November 16, 2022 Board of Education Business Meeting

001let's call this meeting of the board of education is that working Aaron to order please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you so um can I get a motion for the consent agenda thank you Miss costume is there a second thank you Miss Downey okay all in favor of the consent agenda that passes eight zero okay we are now to the election of our officers we do this annually I suspect that's why Leslie Yeager sitting in front of me no probably not um so there's a very specific order to this and I have my rules so I will follow that um and this is how it starts we will be electing officers in accordance with

002policy 9121 again we do this annually we will go and order and the first thing we'll do and I'll explain it to everyone as we go along but the first one is for chair so I'm going to open the nominations for chair and I'm actually going to make the first nomination for Miss Downey and since I'm nominating who doesn't if you want to give her a second that's final though it's not required under Robert's Rules but if you'd like it too that's a second for Miss cost okay so um I was the first because I nominated her so uh and as a result I get to do the speech now uh no that goes next I have my order don't worry um after five years on the board with three years in leadership it's time

003for me to hang the reins to others and I do so with a sense of gratitude for the opportunity to serve the community and optimism for the future of our school system we have accomplished much in the last few years with the hiring of Dr Jones navigating covid investments in our schools and security and of course many academic art music and athletic accomplishments some have asked me why I'm not seeking the chair and while I have been honored with the trust of the community and my colleagues I believe it's important to encourage new people to step forward as an investor as an executive myself I believe that a board should develop and sustain a strong team we have a great talent on our board today and I hope we'll continue to attract wise and thoughtful

004people to the board over time it is time to pass the Baton and I look forward to supporting the new leadership with that I would like to nominate Christina who I believe will be a thoughtful and very effective chair her resume is long both professionally and as a community leader Ms Downey's continuous commitment to our schools and students has spanned 23 years all three of her children attended our schools K-12 but her volunteerism began in 1999 when her oldest child started in the Greenwich Public Schools during that time she served as president and served on the board of the Riverside PTA and the Greenwich High School PTA she's also sat on the Executive Board of PTA Council as p-tech treasurer for a multitude of experiences and dedication to our schools are impressive and in fact

005I always call Christina for advice when it comes to my own children during her time as a member of the Board of Education she served on nearly every committee on the board including negotiations and the chairing of both the budget and policy governance committees Christina's has also served and continues to serve on two building committees that experience will be invaluable as a large Focus this coming year will be the building of Central Middle School equally important Christina has forged connections with many Compu Community Partners and has also been the board liaison for Greenwich Alliance for education however her broader relationship with the town bodies and Community are just as valuable she served on the RTM and no surprise was on the education committee she also has fostered good working relationships with members of the BET

006and other Community Partners I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have a continual communication with the other Town bodies she also has broader Community involvement having served on the board of the Junior League and the Riverside Association you almost need a water for this I know I'm done now Christina is quite accomplished professionally with both an MBA and a law degree and her deep understanding of policy procedures and finance will serve her well as I hope the next chair of our board so now I will ask if there are any other nominations Cody who would you like to nominate uh Joe could and anyone you don't have to have a second but would anyone like to Second since we did that Michael Joseph okay would you like to give a speech honestly after

007your speech not really uh it's a tough act to follow uh I'll just say a few things um I think Joe is first of all agree with everything you said about Christina she's great so I don't want this to be like a you know my nominee is better than yours but just just uh putting in a few comments on Joe I think Joe's obviously a pillar of our community uh working with him the last year constantly asked myself why does this guy do all of this stuff because so much of it is painful and it's very selfless um Joe strikes me as uh kind of a Maverick uh he's non-partisan in the good way and he's really a kind of a team Builder Community oriented uh person he's obviously a successful business person I think

008he's a great sense of Independence and uh an eye towards healthy governance um and uh I think he's really devoted to the town and the schools and is a you know someone who can be an effective leader for us all so um that's why uh he's my my candidates okay are there any other nominations per chair okay seeing none this is now what we're going to do we're going to record your vote on these pads so I know it's your vote okay you're going to write down who you want for chair and would you please put chair because then we have to turn this into the Town Clerk and we'll do this for the next few officer spots and then had them all to me okay and then I'm going to say it and record

009it as I go so for Joe Cody Kittle or Joe okay uh Michael Joseph for Joe Harren Hirsch for Christina Downey Kathleen Stowe for Christina Downey Aaron Kowalski for Joe Christina Downey for Christina Downey foreign and Joe Kelly for Joe Kelly so I guess my speech was for not because I remain chair in her floor at this time um and I guess you know I'm getting good at this now I'm kidding um so as a result we will not go to any of the next positions because you don't do anything until you actually have a chair yeah you can so in the in the spirit of of bipartisanship since we now know is 4-4 and we know that it goes a month that this goes to um uh um first selecting Camillo and um I

010think we know that um where he's been alive um I'd like to call for a reboot to consider to reconsider so we can in the hopes that we can move forward as afford um elect danger chair I see no need to do that at this time we have 30 days and if we choose to caucus separately we can but I see no need to do that this time and since I'm still chair does anyone disagree with that we can take it over okay so I'm going to move to the next agenda item can I move to vote on a Revo not really no so um unless you're planning to change your vote so okay so in that case then let's move forward and with uh we have a healthy agenda so I'm not sure GH

011student as Student Government you guys are up next and I want to hear what you have to say perhaps you can provide us some wisdom good evening everyone and uh to the board and meeting attendees my name is Mitch Goldstein and I am the student body vice president earlier this month Isabella CeCe our chair of lunch services and I met with Mr nanarello and Chef Nico saragias to discuss ways to improve lunch line efficiency specifically we discussed the opening of The Snack Shack which allows students to buy snacks without physically entering the relatively small cafeteria The Snack Shack is also where students can buy smoothies which have been widely popular this year as we continue the year I look forward to seeing how else our chair of lunch Services can work with Chef Nico and

012Mr nanarello to improve efficiency and our food regarding food Isabel and I have continued to work with the administration to address the Student Center trash crisis despite trash cans being placed literally everywhere students still need to pay more attention to throwing out their trash after brainstorming ways to improve waste disposal that range from reminder emails to Coral performances we decide that a quick and friendly way would be to play the cleanup song during lunch and yes this is the same song that your kindergarten teacher played back in elementary school well I'm happy to say that it was effective the effects were temporary so in the future our efforts to get students to throw out their trash will likely be more formal at this point in the year I'm excited to announce that all eight of

013our subcommittees have been established and chairs have been selected tomorrow will be our first mass meeting with the formerly set up committees and I'm eager to hear the ideas that our class representatives have come up to better our school as we continue the year some committee chairs are expected to hold one form a month these meetings are welcome to all so that all students can voice their concerns earlier in the month Isabella and I met with the PTA co-presidents where we discuss ways that the PTA can get more involved with the students specifically we think that student government can be used to strengthen communication with the student body about the PTA outreach program so that all students are knowledgeable about the resources available to them especially regarding financial aid on behalf of the student body

014I want to thank you all for your time and I look forward to continuing to work with the board over the next month I now pass the microphone over to student body president Isabella gega thank you I broke it sorry good evening everyone Dr Jones members of the board and meeting attendees I am Isabella gega the student body president at Greenwich high school as we roll into Thanksgiving we pay homage to our school our friends our family and our community as we are thankful for the food on our table we are also thankful for the community that is able to support us during the season of gratitude Greenwich high school has concluded our Thanksgiving food drive this week distribution to more than 100 families will begin Monday the 21st to prepare for the Glorious fourth

015Thursday of November and on the theme of Thanksgiving food the senior class has raised more than two thousand dollars during their fall theme pie fundraiser this money will go towards decreasing the cost of prom tickets and other senior related events as we swing into the second quarter in addition the sophomore class had their Krispy Kreme fundraiser which was a success and we look forward to participating in the junior class badminton tournament on November 22nd Beyond this each class is actively searching for ways to increase class event participation through fun activities that promote School Unity with the upcoming holiday season we are pleased that November 1st college application deadline has finally passed November 2nd was a day of absolute Bliss for seniors thank you to the teachers administrators school counselors and everyone involved in the process

016our success is due to your support quick shout out to Jamie Smith and Yuna nomodo the senior class president vice president for the kind words as the seniors work towards their next deadline and their future the senior class is excited to brainstorm community events to engage the class of 2023 for the rest of the year and finally this past Monday congrats to almost to the 250 students who were inducted into our school's National Honor Society program for their esteemed work within our high school Community these students truly encapsulate the essence of our school due to their hard work and perseverance I am proud to say that November has been a great month thus far as always I'm excited for the future and I look forward to speaking with you all once again in December thank

017you thank you so much okay next up let me get my agenda I assume it's from is it Francis Gea okay let's have ga sorry GA is next I'm sorry good evening all right my name is Elaine perone president of the Greenwich Education Association just scroll back down hey here we are all right so November is traditionally time to be reflective and give thanks I would like to recognize and give thanks thank you to our Board of Ed members who are volunteers and give their time to help make GPS schools great for all thank you to the board of ed negotiations team for all their hard work negotiating a fair contract thank you to our parents who support our schools and teachers and who volunteer fundraise and do whatever it takes thank you for that

018thank you to our students who are also amazing and will become our Future Leaders problem solvers inventors or whoever they want to be thank you to all our essential workers who keep us safe keep our schools and grounds clean thank you to the BET RTM in hopes that you will support and fully fund Dr Jones budget we still have much work to do and many people will be thankful to have a new Central Middle School Western fields and a new ghs entryway just in case you're not aware of it it's American Education week this is celebrated the week prior to the week of Thanksgiving which is this week this presents everyone with an opportunity to celebrate public education and honor the individuals who are making a difference in ensuring that every student receives equality education

019I'd like to take that opportunity now to thank my fellow teachers Bob Talbert teaching kids to count is fine but teaching kids will count is best thank our Greenwich teachers for not only teaching our GPS curriculum in 21st century skills but also the importance of modeling the love of teaching kindness compassion that we show every day in our classroom is oh so important it helps our students see the kind of people they can grow up to be teachers are those who help find strengths wipe tears away overpower demons and Conquer fears sometimes our students can spend more time with us than they do with their families which makes our jobs owe such important roles in their lives thank you for being there for our students teachers love teaching teach children to love learning thank you

020for bringing passion and exciting into your classroom teachers my teacher gave me the best gift of all believing in me I want to thank all my teachers when I first came to Greenwich my administrators for believing in me and and Greenwich for providing such opportunities it is a good place to work thank you to my teachers for being the professionals that you are who are trained to give all students the critical thinking skills they need to navigate the world making our classrooms a safe haven where students learn about the world in an honest truthful age-accessible fact-based curriculum even if some of those lessons are difficult and uncomfortable I'd like to end with a quote that I have as a footer in all my emails and I truly believe this if you could change a classroom

021you could change a community and if you can change your community you could change the world I'm thankful thank you and have a great Thanksgiving thank you very much next up we have PTA Council Francis good evening I'm Francis mom of three GPS kids and the 2022-2023 president of the parent teacher advisory Council Greenwich p-tac is a non-partisan non-profit organization made up of a governing board of directors presidents of all 15 school ptas and a Powerhouse group of 17 advisory committees covering all areas of school life if you are ready to be more engaged in your schools please join your school PTA today we start tonight's remarks by joining Gea to recognize American Education week and we honor the tremendous impact teacher have on everyone's lives thank you to our Greenwich Public School Educators staff

022and administrators who are here tonight in person or are listening in on zoom while also tucking their own kids into bed or picking up kids from practice we appreciate value and respect your daily efforts to help our kids reach their fullest potential and we'll do our best to be strong Partners in learning turning to Hot Topics in tonight's consent agenda PTAC wants to highlight these a B's and c's for Board of Education consideration A is for Alp p-tech was disappointed by last month's lack of in-depth conversation about Alp we hope that this is not a reflection of a lack of Interest by the board we previewed the video we heard can q a and we were left wondering where's the Mead perhaps the Boe is comfortable with the current L program but we don't know

023we do know that the Alp program is extremely important for the kids in District performance there should be no apathy or lack of Interest ensuring that the Greenwich out program reflects leading best practices regarding acceleration enrichment academic challenges and meeting kids where they are B is for budget and buses p-tech appreciates the formidable efforts by Administration to bring the operating budget to 2.9 guidance that said we're concerned that the budget is thinner than razor thin it's not a 2.9 increase it's a negative budget given increased contract costs and inflation there is literally no wiggle room for enrollment shifts Rising costs of supplies utilities and transportation or to meet the challenges of extract attracting hiring and retaining paraprofessionals substitutes and other school staff we don't have to look any further than the bus budget this year

024to see the effect of being Pennywise and pound foolish it was literally chaos including at my bus stop and kids are still late to or from school nearly every day we're concerned that this is a budget that says we'll need to dim the lights and keep the classrooms cooler the Administration has done well over the last few years using the budget available to bring them teaching resources up to date to reinforce curriculum across all the schools but everyone in the town of Greenwich expects and deserves a top-rated school system an operating budget that barely Keeps the Lights and heat on will struggle to provide the systemic funding needed to achieve the Strategic plan and special education recommendations and C is for Central Middle School this school please continue to work very closely with Town bodies

025on the Central Middle School project the timeline needs to be aggressive in order to limit the time that our kids including mine and a few of yours are in a building that's literally falling apart keep pushing forward on Central Middle School and all capital projects to maintain our school buildings and our fields in closing to help parents be strong Partners in learning we invite everyone to join our Friday December 2nd 11 A.M virtual Public Presentation with family engagement consultant Patty Jomo and Old Greenwich school's four-part series on fostering a love of learning starting on Monday December 5th all events are posted on the PTAC website and now please everyone pull out your phone go to greenwichalliance.org and click on the turkey to donate to the Greenwich Alliance turkey truck to be held on Saturday November

02626th Greenwich Alliance is the primary fundraiser for Greenwich Public Schools please donate today thank you thank you very much Francis okay next up Community comments it's shorter than usual we only have five speakers so I think we'll be able to get through everyone um up first Jackie Homan and as usual everyone has three minutes good evening Board of Education members and Dr Jones I wanted to start off by thanking you for implementing the new vetting rubric for classroom materials hopefully this will start to ease parental concerns regarding the curriculum and prevent some of the mishaps with inappropriate content that we've seen in the past I'm wondering if that Rubik rubric will be applied retroactively and require a reassessment of the materials currently in use for instance I'm wondering if articles like the miseducation of the

