1-24-22 Groton Board of Education Meeting

001We do have a quorum. As you can see, I am here tonight. Kim was not able to make it. So, I think pledge of allegiance is the first thing on our agenda. Um, Matthew, can you start that for us? >> Honored. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag. of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, >> indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Amen. >> Thank you. Okay. Do we have any visitors or delegations? No. Okay. This is the portion of the agenda where agenda items and other subjects of concern that lie within the jurisdiction of the board of education can be discussed. This is the portion of the agenda where the board welcomes comments from citizens. Each presentation should be limited to five

002minutes or less and citizens should if possible submit written comment. Pres presentation should be related to matters pertinent to Graten. Board members will only ask questions in order to clarify the speaker's presentation and cannot respond during the comments of citizens portion of the board meeting. Citizens should make their presentation and state their names and addresses for the record. Is there anyone signed up? Would anyone >> through me not through me, Cat? >> Okay. >> Not through me. And I don't see anyone in chat that wants to speak. All right. Is there um do we have a student rep here tonight? Isaiah. Yes, I see Isaiah. What have you got to tell us tonight? Isaiah, >> I only have two things to talk about. The first is last Friday our student advisory athletic committee had a

003CIA seminar or webinar with Mr. Romano and I'd say it was pretty successful. I think for me personally, one of the biggest takeaways I had was to focus on goal setting as a student athlete. And the other thing I'd like to report on is our girls basketball team, which last week clenched a spot in the state playoffs. >> That is >> When was the last time that happened? >> I'm pretty sure it's been a while. Yeah. So, congratulations to the Lady Falcons. Who? That's pretty awesome. >> Where's the first game going to be played, Isaiah? Where's the first playoff game going to be played? >> Um, they're not sure yet because it's so early in the season, but they just don't have a spot in playoffs right now. >> Keep us in the loop. >>

004Of course. >> Give them our congratulations, please. I will. >> Thank you, Isaiah. And I'm gonna pass it off. >> Can I Can I ask Isaiah one question? How do you feel about not having midterms and being able to have um other assessments within the context, but also to have a little more instructional time? What are your thoughts on that as a student leader? >> I think I speak for the majority of the student body when I say that it definitely takes a lot of stress, anxiety off of our shoulders. >> Good. Good. I think that was the main goal and to give you guys some more instructional time and our teachers have some jobs to do around how they can make assessment even more valuable for you kids and for them. So, I'm glad

005about that. >> All right, Susan, I'll hand it over to you for the superintendent report. >> All right, so as you know, we've had a couple really good news um information that's come out in the press. Um just last Friday we heard that um President Biden signed the bill that Congressman Courtney put out there bipartisan second year in a row which keeps our numbers intact for impact aid. That was really essential. that came from some of our um people like Jen DeBell in the business office when she was really struggling to get those forms signed on during COVID and I think also in Ledger they were experiencing the same thing. So this allows us to use the numbers that we had prior to COVID and um those numbers have been healthy numbers. We can we

006see that in the future they'll continue to be healthy especially with Colombia class being built at EB and you know being um docked at um the Navy subbase. So um we really look forward to that and um using Balffor Baby as the lead residence for our Navy families coming through those also that will also add to our impact aid. So, as I said to John Bert when we met today, we've always um put out in our budget that about three million, 3.3 million comes into the town for education, but it's actually been over four million um each year and that extra million goes into the town coffers. So, we really want to say that a real big chunk of what the town has as revenue comes in from impact aid and we want to recognize

007that. So, we are recognizing it in our budget and um having Congressman Courtney and Secretary Cardona at our Thes River magnet, which is the Blue Ribbon Magnet, was just so exciting and to travel with them to um Rosotech where we have a partnership um and we're going to be developing partnerships in all kinds of ways, but for our students at Fitch to be able to take um credit in the trades in addition to their work at Fitch, but it also so can be part of their total coursework um for graduation. Very excited about those two pieces of information. In addition, you see that um I kind of wanted to look back at our calendar for this year because our 180th day is the 17th of June. Would love that to be a graduation date. It's

008kind of been historically the past few years about what we've had as a um date, but we're going to have to wait and see how the weather prevails because as far as I can see right now, the state of Connecticut isn't giving um any leeway the way they had last year. So, we'll have to see how snow dales snow days prevail and then set an agenda for a graduation date. The law reads a little differently than it's read before. So it doesn't give us the liberty to just make a date and stick to it. So we really have to make sure we have those 180 days. If any board members have any questions, they can certainly call me to chat about this. And then next year, I think the story is pretty clear. We want

009to stick with the learn regional calendar. We really want to kind of coincide with that for professional development reasons for our children here in our district whose parents might be teaching in other districts and and vice versa for our teachers who have children in other districts. We really the the whole purpose and premise of a regional calendar was to be able to network and provide professional learning across the southeastern Connecticut region to start school, end school kind of around the same time. and um because of our building projects, we haven't really been able to do that as well. And so this year, it's my hope for FY23 we'll be able to do that. We'll be voting on that. So that's it for me. Moving on to um the assistant superintendent. >> Good evening everyone. How's

010everybody doing? Um on behalf of the uh superintendent, uh Rebecca Beas and I are going to walk you through uh this presentation concerning our Facebook page creation and um and management plan. Um since this summer, we've been discussing extending our communication to our families via social media. Um throughout the pandemic, communication has been so key, so important. Uh we feared as we returned to school that there might be some email and phone message uh fatigue and many families would simply start ignoring important messages due to the sheer number uh that we had to uh make. Exploring social media is another way uh not only to get not only to communicate but um to engage with our families. Um we've heard the board of ed's concern about it um and believe that we have an approach

011that will work well and still allow for engagement which ultim ultimately um means a successful strategy and a successful uh again as you can see on this slide here uh the benefits of using Facebook uh range from sharing information uh engaging with the community through comments, replies and messages um to studying the Facebook analytics to figure out even more ways to improve our page and our communication. Uh tonight we simply want to go through how we would set up the page, uh the different roles and responsibilities of creating and maintaining the page and also how to measure its effectiveness. Um so we do look forward to our discussion and we'll we'll save our questions uh until the end and hopefully have a nice discussion about it. Um, at this point I'm going to pass it

012off to uh Rebecca to uh begin the presentation on the settings and roles and responsibilities. Thanks Rebecca. Sure. >> Good evening everybody. U for those of you who I have not been able to meet yet or say hello to in person, I'm uh Rebecca Bea. I've uh been with the district for a number of years. Um and I am also a community member and a parent here in the district. So um as Dr. Piaza said going into settings, roles and responsibilities, which I know is one of the questions that came up when we met in um November. Taking a just a quick step back, I know there's several of you who are quite active um on Facebook and social media and there may also be some of you who aren't. So, uh we wanted to

013just clarify when we're talking about Facebook, there's personal pages. So there's, you know, Rebecca's personal page or Cat's personal page on Facebook, um, which is really referred to as a profile, and that's where you, you know, share all your personal information. And then there's pages. And pages are really those locations on Facebook that are uh for businesses, organizations, brands, nonprofits, um, or maybe public figures, things like that. So, just in terms of keeping our language, you know, when we're referring to a page, we're really referring to that um organizational um identity on on social media. We um there are a tremendous amount of settings um when you go in to create a Facebook um page. Um there are a tremendous amount of settings and control that you have over the page. Um, initially your page

014is unpublished as you create the page and then once you do publish it, it becomes public. But again, you have uh dozens of settings that you can adjust um to control who sees your page, who accesses your page, and what they can do on your page. Um, and and that goes very deep. So, um, you can also control whether visitors can post or comment on a page. And again, I just want to clarify that when we're talking about a post on a page, a post is the initial um conversation starter. It's the initial topic starter on the page. And then a comment is always in response to a post. Um, so I just want to be um clear when we're talking about what people can do on a page, the difference between um the post

015being that very initial conversation topic starter um on a page and then the comments which can only fall below that. So we did talk about roles internally and who would be um the leads on the page um in terms of having that administrative control over the page having access to all of those settings um moderating content on the page and also being able to post. So we the primary really would be um Dr. Piaza um and myself. And then we also talked about Clint Kennedy, our tech director or one of our IT systems administrators also having access to the page um more from a functional standpoint if we ever had a third person who we really needed to go in and adjust something or manipulate something or we had an issue. Um and then we

016would identify some additional staff um perhaps some of our executive secretaries who would also assist in moderating the page and other um tasks such as posting a post um as might be needed. And then we go into um page engagement which goes back to the comments um and the interactions on the page. So folks who like your page um are called a follower. And there are essentially three different options folks have to interact with your page. They can like or react. And when they can react, they can use one of these emojis pictured here. So happy, caring, laughing, shocked, crying, or mad. Um they can comment or they can share. So you can choose or limit who can comment on a page. I know this came up a lot in our last conversation. You can

017do that on a postby post basis. You cannot turn off commenting as a universal page setting on Facebook. It's something you go in and you um you do and disable again on a postby post basis. You can um you can disable sharing. Um, so for example, if I didn't want to allow somebody to share it to their personal profile, um, you cannot decide disable the likes or those emoji reactions. And then, um, so again, commenting really came up quite a bit in our last conversation and we've really taken a very deep dive into this, um, and talked about it at length. Um, so engagement is very important to having a successful social media presence and a successful f Facebook page and a successful social media strategy. Um, social media just very organically is intended for

018networking and engagement. That's that's the foundation of what it was what it is. And Facebook in particular really favors usertoer content, which means they're favoring pages and profiles that have a lot of interaction between the users, the followers, the folks. So, as I said, a really successful strategy ultimately is going to come down to how well you interact with your followers and how well you allow those likes and shares and comments. Essentially, you may have heard in the past about Facebook algorithms. Once Facebook sees that your page is seeing a lot of interaction, it increases how much it's going to show your page to followers or other folks who might find your content relevant. The more prominent your page positioning will be among your followers. And this little box is really a great sort of

019real world example of that. It likens it to when you go out to dinner and you're making a decision about where you might want to go. Um, and for example, if you've gone to a restaurant that you like a lot and you've always had good experiences, you might be more inclined to go there versus try something new. And that's kind of the way Facebook works. If it sees that you're liking and doing something a lot, it's going to keep showing you that versus um showing you something new that it's not so sure you are going to like. And I think Phil's going to pick it up here. >> Yep. So then we get back to the question to comment or not to comment. That was our um >> that was our question. So, um, you

