2023-02-13 Board of Education Special Meeting - Part 1

001All set, Rob. Um, yeah, it's live now. Okay, we'll call to order at 6:08. Let's do the pledge of allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. [Music] Americace for all. Okay. Roll call. Um I'll just call your name and say tell me if you're here. Um Mike Kuza here. Caladella. He's coming in right now. Um that's good. Bobby Carr. Yes. Tomowski here. Shelley Cast here. Nicole Lavine here. And Sue Cond here. Robert Car is here. I was on mute. Is Steve on yet? Steve, I think he's working in it still. I just sent him the link again. Okay. Um, and so the next thing is the regular the minutes for the board of education minutes for January 9th. Do I have a motion on those, please? I move

002to uh accept the minutes as written. Second, Mike. All in favor? I opposed. Abstain. The minutes carry. Steve is on now. Steve is on now. So Steve is on at 609 for the minutes. Audience of citizens, if you'd like to um ask for a question or comment. Um maybe we could do raise your hand. I can't. I can monitor that too. Is there anyone that would like to ask a question? Um, yes. Carrie Scala. So, Scallow and Ant Curtis. Carrie. Hi. Sorry, I was trying to unmute there. Um, I have a question or comment, I guess, about something that's on the agenda for later in the meeting. Um, I wanted to voice my concern and I'm kind of speaking for a couple the um dissolvement of the boys volleyball team and transferring of funds to

003the team. Um, I understand that there was um reported that there was limited interest for volleyball. However, I'd like to note that the family ID opened on February 26th and as of February 2nd, the boys volley volleyball team had already been pulled out of contention for the Southwest Conference. So, these boys were really only given a week to show that they had interest. Um, which I really think is unfair. on the family ID website it says registration open till March 31st. Um I know I personally reached out and asked um as of Monday February 5th I said I was trying to sign my child up for volleyball ID was unavailable as an option and that's when he let me know that the team had already been that they weren't going to be fielding a team

004for this year. Um, I'm curious as to why there was no notification to any of the parents at the time, why there was no in any of the Friday highlights that go out, why there was no notification to anybody that this was a possibility. I know that one of the students um had approached with interest and I know another student had also approached and said on family ID that that student was given no indication that there was a deadline or that this was an urgent situation. But even under best circumstances, a week for families to have this knowledge and to know to go to sign in seems very very quick. Um, as a general thing, since my son's been playing, volleyball has had a hard time getting a team together, but in managed to pull

005a team together. Um, and I know that there was some discussion last year with one of our players to um the ad saying that we were graduating a lot of kids and that we may have time just in co-oping as well, but I don't know if any of that was looked into. So, the first I heard was all of a sudden like there was no team and I had parents reaching out to me asking me, you know, my son is interested. I know your son played. And I said, "Well, you can't stop. It's been closed." And they said, "But it says March 31st." And I said, "Yes, I understand that, but the team has already been pulled." So, I feel like this team really wasn't given a shot to get off the ground. If you

006know like that in place, we could have reached out to the booster club. We could have asked them. We could have used social media. There was lots of avenues that we could have used to see if we could try to feel the team. And in the meantime, I've had parents reach out to me. Um, and I think there's a lot of untapped kids that don't even know. And I know that stocks, I know you did put out announcements, you know, I know you told me that. However, I don't know if that was an effective way to reach these kids because the feel like these kids were kind of shortanged and they weren't really given the option to do this. Like I said, historically it is it has been hard to field to get enough members

007of field team. Um, and I want it known that I'm not against golf obviously heard and those be heard as well, but I don't know that it should be at the expense of the boys volleyball team. It seems maybe there's some way we can share those funds. I don't even know if it's possible to get back into the conference at this time. I have an email out to see if that's even a possibility. Um, however, I just I just wanted to be the boy the voice for these boys who really feel like given a voice. Thank you. We'll come back to that when we get to the topic on that's on the agenda. Okay. Thank you, Tanya. Yes. Uh, good evening everyone. So, I just wanted to bring up concerns that I have with the

008searching of privately owned technological devices. Um, I was able to read through the policy and it it's just really concerning that the school would feel that they have the right to privately search my child's device um when a law enforcement officer wouldn't even have the right to do that without a warrant. So, I I think that that's something that needs to be looked at further. Thank you. We'll disc we have that policy on the agenda later on. We'll talk we can have further discussion. Anybody else that wants to ask a question or talk to the board? Rob, do you see anybody? I don't see anybody else with their hand up at this moment. One last time and then we're going to move on. Anybody else? Wait, hold on, Karen. Just for you know, do I

009have to put my camera on? Okay. No, you don't. You know what you look like, Karen? Okay, good. After a snow day, I don't look that great. So, um, so I just have some concerns and I know, um, again, I have swimmers in the in the pool and they've been swimming for quite some time and I know, um, I was at the board of selectman meeting and, um, it was very disheartening to hear back that um, you know, just that George doesn't George Temple didn't know about it, but I know I know that's not true, but as a parent um, what can we do to really get the message out there that this pool pack needs to be replaced. And it's um it's crucial not only, you know, to our swimmers, but also to the

010in infrastructure of the school. I mean, if those if that pool pack is not, you know, corrected or it's not replaced, I mean, it could create a lot of health issues just for the students. So, I mean, as parents, is there anything that we can do to um support um this project going forward? I think that we'll have some more conversation, but I think throughout the whole budget process if parents come to meetings and there'll be also a um town discussion. I believe that the town budget I mean town capital plan is supposed to be addressed on um March 11th. That's the date I heard today. So, we can certainly let parents know more about that when we get confirmation. Lisa, can you hear me? Yeah. Yes. All right. Thank you. Um, just going back

011just a comment on volleyball. Um, I don't have any kids in the in the school. my youngest or my she graduated last year but for quite a few years my two boys played volleyball and I know past years that family ID would be open until March and you'd get kids signing up all the way through up to the last the last hour also because basketball season is going on right now as soon as basketball's over there used to be open gym and that was one way they could recruit kids as Well, so I I don't I was a little shocked and upset to hear that the um the program was going to fold because of lack of of enrollment, but I don't think there was enough time for kids to know about this to be

012able to sign up. And I hear that there are kids that do want to play and I just would like to just see the program try to continue. And I am in favor of golf. I think that's great that there's more kids that want to come out and also another sport for Oxford High School. Um, but if there's anything that I could do to help on the side of the booster club, please let me know. Thank you. Anybody Anybody else? Did I miss anybody with hands up? I don't see anyone else at the moment. We'll just give another moment. I don't see anybody else. Okay. Go on to board correspondence or communication. Nothing for me. I did um get an email from a staff member um wanting to discuss an item and I referred that

013staff member back to their administrator and their union and there's a board policy on that issue. So, I would just remind the board if anybody needs a copy of that policy, I'll be happy to share it, but you should follow the chain of command and people should talk to their administrators first. Um, budget 2425. Um, Steve, are you on? I'm I'm on the phone. I can't get in on the computer to see anything right now, but Okay. Um I I I'll make a few comments and we could probably pull up um the document. So Dr. Miller and Howard placed a revised budget book up there. We had taken some feedback about some changes. One is um we had heard the security um lead was of interest that was added in also the um another BCBA

014uh was discussed and there was some request for that. We added that back in. But at the same time, we looked at where we had some contingencies both, you know, we had, for example, we had two sped um unknowns potentially coming to district as an example. So, we're offsetting there. I can't I don't have the sheet in front of me. I apologize. But the the root of it was we went back and refined the numbers. Um we're able to fit in a few more things, reduce cost in other areas, and again, I'll remind everybody this budget is still fluid. We're still taking feedback and still we're still looking through the numbers. Um, but I don't I I apologize. I can't see it right now. Dr. I suggest that we pull up the PDF now. I'm