027American boy or books like persepolis would still be considered acceptable under the new vetting process also I'm wondering if you plan on listing all of the approved materials on the school website so parents would have complete transparency around the curriculum I know this is something many parents would appreciate and I hear this request all the time additionally a number of parents reached out to me and asked me to give you their thanks for removing a controversial book from the Central Middle School library I know many parents were shocked to see the contents of this book which carries a mature rating and is not recommended for children under the age of 17 years old in light of the extremely graphic sexual content and much more I have passed out copies of pages from this book to

028you which is still available in the high school library along with a number of other books which have a similarly graphic descriptions as you can see from the handout some of the novels are so graphic and include pictures that could actually be considered obscene under federal obscenity law but they're in our library and parents have learned that there's a federal there's a loophole so federal obscenity law in Connecticut that says if there is an educational justification for the material then it's considered suitable for use in the schools so parents are wondering if you could explain what the educational justification is for the use of the library books that I've highlighted to you in the pages that you have in front of you and also in light of the fact that many parents are uncomfortable with

029this extremely graphic content will you please consider adopting a new policy that requires parental consent to obtain adult content that carries a rating that is not recommended for children under the age of 17 like these books that have been highlighted to you thank you very much and if anyone else would like to see copies of these pages I have some extra copies over here at my seat thank you very much Miss Homan next up Dina urso good evening Dr Jones chairman Stowe and Board of Education members my name is Dina urso and I'm one of the co-presidents of the CMS PTA this year I am here speaking in that capacity to ask for two things the first is that you continue to support the Ed specs that you had unanimously approved in August and not

030consider scaling them back these Ed specs are the appropriate size and layout for the current two team per grade model as well as anything the future may hold please do not waver in your commitment to the 115 000 square foot model the second thing we are asking for is that you please approve the hiring of the architect so the building committee can continue its work and move on to the design phase a vote this evening will ensure that this project is staying on track and that is being given the attention that it needs we were happy to hear that every architectural firm that submitted proposals all recommended that the building be built on the property's back corner while the students remain in this building throughout Construction this plan will minimize any disruption to the educational

031process and will allow the students to stay in one building with their teachers and administration it also will address issues like traffic flow and security and a positive effective way when the new building is complete while having the construction on site during the school day may not sound ideal to some the potential positives outweigh the negatives students will have a front row seat to watch in a project of this magnitude and size literally go up before their eyes who knows maybe the next great architect or engineer will be sitting in a CMS classroom one day when a seat is planted that leads to the next Eiffel Tower or Empire State Building and they can say they owe it all to GPS finally we are optimistic that with the board of education's capital budget approved there

032will be bipartisan support at the BET level for funding the rebuild as was promised thank you for your time this evening and throughout the process thank you very much next up Roger rosendahl sorry followed by Stephanie Cowie good evening I'm a 5 year old Dolly 25-year resident of benich I've been here actually several times um asking the Board of Education to adopt uh two customary and characteristic aspects of good government transparency and accountability I have to say my perception is I may have become an annoyance and I keep saying the same thing so many times and um kind of like the parents who complain about what their kids are being tar not being taught I was struck by the way by I quote from one of your earlier speakers that you change the classroom you

033change the community you change the community you change the world my question is is that the job of Educators to change the classroom change Community change the world I don't think so the job of Educators is to educate that's the focus when I grew up I'm dating myself teachers and parents were closely aligned if you had trouble at school you got in even more trouble at home that's the way it was it was all about getting a good education that Bond that uniform Alliance appears to have been if not broken at least fractured and because there's as you see a lot of people who think differently at today and so it's something to keep in mind I regret that I keep coming here and keep saying the same thing and you keep hearing the same

034thing and I have to say my conclusion is it's not going to change I'll keep coming back but until we replace the superintendent until we replace board members who vote superintendent's policies I think things will not change and I'm here to tell you now that will be taking a lot of effort a lot of money a lot of time that will be the new Focus thank you very much thank you Mr Rosenbaum next up Stephanie Cowie followed by Ashley Cole who will be our file now speaker foreign music while I'm going up this isn't my time is it you will not count that in our mindset hold on no there's this I apologize they're usually so funny when you start talking I don't like I'm like looking down going when it says like danger danger

035you should step away and you're sitting in it so it makes a little difficult so hi sorry good evening chairman chairwoman Stowe Board of Ed members and Dr Jones I'm Steph Cowie most of you remember me as a ghs co-president I have another ghs co-president behind me as well Maureen Bonanno while I'm no longer in that role and she's no longer in that role our responsibilities as PTA Representatives on the secure entry committee remain later this evening Mr Walker will be presenting the revised ghs security entry design in response to the board of ed request to explore reduction in the scope due to increased construction costs we know that you have many decisions in front of you this evening and this project is one of them I'm asking for your consideration as it pertains to

036this project as a member of the building committee I will never undermine the ghs secure entry project and will support the decision made by this board full disclosure I voted no along with Ashley Cole to the ghs secure entry redesign being presented tonight I would like to share why the ghs secure energy project was prioritized in June 2018. even back in June 2018 this project was already long overdue in 2019 a pre-pandemic secure entry budget of 2.7 million dollars was approved fast forward to July of 2022 and no surprise to anyone the bids received came in at 3.9 and 4.3 million tonight you will see the proposed redesign and the estimated budget which also is over what our original budget was stated at I ask you to consider supporting our original approved design and additional

037funding needs for these reasons today ghs still has no secure entry and this project was prioritized in 2018. ghs is arguably the largest town of Greenwich building and the most populated approximately 3 200 students and faculty enter the school every day 200 to 300 volunteers enter the building on a weekly basis this equates to approximately 650 000 students faculty and support staff during the school year keep in mind this doesn't take into account any after hours events park you know parents um concerts open house Etc the current redesign doesn't seem to even meet the Ed specs originally provided by the Board of Ed will this redesign impact our end users will security be compromised because of its downsizing sight lines this redesign will require the same approvals from our town stakeholders pnz arz Arc support

038of our neighbors and other stakeholders Board of Ed RTM and the bet if I've missed anyone based on previous discussions with neighbors we expect this redesign to fall short and ghs will be saddled would get again another Misa narrative I fear going down the path of this redesign will cause you at only another long delay and at the end of the day we will ultimately waste more money could we require even more funds and could good most important part of all is we will still be no closer to a secure entry thank you for your time and have a wonderful Thanksgiving thank you Miss Kelly you as well uh next up on our final speaker who I see online is Ashley Cole could be bring her up good evening can you hear me we can

039actually go ahead excellent good evening to everybody Steph and I have been on this building committee for the secure entrance for um for over a year way over a year we've been working on this and our building committee is actually very talented um yet we were the only two of the building committee to really request and ask you to support the original design because the original design is what this building deserves um we understand there are many projects in front of the Board of Ed that demand attention and resources but we think this security interest deserves to be a meaningful structure that is both excellence in Form and Function as Steph said this is our most important Town building it is the largest piece of public infrastructure many people coming and going every day and

040we also use it as a community building as well with our symphony and other things going on unfortunately Greenwich High School is a mammoth building it lacks any architectural distinction or character and it is most unfortunate that the largest building in Greenwich does not reflect the beauty of our town nor the historic nature of the street and neighborhood in which it resides and after the Misa project was built the structure became even more imposing and out of place for the neighborhood so we designed a glass Atrium in vestibule that would add interest a little bit of Glamor to a cold brick brutalist exterior it would not only be beautiful it would be a useful Gathering space for students and visitors it is long past time to build something of quality and beauty that will enhance

041the building and the lives of the people who live work and around it but perhaps the most important important is the function of the security entrance security is incredibly important and more so every day in a more dangerous and vulnerable volatile world let's think about this a smaller entrance means more limitations a smaller holding area with a greater chance of security staff being overwhelmed in a crisis situation with the smaller square footage you also get a compromised interest to the main building and you also get compromised visuals this is a high population school and quite simply where is this less room to gather there's the more opportunity for chaos and this is why I could not recommend the new designs and I recommend the original design for the security entrance for our largest town building

042thank you for everything you do and even if you deny this we will support the redesign thank you thank you very much Miss Cole greatly appreciated okay that can includes our community comments we're doing things a little bit differently this evening to accommodate people's schedules and we are actually going to have our action items first so first up is Central Middle School Tony Turner who is chairing this building committee God bless him Madam chairman um do you want me to put on the table should I put an action on the table sorry to get this conversation going Laura can you put a give us a motion sorry motion to consider the architect services for slam Collective and Tony Turner introducing the item that's happy to second that yeah the motion that we approve it okay

043I seconded that go ahead now turning it over to Tony thank you madam chairman members of the board Dr Jones my name is Tony Turner and I'm the chairman of the Central Middle School building committee um we are absolutely delighted to be in front of you tonight on this Milestone day of being able to ask you to approve the committee's unanimous recommendation to hire the slam collaborative to be the architect for the new uh Central Middle School while these guys are are setting up and I'm going to ask Kemp morehart to come up there's a very special group of people that I want to be sure to recognize and that is the actual building committee we began our first meeting on July the 11th we began weekly meetings beginning the first week in August and

044not only have we met weekly some weeks we have met two times during the week sometimes on evenings for interviews and this is a very very uh strong working group they have phenomenal credentials to be on this committee which is why with inside of 120 days we've been able to recommend to you tonight uh an architect but also have already hired the the owner's rep so let me ask if you're a building Committee Member in the audience tonight could you please stand and let us say thank you for your work done so far don't be bashful team come on you can do it thank you with that um the core slam team is here tonight and I'm going to turn it over now to Camp morehart uh Kemp is a principal in The Firm he

045is also the proposed principal in charge for this particular project and Camp is going to lead the presentation introduce his team members and then I'll have some concluding remarks after q a okay thank you Dwayne uh good evening chairwoman Stowe Dr Jones and the rest of the board uh it's we're thrilled to be here tonight to to introduce our team and also to have a brief presentation uh with some of the expertise that our team brings to this project I will start I am Kent moreheart I'm a principal with the firm uh slam collaborative we are a 280 person firm headquartered in Glastonbury Connecticut I have been with the firm for 18 years I've been doing public education projects for my entire career in Connecticut for about 27 years and so I'm very pleased to

046introduce an extraordinary team of professionals that are here tonight we did hand out a little brochure with a few excerpts from from our team teams expertise but starting with Amy Samuelson Amy's role will be project manager uh Jim Hoagland design architect lead design architect Amy Christmas programmer planner Amanda Hastings is on the virtual call she is the interior designer Henry Withers is also on the the virtual call and he is the landscape architect um Mike perollo is on the call as well and he's an educational planner he has a brief presentation as part of this presentation of the group as does Amy Christmas and uh also with us are two of our Consultants Mike Walsh from CES engineers and uh Andrew White from tyan bond in case you have questions toward the end of our

047presentation um just a few highlights about why this team is the right team for this project we've we've collectively worked on several middle schools over the past uh five years or so we've recently completed Groton Middle School um in Groton Connecticut as well as Torrington Middle School in Torrington we've also got plenty of experience with new Builds on an existing operational School site and Amy's going to talk a little bit more about that in detail and so with no further Ado I'm going to pass it off to Amy and have her talk a little bit about our experience in that Realm goodness thank you for having it and we're very pleased to you know be able to present to you tonight and work with the building committee as Kemp mentioned I'll be the project manager

048on the project and my role would be the liaison between this talented group of professionals and our design team and your community and so we pride ourselves on working with each Community um to to Really customize the designs that we bring and make sure that we're fulfilling the needs of the Ed specs and providing the right learning environment so in this case for the Greenwich Central Middle School students and staff we will bring through the process of our design we'll bring agendas and a work plan for each of the design phases and we'll make sure that it each of the meetings will let you know what decisions need to be made and we'll make sure that the right stakeholders are involved throughout that process so that the decisions are informed appropriately throughout so we have

049examples of our work on those boards that just show the breadth of our experience we also have experience with Net Zero design it's a passion of ours and in particular mine I lead the green team at slam and so we really would like to minimize the operational energy and minimize that embodied carbon in all of our buildings but would like to bring that to Greenwich as well and we'll be working closely with the engineers on the team and Mike will be able to answer any questions about the mechanical systems in that regard too um and lastly Kemp did mention that we have experience with building on an active School site so in the brochure Pages 16 and 17 we do have some examples of site plans that we've worked on recently one is the Torrington

050middle and high school which is under construction now we're placing a larger building in 7th through 12th grade on the existing High School site um and so we're building in their existing parking lot we were able to work with an early uh construction phase to provide appropriate new Bus Loop and parking in the rear of the school and to keep all of the students safe from the activities of construction and as well to really make sure that the site circulation is appropriate throughout in that case with the added concern of student drivers we have I have teenagers at home and the other example that we have is a neighboring town to hear darianne uh where there's a very tight sight and we've we're building a new elementary school and consolidating this the town's pre-k program

051their ELP all on in this location so the existing Oxford school stayed up and running phase one was built um and we were able to move all of the students and staff into the new academic portion of the building where they are having school this year and the second phase is under construction now for the assembly spaces so happy to discuss that and and talk about some of the strategies that we've used but it's it's really something that we're devoted to keeping the safety of the existing School in mind as well as um you know but understanding that it's a school first and a construction site second so um with that um I'm going to introduce Amy Christmas and Mike Perillo who's on the screen and they're going to talk a little bit about the

052visioning for Central Middle School and the customization of the design that I implied earlier thank you hi everyone um can everyone hear me in the okay wow technology is amazing okay um thank you for allowing me to be with you virtually tonight so as Kemp said and Amy said I'm Mike Prolo and I'll be the educational Planner on the team what I'm really excited about being with you tonight is I was actually a middle school teacher for nearly two decades before I started um my educational planning and Consulting business really I stepped away from the middle school classroom because I wanted to make a bigger impact in education and really Elevate teachers and students and so I'm getting to continue that work with you tonight and starting this project so thank you for that opportunity

