Berlin Board of Education Meeting - 10/14/2025

001I'm checking out any other reports. What about correspondence to the board? No correspondence to the board. Okay, so moving on to audience of citizen. Just a friendly reminder, members of the Berlin community are encouraged to share their thoughts with the Board of Education and are invited to do so during this segment of the meeting. When appropriate to do so, members of the board and the administration may respond to comments. However, in consideration for those in attendance and in an effort to proceed in a timely manner. Follow-up discussions may need to take place outside of the meeting setting. Residents speaking during this portion of the meeting will be limited to three minutes per resident. So if you could come up to the mic and just state your name and your address, please. Hi, my name is

002Amy Pager. I live at 153 Dale Drive. So I'm going to talk really quick. I just want to give a quick update. It wasn't here last month, but I was here the month before. I gave you, I talked about my son in the program at McGee. I did want to give you a quick update that this beginning of the school year has been good for him. But there are some concerns that I have as a parent from the time I was here last time up until now. They did promise me that last time I was here that someone would be in contact with me after the meeting. No one did contact me for several days, so I had to reach out through email. Then the superintendent contacted me, and then when he contacted me, he

003passed me off to pupil services, who was lovely. She was a very lovely woman. She talked to me for 45 minutes. It was great. She reassured me that my concern was a financial issue and that it would cost. I asked her how much it would cost because the last time I was here, I promised I would help find the money. She told me it would be about $100,000 in order for me to get this individual back so that we could run the program with fidelity. In the meantime, Mr. DeLude showed up at our house. He had papers. He was passing out or something. My husband contacted him and said, hey, why are you here? He said, hey, I'm running for mayor. He said, why would I vote for you if you can't help us with

004my son's program? Then he said, well, listen to me. It's a financial issue. He was blaming it on other people, the town council, the mayor, blah, blah, blah, blah. I then reached out. I said, I'm going to do my part, and I'm going to find money. So I contacted the town council. They were wonderful. They worked with me. They were the only ones that were willing to help me. They said to me, oh, my goodness, we had no idea. I said, I had no idea. I didn't know this was happening initially. They didn't know. The teachers didn't know. The board of ed didn't know. It was very concerning. When I reached out to them, they said, I'll reach out to the superintendent. They had a meeting with him, and they said, hey, we'll find you

005the money. We'll do the things that we need to do in order to get this back for you. And then it came out that it wasn't a financial issue, that it was a numbers issue. And that's concerning to me as a parent because you're telling me all of these things, and I'm up here fighting for my son and trying to find money and doing all these things, and now all of a sudden it's not a financial issue anymore. It's a numbers issue, which also is a concern to me as a parent because that says there's a problem. issue right if you're gonna have a district level program you have to have a plan for sustainability for that program are we looking at the projected numbers that are coming up from K 1 2 3 4

0065 what are we doing to promote this program at fifth grade transition meetings and things like that could we have implemented a co-teaching model something in order to keep this program and sustain it over long periods of time. So my concerns come with communication because nobody contacted me. I even contacted the superintendent's office at the end of his meeting with the town council and no one called me back. And then the transparency. We said it was a financial issue and all of a sudden now it's not a financial issue, it's a numbers issue. So what is it really? And then my last thing is programming. If we're going to have a district level program, we have to have a plan for that. So thank you for your time. Good evening, everyone. I don't need a

007microphone. I hope you can all hear me, okay? I'm Jim Phelps. I live at 177 Windy Knoll Drive. I saw on the agenda, and I've heard this from my resident neighbors, the high school's going to charge for parking for seniors, and two things have come up. And if you can answer the question, I'd appreciate it. Have you discussed the financial and liability issues of this with the town council? Answering questions right now. Okay, fine. Thank you. Because I think one of the things you have to weigh in mind here, I pay taxes, okay? And my taxes cover the property. But if you're going to collect revenue... to pay for those parking spaces that you're charging the students, you have to reimburse the town for the taxes that cover that property that you're using. And have

008you researched that first from a legality issue and talked to the town attorney and also from a liability issue? Because if someone gets injured on the property and you're collecting money and the town's liable, that's a conflict of interest. So there is some crossover there. You've got to have a hold harmless agreements and you have to have some subrogation of liability. So if you haven't researched that, you're going down a slippery slope. And I really think it's a financial issue. And then as to the Board of Ed, if you collect money separately from people for parking, How is it going to be allocated? What is your chart of accounts? Do you have one that will allocate it so you can track revenue versus expenditures? And lastly, are you charging the teachers? That could be an

009issue you have to address. Okay? Look forward to your response someday. Thank you. Hi. Jennifer DeGranti, 147, still Meadow Lane. I wrote down what I'm going to say. I'm backing up what this guy just said. I'm speaking against the BHS parking fee. It is my understanding that the fee was instituted to help supplement the district budget. The past budget was raised by over 4%. I always vote in favor of the education budget. I firmly believe in better schools equal a better town. But to charge students, because that's who you're charging, $100 to supplement an already generous budget that is yet to be spent for this school year, for lack of a better word, is disgusting and appalling. I am a taxpayer. I have paid the budget. I have two questions for you. My first question

010is, where is this collected fee going? I have respectively asked this question three times, but have never been answered. Why did you choose such a small population of the district, the one that is looking forward to paying for college? My other question is an administrative question. My student and several others were essentially threatened that this payment is going on their accountabilities if not paid. Again, another question I asked that I didn't get an answer to. How horrible is it to bring up that this is going on a student accountabilities? Do you put the fear in a student that they're not going to get their diploma, that they can't go to prom, that they can't participate in senior activities if they don't pay a $100 fee? Lastly... I've talked to several parents and students. What you

011don't realize is this is not coming out of the parents' pockets. This is coming out of the students' pockets. Several of the students I talked to had summer jobs. Their parents told them, you go ahead, you pay that $100 fee. But the saddest story I heard was from another student, a friend of my son's, who told me, oh yeah, Mrs. DeGrandi, I paid that. Oh, well, how did you pay that fee? Oh, I used my gift money from my birthday, from my grandmother and my aunts. That's who you're taking the money from. I look forward to some answers. Hello, good evening. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is June Daly. I live at 67 Homecrest. And I just wanted to share with you that I've heard several concerns from several parents and several children

012about the parking fee, how they thought it was unreasonable. It's beyond the cost of the score it gets for their budget. And so where I was in the position for this. I do work at the Berlin Fair. I volunteer, actually. It's a four-day event, as you know. And I am there probably 80% of the time. And during that time, our booth is very warm and welcoming of people that just stop by and want to share and talk about things, both of pride, how things are going in town. They think things are going very well. And there's usually two or three topics. And this year... Unfortunately, right before the fair, there had been a national news report where someone had lost his life, and we thought that would be a very big topic. But actually, that

013was third. passed the parking fee for the school, which is really quite surprising. There were a number of parents, a number of students who drive and students who aren't driving yet. And to mirror what the prior lady had said, a gentleman said, a young man, he says, I don't drive till next year and I think my parents are going to make me pay for that. And so... I think the sentiment was very concerning of all the people that came into our warm and welcoming booth. They wanted to share what they thought, what was upsetting, the conversations with parents across town, feeling that that's not something that should go forward. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Mike Buchholz, 178 Overhill Drive. I'm here also to speak about the parking fee. For most students, driving to

