001calling the uh board of education retreat to order. Um, and I'd like to ask everybody to stand to say the pledge of allegiance. Thank you uh everybody for your patience. I know you guys had a long day and we'll have a long one again tomorrow uh with all of our fantastic students. So I appreciate your uh your willingness to to wait for a few minutes. Um but we are meeting tonight. I'm sorry. Just pulling up the agenda um for our retreat to go over um special not I was no I was going to say SIP but you know school improvement plans but we're starting off with an action item on the non-lapsing account. Um Mr. Brandon, did you want Sorry. Can I actually make a motion to add something to the agenda? Sure. Um before
002I get started, um I'd like to make add an action item to vote for filing a complaint um to the state board of education regarding uh legal fees. I'll second that. Um we do need a twothird approval to add this to the agenda. Okay, so I hold on. I'm pulling up so I can see Wendy. Where'd it go? Did I lose it? No, it's okay. Um, sorry, my computer's giving me grief. Um, okay. So, uh, do you want to have anything say? So, all in favor of adding this item to the agenda, then we can discuss it, please. [Music] That's five. Five. Uh all against two and no no extensions, right? So therefore it passes on that 2/3. That's that's two/3. Yeah. Who's our math guru over there? Um I think it's 71% passes. So
003yeah, I sorry the motion So thank you Wendy. Now I'm just Now we actually take off the motion in order to add it to the agenda. I needed the twothirds vote. So now the motion is on the table which is you would like me to restate it. Although I'm not sure I can do it as well as I just did. Um which was to sorry I'm starting to write it. Um thank you. File a complaint with the state board of education regarding legal fees. So that and I guess it we you probably have to second it again, right? Yeah, I'll second it. And then all in [Music] favor? All against. Okay. And then there's no abstensions. So I guess that passes with 52. Now you can go on. Thank you. Well, since we're in the
004business of adding items to the agenda, I too would like to add one. Um um I'd like to make a motion to add an item for discussion and possible action to take the BET up on their offer for interim funding. Second. Okay. Um all in favor of adding this of adding it to the agenda. Agenda. Okay. Okay, that passes uh 70. Um I'm not going to do this ahead of Mr. Brandon's uh action item since he's waiting so patiently. Um and he has to go. So I'm turning it over to you first. The item before you is asking for authorization to deposit all of our fiscal year 25 unexpended funds into a non-lapsing account. Last year the state passed public act 2445 that gave this new authority to the board of education. Prior the language
005was mostly for regional boards of eds or you had to involve your local finance board. Uh the language included in your packet for you. uh relatively simple straightforward language and it's not withstanding any provision and the statute special act municipal charter home rule and allows us uh any funds essentially your budget uh unexpended funds from this budget as long as it doesn't exceed 2% 2% this year based off our appropriation is just over 3.8 8 million and any expenditure. So we we will deposit the funds if if you authorize us to do this, but any expenditures requires affirmative vote from the board of ed at a future meeting. To be fair, I think I did not do this properly and I need to make a motion to even have a discussion. So thank you for
006giving us this thing, but for us to actually have a discussion, I'm going to make a motion pursuant to CG Oh, yeah. CGS10-248A to authorize the administration to deposit all FY24 25 unexpended funds into a non-lapsing account. Do I have a second? I'll second. Okay. Thank you. So now we can actually have a discussion. We we got a background. Now we can actually have discussion. I have nothing else to add. So it's all it's all you. So just um Fukar, it would require kind of like we used to do over the summer where we vote on transfers that would be a part of that process where we would as a board or would it just be the executive committee that would vote on how you would expend these funds? I think the simplest approach would
007be the full board rather than authorizing the executive committee. So the executive committee is generally authorized next month for summer transfers and you're de you know you're delegating that authority. This is I think says the board of education. And I wouldn't recommend you you delegate that to the executive. You just you if we needed to expend the funds, you would schedule the meeting. And just I know you mentioned it, but I'll bring it up again now that we're actually able to discuss it. So we can put the money in. We have to as a board approve its use, but it specifically states I think that it can only be used for certain items, right? Special education, overage, transportation, something else. So the language says only for educational purposes. Okay, that's a pretty broad category when
008the lang then the descriptions we gave is just some classic examples of how the funds could be utilized. I just didn't know if it was I remember reading about when this when it came but I wasn't sure if it had any stipulations that came with the use of that funds other than educational purposes. So that's good to know. Thank you. Um when you say that it it can't be more than 2% do you have to spend it down every year or can like can accumulate? It can accumulate. Okay, because it's non the definition of the non-lapsing means once you put it in here, it will stay indefinitely and you there's no uh expiration of the of the funds. So, you can spend a little bit of it and then you keep it for future uh
009contingencies. Ben, there's been there's been some discussion in the community of late that oh, what's this? The BOE has a secret fund and people were hiding money and things. That's obviously not the case. um we knew this existed and the reason why people were asking about it was because we told people it existed. Um could you so first of all could you give a little clarity on um since we're just coming out of this massive budget conversation and whatnot you know can you give a little clarity of where this these why we have this money like how we you know where this money came from these savings that we've earned you mind explaining that a little bit we have historically always uh returned funds to the town if you will last year was about 800,000
010so generally we like to say the district does a very good job of expending its budget by 98 to 99% of its funds. Uh you it's getting 100% you there's some other issues going on there. If you're going to spend 100% and you never want to spend 101% of your of your budget, that's that's illegal. But uh so you this is a this is a normal natural thing that occurs with any budget in any government or board of education. And uh most most of the time it's the churn. So it's a salary churn. So we when we build the budget, we build the budget off of all the existing positions that we that we know of or we're anticipating. You you budget that full full salary, but if you don't hire on exactly July one
011or if you have the turnover, that's when you start accumulating some savings. We do account for that in the operating budget when you see that negative 900,000 that's in the operating budget. So we we try to account for that, but uh there's a lot of other things going in here, but primarily it's the it's the churn of the salary savings. And I know it's a moving target, but do we have a sense of what the the final amount's going to be? I appreciate you saying it's a moving target. If you looked at the amount of budget transfers we we were getting in in next month when you get it, you'll see a very long list, but right now we're projecting around two million. Okay. I have a question. Um, are we able to use this
012money for the interim funding to for the buses for the 1.9 million? That would that would I would consider that an eligible expense because it's an educational purpose. The only caveat I would add is it's it's you would this if you had the non-lapsing, you would not need to go through the interim appropriation process. You would be in control of your own destiny on that request. Okay. Um All right. Thanks. So, sorry. I think Oh, are you first? Yeah. The just the final count would be on Jul on June 30th is when we actually know what's left over, right? So, yes. So, I mean, just to sort of I'm sort of responding to Wendy's question or adding on to it is like in theory you could use that money, but we don't know how much
013money that will be. Yes, you would you would have to have a pretty high degree of confidence if you wanted to start batting out 30,000 maybe that year left over. That's a pretty dangerous that's aous week. So, I was going to say yes. I I don't know why this is so loud. Um I know since Mike had mentioned it too. Yes. Some years we have a lot to give back which we usually return to the town and some years we have nothing to give back. Um we're sort of lucky that we have this this year, but um you know, it's also my understanding that since we're talking about busing briefly um that we might end up having overage for this year's busing, which is where we would need to use it. So talking about the
014deficit, the deficit, sorry. So the for this year's for the operating deficit, there's a slight overage in the in the transportation, but we think we can cover that with existing savings. The problem we're having is uh the contractual uh increases for next fiscal year, what we built the budget on versus what's now now up in the air is creating a a budget gap for us. And we don't have the exact number because we're still still trying to figure out what that is with the with the vendor, but also we just made a decision how many buses we're going to have next year. So that that that factors into uh the the negotiations. Um, I know this will be relevant also for a possible later discussion since we just added it. When do those contracts need
015to be signed? Do we know for next year's busing? Yesterday. Yeah. Yesterday, in all in all cander yesterday, we're for a variety of reasons we're at where we're at right now trying to to get it down, but our transportation manager we're already planning for for next school year of what the routes are. We we putting that together. So that the sooner uh the better, but we should not be deferring this because it's no good will come of that when from an operational perspective. I I'd even argue and this is where you'd have to be careful. I'd even argue that from a negotiation perspective, this that's a slippery slope when you're negotiating with a vendor. So I'm going to say no more on that. But I think that that's that should just sit with everyone for
016a second. Yes. Well, when you're negotiating contracts, we would normally go into executive session. Do you feel that there's No, I just think that you you that's why you also want to be when you're in negotiating against other systems, I suspect it's better to be earlier in that process and have it done at this point. Okay. Does anybody else have uh any other questions that they wanted to ask? Mike, and I see Wendy's hand up as well after. Yeah. So, so just to qualify, we are um this vote is authorizing the uh banking of basically our leftover funds in to put it into layman's terms at the end of the year into a non-lapsing account. In order to spend that money at a later date, the full board would have to come back and um
017authorize that. Yes. Do you want to say something now or I know Wendy also had her hand up. Yeah. I just want I want to clarify because we have two issues with transportation and they're both around $2 million and I think a lot of people are very confused about those two. And what we're really looking at is in we were planning after tonight if this passes to in June have the item on there for this account so that we know we can cover the shortage that we have in the contract to get it started and get it going because we do not want to sign a $12 million contract or whatever it's going to be um and be $2 million in the hole and not have the appropriation for it. Um, so this this helps
018with that and that's the intent of the non-lapsing is so that we can get going and take care of the buses. Wendy. Okay. So, just to clarify, so you're saying we would use this 2 million in surplus for the 1.9 bus change and then we would do an interim for any No. Uh, what Dr. Jones had just said is that we are in negotiations currently with the bus uh transportation, you know, company and we already know that what we had budgeted for next year is not going to be enough for the number of buses that we are scheduled to have. That this is this funding that we have as a in excess this year would go to pay for that so that we do not have to go ask for an interim for the number
019of buses that we are slated to have for next year. The other $2 million is for the additional 18 buses if the school start time was reversed. And that cost may very well go up because it was built on this year's budget and but I I don't want to get into negotiations which is what Kathleen was asking. Right. So do the 1.9 now and then in later legally we cannot sign a contract that we don't have the money to pay. Is that really we're talking about legal stuff now? Okay. No, I think you're confused. Do you want me Should I go through that? No, I'm definitely not confused. No. Okay. Uh, I could send you a spreadsheet if that would help, but go ahead. You have $2 million. Let's put that towards the buses and
020then if we have if we need more money, then we're going to go for an interim. Why wouldn't we just do that? So, just one second, Mike. It's not a flat 2 million, correct? Like, we don't. It's going to depend. No, no, no. But it's going to depend, right? On other things. 2 million. Let's just Correct. Right. We're rounding up if it's not but if it's not used by the by the end of the year. Incredibly round numbers and we we do have a $2 million problem three ways. The first is a $2 million projected surplus. The second is approximately a $2 million budget adjustment savings that the board did to balance for the year next year that when we that was accomplished by the school start time change and we depending on what the
021ultimate contract may be it that $2 million whatever that number again for negotiations we don't know what that number will be it could be two million so I I I appreciate the confusion because we're talking about two million but it depends on which two million you could be talking about but we we have a $2 million surplus Plus, you you you budgeted the fiscal year 25 26 by 1.9 million. So, let's just round it up to 2 million by school start time. And we still have a contractual issue that we're dealing with that the 2 million could be used for and and the and the the 2 million surplus is not a done deal. Correct. Say it's 2 millionish, right? And so just to make it also for those who are listening who now are
022like very confused about the multiple different versions of 2 million. If at some later point in this meeting we make a request and ask for funding to possibly be able to add the busing the extra buses back to change school start time. We will be technically possibly $4 million in the hole with transportation. So it doesn't matter. You're looking at me funny. No I'm just trying to do the math in my head. Well, we said it was $2 million. We might end up one the end of negotiations with what we have now with $2 million hole. $2 million was reduced out of our budget to remove, you know, to change school start time and reduce the number of buses that we needed. So that I mean my math is not great, but 2 plus two
023is four. I think you nailed it. That's why I said I think it it's easier to understand if we talk about that like if we change if that's a discussion later to have, then we would be $4 million in the hole. So whether we have a $2 million surplus or not, that would only cover half if we tried to change things. Does that make sense? So we can't we can't sign a contract knowing we don't have we can't pay it. Correct. So, can I make a suggestion that we vote on the motion that's in front of us and then we can have the discussion of buses later if we're going to have it? Because this is just a motion of whether or not we're going to approve a non-lapsing account to hold the money left,
024whatever money is left over, which we don't know how much is going to be at the end of the year yet anyway, right? So, this is just more to say. I don't want to vote on anything yet. Ben, we have $2 million today that we didn't have on bud on on on budget day and the fa the community wants the buses back. So, let's just let's just figure it out. Figure it out so that we can make everybody happy in the community. That's a discussion that I we added on for later to ask for that interim funding that we'll get into that later. This is just asking to put the money in a surplus account. We can have a discussion about what it what we do with it after that. Yeah, this is just a
025separate the conversation. You we you can't even talk about spending it until you authorize us to deposit it and have another conversation. Yeah, we can call the question. You're just putting money into a bank account. Yeah. That we're going to approve. Let's call the question then of Okay. Wendy still has her hand up. Are you okay? And then we can discuss it part of that later if that works. Okay. Okay. So, the motion was, now I got to go back and look, to authorize the administration to deposit all FY2425 unexpended funds into a non-lapsing account. All in [Music] favor? Uh, all opposed? All abstaining. Okay, so that motion passes. 61. 61. No, there's but we're missing one. So, there's seven of us here. That's what I said. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. We're a little off
026off our game today. I blame PMTA Council and their, you know, fantastic dinner last night. Okay. Uh so, next up, uh we are moving. Um since we have all of administration here, typically we do action in action, but I know our discussion on the other action item uh that we just added might be a little bit longer. Uh I hope it would be okay for the board if we move to our administrators pres presentations and we have that discussion later. Okay then I shall hand the mic over to Mr. Domingo. Good evening everybody. Um what a warm-up. Uh if you wouldn't if you wouldn't mind I'd like to start with the strategic plan and how the school improvement plans support the efforts of the strategic plan. So, uh, what we did last year was we
027brought a representative, um, from seven different schools and each one of them spoke briefly about how their particular goal um, at the school level supports the work within the strategic plan. So, if that is okay with all of you, I'll bring seven new representatives to the table and we can go from there. Great. You all know who you are. While they're all walking up here, I was going to say, are they all going to sound like you? Uh, Mark, because in the presentation you kept said, and now we're going to hear from, but it was still you. Yeah, I'm just double checking there. I may have conf Well, at least I know to the whole thing. I did, you know, you know, so well, they're all very good at it. So, so let me um
028start by just I know you know everyone at the table but let me let me start with who's going to talk about which goals. So, uh goal one is reading and uh here to talk about reading is Dr. Jen Beno from Old Grenwich School. Uh goal two is math. Here to talk about math is Claire Monaco, principal of Glennville School. Here to talk about goal three science is Tom Healey from Central Middle School. Here to talk about uh our graduation rate um is Christina Shaw from Greenwich High School because Mr. Mayo is out being roasted tonight uh at the Harpoon Club. So I I gave him a pass. Uh talking about goal five, family and community engagement, Western Middle School, Suzanne Coin. Goal six um student sense of belonging. Carrie Gavin Kasco School and uh
029Daisy is here from Hamilton Avenue School to talk about positive work environment goal number seven. So, um, I know they would be delighted since this is back-to-back nights that they've been out that they'd like to get right to questions that you might have about any of their particular areas. Or if you prefer, they'd be happy to give you a 30- secondond sound bite on the work from each of their uh respective schools. We are flexible and happy to go in any direction. We also know that you have an action-packed evening ahead, so we can be as brief as you. I mean, I I just start off the conversation saying I enjoyed well, you know, it was it was a lovely melodic, you know, sound listening to you speak about it, but I loved hearing about
030all the positives um and the growth that we had this year with our students and everything. And so, since you guys all waited so patiently, I would really I know we did this last year as well. would love to hear at least from you know each each individual you brought up like one of the positives that you have found like one you know about one of the goals you have you have achieved that we discuss in the plan something because I think it's really important that we celebrate um you know these wonderful things that are happening in our schools and we're happy to do it so why don't we get right into it goal number one reading Dr. event does doesn't have to be like long just I can do that. Uh it was another
031wonderful year at OG. Our um focus certainly on reading has been targeted on um the science of reading but specifically close reading um K through five that evolved into close math K through five and looking at the reading of word problems. What you saw is our uh macro, messo, and micro approach to looking at the reading data and um how our teachers at the grade level, at the individual classroom level, and then down to the individual student level with their colleagues in ALP, ELELLL, and special education all work together to address targeted skills. I'm getting nervous. 30 seconds. Okay. Um, so we are proud of our work in mathematics at Glenville School in particular. Um, we really think, you know, last time I was here, I sort of talked about some tweaks and 1% changes.
