2022-01-11 Board of Education Regular Meeting

001Right. So, I think we're good. Right. [Music] Okay. So, we've got Jason Leonard. Oh, that's Jason. Jason. Hi, it's Joanna. Faroh. I'm I'm taking the meeting uh notes tonight. Oh, you're says Jason Leonard. Okay, Joanne. Thank you. You're welcome. And Vinnie is here. Okay. So, um, Shelly, I don't see Shel, right? Do you? No, I don't see her. So, Shel and Nicole, I think, were the only two that Oh, Shel Nicole. Okay. So, um, it's 6:32, so I'd like to call the meeting to order at 6:32. Please stand for the pledge. [Music] Roll call. Um, I'll start with the people that are on high. So that's Nicole Line McGrath. Um, Minnie called Katadella Catella. Sorry, Minnie. You nailed it. Um and that's it right now. So um roll call starting with Michael Stephanie Miller Joseph

002Tom. Okay. So the people we have absent are Steve and Shelly at this point. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Um amendments to the agenda. Audience of citizens would like to address the board. Oh I miss it. Oh went on the bottom. Sorry Linda. Just one more minute. Motion to approve the December 14th regular board of education meeting minutes. Second. All those in favor minutes are approved. Now audience. Thank you for putting that. Can you put the microphone? Happy new year everybody. Is it on? Um I didn't come to share any um additional questions, observation, causes of concern. So that's the good news. Okay. I did want to come in tonight and just comment on the meeting that I have with Dr. Dr. Miller, Mrs. Potter. And I wanted to tell the board that I appreciate the outreach.

003I felt it was a very positive meeting. I had all of my questions answered. Um, and I have a feel of we're getting back to that comfortable place of transparency and embracing the interaction with the community, which um, I think we we've missed for a while. I've been involved in other pursuits. So, can't speak to what Dr. McKinnon's tenure was like in some of the uh, superintendents we've seen come and go as interims. I grew up with, you know, Rich Canalora, Bob Martino, Frank Samuelson, and that's so that's my frame of reference, but I just want felt it was important to come back to the board, say thank you to Dr. Miller, Mrs. Potter. Um, I think we're on the right path. You know, certainly I'll continue to watch and observe and bring my questions,

004but I wanted to share that with the board as at large and make sure it was appropriately recorded in the minutes. Great. Okay. Thank you so much. Pleasure hearing from you anytime. Anybody else address like to address the board who is in the audience at this moment? So we can move on to board uh correspondence and communication. The board had email um yeah we had well I I have I have the other one that um a parent just wrote about the ice storm I believe you know and my response was that I believe Dr. Miller explained exactly what what went on that day and how you did this you know with what the weather was giving you on a minuteby minute basis. So that was just me. Um, so nothing else. Let's make sure my

005angle's okay. Okay. How's everybody doing? Good. Um so I had an opportunity uh to present a report to all of uh and what I'm going to do is I'm just going to go through and I'm going to highlight some of this report and some of the findings. Um so the beginning of um the report was kind of an overview or a summary connections in 201516 when the program began. One moment. [Music] Waiting for that screen. Are you all going to be okay if I stand over here? Okay, you can all hear me? All right. So, anyway, um starts with an overview of what it looked like at conception back in 2015 2016. And I think what I'll do is I'll just add uh if there's any part of this report um following uh questions today

006uh or if there's any lingering questions about connections I'm happy to sit down with any of you as well as to plan uh an extended visit if you'd like to go and spend some time there. Uh so some of the talking points that I want to bring you to is uh more focused on how connections has evolved over time. uh you know within the report uh you're going to find the student profiles. So really uh the students that are a part of connections now uh many of them do have designated service plans whether they be 504 or IEP service plans uh and many of the um students have presenting factors um such as anxiety, depression and mood disorders. They may have OCD, trauma history, learning disabilities, executive functioning disorder, um school avoidance and refusal, uh

007as well as low self-esteem, motivation and engagement. Uh they might be at risk for dropping out. Uh they may have high risk uh unsafe behaviors. So, um, what you're going to find is that some of these, uh, some of these issues may work alone, in isolation, or be combined. Um, currently, uh, the program is offered to students in grades 9 through 12. When we get into program recommendations, uh, as well as maybe action steps, uh, there's a talking point to what does it look like or what can we do to offer some type of therapeutic, social, and emotional support maybe at the middle school should the need present itself. We'll talk a little bit about that uh, a little later on. Um so connections uh basically when you look at the student profile and you

008go and you do uh a historical search back um and primarily I was using 504 plans and IEP um plans. What you can find is that even from an early elementary age up through middle school, many of these students were experiencing emotional dysregulation, um difficulties with focusing, organization, um sometimes attendance, um right from early elementary on. So, one of the things that we'll also talk a little bit about with recommendations is the idea that when we look at our SRBI planning and when we look at our social and emotional supports, we really do need to focus on social emotional well-being as well as executive function from an early age on. Uh the report also included operating costs and consideration. So what I did was I took all of the current staffing salaries as well as

009uh the school bus transportation line as well as the uh stipen that's offered for uh the tutorial and the line that we have for supplies and combined for a total cost of the program. And one of the things that I just want to highlight for you when you look at this total cost of the program and you think about what would we do as a district if we didn't have this program. Uh what would that look like for students that we couldn't service and that couldn't be successful in in the high school typical school day and environment. even if three of those students were students that we had to put in alternative therapeutic placements, we would exceed the total operating cost of the program. So, that's something that you do have to kind of take

010into consideration. Um, and I'm very thankful for the fact that we have the program because we can meet these needs for these students in house in our in our school. And please stop me if you have any questions along. Chase, can I ask a question? Sure. That um what operational budget you said salaries 2017 does that include your benefits or is that just base salaries that includes um the salaries? So no benefits. I did not calculate the benefits any benefits pension and social security for the professional program. Okay. Thank you. Um, one other thing that I did this afternoon in thinking about uh what we're spending on our students for um, you know, the operation of this program, you know, the per pupil expenditure here in Oxford is $18,980 per student. So, with 13 students

011that are currently in connections with three pending referrals that are going forward, uh what we look at is $19,855 per student. So, when you think about second semester as the semester where we start to see more and more referrals to connections, in fact, I received a a connections referral form from their most recent SRBISAT meeting and there are three definite referrals. paperwork is one and meetings are taking place, but there are about six other students that are on kind of like a a warning flag through SRBI. So, when you think about the cost of that per pupil expenditure line from now till the end of the year, that would likely even lower significantly more. All right, something else that I um included for you uh is the historical data. So you can take a look

012at the amount of students that were serviced within the program over time as well as the attendance and graduation rates. Now, um I also included in there a link to the annual progress report. So one of the special education annual progress report comes out yearly. It's always a year behind. So this report is the most recent report, but you're going to notice it's 1920. Um and what this report does is it it it has um 13 indicators that special education is rated on for the state of Connecticut. So one of those ratings is graduation rate for special education as a subgroup and uh our most recent annual report gives us a graduation rate of 86%. When you look at area towns, uh, their graduation rates are in the 60s and 70s for their special education

