001I walk in the Kiton call Mee order at 6 so we're States Joe start sorry we're rolling [Music] around toar Nicole M Robert car Steve c v M any have amendments to the agenda okay I need a motion to approve the April 9th um minutes second somebody I thought you were making a motion I make a motion to approve the 4924 Board of Ed special meeting minutes is there a second second any discussion any corrections nothing all in favor opposed abstain motion carries um student recognition our favorite part of the meeting okay and we have actually three students from unified if I could ask you to come up um Ava and James and Julia um these three students um submitted to the unified scholarship essay contest um through the cic unified um sports program um
002Julia was selected as um a runner up on essay contest um the other two were um identified as um exceptional um they didn't get an award but they were um um starred and recommended that they be um recognized um here in our district which we're doing tonight we've asked the three to actually read their essays to the community the board and then we have a certificate for them um when they are done well Welcome to our meeting and excited to have you here thank you congratulations um so I'm Julie wheeler and this was my essay um I said school has never felt like much of a community to me growing up I miss many days my education and although the learning part has never been a problem for me it has always felt like it
003was something missing despite having a post obious small friend throughout my life there's always part of me that wish for more true connections this longing came to a head when when I returned to school after missing 2 and a half years of inperson learning this transition from being a little little seventh grade middle schooler to a sophomore high school was Poli culture shop and for that whole year I felt alone I had no one to walk with in the hallways and no one to talk to in class despite these feelings pushing me to is myself when the Unified sports application got posted I signed up within minutes even though when I wasn't even sure if I was going to attend high school at all I still had hopes and dreams of joining the unified team
004just a few years prior I got the privilege of watching my brother navigate his way through the program and see him form some of the most meaningful connections and memories of his life the team not only shaped his relationships but also his future goals in career thankfully um I got the opportunity to become a partner for my junior year immediately the following year on the day of my first game I wondered if I made a mistake I didn't know anyone and I had no clue how to be a good teammate or how to put myself out there I quickly realized I didn't know how to I didn't need to know how to do any of these things because there was no right or wrong way streams of people introduced themselves to me and treated me
005as a friend even when they didn't even know my name this was the exact push I needed to do the same before I knew I was one approaching players and partners alike without the fear of embarrassment I recognized immediately that this was a safe space that this was the very Community I've been searching for after just a few games I was comfortable being an active member of the team and did what I could to enhance the friendly and encouraging atmosphere of events this new found ability also went beyond just the games in the hallways when whenever I saw a teammate I would always thought to talk to them even if this was just a simple hello quick hallway chats quickly mored into friendships which grew into some of the closest bonds I have ever had
006therefore when I got the invitation to be a member of the youth advisory Council and attend meetings with other members of multiple schools I wasn't nervous because I knew the unified sphere extended Beyond just my school and to no surprise I had an amazing experience meeting P to kind people and gaining so much knowledge about other unified programs as well as sharing ideas of how to improve my own schools program from that point on I had nothing but excitement for every game and practice apart from excitement though was something much more meaningful Unified sports has given me some of my closest friends inspired confidence to take on leadership roles revealed strengths I never knew I had and a source of community I never knew I was missing although I've been in the program for just
007a few months I can already see the long lasting impacts this have made on myself and those around me well I don't know what Life After High School will hold or even what yet next year will be like I know that Unified sports and Special Olympics will always be a part of my life because after discovering such a safe and empowering Community I never want to imagine my life without my name AA inclusion is not only an action or a choice it is a way of life inclusion is found everywhere you go you can find it in school the grocery store the library and even in places you would never expect for me I have found inclusion within my own self in a more personal way being a partner on a Special Olympics Unified sports
008team is like being a flower you start as a young seed whose yes come out of your show then you bloom and adjust to getting out of your comfort zone lastly you become a beautiful flower that has reached reached its full potential and guide others in many different ways everyone involved in Unified sports is like a flower everyone is beautiful in their own way however we all come together to make one beautiful garden or one beautiful Community as someone who strives to be a beautiful flower within my community I know that from the beginning of my high school career that I wanted to be a part of the Unified sports team the Unified sports team at my high school is the largest team at the school therefore becoming a part of this team was going
009to be a huge change for me I had never been a part of something so big in my life like everyone else though I started as a little seed that had no idea what was ahead of me as my first school as my first school year on the team began I quickly started to bloom and get in the comfort zone before I knew it I was acting out acting out skits in front of the team for our famous Talent Tuesdays in fact during my first Unified sports class period I was acting on a scene from the Titanic with a group of other athletes and partners as the season continued I also started stepping onto the basketball court and playing in games I did this with passion even though I am not the most Sellar basketball
010player I just enjoyed being there no matter what I enjoyed seeing everyone athletes and partners with huge Smiles on our faces my first year on the fight sports team is so successful that I was honored to have the opportunity to be a captain of the team during my senior year I now not only have the ability to be a part of the team but I have the ability to be a leader of the team and to and to support the team in a more substantial way than before a few athletes and a few Partners along with myself were named captains as well working with this group of people is what truly led me to the final stage of becoming a flower as a most group as a as a group we have to plan activities
011for the team help lead the team and overall encourage the team to constantly be there for one another this experience has has been eye openening because I have started to look out for inclusion outside of the singular class period that we have Unified sports in I look for inclusion in the lunchroom in the classroom and in the hallways as a captain I feel as if it is I have a bigger responsibility to look out for everyone not just the team I love helping create the that beautiful Community within my school's Unified sports program as I plan to further my education at a university that I have yet to to decide on I'm starting to become sad that I have to leave the Unified sports team at my high school as be it has become an
012immense part of my high school experience I've learned so much from it therefore the more and more I think about it I have realized that since I am now a fully boomed flower when it comes to inclusion I have the capability to spread everything and that I have learned during my high school to my future place of Education the possibilities are endless when it comes to pursuing something that you love inclusion is not just a choice it's a forever life lifestyle that never goes away it's a flower in your life that stays forever how's it going everybody my name is James and here's my essay Unified sports unexpectedly became a pivotal part of my life a path I never envisioned myself going down during my middle school days however that perception dramatically shifted one Unforgettable
013day in e8th grade it was when the unified basketball team from our high school visited our Middle School gym to Showcase what Unified sports was like as the game unfolded before my eyes the atmosphere crackled with electrifying energy chance reverberated with one name in particular Benny buckets echoing through the gym witnessing Benny sink shot after shot I was swept up in the frenzy the noise level nearly lifting the gym ceiling at that moment I knew Unified sports would be a key part of my high school joury fast forward four years to my junior year where the first day of school would also be my first day on the Unified sports scene stepping into the gym i beheld a s beyond my expectations around 70 students were there a diverse trap tapestry of faces among them
014were people I never imagined would be involved in Unified sports yet there there they were filled with excitement assigned to groups we engaged in conversations about our summers and just getting to know each other these new found friendships wouldn't stay inside the gym but also spilled outside of the gym where a simple what's up or fist bump could brighten someone's day indeed I discovered that the that even the smallest of gestures both the power to warm hearts and Foster inclusion Unified sports imparted upon me a profound lesson it's not merely about the enjoyment you may have but but the sheer joy and excitement radiating from others living with an intellectual disability presents formidable challenges yet individuals in the unified Community exemplify unparalleled resilience witnessing their infectious Smiles became the highlight of being unified partner initially
015unaware of the impact I can make I soon realized the profound joy in brightening someone's day as us youth ambassador of Special Olympics North America I embrace the responsibility of advocate advocating for inclusivity World Nationwide uh collaborating collaborating with fellow ambassadors I Champion the cause of inclusion shriving Elevate programs within my state and Beyond though this role I have owned my through this role I've own my leadership skills and gained a deeper understanding of true inclusion leveraging my voice to affect positive change one individual who profoundly impacted me is Ben holwood a former Oxford High School student and current unified Sportsman Ben despite his Down syndrome and limited physical abilities exudes exudes boundless determination on the basketball court his sheer relation with every successful shot is contagious warming the hearts of all who winess it
016though our encounters are limited to game days since Ben doesn't go to the school anymore Ben would walk through the door and see me and I'd see his Bright Smile accompanied by a routine fist bump and hug never fails to uplift my spirits our conversations are about many topics cementing a friendship that transcends barriers Ben's unwavering positivity in in abdominal Spirit serve as a reminder that true Essence lies not in appearance or speech but in the depths of one's heart it was through Ben that I discovered his alter ego Benny buckets a nickname that perfectly encapsulates his prowess on the Unified sports has left a great mark on my life an experience I treasure dearly My Hope Is that everyone can partake in the transformative moments that I've had the privilege to experience thank you
