NPS BOE Meeting - (3/11/2026)

001Okay. >> Good evening. I would like to call the Newington Board of Education meeting to order for Wednesday, March 11th, 2026. The time is 7:01 p.m. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Dad, would you please call the role? >> Mary >> here. >> Amy Karate >> here. Sam Sharma >> here. >> Thank you so much. Our first item on the agenda is a presentation of awards and proclamations. We have our everyday heroes. >> All right, let me just move that up. All right. So, as we a couple of us said on the way in, it's a cha chaffy kind of night here at

002the board of education. Uh but all for all very good reasons. Uh I I'm pleased to uh you have >> excited. So excited. >> It's already starting and the night is one minute into the meeting. It's already going south. Um no in all seriousness we have an several honores from Ruth Chaffi school as members of the merc team which stands for our medical emergency response team. The board has heard about this before. They were nominated by Karen Rodu. And here is what was written. And the honores by the way are principal Jim Marciano, security officer Raone Nunees. Raise your give us a little wave. um head teacher Emily Provost, administrative clerk Gina Dwing, and head secretary Joseph Serrianiano. So those are the folks behind the scenes or in front of the scenes in some very

003stressful situations. So I'd like to nominate my entire mer team and this is Karen's voice, but if I had to choose one person, it would be Gina Dwenszing. We have had two emergencies this year at Ruth Jaffy, both requiring an ambulance. One was an anaphylactic reaction and the other was a student having a seizure. The support I have received from members of the mer team during these emergencies has been outstanding. Raone Nunez carries my extremely heavy emergency bag to the site and then handles hallway traffic and meets EMS. He also contacted 911. Emily Provo supports me at the emer with the emergency documents and handles unexpected needs. And Jim Marciano meets, talks with parents, and helps with hallway traffic. Gina Dwensing handles everything from contacting your office, I think she's talking about my office, contacting

004911, handling issues in school, i.e. calling a mer team, which you have to announce, a shelter in place, and then in one of these instances, it was happening during dismissal time, which is a very busy time in any school. Um, I lost my place. Printing out power school reports and many other things. All of these members and the roles they perform are done smoothly and efficiently with communication during these times between members of the mer is team is seamless. All of these members and their contributions allow me to be able to focus on and take care of my patient. I forgot to include Joe in my original nomination. PS Joe takes over all of the office duties when Gina is preoccupied with myrr and I've utilized him in previous emergencies. Both Gina and Joe are

005incredibly reliable and if I may out a postcript myself um for one of these emergencies Jim was in the off my office with me we were conducting a mid-year meeting and all of this was coming in and so many these team members handled this all with the principal being remote offsite. So that also speaks highly to how well they function as a team. They can, you know, go from that situation and make those real-time decisions. And again, it was dismissal, which couldn't have been the worst time to call one of these um emergencies, but you have to deal with what you have to deal with. And uh Jim and I were just really impressed with how well it went with all those moving parts. So if I could please ask Jim, Rammon, Emily, Gina, and

006Joe to come up to get your proclamations. And we also do a group photo with the board chair. And I'll just scroll down. You can see they all got an everyday hero award with their names on them. You guys can >> I I think uh I think it's important to note that in a situation uh like the situations uh we've we've encountered this year, um typically I would have left Moren's office in a panic running to get back to the school. In my conversations with uh with Gina at the time when when this was occurring, they had handled everything. There wasn't much for me to even think about or do. um they were more presenting here's what we've done and can you just rubber stamp it um and I it's a testament to you know

007in these emergency situations we want the best outcome and and fortunately in these situations they were the best outcomes um but I rely on them I I walk out the door at any time throughout the day and I know the students and the staff are in good hands because of the care that they put into their work. Um it is amazing to watch uh the the the time uh the the work they do together as a team. Um and it's it's really exciting. Uh and I uh you know I love to take credit for it but they are who they are. Um and magical is the best word to describe it or no I shouldn't say that. Sunshine rays of sunshine in the Ruth Elchafi office and around. Thank you so much. Karen >> Karen,

008would you like to say anything or you obviously wrote the the nomination? No, I'm just very grateful for I'm so grateful for my team um and for the members of the mer team and really they're two very stressful situations and it um it went they both went so smoothly and I I really don't even have to ask for anything. Everybody just knows what to do and I'm just so grateful for them because both both patients or both students did very well. So I'm grateful. Thank you for presenting. Thank you so much. And I would just add that Karen should be here next to us. Uh because without her, these things don't happen as as they you know that we don't have these amazing outcomes. She is so decisive in what needs to happen and giving

009all of us direction in terms of how we can support her. So she is an everyday hero every single day. Um and so I just want to acknowledge that aspect of it too. We we can't be a Mert without her. >> Yeah. Thank you. And I'm sorry I can't be there tonight. Sorry, but >> thank you for being online and thank you for the nomination. >> Thank you. >> Do we want to just hold all comments until all the Yeah. Okay. Okay. Next up is a resol. >> Yeah, we'll do them all at once because then Yeah. Um a resolution honoring our school social workers. Love this. Let me let me read it into the record. Resolution honoring Newington school social workers March 11th, 2026. Whereas the Newington public school system is committed to honoring

010its school social workers and recognizing their contributions to the educational system and their tremendous impact in helping students reach their full potential. And whereas the Newington school social workers are actively committed to helping students in their social and academic development and explore their abilities, strengths, interests, and talents. And whereas the Newington school social workers are actively engaged in a partnership with students, parents, and the school for focusing on positive ways to enhance students academic and social emotional development and working with teachers and other educators to provide an educational system where students can realize their potential and set healthy, realistic, and optimistic aspirations for themselves. And whereas the Newington School Social Workers help students deal with mental health and behavioral challenges and provide academic and classroom support. And whereas it is the desire of the board

011of education that the school social workers should be made aware of their appreciation. We do hereby proclaim Wednesday, March 11th, 2026 as Newington school social workers appreciation day. Therefore, be it resolved that we urge all of the citizens of our community to join with us in actively expressing gratitude to our school social workers who represent an investment in excellence in our community. Be it further resolved that the Newington secretary secretary of the Newington Board of Education is directed to spread this resolution upon the minutes of this meeting and to provide a suitable copy for presentation. as I'm falling over. Sorry. My staff is used to it. It's all good. Um, so thank you. And I invited I think I see one social worker here. So, thank you Sheree. I'm not sure if there anybody who

012is online. Um, but when I uh sent them the invitation to come tonight that they were being um represented and and >> Shannon's hailed is Shannon >> Shannon is online. Yep. >> Hi Shannon, thank you for being online. Um I told them there is not one day, one month, one week or enough words to thank them for the work that they do. This is so beautifully written because this is the positive end of what they do. But think about the students who that are coming to them in the moment that they're coming to them or the families and when they're coming to them. They have to do a phenomenal job. Talk about mer. This is almost like perfect the way that this worked out. Think about the trauma of those students who all of a

013sudden had to be sheltered in place and they're like, "What is happening? What's going on?" Obviously, it's somebody within my school. It might be one of my friends. I'm sure that that social worker was very busy the following day. So again, I thank them. There are not enough words. It is an unmistakable need in this district and we are so blessed to have them. So thank you >> Sheree. >> Can we just get another picture >> with Sheree in the picture? >> Okay. >> And Shannon, if you want to come on camera. That's still Karen. >> That's Karen. >> Your phone case is easy to smile. >> Oh, yeah. Little insect. >> Nice. It's like underneath here. Okay. I turned it on. I turned it on. Thanks, Um, all right. Yeah, let's go. Let's go

014now for just go ahead. >> Um, so I'll start off with our MER team. Thank you so much for what you do on your job description. That's This is not in your job description. So, um, uh, one of my favorite things about the Everyday Hero Awards is the community gets to know kind of the things that happen behind the scenes and the chaos that is the everyday. Um, and truly, I think lately, these awards have really been heroes of like literally saving our children's lives. Um, wish it was not as dramatic, but these are the things that, um, we are so grateful to hear and I think always need to be highlighted. Um, and it's always wonderful too because it is staff nominating staff um to recognize the camaraderie between staff. Um, so thank you

015for what you do every day. Um, thank you on behalf of the students that are very grateful for you being there. Um, but thank you for the roles that you play for both what you do as your actual job, but then the additional responsibilities you take on to ensure you're that all of our students are safe. That's the number one thing we always talk about. I think when we have our bus drivers here, we do the same thing, but everyone sends their child off to school with the trust that they will be safe at school. Um, and then that they will come home safe from school. Um, so thank you for still ensuring that the safety and well-being of our students um is of top priority. And to our social workers, Marilena, thank you uh

016for what you do. um it is not unnoticed and I think um this is the seventh time I'm doing this thanking you and it still doesn't it just doesn't feel like enough. Um it is one of the things that we talk about everyday heroes, but these are truly the behind the scenes, the ones that lift our students. and we've been talking about it um today or tomorrow marks uh 6 years since we had our last meeting uh in a different town hall in a different situation but when co hit and there's so much fallout still um there's so many things I think our world has shifted and so much that um has been brought out from a social emotional learning perspective and so to have social workers here obviously that's not just one cause but

017to have you all um be on the front lines of it thank you for for what you do truly every single day. And I know we have so many stories that come out from students currently and students that are alumni and I know for the students to come that are so grateful and truly I don't think would be here without all of your team. So, thank you every social worker and congratulations, >> Miss Petus. >> Um, just very quickly because I think, um, Miss Weaver kind of said how we how we feel. Um, but the the three things that I keep hearing over and over and over again in just the 10 minutes that we've been together are ideas and feelings of trust, of care, and of gratitude. And that is something that um we

018are so proud of our staff that reach our kids and other staff members in ways that demonstrate caring, gratitude, and trust. And I just want to say thank you and and well done and and um our families can rest easy knowing that we have such caring staff that are always watching out for each other and for our kids. So, thank you again, >> Miss Lindsay. I want really wanted to be there today because when I saw Miss Provos's name on this, I really wanted to be there to say this in person and to her that she is definitely someone who deserves this. She's an amazing person and she is there for every kid that she's ever has had in under her care. and also with uh Joseph and and Raymond. I know them also personally

019and they also are uh very um I I like them also. Um I can't think of the word right now. Sorry. But uh I just wanted to say thank you to you guys. You guys are all amazing. Um and I really appreciate everything you do for our kids. Uh and I know the kids appreciate it also. And same with the social workers. So thank you everybody. Appreciate you all. >> Thank you Mr. Sharma. >> Hey, I just want to thank um everyone, especially the social workers for everything that you know for just going above and beyond and serving us students. I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person because I'm not feeling well, but uh once again, congrats and we really appreciate what you all do. Thanks, >> Dr. Stanley. >> Uh hi. Uh thank

020you first of all of you for being here. um you set the bar of behavior and expectations so high and I wish that we could thank you every day. Um I know your team functions so well and I we just really appreciate everything that you've done for the kids um and the parents and all of us in the community. And then to the social workers, um thank you so much. The things that you do often are quiet and behind the scenes and go unnoticed unless you have had the crisis or you have had the need. Um, so thank thank you for quietly doing all the things that you do and making a real impact in our community. >> Mr. Hollerin, I >> think this might be the second time we've have seen an everyday hero

021award go to a mer team and I think that speaks to the way that program is working so well. And I think Mr. from Mariano touched upon that is that he was able to have explicit trust that each of you knew what to do and executed it perfectly. Um it to me I can't thank you enough personally. I have a daughter who goes to Jaffy. Um you know I've seen you at PTAs and when I have to drop off a violin um but um I think we send our kids to get an education. We send them to become good corporate citizens, good not even corporate citizens, good citizens in general, community citizens. But I think the most basic thing we can do when we send our kids to our school system is keep them safe.

022Um, and I think that especially during the craziness of dismissal and everybody is wondering what's going on. Um, you guys performed, I think, better than most parents could expect. So, just personally, thank you very much. and to our social workers. I think you really said it the best. Sorry for the weird swivel on different sides of the room. Um just having to go through traumatic experiences. I think that that's when we want to recognize our social workers. It's that part of growing up that isn't necessarily in the textbook, that isn't necessarily the same as everybody else in your classroom. um and to have guides through that process in times of crisis and times of not crisis just to navigate that transition from child to adult. I think um that is something that is incredibly valuable.

