Avon Board of Education Meeting - 06/09/26

001Good evening everyone. >> Like to welcome you to our monthly meeting of the Avon Board of Education on June 9th, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. I will start by doing a roll call of who's sitting here at the table for anybody who's joining us for the first time or watching on Nutmeg to know who's sitting at the table. So I will start with our board members. I am Deborah Chute. I am the chair. We also have Dr. Thage Singer, our vice chair. >> Present. Deb, thank you. >> Nicole Russo, our secretary, >> present. Thank you. >> Lynn Katz, >> thank you. Present. >> Sarah Heath, >> here. Thank you. >> Susan Zakaris, >> present. Thank you. >> Chris Campbell, >> here. Thank you. >> Jessica Julieti, >> present. Thank you. >> And Dr. Kevin McGary. >>

002Present. Thank you. >> And our administrators, Dr. Carne, our superintendent, >> here. Thank you. >> Mr. Medic, our assistant superintendent. >> Present. Thank you. >> Miss Russo, our business manager. Good evening, >> Miss Ardinskis, our executive assistant to the superintendent and board clerk. >> Thank you. And if you would all stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Thank you everyone. This is our final meeting before we take a brief recess in July. So, this is our last one of the school year. So, I'd like to start by reading our mission statement just to remind us all of the work

003that brings us together. Our mission is to inspire in each student a joy and a passion for learning, a commitment to excellence, personal integrity, and social responsibility. We have special recognition this evening. I'm going to ask Miss Borio if she wants to come forward to introduce our recipients. We have a guess it's like it's a tradition or something. I don't know. We have had two portraits of past principles hanging at Pine Grove School um since I've been there. And they were commissioned portraits of um Mark Nolan, the first princip. And they were commissioned paintings that I think were um from what I understand extremely expensive >> before my time. >> This isn't recent. >> So we we joke, you know, the leaving and I was um fortunate enough to take place. I said, "Oh, we

004have to get you a painting. We have to get you a portrait." He's like, "That's ridiculous. It's way too expensive and I would never do that." And but we have these two. We had them in our in our conference room and at one point we moved them out and I said we put them on this wall. There happened to be screws in the wall already that were perfect for them. So I hung the two there and I was like supposed to be principal's row, you know, something something like that. So I said, "No, we should do that." So one of our teachers made a picture of him and I should have brought that tonight but um made a picture of him and hung it up on the wall and it sat up there for a

005very long time and it was not not wonderful but it was you know it was fun. some kind growth funding, right? So, I had this idea that instead of paying thousands of dollars for a portrait, perhaps we could have this be a project for a student in Avon. So, I reached out to Chloe Gamberella who's now she's Amber Delana, right? When she was with us and she's now the art teacher at the high school. So, I said, "Do you have any um talented um students who are in photography class?" >> And she said, "Yes, I do." So, she set me up with Caroline Spazto. Come on. Um, and I said to her, "This is my crazy idea." Said, "I would like to take a picture of the former principal of Pine Grove, and I wonder

006if you could make it use some kind of app to make it look like a painting. You know, there's all kinds of things available now." She's like, "Yeah, try." So, last school year, I think she took the p took a bunch of pictures of him and he was so excited about his photo shoot. You know, Dustin, >> he wasn't going to come. >> No, he isn't here tonight. He was like, you know, it's hard to stand there and do whatever the poses are that you have to do. But um and Chloe took care, but um Caroline took care of it. And she said, and she set it all up. S, you know, what did you say? You told them to stand in certain spots and you said, "Let's take some different spots." What? >> Yeah,

007we tried to figure out lightings. We I had a little bit of practice with this before. I used my mom's camera. So, you know, shout out to her as well. She knows. She's the expert. But I I learned from Gella Gella and then from my mom about the sank. So we tried different lightings different places and we kind of we worked together and figure out what he liked the best and great. >> So we found a good picture and then she gave us the first copy of it and she mocked it up or did it up on the on the app and then we said well there were a couple things we want to change. Um the books had the tags on them from the library and said it look kind of neater and cleaner

008if it didn't have that. So she and Miss Gibdella worked on um a different app and was were able to kind of make it all work. So once it was finished, she sent me the finished products. I sent them to Jessini and said, you know, which of these are, you know, do you prefer? We got it all ironed out and set. And I said, all right, now we'll have to think about printing. Where could I get this done? And somewhere along the way, as I'm having these conversations with different people, somebody said, um, Mr. Shoemaker, is that correct? >> Shoeacher, right? >> Shoeacher. >> Um, he is Shoeacher. >> Shoeacher. Okay. He is at the high school and he is in the which department tech might have been Elizabeth who told me this. So I

009saw him. I said, "Can you like print big things? We're going to we're going to frame it. Is this a possibility?" And he said, "Sure." And like an hour later, I had this picture on on the, you know, in the office at Pine Grove. And I said, "God, why did that happen so quickly?" So slowly and and slowly but surely, it all came together. So I brought it to a framing company and we framed it. Um, and then I got the plaque. plaque was an interesting story because I bought the plaques with the little screws because I thought, won't that look really fancy with the little screws? And one of the principal plaques has just a stick out and one of one of them has screws. So I said, screws just look a little more

010fancy. And I thought being a a woman, I I can do work like this, but I thought if I screw the screws in gently, you know, sometimes guys come in like they're going to use their big drill gun. I'm like, no, I'm going to be really careful and slow. So I put the first one in the level. I'm leveling it with the second one. I'm almost done. And the head snapped off the screw and the screws inside of it. I'm like, I almost paid all this money. It's great. The company did send me a stick once and let it cover. It's been a labor room. So we did hang it and I was so excited. I didn't realize tonight when I got here that she hasn't seen it yet. So >> it says Mr. Jess

011M. Janini, principal 2013 to 2021 artist Caroline. >> A >> thank you. You did an amazing job. You're so wonderful to work with and what a great tribute um to our schools and the projects that we're able to do and the quality of our our education to have you be the artist of this. So, thank you for doing that. >> Thank you. That was great. I I think that's fantastic to use our student base and our staff to make something even more meaningful. And we'll have to make sure that Jess comes back and visits often so he can enjoy it. >> Already know I think Bridget just sent one not too long ago. >> Yes, I've heard of people taking selfies with them and sending them along. So very good. That that could be a

012fun activity for everybody, right? >> Well, thank you very much. We are so proud of you for being a part of this. And now you're emlazed on his frame for all eternity as well. So, we do have a certificate for you. If you wouldn't mind coming forward, we'll shake your hand and we'll take a picture with you. If your parents want to take a picture as well, >> awesome. Please come on up. >> Congratulations. Thank you for being willing. That's so sweet. >> I'm excited that you just saw it for the first time, too. Come join us over this way. >> Perfect. Should we have it like when you take the picture? Will you get in front? Like should I just put it in the front? It's really >> heavy. All right, everybody. Ready? This

013one first. >> Okay, one more. >> Thank you. So, we can send that to Jess, right? That picture. >> He'll enjoy that. Excellent. Thank you so much. That was fun. All right. Now, we move on to our regular order of business. Um, do I have a motion to approve our board of education regular monthly meeting minutes of May 19th, 2026? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Suzanne. Do I have a second? >> Second by Sarah. All in favor? I. Passes unanimously. >> Oh, so do you want to abstain? Okay. So, we'll do 8 01. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the board of education special meeting minutes of May 27th, 2026? All right. Lynn, do I have a second? Thank you, Chris. All in favor? I. Passes unanimously with nine. Yes. >> It's

014perfectly fine to approve minutes even if you didn't attend them. Um I have looked into that in the past. So, thank you for asking that question. All right. Communication from the public. Do we have anyone signed up? Anyone? Anyone? We're good. Okay. Thank you. So, now we do not have our students with us this evening. I think they're in the thick of the end of the school year. So, we'll move right to our financial report with Susan, page 12. >> Good evening, everyone. Um, we ended the month of May with just over $1.4 million available or 1.93% unencumbered. Uh, this is just a little bit more than last year where we had a little 1.1 million or 1.58% unencumbered. In the salary lines, we saw some variances due to um some of the new retirements

015that we had not planned on earlier in the year. You'll hear about them during the hiring in uh staffing report. So, we had some sick day payouts that we encumbered uh as per the teacher contract. Their savings due to continued unpaid FMLA leaves and our non-certified staff. This is the time of year where um some of the staff work less hours. Um for TAs or um in the pared educators and interventionists, this is the time where if they're newer staff with us, they tend to run out of days. Um so we have some unpaid times. So you'll see every payroll a little bit more uh funds being released in those lines. In other expenses, I left the comment about the telephone and telecommunications just to remind everyone that those uh lines are new and we're

016not over budgeting them. We're just using that as a transfer. Um we talked about last night um at finance the our drip funds are maintenance and repair funds. We received the cash finally at the time I put this together. we had not received the funds from the state, but we now have. Um, but as we discussed last night, I'm going to wait until we close out the books um and see how much of that money we need um to use this year uh because the opportunity to carry it forward to next year uh would be wonderful considering we did uh reduce our HVAC line for next year. And utilities um our our interesting situation in Thompson Brook is, you know, will cause utility changes there. um the chiller running, not running, the air flow on

017constantly overnight. So, we're not quite sure what that's going to go due to the utility bills over the next month. Um and as well, these um very hot temperatures this time of year is also putting a strain on all the rest of the building. So, we'll continue to monitor that as we get through the end of the year. Uh special education um people services continues to revise uh placements and uh change programming as needed for students. That continues to be fluid throughout the year. and you'll see some incumbrance changes for that. In general expenditures, um we're anticipating being close to or at zero for the end of the year. Um which is why you do not see um our typical year-end expenditure request uh at this meeting. We've been in a budget freeze almost the

018entire year and that's kind of where we're ending close to zero if not at it. And nutrition services, we're continue to project a loss right now. I don't have a total loss figure that we're still getting through the financials for it. Um, but we are as of uh June 5th at a $36,000 loss for the bad debt itself. So, I continue to remind families um if if you think you qualify for free and reduced, please please apply. Um if there is balances that you owe, we ask that you pay them. Those balances do not go away yeartoear. Um my staff has been calling from the business office. They call families to remind them. They try to collect the past balance as well as the current balance. Um, so anything we can do, uh, we like

019to help, but also we we do need those funds collected. The children are buying the meals. >> Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for Susan? >> All right, that's tough, but thank you for keeping us above the line. Zero is fine, below, not so much. So, we appreciate that. um very due diligence so we know that we're in good hands. All right, no conversation there. We'll move on to our committee and liaison reports, curriculum and professional practices. Lynn was looking at something. No, we did not. We our meeting was canceled. We did not need one. >> Thank you. Finance, we just met last evening. We had this conversation. There's more to come in the agenda this evening that we'll be talking about. So, I don't have anything to add other than um you'll see

020the minutes um coming soon from last night's evening um last night's meeting negotiations. Suzanne, >> well, we have a agreement um tenative agreement on >> safety and security specialists and we have negotiation June 15th >> next week. Yeah. >> With the administrative assistance. Yep. >> Thank you. All right. and policy page. >> Uh yes, Deb, there was no meeting recently. Thank you. >> All right. And for our Capital Region Education Council, Chris, >> yes, we met uh last month in at the Bushnau. Dr. Se was there. It was very much fun. Uh gave out a lot of awards. The food was good. >> Uh which is always great for me. Uh but I don't have a date for our next uh meeting. >> All right. Thank you. All right. Moving on to the board chair

021update. Just want to acknowledge we got here, guys. So, thank you for all of your hard work this year. Um, I know you still have a few more days to go. Um, but thank you for a successful year. We appreciate you and I hope you will get some rest this summer. I know a lot of you still come in, but hopefully with the quiet you get you feel productive. You feel a little more relaxed in the pace. Um, we are very excited to have our graduation ceremony this coming Thursday. Christine has done a great job in bringing gowns for anybody who didn't pick them up yet. So, please don't forget to take them with you this evening. Um, it's a it's a great event and holding it at the Bushnull um really adds to the

022experience for everybody. So, you're going to want to come. I'm suggesting that we get there 4:30, 4:45 the latest because the ceremony starts at 5:30. So, we really want to be all accounted for and ready to go because we're really on a schedule in terms of getting ourselves to process in um at the beginning. So, if we can do that, we'll meet you over at the will call area on the side entrance. Um, for those of you who have gone before, you'll you'll know when you're looking at the front of the building, it's to the right. It's across the street from the parking lot. It's that side of the building. So, parking fills up. They do a nice job for us, but it's a big lot and people take advantage because parents and families are

023coming. So, just plan for that. I usually just hang my gown in the car and then I'll put it on as I walk in. Um, Christine has reminded me to remind everyone that we do need to return them in the plastic. If you lose the hanger, that's not the end of the world, but your hood and your gown need to be encapsulated in that plastic so they keep track of everybody returning them. Um, and by June 15th, is that when you need them by? Okay. So, if you can just get them back to Christine. >> Okay. But that way we won't be charged any extra fee, right? Okay. But um yeah, it's it's a lot of fun. And if anybody has any further questions beyond that, certainly reach out. Um happy to make it that

024easy on you. We basically you just follow in line. We'll just walk in together and then we'll sit down on stage and we get to enjoy it. So um just I'm glad we're all going to be there together. It's really a nice night. Um other than that, I think I am good and I will move it on to Dr. Carmola for superintendent report. >> Thank you. Good evening everyone. We will start with our hiring report. Mr. Medic. >> Good evening all. Uh included in the board packet is the June hiring report. As members of the board and our school community know, uh Mr. Miles Altimus announced his retirement earlier this year after many dedicated years of service to the district. We're pleased to welcome Mr. Eric Wakander as his replacement. He'll be beginning with us

025in early July. Mr. Wanderer joins us from the town of Enfield where he currently serves as the deputy director of public works. Prior to that role, he served as the facilities manager for the Southwick Taland Granville Regional School District in Massachusetts for a little less than a decade. um he lives over in Bark Hamstead and um he's been absolute pleasure to interview, meet with and he's already uh excited to get started and transitioning with Miles prior to so we look forward to him joining us just after the start in July. In addition, um we have several resignations this evening of employees in various classifications. Sorry, my computer just shut off. Um, in addition to, so I won't read through them. Uh, they're in your packet, but I do want to say a few words, uh,

