2-16-22 Groton Board of Education Meeting

001I see Caitlyn Brown shaking her head. Does that mean five, Caitlyn? I see Jay. >> Five so far. Oh, here comes Beverly. >> And Beverly's coming on. >> Okay. All right. Um, we have enough board member. We have a quorum. So, I will um call this meeting to order and hand it over to Susan to discuss enrollment which should have been attached to your agenda that you received. Does every >> It was attachment number one, but we can pull it up. I should have um Principal Keller. I know Principal Bass was going to try to pop in also and Ken Knight should be here too. I'm just looking. But what I can do is um share my screen. Kim will be arriving but she will be late so everyone knows that. And I can make

002this a little bigger because it's always good to see. Not too big. So, is Ken here yet? >> Do we know? >> I am here. Yes, I >> Okay, so this is the um enrollment by grade report and it really goes from FY17 to FY22 PSIS. PSIS is the October one data and it really takes a full year to be validated. So while we we gathered the data this October 1, 2021, it'll be fully validated by the end of the year. And then we have to make projections off of that. So, um I know Tom Londale was part of the committee who really worked closely on this. Um Tom, I don't know if you feel comfortable um would like to speak to this, but really our preschools um can host eight typical peers in the

003morning session and the afternoon session and up to nine special education peers. and they actually come rolling in from birth to three over the course of the year. So they really fill up by the end of the year. Um and then prek also has up to about 18 or 36 total and transition K um approximately the same number um along with all the kindergartens. So Tom, did you want to speak to these projections? >> Yeah. Can you guys hear me? Yes. >> Yeah. So, to to go back to Susan's point specifically around preschool and prek, because I I do think that you'll notice a pretty large difference between the FY22 PSIs and the FY23 projected. Um, as she's stating, those numbers increase after October 1. So, that October one number may be, you know, around

004128, but we still have additional intake meetings um with families and students continually identified. So those numbers increase over the course of the year. So that's why that FY23 number is substantially higher. Um for the Oh yes, Katrina, I'm sorry. I'm Tom Lanszdown. I'm the student data manager. Um for the other grade levels, um we really just simply moved grade level bands up. So uh you know, last year's first graders are now second graders. So you'll see if you look at the first grade um in FY22, that number 318 matches second grade and FY23. Um and that pattern just continually goes forward throughout the grades for the >> kindergarten and preschool are are most difficult to predict. >> Yeah, absolutely. So we can use um kind of our historical averages um to to gauge what

005our our kindergarten population is going to be. However, we're never entirely sure. Um, we did move up our kindergarten registration this year. It's actually ongoing now. Um, what we hope to be able to do with that is to better kind of understand what our K size is going to be overall earlier so we can better um, not only adjust how many seats we're going to open in the lottery, but balance our class sizes overall at the K level. So you can see the the totals um really over the course of you know the since FY17 where we had 2390 students it looked like it dipped down um by about 50 students um dipped down some more but at the FY23 projection we're really only um about a hundred away from where we were in FY17

006through the projections. Um then we look at um our sixth, seventh, and eighth grade classes and you see some strong numbers in the 300 size class um range. 322 for grade 6, 289, almost 300 in grade 7, 302 in grade 8. And I know there was some concern about grade 12 being 215, but you see much stronger cohorts coming through in 6, seven, and 8, and then of course 9, 10, and then it it drops down a little bit in 11 and 12. So uh we have been averaging about um a thousand about 900 to a thousand in the middle school and the high school or a little over a thousand um for the total group. So our district average, you know, when I go back to FY20, FY17 at 4432 to close to 4300,

007we're just a little over 100 difference from those um several years. We've also been able to bring back more students from the magnet schools. Um so that's made a difference as well. And um we certainly support more students who are going to the magnet schools in New London and learn. Um so there's an additional out of district for next year. We just kept it the same number 370, but I would anticipate that it could be even more students or less students going out of district. >> Susan, could I just add a point to that quickly? >> You certainly can. Yeah, I think you know, one of the things we were really intentional about this year was moving up our elementary lottery to align closer with learn and some of the other magnet choices. Um, and

008that was an explicit choice to try to attract more of our students to stay in district. And so far, I mean, we've only had one year of our lottery, but those results were very encouraging that we kept a substantial number of our students in town. Um, and we're hoping to do that again this year. >> Thank you. Yes, there's been a real um concerted effort, a lot of collaboration around that, some marketing. We've just launched Facebook, so we want to get that information out to families so they know what all their choices are. I'm going to skip down through the elementaryaries and come back to them because I know I have principles Keller and um Bass online and I wanted to be able to review the high school and um the middle school and high

009school results and talk about their action plan for next year which really is beginning this spring when we look to enroll students into the classes for next year. We know that the past several years um there have been um classes that were filled, you know, at 20 to 24 at both the middle school and high school and then there were classes that were quite small. So, we're looking to grow some of those smaller classes, especially the ones that are the higher level classes, API, Yukon credit, and to stabilize them or balance them better. So, um Tom, do you want to speak to um our enrollment 21 to 22 and then what's projected for 2223 at both Bratton Middle School and Pitch High School? >> Yeah, I certainly can, but I I also just want to

010know um I I met with Mr. Bass at the end of the day and I do know that he has a limited amount of time. So, I didn't know if Peter wanted to be able to say anything first just because I I know we wanted to get a chance to hear from him. >> Okay. Yes. Good evening everyone. Uh I apologize for having a short time frame this evening. Um and I apologize for not being able to turn my camera on either. I'm currently on the road. Um I just want to mention that um you know I'm pleased to see that our numbers are rebounding a bit in sixth grade for next year. I know that principal Keller is going to speak uh more largely to really what pertains um largely to the high school

011with regard to increasing numbers and the more rig rigorous classes. But I would say that our focus because the where where we come in at uh the middle school when we start to to move kids to advanced classes is really in math, right? So, we're really looking to increase the number of students that we have taking advanced math in the seventh grade and allocate one in the eighth grade. Of course, uh going through co uh we know that we are this is not going to be a a a quick fix, but um we we recognize we need to renew our efforts um in the CMP3 curriculum and getting support for our teachers. We've got a couple of new teachers who are in who did not go through some of that training. And it would be

012great to refresh what's happening with our math teachers um with this this method of teaching with CMP3 because it really does uh if if we're able to teach that with fidelity six through eight, it really does help us to to bring students uh into algebra in the eighth grade. And ultimately I would love to see us let's say five five seven years down the line as as we are able to look uh at our curriculum and accelerating and increasing the rigor uh through the elementary years even to have the majority of our students in the eighth grade take algebra 1. At this point in time we're about a third of our students in the eighth grade take algebra one. about uh I would say about 35% of our students in seventh grade are taking advanced

0137, which is I got to tell you um really quite um pleasing to me considering uh what we went through the last two years uh with with the stressors on on our students uh in teaching and learning. So um that's what I have to share. I'm excited about the future uh even though we are we're still in a recovery mode from from the pandemic. I also have to say where you see averages averages also have ranges. So you may have a range um of courses um and these are really the core close courses the academic courses. So these are your your literacy, your math, your science, your social studies. >> Absolutely. Um and and we really do have um a range between probably 18 to 24. You know, there might be some classes that are

014a little smaller, some that are a little larger. So, an average just takes them all, adds them together, divides by however many classes to give you that. And I know the board has requested class sizes. So, what we're hoping to accomplish is to have um registration happen at both the middle school and high school and give you a look to see what's happening for the fall once we get those numbers in and we've done our due diligence in um really um making sure our students and their families know what's available to them. >> Absolutely. But like Peter said, this is doesn't just start in middle school. It really starts in the elementary and moves along. So we really have to be communicating all of our different pathways, our steam, you know, efforts across the district

015and our project lead the ways, our arts, our music. Um this district is rich with opportunities for our students and our families just really need to know that. So, um, we're excited to be sharing that and marketing that better. >> Absolutely. And I I couldn't be prouder of what Grton public schools offers our our middle schoolers. I I challenge anyone to find a a better program uh in Eastern Connecticut. You know, it's a little bit of bragging there, but let me tell you, I I'm so happy with what we've been able to accomplish with the board support and the MSAP grant over the past four years. So, >> bravo to everyone. Thank you. >> Right. and the state department of Connecticut came down and visited and they they've spoken to the commissioner and she might

016even be coming to visit. >> Okay. I think >> I think Beverly had her hand raised first. Beverly, do you have a question? >> You want me to take down the sharing or do you want me to finish up with the high school and then just take it down? What would be better for the board? I >> think we should talk to Peter. >> Yeah. So, do you want me to stop the sharing? >> Doesn't m >> Okay. >> So, let's take questions that are specifically for Peter so he can get moving. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. >> Oh, I I don't know if my question is for Peter, so I it's probably more to Susan, so I'll wait. >> Thank you, Beverly Rita. >> My question I have two questions for Peter. one

017is um I still see that there's the enrollment will be down in the middle school compared to what it was of over a thousand students in FY20 and FY19. Um and also why is it important for you to have everyone take algebra one in 8th grade? I mean, um, you know, not everyone's mind is ready for algebra in eighth grade. There are a lot of kids that get it a little bit later developmentally for the brain, especially boys. Um, so I'm just curious as why you want to see that as a push. >> Good evening, Rita. It's good to hear you. Uh so the first one um that that sounds like a statement to me and and with a and uh so I think that is what it is with regard to the enrollment numbers.

018Um, and I would say that uh the numbers that we saw in 19 sorry uh initially um the October one numbers weren't as hard and true as we we thought they would be and that had everything to do with registration with the pandemic. So, um I think those were slightly inflated at the start of 2021. Um, I'm not saying with regard to algebra 1, I'm not saying that everyone should take it in the eighth grade, but I would love to see the majority of our students because I I do agree, Rita, it is not development developmentally appropriate for all students. Each student progresses at their own rate, but I would love to see that bar raised. If we can get the majority, let's say 55 60% maybe even um ready for algebra in the eighth

019grade, I think that would would be great. But I I do acknowledge and I do agree, Rita, that it it is not appropriate for all students at the eighth grade level. >> Can I also tell you the latest thinking from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics since I'm very much affiliated with that and that's been my expertise for 40 years that algebraic thinking actually is occurring from the time a child is sorting and classifying at age five. So we really have it le layered into our curriculum and into the common state core standards throughout the grade levels. And the one wonderful thing about having a national science foundation program called connected math project from Michigan State University at our middle school is it is a solid foundation for middle school mathematics which is really

020real life mathematics. It's everything to do with personal finance and how to get through life. You know, it's kind of the game of life is middle school math. But in addition to that, we're also readying kids and giving them a foundation of generalizing mathematics and algebraic thinking. So it certainly is a program that is a foundational program that readies kids for their work in algebra one and algebra 2 which are really critical components for advanced mathematics. >> Right. And just to follow up on that, when we do hear from the high school, I know from Cutotler um you take algebra 1 in 8th grade some students and then they go right into algebra 2 where you know there's there there's that geometry if you take algebra 1 in nth grade then you take geometry then

021you take algebra 2. For some reason in Grten, we do these algebra one, you go to algebra 2 right away. And that's not always the best thinking in terms of brain development that kids not everybody's ready for that and might need that geometry then algebra 2. But that's something for the high school to talk about. >> Definitely something for the high school to contemplate. >> I mean, we've been talking about this for years and it would be really nice to hear from the math department what they think. Thank you. >> Anyone else? Before I ask my question, >> I have a question for Peter. Um, since you want more students to take algebra 1, what kind of support are you going to give to these students that are, you know, I'm going to ask that

022question. Uh, are you going to give to the students that want to take it but might be struggling a little bit? Can you be very specific with what kind of support you're going to be giving these students? >> Good evening, Bev. So, this is not again this is not going to be a very fast overnight plan or solution, right? So, it will have to part of this specifically will be the increased support for teachers and teaching uh with the connected mass, right? In addition to that, I think as we move, we need to look at those students who might not normally um be eligible for algebra 1 in or or advanced 7 um in the spring. We're looking at the criteria we have and with the criteria we use at this point in time are

023chapter our unit tests. uh we have an algebraic um readiness test that that we give as well as teacher recommendation and and I would say we have students who are are not meeting those three criteria or or or not coming they might be on the cusp you know but they're they're not quite there yet. I think we need to look at some supports to help them um get over that hump and be ready for the eighth grade. and that could include a summer academy for algebraic readiness to to to be able to increase those numbers. So that that's one thought that I have for that specifically about >> and it's nice to hear you after so long. Welcome back. >> Well, thank you Peter. And I only asked these questions especially about math because when

024my daughter was in high school, um the principal wanted her to take an advanced math class and he said, "Oh, I I'll I'll tutor her." And that never happened. And then she struggled in the class. And sometimes I think um I think back when I said, "Well, I think they were just trying to get their minority numbers up in those classes." And that's why they were pushing my student, my daughter, because she was a she was a good student. she was in the top 20 of the of a 12th grade class. But um that's why I want to make sure that if we're gonna have these students in these classes that we absolutely give them the help that they need. If not, don't push him to go in those classes. >> Yeah, we I I

025agree. We don't want to artificially push them forward just to push them forward because they really do need to have a conceptual understanding, a really good grasp on algebra 1 and algebra 2. But if you start moving to uh just memorizing formulas in algebra 1 and algebra 2, you're not going to be successful in the upper level maths from from from everything that I know about math. >> Yeah. And that all starts in prek, K, and one with the way that we're teaching mathematics these days. We're really having kids understand um and be able to express how they understand >> because students can do it. From my experience, even teaching at the prison, students could do the math, but sometimes they just need extra help. And when I taught math at the prison, I would

026stay after school with them and help them do math and learn, you know, basic algebra so they could pass the GED test, but you have to give them the extra help that they need to be successful. >> You are so right about that, Beverly. >> Are you all set, Bev, with your questions? Uh, well, my other question is for Susan, so um I'll wait until Peter goes and then I'll ask Susan my question. >> Good plan. >> Thank you, Peter. >> You're welcome. >> Peter, I know um you I I would actually prefer if you send this an email, not address it now because I know we need to get going on the budget part. Um, I've heard I heard you say that that there's a plan to increase participation in upper level courses. Is

027that correct? >> The advanced seven and the algebra one. Yes, >> that's all we have. >> Those are the only two advancements really in the middle school. Um, okay. And then Ted, um, Keller, Principal Keller is going to speak to us about what they're planning to do at the high school level. >> Okay. Yeah. I guess I'm interested in what exactly that plan is, >> but I'm hoping that hearing from Ted that will be addressed. So, thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you, >> Matt. Madam Chair, >> I I do I have the floor. Okay. Sorry, I'm in a car, so I I've got a good spot. Think I got a good signal. Uh, I have one question for Mr. Bass, and that is, is algebra 2 offered in middle school at all? >> Very, very

028rarely. >> Certain circumstances. >> Yeah. The reason why I bring that up is because I could remember back when we had a couple of middle schools, Dr. Grineer said, "Well, look, you know, here's one of the, you know, side benefits of having a single middle school. You know, you may have you may have enough kids at Cutler, for example, to warrant having an algebra 2 class, and you may not have enough kids at Westside uh to warrant having a class. So, what do you do with them? Do you ship them all? If you have one middle school, you know, you're you're more likely to have a enough of a class, 15, maybe even 20 kids to, you know, who are ready for algebra 2 um to justify having an algebra 2 class. So that's that