053as the educational planner my job is really to be this bridge this educational bridge and lens that connects all of the work um that slam does the architect with the desired vision for teaching and learning that the Educators have so I'll start the work with you early on and we'll look at what teaching learning really wants to be in Central Middle School we'll look at the teaming model we'll look at Child Development and then all that work that we do in the beginning we will use that as the basis and foundation for decision making as Amy Christmas and slam takes that and turns it into the educational program and turns it into spaces and while they pick up from where we left off I will then be along for the ride throughout the process making

054sure that any decisions that come to mind with the building design are really checked in and assessed using the educational plan and the vision that we built together as a community a school Community a bigger Greater Community in the beginning of this process the other Amy of Team Amy um and my role is I like to tell our clients that my job is to bring to the project I bring the identification of the quantity of space but also the quality of the space and so working hand in hand with Mike at the beginning understanding the curriculum the pedagogy working with staff and students and understanding how the spaces want to be developed the adjacent sees the size of PODS and the arrangements of teams in the building that allows us to identify the quantity of

055space always looking towards obviously the budget but also making sure that we're aligning appropriately with the osc gr allowable square footage and making sure that we're making decisions informed for that process we then get to switch over into the quality of the space and making sure that we identify appropriate finishes ceiling Heights whether where we need transparency in a building and where we do not and take that throughout the entire process we'll bundle that up and we'll create a document that captures all of that information and then will work with Jim Jim where's Jim you coming uh and Jim who will take that through the design uh and be able to deliver a building um perfectly suited for uh Greenwich Central Middle School thank you so so the slam team actually had a really great

056opportunity through the RFP process and the interview process to facilitate and demonstrate the process that our team wants to go through beginning to end you've heard from a couple of folks here the programmers and and visioning sessions that we anticipate will set the stage for the overall project but backing up a little bit we started looking at some of the elements that we knew were going to be really important to you through through the Ed spec we felt that the Ed spec was very comprehensive and it was really the only information that we had to start for start from as we got into the interview process so as we got into dissect that a little bit we're looking at the potential structure for some of these middle school teams you have sixth seventh and eighth

057graders it can be a very difficult age for these kids and I think the design of the building is going to really affect the social interactions of these age group kids as well as the learning opportunities in the overall environment so um we we talked about trying to activate some of these hallways and then it was one of the things that we talked about with the the building committee how can we activate hallways really excite some of these kids about learning putting learning on display and it really kind of boiled back down to some of the program elements we spent a fair amount of time talking about the media center and how it could potentially be the Hub of the school um really always re-centering the kids back into a portion of the building that

058that we felt was going to be really important educationally to them um and then also thinking about the separation between the academic components really the classrooms and how those those teams are structured as opposed to the community elements I think the auditorium the gymnasium um the um cafeteria and the media center are all going to be really really important Community elements within the structure of the building so it will be important as to how the building gets cited and how those pieces get organized in the the adjacencies you spent a little bit of time talking a little bit about a secure entry at the high school we have an opportunity to start from scratch and it will be planned in to the building and very thoughtful the other big element here that the team talked

059about early in the interview process was how this building fits on the site you have a 21-acre site there's an existing building there we recognize the fact that there's going to be a fully occupied school there and it needs to remain fully functional and safe for the students so where this new building gets structured is going to be important not only for the end result but also when you have two full buildings on site so our initial impression was to push the building as far north on the site and there is an existing site plan here so up where the baseball field is in the general proximity is where we're looking at initially citing the building which I think makes sense because it gives you the opportunity to place some parking directly in front of

060that building to access all those Community spaces the auditorium gymnasium cafeteria and media center um and then once the existing building gets torn down you have the opportunity to reorient all the necessary play fields So based on the ad spec we're looking at a brand new building a request for about 250 spaces as well as three play fields and right now those play Fields overlap significantly we may be able to create a little bit more space on site where maybe those fields potentially cannot be overlapped and and be Standalone Fields but there will be some give and take and and that's one of the things that the slam team is really really good at because we're an integrated integrated team we have our Landscape Architects integral part of the team constant part of the conversation

061as well as our program and programmers and visioners and and that's one of the one of the strengths of our team and then lastly we're recognizing um on this site uh we we have construction we're going to have to think about where construction access comes in and that clear delineation between the new school and the existing school just to make sure that the students on site remain safe through the entire process of construction the other thing that we we desperately need to think about is uh the neighborhood the surrounding neighborhood we recognize the fact that we're going to have this will be a construction site for quite a while we're going to try to minimize any kind of impact on the surrounding neighborhood the neighborhood is used to having a school there but it the

062school is obviously going to be in a different location it's going to have a slightly different scale to it and so it's going to be different so the slam team recognizes that we have to be thoughtful about each and every decision because wherever we put a building a Playfield parking is going to affect the the neighbor hood and then lastly and we're certainly not to this point in the thought process but we we need to make sure that this new school fits in contextually to the neighborhood we have some some neighbors that are right across the street right next door right down the street and uh there's a very sensitive nature to the neighborhood we don't want to disrupt things that are going on there may be things that we can fix and make a

063little bit better as as we go through the decision-making process for this project but we certainly do not want to have a negative impact we want to be a real positive thing for for the neighborhood as we move forward through design so I think on that I'm going to turn it back over to thank you Jim thank you team um just in closing I just want to make a few more points on our cover uh I wanted to bring your attention to our mission statement as a firm and I hopefully you've seen a little bit of uh of the excitement enthusiasm that this team will bring to this project but creativity in design to enrich lives is is what gets this team up every morning and uh enthusiastically coming to work to work on creating

064new schools for communities just like yours on the back side the back cover are some vision statements that we also hold really true to to our work when we we succeed when our clients succeed we are one team working together on a project we're curious and open-minded we are driven but I think one of the most important ones is we know that trust is burned and hopefully we've started to set the groundwork with the building committee with our the process that we've started with them already um and we are dedicated to elevating the communities within which we work and with that I would like to open up for any questions you might have thank you so much for that presentation okay Mr Kelly thank you great presentation uh you mentioned that you guys did the

065Groton Middle School is that correct yes um I'm glad you pointed that out and that absolutely helps me a lot I uh that's right by the Pfizer campus right by shark concert Road right by Baker's Cobra I have to be building about a half dozen homes myself and so I've driven by that project as a uh uh as a as a as a builder as an investor Builder and the Builder uh of those homes there and in Groton and I drive by that building as a board of ed member reddish and saying you know that's a really good looking building and it's moving along quite well I didn't know until now that you mentioned it that you guys did that and I said you know rotten is not quite as wealthy a community as Greenwich

066Connecticut and I'd say boy how come we don't have a building being built as well as that as quickly as that and as seemingly efficient as that so uh I'm glad you did that and that certainly helps me make a uh certainly support you guys so so a good job on that building I spoke to uh uh Tony uh uh yesterday and his enthusiasm towards you guys is certainly enough for me I've known Tony a little while now I'm on another committee with him and certainly his uh his support uh certainly makes it easier to win mine uh and of course Laura's support is the ultimate for me so uh as long as you got Laura on your team then pretty much you'll have me on your team so thank you very much thank you

067for the nice comments Michael Joseph hi um I saw um when this was sent out earlier today I was wondering if you might be able to talk through um what um a little bit of page seven here um what that's what that represents the different team configuration options sure I'm going to ask Jim to elaborate on that a little bit so so this was some material that we included in the interview process and the three examples that we put out there were really grounded in the Ed specs we tried to extract what we thought a middle school team could be there's a lot of different ways that you can function within a team so the three examples that you see are ideas where we grouped five classrooms a science room and then an open area

068which could be a learning Commons it could be a small area where special ed teachers could do pull out or push in you could take one or two students out of a classroom to do any number of different activities with them and part of the debate here was how how do the teachers get supported within that team too do those four or five teachers function independently and have their own little office we could create some professional type offices where they can do their class prep and always have eyes on the street being able to see the student students changing classes so it if we didn't really actually get into a lot of detail in the interview process but the slammed we more so wanted to demonstrate how our process works and there's not just one

069way to look at something there's any number of different solutions to a problem and we don't feel like we've heard enough of the background and how the teachers are going to have to use the building how the students are going to move through the building to create the adjacencies which ultimately are going to be the school so these are just three graphic examples um you know we we use the 3D Revit modeling tools to demonstrate these ideas early in design and we think that the ideas get across fairly easily and understandably when when we're working with the building committee Miss costumes and you wanna say anything no I'm obviously very encouraged by their level of experience in Greenwich having been through some Planning and Zoning processes here um and having the experience that they do

070with um occupied learning environments that have you know students rotating through them so I thought that they were just very um thoughtful and interested in collaboration and I think that that's the the best possible scenario for us yes Miss Downey um okay I just wanted to say I think it was a very impressive presentation I think your team really seems thoughtful and experienced and already very vested in this project even before now and we we very much appreciate that given that this has been on an accelerated time frame for us I'm sure for you as well so I just wanted to Echo Joe's comments about how impressive the group seems and and that you've done a lot of great work I have one question about the finances because that's not really for the Architects it's

071really more for Mr Turner when we get to that Ms Doe okay well we might be there all I just had one comment which is I have a child here and we'll have another one here so I think a lot about the parent who is saying there's a building coming right next to us and um I love how you're thinking about it I know that Dr Jones even at one point said to me we'll incorporate it into the education um and I think so what I thought might be a negative could turn into a positive and it sounds like you guys are thinking that way as well but that brings a lot of comfort so thank you Miss Hirsch uh although I don't have a child here or nor am I a neighbor I do

072really appreciate that one of the things you did bring forward because it's something I know we as a board have talked about a lot is uh how this fits into the surrounding Community because there are several other schools uh in this neighborhood traffic has been a concern for the Neighbors um in this area and and many and many other things so thank you for taking that into consideration as well I have to say I too was highly impressed with this and the fact that you've also worked um with other schools within our town means that you uh are rather familiar with our town processes I would hope um and I think that that's really encouraging um having spoken to some of the members of the the committee who um you know had glowing things to

073say um also made me very comfortable and confident with uh with this so thank you thank you all right seeing no other questions could we ask Tony to step back to the podium yes Madam chairman members of the board and Dr Jones to um to wrap up I want to be sure that um you know that the people you've heard from tonight are the same people the same core team members that will be going to the local uh government governmental bodies for approval along the way be it P and z uh and and so forth um we think we feel strongly that you needed to meet the actual people who's going to represent the Central Middle School process or project uh locally locally getting approval as you know is a very short and easy process

074um that that was my attention yeah um so I think putting forth the core members of the team is we felt it very important for you for you to note that um also I think we should point out to the experience with this team with the state reimbursement process um that is very critical to the cost of this uh of this project and I think it's probably clear by now either through the boards that that you see here or that you've gotten into your packet earlier slam knows Connecticut Middle Schools so when it comes to the reimbursement process we feel we have a lot of confidence around that their cost was very competitive overall we think they are a fantastic fit for this project which is why we voted uh unanimously to recommend uh to

075you the the approval so with that I'll uh I'll I'll stop now did you have a question with Downey on the financials yeah so I just want to be sure I understand just I'm not trying to upset the apple cart here but because of how our a e process works and town Appropriations and funding because and I know we won't go through the full a e money that's been allocated this year probably by the two and a half million that's in the budget that we currently have we're not going to burn through it but this contract exceeds that amount so I guess my question is more are you dealing with Town legal or how are we going to manage that portion of the process is it problematic because I know or does it just come

076out of the construction budget or has the building committee not really spoken about how to handle this I'm kind of trying to figure out who's who's whose ball which court you know kind of where where we need to address this or is the contract structured in such a way that um it's not a problem you ask great questions I'll say yes so I can sit down immediately um where we are actually is the day after the committee selected um slam with the view of coming here is we recognize the the Gap if you will between the a e allocation and the proposed fee uh from from slam so I immediately reached out to several people uh one of them being the town attorney we're waiting to hear back down from the town attorney their best

077thinking on what we should do so so in short that's where we are okay no that's much appreciated because by my calculation the amount I mean the construction amount is different than a e so it does that it's not that full figure it gets reduced so it's only a small differential you know um a couple hundred thousand two hundred thousand dollars maybe so and so will we get a report back or Laura will tell us what's happening or how do we want to handle that so I will keep you apprised but it is our understanding that you know the any money we have is early money to get to design and the remaining um funds would come would be part of soft costs that are related to the building of the of the project as

078long as it allows us to sign the contract with the Architects that's I don't want anything we don't know until we hear back from town legally right but that's that's a very key question but we've uh we've got to hear back from them thank you that's great so I think what's in front of us though this evening is simply do we like this architect and um then the board will take a vote on that yes that that's the ask and we do ask for your support so um that's the motion on the table yes Michael Joseph just one comment so um I mean I don't have any reservations and I appreciate um everything was said I would just whenever I see um marketing material like this and some of the pictures and I know why

079they exist in things I just uh would encourage the the building committee to continue to to remain cautious around uh what education research says about what we know works best for middle schools and things like that um like we we know that um um we can get uh you know pictures of um teachers in front of uh big red boards in front of cafeterias with kids sitting on the floor that looks nice but but is that the best way to teach math obviously no um but I know that's not why it's here um the we worked very hard with the Edge specs to try to be mindful of putting in that what we know um are works best right and best practices and the aspects try to speak to that and I just would um

080caution to to be careful when it comes to uh bells and whistles and things like that make sure we just have to make sure that everything continues to be grounded in the research and I know you guys are doing that I feel like that's an important thing because all these pictures kind of we all get excited by glossy photos and things yes we need to ground it in research so noted thank you okay so yep the question okay the motion on the table all in favor do you want me to read it again it was simply the motion to approve the CMS architect okay all in favor that passes eight zero thank you welcome to the team thank you okay moving to our next building that we're looking to take care of um Greenwich High

081School Steve Walco is this your first time to the podium laughs okay um can you put the motion on the table Miss Johnny I'm gonna get a motion I'm going to move that the board make an interim request of five hundred thousand dollars to cover the increased costs for the ghs entryway project I am happy to second that motion Mr Walco good evening um I am here as chairman of the Greenwich High School vestibule building committee uh here with me I think is Lauren Rabin uh Ashley is virtual or might be we have uh Steph and Maureen who are also here and uh Leslie Moriarty and Christina of course um we're here really twofold one is to ask for uh half a million dollars to complete the project and one is also for approval of

