2-26-24 Groton Board of Education Meeting

001good evening everyone it is uh Monday February 26th uh 2024 is my privilege to call the Gren Board of Education regular meeting to order our um first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance and would our student representative David please lead us in the IED to of the United States of America and to the repu for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all and the next portion um of our agenda are comments from citizens regarding agenda items 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 and citizens should if possible submit written comments presentation should be related

002to matters pertinent to Gren board members will only ask questions in order to clarify the speaker's presentation and cannot respond during the comment of citizens portion of the board meeting citizens should make their presentations from the podium and state their name names and addresses for the record do we have anyone here who would like to address the Board of Education s hey good afternoon uh Michael wayy 135 Charter Oak um my son's a off fencer um so that's kind of where I'm I'm going with this um made some notes here so I understand that each sport costs different amounts of uh money to outfit each student but I think an equal and fair distribution of funds can and should be the goal um I can only speak directly to fencing as that's the only sport

003that my son has participated in so far he's doing track next um fencing it's an all-inclusive Sport and nobody sits the bench every participant every player plays every single match uh the parents are encouraging to their kids as well as other parents and I've seen on several different occasions students helping their competition by giving advice on how to improve that and that is something that I've seen uh that sportsmanship is something I've seen lacking in most other sports uh fencing and I'm sure other sports needs a bigger budget uh we need knowledgeable armor right now we have parent volunteers I'm one of them who are knowledgeable in electrical and mechanical repair and troubleshooting uh we have others that do the best they can but they don't have the Baseline knowledge to even ask questions beyond

004the most basic of repairs uh we need some other core equipment and I feel the school should pay for it instead of the minimal budget that the fencing gets um we absolutely need a fencing tester which is around $1,000 uh our supplies to maintain Fencing Equipment are minimal with tons of reused parts and some New Old Stock blades that were created back in 2006 uh we need more strips and scoreboards right now we have to ask other schools to bring theirs because we can't support matches ourselves our clothing is dated there are newer types that allow our players to unzip and cool off between bouts um and I think that the newer types will be safer for our fencers right now our students are drenched and sweat at the end of their bouts so I

005think this should be a priority purchase as well outside of the fencing budget um I think we should also benefit from a knowledgeable female coach uh as right now it is just the two coaches that we have and it's really four separate teams not one co-ed um team that's it's kind kind of viewed as um in closing uh we also need to do a feeder program to help Drive growth and uh competitiveness for the fencing program um having one at the middle school I think would help grow uh the sport uh as we don't have uh really any senior fencers next year for the mene um that's all I have thank you very much thank you we appreciate you coming out is there anyone else who would like to participate in public comment um for

006the record my name is Porsche bordelon 24 Jefferson Drive for just full disclosure I'm an elected gron town councelor today I'm speaking as a taxpayer a Fitch high school graduate a mother a community representative and a minority female on Black History Month were so many under privilege folks are feeling disenfranchised I want to Second what this gentleman had to say as I am a mother also off fening and I've come before this very board asking for request and the cries have gone um they just nothing's happened as of yet but tonight I'm here to speak about my overwhelming concern for the safety welfare and well-being of my community for a properly funded budget let me just start with saying that with no disrespect um um as a town counselor I'm speaking as a taxpayer but

007as a person that's been elected for over six years words up here have been used about people micromanaging the budget well if you guys were not elected to micromanage the budget what's the point of a board of education if we only had a superintendent you individually are elected by the constituents to do the work that we asked you to do and that involves micromanaging first I'd just like to say the 13% was just it was crazy to see and I'm very concerned for the taxpayers here but also feel there's a way there's a Middle Road to properly fund our schools but also to make sure our taxpayers can stay and forward to live here I am very concerned at the cuts that the superintendent proposed making our students pay for their um summer school that

008was proposed in our budget asking people who are barely getting by to come in and have to pay for summer school to me on any social economic level is just downright not I can't even use the words right now summer school the other cut that was proposed by superal econom level is just sorry the other cut that was proposed by the superintendent was GED English as a second language and citizenship programs in the evening then it was tossed around and this Board of Ed went back and forth and I commend the people up here the board members who did oppose this cut but then it was tossed around that let's give give them bus passes they can go to New London they can go to Norwich how are we not properly funding our most vulnerable

009in our community how do we stand to be competitive against other towns we we can't continue to fund IB programs and all these other up upper level programs and say nope but not here in gron English has a second language you can't speak English you can't help your kids at school go to New London go to Norwich that sends a very strong message to this community directly where your ideas of these Cuts should be and it should not be on the backs of minorities and people who are trying hard to become citizens and I ask this board even though you corrected the change recently just the proposed Cuts in general that have come forward thus far from the board of the the the superintendent Cuts have been nowhere has there been any any level of

010rigor in looking at anyone that's making higher dollar amounts a lot of the cuts have been coming from lower levels we have the arester fund why has there been no fiscally responsible plan to slowly start to cut those those positions over a period of two or three years since we got them I looked at other towns they started cutting them if they hired 50 people which a lot of people didn't put all their money in hiring staff they made sure they put it in places that they could cut and they looked at a plan there should have been a plan in place when you when you created the plan why has it not been slowly cut down over time I don't know you can't just rip the bandaid off and say that's it it's over

011everyone go now we don't need it I'm concerned that we're not funding the achievement gaps we need to make sure our most vulnerable students are heard our teachers our staff need the support on the ground level the cut should go somewhere where it's not a directly affecting our growth and closing achievement gaps in this town I am majorly concerned about the lack of software it was stated at that meeting that no one ever asked for it no one really asked for more detailed budget in fact I had a meeting with the superintendent Jay White Wolf at five years ago up uh four years ago up at the the board of that building um and we still where we are the town manager has stated that he asked you guys to get on board with a

012new software and at that time several years ago you guys rejected I looked at other towns like Branford they're on a software called munice they're transparent they're open they ripped apart the budget line by line I'm all for an increase in budget to go to our students but I'm concerned about where the line items that you're choosing to move those into what departments it's one thing to say a 9% increase but show me that that money is going to help those underprivileged students closing achieve achievement gaps and not just the upper level classes there was a beautiful article in the paper about how you guys are trying to get my more minorities and diversity in the upper level classes are you doing that by cutting citizenship and English as a sec second language and g&

013in summer school is that the plan because that to me doesn't fit the tapestry of our community we have to care about every student every staff equally in this town and make sure it's properly dispersed we hate to go back in the past but it's so important to know where we are today and the past decisions have directly affected the the the board of EDG budget as a whole and we can do better in this town and we should want to we have the ability to do that and I encourage this board to look at ways to make cuts that are not going to hit the ground level uh students um looking at this again I went before you guys we have a a um college readiness uh counselor that's only part-time why Stonington has

014a lower number of students but has a full-time counselor I've said this before these are these are areas that you guys should be looking to fund and cutting other areas overwhelmingly we have not seeing any changes in that we need to find ways that we can build bridges in this town and feel like the staff the the administrated is supported and making sure a fair and Equitable budget where if you're going to make cuts to lower level staff you better make Cuts other places too it should be evenly dispersed the hit should be equal on all levels it shouldn't be just just one level um and the pay of peras thank you your time has expired thank you um and perah salaries are deplorable and we should be ashamed thank you thank you is there

015anyone else who would like to address the board hello my name is is Rita vman 135 Dogwood Lane in Mystic um I'm here I support everything Mrs borderline said but I also want you to be aware that what's driving this outrageous budget are Staffing healthc care so I propose we need a reduction in staff not where it'll drive class sizes up but in terms of the extra people that have been hired in the past five years and there's been quite a lot we also have to think about our Administration do we really need three Vice principls at our high school do we need three at our Middle School those are the things that will help reduce the budget and I would like you to take a look closely at the higher level classes and make

016sure you don't forget about those students that struggle every day thank you thank you is there anyone else who would like to address the board is there anyone online there don't appear to be anyone else online wanting to talk okay all right thank you very much uh does anyone have any response resp to comments from citizens um just want to thank everyone for coming out and um appreciate the comments and uh um glad to hear from a former board member and uh appreciate the uh the insight and the observations thank you and I just want to um emphasize that um as Miss bordon mentioned uh those proposed Cuts were um Turned Down by the U uh the board in terms of the um uh adult education and the summer school uh those cuts were not

017implemented all right our next item is are the student representative report um mine's kind of short so I'm just gonna go first but Katherine kolaski is having their annual Invention Convention onou sorry okay um Katherine kazki has is having their annual Invention Convention on March 1st from 9:30 to 11 so the third and fifth graders have you know come up with uh inventions and presentations to share and they openly invite any board members or anybody that can you know they want to come in and see that um Northeast Academy their fifth grade drama club is having their performance also on March 1st but Thursday the 29th as well at 7:00 at Nea and I believe they're doing Hansel grle I think and then celebrate the Arts is also being held on Thursday the 14th and

018Friday the 15th which I went to nea I love to celebrate the Arts so I'm really happy that they're still doing it because I thought it was I thought it was great as a student and I've been as you know a middle schooler and a high schooler and I just think it's a great experience um and then themes river is doing a schoolwide recycling project so they're trying to get 1,000 pounds of recycled plastic material and once they hit that th000 lbs they're um going to work together with some other groups to make a bench for the school which that was also really cool and they ask if anyone wants to recycle their plastic bring it to themes River all right and I'm gonna steal the screen here for a sec uh for those of

019you who don't know me I'm David hogon the student representative from Fitch High School uh and then I just I threw this together um to one keep me on track and make sure I don't just stop talking about the Yankees halfway through uh and the other half just to keep me on track and keep us on time here I know there's a lot to cover um so for our highs we have our winter sports our winter sports are wrapping up culminating currently our indoor track team we had multiple um members one of them my good friend who's looking to gun for the school record in the uh 800 um we had a ton of them uh our athletes represented at both the ECC Conference Championship and our state conference Championship and had multiple teams and

020multiple individuals Place very very well um so that was amazing to see uh in terms of of our fencing team uh Nathan Johnson I want to get this correct when I pronounce it epie did I say that correctly epie uh men's ECC Champs so that was amazing uh only a sophomore I believe representing Fitch High School us um so that was amazing to see then along with uh Elena Brookhart who's a senior um who came in second uh in the women's uh open EP which I thought was absolutely amazing uh to see such great um representation from our student athletes uh in terms of girls basketball they're actually playing at the moment over at um while you swing a dead cat and you're there right over at Fitch uh they're going to be playing uh

021bris leonn sorry bad phrase um they're going to be they're going to be playing uh Bristol Eastern for their start of their state tournament run uh and then as we all know tomorrow night our Fitch High School um Falcons will be taking on the St Bernards in the division one ECC championship of boys basketball at Mohan Sun I myself got myself out of work so I can go see this game and lose my voice tearing on our friends uh in terms of Robotics they are in the build season for the robot their competition season starts March 9th we had our school play that was put on last um last weekend that had tremendous uh tremendous tremendous turnout and events well put together play as always and we're looking forward to their spring production as well

022um morning announcements has been a really cool thing that we've been doing throughout the past couple of months we've been having some very very groovy choices by our school administrative and staff to put on while we're walking to um I didn't know hod was going to be here tonight um while we're walking into the uh building in the morning and um boys basketball again I just wanted to put a huge emphasis out there like I cannot believe how amazing that uh it is to be playing at uh an actual Arena like Mohan sun tomorrow night in front of all those people representing our school um no lows this month uh but we do jump to Falcon Spotlight uh my first um and I'll try to be brief as possible um with our college prep and

023Miss alinac has been doing a superb job um I'm able to talk to a lot of the seniors being one myself uh but also reaching out to a lot of our Juniors who are going to be attending um and sophomores even who will be attending our college and careers fair in March um I cannot tell you I have not had a single bad compliment about that woman since I started talking to people like she has been absolutely and I cannot put enough emphasis on this absolutely like there has been there's not a word that's more important to put attached with her name in terms of people who are very stressed in their senior year with a billion different questions who do you go see Miss alac five seconds later I walked out relief feels like

