BOE Meeting 4/9/25

001meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education of April 9th, 2025 to order at 700 p.m. Please join us in the pledge to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, I'm just going to warn my fellow board members and the audience to bear with me. This agenda is a little bit there's a lot lot of moving parts to it. So, um, item number two, I'd like to entertain a motion to amend the agenda to add the following to executive session. Um, item C, MOU, non-lapsing account. Item D,OU pea for athletic director for middle and high schools. And item EOU department coordinator positions at Terryville High School. So, Mr.

002Perry Juno and Miss Lucian. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. I'd like to entertain a motion to adopt the agenda as amended. So move second. Mr. Foot and Miss Lucian. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. We are moving on to item number three. Um, and before we get started, I'm going to um ask the board, would you do you feel it necessary to caucus or can we move right on to um voting our vice chair? If you would like to caucus, we certainly will break to do that. Who wants the vice chair position? We don't know that yet. we have to see if we need. So, what we would do now is we do the caucus to um Republicans and Democrats into different rooms, have that

003conversation of who you'd like to nominate for election to the vice chair position. Um and then we would go through our normal voting process that we would do that we normally do on every uh every two-year basis, but we have a unique situation with the board member stepping down and a new board member uh Mr. Bobir joining us this evening. So, we have to put in a vice chair. So, the question really is, do we feel a need to caucus or do we want to make nominations now and be open and public before we caucus or if not caucusing at all? Yeah. If you want to know beforehand and all that, you want to caucus? No, we can do it. How does everybody else feel? Sure. Go without. Are we good? Yeah. So, someone make

004a Yeah, we would just nominate from right from here. Okay. But that works for everybody. Question. Yes. This is only good until November. Correct. the physical people in November until we redo all of our after the election in November of the new board members. We would have a reelection of the chair, the chair, vice chair, and secretary. Just double checking. Yeah. All right. They're two-year terms in in the leadership positions. Second after caucus. I'm going to move on here. You're doing a great job. The problem the problem we have is that my secretary Pat learns how to highlight on the computer. So we have yellow pages in front of us that before were hand highlighted but she's coming into the year 2025. So all right I would like to entertain a motion to eliminate going

005into caucus and pro proceed directly to the election of vice chair for the Plymouth Board of Education. So move Mr. Showers. Second second. Miss uh Candria Floreni. Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. Abstensions. Motion carries. Okay. All right. Um are there any nominations for vice chair for the Plymouth Board of Education? I'd like to nominate Kelly Tilton. Okay. Um, Kelly Tilton was nominated by Pat Patrick Perigino. Any second? Second by Mr. Zabushka. Any other nominations? I'd like to nominate Michelle Lucian. Second. Second. Okay. So, the Michelle Lucian was nominated by Greg Shower, seconded by Mr. Foot. Any other nominations? Move they be closed. Okay. There being no further nominations, the following motion was made to entertain a motion to close nominations for vice chair of the Plymouth Board of Education. Do I have a

006motion? So move. Mr. Shower second, Mr. Foot. All in favor? I. Motion passes. Okay, we are going to be getting some ballots. So on this ballot, you are going to put your name and then you are going to vote for either Mrs. Lucian or Miss Tilton. Am I voting? Yeah. Let me go to your right. Just for the just so every board member understands that these ballots and your vote is going to be made public within 48 hours. So doesn't matter. I'm going to read them. So collect them. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Of course. All right. Four votes were that cast for Kelly Tilton and four votes were cast for Michelle Lucian. I have not voted. I am the tiebreaker. Um, let's see. Do I have to do anything other than just vote? All

007right. So, I am going to go ahead and vote for Kelly Tilton. So that would make it um five votes for Kelly and four votes for Michelle. Uh Kelly is the vice chair of the Plymouth Board of Education. Congratulations, [Applause] Kelly. All right, I'm going to give those to you. Oh, me write my name down. I should put them writing, too. All right. Okay. So, all the way down to here now. Nope. Okay. This was if Michelle was going Oh, even further. All right, we are up to item number eight. Sorry about the disjointedness. Um, It's five on ours. What's that? It's five on ours. Five. Oh, it's five. We ours our numbers are different. We apologize. Sorry. Approval of minutes is what we're up to. Approval of minutes. So, I'd uh like to entertain

008a motion to approve the following minutes. The minutes of the regular board of education meeting of March 12th, 2025. And do I have a motion? Kelly Tilton. Second. Second. Mr. Showers. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Myself, Mr. Bourbaner. Motion carries. Okay. The minutes of the special meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education Policy Committee of March 12th, 2025. So moved. Second. Who was the first? I'm sorry. Kelly. Kelly. And then Mich um not Michelle, Cindy. Sorry. Any discussion? All in favor? Okay. So, just Kelly, Cindy, and Lou are you guys are in approval. So, motion carries. All right. My item number nine. I'm not sure what number it is for you guys. Six. Six for you guys. Uh student representatives. Welcome Fallon and Ava. Thank you. to hear from you.

009Good evening everyone. On March 21st, members of Pride Pouch, a club that promotes inclusion in our school, attended Soji Con at Yukon Stores. The purpose of Soji Con is to create a place of acceptance for students who are trying to figure out who they are in an overall celebration of being who you are. At the convention, students participated in workshops on a wide variety of topics. Some of the things that were covered were creative writing, nature, understanding others with differing perspectives, and learning strategies for exiting toxic relationships. But students weren't the only ones learning. Teachers participated in workshops and meetups with other teachers from different school districts across the state to discuss strategies for supporting students of diverse backgrounds. The Terryville class of 2027 hosted our first ever Ruse Night here on March 21st. We

010had over 70 students come and hang out with their friends outside of the stressful workloaded school kind of environment. We had freshman and sophomores together being involved in games such as basketball and volleyball along with watching movies, singing karaoke, competing in March Madness, and having snacks from our concessions. It was a blast and it's definitely something us as students will be making happen again. On March 18th, members of Future Business Leaders of America or FBLA attended their annual conference at SCSU. FBALA is a club we have here at THS. Students pick an event from a long list that FBA Nation offers that pertains to business in some way and learn about it independently over the course of several months. Some events have tests that students take, like economics or business ethics, and others require a

011presentation, like a job interview. Throughout the day, students got to converse with hundreds of other students from across the state and attend several seminars to further their learning. At the end of the event, after all events had been scored, Arya Rothparal, a freshman, won fifth place in the entire state in introduction to FBLA. Congratulations, Arya. The Terryville High Drama Club, has been working extremely hard these past few months on our production, Legally Blonde. We have been rehearsing every Monday and Friday from 5:00 to 7:45. In the upcoming weeks, we will be having our tech week and really get into the actor mindset and personas of our characters. Our show dates are Friday, April 25th at 7 and Saturday, April 26th at 2:00 and at 7:00. We all hope to see you there. Juniors took the

012SAT on March 26th. Leading up to the big day, members of the junior class participated in SAT prep twice a week for five weeks. Of the juniors surveyed, most found that unfortunately the math topics we heavily focused on did not show up a lot on the test. The surveyed individuals, however, did find that strategies that were taught during the prep weeks were very helpful, especially with timing. Teachers can't know what will be on the assessment each year, but they do review ths's answers and compare them with the state's answers to make revisions and better our review sessions for the following year. While juniors were going through weeks of prep, the rest of the student body adapted very well to changing schedules and classrooms being moved around. Tville Unified Buddies had their most recent event on

013March 25th here at Tville High. Unified Buddies is where individuals who are not in the Apple program hang out and form bonds with the ones that are. We love doing this and meeting new faces every time we get together. This Friday in March, Terryville friends all got together in the gym to spend quality time together playing tons of games such as volleyball, basketball, pickle ball, and even had some relaxing coloring outside the gym. It was so great to see all of our unified buddy friends, and we hope to have another event very soon. Every month, Ava and I highlight the amazing things that happen at Terryville High School. Most of these things are studentrun or achieved by students, yet no one hears about them. Each week our students vote for a teacher or oh my

014gosh each week our te our teachers vote for a student of the week and the winner gets a small prize with their photo on a bulletin board. We've brought it to Mr. Holtz's attention that we feel students amazing achievements should be announced and celebrated more. The student council is brainstorming ideas to make this happen at this moment. But what about the other things that slip through the cracks? The hardworking wrestlers we shared about last month never got mentioned. The FBL, the Future Business Leaders of America Award winner never got mentioned. Inductees to the National Honor Society never got mentioned. The list goes on. At the moment, we're unsure exactly how to propose, how to approach this large task, but at the end, our idea will ensure students accomplishments always get spotlighted, no matter how small.

015We will work to stop the unfortunate trend of students time and commitment to our school going unrecognized. Thank you very much. Thank you. I I agree. I think that's great. I I look forward to I'm sure you guys can tackle a problem. I'm sure you'll figure it out. Thank you very much. There is that one. I want to say you guys did an amazing job tonight. You did a very very There's a lot you covered. Yes. Um but I agree. We don't celebrate our successes enough. Yeah. And um it's not just at the high school though. There's great things going on at our middle school and our elementary schools as well. And it's one of those things where we have to find a way to make sure these accomplishments are getting out there and we

016can talk I would be happy to be involved in that conversation with Mr. Halt as well here at the high school because I could then bring it down to the other schools too of what we could do to celebrate our successes because we have amazing students doing amazing things in our school district and it should be celebrated agree thank you so much Mr. outcome. And as always, we really appreciate you guys bringing not only the good news and the the positive positive, but bringing us your struggles and bringing us your problems because this is what we really wanted from our student representatives is the whole truth. So, and remember only good things about me. And ladies, you are welcome to stay, but you are also welcome to vote if you have more pressing things to

017do. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Now, we are on to item number seven, presentation. We are going to go ahead and go with our Terryville High School presentation first. Mr. Holtz, Mrs. Herd. Good evening. Welcome. Um, tonight we're we're going to have a little bit of a non-traditional presentation with not a lot of energy. You need a boom box first, but it's it's not going to have a lot of energy. Oh, okay. We're going to keep this simple and quiet. No, people jump. There's a party over here. A party over there. Wave your hands in the air. Secretary. These three words getting busy. Hitman. Upside down and inside out. I'm about to show all you folks what it's all about. Now it's time for us to get on the mic and make

018this mother party. I'm taking it back to the old school cuz I'm a old fool. So cool. If you want to get down, I'mma show you the way. There it is. Let me hear you say it. Yeah, they didn't give them to you to look at. Great. I'm going to turn it over to Riley. Hello everyone. My name is Riley Herald and this is Ashton Spino. We are seniors here at Terville High School and we learned this year about surprise squad which you just experienced when we attended the virtually league climate summit which we'll talk more about in a minute and we wanted to bring this to our own school. Every Friday through teacher nominations we play music and recognize the student of the week for the day. On Friday, they could wear their own

019crown and get a coupon for chips and a drink from the cafeteria, candy, and a certificate. It's just a couple minutes of fun that inspires our peers and recognizes members of our school community. I told myself at home, we even flipped the script and surprised the teacher who the students secretly nominated. Sorry. Emergency at home. In December, members of the student council attended the Berkshire League climate summit at Shap High School. One second. Okay. Okay. In December, members of of the student council attended the Berkshire League climate summit at Chap High School. There were there we attended various seminars and learned about community building activities and programs going on in the neighboring high schools. We brought many ideas back with us including surprise squad. So next I'm going to talk about our kindness um miniigrants.