020know, we initially talked about just pushing out information and and and, um, disabling the comments. Um, and then we also figured that that would really defeat the whole purpose of what we want this to do. Um, I mentioned it before, we want to build trust with the community. We want to build transparency, but this, you know, we also want to establish a dialogue with our school community. Uh, we want to inform them. We want to create awareness of the things that are going on in our schools and in the district. Um, we want to take the opportunity to dispel myths or misconceptions. If we see people making comments or they're confused or they're being misled in any way, we'd be able to clarify things. And we really and we'd be able to direct the community

021to to different information, correct information and resources. We put together a couple of examples of districts um and how they've responded to give you an example of how to how to, you know, avoid um mistakes and and um really use this in a positive way. This is an example from Madison public schools as you could see uh they posted they use it to pose uh positions which of course we would um you know you know especially during these times we're looking for substitutes and and different workers throughout the district. Um you see the comment that was made um on the screen by someone who is interested. Um the comment was is being vaccinated a condition of employment or do you just have to wear a mask? Um this provides um this example provides uh uh

022information on who to contact uh for answers without engaging in an online conversation without you know especially with a topic like being vaccinated or wearing a mask. You don't want to get into a back and forth. It simply provides information um to please contact the HR department with specific questions. Um and again this would be done by one of the three admins, myself, um Rebecca or uh Clint Kennedy, whoever we designate as those um admins. Um another example on the next slide shows um how uh responding could um be looked at as an opportunity. This shows this is from Norwich Free Academy and it shows how uh the school um problem solved based on the comments of community members. In this particular case, you don't have to read the article there. It's basically parents were

023critical on social media um around a school safety issue when they had a lockdown at the school and they had a problem with they were very critical of how the school communicated what happened um and that and somebody saw that on social media platform and the district saw the comments um and created a time and a place for a community forum to happen for open and constructive dialogue. uh parents in the district were able to come to favorable conclusions on how communication can be improved and you can see from the quote on the page, you know, that parents really appreciated them responding to their concerns about um how things were communicated. So, Facebook would, you know, would definitely provide an opportunity for our own continued improvement. So, even even when comments might be negative, they

024can turn into long-term positives. So I did um mention earlier those controls and setting and we can turn off commenting on posts as we would deem appropriate. And some examples of that might be um this says busy delays. It should be bus delays. Um which might be because of busy roads. Um so um bus delays or other weather related closures where we're really not going to be having somebody monitor and respond to those sorts of things. So um we can direct people in other ways of where they can go for additional information. So, um just some straight push notifications off the bat would definitely be some topics where we would want to um just turn off commenting simply because we're not going to monitor or respond to um some of those types of things. Again,

025going back to those settings and controls, um we can delete comments if there are comments that um violate page rules. and page rules would be um shared and positioned very upfront and prominently on the page when people decide to follow our page. So, some acceptable um reasons to delete a comment that don't violate any sort of First Amendment um issues would be comments that are off topic from the original post or considered spam. um comments that violate privacy or include any sort of identifiable information. Um comments that again are maybe sales or spam oriented or personally benefit the person who's making the comment. Um political comments. Um anything that's um offensive or profane. Um, but we also have profanity filters in place and we can um include very specific words to help ensure that that

026doesn't even happen. Um, anything that became aggressive or bullying um or anything that violates our policies. Now, we've looked at a lot of um a lot of other school Facebook pages and I can tell you we haven't seen um any of this um being an issue on those pages. Um, but want to make you aware again of all of the control that we do have um to avoid these sorts of things. And then if you did have somebody who is repeatedly spamming your page, and spam can be um, you know, they're they're using it as an opportunity to sell a product or direct people to another um, page or shop or something like that, you can block that person. And Facebook actually recommends that if it became a problem with somebody um who is repeatedly

027violating your your page rules and your policies. And if you block somebody, they no longer have any access to your page and they can't even find your page any longer on Facebook. It would not appear um in their search. So then we go into um planning, creating and curating content. Um we basically have two buckets of content we would um have. One would be sort of planned content throughout the month that we would um look to sort of create um in advance and then others would be sort of timely trending or breaking news content that I sort of always refer to as pop-up content. Um, our schools would not have direct access to posting content on the page because that could start to create a very busy cluttered page, but we would make sure that

028we give our schools um equal balanced um time on the page to showcase what's happening in uh in their communities as well. A a good strategy is to post about one or two times a day to test out different times a day, scheduling the content to see um when folks maybe are most responsive to your comment. Um you sort of balance out your content calendar with some different uh different topics of um sort of some educational and fun content. Um some shared or curated content. It's actually a great strategy to be sharing things from other pages and resources such as um you know maybe Graten Parks and Wreck or Graten Social Services and um you have a nice um supportive relationship there. And then visual content really is king. Photos and videos um or even

029down the road maybe some Facebook live content. Um, Facebook again those algorithms definitely prioritizes content um that's very visual in nature because that's just how u people are used to receiving a lot of information now primarily because of social media and how they best respond and consume it. >> This next >> Oh, sorry. >> That's okay. Sorry. Um, this next slide just really expands on what uh Rebecca was talking about with our content. You could see the many different ways we can use it. Uh to the right hand side you see the um post about teaching and learning that we can highlight uh from our schools. Um achievement and recognition and that could be academic, that could be athletic as well. Um the calendar reminders, uh board of ed, district updates, all different sorts of

030buckets of information that we can get out to the public and again increase our transparency and increase hopefully our engagement um not only with our page but with what's going on in our uh school community. um our publishing guidelines, you know, again, um everything would follow the appropriate use of technology. District policy, we pulled bits of it out in um for you to look at in terms of u you know, parent permission regarding the posting of student images. Um that would be checked, you know, before anything was posted. Um we wouldn't include, you know, most of this involves identifying children by name, which we wouldn't do. Um, if we were publishing student work, we wouldn't use their their um full names, only first names. Um, pictures that are part of student publishing will not include

031any kind of identifying information. We'll take all sorts of precautions um, you know, to protect our kids. Um, and in special circumstances with parent signed release, identifying information could be added. Uh, the next slide shows you what we use uh, currently for our video and photography release. This would now include um uh social media um as well. Um and basically it works as an opt out. If uh this would be provided to parents and if they did not want their child um to be part of uh any photos or anything that's posted, they would simply check the box and and it would go on record. And this is these are the records that we would check before posting any uh any pictures of any children. >> And I know that our principles are very much

032aware of this. and Mark Russell when he goes into a school and he does his picture taking he checks with both classroom teacher and principal even when we did the holiday um you know hello um we we went through those pictures and we really tried to capture pictures where you got the essence but you didn't just zoom in on one child so we tried to get the group shots and you know sometimes not full facials so Mark is very much aware of that when he does his photography and his video. >> Then the last and really important part of of social media is um is metrics and different insights and analytics against your your strategy and your engagement. You know, again, engagement is is everything that you can do as a user on a page's

033um post and that includes those reactions, links, clicks, shares, and comments. And a lot of that you can track on the back end, right, within um Facebook on the admin side. Um and why that's important is it's it really tells you how your page is doing. It tells you how if your content is connecting and resonating with your audience. um and can help inform what you do in the future on your page. Um a lot of it is very numbersbased, but I've always found um when I'm looking at social metrics and engagement that there's also a very human side to it. And beyond looking at the numbers, um, there's usually a story there in terms of what what topics are really connecting with people and, you know, you dive into the numbers a bit more

034to really figure that out and see what people are most tuned into and what they like the most. Um, and then that can just help you continue to build your page and make it successful. Um, and is really a a very important step to do. typically on, you know, a monthly basis and maybe take an even deeper dive on a quarterly basis to look at your your page and make shifts and adjustments as you might need. So, we really, you know, we we um that's our presentation and I want to just say, you know, if you if you are social media savvy, um we appreciate your patience, but we really just wanted everyone here to understand um you know, the very basics of what Facebook is and and really from a behind-the-scenes standpoint, how we

035would run the page and how we would make sure we protect um our students um and the district and um also use it in a positive way. And then how and again how we would you know Rebecca covered on that very last slide how we would use the information to really improve ourselves over the long haul. So um we will definitely feel free to open up to questions um and we'll try to answer them as best we can. Thank you. Thanks Rebecca. >> All right. I don't see any questions. Thank you. Well done. Well done. It was a lot of homework and research. Thank you. >> And I'm sure if anyone does think of something, they >> can send it to Susan and she can pass it on to whoever she >> absolutely happy to.

036>> Okay. Um is Sam around? >> Sam is in the audience. I see >> your turn. and Sam, we have um director of building and grounds report and specifically around facilities. I see the solar panel, but we'll also be um talking about um inheriting our new buildings officially and then updating on any transportation. >> Right. So, uh, the first item are the solar panels that, um, we're thinking about doing, the projects that we're considering doing at the, uh, two new schools, the Graten Middle School and the Mystic River School. Um, the Thes River uh, magnet school is in the Grten Utilities, uh, district, and that, uh, is a little more complicated. And so our next step is actually to go to the uh finance and facilities committee present it there and then we'll move forward

037to the full board after that. So I see Rick Norris uh is also here and I don't know if he wants to add anything to that uh short comment regarding solar panels. >> Uh Oops. >> Hi Rick. >> Folks. Yeah Sam. Just just a quick one. You know what uh the goal here is to get to a point where the board of ed is is comfortable with signing a power purchase agreement. You know, our previous discussions were u that you didn't really want to own the panels. Well, the first couple schools were working with the green bank who has set out their RFP. They're get they've got uh biders in. and they're getting ready to do some design work, but you also the board has to be happy with the power costs. So, that's that's

038really the goal of going to that uh facilities and finance meeting to start with and then see where we're directed from there. So, um there has been a draft put together. There have been some costs put together. Sam has all that information. So, um, we'll be discussing it a little bit further before we get to that meeting and, uh, I've given the contact for the Green Bank folks and, uh, he can be talking with them separately if he so desires. So, um, I'm I'm pretty happy that we're able to start moving forward with that with it was a year delay because of the this what they call a Z-Wreer auction, which is a zero renewable energy credit auction that is handled by Eversource. So, we changed the projects a little bit and they were able

039to approve them the second time around. So, uh, I'm really looking forward to getting something done there for you folks. So Sam, is that something you'll talk to Jay about? Maybe even getting in the beginning of February? >> Yeah, I I spoke to Joyce about it today and uh we're going to get on that agenda in February. >> Can't remember whether it's the 7th or the 15th or something like that. >> Okay. And uh the second item is transportation. Uh and uh I'm sure that everybody knows that STA has continued to work hard to meet our needs here in Grten. They they've uh since our last uh report, they borrow drivers from other towns uh and uh and uh have really made great strides uh regarding uh covering our our our routes. Uh haven't been

