Berlin Board of Education Meeting @ BHS 1/10/22

001Good evening. Welcome to the January 10th meeting of the Berlin Board of Education at 607. I'm going to call the meeting to order. Lindsay is going to start us out with the pledge of allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Okay, before we get into our agenda, I believe there is a motion for the agenda. Yes, I'd like to motion to remove 7C and add athletics, add capital equipment, and also add an executive session at the end to discuss the custodial contract. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Okay, I have a motion by Tracy, second by Gina. Is there any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Okay, vote carries 5. Jamie raised her hand

002over there. Hi Jamie, thanks for joining. Okay, we are going to start the meeting um with our committee reports and correspondence to the board. Student representatives, do you guys have a report for us? So, seniors who took Capstone their first semester will be presenting their projects uh this Thursday, the 13th. So, all students will present during school and then at 6 pm there will be a Capstone exhibition for parents and any visitors to see their students boos and a few presentations. Um, additionally, tomorrow, January 11th, at 7 pm, the band will be performing their winter concert in the Gibney Gym. Our sports are doing very well and having a relatively normal season. And the boys wrestling and the boys and girls basketball, the boys swimming and indoor track teams are all having very successful seasons.

003On January 27th, Unified Theater will be presenting their play, Campfire Stories, in the auditorium at 6 p.m. That's all. Thank you. All right, committee reports. I believe we only have one report, the FNO committee. Um, but Tim and Adam are not here. Matt, would you like to share out? I know I'm putting you on the spot. I could as well, but you you think I know. I'm sorry. Um, we did have an FNO committee report. Um, and if you ask me what the date is, I don't recall. 23rd. Wednesday. They all run together. Wednesday the 23rd. And it was to go over the budget with um, Superintendent Benigny and the business office. So, I think most of the information is going to be in front of you. So, um, that's really what we talked about

004was kind of the budget as was going to be presented. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for, um, being put on the spot, but like that. Superintendent Bengi, do you have anything you'd like to add from the FNO committee meeting? Just I really appreciate the board members meeting on the 23rd uh um early evening. Um and that it was important that we met with them before preparing the budget. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Um we do not have a crack report tonight. We will have one next month because they are meeting this upcoming Thursday. And do we have any correspondence to the board? Oh, no correspondence to the board. I'm sorry, not this evening. All right, we are going to move to the audience of citizens. It's great to see

005that we have citizens here joining us this evening. Um, just limit your share to two minutes per resident. When you come on up, just state your name and your address clearly. So, um, our secretary can write that down and we don't typically respond, but you know, what you bring forth to the board will give us some things to discuss and we can respond individually. If you know the superintendent or myself find it necessary, we can, but we try not to. So, um, as the spirit moves, you go ahead. Good evening everyone. Let me bring this up so I don't have to uh hunch over here. Uh my name is Alan Verstro. A L an V is in Victor. E R R A S T R O. Uh it's address too. Is that what you wanted?

006It's name and address. 50, right? Uh 535 Lower Lane. [clears throat] Uh this is my second attendance of the meeting here. [snorts] Uh after the last meeting, I did a little bit of re research. I spent the better part of my time uh looking into the um equity and social justice action steps and some other things. Uh so I came prepared this time since the two minutes seems hardly reasonable to address some of the issues some of the community may have. So I tried to condense it here. Um, first off, I'd like to say that from what I've read, from what I've looked at, from uh what's available online through the um justice learning organization and so forth. Uh a lot of this seems to be cultural issues that need to be addressed in the

007homes, not in the school. looking to address these things across different curriculum and different subjects, it's going to take an astounding amount of resources and time. Uh so my biggest question is uh with that is, you know, if we're spending so much time teaching the children the things that should be taught at home, who's teaching the children the things should be taught at school? Okay. Um you know, it seems to me it should be the other way around. We should be this. The home should be enforcing cult teaching cultural things. The school should be in reinforcing those things. It's not a problem if a teacher sees a child treating another child terribly. It should be addressed. Agreed. I don't think anybody would disagree with that. Uh we cannot focus the school's resources on such things

008across the board. Um my other question is with this particular group that offers these curriculums and lessons is what is the credibility of the organization? Um, I mean, their own mission statement has a term they use in there that's insulting to most of the Latin communica, uh, the Latin community. I'm sorry. Okay. Uh, there were Okay, let me make this even more brief. Two court rulings. Uh, one in Skoi, Illinois, one here in Summers, Connecticut. Uh, the the people of the town have already brought this up. Uh, it's been deemed unconstitutional. Uh, there's huge liability implications here with the town. be silenced. We've already programmed Thank you. Um you did raise some you know good points and later in the agenda we will be going through some of those and there has been you know

009some revisions since the last meeting when you were here. So you know I hope you stick around to hear that and then we can follow up after the meeting. Thank you for coming out tonight. Who would like to address the board next? Go ahead. Mary Katherine Larose, 26 Woodruff Lane, Kensington, Connecticut. I brought this up before. 2 minutes is ridiculous. Turning off someone's microphone is is certainly disrespectful and it needs to change. Hi Uh Nikki Samiski, did you need my address? I'm on 947 Chamberlain Highway in Berlin. Um I want to piggyback off of what Mary Katherine said. Even in the capital in Hartford, we get three minutes to speak to our legislators when there's open speech. Um I am really against this. I know you don't call it CRT, but CRT is equity is

010the same thing as social emotional learning. It's all the same thing, just called differently. Our children, yeah, it is identity politics. Our children are not raised to be racist. My children don't see skin color. My children, I teach my children very much what Martin Luther King said. He said, "Judge somebody by the content of their character and not the color of their skin." So, if my children don't like somebody, it's because they don't like them because they're not a good person, not because of what they look like. Our children aren't racist. Why are we making skin color a big thing? The people that who support this kind of teaching will tell you that anything coming out of my mouth right now is racist. I'm not a racist individual, nor are my children. I refuse to

011have my kids have color pushed in front of their faces. Why don't we teach them real history? Talk to them about the Cubans that are screaming against communism, about the Japanese that were wrongly interned on American soil. Talk to them about the Jewish people that suffered and died in Ashwitz. Instead, we seek to cover up our history and change it and and and make it into something that it's not because we're teaching things like the 1619 project, which is incredibly flawed. If you go back through history, it's not just I I hate to bring color into it, but both blacks and whites both own slaves. We can't take down statues and hide our history. We can't say things that aren't true and teach our children that these falsehoods are true. This equity cultural Marxism is

012what it is. It should not be taught. Our children deserve better. We as parents know what to teach our children in the homes. I don't teach my children racism. I teach them to be good people. I teach them to have respect. I teach them to love everybody and to be good people and to understand the difference between right and wrong. This is not what you be. Thank you. So, thank you for coming out. Would anyone else like to address the board really quick before the next person addresses the board? I will address the two minutes. I said it last month and I'm going to say the same exact thing again. We don't have secret meetings on the board of education. We're not coming together secretly to discuss things. So, we have not met since the

013last time. It has been brought to our attention about the two minutes. Um, and I said this is something that we're going to address during our board of ed retreat because I think it's important that everyone at the table, the new members to the more experienced members have the opportunity to bring their collective thoughts um forward. So, I want to do due diligence to the two-minut time and I don't think it's fair for me to just start making changes. I'm not that type of leader. So, I will say that. Um, and then the last thing I want to address just the 1619 project. Um, if you can find in our curriculum, I would appreciate if you could email it to me where that is so I can have, um, talk more with the superintendent and

014find out more about that for you. So, you can always reach out to me. My cell phone is on the board of ed website as well as my email. Thank you. Go ahead. Bill U Julius 25 Gateway Drive wanted to say that uh you know adding this social equity platform to the curriculum it's a significant change. It requires a review of more than one program that's out there. You know before you vote to implement it a plan I encourage you to review other options. Fair the foundation against intolerance and racism is an alternative. It can be found at fairforall.org. org. I think it's in the interest of our children to at least look at something else. Thank you. Thank you for coming out and addressing the board. Is there anyone else that would like to

015address the board? I'll just give it just another few seconds. Hey, thank you. I think you know people coming forth and addressing the board will you know give us a lot to talk about as we get to that um agenda item this evening. Moving on to the consent agenda. Do we have a motion? Move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I oppose. 5 Z. So now I'm going to turn it over to Superintendent Bedignney um to lead our next agenda item, the unfinished business, equity, and social justice subcommittee actions. So I we left off last month um receiving the document the day of the meeting. A number of people had questions and I thought it was very important that everyone have the

016opportunity to take time go through it come up with their questions. There was a revision that was posted in schooly. So if you go in schooly you can see the revision. Um I did have the opportunity to read through it. If you need help accessing that let me know. Do you have the most recent? No, the one that I have is the same. Yeah, it's just yesterday. So, do you have your Chromebook? I do. Yeah. Open it up. The new ones. I can show you if you need help. So, first let me apologize. I was notified um on Sunday afternoon that the assistant superintendent who has been doing the work with uh leading the work with the equity of social justice has been out out ill. So in doing so um I stepped in uh

017late Sunday afternoon, early evening and u and this morning and and put together here and t speaking to the assistant superintendent um this abridged and modified uh we spoke about it since last meeting but actually formuling formulating the the areas um wasn't completed until recently. So I'd like to share with you where if you looked at last action steps there was a multitude of areas under each and some of the information that was shared with us through members on the committee is that with the limited time left in the year being that were already in January and limited meetings throughout the year the thought was to have a much more focused goal under each of the subcommittees. I just want to remind everybody that this work is advisory. It's not that this committee can go

018and make changes without them coming to the board. It's not like it's just they're making changes and this what this what happens in the school district. And I just want to reiterate that our curriculum has been online for over 10 years. So if there's issues in the curriculum, you the curriculum has been open to the public for over 10 years. It's posted. It does not mean there may not be individual teachers. Um but the actual curriculum, if it's in the curriculum, it should be posted online. It's the same documents that the teachers use. It's not like we post a different curriculum online than what we use. So the first one being curriculum audit and antibbias anti-racism efforts with students. That's one of the subcommittees. Uh formalizing a process for auditing curriculum for US history curricula

019grades 5, 8, and 11 as a model. Increase committee knowledge about how curriculum is written and implemented. An example to make it more meaningful here. examine varied perspectives perspectives uh representation inclusivity within existing units of study as well as newly crafted units of study. So the thought would be that this committee would look at our current curriculum in those areas and look at what changes may be made. It does not mean they go and make those changes without them coming in front of the board for approval. So those were the areas for that subcommittee. Next, the parent and family community outreach. Create opportunities for family and students from different communities to interact socially and culturally to share with and learn from one another such as community events, community conversations, for example, community book clubs, guest

020speakers, multicultural fairs, and celebrate vast foods, art, and music. This whole notion here is that this is outside of the school, and that it's voluntary for those people who are interested in participating. And the thought was those various items there would help be of interest to some and expand understanding and also get people to integrate and socialize professional learning for educators and other members of school staff. Develop a district-wide equity statement to ground our collective work to foster transparent and common purpose. This equity statement would be something that would be brought to the board. The board would give input and either adopt, modify, or create their own. But the thought was to let those on the committee put some thought into what the equity statement might be to represent the district. Recruitment and recruitment and

021retention of diverse workforce. For a number of years, there's been an equity and minority recruitment fair that CRE sponsors. And I could tell you that most districts in the state attend that job fair. Um there's not an abundance of minority candidates for teaching positions. We've attended that job fair for a number of years and continue to. The the what's going across the state is the promotion of equity and that we were looking for diverse candidates for our teaching positions. So this thought here is to investigate strategies that other school districts are using to attract and retain diverse workforce. again coming back to the board to determine if that's something that Berlin wants to adopt. Some of the surrounding districts are now adopting what's a program called it's a resident um teacher and residence and that

022it's for minority candidates where a district would pay for that candidate to be a pair professional for a year and then provide that that job opportunity for that teacher the following year. That's not something that Berlin has in their budget for this year, but you have communities around us that are offering that opportunity. Those are the types of things, an example of what may come forward as potential areas that we could go towards. It does not mean we have to. Again, it's coming back to the board for discussion. I'll just reiterate, it is an advisory committee. Why does that always come to you? If if I know that's so wrong, but let me respond. When you get into my budget, the position in Berlin public schools since I've been here is we hire the best

023person for the job. We're not and I and I'll show you that with how much money we spend to do that, but I assure you that that's the case. And if that is a minority candidate, we hire the minority candidate. If it's not, we don't. If it's a Berlin resident, we hire them. If it's not, we don't. But that's always been the case and that that remains. I'm telling you, just trying to share with you what may come from these subcommittees and what others are doing. It does not mean that every town's doing it. It doesn't mean that Berlin's does it, but these are things that come through a committee to have discussion. I think what's gotten lost with this committee is it was something that a board chair said, I want this to happen.

