NPS BOE Meeting - (5/7/2025)

001I got Where's my [Music] Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting of the Newington Board of Education to order uh for Wednesday, May 7th, 2025. The time is 7:02 p.m. Please rise for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Deb, would you please call the role? Here. Sean, here. here. Here here. Anastasia Y here. Everyone here except a bar. Thank you. And the first item on our agenda is our everyday hero. I will turn it over to Dr. Breth. Grab my little right up here. May I use your handheld? You may. Well, good evening. We have a lovely crowd here to celebrate our everyday hero who is Miss

002Bacho. Yay. Our fir a first grade teacher at Anna Reynolds School. She was nominated by Miss Mullie, who is also here. and she gets a a round of applause, too. And of course, we are joined by some very special students from Miss Bacho's class who surprised her by being here tonight for her special night. But boys and girls, and we've got Mr. Little Mr. Smith up there, too. So, why where do we even begin? And that's exactly how Miss Mullie started her nomination. Miss Bacho continues to promote equity and inclusive practices in every aspect of her day as a first grade teacher at Anna Reynolds. Regardless of the holiday or celebration, she goes out of her way to make sure her classroom is not only decorated for it, but also prepares activities, including readalouds, worksheets,

003videos, food that's approved by the nurse and families, and creative activities for her to stud for her students to learn about them, including traditional holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah, but also less widely known holidays such as Quanza, Lunar New Year, and others. Her latest bulletin board currently has posters of different influ influential abolitionists, but also a note that says, "Come on in and ask about abolitionists." Literally, first graders, five and six-year-olds, are able to define the term and give examples. During our recent Ramadan lunchon, she was the only staff member to accept a hijab from another staff member and proudly wear it around school. Above educating her students with the highest quality of skills, Miss Bacho also goes above and beyond to make sure her students ba most basic needs are met. When a new

004student arrived from Puerto Rico and did not have a warm jacket for our cold Connecticut winter and his family could not get one for him, she went out and purchased him one. She also had a selection of approved snacks and water for her students so no one has to go without a snack in her classroom. When a student moved out of district a couple days before his birthday, she made sure to handdel birthday cards from his former classmates to his new school. I literally could go on and on about all the ways Miss Bacho makes Anna Reynolds an inclusive and safe place, but I could never list all those ways or find adequate words. Any school, community, or student is lucky to have Miss Bacho as a teacher. So, come on up, Miss Bacho. So,

005we'll get the picture. Yeah. Why don't we have Couldn't we have the students? I think that's a beautiful idea. They came all the way. Look at all these students. Ems Msulli. All right. All right. She's an expert photographer at Diana Reynolds. This is Do you want to say anything? I have something prepared for a student who could not be there. Okay. Okay. This is coming from Zoe. Okay. She's very upset she couldn't come tonight. She says, "I love my teacher because she taught me how to read. You are the best. Love, Zoe." And then she wrote a bunch of words that she learned in the middle. I'm sure you'll get this real picture tomorrow, but she was so proud of herself because she learned how to read and write because rad. I don't know what

006that one says. R. But lots of them. So, this is from Zoe. She loves you. Thank you. All right. any of the other little friends. You're all gonna be Mimi. Come on. I know you can speak up. All right. What do you What do you want to say about Bacho? Mia, tell everybody what you nicknamed me this year. Bache. And what do we call Mrs. Moden? Bodie. And what's your nickname? BB. Okay. And do you want to share something wonderful about room 25? Everybody cares about everybody. Everybody cares about theirel. Whenever I cry, they always pat me on the back. Wait, do we have any fun though? Is it Is it a lot of crying and patting on the back? Yeah, we have fun. What you spot about your day? I'm currently Anything else? Recess

007early. All right, I'm not in charge of recess. Bingo, games in the morning. Um, let's see. Fun snacks. Um, we do grounding outside. Good. All right. Thank you. Thank you everyone. I like that they're we're both vegetarians. And tell them what do we have in the calf? What do we do together? Um sometimes we sit together and what do we eat? Vegetarian stuff. What's our favorite though? Imp possible burger. Impossible chicken sandwich. Right. And we get everyone to taste it. I do love that you're my vegetarian. We love that. Phineas, anything? What? One thing is that my friend Lee um today um he um has a nickname he that he calls meas Ben. Yeah. What about what what do I call you? Um he is Finn Finnegan and that is not his name. We're very

008big on nicknames in room 25 if you can't tell. Some of us even have matching sweatshirts. Um Harpy, anything? Lil? Oh, girls. All right. All right. About What is your favorite thing about Bad Hill? Do you want to whisper? Don't be nervous, Lil. What did you learn how to do this year? I'll say it. Are you an amazing reader now? A what? What did you do this morning on the dibbles? What did we say? You did what? Did you say that? I crushed her. What? You crushed the math. You're amazing. Harpy, what have you learned this year? What's the best thing about room 25? It is also the Msulli hair salon, right? Massulli. Nice. He's the funniest teacher ever. All right, room 25. Before we go, we're gonna end with a song. What do we

009always say? What a day. [Laughter] Thank you. Uh, is there any board members that want to make a comment? Okay. Oh my gosh. Can we get like that on Spotify or something to just listen to? That would be great. Just putting out that board request. Um um just want to say this is kind of like we never know 100% the you know who's nominating and that kind of stuff. We just kind of see the name on the agenda. Um and it's a surprise to us too kind of how that works. So it's one of those things where we just love to hear um I think the relationships that and the words of your colleagues um and your nominators about how that is how you are how you help our schools and um so thank you

010for nominating. Um, but I think one of the things that's that just stood out to me was that demonstration clearly. Um, I don't think we've had like, you know, we've been lately having boards and shows here. We had Frozen here the other week. I mean, I'm not sad about this. I really think this should should be a trend. Um, but thank you to all the students for coming. We're very excited to hear that you're very happy. Um, but just want to say, Miss Brad, that is you're just an exemplary uh staff member. We always talk about how we everything we do is like for our teachers, for our students, that's what we want to see. Um, but to see it in action, to hear what colleagues have to say about each other, to go above

011and beyond. Um, in a time where there is so much uncertainty, there's so much swirling around education, the teaching profession, to bring so much light and to bring so much inclusivity, to bring so much equity, to bring so much uh individualized education in when it's very difficult to do that and every child is different. We're trying to meet so many needs here. Um to see that on display, to hear those words, um and to celebrate such the diversity we have, the amazing cultures we have. Um and you know, I think we were there when we saw some of the the decorations on the bulletin board as well when we did our walkthrough. Um just to hear so many of those things. Um God, I'm so jealous. I'm so jealous. Um if you want to come

012to my work every time, I feel like I could use a mispr. But congratulations. Okay. Would be really good. That is really what I'm asking. Um, but just congratulations and thank you all so much for really putting uh a spotlight on what it is to be Newington public schools and I think an example for not just our community but I think probably the country and the world. So, thank you. Thank you so much. It there's no greater words and one of your students said this. you taught me to read and that is the best thing I've ever heard and we we all in this room know why that's so powerful but your love and your kindness for your students is so obvious and the appreciation that you have for what makes each indiv individual student

013so special is just it's a miracle and and we love it and the the foundation that you're giving our students is just exactly what they need to be successful as they follow through. So keep doing what you do. Thank you guys so much for coming and for singing for us. We love that. But congratulations and thank you. Mr. Holler, I just wanted to thank the kids first and foremost for coming out, showing your appreciation, being brave enough to speak into a microphone and front of a room with a big table with a bunch of grown-ups. I was going to say old people, but I don't want to offend anybody. I am old. Um, thank you guys very much. I don't want to keep you too late because it's still a school night. Uh, but Miss

014Bacho, I think kindness, empathy, understanding, friendship, those are the ingredients that make a healthy community. Thank you so much for fostering those not only in your classroom, not only in Anna Reynolds, but in the entire New England public school system. Um, as much as you're teaching them the foundational academics that they need, those lessons how to be in a healthy community will be the lessons they will take with them and will serve them well. I cannot thank you enough for that. Thank you, Mr. Smith, did you want to? Yeah. Yes. I just add um the about a week or two ago I spent a little bit extra time longer time in her classroom and all the things that Mrs. Msulli wrote about and the students talk about were just so clearly evident um our expectations

015about being kind, being engaged and being inclusive. But the piece the piece for me was really that the students were running all those things. the students if a kid walked in the room or calling somebody over or waving somebody to come and sit with them to greet check in with each other. Um when they were looking at a passage on the on the board, the kids were just getting so excited when they were just to find the different spell the spelling patterns and the reading that they were doing. And they really took ownership of of the classroom, the environment about being kind and being inclusive. And I know that's because Mrs. Bachelor spent so many so so much time early in the year just preaching those concepts, those routines to her to her students that

016it really is ingrained in it. Um and just to see such a positive inclusive environment uh where students are so um so independent and just so welcoming and warm towards one another. And uh many of you that are sitting in that room or online with us that you know I saw that firsthand. So, uh, your parents should be just just as proud of you for hearing the things Mrs. Bachelo's been teaching, but most importantly transferring those skills and applying them, um, throughout our school and in your classroom. So, thank you. And and a a parent made a a comment in the chat said, "We couldn't make it tonight, but we really love Mrs. Bacho. My child has autism. she really has gone above and beyond to stay in communication with me to make sure that

017we're all working together to help my child have the best experience that he can. So, that was shared and um and I just want to say I know this is a new position for you this year, but I'm just proud of you for for taking it and running with it and really, you know, helping your students grow and learn and succeed and setting a model for everyone else in the school and and in the district. So, thank you so much deserved. And thank you, Mrs. Missy for nominating her. Yes. And thank you everyone for coming out. It was great to show support for your teacher and I hope you have a really good day tomorrow. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And now we have recognition for our mentors and mentees. Turn over to Mr. Fari. That's

018correct. Great. Thank you so much for the opportunity to recognize our our mentors and mentees. Um it's so fitting that this come right after the everyday hero. Um because I feel like our mentors um although they don't receive a certificate like that one are heroes every day for us. Um they work with the newest of staff who come to the Newington public schools either fresh out of college uh into the profession or from another district. And um every um new educator needs to go through what's called the team program. It's a Connecticut um educator program um to make sure that the first two years um you are successful in education and there are a lot of um learning modules that they have to engage in, a lot of papers that they have to write. Um

019even learning that they do with us around professionalism in the profession. Um, so a lot of great experiences that they have within those first two years, but they're also trying to be great educators for those little students before them and the families that they serve. Um, throughout that whole time, those whole two years, we have highly experienced educators who are partnered with these beginning educators or educators new to Newington uh to engage them through that process. And even if they've finished that process somewhere else and they come to us as a tenur staff member, we still partner them with an informal mentor. So that way they can um really be inculturated with the practices that we do here in the Newington public schools because it's so important that they understand our curriculum, the way we

020instruct, how we can best meet the needs of our students. All the great things you heard Mrs. Batjo do, uh we try to instill upon um educators new to Newington. So for that, I just wanted to um recognize our mentors for the amazing job that they do to our mentees um and helping develop uh the next generation of educators here in the Newington public schools. Um I'm not sure if we can see if there are any online. A few mentioned that they would be um but I don't see anyone. So I don't know how we would we would know that. But to all of you who are out there that I can't see, is that is that Brenda? Hi Brenda Moika. So we do have a few. If you want to just say hi and

021introduce yourself maybe in in in the mentee you're working with that would be phenomenal. Okay. I will go. Can you hear me? Okay. I'm Brenda Dwell. I'm an instructional coach at Elizabeth Green and at um John Patterson. I split my time there. Uh I am this year I am mentoring a um prek teacher who is uh not new to the profession but was new to our district. Um so I've had a great year. I've uh really in my almost 30 years in Newington. I haven't spent a lot of time in prek so this year gave me a great opportunity to get in there and um it's always a nice uh opportunity to um really get to know uh teachers in in in a different way. So, um, thank you for taking the time to recognize

022us. And it is a great, um, opportunity to, um, kind of help, uh, help others with, uh, uh, Newington. Hi. Um, I'm just going to ditto everything Brenda said. Um, no, my name is Betsy Moika. I am a grade six language arts and social studies teacher and teacher leader at John Wallace. This year I am currently working also with a teacher who has 16 years experience but is new to our district. Um so it's a lot of just kind of getting used to, you know, Newington beliefs, Newington ideas, our meetings and how things go, where things go, when things are. Um so it's it's fun and interesting. It's it's been a lot of listening to how other districts do it and then realizing, you know, how does that work with where we are? Um, so

023it's always, no matter if I'm working with a cooperative teacher or a brand new teacher or now a teacher who has experience in other districts, it's always interesting to kind of see how that all plays out and, you know, what Newington really represents and why, you know, why we want good people to be here. Thank you. that that might be all that's joining us this evening and and thank you both so much and and what they are leaving out is um maybe humbly is how how hard they have to work to become a mentor, right? So they have to get certified every other year and keep that certification up. It's a three-day training and then they continue to keep that going. um they have to maintain a log with their me to make sure that

024every week they're meeting and keeping a log of how that's going. There's just a lot of work that goes into it. Oftent times outside of work hours they're managing all of this. Um just to do this wonderful service for for our profession, but the Newington public schools as well. And when you see the list of all the men mentors, you'll just see so clearly um that they're they're the finest teachers that we have here in Newington. So, they're really bringing the educators that we bring into Newington up the right way so that way they can be the best they can be for our students. So, we're just so proud of you all. Thank you so much for all you do. Thank you. Are there any Miss Weaver? Yeah. I just want to say you Mr.