023Uh and I know I've said this last year and I'll probably say it again next year. Um there's not enough appreciation we give to our social workers. Thank you. >> Um what I heard was Mr. Marciano saying he doesn't even need to be in the building for it to to function. So, Dr. Bman's a little concerning, but that way in serious seriousness, >> but but thank you for actually performing without him in the building because it just means that you guys know what you're doing and and our students are are safe safest for it. Um, and I know other principles can say the same thing, but guess you're not Aiden. Um but we appreciate you anyways. Um and so thank you for um and thank you Karen for the the nomination for for the mer

024team. Um it definitely is a a well-run program and everybody is clearly well trained and um and the most important thing is making sure that all the students are are safe and and have the positive outcomes that they did. Um and for social workers um just love you guys. Um obviously I well some people may not know I I'm in social work. I'm graduating in May and um it's it's because of definitely Sheree and Shannon who I know personally um you know just speaking to them and and hearing the work that they're doing and and our ESS program obviously that we have in the in the high school and middle schools um is really what led me to that career. So, I just really do appreciate the social work work that happens and goes on

025in our school and and like people have said, it's it's definitely the behind the scenes work and unless you're, you know, dealing with a crisis and having to call 211 or having, you know, a student with something going on. It could be anything big or small, but to that student in that moment, it's huge. And just they know there's somewhere they can go and they can be listened to and they can get they can get help. So, thank you for the social workers that we have. >> Yay, everybody. >> And now I know this is this is the part that we How are we doing this? Board app. >> Yes. Thank you, >> Amy or Dr. Brummit, before you move on. >> Yes, of course. >> Okay. Um, hi everybody. Sorry I couldn't be there

026tonight, but I didn't want to miss honoring some of our staff. Um, this comes off the heels of our guest speaker yesterday, Steven Hill, which is coming uh to May to the the public as well, who was phenomenal. And at that um presentation in front of our entire school, I was able to give a shout out to all our social workers at the high school. We have six. So Sheree and Shannon, our three ESS social workers, Kaitlyn and Alicia, our school-based health center um social worker Janelle, and we also have two interns that work with Sheree and Shannon, McKenzie, and Rachel. Um so I just wanted to publicly say that as you many people have stated, but times like this, people deserve their moment, so I'm giving it to them. Their work never ends, literally

027ever. It's 247, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And if you close your eyes and you think for a minute, the craziest scenario you can think of, now you have the vision of what these people deal with on a day-to-day basis. Um, they are there for our entire staff. They're the baseline of what humans need to function. And so without them, uh, we truly wouldn't be functioning. So, um, and that's a team. We have a a great support staff including counselors and psychologists and um this team of social workers works with all of us. Um so I want to go on record saying and Amy, it's funny because I wanted to write it down so I didn't ramble too much. I literally wrote I want to go on record saying I love you

028and that's the same time you said I love you guys. So thank you so much everyone. Um and to the board of ed I know it's your night as well. Um, but thank you for supporting our support staff because uh it's it's such a need for our students. So, thank you all so much. >> Thank you, Tara. And Mr. Chararma, I'm sorry. I see your hand. Did you want to add or you good? >> Oh, sorry. I forgot to take it down. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. Moving on. >> All right. So rounding out our awards this evening and honor honores. It's actually board appreciation month. So we have our student council representatives here. Did anyone from the student council want to say a few words? I believe you're behind the lovely snack box.

029>> Sugar right at the end there. Tell us tell us your role in student council. >> Hi Adrian. >> Hi. Uh my name is Adrien Vielski. I don't know how close I have to be to this thing, but um I'm the I'm the president of the student council and I just want to say we I don't think anybody could appreciate you guys enough. There's so much that you guys do um to help facilitate not only the schools, but just everyone involved within it and we have you guys to thank. Um we hear so many lovely things about you guys from our board of education representatives and as as much as I know all of us wish that we could be here every day, but um but um but we just appreciate you guys so much

030like genuinely. Um, and so of course we wanted to um celebrate you guys by giving you guys some nice gifts, but thank you for all that you do. >> Thank you. >> I believe Mr. Marciano dropped off goodies from the elementary contingency. I'll let you speak to that. Oh, you want the mic? There you go, sir. So, good evening. Um, Ruth Alchafi tonight is uh representing the in uh the entire elementary community that includes staff and students and wants to offer a huge thank you to the board for all the work that you do um um in your role to support our staff and students. And we know that is uh a difficult role, an underpaid role uh for sure. Um, so our student council is here to uh recognize you along with our student

031council adviser, Miss Miss Wild and Miss Bonfoy. They're going to introduce themselves and speak a little bit uh about their appreciation. Here you go. >> Good evening. Good evening, board of education members, administrators, teachers, families, and guests. My name is Eleanor Essano, and I am the student council treasurer in Mr. O'Brien's class. Hi, my name is Kate Hart and I am the student council secretary in Miss Bon's class. >> Hi, my name is Brennan. I am the student council vice president in Mr. Zansk's class. >> Hi, I'm Beckham. Hi, my name is Beckham Plaster and I'm the student council president in Miss Bonf's class. >> Thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak tonight. We are some of the proud students from Ruth Elchafi Elementary Schools and we are here on behalf of all

032of the students who attend Newington public schools to express our sincere appreciation for everything that you do for our schools. You help make our schools an awesome place to learn. Because of you, we have we have great classrooms, fun activities, helpful teachers, and lots of opportunities to try new things every day. We want to thank you for working hard behind the scenes to make important decisions for our for our school and for helping to keep our school safe, welcoming and exciting places where we can learn, grow, and make friends. We know your job takes a lot of time and effort and we want you to know that your work makes a big different in our lives. You care about our education and our future and we and we really appreciate everything you do for all

033students in Newington. on behalf of all the students in our district. Thank you for believing us in investing in our education. >> Thank you for making decisions that help us grow, learn, and prepare for our futures. Thank you for supporting our teachers, our schools, and our dreams. As a small token of our appreciation, we like to present you with this gift to show our gratitude. Please accept it as a symbol of how much we value your service and commitment. So, just one final note. Um, I just want to give a shout out to the art teachers who uh often um or have been, at least since I've been here, putting together these these gifts for you. So, the bags are made by the Anna Reynolds um uh Anna Reynolds students. Uh there's a card in

034there represent represent represented by John Patterson students and then e- green students and Ruth Chaffy students made the uh ceramic piece that you have in there as well. So um our our art teachers are amazing and uh thank you for supporting them and and the work that they do, but they also are big contributors in those gifts. So thank you So, Ruth Chaffy students, beautiful job. Uh, we also have, I believe online, a representative from the student council of John Wallace. Is that true? >> Hi, Dr. Brummit. Unfortunately, the student was not able to uh make it. they were prepared to be here and they had something come up at the last second. But um my two staff members that uh lead that group are here. Miss Pino and Miss Aguro are both online for

035it, but uh I was going to say a couple words. >> Thank you. >> First of all, I want to apologize that our student uh representative was not able to make it today, but I just want to echo what has been said already by our other schools here and thank you for all that you do, Board of Education. We know it is a thankless job. Uh you deal with sometimes some of the headaches, but you also get a chance to see all the great things and hear about the great things we're doing here in New England public schools. And many of it we can't do without you if it wasn't for you guys fighting for us at all times. We wouldn't be able to do some of the amazing things that we are doing. And

036I just want to say thank you. And so does my school want to say thank you about that. And we have a token of appreciation for you. Uh you can see in the gifts the students have some mugs for you that have been hand painted and wrapped by them for you. >> Thank you. Is there someone else? >> Thank you, Mr. Trillo, for uh standing in for our student council. Did anyone else want to say anything from Wallace or are we good? >> I'll just echo what Mr. Turillo said. One more time, thank you so much for all of your dedication and your leadership and fighting for um for the students. It wouldn't it really wouldn't be the same without you guys. So again, thank you so much. >> And again, thank you to our

037student councils for um leading the charge to support board appreciation month together with art art departments and many other contributors. Um, a little note, u, Martin Kellogg dropped off their gifts earlier today. So, um, uh, Lori Geri, one of our coaches from, uh, Kellogg, was here to drop off those gifts. So, I don't believe we have anyone online from Martin Kellogg. If there is someone, let me know. So, that concludes board appreciation month. I'll turn it back over to board chair. Anyone want to Miss Beatric? >> Um I'm actually very rarely at a loss for words, but I'm actually at a loss for words. Um you know, I believe and um really with all my heart, not just as a parent, but as a member of the community that our schools and our students are

038really the jewel of the community and we do what we do because we love all of our kids. The the kids that um my kids went to school with that are now adults. We love the kids that are coming up that are going to be important members of our school community. And um it is an it's it's almost a cliche, but it is an honor and a pleasure to serve. Very very grateful to be able to do that. And just um one thing I'd like to leave you with is that it's not work when you love what you do. And so it is a great great pleasure to do it. And I can't thank you enough for the the recognition. And it's um it's really wonderful to be able to keep doing this work and

039um it's very rare that we are able to give of our time in a way that impacts so many people in such a positive way. So thank you for your support, your trust and your belief in us that we're going to do the right things for our students and our staff. So thank you >> Mr. Hollerin. >> First of all, great job Chaffy. Um, uh, you always, Kelly, I am a little biased, but, um, really, really proud of you. That was an excellent presentation. Uh, well rehearsed and you nailed it. It was great. Uh, this is always a super awkward night. Um, I think I can speak for most of us. You're giving us gifts because you appreciate it, but we're doing this job because we appreciate you. Um, and it's a little weird to

040to to get something as a a gift when we feel like we are the ones who owe you. It seems backwards to me. It does every year. Um, but I really like it and it's really nice when we can uh say, "Thank you. We appreciate the board of education." And then your next thought is like, "Yeah, but what do you do?" Um, no, but seriously, what does the board of education do? Right? And it's simple. We basically we balance a budget, we make policy, and we manage the superintendent. Um, and that's like the busy work of it. But what we really do is work really hard to make sure that every day you go to school is as great as it can be. Um, everybody sitting around this table, that's our mission. Um, beyond all

041the work, beyond all the late hours, the pay is very low. Uh, it's nothing. Um, >> we got guests. >> The time away from our own family is a lot sometimes. Um, >> but we do it because we think that you deserve it. you deserve to have the life you want to have that chance to make it. Um, and we'll support you along the way. So, if you appreciate us, we appreciate you twice back. Thank you, >> Dr. Stanley. >> Well, this was really um above and beyond anything that I ever expected. Um, when I was reflecting on whether to run for the board, my family was like, "Are you serious, Gail? Um, you have your clinical practice, you have your research, you have the soccer board. Um, how much are you going to do?"

042And I was like, "I just don't love being home with my family." I guess that's a lie. That's a lie. I love my family. They're amazing. I have two small kids that are currently in the system. Um, but this has made such an impact and such a has brought such joy to my life. Um, I can't even put it into words. And it is just like Marie said, like it's not work when you love what you're doing and you really get an emotional boost from it. Um, and I am proud to say got to run wrapping up my notes. I got to make it to the board meeting. Um, or I'll be in the call room uh on the board meeting. You guys have all seen my call room now. Um, so thank you so

043much. It really makes the work in the lift easy. um doing it. >> Miss Weaver, I won't drone on, but I'm very very grateful as I'm very much in um the same boat as Mr. Holland. I was like, "Oh, I hate this." Cuz like um there's like a thing I like the British don't like getting homeless. They're like like that's how I feel because um also like this isn't a job. This is a lot of work outside of our actual paid jobs. But everyone uh in our system we try and make sure gets paid to do the most incredible jobs I think that are out there and the ones that I'm just not good enough to do. Um you all of our teachers, all of our staff um are just incredible incredible human beings. Um

044and I know that because a lot of them have stuck around since when I was in the system like Mr. D was my ninth grade teacher and then so like student council people, I was student council treasurer and then president and um so all you guys on student council remember these seats are getting reserved for you guys. Um cuz truly I got like I I never really get like crazy emotional about it but like you guys really got me. Uh you are so articulate and so well spoken. So very good job to you. Very good job to your teachers with LJV. Thank you to our student club adviserss. Uh appreciate you. Um but truly there's so many aspects of education that I did not know about when I was going through the system. Um and

045to to sit on the other side now as a board because I've sat in these chairs, well not these ones again, the old town hall like that's old. Um to know now like what a board of education does. Um to know what that meaning is. When you're going through the system, you you're like, "Yeah, I've heard of it. we they're like the people over there and they do those things and in back in my day they were a little older too. Um so I didn't know how old they were. I was like I don't know. So to be on the board um for the last seven years and to get gifts every year and to see the different students come through um and just see the talent uh it just truly makes everything worth it.

046This has never been a thankless job because this community has always been so wonderful about lifting up education and supporting it. Um, so that just makes our jobs 10 times easier. So, thank you to literally everyone here tonight. Um, and those watching online, those that come to board meetings or know what we do sometimes or want to learn more, um, and truly just do the day in dayout work of what we try and support. Uh, it truly just is why we do it because I truly love Newington public schools and it's so great to see my cousins now go through this system and truly I think all of us just want to make it better every day and that's because of everyone that makes that system better. So, thank you guys. Oh, thank you for

047the shakurerie. This is like super fancy. >> Um, Mr. Skeo. >> Yeah, it's hard to follow up with uh what everybody said here tonight is uh truly uh you guys are really really a great team and that's what it's all about is coming together and working together and and feeling like family. Um to me that's uh it's it's really important and that's how things get done and um being a new board member I am uh really learn sorry really learned a lot and um and I'm still learning every day and I will be learning for quite a while but uh I'm really like to see what's going on here. I feel the warmth. I feel the love and uh I I feel like it's going to be it's going to be a great um season

048and for the rest of the you know school year and beyond. So I just want to thank you uh thank you very much for all the hospitality and uh we continue working together as a team. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um yeah I guess Gail I'm kind of right there with you when I said I was going to run again. My family was like, "Really? Do you have to?" But I um despite the late nights and and never being home and missing bedtime and and all of that, it definitely is very re rewarding to be here. I love being I didn't know what the board of ed was several years ago and got involved with um Anna Reynolds and then just kind of ended up here. Um but I wouldn't change it. It's definitely

049an honor to serve. I know it's like cliche, but like it's I love being here and I just I like the meetings where we get students to come here because it really does remind us why we're here and why we're doing this and all the time and effort that we're putting into reviewing budget books and policies and, you know, curriculum score uh test results and all of the things that we do in in at the board table and in the committees. And um but we also get to do the celebrations and we get to go to school plays and basketball games and football games and and all of the you know ceremonies at the end of the year. Just everything that we get to do as board members is is super rewarding and and very

