10-28-24 Groton Board of Education Meeting

001so good evening everyone it's 6:06 pm and I'm calling this regular meeting of the Gren Board of Education to order uh for October 28 2024 um and the first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance let's do it together IED States and Susan do we have any visitors or delegations no not this time we might next month okay so the next order of businesses comments uh from citizens uh regarding agenda items and other subjects of concern that lie within the jurisdiction of the Board of Education this is the portion of the agenda where the board welcomes comments from citizens each presentation should be limited to five minutes or less citizens should if possible submit written comments presentation should be related to matters pertinent to groten board members will only ask questions in order to

002clarify the speaker's presentation and cannot respond respond during the comments of citizens portion of the board meeting citizens should make their presentations from the podium or online and state their names and addresses for the record uh do we have anyone who would like to address the board um Porche Bard laon is in the room and and raised her hand I'm going to ask her to come up to a microphone that has a green light on thank can add the board can you guys hear like this I don't know if they can online Jay can you hear me yes I can hear you um Porsche bordon 24 Jefferson Drive rot and Connecticut um I'm here speaking as a citizen for full disclosure I'm also a town council member um former Fitch high school graduate former par

003parent of two kids that also went through Fitch high school as well and gr school system um first I just want to thank you guys for uh working hard on the brought to the council's attention probably about two years ago um and then it got referred that you know no one wanted to do anything with it it got referred to the former Board of Education before several of you taking your seats and it kind of sat for a while and then it was told that it would let's leave it and see if anyone wants to do anything with it when the new board comes so I just wanted to thank you guys for looking at that I am a firm believer in money and funds that are earmarked for Board of Education should be stay

004in the house of Education um and so I'm happy even though I was wasn't successful on the council to get that through um with the new state laws and everything else you guys definitely look like forerunners and taking that idea and moving it forward so I just want to thank you guys and all that were involved and that supported that initiative um means a lot to me it was something I was really passionate about I wish we could have did it two years ago but um hey it's done now and that's what matters so uh thank you for that um I know you guys are looking at the policy we're looking um I just had some concerns in one of the policies where you um use the word non-conforming when speaking about trans gendered or

005people who identify with different um sexual identities or backgrounds and I did some research with this and spoke to some of my friends who have children who identify as transgender or queer or in that population and um you know I just encourage this board even though the language comes from the state the state's not always perfect and they're sometimes behind the curve and I believe that you don't have to verbatim take language you can alter words to reflect your District if you choose to and I would just look into that if possible if it can it's good to be on the record stating there are a lot of people who don't like to be called non-conforming what does that mean it sounds offensive right um you know are they non-conforming no they feel that they

006are that way and they are this way and when you say that they're non-conforming but what is conforming so a heterosexual person is conforming and a and a person is non-conforming if they choose to be queer or bisexual so I just don't really like that word and I did my own research on it and spoke to you know the younger group of people people and they agreed with me that's that it can be offensive um to say that they're nonconforming to their gender um it reminds me of some old for me some old church things that were said back when I was a kid that they're non-conforming which is really looked down upon now um because we've changed in grow if it's not something that we can change I just want to be on the

007record saying that it's not something and I encourage you guys to reach out to your state reps and ask if there's ways if you can change that language and it's you know sometimes don't rubber stamp what's just giving to you from the state you have a right as a board of education to say hey we're going to make these corrections but we're concerned about this one word send that forward get a response from them okay um so I just encourage you guys to look into that um and again that's just a personal thing for me but if it doesn't get changed I think it's great that we're still looking at this so we make we're making progress um as far as uh welcome to the uh new Financial director for um the school district I

008welcome you I think it's great um I'm hoping that at some point this this body is going to be looking at software this is something else I've been talking about for probably about six and a half years since my RTM days where I really wanted to see a more streamlined detailed budget where it actually explains more of what's going on and I know that we've been in between having someone in this position so maybe there's a hole to try to wait to see until we get somebody in there but I hope that that's at the top of your list because what we're using is so outdated and we really need to make sure the board of edge you know budget item and software is in the 21st century um so I hope that's moving along

009I know at one point the town did off offer the Board of Ed many years ago to go on and I believe there was a decline from the Board of Ed probably before most of you were on here but definitely I don't know if that's still on the table or not but hope that's being looked at as well again I'm not sure um it was great thank you to Dr arriman for the Dr Mar of the king and all your hard work you do there as a Fitch graduate myself I was never a recipient but it's something I'm extremely passionate about as I had many of my friends that were recipients over the years and I have over the 20 something years have gone even before I was on the council when I could uh

010in college I couldn't afford to go so I didn't get to go as much but um so thank you for all your hard work and the messages there were very strong and one of the things that I've been speaking about coming up here is um ESL English as a second language tutors and if you heard one of the women speak there so eloquently about walking into that room and not knowing anybody and not being able to communicate in her language and the support that she needs and looking looking at her becoming a Martin Luther King Jr scholarship recipient later with all those supports needed um just en encourage this board to make sure we are properly funding our English as a second language um and I think it's very important that children have that access

011when I first started getting involved in politics there was one moving between the Middle School and the high school and when I spoke to families they were saying their their students in their language were above grade level at college level even you know um but when they came here they were put into lower level classes because they didn't have the supports to help them and that shouldn't be the case here in gr and I sure hope it won't be and in fact some of these students don't have the supports in all of their classes and that's a concern because you can't cohort a bunch of kids in one area with an ESL teacher they all have to be in their individual uh program so I encourage the support of Ed to really look at are

012we properly funding our English as a second language classes um in our district from elementary to Middle to high school every student should have at least 50% or more of their classes where someone is helping them with that and I don't believe that's happening currently and that's just something that we should be making sure we're looking at funding and it really hit me to hear that at the Martin Luther King Jr scholarship uh dinner that you know hearing that and and making sure we're we we can do better in Gren and it's just a funding issue perhaps um and my other thing of course that I'm very passionate about after you know having a son graduate recently really realizing that a part-time career career counselor my opinion for a population that we serve at Fitch

013is not enough it is not enough I'll say it again I look at other districts around where they have fulltime career counselors on top of their school counselors and their populations are even smaller like Stonington has a full-time career counselor counselor just designated to doing Career Enrichment why I look at equality and access to education and helping children achieve like the MLK dinner achieve that chance of being the first family member to go to college and graduate here in Gren a lot of parents have to pay to find like a hedgehunter you know like a person to help them do all the leg work for that and a lot of people cannot afford that luckily I had my husband and myself and a few friends that have helped us other families I spoke to they

014hired someone and paid a weekly salary for help to be able to do that in the town of gron That's Not Fair because not everyone can afford to do that and we need to make sure that we have a full-time career counselor that's split up by alphabet so every student has fair and equable access I say this not because of the part time career Council we have is is not sur5 she's actually brilliant and I have a lot of respect for her Mrs alac she's wonderful but she's only one and she's part-time so I don't know if it's going to be that we hire another part-time person or Mrs Alan Rises to a full-time position but we and gr if we truly have these IV and these AP classes we should be funding a career

015counselor which is also one of the areas that we were looked at upon when we were looked at for um The Alliance District of kids going off to college so we should be looking at funding that support system it's it's it's writing those essays it's contacts it's a full I mean the amount of stuff that was not even known the things that we found on our own that even our school didn't even know about in the career Council you know we learned so much and I just hope that we can find a way in broughten to make that happen um and my last thing honors level classes I won't stop until I see a change because again I'm doing more research and I'm going to present something to you guys in writing I looked at

016NFA I looked at East Li I looked at other schools that are higher you know higher or equal in performing and they are keeping their honors level classes fine maybe I'm not the the biggest cheerleader of the IB Program because I just in my opinion I think AP can get the job done but I do believe honors level for all of the programs is a segue and a branch especially for children that have English as a second language or children who have IEPs or kids who may not be API IB across the board in every subject might need one or two honors to be sprinkled in there but don't want to go down to college prep because the new new College Prep is the new General in my opinion because we took away General and

017now the lowest level class we have is college prep so there's nowhere else to go and a lot of the students I talk to don't feel like that class is a rigorous enough because it's a mixed bag of a lot of different demographics and levels and so for them honors feels like kind of like the college prep level so I just encourage that you guys look at that don't look at it as a defeat look at it as an enhancement of the IB and the AP program for students who want to jump for example as I said at many other meetings if you're a kid that comes in and your freshman year you're in college prep and then you move to honors sophomore year and then you're just not feeling like you can go a

018or IP there's nowhere else for you to go you either go down to college prep you can't go up if you don't feel like you're ready there's no there's no middle ground and I don't know where theer curriculum writing has come from thank you in closing not sure where the curriculum writing is coming on why that was caught I know there's new people on here but I encourage you guys to really look at the honors level programs as a important piece of our curriculum enhancement thank you thank you counselor is there anyone else who would like to address the board um do we see anyone online I don't see anybody with the hand raised are the are the attendees able to raise their hands our student representative we're trying to come in'll be there'll be

019next up um so first of all are there any responses to comments from citizens I have a clarifying question uh Matt is it asking a question okay Jay yes go ahead Jen as well uh with regard to miss boron's uh comment about U the way we are using the term non-conforming gender identity um is that imposed upon us uh by Statute that we need to use this term I think that's what came in the either the legislation or the cape I know I have Denise D little who will be joining us later on when we're talking about and we can ask we can certainly look into it okay well we'll talk about that later I've always thought the same thing kind of didn't register with me as a positive like we'll talk about that later

020thank you Jen did you have something I did Jay um so first I thank you for bringing up like the four or five items that you brought up um I agree with you on that terminology non-conforming not sure if anyone that you spoke to had like um a better word than how they view themselves um if they do you know please feels to share that with us so that we can if we're a with like to consider that at least I would um in terms of the it um for the budget um there an adhoc committee um as you know that's in place and um we just didn't have time to um look at the it and then we wanted to wait until the new business manager was in place um totally in agreement with

021um English as a second language to um and just looking at that in the support um for that so thank you okay any other responses to come from citizens um I'll uh just a quick clarifying question I guess for um parliamentary wise are the attendees able to raise their hands uh as attendees just to be sure we have six attendees online are they able to are you showing us that you can raise your hand yes I'm able to yep okay are our students have you let our students in Mark apparently it wasn't uh Katherine mcken it was Amy all right and and Denise dittle is a uh is is on as a panelist so that doesn't answer my question and I was just I'm not asking anyone for to to comment I just was curious

022to know if an attendee if they did if they have the capability to raise their hands techn ology wise well I know when I was before I was promoted to panelist it was giving me the option under reactions on my phone to raise my hand um but I don't know if everybody's version of the software works the same way it should all right okay good to know and I'll just say that I do thank uh councelor bordon for uh her comments tonight and and I share the concerns about the non-conforming terminology in fact we did mention we did discuss it briefly during the policy committee meeting uh on that language and there there's a marker on it so to speak as far as something we we going to look into um so I look forward

023to looking into that further right thank you very much and thank you councelor bordon I know you're always a supporter of education and we appreciate that um do we have the student Representatives here we thought we did but I don't see them on there um Mark can you verify that yeah I don't see them either okay well I know they're very busy with all other activities and so we will catch up with them at the next meeting um all right so next we will go to the superintendent and administration reports okay so I'm gonna ask Lauren Cassini to join us we've been going through a lot of data as you all know and attendance is really enrollment I'm sorry is really important understand our enrollment especially because of the military and also um with we've

024seen even more I think with um households been moving more readily I think we're finding affordable homes to tell you the truth um so it does impact our our schools and um our students mostly impacts our students so Lauren's going to share with us what I'm going to ask you to do is if she can go through the presentation um and then if you have a question to jot it down just because she typically will answer the questions throughout the presentation so this way you'll be able to get things answered and if not you'll you know have a question to ask at the end so thank you Lauren good evening everyone and I apologize I know I sent you a second version with the numbered slides after the fact so I do apologize about that

025um and I hope everyone was able to grab them from their own um I don't know if you were sent were you sent the originals so they don't have them online did send them out after the fact and I apologize for that I don't know what I was thinking um so is this one numbered this slot this one is numbered yes yep um so enrollment it is involved I guess would be the constant it's constant um it's it's data that is constant it's just fluid there is no set we we can grab snapshots um you know at certain points in time but it's constantly changing by the minute of every day it's going up or down or changing in some fashion um so what you're looking at so we try to find like consistent points

026right so we have like something to compare to Apples to Apples and so we typically will use one of our snapshot dates um so it's either usually October 1st and then we have another what we call snapshot date in June where we take that information we clean it as best we can we written ourselves of as as uh of the errors that may be um you know in in the data we clean those they register with us um and then we send this off to the state and this is part of what the state uses for those um websites that you have available to you edite public edite secure it's pretty much how everything with the state um is captured it's through our portal in this process and so what you have here are basic

027numbers from October the enrollment from October 1 of last year to October 1 of this year and then the changes whether they were a positive or negative change keep in mind that when you're looking at these numbers this isn't actual students the same 369 students compared to the same 369 students the next year plus an additional six it's just again it's a snapshot if that makes sense okay um so and you'll see the the retention rate looks a little different um but what you're looking at here is again just an enrollment number that's that's all it is for each of these schools um our hardest hit uh this year was themes River I was actually quite surprised to when I did the math and look and was able to tease that out a little bit

028um because stames River really is one of one of the largest schools that we have and one of the most fluid um including in our Lottery like people wanting to go to them server because of the magnet theme and because of you know it's a newer school and it has a lot of extra programs to it so um the fact that we were down 30 kids from that point the same point last year was a bit of a surprise to me to be quite honest with you and so I'm trying to think about the wise behind that and I haven't come up with a good reason so Jamie did say that uh she did get after this the next month 20 or 30 more kids who've come and she really believed that it was related

029to the sub submarine base and then you know we were told that we wouldn't get this next sub till October and she felt like that was part of that transition and it just didn't hit us like it typically hits in the summertime yeah that movement I don't know if it hit Charles Barnum in the same way but Jamie did say to me that the number has changed very much since that time yeah I think um in the last two days I want to say we registered seven kids just for Thames River as an example it really is that fluid as we said so um so yes that is a possibility and I know there are still conversations about uh not a full boat coming in but like a uh little micro population I guess I'm

030not sure how else to describe it um so we do have an influx coming probably around January another one y I believe that was the last that I had heard um from Miranda our military liaison okay um in terms of our secondary schools they've taken some some hits as well which high school is down 76 kids from the same point last year um Gren Middle School is down 13 students um which isn't I mean again when you think about that that eban flow that happens on a daily basis the 13 um student difference isn't really significant pitch high school that's pretty significant um decrease from this time last year we do want to point out when we look at other placements I want you to understand that those are within our district so as an

031example some of those students belong to our transition Academy um which is up here at central office we have another uh group of students that is part of our Academy up here students who may have been expelled or needed to be out of the building for one reason or another it includes them our new beginnings program at the high school so those are the types of of examples of students that belong to those other placements and so when we look at our total District in District students we had 4,077 last year we um and on October one of this year 3,987 and I think I made a note that that is increased um even within 10 days of that it was I want to say 25 students additional from that number so that's another good

032thing I think for Budget season is to do another enrollment check just to see where we we're at January there's another group coming in just to see what the real actual number is at that time right and we do monitor this on a weekly basis um our registration really looks closely at these numbers on a weekly basis and reports out to us so um so yes that is something that will continue so when we talk about our outof district students I just wanted you to understand who we are talking about those are the students that um have been placed outside of the district whether it be for special education purposes um those are our interdistrict magnets so as an example any of the learn schools would be part of that number as well uh grao

033um ELO Tech um would be part of that number the only one that is not associated with that number would be our sacred our students uh going to Sacred Heart okay and so overall as a district in District and out of District we have about a 74 uh person decline student decline in our enrollment so for grade level um this is what our counts look like as of October 1st um by grade level I did not include kindergarten because I actually wanted and you may have when you looked at it noticed that that I want wanted to put them at the end because of the whole movement with transitional K this year I wanted you to be able to have a better picture of what that looks like and how it's made up um so

034our numbers this year looking at them relative to last year per grade level some of the interesting shifts uh were in third grade where we had a really a large bump we had a 29 student bump from last year um 44 at grade five um over last year's number at grade five and our greatest loss was at grade 10 last year um compared to this year if that makes sense so um again our number enrollment numbers as we get into the high school are a little bit lower I think they do have a lot of choice in this area between the interdistrict magnets in New London Marine Science really host a lot of our students that's a nice choice it's a smaller School M um we've always been Believers in both intra and in District

035magnets so they still are our students they count for us with impact Aid and we do pay their tuition or part of their tuition the state pays the other half so they still are kind of belonging to us even though there's 400 and close to 500 students that are in that so you do see that dip continuously because of all the other choices that students have yeah this neck of the woods our Marine Science is uh as of I believe it was today when I looked Marine Science we have about 90 students that currently attend Marine uh Marine Science and I want say it was another I don't want to give you a number but Gro was right around that same um ballpark figure but I don't know off the top of my head so

036I don't want to say um compared to last year if you're looking cohort cohorts what I was telling you were grade by grade but if you were looking at that grade level cohort so as an example if we were looking at last year's second grade group that would be this year's third grade group um the largest increase was our third grade to fourth grade this year uh which had a 13 person um bump in it and again our our largest decrease was in ninth to 10th grade so we lost 45 students between Grade Nine and grade grade nine last year to grade 10 this year so again that's another interesting thing it's just things we're constantly looking at to to ask ourselves the why right so that we can um plan for that and and

037attack it from from different angles you know enrollment by race and ethnicity so um 45 46% of our population is made up of white students with the second largest being our Hispanic Latina um population at 27% just on just shy of 27% um we do have a small native Hawaiian population um and a smaller or no roughly about the same American Indian population and again this is really it's just to give you a a nice visual of our district and who we are right and what our makeup is and so when we look at our languages our primary language we have 39 different languages spoke within spoken within the district um which is incredible I mean that's just when you think about that all the languages you can learn from your peers right um and

038that other children are exposed to was an amazing thing top five are on the board English is the um number one primary language don't confuse that with the only language spoke it's just what they have identified as the primary language in their home um Spanish is our second population with mandarin erdu and Filipino um following behind but you can even see even within the the top five there's a vast difference between the top two and the and the next three and so our high needs subgroup and if just as a quick reminder when we talk about high needs um we're talking about students that have limited English proficiency and that has been pretty consistent um over the you know between last year and this year and even as I went further back it has been

039relatively stable um at 4% same thing with special education that remains um about the same and the thing that was surprising to me at least was the economically disadvantaged which is your students that qualify for free and reduced lunch um last year our percentage was at 54% qualifying where based on our October 1 snapshot this year it was 43% um and I think that's something we need to look at because now that we're a c District I don't know that people are filling out their forms and so it could be the collection of data I want to talk to Ernie about making sure that we continue to collect that data you know it could even bring us the fact that we could end up being eligible as a whole district and and um so that's

040something we should look at Susan uh could we look and see if that decrease in economically disadvantaged might be an artifact of some of the lower income families being evicted that's a really great Point that's a point but they when they're homeless they still they've been evicted and they're homeless and even if they're at a hotel they are still ours well if they' moved to another Community they' moved to jwi City for example they're not ours anymore yeah something I want to dig into deeper I agree be helpful to know yeah it would be helpful to know that that is a great point and Dean has a question on this one yeah thanks uh I know I should go through Jay he's the tech the chair but that's okay um it occurred to me when

