New Hartford Public Schools - Board Meeting - 05/05/2026

001All right. Thank you, Emma, for coming. I'm going to call the New Harford Public Schools Board of Education regular meeting uh dated May 5th at 7 p.m. to order at Look at that. 700 p.m. If you are able, please 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. >> Okay. Thank you again. Thank you for everyone who's here in attendance. Our next or our next agenda item is order of business. Um it has come to my attention between the publishing of this agenda um and today a potential to add an agenda item. Um John, if you'd like to make a motion. >> Yes. Make a motion

002to discuss the prepaid program as part of the >> Okay. So we would add under new business under two3 vote twothirds vote of the board to add uh further discussion regarding the prek program. Um under new business. >> Do we have a second? Second. So, we have a motion by John, a second by Tim. Uh, is there any discussion on that motion? >> Is is this different from uh section E where it says preK sections? >> Uh, yeah, the prek section under section E is just a board chair report on that. Um, there's been there there there's been a request for additional discussion regarding the programming and and in and pulling together some information for uh public information. So I found out with the reports reports just reports in order to discuss. >> Okay. So

003this motion has to uh has to pass by twothirds of the members present. Um so all those in favor please signify by raising your hands. That is unanimous. So we will add under new business uh prek programming discussion. I do not have any other changes to the order of business. We'll move on to item C on our agenda which is uh communication to the board of education. Um since our last meeting we have received five communications to the board of education. Uh for the record I will uh acknowledge receipt of a 4 to2026 anonymous email uh regarding the uh uh with gratitude on World Autism Awareness Day. You saved my life uh was an email received. Uh Jeff had replied to that email. Um, on 4:14 we received an email from Shannon Nicholas. Uh, that

004email is in regards to concerns regarding the planned transition from four second grade classrooms to three third grade classrooms next year. Um, our superintendent also replied to that email on 422. Uh we received an a uh communication to the board on 416 and a followup on 419 from uh AJ Alden Bailey uh regarding finance hearing expansion of our taxable liabilities concerns. And then finally on 51 received an email from Kevin McDonald. Um this was regarding mowing at Bakerville Consolidated uh school as well as some concerns regarding some depressions. Um, also our superintendent has replied to that email instead of a meeting with them. So those five uh communications will be recorded with our minutes. Um, next item on the agenda is public comment. Uh, would anybody like to address the board? All right. Seeing none,

005we will close public comment and move into our next agenda item, which is superintendent report. and I'll turn it over to Superintendent Suso. >> Outstanding. Thank you so much, Chairman Kleps. Would love to um welcome up at this time Mr. Leonard Lockheart to present to the board of education. Leonard Lockheart, as he's coming up to the microphone, has served on the Windsor Board of Education since 2012, holding various leadership roles, including president, vice president, and finance chair. At the state level, he is the immediate past president of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, also known as CABE, and currently serves as chair of the Capitol Regional Education Council, CRE. At the national level, Mr. Lockhart has been a member of NSBA's board of directors since 2023. He has contributed to numerous committees, including finance,

006policy, and con uh constitution and bylaws, and most recently served as the association's president-elect. Professionally, Mr. Lockhart has over 29 years of experience with Johnson Controls where he currently serves as an HVAC control systems lead. A dedicated public servant, he has been a volunteer firefighter in Windsor since 2006 where he holds the rank of captain. Mr. Lockhart is married with four children, a daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. Outside of his wonderful biography, I can attest that he is a fierce advocate for education and it is my humble privilege truly to welcome him up um to present to the board of education here at New Hartford today. >> Mr. Chairman, board to see you, Mr. Souza. I remember going through a class with you at Central Connecticut State University as an aspiring superintendent and you are now

007here. So, congratulations to you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Chairman. Um, and that bio is humbling. But I just want to say for the record, this is my first meeting outside of my own board and correct where I'm representing not only K but as the National School Board Association's president. So this is a very very humbling moment for me and um I'm glad to be here and share that with you guys. So if if we can have a picture afterwards that I can send to Cade that would be greatly appreciated. So good evening Superintendent Souza and members of the New Harford Board of Education. I am here as the immediate past president Kade to recognize the efforts of the new Harford public schools and to present you with an award in order to receive a

008Bonnie B. Carney Award of Excellence for Educational Communications Entries must meet all of the following criteria. First is the general criteria which includes clarity of message, image and consistency. Second, the specific guidelines of readability, editing, graphics, type, format, presentation, design and the value of the expenditure. I am happy to present to you the actual award for supporting our students through district budget. CAD has been honoring school districts with the award of excellence for educational communication since 1975. In 2016, the award was renamed at the and to honor longtime K staff member Bonnie B. attorney in recognition of her 47 years of dedication to education focused on communications. With this award, Cab's goal is to identify and honor the hardworking people in school districts and for their continued effort to communicate effectively. Mr. On behalf of

009Kade, we congratulate you on your award. Here's the actual citation that you submitted that you can frame with the blue ribbon that goes along with it as well. And on behalf of Meg Scatter, our president, congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. Thank you, sir. I'm just coming from work. I work with a little work. I do have >> Congratulations. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. >> Yes, sir. >> All right. Outstanding. Congrats again to the New Harford Board of Education historically winning awards and being presented by CABE. So, thank you again, Mr. Lockhart, for joining us today and making that presentation. Much appreciated. All right. Up next in Superintendent's Report, we have our student representatives. So, I have your presentation ready to go. And also after the presentation today, can we get a

010picture with the full board with our reps? Fantastic. Thank you. >> So, I'd like to welcome up Daisy and Vivian. Come on up. our sixth grade Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty trip. Why did we go in the first place? Immigration in the 1900s. In social studies, we learned that millions of immigrants from places such as Europe, Asia, France, and Italy came to America to start a new and better life for themselves. Some came here just for adventure, but most came here by force. For example, thousands of immigrants came to the US because of war and famine. All they needed and they needed to get away from all of it. Others came here because of religious reasons. But they all decided on one thing. They all went on a voyage to America. The United States

011would now be their new home. >> The immigration simulation. The immigration simulation was an activity where the sixth graders got the chance to discover what it was like to pass through mental screening activities on Ellis Island. We each had gotten a person to play the character of and had to answer questions based on what our character's background was. Although some people made it through the simulation, some people were sent for further inspection, which would determine whether they would get deported or not. It was fun to experience the life that immigrants had. >> The Statue of Liberty. When immigrants first entered the US, one of the first things they saw was the Statue of Liberty. The joy and excitement after weeks of being stuck on board a smelly and cramped ship was overwhelming, and most of

012them started crying with joy after they knew that they had finally arrived. They kiss the ground, hoping that the journey to building a new life in America wouldn't be too challenging. >> Did you know that the Statue of Liberty was modeled off of someone's mom? Talk about an amazing Mother's Day gift. >> The Statue of Liberty was engineered by a person named Gustav Eiffel, the same person who engineered the Eiffel Tower. >> The Statue of Liberty was actually shipped into 350 pieces in cargo boxes on ships in France. They had to assemble everything once they got to America. The Great Hall and the Registry Room. After immigrants enter the gates of Ellis Island, the first thing they would see would be the Great Hall, also known as the registry room. They would take many tests

013to ensure that they would be a good addition to the US. They would also do healthc inspections as well. And one of the tests they would take is called the sick second medical exam. Doctors would inspect if they were injured or sick, and if they were, they would be marked with chalk. Another medical exam they would do is check with a button hook for something called traoma, an infectious eye disease that can lead to blindness if not treated. They would also be tested on the reading skills, general knowledge, and math skills. Immigrants will be required to read 30 to 40 words in their native language. Thousands of immigrants will be checked into America every single day. the Chili's and Starbucks cafe. During field trip during the field trip to the Statue of Liberty, we had

014many meals and stops to get a small drink. Below here, you can see that we went to go eat lunch at the Ellis Island Cafe with a built-in Starbucks inside. For dinner, we went to the Palisades Mall for chili. We had so much fun chatting and eating our delicious meals. The wall of honor. At Ellis Island, they have a wall of honor. The wall of honor are many panels with names of immigrants that had passed through Ellis Island. Students had the opportunity to bring their relatives names and try to see if they can find them. If a student found one, they could copy the name on a piece of paper so they could share their discovery. It was amazing to see how many people went to Ellis Island. >> The Ellis Island Museum. Inside Ellis

015Island, there was many things that were actually from the ship, the ships to Ellis Island. The one that I thought was the most interesting was this teddy bear shown down below. In addition, we saw a ship's wheel from an Ellis Island ship. Students also got the chance to watch a video about a historical item and how it had been passed down from people's ancestors. Lastly, we got to see the ships, the ship's manifest, the stage of separation, and the great hall where inspections took place. The graffiti columns along with Ellis's Ellis Islands's many sites. The graffiti columns were my personal favorite. You can see what many immigrants wrote, drew, and engraved onto there, and there are dates written as far as 1901. On the left, you can see me peeking out from behind, enjoying the

016amazing things that immigrants left that weekend to study from the Statue of Liberty Museum and Gift Shop. On the our Ellis Island field trip, the students went to the Statue of Liberty and learned how it was a gift of peace from France to the United States and how it represents freedom. Then we went to the Statue of Liberty Museum where students got to see the first the first torch that was made out of stained glass from the Statue of Liberty. We also got to see sorry got to take pictures that may have been shown on a big screen. Additionally, students had gotten the opportunity to purchase something from the gift shop. Conclusion. Overall, it was exciting to see things that we learned in social studies in person and even better to be having so much

017fun doing it with our friends. Playing it together along with eating together and examining real artifacts from long ago are just some of the things that we did. This was a very enjoyable trip and it was so exciting to learn about our ancestors that helped form the shape of a country that we call America. Did you say before? >> Yeah. >> Just get everybody. Yes, that was the sixth grade and our student represent. >> Yeah. Can you guys come back up? >> Yeah. Let's do it uh in front. Can you girls come? There you go. Welcome to May June. >> Thank you so much, Vivian and Daisy. So impressive as always. So, thank you so much for bringing to attention the one of the field trips that we were recent you were recently on and

018all of the learning that you did, but also some of the fun, right? Because that's part of the fun of field trips, learning but having fun with your friends. So, very impressive as always. So, thank you so much for your presentation this evening. Okay, up next we would like to welcome up our very guest speaker from the Freedom of Information or FOYA the rules and regulations the the one and only uh Russell Vlair who will be sharing with us some very important information relative to the Freedom of Information Act. Russell has also been in town recently to share with the entire town and we wanted to invite him right here to our board of education meeting so that if we had questions or other commentary he's going to uh present to us a condensed version

