their learning and we are we ensure that our students don't lose that access regularly is an incredible feat. Um and and I just want to thank you on behalf of all of our staff and students to making sure that access is available to them to their families to our staff to provide you know access to education no matter where they are and it's just you know and ensuring that it's a consistent access. So, thank you so much for that. >> Thank you, Chairman Hirs. >> Uh, I

207see Cody's hand up. >> I had two questions. Um, one was, uh, why does it take two years to do the cell cellular thing? >> Um, I think we got this question last year as well. It doesn't take two years. Um, but when we put forth the funding request, um, we were requested if we could break it up into two years so that it could be paid over two years. over it. >> But we should have just put that in the um that's a capital budget item, right? >> BT >> modified it. >> Oh, interesting. Okay, >> I can give you the names if you'd like. >> No, no, that's how much How much does it cost? >> It's uh 1.1 million. We paid 500,000 the first Sorry, 600,000 the first year, 500,000 this year.

208>> Ah, that feels like one that would have been so easy to just tuck into this capital budget. Um I guess I Oops. Um the uh this is just more of a curious question but the the big step up in the average download uh uh usage the bandwidth usage it's like goes I I assume co made some step change and it goes from like 140 megabytes a second to 340 and then continues rising. What what is there some uh some phenomena that caused that? There was like >> you're talking about what happened several years ago. >> Yeah. There's like this step change. I'm just looking at the chart on page uh 9. It's like in 2019 2020 it's 140 and then it goes to 340 and then just keeps climbing. >> Yeah, that's probably in

209line with the number of devices that get connected to our network. Four or five years ago that number was closer to 10,000. Now it's closer to 15,000. So students are coming in with more devices. Um you know things are connected to Wi-Fi like their watches and things like that. So it's probably the increase in the number of devices on the network. >> But that's a 50% increase. And this is >> Yeah, I don't think it's linear. So >> interesting. >> Yeah, >> but the So people as you add a device, the amount that you're downloading per device also increases. >> I don't think it's it's exactly linear, but the usage of the bandwidth in general will increase. Yes. It's not related to like a curriculum thing or something where we we added a bunch of

210new new technology that more people were using or we using more online programming or something. >> I would say we're more consistent in how we utilize some of our technology like for instance you know we it's it's very much on a routine where if you go back even five years ago we were just introducing some of these things. >> Yeah. It's kind of interesting. There's such a big change, but we don't know exactly why. Just year to year. >> Any any other questions or comments? >> No, just one qu one really a comment. I mean, I think I say it every year, but you know, in the world of it, you usually only hear complaints. So, the fact that we don't hear complaints is, you know, an accolade in of itself. And um I mean

211I know there were PSATs today and also heard no negative reports which is pretty incredible. So it just you know the fact that you sort of seamlessly deploy all these big issues every day is impressive. So thank you. >> Thank you very much. And a big shout out to Anthony Brena at Greenwich High School for managing the PSAT. >> Have we not had any cyber security like takeovers or attacks? I guess not because I've never heard about one. So, we get attacked constantly, but we have protocols in place. Um, we have a 24/7 uh monitoring system in place um which detects and mediates a lot of those attacks. >> But, but sorry, none of them have been successful, right? Like we haven't had a ransom or none of them have been successful. That's pretty impressive

212cuz I got to Yeah, that's a lot of I mean even big sophisticated companies have um you know they get things taken over and have to pay some Bitcoin ransom or whatever. So that's >> the last successful was in 2019 and that was actually performed by four Greenwich High School students from the inside. >> It's kind of impressive. >> I do remember that. >> And that just shows the kind of mindset we're you know they're very technologically savvy. It's fantastic. But I will say I know that there was a it was recently in the papers that there was a a you know an attack cyber attack and takeover of for educational purpose you know took over educational sphere and locked students out of access to their educational uh information and materials. We did not have

