BOE February 8, 2023 Regular Meeting

001that you know can I all the order all right I'm going to go ahead and call the regular Board of Ed meeting to order February 8th 6 35. looks like Jamie left the Caribbean [Laughter] all right so let's do the Pledge of Allegiance there you go and do we have any public comment this evening not seeing do we have any public comment on our line nope not seeing any we're going to go ahead and move in to approve the minutes um actually can I make a motion to add policy review I don't believe it's on here correct oh sure um I'd I'd like to make a motion to add consideration on s7b okay to add a 7B um consideration of policies five one four one point eight four one one eight point two three seven

002five one four five point five one one five one four four point four five one four five point five three and six one four zero there's a motion I'll second favor opposed and abstain that was seven beat Irma uh who's second Alex seconded all right and we need to move into the minutes starting with December 14th I'll make a motion to approve the approval of minutes of December 14 2022. a second any discussion on those I'm going to abstain okay I wasn't there at that meeting okay thank you all those in favor hi opposed and abstain can you see James hi thanks Jimmy okay I'll make a motion to approve the the minutes of January 11 2023. a second discussion yes I wanted to amend the last part um the very last sentence um I

003did not say well I may have said I would hope that we wouldn't appear divisive but what I did say was I too represent the entire community I would like that amended and added so add that add that I too represent the entire Community okay did you get that Irma all right can we get amended motion please include the additional words a second all those in favor hi opposed and abstain and make a motion to approve the the minutes of January 25th 2023. a second discussion no all those in favor aye opposed and abstain okay uh John Anderson's with us tonight for the student ambassadors report hi so for the Wheeler high school we have on March 10th there's PD planning is going to start which is where admin will be bringing in Marine seigler

004to work with the staff on introductional practices that makes the classrooms inclusive for all and middle school and high school teachers are currently working on updating their curriculum into Google to put on the new website this will allow it to update live to the website when teachers make changes program supervisors and admins and admin are currently working to support this wheeler also just inducted students into the North Stonington chapter of NHS we will be celebrating the new inductees at Lake of Isles in March this week wheeler also hosted diversity Council student athletes and teachers to help plan the workshop they are running at the CAC Cas administrator's Retreat on March 17th I have a packet right here that kind of highlights that Retreat if you guys could pass it around please the purpose is to

005help other administrators encourage inclusive inclusivity inclusivity amongst all students the ECC diversity Council work will share the actionable steps they took to support the venues and the ECC and make them safe and inclusive to all and for the North Stonington Elementary School the sixth grade has started the Dare program with the motto of keeping it real real being an acronym for refuse explain avoid and leave this week was the school-wide spelling bee and the winner Corey Welch will be going to States in March and then this Friday is the 100th school day so the kids will be celebrating that with celebrating that with different 100 themed activities the motto for this is 100 days smarter February 16th is The Invention Convention where 14 students will be showing off the inventions they created this year to

006Mr mridio February 22nd is bus driver appreciate Appreciation Day February 17th there is a big Lux assembly for the elementary middle and high school where a violinist will be playing for them uh yesterday there was a full staff meeting where they reworked we reworked their vision of who we are as a school and who we want to be at the elementary school there is an Ela committee meeting on the 13th where they understand the ubd curriculum model look at the end goal and the idea ideal vision of a graduate and work back from there the drama play production of Willy Wonka is being performed on March 24th and 25th and then kindergarten registration was moved to April 19th as well and that's it thank you so much does anybody have any questions for John convention

007yep very weird any other questions all right thank you um Mr Hopkins yeah good evening everyone uh thank you John for that great report um as I was listening to it I was thinking Innovation that's Innovation right there and there's another example of innovative instruction and so so thank you for doing that I think it's uh it it's really uh we should be proud of what's already happening uh in the schools um so you know thank you for reporting on that John uh the only thing that I really want to uh say in my report is that you have a manila folder that was handed out to you um and in a previous meeting the last one we discussed uh the the need for a curriculum structure and uh you'll see a one-page document that

008describes the organizational chart for getting curriculum done uh it does have that curriculum coordinator position in there that we are proposing for fifteen thousand dollars that you'll hear more about when we present the budget and it's also a curriculum uh timeline and plan for how to focus on different subjects at different times and different phases of curriculum uh and there are some like researching you know before you write that kind of thing and then implementing and all of that so this is these are all draft but the schools have a plan the district has a plan uh and um I think you asking for it so here you go and I think at the next meeting we could discuss it in more detail we could put it on the agenda if you like and uh

009we could discuss it in more detail and you can ask some questions so the the rest of my report will simply simply be the budget presentation later on the agenda thank you can I ask one quick question on this sure all right when we're looking at the chart um when there's implementation is there any new curriculum that the Board needs to be approving or anything like that at this point hey can you come up to the microphone sorry I don't mean to put you on the spot I'm just you have to turn it on you might have to turn it on okay hello is that working all right so you're looking at our five-year curriculum plan that we started back in 2014. you're actually seeing round two of that and it's broken out we don't

010have everybody working at the same time they're in different phases as we add new classes to the curriculum the Departments wherever they fall on the cycle will eventually add that curriculum to their work in progress so any new class that's added like we added a Shakespeare class two years ago Mary Beth is actually working on that now to make it apart English had already done theirs and they're going back through round two so you'll see it as they add it okay the other big change I just want to say is we're putting it in Google and that's taking a little bit of time the reason we're doing that is so that as we make changes moving forward we don't have to keep sending it to somebody to load to the website it will automatically show

011the changes that we're making current lifetime so people will know what they're looking at is the existing up-to-date document okay okay thank you okay um I spoke with Bob Carlson and uh I talked to Christine Diaz yesterday about the Steep Grant and where we are with that the town is in the process of putting together our uh RFP for that and going out to bid we talked about either using the state approved or going out to bid and because of our purchasing policy we can't and just doing the right thing with by that with our project we thought we would go out to bid on that so she's in the process of putting that together um our audit presentation for year end is going to be on February 15th um just a couple of things

012that came up out of that that they'll discuss we do need to put together a policy and procedures manual that's done at the central office the board doesn't have anything to do with that that's an internal and that's came up on the downside as well um and having something like that would have been super helpful when we went through the transition that we did at the central office so it's going to be really important that they have that available moving forward um and then just working consistently to get monthly reports to the town for reconciliations the town and the school are working together on that and um communicating really well with that so that's been really nice to see um the kid webinar is on Communications and superintendent evaluations tomorrow um Steph you signed up

013for that and my schedule changed so I'm actually going to be attending that as well so I'm looking forward to it um as far as the super evals um Troy if it's okay with you we're going to not do executive session tonight on that um Alex and I talked about it a little bit and we think what we will do is to take your guys's feedback informally you can send me an email and then Alex and I will kind of put all that together and sit with Troy um will determine a time to do that especially because it's his first year I think it's important kind of mid-year that we have something a little more formalized than just an Round Table discussion so if you guys have any thoughts comments things you'd like um us

014to discuss please just send me an email on that okay um and then also the superintendent evaluation is going to be on that webinar tomorrow so I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of things they touch on with that as well um there's a government the governor just came up with a grant on safety so um I did reach out to Troy on that he's already got it on his radar and that might be something where we're looking at some of those things that came up in our safety review that maybe we could get Grant funded so we will take a look at that um I do have uh policy 5118 I would like us to review at the next meeting and Troy and I are working on the language on that we need to

015shore up a couple of things in that a few things have come to light as far as how that was interpreted under the last superintendent and we want to make sure that we're um and the language in that is a little bit all over the place so we're just going to clean it up according to the cave model and then we'll bring that one forward okay um Irma's been working with K Band deletion of those 177 she's been really on top of them on getting that done so we're moving forward through that audit um and then I gave everybody some information um there's a house bill 5283 coming forward and it's based around the educational cost sharing formulas um if we could get this new bill through I shows you what the impact North Stonington

016would be um by 2025 in the fiscal year it could be another hundred and twelve thousand dollar impact for ECS money for our town so it's a much better implementation of the cost sharing and so I'm really encouraging that we push for that Ellington put together a really nice letter for that so I'm hoping I've reached out to her to see if it would be okay if we formulate it to fit North Stonington and signed up on a letter to the to the house as well so if you get a chance pull that bill up um it you know the impact to us isn't significant but it is still a positive impact so any more money we can get would be better um and that's all I have right now for my report does anybody

