Board of Education Budget Workshop 05/26/2026

001This is NHTV 2, North Haven Government Television, a service of North Haven Community Television. The following program is brought to you through the support of the town of North Haven. Welcome to special meeting. It's Tuesday, May 26th. 26th. May 26th, May 26th at 5:30 p.m. I'd like to make a couple of statements before we get started. I'd like to thank everybody for coming. I know it's a little bit early, 5:30 in the afternoon, but one of the things that we have to do today is get this done. We have to get it done today. There are specifications that we were a little I don't want to say confused on, but unsure of as far as timing. Um We if we had our meeting which is scheduled for Thursday, it wouldn't have been enough time to

002get it in, to get it approved, to get it out for referendum. It's Everything is so time constricted um with these processes that you really have to be careful of how you do it and what you what you get done and the timing that you get it done in. So, we are required before we leave here today to have a budget approved and move forward so that it can be distributed parts unknown and put out for referendum. A couple of other things um I'd like to to mention first of all. I'd like to thank the the the Board of Finance um for taking the time to make some difficult decisions. I I wish as many as the other board members here wish those decisions were different, but they are what they are and we are

003going to um do our best to provide an educational system that still thrives while meeting the standards set by the Board of Finance. We are also, just like every other board uh in this town, our board of volunteers. We are administrators, we are teachers, we are lawyers, uh we're retired law enforcement, we are business people. So, we have a wide range of interests and a a wide range of things that we do in our lives outside of this, and we all come together uh for the interest of the town and the interest of the students to do the best we can. Now, everyone may not agree with what we do or how we do it. But, one thing you cannot argue with is the success that the school system has had over the last several

004years. Whether it was, you know, something as simple as having a student become governor of the day, opening up a daycare, which has been incredibly successful, um state championships, sometimes repeat state champions, whether it was sports, music, acting, problem solvers, I mean, the the list goes on and on. Um you know, there are 169 municipalities in the state of Connecticut. And if you try to figure out it's a little difficult to figure out how many schools because of the way the schools are broken down, but there are hundreds and hundreds of schools in the state of Connecticut. North Haven had three schools of distinction. I don't know anybody else that did. North Haven had a Blue Ribbon school. There's only four? How many in the state? That's my question. Five? Okay. Five in the state.

005One landed here. Why did it land here? By accident? No. Because Blue Ribbon schools are not determined on a year-to-year basis. Blue Ribbon schools are determined over years of continued excellence. And without that continued excellence, you're off the list. We stayed on that list and we provided. Our average price per student to educate is one of the lowest around. It's like fourth lowest in our burg, and if you take the 18 surrounding cities, we're right there as far as bottom of the pile. And yet we still have all this success. Our grade scores have been our our um mandatory scoring test scoring is higher than it's been in 6 years. Again, that does not happen by mistake. So, you know, people can complain. They have the right to complain about the size of the school,

006how we pay for certain things, what we choose to have and not have. What you cannot ever complain about is the success rate that we've had and that we continue to have with the school. We have some other grade scores that are coming up that we expect to have um we expect to show quite an increase in that also. So, you know, I would like to thank all the teachers, all the administrators, you know, all the people that are involved with with getting our kids ready, getting the schools ready, um presenting it in a way that is the envy of most burgs in the state. Um and I just I can't say enough how much we appreciate you. There are very very very difficult and um upsetting decisions to be made. Um you don't get

007to a million seven in cuts without hurting feelings or being upset yourself by having to do those cuts. Um none of us here want to be here to do that. That's not We didn't all sign up saying, "Man, I can't wait to come in here one day and drop a million seven off the budget. That is not what we ever intended to do. Uh again, towns people have spoken and they say that they want a change in the way money is spent. Now, that's fine. I'm not so sure that they meant they want a million seven from the BOE and a million from the town. I think that could have been much different. I spoke to Mr. Fried about it. I spoke to anybody who listen to me about it. Uh that doesn't seem to

008be the way uh the Board of Finance wanted to go. Or at least most of them wanted to go. Um I am not one to fall down the rabbit hole of uh Facebook and any other conversation. I try not to. Um people are entitled to their opinions. Um you know, it's easy for me to say, "Oh, I know that's not exactly correct." You know, because we're in it. We're we're in the meat of it and a lot of people aren't. So, when you know, when your state rep says, "Hey Ron, you didn't get a lot of funding this year because Hartford says you're top heavy." And I say to him, "Well, Dave, who who said that? And where are we top heavy? Please let me know um so I can address the person that that

009said that." Well, that that's what they're saying. And that's not really an answer. And the problem with that is as you repeat that through town meetings and in general daily conversations, people hear that and they're like, "Oh, well, the state rep says you're you guys are top heavy." Senator says you're top heavy. I I have never gotten an answer other than, "You guys are top heavy." That's not much of an answer and it's not much of a conversation. Um I've always asked for more and I have I haven't gotten it. Um a couple of the other things that happened at the Board of Finance meeting the other day were um a little questionable, maybe. Um you know, I I have a lot of respect for uh Len Fasano. He was a great senator here for

010a long time. Um you know, and he made a couple of comments that I was a little confused about because he's been out of the process for a long time. You know, I've been here for I don't know, 4 years, maybe a little little longer, been chair for maybe 3 or 4 years. Um I've never spoken with Fasano. He never introduced himself to me. He never reached out, showed concern about oh, you guys are spending too much money, you're doing it wrong. I have some ideas. And I would be open to that conversation anytime. And I I invite Mr. Fasano to contact superintendent's office to please schedule a date where he is available to come and speak to us. I would love to sit down and explain to him that, you know, yes, uh when

011you were a senator, maybe the cost per student was lower, and now the enrollment's lower and the cost per student is higher. Uh maybe that has to do with the millions and unfunded mandates that we get from the state every year. Maybe it's because we haven't really gotten any money from our rep and from our state senator every year. I mean, we get 175,000. Cheshire got 500,000 more than that. I'm pretty sure Cheshire is very comparable to North Haven when it comes to the way it's governed, uh its size, its wealth structure, and everything else. So, you know, I don't know what to say about that other than we're not getting that money. I wish we were. It would make everyone's life much easier. But um you know, again to Mr. Fasano, I would say,

012you know, maybe you are unaware, maybe you maybe you are and don't know the extent of it, but there are a lot of things that we are now required to do, especially after COVID, um that there was never a requirement for. And there is more um special education and mental health awareness that we have to take care of on a daily basis than ever before. Students are more um confused than ever. They are more violent than ever, and there are things that we do today that were never done before, and that all cost money to get these kids educated and working in a positive fashion to move forward with their lives. That's what I would say uh to Mr. Fasano, and and please take the opportunity to to call and be with myself and Mr.

013Sterk at any time. The other uh one of the other things I'd like to mention is uh Sally Bowne and and her and her constant misrepresentation of how we got to where we are on the budget. I'm going to do it simply and um quickly, I hope. Uh On the day after Christmas, we were informed by BMB, who is our insurance company, that in order to cover our increased workers comp compensation claims, we would have to add $3 million to our budget, which was shocking, and we immediately asked Brown & Brown, "Please reevaluate that. It doesn't seem possible." They were [clears throat] like, "Uh it's been reevaluated. It's the number." On January 15th, we had our second workshop to create the budget. Our budget number was approximately 5.6% until we added the 3 million, which

014brought it to 11.1. So, that 3 million were uh funds that number one, we did not expect, and we still didn't believe, but we had to carry it. March 2nd um between between January 15th and March 2nd, we were asked by the first selectman to please sharpen your pencils, meet again, see what you can do. And we were for that and um on January 15th when we met on our second workshop and we brought our um I'm sorry, on March 2nd we had a workshop and we lowered our request to 9.9%. That still included the $3 million from Brown and Brown. On 3/11, we had our regular meeting. On 3/17, Brown and Brown got back to us and said, "Guess what? We were off by a million four. And a million four came back off

015our budget request. Now, we got that call from Brown and Brown on the 17th of March and immediately we called the town selectman and we said, "Listen, Brown and Brown's coming with new numbers, our numbers going to change." Now, it's not for me as the board chair to say, "Okay, we can subtract that number from that, so it'll be 7. 05." It's I can't do that. That is not my responsibility. My responsibility is to bring the board together, present the facts, vote on it, recalculate, and then inform the town. I don't have any authority to do that on my own. It has to be done through scheduled meetings. So, we had that meeting on 4/2, which is basically 2 weeks after our notification. We dropped down to uh 6.75. Correct? Oh, it's 3. I'm sorry.

016Can you remind me what I'm writing? 6.35. On 4/12, the Board of Finance gave us a a $500 um allotment to put towards trying to save some teachers. That put us back at 7.08. That's the timeline. So, when she says, you know, how dare they? They knew and they held on to that information. Like Like why am I holding on to that information? Uh there's no gain for the Board of Education to hold on to any information. When we got the information from Brown and Brown, we contacted the town right away, same day. But, I can't in good operation of this board just say, "Hey, Mike, you don't really know yet, but now our our budget's going to be so-and-so." with this particular number. I cannot do that. That has to be done as a

017whole by the board. And if Sally Blewitt remembers her days in the Board of Finance, she would have remember that. But, she likes to talk about how she was a member of the Board of Finance and she was a third selectman, but yet conveniently forgets that those decisions can't be just made by any board chair. They have to go through committee. And she constantly neglects to say that. And makes it sound like fishy business is going on. You know, the other thing is, you know, we got a million-dollar check from the insurance We didn't get a million-dollar check from the insurance company. God, I wish we did. They called and said, "Take a million off the expectation." Not, "Here's a check." That never happens. The same with our bo- uh our budget. I think at

018the year, when we have uncovered funds, basically a surplus. Last year, we had 230 5,000? Something something to that effect. You know, she made it seem like, "Oh my god, you know, they overcharged you $235,000." That was on $70 million. dollars. That's I think a less than half of 1%. And I would like, you know, we all do budgets. So, we do budgets for our homes or for our kids' education, where we've all come in less than half a percent. I I would dare to say that doesn't happen. Fact remains, if we were worried about showing none, we could have went on a spending spree the last week of June and spent that money. It's not like we don't need stuff. Could have bought chairs for here. These chairs are lousy. We could have bought

019anything. We could have bought a microphone system. We could have spent it on the kids. We could have done anything. But, no. We took that money. We put it back into the next year's budget where it gets absorbed like every year we have unencumbered funds. We do not have a bank account for extenuating circumstances like the town does. When the town has unencumbered funds, they're allowed to put it into a bank account, and that's the general fund that he was talking about the other day where there's 11.8 million in it or or such. We don't have that. I've asked for one, and they said I can't get it. And I've asked for one because if we had one and I had a million, two million dollars tucked away in there, I could easily pull it

020out to balance a budget. But, we're not either allowed to have one or I've not been given permission to have one. That that's for sure. Well, our unencumbered funds go back into the next year's budget and get absorbed into that. So, there is no continuation of these monies that we collect and have in our back pocket to throw a big party at the end of the year. That is not the case at all. One of the other things they talk about is, you know, maybe the um education system needs to do deep dive into what they're doing and how they're doing it. And again, I would fall back on we are fourth in the dirt, fourth lowest in spending. We are plus you're about fourth highest in achievement, plus all the other achievements I've mentioned.

