001I'm going to bring the people in now. Okay, we're live. Okay, everybody all set? I think so. Okay. Um, we'll call to meet order the board of education meeting at 6:34. Um, let's do the pledge of allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag, United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Justice for all. Um, since we're on Zoom, I'm just gonna um ask people to do roll call. So, we'll start with Joe. Deb, why don't you just list off the names? You could see them. I can't see them. That's the problem. So, so Joe Madison, I was trying to unmute. I'm here. Nicole here. Um, Vic, he's here. He's just muted. Um, Steve needs to be unmuted and so
002does Shelly. Um, where did Steve go? Here we go. Here. Steve, is that you? I'm here. Thanks. I'm muted now. Vic is here. Nicole's here. Um, Vinnie here. Shelly. I know Shel couldn't get unmuted. She's on the screen, but she's muted. Okay. And Mike Kuza, here. Um, I'm here, but I unmute myself when um uh Rob or somebody allows me, but then as soon as I go mute again, I cannot get unmuted afterwards. So, if you don't hear from me, that's why. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Sh. So, um, any amendments to the agenda? None. Okay. And, uh, approval of minutes. Uh Mike like to make a motion to approve the February 28th, 2023 board of education minutes. Second. Is that Shelly? Yes. Or Nicole. Okay. All in favor? I I opposed abstain. Okay. Motion carries. And
003next topic is audience of citizens. If anyone would like to address the board, um please raise your hand. Unfortunately, Rob, I can't see. So, if you can um let me know if there's anybody that wishes to speak. Yep. If anyone has a desire to speak, please use the um the chat but the the hand button to raise your hand. and Mike and I will take a look. I'm not seeing any. Yep. I'm not seeing any. Nobody. All set. Apparently, nobody. Okay, let's move on. Board correspondence and communications. Mike, uh, none. No board correspondence or communication. Great. report of the superintendent. Dr. Miller, Maxi, where there's We skipped over the inaction item. I'm sorry, we skipped over an action item. Theou for secretary sick bank. Okay. Sorry, the discussion of theou for the sick bank. Um,
004yes. Yes. So, we have a secretary that um that's out on medical leave and has run out of um um sick days and um I'm asking the um board to give Stephanie authorization to develop anou between the board and the secretarial association so that we can um create a temporary sync bank for this individual for a limited period of time. Um this would be pre um not precedent setting. we put in theou that this is a limited um one-time event that have no future um impact on collective bargaining um in the future um to just help this individual out. It's a unusual circumstance right now. Anyone have any questions for Dr. Miller? No. No. Rob, have we done this in the past with any of the um bargaining units or is it just a normal
005in their contract? We haven't needed we haven't needed to because most the other associations have some form of a sick bank in their collective bargaining agreement. This contract particularly does not have one. Okay. Does any board members have any questions or concerns or anything? No. Nope. So, we would need a motion to um authorize the So, I'll make the motion to authorize the board chair to um sign theou as discussed with the board and with Dr. Miller at our meeting this evening. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Abstain. Motion carries. Okay, now we're back on track to the report of the superintendent. Okay, perfect. I'm going to share my screen now. And here we go. Think you can see it now? Okay, perfect. I thought it'd be helpful to um take the board and the
006audience community through just a few slides on why we are looking to relocate our central office and um where some of the ideas came from and the um the space that it would be um using where we're going to. So, first of all, there's a huge budget savings. One of the primary reasons we're looking to shift central office for our current location is it's costing the district between $60 to $80,000 per year. That's electricity, that's oil, pest management, snow removal, um and any building licenses that go along with maintaining a school. Um it essentially is our fifth building that we're maintaining and we'd like to shift the that money back to education, back into the classroom to support kids in the schools. Um the second is is um dealing with operations. And really when you
007take a look at it, we have dedicated custodian, we have maintenance staff, we've got to maintain a another large fifth um building for the district and we're finding that there's excessive costs related to maintaining what is now our oldest building. I'll give you some data on that in a in a few minutes. Um second is safety and security. Um if we are at a school, it's going to decrease travel time if there's ever an emergency, an urgent need. Um as an example, um we had a a student related issue in a building on Friday. Um I needed to get out to the school. If I had already been there, um on the campus, it would have been a one minute um de delay as opposed to um a 15 to 20 minute delay for me
008to get to my car and get to the premises and get inside of that building. So it cut um response time um into near minutes and to the high school a five minute drive. Administrative support right now um if there's an elementary school principal that's out typically there's a teacher um left in charge. If we have central office located in a building it provides quick ready time access um by a number of central office administrators to the staff in that building um very quickly. Um it's also centrally located um it not only travel time for safety and security but we often have team uh meetings with other administrators and teachers on a regular basis and we're a further drive um for those teachers. So if we're on the main campus it makes it much easier