019of FOYA and if we had any questions for him he is readily available I can tell you his office anytime I send an email they are very quick to respond to help us understand our rights and the public's rights regarding records so thank you so much >> and I will turn over to you with the microphone sound good and I'll run your slideshow. >> Okay, thanks. >> Very good. You got it. >> Um, so, uh, good evening everybody. It's great to be here. Um, you know, I appreciate you guys scheduling, you know, a session to learn a little bit about FOYA. I know you got a lot of other things, um, that you got to attend to. So, I'll, you know, do the sort of the the cliffnotes version, but um, you know, what I

020often tell people, you know, if if the most, you know, if the only thing you learn is my phone number and my email, um, please contact me if there's ever anything I can help you out with. Um, a lot of the questions, you know, tend to be very specific and sometimes the answer varies depending on, you know, the particulars. So, um, anything you ever need to run by me or whatever, um, just, uh, you know, just, uh, call or email. Um, and I I have a clicker actually. So, if you is I can I can give you that. >> Okay. Beautiful. Um, so, um, I'm going to go through some slides here, but I want to save some time for any of the questions that that any of you might have. So, um, you know,

021just go through the material and I know you've got it out, you know, printed there, too. So, um, just very briefly, uh, the Freedom of Information Act has been state law in Connecticut, um, going back to 1975. So, you know, we're going on now 51 years, um, that we have had the Freedom of Information Law. And really what the law is all about is it's about uh government transparency through sort of two specific um parts uh access to public meetings and access to public records. So there's you know a bunch that we'll talk about you know as relation to your meetings you know even this meeting you know you just had I saw you guys had to add something to the agenda and you have to take a twothirds vote and you know do all

022that and that's because that's part of the freedom of um information act. You can add items to the agenda but you have to have the twothirds vote. I saw I looked at the agenda. I saw you have an executive session. You know, it's the same thing there. A two-thirds vote to go into um an executive session. So, there's all those rules about meetings. Um but also it allows um you know the public uh to to request records, right? They can ask for information um you know from the school district, right? You know, we're sort of in the middle maybe towards the end of the budget cycle. Very common that people want might want information about the budget. They want copies of you know proposed budgets. They want information about salaries. So um this law um

023allows them to to request those types of records. So um again the law is you know specifically about access to meetings and access to public records. Um you know a lot of states have open records laws. That's not you know completely unique. Um what is a little bit different in Connecticut is that we have a state agency where I work um the FOI commission that's in charge of enforcing all this. So what's important to know you know another reason why you want to make sure you're doing all these things correctly. Why do we take the two-thirds vote to add the the item to the agenda? Um, if anybody out there, you know, is attending a meeting or watching a meeting and they believe that there's been any violation of the FOI act um that's occurred,

024they can file a complaint with our commission. And what that can mean is um you know if if our commission looks at it and we think there's an issue there, we can hold a hearing and that can mean people from the board of education or the superintendent or you know would have to come to a hearing and sort of explain to us um you know what happened and if we find that there was some violation, we have different things we can do to try to um remedy that. Um, I'd like to think that we try to work through education. So, if people make mistakes because they weren't sure what to do, um, and we get to a hearing and it seems like they understand what, you know, what they need to do in the future.

025A lot of our decisions, if you look at the end, it'll just sort of say, you know, going forward, you know, follow the law. It's like, you know, if you're speeding and you get a written warning, right? It's sort of a thing like that. Um, but if we see a, you know, a pattern, if we see significant violations, we see repeated violations, then we have the ability to, you know, do things like issue fines, um, the the fine could be as high as $5,000. That's our maximum fine. We can order mandatory training. So, I always tell people it's nice to be invited, you know, because I've had to do this at other boards of education when things have not gone well and those can be a little more testy maybe. So, um, you know, but,

026uh, it's I always tell people, um, you know, FOI may not be a concern. It may not be a thing that you're thinking about. That might be fine and good and all, you know, and all well, but, um, sometimes what happens is there's some event in town, some issue, some thing, and all of a sudden you're getting all these requests, you're having all these people coming to meetings and and you want to be prepared. So if you get into a situation where things are getting contentious, you kind of know what you need to do because what I have seen is that um you know FOI people might be unhappy with a decision, FOI gives them an avenue to sort of challenge that decision right through our process. Um and one of the things um you

027know important to mention and we don't do this very often but if there was some um sort of you know defect or flaw in the way a meeting was held um somebody can ask for a vote to be nullified at a meeting. So, if there was a meeting that wasn't properly noticed and you made some important decision, somebody could file a complaint and say, you know, I want them to resend that and go back and have to do it again, you know, because they didn't allow people to the meeting, there was an unnoticed meeting, there was a um issue with the agenda or something like that. Um FOI covers all public agencies in in the state. um you know, school boards, boards of selectmen, boards of educ uh you know, boards of finance, all the

028state agencies from the governor's office on down, department of correction, state police, etc. Um one thing that's important to know for um you know, boards of education is um if you have subcommittees, we need to do the notices, the agendas, the minutes, all that for not just the board of education, but any of the subcommittees. if we create a school building committee um you know to oversee a project or something like that any any public body essentially has to um follow the the FOI law um so public meetings um when we talk about what a public meeting is um I think it's important to spend a little bit of time talking about the definition and I know you might be thinking you know gee well why do we have to talk about this right we

029know what a meeting is we have a schedule of meetings um the thing I want you all to be remembering is um foyer looks at meeting maybe more broadly than we would think of it. Really under FOYA, what a meeting kind of boils down to is anytime we have a quorum of board members and they are either gathered together in person or they're, you know, connected some way electronically and there's a discussion or there's some sort of action taken um related to their board business. So essentially under FOYA, you know, you can't have a scenario. You know, the classic example I give of the what not to do is if the agenda to the meeting gets sent out, uh, you know, you can't have people start replying in that email thread with all the board

030members present there and, you know, talking about the actual agenda items and talking about what they're going to do. If you have a budget meeting upcoming or a budget workshop, you can't start the discussion before you get to um, that budget workshop. Um, a couple of things on there that are important about all that. Um, one is the quorum is really critical. So this is not to prevent smaller groups of people from discussing things. If you know two or three of you want to get together and work on something between meetings, you have questions for staff or the superintendent or somebody wants to ask the chairman. Um that's all fine and permissible. But when a quorum, which is a you know voting majority of the board, enough people to make a decision when a quorum

031is gathered and talking about board business, um then that needs to be happening at a you know publicly noticed meeting. Um, you know, there is a thing for executive session where, you know, so it doesn't mean everything you talk about is always going to be in public session, but even things that happen in executive session, you still have to have an agenda, um, you know, that that that sort of says what you're going to do. If you vote on anything, you need to take a public vote um, and so on. So, um, FOI guarantees access to public meetings. Public comment is totally a local decision how you do that. So um while you know you can't ask somebody to you know state their name or you know where they live to come to a meeting

032when people speak oftentimes they come up to the microphone give us your name and address you get three minutes or something like that. Um that's a local decision how you how you want to do that. So public comment there's no um law that guarantees access to public comment. Um public meeting anyone can take pictures uh record you know Facebook live stream anything like that that like that they'd like to do. Um, email and meetings. We sort of touched on this already. Um, but you know, just maybe bears repeating, um, you can't conduct your business over email, over text message. Um, I know sometimes when things come up, you know, people say, you know, gee, this is really convenient. Why can't we do this? We're not making any decisions. Uh, but you know, if you go

033back to the definition of a meeting, it's discuss discussion or action. And sometimes, you know, discussing something and you don't take action. That might be the thing that people are interested in, right? that there was an issue that you talked about and you decided not to do anything. So that's why even if you don't vote on anything um even discussions about about matters before the board um need to be done in in public save your back and forth debate um for your your public meetings. You know administrative stuff I think that's okay you know adding requesting somebody put something on the agenda scheduling a special meeting or something but the substantive business um you know you should hold that for your public meetings. There are three kinds of uh meetings that are uh allowed under

034FOYA. Um regular meeting, special meeting and emergency meeting. Um you know just a little bit on the differences between these these types of meetings. So the regular meetings are those are your annual um you know off your annual meeting schedule. So every year uh the board of education you'll file an annual meeting schedule um says you know you know where the uh sorry when the meetings are going to take place. Um, if you want to meet at any date that was not on that annual meeting schedule, then that would necessitate calling a special meeting. So, sometimes budget workshops, if those are not scheduled at the start of the year, sometimes a board retreat, you know, you might do that on a Saturday or something at, you know, some some location and maybe you don't have

035that planned at the start of the year. Um, or sometimes, you know, you you schedule your summer meetings in January and people don't other vacation plans and you realize the, you know, the second, you know, Tuesday in in July is not going to work or something like that. So special meeting is anytime we change the the uh the normal um you know day and time of the meeting. Um meeting agendas uh 24 hours before the meeting those need to be filed. Special meeting agendas also need to be um posted on the website. Um all meeting agendas have to go to the town clerk's office. So um you know most people post everything on the website but special meeting absolutely has to be on there. Um you know so just make sure that when you're filing

036the agendas they go to the town clerk's office. um be mindful of, you know, holidays or days that the town hall is closed. Um if the town hall is closed, you can't file an agenda. Um you know, even though you might post it online, if it's not in the town clerk's office um and some, you know, boards had issues earlier this year when we had all that snow, there were some towns where, you know, they closed their town halls for Monday and Tuesday for two days. So, there were some communities where, you know, if people hadn't filed the agendas, you know, the the snow meant they had to delay their um their meetings. um regular meeting as you guys did earlier tonight, you can add an item to the agenda by a two-thirds vote. You

037cannot do that at a special meeting. So, just keep that in mind. Um I often tell people if you have a special meeting, it might be best to just not have new business on there because you don't want somebody to inadvertently um you know add something and I know some of these things seem like very technical minor things, but anything here if somebody you know notices a potential violation, they they can file a complaint. Um, uh, meeting minutes, when do those have to be filed? Seven calendar days for regular meetings, seven business days for special meetings. I'll talk more in a second sort of about what to include in your minutes. Um, emergency meetings. Um, you know, really these should be used very sparingly because um, this is a permission to have an unnoticed meeting.