213that here here. So, not yes. Knock on knock on Well, this is plastic, but I'll find it. Knock on wood. But I was going to say again, it's just a testament to how incredible what you do and your staff does every single day and we could not be more appreciative, you know, for for that all. >> Thank you very much. >> Yeah, Dr. Jones had one thing to add. >> Yeah, I just want to say as well, Mike, just thank you for everything that you do. I think one thing that I am always so like thrilled about is when I email you and we're wanting to do something new or different, when we want ask you to segment our network, you were like, "hm, we'll figure it out." >> And you made it happen. Um,

214you know, and I just did that to you, I think it was yesterday, asking about Gemini and, >> you know, we're ready to go. So, you've really helped us continue to move forward with everything. And you know, I've worked with tech directors where when you ask and you keep pushing that they, you know, they kind of push back because it means a lot of work to implement some of these new things and you just say yes, put your head down and you guys figure it out. So, thank you to you and your entire team. >> Thanks, Tony. >> Okay, we're almost at our our last uh item. We have teacher absentee monthly report by Dr. Bud. Um, I know this was put up um today, so uh I'm not sure how many uh members had

215the opportunity to review it. Um, so I'll let Dr. Bud take it away and and give his presentation. >> Thanks for having me, everyone. Can you hear me? >> We can hear you. >> So, I'll I'll try to make the presentation as interesting as I can at 10 o'clock because I truly could speak all night on this topic, but I won't unless you ask me to. >> Please don't. Thank you. Thank you for that. Mike, if you could certainly advance. Uh let me uh explain first uh the choices I made and how to present some data to you this evening. Uh and I know I would it was suggested to me that there might be an interest in having some of this data on an more ongoing basis, which is fine. But for that reason,

216I wanted to make sure I clarified some basic principles of how uh we collect and typically present data on staff absenteeism. So, we're all speaking the same language. And then I want to show and suggest some trends to you in our staff absence data from our first seven weeks of this school year compared to the uh two school years before that. Thank you, Mike. So some key principles that are important as I think was even mentioned earlier this meeting by more than one person. Our goal is to have the best person in each position every day. U and that means that we want the person we really hired for that position in the position each and every day. That sometimes is intention with the second bullet which is like all the rest of us the

217staff who work for GPS u not just need but are entitled to absences from work. Um some of those are contractual and some of those are federally and statemandated but it's logical that occasionally um life um you know is in tension with work and we have to respect that and reasonably integrate it for the students sake. So the building leaders and uh our office in human resources collaborate to make sure that absence provisions in contract and statute are implemented fairly and thoughtfully. So with that in mind, Mike, on the next slide, let me just give this basic. We we do have the principle I want to distinguish of extended leave. And extended leave um for our purposes would be those leaves of over a week or so. And they are typically permitted either by statute

218or by contract. And I've listed a couple examples there. And typically people on those kind of leaves are replaced by long-term substitutes such that if you're out for seven weeks, let's say uh having a joint replaced. We have somebody in the room um who's going to maybe not do as good of a job as you would do, but a similarly good job. And we certainly don't seek to have, as was mentioned earlier, we do not seek to have random people going in and out of those assignments. So those are extended leaves and for those leaves more paperwork is required under the family and medical leave act or under contractual rights. Um we have more paperwork for people on extended leave but we also have lots of other non-extended leave and I've listed the most common

219examples there. Certainly the first two examples are the most common. Quantitatively, more people are out every day for sick day leave, which includes family illness leave, than for anything else. And the next biggest category is personal leave. And uh contracts in our group vary a little bit on what's allowable for this. But our biggest group are teachers, obviously. And our teachers receive two personal days if they're non-tenured and three if they're tenured. Uh the other categories I list there, administrative, bereavement, jury duty, professional development, religious holiday, and there are some others. Uh these are smaller and uh they do mean that we do have people in those groups out every day, many of whom require substitutes, but they're not significantly countable for us. And so for data purposes, um we're not going to talk about

