001Orthopedic facility so it's at it's on Seymour Street in Hartford oh well that's good at least you're not in and out in and outp aren't fun usually yeah and and you know I met met the surgeon and you know he seems like he knows what he's doing he's got a very lot of important letters after his name you know so those are all pivotal uh confirmations yeah yeah so you know I it's just it's one of those things that was kind of unexpected it's going to be a very interesting holiday season um because of course I'm going to be hanging out at home but you know it could have been so so much worse it could have been a lot more painful there's so many things that I'm grateful about and so you know it's
002just this is one of those those things and and hopefully the end you know I'll put it behind me and and we can move on from there but it's it's really it it caught me off guard it's it's thrown me for quite a loop but no it's not something you expect to happen not at all not at all but you know I'm just going to do what they tell me to that's the that's that's all I can do is is just hang out and do what they tell me to and you know try not to I'm trying to keep my brain engaged so one of the things I'm doing tomorrow is to I'm actually thinking about taking an online course because I'm gonna be I'm gonna be home for a few weeks so for 10
003weeks I'm supposed to be out and so that should be enough time to start working on my Master's Degree right so well I guess you're not letting uh the the moss grow on your uh your leave of absence here I'm not that person I really I can't I'm not a person who can be down a lot um so this is something that you know it's something I've always talked about they do them online for free my daughter was saying you can take them at MIT for free so you know I I can always use that and say hey I went to MIT I was gonna say You're Gonna Come Back the do or something yeah from my bed from the comfort of my home but you know it'll keep it'll keep me sharp I've been
004reading I've been you know and and of course policy there's a lot to read so you know it's it's it's it's forcing me to take some downtime which ultimately will probably be pretty good for me in the run so but it's it's good and it's good to participate with everybody here tonight too for making it in spite of all of your challenges oh no my pleasure I'm gonna mute my mic so I don't cause this room I am gonna mute mine as well until it is go time thank you e e time I feel for you I would able I got my my 20s while you don't the same energy you do in your 20s do in yours kids just like no she really today CU CR likes a friend like really upset that is
005hard it was hard for me to leave be like I got go toe now but she's just going motions I'd like to call the Newton Board of Education meeting to order for Wednesday November 13 2024 the time is 7:02 p.m please rise for the pledge Ali to the flag of the United States of America and to theu stands one nation God indivisible and Justice dad would you please call the role Mary be here here Sean hereon here Sharma here Jess weever here I have everyone here thank you we have a resolution honoring our custodial and maintenance staff and Jason Plum is on the line yes he is I don't hello everyone all right I will read this resolution honoring Newton School custodians and maintenance workers November 13 2024 whereas Wednesday November 13th 2024 has been
006proclaimed custodian and maintenance workers day and whereas the Newton School custodians and maintenance workers thoroughly clean dust scrub refin sanitize repair paint and maintain all areas for safety and comfort in all buildings on a daily and nightly basis and whereas the Newton School custodians and maintenance workers have shown dedication and con conscientious performance in carrying out their many tasks to maintain and improve our school buildings and whereas the Newton School custodians and maintenance workers maintain a close working relationship with school staff and whereas the Newton School custodians and maintenance workers show a willingness to go above and beyond the work day to keep our schools shining at all times therefore we do hereby Proclaim Wednesday November 13th 20124 as Newington school custodian and maintenance workers day be it resolved that we urge all the citizens
007of our community to join with us and actively expressing gratitude to New inton School custodians and maintenance workers on this very special day be it further resolved as a secretary of the new inton board of education is directed to spread this resolution upon the minutes of this meeting and to provide a suitable C before presentation um Jason would you like to say a few words uh sure I would very well read and very quickly read thank you um a lot of what you said in there is it's true I mean we've got a um we've got for those of you returning it'll sound familiar but we got a a very dedicated staff um of custodian uh folks and maintenance folks that really do care for our buildings you know in the combination of both do
008so um it's not uncommon for visitors other superintendant other um folks from other schools to come visit our schools and be amazed at how shiny the hallways are how well-kept everything is our buildings aren't they're they're not new right they're not brand new but we take exceptionally good care in in preserving them and in improving them as we go along so it's very much appreciated we have 38 custodians that clean 880,000 square feet of our school buildings you know throughout the week um a lot of that goes un scene a lot of that is behind the scenes and after hours so we very much appreciate them they're they're there in their certain zones and they're and they're taking care of those areas and we have five maintenance people that vary from age fact electrical to
009general maintenance um that you know that take care of what we can inhouse which is is a lot and uh you know we're supplemented by contractors outside of that but very much appreciated a lot of hardworking folks I mean there's a lot of sweat you go and see you visit any of these folks at night that it's it's not an easy job it's it's a it's a sweat filled job it's it's a a lot of perseverance just to keep you know going and keep those areas looking nice and folks do a really good job of that so thank you thank you are there any board members that like to make a comment Mr H um I think we all realized just how important our custodial staff was during the pandemic um just how vital they
010are to keeping our kids healthy is critical I just want to make sure that we continue to to recognize their efforts and we don't forget that the impact that they have and the ones that I know personally from the Girl Scout Troop where we go to Ruth chaffy um to just interactions in the hallway they are genuinely passionate people about what they do um I don't think they get enough recognition and I cannot say thank you enough and you're appreciated um and I always say I don't think one day is enough because they work every single day uh and it's easy to forget the effort that goes into having those shiny floors so Jason and your staff thank you very very much thank you for that Miss Weaver I'll just Echo that I think um
011we've done a couple of these over the years right it's every year but um I think you know it's one of those things I think Mr Holland put it it's never just good enough for one day um and I think having the presentations of seeing those shiny floors is always a good reminder for not just us on the board but in the public to see just how shiny they are um it is quite incredible and I would just say too um never will forget how that was during covid and how everyone stepped up especially our custodial staff um for one thing and then also just what every custodian does beyond their job description I think they're just such an integral part of our school Community um and to know over the years since I was
012there I mean we all bonded with some of the custodian staff and so just really the integral part that they play um whether it's you know especially during lunch time or you know after school activities uh or just in the hallway um seeing a smiling face I think it's just one of those things that um makes one once again our school family of Learners so thank you not only for what you do to keep it absolutely Immaculate um seriously I could use you guys at my house but um as well as just being an integral part of our school community so thank you Miss pus I also want to thank you for the amazing work that you do you know when our school families step into our buildings for the first time they are struck
013by how seriously your staff takes the the the cleanliness but most importantly the safety of our students and that's oftentimes the first touch that new people to Newington actually experiences is going into our schools for whatever reason they may be registering their kids or voting and you know last week I was outside Anna Reynolds and I can't tell you how many people from the community experienced how wonderful that building is for the first time so they have may have had kids that had gone through the first uh you know years ago they may not have had any kids at all in the schools but they experienced the work that your staff does firsthand in in that building so I can't thank you and your staff enough and sometimes um we we notice it but we
014don't recognize the people that are behind all of those efforts so thank you very very much sure thank you Mr Sharma I just want to Echo what everyone El said so you know thank you to all the custodians all 38 of them for you know going above and beyond and you know keeping our schools clean so thank you so much Miss car and just to add to what everyone has been saying I was very impressed with our first two meetings when you went over the extensive bullet list of everything that you accomplished over this summer I was actually quite Blown Away by that so thank you so much for your continued efforts and keeping the schools in beautiful shape yeah and I'll just say I'm in the schools a lot after hours with um cheerleading
015and kids activities and meetings and a whole bunch of stuff and everyone you know if the doors are unlocked they're uh are not locked not unlocked they're very apologetic and like and just make sure we have everything that we need and um just they're just very you know or the doors are lot unlocked waiting for us and and we don't even see them but we appreciate their little elves behind the scenes so um but yes thank you to to everybody that goes into um maintaining and and keeping our schools safe and and beautiful for our children and and Jason we do have one pretty much brand new school so but the rest of them are uh not not the newest but they look they look fantastic y they're taking great care of an rental so
016far so we're doing our best yes will never be like it was again okay our second resolution is for school psychologists do we have anybody on the line okay oh yes there I see you resolution honoring Newington school psychologist November 13 2024 whereas the Newton public school system is committed to honoring it school psychologists and recognizing their contributions to the educational system and their tremendous impact in helping students learn grow and Thrive and whereas the new inton school psychologist Council students in group settings or one toone basis they also work with students to help them develop adequate social skills to ensure a healthy classroom environment whereas in Newington School psychologists are integral and advancing effective practices to improve students learning behavior and mental health and by maintaining essential standards for ethics and practice whereas the
017new inton school psychologist provide direct support and interventions to students consult with teachers families and other School employee mental health professionals I.E school counselors School social workers to improve support strategies work with school administrators to improve schoolwide practices and policies and collaborate with Community providers to coordinate needed Services there's a lot of punctuation and that was confusing and whereas it is the desire of the Board of Education that school psychologists should be made aware of their appreciation we do hereby Proclaim Wednesday November 13th 2024 as Newington school psychologist appreciation day therefore be it resolved that we urge all the citizens of our community to join with us in actively expressing gratitude to our school of psychologists who represent an investment in excellence in our community be it further resolved that the secretary of the Newton
018board of education is directed to spread this resolution upon the minutes of this meeting and to provide a suitable copy for presentation are there any marilina would you like to say anything absolutely thank you so much for the opportunity again um to uh be here tonight to represent our school psychologists they are such an integral part of our um school system especially since Co since Co came up um but even before covid but since Co we have seen so many more students um struggle with mental health um so much more with uh School avoidance the role that the social workers and psychologists have taken on um has really grown so it is really important that we take this opportunity tonight to thank them um the school psychologist for absolutely going above and beyond um for
019all of those things that are in that very wordy Proclamation but they do do all of those things they reach out to community um to help the parents with um the services that might be out there that the students need in addition to um helping them come to school every day so again thank you for the recognition and I accept this on their behalf and thank you again thank you any board members Miss Weaver uh just wanna I think thanks is Never Enough um and I think as you pointed out it's been a lot um the spotlight on Mental Health has um actually been been shown on our school systems and the need for uh both School psychologists and our social workers and I think one of the most um rewarding things was going last
020week and seeing some of our our extra School psychologists with the effective School Solutions um getting to meet with them at the middle and the high school um and just hearing the amount of wraparound Services we're providing the support systems we're providing the families that are getting involved and truly like like the lives that have been saved um it is not an understatement so um thank you especially Mar for for your team um and for the everyday that goes on um you know I think it's always said that it takes a village but like this is a special Village because it truly is um it's what's keeping a lot of kids in school it's what's keeping them in a place where they are learning and it's keeping a lot of kids on track um and
021really you are a huge part of fulfilling that portrait of a graduate and that mission that we have at MPS so um yeah there's never enough thanks and I'm sure our parents and our students have many more thanks as well um it's not just up from the outside but uh on the outsider perspective just the things that I've seen especially in the last 10 years is just incredible the amount of support that has gone into this um and we will always be thanking you especially around budget time Miss beus I cannot thank you and your staff enough um talk about loving our kids that is where it all begins we all know kids can't learn effectively if they're struggling with their mental health it it takes it we can't separate out the academics from the
022social from the the mental health piece and it's Our obligation to give our students the tools they need to be productive uh members of our our community when they Gra graduate and Miss Weaver alluded to that very very well but we have to address the needs of our students in all ways possible and we wouldn't be able to do that without the really heroic efforts of your staff so thank you very very much Mr Hollin I'll keep it brief um going through life especially through school I also feel like my voice is booming tonight I don't if that's the microphone or just my voice um going through life especially when you're going through school is a battle and I think the battle within is sometimes the hardest battle to fight because it's a private battle
023it's a closeted battle it is sometimes you feel it's a shameful battle because you just can't do it um it is okay to ask for help is okay to get that guidance because when you have that balance you have the confidence to navigate the ups and downs of everything you have to deal with and I think our school psychologists are that guide to bring you to a place where you feel like you are able and once you have the confidence to feel like you can do you typically do um and I don't know if I have the words to express how valuable our school psychologists can be in kind of Quiet Moments Of Crisis thank you um anyone else okay um yeah there's there's definitely a lot um that our students are going through on