017have any questions for me what was policy 5118 on that is on it it's a policy that talks about um non-resident students and uh how we look at residency what's considered residency um we had made a decision back in 2019 to change some of the language around kids coming to the school that um like teachers children and grandfathering some of that in and there's a been a little bit of a misunderstanding of what our interpretation was versus what the prior superintendent's interpretation was so we want to discuss that a little bit further when we get a little more information and Shore that up a little bit so it's very clear okay and if you read it too it's very um paragraphs are like I don't know I I don't know we just focused on that

018one paragraph I think in 2019 so we didn't look at so I'm I've got the cave model I've got it all chopped up we'll get it Rewritten and then we'll bring it forward to you guys um let's see and then that takes us up to committee chairs so committee committee one met last Wednesday um that's the one that is talking about safe valued and sense of belonging as one of our goals that we're looking to achieve um we spent the majority of the meeting actually discussing the bullying prevention policy that's going to come up on the agenda later that after further review may actually end up in an entirely different direction so we're going to uh we discussed it pretty extensively in terms of the ideas of what uh what bullying does to affect safety

019and the feeling of safety and and value and a sense of belonging within a school system and how important it is for us to make sure that our policy matches our goal and is is strongly worded in such a way that our students feel safe so we uh we did not schedule a new meeting just coming into March we thought that it might be better to hold off handle our budget situation and then look to the beginning of April there's also some discussion uh of making the second meeting of the month a workshop again and having goals one two and three alternate and work through things that we need to do in that time period as opposed to having so many things scheduled so okay Jamie did you want to come on for sure can

020you hear me all okay okay um so we just had um a lot of discussion about the policies um so we really wanted to highlight some of the policies that we already think embody the Innovative instruction um so what really the other idea that we kind of came up with is we really want to communicate this to the public and have it on our website to really highlight our goals so we're going to work together to kind of come up with a way that we can say here's for goal two here's the policy that reflects that um and where you can kind of get it in the handbook um so thank you Christine for sending over um some of the updated language on some of the other policies and I'm going to work with Troy

021to take just a few overarching policies that we have and see where maybe we can integrate um the Innovative instruction in that way okay um other than that we um I think that was about it that was where the the biggest accomplishments um we also didn't schedule a meeting um we're gonna wait till after the budget but we're gonna kind of keep working on this as it goes thank you Steph I know you didn't meet but I think you're on for February 22nd is that correct we are our next meeting is February 22nd at 5 30 and I think um we'll probably be evaluating sort of where we are in the budget process and what we need to do uh to get the word out okay I'm hoping that by then we'll know with more

022clarity what some of the issues are that we need to do a better job communicating okay um so a couple of things one thing we will want to do is put a finance committee meeting together um after we get the stuff tonight on the budget do you want to try to schedule that at the end of the meeting Alex when should we maybe look to schedule that I'm wondering if we should maybe look to do it maybe even like the Tuesday before our board meeting or does that work for you the 21st because the communication committee is going to be on the 22nd for the 21st okay the 21st is uh President's Day that's a Tuesday oh it's part of the break oh okay that's okay um we can meet over here that's fine I

023think I'll check with Christine to make sure it works um the other things I know we talked about Facebook live for tomorrow yeah so part of the and we are happy to do that I think what we should do is wait until the board has their discussion about the budget but also I don't know how to do Facebook live so do you um we kind of do right Norma okay you guys sound so confident all right so we're we're sure Innovative very Innovative right so we are happy to do it we just got to make sure that we know how to do it and I think Christine Diaz knows how to do it too because we did it a little while back so we'll figure that out but I'm thinking after the 22nd if that's

024okay okay I don't want you to think we're blowing it off we're okay and we need to look at December's financials I'll make a motion to approve the financials for December 2022. I'll second that we're approving did I say exactly accepting January okay well we're going to talk about are we going to second that or yeah did somebody second accepting December's financially okay um discussion on that I'll just make comment that a lot of the questions we had were answered or responded to in the last meeting so nothing new okay all those in favor of accepting December's financials hi Zane okay and that brings us up uh bill is presenting January January um was not not too much activity everything is going along going to plan we're still trending um if you look at the

025percentages the percentages are are where they're supposed to be an example teachers have 57 of their pay left and our report shows that 56.5 of the pay is still available so things like that are um going along electricity is at 52 we're halfway through the year these expenses are really through through December a lot of these monthly expenses um some good news is we got the um gas bill today for the high school and it was 2500 cubic feet less than last year so that's quite a bit because as we all know January was very warm we do not get the electric bill for the high school until the 12th of the month and we know that the rates went up in January so I still can't really report out on exactly we're not on

026the same rate structure as um as residential we're on a peak and off peak large volume rate so once we that's really the only currently the only really large outstanding item that might affect the current Year's budget everything else seems to be falling in place as we have predicted or expecting so but we will know that um you know fairly soon so I did do a little research because we have solar panels and you can't tell how the solar panels are affecting our our um budget like what does what savings are we getting from those solar panels because obviously nothing is easy the building doesn't line up solar panel building doesn't line up with the eversource building so after dealing with um eversource bureaucracy and calling our um solar people currently the elementary school is

027not paying for any Supply we're paying for delivery because you still have to they still have to be able to deliver electricity but the supply part of the bill is being covered by the solar panels and actually we are building a credit at the elementary school um because we're producing more solar energy than we're using because what took the complicated how it works is the solar energy goes directly into the school and then if there's not enough solar then we draw from eversource so the solar panels don't go out to ever source and comes back we use it directly so um that's that's why it's a little bit hard to figure out so on the high school we I finally found some old bills and we were using 60 000 kilowatts 50 to 60 000

028kilowatts depending the time of the year a month now we're only being billed for half of that so the solar panels are working and the investment that was made is uh is really working out so for the solar panels we're paying four cents per kilowatt hour naturally to pay for the lease eversource currently the high school paying 14 cents and 12 cents Peak and off peak silver so there's a lot of savings there so the investment in the solar panels is really paying off for the for the district so I just wanted to um bring that to your attention because it's probably been a long time since you talked about solar panels and the next thing now that we have finished at least the first round of the budget this month by the end of

029this month we will start working on forecasting to the end of the year I think you've asked for that but obviously the administration and myself we were all working on the budget now by the end of February once we know what the electric rate is we really should be able to forecast at the end of the year and see where we're going to stand and whether we'll be have um you know some extra funds or not on the and then the only other thing is that things are working on uh when when the when we purchased infinite visions we purchased the we got the core modules and the core system and Irma and I now are looking into and working on maybe some enhancements to some of the modules that we have it turns out

030some of the stuff is um it's there but oh you really wanted to use well you gotta pay a little extra typical but but now that we've used it for the six months that we've been here we know where the shortcomings are and we're looking again to improve that it really has to do with being able to report efficiently and have more better reporting better budgeting better human resources right now it's still a little cumbersome for us and we're finding out that there are more efficient ways and we're looking into that so we're continuing to upgrade uh you know as far as the efficiency the software we're upgrading the cafeteria software um currently it's on one person can use it you have to be at the school to use it it's on your own server

031and now we're going to be upgrading to a cloud-based multiple people can be on it and we get better reporting and and it will talk to PowerSchool which is important so we can keep better track of the students who receive free and readjust lunch um obviously during the pandemic it wasn't an issue because everybody was getting free lunch but now as you know we have to that's an issue again so we really have to be get back on top of that and the field studies should be beginning soon unless we have a blizzard and they can't get to the fields so um that's the report again if you look at the the numbers and stuff everything is really lining up as it should be and again we'll start projecting out next month a couple of

032quick questions um so this is really January right because I think you said December and I just wanted to get clear in my mind that yeah you said Jen so it's it's January's numbers but on this report the electric bill for January we haven't gotten yet okay so so it's a January report but some of the numbers may still be from this deception anything that's billed monthly is through December so that would be the bus we just get the we just got the bus bill for January electric bill like I said I just got the gas bill so really the payroll is current a lot of the monthly expenses are always like a month behind and then were you going to add a kind of an anticipated column I think we talked about something to

033yeah that's going to be for next month's report next month okay we'll have that yeah it's a projection that's a forecasting you were talking about right okay because we have to um want to make sure that the administrators review if they're going to need any more supplies or anything no before the and the end of the year okay okay and last question did I seem to remember the town was involved somehow with the solar panels as far as uh because they had all the records so I don't know if they were making the payments are we making payments at all for the rental or what what so trying to understand that process again so we have three arrays one on the elementary school and two on the high school so he gets we get three

