Berlin Board of Education Meeting - 4/28/25

001Good evening everyone. Welcome to the April 28th Berlin and Board of Education meeting. We're going to call this meeting to order at 6:01 p.m. We're going to begin with um the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the standice for all. Um all right. So this evening we have Becky, where's Becky? Oh, right there. Um, Tyrell Tyrell, um, who is on the K board of directors. She has some awards to present to us. Um, and she also serves on the Planeville board of education. I actually presented their awards last week and now she's here presenting some really great awards um for some awesome achievements that that highlight all the things Berlin Public Schools does. So, you can come on up if you want to. Oh, you have a

002microphone. Perfect. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna kind of Is this on? I'm just gonna kind of move down here a little bit. Um, so yes, my name is Becky Tyrell, as Julia mentioned, and I am an associate director of CABE. Um, and I'm here to recognize Berlin Public Schools and present you with a few heavy awards here. Um, and this is what's known as the Bonnie B. Carney Award for Communication. CAB has been honoring districts with the award for excellence in education communications since 1975. In 2016, the award was renamed honoring longtime Cape staff member Bonnie B. Carney in recognition of her 47 years of dedicated service to education focused on communications. Um, and with this award, co cable, uh, CAB's goal is to identify and honor the hardworking people in school districts for

003their continuing efforts to communicate effectively. So, um, you have received three awards and let me see. Oh, yeah. So, maybe you somebody can hold them. Um, the first one is a award for newsletter, the board of education snapshot fall 2024. Let's hope that's was that was the right one. Okay. Awesome. This is uh for a the special project and it's opioid awareness and we're just lucky to have three of you lovely young ladies. Uh yeah, the banas the banas of the group. Uh for social media, this is Berlin Public Schools YouTube channel. So congratulations the board and take a picture. So, before we take a picture, I think it's um Thank you. I think it's great to highlight there's three different awards that represent the board and the subcommittee work that uh the community engagement

004committee has done, Nick Smith and his team. And then the opioid who who was at the high school there was Nick Smith as well as Jamie Miller in the town. Great. So, if you want to say a few words. Sure. I think years ago, just so the community knows that um Nick Smith is in the back here, a lot of changes have gone on and throughout COVID um even more of more changes. But, um the group that's behind us that broadcast all of the board meetings, we used to actually contract with Nutmeg TV, I believe, and now it's all done internally within the board. They're there student workers um that actually get paid for their work. Mr. Smith who is our director and then there's actually students who are part of the club and they're

005doing all the broadcasting. So they're behind a lot of the work that was done here. Uh the board snapshot is something that the board subcommittee looked at ways to communicate with the uh members of the community and that's comes out three times a year with it's a two-page interactive that all of you see that are that are that's sent to you. So um really credit to Nick and his group um and to the board members on the subcommittee. But thank you very much Kate for presenting us the awards. really appreciate it. So, if the board wants to get up and then we can get a picture with Becky and and Nick will come in too and we'll hold the awards and get some pictures. If we just stand in front of the table that that

006will be fine. It's okay. We can like stagger ourselves. It's Yeah, go in front of the table. Sean thinks he Are you ready? Everyone ready? Two. Three. I just randomly found these. I got excited. Keeps getting caught in heels. I I know. I have one like that and I trip on it actually. Okay. [Music] So, congratulations for the awards. Um and we're going to move on to student presentation. I'll turn it over to the superintendent. Yes. very happy to have uh principal Sullivan here, assistant principal Devin Constance and assistant principal Abby Frob and uh members of the McGee 6th grade ELA team and some students here. So, Mr. Sullivan, I'm going to turn over to you to come to the microphone. Congratulations to the board and the celebrations are going to continue because what tonight

007is really all about is celebrating what happens when you foster collaboration. Um so collaboration happens on many different levels and it actually starts with the output of this project at the board level and uh the district committee which supported the goal setting process which you'll uh hear some of our ELA team explain. From there we have Gravity Goldberg who is a consultant we worked with collaborating with our team and our 612 supervisor um for creating and implementing a new unit of study and then obviously and most importantly uh the collaboration among our students among their staff uh and among all of our support at McGee Middle School um which you're going to uh partner in in some of the reading and uh celebrate some of the work that our students um have been a a

008part of over the course of the year. So, uh, to kick off and introduce some of the members that have joined us tonight, we have Lori Picewitz, who is our 612 supervisor. Good evening and thank you for joining us as our sixth grade ELA teachers and some very promising young authors highlight a new narrative fiction unit where students wrote their own children's books on social issues in the world today. I'm Lori Poit, 612 ELA department supervisor, and I could not be more excited to share the work of our fantastic sixth grade team and their equally amazing students tonight. Before I turn it over to the people you'd really like to hear from, I'd like to start by sharing the professional goal that the sixth grade team set for themselves. Okay. After a year of work

009and curricular revision, this team has come to two very important conclusions. One, we don't teach books, we teach skills. And two, before teaching skills, and beyond all else, we teach children. Embracing this philosophy has allowed teachers to provide choice and voice for our students with a strong emphasis on supporting student learning and advancing literacy outcomes as directly related to the team's goals. I would like to publicly thank each teacher for committing themselves to a professional learning community grounded in advancing student progress and teaching to the whole child. Although Mrs. apprentice is not able to join us this evening. I'm very excited to introduce Mrs. Burnham, Mrs. McCorkel, Mrs. Tarver, and our amazing student authors as they share their process, their new learning, and even the application of transferable skills with you all. I'm sure you'll

010agree that there is much to be excited about in sixth grade ELA. Alrighty. Good evening everyone. My name is Megan Tarver. Um, one thing we did as a team this year um, with ELA is we took on a huge challenge uh, rewriting four of our um, units of study. So, we began this year with our grammar boot camp, really building those foundational skills that we can spiral back to and review throughout the course of the the school year. Then we rewrote our narrative writing unit. And lastly, our informational reading and writing units. But tonight, we're here to really highlight our narrative writing unit where the students had a really fun opportunity to create their own social issues picture books where they really built upon all of the skills and concepts that we tackled in our

011narrative reading unit. So, let's talk about how we were able to make that happen. Okay. So, when we started this unit, there's so much thought and design that goes into a unit. We know we need to follow the CCC, Common Core State Standards, and we wanted to make this valuable for and engaging for our students. So, how did we do this? We did this in several different ways. One was to ensure that there were transferable skills. We wanted to make sure that what they were learning, like Mrs. Po said what they were learning wasn't just the piece of writing, but they were learning skills that they're able to take other places. A couple examples are like organization and structure. They made plot mountains by themselves. You can take that organization and structure and put that

012into a science lab that you're designing. You can put that into math. You can put that into many different places, a transferable skill. Likewise, sequencing and ideas. Um, the kids talked about descriptive language and word choice. Where else could that be beneficial to them? um character development and perspective, revising and editing, which is a lifelong skill in any area that you're in. Um creative thinking. So, this also gave our students that um that thrive in other areas, a way to showcase that um voice and audience awareness. Hopefully, you'll be able to tell that tonight. And all the different transferable skills. So, how did we do that? Um we wanted to make We made this as engaging as possible for all of the students. And so some of the ways that we did that is um

013we gave them a lot of student choice and uh they got to choose their social issue which we kind of gave we brainstormed like what was appropriate for um elementary students because it was a book for elementary students. We modeled a lot of um books for them. We gave them choice on what their characters would be. They could be people. They could be shapes for some of them. Um they could choose their setting, the conflict and any scenes that they wanted to. Um the student voice came through when um they really brought themselves into the story. So they used whatever vocabulary they wanted to use. They used their um experiences from in their past, their writing that they enjoyed in past years to into their story. And um we did a lot of collaboration between

014the four of us and uh we also um did it with other departments in our building. So we had the library and the technology department come in and Mrs. Turjan and Ms. Ryan Holtz, they came in and taught all of our students and us how to use a new um application called Canva and that's how we illustrated them all. So when you see them tonight, you'll really be able to see how their words came alive with that. And so I think you're going to see tonight that the are very excited. They're very proud and we were just really excited about the the unit by the time we were done with it all. So, all right. So, we're going to call up our Oh, one more. Sorry. So, just to kind of wrap up the unit,

015we wanted to find a way to create some type of like authentic piece um for the students to be proud of, take home, share with families. Um, so we were able to print off everybody's story, put them in cool little covers for them, which they when they saw them, they're like, "Wow, I get to take that home." Like they were super excited just to have something that looked more like a published piece. So before they could take them home, they did have to present them out to each other, which created a really cool opportunity for us as ELA teachers since we don't teach on the same team. So we had students from um one class from each team. They met up in the auditorium. They were able to be partnered with somebody who was on

016the other team. They shared out their reading. They were able to listen for all the different components of the writing piece. So, they were looking to identify the characters in their stories, the setting, the conflicts, the social issues, and they provided each other with feedback. They, you know, gave compliments to each other. And it was a really nice way to just wrap up the whole unit and celebrate the work that they did. So, um, we're like everybody said, we're super proud of them. They did a nice job and I think it was something that they were very excited about as well. So, all in all, Aiden, how did you use Canva? I use Canva to put more emotion and feeling into my book so I could express my characters more. Julia, how did you choose