220those tonight. That gets to the next slide, please, Mike, which is um since most of our absences are by far are in sick days and personal days, that's the data that it makes sense to chart. But when we talk in a minute about sick day data, I want to explain here that that excludes people on extended leave. FMLA child rearing being the most common. The reason for that is if you're out on an extended leave, we've typically hired a long-term substitute for you. And that long-term substitute is also entitled to sick and personal days. So, we don't want to count a category twice. The extended leave people come off of our data when they go on extended leave and then we analyze the other sick and personal days. So, if you go to the next

221slide, this is in a way meaningful, but in a way not so meaningful. What does it show? Well, for the first seven weeks of this school year, the first being the week on the left, August 26th to the 30th, and the 7th being uh the 6th to the 10th of October, the blue line uh charts average weekly teacher uh absenteeism. And uh the darker or I guess it's a black or gray line uh charts para profofessional assistance and security. Now there's fewer uh professional assistance and security personnel than there are teachers. So it makes sense that that line is smaller. And you see that both uh lines spike 3 to four weeks ago compared to the first three or four weeks of the school year. So if you just look at the last uh section,

222October 6th to the 10th, uh when you combine all of those five days in that week and average them, you had slightly over 30 teachers out and uh slightly under 10 Paris and security personnel out. But this isn't truly meaningful data, I guess, in the sense that it's hard to tell what this data really represents. So I now on the next slide please Mike contrast it for you with the first seven weeks of the prior two school years and we have been charting this collecting and charting this data with the same methodology for three years. So these are applesto apples comparisons and what I would draw your attention to please is the bold row on the bottom. So you see this year and the two prior years for teachers and then you see this year

223and the two prior years for our professional assistance and security and I'm going to talk here about the teachers mainly. Uh I want to say that both the teachers themselves and the administrators who lead the schools and lead the district have worked collaboratively to attempt to reduce absenteeism where possible. So the trend is downward over the past three years. If you look at those first seven weeks with approximately 25 teachers on average um now being absent compared to in 23 24 approximately 32 uh teachers absent per day. Um you will observe on the PA and security part of the chart it's a little bit higher this year than it was last year but without being um overly descriptive and violating any privacy I will say that is mainly due to some um specific um individual

224cases in a group that is not as large as the teacher group. So u we are seeing a positive trend in this regard. Um at the same time you might say well what does this even represent? Okay, 25 people are out. Is that good, bad, or indifferent? So, I thought Mike, if you'd advance it, what could be of also interest to you is to take this year's data for teachers and paras. And what's new on this slide is just the last row. What percentage of the staff in the group is represented? So, 24.9 average absences for teachers is about 2.8% of our unit. I don't know that there have been any comprehensive studies anywhere on this, but to me about 2 two 2.8% of a group seems like a somewhat reasonable amount that might be

225sick or have personal events going on that mean they can't be at work on a given day. And of course, these are individuals who are in schools and classrooms with um children who sometimes um come to work come to school ill and are kind of in close conversation. These aren't cubicle jobs. uh the parah rate is a little bit higher uh as I say um and that's due to some specific circumstances. Now where where we do have to talk a little bit is represented on the next slide. This takes the seventh week and shows you Monday through Friday the week of October 10th. And clearly the Friday of October 10th, we had much higher absenteeism in both groups, teachers and professional assistance security, than we did any other day of the week. In fact, Monday,

226which is a distant second, um is less than half of the total uh for Friday. Now, that happened to be the Friday of Columbus Day weekend, but I observe we weren't closed on Monday of Columbus Day. Uh what would I say on this slide and first of all the final bullet uh the administrators and I meet about this data. We meet about it um not just globally but individually um in terms of school-based trends and also individual absence trends and we meet with individual staff members as well. But this path of um Friday absenteeism is not atypical. U and there are reasons for it. there are in any organization um staff members who have more personal commitments for example on a Friday we tend to see that more in the spring but um we tend

227to see more wedding activity graduation activity etc than things scheduled on a Tuesday right but I observe here although this is a presentation on absenteeism and not substitute coverage um it would be fair to say there's no way that this district or any other will be able to have enough substitutes in the stable to cover everybody who would need one on a Friday because though you would have to assume that you have a labor market of PEDDM subs who are just willing quite a few of them to not work Mondays through Thursday but to be available on Friday and to also think that that labor market doesn't have the same personal events that our teachers do. One last point though, um, we want to represent that when we look at absenteeism. This counts every staff