015going to share the screen and then I think you and Howard could kind of walk through the the adjustments that were made. Nice. Thank you. Okay. So, you should be able to see the screen now. Yes. Okay. So, Howard, do you want to kind of go through what was um modified from the original presentation two weeks ago? Sure. Can we can we wait just one second? Shelley, do you have a question on what we're doing? Just a real quick question for Steve. I thought I heard Steve say that there was a new budget uh book that was uh an updated budget book that was past uh posted online. I don't see that. I see the document that's up there right now. But um Steve, did I understand you correctly or did um were you talking

016about something else? What was the sorry new from last time? Um on Friday afternoon, Dr. Miller posted or Howard did a new budget book. It was corrupted early on 6 pm a revised working document which you're seeing on the screen um was posted as far as I know. I don't know if it's been revised, Dr. Miller, since Friday night. No, the document that's been out since Friday is the current document. It wasn't it wasn't a revised budget book. It was just this sort of um addendum. So this week the budget was revised after the the budget presentation to the board of education after the finance committee met and what you see tonight is the revision based on the feedback that we heard from the board of education at after the last meeting which was attached

017to the agenda on Friday. Okay. Yeah, I got that. Um Okay. Um I I just I thought Steve said there was a new budget book posted. I a revised file. Shel, I apologize. The terminology was from the last meeting. Yeah. No, from the last meeting, we we had a finance subcommittee. We've made some changes as you'll see in summary on this page, but this is new as of Friday evening with the requested changes and movements, but yes, it's new from the last meeting we had as a full board. Okay. So, it's not a replacement budget book. It's just more information. Okay. I appreciate that. I just thought I might have missed something. Thank you. move on. No, you're good. Okay, go ahead. Who's Steve? Dr. Miller. You want me to talk? Yeah. I'll introduce Howard.

018Howard Ward though is our business manager. I did not get a chance to introduce him at our last board meeting. Howard, unfortunately, is not able to be there. So, I'm going to introduce Howard virtually to everybody. Howard joined us in August as our business manager. Um, he's done a phenomenal job managing this current budget and then putting together the budget proposal that you see in front of you this evening. So, I'm going to turn over to Howard because we did make some adjustments from the last presentation to tonight. She's going to walk you through what we changed from that meeting to to now. Sure. Thank you. Um, so basically what what you're seeing is the all the adjustments that were made to that original budget that was presented to you at the last meeting. Um,

019the first the first line you'll see is a BCBA as BCBA. um that was actually missed from the original budget and the reason for that was that it had originally been an employee that was so it was in a salary line. It wasn't put into that salary line because we had that because during the year this year we had actually outsourced that to a third party service and we missed the contract in in the service line. So that's why that first line is 146,000. It's not a duplicate line. So that was supposed to be in the budget. It wasn't. it is now being included as an adjustment to that original budget. The next uh ASUS BCBA um again I wasn't there but my understanding is that uh one of the board members had suggested that

020we added another one to the budget which is what this second line is doing. So basically the cost for each one of these is $146,000 per BCBA per year. Um while also in and again you'll see on the left side I tried to put it by cost center name. my this is a special education section that you're look that we're in right now. Um there was legal services. We we had gone through those and in there there's a settlement with a student. Um and that settlement is no longer needed because the student has moved out of district. Um so that actually will impact not only this budget, it impacts the current year's line item too because the student we were only going to go spend about half of what that was. So legal uh legal

021fees will be a little bit less in this year, current year too. Um but so that was a reduction that to the budget. Um we also took out we had two contingency in in the sped out um out of district tuition. Um they were about $120,000. It's $120,000 a piece. We took one of those out. So there's still one in the budget. Um but we took one out. But then when you take it out, you have to net it against what you would receive in the excess cost grant that comes back from the state. So the difference is about that is like that. It gets you to 98811 is where we would be with that. So that's why that number is also a reduction, but it's not the full 120 because you're also losing the

022revenue from the excess cost grant by not having that amount in there. Um medical insurance, I went back to Brown and Brown. I asked them, I said, "Where is there any are we any better than we think they're going to be?" Because initially they told me 7%. Um they um they are looking at moving us from United Healthcare, which came in at 21.7% increase, which is unacceptable for the book of business that they had moved to United Healthcare. So they're looking to move us to Anthem, which came in at um just around 9.8% I believe the number was. Um however, that's 9.8% 8% but that doesn't account for the fact that the teachers who are our largest group of employees are moving to a high deductible health care plan and so we we were able

023to they think that although it won't be 9% it's not going to be a full savings a full it's not going to zero either it's going to be somewhere in the middle so I lowered it to about 5% which saved us 2% on the initial so that's that $81,980 reduction in the medical expense line um the employer costs for all the new positions for FICA. We have to adjust for that because there's employer costs associated with that. Uh and for the pension, I'm sorry, the pension of the new you asked for director security that had additional costs 14,775 because that's 19.7% of that person's pension because it's municipal the municipal employees pension plan. And then the FICA cost is the 68665. Um I looked at the contingencies for the electricity for heating. Um, and both

024those numbers I took down that took the contingencies that I have in there down a little bit. 15,000 and 11,375. Um, respect respectfully there. Just again, there's still a little contingency in there. Very, very little. But again, I took some of that down because we're looking to offset some of these additions that were we were going through. Um, the non-sped contingency. Um, there was there was extra money sitting in that line. Um, again, that's completely gone now. take there is no contingency in the non-sp tuition. So the only risk there is if that more students actually opt out and we have to pay tuition to a magnet school or to a nonawag for the um the agra program. Um you asked the board the board asked to put in the director of security. Um that's

025a $75,000 salary. That's what that line represents. Uh in the we had three um content coordinator leads which is similar to the middle school which has the team leaders. This is not the the chair the chair people of the uh the departments. This is one level it's one level down from that but it's a content coordinator. We've added those to the at the high school to the to the budget. Um so last year uh the board had approved an early retirement program. It was fully it was had been fully expensed in that year. Um, however, it was the auditors when they came back said we can't fully expense future expenses in a current in the current year. So, this had to be added into the budget. Um, and so that 16,350 will be in 2425.

026It'll also be in 2526 when we get to that budget next year. at this time. Um, it came back with a few adjustments that they found that they needed to make um, for license increases and software and software maintenance increases. Those are those two numbers, the 18312, the 32422. But what we thought we saw also was that they had instructional equipment that could be moved to the SR3 because we have excess SR3 funding right now. Um, that has to be utilized by September of this year. So we took the we took those funds and put them into the ESSER into the ESSER grant. So the net impact of all of these changes is the $41,38 which raised it from the 5.65 to the 5.77. That's the full budget now. Thanks Howard. Thanks Howard. Great job

027pulling that all together and explaining it. Appreciate it. Um just some feedback. I had had some questions from Shelley. Um Nicole, you had provided some feedback as well. And still we're we're still in the budget process. So I'd encourage anybody to continue to um look at any materials, ask questions, make recommendations. Um we're looking probably in two weeks to finalize and do a final presentation and and come towards a vote for the budget. Thanks for making it so easy, Steve. Well, I'm not making it easy. The team's making it easy, Nicole, to be honest with you. But we're continuing to look at the numbers and we're going to have another finance subcommittee. We're trying to line up the date for next week so we can do a further dive. Uh a few other topics and

028areas that'll be we'll announce that probably tomorrow uh what day it'll be and what time. Uh we encourage anybody who wants to attend to attend and uh we'll be looking forward to uh the following board meeting when we we do a final presentation and approval. go for approval. Um, Dick, put a hand up. Yes. On the HSA, uh, at the last meeting, there's a a comment about the number of participants that we hadn't firmed up yet. That's right. We haven't started um the enrollment process yet. I think Howard, when's it the enrollment probably start over the summer for next correct school year? Yeah. Yeah. It won't start until the July time frame because the it doesn't go into effect until September 1st. Yeah. So, right now, Vic, the placeholder is probably um every teacher with