021>> [clears throat] >> What dive do you need to do to know that you're doing things at an extraordinary level for an extraordinarily low price? I don't I don't know. I don't know how else to answer that that question. Um but again, I would if Mr. uh Fasano would love to meet, I would appreciate that that meeting. >> [snorts] >> So, with the discussions of deep dive, there are decisions that are easily made and there are decisions that are not easily made. I want to talk briefly about the ID program and how unpopular we know it was, but how difficult it was to get off that program. Two years ago when the state came to the board of educations throughout the throughout the state and said, "This is the way we want to start teaching

022these classrooms and it's different than the way you're currently doing it with ID." So, I met briefly with the superintendent by myself, with Christian and I mean as as a board I was only board member there, and I said, "Listen, if if you want my advice, start phasing it out. If this is how the state wants to start to go with the way we're teaching, we need to phase it out because it's not going to work." And he was adamant about it's going to work, we're going to make it work. I used to be a Ridge, I know how much the people love the program, the kids love the program. I need to figure it out. I said, "You're the boss, man. If you can figure it out, you figure it out." And he did

023figure it out that year. It was painful and it wasn't really the way he wanted it figured out because it was costing us time and and money and effort that was way over any other effort allotment that we'd always put into the program, but he admired that program so much he kept it up. So, when the second year rolled around, I said, "You sure you want to keep this program going?" He said, "Absolutely, I want to keep it going. Again, we're going to keep pushing." And the more he pushed, you could see that the teachers were burning out. Uh the classes weren't quite the same. We know parents were upset because you know, that thing is 50 years old. It's It's a life on its own. Right? We We know that it has its own

024heart rate and pulse, um regardless of whether it worked or not, and people don't want to see it go. Um I am I again advised him at the beginning of the year it needs to go. He said, "No." He tried and tried and tried. At the end of the well, 2 months ago, where we knew it wasn't going to work anymore, especially with the way um teaching had changed, and the responsibilities that they had uh to keep grades singular, um it became impossible. The problem was we waited so long to change it. We had to do it in short order because we were already prepping for the next year's budget. When that announcement came out, we were already into talks about what's going on today. So, unfortunately, by being stubborn and trying to get this

025thing to work and work and work, we kind of put ourselves in a box where it had to be ended so that we can move forward with this year's budget and reallocating of teachers and locations and making sure students were getting taken care of and how we were going to do that. Is that a great excuse? No. No. I'm just telling you what happened and and why it happened. And I know people are upset. I have family members that are in the program. They were upset. But, you know, we tried to present the teachers unions, the principals, and the administrators to explain, "Listen, this is really why it doesn't work anymore." Please believe me, we're not just saying it so we can move on. This is really what it is. And, you know, it turned

026into, "Well, the BOE forced the teachers into saying things they really don't want to say." And and so on. And And we really want to tell you that is not the case. We don't force teachers to say anything. Teachers, believe me, they have They're pretty free-spirited. They have their own minds. They're going to say what they want to say when they want to say it, as well they should. And that's the way really we we kind of like it that way. That's the only way to get information flow back [clears throat] and forth. So, you know, if there is someone to blame on the ID, you know, blame me because I I could have been much harder in saying, "No, the Board of Board of Education is not going to finance that any longer." But

027he had hopes of saving it. So, the only reason you had it as long as you did is because of this man. Not because of me. Cuz it would have been gone. I got to be very honest with you. Cuz I knew it was coming to an end. He knew too, but he wanted to save it. And I don't blame him. That's about all I really have to say about what was going on with the meetings, statements made by others, um some misunderstandings about message when it comes to ID program, when it comes to explanation of the budget, how we got to where we are today and the time frame, and uh discussions that were had to get here. Uh none of it was easy, but but here we are. And I hope that that

028at least made some explanation on the table that everyone can kind of look at and and understand. Maybe maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't, but I just I want to put it out there because it's the truth. And I'm never afraid to answer a question on the board about what's going on. I've had many of unpleasant conversations. We've all have or had children go through the system, through the sports programs here, through any other extracurricular opportunity. Back when Muffin Miners was around, I put all my kids through Muffin Miners. So, we've been here a long time. I know I've been a resident of this town for 56 years. I've been a homeowner in this town for 40 years. Think my mortgage will be paid off? Anyways, I've been here for a long time and I've

029seen a lot happen. I've seen the school system go up and down. A lot of things change. We are on a projected rise. We've been on a rise. And I don't care what anybody says. All the one Fasanos, all the Sally Williams in the world can say what they like. They cannot say that the school is not successful and the envy of many other schools in the dirt and around the state. It's all I'm going to say about that. We're going to move on now to try to figure out the budget. And that's right. Do you have anything you wanted to say? went on for a while, but I felt I needed to maybe try to get some explanation out there. And you're welcome. Okay, thank you. Okay, I'm going to have the um administration

030go over the proposed cuts. Now, just before we get started, I just want to remind everybody these cuts are miserable to make. Nobody wants to make them. I have to give uh the administrators a lot of credit. These are They're talking about people that they've worked with for years and years and years. They have relationships with outside the school. They have good relations inside the school. Anything that happens here is not a uh an effect of that relationship. We didn't hide anybody from a deep dive because we like them. We didn't put anybody forward because they're not our favorite. That's not what happened. We had to take a cold, hard look at what is going on and make some really really tough decisions. So, as these decisions are talked about, if we can please refrain

031from any kind of um emotional outbursts about it. I It's hard. It's hard. I've been laid off myself. It's not easy. It's miserable. Um but we have to do what we have to do. So, with that, I'm going to leave the administration to start to talk about our first options. Thank you, Ron. All right, the board has two forms or two charts at their places. The first is the portrait one uh that actually Ron walked you through uh from the 11.14 down to the 7.08. That's something we're all familiar [clears throat] with. Uh we've seen that. It also has a timeline if you look to the to the left, the dates that Ron gave. Excuse me, Patrick. I apologize. There's 25 people out there. All we can hear Ron is Would you mind to speak

032up a little bit so people I'll do my very best. Thank you. The other chart outside uh the other chart, the landscape one, is the one I'll be referring to and talking through the board with right now. And those are the proposed reductions to reach the uh the $1.7 million uh dollar decrease to the budget, which brings us to a 4.53% overall increase for 2026-2027. So, we'll start with the green. Um The green is Yeah, I'm I'm not going to be yelling. I'm here to talk to you all, so I mean, this is how I talk. Yeah. Sides. Yeah. Yeah. Going on the side. If you want to hear No, no. I didn't mean to interrupt you. Hopefully, they can come squeeze in the best they can. Yes. We'll wait another minute if you need

033another minute to kind of file in. That's fine. You saw a big chunk out there or no? Well, I can't I can't help that. I can only offer, right? Is there somebody behind you on that door? Okay, we're going to we're going to proceed. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Wait. >> Thank you. All right, referring to the top of your document, uh you'll see the the four green lines at the top. Those are administrator reductions. There are two positions that are being proposed to be reduced. It's the athletic director position and the director of buildings and grounds. You can see there are four lines there uh because there's a new stipend put in for the athletic director and his for services for the athletic directing and for services for the director of building and grounds. They

034are listed at $25,000 each, but that is a full elimination of those full-time positions. The next grouping is the red. I'm going to highlight them quickly and then actually Melinda's going to go into a little bit of depth for everybody. So, there's the coordinator reorganization and consolidation. That's the elimination of four coordinator positions within the district. You'll see there's a savings of $244,000 there. Along with that, are there stipends for every coordinator at $81,000. And coordinators also have summer hours. So, those will be eliminated as well at $18,000. There's an elementary cons- elementary classroom consolidation. Uh this impacts one classroom at each of our four elementary schools, so that's a total of four positions at a savings of a roughly $290,000. The elimination of seventh grade world language classes, again seventh grade only, at $206,000

035savings, which is impacts three positions in the district. And the final line of the red grouping is the proposed new special education teachers that we had in the budget. There's four of those. Those are positions. Those are not bodies currently in the district. That is a savings of $219,000. Again, that's four positions. Would you like for you to highlight some of those, please? Sure. With the coordinator reorganization and consolidation, I would like to move IXL and i-Ready from the grant that we had talked about in a previous meeting and utilize some of those fundings as long as well as different movement that will happen within the coordinator groupings. We still need instructional leadership in our buildings that um work on curriculum, that guide teachers, mentor new teachers. So, with this reduction, I can get creative

036with some of the grant money and um utilizing staff that we have in some different capacities, but still be able to keep that instructional leadership going on in the buildings. When Patrick had mentioned about the elementary um class sizes, um we were able to reduce one in each of the four buildings, and I'll just give a small example of what that might look like. For instance, if there was um a classroom that currently had 72 students in the whole grade and we had four teachers, we would reduce that to three teachers and it would increase the class sizes to 24 in each of the classes. Just as an example of what that looks like. The next grouping is the yellow group. The top line is the proposed new occupational therapist position. That is in the

037group five that we had spoken about throughout the budget. That is a position, not a body. Currently in district, so that's a savings of $75,000. Uh the next two lines are non-certified positions. The elimination of the two library clerks, one at middle school and one at high school. And savings of $83,000, and the attendance clerk position at the high school for $26,000. The last four, almost the last four lines in blue are employer medical and dental savings, social security expense savings, Medicare expense savings, and pension expense savings due to the elimination of all those positions. And the final line is a $12,000 cut to the future problem solvers field trip subsidy. It's not to do with the program. The The program will remain, but we do have a subsidy of $12,000 to support their field