041you're calculating the percentages of economically disadvantaged you mentioned the forms I know that there are families that do not bother to submit the forms because they simply aren't anywhere near qualifying for free or reduced lunch so the last thing on their list is to fell out a form that says I make way too much money and so so when you when you look at percentages if you say okay it's 54% are you looking are you saying that of the pile of forms of the pile of respondents 54% meet the criteria or you are you making an assumption about who has not submitted anything I wager it's the former that if that if if you got a th forms 54% of the forms are economically disadvantaged you could have gotten 1,200 forms but 200 decided not

042to return them maybe because they are in fact economically disadvantaged but for one reason or another have not filled out the form or frankly I've seen my wife struggle with this she goes I am not this form I am not providing this data we will not qualify I'm not going to bother doesn't make any difference either way so the percentages are a percentage I'm guessing of the forms you've received re the forms that we receive or we get it through SNAP benefits and I think I've explained this which is not fair to the military Community because SNAP benefits are automatic with Husky insurance but in the world of a a Submariner or someone who's you know serving our country they get TR care and TR care doesn't qualify them for SNAP benefits so between the

043SNAP benefits that would be an automatic put you into that category to receive what you need um or to fill out the form and you you qualify those are two different ways that you know we can collect that data so Dean I I I know what you're asking you're asking what 100% is how accurate is if this is done like the state is then 100% is all the students in the district not not the num not right all the people that did the form so assume assume you have a student body of 4500 and you get 40 4 th000 respondents you're missing I'm making up numbers you're missing 500 responses is the would the 54% of the 43% be the 54 43% of the 4,000 the total population toal the total population so you make

044an assumption about the missing you're assuming that the missing forms are not because for one reason or another okay just because we there's because they don't exist right we haven't gotten them they haven't been returned right right but so you know the total population you also know the forms returned the number numbers don't match I just want try to figure out what the error rate is the when face4 set is well this is something definitely reality right and we've been really kind of escalating up you know at one point we were 50 51 then we were 54 and then all of a sudden it's 43 there's definitely something going on right and and that error in in assessment could go either way I mean the unknowns of the unknowns yeah you know they could also

045be people who are disadvantaged who maybe you know didn't fill out the form for other reasons because you know life is chaotic yeah you know and things get lost right we know especially when you you know if you're if you're stressed economically right we don't know at it going I'm not even really I can imagine a lot of people who who just know damn well they don't qualify they will not fill out the form they're not going to bother so between two groups you know on either end which is is it like two to one one to two you know what's the you know because we base a lot of decisions on these numbers oh look at our numbers we've dropped from 54 to 43 have we in fact been measuring from one year to

046the next the same way yes okay uh so is that a real 11% drop for example well but that's where we need to call on um Ernie and begin having conversations to make sure yeah like what because I know he had a he really did a great job and I have not spoken him to too much this year but last year I know there was a huge push like he goes out and works with Miranda our military liais on he he targets specific areas to try to get those um those forms to support people around our community they really reach out to support people but the specifics I don't want to respond to because I don't know all of his specifics yeah yeah and so so we do make efforts So based on those efforts

047do we have an idea historically what percentage you can always count on they're always being a certain percentage on average that are just they're not going to come in you know pry well you're look at the demographic you might be looking at but they're just not turning in their forms you want to help they're not turning in their forms something like that do we know you know it's like percentage of people who don't pay their property taxes it's like a known you know an estimated percentage of people that just aren't goingon to P this year and just to be clear you're you're asking for us to maybe think about ways to try to capture and estimate better estimate that number you're not looking for 54 43 below maybe maybe the maybe the difference is significant

048at all makes you wonder though any sorry if you're thinking of all the time but to be but to be fair and clear though 43% um you know who have turned them in that's still a pretty significant number in comparison to other districts so I think so far that I don't know that is an Ernie thing he might be able to answer that um better than I would I just get the information based on who qualifies um but I don't know the specifics of how many actual forms have been turned in um but I can reach out that the state use B based on the snapshot yes this is the number that the state will be using as October 1 yeah and so we'll have another snapshot in June um and they'll look to that

049as well but at this point this is the number can I ask one question on that before we go um so how what percentage how many respondents did you get so out of 4,400 kids what percentage of people actually filled it out do we know um I could I couldn't look I don't want to look at that right now that is I don't want to share student information green is sharing so I don't want pull it up right now but I can find that out that's all right yeah yeah wait can you tell me again what specifically you you're looking for the count yeah just the percentage of of respondents I bu something else too I'm sorry this kind of gets to what Dean was talking this just kind of piggybacks on that you know

050are are 80% of the families filling it out or yep or 30% yeah well I guess it's at least 43 but one last thing I I'm going to speculate that there's some overlap in other words if you wanted to say high needs group you don't go four plus 20 Plus 43 no that there's overlap you know what that you must know what the overlap is you don't have to tell us yeah in other words if you want to say okay what percentage of the students are actual High needs there's a secret formula that where you have the numbers to be able to well you should have the numbers to be able to actually give us the it's like you can't add your triglyceride LDL and HDL together and got add your cholesterol number doesn't work

051that way so what you know what's the overlap between students who are yeahif lied English proficiency some of them might be in the economic Advantage some of them might be in special education or you know some combination and all three yes absolutely yeah I don't have that again I don't I have that in in a spreadsheet but I don't have that readily available like printed out for you and I don't want to pull it up right this second sounds like a scenario for a vend diagram oh boy three Circle I can if you'd like it's a thought okay y but yes to your point they can be in one two or all three categories would that make our presentation to council stronger to have a bin diagram well I think we should look at can

052prod it I think it would just be informative to us as a body like just to understand like how much overlap there is in between those three categories good idea [Music] yeah I just have a quick procedure question are we asking questions on each slide as we go or did you want us to wait until the end I've been writing them down so thank you you follow the directions you up because asking questions I have several too but okay we'll get there so our special education population by school so this is a breakdown by school again this is specific to October 1 these numbers are fluid um our highest uh percentage of of special ed students fall into our Mystic River and themes river that house um some of our larger specialized programs for those

053students um and preschool special ed including yes including preschool special ed as well so that's why those numbers um look as high as they are uh Mystic River in particular so when you're looking at counts right um Mystic River special education population does exceed even that of fames River um we do want to look at how many classes are at Mystic River um for those specialized programs and see the number of students in each one of those classes in comparison um and then I want to look at if I were remove those specialized classes how many students have an IEP that are not part of those programs just just for curiosity sake it's just something that you know when you were thinking about schools and needs and resources right you try to look at it

054from every angle so I I'm interested in that with with Mystic River and themes River in particular um limited English proficiency again we we are not a district that is overpopulated um with and has a a ton of language um needs um but that is steadily growing as well and again Mystic River does seem to house the most amount of students that are limited English proficient here is our um economically disadvantaged by school no Nea um is our lowest and the rest are pretty pretty much NAA and fames River all the rest are just about at that 50% Mark or are quickly approaching it military population this one's astounding to me but nothing that we didn't know our most heavily populated um school for military families is CB given the location in the the uh

055zoned attendance area fames River as well has a significant military population what's interesting about c um Charles bar so when you're thinking about military families and movement um Charles Barnum's retention rate meaning students who were there year over-year is 88% so On Any Given year they are turning over about 12% of their population which is pretty pretty significant when you think about it um you know introducing new families in and losing losing kiddos that you've made some ground with so that's I thought that was an interesting point themes River you know with the second highest military population even over the high school and um Middle School their retention rate is 90% so they have a 10% turnover um each year as well that's pretty close which is pretty significant everyone else is up at like

05695 to 99% retention rate um so so those are the two schools that really EB and flow the most which going back to your initial point with themes River and that 30 30 student drop right from that October 1 to October one if we were to take that same snapshot maybe even now that might look very different here's the kind of revisiting the economically disadvantaged um you can see it's up and down but I this this year was a pretty good decrease in comparison it's the lowest it's been since preco um so it's it's worth monitoring and really I think to your point as well it's it's really about making sure that Outreach is continually happening and we're getting those forms back as we and taking the the stigma off of it and supporting families

057and how to fill them out which I know Ernie has done a great job as I had mentioned before so just continuing that work okay now this is a tricky slide I don't want I I don't want to overwhelm you and I don't want to have you go down too many rabbit because again the fluidity is something to be noted when we talk about students delivered to the Cy what we're talking about and Matthew thank you very much as he pointed it out to me over the weekend when we're talking about the cyst what we're talking about is the student information system so where we house all our student information so when we say that students have been delivered that means they're new to us they're either new or returning to US during that school

058year so the 23 24 school year when I did this the um the calculation uh which I'm trying I did it from June 30th to July 1st to June 30th 1,7 uh 75 students were delivered to the Cy meaning there were new 1,75 new students that came into or returned to Groton during that school year this year to date from July 1 until now until October 1st 656 students were delivered to the Cy meaning 656 new students to grind kind of over the summer at the beginning of the year yeah and this has not stopped like this not that number will continue to climb we're pretty on par with last year I think we were just shy of uh 700 around the same time last year so we're pretty pretty on par um last year

059we had 701 students transfer out of of Gren public schools during the again during that oh year July 1 to June 30th um time frame and so far for this school year so since July 1 we've lost 329 students they've transferred out the majority of those were uh transfers of moves out of state um or out of Bren um not necessarily um magnet students this this isn't including kiddos who go to um like grao or you know one of the distri uh interdistrict magnet schools terrifying question yes um how does this how does the impact of graduating senior class and a new kindergarten or prek or Tran TK influence these numbers um graduating does not influence it so those exit outs do not include graduating students okay however and I rationalized it in my head

060um I did include kindergarten in these numbers as well as prek and um preschool because they were new to our new to our community new to our school system um whereas those graduating they've now gone on right so I'm constantly looking at like what's coming in right and we want to account for our kindergarteners and preschoolers um because it's for planning purposes if that makes sense and maybe it wasn't the right line of thinking but was my line of thinking in in creating them right because if we're talking about enrollment and and making plans and thinking about using this information figure out resources moving forward we need to know who's coming in whereas the students that graduated are in a different bucket right wrong or indiffer thank you um of the new students this year

061that have been delivered 100 180 of those are kindergarteners um and 145 are um and this is oh did I I think I gave you last year's numbers I apologize no I didn't again those were new students delivered to the system so 180 kindergarteners meaning they weren't with us for preschool or prek if that makes sense so this year we have 272 kindergarteners and 67 students that at this point last year would have been kindergarteners but with new legislation are now our of our transition programs our elementary schools our for elementary school so about 20% of the population and preschool versus prek um we have 169 students currently in prek this year and the difference between them so prek pre kindergarten is really preparing students for transitional kindergarten and kindergarten whereas our preschool program is

062more of an integrated program um and so it's where students with and without IEPs are are placed into this class um and students that may not have an IEP can be used as like a peer role model um to support the development of students who may be uh a little bit behind so that's really the difference preschool is more they begin at our age three whereas our prek is our age four students and this is just a quick like how does this happen like what's involved and it is very complex and that's really the word I was looking for earlier and just could not retrieve it it requires ongoing tracking like I said it is fluid it changes by the minute of every day really um intra District meaning within our district there's a lot

063of movement and inra District keep uh kids going in and out of our district um to some of the magnet schools the systems typically overlap for a large a large portion of the Year our registration is working from two separate systems they're working from the current system and they're PR planning and preparing for our new school year so come January that she'll be juggling those two systems as well um in addition to that there are a lot of factors that go into um placing students we have our magnet seats we need to consider we have our highly mobile students that we need to consider um we have buildings that hit capacity just because of the number of the volume of students in one particular area and so they sometimes need to be placed elsewhere in

064other buildings so and then looking at well what about siblings and bus runs and trying to make all those pieces work to to make it as efficient and effective as possible and we do this in order to identify needs right like that's the whole purpose of constantly looking at enrollment and how it's changing and all these facets of it um you know so that we can begin to think about what kind of resources we really do need to be securing and and and possibly shifting um and so that is I am open for [Laughter] questions um Jay I'm gonna do your job here and I see the hand so just raised his yes I'm sorry it is a little bit awkward since I'm not able to see but but you you folks know the the

065drill thank you all right um just GNA work backwards I think to the packet uh so as far as the enrollment numbers uh you said the student X's did not include uh accounting for graduation but the entries did account for prek K TK yes in preschool yes so um I guess so I I'd be curious to see just sort of overall just a more articulated breakdown of these numbers uh just to be to get you know a little more insight I I don't I I don't think I think it would be fair to have graduations in an exit if it they're identified as graduations um but um again just to kind of like know you know how many people like graduated from here overall I mean we know about the class um but I mean

066and you said this includes intra District uh like the the tech schools and Inter District yeah yeah yep okay so anyone that was delivered to our our knew right so if they've been so as an example if they've been at say Gro Tech and they're going to Gro Tech this year they're not included in these numbers they're already accounted for these are new students to our system but if someone from another town attended grotech and moved into our Our Town yes okay but if not if they did not move into the town then they are not in the books here no no no if they're attending from another town no okay um yeah so just looking at the numbers so the students delivered to Sis is 656 and adding up all the numbers in the

067next two graphs I came up with 595 is that well don't forget that that includes inure District so wait tell me which graphs you're looking at the preschool prek kindergarten and transitional yep so those four numbers but there's more than that so that includes don't forget we also have students that come in in fourth grade fifth grade seventh grade you know it's right an all-encompassing number yeah yeah so I guess that's where I'd be interested to see like okay so what's the other categories you know where do they to break that that 156 down right because 595 is accounted for in these graphs so that leaves about 61 that you know just kind of curious it's more of a so those would those would most likely be interdistrict students so even if let's say they're

068new to Gren but they want to attend um you know I keep saying braso because it's down the road but let's say Marine Science the Friendship school okay which is younger grade if they've just moved into GR and they're registering they have to register with us because we fund them so we need to have um their information so that we can properly pay for yeah so we have to have proof of residency so they're required to register with us so they may never come to a groten public school but they're still part of our makeup because we're still paying right right in bing does that make sense so you just want to see who were those other kiddos yeah I mean not who personally of course just no no I know what you're saying though

069yep uh where are they going I guess in yeah um and see and if you're asking where they're going our our biggest um our biggest populations that go elsewhere um would be grao Marine Science Ledger high school um and then the Friendship school but the Friendship school is a prek program they don't even house kindergarten so understood um you know but we do have a lot of students that go there as well um and that kind of ties into the other question I guess in some way um skipping back to all the enrollment the the tables on pages uh one and two y um with all the um out of District uh departures and just in general like as you know uh do we do any sort of exit survey as far as like why

070people may choose to leave the district or you know is it all just compulsory like say military transfer or are there you know what if there is a choice to leave do we know do we have a good understanding as to why no I mean no we don't I mean we do know if they're typically so around March we'll do what's called an intent to return for meaning are you planning to come back next year and so that's a good opportunity most of the time like if military orders have changed we get a good understanding of who our military families are that may be leaving or or what families may be moving out of District because they're buying house a house in another District or out of state or whatever so those we can capture

071that we do not at this point have an exiting survey for those who may choose to go to one of the interdistrict magnet schools that we do have would be I think that could be yeah that would be informative again for the board just to get an understanding of of what people's choices you know why and again of course anonymized completely for you know privacy concerns that intent to return a lot of times the administrators or the secretaries even the classroom teachers may be more aware at their level of a family's move whether it's orders whether they bought a new house what whatever the case may be you know not just military but other businesses will move to different locations you know too yeah I think it just be good to know you know for

072the board to understand like you know if there you know hypothetically speaking if there was like you know an undercurrent of like a reason that was not compulsory but voluntary no I think it's it's a great idea but the answer is no we we do not do that at this point yeah I'd be curious to to know like or that kind of brainstorm some ways we could I try to capture that information um and uh looking at the on page oh I forgot to change yeah yeah no no page three um the grade level enrollment um looking at I'm glad you noted that uh yeah there there's a significant drop from you know e8th grade to ninth grade you know and that's to me that's intuitive like I I I can intely grasp that because

073there are a lot of choices that's when people start to make you know real choices about what they want to do with you know career paths and um so I I I'm not surprised to see that drop um I would be curious to see like kind of over a broader span of time just kind of get a sense of what the average is over like you know past five 10 you know 15 years or so just to you know again the ninth specifically uh yeah you know and and and maybe even you know just like that half years yeah that that that secondary the middle school and and through high school years because that's where a lot of decisions are being made I think um and they could manifest in the middle of middle school

074or at the break between middle school and high school or you know a year into freshman you know that like again like that that big drop between 9th and 10th also intuitively doesn't you know Shock Me necessarily because that's also like you know when decisions are being made and and you know maybe someone you know they do want to go to a tech school or a science school or something else um but yeah just to get a sense of the historical average um because if there is a spike we might see it in that you know in a broader Spectrum um and thinking back even to your exit surveys and and it's not this but it's a good um it may help us I know part of the work that Ben moon has been doing

075um just to capture some data for you know as part of that grant that he's been working on um he's been really looking at like those career Pathways at the at the lower level at the elementary level and some of the questions were really pointed and and insightful and that even could give us a little bit of information as we move forward like to be ble to compare who were those students who really had their a passion here and where did they end up so right totally random thought but going back to your exit yeah yeah um and I had a note here C status what you you use the C status in regards to the high needs group and Community eligibility program that's so if you have a certain percentage in a school the

076whole school could be eligible for free and reduced lunch and I understand that it's the same way with more multiple schools like we just recently had applied or Earnie recently applied for the C for fit high school and I think there was a cost Factor um on his side but it was definitely worth it so he used some of the Enterprise fund to make sure we established that but now all of our students at F High School get free breakfast and lunch and it definitely was worthwhile and I think we'll even notice it in our budget not having so many outstanding payments oh now is that a thing that could be impacted by this drop and economically disadvantage I'm not sure do we that's why I want to find out we're gonna get get together

077and definitely investigate this so yeah so we want to get a sense of what the threshold is I know that once you're a c was it um Sam for four five years four years so fish is just on so they have four you know this year and three more and the other got on what was it two years ago so yeah this year and another year yeah that definitely would be a good information for us to know I agree um I'll I'll pass for now I got to digest a little bit and you know you know where to find us so even if a thought comes like in the middle of the night you can text me I won't answer it but you know where to find us and you can ask us question oh

078um yes so the um special education population by school excuse me um the the Mr G magnet school was as you noted significantly higher um now I thought that my impression was in all discussions with that that was somewhat by Design was that we were centralizing or like you know kind of like trying to um you know use resources in the most economical fashion as far as like trying have like a a central area and wasb Butler it was the school's um you know was that was the school that housed the ABA program so we had done that in the past as well okay so and when we built the schools we wanted to build them with the capacity to run those programs [Music] understood think that's it for now yeah thank you J Jen

079was next and then I see adrien's hand I'm just letting you know on your phone okay so I'm gonna start from the beginning that's okay um I'm sorry I have the P I don't have the pages I'm in this one grade level enrollment yeah yep um was Kindergarten especially um left out yes because I wanted to give you the breakdown um later on with the whole transitional kindergarten being introduced this year um that was really the only reason the numbers there 272 kindergarteners oh okay so it's 272 yep okay and the 67 that would have been eligible would have been added to that number in the past right in the past okay so it was fairly in line with last year's numbers as well um we do have some students that did not end up

080going into transitional kindergarten because for one reason or another through whether it be IEPs and ppts they they opted to keep them in the program they were currently in so there's a little bit of fluctuation there but other than that um the numbers are pretty in line with last year's kind wa for process so there were certain children mostly in the area of September October that did qualify for kindergarten and went ahead and went in yeah so if that's the case then the numbers on this chart rack out to the um enrollment number of 3987 because if I take the sum of all those um um first grade to 12th grade and then adding the 272 that does not come out to like 3,987 so there must be some other population you have preschool in