009for teachers and admins and secretaries to come together and once again it's it's half the distance to the high school. are then truly a central office centrally located for all the the staff in the schools. And finally, the town is looking for additional flexibility, additional building space for further needs um that go beyond what um we're looking to in the school district. So, it provides greater flexibility for the town to have access to another building for their own uses as they see fit. I think it's very important for the community to know that the plans to move out of our central office and move into a school is not something that came out of conversations um this month or anytime this year. In fact, there was a facility study done authorized by the school district
010back in 2016 by a major firm in Connecticut called Malone and McBroom. In that facility study, they actually recommended that what was the Great Oak Middle School at the time, which has now become the Great Oak Elementary School, that it become a 35 school plus central office that we move both into that building simultaneously. That was one of a number of options that was presented to the community back in 2016. So, it's not new. Um, this is, um, actually the front cover from that study. Um as I said this was a major study that was done and finalized on April 21st um 2016. Um in that study um it cited that central office um should be considered as a relocation option within um what what became four key options um in the study. It was
011noted in this facility report that Oxford Center School, which is where we currently are located right now, um as our central office, was constructed in 1947. Um and it is the oldest building of the school properties um in Oxford. Um and in that report, they actually went through all the mechanics, all the build, all the um the roofs and the walls and the floors and and the plumbing. They went through every building, nook and cranny, and they cited this building that um Octo Center school had been in as in a fair to poor condition. Um and we're living with that now. We're we're we're in an everyday basis, we're finding um mechanical and plumbing issues in the building right now that we're spending a lot of money to maintain and repair. Um that study took
012a look at what they considered the educational specifications needed to support our prek to 12 um educational system. They looked at the number of rooms needed for classroom space for special areas um and then for custodial and office space and a um cafeteria and gym. And in that study at the time great oak elementary school which had been center school um had 397 students. So using the state specifications um they arrived at um a mathematical formula of needed square feet per um per building. Their recommendation at the time to meet 397 students was that we need 54,228 square feet to meet the educational needs of a 35 school with the number of students that we had uh back then. And it should be noted that that is 40 more 40 plus more students um then
013than we currently have now. And the current building where Great Oak sits right now is 72,268 ft. That means is that we are in a building that's oversized for the population for 35 school. The facility study came with four main options at the time. They were um we were looking as a community to possibly renovate Great Oak Elementary great oak middle school as a renovate to new middle school. Um we decided to build a new middle school, we decided to move center school over to the Great Oak property. You'll notice in option B in the scenarios that were recommended was to convert Great Oak Elementary School um as a 35 school and move central office in with that school at that same time. And in fact in that study um it it called for us
014eliminating center school um as option B. It said to take everything out of center school and abandon it in place and convert the Great Oak Middle School to 35 school and provide central office. And I think it's key um the words here that use that the state space standards delineate the building as exceeding the square footage with this age group. And to fix that problem so that we're not an oversized building with not as many students was to provide a separate location for central office within that space there. And it actually even called for um the use of the current fifth grade wing, the far right side of the building, the side that's between the parent parking lot and or next to the parent parking lot um next to the current middle school. using those
015five classrooms as the central office. And in having conversations with the fire marshal, he actually made a recommendation that we use the space as well. We would put a divider in in the glass hallway between the two different pods. And that center would become the central office. There's a whole set of parking area and a driveway that we can allocate that's um from a security standpoint separates the central office from the rest of the building and would prevent um any of the central office or guests um from driving to the back of the building where students are out for recess. um from a square foot standpoint, but there's some commentary in the town um that Great Oak Elementary has the least amount of square feet and least amount of square feet per student. Um that's
016not exactly true. Quaker Farms has 65,000 square feet, which with the current number of students at the building is 160.1 square feet per student. Great Oak Elementary School with the current building as it stands right now is 72,700 which is 27.1 square feet per student. The square feet that we're looking to um pull from the school and allocate as a new central office equates to 4,824 ft. That leaves 67,644 square ft for the rest of the school, which is still larger than gr than Quaker Farms and is at 192.7 ft per student. So in that case, what's remaining for the students in that building still exceeds the square feet allocated to the Quaker Farm School and still exceeds the building recommendations um set forth in the facility study in 2016. So in summary, we are