082the design we've shared with you that design money or the design that we've now selected um based on the instructions that were given to us uh just by way a little bit of background after the bids came in on the first design which as you all know had received significant scrutiny both from our land use agencies uh but also uh just the the public at large in the neighborhood um we uh went out to bid and in fact those bids generally came in at four million dollars a little over four was one of them we then went back to those uh the the the two bids that we thought were qualified and really asked them even though they they didn't have to but they provided us with some unit pricing and how they got to

083that number well one of the major drivers of the project uh this maybe doesn't come as a surprise was in fact the glass and the glazing of that glass to be both ballistic and bomb proof which is a requirement um that is not an option and so we then put pen to paper and asked our Architects um to redesign uh a new vestibule the process has not been an easy one because in fact if you look at your own Ed specs they talk about both the security function and the entrance function of of this and in reality uh that Duality is is effectively um impossible if you want a grand entrance and security uh under or within the budget but we did ask our Architects and I should say David Stein is probably on I

084don't know if he is but I'm assuming he is um and also I forgot to mention Dennis who is here um um we are uh we undertook the task of asking the Architects to design something that was within budget uh their answer effectively is is that's not feasible and it's not feasible because in order to protect this area of the school and again I won't say the number but as you all know there are tens of doors exterior doors to Greenwich High School um and yes we have talked at length about how this is only solving one area of that we are not here to solve every exterior door at Greenwich high school and the security that surrounds those exterior doors but at the main entrance in order to effectively halt somebody before they enter

085the actual building and in this case the glass corridor you would need a vestibule and as a larger vestibule better yes but that comes at a price uh we think we've we've struck the right balance both by protecting taxpayer dollars by not asking for only the amount we need and for ensuring that the security aspect of this is not compromised we think we've reached that balance it is a smaller vestibule there is a lot less glass but it still will direct any visitor coming into those four sets of double doors into the administrative Wing we are still doing minor renovations to the administrative area to accomplish this and we do have a security desk that overlooks the courtyard and this vestibule you could also look at it another way this amount of money half a

086million dollars if you took into account the additional funds we need for the Reed design if you take into account the additional monies we need for what the land use agencies required of us and that the neighborhood asked of us in terms of screening um you and the ad alternates to glaze at least the front of the glass Corridor so the remaining portion uh with uh bomb and Ballistic proof glazing you effectively reach this number so with that we've supplied you with information uh any questions Miss Downey sorry do you want to just give us a little bit no I think that's awesome Mr Wilco as always is eloquent and explained everything in great detail so and I I've spoken with many board members to ask if people had questions happy to was happy to

087answer them uh I think this is a balance right you know I think we all felt that the much well I respect Steph and and Ashley's point of view um I think we as a board made a decision that the amount of money involved in the original design was just more than than we could stomach and I think this is a reasonable balance it's it's an attractive entrance way it's about half the size of the original one um so it provides an entrance so that you know where to go at Greenwich High School it also provides the security function and it provides the access to the office so it really does achieve our goals at a much more um cost efficient price than the original design did so I think it's it's we're supporting uh

088to the point earlier that Maureen and Steph said you know if we don't have this we have nothing and and we did talk about how small and how little we could do and they're just certain practical realities of you know you're not just going to put like a security guard in a case outside the front of the high school because it that doesn't meet the criteria that are needed about having two sets of doors um Etc I wish David were on tonight um but he had a very eloquent explanation of that process but that's why we included at the end the state guidelines on security entrances so the board members could see that Mr Kelly well I'm kind of going to say kind of the same thing uh Steph I agree with uh Ashley and

089Steph uh we had designed something uh that we're making less and I'm not good with that because we made a plan based on what we needed we made a plan based on what we wanted to do and and because of the money we've decided to do something less uh and so I agree with them but the harsh reality of uh of the three years I've served on the board we've looked at things we've needed and sometimes we put a number on things and uh and that we're we're delayed because we put a number on something that we needed but there's only a finite amount of money uh but with that concern I did call Steve who I entrusted implicitly happens to be a friend of mine and I'm happy that he rest made me rest

090assured that the redesign uh is something that will protect safety of course and uh and will be adequate it might not be what we're hoping for for but it's adequate for the resources we have then I called Christine after I spoke to Steve and she also who I trust her as well assured me that that we were making some design compromises some size compromises but we're we're not doing any safety compromises safety's Paramount uh we have to make sure the kids are safe so uh uh that being said I have to look at the reality of the a finite amount of cash and I'm gonna have to support this Michael Joseph thanks Steve um so I remember the last time this went to the board there was a lot of conversation around the security workstation

091and the fact called The Ed specks didn't um or the architectural plans left it to a question until later as whether that could they could be enclosed or open and whatnot is that still the case with this result with this revised the area is much more uh compact if you look at the design of this um it's now and and these renderings by the way we have we have a good amount of work to do in the design phase uh if you look um to the right of the design I know that's not your question but I'll get to it you see this sort of wood uh horizontal wood we're not sure we're going to stay with that or or that window there somebody even called that a drive up window look so we're we're

092gonna we're gonna work on those things um over time um the current uh entrance because there's uh you would actually have to come through a door so it would be secure I don't think we've chatted yet about whether or not once you enter into the the side door to get to the security that you're going to actually have uh security glass there to protect that individual if you have an opinion we're all ears foreign yes so thank you for going back to the table and taking what we asked and bring something that's uh more in line with with the budget that we've been given and still meets the needs of the students their security and our Administration in town um in a lot of ways and I mean I know we're talking about this and

093and I will really Echo what Joe said you know it's not what we originally decided upon or what we looked at but we have to be understanding that uh we are you know we are beholden to to all taxpayers and to sort of stay in that line um and it's still already bigger and better than what is currently there um for those who've been at our high school it's a small narrow glass Corridor and students walk through there and there's security there already so this is already an incredible Improvement um my silly question is because I know you mentioned it and it's been mentioned so many different times um we are being you know we are required by pnz to add um ornamental grasses and trees and so forth outside and so I don't see

094those lists on this design which is clearly uh fine but I just want to make sure because we have reduced some of the sizing and things like that that we are going to make sure that we go back and look at that to make sure they're not blocking sight lines for uh security across the street I mean still providing some cover but not blocking the sidelines because I know that was a big discussion so we're going to take it one step further effectively the committee uh held firm to the entire design of the Landscaping a sacrosanct because of the various discussions we had with both p and z and the neighborhood so what has happened here is actually the screening that was required for the larger project and for the neighborhood was Untouched by this

095and is baked into this budget perfect and you'll just make sure that obviously I have full faith to you will make sure that nothing is blocking uh views that are necessary to have I guess after the for security so thank you we've answered my question so Steve since I know you're tend to be good at sound processes the next step if we approve this would be you have to go for the interim appropriation bet then RTM as a building committee you have to it's actually yes but we are the board it's our money that we then allocate to the building committee we okay happy that's the bet and the RTM for an additional appropriation for our project which is the building committee but the building committee really wanted us to a we have to make

096a decision about this but also it allows the building committee to continue the revisions to the final design as I said we've reached a point at design where we had a budget that we could work with and now as Steve pointed out like some of the treatments some of the nuances of the project we can move forward with if we if the funding is going to be forthcoming because we did not want to start spending more time with Architects if the board didn't support moving forward with the project okay so then okay go ahead Karen foreign so what is the amount of this that we would be eligible for reimbursement from the state uh well in the on the original amount it's a 20 reimbursement rate but if we if we it's a question of

097whether we add this addition if we add this additional money into our request for State reimbursement we would need to go restart the estate reimbursement process so I'm not sure if we want to do that for the extra hundred thousand dollars as opposed to saying we can live with the 20 on the 2.75 that we've already applied for I I think we have to go back to the state anyway it's a different problem I think we have to I don't know if it starts the clock ticking yeah we do have to go back to the state regardless but the question is whether asking for additional money screws it might or might not so he so you asked about process so we intend to go through this process and be shovel ready come end of school

098year and truly try to have everything lined up materials and the like available to hit the ground and actually get this project done during most of it during the summer of 2023. um it's it's ambitious from a construction standpoint it's not ambitious from when we can start we think we have enough time built into this so we will continue the redesign we will then be in a uh in a position to then go before all the land use agencies we will then also have those conversations with the state uh and we're comfortable with then having State approval all before we then go out to bid go out to bid in early or late spring be in a position then to uh shovel in the ground to come first day of summer or School recess other

099than that process even the going before the bet we're happy to carry the water if you will on that once the application is made and then to the RPM and just to follow that up also this from my understand my discussions with our state reimbursement consultant it this ultimately we approved the you mean you may not recall we approved the package before it went to this state or went out for bidding we as a board are going to have to do that again so that'll be final design construction documents um and the like that we as a board will have to approve somewhere along that timeline okay I mean it seems feasible but still ambitious to get its own but I hope so because it seems like we've been talking about this for years it'd

100be nice to actually have it for next year when school's open okay Miss costen then so um two questions well one question one statement I think we should have gone back to ask for the million seven we've got three thousand people centered in one place we shouldn't have downsized this we should have just asked for the million seven we have a building on the other side of town that needed five million dollars extra from the finance board without three thousand people passing through it so I think we should have just stuck with the original plan because this has sort of delayed the project the um and the idea that you just can't put a price on our students safety but we're now delayed be that as it may will this go to the RTM in

101December when when do you have to go to the RTM and go through that whole process that's a good yeah I was going to say it's close so maybe but we have yeah we also need to be Mr bet you have to get the vat approval first all right you were on that town body once sure I mean but you know and and countless I can't well I sent into the account times but certainly there were always uh opportunities in which to uh have that process inverted but we can we can talk about that by whether or not that that delays us I'm not sure that it will anyway uh we're not in a position we don't even have a design that we're comfortable with in full so I'm not sure whether we hit that

102deadline or we hit uh Planning and Zoning funding I think I'm not worried about the that aspect of it yeah okay you're right I think it's probably the least of our problems so um okay so well oh sorry Karen you had a question so you may not be able to answer this um but I'm gonna ask it anyway um So based upon this redesign and we think that the additional five hundred thousand dollars and then you had mentioned that it would go out to bid again are we comfortable with this new design and the work of The Architects as to this price so we don't kind of end up in a situation where we're at now sure uh the the answer is yes and I have greater confidence than I normally would uh because of

103the fact that we actually use the pricing that the prior bids came in with not only that we we then outside of the Architects used our own efforts uh in particular uh Leslie Moriarty from the BET helped work on effectively a go forward basis so we built in uh we put us effectively put aside or uh handicapped money for things like contingency and the like so we think uh that not all that will be well within I should say well within the budget we will be within this budget for this project okay okay so I think if we are what we're voting on here is the additional 500 000 if this design is satisfactory to us we then can figure out the one we need to go to the BET and then the RTM with

104Steve um there any other questions otherwise I'm going to call the vote no okay so all in favor of the motion on the table okay all opposed okay that passes seven one thank you very much Mr Marco nice seeing you okay um moving on since we're doing things in reverse order to monthly reports Dr Jones thank you I just want to mention a couple of items um first of all I also want to just say about the National Honor Society what a great event that was and just how impressive um the students were that evening it was 270 students and the high school has it down like a well-oiled machine but just the way the students presented themselves they were just just such a high level and it was just it was incredibly impressive so

105congratulations to all those students I also want to just note that on Veterans Day I had you know one of our veterans that that reached out over the last week just saying you know are the schools doing anything is there you know do you actually honor the veterans because you are in school and you know we were talking when I was at riversides actually and I leaned across to one of my colleagues and I actually said you know what's so wonderful is that we are in school because every single student gets something for Veterans Day and the assemblies that go on at our school the guest speakers in the class rooms and it's in its pre-k through 12. I mean it's it's really wonderful what happens in all of our buildings so thank you to

106all of the many many veterans that we were able to honor but also to the staff that really pull all of those wonderful events together I had the opportunity last night to be at the special education advisory Council and that was a pleasure we spent I think it was at least an hour answering questions just about our mental health and how we approach that in Greenwich public schools and I think more than anything my takeaway was there were more than 30 people on the call several people who are not part of the committee they were there because they were interested in the topic and as you remember it was just three years ago that the board put forward your support to start that Council and it's thriving and making such a difference for us so

107I'm very grateful for that also I just want to note I had the opportunity yesterday to meet with the alliance executive board and again you know they do so many wonderful things for us and we spent time discussing you know the AVID program and I I can't say enough about that because it it truly is the only School District that I've known where there's a program that not only for first generation students with Avid where they support the students but they follow them all the way through college to make sure that they are successful and that is very very unique um just two last um items I want to mention the calendar adjustment was going to be on the calendar for the calendar tonight for the 2024-2025 we didn't put it on because we're working

108with Gea and go set trying to see how we can make our calendar a little more effective for professional development and also looking at that second conference which we've mentioned to the board as part of our strategic planning and working with families so that's all for me I was just going to add I had the pleasure of attending Parkway with my dad because he is a veteran and um this was our last year doing it there since my um last child is graduating from elementary school but there were I mean maybe eight vets my dad was definitely on the older side um but it was wonderful and the questions the kids asked of these um women and men was fantastic and I do think I also had my moments of wondering why we were in

109school on Veterans Day and then I thought they're actually learning about the veterans and um their questions I mean one of the kids was like did any of you get hurt thankfully the answer was no but um it was just it was a lot of fun so and it's very important so thank you Mr Kelly on that same note I got to go to Costco that was cool we had like 30 or so vets not to try to outdo you but the numbers were there I'll tell you one of the kids it was incredibly cute you just had to see it uh they sent the kids out to interview the 30 different vets so all the kids are walking up asking certain questions there was one kid he took his pencil and he was as

110if he was interviewing him he put the I thought it was great but what a great what a great thing and so I I agree with you being in school and having those events were awesome and uh we'll try to make sure if anyone uh could find that time who didn't get a chance to go and experience this certainly try to do it next year because it's well worth it yes Michael Jackson yeah Dr Jones would you mind clarifying what you meant by the second conference the um so we've been in discussions um about having a second parent conference um for elementary eventually we went on a parent conference for middle and high but that's just part of our kind of growth over the next couple of years but that's been a request from PTA