081there too uh preschool is not included in in in that 272 right okay so preschool prek and then I believe transition Academy which is beyond grade 12 got it so we're good so that that three um I guess bar charts um should total like 507 or somewhere around there um okay thank you I just wanted to make sure that we've accounted for all the students um agreed with what Ian said between ninth grade and 10th grade decreasing or 8th grade to nth grade decreasing because we have kids leaving to go to m the magnet schools or Gro um so now I'm going to the enrollment by race and ethnicity um I think with this part and the subsequent charts when we give percent it's good to give the count so that we can translate it

082because um 45% of 100 or 45% of 4,000 or a th000 we need you know what I mean so in this case I'm assuming this number is the three um 3,987 and then that's what I'm using to multiply to these percentages it's just more like so that we can digest the information I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm following there are counts in the pie in the inside the counts are on the inside oh maybe not this one but like the subsequent ones like I'm really having I apologize for that one but like the subsequent ones like high need subgroup like the high need subgroup um special ed limited English and all of that like I just I I just couldn't get a grasp of like what's what is the four% you know and I

083guess if I gone back to my spread my presentation from last week I think I do have the numbers for high needs but I shouldn't have to go back to my spreadsheet of my my charts from last week um and Filipino is with a f not a p it actually can be done both ways um since like n uh no it's an f um it can be done both ways but they prefer the f I thought the call didn't have enough huh I thought the Callum didn't have enough it doesn't okay but they they um I don't know they just prefer the f I don't know why they prefer that having I've seen it for the too they report it both both ways who when you say they though are you specifically talking about the

084group the group of people well well I could talk about them because that's my parents Heritage okay no I just want to know who they were that's why the Filipino Community would identify itself with the N that's how they do it like when you see things like whether it's in New York or the little things that they have here it's always enough it's always enough F so I don't I don't know why they pick the F but regardless of wherever I've been it's always been the F because when I was a when I was a kid the country was a p and then I was like why are they using an F stuff it's just in case you use it somewhere else on gentically it should be enough and then like I said with the

085other slides here it's just needing the numbers so that yeah and like it's almost like this um like the whole reason we did the magnet's schal right is to ensure that our schools are racially balanced so even though we get to see this at the district level it's almost better like if you want to have a pie chart and then like a subsequent taking like just schools and then saying like Okay you maybe you don't need to break it down to like all this level of detail but maybe take the top three or the top four and show so that we can see by school um the spread if that's important to the group because I mean that was like the whole reasoning for it so we need to make sure that the original intent

086of board's pass is actually being achieved rather than looking at it at District we always knew as a district we were a diverse the complaint they had was that certain schools were not as diverse so the best doing the bagnet just that's like one important thing well that in socioeconomic yeah balance is was another main ingredient of the brought in 2020 yes so I do have that so I can send that to you you perfect and I'll make sure to include it in uh future presentations yeah and that'll be sent to the whole board sure thank you and then this is going back to like I was like starting to think like when Dean was asking about um the economically disadvantage and the students filling out or the families filling out the form is the

087assumption that everybody everyone is okay and then when we when they turn in the form then we decide because now we have evidence we can put them in the economically disadvantage so the people who do not respond who may be economic Al disadvantaged we're counting them as being non-economically disadvantaged is that how I'm supposed to read this I'm not sure I'm I'm not sure I understand what you're asking so the general population starts off not economically disadvantage and then as we get paperwork right we say that they're economically disadvantaged I'm an economically disadvantaged family and I don't fill out the paperwork I not counted I am not counted or no no no there's SNAP benefits that we automatically know yes I apologize yes and then and then the forms also would confirm for those families

088that we already know or they confirm for families that don't get SNAP benefits and didn't show up that way so but it's something can I get to um can we meet with Ernie so we can get you a little more detail on that okay I don't want to miss speak either right so yeah I was just trying to understand data was collected yeah it's is a little confusing yeah I think that would be good to have a followup like of whole discussion on our presentation that's probably something that's important right because then we could lose some of our funding so we definitely I've brought it to the attention of the state that we're very unique and I brought it to the attention of congressman Court need too don't know that our military folks are getting

089the benefits that they really do deserve thank you online after all right I'll start with the hardest one first so back to um the first and second Pages um the enrollment first school do we know what the capacity of the school tools are and then separately the more important thing is the functional capacity meaning like if you're the principal of that school you know and you know the school seems to run well with 500 kids but once I have 550 you know the wheels start to fall off um do we know any of those numbers or do we have that as a district like is obviously the the middle school maybe 900 I mean we know the capacity I think we talked about it somewhere like 1,50 or or maybe a little more than that

090but the um but the well that charge at the time really found that that was like the having everything filled all at once and not having teachers have their own class yeah that's 25 kids in every classroom or something right I mean that that's not an actual reasonable capacity so I think it would be helpful and this would probably be something we'd have to ask the principles but for us to know what the and and I'm really wondering on Charles Barnum um because there's so much influx in that school if their functional capacity let's see they have 340 kids um is 350 and all of a sudden they have 370 or 380 there so we we just changed the busing a little bit or something or yeah and I apologize for interrupting I I apologize

091for that um so we look at that that's part of that Weekly enrollment snapshot that I was telling you about our our registration monitors very closely with myself and there's you know there's a team that looks at that closely so every time a new student comes in where numbers are moving um we have an accurate count of those numbers and we know exactly how many students we can place in a particular class and we follow board policy based on that um and so when any class or grade level gets to a certain number we monitor it very closely and then when it hits a certain number we then have to move them to another building potentially so and that's where like we have to look closely at where their bus stops nearby what of their

092students are in that area that may be going to another school does that grade level have availability like there are a lot of pieces that do go into that but we we try we can't um we don't go over that cap all right very rarely um so do we have I mean that's a really General number then what I'm what I guess I'm asking because if you if you have 80 kindergarteners and you'd like to have 60 well then that's that's a big problem but the school school number might be um you know might be fine as a total number but I guess for comparison sake it would be great to know what the principes feel like their buildings could handle I've been looking for one extra classroom somewhere in town and there's not even

093one extra classroom like the classrooms are all full I think see K has a stem room and themes River and Mystic River may have something like a science room additional you know but they're pretty filled to capacity when I look and and you know about the middle school it's overfilled yeah so um it you know I do think I would like to ask the question though to the principal how does those how do those buildings run best like what is your kind of gold post number that you feel in you know having lived that life um with these numbers I mean these numbers since I've been here have been pretty consistent even with the two new schools they had said you can fill it to 600 and there was no way and and they said

094that had to be to in order to get funds but that was some I don't know that was misinformation and we never filled it to 600 and I can't even imagine running those schools with 600 I don't know where I would put them right so um well and when you think of even some of the bodies right when you get up into like fourth and fifth grade the elementary levels to to say board policy right we can put 24 students in a fifth grade classroom it's fine on paper but when you've actually sat in a fifth grade classroom with 24 you know boys and girls um you know plus their desks and the size of their desks yeah that functional capacity really does matter matter yeah well I mean maybe that's something we should look

095at all the board the numbers on that and what I had asked the question I think it was in the beginning of SE setember about um you know about enrollment in classes and at that time I was really interested in in knowing um like in one school are we putting 20 kids in every kindergarten classroom which I think most teachers would say um is not going to be a successful classroom even though I think board policy might say that we can do that um I think that from a learning standpoint know seems like what is it 16 17 it'd be great for most teachers um so it would be nice to know where we are by school by grade um you know at least in especially in those Early Elementary where it really matters you

096know because kids are just you know behaviors and all that they're getting used to school and they're just kids I can tell you almost every one of our kindergarten classes is at capacity for sure so they're at 20 is it 20 20 21 20 I think there might be a few that are 18 yeah there I think um I believe actually now that I'm not sharing I can't and I can look at that am I I believe yeah I do believe uh Northeast may have a few seats left and possibly CK but don't quote me on that and we have to be careful with them because they're a four tier School K and one but then they go down to a three tier school so that whatever we put in K and one you know

097you'd either have to add a teacher which happened at Nea um just a few years back I I think those kids are now fourth or fifth graders and we've had to keep an added teacher going through because of that because it was just too full we filled it up too much in K and one and then when it went down to three tier you couldn't keep it that full yeah so it was fine when you have four but when you went down to three it wasn't so fine yeah we have we have like um just as an example uh Charles baram actually now again we haven't run numbers for for this past week yet so again that could change but it looks as though Charles Barnum may have like two seats um CK two three

098seats maybe um and themes River I think has about the same and that's it so when you think about like the number of students that move in and out and the potential of you know a couple more families military families coming in yeah it's it's here yeah well I think from from my perspective on the board I know that you guys have these projected numbers in in the summer um it would be great to know because I know that other districts um the board will be included in saying that we think we need a couple of more teachers and the district if that's the case should feel comfortable asking the board that whether that we can afford that in the budget or what else you know what else needs to get adjusted to make that

099happen those discussions can happen but um from a board standpoint I would like to be ready like ready but also like notified or or at least understand you know I'm really concerned about like Littles right those kids that that um that you know aren't doing as well as we'd like to in those early years and if there's things that um that can be done better you know what did the teacher you know I was asking the principals what do the teachers want well maybe the kindergarten teachers would like to say that we'd like a couple a few few children and we can do a lot better for you and that's something that um I think the board would um like to hear and maybe support we're investigating looking into an enrollment study so um and

100that could that correlates with that map version because we had done it a while and we didn't do the map so we're we're talking to some folks to figure out what that cost would be but I'll let you know and then just to have a a more standardized way of looking at that enrollment if they can have a better grasp of it yeah well I imagine there's got to be studies on success and number of kids in classrooms I mean we're not this isn't new um so it would just be nice to to know what those numbers are and you know I mean we have I I've looked at our teacher ratios compared to other towns and um if you look at General Ed teachers versus the total population of students Gren is at about

101the state average but we're um we're higher and I think gu had emailed um I think I i' done some calculation on that but um I think we're higher than a lot of surrounding districts by a fair amount um you know where I think we're um well I don't want to quote the numbers because I I did them a couple of months ago but we we are definitely higher um students per per teacher than a lot of the surrounding districts that comparing to but also going back to the kindergarten numbers I was just telling you about in mind too so we have those seats available we could get a couple more kids in but we also could be losing a couple again it's very fluid so while we we say we only have two seats

102left right now we can have three exit in a week I mean truly it it's just dependent on the week it's dependent on the day it's depending on the grade level there are a lot of factors so again that's the reason that we we monitor it so closely yeah no I mean I guess you know again to say it'd be great if we had if 20 kids per classroom wasn't the rule you know if if if we had a little bit of cushion in there where if we have because I know there's there's teacher contracts with maximum number of students as well and so that we're not up against those all the time yep totally agree and it's what's best for kids I mean right all right so that was a harder one um so

103um and then this was just a uh when we're talking about total enrollment the out of District student um in the state report card um it says we had I think 4,400 children last year students last year um is that um are in those numbers of like how many kids like um cost per student the total enrollment meaning the including the 400 um students that aren't in our schools was 400 and something I got to look at what page that was on 477 this year 46 yeah yep um when we calculate our cost per student is that number included 477 so if we go on the state report card for the district it said we had you know it said we had 4,400 kids average was 19,000 and something per child was the average yeah

104so they would include all those out of District because those are students that we have to actually pay for for the most part yeah and then there's also um like you sprinkle in some of our friends from like Sacred Heart where typically we don't pay for them but if they happen have an IEP there could be funds go that are sent to them for that so there's there's layers to it if that makes sense so I guess I'm not really sure did I answer your question I'm sorry yeah well it was mostly on um my my question mostly is like when we talk about cost per student we're going on the total number the combined total is what that state report card would go on yep all right um and um yeah my other question

105I rolled into the the uh capacity one about the little so okay I think I see Beverly's hand up Beverly hi B hi Susan let me turn on my video I apolog ol um I just had a quick question and I just joined the meeting so if he answered the question already um just let me know I was just curious why we are losing students like at the high school we lost I forget like 76 students uh why do you have idea why we losing these students we did we did kind of cover that a little bit we talked about the need to capture information on as people exit oh good all right thank you we typically see a drop from middle school to high school anyway Beverly because our kids have so many choices

106we talked about the in District magnet choices the grot tech the ledgard agriculture so they've got a lot which is a good thing that they have so many so we do tend to see a dip because of that from you know 8 to nine but we did we do have more questions around this um that we really want to investigate Susan is it possible to get class sizes at some point we do a weekly report we can get you some information after this like you could actually see you know divide you know you'll see the total number at a school and then you'll see how the class sizes break out we don't I don't think we have that level of data um easily access at the middle school but we could get you like roundabout

107numbers we've done that at Fitch and and Grant Middle like at the core level classes um so we could get you more information for sure okay it'd be nice to have class sizes too all right thank you especially since you're G to be talking about that soon at one of your next meetings about what is the board's kind of magic number what is the board's recommended class size and I think it would help to have this information so that you all will be making that decision soon all right thank you okay we have a full agenda but if you do have other questions you know certainly you can send them our way yeah please feel free to email me if you need any clarification or have additional questions anytime here I just wanted to a

108general comment is just um you know to follow up on what Adrian was saying as far as you know looking at like um class numbers and numbers of teachers and and you know with that of course uh what you mentioned Susan is you know certain I mean it sounds like a lot of the schools are at capacity or exceeding capacity in in a lot of ways so I mean all that keeping us close in on the loop and giving us the data that you know we ask for as far as like more articulation on that gives us the the the information we need to be stronger advocates for getting the district what it needs to function uh at at its best capacity and I notate that 100% or 115% capacity right yeah thank you did

109have one question that relates to finances uh last year we were barely not eligible for some supplemental military funds and uh I had asked Lauren to get me figures of military enrollment figures which she graciously provided they're pretty stable 851 and 22 8815 and 238 8814 and 24 for that October 1 date so I was wondering if whether our 70 whatever number lower that we had in total population uh at that date in time which is the date we go by plus a slightly lower just the basically the same numbers last year minus one whether that alignment of numbers might make us eligible this year and I'd love you to take a first pass in figuring out we were talking about that because we we don't have to do the October one but we we

110once we say we're going to use it we've got to use it but we've said are there Peaks and valleys a natural Trends over time that we're seeing more military students sitting in the seat so we can really so that's something that would be an interesting study to do so I agree but what you're asking actually is true so it looks at a certain percentage right so if our overall enr population is lower but that doesn't necessarily account for our military families then then it kind of does this right so our percentage goes up because our enrollment goes down as long as the enrollment that went down weren't all the military families but that also includes um civilians that are working on uh working on federal property that includes foreign governments and this this number

111includes all of them so if we have no I apologize no that's just active that's just active so that 814 divided by what's the number guys 4,464 that comes out to what oh I oh I'm sorry say it again I'm sorry 814 divided by 4,000 about 18% but and then there's also the fact that while that October one snapshot was what was available it C the we have to do Source checks and we don't know if between um that doesn't account for anyone who may have been working on it's so overloaded with information but ba the basic the gist of it is like student uh parents who may have been working on a federal base that's not included in those numbers but they count for us like we get credit for them but that's not

112reflective in those active duty numbers so we've got about 18 and a quarter percent just in active duty for supplemental I think we need 20% so we're one and a one and 3/4% from the magic number so for that that one thing yeah yeah so well I do know that I've got a couple staff members that have a long drive home so make sure because we have an early walk through I think yeah Lauren if you can just email all of us y you know there's a lot of questions obviously and a lot of we'll get back to you so okay be great to have that information I'll put it all in one email to you guys if that's okay um I don't know if it's best I know that typically Susan will put it

113in board notes so like any follow-up information she usually includes there does that work yeah because that goes and it goes to everyone okay not to everyone yeah there's certain things that wouldn't go to everyone just but specific okay all right but to be honest I mean if you had it all packaged up an email that you sent with a certain subject line I could do that you know followup questions from whatever this meeting's date that would make it easier for me to search through my emails and lo and then like I could download the the information attachments yeah are you all embed embedded embedded links and board notes are um really hard to retrieve oh okay well it's just six months later when you're like I know this came up I'd like to look

114back got it and then you do a search embedded link is just doesn't come up in seches okay having a subject line that's of the date of the meeting or you know rough you know or like the ti like each PDF that would be attached would have a title on it okay those also pop up on email searches okay if you don't mind can I have about a week to get it all together just because there's like seven other things that like okay it's in char change for us we can this is if you told me I had to I would but if you can give me like a week buffer that would be really great 12 and a half days okay that's it perfect I'm good 12 and a half days is perfect if

115I can get through November 5th we're good thank you so much you all right thank you all your hard work as always thank you all right good night Irene you have quite a bit to share with us here all graphs and charts num graphs and charts numbers numbers numbers exactly so the The Narrative is attachment to in your packet um I'm just displaying available so for FY 25 you can see that our expenditures are down about 3.1% over FY 24 and about .5% over FY 23 that's promly due to the increase in the budget for Staffing levels so that's being driven by salaries and fitment as of September 30 2024 I broke it out by category so you can see this is similar to how the the budget is loaded so you can see salaries

116where we're at year to date and one thing I just want to make sure um that I clarify is Ray and also I have the same past practice that we brought into GR and that if we know of an expenditure we make sure that we encumber it if we enter into a contract we encumber it um that way we really know if there's $1,000 flexibility here and there if we're if we're looking for funds that we need to try and address the most unforeseen unexpected particularly in the Property Services you can see that we are already at a negative 12.7% um one thing to keep in mind is we did encumber those funds that we know that we have contractual obligations for that's why that is sh a negative value at this point and that's

117promly driven by water sewer and um disable of our garbage you're going to see there's also an increase in our heating and plumbing um repairs and Sam May address that later during the discussion the next area to look at that we that we're watching is that Supply item that Supply item isn't just your pens pencils paper Etc that also includes your electric your gas your gasoline for the buses we do know in the electrical area that we are seeing an increase in delivery charges from ever and it's due to the pandemic recruitment has started in the fall of this year notice it at home too that's impacting both commercial government residential people that have ever Source you're going to see that um large increase in our electricity mine this year that's going to carry into

118future years in addition to the annual increase that's ined for elective F so that is an area that we are high on the repair and replacement for equipment um that's also something I'm I'm keeping front of mind um in discussions with we may have an increase in this category due to deferred maintenance for the deferment of purchasing vehicles through our Capital Improvement plan so it's just something to keep on your radar but that is something that may impact the general fund operating budget this year Transportation you're also going to see that that is starting to um increase and that is due to rise in cost associated with some special education out of District transportation we are seeing an increase in special education Transportation overall um but we are an uptick specifically in the out of

119District transportation and then um the other business for the health insurance dashboard that's only available on a quarterly basis I know it's on your monthly update so you see the same report it's because there's not additional data available utilities dashboard I plan to revise that because it's not capturing a full month of that CH utilities it's only as of the DAT before I run the report so it's basically the Friday before which isn't going to line up with your financials in the top grid so um I plan to make sure that we do that at the close of each month so it would be the 30th 31st so you're looking consistent you can see match the numbers consistently meaning we'll have our utility B booked and then I'll be able to run the financial statements

