001I'd like to call this meeting of the Newton Board of Education to order the time is 7 o'clock please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag unit States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all de would you please call the roll here here thank you I'd like to open up to public participation any mod related board responsib ilities um time is limited to 3 minutes um if you're in the room you can come to the end of the table if you're on Google meet please raise your hand to be recognized table yeah over very end and please state your name and Street for the record mean button thank one more it's not GRE there you go
002okay there we go Wendy holess 31 barkledge Drive Newington I'm here today to express my concern for the state of the Board of Education particularly how the marked absenteeism of board member Anastasia yop her questionable residency in Newington and her current legal woes a as to what I see as a slumlord behavior are grossly affecting the board's moral and by extension its Effectiveness in providing services for newington's educators and children let me preface this by saying that Miss Yap has not been found guilty by a judge or jury at this time because the case is pending litigation but the severity of the charges along with her poor attendance and questionable residency con concerned me enough to cast a paw on the entire board and town and warrant resignation or removal while the court process plays
003out for her to remain on the board under the circumstances gives the appearance of imp propriety which this board and our school system do not deserve should Miss y refuse to step down I ask this board to investigate her residency I admittedly do not know what defines residency but she herself has indicated multiple times on social media she does not live in Newington and it has been stated in other legal documents for her many pending cases her attendance at one one meeting or and two three by zoom out of 12 or 13 I think as of tonight is about 25% ATT tenants and that would support the non-residency theory this would not be the first time in Newton that we have found non-residents sitting on boards or committees making decisions for our town and such
004a blatant violation would be appalling I also ask that the board consider removal based on impropriety non-performance and distraction and it that it be dealt with expeditiously as the board is entering the critical budget season in closing I say passionate that Character Matters Integrity matters we are living in tumultuous times when the normalization of unethical and improper Behavior has become acceptable by many people not with me and not in my town Newton is better than this thank you all for your time thank you if there's anyone online that wishes to speak please raise your hand Miss Yap we have you recorded as an attendance okay I'm not seeing any hands raised so we can move on to um agenda item C oh sorry um Miss Mcall hi yes Carly McCall on Connecticut Avenue in Newington
005um I would just like to Echo my neighbor sentiments um I I am concerned about the effectiveness of the Board of Education um if they don't investigate this matter fully and also if board members are not fully dedicated to their position um I I don't think people should be responsible for children's education um I if they're not responsible in their own uh private life that's all I Echo everything my neighbor said though thank you seeing no other hands raised oh Miss Rodriguez I sorry I was having a little trouble with my connectivity um hi Jennifer Rodriguez 71 Northwood Road I'm speaking today as a constituent and resident of new inton um I Echo the sentiment of so many um who have already spoken and or sent in emails about uh what we are seeing with
006Miss Yap in the situ situation as it unfolds it's very concerning um I I I don't think that I could speak more eloquently than those who have already spoken and sent in emails um I I'm just expressing my my general concern over the situation um and the expectation of our Board of Ed members um and how they present themselves to our community um within Newington and outside of community outside of our community um and I will say that I'm also very concerned that the Republican Party hasn't taken steps to to um request that she step down during this time and and I think that's very telling um of the party in terms of of how they feel about things like a Law and Order perception understanding um children um and and the responsibility that the
007Board of Ed has uh to our constit or to the constituents in town the residents in town and and more importantly to our most vulnerable uh people which is our our students um so um this is very concerning to me and I would support the board in whatever action that they would like to take moving forward thank you don't think I see any other hands if anyone is having issues that there's a little hand button in the in the meeting to raise your hand okay we can move on to um agenda item c a discussion concerning performance of board member we're proposing for executive session if we need a motion motion to move into executive session to discuss the concern of a performance of a board member second motion second do we have any discussion
008uh roll call vote please yes yes yes Anthony yes Timothy yes yes yes Jessica wer yes Anastasia yes Marsh pass thank you um so for the public we are the board is going to um go into executive session um if you want to stay on this link we're going elsewhere so um and then anyone in the room needs to step out and we'll be back regular session okay we're back in um regular session right now Jessica um I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda um I will move that the new Board of Education amending the agenda to allow the chair to make a public statement he give it the Sam Sam second all right we have a motion and a second is there any discussion to am on the agenda for statement
009can we have a roll call vote please marer yes Britney car yes Sean hollerin yes Anthony Ming abstain Tim Newton yes Amy parate yes Sam Char yes Weaver yes Anastasia yain yeah goad motion passed seven with two exensions okay um okay so the statement I'm going to read into the record and then we'll move on um the board met an executive session as we were very concerned about the current media attention that has been brought to us concerning Miss Yap additionally we're troubled by Miss yap's poor attendance and lack of participation at board meetings we will let the Court decide on the charges but we are concerned about how this impacts her overall performance and her ability to do do the job as a board member we have called on Miss Yap to resign but
010she has refused as an elected official the board does not have the authority to have her removed this board is committed to not letting these distractions interfere with our mission and duties and refuse to allow Such Noise to deter us from the important work we are doing as a board the well-being and support of our students and faculty members remain our foremost concern this statement reflects the consensus of seven board members with Miss yop and Mr M abstaining and now we can move on to agenda item D approval of minutes I move to approve the consent agenda as presented for the approval of meeting for the approval of minutes for January 29th February 5th February 10th February 12th and February 19th of second we have a motion second is there any discussion all right we're
