001Good evening, everybody. Mr. Tagli, good evening to you. Hi. I feel like a teacher where, like, you kind of have to call people out when they're talking. Not that I've ever had that happen to me. Never. All right, I can't even. So good evening, everybody. Welcome to the 630 meeting. Mr. Andre, will you please call attendance? Joe and Bella, break off. Vicky Salon, Stephanie Kolnick, Angela Macchiarulo, Alex McNaughton, Justin Hongman, Jen Potey, Jane Sargent, Keith Tagley, Mary Weber, and Christine Redding. So welcome, Dr. Rodriguez, as you are here to present this year's budget. Great. So members of the board, Region 12 staff and leaders, and of course, all of our parents and community members, good evening and welcome to the presentation of our Region 12 budget for the 25-26 school year. I want to start
002by thanking all of our school and district leaders, as well as central office staff who put a lot of time and effort in helping us move forward a thoughtful and what we feel is a financially responsible budget. And special recognition must go out to Nicole Grant, of course, our Director of Finance and Operations, my right arm. She and her team remain at the heart of our budget development every year. So I love that picture. That's why I put it there. Budgets often tell a story beyond the numbers about who we are. It describes, as you know, our purpose and illustrates the kinds of priorities that drive us and ultimately details what we need to ensure our district can sustain programs, make improvements, and continue to offer a quality educational environment for all of our learners.
003We are all, as you know, proud of our rural roots here as a regional school district that includes all of our resident students and families of Washington and Roxbury and Bridgewater. We have three, as you know, elementary schools, K-5, Washington Primary, Booth Free, and Burnham Schools, and a 612 Middle High School, Chappag Valley, that also houses a state-of-the-art agri-science program. And as you all know, we welcome seven sending towns, Bethel, Newtown, New Milford, Brookfield, Danbury, and New Fairfield. So our identity also includes all of our tuition and families. We also welcome all of our students from Sherman. We host a pre-K program and host an 18 to 22-year-old program as part of our special ed department. We also have 208 district staff, awesome district staff who make up our district. That is part of our
004identity as well. From leaders and classroom teachers, paras to support personnel and nurses. And all of the operational staff as well, our directors, clerical support, custodians and technology and security. We do have an awesome and talented team. And who we... R is important when we reflect on the educational needs that we have as a regional district. And we also have unique challenges, as you know, and we face all of those every year. And the opportunities we continue to provide to ensure our students are both competent and competitive. Our purpose, as you see it, and this is delineated right in our mission outlined in our strategic plan, we want our learning environments across all of our schools to reflect collaboration, optimize student achievement, and help to develop engaged citizens. And I know you've heard that before.
005It might sound simple enough, but operationalizing this is far from complex. or far more complex. It includes listening and responding and supporting and reviewing and improving, developing new and innovative opportunities and establishing partnerships, as you know we do in the communities, and making those connections in the classroom, in the community, and beyond. But most importantly, and that's thanks to everyone on staff and our leaders and all of you as board members, we now have a clear vision in this district. What drives us is fully realized in our Region 12 strategic plan. We have four priorities, as you all know. Powerful learning. We want to be sure what we offer is high quality here. You will find new requests in our budget, in curriculum and instruction, and that Carrie will be talking about in a few
006moments, including requests for summer curriculum writing, professional development, and the ongoing support of ARC, our reading program, which is a mandate from the state of Connecticut. New course opportunities at the high school, and I know you've heard about those in a previous board meeting, and enrichment at the elementary level. In family and community engagement, we continue to find ways to make those really sound connections with our communities. For example, looking to our local experts in their fields who support SAE hours in agri-science for our students or community members who help advise our learners with senior projects. Requests you will see include formalized surveys of our stakeholders to get feedback for improvement, as well as hosting events for the community. Diversity, belonging, and well-being is also one of our priorities. Just as important, we want to
007be sure our students feel safe. that they feel welcomed, and that they feel valued. Last year, we understood the need for physical safety, as you know, with the hiring of our three ASOs for our elementary schools, and those are all a part of our budget as well. We have requested in this new budget an increase in hours for Chippewa security to ensure there is a point person when we have after-hour events. We also continue to reflect on data about how students, staff, and families feel about our district in order to make those really sound improvements. And this includes our climate survey through Panorama, and I know that you've heard about that as well. You will also see in this budget the request for a new social worker to offer the kind of help families and
008students need. And I'll talk about that in a few moments. And then finally, our last priority in our strategic plan, innovation and value. You will find new courses at Chippewa, electives in English and the science areas. And I know you've heard about those at a previous board meeting from our staff as well at the high school. In addition, there are ongoing enrichment opportunities with minimal costs that will maximize student potential, such as the primary partnerships you've heard about at the elementary level going very well this year, and our college accelerator program through Ed Advance. I know you've all heard about that as well. And that allows students to receive college credits and even the potential to receive an associate's degree at some point in the future. That particular program is free to us. So quite
009a value, I would say. And our theory of action and our strategic plan help to ensure our priorities were well aligned as we put our budget together. If we believe that a successful school system operates or should operate with a clear and consistent vision for continuous improvement, then all of us as leaders had to align curricular, instructional, and technological resources so that it would enhance student performance and learning. But before I go any further, beyond the numbers and the data, and you're going to hear lots of that tonight, many requests on our budget, are the faces of our students and staff. Student learning and achievement is why we're all here. That's what truly motivates what we do. and the resources and programs we ask for, and the improved practices we hope to implement. So our
010first step, and I want to kind of take you through the process of our budget, is to review enrollment. Our identity, as I said, is rooted in all of the students that we have across the district, and it is a major factor when we evaluate all of the requests that first come in. So when we talk about the needs of Region 12 students today and in the years ahead, we must look at our community as an ongoing assimilation of various groups, both resident and non-residents, from preschool to senior year. Currently, we have 798 students, 566 resident students, 47 of those are in agri-science. Another 122 agri-science students are, of course, from our sending towns. We have 76 tuition and families and 34 Sherman students. And keep in mind that the Sherman numbers fluctuate year over
011year. A point I remember was raised recently about the percentage of our resident students who are participants in the AgriScience program. Currently, that number is 27% of our eligible high school students. And next year, that number goes to 32% of our high school student enrollment. In both cases, I would say that percentage is quite a testament to the program since there are hundreds and hundreds of other options. and career pathways for our students as it should be. As part of our process, we review our October 1 enrollment as you see in the chart behind me of 2024-25 and these are tied to projections made by Peter Prouto. And that makes sense as we want to review the sustainability of all of our requests. For example, when we ask for staffing, we want to look ahead,
012not just the year we might need that particular staff member, because if our enrollment starts to really trend significantly in another direction, it would not be wise to bring a new staff member on. In this case, the enrollment goes through, as you see, 2032. You actually have, I believe, the full enrollment report in your materials for review, and it's also on our agenda, I believe. But I wanted to illustrate Prouda's future predictions for our enrollment through that date. You will see a prediction for a very slight dip, and then you see us trending, continuing to trend upwards. I wanted to communicate the areas we consider as we put together our budget and as we develop that budget and land in a place that is mindful of our students, our staff, and our communities. From reflecting
013on our needs, and I mentioned reviewing enrollment, we also analyzed historical usage of resources, understanding all of the obligatory costs, I call them, and of course the economic landscape as well. to reviewing data for areas that might need improvement. And these are all considered as we kind of go through and look at the requests. I will tell you, having worked in the marketing department for probably the largest at the time, Fortune 500 paper and building company, and this is before I went into teaching, taglines and pitches, elevator pitches were kind of part of our thing, part of our work. However, I really reflected on that. The difference here is that we don't sell widgets and we don't market products. We care for and support and hopefully fund wisely for human beings, our children, our learners.