032So, you've already heard about that, but really what we're doing is we are focusing on the strong curriculum that we have um the wonderful diagnostic tools um and the collaboration of all staff with all our hands in it. And so what's happening is we're looking really closely at student looking at student um data how they're performing very quickly and intervene um as soon as possible just for some tiny tweaks and it really is all hands on deck. Um all of our classroom teachers, our ALP teachers, special education interventionists, we all come together as a team, look at the data and then sort of divide it up who's sort of the best person to help and intervene. Is it a tweak? Does it need a little bit more time? Um and how can we help the
033students excel? And what we've noticed is that really helps us stay on the progression, fill holes or tiny gaps um in the younger grades when they first surface so that we're not really having those big gaps as the years go on. So for uh central and science, I would say our our um co cohesion and collaboration are the ways to capture what our growth really came through because of uh the cohesion of the curriculum, the collaboration among all the teachers. So even though only our eighth graders are tested, um the buyin from the sixth and seventh grade teachers to make sure there's a strong foundation since the testing covers everything in middle school. Um, so we worked collaboratively also with with Tara Fogle and making sure we have identified specific students and what their goals
034are, where they are currently, where they need to get to. Um, and all of our teachers are working together to ensure that our students are achieving um, great levels in the next generation science standards. And I think that those two things are the reasons why. It's their collaborative approach, their commitment to the kids, and the cohesive nature of the instruction that's happening. graduation rate. Great. Um, so thank you very much. I think if I'm going to highlight something that happened at the high school this year, it would be the change in the attendance policy. We were quite frankly worried because we were undergoing a stricter policy this year than the last. We used to have students lose credit if they had 11 or more absences total and this year it went down to five unexcused
035absences. So it held everyone accountable. We know if the students are there, we can teach them and we can get them graduated. So it becomes a partnership with the parents. If a student is not in class, then we call home and we ask where is the student? Is it that the parent forgot to call the student out or is the student not in class for some reason? And just like I've been hearing my colleagues say, it has been collection of consistent, timely data that helped us do this. We have our vice principal, Dana Tada, who spends a lot of time running spreadsheets of every single students absences in every single class that gets delivered to our house teams and we discuss it at our meetings. And uh at that time then we decide well does
036this student just not have a parent note? Does this student come to class come to school but not is it not in class. So these conversations happen because we have that data in front of us weekly. It has made a huge difference. Uh as you see from the slides for the first semester our attendance dropped 25%. We decrease unexcused absences at the high school and that is major major for us. So, uh it continues to be successful this semester and I am sure that this will push our graduation rate higher. Family and community engagement. Good evening. Um at Western, we're extremely proud of the connections we make with our families. um we tell them even if it's their first time being in middle school, it's we've done it for years and years and we keep
037coming back which some of them don't understand. Um but it's a time for we recognize not only to support the students but we really there to support the parents because as you all know if you have children the middle school years can be challenging. So, it's our job to make it easier for parents to navigate middle school. Um, the change from elementary to middle school systems we have in place, getting our parents in to celebrate our diversity, our community. Um, you'll see the number of activities we have with our families, but also to take care of our families and students outside the school day. So, we have programs like filling in the blanks, our new care closet, which is a smashing success this year with our students for them to get hygiene and and other
038um products that we're going to expand next year. Um and then getting our parents in for special events like career day, which is a huge thing at Western. We have 60 plus parents come in and community members to share um their expertise. So, it's all about them being a part in building trust with us um in order to help them navigate these years. And we let them know this is a time your child is going to make mistakes. They're going to make poor decisions, but what we really value is what they learn from it and how they grow from that to set them up for high school for you guys. Thank you. Good evening everybody. Uh I have kissed the Blney Stone, but I am going to do my best to be 30 seconds. Um,
039I am very proud to be part of a school where the faculty and staff are all in on creating a safe and supportive environment for all our kids. We do that through building strong relationships from day one because connection needs to come before content. And that's a priority for everybody from our custodial staff to our cafeteria employees to everyone, our nurse, everybody's in the building is all in on that same priority. Um, we give the students voice and agency through our uh student council, our Phoenix friends program and our mindfulness ambassadors that we started this year under the watchful eye of Dr. Fabian who is amazing by the way. Plug for Dr. Fabian. Um, he is amazing. We are moving that uh mindfulness ambassadors down to fourth grade so that we can get the year
040started off with the fourth graders going down to kindergarten or the next year's fifth graders going down to kindergarten to to do mindfulness lessons to start the day. Um we are also a building where all of our kids are all of our kids. Uh that means the fifth grade teacher that sees a kindergartener walking in the hall knows that kindergartener and and vice versa. I think we want to all make sure that every kid feels like they have multiple trusted adults in the building um that they can go to with anything that they need and I I believe that once again our staff is all in on that priority. So super proud to be at Costco. Hi, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you regarding uh staff climate at Hamilton Avenue School. are
041incredibly proud that we went from a 44% uh positivity rating to an 87% positivity rating. Um and I think you know the the overall theme there is really active listening and mutual trust and respect to each other. Um I always I started my time at HAM and had an open door policy for the um faculty and staff. I met with everybody who would meet with me right at the right from the very beginning. You all know that it's been a revolving door of administrators at Hamilton Avenue School. So, um, the staff really did feel, um, somewhat defeated and, um, I I'm happy to be there to help support them. They, um, know me. I have deep roots in Chikah. My mother went to Ham. My grandmother went to Ham, but everyone knows that because I
042say it all the time. Um, and that my, you know, longevity in Greenwich public schools, Greenwich High School. Um, also, um, you know, people still come and ask me, you know, are you staying? Are you staying? And I said, of course, I'm staying. So we really um the theme of collaboration around the table everyone has really talked about collaboration and it's so so important and we want to make sure the teachers feel empowered um I we work alongside them not in front of them and that's really gone a long way as well as well as um identifying natural leaders within the school and giving them some leadership opportunity um setting them up for success as well. So, we're really really proud the students um have have responded well because the happy teachers uh make the
043students happy and and really achieve. So, we're thankful. Thank you guys for sharing. I think it's so important for us to to share all the wonderful highlights that are happening within our schools cuz you know everybody knows all about the wonderful things that are in their school but not necessarily how you guys are all working together collaboratively and you know how how so many of the improvements we've made over the past couple of years have really not just aided one school or another but all of their schools and has have raised all of every you know all of you guys up. Um so with that I I have a couple questions but I'm going to Mike has his hand up. hit it. So I have um I have two questions um one for all of
044you and then one for one for Mark. But let me start with them. But first of all, let me say because um the data at HAM is has to be recognized from the board because that 40% jump in staff satisfaction is nothing short of remarkable. Um that that was that's that's incredibly impressive. Um and a testament to to the work there. Um so that said knowing how all you think uh as administrator here in May as much as um we're happy about successes brains automatically go to September and hey I want to do this and I want to do that and in September I'm going to do this and this. So, so what are you uh we don't have to hear from everybody, but I'm curious about as we're thinking about the strategic plan in
045general or some of these initiatives in specific, what you're thinking about as far as next steps um in your buildings um around around pursuing these goals. They can't hear you at home if you don't talk into um like I said we had a huge focus on um close reading. We're continuing that focus, but that evolved into close math and um a very targeted approach in looking at word problems and how we're analyzing word problems. So um Miss Beette came and saw our math lab in action. That's where we're really working toward um helping the students through the lens of math um break down and analyze word problems at very high levels and um let that focus um read through with with a lot of the same strategies. We're also seeing that evolve in the classroom
046as well. So that will continue into next year. While you have the mic, can I ask you a question? Sure. Um, just this is more of just a the ELA curriculum like now having seen it go through I guess this is the fifth year, right? Like I think it started with the kindergarteners in 2019 2020. So can you talk about like comparing sort of the different cohorts and and like what do you see in the fifth graders now that have had the benefit of having that new curriculum in place? They can spell which is it's a huge I I mean you some people are laughing but they can spell clarify we're talking about foundations and in in that sense we're talking about foundations um specifically those kindergarters you are correct they were the first I
047believe the first cohort of foundations they um left in March of their kindergarten year and continued foundations virtually um I it was it worked beautifully they rolled in in first grade and um were incredibly successful their encoding skills skills are very different than the encoding skills of um their students before them. Um we also that group also had the benefit of two years of vocabulary workshop, two years of grammar workshop, they had the benefit of um in our school um heard early and geodess um which they used uh with fidelity several years ago. So that was a beautiful um connection for them and really making sure that we had robust um comprehension work being done not you have to look at all of the aspects of ELA when you're looking at ELA it is not
048just encoding decoding and phmic awareness and comprehension is is significant um the close reading work that we decided to focus on really was um kind of an outpouring of what we saw in um the work that they were doing in geodess and where we needed to take them. They needed exposure to non-fiction. They needed exposure to short text non-fiction that was rich in language and they had the ability to analyze. Um we we actually I had this conversation with Mark. saw um an increase in and it's an anecdotal increase in grit, but for the first time in um really ever. I have kids who are using scrap paper to analyze reading. And you don't hear about kids using scrap paper um in reading, but they do. And when we ask them, tell me about why
049you're doing this, they say, well, I have to I have to be able to take notes. I have to be able to make sure I understand what this is asking. And so they are using that's our our you know our unofficial measure of grit is the amount of scrap paper they're actually going through. If I could just jump in Miss Corbin I think it's a great question but to avoid the redundancy and stealing Kim's thunder who's who I know is who's so well I was a bit to talk about ELA. I was about to say ELA is next. And it's unfortunate that nobody else that you guys are facing this way and that the camera wasn't on Kim's face because the grin and like the joy of hearing you talk about the incredible growth and
050like I just I I wish I could have bottled up the joy that I just saw behind there and like stuck it in my back back pocket. It was it was pretty awesome actually. But so perhaps if there's any non-ELLA questions, I know Mike, you're dying to ask me something. Well, no, no, we were in the middle of Mike had his first question. That's kind of an unfair question, too, because and the reason Jen jumped at it was because one of the last questions I asked at their end of year is, "What are your top three priorities going into next school year?" So, Jen has already had a rehearsed answer, and so has Suzanne, so I might as well put her on the spot and let her answer your question. Do So, we feel really
051good about our parent connection. I we want to kind of build on um Kuskab and help our middle school students feel even more connection and voice. Um if we can find a way to get our middle school students to respond to a survey that they love coming to school each day and they feel, you know, they have a voice, that would be a really huge thing to tackle. So, we're really working on building our student council for more, finding more times during the day to meet with them regularly um because to get a middle school student after school and to do stuff is really hard because they're involved in so much. Um but building that so it's more of a consistent um plan during the day with their adviserss and then meeting with administration is
052our goal to take what we've done with the parents connection and really build that in the in the students connection because they when they get to middle school they have a voice they have loud voices um and we want them to be you know put to good use. So that's our our priority moving forward with uh at Western. Do you have another question? Mike Mike's leaning in. and he's got another one. So followup, the the natural question whenever we um highlight the successes is what we're doing is around around the district to spread those best practices and support all our schools. So we've got, you know, seven highlights here across the strategic plan, but um I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about how we're how we're supporting that. And you have
053a new idea or a new program next year around instructional rounds, too, as part of that, I think. Yeah. So, I'm glad you you asked me that question. Um, and we provided you with a written response, but I I'll review it quickly uh for the whole board. Um, one of the things that we used to have in Greenwich, and this is a benefit of being in Greenwich for 23 years, is we've gone through several different um, ideations of what's called instructional rounds or learning walks where administrators from different buildings come together and they go to a specific site and that principal uh, for lack of a better term has a problem of practice and that problem of practice is explained to the visiting administrators and then they go on classroom observations and there's usually clear
054look fors, instructional look fors that that principal would ask the other administrators to identify and take evidence of. And then they come back together and they they brainstorm and they talk about what are things that perhaps the host school can do differently, highlight things that they're seeing that um are successes and it also grows the idea tree so that maybe if if Carrie is visiting at Jen's school, Carrie brings back an idea from um from old Greenwich that he'd like to implement at Costco school. So the idea is cross connection and cross-pollination of ideas. Um we already at the elementary level work in teams because we're such a large elementary group. So we have three lead principles that meet weekly with their teams. And so this is just an extension of that. But the purpose
055is really to look at instruction and to provide feedback to the host administrator that he or she can then turn and talk to his his or her staff about at a faculty meeting. And you know, I I think sometimes staff don't get validated for all of their hard work and sometimes it's important to get validated from outsiders who come in and see your great work. Um so we're really looking forward to building an instructional rounds protocol that's specific to the Greenwich way. And uh we'll have more to share with you on that um come come the fall. And and I I'm just going to head this off at the pass because I know you know that it's testing season and as much as I would love to share with you how our results look, you
056know that the state embargos our data. We get to see it internally. Uh but we cannot share it externally. But I will simply say this. I look forward to presenting it to you in October. Well, I was going to say I was going to build on the your question and and your response and I know I know you know what I was going to ask, but I I wasn't. I was, but I wasn't. Um, but I was going to say so last night I keep going back to the PTA dinner because I had a besides the fact that we got to thank all the incredible parent volunteers in our schools. Had the opportunity to speak to so many of our administrators just hearing about the wonderful things that are happening in our school and um,
057you know, Westside Bestside. um got to to talk to a bunch of the Westside Bestside cohort uh and some of the principles had mentioned that they've begun working together to sort of support their students, you know, across across the schools and things like that and seen seen success, which we won't be talking about yet uh until we get to see all the wonderful data that's going to come down our way. But I wanted to hear a little bit more about this and I don't know if that's the start of what you're talking about as instructional rounds um or if it's just you know your your team groups like if it's happening all over the district. I mean I just that just happened to be something I was talking about with uh with that crew last
058night. So I was going to chime in. I didn't want to interrupt Mr. Demo of course but there is an incredible amount of informal collaboration that happens every day. Um, I'm so lucky to be a part of 11 fantastic uh, elementary school principles and then three wonderful middle school principles and then all of the people that I've worked with in the past at the high school. The collaboration in this in that crew is second to none. Um, I think Mr. Demo does an amazing job with his coordinators making sure that we are supported uh, facilitating conversations between buildings. But I think I mean that the we had a text constantly texting between principles as problems of practice arise um kind of on the spot professional development that happens dozens of times daily. Um so I
059just I I'm so appreciative to be in this district where people are so collaborative and open to sharing. Um, and just this presentation, you know, as I was reading through the slides after they were completed and just seeing all the great things that the different schools are doing, to your point, made me want to start thinking about next year. How can I incorporate some of what they're doing at OG and Glenville and everywhere else uh into our school. So, yeah, it's it's a wonderfully collaborative team, and I'm sure that we will be collaborating over the summer um many many many times for the benefit of our kids. Well, I think that also gets to at least I know goal number seven which in increased positive working environment for teachers and staff and I know Daisy