111our Title One schools held a second conference last year and so we're looking at what that could look like right now there's a lengthy report that goes home from the teachers they spend a lot of time on it but the parents don't see that as value as valuable as much as they would having another conference but we have to get the calendar to work to make that happen trying to do the question all right well done I'll turn it to you for committee report well I was just tagging on to uh what Dr Jones had said um Mike and I were on the CIA call yesterday for their meeting um and I know that Dr Jones explained what a lot of the agenda was but in addition to that they uh last night met and

112after a successful Lottery welcomed six new members to see act uh voting members they also launched their new web page and are looking for public feedback and you can find that uh through our GP new GPS webpage as well so if you do have feedback and and I think things are great let us know and if you think things need to be adjusted or missing let us know that as well and we'll make sure or reach out to seaac actually um they also introduced two new committees last night behaviors and a consistency committee who will be meeting for the first time this month and they'll be giving updates going forward and then their enrichment committee also shared a discussion um on winter and spring parent programs and presentations once they have those presentations in place

113and or dates we will make sure that that we share them I know that Dr Jones will also have those sent out or Dr heigenthaler in our special education newsletter and or probably our other parenting newsletters as well so uh I think that's it did I miss anything okay Mr Kelly I got a couple uh the well one quick announcement and if I forget a a team that's doing quite well please uh somebody jump in if you can the boys soccer team is in the state championships on Saturday if they win it'll be the first time the boys soccer team has ever won a state championship I believe uh and there's if there's other things to add please jump in uh the this will be my second to last uh comments about Cardinal Stadium uh

114we met with our CFO Blaze who informed us that we were under budget so that's an accomplishment that's a good thing you don't get that quite often and also because of the cooperation uh with the town on giving us a temporary for our temporary CFO uh we are able to get a partially built Cardinal Stadium opened before we had planned it to be open to get a game in home so we got it in ahead of schedule as well so we're under budget and had to schedule that's good news next and last announcement of cardinal steady when will be when we get our certificate of occupancy we have a couple of tree issues we just have to deal with and then we're uh we're good to go uh next one virtual net metering uh we

115decided to partner with the town on Virtual net metering so going out with an RFP working together with the town uh to uh to go out and because of its changes in legislation we believe there's greater opportunity uh and we canceled the agreement we had with the virtual net metering group and we feel going out to uh to a broader uh broader group with an RFP will be beneficial and cleaner uh so uh uh we're going to take care of that the energy management advisory committee is hosting the Zero Energy ready building uh workshop on December 5th Town Hall at seven o'clock they asked me to mention that today uh and we talked briefly in the budget committee don't want to steal out of your thunder about possibly considering uh bringing in a team to

116review our efficiency and our energy use in the buildings uh based on the fact that the energy prices have gone up exponentially over the last year or so so uh uh that's something we might be working with the uh uh with our emac and uh getting a solution uh another project we met with the waterfall project uh Ashley Cole organized that it looks like we're going to hire a team to do an evaluation of the area to find out how we could uh clean that up properly and make sure we do it uh it's the best way possible we brought a lot of Partners in on that it looks like we will be progressing nicely and uh last but not least the JC building committee uh met early stages we have an app absolutely strong

117team so I am very optimistic about what we're going to accomplish at JC in the near future thank you Miss Hirsch um Mr Kelly can I ask you a quick question absolutely you can I know we we we had the pleasure of uh speaking to some of the civics class at the high school the other day and I know you mentioned you were off to the waterfall committee meeting um so I'm excited to hear a little bit more about that but you mentioned hiring a team to evaluate the area is that something you're going to bring before us because if it's I don't know is that in our budget or no this is going to be privately funded so this is going to be a uh so it's a gift so we'd still need to

118discuss that I think I believe it depends on the the amount of the cost of having the evaluation if we don't or don't if it's not under the limits that we have of course we'll proceed accordingly just wanted to check thank you for reminding me no I'm excited to see to see what's happening out there Michael Joseph so the Old Greenwich building committee uh continues to meet weekly as well um they put out their RFP for an architect um this week um and we are hoping for um to have an architect following cms's lead we're hoping to Target the January uh board meeting for presentation from the architect that they've that we selected that that committee has selected thank you Cody um the uh for energy Alliance for education has its Turkey Trot going on

119which I know is already mentioned but I'll mention it again Julian Curtis is in the lead registrations and November 23rd from what I hear North Miami's koskov and North Street are all competitive so they should all register and the event is on November 26th which is a Saturday so hopefully some of you will go are you running I hate running so I will be busy but I will donate excellent Miss costume uh the CMS building Community presented its architect and it was you know you were serious for a second um uh I did attend yesterday's dtac meeting and we reviewed the uh nomination package for the distinguished teachers as well as the vetting rubric so I'm excited that um in the near future we'll have some teachers recognize and administrators for their amazing work okay

120anything else guys no okay moving on let's start our discussion special education action planning Dr Helen gentheller I wanted to do it okay because how'd I do I didn't do it so every time I talk about you on the radio I always say Dr H and Tony Sabino always sort of says come on try it so think of that high like high ligand taller oh I'm going to practice at home first yeah see it's the teacher in me yeah exactly so I submitted um the recorded uh presentation on Friday so as Michael Joseph shared I'm two for two on that although it is awkward talking to myself as I record but so if you have questions on the presentation Michael Joseph I'm just gonna look to you first let's get why don't you get us

121started um so thank you for um um for for for for the update obviously this continues to be uh important work we talked um um I'm a little bit um previously in what I what I talked to um Dr heiliganthaler about um was um mtss right multi-tiered systems for support and your presentation talked a lot about tier one but I was hoping you you might be able to touch it a little bit on tier two and three right maybe and maybe we might want to back up and just explain you know what we mean by mtss too and then right so our mtss our multi-tiered systems of support is a way to support students who are struggling um when we look at our tier one instruction it is what's happening in the general education classroom

122that can be supported by the general education teacher so um in collaboration with the mtss team they're able to make suggestions that can be carried out as uh General um strategies that might be able to be used to support students when a student is not making continues to not make progress the mtss committee then reviews what has been tried reviews um present levels any kind of scores link it classroom based assessments and make recommendations in terms of what let types of support and so that might be working with one of our literacy Specialists or one of our math interventionists in working on those skills that are identified and it's very targeted so if you have a student who is having difficulty in phonics that's the area that we're looking at not just literacy as a

123whole so there's different supports that are that are used by those Specialists and able to support the student and if we're in a tier two intervention and a student continues to not make progress we look at a tier three which is usually a smaller group and a longer more intense program so that we move through those tiers and if we don't see progress for a student who moves through those tiers at that point that would then trigger a referral to special education each cycle is about six to eight weeks this is not meant to be a process and in the past it was a student might be an mtss for a very long time and that's not what our goal is our goal is to provide the intervention and to see that progress and as

124we do progress monitoring if we don't see a student improving that's when we move to the next tier we make a referral so that that's the that's the the process for students and some students might just be receiving tier one tier two get back on track with that extra support and move out of the mtss so I I want to be clear it's not necessarily A if you enter mtss you go into special ed it really is an intervention to help keep students had a special ed because we're interviewing early and targeted and when students respond to that that's actually an indication that they don't have a specific learning disability so we use that as part of our data in determining eligibility as well cool so and my understanding is we've expanded our for lack

125of a better term our menu of interventions the types of interventions that we can bring to play given the the needs of the students so I don't know if you could give some examples or talk a little bit about how so put some of these tier two into your three programs look like what were plans or how we're going to expand so in literacy um we have using Orton Gillingham methodology using hegarty some of the Kilpatrick resources and then in math we're using Bridges um so those are interventions that we would be using for students and each one is targeted based on the specific need of a student so again the group would be everybody is working on Phonics it's not they're not mixed groups they're extremely targeted good I'm sorry I didn't realize you

126had more go ahead no finish I I was um I was just going to comment the um um how um happy that that makes my makes you know I was that makes me want not the um um if the the board hasn't seen this podcast um that's come out over the last month called solder story which is a crazy six part um series put out by American public media on um the last of the challenges of literacy education in the country and how um exactly what um Dr H is talking about is um on these kind of interventions is what we need to be doing it's well worth it everyone's time it's it's really hard hitting impressive it's called solar story and it just came out um the last episode actually drops tomorrow um it's

127like number two on Apple podcast it's huge mm-hmm and I just want to make sure to say um you know Kim Palladino who's our coordinator um Ela coordinator I mean she is definitely a sustained in spearheading this and I want to give her credit in running our weekly meetings and um you know being part of this so thank you Miss Downey thank you Dr Ohio H anyway um this is helpful and I really think it's good for us to hear you know monthly or period however whatever sequence we've got about what's going on so here's a question is kind of I don't know if it's more of a board question you know we had that very comprehensive discussion of the PCG recommendations um and we're talking about which recommendations in here are we going to

128have at some point another comprehensive like kind of a you know an action timeline of where we are on all the recommendations kind of in a comprehensive format and whether we want to do that with our February Retreat um Kathleen or hey Mike if we're going to have a maybe I don't I don't know if it makes sense to do it mid-year or if you'd rather wait till the end of the year but it feels like it would be good from a progress check to just kind of see you know numbers 1 through 28 and where we are because I know we did it at the start I don't know what you have any thoughts on that absolutely so I know that we have PCG come and um do a reflection at the end of

129the year and kind of put us where we are I think at our midterm would be a really you know I try not I I I'm conscious of not coming up and saying the same thing over and over um so that's why I just kind of picked um specific recommendations especially those that are um that people have the most questions about um and that are really focused on student instruction but I can definitely put that together and do that at the at the next one or the February one whichever first the February meeting where we have dedicated right to special education so I think that might be the appropriate time or the retreat okay Karen Hirsch has a question well this leads me to the question that I had here which is I was actually

130you know um Michael asked the first question that I was going to ask about uh that and then I know Christina let the question my next question leads into what Christina was asking which was you know I was just curious you know I know we've talked about some of the feedback that you've gotten um from you know the parents and students and teachers on the you know the co-teaching model and um you know some of the other uh inclusion Specialists that we we have working with us and so forth um this is this is where we're going with answer improvements if we have any you know when we're going to be seeing any of the growth uh you know growth data and the testing and some of those co-taught versus non-co-taught classes um you know

131when we're because you're talking about measuring success and I just didn't know how often we were reviewing that student growth and making adjustments in the program when we might see some of that data which was would lead me to the question is when we might get the next update so we're gonna see where we're going well as we look at so as we look at the programming a lot of it is around the successes around specific students and progress toward their IEPs and being able to make progress in the general education classroom and the curriculum um so we would be getting our first Year's worth of data this year with them being in the classrooms and that would be something that we can track as we as we go forward so right now it's really

132individual student based on are they are they meeting are students meeting their IEP goals and objectives in a least restrictive environment which is what we're charged with and then looking at comparison data as we go forward foreign no so you know and I understand that we don't we won't have a full Year's data uh at this point but you know I know we have to sort of make adjustments as we go along which you do ever anyway which I think you eloquently explained even just when you're talking about tier one tier two tier three I know you do that even for students who are uh beyond that level of an intervention so um you know I just I think I think our question would be at some point just sort of looking at that data

133to see how well this is meeting the needs of our current students and if there's any adjustments that need to be made going forward because I know even you know you guys it said even though it's a new program you know it still needs to be refined um as we as we move forward and I'll let like jump in because he's looked like he had an additional point because I know we have some you you've established some metrics that come come in next September so I guess to Christina's point maybe the um we can think about how how we might be able to talk about that in February how we're heading towards them those those metrics that could be solve is on the agenda for the board retreat so it makes sense yes Miss Kowalski

134so with respect to the the interventions and the multi-tiered support systems I'm curious as to how students are selected or identified and then put into getting additional support whether it's uh literacy support or math intervention support and how that one how that process works and two is that the teacher reaching out to making a decision is it a team base is making the decision and how are parents being alerted so students are referred so teachers make referrals um to the mtss team so there's a team at each school that supports the process so if a teacher sees that a student is struggling that would trigger them to be to discuss the student with the team there is parent notification and in fact um Miss Palladino and I and and Dr carabillo as well are reviewing

135the letters that are currently sent out to see are they explaining enough are they friendly enough because some of them a little formal we we've pulled them off of our system so you know we we do have letters that are going out but we're working on consistency across schools and what those letters are because right now there's a RTI system that has it and some schools have individual letters so we're working on that as part of the uh as part of the process but the initial um the initial referral comes from the teacher who says I see a student struggling in my classroom and the student needs some support it also does come from some parents I've had some parents reach out and we've worked with the schools and in terms of this is what

136I'm seeing I'm seeing a decline or I'm not seeing my student be able to do this at home and so parents can make referrals as well in terms of not seeing that and having that conversation with the um with the school so two follow-up questions so what's the general time frame from when a teacher says I'm my I'm seeing as one of my students who's needing some additional support until this is T the mtss team reviews until that child actually gets support because I'm finding you know that time period is critical right is it is a matter is it a matter of a week is it a matter of a month because a month to a child in a school year is a lifetime my second follow-up question is if parents are reaching out saying

137I'm seeing this how come this isn't being done are we looking at that as a as through the district to decide was it our places teachers to did we miss something or is that parent being hyper critical of the achievements of their child because I've just gotten feedback from parents and say why did you know my child isn't doing well they agreed with me but I had to make the call why am I not getting why are my teachers not being proactive enough or why isn't the school being proactive enough to identify and why did I have to bring it to their attention so the question so that my follow-up that's a long way of getting up to my follow-up question are we evaluating whether or not there was a a lack of diligence on

138the part of the school system in order to identify that student or is this something that is just a hypersensitivity of a parent on how they're viewing their own child so to answer the first question um most schools have weekly mtss meetings so it's not months so it is weeks in in looking at the student data and being able to Target what skill are we working on and then being able to start providing services I think that there's a combination of um there are are some referrals that come through and you know home behavior is not always the same as school behavior and so I I don't want to say a parent is hyper critical what what I what I see is that sometimes a student might struggle at home or the the teacher gave

