BOE Meeting 6/10/26

001Everybody, I would like to call this meeting to order. Um, the regular meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education of June 10th, 2026 at 6:01 p.m. Please join us in a pledge to the flag. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Item number two. I would like to entertain a motion to amend the agenda by adding the following to new business. 8B Connecticut State Supplemental Aid Grant. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Mr. Burbanire, Mr. Perigino. Any discussion on that? All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstensions? Motion carries. All right, that brings us to item number three, approval of minutes. Uh I we need we have three separate minutes

002to approve the minutes of the regular board of education meeting of May 13, 2026. Do I have a motion? >> So move, >> Mr. Showers. Second, Miss Tilton. Any discussion? >> All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstensions? Motion carries. the minutes of this special meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education Curriculum and Instruction Committee meeting of May 7th, 2026. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Miss Tilton, Mr. Foot, any discussion? All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstensions? Motion carries. And finally, the minutes of the special meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education Finance and Operations Committee of May 11th, 2026. >> So move. >> Mr. Showers and Mr. Perigino. Any discussion? >> All in favor? >> I opposed abstensions. Motion carries. >> Item number four. everyone's well one of our favorite parts I guess our student representatives

003we will start with Eli Terry Junior Middle School for your final reports of the school year on Tuesday May 19th Greten Wet returned to IJMS for the third straight year despite the heat we all had a great time and survived the obstacle course thank you to the PTA for once again bringing us this fantastic event. Then on Wednesday, May 27th, we went outside during lunch to throw water balloons at Mr. Vigliotti. There were many great hits, as well as an attempted water dump by Miss Steves and Mr. Gore. Some students even got hit. It was an absolute blast, and we were already excited for next year's activity, >> Spring Spirit Week. Our third and final spirit week of the of the year took place from May 26th through May 29th featuring fun themes like emo

004versus preppy and dress for a zoom meeting on Friday. Everyone wore black to our final pep rally of the year. We celebrated our spring sports teams and got to participate in and watch a bunch of wacky games like the wig snatch challenge and a collaborative jump rope game using pool noodles. The vibes were great and each JMS gym was loud. >> This past Monday, June 8th, the sixth grade class took a trip to Mystic Aquarium. They enjoyed beautiful weather and had a great experience seeing many different animals including beluga whales, a mother and baby sea lion, and two juvenile penguins. They even got to touch sharks and stingrays and watch a sea lion show. Next week on Tuesday, June 16th, the 7th grade class is going to Adventure Park where we will be ziplining through

005the trees and tackling challenging obstacle courses. High above the ground. >> Eighth grade trip and eighth grade dance. On on Thursday, June 4th, the eighth grade class went to Lake Compounds. This was my favorite field trip here because we were given a lot of freedom for basically the whole day. It was a fun, exciting experience to hang out with my friends and ride roller coasters to finish out the year. Tomorrow night is our eighth grade dance and we are all excited to have one last fun night together as middle schoolers. On Tuesday, June 2nd, the ETJMS band and chorus performed their spring concert. Both band groups performed the Marines hymn, which they originally missed out on playing during the Memorial Day parade due to rain. The course gave a great performance and everyone has improved

006immensely since the beginning of the year. Additionally, a number of ETJMS and ths students attended the Halo Awards and performed Whose House Is This from Mean Girls. Speaking of Mean Girls, we faced a lot of lighting issues leading up to the show. Thanks to a last minute minute effort by some awesome people, we not only got the auditorium lights up and running, but we were also nominated for a Halo Award for best lighting. We actually have a special award tonight for someone who helped make this all possible. >> Me. [laughter] >> Thank you. [laughter] >> They just keep on coming, don't they? Huh? It's for your your help with the lighting. >> Best lighting assistant ever. >> A >> That's sweet. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. [laughter] >> Oh, no. We're going to do

007a special one with the whole board for the [snorts] >> eighth grade promotion. Next week on Friday, June 19th, the eighth the eighth grade class will participate in their promotion ceremony, making the final major event of the school year. As as an eighth grader myself, it will be a truly special moment for all of us who have worked hard through through our middle school years to celebrate together one last time. It is the perfect ending to our year, and even though we are sad to leave, we are excited to move on to high school. Lastly, on behalf of the ETJMS students, I would like to thank the board of education superintendent Falconee for inviting us here to share our experiences. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. And Julia, we look forward to having you

008again next year. And Sebastian, best of luck in high school. Um now we will hear from our Tville High School um representatives, Tiana and Fallen. >> We'd like to say good job, guys. We're happy that we got to work with you guys, too. So, we don't have too much to share because it's the end of the year. We mostly are going to talk about the rising officers and rising student representatives here. So, Tiana will start off. >> Arya Roth Peralt was elected as student council representative at our meeting on Monday. Arya, could you please stand? [laughter and gasps] And I'm so excited that she'll be serving alongside me. I've had the absolute pleasure of doing track and volleyball with Arya over the years, and I couldn't be happier to see her step up into this

009role. Since the beginning of her high school career, Arya has been incredibly involved in our school community, participating in clubs such as Leo Club, Future Business Leaders of America, and Pep Club, while also serving as a fresh start mentor, helping guide younger students. In addition to her leadership and service, Arya is a dedicated three-port athlete, competing in volleyball as well as indoor and outdoor track. She also serves as her class president, showing her strong commitment to representing her peers and was honored with the Hobie Award for her outstanding leadership potential. Arya, I've loved being your teammate and friend over the years, and I'm so excited to continue working with you in this new role. I can't wait to see all the amazing things you accomplish in the future. [applause] >> Tiana Avalone was elected as

010student council president and will serve as the board of education student representative next year. Since I introduced her at the end of last year, she's been accepted into National Honor Society. For those of you who think that's the absolute highest this diva can go, you'd be wrong. She also ran for NHS treasurer and won. Next dual year, she plans on playing volleyball, basketball, and track for our school. Speaking of volleyball, she earned sec second all Bergkshire League team for position libero at after her phenomenal season. She also serves as her class treasurer and will be co- captain for color guard. Finally, this summer, Tiana will be attending Girl State. She was selected by teachers and administration as one of two girls that will be attending. Tiana, I've had a great time working with you over

011the past two years, and I can't wait to see all the amazing things you do in the future. >> A thank you. [applause] >> We would like to thank the board of education on behalf of the student council and the entire student body for your continued support and dedication throughout this school year. Thank you for an amazing year and giving us the opportunity to share our school from our point of view and lived experiences. Your willing your willingness to listen to students voices and consider our feedback has made a meaningful difference in our school community. We are grateful for the chance to represent our peers and highlight both our achievements in areas where we need to continue to grow. This experience has helped strengthen the connection between students and the board. And we truly appreciate

012the time and effort and commitment you put into making our school a better place for everyone. And I'd like to quickly say thank you, Fallon, for being a role model, not just to me, but the peers around you. You set a high bar from academics, sports, and your volunteer work. I'm so grateful I was able to have someone like you to look up to, even from my middle school days. You are kind, smart, passionate, and so hardworking. And you do it all with a smile on your face. It's going to be a hard adjustment not seeing your face in the ths halls anymore. And I know I have some pretty big shoes to fill next year. I just want to say thank you for being a good friend. Thank you for having me, Tiana. >>

013[applause] >> Fallon, best of luck to you next year in your new adventures and we look forward to Tiana and Arya joining us next year for our representatives. >> Board members, do you have any questions of any of our representatives? >> Actually, I would like to thank Mr. Vigi because he's Vigliotti. I'm sorry. He's a gentleman who recommended these two students from Eli Terry Middle School because we only used to have just the high school kids. So, it's a pleasure listening to the kids uh let us know what's going on at the middle school. So, thank you very much, Mr. Bigley. >> Anyone else for the student reps? >> And >> just thoroughly impressed. There's a lot of people here tonight. We have uh probably a hundred times more audience [laughter] than we have in

014attendance. Uh and you guys just you nailed it, both groups. So, nice job. Excellent. >> And normally this is where I'd say you're welcome to part if you have things to do, but we would like you to stick around for just a little bit longer if you don't mind. Okay. Thank you. >> All right. So, now we will move on to item number five, our presentations. Start with Mrs. satile. >> We're actually going to start with Miss Balo. >> Oh, sorry. >> No, it's okay. >> Oh, >> it's okay. We're going to do teacher empower professional of the year. >> Sorry about that. >> No worries. I'm sorry. >> Every year we provide our students, parents, and teachers the opportunity to nominate individuals from across the district to be awarded both the Plymouth Teacher and

015PAR professional of the year. This year the selection committee faced a difficult task with many deserving candidates. Um first I would like to call up are we M sir Vigliotti? >> Yes >> Mr. Vigliotti to present um the 2026 Plymouth PAR professional of the year. >> Good evening members of the board. Superintendent Falconee. Yes, it is with great enthusias and the utmost pride that I stand before you tonight to recognize John Cristiana as the Plymouth Public Schools paraprofessional of the year. While I as the principal um you know get to see the broad impact of John's work across our entire school community, the true testament to his dedication come educators who work side by side with him every single day in our star program. In nominating John, our star teacher Becky Lyman wrote that his

016dedication skill his dedication and skill embody every quality this prestigious award seeks to honor. Working in a behavior management program requires a rare blend of patience, empathy, and resilience. And John possesses these traits in abundance. His greatest asset is his ability to build authentic, trusting relationships with students who often struggle to connect with adults. As Mrs. Lyman notes, "John meets students exactly where they are, effortlessly bonding with them over their own interests, whether debating the latest sports stats, discussing gaming, or chatting about current events. By establishing this genuine rapport, John builds trust, breaks down walls, and creates a safe, predictable environment where our students can thrive both emotionally and academically. John's commitment to our student body extends far beyond his required hours and he consistently volunteers his time to enrich our school culture. He actively

017supports our unified buddies club and he steps up every single Friday to run our afterchool sports club. A club which he founded after seeing a student need and the club that meets once a week every week all year long meets more than any other club in our school. And you know this is all because John made that happen. John also regularly attends the games and practices of the students he works with. And because of this dedication, many of our students are able to successfully participate in extracurricular activities that would otherwise feel completely inaccessible to them. From an instructional standpoint, he is an invaluable asset to our team. He does a wonderful job with academic support, masterfully tailoring lessons to meet students at their individual learning levels while maintaining a warm, collaborative attitude that elevates our

018entire building. It comes as no surprise to any of us that know him that John is currently completing his master's degree in special education. Our staff already views and respects him as a true colleague in the field who possesses the mindset, heart, and skill set of a master teacher. While we will miss him dearly one day when he transitions into his own classroom, he is bound to be an extraordinary special educator. John Cristiano represents the absolute best of Eli Terry Junior Middle School and he changes the trajectory of our students days and futures through his unwavering support. On behalf of our entire school community, it is my honor to present to the uh to present to the board the Plymouth Public Schools pair professional of the year, John Cristiano. Congratulations, [applause] CONGRATULATIONS, [applause] JOHN. And

019now I'd like to welcome Mrs. Satau to present our teacher of the year for 2026. Casey, come on up. Good even good evening everyone. It is truly an honor to stand before you tonight to recognize someone who exemplifies excellence in education and it is my privilege to introduce our 2026 teacher of the year Casey Dosio. Casey is an exceptional educator whose impact reaches far beyond the walls of her classroom. Instructionally, she's incredibly strong, creating engaging, meaningful learning experiences and always finding ways to meet the needs of every student. She believes deeply in helping all children succeed, and she works tirelessly to ensure every student feels supported, challenged, and valued. What makes Casey especially remarkable is the way she thinks about the whole child. She understands that learning is about more than academics. It is about

020relationships, confidence, belonging, and helping students grow into the best versions of themselves. The connections that she builds with students and families are genuine and they're lasting. And her classroom is a place where children feel seen, heard, and cared for. Beyond her classroom, Casey is a leader in our school community. She gives her time to clubs. She serves on committees, and she continuously looks for ways to make our school a better place for all of our kids. She's always helping to develop and inspire aspiring teachers, generously sharing her knowledge, her expertise, and her passion for education with the next generation of teachers. Casey's dedication, her heart, and her commitment to children make her exceptionally deserving of this recognition. And while we can all speak about the incredible educator that Casey is, I think the people who

021say it best are the students whose lives that she touches every single day. So, at this time, I'd like to invite you to turn your attention to the screen as we hear from some of Casey's students about what makes her so special. >> Who's that guy? teacher kind of teachers and she helps you is the best teacher because she lets us do fun Friday and she lets us do fun things [clears throat] and also she's just the best teacher because she understands what problem we have and she helps us like calm down the best extra she's kind and smart and she's I had her for two years in third grade and we love her all and she's amazing. She's pretty [laughter] good together. She loves all of us and we all >> she's always on

022for lunch. [laughter] >> Thank you for always being funny and all that. Thank you for giving us opport [snorts] children is the best teacher because awesome. Congratulations, [laughter] CASEY. [applause] UM, I don't know how to top that, but that's okay. Um, [clears throat] good evening members of the board of education, district, family, and guests. I'm truly honored to stand here before you tonight as the 2026 teacher of the year. Um, this profession is filled with so many incredible educators. To be recognized is something I have always yet never actually imagined happening. Um, I'm deeply grateful for this honor. To me, teaching has never been about awards or recognition. It's always been about the students who walk through my door every day. They're the reason I love what I do. And they are the reason I

023continue to learn, grow, and strive to be better every single day. Throughout my life, I've been fortunate to have teachers who have encouraged me, challenged me, and believed in me even when I didn't always believe in myself. They inspired a love of learning that has stayed with me ever since. My hope is that I instill the same love for learning to help them discover their their strengths, overcome challenges, to treat themselves with kindness, and to always believe in themselves. That influence continued into college where I had a professor who seemed to always find something to critique in every assignment that I submitted. At the time, I didn't always I wasn't always thrilled about it. In fact, there were moments when I questioned if he ever actually liked anything I turned in. Um, but looking back,

024I realized he was helping me become a stronger educator. He pushed me to pay attention to details, to think critically, and to always strive for excellence. As many people who know me can attest, I may have taken that lesson a little too seriously. I have become quite taip A and occasionally find myself nitpicking the details, too. Thankfully, my students and family keep me balanced. Um, I would not be standing here tonight support of my family. To my husband, thank you for your endless encouragement, patience and understanding. Teaching is not a job that stays at school. It comes home in lesson plans and papers to grade, stories to share, and countless conversations about students. Thank you for supporting me through every challenge, celebrating every success, and reminding me why this work matters. To my wonderful parents,

025thank you for always supporting me, celebrating every success as well, and for being my first teachers. Without you, too, I wouldn't be standing here today. I'm also incredibly thankful for my Fiser family. Every day I have the privilege of working alongside exceptional educators and staff members who inspire me, support me, and lift me up. Teaching can be challenging, some days more than others, but having a team that is always willing to help, collaborate, encourage, and sometimes simply make you laugh makes all the difference. I'm fortunate to be a part of a school community that feels like family. Family is exactly how I think of my classroom as well. My students and I spend so much of the year together that we become our own little family. We work hard and celebrate successes big and small

026since every achievement matters. We make mistakes and grow from them. We overcome both academic and personal challenges and we support one another through it all. [snorts] In our classroom, we often talk about balancing what we know as silly time, fun time with serious time. We may laugh a lot, but we also know when it's time to focus, persevere, and challenge ourselves academically. Most importantly, we learned to build each other up rather than tear each other down. After receiving this award, I asked my students what they think makes a good teacher. I was expecting something heartfelt and inspiring that I could add to the speech. Maybe comments about kindness, encouragement, or helping students grow. Instead, I received answers like, "Someone who lets me have extra recess, someone who lets me use my Chromebook, and most notably,