120to reflect those utilities and one that numbers that you see in the detail below the FY 24 audit um hopefully not wood we're wrapping up this week um there are just few additional items that are being addressed that I hope to have completed by say and then there's a follow-up meeting with the auditor on me at the town as well as myself on L and then FY 26 budget worksheets did go out to the principles on I believe October 21st a little later than I anticipated uh but they're currently working on their budget and then we just had our central office meeting today discussed budget so we're keeping keeping the weights with the budget as well question B you have a question uh yes just something to maybe um you could do in the future

121I mean with the supplies you said the supplies not only include paper but also include um electricity did you say that can you break that down for us sure you're getting segue and show you some more detail I do have one quick question about uh this as well um uh for the property services that that negative uh trend is what do we have to do about that on how soon we have to start considering uh make creating some kind of Remedy so we don't get into an overage situation it's not necessarily creating Revenue but it's seeing if you know if we get new grants that we can attribute funding towards where we can move it out of the general fund just keep in mind it is just a one-time Source Grants are only approved once

122a year and it's not necessarily continuous so we have to keep that in mind that it may come back typically items like this I tend to make sure that we have them in our general fund budget and not necessarily rely on grants so this is part of building up that non-aps fund where if we're seeing utility costs increase double digits like we are this year that there wasn't a pandemic recruitment notification set out it just hits your bills then that's something that non-aps you do a transfer from nonlaparoscopic [Music] okay thank you um and the uh Pand pandemic recruitment um I gotta say that's the first time i' I've I mean the first time I've heard the phrase phrase like that you know but it seems to be saying that these these companies are charging

123us for electricity that was dispersed over four years ago during the pandemic yes by providing the pandemic relief the understanding is there would be a recruitment and now it's time for that recruitment they weren't allowed to increase then right understood yeah they couldn't shut people's power off right yeah and they couldn't shut it yeah and and um there was no notice as far as like when that was going to come um I didn't see a notice since I've been here Ray didn't see the notice he actually noticed a spike in that electrical line item and um that's something that we dug into over the past couple of weeks to find out why right because um he did negotiate some reductions in um heating oil and other areas that should have stabilized that whole area and

124it just didn't and that's when we found that that was the double delivery charge understood and and so in my mind this is correlating with the uh public service fees that I've seen on some people complain about as far as on the a service bills would that be a correlation it's possible it's in our particular bills for the school it's in a delivery charge La as pandemic recruitment or it's labeled as delivery charge interesting so that is consistent with what I've seen people post on their ever Source it's happening and there's no explanation well now we're kind of discovering this this language but there was no notice no broad notice and saying hey by the way this is going to happen zat that's a bigger conversation one of the time thank you for bringing this

125to our attention and thank you for thinking of the um you know ways we strategize the way out of this and is there any sense of how long this pandemic recuitment is going to go on do they have a date have manager charge of pic recruitment he or she reports to somebody else that may to ask our our delegation ask our delegation in so I I think that I'll save that for maybe like agenda items in the future but maybe that's we do as a board is make an inquiry or to because I don't want to see this I understand why now it's happening and uh I also understand why now we can fully forecast for it right um but we also do not they can't go on forever well yeah future agenda item and

126then this we like explore all the names and numbers we need toct and get in contact with thank you so Jay your hand is raised but a couple board members too hands ra go ahead and then we'll we'll go around all right so um yeah I do remember when that hit the news a few months ago and I believe some of our state reps did say that they were going to look into it maybe that's something they're going to dig into in the next session uh because it hit um uh residential bills pretty hard too people were getting increases of at least $100 a month and up um and so all the all the TV stations did do extensive coverage on it at the time and and we did get a little insert in the

127bill but I don't think it was in large print um they did what it was I guess legally necessary to let people know why their bill spiked um but I have a question about the um health Insurance dashboard so we're used to seeing this there's always a lag Irene we're used to there being a lag but it it in the past it's always been updated monthly now I know we're going to be meeting with MDG on November 7th and maybe they would have a better understanding but why why did we go from a monthly update to to quarterly do we know understanding from Ray is the information comes to us poly from Anthony h no we always used to get them monthly it's just we never got you know by by now what by now

128we would have typically seen August um and I see we're still going back to July so I I it just seems to be a larger lag so maybe that I'm G to put that on a list for something to ask MDG why this uh timing has changed um because we used to be able to get the update you know monthly but uh other than that that's all I have I just couple questions on this that's where we're going next oh I felt like you presented this already okay because like we were talking about this so then I'm like Oh we must have just got to look at three so I'll wait till after your presentation then okay I have three questions uh I noticed right away it said may experience increases due to deferred vehicle

129replacement every time I see deferred maintenance or deferred this or deferred that I kind of begin to itch and wondered uh if we have a replacement vehicle cycle document if we do could see it if we don't shouldn't we have one that's something I can work on Sam with Sam with um and he could probably address that better than I can we do not have that list at this time we had one previously three or four years ago we were on a 16year cycle with the vehicles the 16 vehicles that we had and um about three four years ago they stopped funding that uh and so uh it's been dropped since then so to we out a kilter with it turn look like get back on great I know you do your fav best I

130noticed that the I'm now looking at the health insurance dashboard and remain enrollment remains down 3% from the same period last year it's been going down every year and I'm trying to understand the continuing increases and those choosing not to enroll uh how much of it is spouses getting the coverage so their our employees don't need it uh how much is due to Young and healthier uh employees figuring they don't need it and how much of it may be due to employees at the lower end of our of our salary scale who simply feel they can't afford it could we look into that get back to it and finally the third thing is in is an easy peasy one uh well I'm looking now at energy dashboard electricity costs where we have the figure of

131year-to dat of 246,000 uh and then I see the other four years which is the full year it would be really nice if there could be a horizontal line on the previous years that showed where we were on that Year's thing for the same Peri same period of the year so we could just look at it and see if our horizontal line is above or below an equal period from the of this year is equal or below to an equal period of a three seeding and I been which are you I am looking at energy dashboard electricity costs but it applies to all of them that's just the exact so this year we've spent 246,000 in change to year-to date well a year to date ago in the fiscal year 24 I'm sorry uh fiscal

132year 23 where would that where would a horizontal line appear for the same date where would it appear for 22 and then we can look at that and say oh that just cor correlates to inflation or or maybe that correlates to a very harsh winter but I think that would be useful to have a horizontal line there right if you think I'm mistaken I accept your judgment but no I I wholeheartly agree we basically want me to update the chart to be a true comparison at the same period each year instead of having year-to date totals for the four prior years and then only a 3mon snapshot of where we currently are exactly okay so thank you very much okay so the breakdown um basically all the numbers that make up that spreadsheet that all

133roll together anything in your account numbers 100 series is what drives that salary number on the narrative anything in your 200s is going to be benefits and then your 300 start getting into Professional Services once we start getting into 400 those are where our purchase services are and these were the areas that I was letting you know that there's some we're seeing some increase in 410 which is line number 86 so we're seeing an increase increase in water we're seeing an increase in storage which is the one right below that and that's line number 87 garbage removal this is is driven twofold because um because we're encumbering for the contracts that we have this is now showing what our true cost is estimated out towards the end of the fiscal year so you can see

134if we're just doing a year-to-year comparison it looks like it's a huge increase when I'm looking at actuals to actuals that's when we're starting to see that you know an extra 20,000 and it's above what we had budgeted snow removal of course we haven't had yet um but that all falls into that area of those um the services so we're also seeing the uptick in the the heating and plumbing repairs uh due to the HVAC being delayed and that we need to get um hopefully pass through CIP this round and an increase in rentals quick just a parliamentary privilege is there can you put the line and have a whole thing highlight See's having a hard time tracking where your curs is sure it might not let me because I'm in PDF never mind doesn't

135work yeah so it's basically nine it's line number 95 is the heating and plumbing repairs and then we're also having an increased inre in rentals in line number 98 and then the next section is when I was talking about we're seeing uh increase in the um Pupil Transportation in 510 11 and 12 we're seeing a reduction in in we're seeing an increase in regular and we're seeing a reduction in the special education but I do believe that this needs to be reallocated it perhaps may have been encumbered in one line item instead of spread out to the three different categories as it needed to be sorry the touchpad on this is very sensitive so I apologize if it runs really fast down the down the L here I can you I can I ask a

136quick question what do you mean by rent rentals other what is what's that specifically that's typically if we rent uh either equipment or um uh it could be you know an extra classroom that we rent I can get the addition the detail on that rentals other for you okay thank you so in lines number 174 175 176 177 those particular line items are the utility gas fuel oil and the gasoline for the school buses that I had mentioned these are driving huge increases um because we have encumbered the funds for our electricity so we do anticipate that that will be an area of about $500,000 that we'll need to cover throughout the budget year same thing for gas um fuel oil is not that much but we are seeing the gasoline for the school buses

137go up as well so these are areas that we'll be focusing on and continue to watch to see if there's some movement or if there's um other ways that we can try and pay for these or other areas of the budget that we can shift due to you know new Grant funds coming in so that we won't run into a situation where we're trying to cover this in the last quarter of the fiscal year I admit to being confused I thought we had a contract we participated in this SCH contract so he get our costs for gasoline for the year in the gasoline we did um but that is something that the prices were negotiated I believe after the budget was complete but I can pull that data that was provided by Ray but the

138major one that's driving this whole area to be overexpanded is line number 174 it's electricity I Irene when do you think we would see some savings because we have the solar on some of our schools well at least in the middle school but something Sam might be able to speak to you better um we are looking at not only solar but something else happening with these tools internally um there is a a current I believe Bill that eversource is attempting to take back 7% of that net metering at this point in time that bill I don't believe has passed but that is another area that we're watching so that if we do have savings due to solar that we're not estimating that we're going to keep 100% anymore it is something that perhaps um ever

139Source will be able to take 7% back so it would so typically the the credits the net metering credits would show up on your eversource bill uh my past experience and this is now my fourth state is it all depends on the person that's basically keying in the data on where the credits applied but that is something that we'll partner um with my counterpart at the town and we'll try and set up a meeting with eversource to try and understand what they're doing how they're tracking it where the near credit is and this is not specific to Gren um I've been in several other communities and we' the only place I've seen where it's been successful is where we took it on upon ourselves to have a third party manage all our solar and manage

140all the dispersements and we actually sold to our neighboring um towns and schools because we had excess capacity so that's that's where I seen it successful um moving forward uh as those conversations happen can we just be sure to um document them and have them memorialized as far as whatever understandings are established amongst the town board for you know through the financial office and ever source that there things are written down definitely definitely thank you it's there's a I have a requesting with our current rep to try and have them come and meet with us and uh I I'll try again and perhaps it's they need to meet with the board are those attempts documented as well you're yes sending those or yes okay good yes the phone calls got to the point where I

141said no more phone calls it's documentation now yeah thank you and just to be clear so ever sour is looking at like there's a bill on the floor that is possibly they want more want diminish the savings that we could have from me correct so that pic that's on top of the pandemic recruitment you look at I'm I'm yeah I'm on secondhand information with ever Source because live in the city but you know I do hear and see were there any other questions about the line item detail and I know these are small but sometimes the small things and end up being your own so why 36 other like just like I don't like other so I'm gonna about other um if to know what that is and then there's another one that's um POS

142but it's like line number 76 student intern we're paying like potentially 16,000 and I'm I'm just looking at it just because I know we're like financially challenged and then the nurse incumbrance um it's only like 571 but like the numbers that were tossed about earlier were like 900 between 900 and 142 million so I'm not really sure why that's only 5 71 I believe they're shown in two different places oh okay it does total to the N the 990 okay um and I do have a note in the finance and Facilities group I still have it to follow up on identifying which in each what's underneath each of the other line items okay thank you wait till then I'll just keep ask and and then this is going back to the finance one um maybe

143in that pivot table if you can um add like a a line item category so that you can also see the same categories that are here so like all the salary one is fall together all the play benefits fall together and I know no I know it's just better to have it it's already there because that's what drove it's already there that's what drove the chart yeah so it's already there thank you I can wait till you don't next just have a quick question on line telephone that's I guess over encumbered wondering why it's not necessarily over encumbered it's what we what we anticipate that we're going to spend um so that so it's spending we anticipate spending more than what's budgeted right I was wondering why on that and if we could do it

144do with less phones it's actually I can look at the actuals the trending from the prior years um if the budget was built and then because I wasn't here when the budget was built if the budget was built and then reduced then our budget would't necessarily reflect our actuals and our past Trends but I can look and see what that is because this would probably be a contract right like switch over and I don't know if you remember that that was not in the right category when we switched it over so that um but I thought we had corrected that with this budget we'll look into it that's a PL question I think I'm just gonna do kind of a blanket comment I think anything for me anything that is showing a negative percent available

145you know I think I want to take a we should take a a close critical look at and see you know what's causing that down that overage or that projected overage and and is it a thing that we have to commit to or is it something that we can set on the shelf for now and deal with you know when we so I'm looking forward to creating a budget you know with you fresh you know because last year was a bit of a you know Mi bag um so yeah so like whatever would we do to eliminate the negatives that we're looking at that we're projecting already um I think we have to we have to look at that um and to understand like what's inside those what what would it cost what's the actual

146impacts here if we wanted to to get at that because there's some things that you know we can't avoid heating and plumbing repairs um you know people Transportation um but like yeah the telephone thing getting understanding better any of that um the student intern thing I'm not sure what that's all about but it's gen identified um you know uh yeah anything that that is projecting in negative to get like a a full understanding exactly what's causing that um and then how and then best recommended practices on how to address it it's great to have this level of detail really appreciate yeah any other questions on the detail and then we briefly touched on the insurance uh I'm sorry the dashboards is that something you want those presented as well there's not any changes from when

147you last seen them and I have the notes on some of the updates that you're looking for I just want to say I did appreciate your note in the narrative about like getting things lined up so that we're looking at things to the same lens be really helpful okay any other Finance questions and I thank you and I hope you have a great morning thank you Irene thank you I just want to say I'm gonna I'll leave in person and I'll check back in online in about 15 20 minutes we're on building grounds Dam that would be you it is good evening we want to defer him to the end of the meeting stop be the first time [Laughter] Jay first time under your leadership though so um I I got three main points that

148I I want to talk about tonight the first uh project that uh we're working on is the Charles bonam roof replacement uh I will be attending the town council meeting tomorrow night tonight uh and the town manager sent me a uh couple of questions about um what I'll be presenting there his first question was about the estimate when it was going to be done and what the reimbursement rate was for that and uh Susan thought that we should inform you uh remind you of what those are too uh so the estimate for the uh the final estimate for the uh project is $999,900 just under the $1 million that uh was approved in the CIP uh we'll be doing the project uh provided everything goes our way during the summer of 2025 uh and uh

149the reimbursement rate for this project according to the state at this point is 47.5% the other thing that will be ask or that um that the Town Council will do tomorrow at tomorrow night at the meeting is to uh authorize the board to apply for the grant they will be establishing the permanent School building committee as the building committee for this project and they will um authorize the preparation and draw uh of the drawings and specifications for this project that's the Charles Barham roof uh second item uh that we uh submitted our CIP projects uh today and the projects that uh I submitted from the buildings and grounds Department again we resubmitted The Fitch High School football field recrowning and adding irrigation to that field um the new Total for that is $367,000 the second

150item is the uh Northeast Academy HVAC replacement and that is to replace all the units on that building 3 million $963,000 and the Katherine Koski HVAC replacement project and that one is $4 m191 th000 there's one more unit at uh hbac unit at CK because it's a slightly larger building has one additional section of the of that building as opposed to Nea Nea was not able to do that last section of the building because they didn't have the water capacity at the time um but now that the water tower has been built in the neighborhood and they have sufficient water and pressure there uh the uh the original plan for the building had an additional four to eight room classrooms that could be built on the wing of the building that extends out toward the

151road so um as a potential project at at some other point if needed of course the difficulty with uh Northeast Academy is parking and uh you know it really impacts the neighborhood when we have events going on there so a lot of concern from Neighbors about parking blocking driveways and all kinds of things down there tough road to park on but that's a future item um the uh the other items that were submitted today uh were the uh we resubmitted the fit High School culinary arts upgrade at $600,000 and we've added one more project to that uh you may recall that we replaced the one of the two water heaters at fit High School this past summer um the second water heater is inoperable it's leaking badly needs to be replaced and so I've submitted

152this one in at $85,000 for the uh second water here the third item on my list is uh the bids for the HVAC testing that is required by the state so we went out to bid uh to do the testing we're we're allowed to do uh one fifth of the uh buildings per year uh and so the first uh two buildings that we will be uh testing our Northeast Academy and kathern colasi uh uh and so the bids went out they were due in last Friday we have an apparent winning bid of the two uh companies that did submit bids uh which I need to justify this week and make sure that everything is included in the bid before I uh let that out uh as a as the winning bid so I'll be checking

153that this week comparing it uh with what is needed and required uh within the uh the bid specs so I'll have that by the end of the week and then I can share that with you the next time we meet I think that's about um I I think oh the other thing uh when I when I talked about the CK and The ne8 hbac Replacements um you may recall that those buildings were done in 2008 something like that um and the HVAC units were were installed without the ability to Du ify the uh the returning air into the building so the uh the reason that we would be replacing these units at those two school is so that we can add dehumidification capacity to it uh in the meantime we've been doing active dehumidification which

154means that we run the boilers to dry the air uh as it comes through the system uh which obviously is an expense uh that was meant to be temporary and hopefully uh projects will go through um I've got a question um it's it's a little bit off of these um it's kind of one for Irene but um I figured I'd wait since it's for you is electricity um and the easy one for everyone to see is the lights at nighttime in the buildings like in this building it seems like the room the lights are off in the rooms that aren't occupied and um you know in the janitors can turn it on and I know in the new buildings I guess they don't have light switches is that correct the custodian is not able to

155do that it's in part of the DDC and um our electricians are still working with the original contractor to figure out exactly how to do that so we're in hopes that we can resolve that problem soon they don't automatically turn off and on like these no but some of them do but if you if you drive up Fort Hill in the middle of the night you'll see that there are lights on in drives me nuts drives me nuts so is there any way because I know that we talked about this you know I don't know February or March or something I mean is there any way um to kind of put it on the front burner for um for the contractor or just because now it's you know as prices it's going up more um

156I mean I remember reading about this same thing happening to some School in Massachusetts and uh they were unfortunately um had like every light on in the building for a year and a half or something um but um but it seems like it'd be a great thing to try to you know you have two electricians on staff and they've tried to remedy the problem on figure it out so that's what so it's a it's a it's it's a tech with a laptop problem right versus a wiring issue no it's not a wiring issue that's cor yeah yeah it's laptop or yeah computerized somewhere what what's I give you any sense of a timeline I don't have one at the moment right I have to check back in with my electricians going see where we stand

157with system s supported done so yeah I guess I'm what sort of what system is this what you said DDC what is that that's a building management system so management system all right and so it's like a software issue or programming thing yes and it just saying it it's afraid it can't do that 9000 refence they fix it and then the lights don't work at all I mean re problem I don't mean to make if it was that simple we would have had it fix by now I know this is incredible though um to think that we don't have control over the lights in the building they're not all right but's that who's running the management system it's you run the management system but those lights are not controlled on this this particular system here

158they been able to figure that out okay are all these communications being documented G over moralized an email Pro I haven't emailed them my my electrician been talking directly okay I would I would I just not speaking as the as the board just an individual board member um I'm in my own experience when I get frustrated I start documenting things and then I start you know investigating other options as far as like I mean we are getting uh you know we're paying a lot of money like that that that power is coming I mean now we got pandemic recruitment may this is all part of the plan um it's it's it's yeah so we need to get control of the situation and and so yeah I would recommend that we document document document and then