029our contractual amount aggregated to what we would have to put in assuming all teachers enroll. Is that correct, Howard? That is absolutely correct. It would it's if everyone took it that is that's currently going to have the option to take it took it and they actually went with it and then that would be what we'd have to pay into it. The $400,000 which is the line item in there. So Vic, if you know after we get through enrollment, reality is of 90 pe 90% of the people show up, we're looking at an actual probably 360 as an example. Correct. 360 instead of 400,000. Correct. As as an example. Okay. As an and the other question the uh content coordinator the 6100 is that like a sip or what is that? It's a siphon. But what

030we're doing is um we we're modifying the department chair position. So that is a a key department chair for science, math, social studies, and language arts for the for those kind core subject areas. Then for the unified arts, you've got music and um you've got art and you've got um wellness and you've got um wellness and physic education and then you've got um teched and world language. we're saying is that one person from one of those areas is going to be a department chair. And then for the other contents that feed into that larger department, we'll have a team leader associated that's a content expert from that area that will get a a a stipen similar to the stipen that we have with the team leaders at the middle school. Okay. I just want to

031get it straight. My we have six department heads that are going to be getting $6,000 something dollars. That's set, right? I mean that's that's this isn't an addition to those six. This is an addition to that. So how many do we have? So these because we went up with the the security one and and is this and that's three more. So that's 10. These are not department chairs. They're they're um content um leads within their content area. So don't think them as a department chair. They're um content experts that are providing some support to teachers um in that content area. Yeah. But they're worth the a sip of $6,000. So they're equal to me in in money. It's $6,000 combined for the three. Three of them. Yes. 6,000 is for three of them. That's correct.

032Okay. That's good. Thank you. Yeah. Got it. Anybody else have any questions or comments or Shel just put her hand up? Shelly. Yeah. Um are you you're talking about not just on the first page but on all of this um um the the new document on the budget. Is that what you're entertaining questions now or just the first page? Anything you'd like to talk about, Shelley? Okay. Um so um on on the original budget book um and thank you for all the work that went into preparing that and also thank you to the finance committee for all the work you did in addition to what um our central office folks have done. Um so in each of the cost centers in the original budget book I noted that um um each of the um centers

033I know they're probably not exactly called centers uh the way they're organized in the original big thick budget book um that was presented by the different um admins. Um I I was appreciative of the fact that um they did a staffing analysis wherein they listed how many administrators you know how many speech language pathologists etc. And um so um in um curriculum although they didn't go into it in in that way they did you know um under certified staff it identifies what is certified staff etc. so that we know what the positions are. And um this was the same for each of the schools where they list each of the position titles and the number of them. And I I'm just bringing this up again because I want to clarify it with a question I'm

034going to ask about the new document. Um so all of those are pretty clear to me. Um, but when again, um, I brought this up last time, but I just want to bring it up again because it's, uh, the the foundation for the question I'm going to ask in the new document. Um, so at central office, um, it listed three administrative positions um, plus, um, plus the superintendent. Um, and you know, initially I think people thought that that would have included um, Eric, but he's actually um, listed in the curriculum uh, center in the budget book and the sped director they thought it initially special education director they initially thought was um, included in that, but that in fact is in the people's service services uh, special education center. And so when I go back

035over then again to the um cost center, I'm just going to call it that where um you know staff are listed for central office. Um it says, sorry I'm flipping to the page. Um it lists three administrators and then further down it lists um the superintendent. So um the Shelley the the three administrators that are listed on that page are director of special education the supervisor special education and the um director code of instruction. This page here it does not tie back to the budget. This is purely a headcount associated people that work at a central office. They a lot of these people fall under different budgets but this is just a headcount from people that report to the central office um organization. So okay thank you. Um so when I look at um when

036I look at people services special education where it says two administrators curriculum and it lists the uh budget dollar amount for that. same for curriculum. And then for each school, it does the same. Um, and then if I look at central office, um, sorry, I'm still clicking from each section. Um, are you saying that the clarification is that the um, central office in all of the other ones? because I don't understand that because you have the dollar amount in each cost center based on you know administrators that are in that cost center etc. So, I'm just trying to understand how exactly this works. Because if you were bringing them all in, wouldn't that negate the ability to list the uh positions and the dollar amount for them in the other cost centers? Because this is

037not this page here. You're look at the staff analysis is not a budget document. All this is is the number of people that are associated with that organization. So if you want to take a look. So what you're seeing here is not it's not a budgetary number. This is just people and you might see these people associated in multiple different pages because they're in they're they're show up in different organizations. Okay. Well to me and um I'm to follow what you're saying and um I'm not trying to be I don't want to be labor our time but when there is a dollar amount associated with it right. So um you have certified staff and the dollar amount associated with it non-certified staff operations etc for central office for an example and that has to um

038be driven by the employees that are lifted um in that cost center because separately as I mentioned the other uh cost centers have the other administrators and their dollar amount. So, I'm just trying to follow that. Can I just ask one question for one second? Can the audience please mute because I can hear a lot of background noise and it's disruptive. You guys don't mind? I'm gonna I'm gonna mute everybody and then um the um board is all set as a co-host. They can unmute. They can unmute themselves. Okay. It's just the background noise is disrupted. I'm sorry. So board each of the board members should have the ability to um unmute. So Miss Castle, maybe I can take a shot at this just so you understand the difference between the two. Right. So one

039of them, the one you're looking at that's a staff lifting staff listing is a physical location. Where are they physically located? When we put them into the budget document, the one where you're talking about the cost centers, that's how we account for them. All right? So, we have to account for special education costs under the special education cost center. Um, and so by doing that, that's that. So, that's that's center 1060. 1060, I believe it is, right? I think I got that one right. So, um, so that's why there when you're looking at that document, it's a little different than where they're physically located because they're lo physically located in central office. Okay. So, that's that's why you really can't that it's not really comparing apples to apples when you're looking at those two documents.

040I mean, we can we can put it to the for that. We can put it that way for you if you'd like to have it that way. That's not a problem. It's just that that's not the intent of that. One was where they physically located and the other was where we account for them from a salary and a and a perspective. I don't know if that helps or not. Anybody else have a question or input from the board? Yeah, Howard, maybe in the next turn. I know we got a finance committee. Maybe just just so we have it. Maybe we just have an exhibit just with the budget document that lists the head counts by cost center where the salaries go. Not a problem. Anybody else? So, we'll bring this back. We'll meet with the

041subcommittee and we'll come back. In the meantime, after you've looked at the document a little bit more, if you have questions, please funnel them through Steve as the chair of the of the finance committee and they'll talk about them at their next meeting. I just wanted to ask second part of that question though before we move on. Um because when you're um talking about um uh the rem removal of the five new positions, um I wonder if you could just tell me what those five are. The the five new positions we've added to the budget. the ones where you say yes that were added and then you delineate and you say um the change in the budget with the five new positions um being removed. Um if you could just tell me what those five

042are, please. They're on page page 10 of our packet. Unified arts teacher and five librarian. Um okay, hold on. So it's unified. These are the ones that are being removed. Unified arts teach. We're not we're not we're not removing. We're at we're recommending addition of of positions. Right. Okay. The but I thought in your budget document um let me go to the page on the new document it talked about um what it would look like. Um it's on page four. I think when it prints the page numbers are not there. Um but the one that starts with u non-discretionary budget items analysis um so it talks about total budget analysis without five new positions but it doesn't say what they are and I wondered if you could just please tell us what those five positions

