001Okay. I'd like to call to order the September 26, 2023 regular board of education meeting at exactly 6:30. Please stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Start with Shelley, please. Mcra, Joe, Steve Ker, Stephanie Miller, Debbie Sh. Are there any amendments to the agenda? Hearing none, we can move on to the minutes step. Motion to approve the September 12th, 2023 board of education. Second by no. Are there any amendments or comments? I'd actually like to table them um only because our the count of the votes were not done on the minutes. It just said with what votes? Any of the motions. And we did the
002motions. Oh, they were not done the way we would normally do them. So, I would just like to actually um move the table. Okay. So, then if you're moving the table, do we need a second on that? Um we need to actually pull back the approval. So, I'm going to resend. Well, why why don't I why don't why don't we just oppose it and then make a motion to table it. Okay. So, um all those in favor? No one. Um oppose all of us. Okay, good. So that motion did not carry. So then now you can motion table the September 12th. Second by Joe. Um any further discussion? No, but for the other motion maybe the discussion just as De that the um the votes are the votes. Why it's all um all those in
003favor? oppose or abstain. Motion carries. Okay. Um OHS student recognition. Okay. So, welcome. Um we have quite an honor and we actually able to celebrate this honor earlier today at the high school. Um we have two students um that applied to be part of the Special Olympics um leadership um youth leaders in the Special Olympics North American US um youth ambassador class of 2023 and 2025. um these students applied only 14 students across the entire United States got accepted um for this cohort. 144 we had two students um never before have two students from Connecticut have been um accepted into this program let alone two students from the same high school and the same talent. We talk a lot about being inclusive and talking about bringing students and and adults together regardless of diversity, regardless
004of ability. And this really symbolizes the type of environment that we want our students to be in elementary school through high school for two students to have the courage to apply to participate in this risk that they need to do. So, the inner confidence that they can do this work and then be accepted is just um flat out amazing. And we are so proud that Freddy and James um did this. Um we were able to, as I said, to honor them at high school this morning. There's a state of Connecticut proclamation that honored them and we're honoring them tonight. So, Freddy and James, if you can come up here for a second. Congratulations. Thank you. So, not to put you on the spot, but so what does this entail? You know, all you like learning.
005You wanted to take a picture. You want to come by? If you can just kind of keep us informed. So maybe if you, you know, they let us know what's going on then follow their journey. And they actually will be going to DC in November. Is that correct? October for a couple days for the training for this. Congratulations. Awesome job. You're the family in the audience. It's no surprise when we have students that um reach this type of milestone. They come from families and um you've raised two wonderful young men. Congratulations. Good job. Nicely done. You don't need You're welcome to stay, but you don't have to. Um, audience of citizens, is there anybody who would like to address the board? You know, we're in our new room, so if you can just go to
006the podium, we can all hear pretty well, so you don't really need the microphone. Take care. Thanks so much. Very nice. Um, anybody want to address the board? Okay. All right. Hearing none, then we'll move on. That's all right. Um, so board correspondents or communication. Mike is not here, but I haven't heard, you know, I haven't gotten anything. So, I think we can move on from that. So, now school plans. Did you guys do rock, paper, scissor on who's going first? We said leave it up to the face. High school. All right. In student order. All right. So, Anthony, what do we decide? Are we going to stand here or we go? I like to sit. Okay. I did labor. Put the table and chairs together and sit. Feel free to use that. All right.
007Wonderful. So, hi everyone. Hello. I hope you guys had a really good summer and uh I'm glad to be back here talking to you about the new school year. So, I know you all have a draft of my school improvement plan. So, I'm not going to take you step by step. I'm going to talk a little bit about the opening of school and then sort of higher level ideas about the goals and then if you have any questions, you can stop me or you can ask me as we go along. Okay. So the opening of school has gone really smoothly uh despite the challenge of not having a school counselor. So the first few days of school were a little bit chaotic in terms of Ellen and I were doing a lot of schedule changes.
