Voluntown BOE Meeting 4/9/26

001Thank you de thank for joining us. We have lovely packed house here or a cozy house as I like to think of it. Um uh we can call the meeting to order at 601. We would all say >> I aliance 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. We have Kate Bo Palant, Megan Wixs is here, >> Kathy Grant, >> Ara Kawara, >> Valerie Musciano, >> Suzanne Miller. >> Uh, Rachel Ricard is absent today. Uh, also President is Scott Federer, Amy Saltto, Lori Johnson, Brian Nusiano, our first selectman, Crystal Snider, and myself. Okay. Uh, to do each board meeting, I um will recite the Volunteer Board of Education mission statement. The Volunte Board of Education's

002mission is to provide our students the skills essential to reach their highest potential in a safe environment for learning as they aspire to become responsible, respectful, and civic-minded members of society. We commit to help educate, challenge, and inspire each child to establish lifelong learners who can adapt constructively in an everchanging multicultural and technological world. So, just to review the agenda, welcome our guests. We have our um uh Brian Miano and Crystal Snider joining us from town and Joanne Weir, one of our >> esteemed teachers at Valentine Elementary School joining us as a guest. So, thank you for joining. Um I know that our guests are here for the public hearing for our budget. So, without further ado, I will turn it over to Mr. better to go over our budget proposal for 2026 27. Log

003into the Zoom. >> You gave me that already. Crazy glare on my computer. Check it out. >> Recording in progress. What's that? >> Turn your volume down on your computer. >> What can you say now? You need me to share? >> You can do your presentation. Go into your presentation now. >> You need to share. >> Sorry, guys. Can you see it on the screen? >> There you go. There you go. Good. >> Mhm. >> All right. All right. So for this meeting, I've combined three different presentations and added a few things to make it current. So I did a first meeting with the board, the second meeting with the board, and then we did a meeting with the staff the other day. And so this is kind of encompasses all that to be more

004of a full presentation of all the components. So one of the main one of the main things I want to start with is how I go about doing a budget. And even though I've talked a lot about money and budgeting and finances, I want to go over some philosophical beliefs that I approach it with. Number one, every dollar we spend is about kids. Now, when people say that, like, but no, you spend money on facilities. Well, why do we spend money on facilities? For kids. Why do we cut the grass for kids? All of it is about kids. Every dollar goes there. And that's how we operate, right? So when you make a decision, if you go by this philosophy, it really does help drive how you spend money. It really does. So the other

005thing I do and I continue to do is educate as much as I can about the budget. So it's funny. Um I've received um multiple communications from various people telling me wait till you get to the town budget. I have no concern to be honest. People will give their opinions, their thoughts. They'll have questions. they'll do what they do. But if we're transparent and honest, it's all you can do. And we will be and the budget will be clear and it'll be spoken in a way that people understand it. So, um, that's important. This phrase, you know, Brian and I were talking with Crystal this morning. I shared this is this is a phrase. This is how you operate. Do the same or better for less. The answer is yes. Do that. You can do

006it same but you do it at your homes all the time. You figure out ways to do that. Now doing less for less. That's the easiest way in the world people budget. The most obvious one that we do is if you're tight for money and you normally go to China every year on a vacation, you might not go to China that year. Maybe you're going to stay in the country for that year because you're going to do a little less and it costs less. That's easy. That's not really budgeting. That's just doing less. So, we don't try to do this. Sometimes you have to do this, but that's not the philosophy. This is really slow. Sorry. So, if you need, not need, want is not the word. It's need. If there's a need, you have

007to deal with a need. So that's how you do it, right? So this is not like brain surgery. I'm just kind of >> just do it. Then of course these three things are incredibly important. Um if you do all of this and you are thoughtful and you have the ability to communicate this clearly, it's why I don't really worry about doing budget presentations. Doesn't mean everyone's going to like it, but I don't get worried about it because we're doing the right work. As long as we can do the right work, that's what we that's what we do. That's what we're here for. All right. So, what makes a budget go? Like, what are the things that drive it? High school in a K8 with a send receive relationship, which is what we have. High school

008is a big deal. The piece about high school that's different from almost all of our other components of the budget, we don't get to decide. You can decide what high school, but that's it. Once you're done with that, the spending is at the high school level. And if they raise their prices, they raise their prices. You can choose to not go to that high school, but really it's a major driver. And this year specifically, it's a huge driver for us. Enrollment drives a lot of things. I'm going to specifically talk about one of those. Um, how it helps, hurts, helps as we go. Special needs students are always a giant part of a budget and it should be. They are our most needy kids. We take care of them just like anybody else. We take

009care of them. There's a driver. Energy. We'll talk a little about energy. In your world right now, energy is a driver. I asked Brian, "How much was it to fill up your truck?" >> $75. >> How much was it a month and a half ago? >> 50 4550. >> It's a driver, right? Um, insurance is a big deal. Talk about that. And of course, your facilities is a big deal. There's other things that eat up your budget, but those are big drivers to a budget. So, let's just talk about high school for a minute. So, I thought you'd be interested. We have 38th graders that are going off to 9th grade. That is, you can think that, well, that might be good for the K8, but that's not good for the high school budget. Every

010high school kid is a tuition. And so, we have 30. That's the breakdown. That's where our kids are going. As you guys did uh before I got here, you you made some changes. We have Ledger is a we have our first inaugural Ledger student next year. Uh we have two going into Ellis. Remember last year? none this year too. And all the parents who kids did that, they do know that as of right now, the bus stops when it stops. We have no new students going to marine science and you can see the rest up there already. So we have five going to tech schools and again financially that's good for us. It's good. Anyway, thought you'd be interested in that. Um again just about that killing is out ledger's in marine science is ending

011tech is ending. Ledger is the new option. So that's I'll just remind you for people. So how does enrollment affect us? Anybody know what that number is? You know I have to do my numbers. >> What's what's this number? >> What is it? >> Right numbers for next year. >> It is it's our enrollment K8 next year >> projected. >> This could still change. >> How about that? >> High school. >> PreK. sort of >> prek >> high school >> eighth grade >> who's it Sue Ding ding got it >> we have currently have 38 eighth graders >> next year we have 19 so you can see what happens right so now budgetarily not good you want 30 12th graders 30 eighth graders but you see as you as I've shared with you our high

012school numbers next year is a driver of our budget big All right. So, let's talk about preschool. So, here's the situation in preschool. Amy and I have met. I don't know how many times. I think we've gone back and forth thousand times trying to figure out the best way to do this. Now, just so you're clear on how this works, I assume you do, but remember I talked the first time you did a budget. I'm going to treat you like you don't know anything. We do a school readiness grant. Amy runs the grant. She applies for the grant. We do that based upon the number of students that we know about now it's about now right now and that's how it drives it. Now the problem with the grant if we say well we have