159we talk to Floyd um and figure it out you know because you know the contractor that that's sold us this uh did they disclose the fact that we won't be able to turn off the lights yeah I'm sorry yeah it's um anyway but side not but speaking of electricity and the cost of electricity yeah which also brings up one other item which I didn't have on my list today but I happen to be talking to we talked to the town this afternoon about the charging stations of the EV charging stations of the schools which people Park their cars and charge on our electricity and we pay for that electricity too and they are there 247 some some people leave their cars there all day long all night long um are we able to turn those

160off yeah I was we I could turn the switches off with somebody's permission I wouldn't do it without permission from the board my permission agenda but um with you did ask the town though the town as of today has a group that are um they they are going to be uh adding something to their system to their charging station so that they can charge for it well we as we asked if they would do that and they said no so now they are going to do that so we should be able to do it originally when I spoke to them first time they said it wasn't going to be worth the money to do it okay but I was told today that uh they're working with a company to do that the company that they're

161working with was here doing something else and somebody there at the public work department talk to them about this so I do know that an electrician electrician from Montville is actually going to be doing the installation for them so we've been dealing with electrician right here in town who has been doing the repairs for us uh on these EV stations which have been running up to $2,500 every time somebody pulls one of the uh car cords out too far and um uses it in a vehicle that it wasn't I can't remember whether it's a who whose vehicle it is but it's not supposed to be plugged into that particular vehicle and that happens sometimes so it's about $2,500 that we spend each time and we have to do that so uh hopefully we won't have

162to do that so we we I'm expecting a phone call tomorrow from the company that the town's dealing with uh they said they' give me a call tomorrow we're going to start working on that too good you prompted that conversation I'm sure because you could reached out yeah so can I just finish um so the electricity um just kind of go back well one can we just put a staff parking um sign in front of the EV Chargers and then tow people I mean that's something that the board of bed could do right just say that the the EV Chargers are for building staff only well or those parking spots are whether they use I don't know somebody's going to have to come up with a policy when we even well if we charge everybody

163I'm good with that in my mind I don't think anybody should get free electricity on us whether it's but it shouldn't be yeah well agreed but if we are going to have to give it to people for free for a time it would at least be nice to be more up to Mei people electric vehicles here in town and use our and then charge them at our stations but I did hear that um there were some school buses parked at uh a Walmart EV charging station uh in the area charging their buses somewhere but they didn't have labels on the side of the buses so didn't say what town it was they may have been on their way they may have been on their way to be delivered somewhere and needed to be recharged I

164don't know but um I did hear about that this morning yeah talk about it well the short term just like a staff parking only because we are we are losing a parking spot especially at like the middle school we need those parking spots right um so it seems like a if people are all right with it a staff parking only at least that's something if we if we choose to enforce it or not is something else but at least that might do something so we have some more parking Adrien is there any uh feeling of support from the board that we pass a policy at our next year just authorize Sam to disconnect those until for the time being while we look into Alternatives well I think we're getting on that to try to I'm

165gonna know something tomorrow know that's moving forward I'm gonna know something for you rock on we'll hear about it it's been going on for two years now Andrea too see your hand raised well all right one more one more follow through I thought if we were gonna do it if we it for instance if we were going to shut them off at the end of the day or something we were G to allow staff to do it or or um School vehicles to do it um that we put up a sign that says as of November or as of December 1st uh these charging stations be shut off between the hours of such and such and such and such or something like that so you give them advanced notice too so that they can plan

166to do what they they'll get their right and they'll there so this is this is just another question um on electricity or in specifically an energy audit um and maybe with the older buildings are there companies that do that for commercial spaces um that might be able to like look at this and and say you know obviously that will cost money to have done but save us money in the long term and is um is it is that something that you could just let us know that yeah if you guys are interested in that and I I don't know if we need to have like a general agreement on the board well I don't know if we're allowed to have that but is there anyone that disagrees with just looking into it no I would

167say that would be like looking into what it would cost to have an energy audit done in some of the less efficient buildings to see if we can save electricity sounds like a good project financing facilities committee on S all right six sorry all right I'm done now thank you I Beverly and then Andrea no you see Andrea and and then I'm not running the meeting you got everything you're gonna get from me bever Sam do not answer this question okay I'm gonna ask it anyway because I know that there are people out there thinking of this to I want you to just think about it and then come back and answer some other time okay whose wacky idea was it to put in rooms in buildings where you can't cut off the the shut

168off the lights like that that's my question that's it don't answer it now don't answer it now classroom lights you can shut off all well whatever you know what I mean but I'm not the answering the question no hey Beverly you're on move this along hey hey hey Sam you're smart take the fifth on that one I should drink a fifth on that one Sam at learn they just install charging stations and they charge the public one rate and they charge the employees another rate so that would be something to consider and also um Sam somebody told me over the weekend that a couple of the charging stations at D viiva Magnet School are not working I don't know if you know that already or not I do know it but I'm not fixing them

169at $2,500 a piece until I know what we're going to do oh okay I understood understood but I would be in favor really I start charging for the use at first I wasn't in favor of that but now with the course of electricity going up I definitely be in favor of that well and I'm glad the board the town is considering it because I kind of feel like we need to do this one together did you were you raised yes it's it's real yeah but I talk a lot um with when you present to the board tomorrow regarding Charles bom roof I think when we originally went to them we had mentioned that we were going to do solar panels I think when you were just presenting now maybe just like add that is a

170note that we're not doing the solar panels for some yeah they're going to ask me why it took so long to get here to ask for this permission to move forward on this project but that is that was a complicating Factor because we went down that yeah everybody uses that term I hate to use those terms but yeah we went down that rabbit hole and then when when we found out what it was going to cost and that we would have to bear the cost as opposed to the way we do with PPA on the other uh projects yeah um that that's when you all we all decided that we'd skip this solar phen it could be done later yeah yeah great if we're going to get like reimbursed that was a delay in in

171going to them no I just didn't want you to get C card I'll be sharing them with them and then the CIP I know you just mentioned it but was there an order of preference like if they were only going to approve like x amount which ones you first second both it and um the business office also have some uh CIP projects so we're going to have to get together before we go to the Planning Commission with the that's the first step is to go to the Planning Commission and they're going to ask us what the preference or what the priorities are so those three departments have to get together along with Susan and anry oh she not uh and anarie and determine exactly what the priorities are I think that I'll get you guys

172the worksheets that we're working on we're kind of prioritizing each one munice is the only one that we have because we really would like to get that purchase this year so we can it takes about 18 months yeah the financing was probably number one and that's that would align us with the town and then the it is really computers that we typically have used the dod supplement funds but may not be receiving those this next year so we've got computers we've got the munus and then we have these facilities facil is the computers for the kids okay because some of those are yeah okay yep that's what it's for thank you so um you just mentioned munice as a thing that that as if it was going that was already decided as if that's what

173we're doing well that is the one that is aligned with the town that's what understand that but we haven't had the discussion as a board and we haven't had a vote well that's usually typically operations but we can certainly do that we had to we had to send them in but John Bert then looks at them and then decides what will be moving forward so that is a process yeah I said that the Planning Commission is the first step but actually it goes to John Burton he actually decides whether it moves on to the Planning Commission as the next step so right well I guess I'm I'm a little confused um because when we talked about the software during the budget cycle last year and we allocated the money to to purchase something we also

174discussed the idea that we would you know collect some information on that and various options right pros and cons of different systems there's not that many systems out there right there's e finance and munus and I know that e finance was not aligned as well as we wanted it to be and we thought if we had the same system all the same though it's about process and and I thought that we wanted to have an inclusive process and a deliberative process on that so I think we'll put it on a a board meeting to talk about that I really was you know waiting for them to bring in to me what they were wanted for their CIP so who's them the business office the te yeah technology and then Sam's Department yeah no I appreciate

175that and I just you know again just in the spirit of inclusiveness of the board you know like did Express wanting to take a lead on that and have input and understanding of that so as that's moving forward like I and that's what I thought I had heard you say though I thought I had heard you all say that you wanted something aligned to the town we were interested in that but we also need to look at pros and cons because there are some other ideas about like you know do we want the open checkbook type approach where we can you know have more accessibility as far as tracking expenditures uh are we do we like presentation models you know are there more certain softwares that are more conducive to one thing or another and

176it was just a matter of like going through the process of of you know looking at the the four or five that are out there that do these things and you know having having a discussion on it and a vote um okay well Jay is on there so Jay did you hear that and then I see Beverly has her hand raised yeah and I think I think there's two two different um track though there's the system that interacts with the town that I think everybody agrees would be better than trying to manually enter those thousands of transaction so that's something we need to look at but budget presentation software is a totally different application so I I saw it as a two-track process well and I defitely that piece too so along those lines and

177I think we do need to get just squared up and cleared cleared for action on that as far as understanding exactly what we're talking about what systems do what you know and and what are we deciding I mean yeah I I could agree too that having some that dovetails nicely with the town or is what the town uses would save a lot but we haven't had that discussion as a board despite having had discussion about wanting to make a switch to something and that there need to be some infrastructure change in this in in the finance software but it was my understanding that the board wanted to be included in that conversation and have a firm understand understanding or a better understanding of what programs do what for us and how and then you know

178yeah so maybe immunis maybe and then the presentation thing would be another thing but that that's all like we haven't discussed that yet and we don't have a firm understanding over what programs do what and what we're committing to and what we can expect out of making that commitment yep I think that is a future agenda item and you know it sounds like there's an so we had to put down a number so we did put that in doesn't mean that we can't change it but we we had a deadline today that we were up against so right but we talk about consider it so yeah sooner than later Beverly um yeah I was just gonna say that um I'm on the same line as Jay was I thought it was I thought we wanted

179to align our software with the town and wanted to go with munice that's what I thought I thought we already talked about that but we didn't act on it but we had that discussion and then the presentation software for the budget was a whole different item that we didn't even talk about yet but that's my um recollection of the conversation we never had a meeting where we discussed that explicitly nor do we ever have a meeting where we took official action on it um so that's what all I'm asking for is that you know we make it make it real so we'll put it on a future I and if there was a deadline for that then we should have known that well we should have I just came up against it too right so

180um back to the CIP thing though um we talking about Northeast Academy and the um trying to create the sense of urgency on that one do we have the numbers uh as far as like how much extra electricity or an estimate not actual I mean it's going to be hard to get the math but some sort of estimate on how much it's costing the district and therefore the taxpayers to run the Dual systems in order to compensate for the issue I have okay so the business office usually shows that information and it typically runs isn't this system more A system that runs during the spring summer and part of the Fall it doesn't run all year long right that's okay either way I I think it would be um beneficial to our argument to capture

181that evidence and present it highlight it post it note put it on a billboard and attach some flashing lights to it how about a tri plane carries a banner yes if they volunteer here and give us that service for free because we're spending a lot of money on something that should have been fixed a while ago um also looking at the upcoming budget cycle and to follow on on Matt's concern about the uh the schedule of replacement of vehicles um I think it would be beneficial for the board to be able to see a projection of like what could we do what would it look like math aut atically to get back on schedule and like how could we do it in a way that is not going to create a huge spike in the

182budget but you know maybe just just is a ramp and then a plateau of a steady state um to get back to whatever the schedule was before is disrupted yeah it's not a big spike it's adding one vehicle per year okay that'd be great and then then that would be another thing for the budget you know like the to really like let's amplify that that's what we're doing and that's what we're defending when we go to defend our budget yeah we had intended to put it to submit it in the budget this year appreciate it thank you I know I see a lot of Staff members on waiting to to share some of the things that are coming later on so um Jay could we U committee reports at this point point I was wondering

183Jay what you would think about re changing the order so we could do the new business and let some of the staff go home and then come back to the committee reports and action items would that work for you uh if there's no objection I don't object to that at all okay so I've often thought we should do it this way permanently um because we do get so bogged down in all of the things while we have people waiting uh it's been now almost three hours that they've been waiting and action item right I will entertain a motion to accept the consent agenda so mooved second Beverly okay and uh any discussion points of clarification about the special meeting minutes uh no I I have a question ient on one like how would I vote

184there do I just like for the whole thing no you're allowed to vote Yes I know think yeah because every time I'm not there I allowed to vote if you want okay thank you all right so all those in favor please indicate by saying I I I I any opposed abstention that carries uh Jen would you be willing to read the motion uh for item number one number one okay um mve in to approve policy [Music] 25145 do 53 transgender and gender nonconforming youth as a first reading do I hear a second second Thomas when the policy so moved by Jen second by uh Ian any discussion the policy the 2018 policy needs amendments to comply with amended federal regulations and I was hoping that Denise Susan might provide a abbreviated briefing Denise is on

185and she actually has a suggestion for changing that nonconforming to something that might be a little better you're you're muted thank you good evening um can everyone hear me yes yes um one of the suggestions that I had in terms of um changing the language from gender non-conforming uh would be potentially gender diverse um so that is one suggestion um so we could change the policy to um gender diverse youth um to address the concerns with the non-conforming um Burbage and then uh I just wanted to share with the board that the reason why this policy is coming before the board is because in um 2024 uh after January 2024 the state reissued their guidance for school districts in terms of um policies for students who are transgender and actually their policy now that I

186notice it is for gender diverse students oh good so that might be something that we we want to adopt for our the name of our policy um so you may or may not recall that the previous the old policy um allowed students um to request a change to an official change to their record to um change their name Andor gender based on uh transgender um you know issues or experiences they were having um it was a very confusing policy to follow because um the parents were not um active uh participants in those decisions um so what the state department of education has done is they've revised the policy to make it um in line with furpa the family and education rights act so that at this time only parents and Guardians and students over 18

187can request a name and gender change for official school records um obviously um we would abide by the students's desire to be called or identified by a particular name if the parent did not consent uh however um only a parent guardian or student over 18 can make an official change to the record and again this brings the guidance in line with furpa because any change to an official student record does require parent Guardian uh permission so the policy brings uh The District in line with the current guidelines from the State Department of Education that were issued last uh winter any discussion um I'll um I'll just say thank you uh Denise for um offering that term I think uh i' I'd be in favor in that it's it's a positive term it's an affirming term

188not a denying term um so there's more of a positive um would you like to make a friendly Amendment um yes uh and just a quick follow though on the general description of the thing um the policy change I I believe it it provides a fair firm and consistent approach um to to kind of clear up a lot of uh possible confusion so I'm in favor of the policy change and I would like to make a friendly amendment that we uh wherever it says non-conforming in the document we uh change the wording to D gender diverse I second that accept that too uh Susan the the regulations which you're responsible for also contains yes we'll that too yeah okay is there any other discussion oh Mike Whitney has his hand up Mike thank you um

189actually uh I heard we uh moved an amendment and second it but this is a first reading is that our procedure or we just getting feeding giving input that's my first question that's a good point quite often we send it back to policy um for the rewarding but but do we have to vote on on that because it seems like it's pretty clear I recall we generally we' always voted on first readings yeah was passes as a first reading would be how and then if there were any other changes we'd bring it that okay okay then I have a couple questions actually thank thank you already for um the input and a very quick response to uh citizens comments um but that it did bring up uh the thought that you know we are so

190many people sitting around here and have already made a a subst change in the language I'd like this uh to be passed through the de I I think it's a task force or Committee of the school system and then at least um at the high school level um um I think it's a spectrum club uh and and have them see because um they'll but quite naturally be more tuned to these issues and might pick up some of the the language that we might not highlight as uh potentially being an issue but they might find more inclusive ways of saying that um and and then I have um um just a couple questions I didn't see anywhere said anything about um I saw power school and I saw official records what about email address because I'm

191pretty sure the format is something like first name middle initial part of your last name and um Can can the students get a do they get a new email address um I don't see it covered anywhere an alias it it seems missing even in the included form It's usually the first initial of their first name their last name and then at that grant. k2. c. us okay but but um but doesn't it come up doesn't the actual name come up along with it I I feel I feel like when the email address goes in there the student name shows too it's notle that would change yeah a certain number of characters in the name um is in the email so if there's an official change to the record it would change the email as well

192but if it's just a a choice for this child I would think the email would remain the same if it's just a nickname right if if the official record is not changing and we're adding a nickname um that does not require parent permission so the email would the same preferred name right did we call this prer name okay um my I guess it probably should be talked about somewhere in there what whatever happens um and then um uh restroom accessibility I saw uh should be provide access to a single user room which is not unchanged from last time um but my question is um do all the schools have that yes even the high school because I heard those were last year I don't I don't believe they're currently open um they all have gender

193neutral bathrooms but that are currently open because I I heard at Fitch those were closed for reasons I I guess related to substance abuse maybe I hadn't heard that um I can check into that though Mike okay yeah I hadn't either even nurse's office has gender neutral rooms too right but the kind that you could just get a pass and go to like normal um and then the other question is on the last part we have professional development that provides for training um is there training and and how often does that happen uh there is training um there's training in terms of uh We've we've trained the administrators um last year we reviewed the Pol the um the new regulations from the state at an administrative meeting and then we reviewed it again at the

194beginning of this school year with the forms so that the administrators and the school counselors and the mental health staff are familiar uh with walking students through the form and what their options would be gotta in terms of submitting the form because there are some sections in power school um where uh you know if if they do the nickname in particular where their legal name would still um be apparent and I think that's in the grading module in the grade book so uh we have you know we have had speakers come in and work with our administrators and our we've invited our mental health staff to join those trainings because many times um you know students are at varying stages in terms of discussions they've had with their parents and uh we want our counselors

195and our mental health staff to be able to help students navigate some of these discussions that may be uncomfortable and difficult for them to have with their families right thank you I was also thinking of teacher training like um in terms of student pron preferred pronouns um and even as we're seeing here our very policy has a had his or her I'm I'll bet that pops up here and there in PowerPoint slides um materials that the the teachers are presenting and you know over over time uh updating that language too be very important to have people um have a sense of place um and then I think that was it I'm just G to flip through the pages make sure I didn't miss one um oh yeah uh we have the I appreciate the the

196list of definitions but I just asked the policy committee at some point to check and make sure all those definitions that they give are actually used in the rest of the policy because you probably will don't want them if they're not referred to could I could I respond uh Mike yeah the way I understand things to be organized is the board is responsible for Designing the policy the regulations are structurally uh creatures of the administration which they discuss with the policy committee as a matter of courtesy uh I have no problem respond you know gladly we'll look at that over again if that's the desire of the committee but I just wanted to let you know in terms of the structure we we we did not prepare or go over the regulations with the same

197tooth con with which we did the policy oh okay well I'm not on a policy committee but I just like to say that you know that's right in our board policy that those RS are right there along with it so I think we have every bit as much ownership of of the ours as we do the piece I would I would be incl to agree with uh with Mike we've had this conversation on other issues and I do believe you know the policy committee does have that Authority as well to lean in on the writing of the RS how they're implemented and you know we obviously take you know a good bit of direction and suggestion from the administration but at the end of the day it's our responsibility as a board as as chair

198I would have a a dual response first of all personally I think that's a great discussion for the board to have as a separate agenda item rather than consider that for this evening right uh I would also probably want to get in touch with c and ask them they understanding the differentiation between policy and regulations from a statutory point of view because it's above my pay grade I can't answer that understood agreed and yes I've I've seen some of the C recommend recommended uh examples of policies that have ours as well right we usually try to get that for you when it comes like that um for the consistency that it's aligned you know yeah we got some more recommendations today which I'll be forwarding to you guys right can I see Beverly her hand