020We call them kangaroos for kindness. Um about a year ago Mr. Fel Con approached us to share a program that another district saw great success with and these programs are studentled initiatives funded thanks to the board of education with many grants. Our students wrote proposals and Mr. Holtz and I really enjoyed sitting with the students and listening to their ideas of how they wanted to give back to their community. Really, there isn't an idea we will turn down big or small, near or far. It's been really rewarding to work with the students to see their ideas come to fruition. The first one started with the prom dress closet that's upstairs. That's an actual picture of our closet. There's about 300 new and used dresses in there. And we've been able to outfit girls from over

02110 local high schools in the past year alone. Um some other projects that have come from this um along with the dresses Fallon who I think is still here organized um a dog bed and blanket collection in the fall and had great success. We have a student making and selling bracelets to support Connecticut Children's Hospital and we hosted um the variety show in March. We filled the auditorium. It was highly successful. Right Tyler? Yep. and the proceeds from that benefited the Angel Fund. I'm going to turn it over to Marley who's going to share with you two more projects that are still ongoing right now. Good evening. My name is Marley Molick and I'm a junior at Tarville High School. Recently, I was inspired to organize a baby doll drive for dementia Alzheimer's patients when

022my grandmother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. These dolls could create joy in the patients and bring back many memories of parenting and caring for people. This initiative sponsored by the kindness grants is currently ongoing. There are collection boxes at all of the Plymouth public schools kefir counseling, reach for the stars academy of dance and the learning center. If you have any new or gently used dolls, we would appreciate the donation. I'm also going to be sharing for my friend Valerie Puland who couldn't be here tonight about her kindness project. She organized a self-defense class called Escape Alive sponsored by Jane Doe No More. Their organization is offering a free class for up to 50 members of the Terryville and surrounding communities here in the Terryville High School gymnasium on Saturday, May 3rd. Signups are

023now open for this free class for girls and women. Scan the QR code. This information is posted around the building and can be found on the Plymouth Public Schools Facebook page. Thank you. So, as one of the board goals being that of student engagement, um as you can tell just based on the presentation so far, it's been a focus throughout the year. Um wanted to highlight a couple of more recent activities. Uh the first being the variety show, which I'm not going to cover too much because I have more to talk about that later and we've already heard it pop up a couple times here and there. Um but the ruse night was a huge success. That was something that the sophomore class wanted to do as a fundraiser. Um, it was a blast just

024hanging out here from 6:00 to 10 with a bunch of the freshman and sophomores who primarily were the ones that were in attendance. Um, the energy was great all night. Uh, it was really cool to see some of our volleyball girls just school the boys on the court all night long. So, that was a that was a good highlight. Um, but their energy was just through the roof for four hours straight. It was fantastic. Um, gave a really good sense of just the school community. Um, the other thing that we're really proud of and this is the third year that we're in it. Do some clicking? um is our unified buddies which um I don't remember if it was Avery or Fallon brought up that we had a recent meeting um this year it's it's

025been a it's been a little less of what we were hoping for simply because we had really developed a great partnership with Thomas last year um which was fantastic when you consider a lot of the kids that are involved in the unified buddies they don't have the same opportunities as a lot of students interact with kids from other towns whether it's through soccer games or basketball games or whatever the case is um and we had made a really great connection with them. They had a change of staff members um and they haven't really been able to pick up the pieces quite as much. So, we've been doing more on our own which the Nortons, Mr. and Mrs. Norton do a fantastic job with and all the students that participate are incredible. Um but we're looking

026forward to hopefully building that relationship again. It just opens the doors for all of our kids well beyond the walls here at Tville High School. Uh at this point, I'm going to introduce Drew Fowler. He's going to wrap up the presentation. Hi everyone, my name is Drew Fowler. Um, I'm a junior at THS. As some of you may know, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor when I was 4 years old and I've been on treatment for the past 12 years on and off. Um, so last year I had an idea. Since September is pediatric cancer awareness month, I wanted to do something impactful to give back to my hospitals. So on September 21st, 2024, I hosted Drew's Walk of Gold for pediatric cancer in the ths parking lot. It was a fun day. Bands

027played live music. There were food trucks, amazing raffle prizes, a bounce house, and many laps walked around the track. We are so proud to have raised over $16,000 for Connecticut Children's Medical Center and Boston's um Dana Farber Cancer Institute with the help of our wonderful Terville community. I want to give a huge thank you to Mr. Falconee for helping make it all possible. So, thank you for listening to our presentation and a special thank you to the board of ed for your support of the extracurricular activities that benefit the climate and culture at Tville High School. Thank you guys. [Applause] Thanks, Sure. You know, there's so much negativity in in our world all the time and everyone's fighting and arguing. This is what it's about. This is kids doing great, as Fallon said, kids doing

028great things and making a difference in others lives and making a difference in each other's lives. And you know, I got a board of ed sitting with crowns on except for Greg who who just pulled his off right away. But, you know, it starts here and it's giving the administration um the green light and the keys to the car. And that's what we did with Mr. Holtz and Miss Herd when we talked about the initiative and then them giving the keys to the car to the kids and the teachers to make these things happen. And I'm so impressed at what the high school is doing with their culture and climate, their engagement of kids, um, and feeling a piece of this community. So, nice job. It was a great presentation. Thank you. All right. Our

029next presentation is CAPS LCSA. So, each year at our middle school and high school, we identify two students in each of those schools who stand out as outstanding citizens and students. They not only meet a high academic standard, but they also are leaders within their school and they're exceptionally kind to their peers and others in the school. Uh these students are chosen by their teachers and administrators to be named the Lichfield County Superintendent Award winners. Our principles, Mr. Haltz and Mr. Vigaliotti from our high school and middle school are here this evening to share some kind words and introduce our 2025 superintendent award winners. So, I'll go with Mr. Vigliotti first. And I know Mr. Vigliotti and Mr. Haltz have a have a little wager going on and who will speak wonk. I know who

030I have my money. That's no that's no I know who I am my no contest Mr. Come on. Um so thank you for having us here tonight. Um, always nice to be here uh with the board to celebrate our students um which we have two just amazing young people from Eli Terry Junior Middle School here um with us tonight. So, I'm actually going to just introduce them both to you and have them stand next to me while I talk about them for the next uh bunch of minutes. So um our superintendent award winners this year um are Dea Giovakino. So come on up and Eddie Armster. [Applause] So, one of the things um we do at the middle school is, you know, just like at the high school, we have a lot of clubs and

031even if we don't have a club that students are interested in, we encourage them to start their own clubs. Um, and every once in a while, a student does take you up on this offer. And usually what happens is somebody will find me in the hallway and say, "I want to start this club." And I'm like, okay, you know, you need to find a adult that will supervise your club and you need to have, you know, what are you going to do? And um and then sometimes they follow up and and sometimes um they don't. And every once in a while, we start a new club. So, at the beginning of this year, I got this on my desk, which you can't see it probably from where you're sitting, but this says at the top

032of it, film critics club. And I'm going to read to you a little bit from this from this sheet. Eli Terry Junior Middle School is a community with endless opportunities for students to find hobbies of interest. This could be through sports, unified arts, core classes, etc. The most important and effective way to truly find something intriguing to the students at ETJMS is through clubs. To appeal to the interest of every student, Film Critics's Club could allow learners to debate, study, and get a kick out of discussing their favorite movies, all while learning key skills in life. By joining the film critics club, students will develop the ability to critique and analyze different aspects of the film, such as motifs, themes, and directorial choices. Students will also be able to recognize and empathize with various experiences

033and emotions while appreciating visual symbolism, set design and cinematography. And then it proceeds to list the rules of the club. Um my favorite one is the third one which says only write serious feedback and ratings. This is not just for fun, right? Serious business. And then it goes on to describe who the adviser of the club is going to be and and and and so on and so forth. So needless to say, this was not this was an easy club to say yes to. Um and this proposal was written by Dea who founded the film critics club this year with a couple of friends of hers. And it really what I just read to you really speaks to the level of um detail and the level of effort that she's puts into everything that she

034does. Um, you know, aside from founding the Film Critics Club, she's also a three sport athlete. She plays volleyball. She plays basketball. She runs track. How How was that yesterday, by the way? Cold. Cold. Yeah. Yeah. I bet it was cold. Um, they had their first meet yesterday. I saw some pictures and it looked really cold. Um, and DEA's teachers describe her as kind-hearted and conscientious, someone who quietly leads by example and demonstrates the work ethic and grit needed for success at the highest levels. Um, she's just done an amazing job over three years at Eli Tyeria and we couldn't be more proud um to present this award to her. So, [Applause] congratulations. And then we have Eddie. Um Eddie Arburster who the first time I ever met him was three years ago at sixth

035grade orientation night when a couple of nervous parents wheeled him in in a wheelchair because he had what was it? A broken leg. Yeah. And how did you break that leg? Flipped a go-kart. Flipped a go-kart. Right. I remember. That's what you told me. And mom was nervous. a little bit that, you know, Eddie wasn't going to be able to get around the school and and, you know, we went up in the elevator and we had our orientation and then I got to see him every morning when he got dropped off in the back for those first couple of weeks. And so I had that memory of him with the with the cast. Then like a week later, we had a welcome back like uh block party and there's a whole bunch of kids out

036there just in the middle of the parking lot screaming and yelling in a circle and there's someone in the middle dancing and who is it? It's Eddie, you know, and I remember thinking like this is the kid that mom was worried about because he had the cast and he wasn't going to be able to get around. One week later, he's here dancing. And you know, dancing through middle school is basically what he did for the next um three years. Um you know, he did not let that stop him then or you know, any of those years since. Uh Eddie is like an extremely active member of our school community. He's a member of the games club, the Leo club, um student leadership. He's in the video club, which you know, thank you, Eddie, because I

037don't think I could corral all of those sixth graders if I didn't have Eddie to abley assist me and say, "Mr. Vigliotti, I think we need to pull this back a little bit." So, he's always there, my my right-hand man in that club. Um, he's really involved in dance many nights a week, and despite all this, he maintains extremely high achievement in school. So, you know, really impressive. Um Eddie's teachers describe him as someone who brings a positive attitude to everything he does, actively engages classmates in the work process, seeks feedback to improve his learning, is polite beyond his years, someone you can always count on to wish you a nice weekend or ask about what's going on in your life. Um just a really great young man, and again, we're we're thrilled at what

038he's accomplished um in the years he's been with us. And you know, congratulations Eddie. you know, great job. So, you know, thank you, Dean, and Eddie for all your contributions to Eli Terry. Um, we we really feel that you both truly exemplify what it means to show up, work hard, be kind, you know, every day. We know that you're going to have great success in high school and everything you do in the future. So, congratulations. [Applause] I can guarantee I'm not talking that long. Um, I first want to congratulate Eddie and and Deisha. Um, I don't want to put my foot in my mouth, but I am almost positive three years ago Drew and Fallon were in the same spots as you. Yes. Right. Um, and Drew and Fallon have become incredible leaders in our

039school the last three years. Um, and they're going to need to step up big next year. And we're going to need you guys to step up big next year because this year we're losing two huge workh horses that I'd like to recognize tonight. If I can have Cassandra Fortunado and Tyler Le Chance come up. So, if you're familiar with the 8020 rule where or 2080 um where 20% of the people do 80% of the work, this would be more like 595 rule on a conservative day. Um they are the president, vice president of the senior class and hold offices in pretty much every other club we have. Um the amount of work that they accomplish outside of the classroom is incredible. Um, when you get to this point as a senior, the resume speak for

040themselves. They've taken the AP courses, the honors courses, they've excelled in everything they've done. So, what I want to do is talk a little bit about each of them in a separate way. Um, so I'm going to start with Cassandra. Cassandra was a student I don't know that I could remember first two years. Um, you want to talk about a kid that just stayed under the radar, was happy not having anybody know who they were. So then come junior year, I'm starting to get all these forms across my desk. I'm starting to go to these activities and this one name and one face just keeps popping up everywhere. And I'm like, did we get a transfer? Like who who is this kid? Cassandra decided that from sophomore year to junior year, she was going to

041work on being a little bit more extroverted and being more involved in the school. I've got to tell you, there is nothing that happens here in the last few years that I don't think her fingerprints are all over. Um, it's been a an incredible uh transformation. I honestly don't know in all my years that I've ever had a student that went from like a wallflower to somebody that is a huge leader that we have leaned on incredibly for the last two years. Um, I did want to read one thing and I don't know that you have heard this from one of your adviserss. So again, she's part of pretty much every club we have. So she works with a lot of our staff members. So one of her club adviserss had this to say. Cassandra

042organizes and hosts all fundraising and events, including bake sales, paint night, and a fashion show. She is the main driving force behind the club's existence, growth, and activities. She is certainly going to leave a huge gap here when she graduates in two months. Her organization, creativity, genuine character, and her hard work is going to pay off tremendously when she ends up going to McGill University in Montreal in two years. Uh she wants to take a year at Tungstus first to get some of the core credits under her way. Uh she plans on majoring in marketing though and I have no doubt that whatever you do, you are going to knock it out of the park. So that's Cassandra. Tyler, some of you may already know. Uh Tyler was the man behind and kind of in

043front of the curtain of the variety show. We've talked about this a little bit already. I know Mr. Peragina was there that night, so I'm sure you were pretty well entertained. Um, so Tyler came to me with the senior class adviser with this idea for a community event that would also be a fundraiser. And so he's talking about this variety show. And I'm like, "This sounds like it's going to be fun." And I'm kind of like the fund limiter. So I'm going to push back a little bit. So I challenged them. I said, you know, this sounds like a really good idea. Um, I need you to put more into this before we can move forward. I need to know that we have some student staff interest. I want to know kind of how you

044think this is going to go. And I'm like, this should be pretty heavy. He'll take his energy somewhere else. I was wrong. He came back in, I don't know, two or three weeks with this massive like project well underway. Um, so I had no choice but to say yes to it. Um, I even had some fun. If it wasn't for the top 20 or so acts that night, I think I would have been the star of the show. Um but Tyler did a great job um facilitating that and organizing it, leading um mentoring some of the other students as part of it. The success was incredible. Um we had a tremendous amount of community members participate and be involved. Um and I think we raised over $1,500 for the senior class and over $1,500 for

045the angel fund. So it was a huge success on his part. Uh, I have no doubt that the lessons that he learned through that and the skills that he's demonstrated over the last four years are going to benefit him tremendously when he goes to Yukon next year as a business major. And what he doesn't know until right now is that he's going to have a free tuition next year at Yukon because he is officially our valadictorian. [Music] Tyler has been asking Mrs. board the last couple days. Uh we we we stored grades yesterday, but we didn't officialize it till today. Um there's always a couple reports we have to look through and and double check on. Um and so nobody else officially knew. I told Mrs. Herd earlier and I I shared with Mr. Vigatti.