040very many double-ups in the in the last few weeks that that I've seen. So, >> knocking on wood. >> Yeah, I would too. So, um so that that's a good that's good news. And the other piece of good news is that um Tony MGO who is the uh is the manager of uh STA has uh ordered uh new cameras. These are uh new cameras. They they give us a a better picture uh more defined uh pictures uh and better sound than the old cameras that we had. We we were having some troubles uh actually doing some uh contact tracing or uh seeing some events that may have taken place on the buses. So Tony has uh ordered cameras for all the buses. They're scheduled to uh ship out on January 27th and they're committed to

041getting those in the buses as soon as they arrive. They'll start putting those in uh and so that we'll be up and running uh hopefully uh the beginning of February with new cameras. And that would be my report for tonight. Uh unless there are any questions that anybody has. Thank you, Sam. >> I'm sorry. >> I just said thank you, Sam. >> Yes. Thank you, Sam. Um, I don't see any questions, so we will be moving on to committee reports, but I would just like to remind everyone it is 6:35 and the budget um workshop is scheduled or was posted to begin at 6:45. Um, Mrs. Arrian, is there a um report from policy? >> We're meeting on the 7th of February. >> Thank you. Um, Mrs. Arman again. Oh, no. I'm sorry, Liz. >>

042Oh, no. >> No, not Mrs. Arian. Me. And um, yes, I have to apologize. I I went so swamped. I kind of forgot this part. I do want to u Dr. Piaza was there with us with Mrs. Zack as well as yourself. And um I I dropped the ball here. So if any of you want and I own it because >> Phil looks ready to go. Liz, no problem. >> Liz, we discussed we discussed the American Sign Language updates to the curriculum. >> Oh, that's right. >> That was the bulk of our um our discussion. um just getting them up to standards um to the modern standards and and um including those um for um act fell which is the association of uh Connecticut um foreign languages. So uh that's that that was the bulk

043of the meeting. We heard it. It was outlined by the teacher who wrote it um and uh it was sort of it was forwarded to the board for uh approval. >> Right. Thank you, Phil. It's so nice to have you having you have my back. >> Liz, if you want to um make a more complete um report or minutes, you could probably say I'm not next time we have a regular meeting. >> That's fine. And um we'll because Dr. Piaza had took the minutes that night. I think what I'm going to have to do is take my own as well so I am ready for this. >> All right. Finance and facilities, Mr. Chairman Whiteloff. >> Uh, yes. So, finance and facilities did not meet in January since we've been doing the budget workshops. However,

044um, we are scheduled to meet, I believe, on February 7th. >> Thank you. Um, Rita, do you have anything from negotiations? >> No negotiations at this time. And I can um report on learn um the CFO Mike Beldin um presented the fiscal state of the agency and also um the executive director Kate Ericson did an onboarding presentation for all new board members that were elected um in November. And that's about it. So we'll just move on. >> Oh, I'll be presenting in February. So I look forward to February. Well, I find I find that out um Friday we have our executive committee meeting. >> I'll be there with you, Rita. >> Yeah, that's great. Thank you. >> Okay. Town Council RTM BOE did not meet. Did um AGSA GAO meet? >> We were supposed to

045meet this week, but we have few people that can't attend that should attend. So, we're going to postpone it till we can get everybody there. >> You know, this has been we haven't met all year. I think whether there are people that could be there or not, we need to do this. So that's just my two cents. So I think it's extremely important that we find a time since we have not >> Joyce is on it. She's going to work on it, but she did want to make sure that the um board chair and the DA chair were able to be there. So >> yes, that's great. Thank you. >> Okay. Liz has grown scholarship has not met you're muted. >> Sorry about that. No, I haven't. Um I was wondering if I do I

046contact them or do they contact me? >> We'll get that information to you. I'll check with the um past liaison. >> All okay. Thank you. >> Yeah, that was Lee. >> Yeah, it was Lee. >> Okay. find out too. >> Thank you. >> Jay, has Athletic Fields met? >> Uh, no. They haven't met in a few months. Uh, just waiting for some decisions to be made about blood. >> Okay. Thank you. And Mrs. Arian, you have not had a meeting with the military families. >> It'll be in April. >> Okay. Cabe, there I have nothing to report for that. Dean, do you know when the next meeting of the long-term recovery committee is? >> Do I know? I do not. >> Okay. I can figure >> I don't think it's been set or I I

047know that they reached out um John Bird had reached out to me. He hasn't figured out a a date and time yet. >> Okay. So when you know that, you'll let Dean know. >> Yeah, I can let you know. >> Thank you. Okay, Jay, would you like to make a motion to just to um accept the consent consent agenda? >> Uh yes. I uh move that we accept the consent agenda. Um and thank you to the Knights of Columbus for the $500 donated to the Transition Academy. >> Thank you. Those in favor? >> Pat. Cat. >> Yes. >> Uh there are a couple of corrections in the minutes. >> Okay. If you could pass. >> Given given the uh the time frame, would that be okay to share them with you afterwards so we don't

048>> Yes. Yes. >> Okay. >> We need a second for that motion. >> Yes. Will anyone second it? >> Thank you. Um >> can we vote on the motion without the corrections? Are they are they >> I don't think they're substantive in nature. They're mainly housekeeping. >> Liz Liz. >> Uh yeah. I just wanted to um before we vote on the acceptance of all of this. >> Yes. >> I would like I would like to direct everybody to the January 18th, 2022 7 p.m. remote meeting minutes. >> Yes. >> And please correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't believe we voted. At the very end it says motion to adjourn was Washington and Acriman. And then I think we just all went off. But I do not believe that we had a vote that

049it was it um to have the motion pass and therefore I think this is it is incorrect. >> Okay. What we'll do with that is um we will ask Joan to check on that um and then if it h if it is Oh gosh. Okay. We'll have Joan check on that if there right now. I think we'll leave that out and then just include it in the next consent agenda. Is that acceptable, Joan? >> Yes. Okay. >> Okay. >> Um, so we have not completed the motion. Everyone say I to accept the consent agenda, please. >> I I >> I >> opposed. Abstain. >> I abain. >> I abstain. >> Be abstain. Great as well. >> Matthew as well. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Mrs. Arman, could you please read the next motion? >> No. >>

050Okay. Um, >> I never read out loud. >> Okay. Dean, could you please make the next U motion? >> All right. Move to approve the 2022 2023 school calendar. >> Those in favor of the MO or I need a second, please. Matthew seconds. Um those is there any discussion? >> No. >> Susan, I'm still waiting to get the AP test scores that I uh I think in December when we talked about the school calendar and um somebody wanted um um school to start earlier because of the AP and IB program and I asked about getting the test scores. Well, I would say that the past couple years with COVID, you're going to see probably a a trend of a dip because of COVID 19. We certainly can present to you, but I don't think at

051this time that's going to make a bit of difference because we actually want our children to have the most instruction for all the different assessments, whether they're in third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, 12th grade. >> Okay. So Susan, what I'll do is I will um put that on my Susan list. >> We can put that as a future topic to review those things. >> Okay, great. >> There's also SAT and PSAT, >> but I'd like to gather the information from this year to help inform us for the future. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. Any >> Yes. >> I've got a question. If we adopt this calendar now, are we allowed to modify it later? >> It can always be brought back to the table. >> Okay. >> I think we did that a

052couple times with the last calendar, as a matter of fact. >> Just want to make sure it's not one of these ironclad things. Okay. >> no. The only thing ironclad is that it's 180 days. >> Thank you. >> That's it. >> And then I see Jay's hand up. Katrina, >> sorry. I I just want to make a quick comment for those who may be watching at home that uh we did discuss this uh thoroughly at the last uh full board meeting and at uh a committee of the whole. So it's not as though we're just rubber stamping. Uh we have had two full discussions of this uh prior. >> Thank you. >> Okay. All in favor of cat, you froze. Okay, parliamentarians. What happens now if our chair has frozen? There she is. >> She's

053coming back. >> Turn off that. Sorry about that. Okay. All in favor of the acceptance of 2022 23 school calendar, please say I. I. I. >> I. Opposed abstaining. >> I'm abstaining. >> Rita's abstaining. Okay. Thank you, Rita. >> All right. New business. Um, Matthew, could you please make the motion one C1 to accept the school project? I move that we accept the Cutler School project known as Mystic River Maggie School as complete. So moved. >> Second. Liz of the school building committee or permanent school building committee. Mr. Lef France, Austin Lef France, would you like to say anything? >> Only if you guys have a question. Um, the one thing that I will say is we did receive letters from the director of public works last week indicating that uh they saw that the

054the two schools, both Cutler Project and Westside Project were substantially complete and they recommended that they be turned over to the board of ed. At our meeting last Thursday, uh my committee concurred with that assessment and so you now have the the two motions before you. I'm here just to say that uh very pleased with the uh the work that's been done on all three of the schools, including the middle school. It's the first time I've had a chance to talk with all of you. Uh we did something absolutely amazing in COVID by getting them done. uh much less besides the fact that they're all well under budget at this point. So >> that's right and we can't thank you enough. The work that you and the committee have done in our amazing schools is

055just a beautiful thing. It was called the Graten 2020 and we did it during co Thank you. >> It took a lot of people and >> it took a it took a team and a lot of volunteer work. >> Thank But uh you you guys get to see it a lot more than I do and uh hopefully it will be here for many years to come. I know I've heard some very good things about uh uh from the faculty up there. Um >> everybody likes to have something new, but uh things seem to be working well. And I'm just here in case you had any questions about the uh the remaining punch list or anything like that. Otherwise, um I'm just here to say thank you for letting us uh give you up two schools.