199is raised yeah thank you Susan just a piggyback of Mike's comment and I know it's on the regulation when you say District staff I would definitely be in favor of teachers um getting the training too not just the administrators because the teachers are with the students all the time so if anybody got this training it should be the teachers my opinion so I would like you to reach out and maybe train the teachers also and because it says District staff and transgender sensitivity and the teachers can use that there's no doubt that the teachers can use that too we have offered that training before to our staff our teachers but it is I think it's timely now with this new legislation to revisit it again it's one of those things that really needs to be

200done period Al you know for people yeah maybe um every two years you need to do it or definitely with new staff members when they come into our school system right I have a question see D I didn't figure I would weigh in on this for many reasons um there's a reference since we're talking about the RS there's a reference in here and I'm not not proposing this as an amendment or anything like that that the consideration whoever looks over the RS on the form itself it says state of gender no change male female nonbinary doesn't non-binary strike you as somehow negative in other words the nonb there's binary and non-binary immediately the binary if I'm nonbinary why do I want my reference point to be well there's those people and then there's me why

201why is male female the center of the universe there so there should be some other term I would propos they do away with all these terms just that's a fascinating conversation yes it is I still want to I would call lots of things but yeah non-binary not late that does seem if there's if those are there are alternatives to that seems like something we should look at we could use gender diverse again yeah right and that it circles back to something I that Mike said earlier that I think we as a policy committee should consider as well is how do we incorporate the Dei clubs and the Spectrum Club in this to get like on the ground perspectives as to like what is preferred you know from the population that it impacts the most could

202could we Jay as a matter of authority pass the first reading with the request to the administration to uh get the input of both the EI and Spectrum uh I would say yes I mean I think that's the beauty of putting these through multiple readings and again even if we pass the first reading as we all know um it it can come back with any number of changes um for the second reading it doesn't you know have to it doesn't have to pass exactly with the same wording twice right I like the idea of empowering the students as much as we possibly can so they take part in the real world with us agreed we're just guessing but the intent is clear and I think now that we've you know agreed in the intent so

203to speak it seems like there's consensus in the intent let's make the inclusion do we have enough consensus to vote for this evening and move on to the next the next 17 things yeah I'd be in favor of that myself me too J call for a vote first reading of the uh policy P [Music] 5145 53 as amended to change all references to non-conform of sating non-conformity to diverse for a first reading with the request that the administration uh send those two channels to the Dei General committee I guess it's the not the subcommittee the Dei committee plus Spectrum is that the name of the group okay point of order I don't think we ever voted on the Amendment voted on the amendment well you know I think you're absolutely right coun there was a

204motion there was a second but I don't recall that there was a vote that could be but no we had a friendly amend we had a friendly uh Amendment but is never voted on it um can I I was trying to to get us reoriented here um are you attempting to create another amendment to send it to Dei or are you comfortable that we have um I would like the opportunity to rephrase my friendly Amendment okay now the friendly amendment is that we would change uh all mentions of the term nonon gender non-conforming to gender diverse or whatever term is uh put forth by after or whatever term is determined uh to be the preferred term after consultation with the di committee and the Spectrum Club or what the board considers to be the want

205their input but I think the responsibility for deciding is ours as determined by the board after consultation with yeah I'm glad we do video this so we can get this right yes yeah Bo Joan is going to have to put this into writing all right so do we have a second on the amendment I second it but I have a quick question okay yeah now we're open to uh dis discussion Susan how often do these um committees meet because when can we expect to get a response um well I think the Dei has a meeting coming up in November and I will find out about the Spectrum Club I feel like the clubs meet if not every week at least a couple times in the month so I'll find out sure have a special meeting

206if they're invited and and I think they would meet with us if we just set it up for them yeah so okay and you'll send the uh the uh policy to the Dei Dei committee before they meet so they have read it and they can discuss okay thank you is there any other discussion on the amendment to attend the Spectrum meeting hearing none all those in favor of the amendment please indicate by saying I I I any opposed extensions one abstention Dean abstains all right and uh so now we're back to the main motion as amended is there any further discussion on the main motion is amended if not all those in favor to approve policy p514 5.53 uh transgender and gender diverse youth as a first reading as amended please indicate by saying I

207I I I opposed abstentions one abstention Dean abstains all right thank you very much and I hope we can bring that back to the next meeting um Matt would you like to read the motion for item number two I've been waiting with baited breath I move we approve policy P 411 15.3 evaluation of coaches as a first reading I hear a second second Thomas y so the purpose of this uh this motion is to establish a policy activity coaches would be now evaluated as our other District employees who provide education facing services to our students Susan would you like to discuss this well we we have been evaluating coaches but this is definitely putting it into policy and um we had Mark Romano who came and spoke with us about the importance of evaluating coaches

208just like we evaluate teachers and staff so um you know we went through it and he explained it and you know I think it's ready to go it is something that they're already doing and practicing so this includes noncertified staff as well yes any coaches they could be certified teachers they could be teachers in other districts they could be non-certified staff and their coaching right and somebody who just you know Works in a store right right be with kids and I have a question too let's say the students set up a stamp stamp collecting club and there's no faculty advisor but they find somebody in the community who serve as an adviser is that considered a coach that would fall under this that's a good question I don't think so I don't think that I

209think these are really for a sports and Athletics through the CIA okay yeah because the policy says Personnel certified oh it does okay yeah all right is there any other discussion yeah just a quick question I I don't have the in front of me right now but I think it's included intramural too Mike I think it includes all certified um coaches if they're certified that this is what this policy covers so they're in mural but certified I think the policy covers them Personnel certified it's under Personnel certified so St Andrew's question should not include I don't see how it could yeah so would the mayor's husband who helps coach baseball be a certified coach or is he a community certified coach is certified so it it would fall under certified um like the certified teacher

210are coaches required to be certified at a certain level I think we need to take this back and discuss it some more well I wish I had asked Mark Romano to come yeah well he'll be here next mon what's the teacher certification what's like it's 094 is for you L2 is for okay pass it first meeting I I had one more question go ahead Mike yeah the second to last paragraph It's a lengthy one it has to do with with uh board termination or non-renewal um I couldn't quite follow through sort of the flowchart of this policy how would get up to the board level because seemed to me this be in the purview often of the athletic director so would you guys feel comfortable with passing it as a first reading with the understanding

211that we're going to go back over it and you'll invite mark come to the meeting uh the question Mike asked is a great question because I don't think we board hires or fires anybody except you isn't this one of those uh issues where people use board and District interchangeably it's like the that maybe this should be District so I definitely think this this should go back for some reconsideration and in that case I'm not inclined to vote in favor of a first read pass okay we'll just take it up again next time yeah we'll take it back so can we get a motion to table this to to table discussion of we've made a motion it's been seconded so can we have a motion to table until the next meeting withdraw the motion right withw

212or withdraw the motion draw the motion' I withdraw my motion I withdraw my second okay so that that will go back all right um Ian would you like to read the motion for item uh number three oh I'm sorry I thought you said Ian I thought you said Dean no I'm sorry I was I I did say Ian I apologize I'm going I'm trying to go in order then Dean will read the next one maybe maybe last name is for the two of us yeah um all right number three you said uh please I'll make a motion to approve policy p514 5.5 4118 1112 prohibition of sex discrimination sex based harassment as a first reading so here second sorry do I hear a second second Adrian Adrien okay and would you like to discuss in

213May the US Department of Education revived its title 9 sex discrimination and sex-based harassment regulations this draft if approved would bring us into to in line with the amended and current Connecticut and US compliance and we do have Denise dittle on um again new legislation and um everything including regulations I think we had captured from C and um and the forms I think we adjusted as well some of them I think we might have had thank you Susan um so some of the major changes in the August 2024 um uh regulations from the federal government that Connecticut has adopted are that um the term sexual harassment has been replaced with the term sex discrimination uh the new regulations include uh students who are pregnant uh they also include uh accommodations for for pregnant students such

214as lactation rooms um and uh other accommodations uh for their pregnancy um they also um the wording is changed in terms of uh hostile environment and the definition of of sex-based discrimination uh we used to have to indicate that um the uh the harassment was uh severe and persuasive uh the new terminology is severe or persuasive um so it kind of um lowers the standard a little bit um it also changes the um the roles and responsibilities of the staff who investigate um and respond to complaints of sex-based discrimination we used to have very discret roles in terms of an investigator of the complaint and then a decision maker and they had to be two different people in the district um that has now been changed so again there's more flexibility the investigator could also

215be the decision maker um the regulations continue supportive measures for both the complaintant and the respondent um they also um there is a bit of a change in terms of the evidence that is provided during the course of the investigation under the previous policy and regulations um both the respondent and the complaintant were entitled to have copies of the evidence the new regulations just provide access so that's a a bit of a a change um trying to see if there's anything else um you know a complaint can be oral uh there's no requirement that it be in writing um and there is a uh responsibility of the district if we're aware of sex-based discrimination that the district would file a complaint and the district would initiate an investigation um another minor change is we used

216to have a form for a formal report uh and a form for informal report again uh the new regulations streamline the process and we only have one report we can investigate it and resolve it informally through restorative measures or uh depending on the nature and severity of the complaint we can conduct a formal investigation but under both scenarios we would provide what's called supportive measures which are steps to allow both the respondent and the complaintant to feel comfortable coming to school while um the complaint is being investigated I think those are the main differences between the old regulations and the new ones I see Mike Whitney's hand is up sorry that was Relic hand oh sorry um there is annual training that's required and we do I did forget that we do have annual training

217um all administrators will be trained uh by our one of our attorneys Rebecca um from the uh Burch and Moses firm on November 21st and then we have an online training module that's about 50 minutes that we will schedule on a teaching and learning day for all of the staff to take any questions have discussion I have a just a quick clarification uh one of the first changes you mentioned uh you said something about a a verbal complaint versus a written complaint could you just re restate that oh sure um so a complaint doesn't have to be in writing in order for the district to accept it and determine if it will be investigated oral reports are um acceptable as well are are the oral reports documented by the person receiving the complaint yes they

218would be documented by the administrator or myself as the district Title 9 coordinator and then the complaintant would uh basically just a sign like an affidavit that you know the the the report was accurate um probably wouldn't be an affidavit but we would um look to get more information about the complaint when we conduct if we conduct the investigation and we meet with the complaintant to get more information right that's I guess what I'm trying to capture where in the moment does the verbal become written or documented and memorialized in a way that is verified by the complaintant has to be like a fair representation of their complaint sure so um what I've generally done in the past is just summarize what the complaintant has shared with me in the written report um so I've

219summarized it in writing and then I've submitted the report as the district Title 9 coordinator right no I I I get that I guess where does the complaint and get to say yes that's a fair representation of my complaint well um I generally don't um change the summary or the complaint that's being shared with me so it's pretty much [Music] um similar to what's being shared with me and then we talk about it a little bit more during the interview process so your summary does the summary does the complaint get to review your summary oh certainly if they like to absolutely but if they're if they don't if they don't want to put it in writing then we would summarize the complaint and put it in writing right but yes so so say they don't

220want to put it in writing they give you the verbal complaint you summarize it would they would you just proceed without checking in with them no she interviews and then they discuss it all right so before the summary's like officially put in into report and actions taken move forward right the complainant has a chance to review the summary and affirmatively agree that that that's a fair representation and add anything else that they think is pertinent I mean that's really why you do the interview you're really checking to make sure you summarized it correctly and you're also making sure you've captured so that Happ evidence and documentation the interview is the verification process it is okay that's that's all I need to know thank you I guess Ian is raising a good point because if somebody

221is grieved after a decision is make made and they say that's not really what I said or not what I really meant there's no way for uh the investigator or for or for Denise to say well well yes we showed it to you and you concurred that it was that what we wrote down initially was was what you said and if you're grieved with our decision well you're agreed with our decision but we didn't base the investigation on anything more or less than what you said even just initialing the bottom of it that uh you're in agreement or having a note I've read this and it fairly reflects my complaint right I guess the sequence of events as I understood it was a summary was a preliminary summary then you go to interview afterwards do

222the investig my concern is I'm sure we will protect the students I'm no worry about that I want to be sure that we protect the district as well from somebody who wants to be litigious I want to make sure we have a fair firm and consistent process yeah what do you think Denise well I I think that when um a student comes forward with an oral report um I I think that we act in the role as advocates for the student so we're trying to support the student um sometimes these are difficult conversations for students to have and they're very uncomfortable um so my role is to support them and let them know that we're here you know first of all to make sure that whatever um bullying or harassment is happening is addressed in

223a um expedient way and and ends because we want the students to feel comfortable coming to school um and we want them to be able to benefit from their educational program so the report really is just a very general overview of the complaint that is shared with us and then we get into more of the specifics when we interview you know both students and oftentimes they will share with us Witnesses so the Witnesses are interviewed they're able to bring forth evidence whether it's text messages or screenshots um you know it's a very thorough process so it does start out a little bit more General um because we're just kind of getting a student you know concerns um but it becomes very specific as the investigation um ensues and both sides have opportunity to review the

224evidence that other that the other side shares there's a waiting period that they have to to review the evidence and then there's time that they have to come back with a rebuttal or evidence um you know that they'd like us to review uh that may uh give additional information so it is a very thorough process parents are involved throughout the process students are allowed to bring in um individuals that um you know that they feel would support them um you know parents mentors Advocates um so it it is a very comprehensive process but we try to treat both sides equally um no no uh punitive measures are um decided upon uh for the alleged you know uh perpetrator until the process is completed and a final decision has been made and there is an appeal

225process as well yeah so I guess my I guess my only concern and my only suggestion or area of consideration would be to when you're taking the report it should be part of the practice like that initial summary as you memorialize it into words if it's a oral if it's a verbal report a verbal complaint and as you're um you know transposing that into a written document a summary I think it would be beneficial for the district and you know from the and and for the complaintant and for all parties involved to have the complaintant sign off on the summary saying that's a fair representation of what I came in here and said thank you for they're not required to legally they're not required to we can ask them to but they're not required we

226we have a standard called deliberate indifference so if we're aware of potential sex-based discrimination whether the complaintant signs off on it or not the district is responsible for investigating it otherwise we could be determined to be deliberately indifferent right I guess yeah I don't know I mean I would defer to to the legal mind on this one and I just that's a it's just a big jump from you know verbal to to to written word and then like the report triggers the rest of the motion rest of the action afterwards and if the verbal complaint is not rendered in such a way that the complaintant is comfortable with uh I don't know I mean is it in the same vein as being a mandated reporter when it comes to a DCF matter in I think

227responsible if we get information like this at least and it doesn't it doesn't mean that we're going to conduct a formal investigation the um complaintant may choose to have the complaint resolved informally um it could also be dismissed we could document the complaint get more information and dismiss it um but we are required to um to look into any uh behavior that could be you know sex-based discrimination hey Denise yes whether the complaint comes in um in writing or uh orally are you still reducing it to the form a which is attached to the policy uh is that the formal complaint form yes would would everything go on there and yes it would and at the end of which it says I hereby certify the information provided in this complaint is true correct and complete

228to the best of my knowledge and belief and by signing below a request an investigation and determination occur in accordance with the district sex discrimination sex-based harassment board policy uh insert number and its regulations so even if it comes in verbally you're going to reduce it to this form and at least ask them to sign up Cor correct and if they're uncomfortable we I sign it in as submitting the complaint yes the only suggestion I might have but of course I'm not an attorney so I'll defer to uh to uh uh Floyd um should there be a line for a witness because we have the compliant and we have the received by right right yeah usually the received by is kind of like a quas eyewitness um but I'm just saying to protect you right

229right no that's a good point we can certainly find out about that yeah all right thank you J yes the record I've got a couple of questions uh the first thing that struck me was all this is in green and it's a topic that surely we have a prior policy on so is this replacing do we have an existing policy on this that we replacing yes or is this we have policy a for events taking place before certain date and this new policy for events taking place after a certain date yes the date is August 1 so there so there is another policy okay um and I was going to ask you know why do we have to codify what through already codified but I I I get the the import um my uh and

230Denise when you mentioned something so sort of the way you phrased it uh led me to to sort of boost my concern I don't think you meant it this way but I was reminded of the phrase you hear sometimes you know give him a fair trial than hang them um you know somebody comes to me with a complaint and then the goal is to make sure that you know the the behavior doesn't happen again that sort of presumes that that what the person complained about was actually true um and so that's that's I'm sort of concerned about again mixing the investigation with the decision-making I realize the new rule provide flexibility and you can have one in the same uh uh person or or body of people do you know do sort of do everything

231uh but you know you could be prosecutor judge jury all in one uh the one that really stands out to me though is the burd of proov and again this is in the you know in the r section but I'm going to mention it and if it's in the law it doesn't matter to me at all I'll I'll Buck Congress if I have to but I am I personally am not comfortable with a prance of the evidence standard I know why that's there the preponderance of the evidence is basically 50% in a feather and I know this is not a criminal proceeding so it doesn't have to be Beyond A Reasonable Doubt there is an intermediate because we're talking about potentially either expelling a student or terminating the employment uh of an employee on the

232basis of 50% plus a feather so to speak it's something called a clear and convincing standard which is above that but well below the you know beyond origonal doubt you see in criminal criminal cases so for example example if you wanted to you wanted to court Pro Court had to find somebody that was cognitively impaired and therefore U should be conserved to some degree that standard is clear and convincing because you're taking away some or all of their Liberty um so again the law probably I'm guessing it's not my feel the law probably requires that you know that the standard be the lower one the perance of the evidence but I I'll comment and I'll say personally I think that's a little low on somebody's job and subsequent reputation may be on the line and

233the investigators and the decision makers are all are all the same um so the the state of Connecticut does recommend that districts use the preponderance of evidence standard and that is in line with some of our other policies um that use the preponderance of evidence standard right I'm sure I'm sure the policies are right with that and in certain other places I think I have the same problem um anyway thank you we have a couple other staff members online too soine other discussion again this is a first reading and if anyone has any concerns um they can certainly submit them to the policy committee for any tweaking in the interim I'm prepared to vote and uh I could take my concerns to the policy if you okay all right so all those in favor of

234a um first reading to approve policy P 4118 Point 1112 prohibition of sex discrimination sex-based harassment as a first Reading Please indicate by saying I I I I any opposed any extensions I'm abstaining till I until I go deeper so Dean abstains all right uh Dean would you be willing to read the motion for uh item number four sure to approve I move to approve Yukon Eide 1100 introduction to special education curriculum do I hear a second second Thomas okay and would someone like to present on this before we discuss would someone like to present on this um I'm looking see Amy McKenna looks like here and Stacy nuro they're both here well if I could say before we if if I could say before we move on the curriculum committee met with the U

235teachers of various courses that have been proposed the one for E from um e EC uh has been we we approved the writing of the curriculum and then it will be brought to you in in the um this would was complete was complete well that's that's correct and we approved for yes I'm sorry to come to you tonight to be um vter well and yeah yeah so having said that that it came before the curriculum committee and we said I and here here they are and I would I don't know who do you think uh would be better to to explain it Amy or Stacy well Stacy wrote it Stacy would you like to say something about the curriculum okay and I'll ask my question Amy's having difficulty accessing her uh m microphone I don't

236know if Stacy can access hers I don't know if I see Stacy still on I don't see it I think it came from can I ask a quick question before you know while you waiting for the people to come on on to I think Adrian and Andrea on that committee why did you why did why was this course Chosen and all the courses you can choose why did you choose why did choose to bring this curriculum forward well it's the ECE um from the curriculum actually from Ukon and it also goes with the education pathway we're trying to grow our own so there's several courses there's a you know the Ed Rising course which is like the original and there's other courses that we're lining up so that a student who may want to be