013sub. Another noteworthy thing to consider this year we were able to bring back a student from an out of district therapeutic placement as well as a student who has been school avoidant and a non-attender for the past year and a half prior to the start of the fall. That particular student also had a recommendation for an out of district placement uh through a neurossychological report and we were able to provide a program here in our town and that program's meeting question. So, um I don't think you would know this off the top of your head, but the um students that you said, you looked historically kind of our students that we have currently now, and you see some of them are emerging with these the same, you know, issues that some of these kids would

014eventually, you know, need this program for once they got to high school. So, is there anything we're doing in younger grades to try to address this so that it doesn't build build build and then blow up in high school? I mean, would would there be a need somewhere else in the district for a program for to catch these kids early? Yeah. What what I what I'd like to do uh when we talk about those recommendations, I think a big part of it is districtwide what we're doing with SRBI. So really we need to focus on and that's part of the reason why that um scope and sequence is going to become important because we need to make sure that our general education teachers understand tier one intervention for social and emotional uh well-being. So ruler

015is a great starting point but we also have to look at areas of executive functioning metacognitively. How does the brain operate? Uh and we need to help our teachers with those tier one interventions. And then we also have to be very targeted with our SEAL SRBI plans. you know, um, typically we do a pretty good job with that academically, but sometimes we're not really targeted and specific with goals that are focused on castle indicators for social emotional well-being. And sometimes that information doesn't translate and carry from grade to grade. So I do think that when and we are looking at SRBI as a whole across the district and making improvements with how we document those plans, how we progress monitor. A big big piece of that is going to be how do we really develop

016strong social and emotional SRBI plans from the elementary grades. Um yes, it's frustrating. Three years ago, two years ago, we set a goal and a plan to capture free school and monitor so that we were working on here it is three years later and this is the same collecting data. Well, collecting data, right? And you give me cost benefit ratios that is it it cost it 18,000 for a record student and 19,000 you said for a connection student if I write my numbers down because I see many people on here that are supporting connections that are in addition to a regular school. So I don't understand how it can only be roughly $1,000 difference to do this program. Well, when you look at when you look at the total cost of the salaries and when

017you look at two teachers, two pair of professionals and one social worker and then you look at the total amount of students that are being serviced and you divide that that's where I came up with that that number. Uh the idea with coming up with that number is to consider what you're doing therapeutically for those students that cannot and have demonstrated that they are not successful in an Oxford High School typical classroom. What you're doing is you're looking at that cost as a factor in comparison to let's say if I had to put a student at Grove School in Madison at a outofd district tuition rate a yearly rate of $75,000 per student in addition to the transportation costs that that student would need. I I kind of understand. I get where you're going with

018the numbers outside. It's kind of like a story. Okay. I understand that we have the students here. They've gone from kindergarten up to 9th grade. We didn't do what we said we were going to do last time and find them at sixth grade and now they're up in high school and and not what it cost to go to another town. They are our responsibility. absolutely been our responsibility and we've let them down from first to sixth grade they've not captured it and if some of these students are just because they don't want to be there I understand social emotional learning it's a nice term but many kids if you really dig into it don't want to be in high school you know if you took the whole thing you probably figure 50% of them say

019I don't learn anything here you know we see it in the math course we see it in the English course you know they're very up and and they're smarter than that and they go and one or two of them that are have a slight disadvantage, I'm done. And they're and we're paying money that they can do that and and you give us numbers for other schools. This is our problem, our students, not somebody else's dollars, you know, and we we've had this program forever, you know. It's not like it's a new thing. And I don't think that you're and I don't think that you're going to see a need disappear either. No, it's going to increase. You got kids that can't see a teacher's face with a mask on. They can't even see their student.

020But but also in addition to me, they all have social, you know, social learning skills. You can't pick up anything from your end of the profession to what I read, they all have and we're building on we're making sure that they have it by mask and all the other things that we're doing. Right. So last year when I suggested we are going to have an influx of this and it was like you know we've added new communities to the town that I know have added to this and I don't understand why we didn't address this earlier. And how many students are in here? There are 13 currently with three pending referrals. And how many teachers and two? No. Well, we have a group. You got counselors and you have one social worker, two teachers, and

021two pair of professionals. And it's also important to know that making a comparison of our general education students that don't have significant identified needs under a category of a designated disability is very different uh than the population of students that you're currently servicing. So on a continuum of service for people with disabilities, we have to take into consideration a continuum of service and what that looks like with their designated need. So many times we have to look at a much smaller class ratio. We have to look at an adjusted or modified curriculum and we have to look at access to counseling support that's intensive and that's what you get that's addressing the needs of these students that are your most fragile learners in the district. So when you look at therapeutic settings and I can

022give you, you know, Grove School, Archbridge, Cedarhurst, you're not going to find class sizes that are larger than seven or eight, which is currently the ratio that you have in connections as well. Okay. So um the referral process has evolved over time as well. Um there's many many factors that go into um the referral process. It's not just academic performance. So attendance is a big factor, the educational plans, the IEPs, the 504 interventions and accommodations. Uh whether there was previous SRBI intervention, um discipline referrals, any involvement in the court. Um, the other thing that's a big part of the referral process is trying to capitalize on characteristics, talents, and traits. So, trying to look at what's a good strength so that we can try to use those strengths in what we're doing with them to

023motivate and engage in the learning process. And um, and how successful has that been? Because again, I brought that up. I went to a number of meetings, not this last two years, but I just remember one girl who was a terrific artist. And of the three years that I saw her at that that connections and I talked to her parents, nobody ever put her into an art class. Nobody put her into a computer class to do 3D modeling and stuff. She came in with the same jeans and the same fingernails for three years. So, and I know I discussed this with previous people and it must been sure it was recorded. Everything was recorded. a note someplace. So, what what prov we made? You've given us the words, but I bet you somebody could walk

024in here and say, "This young fellow would be great at making a mobile park or this fellow would be great doing something on on a a computer or this girl be doing dress design or something." Where is that in this program? Where is your success going to be in this? you know, of of the nine students you have now, how many are you going to get into a slot that captures their brain? So, if you give me a little bit of time when I start to talk about transition planning as well as what we're doing to address castle indicators, that social and emotional therapeutic piece, I'm going to explain that to you. Okay. Um, I think also part of what you're referring to, the conversation you have with the student, if you look at the

025report, there's student testimonial there. There's parent testimonial there. Um, so you're going to hear a little bit from those students if you read their comments and their feedback about what the program has provided for them. And as I said, uh, we're happy to have you come in and spend the day, interview the students, talk to them. All right. Um, I also had included in uh provided for you the guidelines for alternative educational settings. Once again, the state department of ed gives us guidelines to adhere to and we try to follow those guidelines um to what you know uh they determine to be a high performing program and what we really want to focus on and you have the links to this is that the program has a foundation that sits on Maslo's hierarchy of needs

026and the castle indicators. Okay. So when if you haven't already, you have those links and you can go in and you can get a feel for, you know, what are those needs and what are the foundational things that we kind of pride ourselves on doing with our students. I did go through and I dissected the self-actualization, self-awareness, and how we're addressing those skills. So this answers your question, Vic, in and and in and a little bit of a kind of peel apart. This tells you how are we doing those things. Okay. Students are involved in community service projects. Uh they're they are doing some personal goal setting. Um they're practicing self- advocacy through direct instruction like learning how do you advocate for your needs under your designated disability. Now this work in addition to their

