August 30, 2021 BoE Zoom Recording

001okay okay you're all set i want to start by saying a big thanks to mrs lahu because she sent mr lahu with all the paperwork that is very helpful to me um we'll call to order at 702 and we'll start with audience for citizens and staff is there anyone who would like to comment i would rose i'm under one okay dana i mean i'm i'm on his slide i'm sorry anyway okay um yeah i i the gazette is sort of featuring a back to school issue this month because being back at school is a national news you know has been for the entire month and will continue to be so i had asked both um dr uh ola and and henrichy to send us stuff or let me know who would be the best to

002let us know anything that's new in the school the bus routes um any changes new staff mr hedrick he sent something back mr uh dr ola sent something to to sam because i said if there's somebody better to to do that please send it i sent it to ms roberson and what i got was a note that just expressed what the hours were not not an article even though i think i was pretty clear on my request anyway i want to thank dr olaf for putting all the information that you did on the website that is what i used it was comprehensive it's it's what i you know what i think the people in the community want to know as well because covet affects your school but it also affects everybody else is concerned about

003you know what's what's happening in our town as well um and i just want to say that you know there is there's a there's a committee studying joining scotland there's a there's a talk about closing the school i really hope the school uses this year as um and uses the gazette as an opportunity to promote yourselves and public relations our newspaper is delivered to most of the households in town and about 100 more people get an online notification and a handful of others get it online information from the administrators on what's happening in the school but also from the kids the teachers were very proactive last year in sending what the kids wrote and while i know kids like to see themselves imprint the community does too the community really enjoys what what kids put

004in so i hope that continues and just a little side note too to the i don't see teachers here but maybe the principal um the older kids might be very interested in the front page story and the rural heritage because it's the memories of kids who went into the consolidated school from the 1950s on to the next couple of decades people from all over the country and they're talking about things that interest kids like what was recess like and what was the cafeteria like and remembering your teachers and all of that so it might be something a good uh a little learning tool for them as well that's all i thank you thank you any other comments from citizens okay we'll move on to correspondence to the board and i believe dr ola that you

005have that correspondence i do there are three letters of resignation all of them are from paraprofessionals and i'll read each one is that acceptable please okay the first one is dear sam uh this is from gary schwartz who is was our paraprofessional in team a this letter serves to inform you that i hereby resign my position as a paraprofessional for hampton elementary school i much enjoyed working for and with you as well as with the entire staff at hampton i will miss them and the students i had the pleasure of getting to know and teach thank you for having me be a part of the hampton team give my regards to all and stay well sincerely gary schwartz the second one is from um chandler johnson uh dear dr ola and ms roberson please accept

006this letter of formal notification that i am resigning from my position as a paraprofessional effective august 6th thank you so much for the opportunity to work in this position i have learned a lot working with the students and they have taught me a lot i have greatly enjoyed and appreciated the opportunities i have been given i will miss the students my colleagues in the hampton school community i found a job that allows me to work closer in my home i'm sorry to my home and in a district that allows me more opportunities for growth sincerely chandler johnson and just as a footnote chandler was a student at hampton elementary school the last one is from tammy king dear dr ola i wish to confirm my resignation as a paraprofessional in hampton elementary school it has

007been an honor and a privilege to work with such a wonderful group of teachers professionals and students um though this is a difficult decision for me i will be following a student on to their future education at another school i am beyond thankful for all of the opportunities i've been afforded as a staff member here at hampton elementary school the teachers in the administration have been very supportive during my time with the school district and i move on with all of the skills i have gained from working with such an enthusiastic and knowledgeable group i wish everyone a happy and successful school year respectfully yours tammy king and just as a note on that one um tammy worked with a student uh and she's working um with that student at the paris shell system great

008and that's all our correspondence that's all your correspondence okay we could add that to uh the edition um resignations or you don't these are paraprofessionals you have i don't believe you have to appreciate them you can accept them if i i don't know if that's up to you as chair well i'm just thinking if we accept them we could say with regret exactly okay so okay so we'll we'll do it okay um on to discussion oh no approvals ralph is yes ask a quick question of course uh what were the dates of these resignation letters um let's see mr schwartz resigned or i received that he emailed me on august the 18th uh chandler johnson on august the 3rd and um tammy king was august 25th well two and eight weeks notice but one is

009pretty late i don't know i mean what you don't have a choice you're going to have to accept them what are we going to have to do but i just think that's poor business that's me i think that um the person who's going up to parish hill since the student they were working with went to parish hill that's not going to leave us in the lurch and it's possible she might not have known until that late time i i found when i was working in the schools that at the last minute there were lots of those kinds of things but i believe dr ola that we're able to replace the people who need replacing right we did replace them and just as a note tammy king was not appointed to the position until the parish

010hill board of education met on the 24th so she actually came to work for us on the 25th because she had didn't know if she actually had a job or not and so that's why it was august 25th and then she went over to paris hill it wasn't her fault and we weren't really in a lurch this time but i agree it it can be tough if somebody quits the day before school starts and you don't have time to get a replacement and we don't have a two-week notification because none of our our people who are paraprofessionals have a contract that you know demands that kind of notification okay thank you now we'll move on to approval of the minutes from 7 28 21. do we have a motion and gruenberg moved susan love green

011all second thank you any any comments on the minutes as they are presented i didn't read them i i didn't find them with the materials so um i'll have to abstain you didn't find them no i i believe these are ones i did no matt july minutes oh okay great thanks matt um well should we should we not vote on them tonight then if if everyone didn't get to see them i may have been the only one who didn't no i can't find them either actually no i don't see him either but i wouldn't i didn't find him either well in that case i don't see how we can vote on that uh so anne would you like to withdraw your emotions thank you ann withdrew her motion and uh susan would you like to

012withdraw your second yes i'd like to withdraw my second thank you very much thank you withdrawn and we'll we'll make sure next next month that you get to see them okay on to number five discussion and possible action on the employment of julia i could try to say chicago there's a little i did send out um under separate cover i didn't want it in the board packet so it because it has her home address and telephone number just to the board members hopefully you all got the that yes good okay anybody have a question for uh for julia or would you like her to give you a little background or or how would you like to ola i'd like you to um discuss for us the nature of the position that julia will be covering

013this year okay um we have reorganized our our school uh in terms of team a team a first grade is now connected with the kindergarten and we call it team k team a has only second grade and the uh experience that julia brings with her uh has a lot of kindergarten pre-k activities um a first grade teacher so um her bachelor's degree was in early childhood education and psychology so she came in as a very well prepared um um graduate of eastern connecticut state university and her um recommendations that sam received um not only written but um when we did the verbal checks they all stood out to be outstanding recommendations from three different people in three different schools so we're very pleased with her uh background and uh she works now with mrs brown

014um hindu um who is a very experienced paraprofessional in the kindergarten class and where is first grade in all of this you mean housed or well i heard you say that team k and then and kindergarten and first grade oh they're in the same correct they're in the same team um and um that allows for a lot of moving of students into areas of their strengths and into the areas of their weaknesses and remember the kindergarten k piece and the first grade are pre-readers and we want to make sure that all of our students have that ability to learn and become good readers and calculators um and um with her background and mrs brown's background we felt that this would be an excellent opportunity to bring those two together um and um the second grade