027IDK." So, while I may have earned teacher of the year, I apparently still have some work to do. [laughter] In all seriousness, their answers did remind me of something important. Kids always remember the way we make them feel. They remember the happiness, the connections, and the moments when school feels like a place where they belong. Learning is incredibly important, but I'd argue the relationships we build along the way are equally as important. As educators, we have the opportunity to shave live shape lives every day. We may never fully know the impact we have on our students, just like my own teachers may never know the impact they had on me. My hope is that every student who leaves my classroom takes with them not only academic skills, but also confidence, kindness, resilience, and a love

028for learning that long lasts long after fourth grade. Thank you again to the board of education for this incredible honor. Thank you to my family, my colleagues, my administrators, and my students for being part of this journey. I am proud to represent Fischer Elementary and Plymouth Public Schools and I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to do the work I love every single day. Thank you. [applause] >> [clears throat] >> But Casey, if you and John could just hang around for a [clears throat] little bit. We're going to take a recess in a minute and take some pictures and things like that. Next up is Mr. Falcone. Uh, as Casey just said, our school district has so many amazing teachers, and each one of those teachers contributes to making our schools a special place to be

029and work. And this evening, we're congratulating two of Plymouth's finest as they ride off into the sunset of retirement. [snorts] Not that I'm jealous, but they are riding off into the sunset of retirement. Uh, Diane Boland and, uh, Bob Nave, if you don't mind coming up to the podium. I didn't tell you both that. [applause] [applause] Well, these these two teachers um teach very different subjects. Uh Diane has been with us since 1987. That's a long time. You look great, though. Um, and she's been teaching art at Plymouth Center School that whole time. >> I did some long-term subbing before that, too. >> Still, that's amazing. And Bob has been here since 1995 here at the high school teaching history. And while they taught different subjects, they both had the amazing gift in teaching that

030they could make connections with kids and make their classroom safe place for kids to be. I've seen it in my five years now as the superintendent of schools. I saw it when I was working here at the high school with Bob. Uh you're two truly special people that were losing for our kids. And you've made such an impact over the years, not only with our kids, but within our community as a whole. On behalf of the board of education, the faculty, staff, and the administration. Good luck in retirement. Enjoy it. and thank you for all you've done. [applause] >> I just want to say that I feel blessed to have worked with generations of our kiddos in this district. So I really truly am blessed that I could have a career here. So I just

031wanted to put that out there. So >> and if I could put something out, I just want to remind everybody how amazing the kids here are. >> I could tell you story after story about how good these kids are. I stand at the door at the beginning of class. Give them work to do. To the one, thank you. Every kid. So, this district is made up of fantastic kids. [applause] All right. And then finally, it's my turn to make a presentation. Um, this presentation goes to our student representatives who have given us so much insight to the student body this year, and we really do appreciate it. Um, we need to know what's going on in our schools, and there's nobody better to give us that information than than you guys. So, thank you very

032very much, Fallon. >> [laughter] >> Tiana >> and Julia and Sebastian. >> Thank you. >> We're actually going to take a recess at this time. We ask that um our teachers of the year, power of the year, retirees, and student representatives. We're going to do a picture with the board all separate though. Uh there are cupcakes in the back. I think there's also coffee back there and water. So, please help yourselves. Uh, thank you guys very much. But we are going into recess, if that's okay. >> Um, yeah. Do I need a motion? This is a motion. >> All right. I need to entertain a motion to go into recess at 6:32 p.m. >> So, move [snorts] second. >> Mr. Showers, Mr. Baneer. >> All right. I'm going to resume regular session at 6:44 p.m.

033>> building administrative present presentation and update. >> So this evening we have our administrative team here to provide a summary of the school year and how things went in their schools. They'll be sharing the goals and priorities they've accomplished, an overview of the school climate survey results, assessment data, highlights from the year and areas to focus uh on for the next year moving forward. Their presentations will be a snapshot of how things went this year. Um and so we don't plan on going into great detail at this time. if there's something the board hears or wants to talk further about, we could always put that um on a later agenda if necessary. So, with that, I'm going to invite uh Miss Kao up to the podium to start us off. >> Good evening. Feel like

034I was just here. >> Me, too. Yeah. [laughter] Okay. So, I'm just going to start off a little bit with our priorities for the school year. Um, obviously I was entering in the middle of the year, early middle, but in November. So my big focus when I entered Plymouth Center School was to build a positive and inclusive school culture to support highquality teaching and learning and to strengthen family engagement and trust. So that's kind of the premise of what I'll be talking about with some of my slides. Um our school climate plan results and focus areas. So, when I was looking at the strengths that some that really stood out were um just based on numbers, but confidence in our safety procedures and ability to handle emergencies. Obviously, we practice that all the time. So,

035I'm glad that our staff is feeling really good about that. Teacher and student relationships, I have to say that is so evident when you're in our building and you walk into our classrooms or see parents and or not parents, but teachers in the hall with their children. They're all like just checking in with them. and they're talking with them. They're excited to see students from years past. They're all still very much a family um support for professional growth and development. Our staff is still going to school. They're still learning. They're so excited that we've had some opportunities to take some of our interests and grow professional learning that way this year. And faculty are happy to be in school. This one I love the most. I really feel that schools, especially primary schools, should be

036just bursting with joy and our teachers are really excited. Our cars, everyone at Clem Center School, this is what I've said to everybody since people have asked me how it has been transitioning to a new school. I say with confidence every time, every single person in this building loves children. It's apparent every single day and it shows because they are happy to be there. And then this last point I think is the point that I wanted to really highlight. Parents feel welcome to participate in their child's education. So when I looked back at some of the climate results from last year, that was actually a focus area. And to see that our parents this year are really feeling um welcome and able to participate. I'm really excited about that. And I think that's probably the

037biggest highlight of some of our strengths. Areas of growth. Um, these are not surprising, but staff feel their input is only sometimes solicited in decision-m and we're still kind of working to make sure everybody feels like they have a voice in our building. Continued work around shared understanding of expectations and implementation of student discipline procedures and that again is something that we'll continue to build. Our next slide is to look at some of our assessment data. Um, I know you have all the data in front of you, but just some highlights and overviews that I wanted to share. We do the Dibbles assessment. That's a a a literacy assessment that we do with our primary kids. And one of the highlights is that across all grade levels, our students de demonstrated meaningful growth in their

038foundational literacy skills. Um, particularly fun phological awareness, decoding, word reading. Our kindergarten especially showed strong growth. This is obviously something that we hope to see because they're learning so much. They're taking on so many skills. We should be seeing growth here and I was happy that we were um grades one and two continue to build their fluency and comprehension skills. We want to continue to implement those strong skills. We want to continue to work obviously with our curriculum because that that is the the premise of us getting there and then increase emphasis on reading fluency and connected text in our grades one and two. So that was a little bit about dibbles. Um, this year was the first year that our school dove into. This is a program that supports both literacy and math. It's

039um on their computers that they have and they it was brand new. Our second graders started in the beginning of the year. Our first graders um started in the middle of the year and our kindergarteners are going to jump into this next year. So, we are excited that all of our first and second grades, well, not all, I shouldn't say that. Grades one and two students demonstrated marked growth in ELA and math. The percentage of students showing growth ranged from 94 to 98% from the beginning till the end of the year. Obviously, I would love a 100% of our students to show growth, but I'm really happy with this. This is a great start. Um, we're going to work to increase the percentage of students meeting or exceeding those grade level benchmarks while maintaining high

040levels of student growth in already achieved areas. One of the things that I just kind of wanted to mention, so we are really looking for 10 growth points every month with this. And so we could see that in ELA, our grade 1 students, they had uh 73 points and the average growth would have been 40 for them because they started midyear. And in grade two we had 112 points of growth average and the average growth um would have the expected average growth would have been 90 points. In math for grade 1 again because they were halfyear their expected growth was 40 targeted growth points and they received um or earned 72. And then in math we were just a little short of the 90 points that we had hoped to achieve and they had 78

041points. Um, next, highlights of student programs, events, and accomplishments. There's so much going on in our school. Um, again, starting the year a little bit later, we didn't have a first round of clubs. Next year, that's something that we will definitely be doing. But things that we were really excited to bring with our students this year is having our second graders um announce the announcements every day. So each day two students come down, they get to do the announcements on the overhead and I always say to them, you are announcing for almost 400 people. Like this is a big deal and they get really excited about it. They say ride with pride at the end. They're sharing their school spirit and they can't wait to come down. We have community meetings. Um we tried to

042have those monthly. We have a therapy dog partnership. The kids love when the dog is there and they get to read to the dog. And then some of the clubs that we had this year were BBOT coding club, craft club. We had two craft clubs running, yoga club and STEM club. Some big events, you heard me talk a little bit the last time I was here about our mystery of Coco, our reading challenge and our author visit. One of our big accomplishments this year, again, I told you we wanted to bring families into Plymouth Center school. So, we had family show and shares and we asked I asked all of I worked with the teams and said, "We really want to celebrate curriculum. Students deserve an audience. Let's get our families in here and celebrate

043learning." So, they all took it. They ran with it. And they did two celebrations this year, two show and shares um across their curriculum. And next year, we're going to do three. So, we'll have one each marking term for each grade level. And I just want you to know that it was so exciting to see all the parents filling our our front lobby waiting to get in. Um they were so well um so well received and and the parents were just dying to come. The kids were so excited to have them there. We had we've been celebrating all of our end of year excitements this year and right this past couple of weeks and the parents are coming out in drones. We even have um we have over a hundred volunteers that are coming to

044our field day. So, we just couldn't be more excited about all of these family members sharing in our learning. Um the kindergarten did a teddy bear picnic. We have a literacy luau in first grade, the VIP mingle in second grade. Our our librarian did a wonderful Valentine's reading night, our grade two dance that we worked on with the PTA, and of course, our art show, which was a huge success. big accomplishments. Um, I have to say bringing Coco in our Mustang was probably one of the biggest accomplishments. It brought our entire school together. It created a real sense of community. The students were excited every day. They talk about riding with pride. They they want to be upstanders and earn um their horseshoes. They're just having a a ball with Coco the Mustang. We also

045read over 42,000 minutes in our reading challenge. That was a great accomplishment. And of course, our show and shares and we've raised money for a ton of donations. We've supported our food bank, brought in tons of food. We've I think it was before I had gotten there, but I know they brought blankets and different things to the animal shelters, and we're going to continue to do those things. When I think about our areas of focus for the coming year, um again, just continuing to foster that welcoming, positive learning community for all of our stakeholders, I want to continue to increase family engagement through schoolwide events events. And then we want to connect our Mustang pride with our PCS bucket filling initiatives um so that we can kind of grow that together. and then establish schoolwide

046expectations for using data to provide timely feedback, monitor progress, and engage our students in tracking their learning goals for EXL in both language arts and math and then work to develop community engagement and partner with local organizations. One of the things that I did just for the end of the year was reach out to the Terryville Public Library and I I realized we didn't have them coming in to talk about summer reading and it hadn't happened since COVID. So, I worked with them and they have been there um they were here at our school yesterday and they're coming again tomorrow visiting every classroom prek through grade 2 to talk about summer reading and get them excited. So hopefully next year we'll add to some of that community engagement. >> Before we let Miss Kao go,

047it almost makes sense to stop and pause and ask questions and then go to our next school. Is that okay with you? >> Of course. >> All right. So, let's stump the chump. She's up there. >> I have a comment, not really a question. I really appreciate your hard work in improving the culture at the school and it seems that people are very excited and it's just wonderful to see and we we really are very happy to have brought you on and appreciate all your hard work that you did. >> Thank you so much. >> And in pres presenting as well. So, >> and I really wanted to say that I just feel very lucky to have landed here. It feels like a perfect fit for me and I love this community. So, thank you.

048>> I like to add on to what Karen say. Your joy is very evident when you come and present to us. And in the community, all I hear is really wonderful feedback about how inviting and and fun and how engaging it is for the students. So, appreciate you taking the risk to come to our district and we're grateful to have you here. Thank you so much, Stacey. It's done a great job this year. Thank you. [snorts] >> Kudos to you, too. Seriously, kudos to you, too. I mean, I'm sure that uh if we can go back in time uh with some of the things that happened at the center to you getting there and now you're seeing more and more engagement from people coming in, that's all because of you. >> Well, thank you for

049your support. I want to make sure that we're just like having a more like a really good collaborative effort as far as like moving forward. So maybe opening the lines of communication, how we can support you better, not just with data assessment, just overall in the community would be very helpful. >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> No, obviously not today. >> No, I would love that. Thank you. >> So give us your top 10 right now. [laughter] >> Now we're never Matt. You know what? >> You're special. Thank you. Thank you so much. >> What amazes me is when you walk the school building during the day, um it is a community and they the kids are all saying hello and you know all the kids' names uh in a short period of time and

050you're in and out of all those classrooms and you see the teachers, everyone's working together. So, it's a really great school community that you're working to build and create with those teachers and the power professionals. That's the whole staff that's just doing an amazing job there. So, nice job. >> Thank you all. It was really nice to be here tonight. Thank you. >> And next up, we have Miss Satau from Paris Fischer Elementary School. >> Hi everybody. I'm back up here this time for a little view of what we had going on at Fiser this school year. Um, so it went a little too far. There we go. our priorities this year. Um, first and foremost, we began implementing EXL as a diagnostic benchmark assessment tool. Um, it's been many years since we've had an

051a comprehensive diagnostic tool. Um, and I was pretty passionate about this. I think Brian would agree with me on that. Um, for a few years I had beenounding him saying we really need something comprehensive so that we can look at everything that our students are doing. Um, we need multiple data points. We need information that goes from the beginning of the school year to the next month to the next month to the middle of the year to the end and so forth because we have to look at what our students strengths are and capitalize on those but also we need to see where their areas that they need to improve on are. Um and we did that this year. It was really exciting. Our staff did an amazing job really embracing this. um they did

052a lot of work in their team meetings with the coaches especially looking at the action plans that were created for our students and we were able to take that into our win time which is what I need that we implemented last year. So we were really building upon that and making sure that our kiddos were being you know serviced in what they individually needed. Um another focus we had like I said was using that to drive our instruction. So we looked at action plans. We looked to see where they were improving and we kind of cross referenced that with other data points we had that might have been, you know, topic assessments that we were doing, exit tickets that we were doing, anecdotal information that teachers had just on their observations from their day-to-day. [snorts]

053And again, it really helped us understand who the children were individually so that we can service them as individuals. And then last but not least, we wanted to promote student reflection and engagement through this process. So we didn't want to do it to the children, we wanted to do it with them. So we really focused on goal setting with the students. They were reflecting every single month on what their goals were, how they were doing, and they were setting their own action plans um to kind of, you know, take that ownership on themselves because we need their buyin, too. Again, we can't do it to them. We have to do it with them. Um, so that was a little bit about our priorities for the year, our school climate plan. Um, of course, every year

054now we're going to be sending out our climate survey. And it goes to, um, the parents, it goes to our staff, and it goes to our students. And out of that survey, we found that some strengths were student teacher relationships, school meeting the needs of all of our students, staff parent communication and accessibility, and the school responding promptly to concerns. So, what's really exciting about this is I see a correlation between us communicating about our students and what they're learning, which is what we wanted out of these action plans. We made sure that during conference time, for example, we were giving these in this information to parents. Um, and we did it all along the way just because they need to be active part participants as well and know how their children are growing throughout