029just always stuck with me. >> Dean, I'd like to share some good news about having a high school middle school campus. This year we had eighth graders who took a geometry class, an algebra 2 class, and also a um biology class. So they were able to be dropped off in the beginning of the day at the high school, take their class, and then we escorted them over, got them back to the middle school. So those are the opportunities that open up to kids um okay you know in a campus experience. So really pleased with with that and they've really been very successful I have to say >> because I mean I realize that that you know very few students are probably ready to go with algebra 2 >> if that's a progression but some are

030and it would be a shame to say well sit and wait because frankly that was done to me when I was in middle school. Sit and wait till you get to high school. So there hasn't been that >> they they've really taken care of it both at the middle school level and this year at the high school level. So um I'm really pleased to say that. >> All right. Thank you. >> Okay. I see that that Kim has arrived. So I will relinquish my role as chairperson. Thank you. >> I apologize but I I have to leave. >> Thank you very much Mr. Bass. >> Take care. Bye bye. Let's see. If I know how to do that, I would do that, but I don't. So, I just wanted to give a historical p perspective

031on algebra 2 at the middle level. When I was principal at Cutler and at Fitch Middle, the historically we even if we had one child who was ready for algebra 2, we accommodated that child and uh gave algebra 2. And there was even one case at the high school that happened during my time. I wasn't there but I was in the district and that was uh there was a student who was so high above and I believe she was in uh 10th grade that they they sent her on a bus to Khan College to to accommodate her her learning. So historically it's it's it's in place and I'm hoping that we will be able to carry that on and I love the idea of the uh the campus Susan. >> Yeah. So your legacy continues

032Dr. Acriman, we're meeting we're still trying to meet the needs of the students but not trying to fit them into the box. >> Got that straight. >> Yeah. >> So, we were able to review the um enrollment of the middle of the middle school. I can go back and share my screen about the high school and we have principal um Keller here here to talk about the plan that he and his administrative team and his coordinators have crafted. So, let me just share my screen again. Now, in the middle school, we were able to do the averages by grade level because a sixth grader takes sixth grade ELA, seventh grader takes seventh grade ELA. Um, but you know, and a particular grade level math, but it at the high school you have multi-agges taking these

033courses. So it really we really tried to we struggled with this a little bit trying to find averages and just like in the middle school where an average might be um 18 to 20 it really might be 17 to 24 as a range. So you'll have some smaller classes and some larger classes depending on how they're scheduled. at the high school we did that work with the cores and I don't know if Tom Londale our student data manager would like to speak to this but when we looked at that averages again could have been 13 to 21 but the average of the core areas which is literacy mathematics social studies and science was 15 for this year but next year it looks like 16 and if we're able to push this project through we hope

034we'll find many more students in those upper level courses and a much more diverse population. So, um Tom, did you want to speak to this um slide? >> Yeah, I I just wanted to speak briefly to to what is included within kind of that that average class size of 15. Um it's really all the core academic subjects, but not just the core courses. It also includes, for example, higher level mathematics courses, AP, IB courses. Um it would include elective English courses for example or elective social studies courses. So it includes all the core content subject areas. What it doesn't include um are music courses which maybe you know a chorus class might be very large which would skew our kind of average number. Uh does not include PE or gym classes because those numbers like

035likewise could be you know 40 students in in a gym at once that would skew our number. So we tried to most accurately reflect the the majority of core courses and that includes all the high level courses within this number. So, in general, the higher level courses had, you know, on the lower end of that range and kind of our um college prep courses had a slightly higher overall average. >> And then for next year, it's looking like we're hoping to improve that average and increase the average. And certainly, we want to increase class size in those upper level courses. So um I will stop >> question >> stop sharing here. I know that we have principal Keller here ready and I know he'd like to present the good work that his staff has done

036as well. >> So I'm going to entertain um uh Rita and not that I'm going to entertain you. I am going to recognize where the word entertain comes from. I'm not quite sure. Um but I'm uh I will uh Rita, Matthew, and then Beverly if that feels okay. And then um uh to go to the other presentation. Got it. And thank you for your patience, guys. And um Katrina, thank you for leading uh the meeting um up to this point. Thank you, Rita. Um, I would like the, you know, this to me this is, um, not what we were asking for. See this average class size of 15. I don't want to wait until next year. I want the the class sizes run now. I mean, they've been in school since last September. And we

037could have last falls and then this year's class sizes. What classes are being taken? who's in the classes. I would really appreciate that. I mean, this to me is so inadequate that we really don't get a good feeling of I mean, just to say an average class size, you know, that's very weird. >> So that when it says an average class size, what you'll see is a lot of 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20. >> That's not what I want. I want the I want the pages and pages that are run that show what courses are offered at Fitch, how many students are in those classes. That's what we re that's what the board of education deserves to receive, >> not this. >> Well, so we we definitely will be able to we could do

038that for this semester, but we also would like to be able to do that for next year. >> Of course you supposed to be done in the fall and in the spring. We should be >> Well, I do believe I sent something out in the fall to you. >> Not not the way I've gotten it before. >> Okay. Well, I did send something out in the fall, >> but I have questions about after when Mr. Keller does his um does this. >> Yeah. I would like for you to be able to hear hear what the plan is, too. >> Right. >> Matt, did do you still have a question? >> Yes. I'd like to wait for Mr. Keller also. He may very well answer my questions. >> Okay. Thank you, Matthew Beverly. >> Thank you,

039Kim. Um, >> I I agree with Rita that I'd like to see the breakdown of the classes like art, how many students in art, how many students in IB math and so on so forth. So, I'd like to see that. But my other question is Susan, did you say PSI PSIS is the October data? Yes, it's October one data and it goes through a process. We first send it to the state actually on October one and then they verify the data over the course of the year and they kind of do a final result and tally by the end of the year. >> Okay. So, um, for FY2020, uh, FY22 and so forth and so on, how come we don't have the, um, uh, the a better enrollment? Why do we have the October 1st

040and not the enrollment like the end of the year or something like that? Do you always go by the October 1st? >> We always go by the October one. Yes. Okay. >> That's how the state of Connecticut verifies it. >> Okay. and collects the data. >> Does the enrollment usually go up after October 1st? I thought I heard you say that. >> You know, it really depends. Um, Beth, we are a a military community, so we have some schools where the numbers keep increasing and we have some schools where they've decreased over the time. So again, you're kind of looking at the October one is kind of the average for the year. So, um, even though it is based on October one numbers. >> Okay. Thank you, Susan. I appreciate it. >> No problem. >>

041And and Susan, um to Bev's point, isn't the October 1st um sort of when grants and monies and um funding kind of get um uh determined um for us by what our October 1st. So October 1 is sort of big for us. >> It is a big a big time and even impact aid numbers are collected during October. So October is really a critical time. And my understanding is um like a free and reduced lunch and the title three like all of our grant determination can hap um also happens by >> based on those numbers. >> Okay. Right. So that is a big thing for for us >> and it's really important for us as a district to try to be as accurate as possible and so having Tom Londale as a student data manager

042has certainly helped support us in in being more accurate. >> Okay. Are there any other questions? Um, Beverly, do you have more questions? >> Okay. Um, >> I always forget to put my hand down. I'm sorry. >> No, no, no, no. It's fine. I just don't want I just also don't want to um not ask you and have you have a a a question. Um, so are there any other questions about this specifically? All right. I just w before I move it to Ted who is going to talk about his PowerPoint that we received. I just want to make sure that I'm on the same page as everyone else. We have gone through now the middle school and the high school enrollment and that we're now moving to TED, but then we need to go

043back and do the elementary school. Am I on the right page? >> Yes, you're on the just right page. Okay. And I see that Aaron Maguire is joining us. Ted is here. Cara Hajj. Um, so Ted, I'm going to turn it over to you. Are you going to share your screen to go through your presentation? >> Can everybody see this? Okay. >> Yes. So, I I know that the the board was able to take a look at the presentation and I think that uh you know before I start I just want to say that um you know this this plan uh really has come through from an awful lot of work and I really want to give credit uh to you know my assistant principles uh Aaron especially um has worked very hard on this

044in terms of how the whole scheduling process uh and and the enrollment process is going to work. Um, uh, Matt and and Adam as well. Um, our coordinators, Cara, uh, Amy, uh, Caitlyn and and even Mark with the special ed, uh, you know, their work and and their input has been extremely valuable. And Kelly Donovan, uh, as you know, leading our IB program, um, has done a tremendous amount of work with this. So, this has been a lot of input from from from people and and, uh, I just want to say how much I appreciate their hard work because I think we've all recognized that that we have an issue here that we need to solve. you know, we we we're not going to sugarcoat this right now. We want we want more kids in

045these higher level courses. We know that they can benefit from them. We want to make sure that we we get these students into these courses because they're valuable experiences for our students. Um and so when we look at this this issue, uh you know, and and you know, I think that um you know, as you see the enrollment, you know, we do have an issue. Again, we we have uh low numbers in these courses right now. um how do we get these these increasing enrollments, but how do we do it right? And um and do to do it right, this is not a one-year process. This is going to be a two to threeyear process. We've got to commit to this. We've got to really work on it. There's some things that we're going to

046do this year to to start the process and to get things moving in the right direction. But it really has to do with getting as many of our students qualified to take these courses and have a good experience in these courses and these programs because it's not just courses. we have a program too. Uh, and we want to talk about how how that's all going to work. So hopefully as I go through this presentation, you can kind of see the steps that we're going to be taking. Um, when I say step one, step two, step three, there's a lot of uh interconnectedness between them. So I think that, you know, some of the things even in step two, we're going to be working on a little bit now. Um, but uh, you know, I I

047really see this to do it right. We we've got to really look at uh you know really how we're doing things at the high school, have conversations with the middle school and and how we're doing things down there. I think Susan even alluded a little bit to that already. And then Susan even brought it up like we got to talk about this as a as a full district-wide initiative starting right from kindergarten. Um so uh so I think that uh it's something we're we're ready to commit to. we've recognized what we need to do and and uh we just want to talk to you about some of the steps that we're going to take uh tonight. So, you know, the first thing is we need to commit to a goal and you know, we've really

048kind of simplified it down that we want to really significant uh significantly increase enrollment in these higher level courses. Um but we also want to increase enrollment in a full international baloria diploma program. And just to clarify for the board, you know, we we separated that out a little bit because we have the international baloria courses which students can enroll in which is great. Uh but we also have that international balora diploma program and we want to make sure that students that are qualified for that program and can go into that program, we want to make sure that they really understand that because we don't want them to get into something that they don't understand and then end up dropping out of it. So, it's something that uh you know we this is a lot

049of this has to do with really educating our students, educating our families so they understand these courses and they understand what the commitment is uh when they take these particular courses or get involved with these programs. So, you know, pretty simple goal statement, but we wanted to make sure that we had this so we knew exactly what we were kind of driving towards. So when we talk about the the steps that we're going to be doing in order to get students into these these higher level courses, you know, we looked at, you know, the first thing obviously want to get more students enrolled in these courses. That's that's that's number one. And so we can look at, you know, the students that we have now. Who are the students that we have that are qualified

050to take these courses, are ready to take these courses now, and how do we make sure that they they know what they're qualified for and we're we're actively working with them to enroll them in these courses. So, we're talking about the the enrollment process that's already started at Fish High School this year and talking a little bit about how that works and and talking to families. But then we want to talk, okay, right now we've got this pool of students that are qualified to take these courses and we're going to educate them. We're going to work with them, but how do we make that pool bigger? How do we get more students qualified for these courses? um you know and that's when we want to start talking about you know the leveling that's going on

051and and how are we moving students into these courses that we want to uh to get them in and what are the kind of supports that we need to put in place so that when these students go in and we know that okay this course is going to be it's something they're qualified for but it's going to be tough how do we make sure that that student has the support in place to to be successful in that particular course and then you know the last thing is when we have these students in these courses how do we increase supports for all of these students um you know taking an AP course, taking an EC ECE course, an honors course, an IB course, an IB diploma program, these things are tough. I mean, these are tough

052things to do. And we have students that sometimes are enrolled in multiple of these courses. And you know, I think the the the old thinking is like, well, these students can handle it. You know, they they they can go, you know, they're they're good students and they can handle it. Well, you know, does that we we want to make sure that these students have supports so that they know, you know, they they have some uh somebody they can work with to be successful in these courses and and we want them to have those supports. So, how do we increase those supports uh going forward so that students feel comfortable and feel like they can succeed in these particular courses because students are not going to want to enroll in a course they don't feel they

053can be successful in. It's it really is that simple. So, kind of breaking down uh a little bit about these these particular steps and and you know, I don't want to read through everything, but I I think just kind of going through some of the the the big points here. Um when it comes to the recommendation process, which again is is starting already, uh we're really going to be taking a real hard look at when students are recommended for courses and making sure that they're recommended for the right courses. Um, and so we're identifying students that that are eligible for these particular courses and and making sure that they're getting in those recommendations and when they're not being able to go back and check and and find out why. Um, and so we're going to

054have a review team and there's really a two-part to this review piece. We're going to be reviewing it once the teachers are putting in the recommendations and then we're going to be reviewing it once the students are actually signing up for the courses. So when we we have a student that is eligible for let's say an AP English course and then when the student actually signs up for the courses if they don't go sign up for that AP English course we want to reach out to the student and say why and there may be a perfectly good reason you might you have a a student that might be signed up for or recommended for four AP courses and they decide well you know I only want to take three or I only want to take

055two and that's fine that's that's a choice that the student can take but we also don't want students to say well I'm just going to sign up for this course because I think that one's easier. Um, you know, and I think that, uh, you know, we want to talk to these families and say, you know, how can we make sure that students are challenging themselves to the level that they should be. And so, you know, we we have this kind of two part process of reviewing these recommendations and and really taking a hard look at how this process works. Um, in addition to that, um, we have, um, we we want to make sure that we're really reviewing how teachers are making recommendations. And we're we're talking to teachers, uh, now about making sure that

056they really understand where they should be recommending these students based upon their success in the current class. So, that review process, that's kind of an immediate step that we're going to be taking. And then, you know, as I said before, we want to make sure that we're increasing communication with students and families. And I think that, you know, the first thing is is that um you may know that um every year that the state department of education puts out a letter that goes to students and saying based upon your PSAT scores um you are you should be taking these high level courses. And that's great. I think it's it's great for families to get that letter, but we want to get something out specific to make sure that uh the students that do qualify for

057these courses that the families know that they qualify for these courses. and uh making sure that um that when we we get that out to the students, then talking to students and and making sure that we know they know they they're qualified for the courses and then having some meetings with these students, especially those students that qualify for the IB diploma program to have them sitting down with Kelly and their counselor with their families and saying, "Okay, this is what this program is all about and this is why we feel that your student is a strong candidate for this program that education is so important um because again we want the students to really recognize the strength of that program and how it can benefit them going forward. Uh but we also don't want students

