NPS BOE Meeting - (2/4/2026)

001that All right, technical difficulties have been quasi resolved. So, we are going to call this joint meeting for the board of education and town council to order for Wednesday, February 4th, 2026. The time is 7:12 p.m. Please rise for the pledge. I pledge algiance 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. >> Doug, would you please call the role? >> Mary >> here. >> Marissa >> here. here. >> Here >> I like is here and mayor John. Okay. So, I'll accept Miss Gonzalez if she's not online. >> Miss >> Oh, Kathy's on. Okay. >> Sorry, it's it's cutting in and out. >> No worries, Kathy. Glad you're here. Okay. Um I would like to open

002it up for um public participation on any matter related to board responsibilities. Um we are increasing the time to four minutes. Um and if you Huh. >> Policy. >> Yes. policy to come later on. Um, so yeah, if there's anyone online or >> hands, >> no hands. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Um, and then presentation of award proclamations. We have our everyday hero. I will turn it over to Dr. Bremit. >> My pleasure. It is my pleasure to introduce Jason Lambert, principal of Martin Kellogg, as our everyday hero for this evening. >> And I I did note there are a lot of Martin Kellogg folks on the line. Um he was nominated by LSE Jazella Perez, the library media specialist at Kellogg. And here's what she wrote. Mr. Lambert at Martin Kellogg has been

003a cornerstone of New Newington public schools collaborative equity efforts by fostering an environment where every individual feels seen, heard, and supported. His leadership is a clear reflection of the district's mission to create a great place to teach and learn. He's built a culture of respect and collaboration. Since I started working here, I have seen Mr. Lambert invite those he leads to collaborate with him and others. He has established a gen gen genuinely collaborative environment where staff members are called by name and given a voice in discussions. This commitment to shared leadership ensures that everyone's unique perspective is valued and that staff feel a true sense of ownership in their work. This is a foundational step toward equity as it empowers every member of the team and breaks down traditional power structures. He's provided tailored support

004to empower staff. Beyond just inviting collaboration, Mr. Lambert provides tangible, individualized support to help staff excel. Whether it's one-to-one discussion to work through a challenge, securing necessary teaching materials, or helping a teacher navigate administrative systems, his support is consistent and timely by ensuring that every teacher has what they need to succeed. Mr. Lambert directly contributes to a more equitable teaching and learning environment. The result is a system where staff can focus on their primary mission, providing the best possible education for every student. He champions diversity and inclusion. Mr. Lambert's commitment to equity extends to a deep respect for all cultures and student needs by creating opportunities to celebrate other cultures within the school. He not only enriches the learning environment, but also helps students and staff feel a stronger sense of belonging. This intentional effort

005to build a diverse and inclusive staff and community is a powerful example of his dedication to equity and action. Finally, through these contributions, Mr. Jason Lambert has created a workspace where staff and students feel safe, valued, and empowered. His leadership exemplifies the principles of collaboration and equity, making Newington public schools truly a great place to teach and learn. Congratulations, Mr. Lambert. Congratulations. >> Do you want a little quick pick? >> Quick >> a photo op for the update. >> Wow. Now I know how the outstanding students of the month. >> Thank you very much. >> Would you like to see? >> Yeah. I'm usually not short of words, but but if I am left uh speechless by this, um I would like to thank the Martin Kellogg staff. Um I have been at Martin Kellogg

006Middle School for the better part of 20 years, and there's a reason for that. Uh the dedication in the staff, they're a pleasure to work with. They do well by kids. They show up every day. um they don't stop uh re relearning and growing as as consmate professionals and uh I thank them very much. Um on on my professional growth end I'd like to thank my colleagues, my administrative colleagues, my central office leadership. Um I'd like to thank especially Dan Das and Marco Turillo. uh I think they paved the way for some of the great work that we've been able to emulate at Martin Kellogg and I thank for that and look forward to continue uh great work uh with a great set of leaders and educators in the Newington public schools. Thank you. >>

007Thank you. >> Are there any board member comments? Mr. Hollerin, >> Mr. Amber, thank you very much for doing what I assume you think is just doing your job. But um the best solutions to the most difficult problems arise from a course from a diverse community. So I don't think it's just the right thing to do. I think it's a strategic and smart thing to do. Um and by creating a sense of equity, that community feels like every one of their ideas has equal weight. So everybody is brave. You don't even need to breathe. You just feel comfortable expressing your ideas, putting it all into that box into that pot and then finding the right way forward. So I would say that this award goes beyond you being a hero. I believe for every student

008in your school, you are a role model and that is something that goes well beyond a plaque um or an award. Uh thank you. I sincerely speak for the board when we say thank you very much. >> Miss Weaver. Hey, Steve. See, this is why we switch off and off because you really That was good. That was good. Um I'm I always um I feel like we've given a lot of awards because you're just amazing in over the years. Um but I always usually say how amazing you were for being my principal and my sister's principal. Um and the experience I had at Martin Kellogg as a student, but I think what's really great is always hearing your staff and hearing the culture that is created. Um, these are my favorite awards because they are

009staffto staff um, ad admiration. I think that really just embodies what we love to see is that this is clearly a really fun bunch. Um, but to hear it from all levels and to hear what happens in the day-to-day of the schools within the staff because that translates to our student experience as well. So, uh, I'm not even shocked by any of those words. Um, but it's always good to hear that this many years on for both of us. um how amazing of a culture Brent Kellogg is because of your leadership. So obviously you're an everyday hero. We already knew this, but I'm glad we can be able to have those words memorialized in a way that you can see that it's not just the students that feel that. It's the staff and everyone here.

010And I know that radiates throughout the district. So thank you for what you do every day. Congratulations, >> Miss Petus. >> Congratulations. I'm so proud of you. Um, and this award is welld deserved. Um, I'm a mom of a Martin Kellogg family. So, um, you been a part of our family story for a long period of time, not quite 20 years, but getting close to that. When I hear the words from your colleagues, respect, equity, and and um, uh, empowerment are the words that I keep hearing over and over and over again. and we talk about what it's like to be a good role model for our students, but when we empower the people that we work with, we're creating um new generations of leaders. And sooner or later, our kids are going to have

011to go out in the real world themselves. And they're going to see by your example and the example of your colleagues what it means to be a leader in their own lives and whether that's work, family, um community service, but these are the seeds that we plant to have them grow into really great members of our community going forward. So these are such important um uh um uh examples to set during their formative years and those are the lessons that they'll take with them. So thank you so much for being such a strong piece of that. >> Mr. Chararma. >> Oh, so Mr. Lambert, I mean both my kids, you know, they all went to they both went to your school. Um they're both your students and one of them my daughter now she is

012a teacher, English teacher. So you know, so thank you for everything you do and thank you for going above and beyond. So appreciate what you do. Thank you so much, >> Mr. Lambert. Also, I have a Martin Kellogg family. Um, but I just want to point out that the this nomination was from um the new library media specialist who's only been in district for a short period of time. And for her to write those words and and really just kind of share what you know her and the rest of the staff are feeling, I think it really um is very telling of how you know someone new to the Marin Kellogg family and is you know expressing these and seeing it almost immediately. So thank you. And then also appreciate you mentioning the collaboration between

013Wallace and and the you know the district as a whole. And I think that really is just important to point out the the teamwork and and you know you definitely deserve everything but you know we're all NPS and and doing all the great work together but appreciate or congratulations for being recognized and and you do have a very strong um family of our Kellogg. We love it. All right. Thank you. Um yeah, Miss Weaver, would you please? We're going to um just for consideration of everyone around the table, we're going to amend our agenda just to move the presentation of the budget up um and we'll handle the policies um later. >> So as policy fine, >> it's pain. All right. Um, I'll move that the Newington Board of Education amend the agenda to move

014new business item D4, presentation of Superintendent of Schools 2026 2027 budget to the board of education to the first new business item and continue with the policy items after the presentation. >> Second. >> I think that was a tie. >> That was dead on. Give it to Tim. >> Okay, Mr. Newman. >> We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? All in favor? Have a second. All in favor? I any opposed? Okay, motion passes unanimously. >> All right, Dr. Bummet, it's all me. Now, I would also there are numerous administrators online as well that I just want to acknowledge. Jim Marciano, principal of Ruth Chaffy, Kevin Durant, principal of E Green. I Arlene Torres Ruiz, principal of Patterson. Um, is I'm seeing names. Here's Amanda Meiser on acting principal of Kellogg. I

015see Danielle Signalton, assistant director of special education. Look, looks like Alex Heslin is also on assistant director of special education. I think I >> Jay Serno, my right-hand tech gentleman and Jason Smith, principal of Anna Reynolds and Jason Plum, director of facilities. And my two interns are on there as well, Terry Turkot and Meg Hamley. Okay, I think that think that covers everybody. Alrighty. Um, and I'm glad that we could move the presentation front and center here. So, I want to start off by thanking some of the staff around the table. In addition to all the administrators that you see here this evening, everyone had a role in this budget which began back in September basically. And uh but around the table we have Lynn Bo, Kristen Freeman, and Bev Lawrence is actually in the

016peanut gallery, but she's had uh and Marilina Julio, who's also in the peanut gallery. She all of these together with Steve Reese, who's not here this evening, uh help put together all of the data um regarding this budget and and coalesing it and making some 11th hour changes. In fact, um Karen, our Karen Sier, our assistant director of finance is had such a busy day. She's home with a migraine after this budget. So, we gave her a hall pass tonight, but she's been uh integral in getting this all put together. And I'm always worried if I get anyone to thank, but uh I think that's everybody. So, this is a compilation of all of those efforts. We uh anything that you see in the budget tonight aligns tightly to our mission and vision of the

017district that we are are here to make sure our kids are equipped with the skills and knowledge to become contributing members of our society both here in Newington and hopefully globally. And it's our mission that our students are engaged learners who are empowered to learn well and choose what they learn about and also become very collaborative citizens at part of our community. So all of that is very important and that'll be reflected in the budget this evening. Our portrait of a graduate has been a standing document now for a number of years. But it's very important to us that when our kids leave us, they are outstanding communicators because we all know how important that is to get along in the world using good written and oral expression and having collaborative communication. Also being good

018citizens of the world and you'll see that in a lot of our kids' accomplishments that how how active they are in the community and thinkers. We want kids to be able to think on their feet to really look deeply at things. I know the board has seen many presentations where our kids are demonstrating what thinking is all about. It's not just memorizing things. It's about deeply getting into the the work that they're tackling day in and day out. We have so much to be proud of. And I just wanted to start off with some notable achievements and accomplishments so the folks around the table and our community at large knows that their tax dollars are going and doing well good work in in the community and in our school district. Uh we have had a

019grant-f funded mental health counselor at the high school for the last three years and that's been highly successful. Uh unfortunately that grant has now uh expired. So that position is moving into the operating budget. But I want to show you the most powerful data about that position. Since the grant came into effect in 2023 24, we've gone down from 17 students getting expelled for drugs to one to two per year now. And that's a startling um improvement. And why is that? Because this individual has the skills to work with our kids, retrain them about the dangers of drug use, maybe get to some root causes and hook them up with uh services. She also does do a lot of uh work in the mental health arena with our kids getting them aware and the board

020has certainly heard around this table many times of our student representatives singing her praises and the um many many things that she does bringing in guest speakers. Uh we had an everyday hero who was related to her program. So that that position is in the budget this evening because the grant simply has been um sunseted. We have college courses. That list continues to grow every year. Seth Korn is here. He oversees that. Next year will have 40 courses at the high school um that are college credit maring. We are at the top of the state for that. John Wallace began its first bilingual program this year. It is open to both John Wallace and Martin Kellogg students, but it is because we have a critical mass of kids at that level who are Spanish speakers