024all right I'm good to do this I know back to my day uh and then also in terms of FAFSA and student aid I know we are all well aware of the chaos that is the FAFSA form being redone this year I myself having to go through that debacle uh and I know there was an article published in the day with a local student Jillian Riley being mentioned in it about the FAFSA turmoil um she has been absolutely influential with um getting everybody on the right track having these different groups come in and discuss with us how to break down step by step what this new f ofform is going to be looking like and uh what that means in terms of us our families and how we're going to be paying for college which

025is always a massive massive um Step that we have to take as seniors uh the next thing again didn't know Miss Hajj was going to be here but we had eighth grade tours uh happen over the past couple of weeks and they have been absolutely smashing of his success she doesn't know I'm saying any of this I want to state that for the record um but I was able to talk to multiple members of administration from both our uh Fitch and from uh students eighth grade students and administrative um members of our Middle School who all said it was a flawing success um the students were able to feel much more comfortable coming in and talking and walking around with live students um a heavy emphasis of such uh trip for the eighth graders to

026walk on over and make the long old walk was to get them comfortable and ask questions uh a lot of us being a tour guide I don't want to say the lead tour guide but I did do a whole lot of talking to the rest of the tour guides a lot of the big thing that we put an emphasis on um Miss hodj made sure of was talking with them and making them feel comfortable in these Halls so that when they walk in for um uh freshman orientation in August they've already had a dip in the pool um and I I think that it went amazing I I was able to see over that 45 minute tour each time the kids kind of come out of their shell feel a little bit more comfortable have

027an open conversation about open problems that they may have with coming to fish like oh I'm not too sure how do I know I'm going to and being able to take that down and like Miss alanc does for a lot of us college readiness students bring them down bring them back to Earth be like it's going to be okay talking them through all the hard parts of you know all the confusion and stuff that H um you know we all once felt I know I felt a couple years ago entering Fitch um so that was amazing and then our IB prep our full IB student comments have been amazing uh once again um it's a very very very hard thing to become a full diploma student it's a very very DET it's it's a it

028tooks a lot out of you it takes a lot out of your time stress a whole lot more studying goes into it than normal and when people decide that they want to go down the full IB path not all of them usually make it a great deal of them drop out due to other things other interests but mainly being the thing the workload the workload has been something that you need to be gearing yourself up for starting earlier on um and feel geared to be ready to take on such challenging classes a lot of what happens during your senior year when you have something called an internal assessment attached to each one of these IB classes that you were required to do uh to get that IB credit a big thing that I've been seeing

029a whole lot of positives in is when you get a whole lot of these projects that are all coming in at once I have an IB for math but I also have an IB for bio and I also have an IB for an IIA for chem how am I going to do these three massive projects over the course of my senior year prep coordination between subjects that's the key that's been the glue that's been keeping all these students together between Miss Donovan specifically teachers specifically teachers communicating openingly between each other such as Miss zerini and Mr pinucci being able to coordinate effectively and efficiently uh to their students between classes of understanding um how to manage all these different pieces that have to come together uh and I think that that's a very important thing

030to speak to because it encourages this um sense of I can do this this is something that I think me entering will I will be able to uh take on as a as daunting of a task as it may see to be a full diploma student um I've been able to talk to people in the past about their experiences as well and there isn't all it isn't all golden and Roses might I assure you but having that level of comfort knowing that you have a lot of coordination going on in the background and a whole lot of support to make sure that you are putting forth your best effort when they go to grade uh looking at a ton of college credit then there you go um and that has been overwhelmingly something that I've

031been hearing from a lot of those people this mon month uh then to the future we have spring sports that are starting up soon our baseball and softball team are doing uh my brother plays baseball they've been doing indoor workouts our lacrosse teams we've been having uh they participate in a um uh excuse me winter league over at monville Indoor Sports and I know they're doing very very well uh then the big stressor for a lot of our student body uh going into um this time of year as it always is is AP testing and stats um to be wary of it is to say one thing but to be absolutely certain of it is another I absolutely know for a fact that there's going to be an increase in both stress an increase in

032anxiety an increase and kids com to school T more tired than normally because we're in this type of time of year um and well that not might not it may look like a challenge I love for looking in the optimism in it and I know that uh going through these things once again for all of our Juniors uh who are going to be taking the SATs or all of our AP students who are going to be going through the rigors that come with preparing for an uh AP exam that the uh mental side that you were able to gain from it and being able to be like yes apus history man that was a tough course but I got through that test and I was able to put forth my best effort or apgov and

033stuff like that this is always a time of year where we see a whole lot of personal growth in our students digging down and realizing all right like May 1st is a whole lot quicker than it seems and March 14th or whenever they're taking the SAT this year is a whole lot quicker than um it's coming up a lot quicker than they seem so a whole lot of positive positive things to say on our Fitch High School body thank you thank you thank you does anyone have any questions for our student Representatives thank you both um not a question just a comment on what David said about the IB program I am a full diploma student I've done that I'm going through it right now um and I've had two different coordinators so I had

034one last year and now I have another one this year and I think it's it's definitely a very different style but with the current coordinator he's he's incredible at what he does and he's trying to kind of not rework the program just make it easier for students so he's gone around he's trying to get H current sophomores to do it for their junior year and even he's had a lot of freshman come I mean his you know his CTL because I'm an IB student I've seen so many kids come in and ask him about it and they seem a lot more interested than they did when I was joining um so I think he does a really good job doing that trying to get kids interested and helping the kids who are currently in it

035just like finish out um that was thank you so thank you there are no other questions uh we will move on to superintendent Administration reports as superintendent of schools in partnership with my administrative team and this board of education we have really worked hard together to prepare a responsible rational and efficient budget that focuses on our mission of teaching and learning this is a budget that keeps our students at the heart and center of our work it was really important for this board to make sure that we capture that with exemplary instructional programs standard space curriculum new legislated initiatives like right to read um while also taking care of our students and staff safety security and well-being with ARP Esser closeout this year we always knew that most positions would go away and just a

036few would remain as needed we first prepared a postco level service level service budget but after hearing the board the Town Council and the RTM education committee we went back to scrutinize this budget further and what you will see tonight is a preco going back to before covid when we didn't have all of these Esser funds level service budget there are many challenges this year and into the next year we are seeing escalated inflationary cost a new more expensive bus contract higher health care cost numerous unfunded mandates as well as contractual obligations that this board has agreed to after a decade of budgets that average a 05 510 of a percent annual increase using health savings accounts in reserve we are faced with increases in this year but the same level Services since since the

037beginning of January we've spent numerous hours during the day and into the evening working together trying to understand the FY 25 budget deeply with a focus on student and staff learning as well as student and staff safety and well-being we labored over the budget at the building level program level operations level and line by line in the function codes the original proposed budget began at 8.2 7% increase without health care we didn't have the information altogether when we got the information on Health Care it had risen and escalated to 13.43% with the healthcare followed by an 8.76 then a 9.32 with Thursday night's additions um to the budget after hearing from our many constituents on the council RTM and the board we have gone back to review the AR s a grant which was initialized

038four years ago and needs to sunset tonight after much reflection we are proposing a 7.9% increased level service budget this is responsible rational and efficient that focuses on our mission of teaching and learning and keeps our students at the heart of what we do in partnership with the board and the professional staff and leadership in this District I'm making the recommendation for 7.9 for the FY 25 budget it's responsible rational and sustainable preco level service That's essential for our students and affordable to the community and it does touch on every area of the budget every area thank you very much and does the board have any questions we will obviously be looking at the details of this um under uh new business later in the meeting if there are no questions at this time we

039will continue to the Director of Finance report good evening so I'm just going to start with the object code report so it should be attachment number one so thus far uh you know we've expended and there it is okay I just want to get it up expended Andor encumbered about $745 million leaves us with a balance of 6.9 million or about 8 and a half% 8.4% um this month it was a little unique we had some onetime payments so we paid a million one for our pension our annual pension and our workers compensation payments we also had um a couple hundred thousand or so just to finish up our encumbrances for special education tuition and then finally we made a $70,000 encumbrance that is for the replacement of the Fitch I'm going to say water

040heater it's probably boiler but I'm wrong there so you know you put those together and that's about half of our expenses for this month um nothing else really out of the norm we're going to get into utilities and health insurance in a second so I can give you an update there just again as should correlate between this year and last year you know last year we had a little over $10 million at this point um but I'm just just to continually remind you um we've already encumbered the full bus contract for standard buses this year and we've uncovered um all of our salaries that are predictable salaries so that's really a big change compared to the practice that was last year it's safeguarding things predictability does anyone have any questions about the object code summary

041hearing none we'll go on to the health insurance report y if we can just pull up the dashboard real quick okay I'm just going to I think you have the hand out so I'll just keep going here while we're waiting for that um so so if you look up in the top right hand corner we actually had another good claim month for December you know was low 800s or so um but that's good for us in line with last year so that's really two months in a row now that we've we've come down off our pace of you know a million one to a million three a month so that's that's good news for us um nothing really new in terms of enrollment uh the only thing I want to I guess as we go

042forward now what I want to do is kind of give you a preview is what the next few months look like because as we get into the spring the spring are really our highest months when you get into March April May believe it or not those are our highest months so um I thought I'd just give you a little preview on the next couple every month so we could start to correlate between what's happened versus what we predicted so in our forecast for January we're predicting a million 75,000 in terms of claims so what we've done in the forecast has taken the last 6 months of actual and then used the six months of the previous year as being our most recent experience so we should get our claims um hopefully the end of this

043week if not early next week and that's our Benchmark that we'll start to look at one more thing just to give you an idea of how quickly that escalates when you get into February you know we're almost up to about a million three again in terms of of our expectation so those months really start to pick up on us but those are in our forecast so hopefully um you hopefully we'll have a Glide path now that we can start to measure ourselves if you Rec call the first three or four months I mean we really couldn't even have a forecast we we're in um sort of a hard throb in terms of highs and lows there so hopefully the finance committee on Tuesday I believe it is I'll have an update for you on claims

044so the energy dashboard is next um I don't really want to bore you too much with what's happened this month because because it's been I've said this for two or three months in a row now it's been right on track with the last year I mean within a percentage point for that matter but I I added an an additional exhibit this month I think Dean had asked for this or you know made a suggestion a month or two back to take a look at energy cost over some period of time in comparison to square footage so not a lot of answers here yet it's the first time we've looked at it but I took a look at the entire year of so it doesn't follow our fiscal year but it follows a calendar year and

045if you take a look at it um I'll just start at the top you know CB has the lowest utility cost on a square footage basis $218 wow and then CK actually has the highest if you think of the other end of the spectrum at $ 3.78 so what I'm trying to do now is just find some benchmarkers there some industry standards some school standards that we can kind of correlate ourselves to to figure out are we in the right zone or which grouping of the schools are in the right Zone and I just need to do some homework there but it's kind of interesting right because it's not um I honestly didn't expect to see Fitch as the next lowest not that I knew anything but you know it's the second lowest at two

046and a quarter or 226 so um Northeast and CK which are the two we've been talking about are are two highest so it kind of fits with some of the discussions we've had right so I'll leave it at that more homework there but I wanted to at least give you a preview and sort of a first draft see if we can get some eyes on it I have a question yes uh a while back it was a couple of us up here asked for a calculation or some sort of accounting for the amount of electricity uh used by Northeast Academy in regards to the uh AC and the heat having to run at the same time to address the uh moisture issues yep um did we ever get any sort of calculation on that as

047far as expenditures we did I I don't did you bring it by chance or no yeah I I have it I can just send it to you if you like please do send it to the board please yeah and I and I don't think it really at least for me it didn't really raise any additional questions so um I thought it was something was going to pop there but it didn't really show me that at least for the summer months that you were asking for well I thought we were looking for annual costs like as far as um something comparative as far as like the usage beforehand before the problem developed and then after the um ad hoc remedy was applied okay just get a sense of how much we're spending on ABS the electricity

