001like to call the board of educ Board of Education meeting on 114 2025 at 633 to order pledge allegiance United States ofer all right uh roll call we'll start with both mcra Tom Robert car mike cusa vinniead Steve Co right um Joe iuchi and EXC oh I'm sorry Deb is here apologize sorry Deb um all right do we have any amendments to the agenda moving on approval of minutes um make a motion to approve the 1210 24 Board of Education regular meeting minutes second discussion all those in favor I I I'm going to obain I wasn't there oppose exstension that's me motion passes the make sure I have the right sure the right one okay so this in only will be voted on by the three board members that were present I I'm going to
002make a motion to approve the minutes for the 1725 Board of Education special meeting minutes do second discussion just one correction where it says call to order it has chairperson de Sherman listed obviously that should be yes make that change um okay so let's we have to amend that motion correct yeah so I'm going to make a motion to amend as Nicole indicated second second all right um all those in favor I I you want to list out who said I yeah we should probably go ahead Nico m Tomi Robert Carr um the rest of so those opposed obss everyone else everyone else besides the three of us and motion passes I'll make a motion to approve the 1725 Board of Education special meeting minutes the second meeting of that night do I have second
003second discussion all those in favor I I oppose extenstions motion passes audience of citizens would anybody like to speak would anybody like to speak and would anybody like to speak hearing none we're going to move on any any Board of correspondents not receive anything um information items Dr No CH I'm invite on D stuff um this soccer team um raised um money for the fire department and for team in so here yeah and they presenting detective fire department tonight and team West to be here tonight and we're unable to do so that we are going to invite our players up CER AR don't me they done one of the special things that we can do is to give back to our community the fact that you raised money um and got it for the brave
004men and women that are here to serve protect our community is very special so on behalf of our district I want to thank all of you for the efforts that you did for the fire department for team and if you want to say anything about what the work yeah part of our mission statement as a boy soccer program is to um Inspire uh not only ourselves but those around us including our community and the fire department has inspired us especially over the events that took place in August and this is just us giv back to um all their efforts that they did to help and support us so again thank you Mr fer and your recruitment for all your work thank you might get a photo for the the che for teaming yes we'll do
005that so how much was the fire department the fire department for $1,500 and steam in was 6,000 yeah just to explain a little bit um we do a a program in November called give back give back November month so instead of us fundraising in November we give back to an organization so in November we picked the fire department to give back to that organization last year we gave to a food pantry in Alf for for $1,500 um and the second check that we have right here for 60 little over $6,100 this was half of all of our fundraising we did over the course of the season so we made a commitment in August whatever we fund raise from August September October November half of that will go towards team Inc which they you know in
006turn uh help all the families that were affected by the flood so this is going out to them and again for all their efforts and our commitment to get the off for community okay uh next item is student representative update um so to celebrate the holiday season we organize a well the school organize a door decorating contest across all classes and so each class basically designed like creative and fesive decorations with like some incorporating like unique beans like gingerbread houses so that was really nice and then we also participated in the Festival of trees that's an annual event held in OHS so the class of 2025 organized arts and craft for kids so things like tattoos coloring bracelet making like candy canes Etc so this event really like spread holiday cheer and it was really
007nice way to connect with the community and then this week we held cookies and crabs it was a program aimed at helping students prepare for their midterms so students were invited to enjoy cookies while reviewing material and our peer tutoring program continues to be a great success with upper classman offering one one assistance to here so that's also really nice and then the school's phone policy is also going pretty well teachers having collecting phones um at the beginning of class and students and teachers have both adapted to the policy effectively and we're seing positive outcomes I think in the classroom environment so far so that's good and then at the moment the class of 2025 has been busy with several initiative so we've organized recently and designed uh senior t-shirts for the class of 25
008so that was a really fun and collaborative project for all that brought kind of her class together and then we're also working alongside the class of 2026 to plan a field trip to Boston so we're trying to make it somewhat educational so trying to provide students with an opportunity to learn beyond the classroom uh at OS this Friday seniors will be presenting their Capstone projects for under classman this is a half day ending at 11 and for seniors they're going to stay and they're going to present their projects to judges next week at OS Tuesday through Friday uh students have midterms which there will be two midterms per day and school ends at 11 o'clock uh last Tuesday January 7th the OS unified team played at halftime of the OS boys basketball team's game that