043are. Oh so the the the um request was to take a look at the budget if we were just to roll it forward from year from this year to next year. So, the new positions in the budget are the unified arts teacher, the literacy coach, the fifth grade teacher, the um librarian, um what else am I missing? Student conduct coordinator or student conduct. Um at the time when we put this together, we didn't have the direct we didn't have security in there. Correct, Howard? That is correct. Yeah. Okay. So, I just want to see if I got I'm trying to write and you talk faster than I can write. So you Shel on page 10 11 12 up to page 15 are the new positions in the budget book we were handed out at the

044first meeting. So those are the five new positions. Okay. Um I just wanted to have them listed so that I can refer to those other pages later because they're kind of buried. Um but I think I have four of them. Unified arts teacher, fifth grade teacher, librarian. um the um the admin position for discipline and what was the fifth please? Did you get literacy coach? What's that? Literacy coach. Thank you. Are you good, Shel? Yep, that was it. Thank you. Perfect. Eve, did you have anything? No, we're going to, like I said, we're going to meet up next week. We'll continue to refine and and add and remove things as necessary, but we'll keep the board apprised of when the latest rollup is available for review. And I do encourage board members to send questions

045to Steve, to ask the committee can ask and work on there's any positions, concerns. Um, let's keep the dialogue going forward. Agreed. All right. Rest of the topics under the budget item is the job description of the literacy coach. Um, we talked I can do that if you guys want. I can do that through curriculum. We talked about them last night. Unless you guys want to do them now. Let's hit it here with the budget if you don't mind, Deb. Let's just get it out of the way. So, we have in your packet is the the descriptions for the literacy coach. We went through some um discussion with Eric regarding what we would like to see in that that job description. We talked about the um schedule that was there and we had some discussion

046about um wanting more time in the buildings and with the kids in the classroom. So um Eric, do you have anything you want to add about the literacy coach? Yeah, we um we'll be share the screen. Thank you. Yeah, we made some changes based upon the the feedback from the committee last night. Yeah. And the the original um or we'll start with this the job description. So there were some recommendations in regards to the um certification. Um so one of the recommendations we were looking for the 097 which is a language arts consultant. Then 102 is remedial um reading certification. Um while both will be kind of allowable for the position um we will work to try and focus on candidates within 097 certification and make sure those are preferred. Um the other piece of

047major feedback was with this second um bullet. Um we had just it was it was a little vague in regards to um the coach developing coaching cycles which is part of the the the major part of their job. Um so we switched it to not the coach developing uh the coaching cycles but implementing the district identified coaching cycle. So just to make it clear that it's the district defining what those coaching cycles are and implementing those. Those are the two major changes that came out of discussions from last night. And then we revised the sample schedule that went along with that. Yeah. So, the original the original schedule um which the the feedback last night was um you know warranted in regards to us trying to put everything a coach would do in a given

048week which this position is may change you know dayto-day in regards to where they are. Um but the the majority of the time spent is going to be in the classroom um with modeling uh model lessons, co-eing, coaching. Um and we have to define what those cycles are going to look like. Um so again, that's going to be the majority of their day. Um this person will report to uh myself as the director of curriculum instruction um as well as the building principles. So we would work in developing um goals that would be done throughout the year for the modeling and the coaching um which would be done unit by unit. Um and then there would be other classroom support as well. So we would have a focus on the curriculum that we're doing and

049then we would have that person also work with teachers to identify their um their individual needs as well. You have some teachers who may be um more comfortable teaching uh you know the phonics um part of the curriculum. You have more teachers may be more comfortable with um doing the vocabulary piece. But this person would be flexible and be able to provide um extra support coaching in whatever whatever area a teacher may need. Um and then the other part of the position uh is the district and building project. So focusing on um you know building grade level professional development. Um the hope is that this these uh this staff member would also be able to run um department meetings or grade level meetings to take off uh some of the work from the principal's plate.

050Um and those pieces would kind of be seen as the major pieces of what this person would do. But there, you know, the big piece that singular focus would be the teacher support and being in the classroom. Any board members have a any questions on the literacy groups? I have a quick question. um when you um not on the schedule right now, but um um because this is the first time I'm seeing it, I'm hoping you'll send that to us, Eric. But when you were doing the job description and the modification, I understood uh the bullet point, but up above on the um qualifications. Y um we were discussing I should say it was my point um taking out the word preferred that it would be 97 102 certification required with a preference to 097

051are we not going to do that 197 can you say that one more time so say so I see what you're saying 097 and 102 certification required but 097 certification preferred Yes. All right. I could we could put that word required in. Okay. Thanks. Because otherwise it almost reads like that. It's you know um you know it's a preferred thing, not a required thing. But thank you for Will you send this out to us? Um because I I didn't see that it was posted in that way. Maybe because it's brand new the modifications to it. Right. We couldn't we couldn't we couldn't post it because um the curriculum meeting was at 5:15 yesterday and this was revised um within 24 hours of meeting today. So we couldn't post it again. Okay. So but it can

052be sent out after tonight. All right. Thank you. So I just want to make sure everyone understands we approve jobs positions. We don't necessarily approve the job descriptions but we are having discussions on on them with um Dr. Miller and Eric and um it was a good conversation to make some changes yesterday. So um but I just wanted to reiterate that it's not possible to vote to vote to approve a job unless we fully understand what the job is going to be and that's why we need to you know be able to know exactly what the job description is. Correct. But I do appreciate the conversation and dialogue about it. department chairs. Eric, do you want to take that as well? We talked about that last night. Yeah. Um, we just went over sort of

053um, you know, what the focus would be with the addition of a couple of those department heads having the um, on those content areas and kind of focusing on that piece. Um so the role of the department heads we talked about um they would have a kind of a full slate of uh in regards to their teaching role. Um and you see the job responsibilities posted there but their focus they would have a couple different um uh areas of focus. One is uh obviously that organizational piece. Um so budgeting the organization of materials in the school um identifying instructional needs and making sure um they're in that constant contact with building administration as well as myself in regards to the needs of the department. Um the the second which is kind of why this position

054um why we're doing what we're doing with the department heads is really that curriculum support um and being that curriculum expert. So this year we have a a new curriculum template. We are going to be writing a lot of curriculum over the next couple years. Um so these the department heads will be the curriculum expert in the department. Um whether it's new teachers uh brand new teachers to the field or new teachers who have come to um the building. They're going to be able to support teacher growth. Um and that process is going to be done through feedback. Uh the the department heads will get trained. um while they don't do evaluation and write evaluation to teachers, they'll still get that same training that administrators will get in regards to um that TV val process.

055So, they can provide um some of that coaching and feedback to teachers. Um they will also obviously lead department meetings um available to help support and lead halfday, full day professional development um and really be those content experts. So when we're having larger conversations about the curriculum, those people in the room leading the curriculum are also ones that are teaching those courses um and and know that content. Um and that's kind of the main conversation we had in regards to um the role the department heads. Anyone have any questions? No. No. I can't see. Okay. We discussed it yesterday. Okay. No questions. Okay. And the next job description was the coordinator of student conduct. And Dr. Miller, do you want to take that one? I'm sure. Um basically um the the purpose of this job

056is to assist the building adminators on disciplinary issues going on in building assisting with attendance to help promote students to be in school. um to help with bullying investigations to assist on the creation of safe um plans, safety plans um if there are bullying investigations taking place and um pro to be proactive to work with the students and identify where some of the challenging behaviors are to make sure that students are um taking the safe approach and the appropriate approach uh before things um go south. Um and um a lot of this role is to alleviate the current responsibilities from the principal and assistant principal so that they can focus on more instructional leadership roles within their school. Um in addition to this um there's a new safe um school climate plan um that needs