038trip that occurs each year in June. May I interrupt you just to share about the world language proposal? I know initially we had spoken about eliminating world language at the middle school in its totality. And I worry very much about that because we have lots of students who are accessing really higher level language courses at the high school. And currently at the middle school, we teach half of year one in seventh grade and the other half in eighth grade. With this shift, we're still going to be able to give students opportunities to take the higher level languages at the high school. For this coming year, eighth grade will teach the second half just as they would have planned normally. During next year and through that next summer, I will work to integrate change at eighth

039grade where they will teach the whatever the world language course is level one at the high school. Instead of it being broken into two years, they will do it in the 8th grade year and it will get them the same opportunities that they currently have now. So, as we have worked this, that was a compromise that we could put on the table so that we don't have the same kind of impact to students. Thank you. So, Um So, that is a total reduction for this portion to get us down to the 5 4.53. It is a total of 21 positions. Again, five of those positions do not have current bodies in them because they were proposed for this budget year. You do not want to forget in order for us to get down to the

0407.08, um we also had, as everyone knows, uh certified retirees taking the early retirement incentive plan. Those eight positions are again we are not planning to fill them. And there's also a one one position of a non-certified retiree that we will not plan to fill. So, between tonight and those positions that I just mentioned is a total of 30 positions reduced. Okay. So, again, um I know that was a very difficult job and I'm sure it was very difficult to present. Um So, now it's our job to kind of go through these, look at them, um see if there's any changes that we may like to make or not. Um I remind you this, any change we make that adds something to this, a change has to be made to take something out. The number

041at the bottom is the number and it has to be the number. So, as we add 100, you need to find 100. If you add 2,500, you need to find 2,500. So, keep that in mind as you make suggestions. I know everyone has some to make, I'm sure. Um I I think, you know, normally I start at the end um with the newer people and I work our way out. I think um because of the severity of this, I'm going to start with the most senior people and work backwards a little bit. So, um I think that leaves you, Randy, as as the first. I mean, I'll go I'll go first if you like. I love that. Why did I even mention that? All right. I have um one or two concerns about the budget.

042I do not like in an elementary classroom. I think I think we're asking too much of the student. I think we're asking too much of the teacher to do that classroom like that. That is the start of their educational journey, and you want to make sure that everything that they have is super solid and on track. >> [clears throat] >> So, that is an issue for me. Um the other thing that I think we can find uh with the move I'm going to suggest uh is the Future Problem Solvers trip. Um so, instead of basically saying the Future Solve Solvers trip Problem Solvers trip, you can say it twice. Um that should be basically say something to the effect of money back to field trips. There are several field trips throughout the year for the

043school, and that $12,000 should be divided up the best we can or however we see fit at the time. In order to reach that, um it's basically 300 3,000. My suggestion would be that we lose an assistant principal from the high school, and we lose one from the middle school. That is a It's a big, difficult ask. They're all big, difficult asks. But, it is something that I think that, at a minimum, we should at least look at. Um the work that the APs do, I I don't really know how we would cover it. I don't know yet. I mean, there's only one way is you divvy up their work into the existing principal and AP, and say, "You know, have at it." Which is a lousy thing to do, but these are lousy times.

044>> [clears throat] >> So, as I look at the budget, I say to myself, "We're here for educational standards of the kids, and to provide them with the best opportunities to succeed. And one of the ways to do that is to keep the classroom small, and to keep that, social so they can develop social skills, and they can be given more of a one-on-one chance to succeed. That's my suggestion for the budget. And I think that if you listen to the public comments, if you listen to what's happening at the meetings, what's being said at selectmen meetings, what's being said at um [clears throat] Board of Finance meetings, is that people are looking for a move in the administration level. And I don't believe that that desire um follows into the classroom. I [clears throat]

045don't think they want classrooms to change. I don't know that I want classrooms to change. Either way, it's a lousy decision um and I'm just putting it out there. Brandy, your turn. [snorts] I think I have more questions than statements right now, if I can. Absolutely. Um so I think I'm going to bounce off of what you just said to start on. So, um classrooms. So, Patrick, I think you said this. I'm sorry, but I didn't write it down. So, with um reducing the classroom teachers one at each building, classroom sizes have what what are what would they be with the teacher and what would they be without the teacher? And how much are they going to So, I um I had given an example of um 72 students in um 73 students in we'll

046use that one in fifth grade. And currently we have four classrooms for that. It would be reduced to three and there would be 24 in the classroom. >> 24 in the classroom. Another example might be um a third grade with 45 students. We currently have three, so that'd be 15 in each as it is now. Um consolidating to two puts it at 23 in each of the two. Okay. Thank you. Those are just a couple of examples. So, if we were to increase the class sizes, you're looking at the upper grades, not the primary. Not K to Um Yes. Uh three, four, five, exactly. >> And that's across all four elementary schools. Yes. Okay. Um how many administrators do we have at the high school? We have one principal and how many APs? Two assistants.

047Currently. Correct. And an athletic director who also within that union? So, [snorts] one AD. And then at the middle school, we have one principal and two assistants. >> APs. And just to one uh assistant at each one assistant at And how many students do we have at high school? 950-ish. Sorry? >> 950. 950 and at the middle school? 760. 760. 902 as of March 1st. 299 at the high school and 768 at the middle school as of May 1st, excuse me. Thank you. So, [snorts] So, I don't like any of this, right? Like I think that just goes for saying and I'm not going to talk about why I don't like any of this because I think we all feel the same way. So, I'm not going to rehash all of that that we've been

048saying for months. Um the fact that we have to reduce our district by 30 educators is awful. Um but um maybe but's not a very good Ron, I'm going to push back a little bit on your AP suggestion. And the reason I'm going to do that is because um I agree with you, small class sizes is what everybody wants. There's no doubt about that. Being a teacher myself and in education, we all know that small class sizes smaller class sizes better. Um but I think as a board what we always have to do is make decisions for what's better for most and when I think about reducing the administration at the middle school and the high school by an administrator that ratio of student to administrator increases so much that the impact that that will

049have on the students across the entire high school and the entire middle school is going to be significantly more powerful than the impact it will have on four elementary classrooms when we're talking about third, fourth, and fifth graders because in the upper elementary classes, it is common not preferable, but common to have classes of that size. I know in my own school, we have classes up to 26 in grades five. >> [snorts] >> When I was in New Haven, we had them to 28, 30, 32. I'm not saying that that's what we want by any means, but it happens. Um and and will it be great for that class? Absolutely not. Is that what the parents, the teachers, and the students want? Definitely not. But we're talking about when we talk about administrators and their

050their responsibilities are vast throughout the day. I you know, with their their You said it yourself, like we're talking about more mental health and special education needs than ever before. Um they are the instructional leaders of the schools. They keep the school safe on a thousand different levels throughout the day. If we remove an adult um an administrator from each of those schools, I I worry about how we can move continue to move those schools forward. Um especially if we are reducing the coordinators and the coordinators do a lot of the instructional the instructional leadership, you know, that's going to fall on the administrators when we do reduce the administrators. It's it it just kind of I I think it just kind of I don't know. So, I I I I hope I'm being clear

051cuz I feel like I'm being >> Oh, no, you're being you're being very clear. And again, that's why we're here, right? We're here to have conversations about options. So, that's absolutely fine what you're saying. And I didn't think I didn't think there was I was just talking about that. So, I'm just kind of like shooting from the hip here with that. But um So, that's what I was that's kind of my feedback on that suggestion. Um just a quick question about the future problem solving. This is just cuz I don't know the answer to this. The 12 one, is that the total amount that we typically give them or a partial amount that we typically give them support? [clears throat] Total what's budgeted for. For just the field trip. >> Yeah, for just the field

052trip. Yeah, it's not the program related. Not related to the program at all. And they typically um fundraise more than that for their field trip. So, they would have to fundraise 12 more than what they What do they typically fundraise for that, do you know? Say it again. What do they typically fundraise for that, do you know? I don't know. It's been They just kind of compute the cost and then they ask the parents, this is how much the Okay. the trip is going to cost and then obviously if there's people that can't do it, I don't know what happens behind the scenes there, but >> [clears throat] >> if there people aren't prohibited going because they can't pay for it. Otherwise, it's closer to the parents. Um So, I know that Mr. Diana retired

053a month or two ago, whatever it was. I don't even know how long it was now. Um how has So, so you're confident that without replacing his position and using the stipend that we'll be able to I know it'll be harder cuz it's a whole person that we're not having, but be able to cover the additional responsibilities. Yes, with support from Christian and myself and the stipend we'll be able to cover that. Okay. >> [snorts] >> And then how with the athletic director, how is that going to happen? How does that work? Um the $25,000 stipend will be provided to We have to figure out how that's going to look necessarily. I'm not sure if it'll be seasonal or for a full year. We have to see interest. Um but again, more will fall through

054with building administration as well. For responsibilities. Okay. I I'll come back anyway. >> Yeah, I think I'm going to come back. Fair enough. So, I know this was very difficult to put together. So, no one in this room is happy about any of this, right? So, I I just I hesitate to call it a positive, but I guess the the benefits that I see from some of the things that you've done here, um you know, we've kept sports pretty much intact outside of the um the athletic director position if this happens. The you know, there there is some impact to the world language program, but there's still the option for kids to take languages in the middle school, which that was a great concern of mine that if there was no world language program, the

055ripple effect of that going forward was going to last years and years and years, and either kids wouldn't be taking languages or they'd be so far behind. And especially after like the showing we had with the seal of biliteracy this year, and I mean, there's so many positives there. So, I appreciate you being able to to work some of some of that in. Um you know, we also heard from a lot of people about future problems on this, and keeping that intact, and you know, for the most part, that program still exists if if we agree to this. Um the field trip, you know, that that's tough. It's It's already speaking as one of those parents that pays for it. Now, it's already a good chunk. If it's not subsidized, you know, I I do

056fear that people either won't be able to go um and the concern I always have when we say, you know, we'll fundraise is we're fundraising and we're asking the same groups of people for the same money or you know, for money for 10 different things and that you know, after a while not only does it become white noise, it just becomes there's no more money for anybody to give. Um so I'm not sure where I stand on on that right now, but I it's the least of least of my concerns on this list. I I quite honestly, the the coordinator position really it like it crushes my soul. Like that position I don't I don't think people realize how important that is to the how high functioning the district is. >> [clears throat] >> That