01330 this year right 30 kids this year with 28 and we say you know we're going to have 28 again next year. Well then we have to have 28. If we don't, they're not gonna give us the money. And if they don't give you the money, this budget, tax budget is now eating the money. Can't do that. So based upon our current enrollment expectation and what we know, we are not able to do the same amount next year. Next year, we're looking at 17 to 18 total students. And the way the state funds us is a full day program for in the 9,000 range, a half-day program in the $6,400 range per student, and you tell them how many students you project. We obviously can't go to 28 because we'll wind up paying a whole

014bunch of money to have class sizes of eight preschoolers. We can't afford to do that, nor would I recommend you do that. So, in looking at this this year, the district budget on top of the school readiness grant spends $72,000. That's what it's costing us today to have preschool. Where that's a little weird, if you think about it, is four of the students don't go to volunteer. They don't live in volunteers. There's a point where you have to be careful of this kind of stuff. So, we don't have permission next year to invite other students in. So, the fact that we we we put those four students in our grant as a number, but the grant only gives us $6,400 for those four kids, we're spending 72,000. So, when we go next year, the most

015we could run is one half day program teacher parro. We'll put in the grant for 22 students. That's 6,400 student comes out to $140,000 of grant money. And that's what it will cost to run the program. Right now, we're looking at either a $33,000 out of our budget instead of 72 or possibly nothing. We don't know that just yet. We have to wait a little bit longer. One of the conversations we had today was we have a few things up in the air. >> This is one of the things we have up in the air. So, right now it's still in the budget, the full amount. And we'll see where this goes over the next month or so. But this is a big deal. Like when you talk about spending less, doing less, we're not

016really doing that. We're still having the same program. We just don't have the kids. So, we get to save money and still do exactly what we're doing now, which is educated preschoolers. >> So, that's kind of where we are. Um, it does involve staffing, of course, but that's where we are. You can't change enrollment. We can't. I think Amy wanted to go out on the road with a sign. She wanted to wear a little preschool costume and have a sign. Sign up now. I didn't want to do that. But Terry would do it. He would do a great job of it. >> But if we did get a, you know, random bust of, you know, boon of like, >> well, we need we have room for right now five, >> right? >> That's a lot.

017>> You don't you don't usually get random kids out of the woodwork. Mhm. >> I mean, you can get it from other towns, but like definitely not in ours, >> but right now we don't have permission from the state to pay for other other kids from >> purely we're just going to purely >> Yeah. >> So, we can't we can't even we can't go shopping. >> I purchase in town. We have openings for in town kids. >> We have five openings for in town kids. We also leave some for special needs students that may come in >> for free. Uh >> so even if there was five it we would still have to instill a lottery because we still wouldn't reach the threshold for another classroom is really >> what that would be. So it

018would have to be lottery driven just like in many other towns. >> You know >> a classroom is about 140,000. >> Yeah. >> To operate a classroom 140,000. >> So that you need that many more kids to help the grant pay for some of that and we can't guarantee that. And if we did that and we spent the extra 140 and we didn't get the kids, not really a good situation. Unfortunate. Um, not where we want to be, but it is where we are. So, that's a big deal. That's how enrollment drives budget, right? Pretty clear. So, really, I'm not going to get too deep into this. I kind of went over this before, but these are the factors that impact special needs monies. Um, the biggest one, of course, is out of district placements.

019The second biggest is high school tuitions. Those are your two giant money drivers when they happen. Um, I will share we have some information that this moment in time it is possible our high school tuition could go down by over $50,000, but we don't know that we're positive yet. That was a conversation that we had today with with Brian and Crystal was that's an outstanding topic that I can't do anything with today, but it is possible before the final budget rolls in that we might have some room there. So, and again, we all don't want to charge taxpayers for monies that they don't need to be spending, >> but the reality is we could have somebody roll in some budget. So the thing about that is interesting because before we had a 2% budget account,

020remember the 2% lapsing account. We're going to be opening that next month. You had no contingency plans. We we will have somewhat of contingency next year by putting some money into that account. >> That's huge. It allows us to budget differently, Kathy. Right. Yeah. >> If you have contingency, you can do things a little differently. Remember, we can't put things on a credit card. >> Yeah. We can't just say, "Oh, that was more than we thought it was going to be. Oh, well, it's >> you can't do that. But a contingency plan would be the 2% lapsing and still having some room in our budgets. And I I'll be able to go over that more in a little bit, but right now I don't have um Lloyd's been working on though. We're trying to get

021the information, but we have to we have to be a little cautious. It's too big a number to not be cautious with. Right. Um, obviously in house what we do transportation because that that's another big part of this is if you have a student that has an IEP or going to a school and they the only student going there that could cost you you don't have your own bus it cost you $40 $50,000 just on the transportation alone. So all those things impact a lot and uh Kathy said it but we don't know it could hurt us. Um it rarely happens that a child with a very expensive program moves out though don't go anywhere stay where they are and they bring friends but that's kind of where we are topic. All right. So I

022did this with you guys before. Just going to do it real quick again. Remember this is what I told you last time when I got here. Those solar fields, what a waste of money. What a horrible blah blah blah blah solar fields. So, we got into it. Not at all. Good move. Because your actual costs in 20145 were $63,500 and your actual cost in 2324 was only a few dollars more. There's no way any of your energy bills show only that much growth unless you also did something like a solar project of some kind. And here's a really interesting what could have been the 63573 if we did not do solar and you use all the trends that are in your national norm trends of energy costs 84,000. So we're 7 that's every year compounded

023right? So all those years of savings you get. So good move. Okay. I wish Brian was here because he This is All right. So um the other Brian, sorry Brian, you're here with the other Brian. All right. This is really interesting. So that is how much we pay per gallon for propane right now. We've been using the same company for 4,000 years. And that's the way it goes. Well, tonight we are asking you to change companies. This will be our new cost per gallon. Are we going to get rich? No. But guess what? Propane is propane. The company we want to move to is a local company. They have been around. today. Good reputation. It's good stuff. So, we're excited about this. So, you got solar, you got propane, and then nothing. This doesn't move.

024>> Fuel. No idea what to do with fuel right now. However, Val brought up a point that we are going to be exploring, and that is, can we put our own tank in? Can we do our own fuel? So, where this really came home to me was the other day I stopped uh to get gas. Actually, I was trying to beat the $4 number. I paid $3.99. I was very happy. And right next to me was one of our buses pulling into the to get gas. I can only imagine how much that fill up was going to be at, you know, massive amounts of money. So like the propane, we have to determine, can we do remember remember the purpose? What is the purpose of gas? Getting the bus to pick up the kids to

025get them to school. Nothing sexy about gas. But if I can get it for cheaper and the gas still does the exact same thing, shouldn't we do it? So that's what we have to look at. Same concept. If we can save enough money, this could be a big hit. You know, the propane tank people, they generally will put in your propane tanks for free to get your business. So if we can get a a gas company, and the propane guys do not do fuel, do not do gasoline. They ask, >> you never know, we could we could get a good hit here. So thanks for the idea, Val. And we are going to explore. Another big driver is health insurance. So this year we are looking at a 11.7% increase on all of our health

026insurance. What that comes to is this year we spent 621 next year 690. So when I say it's about 11.7 the premiums are 11.7% increase but who has insurance the um varies by staff participation. So you could have someone that's now off insurance or someone that's going to be on insurance. Um different things happen with that. But when we add up what we spent last year to what we spent what we're spending next year, it does come right about that. It does come pretty much close to that. That's a huge number. And that is also one of those things that is that we can't not the only way to reduce that number is to reduce the number of staff. It's the only way to do it. You reduce staff, you reduce insurance. That that's it.