034bills and we pay Four Cents for the kilowatt hours that are generated by the solar panels to a company and I think that company really what we're doing is we're paying the lease and that's how they build us for the lease how much it generates times four cents so it's only a few hundred dollars a month for each one it's for each array and Alex I think you're right though I don't think we ever agreed to lease on that we were kind of told we would never be responsible for any charge for those solar panels so we'll look I'll look into that we never signed a lease we weren't given any option on the solar I'm really excited to hear we're saving money because Bill we've been asking for a very long time about the

035impact and never have been able to get any kind of response so I really can't tell you how much I appreciate the work you've done on that foreign yeah oh god well I I just can't tell you with that how much that impact is for us to be able to tell that story and understand the impact but I I do want to check on the leasing because the Board of Ed never signed a lease for solar panels I I'm glad that we're seeing some savings but I just would like to see how that lease came about right all right that's all yeah no we can I can hear they can't hear oh oh my gosh we should bring like 40 batteries with this um there we go that was better so yeah I'll look into

036that lease thing though well and I just don't ever remember we're gonna have to pay any lease but anytime well we need to call this degree on This Nation right thing because of me sounds good so I'll get the um so I didn't realize that you were in that same situation so I'll get a little more information of how much give you some real numbers how much we're paying the clean Focus for the least how much it's generating and okay so you just have a better idea yeah I really appreciate all the work you've done on that already though um and I'm excited too to hear that you're looking at the forecasting is being real numbers by not waiting until February to look at it usually it was just taking what was left in the

037budget and saying that's what's anticipated where I think you're actually doing a drill down on it so again appreciate all of the work you guys are doing it it's showing and it's making a difference so thank you foreign testing testing no testing now it's on not loud though okay yeah they'll when it goes up no it's still working this one's still working I'll use this one then and the administrators can use that one over there and we'll be good foreign yeah I need to be on camera because I comb my hair okay how's that that's better right okay so here we go uh before I get started on this uh budget presentation I I want to thank uh my central office staff Bill and Irma and uh the administrators uh and actually the teachers as

038well who this budget process starts with um where they say what they need uh to teach the kids and it's really built from the ground up from zero up okay zero-based budgeting so we do have backups for everything that we're going to present to you tonight um I think it it truly is a teamwork effort here and regarding teamwork I I think the theme in this budget is really collaboration with the town and you'll see specific items uh that we'll talk about tonight that are really good collaboration went to town which have a budget impact so could we go to that next slide and if you don't mind just advancing that forming uh as we go through so as you know we have a purpose uh for everything we do and that purpose is defined

039through the vision of a graduate uh for North Stonington public schools and this is just a reminder of a reminder about what the division and Mission are and some of the things that we're really trying to get the kids to develop in their academic skills of analysis collaboration literacy and communication um and then we also have the Civic and social expectations uh which are resiliency respect and responsibility um these are uh really important to have uh it provides a focus uh for for everything we do next slide please so there's much to be proud of about North Stonington schools these are just a few of the more recent initiatives and accomplishments uh as you know the whole staff and including paraprofessionals were trained in restorative practices this year a lot of that's happening basically that

040helps kids to understand the impact of their actions uh and also helps develop empathy and uh teamwork and that just sense a community uh in the school so it's it's it is innovative okay it's Cutting Edge it's it's like what we're supposed to be doing uh with kids in schools uh we many many other things you could see here there's a new new special education uh program that was quite cumbersome to to do a ton of hours went into that with our staff to learn that uh and there's so many other things I'm not going to list everything I'm not going to talk about everything but you could just see here and you have it in your handout by the way you have two handouts for the budget one is this presentation and one is

041we call the narrative which it kind of describes in words some of this also some of what you see here is also in that narrative and if you you know you if you're impatient and you can't wait you could flip to the end of The Narrative document to see some numbers but I'm gonna I'm gonna challenge you to have self-control and hold off oh yeah well I'm tempting you I'm part of part of self-control is being tempted and resisting so I I want you to hold off on that please um but what what we're going to present is I believe a real bargain to the town believe it or not so just have that in mind uh many other things on here right including the last item seeking District accreditation from a New England Association

042in schools and colleges we just today had a meeting in this room with the administrators and some teacher leaders from both buildings and we had the person in charge of the commission on public schools in the ask on the screen she's also why liaison now Allison Gary and she was talking to us about District accreditation so we're we're actively pursuing that and it's just the work that good schools do anyway next slide please I just want to point out that we are going to be comparing ourselves to a few other districts uh throughout this presentation for a couple different reasons and this reason is to look at test scores and be proud of the fact that we have really high test scores and have had historically here the ELA the math the science scores are

043higher than these other towns of Bolton Thomaston and Westbrook why do we pick them because they're similar in enrollment similar enrollment 3K through grade 12 districts there's not too many districts similar in enrollment in the state of Connecticut to North Stonington that a pre-k through 12. there are some that are like pre-k through eight we don't want to compare to them okay so we're comparing to these really great we're doing a really good job the physical fitness score is not so much okay it is a dramatic contrast okay so we address that in this budget so let's go to the next slide as you know you adopted these goals on October 27th 2022 their three-year goals we want everybody to feel safe value and a sense of belonging we want Innovative instruction that empowers every

044learner whether they're student or adult that works here and we want to be transparent and efficient in our processes okay we've been working on these things you just heard Bill talk about infinite visions and what we're trying to do with it to be even more efficient okay so there's many many different areas everybody has every piece of this goal and you just go to the next slide for a moment and because I want to point out to you that these goals are embedded in the budget that we're presenting okay this budget if you support it right budget policy you guys doing a great job on policy work policy budget advocacy that's your role right this budget will support your goals these goals right and support the vision of The Graduate so remember the three-year goals

045and it takes some time in planning uh but we will be gaining ground and I think uh Tempo even as we uh gain traction all right next one please I just wanted to point out that there are actually many benefits to District accreditation including the fact that we're going to have vertical articulation of curriculum through all the grades okay it's going to be a logical flow of learning from pre-k to 12. okay we'll have a plan in in having our team our district teams work together we'll ensure that and that is the curriculum document that was handed out to you in the manila folder earlier very related to this this is innovative instruction goal when we say in that goal says document document when we say document we're talking about curriculum writing right and it

046the evidence will be in the curriculum documents part of it that we're innovating in our instruction right so that's really important is other other things like it says actually saves time and money uh by combining the two schools and the the teams now the visiting teams it used to be like 12 14 people they're like six to eight now right so it's it's way more affordable and uh actually a better value so just wanted to point that out to you that there are many benefits of District accreditation I'm going to stop for right now and I'm going to ask the administrators to talk a little bit about their particular schools and areas thank you all right so I think we're all aware of how awesome our schools are here and I know Ms St Germain

047Mrs Reyes and Miss malane would agree with me on that um you know the great test scores that we get to see um they're a result of the fabulous teachers and the professionals that we have that are working in the buildings every day um it's about students taking ownership for their learning and it's about having buy-in from the families and supporting everything that we do so we're appreciative of all that we're able to accomplish I just have some photos up here of some of the great Innovative things going on we have some students who are working on building an igloo for our steam week using various materials we have other students we're part of an EB program and they're doing some welding using crackers and cheese whiz and um we also have some of our

048high school science students from Mrs welborn's class who came and visited one of our wonderful kindergarten classrooms Mrs tardiff I think they went to all kindergarten classrooms so and they were working on uh building circuits so there's some real Innovative fun things going on as it should be at an elementary school um just to talk briefly about um budget increases so one of the increases that you'll see on our budget is in mathematics and um what we're looking to do is we're looking to Pilot the decimals illustrative mathematics program uh this is an Innovative approach decimals is a computer-based program but there are it's not solely computer-based so our pencil and paper things with it but the the IM program really it's a really shift from the standard you know teacher does than we do

049as a class and then I go doing my own so now it's I do on my own we'll get together as a group as a class and we talk about what we're doing and what you're thinking what I'm thinking and then the teacher kind of ties it all together so it's a very Innovative approach and it's getting some really great results um you'll hear that the middle school is doing this I believe seven through nine yes seven and eight all right and um so we would make sense for our sixth Raiders to get on board with us so it would better prepare them for the Middle School um and this would also allow us to in the future in the very near future to add an accelerated mathematics program in sixth grade this would allow

050students who are targeted to take geometry in eighth grade you guys do right geometry um they would be able to do the sixth seventh and eighth grade curriculum over two years as opposed to having to do seventh and eighth grade within one year so it's just we're again like Mr Hopkins mentioned about that alignment we're trying to be all aligned as best as we can so this was we thought was a kind of a no-brainer um you'll see an increase in our instructional supplies this is just basically our basic supplies that we use to run the building on year to year um this typically is something that usually gets cut but this is our pencils our paper our crayons our you know scissors glue sticks all that good stuff um and for us as we