057really it hurts. Um I did have a question about the the elementary school. Are those building level administrator decisions there or like as to what classrooms get how how is that going to be decided what classrooms get merged? It's enrollment based. Okay. So it could look different in each It does. class I mean in each school. Okay. Um I'm I mean Ron threw me for a a a nice curve ball with the um with the AP positions. I was not anticipating that, but um I do think it's a run I do think it's a very fair point to make, especially listening to what the public has said and you know, I I'd like some more information as to what that would look like if we did eliminate those roles and what um really what happens

058in each of those schools you know when when the APs get down by one. And then the the last kind of thing on here that at least is floating in my mind right now is I think I think the um the buildings and the grounds position, I think you know we kind of we'll be okay there. I am quite concerned really with the elimination of the full-time athletic director position and I don't know um quite honestly I was ignorant to all the different things that the AD does. You know, I had a general idea but then all the emails and then from you know um like the head of the I think it was the CIAC you know athletic director guy emailed us and provided more information. It's a huge [snorts] huge responsibility that I

059don't know I really don't I don't know and I'm not I'm not convinced that um a stipend position can can carry all the responsibilities there. So those are the things that are I guess it's more just Just Just clarify a little bit. It's a stipend position plus a part-timer, correct? And we already have There's an administrative assistant. It's a full-time administrative assistant in the full in the athletic director's office. That's primarily like scheduling and buses, transportation, logistics. Yeah. Just so you know it's not just a one stipend did position. That's all. Yep. And Joe, I could just talk a little bit um in particular to about the middle school AP. Um Um And you do There are a significant number of students with IEPs there. I want to say around 116 to 120. And that

060requires multiple um PPT meetings, um parent planning team meetings. So, that's a you know, that's a huge amount of time that you know, one admin has to be present at that that takes care of a lot of that. Um never mind the you know, the office referrals in that age group being, you know, challenging as >> [clears throat] >> they're developing. Um I believe we're close to 76 certified staff there. Does that sound right? Um and those evaluations for teacher evaluation have to be conducted, too. Um and those those are kind of non-negotiable. The IEPs and the evaluations are non-negotiable. There are probably um slightly greater numbers at the high school due to the the higher number, but those are just some like concrete pieces that I know absorb them a lot of the day.

061Can I say something now? Yeah. Or do I have to wait my turn? No. Sorry. No. So, you know, we've been at this table for a really long time together. So, I say this with like complete respect. You and Ron both used the the phrase the public said they want. Yeah. And they mentioned um less administrators. >> I I think we're we are listening to the public when they said they want us to spend less money, right? We are. We are spending Yeah. $1.7 million less money, which is causing us to >> [clears throat] >> further reduce and completely reduce 30 people. Yeah. We don't have to listen to them as to how we spend it. I think to a certain extent we need to rely on the professionals in our public school system as

062to where the least impact will be taking everything into consideration. And I think that if the team up here thought that reducing APs would be least impactful, and don't get me wrong, every single one of these people is a huge impact. So, I don't mean to minimize any anybody on this piece of paper. But, just because people outside of education say we're top-heavy or that's not the way it was >> when I was there or 10 years ago or 20 years ago, that's not the way it was. I'm sorry, but there are professionals in their positions right now for a reason, and we need to listen to them because they know the needs of the teachers and the students in this district. So, yes, we are listening to the public. We are cutting by $1.7

063million, but you know what? I do not want to put the safety of our students and our teachers and the instructional leadership in jeopardy because the public has sticky fingers behind screens. I'm sorry, but I I I >> it. Well, I get it. >> That's not a place where I'm willing to go. >> And And you know No. You know well enough both Ron and I I know. And that's why I said respectfully, Joe. That's why I said respectfully, Joe. >> We're at least the way I'm saying the public is it's been a point that's been raised. I think we have an obligation to at least look into it and discuss it. I don't think it's something that just because somebody brought up that we you know, we have to go by it, but I

064do think it warrants a discussion. And if nothing else by that discussion, maybe people understand the role of what everybody does in that building and how significant it is to have multiple administrators in there. And And maybe there's room to do one at at one school and not at the other or whatever. I I just I don't think just because it wasn't on the paper that was put in front of us that it's something that we shouldn't at least talk about. >> Okay, that's fair. Goli? Um so I just only have a quick uh comment. Um so unfortunately, you know, this is where we are. Um the public, you know, going sitting back to you know, what both you said, it you know, they wanted this number in terms of the budget. Um and you

065know, Patrick and his team has done, you know, a good job, difficult job uh putting this proposal uh before us. I did have a uh follow-up comment to what you all talked about regarding the AD position. And it's something that I've been uh thinking about is um whatever you decide, I'm not going to make any decision for you or tell you what you need to do. But whatever decision you make regarding that position as to who's going to take over, if that's the direction, is on a higher level, somebody who can, as Joe mentioned, who can take care of the higher level things. You know, if it's in terms of being present at meetings, you know, statewide meetings, doing all the high-level coordinations, all those things. Just make sure that it's somebody who So we

066have, you know, run a pretty successful athletic program. I want to continue to do that. And so whatever decision you decide to make on that position, just make sure that my thought is to make sure that that person is able to uh to do that. Regarding the future problem solvers field trip, um Joe had mentioned, you know, um about fundraising. I mean, the North Haven Education Foundation is hopefully will be able to help us. They always do, you know, so hopefully there ways that that $12,000 can be plugged plugged in hopefully because it is a very, very important uh trip. Um so it's a difficult decision, um but you know, this is what we have to do. So um I don't have any any questions, you know, regarding what's been uh presented except those clarification

067um you know, questions. And then it's just to make sure that as you're merging those classes, just be strategic about it. You know, I know Patrick did mention that it's based on the enrollment, but um you know, just be careful about about the merger and then also just keep parents informed as to, you know, their class, you know, that their kids are attending. It's going to be communication I would say is key because the transition would be a very difficult. That's all I have. Thank you, Willie. Melinda? Um so I also I'm in in agreement with Randy on all things always. No, just kidding. Um but I I do think like I I listen to the professionals here and I trust what they say, but I also verify, right? So, like I'm constantly doing looking

068things up, doing deep dives of my own with my 12-year-old. If anybody would like to do a deep dive on anything, we'll we'll both sit with you anytime. Um and I was looking at administrative recommendations, right? So, for lockdowns, evacuations, emergencies, coordinating with police and fire and the SROs, building-wide supervision, behavioral intervention, de-escalation, parent communication, preventing suspensions, teacher evaluations, which are legally required, coaching and support, ensuring classroom quality, scheduling, compliance, and then special education coordination that Melinda brought up. Like I do worry about shrinking those uh AP positions further cuz we did shrink one last year. Um we used to have three APs at the high school. It's working well now with two APs at the high school. And for the middle school, I really worry. I remember I was at the play with Ms.

069Bankowski and I was a volunteer and I was like, I don't know how you do this all day every day. I manage people for a living and this these are these kids are very challenging and I give you a lot of credit for it, but I do think that there are myriad behavioral issues that um that we see that our our administrators are dealing with and we want to make sure that everybody else can focus and learn. Just my two cents on that piece. Fully hear you though on a lot of the feedback that we're getting. In most of these, I want to just kind of think about where does the work go? Because there are 30 positions hit where there are 30 positions worth of work on this document which is that's a a

070significant amount of our staff. Um and the work won't just disappear. Like it's going to go somewhere else. So I'd love to just kind of understand specifically like which which departments are we losing coordinators for and where that work will go. Um I understand the elementary classrooms. I'd like I I sort of understand that the grounds position, but I'd like to just double click on the athletic director position. I'd like to understand better the two library clerk positions um and the attendance clerk position to see like where that work would go. And I'd also just like to ask about the new occupational therapist position. It was going to cost us 75 grand, but the line item that we're budgeting for is 150 grand. Yep. Because we contract services out. So there's also there's been a

071lot of discussion about um the positions that the Board of Ed uh has hired and I want to just kind of can I spend a second on that? So as Ron said, we are at the fourth we the fourth lowest in our dirg from expenditures. We spend an average of $2,000 less per student per year than others. If we went on a spending spree, we would see it in the money. What we have done is been strategic about pulling contracted services in. Like we're we're doing this in the private sector right now too. Contracted services can cost two to three times the amount. You don't have the commitment for medical dental benefits etc. But when you're in a an environment like a school system, the risk isn't there cuz you're not just setting something up

072to run a project for a little while. You're setting up children to to learn and to be part of the future. So, um I know that there's there's been like a very surface-level criticism of some of the hiring and I wish folks would double-click on it a little bit and understand that we actually save $5 million a year with the RISE program by bringing kids back into district. That did require that we hire some people. Those people are not extra people. They need to be here. Um So, that's one other thing. And last but not least, four world languages it at the middle school, are we still going to offer the four that we offer today for eighth grade? We would. Um as we >> So, Spanish, Italian, French, and Chinese. Correct. >> Okay. We'd

073have to do some splitting of staff between the high school and the middle school to make it work. That's a very creative solution. I want to give you guys props for that. Um I don't I don't love that we're getting rid of seventh grade language. Um we we've heard all we've also heard from people that starting language even younger is good for the kiddos. I want to just acknowledge and make sure that we're saying that out loud as well. But, if you if you wouldn't mind just walking me through like the more the specifics around um what coordinators are being consolidated. Are all of the coordinator summer hours included in the 18,000? And then just a little bit of where the work is being dis- redistributed when uh when we're looking at these consolidations. >>

074a little bit to that. Um we had already eliminated any summer curriculum writing a few budget iterations ago. Uh-huh. So, that money is already out. So, um the coordinators would typically lead a teams of teachers to do some of that work. So, that's a shift that we're going to have to make for this coming year. Um we have we have some movements throughout the district for being completely transparent. Um, due to the budget climate, we know people are applying for other positions. Some people have you know, potentially have taken other positions. So, that's happening all across the board and that has saddened us tremendously, but in the coordinator coordinator consolidation piece, I would like to just kind of have the freedom to see where everything kind of shakes out and then I want to have

075representation of instructional leaders at each of the three levels, um, elementary, middle, and high. And we need to develop, um, practices where we can go across contents and we can go up and down K through 12 to make sure that we're covering things. Um, so you're talking about moving to like a matrix model of coordination, where >> Kind of like more like, um, an instructional coordinator kind of team. >> Okay. Um, so it's it's very complicated because, um, currently we have 18 coordinator teacher leader positions. These are teacher positions. Um, six of them currently are full-time in content areas, core content areas across the district. Seven of them currently teach and get a stipend and have two blocks free in their, um, their schedule. Some teach fully just because their department needed more assistance. And