027It all comes together. We are still part of the Connecticut State Health Plan. And if we want to explore that, that will take some work to explore that if we're going to look to do that. The other big driver facilities and uh we've talked about this today. I'm going to share a little bit cuz we're going to be doing this next month. >> Critical infrastructure. So a few years back was it when we put the uh generator money in? >> Yep. >> Right now we have an account waiting for the generator to die. >> Well, generator's doing okay right now. So, we talked about how we can still access that money for the problems we have now. And the best way I can look at this, the best way I can describe this, I think

028it's the one I used this morning, is uh let's just say that you're, you know, your roof has got a few years left in it at home. And you know that your roof's going to be about 20 to $30,000 to replace your roof. And you're looking at your money, you're like, I don't have $30,000 to replace my roof. So, you immediately start saying, we're going to save money over time for the roof. Let's just say after 3 years of saving money, you're almost there, but your roof is still fine, but your air conditioning system goes. What do you do? Do you leave the air conditioning untouched or do you take some of that money and put it towards air conditioning or do you go into debt by borrowing money for the air conditioning? We have

029no debt choice, right? We can't do debt. So, we would borrow right now. We can't touch the generated money, but we're looking in in the in the in the in the final budget >> that would be part of the capital projects. >> We're looking to change, not new, change the $85,000 from generator to critical infrastructure. Because right now, if you think about what is critical infrastructure, our water holding tanks are dead or almost dead. That's critical. You can't not have that happen. We have to deal with that. On top of that, we have the HVAC system is critical. Can't really run your school without heat or air. Fire panel. It's critical. Can't operate your school without a fire panel. And yes, the generator. Of all four of these things, the best the one in best

030condition is the generator. And that's where we have money. So if we move the money through vote of the town, no new money, so no cost to anybody, just rename it generator fund, critical infrastructure fund, that's our plan that allows us to then take this money and apply it right to the water holding tanks and then slowly keep building it up because the next one's going to probably be the fire panel. And that fire panel could be a ton of money, and you can't not you can't not have it. So, we're going to try and be real strategic and free up money that's already in existence for better usage. I thank Brian and Crystal for that. So, that was that was a big deal to try and get this done. We've talked about it for

031a couple months and uh Crystal and Bryant figed a way to >> get this going. So, >> I think we're fire panel's been on our kind of queue list of like getting a slug anyway. So I mean right now it that doesn't look that we have slug for fire panel slug for generator. >> Yeah. While it's still allocated towards the generator, you can't do anything with it until you complete the generator fund, the generator project. And at that point then you could transfer the remaining monies to another project. But it's just sitting there until you do the generator and you have other things going wrong, you know. Yeah. So what we talked about is critical infrastructure but not not it like the superintendent just says hey it's critical that we have beautiful purple carpeting. No,

032there's a great building committee. The building committee can work with the school. What's critical? Those four we'd all agree are critical infrastructure. But this doesn't this does not use that money the town thought was val valuable for critical infrastructure needs generator in the case to just use it for anything. So not remodeling, not vanity projects, critical infrastructure. >> So how does that work in terms of because you just made a good point about like critical infrastructure? So is that because right now with the building committee they would make a recommendation and then excuse me the board of ed has to approve it. Is it that same process or is it it goes to the town to approve it? No, >> it would still go through the board of >> ed back to the town because

033the money is now allocated for critical infrastructure as determined by the building committee, >> but then the building committee has to have it approved by the board of education. >> Yeah, we can't spend any money without that. >> Yeah. I just wanted to make sure there's some level of like I don't oversight is maybe not the right word. Maybe transparency is a better word, right? in terms of what that's like who is >> we'd be presenting at a board meeting >> but you wanted to use these funds from the critical infrastructure to update the water holding kings and then that would go to a vote on from the board that >> side yeah like you had to approve the contract to do HVAC project anything like that we can't we can't do projects without you

034so don't worry Megan we still need you >> yeah I mean else I'm dark. Oh, that's why because it is dark. Um, so class size a major driver. This is this is a weird damn what just happened here. Hold on a second. No idea what happened. All right. Well, we'll keep moving. Anyway, with this budget, what this budget gets us, that's what this is. this slide is maintains our class size, maintains our student supports, maintains extracurricular opportunities for kids. In fact, we're expanding a little bit um in uh baseball and uh looking to do some combined things together with Griswall, I think. And >> it's pretty exciting. So, our kids get something we can't give them, which is always great. Um all of our traditions for for VES maintains your high school choice and deals

035with our critical infrastructure needs. We have two right now. HBAC and water and this budget accounts for that without going to the town for more money. So that's what the budget gets us. So we're going to play our little numbers game again because I know you guys had so much fun last time. Sue was I think our winner last time by the way. So we'll see how you guys do today. Anybody? >> Last year's budget. >> Very good. >> It's 100% of last year's budget. >> 1% of last So they're out. They're cutting for you. So >> you didn't get a chance. >> Need a buzzer. >> We do need a little >> special ed cost. >> She got she did. >> This is our increased special ed cost for next year. Increase. Now remember,

036there's a big number in that that might go down. We just don't can't commit yet. I've been trying to get Lloyd to commit, but he won't commit yet. Mhm. >> And he's right not to commit. We have He knows the situation. He knows the volatility and of this situation. We're going to wait a little longer and see where we are. But that's going to be very helpful in the end if if it works out financially and and good for the student as well. >> Um that's also what >> 2.6% of the budget >> that represents a 2.6% increase >> to the budget. Just that just that alone. And that's the special needs increases. >> I was hoping for an A for the class today, but I don't know. >> That is B. >> 1%. >>

037That's not abnormal. Just so you know, people see that number like, oh my god, it's not crazy. We generally see between 20 and 30% in a district of the dollars that go towards special needs. So it's not it's not a crazy thing. In fact, we're almost at 20% of our students are special needs. So therefore, you're not looking at where that would be weird if you had 5% of your students were special needs and you're spending 27% of your budget on 5% of the kids. That's not the case. So it's not out of whack. That's just our tuition increase. >> Just tuition specifically. That's in Griswald, Wheeler, NFA. Just those three schools. Nothing to do with that. Just replacements. These are for things like speech, OT, PT, and energetal tuitions. Remember, when you throw 30