048because as we try to advocate for a CIP to try to remedy the HVAC situation there it'll be good to have some comparative cost of saying well you know this is how much more of a percentage more were paying electricity doing this ad hoc remedy yeah now we I I was looking at the the the summer months when we have you know a lot of the AC and a little bit of the heat having run because of the humidity but we can we can look at it we'll look at like 2019 versus last year something like that that'd be good yeah thank you no problem uh Jen and then Matthew Dave just a quick question um or maybe it should be directed to Sam which schools fall under Gren utilities and which fall under eversource

049I think that would probably help us determine um why some schools May or may not be as high as we had originally suspected yeah Jen how about I send that to you because I'm going to yeah or we can um I know some but I'm going to guess at a few others so I I already that's the way we organize this so I can send that out to okay or we can go through it in um next week and Matthew uh thank you very much for the dashboards they are very helpful I'm very glad who instituted this I tried to take a look at how we're doing this year uh actual expenses to budget um because I've heard in the past and it's not unique to this District why can't you do the same thing

050for the same amount of money wonderful School let's have a level budget in dollars so we budgeted for this fiscal year 24 I'm looking electricity costs um I took the first six months I took half of the annual budgeted amount half of the annual budgeted amount is 5485 the actual expenses in the first six months for electricity for the district was $87,400 so on this particular item we're running 54.8% ahead of budget that's a reality over which we had no control and which we could not prod ICT at the time that the last budget was done I did the same thing for natural gas costs looked at half half the budgeted f for this year compared to the actual expense for this year we up 17.7% so I do appreciate the concern to maintain as

051low a budget increase as possible we're all working on that but this was just a very clear it's it's not a label it's a very clear clear dollars and cents impact of some of what we're facing and we're facing this on so many different levels thank you you thank you any other questions for the Director of Finance if not we will uh turn to the director of buildings and grounds Mr kpatrick so um I have a couple are wrapping up Sam is your mic on I think you just need to talk into it a little more oh is this battery thank you Joan some people like the fact that that mic didn't work yes so I have a a project that's gearing up and I have some projects that are finishing up and uh those

052are the items that I'll report on this evening the first item is the fit High School LED lighting project that's been going on for the last couple of months uh thermal jackets have been uh installed on the uh heating pipes Transformers the new Transformers have been installed and the lighting is done with the exception of some high uh bay areas in The Concourse at the high school they'll be returning to do that at a later date uh so that one's wrapping up uh also at fit High School uh The Vape detectors have been in installed uh we have 10 Vape detectors installed at the high school and we are awaiting it to actually activate those they're working with the uh the company that those came from to activate those and they should be up and

053running here very [Music] soon uh gron Middle School uh the field lights at gron Middle School they've been tested they're ready to go uh the uh we are just waiting for there are going to be three polls that go between the softball field in the artificial turf field uh to light the pathway uh at night and uh the FAA has insisted that we put a beacon on uh one of those poles a center pole so uh that's going to be a solar light that will be on their beacon on on the center pole and we're waiting for that to come in then they'll erect those poles and we'll be done with that ready to go uh should be ready for some uh spring Port uh Sports anyways providing the weather uh Co operates with us

054in the spring as well uh also at gron Middle School the scoreboards uh for those fields for the artificial field and for the softball field we are dealing with sourcewell and so uh we are now awaiting pricing on those scoreboards as soon as we have that we'll have uh more to report on the Solar projects at gron middle school and Mystic River School have been inspected they've been tested uh we had a a post uh installation uh inspection by the roofing company uh last week walk to all those roofs with them uh there is going to be a delay in uh starting those up uh because there is a potential for some uh extra incentives the the program has changed a little bit since we started it and they are now looking into those additional

055incentives so uh we want to make sure that we get those we don't want to start it up until we know that we're going to get those additional incentives so it may be a couple more weeks before we actually start those up um however um on March 19th uh Gren public schools in the town of Gren uh are going to receive an award from the uh connectic green bank so it's a 2023 uh connectic Green Bank award in map which is the municipal assistance program that they have uh for our outstanding adoption of solar on our schools roofs so that's on March 19th I'll report on that after that happens um and that will be up in the Hartford area also uh speaking of roof uh the Charles baram roof is in the hands of

056The Architects the Ed specs are complete they're sent on to the architect they're now The Architects are now scheduling meetings with both the town and and they will be scheduling meeting with the board of that as well uh to give this thing rolling uh if we get all of those meetings done in time we're hoping that we'll be able to get that roof started this summer and completed this summer um it not only includes the roof but it also uh includes the potential for solar panels on that roof as uh they have been now uh the state is now reimbursing for solar on on roof done at the same time so U the architect is working with uh our consultant on the solar portion of that project as well um and then um I did

057get a um an email uh about late if you don't mind go to late buses for just a second um we've been experienc some late buses uh and uh I I spoke with management down at sta however um I I think uh well I know that uh superintendent Austin and I are actually going to meet with the upper management of SDA this uh coming Thursday uh in the afternoon to uh express our concerns and get some uh more detailed answers as to why some of those uh tardy buses uh were arriving as such and that would be my report for tonight thank you any questions uh Ian and then Adrian um thank you for the update on all that glad to hear The Vape detectors are installed um what is the timeline for the it

058to get up to speed and get operational I'm not sure I know the technician who is working on that was out today so um I don't think it'll be long I think it'll be a matter of a couple of days to get those up and going and that's the only thing that's holding up the opening of the bathrooms like for all the bath I don't I don't um I'm not aware of um that being having anything to do with opening of bathrooms um maybe I could get some clarification on this superintendent on this we spoke at the policy committee meeting briefly about this I'll check with the principal um yeah I was under the impression that there's The Vape detectors that were the fact that we didn't have them we definitely need them in there

059and that will help the bathrooms are currently not accessible um maybe could we are you offering information like second and say that yeah that has been a very big voice of concern uh with our Fitch High School Community um I apologize umk I'm a Noob um excuse me um that has been a voice of concern as our from our um Community here at Fitch more so on an understanding ing side we understand that um these unhealthy choices that people are making are having a bigger effect on their Community than I think that they have uh an understanding of uh I think the people who are causing this issue don't realize that they're causing more issues for others than they are just for themselves um but that has been a very big point and I think

060that with the installation of this we're going to be looking forward to being able to use all uh six bathrooms in our new wing and all both of our bathrooms in our older wing and not just three okay so as of now there is not full bathroom access in no sir we have half of our bathrooms are operational on our new wing and I believe it's on a day-to-day occurrence of whether or not our cafeteria bathroom another hot spot for the uh illicit use of Vapes is uh open or not um and that's all I can say for that matter as an observer appreciate the information thank you um also it's curious to know uh where we stand on the AED machines as far as those being being installed um is is that on the

061list I don't have any answer for that at the moment so has it been discussed at all or is it on the radar anywhere it is on the radar we we're trying to figure out how to pay for that okay we know how many we've done a research to figure out how many we need was there a request put in for that in the budget I didn't see any requests for that we're trying to get them in here this get get them started here before this year is over so that's what we're working on okay is there any sort of grant funding that coulding remains yeah um the other question I have has more to do with the um attendance zone so I'm not sure if we're going to have an opportunity to talk about

062that tonight um for the uh well a while back we discussed a transplant map we we're supposed to see a map represen completed yet they're working on that okay it's going through the the process is there a timeline on like when that could be have to find out from staff what the timeline is we want to get it done though soon while kids are enrolling okay so in the spring I look forward to seeing that information I believe it's Adrien and then Jen all right um my my question is just um in regards to lighting at night when we're not using buildings or property um do we do we dim the lights or turn out lights to a minimum level for Safety and Security at nighttime is is that something that's reviewed um especially as

063new things are coming online our electricians are still working on um shutting those lights down I know if you go by the middle school they pretty bright and and the the other two new schools are pretty bright at night and they're still trying to figure out how to get that uh down to a lower level the custodians can't do it it's a it's a it's it's within the computer program that they have to do that so they're working on that presently all right and the and then um as far as exterior lighting um do we do we shut any parking lights down at night or entry I mean are they all necessary I it's partially spurred by there is they go down after they go down after our our staff is there custodians leave about

06410 10:30 at night in most of the school so they're on till about 11 o'clock uh and then they come back on in the early morning all right so they should be off uh for a few hours in at nighttime all right and Jen um I just had a question or like actually a statement um in regards to the sa um the STA and the late buses in the morning um I don't know if you're meeting with that when you meet with them um and I don't know how the contract is structured where um they should get a penalty fee and I don't know if that's built into the contract or not for not getting our students in on time that's disruptive to their learning um if some of those kids need breakfast in the

065morning that could impact that um it's disrupted to the parents who have to wait um to make sure that their children are coming into school so this is not just an issue of being late they need to think of the consequences and the impact to our families so as you're meeting with st really want you guys to push that we will thank you yeah I think we all agree that it's unacceptable and I express to the upper management uh even before they come to this meeting on Thursday that uh the ultimate uh penalty will be uh not uh continuing with the contract when when this one is up thank you J one more yes all right just a another note I I remembered um the gym doors the doors of the school by the gym

066area um during one of the after shortly after one of the driving rain storms that we had um there was a a fencing match and uh going through those doors I noticed a lot of water had intruded into the foyer and then also was was transmitting into the the actual um School area in between the double doors are you talking about the foyer by the between the two gyms or at the bottom of the ramp at the back of the school I would say between the two gyms the one um that you had entered to go in and then you turn left there's one gym there there's you turn right and there's a gym on your left and a gym on your right yeah I I'll have my door guy take a look at that

067but um I did take some pictures of it it looks like the skirts at the bottom the rubbers had degraded to a point where they're no longer there seal may may have to be done again I know we have a problem with the doors at the uh at the bottom of the ramp by the culinary arts area that that raino was drives in from that from that side of the building often um so I know that aware of a problem there that they're going to fix but I'll have them check that on the foyer as well all appreciate it y all right if there are no other questions thank you Sam uh next we have committee reports uh Mr shelman would you like to report on policy thank you policy committee met earlier this month

068we will be having two second readings this evening and we have a couple of first readings that are teed up but uh I'm not sure if we'll get to them tonight because we have a few other things on our plate um just wanted to give you an update on on policy um Susan has done some research and found that there are almost two score worth of policies that have not been reviewed since their initial passage a few dating back to the seven late 70s uh we are going to try to get to all however many they are this year that's not a promise that's an aspiration but we're going to work at it very seriously we get policies uh sent to us because of changes in state and federal regulation because something comes to Susan's

069attention that she brings to the committee that either needs an amendment or a new policy in addition some of the community uh committee members have requested or are requesting some review of existing policies and then there's also the interest from some committee members of having new brand new policies so the the process we're going to go through on these is when member X proposes something we will have a initial conversation a conceptual conversation as a policy committee if we want to go forward with it we will then bring it to the committee of the whole to see if there is some resonance because of the committee of the whole is not at all interested why do all the work assuming the committee of the whole thinks that it's worth pursuing not guaranteeing it but pursuing

070the committee will then uh draft a uh draft policy for the boards for consideration that's it and we have a lot of work and looking forward to it thank you thank you um curriculum has not we're going to be meeting in March and we're going to be looking at the signs of reading um finance and Facilities Jen um pinch hitting for Dean who is the chair but our committee met on February 6 um the director of building and ground Sam who just spoke um met and he um mentioned to the committee that Fen O'Neal an environmental engineering firm was hired to um do perform a comprehensive study of um Northeast Academy and Katherine Kinowski regarding excessive humidity um at those schools they um that consulting firm provided a long-term and a short-term solution um so

071that's been discussed at some time as well he also mentioned that there was property damage to the Board of Education snowplow truck in approxim cost of about 30,000 um not sure if we um we'll probably get an update next week also mentioned um which he had just mentioned like a couple minutes ago about the Solar projects at gron middle school and Mystic River are now ready for this um you know basically to flip the switch um also um previously discussed the roof and the solar panels potentially at Charles bom um let's see we have also from the finance director who spoke um at our meeting um asked for more detailed invoice from sta um what they're doing right now is they're not um providing um hours um in their billing cycle so that's something that