038So, this is a meeting of the board of education um, with no notice, no agenda. So, the public has no idea it's happening. They have no idea what's going to occur. Um but the law gives that flexibility because there's some situation that we need to deal with immediately where um we cannot wait 24 hours to schedule a special meeting. Um and I always tell people I would think of it as like if we you know if we wait something bad is going to happen. We have to do something now because there's a weather emergency, there's a public health emergency. Um you know during the pandemic I imagine a lot of people had emergency meetings. um you know and if we think back you know it's hard to believe that was like six years ago but

039um you know there were things were changing from hour to hour right about schools were they going to be open were they going to be closed are we doing remote learning right so there might have been times when there had to be um decisions made where you couldn't wait um if you do an emergency meeting the minutes of the meeting need to be filed within 72 hours of the meeting and they need to be posted online um as well there are some carveouts to all the stuff we just talked about um you know sort of where um you know you kind get maybe you can think of it as like a special dispensation to kind of um forget the rules about the open meetings. Um but this is in very specific circumstances. So the first

040one um is you can create a personnel search committee for an executive level employee. Um we see this you know oftentimes in a board of education when they're doing a superintendent search. You can appoint the entire board of ed if you would like as a search committee. And that means that when they meet as a search committee they don't have to um notice those meetings. the search committee cannot make the hire. They can make a recommendation. So even if the search committee being the full board interviews people, they select the candidate, there would still have to be a public vote um at the board of ed to hire that person. Um strategy or negotiations related to collective bargaining. Those types of discussions can involve a quorum of a board of ed. They don't have to

041be part of a publicly noticed meeting. Um again, not, you know, voting on a contract, but this is the collective bargaining um discussions and negotiations. Um, a caucus under FOI um is is specific to people on the same board of the same political party. Um, so you know, if Republicans have, you know, let's say have a nine member board of ed and they have five of the nine seats, the five Republicans could meet as the five Republicans and they could discuss things um in a caucus and it would not, you know, trigger a meeting under FOI. Um, but caucuses are limited to um just the board members. So you can't, you know, have a Republican caucus with the superintendent or with the board attorney or something like that. It's just meant for the members. Um,

042a staff meeting is not a public meeting. So this is meaning like administrative or staff meetings. The superintendent might have administrative or staff meetings. Um, even if there's discussion of things that might be of the public's interest, it's not a public meeting that people can come and attend and film and all that. Um, and then there's a provision in the law about um, chancer social meetings. And what this is is sort of an acknowledgement that there might be times when you are with fellow board members. Um but it is, you know, sort of a pre-planned social thing. It's a chance encounter. Um you know, I can imagine with a board of education, you know, there might be school functions that you go to. There might be, you know, sports, high school sports that you're going

043to. So, you know, this is saying if the board of education, you know, goes to a high school football game and they're all there in the bleachers, it is not a um board of education meeting. um you know, provided though you're still not using that opportunity, you know, you can't do your board business while you're in those settings. So, you can't be sitting at the basketball game and you know, doing work on the budget with your with your board members there. Um uh I always tell people too, um you know, be mindful of what I like to call the parking lot meeting, which is the meeting is over and then people are sort of chitchatting outside in the parking lot or the hallway. And oftentimes it's not substantive about, you know, what was done at

044the meeting. You're probably catching up on other things. Um, but just remember, you know, when the meeting is over, the meeting is over. So, you can't linger and continue the discussion after everybody leaves. Um, you know, you can't show up half an hour early and say, "Well, we're all here. There's no one else here. Let's start talking." Um, you need to, you know, do the do the work during the the the public meeting. Um, so minutes for your meetings. Um, really with with minutes, I think, um, I would think of the minutes as really they're they're meant to be the record of the votes that were taken. Now, there's going to be more than just the the votes that were taken at the meeting, obviously. Um, but they do not have to be a transcript

045of everything that occurred at the meeting. And, um, I've found often times the, you know, it seems like kind of counterintuitive, but sometimes the more detail you put in, then the more things there are for people to have an issue about, you know, that people say, "Well, that's not exactly what I said in public comment." Or a board member might say, "Well, you know, you put in this person's point, but you didn't say my rebuttal that I said to them." Um, so you know, you use your judgment about what to put in there, but it doesn't have to have all the cross talk. It doesn't have to have if there's a two-hour discussion, everything that everybody said. Um, what do you have to have in there? You have to have the, um, record of the

046votes. So, you know, the, um, you know, all the votes that are taken. If it is not a unanimous vote, um, you should make sure the minutes reflect how each member voted, not just a numerical, but, you know, if there's a 7 to2 vote or something, who were the two people that voted no? You know, however you want to do that. um so it's clear how each person voted. You list the board members that attended the meeting and you also if you have an executive session, you list who attended the executive session besides the board members. So, you know, they were joined by the superintendent, they were joined by the board attorney, um you know, whoever it is that goes into that executive session. Um minutes need to be made available within seven days of

047the um of the meeting. And what I mean by draft minutes are okay is that um you know in most instances you're not going to have voted on and approved the minutes at a subsequent meeting. Um and you can't wait until you do that to to file them. So they need to be filed within seven days. Um if you need to make changes to the minutes, my recommendation would be when they are on the agenda of the next meeting when you approve them um like you guys did tonight, you could always say, you know, wait a second, there's something we need to amend. you could talk about what you want to change and approve them with any of the changes um that need to be made. Um and minutes are still required even if um

048you know you have a virtual meeting. So um even if you record the meeting in its entirety audio video that doesn't substitute for minutes. So we always need to have um you know some some minutes because those are the permanent record of what occurred um at a um at a meeting. So electronic and remote meetings. Um I always tell people with this if you have a lot of questions or detailed scenarios um we have a guide on our website um that is our remote meetings primer and that kind of goes through all the different details and things you know if you if you use Zoom, what do you do if we lose the Zoom? All these different um things in there. But a couple important things to know is that um it's your choice how

049you hold your meetings. So there's no law that that requires um you know Zoom access to a meeting. So you know you can be fully in person. You can be a hybrid meeting with some people online and some people in person. Um or you can be fully remote. Um you know so you have those different options. Um but it's up to the board how they would like to do that. If you have a meeting with Zoom access, what I tell people is I would think of the um the Zoom link as like a meeting location. So you need to make sure it's on the agenda. Um, I would advise to you double check because I've had situations where, you know, especially if if you have somebody who's working on different things and they're copying and

050pasting the Zoom links, you know, make sure it's the correct link, you know, test it and all that. Um, because if you realize, you know, that the two hours before the meeting that the link was incorrect, um, it's too late to fix it basically. So anything I should say anything with the agendas um if you don't you know if you don't realize the error until less than 24 hours before the meeting um it would be impossible to reworn it properly under FOYA. So um sometimes I get calls from you know for selectmen or you know board chairs um and they realize you know the morning of the meeting hey you know something is wrong on here we forgot to do this we forgot to do that. Um, and sometimes that means that if you want

051to be compliant with FOYA, you may have to postpone a meeting. And I know that that can be very frustrating. I know people are very busy and you know, schedules are are are tough. Um, you know, so I think it's really important always to double check these things um, you know, before you post them or if you ever have questions, you know, how to do something, you know, contact somebody and and and try to figure that out um, ahead of time. Um, sometimes people don't catch these things, right? Sometimes we don't realize until after the meeting that something happened. Um, you know, and you can't always address that. But if you know ahead of time, um, better to try to fix it, even if it might mean you have to postpone the meeting and have

052a special meeting later in the week or something like that. Um, the last thing with remote meetings I'll say is that um, board members can always participate remotely. So, if you ever have a scenario where a board member um, can't physically make it to the meeting, um, they can request and say, "I would like to participate, you know, remotely." and and it could be, you know, a Zoom. It could be as simple as um they could be on speaker phone on somebody's phone as long as the people in the room can hear them when they vote. They would just have to identify themselves um you know uh and and and do a roll call vote, you know, when they're when they're voting. Um executive session, this is probably the hardest thing for public meetings and

053I think it's because it's the most open to interpretation. Um, a lot of the other stuff we talked about, you know, agendas are 24 hours, the minutes are seven days. Um, this one there's a little bit more discretion. And, um, you know, quite honestly, I I will say where I find people get themselves in trouble with this sometimes is when they really try to shoehorn something into an executive session that that doesn't really naturally fit. Um, and if you think about executive session, it's not to prevent um, you know, boards from having difficult conversations, right? Sometimes there can be decisions that you might have to make or things you have to do that might not be popular. There might not be people who like those. Um that's not the reason for an executive session. Really

054an executive session and I think this will kind of become evident when we talk about the different reasons oftentimes it's to protect the interests of the town of the school district of different individuals. Um so when we talk about executive session and when we can have an executive session um the first uh reason would be to discuss any personnel matters. Um, you know, so this can be about um uh the board or it could be about employees that the board supervises. So if there was a vacancy on the board, um you could like do interviews in an executive session. You could obviously interview candidates for, you know, staff positions as well. Um disciplinary matters, dismissal of somebody, a health matter, an evaluation um of the superintendent, you know, that could be something done in executive

055session. uh the person who is the subject of the session, they have to be notified because FOI gives them the um right to demand the the discussion instead happen in open session. So um if you think about it, you know, it doesn't mean that they're always going to get invited in to the executive session, but you have to tell the person and then they can decide whether they want that matter heard in public or not. Um pending claims or litigation, you know, this is um key word there being pending. So this is lawsuits um you know CHRO complaint an FI complaint the board is considering taking some kind of legal action uh maybe you got some you know adverse decision from a state agency and you want to appeal it or something. Um so those

056are all things that could be discussed in executive session. You can discuss uh security matters if there's a concern that a public discussion would you know compromise a security strategy or a security plan. Um we see this a lot at boards of education. You know, if you have a security consultant who you've hired to, you know, talk look at vulnerabilities in the school district, you unfortunately might not want to have a public conversation, especially we live in a world where, you know, meetings can be recorded and videos can last forever and be on YouTube or something. So, this would allow you to have an executive session um to go into some of those particular um you know, security details that you don't want to have out there um for public consumption. You can also have

057an executive session to discuss the sale or lease of property. Um this is you know by the the school district or the municipality. So you know if you were um you know considering a location for some kind of new facility or maybe you want to sign a lease somewhere for board of ed office space um you don't have to kind of show your hand publicly so that the person who owns the property says hey you know the board of ed wants this lease now we're going to raise the price right because we think they can pay for it. you know, it was only $9,000 a month and now we're going to raise it to 15,000 because we know the board talked about it at this meeting that they want that location. So, it allows um