050fun. But like just I really appreciate the students that take their time um to come here and to present to us and um just share their experiences in Newington public schools. It really means a lot. So, thank you for the gifts. They're not necessary, but we appreciate them very much. And um thank you for the appreciation. And Mr. Chararma has his hand up, too. So, go ahead, Mr. Chararma. >> Hi. Um thanks um thanks for the beautiful gifts. I wish I was there in person, but I think I just want to um just say just share like we are on the board because you know we want to do what's right for each and every student and you know each and every student that goes to our district is like our child. So, we're there

051for you guys. Um, so thank you so much and really appreciate it. >> Miss Lindsay, >> I just want to as everybody else said that I disagree with everyone else agree with everything that everybody's saying, but I just want to say thank you so much for the homemade gifts cuz for me homemade gifts are better than you buying something and because you put your heart and soul into it. So, I just want to thank you all for making us the gifts and I can't wait to be able to see mine in person. I'm sorry I was babysitting my granddaughter, so I can't be there today. But I just want to say thank you very much for handmaking us gifts. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. events. Yeah,

052I think we did get a bunch of pictures. >> All right, so >> all right. Thank you. All right. At this time, I'll open up um the floor to public participation on any matter related to board responsibilities. We have four minutes officially updated on the agenda. If you are online, you can raise your hand or in the room, you can come to the head of the table. >> Anyone for public participation? I am seeing none. Okay. Still none. Okay. Moving on to our consent agenda. I move that the board of education approve consented the consent agenda as presented for the minutes of February 23rd, 2026 budget session and February 25th, 2026 regular meeting. >> Second. We have a motion and a second to approve our minutes. Is there any discussion? >> No. >> All in

053favor? >> Any opposed? >> Minutes approved unanimously. Motion approved unanimously. Sorry. All right. Committee reports. We have our student representatives here from the high school. Hi. Hi everyone. Happy board appreciation month. >> Thank you. So we have a lot of exciting things to share with you guys this month. So just to start, we have what's happening inside the high school right now. So recently we had the National Honor Society blood drive and with the help of our members, students and faculty members, we were able to get enough blood to save 159 lives. So it was really exciting and everyone put a lot of hard work into it, especially the officers. Um, we also, like Miss Tigno mentioned, we had Steven Hill come in for speak sobriety and he spoke to our whole school during a

054schoolwide assembly about his sobriety sobriety journey and the links between addiction and mental health. So, it was really informative and he just shared his own personal story which was really impactful for us. And he even stayed after for a while to talk to students one-on-one which was really great. I know a lot of students really appreciated that personally just to get to speak with him. So, we were really grateful that he came. Yeah. Um, and then we have our musical production. So, we're in the thick of musical season right now. Um, it's opening night is tomorrow and then we're going Friday and then we have two shows Saturday. So, tickets can be bought at this link nhsdrama.booktick.com. And today we had our teasers with the middle school and then later in the day we had

055them with the high school. So classes had the opportunity to come down and watch the first act of the show. So everything went really well and we're excited for opening night tomorrow. >> Um and then seniors have our local scholarship. So the booklet is due this Friday. So seniors have been working on it over the last couple of months to get it all situated and get everything submitted and turned in on time. And then just to finish off here, we have SATs. So juniors have been prepping for SAT day, which will be March 25th. And some teachers are also holding study sessions and AP exam reviews during that time to help support students. So yeah, >> in terms of clubs at NHS, student council just finished their luck hallway. So, in one of the uh

056busy hallways to the cafeteria, they put up um a sign with like we're lucky to have you and wrote down some 1300 names of all the students at Newington High School. And everybody could find their name on the wall and show that they're appreciated and uh we're lucky to have them for St. Patrick's Day. And we also wrote down all the uh teachers names as well. Keycl Club was reading at Egreen uh this past month uh to kick off Dr. Seuss week and kindness or Dr. month and kindness week and they got to spend time with elementary students teaching them about empathy and kindness. DECA had their state competition and they had 15 finalists and five of them will be going to ICDC in Atlanta in April. And they also just got back from their

057trip to New York City to explore different businesses and marketing experiences from Broadway producers to sports management. Also, a notable event that happened was the Black History Month Showcase, which was created and organized by uh Naomi Stowers and Talaysia Huff along with others under the direction of Mrs. Roach. And guests were able to experience performances by the San Kufa Kumba Cultural Dance Group and the Harford Proud Drill Drum and Dance Corps. Explore a student curated black history exhibit highlighting influential leaders and achievements. Support local vendors and blackowned businesses. and enjoy delicious soul food catered by Jamaican Jerk Shack. So, obviously with Black History Month just wrapping up at uh during February, uh we showcased our appreciation and showcased the cultural um variety in our school. >> So, for sports, we've had a really exciting month

058and with spring sports, those are starting up. So, there have been preseason meetings and preparations just to get that all started. And then all of our winter sports, so girls and boys basketball, ice hockey, swimming, and wrestling have been wrapping up with conferences and their senior nights. Um, ice hockey specifically had their senior night and they played their last game in the playoffs. So, that was really exciting for them. And then boys basketball has made it all the way to the quarterfinals. So, tomorrow night they'll play to see if they'll advance to the semi-finals. But regardless, it's a huge accomplishment and we're really excited for them. Oh, and I know that there was a request about talking about women in sports at the high school and just seeing how that was and we weren't able

059to do that this month, but we plan on making a full report for you guys next month to be able to highlight that. And finally for some special shoutouts at Newington High School. Uh congratulations to Adrian Bilielski who's here tonight who was awarded for the Daughters of American Revolution Good Citizen Award. Also, um Josiah Sims, Maggie Kruski, and Jaylen uh Douglas represent Newington at the CCC finals all conference. And also Josiah Sims received his 10,000th career rebound. And with him recently receiving 10,00 career points, this puts him as the first person in the Newington High School basketball program to reach uh these milestones. And of course, appreciation to the board of ed. Um I know we missed it before, but we also just want to shout out the culinary department who made the shuderie boxes.

060>> Thank you so much. Do we have any comments or questions for our student reps? Mr. Hollerin, it's >> always my favorite part is the student reps. Um, it's nice to get direct feedback. I think that's as simple as it is. Um, really nice to hear that the DACA trip went well. Um, that was something that I knew was upcoming the last time we met and I was curious to see how it went, but it sounds like it was productive. Um, my daughter had the advantage at John Walsh to see the play today. And how many officers, how many people here are actually involved with the musical like most of you, right? And you're here doing double duty, Dan. Nice to have you back, by the way. You you're like doing quadruple duty every day.

061Um but um yes, so thank you for being out here, being out late, doing everything you can, being on student council, giving us gifts that we are awkwardly accepting. Um and giving us the full report um special shout out to stage crew just it's it's special breed. Um but I think that um as we approach the back half of the year, we're heavily in it. Just a kind of common simple question. What are you looking forward to most for the rest of the year? >> Um, I think as a senior, I'm really looking forward to decision day and just all those fun activities at the end of the year. So, that's really exciting. I know all my friends were looking forward to spending all that time together and getting to do all the fun stuff

062in school. We have pep rally coming up. We're preparing for that and that's always so so fun. So, yeah, >> I'd say um going into my senior year, I'm definitely excited. I'm going to be having my first prom coming up so that's going to be a lot of fun. Um, but also just the end of the year is always just such a breather from such a stressful year. I know a lot of students experience that same way where the winter months are always such stressful months, but once the sun once it's 70° outside, you really start seeing the uh smiles on students faces. >> And I think my last question at the beginning of this year, you said one of the focuses was to increase school spirit. And how is that going? >> I'd say

063that we've been doing very good. Um there's a lot of steps that we've taken. I think one of the most productive ways that's it's been happening is through games. It's very exciting to like cheer on fellow students. And we've seen in all the games and teams and sports that student sections have been growing, especially in the winter sports, and we're hoping that we can carry the momentum into the spring sports and keep people energized about their fellow students. >> Sounds like you're in for one heck of a pimp rally. Miss Weaver, >> my student council peeps always representing. Okay. Uh, yes. No, I want to say thank you, Adrian, for your kind words as well. Um, press to press. It's always um I still have my student council shirt. Like truly, my mom would always

064be >> You campaigning. It's true. >> I do actually. Yeah. Yeah. Still trying to make it fit, guys. Um, but my mom would always be so annoyed with me because I'd be like, "Mom, StuO is life. Like, that's that's it." and she's like, "You have a life after high." Like, you are 16. Stop. Um, but it truly is like, it is one of those things. I think everything that you guys embody. Um, it doesn't have to be student council in the way, but I think the kinds of things that you're doing right now uh absolutely emulate um kind of where you can go uh in your future. And every one of you is pretty over involved. Um so, uh I would say I hope you look forward to sleep. Sleep is good. Um, so thank

065you guys as always, our student reps, but the whole student council crew. Thank you for taking the time. Um, cuz this is the craziest week of your life. Um, with the musical and then everything else. Um, it's just I don't I know I did it, but I don't remember how to do it at this point. You literally have a superpower right now. And um, just truly hope and just take a moment to enjoy it while you can, I guess. But um, thank you for giving us the updates. And I wanted to shout out I know that the um musical is tomorrow and all this weekend. So everyone get that link and please attend to support our incredible arts program and to see these amazing students. But also I know that I believe we made ESPN

066>> with the gamewinning shot last night. So just want to say congrats to our basketball game, right? And and there was some Harvard current articles cuz I know there was another buzzer beater. So um Newington is just all over the map right now. Um, so just want to say congratulations to our basketball team regardless of the next one. Um, super cool to see that on sports. You're like, I know that what's happening. Um, so just wanted to say thank you for for doing that. Um, and a super cool thing is that you always got you um our student reps always give amazing shoutouts and I feel like we get to really know who our students are. So congratulations Adrian. Um, but just to see the incredible and variety of awards and achievements everyone's getting between

067sports, arts, academics, it is always just wonderful to see. So, thank you for always showing what MPS students are all about, which is being the best portraits of a graduate. >> Good job. >> As a girl mom, I never thought I'd be going to so many sporting events. Um, but having a cheerleader, we have to go to football and basketball games. But the football game, as we know, the second to last game that they had was the Hail Mary. Amazing. And then um and then the basketball game on Tuesday and it was Tuesday, Monday, whatever. What day was that? Monday was insane. Um the student section huge, very cool to see it. Yes, it was um just a very awesome game. They were up and down and very proud of the basketball team. Um, wishing

068them luck tomorrow. East Harford, I think, also made ESPN with another buzzer beater. So, it's going to be tough competition, but yeah. Sorry, one quick thing is that some of us were marching in the St. Patrick's Day parade in Hartford this past weekend. Um, and shout out to Eileen Frankalino, one of the one of our best teachers, putting on the Nory costume. Um, just, you know, Nori's famous now. We Nor's got a million selfies with probably all of greater Harford, Connecticut. So, and I believe did make the news somewhere. So, just want to give a shout out to truly the community, but the school spirit is felt throughout our Eye of the Storm. I think they have an Instagram account. >> We'll plug that for you guys. See, I I I follow I know what's

069happening. Um, but I think it's really great that you guys have really embraced this. Um, and to see just truly I you can notice it even if I know people who are not necessarily knowing what's happening in the schools are like, "Oh, yeah. I've heard like a lot of kids are really excited about these things. It's really nice. So to know that it just permeates throughout the school buildings. Um and then clearly to the I guess to the streets of Harvard in a St. Patrick's Day parade. Um Noria has gone viral. Um but thank you guys and everyone break a leg. Um and I love the the we're lucky to have you. That's super sweet. I think that's really cool that Did you guys handwrite the names like everyone's names? Yeah, >> the idea of

070the home team were behind it and they put up the shamrocks with um staff names, students names um by grades and >> Yeah, that is so an extension of the officers. >> Yeah, that is so cool and I think that you know definitely like you guys are thinking about the whole school community and just making it like a inclusive environment. I think that's awesome. Um and then Danny when Mr. Holler and asked what you were looking forward to. I'm surprised you didn't say SAT day because I saw your face. Um, but you got this. You got it. And I think we're trying to get a video. >> Yeah, looks like this would be the >> Number top. Yeah, number four. gonna work in house. Final seconds down for three at the buzzer. >> What a

071play from Jefferson as he's fading away Newington 66. Hey man, you can always ESPN which is awesome. >> Okay, think we're we're good. Thank you for being here. Get some sleep. Good luck. Break a leg tomorrow. >> Thank you so much. And thank you for the appreciation. >> Thank you, Miss Miss Elsa. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Okay. And um CRU or board policy. Do we want to Yep. I will just note that we will talk about the policy so that everyone else can leave at a more prompt time, but we'll be going over the new um board policy. uh newly will be named 3205 the nutrition ones to be in compliance with the um nutrition guidelines from the state. >> Okay. And now we have Chaffy again. >> Yay. >> Sorry. So,

072while Mr. Marciano's gathering the crew. Um, this is going to be a presentation about some work that all of our schools are doing in restorative practice and it looks a little different at every school, but I'm hoping the board will see the efforts made at Chaffi to help us our children learn from when things don't always go according to plan and how they can make it better. So, I don't want to steal any thunder. I'll let Mr. Marciano introduce our participants and there will be some board participation in this. So uh wait wait wait for that Mr. Marciano. >> Excellent. Good evening. Thank you. Uh people say usually three doses of me is two months. So this is your third dose and I apologize in advance. Um but I'm really excited. I have some amazing