060had highlighted that here too. So I mean I mean I guess I don't need to bottle Kim's joy because I'm feeling it myself. Um I this these are the things we want to hear. We want to see that like you it's not just important for our students to walk into the school and find someone an adult a trusted adult that's there for them. It's important for the adults in the building to have that too. and whether it's in your school building or one across town, like I like hearing I love hearing that you guys are collaborating and sharing best practices and working through problems and you know find finding the way forward and upward for for our students. Now I have a really boring granular question sorry but it's for Miss Shaw. I mean I
061don't think it's boring but I want to talk more about um reducing absenteeism and kind of what do you think is the key to getting that number down? Is it I'm wondering if it's you mentioned getting in touch with the parents. Do you feel like I'm just curious what it is like what are the new measures and what do you find is being most effective? If you could talk about a little more to be honest I think it has to do with connection like everybody is saying and it's connection with the parents and also connection with the student. If a student really feels that going to school has purpose and that there is a place for that student in the school, I believe that they will be successful. And so that is what I think
062we should focus on for next year. I think most of our students are so happy to be in the high school, but we do have a small section of students who still feel alienated. So the key is connecting with those students and parents who feel they have no place and embracing them in our community. And there are several ways that we've been doing that. You know, um making all of our meetings accessible in other languages, reaching out in different ways, having virtual meetings accessible to all parents so any parent from any walk of life can feel like they are a part of the school. But we have some students who don't feel motivated and don't see the purpose of their schooling. And I think it's really focusing on that. Is that like the guidance counselor
063specifically reaching out to that student and that family kind of what does it look like on the ground? What it looks like on the ground is all hands on deck. Um my team is made up of administrators, counselors, mental health professionals, special education teachers, and it is everyone. I have an open door policy as well, Daisy, and I have students coming in to the room to speak with me, to get a snack. I think that it has to be everyone. We can't just say it's a responsibility of the counselor because our counselors do have large case loads. So what it looks like is everyone working all of the time and we all know that students actually connect more with their general education teachers over everyone else. So I think it's important to tap them because
064they are the key. And so in working in collaboration and making those general education teachers supported is a way that we can get them to turn this all around for those students who don't feel engaged. How do we do that? We need to support those teachers. We need to give them time so that they can make phone calls at home. They can meet with students to correct essays that they have because they are on the front lines. So that that's what I think that we should do. I think I'd I would also add because I had Mr. Mayo's end of year yesterday as well. When I asked him what are your three top priorities going into next year, he said school start time. School start time. School start time. And what he meant by that
065obviously was he wants to monitor how the school start start time does affect um students arriving on time and the level of absenteeism. And I think what he's comfortable with is the fact that they have a very aggressive early alert system or monitoring system in each house. And so they're going to be relying on that monitoring system. And from the first week into school, they're going to actively be calling parents to make sure that if they see patterns emerge early that they're intervening early. That I was going to say that I'll let you finish, but I had a question that tagged onto that, but and I saw Kathleen had her hand up, too. When he says that about school start time, is he concerned that he'll see increased opt absenteeism if it's an earlier start
066time? I I I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I think he just knows that it's a significant change to the school. However, he's lived through that earlier start time. So, he's not concerned that students can't come to school at that time. He just wants to make sure that they're actively monitoring, they being the administration, to make sure that if there are some students who do have challenges that we're meeting their needs early. I I do you I was just going to ask a quick followup or is that same followup? Oh, no. I just wanted to ask a quick question because I'm going to cut most of my question, but you were talking about student some of the students that had dropped out. Um, you know, so we the program that you
067guys have put in for absenteeism is fantastic. Um, it only helps if they're actually coming even if they're coming late. So I was just curious because you noted there were a few that had dropped out. Do we know, you know, is that typical to have a couple of students every year um across a year or do we follow up? what process do we have a process in place to make sure that if they aren't coming at all uh and they have possibly dropped out that we're ensuring that you know we're checking in on them to make sure okay so first of all let me say that the students who actually did drop out are often not students that we've had with us through elementary school and middle school and high school often there's students who
068come to us late and usually they are already overage and under credit from wherever they're coming uh the students who start in Greenwich public schools they graduate from Greenwich public schools so um sometimes it's very difficult to make change for a student in two or three years you know be so so I just want to say that but of course we have things in place house administrators along with their support staff do home visits for students we have parent meetings we sometimes create flexible schedules for students who find that it is too much to enter the building for whatever reason, we connect them with mental health support inside and also have options for parents outside. So, those are some of the many many things that we do. That's really good to hear. I just we
069don't want to ever lose a student through the cracks there. So, I appreciate that you guys are keeping a watchful eye even if they're not in the school building to make sure that they're being supported. Um I don't know whose hand was up first, Kathleen or Jen. Um, actually it's back to to the high school and Miss Coven stole my question, but um, kind of on a more specific level, how are you how is the high school guiding at each grade level to promote that graduation rate at the end? Are there grade level specific things that that either the counseling department working with the general ed teachers has implemented to reinforce every single year to get to that ultimate goal? That's my first question. And then my second question kind of is is similar to
070uh Miss Hersh's question about those students that don't complete the program or drop out. are they um what options are they provided with? Is it you know a GED program? Is it I mean they leave our schools with what you know what is their plan going forward and and I know it will vary right based on the student. Um but just if you could speak to that. Let me reiterate again that the amount of students who actually drop out is so small like four or you know out of 650 you know so 633 or you know so uh but we do have students who take longer to graduate and we do have options for those students. So really if you look at the data of the students who could not graduate in June, most of
071them graduated in January of the following year through either staying at the high school and working with their house team or going to Winrose and finishing there for those who needed that smaller environment and a more personalized approach. Um for the students of course who do drop out, we don't just let them drop out. We have meetings with parents. We do explore the GED. But again, it's such an infinitesismal number of students who fall in that category. It's more the student who takes a little longer to graduate. We don't let them go. We want to hold on to them as long as we can, you know. So, uh that's that. I'm sorry, I forgot the other question you asked. Just any uh grade level specific, you know, reinforcements and enhancements that you have to have
072students meet that goal of graduating. of course. And you know, braided nose as well. You want to take one? I mean, I think that Ralph owes me a coffee anyway, so I could just take them all. Um, one thing we do for grade level is, as Christina mentioned, we do meet in PRTS every week. So, we are looking at students record. So, by the end of the ninth grade year, we're aware of any ninth grader who doesn't have the requisite credits to be a 10th grader. Same thing with 10th grade. And um, same with the attendance. What we're doing differently this year is in our PRTS, Dana Tulada is sending us the data. We act on it immediately. So if a kid has missed several classes, we don't just contact the parent. We get the
073kid in and we figure who's the best person to talk to this kid. We get the kid in, we talk to the kid. What what's happening here? What can we do? But same thing with the credit. If we recognize a kid is credit deficit, we're going to work about that. Is there going to be a summer school course? Is there a doubling course? But we're very conscious and you'll see we really have very few kids that get to the end um with a der of credit. Great. Thank you. And just are there um are there more um not studentpecific presentations or seminars or workshops? Are there more grade level workshops that work across all the students to promote this? you know, speakers that come in or what what do the students see? I know this
074was like very specific to the team working and that's amazing. Um, but like more from the the student perspective, do they have um opportunities to see presentations and things like that grade level specific or across grade levels? Just curious. Well, one thing that we do for the freshmen is the seminar skills and uh in that time, you know, it's the English and the social studies classes uh where the teachers work together in that time to give specific information to the freshmen about executive functioning, about reading skills, about research that happens for the freshmen. but also our advisor base which meets at least twice a month has age specific presentations that are done for each group. So with the seniors the focus is college and career and preparing them for that and uh you know so
075each grade does get age specific presentations and often the counselors make time to go into the different grade levels. And sometimes it's together in a huge group as one class which is very nice like when we're doing something that's anti-bullying or something like that. But other times it is the counselor pushing in to the home rooms and and it's more individualized. So so that's the time that we do such programs. Sorry. No, go ahead. No, no. And I was going to say I feel like I need to ask about something else. So, I'm not going to because I was going to ask about the high school and so, but I almost want to do like a different session on the high school because there's so much and I finally have two kids there and I
076feel like I'm learning so much every day. It just it's a massive organization, right? It's really like a small college. And so, I can like talk about elementary schools and middle schools a little bit more like in bite-sized pieces, but you can't with the high school because it really is just such an undertaking. And I love that we're talking about sort of the 3% but I kind of want to talk about the 97% right and that's not the purpose of this presentation really. We're talking about graduation rates, but I want to know are are kids getting where they the 97% are they happy where they're ending up right when they graduate? And and I I think the answer is going to vary, right, in terms of the colleges they're accepted to or they're not accepted
077to or whatever. But like where could have we helped them along the way? Where are we falling down? Um you know, I love what you said about the general education teachers, right? and and they have so many roles and so but you're right about the connection and so um you know do we have a system in place so that you can sort of say oh gosh you know like I don't know an Aspen I noticed this kid grades all of a sudden drop two levels right like we should be looking into that that's not that that's not what we expect of that student so I feel like we need another session on that um because it's not fair to put all this on missaw this evening um well I was going to say when we
078get to agenda planning So, Kathleen, I I was going to say when we get to agenda planning, I'd love to have that as a quick discussion to put on because it goes back to some of the discussions we were having during budget, which is like how do we, you know, are there things we need to do or to look at to help support our students is like, you know, not not getting rid of a house, but, you know, do do we look at guidance to give them more support, uh, you know, our students more support because our guidance counselors there are so overwhelmed. they, you know, have stu, you know, is the structure the best structure we can to support our students and to support our, you know, our house staff at, you know, you
079guys talk about how much you all do to look at our students. So, if you want to do that, I'm happy to, you should look at a date when we get to our agenda planning. Yeah, let's do that. I'm sorry. I I do have to say because otherwise Ralph would be angry if I didn't say this one thing. I think that most of our students graduate happy with their experience. We do give the seniors a survey at the end before they go off to their internships and it's a wildly positive. So I just I feel like you should know. Oh no. And I they are happy and I think they are mostly happy and so um I know we are so like so but I think that we should it's just important to hear how
080we're serving those that aren't. Right. Absolutely. So thank you for actually noting that. Uh does anybody else have a question? No. I guess I I could I'll just end with mine other one. Sorry, Mark. Um you I know you know what I'm going to ask. So I love data. Um, and I think that this presentation was incredible and I thank you all because we highlighted so many of the amazing positives that we're seeing in our schools in so many different ways and the incredible growth that we're seeing. Um, not just in our students and their academics, but in the connections that they're making within our schools, the way our staff is connecting. Um, but I was hoping to see if we could get and it doesn't have to be today. Just I'd love to be
081able to see the data of where all of our, you know, schools are and some of their metrics. um doesn't have to be obviously it takes a little time to pull that together and maybe we do something a little bit more in depth when we when you the the data the growth data is not embargoed um or whatever it might be before that only because we this how many years now are we into this strategic plan right so we need to as a strategic plan committee kind of go back in and see what you know adjustments we need to make to support everything so I was just going to say I'm going to put that out there I'm I'm shocked you didn't ask first um just cuz I wanted to be able to we want
082to be able to get in involved because we have to re-up our Well, just as a reminder to the board, every school does have a school improvement plan and at the end of the year after the data comes in, again, embargo data. They analyze their data against the goals they set and they do an endofear SIP report for me and we'd be happy to um publish those and uh present them to the board. Oh, I remember those SIP reports. I remember sitting with you every year going over our school SIP reports. Sorry, Laura. That that I used to sit in your current office with Mr. Miko going over them every year. Your point this the strategic I'll come back in anytime. To your point, the strategic plan, I think it's important to bring it back
083up for discussion and to make sure that the board still feels comfortable with the seven goals that you all set. And if there's something on there that you feel either needs to be revised or if you feel that there needs to be an addition or a deletion, you know, that's that's for you all to decide. We're we're happy to do the work. It's just a matter of what do you feel is the purpose and focus of the district. So, right. So, let's not right. Let's not let's not uh be I don't want to send mixed messages that we want to take our eye off the ball here. So, as of as of right now, strategic plan, strategic plan, right, we're we're all well set on that. But yeah, and um this is one of the
084reasons why we put this on the um agenda for June was really kind of an update on how how how the action planning has been doing over the course of the year knowing that we'll have more data in the fall. Um and um I read I I read all the SIP reports they because they're public. So I so don't don't don't don't nobody should fear that they're not being they're not being looked at. I think we had at the start of the meeting six views on the strategic plan. It doesn't make me uh too encouraged, but I know by the end of this meeting it's probably going to be up to seven or at least eight. So does it show how many times somebody's watched it? No. I was going to say like you know
085like Joseph was saying I think it's it's not that we're going in and wanting to make changes or whatever. what's working is working and we want to be able to support that. If you guys are reaching a certain goal, do we adjust it? If things aren't working for our schools in the way we're doing, like how do we adjust that to give you guys what you need to find that growth and support? So, I think that's why I may have not said it properly the first time, but I mean that's why I said we're coming up on year three, which is at least for us is time to just check in and see what we put forward and what you guys worked on and gave with, you know, worked with Dr. Jones on to help
086make goals, you know, are they the right, you know, still the right ones for you guys? You know, important to note that the school improvement plans usually aren't written in isolation. Usually, they're written through the team process and so when they go out go to complete the end of year, they will meet within their teams and have discussions about what was successful and what wasn't because you'll see a lot of overlap in terms of common strategies implemented. Um, so that's one thing. And the other thing I will tell you, at least at the elementary level, we already have a date set in July for my entire coordinator team to work with all of the principles to analyze the embargo data that we have and start thinking about what our school improvement plan goals should look
087like by team across all schools. So that's, you know, again, I think we're really solid when it comes to working in collaborative uh teams. So um, I'm I'm proud of the group that we have. It's worth to that point Mark to that point Mark it's probably worth um sharing with the board um around like the trend here that comes through the um comes through the presentation is the value of educators working in teams and collaborating both saying the administrative level but also teachers and the value of that and how that could be that's you know as you were saying that we we could we could use more time even more time if we could right if I could uh bring this to a close. I'm going to put Daisy on the spot because I think
088she knows exactly what I'm going to ask her to share from one of her teachers that she shared with me about her teachers experience with with one of our coordinators. Do do we have the mic? I think this sums it up nicely, Mike. Um we had we've been so fortunate to have lots and lots of support at Hamilton Avenue School, but uh in particular we have um the sort of the theme of the year has been really let's all do this together as a collaborative group. Right? So one of our um teachers we departmentalized in grades three, four and five. So, we have one teacher who's teaching both sections of math. And this teacher um has been really um has sort of changed her thinking and become a very vulnerable um active learner this year.