024that board chair is not here anymore, but it was a board decision to do this. And in doing that, yes, some of the work was being done in the school and some of the comments that were made this evening about teaching about fairness, being kind. We taught habits of the mind for years and all those things were encompassed in habits of mind. Is some of that included in the equity work? Absolutely. And is it all about race upfront? No, it's not. Is it embedded in there? Yes, it is. Various programs, we're looking at them. We're hearing people loud and clear that we want to see what else is out there and that maybe there were jumps. Let me finish please. Maybe there were some jumps to some things that we couldn't do. But being in

025being being in the greater social circle of education, it is happening very strong in some towns, not as strong in others, and maybe not all in others. So, we're we're definitely hearing the community and that okay, let's take a deeper look at this and where we're going with it. But I think the message of treating people right has always been always been something that's been at the heart of of what all of us do. Okay. And and I this is my 29th or 29th or 30th year in Berlin. So it's always been there. Um so that was the fourth one. And the fifth one, school culture and student opportunities. Create a community of learners who are empathetic, knowledgeable, inclusive of a diverse people and backgrounds by implementing workshops, guest speakers, and programming that diversifies perspectives

026K12. Other examples may include extracurricular clubs, activities beyond the school day. Again, giving people an opportunity should they choose to get involved, they have that opportunity to get involved in that area. And that is something that we've done in clubs forever. If a student comes up to a teacher, says, "I'm interested in this. I got six friends." Oftentimes a teacher will say, "Fine." And that six friends grows to 12. Then it becomes a club. If it becomes larger, you may even put a statement to it because now you got 30 or 40 kids involved. So that's that's nothing that hasn't been happening before. So I present to a board and obviously the public that heard this evening. This is the a bridged or narrower scope for the uh equity work for the remaining portion of

027this year. The thought was that we'd move forward with this work and then at the end of the school year in June or July at a board meeting, we'd have a report of where we are in these areas and the board would be able to give it the thumbs up to move forward and look to set new goals in these areas or or look to new committees or or just a kind of an overview of where we are and what's the next step. Any questions? So, at this time, this is where we're going to open it up for board discussion. Um before we put a motion on the table and move forward with this, the only time just just to inform everyone here because I know this is important to a lot of people on

028all different angles. Um this isn't a back and forth with the community. What I would recommend is as you're sitting there and you're thinking of questions, email the board. Our emails are right on the website. Get your questions out there. I don't know if they'll be answered tonight depending on what board member goes to. really don't know. Um but we do want to make sure we are addressing questions and we are following up and you know we do our best. Um and that's really all we can do. That's that's what we strive to do. We're volunteers and we're just trying to do our best. Um so first off, thank you Superintendent Benigny and those who helped put you know this revised draft together. Um, I know for me I had a number of questions after

029last meeting and you know my two look very different. So before I start asking my questions, I'm going to throw it out to the board members to see if they have anything. Um Jamie, if you have questions, I don't know if you want to wait a little bit and then ask them or how you want to go about it. Okay, you'll just wait a little bit. Okay. So, board members, the floor is yours. Question. Um, hang on one second. Let the Let him turn the mic on. Yep. the the social justice standards that supposedly were implemented. Um I have a copy of them. They are online um in one of the meetings uh in the minutes. And I'm not sure I understand when you're saying that this is the action plan. Has this program already

030been implemented in for the children to be learning now or are we still waiting to approve what's going to go forward? Um I I have the copy of it. So I don't know is that happening now or are we waiting for that to happen? The equity and social justice committee as such just started with the former board chair. Equity work was being done in the buildings prior to this and that's what Dr. Mcgherk referred to and the standards the standards that are referred to there were the standards that that were being used the same ones that the committee used last meeting um that I was present at. So they came from where where they they they how did they materialize? They just I mean who who put that all together? That was something that was

031done with the curriculum office that the standards were looked at and that's a framework that was chose to use by the collective group that was there. But as far as those were shared with those were shared with the charge of starting the committee as well as with when the curriculum committee when they looked at where they would go with it that was the one that they chose. So okay there was no other there was no other options on the table at that time in terms of what we could to be totally to be totally honest with you I couldn't tell you if there was or wasn't even as a superintendent um at that time I was not present at work. And was there was there a fee for that? Was there No, it wasn't. There

032was there was a fee. There wasn't that there was a fee. I I think you find that you know the standards that were being used are coming under scrutiny now that being used at the time. I'm not so sure that some of the ones that are being recommended aren't going to come under scrutiny by another group. So to say that these are the wrong and those are the right, I think that that could be decision by the board. Um, but I think that you're going to find pieces in each that there's overlap and you're going to find pieces that may push one group some way and one belief another way in those standards. And I think part of it is that's really been, you know, through emails and discovery since of the roots of what

033group started those standards and there's a strong in that a certain group was linked back to years ago starting certain standards and were brought forward. So, I'm not going to tell you that all the work of the equity is is totally rooted in those standards, but I think that there's like I said, I think there's overlap in both. But as far as was it brought to the board to say these are the standards to be used and so on. There was equity work being done before those standards. Someone didn't start and say these are the standards and we're just going to go in that direction. So really quick, Superintendent Benedi, I think this is important for board members as well as the greater community to understand um what can happen on the district level without

034coming to the board and what has to come to the board. Can you just differentiate between that because I know if there's certain professional developments if in-house you know you have a faculty member who's wellversed in that they they can do that on a professional development day and that's not a board issue. Um but can you just specify for everyone please? Sure. what would come to the board if there's a policy change if there was a a change that we were adopting a certain curriculum then it should come to the board to say that the standards are being used there's nothing in the curriculum that says this has been changed in the curriculum because of these standards so I think it's important to note that there's you're not going to find a well that we're

035looking at the the standards um and now this is why the curriculum changed so that would have said that we're going to work on equity work and the equity work we're going to use these standards there could have been other standards used also um to to build the framework that's being used. Um I I as I said I'm not at first to start where the start was. As I said I wasn't in work at the time so I apologize for that. Um but it started off the work started in the schools because there was a desire and a need from SK staff um as well as students to look at equity. But I go back to we de devoted habits of the mind. The same tenor. We didn't go to the board to say we're

036going to use habits of the mind. We started it. The board was got a presentation on it and then we integrated it differently at each level. Um we worked that through for many years. So I even though it's a little different with equity work, it's a similar model. So was that clear? Did that like clarify your question? If you still have more, please I encourage you to ask because there's there's other things that I I'm hearing that are happening in the classroom that are a little concerning. And if I was, you know, my kids are older now and out of the school, but if they were in the school and these things were being brought up, I would definitely uh it would raise a red flag for me. And one of them is queer theory.

037Um I'm told that, you know, these are English prompts that kids are writing about and being asked to describe it what they think it is. If that's the case, I would encourage the whoever that is to step forward. That's not in our curriculum. I don't know where that would be being taught. Um it's it's at the high school. Okay. If you if if you could share more with me, then we would definitely look into that. But that's not that's not part of our curriculum. That that is a Well, that that's why I'm asking because it's very it's a little alarming. Um, there's a lot of material in there that's very controversial and sensitive and I don't think that that's something that should even be put into a high school kid's head at this point. Um,

038unless, you know, I mean, if he wants to study whatever in college, that's certainly up to them. But on a high school level, K through 12, I I mean, I have a whole print out of what it is because I had to look it up because, you know, as soon as you say the word queer theory, you know, your mind goes everywhere. Um, but it's just it's very disturbing. So, but I think it's important to know where you're saying it's being taught in the high school. Is it an essay that a student is writing because they want they choose to write on that? And if that let finish if that if that is and it's still meeting the standards and that student's writing to those standards of what's expected and they choose to write on

039queer theory. Hang on. Can you clarify what standard? Let's let's say let's say they're writing let's say they're talking about the CCSS standards. Right. Right. If they were using that and that was the topic and they had free choice and that's what a student chose to write on because that was their interest and it was done appropriately appropriately meaning it's meeting whatever the rubric is stated then I wouldn't look at that as a violation of the curriculum or going outside the curriculum. If the teacher standing in front of the class saying today I'm going to teach you about queer theory and you're all going to write about it and do research about it. That's different. That's in the curriculum. So there there is there is a level of student interest that especially when it comes

040to writing that can take place. But to say that every student is mandated to do something that's different. That's the curriculum. Curriculum is saying but there is some autonomy in it for students to of interest so that they buy into what they're doing and they're interested in it. Even if it's something that may be offensive to some and not others, there is that individualization. So I'll gladly respond just if you want. So just respond. But I really don't wanted us to create a culture with the audience of doing a back and forth because that's how then we're not creating a fair meeting. So I'm going to let Superintendent Benigny answer. But really quick, so one thing I tell everyone within the community and I know Tracy says the same. I know Matt says the same.

041Jamie's there. I know we have two new board members and I've said the same to them. anytime you hear about something such as queer theory, whoever you're hearing it from, say, "Let me know what class and who that teacher is." Because a lot of times what I what I find is so then I bring something back to superintendent Benigny and then he he will look into it further. He doesn't always just come back and say, "No, that's not happening." Like he our superintendent does do his due diligence and looks into matters and he'll come back and it's one of three things. And I'm not just talking about that. Just in general, whether it's an issue at recess all the way through curriculum or policy. One, it's happening. Two, there's a variation. Or three, it's not

042happening. However, by finding out who that teacher is, what class it's happening in, he can do his job. But until we have that, he can't do his job. We can't do ours. So for anyone out here today at home listening who's not sitting on the board as you're hearing these things, find out and and I'm not just talking about things that relate to um equity and social justice, anything that's concerning about Burland public schools because we strive to make our schools as good as possible for all students in town. And we cannot address issues unless we know where they're coming from. and then the superintendent we hire to do this work has the opportunity to do so. So that I just want to and then now I'll turn it back over to you. If that

043was a topic that the teacher was requiring all students to write about, I'd want to know about it. The principal would want to know about it and there would be discussions about what topic that's not in the curriculum to cover that topic. So again, because you're getting an aspect of each individual view. You want me to respond? You want to respond? Tell me. So, so I have a few comments. So, I'm going to go back to my first about making it fair for everyone in here. And I know this is important to a lot of you and that's why you're here tonight. And I want to make sure that your questions are heard and you have the opportunity to have these conversations. So again after this meeting after you hear what's presented please reach out

044to the entire board myself personally any individual board member superintendent bidding me he's always happy to meet but we need him to get through this and we need the board to be able to have our discussion and we can't do that right now. So that's number one. Number two I need to make sure this meeting is fair for everyone and we're not going to have discussion. Town council meetings don't do that. Board of finance meetings do not do that. you have to do it during the audience of citizens. Um in in our board of education, we need to follow the Robert's rules of order that we have set in place. And also um you know, so I recommend if anyone has any issues, please join the committee. That is most important right now. The committee

045hasn't met this year. We're just trying to get through board of education business and we ask that everyone here just allow us as board of education to get through our business and we can field questions after. My cell phone again is on the website. Call me. Everyone's phone number is on the website, our emails. So, I'm going to turn it back over to the superintendent so the board can conduct business and we can continue discussing as a board. Go ahead, Superintendent Beni. email us. So then do exactly that. Email the board. We everyone has their phones out right now or iPads. We will see it. But right now, we have to conduct board of education business. And if we are unable to do so, we are going to have to table this until our next

046meeting. And I'm not going to continue with it. So that's what we have to do. So go ahead. Um, so right now I'm going to call a recess for the board of education. So let's just go ahead and take a recess and we can convene. in five minutes. I'm not saying that it has to be done now, but next time we can discuss it as easier. I called a recess with the board of education. So, we're going to take five minutes. You can answer that final question and then we're going to come back in five minutes. So, with the direction of the board, I have no problem. And the board of education meeting in this form is not the Thank you. Um, and again, we are going to follow our Robert's rules of order, and

047I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Tenza to ask his first question. So, I'm not sure it's going to come across as a question as much as it's going to come across as I hope it's a clarification and you can verify it, Brian. My understanding of this [clears throat] this committee is it's made up of administrators, teachers, towns people, town leaders, a whole group of people from within the community. Correct. If I'm not mistaken, there's 40 or 45 people on this committee. Is that right? That's correct. Okay. And that committee meets to look at the community of Berlin and how we work within the social equity realm. Yes. It it looks at equity and social justice within the community and how to improve that within the community. what what areas we could look to

048improve. And what's on the board behind me are recommendations that came out of that committee work. They met from June through October, November because this came before us in December. So the first right it's work that they worked on last year and in the beginning of this year I believe. Okay. And what's being asked of the board tonight is if these five items the board is okay with them pursuing this further and more in depth. Yes. That they would look at it doesn't have anything to do with voting on curriculum, implementing curriculum or anything like that at this point. I and I'm just trying to get right. So I just rejoined the board in November. So this is new to me as well because the committee was made after I left and now I'm coming

049back. So just is that correct? Because it's advisory. The thought was that the subcommittees that were formed from groups of the larger committee looked the their recommendations of areas they wanted to focus on. These were the five areas. We took I should say we meaning Aaron and myself and a few others took pieces of suggestions from them and created these five individualized areas under each of the five. Correct. Because the draft that given that was given to us in December was significantly longer. Right. And one of the issues that we had was it was so drawn out and long that it it was too cumbersome to work with it. That is correct. And that's why you got the modified version here. So what you're what what is being asked of us tonight is are we

050okay as a board moving forward meaning the telling the advisory board yes you're on the right path to continue this work. Yes. And the and the whole notion would be that come June or July, whether it be myself or assistant superintendent Mcgherk or members of the SCUP committee would come and present on each area and tell you what they did to support that or what they hope to do in the future and they get again feedback from the board whether we're in the right direction or we shouldn't be going in that direction or there should be a different focus. What I was hoping to do for the folks that have taken their time to be in front of us was to assure them that we're not we're not looking to implement anything in the schools

051at this point in time. It's just deciding whether or not this meets what the original intent of the board's commissioning of the commission, if you will, forming of the commission is is moving in the right is in the appropriate direction. that that's what I'm hoping to kind of get out of this line of line of questions. I sound like a lawyer. I'm not. But that's where I was trying to go with this. Now, I do have other questions. I know other board members do as well, and hopefully that will also help set some of what you're concerned about at ease. But like my very first question regarding the curriculum piece is you talked about a curriculum audit. Who's going to do that audit? Is that going to be internal or will we look for an