073co-presenters here. Uh our goal tonight is really to just give you a little bit of a dose of restorative practices, what it is, but more importantly give you uh an opportunity to experience uh what some of our students have been doing in their classrooms. Um and and uh we are fortunate to have our our two leaders. Um so where we are in terms of implementation is last summer we were trained in restorative practices. Both Miss Bonfoy and Mr. Rosanski are our expert trainers and they've been working with our staff uh over the PL days. So, it's a 12-h hour training. Uh so, we've been breaking it up over a variety of different sessions. Uh the beauty of that is they've been implementing this from day one in the start of their classes. Um so, uh

074we have represent representatives from both of their classes today to share some of their experiences, but more importantly to kind of take you through what it looks like in the classroom. All right. So we'll get started. Um so uh we'll start with what is restorative practices just so you kind of have a background. Some of you may already know this or have heard this uh but it's a system of principles and processes that build and sustain a culture of respect, responsibility and accountability. And I think the important word there is accountability. I think sometimes people are misunderstood when they hear restorative practices as it's it's easy or doesn't deal with discipline um uh in the same way uh that um the more punitive approaches do. Um and I I I could argue that in many

075ways, but I will have you go to the next slide and share very intentionally that um people don't harm communities that they feel a part of and that they feel a belonging to. So, one of the most important components of restorative practices is the community building and building those relationships uh with the people in the community. Um, without a doubt, you put people in a in a space together, there is going to be harm um that that occurs. Uh, so there's a responsibility on uh as educators andor students um to repair that harm uh so that the community can continue. Um, but there is a deep investment in when people care about their community and they care about the people that they work with, there's less likelihood that they're going to engage in in um,

076uh, problematic behaviors. Uh, so we'll go to the next one. So you see some of the benefits here um, with relationships, uh, strengthening relationships, but also fostering empathy and understanding in terms of hearing other people's perspectives. That's a big part of uh just listening to what other people have to say, understanding where they where they're coming from. Um and also um honoring when when you make a mistake, you can uh you can let the other person know that you made that mistake and that you're willing to work through it and and and um and do better next time around. Um so hit the next one. So when you think about uh a lot of people think restorative practices is reactive. It's actually only 20% reactive. It's 80% proactive. So a lot of the things we're

077doing are before these anything ever occurs. Um and so our focus is really on that tier one aspect of the triangle where we're doing relationship building and it talks about the different um practices that we're going to be implementing. And we do that with the lens of all of those things in the blue. uh racial equity and cultural responsiveness, data informed decision-making, relational approach, relational approach as opposed to doing two, we're doing with um student student leadership and family engagement. We have some of our student leaders here. Um and then of course being trauma-informed and sensitive in relation to uh our approaches. And the next one, some of the uh these are the proactive practices that we're learning. in today. Uh tonight you're going to get the opportunity to experience I I I believe we'll

078do all of them in some way, shape or form through our circle activity. Um uh you'll see through the prompts and or through the um the different things that we're um engaging you in. Uh that you'll hear some effective communication. Uh I think a big part of inclusive decision-making is being a part of the community, right? So you'll have a say in in what we're going to be talking about. Um but that's better to be experienced than explained to. Um so I'm going to go into the next slide. I want to again introduce our um special guests. I Miss Bonfoy and Mr. Rosanski. Miss Bonfoy is our fourth grade teacher. Um and Mr. Rosanski is a third grade teacher and I'll talk more about them in a little bit. Uh and then we have our

079student reps. Uh, Rose Hollerin, uh, grade four in Miss Bonfoy's class. Raise your hand, Rose. And then we have Avery Crawford, uh, also in Miss Bonfoy's class. Grade four. Um, raise your hand, Avery. Avery was so confident this this afternoon when we went through this. She's going to do great. And then in third grade, we have Veta George. Raise your hand, Veta. And then we have Alex Artega. Um, thank you, Alex. um and they're going to um and essentially be circle keepers or or runners of the circle. They're going to take turns in uh different components of the circle. So, I'm going to ask um uh some of you to participate. I don't know if we have enough time for everyone to participate. So, I just need a few adults to interact with the with

080the students. They'll all participate. Um but it'll be uh it'll be more exciting if you partake in it. Any uh because I'm going to be running around. I have to get the talking piece to you. Uh, each of you have a talking piece. We put one in your bags. Um, it's a root chap heart. It's a squeeze ball, too. So, if you get stressed, >> Mr. Marciano, do you want >> You needed too. >> Mr. Mariana, do you want folks coming down that end of the table or what would help you? >> Well, I I can I can move the talking piece. We don't have to move because I don't want to mess with these microphones. Okay. Um, the kids are going to the students are going to ask the questions. Um, and then we're

081just going to do a quick whip around. Um, keep it light because, uh, like I said, I want to make sure these guys get home. They got school tomorrow. >> What's that? >> Oh, no. I can't give you the day off. We have work to do. >> All right. So, um, we're ready. Let's hit that next slide, Dr. Brumit, so I can kind of get us going. Um, Avery is going to introduce, uh, the the circle as a whole. I'll let her do that. Um, and talk through the different components of a circle. Um, so go ahead Avery, talk about it. >> Um, so for our community circle, we're going to go over the circle guidelines. And after that, we're going to do a circle opening and then a check-in. And then we're gonna do

082an activity called the connection activity, concert rounds, and then the circle closing. >> Excellent. >> I'm going to kill. >> And I didn't give you the the purpose of our circle. The purpose of our circle, this is a circle that we would probably do early in the year, uh, where students are just getting to know each other, um, and they're establishing, uh, how they want to work together as a community. So, there's some value setting in this particular circle. Um, and that's what our purpose is that we're going to just set some values of how we want to work as a community together. So, that's the purpose of our circle. So, thank you for that, Avery. And you're going to go to the next slide. You're going to go over the guidelines. >> So, the

083first guideline is respect the talking piece. Everyone listens and has a turn. The second one is speak from your heart, your truth, perspectives and experiences. The third is listen from the heart. Let it go. Wait, let go of the stories that make it hard to hear each other. And then the fourth is trust that you will know what to say. No need to rehearse. And the third one is say just enough. >> Okay. So, every circle has an opening. Um, and typically it's just a quick uh thing to get you thinking about the content of the circle. So, we're only going to watch uh 30 seconds of this video. It kind of highlights um our whole purpose tonight. >> Sense of belonging is one of the most important activators of a child's engagement in learning.

084As human beings, one of the most essential needs we have is the need to belong. When that sense of belonging is there, children throw themselves into the learning environment. And when that sense of belonging is not there, children will alienate. They will marginalize. They will step back. Norms are a way that we know. >> Excellent. Thank you. So, we're going to jump right in. Um, and I want to explain this and I have to give credit to the creator. So, we have an expert check-in creator in Miss Bonfoy's class. Um, she has created probably how many? >> She made this with the intention that you budget season and hence the money, right? So Julius Michael, one of our fourth grade students, uh is the creator of this uh daily check-in uh that is used um

085to see how students are doing. So VA is going to take us through the check-in. >> In the checkin, you're going to explain what you're feeling and if you want to, you can explain why. How I'm feeling today is happy to be here. Uh, shy cuz I don't like talking in front of too many people and tired. >> I'm feeling happy today. Nervous and tired. >> I'm gonna take it around. >> So, can I get a couple volunteers? I was a train. >> I am feeling happy because we got to spend all this great time with many of our students this evening. >> Well, I'm feeling uh a little of everything, but I would say I would I would say I'm feeling happy as well. um just being with everybody here and having a great

086time and and learning uh lots of uh what goes on and with the students and how they're uh well connected. Thank you. >> I don't want to give people a chance and then maybe we can do different people for different questions. I'm feeling happy slashg grateful for having awesome awesome students and an awesome board and all these things in my life. But I am so tired because I just took the train from DC. So I am very very tired. >> I'll go next time. I'll go next time. >> One more. >> Okay, Michael. >> Um >> I'm feeling happy that I remembered to turn my microphone on. Um, I am feeling happy. I'm feeling tired. I think we're all feeling tired. It's been a lot of weather. It's been a lot of work. It's been

087a lot of school. Um, but I'm feeling happy to see so many of our Chaffi students. Um, and our Newington public school students come in today and have a little facetime with the board. I think that's rare. Um, but it makes me really proud of the courage it takes to get up and talk to people sitting in a chairs in a big room with a giant table. Um, so thank you guys very much. We appreciate it. But that's how I'm feeling. Um >> um obviously I'm feeling happy. Um, I'm feeling really um and tired and shy. >> All right, Dr. Brahma, take us to the next one. We're going to go into the connection round. So, you remember the connection was part of our practices. So, this is where we kind of get started with

088something um to kind of open up the heart. And who's taking us through this? I believe that's you, Rose. Right. >> So, for connection round, we have a question. And the question is, if you could have any superpower to help our school community be the best it could be, what would it be and why? Give >> an example. Um, a change I would make in this community is like in our school, we have like corners to calm down in but like probably one or two rooms in our school. So, what I was thinking of is at least building one more room if there's like more people who need to calm down. >> What would your superpower be? >> That people. What's that? >> To help people. >> There you go. >> My super power would

089be kindness. So people would feel welcomed and feel like they belong. >> My superpower would be togetherness. So everyone would work together and everything would go in place. adults. Give me a chance. Want to go? >> Um, my superpower would be the ability to get unlimited resources so you can have everything you ever wanted. My superpower would be that I could take the students that were here tonight and sprinkle them around the district so they can share all their knowledge and wisdom with with everybody because they're doing such a great job. >> Dr. So, my superpower, I would have like a magical wand like the fairy godmother or like the little fairies of sleeping beauty. First, I would like to erase everybody's tiredness so everybody would get a nap, but the whole world would not

090know that we're napping. So, unlimited naps. And then the second is I would um um wave my wand and put infinite confidence in all of our interactions. No fear. Now, we're going to get into our content round, which is where we would spend a lot of our time in terms of determining our values. Um, and I'm going to let Alex introduce this. >> What is one value? What is one value or something that is important to you that you feel help ensure we have positive and productive learning experience together wherever everyone feels comfortable and can be their best selves. Share your chosen value in one sentence for explaining why they selected it for the community. >> You want to share yours? >> Good evening. Good evening every Good evening everyone. My name is Alexander and

091thank you for the opportunity for me to express myself. one value I think is important is discipline because discipline you can be confident and you can wake up early, nap earlier and have confident in yourself. >> That's this way. Let's go this way. Um, one value that's important to me is um, kindness cuz everyone, like I said in the other one, everyone would feel welcomed. One thing I value is my family and friends. Um because I I've been with my friends like half probably of my life and my family my whole life. A value that I have is probably self um accountability. So one value for the community would be patience. Um I think we all deserve a little more patience in our life having patience and getting patience and understanding from the community. you

092um a value that is important to me is respect. Um because I think that if everyone gives respect, they can receive respect and it's um can help everyone feel safe and not judged and just yeah love mine would be empathy. I think it's very important for us to try and see everyone else's perspectives uh and understand that we're very complicated people with a lot of things going on. Um and I think empathy is a great way for us to connect to one another so that we all can see each other's perspectives and live each in each other's shoes for a little bit. Does anyone have any clarifying questions of any of the values we heard? So typically we would establish these values as a community and those would be the like the the foundation for

093our work together and and so we hold each other accountable to those values because we've all said what what's important to us um and and how we're going to learn best in in in a classroom or in this space here um and how we communicate together. So it's that's the big piece of um uh inclusion or decision-m uh that's one of the um uh inclusive decision-m I included all the words just not the right words. Um so uh I think we are at the point now where we're going to next slide get an opportunity to hear from our um our everyday superheroes Miss Miss Bonfoy and Mr. Rosanski. When we started out on this journey, I never imagined it was going to be as good as it is. And it's only as good as it

094is because of these two folks. They are truly amazing in terms of um how they uh create a space for their students to be exactly who they are as humans. Um and it is a uh truly amazing thing to watch as an administrator. The growth that has occurred uh in their classes, in their students um and the things that they have done um are pretty amazing. I wish I could share all the stories with you, but I'm going to let them uh share one little anecdote with you each uh about the work that they've accomplished with their with their babies and even with our staff uh because they've done amazing with them, too. They're doing all the training. So, come on up. Go ahead, Brian. >> Hi, >> everyone. I'm Brian Rosanski. I teach third

095grade at Ruth Jaffy. I first wanted to say thank you so much to our student leaders who showed up. You did an excellent job representing our school and what we're trying to do um with our work with restorative practices. So, excellent job. I just wanted to briefly speak to the impact that restorative practices has had on my classroom since implementing it. Um overall, it's just it's offered many consistent opportunities for students to share their thoughts, um beliefs, and perspectives and more importantly for students to hear the perspectives of others and value those perspectives. Um it has been able to help our community grow exponentially since the beginning of the year. Um, and students are beginning to show much more agency, many more problem solving skills, and will independently solve problems together. Um, and as Mr.