017your social issue? Um, I choose my social issue. At the beginning of the unit, we were looking at some examples and one of the examples that stood out to me was bullying. And I knew that some elementary kids struggle with bullying. So, I decided to choose that as my topic to help them understand like what's right and wrong. All right. And Luna, why did you choose your social issue? Um, because I move a lot and so I know what it's like not to fit in immediately at a new school, but like you can find your people. Belle, I'm going to come over to you now. How did you feel about publishing your story and having a finished piece? I felt happy and content about um my story. I'm glad it was able to finish and

018I guess I feel mixed emotions about it because it's um hard to finish something and think it's good, but I think I did pretty well on it. And Kayn, what choices did you make um or were you able to make throughout this whole writing process? Um, we would get to like select the social issue of the story and we could do like death, grief, not fitting, like bullying. We could also make choices like the storyline of our story and the characters that were in it and how we wanted to portray the characters in our story so that someone could relate to it. We were also using Canva on our Chromebooks for the first time and we were able to choose to make creative decisions while illustrating our stories and using the graphics. Benji, what choices

019did you get to make during this process? I got to choose what characters I got to put in there in the title of the book. Uh, Ruby, what transferable skills did you learn from this unit and how can you use them? Um, the transferable skills that I used in this unit was creativity. I use them in different ways which could help me later in life in steam or science. All right, Leah, how were you able to put your own voice into your own writing? Been able to I've been able to put my own voice into my story because ever since fourth grade, I enjoyed writing. I was often complimented on the works I made, which allowed me to gain the confidence to come here. I usually practice at home to get better at this hobby

020and I write all kinds of fiction and poetry. I practiced early every ever since I was 10 years old. Now I like to practice with different vocabulary and ways to express myself and writing sentences. Some examples of expressing myself in my stories are writing like the way I talk as my words describe who I am, my character and my personality. Another example of expressing myself in my stories is using imagery. I want to make sure the imagery I'm picturing in my head is scarce my reader. Uh Nick, what was your favorite part of the unit? Um, my favorite part of the unit was using Canva and um, working with a partner and I'm looking forward to use Canva again. All right, Jackson, what was your favorite part of this unit? Something about my favorite part

021of this unit was the design of using Canva. And like Nick said, I would like like to hope to use Canva in the future for like like what I did here, like modeling the story almost like a book, but I would hope to like to use Canva again in the future as my as one of my favorite units. Awesome. So, now what everyone is waiting for, we did put um the students are going to come meet with the board. We also brought you these like what should I ask or what can I ask sheets that the students are kind of prepared to share out. So, we will give you those. And for everyone else that gets to watch, um we made a weave video of the kids books. So they will just scroll through that

022you're able to read Thanks, Trish. Nice job. This is great. Thank you. Hi. Hello. So, you wrote a book, The New Kid. Oh, hello. All right. So, what did you write? You told me you loved using Canva. I know a little bit about what that is. Can I see it? A little bit. I never said that to my kids. I What does that title mean? Okay. What show? You got to walk three miles to school and everything else, right? Okay, cool. So, tell me. Nice. How'd you decide on your social issue? I love how Well, can be really different to really consuming too. Yeah. So, why how did you choose your social issue? Yeah, I think you did. Have you seen [Music] what was your favorite? Oh my god. So, did you guys like find

023these pictures online and like put it together? Can you Oh my god, I like the little car right here. Oh, the car's like a little That's easy, right? Make the story come alive and make the reader have like an experience. And that's why I imagine I don't know if they had already did they become friends. How long did it take? Yeah. Okay. So, how did you choose? You chose I don't know what other questions to ask. I've kind of gotten through the list. Have you? No, I've just been asking random. Yeah, me too. They never became visually nice. Once you're once you start doing like if you ever have to make a fly like a flyer for an event, you can use for that. That's what I use it for. How did you feel about

024this? And then so Lola learned. So the new dog got accepted because Lola on the Chromebook. I still have a book. We did like stories in third grade, I think. And I still have that book. Do you guys I think it turned out really good. The final products look fantastic. old crazy even. Is there anything else you want to tell me? This is really good. Yeah, I think these are really really cool. This is a really cool unit. I wish we all I know. I was telling them I use storyboard. Have you guys used which one do you like more? I agree. Yeah, I prefer to meet you. My son's name is J. And I like your shirt. Thank you very much. Did you thank your audience? I know a lot of years that it

025I like your dinosaur. Where did you get that? Recently. I want to get my son, but if he didn't get it recently, they won't have it. Right on the counter. Wait till we open them up. All right. McGee students wrap this up. So obviously as you can see lots of pride, authentic task, rich conversation um and obviously to master something you have to be able to simplify it. So put through this format um I can't compliment first off the team enough uh for bringing this new unit to life and obviously the hard work of the students. So thank you parents for making this opportunity available uh and coming this evening so that we could share this wonderful work with the board. And uh everybody if we could just give our students and staff a round

026of applause. [Applause] for a job well done. And the most important news that I have of this evening for you is that there are some cookies on your way out that could now be officially opened. And I do appreciate everyone's time this evening. So, thank you. [Applause] So, thank you so much to the McGee students and families that came out and teachers and everyone who's here today. That was really impressive. I loved learning about everything that you guys were learning and the transferable skills and how they transferred to other things. Um, I was very impressed with the writing I saw. Um, does anyone else have anything that they want to share before we send them on their way? I wish looking back and seeing how not only well spoken but the outcome of these, it's

027so like to watch the changes and see how the curriculum has evolved. It's very inspiring and I'm really happy that these students were able to present to us tonight. Yeah, thanks, Grace. I want to say how how much better kids are at being young than I was when I was growing up. And like the the issues you all tackle, you're so brave to tackle them and and I just applaud you for it. And I think you're only going to be better for it in your whole lives addressing these things now. So, you should all be very proud of yourselves. All right. Well, you don't need to stay. You can you can if you would like if if you want, by all means. You can also watch it on BHS TV on YouTube. Um, but grab

028some cookies on your way out. Thank you so much for coming. Uh, that was really impressive. One more round of applause as I leave. [Applause] Right. So, we are going to move into the report of board members. Do any board members have anything that they would like to report? I was able to go to the art show at the New Britain American Museum of Art and I was as blown away as I can be because I'm so bad at art and to see how good these kids were and I mean it was amazing. It really really was. It was from every age group possible. So it was a really fun event that you could tell the kids and the and the families were super proud and it was just a pleasure to be there. just

029amazing assortment of art that the students do and you know bravo to the students and to the teachers who really encourage that too. Um it's lifelong skills that they'll be bringing with them. Um I also went to the career exploration fair um with a colleague of mine to represent higher ed um at the high school which I think was right after our last meeting that same week. Um, and that was just a great opportunity for students to see different career paths that they could take, whether going to college and and studying in in an area of interest or um for those who don't um don't plan to go to a four-year school, there's just the opportunities they can do with some certificate programs and um you know, great opportunity for them. Uh that was um

030freshman, sophomores, sophomores, juniors, I think. Sophomores, juniors. Yeah. So, good timing for that too for them to see all of the the different um things they could be doing. I attended the baseball game that they had at the Yard Goats. Was super excited. The little league just happened to tell us the night before. Um, but I'm glad I didn't miss it because it was a great night and they had a great game and my kids loved it and could sit wherever they wanted which was even better. Um, so congratulations to um the baseball team on their amazing season. Anyone have anything else? All right, we're going to move over to our report of student representatives. So, So, we're actually start the baseball game at what is better known as the Yard Goat Stadium. So, the

031Branden Red Coats extended their undefeated season over Planeville at Duncan Park, better known as Yard Goat Stadium, last Friday with a 12-2 win. The team is currently 9 and0. Luke Wadstrip had a home run. Johnny O'Brien had three RBI's and Zack Catalano, Ryan Lavender, and Cody Puzzio had two hits each. Next, this past Thursday, BHS hosted its culture day celebration, which was an event celebrated all day in which students and staff were invited to bring homemade dishes from their cultures. Then, BHS members can learn more about these respective cultures, not only through food, but also through music and conversation. Next up, Berlin speech class wowed the crowd with their very own fictitious products and pitches during last Friday's Shark Tank show. Products such as the lawn gator, sand away, and runway ready along with many

032more were presented to students. Congratulations on push energy for winning. Next, last week, students who excelled in their NGSS assessment were recognized for their hard work in the science department. A very special congratulations to Philip Bogats, who earned a perfect score on the exam. On May 1st, the distinguished members of National Honor Society will be celebrated during their induction ceremony. Among the honored students are those who exemplify excellence in both academics and community service. Congratulations on all the incoming members on this significant achievement. In anticipation of prom, Berlin High participated in a spirit week. The themes consisted of PJ day, purple for Ryan T. Lee, dress to impress, flag day for culture day, and color wars on Friday for field hour. And last but not least, this past Saturday, the junior prom took place at