025FY usually brings like this list. Um, if we have it, I would love to see it again cuz I call it like it's like the NFL quarterback string. Like that is the A-list. It's my Oscars list. Again, not getting an Oscar anytime soon. This isn't a spoiler, but I genuinely believe the some of the best teachers um lie on that roster. Um, and I think one of the great things is just wanting to thank um both online, Betsy and and Brenda. I just want to say thank you so much for doing that. I think one of the things that um we always talk about is like oh my gosh our teachers do so much they do so much and then there's like all this additional things and then it's our teachers helping other teachers and

026that collaborative work um teaching doesn't always go into the uh the the one way we think of just the students so to see that interaction between our teachers is just wonderful um so I thank you for once again going above and beyond um I don't think we have that as a full stipulation in the contract of when you sign up to do this so um thank you for for doing that. And as someone who has a sister graduating on Monday to become a teacher, I'm very grateful um to the uh those who are currently teaching, bringing up the next generation. Um we're very lucky to have you. So, thank you for all your work that you do and um please please help our next generation get better. Thank you. Um Mr. Newton and then Miss

027Petris, just a note about Miss Dill. I knew her when she first started at Anna Reynolds. And I get I worked a third shift and I get a call one night and it says, "Anna Reynolds." I'm like, "What's wrong with one of my kids?" And I answer the phone after working third shift. And she was hesitant on the phone for a second. And she says, "Um, do you have two dogs?" I said, "Yeah, I have a yellow lab and a black lab." She said, "Well, can you come and get them?" My dogs jumped our fence, went two blocks to the school, and found the classroom where their their boy was in, and they were in the classroom in the bathtub. I was like, "Okay, let's go, guys." But she's a good person. So, you know,

028those are things you don't forget and a great teacher. Miss Petus, I don't know if I can do better than that. Um the this is what makes um our Newington teachers the best. This is exactly what makes them the best. When you love what you do, it's a gift. There's no greater gift than being able to share that love and your expertise with other people. And I think um any one of us who has been lucky enough um and I count myself in this to work with somebody who has mentored me through my career, it's it's more than just the knowledge that they share. It's the wisdom that's being shared. It's the um creativity and how to get things solved in a way that's meaningful and effective. And you don't learn that in school. You

029learn that from people who have been there. And it's it's it's a a a real I view my mentoring as a professional obligation, but it's it's that type of relationship that makes our district strong and it is so so so appreciative. The work that's involved in in uh being a mentor pays off um for decades afterwards. So, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Um well-deserved recognition and we appreciate all the work that you're doing. Okay. Um, now we have a recognition for our board student representatives, Michael and Abby. They both get a little certificate. Okay, please come up and accept your recognition. And they have some friends here too from the student council. You were doing it too. Yeah. So exciting. You want to say anything? Some of their student council colleagues. Did

030you want to read the Oh, yeah. I am so grateful to have been a part of this role this year and it's taught me so much. Like, it's given me so many good skills and I've gotten the opportunity to get to know my school community better and to get to know Michael and all the other student council officers. So, it's something I'm so glad to be able to continue in next year, too. Um, so again, you already said it. I'm forever grateful and thankful for all of you guys making this easy. Um, you guys were welcoming, friendly, all positive faces all around, even when you know it all seemed like it was going crashing down, but no, you guys held it down for us and which made our our jobs and our lives easier. Thank

031you to all you guys as well for making it so much like so much more easier and getting to know you was a tremendous honor and I am forever grateful for this moment. Thank you so much. I I'll just read into the record what your award says. It says, uh, "This is presented to Michael and Abby for participating in the Newington Board of Education meetings and leadership within the school community and for demonstrating exemplary leadership skills." Congratulations. You guys want to get in? How about first one and then they can join, which is super nice. Yes. All right. And then with our StuCo friends, what are we doing? Yeah, there you go. Oh yeah. Follow the right time. All right. So, they're going to just stick around for a little bit longer. So, we'll hold

032our comments till a few minutes. I'm sorry. Just Are you sure? Is that okay? All right. Um, we have public participation on any matter related to board responsibilities. If you're in the room, you can come to the end of the table or online, raise your hand. Um, I see Miss Rodriguez. Good evening, any everyone. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes. Perfect. Jen Rodriguez, 71 Northwood Road. Um, I am a first grade teacher and a parent and um hold many hats. Uh but foremost or utmost I am um a constituent and I want to just kind of speak across multiple hats here um you know I I also hold the hat of being a chair of the certification and preparatory board uh for Connecticut and I have to tell you uh during teacher appreciation week what

033a joy it is to watch the board meeting this evening and just see the recognition and kind of see that full circle or you know longitudinal uh work that's happened where you see these first graders coming in speaking about how much they love school to seeing these um advocates that we have at the high school who come to every board meeting and speak on behalf of their uh student uh faculty or their student groups um there. So I just want to say like it's just a beautiful moment to see it across all um you know as part of some of the work that I do there's a huge focus as many of you know on recruitment and retention and when you have a teacher like uh Mrs. Bacho talking about the things that she does,

034but more importantly her students talking about the joy in her classroom. What a beautiful example of a recruitment for the general public to hear and to see for future generation of educators, right? Um and then when you hear about our mentors, um Brenda was not my official mentor, but she was an unofficial mentor for me uh when I uh first started out in Newington public schools. Uh a great friend to me. And one of the things that we hear across all of our meetings, across all stakeholders um is that mentorship is so important in ensuring that we not only recruit but that we retain people um because there is a shortage and there's usually a turnover within three to five years of starting in the profession. Having great mentorship like we have here in Newington

035public schools is just so key and important to ensuring that our new candidates, our new educators really feel supported and a part of the community. and I'm just so proud of the work that Newington Public Schools has done to ensure that. So, thank you so much. Um, yeah. So, Mrs. Bacho, um, I'm sorry she had to actually leave so she couldn't hear this, but I'll let her uh, preview it in the video a little bit later. But, um, speaking like of Brave, she's just, uh, you she worked for so long in New Britain public schools and then to come here, um, in her career and begin in Newington public schools and starting off as a reading teacher and then a first grade teacher. She's part of my team. Um, and I think that she shows

036that bravery every day with her own students. I think you saw a little bit of that this evening. Uh, when you heard them talk about like how fun it is or how they speak up for each other and how they're upstanders and how they're kind and how they ground themselves. You know, they're learning that from this professional who truly cares not only about the profession, but the students that are in front of her. Um, so if I had to to speak about Mrs. Bacho I would say that she's definitely very brave in what she has done so far and taking risks uh sometimes challenging the status quo bringing up great ideas new ideas things that we haven't heard of before I mean I think we had a dog in our school last year which was

037wonderful um thanks to her um so I think that she comes up with some really brave and and interesting ideas um that her students are definitely the benefit of so you know that was kind of my spiel for this evening I just wanted to say thank you and uh just an absolute joy to listen to tonight's meeting um during a teacher appreciation week and all the celebration of really from beginning to end students and staff and all the work that they do. So, thank you so much as a parent in this town for supporting our educators and our students uh and uplifting them and providing them with leadership opportunities. So, thank you all. Thank you. Yep. Just um turn the mic on for it should turn and just state your name and address for the

038record. Okay. My name is Cindy Forauour, 37 Sequin Street in Newington. Um, I'm here uh representing uh Chris Clark and the plaque that is I guess on the agenda, right, Matt? Um, so Chris is my friend, but that's only because I worked with him for so long through the schools. It kind of uh I love the school system here and seeing like a young uh the kids from elementary school all the way through high school. It really is an appreciation of all of the teachers. And I'm going to read something if you don't mind because I don't want to miss what I wanted to say. I spent 11 years volunteering with the performing arts boosters. They were the music boosters when I started. Through those years, I not only worked with Chris, but I now

039call him a friend. I respect Chris for many reasons. A few of them are his dedication to his students, his passion for music, and his sensitivity for others. I feel the stage bearing his name is a perfect way to honor his years of coaching, encouraging, and supporting the hundreds of students that have stood on that stage. Chris always has the best intentions for all of the students. And here's a small example. Many of you may know he has personally sewn a lot of costumes for all of the plays and musicals. He has consulted with me many times about the fit of costumes to make sure all the students felt confident and secure in how they look on stage. Cindy, do you think it's high enough? Do you think it's long enough? Do you think it's

040too tight? He wanted to make sure all the all the clothing looked and felt good on the students. And I know that may seem like a small thing, but being an awkward teenager on stage in front of a full auditorium, you need to have that confidence when all eyes are on you. He made sure to consider those feelings and give each costume and student the attention to detail required for a fit that's comfortable and confidence boosting. He never made a big deal about it to the students, but behind the scenes, he put a lot of thought into making everyone comfortable in many ways, but this is just one example. Students on that stage knew one thing for certain. Someone cared. Chris cared. While it does take a village and many people involved getting students ready

041to be on that stage, no one can deny that Chris Clark was always there to lend an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, or just a nod of confidence that says, "You can do this." His genuine spirit of excitement could always be heard from the back of the auditorium when he let out his Chris Clark laugh. Do you know it? Ah, because if you don't know it, you should. Chris isn't boastful or loud. He doesn't pass judgment or criticize. He's compassionate and generous of heart. He is empathetic and caring. And most of all, he's a grown-up version of each student he meets. He knows those feelings. He was once in their shoes and and understands them. Most of them. Most of them. Obviously, I kind of like him and a plaque bearing his

042name on the stage would be a beautiful homage to his time at Newington High and a dedication to his students. One of his famous lines is memories to last a lifetime. That is exactly what he has created for his students and honestly for many parents and families as well. So, I hope that this can happen for him and for others to remember all the work he did. you guys know. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anybody else in the room? Hi folks. Please say your name and address for the record. Sure. Matt Floyd, 15 Woods Headeds Drive in Newington. Um it's good to be here. It's good to see everybody. Um uh I want to thank uh Dr. Brummit and Lou in particular for their patience and assistance with getting uh this item that was

043just spoken to on the agenda. You just heard this will be by the way my favorite thing and the easiest thing I do all week and I do a lot of hard things all week which is to sell this plaque and this recognition and honor to the board. Um, obviously, as you know, I was privileged to be a product of the Newington public school system and of Newington High School where Chris wasn't just a teacher to me. He was a mentor and a parent away from home. Um, and in the years since, he's become a very dear friend. But as has been said, his impact can't be measured uh in one student or in one staff member or in one parent. The impact that Chris has had on Newington High School and the broader Newington

044community will be felt for a generation and has had an impact on generations of students in that school. A 22year long career is a long time, particularly as a coral teacher. a men's coral teacher often as well. And Chris has not just shown immense patience and resilience and fortitude in building one of the most um awarded and renowned coral programs in the state of Connecticut and supporting one of the most uh uh renowned theater programs in the state of Connecticut and in the region as well. Um, but he's also been a very close friend and mentor to so many students. He's been there for them when they needed him most. Um, he's never forgotten what was just beautifully said, that he was once in their shoes. He knows how they feel. He knows all about

045pessimism. He knows all about the rigor of homework. He knows all about taking that one class, maybe a music class to get that last couple credits to graduate. He knows all about that, but he's there to meet them and get to know them and understand them. And he's he's been that for for for years. So, this is, I think, the easiest thing um for the board to move forward with. I'm happy to support the board and answering questions about this. Um really grateful also to uh uh member Weaver, Vice Chair Weaver for supporting this effort as well throughout the process. But um I hope the board will consider moving forward with the plaque and the naming of the stage so that in perpetuity for generations to come, folks can understand and and remember the profound

046impact that Chris has had uh on our school system. Thank you so much. Thank you. Any other public who wishes to speak? Seeing none. Okay. Now we can go back to our student representatives for our standing committee reports. Abby and Michael. Is this the last one? Yes. Last one of the school year. Yes. You know, Abby and I were just talking about this, but you know, it it's always like nerve-wracking. Like we always like get nervous. You know, we're presenting in front of like all you guys, but again, you guys make this easy with all your smiles and all your happiness. We just want to say thank you for that. Um, thank you. Yes, of course. Um, but last one, let's get started. So, what's happening in New Public Schools? First of all, we would

047like to take a moment of silence to recognize a beautiful young soul in our new and same uh public schools community. Uh, senior Gabriella Defoe and her family. Thank you. Gabrielle Defoe was a beautiful soul and her passing was a tremendous loss to our New Public Schools community. The school and community continues to show her our support for her family as we navigate through this heartbreaking time. Gabriella, her mother, and her aunt will be dearly missed in Newington. We will also make sure that she's appropriate appropriately recognized at her graduation as well. So, thank you so much. like Michael said, she's going to be missed and it was really heartbreaking for our school. So, we just wanted to take that time to acknowledge her. Um, so what's happening at NHS? We have had a lot

048of honor society inductions this last month in these last couple of months. So, we had our world language honor society inductions, French, Spanish, Italian, and Latin. We had our honor society inductions in English. So, we had a lot of students being inducted and we're excited to have them. Um, the class essayist contest for the class of 2025 is also out and seniors have been given the materials to write the speech and whichever one is chosen as the best will be they will present it at graduation. This year's prompt is, what is something you learned or some way you evolved for the better while here at NHS that you will take uh with you through your life and that you think would be beneficial for all your fellow graduates? We also had junior prom a couple

049of weeks ago and senior prom will be this Friday. So, it was a great time. Junior prom was April 25th and it was at Glastonbury Hills and senior prom's going to be at the Aqua Turf. Everyone had a great time and we sold a lot of tickets so it was really fun. Um, we also had Prom Promise. We altered the program a little bit this year to be sensitive to the loss of the Defo family, but we wanted to give a special thank you to the Newington Police Department and our staff for helping facilitate the program for both juniors and seniors. um graduation banners. Also, the materials and the information for that went out to parents so that they can start planning that and putting them up around the town. Um a decision day was

050also held last week and there was a tailgate in the tennis court with all the seniors earlier in the morning. They just brought food and celebrated the day and they wore whatever college or um branch of the military they were going into, they wore a shirt for that throughout the school day. And then we just wanted to recognize our student council executive board officers for next year. So our president's going to be Adrien Vielski. Our vice president is going to be Michaela Woods. I'm going to be senior board of ed. Daniel Bzgard is going to be the junior board of ed. Aaron Pakowitz is going to be our secretary. Jaylen Henderson is going to be our treasurer. And Jason White will be our social chair. Yes. So we're so excited to work with them next