096Marciano alluded to earlier, um, about not wanting to break apart or damage the community that you feel belong um, a sense of belonging with. Um, that is absolutely true. I think with restorative practices, students are doing things and making good choices not because they have to, but because they want to. And that's the big difference maker is that they really want to genuinely preserve the community. So, thank you so much for coming and listening to that presentation. I guess that um I am Hi everybody. I am best at talking when I've written something to read it. I'd like to pretend I'm like really brave and like trying to speak off the cuff and like I just know what I want to say. um I just have had a lot obviously going on so I don't

097have anything I didn't have a chance to like write anything but I also um just really believe in this work and um didn't feel the need to pre-prepare because if I look at my two kids here or our future fourth graders here um I think that just it speaks for itself. Um, I think my favorite thing about bringing restorative practices to the classroom, but also to our school is it creates an opportunity for everyone to just show up who as who they are and however they are. Um, when we circle up in the morning and we even had a period where our circles were very disrupted. We had snow days, delays, kids out of the room, things like that. And I we finally got a chance to after some interruptions get in in a circle

098together. And it was actually Rose that said finally cuz it just feels good to be in community with each other. Um and I think my first favorite thing is just how good it feels to truly just be in a circle together and see each other and share. And I'm so proud of the way our fourth graders show up and then are just willing to be whoever they are, however they are in that moment. um they always have the opportunity to pass in any of the prompts. Um that is part of the guidelines is if you don't feel like you have something to share or you just don't feel like you can or want to share, you can use your voice for advocating for your need to pass. Um and the fact that that doesn't happen

099often but does is really important because it just speaks to how comfortable um we all are with each other. I think what I my another thing that I was not prepared for um bringing restorative practices especially circles into my practice as an educator is the structure it's created for academic situations as well. Um, we've done a lot recently with like our benchmark things like coming and bringing our magazines and sharing something that we read or preparing for a writing task by talking about the question first and it gives um everyone a chance to kind of share what they're thinking which they all want to do all the time. But also the kids who are like a little stuck or not sure what they want to do or where they want to go, they can hear

100from their peers and I think hearing it from them is so much more powerful than hearing it from me the way I feel like I'm going to share it. Um, I also want to speak to the growth I've seen in our staff. I've seen so many different connection activities and circles and restoative conversations happening between teachers and students um just in response to the training that we've done and we're not even finished um and just seeing teachers give things a try and do a circle and be willing to try it even if it's not perfect and say how did this go? Do you have any thoughts? And I just walk into media and I see Mrs. Arsenal doing one or Mrs. Murphy's kindergarten class and she's doing one or um and I it's just it

101makes me really proud and it makes me really excited because I think we're creating a school environment that I would have thrived in and I didn't have the opportunity to do that. So it just makes me very happy and fortunate to be a part of that for these kids. Thank you. I think we are at the circle closing point. Um, and I believe Rose, this one's yours. >> Yes. >> We will close our circle with an acknowledgement or appreciation for something shared or something related to the circle experience. >> You can share or pass. something you appreciate or acknowledge? >> Um, I really appreciate um everyone giving us an opportunity to speak. Um, what I appreciate in this circle and the circle we do at school is that if you're like if you don't know

102what to do and if you don't know what to say, you're like welcome to pass or whatever you want. and you're all like you're all there for each other. >> I just want to appreciate uh the Chaffi community. Um I'm sitting here in such excitement and and joy and in love uh with um what we have created as a as a community um both with the students here and how proud I am of their contributions tonight and their their courage to come and sit and and and share this with uh all of you um and my teachers um and my mer team over there uh for staying. Um but uh it really is a special special place. Um, and I always say that Chaffi in my heart signifies love. Uh, because of the way people

103show up for each other. That is a core value that I don't think I brought, but people have. Um, it's something that is representative of this community is that no matter what's going on, people show up for each other. And that's what uh makes our school such a special place. Um, and I think that's something to to replicate, to be uh to to report on and and to speak about um for the people here, but for the community as a whole. Um, I want to acknowledge everybody here for being able to share stuff with us and um, like sharing our emotions and everything that's happened or what you've chosen to do. I have an appreciation of everyone staying strong here and no one's falling asleep. Everyone's staying productive and staying on task like my teacher

104says >> get an opportunity to do this. I know at the end typically you do the appreciation piece. >> Yeah, I want to go first this time. Um I appreciate the passion that you're bringing to this um this >> restore everything just this program. Um, and I think as a future social worker myself, like I feel like this is really like I'm taking notes like I literally want to do this like cuz I'm right now I'm doing groups and like this is just really awesome for like that initial group meeting and that and you know like that just building respect, building trust, building I think it's great that you're doing it in the classroom that you know has been around for a while but like this really kind of just adds to it and I

105think it's really powerful. and just to the students speaking like I know that you rehearse this but you don't rehearse every day and I think that that's you know important that you're able to um come with your true selves and your your opinion just what you guys said like you're you're able to just be who you are say what you want if you don't have anything to say you don't have to say it just I think it's really awesome that you're starting your day like this and you're able to have that strong community and that strong connection with your classmates and your teacher Um, and I love it. It just like makes me happy. I just really appreciate you guys and thank you for being leaders to teachers and students. Thank you for being leaders

106yourselves in your classroom and I'm really proud of you. So, thank you so much. >> I appreciate you guys coming and spending some time with us. I know it's not easy and you guys are very very busy and it can be a little bit overwhelming to be in a room with um people that you don't know or um haven't had an opportunity to interact with. What I really really appreciate though is how you guys are listening to each other. How you're creating some space for you to each listen to each other um and not pass any judgments. you're creating a safe space for people to share their feelings or not share their feelings whichever way um that they are um feeling at that moment in time. I appreciate the teachers who are leading the um

107groups. Um these are lessons that are going to um impact our kids as they go through the school process but also as they become adults. These are making our students better community members, better human beings. Empathy, trust, sharing, caring. Those are um very very important values that will serve them well and serve our community well forever. And so thank you for all of the hard work that our students are doing and especially our staff who are guiding them through that. It's it's not easy and sometimes um you know people have stress, they have all sorts of different emotions that can be um together, they can be in conflict and so there's a lot for for you guys to manage to create a safe space for them to share. So thank you so much. I appreciate

108all of you. >> Um I appreciate you guys listening to us for this long. Thank you everyone for staying so long because I know it's very late. So, thank you, Alex. You're right. Yeah, everyone's staying strong. So, thank you for saying that too for everyone to know. But I just want to say it is scary, especially when you're talking. You're like, who the heck are these people? I don't know these people. Uh, and have to go and say hi and say all these things. So, uh, I just want to say I appreciate you guys not only coming out, staying, but then also being very, very good representatives of the Newington school body. So, just want to say I know we're appreciating, but I'm going to acknowledge and say I'm proud. It's very great to see

109um all of you and now I have to tell my cousin who's your age, too, and be like, "Step it up." No. Um but also, I appreciate your teachers. So, thank you both of you so much for also staying cuz you also have bad times. Um but truly speaking, off the bon boy, off the cuff was very good for you. So, I would also recommend that you should you you can do that still. Um, but I actually got emotional because it truly your words about um, I wish like this I had this when I was there. Um, and that that spoke to me a lot um, having gone through the system. So to know that yeah, my um, my cousins will get that is is really nice. But thank you for literally all of what

110you do. Um, and then to the families, thank you guys for staying as well. Um, but supporting these awesome ones. Um, so thank you guys for creating them. I'm going to keep this brief just because as everybody has said it is late. Uh I have a personal stake in this game as well. Um but uh thank you guys very much for coming out. Uh it takes a lot of courage to sit here uh and do a presentation. You guys did an awesome job. I love this idea of circle. And I think that in a world that seems like it's increasingly try to separate us and get us to only talk with people who think and believe the same way we do. This is such a wonderful way to bring us together and to talk with

111people who think differently um and still respect them and that's how you grow. Uh you don't grow when you're by yourself. You got to grow with others. So what a wonderful activity. Thank you so much for for trying it out on us. >> Thank you. >> We're just going to do a quick >> Oh, pardon me. Sorry. Oh, she has one more slide to go. >> Thank you. >> She's just got one more thing to say because you're going to board comments >> okay then. Yes, you could do appreciation. Sorry. >> I wanted to acknowledge the staff at Ruth Chaffy. Um, it is a special place. when you walk in there, you know the climate of a building, the second your foot step um hits the the foyer floor. Um from the office staff that

112greet you, I have the pleasure of being a complimentary evaluator at Chaffi and I observe specifically their professional learning communities, which is you know this like academic setting, but it's not at Chaffi. It is a setting where there is trust and vulnerability and heartache and fear and all of that exposed. And um kids like this, the way that they show up here is because it's the way that the staff shows up at that school. Without adults, without teachers really showing up at school like this, the kids cannot thrive in that. Kids are so much more smarter than we think that they are. They pick up on every little thing about adults. So, I just really wanted to lift that up for the Chaffy staff and let you know what an absolute joy it is for

113me to work with all of you and a wonderful job. And now your turn. >> Thank you for your commitment to our Newington community. We were just going to do a group photo of our Ruth Chaffy uh presenters. So, >> superstars. >> Our superstars. The superheroes. >> While they're assembling, I also want to thank the ladies and gentlemen that were here tonight from our teachers to our students. And sometimes I show my appreciation through some cookies. So, >> cookies. Maybe I'll be making a delivery, but I do adhere to all safe school policies around food. So, just want to make that >> um that I really can't do. >> The select the select ones selected excused absences. Thank you. all day. >> Yeah. >> Oh, bro. >> Yep. Our parents feel free to do a

114little >> paparazzi. Go ahead. And parents are more than welcome to do photos as well. We'll we'll put them together for you. >> Hold on. Make sure everybody gets a different. >> All right. >> Thank you so much. Get some good sleep tonight. >> Thank you. Oh, thank you, Chasey. >> Anything else? >> Oh my god, he's so Great job, you guys. Good job. >> Thank you so much. kick off our next. >> Hi. >> Wow. Tough act to follow for our next presenter. Uh but I this is a follow-up item for the board. Uh many may recall that there's been uh an investigation into online payment methods and we did discuss it at a previous board meeting, but uh Miss Bovier has been hard at work looking at every possible system. So I will

115turn it over to her to introduce our online speaker tonight. Uh Megan Callahan from Lutus will give us a an overview of their system and Craig is here to also tell you the um technical information that you may have questions about and as a parent who who currently uses the system. So take it away. >> Hey guys, can you hear me? All right. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Fantastic. All right, that's a good start. Let me go ahead and share my screen and we'll kind of dive in over here. Awesome. Can you guys see this screen? All right. >> Yes. Okay, great. Um, Craig, I am I'm curious to hear you already have used Lutus in some capacity. Is that in a neighboring school? >> Yes, I I currently live in Berlin. So, Berlin uses

116Lutus for several different uh arts programs, I think, and a few other groups. >> Very cool. That's awesome. Yeah, I was kind of looking in the We work with some schools in the West Hartford public school district. So, I was curious what a connection there was there. Um, well, in terms of Ludas, I don't want to take up too much of your time tonight, so I will try to be brief. Um, but essentially how Ludas operates is we were founded in 2016. Um, we were founded by a high school drama teacher in Michigan who couldn't really find a great way to run his program. Um, so he partnered with a student of his that had just gone off to college. They built a very basic form of Ludus. And then fast forward to now, we

117work with over 5,000 organizations in all 50 states. We do a ton of other stuff. So ticketing is kind of our bread and butter. We work with performing arts organizations. We work for proms, homecoming, we work with athletic events if needed. Um we also do marketing, fundraising, volunteer management, so you know, having people sign up to come help with concessions or run a booth for something. And then we also do have a retail portal. So that might be good for like a school store or you know athletic or performing arts concessions that has inventory tracking and things of that nature. So I think the first thing I just want to kind of talk about is the patron view of something like Lutus. So this is an external landing page that everyone kind of builds out.

118Um, through here you can customize this with your colors, your logo, um, custom copy in here. But every event that you host, whether it's a show, whether it's a free graduation, whether it's an athletic event or a prom, each event has a graphic, a little synopsis here, and then you do have the ability to passcode protect events. So, if there's certain things that you don't want the general public to see, you can always kind of turn on or use this even as maybe like a pre-sale so family gets a week access to Anastasia before it goes on sale to the general public. Through here, you'll see all of the different dates of the event. You can have subtitles based on I saw I think Anastasia's double cast, so that's always nice. Uh, and then through

119here, it would either be a general admission event or it would be something like a reserved seating chart. We do build out all seating charts for free. So if that's something that a organization is interested using, we're happy to do that. From here, I'll just add the seats that I'd like to purchase. I can toggle between different price types. And then I can also add additional items. So maybe I want to buy a program ad or a cash shoutout for my kid in the program or I want to buy a bouquet of flowers or a t-shirt. You can create additional items too so that your organizations or your different booster clubs or your different um arts organizations can kind of you know increase the revenue they're bringing in. Down below they'll enter in their information.

