001Mike, Steve Coer, Vinnie Canadella. Thank you. Um, amendments to the agenda. I have one. Yep. Uh, if we look to the policy section, it has listed that we are doing a first read of these six policies. And in fact, we did the first read last um meeting, so this is the second read if you need to change that. Thank you very much. Um any any other amendments to the agenda? Um all those in favor? I opposed or abstain? Motion carries. Was there was that a motion that Nicole made? No, I didn't know if you amendment. We've never really had one, so I don't know if we just voted on it anyway. I just didn't know who the second was. So, well, I didn't really have a Yeah, because it was in the Got it. Next
002time I'll do an amendment. Okay. Um,formational items. I don't believe we have any, Dr. Miller. Is that correct? Okay. Moving on. Our uh board minutes from our January 10th meeting. Motion to approve the January 10th board of education meeting minutes. [Music] Any corrections? All those in favor? I opposed or abstain. Motion carries. Audience of citizens. Would anybody like to address the board? All good. Hearing none, we can move on. Um Mike, any board correspondents or communication? Uh none at this time. Okay. Fantastic. And moving on to MS and OS midyear reports. Um start with MS, please. Sylvia and Ellen. Nice to see you. [Music] Okay. Good evening everyone. I said I just said to Anthony, "Are you guys sick of seeing us because we've been at the last few meetings?" Um I hope our presence
003is still welcome. Yes, of course. And I do I do um would like to ask you um how you'd like to do this. Do you want to go through the whole thing? I have a couple of questions. Or do you want when you get to that part, do you want me to What would you feel more comfortable with? It's up to you. It It's not nothing major, but Okay. It's up to you how you want. It's really how you you guys feel most comfortable. If you want us to go through and then at each point if you have a question or if you want to wait until we get to the end, it's up to you. I find it easier to do it as we go along. and then we're there and then if someone
004has a question you can just kind of put your hand up and you can ask the question and we can move on instead of going back. Sure. We'll go each part we'll stop and we'll see what you have. If somebody if somebody here has a question on a part that you're talking about then we'll just Okay. All right. I just wanted to throw you off your game. Okay. No, that's fine. So, Ellen and I are here to give you our midyear update. Um really the I thought that when it comes to what's going well our newspaper club really encapsulated the first half of the year and when Miss WA sent it to me for approval I read I looked through it and I said wow we have done a lot in the first half of
005the year and it was great to see all that we've done and that we celebrated and we even have you know laminated copies of the newspaper in the cafeteria for kids to see And we have one up on it was Ellen's idea which I thought was great. We have it up if parents come to pick up their students early and while they're waiting they can take a look at it and read it. But you know we had some some great highlights and the first half of the year was packed in, you know, capturing all of from our new hires. It seems like they've been here forever, but really it was just September and to all of our spirit activities and we're looking towards the second half of the year with the same enthusiasm for what
006we can do um and activities we can have. So, we're really excited and I mention it here a few times, but our our our first career day with students. So, on February 17th, we're having a career day. Mrs. Fen, our school counselor, has organized it and she has about 15 parents slash community members who volunteer to um come in and speak about the careers that they're involved in. And we're going to have our eighth graders take part as they're the ones, you know, we're going to start with our eighth graders as they're the ones moving into figuring out their pathways and then we're hoping next year to have all three grades involved. um logistically with 15 uh presenters, we are figuring out a good way for our eighth graders to see all different kinds of
007pathways. And then I'm really happy to also announce that we have, you know, someone that has stepped in and stepped up to do our MS musical, which I'm really excited about. Uh we have all the the steps and movements and gear. Um I'm waiting on some finalized things, but uh rights to the show. We can't name what it is yet, but I'm really looking forward to that. It'll happen on the high school stage and it'll be like a proper production. So, I'm really looking forward to that. I do have just a comment about your career day. Um, and when I was reading this, I would just ask that, you know, maybe if you told the board members, maybe some of the board members could share their careers. Yeah. I mean, and you still can. No,
008no, I know. I think the 17th is, you know, I'm thinking of a certain victor um who loves to, you know, help, you know, go in. It's just a way for us to then go in and, you know, is a certain Victor open on February 17th? 8:30 to 10:30 from 8 to 10:30. If he checks his calendar, maybe gets back to me. Oh, you're going Okay. And get back to us on the spot. But I'm just saying and Nicole is joining us, too. Yeah. That's fantastic. But I do know that, you know, aside from all of this stuff, we do like to, you know, we go to things and participate. But something like that would be a way for us to, you know, just kind of be known instead of just of course. Of course.
009Oh, you you happen to be open that day. Okay. We'll send you an email with the details. Okay. And then we'll say if anyone else is interested, we'll send an email to to see if any of the rest of you would like to join us. Do you have dates for the musical? So, we have tentative dates, April 21st and and April 22nd in at the high school. Thank you. And so, you know, with all of those areas of what's going well, we do have to acknowledge there are definitely areas of growth and that we're working on and we continue to work on. You know, all about our schedule woes, so I won't go into that. and we're hoping the new schedule will alleviate that. Um, we do continue to see an uptick of students in
010crisis and I want to be honest with you, it's it's tough. It's not our whole student body. It's a pocket of our student body, but we are um really working with students um that are facing some tough tough things in their life and we're we're trying to have a whole team approach to that with our student support team. But um it does weigh heavily in these current months. We also, you know, going hand inhand in that with that is we've brought our chronic absenteeism rates down, but we do still have pockets of specific family and school avoidance issues that we're working on. And the last two are around data and um really the full capabilities of I Ready. We we continue need to need to work on how to best use student data to inform
011instructional practices and how to you leverage all of the pieces of I Ready to make it really work for us in the best ways to improve um student growth and achievement. Okay. So part two is our progress towards our goals and you know it's self-explanatory in the ways that we are using different avenues to reach our our own school goals. One of the areas is with I Ready. We're actually administering our second diagnostic this week. Students began today with the reading diagnostic day one. And so we will then compare the fall and winter um benchmarks. But the data I can share with you and that was on the subsequent page is all students are expected to spend around 30 minutes each week in both reading and math in their personalized pathway. On average, a lesson
012takes a student like between 20 to 40 minutes to complete. So that's why you'll see on the um subsequent page we took the month of December and year to date. So, you know, we keep working a majority of our students are doing the right thing every week about about 30 minutes passing their lessons, but we keep working with students on the relevance of why, you know, the students that are resistant. We keep talking to them about if they build their individual skills, it'll help them in the long run and make them stronger academically. So if they work on their own individual skills, they'll see that growth and achievement. So we also notice that informational reading is an area of growth in geometry and algebraic thinking. So we're trying to really work on ways from the
013data we see from I Ready and also you'll notice when I talk a little bit later about the ESPback interim assessments ways that we can incorporate um things likeformational reading into the daily work that students do. Okay. So in the PD we're getting on I Ready. It's in-house PD. Our math coaches gave us the last PD on January 13th and it was great because it gave us two new reports that we hadn't really worked in in depth and now we can use those reports the prerequisite report and the scaffolding report to really help uh move our students forward in their learning and I ready yeah of which 70 to 100% of Right? So the pie chart is it takes last month of the December and the year to date and it's the lessons passed. So
014if you look so 292 students they got a 70 to a 100 passing rate. 71 students 50 to 69 and 25 students 0 to 49%. Yep. and you'll see our, you know, our pass rate for the month and then our pass rate for the year to date. If kids don't, if they're in the 0 to 49, do they keep getting the same um type of uh questions until they pass or does it just move on? No, they do keep getting the same type of questions. And if they consistently don't pass it, the domain gets turned off by I Ready. And what that tells the teacher is that the reason why I Ready turns the domain off is because it's saying this isn't working for this student. They need more individualized teacher intervention to really hone
015in on this skill. So that would be something does do the teachers, the interventionist, the surveys and the tutors, do they all have access to the students I Ready? Yes. Is that is that part of P school? Like do they go on to power school? No. Oh, they have their own um login to I ready so somebody can follow their students and say you know this kid is struggling. Yes. What is a sample like 24 what is the baseline of someone who's looking at data what are they actually repeat the first part so for 24 students at zero 49%. Who's getting notified what's the process afterwards? Right. So the math interventionist looks at this weekly and you have to disagregate whether or not the student was it an effort issue in terms of they didn't
016pass it because they didn't put the effort forward or was it a skill issue? And some of what we're seeing is um of our students that are even in algebra, right? They might be on their personalized pathway and they could be facing something on quadratic equations that they've never that their teacher isn't currently on and so the lessons too difficult for them and that's why they're not passing. So you have to get to the root of why the students aren't passing and then then you do sort of that prronged approach of are they already in Serby that you talk to the teacher about what they see as um how long did the students spend on the lesson and and then you go from there and it's one piece of the puzzle as well um with
017the work that we're doing. So, I hit on some of the progress towards our school and district goals, but we're happy to report that, you know, um, in terms of chronic absenteeism, it's a positive trend from last year in terms of the number of students that have nine or plus absences. We'd like to get the number down, but we are we are being diligent about holding parent meetings, sending out ROOC calls, sending out letters every week that update parents on absences, and working with key families to really provide individualized services. Um, and to work with the families about how best to get their student in school most consistently. Uh, we already talked about I Ready. Uh the in terms of ESPback, we're really leveraging the ESPback interim assessments for and what the interimm assessments are.