051year. Yes. Um, more inside of NHS, uh, we had our senior assembly where administration got to meet with seniors, uh, on th last Thursday to review senior activities and also graduation requirements and the process as well. Um we also have our NHS performing arts uh end of year celebration where we celebrate hardworking all hardworking students um in the music program and recognize everything that they have done and we also recognize the graduating seniors. This will be um Tuesday, June 3rd at 6 p.m. in the New High School cafeteria. It is $15 for students and $20 for everyone else. We also had uh on Thursday, May 1st, uh 14 NHS students from of the Latin uh club attended the Connecticut State Latin and Greek Day uh at Holiday Hill in Prospect, Connecticut. Um joining over uh

0521,500 other Latin students from o all over 40 uh Connecticut schools. and LA Latin Day, a day of immersion and in the language and culture of Asian Rome has been a tradition among Connecticut Latin students for over 36 years. So, we just wanted to take a moment to recognize that as well. Um, this week currently we are having a spirit week for Miss Tno to celebrate her winning the uh Connecticut assoc Yeah, I got that right. uh Connecticut Association of Schools uh principal of the year award. Um and Monday uh students surprised her by lining the halls and singing and just welcoming her into the building. Um we have a plethora of other events for her as well uh to celebrate her this amazing accomplishment. And finally, uh we just want to say good luck

053to all who are taking AP testing. Um Mr. Corin and admin have been uh sending out daily advice leading up to AP exams um to help students prepare for the exams as well. So, good luck and to everyone. So, we don't have a whole lot for clubs cuz a lot of their clubs are wrapping up the in these next um couple of months and weeks. So, DECA and FBLA went to London in early April. Both Michael and I and Dr. Brumit went and it we had a great time. It was really fun. We got to see a lot of the culture in London and just see how their business and their marketing differed from ours and the ways it was similar. So that was really fun. Um DECA also that next week I believe um

054attended ICDC which is our international career um development conference and this year was held in Orlando, Florida. So at this conference there were over 26,000 people from around the world. Four of our students who went attended the Thrive Leadership Conference and then two of our students were competitors and they participated in role plays and testing. And then National Honor Society has been having a lot of fundraisers recently cuz every year students in National Honor Society will have service projects um where they can give back to the community. They're just a couple. Laya Civotello and Bella Longo held their bingo night to raise money for the Jefferson House. And then R.J. Pula and Gage Howard held a Chipotle fundraiser for stands for students which helps to raise money for music stands for students across the state.

055And then a link crew is holding their end of the year celebration at the end of May where our link current link leaders can celebrate all the service they've done this year. and we'll be welcoming the class of 2026 um as an interest meeting too so that they can see what the club's all about if they're interested in joining. So now we're moving on to sports. Um we do have a lot um spring sports showing great advancements. So, we just want to say congratulations to all spring sports as well, but especially want to recognize coach Don um Lowski uh who reached 300 wins um in the past weeks. Um I know coach Don has personally uh really related with my family coaching my brother, my older brother, William Mafori. Um and he's been a great

056mentor for him and not only for him, for me as well. Um, and I want to say congratulations to coach Don and Arya Dean Stoakis and Olivia Kenniperryi are breaking through school records for track like it's nothing. So, we want to say congratulations to those outstanding scholar athletes. So, for our special shoutouts, we wanted to recognize Kayn Reynolds, who's a senior at the high school, and she just returned from a week at the USA Hockey Nationals in Ohio. And her team, the Connecticut Northern Lights, finished second in the country. So, we wanted to give them a big shout out. Um, we also wanted to congratulate James Smith, who signed his letter of intent to play lacrosse at Southern New Hampshire University. And then we wanted to recognize Josie Pella and Ry Riley Serantino who received

057the CIAC Exemplary Unified Teammate Award. Josie and Riley were honored Monday night at the Aqua Turf with other students across the state. We also want to say thank you to Mr. Greenberg who puts a lot of effort into running this program. And then we want to recognize Ross Gubin who was in the class of 2020 in 2003. um he was inducted to the Connecticut High School Hockey Hall of Fame. So that's all for our regular, you know, um regularly scheduled um reporting, but we wanted to I wanted to bring notice for um a new change for Newton public schools um and which concerns how we pay for say prom and like school activities. Um, and for years like Newton public schools has has has had the same payment method and now is outdated. We would

058like to I would like to introduce a new uh card payment and contactless payment methods to ensure um number one safety um keeping our time and also building participation throughout the schools. um online payments have been incorporated into like our surrounding districts and schools and I and a multitude of staff and se uh students feel like Newton public schools needs to catch up. Um multiple students and staff have questioned why Newington doesn't have has hasn't made the move yet. And I feel like me introducing this as a student really impacts um us having a better Newington uh schoolfamily system. Um first I would like to start out with safety and why um this is important safety. We have a multi multiple students that handle cash and checks and sometimes that can be mishandled. Who to

059say, you know, a student will resist the urge to slip a $20 bill once in a while into their pocket and call it a day? Um, we all know that Newington High School, uh, at the New High School, we have students that run the storm supply, which is the school store. Um, these students are entrusted with taking in the right amount of money from the store uh, to a trusted advisor before the money gets into a safe and from that safe, it has to get deposited into the bank. Now, this is a lot of steps. If I I don't know about you guys, but that's that's a lot. That's a lot. Um and you know, this this raises the question um why we don't have just one transaction from the store um to the account.

060Um this will also help keep money safe and organized for smoother transactions as well. Next, I would like to talk about how the time this saves the school as a whole. um the time it takes to count the money even from the school store will be like eliminated. Um meaning students can complete the transaction and record it and have time to do their homework in between, you know. And I also feel like um I would also like to say that it would mostly cut the time in half for students who were to count the money and that they sold for example prom. Um, this allows for other necessities to be completed and give students and staff breathing time to clear their their minds before the next task. Um, and finally, I would like to talk

061about, you know, how participation numbers would increase within the district. Um, first going back to the topic of time, parents in Newington in the Newington district would work hard. Um, as you guys know, you guys are parents in Newington. You guys work hard for that. um they had they are very hardworking and they also have to make time for their children. However, let's say in a hypothetical, little Johnny needs $20 for his field trip. Now, that parent has to take their time out of the day to run to the bank, then take out the money, withdraw it, and then bring it to little Johnny. But let's say that parent is too overwhelmed with all the responsibilities. Now Johnny has, you know, the has missed that uh opportunity to go for that field trip which betters

062his learning. Um and this is actually the case with most of our students at Newington High School. And I believe integrating a car/c contactless payment method would increase uh participation throughout the district while providing safe and efficient uh way a safe and efficient way to handle transactions. Thank you. Love it. Um like Michael said, I really do think that this kind of system would be really helpful to our school community. just from the perspective like of a DECA officer. I just a lot of times like at big school events, we'll be selling and parents will come in, they'll be interested in buying stuff for their kids or for themselves and they don't have cash on them. There'll be a lot of situations like that, not just with the school store, but in our school as

063a whole. And I think we would be able to raise a lot more money and it could be a lot more of efficient an efficient system. But yeah, that's all we have for you guys today. So, if you have any questions or comments, we'd be happy to answer them. Thank you so much. It was a great great last presentation. U Miss Weaver, last one, best one. Here we go. Um, one question too on this before I give you all your flowers and all these things. Um, would this be like an integration? I just think of like from an equity perspective, not everyone has access to a credit card or access to ability to if they're unbanked and that kind of stuff, it would be integrated. Yes, this this would be integrated to accommodate for everyone

064here at Newington and outside of Newington as well. Yeah. So like instead But totally get it cuz I handled as treasurer of student council. I know all of the days just like counting that in the quarters in the quarter. Oh my god. You messed one bill up. I got to count again. I thought I lost a quarter and I lost it. Um, but no, thank you guys so much. I think you just actually gave a great example of why um, you're exactly perfect for these roles. Um, and I think did exactly what we asked, right? Is be a part of this board and you guys have been. Um, I think one of the things that's so great is um, you know, we always talk about portrait of the graduate, our family of learners, you know,

065the things that we want Newington students to be. Um, and we're always happy that our student council members can can be that. Um, but you really just go into the school and make sure that you really highlight everyone. Um, so I appreciate you guys doing that over and time and time again. So, not just in this presentation, um, but just the work that you do. And you are overcommitted and absolutely just beyond ambitious in so many ways. Um, and I am so proud to just be in your presence because um, you bring a certain element that none of us can bring, which is that day-to-day um, on the ground perspective. So, thank you for continuing to show up even though it's like literally tech week and hell week. One week that you're there, then you're

066here during AP testing. No biggie at all, right? I mean, Michael's like, "It's senior year. I'm good. I'm good to go." But, um, no, I I just really appreciate it. you exemplify a lot of um what I think we wish all students could do and could be um when it comes to uh also the holistic nature of what you do, the arts, the clubs, the sciences, you're very much uh well-rounded folks in. So um kudos to you for doing that and then thank you for bringing all of this. I think for those who watch our meetings after and that kind of thing, you help the community recognize what's going on dayto-day in a way that none of us can speak to. So thank you for continuing to to show up. Um Michael, we will miss

067you. But Abby, thanks for coming back. Wow, feel so loved. Um, and just congratulations and thank you guys for stepping up and congrats to the next StuGo board. As my best friend and I would say, STGO is life. Um, our parents hated that. They were like, you have other things to do in life. Student council is not. And I was like, I disagree. I disagree. And look where I'm at now. So, um, thank you guys both and good luck. We'll see you both a million times at by at every celebration now. Thank you. Tony, go ahead. So, how can we as a board advance that idea of the payments because it's seems like common sense to me and it's very important and thank you for bringing that up. I I didn't know they only did

068cash. Um, yeah, I think we just have to look into our policies and talk with our finance director. And I would recommend it be a future agenda item. Britney, you guys have set the bar really high. Everyone has big shoes to feel. Uh, Phil, Michael, you're going to be missed. Abby, we're so happy you're coming back. I wonder in regards to your last PowerPoint if there is a way we can built it in with a student ID. Similar to when you're at college, you scan, you know, your ID, it goes to an account, the parents pay the balance. just because I feel like some parents aren't going to want to give their credit cards and say now run off. Um that way parents know it's just for school related expenses. I don't know the logistics

069behind that or the cost associated but something we definitely should look at. Thank you. Uh Mr. Hollerin, um I'll speak to the the issue at hand. Number one, what a great legacy to actually like implement a lasting change. Um, I think that is a wonderful idea. I think it is part of what we need to do to prepare our kids like this is how the real world works, not the real world in 1986. Um, so I think that's there's a lot of multiaceted to it. I love that you brought up like parents like kind of live in a cash starved society now. like if I've got to get some $15 for a field trip and I'm sure my kids will give me plenty of notice like 24 whole hours. Um I got to run to

070the ATM. I got to get out of 20. Then I got to go buy a pack of gums so I can get changed. Um it is it is I think you brought up so many good multiaceted reasons why. I look forward to discussing and looking what the options are. Um to the two of you. Um, I cannot believe we've gone through a whole year. Um, it's been crazy fast. You have both been amazing because you represent the most important voice that will ever be in this room at this table and that's the students. To hear it directly from the students that can sway a lot of decisions or opinions because you live it and breathe it. the the decisions and discussions we have at this table affect your daily lives and your friends daily lives

071and the culture and what you walk through. So getting that feedback is vital to the success of this board. So I cannot thank you enough. I wish I could give you another plaque and some more flowers, but um I can give you some I can give you some gum. Um but um Abby, I'm so happy you're coming back. If I was able to reflect back on this year, I think it would come down to three three Ps. Professionalism, poise, and prepared. I think every time you come into this room, you are ready to do it. And you have some wonderful leadership qualities. Michael, you're going on to a whole new chapter of life. Like there's going to be a whole world in front of you and I cannot be happier for you. Was it University

072of Harford? New. New Haven. New Haven. I knew that. My dad went to New Haven, right? division. Division. Yep. So, you're going to have a good time there. Um, I am convinced that you still, no matter if you've spent 12 years in this school system, nobody's taught you how to not smile. Um, even when you're not smiling, it's right there, man. It is like right beneath the skin. And I think that attitude uh is going to take you really far because it's like almost a way of like don't sweat in the small stuff. like he had just brushed it off like we'll get through. I'll figure it out. Put in the hard work. I am very proud of you both and I am honored to have spent this year working with you. Thank you so

073much. Thank you so much. Miss Vietra, I can't thank you enough for what you've done. This is actually the part that I enjoy the most is interacting with our students and you guys bring the students every time to us and as others have said, you're our eyes and ears on the ground and I'm always struck by what I think is going on and what actually is going on and the depth um of the activities and the involvement of our staff. We're hearing that from you guys and what a difference it makes for you and for your friends and your fellow students. I'm struck always by your leadership qualities and others have mentioned that as well that what you demonstrate here with us is going to carry you so far after you you leave us and

074this this is what we want is for our students to to bring those qualities out into their communities and make all of us better for it. So thank you. I can't be prouder of both of you. Thank you for coming back. Love we love this. Um, and Michael, you are going to do wonderful, wonderful things. There's going to come a point in time, um, pretty soon where you're going to look back on your time here, and you are going to be so amazed by the opportunities, not just that that you've had, but that you've contributed for others to have as well. And and those are the memories that you're going to carry with you forever. your leadership, your confidence, those are qualities that you're going to bring, but you're also going to be sharing them

075and lifting up people that come from behind you. And so for that, I can't thank you enough. Also, too, PowerPoints are amazing. We we need we needed Yeah, we needed that. So, thank you for your time. We know you're both extremely busy people and you still manage to work in a little bit of time for us and so it's greatly appreciated. We're gonna we're going to miss you. So, we're glad to have you back. Thank you again. Thank you for being here, Michael. It's been a pleasure seeing you around town, everywhere, because you're always around doing everything. Um, working. I've seen you working, too. Yeah. But um thank you for everything you brought to the board this year and um I wish you all the best in your future college career and um but we'll