014school isn't a luxury and it's a necessity. They have after-school jobs, sports, family responsibilities. We're encouraging our kids to take responsibilities, to get jobs and become independent, to grow up, get ready for college, and now you're going to charge them to show up and to park. And what I understand is a town parking lot. And this is new this year. Just decided to, kind of at the last minute, we got an email the night before school's starting that they have to pay to park here. So I also want to understand where the money's going to be allocated to. As a taxpayer who also has already paid the taxes with your increase, we just need to understand where those monies are going to. For many families, these fees are an inconvenience and a real burden. On

015top of adding a parking fee, we're telling our kids, if you can't afford to pay, you don't deserve the convenience of driving, and that's unfair, I think, to tell these kids. Ultimately, I think it's about fairness. High school is to prepare our children for adulthood, not punish them for being responsible young adults. and students shouldn't have to pay to access their education safely and on time. Thank you. Hi, good evening. Sandy Coppola, 66 Heritage Drive. And full disclosure, I should also note that I'm a member of the town council in Berlin. But I'm also here to discuss the $100 parking fee for the students. You know, one of the things that when I was in school, I didn't go to Berlin, but when I was in high school, it was, I could finally... I could

016drive to school. I could drive to school. I can stay for extra programs. I could stay as late as I need for band practice and practice that. And then, gee, I can drive myself to my part-time job after. And it was almost like a rite of passage in school. And I feel that by charging this to these children now, you're kind of taking that away from them. And I wasn't aware until I heard it mentioned tonight that that could potentially, if they don't pay for it, prevent them from getting their diploma. I think that's a little harsh. The other thing I also want to mention, you know, it's going to, I don't know your final dollar amount that you would collect on that, but I heard it's, you know, it's a sizable amount, a decent

017amount. You know, I feel that we passed a fair budget for the Board of Education, and we even, you know, the town even picked up a mandated reading program from the state, which saved the Board of Education over $200,000, I believe was the number. So I just think that... Maybe there's other ways if I don't know what this money is going to be appropriated for. But again, I don't think it's right to charge the students because that's really who's going to end up paying for it, as was said by other speakers. So thank you for your time. Hello, everyone. How are you? Mayor Mark Kaczynski here, Castlewood Drive. So I just wanted to read the letter out because I don't think it's been read into the record yet that came from the council on September

0184th. So, address to the board. At its September 2nd meeting, the town council discussed the Board of Education's recent decision to implement student parking fees at Berlin High School. Following deliberation, the council voted unanimously to request the board not move forward with this fee. The council's position is based on the fact that the parking lot is town-owned property and maintained by the town. Further, the proposed fee would not be directed towards educational purposes since the expenses associated with the maintenance of the parking lot are borne by the town. As such, it would be tantamount to an unlawful appropriation. So on behalf of the town council, we, the council, respectfully request that the Board of Education refrain from imposing or assessing a parking fee at Berlin High School. So we appreciate you. I know this is

019on the agenda tonight to discuss. And I want to also mention that, you know, we talked about additional appropriations, taking the reading fee that Sandy mentioned, put it on the town side, and also I think your latest surplus figure that I saw was a $387,000 surplus at the end of last year. If you need the $20,000 that year, that bad, you should take it out of the surplus. That's just our thoughts and that was again unanimous vote by the council so appreciate you guys listening look forward to hearing your discussion Thank you. Good evening. Jeff pager 153 Dale Drive. I had a five-page Document I was gonna read tonight and I think I'm just gonna speak from the heart My wife came up and kind of told you all this stuff already. Anyway, I don't

020understand in this town while special ed is such a difficult thing and Since Griswold, you know, my son came through Griswold into McGee, we have been fighting for this kid every single day. Meetings and everything else. Things got a lot better when Mr. Campbell came along, but it was a real difficult time before Mr. Campbell was there. Sixth grade, we got off to a rough start, but we were in a really good position once we got going. Seventh grade this year, we're thrown for a loop again with all of the hubbub over the summer. She already talked about it. I don't need to re-describe it. Very poor transparency really bad decision-making on your part, but we'll get to that later. I think there needs to be some true looking at special ed and the special

021needs that these kids have and the choices that you make to change those programs Because you just think oh, we're gonna stick them somewhere else no big deal down the road We go and it's not the case and until you've had a special needs child That are in those programs you have no idea what you're talking about. I'm sorry I don't care if you're a teacher my wife is an assistant principal Okay, I don't care what you are You have to see these kids for what they are and what the parents go through because it is a challenge every day with Jack every day and he's 12 I Will leave you with this I ask that you look at these programs and something that you keep going all the time. Even my wife said it.

022Why couldn't, you know, we had 197 kids come in in sixth grade. You're telling me none of them could use the program? It's impossible. It's impossible. But we chose to just say, nope, we'll look good. We'll be fine. We stuck them in with other kids that weren't necessarily what Jack has issues with. And, you know, has he done okay so far? Yeah, it's been okay. it's been okay but you have a person that's loaded up with more kids and is he getting the same service i don't really know probably not we're doing the best we can and mr bing she left you a message in the summer please take time out of your day to call her back please i don't understand why you can't return a call it's it's very simple i'm trying to

023be nice and and i do appreciate the time to speak tonight thank you Thank you so much. I know myself, I wrote down the questions that were addressed during audience of citizen, and it's on our agenda item at the end of the meeting for us as a board to discuss. I'm going to move on to our next agenda item, which is personnel. We have a retirement. at Mary E. Griswold School, kindergarten teacher. Sandra Fagan, teacher of kindergarten at Mary E. Griswold School, has submitted her letter of intent to retire at the end of the 2025-2026 school year. Chris will for a number of years Sandy announced her retirement recently an integral part of Berlin public schools Worked with our students for years. I know and speaking to mr. Campbell It was bittersweet. She's but she

024really feels it's time and we wish her the best her next endeavors. So congratulations So can I have a motion of consideration? I'll move that the board accept the retirement of Sandra Fagan, teacher of kindergarten at Mary Griswold School, effective June 30th, 2026. Also to thank her for the 34 years of service she has provided to the youth of Berlin and wish her good health and happiness in her retirement years. And do we have a second? Okay. So motion by Peter, second by Jen. And we'll take a vote. All in favor? Aye. Any? All right, so the vote carries 6-0. And then we have another retirement, Dawn Primo. I hope I said that correctly. Okay. Teacher of grade 3 at Mary E. Griswold School has submitted her letter of intent to retire at the end

025of the 2025-2026 year. Just a little about Dawn. Dawn completed all of her years of teaching here in Berlin. Again, another integral part of the Griswold family. We'll miss Dawn's interaction with students. Very positive role model for students for years. And again, Dawn waited right to the last minute to decide to retire. So congratulations to Dawn and wish her the best. We have a motion for consideration. of the retirement of Dawn Primo, teacher of grade three at Mary E. Griswold School, effective June 30th, 2026. Also to thank her for her 35 years of service she has provided to the youth of Berlin and wish her good health and happiness in her retirement years. And do we have a second? I'll second. All right, so motion by Jen, second by Jess. All those in favor? Aye.