018They're these um they're these small mini lessons for uh teachers to give to their students to see where they stand in relevance to the standards that will be asked of them on the ESPback. just had a sixth grade ELA teacher um send me, hey, of my, you know, 68 kids, 57 of them had they're at proficient. This is great, you know, to tell when they were doing an ESPback interim on narrative. I think it was narrative techniques and they had just finished the narrative unit. So, it's a great uh dipstick benchmark for teachers to use when looking at how our students are doing against the standards. And then you know about the schedule and our SRBI committee is implementing the priorities. Let's see. Oh, right now our midyear goal meetings are underway. It's a really
019great time for Ellen and I to sit one-on-one with each teacher that we supervise and to have good conversations about the status of their goals and really what how the year is progressing for them and what they're doing in terms of our school goals and their individual goals. Silia, I I have a question. Um maybe going back a little bit um on surv. You mentioned that there's a new survey process. You might have told us what that is, but it do you mean because we now have Serby identified people or Well, I think because the district wrote a new policy, you know, wrote a new handbook and have they have a there's a Serby districtwide committee now that our Serby people go to and there's like a real consistency around the policies and the practices
020that was what we needed to to do to get Serby to the next level in the district. Who's leading that? Who's who leads the servy districtwide? Basically, Sylvia. Sylvia. Oh, not me. Yeah, I was gonna say not me. I we I chair the school one, but not but not that one. Right. Okay. So, I mean, I'd love to hear more about that. And um the other in in your survey numbers um there are kids who you know obviously survy is 6 to 8 weeks and then they either have progressed they go to another level you know whatever but those kids that are not sped level but they're not progressing necessarily in Serby I mean I think that was one of the problems that we had in Serby years ago is that kids were in Serbby
021for two years. So with this new process, are you able to kind of identify, you know, because it's not as cut and dry as you're either a regular ed student or you're a special ed student. You can still be struggling in something. So does that how does that is that where the tutors and maybe piggybacking um what Steve was saying is that where the interventionist and the tutors come in or or those are interventurous tutors in Servy separate. So we we we don't have tutors in our building. We only have our two interventionists. We have our reading and we have our math interventionists, but they're very key. This is the first year we have two certified in those specific areas doing the work. So, we see a difference with that. Last year we had the
022reading with Mrs. Tartaglia and this year um we have the math with Mr. Diggan. So, we see a level of understanding of the skills and concepts in especially in math that we hadn't had before. So, uh, he's able to to really drill down to again, you know, what's the root cause of this? What's happening? Is it a is it a big gap of, um, skill deficit or is it just a pocket? And so, he's able to do some dipstick sort of, um, assessments to understand whether or not the student should be in um, in Serby in tier 2 or tier three or it should be a classroom intervention in tier one. They just had a meeting on a student that was complicated in Serby but um and has real skill deficit but doing okay in
023class on the current content just has some gaps in previous learning. And so you know what what should that look like? And so um what's nice is that when problems of practice are arising, we're talking about them and we're really um looking at all angles of the complicated cases together. Okay. One of the elements in the SRB man that we worked on at power school this summer was saying that this particular student is in tier two for this particular skill. At the end of those eight weeks that student might have graduated that skill but they need to stay up for another and some of those students are done and they're ready to go back and graduate or [Music] So pieces you don't always see just and it sounds like you're keeping much more data in
024progress monitoring because it was just a and it's all in power school now it works. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, we are, you know, we're working on instructional rounds and then if I just look, we already talked about career day and you know, one thing that I'm I'm really happy about and that's close to my heart is obviously cultivating a culture of literacy and um, it just happened today. Every Tuesday I meet with a group of students in a lunch bunch book club and it's the highlight of my week sitting with them and just talking about the book. Especi book club. Those students come every week so excited to talk about the book with such enthusiasm and they they they entire time we just we talk about predictions and they're just using all the skills
025and it's just such a fun environment with them. So, uh, and then the last thing is we're really working on promoting kindness and positivity. In middle school, it's a tough time. You know, um, the tendency to to not be kind is sometimes seen as cooler. And so, we're really looking at ways um to promote that. You know, we recognize 10 students so far once a week for our hometown hero. We have a big uh mural that Mrs. Gibbons created for us and it's you know it's um swimming in a sea of positivity and the kids who get hometown hero their little faces are in boats across the but it's just a way for us to recognize we see you doing good and we want to recognize it and promote it. So as far as the
026strategic operating plan we're really on mark with what the district is looking for for MS to be doing. We, you know, we still have some work to do with the attribute of the graduate rubrics and we're getting there. Um, our our feedback systems, we are doing it. Our school counselor is doing such great work being in the classroom. Um, you know, when it comes to electives and and looking at what kids are interested in, we had a new art club this year, investment club, and I think I've told you Mrs. Gibbons is doing the art club. We had to divide it into separate weeks because there was such a student response. We're over 65 students who wanted to be involved that we have sixth grade in one week and then seventh and eighth grade in
027another week. And then you know Ellen and I our doors are always open. We have an open door policy. Teachers know and and staff and everyone even students. Yeah. They know they can come see us. So, um, and then the last is about our SRBI update that we had just spoken about. And, oh, the last thing is our student count, which is interesting. Um, we began the year at 410 and we're now at 405, but we have three new registrations, which is going to bring us to 408. And just something interesting, of the five students that have withdrawn since the beginning of the year, two withdrew to be homeschooled and three were brand new to our district this fall and withdrew within three or four months um for various reasons. So, our it's just an
028interesting trend that we saw with our school year, but we're we're going to be back up to 408 because we have these three new enrollments that are pending right now. So, any other questions that we can answer for you? Let me check my notes. Okay. Well, the first thing on my notes and and I said it to you personally and I said I was going to say it um publicly as well that I loved the the press um you know the newspaper thing you called the MS press. Um I love seeing the pictures and you know when you see it all at once um you know and you see the smiling kids and the staff that's participating and even though they're dressing goofy I mean you know middle school you know it's a place in
029my heart for middle school too. So, nice job on that. And um and um you know, I just wanted to give you kudos for that. And then I think Oh, and then I just had one other question. Um the and this could be for Robert or whatever, but there's a a graduation in your student activity. What's it called? Account. Thank you. Um this is my my right-hand man here. Um, you have a graduation line item, but I thought we had a graduation line item in the budget. So, that is the student activity one. I had found out um last year when I did my first graduation, that's for all of the um it's almost like a plus and minus. We have to buy the gift the principal's principal awards and those gift cards come out
030of there and then any of the gifts that we give to kids from other people like the money gets deposited there and then the check gets written right back out to the kids. Right. So there's money from different people for awards that we give to kids at the end of the year from the community. Okay. that comes out. It's like an in andout kind of. So they don't write a check to the student, they write it to the school, right? But why is it in a negative? Yeah. So it's a because there we had to we didn't have the money for the principal awards. So it had to go into the negative. So we'll have to transfer from like the admin account to that account to make it go back to neutral. There's also the
031account of um the from the picture money. I mean, I thought that that and I don't right that goes into the admin. it go that's the admin account that you see in so why wouldn't you just take if you're giving admin awards why wouldn't you just take it from there right and that is that makes right that makes sense and there and I spoke to Anthony a lot about this and he helped me understand and we right because he knows and we cleaned up a lot he helped me clean up a lot of the accounts because there were there were so many accounts there and we were I was like what is this even for and so he helped me collapse a lot of those accounts So technically, I mean, the graduation could get collapsed.