015uh team a is working with um um mrs siano so um we i think we have a good mix of teachers and their skills and so forth great thank you so i i have a question for julia you're frozen oh i'm frozen oh no no not you frozen i'm frozen no not now but go ahead okay thank you for telling me so the nature of our school and the the small school and the fact that we meet individual children's needs as much as we can means you probably won't have the same exact assignment twice are you comfortable with that absolutely definitely i mean i grew up in a small town so i'm used to that kind of education but also um you know just seeing you know the diverse range of students it's you know

016every single child is their own case so even you know a whole new class you know sure if it's a single grade it's another round of first graders but every child is unique and every year it's a different mix so 100 even multi-grade it's just always a range of kids so absolutely that's great thank you so ann gruenberg is wondering when you graduated from eastern um i graduated in the fall of 2019 i finished my student teaching and then the previous spring i graduated with my psychology degree in child development so the bonus semester was student teaching in fall 2019 and that's when i finalized my child education degree and got my certification from the state wonderful welcome thank uh you moon here um uh do you know anything about or what what are your

017opinions i would say or thoughts on a multi-grade uh teaching do you have any yes so you know going into this i definitely did my research on multi-grade compared to single grade and adapting curriculum and you know i was expecting there to be a vast difference between kindergartners and first grade and last year as a first grade classroom teacher and a lot of the kids i had coming in you know end of year kinders they had missed the last three months of school in person due to covid so they were you know digital learning remote learning and so i had a lot of kiddos coming in you know mid kinders and adapting the first grade curriculum to these technically kindergarten level students and now that i'm actually in with the class it's very similar um

018it's that same range where you know you've got some kids to catch up some kids you know where they are developmentally for first grade kindergarten and really it's just adapting to where they are in that range and it's you know a lot less you know kind of segmented by k and one it really is just a range of students like the class i had last year in any classroom so i definitely you know saw some of the research of how it's really important to adapt curriculum to a multi-grade classroom and thankfully the curriculum that hampton subscribes to teachers college is great there is a lot of overlap um with a lot of the curriculum so i think that was the biggest challenge for me was saying okay you know it is a multi-grade classroom how

019are we going to intertwine these curriculums and you know seeing the kiddos i can really see how we're going to have them move along with the curriculum for their their grade and if they're ready to go higher then they'll just mesh right into other students in the group more than just like k and one as like i kind of thought it might be going into it but it really is just a range of students and i have the curriculum to meet them wherever they are so that's definitely what i've learned from it is there something did you get any training in this or is it something that you had to really look up on your own uh because it probably really was my assumption is it's not addressed in a normal classroom environment as far

020as teacher training yeah that was another thing i did i do a lot of like personal professional development just because i really wanted to understand what i was going into and be well prepared um you know i do have psychology degree in child development but if you look at most curriculum programs they are meant for single grade classrooms and you know there are a lot of studies about you know the benefits of multi-grade classrooms and that's how we started like before the industrial revolution was you had the school teacher and a whole bunch of multi-age children and how that really worked and how you know a lot of curriculum programs are meant for single grade and i wanted to go into that with how am i going to meet the students needs and not just

021be like okay these are the kinders these are the first graders because i already kind of knew going into it they were going to be in this whole range and i wanted to have the material and curriculum aligned to all of the students so it was a lot of you know me just researching and you know there is enough you know evidence and research out there to say you know it works if we you know implement these certain ideas or this approach in this way maybe not so much and then of course you know you can't just get everything online or from a textbook you know talking to the you know other educators in the building who've been doing multi-grade who have that experience who've seen that range of students and are really familiar with

022you know hampton's curriculum and how you know you guys approach things talking with them was another step of kind of personal professional development that i really wanted to mesh into the system that was already there and their approach and how they kind of implemented that into their classrooms for all the students so beyond just the personal research definitely going in and talking to the educators who are already in the school that was another thing i kind of you know really wanted to get that insight before i good started you very much thank you uh russ yeah i have a question for frank i was just wondering if you could tell me how many students are in first grade uh well total students actually in the uh total students yeah in the two yeah um yeah

023i think if you refer over to sam's um uh report we have a total of eight kindergartens excuse me i have my i'm sorry i'm so i don't i'm sorry to interrupt um but um i made an error in the numbers oh so um [Music] it's and um i can clear that up now but i don't want to go out of order go ahead and clear it up thank you so if on the second page of my report is just the team numbers and uh julia does the team k1 um but um two of those students we moved down to team a uh to equal the 13 so you would take two off of team a so you need two off of team k okay okay thank you okay that makes great sense thank you

024yes okay so two two students that are um what we might typically call a first grader are in team a which is second grade which is typically second grade does does that help um neil it was russ i think i'm sorry call me anything yeah yeah still call me late for dinner yeah right right so what's what's the what's the breakdown then what is the breakdown in numbers and that's what i'm wondering eight kindergarten and sixth first grade is that it no sam no sixth first and what was the other one it's i think it's eight but my pic my pile my papers are piling yep julia how many kids eight kindergarteners seven first graders okay verification she knows her business she started off well i would say that was a cracker jack the answer

025to the interview question also so i agree you've started off well yes so now we need a um a motion to hire rose i would make a motion but i think we have to know the step in the motion bachelor one i thought i heard julia talk about first grade last year that student teaching julia no that was a classroom teaching position at a public school public elementary school in mansfield first and it was over 90 days full year yep okay then she's bachelor too and um sally i think i i don't remember if i gave you the right number or not i will send you a corrected contract tomorrow so do you think we could have in our motion just um step back second step bachelor's pay scale would that work for you mary

026ellen yeah oh yeah i don't need the number just okay the placement yeah so i'll move that we employ julia kakowski bachelor step two as an elementary school teacher and ann bruenberg seconded um can you put a start date on there what is the start date i think the first teacher day was the 24th thank you you want to add the 20 yes as of august 24 2021 great any discussion okay i'll take the role since we are on a zoom meeting and again i'll go based on how you show up on my computer mary ellen yes um let's see russ neal yes um susan yes welcome matthew yes uh and juan i'm abstaining okay and in okay one two three four five six the motion carries with six yeses and one abstention i did

027check with the lawyer and she said if there's an abstention i cannot say it passed unanimously so i won't say that i can say unanimously among those who voted okay but this motion carries congratulations julia thank you thank you thank you for coming now just as a note if you would like to stay with this meeting you may certainly um but um if you choose not to that's perfectly acceptable okay all right thank you it's nice to meet everyone for julie nice to meet you too i work for i look forward to working with everyone thank you great wish you well congratulations thank you thank you okay we'll move on to the superintendent's report okay uh my report was kind of a just an unusual one because of the the uh fluidity of the entire

028time between the time of the 20 actually was the 23rd um and i sent it out on the 24th and today's meeting with everything that was changing um and i'd like to go through the five pieces that i said that i would be talking with you about i'll be doing it as as expeditiously as i can the current bus routing information i did ride both bus one and bus two mornings and afternoons um and i got some information that um i think is important um we were able um i was able to find out that bus one makes a turnaround at a dead end street um that had a pickup truck parked there which made it incredibly difficult and time-consuming for the bus driver to make the turnaround effectively since it's not a roundabout it's

