001Roll call. We can start with Joe, please. Joe Manisovich, Stephie Miller, Debbie Sherman, Michael Cusa, Shelby, Steve, Vinnie Candella. All right, we're all gang's all here. Um, any amendments to the agenda from anyone? Hearing none. Um December 13th board of education minutes. Motion to approve the December 13th board of education minutes. Second. All those in favor. Are there any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed or abstain? That wasn't intended. Okay. Did you get that clear? Mike. Um motion carries. Thank you. What? Mike and Shel. Oh, Mike and Shel. Okay. Um anybody here to speak to the board? Okay. Uh, audiences, board correspondents, and communication. Mike, anything to you? Nothing. All right. So, we hit the OS and MS schedule recommendations. We need that. Close the door. Maybe. Um, do you want to go first,
002Silia, or did you guys flip a coin or make a difference? [Music] [Laughter] We have some germs going to fly around through the high school right now. Yeah, you can say it back there. Can they hear on the screen? It's Yeah. So they can just hear it on the computer. Hello. You're not gonna hear it. You're not. So, uh, Dr. Miller had said not to present anything, but just to open the floor if you have any questions for me about the revisions to the Oxford Middle School schedule next year. Can you just give an overview for the board members who weren't at the curriculum meeting yesterday? Just Okay. Yeah. Kind of like your what's changed, you know, what I think it's important for them to know how and Okay. And PLC's are going to be
003structured and then Right. So, um, for us, the high school's looking to make more of a wholesale switch. For us, it's just some tweaks and revisions to our schedule. And we noticed some problems of practice uh around the areas of SRBI equity when it came to students uh being able to have electives and also um we noticed a a problem with practice around the flex time period uh that it wasn't really being used it's not really being used effectively. And we also have this wit time that we want to structure more effectively. So in essence, our revisions are to we're going to add a period into the school day and that's going to create equity so that every student gets a wit and then we're going to move unified arts to a an AB schedule
004so that they meet every other day. What I explained to the subcommittee last night is right now music drives our schedule because band meets every day, chorus meets every day and we think that we can still achieve and maximize our music department, but those will move to being every other day so that students could then take other unified arts classes. Because if you were to look at, you know, we had a student A and a student B in here. Right now, if you take band, band is every day, and you're not able to take art or STEM or PE, especially if you take Spanish as a seventh or eighth grader, that is your day, and you don't see any unified arts electives. So, we want to be able to open that up for students. The
005current width structure is that not all students get a width. So we want to purposefully redesign that so that it's every student gets it. It has a curriculum. It's highly structured. Um I don't have my prop of the book. Do you have a prop? Oh, look at this. Like Yeah. Okay. So we've been reading That's a good assistant. She sure is. Um, so we've been reading this quote and pie. So WIN stands for whatever I need and WIT is whatever it takes. There's an acronym, you know, for everything and every school has a different acronym, but that book essentially is helping us to really design WIT so that it's purposeful and structured and gives every student what they need to grow and achieve. in order to have another period in the day. We looked at
006that flex period at the end of the day and decided I was even today I stood out in the hallway and watched just watched what was happening and that 20 minutes could be used so much better. So we are going to shift that flex absorb it into the school day and students will have a five minute home room attached to a period and then we'll gain instructional minutes. Um this year students have 280 minutes of instructional time. Next year they'll have 300 minutes with incorporating the flex time into the school day. So really, it's some tweaks of a good foundational schedule. And and in in adding one more period, we're also able to add PLC time for teachers to collaborate to have parent meetings to hold PPTs, 504s, data meetings, um meet with SRBI, meet
007with the support staff because right now we beg, borrow, and steal time to do all of that. We don't have any concentrated time. And the middle school model that we have is a teaming model. And when you team, the whole point of having a team is that team takes and breaks down a class, the you know the seventh grade class into two different parts and you really get to know that group of kids and you meet about them and you talk about them and you're cohesive about them. And right now we don't have that time built in to be able to do that. So that will be part of the revision. So that's about it in a nutshell. I don't know from there if you have more specific questions for me. Anybody have questions? Um
008just one last thing because this was this isn't a change and it's um uh can you explain about the add-on is that was very important for us to understand last night that the add-on to P school that's going to allow the teachers in the PLC's to structure. Oh yes. So we've been working with um a couple of middle schools that are high performing. One is Jockey Hollow Middle School in Monroe and the principal there, Julia, she talked to us about something called adaptive scheduler. And what adaptive scheduler allows you to do, it's an add-on to P school. It allows teachers a week in advance. So they would use a PLC to do this, right? in a week in advance um they could request students to come to their wit. So if say there was an
009algebra one test, eight students didn't do well that and that was on a Thursday, they have the PLC on a Friday that as they plan the next week of wit, they can request those eight students to be in their wit so they can do review and they can work with them on the deficits right there with the content of what happened. Similarly, the math interventionist could use the adaptiveuler to schedule students. reading interventionist, the counselor, all sorts of things. But it will be that that built-in time to give students what they need. Thank you. Yeah, I thought that was important, you know, to understand that it's it's going to be structured and there's going to have these opportunities for the kids to and for the kids for enrichment as well, right? Um so, thank you.