032The only thing I'm worried about is the fact that all the awards we give to kids. The they give us the money, Linda deposits in that account, then we write the check right there. So the money comes in. Maybe you could just have a different name instead of graduation. Maybe it could be awards. Award. Yeah, we can change it later. Would you because that that's what then just confuses us because now that we're going through budget season, I mean, we budget enough for graduation and so Right. Okay. So, we'll change that to maybe you could just change or even graduation in and out. You could just make it really simple if that's I'd like it to say awards because then I'll remember that it's worth awards. So, awards it says graduation. I'll ask next year.
033We can change that to awards. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And we've been trying to do that. You know, we've been trying to We still have that ballroom dancing one on there, but I can't. There's some weird thing I think that I have to keep it in there for a while longer. Um, all right. I Those are all my questions. Go ahead, Mike. Um, I I have a question on field trips. I know in the past they used to do DC trips and uh the last one got cancelled because of COVID and it has never really picked back up. Do you know like are we planning on because I I mean it's been a while since CO has ravaged the schools. Are we going to start having more field trips, grade level trips, any of that, you
034know? So, we do have grade level trips. Our eighth graders just went to New York City to the 911 museum um in December. Sixth and seventh grade will have spring spring trips. Um we'll have Holiday Hill for our eighth graders for their picnic. Yeah. So, we we have been doing that. As far as Washington DC, we haven't picked it up yet, but we can send when you start that, it has to be, you know, at the very beginning of September. So, and my principal's group has been talking about that and a couple of um districts have picked it back up, but many haven't. But we can talk, you know, starting in September, gauge the families and see who's comfortable and and we can definitely see what the interest is to bring that back. Great. Just
035to get back to normaly. Yeah. Yeah. No, they had a great time in New York um when they went to the 911 museum. Oh, Ellen went Yes. Steve good district goal for your next steps. You just said it a while. What do you think is the biggest headwind right now? Which one? What do you worry about? Four months left. Oh gosh. Four months. So there's four months left. So of course I'm worried about test scores. I mean, I'm worried about student well-being. Um, I'm worried about growth and achievement in other ways, and I'm worried about um really having good citizens in our schools. You know, I'm not I'm not worried that we don't. I'm worried about how can we keep helping them and capitalizing on them being good citizens, right? Yeah. It's that's a daily,
036right? Daily thing. But I I like the fact that you try different things and um you know I mean rewarding rewarding positive behavior is is one thing. Um you know sometimes that that will promote somebody else to say wow you know I want to be recognized you know but you're always going to have you know the harder cases but middle school is exciting but it's tough to Was that Was that it Steve? Yeah. Anybody else for Sylvia and Ellen? No. And and you're welcome that you're getting Vic now. So you can you can thank me. You can thank me for that. All right. I don't I'm not even sure if you purchase. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks. [Music] Dr. Miller texted me that I have three minutes. Not true. Not true. 10 minutes.
037Love to hear from you. Is this good? Okay. Uh, is this homework? I I I was I was fooling around uh this afternoon, of course, after the kids were gone, but uh trying to put together something to just give you a context or a lens through which everything on the uh update uh goes through. So, I wanted to share this with you. Uh so Steph, thanks for passing that out. Um basically the work that Stephanie and I are doing uh at the high school is to uh bring everybody, the kids, the teachers, and our families on board for really a dynamic uh change uh over the next several years. Uh and I think I've mentioned to this group before that all the work that that really we do falls into three major categories as an
038administrator. the management piece of the building, instructional leadership, and our communications or public relations. Uh, in public relations, people might scoff at, but the idea is that we can't be leaders if people don't want to follow us. So, what we want to do is to communicate to people why we're doing things, um, what our our vision is for where we would like to end. And, uh, it's not a mystery novel. We want we want people to understand. So, we talk when we have a faculty meeting, we talk about why we're doing this. when we do our weekly communications to families, we try to explain why we're doing this. Um, but everything that we do is is centered around student learning, right? So, every decision we make, everything we we want to bring forth in the
039budget or we make decisions on a daily basis for individual kid cases or whatever, it's all wrapped up in this the idea that we want to do this to make student learning better at the school. And within I guess where this all takes place is in our school culture. And that's one of the major drivers when we talk about what's doing what we're doing well. Uh we we want to move the culture forward to be student centered and there really is a symbiotic relationship between the management instructional leadership in the public relations and our culture. In other words, these things influence our school culture and they are also reflective of that overall culture. So that this is sort of the the lens upon which you can look at this report that I put together for
040you. Just going to hit some highlights. Overall, what we're doing well from an administrative perspective, uh we are in the midst of an organizational change. Uh everything we do is going to be based on what's best for our student learning. And this is the difficult part. We want to make sure that everyone understands that uh not just the us, but the teachers, the parents, and the kids. And and that's important. And it takes time to make that change. Um, we talk about making a more positive school environment for the staff because that's going to be reflective in what they do with the kids. We have good people. Used to be a commercial that said, uh, great cheese comes from happy cows. So, we we we want a lot of happy mowing at at this high
041school. I know we're the Wolverines, but but that's important. The kids be happy, the staff be happy, we're happy, and that we we get that it doesn't happen all the time for everybody. Um but that's reflect again reflective in our culture. Uh the other piece is uh for this year specifically is the management piece and I might have mentioned this to this this group in the past. The teachers are doing the best they can and what they believe to be the best things for the kids. But one teacher is using things that Frank Samson told them to do. Another teacher is doing things that Dorothy Potter told them to do. Another person it's Frank Savo. So what we want to do is put everybody on the same page. And that's what we're doing this year
042by putting together a staffing operational handbook. How do you grade? How many assignments do you need to have per marking period? Uh do we take late work? If so, how late what do we give them? All these things have to be put together and explain to kids and parents. Just this last week, I I found out that we have a minimum grade for a marking period. All right, you could do nothing, get a 45. Um, and I get that the mathematical reasoning for that is you don't want a student sitting in your full year class in January not able to pass for the year. What are they going to do but be disruptive? They don't have any skin in the game. We have to figure out how to give them uh some skin in this
043game. They have to do something. So these are the things that we're starting to find out about and work on. So I hear you correctly that you are abandoning that not this year but by the end of this year. Yes. It's tough to work on the airplane while it's in flight. So we're but but okay so so something that you found out right I totally agree with that and I had right because we we talk about the kids problem with that when it was found out right I totally understand the rationale and maybe they brought it back for co but if the kids have to do something to earn that partial credit because and I know I've written this before that students learn best when the kids are involved the families and the school. So,
044if we're taking the the student responsibility out, we're we're removing a huge piece of the puzzle. So, these are the these are the management or operational things that we're starting to address. Uh and we're going to codify this so everyone has this in front of them. This is how it works. Here's when your capstone stuff is due. If you don't get it in, you have until this drop dead date after that, you might be, you know, redoing it. You know, all that because right now people are one person do it this way, one person's that way. Then Anthony gets involved and said, "Well, you probably should do it this way." And people like, "What are you crazy?" Yeah. So we need to get that all we all have to be on the same page. Uh
045and the last thing which is the major driver for us is going to be the school schedule. And I've said this before I know I have I have a lot of PR to do with v variety of stakeholder groups but this is going to be a huge element for our culture academic culture uh and what we do with our students when we get to the actual instructional leadership which I will admittedly say is not the priority for me this year. We're obviously instructing and we're going into classrooms and we're doing evaluations, but all these other pieces are are actually more critical at this piece. So, someone asked what you know, what are you going to do next year? The instructional leadership piece is going to it kicks back in. If you look at the teacher
046responses in general, they say they're happy with organization, communication, and relationships. Positive extracurricular activities. Parent responses. Well, I said, well, might as well ask people what they think, too. uh communication, relationships, positive connections with staff, whether it be classes, the courts, fields, the stage, they see some a lot of value in in what goes on there. So, any questions on the first section, which is just what do people think is going well and kind of how are you going to move this place forward uh in the future? Excellent. Just like a staff meeting, this is going well. All right, part two. offer that. No worries. Attendance, our our chronic absenteeism is down substantially this year. That's because we have a weekly attendance meeting. We have PPTs for kids that are not in school. Uh we
047we try to make those in person so we can have face tof face with people. We do house visits with whether with the staff, with our social workers, with our SRO to you know, why aren't you in school? What can we do to help? Uh and we do make some referrals to DCF when when uh all of their avenues have been exhausted. So that's good. DNF list has not decreased, it's risen. Uh so I ask people why they tell me that they're increasing their rigor and their expectations coming out of COVID. Totally get that. We also have to look on the back piece, you know, which is, you know, how do we pro provide supports? Some of these data also might be skewed because it was before the end of the marking period where you
048know when the kids do this massive dump of late work and then the grades can sometimes go up. But you know at least we're collecting these numbers. We're looking at them. We're talking about them and and the staff like that. You know we talk about we don't the staff come and say we don't have a chance to really talk about pedigogy over how we do things. We rearranging some of our afternoon activities to get them in their their oldfashioned departments to talk about science instruction or English instruction. still have their larger groups in the afternoon once a month and they still have our faculty meetings. Our standardized test scores proof will be in the pudding. I I am not sure where we'll end up this year, but I think it's a multi-year process to be
049honest with you of improving. Are those are those um scores for 2122 fall from last spring? Yeah. Right. But I'm saying that 63% at efficient. Yeah. College and college and career readiness. We would call that benchmark for college and career readiness. So SAT the SATs has a cut score for what they consider for you to be college and career ready. Okay, which goes up each year by about 20 points. Um and it's different for English and um and math. So off the top of my head like 480 and 530 for seniors to hit that. So that's saying that percent that whatever that cut score is, they're on track to become ready by college. You're right. Okay. I sort of would just kind of ignore all the jargon and say that's their sort of at goal,
050right? Because again, we just get number what that means. Yep. So, you know, and then and then it's know again for your analysis, you look at 10th grade ELA, you know, that's great, but then when they get 11th, it goes significantly. Is that because it gets harder? It's, you know, more challenging. It's a different group too. Yes. Yeah. So then that's the other way to what is it? Lies, lies, and statistics. I'll teach them how to submit that. We call Yeah. Okay. Gota. All right. Anyhow, I didn't do much with that because we don't have the data to compare it to. So, that's fine. No. Okay. The rest of everything else I wrote down here is connected to the the district strategic operating plan, which is also connected to our high school school improvement plan.