027academic core classes is taking place during a resource academic support class. It happens in the afternoon but during that class that's where a lot of this work happens transition planning. So looking at assessment on what skills they want to do when they're going out into the employment world or post-secary education. Following those transition assessments, they're learning about certain job skills. What are the prerequisite skills? You know, what do they want to focus on? Possibly contacting some of those community colleges or universities, looking at what types of supports they might have on campus. They have a social skills group weekly. They're learning how to interact with each other. A lot of these kids have had poor coping skills and and low self-esteem. and poor relationships. They're learning how to trust each other and how to communicate

028and how to um provide some support for one another. So, a lot of what you just asked takes place during, you know, that that core time where they can be together and focus on some of that transitionary um social and emotional learning. Now I did include and this was just through an open-ended question my thoughts on connections. Okay. Uh I did include those student feedback comments. Every year seniors are given a survey. Their families are given a survey. I also included the survey feedback from the parents from last year. So, this tells you a little bit about what families feel about the services that they received through connections. And there's that student testimonial. I also received another piece of feedback that I'll just share that we can have from the records. Now with the curriculum,

029the curriculum does follow a college preparatory high school curriculum. They do have the ability to adjust the curriculum, provide accommodations, modifications. We do have students in there that are accessing high honors class uh workload. We do have students that need very adjusted modified workload. It depends on their designated need and what their service plans may dictate. One of the benefits is that the teachers have the ability to meet with the department heads uh pretty frequently. So, they're able to mirror as much as they can of what's being done in the general education classes. And I did include a scope and sequence sample for you that gives you an idea of uh what skills are covered during certain courses. Credit recovery is something too that our pair of professionals will work on with students. So sometimes

030students that are referred or students that are non-attenders, they've missed a lot of seat time. Credit recovery can be done with our pair of professionals um with our teachers to help the students to um catch up shall you say um and and start to recover some of their credits. Uh there is an afternoon tutorial piece. Uh once again, students that are in the afternoon tutorial, it's a very flexible schedule because the ultimate goal is to if they're returning, uh let's say they're a student that has struggled being in a school environment and they're returning and we're slowly integrating them back into the school environment. you may find that we are slowly increasing their time. Uh the flip side of that would be seniors that have maybe gone through a continuum of service. They only have

031one or two classes. They may come for those one or two classes because they're not showing or experiencing success during a typical school day. Most of these decisions are made based on, as I said, 504 meetings, PPT meetings, but there are some students that are regular education students um that have come and gone through the doors of connections and for whatever reason, you know, had an opportunity and shown some success. Um I did include the schedule at a glance. It's a difficult schedule to digest because as I said it's ever changing. We are constantly having meetings for these kids and we are always looking at being flexible and revising based upon what their need is. So I did indicate it's important for you to know that it's subject to change. I included what the social

032worker does through the course of the day. and what the pair of professionals do as well. And then what a typical schedule looks like by period. Uh this is the Monday, Thursday, Friday schedule, but then also it's important to note that the block day looks a little bit different. So once again, that period seven is kind of that non-traditional class that covers a lot of those other skills, those social skills, the transitionary planning, which for those students that do have designated IEPs, it's a legal requirement that they have that service on their IE from the age of 14 on. So this period is kind of sacred as far as um programmatic therapeutic intervention. But what you see is most of the periods are their core academic periods. As far as findings go, what I found

033is as strengths, uh the referral and exit process is highly focused on student strength. Uh and the student and the family have a lot of input. Um you know, as as the administrator for for the program, I can I can vouch that we probably meet with families. I meet with families along with the team probably two to three times a week. So their family involvement and communication is quite strong and they're are very active participants in the referral and the exit. There is that strong focus on social emotional learning. It's infused through the day but then there are designated class and week lessons um that do focus on those skills. A lot of team- based problem solving takes place and there is an immediate access to counseling intervention. Sometimes that's crisis management. You know, sometimes

034these kids have a crisis situation and it's in the moment. But then there's also individual counseling time as well as groups. uh the teachers do have the immediate access to the department heads for consultation and then they do have that academic instruction that's aligned to college preparatory work but it's also here and it's within your town and as I tried to explain versus an out of district tuition rate uh it's in my opinion very fiscally responsible As far as weaknesses go, um the elementary and middle school SEAL, SRBI, um you know, looking at including plans for those chronic absenteeism students or those students that are having a lot of difficulty with planning, organizing, self-management, that's an area that I really think needs significant growth. Access to community vocational work sites is also an area for

035growth. As far as connections goes, we don't have at this time the capability through transportation to be off-campus with work experience as much as I would like to see happen. And once again, the flexibility for the transportation is really what interrupts the flow there um for community involvement. As far as recommendations, I'd really like to see the SRBI process for SEAL um improve throughout the district K through 12. And I know that that's an initiative that Dorothy Potter is working on with the district team. I'd like to be a part of that. Um the consideration for expanding connections to support middle school students. Um, right now after interviewing the principal, the assistant principal, um, you know, talking to Mr. Hibbert about last year, which really are the only years that I've I've been here, um,

036there wasn't a need that presented itself, but it's not to say that it won't. So talking about that and considering that certainly is something that I'd be open and and uh you know in in good support of um continuing to improve the aspects of post-secary planning and employment and continued education. Uh we're well on our way to using transition assessment to drive those post-secary transition planning lessons and try to make sure that kids have a path for when they leave. But we're not there yet. that work needs to improve and and continue. And then continuing the collaborative opportunities with area school systems. Uh we did have a director's meeting and we talked about sharing some of these programs and being able to tap into each other's resources and that's something that I'd like to continue

037to do as well. As far as action steps, you know, uh my role would be to work with the SRBI committee uh to really try to work on a district-wide aligned plan that addresses executive functioning, social emotional learning, to work with related service providers and general education staff as well as building administrations to grow tier one. So Stephanie, when you ask what are we doing, you know, for the elementary and the middle school, this is where I think it's at. You know, our um general education teachers need to um be wellversed in areas of executive function and we need to um provide that professional development to them and also taking a look at tier 2 and tier three SRBI social and emotional intervention. um for Oxford Middle School and even down to the elementary schools.

038So another aspect in looking at the middle school, you know, having some of the PPS related service providers possibly join a community meeting so that they can see that format. taking a look at the community dynamic in the social skills group where there's a strong emphasis on uh relationship building as well as uh conflict and problem solving as well as self- advocacy so that possibly they can start to mirror some of that work. Um, also trying to create a referral process for the eighth graders that might benefit from possible intervention at connections entering into nth grade. I'd also try to I would also like to take a look at growing the capacity of our BCDA as well as our school psychologists with training in the FBAC which is the functional behavioral assessment for absentee and

039truency and trying to build plans early on for those students that are starting to exhibit patterns of chronic truency and absenteeism. and then working with the professional development committee to talk about universally designed tools such as Google read and write. So, how do we give those executive functioning tools to all of our students that are starting to show signs of having difficulty with those areas of executive function? and then also trying to work with the superintendent and the assistant superintendent to improve the transportation accessibility for career and vocational training opportunities. So, I'm open to questions and as I said, I'd love to bring any of you in for a half day or even a couple hours um into connections. A great period for you to see might be period seven, the academic resource. That's all