017so for our greater community and for the board um for our children going up to the high school in a few years our unified program really symbolizes um inclusion and respect for all and your three essays really um solidifies and shows us what um the experience is all about and we did wonderful work and we are just greatly honored to have you as students and we have right things in your future and we're so excited to see where you go from there you so I have in a certificate pre of you we've got thank you I have about four shots okay wonderful congratulations tonight Christine can you come up here for a second Christina there's not a single unified um event that I go to that you are not there um you are part of
018the unified program and we are just honored that you are such an amazing influencer very young children and we are starting something brand new um Megan and I are starting a set of pins and we are give you the compassionate pin tonight because that really symbolizes your uni program so thank you thanks excellent thank you for all you do thank you so much I appreciate I love you I know Miss laaa has her alumni game so I'm hoping that the kids that are graduating will be back next year for the alumni game I know that it I saw some of the photos that from this year and it was amazing to see how many came back to help out so I hope to see you all next year as well that's it any other okay
019audience of citizens this is an opportunity for anyone in the audience to come adjust the board ask us a question um so you're welcome to come up and ask us whatever you'd like no nobody the opportunity their own fight prise no okay board correspondence attributes of a graduate presentation for empowered Learners greater fs and goals anybody in audience can't see you can come up up this way a little if you want to see it kind and um We are continuing our series sorry we are continuing our series of adress to The Graduate um and like we did a couple weeks ago we actually have students here from gr M school that are be part of the presentation so I like to introduce our two principls up Amy and Rachel who will now make the presentation
020good how's everyone it's a good thing that I checked my shoes before I got here because I walked out of Quaker with slippers on and then I had to turn around and go back so good thing good thing um so good evening so as you know we have been presenting on the attributes of The Graduate so tonight we are focused on the empowered learner I think Amy had two slides that might have been missing think she's just trying to you can't um the empowered Learners just as a summary for those of you who aren't aware of our attrib of graduate the empowered learner the empowered learner is students that can self assess their emotional strengths and challenges self assess their academic strengths and challenges self-regulate their emotions set their own goals for learning identify resources
021making a plan seeking assistance and using actionable feedback to achieve specific goals and reflecting on that Pro progress towards those goals Dr can you just we're fixing something here just give me one second it seems to be an eror at the slid show just give a moment okay I can just talk about it it's video at a later time yeah just little it from third grade you get a third grade perspective and then our fifth grade comes into I'm fix all right that's okay that's okay we're flexible we don't want to miss anything they there now and I'm just going to with perf video this is just a short ones from some of our first grade friends on empowered learners e e e so those that's an empowered Learner in the I of a first
022grader so in regards to some of the activities that we actually are engaging in we start with kindergarten that students can self assess their academic strengths and challenges um they periodically reflect on the progress towards um a goal or some type of thing that they're specifically working on so in regards to kindergarten you will notice when you walk into a kindergarten classroom they all have bullets and boards that typically say we are in control of our own learning and what does that mean so a lot of self-reflections so completing some type of an activity some type of a lesson this particular lesson is a writing um objective where the students will research a topic to learn more about something specific that they're researching and write facts in order to teach someone else so I know
023it's hard to read but this is an example they were doing a writing task on germs and writing a factual research paper on germs and something that they learned this child wrote germs are different shapes and sizes so after the lesson was completed they then went back to we are in control of our learning and the classroom teacher would simply ask for the students to self assess put up a number one if you do not understand what we're learning a number two if I'm still a little confused a number three I understand understand what we are learning or a number four that I understand and can teach it to a friend this is kind of an example of teacher asking and and students self-reflecting and self assessing their own learning each month in our kindergarten
024classroom students will make a group goal um towards something that they want to work on so this particular kindergarten goal for March was simply walking with star behavior in the hallway again as adult that might sound really simple but if you've never seen kindergarteners walk in a hallway it is very very challenging so they also talked about stress iies on how can we walk in the hallway we can stay together our eyes are forward we're quiet when student responded we have to be very serious we could use the quiet sign we have to have keep pocket HS because if you've ever seen five-year-olds walk in the hallway it's this they walk down the hallway and they just like to take everything off the wall and touch everything so yes every month it's a specific goal
025and then at the end of the month they then self assess and self-reflect and it's hard to see whether they can have a smiley face um a really happy face a little face or that they didn't do a specific you really do a good job and students are very honest kindergarteners at that age they will tell you yeah I really did do a great job I was touching and all the paper St Off the Wall they'll just tell you like it is so again goals academic but then also just classroom goals just things that you know we take for granted because we're adult but for a 5-year-old walking in the hallway is really really difficult for them especially staying on one side of the hallway so again just self assessing next slide first grade also
026did some focus on writing writing is a a topic that we are really really working hard at so indicator two is students can self assess their academic strengths and challenges and students can identify resources make a plan and seek assistance so for our first grade friends during writing students are empowered to use resources we have lots of writing resources such as checklists they use our writing dictionaries all the classrooms have word walls on them um and just strategies to help with proper sentence structure and spelling so here a student is using one of the great resources to plan and self assess her academic success with sentence structure spelling and punctuation so these are some of the activities so one of them is steps for writing so each child has in their writing folder steps for
027writing that they can reference back to so there's also pictures so for some of our friends who might not be able to read all of this they can have picture cues as well so steps for writing to rewrite drafting revising editing publishing and sharing um again some tips so there's always writing tips for each lesson so students can have a chance to really to think about something that they can do to make a new friend this was the topic about how to make a new friend and just some tips so use order words use pictures or drawings to show how you can do that explain your steps in order this one is a five star sentence so really self assessing and going back and using those resources so a five star sentence going back after
028you've written did you have a capital letter did you have spaces between your words are you using your best guest spelling are you ending with a punctuation mark and where your sentences Vari so again just that whole self assessment piece again they kind of do that independently so using all of the resources and having all of those things given to them during each writing task for second grade for an example of our Empower writing it's again setting their own goals that contribute to academic and personal success again this has to do with writing specifically but as you can see these are three examples of students where they have to write three girls that you have in this particular writing was imaginative writing I know it's hard to have hard to read but one child wrote
029One goal I would like to add to my story is to make it very interesting that the readers want to keep reading it I will use capital letters and punctuation and my last goal is to add really awesome names in it um another child wrote I want my story to have Adventures I want my story to be scary and I want my story to be firsters narrative so it can include my friends and then the last one was I want to write a scary story my next goal is to make a lot of characters in my story and lastly I want to make my story funny so again setting their own goals for what they want their writing piece to include art um students reflect on the progress that they've made toward their goals so
030students were asked to reflect on their artwork so every time that I'm in the art room students are always creating some type of an art piece and one of the things that the art teacher will always do at the very end is to reflect on that or give them time to reflect what kind of changes can we make how can we make this even better so really focusing on adding more details showing great craftsmanship using the whole Space so kids were like well I I did it and when I was in here for this one um the child had there was no blue so there was no Sky them I have been a couple little clouds and she said how can you fill the whole Space so really reflecting on your um end product and
031how can we make some changes to that to make it even better so that revision process is huge and PE um so in PE they set their own goals again students have been working on proper technique for the over overhand throw so after are practicing the skill through guided instruction with our PE teacher they're then taking what they've learned to a a game called meteor shower so again it's a lot of the overhand throw for little ones overhand throw the throwing with the same hand the wrong hand the wrong foot's going out I and she really spent a lot of time on you know if you point your toe straight and you put your overhand straight it's more than likely going to go straight and like yeah if I pointed it to the left the
032ball is going to go to the left and sure enough it does um so again practicing and then carrying over into um into different various games and as you can see they're playing their meteor shower game music um again self assessing using verbal and non-verbal tools so the students have been learning their ratland bog song it's an Irish polar song they play with their boob whackers which are colorful pitched percussion instruments um which kids absolutely love when you can see them in the in the picture um and at the end of the lesson the classroom teacher will ask you know I always played my note at the right time there's some thumb sideways if I sometimes sometimes play my note at the right time and what are some things that we can do differently next