058enrolling in that program not having a really good idea of what that program entails because it is a big commitment and uh and so we want to make sure that you know that they they they hear from Kelly uh and really able to sit down with Kelly and understand the the the depth and of the program and just how valuable it can be because I think a lot of people don't really understand IB as well as they might understand some other programs that might existed when they were in high school. Um, and really making sure that again just increasing that communication with families uh when they when we see a family that uh a particular student doesn't sign up for an AP class that maybe we feel that that we need to have that discussion

059to make sure we're having that discussion with the counselor and and talking about, you know, what that schedule looks like for next year and and what that really should entail and where that student should be challenging themselves. So, as we kind of move into step two, really been talking about the the general steps we've been taking in the in the recommendation process and moving into next year, which I think is going, you know, my my hope is we'll increase the number of our our students in higher level courses for next year. But if we're going to make this like an ongoing process where we're really going to see some sustainable increases as we go forward, we got to start talking about where are those times when students are starting to be disqualified for these higher

060level courses years in advance. And I think Peter talked a little bit about this with the math recommendations that that tends to be a pretty big one. Um but but to talk with the middle school and start talking about okay, where are these these places where students are getting hung up? because when a student starts in that a class uh and they're not in that higher level we'll talk about math just because that's where Peter was talking about they're not in that higher level math class um it's very difficult to to kind of catch up um and so if a student is in that in that place what you know how do we make sure students are taking an a algebra 2 class but if it is going to be a tougher for them making

061sure they have that support so they can be successful in that class and what is that going to look like and then if students aren't taking algebra one in the in the uh in the middle school. Um are there ways that we can move students forward if they start showing uh that ability as they move into high school and get that maturity and that and and they're ready to do that. So, um you know, how do we increase the ability for students to move up uh once they feel that they they're ready to do so? Because right now it's it's just difficult. It's it's you don't see a lot of that happening. So, we want to make sure that we increase that that opportunity for our students. Um, so we want to really sit down

062with the middle school team and really start mapping this out with the coordinators um and just determine those strategies that we can work on uh to increase the number of students that are actually eligible these students and increase that pool uh for students once they get to the high school that they're ready to take these these particular courses. So, um, you know, again, we're just talking about this increasing the number of students who qualified to take higher level courses, and I want to take a second here to to turn this over to Cara Haj because Cara has done some great work with the Black Student Union. Uh, because we want to, you know, we want to talk about reaching out to our students of color, our students that are in underserved populations, um, and how

063do we increase the number of those students in these particular courses. So, Cara, could I uh just have you talk a little bit about the work you've already started with the BSU and the and the work in the CTLs? >> I sure will. Hello, everyone. Um, can I just back up just a minute because you were talking about, Mr. Keller, about um meeting with the middle school teachers yesterday during our TLI department meeting time. The the great part of yesterday is that um both Matt and Peter were able to schedule um uh the the department meetings to be on separate or opposite ends of the the schedule. So it allowed me, Amy, and to and Caitlyn to meet with the eighth grade teachers so we can collectively um uh share and recommend students and question

064why would we not or why would we recommend a certain student to a high level course. So we're trying to uh spread the net a little wider but being provided the guidelines because uh there were uh conversations about they didn't know what to expect or what to how to recommend students. So uh yesterday was a great time I thought meeting with the world language and the social studies department yesterday. But as it relates to the BSU we've been working this has been a goal of BSU the black student union for about two years now. our students um one during the uh dedication, you know, uh achievement ceremonies uh that we have every year, um one student, a couple students, as a matter of fact, noticed that they didn't see uh anyone that looked like them

065throughout the ceremony and they brought it to my attention and I said, "So, what are we going to do about it?" So, we talked about it. we wondered why students weren't um signing up for these classes and so we we talked with Mrs. Maguire and um we decided to send out a survey to all the student population and so there was some good reasons there were some concerning reasons but we got a good chunk of reasons and that's when we decided to focus on those areas that were of most um we receive the most responses about and one of them is awareness. So, this Black Student Union um starting this year, we plan to make students more aware of the various programs that Fitch High School offers. Last week, um and this is all studentr

066run. They're creating these programs. They're creating the scripts. They're doing everything. I'm just advising. So, I told them I'll follow them. They just lead, you know, I'll help them wherever they want, but they they're doing it all. So last week um they decided to uh again working with the guidance Miss Mrs. Magcguire and Kendra Bin and Dan Couture. We've been meeting on a regular basis to talk about how we can use our BSU as ambassadors in the classroom. Last week was our first event. um Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. We're starting with the ninth grade CTL classes because those are the students who would definitely be, you know, be eligible to to take the first higher level class, and that would be social studies, of course, the A push class. And so we went to the classes,

067the 10, no, there's about 15 CTL classes, M Mrs. Magcguire, about 15 CTL CL classes. So Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we had groups of students visiting those CTL classes and just giving them hints on study habits, you know, good study habits, different strategies. We did a cahoot with the students and as a reward for those students who got the top the top three students, they received a lollipop. So that was more an incentive for them to participate. Um, so we sent out a survey today, but we I received several emails from teachers saying how great that was. Um, as of right now, we're planning a video and the video we again they're doing it all. They're creating their idea was to interview various students who are currently taking advanced level classes or who have taken advanced

068level classes so they can talk about the benefits and their experiences in the high level courses. the BSU students will be interviewing the various students. Um, and then they're going to record it and edit it and then we'll ask for permission to see if it's okay. And then we're that video is going to go throughout the entire uh CTL classes. So that's 9th, 10th, and 11th grade classes. And then next month, uh, the BSU members will go into those same CTL classes that they have been assigned and they're going to they're going to help the students with their recommendations that they as they sign up for classes just so they can be more aware of what's best for them or if they're on the fence about something, if they don't know about a certain class,

069what it's like. Um, so we're we're starting with the ninth graders. We're hoping to go backwards initially, but when it comes to those whole school activities or the whole school awareness, we're going to try to create different activities to make sure our students are all aware of what Fitch High School has to offer. So, I'm calling them right now our BSU or Fitch High School ambassadors. And um we're we're we're going to hopefully um increase our numbers in these higher level classes, increase the experiences for all of our students. Thank you. >> So I I you know, first of all, you know, Cara's work here is is such an important piece of this. Um you know, that getting that student voice out there um and because we know that myself and the other adults in

070this building could talk about this with the kids until we're blew in the face. uh but it's something where having their peers talk to them, encouraging them, uh talking to them about the opportunities that are available to them is just so important. Um and uh then you know also having uh our students and alumni going uh in and talking to students about um their experiences in these classes. This is something that um Aaron had run uh prior to co um obviously with co it's been it's been difficult you know and the one thing I do want to say in regards to co uh you know certainly co has definitely given us a hit on this and and has made it uh a little bit more difficult in terms of you know when we're doing things

071virtually and then when we're doing um things uh um you know in the hybrid um but this this has been a trend and it's it's a trend that we need to turn around and I think that uh um again the the work that the the starting with the school administration, the district the district coordinators um have done here I think is really going to start to show some increases for next year uh but then uh increases going forward as well and I think that's what what we want to see and and uh I think that we're all uh dedicated to here. So uh really talking about the experiences that students can get in these higher level courses and the benefits that those have going forward I think is uh is equally important. And then um

072you know as as I said before you know we we need to start talking about supports for students um because you know oftentimes uh when teachers are making those recommendations they're saying okay you got these these 10 kids that I'm recommending for this particular course and there might be a few more students that they might recommend if they knew that oh well the student will have a little bit of support to make sure that they're kind of getting them through because uh we want to recommend the students for the the highest level course that they could they could qualify. ify for. And so we need to start talking about what do those supports look like? And you know, so we've talked about the the possibility of supports over the summer. Um can there be something

073where uh we're we're giving supports for students that maybe need some work in order to qualify for a particular course or um in terms of AP, can we do some work? Oftentimes there's AP summer work. Is there something that can be uh done to to uh increase students readiness going into an AP class? Um and then uh also with IB with students that are entering the IB diploma program to have some supports uh to kind of start them on a path uh with getting into the the IB courses. Um and then you know we we've often used our task classes for students that need a more structured study environment uh during an open block. Well, can we look into there being task classes for students that are in the IB diploma program? Uh, can there

074be a task class for students that are taking AP course um to give them that? >> I'm sorry, I muted there for a second. Did everybody catch me there? >> No, we missed you. >> Okay. Uh where did it where did I end up? >> Some >> you were talking about task. >> Okay. Okay. So it wasn't it wasn't that much. Okay. So um yeah so we want to make sure that we are are are you know giving those those students the support in some of these higher level courses that that they may need and uh and uh and making sure that they have that. And then um again, how do we offer supports for students that are currently in the college prep courses that can move into uh these higher level courses if they

075had a little extra support and going into some of these honor courses or or uh AP or IB um because we don't want to disqualify students for from these uh but we don't want to put them in there if they're not ready either. Um so I think it's important to uh to to offer those supports as well. So, um, again, I I, uh, I hope that, you know, I was able to break down a little bit some of the work that we're thinking about doing in in in diff these different steps. Um, again, I I look at this as, you know, we we certainly are are aiming to increase these uh course numbers going into next year. Um, but at the same time, I I I want to look at this as a sustainable process

076going forward for the next two to three years where we really see a significant increase. Um and uh and we the students that are really qualified to take these courses uh want to take these courses, know about these courses and feel that they are supported in these courses and that and that's the the main goal going forward. So um so uh you know at this point uh just see if we have any questions. Yeah, >> some hands up already, but >> I didn't see who who put their hands up first. I I don't know. Kim, if you wanted to call on some people, >> I think >> Kim, you're muted. Kim, you're muted. >> No wonder why no one could hear me. I think everyone in my life would want me to be muted. So,

077I'm gonna recognize Liz, Matthew, Rita, Bev, and Katrina as the as they have gone as they raised their hands. So, Liz, take it away. >> Hey, Ted. How you doing? >> Good. How are you? >> Pretty good. Listen, I was just kind of wondering um you know, this is something that has been near and dear to my heart for many long years and because the IB program, I was part of that for a long time. But um one of the things that we had done years ago when it was first being brought in is that we did offer summer supports and I I hear what you're saying with supports but they were be directed to having be primarily for prep for the IB program and so you know um I don't know what your numbers

078are for the diploma program but um I just think that is this what you were when you say supports summer supports is this what you're you're thinking is to have it directed towards specific types because IB and AP are very different as you know and ECE in there is a little different as well and my other question is and I'm going to lead this into there's two here do we have too many choices I mean many years ago when AP IB was recommended back in 20 back in the year 2000 when I first joined staff it was considered that we were going to you know limit the choices and eventually that the AP was going to disappear. >> Um, no, no, no, no, wait a minute. This is what was Let me just finish. Okay,

079Rita, >> this is what was this is what was I'm telling you this is what was told to me over 20 years ago. All right. And so, but my my question is is that, you know, have we have we are we extending ourselves too much? Is it are we becoming too thin? I just want to know perspective. I I think both programs I've taught AP, I've taught IB, I've taught ECE. So I I understand all of these different groups, but I just want us to, you know, make sure that we're preparing our kids to be successful and as many different kids as possible. So that's those are my two questions, the supports and the thin. >> Yeah. No, I and I think uh they're both very good questions and I think uh I'm going to

080start with the supports piece. Um I think that there's there's different levels of supports that we're looking for. I think that the the first level is uh I mean Peter said it himself, you know, right now if you're not in honors algebra 2 uh and finishing that by the 10th grade, you you're automatically disqualified from going into the IB diploma program. Um, so we want to take a look at and see, can we get more students taking algebra 2, uh, honors in high school, increasing that pool? Not that they're all going to do IB because IB is not for everybody. Um, but at the same time, um, you know, how do we get that that pool increased? And when we have students that maybe, you know, they got they got into algebra 2 honors and

081maybe they struggled a little bit and and you know that that might be a possible support to get them moving towards that that uh um that that IB diploma program. Um another support might be students that are actually going into the IB diploma program and giving them kind of a summer institute or something of of some sort. So there there's a lot of different supports that we're talking about for the summer. Um, what it really comes down to is I'm not going to disqualify anything and I don't want to just talk about ID because it's AP and ECE and all these courses. Um, it's it's something where um I I don't want to disqualify anything in the summer or anytime else that is going to help more students get into these courses. Um, and so,

082you know, obviously, you know, we have certain amount of resources and there's only certain amount of things we could do, but if it's going to help more students get involved with these courses, I I'm not going to disqualify that idea. And I think that's something that we can look at that summer time when students, you know, would would be able to do some of those things. Um, in terms of spreading ourselves too thin, um, I at this point I I don't believe that we are. I I think that um the one thing that you know I've learned and um in my time here is that we we have a not that I've learned it but I think that is it's really been something that's opened my eyes is that we have an incredibly diverse population

083in uh in in Grten uh which is fantastic and we need to have a diversity of programs in the high school in order to meet that diverse population. Uh and I think that um you know what we need to do is we we have certain courses that can be matched up where they they serve you know IB and AP or AP and ECE. Um and you know there are some times when we we have to look at you know are there competing courses or electives that we need to to pair down. We certainly do that. Um but I believe that these things can exist in uh the high school simultaneously. What we need to do is we need to get away from this idea that these are just for these students and that um and

084so we need to really have a a a real strong uh a real a a conversation about students being able to access these higher level courses. And the one thing I have always said uh as as a as a school leader is that if you have a student that is going to go to a four-year college after leaving Fitch High School, there is no reason in the world that that student shouldn't be able to take one of these higher level courses before they leave us. And so because they're going to be taking them the year after they leave us. So there's no reason in the world why they shouldn't be in an AP course or an ECE course or an IB course before they leave us. And if they're leaving us without one of those

085courses, then we have failed that particular student uh and getting them prepared to go to college. Um so I think that when we look at these particular courses, right now it seems like we're spread too thin, but the reason we're spread too thin is we have too small a pool of kids going into these courses. We need to increase the pool and get more kids in these courses. So, um I think that that's the the goal and that's why I really want to make sure that uh that you understand my commitment to this is not just, hey, we're going to go through this year and and get more kids in these courses for next year. This is going to be increase it for next year. Can we increase it more the year after that? Can

086we increase it more the year after that? And really looking at this as a two to threeyear process to really get the ball rolling in the right direction. >> Thank you, Ted. It's you encouraged me and I just wanted you to know that I I appreciate your thoughts and and it's it's encouraging to hear the leadership taking on this role because that's what's needed. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. >> Absolutely. You know, and I again I want to just, you know, the coordinators and the assistant principles I think are all committed to this and they're they're working very hard towards this goal. >> Matt, >> thank you. Uh before I ask Mr. Keller are my two questions. I'd like to make a request and ask a question of Miss Hajj. Good evening. >>