040from a standpoint of getting these students into a working environment. I know we've done a good job and we talked about this going into retail and working at the market and other things, but we had a fairly decent discussion on getting them into a manufacturing or some other type of thing. Now I understand the transportation. I I get that you know we're not driving this but have we reached out to the local companies here because we talk about global this community this well we got many companies coming in got many companies here. What is our plan to reach out to these companies and have them come in? Now I know when I had worked in the business, we had students come in and they did assembly things on our on our site. We also had

041rooms set up in the local school where they could box things and put them in a box and and you know assemble and then we could pick them up and ship them. What kind of program can we bring in house the local companies that they can say we just need a small part of something that you bring in and let them physically do the assembly or whatever it is and see a production type thing because maybe that's the spark that some of these kids needs because if I worked in the grocery store, you know, I just eat all the tomatoes, you know, so I wouldn't be much good there, you know, and I'm in trouble witch. So it's certain kids certain students belong in different environments when you go through seal s all all the

042acronyms you have where's the rubber meet the road where there's saying we want our responsible citizens the corporations to come in and do this and this is the plan we would like you to do you know is that something you can work on yes absolutely In fact, we had a director's meeting back in October, October 28th. We had representatives from uh Derby, from Seymour, from region 16, which is Prospect Beacon Falls, um and from uh was that it? Maybe that was it. Shelter, and we talked about pooling our list of companies, businesses, sites that accept. Um you know, we can only do so much recruiting. uh and we've done a pretty good job of exhausting uh you know places here in Oxford but that doesn't mean that there could be a great site based on

043what a student is interested in that might be in Derby or Shelton. So the idea of pooling we also talked about establishing a meeting with the Valley Chamber of Commerce and taking a look at recruiting. Um so talking with them about what our students could offer. Um and then the other idea is when we talk about transitionary planning, how can we support students to explore career trade schools as well as post-secary settings such as community colleges to look at a certificate program or take an exploratory class as a non- metriculated student. Um so those are all things when I talked about the need the weakness that's a designated weakness that we need to grow. We need to grow our ability to use what's around us um and really expose to kids based on those transition

044assessments that really kind of narrow down and peel away at what they really are interested in doing. We need to align what they're exposed to and what experiences we're offering them. Um and that goes for our C kids, too. So, our C kids are doing a lot in the community. They're back out in the community now four days a week. Um but I really would like to see variety. So you know we may have through that transitionary assessment evaluation find that there are untapped interests that we want to expose them to. So um this isn't a connection C thing only. It's it's really what we're doing for our kids clear across um the high school experience. This is a uh IEP requirement. Okay. So for everyone that has an IEP, legally we have to provide

045post-secary education and employment from they just changed to 14 years old up through graduation. Uh would would I think every student benefit from it? Absolutely. But for our special ed kids, it's a requirement and it's something that we're really strongly focused on. But but you're right though it's a it's room for growth. Other questions for Tracy? Oh go down the road there. So go ahead De I just want to a statement that I want to make. At no time will we ask for this and from 2015 to 2021 we ever have consideration of saying we want this program. That's never been anyone's philosophy comments without reading the the things that are in the that to lose the program would be devastating. It's never been the plan. That's never been anything that we said. Oh, and

046um we will I think I'm not going to this board is about doing what's right for Oxford kids. So if this program is what's right for us kids, we're going to support it. But we're going to ask you questions. We're going to ask you to support the staff. We're going to ask you to support explain to us because the community has a lot of rumors, a lot of stories. We want you to give us this to sell and answer the question, not to say the program's going away. And you know, we we think it's terrible. I think it's I personally think it's a good program. Do we have things we can tweak? Absolutely. C think it's a great program. Do we have things that we can tweak? Absolutely. But we're going to do that as

047we grow and as we all work together. But I don't think that there was any intention of of when we asked this to say the program's going away. understanding and I think my work that I used with you Tracy was that there was that perception in the community of everyone working the amount of time and you know this downtime with life. So you you've answered some of the questions. There's still some fuzziness for me personally in some of the um periods seven and eight but I'm going to make the effort to come. I want to see what's going on. Absolutely. But please don't let anybody think that by asking for this we want a program to go away. We have a fiscal responsibility to the town's people. We have responsibilities to our students, to our

048parents, to our community to make sure that we're doing the right thing for our kids. So I just wanted to be known that that was not the reason for this report to be asked. Um we are here for our kids and I don't think anybody on this was kind of Yeah. And I and I it wasn't my understanding that that was the nature either. Well, I just the comment that was made to lose the program. I don't know where anybody thought the program was. Oh, from the from the from the parent feedback. I don't know where anybody thought that this program was going anywhere. We just asked for information from 2015 when the program came in to now. It's kind of changed a little bit. Absolutely. And I I'm I'm seeing that it's changed for

049the better. We're not quite where we need to be, but we're getting where we want. That's right. So, I just wanted to put that out there, but I just wanted to Sounds good. Um, so you may not have this information, but I know that you said that there's two or three students who are close to being transitioned into the program. Do you know how many are in the pipeline, even if they're at the beginning? Are we are we looking at because I know as as the year progresses and especially catching up from last year, are we looking to add another possibly six to eight? Uh I believe that in addition to the three that were pending, which means that it's been accepted, the referral has gone through that the SRBI SAT team that meets weekly.

050Um there was a a list that was shared with me just today and I think that there were six others. it's five or six others that are considerations at this point. Usually what winds up happening is you do have seniors that come in semester 2 because they're in jeopardy of not graduating. So the number really increases by the end of senior by the end of the school year semester 2 but then those seniors usually they graduate. So the number comes in in the fall at 10 11 12 usually by the end of the year. I think last year we ended at 19. And if this program uh expanded into the middle school, could you possibly project how many numbers of kids that are outplaced currently might be able to enter this program? Well, um it's

051difficult to project that. You know why? um with the addition of what we've done at the elementary school with uh you know let's say uh I'm trying to think right now at the elementary level uh we don't have any students that are outplaced for therapeutic social and emotional need. Uh we have students that are outplaced due to significant intellectual disability and autism primarily. Um the other thing that's also important for you to take into consideration is that onset of mental health issues usually manifest at at adolescent age. So sometimes there isn't a prediction for uh students that present with personality disorders uh bipolar disorder um you know and sometimes those things are coupled with significant anxiety, OCD, depression. Um, so sometimes we we can't always indicate or get those red flags. Um, what you do

052find at least from, you know, the current list that we have, you know, when I went back into several IEPs, and remember I I I really could only focus on the IEP students because I have that record that I can go back historically. Um, what I found was a trend and a pattern with executive functioning. So, these were the kids that, you know, had comments on report cards that uh, you know, disorganized, not turning work in, uh, absent, not engaged in class, you know, things like that. Um, so I don't know if that answered your question or not. It I mean, it's it's good information. It doesn't help me understand further on the implications of a costbenefit analysis for a middle school expansion program. And that's what I'm I don't know how many kids are

053outplaced total just number-wise and the dollar amounts that go towards that towards that and is any of that potentially recouped or pulled back into district if we were to provide more services at a middle school level similar to what we do for the 9 through 12 program. I would say right now no but that can change at the drop of a hat. um literally at the drop of the hat. You know, this past summer we had several families move into district. We had four students entered with autism, two which were had significant needs. We were able to provide for them internally in district because we have solid intensive ed programming at this point. But that the flip side of that is if I had a student that moved in grade six or grade five that