009was at and unified team played at halftime and at the boys game and speaking of the boys basketball team they've won their last three games they're on a three game win streak and they're taking their win streak into their own game tomorrow at 7 o'clock at home against SP Tech um OHS best buddies is a club that I'm a part of and we're selling snacks uh at during midterm during the break period between for any students that uh would like to buy those and our OS school council is plan is having a meeting on Thursday to plan a club fair to offer more opportunities for students thank you yeah go ahead can I get the da time again for the Capstone is that open to the public um I do not think so I think
010I'm not the public uh so I think the the students present and there's like five students per room two judges per room and then their judges um discussion there uh as you're going through the day and stuff like that we look at the high school catalog the courses and stuff I think there's now a mandate that directed and has to be published uh we talked a little bit about sales and marketing last last time if you could look at that and say how would I how would I in what would I do and get the feedback from your classmates and just say you know we really need more here we need more in logistics we need more in chemistry we need we need things here it needs to build something with meat in it think
011the board would appreciate that yeah thanks guys really appreciate it um The socet Players would like to go you don't have to sit here and do this whole you're welcome to though really all right um that's information items let's go to action items number six the request for softball baseball sever request from athletic director to add an assistant coach for softball and assistant coach for baseball um the reason is is a couple fold one it allows the head baseball coach to split the team so that the JB can play at the same time practice at the same time so from student saing perspective and to give additional students the opportunity to play um he's requested we add in an additional assistant for both of those teams to make it a budget offset we did not
012fill a assistant position for wrestling and volleyball this year so it's cost neutral to the budget to make this happen so there's no impact whatsoever what we need to do is to have a motion tonight to authorize Bobby to sign on anou that will be developed our attorney to create these two um stats for this year anybody have anything okay um yeah go ahead I'd like to make a motion to authorize our board shair Bob Carr to U work with our board attorney on creating anou request for softball and baseball for assistant coaches second second discussion so is this something that would continue like is this just for this year or yes you'll have to make some decisions but what how it works and it would have to be a new request for next year
013and we didn't have an assistant question for wrestling and and um volleyball we we didn't have a board volleyball that's we don't really have a wrestling team right right he budgeted that needed all right anybody else all those in favor I oppos obain motion passes uh 6B use of central activities funds so there's been a request for over a year now to more than a year to take a look at the bathrooms on that wver field we've been studying it um we have put quotes together that could build us a bathroom um around $253,000 so the request is um to have a motion to use Central activity funds up to and not to exceed $55,000 to build the backs in that spot there this is a separate Board of Education only related activity this um
014is not the larger bathrooms that the town is looking to build this is getting the project done you look like you have a question yeah I only know one bathroom that's going to be by the concession correct two it'll be two fully functional ADA Compliant bathrooms that will be in the back half of The Snack Shack so Snack Shack remains intact it's where there's currently storage um where you see a sliding garage door that's where there will be two fully functional ADA Compliant bathrooms okay so what's that other project so what you mean is just we're we're the only group funding this corre as opposed to a collaboration with the town the town have been looking to build a separate facility just for bathroom this makes use of existing facility that's there fits it into
015bathroom that possibly happen still or no this is in the funding for that has been withdrawn about 20 times from my understanding and it currently is not available at this time so if it were to wait for the town's participation it would be not in this year and potentially not in first half of next year and while I have caution to use set not to use fund because we need it for budgetary related purpos board we have from this the year to now look at this 55,000 in this range to use activities FS for this project so you're okay yes what happens to the stuff that's all stuff that's in it's part of that project where they'll be getting a storage unit or container and what about the ice machine that they put that all
016that effort that's that's stay in the bathroom no no the bathroom it's being configured it's part of smarter people than me have going the bathrooms are going in that shed part where the ice is there's going to be a hallway there's if they're not using every inch of that whole Space there is room to have the ice machine there's all SP I thought I thought on the on the proposal was one attaching a two Snapshot and then separate separate one was from with the town that's much larger project more than dou and there's no more talk about putting bathrooms up by the B that is not taken off the table but that's a town project if they want to fund it at this time so with the meeting that we had the last time we
017had a list of things $100,000 for not and stuff this is out of that program we had a list from from youing the train and all that kind so now let's just re from that c this is from that list it is from that list and through the facilities meeting that happened on Friday we've decided to put the rest of that list on the back burner until we are done with the budget so we I know there was concern on the board about using those funds the working with Dr Miller we decided that we could put that stuff on the back bur so that we know where exactly where we're at once we're done with budget process going to make a motion and then we can enter into discussion sure thanks one more question yeah
