001Okay. Good evening everyone. I'd like to call the Monday, August 18th, uh, 2025 board of education meeting to order at 7:03 p.m. Uh, we'll begin with reciting the pledge of allegiance. Ice to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. Uh we will move on to our mission uh statement. Uh Liz, do you Oh, you got it. Awesome. Do you mind reading that for us? I'd be happy to. >> Thank you. >> The Orange Elementary School District recognizes that the education of each child is the shared responsibility of every member of our community. Our goal is to inspire and empower each student to achieve academic excellence, embrace social and individual responsibility, and lead with integrity.
002We believe all individuals should be valued and treated with respect. Together, we will make a difference. Thank you for that. Uh we'll go ahead and do board introductions. We will start with Amanda, >> Amanda Zapatka, >> Anthony Scarenzi, >> Ronette James, >> Carmen Rodriguez, >> Liz Ter, >> Betty Hadlock, >> Susan Rakio, >> Jeff Cap, >> Satiana Mullen. Good evening, Kenzyman. >> Okay. Uh, public participation. Do we have any any public participation this evening? If so, please step to the podium and state your name and address. >> Sure. I'm going to give you the opportunity. Okay. >> I know. I I get thrilled when we have customers. Okay, moving on to item number three, our consent agenda. I need a motion to accept the first item under the consent agenda. The first item was the
003minutes from the June 16th, 2025 board of education meeting. Do I have a motion to accept the minutes from the June 16th, 2025 board of education meeting? Anthony Susan. Uh any um all any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Abstained. Got them. >> You got it. Good. Okay. Okay. We're good. Thank you. Uh we will move on to our next item, the superintendent report. Dr. Scarpetti, the floor is yours. >> Thank you, Mr. Cap. Good evening, board members and everyone at home. I'd like to welcome all of you back to the 2526 year. Um speaking with some board members before, it feels like we haven't left even though we just took a little break. >> Um I know since I've arrived here, it's something that uh has been shared with me where once the fireman's carnival
004has happened, summer's over. heard that and uh I've kind of grown accustom of people saying I'm like yeah it's basically true once that happens. So in any case we are started we've begun in many ways um and it began by the way congratulations to the fireman's carnival they celebrated the 100th anniversary this past year so thank you for their service. The parent student handbooks were sent out this past Friday and students received notice of who their teachers are. So, I'm sure there's a lot of conversations amongst families with regards to that. >> Teachers return officially this Wednesday, August 20th. Though, as many of our teachers do every year, they come in early to get ready to prepare for their classrooms. So, again, we appreciate their efforts. Um, convocation is August 20th on Wednesday. Uh, I
005know all of you are not able to make it for, but for those that are able to, we appreciate it. If you haven't decided yet, if you could please contact uh Darlene to let us know. We want to make sure we hold a seat for you. Then uh in addition to on August 20th, August 20th is a big day. We also have the bus driver breakfast. That's different than the breakfast that we hold for our bus drivers. That's with BOA Bethany Orange and Woodbridge and Amity. That'll be held at Amity. I've asked Mr. Gray to attend that since I'll be at the convocation. Speaking of transportation, Wednesday again on the 20th, bus routes are being released to parents. That will be on the school website. Um and again stepping a little since school will begin
006um before our next board meeting. We always ask parents to be patient that day. Uh you know there's a large phenomenon of uh families taking pictures in front of the school buses. So we ask them to be patient. Um and Mr. may do a little bit more of a update with the transportation with regards to uh changes if they happen to occur. In addition to that, I know our chairs of subcommittees will be sharing uh next subcommittee meeting. So, that's in effect too. Uh we want to thank a bunch of people. I know um people may think summer is a break and even though it is a break, the district is actually uh a lot of hustle and bustle goes on. So, uh, custodians, we want to extend their gratitude to them. As we've shared
007in the past, there's a process that we've used where typically we have two custodians per each school. Um, and they take care of the schools. Some years ago, we've actually put all the custodians together at one school. It's created consistency. I mean, what's done at one school in every classroom is done at all schools. The only school that had a custodian is PEC because we had our uh summer sessions there. But again, uh thank you to the custodians. In addition to that, uh thanks to uh park and wreck. They help with the on besides helping throughout the year, they help during the summer getting our schools ready. Our central office staff, you know, preparing resources, materials for the professional learning that's going on. Um some things that will happen in the future. Um I think
008Mr. Mr. Scrizzy is going to share the next uh building and grounds meeting. I've asked Mr. Gray to do a presentation on it next month. But along with that, um we also did a technology audit which Mr. Armstrong will be presenting in October. So, a lot is to come. I already thank the highway department, the police, Detective Bailey and Detective Artane. They meet with us. We go over that. anything as a reminder if we have to discuss that we go into executive session because that's our um confidential information with regards to our safety and security but with regards to our safety and security I want to share about our school security officers last year they had the professional learning when school was in session meaning the state and that's required because of feedback given by
009districts they actually changed the date they actually had the professional learning so they don't have to leave school when kids are session. In addition to that, we gave feedback regarding what the agenda items should be. So now it's more related to schools versus generic topics. So thanks and kudos to the state for listening and making those changes. Smarter balance assessment, those scores are are out. So students will be or parents will be receiving the individual student scores the first week of September. However, the aggregate school results are not available publicly yet. So when they are, we will uh share that at our subcommittee meeting. Other few announcements, uh Jamie Hully Arts Foundation, I always like to um promote that. Again, funds they receive impact our students. They have an annual evening for the arts galla.