076then there are five that are, um, under, um, special services. So, we would we would make changes to about four of those positions in the totality of being coordinators and then, um, distribute kind of responsibilities from there. We have to like grow a a new team and a new way of thinking about it, um, if this comes to fruition, there are there are lots of responsibilities that the coordinators do that would seem like no one would know if you didn't dig into them, right? They're instrumental in scheduling. They're instrumental in our pacing of our instructional units by discipline, our assessment calendars. They're an integral part of our dual enrollments and our college bearing classes, our AP testing. Many of them actually are some of our higher level AP and ECE instructors. And then during their

077couple of free blocks, they are able to do unification and curriculum leadership in each of their departments. Um Thank you for that, Melinda. That it does make sense to me. When Anthony, this one might be for you. When we're looking to eliminate the the proposed new occupational therapist position, which is $75,000. As we said, the budgeted line item is $150,000 this year. If we were to reduce the budgeted line item of $150,000, keep this position in, figure out what we need to do for social security, Medicare, and pension, wouldn't we have enough to cover the future problem solvers field trip or or is it the type of situation where the 150K supports multiple contractors who come in and help with occupational services? Typically, that's how it is. We have multiple contractors that do come in

078to support our students, especially at the elementary level. We would have to look at the consolidation piece of it to see where the greatest need is and how we can align that across the district. So, the idea of bringing in additional occupational therapists in was to help from K to transition, to help offset some of the hours that we're seeing increase drastically increasing very rapidly based off of students IEPs. I don't know if that helps to answer your question. I mean it doesn't it like >> give you more. I can I hear what Ron's saying about future problem solvers, I hear what Joe's saying about future problem solvers and we're sitting on what's probably a $55,000 expenditure in contractors which doesn't like I sort of have attitude about contractors. Sorry everybody but like they don't

079have as much skin in the game as folks who are actually employed by the district and they tend to be very expensive. >> Correct. So like in my mind I'm just trying to think that could maybe be a library clerk too. [clears throat] I'm I'm worried about >> [laughter] >> our librarians like being able to take a break and and not um you know and and our kiddos who a lot of kids spend a lot of time in the library in their free period. So like are we going to shut the library down if we don't have library clerks and We will not shut the library down if we do not library clerks. But how how does that work get filled? And that's what we We need the time to see how the budget develops

080and who's the ins and outs as Melinda spoke about. We don't know what those are yet. We're kind of in a volatile place in our district where where people are are reaching out for recommendations or looking for jobs aren't sure >> Totally understandable that they're Oh I understand how they've been treated too. >> Right and and and we're I mean from person to person we don't want to lose them but we cannot encourage them to to take care of themselves. And we're going to have to get creative around thinking about um duties that teachers have and and covering the library in those duty sweeps and such like to be able to kind of look at that different. >> It makes me uncomfortable though to ask our teachers to do more. Our and I know you

081guys are with me on this but like our teachers are already wearing so many hats all the time being like can you go reshelve some library books kind of like sort of kills me a little bit. Um Us, too. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. Um can we just can we just double click on the athletic director position again, too, because we we we've gotten a lot of feedback on that. We have an excellent athletics program. Like one that we should be very very proud of. And I'm sure like we have an athletic director who is has received accolades and has been lauded statewide um for the work that he's done for this district. Like how how do we fill that hole? We don't. Yeah. Very simply, we don't. Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> We fill

082partial a bit of that hole. Whether it's from folks up here at central office folks in the building and it's a team effort. A $25,000 stipend only gets you so far. We know what the position needs and brings to the table. We'll make do. Um but we know that as Goldie said, made a very good point as and Randy, too. There's a lot that we don't know and there's a lot of representation for our district at SCC, CIAC that we're we're going to have to figure this out, make sure that we're in line with what all the other schools are are doing. That position keeps us there right now. So it'll be a learning curve for us, too. Well, thank you. That's all I've got for right now. Thank you. Marty? Um a lot of

083what I was going to say is already been covered, so there's no point in repeating. But um I don't have a particular problem with the AD's uh elimination. You know, I I I would rather see someone maybe getting one less class a day to teach to help handle that. I understand the issues uh with that uh having gone through high high for 30 years. Um I can really appreciate what the AD has done for uh the schools that they work in. Um, my other issue that I have is with the special ed as uh has been spoken to several times. Um, you know, having outside contractors, yeah, they work okay, but um the in-school my wife spent 30 years in special ed and uh the relationship that she developed with the kids is, you know,

084outstanding. Um, unfortunately, she passed away, but that's neither here nor there. Um, but doing as as it's said, doing the IEPs and the other requirements, uh you you just can't uh have enough people handling that. So, I'm very concerned about the uh special ed program. Um, I would uh Okay, I'll say it because I'm nasty. Uh, I would rather do without the sports program than uh lose the special ed people. That's not nasty. It's a point of view. Um, that's my feeling. What? Um, you know, and I'll leave it at that. Okay. No, but listen, that's what we're here to hear everybody's point of view and then to hash out a final program. Michelle? Okay. Um, I have lots of thoughts like everybody else. A lot of what I was thinking has been brought up

085by people. Um, I've gotten some questions answered um in the past week or so. >> [snorts] >> Um, I want to double down on a couple things that I heard. Um, going back to what Randy said about assistant principals. Um, and I think it's really important and I'm not again, I'm not taking away from anyone's knowledge at this table here, but I know that Randy works in schools, and I work in schools. I specifically worked in middle schools for 10 years. I can remember when I got hired as a middle school teacher. I worked in Waterbury, and I went to the orientation, and they asked, you know, who was going to elementary school, and you know, who was going to high school. And then they asked who was going to middle school, and the presenter

086said a little prayer and said, "Bless you all, and you are the cream of the berries of our district, because middle school is a whole different beast." And I'm not just saying this for my experience of being in middle schools, but I also did some research on typical amount of administrators throughout the state of Connecticut and throughout our district when it comes to enrollment of middle schools and high schools. And what I found is that, and this is true of the different districts I've been in, is that schools of size between 500 and let's say 800, we call them medium to almost large-size schools, um typically have one main principal, and then one to two assistant principals. And it was very much in line with the larger your enrollment was, the more likely you were

087to have two assistant principals. So, when I worked in Derby Middle School, um we were very small. We had 300 students. We had just the one assistant principal. Um but any other middle school I've been at that has been closer to that 700, 800, 900, they've had two assistant principals. So, um I do think for the types of behaviors that we have typically in middle schools, um and all of the other roles that principals serve um at middle school and high school level, you know, I I do think that we are working with an appropriate amount of principals currently. Um so I would be very hesitant on doing anything additional. Um and if there's going to be feedback that we are not um doing anything with admins, I mean, we already have two admin positions

088listed on here. So, if we as a district have, you know, 17 admins, 16 admins, I don't know what the number is exactly, um but taking two away [clears throat] is already 11%. So, um taking away two more would get you closer to almost 25% of our administrators. So, I am not really in favor of approaching that. Um that said, I'm also concerned with the class sizes at the elementary school level. Um I do know that if we've got classes with 16, 17, 18 right now, that is on the low end from where a lot of districts are, but maybe that's part of the reason why we are so successful with so little money spent per student. So, I would say for sure. Yeah, no, absolutely. >> say for sure that's a reason. So, so

089as we start to play with these numbers and make these sorts of changes, we are not going to see, my my prediction is that we're not going to see the same success rates that we currently have. Um I work currently in a grade three to five school. Um and there are some years where we have, you know, 18 to 20 in a classroom and it's fairly manageable. And there are years like this year where our district made decisions to also reduce sections, um and we have 23, 24 in those classrooms. And it's difficult. It is extremely difficult. So, um again, that said, I don't know how we get to where we don't have to do that. So, um >> [clears throat] >> I don't know. I'm listening. I'm listening to what everyone's saying. I'm taking

090notes here as people are saying it. Um I also want to come back to what Amanda said because it's something I've said frequently as well. I want to know the cost savings for hiring whatever position we were talking about hiring that actually saves us money because I I understand people look at the numbers and they're like, well, what how can we hire if we're if we're reducing? And I get that. I know that. But some of this come needs to come with context. Like if we are able to hire somebody and it saves us money so that we can save something else or save somebody's position, then I want to know that. So, that comes back to what Randy said with um yes, you can tell us that we have to cut $1.7 million, but

091you're you can't really dictate how we're going to do that and and if there's a way for us to hire somebody to save money like so that we can save somebody else, then I want to know that. Um I hope that makes sense. I'm not trying to not make sense here. What else? Oh, I did have a question about the additional money that was added by the governor. Um you know, everyone got a list of what those allocations were. I know that North Haven did not get a lot um and we were all disappointed that we didn't get as much as someone like a Cheshire or Wallingford um who got four to five times as much as we did, but it was said that we would get $176,000 of that money. Uh my understanding from

092what I've read is that that is for next fiscal year starting July 1. It's supposed to be available to us. So, is is there a plan for where that is put into this equation? So, that those dollars are not actually part of the operating budget. Um we're still receiving feedback from the state of Connecticut and how that money will come to us. The July date is is right now an approximation. Um there There a tremendous amount of clarity. And we attended the conference with the state. You think you got to think it was? Um, and we will be in communication with the town in regards to receiving those funds. Those funds go directly to the municipalities. They don't come to us. So, it's going to go to the town side and then they have to

093give it to us? I half Well, I mean It depends like it's >> That's that's still part of the clarification. That's part of the clarification that we're still waiting from the state. There is a chance that we don't see any. There's a chance we see more, doubtful. Chance we see nothing. Okay, well that's disappointing. Um Yeah, we're not allowed to put any of that towards our budgetary response for next year because it's such an unknown. And I doubt July 1st is the date either. I doubt it. I'm sure it'll be much later than that. Okay, I'm sure I'm going to have more, but I'd like to listen to what the rest >> Okay. has to say. Agreed. Um A lot of my I have a lot of notes here. A lot of those I'm already

094so [cough and clears throat] I thank the other board members for bringing those up already. Um, I do worry uh about the coordinator positions like all those the task force is at fall down on because I do I'm very concerned about um bringing out our teachers. Our teachers are amazing. We have the best teachers and I don't want I want to respect um their work. Uh, for the world language I didn't want to touch on world language at all. I you know, I'm I'm a very bad advocate for it. I understand that. It's a big chunk. I don't I honestly don't have an answer on how to um supplement that. I know I I'm very thankful that we've at least got it down to so that we can still have the eighth grade because that