011voting on approval of minutes for those five dates all in favor I I any opposed motion passes un unanimously um agenda item E standing committee items policy Miss Weaver do we have anything we have a million policies as always but we will be looking at those at next meeting uh and just a reminder uh for those who love to attend our policy meetings uh that will be another one on Monday March 3D AKA this next coming Monday 7even o'clock H room and virtual thank you do we have any curriculum updates thank you Miss we we do not have any curriculum committee updates however we also have a meeting next Tuesday I got a write this time the 4th at 7 o'clock in this 6:30 6:30 almost got it right 6:30 Helen Nelson room uh please
012attend if you are interested thank you um Dr Brit good evening I will not um read the report to you I encourage you to get caught up on what's happening in the district from our all of our departments but what is not in that report that I would like to publicly state is today we were notified that principal Tara tigno of new inton high school has been named the Connecticut High School principal of the year we are extraordinarily proud of her and there'll be many celebrations forthcoming but she he uh also joins Marco trillo as the assistant principal of the year for the state of Connecticut so we have a lot to be proud of here in Newington Public Schools so thank you very much that concludes my report yeah any questions for Dr bumit
013and we greatly congratulate Miss tigno um it's a very well-deserved honor and we are proud for her to represent Newington um new business we have um to adopt our bu or we have to transmit our budget to the town by Saturday I believe so um last week we made almost $250,000 in um reductions and I believe we have more that we can discuss tonight um but Dr Brum at first do you want to just give some updates on where we stand yes I would I have updated the PowerPoint just so all board members and public because this is posted on our website would have access to information that's posed by the board as well as um things that have come in from the public over the course of this budget process so um I'm going
014to fast forward to the end of this presentation which is still booting up because it's lengthy um okay so we had some questions as a followup from last meeting one of them was a de requesting detailed information about the Perkins Grant um that is now let me share this on the screen Miss Freeman if you wouldn't mind just briefly providing an overview of your summary which is linked into the PowerPoint um so the the information about the Perkins Grant is contained in there it's a Federal grant there's information about how it is allocated um state by state and um in order to apply for the Perkins Grant it's actually very extensive as I know Dr Brit um shared at the last meeting um the um woman who writes the grant is Lori Kyler she is
015also the Workforce Development specialist and she needs to report on the size scope and quality of the program so we have to meet certain criteria for our CTE program in order to receive the grant so you could imagine it's a good incentive for school systems to have robust and highquality C program so consistently we have met those requirements they're clear about how the money can be spent and so the vast majority of the funds that we receive from Perkins go into um consumables for classes like culinary um the all the baking courses we do use some funding for stiens as well and I know Mr Sharma you had had a question about that so the four stiens are listed in there as well so at the very bottom and on the screen are the breakdown
016of how the money is spent and the grand total is 52468716 busing now again the board has already passed the capital budget which did include our bus replacement cycle but we did have a question from a board member as to how do we compare um that's yours how do we compare with other districts about our busing costs and again it's it's a very challenging comparison because only four districts in the state of Connecticut have their own bus operations so what BL did is take a sample District such as Weathersfield and try to Overlay their costs over how our costs are decided so I'm going to fast forward to the end of this to show you in that memo he outlines how we did the data he worked with uh Mr Barnes and Miss Simon in
017our bus garage about how to calculate a very difficult calculation because we're comparing a different protocol but I know Mr uh Newton indicated that he's getting questions from his constituents relative to what's the actual bottom line expenditures so we have our actual expenditures from 22-23 show under this analysis that we saved 687 I will tell you these years don't as we move forward don't reflect the ongoing continuous increase in contracted services for example I was at a superintendent meeting uh yesterday and one of my colleagues who has a contracted Services uh situation was saying he was facing a 20% increase and that is the Connecticut school district so while these numbers are quite cons considerable already I believe they will only continue to grow now one what I Lou also put on his analysis is
018that we have a very I won't call it liberal but our busing policy is much more uh there's a shorter distance that people become eligible for busing and the board's well aware of that we've had numerous conversations about that over the years so some of these districts probably go with the um generous is a good word some of these other districts probably go with the State uh mandates we do not we allow people to qualify for a bus a quarter mile closer and as you've heard in my other and Mr barnes's presentations that we are a good partner with other Town um entities such as diala ride parks and wreck uh the library Public Safety the police to leverage them using our buses and it's much cheaper for them because all they have to do
019is pay for the time of the driver versus going to a dco and renting out uh a contracted service so those are the the comparisons for the last for the two years that we have available to us um if anyone wants to hear a little bit more about lse analysis this memo and gives you that information but I'll turn it over to the board chair whether I should go deeper into this memo and ask L to speak to it or whether that's sufficient sufficient I'm hearing yeah thank you Lou for putting this together Y and thank you to Lou and Mr Barnes and Miss Simon for their very thorough analysis which the board can read at its leure um it is compelling to me that this is still the best way to go for our
020system all right and then um the board posed um how we would what would be the cost or can we cut the central direction or other supplies from 10% to 5% and the answer to that is yes uh um apologies that total would reduce the budget by $2,100 if the board so chooses this evening and I'm going to show a sheet that outlines all that then the board asked um whether or not we could look at a differentiation of fees besides just that 125 as I did POs to Mr uh Myers the athletic director you know would it be okay to do staggered fees and he said that would be a a bookkeeping nightmare but what he did is break down for the board uh based on our current participation of about 800 athletes over
021the last five years he's projecting the following in his budget right now at the $100 and again we established in previous meetings that we are well below all of our neighbors um and all of the I shouldn't say our neighbors people that are part of the CCC that's our conference so at 100 we're about 40 $7 below what most of our conference uh colleagues are are charging if we were to go with a $115 fee that would um provide us with 92,5 and if we went with $125 fee that would provide us with 1225 so these would be the different savings the board would incur so uh let me fast forward to this page so you can see how it breaks down I use the the figure on this page uh the reconciliation page for