010That's on Saturday, September 6th at Fearfield University. We have information on our website. So, if anyone's interested, please support the Jamie Holly Foundation. It directly impacts our students. And um I do want to end on just keeping um um a thought of a family, the Terrella family. They've uh actually lost. So, just so everyone knows, the Terrell's uh they are owner operators of a bus company. And sometimes it gets confusing because they're both named Joe, but there's Joe Jr., which is the dad. He lost his wife uh the other the other week. So, if you could just keep that family in your their thoughts and prayers. But other than that, I want to thank you again and welcome all of you back. And we look forward to having our students back on Monday, August 25th.
011And for parents that are watching, please remember those first two days are early release days. And that's my report. Mr. Ke, >> thank you for that. Any questions for Dr. Scarpetti? No. Okay, we'll move over to uh Mr. Gray. Good evening, everyone. I'll begin with a summary of our grants. As of July 30th, um we have two grants that are sun setting this year. So, they were three-year grants. Um the first two years both of these grants were funded at 100%. This year the grants are funded at 70%. The first grant is the summer mental health grant and that is to provide mental health programs to students who attend our summer programming. So this year that grant is in the amount of $35,000. The next grant is the mental health specialist. Again this is the
012grant that pays for a social worker in district. So this gives us a second social worker in district and that was paid in full for the first two years the salary of this person. This year 70% of that salary is being funded. We did build into our budget if you recall back in our workshops uh we did build in 30% of that salary into the budget and then next year we would absorb 100% of that um if we continue to move forward with that social worker. And finally, our title three uh consolidated title 3 grant, which is an $18,225 grant that is to be used for programming and instruction for assistance of students who are English learners. Um we've spent about $2,700 of that grant. So, still quite a bit of that left remaining for
013this year. Um $15,475 still remaining. Uh you may recall from our June meeting there was a question I'm not sure who asked but um there was word from the US Department of Education uh that informed our state education agency that all of the grant funding uh $6.8 8 billion was being withheld on July 31st. Those fund or on July 30th those funds were released. So all of our grants that um are funded through that title one, title two, title three, title four are fully funded. Um so I just wanted to make sure you had that information. A portion of American Rescue funds were being used by the state of Connecticut to provide free lunch at zero cost to students eligible and qualified for reducedpric meals in 2324. That was then carried along to last year
0142425. Um, as of July of this year, 2025, the state of Connecticut will no longer provide free school meals to students who qualify for reduced lunch through the star funds program. So in the 25 26 school years, the families of reduced price, families of students who previously received free lunch because they qualified for reduced lunch will know now go back to the 40 cents um for lunch. Any families listening at home, uh some families are direct certified, so free lunch happens year after year. Some families will need to reertify by the 30th day of school. uh they will receive some notification of that and same with reduced price lunching uh lunches. But we also ask any family that feels they may qualify for free or reduced lunches that they do apply for it. Um it
015doesn't hurt to apply uh to find out if you do qualify. Um every little bit helps and anybody can go to our website and if you go to food services tab uh there are some resources there. There's an application uh and there's also a chart of the incomes um the qualifying incomes for free and reduced lunches based on uh family size. Uh as far as budget, the 2526 budget in the amount of $24,214,154 was uploaded into our Munis financial system on June 30th. So we are now in the 2526 budget cycle and Dr. Scarpetti and I just the other day started talking about the 26 27 budget cycle. So right now we're living in three different years. It gets a little confusing. Um but our budget for 2526 has begun. Uh the audit for the
016educational financial system reporting has kicked off. That kicked off back in June actually. Uh the auditors have been in during the summer during the month of July and August and they will continue coming in right up until usually the end of November when they have all their information and they finalized the report in December. Um so we're looking for that uh by December 31st. Again, the state did change the due date for this audit to January. Um but we like to see our audit finished in December. So I will continue to update you on that. And as Dr. Dr. Scarpetti mentioned with transportation, our bus routes are being finalized and will be posted Wednesday to the board of education website. Families can find that by going to www.oess.org and going to your own school tab