026Anyone opposed? Vote carries 6-0. And then moving on to the consent agenda. Everything has been put in Schoology. So I have a motion for consideration. In a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All right. Motion by Gina, second by Jen. And we'll take a vote. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Vote carries 6-0. Moving on to new business. We have Social Studies Department Chair Jeff Kronk will present alongside Principal Kate Amenta on an upcoming opportunity for the BHS students to travel to England to pursue career pathway learning opportunities in the spring of 2026. Good evening, everybody. It is my pleasure to introduce in just a moment my department supervisor, our 612 Social Studies Chair, Mr. Jeffrey Kronk. Mr. Kronk, alongside some colleagues, Mr. Parisi is here in the back in support, and a few other

027colleagues here at Brown High School have been researching and finding really new and exciting opportunities for students. to network and study abroad. And so tonight, Mr. Cronk is going to draw the parallel between this unique opportunity, which we hope to execute in the spring of the school year, as it connects with our newly designed career pathways program. So I'm gonna step aside and let Mr. Cronk go through the slides, and I'm gonna stay up here and support if there's any questions and clarification needed. So without any further ado, Mr. Cronk. Thank you, Mrs. Amenta, and I want to thank the board, building administration, central office staff, and the audience for this time. I'm really excited about this opportunity. It just kind of fell into my lap, and I started researching it, and as I was

028researching it, I started really seeing all these connections that would give students this great authentic experience. So I'm gonna try the best I can to lay out like some logistical information that will hopefully help you understand like what this would look like and what this would entail. First the agency, so EF Tours is an agency that has been running for 55 years. It has a great reputation. I've done multiple cross references and looked into this organization to ensure that they would be the right fit. They also have done multiple works with the other districts in the surrounding area from Wethersfield to Southington, Terryville, Burlington, Lewis Mills High School, Bristol Arts and Pathways. And I've heard great record of what the work they did with those schools. So it made me feel better putting this together

029that there's these partnerships that exist in surrounding communities. And again, like, I usually get these brochures and I don't honestly look at them, but for some reason I looked at this particular one and I just saw this possibility of this field trip where I saw students could learn about the landmarks and the history of England while at the same time getting phenomenal, unique experiences in the business world. And I really think it does connect to our vision of the graduate skills that are illustrated there on the left and also with the work we've been doing as a school and a district in the last few years with career pathways, trying to open up the real world experiences with the classroom. And then I started talking to Mr. Preecy and Mr. Jones and seeing if they

030were interested. And the more we sat there and spoke, I just realized, like, there are so many authentic and natural opportunities, both in the classroom and also with our clubs that are listed here, respectively. And I just, the more, again, we talked about this, the more it just seemed to make sense to try to do this. Students also get a lot of soft skills and durable skills by doing this. I think it gives a lot of seniors and maybe juniors a great opportunity to go apply to college or wherever life takes them in the military or a career. And they would have an experience that will stay with them the rest of their lives. One of my biggest regrets from college was I had a chance to go study abroad and I didn't do it.

031And so this is an opportunity I think that would transform lives for years to come. And they're all listed here. I got this from EFTOR's website. And I think this is just scratching the surface. I think there's certain things that you just can't label in terms of a great experience like this. But this is some of the things that they would get out of the experience. It is an eight-day itinerary. I'm shooting for April vacation to mitigate any absences of staff and students not missing school. There may be a one or two-day window on both ends of that because they don't really lock down hard dates until like around January in terms of the traveling. But there is an itinerary where, I don't know if I should open up the doc or just... Okay, for

032now I'm not going to open up the doc, but literally the first day is traveling and then day two we have a 24-7 tour director. We have 24-7 medical support. We have a whole team of people stationed in Boston that work for EF tours. So if there's anything that would happen along the way, as a parent myself, I'd want that certainty and comfort knowing that there would be supports there in place taking students across the world, literally. But there's some pictures here to kind of show you some of the great things that speak to what I was talking about. So in the upper left corner there, you have the Bank of England Museum. So the students would get a tour of that. They'd get to see like the history of the banking institutions and financial

033institutions of England. On the right there is called the Eye. It's this beautiful huge Ferris wheel that has like pods, climate controlled, where you literally get to see sky views of the city. You have the changing of the guard, Buckingham Palace. You have the London School of Economics. So these visuals just really show you that the students get the best of the history along with these business opportunities. Here's just an anticipated timeline. So here we are tonight doing the presentation I would like to do a family with approval family information night as soon as possible to be able to get parents on board and understand and field any questions they may have and any interest they may have as well We would begin an application process in November to vet students to make sure that

034we're bringing the right students for the right reasons on this trip December, January, start finalizing that list and when students do express interest, EF Tours creates an account for them that helps them get personalized fundraising pages and also information on global scholarships and things of that nature if cost is an issue. And then again by April 10th or 17th, like I said, one to two days on both ends of that is when we would travel. I would be chaperoning this along with Mr. Jones and Mr. Preecy, two business teachers, and we'd be shooting for about 18 students based on the consultation with EF Tours for the first time doing this. She said that sounded appropriate. I didn't want anything too big, and I also wanted something not too small either, so she said that would

035be a good size to bring on this trip. Like I said, there would be criteria based for application and we'd start with the social studies classes I listed on the slideshow along with the clubs that meet after school just to kind of start there. But of course, it'd be open up to the entire student body as well. This is the biggest thing as a parent I would want to know about, and it's cost. And the cost right there is highlighted in yellow. That's $43.99, and what that includes is everything listed there. What it does not include, to be fully transparent, that I would have to get information on is the bus transportation to the airport. So that would be something that I would get the quotes on different vendors and find the most cost-effective one

036available, and that would be added to that cost. But it does include the air flights, the hotel, the meals. There's also accommodations for if there's allergies or food issues, things of that nature. The site access to everything we'd see in those seven to eight days, the 24-7 contact as well. What I like about this organization, because I did look at other ones, is they really work with families to make this manageable. So again, when you create an account, you... get this personalized fundraising page. You have multiple options for monthly payment plans to make it affordable. They have a global citizen scholarship. They said over 100 students last year received the full trip paid for based on the application of the scholarship. I guess students essentially make a video stating why they want to go on

037the trip and how they'd benefit, things of that nature. And again, there's a risk-free enrollment period. So if like a family signs up, but something happens and they have to cancel, they wouldn't be punished for that. So the purpose of this presentation was try to give you a concise overview of the logistics of this So hopefully this was helpful to see the overview of it Happy to field any questions you may have I'll do the motion before we discuss anything. I'll do a motion for consideration To England for the purpose of exploring career pathways and new learning experiences in the spring of 2026 and a second I'll second So motion by Peter, second by Jen. Now we can open it up for discussion. Just a minor question. When it comes to the transportation and the

038busing, you mentioned the lack of clarity there. Is that for the busing on the American side to the airport or for the international side? No, that would be for domestic okay getting to and I personally was like record asking the tour Contact if we could do Logan Airport because I just find the traffic to New York is cumbersome and Takes up a lot of time. So having done it myself both ways on But another thing I was thinking about, too, is if it's more cost effective, if there's a way to go to Hartford to save on the busing, and then there's a way to maybe get over to London from there. So I was going to look at those options as well. This is just initially what the EF tour contact gave me. How long

039will families have to pay? Like, at what month would they be able to start? And then what date is it due by? Or around when is it due by, like 30 days before the trip? Yeah, the typical policy is 30 days before. to start of the trip. This is going to be a lovely experience. Yeah, I'm really excited about it, but I also know that I admittedly am starting this timeline a little bit later than I would have preferred, but this is the first time I'm going through this and... That therefore the window is a little bit smaller for the monthlies But there's still that option of families need it and she did say when you log in there's other options as well so based on What information the families put in they try to