056>> Thank you. Mr. Norris, do you have anything to add? >> Mr. Nor, do you have anything to add? No. Mrs. Sacramento, >> I just want to say that in the beginning of this project, I attended many of the um permanent building committees meetings and I just want to to thank the the committee and to commend them for the hard work and thorough work that they did. >> Thank you. I'll be sure to bring that back to my committee members. >> Mr. Antas, do you have a question? >> Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um the acceptance, if we vote to accept, what does what effect does that have on our ability to uh continue to work on any uh um un unfinished work, any any punch punch items, punch list items, sorry. >> It'll have

057no impact whatsoever. >> Okay. >> The work will continue. >> Um work will continue. It will be overseen by Department of Public Works. Uh unless it's stuff that Sam is specifically dealing with. Um, this is more a case of making sure that we've taken it out of the hands of the Department of Public Works and the town and put it under your jurisdiction so that you can run it the way you see fit. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I see Rick Norris, too. And Rick, a thank you goes out to you. You have been by our side through this whole journey and communicating with Sam and the whole team. And >> as as as >> Yep. We are under budget on these things. Um, you know, in the total project since we never have an

058opportunity, this is my final meeting to work with you folks. So, I'll have to say say goodbye and thank you all for your support as we went through this project. The point of contact now instead of me will be the director of public works. So things that rush to his level or things that are tactical or project oriented, program oriented, contractor oriented will have to go to him. As Bob said, we are under budget. We are doing Cutler, I believe, first uh or Mystic River. We are under budget, you know, uh like two and a half two and a half million almost. Yeah. two and a over a little over two and a half million there and a little over three and a half million at the other two schools. Overall project totals we've come

059in uh including the four million that was to purchase property a uh whopping $15 million under budget on those schools. And as to to echo Bob's Lef Franc's comments walking through the schools, you know, I'm not sure that I heard any negative from any of the teachers. You know, they were all, I think, very appreciative. They have some wonderful spaces to work from >> and uh certainly your your support uh as the board of ed through Sam basically and I've talked to Susan on occasion or Mike Grineer prior to her was really appreciated as we move forward these projects. So again like Bob I've seen them seen them finished but it's up to you folks to enjoy them now and it looks like they've made them their home. So that's my two cents. Thank you.

060>> Thank you, Rick. >> Okay. Would any um so those in favor of >> still has his hand up. >> And I have a question too, Katrina. >> So, I just want to uh say thank you also to Rick Norris and prunable building committee that includes principal uh Jamie Giri who I know was on there. Uh and also to uh to of course Sam Kilpatrick uh who who now will be responsible for these buildings. Um I do have a question about um did did the replacement of the floor tiles uh work out. >> Yeah. Yes, the floor tiles have been completed. We looked at that. Sam has more details if you'd like them at a later date, but we looked at failures in some areas. Um, basically a decision was made that we couldn't trust

061what was there. So, we ended up replacing everything and to be open. Also, doing that, I think, was was tremendous to uh our contractors and the working staff they had there. Um, >> and replacing the ovens was pretty important, too. >> Oh, yeah. Well, we we had to go to the we had to go to the expert and go to Ernie and say, "What do you recommend for an oven?" We got a better oven for a cheaper price and it works. So, >> good. I've told the architect next time he's at, you know, we'll go somewhere. >> Check with Ernie. >> I And I also just wanted to to make sure that uh by taking these votes tonight, I just want to clarify that this will not prevent the town council from uh appropriating money

062for any other um >> Yeah. Yes. Again, Jay, it will not, but again, it has to be approved by the bonding attorney as structural either coming from the educational specs or that sort of thing, >> right? >> Um, >> understood. >> I I as a citizen will look at things a little bit differently, but I'll leave that for another day. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Beverly Washington has her hand raised. I don't know if you see that, Katrina. Thank you, Superintendent Austin. Um, I was just wondering what still needs to be done in the schools. >> I'm I'm sorry I didn't have the whole question. >> What still needs to be done in the schools? >> Um, the the punch list is a there's a minor punch list. There's about 30 30 some items at

063at uh Westside, maybe uh twice that many at Cutler. They're basically um some of them are really housekeeping items like touch-up paint uh checking checking some of the door uh closures, the weather stripping maybe on a few of the doors, those sorts of things. The other significant work that shows up on the letters if you will or the signs need to be completed at both schools and site work um in the spring if there's any trees that need to be replaced or grass. And we know grass at both schools in some areas need to be receded and maybe weeded or something. So it's it's those kind of things and it's basically things that you would do if you moved into a new house. You know, it's kind of those things that just need to be

064finished up and they are very minor in most cases except for those two major items. >> Vic, do you have an idea when that's going to be completed other than the ex outside work? >> Um No, we're working on a schedule. We're expecting in the next couple weeks that they'd have the majority of that done. >> I'd point out that none of it impacts the ability to create an educational space or to utilize any of the spaces that are there at the moment. >> Right. And and if I might add too that uh I met with Rick and and the building committee uh about a week ago uh have gone over the punch list and feel very comfortable in accepting these projects as complete. Uh the the punch list uh are are items that can

065be uh taken care of over the next few weeks uh without uh interfering with the school operations. Uh and if I could to also um express my gratitude to uh both uh Bob Austin Lef France and his committee and Rick Norris who have uh really uh gone above and beyond uh many times throughout this process these last couple years. They have really been terrific in supporting uh what uh the uh ed specs and and looking uh very carefully in supporting uh these buildings uh and the project uh in in keeping in mind uh what they're going to provide for the uh community, for the staff, and for the students. And uh I I am immensely uh appreciative of their work. Thank you once again. All right. Any other questions? >> Okay. Those in favor of

066accepting the Cutler school project, please say I. >> I. Great. Thank you. Um opposed. Thank you. Mrs. Porter, could you please make the motion to accept the Westside project? >> Absolutely. Motion to accept the Westside School project, now known as Thames River Magnet School, as complete. >> Thank you. I'll >> second that. Thank you. Those in favor? No. Sorry. Is there any discussion? >> Okay. Seeing no discussion. Those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Abstaining. Thank you. >> Congratulations, folks. >> You got yourself two new schools. >> Thank you. >> Three new schools in That's quite a feat. >> And soon soon solar panels. So >> and soon solar panels and I think the community will be be really thrilled with that. >> Okay. Thank thank you again for all your support

067during the project. So it was tremendous. >> Thank you Mr. Shman. >> I will leave you now to your meeting. >> Thank you. Bye Bob. >> Thank you. >> Mr. Mr. Gentleman, could you please make a motion um to approve the paraprofessional unions one year contract? Do we need to go into executive session for this? >> I don't know. >> I think Lori Leine is on here. Lori, >> can you speak up about this? I think that um >> yeah, I I believe if um my suggestion would be is if you the board would like to have discussion, I think it should go into executive session. If you're just looking to vote, then I think you can you could just do that in public session. >> Thanks. Does it have questions about this? >> Does

068anyone have questions about the um contract? Seeing none, I would like to make a or um could someone No, I'm lost. Susan, what do I do now? >> Was there a motion? >> I think someone needs to state the motion. >> Mr. Shelman, could you restate the motion? >> I'll be glad to make the motion. >> Thank you. I move that the board of education approve the PAR professional union's one-year contract extension for the period July 1st, 2022 to June 30th, 2023. So moved. >> Thank you. >> Those in favor Thank you, Mr. Those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Abstensions. I'm abstaining simply because I was not involved in any discussion. I'm glad we're doing it but I wasn't involved. >> I'm abstaining too because I was same as Matt.

069>> Okay. Matthew and Bev abstaining. >> Okay. Um it is now 7:02. I would like to just remind everyone again that our budget workshop was um posted to begin at 6:45. Okay. Mrs. Bulkman, would you please um make the motion to approve the field trip request? >> To approve the field trip request to the robotics regional competition in West Palm Beach, Florida scheduled from March 2nd, 2022 through March 6, 2022. So, >> and I believe that we have Principal Keller here to speak to this competition >> which we received this in our packets also. did receive it. So, if you have any questions, he's here to speak to it. >> Well, they're late. >> Well, they actually came in, I have to say, in December, but because of COVID and getting the information to the

070central office, it just took a little while. So, they were actually technically three months. So, >> so that that should have been, you know, that could have been noted the date that this was submitted >> because um because accordingly it's out of state is two months. Um, but I had a question is that I know PR the principal there that is three school days they will be missing three full days. >> Excuse me. I didn't get a second. >> Oh, we didn't get a second. >> No, we did. >> I'll second. I'll second. >> Okay. >> So, maybe Principal Keller could just like let us know if you know missing three full days of school. This is not during a vacation. What you think about that? Well, I think it's an important competition for them.

071Uh, and you know, I think that this is a, uh, I mean, this group works extremely hard. Um, uh, you know, often, uh, multiple days a week, uh, building the robots, testing the robots. Um, and this is their chance to really show off their work and, and it's something where, um, this group more than any, I think that there is a lot of academic skills that they learn within this program. Um so I think that um yes I I understand that there is there is a um a loss of instructional days uh but I I do believe that this is something that is very much beneficial to those students that are involved. Um and uh I think it's a great uh opportunity for them to uh not only showcase their program but showcase our school.

072So I I do uh uh did approve this trip uh and uh you know they unfortunately they can't control the dates of the competitions. say it's not something they um you know it's is it's uh but uh mo most of the other competitions that they are entering are during uh weekends and uh uh and actually once during a school holiday where they're going to miss almost their entire April break going to a competition. So they're they're very dedicated to this and and you know I think it's worth recognizing the hard work that they do put into this. And Principal Keller, you said it was a small group um of about five students that would be involved and they were going to be able to have their work um you know through um schooly so that

073they wouldn't have anything interrupted. >> Yeah, this uh particular uh event is about 12 to 15 students uh out of the 40 I think are completely uh all involved. Um and uh there's about the same amount of uh um uh uh mentors that it's almost a 1 to1 ratio. I don't think it's exactly 1 to1 ratio, but it's pretty close. And the um uh and yes, the kids would obviously they knowing when the trip is, they'll be able to prepare for that and and be ready to go and get any school work that they need. And then uh teachers are all posting it online anyway, so they'd be able to do it while they're at the competition um if they had the time to do that. then. So, uh, yes, they would have ample time

074to get the school work done. >> So, there are some benefits to this whole remote learning thing. >> Not many, but there's some. Yeah, >> there's some. >> Beverly has her hand up. >> I'm used to doing that, Beverly. >> Thank you, Liz. Um, >> no problem, Beth. I was wondering what what when you um doing competitions at a state, what's the criteria for choosing um a particular competition? >> Um that's an interesting question. I I I don't know exactly all the criteria, but generally it's uh they need to participate in a certain number of competitions in order to qualify for um uh the uh uh the the different like uh regional and national uh events. Um, one of the criteria is uh our robotics team is is very good. Um, they are very very