087How are you? >> Fine, thank you. >> Good. You >> know, I've lived in enough places around this country before moving here that the fact that students feel safe to voice their concerns and that they're listened. I hear that it's through you, but I discern or I believe it's not only you, but there are other staff people who also listen and are trusted by the students. We may take that for grant granted. People who lived in Grten may take that for granted because that's the way it is here, but I assure you it's not the way it is everywhere. So my request is that when you speak with your students, you let them know that and encourage them to continue to articulate their concerns in the constructive way in which they've already done it. They

088need to hear how much they are appreciated. And now my question, >> thank you. Thank you. >> My understanding is this is a personal understanding of what you said that the Black Student Union is reaching out to all minority students. Have I understood correctly? just not minority. Initially it was, but now we're going into the classroom and we're addressing everyone. Initially it was that was the concern of our students when they saw uh the Fitch High School um award ceremony that they did not see anyone who looked like them. But because we are going we're addressing or going into the classroom, there's just not one group of students in those classrooms. So we have spread our net wider as we as that's been the phrase lately you know that I've been using but no just

089not the end of represented or the students of color but we are very encouraging. Yes. >> I encourage you to as do all of us. Thank you very much. Mr. Keller I have two questions for you. >> I was very impressed with the narrative when I read it. I was more impressed when you spoke it aloud. But I'd like to know if we can go beyond the process that you outline here to get a sense of the specific evaluation metrics that you're going to use to discern and refine your process. >> Well, I mean the the first evaluation metric is is pretty simple. It's do we have more students in these classes? And uh you know it's when we talked about um you know we the enrollment numbers for this year um are we able

090to increase the enrollment numbers uh where are we able to increase those enrollment numbers because we have to look by department and then we have to look by program. So um you know when we look at the different programs that we're running uh the IB diploma program is a very different thing than than the just an AP class or an IB class or um and we want to see are we able are students taking those particular courses why or why not uh who are those students where are they coming from um and who are the students that are being disqualified for those programs based upon the courses that they're in. And then um for AP and ECE a little bit more related there a lot more uh kind of crossover there you know who are

091the students that are taking those courses uh you know are they are they going into those courses based upon the number of recommendations are the students actually going into those courses they're recommending for. So if we see a particular course that let's say AP chemistry and we've got 50 students that are recommended for that I'm making up these numbers but you got 50 students that are recommended for that course and only 25 are enrolling that's a concern. We have a you know 50% of the kids are saying no I'm not taking AP chem. So, we need to talk to those kids and say, "Why not?" And and and and that's where we're going to have to refine our process to really get down to the nitty-gritty of each department and each type of program uh

092and class and see where exactly we're kind of falling short. >> I look forward to hearing about the refining efforts and I thank you. My second question is nominally off topic, but I think it's directly linked to what you're saying. You know, there are many kids or some kids who are never going to go on to college who have other goals. They may be to go right into the workforce. They may be to get married. They may be to uh go into the military. And I'm hoping and and I want to believe it's happening. Are we going to apply this same process for non-olbound students so that they're not unintentionally disadvantaged by our focus on higher living higher level courses? And if you say that that's something you want to address at another point, that's

093fine with me, but I do want to hear it addressed at some point at your leisure. >> Yeah. No, absolutely. I think that um >> that's a good C that's a good CO um topic and I um and I know Aaron um had some comments in the chat section as well. But I do know that one of the things that Susan and I were talking about, Matthew, is to bring in um the high school people again because Ted, you you just love to hang out with us um and Aaron and crew um about um talking about our career pathway, which I think Matthew might help um help all of us understand and also very interested I think the board is very interested in hearing about this partnership with Grassotech with some with with some more

094information. So that's a great CO conversation. So I would like to kind of keep us on topic to this. >> Consider that a request for a referral at your >> I already have it written it down. Matthew, >> thank you so much. >> Kim, if you don't mind one I'm sorry if I just >> Oops. One of the metrics that you're asking about is has it worked? Are we seeing an increased number? and we will be able to share that results with the board when we see um how the kids have signed up for classes. >> Thank you so much. >> And if I could just again I want to stay on topic but I I uh if you don't mind Kim just to say that as I said before when when Liz was talking

095uh we have a diversity of students at a very diverse group of students at at Fitch High School. We want to meet that diversity with our programs and uh so I think that you know coming back and talking a little bit about the pathways and and the different programs that we are looking at. I think uh uh definitely we want to meet that diversity. We understand that that some students um you know might be looking at other areas for their interests going forward. We want to meet that that those requirements as well. So absolutely 100% agree. Thank you. >> Thank you both Rita. >> Thank you. Um I have a few different um questions and points. First is when you mention teacher recommendation to take a higher level course that is something that to me

096is a little discouraging. Um when my children were at Fitch, you couldn't take a higher level course, an AP or an ECC without a teacher recommendation. and that held back a lot of students. So I don't want that to be the only metric is that you know I want students somebody may not be doing all that well let's say in a particular subject and but yet they have a passion for it they've grown over the you know the year or so and they're still able to take a higher level course that that it's just not based on teacher recommendation >> and Aaron has just sent a chat saying that that is no longer true. open enrollment data. >> Well, that's what it always has been since the, you know, about 19 actually probably about 1996.

097But anyway, >> I think that we want to make sure that we're we're taking a hard look at the recommendation process and what students are signing up for so that we we so that students know that okay well you know that the teacher might have recommended this but you know we feel that you know you could do this with this particular support you know and I think that right >> we want to make sure that we we we push that with our students and also >> the teachers get an understanding of just how that recommendation process works and how they they want to make sure that they're recommending for the correct courses. uh because a lot of times students do uh really uh value that teacher recommendation. They know that the teacher knows them throughout

098the year. Um and but we want to you know sometimes we need to have that conversation. You know again as the teachers are making the recommendations we're going to be doing that check and when the students are making their their choices we're going to be doing that check as well. >> Okay. My second is that it seems um before students selected their courses in January, how has it gotten pushed over to March? >> Um I'm sorry. I >> see late in the year. One of the reasons why they did that, one of the reasons was they did their course selection in January was it really helped the board know for the budget how many maybe new courses that you were going to have at pitch or how many students were were enrolled in a course.

099It was the FTEEs, but it seems that it's very late in the year in March to be selecting courses. It was always much earlier. So, I was just curious when it moved. Um I I don't know exactly at fetch. I I see Erin's uh >> never Well, maybe since Aaron was there. >> Yeah. No, so in all my years as an administrator, this is about the same timeline. We've always >> the same timeline. >> Um and primarily it's because the recommendations happen after the end of first semester because we have the grades for the students and kind of know where they're at. >> Yeah. So, you know, it doesn't the very earliest it would start would be in the, you know, midFebruary, which is kind of what we're doing now. And so, it's it's something

100where I've never noted to start that early. Uh, but maybe in the past before my time it it had here. I I don't know. And I I we talked a little I talked about this a little bit before, but if one of the reasons why a student cannot get into maybe the IB program that hasn't taken algebra 2, I I believe that if you take algebra 1 in 8th grade, you take algebra 2 in nth grade and then geometry. But if you have not taken algebra 1 in 8th grade, you take it in ninth grade, then you have geometry, then you have algebra 2. If those were backto back, more students then might be able to get into the um IB program because they would have had the algebra 1, algebra 2 freshmen. So that

101might be something with the math department. And my other question is the honors courses that you give to ninth graders has is there a social studies honors course yet? >> There is we have a honors world history for the nth grade students >> for nth grade. And what about um the and I know there is science right if they're if they're still taking that in ninth grade. >> Uh Erin, could you answer that question? >> Yes. So, we have um honors classes in English in the ninth grade, world history, integrated science, and then the world language department students could go into honors Spanish 2, honors French 2, um and in math, if they are going into a higher level, they would go into honors algebra, too. >> That's that's wonderful. Thank you. And my other

102quick question is um does does Latin conflict with band? I've heard that for course selection that Latin was dur when band was being held in the middle of the day. Is that the case and that maybe that is why some of the students are not taking Latin? >> Um no I don't know that Latin conflicts with band. we have a number of Latin courses so that they so basically with within the scheduling process the computer is going to take a look at the courses that that students are signed up for and is going to set the courses in certain periods based upon eliminating conflicts for students uh where they could take the course they can take. Now, I'm not going to say that um that conflicts don't happen, especially band being a relatively large course.

103Um you know, it's tough to put courses opposite that that particular course. Um but you try to eliminate as number of conflicts. So, I can't say that there isn't a student that wanted to take a particular Latin course but couldn't because it's running the same time as band. But we're going to put that Latin course uh that is opposite the band course where it has at least the least number of conflicts uh for the students. That's generally how this the scheduling process works. But you know there are conflicts in every schedule. There's no perfect schedule and uh unfortunately you know there are times when students have to make a choice. >> Um and you know we sit down with those students and and figure out where they where they've got to be uh in terms

104of uh their um their and and you know in terms of Latin I know that's kind of a bigger discussion but um you know certainly uh the uh um that those conflicts happen everywhere unfortunately. Right. Well, I do hope that students are encouraged to also take Latin, that it's, you know, that you don't let it go by the wayside. It's so beneficial for students education and when they get into college, especially if they're going to go into the sciences, medicine, nursing, whatever, they they need, you know, to have that background in Latin. But that's it. Thank you. This is a great presentation. Thank you, >> Beverly. Thank you. And uh thank you Mr. Keller for this um very good presentation and I'm glad that you are trying to encourage students all students to take some

105of these higher level classes. But we did have a couple of principles in the past that were trying that was trying to do the same thing. Um I don't know if they accomplished their goal or not, but I'm glad you're still trying to make that happen. Um, when you say to significantly increase enrollment, what do you mean by that? Do you have like 5%, 10%, 15%? Do we have it so we can measure it or are you just thinking if five more students take it, that's significantly increasing enrollment? Well, I think it it depends on the particular course. And I think that, you know, for some uh some of these courses, you know, right now they're running and with, you know, some low numbers and and to have a course that maybe only has a

106few students in it right now, having a full section of students, that would be considered a a uh a a a significant amount. But you know for other courses you know having multiple sections of that particular course or having more students involved with the the DP program the the full diploma program for IB um I think that it's it's something where uh you know we want to see what what we're able to do this year. um we'll be able to share some of those numbers with the board uh and with with Susan and and and uh you know I know Tom is is working closely to try to uh make sure we can pull the the numbers uh for the actual recommendations which have been difficult in the past to do. Um and I think

107that um you know it'll be a matter of okay let's see where we are this year. Let's see what we're able to put together for next year because I'm really I'm not hopeful. I'm I'm I'm really planning to see an increase for next year, at least some increase. And then um and then we can really kind of put see like, okay, where do we you know, where do we want to see an AP bio be in a few years? Where do we want to see an AP English be in a few years? Uh where do we want to see the diploma program be in in in the next few years? Um and and it's also going to allow us to take a look and say like, okay, well, we're doing all this stuff and we're

108really not seeing an increase for this particular class. Why is that? and and uh um and and really be able to kind of target in on that. So, I don't know if I could give you a number right now. Um I think that it's really going to depend on, you know, what is some of the progress we're seeing in the first year and then what do we kind of want to see that happen going forward. >> Okay. So, maybe no number this year, but hopefully next year we'll have a measurable goal. >> Yeah, as a former math teacher, I'm definitely going to want to see a measurable goal at some point. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um my other question is some students you're going to encourage all students to go into these higher level

109classes. Um some students will be successful, some students will not. What are you going to do with the students that go into these classes but are not successful? How you going to handle that? Well, I think that um the well, first of all, it's it's trying to identify the students before they're not successful and and you know, trying to make sure that we have some supports in place for the students that we know that this is going to be a little bit tough for them. Um but they feel comfortable going into that course because they're going to have uh specific like we talked about like the possible AP or IB task classes to have some extra time to work on those particular courses. Um you know I think that um the one thing I will

110say is that you know the the faculty does such a great job with these particular courses and offer so much work with these students to to you know they work with them after school and and you know and and and give them extra you know help and and so on that u I I really feel that most of these students are going to be successful when they when they go into these particular courses. Um you know that being said you know yes there's times when students are not successful. Uh, one of the things, for example, that that we do is we we sit down and and talk with these these families early. Um, when it comes to seniors, I meet with the seniors that are in danger of of not passing a particular course, especially

111for their graduation requirements. I meet individually with them and their counselor uh right at the beginning, you know, as the year starts, right after the first quarter, and start having these meetings right away and start putting these supports in place. Um, so it's something where, you know, we we try to catch these these students early, uh, and are having those conversations with families and trying to move them forward. Uh, in addition, uh, Aaron and and Matt have really led a charge and in working with our SRBI program, so are identifying students that are struggling in in different areas and being able to offer supports for those particular students. >> Okay. Um, I'm glad you're going to encourage the students to take these classes, but I hope you don't I hope you're not going to put

112on a full court press and pressure them to take these classes. >> No, you know, it's it's interesting is that, you know, right from the get-go, you know, we we all said that this is not about just putting kids in classes they can't handle, >> you know. Um, it's like I can just stuff a bunch of kids in these classes and say, "Hey, look what I did." um you know, we want to see some sustainable success here um going forward and and the only way to do that is to put, you know, find the kids that are qualified to take these courses now and make sure we educate them on on what they can do now, but then, you know, trying to increase that pool and making sure that the students that are going in

113these courses are prepared to do it. Uh we're not looking to to to put students in courses that they're just going to to really be discouraged and that's not the point. And I think that um you know as as uh you know as we increase that pool it's only going to strengthen our our our education at the high school for all students going forward. >> Thank you very much and I wish you much success. >> Thank you >> Katrina. >> Hi. I've got two questions. Um my first one is is it correct to assume that since we started the my pre program at the middle school um enrollment in the IB program andor higher level classes will kind of follow. >> Did you hear me? Uh yeah, you're breaking up a little bit, but uh

114basically you're asking that uh since we started the NYP program uh we should see an increase in these uh in these programs going forward. >> Yes, sir. >> Yeah. Yeah. I I would think that we will start to see that. I think we'll start to see as we as we continue with working with NYP that we'll continue to see uh more students uh better prepared for um these programs going forward. I can't say that we've seen that increase already. Um as a fact a matter of fact with COVID um you know we we have not seen an increase of these students. That's why we've identified this problem and are putting together some specific steps to to remedy it. >> Thanks. Um my second question kind of um is along the lines of so Katrina Katrina

115you went out. So my question is has there been a shift in thinking in the guidance department against discouraging students from taking IB classes or higher level classes. >> So Kina the first part we missed almost completely but we got your question. So are you asking if there's just to make sure I clarify your question um has there been uh discouragement of students to take IB out of the guidance department is that basically >> yeah has that is that um discouraged I mean if this if a student is not um recommended by their by a teacher or identified by staff that they would be appropriate for these classes. What about those students who are interested in taking these classes and say let's say personally referred to take the you know they go approach a guidance

116counselor themselves. >> Well I Katrina I can't say that that that anyone's been discouraging students from taking these courses. I don't have any uh evidence of that as as you know I think that there has always been um you and I I'll speak frankly here you know it's it's something where you know as we talked about before that you know there's there's this group of students that are looking to take these courses and should they go into AP or should they go into IB um I I think that um you know it what I want to do is I want to increase the number of students that um are are qualified to take these particular courses uh are feeling that they can take these particular courses and I want to make sure we educate the