024a day-to-day basis and just having the support and um having our school psychologist there to collaborate with everybody else in the building I think is just fantastic that we are able to have them with us um so thank you and like Mary said you can't learn if you're not in your thinking brain so um there's a lot any sort of trauma Anything Could Happen even a bad day on the school bus could prevent a student from being able to go to class so just definitely have good that we have that support um in our school buildings all right Dr Brahma we have an everyday hero yes so it is my yeah I'm booming too Mr Hower really feels that way so it is my pleasure tonight to announce the everyday hero for this month is
025Griselle Bowden she is a special education teacher at Elizabeth green school she's over there with her family her principal Mr Duran and her colleague Amy inzero uh but let me read oh she was nominated by Amanda Clark registered Behavior technician at E green school since Griselle has started working at Elizabeth green she continues to impress everyone who works with her her commitment to equity and giving students what they need to be successful is inspiring she continues to push for Student Success even when it is difficult or challenging riselle works hard on the district Equity team and engages in courageous conversations she is always there when you need her with her energetic and positive attitude I truly believe Elizabeth green is a better place because of the effort she puts in Daily I hope to continue
026to grow and learn daily from her inspiring teaching methods Griselle also makes sure every single perah who works with her students is treated fair and feels welcome she not only cares about the successes of her students but the successes of everyone around her I know every pair of who works with her would agree with all these statements made as well as someone who works with cisel daily there is no one more deserving of the title of everyday hero and ladies and gentlemen Miss Giselle bod thank you sorry yeah I'm shock oh he one more for my hubby absolutely h Sean sure if anybody has ever met Amanda Clark she's absolutely amazing so um we really are a good team together and we do work to help make everybody a collaborative team teaching kids with special
027needs especially those who struggle social emotionally because of the mental health is is really difficult in everyday life and teaching them how to use strategies to get through what they need to get through is especially important as they go along in society and um being that my case load and special ed is overidentified my case load is really heavy with black and brown students and that's just the nature of of what special ed is and so when I originally went a special ed I didn't expect to go into Equity work but I've been doing Equity work my whole career as people navigate to understand kids with neural atypicalities right and um as I learned more and got more involved into the equity work I learned that a lot of the behaviors and the struggles that
028kids have is because they feel like everything is high stakes they feel like they're under a microscope and a microcosm and that causes the mental health in increase that we see in our schools today and so you know in in L of in honor of school psychologist month you know and really enduring through this this this trial of of equity amongst our school amongst our staff and amongst our students is truly important so that we could help improve the quality of life of all our kids because they're the ones that are going to be running the boards of aded meetings in the future and we want to make sure that it's a good representation of the community that we have here in Newton love it good thank you so much does anybody want to make
029a comment board member Mr holler I'm doing it because Tim said I had to um no but seriously um I think you do such an important job of having our special ed students doesn't happen immediately and it doesn't happen overnight realize their value um and I think when you're in a position where you are feeling different and sometimes treated different it is hard to see how you contrib R in a valuable way and by taking the time to show them that they are important and critical and valuable that can pay incredible dividends down the road so thank you for the efforts that you do because it is not easy every day is hard and thank you for doing it every day miss beis I just want to congratulate you um not every hero wears a
030cape but certainly you and and your staff in the classroom are Heroes all day every day you know it's it's the compassion and love that you have for your students just in the the minute that you were able to speak to us really really shines through and it's it's teachers like you that give our kids the self-esteem and the Boost and the love that they will have the tools that they need to be successful and especially by embracing what makes us unique and special makes us all stronger and what an important piece of of the the pie that is for our students so I can't thank you enough for your work thank you so much you um oh miss we go ahe I'm still biased to E green because shout out to that um um
031I just want to Echo I think the Gratitude we have I think we often are having conversations here about Equity Dr bu we we talk about it a lot and try to communicate to the community um what that work looks like um but I don't think anyone has said it as good as you have so I thank you for that additionally not only for the work you do but how eloquently you just kind of described um the need and in the work that you do um I think a lot of us try and get at it um but really going to the heart of what you do every day um is so what this is about um you know seeing everyone that we see so many kids go through our system um and we know
032there's so much need and we keep seeing that need and I think especially um when we talk about elementary students right um that those needs are popping up more and more at that level is so important to try and and find those coping mechanisms earlier to be able to prevent some of those um harder trials as we go through the schools um so I just want to say thank you for doing all of that it's not behind the scenes To Us by any means um and I know we're seeing you know those achievement collaps close and we're seeing um the fruits of your labor so thank you for that and I know we'll speak on behalf of students I don't usually but I know they'll say thank you as well I love that your nomination
033said that you not only obviously pay attention to your students and making them feel included and welcome but also the staff in your room because it really is a collaborative effort um um to educate all students in in our town so um and yeah what you said about the the equity work that you're doing is just really inspiring and um I'm I'm interning at a special education School currently and just the level of respect I have for special ed teachers and you know there's challenge could be any number of challenges that a student is going through but you're there every day meeting them where they're at making sure that they're getting that education that they deserve so thank you so much for that work and congratulations and Dr Brett has one other thing well first
034of all I have seen Griselle in action at EG green on numerous occasions and her skills are nothing short of magical um and I'm a former special education administrator and teacher so I uh have a little bit of a background there but really what I wanted to uh share was a bit of a spoiler alert while E green team is still here um you'll hear about other schools later on this evening but I want to let the board know that EG green has been named a school of Distinction because of the growth of high need students in English language arts so here we have one of our special ed teachers tonight along with one of our reading teachers here tonight uh who work on those children who have you know delays in reading or challenges
035and look at this we are showing signs recognized by the state date so a shout out to E green um and just a little icing on the cake there that was excellent news thank you for sharing Dr BR more excellent news to come thank you so much for being here um okay at this time I like to open it up to public open up the mic to public participation um if you're online you can raise your hand or step to the front of the table and state your name and address to the record Jen Rodriguez 71 Northwood Road I think I was about to say 41 but that would be wrong so um let's start off with the Positive um our custodian and maintenance workers as well as our school psychologists I just want to
036say that coming out of an Anna Reynolds renovation um those people were outstanding and they got us through those two years and had they not I'm not really sure that we would have had the mental health that we currently have um we certainly wouldn't have survived it um especially Mr Tipton and Bob I think the students call him Bob um I don't know the custodians at all the other schools I know my day custodian I know my evening custodians and the reason why I'm bringing up Mr Tipton is um because the students know him it's not just the staff they don't just service our school they service the students that we have there the children know them by name um they go down to their office and knock on their door they talk to them
037they high-five them in the hallway they make connections every day with our students as well as our staff so they're truly invaluable um as far as our school psychologists shout out to Miss Amy Mills who is ours at Anna Reynolds so a little bias um when we talk about partnership they embody it whether it be parents staff or students they work with big hearts for the best outcomes for all um along with our school psychologist our everyday hero um and our special education staff ch um in addition to her day job uh she has worked on the district Equity team speaking truth and perspectives that we all benefit from and thus the students benefit from so her work on that um has been invaluable and I appreciate the work that I was able to do
038with her for two or three years yeah um Brazil stating that it has been her life's work um has been Equity even though she didn't know it was going to be Equity um it's just the nature of the job kind of bring me to the other part um in in my general intention of coming this evening um the remarks made by a member at the last board meeting put out misinformation it was quite disappointing particularly because he felt that it was the stage to promote that misinformation about um CRT or Dei seemed like a little bit of confusion there and what we actually do here at Newton public schools and as a constituent that was very concerning to me we serve students that are all diverse and beautiful and wonderful and their families please make
039an effort to understand that false please make an effort to understand that and keep NA national false rhetoric out of these meetings out of respect for those students and the rest of them as well as your constituents who I am as well and my remarks thank you thank you okay I see another hands moving on to the consent agenda I move to approve the consent agenda for the regular meeting of October 16th 2024 to be approved as presented second motion and a second is there any discussion all in favor hi any opposed motion passes unanimously all right we have our superintendent of schools report good evening um the bulk of my report will come later on when I talk about the current goals and progress but the monthly report which you get on a monthly
040basis um feature some of the things that are happening in our schools I you will also see in my weekly update this week all of the amazing um tributes paid to our veterans throughout both on Veterans Day and then days leading up to Veterans Day as schools had different speakers come in depending on their availability so you'll have a detailed report from me later at the end of the week uh we were featured on several news outlets for the EO gima um tribute that we do every year the John Wallace students were phenomenal both the kids that did uh poetry and and uh artwork relative to the veterans and the students that played in the band and played patriotic songs many veterans were in attendance and felt very honored um I also made the rounds
041to several schools and saw different um assemblies in which veterans were in attendance and honored and I even visited the senior center where there was a coffee hour um where I was invited to you know and I did some nice discussions with the veterans in attendance and saw some old friends actually so uh that I would encourage you to read the report for any details about other programs going on in the district there's also the information in there about our um enrollment summary but I just wanted to highlight the veterans uh celebrations that occurred uh throughout earlier this week and little bit detail on the last week so thank you thank you I'm glad you brought up the um the activities that we did in the schools for Veterans Day and there's a lot of
042chatter online of why we have school and I think that's exactly why is because the the students are able to learn and show their appreciation for veterans and you know celebrate with their special veterans who come and I know a lot of schools do assemblies where they are able to um honor them in the school so I think it's a really great great day and a great thing that our students are able to take part in are there any um other questions or comments for Dr Brit just want to Echo that that was great I I was like oh my gosh there's so much news going on here I'm like I know where they're at um so it was just great to see that um and then I just had one question one I love
043I don't know who else loves reading these things but um I appreciate everyone putting together I just wanted to I just had a question about the AP ones the AP classes I think it's on what page um was just curious because I know we are one of the top three in the state for offering is my understanding um if the 11 if the nine AP Yukon EC courses are included in the 11 AP courses and the eight Yukon are those separate and we're looking at like over which page are you on um it should be N9 of 39 9 of 39 in the yeah sorry I just wanted to highlight there's a I just didn't know if those were inclusive of each other or so your question is are these all of the AP and
044EC courses that we offer or the or like the AP courses are just just AP or the Apon ones are those those are separate in addition right they are additional because some of our courses yes you are correct they they offer both options uh which is phenomenal for our students they can they can get the college credit as well as the AP designation so over 23 yes College okay and Counting just and I was like is that inclusive that's not inclusive of the EC drawing and ECA graphic design because those are currently writing the curriculum I'm going be up to 25 no I believe those are those are courses that are running but they are upgrading the curriculum there have been a few courses that have um you know stopped running due to lack of
045Interest or sometimes we have to have um a teacher that if a teacher leaves we got to get someone trained for the Yukon protocols but uh rest assured running these courses and get andour in all of our kids to take them to walk out of high school with college credits which I would imagine our representative down the table is walking out of high school with some college credits if I'm not mistaken um it is a real goal for us because it's not only good for the students but it's good for their parents because they have less tuition to pay so it's a huge asset so thank you for highlighting no I just wanted I was like it's incredible how much that's grown um it's it's grown a lot over the many I have to give
046credit to Seth Korn who's really sought to continue to expand that um and working with the teachers as well as our curriculum Department to cultivate that I just couldn't believe my eyes was like that's so ready and thank you to the teachers for getting those certifications too I know that's summer opportunity that they have and we encourage that whenever possible no next item is the bus camera utilization I just want this is a more of an FYI for the board it's not an action item but uh we was brought to our attention in recent legislation that uh our buses do currently have cameras uh we own the buses and we own the cameras which is a good thing um it's important for the board to know that her Dean we've talked about this on numerous