051feel this is an efficient way to do our business because um it allows just to not have to worry about doing these orderings if they need glue sticks they know they can go see Mr Gonzalez in the office and she's going to hand them the glue sticks that we need so we have everything they need for the year in that sense so they can focus more on real this real instructional materials and those kinds of things in their own uh grade level budgets um person also support kindergarten one thing that we're finding and when I say yeah I think um Educational Systems as a whole across the country is um a lot of our younger students are struggling uh they're struggling with self-regulation they're struggling with socialization um it's probably you know the pandemic they

052spend a lot of those times when they're with two years old not getting to socialize not go to public school not going to you know parties and things like that with their friends um they had masks on so we're seeing a lot of issues with that so you know in order that safe valued kind of goal what we're looking to do is we're finding that we need more help with these younger students um and we currently have one kindergarten power now who's on a grant position um I believe that Grant continues new next year as well but we're really seeing a need to have more hands on deck for sure um and you know they can not only help with the foundational social skills but also those academic skills and that'll kind of lead a

053little into what I'm talking about with the curriculum work at the bottom um the the PE position Mr Hopkins kind of alluded to this um just to need to try to if there's a way that we can increase PE opportunities for students to get them PE baby twice a week once a week um and then as we were talking to this we kind of came with the idea perhapsody some of the um some of the behavioral problems that we have at the elementary school that take up you know could take up a good deal of mine time and then finally our curriculum work so um we are in the process of aligning with the middle school high school um so we have a new curriculum uh guide that you that you have in the packets

054our new curriculum templates and um our cycle itself um and what we're looking at the site for our Cycles we're going to be starting with our PE and our writing so right now we're in the year one of that and that's about basically talking about doing the research and looking what's out there and what we're finding is um you know there's really big push now for this what we call the science reading and if you're not familiar with it it's basically it's based on 20 years of research um on how students learn how to read um and it's fine like this conversation came out I believe you know our first grade and kindergarten teachers were talking about a podcast told the story um and it really started this push into learning more and more about

055the science of reading and you know how can we better make this you know a reality in our schools so um our K1 engine teachers right now are are knee deep in it um they've all done about 10 hours of professional development each um learning about the science of reading and how they can implement it in their classrooms um we had some of our teachers went and looked at a model school that is you know using the science reading and the programs that they're using um our language arts uh curriculum program Supervisor has already reached out and she has samples of different curriculums and different programs that are out there and the teachers are hungry for this information the hungry to stop putting these practices in a place you know they're already asking hey can

056we crack open these books and start seeing if we can start adding some of this right now so we're already seeing you know the Innovative approaches to the science reading already being put in our classroom and again we're just in that year one phase so we're really excited about the work that we have coming up when we get to actually start into the writing over years two and three and um and again if you look at our um cycle then we're going to be starting with math the following year so um just a lot of exciting things going on and um we want to keep it going yeah but one one comment if there's any way to be Innovative to have a foreign language for elementary school I know we say that year after year

057I might as well say it again so yeah I mean throw it out there do you want to give us a teacher absolutely we'll take it well whatever would however you want to structure it yeah but certainly if there's a way to absorb it obviously with what you have for staff that would be great but I think it'd be great for the kids obviously so thanks that we we could so you know in terms of uh looking at a language offering that's something that we could look into doing you know a 0.4 or 0.5 type feature for that um I know the district that I came from they did have it at the elementary school at one time they ended up losing it but they did have Spanish for all the elementary kids so it

058is a good program and it is definitely Innovative worth like me too it I know Ronnie talked a lot about this to me did you see at your other District what the impact was were those kids much more ahead of the game going into let's say a Spanish class in seventh grade than they were if they didn't have it yeah and Miss Mullane was at the higher level so she could probably attest to that more than I could but definitely as a student's progressed through fifth grade they had a really good grasp on Spanish and they were you know they were it was impressive what they could do at the elementary level okay all right thank you I appreciate that so I guess I would like to start with I think one of the biggest

059changes that we are really experiencing at Wheeler that actually Ellen Turner came last month to talk about um the opportunities that we have now been able to provide to our students I went to my first wrestling match the other day I had no idea what to expect I can't tell you um I think I think there was 11 matches that day and nine of them were wheeler students so we are really growing um we were had a game on Friday night against I mean on Monday night against um our rival Stonington the gym was packed with over 400 people and that just I can't even tell you the feel that is back in our gym and I think a lot of it is because of the opportunities that we are now providing kids that it

060was almost dying if you really think back to nine years ago we were barely Fielding teams and now we are Fielding so many opportunities for kids so I just wanted to show you some of those highlights up there um Mike Ergo was actually um player of I don't call him a player swimmer athlete of the year in his sport um there's a couple pictures of one of our students wrestling we have an amazing volleyball run this year obviously for our traditional Sports we now have track I think we have over five or six kids that are running track with Griswold so I think it's brought a lot of that feel good Hometown tradition back to our schools that that we've been missing so the biggest highlight for the wheeler budget that you'll see is everything

061that we're doing is aligning to the vision of The Graduate like Troy talked about everything we're building we're trying to innovate our actual program of studies I think it starts with the courses we offer and trying to make it meaningful what we're learning our kids it is no longer 94 of kids are going to college that is a reality it's just a fact it's not just a North Stonington it's happening everywhere so our goal and our vision is to find that path for every student no matter what it is so I think a lot of the changes that you're going to hear me talk about kind of um wrap themselves around that idea of you know does everybody have a path that works for them within our school so like Rob said curriculum in our

062program of studies obviously we are supporting that same alignment in math using the Desmos program as well as stem Scopes in our middle school science programs so these are really Hands-On NGS supported activities that kids are learning science and math in a very different way than they used to like Rob our instructional supplies have been hit a lot so we are trying to rebuild so you will see that in my budget as well well but the biggest change I want to talk about is our course offerings and the expansion of what we're bringing to Wheeler we're bringing back materials processing we've been hearing it we know there's a population of students that want woodworking so working with a town we are going to bring that back into the program of studies for next year we

063actually are if you didn't know this we design all of our steps for the plays that we put on so students are making costumes they're building the scenery they're creating those sets so this is going to allow us back in the wood shop to do that our kids are so excited about it so that's putting that back in the program of studies we also continue to look at pathway opportunities So currently we have two Pathways in business and Engineering this year we have seven students that are completing 60 hour internships in those areas and talk about you know internships for the big thing in college right do your internships figure out what you want to do we're now putting kids in these opportunities in high school because we think it's equally important that they know

064what if they are going to school it's really nice to learn this is something I really enjoy doing versus I really did not like this and and not diving into a college career path thinking that was their their plan so we have kids all over the community right now I'm doing different internships we've added an education pathway we're listening obviously teacher shortage is a real issue we have kids that want to go on this pathway they want to be teachers what better of a resource than the elementary school right next to us our Middle School getting students in those classrooms earlier to see if teaching is a calling that maybe is for them we also this year piloted a new work study program we have three students who I can't can't say enough didn't fit

065the Traditional School model every single day was a battle to get them in school every single period classroom 88 Minutes was a lot for these kids so working with them through our guidance counselors we supported their academics but then we put them in the community in Hands-On work study opportunities we went through the state programming we've developed this program and what it was life-changing for all three of these young men I can't speak enough we're looking to add more and more we have a young lady who's come to me and asked me to do this so I think this is going to be something that you're going to see grow bigger and bigger each year I already spoke to Athletics the expansion of nine Co-op Sports this is huge we're busting to grizzled I feel

066like Griswold wheelers now like family we do everything together now um but they're just they're finding opportunities to give back to their school to celebrate with their school so that is a big increase in the in the budget that you'll see and then last our knee ask work I can't say enough I think it's I think it's awesome that we're going to collaborate with the elementary school you know I just want to stress The Works being done it has been being done it's just a matter of is it in a consistent format where you can actually see it as opposed to going looking for it and finding it we want to present it in a way that shows you the work that's being done and I think this model is going to really do that

067for our district and then the last piece I know you guys gave this test about five years ago I just want to say thank you for the Naviance program because it's not just designed for college students it's designed for kids who are trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives if they don't want to go to college there are career interest inventories there's so many different options so I thank you for that we're hoping to renew it because our five years is up but I think it has done nothing but support all of our students and not just the college-bound ones I think we have last year it was 54 going in college so that number is not going to change I don't think I don't think it changed anywhere in