026about our veteran educators who are retiring this year. Thank you so much. I had this all queued up. Um, Mr. Cole, Miss MTO, Miss Khan, Miss Nzarella, and Miss Worky have been longtime dedicated employees to our district. many serving in student support services and various uh elementary classrooms during their tenure with us. As a group, they have dedicated more than 140 years collectively of service to the students, families, and their colleagues in the town of Avon. Uh we're very sad to see them leave. Um Bridget and I have gotten to know them quite well in the time that we've been here. uh exemplary group of educators, but we wish them nothing but health, happiness, and an excellent retirement. Uh welld deserved. So that's our hiring report for June, and uh we'll be back in August

027with a very lengthy one. >> Most likely. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Medic. Um and I did clarify just so everyone knows, it's going to be hard for us to undo because we had said it the way Mr. Medic just said it. It's white cander. It's it's Eric Whiteander. and he is very excited to get started and Miles I think is also very excited for him to get started. So, especially uh the way this year is ending with um Thompson Brookke and some of the other issues that we've been dealing with, he's like, "Yes, it's it's time to go." Um just a few things um from a overall update perspective. our uh play as you know uh Christmas Carol and then and we had uh Annie also here at the high school. Uh the Halo Awards

028took place recently and we will recognize these students. So I won't go too far down the path right now. We'll we'll do it when we come back hopefully although some of them will be gone. It's late in the year so it's unfortunate but it's hard to get them here right after it happens. Uh Molly Haid uh won the best performance in a featured male role in a play for Fred in A Christmas Carol. Um Phoebe Emanqua uh was the winner for best performance in a supporting female role in a musical for being Miss Hanigan and Annie. Um so those those are two big ones they winners. Um but also we had numerous nominations from um best performance in a comic male role in a play, comic female role in a musical, best hair or makeup

029design and or execution, best lighting design and execution, best running crew, best specialty ensemble, best performance in a supporting male role in a musical. Best performance in a supporting female role in a musical. Best performance in a leading male role in a contemporary play. best performance in a leading male role in a classical musical. Best performance in a landing female role in a classical musical. A best contemporary play for A Christmas Carol, and a best classical music for Annie. Those were all of the nominations that Round of applause. >> Yeah. Yes. >> I think we should clap. >> Very impressive. Very impressive. Um I think as you know we have spoken about before uh we have our NASA uh recognition we had um Mr. Dona's class go and participate in the design of the invention.

030I've already spoken about that. You've seen probably the patch article um that has come out. We've been working I want to thank even though she's not here uh publicly Julie Tassinelli who assisted us with um press release and also helping to distribute it in some places where she knew people. I have also reached out to the current and some of the local news stations. I expect someone else will most likely pick it up. It is pretty exciting and I think a pretty good story for someone to run. >> Um behind us you see panels. These are here from an event that the high school held um Monday before last and I uh Stephanie and I both had the uh pleasure of being at. We had a group of students working with um each other and

031with through their Amnesty International Club and with Mr. Stu Abrams as their adviser to do research related to uh genocide and genocide education. And they have come up with this acronym enough. Um and you can see all of what that means behind me. And they these are all completely student. They did the research. They came up with what they thought should be on the panels. and they came Monday night and explained it to a completely full room and uh there was a bit of a partnership with a Yale professor too right now I can't remember his name he came he spoke our students stood up and spoke beautifully about each uh area in which they had presented and done a panel and the goal as we move into next school year is to partner with

032some other school districts nationally and internationally um Stu and I have a couple of contacts that we're going to be meeting with on Zoom um internationally to talk about the possibility of these kind of going on tour and being able to educate people across the globe about um genocide. And of course the acronism though is that education is not enough alone and so what are the actions that can be taken um to prevent um genocide and also to help in victimized areas. So, it was really fabulous. Very proud of the kids. If you get the chance to take a look at them when we're out of the meeting, please do. Um, go ahead. >> Live or be interested in >> the they might be I I should reach out to um Glenn and ask. Thank

033you. Uh, we also had uh there's a lieutenant governor computing challenge and we had winners here uh for their coding project related to AI. Again, not students that could be here with us tonight, but two of our students, uh, Muan uh, Erev Aravind and Sha Shahesh Kilada, I believe. I I believe I got those correct. Um, both won and we had the Junior Achievement Stock Market Challenge. Remember, I think I told you that it was the first time we even had a team compete. Um, they won and those winners are in Boston. >> Amazing. >> Right now. So, it was very exciting. Uh, fantastic festival music. Uh, Avon Middle School, all five of the performing ensembles that were there, I believe, was that two days ago recently, >> right? >> Friday, excuse me. You know,

034you know me in the days of the week. I don't I never know what day it is except Tuesday when I have to come here. Um, all five of the P performing ensembles won gold medals >> and that was a regional competition very represented us very well. Very exciting. I'll echo what Deb said and thank all of you. I know everyone couldn't be here tonight. This is also indicative of the time of year that it is. We don't have all of our team with us, but nonetheless want to thank all of our team in uh the schools from the administrators to the faculty uh staff. It has been a very busy and a very productive year and I think a very successful one for all of us even with some of the challenges that we

035face like we do in any other year. So, thank you um in the schools for all of that and thank you as a board for your support throughout the year also because we can't do this work without you and I think we've made a lot of progress this year and um we'll talk more about that when we have our retreat in the fall and we update you on hopefully our um scores that appear to be climbing um on the smarter balance assessment. I made a joke and said, you know, some of us as administrators were watching them like traders on the ticker floor last week because they can't be released yet, but we are able to see them. And so, we've been tracking those and and watching the growth and uh some pretty exciting things

036happening, I think, even in that area alone. So, see you at graduation. If you have any questions between now and then, do reach out. As Deb said, it's very easy when you get there. You you can tell what to do. Everyone everyone's on their way in. and um parents will be at the door waiting for them to open it to ensure that they get good seats too. So it will be very obvious where you're going and that's not where it is. You're not going in the front door, you're going in the side door. Um we we've had no problem parking as long as you are there early enough and it's really a great time. Looking forward to it. We have a few strategic plan updates. one main one that I I would like to um

037elk ask Elizabeth Ferry to come forward for. We as you know have been um running a technology vision committee. Thank you to Elizabeth for assisting us with that. As I mentioned previously, I had what seemed like a oh my goodness, Bridget, you you brought this up in February kind of an idea and uh we made it work and and we ran with it and we have we had a great group of volunteer um faculty members and administrators from across the school district that have done this with us on their own time and want to thank them for that. Also, we have an update for you on what that looks like. I have said it in bits and pieces over the past few months, but I thought as we close out the year, it might be

038nice. We had our final meeting um last week and Elizabeth put this together to kind of be able to summarize what we've been talking about and what next year will look like from an educational tech standpoint. And any questions you might have, we'll answer, but I think it probably be pretty straightforward. And I appreciate you putting together the slides, Elizabeth. >> Thank you. >> Just to make sure it was easy for you to have access to even after the meeting. Yes. Um and as Dr. Colonel said too, if you have any other questions as well tonight or as we continue on because the work that the technology vision committee did is not stopping because we are going to continue into next school year as well. I there was hopes that we could get a lot

039of this done during the school year, but there was a purposeful and strategic way that we wanted to have this committee run. And one of the things that we did is we pulled representatives from every single school, every single content or grade level, or at least bands of them that we could. We didn't want to have it to be too large of a committee, but enough that it would be a representation of our staff. We had two meetings, April 29th and May 27th. At the very first meeting, it was a very it was extremely productive. We did I over the last year and a half since our administrative team went to the superintendent's conference back in March of 2025 when we heard Jonathan Heights speak, the he's the author of anxious generation. We heard him

040speak and we all started having conversations like we really need to start looking at this in the district because as you know from co we were basically forced to be onetoone in a sense because we needed to have technology available to us to be able to deliver the instruction to our students. As research is coming out and we've been collecting research over the last year and a half. We're seeing that they that we might we need to make a change in what we're doing here in the district and a lot of schools. You can't turn on the news today without or read any type of news articles without seeing some type of article about screen time technology used. I made my son sit down tonight and watch why social media is bad for children on

041the news because it was on the news tonight. So I told Vincent, I said, "You have to sit down and watch this whole like this whole article." So he was not happy. Um but it goes to the point of what we did on the first meeting which was we looked at some of this research that was out there. We looked at both ends too of the spectrum as well, but we focused a lot on screen time because that's one of the big discussions that are up that is very popular around the country and around the world right now. Um, prior after the April 29th meeting, which I'm actually kind of upset about, but I wish it was um the 29th meeting, the surgeon general actually came out with a report, a 43page report. If anyone's

042interested, I have it and I can share it with you. But it is all based on looking at screen time with our youth and what it's doing and what we can do not just as schools but also parents and kids can do to make a change to help our students and our youth adjust to not having as much screen time in their lives. So the big piece for us is we looked at it saying, "Yes, we know our students have a lot of screen time in their lives." And some of the things that we heard from our staff too was, "Well, a lot of it's at home." And yes, we would agree that it is, but we needed to look to see what we were doing internally as a school district adding to that. And

043so the focus and a lot of the focus of what you'll hear me say over the course of the next couple of years is purposeful use of technology. And that's what our tech vision committee had in their forefront as well when they were talking about um the different research that was out there and some of the proposals that they came up with. We're not going to not use technology, but it's going to be how we use it and the purpose of it and making sure that we are purposefully using it with our students. So when they have a device in front of them, they know that there is a reason for it. It's a tool similar to a textbook or any other type of instructional material or resource that we give them. So at the

044May 20 or I'm sorry, April 29th meeting, the groups kind of split up and they came up with a draft tech vision which we're still word smithing a little bit and we will present it to the community and to the board of ed as well. And they also came up with some recommendations for next school year and they had a whole list. There's probably like 20ome recommendations. We looked at it as a leadership team to find some of the um John Moss coined it the lowhanging fruits but the things that we might be able to do where we could implement baby steps into this tech vision of what we believe in the district. So we took it to the leadership team. Then we met with some of the teachers that were going to be more

045impacted than others with some of these changes for next year and made a little bit of tweaks based on the recommendations made. And so the next slide goes over some of the changes that we're going to see for next school year. And this will be communicated with the community as well. So we are going to be screen free in kindergarten. Currently there they were one to one. Actually all of our students were one to one kindergarten through 12th grade. Not pre-K but kindergarten through 12th grade. For kindergarten we are going to go screen free. We're going to pull the devices out of the classroom. We've talked to our kindergarten teachers. We looked at the software that they were using um and identified areas that we can support them to replicate the skills that they were

046utilizing the Chromebooks for at that age and also focus a lot more because we've had a lot of conversations and professional development on that play-based learning and getting our students back to their fine motor tactile skills and giving them activities that they can do that will increase those skills and focus on those as well. In grade 1, this was the grade that was probably impacted the most. We initially proposed to be screen free in grade 1 as well. As we met with the teachers though and we were talking to them about what they currently use their Chromebooks for in the classrooms and it is all around small groupoup activities when the students are going in stations maybe 5 10 minutes during the day. We decided that for next year we're going to be three to

047five devices per classroom so that they can still have some small group activities but throughout the year provide some professional development for them to be able to create other activities that would again match those skills or or not replace the skills that the Chromebooks were providing but give them something again fine motor tactile play-based learning and then be fully screened free 2728. Second grade is going to be a 3 to one model. So three Chromebooks for every or three students to every one Chromebook again to focus on small groupoup instruction. But this is also the first year that our students take a standardized test which is as web or our progress monitoring assessments on devices. So we don't want to just give them a device right before the assessment. So we want them to have

048some familiarity with the device itself so they can maneuver and move around it. Now sh I'm sure you guys would all be able to guess though a student you give them a Chromebook and we had a student from India that moved in a couple months ago and the mother was very concerned in fifth grade. He's never touched a device. He's not going to know how to do it and and the teacher actually timed it and it was less than 5 minutes the student was able to figure out how to log in, how to get to class link, how to go into all the applications and they they can figure it out but we also don't want to set them up for failure in second grade when they're going to be taking an assessment on a

049device. So, we do want to have that 3:1 model. And then grades 3 to six, we took a long, we took a look at our curriculum to determine what it is that we have in our curriculum that the students may need to take their device home for homework or any type of activities that they may need to do at home. We realize that everything that we have can be done not with a device. So, we're going to change the model in grades 3 to six and instead of assigning a student a onetoone device, we're going to have classroom charging units, which we used to have actually before co we had carts. They were allowed and you'd roll them down, especially Roaring Brook hallway cuz it has bumps on the and it always it was so

050loud. Everybody knew when I was coming down the hallway, but we're going to actually use charging units in each of the classrooms for enough for every student in the class. And they're not going to take them home, though. We're going to have them stay in the schools. And we're actually going to have them stay in the classrooms as well. um simply because it's going to reduce the amount of damage that may occur. But it also is going when I looked at because you guys know I'm huge on data. When I looked at the data to see what our students were doing after school hours on their devices, it was very minimal that was ac like assignments. I'll just say that yes, they were exploring. They were being creative but not necessarily assigned to a homework

051assignment. So there these are the things that we think we can keep them inside the classrooms and inside the schools to then encourage other non-screenbased activities when they go home as well. Um what we didn't put up here is 712 only because we are also going to make some changes but they're going to be more broader across the whole district. you, if you're a parent in town, you may have got might have gotten an email from Tom Klein, which was sent by me, but I signed it, Tom. Um, so he gets all the emails about it. But we are collecting every single Chromebook this summer, and we're doing this for a couple different reasons. One, we're going to do an inventory. We're going to look at every all the devices. We're going to see if

052what damage might not have been reported so we can send them out for repairs. But we're also doing this so when our students receive the device back in their hands in the fall, they are also receiving a presentation, an overview from their teachers talking about what that device is, talking about how it is going to be used purposely for academic purpos purposes. That it is like a textbook, like a resource that you would have for a classroom. It is not to be used for anything but academic purposes. We have a lot of filters in place that we kind of we set up. I've had lots of conversations with students, but I also think it's very good for our students to have that reminder as well and understand that when they are using technology, it's purposely