228member. Not every staff member requires or would be able to use a substitute, a school counselor, a speech language pathologist. These are examples of people who are not there, but their absences uh for short short-term sick and personal leave aren't filled. Um, I am very proud to say that we have made very good strides with substitute hiring. Um so although this isn't a presentation really about substitutes, I will tell you that um for the first time um that I'm aware of, uh we have every building substitute, we had every building substitute position filled and there are 43 of those positions and those are as most of you know people who are every day in the same school and thus you get to know the school community and can go into different classrooms. Um, we had

229all 43 filled and when we got this presentation ready earlier in the week, I was really excited and then one of the 43 resigned. So, we're at 42 out of 43, which means if there are a few people listening who are interested in employment in the Greenwich Public Schools, I encourage you to apply right away and we'll interview you for the 43rd, but we have a 98% fill rate on the building subs. And, uh, we interviewed five additional daily subs earlier this week and have five more scheduled Monday. Um, at any rate, I've diverted it into substitute coverage, which I shouldn't do because you've asked me to chat about absenteeism. That's my last slide. Um, certainly I'm happy to answer any questions. >> I just have a comment for improving this report, which I think

230is great. Um, you should on the typical week, which is a really useful that's probably the most useful. I would break out um in each bar what is sick, you know, sick day versus other stuff because I think, you know, if people are entitled to their contractual right to take a personal day, I'd be very very curious to see if there's a disproportionate number of sick days taken on Fridays, on nice weather days, on days uh um yeah, I guess on days where it seems unusual that you wouldn't have a random distribution of sick So that that do do you know by the way like if you looked at that week were most of those personal day like the the bump was that bump entirely personal days or was it um sick days as well?

231>> The the Friday the 10th the principles and I looked at that data in great detail. You have a good suggestion by the way. Um there were more sick days taken on that particular Friday than normal. In other words, the trend of personal days kind of aligned with what we see. There was a high spike in sick days there. >> Oh yeah, that I looked too. The weather was 61 degrees that day and sunny. So, you know, very conducive to colds. It's also interesting that all the red shirts that were in the room didn't stay for this report. >> Well, don't now you make me feel bad. >> No, we I think this is an important one. It should probably be uh >> they went home and and logged on. >> Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good.

232Good. I actually will say that I reviewed this presentation with the GA leadership yesterday afternoon uh because some of those GA leaders sit with me and building principles in um pre-disciplinary or disciplinary meetings on people with excessive absenteeism and and I explained that now we're looking at the global trends but you see the individual piece as well. Thank you. That's a good suggestion. Thank you Cody. Um, Sophie, >> um, I actually had had the exact same question, but the followup would be what happened on Monday, uh, Columbus Day since it was a long weekend. >> Well, I want you to ask me to come back. We we take about a week to to reconcile the data. So, I don't have that yet. Um, and you say, why does it take so long? Because there's a

233lag time between what teachers report and then how we get them sometimes to document. Um, I can get that through Tony to you sooner. uh and I'll present it next time. >> Thank you. >> Well, I'm going to tag team all of, you know, both of those statements and say I think the other thing that would be interesting is because I'll just use that particular weekend because you're going to talk about Columbus Day if there's teachers that were out and absent on Monday, Columbus Day, and had to take a personal day. How many of those educators have students that are in other districts where those school days their school was off and they don't they are their primary child care? you know, they needed to be home with their students who were in another school

234district. I I think that's also kind of something important I think is as you know, not that we're questioning that. I just think it's important to note that they're not skipping school to teach our school, but they have other commitments as well. They have a life outside of it. Just think it's an interesting data point in comparison to also what you were talking about, Cody. >> Yeah, they've got pretty robust contracts, though. So, you got >> Yeah, be that as it may, sometimes, you know, these things pop up. But um my my question was really more about so out of care I know that they have sick you know in our contracts we have sick days built in you know I know there's a certain number of sick days allowed um you know but because