095higher AP level languages in high school is so important for some kids getting into those higher level colleges and getting those scholarships that they need to be able to go to um you know, further their education. Um These are just thoughts in my head, so I don't know if I've really thought about properly well. Is there a way maybe to instead of cutting it like that way where like we lose seventh, we keep eighth, but maybe down this way maybe like the lower attended languages and I feel bad saying that. >> We did look at that um French and Chinese as being the lower enrollment languages. Um and that may be something we consider in the future holistically as a district, but we have students already committed at this point. They've already taken the first

096half of their middle school piece of it and we also have students at the high school level in French and Chinese that are even moving up like we have Chinese five, French five. You know, so there would have to be a very thoughtful way of [clears throat] um doing that over time where we slowly I don't want to do that at all. Right. So, it's not clean to just It couldn't necessarily work in this scenario as we Right. If we would leave I'm sorry. We would leave students, you know, in year three, year four, year five and just cut it from them and that Mhm. is not good either. >> And eliminating those two languages, those students still need somewhere to go, which will increase class sizes somewhere else. Okay. That's good. Good point. Um

097Uh well, I think that's that's with the language. Uh I need to flip the table on Um I'm also concerned about the occupational therapist and do we know exactly how much it would cost to send the students out if we don't have this occupational therapist? 150 a year is a contracted cost roughly right Anthony is that about right? So I don't I don't understand how cutting this because then we have to add that like I understand. Like I you know that is a big question mark for me and I don't know that it even kind of works. >> And we also focused on bodies that we have like those aren't bodies. So they're positions. So in order to save actual bodies we we focused on those just solely positions and it's not a good trade-off

098but if we take people and that's what we're thinking. I'm also a little concerned about the classroom size of 24 students. Um there's a literally teachers in this room right now that have had my son who has been um as you all know he's free-spirited. >> [laughter] >> And you all know what that means. And um and I just I just picture a classroom full of Alexes. You know what I mean? And that poor teacher and like they're not being like correct me if I'm wrong there's no aides or anything. Like I know there will be an aide for a special ed student if that was in the class but that para has to focus on the special ed student. So there isn't any you know I remember when I was a kid going back

099there was like a like a an aide or a para or something. So all our paraeducators are are assigned to special education students. We do not have any classroom special ed So that makes me kind [clears throat] of uncomfortable. Um I understand that there are some schools that do that anyway but it doesn't make a good decision. With the trade-off with the administrators, how many kids are at the high school? 902 902 okay. Um I'm very uncomfortable cutting down to one assistant principal at the high school level. At the middle school level I know it's a smaller I know. >> [sighs] >> That sucks. I don't want to cut anybody. But um the middle school level I could kind of is a little bit palatable just because there's 200 less students in there, but there

100is that point of that it is a different world and you know in the middle school when it comes to um just the age group of the kids that are in there. So, how much would it you know save us if we went down one high school administrator no one middle school administrator but kept the high school due to the higher amount [snorts] of students? Like is that saving a lot? It's only 130 kids difference not 200. Okay. Um I asked I don't know. I Just cut it in half Jenna be roughly I mean for rough numbers. >> [snorts] >> Um questions about Bill have been answered already so thank you for that. When it comes to the athletic director um So let me kind of jump in one second. I just asked Christian to

101figure out the enrollment for the high school next year. We're 902 right now. The enrollment for next year will be 959. Okay. The be projected the eighth grade is just a little bigger than the seniors leaving. I the balance of do we do the elementary teacher and have the higher classroom versus do we minimize the um assistant principals? Like both of them makes my stomach turn but I do have to think about inside the classroom and the kids directly being affected and I know they'll also be directly affected in other ways with having only one assistant principal but like you know I just think that the elementary level the kids they're you know they're just trying to learn so much and such a developmental thing. I I almost would support going down on the assistant

102principals in order to keep the smaller I kind of agree a little bit more with Ron what he was originally saying. I don't want to do any of it but um push comes to shove that would be I believe the better of the two evils here. Um but I guess so with the athletic director I think everybody knows I my I'm a family of um artistic theater nerds. I don't know anything about athletics. I So, I'm going to have to just lean on the other board members who are more familiar with the effect of losing that director position >> [clears throat] >> and kind of just support you know, their opinions on that. I don't really have a personal opinion myself. Um I think as of right now that's the only questions or comments Yeah,

103that's all I have for right now. Thanks, Tree. Tom. All right. I get to bat clean up. I got a lot to say. Um I'll start with just [clears throat] picking up on some points everyone made. Um Class size, I can't make up make up my mind. Um it is an option. We have to do something. Um we all are talking about what we want to keep, but at the end of the day things have to go. Um so, class size um is manageable. Having a big class um Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Um I've had a class of 25, 26. I've also had class of 20. There is a difference. Um I really like to keep that student-teacher, you know, relationship. Um whenever I think of cuts, I think of, you

104know, does this person have a direct relationship daily with a student? That's the way I think of things. Um so, teachers do. Um I know we're not cutting positions, but it's it's it's changing that that that makeup in that shared uh time. Um so, I'm impartial to that. Um I do know that we owe the students the best education. Um but we also we were all voted in by the town. Um so, we do owe the town um something. We do need to listen to them. Um we all kind of campaigned on being, you know, fiscally responsible. Um and and we need to do that. So, I have heard people talk about um administrators as well. Um I I want to I don't want to see anyone lose their job. Um but I know that

105people have spoken about that's where they think cuts should go. Um I'm not saying that's where I think cuts should go, but once again, we are representing the town. And I know that I've spoken to many people and heard many people say that they think that there needs to be cuts within those areas. So, um I will throw that out there. Um in terms of the athletic director, um this was brought up months ago in a meeting. Um I asked what would happen, and the discussion was that it would be a stipend. Um I found out there's one school in Connecticut that operates under a stipend position. It's It's Shelton. Um I did reach out to the I don't know if you can call him the athletic director there. Uh great guy. Um we spoke

106on the phone for quite some time. Um he basically told me that he's not doing his job well as a teacher. Um he misses about 25 to 30 days a year because of his obligations to be the athletic director. Um those obligations are going to increase. There's going to be more meetings next year. There's one SCC meeting a month, maybe two. There's captains' conferences. Uh there's PD days. Um so, this guy's missing a ton of class time. That's not a service a good service to the students. Um I also reached out to uh the SCC commissioner, Al Carbone. Um he was against it. He thought it was a disaster. Uh would be a disaster. Um he knows the trouble that um Shelton was experiencing. He's been speaking with that individual a lot. Shelton's actually trying

107to bring back that position. The only reason they cut that job was because during COVID, they didn't have sports. And they thought, "Why are we paying someone to run a department that doesn't have students. Um so they're trying to bring that back because it's failing there. Um things are not going well. Um and in terms of what we have here with our athletic director, we have someone who's always at the games. Okay, I I have go down, sit in the middle school parking lot, turn around, and you're going to find Steve. He's going to be on that cart somewhere. Um that's one of the big things was the presence at the games. Um making sure that things are going smoothly. Um making sure that students are behaving cuz they don't always. Um the students respect

108Mr. Blumenthal. They really do. Um that's that's not something that happens all the time with a bunch of high school kids. Um trying to look cool in front of all their friends. They listen to Mr. Blumenthal. Um He also evaluates every coach. And he also has the task of evaluating teachers from what I understand. He's taking on administrative roles and taking on some of those tasks. Um he also promotes the teams. We have 29 sports teams. We have national championships. We have new fields. We have you know, proud parents um who feel comfortable emailing Steve about their concerns. Um and I think the most important thing and you can't really put a number on this. It's the culture that he's created in North Haven girls sports. And I really think that trickles into the classrooms.

109It makes kids feel proud to go to North Haven. Um I don't want to see that go. I will die on this hill guys for for this. It's not because it's Steve. It's because it's what he's done and what he will continue to do. Um so I just I cannot see our sports teams continuing the level of success and with the parents being proud and appreciative of the schools continuing without without an athletic director. Um I think anyone who came in would never would never be able to to fill Steve's shoes. Um that's if, you know, Steve decided to go somewhere one day. Those are big Phil's big shoes to fill. Um to to expect that from someone doing a teaching job as well is it doesn't make sense, guys. It doesn't make sense. It

110is a disaster at every single level. It's going to affect students who have that who have that teacher. It's going to affect parents. It's going to affect scheduling. I don't think things are going to run smoothly. There's always problems when it comes to sports. >> [snorts] >> I don't know any Is this person going to pick up the phone at 8:30, 9:00 at night when there's a problem at a volleyball game? Are they going to be there on a Saturday? Are they going to stay late on a Friday? Um so I I don't want to see that position gone, um but I know we also need to make room. So I'm not against the administrators. Um I don't want to see anyone gone. Bridget, you were my neighbor. Bridget was my neighbor. Um you know,

111she she used to play with our kids. I don't want to see her lose her job. Um so I I'm not against the administrators. I would love to see cuts some other way. I do have some things I've kind of researched a little bit. I don't even know if these are possible. Um so I'm going to ask if we have these first and then can we do without these? Um how many counselors do we have at the high school? Six? Five? Four? Six. Six. Can we do without some of them? Um I know that one of the counselors met with my daughter. It was awesome. Went over college and all these things and it was great. It was an hour. I I was very appreciative of that. I think that's something we could do without.