089And um she has been working with uh Mike Reed um on math, but also anytime you know we have a a consultant come in and also collaborating with um our math um interventionists. But the key is that she is vulnerable and she's not there saying, "I know it all and I'm going to do this my way." She's wanting to learn and analyze and refine over and over and over again. And she just keeps um sharing and gushing about uh the positive results that she's seeing with her students um and with some of the results that are are coming in. But she could she really claims that she can't do it without this collaborative approach. So we just want to keep capitalizing on it. keep keep refining and analyzing and capitalizing on all the good the
090good work. But it really it is it no one could be where we are without uh having conversations and collaborating and and doing all of that work. So it's been great. You are I was say anybody no anybody no more questions I will set you free. Not you, not you. You get to stay with us, Mark. But thank you guys for uh sharing part of your evening with us and sharing such amazing uh positive things about our schools. Okay, I'm going to bring the ELA group up to the table. So, my goal before we started was to talk less tonight and let you hear from really the people who are entrenched in the work on a day-to-day basis in their schools. And it seems like I've been doing a lot of talking tonight. Um, and
091I really want to make sure that the folks who joined me at the table now really have an opportunity uh to share their good work with you. Um, I think we all know how important uh, ELA is. Um, and I think we all know how um, controversial ELA, the approach to reading instruction has been over the last few years. And so, Greenwich has been incredibly thoughtful about our development of our early literacy program. And as I've said in the past, and I will continue to say, um, we have a multiaceted approach to early literacy instruction. And I really strongly feel, and again, I used to say to my teachers all the time, I don't care about what you feel. I care about what you can prove to me. Well, we're going to prove to you
092in October that we know what we're talking about and that the instructional decisions that we have made are in the best interest of our teachers and our students. And so with that, um, I'm I'm delighted to have our preK contingent to my right and then I have my K12 contingent to the left. Um, would you like to follow the same format where we simply go into questions that you have about their presentation at this point? That sounds good. I mean, I think it's only fair that we ask you the same thing to share like a like 30 Okay, 30 seconds. I won't time you, you know, share with us one of your positives. what it is like again that you have experienced this year and through your you know the programs that we put in
093place. I like to go in order so we'll start with pre preschool. Hi there. Um I'm Katie Natal. I'm the new preschool coordinator. I came in welcome to the role. Thank you. In January or end of December, but really started off in January. And one of the things I think we're most proud of at the preschool level is that our teachers have embraced the creative curriculum this year. I think it was a big change for them from previous types of curriculum they were using or units of study. And so to take on this curriculum was um an undertaking because they had to buy into it. They had to learn it. They had to go through it once and now this is their second year going through it. And so learning what are the good readalouds,
094what are the ways that we bring the passion and engagement and creativity to a curriculum that's in front of us. And that's hard work. That's why we need good teachers. And so I'm really proud of the work the teachers have done this year, embracing that challenge and finding a way that's individualized for them, but also exciting for the kids in their room. And I just want to add to that, in addition to the creative curriculum, we have the prek foundations. So, you know, we really looked at what can we do to build that continuum from preschool all the way through into the K5 and we even have Hagerty at Hamav and where we were doing some additional targeted reading instruction. So again, we have the pre-k curriculum um that you know is that overarching, but
095then we've looked specifically on how do we build those skills so that our students are kindergarten ready when they go. They know the sound, they know the the the protocols with those programs so that they are, you know, ready on day one to be able to be active learners in kindergarten. Hi everyone. Um, I think one of the things that as I was putting all of our slides together and really thinking about the last three years in particular, we have added a lot to our curriculum. We have trained our teachers in a lot of new um ideas and new ways of teaching and new uh materials to teach with. And if you look at that one slide of all the investments we've made K5 and then 68 um all of that is starting to like
096come to fruition now. And I you know we keep alluding to these scores and and and I I think that you'll start to see how adding foundations in a very specific methodical way has has brought us kids as as Dr. Dr. Benzango was saying that can not only decode and read but encode as well. So you have that and as you've freed up that um ability to read, you've opened up more ability to comprehend. Um we have made sure that we have areas um we've have materials to teach all five pillars of reading um at our younger grades. We've added in grammar and vocabulary workshop um as Dr. Dr. Vango has said and and revised um our units and our teachers are seeing how they all mesh together. Um we're seeing it in our dibble
097scores and our early literacy screening scores. We are sending kids to upper grades that have low risk of of reading failure and high success rates. Um and I think we're going to start to see that trickle up to the middle schools. um and we have teachers that see that comprehensive approach. So um I think the time, energy, money that we've spent in the last 3 years in a very short amount of time um our teachers have gone above and beyond to make that happen and um we're seeing the the effects in our students. Thanks. I was really um quite happy to hear Dr. Benson Vango talking earlier about the close reading they're doing in K5 because that's a huge focus of what we do in 912. Um, one thing um that is on our slide
098about that we've spent time on invested time and energy on is um our grammar unit um units really in the last couple of years we really have invested energy into developing a real framework of grammar. So 9 through 12 we have a program what must a 9th grader know by the end of the year 10th grader 11th grader 12th grader um it's very individualized we we work through con so it's a little gamified it's individualized and to our satisfaction it seems to be when you analyze what's on the SAT and on the writing questions on the SAT which are multiple choice but writing they really expect a student to understand how sentenc work and the grammar behind them. So, it's it's very interesting. Um, if students don't understand words like therefore, however, and how those
099kind of conjunctions work and how even the turn of a sentence with comma conjunction works, they will they're whammedied by that sentence. So, understanding how sentences work and that's um beneficial for their writing, for their reading and um we're we're quite proud that we it's a very much an assured experience now. And if you taught 10th grade and the ninth grader didn't know it, you'd know who to who to complain to. Me first and then the teacher. I I think I just want to jump in and say thank you to the board for your you have been unwavering in your support of our curriculum management plan and the structures that we put in place and for funding the resources that we needed. Uh and and you know, not only thank you to you, but to
100all the teachers out there who are listening in tonight for trusting us in making really important instructional and curricular decisions that impact our day-to-day ability to improve student outcomes. And and again, I can't stress this enough. Um there is no program out there in any content area that is a silver bullet that you can put in place in the next year, scores would rocket 100%. It it takes time. It takes patience. My team knows I always preach it takes three years to make a trend. And you know we are turning the corner on three years of some of our most significant investments and you are going to see the return on those investments. I was going to say it takes me back to sitting in your office discussing those SIP plans and making thinking visible.
101Um and it is true. It's not just about the programs we put in place. It's about the individuals that are behind those programs. I think you said it best. The teachers had to come in and learn a new, you know, way of doing things and had to buy in buy into it and learn a new way to do it. And the fact that we have this incredible staff that's sitting here, it's not just the programs that we're putting in place. It's that you guys buy into it and that you are dedicated to supporting our students and and moving them forward. And you could again see that in the discussions that we had this evening. Um, I'm just wondering, I know you can't talk about specific data, but do you see that these curriculum changes are
102equally s um impactful in all of the schools? Are you looking kind of across the different elementary schools to see how it's working? I think it Dr. Dr. Jones is laughing because she's been in my office and sees uh has seen the expansive spreadsheet that we keep that we update daily. Uh it has every single school by every single grade broken disagregated by every specific way. I mean we take it apart every which way you can because the data tells you a story and you have to listen to what the data tells you. And so we get very intimately involved with every school's uh performance results and then we meet with every school's administrative team and talk about their specific results. And then we take a step back, right? You start at the um you
103know the 500 foot view, then you go to the 10,000 foot view, then you go to the 30,000 foot view. I like to present to the board all three levels because I think we should be incredibly transparent. So if we have schools that are significantly outperforming other schools, we're going to show you that, but then we're also going to tell you what we're doing to help the other schools catch up. And I think you heard that this year for me when I introduced you to the concept of priority school modeling. No, I appreciate that. And I feel like there's kind of three components. There's the curriculum, there's the student body, and then there's the teachers and administrators, right? And it's the combination of the three, and then the parents. And I mean, I guess there's
104more than that, but yeah, you're Dr. McCathy's smiling because you're speaking like an educator. There's there's only three things that truly influence student outcomes. That's having a consistent and clear curriculum, having uh strong and effective teachers, and then having in strong instructional leaders in the building to guide the work. Those three things are the most important things to have in place. It's kind of it's often in the educational world considered like the three three-legged stool approach to uh success. I was going to say the fourth leg is actually being present. So, I mean, it just we were talking about that earlier, so I just thought that was important. And like because we have such strong teachers, they show up, they want to be there. It's nice, right? Um so, so I think I agree obviously
105I can agree completely about the data and whatnot. And I think if there's a headline that um um any reporters at home might want to take into account here from the presentation, it's this this this this point here how where when you look at the growth metric um across the state which the growth metric measures how each individual student grew based on their previous year and this year and that that increase u we're number five in the state which is right now which is which is which is awesome and in every compared to every district in Connecticut um New Kanan was number one the um so I naturally I looked at what New Cananan's doing. Um they have a uh literacy academy which might would be worth looking into on the special ed side because
106that's specific to um they have Orton Gilliam um um which I know we have um specialists in each of the elementary school tied to special ed. But in any event, that's besides the point. One thing I'm wondering about um because we have if you look at that chart like you mentioned um the huge number of things that we've put into place K8 and you've heard me talk about this before so I'm going back to it. Um and then we have much fewer or many fewer data points when it comes to high school. Um, and I know I got the written response and whatnot and I know we have linkage scores, but I I even reading through that, can we say we can say with certain, let me put it this way, it seems to me
107we can say with certainty how many eighth graders are reading on grade level, how many eighth graders are two grade levels below, how many eighth gradles or five levels below and need the coding. Right now, it's not clear to me we can say that about our 10th graders. Um, we had 25% of our last year's eighth graders, actually closer to 26, um, not score proficient on the ELA. And I know we're tracking that. looking at the SBA data and things like that, but do we have enough tools at the high school level to really make sure that we're remediating these gaps and accelerating these gaps? So, everybody at the high schools grade level because 26% aren't coming in at it. Well, you sorry, you mentioned the 10th grade. By 10th grade, we don't have as
108many measures as the middle schools, but by 10th grade, we will have the nth grade SAT score. So, we have that norm referenced, and we any 10th grade teacher is going to look at how the ninth grade students they have in their class did and be aware of that all year as they work in their PLC's. So, we're going to work and by the time they get to junior year and they take the actual PSAT, well, uh, our scores will be coming out for the future. But last year, we had at least 83% of students who meet the SAT benchmark. So, that that's already you can see that improvement, but we do track them through those scores through SAT aligned benchmarks from the beginning of nth grade. So we benchmark them, then we check at
109the interim, we check at the end of the nth grade year. So we're checking with those internal benchmarks, of course, common formative assessments and and so on. I hear you and I don't want to um and that's great. Um I worry that SAT is not discreet enough, right? That there are more discrete tools that we need to look at. Um, so a student improved on their SAT scores or we have this ACT score against the mean. Does that um um does that does that does that mean how do we know that that student does that mean we don't know that that student needs this fluency intervention or has having this comprehensive challenge or is just reading at a seventh grade level? Um and we never know that because they just plugging away in 11th in
11010th grade, you know, literature class. Um, I can tell you and obviously I work with a different population during the school day, but the 25% makes me wonder. Um, so just an anecdote this morning because um, I can tell that so I had a working with my with one student and we just got the end ofear um, assessment on the student and this is the MAP assessment. And the student's a sophomore and this student went from a uh over the course of the year based on the fluency intervention that they were in um and comprehension this student went from 7th grade uh to 9th grade um on grade level. Um and she was so happy and thrilled. um we know that their students exist like that at the high school and I worry that the
111tools we have in place um might not be able to to to to to measure that effectively um and also support the accelerated growth necessary. I think what we're doing is great. U I can't help but there's more tools out there that we need to be thinking at at the secondary level just like you put in place in just as an aside. And I don't know if Mark's going to say this, but we don't only look at one data point, right? So the SAT, the PSAT is just one of the tools that you look at. So well, no, but there are other things. I think it they talked about it in both the SIP report tonight and and this and the fact that there's multi levels that look through it. But I think there was
112a whole discussion I think it might have been in this tip report but it talked about when they see a student that falls below a grade level C and all of the other place things you have in place to support those students suppose it you know so I would I would also say that teachers across the board whether it's an English course a history course the science course if they get a pretty good gauge on if the kids reading the texts that they're you were we're using very rigorous texts So if they see students struggling, we get a good gauge that way as well. And if a student's struggling, those teachers usually report to the house, this student really doesn't seem to be able to handle these texts and then we move in on that.
113May we may give the student a reading class or some other sort of intervention. I do think to your point, and it's a fair point, the discrete diagnostic tools that you're referring to aren't currently in place at the high school, and it's worth having an internal conversation with the leadership team to see if it does merit an exploration. The the literacy specialist at the high school would have those diagnostic tools if they're identified through the Yes, it's fair. Fair point. Does anybody else Kathleen looks like she's ready? No, I was just going to say I actually I agree with you and I'm so I'm happy you raised that. I hadn't thought about that, but I think that's something that maybe we could also add to the high school discussion. Um, I was just going to
114point out that because we've talked a lot about through budget our um, every line item and I know uh, a lot of people question professional development and right here you have 94% positive feedback on um, the year-long professional learning cycle to support implementation of the updated writing units. So, I just thought that was worth highlighting because there was some negativity on that budget item as we looked at everything. And so I just wanted to um point out this data point. Yeah. And I have to say if there's one one thing I'm really happy about coming out of this really difficult budget discussion this year is we did not go and zero out the curriculum professional development. It is so important. We would absolutely not be getting the results that we're seeing if we were not
115investing and we we have to continue to do that. And I I do think in Greenwich it's why we got to a place where we were struggling because we had literally zeroed out the entire curriculum line just to not deal with you know more challenging reductions. But um I I'm thrilled this year that we are are maintaining and you'll hear that from all of our principles that they have wonderful resources and support. Can I add just one other sorry um one other random um just because I love student feedback. The Did you read the Greenwich Free Press article? Oh, you better believe I did. Yes. And it's so funny because I want to get your take on it because I I mean I'm a God, I can't believe I'm saying this. I'm sort of a
116traditionalist. So, I happen to love the books that you read in 9th and 10th grade. And of course, my children have experienced them. Um in fact, I feel like I need to go pick up one of them again because I don't remember all the details. I won't say which one, but um can you I just congratulated that fine writer yesterday who won one of our um book awards. Um but the article in the Grand Free Press was about the um rather gloomy nature of much of the literature that we do in the high school. And um my first reaction was that's the classics. I mean we do a we are we are a little bit classic heavy and if you think about classics which are which are upbeat which are jcular you know they they
117teach you through the catharsis of reading about the um important aspects of life so that's true however and I did we I did talk with that student yesterday by the way and by serend serendipitously and I did say we have in light of that I mean we're dealing with young people so I'm I'm mindful of that. In light of that, we have added um to each course a um mandatory book circle unit so that students will get a little more choice and voice and could pick something more more recent, maybe happy, maybe a little bit light. Um teachers have to have read the book. So I don't it's not a wide it's not the wild west. So they're going to have some books to choose from, but we'll be more current probably. And so that's