068other districts I think this is the new trend so our budget is really trying to bring that Innovation into whatever these kids want to do and give them those tools so that when they leave us they're successful a quick question on the uh obviously the phys Ed was uh low and as far as scores is that getting addressed through the co-op or how or is that not an issue with the middle school high school that's um those are the elementary scores yeah most grades so that's why we're looking at trying to increase PE opportunities ours weren't wonderful either I mean they've improved we've built Fitness into our program so it has improved because we made those changes and we're looking to continue to do that adding different courses to the PE Department that have helped

069they design every class now starting with a fitness component so I think you'll see um our numbers weren't where we want them to be but I think collectively I think it'll be a great thing for our district and Mrs and Mrs Perkins is really I mean she's a fabulous lady teacher and she's really taken the bull by the horns on this you know she has a student so they're doing their exercise every day they're starting out with runs and everything but it's just it's 45 minutes for just once a week is just is it enough to make a huge impact on um on somebody's Health in that sense foreign thank you so student services I talked last time when that about basically what it all encompasses but it's special ed students 504 nurses English language

070Learners homeless students and all of related services so this budget as I talked about last time we we see an increased need for counseling and behavioral support services this budget has an additional social worker right now we have one social worker in the district who works you know overseas helping 755 students that's just not manageable not manageable she sees 80 students on a weekly basis 41 of those students have plans where she has to address specific goals and objectives so it's it's just not manageable we're asking her to do something that just time wise is impossible so that additional social worker will will be really really valuable um the additional special ed teacher and additional paraprofessional would be for that alternative Ed program that I talked about and big thing if you look on the

071chart there and you see the line that first uh bar graph line is North Stonington pay scale for our paraprofessionals they max out at 15.50 and when you compare what we pay to what other districts pay it's not it's not comparable it's we're significantly lower and our paraprofessionals are doing like I said there are Frontline workers they're doing a very very important job we want to keep the good ones that we have in the district we don't want them actually don't even want to put the names of the towns up there for them to see so you can flip this slide quickly because we really don't want them to leave and go somewhere else thank you um but yeah that's so really it's the additional social worker and special ed teacher and paraprofessional when you

072look at the total of all of the line items that are attributed to special education it accounts for 17 of the total budget 24 of the students qualify as special ed or 504 students thank you one para who's assigned there we may have students who would go to that program who would have a one-to-one para assigned to them so I would anticipate more but those are pairs that we probably already have employed in the district thank you thank you does anybody have any uh questions for the admins quick questions for the admins before we move forward foreign rob you briefly mentioned and I don't know if we're going to address this later um in addition of a a dean of students along with um a PE teacher so when we were reworking the position that

073Allison was currently in um we looked at that as the special education director with associate principal duties because for a long time it seemed as though the elementary school principal really needed someone extra yeah can you talk a little bit and Allison please feel free to play in it's impossible to do both jobs um and part of that is the the new system the CT says system has required a significant amount of time uh the woman who was in the position before me was here for you know over 20 years so she knew the families and she knew the the system well so I'm coming in and learning I I just can't be at the elementary school so it looked good on paper but in practice it looked good on paper but it was not

074a workable model at all and so the the dean position would it's a part-time PE part-time Dean not two positions right I think that's what so that was kind of how the conversation came out was if you know we were talking it originally started about a second PE teacher to just give the kids an extra opportunity for PE um and I'm like well we couldn't I wouldn't need a full-time teacher for that it would be a part-time person so then we you know the icons just came up with maybe about a could someone who could take you know halftime team responsibilities as well so that's kind of where that grew out of but um I think you know key what we're looking at is if we can increase PE opportunities for the kids that would

075be the that's the big thing that we're looking for great thank you I also I don't think we were ready for the changes that came after the pandemic with students and and what we're seeing with their mental health um and I think that's also a piece of this like being able to service all of our students when they need it as opposed to I have 45 minutes like it just it's impossible to do so I think it ties in also with the whole social worker piece thank you and it's uh Innovative idea and efficient way of handling a few situations if you have a few problems really um you can see that uh our administrators are very knowledgeable and competent and uh really nice people and I really you can see why I enjoy working

076with them so much uh so I appreciate their contributions to this budget presentation as well uh so this next slide it basically it tells you that we're not declining in enrollment okay we're really quite stable now the Red Dot okay it's North Stonington students okay right across and then above that you have a line that includes our tuition students from out of town so when you include a tuition students you can see the numbers actually get up quite High so we we have a lot of students okay we're looking to have you know 785 fish students next year with the additional nine tuition students that we are predicting that will come in and join our already 18 so we probably will have 25 tuition students and you know we just raised the cost of that

077and I'll be talking about that later and you know that money goes in town right so just keep that in mind uh so overall our enrollment is stable now I have a scroll next slide now there's several budget challenges that we have this year and uh they're not bad things they're just things you really have to consider uh when talking about the budget we do have a new teacher contract that goes into effect for next school year okay and they got less than the state average okay however they still got a bump in pay that we have to pay for okay that that that's significant because a lot of our budget is salaries right now we also are currently under negotiations with the paraprofessional and uh custodian Union custodian maintenance Union and we don't know

078yet what the impact on that's going to be okay but you might see uh when you look through uh the chart of the budget you'll see a a great increase in the negotiations line okay because that includes any possible increases and legal fees as well uh in that line okay so we we didn't uh we did not put any uh increases in the actual para or custodian salary line because we don't know what they're going to be okay I just wanted a negotiation so that's another consideration uh some things cost more right I'm really thankful Bill figured out that was saving money on the show with the solar panels um and luckily our Medical in terms of benefits okay pretty stable we're very lucky because some districts are going up we have the benefit of

079being involved in a construction that provides off us a buffer if we need it uh but we're really lucky to have that this year because we have other things going up as some of the administrators said we do have increased social emotional and behavioral needs of students we have to consider that we have to weigh that in right because that's going to improve the learning to all kids when we meet the needs of the kids that have these needs right and you don't know some kid could have these all of a sudden have a real emotional need and they didn't before and we need to be able to respond successfully and help that child and yes yeah physical fitness offered only once a week most most elementary schools it's two three times a week okay

080and I think the scores are evidence of the fact that we need to do better somehow we need to do better and I think we're trying to be Innovative and efficient in doing better next slide please can I ask a quick question on the uh social emotional needs is there a percentage of the uh out of District students that also take advantage of that or is that strictly the the town students so put that secretary said as long as it's got any need okay so no one no one looked yet right everybody is exhibiting self-control all right because we're gonna play a little game here okay and if you're locked you gotta like disqualify yourself okay these are the major major drivers of the budget these are the things that make up the budget and

081they're in order uh starting with the highest with salaries they're going to go to benefits Transportation let me let me give you some numbers to go with these numbers you might want to take notes this will help you with the game so salaries is going to be up eight percent so when you eventually do look at the budget chart in the back of the narrative and I know you haven't you'll see that salaries go up eight percent yep that good question that is with the new positions yeah that's what the PE dean of students the special educator three paraprofessionals um and that is with the uh curriculum coordinator for fifteen thousand oh social worker yeah those were not in order of priority in which at all okay all the positions so maybe I've missed a

082few I don't know um benefits went up 0.1 percent what a bargain transportation up 7.7 facilities down 1.8 facilities repairs utilities down 1.8 surprise notice that the numbers are going down dramatically in terms of the overall dollar amounts right it's always a benefits really big Transportation less facilities no supplies under half a million right up 19.2 percent 19.2 percent purchase Services up 32.4 percent it don't worry right it's just a percent look at the overall number right you'll see it when you look at the chart tuition down 5.5 percent that's where we pay for tuition for kids going to other places like magnet schools and outplacements and that negative 5.5 and then Jews and fees up 7.2 yes your cave membership went up and a few other memberships can I have a quick question yeah

083the transportation that includes uh special education Transportation correct because we have a contract on Con on transportation for regular Ed okay thank you yeah okay so here right hit foreign okay so here's the game part yeah so you're gonna have to you're gonna put a number underneath this slide you're going to guess what the overall budget increase is based on what I just told you okay without calculating it just so you're estimating it's a skill that we teach kids estimation and we want to see you know who gets closest oh there's a ton right again and you gotta you know you gotta look at it the overall amount you know where do you think we're at we're just chart scratch it down but you got the the second biggest item there benefits it's only 0.1