055the school year. So, it was great to see that reflected in these survey results. Moving forward, um, you know, some areas of growth we need to look at the physical condition of the school facilities. We're doing that where we can. I know that we have our new heat pumps coming in which I think is really exciting and it's going to be very helpful and there are some projects that we have that we can handle painting things like that to kind of improve the overall look of our building. Um and then also more support for social emotional development. They're 8 n and 10 year olds. We absolutely have to support them with their social emotional development. Um it's imperative especially in our postcoid society that we're supporting our kiddos not only academically but with who they

056are as the whole child and then assessment. So Mrs. Mrs. Kayla spoke a little bit about EXL and as I mentioned previously, this was our first year using this diagnostic assessment and um not to copy you, but of course we'd like to have 100% growth, but we're very excited that we were super close to that with all of our students. When you look at the beginning of the year data to their end of the year data, 94% of our students showed growth in ELA. And in math, 95% of our students. Now, could we get to 100%? Of course. But, you know, this is a snapshot one day that we're looking at these kiddos, right? So, having 90% in the '9s, I'm enthralled with our first year of implementation to see this. I really feel like

057our students um and our teachers hard work is paying off. [snorts] And again, Mrs. Kayla mentioned that we're looking for that 10 point growth every month. So, you know, overall when we did this testing, we were looking at the end of May. So, we were looking for 90 points at that point in time. If you look at the average points grown in ELA across our student body, we have 118 points on average. And with our math, 84. So, we were really close to meeting that goal, which means that not only were kids growing, but they were growing at the rate that we want them to grow. [clears throat] And some highlights, um, we added some new clubs this year. You'll see under student program some clubs that we've already run and we continued those, but

058this year we added in kindness club. Our teacher of the year, actually, Casey Dosio, runs that one. [snorts] Um, we have gardening club and student council was very active this year. Um, they did at least one thing per month and you can actually see under accomplishments they raised over $2,500 for our community. It went right back to our community in various um different organizations. So, that was a great accomplishment. and to see our fifth grade students who are preparing to go to middle school be able to take that ownership and give back to their community and engage the rest of the student body. It was very exciting this year. Um we also did the EXL vocabulary bowl which was exciting. Um throughout the it was February through end of March. Our fifth graders were able

059to compete in that across different schools in all of Connecticut, the United States and Canada. And in our our state, we actually were um about fourth place. Uh we didn't finish first. We didn't earn a banner, but I think for our first go, we did pretty well. So, next year we're going to try to beat that. Um and then we had some really great events. Every month we have our school store. We did a really fun color run at the beginning of the school year. We did turkey of the year. You saw again Mrs. Dio. She won this year dressed up as our turkey. Um, we had an author's night that just happened um, Monday and actually tonight. There's another one as well. And we brought bingo in which was a huge hit this year.

060So, those are just a few highlights from this year. Thinking forward to next year, um, we want to continue with our student learning course. And like I mentioned earlier, we worked a lot on um, students taking ownership through their goal setting, their action plans. Next year, we really want to work on productive struggle. So, helping our students build that resiliency and that grit so that they don't give up. And we kind of want to help them find that sweet spot where it's just a little hard so that they're cognitively engaged in it, but not too hard where they get frustrated. That's going to be a huge focus for next year because that's how you get your students to really think about their learning. Um, we also want to continue to improve instructional capacity. So, as

061I mentioned, we focused mainly with EXL on using it for benchmark assessments and then planning instruction. Next [snorts] year, we want to do a bit more with rolling it out so that we can um incorporate it more into our intervention courses, for example. Um we want to we just started piloting sending it home for homework. We want to continue that because it gives recommendations for students and we want them to be working on those because it's individualized. And then we also want our teachers to work on giving feedback to students that's meaningful and timely because students are learning from their adults that are around them. And as soon as a an adult can provide any type of feedback on what a student is learning and producing, that helps the student to um engage more deeply

062and deepen their understanding. Last but not least, we want to continue to improve our curriculum. We are just finishing up our second year of Wit and Wisdom. It's been incredible to see what these kids can do. I wish every one of you could see a Socratic seminar. They are unbelievable to see the students be able to sit in a circle and have researched something, have all of this information and evidence from these multiple resources and be able to debate with each other. Little eight-year-olds can do this. It's incredible. We want to continue developing that curriculum. We noticed from some um assessments such as that mechanics and grammar need to be incorporated a little bit more. So that's something we want to bring into the curriculum more. Um and that's going to be a heavy focus

063for us. I just wanted to say that I appreciate you advocating for the LL and the data that it brings you and understanding how to use that data into further instruction. Um it seems like you have a very good grasp on upper elementary students and their needs. Um so it looks like you're doing a fantastic job and I really appreciate all of your hard work and thank you for coming here to show us. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Anyone else? I just have to say that with the wit and wisdom, the amount of information that they are learning on this is phenomenal. My daughter literally stopped me in the grocery store the other day because she saw a picture of a Revolutionary War picture on a hot dog package and then I had to listen

064to 40 minutes [laughter] about the Revolutionary War. And I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm old enough to have been there because she [laughter] kept asking me questions, but I just the amount of stuff that they're learning, the different kinds of things, it is so amazing to see. So, you're doing a great job. >> Thank you. >> What else I will say is it's a lot th those reading programs with wit and wisdom. I mean, these are such a heavy lift for our ad our administrators and our teachers, there's so much new learning and to turn it around and then teach it, it is a lot. But what I will say about Stephanie and her school and I've sat through a number of her uh grade level meetings, she's the the caliber and quality of those

065conversations is brought to the next level through her leadership. She is really and it's not just her. I I have to give some credit to our coaches because they're sitting here staring in. [laughter] Um, it's it's really it's the it's their collaboration and what they're doing with the teachers to bring the conversation to the next level so they have a true understanding of the kids they're working with and what their needs are and what their strengths are. It's really uh next level work that you're doing in that school. So, great job. >> I want to thank you too for highlighting the individualized the importance of making sure like finding where kids where kids strengths are and building on that. You're doing a great job over there. Thank you. Have a great year. [laughter] >> Do

066you think that the request for these is like a fair and accurate like representation of what's being learned in the school? >> What's these? I'm sorry. >> Of the assessments. >> Assessments. >> Um I mean I think that assessments are a snapshot, right? Um as I kind of mentioned a little bit earlier, it's a snapshot. Um we we definitely look at multiple data points when you look at a student and you have to really consider the whole child. Um, so there are things that assessments maybe don't measure. For example, they don't measure that productive struggle. They don't measure resiliency. They don't measure, you know, if a student really had school avoidance and was, you know, not coming to school and now they're coming to school and they love being in their class. So, um, I

067think they're very valuable because they give us insight into our students brains and what they know and what they're strong in and they need to grow in. But there there's a lot of other pieces I think as well that we have to consider with our kiddos and that we we do take into consideration when we're thinking about planning for our kids. >> Yeah. And I and I also just want to add to that with regard to the assessment uh paper that you referring to. We got to keep in mind that in our middle school, we're in our first year of wit and wisdom. Teachers are learning that curriculum as that that planes in the air. And this year we're in our second year in in our primary, elementary, and elementary school. And uh Karen and

068I have had this conversation in the past. It really takes three years. First year you're learning it. Second year you're tweaking it. Third year you you feel really fine-tune it and have be more comfortable with that. >> Additionally, I think we have a number of new teachers to the craft of teaching in your school as well. So it's very challenging to say that that's a true reflection of what's going on in those rooms and in that school. And I would say across the board for all our schools. It's just this is very new to us. Things brought in to really move us to the next level. >> And know that we're looking at this data with that lens and knowing all of these variables. We know we know all of that. We're not, you know,

069oblivious to it. Thank you. >> And I have to give Mrs. Gallow and yourself kudos. >> Kayla. Caleb. You're doing well tonight. >> I'm doing well. [laughter] Everybody brutalizes my last name. So, I turn about fair play. But in all honesty, if you're looking at it, I have no idea what that is. Okay. I'm 70 years old. I never ever had any of that when I was in elementary school. >> Just [laughter] all right. But in all honesty, when you're looking at it, this is a new program for both of you and for both these schools. And if you look at your benchmarks and the points where you're getting at, yes, 100% is awesome. It really is. But I hate to tell you when you're running almost 90 95% I don't, you know, that's really

070good for your school and your school also, Mrs. Gall. It really is. And it's kudos to your teachers and your coaches. >> Jerry, just stop calling them. >> Say say principal of Plymos instead of [laughter] trying to say her name. But it's just it is it's it's a testament to both of you. Okay. And hope and as this moves on to the middle school, I'm not sure if this goes to the high school, okay? But you will see progression within the student population as it moves up the food chain technically. All right. So, thank you very much. >> We greatly appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next up, we have Do you want to say that? Do you want to introduce him, Jerry? Mr. >> Darren, you're next. [laughter] >> And Miss Suffrage,

071I don't know if you're joining him or not, but she's >> And Angie, you too. You can get up there, too. >> First names. Yeah. [laughter] >> I have to say I feel like the kid who's been sitting in class listening to his classmates talk and now I'm going to just say she took my answer. Um, [laughter] you know, great job both of you. Um, you know, you're going to hear a lot of uh similar themes because one of the things that we're working really hard on right now um in our district um and especially in our three schools leading up to high school is really aligning what's going on in K8 in order to make sure that kids are really developing fundamental reading, writing, and math skills and then being able to apply those

072in those situations to give them opportunities to become from critical thinkers who can communicate and collaborate and all those C-words that we talk about all the time and that's a big priority for us and it's it's really you know inspiring to hear the things that are happening in the K5 um schools because we are seeing that you know coming up into the middle school. Um so in terms of what we were looking at this year um obviously you know every year we're looking at what can we do to improve our instructional capacity. Um one of the things that we've focused on a lot at the beginning of this year was really um paying attention to the role of attention and memory in learning. Um because I don't know if you've been around any middle schoolers

073um anytime recently, but sitting still and attending is not like their strength um all the time. And so trying to get, you know, a room full of, you know, 27th graders just to stay on a thing long enough to be able to actually learn it is actually a really legitimate challenge. And if you cannot attend, you cannot learn. um you know so we spent a lot of time um you know reading a book and and and talking about these principles of of memory and learning and then ways that we can take that and apply it uh in the classroom through you know different learning protocols and things like that. Um we continue to emphasize things like visible thinking protocols and collaborative routines which we've been working on for a number of years at this point.

074Um the the real heavy lift this year at the middle school though and and the bulk of the teacher time really went into curriculum updating. Um as Brian mentioned u wit and wisdom for our ELA teachers. This was the first year that we implemented at the middle school. So we are now fully aligned K8 in terms of um ELA curriculum which is amazing. And uh I'm going to speak a little bit more about that in a little bit. So I'm not going to say much more about lit wisdom right now. We also were here I think in March and we gave a whole presentation about Socratic seminars and and you guys heard from us about how well we we think that's going at the middle school. Um but it wasn't just ELA. Um we are

075we fully adopted and implemented open SIED which is new science curriculum. We have our social studies teachers developing and implementing new curriculum that's aligned to the first ever set of Connecticut K12 social studies standards that were released in 2023. That that's going, you know, they're they're working literally and you're we're talking about one teacher per grade level, right? So, you have a sixth grade social studies teacher that is trying to develop and implement a curriculum essentially on her own with the support of, you know, the coaches when when they're available and the people that we can bring in to support them. So, this year we had, you know, some some professional development come in from Ed Advance that was able to work with our social studies team and really move that process forward, which was

076great. um math, you know, um Stephanie Mirus continues to work um aligning the instruction with the ini both with the envisions program which aligns to the elementary schools math uh program and implementing building thinking classroom protocols um you know again with the vis visible thinking and and all those kinds of things. So, um, in terms of curriculum and instruction, you know, we could not get really any of this work done if it wasn't for, you know, Nicole, who is sitting over here, um, who's kind of bridging the gap right now between 35 and 68, which is and doing an amazing job with our staff and and Stephanie, who is also working with the science and math teachers and and I I just can't emphasize enough how important it is to have these coaches working with

077our teachers. Um, and so your continued support for these positions is appreciated and it's absolutely needed and any any of this work that you see being done on the curriculums and instruction side literally would not be able to happen. We would not have been able to implement WI and wisdom with six ELA teachers this year if it wasn't for Nicole, you know, so they get a lot of the credit. Um, moving uh forward from there, you know, we're obviously always looking for ways to promote a welcoming and inclusive learning environment for our students. You know, we do a lot of activities. We I feel like we have a really great um environment in our school. The kids are coming to school. We work on things in the classroom like, you know, negotiating norms and we

078try to support kids through both our formal, you know, counseling and and our our mental health team is amazing that we provide so many supports for kids. Every kid is different. the amount of different plans that we are running in our school right now to support different kids based on who needs what it's really incredible. Um and you know we just look to keep keep doing that and make sure that everyone is is supported. So moving forward uh our climate plan you know we had a lot of really great strengths um on the student uh side of things. Students report really high levels of respect from their teachers. they really feel like they have access to trusted adults. Um, and this this idea of school connectedness, this this one data point about having a trusted

079adult is so important for middle school and high school, really all kids, but that idea that they have somebody that they can go to is so crucial. um you know, it it's correlated with positive outcomes in so many things like uh teen risky behaviors and and all kinds of of things that you would want to see hopefully going down in your student population. So, it's really great to see that. Um and the staff feels the same way as well. Um they feel like they have really exceptional relationships with the students. Um and they really feel like it's a there's positive connections and a lot of respect between the students and staff. So the students report that, the staff reports that it's it's definitely, you know, evident in the school. Um parents feel satisfied with the

080professionalism of the staff. They feel like we support the kids and they are very um you know, they're happy with the level of communication that comes from the school and from the teachers. So you know, that that's that all really speaks to the idea of the the community we're trying to build. Um, in terms of areas of growth, um, I it probably won't come as any surprise to you that, you know, one of the things that sixth graders becoming seventh graders becoming eighth graders, they come in, they're like little little kids. They're not very self-aware, and then something happens to them by the end of sixth grade and seventh grade where they, you know, they start to go through puberty, they become very self-aware, and all of a sudden, all this social stuff starts to

081happen. Their identity starts to form. They're trying all kinds of new things. They're trying to make friends and there's a lot of quite frankly unkind behavior that goes on. It's very easy. The easiest way to to make a group is to have somebody be on the outs or say a mean thing and make somebody laugh. And and yes, it's part of growing up, but it's also a thing that the kids recognize happens. It's something that um the parents recognize that happens and it's something that the staff recognizes that happens. And we do work on it and we and we do plan to continue working on that. Um, in addition, you know, so that that was something that the students and the parents both brought up, the staff, um, you know, we're looking for ways to

082just make sure that our reactive um policies, our discipline, things like that are are implemented, you know, as fairly and consistently as possible. So, that's something that we'll that's something that Miss Suffrage will continue to work on. [laughter] >> She's doing a great job. She >> really is. >> All right. So assessment data um so we do not at this point have uh as much ex as extensive a data set as either of the elementary schools. Really what we focused on this year was bringing to the middle school. It's something that we never had prior to this year. Our teachers had never been trained on it or anything like that. I'm going to speak to that in a in a little bit. Um but really what we did was we needed to implement a protocol

083for benchmarking and have a tool to use it. By the middle of this year, we were we did that in ELA and math. And we actually do we have all the end of year data at this point? We've been we're almost there with uh getting students through the the process. One of the challenges quite quite frankly in middle school is because of the bell schedule, the seven period a day schedule, you know, kids are always switching classes. So the amount of time you have to dedicate to certain things, we just have to find a way to because you really don't want to take an entire 48 minute ELA period um you know too frequently because they're not they don't have any opportunity to do more ELA till the next day, right? So we're we we've