053use useful. And that's something that we're going to look at 712 as well is identify when we are using it, why are we are using it? Are we using it just to use technology or are we using it to consume information? Are we using it to create information and content? So those are going to be the focus that we're going to have especially at our upper secondary levels as well for next year. And then can you do last slide? And then as the committee meets next school year, we're going to al again kind of mention the revisit our tech procedures and practices districtwide looking at how we are utilizing technology. There's a lot of different activities and through my um background and stuff I have a lot of things that we can have our teachers

054that might not have had background in educational technology be able to look at when I assign my students a paper to write or a slide present. Slide presentations are like the thing that everybody loves having kids create. You have to ask yourself what is it and what level of activity and engagement are you actually doing? Are there other things that we could do that would help our students be able to demonstrate their understanding that either might not be using technology or could use technology that you don't know that's available for them to use and prepare them for more of the things that they're going to see when they leave our school district because that's the other piece as well. So yes, you may make a Google slide presentation when you go out in to the

055real world, but you may also be using a spreadsheet to create formulas and to have skills that we want to make sure our students have when they leave our district. We're also going to conduct I again I look at software data all the time, but we're going to do a deeper dive into our digital software audit and look at all the systems that we're using. You'll as you see the budget comes up and our software lines that come up as well every year. I and Susan and I always have tons of conversations about it too because I look to see what we're purchasing, why we're purchasing it, how many licenses we have for different products, and what skills and standards we're trying to meet with those programs and making sure that again when we're using

056it, when we're purchasing it, it's a with a purpose that's tied to curriculum and tied to our student progress. We're also going to look at PD roadmap, a multi-tered PD roadmap with technology. Everybody has different skill levels and that's the same with our staff as well. And we've heard that a lot from them is you can't put us all in a room and teach us the exact same thing with technology because we have some folks that have used technology and jump into it as if they're almost like a 12-year-old. And we have others who are resistant to it and may not be fully comfortable with it. So, we're going to look at a multi-tered professional development roadmap for next year to provide opportunities for our staff, but also provide for our staff in ways that

057they can do technology professional development or they can do what I like to call like the unplugged activities, things that they can do in replacement for technology. Um, one of the great examples was uh during indoor recess and not that not in our school district, in a lot of other school districts I've read online, a lot of people say indoor recess is just the teacher putting a a video up on the screen and the kids watching it. So those are things where we can say, okay, in the past other districts or other classrooms might have used something like this, but let's look for an unplugged activity that our students can do that will get them collaborating, communicating with one another, working together instead of just adding to the screen time that they're already going to

058potentially have away from us. We're also going to work with our families and communities because we know that this is not our only thing that we're not the only ones that are contributing to this. So informing our families, h helping them understand some of the research that is out there as well and doing small professional developments and information sessions for them to give them ideas as well. Again, I'm not going to plug it anymore, but the surgeon general's 43page report actually has a couple pages of what families can do and gives them ideas and activities, which I think has been very helpful. When I was reading through it, I thought it'd be very helpful to be able to share with our community members as well. I think all of our administrators feel sometimes that they

059are actually the parents as well because the parents reach out to them saying, "Well, should I get my child a phone at this age?" I think every single one of you have probably had that conversation already with at least one parent in the school district because parents also want to know this information and they they're looking for support, too. And that's one of the things that we can provide to them is kind of give them the information that we're using when making these decisions. And then again, as I said it before, purposeful use of technology. It may sound like in some areas we're pulling back, which we are because we're trying to look at screen time, especially with some of our younger students, but we're ne we're not necessarily pulling back at all levels. We're

060refining what we're doing with it and making sure that there's a purpose to the tech and not just using technology to use technology. It's very similar when we've talked about in our AI committee, are we going to use AI just because it's AI? No, we have a purpose and a reason for using it. And that's what we're going to do with our tech use as well. Thank you, Elizabeth. Yep. Stage, you had a question. >> Yeah. >> Um, so I think I think it's a great move towards allowing kids, especially in those younger years, to continue developing skills, motor skills, gross motor. >> But I wonder about our kiddos that need the technology for learning. When we say screenfree, how are we considering that they may still need that? >> Sorry, I I should have

061mentioned that. So any of our students that need it with per um their play or assist of technology will have access to it any of the programs and devices as well. I'm I apologize I should have mentioned that. So >> that's okay. But um you know when we're talking about moving things more to paper pencil or finding ways in which we can use less screens um I wonder how we marry the two for students who still need the software and technology kind of approach because that's the way they learn. >> Yes. >> So >> and I think a lot of what I know a lot of what we're doing is we're trying Can you go back to the changes slide? Two more. One more. Oh, you freezed it. I'm sorry. Okay. Um, none of these

062are going to be set in stone either and we're going to be able to look at what our students are doing and I completely agree with you because there are students that learn better. There are some students that flourish during the during co because that was the way they learned best and we as educators are going to be able to know our students and be able to see what they how they learn how they learn best and be able to provide those modifications accommodations to them in the classrooms. And again, if assist of technology or a student has something in their plan that they need to have access to a program device or any of that those areas, they will have that resource as well. >> Okay, >> great. Thank you. >> Go ahead. >>

063Um I just wanted to say that I love the term um use purposeful technology. I've been doing a lot of reading on this um both you know as a mother you know somebody interested in education and it is frightening how educa how technology has really just taken over it's come so quickly and not that there weren't guard rails but it was just kind of thrown at us. So to take a step and say let's look at this at the grade level appropriateness giving the support to the teachers to the parents to the students and working with each grade level to see what is meaningful and getting them back to having a more well-rounded education of getting you know the books the fine motor skills the communication I commend you because this is not an easy

064undertaking. So thank you. >> It's been interesting. So Kevin >> um first and foremost I think this is great. You obviously did a lot of work to kind of think about how to navigate the technology for kids and I it's it's it's super important for students especially kindergarten through six. As you think about high school, how have you kind of thought about the introduction of claude chat GPT gro in the way that students are leveraging them today? Um I've had a lot of conversations with college professors. they'll they'll put out a this is the essay and a couple guys I've talked to said out of 20 20 students 15 essays look exactly the same. It's all technology based um driven by chat GPT or something of that nature. >> Yeah. So our we have a

065we have another committee. I like to run committees. That's pretty much what I do in my free time. Um we have a we actually have an AI committee that's been looking at this over the course of the year and we are one of the very few school districts so far that has not opened up any of the frontier AI platforms um to our students yet. We do use school AI. We're piloting it at the middle school level which is a it is not Frontier is a clog chat GBT Gemini. Those are the frontier programs. School AI is an educationally designed program that basically puts guard rails around any of the chatbots or the systems that are being used to teach students how to do prompting. Gemini is the only frontier one that we would legally

066be able to open to our students um based on our privacy or student data privacy contract that we have with Google. And one of the things that we've worked on with the AI committee is looking at what grade level should we open this up to because legally we could open it up to any student at any grade level. Um, the difference between opening Gemini in the Google education realm and Gemini in the real world is in the Google education realm. And if you log into actually any of your board of ed accounts and you go to Gemini, you'll see on the bottom that any of your prompts, any of the things that you put into Gemini is not feeding their system. So, anything that our students would put into Gemini would not also feed into

067their algorithms and they wouldn't be giving any of their data to them. But we're still we still haven't opened it yet. And I'm I'm very glad we haven't because a lot of school districts are almost saying, "Oh my gosh, what have we done?" Because they've opened everything up. But I was I had a conversation over the weekend with a college professor because he was a a professor down in Georgia and he's an economics professor and he said, "What are your take what is your take on it? What is it?" And I said, "Our students need to have AI literacy." Yes, we have to teach them this because this is what they're going to see, but we have to teach them it in a area and in a system that's going to be safe for them

068to help them be able to use it. So when they leave us and again it's that purposeful use of we need to be able to give our students access to systems, software and devices that they will use and see after they leave Avon public schools. So it is something that the AI committee is going to work on this year is look at identifying the grade levels when we should and could open it. We also are working, our library media specialists have done a phenomenal job um because I always talk about them because I love them very much. But they our students only receive um library media classes up until seventh grade and then 8th grade on up they haven't rece they don't receive any type of like actual course where they would be sitting on.

069So it would be the classroom teachers that would be teaching the prompting and learning how to use the AI tools. So, it's something that we are looking at to figure out to infuse some of those lessons into more of our social studies, English coursework to make sure our students have access to those programs at some level, whether it be even just 11th and 12th grade um and have say school AI, which again is that educationalbased it created still it's a chatbot. It's an AI tool, but it's I if any of you have any children that have used school AI, it's pretty phenomenal because you can actually the teacher gets to see everything the students are doing and talking to the chatbot with and they actually get these little alerts like a red exclamation point if

070something's wrong. They actually get will get an email if they feel like they're being quote unquote bullied by the student. The chatbot feels it's being bullied by the student because they they want to name it. That's like their first thing they do and they said, "I want to name you." And some teachers can actually put in that you cannot name the chatbot. But we've told teachers if they're creating it, just let the kids name it cuz that's all they want to do anyways. Um, but it has guard rails. It's phenomenal because I've had a parent ask me what if similar to what open I and open AI or chat GPT if you ask it questions. We've seen all the news articles out there this the them encouraging to do different things and they said will

071school AI do that and I put in every single prompt this that somebody gave to me and it always consistently said I am based on an educational platform and educational chatbot and it always referred them to getting support talking to an adult. So, it was very good. But we know that our students are also using AI on the side, just like you were saying with the college professor. And I had a great conversation with the high school students last year about AI. And I asked them like, "How do you use it?" And they're telling me like, "It's just like a Google search." I go, "But it's not you guys." And I said, "That's where we have to make sure we're providing you with the skills of doing a correct prompt, understanding that the first prompt

072that you do is not going to be the result that you're going to get, and you have to work with the AI back and forth because we see in all of a lot of the fields now outside of education. A lot of the companies have created their own AI chat bots to work with the material and the information that they're using. So these are the things that we want to help our students be able to do, too. So um and also I switched from schooly to Google classroom one of and I said on a call with Google today and there is some great AI pieces that are already embedded into Google classroom that we could provide access to our students once we feel comfortable and we have our staff fully trained on the use of

073them because that's the other piece is making sure our staff's AI literacy is at a level that they can understand and be able to implement it but they have Gemini is going to be available to students in Google Classroom once the district feels we can open it to them. And also Notebook LM, if you've ever used Notebook LM, if you haven't, you have to try it. It's amazing. It really is. But it's such a great resource for our students to be able to Lynn, I'll give you a whole lesson on it. You'll love it. No, you will. Um, but it's a great resource for our students because it, not that I wish I had it in all the course work that I used to do, but I would love to have had it in some

074of the college courses that I did because it helps synthesize information and you can gather information, help it synthesize, it can quiz the students, it can create presentations, it can create an audio overview. It's really fantastic. And if we can teach our students how to use that to support their learning, I think it'll be a gamecher for us and for our students, too. Just real quick on um you mentioned quizzes. >> My daughter's in eighth grade and I've create I'll create math tests for her in chatbt. >> What I've found is chat GPT will get about a 60 >> on its own math that tests that it creates. >> It's awful with math. >> So it's really bad. Like so just kind of looking at what those different AIs are and which ones are effective

075for what you're trying to do. >> Yep. Exactly. As a former math teacher, I've I put I've put all of the frontier uh AI tools to the math test. So, and I feel much better that I'm smarter than AI when it comes to that. But, but the only one actually truly that's been out there was KIGO. Um created by the creator of Khan Academy, Scon. He put together KIGO is their AI platform. And that one is actually I I feel almost 80% 80 to 85% accurate with math. The other ones are not and it gets very and it gets very confused and does not give correct answers. Even school AI, we've had some of our math teachers put school AI to the test as well and same thing. So we find that there are some

076platforms and some content that are better used with the programs than others, but I would agree completely with you. So Suzanne, >> I just want to thank you for doing this, you and the committee, because I think this is the most important thing that we have to face right now. It's what keeps me up at night. I think I've shared articles with people regarding this. Um I I saw this article about a school district in North Carolina where they have two full days a week screen free the entire district to see um what results they they get and they're having really great results from that. They're not completely screen free >> completely yet but I think that's where they're headed. And I'm not saying that we should do that but um I just think this

077is like this will be this will change our students lives. So thank you for doing this. Well, I have to thank I really do have to thank the committee because they were amazing and they came together, had some great conversations. We split them into four different groups and every group had had an elementary, had a secondary, had an administrator and the conversations were phenomenal on that half day. Um, I don't know if Liz is here. Liz Salvatore was one of our elementary uh principles or assistant principles that were there. Mark was there as well. And it was wonderful conversation and it was great to hear the open-mindedness of our staff to be able to say this is something that is going to be the betterment for our students. But then they also said which I

078completely agree but what about staff? Can we also look at purposeful use of technology with staff? I said absolutely that is going to be definitely something that we're also going to look at next year because as adults we need to understand how we use technology and making sure that there is a purpose to it communication wise. I mean we get we can probably look at how much time we spend on our own tech and identify how much of it is waste not wasted time but time that we didn't may maybe be able to do other things and not be on a screen or device. Thank you Lyn. I should know this, but when do we teach typing skills? >> So, I mean, it's important. >> It is important. Yes. Um, we have a program called

079typing.com. We've gone through a couple different ones. I almost said like typtastic, which we had a few years ago, and then type tolearn, which was even a few years before that. But our typing typing.com right now is just integrated into classrooms into small group or flex time. Our library media specialist taught it years ago prior to when they before they taught coding and computer science coursework and they did do some of the typing. They're going to bring it back into some of their lessons as well and get access to those programs for the students to be able to use it. And >> second grade is when our license starts for it. Yes. And we see it used actually our biggest users of it, believe it or not, are fifth and sixth graders. So, I think

080that's when the teachers really start to notice it when they're starting to do more work of writing essays and there's typing like this. Actually, it's the hunt and peck I think it is. But, um, they do that and some people are very proficient in it. But, we also we also know that at a younger age, the students don't have those fine motor skills to to be able to gross motor like to form their fingers on the home row keys. So, they have to wait to be developed in that way before they can even be taught the typing position. I mean, I I'm sure you guys all remember sitting straight up at the edge of your seat. Yeah. They have the thing over the keyboard. I used to I was so old that we used to