040meet the family where they're at financially to make it work I love the fundraising option too. I think that can be huge if the kids really Put the effort in and we're gonna like mrs. Amenta and I had some surface level conversations Like I'm gonna talk to miss Hemling our work based coordinator. She has she's done some work in the past with fundraising So I think there's some other things we can look at too to help with families. I do know Julia does a trip I don't remember where she went. Would you remember where she just went with her business students? She went to England. So Julia may be a really good person to connect with for fundraising and anything else you may need considering she's done it a few times. I spoke to her

041a few times over the summer as well and she gave me a ton of information to consider. She's been a great resource. Awesome. Do you have a sense from other schools who participate the percentage the fundraising offsets the cost? No, I would have to get that information. Jen, I do know, speaking with Julia, that some of her students have fundraised the entire amount. Well, I'll have to say, my mom did use EF Tours when she was teaching in New Britain, and she went to Costa Rica with her science students and talking about, I know that cost, I mean, I'm looking at the number, I'm like... But, you know, like you said, trip of a lifetime with so many skills, education and personal and cultural, it would be an amazing opportunity. So I just want to

042add to this that, you know, we at the high school, with the growth of the Career Pathways Program, and as many people here have seen, the community has seen, we're ranked, you know, within the top 50 in Brown High School just this past month. I believe we are growing and being a competitive high school with each year. And this is something that helps set us apart by giving an authentic learning opportunity to students. I will be honest to you, both as a professional and as a parent, I saw that sticker tag and went, whoa. As a parent, that would be certainly the first conversation I think we would be having of how are we going to... you know, certainly plan for that. And so that's been the epicenter of our conversation around how to support

043students to make it accessible for students who meet the criteria within the application process and, you know, are good standing academically and with attendance. But this is something that Berlin High School has not offered students in over 13, 14 years. It's been that long since students have had the opportunity to study abroad. I believe the last trip was to France. probably around 2010, 2011. So this is certainly something, again, in conjunction with our career pathways that just sets Brown High School apart from a lot of neighboring communities. But I believe it would be, you know, it's been our conversation each time we've met as to how to help facilitate the cost. this particular trip in partnering again with Miss Hemming and the industry right this is career pathway led can we get some industries you

044know to help support that sort of thing our students who are pursuing a particular pathway if they're doing an internship or externship that sort of thing so we're trying to be creative about it in this approach but as Jeff mentioned you know it is a little delayed We have also noticed a trend with students just across the board who are very busy and spread thin that when we have opportunities for students to travel or go on trips that the attendance has not been as high as it has been in the past. So with that being said, this is a dipstick for us to see with this being passed what the interest would be. But I think pulling in the career pathway and doing it over a time like April break when most things do pause.

045will get us the best measure for student interest. Any other questions? All right, so we'll go to a vote. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? So the vote carries 6-0. Thank you so much, and good luck on this new adventure. Thank you. all right um we're moving on to the next agenda meet uh agenda um the official 2025-2026 district enrollment report yes we have 2 557 students in the public schools that's a decrease of 37 students compared to last year Average class size at the elementary at Griswold 19.4 students per class at Hubbard 17.25 and at Willard 19.45 students per class. That just gives you a brief overview of the student population for the 25-26 school year as of October 1st. And then we also have the most updated choice report. Sure. This year

046we have eight kindergarten students. And anyone that's not in kindergarten, the only way we take students in different grades other than K is that if they're siblings of the students that are in kindergarten, meaning new students that we're accepting or students that are already here that are in K. So we have eight. Kindergarteners in Berlin this next year, we have one first grader, one third grader, one fifth grader, and two sixth graders for a total of 13. So our total percentage of 89 total students is 3.4% choice students of the total population, which in the last three or four years, it's been around three, three point something. We haven't hit the four threshold in probably five years. All right, moving on to the textbook recommendation for adoption. We're going to have a presentation. Directors of

047Curriculum and Instruction, Lori Gerben and Kara Watson, will present the following textbook recommendation for adoption to the members. So we have a recommendation for a textbook adoption for... the general music class at the middle school. And the purpose of this is there isn't one presently and this would allow all of the learning that happens at the elementary school continue into the middle school. is an online learning platform, so we don't have a copy of the book for you. And we think that it's just going to add information for our students to be successful. There's a whole class component as well as individual work that students can do on their own. The primary focus is piano instruction, so the students are actually participating in labs where they're working on keyboards. Again, whole group, small group, individually.

048It allows for differentiation if students are in different places, and it also provides professional development as part of the program for the teachers. It's very comprehensive. The program's been around, I think, close to 30 years. and the lessons are handled in a particular sequence to support students' learning of reading music, playing music, all the understanding that goes along with that. So again, we don't have a hard copy of the book because it's all online. Any questions? I don't know, Melissa, you were at the meeting if there was anything else. I'll do a motion for consideration, and then we can ask the questions. So can I have a motion for consideration? I move to adopt the textbook Music and the Brain by Building for the Arts and published by Building for the Arts. And second? I'll

049second. So motion by Jen, second by Gina. And we can open up for discussions. Any questions? So Mr. Boyle did a presentation during the curriculum committee. We were kind of discussing how this is, once again, there's nothing in place at the moment, so this is more a cohesive, continuous program that, as we discussed in middle school, you have three options. You can go into chorus, you can go into band, or I forgot the exact term. Music experience. Music experience. I'm going to call it general music. That's how I'm thinking of it. And they're just saying how, you know, you might have a student that continued band for all three years or they might change from one year after another. So this program would allow instruction for any level or ability, whether they are taking it

050from sixth, seventh and in eighth grade or they are just starting the program in eighth grade. So it has a lot of flexibility. And the research that was done, the success rate, we had watched a presentation with teachers and how helpful it was to them to be able to accommodate the students and just the excitement of learning that they had just for the program and doing it in their classrooms. Yeah, well it being an online, I mean you can talk about it a little bit further, but because it's an online program it adapts to the individual. So they're not all doing the exact same thing. It's based on their skill level and then it will build upon their level versus all together. And some of it is whole class, so that part wouldn't be online.

051That would be kids in front of a smart board with the notes and everything in front of them, similar to what they have at the elementary level. Yeah, Mr. Boyle said it's a good flowing connection from the programs that we have in the elementary school as they continue into middle school. If there's no other questions, we'll take a vote. All those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. So the vote carries 6-0. Thank you. All right. And next, Ashley Dorsey will be coming up for a facilities update. Is that a real cricket? Okay. I wasn't sure if it was feedback or anything. Okay. All right. This is going to be quick. So the Berlin High School flooring discussions are still ongoing with the flooring project over at Berlin High School. Architects Jakunski and Humes are

052expected to submit their proposal to the Public Building Commission for the review and approval in their November meeting. The McGee Science Labs, there's been no further movement. The approval of the architect for the McGee Science Labs. The bids for the architect for the projects were reviewed by the PVC and approved. An approval for the bid was planned for the second town council meeting in July. However, the item was pulled from the town council agenda by the town manager due to lack of funding. The Griswold HVAC project is off to a good start. Work is being contained to the hallways right now. Excavation and additional exterior work is planned for the upcoming weeks as the company awaits additional shop drawings. The Hubbard HVAC project is also off to a good start since the company mobilized ceiling