038kids into the mix, this happens. It's not because those schools did something bad or they raised our tuition rates out of control. This is reality of sending a very large eighth grade to the high school. So this is what you are floating. Oh, as of tonight we are still right here. Okay. So that's what you approved to send over to the town. That's where we are today. There are a few outstanding issues that exist that could lower that. I have no expected one to raise it, but we are looking at something that could reduce that. Okay? Just keep that in mind. We have time still play with that. I don't like to reduce to a point where we're in trouble if anything happens, but we going to have some room. I I think so. That's

039what we're looking to do. So this was something we talked about last time and I I went a little further with it. So I want to do a little bit deeper dive on this with you. So cost per pupil, the important number here, you can't compare Volunttown to the state. Doesn't work. Doesn't make any sense. You're not the same. But what you are similar to are other school districts with 350 kids or less. We rank sixth lowest in per pupil cost of those districts. That's a concern. That would be a concern number if you were like the highest. you would need to have some other rationale for why. What is it about? And there might be one, but we don't have one. So, we're doing pretty good actually. And it's your size, the configuration, and

040in our case, the fact that we don't really get funded enough money for the the national forest. So, that's just that. But I want to do this. Anyone remember this? >> It's a state forest, >> huh? stage mark. Sorry. Does anybody remember national? >> When did we >> Anybody remember this? Some Someone's got to remember this. >> Mhm. >> Like a toy. >> Joan, what is it? >> How does it work? >> I don't remember it works. I used to sit on my grandparents camp and it would go up and down. Up and down. >> This represents a tipping point. >> The bird goes like this. >> Yeah. >> And eventually it gets enough water where it dunks into the water. fine. But that's what this is. It's a tipping point. So, I'm going to

041do a little quick thing with you. Student enrollment. Because what happens with cost per pupil? People say, "You have less students. You should be spending less money." Doesn't work so cleanly. There's a tipping point for that. And I'm going to give you an example. If we had 20 students in a classroom and that classroom teacher cost $100,000, we do Val, I'm counting on you. How much is the cost per pupil for that class? Say it out. >> Five grand. Now, if I go down, a student moves out and now I'm at 19 kids. Can I reduce my costs? What happens to the cost per pupil? Goes down about 53. >> Until you get the bird in the water, you can't reduce money. Doesn't work that way. So, there's a tipping point for all of these

042things. In preschool, we had a tipping point, right? Because if we had too many kids, we couldn't do that. you'd have to make a decision to not educate some of the students, which would be called doing less for less. That's different. That's not what we want to do. Let's look at a family. So, I'm going to use my family. So, I have two girls. So, we have four in our family. Sammy, my oldest, went off to college first. Did my mortgage go down? I tried. I called the bank. I got one less kid. I should be paying the same amount for my mortgage. They said, "No, keep paying." Alex was next. She went out. Now we have a decision to make. If I want to reduce my expenses, what do I need to do? >>

043Correct. tipping point for a family at some point is they move out of a house if they so choose because the expenses are too high and the value is lessened because the number of people that live I'm saying you have to do this or people all people do this just in general that's what happened so we did we sold the bigger house moved to a smaller house reduced our mortgage then I moved to I have a higher mortgage I don't understand why but that's the way it works in a school. And I think when you brought up Kate, the idea of this concept that people get upset about cost per pupil, when they see that the number is going down and people automatically think that why is the budget not just going down just doesn't

044work that way. It does at a tipping point. If we just if we were isolating to preschool, we have a redu reduction in expenses because of enrollment. But that is not the way it works across the whole system until it does until the bird hits the water. I got to find one of these now because none of you know ruined my whole plan. All right. So, how do we make this magic happen? What do we do? What's our work? Our work shared service review. Talked a lot about about this. Um, you'll see when we talk about goals a little later. I think this should be a goal of the board to do this work. I think it's exciting work. It's good work. Uh, we met today to talk about possibilities of shared service as well

045with the town. Um, grant funding is a big deal. I'll go go quickly over that again. Um, how we go line by line in the budget, how we look at it and say I call it assignment of funding. So, in other words, you're you're making sure that the money in this account is doing what that account's supposed to be doing. Now, we kind of realign things and we check some things out. I gave you some examples last time and we've done that for this budget. So, this budget is I call clean. It's a very clean budget. Um, this budget maintains and we still we value this so we kept it. um low admin costs. You know, we're not not I didn't come in and say, "Hey, you think you're going to spend more money?" Um

046this is big and I I can't I say this all the time, but since they're here, I'll say a little bit more. This has been a huge positive uh with Brian Crystal. So, thank you both. And um I think there's a lot of potential here, possibilities of what's possible to do better for less, which is the goal, right? for all towns people, town, school, doesn't matter. It's all one bucket of money at the end of the day. Um, I shared with you 30% off of a lot of things. We've been signed up. We're doing it. Um, uh, Lloyd is getting into the Medicaid issue again. We tried this some years back. We're going to look at it again and see again if we can save money, we should. Period. The end. and um bus fleet

047as I told you we uh new buses able to reduce funding in your maintenance account and we're still looking and seeing depending on how things shake out of whether or not we should do one more bus or not but we're not doing the wheelchair bus as I shared last time as of right now the budget does not hold any money for another new bus for next year but we are talking to EML about possibilities and changes within how we do maintenance right now so hopefully there'll be some ways to save a little bit of money do at least the same from us and you have negotiations this year. So that's work that that has to be done and that directly impacts the budget as well. Right? So this is real quick looking at these things.

048How do we work with the town? How do we work with the school districts? Those are just some ideas on the kinds of things that could happen. I think I shared with you Sterling. I shared about Sterling. They're going to NFA next year. and they could drive a bus right past Volunttown to get to NFA. It's one of the directions they could choose to go. And I received a call from Ted, the superintendent, and we're going to look next year to try and combine our our routes in some way with NFA and uh Sterling. Easy peasy. Why send multiple buses if you don't need to? So, those are the simple kinds of things that might be possible. um in any of these areas. I still I still have a vision where all the little districts

049together are designing the special needs programs based upon where each of our kids where our kids are needed most where we could design it so that one school maybe be autism, one school might be this, one school might be that. In big districts, that's the way it works. We're not a big district, but we can act like a big district. So that's what one of the things we're looking at as well. So big deal, big stuff, good stuff for the board. grants. I'm not going to go over all these again, but these are list of our grants and um those are all offsets to our can I talk a little about so there's two three three other grants that we get and um the best way I could tell you about this is this document.

