001I think there's usually another table. Okay, we'll call the meeting to order at 6:49. Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. and the respect to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] starting Steve Any amendments to the agenda? Okay. I'd like to um have us take a moment of silence. On Thursday, it will be 11 years when the church we are very close and many of us have connection. So I just like us to take a moment to remember the people involved in a single Thank you all very much for that. Um um so I move that we accept the uh regular minutes for the regular board of event meeting for November 14th as read. Second.
002All in favor? Opposed. Abstain. And Bobby and Sue, you would abstain because you want November. And uh I hereby my move that we accept the minutes from the November 28th board of ed special meeting as second. Second. All in favor? Opposed? Abstain. Yes. Yes. You were there at the beginning. Oh, I was. Yeah. I Yeah. Oh. Oh, that was meeting by the football game. I was in my car. Okay. You were freezing that night, remember? Yes. Okay. Motion carries. Um, audience of citizens. Would anyone like to speak to me? Okay. Board correspondents. [Music] Um, okay. Moving right along. HBAC code of farms and goes. Um, just before we get into this um discussion item, um, we met with Mr. Temple, Mr. Kuza, and myself, Dr. Miller and Bob Sly. It was a very positive conversation.
003So, um we hope to continue to have those ongoing conversations um monthly at least to um improve our our relationships. So, we can get into that. So, um we were I'm happy to announce that at the core meeting that took place last Wednesday night, um the board of selectment approved our application for Baker Farms as well. in both schools the cafeteria and gym at elementary school and the entire building of wer farms are approved for us to apply to the state with ageback grants. So we're using consult the same consultant that that we used for this school project that we got funded for to do the applications for these other two projects. But the next step that we need is for the board of education to approve the ED specs that have been written by
004our consultant that are attached to the the deed from this bill. There are two motions that need to be approved and then minutes. Now, we might need to have a special meeting to approve these minutes for her to then submit the minutes this month. Okay. So, I'm finding that out from her. And then board of stock and board of finance, they'll need to meet at a joint meeting individually with minutes on their part showing that there'll be town funding for the project. Um, but our board here, you've already authorized us to apply for the grants and your next step is to approve the SP specs that have been written for these two projects. I understand that the request for the joint meeting was sent yesterday. Okay. So, hopefully that So, did you have a chance
005to look at documents that were attached? Anybody have any questions on the edge specs that were attached? Mike, you good? Okay. Motion. Yeah. Uh motion to approve the educational specifications dated December 2023 prepared for the Hback indoor air quality improvement state granting application act related to cafeteria and gymnasium improvements. That's a go. Yes. Is there a second? Any discussion? I'm sorry. All in favor? I abstain oppos motion carries. Okay. And motion to approve the educational specifications dated December 2023 prepared for the HVAC indoor air quality improvement state grant application for Quaker Farms. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. Obain. Motion carries. Thank you. Our students and staff, thank you greatly and hopefully we'll get this approved by the state. Yes. So, it has to be the grant has to be applied for by
006December 31st. Yes. When is the app? And the town has granted us. Oh, so they they Yeah. As a school district, we need to apply. Yes. And we're using their this town grant writer. No, actually we're paying a consultant to write it, not the town grant writer. The same consultant that wrote the grant for this project here. And it's actually the same consultant that did the expect and manage the project for the middle school. So she has a lot of the information already. So a lot of contacts with the state. So and she was successful. So that was the key. Yeah. Next topic is theou request teacher coverage at Quaker Farms and go. So as um most of you are aware of it um Bobby and Sier to the board. Um what we did the
007last couple years coming out of COVID is that we've had anou for the middle school and the high school teachers and they don't have a class and we need a substitute which we're desperately shy of right now. um we pay the teachers to cover classes but by contract they are obligated we're obligated to give them a a duty-free period so they're giving up their prep period in order to sub so we've had anou on the books for the last couple years and we got it written into the cont the new teacher contracts starting next year to pay the middle school high school teachers during those preps we haven't had anything placed at elementary school level because their amount of time that they have free is very different than that a middle school high school teacher
008does the way that they're scheduled. It's become more complicated this year because we've had so few subs this year which is why the next agenda will bring um forward with to the board. The teachers and specialists have been subbing for other teachers this year more so than they have in the past. Um and they've asked to be compensated in the same way the middle school high school teachers are. So, I'm asking the board to um grant um the chair to sign anou that will be negotiated between the board of education and the education association to draft it um a policy and a procedure to pay the obstacle teachers um retroactive to the beginning of the year and then um effective from now to the end of the school year so that when they do cover
009these classes, we honor the time that they're doing so. that we pay them accordingly. The rate of pay will be consistent with that with the middle school high school, but it won't be necessarily the same pay because the amount of time that they're covering is not going to be the same blocks time that the middle high school covers for that. Um the other piece to this is and we'll talk about this in a few minutes is when teachers are not covering classes we're pulling tutors and we're pulling our coaches and interventionist and students in special education to students in SRBI are missing their services. So we can entice teachers to cover classes that will help student downstream uh that are losing services that should be getting. So that's the the request to the board tonight.