029just a dead end and so i called alan cahill he put up a no parking sign so hopefully that has alleviated that problem but um i still don't have a good solid understanding of how we can shorten the routes um and um i am meeting at some point this week and i still don't have a date because there are five people that have to coordinate their calendars um with east con transportation their safety advisor and myself along with the drivers to go over the routing to see how we can eliminate some of the turnarounds that take so much time and pick up students um in a more effective manner and hopefully shortening the run times right now they're about an hour and 15 minutes um which i don't think is is a very good um

030time frame so we are working on that um number any questions about the buses before i go on okay i have a quick one did did you get any parents saying they were not planning on using the transportation when you put out that notice yes we have a number of parents who are not using transportation and did that help us um shorten the route any make it a little quicker it would be obvious that we have a huge number of people who drop off their their children in the morning and a large group of people actually that went all the way out um our driveway up on to 97 to pick them up in the afternoon so it's the afternoon run that is the most um concerning to parents and we're finding that's why i'm

031meeting i'm not only looking at the turnarounds but looking at the week's worth of transportation to see if there are in fact parents who are doing this on a continuous basis and not have the bus slow down open the door put their lights on and wait for the child if there's nobody standing at the end of the driveway for example so um i will be able to give you a better handle on that and write up uh what we find in terms of the uh routing and if in fact we can shorten it to the point where actually pickup times are changed then i will make sure all of you get a copy of the new routing situation in terms of timing i'm a little worried that um some parents will be driving now when

032there's a longer route but it might be their hope that when the routes kind of consolidate they won't have to drive every day will we have a way of getting that information back and forth um well at this point the bus routing is such that they're going to go past every house anyway so if there's somebody at the end of the driveway they'll pick them up if there's nobody at the end of the driveway they won't stop or slow down so that that's the only other way we can do that if a parent wants to call and say i'm not going to pick my child up this afternoon have the bus deliver them home that's the one that we need to know um in the morning so that the teacher can give that to the

033um or not the teacher the office can give it to the bus driver so that they know that that child is going to be on that bus in the afternoon who is normally not on the bus so it's just the afternoon run that becomes a problematic one in terms of notification okay okay thank you frank yes this is fun uh we haven't been able to manage to do a communal stop anywhere along the way because it would make sense if there are living close proximity they should not we available to pick up every student uh who has an address in town who goes to ats but we don't have but we we don't have the distance as to how far that person has to live to be able to get on that bus right we

034don't have anything on the books for that no okay okay thank you you're welcome number two the current covet updates um at this point um you have all received the um information that i received from the state department of education relative to the um covered regulations it's it was titled frequently asked questions regarding vaccinations for covered workers in school this is the document that has caused some concern um in other school systems um we believe at this point excuse me we believe at this point that um every staff member has been vaccinated and has been fully vaccinated but at this point we cannot ask that until the end of september um so that um we don't feel that our students are being confronted by anybody who is not vaccinated in addition um both bus drivers

035have been vaccinated um at they telling me that they have been and then um the all our students are hand washing social distancing of of three feet in the buses and um um they always wear masks from the time they get on the bus until the time in the morning until the time they get off the bus in the afternoon um and all during school um and so far um um this is the uh procedures that we have in place for the reopening of the school any questions on that right the current um weather conditions i know there was there were people who were upset with me uh for a number of reasons one of which was mr henry see himself he was not happy but um basically what i was concerned about was that

036the weather channel which is where i went to to get the best information that i could um projected a 70 to 80 mile an hour winds um and that the eye would come up right up um new london and basically over hampton um rhode island that area so i was very concerned that with that kind of powerful winds and torrential rains that they projected that hampton could be without power from sunday through however long it would take them to get the power back and i was very concerned that once the power went out i would not be able to um communicate not only with sam but then with sam to all of the parents so that is why i chose to close school before the hurricane hit on saturday and to make sure that everyone

037was aware that we would postpone the opening of school from the 23rd for teachers and the 25th for students to the following week which would be today for teachers and september 1st for students when the hurricane came and was less than was projected and i called alan cahill sunday night he said to be very honest we'll be able to have the town open and running so that you could have school open on tuesday he said we never lost power at least at the town hall at the school so he felt that there would be no problem with opening of school and that's when i made the change and i think that change was concerning to just a few people who voiced their concerns about changing of the um schedule i guess of the school um

038i felt it was it was appropriate to make the change um and in hindsight with the weather that we had it was i feel it was still appropriate in making the change to facilitate um the opening of school on the projected day of the 25th for students teachers were able to be there on the 24th with no teachers absent the other concern of weather was the heat related concern of closing school at 12 30 right after the students ate lunch and still allowed mr henricy to dismiss his high school and middle school students at the correct time otherwise if we did it any later uh he wouldn't be able to do that and turn our buses around in time so yes that caused a problem for some parents who work and um i apologize for

039that and i would choose not to do it um without great concern for the health and safety of the students in terms of the heat or snow or wind rain you know hurricaney kind of weather so um those were the rationales that i used in terms of making the changes that i did do any questions about the weather-related um decisions i was making okay the other um key budget issues um we're going to be talking about um the um budgets under not only sally's report but you have two items to discuss line item changes and the overall budget we are faced with the most unusual circumstance sally and i met uh face to face this morning um we have about an eighty thousand four hundred and forty nine dollar and change um surplus uh that

040we were unable to spend we thought it was more like twenty thousand dollars but um there are um three really motivating problems that we had to face uh one of which is the school readiness grant came in at full um funding because of the covet issue regardless of the fact that we had very few students in the program normally we we have student um expenditure grant monies based on six thousand dollars for each student we got the full 16 student um amount last year um which resulted in uh um sally's gonna help me with this one about 35 000 uh grant increase um we also got um spent the money for um new um infrastructure for our um technology um file servers um the wireless and the um cabling to make all that stuff work

041together and even though it was ordered back at the beginning or middle there were different orders so beginning or middle of may um they still haven't arrived none of that material has come in and that's some of the back ordering for covid related problems in addition we've we ordered our chromebooks they have not come in and we ordered our playscape and that has not come in and we are working with our auditor to see if because we ordered the material but it hasn't come in because of the covert supply problem if we could in fact um take about it's worth between 35 and 40 000 worth of orders um and um use them when the materials actually do come in so there's a whole negotiation process that we're going through right now sally will um

042help me with uh any inaccuracies that i might have um portrayed here but it's been a very difficult uh problem both with budgeting and uh grants at this point in terms of funding so um that's where the eighty thousand dollar overage um of funding came in the two percent which is forty thousand dollars over our budget um where other variations we we lost the number of people who left our employment and so we had some changes in insurance costs because people opted out of our insurance and into their spouse's insurance health insurance those kinds of things so the budget is hopefully we'll be able to get both the accountant to understand the concerns that we had because of the covet issue and the board of finance to understand um that even though we have this

043surplus which has been sent to this not sent to the state in terms of dollars reported to the state that hopefully they'll be able to understand that some of that money needs to be put aside so that we could pay the bills that were supposedly paid because the equipment was supposed to be in during the regular academic year so that's the end of my report unless there are some questions well that's what we're dealing with with the um auditor at this point whether or not we can encumber uh his position has always been that if it's not in the building usable by june 30th it has to be given back um but um i don't know if any of you go into brooklyn on route six and you go past the ford dealership and the