118been added to each unit you each each course. So we have that. We also have independent reading in courses. So students can choose books that are more um lighter in tone, but we're very aware of it. And certainly we do text that I mean the Odyssey no one would say is gloomy although there is a humongous slaughter scene at the end of that book. And so but it's not gloomy. And uh so um we have plenty of I was about to say marketing marketing the classics at the at its best. Yes. But I I yes we're aware of that and and you know I I threw down the challenge to to the student. I said you recommend me some books that are appropriate for high school. you get to page 63 with the Torid um
119intimate scene and it's no you you avoid things that are um radically political or are racy or um have drugs and that wipes out much of contemporary literature. So we you know we are always on the look but um you know our I think many kids would say these are meaningful. Well they're obviously meaningful. Well and the article is well written so kudos to this child. Thank you. Well, and I was just going to say if there are students out there or at least parents with students at the high school, this speaks to the fact that our staff, our administration really does listen to our students when they speak out about the things that they are looking for in their education and the fact that we had a student who wrote this letter and you
120know we're you taking a look at that and saying okay well let's add something that's a little more positive and giving a student a voice. So I hope more students come forward. Uh you know and she took me on some do some books. So there you go. Does anybody else have a question? Anyway, Sophie, this is very specific. So I apologize. Um on page 13 there's an example of sort of um it's just a bar a bar charts, you know, looking over time. I would really love it if we could have them done in such a way that you're following a cohort because if you kind of look yeartoyear, I'll give you an example of like grade three um the you know the cohort that was at 75% then is at 76% the following year
121then is at 76% you know and then is at 74 and then like the one that was if you put it in I was say go to isn't that what you have on 13 Mr. Anton, can you go to slide 14? Was this referring to? Sorry. Yeah, 14. Yeah, I was confused because I saw the other one. This is what I would This is exactly what I want to see. It's just over time. How are they doing? I feel like that's maybe it's just it's confusing to have this one in here because I'm trying to understand what is the meaning of looking year-over-year because you see like not a tremendous but there is some variability where maybe there is a cohort that's a stronger cohort academically you know and then you follow them through and
122then you would like to see them continue to improve from wherever they started right and then you can't help but notice like you know this most new the newest cohort is at 68% center or whatever. I don't have my reading glasses on now. Well, and then you run into the wrinkle of uh matched versus unmatched cohorts in tracking because you have students that move in that didn't take the test in third grade but then take the test in fourth grade. So, now you have an unmatched unmatched cohort number. So, we try to track it every which way to see what it what help it be to us. So, we definitely look at year-over-year progress, you know, third grade last year to third grade this year. And then we track every single cohort and then we
123disagregate the data um because it's important to again are we are we servicing all of our students in a in a manner that we feel comfortable with. So we will show you sped versus non-sped larners free and reduced lunch population. It's important to know where our hot spots are because again, when you're being strategically uh when you're when you're thinking strategically about what your school improvement plan needs to include, you need to know what exactly um what exact area and what group maybe it's a subgroup um you need to focus on. I remember one year in particular, it was actually a group of fourth grade boys that were underperforming. So, we focused on, you know, what does literacy instruction look like for boys versus girls? And so it we try to get down to that
124level of subtlety uh when we look at the numbers. Okay. But hopefully I think this is what you're referring to. That is what I'm referring to. And I feel like that I think I was getting confused because then it was presented in this way and this way to me I'm like I don't know what I'm seeing here and that's helpful to us. This is helpful. That's that doesn't you know the purpose of a presentation should be that it can stand alone on its own merits without a narrative. Right. And so if that is confusing that's good. Yeah. No. And I love that because that to me makes a lot of sense because you're seeing both, right? The cohort over time and looking across the grades um every year, which I like. Thank you. Oh, looks
125like Mike's got one more. No, well, I was going to go anyway, but actually it's great that that you put the slide up because this is the the last thing I I wanted to bring up. um in the this is in the elementary um curriculum we've put all these different aspect you know I'm I'm going to go go here the um in the elementary curriculum we've put all these different um facets in place and to your point no one program um is the the silver bullet right where it's it's it's all working together to support all the different pillars of literacy um as as Mr. Demiko knows I am a a a skeptic of the units if it's fair to say of the units of study um which is our curriculum or comp certainly part
126of the comprehension pillar um in grades three to five and I know we're reviewing that um this year I can't help but think that and that's the study is the Lucy Cawkins teachers college goes by many names curriculum that obviously is at the center of many of the reading war controversies that Mr. Demo referenced at the beginning of this. I can't help but wonder if this slide validates some of my concerns. Um, part of the real part of the criticism around units of study, particularly in upper elementary, is um its lack of um supporting the knowledge building, right? And the building of knowledge. um it's much more skill-based and comprehension based and not reading deeply into one topic which um supports which undermines Oh, you took my slide down. I needed to go back to
127it. Um um if you wouldn't mind putting the slide back up. So that knowledge building curriculum. So, so for example, if you had a knowledge building curriculum in fourth or fifth grade that has students reading deeply around different content and building that knowledge, those scores might not that might not necessarily influence grades um comprehension scores or reading scores in fourth and fifth that might actually come more into play in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade where as you see on the slide there, we have have less cohort data. Now, some of that is the some of that is some of our other interventions haven't worked through as well. My only point in bringing this up is I can't help but when we're looking at this review and I know we're going to review three to five,
128I really think we have to um um consider once again all the criticism um around um that particular curriculum um particularly from the knowledge building angle um because I think that is pretty valid. Um um Natalie Wexler's new book that came out from ASCD um a couple months ago goes into goes into depth and I think that's something to look at. Full disclosure, she quotes me on page 50. Um you realize this entire discussion was just to get that sentence. I knew I had to say that because go through it and say, "Oh, look, he's in the book." But it is an ASCD book. The um and it's number one on the bestseller list. Not because of page 50. Can't promote your own not because of my quote on page 50, but because of the
129criticism um of of the units of study, which is which is very much u so it's in our curriculum review cycle anyway. So I really think we need to really consider um um that aspect of how we're building knowledge. And I know we're doing that in social studies and science, but um the skill of the week in ELA worries me. Um, so can I just ask a question to clarify your comment? Like so you're looking at this and you're saying that we would see better scores in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade if we were doing so that's so it's right it's counterintuitive, right? So part of the big issue of what we think supports a lot of comprehension is actually background knowledge, right? And people under students understand things more based on their based on
130the knowledge they have to the text. So the more opportunities to build background knowledge um in elementary school, the u the the the higher comprehension skills in middle school. Keep in mind students in sixth, seven, and eight did not have what we're doing now. So qualify. Well, I think there's a couple of more things to qualify. So since I've been elevated now to Mr. Demo, Dr. Manty Anthony, I would like an opportunity to respond to the criticism. Um, I think your criticism is fair if you're talking about the first edition of the units of study. Now, I want to be very clear with this board. What we adopted in K1 and two is not the first edition. Does anybody have WD40 at home? Do you know what WD40? Yes. Do you know what WD40 stands
131for? water displacement 40th formula. So, I'm going to tell you another one. Thomas Edison, do you know how many filaments he went through before he got it to work? The light bulb over a thousand. Bonus points if you know what it's actually made out of. Here I was. I was going to ask you about the the backstory for Silly Putty because that's a whole another one without looking through chat GPO carbonized bamboo. Why do I give you those examples? I give you those examples because sometimes when something is developed, the first edition isn't great. I agree with you 100% on the first edition. Things were lacking. We never would have adopted in K1 and two the revised units if it didn't have um significant improvements. And I took a couple of notes because I wanted
132to make sure I got this right. Some of the things that the new units have been recognized for. I have to use my glasses. I'm going to be 53 this year. I just thought this was going to make you look more distinguished. That was the stronger comprehensive strategies in the new units. Improved progression and scaffolding. These three things are buzzwords I've heard Dr. Mkan Anthony used before. 21st century learning goals should be the center of our frameworks. And guess what's in the the revised units? Student agency and voice. We talked about that earlier, didn't we? Authentic literacy experiences. You just mentioned that. And collaborative learning. We would not have invested the amount of money we did at the K2 level if we weren't assure if we didn't feel confident that it was one component of
133a multifaceted approach to early literacy instruction that would be that would yield better student outcomes and provide our teachers with the best materials. Now in 35 the first edition is out there. It's not what we want for our teachers. And that's why in the curriculum management plan, we are adopting the newly revised writing units. This year, we've been we've been um focused on the professional learning side of that, the internal review with teachers. And the only reason we're doing writing before reading is because the reading units weren't ready yet. And why weren't the writing reading units ready? Well, when Dr. Caukins came to visit with me and I pushed her on it. She said she was having the same problem that Bridget just talked about. Finding mentor texts that are not controversial is incredibly difficult
134in 2025 or we had the conversation in 2024. You have to find middleof the road novels and and that is not easy writing that are also engaging that are also engaging and so we're doing the writing units first. But you are 100% right validating your concerns about the first edition units and we know that some of our shortcomings are because of that. But if you look at our pipeline of students who have lived in our new approach K1 and two going into third grade and again embargoed and if the state's watching I don't want to get in any trouble. I cannot tell you anything other than do not be absent for the October achievement report please. Oh, you just really that's a that's a big statement. Now, the actual literacy expert would like to clarify.
135Um, one of the things that I just want to mention about K2. Um, in in our new units, well, we h we're I want to talk about the things that we actually I don't want to talk about 15-year-old units that, you know, need we all know need revision, right? In K2, we have, you know, to your point of background knowledge and vocabulary and um all of these experiences that kids need to have that is embedded with within our new units. There are we have our interactive readaloud units that are built upon text sets which mean that students are building knowledge about a topic or a theme over the course of multiple books. um within each of our um uh grade levels we have um like in first grade there's a re like uh they they
136read in text sets in our non-fiction unit so they're building knowledge across they're building knowledge across all the mentor texts our geodess as Dr. Dr. Benzango was talking about our knowledge building decodable texts that align with the scope and secrets and foundations. Um I walk into classrooms all the time and the teachers are they gush about the geodess about what they're learning from them. Um parents tell me at parent meetings that they read. We h we we were able to purchase the the take-home text so that they come in a set of four that all go together so the parents are reading them. There's the about more section in the back. So my my daughter turned to me, my second grade daughter turned to me. There was something on the TV and there was a
137picture of Benjamin Franklin. She goes, "That's Benjamin Franklin." She told me all about Benjamin Franklin and all of the things that they are learning and building content knowledge about and background knowledge about in order to access those complex texts. So while currently the units that we have in 35 aren't we're not built upon that, that is the new knowledge in which they're building upon. The other thing that we've did in K2 that we'll also do in 35 is we have um done some work around um the shifting the balance book. Um I don't know if you if you're familiar with that, but one of the the first chapter in the 35 book was one of the chapters that we did a program meeting on at the beginning of the year with our 35 teachers, which
138is all about knowledge building and why it's important and how we're embedding it. So the last thing that I'll mention um is that um uh Tara and I have done a lot of work K5 in trying to figure out the best ways to create um efficiency and interdisciplinary abilities within our unit. So you know we're looking at the the content of those interactive readalouds that we just talked about and that are aligned to NGSS standards. So then we're looking at when are we going to put how are we scoping and sequencing our science and social studies to create efficiencies. We just sent out a survey to our our staff to see did we hit the mark because they'll say oh the weather unit that we do in NGSS ali aligns to those books and so
139we're building knowledge that way. Um, so we're we're we're hopeful and as we see forward into 35 that that will continue um throughout um our K5. And to your and lastly, just to reiterate, when you see our current fifth graders, our current fifth graders are our students that have had foundations from K through five. Those are also our kids that went through halfway went home halfway through the year for kindergarten. And our current fourth graders are our students that missed the end of preschool, came to came to school with masks on trying to learn phonmic, trying to learn phonics and letter sounds with masks. So, um I think you will continue to see the gains that we've made from making sure we have really good foundational skills being built on top of layering in the
140really important comprehension work that we know we need to do early on. Does anybody else have any questions? Exactly. I have a few I'm sure I can recommend. Miffy, I remember those days. Um, um, anyway, so does anybody else have any more questions? If not, I'm happy to set you all free for the night. And thank you guys so much for coming and sharing like and I have the date now march on my calendar. Better produce. Very excited. You built it up. Look at Mark. Mark's now he's like, "Oh no." Um, thanks guys and good night. Um, oh, he's a big bow tie fellow. Um, you haven't seen his pink pants yet. So um the next uh item on our list is uh our policy uh new policy that uh is a first read for
141artificial intelligence and I will turn this over to our policy chair. Are you ready Dr. McC needed a moment because to to shift Okay, perfect. So before you tonight is the draft of the first read of uh new policy um for um the district use of artificial intelligence. Um as you know we've been working on this in the policy committee uh for many months. Um as part of that we uh took a look at different policies across uh the state um as well as different research. And of course, this all goes back to over a year ago when Dr. Jones uh first convened um an AI uh district committee um that developed some regulations around AI. Um um we know we are in a brave new world so to speak when it comes to AI
142and there's a lot um going on here and a lot of concerns and a lot of opportunity and what this policy um tries to do is I wouldn't say it goes it takes I I wouldn't say it takes the middle ground but what it does try to do is it tries not to limit um a lot of in innovation around um around the around AI and smart use of AI while at the same time putting on some guard rails. We know for example that um we we know for example that it's um never a good idea. We we couldn't have you know students misrepresenting their own ideas um as uh through through the use of chat GBT or Gemini or one of these other tools. So that's kind of simple but beyond that things kind
143of get complicated quickly. I'll just give you a quick example. So, for example, um you get a um email from uh a teacher um about how your students doing in school um and the parent learns that um you know AI was used to draft that EI that that email that could give one pause, right? Um but so then you think about it. All right, so we should say this AI should not be used for parent teacher communication, right? Well, what if a teachers writes an email and then puts it into chat GBT to make sure, you know, to to or another tool to help with the um to help to help with the structure or maybe to think of new ideas or to think of another intervention that they want to try and then they're
144thinking, "Oh, well, this, you know, I thought about this and this and that to help Johnny, but I hadn't thought of that." And that goes into the email. Uh um well we can do that if our policy just forbid the use of chat GBT in all parent teacher communications or they use parents use that. So it gets fuzzy quickly and then so so that's where this policy kind of and that that um Karen Sophie and I on the AI policy went back and forth on uh for a while. So I'm happy to we're happy to entertain um your thoughts um on this um but the executive summary is it tries to put some guard rails but not too many guard rails um to prevent um innovation here in knowing that there is a much lengthier
145reg district regulation around AI um so we also didn't want to have too much in the policy that would short change that and also knowing that um this is still early days and it's quite conceivable that two years from now um as things continue to develop that we come back here with revisions to the AI policy based on how how life goes. I was going to add to that just I mean basically the discussion we had was because we were looking for a policy that covered both student use and staff use and I think that's where we were very cautious as to making sure it was not completely black and white but that it it gave guard rails as you said basically we wanted to make sure our staff could you know you know use
146it to increase effectiveness and efficiency uh for them as educators um and for students to make sure that they understood that you know AI has a place in how to use it ethically and morally. It's not a substitute for school work or for original thought, but it does have its use. Um, I personally used it to make my cat into a Disney character, but what do I know? Um, but it's a it's a good learning tool. Ex. You should I'm sorry. Yeah. Um, it should be used. We talked about using it as a learning tool um or maybe even a study aid but making sure that it has a legitimate educational use when students are using it not to use it in lie of original thought or their own work. Um and I will add
147and I think this I I want to just ask a quick question before we do this because this may not have been uh I mean we I didn't know about it when we were talking about the AI policy but I'm supposing that you did. And I want to make sure I know that um the alliance uh had a reaching out grant and there's two programs or or pilots that they were looking at um for the high school um in regards to AI. Right. Something was through Khan Academy. I think I took Right. Okay. So I just want to make sure that this policy because I I don't know much about that. I just want to make sure it doesn't that you confirmed it won't limit anything for for their trial. No, this will be fine.