033the Farmington Polo Club, providing students with a memorable evening filled with cherished moments and friends. Thank you to all the junior class officers as well as the junior adviserss and everyone else involved in making this joyful event possible. It was an amazing time. That is all we have. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for them? That was a great update. Thank you. Um, moving on to committee reports. Was there a curriculum committee meeting since the last time we met? Okay. Would you like to share out? Yeah, not too much. Um, we did set the goals again for the year and we didn't make any changes. We thought that the goals and the uh the vision for the curriculum committee still was appropriate and um so no changes there. And then we did make an

034uh one small revision to the calendar a couple years out. We uh we forgot that we wanted to keep a professional development day on referendum today. So we put that back and I think that will be discussed later. All right, Peter, would you like to share about the ethno committee? We discussed the budget which we will discuss later in the meeting. Uh some of the topics covered were uh better management of uh the bus usage. Um, also potential impacts uh to our budget with legislation regarding uh the uh potential salary raises of teachers to a higher minimum. Um, and also just some brief discussions around uh potential uh cuts which we will uh get into a little bit later. And on April 7th, the community engagement committee met. We talked about the snapshot that was

035then sent out um by the superintendent on April 11th. We discussed our goals as well. Um, so that is it for committee reports. Correspondents to the board. Yes, I have two correspondents to the board of education staff. Thank you so much for the beautiful orchid. Thank my mother. I was very fortunate to be working as we navigate six years appreciated by me and my family. In gratitude of Alisa May, dear members of the board of education, staff and Brian, thank you very much for the lovely plan that you sent in honor of my father. We were so grateful to have the support at this time. Sincerely, Patty McManus angle, social worker at McGee. Thank you. Right. Moving on to audience of citizen. If anyone would like to approach the board, you may just uh state

036your name and address and you are limited to three minutes per resident. You can just come up to the table. It's been a while. It has. I know you miss me. I see you. Yes, we do. Hold on. I got Okay. I'm Jan. Can Is this on? Yeah. Jan Zorski, 63 Grand View Avenue. Um, for those of you who don't know me, I used to be the audience of citizens for how many years, Brian? A lot. A lot. Six, seven, whenever this boy swim team started before then. So, a long time. Um, I taught health at McGee. I retired after 25 years in June. 10 years in Glastonbury and miscellaneous um, private school jobs prior to that, 39 years of education, still coaching, which is why I'm on this side of the mic. Um, I've

037always been someone who has been very involved when it gets to budget time. Be um, back before the high school renovation, I was on the committee that was pushing for a new high school. Um, my kids loved it back then. Um, I didn't hear much that was going on with the budget this year and that concerned me a little bit because I didn't understand. I didn't know if it was because I wasn't in the building anymore or I missed something. Um, so I contacted Brian and Julia and then I decided to attend the finance committee meeting at 7 o'clock on Thursday morning in my pajamas on my deck, which is why the camera was off. Um, and my cup of coffee. Um, and I just want to make some comments. Um, I understand that cuts

038are difficult. Um, and I some of the discussions I heard from members as for other options for cuts, I think I've lived through. Um, and I just want to address a couple of them. I'm not sure I'm going to stay for the whole meeting just because, you know, I don't have to. Um, okay. So, the first thing, um, the paytoplay and cancelling of freshman sports, it was addressed that it happened years ago. Freshman sports and McGee sports and all activities were canceled. That was the year I had a freshman, I had an eighth grader, and I had a sixth grader. So, I had kids in every school. There were absolutely no activities for kids after school. Um, I think some of the teams took a hit after that because they didn't have their um their

039um stages of growth both at McGee and as freshmen at the high school. I know that that's not a priority, but when we're talking about keeping kids off of devices and being outside and active, cutting sports and cutting other afterchool activities is a real problem. We have latch key kids. We have kids who um don't they're not active. I was PE and health. I saw what I saw. So I think and I think with the economy the way it is, it's going to be difficult um for some people to come up with paytoplay. If it's a pay-to-play situation, it will not come back. If we start paytoplay, it will not come back. The reason it came back, what was that 15, 20, 20 years ago? Um was because it was a year, it was an

040awful budget year. I remember sitting in that meeting um the people presenting the budget would not let the students speak. They said only registered voters are allowed to speak. It was very obvious that people wanted money put into the budget instead of it being cut where it was. The budget budget went down and they took more out which is why now we have that second question. So um that's why that one came back. So that's as far as that goes. Um um there was a question about the need for K to3 needing onetoone technology. Um as both an educator and a parent and still hoping to be a grandparent, three married sons, no grandchildren, grandpappies and grandkitties. That's all I have. Anyway, um I think the more we can teach kids at a younger age

041responsible use of technology, the better it is. Um, not to throw any district under the bus, there was a new story this week where a teacher got put on leave because of being on an adult website. Middle schoolers found the teacher on the adult website and sent pictures around to each other. That's not responsible use for middle schoolers. Um, not even addressing the teacher issue. So, if we start them young, I think it's it would be better for them. And I mean, the kids are better at it than we are anyway. Um, the other thing is I was at a ballet production last weekend, which we all, if you know me, you know is very bizarre. Um, but they ran out of programs and they had QR codes. So, everyone has to know how to

042use the QR codes, too. So, that's another reason the kids have to learn that. Um, I just think that after hearing the work that Ashley, I was very impressed with the work Ashley did, very well spoken, Ashley, um, and Brian. I think, um, as much as I don't like to see some of the cuts, obviously, I think that it was, um, a lot of time and effort, and I would hate to see the referendum. Well, I can't even say that because I'm at a board of ed meeting. Um, I just hope that you don't take more out on the kids. Thank you, Jan. You're welcome. I am here all the time. Just online. I know. It's nice to see you, which you can't do here. So, but if you don't want to say, you know,

043you can go home and watch it on on YouTube. Um, I used to live on Grand. I've never seen you. Yeah. I used to talk all the time. Do we have any other members of the community that would like to approach the board? Yeah. Just state your name and address. It's okay if it is. It can be anything you want. Three minutes to say whatever you want to say. Just 890 Norton Road. I just wanted there's a few of them in the room to say that I'm really grateful for the staff and the administration at Willard. Um my student and my incoming student who's not even there yet are just very happy and very grateful for their experience there. I as a parent am as well and I'm just very impressed and pleased with them

044and I just wanted you all to know that. So I just want to share that. Thank you. That was really it. So, thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Would anyone else like to approach the board? All right. Well, thank you to the both of you for addressing the board. Um, we're going to move on to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion for consideration? Move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Do we have a second? So, the motion by Melissa, the second by Jen. Any discussion on the consent agenda? Okay, we can move to a vote. All those in favor? I hang on. Did everyone vote? Okay. All those opposed? So, the vote carries. 8 Z. Okay. Moving on to our facilities update. Ashley, we're going to turn it over to

045Ashley Dorsy, the director of finance and operations to provide us with a facilities update. Um, I'm going to start with the HVAC updates. So, the bid packages for the up upcoming HVAC projects over at Grizzled and Hubard Elementary Schools are being finalized this week and are expected to be published later on this week, maybe by Thursday or Friday. Um, that's about three to four weeks out on the street and evaluation through our public building commission. Um the public the Berlin grounds and parks and reccks department installed the new swings over at Hubard over April break. The reconfiguration was necessary because the location of the YMCA outdoor play area is going to be the new location for the chiller pads over at Hubard. So they needed to reconfigure the outdoor play space for the YMCA daycare.

046So, um, that took place over April break and we are currently scheduling the fence install and waiting, um, state inspection for that to be open up over at Hovered for the YMCA daycare. Um, Brian and I received a copy of the flooring conditions report earlier today regarding the BHS flooring. Um, it's going to be reviewed by the public building commission and other town departments to determine what our next steps are going to be. The report will be shared with the board. um on Friday and in the superintendent's update report. Um discussions for just you may and the hope Thank you. The hope is that I know the public building commission's meeting on Thursday um the mayor and I have been in conversations about the floor. There's most likelihood the entire floor at BHS will need

047to be taken up at some point. Um so we're hoping to have a remediation plan that we can then publicize which I'll share with you hopefully on Friday with the report. I know the the was that the the report would come with the remediation plan and I think the closest will be in the same week hopefully this week. So it'll be the report and then what the plan is on how to remediate the problem. Sorry Ashley. No problem. Um discussions for the outdoor play area for the Berlin Public Schools prek program over at Berlin High School. Um we started our discussions on March 26th and um as of right now the town and BOA staff are working together to schedule this project to start hopefully in the summer to open for um after Labor Day

048for our prek program. Um bids for the architectural and design services for the McGee Science Lab closed on March 27th. Three firms bid on the projects and the bids were sent to the public building commission for review on March 31st. And finally, site visits were held over at Willard Elementary School um last week and this upcoming week regarding the renovation of the two student laboratories closest to the main office. Um project pricing is expected to filter in within the next few weeks and more to follow on what that project's going to entail. Uh we anticipate to start that project as soon as skids get out, so June 16th. But more to follow on that one. Any questions? Thank you. You'll be back up shortly. I know. Don't go far. I'm ready. All right. Moving on