117families so that they understand what these courses entail and they can make a good decision based upon those and that's why um you know when we are meeting with students let's say the students that are qualified to take the IB diploma program I want them to sit down with uh Kelly Donovan who uh is a champion of those courses with their C counselor right there and talk about, you know, this is something that you're qualified for, all the benefits that these courses have. Um, and you know, but what is also the commitment to these because we don't want students to get into it and not realize what they're getting themselves into um because that's only going to lead to uh uh them not being successful. So, um I can't speak to you. I don't think

118in the past that we've had uh counselors that have just at least I have never heard that um that I've um a specific instance where someone has discouraged students from taking IB courses. Um I'm trying to look towards the future here and make sure we're all on the same page, whether it be AP, whether it be IB, ECE, whatever it is. Um and that we have enough students that they can go around and and to choose which courses they want to take. I'm glad to see this and hopefully it was just one situation. >> Yeah. You know, I've heard rumors, you know, and and I think it's, you know, it's something where um to be honest, I I I really want to move past that and and really work as a team. And I think

119that uh starting with the administrative team at the high school and the coordinators, uh I think we're we're ready to move together as a team and move forward to make sure we're benefiting all our students going forward. That's the that's the goal. Well, I think your plan is fantastic and I'm so happy to hear about where you're going with this. Thank you, >> Jay. >> Yes. Hi. I I'll try to keep this brief because I know all of you have been at it for at least 12 to 14 hours so far. Um but I really appreciate you know we have been going through about six weeks of looking at the budget uh line by line and it's wonderful to to hear from those of you who are on the front line that are actually delivering

120um you know the education to the students and uh this is really great news um you know that that we're encouraging I I think people have have talked in the past about how important it is to uh to encourage some of the students who who might not know about it and I wonder if if that's why the numbers are a little low this year is that you know with the pandemic there was no ability to communicate to students because they weren't there and so uh I think this effort is is going to uh to help immensely. So thank you all very much for coming out. Thank you, Jay. I appreciate it. And you know, again, as I said during the presentation, um you know, I'm not going to sit here and say that COVID is

121the only reason why, you know, our numbers are low um in some of these courses, but it certainly hasn't helped. Um, so I think that uh, you know, as we move forward, as we kind of are coming out of this, you know, hopefully coming out of this, um, you know, just increasing that communication, giving more opportunities for for our our teachers and our counselors and our and and Kelly and our and our our department heads and and all these people that are really championing these courses. The opportunity to talk to these kids uh, is is such a an important piece. And um you know just I mean right right from the get-go um the the work that Cara is doing is just having such a positive effect already. Um and uh you know I I

122think that these these kids I mean how amazing is it that we got a bunch of kids that are saying you know what I I've identified this problem and I'm going to reach out and and and uh and do something about it. Um you know I think it's just it's amazing. So, uh, you know, as soon as they I I sat through the kind of their their proposal the other day and I'm sitting there and I'm just like, you know, I should just hand this over to them and we'll be good. So, uh, uh, but, uh, no, it's uh, really just awesome. So, um, the, uh, uh, I think that's it's that's fantastic. So, um, I I think, uh, Erin, you you wanted to add a point there, >> just to, to piggyback quickly on

123what Katrina was asking. Um, for example, we have identified well over 60 of our 10th grade students that could potentially be candidates for the diploma program and really mapping out time, calling families, inviting them to a meeting about the benefits of IB, the um requirements for this diploma program and really being clear on, you know, what the expectation is going to be. But that partnership is between the counselor and Miss Donovan to really educate our families and our students. Um, and we are looking to expand that list anyway we can. We talked about algebra 2 kind of being that roadblock. So making sure that we have identified all potential candidates even if that is doing something in the summer to get them ready. Um, we want to just make sure that that we are doing

124that and the counselors and Kelly are working closely because as Mr. Keller mentioned this is sort of um this this rumor that has happened a little bit and we really are um dedicated to really debunking that. That is not true. We're trying to to really work together. Um Cara's work with the BSU, our students said that they feel like they weren't encouraged to take higher level classes or that they didn't see students like them in higher level classes and they didn't feel like they knew about all the possibilities. And so being able to send students in to encourage our our other students to take that challenge in class, being able to finally pull recommendations to make sure they're correct. And I know to to Rita's point, um there's always going to be that that situation

125where maybe someone was recommended, but that wasn't a great recommendation, and we have to really review that to make sure that we're not setting our kids up for failure. And if they need that little extra support, we're identifying that so that our kids are placed correctly. Um but we are really trying to look at this um from areas that have been problematic um in the past to really look at our enrollment across the board, support our students and making sure that they're not just taking, you know, a class where it's going to be easy. We want to see the kids challenge themselves and we are, you know, committed to to making sure that the high school experience is rigorous at their level. >> Absolutely. Could I just add one more thing? I think the difference

126that I see here in, you know, since I've been here since 2015 or 14 is that this is a real collaborative effort. You're hearing the leaders of Fitch High School saying this is important work. You hear the coordinators who are, you know, partly teachers and partly administrators also really buying into this and really dedicated to this mission. and they're going to collaborate with counselors and they're going to collaborate with families and students. And then you have that extra piece of student voice and we not only heard it from the back black student union but also for the more than words kids when we took them on retreat. They want to see more kids like themselves in those classes. They want kids to understand all the possibilities, all the opportunities that are available to them and

127not by their senior year when already four years have gone past. So this is a job not only for the high school. This is a collaborative work between our campuses, our middle school and high school. And it's also a collaboration from preK to 12. This is a district-wide initiative. I would say this is one of my number one goals to help support this work. So um I'm very very pleased and I appreciate all the work and the thinking and the planning that's gone into this. Um and I look forward to see what some of the results are. And just know it's going to be a growth model like everything we do. You know, it might not be instantly filling up classes, but hopefully we'll get there and we'll see that change. >> Trina, do you

128have another question? >> I would just like to say bravo. This is um just so exciting that you all are looking at this at such different directions and I look forward to seeing um which I would um fully expect that you guys will reach your goal. That's it. Thank you. I'll put my hand down now. >> Beverly, before um I recognize you, I am going to recognize Andrea because she has not um um had a goound, but you'll be after her. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, >> in our work with the DEI committee, we talked about bringing in bringing back the Martin Luther King scholars to talk to the seniors, particularly in terms of wanting to become teachers. But as I listened to Carita tonight and had and had her her that wonderful idea of bringing

129in all students, I'm wondering if there's a way to approach alumni who are in their maybe even they're in their um freshman year. I know the the scholars are here. I I have the the freshman in college come back and talk to the Martin Luther King scholars so they can kind of prepare them for what's expected of them. Wouldn't that be a wonderful idea to have the um to have an alumni group come back of every you know involved to involve all all students just like me is doing now. >> Thank you Andrea. >> Thank you >> Beverly. >> Thank you. Uh I just want to say um just like the students would like to see more pe more other students that look like them in the classes. I would also like to see more

130minority teachers in our school system. So it goes not only with the students, it goes with the faculty and we really have to work on hiring more minority teachers and I'll leave it at that. Thank you very much. >> Amen. Absolutely. Can I add to that one thing? Um I just this >> Go ahead. >> I'm sorry. I'll just say one thing. Um this week I contacted Lori Le Pine and she is going to to have a conversation with one of our uh Martin Luther King scholars who was in an education program in in Providence. And that's the re from our central office to u students of color. So just to let you know Beverly that's already in place at least in progress. >> What did you say? That's one person. All right. >> We

131need more than one person. >> You got to begin at the beginning, go to the end, and then stop. >> I hear you. I hear you. >> All right. Um got a question. I'm sorry. >> Oh, Dean. Yes. >> Yeah. I'm sorry. I I have never figured out how to raise a hand visually like that graphically, but um >> there was discussion before about what might be holding students back. Part of it was awareness, what's out there. Uh in my experience, my wife's experience, we've been talking for years. We've known people or heard of people that have been held back or might have been held back by peer pressure. So, we're the adults and we're talking about how can we draw kids into these programs and make them aware and prepare them for these programs

132if they're interested, etc. But is anybody aware because this is true in our day. Is anybody aware of peer pressure that might be keeping kids who frankly, you know, it's a young age. They're constitutionally maybe not able to withstand the peer pressure. Oh, you know, you don't want to be an egghehead. You don't want to be one of those people. That sort of thing. I think we're all aware of this phenomenon. Is anybody aware of of this as a possible factor for kids not signing up for courses? >> You know, Dana, absolutely. You know, I think that that students talk to each other. Um, and I think that you're absolutely right. You know, I mean, just the the statement of what Cara said, you know, that the students there don't look like me. Um, you

133know, students in those classes don't look like me. Um, that that kind of, you know, I again, that's not peer pressure, but it's it's students are are signing up for courses and and for a lot other reasons other than just I was recommended for this course, so I'm going to take that course. And so that's where, you know, we need to sit down with these students um and talk to them uh about with their families about where they they should they should be going. They need to hear from other students and talk to them about their their experiences in these courses and where um you know, and get encouragement from other students to kind of combat that because you know, we look at it as you know, oh, they get their recommendation and then they

134sign up for the electives they're interested in and there's the that's the that's the ball game. Well, they're dealing with so many other things um that you know in their daily lives that all come, you know, in with this, you know, they they intertwine and and so you're absolutely right. There is that that that peer pressure. And I think that's where we need to educate and we need the you know, the encouragement coming from a lot of different areas so that we can get these uh uh you know, these students uh into the courses that they they are really going to benefit them going forward. um whether that be these honors courses or you know as we said we'll come back and talk a little bit about some of the other pathways as well. Can

135>> can I just add as well Mr. Anas, uh, you are absolutely right though. Um, in our social studies department, we just talked yesterday, um, we're finding that students are intimidated by the summer assignment. And the summer assignment is a necessary quote unquote evil because of the amount of material that we have to cover within a year. And so if we do not cover a certain amount of chapters for as as a summer assignment, we will certainly be behind and not um be able to cover the information by the end of the year. And so just yesterday, as a matter of fact, we developed a twofold plan when it comes to our A push class. One of them has to do with the summer assignment. We're going to split it up. And then the second

136one is I I'm just proposing it to my building administrators right now that we have a an assembly for those students who are interested in a push or thinking about it or on the fence. So we can comfort them and make them feel comfortable and just make them again aware of what what are the expectations, what they need to do, how the summer assignment will be planned out this this summer. and um what they can do for extra support if needed. So that has been an intimidating factor for the students. Definitely. So, but we're going to do something about it to change it. It sounds like we have so many thoughtful things. Um and I don't want to prohibit any more questions, but I I am wanting to have us move on to the budget

137portion um of this. And um but I do want to say um to Ted and your staff um to Susan um brava bravo like this was amazing and um it and to Jay's point it is it helps us understand why we do what we do and why we work so hard on the budget um is to make sure that this is an opportunity that can get to um to move forward. Um so Ted, thank you very much. Um this was a great presentation. Um Erin, it was good to to hear your voice. Um Kamina, thank you as always. It's such a pleasure to see you. Um please stay if you want to continue, but I would like to move the board um to the enrollment. I don't blame you. Um to the enrollment um section

138of um of of the still number one, the two that we're working on. Um, uh, >> I could just say that, uh, we do look forward to sharing with the board our our our, uh, progress as we go forward. And so, we definitely will be back to to share, um, our results and and the next steps we'll be taking after that because it's going to be an ongoing process. >> Thank you all very much. >> Appreciate it. >> If we could um, Susan, if we could jump. >> So, we're gonna actually, we've already done enrollment for the secondary, so we're going to go back to the elementary. >> Yes. Since I have Tom on here with us. I have to get it organized here to see who's where. And just a reminder that we were

139able to um in the budget process because of some of the secondary um you know numbers we were able to um have cost savings with three FTEEs at the high school level that won't be replaced after retirement. And in the elementary we found one because of the efficiency of the larger size schools. And of course there will be a lottery. There will be submarines coming in and being built. And so um you know it's it's as we know it today with our projections what we're able to do. So we're able to secure um four FTEES through retirement that won't be replaced. Um so that helped us to to um you know bring our budget numbers down and we'll be talking about that later as well. So here we have the Charles Barnum School at the

140top and you see the 2022 on the left and to the right is what the projections are for next year. Tom, would you like to speak to how you were able to um work through these numbers? >> Yeah. Can everybody hear me? Can you guys? Yes. Okay. Sorry. I just wanted to confirm. Um, so, you know, very similar to what we did at the secondary level, we we really just moved our classes down. Um, so, you know, first grade to second grade, second grade to third grade, so on and so forth. Um, with our K numbers, we did our best to project what we think the incoming K classes would be. Um, you know, if they were distributed kind of evenly throughout our buildings. Um but as Susan said, kind of the the biggest variation

141that we face at the elementary level is our lottery. Um so so while we do have control over the amount of available seats we offer um at each school and we do have, you know, a a decent amount of control over the enrollment at each building um without kind of having that lottery process completed at this point, it really is just a a projection. So, we we do anticipate that the kind of overall student numbers between our K5 schools will be pretty accurate, but in terms of exactly where they end up, we we do expect some shifts here and there. Um, but it also gives us the opportunity to be able to adjust. So, when we have grade levels that are a little bit smaller at certain schools, we can try to balance with other

142buildings um if there are students who apply in the lottery to that school. So, it gives us a good opportunity to help balance across the district as well. And as you know, preschool prek is now in the two larger schools, the brand new schools, Mystic River and um Thames River. So you'll see that there's zeros in there for Charles Barnum, Katherryn Kowski, and Northeast Academy. Um >> yeah, I have something that to me is a glaring that's like needs to be addressed. Um Tom, this is for you. You know, when I first looked at this, I was alarmed. Let's say Charles Barnum with the average class size being 22 24 in kindergarten and first grade, which is way more than our 20 max. But the way you did this, you did it on the expected

143enrollment as opposed to really how many children are there. So it's it's not correct because if you look at Charles Barnum let's say or grade one you had 71 students projected there are three FTEEs so that made it 24 students in a class but really there are only 54 55 students there that's 16 which is much different so we should be seeing the numbers for not what you projected the year before, but the actual I mean to me this is when I look at this and I went through every single one. It's all done on what was expected enrollment as opposed to what the actual enrollment is. So it's not accurate. >> Well, we do have two actuals though, Rita. We have the October one and then we did a January 15th as Yeah, but

144doing it on those I even took in account if there was one more student in class or one less or one more it still is let's say >> so the 55 number that you see in K currently becomes the 55 number in grade >> I'm not talking about that I am talking about the average class size >> so so you the average class size column on the the left hand table does reflect that but the average class size column on the right hand table >> was projected. >> Yes, you are correct that this is the format that is oh my impression and Ken, please correct me if I'm wrong. This is the format that we've used in the past as well. >> Well, I think it'd be much better to do the a class size