010Anybody have any questions? I do. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Um, was this part of the the the bargaining agreement that with the teachers union? It was part of the negotiation for the secondary the elementary conversation was was that part of it. That conversation came to me well after negotiations had begun and it was too late for it to be there any bargaining at that point. So, what will happen is if this works, I would see for the next couple years us doing an annual MOU for this because MOU is a one-year basis. Um, and then it would be something that we work into the contract um at the next round. Good question. Any other questions? Okay. All right. Uh, request for a motion to allow the board of ed chair to develop and sign anou
011for payment of Quaker Farm School and Grad Elementary School teachers while covering the classes. Second. Any other discussion? All in favor? I in the elementary level. So are we talking like when they go to the kids go to a special is that when a teacher is free to sub because Yes. So they're so they're only subbing for like a short period of time. Very short period of time. Yes. Any other questions? All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Thank you for that. And sub pay the sub pay. Um so Oxford like every other district in the state of Connecticut has faced a teacher shortage and faced a substitute teacher shortage. It's something that we've been addressing for the last few years coming out of COVID. Uh we've tried various different incentives. We tried a incentive
012where if you sub for 45 days and then 90 days and so forth, if you stay loyal to us, we're going to increase your pay incrementally. Uh regardless of what we've tried, we haven't necessarily had positive results in getting more subs to work for us. At the end of the day, our rate of pay that we're paying subs is lower than some of the other surrounding school districts in this area. And if some can go next door five minutes down the road and make more than they make here, they're going to do so. So our hope is to raise the rate of pay to motivate people to come and stop here. It's something that we've brought forward to the board a couple times last couple years and bring it to again to you now. On
013behalf of our teachers, I'm really encouraging you to um approve tonight the rate of pay increase so that we can try and attract more people to come and um because it it has a negative impact on education when we don't have the adults to go into classrooms. We're employing teachers. We're combining classrooms. We're pulling interventionist tutors. Um across the the entire spectrum, students are not getting the services and education that they need. So if we can try to attract more people because we're increasing the red hay um the hope is that more people want to come and work here. So um Howard did collect a lot of data statewide um in the document attached this agenda item in the finance packet in under committees um he actually showed a um a chart of comparing and
014contrasting all the subay across the entire um region across the state. Um, and we're in the lower end of that. Yeah. Again, just so everyone's aware, right? Currently, I don't know if you're a Walmart. Just make sure you're all aware that the for non-certified it's $90 $90 a day. It's $100 a day for certified. Even if you do the math where they set quarter hours, they're not making minimum wage. And so that's part of the deal. And then if you look around the areas again, look at the data that's there. were significantly below the average which for the term which is the grouping that we're in for schools the average is $115 a day and so and it ranges between 150 for some and now 120 and then we're at 100. So again, it's it's
015going to attract the substitutes that we need. And again, you'll see in one of the I think it's one of the documents that's in the finance package. Um last year between December and November of this year, there was 2081 absences needed and we only filled 932 of those, 45%. So 55% of the absences that are occurring with teachers are not being filled because we just we can't attract substitutes to the district. That's why we're coming to you to ask for increase the daily rate. An increase in the daily rate would then take up for those that are hired for permanent building subs and if they're a long-term sub for teacher, you know, so obviously we want to increase the rate the base pay for daily subs and then that increases the other. So I have
016a question in the finance report you had two proposals. One was to do uh building subs and then one was to raise the rate. Are we looking for one or the other or we or how did how did that come out? We would like to increase the rate of pay for the daily subs. Okay. And then that pushes up the rate of pay for the other permanent building subs and then the long-term subs. Okay. Because there's two separate proposals. I just wanted to be sure what we were actually the uh building stuff. Are we staffed or not staffed? We have um two of the schools we've got affirmative building sub in. But even when we have a permanent building sub, it just covers one person being right. And we need to track more than just
017that. I agree. So normal, it seems like a lot of subs. Are there reasons why there's needed so many subs all the time? Where are the teachers? When you take a look at the average rate of absence that we have, um teachers get 15 new sick days a year, they've got five personal days that they're entitled per year. Um and they've got um in some cases long-term illnesses, some cases maternity leave, sometimes we have a short-term leave of absence. And when you put it all together, on average, we'd have anywhere from 20 to 40 teachers out across the district on any given day. 25 to 20 to 40 teachers. 25 to 40 teachers a day possibly. How many teachers do we have? 165 teachers. So across the entire district, you know, typically if you take
018a look at Mondays and Fridays, those typically are um more people are out across the entire district. That's just the way that in most districts are. Uh we do very few professional learning and and meetings where teachers are pulled out of the school day. typically it's sick um and some form of of short or long-term leave of absence. I mean I remember this isn't new. I remember four years ago we were talking about missing subs when teachers are out and toyed with the idea of raising. We did we didn't raise it. We said go find alternate mean. We kind of messed around for a few years but I think I mean we experimented other things as the last piece of experiment with and I spoke to two people who used to sub here and they