049to non-renewal of contracts for non-tenure staff. I'll turn over to superintendent. Thank you. Um we do have three non-renewals. These are one-year contracts, but we are required to formally non-renew them. The names of those people, Anna Bidwell, Kristen Kavanagh, and Rachel Kavanagh. There are what typically happens if you have a tenure teacher not in a one-year contract in a permanent position and they're not being renewed or not being offered a contract revol you often give them an opportunity to resign. If they resign we do not bring them to the board of ed they just resign and and then the position is then vacated for the next year. So these are one-year contracts only that we would offer if someone's on maternity leave or someone's on leave. So just so the board's aware. Do we have

050a motion for consideration? I move that the contracts of employment for non-tenure teachers Anna Bidwell, Kristen Kavanaaugh, and Rachel Kavanaaugh not be renewed for the 2025 20226 school year upon their expiration at the end of the current school year. Do we have a second? So motion by Brian, second by Gina. Okay, any discussion? Right, we can move to a vote. All those in favor? I opposed. Vote carries. Z. Okay, moving on to the healthy food certification statement for July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026. I'll turn it over to the superintendent. This is the this is an annual event that we need a certification. Um based on section 10 215f of the Connecticut state general statutes requires each local board of education or public school participating in the national school lunch program must take action

051to certify whether all food items sold to students separately from the reimburseable meals will or will not meet Connecticut nutrition standards and whether to allow food and beverages exemptions. Two motions are required. Do we have for the first motion? Do we have um motion for consideration? I move that pursuant to CGS section 10215F, the Berlin Board of Education certifies that all food items offered for sale to students in the school under its jurisdiction and not exempted from the Connecticut Nutrition Standards published by the Connecticut State Department of Education will comply with the Connecticut Nutrition Standards during the period of July 1, 2025 through June 30th, 2026. This certification shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimburseable meals at all times and from all sources, including but not limited to school stores,

052vending machines, school cafeterias, culinary programs, and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or non-school organizations and groups. Do we have a second? So, the motion by Jen, the second by Jess. Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor? I opposed. 8 Z. Do we have a motion for consideration for the second one? Did such a good job the first time? Board of Education will students of food items that do not meet the Connecticut nutrition standards and beverages not listed in section 10-221Q of the Connecticut General Statutes provided that the following conditions are met. One, the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend. Two, the sale is at the location of the event. and three, the food and beverage items

053are not sold from a vending machine or school store. An event is an occurrence that involves more than just a regularly scheduled practice meeting or extra extracurricular activity. For example, soccer games, school plays, and intercolastic debates are events, but soccer practices, play rehearsals, and debate team meetings are not. The regular school day is the period from midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the official school day. Location where the event is being held and must be the same place as the food and beverage sales. Do we have a second? So the motion by Gina, second by Jen. Any discussion? Hearing none. We can move to a vote. All those in favor? I opposed. Okay, that carries 8 Z. Um, Superintendent Big Niki and Ashley Dorsy are going to present to us um the

054status of the board of education adopted budget for the 2025 2026 school year. I just want to say um we did have our FNO committee meeting very early last Thursday morning. I think I was still very jet-lagged. Um, but we um, you know, I think Brian and Ashley and the district staff and admin have done a very good job at looking at where the district is, what they think can be reduced and then making those reductions based on their knowledge and their expertise. Um, so I was impressed with, you know, I think Jan had said it as well, you know, how well actually presented it. Um, but they did put a lot of time into this, so I'm going to turn it over to them. Thank you very much. Um, I'd like to thank uh

055the members of the cabinet administration for the time that's spent discussing where the possible uh reductions could be as well as the FNO committee and the additional board members that attended the last FNO meetings. Um, we have a one pager that kind of that's being distributed to that kind of breaks down also. We can get into deeper reports that break down, you know, what the benefits are and so on, but we look at the total picture of first the positions proposed cuts um position wise. There's a clerical position um at the board of ed here. It's um it's a reduction in force. Marlene Dema is retiring at the number of years, but that's not the position that's being reduced. Reducing a PPS um administration assistant and then but the that reduction she'll take Marleene's position.

056It's a reduction of a position but the person is still keeping a job at the same salary that they had. So as anytime we make reductions we look to maintain individuals and not have people not eliminate their position. So that's that was the rationale there. Um teacher social worker at Willard. This was our last reduction we went through the list is trying to find that last $100,000 and not that we don't need a social worker um because there definitely is a need. If you look at the last um six to seven years, we've added ESS clinicians, one at the middle school, two at the high school, who are licensed social workers dealing with um some of our most fragile population. We added two social workers at the elementary. We added a school psychologist at the

057middle school. We added a school counselor at the high school. So, in looking at that, we really have done a lot of balancing of the budget at the middle school and high school. we cannot afford. We did look to um with the retirements um and elimination of position, we did look to combine a math and science position at the high school and the hope that we could eliminate an FTE there and save the social worker. Unfortunately, we could not have enough sections that the need of the students was greater than the ability to do that. So, we did need to maintain the MA math and the science position um as individual teaching positions 1.0 FDA. So the social worker. So the question would be how is that position going to be filled? It is at

058willard only at Willard because that is where the least senior person is is working. So the least senior social worker is at Willard. That's why it's Willard. So the the the need there will be backfilled by other um social workers and psychologists in the district. So it won't be that Willard's going to do without. It just won't have the full 10ft there. Um duty pair at Griswald School. Um was an additional duty parah added at Griswald. It does balance off compared to the other schools. So Griswell is not going to have less than the others and it's a.3 parah interventionist math at Griswald. Um unfortunately we don't like to lose any of our interventionists but um the need was there again balancing things with the other schools. Um teacher social studies as a retirement that's

059Dave Bosa's position at the high school. we're able to do that without we have enough FTE where we can still offer enough social studies courses without filling that for next year. Um teacher elementary and Willard that's looked at retirement and not to fill based on class sizes. Um PAR student management this is Ed Kemling. Ed Keming is a former police officer in town. He's a gentleman who sits in the front of the high school. That's he also does attendance at the high school. Um not to say that Katie doesn't want that position because of the attendance issue, but and looking to where we can cut FTE. Um that's at Kling's position. Um he's retiring and a special ed teacher, a reduction to budget. It was a part-time person hired at at high school. We're able

060to reduce that by 0.5. Um and that gets us to roughly $500,000. Just so you know, we needed to cut the budget by one 1,500,000 to get to that 4% and that's including an additional 215. So, you know, we're a third of the way there. I'm going to ask Ashley to look at the next. Is there any questions about staffing first or do you want to see the totality of everything, all the cuts? Any questions on staffing? Anytime we cut staff, we try to maintain people. We also try to look at across the spectrum that there's clerical, there's teachers, there's paras. You know, we did look at custodial. We could not afford to cut custodians. We're still less in the custodial area than we were. And the the board with the new um with the

061being behind us. The board of ed used to be cleaned by town custodians. It's now going to be shifted back to board of ed custodians. So, the ability to cut a custodian was not something we could do. I think also with in terms of administration because every year prior to this, we've also looked at cutting administration. I don't think there's any place to cut from for administration at this point. So, just so everyone knows like it's not being ignored like we're down in assistant superintendent. We've reduced all the assistant principles at the elementary school. We had to bring them back over time. So there's no place to cut from with administration. They're already really thin, right? Would you the the only and I've said this to the board with previous board members and it was

062not taken and I but I feel like I have to have to say this and the administrator knows that at the middle school you have three administrators at the middle school. One is a 10-month and Abby does a phenomenal job. I know people are very partial to keeping that. I think that most middle schools though you would have two with that size. Not to say it doesn't function with three. I did not put that on the list um based on, you know, yes, Chris is Chris is right behind me here, but he was a principal at the elementary. He's doing a fantastic job, but he's new principal coming in mid year. Devin's a brand new assistant principal there. So, I did not add that to this list, but it's, you know, that's the only position

063I would say. Any other questions on staffing? Okay, so I'm just going to present the other categories. That gets us up to that $1.5 million. So in the non non-certified staff line, I'm going to reduce the PDM substitute budget by $40,000. Um we got some notification of some maternity leaves. Um, and typically when people take an extended leave, they are only paid out for a certain number of weeks and then they are no longer paid and then their long-term sub is paid through the subline. So, I'm hoping for some good news um in our non in our PDM substitute line. So, we're going to take a reduction in there. Uh, I met with Craig Samansky, our IT director, last week to tell me what he could give me in his contracted services. We we reviewed

064all of our software licenses and um we we contacted some vendors to see if there's if we could take advantage of um some multi-year discounts, if we could absorb some services through one other through a different service, if we've got two platforms that are essentially doing the same thing. Um maybe eliminating some some of that. Um so I'm going to reduce the contracted services line by $41,000. the tuition line. Um when the high school opened up their enrollment for next next year, um they we have budgeted for two sections of the CNA program. However, enrollment only um shows that we've got one semester worth of interest there. So, we're reducing the tuition for the CNA classroom to one section. um transportation. Um with the help of the town council, we've received some substantial funding to