072we're looking into and following um as for our next meeting it's March 5th so anyone's welcome to attend thank you uh negotiations is not meeting we are not currently in negotiations with any of the bargaining units um Beverly would you like to um uh address the uh latest meeting of learn thank you Jay um I intended the learn meeting on Thursday February the 8th every year every year learn does a full AIT and the audit report was reviewed with the board the financial statement the federal single audit and the state single audit were excellent um so learn had a clean audit report um if we need help with it cyber security learn has somebody on their staff that has a masters in cyber security um Lottery season for magnet schools are from January the 1st

073to March 30th the Marine Science High School have 400 applicants from around the region they take freshments and SE and sophomores they they do not take um Juniors and seniors and one concern with the Marine Magnet High School is that um it's not diverse and diversity is one of the main points in the magnet school so they're working on trying to get that Magnet School uh more diverse uh oh and they also we also talked about the governor's budget I don't know if you know this Susan and Dave they said in the governor's budget there's no offset to towns and it's going to be a 3% increase and usually the offset is 42% so that means if burn bills a school district $3,300 um they would only build the school district 42% of that in

074the governor's budget he did away with that so we have to see how that all shakes out right um also um same thing we're doing tonight with the increas in education diversity plans we went over that and how to be how to increase the pipeline for people of color for educators of color and um they had some ideas on what to do with that and and as far as the teacher resident program we have 48 graduates last year and that is pretty good and that is it for learn thank you very much thank you Beverly uh next the town and city council RTM uh Board of Ed uh leaon has not met um the agsa Gea um liaison met on February 22nd um um the uh principals and teachers discussed uh the issues we' previously

075discussed here tonight about some buses arriving late and um uh the superintendent uh will be looking into that and explore the remedies uh there was also discussion of researching scheduling changes at the secondary level uh block scheduling versus 44 minute uh classes um some of these things are are subject to space constraints um gron scholarship met on February the 8th um they brought up what uh David mentioned is the the challenges with FAFSA um in in their application process um and they also uh extended the deadline on applications um to uh February 16th um and they chose the readers for among their members uh for the application essays um athletic fields met uh unfortunately was at the same time as one of our special meetings on uh February 21st however I could not find any

076minutes or video online for it I was told that they did not achieve a quorum um anything from trails no there was no meeting for Trails no meeting from Trails okay um do you have a report from the library um at the last meeting I mentioned uh the sub the victory garden potential victory garden project between Ernie and the gron public library uh the librarian Ernie and I met together at uh Mary Morrison uh they're very excited did have you announced the new newest gr attorne got with the hydroponic no I haven't I I think I might put it in board notes but we'll have to bring it to the RTM because it was a really special Grant am I have to mention it yet yeah okay it came through so uh my understanding is

077last summer when uh norch had some challenges in feeding their children uh Ernie stepped up and helped Feed the Children of Norwich as well as gron uh and the Commissioner of Agriculture came down to thank him and Ernie trotted out his dog and pony show and the uh commissioner said you guys might be worthy and so uh Ernie gave his idea about having a Hydroponics trailer uh that would be designed to produce 4,000 heads of lettuce every two weeks um and it's gotten funded though we do need the permission to accept the money so yes we do we do need we have to go through the process that's right so I'm very excited about that for us the victory garden I'm not going to take up a lot of time tonight but suffice to say

078that uh Jen the librarian at Jen meley I'm sorry I should have given her full name is already agreed to start some nutrition education programming using the kitchen at the library using grandf funded texts that Ernie got from Walmart so we're moving ahead on that and we hope to have a lot more in the next month or two thank you um the permanent School building committee has not met uh that is a town body but we do send a representative when they do meet and the state Council on educational opportunities for military children meets twice a year and this was not um one of the months that they met April will be next okay April will be next and we will have uh I believe three uh members um attending that in April U Mr

079chair uh y a couple things one the athletic fields task force uh they did have a video I did watch a video after that meeting oh okay I couldn't find it on gmtv yeah I'll I'll see if I can find the link for it um and they were discussing some possible proposals for um some work to be done on uh various fields and uh design bids and things like that it was nothing binding there was no vote taken um my understanding is that that's why they chose to proceed with like sort of informational discussion um but I will try to find that that video because it was the day after the meeting okay that I saw it up on gmtv I don't know if it was taken down or not yeah I I couldn't find

080it today I had intended to watch it and get more information about it but um have we I haven't made contact with them yet to let them know that I'm interested in until that meeting popped up which I hadn't even heard about I didn't know that they were meeting so um I intend to name a representative to it for the next meeting and maybe we can achieve a quorum yeah I I would like to be part of that I would hope um also Communications did we did you it did not meet okay y thank you me meeting in March ad yeah um I would just like to ask about the discussions in the schedule is that were you talking about the middle school schedule uh middle school and high school yeah all right um in

081the you said block scheduling versus a 44 minute was at Middle School predominantly and Could you um like elaborate on that that a little bit all they said is that they were discussing it the principals and teachers amongst themselves there was nothing that was none of the details were shared at that liaison meeting but it's something that they're thinking about internally so all right I'd be very interested to hear if there's you know concerns there right um all right the next item is the consent agenda all matters listed under the consent agenda are considered be routine and will be enacted by one motion points of clarification are allowed this will include approval of the regular meeting minutes of January 22nd and the special meeting minutes of January 29th February 1st February 5th February 7th February

08212th February 15th and February 21st also um the item of acceptance of gifts Tanger Outlets at Foxwoods is donated through its Tanger kids Grant program $1,876 to themes River Magnet School to be used to fund decodable books for the science of reading Tanger Outlets at Foxwoods has also donated through its Tanger kids grants program $11,000 to themes River Magnet School to be used to fund no book too big or too small uh given that I will entertain a motion to accept the consent agenda moved by Andrea is there a second second all those in favor of the consent agenda please indicate by saying I I I anyone opposed extensions that passes I would like to thank uh Tanger Outlets at Foxwoods for its donations of 11876 and $1,000 to themes River Magnet School moving now

083to send the letter than yes we will um moving now to Old business um Ian would you like to read uh the first item F the motion for the first item uh I move to approve the policy P 3250 for material fees as a second reading do I hear a second second and is there any discussion I know we did discuss this uh item it's been through the policy committee it was discussed at the uh last Board of Ed meeting uh does anyone have any other discussion yes um as a member of the policy committee um one of the things that was discussed about this was the with the ramifications of what our material fees and to make sure that um you know all instructional material anything that's required for a class such as RC

084uniforms and band uniforms would be included in material fees so there would be some adjustment to the fees um that are asked of uh marching band members um and the superintendent had mentioned that she was going to reach out to the band director um to get some clarification on how much of the $100 fee was a portion towards uniform maintenance um and access vers um you know food for summer camp and things like that she did get back to me and some was for food for band camp so I'm going to work with the administrative team just to make sure that um we've looked at those costs and the ones that are for instructional reasons will take care of but if there's other things that are needed to be needed to go through the booster

085club or whatever for things like band camp we'll um you know we'll make sure that they um are you know we figured out what's what was there any discussion of actual figures yet she she sent me an email um you know telling me what it was for okay so the I do have that and then I've just got to talk to Principal Brown okay and we'll look at other things too other are is that that might have happened all right yeah and that that also carries through for the RTC uniforms yes we've been taking care of that cost y very thank you any other discussion hearing none all those in favor of the motion on the floor to approve policy P 3250 material fees as a second Reading Please indicate by saying I I I

086I any opposed abstentions that motion carries uh Matthew would you like to read the motion associated with the second item I move we approve policy P 5141 do5 Suicide Prevention intervention as a second breef do I hear a second second Thomas okay and is there any discussion again this was discussed um at the last meeting is there any yes Mr chair there was some I'm speaking for myself as a policy committee person but not as the chair of policy committee this is representing my own personal views there was some respectful disagreement among policy committee members concerning the use of plural pronouns associated with singular nouns examples in the document include their or themselves instead of his her the intent of such use as raised by the proponents is that not all students identify as binary

087that respect for diversity requires the use of alternative language forms I agree that we need to respect diversity I disagree that doing so requires eviscerating language structures that bring consistency to written and oral Communications particularly when employed by an educational institution such as ours we respect diversity and individual right by using pronouns that reflect an individual self-identification at the same time the structure of language at least the English language does not have a non-gendered third person singular pronoun English requires a chord between singular and plural both between nouns and verbs and with their subordinate adjectives and pronouns Trends come and go some Trends are sustained others are not sustained just look at the way reading has been taught and grotten over the past 50 years and how it is Shifting once again as we speak

088fortunately English has enough flexibility to do this instead of himself herself one can use oneself instead of the school principal or his her designate design we can use the school principal parenthesis or designate as long as we respect a student's right to be addressed according to one's self identity we have no right to revise the language our mission must continue to be teaching and learning within the constructs of constr correct usage or we fail our mission the English language is strong enough to do both I request inclusion of this statement in the minutes of tonight's meeting and Joan I have an electronic copy available for you she'll appreciate that no doubt um Mr chair if I may uh I'll recognize Andrea and then Ian sure I I think the um concentration on that particular um

089subject came from me because I'm a an advocate of having consistency in the policy in anything that comes out of our district and it really didn't originate uh with respect for identification it was it came from my English grammar concern and that is instead of having he she slash if you start the sentence with if a student does whatever then you're going to wind up with he she's slash if you say if students do whatever then you can say they or there and it will be consistent with the English language and I understand also that we don't say the and thou and we don't um use much of the of the the language is is constantly changing and constantly moving and we have to accept that but it is our policy manual and it should

090reflect grammar that is acceptable at this time so that was my that's where it came from from wanting to just make be consistent with plurals that's it there was no um argument that attached to it except for proper grammar just just so you know Ian um I would respectfully disagree with my colleagues on um the variance that's being attached to the use of this the singular use of the word they um you know for one it's it's been accepted by APA and MLA and and various other formal paper uh formats uh second you know the part of the inspiration in doing that was not just to address the uh gender binary con concerns but it was also a matter of just um a a cleaner read um and I would refer to EB uh White

091drunken White's elements of style um where uh the central Mantra is avoid needless words and um you know it is Common Place it has been common place in English language far beyond um the uh awareness of a non-binary approach to gender um and I would submit for the simple uh example that we have often used the word they or their um in the singular context um for in in basically just saying you know if you walk into a room and you see a jacket on a chair you say oh somebody left their jacket here you don't know whose jacket it is but you can be pretty sure that it belongs to just one person so that's an example of the singular use of the word they and their so it is correct it's been grammatically

092correct for quite some time um it's very subtle and so it slips under the radar a lot but you know it's not just a matter of addressing the non-binary gender thing but it is also just a cleaner way to approach the language you know it it it it flows it avoids needless words to construct various other ways of approaching that situation so I I would refer to Strunk and white as much as anything else to defend that I would say I'm sure my colleague and I agree that agreeable people can disagree agreeably we'll let the vote and whatever happens we'll all live with it I think we can live with our language as it is where there is a need for an unavoidable need to do this fine this is not an unavoidable need the

093English language is flexible enough to cover this policy and our other policies okay is there any other discussion hearing none we are going to vote to approve policy P 51 41.5 I apologize I should have made a motion to amend to to amend this to delete uh their and themselves uh and include on self or what if I have the other word that's my soul or to stick with with uh traditional English language usage so you are looking to amend is is there a second second um of uh parliamentary procedure MH uh in order to make this amendment we would have this is a second read on this document yes and uh we had the same conversation at the first read and it passed with as written with the singular use of the word they

094um so in order to properly consider this amendment I believe we would have to actually articulate where it would be sliced and diced and what actual were if we're going to pass a second read it has to be as is going into the policy manual Mr chair when we came to the vote in the policy committee I indicated that I would not try to be obstructionist and I would support this coming to the to the full board but all the members of the committee were very well aware of my OB objection that I was going to bring you here if uh if the Parliamentary procedure is correct and I am incorrect I will withdraw my motion and ask to send this back to the policy committee to give me a chance to follow the correct