047occasions uh we the buses are pasted while lights are flashing at least five times every week so we work collaboratively with the police department to turn in whatever pieces of evidence they want to pursue um a fine or whatever they do uh per my security director who's also been involved in these conversations you know this the fine for passing a school bus is one of the most significant fines that police give out because it's so safety at it puts people at risk and Dean has described some near misses um in the course of these dialogues but why I bring this to the board's attention is there's a new law on the books that will prohibit us from continuing operations um after July 1st of 2026 of photographing people that pass a bus illegally unless the
048town passes an ordinance that allows that to continue so there's a the reason behind that is really specific to a town that was having trouble uh having this go forward we've been clicking along well with this for years and we didn't have to have an ordinance in order to do it but in speaking with our legislators as well as Shipman and Goodwin the attorneys that represent the Board of Education uh in order to comply with this law we will have to do um a collaboration which we're already working on and we have a close relationship with the police department to begin with and bring forward a recommendation to the town of an ordinance change that allow us to um continue this work after July 1st of 2026 so we have some time the rest of
049this school year will not be an impact and frankly the next school year but to be on um notice that we need to move forward with this uh we'll begin dialoguing uh with the town about timing and and the proo process for passing an ordinance is a bit you know cumbersome so we will you know keep working on that if the board is interested I've cited um the legal references from Shipman and Goodwin um about you know where this stands we're a bit of a leg up having our own buses because districts that lease buses uh or have a contract they are relyant on the contract that that bus company has for how the cameras are utilized and you're not allowed to continue those contracts after the end of this year unless you have the
050ordinance but since we own our buses we can go a little further along with this um and that's that piece down um extends Beyond July 1st 2026 so we can we can get this done um but I wanted the board to be aware of this um a little bit of an unexpected uh mandate but uh obviously we pay careful attention to that Steve's office keeps us a breast of any of these pieces Dean also uh through his organizations gets word of anything impacting buses so we are on it um and I'll keep the board fully apprised of how the efforts toward an ordinance change are are progressing but at this point I believe it's going to move along uh without without any problem any comments or questions thank you all right we have our cic
051committee reports we have our two student Representatives Abby and Michael Tak away oh we get a presentation today oh hot off the press is it four o'clock this afternoon oh yes let me get this cute oops I did that wrong give me one second you press one Tab and it throws the whole thing off all right keep presenting all right I don't know why it's not sharing sorry and AR's occur you can't sh what it's not what I want to see all right all right I will turn it over to Michael and Abby hello thank you for having us again um it's a pleasure being here to share all of our ideas and our um our advancements that we've made you know throughout the high school um but overall inside NHS um if you want
052to go to the next slide inside NHS we have our preschool students um our preschool students participated and enjoyed um their trick-or-treating parade as um the top picture show we also have field trips that went on at NHS uh with our Yukon uh field trips student attend students attended field trips to Yukon to learn about their majors and what the school had to offer I was one of those students Yukon is again to also have um Yukon credits um integrated into NHS um learning as well is just a tremendous like you know um it's it's a great it's a great thing to have um especially because a lot of a lot of NHS students are considering uh Yukon as their first choice so we thank you board for um offering those as well um we
053also have some other um field trips uh which is also like students attended a men of color leadership conference provided by career services and this um field trip is showed importance of leadership and how it is important our community and not only just our community but also the world um and this got students eagered um to be more involved in leadership as well um our school our spirit our staff staff also got students um into the spirit with uh a secret spir uh secret Spirit Week their first ever secret spear week and Monday they had this was last week L Monday they had a theme which was be um and then Tuesday they had anything but a water bottle they also had monochromatic uh theme day and also ending it off they also had a
054PJ day uh pajama day um this also really got students like really eagered about the upcoming spirit week which was which is this week um and students also enjoyed trying to figure out what uh the spirit days were as we kept on asking questions what what's today's spirit week they were like I don't know what you're talking about okay we we'll figure it out um we also want to highlight our pep rley our pep rley is going to be Friday the 15th which is this Friday um and in preparation of the pep rally pep rally is to get students more hyped and more uh excited about our homecoming which is this Saturday 1116 November 16th um and we are having the spirit week uh which is helping prepare students um for the excitement to come
055um Monday is was Zoom Day um and then Tuesday was barbecue versus soccer then Wednesday was was Adam Sandler day today Adam Sandler day um I had to go home and quickly change before this you know I um Thursday was Generations day uh is Generations day uh we have freshman dressing up as babies sophomores kids Juniors adults and seniors our senior citizens and Friday we have blue and gold day to show our school spirit um tickets are also tickets are sold out tickets are sold out for home we had a uh cap of 700 students that could attend and today lunch was crazy we just have to say that um and I'll turn it over to Abby to report on other things um so we want to take some time to highlight um Veterans Day
056so and there some things we did at the school to honor them um one thing we did was the voices from veterans panel um that was at our school at NHS and at Martin Kellogg and there were veterans like um TAA Hernandez Michael moss and Wayne corvo and they shared their experience in the service um how they saw it before during and after I went to that last year I found it very moving and I'm sure all the students this year did as well so I'm really glad that's continuing um also the National Honor Society and some classes wrote letters to Veterans and the National Honor Society they specifically did the write a card to a veteran and they delivered that to the veterans hospital and students also learned about Pat tman in their AP
057site classes and he was a former Ms NFL player um and he left to serve the country but unfortunately passed so I know that was really moving and important for students to hear about um another thing that we talked about was just the significance of the day in general and a of classes watched a TED Talk um called a day and a life for dust off pilot and they completed activities related to that and then they learned about burn pits and the effect on Veterans and overall like I remember attending the EA presentation when I was in Middle School at Wallace and I found that very moving and I think just all the activities at the high school the middle schools it's just a great opportunity for students to learn about the significance of the
058day and just so it continues to stay relevant in our schools so we just wanted to highlight all of these things and then just to finish off this slide um we've talked about this in the past meetings but our teachers and counselors are still helping with Juniors and seniors to talk about college applications so that's something that's ongoing then the next slide is just clubs so our Latin club went to um Brown they enjoyed a field trip to the corn maze and they we created a journey of thesis um Deca also is currently hosting a sneaker fundraiser we're trying to do no cost fundraisers just so that's an easier way to do things so stud have students don't have to continue to spend money on the club um so you can bring in new athletic
059wear or used things and a portion of that will go back to the club to offset trift costs um we also attended the yearly fall leadership conference so that was a really great way we learned about the importance of social media presence and we talked about how to stand out in our competitions which will be in March um also today students went to a barker field trip where they got to see where a lot of our merch is um manufactured so I know we got a lot of great feedback from that um FBLA also learned about American enterprise system and learned ways to promote that and then stuco is preparing for Saturday homecoming we've been preparing for the P rally for a while we've been talking to teachers and students to get them involved in
060the activities so everyone's really excited for that it's going to be fun um and then the next slide just to close off with clubs um diversity Club had a Stop and Shop fundraiser and to help fund some of their upcoming events and they are also going to have an event called Global eats and are working with Keat Club to help um with a clothing drive and then Key Club is planning a service project for the end of the year and they're considering going to a conference then we'll have more info hopefully in the upcoming meetings on what specifically that is and what they'll be doing and then drama and stage crew we started selling tickets for our production of Little Women so stage crew all of our actors we've all been working really hard to
061put the set together and to make a great show rehearsals we've been me and Michael have been at them all week um and everyone's doing a phenomenal job so we're just still promoting ticket sales we're really hoping for everyone to show up and see the show so yeah just going back to drama club um if you guys also want to see the drama play uh production um they are the 21st the 22nd and the 23rd uh on the 21st and the 22nd we have 7 P.M shows on the 23rd however we o have a 2 pm show and a 7 P.M show um and you just get to see great actors and great actresses coming up and showing their talents and it's truly amazing we hope you can all uh attend as well um following
062into sports um fall Sports as we um all know are coming to an end and we say hello to winter sports um some Fall highlights are that football our Newton High School football team remains undefeated and they also have have a game coming up on Friday against eio Smith at our um at home as well and we also have a boy soccer um boy soccer was uh today they also had a semi-final game tonight which um ended in a 52 uh result um I know some of our board members here uh did attend and are um being present in what's going on in boy soccer so that's really great to see our board um participating in school events um and also girls soccer made it to the quarterfinals and we also have four uh student
063athletes that were named our CCC North All Conference uh All Conference uh finalists um excuse my pronunciations of certain names but we also have Caitlyn galado Kean aluchi uh Jillian Bard Arya Dy um staris and Ava do Santos these student athletes have made tremendous efforts and not only to their um sports but also to their school work and maintaining a High um a high enough uh GPA and uh academic standing with the school to be able to participate in these Sports um some winter sports to also acknowledge that are coming up is some boys and girls basketball we also have boys and girls wrestling indor track just the name a few and also wrestling as well so we can look forward to those as well moving on to the next slide we have our special
064shout outs which um feature football coach John a aquavita uh who was voted Giants the Giants coach of the week we also have football star uh Zachary geralo uh who was also voted defensive player of the week um the week of November 3rd and then we also have swim uh student athletes Santa gray um and Miranda Parker who qualify for the swim finals sha gray uh qualified as third place and then Miranda Parker also qualified fourth place as well so we congratulate those um those student athletes as well and that is all that we have for you guys thank you guys for having us and we hope you enjoyed thank you so much are there any questions or comments from the board go ahead Mr mey I just want to thank you guys for everything
065the presentation was great and I think the veterans uh day that you guys do and everything is incredible CU I know when I was younger we just got to day off I don't think we really recognize how important you know the veterans past and present and in current uh that's why we get to do all this and we have all the freedoms that we have and I appreciate that very much so thank you guys thank you uh Mr Newton I think it's very important that we keep uh the connection with the eima memorial because a lot of people don't realize that's one of only three life-size eimas that was ever approved it was approved for us in Connecticut because I believe Newton lost either eight or 10 Marines in the Pacific Theater and their pictures
066are in our high school in the hallway and I just you know those would have been your great-grandfathers I just think and I wasn't a marine I'm Air Force but uh I just think it's important to shed the light and keep the light there and it's a very important connection so I like that osima Mr hollerin I'd like to Echo what Mr M man and Mr Newton said about Veterans Day as a grandson of two World War II veterans a son of a Vietnam veteran um and have had several friends and high school acquaintances serve in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan I think it's important to recognize that that is sacrifice that is service to your country you don't get a lot back from it if anything um except that you get to live
067in a country where we can have freedom we don't always agree but we are allowed to disagree and that is vital and important to what we do um so thank you for the remarks from the previous board members as well I'd also like to comment on Adam Sandler day um It's News I could have used yesterday um that sounds like a great time um I'm really sad that I missed it because I can quote most of those movies by heart um congratulations to the football team for going undefeated I think that's unprecedented uh as well as the rest of the incredible accomplishments for my athletes and is somebody who actually lettered in stage lighting congrats to our stage crew I did not know there was a thing and it made it got me a lot
068of ridicule from the rest guys on the football team um but um it's a lot of work um but when it happens and it's on and it's it's the night it's mad iCal uh I will do my best to attend at least one of those shows and drag my kids because the the money is important too pays for the lights um you guys did a great job thank you very much as always you upped your game with the presentation you set a precedent so next time I'm get to expect a video um but you guys did wonderful thank you for I say this as always you know the reason we're here and your Insight is critical um so thank you very much Michael and Abby Miss Weaver guys man just killing it I just want
069to put it out there um I believe this going into it no next week is hell week um so this is preal week for you guys those outside of the drama world will know it's quite intense um and I think always we've always had student reps that are like doing everything at all the time um genuinely I look back I'm like how did one do this um it is generally one of the most impressive things to be a high schooler right now and to do all the things and all the things you're involved in so thank you not only for us you know droning on all the time but listening um taking feedback and then also all that you're doing to be involved and keeping that school community of family of Learners I remember the
070stress of planning homecoming and pep rally um there's nothing like it really I trly think you're ready for anything right now because you're doing that and doing rehearsals uh and doing this um seriously that you made this presentation just amazing um like it's just shows how much you guys are doing um and thank you so much for highlighting all the things that are going around I think just knowing for the community it's really helpful to know like how involved our students are um and then especially as was said um all of the the different veterans um things that we have going on um I remember this was a conversation multiple times on the calendar topic um at this table um but you know I think from my experience too Mr s used to give presentations