021and need that type of instruction as a state mandate. Uh we started off our year strong and recruited and hired 29 new educators uh prior to the start of the school year. Not every district can say that. Um a lot of districts still have vacancies and uh we are strongly and fully staffed. We have our educational technology department that I referenced Jeno earlier. We are uh at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence here in Newington. We've been acknowledged for it. Um, and we are teaching our teachers about how to use it responsibly and our students for that matter. We take it seriously that there are pitfalls in it, but nevertheless, it's going strong here in Newington. Our CTE department is also overseen by J. Solerno and he um does a lot of work with those

022teachers to make sure that they are not just teaching courses, but getting kids ready to launch into careers. We're looking constantly looking at different ways to provide pathways for kids. We're we're working right now with a couple of agencies and actually eventually Miguel Cardona to look at how do you bring um more credentiing to kids who may not go right into college but might need some certificates to get launched in the right way. uh our special ed team does a fabulous job of uh containing costs and you'll hear more about that later but this year they received a seed grant and that grant was used to fund a program at Ruth Chaffy for students who had pretty significant um needs and the importance of that is that if we had not done that program or

023created that program under the direction of Marilina and her team we probably would have had nine kids outplaced to the tune of well over a million dollars. So that grant was $185,000. It funded a teacher, a parah, and an RBT, a registered behavior technician. So very, very good cost-saving and effective way to use the resources. We've had a lot of award winners this year. Um I think some of you are familiar with many of them, but uh Marco Trillo was our assistant principal of the year. Tara Tigno High School principal of the year, Mr. Fei is Caspa personnel administrator of the year. Antwanet Serrano was our teacher of the year, but she was also a top four finalist in the state. Um, three of our elementary schools, Reynolds, Chaffy, and Green, were named schools of

024distinction for their students achievement. We have been consistently recognized by NAM um as best community for music students. And we were recently recognized as a Google for Education reference district, which means that we are exemplary in our work with the Google Workspace. And we can't leave out our students and all that they have accomplished. um our high school students currently ranked 17 out of 108 school districts with high schools uh for getting the seal of biiteracy. 51 students already in the class of 2026 will have that seal of biiteracy and four of those students will have it in two languages. So we are really cultivating a love of a language and Rosanna Vasal and her teachers have done a fabulous job with that. class of 2025 earned just under 3,000 college credits, which saved our

025taxpayers, our parents over a million dollars in um tuition. We've had some really great leaps this year and some student achievement. Um our grade five students had the highest percentage of making goal in the uh ESPAC since 2018. We've had the highest percentage of kids in grade 8 achieving goal in ELA and math since 2018 and in science since 2019. And that was the first year of the test. So great great accomplishments in grade 8. Our SAT scores exceeded the targeted mean growth in both ER um English reading, writing and math. Um and we are above the state in our scores. In AP, we've had tremendous success there. 37% of our kids graduated with a score of three or higher on at least one AP exam. And 2025 was the highest participation rate and percentage

026of students earning a three or higher on an AP exam. And most equally important and something that we've been striving for for quite a while now and we're making some inroads are some of the gap closures that we experienced. our students in grades seven and eight. We closed gaps in math and some of our marginalized groups, our black students, our multi-racial students and kids who are eligible for free and reduced lunch. We also had gap closures in our SPL SBA ELA gap. Um both our black, Hispanic, multi-race students with disabilities and free and reduced lunch students saw some gap closures. And lastly, our NGSS, that's our science statemandated test, saw some really significant gains in our black population, Hispanic, multi-race, and students with disabilities, as well as students who qualify for free or reduced lunch.

027So, these are groups that typically are a bit behind um other groups in our district, and we're trying to get them to where all our students are achieving at high levels. Every year I show this because I want all of our stakeholders to see the dramatic changes in our district. Um, even, you know, you can look, I'm not going to read this chart to everybody. Many of you have seen it before, but even from 2025 to 2026, you see our special ed rates have gone up almost 2%. Um, and our kids have, you know, developed more needs. Our other areas of challenge are pretty flat that way, but I want people to know that special ed rates are going up throughout the entire state. We're right around the state average. But nevertheless, it really does

028create some funding challenges because students with special needs require unique and different types of programs that typically are fairly costly. But we continue to be very diverse with our ML students. We're at the 9% level and and that continues to be right around that rate and it probably will continue to grow. We also are diverse in our cultures and our ethnicities in the district. I'll let you read through that, but we are have a very heavy Hispanic population here in Newington and a lot of those students come to us with multilingual needs and we have to provide those services. In one of my slides tonight, you'll see how those costs have escalated over the last decade. However, I believe it's a positive because having a unique school environment um makes us that much more enriched.

029Today I went over to U Anna Reynolds and had a Ramadan lunch treat and we see a lot of our staff and students comfortable bringing forward their cultures which this is what we want to create is that type of environment. Oops, I was going to surprise you but all right, too late. Um these are our top 10 languages. I I wonder if that surprises anyone around the table um about how heavily uh diverse our population is with regard to language proficiency. We have a system in our district called Parent Square. Everything we send out is translated into all those languages. Actually more. Those are just our top 10. But you can appreciate that with that level of diversity, we have to be very uh conscious of what we do to to bring in our families

030into the fold, making sure their needs are met. And all of these children have unique needs. And that's something that we pride ourselves in on looking at how to best reach our our learners. So the goal of the budget is pretty simple in my opinion. I want to continue all the current programs. I don't want to lose any programs. Uh we want to improve our recruitment and retention of our paras tutors and permanent building subs also referred to as our support staff. We would like adequate funding for the bus replacement cycle. We want to support student mental health needs and special ed mandates. We want to make sure that our teachers feel that like they have job security. Um the market right now for teachers is very challenging and the last thing we want to

031do is you know just discourage our teachers by having layoffs and then that that doesn't bode well for our retention efforts. We also want to continue to leverage grants to offset budgets. We have quite a bit of grant money that keeps our budget lower than it would be without it. We actively write grants. I finished writing a grant today. Um so we are always seeking ways to offset the uh c the operating budget. very few really new positions here in the budget. Um, we have four new courses, two of which uh add to our ECE. We have introduction to genocide studies and American popular music. That is going to be a really cool course. We have a new teacher at the high school in our um coral and music department and he's able to teach

032that course. So, that's a new addition for us. cosmology, something about the study of space, um, and Italian for bilingual students. That is extraordinarily exciting that students can complete two years of Italian in one year. It's a really unique concept developed by our world language department. And I think it's just another way to get our students who speak different languages to elevate and earn additional credits. I already mentioned that we we would like the uh bus replacement cycle to be funded. We also have parking lot improvements needed at Chaffi. We also need a partial roof replacement at Patterson. And I would like to continue that and mental health counselor that I referenced earlier because the grant funding has expired. We also do need one new OT or occupational therapist due to diverse and increasingly significant

033student needs. And as mentioned earlier, we want to provide benefits to our support staff. We are the only state district in the state of Connecticut whose support staff do not have benefits. >> Here are some funding assumptions that are already in the budget. Uh we have used a host of grants um to offset $2.7 million in the budget. We are we have theou that we've worked on with the town. Um, we're going to use thatou to transfer $800,000 from it goes from the capital budget to the non-lapsing fund and then back into the operating budget, $800,000, which is an appropriate use of it because that the money that sees the capital budget is actually the money we get from open choice. So, we're just trying to circle it back to where it belongs. Uh this

034year we are planning on relying on the non-lapsing fund which includes the 800,000 above as an offset. And right now while we've requested 4% of our open choice students to be seated in the district, we want to be conservative about what we can expect from that which is a 3% reimbursement. This year we were like 3.78 and unfortunately they weren't willing to round it up though I tried. Um so that's about 1.2 million. Unfortunately, our administrators around the room and and teachers have what we allow for is called a plans proposal process where they can come to um a planning committee meeting and propose new positions. While all of them propose many worthwhile positions, we simply could not add those to the budget given just the um and I'll show that to you in a

035minute, the need to just fund our contracts. That took a big chunk of money right there. But these are positions we would have liked to have added if the budget had more room. Um, but you know, we're going to have to do without these positions right now and kind of make do with existing staff. I think I me I mentioned earlier that we have certainly seen cost escalation over the years. Um, and I think it's really relevant for the stakeholders around this table to see that special education costs since 2018 have gone up 77%. And I'll tell you, I serve on a special ed task force at the state and the identification rates have gone up more than 50%. Like I said, you know, 5 years ago, identification rates were more in the 15% range.

036Now they're 18 19%. Some of our more urban districts have 20 25% special identification rates. It's just we're doing a task force to look at that. What are the root causes of that? But you can imagine all of that plays into much higher costs and the districts those around the table representing citizens around the table are the ones that bear that cost. Our idea grant is uh we did get news that that will be funded this year, but it certainly has has gone up about 30% in um the last 10 years, but when special ed costs have gone up 77%, you can see that disconnect. Um our EL programs that I mentioned earlier, uh back in 2018, we were only spending about three only $354,000. Uh this year we spent $875,000 or 147% increase. And

037again, these are mandated services. We don't get to choose how we whether or not we do this. ECS money has gone up about 30% since 2018. I did hear today the governor's budget is going to flat fund it. I've already voiced my concern about that to our um legislators because that's just not appropriate. Uh educational costs go up every year. Now, this money goes to the town, but I advocate for it because that money helps offset educational costs. So, I'm on that team of we've got to all advocate for additional resources from the state. You know, um I for your reading pleasure, I linked into this thing. You've all heard the term unfunded mandates and I I was on a a panel recently where we were asked to uh put out what do we want

038in this year's uh budget from the um legislative session and I chirped in and said no unfunded mandates please among other things but I wanted that relates to this slide there is um a 67page document linked in this PowerPoint which I will send out to everyone here tonight of all the unfunded mandates over the last I think it's 20 years. Uh this was put together by Shipman and Goodwin. And I'm not going to read through it. We you you uh >> you'd lose your mind if I go through all of these. But every one of these is a an imple uh something that a district has to do in order to be compliant with a law or a policy. And there's absolutely no money associated with it. And that's just something that happens to us

039all the time. And you know, many of these you don't necessarily think are a bad idea, but it's a bad idea that we don't get money. Um, so that's our disconnect. We're having to advocate and do what we're supposed to do. I mean, an example of that this year was the school climate legislation. We've done it. We've embraced it. Uh, Dr. Harrison spoke of it at the last board meeting, but it's put a lot of burden on our staff and there was absolutely no money for it. And that's just one example. the chart that I um had on the board before we went over there. This shows you some of the ones that are still in play this year right now. I don't know if more are coming our way. That's another reality that we

040face. We're drawing up our budget today and the legislative session is still going on and I saw some of the possibilities. Um this is something we don't even know that could hit us for the rest of this school year that we have to be responsible for July 1. So, these are huge uh stressors on school systems. Conservatively, just some of the ones that are still impacting us is close to $400,000 of unfunded mandates. So, currently or this is our first uh sneak preview of our budget. Uh one my request or my ask this year is for 96,63371. And this is I'm kind of uh bifurcating the budget. This is the slice of the budget that does not include PAR benefits. This is simply keeping all our programs going, dealing with inflation, dealing with contractual obligations,

041and um those few positions I mentioned, the OT and the um continuing the mental health counselor. That's it. That's what this is. Um, and I'll explain it in more detail down the road, but you can clearly see by this uh pie chart that salaries are the biggest chunk of our budget, followed by benefits. And unfortunately, this year, and the town's aware of this because we all talk to the same agent of record, our benefits are up 17 almost 18%. And that es and flows. Some years you have great experiences, and we've had a lot of that here, but not this year. special ed, not counting salaries, is about 6% of the budget. All other would be curriculum supplies, um different um things that we need to fund, sporting and all of those um important but

042ancillary services. Transportation, this just refers to the operations of transportation, not the staffing. And operational expenses refers to our facilities, what it keeps what it costs to keep our buildings running smoothly. For example, this week there's been a few burst pipes due to this uh very cold weather we're having. Those are things you have to deal with um all the you know all the time different things that keep the cost of running a school system you know up there. This would be the budget if we add parah benefits to add parah and I keep using the word para but it's also support staff tutors permanent building subs that ask would be 98 million 313. You can see the pie just jumped up here adding another percentage to the part of our budget that covers benefits.