081look at the TV in the far far corner to see and Nicole knows what I'm talking about. So, but >> All right. Well, thank you. That's incredibly thoughtful and so um all-encompassing. So, we just appreciate how comprehensive this approach is and we look forward to more updates from you. >> Thank you. And I'd like to thank the administration or the administrative team as well because their support and work with this and helping our staff understand it and understand the importance of it has been tremendous to have their backing as well. So, thank you. >> Thank you again, Elizabeth. Uh I skipped over the enrollment report. We are steady and at the time of year where we see more changes with houses selling and folks moving in, we are still continuing kindergarten registrations and keeping an

082eye on those. Right? Like I've said the last few months in a row, if you know anyone who has registered for kindergarten and they haven't, tell them to come to us. >> Okay. Is that everything? >> Yes, thank you. >> Thank you. All right. Moving on to our consent calendar. As you can see, it's hefty. At this time of year, we authorize our superintendent to negotiate with our unaffiliated uh staff. And so, um, in an effort to keep us apprised of how that goes, we have it on our consent calendar. So, do I have approve? Um, a motion to approve the consent calendar. Nicole, thank you. Do I have a second? Thank you, Suzanne. All in favor? I. Passes unanimously with nine. Thank you. All right. Next, I am going to make a motion to

083amend the agenda um to add the discussion of policy 5144 discipline under new business. It'll become our last um item for this evening. Do I have a second? All right. Thank you, Kevin. All in favor? I passes unanimously. All right. Thank you. All right. So, our first item under new business is discussion and possible approval to open a 30-day review window for primary instructional material for the think mathematics uh um for sixth grade. Mr. Medic, >> good evening again. Um, I put together a few slides to go over Think Mathematics because this has been a multi-year process uh for our district that we've been engaged in and we've uh facilitated the implementation of Think Math at lower grades and we're looking to expand that to grade six for the upcoming year. Um though most of

084our board members are aware for our newer board members um boards of education do have a legal requirement under Connecticut general statute to approve textbooks within school districts. Uh that is married to our policy for instructional materials here in district. The textbooks do serve as a curricular foundation for our grade levels and many of our content areas. Uh we have a robust process in which we evaluate our instructional materials with our professional staff and work through our policy to bring them forward to you. Uh your action tonight will open up a 30-day review uh for members of the board, members of our school community to review uh the materials, offer feedback, insight, and ask questions. So uh just a little historical perspective as uh newer members of the board have joined. Uh we began this

085process of looking at our math curriculum um with a vision and exploratory committee of educators throughout our district back in 22 23 school year. Um we selected two programs at that time to pilot in multiple grade areas within uh grades 1 through 5. And we came back to make a decision that for the 2425 school year we would implement um the methodologies developing roots in kindergarten and think mathematics in grades 1 through 5. At the time that we made that decision, the grade six uh curriculum from think and methodology was pretty new. It was in his first year after development. So we made a decision to kind of hold off on grade six to allow that curriculum to kind of take root and the company to work through any refinements for that. um they did

086so and this year we piloted uh grade six think mathematics in multiple sections at Thompson Brook school. Um that was very interesting for us to do as we got to see this new program um at the same time with our existing curriculum and resources that we had um through big ideas and illustrative which is the backbone of our math curriculum. Um, over the course of year, Christine, if you want to advance to the next slide. Um, I kind of touched upon the processes a bit over the time. I'll I'll have Christine keep these up for a little bit. Um, this year, our grade six pilot was supported by Sue Dulka, one of our elementary curriculum specialists. Um, the teaching and learning team, uh, with Jess, Jody, myself, uh, the administrators at Thompson Brook, Mel, and

087Julia, we were in classrooms quite often. uh kind of assessing how things went, working with our professional staff at Thompson Brook, soliciting feedback from students and families. Overwhelmingly, it went very well. Um the sequencing was very good in terms of lessons. Uh the concepts are aligned to the common core state standards. Uh the Singapore math model is the backbone of how we teach the math. Uh which is similar in grades K and then 1 through 5. The real difference with the grade six version of think uh it it's less kitty. Um meaning that the friends that our students learn through uh there's characters within the grades K through 1 through 5 uh who go on a math journey. The sixth grade version mirrors more of what a secondary textbook would look like. um still highly

088engaging, still uh very high quality, but kind of moving away from the story of math through the characters, our friends as we call them, and into more of a traditional math sequencing or textbook that you would see at the secondary level. Um Christine, if you just want to go forward another slide. Um overall, we saw very favorable results uh from this implementation. Our feedback that we received from our professional staff, students, families was highly positive. Uh we were very impressed with the sequencing of the course as well as how the content was laid out and allowing the students to kind of continue with the skills that are the central component of the think math curriculum and textbook structure. Um, after speaking with everybody, uh, at Thompson Brook and the teaching and learning team, there's overwhelming

089support to recommend moving forward with think mathematics into grade six. Um, by expanding this into grade six, it really provides our students a seamless mathematical uh, trajectory from K through grade 6 and then prepares them well for the sequencing grades 7 through 12. um especially as the board knows you recently approved the curriculums for grades seven and eight. So this kind of creates that seamless transition into secondary. Um at this time I could take any questions that you guys have. >> Go ahead Lyn. >> I'm just wondering if the success is also due to the fact that the kids had the same program or a similar program in grade five. >> We're examining quite a few things. Um this has been a multi-year process. Um, as members of the board know, certification areas in Connecticut

090are unique and they change um with elementary grades to secondary grades. Uh, we've been very purposeful in our hiring practices when hiring math teachers in grade six. Uh, we've tried to get people who have more of a middle level math experience and those certifications that cover grades four through eight as it's really more of a content uh that mirrors a secondary level. Um, in addition, we've done a lot of work with the math curriculum prior to bringing Think in. Um, one of the conversations that we've had recently is that our programs, whether in ELA or math, are becoming are becoming opportunities for us to transition students grade to grade easier without the need for a longer review period to start because they're familiar with the processes. They're familiar with the language of the programs. they're

091familiar with the content, it flows into a nice progression year to year. So, we have we have looked at the kids that have had it in prior grades having it again in sixth grade versus students who were not or may not have had it as long. We've kind of worked through that a little bit. Um, in addition, we've been very pleased with some of the preliminary testing results from students in the classrooms that we've seen that have used the think pilot this year. Um, so again, it's been favorable in a lot of areas and I think our teachers that didn't pilot it, worked very closely with their colleague who did started to incorporate aspects of it into their classrooms as well. During the course of the year, uh, there's been a lot of professional growth

092and learning opportunities for our math staff. K through 12 over the last few years, but um we've really tried to support this model this year with kind of ensuring that transition from grade five into grade six and ensuring that those students are also prepared for the math pathways in the middle school. I think that to speak back to your question, Lynn, thank you, Roberto, because that's a broad brush of, as you know, what we have done to it's hard to correlate one for one exactly why we're getting better results, but it certainly doesn't hinder the results to know that there's a consistent program. Um there has been coherent professional development. Um students as you said are familiar with the the way the text uh speaks, the way they interact with it, the kinds of strategies

093that they have learned and they're able to carry them forward. And I think that was part of what was important about having the pilot because as uh Mr. medic said were able to make some discern some differences between those who had the pilot and move forward with that knowledge and those skills and those who did not. Does that mean that the students who are in classrooms that did not have the pilot are have less skills? No. It just means that from what we've seen, it just means that we've had to do different work in the the next grade level to make sure that they're all br back to the same place of the common language and and um types of strategies that they're using. But I think that seeing it move forward, we have seen

094consistent progress across grade levels regardless of pilot or not. And I think a lot of that is due to um the concerted effort of the teachers, the department coordinators, the administrators, the curriculum specialists, and folks that we brought in to do the professional development because they're all teaching it similarly and ensuring that the differentiation exists for students in the ways that they've been also taught. So I think we're excited to see this move forward to sixth grade, be able to keep it a common practice and a common program throughout elementary and then now next next it'll be a continuation from 7 to 12 which we have begun but I think there's more conversation and work to be done there. >> Great. Any other questions? All right, Lynn, would you like to make a motion? I

095make a motion to open that 30-day review window for primary instructional material think mathematics for grade six. >> Thank you. Do I have a second? >> Thank you, Sarah. All in favor? >> I passes unanimously with nine. Thank you. All right. Our next item is a discussion of possible approval of the 2627 fee schedule. We discussed this at our finance committee meeting last night. you'll find um it on page 113 in your packet, but Susan provided us with an updated version. So, the one that doesn't have page 113 at the bottom is the accurate one. Um and then I'll let Susan explain. >> Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Again, um what you have before you is our proposed fees for next school year. um our school lunches. I'm asking the board to hold off until

096we get some more information from the state and federal government regarding um the meal reimbursement rates for next year. And also, we need to close out our year, take a hard look at where we land it at the end of the year financial wise so we can make sure that we're starting out uh at break even at minimum in our pricing for next year. So, I'll bring that to you in August. Uh the rest of the pricing went to get updated because we are issuing our preschool invoices for next year as well as we have facility rentals all summer long. As we have decided a few years ago um for our other tuition based um expenditures and our facility rentals, we increase those percentages the those fees by our gross budget percentage. So I took

097our budget increase from last year from this coming school year. I applied that and then I rounded to the whole dollar amounts for our tuition items and as well for the school facility for the rental pieces of it. The fees for the custodians are based on the custodial's contractual rates for next year plus any u taxes or Medicare social security taxes to ensure that the district is not um absorbing any fees or cost for those facilities being rented by third parties. So all of that's included and I've broken it out for you by a location. Those are based on size, amount of utilities they may or may not use. Um, and that's how we do the pricing on those. So, our preschool tuition, as you can see, is going from $7,950 to $8,300 for our

098full day fouryear-old program. And our half-day program for our three-year-olds is going from 3150 to 3,300. And one other fee I also did increase and we may readress um depending on some conversations we have we move forward with our um presentation later for a possible change in our um devices. But right now I'm proposing tech protection plan from moving from $26.50 to $28 based on some increased fees for processing um on our platform my school bucks. So, just make sure we cover and we're not losing any funds um if people pay online. >> Okay. Any other questions? We had a great conversation last night. Um talked about the fact that um there are two different categories whether you're a non-resident or a resident. We try to keep them very reasonable. We appreciate that. Obviously, we're

099trying to allow people to use the buildings when we can and um not have it make us incur any real costs, but not we're not making a lot of money on it. So, you know, we're trying to be fair. So, does anybody have questions about that? All right. Thank you for amending this so we can just act on all of it at this time. And if you have to change anything, obviously in August, we're looking forward to that and we'll talk more in the future if you need to change anything. But with this, I will make the motion um to approve the 2627 fee schedule. Do I have a second? >> All right. Thank you, Chris. Do I have um a vote of all in favor? >> All right. Passes unanimously with nine. Thank you,

100everyone. All right. Now, Bridget's favorite part of the meeting. >> Oh, please. >> Favorite meeting of the year. >> Can we keep it to a minimum? Keep moving. >> Well, we'll do our best. >> Thanks. >> All right. So, this is our time of year where um all kinds of contracts are being settled and we had the privilege of being able to have an evaluation with Dr. Carnomola um recently to discuss um extending her contract um and we all unanimously agreed that that is exactly what we wanted to do. Um so I think what we should do is act on this and then we get to gush a little bit on you. So okay. >> All right. So, I will make the motion to um approve our um renewed contract with um Dr. Carmola, our

101superintendent of Avon schools um to be from July 1st, 2026 through June 30th of 2029. Do I have a second? Thank you, Nicole. Let me just initials. All in favor? Passes unanimously. And so now I will allow everyone to say just how proud we are of having you on our staff. Um, I don't know. Nicole, do you want to start? >> We'll just go around the table, right? >> Sorry. Um, I want to say first off, we are very fortunate to have you and I am relieved now that this is son. So, we've lock we've got you locked in for at least a few more years. Um, as a mother in this district, you know, somebody who's been sitting on the board for several years, it does not get lost on me how lucky we

102are to have you in this seat of leadership. You are transparent. You are professional. You are friendly. You see education as a business dealing with humans, both children and adults, both parents, educators, taxpayers, citizens, and you are available to all of them. I think Deb jokes that I think there's less people who don't have your cell phone number in town than do. And it's it it makes me proud to sit on this board. You parents will come to me with a concern. And I was like, you know, my hands are tied, but have you talked to the superintendent? And most of the time they're like, but I don't want to bother her. I'm like, you're not bothering her. And they'll come back to me and said, I just had the most wonderful conversation. Thank you

103so much. I didn't think that this would be possible to get X, Y, or Z done. And it was. And that's just constantly what I'm getting. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Nicole. Paige, >> definitely echo what Nicole just said, but to me it's always about your presence in the district and that kids know you. I I mean that's like unbelievable to me as an educator myself working in a district where I people don't see our superintendent uh as often. Um, I think families know you, the kids know you, and that's key because, um, you know, things come directly from you. That's important to the community and so they appreciate that connection. So, thank you, Bridget. >> Thank you. >> You do have a larger school district. >> Yes, sir. I'll keep it brief, but

104um just wanted to say I think uh there's an overwhelming sense of security and I think safety and I don't necessarily mean public safety, but just that things will run smoothly and it's under control and whatever comes our way, we'll figure it out. Um >> sorry, I'm laughing because this time of year, as as everyone out there knows, it's not how we feel inside. Correct. But how it's feeling from the out Yeah. But just to, you know, acknowledge that absolutely there's there's a feeling of um from the outside looking in that the the leadership is strong. It trickles down and I think that that's you know also apparent in the community. So just grateful for you, grateful for your um you know just leadership and how clearly it's it's effective and happy to have you

105continue. >> Thank you sir. >> You're welcome. >> Dr. C. Um, as a board member, if I text you, I'm like, goodness gracious, my like the like I just text you. You text me right back and call me whenever I have questions or concerns. As a father, it's always remarkable because I have three sons. My one son, Quincy, he is probably the best judge of character at as a six-year-old boy. And that guy loves some Dr. See, >> when he comes home and if I get a text, he's like, "Oh, can I can I see it? Can I see it? Can I can I see the picture?" I'm like, "Bro, you were there." >> Um, but I just want to say thank you. Welcome back once again. We are happy to have you. Thank you

106so much. >> It's really going to be hard when we get to you. Yeah. >> For the record, right, >> Mr. Sturm? Quincy's going places. He's like the mayor. Yeah. At six. So >> thank you for being who you are. Uh you are so down to earth and smart and uh you are a very strong leader and I feel very lucky and for those those of us around this table know out in the world when you say you're you're on the board of ed people tend to cringe. Oh my god, how could you do how is how is it hard? And I have to always say, no, it's not that hard because we have this great superintendent and she has uh nurtured and collected a group of stellar administration, a team of administrators and great

107staff. So, you make serving on this board of education really fun and enjoyable and thank you so much for staying. Sometime we'll be reminded of the word fun. >> Put that one away for another time. Thank you, Lynn. >> Well, I can only echo what everyone else is saying because we are very lucky to have you. Um we trust what you're doing when we we're not around you. We know that you're working for the district always. Um never have to question that. Um, I don't really know how you do what you do knowing how much time you spend after hours answering questions, emails. Um, I don't know how you do it actually when I when I see some of the hours and things that you're doing aside from the curriculum and managing all of this.