084been a little slow and then when kids are absent we've been getting them to make it up but we will have this data but really what we are excited about is you know next year really being able to dig in in exactly the same way that it's happening in the elementary school. I had a lot of conversations with uh Stephanie when we worked together for a few years about data and the need to have a good tool. And so I am not surprised that as soon as she had the opportunity to do it, she really she really pushed that in her school. And you know, we're grateful for it because now again, it's just another way that we're going to be able to align um K8 and really dig into individualized student needs. Um we

085did also pilot for tier 2 um some tier 2 intervention uh needs in our sixth grade math this year, and that's something that we're looking to expand and do some more of next year as well. Um, so on my slide there, QD stands for qualitative data. Uh, I know Nicole, you asked a question about data a minute ago. And like, you know, there's two kinds of data, right? There's numbers and we can say, you know, Darren got up here and he talked for 15 minutes or you could describe, you know, really what that was by observing it and making some observations. and and here I really want to talk about reading, writing, speaking, and listening and what is going on in our ELA classes. And I know you've heard this a lot. And so instead

086of me just saying it's amazing that you know what's happening with the wit and wisdom, I'm just going to give you a little anecdote from uh two weeks ago. So I was I had to do some observations and we have a a class in eighth grade that is split. So the kids have ELA every day for two two periods and in this class they go from one teacher one period to the other teacher. So I was going to observe both teachers on the same day. I usually go in for like the first 20 minutes of class and they thought this would be a good day for me to come in. So I came into the first class. It was fourth period and they were the first thing that they did when I got in there

087was there was a quote on the board and the quote was, you know, all's fair and love and war. And they had to, you know, what do you think about that? And this was just a quick little protocol, two minutes. They turned and talked. They they talked for a few minutes and then the teacher puts up on the board uh the question that they're going to be talking about for the day. And the question is, are the characters in Epiac and A Midsummer Night's Dream responsible for their actions? You know, and so Epicac is a short story by Kurt Vonaga, you know, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. The kids had read this short story and talked about it. A Midsummer's Night Dream is a Shakespeare play which they had also read

088and they had been talking about. And when I tell you she gave them 15 minutes to think about this question and dig into their books for evidence because then they were going to talk about it for the last 20 minutes of the period. Those kids immediately went to work. There was not a computer out. There was not anything. They were in their books. They were looking for quotes. They were engaged. And then when they started the conversation, they had so many things to say. So now 20 minutes is up at this point. And I'm just like sitting there. I shut my computer and I'm just watching the kids talk. Goes all the way to the end of the period. The bell rings and now it's the next period. So I got to observe the next

089teacher and so I'm going there. I go to the next classroom and I'm in there while the teacher's greeting kids in the hall. The kids are coming in and they are continuing the conversation that they were having in the previous class before the teacher even got in the room. When she comes in, they begged her to let them continue the conversation for 10 more minutes. They said, "I'm going to give you 10 minutes, but we can't carry this." And the kids kept going for 10 more minutes. And then they literally after that they they went on to the next part of their assignment. And by the end of the period, they were all writing their own, you know, their own claim and with their own evidence and doing all that. That was 60 minutes. I

090sat in the room because it was the long period before lunch. So I watched these eighth graders literally for 48 minutes plus 60 minutes, right? That's 108 minutes. And when I tell you they were engaged almost all of them almost the entire time that's true and that's you know qualitative right that maybe that shows up in a score somewhere but there's no score that can really capture that experience in totality and that's what's happening in the sixth grade ELA classrooms the seventh grade ELA classrooms the eighth grade ELA classrooms they are reading books they are writing they are talking and they're not looking at their screens they're not doing that stuff so you know I really believe that as these students are doing this in in K through five and coming up through the middle

091school like what we're going to see the growth we're going to experience and the knowledge that they're gaining to your point right the things they're learning about and able to talk about it it's just unbelievable so you know I I just really want to emphasize that because it's really important um and it's inspiring to see it quite frankly um because you know you hear so much about these kids and how what they can't do these days you know they can't pay I started by saying they struggle to pay attention, right? And here they were and they were basically able to do that. So, you know, there was a lot of concern at the beginning of the year, right, from our teachers like how are they going to read these books and and and and do

092that and they've been able to do it. So, you know, it's it's really been great. Um, we look forward to to seeing more of that next year. All right. So, I said a lot about that. I'll be quick on this slide. Uh, student programs. I already talked enough about wit and wisdom. I just want to highlight um with digital literacy. So Alyssa Modí, our our library media specialist who split between here and the high school, she is um you know, Mr. Holtz and I were able to work on schedule this year to make sure she had at least one guaranteed full day in the middle school. And what we were able to do was she was able to get into every grade level once per month. So she did eight lessons with sixth grade, eight

093with seventh grade, eight with eighth grade around digital literacy, um you know, verifying information on the internet, you know, all kinds of things. um that are so sorely needed, but they don't really show up anywhere else in our curriculum. Um that was a really great success this year. Um we're going to continue that next year, except we're going to be incorporating a couple of um you know, more uh AI principles and things like that. So, kids are learning what some of this stuff is. You know, you hear all about that. I could talk to you all about it another time if you want if you want to hear hear about it. Um family and consumer science and teched. Again, not new programs, but they're things that we brought in a couple years ago that are

094still extremely popular. The kids love them. Um, our Leo Club, our homework club, homework club is another thing that we started this year where um, students are staying after school on Thursdays, grade level teacher, and they're just able to get extra help and and things like that. Um, and it's it's there's a couple of kids that actually stay every week, which is amazing to me. And they're like, I have homework club. like it's a we didn't mean it to like be like a club, but that's what they how they treat it, which is which is pretty cool. So, another way to support the kids. Uh events, our our PTA is amazing. Um they've done so much at our school. Um Grit and Wit we had for the third year. It was it was a really

095great event. We had two dances this year which were really well attended, especially by the sixth graders who loved it. Um, if you picture a like a kids birthday party with 150 kids just eating candy and running around in the dark for an hour and a half, that's there you go. Qualitative qualitative data for [laughter] you. How's that image? >> Um, we had the wrestling event that we brought in this year which was really fun. Um, we had student staff basketball game which is something we do every year. We had three spirit weeks, three pep rallies. Um, a lot of stuff going on in the school. Um, [clears throat] in terms of accomplishments, our boys basketball team won the inaugural Berkshire League tournament this year, which was uh, pretty cool. Um, we had a ton

096of our middle school students, as you know, participating in drama up at the high school. Our LEO club raised over $2,000 for community projects and local charities. So, a lot of good things going on at the middle school. And last, areas of focus for next year. So again, just like I started with, you know, we're we're improving instructional capacity to drive student achievement is never not going to be a focus in a school, right? Um so specifically what we're looking to do next year and and you know, I've already had some conversations with Nicole about this is seeing what the students are doing in these ELA classes with reading and writing. We really want to expand those practices and train all the rest of our teachers and really show them here's what kids are doing

097in reading and writing. So, how can we take these practices and bring them into social studies and bring them into science and really make it more coherent so that the skills and the knowledge that those kids are gaining in this class can travel with them to the other classes. Because one of the challenges of middle school and high school is once you take kids and put them into a class and call it English and call this one science and call this one math, trying to then convince them that nobody lives that way. Like in the world, we don't say I'm doing English now and I'm doing science now. It's all integrated. But because of the way we we structure school, it's very hard for them to see that sometimes. So, we're really looking to to

098help our staff bring those um bring those instructional techniques into into the other areas besides ELA. And one of the things we're doing and we we started doing this in 612 is just exploring how we can use different AI tools for teacherf facing use. Just as a quick example, I have my seventh grade teacher this year using um in a using Notebook LM, which is a Google product to look at literally hundreds of pages of science curriculum at a time and say, you know, help me pull out from this unit hundred, you know, maybe it's a hundred pages of material. What is really essential for me to pre-teach in this unit if I wanted to do a lesson on pre-teaching some concepts? the type of work that would take honestly, you know, probably five or

099six or 10 hours, you know, outside of the school day to really read all of that material and be able to do that and and now be able to kind of do that in real time in response to what's happening in the classroom. And so those kinds of things I think are going to be really great unlocks for us. Um, obviously utilizing data to analyze program effectiveness, identify learning gaps, target growth areas. Um, we're looking for ways next year to develop and implement protocols for using EXL, not just as a benchmark tool, but in the interim um for uh practice and just interim assessment purposes. So, that's something it's probably going to look a little bit different in ELA than it's going to look in math, but it's something that we spend a lot of

100time talking about um and something that we're going to be developing to implement next year. And again, um just always looking for more ways to promote a welcoming and inclusive learning environment. We've talked about um implementing through kind of uh the time we have during extended home rooms some more specific uh well-being lessons designed specifically towards um relationships with others and you know kindness and and things of that nature. So that's all right. Well, what stuck out to me is how you are recognizing the strengths of your ELA teachers and the how the students are reacting to their their lessons and and wanting to um you know give other teachers that that benefit of that kind of learning and and and extend it to the other subjects as well. It seems like that's something that's

101you know really a strength for you and and most teachers might think that you are definitely in the area of the most difficult [laughter] teaching. I always say I would skip right over to high school before I go to >> Well, I taught high school, so I I think [laughter] I always say like I like being the principal at the middle school, but if I had to teach again, I don't know if uh it does take [laughter] a special >> It does. It takes a special group of people. It sounds like you've got a good group over there. >> Yeah. No, they're excellent. >> But we do appreciate appreciate all of your hard work and thank you for presenting to us tonight. We It's It's been very >> very good to hear. I just I

102want to I have two things from Mr. Vigliotti. I want to thank you. I know Mr. Halt still has to go, but Miss Milo and I had a bet on who would speak the longest and now she owes me lunch tomorrow. So, thank you so much. [laughter] >> But I tried to be >> but what what Darren said and what I see in his school is so true about the individual plans for the kids that need it, especially at that age level. I see you and Angie really knowing the kids, knowing what their needs are and then I see your teachers knowing the kids, knowing what their needs are and really doing whatever they can for every kid in your school and at the same time I do see the impact you're having on the

103instructional practice in your school. So you guys are doing an amazing job together. So thank you. >> Thanks. if I can pop in too. Sorry, I know I have always something to say, but I've gotten to know you a little bit from chatting here and there, and I am continuously impressed by your not just sticking to the status quo of like we've always taught this way. this is the way we always must teach like bringing in the building thinking classrooms trying to like transfer the wisdom skills elsewhere and really giving teachers opportunities to tailor instruction and and smooth it around so that it actually works for this new generation of students which are different than students were 30 years ago. So, I appreciate you're not like afraid of AI like some people are and you're

104really willing to like look at things from different perspectives and try new things and it really shows with what the kids are doing. And yes, like Karen said, middle school is a hard for me. [laughter] That's a tough age group. You guys do a great job over there. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> I'm in the school obviously like almost every day, but [laughter] >> no. >> Uh yeah, I know I haven't seen you three times today. Um, but I really value how much emphasis you put on making the kids good humans >> because at the end of the day, they're going to have a calculator in their pocket. They're going [laughter] to be able to find out anything they want to know, but like how to overcome when they're having a really hard time and

105they don't want to be at school and they don't feel like doing it and then they still sit down and they do it anyway. and how important and like you don't see that when you get handed a piece of paper that has these like test scores on it that they didn't want to do it three times and eventually they sat down and did it. >> You had to chase them through the hallway and then [laughter] stick them in a room and make them sit down and do it. And so I really appreciate that and I know it's not just at the middle school, it's at all of the schools, but I see it most with you and I really really do appreciate how much time you take to do that. >> Thanks. Yeah, >> Darren,

106I will tell you right now, flat out, your QD presentation, okay, I'm one of those students that really stinks at PSATs and SATs, standardized testing. You saw my PSAT scores and my SAT scores, you'd be like, really? But then if you look at my academic scores, far and above what my PSA SAT scores. So there are kids that yes they can take standardized testing and they can ace those things but put them in a classroom setting like witten wisdom and they become introverts and not extroverts. Okay. So it's data is great. You can get all the testing you want. It doesn't give you a total picture of that student. Okay. You have to look at not only the data, but how are they doing academically? Are they introverted? Are they extroverted? Were they introverted when

107they came into in the sixth grade? And by the time they got into the eighth grade, >> you can't keep them quiet. >> All right. Um, so it is it's true. What you said is that you have to understand that you know data is a certain thing but you have to look at the other objective that what you're trying to do in a classroom setting whether it's in K through 2, 3 through 5, 6 through 8 or 9 through 12. That's where you can really tell if they're getting it right. >> If those kids are getting it. So kudos to you. Thank you very much. And finally, we have Mr. Halt from our high school. Miss Herd, I don't know if you have anything you'd like to come up with. >> Okay. >> I wouldn't

108claim that bet just yet. I mean, I [laughter] >> Well, then then you'll be buying me lunch tomorrow. It's one way or the other. >> Go for a while. That's a challenge. [laughter] >> Uh, thank you very much for having me here this evening along with Mrs. Hurt. Um, I can go through this relatively quick. I know you guys have had a chance to go through it and I'll take away whatever questions you may have afterwards. So, um, it is going to sound a little bit like a broken record. Our admin team is very close and we have been working for a long time together. Um, the fact that Stephanie and Darren worked together for a while and Darren and I had worked together for a while, it really does help. Um, and Stacy joining

109the team is has been pretty seamless. So, uh, in terms of our priorities this year, it really focuses on the three district and board goals that we have about student achievement, engagement, and well-being. Um, if you've looked at these already, you can see the the direct correlation with it. Um, I do want to highlight one part. Um Darren had already kind of stolen some of the thunder on this, but the high school also was working through the memory process and really understanding what that is um and how to work that into your classroom to ensure that the learning is is happening at a high level. And so we've been on about a seven-year pattern here of continually looping back on what we're doing instructionally um with our teachers and understanding the learning process and what

110goes into good pedigogy. Um, so you'll continue to see that as we move forward in the next couple of years. Um, but it's been nice that we've been able to loop everything back. It just kind of keeps bringing things. And if you understand the memory process, one of the things is that we want to secure your attention, which I know you've been sitting here for a long time. Um, but rehearsal is a big part of that. And so bringing things back into your short-term memory. And so when we go back and talk about the instructional framework and we go back and talk about total participation techniques and engagement strategies and we're constantly able to loop that in from one year to another, it allows the teachers to continue to refine what they're doing while we're

111adding just that little other step each year. Uh in terms of some of our climate information, um Mr. Nav really kind of spoke of it well when he was up here for his retirement part. This is the fourth district that I've worked in and this would be the last district that I work in. Barring you guys don't get rid of me when when I'm not ready to. Um there really is something special about being here. Um it's certainly evident with our student body. Um anytime that I have a chance to work with anybody from other districts and they've come across our students, there's always seems to be a story about how our kids went above and beyond to help somebody else. Um, if you talk to any of our newer staff, especially if they've been

112at another school, they rave about the climate here, the collegiality between the teachers, but really the kids. Um, I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's a small town thing, if it's just really some magic that's been in this town for the 12 years that I've been here. Um, but Mrs. Herd and I are really proud of what we have going on here. I think the rapport and the relationships that we're able to develop with the kids from adults to the students, it really just allows us to leverage a lot in terms of how we can support and help them grow as a whole person. So, um definitely a strength here, something that we're very proud of for sure. In terms of areas of growth, um I think we're the third school

113here that's talking a little bit about student discipline and consistency amongst the staff. Um, I think a lot of that really comes or goes back to the relationships we have. And so what I wanted to mention was kind of a a very basic example um of something that Merurd and I want to continue to work on, but our staff is so close with the kids that they're constantly trying to like meet them where they are. >> And sometimes that looks like inconsistency. Um, and so a very lowhanging fruit example would be this. Our expectation is that students have a pass any time that they have to go from a class somewhere else during a class period. The number of times that that doesn't happen really comes down to the fact that well if I have