148Yeah, they they did get the grant and it is Konamigo. Thank you. Yeah, I just I I didn't know what it was. I just remembered hearing this in discussion and so I just wanted to make sure it won't limit limit them. Okay. And continue with all the other questions. Kathleen, well, I think you did a very nice job. As someone who is currently developing an AI uh financial technology product in my company, um I have to say that I do embrace AI but in certain forms and in education is a place that we need to be careful. Um I think you did a nice job of addressing the student, the staff and then the administration. And I like how you kind of took a bullet for each one um to make sure that everyone was
149kind of aligned in what they could do and not do and kept that broad enough. Um I I don't really have much to add because I think you kept it broad enough. Is there And you looked at comps. Did you look at um like what colleges are doing? I guess that's the only thing. If you only looked at high school comps or did you look at what colleges are doing because obviously we have very different policies in the corporate world, but I'm not sure what it is in education. Yeah. Um, so just as a reminder, the policy is kind of that over over overbar that we are trying to stay within the law, stay legal, compliant. It's the regulation which is really how we utilize um the actual policy. And when we brought the committee
150together, they looked at universities all across the country. Uh, one of the best was actually Harvard um this time last year. And so they looked at a lot of what they were doing because they were ahead of the game. Um, and so our regulation is very much um, 21st century from the best sets out there. Thank you guys for doing this. Any other questions? Nope. None. Nobody. Okay, that's that's good. Um, so this will come back to us for a vote. Uh though if you do have any thoughts after reading it tonight or thinking about it, I ask that you share them with our policy chair. More policies coming down the pipel. Oh yes, lots of good ones. Um so here's where I'm going to ask the board a question. Um I know we have
151on our agenda board goals um and self-evaluation. I know. Sorry. Wasn't there another policy? This CO 19 Oh, I'm sorry. It's It's under discussion. We can't vote. So, um I didn't I didn't realize that actually got on the telling. We don't need to that. So, that's not um that does not need to be an action item um by the full board. Um you should know that as a committee, we reviewed the COVID grading policy and we decided to retire that policy because it's out of date and and no longer no longer in effect. So, that is that has been that has been retired. Although I am personally hurt because I did write this policy. So, but I think that it's appropriate. Um, well, it has we put in a sunset clause in there on purpose
152and so it has sunset it. That's fine. Yeah. Okay. That's fine. Replaced it with page 50 of Natalie Wesler's new page. Exactly. I got an AI plug for my market data product, but I'm not sure anyone here is buying that piece of software. So, well, I don't know. Um so anyway so we have one other discussion item which is the current board goals and self-evaluation. Um you know I don't know if that's something that we want to bring up or discuss now how much everybody is you know kind of looked at that because we really didn't talk about this in the policy committee. Well no I know it was but having some of it was based on policy and that's how we drafted some of it um initially. So I you know I don't know
153if you want to do that tonight if we want to move that to the next agenda or alternatively because I know that uh we have one another item added to the agenda tonight which was a discussion on um a discussion and possible action to take uh the BET on their offer for an interim funding. I don't know if you want to discuss that first if you want to discuss board goals first. if you want to move uh you know whatever you'd like to do. We're at that point in the night where I will uh ask the board which how you prefer which your stamina at this point to have because those are both are big discussion items. So in theory um we don't do this necessarily well um but in theory um we are supposed
154to talk about new board goals at the next meeting. Well, so my my point is the first question is which discussion item do you want to go first tonight? That was that was the question because I know they're both in-depth discussions and I want to make sure everybody has the stamina for both. So that's why I was asking which you prefer because we didn't place the interim funding question uh in in on the original agenda. Knowing knowing h I mean I'm but one voice here but knowing humanities right knowing human nature I'd preer to talk about the board goals first because if we do the other conversation first then we're never going to really want to spend a lot of time on board goals I just wanted to get there and so that's fine so
155we can do that no it's fine so no no perfect I just like to make sure you know I'm meeting the needs of the here so and we shall move on to board goals. I mean it's up to you if you'd like to start. Yes, it is one of and it's it's in policy that we do have board goals uh and review our you know do a self-re um and then revise for the following year. Um so we are following that path and this has been on the agenda for a while. So my my thought and I think we could do this expeditiously. Um there are we we drafted five board goals last year. I thought it what what we we could do um efficiently um but without um tremendous amount of time is kind
156of uh talk a little bit through each go goal as far as how we think we did. Um, full disclosure, I think we did pretty good on some and I think we did pretty badly on others. And I think that's that's that's that's fair to be honest about it. Um I think that feedback um of ourselves and ready of ourselves is important for like I said because um we need to it be it's important that we try to draft new board goals or revise board goals um before the summer because as uh Mark mentioned um the administration uses the board goals to help guide the summer work and things. So living that having that delay to September um kind of kind of mucks up the mucks up the train. I wholeheartedly agree and often times
157especially when it comes to you know the o we purposefully wrote these to be kind of open-ended so that they can go from year to year. There are a few things here you know that you may want to strike for ne you know that we may want to strike for next year. I mean yeah wherever it was like we had talked about the discussion of monitoring the changes from you know flex block clearly we would have to adjust that because now we're doing a different version and we didn't have flex block um for this year. you know, we talked about some of the specific for student supports, health and safety, you know, that we may need to move forward for next year, like re-engaging the community conversations about screen time and and so forth. Um,
158and you know, and so I think a lot of these goals are things that we can certainly move forward on, bring bring forward, I mean, the next year. I guess I'm just jumping into like so the first one under student student learning and achievement. I feel like for our bullets of sort of we will do this by maybe that's what we're editing here and if if for next year if that's what we were I'm just so may so I I think in theory the purpose of the agenda item tonight is to really talk about you know evaluate ourselves like how well did we did we said we were going to do this how well did we do it the um some of that's next week and then you want to go to the new goals
159next week and the agenda item the drafting so we'll take that feedback to um work on some new goals which could be a board doc that we you know or sh a Google doc that we share over the course of uh um the coming weeks um so that we have something drafted for for next time and I'm happy to like we did the last time work together on that. So of course happy to help you. Okay. So we're supposed to just go line by line and say how we did. Okay. So how do we do on the first one? Go ahead. You have some feedback on on a potential new goal. Well we start we'll start with one. Yeah, but I I look forward to go ahead then. Go ahead. No, Sophie, you had something
160to say. If we're talking about how we did the student learning and achievement, the bullet number one is talking about, you know, special education program, but unfortunately, we haven't had an, you know, we haven't had the meeting, the special education meeting with um legal, which is a key part of understanding how we were doing with that. So, I feel like we did get the report back from PCG. No, no, that was that was the initial intention. I'm just putting that out. Yeah. Yeah. So, I just feel like it's that one. I hope that we can have that meeting and then I feel like I have some dates for next week, you know. So, if we have that meeting, I feel like we can evaluate that goal, but right now I feel like we can't. That's
161what I was going to say. I'll be a little bit more bullish. I think that um we did pretty well here. Um I think overall, I'm not looking at the sub bullets. think that what we learned tonight is that we're doing pretty well on student learning and achievement. Um especially if I think about some of the AP results that we've seen earlier in the year and things along those lines. Of course, I'm going to the high school again. But um special education, I think we have heard some really good results just anecdotally even um I remember when I came on how people were crying. So, um, at every meeting. So, I feel like if I could just go with that anecdotal evidence, I know in a year, um, it's been great. So, I'm thinking this
162is I don't know if we're giving grades, but I'm going to say like 80% or something. Can I give it a B? I was going to go with B. I was going to go with B+. I think with Yeah, I mean, I was say I think we have, you know, evaluated some of the impact and the changes that we've made to the special program, you know, special education program, but there's still more to do. I think that's where you were going, right, Sophie? in Mike. Um I think we've been really good at doing evaluating board presentations, you know, with focus on the metrics with the strategic plan. I mean, we heard the feedback tonight just about the strategic plan. Um and you know, school improvement uh goals and I I think I think we've been
163really good uh and our staff has been incredibly uh focused on making sure that they touch upon those points when they present to us. Um, did we evaluate staffing uh and and the relationships and the staffing models and student achievement? Not necessarily. Um but I think this is I think this goes to the discussion that we wanted to add to the agenda item uh the agenda plan for a discussion coming up and you know how do we support our students at the high school um in guidance and you know you know future planning and other things and I think that that's something we may want to just revise how we wrote it but I think that's still a good goal. I don't I don't disagree. I think that makes sense. Um I suspect we we
164we didn't do as much of number two. Um no no so if you look at this number two is student support health and safety um supporting the district understanding of social emotional health for our students and effectiveness of current initiative to support it. We had the um Greenwich together survey this year but um if you look at the what we said we would do um much of these things um um are still unchecked. I know that the the side of the table over there has really been trying to advocate for reduce cell phone use and I'm looking at you too and I feel like I haven't we haven't I haven't pushed it as much and I do think that given the um recent Greenwich Together survey that you guys were quick to note. I do
165think it's an issue and so um I'm happy to sort of you know note that as well which I haven't done as much in the past as the two of you. Yeah. I was going to give kudos to our liaison for the first selectman's anti-hate task force who has been going and and you know when there's something to share with us has been sharing and been a good liaison. So I think we've done well with you this that the uh the task force is being sort of re-imagined. Um the two chairs who uh led this important work um have um asked to not do that anymore. Well, I was going to say if you want to do this as a committee update at the next meeting. I think that would be really um yes, but
166the com the anti-semitism and anti-hate task force is sort of being reimagined to see how it might be more effective and um helpful. So I definitely think we need to leave monitor the impact of changes to the high school schedule on there. And I will say in new uncertain terms, especially since we're going to be coming up in the next discussion item, I think we have proactively supported the development of uh well, I won't say necessary efficiencies because we only really found one, but within the uh school budget, right? And so I think we've done a pretty good job of trying to really take a deep dive into budget this year. Yeah. No, I think too deep a dive. So maybe not maybe not too deep, but too long. Yeah. No, I mean I think
167that this is this is I mean I don't even want to go into this. This has been a ridiculous process. So, but no fault of our own. So, well, I was going to say there's a bunch of our facility uh you know committee liaison sitting here. How do you think you guys did? I think I mean I know a lot more about some of these pro you know school building projects than I would have otherwise thanks to you all. No to mute leans don't want to I mean I'll say that I feel like just on Riverside that it was a really great process and I think that um I'm really impressed with Dr. Jones and her staff of how they are really learning and doing a transfer of knowledge from one project to the next
168so that we have, you know, a more formal, structured, um, intentional, transparent process for our building committees, which is great. That almost that sounds like something we might want to capture in a new iteration of this board goal like the idea of supporting the the lessons learned and carrying that through from one to the next. I know that there is actually some a manual in the works of some kind, right? Dr. Jones can talk about it. I actually pulled it out this week because I um I was uh had to request the building committee uh for Riverside to the first selectment. Yes. All the positives that come out of these discussions that you learn we learn about at the moment. Um, I'll just say that I've learned a lot on the building committee myself at
169GC and um, I think it's been a very transparent process as well and um, it's been enlightening. I think I mean I know this maybe not the place to do it because we're discussing four goals but I do want to say thank you to all of our you know building committee liaison because it is a lot of work and a lot of extra hours and you guys really I mean you you guys have made sure that the board and through board discussions are really you know the public are very aware of what's going on and how hard those committees work. So, I wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you guys cuz it's really been helpful, I think, for us as a board that, you know, information is flowing both ways.
170And I, you know, I just wanted to thank you all. And I think now would be a good time to mention publicly that Havier um building committee is having a public meeting. I think it's June 11th at 7 p.m. town hall, right Karen? Um I think so. I know we we were bouncing around different dates, but Okay. Just for anyone who's been following that, the report is of the committee is now available on the town website and I believe links to all of the proposals as well and there will be a public meeting um that people can come and attend and ask questions. I think it's June 11th at 7 town hall. Um when it comes to the next goal I I'll come back to them like professional development. I know I've tried to de
171mind I've been trying I I've been well part of it is oftentimes we do it in conjunction sometimes with special education um training and we did not get to have that this year I I know I've had a lot of professional development um but I had wanted to schedule something you know I know it's hard to get everybody together so I that is something I still strive to be able to do before probably not before the end of the year but maybe at the start of next yes I I think we need a goal about attending meetings. Well, we haven't gotten to that yet. We're still on. It's under, but you know, you're under I think that goes to professional development. Yeah. I don't think you can be a good board member if you don't
172attend. We members. Yeah. An ethic uh requirement. Yeah. I You're right. Under five. I just thought we were going through the current ones. That's why I wasn't trying to stop you. I just thought we were going to have a discussion of new ones after. But, but you're right. It goes off the theme of attending in order to graduate high school. You know, it's the same concept. You don't really participate unless you're right doing the work. We um I think it's fair to say I don't think we did um there are three bullets there. I don't think we did either of any of them really with fidelity or at all actually. Yeah. And then number six. Oh, number six we're working currently working on in the policy committee. We we hope to bring a a policy
173to you perhaps by the end of the year. It's currently in draft form. So I'm going to speak on behalf of Dr. from Maranti Anthony I just say any thoughts that you guys have for other added word goals changes to things you feel you'd like to continue from this go document to the next if you want to send them you can send them to me and to Mike and we'll I'll work with him to help draft something what unless what oh none from Laura but everybody else can share Thank you. Also, I I just wanted to ask what the preference of the board was. Um, so that leads us to the item that we had added. Um, so again, as a reminder, it was I made a motion to add an item for discussion and
174possible action to take the BET up on their offer for interim funding. Um, I will note a few things. [Music] Um, you know, I reached out to the town attorney for some a written opinion. Have you have put the motion on the floor if you're going to possibly act? Well, it wasn't. It was a discussion and possible motion for my my my motion to add it to the agenda was a discussion and possible action. We haven't gotten to the point where I put a motion on the table because I wasn't sure if we were going to You want me to make a motion? I'll happily I would prefer if you made a motion because you can't act on an in on an information item. So, it's an action item regardless whether No problem. I'll happily
175make a motion based on that, you know, to a motion to take the BET up on their offer for interim funding. I mean, we can revise it. I just wanted to put it on the table. Did you have something? I'm happy to second that. Yeah. Do you do you want to second it? Whatever. Okay. So, um, now we can discuss it. I, before I discuss, I just wanted to say I'm going to I reached out to the town attorney for a written opinion. Uh, I know that it has been said and I know Dr. Jones had spoken um, with them as well. uh in regards to we cannot ask I'm just putting you know we cannot ask for an interim now uh for next year's budget for FY2526 that an in while we're still in
176FY2425 um we could discuss it we could vote we could ask for one now but it cannot be asked of the BET to be acted upon until July 1st so my assumption is if we wanted to make a motion to add for an interim right if we want if we want to re reddraft that motion that I It would have to be something that says we want to ask for this on or after July 1st. Um, but before I do that, I was going to hand it over to Dr. Jones because I know you were talking about some of the other things that you had come across in in the process or No, I I don't know. I just didn't know because you and I briefly had a discussion because I hadn't No, no, because
177I hadn't talked. The town attorney did not get back to me. Um, and I know you had spoken with the town attorney. Oh, I was going to say that you didn't get any work back. Well, that part. Okay. Oh, you spoke to her. Can I say Thank you. I just I I mean I feel like I'm a little concerned um especially tonight and we learned that if the board goes over budget that we are personally liable for any money over budget. So I you know um I think we have to be very very careful about this you know this whole discussion of like committing to a contract sometime in the future that we hope that we might get money for but we may not get money for and we actually have to sign the contract
178yesterday. So I mean I I like the idea of leaving the high school start time at 8:30. Um but unfortunately, you know, this the budget was cut on April 10th, I believe. Um and here we are and in the end of May um talking about how we would try to add that money back somehow. And we don't have an official opinion from the town attorney. I know that some people have spoken with her, but to me, I'm very nervous about the idea of of make taking any action without an official opinion from the town attorney because I would be um I I'm frankly I'm concerned about our liability um both as the board and as individuals if we were to engage in any sort of motion towards a contract worth somewhere upwards of $12 million.
179um for you know that's taking place in the next fiscal year. So I just I want to be creative. I want to be collaborative. Um but I don't really understand what the proposal is and and maybe someone else on the board does understand what the proposal is, but to me I'm just kind of lost as to how the mechanics of it all would work. Um legally number one, procedurally um practically speaking, all all of those things. Um, so I don't know, um, Dr. McCy, if you can Yeah. Well, help us out here. I think I have I think I have a fair handle on on the first on the first one on the legal as far as uh practicality. That's that's a that's that's another challenge. Um, because it involves scheduling buses and bus contracts
180and things. But my understanding in talking to the town attorney and the one sentence email that I I I forward to to some of you is that as we know from reading in the um press, so let me back up. Um we had the budget vote um last meeting that reduced uh that approved the budget with the reduction of 2.5 million. Um and that sets start time um at the high school back to 7:45. Um that was a vote that we took um and because we felt we had to and I know there were mixed opinions about it mixed certainly mixed a lot of mixed feelings about it. Subsequently there was a lot of written a lot of opeds written in the press um with members of certain members of the BET voicing um that
181they would support an interim request uh from us um to um reverse that decision. um basically put that money putting that money back in the budget um and then to um re return start time to what it is this year at the high school. The town attorney in my conversation made it clear and it made it clear the BET referenced in their conversation as at their meeting as well that the BET cannot um request the allocation of funds um for an through an interim um until um outside of the budget year. So I think July 1st budget starts July 1. So the BET wouldn't be able to meet and discuss any interim request until then. And then obviously the BET does not allocate money. Then they have to go to the RTM and the RTM
182would have to have a special meeting um to approve that allocation. All happening in the summer which is complicated for a number of reasons. We as a board none of that process can begin um until we make uh our board u makes that request for interim um an interim appropriation to next year's budget. According to the town attorney, there was nothing um there's nothing that stops us from making that request before July 1. Um in my conversation with her in the email, we can make the request. She can't um the BET can't act on it until July 1, but it would certainly save us from a special meeting on July 1. So that's just to jump in and and I want to say I think well there's there's three things. First of all, we we
183had asked the BET uh or at least the vice chair and I had asked the BET in a letter uh to please meet and restore the funding uh or you know have a discussion about it. This you know RTM had put you know put out a SR doing the same thing. There were a lot of options to add the funding back before budget closed. Um secondarily you know good governance does not occur through letters to the editor. um you know those were things put out in the press. Nothing was actually sent to us at the time um having that to have that discussion. We're now at like it's unfortunate because the one thing the BET had asked when they made those reductions was that we look for efficiencies. The only efficiency we actually found was
184not cutting staff. It was taking a look and saying that those the bus routes it was inefficient. did it, you know, because we had multiple lines going at the same time to different places, which was a decision when when the first round went through of making the decision to change school start times for the betterment and the health of our students was very well known that there was this very much like a large added cost to do it and the town, you know, members of the, you know, board of ed who are still sitting here. I was not on the board. Oh, you weren't at the board at the time. Well, there are BET members and certainly RTM members that were and were on those boards then and are still on those boards now when
185those decisions were made um and discussed. So, we did the that's the only efficiency we actually found. Was it the right choice to support student health? No. But we did it because we were asked to find an efficiency. I mean, it's not an efficiency I would like to have found there, but We said from day one the only way to reach that number was to change school start times and they you know they and the RTM knew full and advance. So the question now becomes is legally we have to sign a contract with with the we're we're already delayed in signing that contract with the buses. They have to be it has to be signed. We have school buses that need to be ready and rolling for summer school. Um we legally cannot sign a
186contract that we don't have the funds to pay. um you know now so we like having anou is a was a lovely idea and I'm still happy to discuss it but it's a gentleman's agreement um we can't sign a contract obligating the board of ed and the town two four plus million dollars more on a gentleman's agreement um and you know I I think we're just in a very difficult position now because the other question is do we sign a I don't think we can sign a contract and and you know in a month or two try to revise it because those costs are going to go up significantly. Um so I I don't know we're sort of in a hole like I really I'm a little stymied. Um some Jan did you have your
187hand up? Just a couple of things. I do share Sophie's concern that we haven't received or at least I haven't received or seen an official word from the town lawyer regarding the situation and the procedure. So I would think an official word document however it it is uh communicated to us in writing I think would be helpful. Um the second thing is my understanding is that this interim appropriation is to be earmarked specifically for one item and one item only and I if anybody has the answer to this, what is the procedure with that um regarding not just allocating funds but specific to one item rather than other things. If we ask for an interim, it needs to be earmarked when we ask for it. We can't just say, "Can you just give us $2
188million?" We have to say, you know, I'm just using a round number. No, no. I like I said, I'm rounding. I'm just But it wouldn't have to be, but Precedent has suggested it has been. Okay. Because I was I was under the impression that that was See, these are the questions I had asked the town. I just wanted to make sure, but I thought you had to ask for it for something specific. They can't earmark it, but we could. we do. But the but the request that they're asking us for is for transportation only. That's the that's the request that they are asking us to make or have have requested that. Correct. But so they're asking us to then in turn make that same request earmarked for that money back to them. Is that correct?