058prior to the offer being put in in executive session and then you could, you know, vote to authorize the superintendent to enter negotiations or whatever it is that you need to do. Um and then any records that are exempt from FOI, um you can discuss in an executive session. So, um, obviously one of the biggest things that that school districts, you know, need to be aware of is furpa. So, oftentimes, you know, when you have a, you know, specific student matter, you can have an executive session because you're going discussing, you know, student information. And, um, it's even why, you know, it depends how it's done. But in some cases, you know, there are, you know, expulsion hearings. They're not open to the public, but you'll see agendas for boards of education where it'll say

059in executive session they're going to talk about a student disciplinary matter. um you know and they can't do it in public session because FURPA prohibits them from disclosing that that student information. Um so if we have an executive session, we need a twothirds vote to go into the executive session. So um make sure you do that. You take the two-thirds vote. Um when you're putting together the meeting agenda, um this sometimes seems counterintuitive to people, but um agendas need to fairly apprise the public of what will be discussed at a meeting and that includes an executive session. So, you want to avoid just saying, you know, executive session personnel or executive session, you know, security. Um, and I I saw the agenda you guys had tonight and I thought there was a really well-worded the

060way that it was, right? It's an attorney client memo and it sort of talks about the topic. Um, um, and that's good. You know, you should strive to do that with executive sessions. And I know sometimes people think, well, you know, we're not trying to to give away what we're going to talk about, right? It's an executive session. And that's true. Um, but the courts in Connecticut have said the topic, you know, sort of generally needs to be um, needs to be known. So, if you're talking about a, you know, disciplinary matter involving a teacher, you don't need to necessarily identify the teacher by name. Um, but you want to say, you know, potential discipline of a teacher or something, not just a personnel matter because a personnel matter could be appointing a new board

061member or, you know, talking about the superintendent, right? So, there's all these different things that that might be. Um, you can't vote during executive session. So, you know, even if you talk about things and sort of come to uh sort of an idea, maybe a consensus of what we want to do, you still have to come out and take a um a public vote um on that action. And um with executive session, you can invite in every anybody that you need to assist you. Um but do not create a second audience. And what I mean by that is the statute is specific and it says the people that go into executive session should be there for the purposes of giving opinion or testimony. So, it's quite common that you'll have your superintendent or you'll have

062your board attorney. Um, but we had a case a couple years ago where we said even a superintendent, if there was an issue where they were not involved for some reason, then they don't just get to come in automatically because they're the superintendent, right? Um, a lot of these things you were going to have them there because they're going to be advising you and counseling you and all that. Um, but if there was something not involving the superintendent, you know, then they don't just get to come in because, you know, they're here at the meeting. Um, so bring in the people that you need. You can ask them the questions, ask them for their opinion, but really the deliberation among the board members is really meant to be just that, the deliberation um among the

063board members. So, I'm not going to go through all the stuff on public records, but there's just a couple of things I just want to cover very briefly um and then happy to take any questions on any of this. Uh what is a public record? Um it's a broad definition in the law. So, um, public records or files, any recorded data or information relating to the conduct of the public's business, um, prepared, owned, use, received, or retained by a public agency. So, um, you know, I always tell people when I do this in like a town hall, like 95% of the stuff in a town hall is public record. Schools are a little different. All the obviously the student stuff is, you know, protected by FURPA. Um, but as a board member, you know, again,

064most of the stuff that you receive may be absent attorney, client, you know, privileged documents. Um but all the stuff in the board packet, you know, budgets that you're voting on, communications that the board received that you guys were talking about earlier, um those are all things that are that are public records. Um and the way FOYA basically operates is if you have something that is a public record, then the obligation is to provide a copy of that if somebody requests that unless there's a um state or federal law that says otherwise. So that is like where FURPA comes into play. There's exemptions in the FOI for a bunch of different things. You know, draft documents, uh, personal notes, certain personnel files. Um, another thing I think important for board members to know is, um,

065the device the record exists on does not matter. So, people can ask you for copies of records that might exist on your personal cell phone. They can ask you for text messages. They can ask you for emails. And regardless of whether you use a town, you know, town email, your own email, town phone. I know you don't have town phones, but um you know the device doesn't matter. The me what matters is the messages. So somebody could say, you know, I want any text messages between the board of ed chair and the board of finance chair, you know, in the week after the the board of finance meeting on the budget. I want to see if they were talking about the budget. Um somebody could ask for those texts or those emails. Does not mean

066that they get to, you know, get take your phone or go through your phone. The commission is not going to go through your phone. Um but you would have the obligation to do a search and see if you have anything. um responsive to that. So the um the only thing on here I want to highlight, you know, a lot of this is going to be more for the administrative staff who are going to handle the records requests. The vast majority of records requests are going to go to the school district. The only thing you guys really have that they don't is your own individual correspondents and that's usually what I see where board members have to do some of the searching. Um but an FOI request is specifically a request for public records. So, when

067I say you don't have to answer questions, do research, or create records that do not already exist, um it doesn't mean you're never going to do that. You know, if you're an elected member of a board of education, and you never answer anybody's phone calls, you know, good luck getting reelected, I would say, in the next election. But what it means is, you know, if you have somebody you're dealing with, they're asking you all these questions, you're trying your best to answer them, and you just don't know the answer. You say, "Hey, I've given you the answer. I can't, you know, there's nothing more I can say." Um, you don't have any obligation to respond further or do anything more. If somebody makes a records request to you, you've got to ensure that the records

068request gets fulfilled. So there's a difference between questions asking for an explanation, you know, something happened. I'm not happy. I want you to do something about it. Those are not records requests. But if somebody says, you know, I want this budget information, I want these emails. You know, you would you voted on a cell phone policy. I want a copy of the policy. You know, those are all requests for records. I want a copy of the policy versus, you know, tell me why you thought this cell phone policy was a good idea. You don't have to do the latter. Um, if you if you choose not to. And you don't have to create records that don't exist to respond to somebody's request. If you ever get an FOI request, um, has to be acknowledged within

069four business days, and you have to fulfill the the request promptly. Um, there's a lot of different factors. It's very case specific. Um, but basically, it's meant to be a reasonable period of time. um you know sort of balancing the needs of the requesttor um against the you know the needs of the public agency and in this case if there are things that require you know your work you know you are volunteer board members you've got families and jobs and other obligations and that's something the commission would take into consideration right that you're not um you know you don't have all the time in the world to do this but there's an obligation you have to try to make your best effort um if somebody makes a foyer request um exemptions and exceptions um as

070we as I mentioned earlier you know these are state or federal laws um that that say certain records do not have to be disclosed. We talked about Furpa. That's a big one for school districts. Um you know, this is the same presentation I use wherever I go, but there's also another one on there that relates to school districts for um you know, teacher evaluation records. Those are uh made confidential by a certain state statute. Um but basically the the thing to remember is um you know, if you're not going to give somebody information under FOYA, it can't be because we don't like somebody. It can't be because this person's been really difficult. Um, you know, they're from the other political party. What, you know, those are not the reasons. Um, the reasons are because there's

071an exemption or there's some, you know, exception, um, like like a furpa or like the teacher evaluations. Um, so I'm going to stop on this slide. Um, this is just sort of a non comprehensive list of the types of records that you don't have to provide under FOYA. Some of these I referenced earlier, but you know, things like a preliminary draft. Um, you know, this is sort of things prior to them coming to the board for consideration or adoption. Um, so maybe there's policies or things that staff are working on before they submit them to you. Um, your personal notes that you take in a meeting that aren't being shared or they're not being, you know, made into other, you know, part of something else. Um, some of these are legal in nature. You know,

072attorney client privilege. So, if you get a memo from your your board attorney or they uh you know there's a there's a lawsuit and there's a proposed settlement agreement or something like that. Um uh you know anytime there's a request where you believe records would result in a security risk if they were disclosed. So if somebody was asking for you know particular information about the school building and the security plans um we talked about there's the executive session, there's also a records exemption. um RFPs before you award a contract, you're allowed to withhold um you know, the people that bid, you know, while you're in negotiations with those biders. Um once you award the contract, then um you know, that information would need to be um to be made public. So, um I know that

073was a lot in a condensed time period. Um but I want to open it up if anybody has any questions. Um and I'll just go back again to the beginning. um you know with my my email and my phone number because I know sometimes you know a day from now, two days from now, a week from now, you'll say, "Hey, you know, now that I think about it, there's something I want to run by you." Um so you can always reach out to me if you need anything, but I don't know if there's anybody who has um any questions tonight or anything I can help with. So regarding that last slide that you just had up examples of FOI exemption exemptions in 1-210 uh under responses to bid solicitations which we have engaged in in

074the past um we don't have to provide that under FOI however do is the caveat there that an addendum has to be created relative to questions you can't so if a company that's putting forth a proposal has a question I must answer it to help clarify before they put their bid together. Do I have to then provide that to the other companies as well? Do I have to create an addendum and post it according to FOI? I just don't want to be in violation. >> So, um, on that one, I would I might want to look specifically at the language of the statute. I think I don't know that you would necessarily have to. Um, but I know that that's very common because you want you don't want to have anybody saying, "Well, if you

075gave them information that you didn't give to um, you know, to to me, I think certainly I think you might want to tell the other biders. I don't know if like somebody foyed that. Would you have to um to provide it?" I think the exemption is more about the proposals from the companies rather than, you know, the information that you that you put out. Um, but I, if you email me, I can double check because I just don't have the statute in front of me and I can't remember specifically what it says. But I think it talks about their submissions, but I I can double check that. >> There was a slide you showed where there's a a fee schedule. >> Yep. So, is that to discourage someone coming in just saying, "Listen, I want

076every meeting minutes from that from the 1975 until present >> because you're you're going to get some spiteful people out in the public who, you know, I'm going to it goes both ways." >> Yeah. Yeah. No, I I totally get that. So, um what I'll say with the fees, um if somebody wants to if they want to request to come in and review records, there's no there's no charge for reviewing records under FOY. All the fees are about the copies of public records. I think the biggest thing I would, you know, tell I tell this to everybody is um there's a thing in there about if a request is going to exceed $10, you're allowed to ask for prepayment. If you get a really big request, I would almost always tell the person what the