075good. Um, and they they want to compete against uh teams that are, you know, equal to them and and uh that can be tough to find. Um, they're, you know, so it's something where um they do look for competitions where they're they're getting a good uh uh level of competition. uh and uh you know and many of the competitions are very local but they they will travel um and uh and often do travel. So um but uh I I don't know all the the rules and regulations on how many competitions and and so on but uh I do know that they do pick uh um you know a certain uh level of competition so that they are competing against the people they feel is going to give them a good competition. I know that we've

076opened up our robotics team to both Graote Tech and to the marine science schools that don't have that kind of and it's so it's another partnership you know where our kids will be able to go to Graasso Tech to complete you know some trade credit is a way that we can kind of give back and I think the principal at Graasso Tech was thrilled to be able to have that. So, it really is and they do some wonderful community work where they provide camps for some of our younger students in the summertime. So, um I I really feel good that they they selected most of their competition is outside the school day. This is the only one that we found that was during the school week. And I know that they've been true about making

077sure kids are able to complete the work that they would have had in school and would get help if they needed it. >> Is there a cost to the school district for this trip? >> No, not at all because the robotics club itself provides the funding. So, it's not a cost to us at all. Okay. Thank you. >> Good question. >> Sounds like a great trip. Yeah. >> Um, Matthew, you have a question. >> Mr. Keller, I'm excited and I'm hoping that if it's appropriate, you'll send regular video and still feed to Rebecca Beas so we can share this glory. Win, lose, or draw. The kids are going to do a great job and let us support them and promote it. >> Yeah, absolutely. I'll reach out to the group and and make sure that

078they're sending us some some vis visuals and and results. Thanks. >> Um, Mr. Mr. Enipos, you have a question. >> Uh, yeah, it's more more of a comment. It's really to address the the the the issue of loss of instructional days. From what I understand of the program, if you look at the various tasks the kids are involved in, how they have to organize themselves and the work that they do, >> u you can make a very credible argument that the robotics club and the activities of the club are instructional in and of themselves. >> Um I I for for some kids, especially those kids, I I I almost can't even think of a better way to teach them. Uh so they're not missing anything at all. And no disrespect to sports teams going away.

079Uh but it's a it's a very very uh u very very wide field not just technical but they also have other things that they engage in uh that are non-technical that are activities in the club. So uh it it is learning >> well like like our music competitions and our band competitions I think they have their own um area of instruction that kids really need. So, um, you're right. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mrs. >> I just want to add to to that quickly, and that is having worked with students of of um who are interested in this sort of thing, I can tell you that they themselves push themselves to make sure that they get what they need to do for the classroom. And I can assure you having been in the classroom that

080all teachers will go the at that extra step to make sure that they're that they're accommodated. >> Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. >> Did you have a question? >> I didn't have a question. I had a comment. Um I have been a very strong supporter of robotics um team since its inception. But I did notice at the end of their about their travel details. I wanted to make a suggestion to them um they're talking about flying out of Harford Province, Boston, New York, so forth and so on to West Palm. There's a new airlines that flies directly from New Haven to West Palm. So I'd highly recommend them looking at it. It's AVO AO. It's we I flew on it um a week or so ago to Fort Lauderdale. Very inexpensive and it would be a great

081way for the kids to travel where it's convenient. You drive up, you park, you walk in and that's it. So I would just like to make that suggestion when they >> wrote it down. Ted, we'll talk. >> Yeah. When they want to book their flights, that's the way to go. It's very >> What a great idea. Thank you, Rita. >> You're welcome. >> Well, I was going to suggest the board since this one is in West Palm Beach. I'm happy to go with them if you need me to. >> They already have their chaperons. They listed them. >> Need it here. >> Well, good luck. Thank you. Do we have >> Do we need a motion on this? >> We have a motion. We need a vote. Sorry, I was muted. Um, all those in

082favor of of approving the field trip request by the robotics team to Palm Beach, Florida in March, please say I. >> Iain. Thank you. Mrs. Washington, could you please make the next motion number five, approving the Facebook page? >> I make a motion to approve creation of a GPS Facebook page. >> Thank you. Second. >> Who will second that? >> I'll second it. >> Liz seconds. Um, any discussion? Okay. All those in favor of approving the creation of the Facebook page, please say I. >> No. Anyone opposed? >> Opposed. >> I am. >> Any Rita and Andrea >> opposed? Anyone else? >> Abstaining. >> Matthew abstaining. >> Liz abstaining. Beverly abstaining. >> Okay. So, that does not pass. >> Well, if I'm if I might, a point of order. The you don't count the abstensions.

083The motion passes when the majority of those present and voting vote in favor of something. So >> if everybody, for example, if everybody abstain, if if everybody abstained except for three people and two voted yes and one voted against, the motion would pass. >> Thank you. >> So Dean, did this pass? >> I didn't keep I didn't keep tally. How many of us are there and who voted yes and who abstained? >> There are eight board members and forgive me, but you went so fast I didn't get all of you. >> Okay, >> start again. >> Who said yes? Please say I. I have Jay. I have Dean. >> I say I now. >> And I have Beverly. >> And what about yourself? >> Oh, I say yes. Sorry. >> Okay. >> Those opposed were

084>> me, >> Mrs. Arrio. And >> so then it it passes four to two. >> That passes. Thank you. Um >> clarification. It did pass. Yes, >> it did pass. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. I just couldn't hear. >> No worries. Okay. I'd like to remind everyone it is 7:15. Um, before we move on to information and proposals, I want to note that councelor Bordalon in the chat noted that the long-term recovery committee is scheduled to meet February 16th at 5:30 p.m. >> We'll add that. I'll have Joyce add that to our list. >> Thank you, Susan. >> Okay. um letters and communication. Jay, >> uh yes, I've received a couple of emails uh from parents concerning the um high school marching band budget and I explained that comes uh through the site budget. Um

085and I've referred that to the superintendent. Bev, >> do you have any communications? >> Yes, the same as Jay. And um I also had a communication with a member of the community that would like the board to consider naming one of the libraries in the two new elementary schools after Dr. James Mitchell. >> Um Dr. Mitchell um his whole career has been in Graten public schools and um he was a I think he was the director of pupil personnel. He was the deputy superintendent, assistant superintendent and then he became a superintendent. He was um the president as Andrea knows of the Martin Luther King um foundation scholarship and uh he's on the board of directors at L&M hospital but that's all his outside stuff but he his whole career was in Grton public schools and

086they would like to see one of the um libraries in the two one of the elementary schools named after him. They like the board to consider doing that. >> Thank you Beverly. Also on February the 1st um is starting Black History Month and the town is having a Black History Month flag raising at Town Hall. It's going to start at 3:30 and they will have a short program and everyone is invited to that event on February the 1st. Town Hall 3:30 um an event commemorating Black History Month. We actually have students who will be attending from both the Black Student Union and More Than Words Committee. So, and we'll be providing a bus to get the kids there and get home. So, we're very excited about that. >> Thank you for mentioning that, Matthew, do

087you have any communications? >> No. Thank you. >> Okay. Mrs. Acriman, do you have any? >> Uh, I I do have a communication. And I've gotten two um emails from an individual and um I'm not sure how to refer to this because it I don't think it's it's within my juris jurisdiction to do this what the request is. So I'm not even sure who to refer it to. So >> do you want to refer it to me to see how I can help you? >> Perhaps. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Um Liz, do you have any communications? >> Yeah, I do. Um I just um I had a um parent reach out to me and just wanted to thank the uh middle school teachers especially the whoever is doing

088coding with their up at the middle school and how much this has really enriched their child's life and just really is very pleased with what's happening at the middle school and wanted me to extend their gratitude. ude but this the coding has really helped um you know this is a sixth grader and suddenly we like going to school and it's like uh very important for us to to celebrate those types of achievements so I just wanted to put this out and uh kudos to whoever's doing co coding she the the parent did not tell me who it was >> I know so I'll pass that on to >> please principal Bass and his team I >> because it's really important Um >> yeah, I agree. >> Engage them first. >> So, thank you very much.

089>> Uh Rita, do you have any communications? Um well, I wanted to mention um we I also received the re the parent Fitch Music Department budget concerns and about the dire near dire need of some new um drum line equipment, which is basically sounds like they're falling apart. So, I'm would like to direct that to Principal Keller and the superintendent and hopefully that will be rectified. Um already got a plan. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> I already heard the news and we've looked at the budget and he's already got a it figured out. >> That'll be very happy. Thank you very much. >> Thank you for passing that information to us. >> Yeah. And I also wanted to um mention about the Martin Luther King um ecumenical service that I thought was extremely moving and

090um as always, but I I'm looking forward to going to in person maybe next year when they have >> Thank you. I'll pass that on. Thank you. >> Um I think everyone had a turn. I will go next. I received two emails and I had passed those on to Susan because I was not sure what information was available. And um one thing I'd like to share, I um participate in the food share program that the United Way does with the city. That is the last Friday of every month if anyone is um in need of that. And I think that'll be it. Thank you. Okay. Our last thing is any >> Can I say something, please? I have my hand up. I think >> um the Dr. Mitchell >> request that I made. Do I

091Does that have to be referred somewhere? Doc Dr. Austin, would you >> I think we can bring that. We actually have a policy on naming. So, I think we bring that into the naming um committee >> like we've done in the past and I'd be happy to forward that and bring that up. >> Thank you. Because I don't want to say it and then it gets lost. >> I know. Well, I I wrote it down, Beth. So, it won't be lost. >> Beverly Beverly, it will it will not be lost. >> It will not be lost. We love that man. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Dean, I'd neglected to call on you. Do you have any comments or questions or >> Oh, ordinarily I guess I'd have something to say, but I

092I have to offer my apologies. I I've been um some close calls with my mother last couple of weeks and so I've been inattentive. >> Understandable. >> You've been attending to things that are priorities, Dean. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> That's right. >> That's it. >> That's right. >> Thank you for that, Dean. And again, it's understandable. Okay, our last item on the agenda are suggested agenda items. Does anyone have anything to request being on an agenda on an agenda? I'm going to check participants miss. >> Are you looking for a motion? Are you looking for a motion to >> address? We're having a hard time hearing you, Katrina. >> Yeah. Katrina, are you looking for a motion to >> Would Mrs. Arman like >> Yes. >> Who is seconding that? >> Fman. >> Okay.