010Um any questions on the middle school schedule or any clarification? Go ahead, Mike. And it might be that I miss the detail. Um, but for the timing for ELA and math from the current versus proposed, is it the same amount of time for ELA and math? Each class will be 50 minutes long. Right now, they're currently 56 minutes. And when we did our study of the top performing middle schools in the state, it was so fascinating that most of them had 43 minute periods. So, it's really much more about the quality of what you do in those minutes. And I'm hoping that's what we're able to capture when we have teachers really digging into data and talking about instruction week to week that you maximize those 50 minutes that you have with those kids every
011day. All right. Anybody else? Seeing none, do you want to make one motion at the end? Let's do one for each. You want to do one for each? Okay. Motion to approve the um Oxford Middle School schedule changes as presented by the administrator administration and the scheduling committee. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I opposed or abstain? Schedule carries. Thank you. Can I just I say I I just want to say thank you to both schools for um coming to so many of the curriculum meetings and continuously accepting questions and dialogue and going back and forth with with us. And yeah, we asked a lot of questions and you explained and Sylvia was great. She gave me a manual on PLC. So, I'm going to scan it and send it to the board
012members just in case anybody wanted to really know because that was a big thing for us when we were going through it. So, I just wanted to say thank you for spending the time with us and it was appreciated and answered a lot of questions. Thank you. Okay, Anthony. Next. Okay, so I am pleased to present to you tonight the recommendation from our schedule committee. Uh before I get to that, though I know you could read it, the uh I want to explain what we currently have and how the school operates at at the high school. So on Mondays and on Thursdays and Fridays, students have an eight day traditional set of classes. So eight eight classes each day, traditional set, 43 minutes each, 27 minutes of passing between all those classes. Um on Tuesdays
013and Wednesdays, they have a AB block. They have the first four classes on Tuesday roughly 80 minutes and they have classes five, six, seven and eight on Wednesday roughly 80 minutes. That's also when we have our high school advisory period which is important. I I believe it's even in statute certainly NASCA wants us to have that and it is a valuable period of time for our kids. So we have a very uh unusual schedule in that we have tra 8 period traditional and block in the same week. I believe that's the schedule they've had since they opened the building. So our schedule committee this year uh I tked them first uh to do no harm. We call it the hippocratic oath. Uh in other words, we're going to take a look at what's out there,
014but we want to make sure if we were to recommend something that it had to be better than what we currently have. When I say better, I mean better for our students. In other words, it's going to help us help our students achieve more. The um second thing is we wanted to the best of our um ability base our recommendations on research. So we did research to determine gee is there a schedule that we could simply implement that would automatically increase student academic outcomes in the classroom and on standard advised test. Research says there is no such thing. Well, we said, "Well, what should we do now?" Uh, and the idea was we should take a look at the top performing high schools in the state of Connecticut and see, is there a schedule that
015is more commonly used than others? Of course, there wasn't. It was split 50/50 between an AB block and eight drop two traditional. So, those were the two we ended up looking at. An eight drop two traditional would be like you take our Monday with eight classes, but instead of having all eight on that day, you have your first six and you drop seven and eight. they don't need that. Tuesday comes along, you start with class seven and eight and do seven, eight, one, two, three, four, and so you get six classes each day. There are benefits to that, but there's also a lot of drawback. So, as as we went through this, we wanted to uh see schools that had these types of schedules. So, we went and visited uh Fairfield MLO High School, which
016is a top performing school in the state of Connecticut, who does the AB block. One of my students parents teachers there. uh she came down was a part of the teacher cadre with our teachers and they were great explaining the benefits. The big thing that drew us to this school is the the principal told me because I didn't notice that Adam I just emailed him and said hey uh I'm researching can you share your schedule with me? He's like yeah well come down and meet with us too. Uh he said the teachers would never go back. Uh and so that drew us to say well you know okay we're interested. We left that school we thought this is it. this is the schedule we're going to use and we went to New Town to see
017their eight drop too and then they we left saying this is it this is the schedule we want to use and we they were great things for both with the rotation we had the benefit of not having the same class first thing in the morning or during the lunch wave where it gets interrupted the drawbacks to that is trying to schedule um making use of staff members from other parts of the district that don't rotate like related services uh stress levels of kids. What day is it? What homework do I have today? What, you know, what classes aren't meeting? Whatever. So, we went through it. We had a rubric. We we and we we sat down as a as a group and scored out benefits, the drawbacks each, and we, you know, unanimously I recommend
018ABY because of a variety of of reasons including uh workload, homework load, but most importantly, the quality of time that the teachers have with the kids and That was something that all of the folks at Fairfield had had said to us. quality of time matters and it I believe you know if you look at John Hattie's research and he's a um teacher efficacy collective nature uh the most effective thing for uh impacting students and so if we can gather that efficacy if we all believe that this group time that we have together matters uh with the kids and make effective use of that and I had kids when I was subbing and say Mr. don't go to the block. My butt hurts after 65 minutes of sitting here. So, you know, we're not using the
019block, right? If that's the case, we should be moving you around and going from one thing to another. So, the bottom line was that we thought that this is going to be the most impactful way for us to improve the academic uh culture of our building as we as we strive to make major changes to this uh building. Student centered, academically focused uh and really researchbased in how we interact with the kids. Now, the biggest drawback for us was the use of this time. You know, how can we ensure that we're going to productively make use of these large blocks of time even though we've had it twice a week over the many years and now we're going to have it every other day and we have to make sure that we're not lose kids.