057to be approved and be um in approved this July and in place um the following September. that's going to create a whole um another layer of responsibilities that the building administrators will need to do. Um and if this coordinator or student contact is available, it will help alleviate some of that additional workload that the state is mandating down to the school level. Any questions? Yes. Just for the uh taxpaying citizens is uh can we get an organizational chart because there's no one in the world that's going to be able to figure out you're make making so many changes in titles and pay and and responsibilities that uh you know that I don't think the voting public can really understand all these changes and uh it's it's going to need something like Eric has these five

058directors reporting to them and and whatever because it even somebody that's kind of involved in this can't figure out where all these people are. You know, I understand your thing is that they sit in this building, but they're in that budget. I mean, that's normal, but it's hard for anybody that they can go through any of this and and have a picture. I I don't I I have never really seen a full organizational chart of the school. So, it's uh I think it's time in order to promote these positions that they can lay out where these people are on the chart, who they report to, and and why and what the benefit is. We we did an organization a couple years ago. I certainly revise it with the um recommended positions we have in in

059place now. So, you're going to revise it or does We certainly can revise and um produce a new version of it. Okay. Because the last one was kind of sketchy. Well, we can work on it. Yeah, I think you need to have that if you're going to sell this program and and get all these changes and all this these budget changes and salary increases. People got to understand what where these people are, what they're doing. I mean, some of these kind these these titles I've I've never even heard of. I'm sure that many people out there go, "Huh?" But anyway, just just a s well, it's more than a suggestion, but anyway, take it for what I think it's fair. No, Vic, I think I think it's spot on. We should have an up-to-date organizational

060chart for any company, organization, whatever it may be. So, we'll through the finance subcommittee and personnel, we'll we'll work with the team on that, make sure we have one. Okay. Thank you, Sue. Um I was just wondering what the salary was for this particular position for um the coordinator um Howard. What's what did you budget for that? Uh 119753. It's the it's the equivalent of the supervisor of special ed I believe is this the one we equated it to which is also going to the middle school assistant principal. Correct. One more time. 119 119 uh 753 I believe is the total. Okay. Exactly. Is that good, Sue? Yep. Thanks. Sure, Shellyley. Can um so um one thing is the number that you just gave. Thank you for that number. But I see that um it's

061quot it's listed in the uh line items as 59 something um at the middle school and 59 something at the high school which would give a total of 120 something almost 121. Um is that right or is it um I mean I'm not I'm just trying to figure out how how we're 5966 I'm sorry to interrupt 59665 twice is 119 330. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, and we we from a budgetary standpoint, we put a 50/50 for the two schools just to capture exactly the schools it represents. Okay, that fair enough. Um, and I just want to say for the benefit of all the board members and um, also for the um, you know, uh, people from the community that are listening, a concern that I have is um, getting too topheavy for a

062district of our size. Um, it's highly unusual to have so many administrative positions. From my perspective um you know assistant principles in my you know job as an educational consultant forget as a board member what I always encounter everywhere is that this is the job of the assistant superintendent and while I fully recognize the you know the claim being accurate that we are certainly increased in the uh difficult behaviors that our students are presenting with that we need to address. I my my point is I would prefer to spend these dollars um giving our assistant principles that we already have um better tools and spend them money there and the but and the rest of that money to be spent on our students teacher support if they need it. Um I I'm opposed to increasing

063the number of administrators that we have in our district. I don't think our numbers of students uh support it and I think that if we um keep that in mind, our budget will not be at 5.77%. Thank you. Vic, do you have another question? Because your hands up. Uh, no, but I I agree with Shel is that uh it's always kind of funny is that uh you know uh for the six years I've been on this board, no matter what ever was suggested is that that the standard line is that we're a small district and we don't have a lot of money and we can't afford to do anything. And today it's like uh uh I mean it's a bonsai to the wall, but uh it's uh and it's like many corporations, you know, there's

064uh a staff of a thousand and three workers down on the floor making something. So anyway, I I agree with Shel that that's something you got to have pictured in your mind because that's how the citizens are going to look at it. Thank you. Anybody else? I'd just like to chime in. Um I being on the finance uh subcommittee, I mean Steve's doing a great job. Howard's doing a great job. I am impressed with how far I don't know the analogy of like spreading buttercross bread of how far we stretch our dollars, you know, to be able to I think at the beginning of this um meeting, Howard walked us through how we're adding all these positions that the board, for example, requested, director of security, BCBA, all these different positions, all these different asks,

065and we were able to kind of find a way that it it only impacted the the budget by 41,000 because we could find a little savings here and a little savings there to meet the needs of the district meets the needs of the students and the staff to be able to provide the resources we need. It's the difficulty of comparing us to a big district or a medium-sized district is there's certain fundamentals and needs that all districts have. And if we don't fund them, if we don't take care of them, we get situations where we're like, why is there no growth? Why aren't we making strides when we we want to make making changes and strides and we're not. And some of it has to do with investing. We have to invest. You're either growing

066or you're shrinking. And and we don't want to be shrinking. We don't want our test scores and our students the quality of the services we provide for our students to shrink. And I believe uh when we were getting the presentation last meeting um How Howard's information that was presented um was that with just contractual obligations of salaries and insurance the budget was going up 4.8%. From my understanding, it it's a the what's contractually obligated is really high. It just is. And maybe, you know, you could say, well, you know, well, what if we just cut positions? We don't want to. It, you know, if the town forces us to, we can make hard decisions, you know, and and you know, we're not afraid to make hard decisions, but the goal is we want to be

067stronger and better every year. So, I just I just put in my two cents on that that I I think our goal is to present what's best for the district and whatever that wherever the directions whether it's recommendations from staff, administration, the you know the needs of the students and the board's recommendations go into this budget. It's not just one person's ideas or even a subcommittee deciding what's happening. It's a very inclusive process. And I'd like I'd like to kind of um second that if if you will and remind the board and remind the public that this budget was put together with the feedback from teachers and staff across the district. We heard um from teachers over the last year to restore the department position to to put that back and to get content leaders

068for those four content areas. The budget has that in there. We've heard loud and clear from elementary school teachers that challenging behaviors are becoming problematic and impacting education for the kids in the entire classroom. We're addressing that by adding the additional BCBA. And finally, we have heard from teachers at middle school and high school that student behaviors are on increased student attendance issues are impacting learning in those classrooms. And when I met with the OEA, when I met with the teacher um rep council um representative from each building with the unit of that leadership and I talked about these new positions, the feedback I got was yes, even the the coordinator of student conduct was something. Yes, it's an administrative position, but they saw the value in that. They see that this is going to

069help them address behaviors in the school which is going to impact education those classrooms. All these positions are ones that the teachers are saying yes this will help us as teachers in the classroom. are saying we want to provide what the teachers are asking for. This is what the teachers are asking for. I just want to point out that this the dean of students has been requested for a number of years and we haven't funded it. We haven't and it's a similar we just changed the title name. It's a similar concept. Um, when we were talking in our subcommittee, we felt like the dean of students was just not something that we all felt was the right terminology because that's not the only thing that they would be responsible for. Bobby, go ahead. I just

070I just want to mention I I see all the job descriptions for um most things, but I don't see it for the security director that was added um last week. So, I'm just wondering where we're at. We'll have to work on it. We We haven't developed it yet. Yeah. Any any input you'd like to provide on that? Yeah. Can you send it to everybody? You guys know my background. So, if you have any questions whatsoever if Mr. Dioiggo wants to talk to me, I'm I'm available uh I can make myself available uh whenever he needs to talk to me. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. You have another your hands up again. I thought I thought it was still up. Sorry. Go ahead. Who who who? Go ahead. Me, Vic. You. Yeah,