022purpose of this simulation and I will share the tab the right way this time okay so this uh tab or this worksheet shows you from the other evening what the impact would be um if we we already made the Motions or the board did on the green items so I'm trying to spoll down here under pending reductions using the parti Pati fee of $115 the board could reduce the budget by $11,400 the board may recall the other day the previous board meeting that charging the 125 would also um get us about a $20,000 offset so the differentiation there from 125 to 15 to uh 115 is this amount um to be sure Mr Meyers confirmed that every year we are allowing families who have Financial challenges to get breaks on this or reductions and any
023hardships are absolutely taken into consideration when a family wants to participate and they're you know their finances won't permit that so I don't know if there's any questions yeah looks like Miss Bieber has a question on that uh yeah just to clarify I think um one was is it still the like buy two get one free no this simulation would mean every every sport you participate in you do pay the 115 okay um is just to clarify our model right now is we still it's all three Sports you don't get like a discount on the third no right now you do get the third one free um and as I mentioned in a previous board meeting the um the athletic director has noted that there is participation reductions during the free season um sometimes there's
024not as much Buy in when there's no quote skin in the game so um that's something he's noted for the board to consider so that that's still kind of the and my other question was um the last time fees have increased was it's at least eight years okay yeah it's been quite some time okay all right and um while I'm on this chart I can just use that for our talking point um the 5% reduction of central office supplies would result in the $2,100 reduction as you can see we're going on the far left hand right hand column is column F shows you how the percentage is shrinking so uh reduction in athletic fees and the office supplies doesn't move the needle that much the next item that the board asked for us to consider
025was the excess cost legislative update offset rather which can be used for what we call BI aads um let me put that some context around that this legislative uh offset this year so far has passed through the legislation um resoundingly um we're hearing chatter that the governor either won't sign it and it still becomes in effect or he would veto it which would still allow the legislator to go back in and through a 2third voote or or whatever their protocol is it's can still go through it has bipartisan support so there is a bit of a risk uh having this as an offset right now but my contacts who I reached out to during our break um did feel like it is something that's likely to go through even if it hits some of those
026roadblocks Lou today uh at my request reanalyzed our projections and he felt more comfortable with a slightly lower number of 338,000 and that was based on our current number of students who are qualifying for the excess cost and a percentage of that cost that we would expect to get reimbursed to us so that is what our current projections are as you can imagine there's no crystal ball here um but that is our best estimate as to how this new uh allocation would affect Newington so that amount of money could reduce the budget down down to 6% and then lastly to uh bring us to below 6% which was some of the I believe some of the um sentiment around the board table Lou felt comfortable that he could adjust down a from a variety of
027our line items the employee benefits because they're trending lower than we expected so he's comfortable balancing that by to get us to 5.94 for 53550 a reduction in employee benefits um the board did want to have a little more time to ponder the par educator salary adjustment from 4 to 3% it is not calculated into that 5.94% so if the board would prefer to use that that is another $177,000 offset but currently it is not part of the um calculation here if you're wondering how we compare to the town at this time we are this number 5.94 would be extremely comparable slightly below I think they're at 5.98 though they haven't presented yet um this is what I was shared with me by the town manager a couple of uh tents of a percentage higher
028than us at this time so we are bringing it down on par to the towns out of likely ask and and that is kind of where we were able to get that and I'll turn it back to board chair for any further questions or discussion thank you uh Mr Newton question Dr brumit what is the mill rate offset for that $5 million difference how many mills will it increase based on last year's which is all we have is it still 3.2 Mills I'm going to have to defer that to Lou we'd have to do an analysis $ 2.5 and3 million uh I couldn't answer that right not with any accuracy yeah I'd just like to know what the mill offset would be I can research that um I wouldn't I can research that but I
029wouldn't have that tonight we have to Dos yes M weav and I think once the the difficulty also in this every year is whatever we pass it's still going to go to the town and get we get told what it is anyway not to diminish our power in any way it's just a frustrating part of this process is that um regardless it's going to be set and we have to think of things obviously doing this diligence to cut where we can right now um I think is critical um and I'm just wanted to say thank you to those Advocates who advocated for the excess cost legislation uh it is one of the things that I think um not only is a great thing for this budget but I would love to see it in future
030budgets and have a sustainable actual uh funding flow of that so just wanted to put that out there thank you yeah and as um Dr brma had alluded to this is um this was a request of the Town managers who get our because they were here on the 5th when we presented originally when Dr Brett presented originally and then he had followed up with an email to um have us reduce it to this level below six so um we're doing what what he asked um with as much as we can so and I agree the the legislation um for that excess cost is definitely you can see helping a significant amount um so I think that's a a no-brainer that we should make a motion for um for that one and then we can probably
031discuss the others I'm happy to make that motion oh that's great thank you no problem I move the 20125 2026 board of education budget be adjusted by the subtraction of $338,500 599 D30 for excess cost legislative offset to be used for bi heads second all right Miss Weaver made the motion Miss yop seconded is there any discussion okay we're voting for the reduction of $338,500 [Music] thank you happy to continue giving motions um I'll if you want to I please just you don't feel that the burden is on you um I'm going a motion uh the 2025 2026 board of education budget be adjusted by the increase in student participation fee from $100 to $150 and the subtraction of $11,400 in the account 3220 59920 and by subtraction of $615 in account 59930 for the
032athletic program second thank you uh we have a motion and a second is there any discussion Miss Weaver yeah I want to say this one's a little bit hard for me in a struggle but I think uh just from a financial analysis again I think Mr Newt and I have similar views of Rob Peter to pay Paul here we obviously don't want it on the taxpayers but they're going to be paying in it regardless I'm looking at it uh just from my standpoint of uh eight years usually a five to 10 year window our community fees have gone up every so often we froze fees for five year three four years during covid for Community use fees um unfortunately inflation is just not a thing you can just ignore or try and uh get away