020We're going to keep them interested and motivated. And so that's one of the benefits of starting this now is we can get people in to do PD now this year uh and and not have to wait for a couple of days before the school year starts to give folks and uh the people from Fairfield wonderful said they'll come you know my world language teacher will come and talk to science teacher will come and talk to your science teacher that's some of the most potent powerful PD you can give people uh then for me uh you know asking for a leap of fa such a large change for the school. I need to be able to provide for you some evidence that that things are going to be going well and we're going to do this
021uh so properly properly. So over the course of the first market period next year we're going to be looking at a time management study that we'll conduct of what are teachers doing each day with their blocks. Um having people again teacher ethics talk this is what I have been doing. I like this model. We have some visuals for the staff of how you can break down your 45 minutes into different uh sections and whatnot. Uh we're ready to get moving because we want to start talking about teaching, make that a part of our professional culture. Um that's my Thank you. Um questions for Anthony here. I just want to thank you Mr. ever for me with me today and addressing those questions that we had and you know entrusting you with that and and getting
022those checks and the temperature to water every few months or where this goes was was reassuring. So, thank you very much for let me clarifying those. Thank you. And then uh just the last um point and I don't know if if you want to make it how uh Robert how we were talking about looking into um getting a a cohesive um start time and end time to to help you know with the schedules that they created and then possibly um employee sharing. There were a lot of factors that went into why the schools were looking at a new schedule. One of the criteria that I was looking at from a district level was the ability for us to share staff because as we are a smaller school in a smaller district with a smaller high
023school, we are not fulfilling or filling all of our classes with enrollment that we need to to have. So are there any teachers that are not a fully maxed schedule that we theoretically could share with the middle school or vice versa? In order to do that, we need two schools that are pretty much on the same type of schedule. One of the the the flexibilities that you we have now with both schools having AB rotation, high school AB for all classes, middle school AB for um the specials is that those will now be in the same cycle. The second piece to that is if we're able to look at school start time and combining the same runs with the middle school and high school in the same way that we do with Quaker Farms and
024Great Oak and the way that we used to do here having students drop off in one building then transport it to the next building. If we could do the same type of pattern with the high school, we'd go from a three tier to a two-tier system which theoretically would be a savings for the budget. Um, we would be able to start high school start times a little bit later and end a little bit later in in the day. Have the middle school start a little bit earlier than it currently is and they end a little bit earlier. Tighten up the middle the elementary schools, have them start a little bit earlier as well and end earlier. Benefit of that is now we don't have elementary school students walking home in the dark. And then if
025we have the middle school and the high school on the same time allows the flexibility with the AB rotation of having teachers be able to get from one school to another without having two different start times. So right now if we try to split staff and they start the day at 7:30 at the high school at 7:20 and they have the end of the day at the middle school. Well, they're working a longer day than all the other teachers. But if the two schools are in the same start and end time, it allows us to flex staff from one school to the other. Great. Thank you. Um, any further [Music] questions? No. Okay, go. Motion to approve the OS schedule changes as presented by the administration and the scheduling committee. Second. Any further discussion aside
026from I'll reiterate what Deb said. Thank you so much for the work that you did with your committees and and coming to to um in front of our committees as well. And all those in favor I opposed or abstain. Motion carries. And I'd like to take a moment to thank both um the administration um all three of you here tonight and your committees that put a lot of time and effort into beginning to study this work dating back to last year and then again this fall in the winter and you all did a very positive result. So thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay. Thank you so much. Um you're free to go. I know you want I know you want to hear us. Oh, okay. Um, all the classes. So, next on our agenda
027is pool and Quaker Farm School playground RFP awards. Yes. So, in our capital improvement plan, the town funded two projects for us this year. One was the repairs to the high school pool which included relining the pool and a new diving board. We split that project into two different phases. The diving board was done earlier in this summer. So that would be it ready before the school summer the the boys the girls swim season started in the fall. Correct. And that was done on time. And the second component was the relining the pool and the floor and all the other components of the pool project that would be done later in the spring. The second capital project that was funded was replacement to the playground at Quaker Farms which is approximately 24 years old. Both