014On the other hand, where we are similar. is what we want our stakeholders to feel that we've invested funds wisely to capture efficiencies, for example, where we can, to make sure we have the resources we need so that we're sustainable. And that's true of any organization, school or otherwise. Slide six, if you recall, the purpose, a collaborative learning environment, student achievement, and citizenry. That's our pitch and a connection to many of the requests that you will hear this evening. Now, of course, that goes hand in hand with our strategic plan, but that's really our pitch. That's what we want for our students. So with all of that being said, I know you've been waiting for this, Alex. Our proposal for the 2025-26 budget is for a $28,248,450 budget, which equates to a 2.44% increase over
015the current budget. I want to point out this is less than the CPI, which is around 3%. That's less than the average of all of our contractual obligations. But I want to take you back to the early stage of the budget to show you how we got to that final budget number. The requests, I'll have you know, originated from our building leaders and directors in all of the budget categories brought our budget to $28,412,672. So we go through after a critical review of every request, we were able to adjust that. I adjusted it by $163,821. Now, most of these reductions, we reviewed requests in light of things like, again, historical usage. Additional savings we noted, such as stipends that were no longer needed for certain activities. Reductions we found by being able to use excess
016funds to purchase some things in advance. We make sure we scrutinize every line, every dollar, or ways we could find some resources through this year's budget or even grant opportunities. Just to give you a more precise detail of our budget drivers, our employee benefits increased by 12%. which is an increase of just about $357,605 over last year. Payroll increases of $271,194 are due to having negotiated, as you all know, four union contracts this year, which that was the first time I've ever had to do four. Nurses at 4%, clerical at just around 5%, custodians at an average of nine. And again, that was because a certain part of that custodial group, we gave them market adjustments, so we were competitive. And administrators at an average of 5%. And all of that included step movement, of
017course, in those contracts. Other contractual increases in personnel are up $142,243. And the change from a .45 interim superintendent like me back to a full-time superintendent. And that increases that line by $165,500. Other increased costs are due to new technology, $159,600, and this includes replacement. of old and obsolete devices, iPads for our younger students, and increases in electricity are up $122,216. I will get to staffing the actual details in just a moment, but that increase is about $490,242, while our capital facilities increased just by a little over $99,000. But I thought it was important to show you how we landed on our budget and some of the variables that played a role in that process. And to explain one important thing I hope you remember, the stars aligned this year for this budget. And there's
018a reason I'm saying that. If you look at the budget requests by major category and the changes over the prior year, you'll start to get a picture of how this budget took shape and where we landed. Our salaries increased due to contractual obligations, as I said, and new personnel of $782,630 over the prior year, while our benefits increased as well. But you will know there was also a reduction in pension contributions. There was a $26,295 decrease in purchased professional and technical service, and that was actually based on firewall and internet costs that went down. A minimal inflation increase in purchased property will cost an additional $13,255. However, in other purchased services, we will see a reduction, $230,135. And that was due to a reduction in special education tuition and savings in transportation. I want to
019remind you all that we had an increase. So it went in the other direction for special education last year. We had an increase in our supplies line of $48,140. And this is the result of increases in electricity, even though we saw a reduction in propane, oil, and diesel. In property and programs, we will increase by $156,765 due to capital facilities, which I will outline in a few minutes. And finally, a huge reduction in dues and fees and the debt as we paid off the agri-science ban and all that part of that total number, $413,795. So you'll see a pie chart. Categories and object codes happen in each of our departments. But this chart illustrates what the majority of funding supports. And I thought we actually put this together just the other night because I said
020I wanted a slide because all the years I've been presenting budgets, I always hear, well, what's going to the kids, right? Where are the percentage in that pie going to the kids and instruction? So you will note that the majority of our budget supports teaching and learning. Nearly 63% alone includes instruction, special education, transportation, and technology, all directly impacting our students and staff. Certainly good investments. And here's just a quick view of the dollar figures attached to those percentage increases. And you will find this as we go along in the budget details. One of our earlier questions, if you recall, so what do we need? Our major budget drivers come in the form of staffing, new technology, and capital facilities. In staffing needs, we are requesting a 0.4 special education teacher at the elementary level.