095procedure I just don't want to be buffaloed on this I was very clear all right so you are um if if uh if Ian's parliamentary observation is accurate I I'll accept his face value unless somebody else can CL Joan Jo can verify it that's fine otherwise I'll accept what Ian says as face value I ask that we return this to the committee I'm sorry if you're waiting for me to say something I can barely understand you well that may be because I kept the microphone away from my face my apologies Joan Joan um Ian correct me if I'm misstating anything you're saying okay uh Ian has suggested that in order to make a change in the second reading I would need to have brought up the document with the allions and additions in written form

096beforehand have I understood you correctly that's my understanding or you can do it you know in real time now but we would need something I believe this is my understanding of of the procedure when it comes to policy and procedure uh is that it has to be clearly written you know because you could we could be voting on removing one sentence and so we'd have to draw that line through that sentence but in this case you're you're making a motion to rephrase and replace a series of words that would also require I can do that now but I can only give it to you orally I don't have the text in front of me though I can have it this evening where it says himself or herself we would include on self where it says

097uh what was the other one we had in here if if this is not of urgence tonight we have other other fish to fry tonight can we just send this back to committee and we just not waste any more time tonight if it's if you consider it urgent to fill it tonight I'll do it now but I have no way so you would like to withdraw your motion I'd like to refer I would withdraw my motion and make another motion that we refer this back to committee okay unless there's any objection um is there a second to sending this back to committee second all in favor of sending this uh policy back to committee please indicate by saying I I one two three okay J second who second did Rob thank you you're welcome I'm

098opposed and uh I'm opposed as well okay so two opposed and any extensions vot Jay I'm opposed okay and who opposed app please so that was Ian Adrien thank you and uh Beverly are opposed thank you all right so that motion passes to send it back to committee the next uh item [Music] um on new business um that I know we had discussed uh postponing these at at a previous meeting does anyone wish to make a motion on postponement or um actually I've I've reconsidered that okay I'm not prepared to do that I think we should carry on okay all right so um let's see Jen would you like to read the motion under new new business for item number one discussion and possible action regarding bylaw 9324 meeting conduct and parliamentary procedures as first

099reading attachment 14 okay so the motion is to approved bylaw 9324 meeting conduct and parliamentary procedure is a first reading do I have a second second Thomas all right and do we have any discussion on this I thought we were why did defer this no one made a motion to do that Mr chair yes uh if this is appropriate I would like to make a motion that this item be uh tabled until our next regular meeting and I'll make the same motion later on if there's a second I'll make the same motion on the next two items the purpose of this motion being simply that we have so much on our plate and there's nothing here of such urgence that uh we need to divert our conversation from the budget all right is there uh

100a second to defer second okay so that is to um defer it to our next regular meeting to a date certain to a date certain our next regular meeting okay um I'm sorry jay who second that Andrea that was Andrea thank you all right so um all in favor of the motion to defer this to the next regular meeting we going to have discussion I'm sorry yep um I'm not in favor of of postponing this one and and we are to be clear the language are we postponing or tabling they have two different functions which would you prefer uh I believe uh postpone to a Time definite would be the better way to phrase it may I amend my motion that it's postponed to a Time definite being our next regularly scheduled board meeting is

101that satisfactory to you yes thank you um and to continue my comments um not in favor of postponing uh this one is pretty straightforward it's just a matter of uh tuning up the language uh in the middle section of policy uh of of P 9324 has to do with uh meeting conduct parliamentary procedures it has to do with uh recording broadcasting or photographing meetings and basically uh I was the one who made this refer to the policy committee and it was a matter of just getting the policy to more closely match the uh language that's in the state law regard regarding access to public meetings and access to recording public meetings uh the previous policy I felt uh was a little exclusive um in the sense that it limited people uh limited recording and broadcasting

102only to people who identified as media um which is actually contrary to state law state law says that you're not required to identify yourself to attend a public meeting and also um that anyone can record public meetings and broadcast public meetings by whatever means they choose as long as they're not disrupting the meeting so um you can see in this package you can see the red ink everything I just lined out everything of the old policy and just dropped in a modified version of what I found in the state law um uh C GS section 1- 226 and 225 um which if you refer to the policy committee meeting uh minutes uh you'll see my full comments in there a letter that I sent to the committee and to the whole board explaining my rationale

103um again I think this is pretty straightforward it's really not that controversial um so it's something we can kind of move forward with in in fairly quick order I believe any other discussion so the motion on the floor is post yes I had my hand up but I guess you don't see it y go ahead that's okay um I'm in agreement with Ian I think the policy is pretty straightforward and um I think we should talk about it and move it forward and let it come back for a second reading thank you be I agree with that um I think that we're actually spending more time discussing the postponement than voting on the policy so so I'll withdraw my motion and we can go on to the vote on the policy okay and do you

104agree to the I just wanted to move this along fair enough all right so the motion on the floor is to approve by law 9324 meeting conduct in parliamentary procedure is a first reading is there any discussion about that motion there was unanimous support for it by all the committee members okay so that was reported out with unanimous support all right so if there is no further discussion all those in favor to approve bylaw 9324 meeting conduct and parliamentary procedures as a first Reading Please indicate by saying I I I any oppos extensions the eyes have it uh um next Rob would you be willing to read the motion for item number two motion to approve policy p324 tuition fees as a first reading do I have a second a second Thoms okay and any

105discussion on this motion um again this was just a pretty straightforward uh tuning up from my understanding this was not my referral I think this came from from the superintendent list of uh revisions um yeah it was last adopted in 1979 so um this is just a necessary update and again it's it's pretty proor compared to like what's out there and what's you know the quote unquote industry standard okay any other discussion every 44 years we need to look at them all right so um hearing no other discussion all of those in favor to approve policy P 3240 tuition fees as a first Reading Please indicate by saying I I I any opposed abstentions that passes and let's see Ian would you be willing to read the motion attached to item number three um I

106move to approve policy P 5112 ages of attendance as a the first reading do I hear a second second can I just add something it's come to my attention that in legislation there's a little push back about the age so parents I think are really struggling with this so I think there's something up in legislation about maybe postponing this for a year we can go ahead and go with this but we might have to come back to it should that happen so with a lot of legislation we're hearing some things are delayed or you know they're second guessing some of these things that theyve put into place um so I just wanted to let you know that's the update that I've heard okay um with that caveat one um sorry one question so the current

107legislation though as it stands requires this at this point but then there's additional legislation happening to give it a wait time like another year so it's gonna it's up to the governor I think so it's being discussed but there's not really a consensus on one side or the other if haven't heard that anything has all right been affirmative so I'm just saying that we're paying attention to it because it really matters we need to know because they're coming those kindergarteners soon things are in flux at the state level I'm shocked um all right so um um is there any other discussion yeah so I would say you know um in my opinion like I think I would prefer to move forward with passing the first reading and then just monitor the situation and if there's

108any need for revision at some point um you know we can uh always bring it back up y put it to the policy committee and and do a quick like couple of sentence adjustment for whatever to accommodate whatever it is because if it's a matter of time of uh implementation that could probably be accomplished with just adding sentence or changing a few key words at some point and it seems to me um again this is because this is the first reading it doesn't become final tonight we may actually hear before you bring it up again and it also has the age 22 for special education completing the year which is already legislated so it does have that other piece to it too okay all right so unless there's any other discussion all in favor uh

109of the motion to approve policy 5112 ages of attendance as a first Reading Please indicate by saying I I I any opposed abstentions so that passes Adrien uh would you be uh willing to read the motion uh for item four yeah I would like to make a motion in regarding to the authorization of gron public school schools to file the increase educator diversity plan with the Connecticut State Department of Education attachment 17 and um do do I hear a second second Thomas all right so I have Lori leine here who can explain this and it was something Beverly brought up to our attention that this is something that's required by the state and just to record what we're doing on our diversity plan so do you want to speak to that Lori evening certainly feeled

110any questions that you may have I provided the document for you to look over um I want to say about a year ago the state passed new legislative requirements requiring that every Board of Education in the State uh file an increasing educator diversity plan um that came in that went into effect July 1st 2024 um and we have to file the plan during the 2324 school year um they provided a uh very prescriptive format in which to develop the plan um how to approach the development of the plan um we've been doing this work in District for almost 10 years now but this plan is representative of our most current body of work in this area so if anybody work with the whole diversity equity and inclusion team to construct this yeah so at this

111point um we just need the board's authorization to file the plan with the state it will continue to be a Evolution um but this is the document that we'll be filing at this time uh question yes if um over time after we implement this uh we notice there's some refinement needed what is the process of refining this plan we can refine it internally any time that we would like um the state has not indicated a requirement to refile with them they've only indicated the initial filing at this point in time so they have no um future requirements to file revisions as of right now but we can certainly refine the document internally and would and we'll continue to do so as we have the last you know 9 to 10 years would we be able

112to get some clarification from the state that if we do revise it in the future that whether or not we should sure sure they may not addressed that issue they may not be thinking that far ahead yeah yeah we can absolutely inquire this might be a topic too that we can bring to a c in the future so you can learn more about it because there is some really good work happening in the district around this I enthusiastically support adoption of this this evening I spent a couple of hours reading it over and I have some clarifying questions which I'm not going to get into tonight we need to do the budget but I will bring this over to you and I think if you could respond to them when you come to the C

113that'll be fine okay that's great thank you Matthew and I'll send a do we have any other discussion about the increasing educator diversity plan this will be filed yes Rob being a part of a certain educational institution in Harvard I've seen how the other side of this looks um both sides know there's good intentions however seeing the Fallout and how it's affected community members around me um I will be voting to abstain because I just don't want to put another Community through that either way whichever side of the coin you're on are there any other yes CH I totally support what you're doing um and um there's just one or two items that I I do want to review um I don't have prepared notes like Matthew but um I can send them to you

114sure absolutely thank you I'll be happy to share them with the committee great thank you Jay yes one more thing um actually now I'm reflecting on this a little bit more I'm recalling a uh I attended I attended the um Black History Month celebration in Mystic and afterwards there was a uh uh an event a panel discussion panel hosted by More Than Words the group that uh former superintendent Mike grineer started or was involved with I'm not clear on the history of how it came to be but um long story short uh one of the resounding comments that came for that that panel of uh is is um minority um students was that they they feel the need uh to see more minority teachers in uh in particular in teaching like African-American studies and classes

115like that um but also just across the board in general so um you know I think that group um again there and that was one of many um impressive comments that I I I I took in from that event I was very thankful for the opportunity so um I am going to vote in favor of this and I definitely will do more of a deeper dive on it and I would like to um open up a line of dialogue uh in regards to this in ways that we can very assertively um you know move in this direction and uh and also like you know how we can also maybe work with that group More Than Words In other Arenas such as the curriculum committee um in ways to better diversify the whole approach to education

116in this District thank you never um Lorie is there a dollar amount attached to this um plan no there is not okay because I see in the plan you say offer scholarships and um so how are you going to offer scholarships anything that's written into the current plan is included in the current budget proposal okay all right and I would just like to thank the um uh Dei committee uh and the Dei recruitment hiring and retention committee I see uh Miss K hajes here tonight I know that Jamal Davis has been involved and um we've been talking for a long time as a a board about how important it is that we move our uh faculty um in a direction of diversity that matches the diversity of our students and um uh this is something

117that the district has committed to long before the state required this plan to be filed um and there's been a commitment uh toward that uh but I do wholeheartedly uh agree that this be filed and I'm sure it will be a living document as we continue to find ways to increase uh diversity um in the district that's right are there any other questions or comments just one quick question devote going to devote an entire C to this I understanding that we can certainly bring it to C we can bring it to a c yeah yes now for one would definitely appreciate a full presentation with a Q&A type I think that's great idea it's normally on the no I think November agenda before yeah we can move it up if if that's the will of

118the board yeah just a quick followup uh to to follow Bev's question there um the answer was that whatever is in here for monetary obligations is already in the budget where what what is it where is it in the budget and how much is the amount that we're allocating for scholarship the scholarships were $500 per student and I think they had a cap of either two or three yeah at the high school right and that's that's still in the budget yep okay thank you okay so if there are no further comments um the motion on the floor is to approve the authorization of Gren public schools to file the increasing educator diversity plan with the state of Connecticut Department of Education all those in favor please indicate by saying I I I any opposed any