053tiles in the hallways have been removed and the work has been primarily contained to the hallways at this time as well. Both companies are finalizing lead times for mechanical equipment and will provide that information as soon as it becomes available. Well, to do the capital funding. Okay, so this is a similar format to, can you, you were on the right one. You just need to scroll up to the first page. There we go. Okay, so this is a similar format to what we've been presenting for our capital improvement plan in the past few years. So what we've been doing at the board level is we've been prioritizing it based on major projects. This year we have prioritized the floor tile removal and replacement over at Berlin High School, the renovation and repurpose of the five

054classrooms over at McGee Middle School, and then the purchase of four student transportation vehicles. We have pricing. We are still waiting for the pricing for the Berlin High School tile removal. We won't have that until the architects get back to us and we do some bidding on that. If that becomes available in the next few months, it will be updated throughout the budget process. The only number we have for the McGee Science Labs is that $3.1 million, which is from a few years ago where it was kind of an overall conceptual ceiling to floor, everything that you could possibly want in a lab kind of design. And the whole reason why we went out to bid for architects is so we could get the design of the lab, so we could go out to bid

055and get a number that... Is hopefully not that 3.1 million dollars but unfortunately that's the only number we have to work with and until we get those drawings and those approvals and Go out to bed. We're not going to have a real number for the plan However, if you've been at the in McGee labs, you know, it is in desperate need of repair And updating so we want to prioritize that And then our student transportation vehicles, we see this every year. We haven't had a replacement cycle in several years. And we did receive some substantial funding from the town council last year to start replacing some of our... really old vehicles and we were able to replace about eight vehicles in the course of fiscal 25. However, we still need to replace about seven more

056and this request is going to continue until we go through all of our vehicles. We have an actual replacement cycle and hopefully in the next couple fiscal years once we start replacing some of our older vehicles we will Drop that number down to a hundred thousand and we'll only have to replace two vehicles a year So those are our priority projects all other requests are things that have been requested by the department heads and supervisors For ongoing things that have gone on in their classrooms or in their buildings So these will not be our priority so they won't go on years one or one through three of the community of the capital improvement plan they'll be on further years if any funding becomes available through other grant resources we may pull some of these smaller

057projects off of the capital plan and fund it with grants if that becomes available one thing that has come up in several buildings and it's something you have to be aware of is our furniture replacement. We do not have a furniture replacement cycle and at our elementary and our high school level our classrooms are in need of some new furniture and I know a lot of people say well the high school is brand new how can that be? It's time. The material was not the best. It's falling apart. We can't get parts for it. They can't be fixed anymore. So the plan is at the high school and in two of the elementary levels whose furniture is from the 1970s. time to replace that as well, but it's lasted longer than the BHS furniture, would

058be either one department at a time or one grade level at a time. So that's something you're going to start seeing more frequently because it's been not addressed for several years. And to outfit a classroom is typically about $25,000 to $30,000 per classroom, just to give you an idea of how much everything costs. Any questions regarding the capital improvement plan? Before we go into discussion, do I have a motion for consideration? Move that the board approve the request for capital funding as presented for submission to the town of Berlin. And do I have a second? All right, motion by Peter, second by Jen. Now we can have a discussion. Any questions? I just have a question, Ashley. So when you said you wanted to hopefully not hit that $3 million mark, where did the $3

059million come from? Was that just in... Nope, that was from our architect JCJ. They came in and did a conceptual budget estimate. So it is a very high level. She took a couple pictures, said, yeah, if you want this kind of fixtures, these kind of labs, this kind of furniture. And we at the time had looked for worst case scenario because it's always better to be a little bit. more conservative in a sense. So rather than budget $800,000 and have a project that's going to be $1.2 million, and we knew this number would eventually change as we got more into the details of what exactly is needed and what exactly will fit that space in the way it needs to be re-renovated. So you're saying that's probably the worst case scenario? This better be a

060worst case scenario, yes. Okay, all right, thank you. Anything in the science labs that aren't working? that are in need of absolute repair? So the labs are functional. However, they are not what your standard lab would look like now. Facilities has done a lot of maintenance on those labs. We've had to fix some of the lab stations themselves that were cracked. Cabinetry has been, it's falling apart. And it's just... Yes. Can they teach in those classrooms? Yes. But teachers make it work a lot of different ways. There's nothing functionally wrong in the sense of, but you're working on a lab that was built in the 1960s and curriculum for science has changed and how they run labs is much different than how they ran them back in the 60s. So as far as functional environments,

061it's not very streamlined in those rooms. date and I did go on a tour and I did see the classrooms. I mean, it's exactly how you describe it. I wonder with all the changes in being up to code, I'm assuming obviously we wouldn't be able to have anything run in those classrooms that couldn't, but a lot, like you said, has changed from the 1960s to now. So do we run into any of... Are you talking about structural code and facility code? All of those would be up to date. I guess a little bit of everything. I don't even remember what's in a middle school. I mean, at a high school, we had the burners, you know, but I don't know if that's... I don't believe they use burners anymore. See, there you go. But I

062know the labs are typically surrounding the perimeter and allows for more STEAM STEM activities within the center of the room so students could... go in and out. It's just a different style of teaching in the classrooms themselves. I can say they're certainly not pretty. And if that's the layout that we're going for, there really truly is very limited space in the classroom, for sure. Yeah, that's one of the biggest problems, biggest complaints we get in those labs. We look at the curriculum to see that the rooms are meeting the needs of the current curriculum. And if there was things, the needs over here 70 years ago are different than what the curriculum needs of the room. So as far as is gas needed in every room, does there need to be a hood in the

063room, it's the same layout as when we did the high school, we renovated the high school as new. We looked at the curriculum needs and then set up the rooms to meet those needs for safety as well as building code needs currently. How about in middle school, would they better prepare students for the sciences in high school compared to what it is right now? That's a bright question. High school has the class. You have your classroom and the lab. We may not be able to fit them into class because of just proximity of the rooms and size. But we'd definitely be able to reposition the rooms in a way with a more functional. So the functionality is limiting what they can learn. Right. You have functionality. Board space is limited. You have roller boards that

064some don't work any longer. You have lab stations that aren't functional in some of the classrooms. So you're forced to, where you're teaching, demo tables are different in the classrooms. So the layout would be different. I can't speak to, as an architect, what the maximization of space would be. used for the classrooms until we get someone in with the curriculum. I just see some really great things going on at the high school level and I want to be sure we have the facilities of the middle school that represent what they need for high school. I think when you look at the middle school in the old science rooms compared to the newer wing of the high school, they're much different. There are collabs at the middle school for the eighth grade wing, but when you

065go to the sixth and seventh grade, they're not. Any other questions or discussions? Okay, we'll take it to a vote. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? All right, vote carries 6-0. So next we're moving on to transportation changes. Do you want to get a little more in depth? Sure. Last year in speaking to the budget, we talked about the possibility of saving funds with transportation, and there was great discussion on that. And so thinking ahead and knowing budget season is right on our heels here, looking at the transportation, we did some research, and a credit to Ashley, and we had some discussions about transportation and the needs. We also met with F&O about that. Ashley's prepared to discuss a little further and share with the entire board what we discovered and some proposals

066Basically, as Brian said we're always looking for ways to kind of bring down some of our operational costs wherever we see we can and our current situation is We are currently transporting to four different technical schools and one vocational school Legally, we're required to transport to one and one There are currently 32 resident students who are enrolled in the tech MOAD programs for the 25-26 school year. The annual spend for technical and vocational transportation has increased over 30% in four years. And then the tech and vocational services is about 5.6% of the transportation budget overall. Thank you. So as you can see, we did a four-year snapshot of ridership for our tech and VOAG schools. So most of our kids are going to EC Goodwin and Vinyl Tech. And we have a smaller population going