021$31,437 due to needs, student needs in their IEPs, as well as a new paraprofessional. We had the need for another 0.5 building sub for both Booth and Burnham. And that goes along with existing subs that are already there, but they only have 0.5 and 0.5. So this will give both of those buildings 1.0 each. as it should be. This is also true of the addition of an interventionist at Burnham, as this position, as you know, was shared and really not working to support our students with that same level of integrity. Now, this new cost is $80,452, but I want you to note that this person already exists this year, as we were able to find some funding through a variety of sources already. The same is true of our 0.2 planetarium coordinator for a budgetary
022request of $24,248. Now, while this certified staff, actually, you know who he is, a retired teacher, is in place again, as you know, this year, mostly we were able to do that through grant funding. The need does continue. You know, just think about it. We renovated this space maybe two years ago, but without a plan to provide oversight, someone who really understood how to work the new technology system. And we did not want to go back to being it being a really beautiful storage closet. By the way, aside from its use by various classrooms as well as astronomy, this coordinator has already developed many shows for the public and senior citizens and, of course, our elementary students and students here at the high school. It has been extremely well received. We are requesting an increase
023in hours for our Chippewa security, given that this school is, as you know, often a hub of activity and energy. I was here the night we had three events going on. I think it was a week ago now. And so we want someone here long after the school day is over, including those kinds of nights with hundreds and hundreds of community members here. Additionally, we increased our substitute rate as we reflected on the challenges we were having in hiring and sustaining daily subs as we were actually paying lower than many of the districts in our area and even beyond. Most importantly, we are requesting a full-time social worker, previously mentioned, and I know you heard a little bit about this from Don Schells at a previous board meeting, did a great job. And this need
024has arisen, as you heard him say, given the challenges that we know students and families face every day with student behavioral issues, family economic concerns, and all kinds of issues at the home front. Social workers work directly, as you know, with families. They service them and they find and secure resources and they work in tandem. This is very important. They work in tandem with our own staff and leaders and support personnel as well. The goal, again, is to support the families so that students can find success here in Region 12. And finally, as I mentioned already, you'll still see it up there, the superintendent full-time hiring. We have new technology requested for our first graders and kindergartners, and this is moving us or shifting us from carts, sharing carts to one-to-one devices, which is our
025goal. iMacs for middle and high school art classes, which are integral to quality art instruction today. Currently, the art department has 18 desktops, seven years old, and only one art room. So we are requesting new devices to service both, devices to support as well, our high school TV station and our music classes, and they do share, as well as Chromebook replacements as part of our annual cycle, as you know, and that is for second graders, sixth graders, and ninth grade students. And that totals $245,463. Now, mind you, there are other technology costs, but this is the total for all of the new requests. And these directly support our students for classroom instruction. In capital facilities, we have needed repairs and additions, as you all know, to all of our schools with a cost of $272,105.
026This will include items like the gym roof repair at Burnham. energy-saving LED lights and additional cameras, lights and cameras at booth, a partial roof replacement at Washington, along with carpet replacement in the fifth grade area and cameras. At Chippaug, we plan to replace the auditorium door hardware and also upgrade the Board of Ed library sound system and new microphones and replace the boiler at central office. But most important, we wanted to make the point here again that the stars really did align, and here's why. As we finalized our budget, there were significant offsets this year. $848,275 worth. This included a reduction in classified pension contribution of $48,084. reductions in, as I mentioned, special ed costs, $219,860. Our debt service was reduced, again, the payoff of the agri-science ban, which offset the budget by $384,854. Other
027debt service payments, $27,150. Nicole is great at locking in heating and diesel, which resulted in $2.71 for heating for a savings of $9,273 and $2.78 for diesel, resulting in a savings of $5,034. And this was strategic, I might add, in the face of more consumption. And I say that because things like the new air handlers at Chippewa actually require more energy. But due to the locked in lower price, we were able to realize the savings over last year. Propane also went down across the market, saving us $41,600. And savings in transportation showed a decrease of 6.22%. for a savings of $82,226. And if you recall, that was by design. We combined some runs and we eliminated, as you know, the morning reach bus. And finally, an offset of $30,194. And that was for lower firewall
028and internet rates. I emphasize the stars being aligned because without these offsets, we would have had, obviously, a much higher increase this year. However, I do want to make a point. I also want to say that when we can use reductions naturally to ease the burden on taxpayers, then we should do so without hesitation. That's at least my opinion. No need to ask for things we do not need or artificially inflate the budget. There will be a year or years down the road, I'm sure, when it may be higher. And we need to build that trust in how we manage our budgets each year with a level of integrity. You can see that we have also just about broken even. I know that $72 is going to make you scratch your head. But we want
029it to be right down to the dollar transparent. It was predicted that last year we would have broken even, but it is finally happening. We are in really good shape. We have a great team, a director with teaching responsibilities, and are accepting students as appropriate without additional hiring necessary at this point. And I've looked at the class sizes once again. I do want to remind everyone that we added a .4 FTE with the director teaching load. And this was following a call that more plant science supports were needed. We were able to do this strategically this year without a burden to the budget. And this alleviated, actually, the issue with the concerns we heard voiced. And we have some areas we're looking at and need that would be budget neutral. And we want to share
030these as well with the use of capital reserve funds subject to board approval, of course, including booth-free school, an elevator upgrade estimated at around $85,000. As well as some areas at Chippewa Valley School we're reviewing. Upgrades to the library media center furnishings. Renovations to the art rooms. Cafeteria redesign. You know, we went on a little tour of the cafeteria. And that is in here. New lockers in the athletic locker rooms. New bleachers and sound panels in the Ted Alex gymnasium. Similarly, additional items at the elementary level, which would be funded through the elementary non-recurring fund, including new generators at each school, and we're estimating those to be around $75,000. Just another quick mention, not tied to any offset on the budget numbers yet, is the current and Board of Ed approved offering of a retirement
031package for our certified staff, and that is teachers and administrators. And staff actually have until the end of this month to accept that package, which includes a choice of both benefits and or compensation over a two-year period. So with this, there would be some savings with the hiring of new staff to fill. the positions of retiring teachers and leaders, since new employees would not be hired on the top step. And that's, as I explained to all of you as board members, would be how we realize those savings. The largest savings you would see would occur in year three after the benefits to retirees has officially concluded. We did not, this is not added to this budget yet or an offset yet because we don't know that number. And finally, now we have talked about how
032we landed on the 2.44%, but I did want to share what this looks like to our towns. And I see our selectmen from Roxbury, which I'm hoping to make you very happy this evening. As you know, the agri-science revenue credits provide an additional offset on the town side to bring their increase to 2.08% for the 25-26 budget. This slide actually highlights the percentage for each of the towns in contrast to the previous year, which will be 24.735% for Bridgewater. Prior year was 22.81. 30.035% for Roxbury the previous year. Patrick was 30.88%. And 45.23% for Washington the previous year was 46.32%. These amounts are before we provide an additional tuition and credit to each town's invoice. As you can see this year, it's Bridgewater sharing the cost, higher costs compared to the previous year, while Roxbury.