084right all right so just guess write it down and we'll go to the next slide and we'll come back to that later we're just building a little suspension Okay so you see the in the middle here the pie graph most of that pie is fixed costs okay 96.4 percent 3.6 we can call discretionary but it's not really discretion we actually need it okay we actually need that little slice of the pie that we're calling discretionary because that's all of our supplies in our PD and we need that so there's really nowhere good to cut from this budget presented to you tonight and on the other side you can see you know we have all these fixed costs we have contracts right for salaries okay we have to pay according to the contract that was negotiated

085right the benefits we're lucky I mean they're fixed but they're not going up much right 0.1 percent so let's go to the next slide and just to remind you about some of the things we're looking for and we're going to see these again on another slide so we don't really have to uh stand this one too long you'll see them all again let's go to the next slide okay so this is really significant here I I said that we're collaborating with the town okay I believe we truly are let me explain you have this non-lapsing account right and let's just go to that the next slide for a moment because on here we have items on the left that are things that you already voted for and we purchased and then the next two columns

086are things that maybe you'll consider in the future using non-lapsing funds for and I know there was some recent discussion about does the school pay the Board of Ed pay or is the town pay for repairs on the roof and other exterior needs like we want to build a maintenance check right who pays for that you could make the argument that the town should pay for that if they own the buildings right and they own that but we could say as a board hey we're getting quotes right now by the way for that you could say don't worry we have the money and non-lampsing and we're gonna spend it wisely on some of these things that are not in the Board of Ed budget and they don't have to be in the town budget either

087because we have this money that's collaboration with the town okay so that's one area collaboration with the town is non-lapsing and I think it's significant let's go back to the previous slide for a moment and tuition Revenue with the town coming to the town right we we just talked about that we are planning to generate a hundred and ninety thousand dollars in additional Revenue to the town for tuition over 300 000 total okay but the increase is about a hundred and ninety thousand dollars okay yeah over 300 total but the just the increase because we're talking about our budget increase right so later I'm gonna credit us that a hundred and ninety thousand dollars okay and and we're going to look at the net increase to the town in the taxpayer okay because that's the

088reality of it because they're getting all this Revenue because we're working really hard at you know have a really quality program and bring these kids in um just just to get back on the previous chart right before that on the central improvements we have job descriptions for all the new positions like we talked about the curriculum coordinator and I don't think we ever saw anything yeah I did give you something last meeting uh I didn't really talk about it much but it was a handout uh you had it was a regular job description it was a job this was a draft job description um and actually what was handed out tonight has some detail about the job as well so dean of students you have a job description for that we don't have that handy

089but we would obviously produce that so the third area of collaboration with the town you know we had non-lapsing we have tuition revenue and then we have use of space okay so we we share this space uh uh Bob Carlson uh first lechman has been really helpful in letting us use a few additional spaces in this building that weren't designated for us to use right for the giving closet the clothing that goes to town residents that need it so it you know yes it's helping us out but it's also helping the town out right it's collaboration right the wood shop that we're hoping to restore and get functioning again possibly there could be some adult education courses in the evenings in that collaboration with the town sharing spaces right um so the use of space

090I think is really important this whole central office is in this building right and um you know we're really happy and appreciative of the collaboration of the town and regarding the use of space uh and the great working relationship we have and when we say we have a need uh and they could fulfill it they they do and that's great but I think there there can be a cost savings there because they don't have a find another place to do it you know and crowd like across the street somewhere it's a story like the food pantry or the extra athletic uh supplies equipment that we have over here and the drama sets that we have over here so you know I think there you could make the argument there's cost savings and sharing spaces and

091uh the last area in terms of and if we can go two more slides I think the fact that we have tried to be efficient and do some things with less uh cut back costs is collaboration with the town because we don't have to ask for money to pay for Kelly Services in our budget because we figured out how to get our own Subs this year and we canceled Kelly Services okay we we cancel learn Technology support and we're getting the job done with our own people we just restructured a little bit and we're being efficient okay so we don't have to ask the town for the the money to pay for learn for Technology support you know we absorb the ground's position into our maintenance positions and and facilities and honestly we don't know

092long term how that's going to go we got to monitor that and see we may come back and say you know what we really need a ground's position back that could happen but we have a plan and we're going to try it and we we believe it can work um it but time will tell teacher evaluation software we're not paying protracts evaluation software anymore because our administrators and teacher leaders were Innovative and said hey we got Google let's use Google so they're using Google and it's working great in fact their own evaluations are on Google because they show me how to do it I have my own Google classroom and ask some students and it you know it's not free we have a Google account okay but it's a bargain and we upgraded it by

093the way this year okay to add more options for people um yeah and Bill talked about it utilization of technology in the central office right infinite Visions well there's applattracts too Irma's done so much work with appletracks that people can go and apply for jobs in North Stonington using this software and we could get their resume and their references and all that and we're still developing it um because there's more that it can do uh so we're being efficient with what we have uh and I think that is a fourth area collaboration with the town let's go to the next slide any any chance you have a dollar value to to that slide uh I don't have a dollar value to the star the slide uh some of the things are quite variable like Kelly

094Services because they take a cut out of every single daily sub uh we paid like a hundred and eighty dollars a day and the the sub only got 125 and Kelly Services got the rest kind of it about that's about what it was but depending on how many Subs you have throughout the year it depends on how much you pay Kelly Services so some of these things are kind of variable now remember we also did the karma safety audit for free right I remember we were talking about paying for someone to do it and we decided hey you know what we can get this job done for free and we did that that sufficiency right in that same thing like the grounds was about sixty thousand dollars I was just entering is it a hundred

095thousand dollars all together probably I would say there's probably about a hundred thousand dollars all together okay I think it's you think so Allison but I think it's approximately yeah what do you think it's a good selling I think I think that's a good estimate yeah all right so let's go to the next slide all right so I like this slide a lot uh I get this document uh from caps Connecticut Association of public school superintendents and they they it's a spreadsheet they send out every on every week and they say that has all the talents and it's like here's the superintendent's budget that was proposed and then you know here's the uh adopted budget from last year and they give you that data so it's great so I just looked and I'm like what

096towns around us have come out with a superintendent's budget already and we pick those towns and here they are right east line Stonington in Waterford and look where I put where uh North Stony came right over here and so East Lyme initially came out with 6.97 and then Stonington came out with 8.22 and Waterford came out with 5.99 and here's your answer the superintendent's budget is 6.7 for this year okay we're going to talk about that more but we added underneath the bar what the way adopted budgets were last year and if you look at it we are below all these area towns and what we're asking for for a budget over two years the other what they got last year then what they're asking for now now we don't know what they're really going

097to get this year okay we know we we do we know we're going to get 6.7 because we're being optimistic right and it's not as bad as 6.7 okay and I'm going to show you that in a little bit all right let's go to the next slide budget yeah we're getting there so history of budget increases the last 10 years including this this next year where you're going to approve at this point seven right well that's the 10th year that's the 10th year it would average only 2.04 right look at the budget increases in the last four years they're pretty low right there was a pump in 1819 a little pump almost five percent and then the four years before that really low so if you look at the pattern it's four years of really

098low going to bump employers a little low and 6.7 bucks it's time for a bump we're gonna bump it up and we're gonna be happy to do it uh because it's a it's a real value let's go to the next slide if you thought we were administrative top heavy or anybody thought that we're not these are the same towns that we compared test scores to earlier and figured well the similar enrollment let's compare administrative costs just in case you thought we're top heavy we're not so if you look at the very bottom and some of these were estimate some of them are the real numbers some were estimated based on the current year and adding three percent which we think was pretty reasonable towns often do that so but look at the bottom we're lower

099than these towns that we outscored academically yeah sure that given um on that one category of high school assistant principal slash dean of students and we're talking about adding in Elementary School it's not an assistant principle but there'll be a portion of that that's dean of students perhaps we should add a number you're right into that good catch for sure right that's true I think we probably if we're if we're looking at it like that so that we could compare apples to apples right given that it says dean of students right you know right maybe we can pull the um right so right an assistant principle sure I'm looking at it less about contract and more about position so we are going to have career proposal yeah so if you wanted to consider that you

100would take half the teacher pay an attic just take half the teacher paying at it I think that that would provide a more accurate and transparent picture at what we're looking to do here in North Stonington yeah and we'd still be lower than these other towns right would still be lower can we get let's finish the presentation can we finish the presentation before we start getting into deep discussion I think that would be really helpful yeah okay so uh let's go to the next slide so uh so these are really what we're looking for for additions to what we call a status quo budget okay now the status quo budget is 4.8 so we don't want to add any of these things we're at 4.8 percent we add all of these things we're at 6.7