077cost is going to be and ask for the prepayment. Um because one of the most frustrating things that I when I is when I get a call like to your point you know somebody wants photocopies of you know 20 years of minutes and somebody spends two hours doing that and then they call the person and they say okay we have your 400 pages of minutes here it's $200 and then the person never comes to collect it because they don't want to pay. So, um, you know, the fees under FOYA, they're not a lot. Um, you know, it's not going to recoup all the time and effort that goes into it, but certainly charge what's allowed and certainly you can ask people for the prepayment if it's a cost of over $10 and that could be

078a way to weed out maybe some people who are, you know, they're not interested in the records, they're doing it as a form of, you know, retribution or something. >> So, that 50 cents per page though, that's like if you 20 pages, you're you're >> Yeah. And I'll say one thing too is that that is specific to um if people want photo copies or if these are paper records. Um one of the most frustrating things about FOYA and I I totally get it from the public agency side is that you really oftentimes if things are electronic you really can't charge a per page fee. Um there are some fees, you know, because those are all about paper copies. There are some fees for electronic records in certain special circumstances. Um, depending on what it involvement

079is needed, but if it's something like, you know, somebody is having to copy PDFs, you know, onto a flash drive or something, you can charge them for the flash drive, you can't charge them for every single page. Or if somebody's asking for emails, depending on what's what's how that's done, right? If they get a PDF of emails, you can't charge them 50 cents for every email that's within that within that PDF. So, um, I always tell people the large requests, honestly, the first thing I would do is pick up the phone and call the person because sometimes people make these big requests and there's a particular thing they're really after and if you could try to figure that out, sometimes that helps to resolve those bigger issues. >> Um, does anyone else have any questions?

080>> I just have one more uh from me anyway. Uh, under personnel files, uh, how about disciplinary records? >> Are they a matter of public interest? >> Yes. So um I would say disciplinary records are are generally um going to be you know things would be publicly disclosed under FOYA. So if we go to the thing on personnel files, um records are exempt from disclosure in a personnel file if disclosure would be an invasion of personal privacy. And the way the commission looks at that is predicated on this um Supreme Court case from 1993 in Connecticut um where the uh court said for something to be an invasion of personal privacy of a public employee um you need to basically prove that disclosure would be highly offensive and does not pertain to a matter of

081public concern. So, um, in most cases, you know, disciplinary actions involving public employees are inherently a matter of, you know, public concern. In in maybe some cases, if there's a complaint that's made and, you know, there's no evidence to support it, then that might be something where you could say, well, you know, this is not a matter of public concern because there was no truth to whatever the complaint was. But, you know, if there's a if there's an issue and somebody is disciplined and they get suspended or they get a letter in their file or something, um, you know, ordinarily that would be something that that people could get through through FOI. Um, and I'll say too, you know, the employee if they if the district believes there's a privacy issue, then the statute does

082say they have to go to the employee. So, the employee can object and if the employee objects, then the records are not disclosed. Um, does anybody else have any questions? Um, again, you know, call me or email me if if there's anything I can help you with. Um, you know, and the last thing I'll say too is, you know, I do this training in a lot of different capacities. So, if there's some other role you have in your life, you know, maybe you work for another town or something or you know, you're part of some civic organization or something. I've done this, you know, all over and I'm happy to tailor it to whatever um you know, whatever needs you you have. So, I appreciate um you know, the invitation. And you know, please if

083there's ever any questions and you know, call or email. And the last thing I'll say too, you know, to your point about people who are being difficult, um, you know, if you get somebody who's telling you all this stuff and hey, you have to do this, you have to do that, the law says this, the law says that, um, call me and we and we can straighten it out because I find that sometimes people, you know, use like Google AI and it gives them an answer and it might not be right because it's just looking all over the internet for FOYA and it might pull something from like California that has nothing to do with Connecticut. So, every state law is a little bit different. So, if you're ever unsure, um, you know, you want

084to get it straight from the horse's mouth, you know, just just call or email. So, but thank you everybody. >> Thank you so much, Russ. >> The little US Okay, moving on. Next, um I don't want to say this faciciously, but um miracles do apparently happen. If anyone's been following uh updates to our legislation and what the state has, uh decided to do after 13 years of not supporting um education at the level that we would like to see. um it felt like a huge outcry from the state of Connecticut. So, the state budget has recently been amended and New Hartford will be receiving an additional $172,353 for the educational cost share and another $22,147 in municipal aid. So, a total of $194,500 to the town of New Hartford. Special thank you to Representative Mark

085Anderson, Senator Paul Honig, members of the Education Committee and Appropriations Committee, and Governor Lamont. Obviously, everyone that was involved in helping um taxpayers with their tax bills. So, um look for more information on that. >> Sure. um educational cost share for the town of New Hartford, we will receive $172,353, an additional $22,147 to municipal aid, a grand total of 1945 500. So, this coincides with some of the legislative uh advocacy that we've engaged in um as a board, but also that um our first selectman has engaged in as well. And again, we're very um happy uh and support the for all of the support that we've received so that we can again provide further relief for our municipality here. >> Did they also change the formula moving forward? So they will be revisiting that and

086they have uh created a task force or a committee to look at the formula because they know inherently that there are some issues with it not keeping up with cola or inflation. So there'll be more to come on that and I will be keeping the board apprised of that as well. So that was one element of the legislation that was within all of your packets. Another was uh advocacy against zero mission um school buses. Uh this will be a significant challenge. We will continue to advocate for sensible implementation. We know that here in the northwest corner, electric buses may cause some concern in the cold and charging and having the infrastructure currently that we do not have and this would be a significant cost not only to the municipality um across the state of Connecticut.

087So, we're going to continue to keep an eye on that and advocate for some sensible implementation. Uh I'll continue to work with our legislation on behalf of the board of education for that. And then there was additional correspondence in there from our director of people services, Mike Lynch, uh to continue to advocate for the partnership for the Connecticut Junior Republic that supports our students and families. So, thank you to Mike for doing that as well. So, some of those are some of the highlights of the correspondence that you will find within your board packet. Let me see what's next here. >> Yes, kindergarten enrollment. Just to inform the board of education and to our public, kindergarten enrollment today stands at currently 55. And if recall the number that was within our projected numbers because the

088town of New Hartford had recorded 66 births, we're still off by 11. So if we look at 55, that would project two sections of 18 at Bakerville and one section of 19 at New Hartford Elementary. And this may lead to a reduction in force. But of course, it's we're not done yet. People are going to sign up. Still haven't signed up. So we'll continue to keep an eye on that. Uh so there'll be more to come as the can roman figures will change inherently they do every single year but I wanted to provide an update to everybody here so that they heard it directly from us. Up next we have our OSHA update. So we've been working with Konosha and thankfully we've uh resolved all of the instances of safety concern at Bakerville Elementary School.

089We've started with one school at a time. So th those would be the physical and both the personnel um safety checks for Bakerville. We will move on to either New Hartford Elementary or Antellini next and continue to work with Konosha to be proactive in our safety measures for our school buildings and our staff and personnel. Next up we have IAQ. And IQ stands for indoor air quality. And most recently, we've been awarded um a grant of approximately $2,000 if I'm not mistaken. And um all of the air monitors, which was our next step, and all of the air purification um devices that will be installed in the schools. Everything has been awarded for free to New Hartford Public Schools. So, we have approximately five monitors at each of our schools. And we're going to be

090developing a curricular tie with that. And approximately the month of June, next month, we'll be starting to look at putting together the devices. Yukon is helping us with all of this. And it's going to be absolutely amazing. I know that the kids are going to be very interested in it. But it again is to purify the air. It is a very simple um air filtration system that is created but demonstrates under u a lot of biophysical um research that it does remove um impurities from the air and also germs and bacteria again to keep all of our staff and our students healthy and safe. >> Okay, >> staff updates. Uh so I'd like to announce that um New Harford Public Schools is pleased to announce uh a new team member made possible by the renewed

091mental health funding approximately last month or so. The federal rural mental health grant ended prematurely in December 25. The state of Connecticut prioritized this initiative. We're grateful to confirm that the funding has been extended through 2627 school year ensuring continued support for our students. So, in partnership with Ed Advance, who the grant was awarded to, we want to welcome Anna Gallant, Miss Anna Gallant, as our school counselor at New Hartford Elementary. Um, and I want to share that she provides individual and small group counseling, classroom lessons, and support for students navigating challenges such as emotions and the regulation of their emotions, friendship issues, problem solving, and more. She also collaborates with staff and families to help create a positive and supporting learning environment for all of our students. So, welcome aboard to Anna. And up

092next, very importantly, last Friday we celebrated our school principles and our administrators. And this week, we celebrate our teachers. They are the family that unconditionally loves and guides our students each and every day. Their influence, their inspiration, their perseverance ensure that each and every one of our students experiences a great educational journey while here with us. And every school day is filled with anticipation, surprises, excitement, and more. You never know how we're walking in through the door each and every day. But I find it truly amazing um that our staff and our students are our staff is so well equipped to take care of our students. They are trained, they're dedicated, and they care for the well-being of our 447 students as of today, believe it or not. Keeps ticking up somehow. So, so please

093anybody listening or board of education members, please send them an email or a card of appreciation for their efforts. It'll go a long way. Lift their hearts and spirits knowing that you recognize their work. So to teachers, our principles, nurses, custodians, administrative assistants, par educators, and all of our staff, we love you and appreciate you very, very much. So, thank you for everything that you do. As I'm trying to wrap up, we have our uh just today we traveled to our LCSA award banquet and we honored two students and they will be invited to come to be before us at the board of education. We're going to take a picture. Everybody, we're going to take a picture with the kids. They're coming. Um the two that have been recognized to receive the Lichfield County Superintendent

094Award are Cadence Wallace and Blake Bingham. So, they will be joining us next time at our June Board of Education meeting. Cheers. Okay. All right. Good. I believe that is all outside of wishing everybody an amazing Mother's Day. Thank you, mothers, for taking great care of us. We don't know what we would do without you. Our lives would be completely disorganized. I could state that from many, many, many levels of growing up with my wonderful mother and also the wonderful mothers that continue to help us achieve what we need to to make sure our students are successful every day from forgotten water bottles to lunches to preparing, you name it. They do so much more and more. And also want to um extend a happy Memorial Day to everybody as we won't be meeting again