108So, u, we really do appreciate it and we very very lucky to have you. >> Thank you. Poor Jessica and Kevin who just got here. >> Yes. I would just like to add to all of these wonderful um comments about you and and um the way that you communicate and the way that you show up uh for our community. Um, as a new very new board member, this was a little um I I would say overwhelming in the very beginning. I wasn't really sure what to expect. Um, and I had certain ideas and you have helped to make this transition and feeling comfortable uh at this table um very easy to do. Uh, I want to say that you do explain things very well. Um, and and all of our children that I know love

109you. And you know, my my kids were pretty proud of me for for uh doing this and getting to work with you. And um I can say the same for their friends. So, thank you so much for being you. Thank you, Jessica. >> And uh finally, what I would say is I echo everyone's comments. Really appreciate what uh what you've been able to do. And as a new a new member to the board, you know, I'm coming in more with a corporate mindset and you know, coming into to this space and you've really kind of helped myself understand the uh this aspect of service in in a board member versus a board of a public company and or private company. And I've I've had an opportunity to see a lot of leaders and you you're

110a highly effective leader. You know, it's what what I'd like to see is what you're able to do to develop the talent around you. Like all the administration is highly effective in what they do and you do you do a great job at developing giving them opportunities to succeed. Um and it says a lot about you and and what you are able to build as far as a leadership team. Um the other aspect that I think is really admirable is how engaged you are. you're always present, always engaged, always available for a text, a call, uh to chat through a conversation, a a topic, and and truly passionate about the students and education and helping everyone in Avon be highly successful. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Kevin. >> Great. And I'll wrap it up.

111So, is this starting your ninth year? >> Yes. And when you said 2029, I thought, "Oh my gosh." you know, when I just a few years ago, I thought, of course, it could be dead by then. You know, you know, when you're a younger person, right? You think to yourself, 2029, and now it's like, oh my gosh, wow. >> So, as the only remaining board member that had the privilege of hiring you, I >> also crazy. >> I will forever say that that is the most impactful decision I've ever participated in in this role. Um, choosing the superintendent affects every aspect of what the school district accomplishes. It changes the tone and the um the willingness to come to work every day, the wantingness to come to work and serve. You always have a smile

112through it all. Um, I know how hard you're working and I know the mask that you have to wear. And so I appreciate your humor. I appreciate how strong of a person you are besides a professional. You really are setting such a strong example for your two daughters and they are amazing in all that they accomplish as well. You you have really set a tone for, you know, going for the best. You know, just do everything that you can if you're able to go for it. >> One is 13 for the record. So, it's just not right now. I just I'm happy to be here tonight no matter what happens. >> Yes. >> Because no one's slamming doors or talking back yet. At least, you know, this this is fun. >> I do love that

113you're living it though, too, cuz I think that makes you more relatable and that's how you connect with parents because you are one and I think that sends a strong message as well. And I have seen you hone your skills every single year. You just get better and better. >> So, I hope that you feel that. >> Yeah, we all are. We all are. But you know they have technology for that. So um >> true. >> Thank you for choosing us. I I will forever say that because this is a choice. You don't have to stay here. I'm so grateful that you feel like you want to be here and we hope that we can continue to make it an environment that you want to stay in. So I will end it there before I

114start crying. >> Thank you. >> And we will celebrate into another year with >> Thank you. I appreciate all of you. >> She passed. >> Yes. Yes. I agree. I definitely want >> I appreciate all of you. I appreciate your kind words. It's, you know, um to many of your points and including uh Kevin's, you're you're really only as good as your team and so thank you. >> That's it. You always have to go down the daughter path. >> Um but it is wild. Honestly, it is wild to me that it's been this long. >> Um and even as I look out there, there's there's people that have been here the entire time with me and dog ears, right? I mean, co, you know, um, we've we've been through a lot together. So, um, I

115think we're in a groove and with curriculum and instruction and doing a technology vision and so many exciting things happening in the district that I'm really excited for for what's ahead. Um, and we we just have to land the plane on June 247th right now because it's about what it feels like. So, but that's it. That's this time of year. It all comes to a head. It's the same for you as parents at home, right? Everything is going on. Everyone is everywhere and people are either really happy or they're really unhappy right now. There's there's no in between. So that's um where the short term is and the long term is all the other things that we're talking about. And I'm excited to continue the work. Thank you for keeping me here with you. I

116said it before, I'll say it again. As long as I have the support of our team and in the schools and the board and the community, then I can do what I need to do and stay here and keep moving. >> Thank you. And I think this is when you deserve a round of applause. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Now, there's going to be a bunch of fun. Let's go. >> Yeah, let's do it. All right. discussion and possible approval of board of ed committee meeting dates for um school year 2627. You'll see on the last page of the packet, page 114, hopefully you had a chance to look through it. I always encourage everyone to please add it to your personal calendars as much as we are so grateful that

117Christine will put it in the Google calendar for us just in case. Always add it to your own personal one so that it's easy. She gives us a great chart at the bottom to color code it and make it doable. We always try to keep it on Tuesdays. So again, helps our brains um remember these times. Does anybody have anything glaring on here that they see that needs to be amended? Is everybody comfortable with it as it's presented? All right. Then uh do I have a motion to approve the um committee meeting dates for school year 2627? >> So move. Thank you, Lynn. Do I have a second? >> All right. I'll I'll take Jessica. Is that okay? All right. Thank you. All in favor? >> Thank you. >> I All right. Now, these will

118be announced to the town. Correct, Christine? So, now it becomes these are the official meeting dates. So, just for practice purposes, if we were to change anything, they become a special meeting because this is the approved date right off the bat. Does that make sense? Yeah. >> Okay. >> Excellent. Thank you. All right. Next, we have discussion and possible approval of the United Public Services Employees Union Safety and Security Specialist Bargaining Agreement. Um, we are grateful to have reached um a tenative agreement. Um, I don't know if Susan and Dr. Carmela want to speak to any pieces. Yes. First, thanks again to the negotiations committee for uh meeting with us and going through all of the um paperwork that's necessary when you negotiate a contract and the back and forth and for your um support

119and direction and insights. Uh I think that made it an easier process for us to do the contract negotiations. This one was done, I think, in record time. Um, I think we all spent more time together talking about what uh we needed to work on than we did actually sitting at the table with the association. I I think in all fairness, Susan and I were probably with them a half an hour, 40 minutes. So, um it you working with us made that much easier. Thank you. And um thank you Susan for putting together the summary uh which does a obviously a very nice job of giving the board the information. Those of you who are not on the negotiations committee and if you're new to this, just know that um every contract has to be

120approved by the board. So, we do our negotiations in, you know, quote non-me. All of the non-certified contracts like the one that's in front of us don't have time limits on the negotiations for them. But when you start negotiating with certified individuals, uh, faculty members and administrators, it will look different. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But this was an easy quick one to settle and we'll hit the highlights for you and take any questions. Um, so some of the main highlights are the work schedule. Our our safety and security specialists have been um, gracious and working kind of first couple days before school started to help us. Our buildings are full during those days. they're very busy um especially with new staff coming in setting up classrooms and Jim has worked

121with the team um to have them come in and cover those days. So, they've been doing it anyway. We've been it's been budgeted. We've been doing it, but we solidified it. We took that time to solidify it in the contract. Also, our team um is so diligent. They work so hard. Uh they often don't get a lunch break. Um, one of the main things they ask for is to, you know, have instead of having an unpaid lunch to have a paid lunch and some language in there if they can get away at some point during the day for a break that that that that'll be covered and I'm sure the administrators each building will work with them through that. Um, but we were happy to be able to to work that out. For leave, this

122is one of the only groups um, as we analyze the contracts that didn't have personal days in their contract. Um so we agreed to do that on a sliding scale. Um giving some uh additional days to those who are tenured because that's what we would encourage. We want to encourage staff to be here a long time and to earn those things through the process. Uh insurance the this was one of the the first groups to sign theou to hop onto the state partnership plan. Um and they were uh very excited about it. the one the one member as as all the rest of them were already on state partnership plan through their old uh their old jobs uh retired through the state. Um so we set their insurance rate um wages you can see I'm

123not going to read that to you but a breakdown um the total percentage a little higher than you normally see on a contract because this is a four-year contract um they're happy with us we're happy with them and the longer we can do it and set things is the better for everybody. So, this is a 4-year contract um with a very a very good um percentage that we we settled on 3 and a half% for each of the years. The main change is uh adding a step again to to encourage people to stay. The one thing they asked for is to have that next step in their contract. So, instead of three steps, we added a fourth. So, if you're here um greater than 5 years, you hit that last tier. Uh and we want

124we want seasoned um dedicated staff who is trained as we have here and if we can keep them all the better. And miscellaneous we did revise some language. Um you know this team is so so easy to work with. They they came to us and said you know what we don't need shirts every year. You know thank you. It's in our contract but we'd rather have some other things some things that we're outside. We like a coat. We like gloves or anything else. and and they work with us to say, "Okay, as long as it's equivalent, we'll work with you." So, they're they're a great team. >> I think it's worth saying, too, I'm sorry, Susan, that if they don't need anything, they say they don't need anything. You know, they're not just it's in

125the contract that they can have X. They don't need it. They don't ask for it, right? So, >> um and you'll see that was the the word summary. What I did I wanted to provide you as well to give some context. The other summary that's a little less pretty um has the rates on it that we agreed upon. This still lands us um we are still right about in the middle. We made a little progress on the comparisons to other districts for safety and security specialists uh but by no means what's at the top of the the page um with our counterparts in the Hartford Valley um Harford County or the valley but it does make movement and I think the teams was very happy with with us at the end. >> Thank you. Are

126there any questions? Just so I understand on the is this supposed to be year four? Okay. >> Oh, yes. Sorry about that. >> No, that's okay. I just want to make sure I'm understanding it. >> Yep. We're working from a template where it usually is three years. So, >> yes, >> that's what I figured. Thank you. >> Right. Well, we are incredibly grateful to all of our safety and security specialists um for being so easy to work with. We really do rely on them for quite a bit. um that's a big task and so for them to be so accommodating I think again speaks to the relationship that has been formed. We appreciate Jim for guiding as well and providing them with strong leadership um to create an environment that they want to return to.

127So thank you for that. Um Suzanne, would you like to make the motion? >> Absolutely. Um I'd like to make a motion to approve the bargaining agreement for the United Public Service Employees Union Safety and Security Specialist. >> Thank you. Okay. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All right, Kevin. All in favor? >> I passes unanimously with nine. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next is discussion and possible approval contingent upon town of Avon approval for the leasing of Apple computers to replace Chromebooks for select students and staff. We do have our director of information technology. I got it right tonight. Tom, um to present for us. Mhm. >> There's just some details here with the >> Thanks much to the top. >> Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Tom. Thank you.