018I thought there was like 250 or 300,000 240 240 as 240 so we're going to spend 50,000 yes to to your thing build a bathroom that may not really suit the needs you know if we got $250,000 I'm not going to do that program why don't we build a 50,000 ,000 separate unit we uh we currently have two pter potties that have serviced us as best as pter potties can service us uh these will be flushable workable toilets that we currently don't have ADA compliance down there these will meet the needs the difference between what the town was looking to put together because I was on that committee uh was for three B that we only have room for two in in The Snack Shack and the goal is that two Now is better than
019three in some date in the years to come I've been trying to get the bathrooms done for six years and I have failed miserably and to get two would be an incredible win because I I mean I won't show the pictures but the pictures are horrific of what happens when we have a a football game and but when you have pop warner the next day or two days later and those bathrooms are in terrible shape and we have these little girls for the cheerleading it's horrific conditions and responsible for cleaning Lea it'd be my understanding would be fact into the maintenance that we have throughout the whole high school they could get just as nasty as a the goal is that it's flushable so it' be but the design factor was that they would be
020as easy to maintain as possible that's part of the initial plan is to choose the right equipment and it's single use power flushing yeah powerful flushing my one of my points is that I read over that list again and part of the things on that list was you know if we had signs at the the swimming meets and different signs in different locations we would be able to communicate with the public to bring more people into our sports program that correct some of those yeah some of this stuff in there okay so what I'm saying here is that you know those were all valid reasons to do putting up lights okay I think those reasons are just as valid to have three in a separate you know facility than just make make sure why not
021the snapshot I'm just saying I'm in favor of doing a one good unit with three four toil and it would part that $200,000 whatever there instead of you know just nibbling at the edges put another you know put in mechanical TOS so did I understand you correctly when you said that it's up to $555,000 for this plan which would be two single use B if you did the larger one it would be considerably more than that I would say somewhere between 25 to $50,000 I was in about 150 and we we've been we' be splitting that cost so what so cheap like why because we had existing so we have existing sewer and water there already so we wouldn't have to do that you would have to I'm assuming you would have to reroute depending
022on where they want to place the new bathroom facility or at least add pipe which is going to add to cost um honestly this has been been bouncing around between the town and the board of education for two plus years um and yeah yeah I know they've been talking about this is this is this is a solution so that when Port poies get used at the football game on Friday the pop Corner hits don't walk into that mess um or graduation or graduation or soccer G yes the only way we're going to get it done is if we fully funded ourselves but does that mean we have control over the design or do we still have to consult with whoever was on that other no we have complete control over I have we have a
023motion actually I'm sorry I'm going to do the motion then if somebody would like to say something we'll do discussion right after okay all right I'd like to make a motion for the board ofed to authorize using funds from the central activities fund to pay for a district bathroom to be designed uh at the Wolverine field um inside The Snack Shack for not to not exceed $55,000 do we have any further discussion so this is the 55 include then what it's going to cost to get a shed to store all the yes and where is that shed gonna go I do not know but it will not beon it it will not interfere with anything for my understanding I don't have the exact location it could be diagonal from where because there are currently uh
024storage sh and the propane tanks are all down there yeah so it could be next to one of those or West Field I do not know the exact location frankly if we can get this done maybe we work with the bler club and the quter club to make sure that you guys are happy with everything and where it's go that be more more than willing to do that I'm guessing that's going to be a coordination between the ad and the uh we tried when we when you guys put the water in for the ice machine we had asked for water in a Snack Shack so we could have running water in there that seemed to be an issue so now I just don't understand why we can put in bathrooms when we couldn't even get
025the process is that a long one and we just decided that we were going to get this done but I do want to make sure that District works with the board with the boosters and the quarterback Club make sure everything's go SEC and everybody's happy which go okay all right anything anybody else okay all those in favor I uh oppos stain motion pass superintendent report Dr good evening we heard a few minutes ago that we're during the end of the first semester there our high school students are getting ready for their inter exam so good Lu to our high school students um we are actually getting the official public portion of 2526 budget process so we have been working internally for a couple months now putting budg together on the 28th of this month will