114a good relationship with you and you're a trustworthy student, you've never given me a problem and you say, "Hey, Mr. Holtz, I need to go get a drink of water and I'm in the middle of instruction." I'm letting him go. He comes back in a minute and it's not a big deal. Um, but what happens though is then you might have another staff member that sees a student in the hallway and there's only one student in the hallway because we don't have a lot of kids wandering during class time and they ask if they have a pass and the student doesn't have a pass and now we've just set up this situation where staff has to question somebody that they don't maybe know. Um, so that's some of the things that we want to kind

115of tighten up for next year in terms of that really working with the staff about what is important to us, what are the things that we want to push on and what things are we comfortable with. Um, professional development. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in a later slide. Um, one of the things we are going to try and put in next year, we piloted it once earlier this year, is the idea of providing staff with some time to work on some of their own PD so they can come up with their own plan and look into whatever it is they may be wanting to grow in. Um, and the third point up there talks about parent involvement. And I want to highlight that because if you've looked at the climate

116results, our numbers are certainly lower than the elementary schools. And to be honest, they should be. Um, you know, it's very appropriate at the elementary level to be able to have parents come in and do reading time and some of the other things that the elementary schools do. It's not appropriate at the high school. I know if I walked into Thomasson High School and surprised my son in class, he would be mortified, right? He should be separating from me at this point. What I will say though is that we have three parent groups here, Friends of Music, Booster Club, and PTSA that are awesome. um no matter what group of parents comes through, they've always gone gone above and beyond to help us and support our students in the programs that we have. And then

117even on the individual note, um you know, if we have to meet with a parent or we're reaching out or a parent is concerned about something, they and they reach out to us. We have so many good relationships with the parents and the interactions. Um so while our numbers look lower, like I said, I think is appropriate for here. Um I feel like the large majority of our parents that we get to work with every day are very supportive um and appreciative of what our staff is doing. Uh in terms of assessment data, we don't have a whole ton at this point. Um there's really two main things that we look at. One is our AP exams, which won't come out until July. Uh I do want to thank the board as a whole. Um

118some of you have been here in different reiterations of the board. When I first got here, we had six AP courses and within about the first five to seven years or so, we were able to bump that up to 10. And that all comes back to the support of the board um encouraging and allowing us to do that. So, we have 10 AP courses that's available for students in grades 10 through 12. Um this year, we had 72 different students taking an AP exam. So that was almost 25% of our population took an AP class and the exam uh for a total of 124 exams. So we have a lot of opportunity for students to really challenge themselves in anything from AP lang to AP computer science. Um we kind of have an open door

119policy with our AP classes. We do have prerequisites and things that we're looking for. But if a student is really looking to challenge themselves and they want to take the course, we have this belief where that experience is way more important than what they maybe get on the exam, um the number of kids that come back and talk about how that one AP class or these two AP classes that I took really is what made me ready to go into the college courses. Um so I think that experience is more important than anything. And then the SAT. Um, frustratingly, we've been on [clears throat] about three different versions of that in the last six or so years. Um, they changed some standards at one point, then they ended up um, shortening it, then they went

120digital. The digital is now kind of an adaptive test. They're not releasing nearly as many uh, previous tests as they used to. So, trying to find like real resources um, has become a little bit more of a challenge, but our scores are up on the screen as you can see. So each of those sections is ahead of 800. So the evidence-based reading and writing was a 463 as on average this past year and our math was 435. What I will say is that our staff is very committed to trying to provide the opportunities for students to do well on the SAT, especially for those that are collegebound. Um there's still a lot of schools that are test optional, so you don't have to have your SAT scores necessarily when you're applying for a school. But

121in terms of scholarships in some of the more competitive schools, that is something. So we want to make sure that the kids that are needing that are well prepared. So we've been probably on nine or so years now of our SAT strategy sessions. We run eight different sessions, four in English and four in math that happens during the day. This year we had 70% of our junior class participate in that. Um and so we talk more specifically about the strategies and kind of how you can gain the test a little bit. But what's really important is how we embed those skills in our English and our math classes throughout the year. Um, so this year we've been working with and Alex, which is a math resource. Um, trying to do some of the benchmarks and

122using some of that connection between what's in our standards and our curriculum and what the College Board is looking for on the uh, if you've been watching our Facebook site from the district um, or our weekly Ruse News, I've highlighted a ton of this stuff throughout the year. So, I won't go through too much of the detail. What I do want to highlight though is two things about the student programs and the events. Um, [clears throat] one of our main goals with our student programs is that we want to have opportunities for students to work with other students from other districts and other areas of the country. Um, and in some cases the world as we did have a trip go out to Europe this year. Um, I really love the small school setting here

123at Tville, but it is a small school setting and sometimes we can kind of have blinders on of of what else is out there. So, when we have students that get to spend a week down in Washington DC or the students that went to Europe, um, we get to send about a dozen to 15 students every year to Chester High School for a leadership conference. When our Leos get to interact with different people and they go to the Leo conference, um, it just really makes it way more robust experience for the kids. And so that's really what we want to highlight is that our programs are trying to get them beyond the walls here working with other students and other adults from other areas. And then when we look at some of the events that

124we've had um the last two or three years there's really been a big push from our staff and our students that they want to host events that are more community- based. Um so if you've been to our variety show or the PJ story hour um our kids are really interested in working with the younger kids and reading and having different things for them. So very proud about trying to extend a lot of what they're putting their efforts into way beyond just the walls here at the high school. And then in terms of accomplishments, what I really want to highlight there is the variety of of the accomplishments. Um our esports program, I know you guys have seen them, they've been here before, two state championships. Um a very solid run in the national tournament. They

125were invited to the New England tournament. Uh that program is about three years old and it's already extremely successful. Um but then you look at our drama club and we were nominated for nine halos, three of which ended up actually winning the halo. Um our wrestling team won the Berkshire League tournament for the first time in quite some time. And our boys basketball team made it to the state semi-finals, first time in 31 years. [clears throat] So when you look at the variety between the esports and the drama and some of the the more traditional athletics, um I think there's a lot to be proud of here. And then in terms of the focus of last year, you'll notice that the the three darker bullet points, there are the same ones from the first slide

126that I talked about. Those are kind of our umbrella points that we're going to look at every single year. Um, in terms of developing instructional capacity with our staff next year, there's going to be two that we're going to be looking at. evidence of learning I feel like is the next step of what we need to do and that's really looking at what are students producing and what is that telling us about our instruction and how we need to move forward and then the other part um and Darren had kind of mentioned this was leveraging AI for academic success regardless of what your belief is on AI whether you like it or not it's not going away any anytime soon um it absolutely can be a useful tool it also can be a dangerous tool

127and so I think it's important that we spend time with our staff understanding that how can they use it, but also how can they put it in front of the kids? Because if we don't teach them about it, they're going to figure it out on their own. And as we know, sometimes if they're left to their own device to figure things out, it may not always end up so well. So, we want to really try to leverage that and lean into it um and help support our kids have a better idea, especially before they leave here and go to college where if they're unattended too much and they have free reign. Um I know colleges are really trying to crack down on the use of AI in terms of paper writing and some other stuff.

128So, we want to be able to show them the right and wrong ways of doing that. And then the last thing I wanted to talk about is that we're [clears throat] continuing to open up and try and find ways to have students engaged here. Uh, our esports program really has been focused on the game Rocket League. And with the success that they had this year, we have a lot more students that are interested in coming out to esports and they're interested in doing Mario Kart, chess, and Madden. Um, so we're going to have multiple little teams within that group competing. Um, we're always looking for other new opportunities. This year there were some students that were interested in co uh creating a dance team and so we jumped on that and it started with about

129two students and I think we had nine performing at the pep rally last week. So that's awesome. And we already have a teacher who's interested in doing an inter mural club for next year. Um, kind of like a hodge podge of sports. It's going to kind of see how the kids go. Um, but we've talked about kickball and whiffle ball tournaments, maybe some ultimate frisbee. Um, I know that the district is looking at offering uh flag football on the weekends, but we may do kind of a flag football tournament for a couple weeks within this club. So, we're always looking for the opportunities for kids to be able to engage in something beyond the class. Um, I don't know how much you remember of your own high school experience, but I feel like most of

130what I learned was from the extracurricular activities in terms of how do I manage my time, how do I become a leader, how do I interact with other people, and how do I hold myself accountable? So, um, I think it's really important at the high school that we have a wide variety of activities for our kids to kind of figure out what their strengths are and what they want to do. [clears throat] >> Thank you very much. Um, you are the only administrator that I know of as as a parent because my children came to the high school. Obviously, they did not go to school before that. What was that? >> You and I are that old. >> Yeah, we are. [laughter] Um, so I know what a great administrator you are and what you

131mentioned that stuck out to me too was that your administrative team being a team with the other administrators and bouncing ideas off of each other and kind of making sure that that you know prek all the way through high school kind of continuity is there and it's good because I don't think every district has that kind of strength and it it could be in part because of your, you know, smaller numbers that you're able to, you know, communicate a little bit better. But I I think it probably has more to do with your personalities and your, you know, team team work. So, I really appreciate that hard work that you do and put in to everything. Thank >> Thank you. >> You've been here 12 years. >> 12 years. This is your 12. [laughter] >>

132Boy, am I getting old? >> I know, right? >> The other thing [clears throat] I like what you said about focusing because this this is what what happens. you know, we have to think outside the box in this this business. You know, as well as I do. So, I'm glad to see that the kids are going out Washington DC and places like that because Terrible is a nice town, >> but there's other things out there. We may have a chance to learn something, but thanks for doing that. I really appreciate it. >> Well, and a lot of that goes to our staff who's constantly looking at different ways of doing that, too. So, I pretty much just give the approval and we have a we have a staff where I I feel like for the

133most part it's they kind of [clears throat] got the green light to to move forward and do the things they want. We certainly go through and and bet the different activities that we're going to do, but um it's not like a locked door hard to get into. It's it's come up with an idea and sell it to me and off we go. So, >> right, why not? >> That's pretty much my answer. >> Right. Why not? Yeah, >> I appreciate you letting me sell you all of my ideas. All [clears throat] [laughter] >> I know that I push a little bit outside of the comfort. >> I can use it. >> I don't want to speak for Mrs. Herd, but I can be rigid in my own way sometimes. So, it's like, you know, [laughter]

134>> it's >> you might have that reputation a little bit. >> I can get comfortable [laughter] I can get comfortable with something like wearing a blue shirt every day or the same admin council. So, you know, it's [laughter] I have my own >> willing to open to letting these shape get up. >> Absolutely. [laughter] >> Bottom of mind, if it's going to be something that's going to be good for kids, >> it again, it's kind of like why not? It's I just maybe don't always have the original ideas, but if a good one comes through, >> let's go for it. >> So, I I just want to say this time of year for a high school principal and assistant principal, you guys are out a lot. >> Yeah. >> A lot. Uh probably three nights

135this week. >> Yep. Yeah. >> I want to thank you guys for that. I know how it's a grind during the day and then you have the evening events which are exciting, don't get me wrong, but you don't get much sleep and time with your family. So, >> well, last night and tomorrow night are fun. [laughter] >> Mike, we love having you are the best part. >> We love having you. Uh, but the one thing I want to say about Mike and Jess that I'm I'm jealous of that I never was able to accomplish that what they're doing at this high school, they do have a connection with every kid. You see it when they walk off stage at graduation or or walk across stage on graduation. Mike and Jess know every kid. They know

136about the kids. They know what their plan is after they graduate. And that's something I've never attained in my 11 years of being a high school principal. You guys do an amazing job of showing the kids the importance of of caring about each other. So, nice job. >> Thank you. >> Mr. Holtz, I can uh allude to the Leo Club in this high school. Okay. I used to be the lesson on Mrs. IU. That's how far back I go. And I can flat out tell you that when we would go to midwinter, okay, we would take up two to three tables of kids from this high school that would go to that mid- winter conference in the envy of other Lions clubs that are there of the kids in this high school, okay, on how

137um engaged they were in volunteering and working for the Lions, okay? And it's a testament to this community. And I can tell you for my own experiences when I'm at the fairgrounds and I see some of these kids that come back now. They're parents themselves. Uh they've graduated from college. They've gone to schools in Boston, New York, Georgia. They come back to the fair and they'll see me and Mr. Burberry, how you doing? Great. And how are you guys doing? And I will flat out tell you, they say that their ex high school experience in this town was one of the best experiences they have had. It really um developed them into the person that they are. and when they went to college, okay, they excelled, you know, um just because you're in a class

138that only had a hundred kids and now you go to a college and you have 900 kids in your management class because you're in an auditorium, they weren't intimidated. Okay? And so, but that's kudos to each and every one of you that's out there. Every single one of you. Okay? And I will tell you right now flat out that I will take every single kid in this school system and they are second to none to anybody in this state. >> I appreciate that. Kids are the best part >> by far. >> And I just want to give a quick shout out to our coaches who too who are here to support obviously and we I know we've we've given you praises before but we you know everyone says the same thing about how wonderful you

139are. So it it you know clearly is something that we we're very proud to have you and we're hope we hope that you are happy to be here as well. So thank you. >> Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of your evening. >> You're not staying. You >> sure? [laughter] >> Yeah. >> No pressure. >> To our administrators, you're free to go at any time that you would like to. Obviously [laughter] like you don't need to stay here for the rest of this. We still have four pages to go. So yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> We might still be. [laughter] [cough] >> Have a good night. >> Thank you. >> All right. We are now on to item six, public comments. >> We've scared them all away. [laughter] >> Everybody, >> any online public

140comment? >> Nope. >> Okay. All right. Well, then we can That's the quickest one we're gonna have. >> Um, on to our superintendence update. >> Oh, I was looking at the next one. Uh, just due to low participation in some of our varsity athletic programs here at the high school. Mark Fowler's in the process of he's our athletic director looking into possible co-ops with other schools. So, right now at this point, we have a girls soccer co-op with Gilbert High School. It's not really a co-op though. We're looking at as more of a partnership. So, some practices will happen here, some practices will happen in Gilbert, and then the games will be split. The home games will be split for home here and home there. So, we're trying to do more of a partnership with

141Gilbert. Years ago, when I was the principal here, we did the same thing with Thomas for girls soccer. It worked out really well. We're hoping for the same success with Gilbert. and wrestling. It's more of a real co-op. Uh we're looking to co-op with Lewis Mills. Uh Lewis Mills has a few wrestlers and they would come join our team and we would host that wrestling team. They would pay tuition that would offset the cost of our wrestling program. That's a true co-op. And then we're also looking now for softball in the spring because we had very low numbers this year and we had to forfeit a number of games if not the whole season. Um and so Mark is working on that as well. So we're hopeful that these three co-ops could be put in

142place moving forward. And just as an FYI, it's not it's not easy to get a co-op. Uh, it's really determined by the CIA and what rules and regulations they have for a co-op in numbers. It's a formula they have for each individual sport. And you have to have the two teams that have those numbers in order for them to work together. And that's why Gilbert is a good fit even though they're further from us than another school because they have the same kind of numbers as us. Um, on May 21st, Tville High School held its annual scholarship night. In total, our our seniors received over $390,000 in one-time and renewable scholarships. I just want to take a moment to thank the local businesses, community members, and various organizations who supported our schools and our students.