008Um I've become a pro at our school scheduler now which I never thought I would be. Uh but Ellen was already pretty good at it but she showed me the ropes. But we are you know still on the hunt for a school counselor. Uh we do have a prospective person coming in on Thursday that we're hopeful about, but that's been a little bit of a bump in the road, not having a counselor to depend on to do a lot of that beginning of the year. Oh, they're in the wrong level. Oh, we want to switch this elective. Oh, we want to do this. We want to do that. But we're working through it. We of note to start the year, we held a really well attended open house early in the year. It was on
009September 7. And the teachers have asked for this the last couple of years for it to be early because they set up expectations. The parents see their faces early on and it's just a good way to start that parent teacher communication early on in the year. We've held um class meetings with each team and each grade to set uh school expectations and go over the new code of conduct and also you know the big ticket areas, attendance, the cafeteria, just the expectations that we have for all students in the building. We also held internet safety presentations for each grade level. Uh last week Scott Driscoll, who's a retired officer, came in and spoke to students. A lot of times you hear the digital footprint. He talked to them about their digital tattoo that they leave
010on the world. So, that's been great. And we have a newly formed. So, all of our athletics are off and running except the rain has really soccer. I can't I feel so bad they haven't been able to have a game yet because it's just rain. Every time it's time for a game, it's been raining and so the other field gets cancelled or ours gets cancelled. But what I'm really excited about is we have a newly formed cross country team. Last year it was intramurals, but this year we actually have a team that's going to compete in meets and it's another 20 students that have an afterchool activity to participate in. And they did really well in their first meet and today was their second meet. I haven't heard about the results from that yet. So
011when we think about our goals, um Ellen and I read two books over the summer. Oh, can you? So, we read two books over the summer. I'm sorry. I was going to have them as my props, but um to really ground our focus on the school year for goals three and four, we read this book called Finding the Magic in Middle School. And and then we also read this book called Creating a Culture of Kindness in Middle School. And both of the both of these books have been really helpful in um grounding our work for goals three and five that are described in the three through five that are described in the strategic operating our school improvement plan. So most notably is really our work in revamping our win class. So last year we had
012something called wit in the year before that whatever it takes. We changed the name to Whatever I Need and we really restructured that based on what was talked about in both of these books and it's what and it's the specific needs of middle school students and really those specific needs are it is like the greatest time of social change in an adolescent life is in middle school. They're really trying to figure out their role. They're trying to figure out how they can contribute and where they belong. And there's a great analogy in the beginning of this book that talks about, and I told parents this, the sixth grade parents when they came on orientation, that talks about middle school and compares it to whitewater rafting. I don't know how many of you have been whitewater
013rafting. I have and I'm not the adventurous type, but um so it talks about how you could be whitewater rafting and be in calm waters for a good amount of the time, but then all of a sudden you can hit a rock or you could hit a rapid, something comes around the corner and it throws you off course. And so that's very analogous to what happens to students in middle school, right? They've they have unforeseen obstacles that they've never faced before. And so our part of our job is to help them with that. And so we revamped our win to really address those twists and turns of middle school. So on Mondays we focus on executive functioning lessons to help students get organized their study skills. I saw a group out organizing their lockers um
014yesterday. Tuesdays and Thursdays are focused more on academic growth and student individual growth and achievement. Wednesdays we have a lesson that comes right out of this creating a culture of kindness for all students to participate in led by their winning teacher. And then on Fridays each team and in some cases the teams are working together on a community service project that they're working towards a goal with their community service. We have a group working with veterans. We have a group working with an animal shelter. It's this idea of how can I contribute and give back which students of this age really want to do and they feel so good about it when they do it. So along with the daily win work and classes we are we made a concerted effort to work on monthly
015schoolwide um opportunities to engage the school community. So like I said the in September we had the internet safety presentations. In October, we're participating in Red Ribbon Week, which is an anti- fraud, anti- vaping effort with our students. It's a whole week in the third week of October. November, we're focusing on kindness and anti-bullying and we um have a speaker from Ben's Bells that's coming, if you know anything about that organization, and we're working on a schoolwide initiative. And then in December with the spirit of giving, we're going to be working on an initiative called the season of giving. So we are really trying to put forth efforts to support those goals wrapping around community engagement, kindness and positivity and also school culture and climate. Okay. So to support goals one and two in the
016areas of growth and achievement, we're really trying to maximize our our newly founded PLC time that teachers have. We're so lucky to have team leaders now and those team leaders are facilitating those PLC's Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It's focused around data. It's focused around students um and support staff uh files into that and also special education staff. And then on uh Tuesdays and Thursdays, content area teachers meet with each other to discuss pacing, to discuss how uh the lessons went for the week and to continue planning their sort of uh pacing for the year. We don't expect teachers to be in lock step, but we really expect that there's an assured experience across different classes. So, you know, most recently teachers discussed data uh which was the spring test results and they created started to