065start replacing some of our older vehicles. So with that, we're very grateful for that. So with that, we've been um seeing a slight reduction in some of our repair and maintenance costs. Um so we're going to reduce some of that and we're also going to take a look at our fuel lines and see if we could do a little better on our fuel contract. Um supplies, equipment, and all other it's going to be just like several years that we've had in the past and it will be a 0% increase moving forward uh for all supplies, equipment and all other lines. I just caution about the supplies knowing that things increase that we're all paying for items sitting supplies we'll have a better idea as the year goes you know where we sit with the supply

066line being zeroed out that's really there's no increase but we know the price to purchase items has increased so and the equipment being typically year funding that then supplants that which we buy our technology with. And so that's that's a typical move when we go to um balance the budget at that. Any questions about any of these items or any of the first items with staffing? And that's that's that one that's that 1,500,000 to balance the budget. Can you just So the referendum is tomorrow. Then after the referendum, this conversation continues until it's adopted by the town council. Correct. If if by chance the referendum passes tomorrow, we can still have a conversation because these are the potential cuts to all of you to balance the budget at 4% with 215,000 coming in for the

067reading program. So these would be the reductions that would balance the budget out that should the referendum fail whether it's increase or decrease then we'd have to come back and adjust these these reductions. So are there is there any discussion that anyone at the table wants to have um before our next meeting. So now um that you know is worth discussing and the student board reps can also chime in if you have any I guess the only ask before that if by chance the budget increased what would you want to see come back in this list and if we had a decrease we'd have to have a greater I would probably go through the process again with the committ meeting and then coming back to the board similar to what we're doing tonight. But if

068there was something to say, you know, by chance, I can tell you the last the last one that was taken out was the social worker. That was the last piece that was reduced. Um, but there also was trying to merge those two teachers to make a science math split position. you know, Ashley had to go back and really fine-tune some of these lines to get that extra 100,000 in there also. So, some of this is really trimmed. I mean, the social worker is the one that I'm most concerned about. Um, you know, it's never great to see classroom teachers positions being cut. I know, you know, we're talking about retirements. It's not the person, it's the position. But these are, you know, very important subjects that are being cut too in the um elementary as

069well. Um you know, I also the equipment piece bothers me too. I think you know, if you don't replace equipment the way we should be doing it, you're there's more staff time involved in fixing equipment. There's more um expenses around, you know, halfway through the year needing to do something or the students just don't have that they should have to succeed in their classes. So, that's a huge concern, too. And I know it's been going on now for several years and we, you know, we talk about if there is surplus at the end of the year and sometimes those conversations get, you know, all over the place. Um, I I you know, I always worry that there won't be surplus. You know, we have um we've talked about um outplacements and we have more than

070we ever have had um in in recent years. Um, and that's that's about 7% I think of our of our overall budget. Um, so there's concerns there. None none of that's guaranteed at the end of the year. I think the good point you bring up is typically in the budget we would hold a a kindergarten position. That is not in the budget. We looked at the K numbers today. Right now, one of the schools were 19, 19, and 20. And typically we have students register in the summer. So those Those are large K classrooms. We don't have that position in the budget right now. The other thing we typically do is hold an out placement. The one out place we had held where you typically have 25. That's about our average of out placements. We're

071at 32 right now. And roughly we're spending for those out place is it is 7%. And I want to say it's close to you know like three and a half million on the 32 out placements. And there are other students Linda can speak to more that are in line with potential outplacements. And the because we can bring some of the out placements back like we do every year. But those are large variables that that we're, you know, not aware of. And and the technology piece, you're right, as we get tighter and tighter because we're trying to maintain staff, the amount of money left at the end of the year could be reduced. And the other piece I just want to bring up with the budget is we usually get paid by choice and we get

072multiple payments a year. We've been contacting them repeatedly for Harford to get our payment and right now we're waiting on 1.2 2 million reimbursements from choice for this current year. Harvard Harvard it's choice but it's from Harford. So it's so the money comes from Harford public schools. So I have a phone call into the commissioner of education Charlie Russell Tucker to ask about that. I think there is one thing that you know I know town council always says Mark is here right now you know if we get in a position where we need it and we don't have it just go ask. I think if you know the kindergarten sizes over the summer get to a point where we need to add that teacher, we really should go ask. Or if the outplacements mess up

073the balanced budget, we need to go ask. Like we need to It's always been said we've never taken advantage of it. I'm not saying we need to, but like with the K classes or the outplacements, we know that's there. It's a promise, but it's not a guarantee. setting a budget where it should be is a guarantee. Yeah, absolutely. I'm I don't disagree, but I just don't know the day before a referendum anything's going to change at this point. I think the timing of where our meeting was and just how things go like 4% I think is the largest we've we've sat here with while I've been on the board um and I think you know Brian and Ashley have and the cabinet have done a really good job at putting this together. It's not easy.

074This is probably the hardest part of your the year and your job. I know it's the most challenging part of our our our year as board members. Um, I think when you're dealing with the variables that you're dealing with, that was the one light bulb moment I had when I said, "How can you offset salaries on something that you're not sure you're going to have at the end of the year?" That just, you know, and but I understand now through the process that, you know, you've had a certain amount of money that's been allocated for certain things and then when that money gets less and less, it's like, well, now what are we going to do? You know, where are we going to move the money now? It's it's it's like a puzzle that you

075have to constantly keep shifting around and it's again like you say it's not guaranteed but you have to start somewhere. So here we are and we start with this and we see what we can do. No one ever wants to see anything cut. But how can realistically with inflation and everything else? How do we I just don't know how you can possibly predict you know where you're going to be the following year if if you've always had these variables. It's it's almost impossible. You just you gauge it and You're absolutely right about the various but I think the other piece that was discussed at FNO and I hope that you know you know Peter you brought it up you're at four 4.2% to maintain your staff that's without anything else impacting the budget which are

076which of all these things here that you're seeing supplies and so on. So if you're getting this year it's four but if you're getting a typical three or 3.2 that's a $500,000 cut to the staffing line right off the start that's 1% less than what you need. So every year you're trying to find that 500. So you have to look for other ways. So you know and I you know I know was brought up tonight with Jan Sagorski speaking. Do you look at pay to play which is not something that is going to be happen with citizens. Do you look for parking? These are they're small measures. It's not going to do but otherwise you're keep going into the staff. You have to keep cutting the staff to get there. And you're at a point

077where you can't have enough courses at the high school based on the population. You need the number of teachers at the elementary to keep class sizes consistent. If you cut, you know, years ago, we cut media specialist at the elementary. We tried sharing Adena students at the elementary. Um, you know, we looked at positions as such to make those cuts, but that's that's the part eventually you get up to. There's no more there's no more ability. And I don't know with the social studies this year we're able to do the course master at the high school. Next year that social mission might be needed because there's not enough courses to be off. and we've found ourselves in years one year cutting then the next year having to add back in. Um but to your point

078Julia though and and I agree that if if we did get to a situation where we said oh we don't you know we don't have enough to to operate you know we could go back to to the town council and say you know we need an extra whatever $200,000 or $150,000. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know if that's an actual figure but that's an option too. I mean it's not like off the table completely where we would just be left right the hope what would happen is we we do we we pull from other accounts and the end of the year funds would be less which then would impact the technology purchase which would then you know not have the technology so that's that's hopeless it was exorbitant amount of placements

079or needs you know your ring is so peaceful and zed I did want to circle back to a couple of the items we talked about in the FNO meeting, specifically um the bus situation. Um and just to bring the whole board in the loop, um please correct my numbers if I'm off. Um typically when we contract a bus for the day, it's $300 a day. So we're talk we have about 21 buses. We're talking about $6,500 a day to run these buses. buses by contract and by capacity can seat 77 kids to a bus, three to a seat. That's probably not the preference of most parents and I understand that. Um but the issue becomes is that by uh CT state law we must provide transportation but it the question becomes are we monitoring, regulating

080and enforcing and getting a good number of how many students are actually riding these buses? Um because When you look at the pickup lines and the drop off lines, they're a lot longer than the surveys we send out would indicate in terms of how many kids are actually riding the bus consistently. And even shaving one boss uh one bus off of the fleet in a given year is a savings of approximately $50,000. So this we can't do anything about that in this year because it's a three-year contract. Do you five year? We've got two more years left. Okay, so it's two-year expiration. But this is something that moving forward the board and the administration I think we have to have a very candid discussion about how to get a better measure and enforcement of pe

081of students riding the bus because it's a massive expense. Um Jen had brought up a good suggestion about sending out a letter and illustrating the cost. Maybe getting you know when people see the cost of the service we're providing they may kind of be more honest and open with how often they're riding the bus. We can only hope. Um the other the other issue that may come down the the pike is the raise in the minimum salaries for teachers. Um I would obviously support that because teachers, you know, starting off out of grad out of school with a four or five year degree, they make around 55,000 in our district. Um the proposal was to move it to about 63,500. Ashley explained that at face value in our district at this given moment, if that

082law were to pass, that would be a cost to us of about 30,000. However, we have to we have to consider that the rest of the pay scale is also going to go up because other teachers who are at 65,000 and their respective unions are going to want a bump in pay. Assuming a 3% raise, that's $700,000 or 1.4% increase. The likelihood of the bill going through is wishy-washy, but you never know until June 8th or whenever it is that the legislature shuts down for the season. Um, lastly, speaking about smaller expenses, I think we do have to have discussions around some of our professional development around CABE, how much we're spending on that. Is it a something we want to continue to pursue? Um, does it reflect to does that body reflect the position