076see you again a lot. And Abby, I'm just so you too, you do everything and you're always around and um I just look forward to seeing you um next year bring even more leadership and and positivity to the table. So, thank you so much. Congratulations. And if you guys do want to just stick around for a couple seconds, we are going to move our agenda a little bit. Um we're going to skip policy because we're talking later and we'll move our discussion about the plaque um first in our new business section. So that'll be right now. All right. So, this was provided to me, I believe, by both Miss Weaver, Mr. Plur about their Oh, one of these days I'll get this right the first time. Um, and it's there's been many positive comments already

077made tonight. So, um, perhaps I could turn this over to Miss Weaver. Would you like to speak to it? Um, and then we did pro Lou was able to provide me with a sample as well that might help you with the decision-m process. But let me turn it over to you for this project that you've helped conceptualize with many others. Yeah, and I'm happy to bring Mr. Po and Mr. Connelly up as well if they want to say anything as well to the to the DAS. But um yeah, I think one of the things and uh as sentiments were said by M hour and um and and Mr. Floy before um Mr. Clark is a special um figure in Newington. Um and so many lives have been touched by him, including mine. Um and I

078think as he is retiring this year after 22 years of service, also was teacher of the year, which is noted. Um, you know, we were having conversations, council report and I were saying, you know, I think one of the things that would be great, um, and news slash, we will be having a celebration May 23rd, 7 p.m., thanks to Mr. Connelly for bringing that up. So, um, but to dedicate to someone that has done a lot and as someone on the policy committee who we've been looking at this policy, um, but it it's for someone who has made an extraordinary or, you know, huge impact in in Newington public schools and I don't think there's beyond a shadow of doubt that Mr. Clark has done that for so many people. um those in the musical

079productions, in the music programs and choir and chamber choir and men's choir, men who sang, there were so many different things um that Mr. Clark uh has done for the students of Newington public schools um and truly does span decades. So, we were talking about ways to properly, I think, honor and memorialize his impact uh on on our school system. So, um, we talked about the place where it all happens, the room where it happens, so to speak, um, is, uh, is the auditorium, um, which has already been named, um, by after Charles Bose, our first high school principal. Um, and so we thought, what are ways to incorporate that? We were talking about different things and, uh, Mr. Floyd said that we should we should name the stage where it all happens. Um, and

080I think there's no better person to have it named after, no better place to have his name hang. Um, and I think it would just be a wonderful thing. So, I'm just going to say I'm in full support of this. Would love the support of the board um, to do so. And I'll just turn it over to them to add anything else, but want to say thank you to all of those that are doing their um, incredible efforts to I think honor one. And I would be remiss if I didn't say Mr. Connelly is um, if Mr. Clark is is the left hand, Mr. Connelly is the right hand driving the entire ship. So, um I just want to say his direction of all of our productions, at least over my tenure and many other

081tenures, um has been nothing short of perfection. Um but I'll turn it over to them to say any other words. So, I I can't really um add beyond more than what's been said except to to to bring the perspective of of a person who's worked side by side with him for 17 of the tw 16 of the of the 22 years that he's done productions at Newington High School. And um the effort that he puts into these shows would it it's to say it was herculean is an understate an understatement. And he not only takes on this with love, right? But he also takes on more, right? He's it wasn't enough, you know, his his costumeumer uh dropped out and so what did he do? He learned he learned how to sew. He did not

082know how to do that. He learned how to sew and then he started making costumes. And I can I remember the night before uh we we did uh uh how to succeed in business. There's a number that it is called uh Paris original where like the joke is this girl singing about this beautiful Paris original dress that she has and then every female in the show comes on stage with the same dress on. He made 30 dresses uh by hand. He was sewing overnight the night before the show was in the auditorium with two with two helpers. The dedication that he that he that he puts into the shows is beyond beyond human capacity. He I don't know how he's done this for 22 years. Uh and and I just try to keep up with

083him. So, so you know to be able to to to be a part of it and to to to know that when he's when he steps when he steps on to the next chapter that he will have a lasting legacy beyond the impression that he's made on a generation of students um really means a lot to me. So I'm I'm really hopeful that that that we're all we can come to an accord on this. Thank you. Do you want to add just what it is? Like just describe what it is? Yeah, I'm happy to. Um uh something I'll mention is that um one of the conversations that we had for some time and that I had with Lou uh and with Jess of course was about where in particular makes the most sense. Um Mr.

084Clark has touched a lot of places in that building and in particular uh throughout the music area, obviously his classroom, but other areas. And so we discussed, you know, where where would be best. We settled in in a lot of ways on the stage because um in perpetuity, we thought it would be fantastic to highlight uh Mr. Clark's contributions to that space, not just in the physical space, but on the play bill. When folks uh come to see shows right now, they're greeted with the fact that they are seated in the Charles A. Bose Theater, but could also uh identify that they're viewing a performance on the Christopher Clark stage. And uh that's really important to in perpetuity um you know uh remind people of the contributions that this this one person has had uh

085on on this community. So um that's what I'll mention. In terms of the sizing and and other things like that, I'll I'll defer in large part to Lou. We had a great discussion about um uh what size could make sense, where in particular it would be located. where we had settled and what's included on the memo that's in front of you uh is for it to be located on the right side of the stage uh below one of the speaker cutouts along the kind of brick edifice of the stage um a a plaque um and uh I believe it's 24 by 36 is what we what we discussed um the message there is a is a draft message it's one that um I I uh showed Mr. Connelly that we work together on. Um and

086uh you know obviously you know certainly uh happy to to take any edits or changes to to the description but um it's uh it's meant to to highlight um Mr. Clark's contributions in perpetuity. Um cost I'll defer to Lou. Um I've already um let folks know uh obviously there's a major massive community. you've seen two of the biggest cheerleaders of that community here tonight um that are excited to support Mr. Clark not just in this event this uh month but in creating scholarships and other things. And so I've already let folks know that um you know we uh are excited to jump into gear to support fundraising for the cost of of some of this. But certainly uh if the district has uh funds that they uh have available to support something like this of

087course welcome that kind of support as well. So, that is where I'll leave it and certainly happy to answer any questions. And just like to jump off of this, Matt's being um Matt's being modest when he says that he worked with me on that. He drafted it, showed it to me. I said, "That looks good." And then I sent it back to him. So, I I really want very much to understand this. Matt drove this. This is this is this is from him. Sorry. Just to note that that's it's not a memorial like Mr. Clark is fine and well. Fine. Well, I I just want to know that. That is true. and well fine and well. We're sad he is retiring from his duties as a teacher, not life. So, there's a few samples on

088there that L provided me as not obviously the lang the wording on there is not accurate, but just some samples. Um and to remind the board that um there is a policy that speaks to whenever we are the board is approached about naming anything and it's a pretty um policy that was developed not too long ago. But as a reminder, the board does not necessarily have to approve this. The issue would be um have they decided is there any questions they might have for the folks bringing this forward as to cost or sustainability? The policy calls for whomever brings it forth that they would have um an idea of how they were going to raise money to support the cost of it. The board may recall the memorial garden that was brought forth a year

089or so ago uh from the PTO at one of our elementary schools. So, the policy simply uh requires that the committee that's bringing this forward u have an idea of the cost and any type of maintenance. Um Lou, I know you've looked into it. There really is no maintenance per se. I don't know if you want to comment on any of the particulars. Apologize for the late pictures, but they just showed up this afternoon. Otherwise, I'd be out here with the old Federal Express hand puppets to describe them for everybody. So that was really just uh examples to share with the community about the wide range of how they can produce sign. We originally looked at uh brass plaque similar to others that were there just prohibitively expensive at $8,500. These are acrylic and you

090can get the elevation, you know, the look that you want uh or if they're etched, you know, whatever way you want to build it out can be done. And this is just showing just some of the samples of uh things they've done. That's not the size, you know, it's 36 x 24 and that'll be look really great. Uh it's just a matter of what color scheme that the group wants to have or whatever u little uh graphics that are tied into the overall design. So this is still a work in process. Now I'll have some physical samples in a few days on this presuming that this is the direction the group wants to go in or if there's other ideas you want to consider that's fine too. We can uh do that. Lou, how much

091is the brass? Is it that 8500 is what they quoted? You made plastic. It looks like Yeah, these are these are acrylic what they were showing us. So, they have a lot more flexibility with design capability instead of plastic. Turn to the board chair to entertain any questions about this project or the specifics. Are there any questions? Mr. Holler in. It's probably more of a comment than a question. Um, I do like the acrylics. My opinion, I'd love to see them in the school colors, right? Kind of makes sense. Ties it in. Um, I'm in favor of this. I mean, we can see the impact in front of us and I think you put it best when you said it impacted a generation and it clearly did. We have the vice chair of the board

092of education and a town counselor who are students of his like they have taken his inspiration and run with it. I think I love that on a stage because of its symbolism. Um it rises our students up and shows them in the best light and I don't think that's a better message than you can have for somebody who dedicated their professional life to the stage and to the kids. So I think that's a wonderful idea. um full support of it. I think the only question I have, you said it would be to the right of the stage. Is that stage right? I'm just kidding. Audience, right? It would be stage left. No, I'm in support of it. Um I I think it's a good idea. I think we just need to get some some specifics

093and you know, we can work that out, but I'm totally in favor of it. The other Oh, go ahead, Miss Pratt. Um, I think me and Michael would just like to comment because every student in this room, Adrian and Ava too, have worked really closely with Mr. Clark. We're all in drama and Adrien, Ava, and Michael are in chamber choir. We've all worked really closely with Mr. Clark and working as props master. I had to work with him really closely, especially this year and last year. And he is truly like such a collaborative person. And I feel like no one in drama goes unseen or unheard. And I think that's such a special thing, especially in a club like this where there are so many people and it's such a big process. He really takes

094the time to see everyone and to hear everyone's opinions and that's just something so special and I know me and Adrian are so upset we won't be able to have him for our senior show. Um, but he has done such great things for our school. So I think this plaque would be a great way to honor him. Um, I would like to talk about like Mr. Clark on the coral director side. Um me, so I've had the pleasure of being a chamber choir president for this school year. Um working alongside with Ava Tvars as well. Um we have worked with him very closely and providing music um that sounds great to everyone. Um and Mr. Clark it it's an understatement when he when I say his passion is like um like it's unlimited like his

095passion for music is so great and you can see it within his person that he really appreciates what he teaches and you can see his passion through his direction of you know the coral pieces that we sing always making sure that we are hitting that mess So forte at a right at a right consistency making sure our shadows are so crisp that it wows everyone in the um in the audience and I know that Mr. Clark is the reason why I became you know a singer. um seeing my him under direction of like hitting my brother under direction of him um and seeing how amazing they sounded really drove my interest into you know joining chorus and Mr. Clark has not only done that for me, but I know he has done that for uh

096multiple thousands of students over the years. And for this to not be, you know, moved up would, you know, it would create chaos. It would. Thank you. Thank you for the warning. But I all jokes a but uh I mean you might just have to start you know boarding up the walls everything but the whole Newington like even if you don't if if you don't have Mr. Clark as a teacher um you just know who Mr. Clark is and what he has done for Newington public schools. And that is all I have. Thank you. He always puts the students first and so he makes you feel that way and he allows you to he allows you without meeting the light on him and he's done that for many joy when you go and see a

097performance show when he's conducting with Joy and So when we look at that stage, you can know you're expect something right. Thank you, Mr. Newton. I just uh want to make sure that if we get something acrylic, I worry 15 years from now somebody inadvertently cleans it with something that peels it back. They make a thing, glue, called oxidized aluminum plaques. They they're black on silver, but they're permanent. And if somebody makes a mistake or bumps, kids are rolling a cart across the stage and they hit wherever it is, it won't affect something like that. I just want to make sure we we we do something a little better. I don't know. I just think acrylic I'm worried about acrylic. I've seen carts go into them, people pushing stuff around stage, something bumps it, it

098cracks it. Okay? You know, I just if you're if we're going to do this, we should do it correct. Mr. Flart's going to fund raise, so maybe we can chat. Matt, we we just need to do something more permanent, if you know what I I'm worried about chemicals in the future. Cleaning is somebody honestly trying to do the right thing. Next, you know, where did that streak come from? You know, it's like, so I just want to put that out there. Go ahead. I can speak. Um, I'm Adrian. Um, I actually didn't even know that this was happening. Um, I just found out today, but um, I just wanted to say a few words from the student uh, perspective. U, the idea of someone like Mr. Clark seems almost impossible. He goes out of his

099way every single day um to make to make sure that every individual within the school is seen and comfortable. In fact, one of his famous quotes is people won't remember what you said. People may not even remember your name, but they will remember how they how you how you made them feel. Um this is extremely evident throughout the day throughout not only the daily life life of Mr. Clark's uh classes, but even throughout the alumni and parents as evidently seen. And I'm ecstatic that uh Mr. Connelly and Mr. PL are leading the charge. Um and I'm sure many more students would fight to get this proper recognition. Um if I had it my way, I'd make sure that there was like a statue of him just like right there. But like I don't know if

100we could get the funds for that, but I'm so happy that this is happening. Thank you, Ava. Okay, one final comment. I feel like a lot of people already talked about how he is as a teacher, but just as a person, he's always there for his students. He's always there for everyone in the building. He always makes sure you feel supported. Even today, like I had a rough day in chamber. The next period went by, I was just sitting in my class and he ended up coming to my class, checking in on me, talking to me, asking like what was going on and if I needed anything from him. So, he's really just such a huge support in this school and I can't think of a better way to honor the impact he made on

101Newington High School and I think this is a great way to honor him and honor everything he does for his students, everything he does for the school as a whole. Thank you so much. Sorry. As we end this love fest here, but there'll be more celebrations as I said and I just want to give a special shout out to Miss Four Hour who put three girls through all of and was head of our music boosters for a long our performing arts boosters for a long time. So, thank you so much for all the work you did is not unnoticed by the way. Um, and just like as a point of personal privilege too, um, uh, my my love is was in How to Succeed. Um, and honestly, I I quote this all the time, but