033and Washington actually decrease from last year. You know, this is based on population changes, of course. You know how that works in a small district. It's very difficult. It's hard for me to get used to when I had to share those big numbers last year with Roxbury. It only takes two students added in one town or one or two student decreases in other towns to result in a change for any particular town from year over year. One last thought. Region 12 has much to be proud of. I'm proud just having given me the honor of being the interim superintendent. Even with the natural, sometimes challenging nuances associated with a small district, we're thriving. Our schools are all recognized, every one of them, in some way. or student performance compared to other districts. For example, WPS
034was number one in Connecticut, the accountability report, and Chippewa Valley was number 30 in Connecticut, and that was through U.S. News and World Report. We show evidence of quality academic services, dedicated staff. We attract tuition and families for a reason. Our state-of-the-art AgriScience Academy partners with our seven sending towns. Budget requests strategically support what we need, appropriate staffing, resources, technology. We continue to focus, although slowly, on our facilities and our needs through funding. and also the CIP. We now have a plan to look ahead. We're always mindful of the economy and our taxpayers finding opportunities where we can adjust to be more efficient, offer, as I said, budget neutral solutions or find other low cost opportunities along the way. But before I close with all the numbers and data, budgets can be a bit dry,
035and thank you for sitting through this. But I thought this cartoon might lighten it up and more what the kids might think about budget. You asked me if full funding should skip the middleman. It does pay me to study harder. The presentation and other budget materials I want you to know will be on our website tomorrow, and I know when we get to Nicole, she's going to have some wonderful additional materials for you. But I wanted to take my last moment to thank my staff, our leaders, all of you as board members, the selectmen in each of the towns, as well as our parents in the communities of Bridgewater, Roxbury, and Washington for their ongoing support of our schools. our children, and our staff. We are grateful. We know we have the foundation for an
036outstanding school district, one that will continue, I know, to emerge as a welcoming, supportive, and a highly student-centered place of innovation and rigorous instruction that will usher our students towards success in the years ahead. Thank you. Thank you so much, Lori, for an impressive presentation. Thank you very much, Lori. I guess we can move on to adjournment, right? So can I have a motion to adjourn? Second. Okay. So we're going to close this one. We're moving on. Thank you. Okay. Well, good afternoon. Good evening. Moving on to the next meeting for the February 24th Board of Ed meeting. Justin, can you please take attendance? Joe Abdelaz, Greg Cava, Vicki Salon, Stephanie Kolnick, Angela Macchiarulo, Alex McNaughton, Justin Angley, Jen Potey, Jane Sargent, Mary Weber, Christine Wadey. Thank you very much. Moving on to public comment
037on agenda items only. Is there anybody here that would like to speak? Thank you. Moving on to the consent agenda. Are there any changes that need to be made? Yeah, please. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So we will end for both of them for the 27th of January and also for February 3rd. So what? Okay. Okay. So nothing to be changed. We can move on. Leave as is. Moving on to presentations for the 2025-26 budget highlights. Moving on to teaching and learning first, Carrie Snowden. Good evening, everybody. Thanks so much for giving me this chance to talk a little bit about the lines that are associated with curriculum and instruction, otherwise known as teaching, learning, and assessment. Generally, a lot of the lines have stayed the same in this budget. I have moved, you know, watching
038the budget for this year, and I'm not even through my first full year here, and watching how the money is spent. I've made some adjustments in some of the lines to more accurately represent what we're spending on curriculum development and professional learning. There are also, there is a small increase in this part of the budget. There are four new lines you'll see. We, you know, per the negotiation with the nurses, they are now entitled to professional development. And so that has come into the teaching and learning budget. We've added a line specifically dedicated to supplies and professional learning for instruction of our English learners. That's a growing need, and we want to make sure that we are supplying those teachers with the materials they need and the professional learning that they need to support those
039students. We have set aside some separate money for the professional learning for agri-science teachers. They have some very special types of PD because of their area of expertise. For example, there's a every year multiple case conferences that allow agri-science teachers to get curriculum that they then bring back to the district. So we wanted to make sure that we had allocated some money to make sure that they were able to attend some of those conferences that really benefit us and benefit our curriculum. And there was always a line for there has been a line to support an intern in the district. And that has just been moved to be part of the budget for under teaching and learning, because it is something that I get involved in. I help, you know, vet anybody who might want
040to be an intern and place that person. So it makes sense for that line to fall in my budget. And then a few, like some examples of some of the funds that have just been moved, not necessarily increased or decreased overall, but just sort of moved from one line to another. You know, the Teaching and Learning Council, which is being paid for through the Teaching and Learning Budget, they're working on several strategic plan action steps and goals. And so there is some money allocated in this budget because they are going to come to you in May or June and make some recommendations based on the work they've been doing around the strategic plan. And so we've set aside money to take action on some of their recommendations. Another example is we have definitely ongoing needs
041to continue to update our curriculum. And so you will see continued money and in fact, a little more money needed for curriculum development. And some examples of some reductions that you might see that sort of offset some of those increases. We just haven't used as many consultants as I think was anticipated, outside consultants. For the last few years, there had been some outside consultants hired to come in and do professional development work, but we've been able to do that really all in-house with a few, but just less than were anticipated. And within the budget, the budget for teaching and learning last year was that salary for the planetarium coordinator. And as you saw, Lori talked about that. That has been moved out of the teaching and learning budget and now is part of the payroll.