054had significant social and emotional needs, would I be able to provide a program for them at the fifth or sixth grade level right now? No, I wouldn't. So, I mean, uh, it can change and and that's the one thing about special education, you know, our special education lines can't be locked. um there there's there's legal responsibility and IEP compliancy that we need to uh provide certain services and you know when we receive students that have those designated um you know high cost needs uh such as out of district placements um you know we we are responsible for making sure that we're compliant with the IP um so it does change and there really isn't You know, I I couldn't give you a 100%. Of course, I appreciate it. You've answered my question. I think as

055much as you could answer my question. Sure. I just want to say, you know, I I know all these past couple years been very challenging, but I hear what comments. I just want to take you back on that. I know when you came into the district it was like an F5 to8 district with special education that stepped up to that challenge. Um you know it is a challenging field. I get it. You know the success in my eyes is you know your pool of kids shrinking program. You know and I know the reality is that some will never for reasons just that's the reality but you know I guess you know, coming into and improving our district and keeping our kids here is very important for us in taking care of that. But, you know,

056it's it's one of these things we also don't want to look hard. I think sometimes it's hard for us to understand that um because sometimes I think in reality it might be a little bit hard because like you said, you might have one year more kids. Um but you know I I don't think I think that I don't think anybody's uh you know being coarse in the sense that we get it you know we we understand the challenges you're wrestling with. It's just sometimes we as a board just want to be put our finger on it a little bit and say hey you know okay we're we're good we're comfortable with that. We we think everybody's benefit. So please don't you know I think that that's that's where I just want to add you can

057put my name down and send me an email anytime. I've done it in the past. I've been at a number of classes and events so I'm available to go in there with you. I've been a large supporter of this program, but it's my past experience with things since you has not been where I thought it could be with the students I saw and the parents I talked to because we never had a report like this from parents. When you go in, you talk to them and you talk to her mother. She was, "Oh, that would have been wonderful. She's going to graduate next time. What's she going to graduate to?" And that's almost like a trend in the school. We did a survey of the kids in the school. They go, "What are you going

058to do?" I don't know. What's your counselor say? I don't know. He asked me. You know, that's the kind of stuff that goes on at school because I got kids in there. I know people down in the in the valley. It's the same thing. It's like, why are they asking? I thought they're supposed to help me. I go to the seminars that the companies put on. They're more willing out of the valley. They make things. They do things. They're willing to come in if somebody would ask them. You said, "Well, no one." So again, my suggestion or hope would be that you reach out and think differently. Get out of that nine thing and say, "You know what? Let's go to a company say bring us something here because the kids can't get there." and

059work it that way instead of thinking the kids got to go that way. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. I think that might be a at least for some of them. Yeah. Raising this point of view is what type of additional offers do we provide students collectively place but how do we create an environment where students have greater access to what other types of careers there are and tap into the local area to bring them in. once again for all states to take administrations that we get around that now. Yeah, it's a good point economic development coordinator, too. So, you can certainly reach out to him and he's had kids who go through our school system, so he's very familiar with, you know, the high school and that type of thing. So, be willing to

060help you guys out. Yeah, that's a great idea. I know that has some hand up. Does she have to be unmuted? I don't see you on mute. Yeah, sorry. It's the audio quality is of these is such that it's very difficult to hear what hello what is being said but I just had two quick questions and um they don't necessarily have to be answered tonight but excuse me um Tracy do we have any kind of a um and of course the number is too small to give it to us per se but um testing data indicating beyond the fact that you know sometimes we're just grateful for the students to um be able to remain in school. Um any kind of testing data that's done on a you know on a district-wide basis anyway um

061that gives us a sense of the um efficacy of the program or the student growth or anything like that. So I I would think that uh we have, you know, based upon the amount of students that have IEPs, we have the goals and objectives of the IEP that are measured by performance criteria. So there might be pre and postbaseline data. Um there might be frequency trials that are done. Um a lot of the students are gauged on test and quizzes. So they have their overall academic performance rated through powers school. What we did add this year um is transition evaluation. So at each grade level we're looking at a transition assessment that helps to have us um understand their ability for self-determination. Um, so are they able to practice some of those skills such as

062self- advocacy or to express or be able to identify their strengths and weaknesses and learning needs? Um, so we have that assessment data. Um, and then there's also post-secary um a post-secary education um assessment uh where they would look at uh what are their post-secary education skills. So, not so much academically based, but um do they understand how to apply? Do they understand how to reach out for services? Do they understand um you know, what they would do if they struggled um in an academic class? um you know so that piece through uh post-secary education and then there's also uh assessment data and once again this is in its infancy so I couldn't give you historically in in two or three years we'll be able to look at that data over a pretty significant um

063you know trend but the employability piece too gets covered so junior and senior year they're really hyperfocused on post-secary education as well as the employment and the employment actually breaks down to what are their particular skills and strengths. Do their strengths align to what their interests are, their career interests. And then they actually take their career interests and they put it into a profiler and that looks at jobs that align. And then they can start to research those post-secary education settings um that offer certificate or trade programs or whether they just go into the world of work. Are we exposing them to a job shadow or a work opportunity or like Vic said bringing in a speaker to talk about the job and what it entails and what they're you know what they would need

064to be able to do. So really that's all I can think of as far as the data um other than the data that's also included on graduation rate. Um, I would love to be able to follow up with all of our special education students, let's say two or three years down the road, and know if they went to college, did they sustain, did they stay? Um, and see if that's comparable to data with regular education students. So, um, I would love to be able to do some of that work, but it's not currently happening. Well, thank you for that. That I think sounds like a great plan. I'm assuming these students for the most part also take the district-wide um assessment that or is that not correct? Yes. Yeah. They would be taking the SAT

065and grade uh 11. Okay. Last question. um for this program and some of our other programs. Do we have any certified or specially trained job coaches to work with the students as they um look into the job market or go into job uh excuse me um community job placements. We don't have um an actual job coach title under any contract any bargaining unit contract right now. I would love to um take a pool of our our pair of professionals and they have job coaching um you know clinics and training programs. I would love to be able to do that so they have more of a designated um area of specialty. Uh our pair professionals that go out with people into the community um like our C students um they actually do that. Um, but I'm

066sure that we could, you know, grow and and even help their capacities further. Uh, we do have them looking at some on-site work assessment. So, their ability to um sustain uh, you know, follow directions, uh, level of prompting, uh, what their soft skills look like, you know, how are they responding to the supervisors or to the customers. Um, so that's something that the uh pair of professionals are currently doing, but uh we have talked um Dr. Miller and and uh Mr. Hibert and I about the idea of what does that look like out in the community? The idea of uh a more targeted job coach definition, but I think that that would have to be a job description created and then posting. and it would have to be probably part of a a a conversation

067with uh maybe the pair of professionals union. Well, thank you very much for the information. Any further questions? Do you see anyone stand up, Robert, online? So, I think we're good. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, next we have business and facilities update on major projects as to items to update you guys on. I'm gonna start with the uh high school the um timing system uh was brought to our attention last month December and so we did some research stock was able it took a long time to get some quotes on this information but we're able to get information on a uh multi-line uh touchpad system along with the timing system for the school uh for the pool. And uh what we found was that our current scoreboard is so old that it's really