017and then there's a tab under your school called bus information. That's where the bus routes will be. Um be sure to review your child's bus stop location. Uh there may be modifications from last year's route due to changes in enrollment um and grades of children. Uh we tend to gravitate toward a stop on the same street for younger children as opposed to fifth and sixth graders. Um and from time to time there are some lastm minute circumstances which require changes. So it's always good to look at that um bus stop route. Parents should also plan as Dr. Scarpetti said on being at the bus stop about 10 minutes early for the first couple of days until the drivers get their routine down. Um, as I said, some of these routes do change from year to
018year. So, a driver's routine changes a little bit and until they get that um, under control. It might be a few minutes here or there. If your your stop is 8:04, the first few days it may be 802, it could be 8:07. So just being ready for that, being out there a few minutes early and you may wait a little bit on the first couple of days in the morning and in the afternoon because again we're getting into the routines, but the first few days it's it's a lot of photos um getting on the buses. So please be patient with that. We we know that sometimes it could be frustrating, but um after the first week or so that settles down quite a bit. Uh that's the business and operations portion of my report. Does
019anyone have any questions before he goes? Yeah. >> If families have questions about the bus routes, um would you >> Sorry, I had that. They should call the school principal if they have questions. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you for asking that question because I did have that on there. >> And I'm just curious, what is the cost of lunch this year? >> $3.40. Stay the same. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Hi, Mr. Right. So, I think I just misunderstood. You're saying that the free lunch program has ended and so lunches will be 40 cents or do are families can they still qualify for the free lunch? >> They can still qualify for free free lunch. What this what these funds were doing were they were giving free lunch to students
020who qualified for reduced price. >> I see. >> So now that those funds are no longer available, >> reduced will go back to 40 cents. >> I understand. Thank you for clarifying. >> You're welcome. >> Any other questions? >> All right. Uh so the facilities portion of the report uh as Dr. Scarpedy asked um I will be providing a detailed report which is going to outline all the contracted maintenance and school projects improvement projects that took place over the summer um during the annual facilities presentation next month. But I did want to take a moment uh to re reiterate what Dr. Scarpetti said about our custodians. Um all the comp all the bulk cleaning was completed last week. the custodians have now gone back to their own buildings and they're doing some odds and ends
021that still need to be finished uh before children come in on Monday. Um but I really want to thank our custodial and maintenance staff for all their hard work during the summer. Um you know, it builds camaraderie that they're all together and they're working together. It provides consistency across the buildings of how our buildings are being cleaned. Um and they work really hard. Those buildings in the summer when it's humid out are not a fun place to be. um they're moving furniture out of every single room. They empty them, they clean them, and they move all the furniture back in. So, it's really a a monumental task that they get done. Um and as anyone who comes along during our visits, you'll see the work they do. So, kudos to them. I want to thank
022the fire marshall's office. I'm currently conducting the annual inspections with fire marshal Jamie Vincent. We uh completed two schools today and we'll complete two schools tomorrow. Um the fire marshall's office is really great with us um giving us um information on what we should and shouldn't have in classrooms and making sure that everything is safe and up to code. So thank you to them. Park and wreck. I'd like to thank Chris Small and his crew for the work this summer keeping up with our lawns and shrubbery um and the weeds. The weeds really grew a lot this summer with the humidity and the heat. So thanks to uh Chris and the guys for taking care of that. And as always, Donnie Foyer and the highway department. Um, and Mr. Sepharelli, he's out there, uh, on
023the sides of all of our driveways chopping down the big bushes and weeds that grow during the summer. So, um, thank you to them as well. And >> Mr. I'm sorry, that's his that's his brother. So, thank you to all those people and uh, looking forward to a great school year. So, thank you. >> Thank you to the other Mrs. Safari, of course. All right. Thank you for that. Uh questions. >> It seems so obvious in retrospect, but this uh the way the custodians work out this summers is terrific. And that was Mr. Gray's inspiration >> from Mr. from Dr. Scarpetti actually. >> Okay, we pass it along. That's good. >> He likes to get the credit on. >> I don't need any credit. >> All right. Thank you for that report. Uh we'll move