119abstentions one exstension and so that motion passes thank you very much thank you for everyone that was involved with uh writing this plan and will be involved with uh carrying it out all right the next item uh Beverly would you like to read the motion for item number five okay I make a motion to approve the FY 25 budget in the amount of 87 M 95848 which is a 7.91 per increase over the fy4 budget so move seconded by Andrea and is there any discussion um yes um sorry are you going first no you can go okay so um I'm sure as is evident to anyone that's been tracking the workshops that I've not been happy or satisfied in in a lot of areas as far as is how this budget process has gone this

120year um having come from the RTM I do have a good bit of experience with budgets and um I have to say that you know historically in my time on the RTM myself and and a few other members are often commiserated on the uh the slim volume we were presented you know the Board of Ed budget is typically about this this thick sometimes it's even thinner um the town budget is this thick with a fully articulated binder of uh chapters and sections and Department codes for clarity's sake this represents 35% on average of the town's spending this represents 65% so I finally got an up close and personal view of the budget process here on the board of ed and I am find it um lacking in Clarity um and detail and just a clear

121procedure on how to review budget items and then vote on numbers as we go through the budget um so I am going to vote in opposition to this budg budget um but and I have a prepared statement that I will file and will become part of the minutes um but so I'll just kind of skim through it real quick um first and foremost it should be known that I'm a certified teacher for uh GED and credit deploma programs as well as English for grades 7 through 12 and middle school math I also hold a master's degree in special education and I'm a parent of students who attended Gren public schools and I am a staunch advocate for the public school systems as a means of building a firm foundation of well- educated well-rounded young adults

122I'm voting in opposition to this budget to highlight the procedural and philosophical problems that have produced the numbers in the package that is on the floor tonight I'm voting in opposition to this budget to highlight the fact that as discussed in our deliberations during the preceding Workshop session questions and possibly the meeting tonight um the numbers in this proposed package have not actually been fully approved by the board but rather they are being put forward as a placeholder to satisfy the requirements of the Town Charter that the Board of Education submit something to the town manager by February 28th of Any Given year I am voting in opposition to this budget to highlight the fact that as noted by many board members in different ways during the preceding Workshop sessions the work is not yet

123done the vote tonight is intended to satisfy the needs of the charter while also buying the board more time to continue to work the numbers to find further information to make further adjustments and develop a budget that can be fully approved by the board to be more specific there are aspects to this year B this year's budget process that I find to be highly problematic and therefore justifies my vote in opposition as a symbolic protest to the following policy and procedural failures uh we had procedural difficulties um in the review process there's no clearly stated calendar for presentation deliberation or decisions to be made uh the budget page The Bu budget package presented in January was incomplete from the start and ever since there has been insufficient information provided and an apparent resistance to providing

124details to answer uh a number of board members inquiries resting at least one or more members possibly filing foi requests to get the information uh the superintendent's initial proposed budget and subsequent proposed adjustments present a disproportionate approach to Cuts being made with staff students and the most vulnerable bearing the biggest impacts versus the minimal to no impacts on administrative cost and Professional Services some of the superintendent's proposed Cuts would have resulted in having students pay for summer school and cancelling adult education GED and ESL classes at gr facilities thankfully the board voted to resend those cuts as well as adding funds for financial software upgrades and funding for future State mandated required literacy curriculum based on the science of reading which was not initially included in the superintendent's budget uh despite repeated requests there has

125been no documented information on Consultants um despite repeated repeated requests there has no clear answer to the number of board members asking what students and staff supports will be displaced by the superintendent's proposed usage of grant funding to patch together coverage for other budget shortfalls uh there are missing and late audit items that create an uncertainty in these current numbers as a starting point for any adjustments as well as further uncertainty in what obligations still need to be settled these continued delays May yet still result in unnecessary and unaffordable penalty fees it is highly problematic that the annual audit was not delivered on time despite the required information being relatively the same year after year it is problematic that despite having multiple assistant in the financial department and the same superintendent and assistant superintendent the

126administration failed to fulfill the required duties of the financial office for the short duration of time that existed between the departure of the previous Financial director and the arrival of the current one additionally uh the breakdown in communication and fulfillment of anual obligations is more troubling um when considering uh that the overall number of years of uh experience that existed with the previous board and the superintendent um why was there not a better plan in place for the uh change in financial directors I am troubled by the Revelation that the overdue annual audit items are being reconciled in great part by by using the remaining uh Department of Defense Grant funds are these transfers coming at the cost of funding for other areas that would be related to direct student or staff support had the

127reconciliation process not been late or in danger of imminent fee laid in violations um would the money have come from this grant or would have come from other areas it is also problematic that there's been a lack of meaningful input from the community prior to or in the midst of these board Workshop sessions typically there has always been a public hearing combined with a joint budget presentation meeting of the RTM education committee Town Council and Board of Education this year that did not happen due to what was reported as a failure to properly post a notice this should be considered inexcusable for a hearing that happens on an annual basis um there's also been some contention and a lack of clarity on the authority of the Board of Education the chair and the the board's

128attorney should take should be able to provide clear guidance on what exactly is allowable under the law and make sure that deliberations are properly framed in a productive area of discussion often over the pre preceding workshops it seems the board has spent more time debating whether it can do something rather than discussing what the body has the will to do this is not productive and must be corrected before we can continue to refine the numbers what the board of education is able to do legally should be a settled matter of combined considerations of state law contracted def definitions of roles responsibilities job descriptions articulated duties and standing board ofed policy and procedure these parameters should be a matter of defined policy and procedure publicly disclosed and understood by all Board of Ed members and staff

129um and also just it's been problematic as far as like the uh sudden um well the the seemingly lack of foresight regarding the uh ARP Esser grant funding ending um anticipated which should have been clearly anticipated increases in health care costs leading to that first big surprise budget that was revealed on the 12th um and then uh the oped obligations and also the contracted increases in SDA bus contract were all um either known factors or could have been anticipated better in the initial budget uh outlay um so for those reasons I will be voting to oppose as a means of registering my protest uh to the process and hoping that we will uh continue the work after tonight's vote thank you Jen and then Andrea um I just wanted to State my concern like um

130if you've been watching the workshops that um are besser um as a commitment that we made to the community um although I was not part of the board at that time but to Town Council or TM and more importantly the taxpayers that AR Esser um is removed from the fiscal year 25 budget so Susan making that change I totally appreciate that you're doing that because that would have been a great failure on this board not committing to that and fulfilling like what we promised um in that light I just want to confirm that the 2.2 million associated with arbesser is removed is that a fair statement yes okay good I just want to confirm that um although this is not the most ideal budget number that or percentage that we have going forward to the

131town I know that your team has some non Staffing related items that we've been discussing in the workshops um that I would like to re-evaluate but for um us going down to zero as a no vote tonight which would be detrimental to the district I am going to support this with the knowledge that by the time we present this to the Town Council that there's going to be further reductions I don't know how much that's going to be that is hopefully something that we can continue to work on Andrea okay I want to say that in my view the representation of the superintendent and her staff is most in inaccurate she and her staff indeed have work diligently to prepare this budget in a way that we all understand it in in a way that

132is most responsible not not only did she accomplish that but in the end she has accomplished a reduction in every area that could be so worked upon so I'm hoping that we will continue to support the superintendent she has the children at heart I can tell that from every decision she put forward so I I just want to say that um I'm hoping that we can move forward in a way that does not this is a harsh word but it's true in my view and that is in a way that does not resemble a witch on that's all I have to say are there any other comments or discussion Rob and then Adrian um I would just like to first and foremost thank the superintendent the Director of Finance and director of building and grounds

133you have all been integral um the vice superintendent as well you have all been integral in this this process we can see all the effort that you've put in and I appreciate and respect every single one of you for doing all of that work so thank you Adrian yeah um I came into this meeting um supporting the idea that um we were going going to pass the budget that we had in our hands Friday night and now I have a budget in front of me that's reducing that we got by email a couple of hours ago that's reducing 34 positions 34 um primarily lower paid positions um but another teacher um in in getting this right now I mean it is it's hard to make a decision when you can't think about it over time

134or sleep on it I mean I can make a comment here that a like we're reducing a teacher the number is Max teacher salary clearly if it it's a retiring teacher I'm assuming clearly that's not a $100,000 credit because when we hire teachers they starting teacher salaries or there about I I I have to assume that most of the time when we hire teachers they start at a lower than the max salary so I don't see how that number is accurate and that happened at six and other six and a half other teacher positions so I I I just have a fundamental problem with not being able to think about things and question things in a reasonable amount of time I mean the there I mean I can I can go on and on I

135mean we have a bunch we're losing 10 AIDS and quite honestly I don't know exactly what they do but I'm assuming that they spend their entire day interacting with kids they are relatively inexpensive as it compared to other salaries I would like to have some discussion on that and I I agree that we will have discussion but we just we just took a lot of money and we're committing to make a lot a huge cut without even thinking about it without having time to think about that number I agree that a number near 8% may be realistic Maybe may be a little bit higher I honestly don't know I don't feel like we've had enough discussion on that to come to that number but I feel like having one number to think about my decision

136over the weekend and then coming in on Monday afternoon and getting a number that is completely different not just a number 34 positions 34 people that work for our district that that support our kids and what we're trying to do in this community and I I honestly I told you that I like last week I I shouldn't say I told you that I personally felt like I could support the budget and I feel differently now because I just feel that the rug was pulled out from under us any other comments uh yeah um so over the weekend I also did some more research and uh well I got a news blast um on my phone that that announced that uh a Branford school district had passed their budget and um I read the article and

137at the bottom of the article there was some links to the uh to the board's website where they had videos of the meeting and also a link to the Google Drive where they had the presentation for the budget uh which was far more informative than the one that we were given um and also there were a number of other things in in in the Google Drive and um the if you watch the meeting I'll send the link to the whole board and I'll probably post it up on my Facebook page as well um but it is astounding to watch that meeting the amount of transparency and uh responsiveness and uh anticipated um answers like I didn't hear once in that meeting I don't have that with me I'll get back to you um you know

138I was not once in that meeting did they refer to a spreadsheet uh that was never actually publicly reviewed or shared and is not publicly accessible um such as we've been limited to uh keeping our more detailed questions um on this frequently Asked question spreadsheet that has some links um and then some questions are not answered not considered budget questions even though they had to do with dates of Fire um you know uh which I think is a fair question for us to ask if we're looking at hard Cuts we have to look at you know it is there is like the laston first off approach so um I think we have a lot of work to do and um you know the software that's the other thing too that really stood out um they

139uh and at that board of ed meeting they had software that they projected and they were able to expand and drop in uh to various codes and review in real time and yes they could go down a paperclip level if they wanted to so um I had a conversation with the chair over the weekend as well and um I know that you were going to reach out to the attorney to get some clarification because again we had that debate over micromanaging first just understanding and also whether or not the board had the authority to influence the budget in a very articulated direct fashion meaning no we want to spend this much in this department and this much in that department and it was my contention that the board does have that Authority and the question

140is whether or not we have the will as a body to use it if needed for whatever reason so I would ask the chair if if he could um if he had any communication with the attorney and if so was it written I did speak to the uh board attorney and he does um agree that the board has broad authority over the budget and he will be providing a uh written opinion to that effect uh this is why we discussed that whatever number we um passed tonight that we were going uh those who are willing to to get together and discuss this uh to continue to study the options up until the time that the Town Council and the RTM take up our appropriation and the town manager has already moved our date um uh

141later to allow us more time to find additional efficiencies but also to hear updates from the state about the governor's proposal the possibility of an uh additional uh DOD supplemental there are various ways in which this uh budget is built on shifting Sands and to uh address uh adrianne's concern um I just uh received word uh today I think Susan was going to announce it that we received another Grant which will allow us to pick up some of the um the the uh the grant funded positions I believe what Susan had said was that the the intention all along was that when the grants go away the positions would go away unless we found other grants and I just learned today that the uh the Federal grant um for tutoring was approved we now I