028those bids went out. Um the bids results came back in. The pool um is under budget between the new RP with the older um diving board. The two projects together um needed to be under $250,000. It it hit that mark. The playground is about 7 $8,000 above what the town funded for. Both um projects received one bid. One bidder um came in. There wasn't an option to really choose from. If the board chooses, we can go out to bid a second time for the playground or my recommendation would be to have a recommendation to the board of selectman to fund both projects and take the excess money from the pool project and allocate it to the playground. Sense. Um I I'll start with the the pool question. Uh I mean it's obviously a ton of
029work for $200,000 that needs to be done. Um is is what they are replacing and fixing is that what's considered. So how how old is the school? 12 I mean the school and the school 12 years seven 8 n 10 11 12 no nine um no. Oh, Alex was a class of 12. 10987. Okay, that makes more sense. Okay. So I'm just saying is it was it normal wear and tear and that that so it's expected to you know in another 12 years it's normal wear and tear. Okay. So there's there's nothing because I know that in the beginning there were some things about how to maintain the school you know how to maintain the pool is checked on a weekly basis. There's company that comes in and tests the water I think once or
030twice a week throughout the entire year. It's we did have issues earlier in the year that that would impact it. Um could we do a little bit better at preventative maintenance possibly and we'll take a look at that. Um but this is normal wear and tear on the on the pool itself. And and how long when would you expect it to start and how long will it disrupt the the world? The work will start after the boys swimming season later in the spring. And um I don't know how long the project is actually going to take but it's not going to impact high school athletics. Okay. It says five to seven weeks. Okay. I don't see that part. Thank you. Um, and then for the Any other pool questions from anyone? Um, so then on
031the playground, um, you know, again, I don't know why it just seems like a lot of money. Now, this there's two playgrounds at Quaker Farms. You So, is this the one are is it the one if you're looking at the school that's to the left or the right that we're replacing? Should be the kind the kindergarten. So, the kindergarten. Okay. That was the one that has like the train or town garage. Okay. So then that the other one is is um staying and so this is this is replacing that. And you know the only point that I would like to make for the record is that we have not forgotten Great Oak Elementary School and the fact that um you know these kids want and deserve to have swings. I mean they're eight, nine years
032old and they should have swings especially since they're asking for it. the kids are. Um so ju just to know that, you know, we're not, you know, making Quaker Farms the Taj Mahal of of and forgetting about the We have two options with with um Great Oak. One is to and we're trying to find out what a quote would be to move the the older swing set unit from here from this building that they had over to Great Oak. Um that's option number one, which might be cheaper than purchasing a brand new set of swings over there. We did um do a walkthrough with Heath um earlier in the um summer in the fall to identify where it could go. Yeah, that's the other issue. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, I just I just wanted that
033that known. Um excuse me. Any questions on the Oh, and and for for this for just so that the the board knows. So, these were two things in the capital plan that the board of finance has agreed to fund, which is the pool repairs and the and the playground, right? We had given them a long list of capital improvement plans for this year and these are the only two project that they funded for this fiscal year. Right. Right. Um so any questions on the playground RFP or anything about it? All right. Um so we need to we do a vote to approve you should you should approve that these um bids be passed on to the board of selectment. Okay. Do you want to sure that motion to approve the bid to Connecticut Custom Aquatics
034in the amount of $198,970 for pool Oxford High School Pool Repair? Second. Are we not We're going to do two separate. Okay. Uh any further discussion? All those in favor? I oppose or abstain. All right. Playground. Uh that was the pool pass pool. Okay. Now playground. Where's the motion to approve the bid proposal for Premier Play Park and Play in the amount of 797 $74,890 for the Quaker Farms um playground [Music] we had? And just for the record, the high school was built in 2007. Okay, thank you. Was built but when did it occupy? Didn't we? I think it was a year. Or is that when we occupied it? Um anyway, um all those in favor I opposed or abstain. Okay. Passes. Playground passes. All right. And I'd also like to thank Anthony for getting
035that those projects started initially back when he was superintendent. So, thank you. You're doing a lot, Anthony. Thank you, Anthony. Thank you, Anthony. Um okay, moving along to the report of superintendent. Okay, I'm going to take a few minutes to give you a a in-person update on what took place with the middle school. Um, starting on um around five o'clock on December 25th, um the alarm to the building went off of the fire. Um men went to the building to discover that the sprinkler um head in the main office was dispelling water. Um so they called um George and George met them there um and they immediately discovered that there was water that had um not only um come out of the sprinkler head and what flooded the main office but had flooded the main
036lobby um and then went into the nurse's office into the hallway to other hallways classroom and then the water just had nowhere else to go. So they went down and it went down to the library. Within about 10 minutes, they had the water shut off. Within about 10 to 12 minutes of the entire incident starting, they had the water shut off and um thankfully the firemen actually a dozen of them were there and they pushed the water out of the building. The fact that they were able to get the water out of the school so fast is what really saved us. If this was the middle of an ice storm or a snowstorm, it took another 10 minutes to get there. It would have been that much more water that they had to get out.