189I just want to make sure that I have that correct. Well, I think part part of the issue, right, is like number one, like as you said, we don't have an official opinion from the town attorney of how to proceed. We also don't have an official request from the BET. We have a letter to the editor from three members of the BET that was published whenever that was 10 days ago or something, right? So I think to me another piece of this would be more meaningful if we had say if we're assuming that all the Democrats on the BET would vote in favor which I don't know if they would or not but if you know if you had a letter from nine members of the BET saying please do this and this is the
190process and this is the language whatever I think that would be more meaningful but I think that we still get back to the practicality question of we really probably are going to need to sign a bus contract you know tomorrow and so the contract is signed And then I'm just saying this is my understanding of how it has to go, right? We're assign we sign a contract because we need to have a contract in place. Then in July, if an if the BET indeed holds a meeting and votes in favor of an interim and then indeed the RTM holds a special meeting and votes in favor of an interim, at that point, I suppose what is being requested is that the board of education would reopen the negotiation of the bus contract which has already
191been signed probably in late May, early June to say, "Hey, bus company, Would you be willing to actually move the start time from the high school from 7:45 to 8:30 because the BET has, you know, allowed the entrum of $1.9 million and the RTM has voted in favor. At that point, we don't know. I'm almost done. If like maybe the bus company says, "Sure, we'll do 830, but it's $7 million, right?" I mean, I don't know what they're going to say. And so that's I mean, so that's the issue is like I'm not opposed. I like the idea of the start time at 8:30 and I've been really clear on that all along, but I don't understand how this process works because we have to sign a contract because buses are running July 7th is
192my understanding for summer school. Well, Wendy Wendy has her hand up. Summer school starts in June. Wendy has her hand up. Yeah. Although I'd support this interim if we go there, we don't need an interim appropriation. We have a $2 million surplus that we didn't have when we approved the budget initially and when we did the reductions a couple of weeks ago. Uh and we've heard the claim that districts can't afford to reverse that the district can't afford to reverse the high school start time change, but it's not true. As of June 30th, the board of ed is projecting a nearly $2 million surplus. Meanwhile, just weeks ago, we cut 1.9 million from transportation, forcing high schoolers into early start times. Despite clear opposition from families, doctors, and sleep experts, tonight isn't about relitigating that
193cut. It's about the fact that circumstances have changed and we now have money to reverse the harm that we've done. Uh, using the surplus to patch a projected underbudgeting for fiscal year 26 is flawed logic. The surplus came from this year's budget due to overbudgeting. It should be used to restore the 1.9 million just cut. That fixes our problem. And if next year's budget really is short, the solution is simple. We will request an interim appropriation just as this board would have done if the surplus hadn't materialized this year. Let's not pretend that our hands are tied. The mechanism to restore the 1.9 million exists and are we willing to to use it. We have the power to do this and our community is watching. Like let's do the right thing. Let's Can you explain?
194I'm gonna Yeah, I'm gonna ask Tony to address that. Yeah. And Ben is going to try to jump back on as well here shortly. Um he just finished at the RTM. So um we have a $4 million problem, not a $2 million problem. And I think people are mixing the two. So one of the reasons we want the laps the the non-lapsing account is so that $2 million is sitting in the non-lapsing. We know we have access to that fund to the funds so that with the increased cost in this new contract. We don't we don't have a contract. And I need to really reinforce that we're in a really difficult situation right now and we don't have a contract and we need money to be able to pay for the current contract that we
195need to sign. On top of that, what what we're hearing tonight is that we also would need the additional funds if you undid the start time that we've done. So that we know it's around 2 million. It is probably going to be greater number than that because in this new contract we're negotiating rates and I just want to kind of keep you know a breast in this region the contracts are running 15 to 25% increase and it has to do with the unions the teamsters unions that drive buses last time we went out to bid we had two companies um we have been in this situation challenging situation since before December this year trying to nail down the contract. We've tried to negotiate with other bus companies. They won't come in because there's nowhere to
196park the buses in Greenwich either. So, it's a very complex issue. Um, and not only right now we're working with the company, what is the real contract because we just told them we don't need 18 buses. So, they had to go back in now. They will um take their 18 drivers, reassign them other places. they will take those 18 buses perhaps send them to New York or somewhere else in Connecticut. So to come back in July and say, "Oh, guess what? We yeah, we we want those 18 buses." Now they have to go find 18 drivers also. And there's a driver shortage. Um we have families that are right now working on their child care. We have elementary start times of 7:30, 8:30, and 9 right now. And so people are figuring out what they
197need to do for the fall. You can't leave that for parents until July and August. Um there's it's a very complex issue on many levels. We need to get the contract. That's why we want the non-lapsing. It's just to pay for the contract as it sits right now today with the new start time. Tony, what would you have done if we didn't have a surplus? What? We'd have to go for an interim. Correct. We'd have to go for Yeah. No, but we're four million in the hole. You're really not getting it, are you? No. The the the two million the surplus of two politics. No, no, there's no politics. This is dollar sign. You can Oh, please. All you'd like. We have like Dr. Jones is now just explained it. I explained it million. Wendy,
198I didn't interrupt you. Give me a moment. She's explained we have already we are in the hole for $2 million for buses. The costs have gone up astronomically and we are lucky that we ended up having the surplus because it means we're not going to the BET asking them for a $2 million interim. Now, I'd be very happy to go ask them for a $4 million interim to, you know, but we need the 2 million we have in the surplus to pay for a hole we have now. Not a hole that was created because we had to cut our budget. Yeah. How are you to go for an interim for a shortfall but not but not right now for the interim for for the the the for the because it's still for next year. Yeah.
199That's why the non-lapsing account is so important. We didn't bring the non-lapsing to you last year because we figured it would be controversial. This year we need it so that we what the board will do is take action probably when we meet next we will say will you please approve the non-lapsing so we can sign the bus contract and get it done and it could be a special meeting in order to expedite that because neither Mr. Brrian nor myself are comfortable signing a contract that puts us in the hole. It's not even legal for us to do that. We need an appropriation and the non-lapsing gives us a mechanism to do that without waiting until July because again I I don't want to go back through all the July August challenges but it it's challenging
200not only for us but for families for the bus company for all the way around your handy yearend 26 Wendy why don't you wait until Ben comes back from the RTM and you can discuss in the more in-depth finances because I maybe he'd be better able to respond. I mean, I don't know. So, I I when he comes back, can I ask you to then ask him? Great. Perfect. Is that okay? Okay. Yeah, that's great. Laura had her hand up. Then I saw Mike and I don't know if anybody over here had there. Okay. I was just going to try and clarify this for anybody in the public who may be confused. Even after we cut our budget by the 1.9, we were still going to have to require an interim to pay just the
201contract that we were negotiating because we because we needed more money for the bus contract. So, the fact that we found money may plug the hole that existed before we cut start times. we were in danger of having to come for an interim to just pay for the bus contract as it was before we reduced it. That's the clarification I was trying to make. Oh, I didn't know if I thought you had a question. Okay. And just to just to add, let's make it clear for folks watching home, we didn't we didn't we didn't find money. We we knew it was there and actually a lot of it comes from the management of our special ed settlements and a lot of the reforms we've put in place over the last few years um around special
202ed to support the supporting of students in in district that have refu would have made our our settlements less there. [Music] Um let's I think there's a lot of there's a lot of moving parts right and there's a lot of things we don't know. I don't in all honestly I don't think that stops us from getting the ball rolling here um at least from what we can do. So no one can point fingers at this board quite honestly and say well you know we said to the board we said to the BOE that we would give you the money for start time and they didn't act or things like that. There is things that we there's very real clear um issues and concerns here around whether or not this is even possible and that is
203entirely the fault of how this process has has devolved over the last month and a half and I think that's clear. I do have I mean the email from you know Barbara Shelonburgger town attorney says to me the BOE could make a request for an interim appropriation prior to July 1, but the request could not be acted on prior to July 1. Um I don't see any reason why um we can just not we can do our due diligence and just pass a motion requesting an interim for 1.9. So here's the thing and I'm not and this is why why why can't I why why can't I finish my thought? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean I thought I thought you I thought you thought you had a Yeah, I requested interim for the 1.9
204million for start time um to reverse start time in in the high school. I know there is some interest among some members of the board to request more to put money someplace else. That's not the deal on the table. We know there's no votes and support for that on the BET. So, we're kind of wasting our time and relitigating there. But what we can Well, okay. There's no motion on the table. the um but what we can do is um at least start the ball rolling and see if there is a pos even a possibility for some of these logistics. We know we have to sign a contract and deal with start time and get the buses rolling for summer school, but I don't know if that I don't think that necessarily means we can't
205um request the interum at the same time. I'm just going to say one thing and then I'm going to hand it over to Kathleen. Look, if we could get the money back, that would be fantastic, but we have to I think put a number and we don't know what that number is. it might it may probably isn't going to be 1.9 anymore. So that's so that's another question I had to ask of the town attorney just saying sure you can ask for it but nobody can act on it until July 1st aren't the questions that I needed to have answered in order to be able to do this properly but I I'm not arguing anything else I'm just we would have to put an actual number in for a request and it may not be
206enough yeah Kathleen and then Sophie and Laura so guys I'm just going to take a giant step back here we cannot do things on promises like I we have a fiduciary obligation to be professionals here. I mean we are Greenwich, Connecticut. This is embarrassing how this process has been run. Okay, this decision decision day was early April. Okay, I had then spent eight weeks. Okay, as sort of the budget person doing work I did not want to do. Okay. Made a lot of people upset, students, parents, staff, but we had a fiduciary obligation to not start the year in the red. And I will never I will sooner resign, okay, than be financially at risk personally. I will make that very clear. Okay. Now, that is number one. Number two is I am all about
207being collaborative and doing all those things and meeting with other bodies and we did all of that. We everybody spoke to the BET. Everybody spoke to RTM. The RTM did SORS. We did everything by the book because again going back to we are Greenwich. We are made up of a lot of professionals. We do things wisely and and I hope intelligently um and collaboratively. We really do. But this process did not go that way. And we but we kept believing and I kept believing and we kept going and you sent letters and we did all those things and I don't have a legal opinion in front of me. I don't have any asurances from anyone and we're going to go now sort of ask oh please can you just try this one more time? A
208sr is not binding. Okay. So let's be clear. The RTM can say all I want. It's not binding. Then it's going to go to the BET on July 1st and who knows how they're going to feel at that moment. So they could give me their votes in writing, but anyone could has the right to change their vote on the they could wake up that morning and feel differently. Okay. So now we have 3,000 students and their families who are sitting here wondering what's about to happen. And it's getting old, right? Like we have to be disciplined, thoughtful adults. And they need certainty. Okay? Our students need certainty. And I will be clear, I didn't like any of this. And in fact, Wendy was the one that wanted to go originally. She was the one that
209said how she thought 7:30 was fine. So I'm surprised by this change, but I was always for healthy start time at 8:30. And that was taken off the table because I decided that was better than cutting more staff. Um, that's the choice. It's that binary. And I I'm I don't I'm just the the I'm I will say no more. Thank you. Okay. Sophie had her hand up next. I'm not going to repeat what Kathleen said, but I agree with everything you said. Um actually, I just want to point out I think it's commendable that we're coming in like maybe 1% or less than that under budget, but at least we have some money in the bank. I think that's something that we should all be glad about and it's not a question. I just take
210issue with the characterizing it as overbudgeting. If you come in with half a percent left in your budget, like we should all be heaving a sigh of relief, right? I mean, that's a good thing, Laura. So far be it for me to question the ruling of a town attorney, particularly this one. Um, but I'm going to say if the if if something out of the Wizard of Oz happened and this Havier building got, you know, sent to the other side of town, is the town attorney saying we couldn't fix a building because we couldn't ask for an interim because it wasn't the fiscal year. Like, what would you what would we do if we had a capital need and it wasn't July one yet? I mean, this doesn't make any sense to me that if
211there was an No, but there's but there's also a difference between operating and capital funds. She did not she did not specify she I'm not disagreeing but it it you still when you asked just and I'm not I I actually wholeheartedly like appreciate all that you're doing also trying to support the students and and trying to help the board you know but that's not a legal opinion like in you know it's it's it's it's a nonsensical legal opinion. No, no. I I'm not I I'm not going to say nonsensical. It's sensical. It's It's just not a legal opinion that because there are other parts to it and but but that's a legal opinion about one tiny piece of it. And I and I'm glad that she responded to you. So, I appreciate that. Um but
212again if we are not allow if we had an an urgent need and look I believe the start time change to an earlier start time is as damaging as all the staff we have lost. So I I equate them very much equally in my mind and you know I would never have wanted to be in this position to um to do this to the high school. So, I just think that um I don't believe that that email suffices as a legal opinion because we know if there was an urgent need, be it for operating or capital, that we could make a request and have it acted on in a timely manner. So, look, I I I hear about the the legal issue. Um, it's not clear to me what exactly we have to lose there.
213Um, so worst case worse is another legal opinion and we got to go back and do it again. Um, but I none of us like um none of us like changing start time. None of us like the situation we're currently in. um there is possibly a chance to reverse that decision if we as a board feel that it is too late and the ship has sailed and we don't want to say that. I think that's what we're saying by not requesting the money. If we instead want to say, well, maybe it's worth seeing if there's still a chance to do this and reverse our time, then I think we have to request reverse the funds and see see what happens next and see where it goes. Personally, I'm in favor of trying to of giving
214it one last shot here. I don't see, you know, the validity of any legal opinions aside, I don't see the downside of starting the process, you know, and if the town attorney comes back and says, "Actually, that's not what I meant. We got to do this, then fine, we do that." Why don't we have why don't we have her send something to the board? That's I don't think we should take any action until the board has received the legal opinion. So, they'll do that. We can Yeah. So, and I will reach out again and we can do that for we have a meeting next next week to next week. No, no, well, we have a meeting not next Thursday, the following Thursday. However, that leads me to when we get to agenda planning. Uh, we
215may have one that we could, you know, add to. I think I would just respectfully I don't if they're listening I think it would also be helpful to have an official letter from the members of the BET who are requesting that we make this request for an interim so that it's not just in a letter to the editor or people talking to one another because and maybe you know they it would be helpful for them to lay out how do they think this process is going to work because you know I I just see a lot of hurdles. So I, you know, they can say this is how, you know, we can meet on July 1. The RTM is going to meet on this day. This is how it's all going to work. This is,
216you know, having some detail behind this because right now it feels like a wing and a prayer, honestly. And and it's not fair to our students and our staff who are watching this. So I think that if if everyone were to lay things out in writing, wonderful. I I will just say I mean like I said I I'll go back to the fact that we were asked to find an efficiency. The only efficiency we actually had was overlapping bus routes. Now no no but I that you think cutting staff was efficient. Don't think it I don't think it behooves us to reopen the I'm just telling you this is this is what I'm going back to. None of us wanted to change school start time. It is not in the best interest of what? Okay,
217Wendy did I my point is it's not in the best interest of our students health but unfortunately we are where we are. So if we are going to try to make an effort I mean I I'd be very happy to have the money back. I've I've asked sent emails I got no response. I I would be very happy to have the money back to make these changes and you know I will prostrate myself and and ask for it because it's in the best interest of our students. But I can't I don't feel comfortable doing it until we get a legal opinion and we have a few things outlined. And if it means having to wait till next week, I I just have to I don't understand. I'm not involved in the bus negotiations. So that's
218the only other piece that is separate. And I know is Ben back if he want to address any of this. I just I I'm not I'm supporting what you're saying. I that's why I'm just saying I just there's a level of comfort. So yeah. We definitely need to obviously approve the lapsing account so we can get we did. No, no, I'm saying approve when we come for the request for buses so that we can actually move forward with where we stand as of today. I am very concerned about this messaging for the community. That's why I put out what I did last Friday because it had been all this back and forth. Nobody knew what we were doing. There was a lot of confusion in town and I think after tonight it'll probably all start
219again. Um, and so I'm very concerned about that. People need to know what they're doing. We need to be able to negotiate a contract. And again, 18 buses is a lot. So to all of a sudden be negotiating with 18 less and then we're going to turn around and say, "Oh, never mind. We need 18 more buses. We're going to go ahead and negotiate." So each bus, just to make it clear for all the math people out there, it's 100,000. No, I was going to So I was going to say when we first did start time, 108,000 actually when I was going to say when we first did school start time discussions and I wasn't on the board, but I was on ETA council and I was on the other side listening to this. It
220was, you know, it was around 100,000 for every yellow limousine we had, right? Oh, 8085 because I was going to say just in that the few years the cost has gone up a you know significantly you know again I this for the betterment of the health of the students but you know we also have to be cognizant that time is a factor time for our students getting up and time to get contract signed it's a dual pun Laura do we have a vague idea of what after we plug the hold just to get the buses we need and then ask for a certain amount of money, whatever that number is for those 18 additional buses we would need. Do we have any idea, any vague idea what on short notice what 18 buses would cost?