067to Wilcox Tech and Prince Tech. Programs of studies for each of these are not exactly the same. There are some programs that are offered at all four. Most of our students this year are in ninth grade, which is what they call their exploratory year, so we have not yet been able to determine which programs our ninth graders are going to to see if maybe if we change the way we're going to do this, we see what the most popular programs are, and we would transport to one or two of the most popular. Next slide, please. So this is our historical spend. We spent $166,000, almost $167,000 in transportation VOAG services. for those students and it's a gradual increase year after year. So essentially these students would be on a small vehicle which is billed at

068an hourly rate versus a daily rate. If we reduce the number of runs that we take then we could put the kids on a Bus and we would get a daily rate and we would save some money that way plus you could get more kids on a bus than you kid on a van it would also open up the availability of those van services for special education and regular education students who require van services so in addition to cost this will eliminate some of our logistical problems and We may also be able to reduce our inventory of vans as the years go on Next slide please. This is a comparison of our DERGs. So our DERG is our socioeconomic status and what we did is we captured who's doing what. And as you can see

069a majority of our friends in other districts are doing one-on-one, what is legally required of them. You have some other districts who are doing one and two. The districts that don't have a VOAG or are not transporting to a VOAG typically run that service within their own community. So Southington, they have a VOAG. Wallingford has a VOAG. And as you can see, Berlin is number two. It's the green, and we are going above and beyond as always. So just to kind of give you a snapshot of what other people are doing. So... This would not be a cost savings for the first year or two. So we wouldn't get to see a cost savings this year because our kids are obviously enrolled. We've thought about grandfathering our existing students for transportation services. We would have

070to have these discussions now. So our incoming ninth graders, our eighth grade students who are thinking about going to technical services would need to be notified. We will not provide transportation. to any other tech school with the exception of the ones that we decide we will. So if we go with the one just based on enrollment, it would be EC Goodwin that typically always has the most amount of students. So if we decide we're only gonna transfer to EC Goodwin, any other student who wants to attend one of the other programs would be required to set up their own transportation. The law requires us to cover up to $6,000 per student going to a tech school. So regardless of where we decide to transport. Berlin will have to pay up to $6,000. There are several

071districts that do this model. They pick their one-in-one, and then anybody that wants to go outside, they set up several different models. You could set up a reimbursement model. You could set up a mileage model. There's different ways. So if this is a route we want to go, we'd have to do a little bit more research on how we want to implement the $6,000 reimbursement. In the districts that I have spoke to, most of those parents that opt for that reimbursement, it does not even get up to $6,000. But we would have to budget for the $6,000 because we are legally required for at least that. That's for the parents that do the reimbursement model. It's not typically $6,000. And it would depend on where they're going because some of these tech schools are far

072out. I've also included a program of studies so you could kind of see what our tech schools are offering and why they could be choosing that career pathway versus ours. But this is an opportunity to ask any questions that you might have or just have an open discussion with the information that Ashley just provided. I just think it's important to note that if this is something that we may look at for this next year budget. We need to notify parents as early as possible, let them know. And the proposal that Ashley spoke of, which we would do obviously in the motion format, is to grandfather those that are in. Like if a student's a junior at a tech school, we wouldn't say, we're not going to transport you for your senior year. We let them

073finish. But we need to have it in place so that students, when they opt for next year, they know that this is the school that we're approving or the schools we're approving as far as transportation goes. I'd be in favor of grandfathering the current students in, you know, as it is now. But I guess my question is more about the reimbursement. You know, for instance, in the 24-25 year, we had one student go into Prince Tech. What was the cost of that student to us versus the up to $6,000 we would be potentially responsible for if we went for the reimbursement model? I would have to run that directly for you, but it would be more than $6,000. Absolutely. But I'll get that for you. I got you. And just to clarify, you said we

074don't potentially know the number of right freshmen that are where they're going to be just to project. where they're projecting next year to go. But the notion is if we're not going to open, as in the past, we've opened all these schools as options. If we're not going to do that, prior to the counselor sitting down with the students and deciding we need to let the parents know and the students know these are the options we're providing transportation to. I need more clarification on the reimbursement model. So we have to reimburse up to $6,000, okay? But you're saying that some students or some districts and the students don't use that $6,000. Yep. So if we set a policy that's a mild reimbursement model, we can roughly estimate how much that would cost per trip to

075the school five days a week or what have you. So if we set that policy and that number only comes out to roughly $2,400, how is it that... We're gonna exceed beyond that 2400 and reimbursement. You know what I'm getting at like I'm just unclear. I'm not That the reimbursement would be in place but if we had that many students that wanted to go and the reimbursement would exceed what the transportation costs would be then we would provide the transportation so the district shouldn't be paying out if there's eight students and we're over what the van would cost we wouldn't want to be paying the reimbursement higher than what the van cost it's just how we write our policy for that you know if that's the route we decide to go or if we decide

076on a mileage account I think the one piece we want to talk about still, Ashley, is the group stop. Do you want to speak to that one? Yeah, so the other way, another thing that we've been working on, we semi-implemented it, I think two years ago, was the group stop. And we were going to have only one group stop over at McGee. And we got a lot of backlash from the... districts from the Griswold and Hubbard districts. So now we have one central stop at each of the elementary schools. So anybody who lives in the Hubbard district, they're responsible for getting their kids to Hubbard, Griswold, et cetera. What we've also implemented is the corner stops. So we try our hardest to adhere to our policy, which is corner stops. with the exception of safety,

077is typically when we will have a house stop. The road's not safe to walk. And I want to make this very clear. Not having sidewalks does not mean the road is not walkable. I just want to make that very clear. Not having sidewalks is not a reason why we give house stops. We are trying to reduce the number of stops, and when you reduce the number of stops, you reduce your fuel, you reduce your mileage, and things like that. So that is something we are looking to revisit next year, would be the centralized stops. And if you are in favor, again, making it one centralized stops versus three for those tech schools. That's the other option. not as much as the cost savings as reducing the number of vans going out. Your piece of the

078puzzle there is the reduction on the logistics for the other programs we have because that's a huge benefit. If there's no further discussion, we'll move on to the discussion regarding the policy on board attendance. Thank you, Ashley. So the Board of Ed recognizes that attendance to Board of Ed meetings is an important aspect to the responsibilities of being a board member. Based on this understanding, the board is considering implementing new guidelines and practices in an effort to address board members who are not attending board meetings on a regular basis. So we talked about this during our retreat. We're bringing it up now to have an open discussion. I think it's an important topic. I think there's always an understanding of being absent from time to time. That goes with anything that you do. You can't

079be there every single time. I think that it's important if you have made the commitment that you do come to the meetings. I don't know that the zooming in is that that's considered attending, correct? If you're zooming in? Yes, it is. Okay. So absent would be not here at all, not zooming, not sitting here. I think it's a good policy to have. I don't know, did we decide whether we were going to take attendance? I don't know where we left it in terms of... We talked about law. There isn't necessarily a law. There's not a policy and as far as removing someone from the board, the board doesn't have the ability to remove another board member. So the question was what do we want to have, whether it was keeping track of attendance, posting attendance,