095until the month of June. I believe that in concludes all of my updates, sir. Any questions from the board regarding the superintendent's report? >> Well, this isn't a question, but we are we weren't supposed to Can we talk about one of the topics a little bit? >> You'd like to. >> Well, um, you know, thinking about the teachers at the high school, we just got some policies that came down from the board and I'm like looking at them thinking they need to talk to us a little bit. And uh >> I don't know if we can talk about this, Frank. >> Here's where I'm going with this. I I just wonder something to think about on the board if we can I I think we're a little disconnected from the teachers, the board. We have

096the administration here. We have students that come and talk to us. And I don't know if there's some way where we could get a little feedback from teachers, especially on policy. if they look at a policy and they think it's dumb, it might be and we just don't realize it. >> So, I could share that we have a very good relationship with not only our unions and all of our collective bargaining units, but if there are concerns, we work together with everybody. So, if there's something that they find is out of order or it is um no longer relevant and they want to see it updated, they are involved. Their voice is at the table for sure. We don't discourage that. Um, I believe when I first started as a superintendent here, we did have

097some teachers that would attend board of education meetings as well. Um, and they also have another avenue uh via our survey every single year to communicate that to us also. Um, they are very important uh members at the table for our curriculum committees, um, our professional development evaluation committees. Their voice is there. Um, and I'm sure because again we have the great relationship with them that if they found that this board policy really does not reflect or is not X Y or Z that they would certainly share that with us. >> Yeah. You guys have a mechanism for that dialogue because to be honest at the high school I don't think we do. >> Yeah. We have open door policy. That's how that's how we roll. Something comes up we don't like it. What can

098we do? What can we look at it together? >> So that's how we operate currently. U we don't have a dedicated space of this is a policy meeting come and talk about a a policy with us. I can't speak for the board, but you know, we I would welcome that kind of feedback because I'm on the policy committee and uh would love to hear feedback from teachers if there's a policy that's outdated, outmoded and you know, just for myself, you feel free to communicate that with the teachers that you know, our ears are open. >> I would welcome further discussion on that. I think that it it might want to start at the curriculum um I'm sorry at the uh at curriculum either that or at our policy subcommittee uh level and then we can

099add an agenda item if you thought that it was burnt and we can have further discussion and um try to come up with a plan as a as a board. >> I think there should be some type of avenue. I don't know if a public meeting would be the avenue. I think that's just going to end up being uh airing out grievances. I'm thinking like a survey of some sort information, right? But again, we could >> Yeah. >> Sure. >> Yeah. I could just say I'm pretty confident again if they had any concerns or something that they didn't feel comfortable with how we're operating, I'm sure they would bring it up to our admin. Our surveys very clearly share that they are comfortable bringing up concerns and our parents are also, you know, comfortable bringing

100up concerns to administration or to our teachers too. Um, and I'm sure they'll listen to this meeting and it'll be in the minutes as well. And I'm sure our our staff can of course solicit that if there's further need for Hey, just as a reminder, the board is interested and if you have concerns about any of our policies, so please communicate that to us. >> Yeah. My perspective, it's not even a grievance. It's just like they may have a better way of doing things, you know, that we haven't even thought of. I have a question. >> Yes. >> Um for the um 66 reported births, does that does that list get run up against students who got a waiver into kindergarten last year? Yeah, we've done uh analysis both back and forth and we're anticipating

101again because of the cuto off being eliminated there's no longer a waiver that would that have impact as well with um our registration. So >> okay >> yeah we did compare it against the town hall's uh register >> of births. >> Any further questions for superintendent report? Okay. Thank you, Superintendent Susa. Next item on our agenda is the board of education chairs report. I do have two items on uh that are listed under the board of education chairs report. And the reason for both of these has been brought to my attention both through discussions that I've heard in town, emails I've received from board members as well as uh information that's been shared with me through uh postings on social media with some misinformation. Um, so I thought it was prudent to be able to

102come to the board and have a discussion here at the board level to make sure that the record is set correctly with regard to the two items that are listed here under the board chair report. Um, the first is the prek sessions. Um, and with the prek sessions, I want to be clear to the public. I want to be clear again, make sure the board uh recognizes and remembers the discussions we had. But back in May of 2025, uh the board of education did announce that there was going to be a potential third section of prek. Um and the reason behind that, there were several rationale that came behind why we were going to add that section. If you all remember um the first was that there was a community weight list. Um at that

103time and and at that time very similar to now, we had 66 recorded births. Um at that time last year in 2025 when we had made that decision to put this into our budget um there had been a wait list for the previous years of over 10 students each year prior to that. Um rationale number two was the fact that we need to and and we should be looking to retain students here in New Hartford. Um and the reason for that is is once a student leaves New Harford, it's hard to get them back to New Hartford if they go off to a correct school. And then um rationale number three that we had gone through was students receiving special education support would be educated with our new Harford students and not outplaced uh facilities

104or other educational entities which charge two to three times. Right? We've gone through that in our budget season. We've talked about that quite often that to outplace a student the cost associated with that is tremendous to the town budget. Um, and those are really the three rationale that we had back then and again went back to to our records and our meeting minutes to to to pull that back out. Um, as you recall that season, that budget season was pretty tough for our board uh where we had the uh the the failed referendum um that happened in May of 2025. um that really failed through public outcry and public input that received regarding the clerical aid and the instructional assistant positions, right? And um again, referendum went and failed. Um on May 19th, the BOE

105met and adopted the revised budget. Um I'm sorry, let me step back. That those clerical aid in that that instructional assistant positions, as you recall, there was always a $66,000 number talked about quite often. We had cut that to be able to send our budget to the board of finance. Um, referendum failed. We came back, board of finance reinstated the $66,000. On May 19th specifically, we came back to the board and we we adopted a revised budget to now include those two positions. Um, on June 10th, the referendum the referendum went again and passed at that point. So when you look at this in summary, right, the third prek uh was part of the BOE adopted budget. The board of finance adopted that budget. It failed at referendum and ultimately passed at a referendum later

106on. Right. So the the the reason it failed and the changes that were made back then, the $66,000 weren't whether it was a prek section or was not a pre pre-K section. It was regarding those two clerical aid and and um instructional assistant positions. I I believe everybody remembers that. Um the misinformation that's out there now is that there was a decision made by our hired professionals to do this and add that third prek section after the budget referendum went through and after the budget referendum was passed. I want to make sure that everybody's clear that that is not the case. Right. the the the the the reality is is that that prek section was discussed included in the budget before the first ref referendum failed. It carried through to the second referendum and it

107did pass at the second referendum. So it was passed by us as the board of education. It was passed by the board of finance through their adoption of it and sent to a referendum and it was adopted by the community. >> And again, it was done for good reason. It was done fiscally responsibly to be able to make sure that our students here in town weren't being outplaced at a very very large cost. Again, refresh my memory. $120,000 on average. 150,000 on average. >> Yeah. 150k for an output. >> $150,000 on average help placement. When we have a waiting list here in town, we have the need here in town. We as a board of education, some members weren't on the board at that time, but we as a board of education made that decision.

108It wasn't a unilateral decision that was made after the fact. Right. Any questions on that before I move on to the next agenda item? I again I assume everybody who was on the board at that time recall that conversation, recall that that that uh sequence of events. >> Just one everything you said. Thank you. >> Everything you said thank you. Uh just to help those in the community uh for students that were if they do go to there is a cost there as well. And just to note that as part of the explanation. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the correct cost is is what we refer to is $150,000. >> There's there's also Yeah, there's a range of costs, but still there's it all adds up. Yeah. >> On average. Yep. >> Yeah. >> Okay.

109And the second item underneath the board of education chairs report is a superintendent responsibilities. Again, there was some misinformation out there saying the board of education has made a conscious decision and continues to make the conscious decision to have a full-time superintendent for our new Harford public schools. And we've done that at least since I've been on the board for over eight years. This is my third term on the board. Prior to that, we always had a full-time superintendent. Um there's information out there that says that we don't need a full-time superintendent. We can do without our our full-time superintendent and uh and go part-time because there are other districts that do that. And one of the comparisons that have been made, and this happened at the town hearing, was to West Hartford. We keep

110hearing about this this comparison to West Harford. So I went on and I actually looked at what West Harford has. And again, we're comparing apples to oranges when we talk about West Harford in comparison to New Harford. They're completely different districts. But it was interesting when I went on there to look at the number of positions that they have and it it speaks to what we ask our superintendent to do and the reason that our board of education has supported having a full-time superintendent. You know, you look at that district and you look at the number of they have they have assistant two assistant superintendents. They have uh one for administration and one for curriculum instruction and assessment. Um they have an executive director of human resources. They have an executive director of equity advancement.

111Uh they have a director of plant facilities. They have a director of school safety and security. They have a director of talented and gifted, a director of elementary and and secondary education. They have assistant directors of pupil services. um supervisors of early childhood, business officials, super right. So when you look at this and again there's an orchard that's readily available online that talks about department super it goes from executive directors to 16 principles to directors of all these different pieces to then department supervisors to secondary assistant principles. And when you look at all those things and like I said to me what was interesting is when you add up all the things that happen in that school system regardless of that school system is 10 times the size or 20 times the size of New

112Harford we have to have all those things here as well and we ask our superintendent to do that here in New Harford. One individual has to take all those hats and wear all those hats. Again, understanding that there is a completely different level of student and number of students which require more supervision, more people. I think it's very interesting when you look at that to say that's understandable, but we do ask our superintendent here in New Hartford to wear a lot of hats. Right? When we put out to bid any work within our school system, it's done by our superintendent. Um, they have an individual that does that. you know, I work down in the Fairfield County area and they have a a a director of of construction within their Fairfield public schools. So, when

113you look at what we ask our superintendent to do, and again, I'm not I mean, I like Jeff and I'm not, you know, sitting here saying that that that that yes, I am defending him, but I'm also saying that we did this consciously, right? There's a reason we have our superintendent. And and really that's what I want to make sure is clear because the information that's being shared through social media, there's discussion out there and things that are happening that are coming to me and I'm not a social media person so I don't see it but it's being shared with me. I I think that we need to make sure that we are clear that there's valid reason that we have a full-time superintendent here in New Harford and it's a conscious decision the board

114has made and that's really the point I wanted to make. Thank you. >> Yeah, I just want to say that you're probably one of the hardest working people that I know and um you're you're well worth the money. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> And I agree and thank you for sharing that today. >> Any questions? Any comments with that? >> All right. I appreciate that. All right. We'll move on to the agenda. Um next on the agenda is our routine business. Um, we have our approval of minutes and I would take these together although I think that when I came in you had said that there were one of them that that uh you may abstain from. Is there a certain one? >> I don't know. I don't remember the attendance Adam. >>