033time to make sure that we're always playing my note at the right time kids just absolutely love love this activity and they definitely are fully engaged and Library during our library week um a few weeks ago students in each grade competed to see which class can read the most books so every student kind of set a goal forsel how many books do I want to read in one week um and then we kind of we kept track K1 and two to see which overarching um grade level um had the most fol read and again saying those personal goals that are real realistic and measured daily any questions great thank you thank you evening um we have some guests again they're waiting very patiently I know they don't want me to talk too long uh but
034before we get to fifth grade I am going to share with you um kind of a third grade view of empowered learner so something as simple as this journal simple SE Journal that third grade has been using is very powerful and I think you heard when the first graders were talking a lot of what they talked about was like I have to wait and I can't shout out and that might not seem like it's the true definition of empowered learner but at that age group it really is because if you can't kind of be in control of yourself and how you're acting and learning then it's harder to learn you can't set goals so simp seed really helps us attack some of those initial um I can statements from this one from empowered learner such
035as I can identify feelings and emotions I can use strategies to regulate those emotions and I can use a growth mindset to set my learning goals so simple seed right now is being used by third grade but we have some other grades that are very interested in using it but basically every day the kids have a journal entry and the journal starts with a quote and a short story things like um if you want to be happy make someone else happy and then it'll share a little story that kind of illustrates that things to think about don't worry about failures worry about the chances you miss when you don't even try and so then you'll see the little story afterwards and each day they kind of go through the same things three things that I'm
036thankful for and it can't always be my mom my dad my cat they have to really think like I'm thankful that it's sunny and warm today or I'm thankful that my friend smiled at me this morning really trying to get them to practice that that ground gratitude mindset an I am statement which is something that's kind of taught throughout the journal and that's kind of having that positive mindset I am brave I am uh courageous I am kind and then their daily challenge is always to think about how you can do something kind today do something Brave today and do the right thing today there's usually a morning joke to kind of get you laughing in the morning and then they end by um writing something about how they can make somebody smile that day
037so third grade is really using to kind of teach these little lessons but also to help the kids set up their day with this growth mindset and feeling like they can take on the day and tackle anything so um I have a short video it's just a few third grade students who are going to talk a little bit about how this has helped them be an empowered learner and really manage their emotions to have a growth mindset e for e e that's just a little sample out of the um Mouse of third graders that shows you kind of the um the growth mindset and the having the right attitude for learning piece of empowered learner I asked some fifth grade friends that they would be willing to share their experience with student L conferences that
038really focuses more on kind of the academic growth side of empowered learner but because they are overachievers they went and did a whole day in the life of a fifth grade empowered learner so they're going to talk about the student Le conferences and a lot of other academic pieces but I think they're going to share quite a bit with you um so I would love to invite them up I'm very proud of them and thankful for their teacher for giving them the time and support to put this together uh we have Nolan Conor Lucy Conor Hayden Faraday Arthur Harper Caroline Emily Cooper Tyler did I get everybody noan AR so I'm going to turn it over to them they created the slides um all on their own and wrote up their parts so thank you
039for for inviting our students back again when did that happen okay good evening thank you so much for having us um my name is Amanda wanderson I'm the fifth grade ELA and social studies teacher here at Great Oak and I'm so proud of them um they have come such a long way this year they are really empowered Learners um we know it's so important even at the elementary school level to Foster those skills of um attribut of a graduate and this is a perfect example of how they can be self-aware and empowered even at a young age take it guys ready ready give Dr Miller a little thumbs up or something when you're ready for the next slide okay uh so the main question is what is an empow um this slesh show today going
040be talking about the day and the life of an empowered learner here at gos uh here are what my class what some of my classmates think being aemp power burner is all about we want to share with you some things we do as students that help us be empowered Learners how do you become empowered it's easy step one be a learner step two be self aware and take chances you don't know what's going to happen unless you try step three be confident in yourself confidence is always important step four take pride in your word you can do anything if you put your mind to it there's no point going and not flying step five don't give up anything is possible and remember anyone at any age can be power Le even you so true another
041way that we can be a empowered learner daily is by using the simple seed book The Simple seed is a way that we use to a book that we use to improve our mindset and it leads us with a positive at attitude it first has a message from an author telling us about our mindset mind and anything else but ourselves it then has us write down three things that we're grateful for there is also a section where it has us write down I am statement for example you could write down I am kind or I am brave then it challenges us to do to do the right thing to do something Brave and to be kind it has a little joke to make us laugh in the morning too finally there's a little area where
042you can write down who you want to make a smile for day for example um for gratitude I wrot down house I had trees and for the high am am statement I wrote down cheerful and for who can I smile today is my mom we set goals for ourselves like at the beginning of the year we we set goals for ourselves called the power of the power of is something like oh I can do something yeah you have to work towards the goal at the like at the beginning of the year I wrote down for the power yet cursive because I have no idea how to write cursive but then I work towards that goal and now I can write my signature which is a very important my skill and I and I wrote that
043I want to do my my homework right when I get home instead in instead of at night so I don't spit about it in the morning and now I'm doing it right when I get home another way we can become empowered Learners is we do student Leed conferences these conferences that kids give to their parents tells them about what they're doing in school and how they're doing in school they share the work they are proud of in the areas that they need to improve in they also share an action plan for what they will do to work on go in school to prepare forc I analyzed my scores from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year I made goals and an action plan to work towards my goals for example I
044was low on reading fluency and I made a goal to read out loud every night now my reading fluency is at 216 words per minute after student Leed conference we asked our parents to give feedback they loved our pre presentations ways we challenge ourselves is take and Taking Chances are important we create way we challenge ourselves is we create competitions with other switch class such as a thermometer and first one to get to 500L skills mastered gets a party also we do a read Theory Board where um the more skills that you master in read Theory the you get prize box and Smarties we also do ANL board that's similar to the read Theory one but ioo challenges us to work harder because our amazing teacher and resp gives us challenges to complete skills on
045we also challenge ourselves by making a power of yet goals that you heard already a power of yet goal is a goal we make at the beginning of the year of stuff we don't know how to do yet but we will in the end of the year our teacher makes monthly challenges where whoever Master a skills on their on their level get some party this us now there's a lot we want to say about L we're going to keep it short so take it away no one um another way another way we can be empow empowered Learners I'm sorry is through EXL iel has sorry has many ways to be empowered such such as through such as sorry it's such as through learning from mistakes like because yeah if you get a question wrong onl
046it will thoroughly explain the answer to you and and then allow you to move on I EXA also has has um reward rewards for completing certain objectives like like completing 50 questions in a day um that's we use EXL to help us become empowered Learners by setting goals and challenges for ourselves one goal and challenge we set up is missan has a monthly challenge where we set a goal to make a to master 100 skills each time we Master a skill we get to log it in put it and stamp it so you know where we are I'm already at 25 skills this month and I'm at 32 skills [Music] oh see as you can see our class is working really hard to change our mindset to put effort into our work and to be
047aware of our learning and challenge ourselves these things help us to become empowered Learners and both forc thank you for listening to our presentation we appreciate your cooperation we hope you like your presentation thank you for listening to our presentation any questions comments or concerns com is awesome you guys are welcome back awesome job awesome job do you guys have any question I just had a question that the simple seed that author came to school yes she did if you um I can't remember which newsletter it was in it was about three weeks ago but um because third grade has been so into this this year they all made signs and they were waiting and she came in screaming CH Katie wood Kati W but was impactful for staff and students since then fourth and
048fifth grade have been trying to integrate some of these practices in the morning and I'm working on getting the journals for everybody next year I know this spoke of it was so excited about the author and what the kids were gaining from it positive messages for everybody and my hope is is that we can kind of take that gross mindset spirit and really incorporate that into our school culture through the kids we're so excited you know she also spoke to the middle school students um and our two teachers that started this here Megan and um Katie um or Kell sorry um are both interested in bring Katie um back and we are working on bringing her in for communication to speak to Alber now um and Kelly and Megan are both interested in going down
049to pick Farm actually um sharing what they learned through this with the teachers at farms see we can expand that Farms as well thank you so much br kids in my sorry so I I heard the the kids talk about L that they like it better than I ready is it being is it replacing I for fifth grade or is it a supplement we've been because they don't have I reading anymore we were looking for a tool not to use as an assessment tool just to use to help um as like a supplemental instructional tool because they had hmh doesn't have any kind of online platform that they can assign things through they could assign like slides that the kids just move stuff into it's not interactive it's not adaptive soel similar to what I