071about what he learned in school in geometry class saved his life um and I think that's one of those things that will stick with you forever is is those lessons you learn on Veterans Day and we have so many veterans in our school system you know um from former chair Bruce Fletcher Mr colly there's there's tons of of um veterans we have as as our staff too and I know that gets highlighted every year as well so um just want to thank you for highlighting that and um for showing all of the fun pictures too because I don't think there's anything cuter than a trick-or-treater going through NHS or I guess you know Miss tigno being kind um but yeah send us your Adam Sandler pick whenever that's fine um thank you again guys and
072really um if we don't see before then break a leg thank you for being here we really appreciate you get some sleep see you on Friday night all right we have a facilities committee update um committee met on 117 Sam do you want to provide the update I think we so when in our subcommittee we just went through some proposals and then you know we went through them and we going to present them to the board I think something that I want to share is we went through um discussed the hbag inspection process and uh based on our discussion it's going to cost about 150,000 a year to do the inspection SL repairs uh we discussed the Garfield uh Paving like especially where the buses Park and I think that's been pending for like a
073few years now and then we did discuss um High School roofing project that's it's going to be about 1.6 million that's slated for like 2026 right I mean it's in the plans right and then of course like the turf field at the high school that is also one of the project that we need to work on um what else and then we discussed the bus I think buying the school buses um and then I think we have one year where we have a whole bunch of school buses that'll be up for replacement so what we discussed was budgeting a certain amount of money like uh set amount of funds every year instead of doing it you know whole bunch in one year what then I think we discussed the hbac I think that's all we
074discussed and then I think luk can probably share more yeah and we have the um Capital Improvement plan action item so we can get into more detail after are there any questions on just uh anything else before we get to that agenda item Mr hollerin I just wanted to thank Lou for your breakdown of that meeting and going through the CIP um it's always very informative and uh I know there's a lot changing especially with air quality so thank you for doing your due diligence and bringing it before us thank you thank you thanks uh um all right Miss Weaver policy committee um similar we will have both our items later on the agenda but just wanted to know once again best policy committee out there um not unbiased at all but um we did
075go through so just so everyone knows as a precur precursor for tonight just as we get to new business later um the first kind of portion the first two policies are things that we discussed last board meeting um we didn't hear any discussion um from anyone and then we red discussed it at our last policy meeting on 10 or 116 um there was no further comments so um those will be up for possible action tonight we would recommend voting yes on those and um then the other ones will be the first time we're presenting new policies these are all again reflective of new legislative mandates mostly just tweaking some editorial verbage to be continued okay any comments or questions there all right well look forward to discussing more policies later on and Mary um has
076a lot of free time on her hands so make sure to send her some work listen she's we were just joking she's gonna be propping up her ankle um with with the the we have three big books thanks to Mr fery's team so um we are environmentally conscious but we we needed them printed out so they're they're quite big you thought the budget book was big try three of those soy they keep my foot over my heart all right we can move on to new business we have a report annual status report on staff evaluation and I'll turn the mic over to Mr fesi great thank you so very much uh for the opportunity to present the annual status report on staff evaluation these do seem very loud this evening um thank you so that's
077G6 in your in your full and uh each year it's legislatively mandated or required that the annual status report be presented to the Board of Education uh on the implementation and the evaluation system uh for the previous year so what I'm going to be sharing with you this evening is kind of the status and how things went when we implemented the evaluation system for the certified staff for both teachers and administrators for the 2324 school year uh in that year we had about approximately 366 uh certific teachers evaluated under the educator evaluation system and development plan and uh approximately 28 certified administrators evaluated under the administrative evaluation and uh system and development plan um the plan is overseen by a committee we call the professional development and evaluation committee PC for short um and that
078committee is comprised of mostly teachers with a few administrators on it uh last year it was overseen by um my office the director of talent management this year I'll be overseeing it um so we're looking forward to our first upcoming meeting uh next month and um they are responsible for any of the changes um as well as the imple implementation and monitoring of the evaluation systems for both teachers and leaders uh so if any changes were to occur year toe uh we do present those to you at the end of the year so this is the kind of annual status report of last year and then any changes we make this year for the following year would be presented to you at the end of this year for next school year um we did last
079year present to you and you all adopted uh a revised plan for this school year so what I'm sharing with you and what is in this report is now a plan that is um ped and and different than what we currently use we currently no longer use a system with ratings in it um that was approved last year for this school year and we'll present a report on that next September on how all that went okay so for this school year um like I had mentioned about um 366 certified teachers went through it of those um there about 81% of those staff were on the tenured track um leaving around 19% on the non- tene track uh the difference there is we all go through a goal setting process we all go through a mid-year
080evaluation and an end ofe evaluation process but there uh non- tenur folks are observed more frequently throughout the year and more often uh than tene folks so that would be one of the main differences between the two systems equally with the administrators um we had 28 administrators go through uh the evaluation system last year 26 of them were on the 10-year trip track while two of them were on the non-tenure track so they had more frequent observations it takes uh two years for an administrator to become tenured takes four years for a teacher to become tenured thinking behind that is an administrator has already been tenured as a teacher right and now they're moved up to an administrator they're still in the same certification state certification bracket um with all that said um this is
081a report that is annually obligated to be presented to you like I said legislative uh each year on how we conducted the evaluation system last year it was highly successful we were able to send our state reporting uh to the Department of Education um and the information we got back was that it was reported successfully so we're in good standing with the state department with our evaluation systems for both certified groups the administrators and the teachers um I would be remiss not to share though that we do evaluate all staff not just our certified staff staff so everyone from nurses to secretaries to custodians to coaches to every group that we have all receive uh annual appraisal uh it is not this one nor is it as intense as as these two may be um
082but they are definitely all um set goals have objectives get feedback on that throughout the year and at the end of the year have an end of your um um information session with their supervisor so um and we keep all that housed in assist you know here in Newington as well so just wanted to give an update on the progress of of those two um certified evaluation systems that we conduct each year and see if you had any questions for me thank you are there any questions or comments think you did a great job explaining thank you thank you I think they really just wanted to get to the CIP plan perhaps I just want to thank Steve and his office it's it's a lot of oversight to monitor teacher and administrative evaluation so thank
083you for the work done to make that as smooth as possible in Newington okay as as Mr Sharma mentioned earlier we did have a facility subcommittee meeting a few days ago and uh going around the table is the bus replacement cycle um which I will probably have loose feet to momentarily um but just as a reminder of the protocol involved this plan needs to be transmitted to the town uh by next month unless we ask for an extension um so tonight it could be an item for approval uh this is something that we project out five years it doesn't mean that between now and the next five years we won't modify it because any plan like this is a snapshot in time and as the board's aware um you know things change sometimes you have
084an unexpected need certainly we didn't Envision a few years ago all of the HVAC changes that are now um we're beholden to but but frankly still waiting on the the state for more guidance so um this is we use this format every year we've changed it up a little bit to um you know make sure it's as crystal clear as possible but as Sam mentioned earlier Mr Sher mentioned that uh on page five I believe of the document it provides an overview of some previous projects that we have leveraged or the board has leveraged to improve our facilities he mentioned uh Mr sh mentioned our roof project of the high school of a several years ago which we did get substantial roof replacement done uh both paid for by the vard capital plan as well
085well as some support from the town at the time and this just gives a list about the last 10 years in review uh of how some of some of our um dollars have been used to provide upgrades or repairs or um you know adjustments to meet State statutes uh in a variety of you know schools and uh venues you know notably we've done a lot of work on security vestibules in the last five years every school now has a secure vestibule where they did not previously um and Ana Reynolds kind of brought up the rear with the project but now they are in good stad there more recent projects including the board was aware of the NHS track resurfacing that recently occurred the playground Renovations at JY uh we've done parking lots both at Wallace
086and at John Patterson and at the high school so those are all you know making some good improvements to safety and traffic flow um so I won't read all of this but this just gives you an overview of how those monies have been spent previously I will turn um page it says page six on my screen but it's actually page five of the document to L to explain the CIP fund um and also some of the changes we are still working on relative to theou discussion um that occurred last night at the town so Lou if you wouldn't mind kind of going through with the board what this represents good evening everyone okay on page five is the uh historical uh actual summarization of funds that uh have gone into the um board CIP account
087you know for each of the last five years as well as the tenative forecast for five years going forward uh in the five years in the past which is on the lower half of the page two cells are shaded in yellow uh that's just to indicate that that number presented is $400,000 less than what was actually received uh because we were over the cap in the fund uh we had to turn back money to the town uh general fund in 22 23 and last year in 2024 those dollars went to the non-aps fund so uh we did have the benefit for the last few months of last fiscal year having theou in place to facilitate uh getting money to the non-aps fund uh that has expired effective September 1st and there is no replacement Arrangement
088uh in place as of yet you so everything reverts back to the way it was before uh the key issue for the board CIP account this time is the revenue levels that are going through the fund uh right this year for 2425 anticipate will be between 1.6 and 1.7 million dollar of receipts for the Year this is driven you know mostly by the open Choice program and the reimbursements we get from Harford for all the special Edge Services we provide for those students so as our program has expanded with open Choice over the years so has our Revenue base that has comeing to us you know there there's been no change in the cap in the fund since that time so now the one check we get from open Choice sometime and they'll April to
089June time window each year all by itself will put us over the cap and we have to take actions uh that need uh specific Town approval in order to try to Pro ensure funds will go strictly for the benefit of the board rather than reverting back to the general fund uh because of the language of the ordinance okay um in the other aspect of the uh the activities of the committee you know this document for the board CIP fund is necessary to then be passed along to the town so that becomes part of their budget book overall for the community so whatever final packages uh sanctioned by the board is given to the town and for the most part that will go through and be uh you know built into the town's budget but they
090do have the right to change it uh as the fiscal Authority if they see fit to do that they have not done that for quite some time um but it is part of the uh uh prview of the u u Way the fund is structured under the direction of the town on page six which is another important aspect if I could just pop in on one more issue theou okay uh that the board has seen was was considered last night by the Town Council originally there was movement toward an ordinance change uh that did not um get promoted by the Town Council they felt like that was something that was too permanent uh last night we presented a plan which would make it a more open-ended mou that would not have to be renewed every
091year for variety of reasons one of which is that our capital projects often expand more than fiscal year um and the worry would be it'd be kind of mid project and you'd have to restart or have you know a funding issue uh but the town last night felt strongly that it should have a one-year time frame but expressed uh the desire if we ever had a project that was sort of caught in limbo that they would consider renewing it early to expand that time frame so we were asked last evening to uh re revise it again and and resubmit it with uh a September 1 of 2025 expiration date so we'll be meeting with um the town manager and the town finance director to kind of button that up but I think it's close to
092resolve um but I just wanted to make sure the board knew that that was still in progress um I just have a question is what's the hesitation for making it open ended or even doing the ordinance change because um I was on able to listen to the meeting on Tuesday night but um previous meetings it was you know concerns about like the Hartford open Choice program itself changing or stuff like that so what's their hesitation currently what was stated last evening was they felt strongly they meaning the counselors that spoke um the majority uh felt this way that you know we want to have an opportunity year to year to hear how it's going um you know they didn't seem to didn't appear that they would ever not allow it to go forward but rather
093they wanted to have a dialogue with the board about what's going on with the particular fund so they felt if you had an annual expiration date this would allow for more discussion um I'm not opposed to that I I think there was just a hesitation to make anything too permanent or too longterm um so it appeared to be the direction that the majority of the Town Council was headed in but at the end of the day I believe we'll we'll resolve this matter and still be able to make sure that we we will get the receipts that we get from our open Choice program and all the other um uh building usage opportunities and still be able to leverage the resources appropriately and not have to return them to the town uh because we really