046Um but the counselors weren't quite sure and other teachers were quite yet sure. So congratulations. I'm very jealous of the parents. Just want to say that was gonna ask for more money. Now these outstanding students and their parents have been invited to attend the Lichfield County Superintendent Award program at the Grand Old Villa on May 6th. And so they'll join me there and we'll have a nice uh a nice afternoon. It doesn't end too late. So be nice to see you all there. Before we um kind of let you leave, we like to take a picture with the board if that's possible to post on our website. So, we're not going to take a full official break with the Burger King crowd here, but if you could remove your crowns and maybe we could take

047a quick picture with our superintendent awardwinners, that would be great. Yep. And state your name and address for the record and we will be happy to hear from you. Virginia Kane 18 Adam's stride. Um, I've spoken up before about how I believe there should be more family involvement in terms of families being included in the classroom, awards ceremonies, school and classroom events, celebrating these children's successes, collaborating with families, and fostering relationships to make the best possible school atmosphere for our young children at Plymouth Center School. And tonight, I'm here again. It has been months um since I last spoke. I decided to stop wasting my time coming here to the meetings and instead watch from home because why am I going to stand up for what I believe in when I'm constantly met with resistance

048and opposition and I just end up losing out on time with my children. However, since then I have talked to more parents, have had people reach out to me about things I have said and share their similar frustrations. Have had parents stop me in the PCS parking lot and say, "Hey, thanks for posting on Facebook. Tell me they appreciate me trying, appreciate me taking a stand." have had other parents reach out to me sharing that they have been met with the same resistance I as I have. I could go on and on about the conversations and ways people have reached out to me with the same frustrations in the past few months. While I still have the same frustrations I voiced months ago, tonight I stand here and ask you one to direct the superintendent

049and principal of Plymouth Center School to initiate a kindergarten graduation at Plymouth Center School and two to ask yourselves why it took me coming here and why there has been such resistance to have one. Before coming here, I reached out to PCS about kindergarten graduation this year, which I know is not the first year this has been a request. I offered to do whatever it would take to make one happen, and I was told no. We are bringing back Teddy Bear Picnic. I put a poll on Tarville Talks asking if community members thought PCS should have a kindergarten graduation. Hundreds of votes in the overwhelming response was yes. 89% yes the last time I checked. I also did a Google survey and the only person who responded that PCS shouldn't have a kindergarten graduation doesn't

050even have a child at PCS. It is clear parents want a kindergarten graduation. Just because you have a teddy bear picnic doesn't mean you cannot have a graduation. There should be multiple opportunities for families to celebrate their children and witness their accomplishments and respectively. I'm not talking about volunteering at the school store or book fair or attending bingo. All things which I have done. One of the reasons I've heard for parents not being able to attend the bucket filler awards or for the limited school celebrations is they do not want kids feeling left out when parents cannot attend. I understand that. After all, I may not be able to attend every event and I know my husband won't be able to. However, that doesn't mean I want these young children missing out on core memory.

051Even more important, we are parents. We make things work. We make things happen. I've even heard board members themselves say this exact thing at the last couple of meetings. Another reason I've heard is we've never done that. Quite honestly, that is irrelevant. Just because you haven't done something doesn't mean you can't start doing something. Why be stuck in your ways? There's no reason not to have a kindergarten graduation, especially when you have so many parents wanting one and so many parents who would help. make a kindergarten graduation happen. You have many parents ready and willing to help, but we just give up and walk away because of the constant resistance we are met with. I'll leave you with some of the comments that were put on the Google survey I did. This is a big

052milestone for our little ones. Why should it not be celebrated? I went to TCS as a child and remember they did a lot more back when I was a kid. These children nowadays deserve the same or even better. Um, preK4 and kindergarten should have graduations at the end of the year. Kindergarten is an end to the beginning chapters of the school journey. Why should it not be celebrated? Hi everybody. Erica Lavoy to Magnolia Lane. I am going to address the same exact topic that Virginia just addressed, but in a different manner. So, an email was sent out to the PCS parents about the teddy bear picnic for kindergarteners. As most of you know, I was one of the parents that was extremely discouraged last year after the kids at PCS had half days the entire

053last week of school to learn that not one of those afternoons was used to celebrate our kindergarteners or any of the kids for that matter. Regardless of what you personally may think it's whether it's necessary or not necessary, this is something that is regularly practiced in many different districts and it's something that we are choosing again to not practice or bring forward as a new tradition for whatever reason. I personally don't understand your reasoning behind keeping the traditional event that our district had 10 years ago. I'm here to remind you that the celebration you're resurrecting is not inclusive to some of today's kids. An overwhelming majority of kids are not able to read at a kindergarten level. You can look it up. And if they can read, it's memorization rather than fluency. My older daughter

054is one of those kids that would have struggled to read a book at a picnic like that. So, while I can appreciate the effort that's being made in celebrating our children, I suggest you think hard about the fact that you're bringing back a tradition from 10 years ago when we're not dealing with the same population of children that we had 10 years ago. As I've spoken up about this before, 5% of kids have a learning disability. One in 36 has autism. These children no doubt have difficulties reading. So, a tradition like you're suggestion like you're suggesting is voluntarily choosing to leave those kids out or more so put them in a situation to have to do something that they know that they cannot do well, but that other children around them potentially can do well.

055I'm going to say this again and I'll say it nicely. I have a very feisty three-year-old that recently started school at Plymouth Center. I'm not going to settle for a teddy bear picnic celebration when she is finishing kindergarten because while I do want to be optimistic and I will hope and pray and do everything within my power and everything within the power of the team that's working with her at PCS that she would be able to read at a picnic like that. It's not going to be that some it's not going to be something that will be very inclusive for her and she's just one child. However, she's a child that guarantees this district a lot of money. So, based on her disability, so I really, really, really recommend that you go back to the

056drawing board in regards to that celebration because you really should. It is not that hard. And you have parents at least for the next three years, you have me. And again, we have a month old here, so you're going to have me for another five years at least. Same thing with Virginia. She has a younger son at home, too. We can do better as a district, and our kids deserve better, so please consider giving them better. Thank you. Melanie Church, 328 Main Street. Here we saw four high school kids or eight high school kids that have accomplished miracles. Maybe this should be a challenge put out to the staff. There's only 17 or 18 kids. How long is it going to take to have a graduation and have it at the end of the day

057the last day of school for them? Every child is important no matter what age. And that might cause enthusiasm to come back the next year because it's something they're being recognized for. When you take a child and you recognize them for something, what do they do? They light up. And that's every kid. And if other districts are doing it, why can't Plymouth do it? and challenge the staff, you know, and I'm sure a lot of the teachers wouldn't mind doing it. What's it going to take? 45 minutes. But it makes parents happy and kids. Then when you ask, gee, will you join the PTA? You know, yeah, they did for us, you know, and that's the way you get the village to grow. And we need the town to grow and we need to become

058a village. That separation of parties or separation of the old against the young, it needs to be off. And I'm going to invite anyone that's interested. I still have the petition going. I'm down to 35 and we can do it. And I believe that's enough to bring to bring a village into Anyone else for public comment? Do we have any online comments? Oh, I remember. You remember? And there's none. Okay. All right. Seeing no further public comment, we will move on to the superintendent update. Thank you. Uh, good evening everyone. Um, I'd like to start by welcoming Jerry Goldener to the board of education. I have been fortunate enough to work with Jerry in the past as a former board member. Um, when he served I don't know how many years ago, Jerry, do you

059remember years? It was 10 or 11. 10 or 11 years. So, Jerry's matured a lot. Um, so we're happy to have him back on the board. Um, the the one thing about uh Gary that aligns with our current board is that he always puts children in our schools first. And so I'm I'm really happy to be working with Jerry again on our board. So, um, I really look forward to our work together. Uh, yesterday evening, Matt, myself, and Mr. Peragino uh went to the board of finance to discuss the sinking fund and the three projects we were requesting as a board to be done. Two at Plymouth Center and one at Fiser Elementary. Just as a reminder, we talked about that the catwalk that overlooks the gym. Uh to enclose that for some safety concerns

060that we have seen there. Uh the price tag on that is $38,535. We also talked about the playground fencing um on the right side of Plymouth Center School where our kindergarteners are now going out to play. Uh there's no fence currently that leads up to the parking lot and putting a fence there for that playground. That's a $7,650 expense. And then the bathroom sinks at um Fiser Elementary, which are all exposed underneath. Some are taken off the walls from from previous incidents that might have occurred. And the these funds are coming out of our syncing fund are a non-lapsing account. They uh last night approved the board of finance approved all three projects and they gave us an additional 20% contingency if needed on those projects. Anything that that we don't use will go right

061back into that non-lapsing for syncing from the calendar. Additionally, at last night's meeting, we had to discuss revisions to the non-lapsing count um or the syncing fund account per this the state statute. With the former statute, the town had a larger role in making decisions about the non-lapsing account, especially in terms of deposits and what we would spend our money on. With the revised statute that was revised on May 21st of 2024, the town's involvement has been removed from the process. We did all decisions regarding the accounts of a local school board. I would say um through our conversation and I I don't know if if either of you would disagree that the board of finance finance felt a little uncomfortable with this the statute change. They knew it wasn't our our doing but they

062were a little uncomfortable. So, we discussed creating some sort of an agreement between the board of finance and the board of education that will continue the the the reasoning and the rationale of why we've used that account in the past for um for projects that deal with like infrastructure and emergency uh purposes only. Um, and we also spoke to them about bringing these projects to them to discuss with them, not to have approval, but to discuss with them prior to doing anything, just so we're working together still with the statute that's in place. Uh, and I plan on talking to you more about this in a possible agreement um in executive session. I got I got a lot I just started. I got a presentation. I'm going up there in a moment. boy. Uh on

063March 17th, Matt and I met with the interim superintendent, the business manager, and the transportation director from the Waterberry public schools for our Waterbury Magnet School transportation concern that that we're dealing with. At the meeting, we discussed transportation budgets and the current outdated agreement between both districts. At this point in time, I'm waiting to hear back from the interim superintendent on if Waterberry will be able to support and assist the Plymouth families in transportation to the magnet schools. So, Waterberry is looking at possible solutions. Um, he has just not gotten back to our parents and or us with regard to what those could be. As you're aware, we're in the middle of conducting a school climate study across all four of our schools. Our goal is to survey all the students, all the faculty, and