102I was like, "Oh, Mr. Mr. Clark, you're going to be at our wedding. Mr. Connley coming and they kind of know that. Um, they're still waiting. It's going to happen. Don't worry. Um, but you know, that's where I think um, you know, we fell in love in Pippen and he was there sewing my costume like nights before adjusting as like the windland nymph that I was. And there's no one who paid better attention to everything that was happening. And anyone who's been in a show knows the chaos that happens behind the scenes, behind the stage. it looks seamless on stage. Um, and I just want to give a shout out to everyone that's been involved in being able to do that. I know, um, there were many who wanted to send in emails and all

103these kinds of things, people who no longer live in Newington. Um, and I say I would say the impact is not just a generation, it's multiple generations. Like we're going to have kids coming out here and when Matt and I are old the next 40 years from now, people will still be talking about their experiences with Mr. Clark and we'll get to say, you know, I knew him and that's the stage that's named after him. And I think that's a beautiful thing. Um, as all of them become Broadway stars, obviously. Um, but just to say too to our our our latest cast who was incredible. Um, thank you for speaking to the the current student perspective too. Um, because I think one of the things is just to know that, you know, Mr. Clark isn't,

104you know, he's not slowing down. He didn't slow down with the last one. I mean, he literally flew down to Florida to get the costumes from the original Broadway show um to be able to kind of show um just the just the dedication got everyone's measurements before this was just above and beyond. And I think it just shows that um you know there are special educators as we saw tonight um and there are just some educators that are above and beyond and I think Mr. Holland put it very well that truly lifts up the stage. we may just have to lift up the stage again. Um, and we we did talk about, you know, his name and lights literally and that kind of stuff as well. Um, but I would just want to say thank

105you to those that have come and and speak spoken out about their support. Um, and would just if there's any other board members, if there's any I know this is all happy, but if there's any other concerns or anything like that, um, please let us know. But I think I'm hearing a good consensus, so want to say thank you to those who have provided their support. Yeah, I definitely support this. Um especially if there's going to be like chaos if there's No, I'm just kidding. Um but yeah, and then I'm sure I trust Lou and we'll um get the best material possible and and we do not need to vote, but there's definitely um consensus around the table that this is definitely something that we do want to move forward with and we think it's

106a fantastic idea for to celebrate the long career of an excellent educator. So, thank you all for being here and for speaking and we appreciate it. I'm on board with the statue. All right. Now, moving on to our um budget 2526 discussion, possible action. All right, Dr. B. Thank you. I I'll kick it off and then I may ask Lou to fill in some of the blanks. So, since our last meeting, uh I did send an email out at the um request of the board chair and vice chair about any suggestions that the board might have relative to further suggested cuts. And we did hear from several board members. So, I did ask um which were absolutely considered and we did prepare a memo for the board which I'm posting right here uh on the

107screen. So, this is kind of late breaking some some of the requests came in and we were just working on this today. But, um Lou, if you wouldn't mind going through uh briefly what was suggested and whether or not it would be something that we could recommend based on the the current status of the budget. The two of those sets of requests that came in were detailed uh from the specific line items to look at. The other was more general perspectives. In the Umo that you have on the screen, I did the details first earlier today. There were uh seven line items that were up consideration for what uh was suggested for options for being able to reduce the budget. uh first two were the edtech area and the first one was reducing u 5%

108of the uh contract services area this is the area or from the tech area and this was a combination of Chromebooks that were uh supplemental to the regular uh allocation to buy every year because of the um you know continued difficulties with damages and not looking at the life cycle we had hoped for the devices. So um earlier in the budget review sessions $100,000 was cut from this that was um additional reliance we put on the insurance funds uh or giving us the extra Chromebooks. But I left $150,000 Chromebooks here and then $22,500 for the first of iPads for selected use across the district. This is both for students in the special area that have specific software that only runs on iPads as well as several for the staff who are, you know, supporting the

109students here in these situations. So, as we look at since there's already a $100,000 cut, uh, at this point, I did not, uh, recommending further cuts to that. Otherwise, we get into more challenging situations. We're really short on where do we go next? And it's um, difficulty of priority setting uh, for the district. Second item was on the 731 line item which is replacement equipment. These are things that we have and this is primarily for um documenting station that can be used by all the teachers around the district in their classrooms that allows them to integrate their computer with the AB systems with other technology devices like a uh it's the microscope type of the particular camera that they use in the class. So when these fail, all the technology goes out. So we have

110to bring in a new u docking station for it. In addition, there are occasions where we need to replace display units across the district. Not necessarily at this size, but for classroom settings where we need to spend $200 to $300 to uh bring in additional uh display equipment to replace things that have failed or the pixels have gone bad. So I felt that we could do a little bit of a cut in this area. And I was um going with 10% factor of 10 $1,300 of the $13,000 budget allocation is what you know I felt was appropriate. Okay. Uh the next item is in the music program for the two middle schools and this was the question was specifically for Martin Kellogg u but it applied to both Martin Kellogg and John Wallace. uh there

111is u a special software package called make music that is used by all the band members the teacher and performers that are associated with the band uh the bands at the schools. So these are annual subscriptions running anywhere from 20 to $40 uh per student uh subscriber or staff member subscriber and looking at the count of licenses needed for next year for both schools the budget was essentially appropriate for both at this point. So, I couldn't recommend uh cutting this because it would be and we're making choices in the classroom and not everybody would necessarily get uh the software license or we or the other types of compromises or uh strategies would need to be used in order to fully deploy it uh what they want to do. Okay. Uh next is media library line

112642. Uh this is where the book collection is managed where every year each school gets an allowance for uh updating the titles uh in the library replacing damaged or old books as well as um branching out the collection and new uh aspects that are supportive of what the curriculum are. Uh on this uh the request was can we do a 10% cut in this area on an $80,000 budget. Um I uh felt 5% after looking at the allocations for the school was achievable on this. So that'll be $4,000 on that. Next in the building direction account, uh there are two items for the 690 line item. One is Maron Kellogg, the other is the high school. uh that account specifically used for uh student supported events and some general supplies just for running the building.

113Um you know at the high school uh some of the speaker costs and the events that they run throughout the year for their special um activities that go on are financed through that particular area. at Martin Kellogg they had um bookf fair some t-shirts um and one other event day I can't remember it off the top of my head were the really three driving factors of it if a cut was requested for this area I'm not sure it would be uh thing that you could pair down across the board probably one of the activities would be lost uh if that would um was the direction so in this area 200 or and 3,000 cuts I felt were supportable without, you know, compromising the goals and the uh things that the schools wanted to do. So,

114putting those all together uh was $10,300 cuts which can be recommended and that's part of one of the other documents coming up for the reconciliation of the uh overall budget. Uh can I just stop you real quick? the um the library media is that the line item we cut a significant amount where we cut the 1B items but left one a right the all the one B's were cut all the 1Bs were cut so then if we cut an additional 4,000 dollars what is that there would be yeah so I think we I mean I don't know about what that means I don't know Kristen if you have any idea like what that means we wouldn't get if we cut that four another additional 4,000 cuz I know we already made a significant cut to

115the to that line item. Okay. I don't have yet. Yeah, I'm asking what your opinion is. Um I know that last year this time when um there needed to be some reconciliation with um some funds that were not provided to the board of education, some of that was withdrawn from the library media. I think sometimes it's an easier area to go through because they don't line item um the text that they want. They make those decisions based on the populations of students. Um what I would ask the board to consider is the presentation that the library media department brought to the board um and talking about why they are in need of funds to um meet the needs of the students that are now in front of us which is a changing population. Yeah. Okay.

116So then just summarizing the first uh group of requests to review felt that $10,300 of cuts could be accomplished without you know really you know inflicting difficult choices on the school. And I also just mention again, you know, the 150,000 on the Chromebooks depending on the direction the board chooses to go that obviously could be cut, but there are real implications for doing that. But that's the only one real core of money uh that was spoken to within the uh context of the uh request we got to review. Okay. The second item uh we got was uh considering the approach of a blanket uh one half of 1% cut of the all the non salary areas in the budget. So uh right now the overall budget adopted by the town 91,613,000. Our payroll is just

117under $56 million uh for next year which leaves $35 million for everything else. So, a half a percent of that would be $178,75 of cuts uh to take advantage of that strategy. Uh I had not gotten to the point of trying to uh ascertain where we could do it, where we could not do it at this point. Uh we did have the good fortune that you'll see in the uh summary for the non uh the northeasters grant we got which helps makes u $100,000 cut go away uh because that's going to be supplemented by the grant funds for next year. So without going any further uh we started the non-lapsing fund in the original motion two weeks ago at $338,000. uh it's now $74,000 and what the revised motion will show when we get to

118that that's here. So much less uh digging in and having to use more of the non-lap expense. So we're able to mitigate about three quarters of it that's there. So what Dr. It's bringing up right now is just the tracking of the budget entries and then further down is the um additional uh new recommended uh motions at this point. So that would have that's a little bit further along. All right. As soon as I can get my computer to unfreeze. Oh, it's going too fast. So to just so the board recalls this this document is a cascading um alliteration of what the board had already cut throughout our budget process. So those are still summarized here you know back in February but that does bring us to where we are right now. Um and I

119believe that starts at 5.94%. Right above the blue line is our where we left off. Right. So 5.9% was that what the board brought forward to the town and that was approved. Um now we're faced with the $650,000 cut. So some of the things that are still recommended are are from last time because they really don't they're just basically reductions. The Anthem uh adjustment we have two of them. One for 49,178 and the other for 43,300 320. As a reminder, um we get the budget is when it passes a snapshot in time and many things happen between February and May. And in fact, between those two time frames, we were able to realize an adjustment that was provided to us by the agent of record isn't something that we are cutting and you know to

120no avail. This is basically cutting because we've been told we can. So between those two reductions that brings us down to 5.73%. Um we also mentioned last time and this still is holding up. Mr. Fari and his team have been able to hire very high quality staff that are coming in at a lower price point or salary point than we thought would happen given the highest shortage. I'd like to thank his department because I think it's the recruitment efforts as well as the desiraability of our district play into that. um because we are having met all candidates, we're getting some high highc caliber candidates, but we are getting them at a lower cost. So, we feel very comfortable recommending that $100,000 can come off of next year's salary line due to those um lower cost

121new hires. So, that would bring us to 5.62%. The board was also notified a few weeks ago that we are likely going to get a health benefit credit. Now that is has been known to shrink between at the last time I presented it to the board it was about 250,000 loop. Um I would it be ill advised to plan on all of that because that credit can go down as health insurance is you know used by our staff and and that's what it's designed for. But we feel comfortable recommending that we could use the health benefit credit next in next year's budget to offset our legal fees. So again, that would be $100,000 less and that would reduce our budget down to 5.5%. We are fortunate right now that we have had um and frankly

122it's in large part due to a lot of vacant paraprofessional positions. We feel we may have some we will have some realized savings at the end of the year and as you can as we've said before what the budget looks like in February when we have to pass it where it looks now is you're getting closer to the end of the year and you have more confidence in what might be remaining. So, we feel comfortable in doing some minimal buy aheads on some equipment. And these are one-time purchases that, you know, are, I think, well suited to a buy ahead. And I will be very transparent in telling you that the NH, not the NHS equipment, my apologies. The John Wallace equipment we've had to already buy. It was chairs for a conference room and

123they were unsafe. So, we did have to buy those. So, they're no longer in the budget. Um, but these we feel we can buy. The E-green, which is playground equipment. Anna Reynolds is playground equipment. Newington High School is some muchneeded chairs that are also falling apart and hazardous in one of our classrooms at the high school. So, if we were to buy those ahead now, that would create a small reduction of about 5.48%. Um, additionally, we believe that there are some subscriptions that we could safely buy ahead. Uh, some of these are three-year subscriptions, so they won't have that trickle down effect um next year. They'll be three years out. Um, that would be about $68,000. And then lastly, we were very pleased to get um the Nor Easter Academy grant today. Literally, I got

124a letter today in my inbox. Um, and that as the board knows, that was something that I put in one of my presentations that um had if we had known that sooner, it would have been in budget already as an offset, but we just found out today. So, we were awarded $100,000 and Lou has um deducted that. Lou is are those salary lines or what are those? So, those are salary lines for the staff that do that extra assignment um or um after the school. As you know, that program runs Tuesday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday um at our high school. So, that would that $100,000 reduction brings us down to 5.29%. And then we just mentioned additional cuts uh that were discussed um in as board suggestions. These are what um Lou brought forward. There

125may be some further discussion about library books. I don't know. Um and then this really does and I did hear that from some board member comments that they really wanted to see that reliance on the non-lapsing fund reduced even further. So this additional cut to make it happen would only require leveraging 74,150 of the non-lapsing fund. So, all of these together get our us down to the 5.19% or that reduction of $650,000 that the town did um put forth at their last meeting when they approved the budget. So, I'll turn it back over to board chair to entertain any questions or comments. Yeah, and I just want to add to that um the the buy heads, it's always kind of a tricky discussion and I know like as we've gone through budget books in previous

126years, it's like why is there a huge increase um in this particular line item and it's because we were we pre- purchased a subscription or pre- purchased supplies whatever the case may be. So by heads are for transparency um and I talked to Dr. Bummer about this earlier for transparency. Ideally, it's like a one-time purchase. Like these would be um perfect by heads, chairs, you know, stools that are in the budget now, but um can be purchased with realized savings from this year's budget. Um so that's that's that. And then I also want to say that um I don't know if you haven't updated like reliance on non-lapsing but the um for this year's budget but the budget process just the way we have to do it is um also tricky. It's fluid. The budget

127is fluid. It's never a you know it's a point in time as as Dr. Remmit said it's not we can't be perfect um right off the right off the bat and we can't say in February exactly what's going to be the case in July. So um so I just don't I just don't want people to think like oh like you know we're hiding money or we're like trying to be sketchy. Like it's none of that. like the the grant literally I saw the email that came this morning at 8 something um that we got that $100,000 and if that had come tomorrow we wouldn't have had that information and we wouldn't have been able to do this adjustment but I just like I do want to close this piece of our process because literally every