139a math as a good example this is how you do it a parent at home knows how to do it somewhere somewhat different and there's a struggle and it looks like maybe a student isn't you know isn't as successful in a particular area and sometimes it's working through through things like that I think of that with my my own son going through school um but I also think that sometimes um there are students that that are that are on the borderline and we want to give them support but we're also we might be starting to see oh they're catching on and so it might not quite be a referral yet but a parent might bring it forward and it's like yes they were struggling a little bit but they're on they're on track so I

140think it's a combination of both we're always looking at how students are doing and the more data points that we have the easier it is to make that that type of referral from the school but the data teams that the schools um you know really look at how are students progressing how can we you know meet their needs you know I had the opportunity last year to sit in a data team meeting over at New Lebanon and watching the teachers really discuss what are the needs of of literacy of each of I think it was third grade and really how do we meet that I mean that they're doing that on an ongoing basis in in all of our schools so part of the data points is that information through the link it tests and

141assessments that are given to children that they can see where that is that part of what they're using and what other data points are they using in order to bring to the mtss committee so they're using that they're using classroom-based assessment foundations has the unit tests at the at the end so all of that all of that data and and looking at a student's progress so maybe they have been successful in all the units but maybe this unit they didn't have a a a a good score on that doesn't necessarily mean they need to go into an intervention maybe it is just reteaching that particular skill and then they get caught back up but that we have Universal screeners in place um so doesn't that automatically I guess I'm confused them for my hearing um

142my assumption is that there's certain student performance levels that would automatically trigger um referral the referrals aren't always anecdotal they're not or is that not the case like they um I guess what pool role was is the universe to what Kathleen was uh Cameron was saying what role is the universal screeners playing in in the MPS process well even with that it's not one data point it's still looking at that multiple data points because you could have a bad day at school and not do well on that particular data point so even with our screeners we're still looking at multiple things so maybe that that particular test link it they even might not have gone well but the student is mastering all of the work in the classroom passing all unit tests and English math

143social studies science so you're saying that that's an outlier so that's why we use multiple data points and not just one Miss casa um so I I wanted to ask about the inclusion specialist is it just one or do we have more than one or is this a hope we're gonna get one or um can you tell me a little bit more about that sure we have one so um she this was part of um of the budget proposal from last year into this year um and um so her name is Rachel Rubin and she works with our staff both supporting the co-teaching not just at the elementary but also at the middle and high school level and then she also supports some of our students with more significant needs and their time in the

144general education classroom and working with the teachers to ensure that students are receiving appropriate instruction curriculum level and that we have high expectations for students in in all levels so she's really working with a variety of students and staff so across different buildings grade levels for yes multiple so she's she's K-12 yes Miss Downey I'm just one quick question I know you mentioned um and I may you may have explained this before and I apologize if I missed it but why do we not have co-teaching in all the years at Western that we do have at Eastern and Central and at the high school so I can only speak for coming on last year so um Western um westerns run a different model and um you know Gordon does a great job in providing support

145for the students at Western um so the model that they were using didn't didn't imply co-teaching as we started looking at some of um the high school specifically some of the high school classes that are available as students come from eighth grade to ninth grade we realized that there were certain students that weren't accessing some of the higher classes because they were coming out of skills classes and so we looked at doing some co-teaching in eighth grade so that we could make sure that they might be on an on-grade class with that support so that they would have the opportunity for a different level of class going into the high school so it's kind of like looking at where where some of our students were and that was one of the tasks from the PCG

146report was looking at how do we get some of our special education students into more on level or higher level classes and when you kind of go back some of it really comes out of eighth grade especially in the area of math and so that's why we targeted eighth grade so that we could you know know make sure that we have again a Continuum of options and that accessibility to our students thank you very helpful anything else no okay oh we use Karen Ernest okay well I was just going to say thank you because once again we still have not we we have gotten positive feedback from the parents in the special education community on on the great work that's being done so I just wanted to add that additional thank you thank you thank

147you Dr Hailey league and taller yes you're getting there nailed it okay I'm going nailed it okay I'm taking a Victory lap on that one okay next up oh I love this topic Board of Education meeting calendar Dr Jones I will say this calendar uh really I give the credit to Mike who worked on this antonaccio um but we did mirror what we had this year because it seems as though the board has liked the retreat meetings where we've been able to really dig in more on curriculum than we have in the past um and really talk more about what happens out in the classroom so please everyone leave thank you so much we didn't think the whole team sorry about that um we should have said Thank you and appreciate all of you being

148here thank you thank you guys go home so you can teach tomorrow okay bye bye okay sorry you can go back again Dr Jones now I'm sorry no I'm just saying credit goes to Mike who worked on this for us but it does model what we did this year because it seems as though the retreat structure has been working really well where we've been able to dig in and um you know talk more about I think curriculum and instruction which is something the board wanted to wanted to be able to do yeah I I just have one issue um and that is I really liked going to different schools and I know that I was gonna I was going to say how many of you were actually on the board when we did that um

149okay yeah I mean I know that we used to predates I know some members of my caucus because we used to go to different restaurants around town where we'd caucus before and I even felt like I got to know different areas of the Town um as a result which was just really lovely um so and while I love Central Middle School um I think it would change the technical quality so the biggest issue it seems would be presenters right so if you think about it even when we were at Costco it was a little bit more difficult for me when we got ready to present budget than it is here it's just like a well-oiled machine here and we have so many people depending on the topic that want to dial in now um that

150that really is that's the challenge and in some buildings you don't have the big screen I don't know if you notice that cost cobbit was pretty tiny even compared to what we have here so if we have a large audience it's just I just wonder if we could be almost strategic about marrying the topics or something with the schools and so heavier items we do here but when it's I was I was also going to add I agree with you just to the the opportunity for principals and and students to show up their schools and the things that are happening in those classrooms and it gave an opportunity not just for us as board members but members of the community to see what's happening in our schools and see the schools themselves and oftentimes realize

151why we have so many facility requests okay uh Karen and then Michael Joseph can I make a suggestion on that well I don't disagree with anything that's been said perhaps one of the things that we can consider then is for our board retreats to take those at different schools um obviously it's not open to the same type of environment as it is for a an entire you know regular business meeting but that would allow us to go to a different school without having some of the technical disadvantages because normally we do them at havemeyer so to to move around to schools it gives us as a board an opportunity to take a tour around the school before we sit down um and that kind of gives us the best of all worlds because then for

152the board meeting for a business meeting such as this we have a bigger Auditorium and all of the technical advantages yeah I mean I like that idea oh she was more than five but it's it's a good idea well I was also going to say right sorry I was gonna see what did The Retreat just did that's we have so much more staff it's there which is why we usually do them at have a Meyer I think um that's I mean it was Technic I think given why uh We've consistently done them there right okay Michael Joseph and then Christina so um this was what I was really going to say but the only worry I'd have about that suggestion is that the nature of the retreat meeting changes less I I'd be cautious about

153tacking on 15 minutes to retreat meetings for this uh the principal the building to give a presentation and things like that and then suddenly it feels more like a business meeting I'm not suggesting I know the presentation I'm just suggesting an opportunity to you for you to arrive 10 minutes earlier and take it to around the school um so I I don't know if it's a typo so or or forever um Dr Jones I know on the on the Yellow Page uh it says three retreats in a capital Summit and then on the on the board itself and then on the calendar there's five board Retreats I'm assuming one of those is the capital Summit um yes and I think it was probably because it was originally a retreat this year before we changed it

154to Capital Summit yeah so we would want to re we could retitle one of those so is that and then so was it four retreats in a capital Summit or because the yellow page says three yes Miss Downey actually I'm going to mess with the math I guess here's my question to my fellow board members we added the capital Summit this year for the first time and I think it was very productive but I can't remember how long our Retreat the week before went and how people feel about three consecutive weeks meetings as opposed to taking um the two Retreats and combining them into one I'm just throwing it out there for discussion that you know one longer meeting instead of two shorter meanings just an idea Cody's given big nods well on top of

155that a number of the things we do at the meetings are actually not very substantive so by having a longer meeting you can cut things that are not action items well no but this would be rich they're both I'm saying combined Retreats we don't have action items at Retreats anyway yeah do I just mean even so like there are things that we can do that reduce the amount of time necessary for some of the things that we cover at those Retreats like the great videos that get posted and you can watch them in your free time so I'm saying I agree with you I like the idea of condensing I was just throwing it out I could go I could be persuaded either direction I would say it personally depends on the topic of the

156board retreat because if you're focusing on for instance one of them is a budget you know a budget Focus the other one would be data focused or you know like what's you know you don't want to start combining the reason that we have those Retreats is that we can take a deeper dive and have a longer opportunity to have conversation um you know and I know people want to get in and out but you know this is our job this is our role is to ask those questions and do so in a these types of formats so well to add to that just sorry our our job is not our job is to have a maximum impact on student outcomes not to just talk for the sake of talking and that's oftentimes what happens at

157those meetings so I would I'm just in favor of doing things that push us to be more efficient with our time is just getting together and talking when the words don't change any outcomes or change any choices is not time well spent I personally think less is more I'm just saying the reason we did the capital Summit is we'd never done the capital budgeting process this way and so I think we all weren't really sure how it was gonna evolve again this is just the notion that you know we look at if you look at what we did on our agenda on September 8th and then the capital I'm just you know and obviously we could look back at the tape and see how long September 8th ran but if it was short I think

158that the Capital One was very productive so um I I would so I would argue that yeah yeah I like the capital too the oh my I wonder if if is that September 14th so we're all saying oh I think we're guessing it would be the same time frame as this year so September 14th is the capital I guess I'm wondering if we need a retreat on both the sevens and the fifth hence my point exactly the question is what the topics would be well I think the last the one you're talking about from this year in September was almost three hours but we were talking all about academics and curriculum and it arguably is rather important topic has Paul we don't have the agenda obviously yet for the policy committee hasn't worked on that

159yet no 23 24. seems a little early seems a little early why don't we take um look this is just a discussion right so we could maybe policy can look at it or we could continue to bring it back to the next meeting um where we marry a little bit of what's on each generally I know we're not going to plan but generally if we look back and see um at these dates with the topics serve us well so we're going to talk more about talking less exactly no no I'm going what I but I really do think we need that that's sort of administrative work slash policy work so I don't think we need to spend time on that what I do think we need to fundamentally decide on is location um because that's

160something as a group that really matters and I love how we have you know 22 people right now still listening um who aren't here so that's very important and sometimes that number is a lot higher um but so I do think it's really important for especially for parents who are putting their children asleep that they can listen um as for our presenters I'm a little bit less concerned about that admittedly because it seems like our volunteers are willing to show up Steve Wall go people along those lines The Architects I know there were some additional people that were out from the architectural firm tonight but you know if they're presenting I think it's worth the effort so if we're going to reduce the quality a little bit you know the quality of the technology quality

161for us visiting the schools again because again I've had that experience more than you guys have it was really fantastic and I I think it's it's something that we should consider bringing back covert changed that and I I do think that it's something we should really talk about but don't you think I mean I think it's good to go to all the schools but isn't it even better to find means to do so during the school day you know I just feel like if we as a board kind of take initiative you know the same way you know going to school in the first days and really put out to principals to invite it because we do get invited to a lot of events or maybe put a school a month on a rotation like

162whatever first Friday of the month is our day if we want to go visit a particular school I think there's a way to institutionalize going to the schools during the school day that could be passing more interesting and productive right okay Cody because you haven't had a chance to speak on them um I visited all 15 schools last spring by myself just to with tours of the principals and it was great I think I found it uh Tony was super helpful in setting it up and all the principals were really welcoming so I think it's we're mixing two things one that's really nice like getting to go to the schools is great but you can do that on your own time and it's better when they're in school and if if it's easier for the

163administration to do it here I think and it's like corporate board meetings it's fun if they're in the Bahamas but it's maybe not like super you know necessary uh so I would keep it simple and keep it here and then we should everyone should go visit the schools regularly you get so much information out of out of seeing it I really evalued it that's a good point okay so here's another idea um maybe we have a principal come to each one of these meetings here and so then we get the well so because there was something where you'd go to Riverside and the principal will tell you a little bit about Riverside and show you like a two-minute video what the kids were doing there there's something about I mean we have 15 schools that

164have different feel right each and they have a different culture and I yes you're right it's great if you could visit during the day that's not easy for everyone to do but if we could maybe instead keep it here at Central keep the technology and then have a principal sort of have each day is sort of dedicated to a different School that's maybe a hybrid approach okay Karen well I think the reason that this is a discussion topic tonight versus not an action is maybe we go back and ask the principals how they feel about that only in the fact that it you know we we have two of our you know uh teacher Representatives here and I know Cody had the opportunity to visit all the schools I've had that opportunity too but showing

165up uh even if it's pre-planned oftentimes during the day that you know we're taking time away from what you know what our principals and others are doing um and disrupting some of the learning environment by coming in and out of classrooms so it did that I think it's great but it doesn't always work and it also doesn't give the public and other members opportunity to see the schools but I would say I think we can also ask the principals if they you know how they feel about visiting the school versus coming here again to me it's being in that school the kids have an opportunity oftentimes to to you know before the meeting they you know sang or they had their Orchestra you know select members visiting you know it just was a great opportunity

166to to show off all of our schools and the work that's being done there but I you know just that's just a trade yep okay it's all right Cody I do like your idea of um making a regular discussion item like a little over a principle presenting um a uh an overview of their school it's kind of like the our division president's coming in and telling us what's going on I think that's kind of that's something we should evaluate thank you um okay so maybe and then perhaps a good compromise right because then we achieve what we need but we still have the technology I don't know Joe you were going to say something before what do you think okay all right well this isn't a vote but I think that maybe that's how we

167should we could think about keeping everything here having each um you know date sort of dedicated to one of our 15 schools and then the changes in September take off a meeting right okay all right great next is Central Middle School update Dr Jones I can't imagine you have more to add do you I do not great um Western Middle School soil update I pray that you have more to add well there was a really good meeting today so it was the first meeting with AECOM and Lang and partnering up uh with the you know deep in EPA we'll have to wait and get you know the update follow-up you always have follow-up after that meeting but Dan Watson was there said it was a very positive meeting so um we're thrilled to have this