026be our budget Workshop that's when we bring in our principes our directors to present to the the board and to the general public their individual budgets and then they roll up to the overall District number I have invited the board of Finance to that meeting we've done the last several years so they have been invited to that you would like them to be so they can understand how the budget is put together that will be two weeks from what's the DAT of that the 28th um we will be doing that meeting starting at 5:30 um instead of having a traditional start at 6:30 that speaking of the board of Finance there is a combined Board of Select and board of Finance meeting tomorrow night the special meeting at 7.m that is to vote on the
027funding for the HVAC project for Faker farms and the HVAC project for the roof or sorry over the the cafeteria into the gym for um this building so that project was approved to sign the contract last Wednesday at w meeting hending approval of funding so the next St is the meeting tomorrow night um at Town Hall I encourage board members to be there encourage our general public to be there as well to show support for um this very needed um project school what time is that that'll be at 7M at Town Hall I shared information with parents I shared information with the staff I shared information with the board last week um there's a public um unveiling from power school that there's a a mass data breach that impacted almost every user um that has
028their services whether it be hosted at their site um or hosted at individual school facilities was just on their site um and they expanded that further we're waiting for information they have told us that they will be arranging for identity U protection for those stakeholders that have their data that has been breached we're waiting for that according to to power school they contacted a third party to scrub the data according to R they provided to as there's not information still out there in the in the public for where this went to it has been cleansed it was a um security threat that was a result of somebody on their staff um not anybody in a school district not our school district it was something from Power School side that that resulted in the data breach
029but it has been but up and secured that threat is no longer in existence um I announc to the public to the board that our coordinat student CL Becca um received an offer as an assistant principal in another school district he left the district um week and a half ago if he's left um we have posted that position internally and we anticipate filling that position um within the next four or five days um with an internal candidate um and that should free up um that person to to go into that position so that we back into having that coordin contuct back in operation inv shortly um a reminder to parents that January 17th this Friday is an early release day for rest learning for our staff so that all stakeholders that work in the district
030have professional learning that's one of our monthly planned DD sessions and then um also reminder to everybody involved that Monday 20th is a holiday um so all schools and offices are closed um in the district thank you uh audience of citizens anybody want to go ahead um I would just like to thank Dr Miller um there's been a lot of really great consistency and thinking of our monthly board not board meetings but our parent little meetings that we have Dr Miller and I I just really want to say thank you because it's bridging a lot of transparency between different administrators in the district understanding what Eric does understanding what um thinking meeting the different principles at different levels has been really helpful like my kids aren't in high school I don't I don't know you
031know what what always happens there or when I got to meet Miss alette and you know getting to talk to different people and understand their positions within the district has been really helpful and as a parent I feel like there's a lot of questions and Dr M thank you for always being willing to answer those questions with full transparency and just I'm in a lot of town meetings and it's been really great to see out there supporting the school and making sure the kids students are getting F both at a town level and at a district so thank you could you just state your name and your address Molly Smith 24 anybody else anybody else okay um report the chair or design need um so a couple things um when in October when that stepped
032down and I took over um I asked if we needed if we if I could get a PTO R and you still don't have one at this point so I'm kind of looking for volunteers if I could get one um if I can't get a volunteer tonight um I would I can't go on Thursdays they their meeting is on Thursday night so if I could get one person to go on Thursday night to represent the board um I don't remember exactly when it is I think it's at 6 o' 6:30 um I will try and do the rest of them as long as it's not on Thursdays it's just a really bad meeting Thursdays so um if you don't want to if you want to think about it and get back to me that would
033be great nobody's looking me in the eye right now so I don't think I'm going to get anybody um but um at at the very least maybe we could um bring a bring a PTO member the president in and maybe they could do a report during the our thing but we do need to have some type of relationship with them um and contact with them so that you can work together as two minutes um Dr Miller brought it up uh if you can attend the board of finance and the board of selectman meeting tomorrow night um please do I will be there I think it's very important that um we get representation uh from the full board if we can uh it worked very well last year when when we had all members there um
034and to kind of go even further once we get this get the budget rolling we have the meeting with the board of finance and ourselves on the 28th um when a board of Finance has a meeting about our budget we should try all try and be there if we can be there uh same thing with Board of Selectmen meetings as well um and that's oh um unfortunately I was not able to attend the meeting in December because I was sick apologize for that um that usually doesn't happen and we've been budget budget budget since the middle of December so that's all I have for everybody subcommittee yes I will have you know very cautiously that you said maybe okay what are you think why don't you think about it and then text me tomorrow I