112That's something parents can do. Um so I I would love to see possibly cuts to some of the counselors. Um do we have nurse secretaries? A nurse secretary? 1.5. Okay, do we have to have a nurse secretary? Are these rhetorical questions? Do you want us to >> No, no, I want to do I know by law do we have to have a nurse secretary? >> By law? I don't believe so. Can we do without a nurse secretary? We can do with out any Okay. But it's difficult to quantify any of these these questions. We want to shoot everyone, but I'm saying like we we don't have a legal need or >> There's no legal need for them. Um so I would be throw that out. We have a high school nurse secretary. We also have

113a middle school nurse secretary. >> Part-time. Um student service secretary. We have one at the high school. Right? Two. Two at the high school. I'm sorry, two. Do we need two? Can we do without two? Can we have one? I mean that's not for me to make that sole decision. I think it would be very challenging after living in that office for over 10 years. >> is like their primary primary role? Like what is their a day-to-day like what are they doing? So the day-to-day piece of it is scheduling for all the students. It's also um all the college transcripts, keeping all the records. They're also the records custodian. I oversee that piece of it as well. They help to de-escalate students in the moment when they come in upset. Uh that is a big

114huge help. They look for staffing to help with crisis management, and they help to orchestrate all of that as well. >> Um I think we I think we can do with one. I'm throwing them all out there, guys. Sorry. If anyone hates me, these are ideas. These are not the ugly >> fine. Um So uh also, we have a supervisor of technology support services and a director of technology and safety. Are those like two completely different jobs? I don't know what those are. So the director of technology and safety is Jen Kaiser, who speaks. She is um just one of our our one of our directors in the district. So she's different than the Mr. Diana. Okay. Something like that. And then So we have what's So which one was that? The The director of

115of IT and safety. All right. And then we have a supervisor as well? I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, that is a position that is being uh that was lost to the reduction. >> That's correct. >> retirement. >> early retirement. Um are we spending anything on staff development this year? Well, we've been really fortunate because the coordinators have been leading the majority of our professional learning. Right. >> not cashing out, we're not sending money out for someone to come in. Very minimal. Um that is going to change though if we lose the coordinator positions because those people are really at the ground level with teachers working on individual things by department and courses. In our in the teachers' contract, there is a portion, right? That's correct. >> If they present, right. So, we

116have to earmark a certain amount in the budget for professional learning per the teachers' contract. Um I just Anything that can be kept in house, teachers prefer it that way. Um I was going to go into middle school sports, but since that's off the table, I love that we're keeping all the middle school sports. Um languages, I had a different approach. I was going to kind of suggest some things with Chinese, but you explained the phasing out, I get it. I love what you guys did with that, I think it's very creative. Perfect. Um have we considered um selling advertisements for athletic fields? Generating income that way. Causes a business conflict of interest. We do have certain sponsorships, but we do have to be mindful in which what any organization we go into that type

117of agreement with because we can't show we're Effectively, we're neutral. We're not really supposed to be generating a substantial amount of revenue. So, we do have some that are out there, but we have to be very very mindful about any type of business relationship. >> So, like if uh you know, the the town plumber wanted to advertise on the baseball field. But then, who, you know, we have to be again, we have to be mindful of not showing favoritism towards certain vendors or whatever. >> Right. You're basically saying use that plumber and there are several plumbers in town. So, you just have to be careful. I wonder if we can talk about that. They pay for the advertisement. That's the reason why they get the the I don't I don't understand that one, but um

118All right. And then, um is it possible um to spend less money on technology and anything that's geared towards technology and teaching and learning. Um my thought is kids are spending way too much time on technology. There's been studies that have been out. I'll send you guys everything. When schools introduce more technology performance goes down. Um so, I would love to see less technology. Um is there a way that we can start looking at phasing out certain things that >> We are currently We are. Awesome. Okay. That's it for me, guys. Um my big thing is the athletic director position. Um I think that you can't go back on it. You know, it's going to be the end of fall sports and and things aren't going well, and you've got to we've got to ride

119it out for winter sports and spring sports. Um I think it's the disaster. Um there's a reason why no other schools have gone down that road. Uh and there's a reason why the only district that has has been working to try to get that position back. Um so, that's my thought. And I will end on that. Okay. All right. That's a lot That's a lot of information. Uh thank you for everyone for taking the time to ask those questions and really kind of do your research before you even got here. I think maybe what we should do right now is just kind of go around the table and to see Again, this is not a formal vote. Let's kind of see as a blanket who approves. How many are in approval of what is written

120down here as presented? Tom, we can start with you. You're shaking your head no. Say no. No. See? Um I'm not comfortable saying yes yet. Marty? I'm having some difficulty with it. >> Joe? I'm going to go on this right now. >> Okay. Um Randy? I just don't know what I would change. Okay. I'm not sure if sure what we would change either. Amanda? I'm in. Shel? Yeah, I mean I'm kind of where Amanda and Randy are, where I don't like a lot of this, but I'm not sure what I would suggest for changes other than you know, that OT position that saves us money and then we could put it back towards something else. And we say, you know, to add something back in, you got to take something out. I just don't know

121what that shift is. That's my That's where I'm That's my problem, too. >> Right. Yeah. The other issue I see is and um I'll stay with the negative side. Um what happens in 3 weeks when we come back here? What What do you mean? Oh, if it doesn't pass. I just feel like it doesn't Oh, oh, if it fails again, then we're back to to the drawing board. I mean, if I I'm I'm trying not to approach it that way. I'm trying to approach it as >> [laughter] >> this is what we need to do, and we need to get here, and then if we're directed to do something else, then we're going to need to figure that out later. I don't want to make decisions now based on thinking we may have to come

122back later because that's unfair to this process. I'm just saying it that way, but I I I get it. I can I can deal with it. As I said, the one I'm concerned more with special ed than anything else on here. Yeah. I could live with it if I have to. Joe, you got thoughts of what you would change? I mean my my biggest concern right now is is the elimination of the athletic director position. I I just I I think I'm trying to think of how I can word what's floating around in my head and it's difficult. That is why I'm stumbling. So, just bear with me for a minute. Um Look, at all the years I've been on the board, every decision I've made or at least every decision I I tried to

123be focused on what's in the best interest of the student. And I know that's what you guys in the central office are are always guided by, right? To me some people look at athletics as an extracurricular activity. Not everybody participates in it, and I understand that. But, I do think it serves Sometimes this is the only sport some kids are going to be able to play is the sports associated with school. It's an outlet. It gives kids something else to do besides screen or getting into trouble. Um it does foster community and a sense of pride. And my biggest concern with eliminating the AD position is how you keep all that together. And I I'm not convinced that you can. And then you know, it's like a slow domino effect. And then you've got all

124of your sports in disarray. You know, and and that that's kind of where I'm I'm hung up right now. So, >> Well, it's it's basically 122 to keep them cuz you subtract out the thing. And you know, what I was saying one thing about the sports, I mean, look at the kid from wrestling. Right? We just approved the wrestling program 2 years ago. He's got a scholarship to college that he may not have ever gotten. So, I mean, it the sports definitely give kids opportunity. There's no question. The the thing again I'm I'm going to say is that, all right, you want to keep them, that's fine. Find me the money. And that's the and that's the thing. My kids I'm like anything else on here. I'm there's things we want to keep and maybe

125but it's all about the exchange of cash. >> I and I understand that and and I don't Look, I don't have a perfect solution to that. I would be willing to talk about an assistant principal somewhere to see if that balances it. System principal at the middle school is approximately 150,000. Basically 150. Yeah. So, it's a little a little less. I know there's no good alternatives here, right? I I mean, getting rid of an assistant principal at either of the schools, especially when a year ago you downsized one when when Tom Bushnell left the high school, you know, it has an impact and that impacts students as well. Maybe not as um it's maybe not as front facing as something like sports or the athletic program, but so I I'm not saying it's a perfect

126solution, but it's just things I'm willing to to discuss more. There there are no perfect solutions here. How many techs do we have? What is [snorts] the What is the IT department composed of? I know Jen's in there. How many people does she have with her? We have 11. 11? So, what are the What do those 11 people do? And I don't know anything about that world, so I'm sorry. So, I think we can combine to do our best here. Yes. Um but there are tech positions that are assigned to the schools to support in-school learning. in-school IT support. So, they're um in the absolute union, and then there are positions outside um like data and systems folks. Um the one we're eliminating, the the manager or the supervisor of IT. And they're Keep going.

127You got a list. >> really it's an army to keep our entire tech just infrastructure up and running right now, whether it's the student devices. Um we've reduced a lot of those tech supply lines, so we would those people keep what we have running. So, whether it's the switches um that we've had in those capital lines that you pull that out, they for lack of better term Frankenstein the old machines to keep them up and running, security, making sure our cameras are up and running um consistently. They basically show up each each single day, and they've got a queue of their help desk tickets that they just consistently run through all day long where the systems aren't working properly in the classroom, hardware, software, um you name it. So, um that's really kind of their

128[snorts] day-to-day. They're they're the the constant problem-solving within our technology infrastructure. Let me ask you a question. >> oh, I was just saying I think just a place we might be able to consider is some of the um the software and the actual laptop leases, making some little alterations to that. It's not going to It's not going to get us a ton of money, but we could squeak a little bit out on that. Again, we run into the we definitely need the techs in order to um keep what we have running. >> reading a list of positions, so Well, should we answer random questions or do we have a list? [clears throat] Sort of. Sort of kind of. The way it So, we have within the union 1 2 3 4 4 union what they're

129called computer techs. And they're doing the basic work I mean they're fixing computers that break. There's constantly constantly the the Chromebooks are breaking, right? Something's breaking whatever. So, that's constantly happening. That's something they're always working on. Um we have a systems engineer position and then we have other what I'll call network admins. And they each have a school, right? That they are assigned to to manage in the networks within that school and how they interact with every how they interact with the main hub, which I believe is the middle school. So, I think that's And so, what you're having is you have to have each school has its own person. It's correct Can you do without that? Sure, but that it's You're going to burn people out too at that point actually. Did Did you

130take a look at those positions as you were doing this? Yes. You did? Yes. Yes, we did. Okay. And you came up with a conclusion that We've already eliminated a position from that. Okay, but what about the rest though? So, you have looked at the rest and said that there's nothing else there. So, as Linda said, there are some within the the technology leases that we could we looked at. For instance, if we if we don't replace any of the Chromebooks the way we lease them and I don't know all the specifics to that exactly. We could reduce probably about $90,000 on that. But that will leave holes because a lot of the devices that are currently in play right now are you know, causing some problems. We thought that was no different sort of

131than the occupational therapist we might end up cutting more to pay more. We don't We're not sure on that. So, this is the actual laptop not the person. Correct. It's hardware. Okay. It's the hardware. What is the cost of say one tech? So, a tech a the computer >> there were four techs. Right. four techs about 45,000, 46,000. Sorry, 47 cuz that's last year's. 47. Can I ask a question? Wait a minute. I'm going to stop. I got to get back to something real quick, guys. So, are we saying that we want to keep a nurse secretary at the high school, a nurse secretary at the middle school, we want to keep two stu- two student service secretaries, and Anthony has one as well, so that's four people for student services, and we want to