051So whether you know part of it was to develop the schedule, work on an internship program, uh career pathways, uh doing the evaluations with fidelity, um which which we've been the two of us have been doing. Dorothy uh evaluates a couple of folks as does Megan and Linda at the high school. We do the the the bulk of that uh developing community partnerships, communication, and and collegiality. So with that, I'll just open it up to questions. Yes sir. So when I look at the increase in D's and Fs um what is the protocol? I mean is there a standard protocol of how you you know notify the student or andor parent because there are times if if a parent doesn't know sometimes you know unless unless they're staring at power school. So what what we've
052done and and the the answer is no. Uh, a short answer of what I've done since I've been here is I do send out an email to all the staff at the midpoint just like I did at the middle school saying if you have a student in your classes with the DRF, please contact the parents. Then I email the parents and say it's the midpoint in the marking period. Uh, check Power School out or the teacher. I do both. Yeah. So, I want both sides to talk to each other. I say, "Parents, check out P school. If your child is a DRF, contact your your uh teacher because you have a half of a marking period to try to make do something about that. Um, but we also have a, you know, my guidance counselors
053generate the list. You talk to the kids who have D's and Fs. A lot of we talk about is this a can't or a won't issue. You know, are you putting in your best effort? And a lot of the kids will be honest with her and say, you know, I really didn't try. And so that's what we talk about trying to get the kids have some skin in the game. Well, you know, you're going to get a 45. Um, and you you're not you doing pretty well in math, you can figure out, well, if I get an 80 in two marking periods and a 45, but I can get a 60 and pass for the year. You know, they figure that out relatively quickly. They are smart kids. Um, I know that. But Mr. just
054to also emphasize that's the work we're doing. You know, some of the grading practices, need alignments and all those discussions. Yes, we tell them effective communication. Make sure you actually make contact with the parent. Um, yeah. So, it's definitely some of the work we're still working hard on. Um, but we have implemented some privileges at the high school for all students, seniors at the most. Um, those things are going away when you're not doing well academically, extracurriculars, etc. So, that all we're going to see what happens next. About 80 of them just lost their purpose. Yeah. I I think a part of it also is as we as we start to evolve our our work at the high school of guaranteeing a you know a challenging and engaging and an intentional um experience in the
055classroom, you know, and and the teachers certainly can do this. Uh they they have been uh they've shown me that they can. You know, we talk about tightening up our curriculum. Uh they can't learn something they haven't been taught. So, we have to make sure every all of our subjects have a a guaranteed viable curriculum. And I know Dorothy's working on it and and whatnot with the with people. But again, if if I have a brand new teacher who comes into the building, I would love to say here is the uh 10, you know, the the chemistry curriculum for uh college prep kids. Uh it's got all the information you you'll need. Obviously, it's not going to tell you to do what you do every single day. It'll give you a scope and sequence, your
056resources, and blah blah blah. and and we have that for different spots. That is one thing that the curriculum committee has really wanted and has really pushed it. That's we want to be able to say, you know, here you are coming into our district. Here's what we expect you to be teaching. Here's your curriculum and um we're we're working hard and we look forward to supporting. Yeah. because that and that will help my teachers uh you know even the ones that have been here long term say this is what I have to make sure this is what I'm going to do and I can plan because if they don't have it then they're doing this extra work of trying to figure out okay what am I what do I have to make sure these kids
057know so they can be successful on the NGSS and science or could be successful in on this or that so I know that there's some work to be done but again if we can get it across the all the subjects and you know vertically from 9 to 12 huge help for the staff uh and I know that they would be grateful. Um and then again moving forward providing whole child student supports uh creating a high performance school culture and and the last piece which is is sometimes challenging for any school. Uh you know live by the book but don't die by it. In other words, we have we should be making decisions based on principles le versus just rules you know. So there's a reason for why we do things. Um I was just gonna
058say that I'm looking forward to the spring musical and it's chamber choir mentioned concert choir voices of Oxford. Um you have great elementary school. We have new advanced courses in art and music and theater. Um, so I would just be on the record um how proud BOE is that we do support the arts and and we are um just huge supporters of moving the arts forward and providing what we can for kids. So that's on and the programs are growing which is awesome. Yeah, I mean that's the that's the um the comments from the positive comments from the staff and and the parents was great because oftentimes we just hear the negative comments. So, thank you for quoting that. I loved it. Um great job on absenteeism. I mean that's you know that was one
059of your goals and and that gets you know just think of all the work that Sylvia and Ellen are doing. So then that might handle it. Um so that you know maybe you won't even have an absentee problem by the time you get there. Um and and to reiterate and and we talked about before, but I love your career and internship um ideas. Um I just I just feel like you guys have everything going in, you know, putting it together and going in such a positive direction. And you you probably don't feel like it, but if you think from September to now, the strides that you've made and what you've done just amazing. So, thank you so much. Thank you very much. And speaking of fantastic staff, the kids are great, but it's because of
060you, too. So, thank you. Yeah. Well, it does go to the kids and the staff. Um, the Frisbee Club has an awful lot of money. And is there any interest in I mean, are the kids interested in I know it got cut because there was no interest, I thought, but you know, we were told there was no interest. I don't know if that's true. Can you just find out? Or if not, then find somebody. I mean, if we're not going to reate the Frisbee Club, then, you know, over $3,000 is going to be sitting in that Frisbee line. And I'm not sure I guess you would work with Robert and Mark on, you know, where to distribute it or something. So, that was just something that stood out to me. Yeah, we I'd be happy
061to talk to we'll find out who was the adviser in the past, see what we could do with that. And [Music] was it was Jack and there's interest, you know, bring it back and they've got I mean, I remember there, you know, they were begging for money for shirts a few years ago and but now they think there's plenty of money for sure. So, that was just my explanation. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else [Music] have you [Music] In fact, Vic, uh, when we were doing the, uh, work on our schedule, uh, I surveyed the parents, kids, and parents about homework. Is the load manageable? Uh and I think uh part of the reason that the staff was uh at least the committee was interested in moving to the block schedule is that you could
062focus on half the amount of classes a night for your homework. And what what I my I have a by the way I have a um what do you call it a Google format asking for teachers who are interested in joining a committee to go to put a lot of this work together for our handbook and our operational uh handbook and homework is on there and what's the point of homework if you give it do you score it how you know do we have a common uh commonly acceptable amount of uh you what percentage of the overall grade should homework be in the middle school we used to say listen you know I I when I first got there some people But like 80% of the grade was homework two versus five is all over
063the place, you know. So, you know, if you basically my feeling is if you're going to give an assignment, you want to go over in some way. Uh you want to give feedback to the kids whether it be in a grade or in some sort of comment and it has to be done in a timely fashion because it's tech they typically are formative in nature and they're going to, you know, the information is going to be built upon in the unit and probably tested upon at some point. Uh so, uh yeah, homework, you know, useful homework. uh what's the point of it? Do we grade it? All that is is something that we're kicking around at the high school as part of our improvement process. Yeah, because I I think that's very important across the
064board because it's got to be tied in to the whole program. Am I doing homework for the next class or you know and it's got to be corrected on a timely basis because otherwise like anybody you go not going to worry about it, you know. So, uh it's I think it's a good objective and goal that we're working on. Thank you. If I could pick it back off, um I've seen it, you know, in Oxford some classes the homework's more important than the test. So you can do all of your homework, fail all of your tests and end with a high B. And then I've seen stuff where, you know, your homework accounts for like 1% or 2% of your grade. Mhm. Students figure that out also very quickly and they just don't do any
065homework and they could still as long as you pass your test in that scenario. You also can get a a high B or even an A. And it's it'd be nice to see some balance because I know you know I have twins so when I'd see them go through the school and they'd be going down separate classes but in like parallel they'd get a different experience where one is buried with homework and the other one's like homework is for special projects or what you don't complete in school and so they get you know educated in the same type of classes and you'd be like you're getting a very different experience right going through. So uh to just to respond to that, I think going back to that first just the infographic here of the management
066of the school that the teachers are are doing a great job of uh of just putting their classes together the way that they have been trained to do by whatever principle they came in with. So we just want to create some uniformity and not not lock, step, and barrel. everything has to be exactly the same, but the the kids are having a similar experience, having similar opportunities, having similar chances to earn grades. Um, but that's what putting the staff together to come up with these things with us to guide them is important. If I don't have them as a part of my process, you know, they won't buy into it. But also, I need them, you know, because what what kind of homework do you give in science may be different than social studies and
067then but again, what is the purpose of doing it? We talk about the concept of a flipped classroom uh which is you may have the kids do some research or reading prior to a lesson and then you do you do something with it in the class rather than the teacher kind of direct instructing that information. They read they're reading something and then coming in and doing a something in class. So there there's opportunities for uh I guess when we put this together, you get this this con this general uniformity with with opportunities for teachers to meet the specific needs of the kids in their classes. But again, 5% versus 70%. You know, we we need to get a handle on that. And I don't think anybody in the school would would say no, they don't.