050So this document is from NFA. This is our cost for adult education. So every year we send NFA a 20,19,694 check from the school that goes to there. The state of Connecticut gives the town school, however you want to say it, $7,800 for that purpose. Now the district has always gotten this money in the way it gets bundled with ECS funds. but it's never been applied to a line. When we get title one money, that money gets applied to a line. So if we have a teacher that cost 100,000 and we get 50,000, we only budget 50,000. If I would budget a 100,000, the taxpayers would spend 50,000 and the state would be giving us 50,000. You're overt taxing. Not on purpose, not to be bad. Can't do that. Shouldn't do that. So, we're working

051to do whatever has to happen on the crystal end because I don't do that part. But we get $7,800. That needs to come off applied to that check. So, when we budget, instead of budgeting 196, we budget $1,800 less. It's all the same money. It's always been there, just never applied. So we did that in a few of the accounts which helped the budget. So again, no new monies and you reduce the cost of the taxpayer. So again, that's why this is awesome. We can do the right things like this and get through them even though they're tricky. But tricky doesn't scare us. We just have to do it right and get through it. So that's the example um of a grant. We get an adult education. We get another one for um kids that

052we send to marine science. we get money back from that. Those all come off the books now. So, it's good good stuff. So, when I talked about this, these were the specific ones. I'm sorry. These were the specific ones we went over last time. So, I'm not going to not going to do that again, but um if there's ever time we have more questions about anything within the budget, we always just reach out. Always always available. So, like I said, we are still working We're always looking for possibilities and opportunities for kids. And I I'm not 100% sure on anything, but I am my goal is to reduce this further with real reductions that are legit reductions, not just to make it lower. That's that's not the way I want to budget for you, for

053the town. But if there are things that we can do to reduce this, I talked about a big specific one, we should. So that's how we're approaching this. Um, Brian understands that from our conversation. I don't want to speak for you, but >> that's where we were today. >> And by our next meeting, we'll we should know more be able to commit to a couple things that we're looking at right now. >> That's where we are. So, where you are is another blue screen. I just put this back up again. That's where we are tonight. All right. And with that, open the floor to our community members. So your community members, >> all of them to represent everybody tonight. >> Good question. Good question. I just My only question I was making some notes on

054was why is the state not allowing us to invite preschoolers anymore? Is there a reason why? >> I don't know if Amy has a reason. I don't. Um it's just through that new early start because it's moved from school readiness to early start and so they're focusing on our you know within our residents doesn't make sense because it's state funds but just >> that's just a shame because always >> yeah I mean you always get a handful we don't get like a lot but people who live close by that that help us maintain that full program so you can reap the benefit of the money that comes with it. Yeah. Anything else, Joe? >> Crystal O'Brien. >> Um, my question was really just about I know I think it's NFA that fills you on the

055previous year's enrollment. So, you're really going to see that hit next year. >> We get a big I mentioned that to the board last meeting. We're going to get a hit >> next year. But the way special ed thing is different, right? >> Correct. >> Special ed is immediate. >> Yes. >> And so, our big hit for that is already in there. All right. >> So, it won't be as if that wasn't then next year's budget, we'd be in trouble. But because special ed's already being accounted for in this year's budget, that will just maintain itself. >> But next year, remember, we're sending only 19 kids, that'll helping offset some of the other numbers. And again, if we keep getting more kids into the tech programs, that helps as well. So, while it's a big

056class, five kids are a tech program. So, it does it brings it down a little bit in in the long run. Uh it was really the special education needs that caused a bigger jump, but we will have a um a straight regular education tuition jump from NFA next year. They'll count for and we had a large number you saw the number of kids going to NFA. >> 13 is a big number to go. >> It's a big number. So that's going to hit us next year. Unless we go talk to those families said maybe you want to Preston's a really nice town. >> Preston's a really nice town. You know, they can move. Just kidding. Um, anything else? Brian, >> I talked to Brian K this afternoon about the you talking about the propane tanks.

057>> Are those going to have to get changed >> cuz they haven't been looked at in like 30 years. >> So, they're coming to look at them. They will take care for free. Whatever has to be done >> for that. That was a big part of the conversation. >> Free is good. >> Free is we like free a lot. >> So, uh, no cost for the transfer over. just simply a reduction of about 70 cents a gallon and have locally serviced. We are not we have not been having the best of experiences with our current situation which prompted the look and we also received information from this shocking >> this group the whole town >> you know and and that's part of the the larger structure when you're small people are not always that interested

058but if you're a bigger buying group people sudden care more just the nature of the beast so we're hoping to get some of those things done but yes that's that was part of the deal they talked about how they would do what it what it means, what it looks like, and the whole process with us the other day. >> He said, "Well, I wish I was going and I cuz I forgot, but I think I mentioned it." >> Yeah. Yeah. >> See what's going on there. >> Yeah. Next, the next trick like we talked about is can we can we install our own gas pumps? >> Right. Now, are we required to use only one gas station in the area or can we shop around to the best? >> We're not required. We don't have

059contract. We don't We're paying We're paying the rate you see on the on the sign. >> Credit credit too because it's all credit, >> right? But like there's other gas stations further down the road that have better rates. >> They don't they don't only go to this one. >> Okay. >> I was saying when I was there that one day it brought it home for me, you know, like why are there big yellow bust sitting? >> That was my question. Are they are they able to kind of >> use Gas Buddy and find out exactly where? >> Well, but the question like are we using a point system that is a rebate system or not? I don't know the answer. You say that gas, buddy. You got to maximize every dollar. Every dollar is a

060dollar. >> So, we got to be a little better on our gas. >> DJ BJ 375. >> Yeah. Go to BJ. There was a Costco was too far. But by the time you go to Costco, you really >> need gas. You >> don't The Preston gas station right down the road is almost consistently. We'll keep looking at at this whole issue and see what we can do. But yeah, >> any other questions though from the board. >> Getting any inklings from town folk on what their you know concerns are or has it been pretty quiet? >> It's been pretty quiet. It has I mean last year was a little crazy but I think it's a little better this year and so we should uh we should be good this year open. Yeah. >> How much

061are you looking at? >> What's that? >> How much are you looking at for your budget >> right now? The uh >> right now it's like what >> 47? >> So there's a lot of just like your budget. There's a lot of moving parts right now. So we're not really in a place where we can >> we don't make promises on numbers and then let them change. Um, but we're definitely, I think, in a reasonable place and our whole perspective is just to be as transparent as possible. So, question should be pretty easily answered because the numbers will be in black and white. So, >> there'll be some cuts to what we're doing right now. So, >> yeah. >> Well, that's good just to hear, you know, like whatever, you know, just the initial feedback

062that you're you're hearing. So, that's good. And like as to echo what >> what um Scott was saying, it's just it's just really great to to work with you both and the whole staff. And I think the more that we can have these preliminary presentations and look at each other is, you know, just see make sure that we're kind of aligning our our messaging. So it's it's you know, there's no question before that meeting. One thing that we're really trying to kind of push for this year is to just get information out about how the community can get involved in the process. Um, you know, one part of our budget timeline that is often overlooked, I think, is the budget hearing. Um, a lot of people come to the town meeting itself but skip the