142believe have to I don't know if it's categorical or if we have to go to the Town Council and RTM no it's an rser but we have a dual we have a um high does tutoring Grant and what we tried to do here was I heard loud and clear that the bar Esser was really needed to Sunset and it has but we we really have what we had in the past before the covid and so we have a remaining of about 20 in operations and 10 more in the hyos tutoring Grant so about 30 other tutoring positions and then also in Title One um as well so and this new Grant will be able to allow us to to add additional uh tutors um over and above um well that's part of the high dose

143tutoring yeah so um again this is um a tight deadline to consider all of the the factors some of the factors are still in play and uh like I said we have uh uh agreed that we are going to continue to meet and uh the board certainly has full authority to change those numbers once we uh reconcile any difference that occurs due to the Town Council or RTM I would submit that I would not want to be micromanaging a budget in in progress you know once the school year begins but up until then uh I believe and the attorney um agrees with me that we would have the full authority to uh make whatever changes we would want in the in the budget I did see Beverly's hand up did you have anything to add

144Bev uh thank you Jay um I I I have to say this was a year that the budget was a little different the way it was handed out it was handed out in sections and I didn't particularly care for that I like to have the whole budget at the same time and I I do agree with Ian we should have had a plan for when Ken left between when Ken left and Dave came on were without a finance director but I I wanted to say let this be a learning experience for all of us we can my my pastor uses this phrase we can bounce back better from this we can all work together and we can continue like Jen says to look through the budget after we come up with a number we have

145to have a number tonight it's unrealistic for us to have zero that would be devastating to the district so we have a number we move forward but we can continue like Jay is saying and Jen you can continue to look at the budget and make changes and find Cuts or efficiencies however you want to work it but with this experience that we've been through we all knew as far as working together I knew the chemistry wasn't going to be S the same as the old board because everybody has their own different agenda but this is a good learning experience for us so let us bounce back better and do a better job next year and all try to work together for the good of the community the students the staff the taxpayers and the students

146but we have to have a number tonight J Matthew there is a difference between disagreement and and Discord I don't want to lose the attainable in pursuit of the ideal I too have expressed to Susan and to many of you my dismay at some of the process and the way this shook out but I don't want our disagreements to be perceived by the public as if there's incompetence here which is what I inferred from some of the comments I've heard over the last weeks and tonight I do not think there's incompetence I think this has been a difficult time and everybody's tried the very best they can we will learn from it and we'll get stronger from it thank you any other discussion one last comment is is I agree that a zero budget would

147be devastating and that is not what I'm advocating for again I I I'm I'm voting in opposition as a protest and you know I'm doing that you know as a choice a personal choice as a way of trying to register the the discontent that I perceived from a number of of other board members and a general like problem with like how the process played out so I would hope that we do pass a number tonight um but I can I I great I cannot agree more with Adrian's sentiment about um the last minute changes it's a lot to process because again we met on Friday night and we sort of came to a number and said okay that we can live with that gives us wiggle room you know and it could pass and maybe

148it to be accepted by the Town Council and RTM maybe it wouldn't but it was within range and um you know that was would allow us space to to time to work and get the number down internally and come back to the Town Council and RTM while they're still deliberating with a better number however this this last minute change again this sort of just it's a lot to process you know because that number gave us a bit of a cushion the number we came to Friday night gave a bit of a cushion where we could still conceivably come down a good bit you know I'm not sure if that cushion still exists with this number you know um can we get down further maybe I mean I should hope so um you know but at

149what cost and you know we need the time to do that so I mean I would like I said the opposition vote that I'm going to register tonight is a protest to the process and so those of you uh my colleagues on on the board uh that have uh greater Faith than me I encourage you to to go with that and and let's pass a number but I'm going to do what I can over here to make sure that it's not unanimous so that no one gets the wrong impression that we're all happy with this there is work to be done and we need the information to do the work adri Adrian Adrian yeah so so since we are just talking about um this new budget now can we talk about it can we talk

150about um some of these things and I know everyone you know we don't want to run the me meeting till midnight but I feel like we should understand this a little bit because we are making a very big vote tonight and I realize that we're going to be continuing to talk about the budget for a long time but I I personally would like to try to understand some of these numbers like is that number of a teacher salary the realistic savings for next year and and once that's said the other six and a half teachers that we're losing are those realistic salaries for the savings for next year not what they're costing us this year but the savings for next year because we're talking about next year's budget so are those are those num is

151that number accurate under you know under reduce one teacher it's a retirement and it's not going to be replaced correct but the cost to next year's budget isn't that number right so when we're talking about a savings how much does a new teacher so we we're not replacing it's an re I'm just saying that we're talking about a savings from next year's budget so how much if we if we did replace that teacher how much would it cost it would be probably $64,000 but we're not replacing the teacher well you say the superintendent's proposed budget is not replacing the teacher I'm saying that I want to know what the difference to our budget is and I see a number of $100,000 that is different than what it would actually keep cost to keep a position

152going so if a science teacher were retiring it costs a 65,000 in next year's budget not 100,000 in next year's budget and it's that times 7 and a half so that turns out to be a reasonable number that we're going to have to come up with so we're going to have to come up with this money sooner or later the difference can you explain it Lori that this is really a department that's not going to need to replace so um if you don't mind Susan so in the fiscal year 24 budget there's 100 Grand right can we agree on that yes um if we're not going to replace the position it's zero in fiscal year 25 so that 100 Grand is a savings of 100 Grand if she had if sorry if the superintendent had

153said that we would replace the position in 25 at 60 then the savings would only be 40 but she has stated that that position would not be replaced so it's in at 100 not coming in so zero the difference there is 100 so that is a true savings assuming we don't refill the position yeah I I understand what you're saying um so um what how many teachers did we have in the district before covid and how many teachers do we have now because I've heard this over the years I've listened to Board of Ed meetings and said we're not replacing a retiring teacher so I'm just wondering you know we have roughly the same amount of students I think a little bit more actually now than we had 5 years ago how many teachers do

154we have to we've actually done a better job scheduling for our kids um Rita can remember that back probably before covid we had a lot of smaller classes we still have some small classes mostly in resource room and some of the higher level but we've really done a terrific job scheduling it both the middle school and high school so that the average class size is more like the 20 that the um board has looked for it's not a perfect science but we've made a lot of Headway with that so um you know I feel like we've been able to through attrition when people have retired we've been able to really see some benefits of some FTE and it's I I give the credit to the high school and middle school administrative team which are leaders

155of the district and Lead teaching and learning and Lead safety in their buildings and scheduling and all those things and they've been able to do a really good job um scheduling that you know both schools and so that our average class size is in line with what the board is looking for instead of having a lot of small classes and then a few kind of mediumsized classes so all right all right um one other question can any of these positions the language in all of the grants that we have because I don't understand all the grants can any of these positions be pushed into grants I'm not asking if there's space in the grant I'm just asking if any of these positions could be covered in those grants except for the high does tutoring Grant

156um I don't have one now I'm actually preparing one for doia 25 but we don't have it yet that will have some tutors in it so so we do have we do have tutors in Title One Grant as well so we do have I said we have about 30 tutors that are in the operating budget and in Grants now so we could I'm just thinking to other positions that were in our budget that got pushed into grants and I'm wondering if there's more space for that to not lose people and I because the grants to me seem like a black box and I don't really know what's going on inside of it there's a lot of them I know I'd love to know what's going on inside of well we'll definitely spend time so that

157I I hope so but I I would like to know not if there's space in the grant right now but if any of these teachers or any of these positions can be put into a grant and maybe we lose something else out of that Grant obviously like when we move that one position into a grant something else fell out of it that we're not going to be able to pay for now so can any of these be put into a grant like I said um probably looking at the tutors there might be some areas but we'd have to go back and look but we did calculate what we have so far in the grants now remaining and can can you tell me what an aid does so we have different kinds of AIDS we have

158for the preschool for the kindergarten um for lunch AIDS so looking across the district and fine-tuning that some have a couple AIDS in the morning and a couple AIDS in the afternoon so if we can get get an aid in the morning and an aid in the afternoon and spread them out I think we're going to make it just fine so we will be able to cover our bases with the AIDS that we have how many AIDS did we have before Co I I didn't come prepared with that answer before Co I mean I know if I were asker less from last year if I ask part time if I were to ask a teacher that you know in elementary school I'm guessing it sounds like there's a lot of Aid so if I was

159to ask one of those Elementary School teachers will you you notice it significantly having less than having um about half the amount of AIDS in the school I would say that what we're doing is getting it back to those days before the arester where we were able to add all these positions so we're really lining oursel up to where we had been before Co that's the whole point all right but that doesn't say it's that I'm I'm just looking at like the one more teacher in the 10 AIDS aren't in the rser and then there's a program coordinator not in the arbesser so these are additional these are additional cuts the district is taking that aren't part of that grant that we're trying to get rid of all um and then I have one question

160for Dave um well maybe you can answer this Susan the um and and I feel like this is talked about but we've had I think almost 30 hours in meetings over the budget so um I haven't absorbed everything everything but when an employee is paid out of a grant how is their health care and benefits paid I can have Lori answer that question it varies depending on the grant so it depends some grants include Fringe and some don't it just depends on the individual Grant and what they what they allow all right if we can put it in we do put the fringe benefits in so some some but some of the grant positions the benefits just fall into the big $133,000 whatever it is correct or $13 million I'm sorry correct Healthcare that's correct

161yes Susan yes Susan do we have less students now than we did before Co are there 243 less students now than before Co not my knowledge but actually during Co we lost a few but then they've come back I don't have the exact number for you but I can get it for you okay we did see more children homeschooled Beverly or gone who went to private school but then have returned during Co so um can I com y so um as obviously you would love to um keep everyone um but I don't want us to keep positions move them into grants and then if we can't get the grants renewed we are going to impact the current Administration the current faculty um that we have because when those grants run out and now Susan and

162her team has to identify cost Savings in the future now we're going to be like cutting into the meat of our um of our Administration and our district so we need to keep that in mind right now um she was able if I um to get a grant for some of the AR and thank goodness because we want that we want to be able to support that but a year from now two years from now I don't want our Administration and have our teachers nervous that their positions are going to be cut because um we decided to spend um an additional million dollars this year or whatever it may be so just always keep that in mind what's the balance you know um the balance of keeping someone now and what's the impact to the

163Future and can we work with what we have to be able to support the students in the same quality um and that they're receiving the best that this town can afford to pay and what our teachers who we they've committed to this District right and um all of the other support um you know um staff so keep that in mind um as we're making a decision it's my understand understanding Jen that when teachers are hired under a a grant they're told that the money is is um available for however many years 1 two three and they take willingly take those jobs because first of all they get experience and secondly they're they they then can get a sense of how the the um District works and when they when they U make a a favorable

164impression on kids especially not that that you have to love your teacher but that you definitely have to be learning from your teacher um then they have opportunities within the district to to go for more permanent Physicians so it's not as bad as it as it may appear and we have a really fabulous grant writer and she's very successful so I wouldn't worry about the grant money running out because she'll Chase it down okay thank you is there any other discussion I would like to um make a a suggestion did you have something yeah I just as I took me a minute to get out the paperwork but um you know I heard that you or the superintendent had decided to try to be more aggressive with um the arer positions as far as like

165we have we have a list here that lists every single position that was brought in under our besser and it totals to be about a 43 and a quarter FTE full-time equivalents um and the ranges in salary go you know from you know 20,000 to 122,000 um and the total amount of Sal Sal um with tax with the taxes that the district has to put in is about 2.2 million on this list and the additional savings or or adjustments that that were in this latest budget um where you Amplified the uh arer removals um still only comes out to be about 1.1 one million we had already taken some of these out remember we had taken some of the ressor out I said some would go to operations and some would be taken out and

166so they were removed and then we um followed up with these other items that were on our fesser in addition to well one of the things that um you know um Jen had suggested was you know a a blanket approach right just let arbesser Sunset and and while I was kind of on the fence of whether or not I agreed with that approach I did appreciate the logic as far as it being a grant and it sunsets and then you know maybe we do let it 100% just go and then rebuild from there with the other grants that we can find um but you know we don't have that here so um I was I heard rumor that you're going to you know come back with some different numbers tonight and then I was looking