143It was such a such a great night. That's the most ever given to our school. In partnership with at Advance the Plymouth and the Plymouth Food Pantry, we'll be offering free summer meals to all children who are 18 years and under regardless of their eligibility. It's going to be similar to the meal distribution that happened during COVID where the kids will get five lunches and five breakfasts um a week. The program runs from July 3rd to the 14th and the meals could be picked up at the Plymouth food pantry. Um, as part of our board of goals uh to increase opportunities, it's it's right there uh on Mr. Holtz's last slide, increase opportunities for our kids. Nicole and I have been talking and I and I've tapped into Nicole a little bit because I know

144she has children in high school and middle school and I just wanted to get a feel for what what more we can do for kids and our conversation is without a significant cost to the district. Uh we had three things that we've kind of moved forward with. First was working with Cook Willow and creating a CNA partnership with our high school. Um, we talked about that before and it was approved by the board and right now we have filled all the spots that are available. We have a waiting list of kids that uh will not be able to get in based on capacity for the program this year. So, we're going to work through that to see who we could offer that program to next year. But, that's that's really exciting. The second thing that

145we talked about was um our drama club. you saw the number of of students that won Halo awards this year and we wanted to build upon that and so we have um a middle school stipen for drama club but we've been running a high school middle school drama club for years now where we combine the kids together just because of our low numbers so we were talking with our drama club advisor um and we were able to create a free workshop for kids entering grades 6 through 12 that will run from July 6th to the 29th. And so we'll take the middle school stipen, use it, pay the the the advisor for that summer program, and then we'll take the high school stipens. There's two of them for director and >> producer for the high

146school musical, and we'll use that for our high school performance to compensate the adviser. But right now, we have 36 students registered for that summer program. So that's really exciting. And then the third opportunity that we talked about was football. As as as Mike alluded to uh in his presentation, we opened this club the other day. It's for kids entering six through grade 12. It's co-ed for boys and girls, right Pat? >> You got it. >> That's right. Um [laughter] Pat and I had an argument whether it could be co-ed or not. Uh and we kind of had a title nine conversation. Um it's co-ed. It's a mural flag football um that we're going to to have and we're going to do it on Sundays. Uh and we're going to do it on Sundays so

147there's no conflict with our high school or middle school sport. And we have an adviser that's willing to come and do this work and work with the kids as long as he has some parents to support them and help out. And we're going to use the general stipen from the pea contract to help offset the cost of that program. And we opened this I I want to say two days ago and we already have 12 >> we have 14 >> 14 kids signed up for that that program already which is is awesome. So again it's our board goal and we're just trying to find outside the box ways as I think uh Pat said earlier to offer things for our kids. So I wanted you to know that that's going on. And just finally as

148a reminder to the board this is our last board event meeting for the 2025 2026 school year. We don't normally meet in July unless there's a reason to meet in July. So, our next board of education meeting is scheduled for August 12th. And with that, I want to congratulate all of our Terryville High School students on graduating and wish you all a great, relaxing summer. Go ahead. >> I got a quick question for >> sure. Um, my grandkids go to school in Thompson, Connecticut, and they do allow Thompson for their drama club, they allow the elementary schools to engage in their plays. So maybe that's something that, you know, I know uh parents are always looking for that are in K through two or three through five where they could, you know, be involved in

149some type of trauma. Like I said, my two grandkids in Thompson, they've been in believe three plays. >> Yeah, I think it depends on the play. I think they used them for Munchkins one year in the Wizard of Oz. I think it depends too. But now there's like we had over 40 kids from the middle school and high school with last year for the drama club. So adding elementary school >> I think it depends on the park though and what they need. >> Well I can tell you from my own personal I go see my >> in those plays. >> Yeah, they're adorable. >> There's tons of kids there. There's more than 40. That much I can tell. >> They're adorable. >> They might have the staff for that too, >> you know. That's the

150big difference. I'm sure >> we need to move on to new business. >> All right, let's do that. >> All right, end of the year transfers. We do this every year. I'd like to entertain a motion to authorize the superintendent of schools to work with the business manager in order to make the necessary transfers and expenditures to close the books as of June 30th, 2026 and to expend funds for the fiscal year 2025 2026 and also to be able to utilize the budget 2026 2027 to authorize the superintendent and business manager to expend those funds as needed until the August August meeting of the Plymouth Board of Educ. >> Mr. Showers, Mr. Paragino. Any discussion? None. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? >> Okay. Motion carries. >> Right. Mr. Falcone, you're up. So,

151we received um as you all know a a supplemental grant uh aid grant from from Connecticut um and it's it's for the total amount in two years of 392,84 and it comes we were told it was coming in two payments possibly one payment then two payments. We're there's a lot of gray area on how that money is coming in, but basically what it equals is $196,42 additional for the 202627 school year and 2728 school year. It is a two-year grant. In speaking with the mayor, uh this grant is to be utilized for educational purposes as it was put out and intended. So, he has given us those funds and I'm going to make a recommendation of what to do with the $196,42 for the 2026 2027 school year. This is just my recommendation. The board

152doesn't have to go with this. You can have discussion after about what you want to do with it. >> 192,000. >> Did Did I do the math wrong? >> You said six. I I have six written down. >> We have >> What's What's 392? >> I think it is. >> 196 would be right. >> 196. >> We just wanted to make sure you were saying the right number. >> No, I got I have the right number. I think I'm pretty good. >> You do. >> You have the right number. >> So So the bottom line is that this is my recommendation. So, we've talked about the the concerns about capacity in our prek classroom. So, the first thing I would recommend is to put a prek another full day prek at Plymouth Center school between

153the teacher salary, the benefits and supplies for that classroom. It's approximately because we don't have anyone hired and we don't know the qualifications like of years experience and whatnot. approximately $130,000. I would then recommend taking the two teachers aid position and combining them together salary-wise to put the par profofessional into that program for the year. I would then recommend returning to the town $65,000 that the town provided us out of capitals for the sidewalk project at Plymouth Center school. And then I would use the remaining $66,000 of supplemental aid to complete that sidewalk repair. Now, before there's conversation, there could be concern over using grant money to pay uh at a someone's salary for a position and we got caught up in that over COVID and I kind of inherited that when I came in.

154But the way the we're looking at this um between Matt, myself, and Beth is we have two years to try to build that one salary in. And then that's why I said combine the aids because it's already within the budget. We have two years to build that one salary into the budget and it would resolve our our real big concerns that we have. And I don't believe they're going away with the number of construction projects going on within town >> where we will reduce the number of families on the prek weight list which the mayor was very interested in being a part of and helping out with. It would also resolve our prek capacity turn that we have right now. So those are my recommendations. Again, they're just recommendations. We have to and the mayor

155has to report exactly what we're doing with this money to the state of Connecticut. And so we just have to make sure that we're all on the same page of how we're going to utilize the $196,42. >> So let's get a motion on the board and then we'll discuss further. So um like to entertain a motion to approve the use of the super not superintendent supplemental grant funds in the 2026 2027 school year per the recommendation of the superintendent >> Mr. Bourbanire second. Miss Tilton, >> can I just clarify one thing? >> Yes. >> This does not impact our budget at all. This is a grant. Right. So we our budget is the same. This is a grant. >> All right. So now questions, concerns to request to do the repairs. $8,000 >> total cost

156do the repairs for the center school that was 68,000 >> no do the total total repairs is actually 58,000 >> okay >> so the 66 is more than enough to cover and as I said to Brian when we started talking about the numbers because we were kind of working in round numbers is there's going to be supplies that have to be purchased and while it's included in the salary uh number that Brian gave that is a I'm not going to say it's a conservative salary because it's a special ed person. So, we could be right at that number with if they come in at a family benefit package, that's not enough money, >> right? >> But also, we may need to purchase some furniture for the classroom outfit. I believe if we have it here,

157but we won't know that until we set the classroom up. >> We up that $130,000 to cover a family just in case and furniture if need be. >> Well, the money comes anyway. >> Yeah. I don't think >> the money comes anyway. There's no reason to up the numbers. >> Those were just estimates. Those were just estimates. It's a matter of when we have to track that money with the mayor. Yes. >> On how it's spent, we're going to say this much went towards the salary, this much went towards the benefits, this much went towards supplies, this much went towards the sidewalk project. >> And it's it's it's it fluctuates. >> It's fluid. >> Yeah. So, these numbers might change a little bit depending on who gets hired and whatnot. I'm always in favor of

158more preschool. So I think great idea. We don't want to overburden those children who are youngest and most needy in our school. So on board with this. >> I mean I I would love to be able to provide prek to every student in town. So this is a step in the right direction for sure. >> Will this eliminate everyone on the wait list or will it still leave people on the wait list currently? >> Probably not. So we have about say 37 on the wait list. So it's not going to eliminate all but I think a good it will be a good chunk and I'm sure there's families that have already made plans that they aren't going to change. I'm sure some will take us up on the offer and change but it'll it'll make

159a good dent in waiting. >> Um just kind of want to add this but it's part of my other presentation too. But what we have to understand too is Mrs. Palmer at our um uh finance operation committee meeting mentioned to us that I guess the Scott Road project two units there. They are now taking application for those units. Moving date is August. So that could putting in this prek could mean that we may have additional kids looking get into prek which would mean that if we have what 37 on a wait list now You know, just do the math. 62 units times what, maybe one or two, >> you know, you start looking at it like this is probably a benefit right now that the state has given us this money that we can now

160open up another classroom. Okay? And then in the future we may have even more and we'll have to ascertain where we have to have enough building space at Plymouth Center to add one maybe two more classroom and along with that comes with the uh cost of uh putting those classrooms in and putting a teacher in. But as those are things that are down the road. But you also have to understand too that supposedly those individuals will will moving into August. Something to think about too when you're looking at >> they didn't build it for nobody to live there. >> Well, no, I understand that. But the thing is is that it's coming, >> you know, and it's coming, I think, a lot faster than what we thought. >> Well, I think Jerry, the reality is

161we had declining enrollment. And as a district, you could look, we we we when I was the high school principal here, I had five teachers in each department. Now they have four. When I was the middle school um assistant principal, we had more teachers per department because we had more students. When the enrollment starts to now increase and tick up based on all of these new construction projects that are going on, the town will collect more tax revenue, but we have to then invest in the infrastructure. And we're part of that infrastructure. We have to educate kids and we cannot just keep the number of staff we have and take on the possibly hundreds of kids we could take on. We are going to have to work with the town, make sure that we have

162the appropriate budget to to hire the right people for those and that's that's going to be something we're going to have to really work closely with them. >> Build and they will come. That's [clears throat] not the only project. You also got a what you say airport. >> There's one on High Street that's going up. Going to start renting the school pretty soon. >> Yep. >> Prospect Street. >> They're developing a the lots literally next to my house. There's a >> Yeah, I saw a they're developing >> nine nine poor houses over in the airport. >> So there there's going to be a lot and that's all going to be individual. >> Great for the community. like this is great. Like it's excellent. You're going to grow. It's going to bring in good things for

163your community, but we have to also make sure we're investing in our schools. >> Look at the school busing and everything else. >> Absolutely. >> Scott Ro probably need one bus right there. >> Yep. >> Busy place. >> It's a bus mess about 65,000 or >> uh you know what top of my head I know it's like 1.3 million combined right now. >> Oh, combined. I don't know what it is specifically expensive. >> Anyone else have a question or concern? >> All right. So, we have a motion. We have it seconded. Um, all in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? >> Motion carries. So, just so you know, the next thing I'll do is on behalf of the board, if it's okay, I will write a letter to the mayor explaining that the

164board voted this evening to return the $65,000 to the capital fund that they have, >> right? >> Is that contingent upon how much we end up having to spend for each? >> We should have enough. >> I I think combined I have a >> Okay, so you Okay, good. You know what you're doing. All right. Number nine, business managers report and personnel report. >> I'm still going over the trophy. >> Is it blind? >> Um, so I >> am gonna keep my report pretty short. >> Appreciate that. [laughter] So Beth is going to pass out um where my estimate is for the end of the year. >> Um and for the people on the finance and operations committee, it's already a different number. >> So I was going to say that's a different number. >>

165It's already a different number, >> but in a good way. >> In a good way. >> So right now my estimate is 158,41. For those of you not here on Monday, >> that number was 148,000 >> 400 and change >> and it this literally changes by the hour. Um as things come in as we close POS at like we just ran a payroll there's there are some people who who are out on leave so we're not paying them for their salary at this point. um it it changes. So, as I said to the board of finance, this is always going to change again. >> Um and I will send an update on try to send you I'll send you an update on Mondays because it I do all the work on typically Friday and they'll

166send you an update. But with that said, should it come in at the 15841, my recommendation to the board is that we replace the carpet, not the carpet. I was going to say we should definitely replace the carpet >> at the T at ths >> upstairs. We've been talking about that for a little while >> and also replace the library furniture at Fischer Elementary. Um we've already replaced the carpet there. The um furniture there is probably from late 60s, early 70s. >> No, a little bit later than that. My wife got it all. >> Yeah, I was going to say that's from Roxan when he got years ago. at least 20 years. >> Yeah. Yeah. But then she got it from someplace else that was the existing space. >> Oh, yeah. Right. >> Yeah. So,

167you say deferred, right? >> And now that they're using that space as a learning space with our tutor there, what we have there really is just not conducive to a good learning environment. So, I've had some companies come in, they've given me quotes. Um the quote that I that I gave you here at um is with a a company that was very very accommodating worked with us. It was he designed the space based on what um Stephanie and our tutor I can't think of her name of the tutor at >> library. Can't think my first name. >> Christie. >> That one. Christie, you're saying Barrett. I know that's not right. >> Um, and that would leave us uh still an estimated surplus of 70,000 for the end. Um, and my recommendation to the board at

168this point is put it 50/50. 50% into the non-lapsing account and return 50% to the um now this number will change. be different, but my recommendation is still hold unless there's something the board wants to do that I don't know. So, >> oh, I can find >> Nicole, you're out of this conversation. [laughter] Um, so that's my recommendation. Um, we have there are quite a few projects that are kind of ongoing. I know that Jerry's going to touch on a bunch of them, so I don't want to repeat to have Um, but I'm just going to list them. We're doing the air conditioning over at >> We're doing the air conditioning unit at Eli Terry. It broke down. We can't re We can't repair it. It has to be replaced. I screded all the money,

169the emergency repair money out of all of the district. So, I've already doing that. Um, we're going to do the stairs at Eli Terry. That money is coming from um working with HS. I screded all of the money left in that contract so that we can do that no impact to our budget. So, that's basically um we're doing the heat pumps at Fiser. We talked about that. Um the sidewalks at Clement Center. Brian just talked about how we can fun how we can fund that and returning money to town to still being able to fund it. And um the last thing is I've been working with Jim Maison. We believe that we will be able to do that exercise room that's at Eli Terry take the wall that's out in the middle um [clears throat]

170replace the floor and turn it over to special education so that they have adjoining rooms and that will be a minimal cost. When I say minimal wise, I'm talking 3500 to $5,000. It's a good summer project and if we can get that done by the end of by the end of the summer, we would make Mr. Vigliotti pretty happy and I know we make Beth happy. So those are Jerry's going to run down all the specifics, but those are the projects that we have going. So there's a lot going on. We're doing a lot of upgrades. So, was that question? >> Was the heating here fixed? Weren't there some classrooms? That's That's all set. >> Can't you tell you got the jacket on? [laughter] >> Yeah, that was >> the chilling. So, >> usually No,

171that's we got the parts in and that's been >> That's all set. >> You're wearing a jacket. I would I would recommend you know I I have no problem with this whole thing. The only thing is the remaining estimate surplus I would just recommend whatever that happens to be because you said that number is moving every day >> that we keep it at 50% for the non lapsing account and 50% return to the town no matter what that number is 5050 >> because that's the number that's most likely I think that Brian and I agree that that's That's that's >> Yeah. But if we make a motion, I don't want to put that number in the motion. No. I want to just make the motion that remaining surplus, right? 5050. >> Correct. >> Yeah. So

172that like anything else in previous years when I was on the board, we always gave back money to the um and yes, some people would explain why can't we use that money for what we need here? It's a good faith manager for our town culture member over there that you know we as the board. Yes, we could use that money somewhere else but good faith we will you know do a 50. >> We'll return it with a nice note that says thank you for your lovely gift. >> We'd like to share it with you. >> So I a clarification for for Pat is I do not we do not have to have a vote on how that money first. that would happen in August. Have to post your debt and exact need you to give

173me the green light the two projects. >> Matt, we don't need a motion. >> Fund to give money back to the town. >> We don't because we don't have a specific number. >> So we'll do it we'll do it in August. >> We'll do that in August at which point >> you would vote to return this and this to go to nonapping based on the final. But we do want to spend the replace the carpet. We do want to do that with that number. And we also want to replace the library. >> Yeah. Give us the green light. >> Give us the green light. >> I don't think he needs a motion. I think we can get it. >> All right. Now I understand. >> We don't need a motion to do the first part.