071you. Okay. It It's just uh when you you're looking at the uh I I saw your sheet on the 40,000. Okay. It's you know, that's $40,000. Okay. The overall budget on your revised sheet, you know, it was 1,900,000 at 5.6%. I think the new one that you submitted is 5.77%. So, you know, 40,000 on that sheet is impressive. Okay. 2 million bucks is very impressive. So, you know, we're adding a lot of people and we're adding a lot of things. So, uh I'm just bringing that up as not only a board member, but also as uh somebody that has to they can look at this and vote at it from the money from a citizen standpoint. So, it's one almost two million bucks that you're asking for, not 40,000. It's understood. Anybody else have any

072questions? Okay. So, we'll come back to this at the next meeting. Uh, next topic is boys and uh volleyball, golf and volleyball. Okay. Um, so I'm going to um invite Joe in in a moment, but basically um the request came to me that there was not sufficient number of students to field a um boys volleyball team this spring. Um there was a recruitment effort to try and get enough students to play um despite announcements um on the loudspeaker, despite um TV um screens in the lobbies and the hallways in the cafeteria approaching students, u Mr. stock was unable to get um enough students to field the team. Um he approached um Mr. Herbert um principal of the the high school approached me about um the problem. Um he was unable to get enough students. Um

073he did have enough students to field a co-ed golf team. Um so he raised the the topic of replacing boys volleyball with um a co-ed golf um team. Um, I asked him for the budgetary numbers to verify that we're not adding money to the budget. He was able to prove to me that the transition over to a co-ed golf team actually saves the district some money um in doing so. So, I put together a memo that I shared with you um in this evening's packet about um changing from volleyball to um co golf. Um we heard some of the concerns um raised during auditing to citizens. So, I know that Joe wanted to address some of the work that he's done up to this point and then answer any questions you might have about this

074proposal you see in front of you tonight. Go ahead, Joe. Hi, Joe. Hi, guys. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you guys hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Can you hear us? All right. Uh so so thank you guys for uh uh for Yes, I can hear you. Okay. So thank you guys for for uh me tonight. heard some of the concerns about our and I just take a little bit of a timeline and some of the things that I have done um you know this was not an easy decision for me to make um you know in in my three years here as the athletic director um you know we've added uh indoor collaborative team for two years with Seymour High School. Uh we've added boys hockey for two seasons and a co-op

075with West Haven and Seymour and Shelman. Uh this past hockey um and we co-op of 13 and we the host team is uh is Mass High School. Um and then uh you know we started a golf program last year with with two athletes. Um and we were a collaborative team with Seymour. Um, and we're going to continue uh to have golf as an option this year uh depending on whether you guys approve um a standalone team uh or if we need to look uh uh continue to collaborate with uh with Symore. Um so so this did not uh this decision did not come easily. Um uh I've taken into a a lot of things into account. Uh one of which is uh we have no coaches in place at this time. Um we've had the

076position posted since July. Uh and we have not received as well. Um the number of uh returning players uh is two from last season squad. We only had 10 me the team last year. A number of players who signed up. Joe, Joe, Joe, you're cutting off a lot. Joe, I'm wondering if you shut off your video if that would improve the audio. Is that better? Let's give it a shot. How about now? Can you hear me now? Yeah, I I think it sounds better. Yeah. Okay. So, how much of of what I said did you hear? Should I start over? Nope. 10 on the team last year was where we left off. Yes. So, we had uh 10 on the team uh last year. Um and we have two returning. Um uh on October 17th

077I was contacted by uh Mark Atush. Uh he's the new Fairfield athletic director and uh he had sent out a first draft of our schedule. Um we are in the Southwest Conference for boys volleyball. Um on uh November 3rd, he returned uh he sent out a confirmed schedule uh of which we were included. Um on November 8th, I contacted him um to inform him that um you know, we may be in danger of not being able because of only having two players and no coaches in place. Um even though we had position since July um at time he said you know that um you know we do or what this is going to be. So, um uh over the course of that time, I did speak with uh Neil, uh one of our players, uh

078returning from last year. Um you know, I gave him um information that we had uh that I asked him if and guys to get them interested to come out the team. Um I have him in my uh in my class. Um and you know we've had a few conversations um asking him if you know if anyone come up to him. Um uh on January 23rd uh New Fairfield's ad uh reached out to me, requested an update and asked me to um uh to see if we can have a decision soon. Uh the CIC sets the timeline as far as when dates are spring scheduled are posted on the CIC website. Um, and they are posted already. February 1st is when they posted. So, um, in order for the SWC, if we were not going to

079be having a program, in order for them to fill their schedules, uh, they would need to, you know, be notified so that they have enough time to reach out to other schools, uh, to try and fill our spot if we weren't going to have them. Uh, so that that happened on uh, January 23rd. Um, at that time I spoke with uh Chelsea Serills who uh is our athletic trainer and we um uh decided to open up family ID early. So typically we open it up on February 1st um for spring sports. Um we decided that we wanted to open it and we did on January 25th. Um at at this time I I did notify um you know our admin that we would that we are in danger of not having the sport um due

080to lack of uh interest. Um we made an announcement each day in school. Uh that announcement included a very um specific statement which said um that uh we would need more students to sign up and and would be in danger of not having a season this year. Uh and that was said every day on morning announcements. Uh it was also in uh Friday highlights since January 26th uh along with the registration link. Um we uh we put that uh same statement on our television screens in the cafeteria during lunch every every uh lunch wave. Uh we had it on the third floor hallway which um a ton of kids uh assemble in between classes. Um, we also put it in the main lobby television. Um, uh, the, uh, uh, the decision that we ended up

081making, um, was because we only had one student sign up. Um, and I want you to understand that when we opened up family ID, um, in the same time frame, we had 72 athletes sign up for athletics in the spring. Uh, we had I have a a list. We had uh 15 uh members sign up for softball. We had 13 members sign up for baseball. We had 30 members sign up for track. We had 13 members sign up for golf golf and we only had one member sign up for boys volleyball. So um you know that was taken into consideration uh also with the the timeline that I was given uh to alert the SWC of the possibility of us not having the season. um uh you know that also played a part into um

082making it necessary to to to make a decision. Um, you know, I did go around and uh, you know, in in lunch waves asking people if they were going to sign up for uh, for spring sports um, including boys volleyball and that we you know, we were in danger of losing our season if we didn't have um, players sign up. Um, you know, uh, at to this time I still, uh, don't have any applicants for the coaching positions for boys volleyball. Um, the following, uh, uh, athletic directors contacted me prior to making this decision. Um Ronnie Plowski from Pmparog. Uh Mike Santangelie from Barlo. Steve Baldwin from Brookfield. Scott Snell from Shelton. Um AMD's athletic director, Bridgeport Central's athletic director, Walcott Tech, as well as Kobe Cathedral. um or so those um ads were asking

083for an answer so that they could try and find outside games outside elite to fill our schedule. Um it's important for them to do that because there's a percentage um that qualifies a team to make the state playoffs and if you lose games that percentage it it hurts your chances of making the playoffs if you don't have a full schedule. Um uh I did look into the possibility of co-op. Um, uh, every school that we play against, uh, in the SWC, uh, the CIA sets a requirement in order for a team to co-op. If you, um, you can only co-op with a team that has 10 or less players. If you are freshman to senior year or if you count sophomore to senior year, the number is set at seven. Uh all the teams that

084we could have potentially co-op with exceed those numbers. So it is not possible for us to co-op with any of those schools. Um, when I went to our uh latest AD meeting, uh, in the NVL, the NVL does not offer boys volleyball as a sport. Uh, there are no teams in the NVL that have boys volleyball. Uh, when I asked if any teams would be interested in trying to form a co-op, uh, the only person that said um, they would be open to discussion was Woodland. Um after speaking with uh with uh Woodland's athletic director um he informed me that the superintendent had um met with all administrators in the district and informed them that there were to be no um new programs for the remainder of this year as well as uh next year