063budget hearing. And the budget hearing is really the time to come give input. you know, at that point, we'll have the budget for people to look at and and they can see, you know, where we're making changes or where they think that there could be improvements because um once we get so we've put out a flyer, you've probably seen it on seen it on Facebook. Um the budget hearing, that's the discussion. That's we're having a discussion. The town meeting is the vote, right? >> Um and and of course there's still discussion. Um, but that's when that's when we're bringing the call. That's when the vote's going to happen. And so we're really hoping to encourage residents to be more involved earlier in the process this time. Um, so spread the word. >> My door is

064always open. I told everybody at the the last boss line after that comes out if you want to come over talk with me. I have no problem with that. So, I thought I'd be getting budget questions, but I'm getting road questions, bridge questions, getting questions, >> of course. Yeah. >> And I think you guys know the feeling of kind of getting blindsided by increased amounts of money looking at, you know, the snow removal from this year. >> We have to deal with, you know, an out of district placement. You guys have to deal with >> 25 in of snow in one shot. So, >> yeah. plus the wind storms with the trees >> and we had a lot of that this year. >> There's a lot >> we're really not doing that bad with it

065>> monetary wise. So >> there and there's a lot of the other reasons there's a lot of sort of factors um at this point and we were just on the phone with Heather Summers and Brian Lener this morning at this point right now the governor is cutting $65,000 for our pilot funding. Um, if you don't know what pilot funding is, it's payment in lie of taxes. So, we're 70% state forest. We're not receiving tax monies for that 70%. And so, the state sends us, which is kind of a pittance at this point, but they do send us funds because we don't get tax money for that. Um and um it's really been a struggle to to make sure that we don't, you know, just like the ECS funding, we're hoping to at least be held

066harmless so that we'll get the same funding that we got last year. Um so, um Heather's on the job at this point in the Senate trying to make sure that we can try to amend that or, you know, if we can't do it through pilot, maybe do it through the municipal revenue sharing. So, we're sort of working with, you know, what's happening with our revenues and um so as those pieces kind of solidify, we'll have a better idea. But right now, we're working through it. >> Thank you, guys. >> Welcome to Stay with the course of your life. >> I'm good. I got to do >> We only have a couple hours left. When you do a kid performance like in the beginning or something like >> Yeah. Stay for the budget presentation like >>

067Thank you guys. >> Good to see you. >> Approve it. Make a motion. >> Yeah. I'll see you later. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Based on Scott's presentation and our brief discussion, um do we have a motion to approve the 2627 budget proposal of 7 mill,592,66 2.87%. Motion >> second. >> All in favor? >> I any opposed? Heard extensions. Motion passes. We will forward it to town hall for public dissemination. All right. Well, I think we our public comments just I think occurred left otherwise. So, um maybe motion to add an agenda item. Correct. >> Yeah. So, um we have to add a motion for at this time of the year when you do a non-renewal notice. So, we have to add that on for one of our staff members. And also

068that we want to do the propane vendor. So, again, propane vendor pretty much one of the easier no-brainers of our existence. There's literally no possible downside here. These are a great company, a local company, and significant savings. That's a real huge savings. Almost 30% savings, which is pretty huge. I wish all of our energy was through propane on a big sav propane. I was going to ask that >> I did. It's funny. I was asking talking about I'm like, well, >> I have oil. I just paid $1,350 for $212 gallons of oil. Like, oh, that hurt. >> What does it cost to change over the profile? >> What is the break even number on the install versus the savings on that? >> But, uh, yeah. Okay. So, we've just made a motion to add um

069those two items in our renewal of the t-shirt under new business. All in favor? >> Okay. We will put that at the end of >> new business. >> Yeah. End of new business. >> Great. Moving on to the consent agenda. These are approval minutes. the dispersements, auction object reports, so forth. Are we um okay making a motion to approve as presented? Motion >> second. All in >> favor? Motion passes. Administration reports. One of the things I just want to talk about tonight was um Alice in Wonderland. That was the last name. It was so much fun. Um it was adorable. It was the show was absolutely adorable. Um big thank you to Kayla and Darlina because they put in a lot of time with that and um it the show it seems like a lot

070but then you watch it and you're like it finally came together. So that was great. Um, a lot of our families come and they make donations to drama through, you know, raffle tickets, concessions. It was really a great time. They held the family dance. I had over 120 people come to the family dance. That was a lot of fun. And her glow shirts on your jacket, glow, the glow dance. The lights were off, people were glowing everywhere. So, it was a lot of fun. Um, that was great, too. And so we're just moving in now to like the last half. Our report cards will come out next um after vacation. So be on vacation next week. Reports will come out after vacation. The middle school dance, our little a little bit more of a semi

071formal dances actually we come back that Friday night from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. So we're underway with that. A lot of field trips happening. You see they can board. Um so a lot of those pieces are in motion. we will, you know, start the process for our early start grant again and and allocating spaces. So, I will go through that process again. Have a couple meetings to go to for that. We were awarded um we also have to go through NYAK accreditation within the next year. So, that's another piece of preschool and I applied for the grant funding for the support service for that. It's a very comp complex process to go through that accreditation and reacredititation. So, we were awarded that. So, I'll start working on that. um those dating and coming up. So,

072screen free week, the last club, that's huge. Mark your calendars. May 4th week about 5 to 6:30 each night. Um that's a big YSB event. So, if you want that for YSB and PTO also has the basket raffle, so all those baskets um will be there every night. So, that should be >> Scott, you just such things to look forward to on spring. I I came I came last year. >> I didn't to the book fair one. Is that >> Oh, yeah. I was there for >> And there was a was a Kona ice truck. I think >> there was one night. Yes. >> So, if there's a Kona ice truck for every night, I'm sorry. >> It's a very big night here. Like, you know, I don't know in other districts that they do

073a lot, but I just feel like it just culminates together. It's evolved with something really, you know, great. >> People were like, "Wow, we do a lot." >> Do a lot. I was like, "It's all >> Yeah. People just want to come out. They want to hang out. The kids want to hang out." So, >> with you discussion for Mrs. Well, you know, you're very busy. A lot of things coming. Yes, there's there are so many so many things, but again, yes, the stellar performance put on by the drama club and all the folks that that volunteer their time to help with it. I mean, you know, it's not it's not just the kids and the coaches and the parents that guide them and everything. I mean, it is all them. They're front and center,

074but there's a lot of behind the scene work that goes into it. all the the teachers that volunteer and the um and the the woodworking and the painting and I it's just it's just a lot. So, it's you know really a wonderful and you say that I do also want to put a plug out um to Nancy McBride. Yes. >> So, Scott always says how like all these retired people come back. They come back and so Nancy came back. Ny's been gone for probably eight years now or so. Um and so she came back and did that set. So she came and painted came back in the afternoon and painted that. So it was really, you know, great having her back and and do that piece of um Yeah, it was stunning. It was just