050already did can put the kids in a learning path so they can do these challenges but the reason that we are playing around with that right now is because they also align to hmh so if they're in module three the teacher can click on inl inter reading module 3 and it lists all of the skills covered in that module and then they can then assign those lessons specifically so it's supporting the direct instruction the kids are getting it's just kind of replacing what another Center or independent work would be so like instead of worksheets for that 20 minutes they're doing theirl time sounds good anybody else have any question what's the age range like for the for the seeds simple seed is that like a two to five so it's funny because you would think
051that the kids wouldn't want to do the journal again the following year but they do um the author herself has four kids I think um and her I think her oldest is in middle school and every year she gives her daugh a new Journal because the thought is that yes the stories are the same the prompts are the same but every year you're growing and you're different um and she's coming out with a new one I don't know when but she's coming out with one specifically for athletes should make one for adults too you know probably do that same book if you look at the prompts you could do it as of the little stories are so are so great they're just it's a a 45 second read and you're like oh wow that's a
052great way to think about that and that's how you you go off on your and I I had the opportunity to listen to her speak to both the students in staff in this school and the middle school she had different stories with the same messaging and it resonated for the students and the adults of the room I mean I walked away with powerful things from both messages that you Rel she's just a great speaker great messages and the book is wonderful I'm happy to leave a copy of the book behind if anybody wants to check it out and if you guys have any other questions feel fre to reach out they're also a good judge of character since they pointed you think it [Laughter] help but thank you for bringing the kids I think it
053helps see what they're doing and how they how it feels for them I appreciate you guys letting them come this time I I didn't even ask them to present I said hey could you just you know maybe put together some stuff about student like conference like we can talk right so now that now that they know they can do it they're very excited so I hope you don't get sick of us love all right well thank you guys very much if you have any other questions about seat or anything else after just let me know right thank have a great night thanks okay discussion and possible action on retirement package for employees retiring spring 2024 and I know how we're this we're is here we've had some off record discussions um through Finance um Howard
054and I and through the budget process that I've also been asked by staff is there be reti pack reti page we did one a couple years ago we did one last year it's not something you want to do every year um but if there's an opportunity to entice staff members to retire um there's a cost incentive for us while there's a financial payout up front the Conant incentive is that if a teacher leaves um on the top step or near the top step um you're bringing in somebody else in next year at much lower steps so it helps the budget Itself by bring somebody else in at a lower wage um there is a not a substantial change but there is a lower cost when you have a secretary leave in a new secretary comes
055in and so forth so I asked Howard to take a look at analyzing could be a Ford retiring package what it would look like um if we do put one forward we want to put it out there on a limited basis based upon budget and based upon for come for serve um so we would put it out there and Holly give staff a week to respond after that week the the deal goes away um and it would be um limited to the budget that we have and it would be across all stakeholder groups anybody would be able to take advantage of it across the district and those staff members that have already announced retirement I don't want to disiz that so if theyve announce retirement they retire this June they would be automatically involved in
056the retirement package itself so you want to explain what we discussed sure so basically what I did was um we already know that there's one two three four five um employees who will be retiring they've already announced it one way or the other so again so they although some of those would be adding cost so I in cases there's there's three of them out of those five that get estimated sick time payouts right so that that's automatically coming right we didn't budget for it because it's never budgeted for so that's that's going to be about $40,000 of that of those unallocated funds that we're talking about that is we're going to have to put towards that that's that's already a some Clause so to speak what we also did was we knew there was another
057potential teacher who was potentially retiring we I put that into the list and then there's two others that we could potentially think might re if the incentive package was offered to them um what we talked about as an incentive was to have 10% 10 one time 10% payout of their current base pay their current base pay for this year so um in some case like one of the one of the teachers that is already retiring is making 10553 they would get a $10,200 pay and that would be across whatever their salary is this year 10% of and that's what the payout is that's what the incentive is um if all of these the eight that we have right now that well not we have but the eight that we estimated would be going out five
058that we know three that we don't the total cost of the package in would would be $ 58,300 for the incentive portion now there's also an additional cost if the two that we don't know but think might take it they would also have to get the SI time payout so that would add an additional $28,000 to that so if we Encompass this whole thing is one large package the incentive plus the sick time payout right now for these eight employees the total cost of the package be $133,700 if no one else if other people take it that cost out um so but again so that's the initial cost this year we do have the funds to be able to do that we might have to prioritize some of those projects that we were talking about
059um for different things and utilize it for this instead again it's it's a moving Target so we don't know that but I think we we have no problem doing that but again then going forward what you would see was if all of these eight individuals took it the savings next in next year's budget would be $133,000 so You' be you all of a sudden have you you would have an extra 133,000 in next year's budget just by having these people as we're talking about a reduction from the town side of $2,000 this helps pay for some of that reduction that's being went for Town side and this is only teachers we didn't no it's it's we have H one two three four five you have a teacher a secretary nurse two secretaries a PA professional
060three teach so three sorry three secretaries one two three three teachers a pair professional and a nurse so so once I'm sorry so are we capping this like what if all of a sudden 20 people want to do it are we saying we only have $200,000 in the first however many who come that's the discussion we wanted to have tonight is you put a it would have to be capped and it would be C based by the avilable budget that we have that's the risk I mean that is the risk if you just open it wide yes all of a sudden you can have 20 people come up and say yeah I want one also you need to have people that are eligible to retire correct right and I don't think that we have 20
061people out there across the district that would qualify for that see what is eligible in terms of Union people retired what does that mean at a certain age certain years yeah we we actually put an age cap last time we did this last year yeah and the 200,000 that was up to 200,000 the assumption is other than maybe I mean for teachers let's just use the example that would be we're assuming they're they're right now retiring at top step and we're going to replace them with half step half yeah halfway the chain Max kind of thing yeah correct yeah we generally the budg because some of these are already put into the budget as retiring because we knew they were retiring already and so when like the 101 the one that's the person that's making
062101,000 we place them at 57 right put them at an ma5 Master five so um you're going to save like $43,000 so people who already disclosed their retiring we already anticipate our budget already had a reduction but that doesn't account for the $200,000 at this point it was already in the the savings for those known were already in our number at 4.12% increase U some the both of it yes there's U there was two that we that we've since added that since have announced then that's that that we know are retiring and that's the $21,000 for additional savings next year and then there's two the two that were projecting would retire that's $100,000 33 so if we had funds to reallocate it would we would take that would be a one time right not right
063it's a one time pay we can't do what we did last year out of this year funds go into anything activity fund or anything that would pay out in future everything would be paid this this phal year one time and done yes and then we hope that in the projected people who we think could possibly because they might be on that cost from a career perspective are they in any art to fill based on our teachers based on state the that the people that I believe would jump on this they are not in hardto positions Teach as tough as it is yeah it's hard to find teachers that was be um I'd love if if we move forward with this I'd love to see a number cap not a people cap because depending on the
064individual idual they might be more expensive because of paid out for sick leave um recruit sick leave so to me if if we could you know I think you indicated two potentially but if we don't have a cruit sick time and the number stays below the cap we might get three you know potentially so that's that's my thought is I'd rather instead of putting a number of quantity of people I'd rather put a financial cap to say we we need to stay within the means that we can afford because I'd like to I'd like to benefit as many people who want to take the the offer it's good for them it gives them you know in a way a a sweetheart deal on the way out and it it helps the district afford the next
065year's expenses this is an early read the purpose of discussion is just an early read you're going to take it or is it are we taking action we're looking to take action tonight so that we can actually get this out there at this stage of the game approaching May tomorrow we need to know if people retiring not so we can start planning for them and start trying to refill positions for next year and it also helps with final positions assuming the $20,000 reduction saves with the town side having this in our books help us make those final decisions to where the finances go for next year I'm I'm I'm okay with the program personally and like Mike's point of like I don't think we have a a landslide of people coming but we should have
066some sort of Target we may have some surpr Max I'll say a Max Target we might have some surprise people that might opportun I've heard rumors that some people are waiting for a package before before they make a b decision okay did you have your yeah like how quickly do they go up the ramp from the lower base pay that were hiring than that they go up the rent to increase the both in time in in degrees because obviously they're increasing every year right in every and some of the people that were getting rid you said they're at the top but we don't know that you know because it could be a lot of just you know es degrees and not master's degrees in third so how quickly would the new entries be actually crossing