174>> I think we would. No, >> no, that's just us spending the money as long as we >> That's kind of like what we talked about before. >> That's right. We already tell it's okay and I just want to make sure that you're okay with >> he's just kind of >> projectend the money I don't want to say oh wait I didn't know you >> back here and we approved it >> any more questions for Matt before we move on >> one last thing the playground has been delivered >> the old one's still there. >> Don't look at me. >> All right. I'm working on it. I'm working on it. >> I'm passing it that way. >> They're supposed to come Thursday and Friday of this week. Uh Friday they have field day, so it

175might be Thursday and Monday of next week, but I did get their word that they were >> I just want you know what the >> All right. Personnel report. Mr. Felgone. >> The only thing I want to point out is that we have an art teacher and a a behavior analyst um on this. there. Obviously, Diane uh retired and our BCBA is moving into private practice, I believe. Uh we have replaced both of those positions. So, as of this week, we have replaced both of those, which is great. So, all of our certified positions are filled. The concern we still have are building substitutes. And so what we're going to do is we're going to post some signs around town with we have openings, building substitutes, what the daily rate is, call this number. And

176so that's kind of how we're going to go about it. Try to fill those roles. >> Yeah. Yeah, I think like the the PR of it too is like a building substitute >> is a little different than like your regular daily substitute and like I don't know if people don't know that then then maybe that's some way we can get the information out because the the building substitute becomes just a part of your culture. >> Yeah. Part of your school. >> Yeah. >> Brian put those signs around town on 672 corner from the edge of the road where they'll take them. DOT will take them. Greg, I'm gonna put them three feet so I make you get out of your car. [laughter] >> I have >> You know what, Greg? We're gonna give them to

177you. >> You can put them out. [laughter] >> I think we should do five and 78 feet. See what happens. >> If you're six [laughter] feet, they will take >> All right, we'll take a look. Yeah, we'll we'll >> six feet from the curb. >> All right. >> I would deal with them anyway. I go on there and I check if they have our signs. Do it all the time. >> All right. >> You all set, Mr. Falcon? >> I'm all set. Any questions for Mr. Falcon about personnel? We are back to public comment. >> Anybody? >> Public any public? >> Any online? >> No. Okay. >> All right. Seeing none, we will move on to committee reports. Finance and operations. Mr. Baneer. >> All right. First and foremost, um, we did had a conversation

178about school lunch and so I'm going to need to make and we had a discussion and the committee was uh, in general of not increasing school lunch. So, I'm going to have to make a motion to it's in a motion for a recommendation of finance and operation committee not to increase the school breakfast program, the school lunch program, the specialty lunch, andor the adult lunches for the school year 2026 2027. >> So, move second. >> Why would we have to make a motion to not do something? >> We have to do it every year. >> Oh, so we have to do it one way or the other. Is that how it goes? Got it. >> Motion was by Pat. We don't need a second because it's coming out of commission. Out of committee rather. So

179any questions? Any discussion? Seeing none. All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. Okay. Well, as Matt said, I'm not going to really I'll get into the specifics, but HVA system at Eli Cherry, um, that will be done over the summer. Thank God that it broke just prior to closing of school. It does, uh, entail the front end of Eli where the UE is up in that area. So it doesn't affect technically any classrooms, but does affect where just a big >> Okay. >> But the cost of that is $36,000. So we we have to get a crane. They will take the old unit out and install the new unit and that will be done over the summer. Um the stairs at Eli Terry uh Gagnons's which is a local company over by where IG is

180they will be doing the work and the repairs as Matt said is because of the excess HS supplies and credits that we have in our contract that um we'll be able to afford for them for us to actually get it at no right um the heat pumps are on schedule. It's going to an estimated two weeks and uh Jim Maison and Matt have been working with Moren to tell her with summer camp what's going to be going on and hopefully a setting summer camp. We there is a possibility that some point in time the kids may have to move into the capital but that'll be on a daily basis work um sidewalks at Plymouth Center school uh uh Lero Corporation is going to be doing the work. Um they called Matt uh at some point

181in time. I don't know if it was last week or the week before to have a uh kind of idea are we going to do the project and when we would do the project but because they're [clears throat] working on their summer schedule right now so that they can incorporate it in their s summer schedule get the work done prior to the start school. Um and as you know cost associated with that is initially was 68,000 now it's so the work is going to be done not only to where the entrances to the center school as anybody who goes there knows because there's more cones there uh you know for tripping hazards and also the entrance to the teachers. So getting a pretty good amount of concrete work done there you know for the amount

182of money that we're which is good. >> That's all I have to say. >> Also a safety issue. >> Yes, >> that's one of the reasons been a safety issue for a while but we got to get it done. >> Any questions for the finance [clears throat] and operations committee? Okay, great. Let's move on to board liaison reports. Miss Palmer for Plymouth Center School. >> I actually was not able to attend last night. >> Athens. >> Um Mrs. Allen here. Fisher. >> Um well, we're winding down the school year. We just uh completed Coin Wars, which the students really enjoyed. They got to bring in money. They got to sabotage the other grades um which they really really enjoyed. Um, I think the third graders and the fourth graders were the fiercest competitors. Um, there

183was so many pennies. It took me hours every day to count the coins and my fingers were black. It was the most disgusting part of my day, but they really enjoyed it. [laughter] Um, we I forgot to break my list. Um, yeah, we had the last school store. um brought out some like Neato squishies and the kids were uh talking about it in the halls and every kid came by in a line. Even the second graders because they had their tour that day, everyone's just poking squishies as they walked through the halls. So, um we have one more meeting for the end of the year and um then it's on to fifth grade picnic. >> When is the picnic? 19th 19th >> 19th. >> What are you looking for? Some picnic food. >> Not I'm

184not a fifth grade parent, so I don't know. But um >> give me a call. >> Yeah, we got a photo booth lined up, a DJ. Um they have craft stations with like sand art and bracelet making, temporary tattoos, and then like an inflatable dark thing. >> Pat's hoping to bring in a pig roast. >> Pig roast. That should make some kids cry. >> Do a pig roast for the kids. >> Nothing like old national be a small pig though. [laughter] >> There's only 87 kids. So, uh, >> but yeah, they have that and they have booger tag, which sounds super gross. >> It's so fun. It's so fun. >> Take your word for it. >> It is. It's fun. >> Sounds [laughter] disgusting. >> All right, Eli Terry Junior Middle School. whoever would like

185to take that one on. >> Um, we're at the end of the year. We did our votes for the taking on the PTA next year. Um, we have the dance tomorrow night, which I was at the LY decorating for today. Went on the ETH field trip on Thursday and it was really hot. Um, >> graduation is on the 19th. off in the morning. And >> if I could just add, I think the girls who are taking over are a little nervous without Nicole not being there. So I I know you'll be there. So thank you for all you've done. I know you've put together so much over the years. So hurry back so that these ladies aren't floundering. They're going to be doing a fantastic job. But all the PTA ladies, you guys do a

186lot. So anybody who serves, thank you for putting in your time and effort. We appreciate that. All right. So, Mr. Foot's not here for Terryville High School, but I'm sure they everything is moving along as it should be. >> And then we will move on to board comments. So, let's start with you, Mr. Showers. >> Congratulate the class of 20 26. And good luck to all everybody else ceremonies. >> Uh yeah, thank you uh for everybody for another great school year. um for the presentations, all the hard work people put in over the years. I'm just always grateful to be in this community, the community I grow up in, and now having my first child graduate, it's a little emotional for me. And um thank you to PTAs, to parents, to all of our support

187staff. Like, it's so much work to make this happen every day, day in and day out. And just like on a personal level, families, please make sure you hug your your kids. We had a a pretty tough week in my district last week. So, just never forget to take that opportunity to give your babies, no matter how big they are, whether they want it or not, that hug. So, um yeah, everyone has a great summer. Great. Uh congratulations to the graduating seniors. I'm sure they're going to do amazing things. Um I think it's been, you know, a great school year all around. I know it has been in our household. Um, I think the uh the Facebook post for field day, that one video of my child getting the dumped tank thrown on her. That

188was that's my favorite video and I just watch it all the time just to hear her scream. Um, but I think it's just I've seen so much growth in our students and I've seen, you know, seeing all the presentations today and I know they were all joking about how oh they everyone they already said this, they already said this, they already said this. that just means that they're doing such a great job with building that continuity between all the schools and um so this being my first year I'm just really happy that we are seeing such great success and you know exciting things happen >> um so there's two things that I want to talk about first thing that Mike was talking about is letting the kids experience things outside of I would love to

189be able to look more into doing like a foreign exchange. which I know a couple years back they had talked about it and it just kind of like fell off but I was hoping that maybe >> yeah there's nothing stopping us from trying it there just you know it doesn't really >> just point of clarification like when you say foreign exchange like sending one kid away or taking kids like >> not like the program we have now like the program where like someone from there would come here and then someone from here would go >> somewhere else >> in my former high school we worked with a another high school in China and they sent 24 kids to us for a week and a half, two weeks and then we if COVID didn't happen, we're

190going to send 24 kids or 22 kids to them and kind of in exchange and the kids that came here stayed with our kids that were going there and our kids were going to stay with their parents going there. something to that effect >> just to kind of like let the kids see whole big world out there and you know that's >> what I if again I I I'm a big proponent of that I'm a big I'm more of a proponent to that than the the field trips to France in Spain in Italy like those are great trips but when you immerse a child into a cultural experience it really really changes I have connections to do it. I've done it before. And if it's okay with the board, I could have that person come

191in August. Yeah. >> September. And we could start talking about it and have him him and I will work on it over the summer. Couple options to look at what makes the most financial sense and we can go from there. >> Feel like the more opportunity >> the better. >> Do you think the prices have come down a little bit? because I know the last time we pulled it up it was for families in this community pretty prohibitive but maybe with you know it's been a what was that two years ago it was >> yeah it wasn't that long ago that we did >> but maybe we can see if the the prices have come down a little >> ultimately what's going to be and he and if his name is Jason if Jason comes

192here and talks to the board he would share with you that China makes the most sense for any sort partnership because he will be able to have whoever's coming here pay tuition from the Chinese government to come here and offset the cost for our kids going there which will lower the price significantly. For example, when we did this that I they paid $1,500 per kid they sent to us and we in turn put that right back into the kids to go there. That's how we had 22 kids that were able to go to China. And the nice part about an exchange like that that Mike kind of talked about like when he's talking about we we send 12 kids to Washington. >> I know he's not talking. >> No, but when he was though, he

193was talking about sending 12 kids to Washington. We have this group that goes to Europe. We have this but we have kids that stay here that might not feel comfortable or might not be able to afford those experiences. But when you bring the kids here, they make connections with those children when they come here, too. So, they still get a good experience. They kind of see things differently. So, it it really is much more powerful than the the field trip model that we're following now. But, if the board wants that, I have no problem following Jason up. >> My daughter did that. I was married to my first wife. we had from Spain and my daughter first kid came over here for for the summer. In fact, Don Hogan and I had kids. So, we

194brought the boy over. He had two boys. I had a boy and uh we had them all summer. Then when school started, they took my daughter over to Spain. She was over there. She went to school over there for a while. It's a great experience. I mean, I was concerned about, you know, the kid the language barrier and all that. And I remember, you probably don't remember, Dick Foot was, Mr. Blum was our English teacher here years ago. And I talked to him about it and he said to me, "Don't worry about the kids." He said, "They'll mingle." He said, "They'll take care of it." And he was exactly right. I mean, the kids came over here. It was great. It was fantastic. But you learn a lot, too. Even as an adult, you learn,

195you know. >> It's It's powerful. It really is powerful. So, and just one quick story. I remember we brought the kids over with the first day. We had a big potluck dinner. I'm not very good with potluck dinners, but we had a big potluck dinner. [laughter] And it was interesting because it was like a middle school dance where you had, you know, all the the students from that were from China over on one side and all of our kids on the other. So, it was like boys and girls on the two sides. And then all of a sudden, we opened the gym and we gave them a basketball. And then they started playing basketball with each other against each other. And then the game started to pick up and then you just watch kids be

196kids. It was awesome. And it just grew from there to where when their bus was leaving to go back to the airport, kids are crying and there's a lineup of our kids wanting to see them. That's next level and that's we could bring it. >> Yeah. >> So I'll look into it again. Again, to Kelly's point, we got to look at the price point as well. And I don't know if the board Okay, I need to know this. Would China be an option or should I say China's off the table because that >> would it be? >> I just need to because there there's there's some people that I've been there. Um it's a lovely place. Um but I just know there's a lot going on right now where some people might not feel comfortable

197with that being the exchange. I will take it off the table for him to look into because he's going to try to sell us that. This is the most affordable for our kids. But if it's off the table, it would just help me in prepping for them. >> I think as long as there's not a place with travel is I don't why would you know like unsafe for Americans to travel to kind of a country? I think other than that we should be open. >> Probably not going to Iran. >> Well, you you went to Japan, correct? I remember because I was in Japan also with my with my son, my wife is very expensive. >> Yeah, it expensive. >> It is. It It's really interesting. It's amazing that the Japanese people were coming to

198my wife and I and can we talk to you in English? Do we want to learn English? You know, and and and the place is absolutely spotless. I don't care where you go. And the people were just great and they respected you over there, you know. It's you get on a train, you step aside, let your ride in. >> Very, very, very safe in both locations. But I'll I'll look into that and get some more information for us. >> Um, and then the other thing is I really think I talked to Darren and I talked to >> Well, they were so about having to do all of this because we get these papers and it takes them forever to get this information. So I don't and Darren said he only had like a week get

199all of this stuff together and I feel like if we have to either come up with some sort of well in advance plan of when they need to have this that they can agree like this is when we're going to do this know that we can be they can be prepared because right now this is not working. They It feels almost like we're trying to set them up and we're trying to find fault in the things that they're doing and that we don't trust that they're doing the best that they can possibly do for our kids, which is not how we're intending it to be, but when I can see how on the other side it comes off that way. >> Yeah. What I will say about why he he has such a short window

200is because their assessments are, as you heard, they're not even finished with them. They're still trying to gather kids, you know, right? So, this is the end of the year assessment. So, it's a tight window. >> I know. So, like if there's a way that we can figure something out so that they don't feel like we're working, we're not working with them, we're working against them. We don't want that. It's not productive to anyone. What was the exact what what exactly was communicated to them that they felt like defensive? >> It was it's more just >> because asking for data is not an >> So when we got the last ones in the midyear, right? Like they came with all of these stipulations. Don't look at the like take into consideration this, take into consideration

201that. If you have to have like 10 things say stating that they're not ready and then you're still asking for something. I mean that's not >> what I what I'll say about our administrative team is there is some discomfort with regard to we're we're heading in a new direction and we just started that new direction. They're trying to get their legs under them and I think that's where they're uncomfortable wi with sharing some of the information. I think we saw it at the midyear with all of this they the the big list I gave you pri prior and I think you saw some of it here. uh we don't we we can't disclose the sback data yet um in the NGSS yet, but the reality is they're not very comfortable because they're just getting their

202sea legs under them with regard to these programs and so are their teachers. And so they just want to, you know, they they see the you hear the difference, you see the difference. Um you see the results and the results were really good within the first year of utilizing these programs. Um but we and but they understand we we still have work to do and and they're doing it. So but I think the discomfort is it's it's new to them and they they want they want to do really well. They're doing everything they can in their power. >> We're working hard. >> Do you think maybe it's something to do with like the time frame from when the testing is ending to when they're being asked for the data? >> It it could be that.