083of the district legislatively or professionally? Um, do we want to continue to allocate money to that when we are talking about budget cuts that are only going to get more difficult in the future, right? The costs are only going to continue to go up and we have to look for ways to save money. Um, do we know offhand what our cave subscription is? It's about it's a little bit more. Yeah, it's about it's about 20 22,000. 22,000. Okay. That's just for the subscription and then there's certain professional developments that require additional payments. So that's all I have at the moment. Having it on the table is something we should discuss, but I think we need to have a really good backup plan as to how we're going to on board and uh new board members

084internally if we do that. how we're going to utilize our um our lawyers in different way, our law firm that we work with in different ways and um just the ongoing um professional development for when I I mean I have taken advantage of not only the in-person conferences but also some of the online recorded sessions and they have been very helpful especially as you look at some of the new policies that Connecticut is putting out and understanding those Um, so I just want to be sure there's something there if that's not what we're using. I I'll jump in. Um, so as you guys know, I serve on the Cape board of directors. I'm an area director for our area. Um, and that has actually helped me tremendously grow as a board chair. So the more

085involved I got with Cape, the more professional development I gained. You know, I feel like my knowledge and understanding has improved. So considering, you know, who the next board chair will be and what professional development they will have available to them. So last Thursday there was a K board check uh CA board chair check-in. I attend that. that I'm on a cave distribution list for just board chairs where people get to share you know concerns or problems and you know though I may not be having the same problem I could breathe through them and learn from other examples. So for me and my growth I know it's been really impactful. I know last year we had this conversation the board was saying okay we'll keep it. I I personally would not have gotten on the

086board of directors if we were going to take it off. So, I don't know. That's kind of embarrassing for me. I can't continue to serve on the board of directors if we don't renew. So, I don't know. It feels a little personal, but maybe not. We just had Cape come out with three awards that recognize not just the board, but other people in the district, what they're doing at our, you know, twice a year, I think, we recognize students with Cave Leadership Awards. So, I'm not saying that, you know, we're we're paying our membership to get awards, but it it's it also provides an opportunity where we can recognize students and staff of Berlin Public Schools. Um, I've through my uh service on the board of directors, um, I've been appointed to a two-year task

087force on the state accountability index. There's one more year left. It will finish as my term finishes. Um, but again, if we don't renew, I'm going to have to step off of all of that. And it's really positive repres representation of our board in Berlin Public Schools. Um, and some other things that I have found beneficial, like I said, the board chair check-ins. We have those. I thought the Robert's rules training was was actually helpful. I I'm I know I walked away learning a lot. Um, I did go to Day on the Hill this year. I actually brought some of my students with me and it it was actually great. Um I had never been because I typically don't take the day off. I I go to the legislative debrief and then then the re

088you know all the publications they send out when I have time to read them. Whether people are taking advantage of the free things like I am or not, I don't know. But I know I am and I know it helps me. Um so that's just my two cents on that. But point. Uh, a lot of the programs that are offered by CABE are still able to be purchased or used whether you're a member or not. Additionally, the discount for being a member is very small. Um, it's also a state mandate that new members go through um, board of education training. That was a recent law. Um, and the materials will be provided and we have purchas purchased those. Um my my deeper problem with CABE is that while I have no issue um allocating funds

089to actual professional development using their classes um and other resources, some of the services that we utilize are just duplicates. We have Shipment and Goodwin for legal consult. We have uh Shipment and Goodwin that reviews our policies, which you'll see on your agenda today. Um and and other resources. It's just that outside of the additional cost of paying for the courses and materials, which we do whether you're a member or not of CABE, it's more a question of is CABE advocating for the Berlin Board of Ed specifically. Are they are their values and mission in line with our district's mission? I think that it is a valuable source of professional development, but in a way the board by itself has its ability to act legislatively to to have advocacy at the state capital. If the

090nine of us wanted to put together a letter and write to a representative or represent the district, we could sit down and agree on that. There are other boards of education that do that. You may see it in your email like Ellington regarding food uh food concerns and such with the National Lunch Program. Um, in a way I feel like CABE uh kind of makes us a little too dependent on a third party. It doesn't allow encourage us to, you know, exercise our own muscles, so to speak, and use our own voice. I don't like the idea that the board is essentially uh using a third party to act as its voice. I think there's agenda uh agenda items on the state CABE 2025 agenda that are in stark contrast with what this board would

091actually support. Um such as I have concerns that their that some of their uh items on the state agenda which they legislate or try to advocate um is you know trying to repeal statemanded lunch breaks for teachers and public uh public school employees. I don't think there's anyone on this board that would advocate for that. I actually would as a teacher. It extended our school day and it it gave us more work during the day. So, a lot of the teachers I know actually have a hard time with this one. So, it made our school day longer. Okay. Um, also it's concerning because it's quite it leans quite in one direction. I think that as a board of education, you have to consider all stakeholders. You have to think about the administration. You have to

092think about the staff. You have to think about the town. um and everyone. But when I look through the state agenda from CABE, it's very, for lack of a better word, kind of anti-teer, anti- public school employee. A lot of the proposals are written in a way to erode um contracts that teachers have already agreed to um and you know, uh trying to erode tenure and benefits that teachers have secured for themselves. And I have an issue that it just leans so heavily in one direction. And our district has good relationships with our with our teachers, with our employees, with our with our unions. We we negotiate fair contracts. We have good relations with all of our um all of our bargaining units and come to fair conclusions. And it's and I question why are

093we giving money to this third party organization that is actively working against the thing that we work so hard to establish in our own district which is mutual respect for all of our stakeholders. So again I have no problem using professional development money towards tangible um educational resources for the board and its growth. I just struggle with the fact that we're giving money into this organization for those other purposes. Would anyone else like to share? Yeah. How do the late buses tie in with everything just because as I don't have a car, so I do take a bus and I've seen like not only are the high school buses pretty empty. I feel like I actually I think it depends on the bus you're on, but as someone who takes the late bus that where

094I take the bus to McGee, my late bus personally including me, three other kids. So, is there any way like I don't know how the contract works, but is there any way like those buses could be replaced with like vans or something because I feel like that could cut out a lot. Yeah. Ashley or Brian, do you want to talk about that? I think that's Did you say something about vans? Yeah. Be replaced with vans. I don't know how vans work either. So, so let me speak first and Ashley can add to it, but the late buses are not mandated. The late buses are a courtesy to students that need a ride home. The issue why there's so many is to to take if there was one and and the late bus had to travel

095to everywhere around town, it would take too long. So there's multiple late buses that cover a certain zone and then sometimes late buses can have two students on or three students on it. You're absolutely right. So that could be it's in our contract right now. So we could but in two years we could not have late buses and that would be a reduction. I don't know the next that you know the exact number. I think that like hurts the kids though and if we're talking about what's going to benefit them because that would hurt you, right? Like you wouldn't be able to stay after school for all the different things. Yeah, I think I think you're you're absolutely right. But I think when you're looking at reduction of a staff member or the late bus

096or if a student had to stay after, they then have to be on school grounds till 4:00 when they get a ride or something. Instead, we'd have to have staffing there or somewhere they could be. There's ways to go about it, but I'm not we've had late buses for for years because of that reason. We a lot of students if they're involved in a club or they need to stay after school to have access to get home. So So the the late buses that we run, so we typically run them um usually Tuesday through Thursday. The uh for the late bus run is actually part of the daily rate contract. So for the six or seven late buses that we have, those seven buses, I believe it is seven buses are incorporated in the daily

097rate. So we're not paying extra. It's a it's an extra service that NBT is providing us in our contract. It's something we negotiated through, but it is for that that those seven buses, it's part of that $350 per day. Um when we talk about van transportation um it's a lot of people think like oh it's got to be so cheap to run a car and it's not. Van transportation is extremely expensive. Um it you pay by the hour with a minimum of three and a half hours plus you pay anything extra. So you're paying for your driver, you're paying for an aid, you're paying for your fuel. Um the cheapest way to get a kid to and from school is on the big yellow bus. And um the on the late bus runs. Um if

098we have one bus that's only transporting three students in the um Alling Street District of Griswald area, um then it's still cheaper than getting those three kids on a van and having home stops for every single one of them. Um a place that we could potentially reduce cost, and we kind of looked at it last year and then we kind of had to revert some of our changes is um tech school transportation. we could enforce the centralized stops. Um we saw when we did do a little push back on that we got a lot of feedback from parents of the text parents because um it was it was a significant change at the time we were doing um home stops or home or stops closer to the house. If we do a centralized stop, it's

099the parents respons parent and students responsibility to get to that centralized stop. We're making one stop and and that's a way to reduce some of our cost. Um, the other way we could reduce some of our cost is several districts in Connecticut, they only transport to one tech school. We have never done that. We have always been of the mind if you want to go to um, Prince Tech or Vinyltech, we'll provide transportation. We don't have to do that if we don't want to. We could say EC Goodwin, that's closest in proximity. We will provide transportation to EC Goodwin and only EC Goodwin. And if your child wants to go to Prince Techch or Vinyl, um you would be on your own for transportation to those. So those are other ways that we could save.