068just incompatible with the current systems for doing this. So I we had them also find update that scoreboard. So, we uh spoke last month with the board of ed finance subcommittee about the potential of having to uh update these this uh these materials and they said gave us to go ahead and look into it. Uh we did speak with the subcommittee for the uh facilities this afternoon who also said yes, this seems like a good idea. So, what I have for you uh is information on updating our timing systems and our scoreboard for the high school. The total package uh is at they actually gave us a $3,000 discount this afternoon when we talked about what do we really need these $3,000 trainings. Joe got that for us. So, I won't take credit for it

069because he could be listening. Thanks, Joe. Uh, so bottom line is they keep the $26,975. Oh, I'm sorry. $26,975. uh that would take care of the timing systems and the scoreboard. And we had previously talked to the town's board of uh finance about some capital projects which would include future upkeep of this pool and you did confirm that any of these materials would not be damaged uh and could be taken out or could be done and this put back in with some. So you you confirmed that from the time we had our meeting today. Yeah, that's important question. Yeah, and I had Joe talk to the folks at Colorado Town System. So, um we do have monies uh in our central activities account uh specifically under the um rental fees for the high school so

070we could make use of those monies which we're trying to draw down anyway, give back to the high school. Uh so it made sense for us to do that and we were hoping to get the the approval of the full board uh to go forward with that project along with one other related to the pool that came to our attention recently which is the surge tank system which keeps the levels of the water at the appropriate level has failed. And the custodians are are keeping track of this manually each day and they're starting to get worried because there's been some fluctuations in that level. And obviously if there's too much water, we could over we could flood this. Uh and if there's not enough water, we could burn out some of our motors which would

071have an impact on our heating systems and everything else and boiler room. So we don't want that to happen. Uh so we did uh get two quotes for that uh and to take out the deteriorated system uh fixed drain uh and whatnot. It comes to a total of 2023,638. So we kind of hoping we could patch this through until this capital project is going to happen. We don't think we're going to make it. So we're hoping that we can also cover that at the same time out of the same set of activities. So, two different um issues, the uh the timing system and the scoreboard at 269 and then the surge tank system repair at 23 cover that right now with our system and it does leave the third component that needs to be fixed

072that was brought up at the last board meeting the diving board. The diving board has been removed from the pool area and we're researching whether we can fix it or we have to do the replacement. We don't have those yet for the board. I understand on the um search tank will that as well as the other items transfer over correct that would be something that we were hoping to be a part of that larger project but we think we should do this now and not you want to explain the timing the the idea is reason we wanted to get this moving timing systems uh that we're hoping to get this completed so that kids can actually make use of this by the second half of their swim season in the winter. Now, as far as

073the surge system, we have to drain the pool and do all this stuff. We would do it after the boys season. So, it may affect some some of the otter but it'll be fixed. We don't have to worry about that. I don't to be honest with you, even though we get a capital project approved, how long will that take? Will there be people available to do this work? Uh this will at least take care of that to be used over the summer and in the fall season. But now it's the boys season right now girls, right? That for the meats themselves since the timing system doesn't work. The boys have to use a different facility outside of town and Joe has to arrange for that because they can't do it. And are we paying us

074charge to go? don't have sometimes it's a matter of just um transportation and share resources for example last year in the fall see with offline thank they are facilities so there's some exchanges between districts how often do we drink how often do we drink it I've been here three years it's never been so so I'm just curious because I know we talked about the color of paint of the pool or something tile the color we looked looked at the recommendations to resurface a gun pool to replace the loose tiles. Problem with that is now we're into a capital project which is 2 say 20 to 250,000 at that time be ideal to replace the diving board. Go through the doors as we spoke about fix the deck that's stained. The trouble is if we don't

075make these repairs right now, we could lose some of the equipment that right now we could and we did just do not. No, I know. I'm just I was just curious to know it's it's something that you know 30 gallons of one night paint something that could be done at this time or is that something we should just hold on? I think it's something a whole lot. Ideally, you wouldn't want to drain the pool. Do this. You know, we like to do everything at once. The it's how much of a risk tolerance do I have? My stomach says do this now. I'm afraid it could lead to a bigger problem. That's why it's unfortunately it's a little bit throw. Any other questions on this project? Um well at our subcommittee um we we said that

076we wanted to bring this forward to the board and so nobody has any questions. Um we also thought with the with the changing um with the changing numbers that if we just um so in in my motion I'm going to make a motion to um to permit um central office to do those two projects with a $60,000 cap on it. And that seems like it's got plenty to have the $60,000 cap. And in the um in the rental fee line line item for central activities, there's $66,000. So it would all come out of that, you know, and I like the fact that we're exactly using rental fees to improve, you know, the things that people are renting. So it's a direct correlation. It's not just a plucking something out. So, um, with that, um, I

077move to allow, um, central office to repair the, um, timing scoreboard and search tank repair, um, with a cap of $60,000. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I posted or abstain. Anybody? Okay, give a thumbs down. Okay. Um, so it looks like Okay, sure. I I mentioned it. So activities fund the rental fee account $60,000 the rental fees for the high school. Yes. Uh motion carries. Have two quick updates for you. Uh, one that's related to the Action High School fields, the maintenance upkeep. As of January 1st, the town is going to be taking over the high school field that does the other three buildings. Uh, they did not budget for that. Uh, between now and end of our fiscal school year, which we have, so they will send us the bill for

078that. And then as of the new fiscal year on on July one, they'll have they'll take over the maintenance of our uh non turf fields and the turf fields uh just like do the other buildings bodies trash like that. So um just an update on that. I talked to town today numbers what we were spending. They seem to have the information seem good to go with that question about the high school. And the last part just clarification. So um as of right now the only contract that we have um in regard to the grounds is the snow pl. Correct. Okay. And then u the last thing is our water project was to bring water down to over field. We had an issue with our posting of our bid. So I had to repost that but

079uh the bid will be uh set to be open on February 10th and we'll move forward with that. So there was about a two week delay because there's some problems we have posting. You said we didn't have anything. So I know we changed our posting um policy that no longer has to go in the paper. So how are you how are you letting people know that this is available? It's on our website for our school on our website. And then the state department of education under the administrative services has a place where they also post that. Okay. So fact I just got a username and access to that it's publicly so any vendor can view it but you also sent out any of the vendors that are in that type of service area we do

080that the state system does that just want to make sure it gets out there that you know so then try to get more than one or two exactly any further discussion on this topic or are you done Okay. Thank you so much. Um, Robert, do you have a report? Yeah, I'm gonna bear with me. I'm at a stage right now where I can be in public with a disordered mask, but I don't be too close to anybody. So, I'm going to start with the budget process. and we have been working really hard behind the scenes with the initiative team to put together a uh budget for 2223. What I'd like to do is bring the board back together next Thursday night on the 20th either starting at 6 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. My preference would

081be 6 p.m. or we can make it um and invite principles and directors in. What I envision is for each school is a 10-minute overview of the major parts of their budget. what's coming up, what's coming down, understanding what makes up the budget. Same thing with special education probably budget, it facilities districtwide. So the board has an opportunity to really understand what the inner components are of the budget and really talk about this is what's going on here and this is what's going on and this is why it might be going out in this area. that would lead into the overall budget presentation which would take place the follow week and my plan would be to provide to the board the budget book that Friday so the 21st so you'd have a chance to review