128day something could change and um when it does change like we have our number from the town when it does change we adjust and just like your household budget if your furnace goes or you need a new car, you have to adjust. So, we just need to set it and then every month we'll get an update on where we stand with the budget and if there's questions and if we want to add like a, you know, every month and a a budget agenda item just for, you know, full transparency, I think that's fine. Um, but for this process, like literally tomorrow something could change and then we'd have to talk like I just think we should settle it. Um, and then I just will say I mentioned it earlier, I don't think that we should

129cut the 4,000 from the media books. Um, just given, you know, what we know, our equity efforts and, um, the the work that our librarians do to ensure that every child is seen, I just we've already cut that line item a lot um, as we're going through for a valid reason. I just feel like another 400 $4,000 is just an extra like you know, that's not fair. I just think that we should um keep that as is and redistribute that $4,000 to the non-laping Miss Weaver. Um just want to say thanks to Miss Carr for eating my ask and asking for specific line items. Um and also to the administration um for kind of rejiggering all of this. I want to say thanks to Lou and and Dr. to fair and the team as a

130whole for um going back and looking at this and I knew I kn I've been asking about this grant for a while and I was like, "Oh, how's it going? Are we going to get it?" Um and I just want to say thank you to the to the staff to I presume Sonia or whoever who had written this grant. Um it's huge. That's huge. $100,000 grant. And that's why um you know said back in February, said back in March, I was like this budget will change. Um, and that is a that's a huge line item. Um, for and for a great program, by the way. So, I'm very excited about that. Um, and just want to note too, um, you know, I was talking I spent the weekend with a lot of other young electeds

131from across the country talking about their school boards. Um, looking also to other ones as, um, my sister looks for a job in the education space. And many of them are passing their budgets next week by referendum. some pass them in other forms or another. You know, I know Weathersfield has their vote next week on Tuesday. So, all of this is um as late breaking news as it can get and I think that's one of the struggles um is trying to convey how we are beholden to a process that is not exactly ideal for how we want to budget this and um appreciate us moving along with the art and science that it is. Um and I would just kind of echo those sentiments. You know, I think it's good to do buy aheads that

132are one time or the threeear sub subscript subscription, excuse me. Um, I think that's sustainable budgeting. I think making sure that we are are doing the right thing. So, just wanted to uplift that. Um, and I think, yeah, I don't want to cut the the media a little more. Um, would be my sentiment. Um, and I think that that's all I have to say. Oh, I just was going to clarify the line items I selected have nothing to do with me not liking the line items. Um, specifically I was looking at based on inflation and based on what the asking was if it was an appropriate amount of an increase. So, for example, line 69010 which I had suggested reducing from 17,500 to 15,500. It was still above last year's 10,500. So, it's still getting

133a 5,000 bump. I don't want people to think, oh no, these totals are going down. Same thing with line 69020, reducing from 36,940 to 32,940. I know Lou suggested 33,940. Again, still above from 27,950. Um, in regards to the media library sources, I know it had been cut down. I know it's still up from last year's 21,055. Um, so that's based on how I went through it. I went line item by line item to see where we could improve because my whole concern when we first, you know, saw this document two weeks ago was depending on the non-lapsing fund for 366,545. I'm glad to see it's much improved now. um given all the recent information we have and some of these cuts. Thank you. I know you like library books. I wasn't trying to imply

134that but thank you for the detail and and the and the response. It's definitely definitely much appreciated. Miss um we can go around the let's just go around the table. You can go last. Um, just very quickly, again, thank you for everybody's hard work. I know this is um very, very, very challenging. Um, but I just would like to make a point um again regarding the $4,000 of library funds. I feel like anything that we can do to restore that to our budget um is something that we really should do. Um all of our education for our students, the foundation is our library. And this is the the biggest item that or the the the biggest service that we provide to every single one of our students. Every student in the Newington public schools uh

135participates and gets a an unbelievable amount of education from the services from our media centers. And I think any cut to that uh would be a disservice to our students. So I would encourage everybody when thinking about this restore that $4,000 to the media budget. Thanks Mary. Mr. having a different view because I was on the curriculum committee. Um I think that we we we're doing a disservice if we take from the library media. This is just me personally because we have such a diverse population and it's everchanging that we can't fall behind on what they need. And I don't know if I like cutting books that just I I I looked at every book she put in front of me. She knows that. I just, you know, we do have a diverse population. Um,

136I don't think I I think we we get ourselves in trouble when we use terms, you know, and then all of a sudden the blinders and the blocks go up on all of us. Um, because we all have different opinions of them. I think if we steered more towards the basis based on the book needs or based on the needs of our student population and leave it at that, I think that there'd be less animosity and more support. Even Thank you. Um Tony, do you have any comments around the table? Okay, Mr. Holler in. So looking at everything under item 10 when we put the media center book collections, the school activities for Martin Kelloggs and Newington High School. Am I reading this to correct to say that that has a 01% effect on the

137budget? All those together only affect the budget by 01%. Yes. So I'm I agree. I don't think we should touch the media center budget. I think at our last meeting, one of the things that was really important to me was that we don't we don't suffer our staff. Like we don't have issues with jobs and we also don't suffer the quality of the education. I think the media center probably does affect the quality of education, right? Like I think that that is a direct effect and I could almost say that the school activities too. So um I do appreciate the work and I think Britney you're really smart about going through the inflation and seeing the proportional. I think part of that story too is that we're kind of paying the piper from sacrifices we've

138made in previous years and we're trying to catch up a little bit. So it's probably not a direct 1 to1 ratio. Um, but I almost for $10,000 it almost seems like it is a hard pill to swallow to save 10 grand. Miss Bever, you I'll just know I did the math. I think you did the math. It would be like 15,000 six. What was it? um if we put that and transferred it to the non-lapsing fund. Just the media bucks though. So I mean I'm not saying it's dimminimous but it's close to dimminimous in terms of a $91 million budget of um like the percentage of of that I'm just looking at. Um you know I I completely understand too um and again we're reducing that. So to Miss Carr's point, um we originally had

139the reliance on the amount lapsing fund to be 3 30 366,545. Um so um and I certainly appreciate the the uh thought process there was to get everything that that made the most sense of still above. But um yeah, I mean I think if there's I don't know if there's points of contention there. Um, I certainly agree with the media center collections. Does the school activities change much? Um, yeah. What is Do we know exactly what that's for, Lou? The school, you had mentioned it and I apologize. The two school activities. Um, hang on one second. Line items like cutting 2,000 from Kellogg and 3,000. Is that like battle of the books? Well, I didn't determine which one should be cut. It's just I can tell you what was in the budget pages. Okay. and

140it would be turned back to the principal make the okay uh changes that they would want. That would be I guess my question would be is there is anyone amendable to maybe taking that 10,000 and transferring it to the non-lapsing which would be dispersed throughout. So it would be instead of 74150 would be uh84450. I'm not I'm just saying in terms of a $650,000 cut. I don't think that is going to move the needle, but it could move the needle for kids who do battle the books. Okay, I'm ready to respond for that. Okay, go ahead. Sorry. Okay, over at Martin Kellogg, which is one of the two schools. Uh they had $2,500 for Battle of the Books. They had $2,000 for intramural recess equipment. They had $4,000 for office supplies. They had $2,000 for

141refreshments for events. They had uh $2,000 for the school store and $5,000 for staff student t-shirt for whatever the events are. Over at uh the high school, they had $400 for clear backpacks for kids with meds. I'm not exactly sure if that's a nursing support item or exactly what that is. They had 6,000 for spirit week/advisory activities. They had holiday gifts for $2,500. They had something called AM awards. I'm not familiar with what that is. At the high school, $3,000 for that breakfast. Breakfast. Okay. Then they had um various uh snacks and um other, you know, plastics, papers for uh events that they do in the school routinely for $5,000. Uh they had uh ink and postage for the postage meter 300 bucks laminator supplies for 150 plaques uh from Johnston's which I presume mostly

142are associated with the year- end graduation every year for $4,000 uh snacks for the u norers program. Um they had $4,000 for replacement office furniture, chairs, broken mats uh around the school and $3,000 for office supplies. So that's the package of things you would have gotten. Yeah, I guess we ran that. Um, what else are we thinking? So, Mr. Oh, sorry, Mr. New. You know, I support the books. I I I don't necessarily I think there's some things that they could cut down on in the list that was just mentioned that it won't impact one specific area that much. I support the 4,000. I I don't know if I can support the 10. I just think that we're adding other things on. Yeah, you know, we can look and look and look, but the books

143are tools they have to have. Okay, I think that's that's fair. Mr. Hollerin, I agree with Mr. And I think when it comes to a library, I like how you brought up the curriculum committee looking at all the changing and diverse needs of our population and being able to serve them and it's moving quickly. I think that's it's critical. Yeah, I agree. I think there is some maybe some wiggle room with the activity fees. Um, and my question would be like if we impact that, does that put pressure on the packs and the PTAs to try to fill that gap for some of those things? And do they have the means to do that? I mean, I I would I would guess that they're not going to remove Battle of the Books and they're not

144going to remove inter mural sports. Um, so I think in there that Yeah, I think so. As long as like and and I'm sure Dr. Bra will keep an eye on it. If Battle of the Books doesn't happen, then um but yeah, I think that there's probably wiggle room and and if there's a desperate need, then yeah, they'll probably make it work. Miss Beatric, the one point that I just wanted to make is the $2,000 for intramural sports supplies. Um we had a long conversation at this board about supporting inter mural sports and so um $2,000 is a drop in the bucket compared the numbers that we're talking about and I feel strongly that we should restore that $2,000 to support a program that we stated we would support. So um again it's a small

145amount but I think it's a meaningful amount. I yeah I think that the whole line item was 17 five so it would be down to 155. So there's still money and that's what I was saying is that as long as inter mural sports is still happening and um battle of the books and some of the the like the ones that impact the students. I think as long as we can just get validation that it's won't impact our students by decreasing my $2,000 and we can go ahead with it on the record. Dr. Brit no I think that it makes good sense. Um, yes. While those items are in there, such as the inter murals, the principal then would ultimately be able to say, well, chances are they're going to maybe cut back on office supplies

146versus inter mural supplies. And certainly our t-shirt, that all the books will prevail over snacks at a meeting. So, I I do think our principles will make good decisions about where they would see the cuts needing to happen. And certainly we would never I I'm certain that they would not cut something that the students highly value such as Battle of the Books or our intramural program. I'm very I'm very confident in that. Thanks. If we Yeah, I think um just with that exception, I think I'm supportive of all these cuts um that we need to do anyway. Um and uh just would ask if there's any folks that aren't supportive of any of the other cuts, but I think these make sense. I appreciate the staff putting those in. Obviously, you know, the first couple,

147I think it was like the first 284,997, we were good with this parsing down. Obviously, a huge win for the Norers Academy being $100,000. Then we're dealing with around $260,000. Um, and then we've cut from there. So, um I'm supportive of those and would love to move it forward if there's no concern or opposition to that. But we didn't prepare a motion, but what could be recommended is that the board could uh vote to or make a motion to adopt these cuts with the amendments just discussed and then you wouldn't have to go line by line as as has been done in the past. Although I know Miss Weaver may be disappointed in that, but it would just u certainly make it a little bit more smooth. And I I believe we've got on the

148record that the board has recommended that the books be restored, but that those other cuts under item number 10 uh remain and that the non-lapsing fund would absorb that 4,000 by rolling those numbers up a little bit more, which Lou can do. So that would be the amended part. So, I'll turn it back over to board chair for for next steps. Yes. Okay. I I'll just send you an updated screenshot of that so you can post it for up there forever. Okay. Okay. Just give me one second. He's actively actively see that L in there. That's 15 630. That's Lou and the uh A is in. Yeah, I'm in there, too. You can run, but you can't hide. Okay. So yeah, we can do a motion. Great. Um screen right now as presented. Yes, I

149would uh do you want me to say the total too? I can say um you have it. Yeah, that's fine. Uh so move the um the updated 2025 2026 Newington Board of Education budget rec reconciliation as amended and shown on screen to total the amount of excuse me 91,613,371 or 5.19%. 91609,000. I'm looking at 91 609 371. I'm so sorry. What did I do wrong? I took 4,000 out. I was so I see what happened here. Okay, that's just the sound of my I'm so sorry. Apologies to the public. We're hearing a very loud beeping noise that is of concern. Why did that not work? Oh, I know what to do here. That's why we're all better. Second it. I did not, but I will second. You can reload it. It'll be corrected. Okay. So,

150it's 916 371. Yep. 5.19%. Yeah. All right. We have a motion and a second to adjust our budget as discussed. Is there any further discussion? Thank you Britney and Tim for sending in your suggestions. Um Deb, would you please I just make sure Anastasia didn't Nope. Uh please do a roll call vote. Mary, yes. Yes. Sean Holler. Yes. Yes. Jessica. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Okay, moving on to um our use of school building fees. That would go to Mr. Takamoitz. There it is. Okay. Every year uh as part of the um board um uh setting of rates for uh each year we bring forward a recommendation to the group for you know how much to increase our um building use fees by on a percentage basis. This affects schedules B and C of the four

151different schedules within the uh policy 1310 for use of school facilities. uh in the last few years we've had half a percent uh increases uh con considered you know we started at one and then we kind of moved down to in between rates so I this year I gave you you know two different rates three and a half and a four and a half uh you know with our labor cost really mostly in the 4% range this year and all the other uh you know inflation and other issues hitting the all the other support costs. Um 4 and a.5% is appropriate. 3 and 12% is also appropriate if the uh board wants to deliver, you know, something better to the community. You know, either one is fine. Um it's really a matter of uh how

152the board wants to um um move forward with these and you know, getting 100% or we're going to get 80 to 90% of the value of our expenses. Sure, Miss Weaver. Uh, thanks Lou. Um, one just to clarify for public what we did last year for building fees and then two, um, kind of like budget impact, I'm assuming. Again, dimminimous from Well, three and a half% is what was done last year. Last year. Yep. Okay. And in the building use area, somewhere between 100 and $200,000 of billables that happen each year. So if you think of 1% of that is $2,000, okay, over the whole base, you know, that's kind of the range you're looking at. It's not m significant to the uh overall revenue base of the board. Thank you. Just a quick question.