093Thank you. We will adjourn. >> Take a vote. >> Oh my gosh. So glad you could be here. Those for adjourning. Those in favor? >> I. >> Anyone opposed? Anyone abstaining? >> Okay. >> So, the regular meeting is done. >> Yes. Um I >> would like >> Excuse me. >> Do we just stay right here? >> Yes. >> Okay. Um, I'd like to take a three minute break. So, that'll bring us at back at 7:28. We're going to start at 7:28. Thank you. >> Okay, we have a quorum without them. So, I I'm sorry, Liz, you're here. >> Get on here. I just needed to go get my tea. >> Okay, we will start the meeting. Um, Bev, are you here? >> Okay, we're going to go ahead. I'm sure she'll be here in just

094a second. So, I want to call this bud this special meeting budget workshop to order at 7:29. And I'm gonna hand it off to Ken or Susan. Is Susan back? >> I am. >> There she is. >> So, we're gonna we we thought we could squeeze in another budget workshop after the other. And we've actually gone back to analyze the um the the c the course enrollment and we're looking at the second semester now to predict for the next year's we are also trying to increase our numbers in AP and um the principal has a pretty strategic plan. So I'd like him to share that with you um at the next budget hearing. We'll try to put that in in the beginning of the meeting. Um I'm really excited about it. Um but I would

095like to say that um really we're going to finish up secondary and then do some of the other um pieces before we also tackle special education. So, we're going to refer to um the section P536, which is on teachers aids, and I'll have Ken explain a little bit about how this is kind of a miscellaneous section and and how this goes. >> Yeah. And I I'll put it up on the screen. Uh go through the two pages and then bring it down so we can all um uh see each other in the boxes here. So, let the um All right. Hopefully, you can see that that's uh page 5-36. Uh this is the unclassified function 1119. Um there is one FTE in here. It's for a uh a teacher aid at at the high school.

096Um, so this section is uh it's a it's a it's a grouping of of costs that aren't attributable to the major programs at the high school and the middle school. Uh some of the expenses include non- secretarial support, uh contractual severance payments to teachers, health insurance benefits for entired employees, uh employee assistance program, and unemployment compensation uh payments. In addition, the building substitute teacher charges uh for those two schools are also allocated here. Uh and then uh school supplies as well. Um for the for the two schools that isn't >> mostly for the offices is that Ken >> uh the it'll be it'll be supplies that aren't attributable necessarily to um one of the major programs. So it could be just paper um >> office that are just annual that need to be um um

097replenished. >> Okay. >> Uh so on 5-37 right 5-37. Yep. Uh these are the costs. So you see the the cost of that one aid. Uh this also uh line 120 is uh the uh building substitutes for the two um the two secondary schools. Uh group insurance. This is mainly the the group insurance for our retired uh uh employees, OPE uh in particular. Um you'll notice line 222 retirement award. This is uh this is severance contractual severance payments to uh to teachers. um unemployment compensation. This is the amount we pay into the unemployment uh compensation um uh with the state. Um there is some repair of equipment that's not attributable to any of the any of the programs. Um uh some no travel uh for field trips that is not in here. Uh general classroom

098supplies, you see that 63,000. That's for both schools, the middle school and the high school. Uh and then um uh $1,000 in computer supplies. And under equipment, the increase is for a Mac portable lab for use with multimedia classes at the middle school. >> And that's under Principal Bass's um actual site budget with a 2% increase. Is that right? >> That's correct. Yes. Uh so overall for this uh for this group it's an increase of 568 uh or 41% increase. It looks like that this is being driven by the group insurance amount which does need to be reallocated. Um uh but uh but OPED is playing a big big part in uh in that in that number. >> And we've done a good job with OPED. I think that when we first found out about

099it, we didn't even know about it and then we started paying contributions towards it and we've we've done a pretty good job in the few years that we've known about it. Um, and we'll continue to be good stewards of that money. I think, you know, we've really com committed to paying back the health savings account and the OPED when there are those extra resources for us. So, um, you know, I, you know, it's one of those things that we want to continue to do. >> I see Jay's hand up and and Liz, >> Jay, >> yes. Um, Ken, I I know that you're constrained somewhat by the um generally accepted uh accounting practices in creating these reports and charts of accounts, but is it possible to create a separate function for retirement so that we're

100not pooling active um expenses for buildings and some active employees with the retirement? Is there some way to break that out separately? Um, yeah. I I don't see why not, to be honest. Um, yeah, let me work on that. Um, >> good suggestion. >> And I I think to to Rita's point, uh, last week, you know, I know there were some some areas where the the benefits appeared to go down. I'm assuming the corresponding increases are are just um mapped to the wrong accounts and are falling in here. Um it's it's a combination. Yeah. So so it we allocated out the um the the amount um to be uh for for for health insurance and uh it it the allocation doesn't seem to be working appropriately in this um for that line. Uh in total

101it's still uh appropriate. It's just um uh within all the functions it something something didn't didn't work correctly. So I have fixed it. Uh but I am hesitating to um uh send out new pages because um um I I think we need to get through this uh this group and then we can then we can have new pages to replace the the ones that are that are affected. >> Okay. Thank you >> Kat. It's Liz. I think I was next. Yeah. I just wanted to say uh Jay and I must be I must be reading Jay's mind because that's exactly what my question was are very similar. So I don't you don't need to talk to me right now. >> Um you had a question. Your hand is raised. Um line um can you explain

102line 202 again for me? Not 2021. Who who is this group insurance for? I'm kind of confused on this page. It seems like it's a hodgepodge of >> It is a hodgepodge >> and it's very confusing. >> It's a miscellaneous page. I said the same thing, >> but but line 201 uh is it's it's it's the cost that we pay uh for OPED. OPED is um uh a post uh postemployment uh benefits. So it's it's amounts that we pay into a reserve uh to uh pay for benefits that retirees uh are getting. Uh and so what gets charged into here is is exactly that. It's it's it's amounts to uh pay into the OPED reserve. >> And do you pay you pay into this every year? >> Yes. And we do now that we know

103about it. >> Okay. And this is for health insurance, >> correct? >> And how long after retirement do they do the teachers receive health insurance? >> Uh, well, it it depends. Uh, it depends on their age at retirement. Um and then uh in addition to uh uh teachers, there is uh some staff as well um that um uh some that have grandfathered into into this group uh that we pay for. >> I see Lor's hand is raised. Maybe she can contribute to this because I know we're moving many of our teachers to Medicare and so so we won't be dealing with this. >> Yeah. And I just wanted to share to add on to the comments about OPEDB there. It's always been a liability of the district. We do have to reserve for the obligation

104that we have outstanding for retirees on the health plan. So it's something that we do have to have always had to account for just we had um some time ago the the reserve fund was in a rear. So, we've been we've been spending some time making sure that we are um meeting our obligations. So, we've been chipping away at it. Um the liability is is much more substantial than what we have in reserve, but we've been chipping away trying to um assist that process because it was operating in the red for quite some time, I think, when I first got here. So, um so we've been monitoring that very closely. Um there there are a number of teachers who have um who who are Medicare eligible who tend to go to the TRB plan. And

105we've also offered a what we call a fully insured health plan for our retirees. And um the I I'll try to give the short version of this. Um the district currently holds a self-funded plan health plan for our employees, which means we pay the claims. um by moving retirees to a fully insured insurance product that has moved some of that liability out of OPED and onto the insurance company. So, there's been a um an offering to put um retirees onto a fully insured product wherever we could to help ease some of that uh burden on an ongoing basis. So, I just wanted to share that for the benefit of the group. And Lori, >> you've had good success with that too, Lori, haven't you? >> Yes. Yeah, we have. We've had a number of people

106move. Sorry, Beverly. Go ahead. >> No, that's okay. Um, is the increase due to more retirees? Is that why you have an increase? >> No, we um there was an actuarial change in the way that they handled the liability um over the last year. So, it increased our obligation. Ken, I don't know if you want to share anything additional to that comment, but I know you were involved in that. >> Yeah. No, I think you're right. And and just just so you know, we're we're it's it's a um it's a combined fund with the town. Um and there is an annual report that gets uh produced uh which tells us what our contribution to the uh to the fund needs to be and that that's what we base our our numbers on. >> Thank you

107very much, >> Rita. Yes, >> I think you're now. >> Yes. Um my question is um I have two actually. One is line 222 retirement award. Why was it the year before we had zero and we've always had retirement rewards? So why would you have funded it as zero? Is that a mistake? >> No. Uh so we uh we made a conscious decision that year. Uh we had funds um uh available in the current year. So the previous year to to uh pay those uh severance payments in essence early and so that's what we did to to try and uh to try and uh get that budget number to the right place. So that's why we put we we paid those early that year. >> So are you projecting I mean it's almost doubled from

108um this past year till next year 90,000. Are we expecting a lot of people to retire? Yes, we currently have um six six retirees um and we estimate those at $15,000 a piece. Uh so uh that's what drives that $90,000 number. >> Okay. My other question is that um I you know the the substitute line 120 I I that just number just is so over the top to me and I just want to know is there how can we bring this number down where there are not so many I mean I'm hope hopefully next year with if co is finally behind us or decreasing that we won't have this problem of having to have so many substitutes. I mean, it really hurts our students when the teachers aren't there teaching in their classrooms. Um, and

109and it's something we've brought up often with the teachers union. And that's why it's so important to have meet with the AGSA and the GA um because we we and in in actually in contract negotiations, I really feel we need to get a handle on substitutes. Um the cost is more expensive every year. I I read yes in Sunday's paper. I think some districts are paying up to $180 >> a day for substitutes and um permanent subs that is and which is we're probably doing that also. >> no, not that much for permanent subs. Okay. But we still need to somehow have a discussion with our teachers and we we need to have more more teachers in the classroom and not substitutes. It's not the same. It it hurts the students. So that somehow we

110need to get a handle on this. I just wanted to bring it up because that was the line we were on. >> Thank you. >> That's it. We agree and we we look forward to the end of this COVID where our teachers have been sick and had to be out. So >> good. >> You're right. >> I don't see any hands up in the chat. Would anyone else like to ask a question? >> Okay, we'll move on. >> I did have a question. >> 1260 on page >> my question is, do we have to post this Ria, >> do we need to to have Ken share the screen or can we since we all have our budget books, are we doing this for the general public? Is there anybody else on here or >> There

111are a lot of other people on here >> then you need >> So I I think it is valuable to have them be able to see what you're saying, >> right? That's fine. Thank you. >> Are we ready to move on to page 52? 552. Actually, the the next page will be 5-38. [Music] >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Ken. >> Yep. All right. I I'm going to put it up. Uh 5-38. This is function 1121. This is business education um for grades 9 through 12. We have three teachers at uh Fitch High School. Um and then on 5- uh 39 is uh is the costs. Um we did have a uh um um we replaced a teacher. Uh so you'll notice that actually there's a decrease uh in the uh uh classroom teacher expense. Uh