019said you bring it out to some of the other towns I'll consider coming back. Yeah. So it's definitely a competitive disadvantage for sure. And even in some of those iterations the board had tasked me to take a look at substitute. Um, and to research that, we looked at several options out there and they couldn't even guarantee that they would be able to to fill the the rates. They raised the rates. Um, but they don't they keep part of it in during that process that Steve is talking about I think was under administration. We agreed I think at up until that point in time in order to have an absence you had to submit something to get the absentee of them. You just couldn't take the date off and we said we're your professionals and you're
020on your honor. You need the time off. We're not going to go through that procedure to show that we have confidence and we're oneon-one. So that probably goes back four years ago, maybe less. Since we've done that, do you have any data that shows that we're being taken advantage here? Because uh they don't have to submit anything. They just go well. Teachers um every staff member have to put in for personal days and personal days are supposed to by contract put in um up to 24 hours in advance. So they actually have to submit it. It gets approved by their building administrator, department chair, and then it gets approved by me. So there's a layer of approvals, personal days. They have to put in the reason why they're putting in a personal day unless there's
021an emergency taking place. If something unexpected happened at 6:30 in the morning, they could still put in a last minute. It could be an emergency. Sick days are not required unless there it's a long-term absence. So, if I wake up, I'm sick that day, I'm going to put in a system and I'm not sick. That does not require approval. Um, and then obviously there's bereavement and and those sort of things. So, personal days do get approved and then sick days are put in. And you are right that we did change the criteria for personal days from a number of different categories and we did this for most of the bargaining unit. We made it more of a a lump. We're we're honoring the professionalism of our staff. And if you say that you need to
022be out for X reason, we're if it falls within the categories of telling you that you are, all you need to tell us is that you need to be out during that day and we're honor that as a professional that you're going to be out during that that day. Okay. The other the other thing that we had requested uh is that sick days wouldn't be Friday or extensions of long holidays. And I think you said that was sometimes that that happens. That was part of the it hasn't written agreement, but that was part of the professionalism between us and them, right? That doesn't seem like it's happening. Well, we we did encourage and we do talk to the various associations about personal days on Mondays and Fridays. Um but the exceptions are um graduations and
023stuff like that in May and June. So typically there are some exemptions that do allow that. Sick days can be taken Monday through Friday regardless. Um and there's no um exemptions in the um contracts that prohibit a personal day from being taking place on a Monday or Friday. It just so happens that a lot of people do get sick and they do things that come up that interfere with Mondays and Fridays. I I don't think that we have a a staff that's taking an advantage of the situation just taking long weekends. Um but you could easily check if you go back four years and you see what the rate is versus the rate since we were made a gentleman's agreement that that wouldn't happen. It would show up like a big red flag that we're
024being we can continue looking at data. So we in the new contract article 7 there is a language change that says that um while the right to request such documentation may be implied. The parties have agreed new language that allows the administration to require teachers to produce medical verification to support the use of sick leave over five consecutive work days or where abuse of sick leave is reasonably suspected based upon a teacher's pattern of sick leave usage and upon the basis of objective information that has come to the attention of the superintendent. this language to assist the administration in significantly policing sick leave abusers. So that was the language change in the new contract that will take place in July. Okay. And we have the means obviously with computers and all that kind of stuff
025to track that so we can see a violator when it's happening. Right. Since I had been here since um January 2020, we've been continu we've used the same system frontline where all the absence would go into that system and it's all recorded. All the data is there. At any given moment I can view the absences for that day. Once again the approver is all there. I can take a look at the logs of who approved what. I can take a look at the history of any particular person um over time and I can look at the attendance rate. So all the data is there. Okay. So, let's move on this issue. Is there any other questions regarding the rate of pay? Uh, Stephen, go. No, I was just I'm just looking at the sheet. Um,
026the recommendation 125. What is it? I think it's 125. That's what I see. 135. 135. That's the permanent, right? That's for the daily. No, that's for the daily. Sorry, I'm reading 135. [Music] And then Mike, go ahead. I I just want to point out that we don't just want to be competitive. We want to almost create a monopoly where we get the best subs in the district. We get the best subs in the area. that we're pulling in and we're doing things that other districts are not willing to do, allowing us to be picky, allowing us to turn away subs, whereas right now we we barely have that luxury. We really don't. We take whatever we can get because we have to fill these holes. And if we can make this rate change, it allows
027us to be more than competitive. It allows us to kind of dictate um the the subpool and make us the primary place for subs in this area. And he actually he he covered most of what I wanted to talk about. Um the other the other question I have is um where does the 135 put us relative to the other schools in the area? I think the topics exactly region 15 has one is 150. Everyone else is like Seymour is 115, Ngatux, I'm sorry, Anson's 125, Ngatux 115, region 16 is 120, Monroe is 15. So, do you think this is enough to move the needle? I think that moves it will move the needle for those that work in Oxford and South and and east and west of us and somebody's living up in South Middlebury.