094do need to use these resources in variety of ways and some of which will ultimately offset a bit of the operating budget and as we've said before the open Choice program really impacts more of the operating budget um meaning you know the resources that we provide to our special needs children so that's why ultimately this makes a lot of sense and we just have to keep track of it year to year Mr hin just to clarify maybe simplify so our cap is 1 million $200,000 a single reimbursement from open Choice can blow that budget out of the water and we've had to use this moratorium or not moratorium um this motion to thank you last year we'll have to do with this year and just doing Simple Math we'll have to do it next year
095um and I think many of us feel like these are dollars that are E mark for Education that should be going to education and not the town um so I think if you could just keep us informed on that too so we can have educated discussions to move that forward because this just seems to be like a a cycle that's not going to stop we also are uh recommending and there didn't seem to be any objection on the town side to uh raise the cap to $2 million so that will help us again not face that cap and there there doesn't appear to be a desire to for them to retain that money I think there just seems to be a desire to have an annual discussion about it and not make it permanent all
096right so I miss we has a question sorry you kind of got to my question but just so the public can clarify because I know we're talking about caps we're talking about all these things just to clarify the conversation at the Town Council was about the not the cap it was about the town um for the open Choice monies and thatou correct that is correct there's been numerous discussions um last night's discussion centered on um just theou being renewed annually versus a more long term and the ordinance had already been ruled out at a previous meeting and then just to clarify for the cap changing to is it 2 million or is it 2% that it's two million for this the 2% you might be thinking about not laps but this is a uh two
097million cap um on how big this fund could grow and that will help us now that we're getting more receipts from open choice and does that require Town ordinance or no to change the cap on this no it does not which requires yeah the mou will take care of that so we're getting we're getting the same result with a slightly different pathway yeah I just and we can we can talk maybe later but um my concern just is that like this year the Town Council might be open to extending it maybe we don't we don't no in future years and and if it is money that is earmarked for Education we're spending the money anyways on educating the open Choice um special education students that it should go somewhere to education so I just concern
098I'm just concerned that um I understand the dialogue and I think that's great and I have no issues sharing the information and we you know we're hoping to have a joint budget meeting again um in January like we did last year so I think we um don't have any issues with the transparency or sharing the information they just don't understand why um why it has to be like a we're relying on them to make that M decision every single year so um that's my only concern so I appreciate the council um looking to extend it to 25 um I just think we should have further discussions maybe we can do that in January too go ahead Miss we and just kind of on that it seems that just no costs really go down um not
099in this space at least especially when it comes to special education uh so just curious too I can see a day not too far in the future uh unfortunately that that goes over two million too is there any restrictions on the town side from that too or is it just basically dictated by continuing me memorandums or anything like that that's what we'll have to do um and that appears to be the way we operate I mean we have other in the district that are annual Mr freey works on those through our different bargaining units so that's not a foreign concept to us um it would be nice to have that more permanent but I think it's true chances are we might need to increase that cap over time because you know with inflation and other
100issues uh we may very well get close to that and not and like you said fure yeah it's just so I think we're to that end it's hard to predict the future about how big we want that cap to be down the road how long has the cap been 1.2 million Mr uh years 10 years so I think that that's just more I was thinking about the semi-permanent will be every decade decade and a half that not anymore yeah exactly and that's where I'm worried like it'll be half a decade okay perhaps thank you all right and then um Mr Jack M was going to explain our next page which simply gives a snapshot of where we're currently um at with how we are spending um the resources for this uh fiscal year so if
101you want to provide a brief overview of your notations on this page sure okay so on the left hand column is the original plan that was submitted a year ago approved by the board went to the uh Town Council as part of the adopted budget book uh the right hand side is where things are at today for this year so some of the things have moved because uh projects have gotten completed you know we were able to get all the paving work we had planned for uh by the end of last fiscal year so those $50,000 are freed up to be redirected to another purpose um in addition you know we've identified the number one uh requirement in the HVAC area as starting to replace the rooftop units over at Martin Kellog that are in
102the um main part of the building you know these units are 40 years plus old and uh the type of refrigerant that they use is uh one that we need to phase out of the operation because they've been uh you know restricted future use uh by the EPA so uh this reshaped plan uh still has to work within our million 2 cap at this point because realistically we're never going to have more than a million two available at any point in time uh in the fund so we're really down to four significant initiatives this year the first one being the 750,000 for technology purchases which you know replacement of all the Chromebooks um you know in their cycle over four-year um renewal scheme uh there's 60,000 set aside for any variety of uh uh security
103initiatives that Mike Morgan wants to bring forward or that emerge as a critical issue to the district uh we have $72,000 to replace a vehicle that's in our maintenance Fleet at this time and the 290,000 is hopefully enough to do one of the three units that is uh on the roof at Martin Kellogg so we've got that multiple years backed up for money we're hoping to start uh saving some money toward bathroom Renovations in the classroom Wing at Martin Kellogg but that's will all depend on how the uh HVAC equipment bid goes and you know how much is left or what we can or can't fit in so that's just a an update this does not need any action uh it can just be done uh by the B by the administration and moving forward
104U um you know as directed by the superintendent the next page of the five years of the future budgets and it's very simple it's the basic budget we put together right now these are the most prevalent areas of need year after year in the district and things will change like last year we spent closer to $250,000 on playground repairs around the district the year we really don't have any U significant needs that have to happen this year so things will be up and down that's year but what we'll be consistently growing is the U hbac equipment um when we had air conditioning starting the district starting in 1998 um as we got all that equipment deployed through the whole school district some of those are now coming up at their end of life you know
105it's 25 years since that point go over few years we're going to start seeing a need to replace more and more units just because it's now part of the routine cycle so that'll need to be addressed on a long-term basis um of what HB hbac equipment we have today uh somewhere around 35 of the units have a refrigerant product called R22 and that is you know no longer approved for future use so part of our um uh revitalization plan has to address removing those a lot of them are smaller units there's may be a half dozen big ones and a bunch of small ones but it's still a decent chunk of money to do that now all the others are very straightforward you know we put Carpeting and painting in this year it doesn't look
106like we're going to be able to use any of the board CIP resources to do that because we need to redirect it for the HVAC equipment so that's um whatever we do we'll be able you know have to find those resources in the operating budget or to move forward you know if at all um is there a um like a deadline for removing those or replacing those pieces of equipment no it's just we can't put more free on in of that type so if the uh system had a pinhole leak and all the refrigerant leaked out you can't put the refrigerant that type of refrigerant back and you have to retrofit the unit or buy a new unit at that point so okay so the ones that you're um proposing to replace are ones that
107are towards end of life anyways end of end a useful life you know high probability of breakdowns uh as well as refrigerant restrictions on it so it's combination of all three okay and just on that back page I think you said one unit is it one or two for that 200 oh that's one hopefully just one there's three units that are targeted over time okay on that roof so it'll be definitely more okay this this thing the if you scroll up a little bit to the previous page it said one and two so is that just a Takeo well that was or that was the that was the original what page are you looking at um on the screen just that second row Right Here original that wasn't close financially one of them is 290,000
108yeah okay you sticker shock in this area okay thanks okay all right so then miss weever has a question too yeah sorry just on that kind of line of thought um is there any desire to change that planning I mean this is always the blueprint we use and we know those numbers change so it's I won't say it's a formality but we know that's where we're projecting is there any desire to change that by line of the 160,000 on the the next page we see on hbac to a higher number or we're just going to go well we're we're still locked in at the cap of 1.2 million right 750 is to technology 60,000 toward okay uh security so there's 390,000 for everything else okay so so in light of yeah would I mean I
109guess that would change if we got theou but whenever thatou signed but we can vote before this on that and then we can change it or amend ites I guess my question is we vote on these things as just kind of blanket projections we get theou whenever that comes in are we looking to or required necessarily to change any of that and then vote on it again if that makes sense we can move items around yeah within an approved uh budget scenario without right further approval by town or board it's part of the you know that's part of an ordinance or um that we're allowed to do that so this is our good faith estimate but as you can see this year we had to move things around with failures of units or anticipated failures
110of units so that may very well have to happen uh in subsequent years um it's it's a snapshot in time that we're doing our best to I mean I think the 160,000 l in Martin Kell needs like those units replaced but in other situations we just need to make some adjustments or are we talking full replac five major components for the equipment uh in order to Revitalize it for a practical extended useful life at that point okay so needs $3 $40,000 that's what we have to do gotcha but the major lift right now is Martin Kellog given the age and the other challenges with the freeon the freon substance yeah I'm just asking if we need like we get theou to change the cap would we need to come back as a board to vote
111just as a more procedural question I don't believe we would have to but I can check on that the answer is no and then maybe yes okay right if we're working within the same dollars right that are here there's no further action needed um if we have a situation of an emerging real problem like about five years ago we had the big chimney on the U Back of Martin Kellogg that was starting to crumble and that had to come down y so we had to go back to the council and ask to reclassify money that is in the non-designated line yeah of the board CIP and make an active project for so we can go get that done over the summer of 2020 2019 whenever it was that we did that and it was using
112our own resources but typically uh you know when we set the budget in go we had a 1. M2 million authorization um we have to have the cash in the fund to fund whatever we want to do and when we had this emergency we did have the resources available and the opportunity to move money around we may or may not have that you know as the year unfolds so you know I can't say with certainty that it would be needed but it could be needed yeah I just didn't know if the two million cap changed like how we like we get theity plan uh with a two-year window when point when I came to work here it was $75,000 was the pound contribution and the cap was 450,000 on the fund back in 1993 so
113so because of the amount of money that was going through it that really covered three years so and obviously the prices were a lot less but we had the um ability to really time things out so we wanted to do something over a summer we would have the year before to plan it and get it done here whatever ideas we come up and do we have to really plan it uh design it uh do the bidding or find the Contracting portals available to put a contract in place before June 30 or be at risk of losing it so much more high pressure Stakes of getting things done and sometimes I have to say you can't get certain things done in the time frame and you got to go to plan B whatever that is even
114if it's not the best choice or the best where you want to spend the money it's where you have to spend it in order not to lose it I think the question I was hearing though now that I'm listening to the dialogue is if the uh I'll even say when theou is official and our cap is now 2 million this will undoubtedly change this forecast because now we have a $2 million so we would I would need to check from a legal standpoint whether the board would need to in any way um make a different motion relative to this plan or is it simply that we update the board through the through the facility subcommittee about how we're going to rearrange the dollars once the U uh motion or theou or the ordinance change whatever
115ever is used by the town to bring it up to a $2 million cap I can have a total of $2 million of projects out there at any point time so if we had a different profile so instead of me just showing a million two I could show two million I may not be able to fund everything if it if we only have a million 7 of Revenue I have $2 million of possibilities I'd have to cut back to get down to what I have available for money but it wouldn't take repetitive uh board actions at that point we would plan to allow ourselves the flexibility to do the important stuff that we have to do okay yeah and we might need some of that to the operating budget too so there's like there's definitely
116yeah but I yeah I think from a procedural standpoint like yeah we'll make sure we'll make sure we got our eyes out and our te's crossed in this uh unchartered territory of raising the cap at least in my lifetime here um so thank you for that dialogue no any any uh shall we move on to the next yeah I just just thinking too like if that if the cap gets raised in anou and it's only a year long and then they don't like that could also mess things up so I guess again the the temporary versus permanent changes I think it's just something to consider and about we can certainly resurface that dialogue and and how that will impact our planning yeah um where the road takes us yes thank you okay okay next page
117which is page eight of nine is uh one of the most important ones as far as uh the totality of the board understanding the implications of funding that's here you can see at the bottom of the page there's a yellow bar going across and the line right above it is the 11-year bus replacement cycle which is 737,000 $364 and then there's another line for supplemental funding called the bubble for an extra $400,000 so that's 1,1 uh $37,000 at the cap so I like to refer you now to the legal siiz colored uh document I handed out which is the details the bus uh calculation schedule uh for how we have to figure uh what the Cost U uh estimates we have to give the town uh this was set up originally as a straight line
118uh originally a 10-year funding period that was extended to 11 years so in the Grid on the left side you'll see in a bunch of number that's how many buses we have that were acquired in those certain years and there know 76 you know significant uh student transportation vehicles in the fleet as at this point in time you'll see in the middle there's a column with notes and there's bubble five times that's there if you look at the total number of vehicles just to the left of it it's 8 and 9 7 and n 9 so over those 5 years 45 of the 75 vehicles that are on the list are scheduled to be you know funded for replacement so in the columns just a little bit to the right um and we have a