082the the overall budget the entire budget book um prior to the superintendent's presentation which would be on the 25th which is not the same approach that's taken in the past in the past the board has not seen any of the budget until the evening that the superintendent presents the budget. I want to give you the opportunity to really sink your teeth into it at the budget workshop, see the budget book, read it, and then have a conversation the evening of the 25th. Um, and that gives a good opportunity to then dive into it with the finance committee um later that week, I think the next day. Um, so we talk about any questions that are emerging and then bring it back to the board again in February before you then go the second week in

083the second meeting in February. And will we be able to get the um individual budgets before the 20th like getting the school budgets before the 20th or I'd be working on that as part of the on the pack to in advance that meeting. Yeah, because I mean that that would help that we can look at it. Yes. and come with any questions or it's just going to be very long if we have to look at it for the first time and then digest it and then ask questions. I know my goal is to give you the information in advance. Thank you. Yes. One of the things we've been trying really hard up to this point is to give you information prior to the meeting so you haven't had a chance to read anything with your

084questions in advance. That works much better. Um so does anybody have a comment about or 6 or 6:30 would be six is six is fine. Okay. six or seven. I envision it'll probably be a two-hour meeting. So, can I just ask the question? Yeah, but just so that you say so, so we're gonna So, the meeting January 20th will be at six o'clock. So, if you could just send that out to the board, I will do so. And the plan is to also send it invite the board of finance members. Yeah. And that this is in person. This would be in the inperson meeting, right? And um we send it to all of finance members. This afternoon I don't know if they're going to come with you but invite them in understand early once again

085what the budget are. Um, in terms of the high school, I've had several conversations with the teachers association and with um several teachers and the high school principal. Um, I've had several requests um for them to go half days between now and start the midterms. I've um listened to their concerns. I've listened to what they um desire, which is to keep the kids safe. And the argument um is if the kids are in the building with less um there's less chance of transmission of co I've explained to the teachers that this is from the state level um but we've continuously been informed that the state department of education health the safest place for kids adults the least transplant kids in school learning. Um I mentioned to them they request that I I bring their concerns

086to the board. Um I had a conversation with Stephanie in advance of this meeting. Um I just wanted to bring it up to you and my part of the message now is that that request did come to me. um and that it was an honor their request to bring it to your level and they that requested um I'm just saying that we did talk about that co on New Year's Eve the state department public state department of education sent out a flurry of emails from like 7 o'clock or 9 o'clock in the evening which caused all the superintendents to then lose New Year's Eve. um they came with all sorts of changes to COVID quarantines and how we approach um everything that we do. The the entire playbook was thrown out the window and changed

087on us. Uh basically they said that any student or teacher that has that's unvaccinated that comes in contact with CO in the school no longer needs to quarantine. That contact tracing in the school is not anything that we need to do anymore. The only time that somebody needs to quarantine is if they are sick. if they have symptoms that are their COVID symptoms or if they have told us that they are have been in contact with somebody that is COVID positive outside of school. So if they're self-reporting to us that they then need to then quarantine. So we are not contact tracing in school transmission. So if if Mike's in class tested positive in the past, we would have looked at at Deb and Deb is within six feet of of three feet in the

088classroom and Deb would then have needed to quarantine. We don't do that anymore. That's now out the window, which has lowered the amount of quarantines that we need to do in school. With that being said, um I ran the numbers from January 4th through yesterday the 10th. And this is just the data of the students and staff that tested positive. So it's three days worth of data that we two days last week and one day this week we had 113 students that that reported and tested positive in those three days. 19 staff members that tested positive and 153 students and staff are placed into quarantine from out of school contact or because you had co related symptoms. So the numbers are up there. The numbers would have been up even higher had we also then

089had to then do contact tracing within the schools. Any questions with with that? Are we updating the met metrics? There is a a website now that has a data table on a every day or two basis with break it out by school and the number of positive cases for the staff, the number of positive cases for students and the total number of students and or staff that are in quarantine. It's not a cumulative because it's rolling. So what happens is if I'm COVID positive, I have to quarantine for five days from the onset of my first symptom or the date of my test, then I can return if I'm symptom free or I'm symptom free and have no fever for 24 hours after that fifth day. So your first day that you're have a symptom

090or you're test positive, that's considered day zero. And then you quarantine for five days after that. technically six days after the date that you have tested positive or you're you're sick, you can then return to school. And um one of the challenges is up to this point the state has asked us to report the data to them. Every time there's a positive case data portal, we have to upload and we have to indicate if what school the person tested positive and if they have vaccinated, unvaccinated, unknown status. This data has told us that we're only supposed to report data from a lab resulted test, not from a home test. Majority of the test we have right now are home tests. So, I know there's an article before that was released several days ago of the

091CO numbers across the state that only reflects data that schools have submitted based upon lab results and tests. So, of 113 students and staff um reported, I would say probably 85% of that was not reported to the state because that's all home tests. Um speaking of home test, the state of Connecticut provided every school district a supply of home test kits and N95 masks. We provided each um school N95 masks were adult masks for staff to wear. So when staff returned last Tuesday, um we got them on Tuesday. So when they returned to school on we got them on Monday, when they returned on Tuesday, um we had two N95 masks for each staff member available to them to pick up from school. They could be better protected. They kind of were like these different

092colors, but this is kind of what they are. Um and we also provided the home test kits to the school nurses. The home test kits came with a set of explicit directives from the state department of education um for three main reasons of why we can use the home test kit. One, if somebody is is exhibiting COVID symptoms, we can provide the test kit. If they have a known contact with somebody that's co positive, then we can provide the test kit. or if we have a multiple case outbreak in a class or program. For example, if two basketball or three basketball players that are a team of five have tested positive, we want to get the rest of the team tested. Or we have six classes um and we have 15 kids sick in three

093classes. We're going to get all those kids tested. We can send all those kids home. Those kids are not designed to test in school. In order to do any form of test like that in school, you need to have waivers signed by parents. So, we were told to explicitly send the test kits home with the kids. Um, at the elementary school level, we're asking parents to come pick them up from school. Um, high school, middle school, we're sending those kids home with the kids. We have designed Mr. Hibbert's guidance, a set of guidelines on how our nurses and administrators will administer those test kits. So, what criteria do we have to follow and a Google form to track the kids to make sure that if there's any questions asked, we have a protocol in place

094and we have data um system in place on how we are handing out those test kits. Those test kits are not designed for the staff that have to get test done on a weekly basis for the executive order. That was not part of the criteria that the state provided to us. So, we've let all staff know that coming back from break, the state provided a oneweek exemption on the home test kit with executive order. And then Thursday last week, they said, "Okay, you know what? We're going to now make it a a a temporary permanent exemption." And so, we decided to change your mind again. It was pretty much the words for us. However, the staff need to get their own test kits for that. Um, midafter afternoon today, the CIC updated their athletic guidelines

095which reversed their guidelines that they were that they put into place that was set to go into place on December 23rd. Those guidelines for December is allowing any vaccinated athletes to take a mask off while they're playing um sports. Um, as of today, it reversed that. Um there's only four exemptions. Staff kids now need to wear their mask regardless um of that safety status unless they're competing in wrestling while they're in the pool swimming. Um unless they are doing a stunt or tumbling in a cheer dance competition or if they're in the middle of the competition of gymnastics. Outside of that, um students now need to wear their mask while they're competing in addition to practice and sitting in the bench. That was a reversal from the rules that they put into place in December.