033from so I think um you know 25 per sport is a lot I think 15 is not the best but I think it'll help our budget and it's one of the things I think uh if Mr Myers was recommending too I I do want to uh at least acknowledge his expertise in this and we also are still I think lower by uh $30 for every sport uh compared to our our dur and our CCC um counterparts so as long as we're still lower than that by a good percentage I'm I'm happy with that again um these are not the budget decisions I super love so it will be a um unenthusiastic support of this one Mr hollerin I just want to Echo what Miss Weaver said um we don't like to take anything away from
034the athletic program considering it's Stellar in this town and we'd like to keep it that way 115 is still lower than the average of similar districts uh significantly um but I I agree that Mr Myers was able to find a way to offset what we need to do for the budget to do right by our taxpayers but also support the athletic program uh and not an easy vote but I think it strikes the balance thank you any further discussion okay so we're voting to um increase the student participation fee from $ 100 to $115 did you have a roll call vote please Mary be yes Britney Carr yes Sean hollerin yes Anthony me yes Timothy Newton yes P yes Sam Sharma yes Jessica weer yes Anastasia y you're on mute Anastasia Anastasia yeah 8 thank
035you that one hurts me personally but that's okay all right uh do youan sure I'll make the motion to move the 25 2025 2026 board of education budget be adjusted by the subtraction of 2100 in account 2320 d690 D30 for the reduction of central office other supplies second thank you a motion a second is there any discussion all right we're voting to reduce the um central office supplies roll call vote please Mary bet yes Britney Carr yes Hollin yes Anthony meing yes Timothy Newton yes Kate yes Sam Sharma yes Jessica Weaver yes Anastasia y yes motion passes unanimously thank you uh I'll move the Board of Ed the 2025 2026 board of education budget be adjusted by the subtraction of $ 53,55 in account 2950-20 one-30 for final adjustments and employee benefits second thank you
036uh we have motion second for employee benefits is there any discussion Miss we we're not subtracting employee benefits I want to make that very just it's in the it's not I just yes it's an adjustment based on Trends everyone's benefits will not be impacted clarification all good that's all it cost us that would be amazing but would okay is there any further discussion roll call vote please Mary V yes Britney Carr yes Johan hollerin yes Anthony meing yes Timothy Newton yes Pate yes Sam Sharma yes Jessica Weaver yes Anastasia Yap yes Mar pass unanimously okay um I personally would not like to do the next one I think that our pars are very critical to how um to the support of our teachers and and they actually are teachers um in a sense so I
037think that they Des deserve to have an increase of 4% um but we can have Miss weer yeah I agree and one of the things I think that stood out to us is um and I think it'll continue to be a conversation around this table um we are one of the only to not offer par educator benefits that would be $2 million to our budget uh so it's it's one of those things that like we kind of keep passing the buck on um but I don't think in light of that too I don't think it is wise to um continue to to hurt the backbone of our of our schools anymore so um I would not support porting if this motion was put forward would not support it um I think our our PA educator
038is great and I just wanted to again highlight our employ our uh everyday hero last time um who is not the not everyday hearer the nominator of our hear a learning Braille for one of our students deserves over 4% but I'll keep it there Mr hollerin uh I agree I think a pair of educators are vital to uh well performing um School schools we have in our district um I regret that we um have yet to find a way to provide them benefits as we are one of the few districts who do not but the the line item is just too heavy so um I think doing what we can at this point um by staying at 4% and not reducing the three is as Fair as we can get at this point but um
039I think it's a good show of support for our parents because we do have wonderful people in our schools that make a big difference Mr Sharma yes so I just want to EO everything everyone else said I think uh we do not offer medical benefits um and I think if we do offer them it's going to cost what what two million right and I think we need to um stay like of a market in terms of wages for our Paris so I think we should you know be at 4% Mr Newton well I agree with not cutting I just question this has no effect on the union contracts they've all been settled or are we up in arbitration this year what how do those stand par educators are not in a union inton what the
040union looking for since they're not a bargaining unit I'm not sure that the Unions would be able to hold them up because we have other non-bargaining units in that I don't believe they're ever used in comparisons Lou any comment on that no comparisons errors would be against communities around us that have a contract so it wouldn't be any okay um are there any other thoughts or um suggestions or anything going forward go ahead Tony turn I make ation you may just turn your mic on like to make a motion uh to do away with the Dei Grant funded position and reallocate the funds from that administrative position to teachers and Par educator salaries that's uh I think $161,400 something thousand second okay we have a motion and a second is there any discussion Miss Weaver
041um I'm not really clear on this motion because it's there's no specificity like what account and we don't have a Dei officer we have a chief of innovation strategy and Equity so if that was meant to be the motion and an account um I'd ask it either be revised or I I just don't think that's appropriate to not go by the title of who we employ I don't know um Aon would you be able to locate the line item for that um it is in the other salaries program the 1190 at the end of your books other salaries car my question is would that be two questions one the removal of the position and then a second motion or question proposed as to using that grant money elsewhere I feel like that's not one motion
042but I suppose that is the case but I guess if one I guess the first thing would be to to determine whether the board agrees to cut that position because otherwise there won't be grant money freed up otherwise so I guess step one is to determine that uh Miss Yap has her handout yeah I just had a question as well so um well and a statement so it's not called Dei it's called something else but I I do agree with Britney is it is it going can we make it two motions because um it will confuse the public so one to say either um you know caught the position and then re yeah basically exactly what Britney said is it going to be is it going to be two motions or can we combine it
043so we have a motion as stands it can be um withdrawn or or amended by the original person who made the motion um the position I believe he's referring to is the chief of strategy Innovation and Equity can can I amend it go ahead Tony thank you so so I'll I'll amend the motion uh I guess it would be two two motions uh to eliminate the $161,450 for chief of innovation strategy and culture for Equity that that's the first part and then and then that so that's your amended motion okay second we have an amended motion do move a position do we have second second you heard you Anastasia yeah you seconded the motion so we have an amended motion and a second to remove a position do we have any discussion Miss Weaver oh