042So there are a few other adjustments, and I'd be happy to answer any questions as we go through the process if things come up and people are wondering about any changes they see. Any questions so far? Okay, great. Thank you. Next up for elementary is Emily Judd and Emily Ruh. So on the first slide, we are going to talk about changes in instruction. Our proposed budget for the elementary schools will allow us to further develop and enhance our current programs. This evening, we'll share items that support instruction and personnel, which Lori touched on. In the area of instruction, we highlighted our reading and math budget. which has ongoing materials that are required to implement the programs fully. In reading, we're using American Reading Company, or what most of you know as ARC. This required materials
043includes consumables, teacher resources, and the online assessment and instructional tool. In math, we continue to implement the Eureka Squared math program, which aligns with our math standards, requiring annual consumables to be purchased. If you look, we have two areas, and we just want to let you know the differences in cost is due to the increases equitable to the student population. Additionally, on the side, you see enrichment. We are continuing to support innovative enrichment programs for our elementary students. So next year's budget continues to support our primary partnerships, which was mentioned earlier, for our fourth and fifth grade students who partner with Chippewa. And this year was around the sciences. Next year will be around the arts. In addition, we are continuing to support a grade three work with Black Theater. Black Theater works with our
044teachers and students to utilize our arc focus areas and to use the arts to help them, you know, sort of integrate that into a more theatrical experience for the students. Our passion projects for our fourth and fifth grade continues to allow them to stretch their interests and their passions and do a self-directed learning experience. And then lastly, we are working with Rizzo, who is the planetarium coordinator, and we are trying to develop specific programs for our K-3 to come up and visit in the planetarium. We would also like to highlight the personnel changes that are supporting primarily by the district budget. The inclusion of a social worker, which Dr. Ajit already mentioned, will enhance the delivery of counseling services to our students and families. This role will serve as a resource to families addressing social,
045emotional, environmental, and family challenges. The building substitute that was mentioned that would be added 0.5 to Booth Free School and Burnham School that will allow each school building to have a full-time building substitute available. This will ease coverage for teachers during times of professional development and grade level meetings to allow for collaboration. A lot of our teachers love connecting with their grade level partners and that would just make that more attainable by having a building seven-inch building. It will also reduce the times when staff are assigned to other school duties as a result of absenteeism. The interventionist was added to Burnham School in August, and this now will continue into the new budget cycle. And this, again, just allows for equity between all three elementary schools. We are fortunate to also have two new stipends
046that will support our elementary schools. The science materials coordinator will assist K-5 teachers with ongoing inventory and ordering of supplies. And lastly, the addition of the informal mentor will provide a support partnership with a new but experienced teacher joining our district. This supports a professional community that is welcoming and supportive of women. our last slide shows the increase or decrease between all three schools with blue free school having an increase of 21.84 percent and with burnham having an increase of 17.73 percent and washington primary school having an increase of 11.1 the budget reflects the necessary materials and instructional supply to maintain current programs and curriculum as well Just for the people at home and the people watching, I think I heard some questions too. Can you just define interventionist and let people know what that
047position does and what they've been doing? So usually our interventionist is somebody who helps a student struggling academically and reading right near math. And they might be in the regular education classroom. We meet pretty regularly, like every six to eight weeks to look at student progress. And when a child isn't meeting the expectation in the classroom or we feel like they're working really, really hard to get there. We usually have an interventionist, whether it's in math and reading, which prior to this year, Washington had a full-time reading and a full-time math interventionist. Booth had one interventionist in Burnham, which is split between reading and math, which we realized reading is definitely a necessary need, but we felt like we weren't able to then give all the students the math support that they needed. So with
048that, those students now have a math and reading interventionist that they can go to, and that person usually... Does some work in the classroom? Sometimes it may be pull out. Depends on the tier level of support, whether it has to be in small group. And then increases usually to five times a week, 30 minutes, one-on-one. And at that point, we look at if the students make any progress, they go back into the classroom before we decrease support. And if the student is still struggling, we change our type of instruction. And after looking at the data, we then might look at testing for special education services. Any other questions? Thank you so much. Special Education, Allie O'Hara. So you heard, hi, good evening. I'm Allie O'Hara. You heard Lori already mention that there was a bit
049of a star alignment going on in special education this year, and we did not have stars aligning last year. So the decreased drivers this year are that we have a few students back in district that were at outplacements that are now back in district getting their services here, which is exciting. And we also... had a high-need student no longer participate in our program. Family has moved out of district, and so there was a decrease in need at one of our programs. So those are the big decrease drivers. This year, we are increasing by picking up a .45, I'm sorry, a .4 special ed teacher at Washington Primary due to the needs in the school. We only have one special ed teacher there and have quite a caseload. So we are increasing the special ed teaching
050capacities there. Additionally, we are going to have one more paraeducator in the district next year in one of the elementary schools. So those are our increases. Something I don't get to talk to you about much because this isn't board budget. This is grant that is written every year, but it can speak to sort of innovations and learning and family and community engagement. The grant that I write every year is a supplement. It is a supplement to what happens in our board budget. But we do, for the past several years, we have funded our psychologists to stay. We have a part-time psychologist in the school district. We fund her to stay a little bit longer each week so that she can give supports at our elementary school. Additionally, three of our paraprofessionals have been hired through
051that grant. So we fund personnel through our grant. Additionally, we do some pretty neat things with our students that are either high school students or our Chippewa Valley Partnership students. Those students who go out to work experiences at SVP are paid minimum wage at their work experiences. And we do that through the ability of writing that into my grant. So students are getting paid minimum wage for their work. Our high school students that go out for job experiences, so short-term job experiences with a job coach to learn what it's like to be in a work environment, listen to a supervisor, take direction, take feedback, those students are also paid, but they're paid a stipend, not minimum wage, but a learning stipend for their work. So many of those experiences could be one or two times
052a week for a couple of hours at a time for about 10 weeks. So that is something also our grant affords, which is exciting for those students. We purchase outside consultant support through the grant. It's really based year to year on student need and what's happening in our district. But that could be assistive technology to help create. programming for students or create tools that students can use to better assist them in the classroom environment. We also might access a behaviorist support through that. We also can work with outside psychiatrists, psychologists, other kind of specialists that might be based on student need from year to year. I write into the grant in addition to Carrie's work that she does with professional development. I also write some in-service money into that line because there's always sort of
053a new initiative coming out through the state or some state mandates related to special education that we need to receive training on. We also put aside some money just based on if we're realizing that we have some skills that need to be shored up around certain aspects of student programming. We also will provide that for our paraeducators and our teachers. And finally, we offer parent workshops. Last year, I used Effective School Solutions to help with five workshops in the evening related to mental health issues. This year, Dr. Jane Brown came to speak with our parents of special education students and 504 students to talk a little bit about the difference between IDEA and the laws in high school and special education and 504 and the world of college and what is and isn't the same.