075it was >> just looking back at the pictures, I'm like, I can't get over, you know, when you're trying to look at your kids and listen to the stuff and then you you're like, she's beautiful, but then just just looking at back at it, it was just stunning. So yes, definitely um wow, wow, and impressed. So just labor of love. is coming. >> I wonder if they thought it was 7 o' >> welcome. >> Hello. >> How are you? >> Good. >> Um, no, I just wanted to mention I know you didn't bring it up, but um I was talking to Scott at the deer graduation. Sixth graders. Yeah, we had deer also. So, I just wanted to just mention that um I was talking to Scott about I don't >> we I don't know

076if that's like a mandated program because I do have friends with similar age children that don't seem to be going through it. So, I did want to just make a shout out that I I do appreciate that we still offer that. I think that's a great program. >> It's like that old school like I would say when we were in school, you know, old school type program, but he does the trooper does such a great job of giving them something different than just being in a seat, right? He brings a different like he brings the world out to them that there line he gets out just awesome. >> He just gigantic line >> god >> and it is a good focus now. It's not it's not so focused on you know on it's more on

077like healthy living and healthy habits and so much but it's >> yeah you mentioned there about um even the like online the >> Yes. That's a huge piece. >> Yeah online safety. So, I did want to just make a call out for that since that >> agreed. Okay. Um, we can move on to our um special services. >> Dr. Johnson, >> just briefly, um I did reach out to uh the representative that we have through the Bureau of Special Education about the concern with the uh policy recommendation regarding the need to provide a brochure every year to a student who has an IEP or a 504 uh disregarding the child. uh the bureau objected to that ele that line in the law when it was being considered um but the law was still passed so

078it's still there uh I have not seen the brochure I assume it hasn't been produced yet um I'm thinking of ways to really involve the parents in in this process um because I'm concerned that first is getting this brochure. It's a legal requirement, but I'm hoping that by providing it to the parent, they leave it to them to talk to the child and then as the kids get older, then my members in my department will talk about how to go about that. But I want the parents to know ahead of time that that's that's a new state requirement and try to work with them figure out how to to make it work. Probably in most cases won't be much of a problem. I am sensitive to um how much parents want the children to know

079about the nature of their disability. Um Scott's already mentioned about community management services. Uh our transition meetings are are going along fine with the uh uh schools of choice. The uh last link testing is completed. Um, I want to thank Emily Nelson for taking care of that for us. She did a nice job getting that done with Amy's support. And um, um, we developed a report for Scott today regarding the seed grant. Um, we have spending plan for almost the entire grant. There's a couple thousand dollars left. want to see what issues emerge between now and the 1 of June. But when when those when the things we purchase arrive, it's going to it's going to really help. We have a couple significantly disabled students. We've already received some things about lift that you might

080see in the front of our students and some second year. >> Thank you. >> Just have one question. Any of the students that are accepted to the tech schools are any of them specializ have special needs of some >> Yeah. So >> yeah, they have to and and they do they they they do a really good job of they have ramped up their services that they rep in my mind they replicate what typical high school offers so they can handle kids with that. The only issue usually is they have to be able to uh with support uh learn the content so that they can u achieve the credentials that they're they're working four years toward questions for Dr. Johnson. >> Thank you very much. I'll be quick. So, I also want to just congratulate the

081students at Kaylin building on the play if you didn't get a chance to see it. Just so cute. The kids are just too cute. Doing a play with little ones is always always incredible. Also, uh I didn't know I met Nancy for the first time last night, but the um the scenery, you would never think you're at a small elementary school play with all that scenery and the beauty of it. And they had a lot of movement. If you were there, you know, they took a lot of time to make sure it's set up well. And >> that stage crew, I mean, they were working. >> Was working. >> There were feet beyond there going nuts under there. I thought there was like 20 >> wow. >> But really really great. And also I got

082you got to give kudos to Terry who was uh the mad hatter >> and oh my scholar >> unusual. >> Yeah. >> A student wrote his >> Yeah. about the caterpillar. >> Incredible. That is incredible script. >> Just handed him the script to act like to all the creative genius was >> one of our own very own students which is incredible. >> Yeah. >> Um so I don't have to harp on this. I talked about in the budget but the idea of our shared service work. >> I think that's going to be potentially a huge thing for the district in many ways both specifically directly towards kids and as well as operations and finances. So excited about that work partnering with town Looks like a you know have some really good wins right there for

083everybody. Um and this is I mentioned it quickly but um this is something that uh Andrew Kelly's been working on. Uh we have some students and I think you just sent me today. Um Amy, we have some of our middle school students that will be playing baseball and softball with the baseball kids. >> So we don't have those. So opportunity, it's a mini shared service. Any opportunity you can give kids got to take advantage of that. So that's exciting work as well. I did go over preschool as well. So most of the things I I was going to talk about specifically kind of I kind of infuse into there. But um I just keep rock and rolling and uh all those things are just as Amy talked about there's just a lot of lot of

084great traditions. >> You know, it's small but mighty. There's just really a lot of really good things for families to come out to and it's really exciting. Very family oriented. >> Very cool. So, >> so we can move on to without any other questions for Mr. Feder. We'll move on to old business. We've got a um a lot of policies that are kind of in play these days. So, um, but obviously we'll be given a couple of cycles of our board meetings to take a look at them and bounce questions back and forth. And I know a big bulk of this particular assignment has been related to special education and our the IEP. So, I find it just even just reading it if you if you can get through it. Um, there's 17 to 18

085pages of it um per type. It's uh it's just refreshing to kind of see what what the steps are and and you know how thorough it is and um how obviously important it is and the different variations of regulation. So um the first policy though that is under old business is educational opportunities for military children. This is the second reading. Let's go look at that with Megan. I think this one we just had to take out the alternate on the back. >> Right. >> And just leave it at the discretion of the stretch for being related to leave and the >> right >> I don't my my thought is that doesn't happen significantly that you have to have like very rigid right is fine. Do you need to see the the change or you're there

086with us? >> I got Okay. All right. So, make a motion to adopt the second reading of policy spot 2 on educational opportunities for military children um as >> amended. Motion. >> Second. All >> in favor? I closed heard. Motion passes. Item number two is poly 6159 the individual education program. This is the second. We've had some >> that was the question I think that was standing on the student when they reach 14. >> Yeah, that that's what we were discussing with with boy. So do you feel comfortable boy that I mean I know that is should we wait another reading until you actually get or is it just up to us to kind of adapt? >> The law is the law. He he he wasn't happy because the bureau took a position. >> Yeah.