068You know, I think the teachers agreed to that. one of the we did it will contain four weeks. So I absolutely go through um but was a great analysis for each teacher so they can start to understand too it you can get very insular in your own grade book and then you see the bigger picture and yes things are different and drilling in world language more often than you would in say social studies or uh English class. So this process of understanding why we assign what we assign, how much it's worth, how it impacts the students overall grade, getting homework done on time, time and all those things are, you know, really starting to come to the forefront. So yeah, building. Yeah. And and I certainly see these issues not as teacher issues but as
069administrative issues, you know, that just that the guidance, no, not trying to say anything bad about anybody in the past, but just they need they need to have these some of these directives coming from us. Yeah. Joe, uh, I just was curious without I mean, uh, finger on the pulse type of thing. How are the new teachers or two step new staff that we brought in this past year? They've been bringing fresh ideas to the table, contributing and Yep. Great. Uh, you know, I I didn't I mean, I sort of hired them from the district office, but I wasn't a part of the earlier process. Uh, you know, I've been happy with them and I talked to them. uh one of one of the uh the new teachers in math, Jenna Broadmet, for example, has
070played a significant leadership role in the in the schedule committee. She came from Woodland High School, which had certain had a block schedule. She was very uh clear about what the benefits were and the negatives, you know, when we had conversations. Very, very, very good. Talked to we have a couple of great hires. one of our new social worker Roina Faron is excellent you know and I one of the things that they need I think and and I don't think anybody in the district would disagree is a better onboarding process for for folks uh whether it be at the individual schools or the district we do we do have like new teacher orientation in these things but sometimes I'll get I'll get somebody and it's like well what do I do with you or you
071know I don't I'm not you know what case load are we going to do and this and that and so that that would that might help but you know ask you know are you doing well do you like here are treating you well. Do you feel like your voice is being heard? Any questions? And uh in general, I I can't think of any any new person that I've had that is is not happy to be there, including a new chemistry physics teacher uh who who's hitting the ground running. She she's, you know, she has some rigor, so not everybody's thrilled with that, but I I like that, you know, she's she's pushing the kids, so that's a good thing. Anything else from this side of the table? Yeah. Yep. I just have one my usual
072on the activity report the classes you love that um I know that there was a plan to spend down the class um but it still seems to be kind of high and I just if there's a a creation of a plan we have a plan we've been having trouble with vendors uh the the main items that we're looking for is replacing these the flags going up the hill uh we had everything set to purchase in December and the and the vendors like listen we're not because it's a custom order, we won't do it unless you pay us upfront. That's not the way we do business. So, we have been trying, we've reached out to other vendors to get um you know, quotes. Uh we have a quote now from a supplier and then we're looking
073at the the quality of the fabrics and it's like I don't know if this will hold up. So, they're supposed to come. So this this slows the whole process down because we don't know how much that's going to be as we jump from vendor to vendor because the it once we buy that then we can get the picnic tables and we can do the beds and this and that with the remainder. So we have a process and and I know Mark hounds me and he's he's good about it. You know, hey, they need another report and you know he texts me at night and I'm trying to go to sleep and uh but I get it. I know that you we do but I promise you we have a process. It's just very difficult right
074now just getting somebody to take our money. Uh I think my my thing is so we have class of 2023 that's going to be leaving us. So just as long as we have a plan of what they're before they leave what they want done with any balances. So there's no misunderstanding and there's no we're doing right. I mean some some of the prior classes had left money for scholarships and things like that. Um but I just want to make sure that we have a plan moving forward. I might be able to put you in touch with a vendor, too. So, that'd be helpful. I'm sorry, Jo. I might be able to put you in touch with a vendor, too. Perfect. I mean, anybody else from this side of the table? Any questions for high school?
075No. Thank you so much. Thank you guys for coming. Thank you. [Music] Here. This is my assignment. I did this for you. Thank you. Mark, you want to pass out the book? So, I'm getting set up. Yeah. Okay. So, where are we now? Um, yearbook. Oh, right. No, no, no. I'm sorry. I'm jumping. We're at the They're down here. Sorry. Operating capital budgets. Yeah. Okay. Just give me one moment as I get set up here. [Music] I was jumping. You were jumping. [Music] I put on instead of off. [Music] Always off. [Music] You know what the other thing is? We should we should hand the from year to year. We should hand them back in. I mean, I throw these out every I keep I keep mine. So, I'll give it to you. I don't
076have anyone to give it to. [Music] [Laughter] Okay. Gotcha. Okay. So, good evening. Um, as Mark is passing out the budget book, the the concept of a three- ring binder is as we go through the process over the next month or beyond, um, as there's questions and changes to the budget, if we need to change page five, we can u reprint page five and give you a new page five without printing the entire booklet all over again. So, I'm going to walk you through um a summary. Um I know that we had our budget workshop last Thursday night when we had all of our principles and directors that walked you through all the cost centers. I want to kind of summarize what where we are right now and the major themes to the budget and
077just spend a few minutes, open up to any questions and any feedback on the the budget initially. Um and then we'll have a general discussion if there is one. So in in our view there are three main um goals um in the budget for this year. The first is to improve um sorry instruction. There we go. Um by maintaining class size um by looking at ways that we can improve um academics in the classroom, behavioral supports in the classrooms and professional learning. So how do we improve classroom instruction um across the board K12 preK to 12 and the second is um really aligning to the strategic operating plan which is how to increase the academic and extracurricular um offerings for students both during the course of the school day um and after school. Um what
078are the ways that we can um enhance offerings for students? And the third is um through communication being transparent in the budget process and being as fiscally responsible as possible. um through being good stewards of the budget um um for both within the operating fund but also the capital and we're going to show to the community that we're good fiscally responsible stewards of the resources that were provided here. Um and um I carried forth um the the vision of the budget which was last year same as this year which is smart budgeting um to excel tomorrow to succeed in the future. Basically aligning some budgetary goals with the vision of the the district Um over since I have been here, we have made a a concerted effort to be zerobased, which is requiring that every
079cost center um be built from the ground up, which is if you have a request in a particular account, don't just put $3,000 because you had $3,000 last year. Why do you want the $3,000? You need to justify your request. Um and as we went through the process, we listened to the rationale of each principal and each director. Uh we walked through every single account, had them justify in front of us. When I say us, it's the cabinet, it was Mark, it was myself, it was Megan. We listened to every single um explanation and um we asked critical questions. Some stuff was um requested that we did not bring forward. Some stuff we u moved to this year, and some stuff we said, you know, we want you to go back and get more information
080for. But it was it was had it went through a very critical analysis um with every single cost center to make sure that what we got to the budget for you tonight is something that we feel should be in the budget for next year. And in the process um we did a lot of work u over the last three years but even over the last six months on even being more effective fiscal stewards of the resources. Um, we spoke about insurance the other night and moving our insurance carrier, but at the same time keeping the plan design. It was a multi-month process of working with the various associations and getting to a final deal. We would have saved even more money had we moved earlier in the year, but it was a process that we
081had to go through. But in the the the net result was a a savings exceeding in this year's budget $500,000. Now, if you think of us lowering that footprint for this year, when you add in an 8% increase to that, there's a big delta that we're saving in next year's budget because we saved so much this year. Same thing with salaries. When staff left, we made a concerted effort across the board to tell the principles and the directors, if you're hiring somebody, you need to be hiring somebody at a salary at or lower to the person that was that just departed. Now in some cases physics, special education, chemistry, you don't have a choice. You have to hire um people that are in front of you because there's no one there's such a shortage area.