044chevy dealership and the um they have no cars to sell um and it's the same with the with us we have no product that was delivered in a timely fashion and that's the conundrum we're in so we're still negotiating with our auditor and hopefully the board of finance will help us with some of these um issues by allowing us to spend money for items that we ordered but not received when we do receive them ann will you repeat that yeah the money was not for books papers um that kind of stuff some of it was for ppe that kind of that kind of stuff that came that was back ordered uh but it's mostly manufactured um just like copper wire for the for the um um internet system they don't even know when they're going

045to be able to get it to us um the latest is december okay but no no text material that would impact education for our students that that's all in place so do we need a letter from an attorney stating that i would say that's a little premature at this point um we're still working with our auditor the what we're still working with the auditors so it's a bit um premature to um contact a lawyer yeah no i i wasn't thinking of it in terms of threatening but just more matter of fact because it sounds like the auditor is operating under a roll system that is not so relevant as soon as we get information from the auditor we'll be able to we sally and i discussed it this this morning at our meeting and um

046as soon as the auditor gets back to us with a firm understanding um of we can't use the term encumbered funds um easily um because they're they're encumbered but because the material hasn't even been invoiced yet because they haven't sent it yet there's a conundrum between encumbrance of an invoiced item and a po our purchase order to buy the item and the invoice doesn't come until the items actually shipped so we're in a kind of a unusual circumstance here okay thank you all let's let's move on um on to the principles report ms roberson hello everyone um i hope you had a nice august and um if i need to i'll i'll send a copy with the corrected number on um the the team numbers that we have the the two um first graders that

047are in the second grade class um there's also a little um i added the uh [Music] little welcome back note that on julia had sent out to her parents um it's not the only communication that she's done but it just gives you a little bit about her style and her enthusiasm and we're happy to have her aboard um it's been um really busy uh answering questions for parents especially with the bus changes and uh the shift in in time uh calculating when kids would arrive and when they needed to be there but we're sorting through it all and um um trying to remain cool as in cold temperatures because of the heat and um the kids are all looking healthy and excited and and um the teachers are gathering some information on their math scores

048and looking at um where they left off in order to make some math groupings and um we're excited about that so um other than that i don't think i added too much um we we're just starting to make our plans for uh professional development for the year so thank you does anyone have any questions yes juan hey mrs robinson hi i understand you're busy and all that but i i'd like for you to be a little more careful with your numbers or at least your access to information we asked you because it seems to me like you can never answer a question or you always leave us wondering what exactly you did answer so i i would ask you to be more accurate and i would ask you to be more succinct thank you will

049do okay we will move on so here's my agenda we'll move on to the director of special education report okay good evening yes good evening everyone um if you would please refer to the paper that says hampton board of education meetings special education report maybe if um i can know if everybody found it it's hard to know virtually i'm trying to look at you all i think you can just go on with your report okay okay thank you so um i want to be clear this is not apples to apples but i will explain it the very best i can um every year schools get information and it's called our october 1st report and that's part of how special education grants are determined and the reason that it's october 1st is because usually by october

0501st students have moved in and you've settled and you understand services um and we have some new students right now who were in the process of doing that so what i did report last year is on our october 1st 2019 report we had 15 students in total identified as special education the next year the same report we had 17 special education identified students now clearly it's not october 1st yet so i used the date we have august 25th 2021 and we had um 18 special education identified students and below that i have listed 16 at hebron elementary one private outlet hampton elementary oh hampton yes of course hampton elementary school one private outplaced and one at the charles barrow school and the reason that i have the private outplaced in the charles barrow school is

051many of you might know this but it's bears repeating um hampton owns their ieps we do the paperwork for the ieps we pay for the students legally we do the planning and we run the ppt meetings so just just to know that we're staying you know that's pretty even we're staying pretty even and then last year um i reported on october 21st our count um just as for informational purposes so next to the side of october 21st i took the latest date i had which was august 25th just so we could get an idea on one year to another so last year we had 16 um students we were educating both in seat and distance this year we're at 74 nc or in-house students at hampton elementary school um both years we had one at

052that time we had one outplay student um we had last year two students at the charles barrow magnet stem school this year we have five students at the charles barrow magnet school and i did hear what um you know what juan's wife said about using the gazette and about us marketing ourselves because i i i think we have the best school and i'd love to get those those magnet school kids back but in any case we have 80 total enrolled students right now and i put a little a little note below that just because i happen to know this um just from other things that four of our homeschooled students um they're not in the count but that they they do qualify to receive special education so we do not service them but i'm just

053saying that for our planning purposes or or our knowledge um you know that's a significant part when you're talking of 18 if we got four more students so we just we try to be aware so that we are um at capacity to meet students needs right away and then i think the last thing i would say because it's almost palpable this year is there's a real can do attitude i'm not sure if it's because you know last year we were so afraid or many people were of covet in this year we're still um respectful i'm not sure if it's the new staff combination but there's we've had a lot of teaming already and really great i i think communication about how to move students forward and i appreciated mr moon's question about the paraprofessionals and

054i just want to share one of the paraprofessionals did let us know the administration quite some time ago um about the possibility of going to another school for our planning so um you know and and we were very sorry to see that person go but they did move on with one of our kids and we think that that that was that was great too but your your point is a very good point it's hard when people um leave but i have to commend her because actually because we knew that we were able to make assignments that we didn't have to shift and we were we were prepared so that was a very good point so thank you that concludes my report i have um any questions or anything any questions did you hear did you

055hear that thank you yeah yeah well thank you i actually um i actually love the hampton school district and i'll just add one more thing i did a state visit i do state compliance visits on friday and the school was even smaller than ours so with what one's life said i agree we we are so magnificent and we need to kind of be marketing that and the state did um reach out to me today and asked me to do more compliance visits for them which is great for hampton because then we learn exactly what the state is looking for what the gold standard is according to them and you know we come back with ideas and things so i really love working in hampton and appreciate the um opportunity so thank you for saying that

056thank you one question yes mary ellen um i wanted to know if we provide special education for the home school children because i believe that we are allowed to you know we we d we do not um we had a meeting today and dr ola asked me that question and i want to go back and look at exact regulations around he asked me the question about the mennonite school too and i don't know the answer to that yet i think the first place that i'm going to start is the tom mooney book that i usually borrow from dr ola to to look that up and then um we have uh mary jean sherbrill is assigned um from the state department of ed to us so i can ask that question because we certainly want to

057do everything for them that we're supposed to um beyond just child find so i i can report at that at the next meeting if that's acceptable yes thank you thank you what are we required to do and what what are we what can we ask to do so i think it's a school by school decision and even a child by child decision and that's my impression so i'd like information on that and could you help us with finding the policy the the hampton policy that applies and maybe forward that to dr benson clark we do have it in it's it's online yes but there's a lot of policies could you help us find a specific one sure thank you and and i'm happy to look for it as well i i i know it gets

058tricky and i think that's what you're both alluding to um you know a for instance is somewhere where i worked we were told not to necessarily allow employees children to attend our school because then if you said no to one it would be discriminatory but then um sometimes you can do more than you have to do as i think dr gruenberg just said so i'm very interested in this too and i know that it's a complicated kind of layered answer so i will um do my best to get the answer and let you all know and if i need help from you i will um alaskan policy because i know we have some real experts on this board thank you okay move on to the business coordinators report mrs lahu yes so first let me