067over the savings Point well generally speaking when you so if we're hiring at the ma5 let's just pick that because that's generally where I use the budget is because every generally all teachers come in now with their masters that's just the G not all of them but most of them I say the majority of them are coming in with Masters so at ma5 you have to get to to the top level right now is ma16 right so that's going to take you we H all teachers at 57,000 no experience you can it's based on experience I use that because I can't say we're going to hire a brand new teacher because I don't know that so it's a little bit of a hedge just because and theoretically if you're trying to hire a science teacher
068or a math teacher right now you're probably to be hiring higher than that because you they're very very very hard to find because this is one episode where market market value comes into play corre market value is necessar to play with somebody back here but coming in is market value right you know so we can assume that it's going to be in five or whatever ma5 it could be ma could be Master Seven it depends upon their experience do they have seven years experience or actually it's not less than that because it starts at three so it's really if you're starting at three really ma5 you have two years experience right have three four five three you're going a third year experience or 7even five years exper so again it's all based on experience I
069assume we're going to higher lower but not at the bottom level right because that's too I think that's overly aggressive I have to put it somewhere there but I assume we're going to hide it for a little yeah because it's got to be extremely hard because all we have here we can't find teachers correct no matter what level what course you can't so when that kind of Demands out there I'm going to come in at a high Market level anyway just interest we thought about where that break even point was where we start with you know so you could 133,00 roughly if if these eight people but you said that would be a savings for us for next year I don't quite understand that statement because we'll have if we don't we're still going have
070to re hire people and pay them the difference in salary but we don't know if it'll be 100 it's an estimate it's an estimate based on right but even though that's the payout this like one of them is a secretary so that to pay so and she's at the top she's at the nine you don't hire a secretary at higher levels you hire at the two right so they're going to come that one I can guarantee you is going to be that that differential right so I know that that that's a large differential it's a guaranteed savings which don't know really how much because we're not we unless we're forced ultimately to hire some top that we're not it's going to be definitely lower cor question how much right and then we want know we
071go through the fire process oh the last few hires we've made I mean it's not not correlation but where the last few hires do we know teacher wise what we hire that typically we hire teachers that the and staff the lower side I mean were we successful in our last yes are and we hired some really good teachers this year I I mean there are some um teachers that you have to hire hire P because they're specialty you special education teacher I'm gonna hire a qualified teacher that that has experience good you didn't do the buy what would the CL be next year in terms of savings just based on the new decisions anyway so you don't do the buyouts or the retirement bump the savings that these people are going to be retiring from
072anyway the number so the ones that are already retiring we're going to get 21 $22,000 I can count that into the budget but there's three of them that I already knew when I was doing the budget for next year and I already accounted for them at a lower level they announced early enough they announced early enough where I could account so so the teacher your I did I did no I got pointed out so I know how to got down not my question but uh yeah same with but uh no I won't up a question another month I've L my B goad so just to clarify whatever we save if we give them the buyout this could go towards the $200,000 reduction that the board of finances is request correct or the larg one that's
073coming on six it's going to help reduce yeah and I think we should do it I think it will give us that cushion that we need with the um this bed cost I don't want to end up like a Shelton that they have to let teachers go yeah um so we need what's the dollar amount right do you how do you want to s a motion um again it's still I would say if you're going to go with this and we know that if all of these went there'd be 133 the number I was thinking was like 175 somewhere in that range is the max again I don't know how 15 I would keep up to up to 15 up to 150 75 or 200 no more than 200 but somewhere in that one of
074those numbers so right now we'll get to in fin but the current read real allocable right now is about 100 Grand correct yes there are a few projects that we had in the doc that we were going to do that if we end up doing this we'll take those off the landscape so they were they were accounted for in the real they already accounted for to get us to 100 you're saying they're not encumbered let's pull back a little bit exactly we holding so just so aware that too so if you have to look at the projects that we had listed out there there's probably about if I recall correctly about 245 ,000 that that was in the reable lines that hasn't been encumbered they're working on it to get quotes to get everything going
075but they're not encumbered at this point in time so we can pull back 100 we can pull back 100 we get you your so I feel comfortable between 175 and 200 and and saying based upon who comes in limiting it once we get that Mark so we need that in the motion yes so question question would did this in business okay it was couple reasons one it's money other is that you want to get rid of okay but the other thing is that generally the people that SL the deal got something else so are we going to be losing good people but every time we did it the guy he wanted to keep he come back at maret Value because I Ain staying I'm leaving they bonus get out so are we facing that because
076teachers are hard to get and good teachers can go any place and if I'm at that great e point where I can grab another $50,000 like help the people have done that I'm out of here I pick up another 10 20 another district is that something that we facing so of the two that we are estimating I would say no that's not an issue that is not one of the issues down the road but again there could be someone there could be a math teacher or a science teacher that goes you know what I'm done here right that's it they go that I don't know right that I'm not aware of but the two that we that we've heard rumors about that that's those are the two that we threw into but again it's what
077you don't know you don't know and we can't we can't predict what people personally decide what they're going to do when they come to this OPP well the thing is it's not knowing it's intuitively if you're in a big enough business you know that you sit down you got the percentage that tell you you know you're going to lose three managers that you don't want to lose how you know 300 that you want this is a smaller scale more much more personal so could not be a problem at this this type of business and I I want to say you know the initiative of this is not to get rid of people the initiative is to honor their service here say thank you for your time of commitment to educating our students and here's an
078opportunity for you to gracefully exit and us to financially gain when you leaving and a new person coming in a lower range those are beautiful words no I mean just last question believe that a little RI off where Vick was going though there is a certain criteria that they have hit they have to be able in the teachers union Theory to retire corre right yes which I don't know what the criteria is but that's their qualification at the state level in trb okay so it's not just it depends on a person but it's not a squishy if they retire if they fully retire through the TRV system there's stipulations of what you can work in another position after you retire so you can't just go back and become another full-time right unless unless they leave
079the state if they leave the state then they're they can do anything lot of people that would retire and work another state Florida looks pretty good yeah I just didn't know what the incentive like oh you can retire if you've got you know 15 years and you're you know 38 years old or something no no there's there's specific rules State teacher you I you can you're fully bested it like 15 years and then from that on you earn more but you can't get a full percentage after that amount of time um are we ready to make a motion I just wanted to say that in Prior years this discussion's been done in an executive session this is an open discussion that we're having so I I appreciate everybody's CER during this time so Mike has
080a motion uh motion to provide Dr Miler the ability to establish a retirement package for employees with a maximum limit of 175,000 for the 2024 budget year second second any discussions so this is just a one time now and then a couple years now we would discuss it again this isn't just permanently any other discussion all in favor opposed abstain motion carries thank you very much all right thank you for pulling that together for us um for Bank signatures on the bank accounts Howard you Howard can explain what we need to do so I on Bank currently um has three signatories on their bank account so let me sit back I am Bank um is the bank account for the lunch program the grants account and the um Central activity accounts um it has three
081signatures it has Dr Miller it has Stephanie Miller's um signature she's still on here as the signatory and Danielle Ms on who is our accounts payable board um obviously Stephanie Miller no longer chair chair of the board or even on the board should not have signatory powers any longer it should be taken off and uh one of the other things um that had been brought up mik you had brought up being using digital signatures so I thought this might be a good opportunity to bring digital signatures in as a trial period where so the way it works is there's there supposed to be two signatures on all these checks that's a board policy the bank only requires one okay so for the bank purpose of then we need to see one we have to put
082two on there for the board policy so the thought process was is that we would make Dr Miller signature this digital signature and then and then the backup sign the secondary signatures would be um the chairperson de Sherman myself and and um Danielle would be the three backups with me being the primary on that as the one checking to make sure that all of the um because I check all the checks anyways at this point in time I sign on I initial just the right now I'm just initialing the um the form to be sure that all expenses are valid and everything's been approved the way it's supposed to be I would just add my signatures to the check is the way it this initially in the back page I I would sign on the