028they'll continue something there, but I think it will attract some people that are working in other towns here in the um in the surrounding area. Are you going to be able to advertise this raise? We are. We'll put on social media. We'll put it on our deed. We'll we'll provide it out there. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I was just going to say I'm pretty sure to check in with my son from last year. I think Shelton page 150 for building. I'll double check that. We have data. We we did a survey of all the state all the districts in the state. Not every district gave us their data. Okay. I'm sorry. I do have Shelton and Shelton does have building sub 150 but they also have for their cert that's their permanent building sub for
029their dailies. They only pay according to what I have the data. So they only pay 75. So I hope they work less hours too. I was just looking at our um you know the permanent buildings of 135 versus their 150. in South 150 and you know if we're going to try to hire people you know for to get them for the year um but I know it's also at you know vegetarian consider how based on the analysis sheet right we're saying I mean we're forecasting absences correct the forecast the plan um we're saying there's a difference of 17,000 potentially I know we went through it in the finance meeting, but it's been a while, right? Yeah. So, um, so the current cost between the current cost, it's additional 17,000, but that's again the five apartment
030buildings. There's a lot of moving pieces here. Could you just point that out for everybody else on the where are we looking on the on the spreadsheet attachment? It's on the right hand side. Right hand side at the bottom. Yes. Okay. So, thank you. Um, so if we're saying if we covered if we covered the absences that we covered in the prior year and we covered them at the current class of the total foster substitutes under current methodology $133,000 if we cover we just hired five permanent, right? It's it's an additional $17,000 to the for the balance of the year. That again, this is talking about the balance of the year. We're already six months into the year, right? So it's it's not the full cost. If you had five permanent building subs at um
031sorry six permanent building subs I just did because I'm doing the budget as well as I'm working on this for next year. If you had six permanent building subs at $135 if you put them in there it's $135,800 per year right for just those six right that's not cover but they're covering a lot of these absences. So now you're going to have daily subs on top of that. So if you add the daily subs into that at $135 it's like another $85,000. So now it's going to be 220 $230,000 if I add those two numbers together. And right now I believe it's around 200,000. It's like 3090,000 total is what you have in the budget. So it's going to be like 35 to 40,000 for an entire year more than what you're budgeting right now,
032right? And that's that's what that's what a full year will look like in a budget. You'll see that when we And right now we're at partial year. Yeah, we're at a partial year. So the partial year I mean if we do it in absence is what roll out the way they rolled out last year. Again, there's a lot of variables here, so I can't predict it within with any reasonability, but we have to use something. And it's about another 17,000 that will be added to this year's budget if we go to this number. So, you're looking to add six permanent subs in each school. No, not across all across all schools. And you'll have daily subs on top of that. Addition. Yeah. Yeah. We had wanted to add interns this year where that's how that
033was the direction we had gone and we were not able to get universities to have candidates. That's the the problem with that there's not a a stream of people going into education right now. So the school conference and universities in the area just didn't have interns to give us in that. So it looks like we're heading back towards the staffing part of the building. And I don't know if everybody saw the finance attachment, but Howard did a really good comparable analysis picked up how many 30 districts, right? It's in the final. It's all the districts, right? There's one district up in the northern part of the state that's paying out of the complete range of what everybody else is. Yeah. Yeah. A huge outlier. I mean, I think it's it's just the question of we
034go with 125 or is there 135? So, I have a I have a question and a followup. Um, so does the 135 get us where we where we want to be? We won't know that until we advertise, we start recruiting people. We might find out we're still in the same boat 12 months from now or you could find that we are able to attract a lot of people and it solves our need. Can I just give you I'm just to give you an idea for my prior district where I came from North Daven, right? Very similar district and affluence and everything there were one level down in the the DRG. But at the end of the day, we went the idea was we went to 140 there and we did it for permanent building subs