024over to Dr. Russo. >> Is this Anna ready? Okay. >> So, welcome everyone. I'd like to share some of our professional uh planning and uh learning sessions that we have coming up for Welcome back. We actually started this morning with new staff. Uh everybody left today with their Chromebooks, their laptops, their uh badges, and all ready to begin another session tomorrow um that's content oriented with English language arts in the morning and math in the afternoon. So they're kind of caught up with um the context of what we do here and then they'll be ready for our convocation on Wednesday as Dr. Scarpetti said. So, Wednesday once we begin those sessions, the K through three teachers, we'll be meeting together to go over all of the revisions that we worked on to our foundational skills
025over the summer just so that everybody's on the same page and uh no one feels overwhelmed about uh the task and what we need to do. Those revisions were uh created because of feedback and student observations and our data teams. So, we're excited about that. While the K through three teachers are engaged in that work, four through six teachers will be working on uh familiarizing themselves with new math resources that um we are going to be integrating into our curriculum. We did have sessions at the end of the year last year to familiarize people so that it wouldn't just be brand new for the beginning of the year. I think we shared that at the last board meeting. Teachers were able to take um those resources home so that they could look at them over
026the summer. Um but now we will have another refresher and make sure that everybody has what they need uh to get started and then um when we switch in the afternoon, the K through three teachers will work on the math and the four through six teachers are going to engage in transition meetings. So that's now uh Wednesday's done. Thursday everyone is going to report to their home schools. Principals have prepared um uh similar agendas with the same cont uh content but they have um you know varying schedules. We did share our professional learning calendar with everyone. And if you look at the agenda for uh Wednesday and Thursday, you'll see the actual details for each school. Um so let's see. So that's that and then uh Monday and Tuesday when we have half days we
027will engage in um continuing our work with language comprehension but with a new special focus on vocabulary and we are really excited about that work. So that's happening Monday afternoon with K through three and then Tuesday with grades four through six and on Tuesday the K through3 teachers will also engage in a refresher with amplify which is the digital version of Dibbles which stands for the dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills. So, um, and they're familiar with all those assessments because they've administered them. They used to be paper and pencil, but, uh, now they'll be digital due to the right to read, uh, grant and funds that we received from the state. And I believe that that concludes my report for this evening. >> Thank you for that. Any questions? I'm I'm not sure
028if this is a little premature, but with the new um programs for the language arts and the math, are you guys going to be offering any parent workshops on how to help their students with assignments or homework? >> Yes, we definitely are think we actually not thinking about it. We want to do that because the work that we're going to be engaging in with vocabulary, everybody can help. And uh I wish I had that when I was a parent and my kids were younger. So definitely yes. >> Thank you. >> Of course. >> Um I know you said that there was um new staff orientation curiosity. How many new staff are there in total? >> Well, today we had 12 uh faculty members, but it was a variety of district permanent subs because we want
029our district permanent subs to be just as prepared so that they can fill in and not miss a beat. Um we had some student teachers, we had uh special education teachers and new library media specialists. So today it was about 10. >> Yeah. >> Is there any um orientation for new paraprofessionals or aids? We do have uh we have sessions for paraprofessionals for back to school and our aids are invited but we also at the beginning of the year provide lots of additional training for the aids >> and I know um maybe I'm just curious um the summer program success is there anything you want to tell us about the number of students who attended or >> so we did have ESY uh Mrs. Zto will share more of that information. But we did have
030for Camp Invention, I believe 70 students come for two weeks and they really enjoyed it. I got a lot of great feedback from that. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Any other questions? >> No. Okay. Thank you again. Okay. We will move on to board business. We have four policy second reads to go over here and approve. So number one policy second read orange board of education policy 4135.1-4235.1 personnel certified non-certified agreement. Do I have a motion to accept the orange board of ed policy 4135.14235.1 personnel certified non-certified agreement? Susan second. Ranette questions anything all in favor and that's unanimous. Okay. Number two policy second read orange board of education policy 4147-4247 personnel certified non-certified employee safety. Do I have a motion uh to accept the board of ed policy 4147-4247 employee safety?