235we require this and the state requires it from students right if there are out too many sick days that are sick and we they're required to come in with a doctor's note right after a certain amount of sick days for students you're looking at it's for truh true truency >> product absentee So my question then becomes and this is this is I'm not pointing fingers. I'm just curious do we require proof for educators if there obviously if it's not if it doesn't come up for family and medical leave right if you're talking about sick days um or for instance jury duty I'll use that >> was actually a key part of our contract of our contract negot no no sick days was a key part of our contract negotiation. >> Oh well this is good

236to know. My point is again for students through the state we are require after they are absent for a certain number of days they're required to provide proof from a medical professional. Um so is it just to not show truency? The question then becomes is that I'm just out of curiosity is that something that is required for education >> Karen it's after 5 days now for the new contract. If you're out for five consecutive days you have to get a note from a doctor. >> Okay. It was five conse So it's five five consecutive days now it's seven now and is it things also for I mean jury for instance >> yes almost all of those smaller types of leave require proof and are actually entered by human resources personnel you have a subpoena you

237have something like that um personal days uh for the teachers uh they have one day where they do not have to give a reason annually and uh the other day or days that teachers have, they do have to give a reason that has to match the contractual um requirements for personal days. The sick day piece that um Kathleen and Sophie were just speaking of absolutely has changed in the next contract for July 1st. And what's also u changed in the contract is a recognition in writing uh by the association that they recognize that discipline can be enacted for abuse or patterns of sick leave. So occasionally for example and this is my moment to stress 99% of the staff um come to work and work exceptionally hard as many days as they can but occasionally

238we have people where it might not be consecutive absences but for example um quite unusual patterns of absences on professional learning days or days that there are afterchool meetings and our um building leaders are are quite good about tracking that and then um we can ask and we do ask for documentation um this is also my opport opportunity to say that the contractual limits for these things um are limits. Some would argue they're generous limits, but they're limits. So, people who have personal um uh leave uh pe personal requests to be out more than the contract allows. Uh those are handled specifically by Tony and me. Um and there are cases where there's discipline for those situations as well because ultimately um as you suggest the students have and their families have kind of consequences

239for truency or chronic absenteeism and that only naturally means we need the staff there particularly if they're not on some approved documented leave. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, no problem. I just wanted to make sure that it was pointed out because I know inevitably uh you know we get these questions especially around budget time especially from um you know members of BT who are are looking very closely at our at our budget and so forth that it's important to note that our teachers don't just take time off because they want to often time that we do require proof from them if they're if they're out sick or they're you know required to go to jury duty etc. Um, and it's good to know also that our building leaders are on top of it if they

240notice some odd patterns of of absenteeism. So, and that you guys are are really closely looking at it. I think it's really important to note. So, I appreciate that. And Michael Joseph, you'd lo you have your hand up? No. Were you just video on? Okay, Kathleen. >> So, Jonathan, thank you so much for this report. I think it's good. I think that what we learned is that and I'm happy you shared it with the GA because I know that you're right. um most of them are you know good stewards come to work um but they wanted to be our partners in this and I think that this is helpful in um actually addressing some of the underlying issues but the trends look good with the exception of the Friday so hopefully we can um you

241know get that under control and then we'll be in a great place. So thank you and Jonathan I know we don't thank you to the same extent that Michael Ting but you know you're the head of HR so I guess you're used to it. >> Oh well thank you for that. Well, I was just going to say, you know, there was going to be a thanks at the end there just on on, you know, I know that this discussion on absenteeism has come up a couple times. So, the fact that you guys are presenting that to us and and going to be presenting it in a semi-frequent basis, I think is is going to be great and help answer a lot of lot of questions that we've had over the course of time. >> Can