052external organization to audit our curriculum? It would be internal. As we look at the curriculum, it would go through curriculum council. It would be internal. Okay. So, it would be our social studies, it'd be our social studies department chair, it'd be our district social studies department leader. It'd be the assistant superintendent involved. It'd be the curriculum council um to look at that. So, really quick. When a company gets audited, the auditors are not going in and making changes to the company, they're going through assessing and coming back with recommendations depending on well, if it's IRS, it's a little bit different. But if you have external auditors or internal auditors so through that audit, they're not making changes. And another important thing in here is increased committee knowledge about how curriculum is written. I know a

053Maya and someone who lives in curriculum. I think that's important to share with people who do not know about curriculum, write curriculum um and live in that world. And I I think that's important. That was for me one of the, you know, issues I had previously. It was you're going to have all these people auditing curriculum, but if they don't have the background or knowledge, how are they going to successfully do so? And that even came up over the summer. So Matt, not to, you know, take your questions away, but just to further clarify that, you know, an audit is not making changes and implementing the changes and then telling the board all these changes that were made. Coming up with some findings, presenting to the board, we choose what direction we go in. So

054I'll turn it back over to you, Matt. Okay. [clears throat] I actually will have a question, I think, on each of the five items here. So, regarding parent, family, community outreach, how how does the committee, and you may not know the answer, Brian, and it's okay, is how does the committee plan on getting the message out to parents so they know how to get involved if they want to. I don't know the exact answer, but typically it would be by an invite. It wouldn't be as though you would be required. So if the there was an activity that was happening outside of school, it may be something that's sent out to say we're doing a book club. If you'd like to join the book club, you know, respond here. So it would be almost like

055an advertisement almost um to anyone that's interested. But um I'm thinking about this gentleman here who's now been to two of our meetings and having sit on this this board for a number of years, that doesn't happen that often. So thank you. um if he wants to get involved with the committee itself, how would he do that? The committee itself is open to anyone who would like to join and that's just an email to the assistant superintendent. Um that's how it started. So anyone who wanted to join the committee, an email to the assistant superintendent or a phone call to the board of ed and say you'd like to join, we'll get you in the right spot and we'll get your email, we'll get you on the committee. Okay. I'm just looking for ways that

056we can let people know that this is how they can get involved so they can get, you know, some of their their voices heard, right? So, here's folks that came to us that are not part of the committee, but they have they have voices here and they would like to be heard. And I and I I understand that because, you know, I have questions myself of of how this is going. Um, when we talk about develop a district-wide equity statement to ground our collective work, um, is this simply people within the school district that would that would create this um, equity statement or is it going to be something that comes from the collective of the committee? The subcommittee would be the one that would probably do the first draft. It may go to the

057full committee first. We've not flushed out. May go to full committee first. It may go to administrative council to look at it before it come. The ultimate the last stop would be the board of ed for approval or adjustments or modifications. Okay. Um I really don't have a question about recruitment and retention because I'm a big advocate of we hire the the best qualified person regardless of of anything. So, we're good with that one. Um, and school culture and student opportunities. Um, I I don't necessarily have a question. I just I believe and I hope that whatever it is opportunities we have for our students that they obviously are um inclusive and um are good learning opportunities for them. So, those are my again, I don't have a lot of questions, but I also wanted

058to try to set up some clarification for the folks here. Um, so Julie, I turn it back over to you to anybody else has questions on the board. Brian, thank you. Thank you, Brian, for answering those and thank you Matt for your questions. Um, okay. So, I know Melissa hasn't been able to uh share her question, so go ahead. I appreciate Matt asking for the clarification because obviously being new on the board, I'm feel like I'm playing a little bit of catchup and I just want to make sure you know obviously things are clearly understood. So, as Matt clarified, um, these action steps, so we're not voting on anything to be adopted or any change in the curriculum, but I do want to ask because obviously certain things need to be approved by the board.

059Um, and I understand that with the committee, the dynamic of the committee changed in the last couple years, but the learning for justice standards, when were they adopted? I'm trying to understand. I can't tell you when they were adopted to be honest with you. I can't tell you if that was something. It wasn't that it ever came before the board to be adopted. It wasn't It wasn't that it was ever shared with staff to say these are the standards that were forming everything behind. They were used within the committee. That's what I can tell you. They were used with the committee. So they're not adopted standards. Correct. Or did you find somewhere that they That's why I have a question because it's this learning for justice social justice standards are on are in our curriculum.

060So I want to know says that. Yep. Online through our portal. Okay. So I want to know when they were that means they had to be approved by the board. Am I correct in saying that because it's a change of curriculum. So I'm just trying to understand they they wouldn't they wouldn't have gone that would not have gone to the board to take the standards. That would have been something that would work that was done when curriculum work was done at some point and I'd have to look back to see when they were written in the curriculum. But that's not something that happened through this committee. I don't believe in recent times. put in I think it's happened that happened years ago when when work was being done on equity and social justice within not

061that it was a district initiative it was being done in individual schools and so on so that's where they might come in I'd have to look and see so superintendent Beningi we can come back to that question I just think it's up an answer if we don't have the right answer right now but we we will make sure we come back to that so keep going with your questions. Um well, give me a second. I got Yeah, that's fine. Because as they changed from the um the draft to the other draft. So, while you gather your thoughts, um Gina, Tracy, or Matt on this end, do you have any questions right now? I I just would like to know, is there a criteria that needs to be met for the teachers? Is there a you

062know when when they do this these action plans here when it gets implemented are they going to be you know looked at in terms of whether or not they meet a certain criteria for this audit right is there a box they have to check or is somebody going to say you didn't meet this certain criteria to to get it accomplished or to to get it through? Well, I think that the the subcommittee would offer suggestions of what they would do, but the assistant superintendent is is the head of that the equity work and as well as there's multitude of administrators on the committee. So, it's not as though the work would just okay, we're just going to implement it. So, that shouldn't take place in that manner. Um, you know, as I said, to go

063back, the equity work that was being done in the schools prior to this committee wasn't an issue until the committee came forward and then became an issue. Um, and you know, that's that's why we're trying to be more transparent about what the work would be and how it would come forward. So, um, so can you Sure. What you said that there wasn't an issue, but it came forward and now it is an issue. So what was the issue that it's when it becomes a formalized subcommittee of the board that's when so work can happen on a district level that doesn't always necessary again if teachers want to run professional development that doesn't come through the board or if superintendent bidding finds that you know something has to happen with his teachers that doesn't come through

064the board um but then when things become and we learned this last year we didn't know and you know and I know I had and Superintendent Bedney and I had a number of conversations with a number of community members um on both sides of it but when you formalize it make it a subcommittee of the board that's when everything changes and really has to start coming through but do you want to add to that I I just think that the work that was being done is being said now that oh we did equity work you adopted this or that before it was formalized through the board and things the work was being done but not on a collective district wide an initiative like this. Now it's through the board. The board is looking at all

065the goals. It's the board subcommittee. Before it was curriculum that was being done in the building. It wasn't that we said when we did habits of the mind or we're doing ruler training right now which is which is through Yale and you know Mark Brackett. It's not something that came through the board. We're going to do ruler training but the board has had presentations on it. They're aware of it. Their support for it. As I said previously, I think it's important to note that the board chair at the time put this initiative forward and said, "You're going to have a subcommittee and you're going to do X, Y, and Z." That's how this committee came forward and that's how the formalization of this work was going on. So to for me to sit stand here,

066I'm not ready to say to you this is the date this happened. That's that I don't have the knowledge of when that was put in in that certain time. Um I can get I can ask the right questions to the curricul you know the superintendent of curriculum instruction and see if it was prior or later. I can get back to you on that. I don't know exactly to say when it it became um you know documented in a minute. I can go back and track through Atlas Rubicon which is where it is and find out when it was entered. And I think if a major curriculum change is happening, that's when it goes to the committee and then that's when it comes to the board. if you know I as a classroom teacher start choosing

067to teach to certain um standards because you know that's what my school is instilling and I believe in and I want to push or my school doesn't but I choose to I like I can do that but then you know if it comes to the board it's either a board issue or non-board issue and I think one thing I've learned sitting here over the past six years there are board issues issues and there are non board issues. There are issues where that goes to the superintendent. Um and again like you're going to have teachers who are conservative all the way through liberal the whole end. And and though I in my own classroom try not to bring my own views and try and stay as neutral as possible, you do have people who do that

068and that's human nature. And I'm not saying it's, you know, right or wrong, but you you it does exist like anywhere it's going to exist in society. Um, but that does not mean our superintendent is going to convocation and saying this is a political or liberal or conservative stance we're going to take. So, we're all going to take it and I want you guys to all start, you know, feathering in these standards. That's really not how it happens. Um, but And so to Superintendent Bedignney's point, this started under a different board chair and here we are with this committee. And so this committee is important to a lot of people at our community that too. And so we we as a board of education need to find a balance where this work can get done

069in a way where we're supporting the people who this matters to the most but at the same time being cognizant of all viewpoints and all backgrounds and understanding. You know, I think about certain, you know, if we have minority teachers, how would they feel working in Berlin if they knew that this committee were to be dissolved and then, you know, we don't support minority candidates? Like that's not the town we are. But if we are sitting here saying we're going to dissolve this committee or you know the I don't think taking a stance like that at this point is the direction we're No, not at all. But I think that we need to step aside like people need to just step aside from left, right, conservative, liberal. It doesn't matter. We need to think about

070how are we educating the children to be glo global citizens. The work can get done through this subcommittee. It's an advisory committee. Everything comes back through the board. So this committee exists and that is it. So, I don't want to have to recess again. I am not going to run a meeting where I have people yelling at me. Again, I've told you I am available and I'm happy to talk. So, other board members. Do we have any other questions? Melissa, I'm sorry. What other questions do you have? Well, I mean, the other questions I had were to the old draft. So, certain wording has been taken out because I did have questions about um you know, it talked about creating a bank of lessons and I wanted to know where the lessons came from, but

071they took that out of the curriculum audit from there. So I think we'll just take some more time just you know gather your thoughts if you have additional um superintendent bidding me do you have anything you want to add right now that h you know has been lingering that you have I just think in going through and condensing and streamlining what was currently there we tried to make it much cleaner much narrower in a sense that what we're looking at accomplishing for the committee to accomplish makes sense starting in January and ending in June. Um and and the thought was that if the board can support that, the board would get feedback on that and then look to what are the next steps when we come and review it in June or July. So at

072this point, nothing has been implemented from the subcommittee. This is the action plan to make the next step to implement. As far as I said, I'm going to say this in as I said to you earlier, this document I just was able to get together today because the assistant superintendent is the one leading the work and she's been out sick since last week. I'm not trying to make excuses. So, my understanding is before the subcommittee and we've gotten emails saying they want to meet, why aren't we meeting? We need to get this document in place so we know what the work should be for the remainder of the year. Tracy, what would you like to add? Because I know you. Um, so that you could I could add a lot on this. Um, I'm a

073parent, too. So, and I have concerns and when I have concerns and when my kid comes home saying something that was taught or was said or was mentioned and they're uncomfortable or something, we have our own discussion at home. If I feel that it's something that is implemented in a way I wouldn't want to be in the school, then I make a phone call and email to the teacher to make sure first I got the story right because they're children and we go from there, which I hope a lot of people if you do have concerns, that's something I really want you to address it, you know, to go around that avenue as well. Not that I'm perfect in that. Um the committee though is when I sit here and I see passionate parents saying

074that you know they feel very passionate about something. I am a completely love that people are here saying how they feel. That is so so important especially parents in a community. as much as you're here now. A year ago, we were overly bombarded before um these ladies joined us uh through some pretty hostile stuff about our town on the opposite direction. And the leader at the time, I think, kind of felt probably panicked and created something which was this committee. And so as much as we have people here, we also were in a position um and a lot of us had no idea what was going on at the time, but it was it was intense. So we have both sides of all spectrums here. Um as I want to say, nothing is happening though.