101percent the superintendent's budget okay these are the things that we made Arguments for throughout this presentation we need these things the kids need these things this is the time to add these things because we're saving on health insurance when our savings just not going up okay but in this time of inflation uh this is a real good value so let's you have this slide right so you can study it and all that but let's go to the next one and finish this presentation I know uh Rob I knew that he was quite proud of this event so I wanted him to be surprised uh yeah it's an awesome photo uh I mean it really is I mean I was I was there live and I I witnessed this event it was tremendous uh the cheering

102of the children and the teachers [Music] it was just like really kind of like feel good moment you know and uh Rob is a better principal than I ever was because I never kissed a farm animal uh you know for the children I I would do a lot for them but I I don't I'm glad I'm not principal anymore because this is out of my Lane by the way this is not in a superintendent Lane yeah I'm not allowed it's not my none of my job description unless you guys tried to put it there all right so this is great we got a great school right uh the kids are learning they're excited to come to school they get small class size individual instruction we got really high quality teachers that are working with the

103kids and we want to keep all this stuff right when we have you know when you have staff though that are overwhelmed because they can't their job that we're asking them to do is not sustainable eventually they'll go somewhere else [Music] so when some of the things we're asking for is to prevent that we want to keep a good situation going and improve it okay and we're not going to improve it unless we add the things that we're asking to add we're not going to do it so let's go to the last slide I believe it's the last one and this is the bottom line I told you our status quo budget not adding those things is 4.8 I'm telling you though we need 6.7 because we want to improve we're generating a hundred and

104ninety thousand dollars extra Revenue right to the town that's 1.3 percent of the 6.7 so when you subtract the superintendent's budget of 6.7 where you subtract the 1.3 from the 6.7 you get a net increase to the town of 5.4 percent which is just 0.6 higher than our status quo budget of 4.8 status quo we don't get any of that stuff that we want to improve the school system okay status quo just prevents us from cutting we got things to pay for new teachers contract power a contract we're going to have all of this stuff increased cost okay what we're we compare to other towns and what they're asking for for a budget we've been very efficient in putting this budget together we've been Innovative we're still meeting the needs of the kids for just

105point six percent higher than status quo you can get all that other stuff we presented this is a bargain you cannot afford not to buy can you like Duncan you go to Duncan sometimes so you go drive through very convenient let me just put it this way this is just an estimate I looked up quickly I think there's about 1982 households in this town I may be off a little bit that's like last year's numbers if you look at you take the overall increase and divide it by 1982 and by the way this is not even a great comparison because we they the revenue to the town comes from other places besides just the households but if it just came from households and the households were taking all of this increase we're asking for on

106themselves and we weren't looking at the tax revenue from the businesses in town okay so keep that in mind so you like you get medium or large or small typically when you go to Duncan coffee hot coffee small would you like rather I get a medium I would rather you get the medium okay I'll get a medium yeah okay all right good all right so a medium coffee at Dunkin is like 249. right there might be some tax on it we'll just go with 249 okay because that's what I said when I looked it up is it 269 what well why didn't you tell him let's go with 249 because I don't have time to do any recalculation right now all right so if you went to Duncan every household went to Duncan every day

107and they bought a medium coffee 249 right every day they just do it every day five seven days a week seven days a week go get you Duncan coffee medium medium coffee Duncan one coffee household seven days a week let's get you off caffeine a little bit okay and cut it back to four days a week you cut it back to four days a week and you just invested really wisely in your public schools it's a dollar ten per household per day okay it's not that big of a deal to the taxpayer and it's even less because we're not figuring out Revenue we're not figuring out figuring in the revenue from the businesses in town we're not asking for a lot it's totally worth it I think our kids have the needs that we need

108to meet and we gave you a real efficient transparent an effective way to meet those needs and I think you need to buy it because you can't afford not to I'm done thanks one quick question um on your very last slide I would like to see the full amount that we're generating in tuition not just the increase okay because that amount we received last year was last year we'll get it again this year and so I think we need to show the impact of the entire amount of tuition okay we can add that are we proposing it as a 5.4 nope why we're not proposing anything right now Yeah it's you're we're using 6.7 I'm proposing 6.7 which which is a net increase of 5.4 to the town you can make that argument because of

109the tuition we can't because we can't use the tuition in our budget but we can definitely show what the impact of that tuition is on the increase some of the budget additions you could use non-lapsing like the Innovative PD so there is some opportunities I I think if what job supplies is a one-off to kind of get you going I I would argue that would be appropriate but it's not a lot of money but um Co-op supplies if that's a one-off and it's an opportunity but yeah if you guys decide to spend on lapsing on that that would work and that would lower it a bit as long as it's not recurring that's all [Music] and your projections for tuition students for next year how confident are you that it's only going to be eight

110or nine could it go higher than that it could go higher than that there were people that will come over the summer we you had four last year right today so starting at another school and then saying can we come back back here should we get that happening too right so does that come back right we don't know that if it comes back right away the money that doesn't matter we'll close to the town yeah yeah so at this point what I would propose would do is if you guys have some general questions that we ask them but now we take this budget and we digest it for the next couple of weeks and then we're going to come back to the table in two weeks and start looking at more in-depth questions certainly um

111if you have any other questions I would ask that you send them to me and I will forward them to Troy definitely like to see job descriptions on some of the new positions that uh we're proposing so have a good clear understanding what the responsibility though I see at least three I think from what I yeah Troy I just have some general um feedback and and of course this is my own and not representative of the board first of all I want to congratulate you on putting together your first budget I you did a great job it looks beautiful um the budget that you guys have put together is um it's kind of inspirational when you think about it we're a really tiny town a really little school and you do amazing things and I

112don't think you're asking for things that are crazy um so with that being said there are some things in the presentation um that concern me being a resident here for a bit and living through some of these cycles and also having the opportunity to speak to people that um think differently than I think um and are in different sort of different pockets of the community so uh the first thing that I get concerned about is when we talk about discretionary versus fix okay that's a very clear thing and discretionary it's true right we have a teacher's contract right right um you can't change that we can't change the cost of um of our benefits that sort of stuff but the reality is they're not always fixed right because this and this is what people begin

113to say and this is why I like to if we can make changes in the language that we use when we talk about it I think this is a great time people will say and they're true they're not fixed we don't need to have that number of Staff we don't need to offer that amount of sports I see there are things that we can do those aren't fixed and so I don't want people to feel like they're being sold or misled sure um because I think that that's when people who will have sticker shock I have a little bit of sticker shock at 6.7 for sure um but people that have sticker shock I believe can stop listening I think that it's important to remember that the impact on the taxpayer is much larger than

114just our budget right so there's the town budget sure and while we can talk about um our tuition money and how great it is and we're going to claim or what they want to claim the fact is is that the impact on the taxpayer will remain the same because it's all coming out of their pocket so regardless of whether it's on this side of the Ledger or that side of the Ledger same same tax bill right and so I I think that when we talk about what a bargain it is I get a little nervous that people might have a response to that okay um if you look at the Grand list you will see that the revenue to the town is overwhelmingly generated by the taxpayer we have very little revenue from uh from

115business in town and that is why um I think that when we talk about this like it really is this is coming from people it's not coming from a business um so with that being said you have no idea about this the Dunkin Donuts comparison was used years ago to describe the impact of building our new school okay that was something that was not well received and I hear about to this day um and the reason why is because I think you know what there are people that go to Dunkin Donuts way more than they care to admit during the week um and then there are people that don't and I never want to talk to people about my assumption of what's a big deal for them and what's not that makes me uncomfortable not

116everybody is in a position to get a medium right coffee at Dunkin Donuts sure and I don't ever want people to feel like as a board we don't believe that a 6.7 percent budget isn't a big deal because it is no matter how great it is yeah it's a big deal so just um those are sort of my initial sort of takeaways on the on the presentation um and I really appreciate you taking the time to listen yeah well I appreciate your your feedback and certainly the the presentation to the board of finance will not be this presentation okay this this was more of a kind of fun presentation like let's you know express our needs to you and all that but um certainly you have a more serious tone and uh I appreciate the

117feedback on the language and what will go over well with the title what will not I would definitely not talk about Duncan thank you that's right it was really easy to understand and um understanding the work that you guys put into it and I can see what your needs are and what's really nice is that a lot of I've been following these budgets in other towns these increases in other towns are with cuts so we're in really good shape and I think that message will come out loud and clear health insurance at the state level is going up 10 on average so um we've done some really good work here and I'm really excited to see if we can get all of these initiatives put in and um just really appreciate everything you've done and