054So that's how our grant is used. I don't often get to talk to you about that, but I thought it was a nice way to explain the grant is written every year and it supplements our work in special ed. And we can do some great initiatives related to the district. Questions? Thank you. So this is the first I'm hearing about any grant dollars being brought to bear within the school system. Is this a competitively awarded grant or is it a formula fund grant that we can? presume the school system gets every year? And is that already factored into the budget numbers that we looked at? So it's a grant that I write every year. It's called the 611. It's a federal grant that comes down and gets funneled through the state and then gets... first
055out to all the towns. I write a 611 grant, which is for three to 21-year-olds, and I write a 619 grant, which is for three to five-year-olds. So it's something that every special ed director in the state of Connecticut writes. Okay. So formula funds, and it's already factored into the budget. So it's outside of our board budget. But yes, it's outside of our board budget. So if we get less funding than we expect, then I would have to figure out where I'm taking care of, where I'm taking from for those pieces. But we do write it every year and it varies from year to year, the amount we get. Some years it's a little more, some years it's a little less. But when I write the plan, I write it based on this current year's
056award and then we find out what we're awarded come August. Got it. Thank you. Facilities. That would be Nicole, since Don is not here. I am going to pinch hit for Don. He did have a family emergency, so he's going to be with us tonight. That would probably be shorter than his other thing. The majority of... The facility's budget is supplies and services, most significantly our energy and forms of electricity through the oil and cocaine, which Lori discussed during her presentation. All of these things are highly susceptible to inflation market fluctuations. As I'm sure you know, the cost of electricity is up exponentially in our state, and you'll see large increases in the individual electricity lines at each of the buildings. We did offset those peaks in electricity usage or proposed electricity usage with savings,
057as Laurie mentioned, in both oil, propane, and diesel fuel. Just to give an example, we locked our oil for next year in at $2.71.7 per gallon compared to this year's locked rate of $2.98.8 per gallon. So we are saving $0.27 per gallon on oil for the next school year. I know that Don did want to mention to this group that we have two newly appointed promoted senior head custodians, Bill Murphy at the secondary level and John Labouet at the elementary level, as well as three new team members who are replacements for the three veterans who will retire this fall. The facilities team is energized and doing great work for us, and we're excited to see what types of efficiencies the new head custodians help us find and implement as we move forward. As Dr. Rodriguez
058shared, we're working on putting together plans and costs for solar improvements at Chippewa, which include the kitchen, servery redesign and update, new furnishings for this space that we're sitting in, renovations of our art rooms, which we hope to take the facilities committee to see in our next meeting. Some updates to our locker rooms, new lockers for the boys and girls locker rooms at Chippewa and some new bleachers at the Ted Alex Gymnasium, which we hope will allow us to seat a few more people in there and pull them out and push them in much more easily than we currently do. We are also going to put out RFPs for the generators at the elementary school so that we do have a backup power source when we do lose power there as we have now at
059Chippewa since the agri-science upgrade. We will be sharing plans and estimated costs of all these upgrades with the Finance and Operations Committee in the coming months. And we'll be back before all of you looking for Google's to fund those projects from the Capital Reserve accounts, which means they do not impact the budget that Lori just shared. Moving on. Okay. So we do have some funding in the budget and capital facilities lines. We are at WPS, we're going to be doing a partial roof replacement, which if you had looked at our five-year capital plan was coming up in a few years, but there is water actively leaking into our office and music rooms, so we moved that up. So we will be repairing a part of the Washington Primary School roof in our budget. We're also
060doing some flooring repairs at Washington Primary School, a small roof repair at Burnham School. Three of our elementary schools will be getting LED lights strategically placed, mostly in the gymnasiums and some stairways, to improve not only safety in those spaces, but to help cut our electricity usage. And there's some cameras going up at all of the buildings that were requested specifically by our new ASOs, because there are areas of the grounds where they lack visibility. They want to be able to see all around the buildings. And the last one of the last things we're doing at Ship Hog, we are going to do replacement of a lot of the hardware on the auditorium doors to improve their functionality as we host people in and out of our auditoriums. And last but not least, as Lori
061shared, we're going to be getting an upgrade of the sound system and microphones in this room so that you no longer have to share your microphones. So that's it for facilities. And I was going to turn it over to Allie, but we flipped the clock. So I think I am still here for Central. I am. Okay. Sure. I know you're pinch hitting, but you could probably answer this one. So I commend you for locking in the fuel supply contracts and achieving savings there. Is there a reason why we haven't done so? for electricity supply. So the transmission distribution is going to go up as it inexorably does, but you can lock in retail supply contracts. So we are locked into a FIDR contract. Okay. That is fixed for five years, or we'll be going into
062the third year of a FIDR contract with them, but the portion of our electricity bill that is skyrocketing is fixed. The TMD. Okay. Got it. Thanks. Okay. Moving on. I'm going to speak briefly about the parts of our budget that make up central services. So, okay, so central services are the things that support our non-instructional operations of our schools. These operational expenses are budgeted by central office. Lowering heads show high during the So this piece of the pie is twofold. It's the operational section of that pie and also transportation. The transportation slice, we budget district-wide at central office, but we do consider transportation an instructional expense that directly supports our children because every dollar goes to transporting them to various places, to and from school being the most important. There are eight categories that fall
063into central services, transportation, security, copiers, telephones and internet, the business office, the board of education, superintendent's office and debt service. I know these are not exciting, but they're necessary. And I'm going to cover four of these tonight and the other four at our next meeting. The four that I will cover tonight are. transportation, security, copiers, and telephones and internet. Just a quick overview, transportation, even though we are in a brand new transportation contract, which has a higher per day cost, we were able to lower our transportation budget due to locking in diesel at a lower rate because we do it for our diesel fuel. And also we consolidated a few runs. As we mentioned, we eliminated the one dedicated reach band, which is not currently in service this year. We've actually spread reach children throughout
064lots of different transportation vehicles. Security, there's a few minor inflationary increases. It's a small budget. It supports our SRO and our ASOs. You will see an overall reduction in that section of the budget because there were certain costs that we budgeted for in this current year. to get our ASOs up and running, such as fixtures, firearms. uniforms that we won't need to replace next year. So you'll see that budget go down. In our copier budget, this is our copiers and printers throughout our entire district. They are all leased. We are in the final year of our four-year lease. So we are actually looking at state contracts now to find the best option for renewal of those devices. We do have a placeholder in this budget at 6% because we don't know yet what the cost