242I make a re it won't affect me, but a recommendation would be to move this to when maybe when Tony gives her comments in the beginning of the meeting. It's such like clean data that will be easy to present. It's just a great one when we have everyone's attention. Uh I don't know, just a thought. >> Yeah, tonight was a very heavy agenda and I try to put the paid professionals up front. Um so, but we we'll get Dr. Bud earlier on the agenda and I was going to say also some sometimes we do action first >> and sometimes at the end. Um does anybody else have any other questions or comments for Dr. Bud? Anyone? going once, going twice. Okay, thank you so much for your presentation. It was uh it's really lovely um

243and easy to understand and digest. Um so that helps us move on to the agenda plan discussion. Anyone have um we will be having the pool feasibility on here, but I'm going to wait and make sure that we're solid for the date before we put anything on. Um, the one thing that I want to point out because I know there some of you were confused because you've asked this current sitting board does actually sit at the meeting on November 6th and some of you are thinking that because it's a budget meeting and but remember it's very short. I present the budget. We don't ask questions or do anything. So that really is and then the next meeting that November 20th is when people are sworn in and officers are elected because it's the business meeting

244>> and I was going to I know Cody was like dang it. Um I was the budget chair doesn't want to be there to to listen to the operating. >> I will be I'm in England that day. So I'm going to maybe dial in for the beginning and then >> I I hope that you dial in. Um, and I was going to say for our current sitting members, um, this is how it unless we want to add anything to the agenda. I was going to end statement. >> Who knows? >> I was just going to say I wanted to remind our sitting members that, you know, we do have, um, you know, some of us leaving and and new board members that we're going to be welcoming soon. But being that it is the last

245meeting that you guys will be sitting at, um we will be doing a little something something to say thank you for the hard work. Um the the amount of volunteer hours that each of you guys have put forward uh for the betterment of our students and our educational community um is so greatly appreciated. And you know, we want to be able to honor your participation and your um you know, the the positive work that you guys have done over the course of your time as members of the board of education. So, please do make sure that you come um you know, don't skip out on you know and call in sick on your last meeting, November 6th. >> Yeah. >> After we said we have to go to that. No, no, just just November 6th.

246>> Okay. So, I'm going to dial into that one. >> That's fine. Even if you're there just for the beginning and we have the opportunity to if it makes you feel any better, I too will be dialing in because we have parents weekend in college. So, um but we want to be able to to thank you. I just want to say we want to make sure that we have an opportunity to thank and honor our uh current sitting and departing members um before we have the opportunity to welcome um the newest members of the board of education at the November 20th meeting who we'll look forward to, you know, bringing on board and and working with uh from then onward. >> But we don't have to go to the 20 the meeting. >> You not

247have to. No. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. >> No, no. I'll send this all to you in a in a formatted document in Excel because I know you like that. Um, but if there's nothing else to add to the to this, um, I Yes, >> sorry, I didn't mean to stamp my thing. I did have something. I I did have a suggestion for um um future meetings for the meeting agenda. Sorry, >> you wanted to add something to the agenda for future meeting. >> Yeah, >> okay. >> Sorry, I didn't mean to. Sorry, I didn't mean to stand on that. the um yeah >> um so I know there's a lot of be quick but I know there's a lot of um there seems to be a lot in the news about back and forth around the

248speed zones um in front of the schools and I think it would be I think it would be appropriate to bring to bring um um to talk to the the chief um about what's going on there and and >> so you want to have heave come >> you want to have heavy come and a little presentation. I'm sure we could ask him. >> Say they you saw that was on off and now it's on again, but it's only on a few schools. >> I think they had them, but they're not being turned on. >> Yeah. For those of us that are curious that drive through those zones, any uh can you share anything about how they work or what >> when you go at a fast speed, they go kaching. >> How fast? >> I

249I I don't know. But I will tell you if you accidentally hit, you know, a utility pole, they find you pretty quick. Um, anyho, it wasn't speeding. No. Um, anyway, so is there is uh is there anything else we wanted to add or does somebody want to make a motion? >> I would like to make a motion to adjurnn. >> Do we have a second, Sophie? All those in favor. Wow, another human unanimous decision. So, thank you guys and we will see yes all of you uh either virtual or not uh at our next meeting to present the budget. Thank you and good night.