064as many parents as possible um as we sent it out to them and a reminder to them to gather information to help develop individual school climate improvement plans. The plan I have is sharing the themes found within those those surveys with the board and the individual school climate plans with the board prior to summer break. That's the hope of of what we're going to do here. So, gather the information for all the stakeholders. Um, some of the student responses are quite amusing. Um, but overall, um, that's what the plan is to get you the information of what our parents, students, and faculty are feeling about our schools. I would also like to update the board on where we are with their 2025 2026 budget. I did this last evening with the board of finance and

065I feel that the board should see the same information that the board of finance saw last night. So, do you guys have that pull up real quick? So just since um the last time you spoke about some things have changed and some some more um some more expensive but I wanted to show you the budget increases across other town on average budget as today is 56% And the average board of educational adoptation brought some positions right now. So, we're still under I think it's important to point out the contraction. You've seen this before just how much chang are going up $1.7 million. Those are all expenses that we can't operating cost. So that is more than one more than the average and it's what we're all doing. It's not just our school. This is across

066the state right now. And that's why budgets are coming in as high as they are because it's very hard to function your your staffing and your your programs intact. And looking at small 4.3 budget two fulltime positions and five parttime positions. There's seven positions in our budget that are being eliminated right now. In addition, we're eliminating a number of other things including administrative work, transportation, or magnitude transportation, so on and so forth. Moving money for salaries into grants to cover people are our most important assets working for. But right now, our budget elimination 678,568. So again, that's seven positions and a number of other this is where we stand right now. We also talked about adding two positions to the budget. We talked about security here at the high school that we put in place

067now based on circumstances situations and he talked about how we're going to eliminate the position of the teacher fulltime and contract services that transition But really the true we also in creating a budget Matt myself and the administrative team pulled out one time and we look at things that we can pull out to try to lower our budget for things that we actually one as everyone knows on it every month that we have uh school that we're responsible for and so that we're going to be about $15,000 right now. We also took out some technology infrastructure that's our service and the switches that governor So we pulled that up, but we were hoping that onto the end of the year it um and we also have the middle school program that we spoke about earlier

068today in our communication. So those pieces it looks like we'll be able to possibly end the district hardware upgrade that we started out because right now we're setting up the technology and also we were looking for some sort of technology found out a camera wasn't working out we wanted to We want more set up microphone clear out some stuff very important. I would say everything else. So here's our budget. This is what it looks like. It shows you what our current operated. Yeah. It's current report of that operating budget, the original submitted budget, the budget eliminations that we have in place, the excess cost reimbursement, and then the budget additions. And you see where we fall at 4.33 for our budget. But there are some new concerns. As you see on the bottom, it says

069new concerns. Uh they're pretty significant concerns to be honest with you. unexpected items that we we did not budget and weren't planning on budgeting that have been brought to us. When Matt and I created the budget, we decided to take a little bit of a risk. We had a cap on our health and benefits and insurance at 11%. We were hoping it would come in more at around 9%. But we were wrong. Um I'd like to blame Matt for this one, but I'll take some of the blame as well. probably 2575. Um, but it came in at about $100,000 more than we were expecting or hoping for. So, that will be added onto additional eliminations and cuts that will happen to. We also had a an employee that a life-changing circumstance um and so they

070were not on medical benefits, but because they had a life changeing circumstance, they're now on our family plan. So that's $35,000 increase to our budget. And then we have a special ed education student that we are looking to possibly outplace and the tuition and the transportation would be approximately $175,000. And then as of yesterday, we received um an update on Waterberry's um special education services for our students that attend the magnet schools that we send them to. some of their prices doubled for us. We have no control over that. They um give us this bill after our budget's already created. So it and we start in a deficit and that's why there's a question mark there because all of our outplacements whether it be Oliver Wilo um quite a few uh now the the magnet

071schools they they change those fees and we can't do anything really about it. So that's a question mark on how much that's going to go up. But right now in that chart underneath is probably the most important piece of any slide. It says the impact of receiving the mayor's recommended 2.85% increase in our budget and with the unexpected items that were not budgeted in this budget. Even after cutting the two full-time teachers, the five part-time teachers, and all of those items in our budget, including transportation, all those things, we still need to cut approximately 705 76,000 out of our budget. That is really, really significant. That's a big number. And when you look at the bottom line, we currently have already cut those positions and we've cut 678586 out of our budget. We're going to

072do an additional 705901 if the mayor's re recommended budget of 2.85 goes through. This is six to seven more full-time employees on our staff. Additionally, the police department is looking to possibly cut our SRO. So, they have one position to cut and they're cutting the resource, the most important resource for safety to our school with their choice of cuts. Very very difficult for for us and for for me to to hear. And we, you know, we brought in a lot of great programs. STEM programming in our elementary school, library media in our elementary schools. Uh we brought in our our tech, our wood shop and teched uh department back into the middle school, family and consumer science back into the middle school. We brought in and revised our our career center, our culinary program. We've

073done so many things. If this is the trend we're going to have where we're cutting 14 to 15 positions a year, people want choice at our high school or courses they could take and electives they can take and they want choice at our middle school where kids should be exploring what's out there for them. This makes us get to the point where we could only offer what we could afford to offer. We have requirements with regard to special education. We have class sizes that we're worried about. We have our reading program and our math program at our elementary where we're rebuilding the foundation and how we're moving through our school system. And we have to start prioritizing uh when we have to make these cuts and it's very very challenging. As I said to the

074board of finance last night, something has to give because this can't be what it is every year where the board of ed while we have a $27 million budget. We can't be taking these types of hits because as I've shown in my presentation, in my original presentation, you see where the positions are. there's nothing else for us to really give without impacting class sizes or programs. And so this trend has to stop and we have to figure out how we can work with the town to do that. And with that, I wanted the board to know and I wanted the public to know that the decision on our final number for the budget is going to be made by our town council on April 21st at 6 o'clock in the community room at town hall.

075Uh the town council does set our budget. The recommendation by the mayor is the recommendation by the mayor. The recommendation by the board of finance is the recommendation by the board of finance. The town council is the one that sets that budget. So, we have um after that meeting, after we receive our budget from the town council, we have scheduled a special board of education meeting the evening of April 23rd at 5:00 in Tville High School library to discuss any additional budget cuts that for position eliminations that we might need to make. I am meeting with our administrative team on the 22nd. I'm trying to move through this process quickly out of respect to the employees that might lose their jobs because the sooner they know that we're not having them back based on budgetary

076concerns, the sooner they can get out looking for positions. These are people's lives. So, the town council meeting happens on the 21st. I meet with my administrative team on the 22nd. I meet with the board on the 23rd. And I'm hoping that we can have our budget all set by them so we can inform these people um if there's any additional um of their positions being eliminated. And I'm sorry my presentation wasn't as good as the high school one or or the superintendent award one, but um it's just a reality of where we are. And finally, as a reminder, the school district will be closed April um 14th through April 18th for our April break. And that's all I have to say. Sorry to be so longwinded. That's okay. All right. We are now on

077to item number 10, unfinished business. Item A. Um, I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the 2026 2027 school year calendar as presented. So move. Second, Greg. And who was a second? Any discussion on that? I do. Yeah. All right. So, when I looked at it, we're going to start two weeks before Labor Day. Going to start the 24th, you believe? 20 25th is when the kids [Applause] start. I have here the 24th. 20 the the 19th and 20th. Our teacher, it's our convocation and teacher professional development. Correct. The teachers would not have were completely closed, not the district, but the teachers wouldn't report on the 21st. The 24th would be another teacher PD day and the kids would start the 25th. And Jerry, the reason why we did that is off of the

078teachers um and the administrators coming to me saying that a five day week for the kids to start off the year was too much. And so we pushed it. we pushed the whole uh calendar off that day that aligns with with next year's calendar. Okay. So, the concern that I have is that we're technically going two weeks before Labor Day because Labor Day is the 7th of September. Correct. Okay. Um, as most of you know, I'm a terrible lion and I called some individuals from to find out when our prayer was going to be, which is going to be the 28th, 29th, and 30. And I know the border bed, well, not the border bed, but there's certain organizations in the high school that have booths at the fairgrounds. Okay. And I know usually when

079the custodians come up and maintenance come up at the time um usually it's a last minute thing that they're coming up before the fair because they've tried to get everything ready for the schools and stuff. So my personally my own concern is that a kids starting two weeks before Labor Day and there's a lot of things going on and many legislatures throughout the country that they would like to see schools start after Labor Day. We're going to start going two weeks before Um, and because of the fact of the amount of time that we need, well, not only the time, but the students that come up to the fair to help us with the fair, which helped us out tremendously. I'm just I just have some concerns. Anybody else are you proposing like half day

080on Friday the 28th or are you looking to start on the 31st or the 1st actually or Jerry I just want to point out one thing to you too because we at the last meeting the board approved the 2526 calendar revisions this is 20 this is the not next year following I just want to make sure you No I know worry about it And that's why I made some phone calls because when I looked at it's like two week when I spoke to somebody from the lines they're like well do they understand the amount of of uh input that we need from the students that need to come and help us specifically in this in the food booth and also when they have their own booths there are these kids going to be able to

081manage not only because if they're going to be coming to school on the 28th, that means that at 4:00 when the fair opens, they're going from high school to the fair. And then they're 16. Yes, I get it, Karen. Okay, no problem with that. I get it. The thing is is that um I mean, me personally, I think it's a week too early. That's that's my personal interpretation because of the fact usually when Labor Day is late, we usually go to the last week of August into September. Now, we're just going a week ahead. And I think personally, I think it's a little too early. But, and I also look at that when if you do that, then you're going to look at grad at the last day of school being the 14th instead of

082the 7th if you were to move it. Right now it's the 8th. Well, that class on means if we move it, it would go over. Yeah, but right now the last day of school is is the 8th. I think you got I think you have the wrong calendar. I have no idea. It's got a red mark on mine. It says 7th and it says 10 of the last day of school. Again, Patrick's learned how to highlight. So, let's let's cut our So, I guess I didn't get the revised condition. It's just what you're one day off. I get it. But I understand that. So, I mean, that's only my concern. All right. I mean, I don't have personally I don't have any kids in the school system, you know, but I'm just looking at it

083from a viewpoint of um an outside entity that that that technically, you know, utilizes the kids in this town and in this high school for something that goes on that's a staple in this town for what the last 77 years. Okay. So, that's it. I mean, that's my input. Yeah. You know, absolutely. I think was part of the reason for starting early so we could get that full February break off which is really important to break the cycle of illness in the middle of winter. It it is I mean it it we don't we don't we don't in our district we don't give off for the Jewish holidays as they would in other districts andor other holidays that are now being given off in other schools. When I say off, we mean students off. Um,

084we we built it into February break because we built it around that that President's Day and it's one of those I think it's one of those breaks that our our teachers and students appreciate based on not only coolness um but on on just the time of the year and you need to take a broad um so I mean that that's built in there again if if we're going to move the calendar um over. It's It's really up to the board of of how you want to go about that. Um I think this is the normal, if I'm not mistaken, Pat, you you I've been here longer than me. Um this is a kind of where we always start, correct? Right around that date. So I don't know if Labor Day I don't know what happened

085with the calendar of why it's different, but this is our our normal start date. It's nothing unusual to start at that time for us. So point counterpoint agree to disagree. I'm just ultimately it's it's up to the board of what of what you want to do. I mean this is the recommend recommend recommended calendar that our administrative team and myself are bringing forward to the board. But if there are things that um you know there are concerns from board members with regard to timing and the impact it could have on on the town and community um we're going to school 180 days. So we'll figure out when those are going to be. Anybody else have a thought on that? What do you think? Well, I'm not sure that we uh need to get into the

086details, but the administrative team sets up the schedule for the year. I think we should rely on that, not get into details. Okay. Who else? I agree with the team set it up with they run the school. We don't I think our students are also quite skilled at multitasking and playing sports and other volunteer commitments they have. But I'm all for an early dismissal and extra early dismissal on my Friday you. You're not getting that early. I wonder too honestly I wonder if it might to get a little make it a little easier for people who organize the volunteers if since the kids are already back in school usually if they're not I don't know how they organize the volunteers it's a challenge every year. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. But they'll already be here.