037Um, when I first got to, I got alerted around 5:15, 5:20 that the firemen were there. I was there within 10, 15 minutes. Um, at that point, I was not too sure if we're going to open school the following week. Um, if this had been a regular weekend, we would have been in a lot of trouble. We would not have been able to open school the next day. In fact, when I called Stephanie on on Christmas, I said, "I'm sorry to bother you on Christmas, but you need to know what's happening." And I did the same thing for Sylvia. I was standing in the library like in a puddle of water at the time. The what the crazy part is the area that got the most water was the library. That's where it all rushed
038to. Thankfully, the water went, if you're familiar with the the library, there's a side with a set of desks and the circulation table and then one side with all the bookshelves. It was the side that had no bookshelves that got all the water. There's one bookshelf that had water on top and a few books that had w some water. But in terms of where the water could have come down, we got lucky there. The other piece that we got lucky is most of the furniture at the middle school is on wheels and the cop machine's on wheels. So what was sitting in the water was the wheels, not the actual desk, not the tables, not the cop machine. So that actually saved us as well. The um through the communication with the um fire chief
039um we got a high quality restoration company um out um he was on site with us by 6:30 6:45. Um we toured the building together um and Mike Dascino um was with me about that point as well. Um, we looked at every single room, looked at everything that had been impacted, did a quick assessment as to what the scope would need to be in order for them to both remediate, in other words, um, get the place dry um, by um, dehumidifiers, um, using mold killers and milder cleaner sprayers um, in different areas, and then getting inside of the walls to make sure that there wasn't water sitting in in in the walls. And if you have water damage, if you leave it for 24 to 48 hours, that's when there's a risk of mold. So
040the the main objective was to get the place dry within 48 hours. By 8:30 the next morning, so this was on the 26th, so this is not even 24 hours after that it started. They were on site and they were drying the building and they were spraying down the building. So that's what saved um a a long process of permanent damage to the building from a health standpoint. The fact that we're able to get a company there and actively restored within that first day, within the first 24 hours. So by by later in the day, everything was dry because we had so much stuff there. They even they went through all the the moldings on the floor, pulled that out. Um there is one wall in the library that has um more physical damage that
041we'll probably have to um replace some of the the um sheetrock and some of the um insulation within the wall itself because that you can see the damage on the paint. But they um assess the floor, they assess the walls, they assess the bookshelves. Um in the main office the carpet needs to be replaced in the main office. the um bookshelf um and the cabinetry where a phone and a computer sit has to be um replaced. The bench in the main office needs to be replaced. There are two comfortable blue chairs that also need to be replaced. Um and as I said, the carpeting in the main office. Um and then and then one wall. That's pretty much the the permanent damage that the building took. Some of that stuff is going to take several
042months to if not longer in order to get the supplies to get those repaired. But other than that, the building was able to be reopened on time because we were able to get it um actively worked on in such a short period of time. That's what really saved us in this work. A the firemen were there so quickly to push the water out. Yeah. And that by the next morning, we were actively on site to get it dry and to re remediate the building. Yeah. Um now, does this does this fall under insurance, the town or us or what? It's going to fall under their insurance. Um the our insurance company's going to have to determine whether or not they want to go after the um building the architects or not. Um and then whether
043or not we have a claim to any of the financial recourse to that or not. Essentially what took place is the sprinkler head that froze is in the main office that is directly underneath this the the roof of the building. So there's not a second floor above there. Um, as you recall that weekend it was um close to 0 degrees with the windchill. Um, by that point Sunday night had been two plus days of really cold, bitterly cold wind. We believe either one of two things took place in the ceiling there. one, there could have been a hole that um was just enough that the wind chill the wind came in and dropped the temperature within that pocketed um ceiling, just enough to freeze that pipe, which caused the sprinkler head to freeze, which caused
044the water to go. That's one theory. The other theory is that there just was not enough insulation in that um pipe um to absorb the the wind and the cold in that that space in the building. Um, if we recall, there's not a lot of areas in the building that is directly above um has an exposed part of the roof like that. Um, there's two or three other areas in the building that could have the same type of challenge and we're going to use some infrared sensors and see if there's any way to be proactive and what else we can do in those areas to prevent it from happening again. Yeah, especially since January and February are coming up, right? even though we had 70 degree weather a couple of days ago for Joe, but
045you know, it's going to get cold. Um, so, so we feel pretty confident that with the with the, you know, chilly weather that's coming up that we'll be able to circumvent this so that doesn't happen again or even if it's by setting the temperatures at a different that's the plan. So now that we know that there's a possibility this is this could occur that we will be proactive on on a general weekday. It's not really a big concern because you've got the temperature in that building that's raised during the day. It's a long weekend. It's a holiday. It's a it's a vacation. We don't have anybody in the building that you typically would drop the temperature to save electrical or energy costs. Um this building would be um propane. Um so in this case we
046would purposely not set the temperature in that area of the building knowing that that is prone to it and a lower temperature would keep it a little bit higher. Okay. Does anybody have questions for Rob about that incident or need any further explanation? Oh go ahead. Mike um have we thought about from a you know just to protect ourselves looking at sensors. Uh I know in in my server rooms we have motion or uh u moisture sensors. So I I I mean it wouldn't be cost- effective to have it everywhere. But our you know for any of the areas that we are concerned you know especially for long weekends and things like that. It it might you know might be worth it to for us to look into. I've used that in server rooms too.
047Um it could be something that we could jur to put in that type of a a spot. We could take a look at it's a good idea. Anybody else? Um, is it possible that we could maybe get letters of appreciation or certificates for the first responders for such a quick I mean it seems like their actions prevented a lot of damage. So, being that it was a holiday, they sent cookies. Yeah. Yeah. From from what I understand, they went above and beyond the call of duty. Typically, they wouldn't have done what they did of getting the water out water. That's a good idea. Joe, I'm going to put you in charge of um what is that called? Sunshine. because you are our sunshine. Any other questions with that? Um I had mentioned the um springs
048at at Great Oaks. I'm not going to address that again now, but we are going to take a look at that. Um exciting news. I know this was had been brought forward um through audience of citizens back at the end of November, beginning December about the spring musical, whether or not we're going to fund it, whether or not there'd be a director. We are still working. We're close to theou. I've been discussing with the teachers association. I think we're close to having an agreement that I'll bring to you. Um but we also have somebody that signed on and is agreed to be the director of the musical and also has um people that are in position now for the other positions as well. So there have been concern that we wouldn't be able to staff
049it and we are fully staffed now to get the musical started for the musical as of this week. So that's pretty exciting. Great. That's great. And I know that the high school musical has also started. Um the um actors and actresses have all been um told who the um the parts that they are playing um the stage and the leing and they've all been assigned parts as well. They did their reading of it the um musical last week. So they have started that as well. So I believe it's sometime in March. I don't have the dates in front of me but I believe that the sometime mid-Marchch. Oh March. What is March? I I think it's I think it's March. sometime in that not the frame. And speaking of that, what's the play? It's um
0509 to5 9 to5. 9 to5. Oh, 9 to5. The Dolly Parton one. Jane. Yeah. Um speaking of the high school, um the high school um students have the traditional right of passage next week, which are midterms. All right. Um they are right now worked with their teachers getting ready for the exams. They'll go on a modified schedule um where students will be in school on the days that they are taking the assessment. it's a longer block of time that they are more of a block period block schedule for the scheduling. Um so that is next week at the high school and are all all the assessments are common. So you know the midterms are you know so you have to give them all at once. So yes every subject area that says midterm. Thanks Anthony.