035because that's what we thought they needed. And what ended up happening is we had a a mass of people come in and so the principles were able to actually pick and choose who they wanted to be those permanent building subs. And one of the b some of the benefits we found and this again this is not the dailies it's we had a back door with dailies but at the end of the day they one of the things they they were telling me about that is that they become part of the community right the the principles learn who these they are the students learn who they are they know their face familiar faces every day they're there in the building every day and what happens is you're also building bench because if you lose not lose
036but if a teacher retires teacher leaves there's someone that can step right in and fill in that position you don't have to go looking for someone and you know this person, right? So, there's a lot of benefits doing this and there's a lot of benefits to actually upping it, upping the the price of this. It's an investment, right, into the future of the the your staff and that's that's the way we looked at it there and it was successful and actually we we went out and they had they have two more schools, two more elementary schools than Oxford has and we actually did u 14 total permit building themselves in all in those schools. So it was it was a good investment I thought from that perspective which is but you saw the interest there
037was correlation. Yeah there was there was they had they had people to choose from and there was more more applicants than they had positions. Just one more thing um I agree with we need to pay to get more people in here but I also agree with Victor. you know, if if if there's somebody that's that's skirting the system or, you know, abusing the system, then we need to keep an eye on that. And we do that. Yeah. And we do we have those conversations and then in in some cases um we're able to help that person exit the district. We had that not necessarily the teacher, but the another role um in the past. Okay. But we we do actively monitor that. But I I will say, as I said before, the bulk of our
038staff are are responsible and acting as true professionals. And I'm not necessarily seeing our professional staff abusing their rights and privileges that are contractually obed. Anybody else? So the motion would be to increase the sub rate to 135. Second. That's just for permanent building also. No also also also 135. Yeah. And all in favor? Opposed? Abstain. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. Report of the superintendent. So I first would like to congratulate our high school drama students. Um they had their ball play last um weekend Thursday, Friday and Saturday that they um perform the nerd and they did a phenomenal job. We have a lot of great talented students anywhere from those that are on the stage, those that are working the stage and the lighting and then the costumes make up across the board. We
039have a very talented group of students and um number of parents also contributed to provide the supports that they needed um and great mentors from our school. Um, so I was very pleased with the performance and looking forward to the spring musical where they're performing um, Little Mermaid. Um, and they're even um, planning for a matinea on that weekend and um, bunch um, with for kids with the cat. It should be all a really good um, experience um, late in the spring. So stay tuned for that. Um staying with um the arts, the instrumental winter concert took place last Tuesday night um in the um library. Um the students did a wonderful job performing and then following that was the tri music society induction where approximately dozen students, juniors and seniors were inducted into the
040music um honor society. So that was a very nice um ceremony that they had. Um, and moving away from drama, uh, actually, let me stay with that for a second. Um, also this weekend as part of the Festival of Trees, um, the Great Oak, um, fire and the high school concert, um, fire, the chamber choir, and Voices of Oxford all performed. Um, they performed individually and they also performed um, all together. Um, which is really cool to see students that are from elementary school and high school performing together. another great audience and I love the fact that we do it as part of the festival trees because I think it draws people from the festival into the concert and draws people from the concert to the festival. So, it's it's really cool to see al