082Um but in the case with the par profofessor that leaves naturally when the person leaves at a higher step, the person is coming in in step one. Through all of that, we were able to have a net savings over $600,000. Once again, before you add in step increases and percent increases for salaries, there's a natural decrease in the budget before you add in the percent increase. So altogether through that good fiscal responsibility this year, we had a budget savings over a million dollars. So that lowered the percent increase for next year because we're such effective um stewards of the resources um this year. And I think it's important to really capitalize and and hone in that message that effective budget management this year puts us in a good position for next year and beyond. And
083then from a technology standpoint, um our team, Alex and um and Jim are always coming back to us with ways that we could be more efficient with the resources. example is the phone system of cutting over the phones over at Quaker Farms and moving those over to um the newer technology is actually going to save money cutting out older phone lines, digitizing records this year. Um there'll be a footprint of um initial outcome of expenses to start the project this year, but the end result will be a system that allows us to maintain and search records in a much more efficient way for the staff moving forward and use less space from a physical and architect in front of the building. So all that are just examples of how it's important to always have the
084eye on how we can do our work more efficiently and financially responsible um in all areas across the district. [Music] when I looked at really conceptualizing is there a theme to the budget itself and I want to move this um really we're reinvesting in student student centered budgeting um the reason why we're here is for the students so really making sure that all the initiatives that you see in front of you all the enhancements to the budget we're going back to how does it improve teaching learning for students. So we look at the the various different enhance enhancements to the budgets. First I put down in the interns. We're seeing a tremendous and I made a significant impact when we are pulling SRBI interventionists, coaches and tutors and in some cases pair professionals away from
085students um when they're providing direct services to those students. They're not getting SRBI instruction. They're not getting special education services. They're not having a parent in front of them in a classroom. They're not getting coaching in a classroom. All that is taking away the ability for us to interact and support students that are the needest neediest students across the district. So providing interns will help safeguard and protect the services that students need. It will also put into classrooms teachers that are being trained to be teachers as opposed to somebody that might not have any experience working in front of students. So it gives us higher capacity people to sub in classrooms. Our principles spend hours on the weekend, hours every day jigsawing staff who can cover classrooms. If they have somebody that's in a building
086on a daily basis, they know they can count on that. So now we've got principles that could work more in instructional leadership. So those interns really do help at the end of the day. Help us return to what students need the most, which is people working with them as educators. Choose BCBA. I think you've heard from teachers. I've heard from teachers loud and clear that student behavior is impacting the ability for them to learn. We are seeing students being disregulated. Some of that is from a special education perspective. Disabilities that students are working through. Some of it is just returning from the pandemic. The executive functioning skills are not there. It's impacting the ability to be um well behaved in classrooms. By adding a second BCBA, we've got one BCBA in the district. that BCBA
087can work with students directly, can come up with ways that um in special education that will put plans in place to help put them in a position for them to be well behaved in the classroom settings that they're in. But that person can also work with classroom teachers on ways to be more proactive to establish classroom routines and procedures in class in the classrooms so that students in all areas whether in regular education 504 or special education can have strategies to help them achieve the goals that they need. And when when you look at behavior in a in a very holistic way across all areas now we have less interactions for all the students in the classrooms. is less interactions in the classrooms and teachers can focus on instruction that once again isn't going to
088help students learn across the board in the classroom. Um the third area is adding a librarian to the middle school. We know that we cut the librarian out of the budget a few years ago for various different reasons. A librarian that research shows supports literacy instruction in in the school. It supports digital literacy. It supports information literacy and it also provides access to students to have another special at the middle school. So we're engaging if we're going back to the digital operating plan, we're creating more opportunities for students to learn more academic and extracurricular content in the school through the library itself. We have a brand new library in the middle school that's underutilized because we don't have somebody that's managing that facility. So we're requesting a librarian that really can focus on information literacy,
089digital literacy, literacy in the building and help with that rotation of providing more more classes for students to learn in that school. Um the fourth is stipens. This is both from an extra clicker standpoint and from a leadership standpoint. Going back to the comment that Stephanie made earlier in the evening, we want to support the arts. Up to this point, the middle school musical, the high school musical, the high school fall play have all been funded 100% through the revenue of past performances. That's great if you have a high performing um performance the year before you've brought in the money. But if you had a less income the previous year, now you have less money in the bank to then pay for the rights of the musical or the play, for the supplies, and for
090the stipens to the people that are going to run it. We're saying let the revenue pay for the licenses and the supplies. Let's safeguard the the stipens in the budget. Let's support the arts vaccine budgeting into our operating fund the stipens needed to support the musical for the high school, musical for the middle school, and the fall play for the high school within the operating budget itself. So from an extra clicker standpoint that enhances the programs that our students have access to and reinvests and and and supports and aligns to what the strategic operating plan is calling for which is more enhanced opportunities for students across the board. And then the middle school is um changing the middle school schedule. We voted on that um earlier in the month. Part of that model is developing
091PLC's or or um professional learning communities within the school. And what Sylvia and Ellen would like to do is to assign a team leader for each team to be the leaders in that team and shifting the stipens um rather than a content area but to a team leader that has a leadership role within that team. So we want to alter some of the stipens that are there and then add to the existing ones so that we end up with a team leader in each um team that can be that leader and be a part of the leadership core of that building. And the fourth is professional learning. I think you've heard feedback from teachers the last few years that professional learning is important that teachers want to grow. It aligns directly back to the vision
092of the district that we believe that not only every student needs to grow every day but every staff member does as well. And we have a secondyear math curriculum that we need to continue providing high quality professional learning for teachers. We also have a brand new state required mandated literacy initiative K3. Um, we view this as an initiative not just K3 but a K5 and also an initiative that expands out to the middle school and high school which means that if we're going to line to what the state's asking us to do, we need to double down and invest on the professor learning that teachers need on the science of reading. So we have professional learning money in there to support what teachers need in that profess professional learning learning area. All these initiatives um
093have one theme in mind and that comes back to what's best for students in the [Music] classroom. Um bring you back to the budget itself. Um my recommended budget that we presented to you last night um when it's all put together is a 4.65% budget. Um I believe this is a fiscally responsible budget. We have spent the last few years to trim around the edges. there's not much left to trim. Um I commend the board um finance committee for the last two years to for really digging down and ask the critical questions and helping us get down to a really sound budget which means if we take anything out this point we really will start looking at programs and staff and which is that's the hard part at this point. Um so I believe that
094this is a responsible budget at the 4.65 65 and allows us to continue moving the district forward and add in those enhancements that we just spoke about that align to improving student learning. Um now we do know that last week the um first black bin request that we add back into the budget lawn maintenance and ground maintenance for all four schools for next year. We have some contest to bring this number down slightly. Um um we still have some more research that we need to do behind that which could potentially look at hiring an individual or an individual and a half to actually maintain the property and and purchase the equipment and maintain all the the lawn cutting oursel and not actually hire company to do so. That could potentially lower the the cost from
095this. But if we were to add in a full $300,000 to the budget today, that would be a 5.56% budget. What I would urge the board to do is to approve a 4.46 budget, a 4.56 budget, which is 4.65 budget, which is what we're recommending, and allow the board of finance to then approve our budget, then add in the money back in for the $300,000 and transfer from the one line over in the town to another. But that's something that this board is going to need to um reconcile what the best political move is to reconcile um where these funds should come from and the number that you want to vote on in the end of February. Which brings us to the next steps in the process which is the board finance committee will take