120You get to decide what info is required or optional here. So there's really no need to take this last row for example if you don't want to. And then this is a nice piece if you do want to get the kids involved in the marketing of a show. You can ask some custom questions. see how people are finding out about Anastasia. From here, this is the checkout cart. This is where I can see the tickets in my cart. I could add more tickets to my cart. If I have a discount or promo code, maybe all faculty gets a comp ticket, for example, I could put that code in here. We also do have gift card functionality. And then there is a donation plea. So, through here, it can either be a general donation or you

121could come up with some different levels that have different perks. You can have corporate donations. you know, if a business is going to sponsor, maybe they get different types of perks versus an individual. And then, as a former middle school drama teacher, this is one of my favorite features. It's called student credit. And essentially, what you can do is you can import a list of your cast. And then when I'm buying a ticket, I can affiliate that I found out about the show from Me uh Megan Callahan. that adds it to a digital roster in the back end so that if the teacher wants to do a ticket selling contest or something of that nature with their students, it gets them pushing the show, telling people about it, and it becomes more collaborative. Through here,

122I'll proceed to payment. I'll be able to process my payment details. Um, through here, after the payment has been processed, I can either print my tickets out at home. I can get them digitally via text message or email address, or if the school allows it, you could mark it for will call. I will say most of my schools turn that off as they don't want to deal with physical printed tickets um on their end at least. So you can customize those features as well. So that's kind of like the event ticket flow. Now I do want to quickly kind of touch on a really cool feature we have for something like a prom. So what you can actually do is import a list of your students with their student ID numbers. And essentially they have

123to put in their student ID number to kind of validate their ticket. So now I'm kind of verified. But you can also have guest tickets. So let's say if I'm 9th or 10th grader, I have to be invited by an 11th or 12th grader. That would be a guest ticket. And you can say this person can only be added to the cart if you know they have a 11th or 12th grader also in the cart. So that can be a cool feature that a lot of schools have found in order to kind of maintain security um and automate some of those processes. So just keep that in mind that's there if you need it. Um there is an additional tab next to buy tickets. This is often used for activity fees, program ad sales, trip

124deposits, things of that nature. And then you do have a full donations tab with those levels, as well as standalone fundraisers. So, if I'm doing a a musical in the spring and I need to raise funds for that, I can create a specific campaign with a goal amount, a deadline, people can share it, watch the bar fill up, get excited about the upcoming fundraiser. And then the last piece here is going to be that volunteer management piece. So, if I need help with front of house, like concessions, ushering, ticket scanning, um running a booth or something of that nature, you can create different shifts that folks can sign up for. And you can make these private as well. So, if you don't want it to show up here kind of on your landing page, maybe

125they have to have gotten the link in an email in order to access it. You can customize kind of the visibility of these things. But that's kind of like the uh patronfacing side. I do want to hop now into the back end of the platform. So, one thing I loved as a teacher was how easy this was to use. It's super easy to build out a show. So, for Anastasia, for example, this is kind of what the buildout looks like for a teacher. They put the name of the event, the address, they can upload a graphic if they want, and then they'll choose if it's reserved seating or a general admission event. From here, we do also have a really great weight list feature. So, if a show sells out or an event sells out,

126a wait list can turn on. I can add tickets to the wait list and then if they become available you can grant access and again you can uh you know attach a custom form here. The next thing you would want to do is create your different ticket prices. So through here we'll create our adult and student senior price something of that nature. Any additional items that we want to sell like program ads or bouquets and then any discount codes like staff codes, sponsor codes, something of that nature. Now, the cool thing is the night of the event, you can also sell tickets through the back end. So, if somebody walks up to Anastasia on Friday night, I click new order. Seating charts going to pop up. I can add those tickets to the cart. All

127of these pieces down here are optional on the uh admin side. So, if they've got a long line, take a name and run. And then from here, this is where they can choose how the uh person is paying. They can also create invoices through here. So, if they're partnering with a retirement home that's going to bring 20 people, you know, they could invoice them for those tickets. It just kind of holds them in limbo. Donations can be added, but let's pretend this is a normal cash sale. I'll go ahead and put that cash sale through. And then from here, I can send them their tickets digitally if I'd like, or I can let them walk through and just click check in. Now, in terms of the check-in process, we have an app. Uh, it can

128be downloaded on Apple or Android devices. And this app just uses the camera on that device to scan the QR codes that are on all tickets. It's really great for knowing who's in the building, who showed up versus just who bought a ticket. Um, and it's a really great way for you to know if you should hold the house or not. If you've got 50 people that haven't checked in yet, maybe you hold the house for five minutes. So, that's kind of like the night of show process. Um, in terms of some other features I just wanted to quickly highlight. So, the retail feature, this would be great for, you know, maybe a school store or something of that nature. But essentially how it works is you build out every item that's going to be

129in the store. So, let me just open one of these up so you can see. So, this sweatshirt, for example, I will create this and then I can create what are called options. So, these are like variants. We've got different sizes and you can have independent inventories based on the size. So, maybe I have 10 smalls and I have 20 mediums. That's going to track that inventory for me. Now, if I am running the school store, what I do is I click sell items. I can see all of the items that I've created. I select the item I'd like to add over. And then from here, I hit process payment. You can process a credit card through here, log a cash sale, use a gift card, or comp an order if you need to, but

130let's just pretend this is cash here. It will help me do math if I need it. Um, and now that sale is complete. From there, I can email them, text them a receipt, I could print it out if I have a receipt printer, or I can not give them a receipt. totally up to you. But that's kind of like that retail piece for like concession sales, merchandise sales, or a school store. The last piece I just wanted to kind of point out here, which I found really helpful as a um teacher, was the marketing piece. So, you can create pre-event and postevent reminders and thank you emails that will automatically go out like a day before patrons come and a day after they come. Um, that's really nice also to get feedback from like an

131anonymous survey. And then the other piece of this are going to be the actual campaigns. So I remember as a teacher, you know, I would have the big musical every year, which is great, but then we would do the fall play and, you know, attendance was like 20% of the musical. So being able to kind of re-engage with those people that are always coming out for those big events and getting them to come out for some of the lesserk known events was really nice for me as a teacher through this marketing because everyone that buys a ticket is added into this database. So I can send them an email and say, "Hey, Anastasia is happening, you know, this night. Click here to buy tickets." And it's all integrated within the same platform. So it's really

132easy. They're all templated emails. It's drag and drop. So this is also something that some of our teachers will give limited access. Maybe they have a student that wants to go into marketing for the arts. You can actually create like a limited access login. They can't see financials. They can't touch ticket sales, but they can just kind of create marketing emails through here. they would log in and just see that marketing piece. So, just something to think uh think about is, you know, there are some opportunities for students to get involved in a limited access type of way through here. Um, we're at about 10 minutes now. I got one more thing I want to show you before I kind of open up questions. Um, volunteer management. So, this is kind of that piece I

133was mentioning. If you need parent volunteers or teacher volunteers for something, a lot of schools are using like a signup genius. you know, everyone one person has that login and no one knows who else is supposed to be there. So, it's kind of nice to have one system where you can log in, see who you're expecting that night and send out what are called requests to serve. So, if I was, you know, the drama teacher, my parents would sign up as volunteers, and then I would be able to send them out a request to serve for the upcoming opportunity I've created. It just sends them an email that says, "Hey, you've been requested to help with this. Click here to sign up for a shift." This is great for, like I said, concessions, maybe helping

134with the set or bringing food for double show days, something of that nature. Um, but that's kind of um that volunteer management piece. Now, in terms of fundraising, you can do kind of those standalone fundraisers or you can take general donations. The other cool thing you can do is create categories of donations. So if you want to specifically let people say this money is for microphones or this money is for costumes, you can kind of build that throughout the system. And then the last thing I just want to kind of touch on is, you know, how much do we cost? That's super important. So the nice thing about Lutus is that we operate on a per ticket convenience fee. That fee is 5% plus 75 cents per ticket. That's just for credit card sales. So,

135when you're logging cash sales, you're doing comp tickets, $0 events, like free events or a promo code that makes a ticket $0. There's no sort of fee included in that. The 5% plus 75 can be passed on or it can be absorbed. So, personally, when I would do shows, our ticket was $10. I would pass the fee on. We still made the full $10, right? So, if it's a great tool for, you know, an arts organization that doesn't want to eat into their budget, but really could benefit from having some more robust tools to kind of not just ticket the event, but bring people back, re-engage them, you know, fund raise when you don't have an event going on for a trip or something like that. Um, so that's kind of how Lutus works. We

136don't have any sort of contracts through Lutus. We're always happy to sign one if the district um is more comfortable with that, but we never want to lock you into using anything that you don't want to use. Um, this would just be like another option for your teachers in terms of um, processing sales for events or prom or um, doing kind of a school store concession situation. So, that's kind of what I had planned for today, just keeping your time in mind. Um, but I did want to leave a couple minutes for questions. >> Thank you. Does the board Miss Vas go ahead. >> Um, thank you for the presentation. It was very, very informative. I don't know if this is um a question for you or if it's actually a question for you. Um

137two things. The first is does it interface with parent square? How would parents it's something separate? >> Yeah. So this would be its own standalone product. So then the communication tool for example is going to come out of Lutus's engine. It doesn't necessarily match or or marry into Parent Square. doesn't mean we couldn't perhaps use parent square for some of the communications but it might not have the integrations uh exactly the same way doesn't mean we couldn't put a link to buying tickets in a parent square we could certainly there I believe >> okay just kind of get the the word out and then the the second question that I had is about security features does it maintain credit cards on file how does that >> yeah it does not so we partner with Stripe

138for credit card processing and they're tier one PCI compliant um but we do not personally hold credit cards within the system. That is all through Stripe. >> One thing she didn't talk about that might answer some questions that you might have as well if I am anticipating correctly. Um touchless payment um card reader uh in Berlin with the group that my wife is involved with the Berlin band. As a parent, I'm involved with all the drama stuff and going to shows, buying tickets. The band, we use it for apparel and fundraising and donations. uh at events, football games, people come out in the freezing cold. We can buy the hat, buy the t-shirt, buy a sweatshirt, whatever. But there's a little um reader. You just match it up to to the phone. All the parents

139pretty much that are volunteering will will use their phone. They install the Lutus app. They can then process the transactions right there, Bluetooth to a little reader, and people can stick the card in, they can tap their phone, they can Apple Pay, they can Android Pay. Um very, very simple. And all they need is internet access. So, if we can provide the Wi-Fi, there's any variety of tools. We're not limited. We're locked into a certain pay terminal or point of sale cash system or a special cash register. The band uses a cell phone and a cash box, for example. >> Um, is there a limit to how many like admins or like um people that can access the system? >> Good question. Yeah, there's currently no sort of limit on the number of um users

140you create. So, you can have as many different users with different access levels as you need. >> And then I guess for um like the process like the payment where your Stripe is um sending to school or whatever, is it like is there a limit to that like if there's multiple accounts or whatever? >> Yeah, that's a good question. So, let me talk about kind of how payout works with Ludus. So, you have two options. Um, a lot of our schools do paper checks through Lutus because their bookkeepers kind of prefer it. Um, but if you want to set up direct deposit, you can. Um, it's totally up to you. I will say if you're like, it depends kind of if you're going to have like each arts department kind of have their own um

141login, then it would be easy enough to do like a direct deposit. But I will say that with a paper check, you can have multiple different check um routes within the same account. And then when you create an event, it will ask you what check route do you want this event to kind of pay out to. Um so if you're hosting, you know, all of the high school's arts. So you've got a band payout, a choir payout, a drama payout. When you're creating the event, you'll see here it's going to ask you, is this an athletic event? You can have a band drop down, a choir drop down. Um, and then at the close of the show, um, we just cut a check and send it. So that if you're using this for multiple different

142things, you could either go the direct deposit route through Stripe or we can just cut a check at the close of each event. >> Okay. Thank you, Miss Weaver. Um, thank you so much. This is great. Um, is there a way to have like multiple landing pages or is that you would just have different loginins? I guess thinking from a district-wide standpoint like our high school doing events versus middle schools. Yeah. So, I would recommend for something like that that you actually have two different accounts, like for the high school and then for the middle school. I mean, we do partner with some organizations that host everything under the same umbrella. I'll kind of show you what that looks like. So, this is Bonita Center. Um, they're a performing arts center that kind of houses

143a ton of different schools. And what they do is they actually create each school as a category. Um, and so that when someone comes on here, you can link to specific categories. So, if you were trying to just show, you know, RMS events, you could link just to this RMS tab. Um, so that's another option, too. You could do that. I will say it just really depends on how you're using the system. Um, you know, if like I will say as like a drama teacher, um, if I'm doing like a fundraiser for drama and I'm doing my event and I'm doing marketing emails and, uh, volunteer management, I might want my own account like with the district also having a login, but I might not want to share the same account with the band if

144they're doing the same volume of stuff in the same account because it can get a little bit like overlapping. So, a lot of our more robust arts programs prefer to kind of have their own account that the district has a login to. >> Got it. Um, and no annual fees or did I >> No, there's no annual fee. There's no startup cost. Um, it's just that per ticket fee. So, if they choose to pass that on, it's 100% free for the school to use Lutus. The patron just pays that as a small convenience fee on top of the ticket. Or you can choose to absorb it if they're like, "Well, we'll just raise our ticket price by a dollar and absorb the fee." You know, it's it's up to you how you want to kind

145of handle it, but it is on an account by account basis that you set that up. >> Got it. And I guess then my question would be to Lynn, like how you feel about it in terms of access for accounts and that kind of stuff. I I think that it's a good system and I have a parent that used it at the end of the table that I brought along who who says it's a very good system >> and from a technological standpoint and a parent stand this is perfect. You feel good. >> It's it's easy. I've from from making donations to the band at a jazz concert um auction to buying tickets for the drama events to buying or setting up the apparel page. My wife runs all the apparel for the band and

146music program there. So, at events and whatnot, they sell the apparel. So, she keeps inventory with it. We take pictures of the shirts when they come in. You add them to the store. People can shop and buy online. We do all the sales in person typically, so there's no shipping or anything like that. But, they come to the event, their stuff's in a bag ready to go. They can pay for it or they can pick something out, try it out, and if it's not available, they know. And we we know to buy more of the extra large next time. So, my wife uses it for all that piece of it. And from her perspective, she is just an average user. She's not a tech expert by any stretch. And it didn't take very long to

147become comfortable with it enough to to kind of manage the store on her own and and do their thing. So the finance person just does the finances. They show up, they put the reader out, they help the volunteer connect their phone and either go to the Lutus website or the app. It Bluetooths to the reader and store open. And if we're in a spot that doesn't have Wi-Fi, he'll usually pop a hot spot out or something like that. >> If you've ever been to the carnival at the fair, you've been to the park for the annual um extravaganza, you're going to the craft booths and they all have the little readers on their phones. It's just like that. It'll function just like that. So, you have the same experience. >> Um did you run this