075All this is is a committee. They are not going to be changing things and implementing things and doing stuff on their own. They're going to be looking at things and maybe they find everything is fantastic. Maybe they're thinking, "Oh, well, maybe we could find something else." And there's a very diverse people on this committee. It's not one side. It's very diverse and very open. Um, so with that, nothing is happening. They're just going to be discussing and looking. I do am the only thing, and not that I'm saying I'm uncomfortable, but I just saw when you came here this new one. I when I printed everything yesterday, I had the old two-page thing and I I wasn't aware we have a new one until she showed it to me. So, I mean, I don't know

076what you want to do with that, but none of us saw that at like one and print everything at 2:30. So, yeah. And I understand that, too. I understand that, you know, like when Superintendent Bedney stood up there and started, he said that this just fell on his lap. So, I know that a a better part of his day was going through and taking our old one where we all had significant questions to uploading the new one. And um and again, we're we are missing three board members this evening for other reasons. Four, three. Anyway, um and and again I you know I do want to say that this document has come a far has come far since the last time we've met was shaping the work and giving direction to the advisory committee. Um,

077another difference that I do want to bring up is in our subcommittees, we have FNO committee, we have community engagement and we have curriculum. The work that's getting done in those committees is very different than this committee. This is an advisory only. So they they have these goals of grounding and framing their work and then they make recommendations and bring it forward. what the board chooses to do with it is what the board chooses to do. But I will say that, you know, we are a diverse board with different opinions and thoughts and backgrounds and values. And that's why it's important that they do the work, they bring it forward, then the board takes the next steps, which that will not be happening till June. Um, is that helpful to Yeah. What do you mean

078it won't start until June? So, they will have meetings. There will be those four meetings that we had talked about. Yep. But there'll be these these sentences, right? There's about, you know, there's one one sentence for each subcommittee of this advisory committee. This is the framing of their work. So, as you can see, last month's the curriculum audit and antibbias anti-racist efforts with students, there were three goals and it was lengthy, right? that was comprised of four uh sentences. We've well superintendent Benedign and his administrators have got it down to one frame the work. It's more you know micro focus and it's not you know all out there where they're they don't have any guidance or direction. the parent family community outreach. Again, three points, three sentences. They got it down to one sentence. Um,

079and gave some examples. And as I look through the examples and I think about my education growing up in Walpole, Massachusetts and East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, you know, very similar to Berlin, I had a multicultural affair. Actually, Berlin is more diverse than where I grew up. My my town was just all white. Um, and we had multicultural affairs uh both in 1989 and 1997. So I don't think that that is too far off base. Um, you know, so the work is framed. It's carefully framed. It's specific. Um, and all that the motion would do tonight and the vote would be yes, the committee can go forward and you know, do the take these action steps and bring it back to the board in June. So, it does not mean that they are going to be setting

080up book clubs, guest speakers, multicultural affairs. Um, they're going to be advising the board and bringing recommendations back. But isn't that what that's stating? Isn't if you the parent family community outreach, aren't they already suggesting that? So I'm a little but they're not suggesting what the parent community outreach is. So if you're saying as a board that you would like them to put together a list of what they plan to do and that's their charge to find speakers and so on and the board would like to approve that before it goes. I'm totally comfortable with that. So that way the board would have things in each area. They would come up with them and then you can vote on it and say whether you like it or not for each area. I'm totally fine with

081that. Okay. I mean, as I I just want to go back to say this was a board subcommittee that the superintendent was charged with putting in place. So, I'm totally comfortable even with the standards to be, you know, you can direct me to go back and look at the standards that are being used and we can go back and look at whatever standards you want to use as a board. We can go back look at those standards and there can be as much as people are debating certain standard tonight. maybe others that debate another and the board could have the say of what standards that should be used and which ones are most appropriate. It's not to say that myself that's what was brought forward um and trusting those that were on the committee, but

082if the board feels they're not best representative of the community, it's okay to say we might want to shift from those standards. It's open for whatever the board would like the subcommittee. So I just don't want I don't want it to be said that you know this is the superintendent or assistant superintendent just going and doing it because there really was a charge by the board chair to do it. There wasn't a framework put on what should be done or how it should be done or what should come back. So I think what all of you decide is what's going to be the process in the future along with what I'm putting in front of you or or the committee. So Julie I have a yes go ahead. I have a suggestion. Yes. Um there

083are only five items here. While our agenda says that we can approve as presented as a board, we also have the opportunity to approve sections and we can table sections. So if we went through the five and said, okay, so the first one, are there any issues with that or do we feel we can move forward with that? then we can move things forward because my understanding is this this committee is on basically on hold until the board either says no to all of it or yes to all of it or or some of it. So, like some of the some of the items on here I don't think anybody's necessarily going to have an issue with. Like number two, I can't imagine that the board would have a problem with the committee coming back

084to us with a list of ideas of how they want to to bring things out. That would be community outreach. Um, but it's just a suggestion because then at least the superintendent can take something back to them and move forward. Will it all to your point investigate strategies that other school districts are using to attract again there's there's no harm in doing so. It these committee meetings are happening outside work hours. So even employees who are sitting on it it's not costing human capital hours like it's not affecting our budget. Um and I think it's I think in education a large portion of being an educator and working in education is collaborating and seeing what others are doing and you know stealing ideas and so on and so forth. Um so the other option here

085is to table it again but hold perhaps a public forum where it is an open discussion with you back and forth. And that's I think what a number of us were probably heading towards. But keep going. So I I mean those are the two options, but what it does do is it just kind of puts everything on hold for another another period of time. And I just say that because I know that we have two members who are actually supposed to be part of this committee and they are yet to be part of a meeting because they haven't met since. Yeah. which is kind of I mean I would like to have a meeting to see it, hear it, be a part of it, not reading, you know, the getting as little from the minutes.

086So, is that possible? Can we hold a meeting? Um, you guys being on the chair of that committee, Mr. Beni, can they do that? Just hold a prime a meeting to so they can get their feet wet. so to say, to see what that committee is about, to hear from that committee and their plans. Even though we see it on paper, but for them to get to know them, and then have a public meeting where the committee can come and we have our members who have on the committee, you know, seeing what's going on, hear from the community and then vote to however go forward with this or or whatever. Is that possible? I mean, I don't want to to to have a community forum on equity and social justice and what the committee should

087be and what this what the how the community feels about it is totally fine. What about holding a meeting though before that with I mean the social that subcommittee they haven't had a meeting yet. So have them have a meeting with our two chair the two chairs before the the thing. Right Matt? Isn't that what you were saying too? Similar that was party years and party years. Yeah. I mean, I completely understand why our our board folks here would want to be at least so at least they know participate in a meeting before we're having right we're asking them to vote on something they haven't even there's no problem with having the meeting. I just don't know the the the group has met multiple times and came up with this with other board members on

088it. So my position would be if you want to meet with them and see how they come up with these ideas and what the committee's like, there's no problem with that. And then to come back and say these may not be the areas you want to focus on. I mean the these these areas came from the subcommittees with the various board members are on it, various community members and so on. So to say that the two new two new board members want to see how the process worked, the board can say go back and look at these areas again and come back. It's entirely up to you what you think. is comfortable to you as a board. So you know when they the first the first document that you received last board meeting was what

089came from the subcommittees and was drafted by Dr. Mcgherk. This was an abridged from that to try to narrow it because there wasn't a level of comfort with those. But if the level of comfort comes from having the meeting then by all means we can have the meeting you can have the forum. However, the board is going to feel comfortable with the committee or without the committee moving forward, we can make that happen. Whatever whatever works, it's not a problem. So, I just think a few things with that. I So, I think adding lots of meetings from now until our next meeting in the middle of budget season, it's going to overwhelm everyone, especially our newest board members. And I want to move to a place where everyone feels supported and has the opportunity to

090have the meetings. Um I think another important point to raise in terms of this committee you know we as a board we are directing we are creating the directive and the charge of where each subcommittee is to go. So, I think, you know, now that this is here, we as a board, whatever place we get to are making that decision, not bringing it back to the committee. They've sent it to us. So, not to like shut you down, Tracy, but that's my thought of this. It's now here. It's with us. So, I know over the summer at some point it had come up that yes, we could have a public forum. However, we need to make sure that we run this public forum in a way where it's um supportive, respectful, and conducive to all

091because we're going to have a number of varying questions. So, the way I would recommend, and again, I'm going to put it on the board for further discussion prior to So, first and foremost, I think this does need to be tabled this evening, and I'm going to tell you why. Thank you, Superintendent Benigny, and your administration for putting this together and really making a number of revisions. However, since we do have three members of our board not here this evening, all for legitimate, very important reasons and people not getting this in schooly until, you know, 1:00, I think it's important again, like I said last month, that we take the time necessary to go through this and again come up with the questions and get the answers. However, I think it's important and like I've

092always said and I've always taken the stance, we hear from our community. The best way to do so, I think, is to have a forum where we can hear from all, but it needs to be run in a respectful way where we would want it to be in our schools in front of our children. So I would ask that you know and we can talk more as a board but questions be emailed in um because I would really hate to you know not be able to conduct business because people are disagreeing on one side over the other and it you know we needed to be respectful and calm and professional. So um board members what are your thoughts on holding a community forum from now until the next meeting? Um, and I know Jamie, you

093were there too, so you can also chime in. I know you didn't get to ask any of your questions. I apologize. So, um, Jamie, do you be before I put this back on the board to talk about a forum before prior to our next meeting, do you have any comments or thoughts that you would like to bring up because everyone's have the chance to talk. It's up to you. Um, first of all, can you hear me? Okay. So, this is a very contentious subject. It's been that way since we started this committee. Um, I think whichever direction we go, it's difficult to um make sure that everyone is heard and respond responded to in a respectful way. We've had this issue um several times with this committee. I think that asking or having a community

094forum I it can go one of two ways. I rather honestly have a discussion with Brian and the individuals who have questions and need answers. Um and and then those who would like to attend um some like we do with the um you know parent meeting that um Brian has um I don't think that it's gotten In past conversations that we've had, um, we've had people that have felt very disrespected and it's become, um, a lot of angry people and we're to this point right now where I don't honestly feel like we've gotten very far. So, I don't know honestly what my feelings are. I think that my problem last time was the wording just seemed kind of condescending and I wanted it to change so that everyone felt like um it was worded in

095a more respectful way. It's kind of changed now so that the wording is a little different. Um but honestly I I would need to think on it more. It's different than what it was um our last meeting. But having the community forum again, I feel like anytime there is questions, Brian has been more than willing to have group discussions. Um, I think maybe that's more the way to go. I don't I don't know honestly. That's just my personal thought. Yes. And I think also there could be a way where we've done it at other meetings where we have um questions going like an email that goes to the whole board. So as questions come up, people can send those in even if they're sitting here or at home and then you know we take them

096as we go. And that has also we've found that to be very effective. I know Matt had um a question. [snorts] Matt, you would like to turn it over to our student board reps. We we would like to hear from you too if you were interested in sharing your thoughts. Any any thoughts? No. Oh. Oh, we're okay. We're okay. Oh, thank you for wanting to stay. Oh, I thought you were asking if they could share, of course. And like I told you guys at the last meeting, you guys are always welcome to share. That's why we have you on our board. Um, so Melissa, what are your thoughts on doing a community forum prior to the next meeting? I think if people were to present the questions obviously it's something that I haven't been a

097part of and you know other bar board members have had experience you know with the forum so I can't you know for say which direction it's going to go but at least especially being you know on the community engagement committee I mean I would encourage the community to present their questions and have the opportunity to hear their questions heard. So like you said, if the questions came in and you answered them as they went. So you would So I just want some clarity before we move in a different direction. So would you want people to get up like during audience of citizens or just strictly email them in or you're just not sure yet? open to I would be open to the suggestions based on you know what Jamie had said and you want it

098to be productive but you know at the same time you want the citizens to be heard too so 100%. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Thank you. Um let's go down to Matt other end of the table. What are your thoughts on hosting a community forum prior to the next meeting? Uh I am I'm fine with hosting a forum. Um I think that we found when we were det deciding whether or not we were going to have armed security guards in the school, which at that point was also uh controversial conversation um that we got some really good input and while we did have some back and forth between the two factions, we got some good input and ultimately we made the right decision for the district. So I'm fine with that. I I would suggest emailing questions

099in advance. Um not to quell the voice, but at least to get things started because that will address some of the issues out there. Um and then we just have to monitor how it goes from there. Okay. Thank you. Um Gina, I agree with Matt. I think that um the voices definitely need to be heard. I think because these issues are really controversial and extremely delicate that they need uh the voices of the community. Um parents are concerned. There's so many questions surrounding a lot of these topics and it's very difficult to get a a grasp of what it is the the main objective is what we're really trying to do. Um I haven't been to one meeting. I'm on the subcommittee and because of the timing of when I got on the board, they

100haven't met since. So, I have not been on one meet at one meeting. So, I'm just looking at material information. It's it's overwhelming. Um I'm afraid to vote on something because I don't know, excuse me, [clears throat] what that might lead to down the road. I'm a little bit of a skeptic. Um so, I really need to understand things before I move forward on something. And I know I'm a little late getting on the train, but that doesn't mean that I can't, you know, catch up and understand the information. So I think with regard to that, yes, I would be open to hearing the community and hearing what they have to say because these are really important issues and these are about the kids and you know I I just think we need to really

101spend the time doing that. So thank you Gina Tracy. Hang on really quick. Ladies at the end you're getting called on next. So just giving you a heads up. I want your thoughts on a community forum. Yeah, I mean I'm all for everybody speaking all the time anyway. Um I I do see it could go one of a couple ways like Jamie brought up. I really wasn't thinking about the last few meetings we've had that have been open and what have happened and Jamie kind of brought stuff up. So I would hope if we did do it that this is such a sensitive topic on all sides and that there' be respectful you know somehow do it in a respectful kind way. Um, yeah. Whatever you guys want to do. Um, so lady, I'm gonna

102go to the student board reps. Go ahead. I told them they were next. For Sam and I, I think we would Hang on. Can you just start over? Sorry. Yeah. Speaking just for Sam and I, I think we would kind of echo what has been said and that we would worry a bit about how far we would actually get with the community just because of the differing views and opinions. But I think hearing from the community would be really important just to see what the views are and if anything would be really relevant. Thank you. Thank you for that. Um, so to me as a chair, it seems as if we are going to have a motion to table the draft action steps as presented. But um, our next steps from now until our next

103meeting will be a community forum where we will, you know, communicate. we can have a community engagement committee meeting and find the best ways to message this to our greater community. Um, make sure that everyone is aware, have an general board email set up. Um, so all questions, so how it's worked in the past, we've had one email and it comes to all of us. So people don't have to like I it could be like BOE forum question like at berinschools.org or like something like that. But then it comes to all of us individually and then we can work on preparing what how the questions we're going to address and how they're going to be addressed. And then I think for me too as community members do ask me questions in general. It always gets