087So that part might be a little easier. Yeah, I don't know. Again, a half day is something that I try not to put the half days in because it's a hardship on parents, but if if not so much the high school parents, but the uh elementary parents, we tried to limit the number of, you know, with parent conferences and some PDR, we have to build those in. But um if that's something that the board would feel appropriate, whatever you want to do, I think it's kind of a small handful of students to affect the entire district. I'm sure that the students that really want to be there and help, maybe they will just get permission to leave school early to be there community service hours or something. I don't know. But I mean honestly to

088get out of school what 2ish 212 212 and the fair isn't opening until 4. So on average how many students do we have that actually work throughout a weekend it's pretty sign I'm talking Friday night. Um it's there's a lot of prep work. I think Jerry's right. I mean we when we pull our booths out of the storage um they need some sprucing up. Uh, so we sometimes it's paint, sometimes it's just cleaning. Uh, it takes a while, but you usually have some parents and students out there taking care of it. Um, and I don't I don't know the number. We have like three booths, I want to say, Jar. Uh, yes. And so we'll have, you know, one's a music booth and so we'll have them. No, it's two. No, I think um lemonade

089potatoes and lemonade. Yes, they got rid of pretzels. I never thought I'd be talking about this sort of work. Yeah, whatever. They got rid of present, but there's two now. So, but but I mean again, we're going to accommodate for that with the students that need to be there and we'll take care of that. I mean, again, I would think we do every year, but I understand what you're saying where you'll have to accommodate your maintenance staff, too. It's usually there last minute. Okay, Matt. Yeah, it's great. It's great. Is the the first focus for our custodial staff is the buildings and the fair with where it's held now. It is something that we have to build into the schedule, but it is typically one of those things that's last minute. It's done a couple

090days before the fair actually open when we get them up. But we get them up every year. Yeah, we hope. Are we ready to vote? You think? Good. All right. So, we have a motion on the floor to approve the school year calendar as presented. Have discussion. I will take the vote. All in favor? I opposed. Jerry. Any abstensions? Okay. Motion carries. All right. Now we are on to our second read of the modified policies and the new policy. This is a pol a possible motion item here. Um should you make the motion before the discussion or just discuss it first? Okay. So we're going to go ahead and open up the um policies to discussion. These are the policies that we got before that are now on a second read. I have a question.

091Sure. For the bylaws for two years, what about if we shorten it to like a year or six months? Because for an example, you never know if a position might open up in the middle of a year and for somebody to have to wait a full two years. Like somebody like Jerry has already been on the board and is very familiar with um policies and stuff like that. So maybe instead of it being two years, it's six months or a year. So this way if a position opens up midterm, there could be a possibility for somebody else being elected. So if something ever happens in this, all the senior members of the board of education couldn't return. That board is screwed. They couldn't vote for anybody. Well, we don't ever have no all new board

092members. Yeah. No, just in case it did happen, there's always a possibility. And I can if I may interject, of course, this is Let's say let's say for instance, let's say this year five members are up for election. Okay. Um the five members that are up for election decide they don't want to run, right? So now you're going to get five new people that are on and doesn't matter whether they're Democrats or Republicans. All right? Those individuals come in. The remaining four, none of them want to be the board chair, you know, even though they're eligible because you put in your policy that you have to be on the board for at least two years. Okay. What if they don't want to do now then? What do you do? Now you're you're putting your policy

093in in in effect. We are putting Okay. Well, okay. Not me. I It's not my policy. Well, and use the wrong ad. So, we are going to put a policy in effect where down the road it could be something. It's the old what if situation, but when you get to the what if, then what do you do? Because there are some people and they don't want all they want to come here, sit here, do what they need to do. They don't want any I call them headaches. Okay? All they want to do is just I'm on the board of education. I'm there to fight for education in this in this town and for kids, but I don't want to be in the forefront. No. Anybody who's been like that for how many years? Well, I'm

094just saying there are first time I'm sitting, isn't it? And there it's a great place to be. So if you get into a situation where you have five new board members and the the four board members that get to the point where hey I like sitting where I'm sitting. I don't want to be where I'm in. Now you're going to be in a situation where your policy tells you you got to have somebody that has two years of experience. All right. Then the other part of the policy is when you have you have to be there for 70%. I'll use in my own my own reference when I used to work for the city of Bristol. Okay, between November and March would be a tough time for me because I work in public works and

095I deal with snow. Okay, I go in on a Tuesday morning at 7 o'clock. We have a big snowstorm comes, I get home at 3:00 in the afternoon on a Wednesday because I just put in a 32-hour day. Um, I'm more than likely going to bed, right? But if you have the potential to miss five months in a row, do you think you should be in the leadership position? not saying that. Okay. You absolutely are saying that. Okay. So, but there are issues that you have to take into consideration. There is a possibility that and believe me Pat, you know, um back when you were the board chair, we had a gentleman and this is when I first came on the board when Dr. Dazzi was here, we had a gentleman that was on the

096board that would leave and you might have been there too, Karen. I'm not really sure and I don't remember what his name is. I know you would know his name, but he was on the board. But he would leave in a right after the October meeting and he would go down to Florida and he wouldn't come back until more than likely the May meeting. I know what you're talking about. I don't remember his name either, but I know who you're talking about. Right. And he and I know for a fact that he was on when I was on the board because I got appointed and then I got elected. So I think he was on the board in that six years that I was there. So even with that individual if you decided that he

097wanted to be in your share in your and you would want that I'm but I'm just saying the thing is is that I I get what you what the board is trying to do. Okay. The issue that I'm having is that what are you going to do if you get into the position where let's say for instance uh I'll use this as an example myself who's retired now and if I were hypothetically in your seat and my wife decides that we're going to Florida for the next five months. All right. and we're so does that mean that I hypothetically should resign that position? Don't you think? How would the meeting run if you're in Florida and you don't have meetings for five months? The vice chairman does that's what the vice chair but I'm just

098just to clarify just to clarify if you're on remote you are here at the meeting. So I know that Michelle there was a number of meetings where she was remote. She was present because she was remote into the meeting. We talk about that's new. Um so you can as a board member log in and be remote into a meeting. Okay. All right. So I just wanted to clarify that. You know I'm just No, I know you're throwing some stuff out there. I got but you know look I I have a white I have a white one. every you know but you know when I'm reading this I'm not I come to board meetings when I can you know I sit in the back I listen and then I leave so I'm just asking questions hypothetically

099what could happen so if there's a situation where hypothetically an individual who's retired and his wife decides they want to go if they can do it remotely well there you go all right you have like this evening uh this if somebody was on remotely and wanted to ask a question wow that's a that's a really nice choice for somebody who just can't come to a meeting. All right. So, I actually did some research on this. There's no law backing this up and it's the state of Connecticut. And I also found out that a lot of boards of education who have instituted this are losing in court and has been challenged in court. And again, it's it's someone wants to challenge us in court. the what I what I could tell you is uh working and

100and obviously things that go through go through through our attorneys as well. The the board has a right to set up bylaws to protect themselves from things. So the bylaws a board sets up can be geared specifically towards the board of education. this board made the decision that the two years of consecutive service was important to this board and that was voted in. So when we're talking about the two years of consecutive service, that's a policy that's in place currently right now. What we're discussing is what's in blue in the policies with the 70% of the regular schedule of board of education meetings. um in each of their two year previous years of service in order to be eligible. That's the the new component of the the current policy that's in place. That's the revision

101taking place. Everything else is current policy. If if the concerns of the policy of the two consecutive years, that would then be a discussion for the the policy subcommittee to have to make a revision to that bylaw. If the concern is about the 70% eligibility and that is is felt that it's not appropriate um then again it would go back to the curriculum I'm sorry the the policy subcommittee for them to talk about and make revisions to that. They might move the number off to 80%. They might take the number out completely. they might adjust this whole policy to a six-month period or a nine-month period or uh whatever period they they feel is appropriate and bring it back to the board. It comes back to the board. But until there's a decision made on

102the two consecutive years, that's current board policy that we have in place. But this does not mean that the revision has to be accepted this evening by the board. can get kicked back to the policy subcommittee and doesn't mean that the 2-year consecutive term even though it was just put into place at the our last meeting or or the prior meeting before I think it was January's meeting um it doesn't mean that that can't be shifted either going back to the subcommittee if there's concerns with regard to that I just wanted to clarify those things but Greg to your point yes there are there are different laws out there and I I'm aware of the laws But the this board has a right to put in protections that are are legal and reasonable um to

103to obtaining and upholding the integrity of the board. Right. So that's I'm saying the research I did, I found a lot of school boards, if they had been sued on this, they're losing in court. I I don't know. I don't know if Shipman would agree with that. I would I would go back to them on that with the the policy. um again if we needed to. But um again I I do know that the board has right to bylaws. I just want to clarify on my understanding of what bylaws are that these are not laws that um come from the state or from anywhere. These are kind of like our governing principles that we agree as a board to abide by. So, and I think like just for me personally, and I know for many

104of you here, we're here every month. We show up and we're committed to doing the work. And I think that's really important because if there's one thing that is consistent in education is that it constantly changes. And when you miss meeting after meeting after meeting, a lot of things can fall through the cracks. Like you hear every month, we have curriculum. We have new laws and regulations that seem to change every 10 minutes coming out of the state. We have safety concerns. We have facilities pipes breaking and all kinds of like crises that come up all the time. So whether there's a specific number in the policy or not, I think as adults who are elected by members of the community to represent them and to be advocates for our children, like it it shouldn't

105even need to be said that obviously you should be here as much as you possibly can barring of course everybody gets sick or has in family emergencies or breaks their leg or you know like cut has a surgery like things come up but I think if the mentality is like ah barely 70% like that's you know that's fine I just think as adults and people who represent our community and these kids they deserve to have people who are committed to showing up for them um and I if I'm misunderstanding what the bylaws are those are more like our commitments to this board and to the community that this is how we're going to govern ourselves. And I I could be misunderstanding what bylaws are. That was kind of like how I understood it. Not that

106this is like um a state thing. This is like we agree as members of this board to show up for each other and to show up for our students in this community. So, I mean, I just think it's important to be here, whe quite honest with you, that's what we're elected to do when you run for office. If you're going to run for run for the board of education, say, "I'll go there when I can." I don't know how many votes you're going to get. Be honest with you. That's how I feel about it. I mean, you accept, you accept position, do the job. Don't do the job. Find somebody else. Sounds harsh, but that's the way it should be. Well, and to be clear, we're not kicking anybody off the education if they're not

107here. That's not legal. It's Yeah, we're not we're not telling the only people that can do that are we're just saying that perhaps a better position for someone who isn't here 70% of the time would be just a member and not a member of the leadership part of board of education. He's dealing with $27 million budget. You know, just like Kelly said, things happen every day. You got 68,000 gallons of water pouring down Eli Terry. You know, I mean, this board should understand what's going on down there. What we're trying to do, what Matt's trying to do down there, Brian's trying to You have to be there to check that stuff, you know. So then why do you have to attend the meeting? Pardon me. And why do you need a policy guy? Everybody here

108is and I know it for my own self. I'll speak for my own self. I know that when I was either appointed or elected, I knew that it was my to me to do a due diligence to get to every single meeting I need to because like Kelly said, you never ever know what's going to go on at a board meeting. So why now do you all of a sudden have to have a policy to tell you that if you don't come to 70% of the meeting, you can't be a, you know, you can't be one of the ei the chairman, the vice chair, or the secretary. Why do you need that? That should come right from the board chair who has to speak to the individual who's not showing up. You know, if you

109can't show up, then do yourself a favor and go to your whichever town committee you're on, okay? and tell them that you have to resign because we need people we what would happen if all of a sudden everybody had the attitude ah so what it's a board meeting tonight what do I care if you don't have a quorum well you can't have a meeting so if you uh what what is it to have a quorum meeting you need five okay what happens if you showed up one night there was only four people showed up okay that's a total disservice to being on the board of education total disservice as the five individuals those four individuals didn't show up. And if they did it three or four months in a row where you can't have that's

110up to the board chair to talk to those individuals and ask them, you know, respectfully and out of common courtesy that if you don't want to be here, then do yourself a favor and talk to your to your town chairs, okay, for your uh town committees and tell them that, you know, unfortunately I can't do it. All right? So, in all honesty, Pat, my own personal opinion is that sometimes you have to use peer pressure for some individuals. You have to just tell them that look, we get it. At some point in time, you wanted to be on the board of ed or you wanted to be on a town call, you wanted to be on whatever you wanted to be on, but if you can't serve, then do us all a favor. All right?