059apologize the minutes were sent out um the beginning of august but i did not include them in the packet that's my oversight and when i looked at that i also see i didn't send out several of the other uh year-end reports so i have them what's your preference would you prefer i wait till next month or shall i send them tomorrow personally um i'd i'd like to see them tomorrow sure thank you and of course all of these are um draft they're not label draft i should have put draft but um things are changing we still got some bills this week we're still working with the auditor i wouldn't call it a negotiation because we're not actually we can't negotiate but there are some um rules uh some general accounting standards and he's given us

060a little bit more information about how we might be able to encumber something so we're we're sending him the information and uh we'll see how that turns out this also makes it very difficult to get our state report done which is due on wednesday so the fact that we're still trying to figure out our expenses for the year is making that a little bit difficult but we will get it done um does anyone have questions yeah people in state um empathetic like do they understand that this position that you're in so i don't think it's it matters our position there are um there are rules that we have to follow um [Music] so we will follow the rules um as best we understand them and as the auditor interprets them for us so i have

061i don't know if it's a question or what um i need to by um well i guess i don't according to the the ordinance i don't need to have a figure to um report to the finance committee until um [Music] uh the end of november however if it's greater than the two percent then i i can't do it after the um the meeting the august meeting of the board of finance so i think what i will do is write the memo for ten perfer two percent of our budget and ask that that be held aside and we'll hold that separately from all the other questions that dr ola has does that make sense that makes sense to me um i think we'll have two percent uh regardless of the expenses that were if we're allowed

062to encumber them i think we'll still have the two percent okay so i'll need that's why i'm looking forward to getting the report tomorrow or when you know when you can get to it relatively soon and i'll write my memo based on the figure for two percent that i get in the reports yes so rose you do have the board that uh the board of ed budget report is there it's the um the grants the activity fund those are the ones that i didn't include well i didn't see the one oops one minute yeah the dates are 2021 to 2022 i don't see the 20 20 to 2021 report which is the one i need okay well double check it did go out um it's possible that when i printed it this evening for you

063that that i missed it but it did go out in the packet well that's where i couldn't find it in the package so if i could you just send me another one because i certainly will yeah because i spent a while looking for it and couldn't find it or maybe um can maya wait until wednesday because things may change before wednesday okay um but the two percent's not going to change before wednesday that'll never that'll never change i'll send you what i have um right away okay you could just send me the bottom line of it if you want and i'll do two percent of that okay thank you very much yes frank point um sally and i were going over the um payroll and all the other with this new academic year and um

064we had to clarify with mrs holmes who is our slp she was um voted in as rslp based on a master's degree and she in fact has a sixth year degree which i have a transcript copy of and i think we're going to have to add to the agenda shouldn't be placed on a sixth year master's degree all right we'll finish with sally's report and then and then get to that okay oh that's why i i brought it up because i thought sally was done oh i'm sorry sally were you done maybe so okay the agenda that would be helpful okay i just put it on my notes for that all right so sally turned off her microphone so i'm going to take that as yes she's done and we'll move on to thank you

065rose oh you're welcome sally thank you um we'll move on to discussion and possible action on the replacement of neil moon for two months september and october of 2021. so neil um we're sorry to see you go we're happy that your life will get better with your move though um yeah but we need we need to um determine do we want to do a replacement uh for the two months rose yes one i contacted secretary of state by law we cannot appoint anybody until september 1st and that would mean that by the time we get we would have to have a special meeting to appoint somebody for september that means october would be the only month that they that person would be serving second this board has before previously allowed uh vacancies to stay open

066until the election time because that happened to me and before before i've seen or i know that democratic members of this board have selected a republican member and since i'm the republican chairman and we have another republican on board on the board we would like to be allowed the the right to select the candidate that's going before the board rather than the board itself appointing democrats appointing republicans doesn't do it and i i just want to be able to object to that very highly it's been done before it's been done without the permission of the time committee when we had other viable candidates and so that's where i stand but as far as filling the position for september no can do i don't think we should fill it for either september or october to be

067honest the process that we'd have to go through would would take time um i do want to say that this seat does not have to be filled by a republican it has to be filled by a non-democrat so there would be unaffiliated people and there would be independents someone from the green party um so to say it has to be a republican um i think is limiting well i rose again i would disagree with you only because there is a republican seat and as we stand right now we're outnumbered six uh two to one on the board so i would ask you guys to think about the viability of placing a republican not an unaffiliated who has no connection to the republicans in town so thank you [Music] there is a policy about filling positions

068[Music] so you agree are you saying that you don't think we should kill the vacancy rose is she speaking because we can't hear anything oh okay and you'll have to repeat yourself okay well wait woman and ann well i have you on speaker i don't know why it's not okay try now can't hear it ann is saying there is a policy and a procedure that is statutory for filling the board of ed vacancy [Music] i don't know somebody said something i don't know who and i don't know what i don't think so and say what you want to say okay okay i'm done okay is there anyone else who would like to comment what is people's pleasure should we start replacing working to replace for two months or should we not um and said there's

069a policy procedure do we know what it is well it's i do believe that it's uh it involves someone from well i i would have to go and look at it to be perfectly honest but i think the point about it being a non-non-democrat is probably pretty accurate so unaffiliated or republican excuse me rose would you like me to read the policy it's fairly short thank you that would be a big help okay uh the policy is in our bylaws policy number 9221 filling vacancies appointments if a vacancy occurs in the office of any member of the board it shall be filled by the remaining members of the board until the next regular town election at that election a successor shall be elected for the unexpired portion of the term and the official ballot shall

070specify the vacancy to be filled and the rest is just about taking the oath okay thank you so it sounds like we have to fill it if that's our policy that it shall be filled so the board has to appoint somebody and if i remember right we had we called for volunteers and then we interviewed them that is what we did um rose excuse me yes one my objection is that when when uh kathy donahue resigned from the board that was left open for months before the election and we have 30 days to appoint somebody and if we don't do it in 30 days then the board of selectmen gets to do it and they would have to be doing it after the election so that's not going to happen either so we can either

071table this or we can keep dabbling with this but we we still can't appoint anybody tonight that that we're breaking the law if we do because the secretary of state is very clear about that you can't appoint somebody while they're still sitting on the board and he'll be sitting there until after tomorrow so one i haven't heard anyone suggest we do it tonight so we're pretty safe in that okay thank you um i don't i don't know that even if we started the process we would be done in time to have someone seated and i agree that we have precedent for not filling a uh a vacancy especially when it's a very short one so personally i have no trouble with not appointing someone to fill this vacancy of education when we were such a

072small school it didn't make any sense to me and what i finally realized is that we have a need for a larger like a nine-member board because we have committees and we have fewer staff people and so a lot of the management of the school is more of a responsibility of board members than it would be in a larger district thank you thank you so i'm not hearing many people um [Music] chime in i agree with you rose there's just not enough time to go through the procedures that they want us to go through in order to put somebody in by the time we go through it the voted position will be done and we're gonna be off or not so i'm with you there's no sense of doing this okay thanks is there anyone

073else who would like to express an opinion well hearing none i'm going to leave it at we won't we won't fill the position unless at some point someone makes a motion and the board votes to do it let's move on to item 11 discussion and possible action on the line item transfers for the 2020 2021 budget mrs la who is this is this you or frank i could be either um they they are in my report so if you want me to read them um well i'll i'll be honest i i found that very difficult to understand in the way it was um maybe because i'm used to seeing the chart but i found after reading them i really didn't have a good idea about what was the end state of the budget um so