017created their goals or individual goals around that and I ready baseline data is being collected now because students are taking a diagnostic assessment this week. Um and we're also leveraging the new district initiative of UDL. Um student teachers a book was purchased by the district for every teacher and we're doing a book study every faculty meeting. Uh we're taking parts of the book and we're using that to utilize how we can um take UDL and its practices and have them in the classroom. Last month in at the faculty meeting we did sort of the 10 myths of UDL and we did like sort of a mythbusters on that to set the groundwork for how we can use UDL in the strategies to maximize growth of all of our students. So you know we're hopeful that
018all of these concerted efforts will produce desired results as Mr. Hendershot used to say. That was a fact to him. But we're hoping that that is is what we'll see this year. So, what questions do you have? I have a quick question. Sure. Um, so you you lot going on. It sounds fantastic and obviously a lot of organization and to do that. So, so how was the launch of your new schedule? I mean, is that were there any major changes? I mean, I know I mean with the block scheduling at the high school, that was a major change, but um you know, it sounds like exactly what you needed that you needed the time in order to organize all this to have these schoolwide things because when when you talk about when and you talk
019about those things that are going on in when obviously those are are those planned as a whole faculty or those or you and Ellen doing it and then a little bit of both. Our team leaders work with us. We have monthly meetings with our team leaders. So, we're talking through a lot of that with them as well and then they disseminate to team. So, that the model seems to be working well. I think one of the adjustments is the A schedule for unified arts for electives. So, that we did that so students could um be in more electives. But it is when you think about executive functioning, is today an A day or is today a B day? That took some getting used to with everyone even um even staff you know the kids would
020come in and ask me this is what a day or bday it's like hold on a second yesterday and I would look at the and I would be able to tell them but I think that's been a little bit of an adjustment that they have um some unified arts on a day and then they have their others on B day. Did that work that more kids like you have have more kids that are able to have more experiences? So so it all works though. Nice job. That's all I have. Um, anybody else have any questions, comments? What was um you had those two books and I know you're sort of trying to implement. Was there something was just like, "Wow, this it's something super actionable." Well, that I think what's been I mean, you'll see
021all of my pink little stickies in here and those those have been all of my wows um while reading this. But what what I really think has been that middle school students, they they want to do the right thing, right? They want to belong. They want to be authentic. They want to achieve, but sometimes they just don't have the right tools or they don't know the right tools. And a lot of our students have such wonderful families that help them with those tools. And so we just want to continue to partner with that like the foundation that's being built at home and then how can we continue to work on that when we're in school. So, there's been a lot, but I really I think the analogy is really um is really spot on and
022I shared that with the staff, too. And and they thought it was, you know, they laughed because they thought, "Yeah, you're right. You know, we we could have a student that's going merrily along and then all of a sudden something comes around the corner and we, you know, we need to be there to help the students." Just one more thing. So, we're we're in the district, we try to strive. I know she mentioned in one of the goals that was get back to parents timely, whatever. I know we strive for like 24hour. Yes. I know. I saw that from yours. Whatever. Right. And I know central office we want to get to 24 hours just even if you don't answer. Got your email. I'll be back to you in a day or two. Right. Can
023we can we get consistent on all these and Oh, yeah. Our staff, we tell them 24 hours. We tell them that they need to they need to get back even just like you said even if they don't have an answer for the parents they need to get back to them saying I will look into this for you and I do have to say because we've had to take the role of school counselor we've tried to be really diligent in parents looking for um schedule changes to get back to them within 24 hours to say I might need a day or two but okay I'm going to look into this for you talk to your student and we'll we'll make that happen. So, you're on the 24hour page, too. We are. I just know because you
024outlined it in your metric. Yeah, but we're the we're the You listed two books. I got Creating a Culture of Kindness in Middle School. What was the first one, Silia? This is called Finding the Magic in Middle School. Thank you. Tapping into the power and potential of the middle school. Um, doesn't look like anyone else have any questions. So, thank you guys so much. Have a fantastic year. It sounds like it's off to a good start. Oh, aren't you nice? So, um, you see Ellen is here tonight. I did tell Stephanie I would tell you the truth of why she's not here. Uh she we had a JB soccer coach resign so she's slap she said he came tonight coaching soccer. Yes. Well if we can get somebody to take place we will they're hard
025to come by. So she was a three free sport athlete playing well she played softball in college but she was a I say she was a college athlete that counts. Yeah. I I like to say I bet baseball club not a lot but you didn't have to have that other part baseball but anyhow so very similar to to Sylvia we change our schedule like you know and initial feedback is is quite positive I haven't had anybody you know storm in the gates yet uh but the teachers in particular have come to me and said you know it's better than we thought it one teacher in particular after my last faculty meeting he was, you know, relatively negative. I I invited him to play poker with me because I could see his face and we were
026talking about it. He was just like and he said, you know, I got to eat pro and you know, and it's so much better than I thought it would be. Yeah. So, uh, and I think that will eventually translate to our kids. I haven't had kids come and talk to me and say, you know, this isn't working. I don't like it. Um, they were a little bit nervous last year because, you know, what are we going to do at 81 minutes? Am I going to be awarded? We bought seats for the science classes which they used to have stools and they're moving around and whatnot. But optimistically I am I'm being optimistic about it and I think cautiously optimistic but the proof can be in the pudding. Our test scores up how the first quarter