044do this I just want to say um I know we've probably had contentious discussions about this uh in this past year um this is a position that's been in the budget for the past four years five five years now yep um and has not seemingly been an issue so I continue to have no issue with it and I would just like to say um the equity work that we are doing in this school system is one that should be commended and I believe that's why we have principles of the year um it was specifically brought up in a lot of those interviews um was how are we reaching every single child particularly in the postco era where we have extreme need for learning acceleration to address learning loss and we see a continued achievement Gap
045and what we've seen is a closure of that achievement Gap um and I believe that is due to this position so I will not support this motion Mr Hollin um speaking as the chair of the curriculum committee it's my opinion that this excuse me this position is vital to the way we have designed our curriculum the strategy in which we carry it out and the efforts we're making to close the achievement Gap I think removing this position from the roles would be detrimental in the way we can actually achieve our academic goals as well as our Equity goals um to represent every single student in our district so I will not be supporting this motion either thank you uh Miss Yap has her hand up and then Mr Sharma Hi H so I will I
046will be supporting this motion um I just have a question um I think I just want to make a statement first I think Gerald Harrison is an asset to um the school system I've gotten to know him over a while and I think he's a great um person to work for the school I do think if there was an opportunity to offer him an alternate position that it would be something that I think we could consider I I don't agree with completely just eliminating him because he does bring a lot of benefits to Newington schools I can make this statement as the first and only black elected official in the town of Newington I do understand the importance of having people around that look like me but at this moment we have to you know
047save money at the bud you know with our budget and I do think there's possibly another thing that they can come up with for him to do because he is an asset now in regards to Dei or whatever you've renamed it as I don't even care our president has already made it very clear that they don't want any of these positions so going against anything that he says I think is absolutely ridiculous so I am for cutting this particular position but make it public that I do think Gerald is an asset to the school system thank you so I just want to be clear that we are not talking about an an individual person we're talking about a position it is um it's unfair to bring up a a person's name in regards to a
048budget discussion um this is a position called the chief of strategy Innovation and Equity um I personally think that is a very important position in our district regardless of who is in it um I I think that just for his own just we just should not be naming names as far as when we're talking about um we don't control staff that's Dr Brahma and her staff's job to hire people we control the budget um so I just wanted to say that first of all and then second of all just in regards to whatever is happening at the nation's capital that's not a law it is a um something that he put out there that's his opinion that's fine but in Newington um we are focused on Equity inclusion and Innovation and um I think this
049this position is a very critical position for us to keep and and have and expand um the position has expanded over the last five years it started as one thing and it has has evolved into way more than um whatever National rch is saying is bad so I would just like to put that on record um Miss sorry Dr brem would you like to thank you um I want to publicly state that I sent out an email to the board after the last meeting offering to meet with any and all board members if they would like more information about what this position chief of strategy Innovation and equity entails and no one took me up on that and there is so much more to that position that that hasn't been even discussed around this table
050but to be clear again there this is the the work that needs to be done the work is having an impact we're being looked at by other systems we are being looked up as a model for how this is working we have many things that are happening out of that office such as our social emotional learning work our discipline work helping teachers to understand how to best meet the needs of our children we are 50% nonwhite in Newington 50% we need help from someone who's an expert to work with us so that we meet the needs of all those students and I just want to put that on the record that I don't believe there is any other position I would want other than the one that is currently existing and it has been substantially
051beneficial to our system and frankly has saved us money as many districts spend money on Consultants that come in and do this work and we've been able to do it in House at a substantial savings so if the board is considering this from a fiscal Avenue that's an important component too thank you for the opportunity to speak thank you I do not know who are their hand up first uh Mr Sharma just have one question for Meen um what's so 50% of our student body is non weight right and what's and what's the uh in terms of our teaching staff I believe it's 9 92% is weight right so that's why like so we need this position and this is like really good important work Miss petus um we've had a lot of conversations and
052I personally have been a strong advocate for this position um for the last year and a half and I just want to put a reminder out there that our our successes with regard to equity are measurable and that's the most important thing we know we're helping our students but we can actually prove that with the data so um I am definitely uh not in support of this initiative Miss Weaver I just want to reemphasize that this position again has been in the budget for five years and it doesn't matter what but like last year this board voted and we also voted in favor of our goals and Mission and statement and in that is equity and inclusion so I think it reflects what we're trying to do as a school system um it's not easy
053or comfortable work um but what I don't want to happen is uh political rhetoric or um misinformation get out there about what this position is or not or claiming it as a Dei hire this is nothing new this is before any of that was even in the Zeitgeist of political rhetoric and I think what's important to note is that this is a position that was filled because there was a need from our student body we were recognizing that there was a growing achievement Gap and it was only exacerbated by the pandemic and as the only one who was here with Dr brummit during covid I can tell you how extremely difficult that was and yet during that we put this position in there so I think it's a direct response of everything that we've seen
054out of covid that has exacerbated a lot of the gaps that we've seen and it's not just race it's not just special ed and which also just so you know all of our special ed if you disaggregate a by race there's still cheap gaps so I think what's important to not is that there's a lot of need here and that we've been using this position and that it's even grown and done more is we're getting more bang for our book out of out of this position so I just want to say I really want to emphasize that I truly support this position I wish it was something that we had when I was in school thank you um Miss y you're on mute if you're speaking oh sorry um I have a question for Dr