035would love if you would I would love it if you could attend because I think it's a link that's necessary absolutely and I don't know what so she says no but so but I tried to make eye time so I didn't have to do it ver but okay thank you thank you Victor I really appreciate that uh anybody else um sub subcommittee reports facil Joe's not here um Mike you want um so we had we had a meeting um was it uh past Friday so uh on the 10th uh just some highlights that Joe provided uh for me to share uh Press Box needs work done Middle School Outfield light poles need protective mats quotes a follow at a later date Middle School baseball field still having drainage issues I think that's going to be
036a assistant report until it's rebuilt from the ground up go central office bathroom heaters are on order our for go hfac going to board of Finance this week for approval as Bobby mentioned RFP for Quaker HVAC to follow and i' just like to personally thank everyone for considering and approving the bathrooms it has been an avalanche uh a lot of work a lot of work being done Dr Miller has helped make this possible we did a water project was it two two and a half three years ago four years ago to get water down to the field so we could have a nice machine to help keep athletes safe in August um we've done a lot of work to make that happen I think Georg Ron will help uh the process at one point uh
037for the drainage and before thinking on making sure that whatever we could do to make the bathrooms a reality we would um so we we spent wisely and I think this has been a very effective project and I can tell you that the the the cheerleaders the little girls are really going to appreciate not ever having to use one of those porter potties down at that field I mean you should see some of the little ones the junior tidy mites they're four years old they're the cutest things to walk this planet and when they all go into line like oh it's time to use the bathroom it breaks my heart every time they have to walk into one of the porta potties so we're doing a great service to this top so thanks Mike uh
038D curriculum and Technology she I'm here but I'm gonna ask Dr Miller to do the um course because you guys don't want to listen to this voice um we have tentatively scheduled the next curriculum meeting for February 3D so take it away Dr Miller so there three class three course proposals you have um in the agenda one is for mobile apps the second is for web design and the third is for for forensics and I do have um Eric is ccum instruction coordinator here that could answer any of your questions specifically about any of the courses these have been um that is through the C committee um and need approval um this evening by the board only question I have is do we have a teacher to teach them yeah so these are all elective
039courses so um all these were proposed by the teachers um and the way elective courses work is it's based on numbers so um it's not 100% that these courses will run it's if the enrollment is there um and usually the teachers base it off of interest from the kids in a class that's similar um so for example the forest forensics um he does he's looking to change field biology into a part one and two due to some interest from the kids do that guarantee that there's always to be uh number two running every single semester no again that's going to be based off enrollment um but in order to write the curriculum this semester for next year um it will go through the approval process here great yeah absolutely okay I just saw on one
040of the websites is that the stage requiring that we poost all Curriculum by a certain date are we prepared to do all that yeah so right now it's I had meetings with the uh department heads and a couple principls last week and they're testing what we have up there now so I said take about a week just to make sure things work um so it should be live on the website I'm hoping another week um there'll be a disclaimer on there that it's what we have now and then every week there's more and more coming over so the process we used to pay for a curriculum Warehouse years ago I guess um we don't pay for that anymore but we still have the documents that we had on there um so any curriculum written previously
041those documents were pulled from there but the formatting is it's not just hey here's the here's the way the document went in it's coming out wonky um so there's a lot of time spent just trying to format just to get them in so um me and uh Jim ler the IT director has been working on reformatting these putting them up so we're focusing on we do have a bunch of Middle School core classes out um and then focusing on as much high school as possible and like I said we have a couple people just testing out making sure everything looks good hopefully go live next week and then it'll just be continuous process of keeping uploading those documents my compliments to because I being involed with the cricket I know it's a big big job
042to get all that done we meet that tget that's a a big step forward for us and I don't know where I can put this in but uh I don't even know how to do it but I'd like to ask the uh two student board members uh since I theoretically volunteered to go to the PTO which sounds like it's uh right next to the bathroom project or something is that uh I would like or each to attend a curriculum meeting on a constant basis and then policy because those are to me the most crucial things for you to communicate back to your students so uh if you could put that in and maybe come back next next meeting and say yeah we're on or even start beforehand because it's ' be immedate thing for you