043And I want to be clear um the benefits we're offering if this were to go through um are not Cadillac. They are single family single person coverage with a deductible like most folks have a cost share that's reasonable. But if paras like want to have a family plan or a spouse plan, they would have to pay out of their pockets for that. This is just really para or employee coverage only and even at that it was about 16 >> 68 >> 1.68 million but per person wasn't it about 15,000 and that's we sent spent about a good hour with our agent a record about crafting a plan that was reasonable because it it's it would be very insulting to put forward a plan in which we have a pair that's got to pay $8,000 out

044of pocket on a $25,000 a year salary. So it's not doing that. So you know uh Steve Fissy and Telicia Foy did an exhaustive study um recently to look at where we stand with PAR benefits and it's really it's frankly folks it's it's killing us. Um folks around the table in the in our guest area are bearing the brunt of day after day of not having enough paras. Um it affects our our morale. It affects our learning. It affects student success. Um when a student I was just talking to a principal today and he said certain students parah is absent or is out sick and we don't have subs. So he was declining because of that. So it has a lot of different impact on our culture and climate. Um the PAR educators really need

045to be there for our students. That's currently around 144 folks in the district. Approximately 20 and why I say approximately is because every day it's a different headcount because they resign frequently. Uh we have about 30 building subs, 22 registered behavior technicians and a handful of job coaches and a workforce development specialist and occupational therapy assistants. These are the folks that would be impacted by this. It's extremely challenging to retain the these staff without benefits. Uh look at our unpleasant statistics. Uh Newington currently has well this was as of December 5th. We had 25 vacancies. If you look at our neighbors, we clearly were at the front of the pile for something that we don't want to be in the front of the line for. Go ahead. >> And then that's not to say that

046they have like the same amount or different amounts of paras. >> Some would be more Yeah, some would be bigger districts, some would be smaller. Um, but they all I will tell you all the other districts referenced here have benefits. That's why they I'm assuming my my bet is and I'm the data will show that that's why they have fewer vacancies than us. Um, I've already mentioned the impact not only on our students, on our staff. Um, we have about a 50% turnover rate. Any on any given day I get a letter from HCD. Oh, we just hired Para Jones. Uh, we just got a resignation from Paris Smith. Really on the same day. Um when you look at the statistics uh we are we are not unionized whereas the region typically about 91% of

047our neighbors are unionized or pays a little bit lower. Um we don't have any insurance coverage right now. Average in the region is about a 19% cost share which is what the plan that we are recommending has. We also don't have any paid holidays whereas typically in the region um folks have about 7.9. Uh our our support staff does have some paid sick days. Um and they do have something called a time work bonus. If they are have good attendance, they get a bonus at the end of the year. So again, you know, I don't want to, you know, hit this home too hard, but I think it's clear that we are spending less on our pair professional support staff than anyone in this vicinity. Um, and we did survey ex current support staff and

048there we've had various conversations with them over the years. We project somewhere between 70 or 80% of our current support staff would take benefits if they were offered. Some don't need them for various reasons and um, some want it for just themselves and some want it for their family. I will tell you it the plan would only offer it for the employee. So, our staff just um basically say, "I've got to work two, three jobs. Um having the benefits would make, you know, me want to stay would make my life a little easier." And um we're there is a possibility of state subsidies for some of the cost share, but we're not sure about that yet. But a a lot of our staff clearly have said to us over the years that this is something

049they want. Um and it will improve our retention and our competitiveness and our human impact on our staff. So it is something that's very important. I I thank Stephen Tisha for gathering all this data. Um and I also thank uh Tom Andrew. He and I spoke about two months ago where I needed to get his approval to at least bring this forward because um in Newington our support staff are officially town employees. So I can't unilaterally just add or try to add health benefits without the consent of the town. Obviously the the next level of work is the the cost of it. Um this is just a pie chart about special ed. It is a very expensive part of our budget though our special ed department works tirelessly to keep our expenses down but our

050all in total cost for special ed is about 20 million. Um this year we saw a decrease in our outplacements which are for those of you that don't know when a student is not if their needs are not met here they have to go to a specialized school. Average cost of a specialized school in the state of Connecticut is well over $100,000. You could send your child to Harvard at a cheaper cost than you could send them to an outplacement. Um so it is something that we try to avoid and the way to avoid that is to create uh high quality indist programs which our department um has been working on tirelessly. But this is uh again mo most of the special costs are in salaries. We do have to have specialized supplies for our

051students, different materials, different equipment that that they need. Out placements do still cost about 2 million but I'll tell you compared to some of our neighbors that's pretty as on the lower end. and um providing you know outplacement services. We are responsible for providing uh special ed costs for any of our kids who are in magnet schools. We've got to be they bill us for their special ed costs and um sometimes when kids are in out placements they are build for even more services such as testing or specialized um assessments. Here's a summary of our um contractual obligations this year. Um, we have a variety of contracts here in Newington. We kind of have a lot of different ones here. We're based on our uh this new business platform that we're working on. She calls

052us a very complex payroll system. Um, but that being said, this is kind of a summary of each impact of each bargaining unit and it's all contractually driven. Um, NTA is our teacher union and they are our biggest group. So, their impact this year, they raised about 2.2 2 million. ASME includes our um secretaries, custodial staff. Uh that contract is negotiated by the town that we have input into that. That contract's about a 3% this year. NASA is our administrative union. Uh when we did that negotiation this year, they were one of the lowest paid groups in in their in this neck of the woods. So we right-sized that this year for them. Um, and it's a small group, so the impact is 26,000. Nurses. Um, they're getting a 4% raise. CNIA is a very

053small group of non-certified um um they are certified actually. They're 085. Very small group of four people including our assistant business manager, our director of security. The AT salaries are set by the town manager. We were given the figure of 3%. Uh we've allocated 4% for paras other non-margaining. There's a small group of folks that don't fit into any of those categories. They get a 3% raise. So, the net cost of all of those increases is $3.3 million. But I'm now going to turn it over to our CFO to explain the impact of our historical reliance on the non-lapsing fund and kind of how we're trying to get away from that if we can. our budget >> is actually increasing by 5,537,265. The change comes from two main sources, the contractual raises for staff and

054um a funding correction, so to speak. Um the 3.37 million is due to contractual commitments as Dr. BMA just said, um our teachers and our staff and our operations team. The 2.16 million correction is not new spending, but it's a shift in how we have to fund our current staff due to last year using 3.164040 in one-time savings from the non-lapsing fund to fund our positions. So this year we'll be spending 1 million out of that fund um which will result in Can you switch to the next slide please? Thank you. >> Thank you. Um it it just shows you that actually when we had our budget this year, it's not really 91,61371 because we use that non-lapsing fund. We actually still have to pay for all 94,777411. I know it's it's really hard to

055wrap your head around this, but it's the result of the existing positions moving back into the permanent budget rather than utilizing one-time savings from the non-lapsing fund. Um, relying on one-time savings for permanent employees. It's called a funding cliff. And if you remember back when all of the ARPA money was around, they kept saying, "Don't put any positions in there. Use it for one-time expenses, not people." And by using it for people, we created a funding cliff. And hopefully I've I've explained that to everyone. Well, >> okay. >> Thank you. >> So, anticipating a a lesser reliance this year on the non-lapsing fund. Um I won't get into a lot of details on this slide. Um we entered into anou with the town. Um, it was a a reoccurring that we review every year. This

056year we have to review it again on September 1st. And it allows us to take money from the capital fund, which is largely funded by open choice dollars, and route it through the non-lapsing fund and then back to the budget. So, the $1 million that Lyn and I have spoken about is actually largely coming from open choice reimbursement and the other $200,000 would be what we anticipate will be left over from this year's non-lapsing fund resources. So, to be clear, um we're planning on relying on a million dollars of non-lapsing fund. This would be money that we would put as an offset to our budget um from the non-lapsing fund. And uh it equates to about 1.03% or if you include the PAR benefits, it's about 1.02%. Um this is just a snapshot of how

057we use our grants. Uh we we use a lot of our grant money to pay for teachers and these are reoccurring grants for the most part. The one that wasn't is the one I've the mental health grant that expired and that was uh from the ESSER era. Uh the rest of these are idea or choice grants, uh title grants. Those are things that we get annually, so they're reliable grants, but it's $2.7 million. It's very helpful as an offset. Um so here are some pending issues um to keep in mind. Right now, we've only projected to use a million dollars of the non-lapsing fund. Other possibilities um you know, if someone were to leave the district, we always assess whether we would need to replace them. that's our best way to lower costs versus a

058layoff. Um, so we always watch out for that. Um, there is we have ongoing health insurance discussions. The one that was held a couple days ago did not yield any changes. Um, but hopefully in the spring we'll get some better news. But tonight I have to share, you know, with the stakeholders. Here's what we need right now barring any lucky break so to speak. And then if the parah and support staff insurance is funded, we do think we could reduce um the time work bonus benefit because if you take the health insurance benefits, you would forego the time work bonus benefit. We also have added a lot of building subs because frankly sometimes our building subs operate as paras. Um we think we might be able to reduce some of our building subs if we

059were properly staffed with paras. Right now, the Nor Easter Academy grant is not in the budget. A part of it is, but right now we are waiting to hear word of a $100,000 grant that I literally just finished writing today. We don't we won't know about that till the spring or or late or early summer. Um it's a highly valuable program, but right now I only put in the portion that the board had been paying this year. Here's a real kind of cost comparison. That's a history of our budget increases over the last uh five or six years. Just to be super clear, my proposed budget without PAR benefits is 96,633711 or a $5 million increase, which equates to 5.48%. If we were to add the PAR benefits, that does change that increase to 6.7

060million or a 7.31% increase. So, I'm comparing the two because the um the 5.48 is really comparable to what we asked for last year, but the PAR benefits really add another percent and a half to our ask. Here's our budget history. Um you can see in recent years we have averaged more in that 5% range. Um which has helped us to a certain degree keep up with inflation and with the town's support. um earlier bud budget increases were were quite a bit lower and sometimes you you have to pay a little catch up when you've had low budget increases over that time but our average over the last nine years is about a 3.02% increase over the last nine years. So basically uh we started off with when everyone threw everything in that they wanted

061in the budget it would have been $101 million budget and I knew that wasn't going to work out at all. Um and but we went through some very serious uh analysis and looked at all the pieces that were in there and immediately cut almost 3 million out of the budget. So I started off with my team at about a 7.24% increase. Then through the hard work of folks around the table and consultation with our administrative team, we were able to reduce the budget by another 1.4 million um which brought us to 5.68%. to 68%. And then most recently, we realized that the budget was missing one of the grants, so we put that in there. That's actually seed grant year 2. That's $185,000, which brought our ass down to 5.48. So, we dropped down more