168larger team now which is the next step because um I know I've mentioned this to the board AECOM actually did uh the bid process scoring process for the high school Soul remediation so they'll help us get ready and move it in that direction as well where's the whole wrap thing that actually is sitting at the state okay I mean I am getting a lot of calls from some of our state representatives that are extremely frustrated and it's going to be hard to hold them back anymore well because there's some thought that you're only going to make them angry but at this point I mean it sounds like we're in the same place we were last month right and waiting for the state I feel I feel like it's better but it was a positive meeting

169and I think that was the takeaway today they felt like they were stepping forward so uh yeah the meeting today was probably the most positive meeting I have had with uh not only laying in uh but The Regulators from the state um it felt like everybody was pushing the project forward where the next hurdle is to have a public meeting uh we haven't got the 100 approval on that yet but we're very close I think we're going to hear something by the end of the week um whether or not we can do that what's that right so um it's it's it was a positive meeting today so I I think we're we're on the right Road and as far as you know getting people to make phone calls what they're going to hear is these

170people are understaffed big time and I don't know if they want to hear from the people who may have cut their budget so that's just let's be careful with it Gotta Give it to Thanksgiving yeah ability um okay anybody else on this topic no okay then let's move to budget transfers please yep uh budget transfers there's only one it's informational and um it's before you so it was one transfer of fourteen thousand dollars anybody have any questions I don't see any can we move to financial and Staffing okay go right next to the next one okay financial and Staffing report pretty routine um we're still uh early in the fiscal year uh things are on track um you can see the the summary of where we're at uh Capital we added in the information I

171think that some of the folks were looking for in there as well as the ARP money um we have a current open balance uh total including the uh building committee Capital 46.6 million the Food Services uh budget we are monitoring very closely we meet um every month actually we're meeting twice a month right now they are on track they still have the free lunch Federal funding program they've got um about you'll see about 286 000 left that should get them through as we put in the report on the free launch through early December and then we'll be out of that smart funding and we're also meeting with Dr H's team SES team um on a bi-weekly basis to monitor financials and uh we're still in much better shape than what I am told is is

172this time in many years for special education thanks to a lot of the work she's doing um and so it's a current budget deficit all in she's her office has been really good about encumbering funds as early as possible to make sure that we know all exposures um and so they're they're about negative uh they're running a deficit of about 453 000 but that's still significantly less than than last year's budget exposure other than that everything's pretty straightforward so if anyone has any questions please let me know can I ask about the reduced lunch amounts of the free lunch so that is still that's ongoing and once we get to zero basically going to ask the children to start paying again that is correct okay do we have a sense for I mean imagine we're

173figuring out what the daily clip is so you you think that's going to take us to January no that's gonna that is going to run out in early December okay so have we sort of communicate with that yes I see Dr Jones nodding her head yes she's put out they put it out a few newsletters okay sorry I missed that that's important and they've been pushing that's why they've been pushing um the schools the principals have been pushing the students that aren't directly certified to make sure that they certify and this is the federal funding that was extended through Congress and it was a dollar amount and it's basically you have it until you run out so our burn rate on that funding um with the way we're going will take us to originally we

174were looking at November um but it should take us through the early December out of curiosity had we Fair versus other districts have some already hit zero I do not believe so and the state's actually a little bit behind on reporting I don't think anybody has but I can double check for you I just whatever it's not important that was just for sure okay yes Karen so I think this should be also a question for Dr H to um Tony but I'd be curious to see given all of the things that we have implemented in additional programs we've put into place concerning special ed after the PCG report are we I'm wondering if we're actually seeing a dollar sign difference in respect to our out of District tuition and settlement prices understanding that this number

175is better than what we've seen in years past obviously um looking at the budget book I think I there's an additional 1.5 million and don't quote me on that one for 2020 324 school year with respect to out of placements and I'm just wondering if there's a way that we're tracking if we're actually doing better by the additional funds that we're putting into special education through the advancements of the programs we've created because of PCG versus the output and settlements like are we seeing a return on value on our money spent there I think we definitely are at the budget meeting she'll be able to talk about it a little bit because you're talking about very unique cases and small numbers of students in the executive session that we've been doing each year you'll get

176far more information but we definitely are seeing that it's helping us helping families be able to choose to stay in the district and we also have some families that are coming back to the district so that's been great to see as well yeah I think it'd just be curious to see how we're tracking on those numbers because if we are regularly seeing a decrease in this amount of money that that's a really good and positive way and something that we should consider in saying whether or not not there's other Investments we can make through special ed that we may receive see a bigger return on value coming back into the district because we don't have so much on out placements right okay any other questions for Blaze okay thank you so much Blaze thank you

177everybody okay great let's move to action items again strategic plan goals is this Dr Joseph or Michael Joseph who's presenting them oh my gosh okay Billy I need help yeah oh so I think Dr Jones is and and um Mr Meeker are presenting but I'll make I think I have to make a motion um so I would like a motion to approve the uh strategic plan goals statement uh before the board you wanted the committee like to second that Miss Hersh okay thank you Dr Jones so the committee met um last Friday and and one um piece that they asked for us to go back and look at um again was goal six and so what you saw that was posted or is in front of you um is an update to goal six so

178we'll talk about that a little bit more in just a second I do want to also point out that um on the top of the one page document where it says GPS strategic plan um that's that's the way it was the last time you saw it you'll notice it was titled on here differently uh where it's strategic goal and so we can change the title of that if that's the feedback that the board wants to actually change from GPS to teach it plan um and use the the Strategic plan goals and then the other item would be the stretch goal and I I would be remiss if I didn't mention when I was uh at the alliance and I spent about an hour with them and one of the the concerns they had was the

179stretch goal at 100 for reading and I told them that several of you agree with that that they felt like you're automatically setting yourself up to not be able to reach the goal so it is a difference in philosophy so that's something for the you know the board to consider um do we want to stay with that stretch goal uh so high and it mainly is the reading goal I think where there's probably the most concern when we talk about a stretch goal I'm not sure um it's pretty rare for any any school district to have 100 they almost have a system that doesn't allow it so on goal six if I can just um we did um Karen I know you worked on it I'm not sure I think maybe both of the parents

180worked on a little bit today and Mike does have that and he's brought it up I think is it behind us I have an extra copy to hand out so this was just a suggested very quick edit from today to try to tighten the language up so we're open to suggestions on the goal six again it was more about the language than anything else we had it more focused from a staff perspective on climate for teachers and um this is a little bit more focused on also making sure we're enhancing their professional learning to maximize student outcomes so I'm going to pass around the sheet if you don't already have it while you're passing that out I I had pointed out and I know Dr Jones uh and or uh Mr dabico you guys made

181an update um something fell off between the last iteration and this iteration um under the reading and math goals um the sentence about a you know students making their individual growth goals for APTA accidentally fell off from our along with the your microphone um from La the last iteration to this iteration so that should be back in there um and I know you said uh Mr demiko was updating that at some point too he actually has it updated already for us yay okay um did you want Mr Jamaica to add anything or should we start asking a question all right Karen or Karen did you want to add anything I know Michael just started but I'd love your perspective as committee members sure I'll add a couple of things so I've spoken about this before

182and I was probably a one of the stronger voices with respect to the committee on goal six goal six as it read currently and not with the suggested edit um I just I don't find it I think it's an excellent goal don't get me wrong I think obviously having happy and um happy well-rounded and uh teachers is a good thing to have in your classrooms with your students however I struggle to find it in this particular strategic plan as opposed to a broader goal within Tony's own Dr Jones's own goals as well as perhaps an administrative goal because I find it hard to link this as a teacher climate component with the vision of The Graduate I think it could be further tweaked even more as Karen and I were talking earlier today to something

183so simple as you know promoting and support Innovative and exemplary research based upon professional practices in order to continuously enhance teaching and Extended Learning this is something that we pulled from another strategic plan from a peer district and that would be something I would be comfortable with the current wording of this I find is more of Happy Teachers as opposed to teachers that are more looking into you know professional based practices that help our students so I struggle with that the second aspect of this that I struggle with and I had voiced this as well as well I think goals two and three are great I have reservations that it doesn't provide enough support or a plan to enhance for those students that don't that aren't achieving this particular goal as to what happens with

184those students and how are we going to address the needs of our most challenged and vulnerable Learners and that's why I have concerns about these particular goals that they don't specifically address those children that are in the that aren't hitting those marks and we originally I think we said we're just adding back in that language I'm concerned and that that doesn't provide enough for those students I think it was a state-based standard and I know Greenwich has always been very strong on our particular standards that we were higher than the state and so I wonder if that is sufficient enough and if we are happy enough that for those purposes so again I don't like goal six I've never liked goal six I've said that before when we've brought this here and I don't believe

185goals two and three address all of our students well enough to make sure that we are providing enough support for our most vulnerable learners Miss Hirsch um I know we've also we've talked about this at the committee and and yes I had spoken with Karen earlier and tried to help uh bridge the gap uh to where all of our committee members and our Administration and staff who were um have provided a lot of input um into this and one of the main things I distinctly remember from our from our first meeting of the original strategic plan committee before uh we had some change over um was talking about school climate particularly for educators um and making sure that Educators had that input um and I mean I I know Michael Joseph and I are big

186big fans of reading through all the latest educational research and as or many others but um you there's countless studies uh and documents talking about um how providing that positive School climate and culture not just for our students but for our staff leads to increase increases in academic achievement um and so that's why I personally think it belongs here but I realize that also the way it was worded and the way it was focused was not leading itself back to that which is why I helped sort of try to was not leading itself back to how that also uh affects the positive nature of our academics so that was why I was working on that but I will also second Karen's statement you know one of the things we've talked about specifically is making sure

187that these are smart goals making sure that we are addressing all of our students needs I've had concerns with 100 since since we started because I just I don't want to set ourselves up for failure you'll always have an outlier on the positive end of things and and on and on the on the other ends of things as well I mean I think that's something to discuss but um I know that we've talked about having smart goals we've talked about having uh different things built in here but I think um I know within our committee the discussion was to to put some of those back ended pieces in once these goals are approved right and so that piece is coming and it is you know and I think we are also um as a committee

188we are getting all the Sip plans from every single School the school Improvement plans from all of our schools to look through those there's a lot of that data and information um in those plans but they have recently been posted so we're we're getting those to look at too um but again like Karen to me I want to make sure that we're addressing you know the needs of all of our students not just as we've been here for five years not those who are hitting those goals um it's what do we do and how do we focus on the students that aren't Meeting those goals and how do we get there and that's that's a discussion for another date but if we if these are the goals we feel are are proper as a board

189I think that we as a committee and the incredible administrative team and our staff um that will be the ones doing the work uh we'll put in that that work to get those goals uh make them smart goals and and put that in because we do need to know who's who's accountable for different pieces um you know and and what marks we're going to hit when did you guys take a vote in the committee on this plan so it's so it's not like a three zero two one I mean you're not making a recommendation to the board okay Michael Joseph so I I have a comment but Dr Jones would you mind it might make sense to clarify um with goals two and three uh the um the idea of that individual student metric that

190um where we're talking about for all students say they wonder if you could clarify what that metric is in the state because it's it's a growth metric so yeah it is a growth metric and I'm sorry I dropped off of this version it it was on the one we saw last month um and it's actually every individual student you're not trying to hit as a state Target as in we always know we're going to hit the state Target it literally has a metric for every single student in the state of Connecticut and it's new yes so if a student is at the 94th percentile they are still expected to see growth be well above what just a state average would be but again it's it's a growth metric for every single student you know and

191along with that I would say you really have to look Beyond even just this the two pager and look at the strategy sheet and it kind of goes along with what Dr hollygen taller was talking about earlier um if you look at the reading one you know one of the strategies that we have on reading and it's almost at the very bottom is the mtss it drills down again to interventions for every single student from everything from your math interventionist your reading interventionists all of the different um interventions that we've been putting in place and we are continuing to put in place so it really does drill down for students um and the growth metric is again something that is it's individualized and there are very many states that actually have that but but we

192took it out because it was in there or no it's like it accidentally dropped off this version we've already put it back in okay somebody pointed it out today yes so so under goals number two and number three it says in addition to every student it was a sentence that said in addition uh to every student will make their individual growth which is the APTA um and that that was the the piece that we were that had fallen off Cody I saw that you had your hand raised did you honestly um what can someone walk me through this the sense of belonging concept like just when I talk to parents or students are anyone about schools I never hear anybody say like oh what really matters to me is a sense of belonging like you

193know Reading Writing math those are on the list but can someone explain that to me this really is about as a student connected to their school and you know there's a lot of research that shows every student needs to be connected to an adult in the school environment and sense of belonging is actually where it comes from the old Panorama survey and the Panorama survey used that and so it's part of the metric that we've been using for a couple of years we don't use the Panorama survey anymore we have our own it's much shorter we're getting a higher rate of return on it but that's where the phrase comes from and it's really about do the students enjoy you know coming to school do they feel like they have the support that they need

194um how do they feel about their school environment from a student perspective um and it is really important because the last thing you want as a student who doesn't want to come to school and then by the time they're 14 and 15 we're in a school avoidance situation so we use that survey data every year uh if I may oh yes go ahead I can't see you down just on uh we didn't sell the tables but good next time Cody uh just a a personal uh example of something like that uh as a coach uh what we do is we try to teach not just the uh X's and O's or the push-ups and sit-ups and how to pass the ball but a lot of times we'd suggest something to do to help the the

195school community and one of the things we would say sometimes to do is to find a kid sitting by themselves in the cafeteria and sit with them so I don't know if that kind of falls into the application of what kind of sense of belonging is but there there are those kids that sit by themselves in the cafeteria and uh so there's probably I'm assuming my small part of contributing it to the education system addressed that I assume that the uh that it's done on a larger scale in the school and I wasn't told to do that that was something we just did and I assumed everyone did that so having somebody that does that I can see the value in it uh but also I can understand that the environment that the schools have

196present that do that Michael Joseph you wanted to add something yeah yeah well um thank you for me I think it's important for us to remember um particularly for folks listening and different stakeholders what the Strategic plan is right so what we're what this is attempting to do is set some metrics into place that if we meet these metrics we will have more fully realized the vision of The Graduate for each individual student here um who attends our public school system and the vision of The Graduate is academic success but it's also a character and confidence and all these other strong traits that we uh citizenship that we value here as a community has been part of the tradition of Greenwich for a very long time um the this document which I think is really