041together. Um something that's been in the news um a lot over the last several months um deals with kindergarten um and the new state law that went in effect um for students needing to be five years old um by September for them to enroll in kindergarten. The state department of education has come out saying that every district is allowed or required to have their own waiver and assessment process. It is not a uniform consistency across the state of Connecticut. Right now we're graph we're um grappling with that as to what that assessment would look like, what that waiver would look like. We're still having those discussions what that's going to be. That has not been decided yet. We are planning to send in a letter out to families um shortly either before break or right
042after break just explaining where we are in the process so that they know what's coming. Um we updated the HVAC um grant process. Um we did meet for the planning project for this building here um since there were changes obviously to where classes were in this building and primarily because we're now in classrooms as office space here. This side of the building is also getting an APAC project. So, um, Ferman and Bob Sai from the building committee. Um, Mike is their chief operations officer, myself, Gary Nelson, who's the lead custodian for this building. um and I met with um the two engineers that are managing the project um just before um the Thanksgiving break and terms of designing and we walk them through this area and the few new spaces they're taking place in the
043school they are redesigning some elements of the project based upon the changes to the building. it has to go through several layers of approval on their end in order to get it all approved and ever source as part of that since they're doing part of that funding. Um they anticipate being in the building starting the work beginning of January if everything goes smoothly. I requested that they um start two wings um that are classroom wings before they do anything. So we're going to do classroom space um in the winter and then classroom space in the spring. and then it'll be a lot of spaces um during the summertime. Once again, the work is being done after school and evenings. Um they're anticipating will probably be done between 12 and 1 2 o'clock in the mornings
044when they pack up and they leave the building unless there's a extended week where they need to come during the weekend. Pretty much going to be Monday through Friday um after hours when they do the work. uh they know that when they come down to this part of the building we're working here, they're have to kind of adjust how they're working because we are still here. Um and they'll have greater access to the building during the summer time obviously when the kids are not in session. Um but the the project is planned out to have the least impact or no impact to kids and teachers um in the school while the work is taking place while school year is taking effect. Um uh we're having a lot of success with our smaller bus, the bus
045they purchased um almost a year and a half ago. Um it took a while to get it um permitted and get it got a driver, but we finally have a system in place and we're able to use it for those run that we had difficulty doing last year, especially middle school athletics. um both traditional athletics and middle school unified sports um where in the past last year a lot of parents had to drive their kids or we had to cancel games and now we're able to get those kids to the events where they need to go for the most part and we're also using for some smaller activities for example we're moving the high school choir to the senior center in town on Friday um with the van or the bus and that's same afternoon
046we're taking middle volleyball and middle school unified sports. So, we're able to utilize it um very effectively. So, I'm very pleased that we have a system in place for that. Now, um reminder to families that this Friday is an early um dismissal for professional learning. Um I'll provide the board an update on what the professional learning looks like um on Friday. Um but primarily it's school-based um being led by um their principles u and guided by the requests that individual teachers have through the pet process um budget process. We're well underway. We've been meeting with principles um last week and again uh today. Um we also have um IT special education um central office departments coming up this week. Following that, Howard will do the hard work of putting it all together. um and we'll