111Especially the individuals that show up. Follow your pride. Go to whomever you need to talk to. put in your resignation so that they can put somebody on whatever board it is, whether it's, you know, the board of education, the town council, whatever, and then so we can move on and get business done. Because if you can't get business done and it's not worth if you if you can't show up for a meeting because you can't make a commitment that it's up to you as an individual to realize that, I need to step up and just say I can't do it. But if they don't step up, then they get voted out next time. Pardon me. Then they get voted out the next time. So So you'll sit there one person that's not showing up. No,

112I mean you're always you're always going to have a quarum. I really believe that. I really believe I get it. I understand. But you know there there's subcommittees and everything else that we have to do that stuff. That was that was my concern is that if we are having people who are not showing up for the at bare minimum of 70% at these meetings when I first got on the board and I don't know how long it was happening our subcommittees weren't meeting and I don't know why that was because I you know came on after that had started but at least for the first year I was on this board we had no policy no curriculum um do finance meetings and that's actually a violation of our bylaws because we're supposed to meet regularly.

113So I mean and I think again this is our due diligence. We are adults and we need to make sure that when we choose people for leadership roles that they are going to be people that show up and that put in the extra time when when you're on the board like yes some people will just come to this meeting but other people are on multiple committees or have multiple liaison commitments and do a lot of extra. So, those are the people we should look to in the leadership roles, not the people who think it's okay to barely show up 70% of the time. I just I I don't know. I just think it I mean, my my personal self, I show up all the time, as much as I can, unless I'm deathly ill or

114something's wrong with my kids. And I understand that many people do that. So I mean whether it's a policy or not I think we as adults who are responsible for the lives of 1200 children in this community like they deserve to have us be here to do the work. Anyone have any discussion about this policy or any other policy that we have before us? Yep. Go ahead. Um, I quickly I didn't get this packet till yesterday. Okay. So, I was doing some enormous reading this morning. Okay. Um, we're doing something with cell phones. That's cell phone call. Yeah, this is cell phone. Okay. So, and just watching just watching the news andor I know the governor right now has been advocating for school systems to have a um cell phone policy where they put the

115cell phones in some type of pack gender pack. Some schools have that. Yeah. Okay. So that's his that's his big thing right now where because he's feeling that cell phones are a huge dist distraction and he's going to buy them for all the districts, right? Don't count on it. Sorry. I know. I get it. Yeah. Like one of those unfunded things. Like please, please, please. Okay. I don't want to mandate it to you. All right. But please on your own valition, can you please do this? I get it. I get it. We all read between the lines. Okay. Sometimes when you read between the lines, sometimes you get the wrong the wrong line. Yeah. Okay. Um but I know I think New Haven just did I saw I thought I want to see maybe last

116month I saw the mayor of New Haven is instituting that thing. Okay. And then from what I was reading, I guess evidently um if we enact this policy, uh the students are going to have to put their phones in their backpack. Is that correct? That's the the younger students. Gary, do you have the the copy that has the red and the blue? Because the the the stuff in the items in black are current policy. We just revised the elementary. We we just separated the elementary, middle, and high school. Um, in Do you want to look at my copy, Jerry? Where is So, I don't know if you have I had the wrong calendar. I'll take the blame. I have the wrong calendar. Um, yeah, but we just what we did with our our policy is

117all right. Just hold on. We we broke it up to elementary, middle, and high school. Hold on. What? Which which policy am I looking? 5031. P5031. Oh, yeah. Yours colored. Yeah, I know. But my my what? My my calendar was colorcoded, too. All right. All right. So, where do we start here? I just wanted to make sure I'm on the first page. Okay, cool. It should say use of private technology devices by students. That should be the policy. Yeah. So, I have like stuff like this. It's all red, blue. Yep. So, the black is original wording. Uh the red is uh what we're changing. when we changed off of Shipment and Goodwin's recommendations to laptops and e-readers and getting off radios, personal personal audio players, CD players, walkie-talkies, they they recommend taking these are all

118Shipman's recommendations. But when it comes to the actual um use of private owned technology devices where it says cell phones and earbuds, the elementary, middle, and high school is a section where uh shipment leaves for schools to put in uh what they believe will work for their schools. And so Torington, for example, would have something with those those bads that we're talking about for our school and for our for our district. um we felt this was the most appropriate um to put in place and that didn't change in the the update of the policy well that did change in the updated policy but not in this version changed in October. Okay. So my concern and my question is is that you have a governor right now who is advocating that we you know the kids

119in any school system and he's not basically mandating it. He's just his recommendation is that every school system should be looking at it because of distractions with those phones and that parad um thing. But evidently, we as a board are just going to basically uh stay status quo and everybody is going to be on the honor system to put their phones in their backpacks and if they need them in the classroom and it's up it's going to be up to the teacher to uh to ascertain and let the student know that today is the day where you can use the phone. Tomorrow is the day that you don't use your phone. That correct? Barry, what I'll tell you is um there's a reality. I was a high school principal for 11 years. Unless you put

120a jammer on this school, cell phones are going to be an issue in every high school. Okay? Just like just like vaping will be an issue in every high school. I mean, I could put my head in the sand. It's not true. Like, this stuff is going to happen. You can have those packs and they're going to put their burner phone in the pack and they're going to have their real phone on them and they're going to go to the bathroom where they have privacy and they're going to go on their phone. That's what's happening in Torington. That's that's happening. And is has it improved because they can't be out in the cafeteria and the kids could converse more? Absolutely. Because in public areas the phones are out. But if if we're if we're in

121any sort of under under any sort of impression that for 95% of those kids that real cell phone is going in that bag and it's not a burner phone or or an extra phone, uh I I think we're kidding ourselves. I just heard the governor speak at a conference, let's say three two or three weeks ago, and he was talking about this unfunded mandate initiative that he wants to bring into place. Um and and it's a great unfunded mandate initiative. Um, and the company was actually there and we had someone speaking on the use of cell phones and the harm of cell phones from little children all the way up through high school and and what it does to them. And he basically made a comment, this author, about that company and the reality of

122how much it really stops cell phone use. Um, so I think this is a more realistic approach to the problem of cell phones in class. They're not allowed out in class. teachers have to take those phones if they see them out in class. And it has improved significantly here at this high school that I've seen in my walkthroughs. And it's truly not a significant issue at the middle school at this time because most of the kids are putting them in their their their lockers. We catch some kids. Yeah. Um it's again it's it's one of those impossible things to completely eliminate in any sort of high school without jamming the signal which is illegal uh during the school day and then unjamming it after the school day is over. We did that and gave them

123no connection to the internet. They would have maybe some games they could play on them but the communication stops and then you know what they'll do on their Chromebooks? They'll start chats on their Chromebooks with their friends. I've been a high school principal for 11 years before doing this. they're going to outsmart you every time and by the time you catch up, it's already three months in advance and they're on to their next plan. So, we we can look at bags that the governor is um going to to recommend to us and not fund. Um I said it a few times for some people in the audience that he's not funding this. Um but this is what our administration, again, I'll go back to Mr. Foot. Our administration make the re made this recommendation. They

124felt this was appropriate for their schools. They felt it was appropriate uh for the kids they're working with and reasonable to to really take care of in the school to get the distractions out of the most critical time where the teach the students should be respecting the teacher without a phone out and giving them their full attention. Um study halls, you want to have your phone out to me. It it it one of those things we do. Um, and if you want to have it out in lunch, we're going to treat our our students like young adults, just like we would treat all of you like adults. Your phone's out now. And if you get a text, most likely you're going to look at it. Well, in class, keep it away. After class, if you're

125in the hall, you want to walk around. Half the time it's their parents texting them during the day. This is just a realistic policy. But if if the board wants to make a decision to go to these bags, um we can look at possible grants for them. But I'm I'm assuring you uh being a high school principal for 11 years and having two high school age daughters or one one's in college now that there's no way in the world there are real phones going in that bad. Um so is this are you having issues with the policy as we have put it into place with teachers because from the teachers I've spoken to um they set clear expectations. The kids know the phones have to be away and if they get caught with them they

126may or may not end up with a detention. Yeah. I mean they're putting in the appropriate protocols to support the policy and teachers not following the policy. No teachers are following the policy in this kind of a shift facetime. my former high school before I got there the principal got an intercom all kids are allowed to use cell phones starting today because it's onetoone devices in school everyone it took me two years to reinstill with those teachers and reset the expectation of phones are not allowed in class and you have to work with high school students you have to work with them and being fair in the cafeteria and in the hallways in between switching times and and possibly study halls, not structured study halls, study halls where they've earned the rights to be in

127the cafeteria, I think is very reasonable. But we're not having issues with it at this time. Well, thank you for the explanation. Yeah, that's what I wanted to get out so that people who are either watching or understanding or read what's going on. Reason why the policy is here and how it's being interpretated and read is because of what you just said because I haven't lived in the dark ages. I have kids too. All right. All right. Even though they're adults now, but I will guarantee you if they went whatever school they were in Oh, yeah. I would find some phone all of a sudden like, where'd this phone come from? Oh, that's my school phone. All right, I know that as a parent. Okay, I get it. I just want to make sure that

128everybody else because we get these policies. Okay. And the people like, "How can you write?" Well, unless you want to read all these policies, great. But it's always nice to explain to people. And I didn't really want Yeah. to put you on the spot. It's okay. But I thank you very much for the information that you garnered so people understand that even though you as much as the governor wants to get rid of the distraction, it's not happening. Okay? It's not because like anything else, kids will be kids. And once one kid figures out how to do it, he lets everybody know. But thank I just want to say one more thing, Jerry. Out of all of our board policies, there might be four or five in total that are not shipment policies. Shipman sends

129updates to us. Um, and we go over those with the subcommittee. They're all basically all legal changes that are made that we have to update our policies on because it's legislation that has changed. So, there's only four or five policies that are specific to our school district. And this is a portion of their policy that is specific to us. But we have others such as the bylaws is specific to us. Those bylaws have been put in place. The other bylaws, they're right from ship. Mr. uh at the risk of beating a dead horse, I say move the question. All right. So, let's uh go ahead and entertain a motion to approve the modified policy and the new policy as discussed. Do I have a motion? Motion. Kelly, do I have a second? Mr. Foot. Okay,

130we've had uh discussion. Is there anything anybody wants to say last minute before we vote? No. All right. All in favor? I Any opposed? So that's Jerry and Greg opposed. Everybody else was in favor. Any abstensions? Motion carries. Thank you very much, everybody. All right. Um I'm just making sure that I've covered everything here. All right. Now we are on to new business. Item number 11, out of state field trip. like to entertain a motion to approve the outofstate field trip to Washington DC for students in grades 10 through 12 in the social studies department at Tville High School High School from November 9th through the 14th 2025. So move uh motion Kelly second Greg. Any discussion on that one? I'm glad that they're bring back. I know I I had joy as I was

131reading the motion. But just to clarify, it is for for 10 students. It's not full Washington for this is closed foundation. All right. Uh any further discussion on that? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Seeing none. Um any abstensions? Motion carries. Item number 12, business manager report and personnel report. Mr. Shenza. So, the beauty of going after the superintendent's report is I have very little to report on because he puts it in. Yes. Yes. Um, so with that, I just give you a quick update on Eli Terry Middle School. Um, first, we are essentially back using nearly all of the school with the exception of the classroom that we had to flood in and also the gymnasium. Those are the two most damaged areas. Um, but we were able to the the middle school administration

132and working with with Brian were able to get students back into most of their classrooms. So that's the good thing and we're expecting um we have hired an independent adjuster who's working for us and with the insurance company trying to establish exactly what areas do need to be addressed and there's obviously a difference of opinion. Um and as I put in the report, asbestous has been found in some of the locations which will expand the time period of um repairs. Um the goal right now, our goal, the district's goal is to get everything in line so that we can begin repair as soon as the school year starts because we obviously have a very hard deadline uh in August to get to get folks back into the school. Um, also at Eli Kerry, we did

133have um yesterday I was able to inform the superintendent that we have a steam leak down in the basement and unfortunately the pipes that that is addressing is also has some aspisous in it. So we are working with um companies on how to handle that appropriately before those repairs are made. But these are just some of the things that we have no idea that that they're going to happen. Um, and yet they do. Um, here at the high school, we came in last Monday to a leak in the ceiling, right? A pipe broke and we had a leak in the ceiling. Fortunately, our staff was able to address that quickly and they were also able to repair it quickly. So, we're back up and running. Um we were without the comments section here with the

134central offices for one day but we were able to take care of that. Um other than that you have questions regarding what I provided you in your packet. I'm happy to answer any of them but business as usual right now. Any questions for Mr. Tenza? Are we inspecting all the pipes together? That one that looks pretty corroded. So, we um Brian and I spoke with Jim Maison and what we asked him to do is we pulled out the plans for the school um and we asked him to do random checks. There's there's many many many here with the building, but we asked him to do random checks throughout the the floors just to see what he's finding. So, they're in the process of that now. What was causing that? It looks corroded from the picture.