096They changed that because the high admission rate um the state right now they have a whole set of guidelines for quarantining. Basically, they're following the new guidelines, but um there is a tiered approach if you've tested positive when you're able to return back to playing a sport. There's a whole chart. I'm not going to go into the details of that. Um outside of co on Friday is an early release day um for professional learning we have designed thanks to guidance a professional learn activity for pretty much every staff member in the district um including secretaries professionals. So teachers are all engaged in um a conversation with our consultants on denial evaluative feedback and attended walks while we're doing this work and why we're engaged in this and their their role in the process in that

097par professionals are engaged in learning about um executive functioning um or they're engaged in learning about first aid tax being the first a training and secretaries are doing car training So once again, we're trying to create a professional learning environment where all staff, regardless of their role, are expected to continue learning if school shuts down. It's a professional learning day for all staff. So this the second time that we've been able to do that this year. So I'm excited that we're we're doing that. I I just don't understand what you when you said um something about school shutting down. I just it said um released on Friday. Yeah, but it that's was in the schedule. It's not That's correct. Yeah. So, so we're not talking about for any other reason. That's part of our schedule,

098right? It's an early release. In the past, um, only teachers and some carers were engaged in professional learning. We've now will shut down the offices and secretaries and all staff are engaged learning for that period of time. Um, midterms uh was something that I received several phone calls from from Mr. Schuman and you know some parents. Um the question that floated around the state um across many districts was are we continuing to do midterms this year? And when Mr. Schuman asked me that question, my response to him was yes. Midterms is an important piece of the academic experience that students have and they did not necessarily do that last year because of COVID. We're adjusting slightly the weight of midterms and if a student has been out many days because of COVID between December and

099the date of the midterm and that negatively impacts their performance in the midterm then the administration will be providing students a second opportunity to read learning um or to take that midterm at other time that absence has impacted their ability to take the midterm in the first place. We're taking consideration um student absences because of COVID um and we're taking consideration the waiting of the midterm because of impact of COVID. Um but the midterm itself is still valuable experience and it's still going to take place for all students at high school questions. Good. Thank you. Thank you. and I don't have anything to report in my section. Um, so now subcommittee. So, we can start with Joe, but I think I don't know if there's anything to add aside from what we already talked about.

100Um, we are we're just in the process. I'm still working on that that HVAC is so projects a list of projects type projects. Are we going to have a capital projects um report or something close to the budget that we know because it has to go around the same time? I think today the town sent us over something they'd like us to give them our our projects by the end of the month. So, so let's work on that maybe next week. We certainly have projects on paper. Um, so take a look at those prioritiz. Yeah. But I just want to make sure that we we get everything that we want, right? Not, you know, not a list of everything, right? I'll just leave it. did a lot of work actually put together substantial capital plan

101that was not funded at all. So we have a lot of work to build off of and then new stuff that we learned about this past year after that that fail. that we I think it's really important that we get some funding some of those comment by the director finance committee for the town was we know that there's systems that are getting old and prioritize it so you know they're older too I get it with zero Correct. Thanks, Joe. Um, do you have anything with curriculum 24th? Um, and I will update the Google Docs so we know everything that we have outstanding and what we're going to work on and that 4:30 in person here. Okay. Uh Nicole, is there do you have anything to report in policy? We had a meeting um we had

102a meeting earlier this uh last week and we need to put forward a first read for the high school graduation requirements. Um when the original um policies were uploaded, this one got omitted. So we need to add it back in. So, um, the copy is included. Take a look at it. If anybody has any questions, feel free to reach out and I'd be happy to answer any questions for you. It's no different than what we had before. It's just that it wasitted. Correct. The policy was voted blankly back in. But what she's saying is nothing's been changed if we're just putting it back. That's correct. Yeah. Does there does there need to be anything changed? Have you guys everyone satisfied with the with the requirements? And I think are we going to NAS now or

103when's NAS? NAS the last year. I'm sorry Rob, I can't hear you. I think we start our self study in two the visit will be in three. Two and three what? So in two years we'll do we'll engage in our self-study. Okay. And then the visit I believe is on the third year. So we spent a year going through the process of self evaluation. Okay. Um and pulling all that information together and then the community visit is the follow. All right. For some reason I thought we were in the like last year. Okay. So bottom line is that would be something that MAS would look at. What are they would look at and right now graduation policy reflects the state mandates what? Okay. Anything else? That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Um Mike, finance. Sure.

104Uh last meeting was on uh December 15. We talked about uh you know drawing down the central activities funds which started tonight actually um looking at transportation numbers and I guess the school accounts are potentially transitioning to the affinity vision system. So that's very exciting to have it all centralized. So make reporting a lot easier. Uh we talked about the pool repair which was also talked about tonight. Um central office um you know what's the destiny whether it stays with the town or stays with board of ed or it transitions to the town. Nothing's decided yet but um we're looking at costbenefit analysis for that. Uh budget process as as discussed you know by Dr. Miller. Uh scheduling looks like we're you know the budget process starts uh next Thursday. Um, and the next uh

105finance subcommittee meeting is Wednesday, January 26. So, it'll be just a time to kind of field all the information, feel all the questions, and then we get to kind of circle back. That's all I have. Thank you. Um, so our leazison reports, um, I'll just start with Oasis and we're meeting next week, so I don't have, um, anything to report for that. um debt PTO PTO meeting was cancelled last time. They're working on a candy fundraiser for all the schools. Nice inexpensive candy I and um I don't think we we don't have a report, right? They're meeting last night. Okay. Um and then we have our our very own Vic who is participating in the U SOP committee. So after that okay thank you very at the last meeting we met individual groups so I

106don't really have an overall view of what everybody else did but we will be doing Mr. spreadsheet give us a somewhat of an indepth feel of certain areas of that. Our next meeting is on January 24th and I believe it's at that meeting the actual work to start the data collection and all that in place and they all have different assignments like critical thinking and learning and sections to work on. So that should start at the 24th meeting. After reviewing and looking at different articles in the paper, obviously I guess many schools, districts are doing their SOPs now. And I pick up the trend is that it's the time to look at it differently. This time I guess is the right term for you know it's things are happening so fast. There's mandates coming down.

107There's co there's different events that were happening. So the SOP should really be looked at overall for a very very different future. But the in summary of some of the things that we should be looking at is that the what and how you know what are we teaching and how are we teaching it because that's like critical critical part of the whole program and how do we monitor that just to monitor what and how how is the student benefit and how is the administration and staff. So we need to come up with that in our plan of how we're going to do that. How do we look at how the staff is doing, how well the students doing. So hopefully at this meeting dive into our separate little areas, we'll come up with that. I

108feel the time pressure is on because you know January 24th is February. So it gives us February and I would like to work to really concentrate that we don't have March Madness trying to get this because the deadline is something March 22 as you know time goes very quickly to school fitness you have one meeting a month that doesn't take a lot of time overall is that next week should be the road that is consolidated. Thank you. That's what I was going to ask March 27. Any questions about any of the leazison reports? Okay. Then I will make a motion at 8:14 to adjourn this meeting. All those in favor? I meeting adjourned. Thank you everyone. Bye. Bye. See you guys. Good night everyone. Good night everybody. Night boy. Was it night?