115That'll be the next meeting. Yeah. >> Is that the one you're referring to? Okay. Okay. So, if there's no objection, we could take these uh together. So again, I get a motion motion to approve the minutes of uh February 24th, March 3rd, and March 24th that were all in your packet and available for review prior to the meeting. Motion by John. Can I get a second, please? >> Second by Tim. There any discussion on the minutes? Any changes, revisions that anybody had from the review? >> All right, seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. That is unanimous. All right. Also in your packet was the expenditure report um that we all had an opportunity to look at review prior to this meeting. Are there any uh I should get a

116motion to approve the expenditure report? Got a motion by John. Second, please. >> I'll second. >> Second by Kirby. Um any discussion after your review of the expenditure report? >> I just have one uh quick comment just to to comment on the expenditure report. Uh if you draw your attention to certified salaries, you'll notice that we are well under budget. This is due to um several unpaid leaves currently that are taking place. So we're under budget there, which is great news. The same applies because of those unpaid leaves. When you look at employee benefits, there's additional savings there. And one of significant note is we've had a change in one of our outplacements and that has been again another cost savings for us. So we're looking currently to today's date, May 5th. Um, I'll give

117an approximate projection of about $150,000 or so under budget, which is great news. Um, again, unanticipated medical or different types of leaves, employee benefits because of those leaves again, and a change in outplacement. Any further questions or comments on the expenditure report? Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. That is unanimous. That's good news, Jeff. Thank you. All right, moving on to new business. First item under new business is uh discuss and take action on the 2024 2025 audit completion by King and King. Uh the BOE will need to vote on a 2863 um savings in the 2425 budget uh to place it into the non-lapsing account. So, can I get a motion to place $2,863 into the board of ed non-lapsing account? >> Make the motion. >> Motion by

118Tim. Can I get a sec? >> Second. Second by John. Any discussion. So this is again they have King and Ken has completed their audit at the end of their audit as they went through every expenditure that we had for the 2425 school school year they agree that at the end of the day we have a very slight savings. >> That is correct. Yep. And it's listed on their in their budget book as well for the town that they provided. So all of that's public and realize they're under educational cost of the town. Yeah. There's no further discussion uh regarding that. The motion to place $2,863 into the board of education non-lapsing account. We have a motion by Tim, a second by John. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. That is

119unanimous. All right. Next item under new business is to discuss and take action on motion amendment for funding Silver Petraelian Associates contract. Superintendent Susa, can you give us a little bit of color on that? >> Absolutely. So, similar to the motion that we've made in the past regarding the refresh of the classrooms right across the hall here at Anantellini where we said that we would the board of education can utilize up to $20,000 700 from the non-lapsing account for the classroom refreshes. What I'm we're going to request from the board of education is to consider revising the previous motion relative to SPA to give us more financial flexibility because of what I just announced that we have potential savings. So we can use money from our operating budget because we have the savings now instead

120of using the non-lapsing account money um alone for example. So, originally that motion was made by Penny Miller and to follow Robert's rules, only a person that has voted in favor of it can revise it. Obviously, if you voted no, we can't do that. So, the motion originally was from Penny Miller to consider the use and approval of 28,500 from the non-lapsing account to fully fund and award the school facility utilization request for proposal to Silver Petrael and Associates. Seconded by Tim Russell. The a yeses were Tim uh Kleps, Penny Miller, Kirby Moranti, John Puzz, Frank Rodenberg, Timothy Russell, Kristen Young, Nay, Thomas Buzzy, abstain. None. So that motion passed 710. Um, so what I would like to request is a revised motion from that day um to amend the original motion um from the

1211215 2026 that approved that $28,000 from non-lapsing account to fully fund the award um to either the 285 from the non-lapsing account or surplus funds from the maintenance line in the current operating 2526 budget to continue to hold on to some of our reserves in the cases of any um emergency. agencies or anything of that nature, but if we have the current operating funds now, it makes sense to do that now. So, that's why I'm requesting that from the board of education. Okay. Would anybody like to make a motion um to revise or amend um the funding of Silver Petraelli to um up to 20 >> 28,500? Anybody like to make that motion? >> I'll make that motion. We have a motion by Kirby. We get a second. >> Second. >> Have a second by

122Eric. Is there any discussion with that? Anybody need any clarification on this? >> I just have a question about how budgets work. Is is it any different if we have a surplus at the end of the year? Can't you just put that into non-lapsing? Is there any difference? >> Right. I mean, when you look at it, it's Yeah, that's in in in general terms, we either take it out of the non-lapsing account. Now, the 20 uh what's the number? >> 28,500. We could take that out of the non-lapsing and then replenish that with the savings because we are allowed up to 2% of our >> $10 million budget to go back in there. So, what this does is allowed us to use the current operating and not debit an account to take it from there.

123we're going to take it from the the funds that we have available to us now. >> Is there an advantage to doing that? >> Yes. >> Yeah. To me, it's just cleaner and providing um financial flexibility with current funds that we have now and then again continuing to um preserve our non-lapsing account for the unexpected movein outplacement emergency something that comes along. So, that would be my rationale and recommendation to the board. Isn't it also just beneficial to use those funds first? Because if you can only put 2% into the non-lapsing account, you might be losing out on any overage above that 2%. >> Correct. Because by law can only put two thou um the $200,000 approximately into that account. So absolutely correct. >> So I would say it's a safety in my mind a

124safety net. >> What was the split on SBA's contract? 285 from New Hartford Board of Ed, 20,000 because that was their maximum. Correct. Without having to go to town meeting, >> $20,000 from the town >> total of 485 for the Silver Petra Sully for the study, >> right? >> Why was I thinking it was a three-way split was something? That was the uh that was the discussion on the um >> video. All right. We talked about the video when we they wanted to video the meeting which is still on in process. It was going to go three ways. Board of Ed, >> board of finance, board of select. Any further discussion? Okay, we have a motion by Kirby, second by Eric to use up to to amend the motion to use up to 28,500 from

125the non-lapsing account uh to fund the Silver Petraelian Associates contract. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All those opposed. That motion passes. One, two, three, four, five, 610. >> Um, did you word that right? I think so >> because I thought you said non-lapsing account again, >> but it is it is up to 28,500 from the non-lapsing account. So that allows usage of our operating budget. >> Oh, I thought it was from the maintenance the 28,000. >> It can come from that. It's going to be basically so up to means it could be a zero amount or up to 285 if necessary. So, if no longer necessary, that allows um us um at central office to make sure we make payment um from any of the operating that we currently have

126because if we don't need to use the 285, then we'll use our current operating budget surplus. Okay. Now, moving on to the next item on the agenda, which is the item we added by twothirds vote, which is the prek programming. Um, so John, I'll turn it over to you, but I I think the premise here was there has been um much discussion at the task force meetings um and some public input regarding uh the prek program, how the program operates, how the program works, um kind of some, you know, some more detail around that program. Um and um John had had asked regarding uh you know with with Kristen as well as our chair of the task force was can they meet with Superintendent Susa and his administrative team to be able to get more

127details to be able to share with the public. Um, as John and Kristen are are representatives from the board of education, I had suggested that any information or anything that's done on a task force level should become should come before the before the board before it goes to the task force. Um, and that's why we added that to the agenda tonight. So, I'll turn it over to you, John, to give a little bit more uh detail beyond that. >> Thank you for that lead in. And so, that that's exactly it. And so we're trying to uh help the task force but also be mindful of the board of education and uh with Jeff and and Mike and others as leads. And so with there being questions that are coming our way naturally want to help

128within the bounds here. And so wanted to make sure that we were sharing with the board and discussing together if this notion of of Kristen and myself not to exclude Penny, she's there too, but the questions are primarily come to to Kristen and myself. And so, um, we were trying to reference, you know, as Tim said earlier, some of the, uh, past minutes and and documentation that are public, there are some additional questions that have come up that could be helpful to be answered. And so, we wanted to work with, uh, Jeff and and Mike to actually put together some information, run it by the board, and then be able to share it from there. And so, um, this might sound rather kind of administrative or, uh, in nature, but again, just trying to make

129sure that everything is above board and and transparent in terms of how we're trying to help and gather information and as Tim said, we'll, you know, work with work work together and then bring it here to the board and then be able to share from there with your approval. So, um, >> describe a little bit the >> Yeah. So there um you know there were some of the the rationale in terms of you know that you shared in terms of why the customer is added but even backing up before that um you know there are questions about the kind of fundamental concepts of uh for example um you know is preschool required or not and and um you know we're so close to preschool and some of the state requirements around uh education starting age

130three under certain circumstances and so um you know that's one example here or in terms of you how education is delivered in the preschool classroom and how there's a balance between students with IEPs and general education students and then also some of the ratios that come into that. Um and then also there's this questions around some of the staffing and and and program costs there. There's also tuition and how some of that information has come together. And so um you know there's been pieces that have been discussed here in board meetings. There's also a lot of great work that Jeff and others have done to put together this program and to run this program. And so, um, we're trying to make sure that we're understanding from a ground up what's being done and why and

131then be able to communicate that out, you know, as it as it makes sense. Um, and therefore kind of like as, you know, with the task force kind of thinking bigger picture trying to have a process and then not have this governed by emotion, but instead by, you know, actual, you know, facts and information here. And so that's where being able to actually, you know, not just hear the questions, but then gather information from our experts here and be able to share that back out would be useful for some of the task force planning. So that at home, so again, this is more information share. I don't think we're looking for any motions or approvals. When do you think that you're um when when are you when are you thinking the information will be shared

132at task force? I know you had this past Saturday there was a public hearing uh for question and answer from the public. Um the next one is what's the next one? >> Uh the next and I'll actually get to this as part of the uh another J the task force update with Kristen being away this evening. I'll handle that that update. Uh the next meeting is this coming Wednesday, May 13th. And then we have another publicformational meeting and then also is looking further ahead as we actually look at some of the options here. Uh be able to share some perspective on some of the questions around kind of the the pre preK kind of classroom needs and space needs and as to why some of the aspects that we're putting into the programming, the facilities