148by Ali Miller too for the Dela store? I I gave her all the information and um she was in the middle of >> kind of busy >> a lot of things. >> So um I have not heard back from her, but I did give her all of the information. I mean it looks cool and I like it seems like even like having students create marketing emails or like the inventory piece of it like that kind of seems I don't know what they use today but just curious her thoughts on it. their their POSOS system is very old, so they um are in desperate need of a new one. >> Okay. >> And they were looking at actually buying the equipment that they would need, but with this, >> they don't need to. >> I have

149no idea. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Go ahead, Dr. Stanley. >> Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I just had a couple questions. Um, is there a way to opt out of being put on the marketing list um when you go through the purchasing process or afterwards if you were like, "Nope, I'm actually just visiting from another state and I don't come here on the regular." >> There's both options. So, when you first buy a ticket, it will ask you if you'd like to opt into emails. And if they've created different mailing lists, they can select which mailing list they wanted to be on. um or if they haven't, then it's just a general mailing list that they're opting into or out. But at the bottom of every single marketing email that goes out, there

150is an unsubscribe button that they can select and that just unsubscribes them from any marketing emails. >> Perfect. And then so what do you typically do or see folks do when they do like a payout for their concessions or a payout from their store? Is it a quarterly kind of thing? Is it a annual thing? >> Good question. Yeah. So, for concessions, it's usually a monthly payout. >> Okay. And then final question, um, because we all know that this is internet and Wi-Fi and and they're very dependent on servers. Have you had any history of a crash where the servers are down? How long did it last? How frequently does it happen? >> Yeah. So, we have a 99% uptime. I will say when Amazon Web Services went down for half the internet maybe four

151months ago, um Ludus was down for a couple of hours, but that's the only outing that I've seen in the last two years that I've been here. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah, of course. Any other questions for Megan? >> Okay. Well, we appreciate your time. Thank you for sharing >> your >> Thank you guys for welcoming me. It was really exciting. I as a theater person, I loved hearing about, you know, hearing how excited you guys were about the play and the musical coming up. And uh it's great to see Boards of Education celebrating the arts. And I that presentation before me was super cool. And I'm like I I taught middle school in Florida and I'm like, we need to bring that guy down here real quick. >> So, I appreciate everyone's time

152tonight. Um, if there's any follow-up questions, um, Lynn, feel free to shoot me an email and I can get you some answers. Thank you all. Have a good night. >> Thank you. >> Bye. >> All right. Are we Yeah. Are we good with So, what's the next steps for the processing, payment processing? What are we thinking? Yeah, >> I would say if the board feels this is a go, it sounds like there's not a lot of risk on the board's side for expenditures. We've got our tech expert at the end of the table endorsing it from a user perspective. Lynn, any thoughts on your end? >> Uh, of all the the systems that we looked at, it had the least um you don't have to buy anything. All the other ones you had to buy

153something and um a lot of the technology was not compatible with our network. >> The the other solutions all had some kind of lock in. So if you buy uh I don't know a lot of the coffee shops all are using uh a specific platform. I forget that the name's escaping me right now that I need it on my lips. But um some of those products where you sign up and you get the credits and you get the free coffee every 10 purchases or whatever uh you have to buy their cash register. You got to use their ter I think the challenges that Lynn was facing was you have to use their transaction companies. You have to use their credit card processing companies. You have no freedom at all and you're locked in. If you

154want to buy a cash register, it has to be this certain model at this certain expense. And it may or may not have worked in some cases in our environment or if it did as Lyn and I were sharing it's we would have to make sure we built an infrastructure in place uh out like maybe if there was I don't know the Wi-Fi is okay at the fieldhouse up there but it's not super um if they were having problems with transactions at the concession stand for example if they used it there we might want to consider running a wire in and doing some minor you know infrastructure pieces u maybe some places we have to add an access point or add some Wi-Fi or the the hotspot could be a very good backup as well.

155And it's also mobile now, too. So, you can use this anywhere. And you're not locked into anything. It's an iPhone. It's an Android phone. It's a web page, laptop. So, >> and it could be used at any school. >> We just have to have them get trained. >> Okay. Um I And we obviously have easy school pay. That's like this isn't necessarily replacement for that, right? This is just above and beyond for like cuz the initial request was like having the ability to pay for prom online or like that kind of thing like student um student activity fees or sports fees, right? So, easy school pay would stay for like lunch and preschool and >> that's basically what it for right now. The um the Chromebook insurance, the preschool fees and school lunches. But the

156pro that easy school pay does belong to the school cafeteria program. >> Okay. >> So, we're just piggybacking on them. >> Okay. >> This could be independent of it if you wanted it to be. >> Um I did I was paying preschool the other day and I noticed that there were no Well, I don't think there were fees on easy school pay. Is that correct? >> Easy school pay does have fees. >> Does it have fees with preschool? Is it >> or is it >> all of them? No. No. this company will give you >> credit card receipts will take will accept a credit card without a fee because they the credit card companies have to make money. >> I'm just wondering if it was lock like rolled in or something cuz like I when

157I pay for like lunches then it's like an additional fee but I didn't see it for preschool. I'll go back and check but okay >> your experience is exactly what she was referring to as well though. There there are the fees someone's going to front that and someone has to pay that. You can as the organization >> either keep your ticket price and say, "All right, we're instead of 10 bucks, we're going to make >> 975 per ticket or 9.25 per ticket." Or you could say, "It's going to be 12 bucks and maybe you make an extra buck or two, but you know, you have the option to conceal that, if you will. I'm not trying to sound creepy, but you can you can either have parents who might get upset seeing that there's an

158extra fee on top of the $10 ticket or whatever it might be or just take that stress away and adjust your pricing or depends. >> So, it could be that we're like NPS is absorbing the preschool fee maybe >> and not the lunch. >> I just didn't see like I didn't see it so it must be like a behind thescenes thing. >> Yeah. Um yeah, I was um I was setting up our like cheer registration today actually for um for youth cheer and because I do all the things as well as Gale. Um and and we had that there's like a $10 fee and we had to like make the decision to like absorb it or not. So that that makes sense and I think that for some organizations it might be worth it to

159do that like the well they can make their own decisions and I guess that's the beauty of it is you can make your own decision or which whoever is collecting the fees can make their own decision. >> Having the third party credit company too takes all the risks and challenges away with being compliant in the payment systems arena. You know that there are many many challenges and expenses the district would have to inherit itself if we had to maintain maintain that information here. Lutus' fees would be very different if they had to maintain that umbrella of security and compliance using Stripe and them they their platform as part of the fee structure, right? They share that with everyone that plays in their sandbox. So it's it's we all share in that cost but we don't

160we're not encumbered or burdened by it. >> Yeah. >> I mean I like the cash option too. That's so like it's it's like you know gas. >> Yeah. We use the cash option, >> right? Like I was going to say for there there's at least then choice too. If you want to use cash, you can. And then that you get it. I mean, it's the same as like if you're at the gas pump and you pay cash a little less, blah blah blah. I was a little worried about like the fee, but I feel like everywhere you go, it's it's constantly that like you're expected to have that. So, I do like the flexibility of that. And I know like at the Bush and all it's like you pay at the box office, you don't

161pay fees, but if you pay online, you pay a lot more than 5%. So that's just a PSA, but it makes sense. >> Mr. Hollerin, >> so this seems like the best option that we've seen so far. What are the next steps? I think we kind of started down that path and didn't finish it to get this moving. >> Okay, just if we have no objections, we can >> I don't think we have to vote on it because >> this was just something the board had shown interest in and we did some initial factf finding. the first set had pretty, you know, significant fees that made people uncomfortable. Um, and we didn't necessarily have someone that could attribute the fact that this is a good system and give us that background information. So, we can

162move forward. I think we wanted to check with Ally to make sure it's compatible with her school store um needs, but unless there's objections, we can move forward. There's really no need to vote on it. Yeah, because they were not spending money like you said, like there's no nothing up front for the district to um to pay. So, yeah, seems like we're in agreement that and yeah, and just a followup, it can be by email just on Alli's response to to the information. Obviously, she has been pretty busy. >> Okay. Thank you, Craig, too. Thank you for your Yeah. your personal experience with it. >> All right. Next is um update on the budget new business. So um so last night Do you want me to go or you want to go? >> We um

163Dr. Brumit, Lynn and I um spoke with the town council, presented the budget, Dr. Stanley, Mr. O and Miss Pete were there um in the audience to support as well. Um and I think it went pretty well. We definitely went through our ask um the the town manager I think you had noticed, Miss Weaver, that the the the ask for the town manager in the budget was higher because uh it was finalized prior to our Wednesday meeting where we like officially transmitted it. So, um, so we just let them know that automatically they could reduce by 900 something thousand. So, that kind of is that was a big reduction, um, just right off the bat, not having to do anything to, um, the town manager's budget. Um, but there were some questions. There was a

164lot of questions about buses. Um, as you probably all know, they did cut or the town manager cut the bus request to 800,000, which will be enough to buy approximately five buses when we really need seven. Um, there was questions about the replacement cycle to which we kind of said that it's very it's just it is what it is. It's very stringent 90-day inspections, we're transporting children, like all of that. Um, so we hope that they will keep the 800,000. I did advocate for 950 because that will get us up to um the number of buses that we need to purchase. Doubt they're going to, but it was worth a shot to ask. Go ahead. You can >> What would be the total cost for the seven buses? Roughly >> 950,000. >> So if they

165give us 800, we're short the 150. Okay. >> Yeah. Two bus. Two. >> Yeah. One bus. So we need seven buses. Six buses. How many? >> They're about 157,000,000, but I don't believe they're all big buses in this in this. >> Your mic's big. >> Okay. So, our finance person's we need 950 ideally. That That's what we we advocated for. Um and we do have to update the when u Mr. Barnes is on vacation currently, but when he gets back, um, there was some questions on the number of buses actually purchased because the spreadsheet says three and three, but we think it was less than that. >> The spreadsheet is what we wanted. >> It's not what we actually got. >> Yeah. So, we should update We're going to update it to what we actually

166have. Yes. Um, trying to think what else. There was definitely questions about non-lapsing. Um, we did say that we were putting into in $2 million to offset the ask. Um, they asked how much was in there. We kind of went over that a little bit. The only thing I would add is the uh at the conclusion of the meeting. There were a lot of follow-up questions. Tonight, I sent out to both the town and the board the answers to the ones that we were able to do immediately, which was all of them except um the busing questions cuz Dean is on vacation. Um I did hear back from the state school finance project. Um and they did indicate one of the questions what town council propo proposed last night was will the reevaluation that just

167happened at the town level impact ECS and the answer to that is not yet and about three or four years down everything's you know three or four years down the road because everything has to catch up to that. So, I don't think there'll be a negative impact based on what I heard back. I put it in the document um that the and still we're waiting to see if the legislation is going to increase ECS for this year. Still remains to be seen. That money goes to the town, but I advocate for because it's an offset to expenditures that the community has to absorb. >> And then there was um we did make note um two things. the PAR benefits. We talked about how um we added in obviously it's super important to offer that to

168our paras tutors and RBTs. Um if they decided that they wanted to remove that from the budget, we talked about having to add back that $200 um,000. And then um then we were um we showed a slide that said that we still have outstanding grant um requests out there for the Nor Easter Academy and for the schoolbased health center. And so there was a question that what if they funded that money and then we ended up getting the grant. So um Dr. Burma was looking into like potentially if we could do anou with the town that says that you know if we get these grants we can return the money back to the town or um I had said that it would go just seeing where you know next year where we end up and

169it would go back to non-lapsing or back to the town based on how our budget works out. Um but didn't seem to like that. So we'll uh we'll see what we can do there legally. Um obviously if the money is allocated to education it has to be used for education. So >> requires that, correct? >> Your your mic's not on. >> An ECS grant requires them to use it for educational purposes. >> Yes. But this would be like the um the 100,000 grant that Dr. Brema had written >> guarantee it was >> written for the the Nor Easter Academy or the money that we were looking for um working with Gary Turko on the schoolbased health center. Um, any other those of you who are in the audience, any other things that came up that

170I missed or comments or anything from anyone? Go ahead, Miss Rus. >> Just more of a comment. Um, we have the bus conversation every single year. Um, this is my third budget. We've had long conversations about this. Um, and just a reminder, Dean's been very, very good about providing data that shows the savings per student that we have by having our own buses. And, you know, we're not the only um uh community that's struggling with budget issues and and trying to contain costs in ways that that provide services and and safety and things like that, but still make sense. um surrounding communities that are contracting their bus services are finding that they are not getting savings. They are actually paying a lot more. And so I would strongly urge our friends on the council and

171and members of the community to continue to support the fact that we have uh our own transportation that has um our students and our community's best interests at heart. And as Mr. Hollerin always points out for-profit businesses are for-profit and this is um a way for us to ensure safety to ensure continuity of service um and to uh provide the the best that we can do for our community in far in terms of managing costs. So I would just remind everybody how important it is to maintain those services and that an investment is just that. It's an investment that allows us to continue providing that level of service into the future. Um, and we need we need to do that. Um, we don't gain anything by um either kicking the can down the road or

172actually making a a deep change. So, that was a a takeaway. I mean, I I feel like there always questions about it, but the answer always is the same. We do better by keeping those services within. >> Thank you. Um, I don't know who was first. >> Mr. N. I would say that we should have the town council sit outside one of our middle schools or high schools and see the buses that come in from out of town and the condition of the equipment on the road and then they'll understand why we want to keep our own buses. I see it every day. And I'm talking some are good, some I wouldn't put my child on it. So I just think they need to be realistic. >> Thank you. Uh Dr. Stanley, >> uh, one

173thing that they brought up as concerns is our capital asks too. So, um, not only are buses going in there, but, uh, we're requesting the paving of the parking lot and the roof. And so, that was some concerns that they brought up. And I could see where that would be an avenue that they're looking towards kind of tightening the budget there. And that is somewhat concerning. I don't obviously roof sounds very important. I don't I don't think uh that that is negotiable, but plus minus on the parking lot. It's been a long time since I've been at Route Jaffy, so I'm not sure which parking lot it is, but it sounded like a safety risk cuz not only was it potholes, but was it also like in barriers um to prevent cars or am I

174imagining that >> they put in the barriers? >> Okay, >> they put in the barriers, but there is I'm sure after the storms they're in even worse shape. >> Yeah. root issues because there trees that have one side been pretty close to >> a lot of broken pavement, uneven pavement. >> Yeah. So, um just be prepared because I feel like that, you know, there the town is deferring a lot of other capital investments like repairing the library and doing things with the pools and so I could see where that will get kicked down the road unfortunately. Maybe I don't know. I can't guess what they're going to do. I'm just speculating. Um but also um just for my little brain and sometimes tired and fatigued, the non-lapsing fund, we could technically use that for buses.