221Well, you don't want to go because that you're you're talking about rate the rate essentially and so it's still underneath. You do not want to talk about that in public. So, to be fair, I see Wendy's hand up and I made a promise to her that when Ben came back, you know, maybe he could help answer the questions for her, although I know he may not have caught up, but um Ben, are you you're there? Oh, there he is. Perfect. Um so, Wendy, did you wanna ask Ben? I I can't even remember my last question. Um, but can we ask for a 30-day option to the bus vendor? I mean, don't we have a long relationship with them? No, we don't. I mean, I can't say about a 30-day option, but long relationship. No, we
222had to switch buses. We had to switch bus companies a few years ago or [Music] um Okay. I think the original question you had asked or you were posing was in regards to not that I want to reopen it but you were asking about I made a promise to you and I want to keep it. No, I thank you Karen. You should. Yeah. But I So, did you want me to like sort of try to summarize it or have you Well, I did want to respond to Kathleen because yes, I was in favor of the 7:30 start time at at at the beginning, but um but you know, I got hundreds of phone calls. I I we have an olive branch from the BET now and we have a surplus of $2 million. So I
223and this is back on the table. So I'm allowed to change my mind and yes, you are allowed to change your mind. We all are. But but you know, again, I we can keep going down the same rabbit hole. But Ben, can I Ben, maybe you can better explain. It's not that we just happen to have a $2 million surplus. It's also that we and it's not a $2 million bus problem that you know to solve by changing schools to our time. We were saying it was a $4 million because we already know we're in the hole for next year. So if you could just do a maybe I'm not a budget guru, but Ben, what do you think about a 30? Yeah. Do do you like did it did it occur to you to
224maybe ask for a 30-day option of a 30-day option? We can't discuss stuff that's in the midst of negotiations. Okay. No, no. I I just because it go into we can go into the executive session if we want to have a discussion about contracts, but I you know it it there's a reason that we can't Well, she Yes. You She said she's away. Ben, you broke up there. I'm sorry. Sorry. I Are you able to ask for a 30-day option? Did you ask for one? Like, can can you answer that question? We We have We've actually received a six-month extension. They they were threatening at one point to to uh walk away December 31st uh because of because of the economics of the contract. The issue we're up against now is we're planning for summer
225school. they they need to secure uh their their drivers for summer school. So, we have a we have a July one issue where we're trying to make sure we we can provide that service and will our vendor provide that service, but if so, at what rate? And that's that's where we're we're in the negotiations of what's going to be the future rate, which is then creating our problem that we have. Okay. And so, can you use the surplus you to fund the the new contract. That that's the administration's intent. If the board of ed will approve the request is that our projected surplus should cover uh hopefully what what we ultimately negotiate with the vendor for the the daily rate. Okay. But that's with I'm just just to clear clarify because I know W this
226is what Wendy's asking. Yes. She's asking if that surplus can be used to add the 18 buses back into discussion. So, let's let's do it. No, Wendy, I just want to make sure that I'm just Yeah, I want to let Ben answer. I don't like I just want to make sure he understood what you were asking. It wasn't just to plug the hole. You wanted to use it to That was your question. Not the hole, but use it to add the buses back. Yes. Time. We just keep adding more variables that then the bus company has to rerun their model. When we we the reason we're at this the situation now is it it took it took us as look at long as it took us to to get to the final bus count number.
227Then we when I relayed that final count here's where we're at today on bus count that changed their entire calculation and now we don't know what their their their future rate will be. If I come back to them now say well here's where we're at now. uh it's just gonna it keeps adding to the the delay of what's what is my ultimate uh exposure that I'm trying to manage towards. You can add 18 buses back. Yes, it's just going to keep pushing out how are we funding that ultimately going back to we then have a $4 million problem. We solve the $2 million because of start time at the old rate that we thought we had. It's now if you add that back in that two million becomes slightly higher simply because it's going to
228be a different rate when and we haven't been uh we haven't used uh use that calculation with the bus company yet. I just need what are we managing to for a bus route so we can plan. So, but Ben, like if we didn't find this $2 million, we would have had to go and ask for an interim for$2 million this year, right? Right now, right? Isn't this when we would have asked for that money? Yes, we would you we would have had you have put the request in back in May to order to get under the RTM in June. Yes. This is my point. So if we were going to ask for an interim anyway for the for the money that you know the shortfall then why wouldn't we ask for an interim right now
229going forward for the next for the fiscal year 26 bus schedule based on the current uh government schedule of all the RTM and BET you wouldn't receive that funding until uh until they reconvene in September. And that that's where we we we don't have the we would be entering a contract without an appropriate without a full appropriation. But if we make the request, we could have we could have they could they could have an emergency meeting. They certainly could have they they be in both the BET and the RTM, right? So like if you had no surplus, this is what you you would have gone for an interim anyway today. No, we would have been making the decision a month or so ago, but because of the budget deliberations that pushed it out that I
230think the money I think what what you're saying is that you we would have had to ask for that interim to be added before the RTM voted and the budget for next year was a done deal, right? Signed, sealed, and delivered. You would we would have knew we had this deficit. If we didn't have the surplus, we would have had a $2 million problem that we could have asked for something before the RTM voted. Okay. No, no. I'm I'm asking Ben. Oh, okay. Looking confused. Yeah. Like when And when did you know you had this surplus? Did you know a month ago? Wendy, that's it's irrelevant. We're not That's not It's not It's not irrelevant because if you go back to decision day, you had the BET the Dem the Republicans offered the Democrat bet
231$2 million. This is right now. We're just We're We're not trying to make this a political discussion. We're trying here to actually solve We're trying to solve a problem. The BE Democrats made it political. Wendy, we are trying to solve a problem. We're not trying to create one. I'm not I'm believe me I'm trying to solve this problem and I believe wholeheartedly that can hold on problem Wendy Sophie you can say something and then I'm just you know I want to we've gone so far off track here I I think all of the questions that you're raising Wendy are making it clear that we need an opinion from the town attorney because the town attorney could answer all of these questions for you and I don't think any of us would want to venture into
232answering these questions. I certainly don't want to like when can you ask for an attorney interim? What can you ask for it for? How does it work? Those are all questions that the town attorney should be answering in writing to this board and then we can follow that process. But right now, clearly we don't seem to have a common understanding of what the process would look like. I just see excuses. I mean, there's no motion that's being made. I mean, it's like Okay. All right. Great. We'll wait for the town attorney. So, I you know, I don't know. I'm going to ask what the feeling is because I, again, I I'm not comfortable until we have some of these questions answered, but I'm perfectly happy to meet if we get those questions answered to to
233to try to to to act on this. Sophie, then Laura. Well, so I think, you know, I Laura then Sophie. I hear Oops. Did I go out of turn? Sorry. I hear Wendy's frustration. I certainly feel it. Um, you know, but I I think we have to understand what the BET's level of real commitment is. If they're so worried about star time for our students, then if this number it we're pretty sure it's not it's not going to be the 1.9 that's going to be enough to fund those 18 buses. And if it's twice as much, are they still willing to um step in and help us undo this terrible decision in some possible way? Um, you know, I I think we don't really know the number and we don't really know their level of
234commitment. If it's twice, if it's four million, are they are they still willing to put our students health and well-being above their reluctance to spend money to support it? Though be be that as it may, I know Sophie had something to say and I was going to say the other questions that I had are very relevant for actually having a a proper motion because typically when you ask for an interim, you actually have to put a dollar sign and we don't know what the dollar sign is. It's one of the questions I wanted to ask the town attorney how that could be managed. The second question we have to have answered before we do this because in order to ask for an interim, you know, we may already have had to sign these bus contracts.
235What can we do when it come legally in regards to the bus contracts, you know, can can you know they're in the midst of negotiation, but you know, can there be something built into it that XYZ and then after this date ABC? I I don't know any of the answers to these questions. And I think that's what a lot of the people, you know, people are very well-intentioned when they're putting these for these ideas forward. But there's so many different moving pieces and parts that we have to understand before we make, you know, before we obligate the board of education and the town for funds that we don't have and we don't know the exact number for. And that's my bigger concern, you know, is not obligating the town to pay for something, you know,
236that we don't know the cost of at this particular moment. Um, but I I'm committed to getting the hopefully getting those responses so that we can actually have a meaningful discussion and make a decision what we want to do. I don't know what, you know, what people's opinion is here. So, I'll just sort of leave it to, you know, if you guys would like to how you feel. I totally agree. I think it's legally what is possible. We need to understand and we need to have an official opinion to the board of education on that. And then it's practically how would it work and to your point if we are trying to renegotiate the bus contract the third week in July after we've been appropriated $1.9 million by the BET and the RTM that did
237emergency meetings in July and then suddenly we realize that it's actually $4 million. Frankly, that's going to be a huge black eye to us and everyone in the community is going to be really upset because we're going to say, "You guys went through all of this effort to give us the $1.9 million. It's actually not enough. Are we now going back for another special meeting with the BET and the RTM to ask for another, you know, I mean, I don't know what the number is." And that's the problem. We have a kind of a cart before the horse situation, I think, is is what we're based. And maybe right maybe someone is going to come up with a solution and I hope they do and we can all meet and if people want to make
238overtures and all I'm open to all that but I just we don't have the we don't have a path right now. We fundamentally don't have a rate and the rate drives everything and but the rate number and the number of buses. So it's like a very easy multiplier and we can't do that anymore until we have the rate. the more we talk about it in public, we are losing our negotiation strategy with the bus company. So Wendy, Wendy, which I get Wendy has her hand up and then I would like to possibly suggest that we close out this discussion and move on to agenda planning. Wendy, well, I just wanted to say that the BET cannot make an interim. Only we can. So like a memo from the BET or an email isn't binding. like
239we are the ones in control of this. So, why don't we just make a motion? I'd like to make a motion and you guys can decline it. Feel free to make a mo feel free to make the motion, but just understand when you ask for an interim, you actually have to ask for a dollar amount. We don't have the dollar amount. I think they were willing to offer the 1.95742. You know what? I know I know it might be more than make a motion and then we'll happy to make a motion. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to specifically use the 1.957 one,957,842 to reverse the early start time at GHS and all of the other components that affect the other schools as well. I'm sorry. What? Well, you have to make a motion
240to ask for an interim for X amount of dollars for purpose of Y. Yeah. Yeah. Wend Wendy Wendy Wendy, I appreciate it. The um and trust me, nobody wants to second that motion more than more than I do. Um but reading the room and the questions around the table, the um I think it um the success of the motion um depends on us getting some more answers over the next couple of weeks. Uh oh, not weeks, hopefully days or days. Hopefully days because I think all of us would want to stand behind that. But I can't speak for everybody. Yeah, I I think that I think that's fair. Okay. So, did are you going to with I mean, we didn't second it, so I guess it doesn't need to be withdrawn. Um, so with that,
241uh, I'd like to move on to agenda planning. There's still an open motion on the floor. Karen, you need to withdraw your motion, but that opened up the discussion. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, well, there was a motion. I'm going to withdraw my motion. Thank you. And agenda planning is not agenda planning. It's to approve next year's agenda plan. is there is no only yet. Well, I'll then I'll I'll ask a question one more time. So, this is next year. Okie dokie. So, we would need a motion to put this this on the floor. This is a second read. So, I just want to point out the What? I make a motion to approve the 2526 agenda plan as presented. I'll second it. Are there any questions? I do. Is this new the August 21st date?
242Yeah. So, we went and looked at um legally where we usually end up h needing a meeting. It may or may not not be, but it's really a call out to those of you that are going to be serving on the committee that we will have to probably meet based on the timing. And I I will say a thank you to Dr. McCanty Anthony for joining negotiations. I can tell. Um so that's why I was going to ask the anything that's highlighted in yellow is new from the time that we saw this the last time. No, not everything because you added the pool feasibility stuff. The that was on there before. Okay. Yep. one one one of the things that we noted we did not do in our board goals is a midyear um conversation
243about them. Um so I don't know if we want to while making this agenda plan add that to say the January meeting. Um it was the it was the um so you for January 15th you'd like to add midyear review for board goals. I'm good with that. I think that's a good idea because then we'll see if we're on track or not. Yeah, I'm I'm good with that. The only other thing we would have to do is also add a date and I think would probably be best done through you know adding it on next year for um uh you know board um professional development because I'd like to be able to maybe do it either towards the start of the year or after uh we add new members. So but I think that's a
244discussion we can have. So, are there any other things that people see? Otherwise, I'd be happy to make a motion to ask. Well, I guess Kathleen, do you want to amend the motion? Well, I I mean, serving on the JA contract negotiations committee. I just I don't know where I'll be on August 21st yet. Um, mostly just because I don't know when my son's college drop off is, frankly. So, um, usually right around there. Yeah, probably. So, um, so I can't commit to that, but I imagine we could always amend it. And aren't you away? Okay. All right. So, but I'm happy to go with it for now and pray to God that he doesn't have to leave until after that. So, do you want to amend the your motion? I'm not back until the
245night of the 22nd. So, I don't know if there's any way we can move that. Okay. Okay, now you're making me realize that I may be also with college child. Hold on. I mean, we can leave it off alto together. I'll just make note of it and then we'll go by whatever legal date. Um because a lot of it depends on where we end up when we're, you know, dealing with a contract as well. Yes, I will definitely be away. I just looked. I already have my hotel reservations for move in. Okay. So, would we like to do you want to amend it? Why don't we approve the agenda as amended? Yes, that's what I'm saying. But you just had to change the change your I'll just withdraw my motion. Yeah. Okay. Um can we
246approve the 20 2526 agenda plan as amended with the removal of the August 2125 date for GA contract negotiations. Second. Well, there was also Dr. McKanty anony's uh Yes. I was say I would just say to with the amendments, you know, that and the addition of a what was it? Sorry, a midyear midyear board of board goals. It was January. Yeah. Mid and the addition of midyear board goals to the January 15, 2026 meeting. I heard Wendy, did you second that? I thought I heard somebody say second. No, I didn't second, but Okay, I'll second it. I just didn't know who I thought I heard somebody say second. I'll second that. Okay, all in favor? Wait, hold on. I can't. Wendy, are you in favor? Oh, yes. Hands up. Sorry. All right. So, that passes
24770. And uh with that, um I will send an email to the board so that we can find a date. I have two dates. I think possibly maybe next week to try to meet a uh and get an up the ch you know an update on special education um in executive session that we had to reschedule from earlier in the year and a possible let's hope uh discussion and you know hopefully an action item on uh interim funding for buzzing. So I will send an email to the board. Oh, and yeah. Well, my Well, so I'm looking to add an I will send an email to you all about a date for an executive session for multiple things. Uh, and hopefully an action item. Does that sound good? I'll send that off to you guys.
248You would include the high school discussion as well. Discussion on the high school we were just talking about or no? Well, I think that's a I I have a better idea. We can talk about like that after because that we can add that as an agenda item, not for a special meeting, I think. Yeah. So, does anybody have a motion? I would like to make a motion to adjurnn. Does anybody want to second that? Laura. Okay. All in favor? Thank you. Okay. Thanks, guys.