062than 2% or just about 2% from start to finish. But, as I've mentioned earlier, the addition of the parah tutor benefits is a $1.6 $6 million ask. So that brings us back up to 7.31%. So our continuing as is 5.48%. Continuing with those benefits that I've talked about this evening is 7.31%. Um I'm going to briefly cover the capital budget. We sent that along to the town in December. Uh the board approved it in in o of December as well. Um, we have so the town should have this and I'm not going to go through it page by page, but the highlights are going to be and I'll blow them up because the print is small is our um board CIP which covers a variety of issues. Uh we do have some laboratories districtwide that

063need uh improvement largely at Kellogg. HVAC is something that we have to do as that unfunded mandate. Um, every year we try to improve our district-wide safety and security. We're having an ongoing radio replacement program right now as well as cameras. Um, our district-wide technology is funded through this uh grant at 782. And that includes laptops. Every year we refresh kindergarten, grade 5, and grade nine. So when kids start their new um buildings, they get a new laptop. And we always are refreshing um employee laptops. This year there'll be a lot of secretarial laptops refreshed. Some of our monitors need to be um refreshed every year. When I say refresh, it means they're starting to basically fade or fail. And we have to make sure that uh I can tell you when a monitor is

064not working in a classroom, a display like what's behind me, it really does throw the day into a tail spin. Um, so we try to make sure our technology is in sound operating condition. And then we have a maintenance vehicle for $70,000. Um, that is a uh truck that's I think has 190,000 miles on it and is probably long overdue for replacement. Um the other bigger portion of this is the um pay as you go plan and that is uh where we put in our requests for some major capital improvements as well as the buses. So the Ruth Chaffy parking lot has a lot of concerns with um pits and holes in it that are unsafe. So that's a recommendation for next year. John Patterson needs a partial roof replacement and the bus cycle is

065one that's the biggest ask at $1.5 million. I'm going to get into a little more detail about that in just a moment, but those are the major capital asks. Okay, back to here. The bus replacement cycle is um um one of those situations where and I know the board is or the board and the town have seen a lot of presentations about this and we've got our Garfield street paved. Thank you very much. Um it's going to keep our buses in good working condition. Uh we spent time last year showing um both the board and the town about the wear and tear on buses when there's gravel lots versus paved lots. So we're in good shape there. where we're in less good shape is our bus replacement cycle. We haven't had a lot of funding

066for buses in recent years and we've got a lot of vehicles right now that are beyond their useful life. We've made the uh decision to have an 11-year replacement cycle. Um we have the industry standard usually for districts that have DACO or uh first student is more of an 8 to 9year replacement cycle. We go longer than that. We take really good care of our buses. Uh but when they're ready to go, you know, they start to need to be replaced. So this year we have a large number of buses um seven that need to be replaced. Um bus prices are not going down. They've gone up ever since CO and they have stayed up. In fact, the the lag time on a bus order is up to two years. But bus prices are not

067going to go down. That smaller line graph there is not cheaper buses. It's smaller buses, vans. Uh No coupons available. Um, so buses are very expensive. Oop, excuse me. I will tell you, I know it comes up year to year. Why don't we just use Datco for city? I was at a superintendent's uh meeting a couple days ago and one of superintendents around the table said, "Does Dean Barnes still work for you?" I says, "Yep, he does." Well, he used to work at my busy yard and we sure miss him. Um, and they're all having anyone around that table except for me described outrageous bus uh increases, terrible service, and wishing they had their own busy yard. Um, and they were they were like, "Our bus costs are going up 15 20% a year, and

068the service isn't even worth it." So, we have a wide variety of buses. We have 71. And no, they're not all on the road at the same time. We do have to keep a spare fleet because if a bus breaks down, we got to send another bus out to get it. We've all seen those stories of people running past stop signs and crashing into buses. Luckily, our buses are in very strong condition, but sometimes they are damaged or just need maintenance. So, the vast majority of our fleet is full-size buses, but we also have athletic buses, bands, vans, passenger buses. So, a wide range of buses. Here's the issue. Um, we have about 11 31 buses that are going to reach the end of their useful life over the next four years. And uh, last

069year we only bought one one bus. So, we are way behind on our purchasing of buses and we have what's called a bubble. And um, what we're trying to do is flatten out the bubble. So, what we're recommending is that funding of $1.5 million would flatten out the bubble because we'd be able to spend money gradually over time versus having a one-year huge outlay. Now, arguably $1.5 million is a huge outlay. It would be worse if we didn't try to flatten out this bubble. So, um, this is just a projection of trying to flatten out how we fund buses. If we don't go that route, you can see that our bus spending will be kind of all over the map in different amounts. When like this year, we would normally have to spend 1.6 million.

070We're actually recommending less than that, but it's a way of spreading out the bubble and having these costs kind of gradually spread out over time. It's still not a small number, but it could be a lot bigger if we tried if we just waited out and one year bought three buses and the next year bought 10 buses. So, um, historically the bus funding hasn't been strong. We've, you know, when I arrived here, there was something called a health benefit credit, which really was used to buy buses. It no longer exists. The health benefit credit um is something that insurance companies gave to district or they gave to communities um as any type of residual of money that was budgeted for but they was not used. So, they would credit back districts or towns. um that

071money dried up because then um the credits were applied differently. They were applied to kind of lower the cost of the entire insurance plan. So I know Newington relied on that bus credit or the health credit for years to fund buses. That dried up several years ago and really the we've only had some bus funding in 22 23 23 24 and a little bit last year. So we've had to uh just kind of forego a lot of bus expenditures. So, strategically, we'd recommend funding that bus replacement cycle um to even out funding and hopefully get back into a more routine of having that funding in our our uh budget. We are predicting a 6% increase year-to-year, but um that's kind of a we can't pro we can't promise you it won't go higher than 6%.

072That's currently what the industry standard is. Um, so I'll leave questions till the end and I think I'm almost done here. And I already reviewed what was in the tech replacement cycle um already, so I won't repeat that. Um, and as I always mention um to be fair full disclosure, if we do um have cuts, every 2.0 0 FTE is about a $100,000 cut and you you don't really get the full benefit of the entire position because these individuals can apply for unemployment. Um we are as I mentioned earlier using 100 a million dollars of non-lapsing. If uh we reduce the budget we could be looking at higher class sizes that mental health position that I've talked about special education services that we have to provide uh could could be compromised. And as I mentioned

073earlier, when positions aren't filled, um, school climate and culture is impacted. So, and you've already heard me speak many times about the ongoing pair retention challenges. So, without that, um, without that allocation, support staff will not be able to have any insurance. It'll just be unfunded as it has been. So, I think these are the next steps in our budget process. The board's got a lot of work to do in the coming couple of weeks. And then uh the board has to pass the budget by February 25th. I'll go on the road uh and go into PTO's and faculty meetings and then um chairman uh and I will be presenting to the town council on March 10th. I won't go into this much detail that night, but we'll have a uh updates to how the

074budget has progressed in the la, you know, in the subsequent month. I will turn it back over to to you for questions. And um just before does is does everyone know everyone around the table or should we do everyone's good? Okay, perfect. Um and yes, so the town council is here so that you can participate just if you want to speak. Um raise your hand, push your green or your button on the mic or yes, otherwise can't hear online. Um Mr. for Hollerin. >> Yeah, just to add a little context uh on two issues. Um Dr. Ber had spoken about the bubble with the buses. Um I think it's kind of important to point out that that's a self-imposed bubble initially when this bus recycle placement program and correct me if I'm wrong was developed.

075It was to try to keep a flat steady increase of a cycle so we could plan for it. But what has happened and I don't know if you can get back to the slide she showed you that bar graph that had kind of the yellow line and the the the blue lines. Um one could go the one that showed gear over year. Um yeah slide nine maybe this one. So if you look at the the blue line, that's the estimate. So think of that as the need that was the need to replace the bubbles. But because and if Dean Barnes was here, you could probably explain it a little better than I. He was asked to can you stretch it a little further? Can you stretch a little further? Can you stretch it a little

076further? So okay, we won't replace buses this year. Okay, we'll go to 11ear cycle instead of a 10ear cycle. Um we'll give you one bus instead of five. So if you look at the blue line, that's the need. The the orange line is what we got. So that's what created the bubble. We never kept it flat because the ask was so much lower year after year after year after year. The thing about that is that the buses um they don't stop aging, right? They don't stop getting used. So even if we defer the payment and the replacement, those buses are still aging out. And that puts us into a situation where here we are, we're like, we need seven buses. What we're trying to do is try to make an investment now so we can

077get back to something that's we don't need seven, we need two or three every single year to keep that going. Um, but that's just kind of like when I say it's self-imposed budget, hard decisions have to be made. Um, it's easy to be like, okay, well the bus isn't broken, it can still run, we can use it, but eventually the bill comes due. And that's what's happened. And now we need a lot of us is because they'll becoming unsafe um and looking to outsource to Datco or First Student. Um nothing against those companies, but it's always going to be more expensive because they're forprofit. They're for-profit companies. It's there to make money. Ours is at cost. So it's always going to be cheaper there, but at the same time, we need to have a reliable

078fleet. So I just wanted to add some context to that, too, because that was really what uh Lyn had put together was really powerful. I think that graph is to really show here's the ask. Here's the real need. Here's what we got year over to year. And if you could see there are some years there's almost no orange. There's none. Um and the need doesn't say it's none. It's just that that was a hard budgetary decision that had to be made. But making that repeatedly over and over and over is I guess the best way to put that is delaying the inevitable. Uh and I think the other thing I wanted to touch about is the power benefits. It's come up a lot. Um, it's one of the things that I am passionate about because

079we have rising special education costs throughout the state and in this town, carers are a huge part of that. They help to answer those needs that we have to do. And in every PTO meeting, every PTA meeting I've been in, every pack meeting I've been in, every principal I've talked to, every teacher, every parent, and a lot of the students I've talked to, when I asked what is the biggest thing that will help out the community, it's we need paras. We need help. Um, it's literally making it impossible to do our job some days. And we're pulling in people who aren't pared educators to do that role because it's needed. And if you look at the end of the day, at the end of that line, who's impacted? It's the student. And it's that student

080who needs it the most. And these students will bond with a para, they'll attach, and then they're gone in a month. And then something somebody new without that consistency, it's just really trying to get by. It's not what we need. Uh it's an ask. But I think if you ask anybody sitting along that wall, what the one of the biggest concerns is in each and every one of their schools, it's we need to keep our paras. We'll train them and then they'll go because they need health insurance and what uh we're not we're not giving them what we really want to. We're giving them what we can. Um but I think that that is probably one of the biggest pain points in our school system now. and it's going to get worse if we don't

081do something about it. Um, so just wanted not really a question, just want to add some context. >> Thank you, Mr. Holler, Miss Weaver. >> Well, if we're just going to add more context, then I'll just um but I think uh one of the important things to um that I've just learned over my time on the board um is just the uniqueness of special education in Connecticut versus other states. Um I don't know if Dr. department, you can talk because I know you've taught in other states, but particularly the overly latigious part of this and how, you know, people ask like, well, why are we doing these, you know, extreme out placements or these kinds of things, but Connecticut has a very hard hurdle for burden of proof. So, I think just also contextualizing that