065of the renewed lease will look like. Telephones and internet. We've been battling Frontier for... The landlines that are located throughout the district. We currently have most of our phones on voice over IP, but there are reasons that we need landlines. And the costs are quite incredible for the few lines that we have. And those are going up in this budget, but they were offset by the cost of internet and firewall services, which we have moved to fully now. for being provided by the Connecticut Education Network. And we received a big funding dollars to offset those costs. So those went down in this budget and those are also locked into a five-year contract. And that's the final thought I will leave you with tonight. is our preliminary audit results for the 23-24 year. It's a well-timed
066reminder that the success of our tuition and program provides relief toward the burden of the education budget on our towns and taxpayers. Although the audit is not fully complete yet, the fund financials are done, which means we know the fund balance for return to our towns is $736,893. The source of this money is the balance of the tuition and revenue not already credited to our towns. Our budget surplus, which was $96,000, and interest income earned on our general fund throughout the year. The fund balance will be returned to our towns in the same proportion that the towns paid it into the budget, which means Bridgewater will receive $168,000, Roxbury $227,000, and Washington $341,000. I am going to hand out folders to each of you when we're done. This budget slide will be in your folder
067so you don't need to take notes on this. Also in that folder will be a summary of the increases across all of our departments, plus three different documents, which are the exhibits that show the line item information so that you guys can all delve into the details in preparation of our budget workshops that are coming up. And also we will be sharing with you a comparison of other school districts who have reported their budgets thus far. There's quite a few of them. I will tell you that the average is over 5%. And I will ruin the element of surprise and tell you that we are the lowest, with the exception of Sherman. Questions? I just want to know. the tuition in, does that include the agriscience program? No, I didn't think so, but I wanted
068to make sure. The agriscience revenue is offset in our budget, and we use that to support the agriscience program. Thank you. Well done. Wow. Okay. Moving on to reports and recognition. I'm just going to read from mine because I'm... Didn't print it. So first, I just would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Dr. Rodriguez and Nicole Grant and their incredible team for their dedication and hard work in developing a thoughtful and efficient budget. Their commitment to ensuring financial responsibility while prioritizing the needs of our students and staff. Also, I'd like to just give an update. We're pleased to. About the ongoing superintendent search, the first round of interviews are scheduled to take place the first week in March. We are excited with the opportunity to meet a strong pool of candidates and engage in
069thoughtful discussions to identify the best leader for our district. Our goal remains to find a superintendent who will uphold the district's values, prioritize student success, and work collaboratively with all of our stakeholders. We appreciate the community's support and engagement throughout this process, and we will continue to provide updates as we move forward. And that's it for me. Thank you. Okay. Just a few things. I'll read personnel. We had appointments, but Tanya Chouette will be the new point for special education teacher at WPS. Hannah Pringle, long-term educational assistant substitute at WPS. We also had some resignations and retirements. Jill Horan, special ed teacher at WPS. WPS, and that's not effective until June. Robert Mullen, computer education IT teacher at Chippewa. Again, effective in June. Christopher Ubaldi, he was our ed tech specialist at Booth Free School
070and Burnham School. And that will be effective February 27th. Just some field trip notifications. We have Jiminy Peak Mountain, Hancock, Massachusetts on March 1st, and that's for grades 9 through 12. Springfield Central High School, Springfield, Mass. in May for grades 9 through 12. We have our elementary grades 5 going to Sturbridge Village, and that's May 30th. and SUNY Cobleskill, New York on April 22nd, and that's for grades 9 through 12. That's all I have this evening. Treasurer's report, Alex? Yes, well, it's been a big evening with this budget. I've only got two things. One, I'd like to comment on the budget. I hope that the first selectmen and the finance committees realize that this year is an anomaly. And that next, just because we got down to 2.29 doesn't mean we're going to be able
071to do that every year. The second thing I'd like to bring up is I'd like to add to the agenda a motion to spend $5,000 for the attorney's fees for the turf people so that they can get their thing going and they need some maternity. It's sort of a chicken and the egg here. They can't raise money until they get themselves established, and they can't establish themselves until they get some money. So I'd like to propose that we add to the agenda, or can we just vote on the thing? Do we have to add it to the agenda, then vote on it? Okay. I would make a motion that we add discussion about the $5,000 to the TURF plan. Second. All in favor? Discussion? Okay. So now that we're on the agenda. It's pretty straightforward.
072It's for the attorneys. Those of you in the room that are attorneys know that you're expensive. And those of us that are not attorneys know that you're expensive. But anyway, I'd like to propose that we spend $5,000 to get them started. I was going to say the same thing. It's still a deal. So we need a second. Right? Right? Didn't you just make the motion? Yes. So we need a second. Okay, discussion? I just wondered whether or not, I don't want to hear what they know, but I just wondered. Which ones? Yes. Okay. Well, just to understand how this had to go, we're not technically, we're not this group. They're an outside group. We're not going to fund money. We're off the ground. I just want to be confident. So I know Nicole had a
073discussion with him following her discussion with you. Any other discussion? All in favor? Anyone opposed? I'm staying. Okay. It was passed. So thank you. Okay. Thank you. Wow. Moving on to committee reports. Agri-science committee. Mary? There's no report. Next meeting is March 10th. Thank you. Curriculum? We met on... The 10th, sorry. So we met on February 10th and we had Dan Cotiola from the Career and College Advancement Accelerator program come in and talk to us. So just a couple of highlights. So far, we have two students who are enrolled in the program and carry, or Snowden, correct me if I'm wrong, they've each earned or will earn 13 credits by June 1st. And those are 13 college credits. And both of the students in the program currently enrolled said that they will continue this program
074next year. And then overall, the program really aids in college choice. One of the things that Dan Kociela pointed out is that it is possible to graduate high school and then enter, say, a state university like Central Connecticut State as a third year student. So it's just it's incredibly impressive program. Oh, and one other thing we do. So this is the program where students are bused to a facility in Torrington. And then next year we do have Sheila Gambino, who is able to teach, I think, four classes for us. So that would hopefully get more students involved in this wonderful program. And then the other big change that we discussed was a change to the senior project. Next year, there will be a pilot senior project. So one semester instead of the full year. So
075the next meeting is a month from today. Thank you. Ed Advance, Joe? No new update. Our February meeting was canceled. Thank you. Finance and Operations, Alex? I have nothing. We have not met since our last meeting, a board meeting, so I have nothing to report. Labor negotiations, Groh? We have concluded all the contracts that we had in the pending, and we have a future contract coming up next fall. Thank you. Policy? Nothing new. Our next meeting is April 28th. And nothing new to report for the Strategic Long-Range Planning Committee. Moving on, no old business. So now we have new business. Enrollment projections. We have Ms. Grant and Dr. Rodney. So you'll see that. the enrollment projected projection and report by Peter Prouder in your materials and it's you know obviously not light reading for sure