197exciting um this document is really meant to be um our North Star right so um we when we when we started this process back in this winter we adopted this idea of um of stretch goals um and we know stretch goals are big audacious and um and and not and a little different than than a smart goal we want such goals to really stretch our staff to stretch each other and to challenge ourselves and that's why you see numbers like a hundred percent they um and I would I would challenge us not to think of this as um well you know if we say 99 will be more likely to make this goal and things like that but really the idea behind hanging this as our North Star is we want this for every student

198we it is our moral imperative to try to do that for every student so let's do that so let's make this our goal um in 2027 is some future board gonna say board member smart Island board member going to say you only got 99 shame on you well we'll cross that bridge I think right now I think the argument right now is that we put these goals out there as as our North Star and we make sure that there's something in there for every student and that's why I think those stretch goals are very those growth metrics are very important in goals two and three so I want to make sure that we all understand that um and then the other thing to understand is that one of the reasons why on the agenda this

199has changed to a goals document is while as Dr Jones pointed out here there was a lot of details here about the plan and how we're starting to work towards this um those details very much represent this year over the course of The Five-Year Plan they uh We've purposely laid out this process to be iterative such that there is going to be subsequent documents and future work by the leadership team and by the staff with oversight from the board to fully to morph to flesh out the the strategies in the future and I think we'll see that in in subsequent documents I think the important thing though particularly because we have um the important thing though is to is to set set the set set the goals right to set that North Star so that

200we can so we can begin to um more and more fully develop that plan because the train in some ways has left the building and that buildings have have started uh planning on this um we know this work is ongoing but I think we need to um and in some ways we need to honor that but more importantly I think it's very important that we set those those high standards that I think this goal that this document really really sets for us Miss Downey then miss Hirsch um I agree I think with Michael the notion of having the goals I kind of will separately just go back to the process of how we're going to move this along because a goals document is not a strategic plan so I think we need you could explain

201what the plan for the Strategic plan is after I'm done um I I'm happy to hear that the individual goals are back in I have a fundamental issue of choosing a hundred percent goal that we know we're not good I don't like having a goal that we know we're not going to hit it just seems it it bothers me I'd rather put it in the 90s or something like that which shows um a committed ability that we really want to get as many students as possible but we we know we're never going to get a hundred so why are we putting in there so to me it doesn't make sense I don't know that would never do we know that we're never going to get 100. they um and I don't think we should say

202that to you know you know one student or the other and things like that they um if we know that if a student has been here for four years has been working with us um why we should most definitely be doing you know we get that student on grade level and if not I think we need to we need to talk about it and we've got five years to figure out fear factors outside of our control that we don't control everything I don't know it I'm I'd be happy I'd be okay with 99 I'm just saying that's my own personal view um but I'd like to hear about what the process you've got planned so at some point we're going to vote and approve this goals document in some form form right it's a goals

203document so then how do we create and craft a strategic plan from that because it sounds like the administration is more about the Tactical right because that's they're the Educators the professional Educators you aside the rest of us on the board but then how does how do we kind of go up to the kind of the higher level strategic plan portion of it so one one of the um um one of the things that we've been doing on the committee that continues to be the ongoing work and I'd like to suggest it becomes the work of the board maybe in February treating things I know that's the next agenda item um we've adopted some of the tools from Improvement science and one of the more effective ones is this idea of a driver diagram and

204what the driver diagram has is it very much it started in healthcare but it's been used in a lot in schools and the driver the idea the driver diagrams um if this is the goal what are the key drivers of that goal and what are the sub drivers of that goal and then from that where are the change ideas come from so let me give you just a quick example because that was a lot and we have to talk a lot about that but I do think that that's the way forward and how that becomes what's that that becomes the homework for the next meeting and things like that but I think that's how we kind of fleshed us out because we've set the North Star right we set these goals and we have some

205some action actionable strategies going on in in in in in the meantime but we really have to take a look at what are the core drivers for example if we're looking at reading uh reading growth right OneDrive of course is um is is that is that early Elementary um phonics decoding and things like that and we know for example a change idea from that is um the current foundation's work that we're doing but another driver would be um late Elementary and fluency and comprehension work and things like that so what are the change ideas supporting that driver for example so fleshing out um the drivers behind the goal and then the action items behind that some of that is the boardwork most of that is the work of the leadership team um in that I

206think we can identify some of the drivers with the help of leadership team and then with conjunction with the district leadership and or building leaders that's when we start really talking about and identifying so if these are the gaps in our drivers to achieve these goals what can be the change ideas and that's where we rely on the experts in the in the field so I would argue that's kind of the process the next step if the first step was this idea of a stretch goal um and the root causes of that which is what led to these stretch goals then the next step is identifying the drivers and the change ideas behind them that makes sense Joe I'm just going to go back a second and make a comment you can't teach everyone how

207to read back to the 100 point I have to tell you I I'm not going to vote with something with 100 reading goal and I just it's not realistic it's like saying a company is going to hit earnings every time for perpetuity or something I just I I think it's unrealistic and it's hard for me to vote for something that's unrealistic but I guess I'd love to hear from Karen and Karen since you guys didn't take a vote in the committee are you guys supporting this well I I we had I I will just jump ahead and say you know we discussed it's at our last meeting and we had gotten the updated version of it yesterday so we haven't had the opportunity to discuss a couple of the changes which is why Karen and

208I spoke this morning and sort of tried to recraft something I've been seeing since day one I I don't want to set our Educators up for failure if you set them up at 100 and we don't hit that you're going to have board members in a few years um asking us very specifically why you can't get why you can't get there I will say specifically with things like reading you will always you'll you will always have at least a few outliers you're going to have students who we haven't uh discovered that have uh learning differences um and to try to force the students that are moving at a different pace with different needs that we may not know about into that it makes makes me uncomfortable uh just to hit a goal and so that's

209why I said to me I'm good with 99 because there's always going to be that what 99 is still an incredible North Star but um you know I I would I would be hesitant in that regard so you know I know we have a couple of fundamental differences on on the idea of what goals lead to the vision of The Graduate um but but that that being said I mean to me the biggest piece of this that we're we need to get to is what's what we have built in behind uh to get us to those goals and I think we need to do that sooner rather than later and until the board approves the goals um it makes it a little more difficult but I will say that school strategic plans are addressing a

210lot of these goals already I don't think we need to to split hairs here I mean if the the consensus of the board is 99 over 100 I'm I don't think that's that's worth thinking the document parent did you want to did Karen Kowalski were you in favor of this plan I like most of this plan and I've said that from the very beginning I have a true hangout with one of the goals and I've said that earlier and that hasn't changed I just I think it I've said it before I'll say it again for the last time I think it's a great goal I think it's misplaced here and I have a hard time looking at this from a vision of The Graduate component in worrying about teacher climate in this document I think

211it's really important I think we need to focus on it teacher Clement is really low I also think teacher Clement is really low just because of the given of the politics over the last several years covid we have a lot of things against us with respect to teachers and so therefore for those purposes I was not going to vote Yes I had still sitting here whether it's an abstention or a no but that's where I'm at on that I have reservations and I need to think more deeply about whether or not the individual student metric is sufficient enough for purposes of our most vulnerable Learners in goals two and three so I have reservations about that I've been very vocal in our meetings about that so these comments are not coming out of left field

212for anyone who is sat in those meetings or for those that I've talked to about my concerns with respect to this document can I ask a question Karen with the suggested edits to goal six does that change your position just to understand it to be honest Christina I mean this is I saw this 20 seconds when I sat down so I haven't had a time to truly process it in the in the rest of the meetings so I can't answer that question so can I make a suggestion since it seems like you didn't take a vote in your committee and typically like you will policy they come to us and they say we're suggesting this or we're not and kind of gives the board a sense of what to do um that you meet again

213and that some of these revisions and then you tell us I mean if it's two one fine if it's one two fine then we'll bring it back to the board go ahead Karen so that's I'll leave it to Michael to to respond on that I don't want my particular Hang-Ups to distract if the rest of the board is ready to vote uh given maybe a specific change with respect to 100 to 99 I don't want to stall the board anymore because I have a particular hang up if the rest of the board is content with where we've gotten and on this document which I think a lot of hard work has gone into this document not just by those of us in the committee but specifically with Dr Jones's uh Administration and putting that together

214which should not go without saying so I'm going to make sure that I say that tonight that a lot of work has gone into this in getting here and I think that needs to be recognized so I don't want my personal hang up in in how I view that goal which again as I've said and I'll say it one more time great goal wrong place um because I don't want to slow down the process and I understand as Dr Jones has said before that the team and the schools are already working to achieve this so we're not slowing down in the sense that no work is being done but again I don't want to slow down this board so I think maybe a consensus needs to be taken or or a Viewpoint and I'll let

215Michael speak to that because I'm not going to change my mind on that tonight they um right I I suspect we we can certainly come back to the committee I suspect we're we're going to end up um having a little bit of rehash of the conversation we had it might be a good the um maybe what might be good because this is now that the third um time we've brought it to the to the to the full board I don't know if we can get a sense of the meeting or um if we need to just delay and and have um yeah go ahead you know I feel like this is the most substantial discussion we've had on it while it may be the third time we're hearing it no no because we're not doing

216it at 11 30 at night might have some impact on that so it's actually 10 there's no no I said it's not 11. I know it's an hour but I'm just saying like I feel like this is the most productive discussion I eat while technically a third look I feel like last month it was barely a look it was kind of like a non-look so I don't know if we can really say because it's been before us but like this is a robust thoughtful discussion so for what it's worth if if the committee thinks it can be streamlined and productive to go back to it otherwise if we say well we're but the problem a little bit I have is that we're talking about voting on something without in not in the form that we

217should be like the thing that's getting added back in on individual growth and we're talking about things getting you know we're wordsmithing in the middle of a meeting which I never like to do at all possible so I'd rather see a clean version of it for another meeting to me I think that's preferable but one person's View just one last comment Mike didn't you mention that this document is not written in stone it could evolve as time goes on with what decisions the plan um the goals and the metric aspect they're they're pretty Stony um but yeah the strategies to meet their uh evolve D Miss costan what if you think of a new goal are you allowed to add new goals maybe in in year six from the next version of this specific plan

218the um too many when there's too many priorities not a thing becomes a priority so I I'd worry about that yeah and I'll just start by saying that while this is six I think originally we started off of like 10 and then we said that that is just it's unrealistic and unfocused and it needed to be more for lack of a better word strategic so with the with the permission of the chair then um maybe we'll we'll um we'll we'll we'll take we'll take we'll take the um I will withdraw my motion um and um um we'll make sure that there's a clean copy for for next month and maybe and should you plan to make the committee will will uh go back one more time here yeah and I would suggest that the I

219think you heard loud and clear that 100 does not seem to be going to win the day so so I'm just going to make one more plea um because uh Michael will set a date that works for us to be able to sit down and make this discussion so we can get it back on the next agenda um we uh well whatever uh whatever the next agenda that we can put this on um the only member of the committee I know I particularly heard with feedback on this was from Christina so um please for the rest of the members of our board if you have feedback to share with us we really do want your input because this is this is something that is the one of the biggest drivers of what we do here

220is a as a board um and our art as a school district so please please please share your thoughts and opinions uh with us prior to to us putting this in front of you guys again I I am committed to sending you something with my these are the numbers oh my God I'm so sorry okay please go his son is sick no no no right exactly I do not like that you're not supporting my Association plan goodbye on on that point on your comments and numbers to the extent that it it takes too much effort to put everything into an email I'm open to a phone call to walk through it and and I'm happy to get on a call and I can arrange for you know perhaps getting one or more of us sometimes

221it's easier just to walk through and have a conversation about something as opposed to trying to craft this email that goes and whether or not you know how long it takes us to see and then ends up rendering more questions than originally posed so I am committed to make myself available to the convenience of the board members that do have comments and want to walk through because I do think it's important I actually think that this is probably the most important thing we will do this year is to finalize this and I'm happy to meet or discuss with anybody over here glasses Joseph I'm very sorry mostly just coffee but you know I think we all are all right yep no problem understood okay um yes oh Laura Acosta that is so good [Laughter] um

222she is funny okay um moving to agenda planning which now has a lot of importance um so the next meeting is the little thing called the budget meeting um and we need a focus because I think we did a really good job focusing on Capital and we need to focus truly at that meeting on our very big important operating budget and also you're bringing the American Rescue plan as well which is the reminder also that we should have all of our questions into Dr Jones regarding the budget by Friday right Friday Friday yes I'm guilty of not doing that yet so and I will say that I did have a very conversation with blaze regarding my first set of questions which he was very um got me some really good answers so what I plan

223to do is I will get all of my questions in and then that I will also include the questions that I already asked plus the answers um based upon the questions that I had asked because I thought that was really informative in writing my further analysis of the budget and to that point we did the ELC in the document we had a bunch of questions at the budget committee meeting so Dr Jones put them into the document and the answers that we discussed will be in the document um okay so that's great so for December 15th I'm going to add strategic plan I'm also going to add officer vote that would be within the 30 days okay I could I I don't all right I'll think about that um we're going to add the Strategic

224plan and I have to figure out when to add the officer vote well you might consider for Budget now maybe let me think about it okay um now that I remain chair um um one of the things first of all let me just close with one other thing before we before Laura Costa makes our very important motion um is there anything else on the agenda plan Miss Downey um the one point that did we want to add or I guess it's kind of encompassed on our February 2nd Retreat about special ed about a more con I guess a more comprehensive we were talking about all the update on the PCG that we talked about with Dr H right I mean it's on there but we can make that well it's not about settlements yeah I

225guess well but she has update on special education action plans and maybe and so maybe we can pull the special the Strategic well I guess the question is we can take strategic plan out of there at some point if we decide we've gotten some progress fair enough okay we can figure that out at the next meeting okay um all right the one thing I'd like to say since this was an interesting meeting from the from the top is um I think we're so lucky to have two awesome people put themselves forward and um I had a little thing written for Joe as well I just I I it goes back to my original point that it's about there's a lot of great leaders on this board and there's a lot of great talent and I

226think we're in a awesome position to have such such a thing so thank you everybody and can I get a motion Miss costume and I got a second Miss Hirsch all in favor of adjourning that passes 7-0 with Michael Joseph having to go home thank you so much for everyone listening good night