104me thinking more and having questions in advance will allow us to prepare and really think about what you know what needs to be answered and concerns and hearing from all um superintendent Benigny what are your thoughts on a community forum that's fine I can draft something that will go to all parents and the community post in the citizen even once we get a date and it'll have the link there so they can send in their questions too so we can get it out to as many people as possible. Um, and then, you know, set up the date and the time and the place and, um, you can give me some guidelines if they want Zoom used and and in person. Um, but we can definitely do that. Um, okay. So, I'm going to just take

105your last question and then we're I can't keep going with the community because then I'm not being fair that I'm going to be at the criticism of everyone. So that's the other question. That's that is a valid point. And you know, I think that when we open up something that big that's going to be that important to so many, we would be here for six hours on end. And again, we are all volunteers. We all have our families. Um, and as much as I think it's important for people to voice their questions, I think the same point like you know five of us might come with all the same question and we all really feel deeply that we need to be heard and we've had it at you know town meetings, budget meetings, other meetings

106where everyone is asking the same question over and over because it's so important to them that they get their voice out whereas if the questions come in we are all getting the questions. So there is that assurance that me as the chair I'm not skipping over questions because I don't like your questions because then we have the rest of the board members and the student reps all seeing them and then that can be a bigger conversation. I just think that you know also with reading questions it could take longer whereas if you know we put the question up there and we could say we've received this question eight times this is with high importance. I think, you know, we have the opportunity to quantify that data a little bit more. Um, and again, I don't

107know what the board thinks is best, but I think that this is going to be collectively developed probably with the community engagement committee. Do you think that two and a half minutes? No. But I think as a committee the the planning of this meeting is going to have to get done on a committee level because we can't meet um separate and have a quorum um and have a secret meeting that's you know certainly not allowed. So this things like this has to happen on the committee level. Um, but I do know for the members of the board of education when we move from two meetings a month to one meeting a month, we've said hold that that fourth Monday as a placeholder in case. So, you know, as Superintendent Bedney and I discussed the calendar.

108Um, I would recommend anyone sitting here now, board members and our student board reps, um, if you foresee any issues with, um, the 24th or the 31st, just definitely let me know. Um, we Oh, we have it. So, then the 31st, I guess it would probably be or I will be open to other suggestions. We can send out a Google form and get times and dates. Um, that's actually probably going to be what's best. We're probably going to have to coordinate and send out a Google form tomorrow with our times and dates. Make sure, you know, do our best so it doesn't interfere with other, you know, town meetings so everyone has the opportunity. Um, it it we it can be live well, it will be livereamed and saved on our YouTube. Um, but I

109think that, you know, again, when when you have one side really passionate about something, you're going to have the other side. And like Tracy said, the summer of 2020, we had hundreds of emails. The stories we heard about how racist Berlin public schools were were concerning and it was opening and that's why so I I would say, you know, into the two new board members, I will gladly show you my inbox from that summer. Um, I was like nine months pregnant. could not believe that this was coming my way. Um, hundreds of emails and and it really was with grave concern that a curriculum audit did in fact need to be made and you know things were shared like yes this did happen 15 years ago and it's been addressed and so you know as

110board members we hear from one side we also hear from the other and so by doing something like this it is going to be with great importance. it is done in a way where we are modeling what's best for all students in Berlin public schools and we can't hold something if it's not done in that fashion. So does anyone else want to add anything? I know this was a very lengthy discussion. Um, anything Jamie? Anything? Sorry, I keep getting her down there. Okay, so do we have a motion? Motion for consideration. Move to table the draft action steps as presented to the next meeting. So we have a motion by Tracy. Do we have a second? Second by Melissa. Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor? I I'm not sure. Jamie, are you voting? Jamie.

111So five in favor opposed. So the vote we will say she Jamie the motion was to move to table the draft action steps as presented. Um yes I agree. Fine. Okay. So the so the vote carries 6 and we will make sure that we get a committee meeting or two on the C calendar before this forum and we set it up so we can make sure that you know all voices are heard. So thank you. Thank you to Superintendent Benigny for being in the hot seat for the past hour and a half. We appreciate it. So, moving on to new business. Um, Mr. Cookner, do you have a facilities related update? I don't have anything on there. This is this is not what you Good evening members of the board. Good evening audience. Uh just

112very quickly, uh superintendent always likes to have me update what is going on with facilities that you've heard about before. I have four projects to report on this evening. Uh you've heard about the YMCA daycare um projects that we have going on at McGee and Hubard. Uh we have received our bids in for that project. As you know, I was trying to explain over the last few meetings the process we use now. We put most of our things out the competitive bid. We get bids in. We scope them. We make sure they're correct and up to plans and specs. There's some those things have been developed and put out for advertisement. We had a number of biders uh as I reported I believe last time for the uh two YMCA components, one at McGee, one

113at Hubard. I had the pleasure today to sit down with a number of people that are involved, the facilities director, um our architects and engineers and so on to meet with the two low bidders and to do what we call in the field scope out the projects and make sure that they've got everything included that is necessary. to make sure they have the experience that is necessary and how we can move forward with the projects. Uh we do have at least two, we had about eight biders that came in, by the way, on those projects. We have two that we're scoping. Uh after today, we think we've got a good idea on how we're going to go forward and how much time it may take to get this done. This is these two projects are

114planned to be done during the school year. Uh while the schools are occupied because of the way we've set it up, so we're hoping to get these things done within the next uh I would say two or three months. I'll have more to report the next time you guys let me up here. Um, the other two things that you've heard about earlier are the Griswald band room, which also was approved by the board to move forward, and the uh uh the student cubbies for uh Hubard. Uh those things have been out to bid. We've received bids on those. We are scoping the biders on Thursday of this week and we will also move forward those projects very quickly. So, those are four projects that have been on the books for a while, at least since

115the last summer, and it looks like they're going to go forward within the next couple of months. That's all I have to report unless you have any questions. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Cuggno on the facilities related update? No questions. Thank you. All right, moving into the big item of the night. um 2022 2023 superintendent proposed budget presentation. So we will turn it back over to Superintendent Bedney. Thank you very much. Um I'd like to say I have a brief presentation. It's not that brief, but it is pretty concise. Um, and before I open up the presentation, um, when you look at the number of the increase, um, it is larger than we'd like, but I think it's important to note that the 4.67 of that almost 3.8% is just contractual obligations for

116staff. meaning in order to keep the same staff and programs that we currently have in the district. And I'll get into my jump to here first. This is a stacked bar graph that is a great way of representing um the budget. If you look at the top of the graph, the 50 thou 50 million 122,396. If you start down the bottom, that blue portion are all the contractual obligations for everyone that's employed in the district. That would be including their their health benefits as well as their salary obligations. Um almost almost everyone that works in the district um is in a union and so we negotiate their salaries. Um and their salary the increases that they're receiving are similar to what's received by the town. And it's also we're held to a standard that they

117can go to mediation as well as arbitration if need be. So, um that's that's a conscious effort that we settle those contracts where um the average is for Harford County on them. Um many of the board members have been on those negotiation committees um with the various groups. So that that there is that you look at the right there that's that uh 3.68. And then what when it talks about contractual services that's the.36 on the on the the red portion the contractual services would be the various softwares that we need to run the district each year those software such as power school which is our student information system um frontline for um our uh applications um Canyon Creek for conference scheduling the various systems that we have Those are our contractual services. Those go up

118anywhere between three and 7% a year. And I'll talk more about that when I get into the budget. But then you can see the other bands that are above that th that increase in those systems really are vital to the district. So when you look at that portion, that little less than 1% really constitutes everything else. There is a 0.2 increase in staffing. That is the only new staffing that would be in the operational budget. You can see that last band at the top. Now, I'll talk more about tuition, equipment, and so on as I get into the budget, but I think this is a great visual reputation. Education is a people business. We employ number of people we employ. And so, the numbers that we are cutting when we do make cuts and reductions,

119we're actually cutting staff, which can often equate to programs and really equate to opportunities for students. Um, and I'll I'll go through the budget and share a little more with you now. So a little bit about the goals. I think the main thrust with any budget is we want to continue to provide the quality education to all students at the standard that Berlin Berlin parents expect. And in saying that class size, course offerings, extracurricular and co-curricular activities, things that have become the standard to Berlin public schools. Provide all students with the education that prepares them for multiple options and opportunities upon graduation. We want to make sure we're competitive. We want to make sure that our students, whether they're going into the workforce, technical, or onto college, that they have the ability to reach the

120the whatever level, whatever school they want. We have a great success record for that. But we want to make sure they have options and opportunities based on the education they receive. Maintain favorable class sizes and adequate course offerings. I spoke to that just a moment ago. You know, our class sizes at the elementary school are are very favorable. They have been favorable for years. I think it's something that parents expect and have come to expect. Consistent support for technology use with adequate funding of hardware, software, infrastructure, it can say for a number of years, we've never had in our budget the adequate amount for technology and hardware and being in this pandemic if we didn't utilize grants, end of the year funds to purchase the technology that we had. um one being the Zoom system

121that we had um choice money that we've used to purchase as well as er money um and to have everyone on a onetoone device um teachers and students we would have never been through the pandemic at the level that we could and the other piece is the infrastructure meaning the connectivity we have increased the rate of data I'm not an IT expert we've increased it three times u which allows us to move forward utilizing technology technology and having the IT support. We have um I want to get into the budget more. We wanted even more IT support given where we're at now, but the IT support to keep everything working and functioning at a high level. And then the last ongoing commitment to implementing safety measures, equipment, and systems that provide all students a safe

122learning environment. When I say that with the pandemic, the state offered requirements that you had to mandate. one being the mask. Berlin public schools didn't just do what was required. Burma public schools, every recommendation that the state made, we implemented from dividers, multiple eating areas, dividers in the classroom. Whatever was the best recommendation, we provided in schools. Um, and hearing from many staff members and from parents, it's not perfect, but it's a lot better than what they hear from others in other towns. Um, and I I'm proud of what we've done over the last two years, the work and the work that the staff has done. I'm very proud. So the goals those would be the goals for 2022 22 23 when we put out to start the budget um way back in October um

123the administrators asked what direction are we going and the direction was don't ask for things that we can't fund look at a real streamlined process set your budget your equipment budgets your supply budgets is at zero unless you can very justify at a high level why you need because most likely we're going to be at zero. Um in the last two years we froze uh supply accounts at the buildings to ensure that we had adequate funding. So I just show you this here initial staff request almost a million dollars. Total initial staff request was over a million. That's you know the operational budget was almost a million. I broke out what would also be in grants and other funding. Um of those staffing um we're only asking for in the operational budget $24,75 for that

1242 position. The total staffing request that's in the budget is 1789. It's an increase um of our HR director. Um the current HR director was a shared position between the town and the board. The town is asking for a full-time HR director. We'd like to pick up 0.2 more and have it a point8 position. Um and that is the only thing we have in the general fund. So when I show you that number of that 3.7 almost 3.8 of staffing, the only new position is that 0.2 2 that you see in the operational budget. Um, as it was raised earlier this evening and last week at our meeting, you know, thank the mayor um for his push for armed security and uh safety director. Um, I don't know what we would have done without it

125throughout the pandemic. It's been a huge uh for staff, students, and the community. Um, definitely needed um and in these times even more so. um BHS workbased learning coordinator. We're funding um that through our choice grant really looking to move to we're bringing back the firefighting course. We have um fire we have firefighters that actually work at the firefighting academy that are going to teach the course. We're also looking back an emergency medical services course next year and an EMT course. So, um, we need that work-based learning coordinator to help us develop those courses as well as get students out into internships within the greater community in Berlin and beyond. Um, we feel that that position is vital. Um, and we we kept that in there. So, those are the only new positions that you've

126seen operational. Um, there was 13.8 FTS in the general fund budget which I just shared with you. The armed security guard which is funded through the town. Therefore, salary and benefits are not reflected here. they would reflect on the town side. Um the district intends to use choice funds for the workbased coord learning coordinator. So what I'm showing you here is what the budget would have been if we did not make those cuts of all those staff members and other cuts. It would have been at 51,621,93. Um, we made some cuts and the budget that were my proposed budget is 50,122596 which is a 4.67 increase. So what I'd like to do for the budget presentation for you my presentation has parts of the budget document. The budget document that you have has much more

127in depth. But my thought is to go through each line with you and explain why is administrative salaries at 4.16. Where are these numbers coming from? So, with your permission, Julia, if there's questions from the board, I'd like if we could have it at each line, I think it'd be more. So, as you look at it, you have the budget presentation you have in schooly. The documents you have in your book are is the entire budget for me to stand and go page by page. So, as you look at it, you could you could definitely reference it. It's all colorcoded. Um and there's more in depth um for each one of them. So, okay. So, administrative salaries, it's at 4.16. The administrators are not getting a 4% raise. That's the first thing I want to

128say. It's not 4.16 for each administrator. But what we do have that makes up the 4.16. We have annual increase with step is 250. So, that's that's what the raise is for the administrators. There's a 0.2 2 increase for human resource director to point8 which I spoke of earlier and four administrators have step increases. Administrators have five steps in their contract. If you've not been for five years, you haven't stepped through. You get your raise and the steps. So, it's a little little more of a raise. There's four administrators doing that this year. What I show you in the chart below is the number of administrators we have in the district, which has been pretty consistent. That if we do get the 08, that that next line will go up a little bit more for