167forward to seeing this in more detail to see if that was the case if we're going to make a bold move like that this is not that so um you know still it again also this presentation you know like you said we we've had this other one with a green box on it um from the previous workshops so you know this presentation also is kind of troubling because kind of disjointed you know I I it's a little hard to follow well I think this board has paid a lot of attention to detail with this budget we've had hours and hours of budget workshops um and we've gone line by line through the budget and then through the different um areas that were recommended and there's been a lot of discussion so I would say that

168this board has worked really hard with my staff who has worked super hard um um in looking at this and none of these cuts are easy I'm looking at many of my colleagues out there and you know none of these I mean would we have loved to have kept all the AR Esser and all that extra support sure but we knew that we were dealing with other challenges where this where there was so many different increases not any that any of us wanted but through inflation through bus contracts through wages um one thing after the other is like the perfect storm this year so we know that our town you know can't take that all that on so we we tried to make decisions that would be um continue the good work that Granton has

169done with instruction with curriculum with providing resources to our students providing Athletics and extracurriculars and the music program none of that has changed so that was really the eye on the price that we wanted what the children had had last year that's what we call level service but it is coming to us at a higher cost because everything costs more these days so and if I could say one more thing Jay and that is that it it was presented tonight as though superintendent Austin said we we're going to make kids pay for um for music and and for sports and she didn't she never said that what she said is if we do this that's what that means she never said we're going to do it or even suggested to do it but she said

170these are the implications that if we do that then this is what it could um result but we are keeping those we are keeping all those programs that the kids have and that's not going to change at this point it depends on what happens after this right and uh right if we did um charge superintendent Austin with coming in with a a reasonable budget and that's what she worked hard to do with my team I didn't do it alone yeah and with you all yeah but the the um the idea is that superintendent Austin did what we asked her to do thank you um just a couple points of clarity one I I I wasn't implying that there were cuts to music or arts or Athletics in in my comments what I was speaking about

171specifically was the documented proposed cuts to summer school and to adult education which we reversed um second we did not really go through the budget line by line completely uh there's a lot of areas that were left unexplored uh despite repeated requests and uh one of those in particular would be the Consultants I still have yet to receive any information on how many consultants are being paid by the district and how much they're being paid and by what means they're being paid whether it's through a budget item or through a grant I I've asked for that information now for it's been weeks and I still have yet to receive a detailed breakdown of the consultants and what area of the budget they're in so just for clarity sake just information missing can I say something

172I know Ian's been asking about going through line item and we haven't been able to do that um I don't know what the appetite is for the board but I would be willing to like sit down and do do that whoever else wants to join and um I would be willing to do that between now and the end of April whenever we're supposed to present right and I do believe not the most think we had agreed on that pretty much Friday that we were going to all do that or all of us eligible to do that right yeah exactly um so uh I do have one other suggestion um if um if we want to entertain a motion to go back to Friday's number I mean we can certainly put another number or even up

173splitting the difference or something he has to complete a complete board book you you these numbers have to all align this is extensive work I just I don't know if you realize the kind of work that we're asking one man to do that you know that this whole team has done he can't just make this stuff up and you come up with the number they all have to line up so we've got a budget at 7.91 I don't know D gave if you went back to the 9.32 how much work that would be if we could even get it done by Wednesday because I know that you've been working on this all weekend to get it to the 7.91 but I don't know what the appetite of the council and the RTM will be for

174something as high as 9.32 so it's just something I think we need to all consider so another entries quite honestly I think we're 224 Ines in the last week yeah so I to reverse 58 yeah to get back to a 9.32 so the question really is really for me is is the book The 181 page there some subset that I can provide is he supposed to function just trying to figure out well we have to follow the guidelines of the town down tobly one one work and then yeah so that would be the one thing I would say is if there's any sort of lency on the town part in terms of getting we won't have answer to that chunk of the bookus 181 I don't have to so I don't uh just a quick

175side note um also Al one of the other things I was asking for in this process was a uh the actual department head requests like I asked for that early on within the first week and again that's not part of the process and and that's a a stark difference than what we see on the town side of the budget and I think we have um indicated that we are open to revamping the budget process um the thing is we're we're down to the wire right now uh and we don't want to make a a change that means that Dave won't be able to get a number to the town manager by 4:30 on U on Wednesday so why don't we recess for five minutes and see if we can find an answer to that question

176all right so I'll call the Gren Board of Education back to order um the time is um 8:51 p.m. and the motion on the floor uh is to approve the fiscal year 25 budget in the amount of $87,900 58 58,000 58,000 let me repeat this to approve the fiscal year 25 budget in the amount of 87 m9580 which is a 7.91 per increase over the fiscal year 24 budget second and if there's no further discussion I'll call all in favor please say I I I hi Beverly those opposed opposed Thomas I'm sorry I I I'm sorry I I would like to vote I okay that's a process going on and um any extensions all right Beverly is still recessed she's on mute I don't know she Beverly not dog you are on mute Beverly might

177have walked away because we were all recesses yeah Beverly guys going to say does anyone have a number we'll text i a a the Parliamentary question uh if there is a majority of the board that's voting in favor and Beverly is not here when she comes back would she be allowed to vote and have her her voice recorded if we are if if there already exists a majority for one position or the other and a member is missing and comes back during the meeting would he or she hi we need your vote yeah we're back we're back I Council that transmission okay we need you okay I'll better know where she was I sent her a message she is hello yes Beverly and what was your vote what are you doing I don't I did

178you move another number or what I don't know what you're doing here the number that you moved the 7.91 per. um yep I'm voting for that okay so that's an i all right so um that motion passes and that is the end of our new business action items uh at this point we will take letters Communications and comments by board members on meeting items and any other items within their jurisdiction do you have anything Beverly um I I just had a question from one of my neighbors about how to get a new bus stop I guess because the bus goes right down Tyler Avenue and his son can just walk down the block to the house but his son has to stay on the bus another 15 minutes and then it goes all around and

179up by plant Street and it lets him off at plant street so it's not the question that he has to walk longer it's the question that he's on the bus longer when he could just get off on Tyler and Pennsylvania and just walk down the street so he wants to know how do you what's the what's the protocol of getting a bus stop changed or getting a new bus stop or there's no protool you can't do it make a phone call right Sam's got the answer I answer is this on yes yeah Miss Washington if you if you could have the parent call the secretary at the school they will be able to forward this to the transportation department for Action okay thank you Sam you're welcome okay Adrian do you have any items yeah

180I would just like to um explain um that my vote um I I agree with the number and I think that we can get there I um am obviously upset by the amount of positions we had to lose to get there um and I look forward to more discussion and hopefully um bringing some of those positions back um so I just wanted to say that I I just had a discussion with another board member and I'm just going down for the can I just pass for now I got to get me at the end now Andrea any letters or Communications no I was I was going to talk I was going to say that in the past evidently there have been budget books that were that big and they got reduced so they're somewhere in

181the central office hanging out all right I'll be quiet right Jen wait I I thought you said you I didn't that was something else okay I just would like to say this thank you thank you thank you Jen so um I was able to go to the the Dei concert on Friday night a couple weeks ago it was wonderful it was wonderful to see the kids perform and um Miss Hall I think her name is this all and I never got a chance to to write a thank you note but I'm I will do that but she also invited the two Martin Luther King Scholars to um to participate and say some things at um just briefly but it was a wonderful thing to have happen and on Sunday at Mystic Congregational Church Calvin McCoy

182has been invited to speak and he'll be there um for the 930 service thank you my pleasure Jen just wanted to say thank you to um the administration um fellow um board members that we voted on something and that we didn't end up at zero so thank you for all of that effort thank you first of all I'd like to uh express my joy at the black his the black uh con black history concert uh it was a joyous Affair for those of you who missed it tough luck you missed a great show um we made some sausage tonight uh it wasn't everything that I wanted wasn't Pro I don't think there's anybody who's totally happy um but I do want to thank the staff um very much I would hope that when we send

183this budget that there's a cover letter and I would encourage the cover letter to include includ a thing about the lapsing fund to encourage them to take it off their uh Referral List where it's been sitting for years and and take it up this could make a huge difference for our district I'd finally like to make two referrals to the policy committee first a referral on a policy for student cell phone use during instructional time and uh hopefully we'll invite Clint to come to that and the second appropriate student use of generative AI I mean that's the one that I want Clint to come to appropriate student use of generative AI so we will discuss it in our group if it's resonant to the group we'll come back to a cow to see if it's

184resonant with you guys before actually developing a policy and it may take some time you got two thumbs from who yeah uh yes thank you um I uh was just checking the emails but uh we did one email I got was about the uh the fees for summer school and adult education uh from a concerned resident but that actually uh predated our our uh discussion on Friday night um I want to uh thank my colleague uh Matthew Schulman for bringing up the non-aps fund uh consistently um I that was one of the things that also um I've I campaigned on knocking doors but um you know I want to give credit to to my wife councelor bordelon she was the one who uh put that referral into the Town Council back when you could a

185single counselor could put a referral on the list um so uh I think it's a time and also I know that Council McBride has publicly stated uh support for that so I think it is long past due that we discuss this a number of uh school districts in the state have taken uh taken up the offer on creating such a thing and there's many different ways uh to do it I did send an email out um to the board and a number of the administration as well uh that had a lot of historical information on on the non-lps and fund and also it had examples of other towns that have done things and how they went about doing it and so um again I think it it is long past due that we make a

186strong move to get that done it basically enables the Board of Ed to manage its budget the same way that any given household might manage their budget so if you end up with a bit of a surplus any given year um you can put that Surplus away in a reserved account that can be accessed through a certain process for certain items and it would allow the Board of Ed to better plan for CIP projects um and uh and also be ready to handle contingencies and emergencies that are maybe unanticipated so it creates a buffer and I believe it could be upwards of 3% of the annual budget could be accumulated um in that Reserve fund um which of course if you look at our budget 3% would be a very significant number so um again

187I think uh let's I I look forward to to to working with this board on that issue and and uh you know pushing the Town Council to to Really you know work together on this and allow us to manage our uh finances in a far more proactive manner thank you Jay may may I add one comment on that okay very briefly um I'm straying into operations dangerous territory but if the superintendent thinks it would be useful perhaps she could uh turn to Cave caps members of this board and any other staff that she has to put together an educational packet on lapsing fund so that when uh the council takes something up all of the council members have a book in front of them to show that it is real it does exist and it

188does work um I I would uh counter on that to say that actually that's something that we as a policy committee could do as well uh since it is a policy-driven it it's a first and foremost is founded in policy before it dictates any sort of Financial Arrangements you have to have the policy documents in place and in order to to to write that up there's a lot of policy documents we'd have to review um and I I'm basically doing that because I would like to be involved in putting together a package if we're going to put together an informational package I've already done a lot of research on this uh in support of my wife when she was bringing the referral forward for the council many years ago and then also in preparation for

189my campaign last fall did more research and then once elected I did even more research um so I do already have a bank of information and I'd be glad to work with the superintendent and anyone else to uh put a package together appreciate the help so thank you that's definitely a a referral item that we should take up so I would just like to say a couple of things uh number one um I thoroughly enjoyed the um concert at Fitch um during Black History Month uh Dr arriman actually didn't mention that she was a speaker there and uh donations were accepted toward the Dr Martin Luther King Junior scholarship fun thank you thank you and um uh I also want to say that I know this wasn't the smoothest process uh I take responsibility as

190a as a new chair for perhaps not shepherding this process as well as it could have been we did spend over 24 hours in meetings we had multiple information requests um we uh worked our way through as as much as we could but more importantly we have committed as a board to continue to meet and find uh areas that we can where we can find efficiencies or adjustments uh before this goes before the town bodies and so tonight is not a destination it's another uh way along the journey um but I appreciate all of the hard work of all of the members for attending all those meetings and bringing in their ideas and if any criticism falls upon the board for this process it falls upon me and I take full responsibility for that and

191I thank you very much motion to a charge second all in favor I