080you know, what is the vehicle after so many misses of a board meeting. It used to be discussion with the previous board chair after two in a row there was a discussion with the board. That's when the board used to meet twice a month. We meet once a month, so you may not want to let it be the two, because now you're talking two months, or on the three, it's a quarter of the year. So it's really up to the board to decide what is the process and when do you want it to be addressed and then how do you want to address it. There's nothing in the board handbook that states other than that attendance is important, just like we said. So I don't know what the board would want to do to address

081if that does happen. So I'm just going to tack on to what Gina said. You know, even before taking on this role, like, I made sure that I was going to be able to put in the commitment because that's part of the responsibility. So I do think that it's important to be present in part of the conversations as that's what you stepped in and the public voted for you to do so. with Melissa and Gina as well and I feel if somebody cannot give the time to be here then maybe we should give somebody else the opportunity who could be an active member of the board. i agree with the previous speakers i do think though that we should perhaps track it i think other commissions and boards do that at least it's just a

082one-page reference for fellow members to see and also for the public to observe but yeah if you you know if you get elected to the board you should fulfill your duties as best as you can and attendance is a basic tenet of that i don't know how much time we want to spend focusing on a potential policy seeing as there's no actual enforcement mechanism that we can utilize We can only really discuss with the party, and hopefully that party can make the right decision. If they're missing seven, eight, nine meetings, perhaps they should resign, and we can appoint someone who will be more. have better attendance or what have you, but with no actual enforcement mechanism, I think this is something that the board chair and the board itself needs to regulate on a case

083by case basis and just have a firm discussion with any individual. And I think all of us have the judgment to know when someone is being absent at such like a negligent level, so to speak. I think it's a commitment that we all make as others have said, and it is important to have some guidelines in place. to make sure that people understand that commitment before they decide to be part of this group. But I would agree that I don't think it needs to be a full policy. I think it's guidelines that we then make sure conversations happen if they need to, if there's excessive absences. We're going to move on to discussion of Regarding possible revisions to the board bylaw 9100 use of social media by the board member. Once again, this got brought

084up. I know it's been talked about in the community engagement meetings, but we also talked about it in our retreat and we wanted to bring it forward facing for us to have a discussion. but we're considering changing bylaw 9100, the use of social media by board members. This change is being considered after many board members have expressed an interest in being able to post and respond. Board members share that many times... share that many items that are posted with incorrect or misinformation could be addressed if the current policy was changed to allow board members to respond via a social media post. So once again, there's no motion on this. It's just open discussion. I think social media can be effective as far as promoting and and really just giving some of our school spirit, announcements,

085programs that are happening, just beneficial for all of that. I recently went to a CABE, it was a virtual session that was on civil discourse and effective communication, and I think many of the things we have talked about over the last few years really just... it was exactly what they talked about like how to be cautious and Use it as a tool that promotes the school rather than gets into back and forth with comments That could be held against the school district and really using the school district as the voice then board members would then repost by sharing that information so it's word for word how the district posts and you're not restating anything that could be misstated so all of those things I think are important And it could be part of a communications

086plan for the district. I think, you know, the one question that came up during the virtual session I was in had to do with whether the comments should be turned on or off. And it was overwhelming that they should be left on, but that it's not always necessary to comment on somebody's post. and let those who are engaging in that post do the commenting themselves rather than from board members. If I could just speak to the history of this policy when it was decided on by the board. When you have multiple individuals responding as a board, the worry was then that when an individual responds, are they speaking as an individual board member or are they speaking for the entire board? And that was the issue. A board member responded on social media. It stood

087against what some of the board members believed, but it was then, is that now the position of the entire board? So that was the caution of why the policy was put in at that time. So I don't know if there's a way to write the policy where taking a position, is it factual information, or do you want any board member to respond? And then, you know, the rest of the board members have to then either support it or not support it. So I just thought it's good that you hear the history of why this policy was put in years ago. I think the only thing that really needs to remain in the policy if nothing else is that the person identifies that they're speaking for themselves, you know per I believe under our bylaws and

088per our guidebook You know The chair is the only person who can officially speak for the board and we really don't even have the technical ability to speak for the board as board members So if the person is on social media identifying that they're speaking for themselves, which is a core piece of this bylaw then I think the rest of the content is rather extraneous. All right. Well, thank you for the input. And then we're going to move on to our last agenda item, which we know we're going to get into discussion, is the student parking at the BHS. With further discussion, the newly implemented $100 student parking fee at the Berlin High School, the Board of Ed voted unanimously at the June 9th meeting to implement this fee. Recently, the town manager sent a

089letter notifying the Board of Ed that the town attorney believes that the Board of Ed is not able to legally charge such a fee. The Board of Ed... has consulted with its legal counsel regarding the ability to charge such a fee prior to initiating it and after the town manager's letter was received. Based on the conflicting information, the Board of Ed will review all the information and consider any changes for restructuring the BHS student parking fee. So once again, this is just an open discussion. No motion needs to be taken. I'd like to say I just want to thank the folks that came out tonight to express their concerns. I think it's really important when something is pressing and bothering the citizens that they come out and they speak out. I wish, however, that we

090as a board had received some emails. I didn't get any emails. Did you guys get emails regarding being upset about the parking? I received some emails, yes. You did? Okay. I did not get those emails. Because normally when the board gets emails like that, we do address it. We don't just ignore. So anyway, thank you for coming out and expressing your concerns because I think it's really important. Had received those emails I would have responded in some way to someone so Hopefully we can come to some solution So going just going back even to the description I mean one question I had had I had prior to even the questions they came from the public is I am confused how two different legal counsels Have I mean law is law so if someone could provide

091a little bit more information why the Board of Ed our legal counsel is telling us that We can charge even though it's a town Property, but then the town is saying they're illegal is saying you can't and I know there are some general statues That were listed. I have not memorize them in any form or fashion, but I was looking past to our discussions and there was a couple of statues that were explaining a little bit of basically the school, correct me if I'm wrong, kin charge because it's during the school day versus out-of-school hours. That's what one of them... Like I said, I mean, these statues are long. I'm trying to summarize it so it makes sense to me. There definitely is a difference in a legal opinion from the town attorney to our

092law firm. And what our law firm has specifically said is that there is no precise law on it and that there's nothing to state that the board cannot charge. It has to be in an allocated account, which it is. It's set off by itself. And it has to be for student activities. Student activity account is how it's phrased. But the bigger question is the attorney, and I've had this conversation with the mayor too, is that is this something over $20,000? that we're going to have, this is what the attorney said directly, you know, we're going to have a lawsuit between the board and the town, which is going to exceed $20,000 in expenditures of legal fees, which is what the parking issue is. So that's the discussion piece. But our attorney stands that this is

093not. It's not that it's clean cut that the town is correct, and she states that there's no precise law on it. She also states statutes that would err in our favor, and regardless of the town, only the parking lot. So that's the legal position on it from our attorney, the latest. I wasn't made aware that the students wouldn't be able to go to prom or graduate. I don't recall hearing that. Do we know where that came from? Initially, it was thought that it was going to be against the accountabilities that the students, if they didn't pay, there has to be some way to say you have to pay. At this point, because the discussion was coming, there's only been reminders sent out to students to say that they need to pay. Once it became a

094discussion point that we were going to bring it to a board meeting have further discussion on it So we've not decided that at this point when it came to be an issue with charging Whether it was going to be on account abilities or not But like I said to some parents it was definitely a position that we're not going to go in tow cars or do something of that nature But are we going to start the ticket card? I don't know what the answer is what we're going to do for students who don't pay So at this point it was a gentle reminder. You haven't paid yet And students are still parking without their sticker at this moment because this discussion was going to take place. So no one's been told they can't park. No