043yeah Deb when do you usually have your curricular meetings is it during the day or is it at night it's it um usually at 5:15 5:30 we with is that is that okay I guess is what I'm asking yeah okay I don't want it seem like you absolutely have to do this it would be can we talk can we talk about that during curriculum and decide what we're doing beforehand discuss it both committees should discuss it first okay yeah right so we'll get it rolling um let's get back to the new classes um Deb is this a first read or do you want to vote they don't get first reads they just get vot voted on okay we going to have a motion oh I'm sorry uh we'll do the motion we'll get it second
044and then we'll do discussion okay oh thank you I'd like to make a motion to approve the mobile apps new class proposal for 2526 second discussion all those in favor oppos stain motion passes I'd like to make a motion to approve the new course web design new class proposal 2526 second discussion all those in favor I I extensions motion passes I'd like to make a motion to approve the fource forensic new course proposal second all right discussion all those in favor oppos motion passes all right thank you Deb feel better yeah thank you can I just have a quick question on this new Mandate of having curriculum posted didn't we always have our like the classes weren't they always online you could always go see them there I mean before I was here there was
045the we paid for that subscription curriculum Atlas um which is no longer we're no longer using okay so some older ones but but not was like in a handbook or something you could go in and the program studies what B would has actually seen the curriculum itself oh what's actually being taught so the program studies is like a paragraph explanation of what's in the course overall to help the when students pick their courses the the the curriculum is actual by unit what are what is taught throughout that unit for the entire course oh is that a state mandate yeah every you're supposed to have all public available that's why it's not 100 it'll be up and then stuff will keep coming like there's some courses up there that are taking over an hour just to
046reform that to get just one course uploaded so it's it's time consuming computers are all right um policy quality Nicole so we have two um policies are down for our first read tonight the first one is student discipline policy and this goes hand inand with uh the school climate policy that we just adopted at the end of last year uh anyone who's has an intention of serving on um a student discipline Hearing in the future I I encourage you to take a look at the um policy because a couple things have changed and it would be helpful um if you do serve in that capacity to be familiar with the um policy um the second policy has to do with um Connecticut paid sickly a new law that we have to to abide by so
047it could possibly have a budgetary impact so take a look at F card how much that's actually going to matter or not well what it does is just briefly what it's doing is now that the time is already there for people to utilize they get up front let's I'm just going to be Pa professional they get 12 days up front however what the state is now the they order able to utilize is in half day or full day increments the state is now saying that 40 hours Ann fiscally every every fiscal year 40 hours they're allowed to take that an hour increments for any reason whatsoever basically is what it comes down to so we have to there's no real budget impact other than that there's but there is it's going to be coverage impact
048is where it's going to be because you're going to have a a PA or a teacher going saying I'm instead of taking a half day which is easier to cover you're going to now have some go I'm going to take an hour and they're going to be gone so you're not going to be able to get a sub for an hour so you're GNA it's it's going to be a lot of work for the administrators to manage this and so it's a very I've spoken to both uh uh shiping good and we've also spoken to our um P Andy um they say it's horrible legislation it was poorly written it's poorly advised and and I know of one District already the entire board has has written a letter to the state it's Ellington they've written
049a letter to their their representatives in the state asking that the state exempt schools out of this um and and it's just because it's too odorous to be able to manage everything that's going on so it's something we have to do um so basically we are doing it as we're supposed to do we had to change front line to add a new category for Connecticut sick leave so that people so because we have to track it there's a tracking portion of it that's required by the employer so uh there's a lot going into it there's a lot of people working on it um and it's going to be very hard to manage um but again I don't necessarily know that there's a direct budget impact but I have to believe that there's something there it's
050going to impact the budg somehow just in coverage alone try to find people to cover so that's what we've been working on all right so those are the go ahead Ste is there a regarding that is there a sentiment from this board around this potential this piece of legislation that there would be a movement to send a letter like Elon has to our representatives of the board I put my name on it I would put my name on it we need to vote on that i' like be more impactful from the board versus individuals but would it originate from policy or it originate just at the board level Al together um I don't know Nicole what do you think I think it's board level it's not policy I mean I mean do we need to
051start it somewhere where it was where it started from or can we just as a board make a motion that um to put together a letter of recommendation slash dissatisfaction and the pain and potential operational issues that this causes on boards right I mean the big well there is a financial impact to the new legislation I think the biggest impact is on operations itself right so the the law right now allows a teacher a par professional a secretary administrator at two to say I'm leaving after for the next hour and figure out how how you're going to cover it we don't hire substitute teachers by the half an hour by the hour no one's going to show up it's it's it's not practical yeah the new law requires that we give that person that time