129the next year. Um, but that's the admin, that's the administrators. Any questions on the administrator salaries that I could answer by a board. Okay. Next is the certified salaries. And a comment that was made earlier in the meeting before I hit the next button here and go on, when we hire in Berlin, for as long as I've been in Berlin, we've always hired the best candidate. Um, so we interview, we don't screen and say, we only want teachers with just a bachelors. We want teachers that don't have any experience. We look and say, who are the best candidates in the application pool? We bring them in for an interview process. Typically, it's it's it's two, if not three steps, and the four step often is with me. We look at those teachers and then we

130decide who's the best candidate. We don't we set the budget, which maybe is a mistake as this year. We set the budget as masters step six. That's the pay scale we set for who we're hiring. But then a candidate comes in who has 15 years experience who has a sixth year or a doctorate and they are by far the best candidate. We hire that candidate because we believe that that candidate has a skill set that we need that's going to have a greater impact on our students. So paying the extra 20, 10, $30,000 for that person over time, the impact they have, hiring the best is the best way to change an organization. So with that being said, this year in particular, and these numbers are out, the board has seen them. Um, we're we're

131in the red for our certified salaries because the candidates that we hired were higher than that mast's step six. So when you look at why is this number up compared to where we were budgeted for last year is because part of it is where we're in the red. And I'm not we're not in the red $100,000. We're in the red a couple hundred,000. So that's the rationale why we're in the red because of what we thought we'd be hiring. We're also projecting retirements and so on and so forth. So teachers are not getting a 4.53%. Part of it was we're already in a deficit. The contractual obligation for teachers is 3.12%. Um we have 140 teachers that are on max step in the district. We have 137 that advance a step and seven teachers have

132a salary lane change. So when a teacher moves from having a bachelor's to a master's, it's often a $5,000 roughly $5,000 jump for getting your master's degree. When you go from a master's to a sixth year, it's often a 3,000 plus their raise jump. It's not just unique to Berlin. It's something that is in every district and those types of jumps. We've had freezes in our salaries where teachers have remained frozen for a year. That's not the case in this contract. And typically when you do that, there's other districts in the state that are doing it because if you're trying to do that and you're going to arbitration mediation, you won't win because of other or other it's not the common practice. And they also look at an arbitration mediation, they look at the town's

133ability to pay. I'll talk about that in a moment. They look at that as whether there should be a raise or not and what other surrounding towns are getting. So, and then the last is we have a 50-50 cost sharing with that's the Central Connecticut Transition Academy. It was the Berlin Transition Academy. It's a cost sharing with staff and things in the building. Um it's 50/50 across the board. So, that's that's the increase in certified staff. Any questions on that? So, there's no new certified staff for next year. It's just rolling the same staff over sixyear teacher FTE. If you look at the FTE here, it would be the same FTE for next year as I said because we're not adding any new staff to that. Um, it's important to note that there was there

134was additional staff asked for at each building. Um, special ed asked for another special education teacher. Um, none of those are in the budget at this time. non-certified salaries. Again, 4.10. Again, encompassed in there would be your um custodians, clerical, um cafeteria workers, annual contract approximately 3%. Increased funding for custodial overtime in the pandemic. Last year, we had part-time custodians. We no longer have the part-time custodians for this year. So, there is some overtime that's needed. Um, and with that overtime need to be budgeted for. Again, 50/50 cost sharing for the CCTA with all of the non-certified staff at the CCTA. Employee benefits 5.54%. within this the rate increase for medical insurance is 10%. That is set by the town. We talked to the um we talked to the town's uh financial director and um

135we look at setting at 10% increase. Last year it was much less than 10%. Um we're hopeful that it's less than 10 less than 10%. So that that could that could go down and help the budget. It usually does, but I can't speak for with the pandemic if that'll happen or not. The employer percentage for staff groups has been adjusted to meet the contractual obligation of each group. And that's just each group has a different percentage that they're required to pay for their insurance. So, we look and did a census data and pulled every employee that we currently have. Now, there's some adjustment that occurs here and it can't help but have this adjustment with the employee benefits. If we currently have a teacher that's on a fa that's that's on a family plan and

136that teacher retires and we hire a teacher without a family, the insurance the insurance rates drop drastically for a single versus family. So, there's some adjustment that could take place in benefits, but it's not likely that it's a large number, but there is definitely some adjustment that may go either way. Um, within the benefits, as you can see, we have 80,000 for unemployment. Typically, our unemployment does not run that high. Um, contracted services. As I said to the contracted services include all the system increases that we have for the vast number of systems that we have. And typically we'd see a 3% increase, maybe a four. This year we're seeing some at seven. um especially when some of the systems we use are used by almost every school district in the state. So to say

137that we would stop using power school as our student information system would be extremely difficult being that they probably control 90% of the districts if not all districts in the state. So we're really bound with them. Um additional cyber security, our insurance company is requiring that we add additional cyber security. Uh I want to say the cost of that is somewhere around $50,000. Um, we are required to purchase that. So, we're kind of locked in. Increase in legal fees, anticipated copier contract. Um, the copies you have from the copier are the best that we have at the board. I know some of them are a little lighter. Um, and our contract is up. We're looking at a new contract. Um, the legal fees, they vary based on what the issues are. Um, so we increase

138the legal fees a little bit. And the CCA budget is reallocated from general uh from the reallocated from general special education budget. So there's a reallocation that goes into contracted services. Um with those contracted services, um the number may seem large. That's an increase, but the one piece that we don't have in here is we used to build in tuitions for special education outplacements. Years ago, we build in three maybe $300,000. We have no tuitions built into this budget at all for for unanticipated outplacements. meaning that if we have a student that requires an out placement that's currently in the district or someone that moves into the district, there is no funding in the budget for that. Um we don't have it stashed away somewhere. It's not a line item. We used to actually say

139unanticipated um outplacements. Um that's not in the budget. Utilities um as all of us know um cost of power is going up drastically. We feel that with our power here, um, we still will be good based on last year, uh, how the utilities worked out and how we're projected this year, we think we're going to be okay, um, with a minimal increase here. And I'm not saying $12,000 is not a lot of money, but when you think about what we spend in power, um, it's not a it's not a lot. Um, and Berlin and Krommel again spit split the money at CCTA. Transportation at 2.49%. Oops. The contractual increase, which we just settled with MBT, is at 3.45% for the first year. Typically, it's closer to three, but again, we were working with the changing

140how the camera systems were paid for, and that's where you get the 3.45 for the first year. uh and the district intends to use a portion of the excess cost funds to offset special education transportation. The excess cost funds are monies that are that are reimbursed from the state uh for special education students. They they do not reimburse um the money for every special education student. They only reimburse 70% when it exceeds a certain threshold. So, um, we were going to use a portion of those funds to help help offset special education, transportation, tuition. As I spoke to you about the outplacement tuition, but we also have students that attend either the VOAG, the magnets, and so on. Um, one of the magnet schools, the crack magnet schools have not taken a tuition hike in

141a number of years. They're going up 12% next year. Um, I'll share with you here. No funds in budget for I just said about the anticipated anticipated increase from correct is 12%. The budget also assumes that prek non-tuition stills will continue through the magnet school system whether they change that non-tuition or not. Typically it's been a area to attract students into the magnet system to offer uh preschool uh without a fee and then students stay um in the magnet system. But you can see just with the clip I have out of the actual budget document, you can see Sington Boag um tuition for summer school. You can see the out of district public instate 400,000 out of district private instate over a million5 million and a half. Um when we expel a student, we don't

142know when we're getting an expulsion. When we have an expelled student, um we are obligated to provide that student education outside of the Berlin public schools. We are provide we are obligated to provide transportation and we're obligated to pay for pay for the school. Um we don't know and hopefully you know we won't have any students that need to be expelled but that's a a fee that we we don't know if it's going to happen or not. Um but you can see where the increases came in the tuitions. Again, the first item, no funds is budgeted for anticipated outplacements or unanticipated supplies, textbooks, and materials. 52,000. That 52,257 is primarily textbooks that need to be purchased. Textbooks in the math department, um textbooks at the high school, some digital textbooks. um that increase the building

143supply accounts are all held at zero from what they were this year. So there's no increase at all. Um that's just what the first says equipment again I spoke to in my in the goal section about technology. The concern is that we often don't fund enough in equipment to pay for the technology needs. We never had a technology plan that allowed us to be onetoone. We typically would use end of the year funds to provide the technology that students and staff need upgrades and so on um in there. So this equipment budget here, school buildings, most departments again taking a zero. So the equipment increase that you see here, you'll see the equipment is is mostly for technology um that needs to take place throughout the district whether it be infrastructure or devices and all

144other all other expenditures. Again, it's the same line. The district is taking zero 0% increase from last year. There's $20,000. The Griswell has never had a band room. The board approved $20,000 to create a room for the band to practice. Um the budget reduces funds from original categories. Just when you see some of the expenditures, they're realigned, but the total expenditure doesn't is not more than 0%. Often the topic is money that's outside of the operational budget and that being the choice enrollment. So in this graph here it speaks to the number of students that we've had in the choice program. We typically try to maintain 4% this year um was very very tight um as far as 4.07. If we don't if we reach 4% we get an $8,000 reimbursement per student. Um, and

145someone might say your per people expenditure, which I'll get to in a moment, is over 18,000. Why are you taking students for 8,000? Because when we take these students, we may take we typically offer 10 to 14 seats. We take we offer the seats at K and one and we 10 to 12 students. We disperse them throughout the district. That does not add a teacher. It just adds a student offering that $8,000 per student. So, what do we do with $8,000? Well, the Zoom system that we're using here tonight and what provided for the district for the last two years, we use choice funds to purchase those Zoom systems because we had the choice funds. What we've done in recent years, I can say that $800,000 over $800,000 are tied directly to salaries. And I'll

146show you that in a moment of that million dollars roughly that we receive from choice funds as reimbursement every year. um not maintaining the 4% if we slip down the 3.9 3.99 as we did one year the 8,000 drops to 6,000 we lose over $200,000 of our budget. So it's important that one students this year all the students that were opting in the choice the the pool was empty and hence we were very close to the 4.0 the 4.07 um of students. Here's our budget with the choice and I just referred to this is our anticipated $1,ion34,000 $275. This is what we anticipate for next year. Again, it's contingent upon hitting the 4% and having all those students stay. Um, but you can see when you look through here, these are the certified positions and

147uncertified positions that are being paid through choice. So you when you look through for the 23 budget of the of the1,34,275 when you go down to the bottom other expenses we have about $160,000 and then looking at the second column there and that special education reserve the 134,000 we don't anticipate having to pay rent at the CCTA provided that we have um we have a agreement a lease agreement of letting the uh YMCA into McGee and Hubard to utilize classrooms for preschool and daycare. And for that, they're allowing us to have the U main street location exclusively for the Berlin Public Schools, and that's the Central Pea Transition Academy. But when you look at the the choice budget, there's really only $160,000 that's not allocated directly to staffing um of that 1 million and something.

148Budget funding history. Uh I think you can see that where we've been the last three years has been outstanding. Um to receive a 3% increase and I'll show you some other slides. Um you know we're at 1.5 1.3% in order to it's not as though we can cut supply budgets to get to that. Um cutting as I said to you at 3.7% just to maintain our staff and programs. you're cutting, you know, two point two and a half percent you're cutting um you know, a million and a half uh from the budget. So the 3% the last the last um the last three years has been outstanding. You can see the the top number shows you what the superintendent came in with. Um and then what was moved forward and what the final budget was

149is the green line. It's a great chart. Um we've used this for a number of years and I'm happy to say there was a point before we got those 3%s we were at the bottom of these towns that are not towns that are in our dur you'll see that my budget document will specify the durs these are towns that typically are compared to with Berlin um and you can see their surrounding towns we are happily at 2 point we'll say 2.5% right in the middle as compared to other towns and that's you know that's that that's a fiveyear average that you're looking Next is a mill comparison. Oftentimes people say, "Okay, that's that the question was asked by in previous years. What what are we doing as far as uh budget, but how's the mill

150in Berlin compared to the other towns and what type of five-year change?" So, you can see where Berlin's mill is. I won't spend much time on that. Um, this is an important slide. It's important slide to know. Some Some people might question why why is it that you know you're at 3% or some contracts are at 2.5 and why did you offer such um this goes into our wealth ranking for Berlin. So as far as a wealth ranking out of 169 pounds Berlin is ranked 60th. So this is public knowledge. Our our wealth is at 60 but what we pay per pupil and this is how they calculate it. what we paid per pupil is at 19,000 and that just came out so I apologize that came out today. So it just was put in

151um and it came out like 130. So um the n 19,158 that is what our per pupil expenditure is which is 97 out of 169 towns. So they look at the town's ability to pay when they're when they're developing um developing the contracts and what's appropriate and whether you're going to win in arbitration or not. So, and that's been consistent. I mean, I gave you back in 2006. You can see where the wealth ranking is compared to um you know, and I think if you know, I guess a better graph might be the difference between the two current expenditure per pupil. This is our This is our DUR. Um, which the state really doesn't use much, but it's still when they did it, it was a demographic looking at other towns that have similar demographics

152as far as income um and where Berlin is as far as our cur current people expenditure as compared to the other towns. And again, here is just the state in Berlin. And I got to say, if you look back, there was starting to be great separation back in 1516. And with the 3%, we're we're closing that gap. We're staying consistent, but it's almost parallel to the state. We're a little below, but we're almost parallel, which has been been outstanding. federal funding. The ers you typically don't see in the federal funding that comes into the district, but you do see the you do see the IDA or special education um in both in both uh 611 and 619. Both of those accounts there are are accounts that are used to fund the special education program. I