153Have have you heard of any community push back? Um if we were to raise it, would that be an obstacle for community groups to take advantage of our I have not heard one thing. Okay. at all in the last four or five years. So good. So it's it would be they view it as fair. I would it would be fair. Okay. Yeah. So obstacles. Thank you. So three and a half versus would four be okay too? Okay. I just don't have item by item for what we just recalibrate the results and posting on that. But you know three and a half, four and a half or four if that's uh negotiated settlement. So you you're saying that um if we did four and a half we'd 100% cover what it costs to open the buildings

154and Yes. Okay. And then at three and a half, we're only making back like 80 80% of what it like cuz we have to pay janitors and to keep the school open. And obviously the cleaning supplies and and other supplies. So we lose money. We would lose money if we did three and a half or four. Go ahead, Miss Weaver. Sorry. And just to clarify, too. So it's four and a half% but if we're looking at like average cost of it for a community group and we have this, we still have the tiered system. Is that correct too for like nonprofits versus correct nonprofit? Yeah. Okay. You know, you have four groups in total, right? Park and records one all to themselves. They just reimburse the board for the actual cost for having people there

155and any special expenses they have to pay. you have a uh no charge group which is if a community organization that's sanctioned nonprofit uh that's associated with town like if the um town community wanted to have a meeting with some food serve they wanted to do at the high school just because they're going to have a lot of people those would be no charge events. Uh then you get into the outside groups that are here. So when you have nonprofits coming from other places or other origins, they would be paying off schedule C and then for-profit entities would be paying off schedule D. So that gives us the basic break on they do a good job of covering really everybody. We don't can't remember the last time there was a situation we couldn't address fairly

156with any of the groups that uh we work with. All right. So and so four and a half% is how we just break even. I'm sorry. Four and a half is how we break even. Yes. So 4% will be 90% coverage. Yes. Okay. Do we have a which way we're leaning? That's on four and a half versus you want to do four. I want the one in the middle. That was an option. I think four and a half is a big number to some people regardless. I think we could justify four. Everybody sees the Dow every day the F says everything's up 4%. Everything's up 3.75. I think if we go to four and then maybe next year look at four and a half because of increased costs or whatever. We don't want super shock

157either. Three and a half last year. Okay. All right. I'll entertain a motion. uh move the board of education increase the building use fees by 4% for the 2025 2026 school year effective July 1, 2025. Second. Thank you. Is there any further discussion? Okay. Vote to raise the building use fees by 4%. Deb, would you please call the roll vote? Yes. Yes. How? Yes. Anthony, yes. Yes. Yes. Sam Sharma. Yes. Jessica Weaver. Yes. Anastasia. Yeah. Yes. Motion pass unanimous. Thank you. All right. Moving on to uh Oh, yes. Sorry. I just had one more comment about that. I know in policy we talked about putting uh the fee schedule as part of the policy and linking it that way. My thought is also on the website under facilities usage we have the external rental application

158maybe just putting a section under there so it's easy for people to see or any input regarding that but I print it out so people can see because I feel like it gets lost in translation. Thank you. Yes, good idea. Okay. Um board meeting schedule for 2526. So, we just have to set um set the meeting schedule for next school year. Obviously, if we need a special meeting or or anything or a conflict arises in the future, we can modify the schedule. But this is just so we have um the meeting set and and states will be posted. Um, it was reviewed several times for holidays and um, there's not, as far as I know, no conflicts. No, no known conflicts. Um, so yeah, this is the schedule. Hopefully, most of us will be here

159still. We'll see. Oh, great. Here we go, guys. Okay. Uh, move the board of education approve the following meeting dates for the 2025 2026 school year. September 10, 2025, September 24th, 2025, October 15, 2025, October 29, 2025, November 12, 2025, December 10, 2025, January 14, 2026, January 28th, 2026, February 11, 2026, February 25th, 2026. March 11th, 2026, March 25th, 2026, April 8th, 2026, April 22nd, 2026, May 6, 2026, May 27, 2026, June 10th, 2026. Second. Too late. Britney. Second. I know you're missing that from the budget. All right. And then, um, I just say March 25th is Charlotte's fifth birthday, so we'll have to have a little party for her. Um, okay. Any further discussion? Okay. Mary Beus, yes. Britney Carr, yes. Sean Hollerin, yes. Anthony Meley, yes. Timothy Newton, yes. Jamie, yes. Yes. Jessica

160Weaver, yes. Anastasia, yes. The motion passed unanimously. Thank you. All right. Board policies. Miss Weaver, would you like to run with this? I absolutely would love to. And I know my policy amazing team would love to as well. Um, and I'll be quick just given the time. Um, but these are all just for review, so nothing voting on, but we just wanted to bring these to the board. Um, these were over the course of the the last meetings. Um, but last met on April 28th. Uh, as always, um, Miss Carr, Miss Beatric, and Mr. FY are the absolute best crew there is in town and across the state. So, uh, first we have one from the a,000, uh, series, the community relations one. Um, this was 1211. Um, we just wanted to bring this to

161the board. Um, we waited on this one because we wanted to be sure in light of some of the conversations we had around budget time about, uh, booster clubs and our liability. At first, we wanted to make sure that we were waving our liability, but we do pay for we do that by paying for insurance policies that come under the umbrella policy. Um, so thank you to Mr. Jack Mowitz for bringing that and it's not actually in the policy when it comes to what our liability is. Um it's if you scroll down more in the actual regulation. So the actual policy is right there very short and then the regulation itself. And what we did was just change that part um of of section five where we require review of records um booster clubs annually

162submitting financial statements. Uh we collaborated with um Mr. Meyers and Mr. Jackotes about how that all goes and if that was uh reflective of standard practice. Just making sure we codified that into um into this regulation. And if you scroll down even more, sorry, this is um just where again we had um points 9 and 10 making sure that um you know we have a point of contact for booster clubs as well as um out of fundra and what that looks like again linked to another policy. But um that last one um oh this is not the actual one. Yeah, I'm so sorry. This didn't get put in the agenda correctly. It's fine. I'm sorry. We'll we'll note that that last line has changed. Again, that's not what we'd actually vote on next time. This

163is just the regulation. If we scroll back up the policy itself, um it does not say that. I apologize. In the regulation, but we do say that um we note that boards uh booster clubs have um have we they have not waved liability, but we have insurance coverage for them should anything occur. Um, so all the way back up if that's possible is the policy. Can we just put that? Yes, Mr. Holling. Just a quick question for the last line where you added within reason, which I think is good. It gets specific. Could we not just say administers, administrators and staff shall seek to strengthen and support booster organizations by cooperating? We provide assistance. Just take out just cut it off there to keep it a little bit more broad. That's right. Yeah, that's cuz

164I feel like within reason starts debate of like, well, what's reason? We were like, well, um, yeah, that's it's it's fine the way it is. I just feel like if we we could probably just chop that off. Yeah, we'll bring that back and then we can bring it back here with with those edits. Thanks. Also, take away in any way possible or just reason. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Take away that whole part in any way possible within reason would be the cut. Y, you're more than welcome. and our policy meeting. If I had more hours on the air, I would I love the polic. This is this is my language. Words matter, right? All right. Any other comments on that one? We'll move to the 3000 series. Um, as always, I was just noting that um

165we are trying to reumber as well as um uh so these are the original numbers still. So, we'll we'll come back with actual proposals to reumber. Every one of them starts with a goals and objectives. So we try and give a um more outline policy. So this was the first one, goals and objectives. Um this one was uh just a couple changes to it, but really um it was about um making sure that we we changed some of the adjectives. We changed excellent to prudent, which I think was Miss Car's thing. Um responsible financial management. wanted to make sure instead of just management um and also making sure that um we thought the word extract greatest educational returns was a bit violent. Um so achieving the greatest educational returns within the ability of the community

166to pay. So obviously we understand you know when it comes to our budget we want to make sure they have the ability to pay for this. So, um, if we keep scrolling, we cut a line about, um, we wanted to, so we kind of incorporated that maintain the highest level of unit expenditure needed to provide high quality education. Just so folks know, I think it gets very confusing when we have the, um, per pupil spending and those kinds of things or what the level of unit expenditure is. That's incredibly hard to define and it's not consistent or apples to apples across districts. And we felt that probably wasn't the best use of that. So, we wanted to make sure we kind of incorporate that into line three. And then um we also note that um

167Dr. Braum always gives us the um expenditures and revenues of the board. Um those are always on the board agendas uh for every at least quarterly. I think we get it monthly. Um so we just wanted to know how that was uh reflective of current practice. And committee members, please stop me if I miss anything. Okay, let's keep going. We got a million other ones. uh 3000 whatever 310 0 budget budgeting system um and this wasn't touched since 2001 Miss Card you have something to say about this we had yeah we'll bring this one back but we weren't sure about the date on this one so this is current policy we just wanted to let everyone know that this is current policy um and that one of the things is that might not always be

168possible So, um, again, this was established in 2001. Things have changed. So, we'll bring this one back with actual timelines and that kind of stuff. Um, 3110 is budget planning. We didn't really have anything for this one, so we won't be making any changes that it was last updated in January 2025. So, we felt pretty confident in that one. felt confident in how we felt in January on that one. Listen, policy is also fluid. Um 3160 transfer of sons between categories. Um this was uh just we updated this one. It's literally a line. It's reflective of uh journal statutes. Um but we added that we shall vote on said transfers which is again reflective of current practice. Um those recall we have voted on budget transfers within the budget that uh 3171-1 was an appendix.

169Just so you know we're removing this um though the next one is a removal from the policy manual because it was aou from 2016 with the town council that I don't believe has anything. So we're not just we're not saying it's move it's just not applicable to current. So the policy was of like this is a non-lapsing agreement. Yeah. Yeah. It's Yeah. We just were like we could have that in a a different place. So it's not removing the accuracy of theou of saying like that's when the establishment of the non-lapsing fund happened. Um we just don't think that really needs to be in the policy manual. it could be somewhere else in our budget documents or those kinds of things if needed. Um, and I know we have more currentus as well. So, just

170thought it was a little weird. Um, and it goes along with the policy that was created, the non-lapsing fund, which is an actual policy. So, we felt that was more appropriate. So, um, and that one is accurate and up to date. Uh, so we won't be changing that one. Again, we've talked about this one in in January of last year of this year. Um just does it say so in the non-lapsing fund policy does it say that it goes away if the fund reaches zero because I think that was like part of the if the fund reaches zero it goes away like does that is that where that like um I don't know if that's I mean it's statute so I don't it's statute we could we could always add that part of the statute

171if you'd like. Yeah, we can take that one back just like whatever was in thatou because it referenced statute. So maybe and again we always provide those legal references there but never hurts to expound upon those. Awesome. Thank you. Um okay, keep chugging along. We have uh 3210-1 revenues from non- tax sources. It was literally a sentence but we still that that's and we had a lot of conversation about without delay what does that mean like what would be considered a delay 5 days 10 days should you know co hit again how that look or any money is received we always do it immediately but just in case you know the school turns to fire we just felt like that would be a necessary delay soon. I know. I was just like um next one

172is uh federal funds. So, this is about federal uh grants and awards. Um I think we reviewed it. Yeah, we just reviewed it. I don't think we found anything on this one. A lot of it is statute, too. a lot of is federal statute. So the legal references itself are federal which would make sense for this. So next one is uh tuition fees. This one we had just updated in 2023. Um so we also had no issues with this one. So no re but just letting everyone know these are what we're reviewing for public record. So they'll all go say it'll say at the bottom we reviewed it. Um and then uh 3260 sale and disposal of books, equipment, and supplies. Okay, I'm sorry y'all. We'll keep going. Um this was just to um it

173was a very weird policy again. um because it was this policy and then there was like a sub part of it that's disposition of obsolete books and we were like well we understand some books and I hate the word obsolete cuz I never think a book is obsolete but versions that whatever um and we just wanted to note that it would be um at the direction of administration too. We know that Dr. Burma is not doing everyday disposal of textbooks herself um although I would not be shocked if she did. though. Um and then we were still having probably and we could bring this back but um we were talking about the last one I think um in the event of obsolete books remain. We should business manager could contact the town to arrange for

174disposal. We wanted to know what are ways we could um if anyone had ideas about like donations and that kind of thing. We didn't really like the word disposal. So we'll bring this one back but we just want to give updates. Yeah. If I could just speak to that word disposal too, that literally it's not donating, it's literally destroying. Yeah. And I think there's certain things, especially with copyright, you have to do to dispose of it correctly. So, we probably need some clarification on that. So, we were But just so people know. Um, next one, school fundraisers. News flash, they are two words or one word. It was two words before on this policy. Um, we disagreed with that. So we we changed so we changed that to one word that's also took a while.