145for the year that we're in, not what was projected the year before. Because if you if I mean I was really concerned if you if you look at some of these class sizes in grade three at Northeast Academy you have projected um 78 students three only three FTEEs 26 in a class but really there are only 65 students there and that makes that much more palatable because I I was very concerned with some of these numbers and I thought so you know you really need to have the average class size maybe after the enrollment for January um 15, 2022, not what was divided, you know, that was just a guess from the year before. >> Yep. We could certainly look to add a column. Absolutely. >> We can look at that format. Yeah, we really

146want our kindergarten and our first grade classes to be 20 or less and and some of these are over, but then when you really figure it out, that's not true. It was only what was projected. >> Yep. No, absolutely. And and those projections are also what we use to try to understand what our seat availab availability is in the lottery. So, for example, you know, when we saw that the uh that Northeast Academy class that was that was quite large and would have created class sizes that were very large, >> that was an opportunity to um you know have a lot of those students go to other buildings when they applied in the lottery. So therefore, we could get down to a more manageable number like 65. >> I understand. Well, maybe you could do

147that aside someplace and not have it for the board to look at or for the public because it really I was very worried when I saw 24, you know, in a first grade class and and 23, but that really isn't what what it is. >> Absolutely. We could definitely add a column. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Susan. I'm moving right down here. So this is our Mystic River, Thes River and our total Mystic River is the first. Again, we were concerned this year going into Mystic River and Thes River um at the sheer number of kindergarteners that were enrolling. Um it is much more difficult to project kindergarten and I think that's why part of the plan this year is to get kindergarten enrollment going happen happening now and to have the lottery process starting

148now especially when it's a competitive time for both the learn and new London schools. I feel like we really want to be able to you know compete in this market and be able to show families what we do offer in graten as well. So that is happening. So we have learned some lessons through this whole process. Um and you you see again those especially in our military schools we and all of our schools we we tend to see more um younger higher classes for the younger like a a fuller um and that's why you know in some of in Northeast Academy and CK they start out with two four tiers and then they drop to three tiers. Um and you know with um both Mystic River and Thes River, they're they're slided to be four

149tier schools, but there are some areas in the upper grades where they go to three tiers because it's not needed to have the fourth tier. >> Any questions about elementary enrollment? >> Yeah. Could you go over the the total enrollment you have projected? It looks like um for preK 72 students >> but two FTEEs. >> So they have a morning and an afternoon class. So that's really 36 total students >> divided by two. So >> divided by two. Yeah, >> that might that might be nice to have that explained. Like I see you have the half day sessions. half day sessions include one open, you know, but maybe just also say that so that people don't think we only have, you know, two t big classes there. >> Yeah, that's true. That could be confusing.

150Same thing with the preschool. I think there was an asterric and an explanation, but maybe we can make that more clear. >> Any other questions about enrollment for the elementary? All right, Tom, thank you for your hard work around this. >> Thank you very much, Tom. We appreciate you being here. >> No worries. Have a great night, everybody. >> All right, I'm going to move us on to Ken if it is you. >> Yep. We're going to start. We're going to have we're going to be going through um district and building administration 586 through 593. >> Yeah, it's the it's the last four sections. Uh everyone has done a terrific job getting through all those pages. We're in the last four. >> I know. >> Home run stretch. >> Um I'm going to put it

151up. Uh I I guess I'm going to suggest we go through all four. They're in order. Uh and then then maybe I'll take it down at the end of that. >> Okay. That's fair. >> Let's see. I just got to find it. Here it is. All right. So, starting at 5-86, uh, this is function 2311, board of education services. Uh, this is the function where we capture uh costs uh for uh affiliation with the uh with CABE as well as the NSBA. And in addition uh includes um uh uh attending the uh the annual CABE conference. And so on the next page down uh you'll see that um uh for FY23 we're budgeting uh 4200 same amount as last year for uh travel. That that that is to cover both the registration fees as well

152as any uh any incidental uh travel costs uh that may be incurred. Uh there's $500 for food supplies for uh meetings if we were if we were in person. Uh and then the uh 810 is uh dues uh and that is the uh aforementioned um CABE and N I forget the National School Board Association. Uh so a total of 30,241 no increase uh um proposed over over this year. Uh I'll go right down to uh 5-88. Uh this is function 2312 superintendent services. Uh you'll see the FTEES in this group. This uh this includes uh the superintendent, assistant superintendent, and the director of HR as well as uh the clerical staff. Um we have Oh, I had that page and I moved. We have two folks in the um superintendent's office, 3.25 in HR and

153the registar and the receptionists, that's what makes up the 7.4. Um, and just a note that uh the cost for the town pension uh uh which covers uh custodians maintenance should say custodians maintenance and tech as well as school secretaries and co uh we've historically split that between uh this function and the uh following function um uh just as a place to put it um really uh so I'll go down to the next page on the costs uh you'll see salary in wages uh for uh the FTEES we spoke of. Uh we do have a 2% uh increase uh over the estimated amount uh for administration and clerical based upon um the same am uh percentages that the u that the secretaries and the uh the admin unions are are um are have. Uh then

154the employee benefits. You'll see line 213. 213. That's the town retirement number. That's um we put in a placeholder when we put the book together of 1%. Uh it did come in a little bit higher. Uh and we'll be looking at that uh a little bit later when we look at um um uh the adjusted uh superintendent's budget. Uh but uh you'll see that that lines in there. uh professional services and legal services. These are um uh services that we get outside from outside the district. Um professional services would include uh Malone and McBroom um Transfinder. Um legal services that is um uh most of that is with um uh uh Floyd and his group. Um, we're anticipating that there is an increase in rate that they uh that they've uh um communicated to us,

155but we're anticipating slightly lower hours, especially because we're doing four-year agreements versus three-year agreements uh for the uh for the teachers and for the uh custodial maintenance uh tech group. Uh next uh section down 400s total purch uh purchase property services. Uh this is repair and rentals. Uh the rentals of equipment would be the postage machine. Um uh the binding machine, there's a couple of off pie pieces of office equipment and the repair uh of those of those uh of those pieces of equipment. Uh other purchase services, uh the 500s, uh includes postage, uh advertising, minority recruitment advertising. Um, for next year, we actually uh are going to um uh utilize the alliance district funding uh next year to uh to uh uh to pay for those uh pay for those costs. So, we're reducing

156it here, but we'll um certainly continue doing that. uh travel. Um and so overall it's it's that decrease of 5,000 um that that we took out uh because it's paid for by the uh the alliance district. Uh general admin supplies, those are office supplies um um and food supplies. Uh this is where we would charge any unfunded um um lunch uh amounts. Uh because um uh paid for by C for the past couple of years um we've uh we've not had had to charge anything in here. But the anticipation is if we go back to um um having uh students pay for lunch uh that there may be some um un unpaid balances that we would need to cover. Um and then under equipment there is uh small amount for instructional equipment. Um this is

157uh uh for any any sort of additional instructional equipment that uh that may not have been covered by the site budgets. Um last year oops last year we we did buy uh this is a printer and um the bigger number here under non-instructional equipment is uh uh a number of desks and some uh furniture in the reception area. uh that we did at the end of last year. And then the bottom number dues uh those are I have some examples here. Let's see. Uh Nafus, that's the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools. Uh Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendent. uh RSK, um Chamber of Commerce, uh NCTM, uh just to name a few of uh of the uh u organizations that that would pay for. Uh in total for this group, uh an increase of

15837,853 or a 2.4% increase. Um I'll keep on going if you don't mind. Uh hopefully we can uh we can get through uh page 5-90. Uh this is the business office. uh you'll see the uh FTEES there are a business manager and then the uh six clerical uh staff that cover uh uh payroll accounts payable benefits uh purchasing uh pupil personnel and uh food services and grant payments just just to name a few of the items. Uh again uh half of the the town pension amount gets charged into this function. We'll see that in one second. Uh this is 5-91. This is the expenses for the for the business office uh salaries. Again, uh it's 2% over the FY22 estimated uh based upon the uh uh same percentages in the the union contracts for the

159secretaries and administration. Um you'll see again line 213 town retirement. Um, and that's that's the other half of that uh that town retirement amount that uh that we pay to the town. That number comes from the town, by the way. They they gave that to us in in like uh late um late uh January because that that's when they get the report from the uh from the actuaries. Uh line 331, professional services. Uh this is uh for the cost of the annual audit uh that we do in conjunction with the town uh as well as any customizations or um upgrades to uh any of our financial systems such as einance and u and frontline. Uh we uh put in a small uh 1% increase uh for that uh for that expense. uh total purchase uh

160other purchase services um there's travel in here um um for workshops um which we don't typically go but um it is there um general admin supplies under supplies uh that's just once again that's for office supplies uh the biggest line item actually for uh for the business office is actually producing this uh this this budget book so uh that's what really drives that number Uh and then under dues line 811 is uh for uh CASBO that's the Connecticut Association of School Business Officials. Um so for this uh for this function it's an increase of 24,5667 which is a 2.5% increase. Uh should I go on to the last section or do you want me to stop? Uh Kim, >> no keep on going. Um Beverly, we're gonna um do the questions at the after um

161Ken has presented. >> Shouldn't we do at least the central office to separate from the next? >> If if that is that the will of the board, then that's fine. >> Okay, I'll bring it down. >> All right, Beverly, you have a question? >> Um yes, I do. on account on the superintendent office services, right? Uh administration, there's three people, the superintendent, assistant superintendent, and the director of human human resources, and the increase is $30,000. Is that mean that each person is getting a $10,000 raise? >> Well, uh one thing to understand, we did uh the budget last year, the FY22 budget. um um um Dr. Grineer had just announced his retirement. So we don't that that number um uh is was kind of in flux at that time. So um uh and I don't

162believe Phil was with us at that point. And so um that was that was an estimate as of that time. Um I can't really uh answer uh that question with what information I have here. Well, and I think when you look at the FY22 estimate versus the FY23 budget, there's really a $10,000 difference that I see. >> Well, all I'm looking at is the increase and it says $30,000. >> So, that that's a $30,000 increase. If not, put $10,000 there. And um so I can you can you sort that out for me? like superintendent, how much they made last year, how much she's they're making this year. So, I can see the raises and what's really going on. And I have the same question for the business manager on the next page um with the

163$12,000 increase. We uh have a placeholder of 2% I believe. >> What >> is that correct? And then >> that's a lot of that's a lot of money increase $12,000. >> We might have a placeholder, but that should be voted on by the board. We always get into trouble with this because then we go to June when we actually do this and they say, "Well, it's already budgeted." Well, no, we should have that discussion before it's budgeted. I mean, it should be maybe 1.5 and not 2%. And we've often talked about, you know, having some type of accountability, which which people should get the raises. Maybe somebody needs three, maybe somebody's not doing enough work and needs 1%. You know, I mean, across the board, there has to be accountability here and not every and

164just to build in every year 2%. You know, that that's really a lot. And I don't think the teachers are all getting 2% this year. I believe the top step is getting a lot less than 2%. >> Because these are really big raises. $12,000 raise. That's ridiculous, people. Come on. >> Well, the other thing is that I know I, you know, I always want to know what the cost percent of the cost share is. Is it keeping up with the administrative salary, the administrator's cost share for the health plans? Is it 23%? I mean, yeah, I think they're paying close to 20 23% of the cost share now. And I'd like to know what ad the administrators are paying. You know, is it in line with that? Maybe we need to look at the teachers

165top step and the administrators before we just build in this 2% and then when we have this discussion in June, they you always say, well, it's already budgeted. I think we can go back and um kind of maybe do one of your tables um Ken and and explain this. There was a lot what one of the things Ken did say was there was a lot of influx in transition. So we in FY21 we um really spent less. Mike was gone and his salary was um larger. Phil didn't come for four months. So what you're seeing the differential had to do with some of the cost efficiencies we were finding and then um you know we did have some um vacation time that was added on in the summer. So um just we could we could

166put together something that will make sense for you. >> Certainly. >> Yes. Thank you. Because this doesn't make sense and I'm sure that the public would be raising their eyebrows on these increases. something not deserved. Just that I think it needs to be addressed. >> Andrea, >> yeah, I I wanted to address that as well. And I'm glad, Rita, that you just said what you said because I think 2% for uh our our top administrators is more than reasonable. I don't think that any other position anywhere gets you out of the house every single night has you I know working on weekends up till whatever. I know that the work that they put in goes above and beyond what a 2% raise indicates. >> Yeah, I have to agree with Dr. Arian and I don't

167know if anybody's noticed inflation lately. 2% anybody isn't even keeping up with a fraction of of inflation. Um I'm surprised that you were able to come in with a budget this low and I'm concerned about these inflationary pressures and whether we're going to be able to cover all of this, you know, with this budget or whether we've understated it. So just my two cents, >> Matthew If somebody else wants to continue this line of questioning, I'll hold off because mine is a little different. >> Go ahead, Matthew. >> Okay. I'm looking at line 541 and I see that we have completely eliminated minority recruitment advertising there. And since I know we're committed to minority recruitment, I'm presuming that it's just shifted somewhere else in the budget. Could you give some clarity on that? >> Ken,

168would you repeat what you had said about that? How it's being paid for by Alliance? >> Yeah, we actually went over this. This is like the third time I think we've gone over it, but yes, please. >> I I apologize. >> We we have funding >> through through the alliance district. Uh we we have been um uh the town sorry the the state has committed to uh paying us uh 200,000 uh dollars. We are uh utilizing those funds to to pay for that uh for that advertising because that's >> Thank you very much. That that explains >> Y. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Um I have a question or a request. could we put a um placeholder or whatever somewhere to um so that we can have a discussion about exactly what

169type what we are doing for minority recruitment. >> So that that can be absolutely a committee of the whole um conversation and I'm going to take that as a request and I'm writing that on a list for another committee of the whole meeting. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments? If not, let's move on. >> All right, here we go. This is the the final section 5-92. Uh so this is school administration. Uh this uh first section under administrators, this is for um uh principles as well as assistant principles. So to total administrators in each building um you'll notice um Charles Barnum CK NEA at two Mystic River and Thames River. We we had uh proposed and and have two and a half uh administrations at those buildings uh for this year. Uh

170we're finding that that we need additional uh and so we have proposed three. Uh so it's an increase of 0.5 for each of those locations. Uh and then Graten Middle and Fitch High School both have uh four that's one principal and three um assistant principles. Uh for clerical the school secretaries very similar uh at the at those first three uh elementary schools uh one um school secretary at the two bigger elementary schools. Um uh we found that one and a half secretaries was not uh was not uh uh getting everything that we needed to get done. Uh so uh we have uh proposed uh having two at each of those locations. Uh Grunt Middle has two and uh Fitch High School has four uh sec school secretaries. Uh for security and supervision um we have

171uh the same number four and a half uh security uh just uh um split it up a little different between the middle and the high school. And oops uh under the cost on 5-093 I think this is Yep. Um so here we have the uh the salaries and wages uh the uh we have applied the the contractual increases for the principles assistant principles and clerical. We've added a 2% to the security uh uh group. Um we have also included in in lines 107 and 113 included the cost of an additional uh additional position as discussed above. Uh so that's what's driving that uh that that increase uh of 259 uh 578 or 7 and a half% in that uh in the salaries and wages. Um if we go down to um uh professional services uh