203I think it's more of of right now the assessments are making them uncomfortable because they see how hard their teachers are working. We know how hard they're working. They're doing things they've never done before in such as as you know the things we put into the teachers contract with regard to common planning time and how much time they're sitting with them and the way they're working with their coaches. And I just feel like it's it they're uncomfortable because sometimes the data and and the scores don't reflect the true work that's going on in the schools. And so I thought it was a good question you asked. >> Uh I don't know who you asked it to Stephanie. Um it was a good it was a good answer. Um you know we're doing a lot of

204work. We're working really hard and we don't have the resources that other schools have. Kelly spoke about bringing in teachers aids and trying to build that up and we work with the town council. The town council supported that idea. We just squashed it. We just got rid of it because we have we're we have another need and we don't have the budget. My former district has the same number of kids. Their budget's 44 44 million. 44 same number of kids. Now it's a regional school district. Take three million out. 41 million service the same number of kids. They just have more resources. And when Stephanie talks and Darren talk about social emotional kids, we know we're short at least a counselor at the middle school. We need at least one more. We know at at

205Fiser, we don't have a school counselor. We don't have a social worker at Plum Center. We know these things, but we're doing the best with what we have. Um, and we're providing a a really good education for kids and it's just getting better. So, I think that's where the discomfort comes, >> right? And I don't want them to feel that we're not working towards >> with them, you know? I don't want to put we don't want to put anyone in the position where they feel like they have to be defensive in things that they should be proud of, you know, like so I think that we have to come up with a different way either that we're asking for the information or >> can I make a recommendation then >> communication committee, right? they should

206come up with. What What do you want to hear? Because I I to Karen's point, hearing from our school principles about how what's gone on in their building throughout a year, where they are, what they might need support with, whatever it is, a presentation from each of our principles. And maybe it should be on a separate night throughout the year. And maybe it's not when they're presenting like what the kids are doing. Maybe it's different kind of feel to that presentation, but maybe the communication committee could come up to like this is what we're looking to see and maybe maybe focus areas might not be one of the things you want to you might want to talk about, you know, more of the achievements and things like that, but might be a good project for

207our communication to come back with and then we could communicate that to our administrators. >> Something like that quarterly. I just have a question. >> That's fine, too. >> Do they >> Or you might want to do elementary, middle, high school. Elementary, middle, high school. >> Sorry, J. >> Do they think that we, the board, are trying to micromanage them? >> I feel like sometimes it could probably come off that way >> because technically we're not supposed to be micromanaging them. >> The individual individual that we manage is the gentleman over there. >> [laughter] >> That's the individual. That's the individual that we the board of education. But you need to look if they feel >> you need to look. Oh, yeah. Go ahead, J. I'm sorry. >> But if they feel that we are

208trying to micromanage them, then that's a concern for my part because I'm not there to micromanage them. >> It's not our job. >> Okay. That's not our job. Our job is to manage the superintendent. his job is to manage his team. That's the way it works. >> Um, so if that's their impression, I personally I can tell them I'm not here to make >> I think a lot of it might be too. It's not the micromanagement. It's the fact that, you know, this is new data to them and it's like and we as a board have every right to ask for work data and and to be able to understand where that's coming from. I think for them it's new and new things sometimes make us uncomfortable and you know from the impressions that I

209was getting it's not so much that we're micromanaging them but it's like show us show us show us like prove to me that what we're doing is working and I think we understand that it's going to take time to see the progress but I don't think that that's necess that they necessarily portray that. >> Yes. Like I feel like they're they're expecting like they think we're expecting to see like these miraculous results >> and if they can't show that to us then they're they get then they would start to feel defensive. >> If they don't show us miracul like if they show us the truth >> and they show like they showed us they don't have the data that helps us do our job to put things in place for them to have. So it's

210it's a catch 22. We need to know that they are struggling, but we also need to know where our students are landing like percentage wise. >> That's Brian's job. >> But it still should be reported to us. That's >> But I I have a one more question. Is it they don't have the data because it is their first year doing this or is it they don't have the data because of the age group, the way they're doing? >> It's the timing. So the end of the year assessments are literally like this because of where ESPback felt. They're doing them now. So they're getting the data and they have to turn it around fairly quickly because of when our board meeting is. So I think that's where the rush is. But I mean you got to

211we have to keep in mind so when I'm a principal >> um of a school and I and I was one for 17 years or whatever it was um I never evaluated a teacher on the results of because I can't control if Johnny had a bad day at home or not. And I can't control if if a child really puts their best that best effort in. You know what I looked at when I had conversations with teachers? I looked at their their plan. It's like what's your action plan as a teacher and how did you do and how can I support you? And it was working together with that teacher. And I think that's the shift here. you know, and it's it's hard, Nicole, because we're looking at their school climate results. And Darren's sitting

212here and he's defending the age group that he's working with based on the results that came in, which he's doing a heck of a job in that school. But I'm going to tell you, having a an eighth grader myself, it is a challenge every day. They wake up different every day. And so but he you know this is this is showing raw data from parents from students and from staff >> right >> and there's a lot of contradictory data in here and that's what when I talk to him we talk about that like don't get so caught up into that and then you have our student assessment data which again we we're working on. We know this has to improve and we're working our our as fast as we can um and as hard as

213we can on this but it it's there's you know you got teachers you have the parish you have the administrators it's just a process and it takes time and I feel like when these things are being presented it's [clears throat] an uncomfortable feeling for them at this point in time you know >> just as a teacher from my perspective I think it's important I think they all did a great job. And I think that there shouldn't be negativity. Our goal as teachers, my goal every day is to get growth. And for some kids, it'll be a little growth and for other kids it'll be a lot of growth. And we have a COVID cohort. So I think it's important for them to push through that discomfort so we know how to help them. Like you

214said, library media specialists, PAR support, like we are missing so many things and we need to know what they are. So when you come with the budget, we say these are our priorities. If we don't know and we think everything's great because it's uncomfortable, then we don't know what to push for, what to go to the council and say like, "Hey, we really need these things because our kids are not where they could be and they have the potential to be." But I also think those presentations when they give as a teacher, you know how it is. You they you look at numbers, your numbers don't look good. It's uncomfortable. But then you're like, "Come in my classroom and see what my kids do." Like when we see those you can't just look at one

215thing. So those presentations give us the other side of the picture of like, >> "Okay, we're working on the numbers, but they're learning and growing." So I I think just being mindful of that that like yes, looking at numbers uncomfortable and they're not good. I've had bad years in my classroom where it's like, "Oh my god, I you know, you do the best you can." But I think as long as we know what do we need to give the school district to move forward and we put a little bit here, a little bit there and we just we just got to do as much as we can with like you said the limited budget we have. We are not funded where we should be >> because of the state because of our low tax base

216like it doesn't matter who to point the finger at. Like all we can do is just fight fight fight every day to get a little bit here a little bit there add this on. like I I thought that they were very confident. They have a lot of things to be really proud of. There's tremendous growth there. So, I'm not sure I Yeah, nobody wants to present something that maybe negatively, but they should be proud of the work they're doing. So, >> I I would always I mean, Rebecca, I know you're in charge of that committee, but that might be something you want to take on though. It's just the format and then how often in in just for when they report to me. >> Okay. So, Um, I just want to wish the class of

2172026 good luck. Thank you to um the administrators for their presentation. Congratulations to the teacher of the year and par profofessional of the year and um thank you and congratulations to the two retirees for everything that they've done. I do would I like seeing stuff that's been done. the CNA. Maybe we can look into EMS, uh, EMT stuff. Um, do I know Brian, you and I have talked about the, um, junior core and the fire department, things along those lines, which are programs that are already in town that maybe we can get our students either information about or something. We got to get them involved, especially the fire. >> Yeah. I'd like to uh thank both retirees uh for for the years they put in. Both did a decent job when they were here. Uh

218again, >> wait, I'm I'm going to stop you, Mr. Fair. They did a great job. >> Oh, okay. You said you did a great job with it. >> Well, yeah. I was shocked that Mike was here 12 years. I couldn't believe it. >> Oh, you mean that Mike Holtz? >> Yeah. Holt. 12 years. Holy mackerel. I remember we hired him. But anyway, uh again, the grant from the state 392,000, which is a real shot in the arm for us for the next couple years, but that's going to help out along the way. Uh also the uh lunch program. I'm glad that we didn't raise the price. I think you know things are tough out there for a lot of people. So if we can keep the price down for this year, I know next year

219will probably have to go up. So along with that and also that uh excuse me [clears throat] with the job that uh our staff has done coming in with estimate today of 158,000 surplus. Uh that's great and it's we can get a couple jobs done. the carpet at the high school which we know we need and the library furniture over at Fiser great and then whatever's left over 50/50 for the town which welld deserved the town's been good to us this year we can we can also help them but on on another note I'd like the policy committee I'd like them to think about checking the policy on the dress code uh just to make sure that we're in compliance uh seems that uh we may not be but also yesterday Jerry and I were

220at the what would you call that school to career thing symposium for >> tell you these kids some of these kids are unreal I mean they were blowing our mind what they want to do doctor they want to be everyone wants to be a doctor but I mean financial planners engineering and going on and they had the schools listed. I said, "Right, I remember when I was in high school, the only thing they told me is join the state police, you know, get a job for 20 years." I said, but I I took a look at all these things. Uh I I just it was really mindboggling and one gentleman wants to be a model. He had his pictures in there and I'm holy m this guy's not a bad looking guy. He's trying to

221make money, you know? I mean, it was great. One girl wants to be a singer, a dancer, and veterinarian. And she was asking me about veterinarian and And I said, well, if anybody knows anything about veterary, which I don't know that much, is the schools are very hard to get into veterary school. So I said to her, I said, "Let me tell you, you want to go to be go to be a veterinarian, I'll tell you where to go to school down to St. Kits." I said, "Go to St. Kits." And I think Phyllis where Hunsky's >> her son went there. >> Son went down there. He did. >> And when I was on vacation, the kids were down there. I said, "What are you guys doing here? We're going to veteraryian school." You know,

222I said, "Oh my god." But so but it was it was interesting just talking to them and some of the plans they had. But other than that, I mean, we had a good year. Seems it seemed going along pretty good. I like to thank thank the group for bringing this 158,000 so far. I I know it'll change, man. >> Oh, it'll change. >> It'll change. Priority change. We're just sitting here. [laughter] Well, congratulations to the 2026 graduates, whether it's high school, middle school, elementary, uh yeah, uh three through five, uh because I know that's graduation now. Um so, congrats to those uh students and good luck in furthering your career up the education ladder. Um excellent presentation by the admin today. I was very impressed with our school principles. They did an awesome job. They

223really did. Um Congrats to Mr. Nav and to Mrs. Boiling. I've known Mrs. Boiling for many, many years. Her youngest son and my son played soccer from the time they were four years old till the time they graduated from high school. So, it's kind of a long journey between myself and Mrs. Boyd's son and my son. So, congrats to her. And as I told her, you know, I'm in the six Saturdays in sun in one Sunday club, like the best club to be. So, kudos to her. Congrats to the teacher of the year and the parent of the year. Also, uh, kudos to Mrs. Glazer, our school to career person. Pat and I went to that yesterday. I had no idea what I was going to see. No idea. We walked into the library and

224we were two individuals standing there looking at each other going, "Oh my god." We never ever expected to come into something like this. These I'm telling you these kids in this high school are amazing. That school to career program everybody had their poster board there and when you walked into them they had a plan and they were working the plan which was as a high school junior. That's pretty good when you can get kids at that age to plan the work and work the plan. And then as you went along and talked to those kids, whether they were going into HVAC, whether they were going to be an electrician, whether they were going to be a model, whether they were going to try to be a nurse or some type of um professional trader. The

225young man told us that, and Mr. Falcone knows, he took a penny and traded that and made over $400 with that penny. That was his spiel. >> I wanted to give him five bucks and see what he could do. [laughter] >> Right. >> The good thing about him is he has a mentor who is his own who works in that type of business. Okay. So, he kind of has a leg up. But it was it was you watch juniors that um even one gentleman um remember the young man who wanted to be a construction labor who was very introverted. >> Oh, that yeah. So very introverted, had his thing there, wanted to be a construction laborer, and he happened to be talking to the right guy for I work for public works. So I explained

226to him and said, "That's probably a really good career." I said, "It's Monday through Friday, you know, kind of like a 7 to three job. You know, do yourself a favor and go get yourself a CDL. There's a company in Colchester that does CDL licenses when you graduate from high school. If that's what you want to be, then go. And then your opportunities will open up once you get your CDL. And then you can be like me, go work for the city of Bristol and work seven to three and have holidays off. And thank you much. Have a nice day. Um uh let's see what else did I have here. Um and honestly, I think that's it. I think that's about all I have. >> All right. Great. I would like to thank um all

227the members of the public who do come to our meetings, who do speak at our meetings, even if it's something to criticize or to bring up something that maybe we don't necessarily agree with. I always love to hear from the public no matter what, positive, negative, whatever it is. And lastly, I would like to thank all of you at this table because we don't always agree, we don't always disagree, and it's great to hear the different perspectives and to be able to come to solutions that are in the best interest of the kids. That being said, our next regular meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education is on Wednesday, August 12th, 2026 at 6 PM in the cafeteria at Terryville High School. Oh, there's another page. >> And there's more. >> Item 15, executive session.

228I would like to entertain a motion to enter into executive session at 9:13 p.m. to discuss the following. Inviting Mr. Falconee, superintendent, Mrs. Melo, assistant superintendent, and Mr. Tenza, business manager. A, a memorandum of understanding by and between the Plymouth Board of Education and the Plymouth Education Associate Association. B, payroll contract. and C superintendent and assistant superintendent contract discussion >> move >> Mr. Bourbonire >> second >> Mr. showers. All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstensions. Motion carries. All right, we are entering into executive session. >> Don't leave without a cupcake. session of the board of education at 9:58 p.m. All right, we are going to go ahead and talk about each of these things in order. I would like to entertain a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding between the Plymouth Board of Education and

229the Plymouth Education Association as discussed in educative session. >> So move second. >> Mr. Showers, Miss Tilton, all in favor? I >> opposed >> abstensions. Motion carries. The second item was just anformational item. No motion needed. Um, finally, we have another motion. I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the contractual items discussed in executive session regarding the superintendent [cough] and assistant superintendent. So move >> second. >> Mr. Showers, Mrs. Palmer. Any further discussion? >> Okay. All in favor? Opposed abstensions motion carries I would like to entertain a motion to adjourn at 9:59 p.m. >> Mr. Showers, Miss Tilton, all in favor. >> Thank you very much. Enjoy your month off.