047see where our number is. We'll make some hard adjustments and then we'll be prepared to present to um the full board January. Um but we are well underway with that. Um and then finally, I got an email um late um today early this morning um from our middle school teacher. We have a um American band composer Brian Balmises Balmage who is coming to the middle school to work with our students tomorrow. He said it was a big deal um that we were awarded this. So we have students getting a pretty good opportunity there. We just wanted to to share and thank um Bran for his hard work to make that happen. Just let you know that we have that taking place in school tomorrow. Middle school middle school. Middle school. That's my update for you
048and I wish all of you and our families a wonderful holiday um this holiday this is fun and happy new year then okay of chair that's me so um one of the things I'd like us to think about um doing with our meetings is the first meeting of the month be like our presentations and um awards to students and I'd like to try and see if we can get our second meetings, we kind of do a workshop meeting. So like we workshop policies, we workshop the budget, anything that we want to really just sit down and talk about, do on those second meetings. So we're not here for hours and hours on end. So think about that. We can talk about that again. Um, one of the things that, um, I'm supposed to do is
049assign your subcommittee work. Um, we do a lot of work in our subcommittees, a ton. um policy, going through and looking through everything, curriculum, all those things. You may not hear us talk about a lot here, but you'll see the subcommittee work. So, subcommittees are are really um important. So, for finance, Steve is going to chair with Mike and Vinnie and policy and Nicole will chair with Sue and Vinnie. too. Sorry. Facilities, Mike will share with Bobby and myself curriculum. I'm going to stay chair for a little while. I just feel like it's been some place that's been kind of something I've really worked um hard with. And Steve, Vic, and Shelly, we're going to keep it at four for now. Um I may back off a little and let you guys do your thing,
050but it's just something that I'd like to stay very involved in. So, um, we normally do a motion to approve the subcommittees. So, does someone want to do a motion? I make a motion that we, um, approve as approve the subcommittee, um, docket as you just laid it out, Doug. Okay. Anybody have a second? Yeah. I'd just like to say I I offered to be chair of the curriculum committee. work closely together to make that transition. Great. Like have that second. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. And I would just like to wish you all a very wonderful holiday. Thank you for all your hard work. you have a lot to do and I look forward to working with all of you and I would really like to welcome Sue and Bobby to the board
051and I look forward to working with both of you moving forward and that's it for me uh subcommittees Mike for facil for um facilities do you did you have anything I don't have anything except great work on getting the HVAC approved that was a definite uh collaboration effort as well has parent involvement to apply the right amount of pressure to get that grant process moving forward. Uh for facilities uh next meeting I do not have one to date but I will be in touch with uh Bob Carr and Dr. Miller to put together something to get get it going. So So just everybody everybody understands um there's a Google doc that talks about our subcommittee meetings. So your um the chairs of the committee should go in and put your meeting dates, meet with your
052committees and decide what days worked and then go in the Google doc and do it. All right. Um curriculum and we'll set a meeting now that we have our committee policy. Nicole thank you sub subscribe to ship and goodwin who puts out model policies for us to follow. They also as part of their subscription service let us know when things need to be updated. So that really is what generates what we need to do as far as policy is concerned. Um they have put forth three policies regarding our computer use in the district. One is employee use, the other is student use and then also private use of te technological devices by students. You have both the policy language and the rag language um for you to review. We only need to approve the policy
053language. The regs are left up to the administration to figure out the proper language that should go in there. Um, we do two reads of every policy. So, this is the first read so that you guys have the language. You could take a look at it. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Um, as a committee, we decided that we didn't want to just um approve these in a vacuum. So, we ran it by our techn our technology department to let us know, let them vet it and let us know if they had any questions or concerns. They were fine with the language as written by Shipment and Goodwin. So, this is down to our first read tonight. If you have any questions or concerns, let me know at the next meeting.