119replacement plan estimate which came in at 8,111 th000 which is nothing more than multiplying the sales on the grid by the price schedule on the lower right which extrapolates to that and then running that either 11 years the same amount of funding every year at 737,000 or address the bubble because those Vehicles you know their numers up on the roulette wheel and you know having to accelerate the funding in the earlier years of the 11year cycle and then you can taper it back down because we have the law where there's years where there's only a few vehicles that were acquired is that everybody kind of got the concept of that okay now with the U bubble funding at the million 137 everybody needs to understand there is zero money in our board CIP account for
120any student buses and there's zero dollars in the town CIP account right now for school buses so this is not an issue that can kind of be kicked down the road uh because you're coming in right at the highest point of financial need uh of you know eight buses scheduled to retire next year and then 10 and if you don't have there's no backup resource for um you know being able to say all right we got $500,000 in the fund so we can pick up four buses with that and you if funding is tight that's added this year you can work around it it's like you're starting exactly from zero uh for next year's funding in this and there's nothing in this year's budget uh either for use in this regard so these were you
121know the U uh decisions that were made last year uh to address you know the totality of all the budget needs uh uh for the board uh but this one there is no place to go here I mean other than we have to um you know make a determination okay we have to cancel things in the board CIP account and then start buying our own buses through that uh because we you know outside of the tech technology and the um um security for $810,000 there's $390,000 that if that has to be moved or for buses just because it is really the number one priority you can probably get two big buses and one specialized vehicle um with that money for next year so uh the gravity of this as far as just understanding that it's
122not an issue that we can defer any longer it has to be addressed in some fashion as part of this year's budget okay B 8.1 for the whole Fleet right now to buy a brand new one but we're not suggesting we're buying a new Fleet we're suggesting that we what we what we're recommending to the board is that the funding that is recommended whether it's tonight or at a subsequent meeting include that bubble amount because buses have gone up and we've had a several years where we haven't kept up with the bus replacement cycle due to funding issues um and we don't want to fall behind and some of board members have been part of previous discussions where our 11-year bus replacement cycle is on the Very extreme end of where buses what will be
123useful not breaking down um safety issues so any type of extension of that 11-year cycle has been discussed by the board previously and we landed on they landed on you know 11 years is about as far as we should push it cor right because when they start with the bus inspections they walk around with that metal Spike and they go looking for bad spots on the under carriage and if there's a spot routed out your bus is taken out of service and you got to repair it and you have to think most of the inspectors for the school buses take it real serious because little kids are you know the consequence of We're No Gray area that's this and 10 years has pretty much been the cut off when they start really Towing the line
124on inspections that are done or violations or defects that are there and you know we've had a very good history and we have a tradition of uh ensuring the buses are kept in good shape but you know if we're trying to keep 12 and 13 and 14 year vehicles as the primary vehicles in the fleet it will become problematic misser um and just to note too I see on here that some of the the larger buses but some of the um upwards of 30% increase almost 31% increase over the two years in price um is there any anticipation of that going down no probably not okay unfortunately no I I asked that because I knew the answer I just needed to hear that um I can't if with the change in administration if there's a
125relaxation of certain uh emission standards or other uh r regulatory requirements that are placed on the build of a school bus that weren't there 5 years ago and they can roll back some of that stuff that would make a difference in pricing because if you need like the newest Super Duper catalytic converter right you know that cost $30,000 just for that one part and you can go back to the the older model catalytic converter for $2,000 that's where you could see some meaningful savings but unless but that would take a little while kind of get in the pipeline for U making those those changes and re-engineering certain things and being able to uh repic the products that are out there so anything like that would probably be a next year benefit it wouldn't be really
126this year okay just because it's too close TimeWise and that would be less clean air yeah okay okay um that's helpful and then I guess my question would for the followup is um with their I guess is their conversation with town we need to have then about how we can kind of work something out here um if we have no money and there's no other money in the town CIP for this like there's no earmarking is there a thought about where we're going to earmark this well this is our request for next year we will be very clear when we present to the town um based on whatever the board decides that if this recommended level of funding is is not provided we're putting our bus fleet yeah at significant risk I'll certainly remind the
127town that for the last two years we've not been issued any new monies for buses uh one year we were at um through budget negotiation process we were advised or recommended to use the Garfield uh repaving money that was set aside years ago that money has now been depleted that did pay for buses the year previous this year we have $0 for buses so we're not buying any new buses this year so we're kind of behind the eightball on this year's replacement cycle and then that's compounded by more buses needing to be replaced higher bus costs and it takes over a year to get a bus great so I think right and so my question would be we're looking maybe to have that conversation with the town to put more monies as was in the
128past our recommended you know we did agree on a bus replacement cycle several years ago um there was no health benefit credit dollars coming in anymore that were those big balloon amounts that we were able to rely on so there's really no way around having a funded bus replacement cycle to manage this so that will be made very clear um so I'd recommend to the board tonight if this is voted upon that it would be approved with that bubble amount included because we're already behind the eightball um because of the previous years and we certainly don't want you know there's nothing worse pr- wise than have buses breaking down and not to mention safety now they won't be on the road if they're not safe they get inspected they get pulled off the line but
129you know you can appreciate uh the passion behind buses if the bus is not running because we don't have enough buses or it's it's in repair shop there's going to be some unhappy families and rightly so so so this um spreadsheet the two columns we have a choice and the recommendation um I'm assuming that came out of the um finance committee facilities committee um is the the one on the right with the $1.1 million that we're going to be asking for from the town that's absolutely the case and we've transferred that onto this budget page where you see and honestly to if if it to make it a more serious point the only other thing we're asking for on this Capital plan for the town is $300,000 for the Garfield Street Paving project and the
130bus replacement cycle we're not putting anything else in the budget for this line item here uh because we really feel that's where the resources need to go this year rather next year so we'll certainly hit that point home um I think you've heard from Dean in the past that we have and all of us actually explored bus site locations we've met recently with the town planning and zoning committee chair and he wanted to make sure we had fully looked at the Garfield Street I'm sorry the alumni Road uh location which we had it is simply not big enough he's surfaced a few other ideas but um you know they would all cost quite a bit of money to um you know enhancements to the existing Parcels um and many other things have been looked at
131and rolled out or now have other things on them anyway so meanwhile our buses are suffering quite a bit of wear and tear so we're going to put that $300,000 in we're recommending that the board put the $300,000 in the Garfield Street Paving project um to keep that area good for the buses and also safe for the drivers and and Mr Burns in that meeting that Dr brem referenced had said that they are constantly replacing undercarriage pieces of um of buses so we're having to do more maintenance because it's not um it's not paved so it's a safety issue it's a you know maintenance issue um and we want to take good care of our buses again because we have that 11year cycle soting our investment yeah exactly okay all right so that is that
132page and question okay all right well next page is pretty simple um we really don't have any bonding projects that we're recommending for the board for the next year um obviously John Wallace is well underway Anna RS is finished Martin Kell is way out in the future probably 2029 2030 we would like to keep our eye on the possibility of our turf having our own knif field Turf uh up to up to the kind of of our counterparts and num neighboring communities that have turf uh I think it would be an important thing to think about but just to be clear we're not recommending that for next year we just want it to be on the board's um dashboard or Vision down the road um as a possibility and we did an estimate was provided
133when we redid the track a few years ago and Luke just simply added a bit in there for inflationary considerations but really something that we just don't want to lose sight of because most of our neighbors who are sporting uh districts have a turf field so that I believe concludes the capital plan so in in short the the board would be considering approval tonight of this proposed page eight of nine that's the big the big ticket right there of having the bus replacement cycle with the bubble um as well as our projections for 2025 forward for five years knowing that there snapshot and time and projections and things could change including the impact of theou so everything else in the book is more of a review of previous uh years and current status so turn
134it back over to board chair thank you are there any questions or comments on um It's seems like we could have a motion um we do have to provide this to the town by the end of the year um to me it seems pretty straightforward I definitely agree with the bubble what we ask for ask for the bus replacement money and um we'll have to see how how things shake out but I think that we have a good case for that um including that extra 400,000 in there so go ahead Mr Sharma yeah I think I mean I mean if you look at if you look at the the CIP plan I mean we we need we need you know money for the buses I think two years we didn't get any funding right two
135years no funding right and then the Garfield um Paving project that's been like delayed for like two three years now and that's like eating into our the I mean basically the how long a bus will last if that is not paved I think we lose what maybe two years three years out of a bus something because it's not paved yes you pick up I two years of useful life yeah I'm just saying we're losing like two three years of useful life so I mean it's common sense and I think you know we need to send this over to the Town Council someone read the motion move the Board of Education approve the capital Improvement projects for fiscal years 2025 through 2026 through 2029 2030 uh to be funded through the public school Capital Improvement project
136Reserve fund second he a motion and a second is there any further discussion all right so we're voting on the Capital Improvement plan has presented would you call her R Mary be yes car yes hollerin yes Anthony me yes yes I think it was 8 Z we have one absent all right thank you um board policies like to Y policies so the first one I think is just the um possible action again we didn't get any comments was there I guess I would first asked if you could open it up if there's any other comments regarding two of the uh policies um one in the 4,000 Personnel series one in the 5,000 series each just changing um with regard to um some of the Title Nine um and this was just changing some of the
137verbage again just to align with State Statute if there's any other com comments or questions on those we can do approve those yep these were the ones presented and quote discussed last meeting was no further discussion we brought them back to the policy committee for one last review as per our lovely standards first we present to you as a full board and then we come back to vote um if there was no changes as well I motion to approve the board policies for1 18122 and 51455 as presented they separ have to be in separate motions I withdraw the motion yeah it's on the screen all right I move to approve the board policy 41181 122 as presented am I reading that correctly or am I missing it to replacement okay I move the board replace
138policy 4118 1112 harassment and discrimination prevention policy with 41181 122 Title 9 prohibit prohibit of sexual discrimination including sexual base harassment thank you second second hi all right we have a motion finally and a second is there any discussion on this policy replacement okay let's vote on it du Mary yes yesan yes yes yes yes thank you we have a next another motion I'll make the motion and this is in regards um to the 5000 series with students so the motion move the board replace policies 51455 sexual harassment and 514 5.44 Title 9 with policy 51 45.5 Title 9 prohibition of sex discrimination including sex based harassment students second thank you Motion in a second is there any discussion all right we're voting on replacing those two policies with the new one Deb Mary pus
139yes yes John holler yes Anthony yes [Music] yes yes okay and the next agenda item is discussion only there will be no motion Miss Weaver would you like to happy to do so so these were all the ones that we got through on um uh on last one sorry this was was it October 23rd Oh I thought these were the November 6th one too okay we went through a lot guys so um we'll just go a kind of quick one by one I'll give any if both yes both um okay um and just so you know this might be a regular current so as always just putting out my shout out request um make sure you read the policies if you have any comments or questions please let me know um again most of the
140ones we're going to presenting I think through next meeting will be those legislative mandate changes I think there was we like 38 different different ones um and so that's it right and then we're also um my like I said incredible policy committee we are taking on reviewing all of the policies starting with the 0,000 series going through um just to make sure everyone knows that we're reviewing them so it we'll not on our ual um our policy website which is beautiful um when they were last reviewed so we can kind of get a sense of when um for future boards um so they know when those are last reviewed um so the first one has to do um with a couple legislative mandates um this would be in our 5000 series for student discipline these
141are legislative mandates one on reduction of the maximum consecutive days um for in school suspension from 10 to 5 days again this is from legislative mandate um and then this one uh also has to do with the distinction with prek uh to grade two um and how those uh out of school may be suspended out of school so out of school suspensions um for pre2 different from then 3 to 12 um and then I think some of the other ones again I don't want to keep reading off the screen but these are all pretty self-explanatory is that um the procedural matters of the expulsion hearing process um students cannot be expelled without a formal expulsion hearing except in case of emergency um and then also um the the last point of the legislative mandate change