055brummit does this position specifically help with bringing in um diverse Equity inclusive staff or just students this position is largely working with staff um to I'm sorry staff who serve students to make sure their practices are Equitable this position is not higher involved in any of the hiring processes it's strictly about training teachers to work with students okay I have another question if that's okay go ahead so as a minority black woman myself and I understand it's easy to try to train people to work with people that look like me right okay wouldn't it make more sense to hire more people that look like me instead of train people that don't look like me to work with people that look like me so it so we've had conversations I'm speaking um so we've had conversations
056around this board table about the need to hire a diverse staff and we had a plan the state required a plan we went over it um it went to the state I think it came back and we revised it so um there is a plan in place in Newton public schools to um hire a diverse staff in in addition we have program internal what's it called the grow grow your own grow your own we're actually standing turn yes we have two programs now one is the grow your own that's been around for a bit and now we're partnering with Central but I I would like to add that the um human capital Development Department which is Mr fi and Miss Foy are the department that's in charge of recruiting our staff so we do have
057people working on that it's just not out of the off because the the topic at hand is this position that's not his primary function but we do have staff that are always seeking to to diversify wherever possible you go ahead Miss Carr I think what makes this one difficult for some people is we've been practicing equity in our policy since about and we know because we've been going through the policy since 1996 um and people see this as a newer position and then they see 61,800 the issue becomes an issue when we continue to change titles because of the large other op other things that they do do but I think that without the knowledge that you've changed the position people go into the budget book and we look and say wait a minute that
058guy was this person was this last year this person was maybe we should be a little more transparent throughout the year when we're getting ready for budgets whatever to explain that the positions have developed this way that will be the title going forward because this to some people I've gotten the same emails they've go it's a bait and switch and that may or may not be the case but I think that's where that's being driven from M has off the deep end that title changed at least three years ago um Miss um I I do also want to agree with Tim and Britney in regards this I mean I think the position's been there for about 5 years and as Britney said you guys have been working on this since 1996 or 1998 the town
059is not going to get more diverse unless more people move there okay and like for me and I can speak personally myself I mean I chose to move there and I'm black so like I'm helping diversify your town right but it's not going to get better that way if you've been trying for almost longer than you know my whole adult life we have to find another way now like I said I do agree that the person in the position um you know is vital to the school system but talk person we're not point of order we're not talking about the person we are talking about the position the position that's held shouldn't use our grant money to fund it Point Blank that grant money isn't for that we're choosing to allocate our grant money for
060that I think it could be used towards other things so I do agree that we should although you've re thank you Brit for saying three years ago change the title I think that this is something that we shouldn't continue and that the position can be used in a different way thank you Miss Weaver I just want to point out that we voted on this budget with this in there last year and board members here have voted for this with it and there was no issue until this year so just want to point that out that this was not an issue until it became in political rhetoric and became a politicized position in my opinion Mr Hollin want to Bel the point but I want to make a point that the headline for today's meeting should
061be that we have an assistant principle of the year for the state of Connecticut along with a high school principal of the year for the state of Connecticut part of that decision-making process from that panel was the ability for those two principles to work with the chief of innovation strategy and culture for Equity as part of the holistic approach to get students to have a fair and Equitable shot e education regardless of culture background or economic standing um and I don't believe that with I I I don't believe that if we remove this position we'd be able to achieve the same results that we have this year um that was a big part of the decision-making process um to select these two individuals I was on one of the panels for Mr trilo that topic
062did come up um and I I do believe that that is due in part to the work of this position thank you um I think call the question please Mary beatress I'm sorry I want to just repeat we're voting to um remove this position from yeah no thank you Britney Carr mste John hollerin no Anthony mey I don't understand uh how did you um we are voting to remove the position remove the yes to remove no to not remove so you should be the yes Timothy Newton yes Amy parad no Sam Sharma no Jessica Weaver no Anastasia Yap yes the motion passes fails H fails fail I'm sorry the motion fails 54 with uh one abstain 53 one abstention you're good it's okay 53 one abstention fails motion fails okay um are there any other
063suggestions or I think we're at um can you go back to that we're at 5.9 yes 5.94 5.94 and I believe we did Link in a motion or is it there yep it's here okay all right so um at this point sounds like we've done all we can do at this point um as far as the budget goes we're at 5.94% which is 92 mil 26493 um so we should um if if we're all good we can transmit it to the town I see Miss there were not two motions we the motion was amended and it failed did you have something to say yeah I was just a little confused so I know he had originally made two motions in one and he amended the first one but I didn't know if he was still
064making the second motion as well as something separate yep so the grant money was there's no money that opened up due to the elimination of a position that we did not agree to so there's no need for a second motion okay so I think at this point we can transmit to the town um and then obviously the next steps are Dr brem and I will will go in a couple weeks to um to present as the budget as we transmitted it so we need a motion to do so Mr hollerin I move that the Board of Education transmit the 2025 2026 budget to the town manager in the amount of 92 m264 913 which represents an increase of 5.94% second thank you Sean and Sam is there any discussion Miss Weaver yeah I just want
065to say as I do every budget transmitt um you know I never think this is an easy one and I think we always want to go lower from a fiscal standpoint and then always want to go higher from a heart standpoint because I don't think it'll ever be enough for our kids but um just looking at where our durg's at too uh Berlin at 7.4 four was the proposed I don't know what they're approving at um seeing North Haven was at 6.99 and New Milford was 3.93 Milford 4.87 um looks like some people just approved what was submitted um no offense to them uh but um you know I think one of the things that's difficult about this process and I have try to be vocal about it is um is that we vote on