128So, right. Uh, so sorry for the paper shuffle there. We had the last minute update from one of our vendors. Um, so Tom Klein, director of IT. Uh, every year we update our technology for the students and on a cycle we do it for staff. Um, early spring I usually reach out to vendors to kind of get things in line, see what products are available. You know, we start the budget process in the fall. We make an educated guess based on pricing then what will go in the budget. Uh but this spring I started hearing from our vendors that prices were going up. Memory shortages, all the AI stuff, right? Everything tech-wise was getting more expensive. Um at the same time, another vendor entered the the school market. Uh Apple released a new device and

129um that kind of changed our thought process from just doing what we've always done. um the uh let's see probably about February March we started looking at the Apple option for education. They don't market it specifically for education but it's in the same um price range and compatibility as a Chromebook. Uh, actually I think it's a little bit more um I want to say horsepower is not the right word, but uh it's a little more capable a little more capable than what we've been doing. So uh I'll just give you a little overview of what we've been doing over the years and what we'd like to do going forward and I'll pass this around as I talk about it. Um so currently what we do and have been doing uh is refresh student devices every

130year. Uh we have been purchasing a set of Chromebooks for grades five and nine. Uh depending on enrollment, that's about 600 Chromebooks a year. We purchase them with a four-year warranty, uh extended warranty, so they're assigned to students for four years. After the four years are up, the warranty is up, we would then collect them and then based on their condition, rotate them to the younger grades that don't use them as much. Uh they might be used here in the library as kiosk stations. Um, we'll scavenge parts if they're really in bad shape or we will just recycle them. Um, at the same time, we're on a 4-year cycle for staff laptops. Um, the ThinkPad laptops you see on the table were last purchased in 2022. And as Dr. Carnola's experienced tonight, we're having problems

131with charging ports, batteries that don't last. um you know like the Chromebooks, well even more so the staff devices get used constantly all day long. They're on they're in and out of classrooms. Um so we're in that period now of starting a staff device refresh and we try to budget it to split that over two years every four years. to continue this with the current pricing from the quotes I got just here in the middle of May through today actually uh we're looking at over 10 years a estimate of $4.6 $6 million to keep that cycle up with Windows laptops and the Chromebooks. Um, on your sheet on the second page, scenario C is what we're doing, and that breaks it down year by year. I apologize, it's so small, but it gives you the

13210-year look at what uh the costs would be with today's prices. There's no escalation in this exercise. This model is just to compare the process or the different options on how we might do replacements, not projection on what it's going to cost 10 years from now. I have no way to, you know, predict how crazy the the technology uh market will be then. Uh Christine, next slide, please. So, enter in this Apple device. Now, Apple's not new to education, but it's new to us. We've been doing Chromebooks for many years, Windows devices for staff. Uh this is the Apple Neo. It's a MacBook device that's price competitive to the Chromebook. Um we purchased one uh let's see, we purchased that the middle of April, I'd say. So, we've had that in the hand of some

133students and staff for about a month and a half. Um what we're recommending after reviewing that and the Chromebook model that uh you're all familiar with that we have one here if you want to compare the two. Um what we're recommending for students is to purchase that NEO device for the high school students all of them in one shot. And then K8, we're going to continue with the Chromebooks. At the same time, we're also in that staff refresh cycle. So, I also have to consider what we're going to do for these staff devices that are wearing out. Uh along with the tech vision committee, um we've had some good discussions on devices for both groups. And we heard from the staff that have been piloting Chromebook, full-size Chromebook, all Chromebook Pluses. Um, we had some

134staff piloting those and they liked being on the same platform that the students were using in the younger grades. Right now they're on Windows and the students are on the Chromebook and they don't look the same. They don't operate the same. So the the uh few staff that we had piloting Chromebook pluses actually appreciated that they had the same device with the younger kids were using. They could see the same things. The kid could when they when they put it up on the screen, the students could see, oh, I click here, I click there. So with that same thought in mind for the high school, if we went neo with the students, we would go MacBook Airs for the staff, which is the base model above this. And that's been the Apple base model for

135many years until this came out this year. Uh, next slide. So trying to work through all the options. There's a number of scenarios that I'll talk through briefly and that are listed here on the chart. Um, so scenario one, and I apologize it's so small. Uh, basically it says NEO's for students and airs for staff and district I'm sorry, high school staff and district-wide staff because again we have to do eventually do all the buildings and that's figured in here. In order to make it uniform at the high school though, because we have classes of mixed grade levels, we want to replace all the student devices in one shot. So that's about a thousand devices. So to do that, we're looking at leasing or doing a 4-year purchase lease with Apple for that large purchase

136to get started. Uh we would uh then with this scenario continue next year each subsequent year to buy new devices for 9th grade. So the idea in this scenario would be ninth graders like they had with Chromebooks would get a new device, use it for four years, and then we would do something with it when they graduate. Uh what we would do with it is probably um well there's a couple things. We could resell it to aftermarket vendors. Uh Apple actually gives in the lease a guaranteed buyback price for the device assuming it's functioning after four years. Uh the other thought was to offer it to families so that their graduating student could purchase the device that they've been using for four years and take it with them. Um that had a couple advantages in

137our mind. One was that there might be some pride and ownership there for the students that if they know ahead of time that device I could leave with it when I graduate, maybe they would take care of it a little bit better. um the uh Chromebooks that we would collect for purchasing and replacing a thousandish student devices here. All those Chromebooks would be recollected and redistributed back to the lower grades. Uh which would delay our purchase for the younger grade Chromebook supply for about 3 years. So, in all of these scenarios where we're talking about Apple devices here at the high school, that delays our Chromebook uh per our next Chromebook pushes about three years out instead of every year. Uh this scenario projects out a 10-year estimate of about 3.7 million. So, it's less

138than what we're currently been doing up till today. I would say I think I covered think I covered everything on that slide. So that first scenario would be a onetime lease just to get us kind of started get that large purchase and then we would start buying every year again to stay on that fresh cycle. >> A quick question when you're talking numbers is this with the three student to one Chromebook ratio >> the high school. >> Yes. Yes. >> Right. But the C but with the technology adjustment. >> So at the younger grades, we would pull them back from one to one, but we would still have them in the classrooms, >> right? >> And what we're what we have in this building and in some of the classes class grades now are different

139um different models of Chromebook >> because as we've bought them incrementally over the years, they've gone end of life. >> You can't buy them anymore. So this model that you folks have and the students have currently is the last it's the fourth generation of that model and that's not for sale. The quote I got for those was like a run out like if I bought them in February they'd give me 600 of them you know which I couldn't buy them that early. >> So the next model is the fifth generation with the newer processor and everything. of course the price is a little bit more and we've had um basically tiered levels of Chromebook devices in the district based on the device age. So as we collect in fact the seniors here this year are

140turning in devices that were purchased four to five years ago and that was the last year we bought that G2 model. Those would be pulled back. Most likely they'll just go for resale at this point. And just to clarify too, it's important to note that we'll still need a device for every student for testing. So, right, so we still need we might not have them in a classroom, might not have them readily available for them, but we still need a collection of devices particularly on grade levels um for all those standardized tests. >> And we've been talking about at those levels of going back to the carts >> where we have a collection of testing Chromebooks that could be used in different grades or different classrooms for the standardized testing. So we and we still

141need them for spares and loaners, >> but this would give us a great inventory for the next 3 to four years of that. >> Uh so scenario A2 is the same as the first one. The difference being instead of leasing once and doing that initial push, we would lease every four years and we would not offer to sell to families. So with the first scenario, we buy let's say we we we buy a thousand Chromebooks for all the grades. This coming senior class would use a device for one year and then we would sell it. So we were selling a device that's a one-year-old device, but we would have to offer that to a family at $300, $350 because it's only a year old. Whereas continue down that past four three more years, the freshman

142next year will get a new device, but they'll keep it for four years while they're here. Now, when they leave, that device is four years old. It may only have a resale value of $100. Um, this scenario on the charts looks at not reselling devices annually, but only when the lease expires. So, we would get the devices, we'd use them all for four years. At four years, we go through this process again, re-evaluate everything, repurchase another set of devices for another four-year interval. There's advantages to that. It keeps the per year cost consistent because we're setting that price for four years. Um there's a downside where we wouldn't be offering them to families because the graduating senior Chrome uh MacBooks we would collect and cycle to the incoming freshmen. So it does change our our

143trajectory where uh traditionally nth grade you get a new device and you keep it for four years where now this scenario at some time in your fouryear career here you'll get a new device could be your freshman year could be your senior year just depends where the cycle. Um, interestingly enough, running the the the purchase in the 10-year look, this is actually the cheapest option of leasing every four years. Uh, next. Um, and then these scenarios I put all in one slide because they're just variations of what I've spoken about. Uh, scenario B is no apple. I'm sorry. It's Apple with Windows devices for staff. And I should touch on that because I focused on the students in the previous two, the A1, A2 that we just spoke about. I still have to do staff

144and student devices for K8. So, that plan was to do Chromebook pluses for the staff. So, it's this size ThinkPad, but it's just a Chromebook. Um, and then like we talked about for students, the devices from here would cycle down for the next three years. And then once we've kind of cycled out the aged out ones there, then we go back to buying one grade worth of Chromebooks instead of two every year. So that's shown in the chart as it starting in 2029. Uh, these scenarios B, C, and D. So B is uh doing Windows laptops instead of Chromebook pluses for staff. That was more expensive because the cost of the Windows device is higher than a Chromebook. Uh we looked at scenario C, which is the current model of what we've been doing. So

145it's Chromebooks for all grades, new ones for five and nine, they keep it for four years. Windows laptops for staff, that was 4.6. That was actually the most expensive with current pricing. And then scenario D, we did one more variation which is uh Chromebooks for all students, forget about Apple and do Chromebook pluses for all staff, forget about Windows. Um again trying to keep staff and students with the same platform and that was 4.053 and then somewhere in the middle. Um so one more slide just kind of summarizes the scenarios the costs. Um the physically responsible one is actually to switch to Apple devices and lease them hold them for the four years lease again in four years and can keep that cycle. And then for K8 uh staff and students on Chromebook devices. So

146right now um we're asking for approval to move us forward. The town given the cost of the lease, the lease um as of probably what three hours ago. Yeah. >> Um so when we first priced out the lease and had gone through the first scenario, the scenario was to sell them at the end of year one and go in purchasing. All of us hated the leases when we had did get them for the Chromebooks. Leasing is not my first uh option to do anything. But the numbers don't lie. So when we did the math, the math speaks to leasing and continuing leasing is the better route. So I asked Tom to repric it. Um the the purchase we would do would have um he didn't talk about yet was the Apple Care Plus. So there

147would be Apple Clare Plus on each device that would give us two times a year if something bad happened to the device, it would get replaced. We just send it off to Apple, they'd fix it or send us back a new one. That's that's really great. It's got almost I think even better that we have now on our current Chromebooks. Um we repriced the lease as of tonight with the 4-year Apple Care for all of the devices. It had been a sliding scale before. We're going to get rid of them one every year. We had a one year Apple Care two threeear Apple Care etc. So the new value of the lease as of tonight is $822,120. It's 214,700 a year in equipment. That would be buying all of the um grades 9 through 12

148neos and 140 >> 140 staff devices. That would be for the high school staff as well as for district-wide staff. It's a large purchase. It's a big number. Um we obviously can't afford that in our operating budget in any given year. um which is why the lease option makes the most sense. The next step if the board were agreeable to it is to move it to the council and to board of finance. Um I've I've spoken to the town manager, kind of went over the scenario with him um as a first glance. He's comfortable with it and is willing to put it on both agendas um if the board would recommend it for um next steps. >> Great questions. Go ahead, Kevin. In your scenario A2, you talk about the it's a lease that's not

149available for parents to purchase at the end of that 4-year period of time. In the current scenario with the process that we're in today, are parents able to purchase that Chromebook? And if so, do they? >> We've never offered that. Okay. >> Um it's never come up to the board to offer that solution. One other plus for going the Apple route is versus a Chromebook is we don't see postsecary using Chromebooks. You're more likely to use an Apple device. >> So in our initial venture down this path and the thought came up maybe we could have the students leave with the device because they could use it >> after. Um that's that's why >> we'd never entertain it with a Chromebook. To be honest, the Chromebook, they're plastic, the Apple's metal case. We don't see

150the condition after 4 years. >> Yeah. I was just curious if it was a change in process what we currently do, but it sounds like it's not. So, that's okay. >> The A1 option where we the board could offer, you know, opt for that. That would be the change. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Gotcha. Thanks. >> Go ahead, Lyn. Do you do you foresee in the future having um the middle school and other and elementary levels move on to Apple ever? I mean >> uh that's something we could look at in coordination with Elizabeth and her teams. Um we do use iPads for some special ed uh software currently. We've been doing that for years. Um, we also did look and talk with Apple about uh lower grades and using iPads with keyboard built into the

151case because the iPads are touchscreen. That's probably the one downside to the Apple plan is these are they don't make a touchcreen laptop whereas the Chromebooks currently are. Um, but uh I don't know if you noticed the application that was open on the Neo when I passed it around was uh Final Cut Pro, which is a video editing software we use in the video lab desktop max here at the high school. So, there's a couple classes. We have two Mac labs currently that for the TV and video production and then across the hall for music technology that use um Apple uh iMac desktops. Uh those also were on my well the one classroom was on my equipment budget uh proposal for replacement because this summer they go out of updates. They won't take software updates

152anymore because of their age. Um but that didn't make it through the budget. So it'll reappear. But if we go the Apple route, we can do some things with software management and actually put that software licensing on the students device so they can do the work at home and not have to be tied to the classroom to do their video projects or their music project. Um, and when it comes time to replace the hardware in there, we could do something like an Apple display, which is just the display plugs into the computer like a doc gives them keyboard, mouse, network, and a big screen, but all their work stays on their device. Um, so that's another plus. The transition for this is, you know, right now everything's in Chrome. So the student and the even

153the staff, the transition is just the hardware on the user interface. You just open Chrome, you do Google, you do Google Drive, everything like we do today. But it brings more advantages where as uh as the the faculty get more comfortable with them, they could work in some of the more native Apple apps and some of that some of the other applications available that are or that are are available on the Mac platform versus just the Chromebook and web. >> I think it's incredible that it's an almost million dollar savings over 10 years. Um so kudos for all the figuring all of this out. Hopefully prices stay stay within that range. But yes. >> Yes. Um but I I wanted to touch on just so that's obviously what we're focusing on here is the financial

154piece, but you're touching on a little bit of I think that intentional use of technology piece is huge for this because students being able to be on Mac platforms and PC platform as um experiences before entering kind of in uh post school world is is a really big plus. So I I appreciate the thought behind that >> and and we will still have Windows devices. So there's a a lab on the off the library here that has Windows desktops in it that computer science and some math courses use that. We have no plans to update that at this time. So they still have Windows uh experience there. And in the CAD engineering and computer graphics labs, they've got some fairly new gaming PCs that they do the AutoCAD and Adobe Creative Suite and things on

155there. Um, so they'll still have experience >> and then in the K to8 they'll still be on Chromebooks. >> In K8 would be Chromebooks. >> That's great. >> Any of the Chrome Oh, sorry. Chromebooks touch screen cuz I know Apple doesn't make >> the Chromebooks. All the Chromebooks, all the Chromebooks of the current generation that we've been buying. So, the last few probably four years purchases are touchscreen. So, how would we compensate for that if that technology is benefiting students? Because Apple doesn't offer that, right? Unless they updated this model, >> right? I they don't have they I've never seen a touchscreen Apple laptop. >> There are ways to pair a a uh an iPad to a Mac. M >> so you can screen share and you can uh annotate and do things on a

156iPad that's mirrored or married to a a laptop. Um the Apple team that came out and talked to us and the tech vision committee uh demoed some of that for us. So we have a sales guy, we have a systems engineer and then um what was the other gentleman's title? Do you remember? >> Yeah. What was Ryan Stut? He was a former teacher. He was like an instructional specialist on using their products in the classrooms that he focused just I think just on how you know using it in K12 and had a lot of great ideas on how to use the technology and he showed us how you could marry the two but that could be something we could look at in the future. >> Yeah. um access accessibility and students with IEPs that need

157to have a touch screen device. They will either have an I an iPad or somebody in their IP andor touchreen homework in their support for services classes at least as well. So we don't want to lose that piece. I know I I kind of think I know we're already thinking about it in that sense and we're not going to lose that because we've already heard we have a special education teacher that was on our committee that heard the representation of the presentations from talk with us but that was one of the concerns that they had as well. So we are going to have spared Chromebooks and resource rooms too for our students whether we need it again so I wouldn't go crazy right trying to get it back on. >> Okay. I think so as

158well. >> Our um >> problem our and the way the management for the student use of a Mac is a little bit different than the Chromebook that's tied to the first student that logs into it. So if I log into that device, that's my device until it either wipes it or reassigns it or whatever. So there's no more sharing of devices by students, which would be a huge benefit. Um, and if that device gets damaged, knocks off the ca the table, whatever, needs to get serviced, we would give the student a loan or Chromebook. We're not going to over purchase. We're going to buy spares for enrollment changes or what have you. But we're not going to purchase that many spares so that if that goes out for service, you're going to get another Mac.