175Is that right? If we needed to. >> Technically, yes. Um we can use it for anything for education. Um but again we like we or you know or the um realized savings from the prior year. Um but that would definitely be a um it's not necessarily in my opinion something that we'd want to make a habit of like because we need to maintain that and we don't know for sure how things will play out. like we've gotten quote unquote lucky with special education. Um but two new students can move in and that could wipe out our entire um you know non-lapsing fund. So I think that yes, technically we can and it would just have to be a discussion or decision that we we would make as a board. Yeah, I I feel I fear

176um that that's going to be another place where they >> remove us from the budget and avenue. And so if it is a priority for the board for this year to purchase some of buses, maybe that's something that we consider on a year-to-year basis um using it out of there or the realized savings. Um, and then, uh, I had one other thought, uh, just, um, for future years, if we can really try to figure out and be really accurate about our contracting services, especially for those um, diagnoses of um, the special ed needs. Um, I think those are expanding incredibly. Um, and it doesn't seem like we have a lot of negotiations, but maybe that's just my ignorance of how we are able to negotiate or if there's any wiggle room. But that seems to

177be a big budget money reliance on there. And if we can just somehow explain that our hands are pretty much tied, they get to make their own um their own numbers about how to do it. And whenever we talk to our neighbors and our communities, you're like, "Well, that that doesn't make any sense to me. How how can they do that?" And I agree, it doesn't make any sense to me, and it makes me angry, but it doesn't mean I can like not pay the bill. Um, so if we can just somehow spread the word or communicate why this is such a expense that we can't negotiate down. >> Yeah. And Dr. Brahma that correct me if I'm wrong. That's some of the work that you're doing too to advocate at the state level and

178with CAPS to um talk about special ed and then the cost and and all of that. >> Yes, there is a a study that we're undergoing right now. It's almost ready actually. And I I'm hoping with some of the publicity coming out of that, people will see the rising cost of special ed and there would be more state offset to that or even some just procedural changes that would make um um current rates that go up by a point every year. It's just a high prevalence rates are also driving up costs. So, there's a lot of factors, but um I think I appreciate the suggestion that we can be even more transparent about what some of those costs entail. I mean, I just signed off on a bill today from special ed for a $5,000

179psychiatric evaluation, and that's just not the first one I've signed off on. Um and even higher costs for a neurosych or other types of evaluations that are extraordinarily costly. >> Yeah. Um I everyone just >> you guys cheers. >> Just a quick followup to Dr. Stanley's question about the um parking lot at Chaffy. Have we had any reports of a staff or a student being injured? >> Not to my knowledge. No. Uh we've made some repairs. Um, but I did commit to the town to get a little more information about the last time it was paved and I did already talk to them about when the roof was last done at at Patterson. So, I think a little more information from Jason Plum about that. But there to my knowledge there's been no injuries there.

180>> Mr. Ta, >> uh, the um, the buses that the first student buses, what are those part of Newington? >> No. >> Okay. Because I see a lot of those in Newington. Are they where are they going back and forth to? That's the Hartford route. Hartford uses it. >> So the kids coming in from the Open Choice program. >> Hartford uses autumn transportation. >> That's New Britain. It does First Student. >> I think um Open Choice uses it. They use a conglomeration because they can't >> not one company can meet all their needs. But there's Yeah, First Student is traversing Newington quite a bit. People call us to complain about First Student. as a that is not our bus to real to be >> and one more one more question. Um looking down the road

181with all this uh new housing going on that's being built tremendously isn't that going to put a serious strain on the school system with all the kids >> we do >> buses and and is that's just going to just go up until to space. I mean how high is it going to go? could uh we have had it, truth be told, for some of the the apartment now that's on Cedar. Um we do monitor that for enrollment experiences. We do an annual report from what's called NASDAQ and they look at impact of new housing and the town is good about communicating with us and thus far we've had some busing impact not a lot of and certainly no overcrowding at our schools because of some new students but some new busing routes have had to

182be established because of those new apartment complexes. Yes, >> Miss Weaver. Oh, I was just going to say thank you Dr. Dr. Stanley for raising that. Um I think yeah, one of the things that I thought was eye opening statistics that I was grateful we got to highlight and thank you to Marina again. um was was those evaluations and just the cost and I think once you get into the granularity of of that and also the kind of monopolistic or duopolist whatever it's quite a low amount of uh providers and the lack of regulation on that particularly being that it's it's not a public good but very much so that we are beholden to um to a lot of the providers of these services um and there is no cap or or regulation on how

183much we can really hit um at least to a substantial degree. So I think that's yeah it's very market driven and that's like when it's a business for our students it's very hard when it's it's needed and mandated too then um so I think hopefully more folks uh are aware and we can just keep talking about it more I think but um definitely need some stuff at the state level to help us as it because the cost is getting passed down to all of our districts uh and ultimately then to the property taxes and to our to our tax owners. I think um being able to show uh that serious impact um and I just wanted to still thank everyone. Sorry I was in DC so I couldn't make it but um just want to

184thank everyone for attending. Um so I appreciate you taking extra time and to Lynn and the whole team for um the presentation that was shared to all the board and I know to the town council now um that the email Dr. Braum sent out but it looks so pretty. Just appreciate Yeah. Appreciate the visuals as well though. Um, Lynn, I know you're you're on the pie charts and all these things, too. I think sometimes that that is I'm a visual, so um it is super helpful, so hopefully others could could see that. Um, and is that just asking is that on then their packet or is that up on the website somewhere? Maybe we could. I know the budget packet. >> Oh, our you want me to put that one on our website? I could.

185>> Yeah, I just I know our budget packet is online just so people and the revised one. I know that was a a request uh last meeting by a member of the public. So just wanted to say thank you for putting in additional efforts as we continue this wonderful process. >> Okay. So good discussion board policy. Beautiful. All right. We are going to run through this because it is I am as our our little friend Alex said. I'm tired too. Um but uh just so everyone knows um shout out to the incredible policy benny committee. Um, yes, this is the correct one. Um, thank you, Mr. Diaz. Dr. Gail Stanley. >> Yep. >> He he printed some. I know. I I know we have some preferences. Sorry, Miss Lindsay. I know. I know. But we

186have hard copies of this, too. Now, just so you can see um for the proposal and just um so thank you, Mr. Das, for for printing that out. Um if anyone else needs any um but essentially, we talked about multiple things. So, this is part policy committee report, but um thank you to my incredible members, Dr. Gail Stanley, Mary Beatatric. Um we went through a couple of the 9,000 policies, but this is of precedent because um uh Miss Marovitz got an extension um till April 30th. So, our goal, just as a preface, is to review this policy tonight. We'll bring it back to our policy subcommittee on March 23rd and then bring it back for full vote at the April meeting. Um, so that is done by April 30th, which is um, what the state

187gave as an extension. We are one of the, if not the first district in the state to have this um, policy. So that's also pretty fun. So there's really no precedent, so there's nothing really to go off of. Um, but I know conversations were had with Shipment and Goodwin as well as um, I think some consultation with the state. So um, the first policy was presented, but then um, I did ask about uh, the as of October 1st, 2025 one. uh the all this language. So um all of this wonderful hard work um was actually not needed because uh a lot of it can be simplified because it's all in statute and we know if we know anything about policy we know statute can change other things can change um so it's usually easier just

188to have the statutory reference in it. Um this is all because of the um new by America by American provision requirements that are federal law. Um so basically what it added was um this is all having to do with the specific procurement processes for our nonprofit school food service account. So truly I think um I always like more simplified language. So um this is what was changed about the policy um as it was kind of first drafted was just we don't need to be incredibly specific about the micro small informal purchases and all of the dollar amounts. oftentimes I was worried about that too that like you know a certain inflation's still happening dollars will change I'm sure those numbers will change too um so that is that am I missing anything policy committee Mr.

189D is >> no just add um >> and thank you for meeting with Miss Marovix. You guys did all the behind the scenes work. So >> yeah, absolutely. And this was a a direct um so the um child nutrition program assessment that happened uh the administrative review, we had glowing reviews as as was reported. There were just a few small areas for corrective action and this was one of them. And as um Miss Weaver said that um because we're one of the first districts I think that went through this, there wasn't a lot for us to go off of. Um, but Miss Maravix is working with the state directly. So, she's been sending this draft back and forth. Um, and they advised us on some of the language and some of the statutes that are

190included here in the federal regulations. Um, so this piece will change the October 1st date. They according to Miss Maravix, that'll probably change every probably six to seven years. So, we would have to then revise the policy. So simplifying the language, eliminating that and having a link and putting the actual um statutes and regulations in there would be the way to go for us so that we don't have to update this every six or seven years. >> I love that. Love Newington leading the way too. >> Any comments, questions? Okay. Thank you. Thank you guys. March 23rd, 6:30, come back for another round of policy, guys. Okay? And if you have anything, email me or Mr. D or anyone on the policy committee if you have any further questions about that. Thank you. All right.

191Um, at this point, so we have an executive session planned, public participation. Um, do we want to move public participation up or just do our executive session and go back? Any thoughts on that? >> Just get it out of the way. Okay. Um, there's a couple members of the public online. Um, one. Um, so do we need a motion to move that up? And then we also need to change our agenda executive session agenda item verbiage um because we need to make it more specific as per FOYA laws. So um >> I would recommend two >> two motions. Okay. So I'll entertain a motion to move. >> Motion to amend the agenda to move item J public participation um to before item I executive session. >> Second. >> We have a motion and second. Is

192there any discussion? All in favor? >> Any opposed? All right. Motion passes unanimously. Yeah. Do you want to do that now? and um move the Newington Board of Education change the verbiage on agenda item I or now J from executive session review attorney client communication to discussion concerning an attorney client privilege communication related to legal steps for addressing a district retirement incentive policy proposed for executive session >> second we have a motion second is there any discussion all in favor any post >> okay perfect at this Time out open up to public participation on any matter related to board responsibilities. Um if you are nos in the room no one's in the room. Um if you are online you can raise your hands to be recognized and seeing none last call. Okay. Um, so at

193this time I will entertain a motion to go into exe. Yeah, we are inviting Dr. Brummit. >> N so um yes, we need a motion to go into executive session with Dr. Bett. >> Move that we move to executive session uh with an invitation extended to superintendent Dr. Bett. >> Second >> motion second. Is there any discussion? All in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion passes. 8 Z. Gail Stanley has left the building. >> Lasers, >> just the room. >> Um, she will be back shortly. >> You all >> Yes. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> She get to leave. >> Yeah. >> I want to come say hello to the new board members. >> How you doing? I'm good. Doing fine. You online meeting I got called to person got cancelled so I didn't get

194to say hello but I know you guys have to go but want to say welcome step out the ladies room >> thanks Craig thank you for your extra help tonight it's confirmed you guys went to high school together >> oh yeah confirmed >> it's confirmed >> so funny >> yes we did a a while ago. >> So, >> are we in a different email to myself? >> The board members online. I'm just read it to them. >> Yeah. I'm like in it. Get me out of this. Get me out. >> All right. But still a little bit. Yeah. Hey, it works. All right. Now we are back from executive session and we're moving on to rebarks remarks by board members. Are there any remarks by board members? We're still missing Marissa. Okay, I loved tonight's

195meeting. Oh, were you gonna go >> or just >> Thank you to everyone. Congratulations to our social workers, our M team, all our incredible students. You guys are amazing. I love you so much. No, truly like it was it really was heartwarming and thank you all. We appreciate your appreciation. Thank you for the thank yous. >> Tonight was a good meeting. >> Oh, what's our next meeting? >> Our next meeting? Oh, we canled March 25th. >> Happy birthday, Charlotte. And we are um our next meeting will be April 8th. >> I believe it's April 8th because the next week is vacation. >> April 8th, 7 p.m. >> And prior to that, the budget will be set. So, >> awesome. >> Motion to motion to >> second. All right. Motion to second. Any discussion? All in

196favor? Any oppos? Meeting adjourn 9:56 p.m. >> Thanks, guys. for some of us.