066this we trans it to the town and then ultimately the town has say and what it is again and um is difficult because it in my opinion does diminish our power to say anything because regardless the end result will be the end result um so whether we put in 10% and they come back with 2% the end result would be 2% so um it is one of the things I find difficult and when I look at the budget where it is now uh it may not look like this in March or April and as we look at where money's comeing from and boy I hope some legislators find some more money for us um and that's hopefully the case and as breakage comes out and as things go um this Art and Science becomes more
067clear and I always struggle with this time of year because when we could hear about things like the nor Easter Academy we haven't heard yet things that we could Budget on um and I think be better about budgeting we just don't have the full information so to me um you know I probably would like it to be but I'm in support of what keeps our St staff keeps our academics going and improving um to continue what mission and vision uh Newton public schools has been on so I just want to say um supporting this to transmit to the town but also putting a huge asteris that it may look very different in the next coming months um you know missar has a whole I think March 20 it's 11 11 yeah so who knows what
068things are going to look like um when that happens so I just always kind of want to put that caveat in there that you know you see whatever we voted on this and this is XY um but please recognize this is a fluid situation and this Art and Science um is not kind to time limits and uh restrictions with having to pass a budget by Saturday thank you thank you and I also just want to point out too that the this budget does um require us to use our savings account which is our unlap in fund so um so if there are any breakage points then that will only eliminate our need to um to use our savings account but this is the lowest um at this point the lowest or yeah the lowest we
069assuming we all agree to it but the we've done our work um so yeah what Jessica was saying um transmit to town it's in their hands and we will um continue the process town so any further discussion okay sorry oh miss me sorry just want to say thank you again for everyone who put the time and effort into it um it's appre by all staff and admin who did that those at the table and those not shout out Steve he's on okay so um we're gonna vote to transmit our budget of 5.94% over to the town manager Mary be yes Britney Carr no Sean holler yes Anthony meiling no Timothy Newton no Amy parading yes Sam Sharma yes Jessica Weaver yes Anastasia Yap no the motion passed by4 thank you graduation dates so um our
070new principal of the year has reached out to let me know that they're ready to set or would like the board to set a graduation date as members of the board know we don't have the capacity to hold graduation inhouse due to our limited seating and large graduation class the state legisl legislation passed along law 2019 allowing the board to set a graduation date and even if there are snow days after that point the graduation date can still hold uh the legislation's Public Act 19-1 195 So currently the June 17 17th date that is recommended by the high school principal is the 181st day of school um based on our 181 day calendar for kids so I will turn it back over to the board chair for any further questions or discussion does anyone have
071any questions or wants to read the motion Miss Weaver move the Newington Board of Education approved June 17 2025 as a firm graduation date for students in grade 12 at Newington High School second motion and a second is there any discussion think the project grad committee will be happy to have a date officially so they can finalize their plans um all right we're uh voting to set graduation to June 17th call please Mary be yes Britney car yes Sean hollerin yes Anthony meeley yes Timothy Newton yes Amy Pate yes Sam Sharma yes Jessica Weaver yes Anastasia y yes motion passed unanimously thank you we'll let our principal of the Year know she had can book the the the O the Oakdale all right we're back to public participation any matter related to board of responsibilities
072three minutes state your name and Street for the record if you are online you can raise your hand um I did hear that there was a member of the public that tried to raise her hand and couldn't um Miss Havens if you're on would you like to go all right well give her a minute um Miss duno hi good evening Beth delbo 327 Walsh Avenue um I would like to say that I appreciate all of the work that goes into the budget process um I was watching earlier when the information on the buses was presented and I was wondering I know the slide that was put up was just one kind of cursory slide that showed a list of items um but I did not see Fuel Incorporated into that or um and I'm curious
073if workers compensation is under liability or if that's a separate line item and were those and other expenses factored in in a um in a more um detailed presentation that might be available for the public um if so I would love to um have that emailed to me or I can certainly request it through fi if that's what's needed but I would love to see um some more information on that um and then in terms of the budget itself um I Heard uh Mr Newton ask earlier about the mill rate and I was a bit shocked to see that no one on the board understood the impact of this Budget on the mill rate to the town um while I understand it is your job to worry about educating our students and setting policy for
074the board um it is also your job as elected officials to take into consideration the impact of the taxpayer and so by my calculations the increase of this budget that was just adopted to send to the council is over five1 $1 million if you use last year's mill rate figure which was um just over $2.5 million equals 1 mill then this budget just on the board of ed not counting the town yet would increase our mill rate by two full Mills our mill rate now is 39.67 so we would be up 41 close to 42 um and that's just taking into consideration the Board of Ed budget and I think it's really important for elected officials to understand exactly what your impact is when you vote on something um thank you everyone thank you is
075there anybody else I'm not seeing any hands raised so I want to make sure everyone gets a chance to speak if they want to Bill not seeing any so I guess whoever texted earlier is not on anymore but okay um we can move on to remarks by board members Miss beus um I just want to take a moment to again thank Dr brumit and her team um I recognize how difficult these conversations can be and digging deep into the needy greedy of the budget I also want to recognize the the Deep commitment of everyone around this table I know we've taken a lot of time we've had a lot of important conversations um to try to set priorities and I'm very proud of the work that this um board has done to take into account
076the needs of our teachers our students and especially our special needs students so I'm very proud of that work and and I think that this process is never easy but it certainly is very important and very very thoughtful so thank you thank you Mary Mr Holleran yes I also wanted to commend everybody who put the work into getting this budget together presenting it to us asking our questions Our Endless endless questions uh it is not easy to strike a balance between trying to support our students uh having the highest quality of Education we can provide them also being responsible with taxpayer dollars is difficult as a taxpayer property owner myself as well as a parent of new inton students I take that very personally um so it's a personal decision one that we don't take