153will share a little more about the ESSER. uh get in more detailed about what we had the esser. I know that the board of finance has asked for the documents. I believe they were sent to them. I know our FNO committee has seen what we plan and what we did spend the esser funds on. Um but it gives you a representation of where the ESRE funds were spent and what was allocated. Um these are all the grants that we do receive. So we received directly um you know last year we don't have this numbers is exactly that 1 thou 1,835,627 those are total federal grants which is definitely up based on the esser money from year to year because typically if you go back to 1920 872,000 so it's more than doubled because of the

154esser and the federal grants with the pandemic now so you can see just a p pictorial representation of you know the doubling as I just said to you. But the bigger question is so with the doubling of funds, what did the district decide to do with it? And the message that we had was that this is we referred to as a cliff. If you take those funds and you supplant the budget and you put them into paying for teacher salaries and various staff members, those funds expire with at most two years. So at that point, you don't have the funds and you have staff member positions. So you hit this wall where you've had all this money tied up and now those funds are not available for you. So we chose not to put those

155ESRE funds into staff and I'll share with you where we chose to put the ESRE funds. So we looked at the ESR SR two funds, looked at extending learning opportunities. We broke it up over two years. So the total estimate was 142,000. The belief was that students missed um a lot of learning during the during the pandemic. And so we wanted to offer additional learning opportunities for students such as summer school, after school programs and things. We talked about the effective school solution uh program. We have two um clinicians here at the high school. We talked about the middle school for a number of years. So we funded the middle school with one clinician that's there for the first year this year and we'll be there next year funded through the grant. We have a

156common ground partnership with social services. This is for students that have difficulty socializing and that we for social events after school with staff members that helps to fund the transportation those events. Those events might be a corn maze, um roller skating, ice skating, um trip tubing, a trip to a basketball game, um ways to have them socialize and interact. Uh partially fund Zoom license. Uh we don't believe that the Zoom licenses are going away even after the pandemic. Uh just that parents prefer often time for conferences to meet via Zoom. They're utilized in a lot of ways. So the funding of the zoom license and family communication specialist um the thought there is that we now have we are streaming um all kinds of sports and events such as this evening every board meeting other

157meetings um the need to hire additional staff to do that um so we funded those through through the grant also two-year grant but the expectation funds will be expended by September 30th 2023 And then we had the SR AP um for 2023 was 521,000. The total was 800 800 900 800 800,942. Um extended learning opportunities, expanded summer school program including offering some summer courses at BHS ruler training. I spoke of that. That's with Mark Brackett at the um at Yale. Hubard has been the lead in that. It's been the school has been trained for a number of years, but all the schools are involved for that mental health suite at McGee. This is actually construction cost um the state of students mental health is is in a difficult state throughout the pandemic and the thought

158is to have a suite where all of the um counselors, social worker, psychologists are together, not to have them broken up across the building. um upgrade the current fiber. So when I talk about technology and not having the funds in the budget or utilizing the grant to do the technology upgrades um so going from 10 gigabyte to 40 gigabyte is huge. Not not being a tech person that's a huge jump. Um install fiber from town hall data closet to board of education data center. BOE data center switches should be upgraded to utilize 10 to 50 gig fiber runs. um Berlin High School, me main equipment room, core switches and the light. So you can see what we've done with the monies. It's not tied up with staffing. It's tied up doing improvements that would be

159difficult to put in the operational budget anyways, but will help to support the district moving forward. Um again by 2024 on this grant state funding the adult ed. We have an adult education program here at the high school. Um we did survey the community years ago about merging with another town. The community felt strongly to keep it here in Berlin. Um offers various courses and adult ed. We have the Perkins grant which is utilized by the high school for specific courses. The team mentoring program, we don't know that yet. Choice entitlement, that's the choice money is already shared with you. We're anticipating a little over a million. The chef choice grant. This is a social an academic piece. These funds are used to assist students with social programs and academic plus. We might we do

160run an afterchool program for choice students. We also also it's used for pearl and students and we can utilize those funds to run those types of programs. There there was a program before the pandemic at McGee where they did an academic and wellness where they got to use the wellness center through the choice grant. Uh we have choice liaison which are paid through the choice grant. Those are individuals at each building that work specifically with the choice students to help them integrate um into the community and any of the special needs they may have. you know, transportation, getting to an event, joining the Brownies, being part of an athletic team. Um, we have an individual each building that works with them. Um, and there's your total state grants, which has stayed relatively consistent, um, the

161last last four years, a five-year FTE, the administrators, um, everything you see is 21 22. And the thought is we don't have any new staff. So, the one change you'll see here, well, the one change, well, two changes. If we were able to get the 0.2 administrator for the HR, that would jump to 19.6 for administrators. Um, and this includes those that are in the operational as well as in grants and so on. This is just a picture of the district, but you can see what we've had over a number of years. And then projected enrollment. We're projected to have about 34 or 35 less students next year in the district. Uh we was 20. It it changes I think I think in the product I think it's maybe 29 u but we're projected that

162varies so much because you don't know how many students are coming in rolling into Kay. You don't know how many students are leaving the district. you don't know but we use the Prada report is in your budget report we pay for that report um he does reporting around the state and beyond it gives you his best estimate using a various model that it's used for years um and sometimes it's it's accurate and sometimes it's not that accurate but I think what's important here is just to look at the average class sizes um you know 18 21 you know typically we like to keep the primary classrooms below 18. You know, we like to, but you know, we're not in some areas. And some of it is tied to the number of staff, you know, within

163the building. You know, whether you're going to jump to you have four teachers, if you're at 19, are you going to jump in another staff member? It it doesn't make sense to do that. Um, so you can see the elementarymentaries are anticipated to go up, you know, in enrollment. um the middle school and high school enrollment decreasing at McGee by 31 and 14. But losing 31 students at a middle school doesn't mean you can just eliminate a teacher. They there could be students at sixth, seventh, and eighth grade as you can see, but not all at one grade level. It does ne necessarily mean a a reduction in a staff member and the high school of 14 definitely doesn't mean that. Just a little list of some recognitions. Uh Hard Elementary School was just recognized

164uh I think two months ago, best elementary school 2022. Um the board has received the Cave Communication Award for various work that gets back to those positions, those family communications. And Nick Smith is here with us tonight um broadcast and his team that broadcast our board meetings. The board leadership award and board of distinction. The board of ed has received this award since I think um consistently. BHS, some awards, college success gold award, four national merit commended scholars, one national merit semi-finalist scholar, and Husky Pride. This just came in a week ago. Um for Yukon EC course was number nine in the state for students enrollment and number six for credit hours for our high school students. Um and it oftentimes there's a discussion that you know with our AP students and courses offered and

165exams taken. This just gives you a snapshot over the years about the number of exams that are taken. It's not it's not a great graph though because the population changes also, but you can see we've found a consistent trend to try to increase in almost all areas. It may pull back a little, but it's pretty solid where we are. So, that is my last slide. We'll open it up to questions. Thank you for putting that together and going through it so detailed. So, it's not my first time seeing it. Um, but I know it's a lot to take in. Yeah. Okay. Um, any questions for Superintendent Bigny? We'll just give him a moment. Jamie, I see you're there. If you have any questions, feel free to chime in. Okay. to our student board reps. Do

166you guys have any questions? I'm sure you have a lot going around your head right now. I don't have any questions. No. Okay. Good. All right. So, yes, we will move on to the elementary principles budget presentation. Thank you so much, Superintendent Bengi, for presenting that. This is only the beginning. So, as you come up with your questions, just write them down um to the board members. And Good evening and happy new year. Superintendent Benini share the proposal for the district including the three elementary schools. At the elementary level, we have the following core budget goals that drive our decision making. to create learning experiences that engage our students and promote a sense of pride, ignite passion, I'm sorry, sense of purpose, ignite passion, and foster pride. We give consideration to the whole child, including

167academics, social, emotional, and developmental needs of all of our students and preK through five. And in order for students to fulfill their potential, they we need to provide the necessary instructional resources to support and extend learning. Here's Mr. Souza to talk about staffing. Good evening everyone. Thank you for your attention for hanging with us for this length of time. Uh you'll see a running theme as we present. It's going to be brief and direct. So if you look at our elementary staffing, we had one common requested priority, a writing interventionist. Currently, we do not have any tier three intervention in writing. Just a quick heads up. Uh, tier one would be your classroom instruction. Tier two would be some additional instruction that happens outside the classroom, maybe with the small group a couple of times

168a week. And tier three three is a little bit more intense, maybe onetoone, five times a week. Right now, we do not have um that extra instruction provided. We do not have a writing interventionist. We do try to backfill that in our tier one instruction as well as uh through our reading department. Uh but certainly that is a a main common priority as far as uh instruction goes without writing interventions that did not make it into uh the superintendent's budget. So there are no new staff requests for the uh elementary school. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Souza, Mr. Stories. Good evening members of the board of education. I'm going to speak to you very briefly about our operational and instructional budget at the elementary level. Uh the uh operational instructional budget includes our instructional supplies,

169non-instructional supplies, consumables, textbooks, software, technology, maintenance and repairs. Uh as Mr. Benigny showed you on slide 22 of his presentation, we are putting forth a 0% increase for our request last year in these lines. There was some reshuffleling amongst the lines, but the bottom line is we're requesting a 0% increase in those budgets. Any questions? Mr. Mr. Benini's budget was very thorough, so there's not much more for us to add, [clears throat] but we're happy to take any questions if you have any. [laughter] Now, Mr. Ursa will present the McGee budget. Okay, thank you. So, this is equally as brief. Um, basically budget goals are up there. We want to that's really the district and school Um what we're looking to do there is provide purposeful uh learning experiences that promote a sense of purpose

170and foster a sense of pride. That is our our district standard. Um as always we're here to support academic, social, emotional growth and development of all members of the school community. And then of course we want to use quality resources which I'll talk to you about real quick including human resources. As you know the teachers are the uh number one single factor uh in student achievement. And of course, we're always looking to make adjustments, whether it's um software, electronic, whatever it is that we need uh throughout the school year. And we want to do that in a safe, orderly, and positive environment. So, um our enrollment is going down a little bit. I know that's the uh October one enrollment. We're actually at 620 right now, so we're not going down 31 students. Hard to

171tell, but um we did not request any more staff um and therefore was not included in the budget. And this just gives these these basically are budget lines um the instructional supplies I mean supportive of providing assessment and meaningful learning experiences. So there's all kinds of paper lined unlined chart construction we can go on and on and on. Uh the non-instructional supplies would support the structure and organization of those resources with sources whether it's bookshelves or student planners. You know we need a laminator. Uh textbooks everybody knows what a textbook is. Maintenance or repair. We're lucky enough to have a wellness program, which is great. We um encourage you to come and visit it. Uh we'd like to keep it where it is. Uh keep those rowers, those bikes, and those uh treadmills uh working.

172Also in art, which is a favorite subject of ours. We have a killing upstairs and um musical instruments as well. Then of course the software and technology is going to support learner engagement and uh just make things a little bit more efficient uh and help with motivation. Any questions about the McGee budget? Thank you. And here to present uh is our Berlin High School principal Eileen Eustace. Good evening everyone. Um I will be equally as brief. So just to let you know about uh the Berlin High School budget goals. uh we pride ourselves on the breadth of course offering so that students can create personalized pathways. So that is very important to us to be able to maintain that. Uh we also think it's very important uh to provide that support personnel to assist students

173experience uh to experience the authentic workbas. Superintendent Benigny specifically spoke to that in his budget proposal about the position that we are seeking to fund. Uh also in terms of providing a safe and secure environment for students to do their best learning and feel supported emotionally as well as academically. It provides um not only teachers in the classroom but all of the support personnel counseling staff um related services that goes along with supporting students and finally to be able to continue our innovative practices in the classroom. Um we are very fortunate um that we I I feel as though we are very uh we have a very progressive curriculum. Um but it does require a lot of unique equipment um and tools in order to run that. As far as staffing um Superintendent Benigny spoke

174to this already, our workbased learning coordinator and as well as the stipens to run the additional firefighting and EMS courses that were proposed at the last um board of education meeting. um that the stipens are more that co-eing model where we were talking about bringing the professionals in to co-e with the high school teacher. And as far as requested, it's no new staff, but it is the notion of maintaining our current staffing levels. One of the things, you know, each level has a unique challenge when it comes to staffing. Um one of the things that does happen when you have to cut staff at the high school is you end up cutting programs and that then severely impacts the breadth of course offerings. uh when you have to cut staff that way. As far as

175our operation and instructional budget, again, just the instructional materials and software. We're in innovative. We use a lot of technology and it certainly requires funding in order to be able to support that. The bottom line is it's the increased cost of supplies. So, science lab materials, foods lab materials. I mean, everybody knows it's more expensive to go to the grocery store. All of those things are cost more money. Um, so that is definitely going to impact our instructional budget which is currently at a zero. Our desktop computer upgrades for computer labs, when the building was renovated, all of the computer labs were put in place and all of those computers are now basically not able to run as they should. I will say that we are able to reduce the number of computer labs that