082and noting if you have that slide too of just I believe it's gone up $4 million in the last year for us. Um yeah, it's one of the >> Yeah, there it is. >> Or is it No, >> increases over time. >> Yeah, that the chart one with the >> Oh, my apolog. >> Yeah, that one. So, the 16 to 20. Um, so that's for our students. Um, so one, could you explain that? And then two also, um I know sometimes there's just um misconceptions about like our student makeup and that kind of stuff, but um you know they would be like, "Oh, we're paying for the kids from Harvard or we're doing this." Um Open Choice is less than 3% or less than 4% of our students. >> Um if we did get the

0834% though, >> it would be $2,000 more a kid. >> That would be >> reimbursement. So that would be nice. Um so just if you could explain to what like why that cost is so much more I think than other states. >> Well a couple reasons. One is um you know in Connecticut it's really a lot of the expense is born on the local communities versus state support. Um so that is one challenge that Connecticut has. Um yes I've worked in four different states and I've never seen so many lawyers as when I've worked in Connecticut. And that's because one of the reasons for that is um what's called the burden of proof that in Connecticut if you are dissatisfied with your special ed program. If a parent brings it forward um it's still a

084the burden is on the school district to prove that their program is appropriate. Whereas in other states the the folks bringing forward the concern have to prove that the program was insufficient. I've been fighting that fight for years. It's just an unfair um way to do business. Um and we've talked to folks about that and if you know that you're going to have a latigious issue, many districts are advised to settle because it's cheaper than going to a full hearing and spending tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Um so it's any special ed director and Marilyn and I've had many of conversations in this regard. You don't want to do that. you want to do what you think is in the best interest of the student, but sometimes you are

085advised to take the route where you're going to spend less of the taxpayers's money. So, those are all issues that get into uh why special ed is such a high cost. Um there are other things that the task force that I'm serving on are uncovering, but the results are not released yet. Um but I think >> cap caps on uh certain services. >> Yes. So, we'll uh we'll show we'll share that soon. But those are some pivotal issues that will come out of that report among others. >> Thank you, Mr. Plord. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, first of all, I'll I'll just um speak for myself, but I think I speak for all of us on the council that we are very grateful for the opportunity to be here as a guest at your

086meeting um as we did last year to um hear directly from you about your budgetary needs and dig into the data a little bit more um around what's driving a lot of those needs. Um, you know, obviously at the point at which we received the budget, the board has already done a lot of the work of making really hard decisions um about uh priorities, policy questions, uh where the data is leading you long term, etc. Um, but it is really helpful for us to know what's informing those questions and the answers to those questions before the budget uh gets to us. So, we're all very appreciative for that. I just have two specific questions. Um, one is first about the PAR educator benefits. Um, obviously you talked about the kind of multiffold reasons for for

087pursuing this, the strategic benefit, um, the the obviously the human benefit, um, the the competitiveness. Um, I I know you also demonstrated that the pay rates for our PAR uh, educators, the hourly pay rates are generally lower than surrounding communities. Obviously the benefit of having benefits versus, you know, just an increase in pay, it's not nearly commensurate, but can you just speak to a little bit about uh maybe some review that the district has done about what increasing the hourly rate might do in terms of attracting paraben para educators. That's the first question. The second question is about the capital budget and the the bus replacement program. I mean obviously the request is is significant. 31 buses though potentially coming offline over the next four years. Um I wonder if that amount requested in CIP

088is nearly enough this year or in the years afterwards. So can you just talk a little bit about um in terms of flattening that bubble why it's that number this year and not something much higher uh and what you anticipate the number would be over those next three years um to again continue to flatten that bubble. Thank you. >> So for for the first question relative to parah um hourly rates we are on the lower end but what we've done we did give paras a dollar raise this year um after the school year started to try to retain and it didn't make a big difference um when we have exit interviews inevitably they say I'm leaving to go to a job that has benefits. So, while our pay is a little bit lower, it's that

089doesn't seem to be the pivotal issue. Um, it really uh at the like I said at the exit interview or survey is what they're reporting is the lack of benefits. Um, relative to the bus uh bus bubble issue. Um, I'm going to ask Lynn to help me explain that in a little bit clearer way um because she's one of the authors of the bus flattening of the bubble. So, let me get that up again. Um, but yes, we the goal is to not create a huge larger than 1.5 million for the town every year. So, Lyn, can you address um the councelor's question relative to the the bubble issue? >> What we tried to do with the flattening is um the buses cost approximately $157,000 a piece. So, we figured if we spread that out

090over the next four years, we could do bless you, we could do that in a much easier way for um the town's taxpayers than to hit all of it in one or two years. >> You're welcome. I yeah I think it would just um require I guess some sort of confirmation or like just acknowledgement that it's not just this year it would be a ongoing amount and it was yeah it's there at the bottom of the screen the the totals um anticipated out go I would just add to I think the the mindset too was to not create another bubble in 11 years so to not have a spike and to have flattening so that in another decade, decade and a half's time, we aren't experiencing the same situation. >> Um, yeah, >> that could

091be achieved by changing our model from 11 years to 8. It would then help with the flattening so that in it would be after eight years and then in the next year it would be after eight years so that we would be on a cycle and we we don't stop using the vehicles, we turn them into vehicles for athletics. So we actually try to save the town money anyway we can. >> Um Mr. Tineakis had Unbelievable, Mr. Mayor. >> Thank you as well. >> Oh. Oh, Mike. >> Ours stay on. >> Yeah. No, I probably probably Thank you very much for your presentation. Um, my questions are in the same realm about the PAR educ benefits and the buses. I have two questions related to those. um when we're looking at the bus plan over

092a long term. My question is actually about electric buses um what happens in year two if there's legislation passed that requires electric buses and I think ultimately you know from environmental standpoint that's ultimately where you'd want to go but those are considerably more expensive and if we put together an 11-year plan for conventional buses at what point do we switch over to electric buses and how does that come into play? Um, and my I don't really have a question about the PAR benefits. Just sort of a comment, I guess, and maybe to to get a sense. It seems to me like the PAR benefits is going to have the most significant impact on our students and our staff. >> Um, I mean, it it it's shocking that we're the only district in the region that

093doesn't have that. So, I I think, you know, from my standpoint, that's Would you prioritize PAR benefits over the bus replacement plan? boy. >> Uh that's that's that's probably more for a discussion at another time. But um obviously PAR benefits you see the impact the bus replacement cycle with regard to the electric buses. Now that year um I've talked to Dean about electric buses endlessly. I don't see how that's feasible in the state of Connecticut right now. um with uh first of all the cost they're double the cost and second equally important is infrastructure. There's just no way at the current level of infrastructure that most communities have um to plug these buses in and get them charged up. Uh you've seen the clips on YouTube of electric buses catching on fire. They're on the

094side of the road stalled out because they ran out of gas or juice. Um, it's still not a, in my opinion, and not just my opinion, what I've studied about it, not a a system that's ready for launch yet. So, yes, you're right. That's going to be something else to consider. I think right now they're telling us 2030. I just can't I don't see it happening. Um, couple couple districts thought they were going to get ahead of the game and they bought some electric buses and they're sitting in the yard. Um, they're not working. um they they have a lot of problems and um you know Dean Dean and I talk about it frequently and he keeps his eye on it. We did try to write a grant for one a few years ago just

095to see how that would fly. Uh we did not get the grant. They were only giving them out to very distressed districts but um they are not widely used yet and they are technology that has some challenges. So, um, I can't I don't I can't answer that question other than I'm very cautious that that's technology that the state is ready for. >> Thank you, >> Dr. Stanley. >> Thanks. Yeah, unfortunately, um, with electric buses above the Mason Dixon line, it's like not ideal at the moment, but hopefully technology, you know, there's lots of smart people in the field over time or global warming, I don't know. Um, I had a question about the cliff in the non-lapsing fund. Uh, how long have we been on this cliff? How much percentage wise do we use every

096year of this non-lapsing fund to provide salaries? >> We have included uh non-lapsing offsets in the budget for at least four years. Um it probably started around the COVID era because um that was the year that we actually had money left over and were able to put it into the non-lapsing fund. Um but you can see right around here, this is the CO era. We had a very low budget increase that year. So we had to backfill probably starting then and forward. Um but it's just right around COVID where were there was two years in a row. The year that the schools closed down for two months and then the year that we were hybrid for a good chunk of the year expenses went down. So we were able to put some money in non-lapsing.

097Um and then you know over time the lower budgets that you see early on on this chart caught up to us and um you know there was always the grapple um and the town was always trying to help us find solutions but there was just a concern about having a higher you know budget increase than 4.4% or 5%. So and and a commitment on all of our sides not to lay off staff. And between those two factors, the only resolution was to rely on non-lapsing monies. Um, now we have put it in the budget and then there are years that we have not used it. Um, we when you have a budget of this size, you are like today's a snapshot. Today's what I believe that we need for next year. I don't know what's

098going to happen down the road. Is someone going to come and go who's higher or lower in salary? our unfunded mandates gonna happen in the legislative session. Um are some of the budget items that we you know last year we had a lot of sadly a lot of savings in the peril line because we couldn't fill the positions. So you have a snapshot in a budget and you think you're going to spend a certain amount of money and then it doesn't come to fruition. So we try to be very judicious about that. Um I we have projected to use money uh non-lapsing money this year. I don't know how much of it we'll use. It's too soon to tell. We don't usually know that till very late in the fiscal year. >> For um our

099next budget meeting, um I believe we have Monday. >> Yes. Would you be able to because I know in the past there's been a chart of how many um the I don't know starting from 2017 may 2016 >> the the first year that are we established the non-lapsing fund the um balance and then how much we've used would be helpful to show >> that I can do >> um Mr. the house for the years where your expenses were down due to co if you recall how much they decreased and then I guess part of my question is if we knew that this many buses were going to come up or expire I guess during that time frame why didn't we use any of the reduced expenses toward purchasing buses in those years >> um actually

100we did some some of those years where you saw the orange was low we were able to use um monies that were not expended on other things to buy buses just because we had to. So, we did do that. Um and that kind of kept us afloat for a little while. Um in terms of how much money um I would say during that um dating back co started 1920 then went into 2021. I would say o over the course of those years we had over a million dollars left over at the end of the year which we put into non-lapsing but I think to the chairman's point I will create a chart to show everyone that history so I don't try to guess it but um yeah I'd say the last four or five years

101we've had a balance and non-lapsing and a good chunk of that is due to co um residuals and then we all got substantial amount of money from state and federal grants as well to to further offset expenses. But yeah, we have to be honest with you when we had some residual money um frankly the money that was in the capital budget last year was not even enough to buy one bus. So we had to supplement that with some leftover resources. So we've always kind of been cobbling together bus money for quite some time. Um like I said early very early on in my tenure here there was some of that health benefit credit but that has gone away. So that was I believe how my uh predecessors funded the buses for a number of years.