142would be um in terms of uh who should be notifying the parent regarding of a student um when a behavior has caused a serious disruption self harm um we' already kind of come to this policy um before when we talked about um those kinds of instances of self harm and those kinds of ones that would constitute um when a parent or Guardian would be notified um but the requirement is that um the new parental requirement is triggered when behavior intervention meeting is requested um and I just wanted to point out we talked extensively with Mr fery about kind of the process that happens when um either there's behavior intervention meetings or um there's types of behavior where parents need to get notified and kind of the regulation side of this so so um again you
143might not always see some of those legislative mandates come up in a policy you might see come up in a regulation and how those change depending on the type of depending on the school age or um the situation so um again these are all legisl legislative mandates and requirements and change in language were there any questions that I could answer at this time did I miss anything too guys feel free to Che those okay um gonna move to the next one um again this one has to do um we we've addressed this policy a couple times but the suicide prevention intervention one um this one again with some some legislative changes um minor changes in terms of of language I'm sorry I'm missing my place here um more editorial I don't know Britney did you
144have anything on that one well just jumping back to 5144 I was looking at my um emails quickly we did add some legal language to the agreement um when she says that Britney added some incredible legal language just want to put that there I was waiting for which was sorry I just wanted to make sure I had the right one in front of me so basically when you sign a releaser agreement just saying that you're signing it not under distress with your own free will uh standard legal language so um the agreement was missing that so we added that to the end yep that was Britney's idea by the way this is what really helps um I look at them daily so it kind of help telling you best policy out there um yeah so
145there's that one and then going back to the suicide prevention intervention um this was kind of about who should be involved when um in terms of personnel so we added with administrative assistance to the crisis intervention team we already have uh Crisis Intervention teams set up across our district um they all have procedures in place and know how to respond to them but this is also knowing um it was asking for administrators to either contact the family um or be a part of that contact um that's already been common practice so again a lot of these will be codifying existing practice based on a legislative mandate but was already being done in our district um so it was just a requirement to have that administrative oversight when it comes to um Crisis Intervention teams being
146called in any questions next one our 6000 series um this was changes in um graduation requirements uh addressing a couple things physical education financial literacy and FASA so they've changed a little bit in terms of um both FASA and I think financial literacy are getting a little bit delayed or how you want to I'm sorry fast is getting delayed financial literacy can now be um or can now count for more than just stem it's also Humanities and um so in terms of what the credits actually count for um and I'm blanking on the physical education one I think that was the0 five credit yeah okay um was the5 credit me if I'm wrong but didn't it change where it can now be counted as a half credit towards the overall um credit requirement right uh
147the physical education yeah yeah okay um so those are again mandated ones um so instead now it's um just fastly getting delayed um and and those were all the changes there um and then the last one if there's no other questions was changes to our um challenging curriculum policy um this was simply just to um this was actually a great discussion we had um but um in it we talk about our requirement to offer challenging curriculum to our students and um obviously we offer so much as highlighted earlier by how many AP classes we offer but one of those is um also um an opportunity include access to the Connecticut technical education and career system schools um so one was just the requirement was to include that in some form or another of the mention
148of this and so we just figured we offer that opportunity kids in um Middle School are are told about them um so that's just one of the pathways that they can take um so we just added that into literally just the words the CT CS as one of the options um and that wraps up all the inclusions of the legislative minutes again these might be just tweaks of words um again we replace some policies just to be more modernized but doesn't change any of the substance and um yeah we're happy and open for any conversation our next policy meeting is next Wednesday November 20th at 7M where we will discussing more policies and more legislative mandates um but happy to discuss any of those as well and again as always my inbox is otherwise we'll
149bring this to the next December meeting thank you thank you policy committee lot of work all right our next agenda item is an update on the health benefit fund so I'll start this off um it's kind of a non update in the in essence because I'm change my tab here right now at the end of the fiscal year we get final word um as to whether there was a health benefit credit to the board at the as all once the dust settles with all Health claims and all Health expenses and the bottom line is we don't get a credit um the good news is and this is anou that actually is ongoing year after year is the way thee is written is we don't have to pay that we we in good faith budget for
150what the town um Insurance uh agent of record tells us to budget and that's part of theou you have to budget what you're told to budget and then if we end up budgeting too high we do get to keep the residual credit once the dust settles but if we budget too low then the town does need to absorb the difference there so that negative $ 47,1 um is something that the town has to absorb through their resources um so it's just really an FYI for the board um there have been years where we've gotten the reverse happening but since they've changed the design of how the health benefit credits work your credits go largely upfront there's I don't know if there's prescription offsets and others items that get kind of baked into that initial quote
151that we have to budget for so we're seeing a trend now that we're really aren't having any credits or very low credits and um and and in fact this year we have a deficit that the town needs to um you know make whole on their end so and can you just do know Lou um it's not like we're going to be penalized like next next budget season like oh you caused us to spend 400,000 like don't they have a fund elsewhere uh medical Insurance liability reserve on their books and they budget for the risk associated with running a partially self-insured pool so in order to get the savings on the U premium taxes they don't have to pay and you know eliminating some middleman uh costs you know there's an inherent risk in running a
152plan of that type so a budget for it when the original uh health benefit fund agreement was signed 27 years ago uh the board turned over their part of the fund to the town as part of the resources for the uh reserve for when that rainy day comes now this is the first year in about 10 years where we've had uh claims that actually went over the target number so um you know and 400,000 is a decent amount of money but it's it could be far higher so it's U you know not catastrophic and you know town is well reserved for uh this potential risk and right now the plan is going okay so far this year so okay you nothing no big POS big positive big negatives at this point yeah and that's kind
153of memorialized in the memo that Janet Murphy sent my office back in in October saying just FYI there's no credit and nothing more needs to happen happen so it is it's a very good mou because it really keeps everything above board we we budget we told a budget and the risk is covered by the town's uh risk pool that they maintain so that's you know is working as intended any questions superintendent goals that would be me yes that is you so in our previous board meeting we spent a little time going through the approved and finalized strategic plan um and many of these pieces were discussed our our vision our mission the port of graduate those are all included in the Strategic plan oops but I wanted to keep the board apprised of what we're
154spending our time on as my role as superintendent and my district leadership team as well so we are continuing to work on our achievement disparities while there is some hope with what we talked about earlier with e Green's uh progress and in a moment I'll tell you some progress from our other schools but there is more work to be done and we do spend a lot of time and that's our rationale looking at how we can en enhance our Collective capacity to um have our teachers and our administrators develop routines and structures that will lead to more Equitable outcomes for our students so we believe that any time we make any movement on that needle which we have done a little bit last year um it means that we're moving in the right direction on
155our plan so we have our district outcome is to make sure and this is an important distinction because in I know there's always that Wonder way to minute are you spending all your energy and time just on the achievement Gap and that couldn't be further from the truth we are spending time on maintaining the high performance of all of our students and the board meter has seen that type of student that is doing very well in our system uh who's a board representative but we want to make sure that that students are continuing on that track but also for those students that are not we need to do something about that so we are always mindful of all of our students so the goal then is that we make sure all of our Educators demonstrate
156content knowledge and evidence of culturally Rel ped pedagogy through the use of cultur responsive teaching practices and we believe if we continue the work on having them engage in anti-racist routines and learning structures then we'll create a a culture and we're beginning to see that of very Equitable outcomes for our students and we know there's more work to be done but we are starting to see impact um so Dell which is the district Equity leadership team that I on along with Mr fesi um Miss Freeman Mrs Lawrence Dr Harriston and um marinaa Julios our special ed director um I always see oh miss Foy our new um director of um human capital development we all sit on on that team and on a weekly basis we strategize about what we need to do to work
157this plan through the system so what does that look like we do a lot of things we are are constantly visiting the schools and engaging with teachers engaging with students observing either classroom instruction observing professional learning communities better known as plc's um observing District or school-based leadership teams case in point yesterday we spent considerable time at John Wallace observing their professional development session and you wonder why would you observe a professional development session why what's the purpose of that but the way they structured it is we could see that teachers are taking the lead in these sessions we see that teachers who are part of the audience are engaging in the work and people are actually starting to reflect on their practice and we saw that throughout our several hours of observations yesterday at John
158Wallace and then we provide feedback to leadership team there about what we thought was going well and maybe some things that they might want to consider to improve the process so we do that at every school in some way shape or form it there's a couple different things we do either full out rounds Vis where we all go out meaning the delt and spend hours in a school looking at different aspects or another routine this year and it was mentioned in the superintendent report earlier are learning walks and we are using those to this year specifically look at our reading program how are our teachers implementing it um with Fidelity I actually went to a science of reading workshop yesterday I saw a a nationally renowned speaker Nancy Bo and I asked her this question
159her her expertise is comprehension I said Dr boils we've got a new program what would you recommend we do relative to um the issues you raised today about comprehension instruction and and how to kind of incorporate that she say you know what you guys have invested in this program you need to spend your first year operationalizing it with Fidelity and that is exactly what we're doing we're we're going in Bev Lawrence who's our new uh curriculum um director for the elementary level spends time pretty much at all the elementary schools on a weekly basis s uh either visiting classrooms or uh meeting with principles or sending out updates on the program and these are all contributing to how we're moving trying to move the system forward um so we also spend time looking at data
160we spend time making sure that um all of our schools are moving in the proper Direction with our mission and then we spend time monthly with all administrators in what's called administrative Council where they get trained in different aspects of the work I'm also holding um all of our principles accountable this year well every year but this year specifically they have to report back on their progress on their school Improvement plan in numerous ways come to meet with ad Del three times a year uh they've already all come one time and then we go out to their schools see the plan and action and give feedback and then they're also required to update us on their plan on a monthly basis at the administrative Council meetings so there's a lot of accountability baked in um
161and it just gets us to be highly familiar with what's going on in the schools what's working what's not and how do we coach our administrators and our team leaders teacher leaders to do the work um so there's a lot of other things I could talk about but the hour is getting late um this is what I really want to talk about so we are seeing some wonderful outcomes especially at our elementary level and I and I want to question everybody these are promising signs we got work to do but Anna Reynolds has uh and this happens at anars frequently um that they have gotten a school of Distinction notice ification for high growth for all students in the area of math and that's something that they've historically done very well in um as mentioned
162earlier Elizabeth green got a school distinction acknowledgement for high growth for high need students in the area of ela and Ruth chaffy got a high growth all students for ELA and math and high growth for high needs students in the area of math and what I want to really focus in on and saying this with the board president is in in these cases I believe there can be some attribution to the success of these schools because of their work with our Equitable practices um Ruth chaffy has has done a lot of powerful work in their plc's as has E green and Anna Reynolds is doing the same um and those discussions and those practices are what leads to these areas of achievement now are we going to rest on our Laurels and Pat ourselves on
163the back no well maybe a little bit not the Le not the rest on The Laurels but patting ourselves on the back because you got to celebrate the wins but we've got more work to do knowing what we see in classrooms every day we want to make sure that all of our kids have experiences that are going to promote their academic achievement also promote the fact that they need to feel safe in school cared about the school and that's why we present all of the things that are happening in the schools so that the board can see while academics is a huge priority but we also have to make sure our kids are safe and well cared for and feeling valued so you know some nice um initial reports and again this is a reflection
164of last school year as the year rolls along I'll be sharing with the board both through the presentations that principles will make as well as my own um updates on goals how are those benchmark assessments looking um last year the board um saw that presentation which I think you all liked very much on the building thinking classrooms where we had some fun on the whiteboards um those practices are starting to spread districtwide and we're seeing some very promising results in math um where kids who are in classrooms where that is happening are achieving at very high rates and it's also coming um reflected in their SBA scores so it's not only impacting what we see in the classroom but we all have to kind of keep in mind what our state tests are telling us