027grades amazingly our midpoint the first quarter is Friday. So it just goes by so fast 45 days. We'll see. Um but the uh our first goal is is going to be related to our student outcomes. We have to get the kids in school to teach them. That's one thing we learned from co right is that they do better kids do better when they're with the with their teachers and their peers in the classroom. So we're trying to reduce our absences. We did a great job last year. We went from 142 students truent in 2122 to 89. So 53 students less were truent last year. How do we do it? goes back to Peter Ducker. If you measure this phenomenon, it's going to probably improve. Uh, and so we had meetings, we talked to parents, sent
028the SR to to people's homes to bring the kids in. Uh, I know they do that at the middle school, too. Um, we talk to kids, why don't you want to be here? Somebody bothering you? What can we do to help you? All that stuff. But we have and we have a weekly meeting about that. So, that's really improved. Uh, so that's 37% improvement. And so we're going to continue to try to drop those numbers. And chronically absent is a different way of measuring absences. Uh we went from 124 to 111. It's 11% decrease. We're hoping to continue that trend another 10%. We get them in the classrooms, we have a chance to positive impact. And then for our major um measurements for the high school are going to be the SAT and the NGSS
029which is the science test in 11th grade. We also have AP school test scores and we offer a wide range of AP classes. This past year, we went up um see 10% in in the in the reading and writing, evidence-based reading and writing in the SAT, 22%. We're hoping those numbers are going to continue. We're expecting them to. And that's why we brought the block schedule in is to try to improve what we do with these kids. Our science scores were up 11% last year. And AP scores, we measure AP. How what percentage of our kids, doesn't matter which class you take, whether it be US history or chemistry or physics, of all the kids that took an AP test, how many quote unquote passed, got out of a score of five, got a three,
030four, or five. And we went from 65% to 67%. It's an increase of 2%. I'm not worried about it, but I want to tell you why is I can make that 100% increase by not letting kids take AP, just selecting class. What we want to do that that's that's one trigger is we want to give as many kids that want to challenge themselves the opportunity to take the classes and of course get them to to pass the best we can. So that small increase is is offset because we're letting more more kids into these these challenging classes which I think is positive. I just have a quick question on Sure. So the SATs and the and AP and and a lot of okay this is says midyear data collected in December. Those are kind of
031endyear things. So how can you gauge as the year goes along the right s you know the potential success or or weaknesses since we'll take the PSPs we'll take that in a sense of where the kids are compared to last year for the AP classes the teachers are going to be giving um unit assessments that have the same types of questions yeah it's all interwined yes it's all connected so we'll have a lot idea, but the the bottom line it really is um you just keep pushing the kids. Not not to a breaking point, but keep pushing them. Talk about big zone of approximal development. You know, we want to get them where it's too not too easy and not too hard and a sweet spot, Cinderella spot if you will. Anyhow, um yeah, thank
032you. Keep going. Yeah, no, keep going. But I just thought that that just seemed pertinent to that the end of the year it tend to use the PSATs because we do offer those couple times. Okay, which gives you an idea. Um let's see the next piece for goal number two is teachers applying what they're learning from professional development. And so what we're going to be doing here is we have the attributes of the graduates part of the longterm of plan. Uh we're piling a new English program and using the UDLs. When I I'm going to evaluate all the teachers this year. So I decided I'll do all the teachers. She's going to do all the pair professionals, the the clerks and custodians. So they're going to get one message from me about you know instruction.
033So when we go in, we'll work for the UDL. Last year, we're looking to John Hattie. We're looking for elements of instructional choices that had the higher than average chance of producing the positive outcome we were looking for. And we mentioned, oh, we never used this instructional strategy. This what had says, I wonder if you could do X, Y, and Z. So, we're going to do that with UDL. And UDL is just general idea. I can summarize it getting every kid in the class to be able to show you they can do what you're looking to do in almost in any way you know that they can show you not just right so that's important communication same middle school try to do that in 24 hours things happen let people know uh parents shouldn't be
034surprised where something happened in school they get called to my office I I call the parents say hey I talked to your son or daughter they're in trouble or not in trouble, but you shouldn't have to find out that you couldn't see me because your kid comes home and said, "Hey, Mr. Most important thing is our school specific goal has to block schedule making sure the teachers are using it and using it appropriately. We use our formal evaluation system. We use the walkthroughs. We develop the decimal step develop with the teachers. They can tell us what's working or what's not working without fear of taking control. And I think that's be honest with us. All right. Thank you. Any questions for Anthony? I have one but I I don't want to put you on the
035or maybe if you can get our mind to speak too but you know I was looking up the uh you know the um setting student growth and Il math and all of that and I didn't find anything that was really um definitively quantitative um in an informative way out there. So, um, is there anything like don't go crazy? And I, if I'm putting you on the spot and say no, not now. Um, in in a sentence or two, what's the best way that you would describe that to us? Just give us snapshots of where the kids are over the course of the year. Uh, and and the idea would be that the students are moving from September to the spring. And if they're not, uh, they can give us some ideas as to what, uh,
036areas of the curriculum they're deficient in or need supports in, uh, which we can then target through a certain. So, it's not the same as like ESPback where they have these, uh, percentage of growth or targeted growth. That's what I'm looking to. It's a new pro I would want to use that, but what I want to find out is so ultimately we're trying to we're using it for universal screeners. we use it for progress monitoring and should they be we be able to have a growth goal and stretch growth goal and we'll look at what percentage of our kids has met I think that 100% at least the regular poll because they're normed across the country um so that's how you put on the spot it's used very similar to like how I read at