118I'm excited to look at the numbers it's easy to understand I don't have to go through 47 pages so thank you Bill for that we were going for Simplicity Simplicity and yeah Bill did a ton of work on that um does anybody else have any general questions or comments yeah I have a question about the uh Elementary School physical education teacher um I'm trying to understand the need for a second one is it not possible to have um multiple days during the week for phys ED I don't know what's yes so um so with this Perkins now her schedule is pretty full and she's also doing Health with every grade level once a month so she wouldn't be able to to carry a full giving everybody an extra PE again not not as a one

119full-time teacher they would need at least I mean I'd have to look at but at least like a 0.4 or 0.5 thank you on on the same piece I did I had asked this earlier I just wasn't certain are we looking for an 092 with that person coming in to be the dean of students or we're looking at that that's going to be strictly a non-administrative discipline based it would be not not administrative just yeah basically just handling minor um Behavior referrals and stuff that's up so they wouldn't need an 0.92 for that does anybody else have any questions I just have a general question on the phys Ed piece I get the need for the the teacher but social emotional learning is so tied to physical activity um they just go together these kids

120need to be active what can we do in the classroom or during the day to give them that besides just a recess but maybe something that's a little more focused on making sure they're getting the right kind of activity yeah so a lot of the the teachers will they they do the movement breaks throughout the day um especially at the lower level um with the younger kids too so um it's very common that you'll see before math starts the kids are doing like a five minute movement Break um you know what but what we're thinking about here is even with the recess you know we try to encourage the kids to take a lap around that beautiful track that we have too before recess starts but um for the for those physical fitness tests they're

121very specific tests in terms of being able to run the Pacer for certain amounts of time and doing so many push-ups in your sit-ups and everything else so um like Miss Brook is now is starting her classes doing like those kinds of exercises where the kids getting them used to that and kind of building up that muscle and that stamina um it would just it would just be more beneficial for them if they had an extra dose of that during the week but we do absolutely you know get the kids out moving especially when the weather's nice um you'll see it oftentimes in the spring and stuff they'll be out at the end of the day and moving around we try to get a move as much as we can but thank you of course

122any other discussion sure did you have anything else you want to add right now before we started taking a deep dive on this no no I'm all set okay other than I I like your import of uh taking a look at that do a deep dive and we can ask uh questions later uh we could also take questions by email uh before the next meeting to me directly and then I will disseminate them to whoever can answer the question best okay and get the and yeah we can come with the answers yeah you know that way we're not trying to come up with answers on the spot yeah and feel free to send the answers out through emails okay that's fine perfect if you come up with the answers that would be great okay all

123right um all right thank you so much this was really this is going to be really fantastic to work with I'm really excited to share this with the board of Finance um it's hard not to get excited about what we're doing over here so I really do appreciate it um I just need to find my agenda here we go oh yes go ahead all right so uh so so next up on the agenda itself under 7A it says 5131.912 bullying prevention and intervention policy uh this was brought up originally because at our G1 committee meeting when we had been looking at it the policy was outdated the language was outdated and we were we were amazed that it was still in there and apparently the way that the the policy was actually written was an

124outdated policy because last fall it was voted on that it was supposed to be replaced but it did not go up onto the cave website so originally the thought was to speak on that bullying policy for the idea of trying to adopt the new arcade version but instead um we already adopted a new version back in the fall well some of us some of us were not 2021 and 2021 uh sorry yeah so God this past fall of the Fall previous um and so because of that that's basically a moot point it's it's been done we've already approved it it's now up it will be good and that's settled um that being said I added a couple of things on to the agenda the beginning I swear I will make this super super fast I

125know the email did go out to everybody yes where where it had the rundown on these I think the uh there's a couple of these that are really straightforward um I'm going to start off with the first read ones though and just say that these are ones for for you all to take a look at and come back to our next meeting with an idea of if you have questions if you have concerns if there's things that you don't understand on that um the the first one is is the 5144.4 uh I'm giving it out as a Lisa and I had looked at this and we're putting it forth as a first read specifically because in the policy it states that there's a minimum amount of time that you are allowed to use discipline by

126taking away recess or physical activity time um they give a minimum but we can actually change that policy to say no we don't ever want that to be the case and I guess I just wanted to put that up for consideration to the board because if if the board preferred to have a a mentality of no we should never be taking recess time away from students as as discipline or punishment um that would be a different set of wording we can we can change it in that direction we can't make it so that it's okay to keep a kid in more but we can make it so that it's not okay to ever keep a kitten or that it's only okay to keep them in five minutes or or something similar so I I just

127wanted to make sure um when Lisa and I talked about it we wanted to make sure that everybody had the opportunity to look at it decide if if as a board we wanted to ever allow that to take place um perhaps get input from from Rob mostly in elementary school process um and and be able to look through that but that is one that we need to change based on based on new law and therefore it has to be updated um the other first read that we have is 5145.53 which is the transgender and gender non-conforming youth policy um again it's it's something that I think that we need to look at it as a board uh Lisa and I both thought that this was a worthwhile policy to look at uh local districts are

128also currently looking at and adopting this as a proactive policy it is a it is a way that we are able to have on the books a specific way that we will be handling situations that might arise um but again it's something that we think needs to be read by the board um come back with any questions and then and then take action on it at that time so those are our two first reads um the other ones I'm I'm kind of hoping that perhaps we can just go ahead and take care of um first off five one four one point eight and four one one eight point two three seven these were just this is already a policy we removed that required masking in school um however we removed the one version of it

129that was under our general our general policy piece and then it was repeated under staff for your non-certified staff and it was repeated under students for student piece of and so it we didn't hit the repetitive pieces of it it's the exact same policy we removed back in the Sprint early spring I guess it would have been of last year um but I would I guess I would propose I and I guess I can propose I would move to uh to delete 514 1.8 and 4118.237 as being repetitive based on on previous deletions second any discussion no discussion that's all right yeah any other discussion all right I mean it's masking it's a moot point at this point so all those in favor aye and abstain in this past all right um we also have

130five one four five point five one one um it's a it's a to me and and Lisa when we were looking at it it seemed like a very straightforward language change it's based on the idea it's a sexual uh a sexual harassment policy update from Cabe and so it's based on the fact that there were new new laws put into play last year we we need to update our policy simply to match the new mandated policy in play so I moved to approve 5145.511 my second any other discussion all those in favor aye aye okay all right and last but not least we talked about 0523 I believe I brought this up at the last meeting our G1 um six one four zero oh six one four zero is repetitive thank you I didn't put

131that in this though did I you said it earlier I said it earlier and I have it written down saying that we have two polished dual policies and we need to choose one and vote but I don't have that one I didn't send that out to you okay so I will I I I removed the the six one four zero I apologize I I had that as a note to myself we still need to look at that okay um but the uh the x0523 did I not say that one all right if I didn't add it I guess can I not add it now no you can speak to it it's under policy person it's it's equity and diversity we I talked about it last week at um our last meeting regarding the G1 aspect

132and all it was was we had looked at the uh it's currently labeled equity and diversity and I think that it we had talked about it as as being a good thing to change it to diversity equity and inclusion with the letters Dei as an acronym so that if people need to search it that's the modern language that's being used and we want to make sure that people can quickly find that um and also in that same policy um in section B sub 6 it says welcomed valued and supported and just to match our G1 goal change that language to Safe valued in a sense of belonging because it has the same message it just more directly matches our goal I moved to adopt the new language under 0523 and including the safe value and

133supported under B6 hi second any other discussion all those in favor aye opposed and abstain thank you thank you and Chet the only thing I'm going to ask is that you recap that and send that to Irma and then maybe we put some kind of system in place that we double check to make sure they're updated maybe in give her a few weeks to do that so maybe we do like a two-week check or something well these are all the ones that are on uh right bad all right all right well we thought things were happening before too I'm not saying it's that you Irma but sometimes if oh no you said recap no the recap's fine but make sure that we're just following up on our uploads because when I went back through my

134minutes and stuff it was like what did we even do here so we'll try to figure it out um can I say something about um the first read for the transgender policy sure um I just wanted to point out that um that the transgender and and Trent and non-conforming youth policy is a recommended good practice policy um by cave it's cave recommended as a good practice um it's a policy lacking in our manual okay thank you thank you uh do we have any public comment this evening did you see a new one all right thanks thank you I'd like to make a motion to adjourn a second well are we not allowed to do that no no just uh so we're gonna we're gonna strike personnel all right and then um yeah we can move

135to adjournment I make a motion to adjourn second all those in favor aye opposed abstain thank you