083chat as the manual signature for the to meet the board policy so that's the logic behind why we're asking for this um and if nothing else um the de should be put on and and these are not the normal operating check has payroll signatures and it also has and so we can't touch any of those and that has nothing this nothing to do with I have motions if ready yeah motion to remove Bank signature Stephanie Miller from the bank accounts for Central activities lunch program section 125 403b vendors and grants okay than any discussion all in favor oain motion carries second motion to add Bank signature Deborah Sherman from the bank accounts for Central activities lunch program section 125 4 3B vendors and grants second one second any discussion all in favor oppos obain motion
084carries anything else you need from us Howard you good oh we have to add and a third that's how you're here thanks for keeping us Howard how do you spell your last name w a r d l w okay motion to add Bank signature Howard or low for the bank accounts for Central activities lunch program section 125 403b vendors and grants second any discussion yeah I have iose I'm I'm not for it if you're gonna have three signatures got have three signatures isn't that word we did that yet okay we're saying that's a possibility moving forward but that's not the point of this vote this is just add signatures to the account not other people yeah okay um any discussion all those in favor I opposed abstain motion carries anything else didn't we forgot so
085so we have the three signatories now yeah do you want to talk about the digital side but one digital One manual I think we should continue that conversation at our finance committee that's fine I think wait so that the decision for a digital signature is not going to be deed here what's that it has been discussed in the I just don't want to report the superintendent how are you good do anything else well for the finance you I'll stay for the okay so next week is Teacher Appreciation Week um and my opportunity to thank all of our teachers um all of our hardworking staff across the district they were passionately and dedicated you saw earlier tonight um what um good teaching U results which is um students that can in front of an audience of
086of adults and communicate how they're learning um and I think that clearly ATT test to the power of our teachers so I want to thank all of our teachers for everything they do day in and day out um and all the staff that support them um next week we are going to H our our staff there will be a staff breakfast um Thursday we're planning at school I do this annually for teachers and then later on in May um the last week de and I were talking about um the board um will be considering um honoring teachers um which will be the same week that we recognize the new teacher of the year um for the for the for next year the dev will talk to that um so once again thank you all the
087teachers for all the the work that they do um and if you see T next week please thank them um we did a t-shirt contest um we asked all four schools um to do a set of designs ask students to come with their own unique design that incorporates our mission statement in there um and ask each school to go through process of selecting winner um the high school and the middle scho have select their winners um gr Oak will have a winner selected um by the end of the day Thursday and quicker fars will have it selected Friday morning um our r led by ham and Bethany will be um synthesizing the four designs into one um design and then we'll be selling those t-shirts next week and following week and the goal is to
088have all staff and students wearing that shirt as a district unified um Spirit day um one of the last days in the last um week of of May um and we'll be using that as a fundraiser um we have a account here at to office that is used to support families of need um in need here in Oxford so this help will help replenish that account as a fundraiser for that so it accomplishes multiple goals um bring this schools together is a common Spirit um but also is a fund to support the community here in Oxford um we are celebrating on April 29th um a um retiring party for those that decide to retire um May sorry May 29th as I keep getting the date wrong the date or the month um as well as
089the opportunity to celebrate um staff across the board that have contributed of course the course the year um and board members are invited to attend if you'd like to and I'll get it now to you we begin testing um ASC so if you see um your children coming home tired um that's why it's a long viting process for students um Elementary School and Middle School um but the students have started that process now uh I'd like to give a huge shout out to miss croes miss Marette um for leading an exceptional High School Musical there are four performances Friday nights to Saturday and one on Sunday I was there at three other four shows and that was they packed out they brought in a huge audience um they did a show that um appealed to
090adults but also appealed to really young kids um and brought families out um and they put on a wonderful show um we are going to have some discussions with the two of them um at Our IT department bring consultant and take a look at the sound in there to try and improve the sound quality to make sure that any issues with microphones are balanced out and corrected in there I also want to shout out a huge thank you to miss m picota um she's a parent here in the community and she did a lot of volunteering coordinating with um Jen and Emily on the musical um as well as coordinating parent volunteers and I don't think that the performance of this 92 could have been pulled out without um parent support Anda was a huge
091um piece to making all that happen brought it all together so public thank you to her as well there have been some questions about where is the calendar for next year it is online it um it's now been officially posted to our website um it lists our current school calendar and it list next year's calendar if anyone's looking for that it is on our website now if you go to our website is in the upper right hand corner there all tiny calendar icon you click on that screen comes up and it lists the year you just click in the year you see the C for next year um I'm still waiting um for a result for the HVAC grant that we did for the cafet area and the gym for this building and Quaker Farms
092we are told it would be sometime in the spring the website for the Department lists sometime in April well if I don't get it in the next two three hours it's not going to be April um so hopefully it comes in May um we're still waiting um I've checked with um C I've checked with other superintendant and no one has any any knowledge as to the exact date is going to come out we're still waiting and still helpful it does come out and the pressure get shifted over to the townside because then we'll have received the Grant and we need to town to fund it but right now we're still waiting and I don't have any other information than the fact that we're told just keep waiting so our Hope was to have information before
093the town meetings and hopefully possibly but it has not come out yet um tomorrow night at 700m at Town Hall is the town meeting on the pool pack it was approved by the board of slackman it went to the board of Finance Board of Finance approved it last Tuesday night and it goes to time meeting tomorrow night let do me it gets um approved tomorrow night by this town whoever is in attendance that meeting it will then be um ready to issue a purchase order and then we'll be in a 5 to six month holding pattern for the equipment to get here tring to be set up and for the work to get done so hopefully we have support at the time meeting tomorrow night for find that project um and finally um a a
094reminder to all parents and all community in this town May 6 at 700 p.m. is the town meetings the referendum on the budget um whether you are in favor or not in favor of the budget this is the opportunity to um be in the in attendance and to cast your vote um for whether you like the budet to stay as is or to go down there's only two outcomes of this budget our board ofed budget is one line item and we're you're going to see it stay intact we're going to see it reduced from the current value there's no opportunity in that meeting for to go up it's either as it is or it goes down um and I'm encouraging people wherever we land on the side of the the fence to show up at
095the meeting to um cast your vote for whatever you think should happen to the budget we are providing Child Care um we have student volunteers to the N society that will be in attendance in the cafeteria any parents that need child care during the meeting so that parents can drop their kids off and can go to the meeting they don't need to worry about um what's going on there'll be good coverage from responsible students to watch them C time and we had the ASO there last time so I se you have to same this one and please for there to thank youbody oh say one more thing um so you saw earlier in the evening that we handed um a pin a value pin out and what Megan and I are doing is we identified
096um four values um that we would live values um onean in compressing all of them that we would like our staff to be demonstrating um so Problem Solver is one of those collaborative is the second one open-minded is the third and compassionate is the fourth and one that incompr all that all those is Ron Lial and as we um identify staff members that demonstrate each of these values our intent is to give them these pins either in person meetings like this or just um sending inter office to them um so this is a um value pin um initiative that we actually officially launched tonight because um this was the very first one we handed out there you go now really done okay anybody any questions are we out the Sur again like we did at
097the beginning you talked about sending resending out them for the teachers yes the intend is to do that actually meeting with the company on Thursday this week to um see the changes that were made to survey to go over anything that I need to see change and the goal is for that to go out the last week of May the very first few days in June anybody else of citizens anybody hi M got anything okay Survivor made it through okay my report um I sent you on May 9th there was a invitation from the um Art Club to come to their program at Middle School um so it's in your email so if you're interested in KN just kids invited us to come the teacher invited us just like the art show if you want
098to come just see what the kids are up to it's a great opportunity I did have a conversation with um the union president um and he is trying to figure out some ways to get us in the classrooms so if anybody wants to go in we'll we'll work on some some ways to make that happen um and we do need to schedule a meeting with Steve to do our review so we talked about have to that um I I wanted to do something and talk to you guys about teacher appreciation a little bit um we have we have um the opportunity when we do the teacher of the year and the par of the year to contribute to something special for the staff that day um so I was trying to figure out something that
099we could do so we're acknowledging everyone not just teachers and pars but the custodians the secretaries so if this saw something really simple of getting ice cream having the board buy our staff ice cream it's I think we said it was like 13 something like 13 15s that means we have money in our Board of Ed line um so I I didn't know if you guys wanted to do something like that there was something more you wanted to do or something less you wanted to do I kind of just felt like we we thank the Paris we're thanking the teachers because they're they're it's their their week they're getting booster clubs doing an event pto's doing an event for them but to do everybody I thought would be a really nice way to end the