175Um um I had a long diet tribe per usual um about what it was. I think this is really for you know external groups coming in to raise funds but it was you know we recognized the desire of certain organizations schools to raise to support students and school activities. It just had school activities. thought it was important to add students given, you know, it could be for a family or a student that is in need um that was looking to fund raise for a specific student. So, we just added that. Uh and then we noted that some of them would annually register with their intent to receive authorization. Some of these fundraisers could be one-off things. We didn't want it to be um restrictive that way. And then um we just were saying it was

176for we just changed where events held on school property. We just changed the wording of that in the last one. And again that superintendent has the authorization before organization. Um we as board of ed aren't approving every single school fundraiser happening. I think we would be here for even longer than we are tonight. So um and last one of the three three00s promise we are so close is just purchasing authority. um very short policy. So, which never means that we won't take long on it, but um it is one sentence and we're it still remains true that the superintendent shall have the power within the limits of major appropriations approved by our board. So, that's that. Any other questions before I move on to 4,000? I promise we're almost done. Um we had recommendations. So,

177uh this is a big one. We talked about these last two. um 4,000 series. This is going to be uh a new policy um or new policies I should say, policy 401 and 501 um for uh looking at student um 504 plans. So we um didn't it wasn't necessarily known to us that this would be a there's always a required policy and recommended policies and shipment has advised that we should have this as a required policy. Um so all of this is really just either state or federal statute uh in the policy really all of it is legal reference. Um so this has to do with having a 504 policy. Now we've always had practice of it. We've always had policies and procedures internally, but just making sure that folks know about this uh given

178I think the relevance of 504s in our schools now. Um so this will apply to students. Um again it's reflective of statute section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. So all of this is language from there. Um and then obviously uh further down it would be a very long regulation. Um but again most of it all of it in statute form. Um so these are recommended um by Shipman and Goodwin and um this is also giving notice uh f way further down is just it's a very very long and extensive document. We also uploaded if you just scroll down a lot more um notice of of parents and students rights within this and then also the forms necessary. we felt that it wasn't too much to put the forms on here just given the

179relevance of if you're looking for 504 um all of the forms that are required. So um just wanted to make sure that was known and we can quickly put it up but the um the 504 for personnel is also on there as well. Um so it's a little different obviously given its applicability to personnel. Um but same concept having all of the legal notice of it uh the federal statute and then the relevant forms there. Um and they look pretty and not and are easily able to actually be edited and those kinds of things instead of a very weird old one that we had I think some forms on. So can you just clarify is 4010 the student and 5010 the personnel because I think they're linked. Correct. Correct. I'm sorry. Okay. Y no it's

180I think the sorry 5010 is the students 4010 is person okay so it's just wrong in the document the labeling is wrong they're linked correctly label is wrong policy is right policy is right um and we'll bring these back again this is just first look at all of these things so you know we actually are working oh we know you're working and then uh and then the last one in the 5000 series. This is a huge huge shout out to our teacher council, our teachers that have been adv advocating for this, looking at this. We know a topic that comes up is cell phones. Um, and I think we might look maybe at renaming this policy as well, but just so folks know, um, we're adding in or I'm sorry, we did rename it. It

181was laser pointers, paging devices, selling cell phones, and now they're porter electric. Some of it, you know what, some paging devices may be happening. But uh or laser pointers here, but um we know that cell phones is a hot topic. We know those are definitely a conversation, although um you know, we haven't heard much bad things about it and we've heard some great um ways that teachers are addressing that in our schools. Um but this policy really came from the teachers. Um they really they wrote it. Um Britney just made it look cleaner. Is this updated though? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yep. So um really this is is from the teachers and um we just want to thank them because I know this took a lot of time and Mr. Fari as well for convening our

182teachers to helping out doing this. Um and I think it's it's a great policy. Um so we have no edits on it as as um but Miss Carr did just kind of rearrange some things um because we do have in this part right here shown on screen is by level making sure that we recognize the pre relevance and the prevalence of um cell phones, smartwatches, other things. You're not seeing it obviously as much in elementary classrooms, some in middle school, obviously more in high school and just what that looks like. we know as we talk about all the time policy is one thing across the district regulation is something else when it comes to the applicability to schools. So we just thought this was really well written. Um and then it also emphasizes you know

183that there is we have our student discipline policies on there. We have authorized uses of of this technology um as well as you know keeping some of the policy that was in place before about notifying them of search and seizure and all those kinds of things. Um, but really this is making sure that um, our teachers have a say in policy. So, I just want to thank them for that. Um, it's one of the great collaborations that they've done. So, um, just thank you for that. And if you have any questions on that one, too. We're going to obviously bring this back. It's for showing. So, um, I said the cell phone use well like middle by level, elementary, middle. Only difference between elementary and middle is that middle schoolers can have their cell phones

184in a pocket, but they're still not allowed to use it at all during school. So, is that really Mr. F, you want to speak to that? So, so right now, this is what at the middle level they've agreed to how it would work unless they're given permission to use it. Okay. Um, so I know differently in some of the other, um, levels, uh, particularly the high school in the hallway, it might look a little differently. Um, here at the middle level, it would be managed this way. Have it on them, but only use it if like they can't use it walking down the hall, but if they say, "I need to text my mom," the teacher can say, "Go ahead, text your mom." They could. Okay. Yeah. So, um, no, I think that would come

185in the regulation. So that's what they're now going to build regulation around this policy. And so those are the types of things you'll see in your handbooks uh that we hope to go out for next school year. We would like to, you know, if the board, if we can come to a final product here and we approve this policy at some point um before the close of this school year, the goal would be that this would drive the revision to all of our handbooks and what parents would then receive at the beginning of next school year. Yeah, thanks for that clarification. Yeah, and I will say not that we are on a um huge time constraint, but that is the one we would the 504 and the this pass the cell phone policy are priority

186because we would like to have handbooks printed in a timely fashion. Two more meetings. Yes. So, um just want to let folks know. Um but that's all. Yeah. And I don't know if it necessarily fits in this policy, but I'm looking at the section where it outlines on school property, a school sponsored activity while use for remote learning activity if remote learning has been authorized. Um, I think the big difference between this policy and the policy it's replacing, other than the fact that the old policy specifically mentioned Walkman's, um, it was that old. Do we need to put something in here about schoolisssued electronic devices? Because there's Chromebooks now, right? Like, and I don't know if it fits in this policy, but that section is like, hey, you can use it if it's approved, but

187do we need to have something about the use of non-personal or school provided electronic devices? Just so there's a distinction. Yeah, they're not one already. You get the the policy on that when we send the site the acceptable use. Yeah, I believe we have the access. But is it referenced in this policy? Um, in the new policy acceptable use of technology, right? Okay. Then I think we're good. It's not the revised one. Britney's on so guys. Um, which one? Go ahead. I don't think you can share it, but Oh, yeah. I was gonna say, do you want to send it out to Yeah, I'll send it out. Okay. Yeah, it's the same language, but I was looking at it. Um, it's actually broken down by purpose, then definitions, general guidelines, guidelines by grade level, misuse

188and disciplinary action, search and seizure. Um, and that's it. So that way it makes it easier for people to go through and say, okay, let me go by general guidelines and let me look by the search and seizure portion. Um, and it puts it more in layman's terms for everyone to just quickly go through it. I was going to say I was like, wait, is this the one Britney did? Um, so it doesn't change anything material. It's just how Britney presented it, which she makes things very neat. I just like the point. So, so Dr. Brema, if you could just after the meeting send the corrected the corrected uh the one that I'm displaying is not the most correct. Correct. It it's the same language. It's it's just a different format where we we parse

189out like the first part the first stanza just so it's a it's a guideline to reading the policy and that way the board can review um before your next meeting which will be Monday May 12th at 7 p.m. Perfect. You're all invited. All right, I hope that concludes that papers. All right, thank you. And we already did number five. So that brings us back to public participation. If anyone is online, they can raise their hand to be recognized. Don't see anybody online and no one's in the room. Remarks by board members. Go ahead, Tony. I just want to give um my let you know my opinion on why I voted no. Um because it makes no difference when there's eight people voting yes. But my opinion is that the budget itself is just too high.

190And and I personally I don't think we worked hard enough on it. Um I I don't mean that as a bad thing. I'm saying if we if we had done it on that end we wouldn't be nickel diamonding on the reconciliation. I made a motion to take $176,000 out of the de DEI, move it somewhere else. Um, if we could have done that, that would have taken care of some things. And and I I just remember one other thing. I know there was other things, but the uh putting in a curriculum, a jewelry 2 class with the additional HVAC/ear collector, whatever we had to add to that. I thought when you're looking at a budget that you already know is going to increase and that you need to make make budget cuts, I think that

191was that that wasn't a good idea. Um the other thing is I know Weathersfield um Miss Weaver mentioned Weathersfield's um budget's coming up and I me and my eight siblings went to Weathersfield high you know the school system and we're all maybe I'm not but we're we're all very successful. Um I graduated magnet commodity University New Haven right out of Weathersfield High. But their budget is coming up. They have the same number uh my my uh my belief is they have the same number of schools as we do. They have 500 more students than we do and their budget is $30 million less than ours. So just overall I think that um I that's all I just wanted you to know. I'm not not voting no against cutting. I'm voting no cuz I'm I'm I'm

192very um serious about the fact that I just think the budget's too high. Thank you, Miss Weaver. Just want to correct the record. The HVAC isn't in the budget. It's being put into a classroom. Just so you know, that wasn't in the budget. It's going to be it's just in a classroom already and it's just replacing another class. Um, we can talk about what the show, but um, I just want to say it's teacher appreciation week. Uh, as Miss Rodriguez said, um, and I can't think of a more fitting night than celebrating a lot of our teachers. Um, and I had the pleasure to go to the capital day for Newington Advocacy Day and talk to Speaker Ritter about some of the special education things that are happening. and he may or may not have

193mentioned some um things about capping some of the services that for special ed um maybe being touted as working with some of those providers uh because I think that um many of them there's really no regulation and they can just price gouge like we talked about 30% increase for hearing services uh that are essential to our students I think is absolutely ridiculous. Um so I'm glad they're hearing us. So, I just wanted to thank all of those who have done advocacy um with the capital. They're hearing us talking about putting more in the education cost sharing, making sure we're fully funding that um talking about how special ed is a huge huge impact on our town and all the municipalities across the state. Um so, just wanted to say thank you to all the those

194who have continued and I know Dr. Burma has done through CAPS and others. Um because it's just a topic. So, as you see the legislature come and work through that and their budget and everything else like that, I just wanted to to lift that up because um and also I think we talked about pair educators um and a lot of the the issues there. So, it's just a reminder that a lot of what we're feeling in Newington is reflective across the state and across the country. Um and it's one where um we want to highlight obviously the incredible teachers we're we're recruiting and then retaining for over 22 years like Mr. Clark. Um, so just wanted to put that out there. Our policy meeting is May 12th. And thank you all so much, Miss Beatric.

195And just to go a little bit um on what Miss Weaver was talking about. You know, tonight I think we saw some of the best of what Newington Public Schools has has to offer. We've heard a lot of wonderful things about Mr. Clark and the work that he's done and Miss Bacho and how she's empowering our youngest learners. Um, and so, you know, I'm constantly reminded uh the very very important but the wonderful and empowering work that our teachers do. Um, unfortunately this week we've also seen some things that we kind of may need to improve upon. And just a reminder, um, we talk a lot about our budget and to what Mr. Mielli is saying, every line item is important. We discuss, we go back, we discuss some more. And the Chromebooks are and

196technology are an important piece of our budget and they are not an inexpensive piece of our budget. And so just a reminder that we need to take care of the equipment that we have. And when we choose not to do that, it puts our students, our staff, our first responders at risk. But it also makes us have to rethink some of the budget issues that we need to talk about in making sure that our students have all the appropriate materials that they need. And so something that's kind of a um seems like a not a big deal turns into a big a big big deal with tentacles that reach into other places that maybe people don't see when they decide to um uh choose a certain uh pattern of behavior or an action. So just

197actually a request that while we recognize the things that we are doing really really well, we want to keep in mind things that we can do better. And so, um, this is an opportunity for all of us to reflect upon what we can do as school community members to make sure that we are, um, protecting ourselves, our classmates, our equipment in the best way possible so that when we meet for the budget next year, we um aren't going to have a painful conversation about how to replace things that we shouldn't have to replace in the first place. So, thank you, Mr. Newton. I just want to reiterate that our most vulnerable population in most cases and children, this is my opinion, don't always have access even if they have a Chromebook at home. Some situations

198they're in, the person withholds it from at home. Books are are are the connection that you can't take from them. They can always pull a book out off their bookshelf, out of their book bag. It can't be resold. It can't be tossed. You know, I mean, we we have to watch our books. We have to make sure they're still available out there. The old hard library is still very important. Yeah. Um I um Mary brought up the Chromebooks and I just wanted to address a couple things I saw online where a bunch of community members were um kind of like, "Oh, let's go back to pen and paper. Like it's too expensive." And I I just want to point out for some who may not have, you know, may not be familiar with how children

199are learning today. um pen and paper really isn't sufficient um because a lot of their textbooks are online or a lot of you know there's a lot of collaboration that they're learning like we have Google classroom Google Google docs and and just the way that students are able to write a paper and their teachers can see exactly how they wrote it. They can see like if they've used Chach GPT, they can see if they've used copy paste. They can see so many, you know, so much um on the screens and they're getting a much more enriching education using the Chromebooks than they would with pen and paper. Um you know, and and books are I mean the cost of a textbook versus an online textbook is most likely the same, but you're getting it's just

200more you're just able to it's more portable like all that. So, I just wanted to address that that the Chromebooks are really a useful, helpful tool um in our community and and we saw it with co we're super lucky to have onetoone Chromebooks for all of our students because there was no way we would have been able to get through that. Um but just in general like if they are out unexpectedly and they can log in and finish their homework, they don't have to worry about leaving a paper in their locker. Um, so I I just want to say that our Chromebooks are a very valuable tool for our um our students and and a very necessary one and yes they're expensive and yes um we we talked during the budget season that students need

201to take better care of them. So, um, and then we saw this week that there was an incident like a Tik Tok trend that is just very silly. Um, but also puts like Mary said, um, not only the students and teachers in the in the room, but in the building and and our community, um, service people, fire, etc., whatever they're called, first responders. Um so yeah it just just a reminder that the the Chromebooks are a important part of learning and um you know there's there's a balance there's definitely a balance with everything but um they are learning technology is just everywhere they stay so having them is um helping them be able to be successful in the real world once they get out of Newington public schools. Um and happy teachers appreciation week to

202all of our fabulous teachers and paras and school nurses which was yesterday. um nurse. Yes. Um we we recognize them at our last meeting. Um but but yeah, this is the week. So definitely I so apologize. Um but I I would be remiss. We have our next meeting on the 28th, but before that, I did mention before, but just so people know, uh we are celebrating Mr. Clark at Newington High School on Friday, May 23rd at 7 p.m. So um would love for anyone to come and join. And um there's going to be alumni and other things. Um I'm very tight with the MC. Um but um it'll be a great celebration of I think the legacy of Mr. Click. So if anyone has heard and moved tonight, just wanted to let the public know

203because it's before our next board meeting. So thank you. Motion to adjurnn. Second motion and a second. All in favor? Hi. Hi. Meeting adjourn 9:58 p.m. The policy has been updated. Oh, thank