037the at the young level again here teachers are getting used to it. Um, but I've been able to meet like Anthony talk about with um the SRBI team, start having conversations about what other data do we bring in to see if it correlates with what we already know so we can see so we can start making decisions as to the best way to use it moving forward. So, we're just trying to put the numbers we're getting now up to numbers we kind of are familiar with to see if is it giving us similar information, different information, what's the best way to use this? It is nice you get a snapshot, a diagnostic snapshot in Yes. Thank you. Anybody else questions? I have one. Uh for the block schedule as you go through the year, is
038there any thought or or possibility? Is the block schedule going to rotate for next year? Well, we there there are schools that do rotate the block. We didn't want to do it this year so we can get used to it. there's some negatives to rotating which is trying to schedule EBTS and IEPs can be done. Uh so I guess the the what I told my staff is there's all sorts of things we can add to this many have block classes say move our PE to 40 minutes instead of 80 to help two separate classes and 80 minutes all sorts of things. So I understand that there is some research to suggest not having the same class first period every day. Yes, could be positive. Uh so it's something that we just said we're going to
039push off into the future and see how things go first year. But we do have a schedule committee that we'll read and uh convene in the second half year to look at how things going. We will discuss that. Great. Thank you. Anybody else? Hearing none. Thank you so much. Thank you you guys. Nice job. report of superintendent. Good evening everyone. Thank you. So yesterday we had a little bit of an issue um with weather. Um we actually had a tree that fell on a tower line um that interrupted the power to go into Baker Farms. Um so around 10:30 or so 10 o'clock the power went out um at the school generator in like it's supposed to. Um we had power throughout the building. Um bathrooms had lights. Um obviously the generator not everything in
040the building won't be fully lit. So what was supposed to be lit was lit. Um had a quick conversation with Rachel. Um she assessed that everybody was safe that the temperature in the building was okay. she did for the building. Everything was in acceptable range to keep the students there. Um around 12 12:15 um the second the generator um stopped working as was supposed to work. Um the most of the power in the building started to go. Bathroom stayed on and you still had some lights in the building, but it was not at full capacity. Um we contacted the company that maintains the generator and they're based out in New York. um and they were they were set to send somebody really quickly. I had a conversation with um Allstar to see if we're able
041to scramble students home to do an early dismissal. By that point, it was a matter of minutes of can we get the bus drivers back, get the students from Baker Farms home and then get this buses back to the high school to do regular dismissal at the regular time or would if we did this would he need to push all the disposal time back to schools later in the afternoon. Um I then um hopped in my car. I was actually um off work yesterday. Um and I drove up to Quaker Farms and I did a um tour of the building with Rachel. It's around 12:20 and um every classroom was um um light enough. There's enough natural light on the outside. There's not any situation where there's any room outside of the gym um and
042the music room and the art room that were necessarily um darker. So Rachel had pre um p previously moved those rooms um and other locations to the building. Um every bathroom still had emergency battery lights so bathrooms students were still able to um use. Um they had hot lunches because the cafeteria was fully on the generator and the third wave is what was interrupted. So she had worked with witens to get um lunches warmed and brought over from the school over to bigger farms. So, we made the assessment around 12:20 that um we'd be keeping the students um in the school the rest of the day. Um and we felt if it did get darker um worst case we could always move the students next door to the middle school at that point just because
043timing was it was difficult to get the students home by then. Um we got lucky um temperature- wise um since it wasn't terribly cold outside the building wasn't necessarily that cold. It was um an acceptable range. Um, and as I said, I did tour the building, talked to teachers, talked to students, everyone felt safe and comfortable um, in the situation they were in. Rachel had drafted an email that I had asked her to do to send to parents, let them know what happened. Um, she was planning on sending it um, getting ready to send it and around 12:30 the power came back. Um, so the power ended up being out about two and a half hours altogether. Um, as I said, I did a a personal tour of the building and all students and all
044staff were were safe and um comfortable um during that time and learning continued. They just didn't have smartboards and computers up. They were reading the kids and kids were continuing to learn and and have fun to do everything that they typically do during the day. Um so everything turned out um um acceptable at the end. Um but it's the nature of the power comes into that road differently than it does to Great Oak and it does the middle school which is why the power or shut off in one building and not to the other schools in the same road. Um it turned out that there was nothing wrong with the generator itself. Um it was electric panel where the generator feeds into. Um we test the generator annually. Generator X was tested in August um
045and is working at 100% on that test. So now we're going to get both companies out generator and electrician to figure out um was an electrical issue in the panel that just had a spur of the moment issue or was there an over capacity issue with the generator too much stuff wrong generator that then kicked in and caused electrical issue in the building. We need to kind of figure out what took place and that you can't know that until actually it happens. So now that we know that has happened, now we can figure out exactly what took place and put mitigating factors into making sure it doesn't happen again. Um we're going to learn more as the year progresses on the address of the graduate. We've developed a board of schedule, a rotating schedule for
046the administrators. Two admins um per um school or two from two schools will present each the address of the graduate and have an opportunity to talk with and showcase student work. you can get a sense of okay not only what is the attribute what does it mean to be critical thinker what does it mean to be an effective collaborator what does it mean to be a communicator but also then what does it look like for student learning you know what are students doing demonstrating that that work represents a critical thinker and how are we assessing that in terms of rubrics that we've been developing so the idea is for two admins to come in and we rotated the schedule so one might be Quaker Farms another high school another might be middle schooler farms the