076and I did actually show you just kind of the trend but some interesting pieces and Nicole you can jump in and things that of note We definitely showed in some years being above or exceeding where the average was at the state and then in other years not. But basically that we would be around 900 students if you read that report, had we compared to where the state average was in enrollment. So that was interesting to me. And, you know, they'll go through the percentage of residents that go to non-public schools. I think we have 73% of the region school age residents that attend region 12. So there's some interesting. you know, some interesting information and data to look at. But we are trending upwards. That's a good thing. And it takes you as far as
0772032. And again, that has a lot to do with when you look at our budgets, how we prepare it and how we design it and develop it, knowing that that's at least trending upwards rather than down. It's not significant, but it is something for sure. Well, and you see where we were how many years ago when we go back. It's quite different now, thankfully. And I just wanted to point out, and I talked to Mr. Prado as he develops these projections, and he has a system that he's trying to choose systems that he stays within. But if you noticed on Lori's slide, it looks like we're going to take a dip the next two years before we go back up. I will say that we are expecting. internal projections. I'm expecting us to go up
078next year, not down by about 13 children. So we can see who's right once we get to the next October one. He has us going down to, I have us going up 13. One of the noteworthy things I noticed was that the projection by 2024 is that Washington and Roxbury will both be at 34.04%. And that Bridgewater will be at 31.92%. Does that mean that by 2024 or 2034, we are going to have to readjust the board? It's going to have to be four members from each town as opposed to six, three, and three. I don't plan to be sitting here at that point in time, but nonetheless, you have to ask the question. No, I mean, I don't mean other people. But my microphone fell off. You know, though, I do think we should
079probably share this as much as we can and have a specific discussion with the boards of finance and the selectmen of each of the towns because they need to be in the event we end up here. And Proud has been pretty good, but nothing's perfect. But in the event we end up where he predicts, that's going to be a big difference in terms of the costs that are associated with each step. Bridgewater is going to have a massive increase between now and then. And Roxbury will have an increase, not a massive one, but a good size one. And Washington will be paying a lot less for education because they'll be down from 45% that they are now to 34%. That's an 11-point reduction. And so I think that's something that I think the boards and
080the towns need to be made aware of so that they can plan so that this doesn't catch anyone by surprise. Because I know that that hurts when the towns get hit with a huge increase at some point in time, but they need to be preparing for this. Well, I also think it kind of shows the desperate need of affordable housing in our communities. And part of that is the reason why it's dipping. So I think that. I will be showing this to Mr. Martin tomorrow, for sure, because I think it's important information. Can I ask a question? And I know I'm new, so you guys probably all know the answer to this. But have we ever really dug into why 25% of residents send their kids to private school? Because obviously they're plentiful, right? And
081it's an affluent community for the most part. But it would be really interesting to hear reasons why parents are making that choice. And is it about their perception of the quality of education? Is it about the schools that the Chippewa students end up going to and the schools that they have in mind for their children? I think having an understanding of... Why so many of... So many in our community are sending kids to non-public schools. Well, a long time ago, we did actually do that, Chris, but it's been a long time. I just wanted to just share something really quick, Greg, is that part of the elementary school committee we're discussing, we're creating a survey. And I think we're at the moment where we're doing a two-prong survey. We're doing a beginning and then a
082second one. And that's one of the questions is that we're going to pinpoint. the communities and where they're sending their kids and, and kind of find that out. So that's, that's on our list of two. That actually might work in the earlier one. That's right. Right. Yeah. The earlier one is going to be more about. you know, how they feel about where they live and sending their students. So that actually. And where do you send your children and why? So that's part of what we're going to be exploring. And we don't already do it. I think having an exit interview for families. Yeah. Having the system is important because. We did talk about that. We have done that in the past. We also had a study, a fairly rigorous study, on why people were leaving
083and why they were going elsewhere. We need to do a new one, and that's why I'm glad to hear that you're doing it, because this has been a while ago that we did it, it was eight or nine years ago. But what we found out is that the largest number of people who sent their kids to private school did it because that was a family tradition. And that was something that they just simply did. They've always done it. The generations, they've done it. There was a fairly small number of people who left the public schools because they weren't happy with them. But there was a much larger number of people who came into the public schools because they weren't happy with the private schools. So you see, what we determined was it was not a
084dissatisfaction with our educational program. It was primarily because that's what they do. Also, we are the second, Region 12 is the second highest percentage of students going to private school in the state of any town school system. The largest is Greenwich. Now, we have five private schools within the district, and we've got several that are close by, some of them pretty good renown. When I looked at this last, there were 12, and now there are 10 private schools in Greenwich. So part of having a lot of private schools means that you have a larger percentage of people that send their children to them. Because if you add up the five in the region, plus the ones in New Milford and Watertown and what have you, you get a fairly good number of schools up here,
085not dissimilar from what Greenwich has. And so that's another reason, I think. But the primary reason was a tradition. So I'd like to see if that's changed. Yeah, no, I'm really curious to see that part of the survey involved. So good questions. Moving on. Consider for approval first read policy 3517, security of buildings and grounds. Well, I can, it's, yeah, it's fairly simple. What we did with this one is simply add. the visitor management system surveillance, and now our armed security officers and local law enforcement. So this is all about who's got access and controls school grounds and facilities in terms of security. And so we made sure that we added that in so that it aligns with our practice and our personnel. It's as simple as that. How move we adopt it for a
086first grade? Second. Second. All in favor? Anyone opposed? Abstentions? It's been approved for first read. Thank you. We're doing Consider for Removal, right? Consider for Removal, Policy 5131 and Policy 5131.1. Yes, these were, you remember, because of the school climate, the climate. policy that was given to us. It was developed by CABE for the state of Connecticut, and you adopted that. If you recall, I brought up the other two that Shipman said we needed to delete as a result, and that was because this new policy really captures a lot more than just bullying specifically and makes it broader than that, and that's the reason. I'll move to adopt, I'll move to delete or whatever it was, remove policies 5131 and 5131.1 as proposed in the agenda. And I want to thank the policy committee for
087getting rid of a policy. You know, we have too many. So well done. Second. I'm sorry. I have a question. What are we doing about 51-31.911? Can we just get a second? And then we'll discuss. Can we get a second? Thank you. Okay. What are we doing about policy 51-31.911? I can't stop with that one. Yeah, we're following the adoption of that. That's fine. Okay. It's all in favor. Anyone opposed? extensions moving on what we're in a journey can i have a motion to adjourn all in favor