172line 331 uh 134,850 that is uh the cost for the two SRO's one at uh one at Fitch I'm sorry at Graten Middle and one at Fitch High School. Uh we we pay for I believe it's 70% of the cost of the officer. We pay that directly to the town. Uh 430 is repair of equipment. Um they we used to have uh the cost of the uh repairing the uh copers here but now this is cost of other other equipment um within the uh within the school buildings. Uh there is an increase of uh $500 which is uh shows up as a 17.9% increase. Uh other purchase services uh we have uh is pretty much the same. over last year. There is $350 increase under postage. Um but other than that, uh uh same um

173year-over-year budget for supplies, uh somewhat up and down, uh increases under school admin supplies, uh food supplies, uh but a decrease under um safety and professional materials. I know much of that safety supplies is being covered by uh ESSER uh at this point uh for for masks and and and um face shields and those types of things. Uh but those sorry about that those uh alto together uh is an increase of $2,50 um over LA this year's budget. Uh and then under dues uh there is uh a $600 decrease dues for this group. Oh, I didn't write them down. Darn. Um, these these are dues paid on the school uh school building level. Um, and we are anticipating a slight decrease. Overall, it's it's an increase of 245 almost 246,000 or 5.9% and it's being

174driven by the by the addition of the uh uh of those two positions. questions. >> I have a question, Kim. >> Absolutely, Beverly. >> On the 107 assistant principles, is that um the increase is due to one assistant principal or two? >> One one assistant principal um that'll be So, right now there's one that's split between the two bigger elementary schools. The proposal is to have just one full one uh at each of the uh um those locations instead of the half. >> But the increase is also due to the contract too. >> Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. >> So, you have contractual obligations that we are paying for along with that one FTE. >> Thank you. >> Um Rita and then Katrina. In terms of the extra principal at Fame's River and Mystic River, I

175know I know the person who retired and um she was doing, you know, splitting her time between both those schools and now you feel that we need three at schools that have a little over 500 students and we have NEA that has two that has 400. Um, and then we also were always going to address the middle school with four administrators that we started out that way and then I remember Dr. Greener telling us that we'll look back at this. Right now we have one on every, you know, floor and then Peter, you know, getting everything organized. Do we still need to have four at the middle school? I mean it just seems like we need I just keep looking for some cost savings and what's going on and I you know so I just

176sort of want to know I mean it's the admin that it's very expensive and and could and if if these two extra I mean if this extra principle at Mystic River and Thames River is mostly for special ed is it somehow how can be taken or combined into that special education budget and get any type of reimbursement for that. >> Susan or Ken, >> I we that would be something we'd have to look at. Um I think that all of the um proposals have been made for the ARPA IDA already, so that was not put in there. So, we'd have to go back and look at that to see if there's anything through IDA. >> Yeah. It's just something because I know that's where our special is that is basically at those two schools now.

177Correct. >> Exactly. >> So, I mean, maybe there's a way to offset the extra principal that has to be hired for each one of those schools that they have that they're going to have three two assistants and one principal. Correct. And then also at the middle school, what what you know what's going on there. So just something to think about. Well, we're still you were still kind of getting through a pandemic and it's required all hands on deck especially with social emotional learning and some of the the things that they've dealt with with social media and um you know it's required people working you know time and a half I think. Okay, Katrina. >> Um, are our school security guards full-time um or part-time? And how many hours a week do they work? >> Uh,

178school security actually they're part-time. So, when we have uh four and a half, that's actually nine people. They're all uh they're all 0.5. Uh, and so they work I think they work like a 15 to 20 hour a week um job. >> Thanks. >> So some staggered, some come in in the morning with the buses so that they do the security at the front end of the day and then around noon time they switch over and then we have people staying in the afternoon for bus um dismissal. Any other questions or comments about this? Go. >> Could you explain the budget narrative down below? The very last sentence says, "Increase 3.5 FD security guards at the secondary schools." >> Yeah, that uh that's been corrected. I apologize. It's been >> Oh, okay. >> I think

179it was left there from last year to be honest. >> And we need more obviously if you're going >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. Kim, I I do that. Andrew, >> I I'm unclear about I heard four administrators at the middle school. So, that would be the principal and then one for each grade. Is that correct? >> That's correct. >> Okay. And I'm putting my my weight behind that having been having experience that's needed. >> Right. >> Katrina, do you have other questions? >> No. Oh, I left my hand up again. >> Well, you could be just waving at us. That's fine. >> Or Yeah. >> Any um any other questions or comments? All right. So, um the next item on our agenda um thank you guys for sticking um through this. This is a

180longer than usual meeting. Um but we are getting really well well we've just finished the review of our budget. Um and um one of one of the things that Susan has provided us in our packet is a um proposed um this is the chart that we were looking for about what would what would get us down to um and I think you brought it down to 1.62. Is that correct, Ken? Um, and I'll have you guys kind of go through that. Um, but what I what I want to just leave people with is um it's excuse me, it's not on our agenda to vote tonight. So, we're not voting on the budget tonight. However, our next meeting is on Wednesday and we will need to take a vote on that budget. If not, we are

181going to need to meet Thursday. And if we can't do it on Thursday, we're going to need to do it on Friday because we need to have it voted on and um placed in the hands of the of this of the town manager. So, we are we are rapidly coming to that point of of that. And so in tonight's if you have questions, if you come up with questions, Matthew, I know that you sent me an email about wanting to have have another discussion about how to um use the AR or to make sure that we don't touch the ARPA um fund so that you have two specific ideas about that. I promise I will make sure that that goes on our agenda. Um but um I just want to make sure that we get

182get what what we need to have um so that when we get come together next Wednesday, we feel com comfortable and confident that we can vote on our budget for next year. >> So >> are we are we meeting on the 28th? Is that our regular meeting where we would normally vote on the budget? But on the 28th, Rita is when it has to be already into the um town managers by charter. So that's why >> 23rd was a consensus and the 28th was the vote. No, >> no. We need to we really need to be able to vote either on the 23rd, on the 24th, or on the 25th, which is the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Um Um and if we have to do it on the weekend, then we're going to have to do

183it on the weekend. But we need to get we need the budget needs to be into the town manager's office by charter um on the 28th. >> 28th, right? So our meeting is on the 28th. That's I was just curious. Seem to be voting early, but that's okay. >> I don't think we are voting early. We are voting and making sure that our budget gets there by the 28th. So, Ken and Susan, if you would walk us through the sheet, that would be helpful. >> Let me put it up here. All right. Hopefully, you can see that. Uh, attachment number three. Um, so we've kind of looked at this before. Uh, and we think we left off, uh, really at line 14. Uh, we made some adjustments. Uh, those retirements without replacements that Susan mentioned.

184um as well as uh making some adjustments um uh on the severance, the pension number and uh health insurance. Uh so I think we left it at the 2.68. Uh lines 16 through 19. Uh last time we looked at this, we had uh we had this at $100,000 uh for each of these categories. Uh after your comments, uh uh Susan felt we we should reduce that. So we reduced it down to 50,000. uh still uh utilizing some um ARP uh ESER funds uh but at at a lower rate. Uh and then uh down here um in the lower section lines 23 through 29 um uh I think we did talk about already needing to increase the liability uh property insurance due to the uh the new schools and larger values and so unfortunately the larger

185premiums. Uh but then we took a look at some other areas that uh we could make some adjustments to. Um uh a small one but uh postage. We have noticed a reduced usage of uh of postage at the central office. Uh more utilization of online uh communications. Um uh so u think that uh it would be um uh good idea to reduce that uh by $10,000. Uh we also took a look at uh the placements both board and agency placements. Uh in the uh conversation we had with Denise Doolittle, she indicated that there were uh was a trend down in the number of students that were being placed. Uh and so you utilizing that information and uh making uh some assumptions on on on how that trend is going to go. uh we feel comfortable

186that we could reduce uh the placements both the board and the agency placements by uh by uh 282 and 113,000 uh respectively. Um hopefully that trend continues. uh line 27 um you know we in the budget right now we're assuming that there's the same amount of magnet uh school um uh students uh next year as there are this year uh we have seen a reduction there has been a trend downward um and so we are uh proposing we make uh another assumption where there's another 5% reduction in the magnet school enrollment which um um uh it is trending that way and so hopefully that would continue as well. Uh we did get the final report on the workers comp that actually was a decrease of uh of $32,000. Uh and then line 28 um we

187are proposing a reduction in uh health insurance reserve uh payment uh because we did get our open report uh that also came in in the in January and uh we anticipated a reduction in the liability but the liability came down a little bit better a little bit more than we anticipated. Uh so we feel uh comfortable that we could reduce uh the uh health insurance uh amount uh by 125. And so uh this uh if we implemented all of these um reductions or adjustments I should say uh that would um increase over last year's budget to 1,256810 or 1.62%. [Music] Jay. >> So, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, um, but I think, uh, I think Beverly may actually agree with me on this. I'm very concerned about the offloading of the

188$200,000 to the ARBs. Um, I think after all the years of zero budgets, the town council has to realize that uh the pressures are such that it's not going to be zero this year. And I'm really concerned about the sustainability of the operating budget by by pushing this $200,000 down the road because he will have to reabsorb it at some point. Um, and so I for one, um, would rather, you know, I I personally would rather to see that 200, um, thousand go back in to the operating budget and then we'll have a frank conversation with the town leaders and and just to kind of give you a clue um, and I will, um, pass on Matthew's, um, email to everyone is is that he actually was kind of talking about being able to use

189the um the to be able to give Susan and her staff the ability to do more instructional um work um to help kids who have fallen behind on COVID, i.e. more tutoring, more opportunities either on campus, off-campus. Susan has some ideas about that as well. Um, and so >> and and it's actually built into the plan. So I can kind of share with them more specifically how it's already built in. It's been uh the plan has been approved by the state of Connecticut and tutoring is a big part of what we're offering. >> Right. But I guess to Jay's point is um do we need to be using all of that? >> Correct, Jay? >> Yeah. I mean, we're we're basically reducing our operating budget by this grant that will run out. And, you know,

190we've talked about sustainability since I've been on the board. You know, whenever we get a grant, you know, how are we going to reinccorporate it into the the operating budget? And it seems to me that we're making this adjustment to make this more palatable. But I think people need to see what does the real budget look like, you know, based on contractual increases. We know these budgets are not driven by the cost of paper. They're uh driven by uh our contractual increases. And so I think, you know, we go to the the town council with a true figure of what our needs are. Now, if they disagree on that amount, you know, maybe we come back and make some adjustments after the fact, but I don't um I just personally don't like to see us

191using that grant money against an operating budget um at this stage of the game. >> Thank you, Jay. I'm going to call on um Liz and then Beverly. >> I wanted to second what Jay was saying. I I'm very concerned when I saw this and I looked at it very carefully. I was um I got quite nervous about being able to really sustain these cuts. Um and I just agree. I I really think we need to go with what's reality. And unfortunately, reality is is that we have inflation. We have contractual issues. We have things that we have to pay for. And I'm not one that's you know, I'm always looking to see what we could do to find deficiencies. And I applaud you, Susan, and your staff for trying to do that. But I

192think we need to deal with reality. I really do. And I I don't think we're doing our I don't think I would be comfortable, I mean, it's tough for me to put forward a budget that um we can't sustain those types of cuts. And that's how I want to um I just wanted to say that. >> Thank you, Liz. Um Beverly, and then Rita. Thank you. Um Susan, I'd still like to see um an account of all the items that are being paid by OPA and other grants that that are being paid for in this budget that we that when the grants run out that we still want to want to continue funding on the regular board of ed budget. Do you understand what I'm saying? >> Yes, I do. We have different charts. I

193think that Ken, you and Lori had worked uh really hard on trying to outline that and pulling all the three, four different charts together. >> So, we'll try to pull that off. And And >> do you have to do it in chart? Can you just do a list like uh okay uh general supplies, we're paying $50,000 by in grants, but we need to continue this when the grant runs out. Yeah, we'll have to take a close look at it because they're usually done on Excel spreadsheets and they have, you know, a money amount that goes with it and they're done by the budget categories, the 100s, 200s, 300s, 400s. So, that's how it's outlined in the way we do accounting practices for schools. So, I'll work with Ken on that >> because this will give

194us a good idea what we're going to have to pay for in the future >> that that we want to continue paying for that the grants are now paying for. So, okay. And my other question is um when you reduce board placements and you're assuming that it's going to be less students for 25 26 27, what what if there's not less students? How do you how do you plan on paying for that if you cut it out the budget? >> So, so it's it's always a risk uh no matter what number you put in there that um that the number of students that get placed is is going to exceed what you have. Um you know, we took a look at what we've paid over the past couple of years and we just trended that

195out based upon the number of students that we see uh are currently uh being placed. Uh, and so, you know, we feel pretty comfortable that that that that um that we won't go over. Um, is there a possibility? I think there's always there's always the risk uh of going over. Uh, at that point, we'd have to we'd have to get back together and and discuss that, but I I feel I feel pretty comfortable after going through the numbers with Denise uh with u uh the folks in my department that that that look at these things. Um and uh uh you know I agree with you there is a risk but um I I I think I think it's I think we're we're we're pretty safe. >> Okay. Because this is a large number. It's almost

196500,000 if you add them all together. So even if we had to pay 250,000, we still got to come up with that, you know. So okay, if you feel pretty safe, I'll go with it. >> Pretty safe. >> I'm gonna um recognize Rita and then Dean. And Dean, it looks like you had a learning curve about how to raise your hand. Congratulations. >> I need to learn >> more of a straight line. >> So my my question, I have a couple, but one is um the supplies that we're taking out of the esser. The esser was meant to pay for things like supplies that we needed, custodial supplies, all the extra things that we needed during COVID. Isn't that true? to to pay for the PPE, to pay for um extra in instructional equipment, um

197custodial supplies that that the custodians need because they were cleaning so much, even the software. So that 200,000 is that something that would be recurring or was that because of the pandemic? It's really supplies like custodial supplies that we're looking at that um we already have a plethora of mass, thousands and thousands of mass. So, we have accumulated a lot of these things. So, we don't think we'll need to be purchasing them next year. >> Right. That's what I'm saying about the the 200,000. I'm not as concerned about that because I feel that those were expenses that we need to that we needed that then the grant was for and even though the grant's ending hopefully we're not going to be paying for all this ever again. >> Right. >> So, and my other question

198is could you tell me the three retirements at the high school? What subjects they're in? I mean, you could write it to me in an email or board notes if you're not sure. And I believe Denise had told us that in we were having some students that are turning 22 and aging out of the program. Was that correct? Is that why some of this is going down? >> Yes, that was additionally she had mentioned that she does have some concrete information. But Beverly's right that you never know who's going to be moving into town and maybe family. I mean that's it's a a constant fluid system >> and and and the magnet school I know the tuition is going up. I know especially for special ed. Has that been taken into account? >> Yes, I