176we don't need as many because we are a one-toone school with the Chromebooks, which is great. So, but we do the labs that we are going to keep up and running need replacement. Um, and again we talked about budgeting for the department specific maintenance and repairs, the specialized equipment such as the kiln and the art room, the cooking equipment and family and consumer science, the science labs and so forth all need continued maintenance and repair. Um, the last two are things that will likely not be funded in this year's budget that we I had requested. One is the Apple testing in world language which is a proficiency test that we wanted to offer to all students that reach the fourth level of language that allows them to all earn the seal of bi literacy which

177is really um a great marker for all of them. And then finally we had spent some time discussing the AP testing and looking to fund that for all students. And I know again I just wanted to make note that it was requested. I likely know that that's not going to be funded for next year. So, all right. And that takes care of the high school. I'm not sure who's up next. Thank you, Athletics. Good evening everybody. Uh first I'd like to thank you all for your service and dedication to our town of Berlin over the years and current members as well. I've been fortunate enough to work with some great administrators, coaches, uh some excellent individuals, parents, community members over the past couple of years. I've learned a lot and appreciated the conversations. When starting

178to construct this budget and realizing what was happening with our state, decreasing funds and so forth, I wanted to make sure that our programs could survive with what we have and have those discussions with personnel involved, all personnel involved with athletics. So, the one question I keep asking myself constantly when developing a budget is, how can I support the needs of student athletes? What do they need? What do our coaches need? What our facilities need? Budgeting in athletics is rebuilt from the ground uh every single year. Looking at specific needs, considering potential strengths of our programs and any other specific data uh that can be used. Obviously, CO over the past couple of years has been a challenge and there's been some things of the budget, monies we've used for other things, monies we haven't

179used. So, again, hence the idea of building from the ground up. For some of the newer people here, um just want to give you kind of a process in terms of how I actually come up with the budget. set up meetings with all the head coaches uh to discuss the absolute necessities for the next year followed by upgrades, replacements and items for the program. Also talked to coaches about a priority level scale one through three. One is obviously a necessity to run the program. Two are some nice things to have to enhance the program and three are some of the extras of the program. Based upon their responses, I would also ask them to state a rationale for the request. So the budget process is a lengthy uh uh process for for myself and my

180department. This process was extremely long and tedious but very uh worth uh worthwhile for the coaches to see the amount of work and effort it takes from my perspective to put out a budget to uh the entire community. Um these are some of the goals uh that we've talked about and that I talk about at parents night um awards night. Maintaining our currenting athletic is obviously extremely important to all um to all our athletes and all our parents. Making sure that every facility that we have is safe, secure for our students to do their very best on and off the field. uh and making sure that obviously these students are felt um and and and heard in many ways emotionally and socially, especially with the last couple of years and some of the CIC rules

181and recommendations for return to play protocol and the time that they have to be out from athletics and we've seen a lot of that over the last couple of weeks actually. Um and I'm going to do my best talking to the kids, working with the kids, working with parents and coaches to make sure that they are going to be supported uh to the best of our abilities. These are some of the uh costs that you'll see in terms of line items. Primarily, for the most part, the increases are due to transportation. Obviously, working with NBT uh for anticipated for numbers for next year. Officials always is going up between 2% and 2.5%. Um repair and maintenance has gone up as well. Football and lacrosse helmets are required per the CIA and per the state that

182they get refurbished, reconditioned every single year. um awards for sports. We've had many all state uh award winners, which is a good problem to have. Um so I've dipped into some other funds over the last uh over the last year to pay for um all state plaques and of the like. On the McGee side of things, the one uh major constant that has gone up in terms of an increase is uniforms for boys and girls basketball. Um, so again, very minor um minor increases and most of it is due to costs that are out of my control. So again, I'd like to thank you and if there's questions uh whether we have them tonight or if something comes up throughout the course of the week and you want to give me a bell, send me

183an email, I'll be more than happy to have a conversation with you. Any questions? Thank you. Have a good night. Thank you. You too. I may need a little help to get this back. Thank you. You get to have me last and I'm going to make this uh very very quick. I got you, Mr. Yeah, they usually have it up here. I can't find it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good evening again. Um my job is to talk about excuse me [clears throat] capital improvement plan along with the town and our facility requests. The first thing it is the easiest to get out of the way is in our in the our overall budget which the superintendent presented. Um if you go in and look in other expenditures um uh you will see for

184district-wide building improvements a whopping dollar amount of $17,000 which is [clears throat] being proposed in the in the superintendent's budget. Um that's down 42% from this year's budget. Um and uh very frankly relative to what has to be spent on normal circumstances for building improvements that's very very very low. [clears throat] My presentation tonight has to do with some other things. We're lucky enough to work with the town in order to decide what kind of major improvements are done on our facilities. Um the towns take care of our facility work. realize we have five schools naturally and there's a lot of work that has to go on with them. I'm going to change this like this. Okay, this is a summary and this is not part of the general fund budget but it does have

185a lot to do with what we do on a yearly basis. Uh the capital improvement plan is something that the town does every year and as a portion of the capital improvement plan um we list the town lists a number of improvements that are uh for the schools. Um I will tell you how it works. I know we have some new members, so you may not know, so I'll spend a couple minutes on that. Uh, we get submitts from our building principles, from the town facility department, from the building operation at the board of ed, and we submit those requests to the town to be funded under the capital improvement plan. And the capital improvement plan is a 5 to 10year plan that sets out how the town is going to invest its money into

186the facilities, not only the school facilities, but also the rest of the facilities they have. U I'm only going to be speaking about the schools just to give you a little idea. However, in order of magnitude, the town in this year is speaking about this about $20 million worth of investment in overall capital improvement. um of that uh the the schools are a considerable amount. It's about a $5 million or more plan and I'll go over that with you. Um we had a meeting the so so requests come from a lot of places. We had a meeting the other day, uh, town manager, finance director for the town, uh, a member of the finance board who's here this evening, uh, town facilities director, uh, town director of grounds, and myself to go over what our

187board of ed requests were for the capital improvement plan, and you have that in front of you here. Um, all of our requests are listed, and I'll go through a couple pages here. I think it's important to you to know what we're trying to spend the town's money on. Um, you will see the Harvard School playground paving and repair. That is, this is a draft now. This is something that is being talked about and proposed, but it's not approved by the town yet. I'm trying to give you where we are at the moment. Um, general fund for fiscal year 23. Um, town's general fund, $200,000 set aside for uh paving of of uh Hubard playground and repair out there, $150,000 for fire alarm upgrade at Willard. Uh, and $110,000, which is the same we had

188this year for reinstating new vans into our into our uh um the amount of the amount of vehicles that we give to NBT for vans we pay. You might remember, we buy the vans and give those to them. This does not include buses. So, that's $460,000 that the town is at this point considering providing us for next year's budget. Uh they will spend it, but it'll be within a year uh for um capital improvements. Next, [clears throat] we go down to the HVAC system in Willard, which has been talked about for a while. You will see this comes under grants, not general fund. Uh it's $2.8 million. It's being allocated. There is discussion that there could be more of that with some other grants, but this is what is listed at the moment. That's a

189huge dollar amount the town is putting in place for us. Uh, and we hope to get more of that money as time goes on for some of the other schools, but that adds to what we're getting this year. Um, let's not go too fast, Jeff. Hold on. Uh, that's two funds, two sources of funds, general fund and grants. They've also looking to take general funds, set it aside next year. And I and I talking about next year only because we requested it this year, but just to let you know that they are saying they would like to do that and set it aside. $150,000 for fire alarm upgrades at Griswald, which is very important. And also to replace the Willard School ground playground with $150,000. So that's what those those requested this year, but looks

190like they're want to be funded for next year. So again, there's a good amount of money being invested in schools. Um lastly, what gets done is all the other requests that we put in that don't get funded in the town's general fund or in grants um or in grants for the general fund for the following year they put nowadays in surplus and that means that so these things that I have are requested here everything from the I won't read them all up but you can see them all the way from the general McGee generator all the way you know lavatories media center big big ticket items for us they get logged in surplus. Now that means they're in the capital improvement plan but they are not funded because of course all of us know that

191surplus only happens at the end of a year. So we're and right now we have zero surplus. Uh but again it's important to have them on a capital plan because if there's surplus available or if there's any other funds available they get some priorities. Now you will notice here that I've got in this first page two things starred. One is laboratory upgrades for Griswald, Hubard, and Willard. And the other one is uh for Hubard repair and replace a skylight. That star means that the uh finance and operating committee, the board of edge finance and operating committee earmarked those two projects as priorities for surplus if we have surplus. There's a few more things I'll I'll show you here. um couple three more things that are big ticket items that would have to be taken out

192of surplus. Also, again, these are not funded yet, but you will know there's $1.8 million uh that on this list would like to be funded out of surplus. The chance for us this year to have $148 million surplus is is not really good. On the other hand, there's still going to be priorities going forward. So, we'll see how that works out. Couple of quick notes. As I said, the finance and operating committee uh priorities for the for the for some of the surplus funds um surplus to be provided by town or the board of ed if available from FY 2022 which is this year or 2023 operating budgets. Uh and I thought it was important to note that the town is not planning on for a lot of good reasons doing any new bonding this

193year. So they're allocating whether surplus if you take the surplus out of this they're you know there it's it's $5 million for everything minus the 1.8 that is surplus that's real money being allocated by the town to the facilities of our schools. So it's it's a big investment. We're pretty happy about that. Um, and I will tell you there was I was very pleased to hear that there was a meeting after the meeting I just spoke about the other day and they're looking at the uh priorities that the FNO committee put in there and see if they can kick some of those projects up even quicker than they were planning on before. So, we're very pleased to be working in good form with the town. Um, the other thing I want to tell you about

194is the other non-c capital requests that the facilities put together. The way we break out capital request is over a certain amount of money for each for each project. So for conversation sake, if it's less than $25,000 on the capital side, it doesn't go I mean investment, it doesn't go in a capital improvement plan. everything else and some things that are over that depending on what the like furniture and it and things like that go into normal facility requests. So we have a whole another actually it's over $500,000 that has beested that has been requested by the facilities up and above what's in the capital. And you can see these here there's no reason to go over them. I will tell you there's been a lot of work put together by the principles, the staff,

195the operating uh the business office and the facility department of the town to get these projects in place to fund. But once again, both this list and the next thing I will show this list there's and there's some items from each school really all go to surplus also. So if we were going to fund just for conversation sake everything we requested and we're not going to do that just like in the in the principles excuse me in the superintendent's budget we're not funding all our requests. If we were going to uh we would have not only a number of million up in the capital that are under are under surplus. Let's say let's say 1.8 million but another half million dollars here. So, it would be great to have surplus this year, but as you

196can see, and I think I'll be the first one to say it, if if you understand what the what the superintendent was proposing in his budget, being a very very tight budget and what we're getting here in capital, which is very frankly a lot of money, we're not coming close to doing all the facility work we would like to do. Um, so it's a tight budget. Any questions? Questions? Okay. Thank you. And so I know that we um heard a number of budgets tonight and this is the start of our lengthy season of budgets. So I do want to um I will turn it over to Superintendent Benedy just to wrap things up. But I will say that you saw especially when the elementary school principles and um middle school and high school. They listed

197what their needs were. Though you saw a 0%, they're listing out what they need and what they would request. However, those are not reflective in their budget. So, I just wanted to clarify that. I just want to rec I just want to recognize just want to recognize the administrators who, you know, as you heard them present this evening, they came in at zeros because they were directed to. Um, I know that the 4.67 may not be the budget that people wanted to see, but I hope out there tonight that at least everyone has understanding that is with no staffing request. That is really contractual obligations with minimal increases to the other areas and some of them are necessary in order to run the school district because they deal with contractual obligations and so on. Um,

198so I'm comfortable with it because its purpose was to maintain curriculum, programs, and staffing as such to maintain Berlin public schools um at the level that the community has come to expect. And I do wish that the number was lower, but um as you can see, I hope that the public sees there was a conscious effort to um bring things in as low as possible. So, thank you. Thank you. And again, thank you to everyone included in putting these together. I know it's a lot of work. So, um your time is valued. And thank you to all the board members and our student board reps who were here tonight and everyone who, you know, participated and you know, watched at home. Thank you Jamie for making sure you were here this evening. Um before we

199move into executive sessions, does anyone else have anything that they would like to add? Any other board members? So my recommendation is just write down all your questions as you continue to go through this and you know over the next few meetings we will be going through this um very carefully. So do we have a motion to enter into executive session? Are we just inviting super okay so Denise and superintendent admitting me. So, do we have a motion? I know Tim is always the guy to make the motion, so someone's got to do it or we'll sit here all night. I'll make a motion to uh enter executive uh session to discuss a personnel matter custodial contract inviting Denise Parsons and Superintendent Bengi. Yep. We can we can just stay here for that meeting. Um

200if if if and that way Jamie could stay on the Zoom or I could we could just zoom her in with one of our phones if we want or call her in with does that still count as a quorum if she's called in? Okay, we'll just go across the upbeat room just because I know there's a number of people wrapping things up. Second. Um do we have a second? I'll second. Okay, so the motion by Matt, the second by Tracy. All those in favor? I I opposed. All right. 6. We will be coming back here to close out our meeting. So, we'll come right back to the table and then adjourn from here. All right. We left executive session at 9:18 and now we are back in session. Do we have a motion? Go ahead.

201contract through June 30th, 2024 as presented. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Motion by Bad. Second by Jamie. Heard her first. Um, any discussion? All right. All those in favor? I opposed. 6. All right. We have one last agenda item. I move to. Do we have a second? Okay. Motion by Tracy, second by Matt. All those in favor? I. Opposed? 6. We have adjourned at 9:21 p.m. Thank you everyone.