100year so at that event I thought it might be the best topic how you envision doing that Deb like an ice cream truck or Rich Farm Rich FS doing the Scoops like they've done in the past um um you know wherever we can get it from that's reasonable we've typically used Rich Farms before we pick it up and then we drop it off in the school in the back room and make during lunch and then maybe we could just put a card there you know thank you all for your great efforts this year and then mind up the year as we're thanking all of those the staff that have been found to be exemplary we're also thanking everybody for all of their great work for the year what do you guys think sounds good that's
101good idea we would have to make a motion to expend our board money so if anybody wants to do that they uh make a motion to authorize Deb Sherman and Dr Miller to plan an ice cream social for the staff at the end of the year in the total amount or not to exceed our budget line item for the Board of Ed very simple second any discussion you got this sorry we this um all in favor oppos abstain motion can thanks I just um I also wanted to talk about just a little bit about Bo last board Finance meeting um the board of Finance um talked about um where they were with the the budget numbers um and there was no rhyme no reason why it was were caught that people were um just deciding
102that that was a number um there was also a discussion about what the if they left the $200,000 in what the cost would be of the taxpayers um and it was I believe $11 ,000 um so um we will see what happens on the sixth I just encourage everyone to come out and have a voice um and and we will have um the baby sitting and it worked really well last time I think um it helped some families to get there it was tough because it was a it was a start of little league that night so and it was also um Passover first night of passover um and it's also this one's actually Orthodox Easter so it's kind of our holidays around our um great Facebook comments will come in your way Dr Mill
103there you go well somebody couldn't believe the Dr Miller schedule it on the first day of Passover yes I didn't schedule it that's what I said I asked for it to be moved that's what I said I couldn't attend it was actually really nice one of the board the new board of Finance members actually gave a very detailed offer answer to that question so that was good um but if anybody has any other thing they want to talk about during this time it's do we get I mean I know it wasn't a perfect night but do we know how many it's like 15 or 20 yeah we had 50 to 60 signed up right that so they could that they would do it yeah and I think that then baseball got scheduled and so hopefully
104um you know people know that this is an important event so I did a survey on Friday of parents and looks like there's about 20 25 students that that could take advant of right now that said they would that filled out the survey and May and if we do a survey again on Friday maybe we'll get more because you more people are paying attention so that's all I have um facilities right uh we had our meeting tonight we try to have it the last meeting of the month um we had some interesting conversations uh building management I guess uh over at OMS the with the heat needed to transition to AC um something in the logic triggered to put it into test mode which caused all classrooms to get very hot not all them just
105some of them a few classrooms a select number um it's been the problem's been fixed but the issue has not been 100% resolved as to why they switched to test mode so investigations underway uh excitingly we had a swarm of bee honeybees uh gathered outside the uh Oxford High School building about 500 which I guess is a small number um we brought out a BX expert a honeybee expert because you don't want to destroy them honey bees are very beneficial um so we have a plan we're working through it um but I guess we're happy it wasn't the whole nest because that would have been 40,000 honey bees covering the side of the building uh so very excited uh Quaker Farms we hired a new ASO um very excited on that that's been months in
106the process and uh happy to have him on board he has started yeah uh Middle School I guess there's a possibility for a part-time custodian um they they interview today so they think they might have a candidate so it's great to have a candidate um we we move forward with some of the expense uh some of the um purchases we have a snow Raider now in town so for anyone who's not familiar we're we're very excited it allows the custodians to be able to clear the sidewalks um operating the snow Raider device between the three schools on this road Road as well as to be able to Salt behind them without having to um do a more cumbersome process so that might allow one custodian to help clear the sidewalks uh for three schools save
107on overtime it's safer they're less likely to get injured applying uh salt um especially at dismissals or anytime it's icy uh so they're excited custodians are excited we're excited and uh we think it's a good addition to our equipment for the the district so I'm not going to go through every line item there facilities notes are up on board dos um but we're making progress I guess the baseball team at the middle school was able to play today it's not fully resolved but we're making progress and we're looking at ways to continue making progress um so we're excited on that fire marshall came in we looking at some recommendations and getting quotes and saying compliant um Westfield update so we we have a survey coming in the next uh week to inspect the Westfield to
108see what uh the recommended um where we are and what's going to cost to go to the next step but we'd love to have better drainage at the Westfield at high school and uh you know help the any of the sports programs that are going to use those fields so the next meeting the next Board of Ed meeting May is a weird one so the four Tuesday is the last is what the 28th 28 are we having our Board of bed meeting that night schedule yes great so facilities is planning to meet an hour prior to that board meeting on the May 28th so all right any questions from M curriculum our next meeting is May 13 so we have been busy busy busy this is a first read pack for you guys um yeah
109peruse it um there are minutes already posted it gives a synopsis of what the major changes are but take a look if you have any questions give me a call hopefully we'll be able to uh pass these changes for the next meeting thank you yeah we had a a meeting last Thursday notes are coming um it was a general overview of how we ended the month of March standard Finance meeting um we have at this point um about $98,000 that we spoke about earlier is realloc and it seems like we're going to be putting that towards the retirement plan it was just approved um what else did we cover there uh we went through some line items related to the budget reallocations that occur they were going to have to prove tonight based on board
110policy so again just refresh in memory um Howard on a monthly basis real Ates our current budget to be more in line where we're spending the money um it does re require motion and approval from the board over the mount pass but we just tend to approve all the line items in the packet um he gave us a brief update on where we stand with our grants you know some of these are two-year grants they carry over um you'll notice in the packet as well we are going to include every month um It's the Grant definitions because they are difficult at least for me they are difficult to remember um so again back to our documents they're meant to stand as a anyone can pick them up in public and understand what they're saying they're
111not cryptic um and then we had some discussions um around the central activities count as well um so I think what we're going to need to do is make a motion for Howard's line item adjustments to the budget transfers transfers transfers sorry um so I'll just make a motion to approve line item transfers that Howard had provided in the March Finance packet second any discussion all those in favor opposed abstain motion fa anything else no it's just summ L on next before you leave that there's a question that you had asked earlier today about the town numbers that are oh right so in the town budget if you look at the what the town's put out our budget number is um listed as $37 million versus 30 our food budget number so I asked um
112Dr Miller and Howard to somehow explain that to us because it the allegation that was made at one of the board the at the last meeting was that the board of education has overspent our budget allocation by the town um so I asked that it be clarified so we would have if it came up on at the May 6 hearing a meeting that we have some background information sorry so you're saying that they've eled our budget so they state that we've um expended more than our local funds would have done so and they've actually exed more than our federal and state Grands total added to our local expenses would have what they've done is they've actually factored in principal interest that's paid by the town I actually have a call to the auditor and I
113just literally like an hour before I came here they he call email me and told me that we're going to talk tomorrow to because I sent them my my reconciliation so what I did is I went out this first page you're looking I just handed out two pages the first page what I've done is I I started with so our EFS our EFS is um it's where we file to the state all of our financials the auditor going to make sure those they audit those numbers so those audit those numbers have been audited for 2223 those are the final numbers as reported to the state um so what I did was I did a I did as best I could using those numbers try to come down to what the number is that the town
114is using based on what what was in there so they came out with a number they said that we spent $37,988 120 the actual budget was 30 3 33729 something I forget it's 33 million so basically what I did was I took what we actually spent which is that very first line of 33 million 374 337 that's actually the spend that we had it looks like they added in the 4.4 million that they have for for principal and interest on the debt then they added in the in kind purchase Services supplies and other and then you back out would you have to do is back out the 7,000 and so that gets me to within $848 in their number um it's not it's not 100% which is why I want to go over the order
115I want to understand exact Tye to Penny so it's like I want to understand exactly what what the differences are but I'm 90 5% sure that this is how they got to their number that's the number that they're using in that document that they're put out there for the budget so I think what they're doing is the biggest number obviously is they're adding in the the principal and interest for that they pay on on our behalf so they they fated the bond amounts for our school stuff and kept the roads and everything else separate right because actually we have to report that to the state so all of these numbers that you're seeing here are actually in the uh the state the state system and actually we have to export all that information to the
116state it's just the state takes in order to compare this is one of the things that when I was talking to the finance Council um when they were saying when they were saying initially they were saying oh these numbers are they Apples to Apples yes they are apples to apples when I take them out of EFS because EFS takes all of the information that that all the districts put in there and they back out like the principal and interest of debt if there's someone has that they take it out of ours to make it when they do the student the first student um spend right so ours is like 197 1977 per student others are 21,000 or less or more so when they're doing that that's how you get to Apples to Apples when you're