051I'm excited to announce that Gre Oak Elementary School um received a distinction from the state of Connecticut as a school of distinction. It's they are one of 14 schools in the state that got awarded it this year. It's um established by a set of criteria um that the state looks at everything from ESPback to attendance to physical education. Um this is school accountability report. Um and um this is the first time that I've been here that any of our schools have been um awarded this um distinction. So um I allowed Heath to publicize it in his newsletter last Friday. I wanted him to get out in front of it first and and notify his staff and community first and then I'll follow up with the um announcement in my newsletter this week and we'll do
052a press release. But I wanted him to have the first opportunity to to publicize that first. That was done on Friday last week. So I'm excited. And it's um at the same time um there's always room for growth and when you take a look at our assessment scores um we are very proud of um the students that have achieved and the school district shows us that we have students that are achieving a high level and that's kudos to the students and the teachers. Um at the same time we still have students that are below um proficient where we want them to be and I am not going to be satisfied. I don't think our teachers can be satisfied until every single one of our students are performing above um mastery. And that's what our goal
053is that to work on towards. Yeah. Great. Um and speaking of that, speaking of working towards mastery, um today was the second cohort um that the second day of this um science of reading cohort that our district team attended. And once again, that initiative is focused on um K3 literacy uh and focusing on developing a new plan and moving the district forward around the contents of science of reading. We view this as an opportunity not just to look at K3 but making a K12 approach to literacy because with our district um a we know that our students are not performing at the levels that we want them to do across the board um especially at the secondary level where there's room for improvement there are and we know that if we um have to address
054um literacy in the perspective of we've been teaching it a certain way for a while now but it hasn't yielded us the results that we need it to do and the scientist the science of reading and the research has told us we need to do X well we need to address how we're teaching literacy K3 but at the same time that tells us there's a pocket of students above K3 that have gone through our literacy instruction that might not have the instruction that they should have had um based upon the research. So what do we need to do from a secondary perspective to fill those gaps for those skills and those competencies that they might not have gotten um earlier on. So, um, while the state is focusing the science of reading on K3, we
055view this as a K12, um, approach, actually a pre-K12 approach, and, um, we've got staff, administrators, and teachers K12 that are participating, um, in this cohort. So, I'm excited about it. We made a lot of progress again today. Um, in between the state um, sessions, we also do an online module. Um, so the second module will be in February. and we have been assigned a coach which is a former um retired superintendent and a literacy um expert that is guiding our team. So that those two individuals are with our team um um in December. They came in and worked with us, our leadership team of the cohort. And they'll be back with us again either next week, the following week. And part of that will involve coming in and coaching us, doing some observations in
056classrooms to observe um how we're doing things in the schools. Um, and we've also been paired with another district. It's called an affinity group. Um, the district that we're paired with is New Haven. So, um, the way the day was constructed today, there is a national speaker in the morning and then the afternoon we work in collaboration with our affinity group. So, I'm excited with the work that we're doing. Um, I think that at the end of this, it's not about a specific program. It's about changing our pedagogy on how we approach um, literacy um, and reading instruction in the district. So, I'm excited that the state accepted us into this. Um, now that we've gone to two of these sessions and we're working with our um coach, I'm very um excited for the what's
057what's coming next. So, when when is that ending? End of the school year. Oh, so it's for this whole school year. And then how do you anticipate? So, then would there be some kind of a report written or something brought to the board to just give us a idea of what you're where where you're going? I don't know that there'll be an actual physical report that will be developed. One of the actual items that will be created probably sometime in February be actually will be our plan of action will be a set of goals and action items which will be actually be able to present to you before the end of the year. Probably sometime in March once we're we're done with that. Maybe even as late as the end of February. Um and then
058we'll be able to give you updates throughout the the process. Yeah, it's exciting. Yeah. Thank you. Um anything else in your report? That's it. Um, so my report will be, you know, fairly simple. Um, happy new year to everyone. So happy to be back with you guys. Um, we have hard to believe that the half the year is already over. Feel like we have a ton of work still to do, especially with budget season coming up and I'd like to congratulate Great Oak Elementary School on that distinction. I mean, that's it's wonderful when our schools get recognized for the hard work that they're doing. So, congratulations to Great Oak Elementary School. And especially I think one of the highest scores was in math which is fantastic because we were expecting you know worse with implementing
059a new math program. So so um kudos to the staff on that. Um and that's it. So uh subcommittee reports. Joe, anything aside from our I keep stealing your thunder. So I'm sorry. Yeah, it's okay. Right. And speaking of facilities, I I received an actual memo from the town today letting us know that by the 26 or 27th of January, we owe them our our capital improvement plan. Oh. So, we're going to need you to do that quickly. Is it usually that January? Normally, it's it's after January that we provided to them. So, I think we can just send them what we send. We didn't get funded anyway. Just take out the pool. So the plan is we will I will have that we'll update it and we'll share that with the board at our