047first two admins will kind of give you an overview of what the entry to the graduate is and then do a um small little showcase of what the student work looks like and then the next meeting the next two schools will come and do the showcase of student work. Also talk a little bit of what the attributed graduate is aligned to that specific grade level but you already have kind of an overview what the attribute means from the previous presentation to develop that schedule for the entire year. So as by the end of the year you will have seen all the attributes that attribute to the graduate and student work. It's also a way for us to get samples of student or these students in front of the board. So you can see that um
048over the course entire year um one of the goals that the um policy committee had um was developing a policy or a re revised policy last year on finances and that we wanted all of our fundraisers or any payments to be digital and that's actually a goal in the finance committee of collaboration machine finance policy. Well, the system it use is called my school bucks and that's a system that's been used for many years through the cafeteria system or we've now integrated into power school. Um, and now parents are being asked to pay through the online system for field trips and for testing. We now have it up and running and the first set of um payments um kicked in this September. So there's a field trip for Baker Farms, a field trip for goes
049and AP tested high school. Parents receive information to pay online and they just go right to power school, click on the shopping cart, if you will, and they pay electronically that way and then the money gets diverted over to new accounts to be in. So that was a major check in terms of accomplishing what the finance committee and the policy committee had asked us to do. And thank you for the business department to work in collaboration with the IT department to make it happen. Does there need to be any change in our enough policy to reflect that or we had done the policy back in the springtime. Okay. So that's all set that we had to laid the groundwork for that work and then what we've done now is implement what the policy had asked
050us to do. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And the whole goal of that is to eliminate to the greatest degosible any transaction dealing with actual dollars and cents to make sure there's better accountability and less opportunity for young people that some sometimes say there's some sort of fraud going on. Right. Um I had a wonderful parent advisory group um last Monday, last Tuesday. Um we had 23 parents um in this room and one parent online um and one parent that was not able to show up um um last minute. We had a wonderful conversation. Talked everything from what's working well to where some of the talent and struggles are. We talked a lot about um special education and assessments and curriculum um facilities um homework um profession development staffing that everything you could think of. We
051had a very good conversation back and forth answer some questions and um as the year progresses there's a schedule for the year. We're meeting once a month and um as the rotating schedule goes we'll bring various administrators in to talk about various different topics. For example, we might talk about math curriculum. So I'll bring Eric in to talk about the curriculum. We might bring in Megan for special education. So we can really dive in on individual topics and then spend a portion of the meeting for just open-ended topics that come up. But it's a great way for me to listen to parents to hear their feedback on what's working, what's not working, where some of the pain points are, and what questions can be answered. Also, it's a great way for us to have a
052voice in the community. So, we're able to answer um some of the misperceptions and the rumors that are out there so that parents can go back out quickly and say, "No, this is actually what's taking place." So, it's a great um we did this two years ago and I'm excited that we've got parents that wanted to participate um in the advisor group. We've got too many parents that um asked to participate. I had to filter it down to what could fit in a room that could be a manageable discussion. Is there so do you have an idea of how it can be kind of like executive summarized to the board just so that we have an idea of what's working and what some of the challenges that you have? Yeah. So I had sent to
053the board last Friday executive summary if you will of what some Oh your regular news. Okay. Yep. That's good. And that was that's what my plan will be as well. And I do that similar to the um we have our district-wide leadership tenant council which meets once a month and we had our first meeting last week as well and I summarized that in my Friday update update to you as well. Was that just with two schools you that what that committee that you just said the executive something that was all the schools. Okay. Because in your in if I remember because I had this question it seemed that only two schools were referenced. So that's why I was just getting confused as to you know you have one group that you're meeting with certain you
054know you're meeting with certain schools and then then you're meeting with all the schools but in that or do you know I have any specific comments from a couple of schools but it was a couple but it was all four schools. Okay. Um all right I'll just I'll just revisit that because I don't I I Oh there it is. Oh no, that's okay. Thank you. And that's I'm just hold on. Um Oh, then you have to go to from the desk. So this is this is a when you have curriculum, special education, facilities, then you click on from the desk of the superintendent and that's my newsletter to staff. Okay. So, by the way, we started Friday update to the board. Stephanie had this this week. It was Quaker Farms heavy, but it he's saying
055it covered all the all the different schools. Um, yeah, I might not have this. I might have. And you'll notice in my new my staff newsletter, I started a new feature last week, which is a video interview with new teachers. Um, and I did a second interview today. I'm trying to find ways for teach new teachers, new staff to be introduced to the rest of their colleagues. Short little tiny two or three minute video um and the teachers that are open to it. I'm putting those videos on social media so that families could also get to know the new teachers as well. Um, and eventually I'm going to tie that into existing staff members. And I've also asked um Kristen Collins from C to see if her students interested in actually doing the video and
056doing the interviews of the staff to get them. It's a great life skill for them to be able to communicate and to ask questions of adults. So, um, our first one is in the newsletter last week and the next one will be in this Friday for staff. So, I'm going to keep that going. This also fits in with our UDL concept of here's not everything via text, but here's other ways to um engage in the content that we're we're sharing. Okay. Thank you. Um any questions for Dr. Mill? I'm still looking for that. So maybe you can show me it later. It's in the body, right? Oh, 9. I'm on line 95. Okay. I'm on some feedback after 9.2. There we go. On the wrong date. There we go. All right. Thank you. I'm good