031I don't know who was first. I'm sorry. I'm going to go with Betty though. Anthony second. Any questions? All in favor? Unanimous. Okay. Number three, policy. Second read, Orange Board of Education policy 5131.1. Do I have a motion to accept the Orange Board of Ed policy 5131.1 students bus conduct? Carmen first, Amanda second. Any discussions? No. All in favor? Unanimous again. And the fourth one, policy second read, orange board of ed policy 6156, instruction, use of computers in instruction. Do I have a motion to accept the orange board of ed policy 6156 instruction use of computers in instruction? Ranette Betty second. Any discussion? All in favor? And that's unanimous again. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to standing committees. Uh, finance and operations. Susan, >> the finance and operations subcommittee met prior to this meeting.
032Um, always looking for people to join us if they'd like to. There's my little cell feature. We have a great team, but always could use more. Um, we, um, as Mr. Gray already mentioned, we closed out the, um, 2425 year. Um, as of the end of June, really happy to know that the auditors are working hard and they'll get done hopefully by the end of December or close to it. Um, July opened. Um oh uh one thing to note is we are basically um 99.9% spent on the 2425 budget or encumbered. So certain things that have not been paid yet but we know we have to pay. So, um that's all good news and we were within budget obviously just saying um the 20 the July um July opened the 25 26 financials and if
033you reviewed the financials you'd see there really weren't a whole lot of transactions other than encumbering um salaries for teachers predominantly um and um I think that's about it. Any questions? >> No. Okay. Personnel policy transportation. Betty. >> Yes. Our committee has not met um since June and I know that we need to we have no first read policies right now and because of the first day of school next Monday and Labor Day the following Monday. Um finding a date to meet was not that easy. But I am hoping that uh between uh Mr. Zimon and myself, we can come to some agreement of perhaps September 8th being a day for our committees to meet. >> Okay. And information about that will be coming to you and once uh that's set, I'll look forward to
034meeting with our committee. >> Excellent. Uh buildings and ground. Uh any questions? Actually, I'm sorry. Okay, moving over to buildings and grounds. Uh Anthony, >> thank you, Mr. Cap. We also didn't meet since probably June. Um, but our next meeting is going to be August 27th at 4:30 at MLT. Um, all are welcome. Uh, we'll be doing our tour of the schools starting in MLT and then on to the other ones. Um, looking forward to it. Anyone wants to go? >> Anyone have any questions? >> Okay. Curriculum. >> Just Should we let you know if we're coming, Anthony? >> We can just >> Okay. All right. So, no, we're gonna do a little caravan or >> uh I remember last year I think we just kind of followed each other. Okay. But I mean I'm
035sure we can come. >> Okay. So 4:30 at Marielle Tracy, >> right? I'm not buying dinner so I'm not going. >> Sorry. >> Jeff mighto. >> And if I may, Mr. Cap. Yeah. Um and as always, if you can't make it but would like to see the schools, please reach out to my office and we'll we'll set up a uh a private tour. Curriculum, Instruction, Technology. Ken, >> once again, what has become tradition at the Orange Board of Ed, my speech was given by Mrs. Hadlock. >> Any questions? Okay, we'll move over to ASUS. Susan >> ASUS generally does not meet during the summer, but we did meet uh August 6th because we have a bunch of um um construction going on. We had to approve things for Wintergreen Inter District Magnet School. We had
036to um approve things for um ACES at Chase and for 88 Basset Road. So that was a meeting we generally we did not have a July meeting. the the August meeting was August 6th and we actually had a quorum which was great and we also um um had approved the resolution for a deep grant that we received so it was also great. Um our next board meeting for ASUS is September 11th. >> Thank you. Any questions? >> Okay. Uh, moving on to our next item which is which is adjournment of the meeting motion. Wow. I mean that I think was a literally a tie. I mean I don't know who to go with on that one but uh Okay, Liz Carman second. Uh any discussion in this? >> All in favor? >> Unanimous. Okay. Meeting
037is adjourned at 7:35. Thank you everyone and have a good school year.