060next board meeting and that's what we'll end up providing to them. We won't get anything anyway. Yeah, just for a year. All right, Deb curriculum. Curriculum. Um first of all, I just I would really would like to thank our committee for spending as much time as we did with the schedules. Um it it was a lot and then we asked some sometimes some unpopular questions but I think that um everybody was great about getting us the answers and and cooperating and I I think that where we are now is a good good starting. It's not going to be perfect. We all have to know that we're going to have tweaks but I think we were I was pleased that we all worked so well together. So I just wanted to say thank you. We have
061second reads for the um high school music courses. There's the piano and guitar, advanced music technology concepts, beginning band instrument, and then music and theater proposals. They were a first read at last meeting, second reading read tonight. So, I don't know if anybody had any questions. Anybody have any questions? So, so I can I make them to do them individually? I was just going to do them all at one time. especially they're all in the same content, right? So, I was going to motion to approve the Oxford High School music proposals. Um, I think that's enough, right? Yeah. Second, second. Um, any further questions on that? All those in favor? I oppose or abstain. That carries. And we have another curriculum meeting on the 23rd um which we have um Mrs. thought of bringing us
062some curriculum to go over. So, we'll have another update for you at the next meeting and we'll have an update probably on the changes to the website. Yeah, that'll all that should be all part of that process. And that's all I have. Bye, Anthony. Thank you. Bye, Anthony. Thank you. Feel better. Uh policy. Oh, you were done, right? I was done. Okay. Policy. All right. We have two policies down for a second read. The first one is meal charging. The second is fundraising. Um just to refresh your recollection, uh the meal charging policy is because the federal money has dried up. So now students are paying for their meals once again. The policy highlights that no child will be refused lunch or shamed for not having enough money on their account. The policy outlines the
063steps that the district will follow to pursue a delinquent debt. and all the actions taken to collect the funds focus on interaction with the parents or the guardian not the student itself. So that's um the meal charging policy. Does anybody have any questions? No. Okay. Want to do the motion? You can do it. Motion to approve the meal charging policy is read. Second. All those in favor or abstain? Motion carries. All right. And then the next uh for a second read is the fundraising policy. As you may recall, there were some questions that came up regarding what would be an appropriate sponsorship for advertising dollars in the district. We had no model policy to work off of from Shipment and Goodwin. So, we took a look at sample language from a neighboring district and we
064drafted this policy which recognizes the important role that parents and organizations play in supplementing the funding related to school activities for the betterment of the district. But it also clearly states that sponsorships by purveyors of products or services detrimental to the well-being of the Oxford public school students is unacceptable. So, um, we are not going to be accepting sponsorships from businesses that sell alcohol, tobacco, or, um, whose primary business sells sexual products or services. So, any questions about the fundraising policy? Thank you for doing that because that, you know, it's so much easier when you have a policy then there's less questions. Correct. So, but Joe looks like he's thinking I I just was wondering about should we include marijuana tobacco products. I think it says including but not limited to. Awesome. Other stuff came
065up. I thought the same. Yeah, we purposely put that language but it's included but not good. Yeah, it's a good point. So, I'm going to make a motion to approve the fundraising policy as written. Second. All those in favor? I opposed or abstain. Motion carries. And a quick question to Robert. So when these policies do get um approved at the board level, what's the next step? Do you do you send them out to the administrators and say just so that you know what how does that work? In most cases, I let the administrative team know. In this case, for these two policies, there's an implication that goes beyond just what the administrators need to know. So, I plan to highlight these in the upcoming newsletter so that all parents and staff see it. Okay. Um,
066I also plan on sending a memo to the PTO and the the booster club so that they are aware because they do the primary fundraising on behalf of the schools that want them to know explicitly this is the new policy that's in place now that they should then communicate this with their parents. Yeah. So then bottom line any policies that we that we approve they do go to whoever needs to know about them and it's expected that the staff would you know look things up or understand or know you know what the policies are. I also have um six policies that I want you to take a look at at your leisure. Um they're down for a first read tonight and I'll just briefly highlight what each one is in case you have any questions.
067The first one is child child child abuse, neglect or sexual assault reporting. Um, and this policy was revised to reflect section five of the public act um 22-87 which makes changes to the distribution requirements for the board of ed written policy for mandatory reporting by school employees of s suspected uh child abuse or neglect. The policy also reflects mandatory training provided by DCF required to be completed by all school employees. Um the next policy is food allergies andor um diabetes. That policy highlights the importance of having a plan in place for those students at risk of extreme allergies or complications pertaining to diabetes. It also provides additional clarity around the use of um continuous glucose monitors in school. Um the third policy that we're looking at is the physical activity undirected play in student discipline.