132keep those and get rid of the athletic director. Is that what we want to get we want I mean we want to keep these people. We have six counselors as well. We want to get rid of one for and keep six. We have We have six. We have We have two secretaries. We have two uh secre- uh secretaries and Anthony Really? Are we really This is we're Really? Do you know what those people do all day? I I know that there's there's more of them than one. I know that for sure. Just more than We have one athletic director. We have We have six counselors. >> Dennis. Sorry. So, can I go back to Are we So, we want to get rid of these? We want to get rid of one athletic director over all

133these when I I don't get that. I don't understand that. >> [clears throat] >> That's why we're having a conversation. I want to just make sure I throw that out there cuz these are positions where there's a lot of them. And we have one athletic [snorts] director. Michelle. It doesn't make sense. Michelle. Um I wanted to go back to the tech and potentially like the Chromebooks. I know that in um I've been in schools where students have one-to-one devices or like in my school currently we have like computer carts for each classroom. Would there be any cost savings to not have having students have one-to-one devices versus like having a cart instead? >> kind of the plan if we did not do the least next year of the new Chromebooks. It would be carts in

134the primary classrooms, I believe, and I don't want to speak. This is really Jen's area, but Early primary. Right. Early primary. Early primary, right. So, that's how we would be able to squeak by on that, and she puts it as an estimated savings of about $90,000. To to have carts in the primary grades versus having one-to-one? Carts that just stay in the classroom. >> I am in support of that because I, you know, obviously there's there was a push for technology at some point. There's now a push back against technology at too young of an age. Um, and if that's a cost savings there, I mean, that's something that I'd like to throw back into the equation. Did anyone get the numbers for hiring that OT person, how much we save? Is that something we

135can figure out or that's not something we can figure out? Like, I just want to know if we hire that person, what the cost savings is. I know nobody wants to hear about hiring new people, but if it's going to save somebody else, then I certainly want to know those numbers. It's between 50 and 75,000 dollars, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. So, you hire the person at 75,000, but you get an additional 50 to 75,000 dollars to put towards something else. That is correct. Assume 50 cuz they're they got to have um If If they accept benefits and so forth, but yes, that's correct. >> Well, that's a one-time fix, though. Well, what about next the next budget cycle and next If you don't have money for that to sustain that budget? >> a continued

136savings if you're not contracting out for those services. Yeah. You save 50 grand a year every year, >> [snorts] >> unless we spend it somewhere else. Mhm. >> So by hiring the OT, we save let's call it 50,000 to be on the safe side. By switching back to carts in the primary lower primary grades, we save another potentially $90,000. But the more important part of that that 90,000, I believe, is the not um you know how at certain junctures we trade in the old um Chromebooks and we get new ones, the old laptops. That will not occur. Right. That is to just stay as is. Do we have a BYOD bring your own device At one point we looked at a bring your own device policy so that people could bring their own computers, but

137I think >> not to do that. >> it poses significant risk to the next to the security well on the network. >> [clears throat] >> Yeah. We could We could um reduce similar to how we're reducing summer hours. There's $12,000 allocated in Jen's budget for summer IT staff and support. Again, we have summer school going on so we do need assistance with that as well. Do Chromebooks go home? Yes. >> Yes. Why do Chromebooks go home? So at the upper upper levels um students are working on Google Docs, their teachers are editing, so there's you know back and forth. They do a lot of their um writing, their assignments, um different um formative assessments on there. Um we would not have them going home in K and 1, am I correct? Um and there would

138be laptop carts there. We won't have I-Ready, so we won't need to have anybody doing any of those modules, so that would kind of offset that piece as well. I was just thinking if we keep them from going home, one, it's less screen time. Um and two, it's less opportunity for them to break cuz we know that when they're home they're interrupted. The only thing I would I would say about that and again it's not my my area of expertise by any means, but I would worry um about students not having the opportunity to do a lot of um We have textbooks that are digital now. The students are handing out resources digitally and I do think we want to make sure that they're prepared for after high school as well knowing that that's how

139they would be communicating with their professors too. So I think we just have to be careful not to swing too far the other way. >> thinking more elementary. Sorry. I was thinking more like elementary age, maybe not middle school and high school for sure, but I was thinking more elementary. But on that same line I was thinking that it we could potentially look at more than just K and 1. Like I don't know if even three three, two, and three needs to And I can only speak to my own experience with again, I'm in a school that is a three to five school and everybody's using cards. Um and they still find ways to you know, if there is a situation of a student who doesn't have a device at home or doesn't have access,

140then we do have you know, permission for certain students to take things home in that situation. Um but many of the students even in my school um do have access to using those sorts of technologies at home. Um and personally I have a fifth grader right now and I don't think he's opened his Chromebook once at home this year. So um I would be for you know, maybe like I'm just saying if there's more cost savings to be found by having carts and maybe only having fifth graders take them home because that's what they're going to be doing in middle school to start to get them ready. But my original was for what grades of cart? I believe two grades. I know what what grades that first and second. >> new Chromebooks is how it's

141phrased down here. So I think it would just be not getting new ones on a lease this coming year. Okay. So Melinda, what happens so he don't get on the list, when's the next time you get to switch it out? I think she would have the opportunity again the following year. >> Okay, so it's just a one-year deficit. Okay. All right, that's fine. Cuz we're always on kind of a rotation. Again, this Yeah. not my area with that, but we're always rotating them. Okay. Is that cost going to be higher because then you have two cycles of Chromebooks that you have to Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, potentially just kicking the can down the road a year. I mean, I think that >> [snorts] >> you know, there's there's a list of of things that I

142can't get into the details cuz I don't really know, you know, they're they're not what I do tech that tech piece, but you know, we have a new contract with Frontier and we can maybe reduce by 20 25,000 there. So, I think if if we wanted to make an assumption that we could reduce in technology by about 100,000 or so. Jen could do her work within that in terms of what's needed departmentally. Just as an option. >> I would much rather kick the can down the road a year and save an AP and save the athletic director if that's possible and then worry about two cycles of Chromebooks next year. And I don't I don't say that lightly cuz I don't like I think it's a bad way to budget and to plan, but we're

143kind of in a bad time right now. I I would much rather do that and save a person's job who's having an impact on our students. So, that's just my two cents there. If we were to do that, then we'd be chasing 32,000-ish. Give or take. >> Could we get the 32,000 out of the occupational therapist position? Mhm. Should be like a 75 out of it, right, Barry? Barry getting 75 out of it. I Well, I I say 50 cuz you got to you got to account for everything. But, yeah, like I think I think we can make that math math. No, that's keeping that in, all right. We're doing that. Okay. We're keeping that in. If you take this minus this is 122, the 90, we need 32. Does that give us enough for

144the future problem solver steel trip, too? Mhm. Uh at 50. At 50? 50,000. We only need 45,000. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, following along with the discussion, a lot of for lack of a better way of saying it, duct taping and bubble gumming and where we're pulling from here, but if we take the 90K, which effectively kicks down kicks the can down the road for the laptops. Um What's this? It's the full amount. You got to use the full. Yeah, so the full amount here, which also you talked about the other IT things that Some additional software pieces. So, it's it's 148,000. >> We can come up with 148,000. >> 148,000. You can add back in the OT, but you're just taking out the savings, right? So, you It's 148,000. >> Yep. Just as just round

145numbers. 75 for the OT. Mhm. 75 goes back out cuz you got savings from the OT. I can't do contracted So, you got to take out the contracted services. So, we take that out of contracted services. That's the number I'm using. Um 25,000 for the stipend for the AD cuz you we had a stipend. Now, we're taking that back out. 147,000 for the salary for the AD. It's 32,000. Round numbers again. For the medical for the AD. And that comes out we'd have to find $5,000. Okay. >> Which we can do. So, just to clarify um the AD position stays, the OT position stays. Basically, and then the >> [clears throat] >> problem solver's trip stays or it's >> No. No. Okay. That Okay. That we can Cuz so, there's there's still like there's little

146Cuz you got to take This is 5,000 short. This is Right. This is on the back of a on back of this piece of paper. >> Yeah. >> is going to be employer cost of for taxes and stuff that that's not included. So, I'm going to have to find. It's not a lot of money. It's small change. >> Okay. But, those positions will be >> positions will be back in the budget. >> Okay. Good. And maybe you're right, Mr. Board. You can ask the foundation if they can >> Just Yeah. We tried. How much or do we spend any money on on not not not to belittle the point, but how much money do we spend if any on field trips other than field trip solvers? >> zero dollars for the >> These are the

147trips. It was zero dollars for the entire budget. That was the number. >> Okay. That's going all together. the entire duration, yes. Okay. And just to reiterate Mr. Solomon's point, this solution and and Joey, you're always good at saying, "Hey, remember when we said that last year?" is effectively kicking the can down the road when we're talking about technology replacements. I I want you to be very open in that dialogue on that. I think it's a very important thing that we're discussing. I just want to make sure that all the impacting factors the board is aware of for future discussion in other budget years. I think it gives us a good opportunity though to have a conversation about the use of technology at home at the elementary level for next year moving forward. Bring back

148that paper and pencil a little bit. Keep the screens at school. Just my So, essentially we would be keeping the athletic director, we keep our occupational therapist position, but we don't get new computers. Is that pretty much where it stands? Pretty much where it stands. I've had my laptop for five years. It works great. Yeah. I'll donate a computer. >> [laughter] >> From like 1960. It's IBM, you know. >> [laughter] >> I'm going to go back to the Mac. All right. Let's let's revisit that then. If those were the positions that were taken on the draft where we [snorts] do the cart removal and associated technologies, we'll be able to save both the AD and what's the other one? I'm sorry. Oh, okay, right. Okay. Right, the occupational therapist position. Renee, how do you feel

149about that? I like it. I'd like to save everything, [clears throat] but I like it. Sure. Feel better. I'd be good with that. >> [laughter] >> I'm good. Not perfect, but I'm good. I love it. I'm okay. A lot more power to you. >> [cough] >> Still down 28 people, but I'm in. I agree. It's it's disturbing, but still functional. Michelle? Yeah. All right, with that >> They're somewhere. May I have a motion to approve the 2026-2027 budget, the capital projects as proposed, at a 4.53 increase? I'll make a motion. Second. Discussion? I know we just exhausted it, but I have to ask. All in favor? All right. All right. Any opposed? Abstention? So moved. May I have a motion to adjourn the May 26, 2026 special meeting of the Board of Education? >> I'll

150make a motion. Discussion? No second. All in favor? I. So moved. Thank you, everyone. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. The preceding program is brought to you in part through a grant from the town of North Haven. Watch town meetings or other videos on demand at nhtv.com.