074reading them again isn't going to help with that well there were just two transfers um 62 000 from professional services to the 500 other purchase services and the second one being 10 000 from 200 benefits to 400 purchased property services okay so it would be my personal preference to see how that fit into the whole budget but that doesn't mean it's anybody else's so let's let's find out do we have a motion to approve the transfers as requested okay and move do we have a second i have a question i guess i'll second it so i can ask my question what's your question you froze a little bit uh what's your my question is my question is do we need to do these transfers so that the bills can be paid so um an auditor

075we had um our old auditor told me that it's typical that transfers are made at the end of the year after um things have closed out that being said it's really you know how do you feel about it as in do we want to make transfers at all well yes i mean you can um the bills are paid so this has already happened so the part um [Music] if you choose not to do it then it won't be done and we'll have a budget that has overages that aren't approved the bottom line is obviously not over or you can make them and we will be in compliance okay well we have a motion and a second is there any discussion hearing none i'll call the vote okay we'll start with mary ellen yes uh russ

076no neil no um susan uh i'm abstain matthew jollup's team um juan no and um the motion fails um three no's to two yeses so we will have um we will not make the transfers okay thank you all let's go rose you're frozen damn it now you're back i'm back okay i don't know what does that mean yeah i hope you didn't hear me swear the whole town kid and would have heard it but you weren't your phone anyway i apologize if you heard it um so this possib discussion and possible action on the finalized 20 20 20 21 budget report that's the report i couldn't find was there anyone else who had trouble finding it i don't have it kathy did not have trouble mary ellen doesn't have it neil did you do you

077have it no russ doesn't i don't know what those hand signals mean i did not find it okay neil did you find it no i didn't okay i think there's enough of us who couldn't find it that i'm gonna ask we do this next time if there's a compelling reason to do it before the end of next month we'll have to have a special meeting after we all have found it i find it really hard to vote on something you know that i can't find okay we'll move on to committee and liaison reports communications report okay finance and operations oh mark isn't here oh you're frozen again oh you're back i'm back i pound on the uh excuse me on the pad and it seems to come back um i'm not comfortable reporting for mark

078but there were minutes produced um so we'll have to let that suffice until next month when he's here and he can report on two months if that meets with approval and then there's policies rose we came here anything's been said so ann said that there was not a policy meeting however she did meet with lisa and they reviewed the um protocol for updating policies on um online okay did you all hear that uh no i got my i got my phone back if it works better in previous meetings i can call in doesn't that would help better that would work a lot okay thank you and i'm going to hang up so that thank you very much for okay you're welcome bye-bye okay we'll give you in just a second while we're waiting we can

079move on to ad-hoc minority recruitment if you'd like uh there was no meeting uh i was out of state for the last three weeks so oh welcome back thank you may i rose you may uh juan um so you know that uh we did hire a uh a uh gentleman uh his name is josh lord he is from guatemala what position did we hire him for he's a paraprofessional and he's working in team b wonderful thank you okay the ad hoc oh i'm sorry anne is now available through mary ellen and had you read had you finished your policies report well i i finished it but if anybody didn't hear it if somebody didn't hear it i'll repeat it well i repeated it already i think people heard okay we're fine then okay thank you

080um the ad hoc superintendent's evaluation committee did not meet and we have cabe and you have a report from kate okay cave is going full speed ahead there's a meeting tomorrow over government related relations and the planning for the conference in november is full speed ahead with proposals being reviewed um there's a lot of activity going on they're starting to have more meetings with in-person meetings so that's if you have questions i'm here okay thank you andy scone uh hold on yeah um east con did meet um one of the things we're looking at right now um is writing a capital plan um the generator failed um during there was a power outage at ease gone um and the generator did fail so there's there's a need to review all of the um buildings that

081east con owns and um write a capital plan the gentleman that's been the maintenance head has been there about at least 30 years and there's a new hire so that's one initiative and um bylaws will be changing probably at the end of september after the 30 days that each of the districts gets to review the new bylaws that's it all right mary ellen uh yeah just to make sure um everybody um super i have my copy i emailed it to rose and i not emailed i mailed it to rose and i mailed it to you which is the eastcon bylaws just so that you know that they did go out to three people who were listed on the bylaw document okay i haven't gotten my no i just mailed it today oh great okay thank

082you okay we're ready to move on to additions to the agenda so i have we can accept the resignation so we can say with regret and we can change the um [Music] the error made in hiring our speech and language pathologist on the wrong scale i'm going to ask dr ola um to help us flesh out this oh no i'm not i'm going to ask for a motion to add resignations and correct salary scale placement on the agenda i'd like to add something else marion yes what would you like to add i want to um call add that the board have an ad hoc committee to investigate shared services with chaplain okay should we make it three separate um motions unless dr ola can help make it one i think it's better because of the

083nature of the third one to have them separated okay so our first one should be to accept the resignations of gary schwartz chandler johnson and tammy king correct okay let's regret with regret i would hope but i don't know who's going to make the motion that would be up to them bros i'll move it that way okay juan you'll move it which would you like it to say with regret yes ma'am thank you do we have a second i'll second it and and seconded it any discussion all right are we just voting to add it to the agenda or are we voting at the actual motion we have to add it first [Applause] right i'm sorry we're voting on adding it you're right add pera mary ellen yes what's the motion right now which one

084are we doing right now i have just one and and to accept the resignations of three parents with regret that's the motion on the floor right now yeah but it should be to add accepting the that's not what we said i mean i got to know i'd like to know what what we're doing right now okay i'll move i'll move to add accepting resignations to the agenda maryland okay matthew does that straighten it out enough perfect thank you okay so mary ellen said yes russ this is to add it to the agenda yes neil yes susan yes matthew yes one yes and yes okay and we'll add that as 14a now can we use the motion made by juan and seconded by ann to vote on that item now matthew would that work for you

085yeah okay so let's vote to accept the resignations with regret mary ellen yes russ no neil no susan yes matthew yes juan abstain and yes okay the motion carries one two four to two now we need to have a motion to add um correcting the pay scale for the speech and language pathologist frank would you help us word that correctly um her name is diane holmes h-o-l-m-e-s from masters to a sixth year so what step what step do you know i think i won't know it's going to be the same step regardless um i think it was 12. it was 12. yeah she she retired all right so we need a motion to change mrs holm's um step placement from the master's pay scale to the sixth year pay still 12 step we have to

086add it to the agenda then do that you're right this is to add that to the agenda do we have a motion to add it to the agenda i'll move it thank you again and he ends second so mary ellen made the motion and seconded it okay i'll call the roll mary ellen yes russ i didn't hear you yes thank you neil yes susan yes matthew yes one no ann the motion carries one two three four five six to one now we need a motion to change mrs holm's step placement from master's 12-step to sixth year steps do we have that motion i'll move it okay so mary alan and ann any discussion all right i'll call the roll mary ellen yes russ jane neil yes susan yes matthew yes juan no and dan yes

087this motion carried one two three four five to one the motion carries okay now mary ellen would you like to formulate the motion to add to the agenda the item you wanted to add um i'd like to move to add forming an ad hoc committee to investigate shared services with chaplin do we have a second i'll second susan lovegreen thank you so it's mary ellen and susan any discussion hearing none i'll call the roll mary ellen little discussion please all right what's your discussion um yeah it's in addition to the scotland discussions that are going on this is to add it to the agenda oh okay so just to add it to the agenda yes yes that's the motion currently yeah got it okay okay so mary ellen yes russ yes neil yes susan yes