068The policy recognizes the importance of physical activity in the regular school day and limits circumstances where undirected play can be removed as a form of discipline. Um number four is section 504 of um the ADA and this policy reflects new guidance regarding supporting students with disabilities and avoiding discriminatory use of discipline under the section 504 of the rehabilitation act. The fifth policy is curricular exemptions and the model policy was revised to include firearm safety programs and exemption from such instruction. It should be noted that our district currently does not have a firearm safety program, but the language has been included for policies um in conformance with the state law. And then lastly, we have parent teacher communications. Um, we revised the model policy to remove some outdated language and to conform with the current modes
069of communication. So, that's a lot of reading. Take take your time, go through it all, and if you have any questions, um, feel free to reach out and we'll do a second read at the next meeting. Thank you so much. And use the attachment that's in the agenda. Try not to the links, I think, take you back to shipment inside of the agenda notes there, but use the attachments that are linked in the bottom of the Oh, in the bottom. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um finance Mike into the season. Yes, it definitely is. Uh so December finance report. There were no concerns as we went through things. Um look like there's uh eight positions under current posted vacancies. Uh we discussed the athletic director position. Uh considering merging the middle school and high school
070ad positions. um looking to you know what does that mean for the position and the job description as a whole um there were some concerns over do we have enough staff to cover health and fitness classes if there's an adjustment of the number of classes being taught um I believe that's going to be still further discussion as we look to finalize that position uh posting not really posting but like what is the position that we have um we looked at the uh budget schedule that's going to be the big initiative for the next probably few months. Um Rob and his team's been doing a great job and they're continuing to do a great job. We have our first subcommittee meeting in regards to the budget this Thursday at 4 pm. Um our next f subcommittee
071meeting is the following Tuesday. I think we're possibly looking to adjust the timing just for work conflicts for myself. Um, one of the other topics brought up was IT budget having to do with Chromebooks concerns with the maintenance and how we repair them and the process and we don't have insurance at the moment, how we handle that and how we want to move forward handling that. Is there costs going to be introduced to parents or families? you know, how do we, you know, have everyone have skin in the game but not be punitive for especially for families that, you know, uh, you know, on free and reduced lunch. We're looking at the considerations for those families. um as well as uh multifamilies you know families with multiple children in the school system but there you
072know the subcommittee's belief is and and in agreement with uh you know the head of it is that there needs to be some skin in the game for you know kids to try to maintain the equipment that's given to them. So that was discussed. We discussed the transportation contract. Uh looking at a five-year deal, 6% for year one, 3% for following years. Concern is that if we go out to bid, we will be seeing almost double digit percentage increases. And uh the it's very hard to uh have multiple bids come in for that just because of the cost to get into the district. And we're just not large enough district. If it was regional, maybe there'd be something, but you know, for for one town, it's it's very hard for that. So, we're looking at
073that. Uh food service, we had the second read tonight. Um revised pricing starting on I believe it started. It's already started on 13. Um looking to add two additional positions through grants and uh yeah, that's pretty much it. Um so, the the meeting Thursday, is that Zoom or is that it's in person? It's in person. I put some money. Okay. And that is that's a regular finance meeting. This is in not the joint one. This is just our finance committee. Okay. I think the joint one was next Thursday. Okay. 19. Take care of that. I did send an invite to Jack and I heard back from him. Okay. All right. Um any liaison reports? Meeting is Thursday at 6:30. So I may or may not be able to make it depend how long our finance
074meeting. I I can say that the booster club has agreed or not the fiscal the PTO is moving forward with the fundraiser that had been brought to them back in the fall which is anticipated to bring in 15 to $20,000 um if the revenue um mirrors what they have um this company has received in other school districts. And what was it from? It's a basically the students will participate in about a two to three week process where they'll be collecting money online. People, family members, friends will sponsor them and at the elementary schools they will basically go on I think it's like 14 or 18 runs around the gym. Okay. So kind of like a walkathon or essentially. Yeah. And at the middle school it's um kind of a party. They'll there'll be several different
075activities that they'll do. Um and of those days leading up to that, there'll be character and education stuff that they participate in school. So there's some activities that are related to um behavior in school and then some of the physical activities um and then they raise the funds from soliciting money um through the process. And is that a company that does that? It's a company that does it and the the company will come in, they'll set everything up, take everything down. They facilitate that any of the technology that's needed, the online modules, everything that the students are engaged in. They do all that work [Music] and that so that actually will begin this month and the two fundraisers will take place in February. I think February 1st, I think and we haven't done this is
076brand new. This is the first one. This is brand new. One of the moms that came to one of the meetings, they do it in her school. Okay. And I think they she said they raised $25,000 and it was a K3 school. Yeah. And they raised $25,000. So we're doing all three schools. I met with um Amanda and the representative from the company and our three principles last week to talk about the details and to get this going. Okay. So there'll be some communication goes out to parents. There'll be social media stuff that I push out there. So this if it goes as it's been in other schools, it could be highly successful. they could raise a lot of money to benefit a nurse school. So be great. Just hope everybody cooperates and works well
077with them to make this successful because it can be a huge thing for the kids too. So and a lot of fun for the staff and the kids. Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's it sounds like a good combination. Um are there any other liaison reports? I don't think so. Um so hearing none, I'd like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting at 7:31. Wow. Wow. Really? We are so good. Um, all those in favor I opposed or abstain.