159You're going to get a Chromebook. When it comes back from the week to 10 days service, you'll get your original device back. And we'll have spares. I forgot my device. We'll still have spare Chromebooks in the library. There are spare Chromebooks in the classrooms for that. I I'd left it at home. You know, we No one will go without if they need to use one. >> Okay. >> Anybody else? >> Susan, what's your recommendation? >> Look, numbers don't lie. I my recommendation would be to do the Apple um just for the sheer fact that the the price point it's a lower price point per product and it's a better product. >> You know I am an Apple person but it still is a better product. >> Um and the 10-year outlook is is less expensive

160significantly less than special than our current plan. Um you know the real question is do we do we continue leasing every four years? Um, I was head to at that at first, but then when we priced it out and looked at the 10-year outlook, considering if everything stays the way we think it would, it's $400,000 difference. I really don't think there's a way that we we don't go down that route. Um, and if the if the council and f board of finance um are in agreement, I think it's the way we go. >> Tom, thank you for putting all of this research together and and all these scenarios so that we can think about it. We really appreciate it. And the fact that you're looking at options, you know, I think that's impressive and you're

161staying on top of it and our staff, I'm sure, is going to appreciate that, too. So, do you need us to approve a model going forward? Jess Oh, Jessica, you didn't speak yet, did you? I apologize. Oh, go ahead. >> Okay. Waiting patiently as usual. So, I had now let's see where my brain was when I was right there with a good question. Um, all right. Hold on one sec. I had it was a while ago. Um, >> touch it up. >> Okay, this was the question. >> Okay, >> I I I know I have a really good brain in there. Okay. Um, so I very thank first of all, thank you very much for doing all of this and doing all this research and the projections. I do appreciate that. Um, and you know,

162as a mother familiar with Chromebooks, coming in and out of my house and I and being an Apple user, you know, I see the benefit um of using both um and having that knowledge. And that was one of the things that I was thinking, this is going to set our kids up for success to be able to use different platforms. Um, you know, I I was an Apple user and when I go to use like the Google platform, I'm lost. So I, you know, the other way, but it's it's a good way of opening up somebody's mind and giving them um a different way of doing things. And it sounds like the different options that you have, you can utilize both and and do it effectively. Um the question that I did have was um

163will I know there's that Apple uh plus plan that comes with each individual laptop. Um will there be my I want to be certain that there is a desire at the end of the four years that that student is owning that and hopefully taking very good care of um their device. Um and you said they can get new ones every two years. So I just want to be certain and understand how that works. Would there be most likely would they have like a fairly recent model, you know, when they have the opportunity to do that? >> Sure. So, when we purchase each device, we purchase the extended warranty, which is the Apple Care Plus for schools, right? If you buy an iPhone or your own device, you can buy Apple Care. They have this program

164tailored just for schools that uh covers um most damage, anything that's intentional. So they bend it over the desk, you know, whatever. If it's accidental or manufacturer defect, it'll get covered twice a year for four years. And that's at Apple's discretion, the repair facility. Either they repair it, so change the screen, or they will replace it with a similar model. Okay? If it's four years from now and that processor, that exact configuration isn't available, they'll replace it with whatever the similar model is four years from now. Um, one thought was, uh, the tech protection plan at the finance last night that came up. How does that figure into this? Um, we will probably, so once we decide which way we're going, we'll revisit the tech protection plan and probably come back in August with possible

165changes. Um, I don't have any answers yet until we make the decision of are we going to go this route and do we need to adjust anything there. The tech protection plan over the last couple years, we've only had about a third of the families opt into it. And it's been enough of a source of funds where we buy screen protectors, we buy missing chargers, you know, we buy maybe 50 Chromebooks with it in the past to replenish stock, but it hasn't been a large hasn't been a large funding source. Anything else? Did that answer your question? >> Yes, it did. Thanks. >> Thank you. Okay. Um, so did you need us to choose a plan? >> I would like you to rec Yes. At least we don't have to make a decision as a

166as a board. Kind of what we're doing with the Chromebooks of the the end of year one necessarily is really entering into the first lease. Um, so like approval that the board recommends that we bring this forward to financing council for approval. They would sign the lease. Um, and we could throughout the year as as we buy the first ones, we could talk about that. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Sorry. >> Well, so yes and no. Clarify one thing. >> That's right. We keep we keep going back and forth. >> And that was the update to the pricing that we got this afternoon. >> The first scenario where we buy the we do the lease once and move on and then we buy every year that had a prorated Apple Care. Um, so the the one

167year the devices we keep for one year had no Apple Care. the devices we keep for four years had the four year and then prorated in the middle because that saves some some money. If we do the the A2 the preferred one there in my opinion where we use them for four years and the families don't uh have the opportunity to take them. Um I repriced the quote for the leads to bump it up to a full 1000 devices. So, a few spares because now we're going to have to have spares for four years because I won't be buying I should the plan is not to buy more devices for four-year intervals. So, I bumped the quantity up a little bit to even 10,000 devices from 953 or whatever we were at with the first

168code. So ideally we would like to make I think a consensus on either the A1 where the we lease once and buy every nth grade every year or the A2 where we lease every four years and we use the four-year life out of the device. I should say um after the four-year lease there are devices. So if the district wants to offer them at that point to families we could certainly do that. We would probably resell them to a reseller anyway because we're going to bring in another thousand devices. So why have a thousand devices piled on my shelves that are four years old? We would at least try to get some credit back for those and put towards the new lease, you know, anyway. >> And the lease does have a guaranteed buyback of

169$100 a unit. >> Okay. >> So that's already built into the lease. It's guaranteed. >> Y and that is I did include that in the uh projection on the chart. Okay, any other questions? So, there is a time frame. We're trying to do this within 30 days to be capable of ordering them in time for next year. >> So, the um board of finance meets on June 22nd >> and we had to do this very quickly. Thank you, Tom. >> And the board of uh the town council is trying to schedule a meeting at the end of the month. Um, so, uh, Brandon Robertson was kind enough to if they get that special meeting scheduled, uh, he agreed to put that this on the agenda. >> All right. Go ahead, Lynn. >> A quick question.

170How likely is it that the price is going to go up overnight or between now and the 22nd? >> So, we have a because I refreshed that quote. It's a 30-day quote. >> Great. Okay. >> And that's the longest quote I've been getting from any of the vendors is 30-day. So even you know pricing it out in April May to build this model those quote you know the quotes would have been >> okay any other questions. All right. So you're looking for us to move this um forward to the town council and board of finance um for their approval basically. All right. So I'll make that motion >> and I think we're talking about A2 ideally >> correct? >> Right. >> I don't think that has to be in the motion. It doesn't, but >>

171it doesn't have to be in the motion. Just that you approve us to move forward on the lease. >> All right. Very good. So, I'll make that motion. Do I have a second? >> All right, Chris. Thank you. All in favor? >> I passes unanimously. All right. Thank you very much. And fingers crossed. Yeah. >> All right. We appreciate all that time and effort. >> All right. Now, our final act um item is to revisit policy 5144, discipline policy. We um talked about this at our last meeting and asked Dr. Carnomola to pursue legal counsel um regarding one line in the um policy and we said that we would like to hear back how that went. So if you wouldn't mind just updating us on the information that was provided to you. >> Thank you.

172Um I had several conversations to ensure that I asked every variation of the questions we discussed here. not just that one line because we we did talk about other things though that was primarily what it seemed to me um might be feasible. Uh removing that line. uh the attorney who works with the board primarily on policy um and has been with you as a board previously, including with this policy. Um advised that she would not advise, sorry for using the word twice, um us to take the line out of policy because it directly reflects what can it says in the statute. um which I understand in some degree expected because typically our policies um much of the language mir mirrors the statute because they are there to be uh legally compliant. That said, I went

173back and forth a little bit more and I also talked to attorney Ritter um just from the vantage point of a lot of what we talked about that the way that line is where it is um lends itself I think to being misconstrued to a person reading just that portion at least of the policy for sure. Um I don't think it should suggest that you would not face a disciplinary consequence for um having less than 1 kilo gram of kilo 1 kilogram of cannabis. Um however I understand the concern and and saw it as I continued to read it. So, um, where I landed with it was with, uh, after speaking with attorney Ritter also, if the board would like to remove the line, um, for the reason of, you know, the optics, so to

174speak, or or possibly being misconstrued. I think that's feasible because it is the law and it it would be followed no matter what, like I kind of like always say. However, I can't project every potential consequence. And that's one of the things that, you know, of course, the attorneys say when they advise us. Sometimes things have unintended consequences and they can't tell you me exactly what every one of them would be that we're that we're at an expulsion hearing and an attorney asks why the line isn't there. Is it because we made the assumption we would have um an expulsion no matter what the amount was? And so forth. And I I can't tell you that that would never happen or anything like that. Um, I do know that this policy is updated fairly constantly

175because there's always um talk about it at the legislature and I wouldn't be surprised if we see an updated version again after July 1 since the legislature has closed up shop again and typically that's what happens um with several of these this being one and when they are changed we do have to pay close attention to what changes in the model what we call the red and blue line versus what we have. Um yes, we have had some issues with that in the past when we have made numerous changes or substantive changes. I would say um in this case, I think that if something were changed specific to that statute that impacts that line, it would be noticeable if it were removed from ours because it would show up on the new policy. Um the

176adjusted policy, I should say. But at the end of the day, what was the legal advice? Generally speaking, it's not to remove that line and that there are other lines there that are the parts related to mandatory expulsions, for example, are completely connected to the statute. Um, on the other hand, we had some other conversations. Uh, uh, I've spoken with several of you offline asking additional questions. And some of those were related to well how do we let parents, families, uh students, the community, our our faculty, our staff know that um regardless of what the law says, and I'll use that as an example of, you know, if if you're 18 years old, you might be able to consume um cannabis, you utilize cannabis, I should say, or to vape or to u smoke cigarettes.

177You still can't do it here. um none of us can. However, I think there's a juxtaposition between looking at the policy which keeps us in procedural compliance and the handbook which we have worked hard to reference what's in all of many of our policies that are student and parent facing in a way that speaks directly to parents, students and staff about the issue. So, for example, in the handbook, it is very clear that we expect all school grounds to be substance-free and that the consequences for anything other than that are severe and can up to and possibly being expelled from school. So, I guess what I'm saying is yes, I think it's clear in in some other places in a way that perhaps this one isn't because it has that line that might make some

178believe you wouldn't be disciplined for having less than a kilogram of cannabis, which again is, you know, pretty wild. I think we talked about that last time, but I'm not really certain what given all of that what you would like for me to do. >> Nicole, >> I just have a question. I know you can't give an absolute answer. Um, but if we if the policy stayed how it is and they argued or you know somebody argued, well, it was less than a kilogram of cannabis and that's what it says. But our handbook said differently. Does the handbook have that authority? like referencing the handbook does that have a legal authority in the hearings or >> yes however I don't think that eliminating something from the handbook handbook is an abbreviated version of many many

179policies and procedures and so if we were in a hearing I would argue that just because that line's not in the handbook doesn't doesn't mean anything what we're still going through the process that we are going through because of of the actions of the students and there are plenty of things that are not referenced in the handbook that we all still have to abide by students alike that Kevin >> um one of the things we looked at earlier today was the proposed revised fee schedule and when you look at the provide revised fee schedule for parking I'll use this as an example so parking you can be a junior or senior But it says meeting established criteria. And what I found in the handbook was a very clear description of, you know, what does it

180mean to lose your rights for parking? And some of them are leaving school grounds without permission, entering or leaving the school without authorized entry or exit, speeding. So it's very clear for students to say, what does it take to actually lose my right to park in the school? What it doesn't say in the the handbook is specifically what happens if you're distributing or selling alcohol or cannabis. And you know, you and I had a conversation about an old guideline from 2024. I would look at how do you update and what can you do to update the middle school, the high school, maybe the all the schools from a a guideline and and procedure standpoint. So it is clear for parents and it's clear for students on not only what does it take to lose my

181parking permit but what does it take to get expelled or what does it take what are my consequences how do I get held accountable for vape devices for ecigarettes for sale of cannabis within the schools. >> Thank you. I guess Kevin and I um spoke about this again actually just this afternoon and um as I said to Dr. McGary, when you look in the handbook, it says it's it's more it is a more broad brush. It says serious consequences, including suspension and possibly expulsion. It does not say exactly what would happen. But there's also another document um that I shared with you that has some I think I would call them more narrow but still broad brush um procedures for what the administration may do when you are engaged in various behaviors. Um substance abuse

182or uh distribution was just one of the things on there. And um as Kevin mentioned, it was last updated in 2024. um they use it internally more than than externally to keep them consistent with discipline being issued and as a reference guide. Um that said, I do think yes, it's it's time for us to update that and whether or not other language goes into the handbook. That's something that um I Christine and I can work with the building admin on also before this summer that we we do that every year about this time. Well, once we close down and open up the next chapter in a couple of weeks, we'll start on that. >> And where some of my comments and questions around that come in as you look at other districts in the in