102Um now it's really through the capital ask as well as if we get you know some leftover resources that we can apply to a bus. >> Um all your hands went up at once. So I'll go AJ first. Um, as far as the the 1.5 mil uh to to fix the bubble issue, uh, can you be a little bit more descriptive uh to like what impact that has? Like how how many buses does that equate to? Um, or like what would the funds would be used for? About 10 >> at 157 is nine and a half. >> Nine. All right. So, and then we have 31 coming up that need replacing students. So then safe to say that you would need around like three times as much to fully kind of get into like a

103stable position. >> Not all of the 31 buses need to be replaced in this year. So it it they do have it's through to 2030 where those 31 buses will need be to be replaced. So >> next like four years or so. Correct. >> Okay. And there's um if when you you'll get this presentation the um it has the the numbers and then the first there's a chart that Dr. Burma didn't show but it's slide three. Yeah, that one. Um it kind of it's not just fulls size buses that are 150,000. It's there's other um there's other vehicles in the fleet that will need replacement over the next few years. Um but that's just more information to look at. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Um Miss Eve Eve is Yes. >> Yes. My question Thank

104you for the presentation, but my question has to do with that. You mentioned during your presentation that uh because apparas don't receive medical benefits that at the end of the year there's some kind of a you draw upon some kind of funding for uh bonuses. Mhm. Um what is uh what is it that you have in that um that category of funding and would you consider foregoing if it's anything that would help to apply it to benefits for paras would you forego the bonuses and add that to um funding to secure the parah benefits? >> Absolutely. Um let me go back to my presentation. Um if we were to get approval for the um para benefits then we could deduct >> I know I'm going past it. >> There it is. So if par insurance

105is funded we could reduce the time work bonus by $105,000 and that could be used toward the 1.6 million and we could reduce the number of building subs by 100,000. So, those are our current estimates. Um, and because we did have to leave some money in the time work bonus because we anticipate 25 to 30% of Paris will not take benefits. Um, so they would want that benefit to remain, but the rest would forego it, but it's well worth it because the benefits are much more of um a richer benefit than just the time work bonus. Thank you, >> Mr. Newton. >> This question is more for the town manager. Um, what is 1 mil equivalent to in terms of millions? Is it 2 and a half or >> I think it's about two and

106a half. I think I believe it's about $2.5 million. >> So, if we're asking for a seven 7%, we're really asking for three and a half mills >> because I I I look at it as both a parent and the taxpayers. So, it's a three and a half mil for the full ask and everything's responsible that we're asking for, but I just want to know what the impact is. Thank you. Miss Draco >> um back >> um again on the paras and I do I mean I do realize how important they are and um I actually um serve on the board at IEA in West Harford so I I understand their importance but you did indicate that currently you have 25 vacancies for Paris. Now, how I guess number one, how are you accounting for

107that in the budget? Are they are they are you accounting for that um as a whole? Not a hole in the budget, but you're Yeah. Are you actually >> They're budgeted for. So, that's how last year we had realized savings because we couldn't fill those vacancies. So, that's why there was there was money left over, but they are budgeted for. >> They are budgeted for what we need. >> Okay. So if you um are able to you know if if this transpires and we are able to fill those vacancies there will not be an impact on the budget. >> No it's already in the budget >> but that's I can appreciate that question and and again last year there was a question about why we had money that we could put into non-lapsing and a

108good chunk of that was pair of positions that remained unfilled. >> Okay. >> Um I just have um two more quick questions. How much is going to be left in your non-lapsing account? >> I don't know this year, but I will have I don't know right now regardless if I don't have the data in front of me, but um we won't know how much we're going to use this year until probably June. Um currently the balance is about 3.2 million. So we had projected to use over 2 million of that. I just don't know how that's going to play out. Um, I can predict right now probably not all of that because of the PAR vacancies and we've actually had some favorable uh special ed uh reductions in expenses this year as well. So, those

109are two things that are working in our favor. Um, so if I had to magic u magic ball right now, I'd say we probably will not use as much as we predicted we would use. And then just a final I don't know if it's a it's kind of a question or a comment as well. Um back to the unfunded mandates. You said it's cost us about 400,000 a year >> just in those mandates. I've previous mandates from years gone by are now part of the budget. >> I'm just trying to illuminate the most recent ones. But when you get together with your buddies at the state, the other superintendent and whatever, I mean, it's not a Newington problem. It's a >> it's a statewide problem. >> And I hear our legislators keep talking about, oh,

110you know, the imp, you know, we got to reduce the impact of, you know, on our residents for property taxes and we overreiance on property taxes, whatever. forget they keep putting in these mandates that >> correct >> are the only way they can be funded is through property taxes. >> That's correct. >> So >> when you do have these presentations or discussions to the state, do you all is there a way for all of you to get together and said this is what it is costing us? I mean are they aware of >> they are um I reached out we have through CAPS the group that I one of the groups I belong to a lobbyist and I was reaching out to them today I said oh my ECS is flatfunded that's yet another burden

111to our town because expenses are going up and we're flat funding it's just it doesn't make any sense. So I immediately emailed our three local representatives say guys this this is not good. But we all testify at the state. I've testified many times. We have a lobbyist. We set priorities through our organization. Um I was notorious in the state during that reading legislation as being someone that was fighting it tooth and nail because it was an unfunded mandate. Um so there was um we do a lot of those things. Some have impact and some don't. Some of the special ed uh grants that came through this year were the result of some advocacy that we did um with uh other task force, but sometimes it falls on deaf ears. Um if ECS stays flatfunded, that's

112just an outrage. >> Um and yeah, Dr. Roman does do a lot of advoc advocacy work through CAPS and then also on her own, you know, just Google it for any you can look at testimony in the in the house. Um >> any benefit though of um joint um uh advocacy at the state level between the superintendents of schools and the town managers because it really it's a it's a question for it's it's an issue for both and I mean the the state the legislators have got to stop this or else don't give us a song and dance about oh we know about property taxes and whatever. Um I think this is an issue where both could >> I used to serve on an inter agency uh panel uh which included mayors, town managers. Um

113and I'll tell you it was a frustrating experience. Everyone around the table wanted to do the right thing but not a whole lot of momentum happened. Um reports were done, studies were done, but nothing really changed. Um but I don't I still don't give up. None my colleagues don't give up. We spend our time trying to make everyone understand what these impacts are. Even even at the federal level, uh, special ed is is we get peanuts from the federal government for special ed. It's been I was a special ed director years ago and the IDA grant hasn't gone up that much. So, it just we don't get enough federal dollars and certainly the the state is not picking up their fair share. Um, >> I think the town managers can also maybe add a voice

114to, you know, this. >> Absolutely. I mean all of us have different organizations we belong to and and I I think we just have to keep at it. >> Um I just want to say just back to the um your question on the non-lapsing. I just want to caution um even though there's money in non-lapsing potentially for like funding PAR benefits this year. Um I just and not that that's where you're going but I know it's probably going to come up. um we do need to it will be an ongoing cost. So taking something out of your savings as as you all know taking it out of a savings account doesn't mean that you're going to have that money available in future years. And this is something that we do want to continue um if

115we get it. We do want to fund it. So um so I mean we'll the board will look at the budget and see where where we are and what you know we haven't this is the first time we've seen it as well just at the same time as you guys. So, we have a lot of discussions. Um, but I just want to put that out there that um it's not necessarily the answer isn't necessarily let's just pull from that 3.2 million or whatever um amount is in there, but we will look at that as we as we go on. Yeah, Miss We just going to say like council Draco preach it is one of the things I think that's really hard. I think even the ones where like I've been supportive of, but I've changed

116my tune. Like I was a huge advocate in back in my like college days of the financial literacy requirement. Connecticut was one of the few that didn't have a financial literacy requirement. There's also a difference between requiring to be offered versus required to be taken those kinds of things. But in the last couple sessions, I've been like now sitting at a board table, do not require this without any funding because this also means that you have to relic a teacher. You have to make sure that there is the staffing for that that there is the materials for that there is x y or z and not only for this year but years to come and so even ones I think like we would agree everyone should have that right I think that is a fundamental

117bipartisan universal thing that we want and even so then in the implementation it goes ary because there is no funding attached to it so I think more and more and increasingly so in the past couple years we've seen just more and more of those unfunded mandates I think well-intentioned policies of ideas of indoor air quality quality. Everyone wants their kids to have safe indoor air quality. That is not a question. It is just all of the reporting mechanisms are now falling on us and it is burdened by us. So I think one of the things um that is a beautiful thing that brings all of us towns together is um how crazy it's become because ultimately this is where rubber meets the road and it hits our budget and it hits all of our pocketbooks

118the same on that. So, um very much willing to work with any and all of you on how we can get some of these um out just or more funding or whatever it can be to um kind of do that. And I think also I just wanted to clarify um when we talk about ECS funding maybe just a quick reexplainer about that because it's a very complicated formula that I believe only like two people in the state know the whole formula and that kind of stuff. Um per >> maybe Lisa Hammers leave but probably not >> maybe not but just if we could clarify that. Sorry. It's it's money that the state allocates to every district and it is based on a complex mathematical calculation that as Miss Weaver said is impossible to unpack. But

119uh districts with uh more impoverished students, more needy students get more money and wealthier districts, some wealthier districts get very little. I mean, I think some of our new Canans and they get maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars and then your Hartfords, your Waterberries get when when um to make a point, Lynn looked at it uh cuz she's coming in from Bristol and she's you only get that much in ECS money. So, we're much different than a Bristol and a Waterberry where they're probably getting 50 to $60 million. How much did Bristol get l off top of your head? Yeah. So there's so it is weighted by need, by size of your district, by your uh high need population. Um, and it just is an interesting formula and it's meant to try to help offset

120costs, but it doesn't do enough. >> And I guess just to add when it's not when it's flatunded or it's not fully funded, there was talk of this in the legislature last year of it getting fully funded in these kinds of things. Um, but it's not actually fully funded yet. So I think just to clarify too like if you hear oh the ECS getting fully funded all these things we're not seeing that yet. So we're also there's not dollars we're not missing here in that way. >> We get we take every dollar we can take >> write every grant we can get but no we we ECS is a pass through. It just goes right to the town and it's dictated by the state. They tell everyone what they're getting. >> And if you want

121to do some research because it's a very interesting website. It's schoolstatefinance.org or and it shows you it shows you different town breakdown it'll show you there's tons of data and it attempts to explain the formula but it is very interesting website to look at um if you get a chance uh Mr. Florida. >> Thank you. Yeah, just another quick question. Um, so obviously, you know, there's a significant chunk of vacancies for pair professionals. We'd be having a much different question if we were busting at the seams and you had more than enough pair professionals and all of the vacancies were filled and etc. But um I do wonder obviously because the need on the student population is growing. It's exceeding. Um do you anticipate um this population of professionals in the schools increasing right that

122number jumping from I think it's 104 or 110 to far more than that over the next several years. Is that something that you know you account for as an administration when you're thinking of how to atone for these long-term needs of these students? Is the answer going to be a vastly larger pool of paraprofessionals or other kinds of uh assistant teachers? >> It it could it could increase. Um we tried a couple years ago to analyze whether we could, for lack of a better word, trade in three to four vacant pair of positions for a teacher, which was equivalent dollars wise. We were able to do that at a few schools um based on the needs, but it didn't have a widecale impact because a lot of these pairs do jobs that a teacher cannot

123or should not do. Um and you know, that's just an obligation. You know, some kids have individualized needs that are very very significant. We even have a few kids in the district that have their own nurse. So there is um certain jobs that just have to be dedicated to a paraprofessional. What's in the budget for next year though is the my best um together with special education what we believe based on student IEPs is needed for next year. It's fluid though. A student could move in tomorrow with an IEP a mile long and a parah in the IEP. And the IEP is the plan that students come in with that dictates what services they have to have >> and it's protected by law and we have to >> we have to do it. It's not

124a not an option. And that's why if there's vacancies, we have to fill in with building subs or whatever because every single day the student is in the classroom, they need their parah or a support whatever is listed in their IEP. >> Thank you both. >> Yeah, go ahead. the four new courses that you're um anticipating in the high school, will those require staff additions? >> No, they're very low cost. Uh each the only expense involved is uh a little bit of curriculum writing. Um and a lot of our uh resources are um open source and some of them may have some book requirements, but it's very minimal. Maybe each course is a couple of thousand dollar. So, no staff required. No. >> Are there any other questions, comments, >> Mr. Mayor? Oh, >> I