165and we're seeing that transl uh translation into those tests so a lot of promising practices more work to be done the team meaning the Del uh works really hard to make sure we're out in schools a lot talking to the principles and leaders a lot and making sure they have the support they need to do their job so that's my progress report for tonight more to come of course but um at least we've gotten um some nice nice uh feedback from the state on these areas and hopefully we'll get more as the year progresses and that would end my progress report to date yeah are there any comments or questions for Dr Bret Weaver just want to say congrats it's amazing and I'm just curious too like um compared to like maybe our dur or
166others like how many are also seeing that maybe not doing as extensive as work as we are um again I'm not always familiar with the High um the distinction Criterion for that but I think it's it's one that should be spelled out how um extensive that that kind of Valor is when it comes to that because I know they're not always doing it I know Anna Reynolds is always doing it but um it's not an easy feet these ones no it's not I mean you really have to show meaningful growth um relative to your current situation I believe I read that about 160 elementary schools in the whole state got some form of schools of Distinction um not everyone in our dur did I I could do a deeper dive into that to make sure
167the board but not everyone in our dur got schools of Distinction notifications some did but um I think you know we need to keep our eye on that and really always we need to do a better job of getting um our kids doing better on our state testing um again as our diversity increases we've got to get our practices to go along with that and that's the work we're in the middle of right now but um you know as we go around we are seeing some much different discussions and much different um comments from our teachers I think we heard earlier from a teacher that um is deep in the work in her school which happens to be an Reynolds so that is um Miss beus thanks just a a quick comment um you know
168we've talked a lot in my time on the board in the last year about how these initiatives work and it just how incredibly um proud We Are of you your team and of course our our you know School uh teachers and support staff principles the the the plan in place is working and it is just so wonderful to see the that actually um we're starting to really get positive feedback with you know almost half of the the schools in our district so keep up the good work thank you so much it's really is starting to pay dividends and for that you should be proud proud of my schools yes my team okay any other all right uh we're back to public participation on any matter related to board responsibilities I um you can remark by
169board members would be or so need to raise my hand I'm not seeing anybody online okay so now um our MKS by board members go ahead um I'm not gonna keep you um I got school buses and policies running through my head right now sorry but I wanted I just wanted to I didn't know if I should do it as a board member I was attacked as a board member by a two councilman so I figured maybe I should tell it from here I could tell it from there but um I just want to just a couple things a couple bullet points uh the last meeting before summer when the two councilmen came up came in here and read their manifestos or whatever they called them I don't know but they were basically uh smears
170against me and I don't know if they thought that they were going to run me out of here I'm an elected member of the board so that wasn't going to happen I just want to say this um the the only opinions that are very important to me are gods and my families and I think the only reason why they came here is because when I went to make my my remarks as a citizen uh to the Town Council regarding the um lgbtqa uh committee um I I did mention I was a a board member I wasn't representing pres ing the board matter of fact when I was walking out of the house my wife said to me are you going to tell me you're on a board of education I said no I no why
171why would I do that she goes well your whole life has been about service and it's it you're you're public servant so why not that's where so anyways I said it wasn't representing the school board um and I just I I could do a lot I wrote some stuff and I threw it out because it's not worth it but a couple of bullet points um just remember some of the stuff they said I did I did read um something from gays against groomers they are a legitimate group they sure they may be on the FBI terrorist watch list now so am I so is tulsey Gabbert I mean that's it's not it's a legitimate group and they care about protecting children my whole life has been about protecting the those that can't protect themselves mostly
172women and children so I've been a police officer for 46 years years um when I was a 21-year old kid I raised my hand and I score to uphold US Constitution and the State Constitution and I've done that Faithfully for 46 years that's longer than either of those two councilmen have been alive so for a good part of my career there I know their differences in age I I don't know their ages but I know they're not the same age um some of them they weren't alive at the beginning of my career and then they were growing as small children Etc ET for a good part of my career I was speaking from my experience to the Town Council um regarding my personal experience if they want to come and talk about their personal experience
173I'm happy to hear it uh when I got up now I stayed because I wanted I gave comments at the end too when I got up to walk back to my seat one of the councilman literally screamed at me I mean that's just unprofessional um um and then he confronted me later up parking lot afterwards um at the end of the at the end of the meeting um when they asked for recommendations uh one of my recommendations was again I I don't care about the committee okay I just I just didn't think it was a big enough part of our society at this point to spend a lot of time on and that was my point um we have we have a human trafficking problem on that burlin Turnpike the whole ter bike the Newton
174has a lot of hotels I said maybe we could do a committee on human trafficking uh I suggested maybe we could do a committee uh find some multi- language speakers and help you know there's many families that um aren't English speakers um I also recommended because we do the gay pride thing I said I don't have a problem with that we we do gay pride month let's do a veterans appreciation month where one week we fly the flag of each armed services one week for the Army one week for the Air Force One Week for the Navy and one week for the Army and someone brought up that the gate pride flag State an extra week and I said so let's do five weeks let's do the coast guard on the fifth week um again
175I I swore to uphold the Constitution and literally uh I put I I would give up my life and I said that to whatever they want to say and I appreciate uh what you said tonight because this course is good I think it's great um my children and my wife many times every day I walked out the door as a cop they didn't know if I was coming back my children many times said Mom uh how come dad has to go to work on Thanksgiving at night this and that and Mom's answer was because he's keeping us safe and I have no problem with that for 46 years I've done it I'm continuing to do it um I don't think that again my my profession in my career I gave my some of my experiences
176about it um and they were true experiences I I investigated hate crimes in the 80s and 90s when literally men were standing you know Wise Guy kids were standing outside of the bars and assaulting what they considered gay men and stuff I did that they can't they can't say that that wasn't true that I didn't do that if they have actual things about what happened to them that's great I I don't doubt that things happen still today um anyways I I I'm very proud of what I've done and what I continue to do I'm very proud of our veterans and all the people who who have fought for our freedoms and continue to fight for our freedoms but law enforcement is The Thin Blue Line here domestically and we do stand between chaos and um
177safety um I'm not trying to get on a soapbox here I just want I just want to point out those things that they didn't bring up they didn't bring up all those those things that I brought up you know at the end and stuff and um I would I would give my life today for every single one of us every single one of you to say whatever you have to say I don't care I'm a lightning rod sometimes that's okay that's what our country is founded on and I love everybody and I also started my talk that day with we are all children of God and God loves all of us and I ended the talk on that these are things that you didn't hear unless you listen if you listen to the things start
178to finish that's fine but I just want to that's all I don't have anything else to say I just want to I just I just want to say um that I appreciate everybody but you can't smear me in my reputation without me answering it that's all thank you thank you uh Miss petus first off I'd like to thank you for your um you know very extensive career of service to the community I think we all have uh recognition and respect of the hard work that our uh law enforcement officers do every day and for that I thank you however I think we're talking about two different things here the the the reason we all serve on the board of ed is to work to protect and to educate and to support the students and the
179staff of our public schools and that's all the students in our schools it's all the staff in our schools and our schools are made up of a diverse group of people and when you know we equate you know uh things that have been published by a group that literally has been identified as you mentioned uh as part of a terrorist terrorist watch group that's that's a real issue um you know we have to be really really really careful about supporting all of our kids and that we don't want any of our kids to feel that they are not seen and that they are not heard and that the struggles that they deal with um are not important and not valued we talked a lot about mental health earlier today and recognizing our school psychologists and
180we have members in our student community that are parts of some of these marginalized groups and it is absolutely our moral obligation to provide support and and do everything that we can to work for those students as well so we we don't get to pick and choose we have to represent all of our students all of our students experiences what they bring to their school experience matters and when kids are felt that their views are not important or wrong just because of who they are then we're not doing what we're supposed to do as members of this board so equating a terrorist watch group or human trafficking with certain members of our school Community is absolutely not okay and so you know as far as law enforcement and things that have happened the violence that
181has happened to this community historically continues today and we need to make sure that we are not contributing to that but that we're actively working to prevent that by giving our students the tools that they need when they feel seen and heard so that they can be the best that they can be thank you Mary thank you Mary Miss yeah I mean I think we can kind of put this maybe to bed after this meeting with the back and forth because I think we want to Reserve board remarks for this and I will just say not everyone believes in God and that's okay we are multi-religious Multicultural one I can say you know I'm Protestant but my best friend is Hindu my other best friend is not is agnostic and atheist so I just want
182to make that clear there is still clear separation from church and state and I also want to say just for a public like I support your quer youth it's a big part of our community um and I know many people watch and watch how our boards are and if they want to come to our district and I know I talked to several parents who have come up from other states um because they have been worried about their children in other states and have been incredibly happy being here um and being welcome so I just want to put that and that kind of goes into my comment about um the experience I had on last Monday um just wanted to say thank you to Dr Brahma and to representative Jeff Curry um we had a two
183different tours at um the middle and the high school to talk about effective School Solutions and what that means for wrap around Mental Health Services um and you know actually R Curry talked about his his time as a as a queer Youth and and what that meant and um the help that this is providing for so many of our students and I just want to say thank you for one Dr Brum and and to our staff Marena for putting this program into place um very much hope that some folks Google it and and learn more about this program um not all districts have it but this is is a layer on top of our school counselors of our social workers um and the comments were and I I do not exaggerate that lives are been
184saved this Saved My Life um and the the extensiveness that has been done to work with families in our communities and how dedicated our families are um to ensuring the mental health of our students not only the transition from middle school to high school but the transition from high school out um to see I think many kids that would would have fallen through the cracks be lifted up um it was an incredibly moving day so I just want to highlight that for our community that this is really a reflection of the work um oural work that that we've been doing and now like credit bearing classes for coping skills in our high school is so huge um I think um while he won't be serving next time we'll have a new education chair but he
185was very impressed I think with with the work that's being done with the clinicians that are read um that are in our schools one being an NHS Alm um I found so it it just it really was an impressive thing and I um kind of want to put that out there that folks should really know the the work that's being done in Newton Public Schools is far and above where we were 10 years ago far and above many of the other schools I think in there and man I hope that every school has this um someday um you know willing some funding but it's what a village looks like it is a full support wraparound system I think all of us could use it at work honestly every day but the involvement with outside providers
186and then now also um the potential with our school-based health center um just some of the things that are being done in our schools is is incredible so just wanted to so boox that because it is a huge part and I know that um as we go into budget season I hope this stays on top of all of our minds um because that was some eser dollars I believe that were used and there there is going to be a funding cliff on this stuff and um the anecdotes that and and the staff um collaboration that we talked about um that will be one of the the conversations we need to have so I just kind of want to put that out there now and preface it because um it it is needed and um it
187is a seven points life or death so I I just want to put that out there not to be dramatic but like the things and the stories we've heard um on that day and and the the the tours um from the the clinicians and the staff and the collaboration between the staff um again these are not like employees of Newington Public Schools but they are um basically they all said they're like Newton Public School Employees um being integrated into that that needs to just be I think top of mind so I just implore you all to kind of look into it ask more questions about it as we head into budget season and go see Little Women um not to belabor the point but when um just a reminder for allor members and council members
188and anyone who is elected if you go to a public meeting and you state that you're on a board then the assumption is that you're speaking on behalf of the board and and everybody is entitled their own opinions and um and can say whatever they want at whatever appropriate time um but do so with your own name and and not as a representative of the board so um it could get us in trouble um just flat out reminder on that and um I do just want to reiterate um that we are here to educate every single student in this town and and we support every single student in this town regardless of how they identify or who's in their family or what they believe in um so that is that is a blanket statement and
189that is our goal Mission Vision is to provide education to every single student in this town um and those who come to us from other places or from Harford so um I'll just leave it at that so Jo we don't need we don't have to thank you thank than yeah