100Um it wouldn't be as significant as if we were to make some cuts to um the Berlin side of the transportation because it is a very small uh population of kids that that utilize that that service. But that is a way that we could reduce moving forward. And that's something we're going to look at the tech schools. It's something I hope we phase in. So that a student is going there. We're not saying oh now there's not transportation next year that we phase it in over three years and let the parents know that you know in three years we're not going to. So as a student started you know for saying Prince Tech. We're no longer service princes. But we would if we looked into that option we would have time like you said we're

101still under this current contract. Yeah, we're I believe the contract expires um either I think it's 27 is when it expires. We got two years left on it, which is crazy. I swear we just signed that five years instead of three. Yeah. Um so that's that's not necessarily an NBT contract thing. That's that's deciding which tech schools we provide transport transportation to would be board decision. um NBT is going to transport to wherever we tell them to. So it would have to be done a year in advance. So then the counselors placing the students at the high school would then be able to send them what the options are. So it's not so right now they get picked up at their home. No. So last year we tried to do one centralized stop um but

102we had a lot of push back from the people that live in the um outskirts. So on the Grizzled or the Hubards uh districts um so we have centralized locations now in each district. However, we can shave that number down. If we say nope, McGee or Willard or BHS considering that is the those are the centralized locations uh school populations, then that's just a way because we would reduce a bus essentially or a tech run. Julia, any of your board groups meetings, has it come up about the fee structure and what they could possibly do differently. Um, no. Other than districts are staying with them, continuing to pay, they have expenses that they have to pay. Um, but it really ha that hasn't come up. Um, but I will say a lot of the things

103I take advantage of don't cost the board money. So, It's a membership. It's the Right. But some of the webinars you've done, were they included because we're members or did you pick? I mean, I only get notice of them because we're members. So, I don't know how if you just jump on them. Yeah, you just jump on them. And so, I think there's a number of things that people do take advantage of. Um, I don't know if that would even be a conversation Kate would be willing to entertain. I can bring it up. I know what has been brought up in the past is if a district has left and has been gone for a number of years and then they want to return, they'll drop it like to like 15,000 just the first year

104to get them back. But I think just thinking of how how many districts are struggling with budget. I don't know how they could possibly help with that in some way. Yeah. And support that. Anyone else want to add anything about cave or transportation or anything? We see the buses going every which direction and there's a lot of buses with not a lot of people on them. So, I definitely think it would be beneficial to Yeah, I think we're we're stuck for the two years. Well, yeah. I mean, after the two years, you know, and I think it's just a matter of I like the idea of getting a letter out to parents and, you know, knowing the capacity of 77. We don't go anywhere near that on a bus. So, I think we should go

10550. Yeah. 50 to 55 is what we like to do. Um especially you get 77 high school students on a bus, they just don't fit. They just do not fit three to a seat. Um most of them are over six feet tall. Um and it's you could get even getting three elementary students uh fifth fifth grade elementary students three to a seat. They don't enjoy it. It's it's it's it's a lot. And then you have your book your book bags, your soccer bag, any any other kind of accessories that you need. Um, and typically we never we never schedule to capacity because people move in and sometimes they have kids that need to go on a bus and um we need to have that flexibility where if family of five moves in, we could get

106three people, three additional kids on a on a bus. Um, I will we we have a grizzled route right now. Um, they've got about 58 kids on this bus. Um, and it's a lot. It's a lot for an elementary school and we're we're starting to get some push back on that. So, we're adjusting. Maybe we could take some kids off of that route, throw a couple on a different one that services similar area. So, logistics are concerns next year, teacher raises, things of that nature. Well, the raises are already set because we negotiated almost everyone's contract. So, what's the percentage for next year? The percentage is around 3% in handling. So, we'll be at the 4.2 overall with benefits like we've been each year. So, anytime we're below, you know, 3.2 even, there's still 1%

107just in salary. So, you're looking at 500 and you know, over 500,000 that needs to be reduced and then you reduce the other side. So, we're we're very much back to a similar look of this every year. um you know which which you know if you look at the last years of what we've added you added Milliey's position which is a career educator which you know we feel is doing great job for students at the high school and often turnship opportunities and you saw about the career fair you know um we've added ESS at the middle school um we've added this is years ago five six years ago additional counselor at the high school we talked about that you know staff were really cutting teaching positions along the way because we're saying what can we

108do with less? And the biggest issue is at the high school, you know, do we have enough courses to offer for students and that when you limit the number of courses there less there's less options for students too? They can't get the courses because we just don't have enough sections. If you know certain certain content areas and if we added more teachers, more students would take the classes too. I agree. like looking at the course registration, we just went through that in February. Like looking at the classes and like being able to take more options is much more appealing to students. I have an incoming sister in 8th grade looking at all these courses and she's like, "Wow, the high school has so much to offer and she's excited to be there. So to keep

109enrollment up along with just general student engagement in courses, we want to it's always been a a priority to offer options and opportunities. That's been a big message. I think we want to continue that. I think at the elementary and middle school, you really want to keep the class sizes where people 19 to 20 in the kindergarten classroom is a lot. That's a large classroom. Can I ask with this is the first year um since we did the evaluations, we had that grace period year, right? Because of the age change for starting kindergarten. So with the evaluations that we have, has that added to our number, lessen our number? How does that kind of reflect on the class sizes that we currently are going to have for the fall? I think and Lori maybe speak

110to more because Lori is on top. She she shares the numbers, but I think that the numbers are high right now based on number of sections we have. If we have more students coming in, the one school area where they're not high is at Harvard. 10 and 11 right now I believe but you can't I can have one and 21 so the thought is any choice students that we take in we're supposed to declare what school they go to whether it's Griswald Willard or Hubard usually we divide them out things have changed with choice and how they like to do things very much in the last couple years so if Hubard does have the low number of students I would then contact choice and say we're going to put those students choice students at Hubard

111so that they're balanced across size I can't see Al's face behind me, but yes. Well, they're balanced. Yeah. Okay. No different. All right. Al, I'm picturing your face right now, but but I know Al won't have a problem. So, we wouldn't have 20 at Griswald and 11 at Hubard. We would then bal try to balance if they're choice students, which we can move to be the same spot every year. It's every year. How do how do how do we do it? and and we're running out of, you know, some some some options of what to do. And the biggest piece and I go back to the retreat and so on. What what my belief is and hopefully yours is right now we have great retention rate of staff. We have the ability to attract high

112qualified individuals from other districts. We start cutting a lot of positions. people's willingness to leave other districts after 13 or 15 years to come to Berlin, they'll they won't come because they're they're going to be the lowest person on the totem pole. Why would I risk it? And that's a big deal. I mean, I don't think that um and I don't know how the community feels. I think many of you said when we have the excellent teachers or excellent administrator, it makes a big difference. So to not be able to attract, we know there's shortage areas and things, it becomes very difficult. If we lost some of our teachers that teach shortage area, you know, whether it's I'm going to say just certain areas, you know, even at the elementary there's not a prepoundonderance of

113candidates like there used to be, but you're talking math, your sciences are very difficult to find certified teachers um that are willing and um I know that some of you on the board actually experienced that with your children that so um I think it's important that we're not we're not like you know looking at the budget and and not filling retirements and things is the right way to do it rather than start eliminating people if that makes sense. Plus, there's the the unknowns like the IEPs that might be necessary and things of that nature. And I I do want to share I was talking to someone who moved here a few years ago and it was determined their child needed services and everything he heard about that and the school system was like gear up

114for the fight. Gear up for the fight. He came in and he was like ready and the school system said what do you need? We got you. And he was like what? And I think that's something that the school system should be proud of and it's going to be hard to sustain that type of promise to the community. I I think you know u I did speak to Julia. I would love to have Eisa Maya who's union president. She sits on the CA board of directors for Hartford to come maybe to a treat and just speak to you what other districts are going through and where Berlin is in that spectrum. And the CA attorney um you know speaks to the new teachers every year and he speaks about Berlin and how they're treated here

115and so on. I'm sure he'd be willing to come and speak to you. Now they deal with multiple districts. they hear the issues that are going on, the thing the things that you hear, you know, um I think it's important for the board to get that perspective. Um, I know that for the most part, we're we're not perfect, but I think the community for the most part is happy with what the schools are doing. And I think we want that to continue. And I think the decisions we're making today are are going to impact the district tomorrow. And just as you know, there's there's no even with the enhancement act hopefully, as Peter spoke of will hopefully improve things. It's not going to happen overnight that that these colleges are going to have more educators

116going into the field and so on. Um, And then when there's a limited there's a limited amount where where do these teachers want to work and and we want to be one of those districts or whether they want to work in my opinion anyone Ashley and for all the administrators is not an easy task. Um and I appreciate all the work that's gone into that and the committee too. Anyone who hasn't shared anything or would like to share again? Anyone want to share their thoughts, two cents, questions while this is our time? Teacher and some paras. I'm a little concerned. Well, it's grizzled right now. It's not It's grizzled. Okay. But it could be I can't tell you that there won't be more than what I can't tell you. And at that point we would