085uh due to budgetary constraints. Um so uh you know when when that decision was made uh you know that opportunity um you know hit a standill as well. Um so um you know in the over the past three years um there's a trend in our athletics. Um there are we lost you. Are you there? Oh, you there. We can see you. We can't hear you. Okay. So, while Joe's trying to get his audio back to to work, so the request was for us to um Are you back, Joe? the request was for us to um make a change um and use the money that we had allocated in the budget for boys volleyball to be used for um co-ed golf. Sue, you have a question? Um I don't really have a question. I just have

086some statements to be made. Um um I think not having a boys volleyball team would be a big disservice. I have no objection to golf. I think as many opportunities as we can offer these children the better. Um but um volleyball for boys is a great sport. I never even really knew anything about it, but my son did go starting sophomore year after COVID after never even really playing volleyball. I mean the problem with volleyball as far as getting a team, it's been a struggle. I know definitely since CO there's no feeder program from the middle school so a lot of boys don't even know or understand what it is. I know that that first team they had after co not single one of them knew how to play. We didn't even have a senior

087but we made it through. They had a great time. Um and I know it's a struggle to get a team. But from the timeline I'm understanding if uh if uh family ID opened on the 25th and by the 5th we had already pulled the team. I've been involved in sports for a long time and getting people to register within a week is very difficult, especially if they don't fully understand what they're signing up for. Um, there could have been meetings. Um, from my understanding, the actual parents of the few remaining students on the team were not really notified of how urgent this was. Um, and we knew that there was going to be a shortage because we graduated, I don't know, at least six seniors last year. So, we knew that'd be a shortage of

088teen people. So, it should have been a fullear push. Um, so I do not approve. I don't think it's a good idea to get rid of volleyball. Um, and that's that's my that's my two. Joe, are you back? Yeah. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes. Okay. So, um you know, like I said, I don't I don't want to get rid of volleyball. Uh you know, we can't play volleyball with one or two players. The number there's now people ready to go. I believe I've heard there's a list of nine boys ready to go. Yeah, I've heard that, too. However, not one person has come to me and told me any of the names of those boys. Um, you know, and I think you can probably get the list tonight. Let him. Sorry. We didn't

089we didn't just open this up for 5 days. Uh, we opened it up on the 25th. We closed it on February 5th. Um, that's 12 days. Is it a short period of time? It is. However, the CIA dictates when the timeline to set the uh the posting of spring schedules is, which is February 1st. The SWC had asked me to uh on January 23rd to um to give them an update and to um make a decision uh soon thereafter. uh because in order and I'm not sure how much of what um what you heard I said earlier so I'm just going to repeat myself so I apologize if you've already heard this but um that in in at the CIA there's a percentage in order to get into a state playoff game you have to

090win uh 40% of your contests if there are uh teams that can't schedule a full schedule, then they go they're in jeopardy of not being able to make the state tournament. Um, you know, if they needed one more game or or two more games, um, you know, that happened to us this year in girls volleyball. Uh, we were short one game and we missed the playoffs by one game. So um you know it's very important that these schools have an opportunity to schedule games in boys volleyball. There are not many teams uh in the state that participate in boys volleyball. So uh the teams that are in um leagues um pick up their games in the leagues and then they c they pick up games outside of their leagues. Uh you can only have a

09120 game schedule. So when teams fill their schedules, there's no other teams left to schedule. So that is the importance of why we needed to make this decision. As soon as we did, because the SWC um and I don't know if you heard me, but these are the athletic directors who had requested um an answer. Pompro, Barllo, Brookfield, Shelton, Massik, Amity, Bridgeport Central, Walit Tech, and uh Kobe Cathedral. Uh you know, New Fairfield uh their athletic director um and the commissioner of the SWC had contacted me on um on uh November 3rd. Um, I let them know on November 8th that, you know, we'd only had two returning players and we had no coaches in place at that time and that we possibly would be in danger of not being able to have a team.

092Um, you know, we had started making conversations in December trying to get kids to come out for the teams, trying to um let them know that we were in danger of not having a team. um you know in our announcements the specific words that we used in the announcement was that we needed more and and I didn't say this for any other sport. It was only for boys volleyball that we needed more players to sign up or we would be in danger of not having a season this year. And that was said over the announcements every day from uh January 25th on um until we we pulled the plug. Um so um you know we did attempt during that time we had 72 athletes sign up for spring sports um and only one of them

093was for boys volleyball. Uh we did put it out on family on uh oh I'm sorry we put it out on uh the Friday highlights on January 26th. Um you know so um you know I I I'm always trying to get us any kid any student who is interested in in participating in athletics. I'm always trying to get them on board. Um, you know, we've had indoor track for two seasons with Seymour. We've we started boys hockey two years ago. No one ever thought we would be able to do that. Uh, we started girls hockey this year. Um, you know, we started golf last year and and now we have 13 players signed up for golf this season. Um, so, you know, I I it's not that I I you know, tried to shut down

094boys volleyball. We just didn't have interest. Um you know we have uh athletics are uh the numbers of our students are increasing in the following sports. Boys and girls soccer, football, girls and boys swim, girls volleyball, cross country, girls basketball, softball, outdoor track, golf and baseball, but they are declining in boys volleyball and gymnastics and in boys basketball. Um boys volleyball it's declined in the last two seasons. um gymnastics just this season um and boys basketball just this season. So I do keep an eye on a trend and and boys volleyball unfortunately is trending in the wrong direction. Um you know the other things that you have to take into account you know I I have not been approached by any athletes any any students in school. So, I I just would like to know

095who these athletes are and who these athletes have gone to what parents. I I just I'm not really understanding why they would go to a parent to tell them they want to sign up um and not approach me in the school um because they can simply you know see me in the school anytime and and let me know that they are interested in playing. Um you know we did have a signup sheet in the school and and nobody signed that signup sheet. Um, you know, we had um uh you know, there there's just uh Did you hear me uh about the co-op situation? Yes, we did. Okay. So, I mean, I exhausted all efforts on on trying to co-op. Um unfortunately, there there is by CIA rule, there was no option for us to do

096that. Um and as well as there's no option to do it within anyone in our league. Um you know, Woodland was the the closest opportunity. Um and that was uh unfortunately uh shut down because of the directive that they received from their superintendent. Um you know, I know that Woodland's coach reached out to me. Um their girls coach reached out to me. He was our former boys coach. Um he sent me an email. I sent him an email back. Um and have he has not responded to that email since I sent his uh response. Um so you know um I know um there was talk about uh open gym. So I I want to address that. Open gym we did last year. Uh we had two days of open gym. Um and in those two

097days uh we had not picked up any students uh in that open gym that had not already signed up previous to the open gym. Um actually there were uh more girls from the girls volleyball team at open gym than we had boys during open gym time. Um uh you know so um you know for these reasons uh we had to make a call and it was not an easy call. Um but we just didn't have the interest. Um you know this is how uh tryyouts are done or how signups are done in uh schools. Um, you know, I didn't just come up with this idea myself. Uh, I called Paul Mangled, who is a longtime athletic director at, um, at Amity High School. Um, you know, I followed, uh, the recommendations of him. I follow

098recommendations of fellow, uh, athletic directors who I constantly reach out to about, you know, what can I do to draw up support. Um, so you know, I I do believe that I've taken uh the steps in order to u you know, try and get kids to come out for the program. Um, it just, you know, it didn't come to fruition. No, we have some questions from board members. Let me push over to them. Nicole, uh, thanks Deb. Joe, you might have said this already, but with the audio coming in and out, can you just reiterate again how many what's the minimum number of kids you would need to field a team? So, the the the recommended number is 12. And uh the the number, you know, we had 10 last year. Um the reason why