095one's been turned away from the parking lot at this point. I know we're not supposed to have conversation back and forth, but can you just please tell me who that came from, if you know? But where did the students get the information from? And as I said that, once this became an issue, which was brought up with a letter, there's been nothing said of that nature. No student has been called down. There's been a reminder, a simple reminder saying you haven't paid your parking fee yet. It hasn't said if you don't pay, you can't park. No one's been out there ticketing or confronting students saying, oh, you haven't paid, you've got to pay today. It's been taken at a much lower level until... is decided on whether we're moving forward or not with it and

096then there's going to be a discussion with our legal firm what's the best action to take for students who are not parking and you're going to have a chance to say what action you want that to be whether it is going to be accountabilities whether it is like we start off it is a requirement and what we're going to do for students who don't pay and do we get to a point where we are turning students away so you don't have a parking pass at the drive home you have to take the bus So if we go back to I mean you said in order to be able to ask for this fee It's allocated into a student Activity account it has to be singled off as a separate account. I can't be intermingled So

097it has to be an activity account which is it's an account 709 So we know exactly what monies have been collected for parking at this point Okay, and then what are the fees so anyway, sorry seven one off seven away. Thank you, Ashley and then where the fee where the Potentially because it doesn't even mean we're going to the district is going to get $20,000 because like you said if the students are Paying or they're choosing not going to it's not set in stone that that's the money that is going to be raised by having the speed and where's potentially this 20,000 It would offset something, whether it's offsetting the security during the parking. I don't mean the security that the town pays for. In account 61, we do have a security guard that the

098district pays for. Or whether it's something else that the students are doing with student activities, it would be used as an offset. And that's how it originally was set up. I think the thing we're forgetting about here with all of this discussion is that this was part of our budget discussions back in the spring. and we had to make reductions because of the budget we were given. And this was on the list in the spring when we voted. So I think it's really important that all of you came out to speak, and as we look at next year's budget season, we think about this again. But this was a decision from last budget season. And it was in a we were in a position to have to make that decision Excuse me. So excuse me

099to excuse me. Excuse me. I respected you when you were up at the mic respect me Okay, so at at this time, there's no responding back and forth but I would agree with you, Jen, with this conversation that we had. And I am thankful for the voices that come out. And I really wish going forward these conversations happen in the middle of or the beginning. start of the conversation. I went back to make sure I was checking myself off to see when we discussed it, how many times it was brought up, and I'm going all the way back to April. April. Before the town vote, it was brought up then, it was brought up again in May, and then it was our June. Our June meeting is when we had to accept the second referendum.

100We had to accept the budget that was voted upon by the town. And that's when we had already had previous discussions of, you know, how we were going to offset the costs. And we offset, you know, am I getting this number correctly? 1,600,000. I'm going back from our minutes. There were 7.3 positions that were being produced, reduced, in the Board of Education Operation Budget, which was well over $600,000, as well as $1 million in reductions to program services to balance the operating budget. And that was in June. I also feel like it's important to note that this parking fee was also, like they're saying, was grouped into the budget. And as Melissa did mention, that this has been conversation since April. I would have truly loved to hear the community speak on the things that

101they are speaking on before this vote was made. I really... I don't even know. I wish that the information about the town was presented prior to the vote, about it being town property. I feel terrible. I'm thinking about the gentleman in the back who spoke. I believe you're Grace's dad. Are you Grace's dad? Yeah. And I'm just starting to run through my head about kids who are helping their parents out while their parents are working, doing the best that they can, and these kids are coming here, driving to school, staying after for support for themselves or picking up siblings or going to work. And the woman, I didn't get your name when you spoke, but about the kids who are using birthday money. The economy is incredibly difficult right now, and I also I feel

102incredibly bad to hear that students are paying for Parking which may be a necessity for some of these students with birthday money I also I'm not a hundred percent sure but I would like to believe that if families are struggling that maybe we can work with them on On what's in place at the moment. I don't know Brian can speak more to that What we put in place initially was that we would charge, if a student only drove for half the year, it would be $50 and so on. It was not a plan to do a sliding scale or anything like that. But if that's something the board wants me to look at, and all students, even the ones that have already paid, we definitely can look at that and put together some type of

103structure. To echo a few points, and I have quite a bit to say, but I do agree with Gina. It is kind of disappointing that... that we didn't have people out in the community who were upset about this coming to even the board tonight. You know, they're at the fair, they're talking among friends and fellow community members and expressing their discontent with a policy. And, you know, we always welcome people to come out and speak and it would be great if they would come out, especially the students who may have been impacted by this if they were. you know not happy with this policy it would have been excellent to that for them to come out and speak but i do completely understand why people were frustrated when parking fees were introduced no one on

104the board wanted that it wasn't really a great it wasn't a decision that we were very pleased with when we were talking about it at F&O but during last year's town budget process the board of education's funding was reduced by 50 grand after the referendum that created a shortfall we went through the budget and rather than cut teachers programs or other resources we made that a tough choice to cover that gap through the parking fees It wasn't ideal, but it did protect classrooms and programs. I do respect the mayor and the council. I know everyone here wants what's best for our town. But the fact is, when the education budget gets trimmed, we're left to make tough decisions about how to absorb the cuts without hurting our students. And that's just the reality of how

105the process works. I mean, our focus now should just be rebuilding partnerships between the board ourselves. and the town council and loosely by extension the board of finance so we can anticipate our needs earlier and make sure these kinds of situations don't happen i will add my own personal take on the situation and i think i've talked about this to one board member is that yeah i mean if this is becoming such an issue and creating such discontent among parents who are impacted or students. And one other aspect that is just occurring to me too is like, you know, there may be students who just can't afford it if they're already economically challenged or qualifying for programs where they're like free lunches or such because they're economically challenged. Is it really justifiable to charge these

106students a hundred dollar fee? I don't personally think so. So that's another aspect we look at. But at the end of the day, if the budget can afford it and we have surplus moving forward into the fiscal year, I'm not personally opposed to reevaluating it and moving away from it and rectifying the situation. I mean, if that is a possibility moving forward, it's still early in the fiscal year, but I have no problem with that personally. I don't know how the rest of the board feels. I'm only one member. But, yeah. Now, just adding on to just agreeing with Peter, it's hard to make these decisions, especially when it's going to affect, you know, the pockets of anyone, the students, the parents, the town. And I know... you know, the conversation because I would chime

107in to the F&O committee just to hear the extra conversation that was going on during the budget season. And these decisions were not made lightly. Nobody wants to have to cut. Nobody wants to have to charge more. We were... Yep, I'm just gonna finish speaking and we're gonna finish up the meeting in the discussion So, I think it just comes down to I Like Peter, I think you know, this definitely is something that could be a hundred percent revisited This doesn't have to be no one's to say it's a permanent thing moving forward, but I really hope more voices come out during the actual budget season so that they can really engage in these conversations and hear more from the public so that you know we can hear that conversation not after the vote has

108been taken place so the last thing that we have on the agenda is the motion to adjourn adjourn all right do we have a second second all right Motion by Peter, second by Gina. Any further discussion? Nope. All right. So let's take a vote. Yep. Aye. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? All right. Vote carries 6-0. Do you have the time? 8-28.