125know. I keep doing that. Um, >> yeah. Can we just get a copy of your slideshow sent to us, please? Yeah, >> absolutely. It'll be Yeah, sure. Yeah, >> absolutely. It'll be in your inbox tomorrow morning or maybe tonight if I still having a lot of energy when I get home. And uh mark your calendars. On a more positive and exciting note, we're going to have our musical um coming up, Anastasia, and I'm sending you all an invite to come to that and maybe enjoy some refreshments from our culinary students. You probably got that today, but >> see that we're ahead of the game. Anyway, >> Mr. Mayor, did you have >> uh no more questions? I just wanted to say thank you again for uh for your presentation tonight and uh for all your

126information in this book. Uh I know you know we have a you know we have a lot of work to do and you guys have a lot of work to do still but I'm excited for another budget process and looking forward to work with you guys. So thank you uh for everything tonight. Appreciate it, >> Mr. Chararma. >> So I just want to thank everyone at the town council for coming over. Um Mayor John, thank you for coming. Um and we look forward to like working with you guys and you know um and I think three things I want to highlight is bus replacement and then of course like benefits for our par professionals and one more thing I want to highlight is the uh contracts I think what's the um how much of the

127budget is in terms of like salary contracts for the I think it's like a three-year contract >> so it's about >> yeah so that is >> it's a huge huge impact >> so it's like kind of like a fixed cost for us you know and you know something that is in that has to be funded no matter what a contract. So something for you guys to keep in mind. Thank >> Mr. Hollerin. >> And just a comment to echo what everybody else has said, Mr. Mayor, um, town manager, town council, thank you so much. I think the more we get you involved in this process early. This is the first time we're seeing the budget, too. the more you're involved with like the not just the the dollar amount, but the the the reasoning, the

128why and the impact behind it. Who's the impact? Um where is the need? Uh it's never easy to come up with a budget because yes, we want to do the right thing and give our kids what we need, but at the same time, we've got to do right by the taxpayers of the town. At the same time, it's a very hard and important part of both of our jobs. Um so, thank you very much. But I also want to thank everybody sitting along the back wall. um the staff of MBS, you've sat through very long discussions um because you believe it's the right thing to do for our students, right? You're here to advocate for what you need and inform us what you need and testify how uncomfortable those chairs can be after about an

129hour and a half. Um um but thank you very much. I know most of you have been up early um hence the job and I think it says a lot. Weaver one and everybody online. >> Yes. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> In more comfy chairs. All of that. Yeah. All of that. Ditto. And I would just encourage Thank you so much for coming tonight. Um I know this is not always in the past as we we've had such a great attendance of town council and having this together and having a true joint meeting just to be able to one lay it all out there. Um so appreciate you taking the time for coming. Um, and I would just encourage to if you have more questions, I think there is always an open policy about if

130you have any questions, um, that email is always open for Dr. Braum and her team to be able to answer anything. Um, and I know last time I think we had like a list of questions that went back and forth and I think were shared with everyone. So, um, appreciated that transparency and that collaboration last time. So, would just encourage the same this year. Um, but thank you for for doing that and I would echo again to our incredible staff and I would just like to give a special shout out to Lynn and everyone on the admin team who has put together the books once again this year. Um, Karen's here. Yes. Who is resting. >> She's nursing. >> Happily. So, apply so um these are so much smaller and so much more efficient. So,

131looking forward to a new type of budget book. So, appreciate all the work that was already done on the front end of all of this. >> Yes. And you'll notice the budgets are by school for the majority. So I'm looking forward to hearing from our school principles of all the things that they asked for um in a kind of a different way to look at things this year. So um so yeah, that'll be exciting and we will be back here Monday night to continue. So, you guys are all welcome to come back Monday 7:00 p.m. Um, but with that, if you did want to vacate or you can stick around for our policy discussions >> and out. >> Thank you everybody. Appreciate your time. >> Yeah, we'll Yeah, I'll just make a motion. >> Motion

132to recess for five minutes. All right, we motion second. Is there uh to recess? Any discussion? All in favor? All right, recess for 5 minutes. Come back at 9:06. Okay. Back from recess. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yes. >> 9:07. Back. Yes. Returning from our brief recess. Thank you. Um, optimistic to say 906. Okay. We're um back to number uh one on new business board policies in the 7000 series. Um great. Yay. >> Okay. >> Yes. Go for it. Sorry. >> Um okay. So this is going back to to last meeting. Um didn't hear any about any of the 7000 series. So we reviewed them last one just for public awareness. Read them all last meeting, last regular meeting. Um and we had reviewed them again before that. So this is actually like the fourth time

133it's coming to a board but coming before the board. Um any discussion so far? Okay. If not I can make a motion if that's okay. We can uh move the board of education approve the recommended revisions and renumbering of the 7000 construction series policy as amended. >> Second. >> We have a motion a second to approve the 7000 series. Uh, any discussion? All right, please vote. >> Yes. >> Sean, >> yes. >> Brian, >> yes. >> Dr. Gail Stanley. >> Yes. >> Ethical Weaver. >> Yes. >> The motion passed unanimously 90. >> Yay. Just want to note and put that into the record that that is another series done. So, we've done the 1,00 2,000 3,000 4,000 7,000. There's no 8,000. Don't worry about that. Um, and then we we're just going to go and

134move on to the 9,000. Uh, okay. So, so with that, um, just wanted to clarify, um, on this page that has up, um, we will not, we're going to strike through 9030. So, if we could just have that like for the record when I say we're going to pass the 9,0001, the board and staff communications is still to be reviewed and revised. >> Just Yeah, maybe just say it in the motion with the exception >> with the exception of Yeah. Okay. Just want to clarify that. Um, and then the other one that I think is in need of review again, um, is the 6142. If we could just bring that one up. Although it's not Oh, that's why it's not working. I don't have internet. Yeah, I was going to ask. >> Just going to

135say there's a couple errors and errors when they register on correctly. >> No worries. I was going to actually turn it over to any of the relevant administrators that could discuss this policy. And okay, I'm going to do my best. Um, so, uh, the last were we here last week? >> Yeah, >> last week. Last week when we were together, we were talking about, um, this policy and it involves a lot of changes. I think it went from about two pages to nine pages. So much of this is based on an assessment um that we do uh, and it uh, makes sure that we are complying with first and foremost federal regulations. And if we don't, that means that we um suffer financial hits which we never want to have. Um and then some of

136them are just guidelines around wellness. And so Mrs. Marovich usually um kind of spearheads that and I work with her because part of it is in through curriculum. So Mr. Fari had presented this um last week. There were some questions um most notably about celebrations and foods we can and cannot bring in. Um, so when I met with Mr. Fari following that meeting, if you look through um the policy, Jessica, I don't know if you need to um scroll down. >> Keep going. >> Okay, >> I'm sorry, Dr. B. You're scrolling. >> Oh, keep You're going to see a light blue highlight and then and like an obnoxious yet. Yep. Right there. Um so so what we decided to do was that we decided to strike the language that is in our it's not a

137policy it is um how we do business in Newington public schools related to celebrations. So you remember we had a long conversation about the four weeks and the notes and all of this sort of stuff. Um that is an internal document and we follow it. Um but we decided that it it doesn't have to be codified in in policy. It it's just not needed in there. So instead we went to more general language um to meet the federal requirement and so you can see in yellow it says refers to FR that's a f federal regulation um it's really only elementary schools so I guess there's less concern about allergens in middle and high school um but it only pertains to elementary so we adopted the elementary school um language in there and then you can

138see highlighted in yellow is there's just a mention of um the procedures outlined by the district nurse administrator which is what we have. Um what they do know about policy writing too is that we want to use the most general language so that if we have a new nursing supervisor and he or she says I don't like this we're not coming back and revising um that whole policy questions on that. Uh just to clarify so essentially I think and I appreciate this is that this is more codifying the generalized language into policy and then ultimately the schools will have their regulations which we don't vote on but it would be in a manual about like how you the procedures it would be >> yes but it wouldn't be codified as a regulation >> right >>

139under this like like a student handbook sort of thing. Yes. This is just what what we do to follow safety procedures. >> Thank you. >> Questions on that? Um then we're going to move down to physical education. So we're in red font with yellow highlights. Here we go. Um we so we modified some of this language. Um it it this the regulation does speak to so the regulation from the assessment really does speak to physical education. Um but throughout our conversations um me and Stephen we decided that the physical activity at recess even though there is not instruction that is being involved that physical activity is definitely an extension of physical education. Um so we're not in we're in no way uh spinning the language. It's just we really wanted to represent what Newington Public

140Schools does. So um we decided to put into the policy what we actually do. What we had before is what is required by this assessment. So that's going to come up like so wait a minute every time we do this assessment we're not going to get full credit for that item. And yes, that is correct. There's been a lot of years that we don't get full credit for a lot of the items, but this is not a federal regulation. So, um, Stephen and I agreed that it was better practice to be transparent and honest about the number of minutes of physical education that we offer. Period. we and honestly if we had said that we aim to and use the requirement it it was it's nowhere near it. So that's going to be our that

141was our suggestion um is to just lay out those minutes. Unfortunately a couple of actually all of those numbers are wrong. So we're just going to have to change those. So I just want to I just want to first see if there's any questions about why we did that. >> Mr. Hollerin, >> just a question on the physical education. Is this part of the policy or is this part of the regulation? >> Policy. >> This is all policy. >> I'm wondering if the actual amount of minutes needs to be in the policy or if it fits better in a regulation. >> There's no regulation >> or I just I don't know. I think it's what's in policy. Will it ever be adjusted in two years? I'm just a question of it's getting codified. Does it

142make sense to codify in a particular amount of minutes or can we make it more general? >> Um, so it's gonna and I don't mean to be flip it all. It it depends if we're okay of getting you have um three scores on the assessment. A zero means no. A one is good job but not quite and two is you're making it. Um so this is a one. If we do that and we're very vague, it is a zero on the assessment. So I think maybe the discussion for the board is going to be where does the importance lie for you in what is said here? And remember this is not a curriculum and instruction policy. This is a student wellness policy and I know that they intersect but there's a does that make sense

143in terms of like it's a different Right. >> It does. I just I I I think I'm just like at a point like where we we codify it into like practically a bylaw, but it gets very specific into what we do. It tends to be more of a regulation rather than a policy of we will attempt to achieve the maximum amount of minutes, you know, without specifically naming it. I think it's fine the way it is. It's kind of a question where I'm thinking >> like you're noting sorry uh that if we put vague in of it would say like we will have students use up to the maximum recommended minutes by ex >> exactly >> thing. Um no >> we don't do that either. >> Okay. >> Um maybe at the elementary school but

144what's recommended by the state we don't meet that either. So, I'm not really raising my hand, but I am. So, so, okay, fifth grade gets recess, fine. But 6th through 12th grade, if they're not taking their gym class, which is freshman year, what physical activity or physical education are they receiving or should be receiving? And if putting it in the policy and we're not doing it >> like what are the so this is the best that I can explain it. This policy is connected to um school wellness. It is not about a curricular mandate. Um it is not an unfunded mandate where now the state is going to say we will take away dollars if you don't do this. it aligns to a very specific assessment and I think that Stephen showed part of that