237a teacher someday or work with students will be able to have several different courses as part of their career pathway and hopefully would go off to school and maybe someday want to come back and teach for Granton Public Schools so the growing your own in our district is one way that we can achieve a more diverse um group of students when our own comeback so you think this course is beneficial to most of our students right I think any teacher as you know know Beverly as a teacher we all need a background no matter what we're teaching in special education and that along with the um the Unified sports programs unified art all those programs really give kids an experience of working side by side with kids with special needs so there we have several

238different ways to create a pathway with education music will also come forward but that c has has yet this one has been I don't think Stacy I think it's um receiv received from Yukon yeah but she lined it up on our curriculum map so it did come from Yukon but then we put it on the she put it on the curriculum M which you have included in the package uh so Amy's U microphone is available now maybe she could speak to it I do believe Stacy uh did log off it is getting quite late and these folks all have to be up early in the morning so I don't I don't blame them for not staying on um would Amy would you like to say something about it yeah sure I'd be happy to um

239you can hear me right Jay yes we can all right thanks good evening everybody I'm glad that you're still here to listen about our curriculum um so this you know what what Susan mentioned this does expand our education pathway we have currently one course it's called Yukon at Rising uh the course nearly tripled in size um from last year to this year and Mrs Nara uh Stacy did work with Yukon to map this course to the Granton Public Schools curriculum document it was approved by the curriculum committee just last week and what we're trying to do is expand the pathway for students that would like to um study education at the college level and hopefully you know eventually return to Granton and perhaps other Connecticut public schools as teachers so part of this is kind

240of an initiative to to really focus in on creating that pathway for students that are interested at least at this point in their young lives and going into teaching um as you know this this curriculum was written by uh a teacher that has been a Granton Public Schools educator for many years she's a well-respected special education te teacher as well as uh adviser to best buddies former coach of Unified sports so we're we're kind of really excited that this teacher took the initiative to to write this curriculum uh remap it from Yukon for the Gren Public Schools template and present this really exciting and informative course to our students okay thank you Amy y are there any other questions Jen has a question go ahead Jen Amy um two questions how do you make oh

241yeah how how do you make the connection that students will come back to teach in our district by offering this one course and then as um like a college um level course would do you see most um undergradu in um institutions like um like validating and taking this um so that the students can um get like the three or four credits possibly associated with this sure well obviously the first question um we hope that they return we hope that they return taking this course certainly isn't a guarantee um but I know that gron is does have a grow your own program that they're very proud of so I just thought I would mention that but in terms of them being able to use this course for other college credit this is a Yukon class so

242it's dual enrollment so a student that takes this course at Fitch can earn their Yukon credits and those will be transferable credits not just for Yukon but for most American colleges and universities depending on how they score um you know in the course and whether or not the university they go to will accept the credits currently I think yukon's rate for credit credit transfer acceptance is at about 87% okay even though it's like one of their own sort of but it just means that the student that takes this course at will have a Yukon transcript so if they do not go to Yukon other colleges and universities will also accept that credit and that is the rate that is at 87% the student that matriculates into Yukon after graduating from Fitch will definitely be able

243to carry their Yukon credits over to Yukon with no questions asked that's what early college experience classes will do for them okay and this is one of those like core classes that like a teach a young teacher or someone aspiring to be a teacher this would be like one of their core classes that I mean I think so I think Stacy might be a better person to answer that question but most of us that are in the field of Education we're required to take something akin to introduction to special education history of education and various methods classes so I'm I I don't want to be incorrect in assuming that e Epsy 1100 is one of those sort of required courses at Yukon um but I do think that's information that we could easily find out

244yeah no I'm just asking just to make sure that like a student um because usually these classes right would take extra time and um stuff and then want to make sure that they get the value or the credit um for it not just Aton but like you said like other universities too and that it's not just going to be treated as like an elective for them or it possibly could be an elective but I just wanted to just make sure that their time is well spent definitely and Yukon does have this sort of um trans transfer database so a student that is applying out to other colleges and universities can um run yukon's sort of like um programming into this transfer database and so before they even apply to other colleges they can pretty much

245see pretty quickly whether or not their credits are likely to be accepted and they can even contact the registar um prior to applying to see if those credits would be accepted great thank you you're welc out with us and I see Mike Whitney's hand up Mike thank you yeah I just want to say I'm on the curriculum committee I didn't weigh in on this and I'll abstain for voting on this because of uh my in my professional capacity I overlap somewhat with the EC program okay any other questions or discussion yeah Jay I have a question go ahead um sus how many of our students have actually come back to our district to teach I'd have to count them but um we have quite a number of Fitch Falcon grads that teach in our district

246I could probably get that from HR for you okay and they are all always very proud to come here and teach in their schools right my only concern is that um um that this is a high level C class and that's okay but I like us to really start talking about the honest level class again and see about instituting an honest level class either English or some honest Lil class I know Porsha always comes and talks about it even brought it up somebody talked to me about it over the weekend and so uh you know we could keep adding these high honor level class excuse me but um yeah I like to see some other classes too so these unified classes are a great place for any of our students to participate I mean they're

247really very accessible so we have a host of them and I think we're adding on another one so [Music] know we we're talking about uh this being relevant for somebody interested in education and indeed it is but if a student is interested in sociology Social Work psychology and many other disciplines the value of this instruction is going to be very useful in his or her career uh yep and I just wanted to kind of um Express a a blended opinion here where um I can understand what you're saying there Matthew and um yeah like depending on what the study the course of study is in college this sort of class could apply to someone who's not even pursuing a teaching degree um however I do share the concern as uh as Porsche has mentioned and

248and Bev has reiterated here as well um you know that yeah we do have you know I think there is interest in seeing honors level courses so creating space for that but also if we're going to have ECE courses um a lot of there's I think there is value to be had and and providing EC courses that eliminate a lot of the uh prere prerequisites uh that that students face going in that can kind of like slow the first year down as they progress towards their degree and that I think would have a lot more Universal appeal um for students to engage you know to knock out like a comp 101 English composition or you know um other gen EDS or you know if they have uh you know or making sure that they understand

249about foreign language requirements uh to make sure that those are cleared out uh because I've I've heard a lot about students getting tripped up get into college they don't realize they didn't clear their foreign language requirement you know you got to have at least three three in the bag you know uh three years um and so you know ECE I I I believe should be like a springboard that knocks out a lot of like the the first year or two worth of courses that would apply to almost any degree um that's where I think it would be the best value but I could I could see why this is this has has a certain amount of value and I I would also like to I I I share Bev's interest in getting like a a

250firm number on how many um FR gr Fitch graduates come back to teach in the district just to kind of you know get a sense of how well we are how well we're doing with growing our own okay I I look forward to a vibrant conversation about reconsidering our position on honors classes but I don't personally feel that this is a zero some game that in endorsing this as a viable Pro program that's going to help some of our students is really should really be put into a zero some game is is is somehow doing this would diminish the conversation about honors I think they're complimentary You can disagree it's okay no that's fair enough and so overall I mean but as far as EC goes like you know looking at like broad-based class more

251universally appful Adrian yeah out here J yeah I I I support um support adding this class so I think right now we have one um ed class said Rising one and um this is um another one for that for for kids that want to be teachers and regardless of whether they come back to groten or not um we need to produce a lot of teachers in Connecticut um so um having a little bit more to give them um some idea and this this taking a class like this might also help a student realize that they don't want to be a teacher um I I mean my own kid is taking Ed Rising um one right now and um he's actually going into a classroom and and and you know he's going to do a lesson

252for for classroom and stuff so getting that kind of experience is great regardless of whether you become a teacher or not um and just in just giving kids options and and also I think we are lower than the surrounding Town average on ECE and AP offerings correct so we're trying trying to really build it up we got that Grant remember yeah but we're trying to yeah Place make some catchup um to be similar to other districts and this is another class that will get us towards that um I also um would support talking about um the addition of honors level classes or because to me it seems like we've got this class we have another one that's on the horizon at Rising 2 um and we're going to continue having them and then it seems

253like some things I don't know I mean I assume classes just kind of disappear on the schedule and I don't know that we hear about that all the time um so like I think Latin is still part of the curriculum right but it was never it's not offered it's so but it hasn't been offered in a couple of years so um I I I think that you know we can only offer so many classes so it's fair to to talk about that to talk about what the options are um and um and we should also know like if we're making decisions to add classes the administration um it would be nice to know if classes aren't going to be offered if there's low enrollment if there's low interest um so that we can make these

254decisions in a um in a in a well um understood well informed manner so um no so I support this class though Runing the tree produces good fruit all right right any other discussion out there think she all right if not um we'll go ahead and vote uh the motion on the floor is to approve the Yukon Epsy 1100 introdu to special education curriculum all those in favor please indicate by saying I I I I opposed extensions I abstain have abstain okay I need to change mine to abstain and Mike to abstain yep all right very good thank you very much and thank you Amy for staying on with us um next Miss hcky is here and again thank you I'm going to be making a uh referral later tonight um to kind of flip

255the script on these meetings because it really is a burden for for the speakers to to have to wait four hours until their item comes up um but uh Adrian would you like to read the motion for item number five yeah I'd like to make a motion to approve approve Fitch High School's travel Club field trip request to Portugal and Spain scheduled for July 9th 2026 through July 20th 2026 second Thomas second Thomas okay and um Miss hcky would you like to present um yeah can everybody hear me okay yes okay you'll have to excuse my voice I'm battling a bit of a cold um and it just seems to get worse at night so this is going to be my fourth um trip proposal for you guys we have one headed to Paris and

256Amsterdam and Brussels this summer um which we have actually gotten a lot more diversity on which I know has come up um in past discussions so we're excited about that um we also had a really successful trip this past summer to um what ended up being five countries cu the kids were so well behaved our tour director also brought us to France so we traveled to Germany Austria Italy Switzerland and we got to sneak in France there at the end um and the kids were just so well behaved and um we got several compliments from a Swiss bondue evening that we did they said that we were the best group that's ever come through um to participate the kids had so much fun they were making Swiss music and um they were also like participating

257in the dress up stuff I sent um Susan Austin some some pictures and stuff as well so um if she wanted to share those with you guys she could but it was it was tons of fun and so something I did this past year was I decided to ask the kids where they wanted to go next and Portugal and Spain was what they voted for um so ef's great um we've been working with them now for a while and everything for trip besides just like spending money um and their passport cost is included in the cost of the trip um this trip is on the higher side but it's just because I included I wanted you guys to see like the max amount of uh excursions that the kids can do they're stopping at quite

258bit of places um which is kind of similar to our last trip we did that and the kids kind of liked it because they got to see so much and experience so much different culture and one of the things they that they liked the most was seeing how everything changed with landscape and community and just language as we went along um so I think this trip will have something similar with that and um but so there's a lot of different like Excursion opportunities so I wanted to show everybody the max amount usually what I do is after I um when I present it to families I let them know that you know this is um this cost can depend on which excursions we decide to do so um I just include it as a full

259price so that they can see and then we can adjust from there but also the reason why I wanted to get on the agenda for tonight was because ef's offering a $500 discount for this trip which is really huge for a lot of our students as well as I am planning more uh far and Advance as you can see it's not until 2026 so that um more students can have the opportunity to attend the trips so it makes that monthly cost a little bit lower for them there's a lot of high interest in this trip so I'm anticipating um a lot of students I'm actually anticipating it to be like our highest numbered trip so far um and then it's the seems like the best opportunity for fundraising for students is they get their own

260little fundraising portal um through EF where they get 100% of the proceeds so something that we're doing um starting hopefully the end of this week but I might push it till next week because we have SATs and stuff um but every kid is going to be launching their personal um fundraising site through through EF so that they can raise some money for their own like tips passports little excursions things like that um yeah so I'll take any questions that you guys have I kind of just went over a little bit quickly because I know I've been here a few times and you guys might be um well versed with it but any areas of concern I'm happy to answer okay thank you very much um is there anyone that has any questions I DJ I

261think I heard Jen then Bev then Ian very good um so I know I asked this last year I just wanted to make sure you know um so students who come from our lower income you know I think we're like What 43% um how do you see um the disperse um of the student so I see that you takes one chaperon is every six two chaperon so there's 12 students um approximately and then if there's more interest I'm assuming we get more teachers but what's the diversity of like this students who are able to participate um so um so I think like in years past like maybe our fir well definitely our first trip I'd say like will the Trip's open to anybody but um and I think something I'll start off with saying is

262that a lot of the travel Club has like gotten to be pretty well known at pitch and I've had a lot of families like reach out to me and ask me about future trips so like there are families that you know may come from a lower income household who are they want to send their child on this opportunity so they'll start planning ahead and um you know I usually give them like a rough estimate cost of how much like a trip would be so they start saving ahead of time and that has helped because our trip this year I believe I have 21 kids attending and it's more diverse than our past trips like I'd say usually you'd see a trend of students that come from a higher um household income attending the trips but

263this this year um more students had been able to go I think it was because we started a few months earlier um and there was also a 400 disc dollar discount attached to that as well um so I think we're making progress definitely think that there's more ways to include more students and um I believe Ian brought this up last time but he said something about starting a um like a booster club or something for the travel Club but I wasn't really sure who to reach out to about that so that's something that is still like on the cusp of um planning as we're you know developing and more kids want to attend the trips yeah no thank you for doing this right like um so I I'm a strong believer that like as you

264travel your learning too you know what I mean especially where you're going in 2026 with Portugal and um Spain and then like the foreign language um so that they can apply whatever they're um you know learning in the school so and just being able to immerse themselves in um For What It's Like a two week period so yeah no thank you I'm just always concerned I never want it to be um just because of it's our school district and just to be like only like few students can attend so absolutely you know making sure that there's ways that um less fortunate families can also attend whether it's going to locations that are um less expensive or trying to find ways to help those students earn um while you know either while they're at school or

265something yeah absolutely I completely agree with you um I think the cost of travel has gone up a lot because I've Just Seen just gen in general like the price of trips like when I'm you know going through the catalog and looking at different options I'm quite surprised by the cost of some of them um so I think maybe just with the economy but also um I've been able to work with a couple students um who were having some financial difficulties so what they ended up doing was like if they could no longer attend the upcoming trip we extended their time to pay so that they could attend the next one and that worked out for three students that were supposed to attend the original London parison Rome and then we extended the time that

266they had to pay and we were able to transfer them to the next trip so giving families some more time to pay also helped so I'm willing to you know work with them um and I talk to the parents on the phone and whatnot so we can try to get this out to many kids as possible thank you yes thank you um Bev and then Ian thank you Jay I i' just like to didle what um Jen has had to say and I've been to both Portugal and Spain and there's definitely a lot of history over there uh my question is how is the free course to teachers and chaperons offset oh so like how much how much do like the chaperon pay well you have here course per teacher chaperon and it says free

267they're all going free how is that course offet are the students paying more so these people can go for free or does ef um give you those trips for free that's my question how is how is that course offset yeah absolutely as a great question so actually EF pays for um the chapon so it's kind of like an incentive for because I had all these questions as well when I first started with um partnering with ef to do the travel Club because I was like you know I was like that's kind of crazy that you can go for free but they said um it's an incentive to get teachers to travel with their students um and just deliver the opportunities so it really is for every six kids that sign up you get a free

268chaperon spot um or sometimes you know what happens is we have uh which could be an opportunity sometimes we have parents that sign up to go and they pay um and they're they're like a built-in chaperon so sometimes like like last year this came up I didn't end up having to do it but um I was going to use one of the chaperon spots to perhaps pay for a kid to go on the trip or like help out but it we ended up not having to do that but I was discussing that with my tour consultant because we already had plenty adults because two two parents decided to travel with us and I still had those free spots so I had asked my travel consultant if we could you know use those to help kids

269and she had said that we could but we ended up not needing to use it so and then what happened to those two free spots that you had last year I ended up I ended up giving them to a different teacher in the school like I ended up just reaching out and um asking for more teacher chaperons right thank you I'm I'm sure the kids will enjoy Portugal and Spain so thank you very much I hope so thank you thank you Ian uh thank you um and Laurel I just wanted to thank you for for um taking the initiative on all this and and continuing to build out the project and um yeah I do remember the conversation we had in the meeting uh previous um and I just made another note here to to

270look into um yeah I'll do some more research on my end and I definitely would like to to help out however I can uh to create a to to create a travel booster club um to find ways to to broaden access um for lower income students um the fundraising you mentioned uh is all individual driven or are there group efforts at times to fund raise that like once you get students signed on yeah um thank you for your help with the booster club and um so usually with the with the EF profile um they are that is like individual and they get 100% of whatever they raise so it's kind of similar too in the past like our school used to do snap raay when we had a um when we had the partnership with

271them we no longer do I think we use a different small company but the guy is kind of hard to get in touch with um but what I found when I did snap raise we did raise $55,000 which was amazing um but one of the complications I had with that was one student like uh like family members donated $3,000 on his behalf um and it was a group fundraiser and you know one of the problems that came up was well is that money just for him or is it for everybody and you know me and Ted Keller at the time had to go through and backtrack and all that so when it comes to platforms like that I think using the EF traveler page where it's individual is great um but of course there's other

272small things that we do last year I did like a Charleston rap fundraiser that brought in a few hundred um of course the student council uh and do a lot of uh fundraisers so sometimes the things that we can do are limited but what's left but yeah we usually try to do a couple like smaller um fundraisers throughout the year okay thank you yeah and I'm in full support of this and uh I look forward to working with you in the future that sounds great thank you I see Matthew has his hand raised Matthew thank you you very much I'm glad to well I don't see you tonight but I hear your voice um I will be voting for this but I do have a couple of questions and maybe even a concern uh I

273see the sightseeing the food the hotels and all of them will be a wonderful tourism experience what I'm wondering about is what interaction will our students have with peers people their own age in Spain Andor Portugal oh yeah I think that's a great question so I think you asked something similar in the past and I do yeah um so I think what's really great is um a lot of time with the hotels that we're placed in other EF groups from all over the world are also placed there so while it might not be directly like interacted with um I'd say like you know students from Spain they might have students from Germany staying in the same hotel as them so they get like that um interaction like we had uh when we were when we

274were in Venice this past summer we were with another EF Tour all day that was from France I believe and the kids interacted with them and stuff so it was It was kind of cool to see that aspect um but in regards to like you know interacting with students from the country that they're going to some sometimes there's opportunities where they might like engage with you know um depending like where we're going or what type of activity we're doing um sometimes a lot of it is like surprise do um like our when I meet the tour consultant like a few weeks before the trip she tells me about additional things that we can add on for the kids that they're interested in so if it's something that's more cultural I'll like ask her to add

275that in um but they do they do interact with um the community a lot but I think the fact that they get to like interact with like other EF groups from all over the country when we're staying at the different hotels is like is a benefit that might answer your question I think it's a wonderful program as the tourism program uh I have some concerns the same concerns that those of you who've been around for the last couple of years have heard you say program is frightfully expensive and have no illusion there are no flea tickets the cost of the tickets are born by the students the students have given a price and they pay the price and tickets are given out for free but there is no free lunch somebody pays for it's like

276a commission on a house the bio doesn't pay but by God the buyer pays so the question is can we provide an ed educational experience as well as a tourism experience can we provide an experience that will build Global Citizens not just chatting with kids in we might meet in a hotel but in a structured School setting and I am passionate about this because I organized these trips for the national Federation that I worked for when I was teaching in France we took one set of kids to to Normandy for the 50th and 50th anniversary of The Invasion and they entertained our troops we took other kids to Italy to Spain and to uh United Kingdom it was a fraction of the cost even allowing for inflation a fraction of the cost less expensive and