017leaving um a school with the educational space that they need to fulfill the education commitment of providing high quality education to the students in Oxford in a 35 school. It fits the recommendations that were set forth in a study before I was even here in Oxford back in 2016. It goes to three superintendents ago when this recommendation was put forward. So this is not a new concept in the town to move our central office into um a school along with um students um and staff and um as I said in the um beginning of this presentation um this was considered option B within the facility study um at the time. So that is my report to the board. I can answer any questions you may have as board members. Anyone have any questions? Yeah, just
018uh I have one at Joe just in case you can't see me. Um Robert, you you mentioned three superintendent ago and if someone can remember if maybe I have a shortterm uh memory on this, but um did did we or did we not at one time when the building was a middle school, it's still um how the connections program downstairs on a wing downstairs for troubled students? Yes, the connections program had been downstairs. We had originally been looking at the downstairs same area for the central office. Yep. But when when we took the fire marshall over there, he had some concerns that we would not be able to kind of um get around um that he brought to us when he looked at it as a potential area for I I understand that. I'm just
019saying that the the use of that building had high school kids mixed in with the middle school kids at that time. Correct. That is correct. And at that time there wasn't a locked in um vestibule and security with prox IDs that we would be doing now. So what's as a reminder of anyone that's watching this all of our staff carry a badge with a code in it that you walk up to the outside door and you badge your way in. We'd have a door that separates in the hallway from the central office into the school and vice versa. So that would prevent the public coming in from central office into the school which would give a level of protection and security to the students and staff within the school itself. So and so we wouldn't
020be eliminating any emergency exits so that wouldn't be an issue. Officer Nichols would still be there. And um also the um how many just roughly I mean we don't get a lot of visitors correct? I mean we do get some but nothing. No, I mean most of the time that we have we have visitors that are coming in for um human resources that are being interviewed or filing um paperwork um but we don't have a high volume of of staff coming or people coming in from the outside. And from a cost savings too, do we pay our staff uh mileage to commute to go back and forth from building to central office currently on Route 67 when there's meetings and so forth? We do. any staff member is eligible to put in mileage. So, this
021would actually cut down the expenses for that drastically. Okay, I have no more questions. I have a question, Dr. Miller. Um there's been concerns about if there's a PPT um I'm sorry, an expulsion hearing um in central office um safety issues, how what would you you recommend and how would you certainly handle that? situation. Well, typically we often have an expulsion hearing that are after hours after the school's day in the first place. If there ever was a concern of us having a meeting in central office um while school's in session and that we think that might be a concern could always hold the meeting in the town library or another town building. Um in that case, thank you. Anyone else have any question? I'd like to just piggyback on that issue. Uh we've had
022similar situations in the town that I work in where the actual police department like or another municipal building was utilized. So uh he Dr. Mel is correct about that. So it's standard practice through the industry. So they do that in Seymour job. Yep. Great. Yeah. And and I will also remind the board and the community that um Seymour um was one of the models that we looked at. They just moved their central office this year into the high school. They took over an entire wing. Um, and I've been in communication with the board of education member that facilitated the process. Um, and the superintendent, their facility director to understand what they went through and the the challenges and the um the the overall process that they took from the beginning to the end. Any other
023board members have any questions or anything they'd like to ask? Dr. No clarification. Uh just a clarification for the funding to make this happen. Is it coming from like where where would it be coming from? What line items or uh is it surplus at the end of the year kind of thing. We're anticipating it's going to be surplus at the end of the year. We're trying to do this as minimal as possible. We're talking to vendors now to get quotes. We are not really demoing stuff. The the biggest demo that we envision taking place is inside of one classroom pulling some of the cabinetry out and punching a hole in the wall so the receptionist has direct line of sight into the um waiting lobby. We've got to put in a couple doors with Prox