135like is that been leaking slowly for a while and just didn't get caught or is there some bigger problem we need to be looking for? So all of these heated pipes are wrapped in insul in insulation. Um so it's not something that you can visibly see until it breaks through. That particular pipe, Brian, correct me if I'm wrong, but Jim basically said that that pipe corroded from the outside in. So the belief is that there was moisture in the insulation someplace and it may be that it was from a leak and it was just soaked into that. But eventually it was the condensation that was building up that was that was eroding the the pipe from the outside in. You get the pipes and they sweat. Sometimes the insulation just holds it right against the

136pipe. I'm sorry. I seem to be checked and like rewrapped to make sure that underneath everything else is good. That's why we're asking him to do random checks along the way. Um he has not come back to me to say that we found any additional issues. We're hoping that this is an isolated issue, but the pipes that are in the building, they're they're in every ceiling and they run all over. So there's no real way to just lift the ceiling panel and look. You have to randomly choose, open the insulation up, look underneath it, and then your point is rewriting. Any other questions for Mr. Tenza? All right, moving on to the personnel report. Mr. I just want to note that um we did start posting our positions and our openings for next year. Uh

137at Eli Terry, we have an eighth grade ELA teacher due to retirement. We have two math teachers here at the high school. Uh one position we haven't been able to fill the remainder of the year and we've had people covering that position uh in those math classes the best we can. Um there's obviously a shortage in math teachers. There's no one really out there. And then we have another a math teacher that resigned from the position. We have two special education teachers that have retired. So we're replacing those. We have a PE teacher and health teacher that's retiring. We have a Spanish teacher that's retiring. And we have a 0.5 speech and language pathologist at the high school as well based on the need here for that position. All of those positions are pending the

138budget. Um it's not that we would get rid of any or all of those to to fill that $700,000 hole, but some of these positions might not be filled. So, we're just trying to get the candidate pool right now so that once the budget is approved and we're ready to go, we can hire and we have the pool together. So, those positions have been enforced. Excellent. All right, we are on to item number 13. Back to public comment. Please come up to the podium. First of all, dear Mr. Bubinire, thank you for uh voling tearing your time. Can you just tell us your name? Uh Dan Gentile. Sorry, a lot of people know me. Dan Gentile, 269 Mount Road, Plymouth, Connecticut. Yeah, I miss crazy. Mr. Rubin, congratulations taking over a position helping us with

139the board of ed when I talked last month about volunteering. Um what you were talking about one time just a few minutes ago, state law specifically states um no later than one month after the date of which the newly elected members take office. That's all of you eligible people elect from its numbers. That's everyone in this room a chairperson. It doesn't say two years. It doesn't say everything. People vote. You devote your time voluntarily. You come and you want to be on the board of ed. I am totally against your two-year policy. I think it's obstructive. I think it's not right. And like Jerry said, you should relook at it. Someone should make a motion before this is over and look at it and follow state law. Everybody's eligible to be chairperson. You guys decide

140who's chairperson. That's why you're here. There shouldn't be a policy deciding that, oh, well, this year five people are elected, we're going to let them wait two years before we decide if they're good enough, even though they have years and years of experience. Or the year after, well, these four people aren't elected. Even though state law says that they are, even though they're voted in and they're eligible, there's stuff that I see because I go to meet I've been going to meetings for too long. When you guys made a motion on you just put the policies in, you did them as a group. Why didn't you do them singly? I in my opinion, Roberts rules of order. You should have did them one at a time. No one asked that. Is everyone here eligible? Okay.

141Is everyone should be running this place? Years and years of experience here, but I'm the guy that points out there's always the way things are run. When someone has the floor, you're supposed to cut in. No, you have to go through the chair. No one follows all these rules that years and years of me doing this. I sit back there and I look at it. You spent I don't know half an hour talking about a policy that in my my opinion is wrong because you're telling people we don't want you even though you're elected by your peers. You you did the whole process. You sat on the board and it's not fun being on a board or committee because you have to make decisions and it's hard sometimes. You get sick. I was one I

142caught on fire when I was on the board. I miss meetings. I don't agree with that either. If you guys don't want somebody on this board or to hold a position, you're adults. Decide. You don't need a policy. Well, Shipman and Goodwin said we did it. I used to hate sitting at the board and having a super whoever it is. Well, we're going to get a legal opinion. I could get a 100 legal opinions. Your opinion is going to be what I paid the lawyer to say. Your opinion was what the lawyer what I asked the lawyer. Opinions. Just resign then. If you're going to follow legal opinions all the time, everyone reside. Just go by Shipment and Goodman and don't have a board of unfunded mandates. State of Connecticut has a lot of money.

143If you look at what they're spending, where they're spending it on, they have a lot of money. I talked about that cell phone policy years ago. I think that maybe you should dish it to the students and have them come up with a plan. What would make it better with our school by not using these cell phones? Involve the students. That's what you guys should be doing. You shouldn't be deciding who's going to be chair. Who cares who's chair? You're all here to take care of students, get them educated, and we're not doing a good job and say, "Okay, I'm here because I got two grandchildren that are going to be joining the educational system." And I'm not happy with it. I don't like where it's going. I think it's more social services than education.

144And it's not good. You have people that have been showing up since the last time I was here asking about a kindergarten education and no one made a motion because we're all eligible. Why didn't someone make a motion so they have that graduation at Plymouth Center? At Plymouth Center used to be great. I don't know what happened to it, but you guys got issues that you're not addressing, but you're wasting a lot of time being obstructive and not being open to the public. She sat here and said she feels that she is not welcome in the school. Have a graduation. What is the problem? You know what I mean? I you know it's it's so hard. No one's here. You do a presentation. The minute the presentation's going empty. That hasn't changed for years. You

145have some people online watching you. I don't know if you have a count, but what are you guys doing? You know what I mean? I'm not happy with that policy. And I hope that I see a motion to change it. And your subcommittees are just that, subcommittees. The board decides. You're not making the decision. You're not going to dish it back. You guys have the authority, each and every one of you, to make a decision on what's going on. Subcommittees are just the work committee. You guys are the deciding people. So that's my piece. And good luck. I I hope you straighten out the few little problems, but focus on the students. All the rest is just who cares who's chairman, you know what I mean? Who cares who's vice chair? Focus on the students,

146you know. I mean, you're you're putting a big I don't know barrier in the way in my opinion. It doesn't matter. And Shipman Goodman doesn't know everything. I I I remember Mrs. patron who used to come to this podium and I wish I listened to her because I was naive and young sitting on a board and she knew exactly what we're doing now with the wood shop and everything that came back and she fought she wanted home and wanted home and you know what we were told we were told get rid of penmanship cursive and get rid of homeck and wood shop horrible thing to do to this town but we were listening at the time I think the governor was Malloy and he was on this big kick of getting rid of all the

147trade schools and everything, but then they realized how much money you could make. So, thank you for extra time because I know I'm beyond three minutes. I apprec I appreciate it. But, um, focus on the students, focus on educating them. That's what you guys are here for. All the rest is just noise, you know. I mean, big deal. You got policies. Half of them aren't followed anyways. You know what I mean? So, good luck. Thank you for the extra time. Please get the graduation for these kindergarteners. Do something. Have a little You know what happened to the PTAs in Plymouth Center? We used to have a huge strong PTA. I don't know if Cindy could knows what's going on. Yeah. Why aren't they I think they're Yeah. Just Yeah. So, thank you so much. But

148focus on the students. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? Melanie Church, 328 Mason Street. One thing I I don't understand and I'm going to ask out of ignorance. This thing of the 2627 school year there. You're going to have elections. people are going to be going off the board and you're making a decision way after or way before the next shift is put on. It might be a simple thing, but why not hold on on that 26 year of when you start the thing. November, you have new people on. It may seem like a simple thing to you, but it gets them involved to learn how the process works. It's a suggestion, but I know in this charter for the mayor's office, for the council, they can only hire for their term. They cannot hire

149beyond that term. Come November, if a new mayor comes in, that person can appoint some of the positions. So, my suggestion is to I could resend that and wait and bring it up in November. And another thing I was sitting here thinking, where can you have a kindergarten graduation? How about at our community school parents would bring the kids who wouldn't be responsible and the kids could have their graduation you know and it puts everybody together like I said with a good thinking maybe a half hour parents might want to be involved and have fun after but that's what that community room is built for is built for the community. Use it and set an example for the rest of the town. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? Come on. Our um 90 terrible.

150Man, I hate public speaking, but I love my kids, so here I am. Um, I just want to tag on to the kindergarten graduation. My daughter's in first grade at Premier Center this year. Last year, I reached out to Principal Loveland about kindergarten graduation. Um, I was told it's not something that we've done since before CO. Um, and that one of our schools did not used to do it. Um, that's fine if we didn't do it. We haven't done it since CO, but why can't we bring it back? If we did it before CO, there's no reason not to bring it back. We should be getting our kids back to a new normal. CO shouldn't be the excuse for everything anymore. You know, we're several years out from that. Um, our kids missed a lot

151because of CO. So, I feel like they should be um getting more now. We should be moving past. We should be uh getting back to a more normal um situation for them. In addition to kindergarten graduation though, I am very disappointed with the center as far as any kind of parent involved um activities. We have no holiday pageantss or plays. Uh we have no musical um shows or pal uh uh pageantss. We have no talent shows. We have no we have nothing that the kids can get up together and do any kind of like a performance or songs or anything like that where parents can come and see their kids. The kids there are ages 3 to what's second grade? Eight years old maybe. Um those are such fun years. Those are the years that

152parents want to see their kids excited doing things in groups. Um you know the kids are excited to get up there and look for their parents in the crowd. do things with their their classmates, you know. I still remember the song that I sang in my kindergarten holiday thing. I mean, it's it's things that these are memories. These are core memories that they should be um they should be making. And when I reached out to Principal Lovelin last year, I was told uh if you would like to be involved, then you can volunteer with the PTA. I'm going to put a plug in here right now that our PTA is amazing. They do a lot of stuff. However, you should not have to volunteer for the PTA to be able to be involved with your

153children in the school. I do volunteer for the PTA when I can, but 5 minutes at the school store at lunchtime, not the same thing. Not the same kind of time spending with your kid. 10 minutes of the book fair with your kid. Not the same thing as being able to interact with them or watch them do something that they're excited about, that they've been practicing, that they've been learning, that you know, they're up on stage or they're doing their silly things, that's when they do their their silly little dances or they make their silly little comments. Those are the things that you remember as a parent and as a kid, you know, and I I don't understand why our school doesn't do this. Um, if you talk to people from town that had kids

154in school that have gone through school and they're no longer in there, they'll tell you stories about all the things that center used to do. And they weren't just PTA activities. They were school sponsored activities that parents were able to attend and to go to the kindergarten graduation, um, shows, plays, whatever you want to call them, um, different things. And, and I think we need to bring that back. I think our kids deserve that. I think that the parents deserve that. And um yeah, I I just I think that we're lacking in that department. And I um I think that that's something that needs to change. And um yeah, trying to think if there's anything else I missed, but I I think that's basically it. I think that we need to step up and we