183the local area, they have specific, you know, if you do X, Y is your consequence. And I find that if students understand and truly have a good understanding of what their consequences are for their actions, their actions will change. And so, you know, if you can re revisit and change that guidelines handbook for the upcoming school year, I think that gives those students coming in a clear guideline of what's expected and what's not expected within the school. >> Can you explain more what you're requesting though? because I think in the handbook it's saying the behaviors result in possible suspension or expulsion, right? So, I guess I'm not clear on what you're asking. >> Sure. I think if and maybe you may or may not have seen the the other document from 2024, it's a little

184bit clearer and articulates exactly what a student may or may not do and then what those penalties are. If you look in the handbook today, it's very, very broad. And it's broad just like this policy of, you know, if you're reading this quick, you're like, well, I can distribute less than a kilogram of cannabis and I should be fine. And so, how do we articulate it effectively within a handbook and within our policy so that students understand how they're going to be held accountable? >> I guess for me, I think it's clear in the handbook, but maybe that's nuance. I don't Weren't aren't we discussing just the policy tonight and not getting into the handbook now? I don't know. I >> Yes, because the the handbook isn't isn't a >> Okay, that's not on the

185>> That's That's something we use procedurally. I'm sorry. I I brought it up just to >> I forgive you >> to to reference that I think there's a there was a dual conversation and where maybe the board should not change the legal language in the policy that doesn't mean we can't explain things in a more student and parent friend quote friendly version doesn't feel friendly when we're talking about suspension expulsion but you you understand what I mean um language that is more easily understood and and clearer in in those terms. >> And I'm not I'm just to be clear, I'm not against clear more clarity, but I I think that there are different there are nuances to different situations. So I don't know how exactly clear we can be that you do this and X

186is going to happen because isn't it that's why there are hearings and that's I don't know. I just don't know how much more detail we can give. Was it Jessica? >> Yes. Um, so I would like to I am not personally aware of what the difference is between the 2024 handbook and this wording >> and this and get a little bit more clarity as to what that is. >> Yes. So the handbook that I shared is the current year handbook. There's another document that I shared because I thought it would be helpful that's not a part of the general handbook, but it's disciplinary procedures at Avon High School for different types of offenses. And that was last updated in 2024. I honestly I don't think there's that much that would be different between 2024 and

187today. It just happens to be that that's the last time that they updated that document. probably time to look at it again. >> And you're saying that's an internal document? >> Yes, but it is pub it is publishable. There's nothing there that someone else couldn't see. It was originally developed though for to ensure that there was consistency >> regulation. >> Yes, there was consistency in how um individual administrators managed behaviors and also to be able to share it with faculty and staff or families as as needed. Um, could it be a part of the handbook? Yes, that that's not a problem. >> All right, Kevin. >> And just to address Sarah's question of concern of, you know, if you do X, Y happens, right? In my mind, all sale of cannabis and alcohol within school

188should result in an expulsion. Now, hearing >> disagree maybe like a hearing, right, makes sense, right? You need to make sure that that person actually did that, >> right? Now, >> it's a hearing. Right. >> But if but if you are distributing alcohol or cannabis, my belief is that you should be expelled from school. >> Mhm. >> Cuz it's we have a zero tolerance or should have a zero tolerance for drug and alcohol sale within the school system unless we want to have a different policy that says it's okay. Um my personal opinion is you should get expelled for it. Can >> I just say like there's caveats to that though, right Kevin? If it's a child who carries a disability label, they may not have understood what the process was. So, are we going

189to punish them in the same? Like, I think there's things to think about and consider case by case. And I think the way the law writes right now allows us to do that. >> Yeah. I think that's what I'm saying, too. Just going back to the original topic or the agenda item, I I just want to say on record, I'm not comfortable changing anything that the legal advice is to keep. Um I think there's room for discussion on, you know, other things like the handbook. But I think the the wise thing to do as a board is to go with legal advice and keep keep it in line. >> If I can I if I may just I'm sorry. Did I cut? >> Yeah. Go ahead. I'm I'm just now concerned with I I think

190that there's a difference between being mandatorily expelled and a mandatory expulsion hearing. So, it's concerning to me if it's going to be perceived or or thought of or enacted that if there is evidence that any type of substance illegal cannabis, alcohol, what have you, is being sold on school property that depending on who is selling it, we may not even have a hearing. That is concerning. So, I just want to clarify that. Well, I wasn't. >> Yeah. Well, that's Yeah. >> Yeah. That's not what I'm saying. >> Okay. Cuz I think we're >> Well, I think that we're maybe as a board in the conversations >> interchanging mandatory expulsion and mandatory expulsion hearing and those are two very different things. So, are we clear that >> Kevin say >> that >> I'm hearing Kevin say

191a mandatory expulsion, >> whereas I'm maybe I'm wrong, but that's that's what I'm hearing you say. And is that what you're saying or are you saying a mandatory expulsion hearing? >> So, a couple things. I'm assuming you're having a hearing to find out if the accusations are true or not. Correct. >> That's one reason for the hearing, >> right? And so if they're not correct, I I don't think that person should be expelled, right? Because it's not an maybe was an accusation. Someone accused someone of something that they didn't do. If however that person had a mand we you know have a mandatory hearing and if it was found that they are distributing alcohol or cannabis, I think they should be mandatorily expelled. Now I also look at it to to your point which is

192maybe there's an extenduating circumstance. I think as a school district, we should be helping students look for how do we help them understand what laws are, understand how what they can and can't do over the course of their life. Because when they leave school and let's say they're a junior selling cannabis at school and they for some reason like hey you know this person has special needs or whatever and they think it's okay because there's no consequence in school. They get into the real world and actually then begin to sell cannabis. There are much excuse me greater consequences to that. And one, I want to make it clear that I don't think anybody on this board thinks it's okay to sell distribute any amount of drugs in our schools. One, um, two, I I know

193that there are different scenarios and I'm thankful that school districts have mandatory hearings so you can understand. I think we can under understand that. The other thing that troubles me is if it is a mandatory expulsion and if we want to play like scenarios, you're 18, you're about to graduate, you get expelled and then you can go out and sell it legally. So, we've ruined your life, but now you're out of school and you can do it legally. Like I get what you're saying, but in the legal realm and I and I would also go on record to change any legal terms in our actual policy, I would not do that cuz I don't want anybody on the board, including me, to get open to any litigation because those things do happen. So, I think

194it's I think it's a conversation more so about possibly updating the terms on our um handbook maybe, but the actual policy to take that burden out, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that. And I I mean we voted last at our last meeting to pass the policy to accept the policy and have give you some time, Bridget, to speak with our attorneys so that we could revisit it. Well, you did that. And our attorneys, we're paying our attorneys for their expertise and their legal advice are saying it's our advice that you keep the language. I think we should follow that legal advice at this point in time. Okay. >> I was going to say something, but I I don't think it's necessary because Nicole addressed it. I I wanted to reiterate what we've just been talking

195about. Again, mandatory hearing. Yes. But I I think we're beating a, you know, proverbial horse because I think we all already know this. So, I'm not going to >> just in regards to that though in the wording of the uh policy, it says recommended hearing, not mandatory hearing, >> right? And that's why I'm saying we don't because we don't use that when we say mandatory expulsion and the way it's referenced in the law, it means as a consequence. It doesn't mean as a hearing. And I think that's part of what is troublesome about this discussion. And sometimes it's troublesome even with the attorneys having the discussion because I had to pause a few times and say that's not what you're saying to me though. You're talking about the consequence here and the hearing here. Yes.

196Because you can't use them interchangeably because in the law a mandatory expulsion means expelled as a consequence. And so when you look at the policy, it says will must like yes, we are I I have to quote recommend to you to expel the student to have a hearing and to expel the student. If we do our investigation and find it to be true that they have engaged in this behavior, then it's your decision. You're not bound by the law to mandatorily expel student who sells less than a kilo of cannabis. I would assume that if I'm bringing you an expulsion and recommending that you expel them that unless something crazy, you know, Perry Mason sort of thing happens at the hearing that you're that you're going to I would expect that you're going to expel

197the student because I'm not going to bring you a student for expulsion that I don't believe needs to be expelled. But nonetheless, it's not my decision. It's yours. And you have to go through that legal process. It's it's much like being in court when you go through the hearing. So, >> and we do have to be impartial jurors. That's part of our role, >> which is another reason you would not want to write something into your policy that says like no matter what, you know, you're getting expelled if you did X because the as soon as the defendant, for lack of a better word, it's not what we call them in a in a school hearing, but to make it clear, comes to the table, say with their attorney, they're going to say, "You you

198were predisposed to to expelling this child before you even got here and heard the >> the facts. you wrote it right into your policy when the only mandatory expulsion as a consequence allowed by law in your policy is weapons. So I think that we had that conversation last last time anyway and we've gone back and forth about that a little bit. I think the way the policy is written in terms of a recommendation being made that's clear. I I have to do that. um what you have to do with it is not as clear, but that's how the law intends it. They intend for you as a board or if you in some towns it's not a board, some towns it's an impartial hearing officer sits here's the facts and makes a decision about whether

199there is an expulsion and how long it is up to a calendar year. That's the way the the law is written when it comes to substance abuse. So, I think we said this last time as well. Our practice has been to stay compliant with legal terminology. We trust our attorneys. That's why we pay them what we do. We trust our superintendent. That's why we respect the guidance that we're provided with. By being consistent in respecting that guidance, it keeps us safe. If we get too technical or too particular about changing certain things, un unintended consequences will catch up with us. Whether it's this time, another time, if we get comfortable with starting to do that, you just set yourself up for vulnerability. And I am not comfortable with doing that either. I do think to

200be clear and I've already voiced this and I put it in writing back to the law firm. I for what it's worth I and I think we disagree with the way that's written in that it is where it is and it it I think it does give it it looks like a different connotation. Understand it has to be there. My my feedback to them right now is I think that they should take a look at that again and decide if there is a different way of being clear about that being the law without it >> and I agree >> possibly being misconstrued. >> I agree that legal language can be confusing. So, but I'm not an attorney. So, I would rather go on the guidance that an attorney provides and sometimes the law needs to

201be changed. That's not the argument here. The argument is to take the guidance to keep our policy. >> I think we're way too far down the rabbit hole for this law to change. But even the legal even the legal policy >> but just generally speaking that that is why we have acted in that regard to make sure that we don't put ourselves in danger of doing something untored. >> Jessica. >> Yes. Um, and I'm since the other thing got pulled in, um, I understand we do have to be compliant with state law and state law does change um, and policy wording changes. So, for me, I don't see that there's something that we can do to change, you know, this policy as worded. Um, however, I would like to understand how and when we could

202go about maybe matching the wording of the the handbook from 2024 to match this other handbook to to so I understand Kevin's concern and I do support having internal guidelines with and and communicating to students what and and teachers and everyone, parents um what the consequences or or just having it more clear if we're able to do that. I would like that to happen. >> I there are still some things that we could do with the handbook like we were talking about in including the other the handbook and is 2526. It has to be updated for 2627 in part because of all the changes in the legislation that changed other pieces of policy that are referenced here um not just this one. So we will go through that. We will make some changes and I

203will work with the building admin on the the 20 what says now updated 2024 um sheet related to consequences for different actions. They aren't incredibly specific and I I don't honestly I don't think they can be in some cases because sometimes it's just it's just like court proceedings really because there are mitigating circumstances and sometimes there's aggravating circumstances and so you don't want to lock yourself into a complete box of being able to do more or less than. But to have a a guidepost like that document provides, I do think is important because it does give a better understanding to parents and students that this may seem like a huge deal to you or this may seem like a little deal to you, but in the in the eyes of the school district and in

204our practices, this action could warrant X and that action could warrant Y. I I think that is important for people to know especially in this day and age honestly because unfortunately I think you know our our youth are targeted in in vaping and in um um marijuana use. You can't you can't drive down the highway without seeing you know an advertisement for whichever um cannabis shop. So, I think that we do have an obligation to ensure that we're, you know, fighting the good fight, at least as long as they're with us. What they do when they leave is what they do when they leave. Yeah. >> And I just came up with the thought that yes, whatever legal does think is appropriate that keeps everyone here, you know, in the best position um that we

205can in addition to speaking to the community and um making you know general guidelines very clear. So, I I like I heard you say, and I don't quote me exactly cuz sometimes I hear something and it's not what the person said, but it was up to it. This the consequence for this action could include up to >> up to and including. Yeah. >> Up to and including. So something like that that's not tying us in but is is communicating, hey, >> this is what could happen if you do this as opposed to not having that there. It's just some some type and however that looks maybe it looks different than this handbook. But and just to be clear, the handbook does say we don't tolerate use of drugs or alcohol on campus or selling. It

206does say that. So I don't want anybody leave or to watch this meeting and think that we don't have that language in existence. It does. You're just looking for greater clarity on what's already being said. >> It's more specific. >> Correct. We just need to >> So everyone is clear. Yes. I'm just more clarity. Of course. I I I know there is no >> tolerance for that. >> Okay. So, did you have anything else to say? So, we already took action on this last time. Technically, we don't need to vote again. It was approved um as is unless the board feels like they want to take action. I think though >> because we've had this conversation. >> Yes. Because we put it on new business. >> Oh, >> and there was discussed >> and there

207was >> Yeah. I don't >> she >> Christine and I had to go through Robert's rules today because this was a new one. You know, we >> I did not. It was like that didn't or just an agenda new agenda type and that's what it was. And I made the motion to amend the agenda to add the discussion of I didn't say and possible approval. >> I just want to make sure we're >> Yes. >> Oh, you you you've been quoted. >> There's no off the record here, Christine. >> Okay. So, good conversation. Yes. Okay. So, communication from the public, Jim. No. Okay. Communication from Avon board of education members. Anyone? >> Yes. Oh, I thought you were reaching for your mic. Okay, we're good. Hang in there. You're almost done. >> Okay. Just show.

208>> Yes. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Yes. All right. And Chris, would you like to adjurnn us? >> Motion to adjurnn. >> All right. Do I have a second? All right. I got Sarah. All in favor? >> I passes unanimously at 9:45.