088matthew yes um juan no and yes the motion carries one two three four five six to one now mary ellen would you like to make the motion to form an ad hoc committee yes i move that um the hampton board of ed form an ad hoc committee to investigate shared services with the chaplain district do we have a second group it would be we now have yeah we don't the board of ed doesn't have a scotland committee that's technically um the board of selectmen with rose representing our board or on the committee i'd say right any further discussion bro i just want to do this rose i just wanted to clarify i'm also a member of that scotland committee yes i think i just said that but was my um was i frozen when i

089said it yes because i didn't hear you thank you okay i'm sorry i don't know why i'm freezing up so much um yeah so juan is is a member of the selectmen's committee to discuss shared services with scotland as well as as me any further discussion on the motion to start an ad hoc committee to share services with chaplain well to investigate it yeah i just want to say that i think that we shouldn't just have one choice um being investigated so i just figured we should look at other systems and you know if chaplin was mentioned quite a long time ago is why they weren't being looked at also so that's why i'm proposing it any further discussion hearing none i'll take the role mary ellen yes russ no neil no susan all right

090yes sorry it's okay matthew yes juan oh and yes okay one two three four the motion carries four to three um if anyone is interested in being on that odd ad hoc committee please contact me and i will appoint um i will appoint members um please i'm trying to think no later than a week from now let me know and then i'll make appointments okay so i think that makes us ready for audience for citizens and staff i add something else to the agenda oh okay neil what would you like to add to the internet this is the time uh before we just go along and and because seeing the state mandate of uh critical race theory being taught uh before we decide we're going to do that we either i would like to see

091a vote on if we're going to do that before we even see what the curriculum is because i don't know what what they're going to be teaching how they're going to be teaching it and for what i've seen nationwide there's a problem as soon as you start to see what what is expected to be taught by teachers it's not going well so i don't know how to add it to the agenda technically but i guess i would make a motion to uh add to the agenda that before we proceed to teach critical race theory that there should be a discussion and vote on it after we know what the curriculum will be i'll second that russ monson i just have a comment well can he read back the motion before you comment sure thank you

092matt matthew will you read back the motion please um i actually was going to ask uh russ to repeat it if he doesn't mind it's me it's neil i don't know if i can repeat it perfectly yeah that's i was trying to start writing it down and so you wanted to vote on something that we don't know what it's even about you want to vote on whether we would teach critical race race theory is that it i would guess simply simply that before we teach something we have no idea what it's going to be that we should just have a discussion and then vote on it i guess is the best way to put it and then vote on it after we understand what the curriculum will be i know that's a lot but i

093think that's concise as i can get it and this motion was to add it to the agenda right okay so we wanna to add a discussion he wants a vote to add a vote on whether or not hampton will teach critical race theory that mandate from the connecticut board of education that will be imp that is will be implemented i think we have there's a choice here unless we're just going to roll over that's all this is i'm very strong on this because i've done enough research on it and i just don't want to just say okay now in this school year i i guess i could ask frank have you seen anything on what the curriculum will be because this is going into elementary school too it's not just high school uh no there

094has been nothing my only point would be if it's mandated that we have to teach it by the state board of education i am legally obligated to bring it into the school system no choice i have no choice if it's mandated okay so if we have a choice then that's even better we have a choice here whether we're going to push as far as i'm concerned a racist point of view here saying that all white people are the oppressors i have a problem with that and until i i won't be here but until i were to see what this curriculum is going to be i i don't want to have anything to do with it and if this is not mandated then that's an even easier thing for me to say i would just that's

095my feeling about this again i won't be here but i'll be on the other side maybe from south carolina calling in about it and see what's going on with it because it is not a good thing to have in our classrooms i can guarantee you that so yeah our motion is to add this to the agenda and i will call the role mary ellen i'm a little confused yes well i'll add it to the agenda i'm not quite sure of the motion but i think it's to add a vote whether hampton will teach critical race theory is that what i'm voting on matthew do you think that sounds right i am i must apologize neil i'm so you wanted a vote on whether so you want to vote i would make a motion before before

096we decide to teach this critical race so-called theory that we uh how can i put it concisely as possibly before we teach critical race there we we should know what it is and what the curriculum is before we have this in our question about classrooms race theory before it is taught in the classroom i'm sorry i didn't hear you you wanna to have a vote on whether critical you wanna have a vote on having a discussion on critical race theory being taught in the classroom before it's taught in the classroom that is correct what a review so mary ellen voted to add it russ yes neil yes susan i i'm actually not sure what we're voting i thought we were voting to add it just to the agenda now we're adding that's all we're saying

097we're not putting behind the vote or not to vote that'll come up during discussion correct so we're just adding this to our agenda yes and that's fine we can add it to the agenda matthew no juan yes anne i'm staying um i i'm gonna vote on this one and i'm gonna vote no so the motion carries one two three four five to two yes so now we need the motion [Music] um to be made for us to discuss and vote on it so matthew we just made the discussion to vote i mean the vote to discuss i'm sorry we just made the vote to put it into the agenda right now we need the motion um to to do it or discuss it or whatever matthew do you think you have a motion in that

098that you could articulate for us um to vote on whether we should discuss critical race theory before it is added to classroom curriculum neil does that cover what you want you got to lean forward i can't hear you oh neil your your microphone's off yeah yes i would agree that's fine okay so who's making that motion neil are you i'll make that motion rust is making the motion who's seconding a second okay made and seconded now we can have discussion to have a sorry i'm just re-reading my i'll mute myself as i'm talking to myself do i have a comment or question okay and anything in terms of there being a mandate to teach critical race theory and further more i don't i haven't even heard like a clear definition of critical race theory i

099i have what i've heard is a very consolidated very vocal advocacy group opposing anything regarding critical race theory but i i don't see it as a yes or no answer or issue and i certainly don't see it as anything that we're being asked to require in our school curriculum i i mean i just don't see that happening uh matt flager sorry i just make my comment um yeah i think sorry now that i'm getting my header wrapped around it if at some point it comes down that we are going to add critical race theory to our curriculum then absolutely i have no problem with having a discussion whenever that may be i mean a while ago when i first brought this up excuse me sorry neil here uh when i first when i first brought

100this up that was i believe the guy's name was cordless i'm not sure exactly who he is but it came again why don't you let neil finish and then and then say something okay month and a half ago i sent and you know what mr corliss and cabe they both agree that they should follow this um this plan coming from and this is coming from the state board of education and it sounded like that's exactly what they want to do now my i don't want to assume that the town either or i want to assume that the town has a yes or no option on this as opposed to not being mandated if it's not mandated we still need a discussion if it is an option that we we have um but again that was

101very stipulated i read the whole thing that uh that that uh email i could send it out again but if you read about two-thirds three-quarters of the way through there's no there's no hesitation to me and or anybody else that i just think you need to read it that's what they want to do and i know like i said i've done enough research on this to know that it's going to cause a problem in town i'm just trying to ward off you got to know what you're talking about this is a major issue right across the country so i just don't want people to be unprepared if something comes down and we're deciding we're going to do this that's the best way i can explain it any further discussion um rose yes susan i love