117comparing the per pupil spend um so that's why I like the numbers that come out of BFS and that's why I use those numbers because they're also been so S I just wonder if that was a path practice so so this might have been an optical play this was Mr Lea said that this is what he was told to do by the um Auditors the Auditors if you look the auditor if you'll look this is what the town is giving putting out to the public it was made available at the last meeting there was a gentleman who stood up to try and understand how the Board of Education overspent our budget and how it was allowed and we're all sitting there saying we didn't overspend it but this is why it came in and I
118just wanted to make sure that we can answer that question and say this is this is why it came in because that was not what we spent in our budget and I think the important piece to this is that there answer because that was a d saying that 37 million is what we they said we spent and the budget was 33 million right which makes it looks that look that we overspent our budget and no one called us on it we should as a board we should send formal email to Jim and whoever else stating we'd like an aster on the document with an explanation at the bottom of the page but this includes education related Debt Service because it if there's going to be new people that's meeting mhm and right so I think
119it's a written request I agree anybody else any reason not to do it but I I have another question because I didn't catch the answer on it this $4 million okay when they're doing the average cost for student okay because this has been a seven-year question okay which always had seven years of different answers so is this in if we do our 19,000 Pur that's not part of it not part no because that educational cost share is given from the state to each town and the town holds that money we never see a dime of it so it's not factored into our expenses or a revenue does is that included in the pupil spending second page second page that's the actual reconciliation directly from FS as to how how this these are numbers they use
120to get to the per people spend these are the these are the numbers and as you can see it's only 35 million that is spent not 37 million and that's how you get to your numbers get to your 19,7 whatever and this is what you submitted to the state subed and been audited in by the state and so that and this is not include that $4 million okay and this is a standard for this is a standard across across every town every District this is when you look in the EFS system that the state uses to calculate the per people per spend per St per student student these are the numbers that they utilize and it does not include the debt and they audit so if we did something wrong they wouldn't let us certify
121it correct and that was a question that was raised at one of the board of Finance meetings was if the debt Services were included in our per pupil spending and then all of a sudden it showed up in the document not the same Auditors I'm assum do we have the same auditor well for the general audit we do but this is a state audit that does that form and I think that's why the auditor did not respond an email today why he's calling me tomorrow to tell me that he did not tell Jim believe it to put so I will respond back to you what I hear from him and so I I have no problem because it's he's going to be know that I'm that's why I asked the question of him and that's
122why I went directly to the order because I can't believe that he actually told him put that number there and I want to thank Howard for in just a very short time then this question came to Howard last night six o'clock by less than 24 hours later he's able to give us this type of analysis so this is a credit expertise that we have stating in this room as our business manager thank you we give a pig for Here We Go problem whoever email but I don't know maybe we offer I mean in the spirit of transparency and Clarity in this meeting instead of the AST people might miss only our operational budget has to be if we're trying to align with there's a line Board of Education gets and we're we're going to talk
123about that and people can Pine on it there should be an educational debt service line like we should force their hand yes it does because our the educational line should tie exactly to our operational budget that goes to referendum right and so we should make a formal request not back down there should be an educational Debt Service underneath of them if they want to list it separately that's the way they should I think that's the way to do it we don't want to purposely confuse people well I mean that's a big thing is what the town is done for Education as far as buildings and things like that so let's be honest this is what they've done but it's not part of our operating budget and just to go back to the first page I
124just want to make sure you get all the information that I provided here so if you look down at that second section um what I did was I went back because again what the town gets the town so it's very confusing there's two grants that are called ECS one's educational cost sharing which is what the town gets and we the board does not see at all and there's excess cost Grant which is the one that we use which we do get um but I want what I did is I went back back to the fiscal year 18 and basically the first line you see is what the the uh The Debt Service that the town had on their books I then added in the in kind Services right these are the services that they provide
125to us it's uh like the purchase service up above supplies the other and then there's some salaries and things that they throw in there I think it has to do with lease right to do that but in total you can see what those were so I even added those I threw those in as well even though those are part of those are counted in the per people spend I added those in but then I added in what they actually got the town actually got from um from uh the state in the educational cost um the educational cost sharing and as you can see since thiso 2018 up until now they've spent about 21.7 21 .8 million but they got 22.8 million so they've actually had their the town's budget has been benefited by a million
126dollars over those six years right it's been third B the town budget is actually lower by a million dollars and it's been supplemented because of what we get in educational cost share and that you have not seen because you're the board of a now fli this it's G flipped this year to be negative right because of the increased debt but I believe that the increase of debt is because you built the middle school right so you're going to start seeing that happen now when you start going forward that milli dollar is going to get eaten up real quick but I just want to say for the last five years they benefited from it right and their budget has been lower because of it and you have not seen the benefit of that in your budget
127and I will say and that is standard practice across every every that's not unique here but it is something that they benefited from people should not yes well it's certainly something that we can include in the email that we send to um the town should we have some extra copies of this ready to go for that next meeting absolutely be passed out with the actual budget like here's an so you know what's happening does anybody have any concerns any everybody good about this up to digest we should make a samplified version of it like we did with our other budget docks yeah something easier to digest for someone who just Pi it upas for me it's really just two points we just want to know that let them know the debt service for that number
128it was published is the difference is the debt service and then the town has gotten a benefit over the last five years we can create points we can create that simple point and this could be a backup just tell everybody simp what is the debt Ser what does that mean that's the money that they use to um pay for the high school bond interest in princi payments on the bonds so when they went out for bonds this is inter this is the payment so I think it's still it's not income for us at all no good um it's the I think it's still the high school I think jump because of the middle school middle school and did we they bond anything else the only other bonded item is the they said they did not
129Bond right but the only other bonded item that is in debt Services is still the library they should not they're they're using the leftover funds for the middle school bond for the agac project in this building is this the only year that they've ever tried doing this like if we look it back and seen they haven't done it in years past WR this is the first time that it's been done with that I think it was um it was amazing to see the numbers being so different and that poor gentleman was trying he was really trying to ask if he wasn't getting people were looking at them like we don't know what you're talking about so it made sense to dig in and figure out where that was coming from it's really hard to hear
130too because the mic system even though it was so much better it was far as unless you're like holding it right here you could it was hard to hear you turn turn it's not it's not picking up yeah a lot of people don't know how to use bics and those who are designed you had to speak directly into it so everybody's good with Des sending something to do you want I would I would might as well have a motion you want to make a motion yeah I I'll make a motion um to have Dr Miller and Howard send a letter electronic or otherwise to the finance director of town CC Board of finance of finance and board of Selectmen stating that u a request that the next packet that comes out for the town vote
131should have the education Debt Service bifurcated out of the educ ation line I'll second that any other discussion all those in favor opposed abstain motion carries anything else on the hand Howard thank you for putting that together I really appreciate good job problem Sol you're always you're always getting it done man maybe they do and you always find the answers because I mean it looked long and it seemed long I mean they talked about a little Jack tried to explain a little bit in the meeting yes it wasn't so same I don't think the gentleman was able to explain where he was trying to come from that was the general rule that we over spent our Bo so misation um leis on reports um I had to leave the PTO meeting to go to the
132for fire meeting but um I they approved some fundraisers and they're doing teacher appreciation both the PTO and the buer club next week are doing various different teacher appreciation to Pizza truck for the teachers and staff at the three schools on this road and it's a Mexican front ore yeah and I think the book fair is going is today you can see the books over inside here and I think this is the buy one got and the money the money for this house I think just goes to the school does not go yeah they get their Scholastic Scholastic dollars on Sue anything um gun spells is tomorrow I believe I think they're in different time and that some people can come make their tile I think Lisa was confused with what you sent her did
133you want a house on the tile I sent her the image so what um I sent her a copy of uh Mr mom's Schoolhouse that's what that was okay yeah yeah so that's the schoolhouse okay okay so she see how how figure out how that could happen yeah they can't put anything any like personalization on the tile like they can't say Oxford Board of bed or or any dates or anything else so we'll have the schoolhouse on and I believe tomorrow starts the great GI which will be on the different so booster club was participating in that the fundraising thing online fundraising and the booster club has started the sales for the grad signs as the PTO as well for eighth grade and planning the end of the Earth lock in and so forth and
134we don't have anything else we don't do ACD anymore so we don't have any right okay uh is there a motion to anybody have anything else that they want to talk about tonight okay is there a motion to adjourn motion check it any discussion all those in favor oppos thank you