199believe so. Right, Ken? >> Yeah, we have those numbers. >> Yeah, we built in a an increase in rates for both the tuition as well as the special education uh services but with but with the decrease. That's like so it's kind of like a >> two different ways. Uh so if we assume that that decrease in in uh magnet enrollment um uh you know hopefully that happens and uh and that that's what we realize. >> Great. Thank you. >> I'm going to recognize Dean and then Katrina. >> Thanks. All right. I've mentioned this before at least once. I'm sure more than once. Uh and that is the whole notion of boiling the frog. Um yes, somehow miraculously the board of ed over the years has had series of zero increase or near zero zero increase

200budgets. Um but sooner or later like everything else it goes up. So I want to make sure that with this budget we're not saying let's present the you know the most delicious looking uh budget the lowest increase of maybe all the departments. I don't know. I don't know what the rest of town looks like only to have to play catchup next year with no room to maneuver. We're just out of squares and it's checkmate. Um, and you'll never be able to point to the prior year and say, "But we did such a magic job the prior year." No one will care at that point. They'll only be looking at that increase. So, that's one. There's that caution. Um, gosh, what was my other thought? Darn it. Oh, and that is this um the original budget

201uh I worked it backwards. The original proposed budget before this series of proposed trims to it. Um yes, we we looked at a certain percentage of the increase of the budget, but when you work back to how it's funded, it would have represented we would have needed 5% more dollars from the tax levy on the town. So again when if taxpayers are thinking about this all of them do uh but if taxpayers do think they don't think in terms of percentage increases or but they do think in terms of how much bigger is my tax bill going to be uh this year and it varies you can never you know you can never pinpoint until you get a specific bill. So that's really I think what people think about is how much more am I

202going to be spending this year 100 500 a thousand depends on who you are. Um, the other thing is this, my last point. We have so many things that are funded, uh, they're not off the books, but they're not in the budget exactly because they're funded purely from a grant. And we do talk about, well, what happens with the grant goes away? Will it will the service or the whatever it is be eliminated or are we going to have to find a home for in the regular budget? In in a way it gives a bit of a distorted picture to just how much the system costs as it is in the budget. The great proportion of it is funded by tax dollars. The next biggest number would have to be the um the grant from

203the state. Uh and then there are various other uh revenue sources. And then we have these other things. They're standalones. We provide a service that's completely funded by RFS or something like that, some sort of a grant. But in another sense, you could put it all together. What are all the things that we spend money on without without any respect to where the money comes from? So if you were to say, what does the school system cost? It's not the budget figure. It's more than that, isn't it? Isn't that true? >> Well, absolutely. I mean, if we've got had those DODIA, the MSAP grants, um we've been able to provide really many more additional >> um opportunities for our students um because of the grants. >> Yeah. So, if you say, okay, the the final

204budget $77 million, it's really over $80 million when you when you add in everything else that we spend money on. I think we like I said >> well I think that's why in the budget book we do put all of the grant pages and we try to explain that part but grants are written remember especially competitive grants for specific purposes they're not you know they're not used to supplant any operation funds >> right and I'm not arguing for combining everything into one giant stew pot yeah >> uh it's just it's always a question of you know how do you >> I see it in other organizations as well you know, how much do you put in the main operating budget? How much do you put in the capital budget? How much do you put in

205the And again, people have the same complaint, stockholders, church members, whatever. They say, "Hey, wait a minute. What's what's the real budget like? Why are you cutting it up into different pieces so we can't we're not hiding anything? It's just that that's that's sort of the net effect, which is just what really is how much are we actually spending all told." Um, but uh anyways, like I said, that's an observation, so I'll stop here. And just one thing to add um is uh some of some some costs are funded by uh grants which grants which continue which title IDA uh grants that end like our ESSER and then competitive grants like the DODAS. So it's it's it's it's not quite um straightforward. I understand exactly what you're saying, but some of it will continue to

206be funded. And so I just I just don't want to um I just wanted to point that out. Sorry. >> Yeah. It just it just gives the impression sometimes that some things are like I said quote off the books. They're not off the books but they're off the main budget. >> Thank you Dean Katrina and then Matthew. Um, with everything that's been said first, would it be possible to along with what Dean was saying in particular show this is how much is actually being this is the dollar amount that's being paid for by um unreoccurring grants like you know title one, title two, competitive grants. Could we have that um number out there? Um I'm thinking that it's time to give the town council and the RTM really stark numbers. um be very clear um

207that this is where we get the additional money so we can afford to educate our kids. If we don't have this much extra money, particularly with the competitive grants, this is how much it's going to cost the town. This is and and you know, and really drive home that point because it's always a possibility that um we're not going to be able to continue getting grants the same way we have been fortunately in recent years. So, I would just suggest that you know what? Let's not let's not um um let's not oh gosh um let's be real clear about this and not um foot around it. Well, I think we have a whole section in our board book and I know that in our presentation and everywhere I go, I really take time to explain

208the grants and so does Ken. And I think you're right, Katrina. It's really important that people know that it's that beyond the operating budget, there are these different funding sources that help to support some of these initiatives like the Graten 2020, you know, and the, you know, the magnetizing of our schools. And we do have a grants writer and we're continuously looking for those competitive grants. So, it's not like they're going to go away. We just have to do our due diligence in keeping up with that um you know for for those initiatives that we're still leaning into and we need support with. But you're right, it needs to be very transparent and we're trying to present that picture along with the operating budget and take time with that because I think people need to

209know. I think you're you're I I absolutely think you do the best. I think you do a very good job at that. That being said, there are people that will not dig around for it and um and or are intimidated by the budget or just look at the bottom line. I'm picturing let's put it on paper. Let's get it out there and whatever happens happens. But I think this year because it's such a it it it seems like an increase that is going to really be a problem. Um we need to be almost brutal about it. You know, make it this this is the reality, folks. >> Here it is on paper. Anyway, >> I'm gonna recognize Matthew and then Rita. >> Thank you. Uh, I'm going to try to present what I've heard Dean

210and Katrina present in a slightly different fashion. I have a friend named Yokan. He is a chess player. I move pieces to chess pieces around the board. He's a chess player. And he's told me that a grandmaster can look ahead seven moves, can figure out every permutation and look seven moves ahead. And that's what it takes to be a grandmaster. I don't think we can do that. But I do think we have to look one or two moves ahead. And at whether the rate of inflation is 6.8 or 7.2 or 7.6 is immaterial. The scale is there. That's the reality that we're facing. And if we cut the budget to make this year's budget palatable and there's no there's no shorty that they won't cut this budget less, we are going to be between the

211devil and the deep blue sea when we inherit what looks like is going to be likely economically for the next couple of years. So I my concern specifically is on the projection of the placements. I don't question the veracity of the calculations. I don't question the veracity of the calculations whatsoever. But taking roughly $400,000 out of the budget on a projection, I would rather have it in the budget. And if we don't need it, we'll be able to use it for what we're doing for our other costs. We cut this too much this year. We come get a 1.62% 62% budget and then next year's circumstances force us to ask for four or five. Boy, that's going to be an unpleasant situation. So, I don't want to pretend to micromanage and tell you what to

212do, but I think we present the budget that comes from our heart to do the best job we can. We're not a business looking for the lowest cost for the maximum financial return. We don't have a cost per student. We have an investment per student. Let's give them the true budget. And if they want to cut it, then we'll have to live with it. But we will not have cut our own throats. Thank you for your privilege of talking. >> Rita, you are muted. When I look at page 1-4, we have the Grton public schools. It's in our budget book, the grant revenue and where it's going. um that I think is fairly clear. I mean we could highlight it more but it does seem like both that and the corona virus relief grants are

213also there and they go through 930 2024 so that's two more years. Um, but what I'd like to know again that I feel that the town is all outlined everything I couldn't find it in here. Everything that goes directly to the town, it's part of the transportation what we get back for that. I think that would be a really good chart to have so that Rita >> the town could see yes, you know, we don't even get those revenues that are supposed to be going to the board of ed but are going to the town. So, I'd really like to see that in bold >> that. So, it may not be broken down quite uh to the level you're saying, but it is it is presented on one-3. >> Well, I saw that, but it

214doesn't seem to be it to me it's confusing. >> Okay. >> The way it is. >> You wanted like an itemized list. Maybe >> we summarized it, but we we we could break it out. you summarized it, but it's sort of like I don't know if people really realize that revenue sources support board of education and like 49 plus thousand goes to the town, but it doesn't it's not clear, you know, it's not like saying, you know, this this this we don't even get to touch this money, you know, it goes right to the town. So, what if we built that into our budget? How much more would that be? you know, but um I I'm I'm comfortable with the 1.6. I know that Denise wouldn't have ever consented to having the special education budget

215cut that much if she didn't feel that it was all right. So, I I'm comfortable with what's presented here tonight. That's all. >> Katrina, do you have another comment or question? >> Yes. Um, I know there's some some background that I'm not aware of on this um unexpended educational funds account the town has. Um, could whoever could it be could maybe um [Music] um would be um should be part of that conversation. I'm wondering if it's worthwhile to have a conversation about if that money should be used to offset some of this um budget increase. But like I said, I'm not I don't know the whole history of that and what the town um decisions have been made about that. Um I think it's worth it's worth looking into anyway. Andrew Kim, >> when we

216do the pie chart that shows what the expenses are, I know I think that the recompense to the town is in there, but I wonder if we could say here is our budget and give the number and then subtract the the actual numbers that come out of, you know, that the town gets recompense for and then say actually the budget is really this because you're getting X number of dollars back and actually come up with a a a number. I don't think I've ever seen that >> that that so that number is on page one-3. >> It's the town portion of the BOE budget, >> right? >> Line there. >> Yeah, I know that. No, I know that. But I've never seen our the bottom line of our budget with the town recompense subtracted from

217it in actual numbers. I think if people saw that that that's so much more that would be so much more clear and shocking I think. >> So same numbers but presented differently. >> Yes. You know yeah >> the end of the budget and subtract and say this is the actual budget you know because you're really getting that that money back. And I just wanted to add if I could, Kim, that the word realistic has come up and and I wrote down on on my notes here that what we're presenting to the town is unrealistic. And it it really shows in in essence it it appears it will appear as though we're not doing our due diligence because it it it appears that when that budget comes in next year and it's going to be so

218much higher, we're going to look. And so we we have been incompetent. So I that's a terrible thing to say, but that's how it's going to when the reality of of the the budget next year the reality it's that's how we're going to that's how we're >> well and I think if we we look at the trend you know barring what could happen with inflation but if we look at even the 10 years we see those zero zeros 1.95 one point you know that how it pops up for a couple years and then it'll go back to zero. we've been able to get away with that kind of teeter tottering. Um, but it's not sustainable, you know, keep zeroing all along. >> So, what I'm hearing from folk are a couple of things is is

219is one, we want to present a fair and equitable budget, but that it makes sense and that we're not down the road. Because I think when I think about budgets, I don't think about this current year that we're working on developing for next year, but I also think about what does that mean for down the road and are we going to then have to really raise our cost because um we have tried to kind of come in um and and so I um I'm very thankful for everyone's comments around that that we seem to be very solidified on that that we need to make sure that it's a fair and equitable budget but it's not shooting ourselves um or placing ourselves in a deficit mode um in two years from now. So um or next

220year when we're looking at the next fiscal year. So um I'm very appreciative of that. I am actually wondering if I could propose that can you and Susan kind of take a look at the ARP SR and just making sure that those those I mean to Rita's point I understand about the custodian but maybe um um when we think about are we are we really kind of being completely fair to the town um and are we going to have to find another $150,000 in the next fiscal year because we're not going to use those. So, can you can can we see what that kind of looks like? Um, and I'm also wondering there's enough people who talked about their concern about these outplacement and once again I think it's very clear that we're not micromanaging

221what Denise is saying, but I think that we're just really worried about what could happen, especially when we know that we have a lot of students that are having a lot of social emotional issues. we that that just feels like we could be um needing to kind of meet again to find where we're going to find the money to pay for that. And so could if that got placed back in, what would that look like? Um so those are those are two things that I'm recommending. Beverly, I have a quick question for you now with them with um Ken showing you or showing all of us that that is in the budget book book about where our funds for those different grants are being paid for. Is that is that enough? And if you need

222it more or different, could you get to Ken about what that looks like? Um so that we can make sure that it it's it's it's how it's needed. >> Okay. Yeah, that's not what I asking for in the book. I just want to know what are we funding now through OP and any other grant that when those grants run out, we still want to continue. So, say it's a special education teacher and we're funding that teacher by a grant. Do we and when that grant runs out, do we still want that special education teacher and how much is that going to cost us? Okay. So, I think it's I think I think Beverly, make sure that I hear what you're saying. So, if we went back to that 1-4 where it does lift list out

223what I hear you saying is Susan and her staff need to get together and tell us what it's going to look like if those when those grants looked out and which one of those things are you really are we really going to need to have >> exactly. >> Okay. I'm really glad that I asked the question. Thank you, Beverly. I see it more on 1.5 that and that's where our social social workers are. I mean, they're all >> I think both pages, VA, thank you for the clarification, but I I think both pages um Susan, that probably is going to be helpful for us as well because even if we don't do anything differently, that could be part of our conversation that we have with the town. And even though Dean, to your point, people

224are not going to remember or care about that the conversation, we've had it. We've laid the um groundwork for that. >> Okay. And I'm not saying that they don't care. It that's not what I meant. I meant that it it's the relevance might not be there. But I think that we can at least begin to and I believe our last budget we kind of talked about the fact that folks we we we can't we can't sustain we can't sustain this. >> Katrina, >> I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave my hand up. Okay. All right. So, we have one more agenda item and we had a discussion last time we met and then what what what was what it was was to solidify our graduation date and I didn't write down that date. It was

225June >> 17th. >> June 17, >> 2022. It's on a Friday. >> Okay. Um Susan, in talking to your staff and talking to um specifically the high school staff, did they was there any concern about moving it to June or solidifying it to the June 17th? >> No, I think everybody would be delighted and we did get verification that the law just like Dean explained um meant that we could set the date. >> Okay. and we can because it's based on the 180 >> days that you all had intended. >> Okay. So, I would entertain a motion um for the graduation date. >> I'll move that. I'll move that. >> So, can you give me a motion, please? >> I move that we lock in the the date of June 17, 2022 for >> All

226right. I have it seconded by Dean. discussion. Liz, >> I'm for it. >> All right. I I saw you waving. I don't know if you were just saying hi or whatever. >> No, I was going to second it, but that's fine. >> All right. Is there any >> Dean Dean jumped in? >> Sorry. >> All right. Any other >> any other discussion about setting the graduation date for June 17th, um, 2022 for the high school graduation? Hearing no further discussion. All those in favor of the motion that's on the floor of setting the graduation date for Fitch High School for June 17, 2022. >> I. >> All those in favor? >> I >> oppose. Abstain. It looks like that motion has carried. >> You're going to make a lot of seniors happy. >> Listen folks,

227we did a lot of hard work and we heard about a lot. Um, I've heard a lot about um I've heard a lot we we heard a lot of good stuff about what's happening in the high school. Um, and so I'm proud of the leadership that that is up there and I'm also proud of us for supporting that leadership. Um, I will entertain a motion for adjournment. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Can I have a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Abstain. That motion is carried. Good night everyone. >> Good night.