102green um yes i keep my eye on what's going on with the state of course and i haven't seen any sort of mandates come down about critical race theory is there a lot of discussion absolutely has there been any mandates not that i know of and i think it would be premature to discuss taking a vote on something that has yet to actually exist i think it makes us seem a little close-minded and as a board we need to be open-minded and we need to follow the mandates when they're given so i think it's a little premature not to discuss it but to vote to make it definitive when we don't even know what's coming down the bike yeah thank you any other discussion yeah um mary on um i i don't mind having a

103discussion about this but i think we have to define it um and i really don't know the definition of it as it applies to an elementary or a pre-k to six school so um i think our superintendent is going to have to um flesh out for us what is meant by this and then because otherwise we we generally don't write curriculum we haven't been reviewing curriculum so we wouldn't even know if this is happening unless our superintendent were um to alert us to that so um i'm i'm a little confused like i mean yes i think discussing something doesn't bother me at all but um i'm not quite sure how we'll know when and what to be discussing i have a comment or questions yes in okay so i i agree with what other people

104are saying and that i i really would need a definition to even begin to have a discussion i think that it's always a good thing to have safe discussions you know if we if we want to talk about the underlying issues here i will say that what if i if we were doing a little internet search right this minute which we're not but if we were one of the things that might pop up would be the recent requirement of cultural sensitivity as an important component of the curriculum and that's something that did pass the legislative process but that's very different than critical race theory because it doesn't say what you have to believe it says that culture is an important topic and issues like mascots that are depicting um individuals as like red men something

105like that that's that's an issue different from critical race theory but it's an issue that needs to be addressed in classrooms so i think there's room there's a need for some heavy-duty discussion on issues of culture and diversity and equity but to me that the whole issue of critical race theory is different and i don't hear any mandates that's a requirement like i said uh i read the letter i didn't figure out what it said but it's going to take me a while and by the time i find it again i just tried to find it through all my emails and i can't find out what the letter was um so i can't i can't read what it said but it was very plain that this they maybe they don't use the word crt critical

106race theory they use cult whatever that this title was the importance of culturally responsive education which is fine with me but you go down further on a lot of these things and it says things that i don't like the way it sounds let me put it that way and it's not just a theory to them this is the way it should be and in my opinion it's not you got a lot of people that think like me again um i'm open-minded to this stuff and uh um i see frank wants to chime in but um i don't maybe it's not a mandate but they expect it to be done and maybe frank says he hasn't seen it yet which is fine but i think we should be prepared um as opposed to just reacting to

107this again it's a nationwide problem maybe a lot of you uh on you know don't know who are unaware of it but it's causing a lot of problems in towns and it's all over the country so i just want to make sure uh everybody here understands what's what's going to be here eventually okay dr ola did you want to add something yes uh just clarification the memo i think that mr moon is referring to was uh written by uh bob raider uh his secretary actually um typed it up but uh he was he is the executive director for cabe which is the connecticut association of boards of education not the connecticut state department of education and it's the connecticut state department of education that i have to answer to cabe is just another group of

108people with opinions um and cabe is what ann reports on um during her um committee uh report section of our board uh packet so um it is not anything that the state board of education or the connecticut state department of education has made any decision on in terms of of even discussing the issue let alone having a curriculum on it at this point just the clarification of the cave memo not state department of education i just know that cave endorsed whatever the state board of education said so uh we can go from there i i think i've made my point is that this is this needs to be addressed again i won't be here and i regret that i won't be here because to me this is a major topic along with you know the

109masks and everything else but um i'm just trying to open the door to some some thinking ahead of time before it catches you off guard i guess is the best way i can put it okay is there anyone who hasn't had an opportunity to express their opinion who would like to hearing none i'll call the vote what are we voting on matthew would you please um would you please read for us the motion uh ross moffett neil moon to have a discussion as a board before critical race theory is added to the hampton elementary school curriculum okay mary ellen how do you vote yes russ yeah neil yes susan we'll come back just no sorry i said yes twice i didn't realize i was still on mute okay matthew yes juan yes and is that

110a yes yes and i will vote yes one more i think the motion carries unanimously um now we move on to audience for citizens and staff bros yes yes one uh i would just like to bid neil goodbye thank you for serving with us thank you for running for the board and thank you for your responsibility uh good luck to you and your endeavors in south carolina make sure you go to charleston also enjoy your retirement period neil and enjoy the time with your loved ones it's been good to know you as a colleague and as a human being and as a friend thank you so i want to return to the agenda um kathy uh yes i just to be clear i didn't receive the the year and june reports when i was six

111i did not receive them either so when i get sent out i would appreciate them being sent also um under correspondence i did send a reminder letter i want the board to be aware board of education i said a reminder letter to frank rose mark and sally about the transfer funds to the hcs capital non-occurring count also with copies of the ordinances that pertain to that um i sent that on august 17th i got a response back from frank on sally was away at that time he thought that the the surplus was going to be in the 20 000 range wasn't aware of the newer things since you've spoken to the auditor and have some correspondence going back and forth with steve i'd appreciate any copies of that sent to me also um so that

112i can stay up to date on you know what his his thoughts are on this as far as that goes um this fed report i just have a couple questions the the birth to three are those included in the numbers that that were put on the the report oh that's for miss clark um as far as speech services i wasn't sure whether those were included in the numbers and then do you want me to answer that now a good point we also have birth to three coming you're thank you okay and so then but some of the the number that we're on there might be speech services of children who are already seated in the school it's just the birth of three that were included correct that that is that is possible okay thank you

113well we wouldn't include birth to three because we don't provide those services right but i think the second thing she just said i want to make sure i'm answering correctly is that some of the students that are on that count of 18 could just be students who only receive speech is that what you're asking mrs donahue yes that is yes so the answer to that is yes that is possible okay thank you that that's what i wanted to know and then um did we have a count on how many people actually rode the bus on those first few days thank you you're you're muted sorry when i rode the bus i did not actually count the number of students um to give you an accurate number but both uh mornings and afternoons on both buses

114especially uh bus number one in the morning and no yeah bus number one in the morning and bus number two in the afternoon were full yeah okay thank you that's all thank you and i'd also like to thank neil moon also for his services and hope he enjoys the carolina sunshine dr ola what what does the full bus mean an estimated number more or less because i know if they can carry up to 64 kids i know there are 64 kids in that bus because of the spacing and art stuff right so can we say like 25 30. um you know if i give you a number it's going to come back to haunt me so let me no let's do it estimate that we won't want you i agree with frank let him get

115an accurate number okay i i am meeting with the drivers and um the other people of east con so um i will try to include that if they have a ongoing count every day it's in morning is different from the afternoon even though it's the same route um so i will try to get that as accurate as possible thank you okay we are ready for a motion to adjourn adjourn juan is do we have a second oh second susan lovegreen susan seconded um any discussion i'll call the rolls mary ellen yes russ yes yes susan yes matthew yes one yes and in the motion carries unanimously we are adjourning at 9 15 p.m i wanted to thank everybody for their kind thoughts and i appreciated working with everybody and regrettably i had to get off

116but that's the way things go sometimes so uh but i wish everybody well and everybody that you know stay well and everybody heal we have some people that could use some uh uh some help with healing and uh appreciated everybody's friendship thank you neil thank you thank you thanks thank you thank you hey goodbye everybody bye-bye have a good night everyone good night thanks rose