077L um and once again just want to recognize Miss tno and M uh Mr trilo for being assistant principal and principal of the year for the state of Connecticut I cannot announce that enough they are fantastic wonderful people they represent our town in the best way possible um and they do that by showing up and putting in the work and I think at the bare minimum that's what you have to do whether you're in the system or on the board to show up and do the work thank you Mr Sharma I just want to thank um Marin and Lou just for putting the budget together and I think talking about the 5.94% almost all of it is um needs right it's that there's no wants basically it's the teacha contract benefits um so you know
078it's all needs um just one short example in order to meet Our obligation for our teach contract or town Revenue should we need to increase the town Revenue by a million dollars a year just to meet just to meet that 4% increase so you that's where we are at so you know and I feel like this I mean this budget is just uh what we need to educate our kids thanks thank you Mr Newton I just want to reiterate that uh elected officials in this town need to watch what they say to the media because what they say makes issues harder for board members and other people and I'm not going to point fingers names whatever they know who they are that you know in the position they were in they should not have made
079a comment about what was going to happen inside an executive session to the public and that's what I think created more animosity than we needed thank you good Miss Carr with every budget season I always believe the public deserves a reason why I voted the way I did so while I fully support investing education and understand the rise in cost in special education employee benefits and salaries I also believe that some areas of our budget have become overinflated I do not oppose a reasonable increase but I cannot in good conscious roughly approve a 6% increase when families in our community are already struggling with the rising cost of goods home insurance and daily living expenses we need to strike a balance between supporting our schools and ensuring that taxpayers are not overburden thank you guys
080thank you Miss Weaver always got the prepared REM marks so she so good at this um I just want to say um what a interesting board meeting in times um but I think the headline as Mr hollerin pointed out so eloquently is we have an assistant principal of the year and now a principal of the year in the state of Connecticut and if there's anything to come out of new inton public schools that I want blasted across any Airwaves um it's that I think it's an incredible honor uh I had a great time bragging about ter um yesterday in interviews and um as someone who was a student at Newington highing school at all of our Newton Public Schools um and was a student when Tera was a we assistant principal and now seeing it
081um and to have my sister under her tutelage as a as a principal and to see my cousins come up into that system um it is one of the things that is my North Star and knowing that this is the school system that raised me and the one that I hold very dear um and I just want to say you know I take this responsibility this is my sixth budget um I voted everyone that was bipartisan or not knowing that um you know this isn't the end and I think it's incredibly important that we support the programs that we are putting into place I cannot emphasize this enough I talk to fellow board members across the state across the country um who are dealing with the same issues that we are dealing with um there
082are some national trends that we have to address there are State Trends we have to address there are Town Trends we have to address um the need never goes away and it continues to increase um and I just want to thank the staff for continuing to show up every day as we look at a continual teacher shortage and let me tell you I have a sibling in grad school right now to become a teacher and it is terrifying um I don't know how all of our teachers do it so I just want to say this budget um is still going to be a fluid one as mentioned but I want to thank everyone who put that in because it's not just obviously those at our table are administrators but those creating those prop plans proposals
083back in September um those doing the work every single day it is reflective of this point now so I hope as we move forward um you know towards June 17th um we can continue to come together as a board I appreciate everyone's um collaboration thank you thank you Miss y yes um I would just like to say thank you guys for all the hard work that you've all done year after year Jessica I can't believe it's been six years I just like thought about that um so thank you as well um and everyone on the board um I would like to say congratulations uh to miss tno um she is awesome and the assistant principal as well um and just thank you all for all your hard work and everything that you've done thank you
084thank you um I just want to say that I'm very proud of the work that we did at this table we made some really tough decisions and we did have a significant amount of cuts I think last year we didn't cut nearly as much as we did um so I think we really thought hard about what is in the budget and what we can get away with without having and what we absolutely need um I don't like being accused of not knowing what I'm voting for because quite frankly I'm here to represent the students of Newington and I feel like especially over the last several years they've been shafted um with the teeny tiny budget increases that we've gotten um and I think right now we're having to make up for a lot of what's
085been happening or what happened in previous years um we have slides on it but I um I have a responsibility to do write by the students who are some of them are here at the table sometimes but there's a large populations of students that we are elected to serve and I feel like this budget puts um their best interest at hand and will be a we will be able to Prov provide them with the education that they need and deserve so I will continue to Advocate with our say legisl legislators to bring more money to our town we advocated for the spe the excess cost we will continue to do so free lunch projects like John Wallace there's so many things that we behind the scenes and Dr bahmet also testifies to so that we
086can bring money into our town to take the burden off some of our tax off our local taxpayers but but at this point the budget that we passed tonight I feel is very responsible and like Miss Weaver said it might go down and we have to have more discussions about what that means for us but at this point I think we did everything that we could do to get it to where it actually is so I just want to say thank you to everybody um around the table online um all the public that came out and spoke to the budget um our town council member we look forward to seeing you on the 11th um and I do just want to remind the board that regardless of how you vote the board as a collective
087whole passed the budget at um 5.94% increase so um I would appreciate the support in the board's decision to request that from the town I will entertain a motion to adjourn Mo go ahead J motion to adjourn second thank you on favor I thank you meting A J 103