112um and then uh the expenses, the travel and materials and dues are all um the same as last year's budget. >> And I just like to bring it to the board's attention. This is where we have personal finance and IB personal finance. So this is an area at the high school where we really focus on that. But personal finance is also taught within the math curriculum as well. So, I just wanted to point that out. This is an area that we um think is really important for students, this business section. And there's a lot of students who participate in this program. >> Okay. I do not see any hands raised. Is there anyone like a question before we move on? Liz. >> Yeah, it's Liz. Yes. >> Um Susan, do you see this as an

113area that needs to be um we need to prepare for an increase? >> Um because it's be it you know personal finance really is something that needs to be really I think p and to be explored as uh becoming uh having students graduate from high school with a you know understanding of personal finance and and not all students get this. Well, they all get it within their math curriculum. >> Oh, all right. >> Especially and especially in middle school. It's a real real life learning experience with middle school math. But I I think that for now we're all set, but there could in the future, >> but right now this is really providing what we need. >> Okay. Thank you. Mhm. >> Beverly, you had a question. >> Beverly, >> just a comment. I agree

114with Liz. I just wanted to say I agree with Liz. I believe that personal finance is very important. I don't know how much of it they do get in their math class and how in depth they go into personal finance. So if there ever is an opportunity to expand upon that, I would be in favor of that. >> I agree. As a middle school math teacher, I absolutely agree. I surrounded my life with real life application and and it was a lot about real life and personal finance. So we'll continue to ensure that in the curriculum and we can get back to the board about how we're aiming to provide this for all kids. >> Okay. Thank you, Susan. >> Absolutely. >> I'm not really I'm not really adding anything, but I am bound to

115relate that my kids have found personal finance education in the school one of the most valuable things that they've gone through. >> A lot of the material that as adults we would think of as perfectly natural and you know, why wouldn't they know this stuff? >> It's all new and all wonderful to them and they can't imagine not having gone through it. >> Good. Thank you. Bev, your hand is still up. Do you have another question? Be your hand is still up. Do you have another um my other question? I'll find out when uh we get um the breakdown of class sizes, how many sections of personal finance are offered at the high school. >> Absolutely. We'll make sure that happens. >> Okay. Any other questions before we move? >> I just had a comment.

116I I thought that all freshmen at Fitch had personal finance as part of the when you know the as part of the freshman program, >> the per the freshman academic seminar does include that too. I think just trying to put it together for you like in all the different elements from elementary school to middle school to high school I think would be important to share with the board. Okay, I looks like we can move on. >> Um, next section is on page 5-40. This is function 1124, health occupations for grades 9 through 12. Uh, one teacher at the high school and this is for uh offerings for diversified health and nursing assistance. um down on 5-41 uh expenses. Um uh so we have an increase in the uh in the in the classroom teachers. U

117I believe we um we're using a substitute in here in this class uh per a long-term substitute in this class uh for this year, but we do plan to have that filled for next year. Um and then looks like uh an increase of $35 under general classroom supplies, but other than that um uh expenses are about the same as last year's budget. Matthew >> Ken is this the IB uh health occupations track that uh this refers to or is that something else? >> It's one of the career pathways and it could be linked with the international balorate careers program as well. So they could get a certification in IB but it's definitely one of our mainstay careers and we're looking to build it. We've gotten a STEM careers grant that has health as um really

118one of the focus points. So, we know that we have to turn away so many students to this that this grant and our operations will help support it so that more students can participate. >> Thank you. >> Do you have your hand raised? >> Do you have a question? Yes, I do. It It takes me a minute because I have to unmute. I apologize for the delay. Um Susan or Ken, excuse me, I'm eating at the same time. Did the classroom teacher get a $15,000 raise or am I reading it wrong? I could be reading it wrong. >> Uh so we we had to replace that position uh last year. Um, and uh, the estimate for uh, a teacher in that position is is the is the 60 66,000. Uh, we don't actually have a

119teacher in that position, I believe, at this point. We're we're we're we're working with a long-term uh, substitute at this point >> who has all the qualifications, but I think there is there a savings in that or is there an increase in that? >> Looks like an increase. Yeah, >> it looks like a $15,000 increase. >> Yeah, we we had we had estimated to replace that position for this year at at the $51,000. We did not find that person. Uh so we are increasing that estimate for next year to 66. Um >> which is is not a top step teacher. So, it's it's harder when you have these very specific um credentials that you need to find someone who's a beginning step teacher. Um so, this brings us up a little more competitive, right? >>

120Okay. Thank you all. >> Rita, um I wanted to know, isn't this a CNN program that we've always had? >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. I mean, so it's career pathway and and is the $2,000 for the state test so that they pass them and they're certified as CN. >> That's right. >> Yeah. We had a longstanding um teacher here and she retired and so it's been very hard to replace, but we have had a couple people who've met the credentials and it's been really supporting us in between. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's a great program. Thank you. >> It is a great program and we want to grow it. Yes, >> for our kids. >> Any other questions before we move on? >> And Ken. >> Yes. >> Does that complete secondary, Ken? >> It does

121complete secondary. Yeah. Yeah. >> And we we can also go back to it, too. We've got some revisions we're making and some enrollment projections we'll give you. But I think moving on to enrichment is an important thing. Enrichment, remedial, summer school, there's no cost because of ARPser and then the library media specialist. >> Yeah. So I'll put let me put enrichment up on the screen here. Uh so this is 5-52. That's the page we've uh moved on to. This is function uh 1260. This is enrichment for uh the uh for through K through eight. Uh so before and after school enrichment. Um and this is runs three times a year. Um one hour eight weeks per session. So that that's how we calculate the um the the cost of the classroom teacher based upon uh

122schedule C. Uh so uh the cost for FY23 would be 36,822 uh and the corresponding payroll taxes. Uh so there is a 2.4% increase um in this uh in this function. >> Any questions? >> All right. I guess >> Oh, I have one. I have one. I'm sorry, >> Susan. Is this program the type of program that would help us close the achievement gap? >> Absolutely. This is a program I've been a believer in and in every district I've been in, I've like created these kind of programs before and after school. I would say the addition with our Esser funds is that we've been able to increase these programs and even offer them during the day. So, it's kind of the the light bulb effect for kids, like these are things that they can sign

123up to do, that they're curious to do that cause this engagement in in education. And it was the basis of all of our summer school programming. So, I'm a real believer that not only remedial services, but enrichment services need to happen for kids. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? Okay, Ken, you can move ahead. >> So, on to 5-54. This is a remedial instruction that um Susan was alluding to just now. Uh uh function 1270. Uh this this is a classroom teachers. You can see them outlined um uh for the different schools. Um, >> these are our specialist and interventionists in both math and ELA. This is one of the areas I'm probably most proud of that I have seen over my 40-year career has made such a significant difference and especially in um

124closing an achievement gap, giving kids just what they need, additional instruction to the core. Thank you for letting me speak up because I'm passionate about this one. >> In addition, there are some remedial services at the high school that are offered through uh tutors that are under function uh 1220 which I think talk about uh next uh uh next uh budget session. >> And I think we have tutors through all of our grants too in elementary, middle school, and high school. >> Correct. Um and then five-55 I believe this is Hold on. Yep. This is this is the cost um for classroom teachers. Um there is an increase of 51,180. That's a 2% increase that's per contract. Um and then the uh the corresponding benefits increase. So, uh, for remedial instruction, um, an increase over

125last year's budget of 56,282 or 1.9%. >> And that's keeping the same number without adding anybody, >> right? Ken, >> I see has her hand raised. Susan, how do you go about determining how many teachers are in each school? Is there is it based on needs or is it based on population? How do you go about determining that? >> So, it really is based on kind of the enrollment and the needs. um it's kind of a a ratio proportion um of case loads that we we look at and we we re re-examine every year kind of similarly to what we do in special education. So um we're we're fortunate to have about three to four um interventionists um in each of our schools with literacy and mathematics. So, um, and in the high school, we've

126added a literacy specialist and a math specialist or interventionist in in the high school. And we have two of each in the middle school at this time. Our teachers also serve to give extra instruction um as well. So our teachers also differentiate in the core and they also give additional intervention. >> Can you can you Susan can you tell me exactly what does the specialist do? What does the interventionist do? Well, so we have a specialist in literacy and math in all the elementarymentaries and they do intervention enrichment and they also coach teachers and this has been instrumental in um being able to leverage our teachers college program and sustain it over the years and also for reading and writing and also our mathematics program. Um, so it's it's really provided coaching and intervention and

127the interventionists work together with the specialist and the principal and making sure that students have um their tiered instruction, their core instruction and then their extra support in tier 2 and tier three. Do they something I'd love to share with the whole board like the you know it's very intricate but it's really well designed and it continues to grow and flourish as we continue to um develop it. >> Do they pull the students out of the classroom or do they work in the classroom? >> We're doing much more in the classroom Beverly. we're doing much more um within the classroom and whether we're having reading groups and you might have a teacher doing a reading group and you might have an interventionist doing a reading group or a specialist. So, we're trying to provide it

128much more in the classroom. There's some specialized programs in some of our tier three that might need to be pulled out, but they get put back right in. So, they might have 30 minutes out, but they'll be back in the classroom and it's an additional 30 minutes to their core instruction. Okay. And how are you measuring success with using this um >> we just keep monitoring kids progress and we do regular um fontis and panel um reading assessments. We do regular writing um assessments and mathematics assessments to make sure that kids are making progress. >> Thank you Susan. Is there a question? >> Yeah, Susan. Um, in terms of the number of teachers, I noticed that the the Mystic River and Thes River had 5.5 each and then for proposed 22 23 it went six

129and five. Were at this year were they sharing a teacher like half they would be at the one school half the time and another school the other time but now that you're just going to consolidate is am I understanding that correctly? >> Yes, but I will check on that Liz. Um I thought they had equal numbers. So I I just need to check >> to make sure that we've got the percentages right, but we did need an increase of 0.5 to one full person in those larger schools. They those larger schools can hold as many as 600 students. Right now they're in the mid 500s and most of our other schools are 300 to 400. And see that's why my question is is because uh Mystic River has increased to a full but the Thes