024IDs. We're actually going to pull the Prox ID system out of our current building. So, we're not repurchasing that. We're just purchasing doors. And then we need to put walls inside of um three classrooms um and put lockers in one area and put in um five walls there. So we're talking about basically adding a few walls. If we're demoing a lot of stuff that that's where some of the expensive come from, we're adding a few walls in there. So we're envisioning this to be minimally um uh a minimal cost to the district. Um if there's things that we want to do over time, we envision that we do this in phases. One of the things I want to be very cautious of is that the staff and the students in this school right now have
025been living with bathrooms that are substandard. They've been living with HVAC that is substandard. And I want to make sure that when we go into this building that we are in parallel with them with with the same resources. So if we're asking the town to upgrade the bathrooms in the building, I don't think that we should be upgrading the bathrooms for central office until we've looked at bathroom upgrades for the rest of the building as an example. But I think we're going to see this um in phases and I think that we're going to see this at as minimum of a cost as possible. Excellent. And just so um I'm not sure all the board members are aware, but we met with the board of finance on Wednesday. Um and the discussion regarding the bathrooms
026was brought up again. Um and asking them to assist us in whatever manner they can to release them the balance of the funding that is in the um building project. because as as we all know the building um is still being managed by the building committee as far as upgrades and and things like that. So um we technically do not even have control to make um ch those types of changes to the bathrooms. Um it falls under the building committee. So, it was one of the things that was discussed in detail with the board of finance. Um and that there was actually um a request from the board of finance um couple of years ago, I think it was two years ago, that when the committee had funding that um they use a million dollars
027of that to renovate the bathrooms and that was um chose not to be done by um committee and other um parties which none of it was a member of our board or um certainly not Dr. Miller. So, it was before him and we right. Thank you. And we've gone on record with the board of finance and I've stated multiple times um to the board of select and board of finance that this is our number one priority is to fix the bathrooms in that building and that was a get our request last week. Can I Deb, can I ask you a quick just a quick question? What did that money get expended or did it go somewhere else or did they pull it back or did they It was expended by the committee and the superintendent
028at the time to do finish work doing cabbage cabinetry I believe part of the playground. I'm not 100% sure on that but it was the cabinet the stage and the stage and sorry Rob the stage was a big one. Yep. And there was um I think the paving actually was the other part. The um bus loop redesign and paving were taken out of th those funds. So that was not something right. So that's not something that the board was even involved in. Um it was something that the building committee for the town that's overseas oversaw and is continuing to oversee the project. um you know agreed upon. So okay, thank you. Sure. Anybody else have any questions? Dr. Miller, do you have anything else? No, I wanted to concentrate my report on this because it's
029such an important topic for um the district and community. There's been lots of questions. I wanted to to focus my energies for tonight on sharing this with the board and the community. Okay. Thank you for doing that. So, reporter the chair or designate. Well, I'm the designate for tonight. Um, I would just like to ask us to take a quick moment of silence. I know that I've heard of several um members of the community, our staff, and I would just like to take the time to acknowledge some of the difficulty that people are having with illnesses and passing. I would I just want people to know that they are in our thoughts and um that we are truly sorry for what they're going through and um they are important. So I would just like us
030to take a quick moment of silence for the people in our community that are struggling with them issues. Thank you everybody for indulging me in that. Um, we're on to subcommittee reports facilities. Joe, nothing at this time. I think Dr. Miller covered it. So, curriculum, we met on the 6th. We um I've sent you all today a copy of the assessment calendar. Um, so everybody should have a copy of that. Um, I'm pleased to let everyone know that we have um worked to uh ask I Ready to come out and give the board a presentation and hopefully that will be in um one of our April meetings so we can um have an act actual understanding understand the assessment piece as well as the pathway um and then have further discussions with that. We also
031talked about um planning for professional development. Some of the plans um high school teachers will be going out to different schools for their um PD for the block day. Um and there'll be a everybody will have some quality PD and this time and um continue to move scheduling. We talked about um a lot about um staff being able to like you in in the past there were always um opportunities for people to go out to PD. Um unfortunately CO's kind of put a kaibash on that. So we're kind of just getting back into it. But there are um programs that people can go to and we're certainly encouraging staff to to look into what PD they feel is important and certainly talk to their administrators on that. Um that's one thing that our board has
032talked about um during budget seasons and we feel it's very important for our staff to get what they need and we want that to continue. [Music] Um, I can't think of anything else that was Vic or Steve. Is there anything else that you wanted to add because I at this time? I think it's okay. Well, that's it. I will say I'll just say one I'll just say one thing that you know at the end of the meeting we had an opportunity um as a committee to go to the art show um which is happening the same night and I just want to thank all of our students and all of our staff. Um it was a great opportunity to show the the the board committee the the wonderful work that they have been creating all