277direct contact with people who lived in these countries that's where the extension we had the visitor from a family one little family came into the French class here and the kids were just so excited to have a chance to use their language this is a great opportunity for our kids and I will vote for this because it's it's certainly better than not doing the program but where we can really help the kids is by turning this into a into an educational program and that means giving Miss Miss Hali some real support not leave it up to her all by herself to do this because she's getting good value in a commercial sense but it's not good value for our kids in the financial sense and its educational value where you're really going to build Global

278Citizens we can do better we can do better and I offered last year the help I'm offering this year the help again let's Vote for This what I would like us to do if the board concurs is ask Miss kcki to ask if the tour guide can arrange for at least one classroom visit where our kids can meet kids their age in a school and have a chance to spend an afternoon in the school may not be possible but I would ask anyway thank you for your time of my talking to all okay is there anybody else that has any questions or comments I do Jay if you don't mind uh I just want to say too that I agree with everything Matthew just said uh but I do have a question it says earning

279credit for new experiences that students in the grade 6 to 12 can earn a a05 elective School Credit do any of our students ever earn that 0.5 credit um hold on um so with the one in regard to the high school credit we've never done because um I was told in the past I don't think this was by Matt Brown I think this was maybe Ted kellerer had said that that would have to be board approved um like you guys have to approve that they could do the project for the credit and then but the other thing that they can opt into is there's like a course that they can pay I think like $150 to do like a a like a kind of like a service like project of like everything that they learned

280and submit it to uh Southern New Hampshire University for a college credit but I that's that's $360 Accord to the paper I don't mean to cut you off I'm sorry that's okay no that's okay so I think I was going off of like sometimes at the end of the trip they offer discounts for kids to to do that maybe Susan that's something we could talk about because maybe uh the kids can earn that 05 credit if they want to yeah I would like to I'll make a referral that we invite Miss hcky back after the budget is done and after that you know we can do that in in May or June uh to talk about how we can restructure a commercial Enterprise into a less expensive but more fulfilling educational experience yeah because I

281was actually gonna say too nothing's free just like Matthew said nothing's free so we think those chaperons and teachers are going for free but our students are paying for that yeah that makes sense I think Ian has something Ian yeah I just wanted to thank you Matt for bringing that up and and and bringing that into Crystal Clear resol resolution um I I'm full support of your referral and I think that is actually probably could uh accomplish two goals at once where we create more access and a better value in the grand scheme of things and also like yeah the uh credit whatever credits uh let's get that in front of the curriculum committee and get it get it passed through is um that that should not be we should not be standing in the

282way of that credit and uh I was I'm sorry to hear that that was the case if that was the case in the past if that was the case um so yeah let's let's let's look at uh and and I think actually like attaching to what you're talking about global citizenship Matthew is is possibly a way we can also open up some grant funding for this and create just you know lessen the cost and and increase if the if if the board wants I can get in touch with the Federation in Paris they run the the system international schools all across Europe and in South America and see if we can find a partner school but that would mean our fam is accepting their kids for 10 days in order for their families to accept

283our kids for 10 days I think this is definitely worthy of a good discussion yeah at the next meeting yeah okay I I'm just going to throw a wrench like into this thing so maybe it's like a different club right so maybe it's like a service travel club like if we're going to end up because I don't know what the charter of the travel Club is maybe it's just to travel to enjoy to immerse so before we these are all wonderful ideas I totally support them but it may not be the travel club that we insert ourselves in it might be like a service Club I I don't know all of the clubs at Fitch but if the students um you know so they don't want to stay at somebody's house they just want to

284go see a beautiful Museum and stay at a hotel right you know so let's um not change the composition and and or we take a survey right like I'm the one who was like um initially saying you know like making it cost effective like getting the exposure and experience but um if the travel Club it may not be the travel club I'm I'm I'm I'm sort of with Jen and that one I thinking the same thing exactly what is the travel club's you know stated purpose uh the group of people the group of kids that would be interested in this trip may not be the same group of kids would be interested in something that Matt was proposing there would be some overlap of course but yeah right some kids may say geez this might

285one only chance to go to Spain and finally see the alhamra period end not that you couldn't do both on on you know with Matt's suggestion I had a little thing I don't know when the Spanish school year runs but they're going in July our kids aren't in school in July maybe the Spanish kids are not in school in July so how are our kids going to meet their kids if they're not in school but I don't know when there school runs I don't know I don't know Spain off hand France it ends about the 20th of July but it doesn't start it doesn't start until mid October maybe it's the same yeah maybe it's the same it's just something to consider any I support of a future agenda item to discuss all those possibilities

286ready to vote Yes and let's vote on this now I think Mrs hcky is uh got to be to work in um seven hours yeah as do a few of the rest of us um is are we ready to vote yeah yeah okay all those in favor of the motion on the floor to approve Fitch High School's travel Club field trip request to Portugal and Spain scheduled for July 9th 2026 through July 20th 2026 please indicate by saying I I I opposed extensions so that passes thank you so much thank you thank you Laurel hi guys have a good night thank you all right so now we're going to slide into committee reports Matthew policy well you know what we did last month because we looked at it and we're meeting this month I believe

287the 19th Susan's going to be occupied on the usual date and we're gonna do wonderful things all right sounds great Andrea curriculum all right we uh I just put my notes way all right so we looked at unified music uh the advising um a special education uh um help me out here it was the the curriculum we just voted on no no no that's a different one Rising we also talk about Ed Rising too that's the one but I'm I'm not recalling exactly the conversation we had because it's bloomen quarter of 11 however moving along breakfast is moving along we talked about Sports Photography as well and then um and and the one we did tonight which was uh the ukan one but the um three we approved the writing of the curriculum however we

288we didn't put bring it to the board for that we just did the action and then after the curriculum is written we will come back to the to the board during the year and uh uh the teachers will present the curriculum itself your vote for your vote that's it good night hey Beverly are you ready we we're gonna do it together and let the robit rules police come and get us all right so uh ad hoc budget procedure committee we skip Finance facilities all right you ready did you guys meet it's up that no we we met oh okay we met October 1 all right very very short uh uh agenda we had a Director of Finance report and director of buildings and grounds report uh the what you heard from uh uh from building

289and grounds I'm not going to cover you know about the hbac units and all that sh uh great for finance I think it was our last meeting with with Ray he reviewed the proposed budget calendar um let's see uh Jen talked about the ad hoc budget committee uh budget procedure committee talking about presenting his proposed budget calendar at an upcoming cow meeting that's not tonight H you briefly touched on the differences between two calendars uh there was a review of the object code summary between outgoing and incoming uh business managers and as final expenditure report uh and that's it now what what um oh my God what's his name Mr Sam Sam thank you I think he can for some reason uh he was talking he talked about the sca contract um said that the

290SDA is asking for their contract to be extended and he recommended approving their request that's that will be dealt with I guess upcoming that's my report didn't we vote a committee yeah it's been between never mind strike we had a special committee we had a special committee meeting Dean but I don't think you made it I did miss so we got we actually got some work done in between uh Ian ad hoc budget procedure committee met on October 10th and approve appr the interim report which was uh presented to the committee of the whole and uh also uh referred nine proposed policy revisions uh to the policy committee for review um and the policy committee met on that and after some discussion uh as as uh chair of the budget Pro procedure committee I withdrew

291the um well I withdrew them off out out of consideration for the moment to be redrafted uh to better incorporate cab recommended language uh and all the corresponding policy numbers of which that work has been done and uh so the uh nine policy uh revisions as proposed by the ad hoc budget procedure committee will be uh back up again on the policy committee um at the next time we meet and hardly wait and we did in the policy committee we did uh part uh partition them as five with high priority and four with secondary priority and good job yep ones that are more immediate to the budget procedure in the now and others and the four uh related to budget oversight after a budget is passed right thank you very much and uh Beverly learn

292no the two of us are on no she's going to talk about learn oh God yeah we have a we have a long ways to go Andrea we still and Communications was on the N but Beverly uh promised me the meeting would be done by 10 but anyway go [Laughter] ahead I lied I lied uh learn men on um October 10th we discussed the parent Bill of Rights for English Learners and multilingual Learners we also talked about the new infant TI program that learn is going to start um hopefully at the end of January 2025 or the beginning of February 2025 um a it per I think it's a IT person someone at learned um has developed an app for Teacher evaluation so when the principal or the or whoever the supervisor is that's evaluating

293a teacher can go in the go in the classroom and write all his notes and his and his um um what and and his thoughts on the app and send it immediately to the teacher and learn might make that app available to other school districts because this way teachers get an immediate um feedback from the evaluator and also Kate Ericson updated the board on the progress of the regional collaborative of districts to offer combined course program programming to students in the region and the program is two and a half years in the making and very close to um being launched and five courses are on the table and they're going to narrow it down to three courses and that's my report any questions okay good all right thank you Bev uh Ian anything from athletic

294fields uh they they met on October 17th I was unable to attend um so I'm still collecting the notes on that and reviewing the recording so I'll have to send that report out in the email to the whole board okay thank you very much and um let's see um Matthew anything from Trails Trails next meets in December no report Library um Library director Jen mey uh asked me to express her gratitude to Gren Public Schools Charles Barnum invited Gren Public Library to its parent teacher conference with librar setting up table for parents to sign up their children for library cards uh the hope is that the other elementary schools and gron middle school will extend similar invitations through Susan and uh gen will just be with the angels principal notes yeah that's it all right

295very good so now we come to the highlight of our meeting um letters Communications and comments by board members uh if you'll indulge me I'd like to just speak first briefly I'm about to travel and I may lose connection in which case Bev will take over um first of all I attended the Martin Luther King scholarship uh dinner uh as did a few of you and I just want to say that um uh as usual it's a very inspiring evening and again thanks to Dr arriman for working with the scholars for many many weeks prior to uh uh coach them on their speaking skills and um it was uh a really great evening um I am going to be proposing a um referral that we flip the script on our meetings um became painfully clear

296tonight that by having people wait three or four hours it just didn't seem fair I think we should uh reconfigure our meeting template to put the action items first um people have asked me why do you folks have to read your minutes in your meetings they're all available on your website um but then I realize not everybody looks at the website um but um so that's just something we've always done but maybe we could do that later in the meeting as we did tonight and thank you for Matthew for suggesting that um other than that um I will now uh turn to Andrea and if you can go around the table if I lose contact Beverly will take over thank you nothing is that what you meant yep y next oh suggested agenda no we're

297not at that we're at communications oh nothing uh I just want to say thank you to Dr aan I counted she was mentioned by three different speakers a total of four or five different times for the work she's done with the youngsters not only this year but longstanding you are deeply honored and appreciated thank you very much that's it um I also attended the the mar Luther King uh Awards dinner and and that was a great event and uh thank you Dr aan for all the efforts you've done uh it's a huge profound effect on the the community um I uh we all received uh a some Communications from some parent in the community that raised a concern that also came up earlier again tonight in another policy matter I think um as policy committee

298we should take a look do a general scan over across all the policies and um looking for a particular situation where board and District maybe need to be defined better um the email that I received uh basically identified that that you know actions were being taken and represented as if it was a board approved action when in fact it was a thing that the board was not in a position to consider consider um or you know give one way or another Direction on uh so I think we and then again we came across that in a policy tonight where we realized no that's not actually a board action it's Administration action District action so I think we need to get uh some clarity and consistency on how those terms are used uh because I don't

299want to um have to defend an action that I I had no say in activating um let's let's send me an email we put it on the agenda my concern is uh how do we do this short of uh Andrea's writing a new app for us I don't know functional the functionality of that is is the challenge but the the concept is great right so yeah just I'm putting out there as a marker and as a communication to the community at large that you know there is an ambiguity there um there are ambiguities there are ambiguities thank you it is getting late um also along those lines uh I did make a referral for uh policy 1312 and 131 12.4 uh to look at um how anony complaints Anonymous complaints are handled and also related

300to that how are they cleared out and then reported back to the board once they are handled um because then again there's ambiguity there and um another referral that I had talked about bringing forth um I'd like to have an agenda item or at least get you know to the committee the whole um to discuss uh possibilities of how to look at our contract with a pair of professionals than you one item ahead um not an agenda items yet got you well all Communications um yeah that's that's where I'm that's that's what I'm looking to uh bring forward yeah if thank you if I could just say one quick word when I was on policy we were very very clear about when we talked about the board it was only actions when we use the

301word board it was only actions that the board could accomplish when we use the word District that meant that it was the entire school system headed by Susan so I don't I don't know how we clarified that maybe it was just in our minds but that's all I wanted consistent yeah we could have something on the front page the bo the board right well the problem is how is that carried out in the community because you know and how we make sure that's being communicated that's it time not yet almost not yet okay Dean it's it's your turn Dean I got a rock on Halloween no I'm gon a spirit wall I'll pass okay Adrian all right um after um last week I think we brought up teacher conferences at the high school I had

302communication with a couple of parents who also noticed the same thing um well no that there were no teacher conferences this year no no notes no no one was notified um and then um someone actually went back through a bunch of parent squares so to see if there is any notification but it seems like um like teacher conferences at the high school level at least there hasn't been any discussion of them yet this year I don't know what the plan is but it would be great and if I don't know if that's a board thing like if we're going to eliminate that um if that would happen at the board level or not but um I'm sure that there's there are some parents that probably still want it I have heard there's inconsistencies over the

303years but I'm going to talk to Matt about that to see that we can get that more consistent I think through my wife um there has been the last five years until this year you you would have to sign up for it um they would say if you want conferences sign up for it at such and such a time what's that that's not happening not this year not that not to my knowledge so I might have I might have missed something um but we the teacher conferences are right now for the rest of the district um which also gets you into the calendar um and if we're having teacher conferences for some schools but not all of them should it be school day half day on the calendar I think um didn't have half days

304either for the conferences so which yeah I mean there's probably a limited demand for um for those spots so in the evenings um they could probably get through them all um so yeah and um so that'll be one thing I'd love to hear you know if there's going to be a change in way so thank you I have Susan can you Susan can you answer that in board notes yes okay thank you Dean you have something to say now I had a question about for Jay oh Ian I'm sorry Ian the second union grievance when are we going to meet and deliberate on that and and close that process out so I sent an email to Floyd over the weekend and I'm still waiting to hear back okay and my referral to uh put a

305con put like so some discussion about seeing the willingness of the board to look at the contract and try to address some of the ambiguities that came to light due to those hearings um is that going to happen anytime soon that is something I'd really have to discuss with Floyd whenever you're talking about um a contract that's already been ratified so I'd have to discuss that with him okay and I I know that Matthew has some interest in some other items along that line too um so yeah I would look forward to hearing those Communications um as soon as they're soon as they can happen are we open for referrals has everyone had a chance to speak I'm Beverly and mic I guess I'm sorry oh I already talked about the EV um stations when

306when Sam was speaking before when he was giving his report and that's oh oh my other communication with Susan I don't know if Jay mentioned this to you but at than River magin School on one side of the sign it says no classes on October 14th now that's long past so I don't know if it still says that I mentioned it to Jay to tell you but um you could have them check it out okay uh Mike do you have anything NOP just looking forward to uh Andrea's contribution to the meeting at the end of it yes okay future agenda items hey bever you ready no not yet I think some people have a future agenda items don't they I thought I safe I have a couple go ahead I can go first okay um

307Susan I read in your um in your board notes that an Marie had a meeting with the assistant principals to talk about absenteeism and how to use research based practices to improve student attendance can she talk to the board about that absolutely okay and the other thing is um um you could do this in board notes how much is the new legislation regarding minro products going to course the school so our Title One schools are able to get access supplies for free of charge already allocated $3,000 to get the project started so that only leaves two well two elementary schools and Fitch but fit may be um able to also access so I've got to just find out from the state department how we go about doing that okay so that should save us some

308money yeah that would thank you I mean we've always provided materials through the nurses office so this is just giving us better access for our kids what they need okay your turn Matthew uh I'd like to make a board um an item for the next board meeting to see if we can discuss a motion regarding the charging stations to disconnect the public charging stations until we find a fiscally and technically viable solution and put that on the agenda for our next regular or special board meeting for cows uh the state representatives have told us for the last couple years that we give them our priorities for the coming legislative session too late for them to do much about it so uh I'd like us all to think about what we think is important for our

309legislators to consider and invite them no I would like to invite them in November if we could so they would have chance to write some legislation if they felt it was worthwhile um immediately of immediate concern is this business of this eversource uh uh solar recapture funds and the eversource uh covid thing so at least that's one item but I'm sure there are more finally uh we know about the problem of space in some of the schools yet here at central office we have five temp four or five temporary classrooms out back that I know are filled to the gills with stuff this St douf lots of stuff but can we consider the possibility of either having a yard sale or cting it to the dump so we can use these buildings for the purpose

310for which they were constructed and take some of the pressure off the school so I'd like that to be a cow discussion or maybe the superintendent can think about it and bring her ideas to the cow discussion to that's it for me thank you what about you Jan I was just gonna um it's not already there it's getting late in my brains like um um oh it's coming from our citizens um um five minute um session there early on um we should put in the review of our curriculum for um honors classes if it's not already there I I think isn't that already on the ref f is I'm not sure okay I thought it was but we could check if it has I'm she's mentioned it like three times now or maybe more like

311in our meetings so let's um let's put it there and then maybe move it up because that is important right yeah for students you all set Jen I'm all set okay Dr aan I'd like offer one quick thing it's just a little bit of discussion on the uh on how items are removed from the referral tracking sheet but sheet how they're memorialized on that on that sheet so but I'll leave it at that okay I did discuss that with Joyce actually so we're going to be doing it the way we discussed at the last meeting yeah um okay that ties into something else that was discussed at the last cow was um that like there there are some thing that there's an agenda a far future looking agenda as far as um like things that

312I mean how are the agendas determined uh and how far in advance are they determined I guess that that would be an agenda item I want to just get a sense of like you know because I we all get the agendas on Fridays but you know how are we game planning out the Referral List well I I think Jay meets with Susan on a Wednesday afternoon or morning and between him and Susan together come up with the agenda based on the referral list and based on what Susan wants to bring forward for the board to discuss and that's that's how the agenda the the chair is really in charge of the agenda with input from the board and the superintendent so it's it's a it's a community agenda and that's why we had the referal

313list an agenda item is just a a quick review of that and and maybe uh you know get a little more systemic with it so we can kind of clear out some of the older stuff and get moving that's why we actually Dr G had created that month-to-month chart C1 cw2 and then the meetings went ever data is coming through so we actually have a time frame that we're getting all this information to you when it's new and not waiting so that's why that came to be because through the referral these things were being asked for and they came at a timely fashion so we kind of made that calendar so that it showed when those things were coming be nice to have access to that for all of us well you have it it's

314um it's been given out I think we can you you got got it in your packet when you first had it but I can send it out again all right yeah yeah it's just a calendar of events um and then we keep the tracker sheet updated as well um and that's sent out should be sent out periodically the tracker sheets yeah the tracker sheets are included in in every few agenda packages but maybe the calendar like know more more frequent you know whenever the tracker sheet goes out the calendar in there yeah we can do that and sometimes it shifts depending on when we get the information and other things come up you know so you kind of prioritize but it helps keep it straight okay uh I make a motion to adjourn oh I'm

315sorry Andrew I'm gonna get you tell you too that the big hand is on the 10 and little hand is on the 11 or I'm going to get you all right did we say all those in favor have a good night everyone