096directive from um this full board on the questions and the direction that you want to go in terms of how you want to see the final number to be at the end of February. That means that we're going to have a minimum of one or more finance committee meetings between now and February 28th. Um the first meeting in February, February 14th, will be an opportunity for the board to once again ask questions and get answers from either myself or any of our administrators on the budget. And it'll be an opportunity for the board finance committee to come back with answers as a committee as well. And the target is on the February 28th the board as a whole would vote on the budget. And my hope would be to approve a 4.65% budget. But if
097there's reductions, you we would um you'd vote on the budget that you think that needs to be reduced to. Which then leads to the key questions. Is there anything that we're missing from the budget you think that we need to add? Because sometimes the superintendent brings forward a budget. You say, "Wait a second. You forgot to add that." Um that brings the question, is there something that we added that you think that we should take away? Um that we need to um say, you know, maybe we don't need to do that. Um, and then we need to reconcile how do we handle the lawn care and ground maintenance? What's the direction we're going to go with that? And then there's a lot here and how do we communicate this most effectively with our stakeholders, our
098stakeholders for our staff, but it's also our parents and it's also board members in the other boards in the town and um it's also people that live in this community that don't have kids in the in the school district. So there's various different stakeholders that we need to provide information to and when do we present and how we present along the way needs to be asked. So I I wanted to spend just a few minutes with um resummarizing where we're with the budget. There are assumptions and pretends I'll spend an hour plus going over a budget presentation. That's not my style. My style is to give you a lot of information in the budget booklet, give you opportunities to read it, re review, reflect on it, and come back with questions either tonight or future
099meetings. So thank you. Thank you, Robert. Nice job. Um, anybody have any questions at this point? I just have a comment. Sure. I so appreciate the account definition in the budget book. I couldn't hear you. The account definition, you know, as you said on the finance subitt, you get it. But I think for everybody, it's a good way even for the the board of finance to go back and figure out where we are with things. So, I appreciate that. Yes. So now we um take this budget and then we workshop it in our subcommittee and then even our our budget workshops and we haven't set up budget committees have we committee meetings. Um I don't think we have one scheduled for February except the regular one that's I think it's uh February 14th. Yeah. Bill
100will be very happy that I'm busy on February 14th and he doesn't have to worry about it. Um, so, so yeah, that's fine. Um, I just want to make a comment. I I I can't it it's great. Uh, the presentation, the numbers, every everything in the booklet is been it's like night and day from when I first got on this board and you guys on the subcommittee for budget did a tremendous job. um the meeting we had uh the other day or last week that my only concern is is that we have had so many good efficiencies put in this year. I do not want finance the finance board to walk away and say well we gave you too much money because I kind of got in that field from that meeting and uh you
101know listen our our job is to find efficiencies and work to due diligence and keeping down the request that we put in for a percentage as the paramount uh point for I think like the superintendent uh said all stakeholders and to balance that out. But we are here for the kids and I and I again I'm going to go on record in saying I think that the budget we put forward again was responsible and it's a correct number. There's no fat in this budget and unfortunately we have a couple stumbling blocks possibly coming up. Uh we'll deal with it and uh you know it is what it is. So but everybody did a great job with that thing. It looks great. So thanks Jim. Anybody else comments? Um, as we um conclude this, I do
102want to um special um thank you to to Mark for all the the work that he did. I I even came in I think it [Applause] was Martin Luther King weekend. I came in over the weekend um for a few for some stuff and I like why are the doors open and he's sitting in his office working like what are you doing here today? There's no the offices are closed and he's in here working on the budget. So I want to thank you for all the hours you spent proing it together and has been great. We've thrown him every question and he's like, "Wow, you guys look at every line item." He's never once said, "Why are you asking?" He's always great about answering our question. Um, okay. So, thank you so much, Robert. Nice
103job. Thank you. Uh, so next we are on the capital approve. No, keep skipping. You know what? We're still in the Now we're on MS. No, actually we're still in the capital budget. Capital budget. So, I'm not going to spend much time on this. The um town requires that we submit to them at a capital improvement plan um this week. Um what I did, it's in the budget booklet there. It's on the budget um board docs. I took this current plan for this current fiscal year, which there was only two items funded, the pool and the playground. I took them off and I reumbered the years and moved everything forward a year. So, that basically is the plan you see in front of you there. Yeah. And that was the directive you gave me at
104the last meeting. Absolutely. Thank you. So, um, by protocol, you um, you techie should vote on the capital improvement plan this evening so I can submit it to the the town. Sure. And do we, um, do we make a motion at this point to accept your budget as a board? The capital budget. Just the capital. The capital. Okay. Yes. I would love for you to vote the board the the operating budget tonight as well, but you I didn't know if we accepted that and then worked on it and then sent it to the sent to the town motion capital as presented by second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Opposed or abstained? Motion carries. Okay, so we don't need to do that. Um, so Deb, I believe I'm on seven. Is that correct? You
105are on 7 A. Yeah, right. LMS yearbook. Yeah. So, to make a long story short, when we did theou for the stipens this summer, we were $1,000 off for the middle school yearbook. We had impro increased it last year through anou clerical error. It was a clerical error in theou. However, in the advertisement to the teachers, we had advertised it with what the amount was supposed to be. So, we awarded it with one amount, but theou stayed another. I can't pay the teacher until we do his followup to change the the amount of the stipen to what it's supposed to be. So, I'm asking for the board to authorize Stephanie to sign anou for me to correct the yearbook stipen. Motion to approve the board chair to sign the amended yearbook. Second. Any further discussion?
106All those in favor? Opposed or abstain? Motion carries. Okay. And we just voted on the capital plan, so we just um do you have anything further to report, Robert? I'll be quick. I've got two items. Um one, once again, I want to congratulate the teachers of Great Oak and Quaker Farms for leading the students up to a point where we had a school of distinction awarded by the state. I was very happy to see that um the press release that we sent out um was actually taken by the water Republican. There's an article printed um about a week and a half ago. Um there was in voices this past week. Um a small article on like page seven or eight um is there, but um at least they printed the article. Um what I'd love
107to do is to find an evening um like we do with athletics um where we invite staff from the school here to publicly recognize them for the the hard work that they did and celebrate them um and purchase a plaque that would go in the school um recognizing school distinction. So, I want to work with the administration to see what board meeting would be a good night for them to come. Next meeting is February 14th. I I want to drag them on on Valentine's Day. So, maybe we're already going to be here. You're going to be here. I don't know if they want to come. Yeah. So, we'll find an evening that works and we'll um celebrate them at the beginning of the board meeting. And and I also will say as board chair, it's
108a kudos to you as well that you're in charge of this district and under your guidance, this school is a school of distinction. So it's as well an honor for you as well. Well, thank you. Um and second, this is something that is aligned to the SOP, which is providing more opportunities for students, especially on an extra clicker basis and something that Steph and I started working in the fall, which is looking to see how we can expand an afterchool program um especially for middle school students. They're not sitting at home doing things that they should not be engaged in and they're more productive from all sorts of areas. So, I'm excited that we are getting ready to sign anou with the Boys and Girls Club. Um, we're expecting the program to start sometime in
109March. They currently are searching for director for the program. Um, there's anou that I'm reviewing right now that Steph and I are looking at um and a press release that will go out um in a few days um from them. They're looking for a quote from me in there and it'll publicize and it'll allow students to focus on um academic support. There'll be character education, there'll be athletics, there'll be um STEM stuff, there'll be um arts in there. So, it's going to be wellrounded for program for students after school from when school dismissal till around 6:00 in the evening. Um we'll jigsaw the use of the building with the other uses of the other programs in the building. But I'm excited about this. I want to thank Stephanie for partnering with me uh on getting
110this going. This really deeply aligns to the SOP of what we're trying to get accomplished for our students. So, it's exciting. And I'll piggyback because that was basically my report, so I won't I won't say it in my report, but um yeah, I'm thrilled. I mean, the Boys and Girls Club is, you know, they have national presence and and the programs are vetted and they are they're geared toward middle school students, so it's not, you know, a retrofit like, you know, just, oh, we're just going to do crafts. I mean, they truly they truly have um wonderful prescribed vetted programs and um it's such a great organization. and I'm so excited to bring them to Oxford and um really for the betterment of of these kids and so yes, I'm very excited as well. So