145last week when we were here. Um, to answer your question, in the high school, our students are required to have one full credit of physical education. That is pretty much standard in all Connecticut public schools. We don't have public schools seeing it yet at four credits, but a way that a lot of schools um might structure that is that students engage in physical education every year. So for one semester um they would have it one semester, but they would have it um like if they run on a A through E day, they would have it once every 3 days, but the minutes um usually end up being the same. Um so unfortunately that number there 73 it should be 50. So yes, so when you think about it now in the minutes per week, on

146average for a Newington High School student, they receive 50 minutes a week physical education instruction >> because you have to take remember they only take PE for what's equivalent to 181 days. In each of those days, there's about 42 minutes, but then you have to divide it over the entire time that a student is at Newington High School, which is for a four full four years. It was a lot of algebra for us to do this. So, we made a couple of mistakes. We actually made some jokes that we needed the bridge program. Um, can you explain that one more time? >> Just like the >> letter G. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, the the assessment the assessment gives us language about an average number of instructional minutes per week. So, we want the language

147in here to talk about every week throughout the school year. Okay. Students who are juniors and seniors, they generally don't take PE. So, they're zero. >> In grade nine, they take PE for one semester every day. Then the other semester, none. Ditto in 10th grade. So when you take all of that and put it together and multiplying and dividing and converting from minutes to hours and weeks and days and all of that stuff, but a year is only 181 days. It comes out to on average a high school student has, we got to correct the math, >> 50 minutes per week, >> okay, >> of instruction with physical education. It's not how active the kid is, >> okay? >> How much instruction? So, okay. So, my question was, are we out of compliance? But we're

148not because doing the math, they are getting 50 hours. >> We're out of We're out of compliance with the assessment that this is aligned to. There are no federal dollars attached to this. If we want to be in compliance, you need to bring the town council back in. We have need to have a whole another conversation about the number of physical education teachers. I I cannot imagine that there is a high school in the state of Connecticut that is aligned with that. >> But there's no penalty. >> I'm sorry. >> But there's no penalty. No, it we just get our score back saying, you know, your policy should really say this. The biggest change I'm so sorry, Mr. Helen. Remember, the biggest change here is that we didn't have any language whatsoever in components from

149that assessment. That was the thing we had to fix. It became a mandate for March 1st. What we're going to be out of compliance with is not having the policy. That's the most important thing. Yeah, I guess my just concern is putting something in a policy that we're not actively doing. >> I know it doesn't matter, but so >> right. So that that's what that's what Stephen and I talked about that let's just be upfront and we know that these numbers will not match on the assessment. So we're not going to get the high score of a two. We're going to get a one because we have very specific language. Desan's point before about we could just be general. You get one point for having very specific language. However, it's not the number of recommended

150minutes. So, we just decided let's just put in what it is that we do. >> Okay. >> Except these these numbers just need to be modified. So, do we want to come back with this one more time or do we have time? Yeah. Do we have time to do it before >> like 17 times before March 1st? >> I know. >> Yeah. Is it allowed at a budget meeting to >> those are usually special meetings? >> We'll make sure we uh post it as such. >> Just so it's it's clear that the minutes are whatever. We could do it next week and that's okay. Still from a timeline, >> we have the 25th. I believe it's February 25th is a regular meeting so we can pop it in. >> Is that enough time for you

151guys? >> Okay. I don't know if there was like a process of like we got >> you can ask your new assistant superintendent of schools if that's enough for him. He starts on March. So you can ask him if he's going to have March 1st. >> Just kidding. >> Mr. D will upload the policy and we'll be in compliance. >> Yeah. So, so Jessica, if it's okay, I'll touch base with you after the meeting and I'll show you the real minutes that we need to have on there and we'll be good. >> Okay. Thank you for and doing all that math. >> Yes, it's a little confusing. Sorry. >> Go ahead, Mr. It was so confusing that we got it wrong even after doing it two times. >> I'm not a huge fan of writing

152a policy just to pass a survey even though it's not directly reflecting or impacting our students in the way that's intended. So, I feel a little conflicted, but I I get it. Um um I just one point of clarification, the first line said preK through 4th will have education instruction and the other lines just said physical education. Does that verbiage matter, the word instruction? Should it be included on every line or not? >> Physical education. Instruction. Yeah. So, we decided to put um like in in letter D, >> we wanted to specify that students in preK through 4 get physical education instruction. So, there is a certified physical education teacher in front of the children providing instruction, which is different than physical activity, which would be recess. So that's why we were just really I

153think the word instruction is what really um specifies that it is a part of a connected to a curricular program. >> As long as it's intentional, I'm fine with it. >> Yes, it was very intentional. It sounds weird. >> Okay. >> Yes. So I'm going to make a very specific motion that does not deal with this at all. Uh, so I'm going to move the board of board of education approve the recommended revisions and renumbering of the 9,000 bylaws of the board series with the exception of 9030 board staff communications. >> Second. >> Okay, we have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? >> Mary, >> yes. Yes. >> Amy Paratt. >> Yes. >> Briano. >> Yes. >> Dr. Gail Stanley. >> Yes. >> We >> Yes. >> The motion passed unanimously.

15490. >> So, we'll bring that whatever number it was back um at some point in the future. >> Yes, that one. Haven't gotten to re numbering the 6,000s yet. Um, so yeah, we'll bring that back at a a future date, maybe the 25th, which is our next um regularly scheduled board me board meeting. Um, as long as we do it before March 1st. >> All right. And 3195. So this one is up. I think there were just two revisions on this. This is in accordance with the March 1st um compliance date. Uh this is a policy we had already updated or really introduced in um this past year in October. Um but what needed to be added and we went back and forth on this. So if we hit the policy um there are just

155two yellow lines um of adding um I can recall Miss Carr and I we were talking at length about the alocart items. Um but it said adults are not allowed to charge meals or alle cart items. Um so just clarifying that part and then if you scroll down the biggest part would be for the March 1st compliance date is um the practice of the unpaid meal debt. Does this currently happen? >> Yes, it does. >> Okay. >> This is the first time we're bringing it. So, um, we can bring it back and I will also convene with my members of policy committee and see if maybe we can do a quick in between virtual or something before the March 1st knowing um, these have come up quite quickly. So, okay. But if you have any

156questions, please email the policy committee. >> Mr. Herin, >> she said email, not ask. >> No, it's okay. It's not specifically about that policy, which is why I just called for the floor for a second. Um um I did attend Anna Reynolds PTA last night and there was just an ask of how can we make sure PTAs are all playing by the same policy and the same rules. Um and I did give a little shout out to like recategorizing them so they're easier to find. So, just a shout out to the policy committee because that's a lot of work and there's a good reason behind that. Um, but also I think it goes to one of the policies that we didn't talk about is like the communications and we're talking about forming the communication committee.

157I think one of the things that might be beneficial is kind of having a little section for PTA members. It's like, hey, check this out. just to put a little bug in the air, kind of like a nonformal orientation just so everybody knows what to do because especially that meal policy that's been going back and forth that does affect the PTA. So, just wanted to bring that up. >> All right. Um, public participation on any matter related to board responsibilities if there's anyone online. Um, there's one person online. I was a Newington resident and no hands and no one in the room. So remarks by board members, >> Mr. Hollerin. >> Really not doing this intentionally. Thank you everybody. It was a long meeting. Uh Miss Diaz, nice to have you at the table. Um

158really really happy to see you here. Um look forward to working with you. You're coming in at a terrible time. Um >> right. >> No, it's the best time. It it is it's a better perspective. >> Also, uh my daughter is on the student council for John Wallace and she was asked to see if um what we would like as a board as a gift to put things out there. So, if you have any ideas um please see me after class. >> Miss V. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Miss Petus, >> um just to say thank you to Dr. from it and your team. I know this is not the easiest thing to do and it comes up quicker and quicker and quicker every year. So, thank you so much. I know it's a

159lot to juggle. Um the decisions that we talked about tonight impact all of our students in some way or another. Um, I want to thank the members of the town council and our mayor and um, their staff for joining us tonight and really giving a good um, collaborative discussion and listening to how each and every one of these items in the book impacts our student and our school community. I can't stress strongly enough as you know some of our colleagues here have done the importance of our paras um and and how they truly are the backbone of uh providing the best educational possible to our students um and these are our most vulnerable students. These are the ones that that need the most help and it's our responsibility as a community to give them the

160tools that they need to be successful. um investing in infrastructure whether it is uh human infrastructure or our buses is never never easy and sometimes it's hard for us to really present a clear picture about the benefits of that. But an investment is just that. It's an investment and it ultimately um fulfills our mission to give our students the best educational opportunity that we can possibly do. Um we are all very very aware of the impact that this has on our community um of people who maybe don't have kids in the schools or their kids have have already graduated. But when we do what we can for our students, we lift up our entire community. These are people who stay in our community, make contributions in real real positive ways. and we're doing a disservice

161to our students and our staff if we're not showing them the respect and the understanding of the the commitment and the contribution that they make to our students. So, I really want to thank everybody who was here tonight and listening and gave a full listen to why these things are so important. I'm really excited to to hear their contributions and how we can move forward together as a team to do what we can for this for the students and the staff of the school. Thank you, Mus Weaver. All of that and more. Just want to reiterate thanks to all the staff. Uh, and I'm just going to give a pre-thinks for all the hours you're about to do in all of these to everyone here at the table. Thank you in advance for putting in

162the time and effort. I know it's going to be long and hard, but some someone's definition of fun. Um, so thank you for that. And I just wanted to note too, um, this past weekend, um, our representative Turo gave, uh, he hosted a teacher advisory council, um, that Mr. Mr. Hall and I attended um and it was just really helpful to hear from teachers that are both teaching in the district but teachers and residents that are teachers outside the district to hear what's going on in our dur what's going on in other um ones. So I just wanted to say thank you um he knows how I feel about unfunded mandates and other things u and all of our education policy in the state. But um I think one of the things that's important is

163really just being able to listen to kind of where we are. What are the struggles? And I know there's a lot of struggles that are statewide here that we're grappling with here. So, um, thank you for acknowledging some of those things that are clearly contributing to our budget and those kinds of things that will contribute to all the town's budgets in the state. Um, but I think this is obviously the important work and why we do this. So, thank you all for participation of night one and many nights to come. Hopefully not many more. >> Yeah, Miss Lindsay, >> I want to thank everybody just umbrella everybody. Um, but I also want to say I'm glad we're doing this for the Paris that we're looking into this because I know my daughter's Paris stayed with

164her through Wallace only to be with her. >> As soon as she graduated, went to the high school, she went to another town. I don't remember what town she said she went to. So, we're losing good parents by. So, I'm glad we're going to be doing we're looking and doing this with for the Paris. >> Yeah. And yeah, I know we're all on the table kind of around the table in favor of um benefits for our para educators, but just before this, I was in my social work for healthcare class and we literally talked about how healthc care is a basic human right and that everyone deserves to have um health care, health coverage um just for a number of reasons and if we have healthy staff, we have healthy students and so I think

165it is very important And um I look forward to working with the town and working with everyone on the table to um hopefully figure out how we can get it done for them because it is very important. Um so yeah and looking forward to Miss Freeman speaking. I know I'm not on the board. Mr. Hollerin, I am going to take your suggestion and cross out the word instruction because I looked at the paragraph below and it talks about certified teachers. So >> thank you. >> Just want Perfect. >> Thank you. Thank you. Looking forward to that update in the future. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I meeting ajourn 9:37 p.m. >> What are we doing, Mr. >> You got me there. >>

166I haven't been able to make a motion in several meetings. Okay.