133are needed. That information will be helpful here. And so we'll look to gather gather some of this information, answer some of the questions, work with Jeff and Mike here um and Kristen and myself. And so it would need to be it would not need to be set by this Wednesday, but over the coming weeks gathered information so that for the upcoming meetings we can share that is is some of this uh it seems like the only thing that would really be relevant to the task force would be spatial needs, wouldn't it? for that >> directly. Yes. But but why for example um you know there's an there's different um again like there's just and this is not to fault the community you know when I was going back a year when this was when the

134preschool program has been discussed here you know I didn't know as much about it. I've learned a lot more by being here part of the border of ed education and talking with Jeff and Mike and doing some research. But as we talk about some of the spatial needs, for example, there's not as much of an understanding amongst the community as to why certain aspects of the spatial needs might need to be included in the plan. And so that's where um it might be spatial in terms of how it comes out, but some of the color of the information around that, that's where folks you once they can say, "Oh, I understand this is the reason that is there. That makes sense. Thank you for that that clarity." And so that's where having some of the

135background information that we can share on behalf of the board of education and and Jeff and Mike would be useful for the task force purposes. Again, we're trying to be very limited and not answer any and all questions. Some things we're just not, you know, not qualified to answer. We can you can refer them to to Jeff and and Tim, but just trying to have some, you know, more kind of grounded and common common questions that we can answer. I don't believe I mean as I look at it I've been in attendance at the the task force meetings. Um I think I' I've missed a couple but I've been there for the majority of them in in the prek program has come up on >> basically every >> many occasions. Um, and I think even

136when we just went through the FOI presentation, um, we talk about our meeting minutes and our meeting minutes are public information, but it doesn't include all the discussion, the conversations we've had as a board in these meetings. It's more summary level. It captures the motions and the approvals, but doesn't include all the detailed discussions that we have. So I think what the community is looking for based on my impression and perspective of this is they're looking for the information we we all know as the board of education but it's not in the public record. So to date my advice to John and to Kristen has been we we should stick with the public record until we have a conversation at a board level. Um honestly to me I don't have any issue sharing the information.

137there's nothing that's confidential, right, with the information that would be shared. It's more about, >> I guess, very similar to what I had just gone through. What's the rationale behind the program? What's the requirements that the state puts on us to have those programs? Um, how many students are in their program and why? Maybe it's discussing even further the the cost and fiscally responsible nature of making the decision to have these programs and why we want them in our our town. Um those are the kind of things that to me I think that that that the that the member or the people who are are attending the task force meeting are looking more into the why. Why do we have it? What does it do for us? Why are we funding it? Yeah. >> Right.

138And that that that's the information they're looking for because there is right I mean at the end of when you look at it we are funding it. The town of New Harford is funding the program to have prek in our school system, but it's to avoid the outplacement costs that would far exceed be compliant with the state law and then and to avoid the I mean there's there's real rationale, but if someone doesn't understand that they think it's three classrooms that are there for no reason if it did not have three classrooms at you know thousand run for 1,00,200 square feet each you know that could be a dramatic savings in terms of a facilities perspective and so some of that background is actually quite relevant and useful. >> There's also a revenue portion of

139the program, correct? That >> you know, I personally don't know what what the ratio is for paying versus non-paying at this point. That's something that probably changes every year anyway. >> Absolutely. As students qualify, it changes. >> That's got to be updated and brought to the public. Maybe >> it's in our budget book, too. >> Right. So, but there's there's a and I'm speaking from what I see and there's a lot of misunderstandings about what Tim was exactly why we you know back in the Bakerville fight the Bakerville fight days. Everyone thought the prek was a way to fill classrooms to avoid closing Bakerville and that is carrying on right now. you see that in the comments that yeah they put it in there just to keep people quiet about you know having extra space

140to close bigger and that's not never has been the case and there's a lot of rational behind and I think there's a very much a lack of understanding about why that program is in place so we can answer those questions through this committee or even have a better discussion annually the status of that program in this room might be a good idea >> 100% >> I think this goes back to like I don't remember what meeting this was but We discussed a few meetings ago how having some sort of like a frequently asked question sort of section would be helpful like on the website like even just explaining kind of how like someone asked me the other day what's the job of the superintendent similar to the discussion we had before about your position people

141were like well what does he do all day and so like I know what you do because I'm here but there are many people that don't so I think that that would be something that should be considered instead of the board or you know members of the board having to do like some output of information. I think it's helpful if that's just kind of because every year these questions are going to come up. So any other thoughts? Does anybody have any objections to Kristen and John meeting with our superintendent and Mike to be able to go through and share some additional information that we all know, right? um in more of a concise manner to be able to put it all together so people can understand. >> There's no objections then, you know, I don't

142I don't see a need for a motion or or anything there. >> Yeah. Make sure everyone's aware community wise and and boardwise and Yeah. So, thank you. >> Very good. All right. Let's move on to old business. We have some second reads of some policies. These were all in your packets. Uh, we did have the first read at our last meeting. >> Actually, it was two meetings. It was >> seems like forever ago. >> Two meetings ago, but they were in your packets. Yep. >> Um, I will entertain a motion to take all three of these together if someone would like to make a motion. >> So, move to accept as previously read >> and amended. >> I have a motion by Tom. Can I get a second? Second. Second by Tim. So, we have

143a motion by Thomas and a second by Tim to adopt and approve revision. I'm sorry, policies 35 16.5, sexual offenders on school property. Policy 3541.313, video cameras on school transportation. And policy 6144.1 instruction exemption from exemption from instruction. Any discussion on those? Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Those policies are adopted unanimously. Our next item on the agenda is public comment for agenda items only. Would anybody like to address the board? Nobody. All right. Thank you. Uh moving on to our next item on the agenda is uh uh item J reports um at advance. >> I don't have any received. Penny Miller is our rep um and she's not here today. >> Okay. So we will have nothing on advance school facility utilization task for task force report. John,

144I believe you're taking that. >> Yes, I am. Uh so just a brief update. Um, and as everyone knows, we have the section on the website and thanks to Sarah keeping that updated religiously. Um, and there's been a lot happening here. So, um, and you is helpful to note the FOYA, uh, discussion tonight. The task force is under FOYA as well. And so, you know, literally everything is there. Um, and so, uh, meetings roughly every two weeks. Um, recent updates, the conditions, presentation, report. So SPA had gone through all the facilities and done the detailed conditions report which is is published in the um estimated cost of those by priority by school. There was the enrollment study that was done uh which is again a requirement for any sort of state funding. So that was

145done and discussed uh available. U there was a programming and capacity analysis uh SBA led that with input from uh Jeff and the team there. Um and then I guess just been aside they come back and asked about some additional refinements to that. >> Uh vaguely recall that there's going to be some some followup in terms of refining that you know as make four make four parts in one part coming back to that to kind of make sure it's in lock step but um that report's also been published. Uh the task force did actually put together an evaluation matrix. So the criteria that we looking for with waiting in terms of how we look at the various options here and doing that early so we have it for later on in the process. Uh an

146initial site analysis and some preliminary options. Um so looking at each of the sites and and what might be possible for a variety of kind of big picture type options across the you know the needs the programming capacity the sites and so that first pass was done and then that there for as planned you know additional second pass to that to refine some of the options and so that will be the next meeting uh coming up on May 13th. the first of two publicformational meetings was held. Uh that one was this past Saturday, scheduled for 1 to 3 pm. Actually went went longer. Um some of us were there past 4 p.m. Um and so you know had a I think a very helpful uh presentation led by Michelle with input from the community and

147from members of the task force. And so the slides and that are on the website and um um I'm just going to leave that at that for now. And so kind of the phase that we're in right now is refining these options, gathering feedback and then um we are still on track in terms of overall timeline and also to note there are currently two subcommittees of the task force. One is around gathering input. there'll be a survey that's distributed to the town and so there's a team working on that and then also there's a subcommittee uh that is looking at kind of the financing and so not so much how we finance that but if we look some of these options you know they're you know even just doing the improvements to the schools of

148some capacity would be in the millions of dollars if they are actually approved but what that actually mean not in millions of dollars but on an impact to the individual tax rates and so doing some estimation on that front and so um the um yeah the overall timeline is still on track and so we'll have more updates over the coming coming weeks here in terms of how things are looking and as has been said numerous times. The task force is looking to bring one or two recommendations to the board of education and you know task force is now making decisions coming to the board of ed and the board of ed would then involve other boards in the town as as so merited. So um glad to take any questions you know a lot has

149been happening. So, how has uh public participation, community participation been throughout the meetings and then that public hearing? >> Yeah. So, I if I could have waved my magic wand, I obviously want to make sure that to respect FOYA, but it was very difficult to be I mean, frankly, to be on the task force, but also to be an attendee in those first two meetings because they were so administrationheavy. um not being able to do any coordination amongst the task force ahead of the first meeting or between the first meeting and second meeting. You know, even still, we don't have emails. You know, maybe a quick scheduling email, but there's no discussion based on FOYA. And so those meetings were so intense on the administrative side that a lot of folks were, I don't know,

150turned off it seems. And so we're trying to, you know, get folks back in now. They're really into the meat of the process. And so the I'd say the the kind of turnout is is much lower than what it was early on. Um we're trying to you know get more people to be aware of what's happening and share information. But um I wish we're wish we could have had more than meet early on and less of the administration in the meetings. But um you know that's that's where we are. I'll say though um the engagement during the meetings has been you know quite high whether folks are supportive or or not. There's been a lot of engagement from folks who do come to the meetings. Um and then kind of I say kind of the

151you know you know folks kind of just you know you pass on this you kind of you know in downtown New Hartford you know folks seem to be you know again whether they're you know liking what they're hearing or not liking the hearing you know very much is based in facts and information and not based on emotion or he said she said and so um that has been a positive again wonder how process be transparent gather information share that and so folks do seem to be appreciating that just want to make sure we have more more eyes and more awareness of this as we proceed I should also note um related to that question that the you know early meetings received lots of views in terms of the you know the reporting is being viewed

152that's dropped off too. So the in person and the views have dropped off despite the quality and the importance increasing. So it's one of the things we want to figure out with this input and survey committee how we can help to have more folks be aware of of what's happening. So, any questions regarding the uh utilization task force? Okay. Thank you, John. Um, next item on our agenda is executive session. I will entertain a motion to enter executive session and invite Superintendent Susa to join. Motion. I have a motion by John. Can I get a second? >> I'll second. Second by Kirby. Again, this needs to be twothirds vote to enter executive session. So, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. That is unanimous. Thank you all. Just