111I just did my report too. There we go. We're done. Thanks. Thank you both for working so hard on us bringing it to kids getting it done. You know it you know we've been talking about it for a long time but now we're we're at it's getting done stage and Mike did you want to say just a quick question. Is this for Oxford students or is this for the area students? Oxford. Well, it would be Oxford students. I I don't we haven't even I guess we haven't considered. Do you mean like if a kid goes to private school? No, I meant like you know like if they were in the area, let's say Seymour. I don't we haven't talked about we were aligning to middle school because the students would stay right at the school
112from there. I'm assuming if once the program it's going if there is room for students it I just wasn't sure if this was it's something to consider. It's something to consider. Something to consider. I'm sorry. And the other component to this that we're looking to see expanded is opportunities for high school students to engage in volunteering some of their time to help run the program as as well to get more experiences for high school students. Yeah. So Italy Bob and um that's a good idea. Question to ask um Shay is the director of Boys and Girls Club. I'm not sure, you know, obviously they're they're in a lot of schools in the valley. Um I'm not sure if they take other other I just wasn't sure if that was like thought of or that was
113Yeah, I'm not too sure. We haven't spoken about that. However, we are looking for for creative ways to partner with other school districts. We we've met with Seymour for a couple different things now. if there's ways once we get this up off the ground to partner with them. Maybe this is something that that is something that we're able to see how we could dovetail together and provide a program that maybe some of their student they have a bus or somebody that comes to us and they drop students off something to explore. [Music] Any other questions or comments? Is that it for you, Robert? Yes, it is. Thank you. Thank you so much. And that's mine as well. So, we can go into the subcommittee reports facilities. We just had a meeting and Joe has already
114posted his note. So, I want to give kudos to Joe for being right on that. He's up to speed. Um, yeah. No, we uh we met tonight. We just discussed the capital improvement plan. Um, we talked about uh this central office being here um with the long-term goal of getting out of here and turning this building over to the town. And um there's going to be a bunch of different options explored. Um we're also uh there's no word on the HVAC or the Great Oak Elementary School project at this point. Um basically too a lot of lot of towns put in for money and they're not sure where who's getting it. So um and we're we already talked about we're exploring the the the field maintenance and ground maintenance issue. So there'll be some updates
115on that to follow. So, um, but yeah, the big one is, you know, long-term plans to get out of here and where possibly, uh, how how we can address a short-term need with a long-term goal. So, do we need to worry budget this current budget to add anything or you really don't have much in there to if we're doing any movement? It comes down to expense as far as what it cost to keep this building up and running. So, that's all being looked at right now. So, and did you want Mike to go over some list of some of the some of the some of the options we were uh we discussed was uh purchasing a building um that's down the road, renting back Tommy Case Plaza, but right now it's at a premium price,
116which it would be more money than we were previously rented for. um looking at a few different schools uh up in the campus area and and possibly come up with a migration plan of getting there after a couple years of uh you know money we would put toward either rental or purchasing would go toward the long-term renovation of getting into that type of scenario. So those are the type of options we're looking at right now. So did you want to have Mike just go over some of the things that our buildings are Yes. floors sir. Thank you. Hi Mike. Hi. How are you? So at our he Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment. I couldn't imagine not having Mike next to me at this point. He has proved so invaluable in just a
117short period of time. So yeah. Yeah. some of the things that [Music] I've boil Just better understand what that means. There are three fires. So that pressure off the charts. [Music] stress on pressure. Well, [Music] pressure. So, what we found out was that There was like mixed water at a certain ratio. audio red. Oh no. [Music] running extremely [Music] well. Now, that [Music] pressure is long right very small group building Wow, that's great. [Music] again. Therefore, it was [Music] again. Up [Music] down there. Should we have a regular schedule of I mean I know we do that at our house we have Okay. Okay. [Music] Brother variable. Oh, out of sync. Does the lead custodian at school need to be trained or will it be you know you guys figure it out and then you
118train custodian? Yeah. We knew what you meant. Yes. [Music] I didn't know about showing her what this is. Can I ask a quick question on the QFS um system? Is there any idea how long that has not been working correctly? [Laughter] at at some point. I think at some point early last year is when we went and we got everything configured. We spent a lot of money to have it all configured in the way that it's supposed to be and it was changed some after that point. Yeah. No, that's fine. That's fine. That is not [Music] You can you can see he's been busy, but how um his prior expertise in this area really helped us move this district forward in some critical areas because if we don't have operational facilities, our students and teach
119students can't learn and teachers can't teach. So, Thank you very much. Anybody have any questions for [Music] Thank you so much. Thank you. Great job. Have a great evening. [Music] Curriculum. Our meeting was cancelled on Monday. Um despite the weather, it was cancelled because we did not receive the information that our committee requested and we weren't wasn't going to allow waste our time. Um so um I will continue my discussion with Robert as the time frame and I assume that we'll have the information for the next curriculum subcommittee meeting but um that's why it was cancelled. [Music] We have a second read for um five different policies today. Um last meeting I went through and gave you a synopsis of each one. I'll spare you the that again. So I'll just dive right into first
120one is child abuse, neglect, and sexual assault reporting. Does anybody have any questions or comments? So, can I make a motion that we accept the policy as written? Ask questions. All those in favor? Policy carries. Next one is food allergies, glycogen storage disease, and diabetes. Does anybody have any questions, concerns, or comments? Okay. Can we make a motion that uh the policy is accepted as written? Second. All those in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. All right. Third policy is physical activity, undirected play, and student discipline. Does anybody have any question, concerns, or comments? All right. Can we make a motion to accept the policy as written? All those in favor? I opposed or abstained. Motion carries. Next one is section 504 ADA. Uh does anyone have any questions, concerns or comments? Can we make a
121motion to accept the policy as written? Second. All those in favor? I I opposed or stayain policy carries. And number five is curricular exemptions. Does anyone have any questions, concerns, or comments? I do. I I kind of like to see if we could table this for another meeting. Um I'm just concerned with some of the curricular aspects that are in our health program. So, I just would wonder if we could look at that at our curriculum meeting um and then come back to the full board just to make sure if you look at the curriculum. Let's see. [Music] The curriculum that's on our Yes, it's on the it's still up on the website if anybody wanted to look at it. But I just have some issues. I just want to make sure that we're um
122we're dotting the eyes on curriculum first and then come to the left. That's fine by me. Motion motion to table. [Music] Um in favor I opposed or abstain motion is carried to [Music] oh that's a good question. Okay. No, but thank you for asking. Okay. The last policy that we have on the agenda today is parent teacher communications and um I would like to have that tabled uh until we can get some clarification from council on how we should proceed on that. Second. Um all those in favor I abstain. Okay. Motion carries. So the um curricular and the parent teacher communication will come back um in the next next. Very good. All right. Thank you so much Nicole and your committee. Um Mike financing you to say enjoy the book. Uh there's a lot of
123reading and you know pledge calculator. Uh I just I just want to say thank you. It's it is a you know I get praise for for being on the subcommittee and you know but Dr. Miller is leads the charge. He produces excellent work. every year gets better and Mark's doing a phenomenal job and every step of the way it just it just evolves and just keeps improving. Um, so I just want to say thank you. That's pretty much my update. Yeah. And also not to diminish the hours and time that goes into it between, you know, the subcommittee and everyone else realize that, but it never ends. No. Um are there any reports? Um we were here for are doing our budget meeting for the last PTO meeting but they are doing their boost program
124um which is how have the kids doing kind of like what they do with jump rope for heart but it's to raise money for PTO. So hopefully everybody will get involved in that. It's a huge undertaking. there's PDF PBX um component to it. So, it's a great thing for the kids as well. So, hopefully and the other thing that I like about it is that there there needs to be there's something that the kids have to do. So, they're going and then they're they're also going to be rewarded. there's going to be um you know prizes and parties and you know all this other stuff but they're I I don't know if they're walking or running but they're actually doing something and you know it's just you know pet peeve of mine that you know
125money you know and just I just I think they're learning valuable lessons as well in that um you know they're they're doing this altruistically to help all the students. So I thank Amanda The community has been brave about donating gift certificates and things to so and oftentimes fundraisers or individual clubs or sports. The students are engaged in a full schoolwide community building activity which also is is a very rewarding experience students to participate in. Without further ado, I make a motion at 8:22 to adjourn this second. Second. All those in favor? I hear motion carries. have eight.