155need to um let parents be involved and it shouldn't just be if you're able to volunteer during the day. Thank you. Anyone else? All right, we are moving on to item 14, committee reports. Mrs. Lucian is not here. Oh, I interrupted you. We're good. Sorry. I remember the first time. All right. Mrs. Lucian is not here. Um uh so I will just speak to this quickly. The special meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education curriculum achievement committee took place prior to the board of education meeting and reviewed the following uh the reading and writing program for students in grades 6 to 8 and moved this item be brought to the full board for their approval. All right, so we do not need a second. Um, is there anybody who would like to make the motion

156um to approve Wit and Wisdom for students in grades 6 to 8 beginning with the 2025 2026 school year? So move. All right. Does not need a second. Um, anybody like to start the discussion for this? Is this going to come out of this year's budget or next year's budget? Um in you saw in this end of the year funds we should be able to cover this expense about $35,000 in the end of the year fund that we'll have remaining. It's dissimilar to what we did with the so this is the continuum of of what we're doing K five. We're we're taking the reading program that we've adopted and utilizing and we're just continuing it through to grade eight similar to what we did with our math program um going from K to 5 then

1576 to 8 and now it runs through grade 11 with the algebra geometry and the algebra 2 alignment. It's the same thing with the reading. the longer we could put in a a researchbased reading program with our students we feel the the most beneficial it will be for them. So if we can move it from grade five to grade eight, it's just uh much better. But yeah, it is covered can be in the short answer, Cindy, is this year. I'm not giving many short answers. You all involved tonight. Anyone else questions, discussion? All right. All in favor? I Any opposed? Seeing none, any abstensions? Motion carries. All right. Um, I have a note here for me to read. Um, Mr. Seaman was a member of the Finance Operations Committee and due to his resignation, I

158will be sitting on this committee until November when we can redo the committees. So, that is what's going on there. And item 15, board liaison reports, Harry S. Fischer Elementary School. Um, all right. I'll tell you what I get. You tell me what I missed. On April 11th is the day of kindness to wear purple. Um, I got to attend the fifth grade paint night. I've been looking forward to that for years. It was amazing. Um, very well attended. There was a lot of people there. Um, coming up events are the BMX presentation and Penny Wars. And then the students on April 25th will have their SBA rally and begin testing on April 28. Have anything? No, we did not. We got them all. The only thing they changed the date was meeting. Oh, did

159they? Oh, yeah. Because it was conference week. Yeah. Oh, you did. No, no problem. Plymouth center school, Mr. Bush. Uh, Plymouth Center yearbooks are for sale uh on the PTA link tree for ordering. Last school store of the year is May 2nd. The next PTA meeting is May 13th at 7 p.m. and um they're looking for members. The Plymouth Center PTA board elections are on June are on June's meeting. The committee is accepting nominations for all five positions. Deadline for this is the May meeting. And the last fund raiser is build a buddy. Pre-order a stuffed animal kit and join in the PTA on Friday, May 16th from 5 to 7 to work through stations to stuff and accessorize your new stuffed animal. If you're not able to attend, they are ordering order discount kits

160to be sent home with your student. Flyers will be going out after spring break with information for this event. Great. Eli Terry Jr. middle school. I I have a question for what are the are those the same bears for graduation or for the end of the year that they did or is that a fundraiser? It's a fundraiser. So they're doing a teddy bear fundraiser plus a teddy bear. It's not a teddy bear. It's it's a build a buddy. I I'm not exactly sure what that is, but I don't know teddy bear or not. I just That's okay. Um, for the middle school, Wit and Grit is going to be April 22nd. The kids loved it last year. If you haven't filled out the form yet, it's an online link. It takes one second to fill

161out. Even if your kid doesn't want to do it, just fill it out so this way if they change their mind. The PCA just funded the field trips for the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. It's scholarship time. So, if you have a senior at the high school, fill out your scholarship forms. They're going to be reviewing them. The next PCA meeting is April 30th. And I believe the last day of school is June 12th, right? June 12th for the middle school. Yeah. Yeah. Carville High School. Mr. Foot, the uh uh fundraisers are about on track for grad night. Uh coming up will be the uh graduation science. They want to get them out uh in April, starting in uh April 7th, which is a couple of days ago, and ending on uh the 23rd. Mother's

162Day flowers will be coming up on Saturday before Mother's Day and IG roundup is going to be May 18th to the 24th. Okay. and anything else. Okay. At advance after the very long meeting last month was very short. This month um the director is doing himself evaluation. He's up on a year and I did just have one pop out thingy that they mentioned was um the prek funding for um this um was re um reup. I'm assuming it's the same amount of spots and nothing has changed. I don't know if you heard about that or So the F FRC is funded through a couple of different funding streams. Part of it is writing part of it. Oh, that was the main thing. So yeah, no, the school readiness is funding. Yeah, they said, but it's

163not school readiness. They changed the name of it. Yeah, it's called early start. Early start. Yeah, absolutely. So, I thought that was good news to hear that we're keeping whatever funding. So, that was pretty much it. All right, moving on to board comments. Let's start over here with our new newest returning member, Mr. Bourbon. I'm good. Okay, I set it up already. I just started, Mr. Showers. Welcome back, Jerry. Congratulations, Kelly. It was great presentation tonight. Yeah, they were. Mr. Foot, just some of the things we talked about earlier. uh when you are elected to a position and I've been in enough of them in town, you're neither a Republican or a Democrat and I think you need to have consideration for others in terms of times of meeting and gets to be late at

164night. Okay. Um Mr. Zushka. Uh, it's nice to see the presentation by the two principles. Uh, congratulations to all those who were honored and congratulations, Kelly. And that's about it. No, you can't tell. Uh, you shared some information about Bonnie Bonnie Daddy Jenkins. Would you like to expand on that a little bit? About her retirement? No, about the publishing. Oh, yeah. There was, let me see if I get it right. Um, I can't remember the title of the book, but she had seven students published in a book. Uh, oh, Fright Night was was the name of the book and they were published in this book like short stories. Yes. Oh, so congratulations to her and student. Yeah, that's great. Mr. Perino, yes. Um, our student reps made a a very good observation. You're absolutely correct

165about not getting enough publicity out there about our our students. And if you look at the paper that was sent out this month and our do I get this right? Artificial intelligence team. Sorry. Uh went out to Central Connecticut State University competed against 16 teams from around the state. We took first and second place in artificial intelligence and and it's our top team. One of the things that really impressed me is that our top team developed an A1 Yeah. a A1 powered medical technology designed to streamline emergency room weight times by collecting patients vitals and medical history upon arrival. Improving efficiency and patient care. This is great. I mean and and that should be recognized. However, I take a look in the I read the Waterbury paper every day and I don't read anything good

166about Plymouth. There's never anything in there anyway. In the Bristol Press, I don't know if anybody gets it anymore. I guess everything's online, but there's never anything about our kids. And my understanding is the reporters have changed on Waterberry. I guess Hurst took over and they've got some new reporters and some of the reporters that we were used to dealing with are no longer there. So, I don't know what's going to happen there. They'll probably end up everything online and if you if you're not online, you're not going to get the news. And like to welcome back Jerry. Uh Jerry and I served together before and uh we had a lot of good times together. A lot of tough times too we went through, but we did it. Uh, other than that, I just uh

167just want to make make one comment. I was at the board of finance committee meeting last night with superintendent and business manager and it really threw me back a little bit when they asked about capital improvements and you know that's a thorn in my sight and Matt sends down our business manager every month sends down to the town hall capital improvements. So last night when they were talking about it, I asked him, we send it to you. Vice chairman got up and said, "Well, you shown something that must have been a year or two old probably." I don't know what it was, but I said, "That's not the one." So So Matt says, "Well, I'll send it down again." So I don't know what the communica communications happening down there, but it certainly is certainly

168not not good. But the communication we are making with the with the board of finance we have to keep on doing that even though we are we are in charge of our own syncing fund. It was good to do that and it was also great to have them walk with us yesterday morning over Plymouth Center school and then we went over to uh over to El Fiser. But the funny thing was one of the members of the board said, "Well, I'm really glad I went on that walk because I was going to vote present, but then I voted yes after I saw what we needed." So, it really uh that made me feel good. So, we'll just we'll just keep it up and keep on doing what we have to do, but the communications have

169to stay up with that group. Thank you. Welcome back, Jerry. I forgot how much you like to talk. Um, it's a good thing. I don't know where it just made a lot. You don't have to get up more. Me neither. Congratulations, Kelly. Um, um, congratulations, Tyler. That is a huge accomplishment. My daughter and his older sister went to school together, so I've known their family for a while. Eddie, congratulations. Um, he's he's friends with Nico. And congratulations to the girls as well. Um, we used to get the school emails for Plymouth Center and for the high school. We don't get them anymore. Like their weekly updates that they send. I get the middle school and I get Fiser, but I haven't been getting those two schools for a while. Ben, could you just make a

170note that please that we make sure the board is all on the that email from the principal with regard to the the weekly updates? You get you get Fisher and want that just those two schools out, right, for you? You don't get any of them. You don't get any of I get the high school, but I have a high schooler, but I don't know if I get Yeah. I don't know if Yeah, I get middle school and I get Fisher for my board. We'll take We'll take a look at Take a look. Yeah, because that's nice to read. So, this way you're up. Yep. Um and Fallon and um I forgot what her name is. Ava. Um, I love how they're incorporating some other things into their speeches as well because it's nice to hear

171both perspectives and I think it's true for everyone every situation when people do really well in stuff they don't always get acknowledged as much. So, I don't know if you guys do announcements in the morning or I don't know if the screens in the school can display stuff. I don't know what you guys do, but I think that that was a very valid point. And I know that her and several of the students here are normally the ones that are having these great accomplishments. I wanted to say congratulations to the people that I saw on the list for retirements. I'm not sure if there's any more, but um Mrs. Nebrown and M and um Dr. DJ, they've been here for a very very very long time. [Music] Um oh, and the calendar for the school

172year. I love it when there's two years out because I like to go on vacations. So, it's nice to try and figure out when vacations can be scheduled, when half days are scheduled and stuff like that. So, I appreciate the the length of the calendar coming out and that's all I have right now. Uh, um, thank everybody for their comments tonight. Uh, welcome Jerry and congratulations to the students. I know that working that hard and having those accomplishments is so great and I don't know what we do to celebrate them, but yeah, I'm all for more celebrations for their students who are really having great achievement. And lastly, I would like to say what I usually say. Thank you to the public who has come to speak to us. Um, even if it's things that

173we may not want to hear or things that are not in our favor, we do appreciate it and we do want to encourage you to continue to do that. Um, even if we can't always make things work, we like to hear about it. We like to know about it. So, I do appreciate that. The presentations were lovely, of course, as always. And welcome back to Jerry. Congratulations to Kelly. All right, that being said, our next board meeting, our next regular meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education is on Wednesday, May 14th, 2025 at 700 p.m. in the cafeteria here at Tville High School. Item number 18, I'd like to entertain a motion to enter into executive session at Does the time? 9:41 p.m. to discuss the following a student related matter contract for the Plymouth

174School Administrators Association non-lapsing accountou for athletic director for the middle and high schoolou department coordinator positions at Terryville High School and inviting Mr. Falconee superintendent Mrs. Milo assistant superintendent and Mr. Tenza business manager into executive session. So move Mr. Showers. Miss Tilton. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Where are we going? We're staying right here. Oh, we're staying right here. Okay. Okay. I'd like to resume regular session at 10:16 p.m. Um, action from executive session. I would like to entertain a motion to authorize the superintendent of schools along with the business manager to present to the BL Plymouth Board of Finance the memorandum of understanding for the non-lapsing account as discussed in executive session. So move second. Greg Pat. All in favor? Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. I'd like to

175entertain a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding for the Plymouth Education Association for the Athletic Director for the middle and high schools as discussed in executive session. So move second. Greg second, Mr. Zabushka. All in favor? Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding for the department coordinator positions at Terryville High School as discussed in executive session. So move Greg second Mr. Foot. All in favor? Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Motion carries as well. I'd like to entertain a motion to adjourn at 10:17 p.m. So move second. Mr. Showers, Kelly second. All in favor? Motion carries. Good night everybody. Thank you very much. [Applause]