057now. Um I don't have anything to report. So, sub committees um show facilities. Uh we met tonight. Um update on the bathrooms at the high school. We're trying to uh ran into a couple delays, but we're getting off the ground finally. So, hopefully we'll start breaking ground on that soon. um talked about the playgrounds that were purchased u as a capital project. They're on order so that hopefully soon those come in start to be installed. Um there's several issues going on at the middle school um with HVAC. Um there's a lot from what discussion took place tonight that there's a lot of design issues that uh was happening that caused a lot of uh issues with some of the mechanical equipment and I apologize there. The u the other issues possibly that's going on with
058that is uh there could have been some maintenance issues. Uh but um and there's also some issues still with the roof uh leaking. um they're trying to address with that. Um so and then there's some other environmental issues that have been uh raised. So um but other than that um nothing else to look for. One of the potential the building committee had requested that we approve the building project at our board meeting tonight, but the committee made a decision that um we wanted to push back and say that there's still one issues with the building that we're not ready um to say that the building is ready to accept at this point. That memorandum that is on there, we're tableabling it or Yes. Yeah. I have listed as a potential motion based upon how the
059facility committee was going to recommend that. The decision was not to recommend that the board this evening um approved that. So I'll give the building committee call tomorrow let them know that we're not ready to use yet. I mean there just been a whole host of stuff from you know the baseball field not properly drained still for one example. There's still a lot of stuff going on with that parcel. So because if let's just say if we did say okay we accept it then anything else beyond that would be our responsibility. I mean we've been incurring costs because of that but you know it's it's still a problem based on the conversations tonight there might be some design issues with the engineer that and the architect that you know I I'm I'm not comfortable assuming.
060Yeah. Yeah. who the next is it another third party has to design for and we will you say fix it or right now it's turn it back over to the the middle school building committ let them figure it out but just generally you think that's the course of action to get a third party I I don't think so because I mean based on bills that have been accumulated you know and anybody in the industry can look at it and say we're addressing it and this should have happened you know year one year two and here we're year three and we're rebuilding stuff that we already rebuilt once. So, I mean, I have a quick question. Um, and I don't need an answer tonight. Um, but, um, Rob and I have like a two second. Um
061I asked him a question about it but um the first time I'm asking you Rob I mean Joe um has anybody done like an ADA walkthrough you know the booklet that I had sent to you um Rob on something else we were discussing did anybody do that ADA walkthrough uh to make sure that before we sign off on that middle school that it fully complies with all the requirements in the booklet no but I that we can do so I've got to imagine that the building was designed for ADA specs at the time that they wouldn't have been able to get through building code without doing that. I think the bigger concern are the older buildings to make sure that as they go through renovations that they get handled properly. Yeah, the the NFP life
062safety codes would have had all that ADA stuff that would have fall inspector and accepting the CEO for the building. Well, sometimes they're pretty detailed and pretty what was thatund 44 pages or something? It's pretty detailed and the one I sent you might have been renovations, but a new new building you're even more rigorous. I just wonder, you know, it does fall back to the architect obviously and the um building inspector um to get sealed. But um the other second part of the question is um you know given um you know the um various disabilities and abilities of our students and district beyond the ADA standards are we sure that we you know made it fully accessible um well the ATA standards should cover it but in case they don't for any of the students
063we currently have or that we envision coming up from birth to three and uh you our preschool programs. But, you know, that was something that when I saw the memo, I thought we should really make double triple sure um before we sign off on it that we've gotten those things, you know, checked off. Thank um any other questions? Okay. Curriculum. And we haven't met since the last meeting. We'll meet first two weeks of the service. Thank you, Alison Nicole. So, we have not met since the last full board meeting. Um, but we do have a meeting coming up and as I mentioned last time, Shipman and Goodwin put out a summary of all the latest legislative changes. So, we'll have to schedule call to figure out what is the priority and we'll work according to
064that. And Mike, finance, um, we had a meeting on the 19th. We went over a very extensive and detailed uh, report. Thank you. It was Is it 81 pages? 71. Sorry. Every time I'll tell it, I'll tell it. Yeah. 300 pages. Um we we discussed kind of we went through it. We looked at uh the approach. I think we're looking to blend a little bit of what we had in the past with some of the details. We do like the details when we need to dive into them. Um but it was a very good meeting. Things don't get too exciting until uh we start hitting budget season. I think in the next meeting or two, we're going to set the schedule and get the get the ball rolling on that. That seems to be the
065bread and butter for us. But we went over summer spending, went over what we did, what was accomplished, what was in process. I think we have one open position. The guidance position at the middle school is currently uh other than that we have filled our our staffing which is impressive seeing the state of this you know the state and the country uh that we're able to kind of fill our openings but uh you know very positive we're you know our money's encumbered is what it is. It's not very exciting, but it's, you know, spending it down. And um I think there's going to be some evolutions in how we handle um surplus and savings. If we find a way to start, you know, looking for savings, we're going to look to save, but also spend