052off by by the hour and our system is not designed structurally to support that type of absence and this new law supersedes existing contractual bargaining that we done with our various associations sounds like you have your author to your letter right yeah so one was good too I could I imagine that that Ellington statement is the first of many and possibly I could Envision over the next year or plus districts either individually suing the state or a Class Act also try and get this stopped in some capacity but in the meantime we have to live with it it's here we have to we have to make it available to our staff but there's a substantial impact on operations of this district and as people begin to learn how they can use it from a staff
053perspective it's going to have a greater and greater impact and maybe now while the weather is poor we're not going to see that big of an impact but come to Springtime in June when the weather's really nice and people say oh it's 85 is outside and 95 in my classroom I want to leave now I think we're going to see a bigger impact on that and we don't have the threshold by the the law to say no I'm sorry you can't leave now it's there there's no requirement that that individual need to provide us either being sick it includes not only being sick but also from a mental health perspective all I have to say is I just don't feel like staying in school right now I'm going to go home they technically just leave
054to go for like an hour lunch and they could yeah you can't ask them what they're doing yeah advanced notice isn't required do you can't ask them can't even ask it's really gets convoluted because if so when it comes to if they take this off in three days if they take off three days if they combine it all together hours more than three days so now you're supposed to FMLA is supposed to kick in which is federal law but you still can't ask them to do FMLA paperwork the first hours because it's not allowed to ask what they're doing with those hours but you then have to to be in comp with FMLA so so being compliance with FMLA you have to designate as FMLA you have to let them know you're designated as FMLA
055but you can't ask them why they're doing it which is normally what you have to do for f so it's it's it's a nightmare for district truly is and managing and while we fully support employee rights and that employees have earned well earned time off they do they deserve this time they deserve sick and personal time this is what they they they've earned this time and they have the right to do so we not saying that they don't deserve it what we're saying is the application of this law gives more from an employee standpoint than we can manage as an employer and we currently right now today every existing bargain contact that we have gives a sufficient amount of sick and personal time to each of the employee groups that we have in place right
056now it's not like they don't exist this law was put into place help those employees that don't get these days from their employer we already give oury emplo es a generous amount of sick and personal days this is above that it's not giving them more days but it's giving them greater access to use those now by the hour Le and it's giving them without the need to tell us no do this why they're out so procedurally speaking I think we're a bit hamstrung here because in order to vote has to be on the agenda right me we can't amend the agenda because we've already gone and done that correct so what I would propose is what we we put it on the agenda for the 28th maybe look to have a draft and have a
057draft before so everybody could look at it and then potentially vote on on the 28th yeah this is only a first read tonight so we don't have to do anything right here and now everybody can have a chance to take a look at the policy read the read the problems and yeah go ahead we can work in parallel because although this is a policy what we're asking is a letter of concern to the State Board of Education and legisl yeah meanwhile this policy while we're asking the board to adopt the policy the law in fact on January 1st so we already operationalizing this new law internally whether this policy gets voted on 28th regardless We are following State statutes so we'll put it on the agenda for the 28th yeah um if you could if
058you would like please write a a draft um the superintendent and we can edit it yeah as we do do you get the Ellington one they sent it to us okay I think perfect CH GP okay okay um anything else to go the only other thing I'd like to say to our student members is we have a virtual meeting It's usually the first Thursday of the month um it's a very quick meeting so if you ever wanted to hop on um you're more than welcome to to pop in and just see what we're doing especially if there's something on the agenda that is interesting to you okay thank you okay Steve I've got a really long update so um committee met this evening we took another run through the proposed budget um the changes the
059proposals um next meeting as we've been pointing out multiple times as the 28 as a full board with other stakeholders and constituents um we'll continue as a finance committee to look at the deck and ask questions stand potentially after for revisions or clarifications working up to that for that's basically all I you Steve are you with I am I got let's see Bal trees went very well we raised about over a little over $7,000 for the Charities um so those are being um the checks are being written and sent out um what else do we have [Music] on a midterm goodie bags will be done this weekend the we've been doing this for years people parents can buy a goodie bag and the kids get them in their locker or somewhere before midterms and final
060exams apparently kids don't go to their lockers so they have a hard time finding them but we're working on figuring that out um we're getting ready to plan our St Patrick's Day Bingo um and then next month starts to talk for all the senior lockin and other senior activities so that's that okay do I have a motion to adjourn tojn the discussion all in favor opposed