099you want to have 12 is you have six players on a team and in order for you to scrimmage against each other um you know in a p practice p practice session um you know you would want to scrimmage against the a full team of six. Um so right that that makes sense. So, let me just ask you, if by some miracle we were able to find a coach and we were able to get between 10 and 12 kids, did we miss the window to be put on a schedule or is there still a shot that we could make this happen for these kids? So, the the the issue is we to give the SWC a uh an answer so that they can get into their scheduling. Um, you know, so we have informed them

100that we did not have the number and we do not have a coach in place. Um, is there a shot? I mean, I'm always willing to reach out again and see if we can uh we can do something. But here's the other thing that you have to take into consideration. If we have two returning players, what is the experience level of the players who are coming out for a team? There's a reason why you have a varsity team. There's a reason why you have a JV team. Um, you know, and then there's a reason why you can have a club team. If you're starting a team with inexperienced players that, you know, haven't played the game before, you don't want to put them in a situation going against varsity. Uh, there are some heavy hitters

101in the sport and, you know, you're you're looking at a safety issue if you're trying to put a kid out there who doesn't belong in a varsity game. Uh, we wouldn't do that for any other sport. you know, we wouldn't put him in a in a football game. We wouldn't put him in a baseball game. Um, you know, I I understand where you're going with that. Let me just cut you off for a second. So, if we can't do a a varsity or JV team, is there the possibility of making this a club sport? Yeah, I I actually spoke with uh Dr. Miller about that today. um you know and I would actually uh be in support of uh a club sport if we had um inexperienced players especially. So the Waterberry schools are trying

102to do a club team this year. Uh they're going to do a collaboration of uh of players from the Waterberry schools. Um they haven't confirmed if they have that done yet. Um, but you know, they they're they're looking to do a a club team. Um, if we could do a club team, that would be fine. I can look at the NVL and ask if there are any other teams that would mind uh trying to form a club team so that we can participate in games. Um, okay. So, quick question. What would the cost be if we make this a club sport? Can we do it for less than $7,900? Well, I I mean, I can't tell you off the top of my head, but if it's a club sport, um you know, I don't know

103if uh typically officials are not paid for in a club sport. So, it would just be uh coaches that are there um or kids that would be doing the officiating for the clubs. Um I don't know how many games we would be able to schedule. So, that would be, you know, that would be another thing that we'd have to take into consideration. Um, are we looking at uh trying to hire a coach uh for that club sport? Um, it would probably be my recommendation that you do hire one and that uh uh a a coach that has a Connecticut uh certification um as well as CPR and first aid which is required for all coaches in the state. Um you know so so that's another you know that's another issue. Now, um, you know, we

104don't have any there was no coaches. Now, I've been told that we have a coach in place. Um, I I don't understand that because I've not made any recommendations. I've not done any interviews and I've not received any applications. So, I don't know um who this uh supposed coach is. Um but you know by all means if somebody is interested uh they can certainly go to online to Apple and and and uh put in an application um I would have hoped that they if they did have interest they would have done that you know they could have done it as early as July. So Joe, let me ask you, does it make sense or would it be difficult for us if we table this to the next board meeting and you come back to us

105with the information on club club team? Um, yeah, I mean I I can I can certainly do that. When is the next board meeting though? The 27th. February 27th. Yes. Yeah. I mean, we I could I can certainly gather information and um uh speak with the uh the NVL athletic directors. Um you know, I could talk to some of the um uh athletic directors from other leagues as well to see if they want to maybe send their JV team to us. Um you know, maybe we can do a jamboree on a Saturday. Um you know, there are there are a lot of um options that we can look into. Um when it comes to club sport um the the difficult part is you know being involved in the CIAC uh you know there are deadlines

106that have to be met and you know they are you know that those are those are the facts really that you know we have to we have to abide by. I also want to add that um in addition to the volleyball coach being posted on our frontline system um starting this year we begin to we've begun to post hard to fill positions on Indeed as another way to get non-educators to apply for positions and while Joe was talking I pulled up our Indeed profile and this volleyball position has posted since September 26 and there have been zero applicants there. We have had luck getting other coaching positions through Indeed and there just has been no interest in either of the systems that we post positions in. Did you have another question? Um I didn't know

107if you're still up. Yeah, I'm still up. Um first, um as far as the experience of the players, Noah's sophomore year after COVID, literally there was not one returning volleyball player and yeah, they had no idea what they were doing. They actually had the co coach on the court with them, but they learned a lot and they actually won some games near the end and to watch them grow was amazing. Um, and yes, I know that getting coaches is hard, but I believe for the last three years, we've been waiting to get coaches to the very end. And we've also been signing up kids at the very end. I believe there was maybe eight Noah sophomore year that played. Um, so I think if you were to open Family ID, what my recommendation would be,

108give it the week, open up Family ID, put it on there, and let them have the chance. And if you don't get anything by Friday, then okay, I we we've tried. But if you get enough kids to sign up, I think you should try your best to get them back on the schedule and let them have their season. There's a senior who wants to play his senior year, and I think that's important. Christine, I know you want to ask a question, but you're you can't during this time. I'm sorry. Um Joe, so if we bring this back in two weeks, you can give us some more information at least on club or we're because we're too far past the deadline to be able to have a JV team. Is that what I'm understanding? That Well,

109the SWC is about varsity. um you know the the the only thing that counts for state playoffs is the varsity schedule. So I needed to give them an answer for for SC uh scheduling varsity games. Um you know if we if we wanted to have a JV game um you know we do have two seniors you know and we would have to request to to um you know the the schools that we play if if they would be allowed to play in a JV game. Um, you know, typically athletic directors and coaches don't mind. Um, but you know, we we have to at least make sure that they're uh they know that we would be having uh seniors playing in a JV game. Dave, you have a question. Yeah, it's just maybe more of a

110statement. So, we kind of gone off pretty far, but our goal right now is to approve, we have to prove the boys funding, but I would say um I think we can find the money for volleyball, whatever. Let's just get to the bottom of is there a club, a team, or whatever, but we'll find if kids want to play, we'll find the money. Yeah, I don't I don't think the money is going to be an issue in order to have a club uh sport. Um, you know, I in my budget right now um, you know, I have um I have money that I can move from one line item uh, you know, to to cover cost if need be, but but I I don't uh I don't see money as being issue in this at

111all. Good. We just wanted to make sure it wasn't. So, so do we need to make a motion to change the allocation or can we table that till the next meeting? Is is is the vote uh actually approving to be able to fund golf or is that more of aou that board would? It's anou. So is the to allow you that's what it would be. I'll make it. So just move this forward. I enter a motion to allow Deb Sherman, our board chair, uh to enter into negotiations for the purpose of uh moving forward with golf, the golf program. Is there a second? Who is that? Second. That's Steve. All in favor? I I opposed. I abstain. Motion carries. Thank you. And Joe, come back to us in two weeks and let's have a further

112discussion or discuss with Dr. Miller and we'll come back to it. Okay, I'll get to work. Thank you. Thanks. Before we move on, can I say something? Yeah. Thank you. Um, you know, as you guys uh the board members know, I have a senior and I kind of agree with uh with Sue here. Um, if we could get a get get something so these kids could play um you know, whether it's club or JV, I think that's real important. Let's let's let these kids have some fun and and play a sport that they enjoy. Thank you. Great. I think we all do agree with that. Okay. The next item is personnel salary in which we need a motion to go into executive session. Okay. I make a motion for the board to enter into an

113executive session for the purpose of discussing non-bargaining member salaries, assignments, and salaries for positions and other personal issues. And invite Superintendent Dr. Miller and business manager Howard Wllo into the executive session. I'll second. All in favor? I I opposed. Abstain. Motion carries. We're in executive session at 750. Okay. I think we're going to do is we're going to stop the live broadcast, put everybody in a waiting room into a breakout room, and then we'll go we'll relaunch the live session um once we go back into the