054Hopefully, it'll be our second read and we'll vote on it at that time. Any questions? Thank you, Anthony. finance. Mike, do you want to handle that one, too? You did the last meeting, I think. Um, sure. I mean, one of the big things that came out of the uh, you know, the last finance meeting had to do with the sub pay, and we addressed that tonight. So, I appreciate the collaboration and effort. Um, I'm looking forward to Steve uh adding his leadership ability on the finance subcommittee. So, that'll be very nice. uh subcommittee to work with. Um you know it's we are upcoming uh for the budget season so there'll be lots of meetings but uh they're good meetings and I think we're in great hands with Steve. I think just that thanks you know
055for me going through it we had 23 grants that we track and I know like eight of them just ended but that's a helpful view that how's putting together with the deck that goes to all the board members. So, I think that'll be beneficial with our internal communication. And then, yeah, budget's going to take a lot of time and effort. Obviously, the other thing we discussed was the potential of moving to more of an electronic payment system checks, but with that comes a lot of due diligence on compliance, governance, right? So, that's we took it as a go check into it a little bit more, but as of right now, no action. So the other day when the town had no when to sign their check kind of caused a little bit of a delay
056in getting check signed because um Dana hadn't been signed on the dotted line to be able to sign check but um Mr. Hiva was very specific that it needed to be um a signature. So I think we need to have that discussion with the town as well. Yeah, that's part of the due diligence because you're talking about the thing I noted down here is on the signing of the checks. Okay, we're I think you're we're deciding where it's got to be two people signing. It has to be one from us and one from the town. Okay. because there was something about generating signature or something. I couldn't understand if it's got to be and those two people be kind of like what we did in the past reviewing the the check for now. Yeah, we
057have to talk to the town and see if there's anything because that was very effective. We caught a lot of little nuances. Let's go. I think it's important that we do that and control our budget because you know we're adding you know you just added $238,000 if we do the 138 and all that kind of stuff. So I think watching the budget and watch the checks and I don't think the paper supply problem has gone away now I don't have this I don't have that you know and they sneak in there through Amazon and stuff like that. So I think you have a credible job last year of tracking all that stuff. But I think it needs two people there with knowledge of what happens. So it was just a a point I wanted to
058clear myself that we're going to do that. Yeah. Okay. Anything else on finer leaison report? Um just I have a PTO report that their next meeting is in January. They're working on um the booster. Is that what it's called? Yes. So that's they're working on that. They started working on that. I know that they met with the boosteron people with the principles last Friday. Y starting and that's the only leaison report we have. We do have usually someone from Oasis. Um that was what Mrs. Miller did in the past if anybody is interested in doing that liaison. Um and then I've been attending the booster the meetings. I was not able to go to the last meeting. Um of course I was at um other town meetings at the same time. Um but I have
059been attending their meetings. I could help up with that. Anyway, so you could come back and give us a report at the board meetings what's going on. That'd be great. Thank you so much. Anybody else? Anything on the leazison? A motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Opposed? Abstain. Motion carries. uh join the sun.