066on that, not wait for the end of the year to do it. Just I do want to introduce our business manager, Howard Bund, who will be joining me the night that we're presenting the finance report to you. So, a familiar face. um having Mark only part-time, not available in the evenings, he was able to come to board meetings and and answer your questions go through the budget process. So having here um should give you some opportunity to have direct access to ask questions that need to ask. Um and he's here today to answer any questions you have. Uh we also have part of the finance report of the transfers to close out the end of the year. Um which needs to be a motion today to move all the money from the accounts at ser
067balance buses to pay for what we spend the money on the end of the school year. Wait, say that again. So so it's my understanding that the that you as a board have decided that you would like to see everything zeroed out, right? So to that point, so that requires a budget transfer and budget transfers are also required to be approved by you. So that's one that's it's in in the board books in the there's actually it's in this summary. It's in that summary. It's uh it starts with it's the yellow start at page five. Page five. Correct. And so those are the first of all there's a couple transfers in there too that are from uh heard it from the current school year but the large one that starts on page five goes to
068page six and page goes all the way through page nine I believe um that is actually you can zero out all those accounts and what it'll do is um as I discussed you it actually the way your budget currently works is that you do not apply the excess cost grant that comes from the state or special costs to into the actual budget. You don't move expenses off into that grant. So, you actually run a negative balance. And then what ends up happening is um so what we're going to what this transfer does is it actually takes all those balances, takes that negative balance and puts it into the tuition line because that's generally where your negative balance is. And so that's all that then transfers to and this um the board of education policy which
069requires us to do the transfers to balance out properly. to this it can't be done earlier until we know it but we don't exactly so are you saying that you need the motion at this meeting or yes okay um pardon here I didn't do the executive one um and then there's also as said there's three transfers for this current fiscal year as well that have already occurred that you have to approve okay um just a question on the um ASOS and SRO those are we are we fully staffed as far as that's concerned we are still working on the staffing for Quaker Farms um that's been a challenge in the meantime we've had um the ASSR open the middle school um go over what he can and the towns provide additional coverage from the police
070department standpoint as well okay so that that we will probably be build for that um so is it is it lack of applications is Is it a lack of applications? We have a potential um lead for filling it which we're exploring as rapidly as we can but we've had very few applicants and um it's been a chance to get people to apply that are qualified to do. So does that mean that people are applying but they don't meet a standard that you're you're looking for? I mean you would think that there would be you know enough retired because it's basically retired policemen, right? Yes. today. Yeah. Yeah. Surprised that we we can't do that. Um Okay. So, so we have only one motion that's listed here. It says motion to approve the line item transfers
071for the budget. The final budget, I'm sorry, transfers for the balance. The final budget representing the end ofear expenses for the 2022 2023 school year. Second. Any further questions or discussions on that? All those in favor? Opposed? Abstain? Motion carries. And then we don't have it in the agenda where there should be a motion to the other preud reverse. Um, are there certain lines that I don't know. Uh, are there certain lines? I mean, if we don't have it in front of us in the budget reports. Okay. It's on top of page five. Page. So, it's the first, the second, or the third one. Or it's all three of those. Do we make do we made a make a motion to add the motions? No. No. I make a motion to transfer funds originally budgeted
072for business manager consultant from Twin Lakes to full-time business manager Howard Wurllo in the amount of $119,442. Second. All those in favor? Opposed or abstain? Motion carries. Second motion. You ready? Make a motion. budget transfer difference in cost for software that was budgeted for and the software now needed for computer science and AP computer science classes. This will allow IT department to purchase the needed software without negatively impacting that cost center for $5,000. Second. All those in favor? Opposed or abstain? Carries. The last one budget motion to approve a budget transfer that will allow for testing services to be reimbursed by Medicaid tests are prepared by a third party vendor and administered by district employee in the amount of $9,320. U question when you say are those um tests done by our school psychologists and
073our social workers or what tests are you talking about? the test that relate to it's in the special education area. Yeah, it was in supply it was in the special education area. I'm trying to recall what I was told. So, uh it was in the special education area. They were actually in the supply line is where they were and but by putting them in the supply line, you can't get them reimbursed from Medicaid by moving them into this purchase because we're purchasing these tests from a third party states. Therefore, we can get this reimbured. So, it's actually a cost savings through the district to actually just do this transfer and move it into the purchase services. I mean, I don't know if you know this, but have we done that before? We haven't been applying
074in pre prior years to the Medicaid as we're supposed to. We started that last year. We have done a service. It's been a whole um initiative to try to get hopefully. This is one of the steps. Any other questions? All those in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. Um, anything else from finance, Mike? Um, our next uh meeting is on the third Tuesday at 12 over Zoom unless the committee decides to meet at a different time. Thank you very much. Um, leison reports. I believe we just had a PTO at this point. Um, meeting was last Thursday. Unfortunately, I was in teacher negotiations, so I couldn't go. But um they are off and running. They had um they had plans to use a local vendor for their book fair. Unfortunately, the company went out of business, so
075they're back to using um they're not having a dance at the middle school this year. A number of different reasons. Um that was it. That was what I got. Okay. Thank you so much. I'll be at the next one. All right. Um, so now we have a motion to go into executive session. Mot motion to enter into executive session for the purpose of of consideration of written attorney communication related to a potential independent investigation of workplace and invite in Dr. Second. Second by Mike. Any questions? All those in favor.