130River decreased by a half. And that's >> I'll look back at that with Ken. Thank you for bringing that up to our attention. >> Okay. The other question I have is is um do you see this as a program that has really supported our blue ribbon status? >> Absolutely. >> Okay. There's no doubt in my mind and I've seen it from my new Canaan days back in 1980 something. >> Well, I just thought it was important that we we state that, you know, because this is this is one of the reason. >> Absolutely. It's probably one of the most significant differences I've seen in my career. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And the coaching component along with the support component to the classroom teacher and all the professional learning that has happened. >> Matthew Uh

131could you help me either Phil or Susan understand the differential skill sets between an interventionist and a tutor? >> So a tutor is a college graduate. They may have specialized certifications. They may be a retired teacher and we're very fortunate to have some very qualified tutors. Um but a tutor actually is under the direction of a specialist. So the specialist not only coaches teachers but they also coach tutors and they really put together a program with a principal to support their student population. And we have this sophisticated SRBI scientifically researchbased intervention program that I would be really happy to share with the board. We've shared it in the past but we have some new board members so it would be good to share it again. Thank you, >> Lori. Lori, thank you. I just wanted

132to answer the question. I just want to answer the question on library media. Um, the reason why it's showing the changes it does in the FTE headcount is because when we consolidated the three schools down to two, there was just staff movement amongst the schools. That's why Mystic River and Thames River look unusual with the FTE changes. And also we do have one that is sharing between the two schools. >> Where is this? >> Oh, that's further down. >> Reverend Thes that's further down. We're not there yet, Lori. >> Okay. Sorry. >> No worries. We'll go back to that though. I'll get you an answer. >> Dean, >> I first want to thank >> question. >> Yeah. I first want to thank Beverly for uh bringing up all the points I was going to bring

133up. Uh but I I have one other question and that is if it hasn't already been asked, how does the district determine which kids need this uh type of intervention? What's what are the what are the criteria? And I realize there's more than one, but you know, give us an example of how you'd say, okay, you you probably ought to go to one of the four people we've got at this elementary school for additional for help, for intervention, etc. >> So, it's quite an intricate process and it's a a district-wide process and then it school by school also supports this process. So, we are meeting in what you might remember as a child study team. We're meeting at grade levels. We're meeting across grade levels. We're meeting with specialists and determining who is having struggles.

134And we're because we're monitoring their data along the way, how they're reading, how they're writing, how they're um handling their math understanding, we're able to see who's really not there yet and needs a little extra support. From a little extra support to a lot more support. It might not be yet a special education need, but it's a need in regular education. And we call this tiered intervention. So tier one is I'm in a core instruction with my classroom teacher, but I need a little more differentiation because I'm still struggling. Tier two is I need a little more help. I need maybe another reading group. Tier three is I need a lot more help and but I'm not yet identified as special education but I might need a specialized program like a Wilson reading program. So

135I know that's just a quick synopsis. It would take me um you know uh a at least a CO to bring in some of um my experts to really explain this. But it's it's really a one, two, three kind of thing. Like who needs a little more, a lot more, and especially more in case, you know, so we can avoid some special education cost. I'd like to be able to fix these things early on and right away for our students in the classroom, if that makes any sense. Dean, >> yeah, I mean, this this is one of these areas. I mean, it's a large expensive course, and there's no question that kids learn on very unevenly. Um, and it it is uh then the big question is how is the district do? How are the

136kids doing? Um, and is this program actually doing the job and how do we measure that? As I sit here, I have no idea. I have to take your word for it as a professional that in fact this this does what it's advertised to do. >> And I think it it does um avoid further cost in special education if we can help our students in their regular classroom. So that's really a goal. >> I still see your hand up. Do you have an additional question? >> Yes, I do. Um Susan, you know, um I I think it was the last meeting where we talked about the NY the middleear program and it's going to be open to all students and I asked about what kind of support some of those students would get since we're

137opening up to all students. Would that support for those students come under this function or do you have a different plan? >> No, that's that's Thank you, Beverly. That's that's the plan and Jamal Davis has been quite instrumental in helping the district and helping the middle school with this process. But that's exactly right. >> Are there any more questions before we move on? >> Okay, Ken, you're up. >> All right. Uh 5-62. We're on to 5-62. This is summer school. uh function 1412. Um now uh the cost for summer school has been uh funded uh it was funded for this year and uh planned for next year uh through the ESSER 2 and the ARP esser grants. Uh so if we go to the cost page, you'll see the zeros. Uh we did have costs

138in there last year that was for summer of 2020 uh before those um grants were available. Uh but that those will be um um funding 22 and 23. So uh there's there's really no no cost uh to to report on here. questions. >> Just a comment, Cat. Just a comment. >> I just um want to remind everybody that grants go away. So, we need to make sure, you know, we have to plan keep this in the back of our mind for sustainability. So, just wanted to say that out front. Grants do go away. >> Thank you, Liz. >> Um, thank you, Liz. That was a good comment you made. And what was the cost of this program before you funded it with grants? >> The cost in 2020 was 44,782. Uh but I think that

139was a little because that was um that was during COVID. I think that was a little higher than normal. I believe we we had um budgeted uh $20,000 uh in that function in the past. Uh but then we'll have to figure out postcoid what what that number should be. But uh we spent 44,000 last year. >> Any more questions? >> Just just one more if I may. Ken, uh I guess all of the administrators, do you see this program being sufficiently productive in moving kids along academically and emotionally that we would want to expand the numbers or what has co taught us? Yeah, I feel like that's a that's more of a a Susan question or perhaps Phil. >> Well, I I could just speak to to this summer since it's the first one I've

140seen and and again, I think it's related to to what you were just saying about COVID. I think it was extremely necessary in terms of balancing not only moving kids ahead forward in their learning, but also for the social emotional piece of being able to interact with their peers. um you know they only had a couple months of that really last year. Uh so I thought I thought it was tremendously successful when I went around visiting the schools and the kids um were really enjoying just being with their classmates again. Um even though they were still following all the protocols for COVID, wearing masks and staying, you know, um safe distances apart, um they were able to make the learning uh more fun and get and get the kids into it. And the kids, you

141know, at least from what we saw, um, we saw a lot of the science lessons, Susan, if I remember correctly, and as they were, you know, they were just being interactive and and being, you know, in the hallways and outside putting the science into practice. Um, I think it was incredibly uh necessary and successful in terms of moving the learning forward um, in a fun and active way as well as the social emotional piece, which which again is so important these days. Um, it's nice to say, I was just talking to the teachers today and I said it was it's nice to say you deserve a break, just go home and do other things besides academics, but you really can't do that. Uh, there has to be a piece where the the kids learning is

142moving forward. Um, especially after these last couple years, I think it's really vital. >> Okay, I don't see any other questions. Last call for questions. >> I I have one more. I have one more question. Even though this is this program is a feebased program, the fees don't cover the total cost of the program. I'm taking it. >> Yeah, that's correct. Um, of course, there was no fee uh in um I don't believe there was a fee in 2020, nor was there a fee uh this past summer or nor is there going to be a fee next summer. Perhaps when we're back to more normal uh times, we'll reinstitute the fee. Uh but you're right this this is the cost over and above uh what we're able what we collected >> and I I would

143say that our ESSER and ARP esser has certainly supported us with this >> so that we haven't had that we've been able to do credit recovery we've been able to do enrichment so kids could get ahead and all of that has been taken care of through this and and we've designed summer camps too to make it even more engaging. And when you do have a fee, does it go on a sliding scale? How do you or everybody? >> Absolutely. Take care of that, Beverly. That way. >> Y Thank you. >> Y >> final call for questions. >> Ken, you're up. >> All right. This is uh the last slide for tonight. This is 5-84. This is function 2220. uh educational media services K through 12. Uh so here are the uh uh media specialists uh

144for the schools as well as we have an LTA at both uh the high school and middle school and our uh video technician and assistant video technician are uh under this function. Um there is a um 1.0 no FTE media specialists that's split between the uh the two river schools uh that is funded by the ESSER and ARPS esser grants and on 585 here are the costs um there is a.7% increase under salaries and wages uh 8% increase under employee benefits there is a $1,200 $100 increase to uh library books, uh about a $300 decrease to periodicals. So, it's a 3% increase on the supplies overall for this function. Um an increase over last year's budget of 800 8,887 or point8%. >> And Liz, >> yeah, Lori, is this where you're supposed to tell us

145something? Could you do that again, please? >> Yes. I was just commenting about the split library media specialist. I said library earlier, but I meant remedial. It's I think it's a similar issue with the remedial staff earlier when we allocated from three schools down to two. I think that's why you're seeing the shift in the FTEES in the other section. I think really because we have the same number of we have the three schools turning into two but we have the same number of students as we had in the three. >> Correct. So we had to take care of their needs. >> Thank you. >> I see Jay's hand. >> Yeah. Just wondering if Ken Ken could you repeat Could you repeat what is >> could could you just repeat what you you mentioned about

146what is currently being funded through ARP esser for this function? In other words, what what's in that budget versus this one? >> Well, for this function, there is a library media specialist uh that's split between Mystic and Thes. >> Okay, that's what I thought you said. I because I remember last year there being a concern that given the size of these elementary schools that that there was a shortage there. So that's something I think we need to keep in the back of our mind for when the uh ARSER grants are gone. Um you know to go back and really uh judge uh whether we do have the proper staffing for the larger schools. >> Yeah. when we initially did the consolidation, we thought we could um reduce the number of um of library immediate uh

147specialists, but um I think it was during the budget season last year that we determined we we needed to have that additional one and uh we had the SR2 available to us at that point. Yeah, I think there's there are times when we say, you know, we're going to be able to save money because we've consolidated, but when the number of students is basically the same, you know, we still need to make sure we're supporting them. So, it's just a bookmark for next year. >> All right, last call for questions. Okay, I want to thank everybody between my um technology issues and being a newbie for your patience. Mrs. Arman, we do like to adjourn us to January 31st. You're muted, Mrs. Arman. >> Motion to do you adjourn or do you recess? >> No,

148different. You know, thank you. >> Other times we used to just not adjourn. We used >> Right. Yeah. >> Wait a minute. >> It's still a budget meeting. >> It's still a budget. >> Whatever you do now is fine. >> Excuse me. >> Yeah. >> Excuse Roberts. This is the correct way to do it. Thank you. >> We got to fix your technology. >> Thank you everyone. >> Well, you need to take a vote. >> Have to take a vote then. >> Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. Who second? >> Thank you. >> Say good night, Gracie. >> No. Say all those in favor. >> Oh, I thought we did that. >> All in favor? Good night everybody.