117look at to say okay you know what are we going to run in the negative and hopefully sure that we're not I mean we're not going to run I could say this I'm not looking to run K classes at 20%. So if we have 20, then we're going to have to look to find the money to have that teacher and we're going to run in the red somewhere. But what that means is the following, you know, the following year's equipment budget or end of the year funds is not going to be there. We may freeze supplies even further. You know, you know, people have an expectation of class sizes and courses that are offered and and I don't think we want to lose that. But the part before this, we have an extra teacher in

118the budget for just that. So if we had our K numbers up, we would add a K teacher. And now is it fourth grade now? They're going to need an additional teacher for fifth, right? Over at Willard. They're adjusting. So I don't know how they're moving up, but they're moving a teacher to balance. And that's common practice. The bubbles's there. They move with the bubble to try to do that. But it doesn't mean that, you know, you have 200 some apartments coming online. It doesn't mean you're not going to have an influx of students and that you're going to get, you know, some of these grade levels that are going to get large, too. What is the typical number for K that we like to keep it around? 16 or under. 14's ideal. And we

119don't have fulltime duty pairs in K classrooms, you know, which are helpful. If you did have to go to 20 then maybe we'd hire we've done we have a larger class hire a full-time duty pair which is which is less expensive than a teacher but gives an extra set of hands on that consistently for the day especially with it seems like there's a lot of behavioral issues in the classes. So if we have 19 kids in a class and behavioral we're definitely going to need more support. I don't disagree with you at all concerning. I don't disagree with you a little bit. All I can assure you is that we will do our best to keep the class sizes where they need to be and get the support if needed. And then if we like

120I said it'll be budget freezes or run something in the red and hopefully be able to catch it up later on. You know the priority is students first. I think you can tell that with the budgetary. Yes. Anyone else want to share? have any questions or comments? No. Okay. Well, the referendum's tomorrow. Um, make sure you guys vote. I told you how to vote, but just go out and vote. Tell people to vote. All right. Um, the superintendent is going to be proposing a revision of the adopted 2627 school calendar, moving the April 19th professional development date to April 27th. The town referendum takes place on April 27th. This is for next year. Moving no two two years out. Two years out. Yeah. Moving the professional development day will allow voting in the schools without

121students being there. And that's something we've talked about year over year. Um do you want to talk about this? Just it just when we created the schedule, we didn't have it lined up with the uh referendum date we wanted to. So that's the only change that's really taken place is that we're just moved that one date so that students aren't in school for the referendum. So that's that's the only change. I know it was brought to the subcommittee for approval and I don't think there was an issue there. So I think I think we're okay as long as long as people don't have an issue here. It's two years out so I I don't think parents unless they are planning that far ahead it won't impact them. Do we have a motion for consideration? 267

122calendar making April 19th a regular school day for students and staff and April 27th a professional development day for staff. So motion by John, second by Brian. Any discussion? All right, we can move to a vote. All those in favor? I I opposed. Vote carries 8 Z. So moving on to our last thing before we adjourn. This is the first reading of the policy review and revision. So the ad hoc committee did meet on April 7th um which we didn't share out during committee but we did meet um to discuss these. Everything is posted in schooly but Shipman and Goodwin has recommended these new policies and revisions. So do you want to talk a little bit about them? Sure. There's a little caption for each one here and these these things are really based on

123regulations or a state statute that we need to change. The first one is the school security and safety administration relation to policy advice in light of government public act um 251-1 into law on March 3rd addresses immigration enforcement. We've been briefed prior to um new immigration regulations with ICE. We had Jessica Ritter here with Shipman reviewing how to handle both a local and a federal level if they should. We've appointed um administrators at each building to be in charge and who to call and what to do. Um the difference between at the state and the federal level. The federal level is much different. If the federal level's here, typically there's a a crime that was committed and so on. Um, but I think the administration and myself feel very comfortable based on what we have

124in place and we definitely align with with what's being asked here. So the policy will reflect that. Any questions on the first one? The next one is also on act 25-1 addresses immigration enforcement activity at schools. policy is being revised for the clearly that the event that federal immigration is what I just spoke of federal immigration um what to do should they um uh enter the school the the shipment advised that the likelihood that this take place is very limited but should it I think that we're in a good position to know what to do and to follow the correct protocols. Any questions on that? Bullying prevention intervention policy, safe school climate plan. This is just adjusting our safe school climate plans. Um, we do have a policy on a safe school climate plans. Uh,

125it's being discontin replaced with the new Connecticut school climate policy, a statemanded policy. So, what really what this does is we have to go back and look at our safe school climate plans and adjust them based on the new policy. This just makes sure that our policy adheres to the new requirements. Um, we're looking to we currently have the policy on the website, but what we need to do moving forward, we got to decide how it's going to be and where it's going to be on each website. So, each school is going to have to have their safe school climate plan accessible on the website. So, that's that's the the policy here. Um, new, this is a new one, including administrative regulation, make significant changes to statuto provisions related to bullying. The new law uh

126directed CAE to develop and update and approve a Connecticut school climate policy, which in turn was adopted by the social emotional learning and school climate advisory collaborative. The collaborative, the law further requires boards of education to adopt and implement school clans by July 1. So, we have the policy, we're adopting it. CAB is involved in creating it. What happens many times is that the state legislature gets cert certain groups to produce documents or sample documents uh for them and and this is one that Cabe's involved with Ship if you read keep reading Shipman's also been involved in this way we typically handle the policies is we go through shipment cable also has policies we typically do not use cave the only time we use caves is when we look at the policies and shipment doesn't

127have it, we may take the CABE sample, edit it, and then send it to Shipman. Most districts use Shipment. Shipman, you know, yes, we pay for the service. Cabe's policies, they have, you know, an internal lawyer that writes their policies, but typically we send them to Shipman to be reviewed, edited, whatever needs to be, and they keep track of our policy. So, Shipman looks at these policies here. This is a list that Shipman said based on our policies that need to be revised based on state, you know, changes to the state statutes and so on. So, the biggest thing is that the school climate improvement plan template and rubric, this this is new that we have to go through and then adjust to make sure we're adhering to it. Um, it's not that we didn't

128have climate plans before, it's just there's new requirements with it. questions on this one. Oh, and then what about policy 5132, student dress? That's not on the Yeah, it's not on the agenda. It's not on the agenda. No, we went over that at our subcommittee. I don't know why it's not on there. So, we'll just have to do a first reading of that. I could do first read next. I don't know why it's not on there. I'll have to ask Debbie. I'm sorry. But the next one is restorative practices response policy. And this one here, we had discussion in the subcommittee that, you know, how far will the state push and mandate without funding? That was the big discussion. I can'tern I can't tell you whether they will or not will or won't. We do

129have restorative practices um at all of our buildings, but you know, the question was asked, is it going to be like the reading program the state's going to say you have to use this restorative practice and here's the training and this is what you have to adopt. I I can't I can't tell you whether they will or won't at this point. Right now, it's not. They're required to adopt such policy, but it doesn't specify specifics, which is great if that stays that way, but I can't tell you if they'll they'll change that. Yeah. My my biggest concern with that policy was if for restorative practices as they are, there's a whole program and training that goes with it that's over the course of many years and it's very very expensive. Torington was one of the

130school districts in the state to model it and they were grantfunded and they went through very very extensive training. My biggest fear with this is that then the state is gonna come out and say now you have to do what they did. It would it was a number of years ago, maybe 10 years ago or more, but it is expensive. It would change the whole discipline system of the whole entire school district. basically can that and then um just it it would be very chaotic if the district wasn't going into it because we are choosing to adopt it. We would be forced to. It would be a mess. So, you know, though we have to adopt something, I think what we have is is valid. Um but just keeping your eyes out on what's to

131come in the future now that we have it. If you look at any of the handbooks, there is a continuum of consequences that are that are represented there for student discipline and the state already does push at this by, you know, they do monitor the number of inschool suspensions. They monitor the number of out school suspensions. They disagregate that data looking, you know, looking at it by race, ethnicity, um, any of the subgroups that are there. They look at the whole piece and then usually we get a report back from the state if we're high for student discipline in those areas. So um there already are you know requiring that there is a continuum and you look at those areas. So any other questions or concerns about the policies comments feedback? So in our next

132meeting we'll have the second reading and we'll adopt them and then student dress will be on our next agenda. The last one was student address. Just to tell you before we go, um student address here is really that we're not allowing backpacks to be carried at the high school anymore. We're requiring lockers to be used. So, we just need to update the policy that doesn't state that backpacks. They could be used to bring the items into school at the middle school and high school, but then but then they're left in their lockers during classes. And that's really a safety safety issue. So, that's really what the last piece is is just to update our policy. So, anything else? All right. Do we have a motion to adjourn? I move to adjourn. Motion by Melissa. Second.

133Second. Second by Jen. All those in favor? I oppose. The vote carries 8 Z.