033year long. Um student work goes well beyond math and literacy but the creative arts as well. So this was just a great opportunity to see um a broad range of of student artistic um abilities across the district. It really was a wonderful display and I want to thank the um art teachers for putting that together. They did a phenomenal job and our students are so creative and just did such a great job. So, it was it was a fun time to see all that policy. Nicole, Deb, can I just ask a really quick question on um a testing schedule? And you don't have to answer today. Just uh wanted to know if there's going to be any uh fleshing out of the testing schedule as far as you know with I Ready uh what kind
034of test and um curriculum assignment and so forth. Um it and it may be premature. Maybe it's going to be when the um I Ready folks come out that that gets fleshed out. That was my only question. I think that that's I can answer that to great. Go ahead. I mean clearly for the assessment um the report from I Ready um in April. I think there'll be greater insight into how we're using the tool both as a um diagnostic assessment but also as a a learning tool and assessment for teachers to differentiate their instruction for their students. Um but one of the task force I think we're going to be working on this summer is putting together a team of admins that are looking at assessments itself both summitive and formative assessments so that we
035can have a good solid plan on how and what we're assessing our students throughout the school year going to next year. Okay. things. Anybody else? Policy. Nicole, the policy committee has not met since the last full board meeting, so there's nothing new at this time. Finance. Mike, the only thing to add is that we had the board of finance budget presentation. Um, it went really well. It was on uh Wednesday, March 8th at 6:30. town hall. Um, you know, we we gave a great presentation. Dr. Miller, uh, always does well and, uh, it was wellreceived. We don't know the findings or what follow-up questions they might have. Um, but we were able to kind of walk them through our book. Um, you know, answer the questions that they had and then answer, you know, questions
036in regards to the bathroom at uh, at goes. I it's it's funny, but that was uh that was definitely a hot topic for that presentation and they want if money gets when money gets allocated to fix those bathrooms, it needs to happen. We you know we we are not going to get a third bite at the apple. Uh so we're going to you know it's it's our top priority as as said and I think we left with we had to get them numbers. Dr. Miller, did we get them numbers for quotes? Um we're working on that right now. Excellent. Mike, could you could you just talk a little bit about um what happened between when we approved the budget on the 28th and then what happened by the time we got to the board of
037finance meeting regarding um students coming in and uh sped expenses? I can mention that. So, we had we did have an increase to the budget of uh we had a I don't know the details of the sped individual, but we're going to end up having to outplace I think at least one, possibly multiple. I don't have I again the details, you know, we try not to to get the details, but the high level is uh we're going to have to outplace at least one student, maybe more. Um and I think it cost uh Dr. Miller, correct me if I'm wrong. Was it 200,000 250,000 between all the students involved? Yeah, we're looking at multiple students that are going to require extensive special education support. These are students that came in our radar after we put
038the budget together and we're anticipating those costs to be um in the range of $250,000 next year. That was unplanned for not in our current budget projections. We did get that right before the meeting, so we're able to verbally uh express it to the board of finance. Uh have we updated our book uh since? We we have not because the board approved a budget. What the board of finance chair said is that he was just going to add that number into our request and consider that our um our um amended request. Fair enough. I just wanted the rest of the board to to understand and be aware that there was additional $250,000 that we requested at that meeting. So, and I want to thank our um director of specification, Dr. Posski, um for being right
039on top of um these these um expenses and bring it right to us right away. She's um a phenomenal director specification and um her ability to really um forecast the future is helping us um put it in the right footing for next year. Thank you. Any liaison reports? The only one I have is PTO meeting is the March 23rd. Anybody have anything else? Okay. The next item on our agenda is executive session. Mike, you want to make motion? Yep. Please. I hereby move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of a strategy discussion and receipt of attorney client privilege communication regarding pending legal claim brought by former district employee. And I further move that the board invite superintendent of schools Dr. Robert Miller. Anyone else to join us on this? Dr. Miller?
040No. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to after you vote I will then move everybody to the waiting room. They either wait until the executive session is over. They could just leave the meeting. Yep. We just need a second on that motion. All in favor? I I opposed. Abstain. Okay. The board will enter into executive session. What time is it? Mike, you have the time. 7:09. 7:09. Thank you. And I need to