087>> That there should be some >> if they linked that distribution requirement with the eight 14y old and what we do for 14 year olds. I think everyone would have been more comfortable, but it's not like this. against what it is to >> but we will do everything that we can within the realm of st staying legal but um respecting parents rights and their preferences to to get to and listening to what my colleagues would be doing brochure you know people. >> I don't think the bureau is done with their wanting to have um an adjustment amendment or a change, >> right? >> They haven't dropped it. It's something they continue to be very concerned about. So I think as feedback uh begins to flow and people share their concerns with having to actually go

088through it. Perhaps the legislature will change his mind. >> We don't know. >> I still found errors. That's just my opinion comments that I amended to back to TV. But >> that's fine. Um, >> okay. So, are we comfortable there then making a motion to adopt the second reading on individual education program as amended? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I none heard. Motion passes. Okay. Um item six, well policy 6171 is special education third reading. So um the feedback that I had for this was not really because well it's sort of related to the policy under the evaluation of the special education program. I could not recall. We So, we have a curriculum steering committee or curriculum committee, but I don't think we have a special education committee outside of the actual special

089education program. Is that correct? So, I'd like to like just put it out there for you guys to think about potentially having, not that anybody wants any more committees, but um within the school having more of a the general education teachers having the ability to provide their input. I know that the special education teachers and case managers, I think, are meeting regularly with the general education. Um, but I'd like to put out there maybe consideration for a more oversight in terms of, you know, allowing general education teachers to provide feedback related to IEPs and additional support they need in order to actively follow IEPs in the classroom. Um, and I think because there is evaluation of special education program, I'm just curious as to what additional feedback is being solicited in terms of, you know,

090because obviously special education program largely impacts the general education teachers. Um, and maybe you guys already have something, but um, if not, I'd like you guys to maybe consider something along those lines to make sure that, you know, it's it's a cohesive education for that student who is in and out of general education and special education. >> Looks confused. >> I'm not actually describing a committee. No, process. >> Yeah. a way to provide feedback or solicit feedback >> because I know that they're again I I believe they're meeting the case managers are meeting with the general education teachers regularly but I think that's more if my thought process is correct that's more related to individual IEPs rather than the ability to provide feedback on the special education program as a whole >> or things like

091you know they might have an idea or you know um like the training for their parent in their classroom or that they would like to see them more trained. Like I just want to make sure that there's a way for the general education teachers to provide that feedback on the special education program and also ask for help or how they can most effectively implement an IEP that's within the classroom. So again, not anything related to going into the policy, but something that I'd like to at least throw out there >> um as you guys implement your programs. >> I mean, there's like, you know, I'm just thinking like in line with the evaluation, correct? you know can be like part and parcel with you know what however the the report is formatted there can be

092a you know something how that's included but I think that's the level that only level we can >> correct yes it's not >> implement here is is via that piece of the evaluation and our discussion around that and so forth language otherwise I think we're fine >> okay do We have a motion to approve the third reading of we are doing um 6171 second reading third >> is it third >> yes third I don't know where my third and >> okay Okay. All in favor? >> I opposed. Heard motion passes. Last policy under old business is 9230. Uh the orientation of board members. This is it's quite personal, right? Yeah. I'm really confused by the adding of this because what are you going to do if they don't >> right though, >> right? Yeah. So

093almost none of bylaws are enforcable by real T level action, >> right? I mean, it's an elected position. You can't do anything. There's actually no there's no mechanism for a board >> in most cases to remove another member. >> So weird. >> This is this is more about providing training to new board members. The the section in red it's like new that's what Nick Caruso was sharing >> that him coming out and doing that >> professional development fulfills this new. So then maybe it should be determined by the CD this department of education, >> right? >> Yes. >> Does it have to be in there? Is that the thing? >> It's a new >> Can we change the wording to first time elected board members shall be offered or provided training program at minimally or

094it has to be this language? >> This is what Cab recommended. >> I don't suggest altering that language. back. >> And yeah, that also >> so when if you're ever audited on policies, you're ever challenged on policies or someone ever makes a claim against a board member and your policy, the first thing a lawyer is going to do is grant your policies. >> And if your policies aren't following law and statute, that's what they get you. That's why you don't mess with it. It just doesn't >> right. But recommended doesn't mean it's the law. >> Cave recommended doesn't mean it. It's just sometimes it doesn't it doesn't doesn't have a big enough impact to ever put. >> That's why I love policies. >> Yeah. But like why have a policy if you can't afford or

095information policy can't enforce it? >> You can't enforce. >> Exactly. >> All all the bylaws you can't enforce. >> No, but if you actually look at the board if you look at the bylaws, it's shall it's like what we shall do before board members. It's not like you must do this, you must do this with the exception of that last bullet. It's like >> they are too like it's fine. >> I don't I don't know if there's >> I don't know if there's like a fine they could you know if you don't I don't know >> if that if this legal required to be in there. I mean he has to keep it in there but >> I think it should go for everybody to come back and do a workshop. >> I think not.

096We've never been offered anything from this department of education like Connecticut Department of Education like it's like I've never seen something that's like this as that says Kate you're in charge of Mtown you must do this so tell all your minion you know there's nothing they can do >> but maybe it protects us right maybe to your point right like if well it says well you were supposed to complete the green you didn't so it's not like >> there might have been more of an explanation in that big policy update that I >> I I mean I was thinking like is there anything we want to like remove like that's not required but not besides the red like that we have to ask but the other parts were >> adopted for many years now so

097can if there's something in the language that doesn't seem >> I mean are you are you doing them for >> I was just ask I was like you've done that Oh yes. >> Very um organic >> process. Is that what we're going to call it? >> I I meet with Sue and Rachel regularly um at the gas station. Says >> like a mentor provider mentor. >> Think about these are good practices. That's why it's so weird that number eight is not May. That was May and be consistent. >> Sorry, guys. >> I know. >> I called. >> You're going to get a motion to do the train. >> He already did. >> Superintendent will have toend at least let you know that both Rachel joined us as well. So it was a great I think

098it was a great >> and then of course I feel comfortable making a motion to reading. >> Come on. >> Do we have a second? >> Okay. Do we have a motion to adopt the second? Second favor. >> Any opposing the first time? >> Okay. Not hard yet. Kind of. Um, but yeah, motion passes to a pro it. >> I think Val's on my side though, guys. >> I have to. It's just It's the way you learn. The more you know when you just >> you know >> that completes old business. Now we have to move on to new business. Um policies here just to make sure we're up to speed with >> um there's the public conduct and school activities. >> Wow. >> A question I have. >> Oh boy. So a lot of

099our school activities happen on the constitution field which is not actually under board's like jurisdiction. Is that correct? >> Correct. So a lot of this policy is not factual then >> I mean this would count for all the games and stuff too. No, I I I understand the things that happened with the school, but I don't know. Do we need to modify the law? >> Those are school sponsored activities. >> But like I don't you know because somebody off the constitution field >> they don't have that passed. >> Yeah. But if they refuse to like you'd have to call the cops, right? I mean I don't know. >> They have requested people to leave games. >> Understood. And I would hope that they would, but I don't think we have this level of >> if

100it's school sponsor, we have every right to >> Yeah. behavior >> the constitution like you can't stop them from going and sitting over on the basketball court ready for a soccer game. So >> that's true, >> right? >> Because it's town, right? >> Again, I just if if we're going to if >> this goes back to the policy that Yeah. like that it's that we have one and it's you know it when it's >> I think it really it's kind of the reverse like you have these expectations you know maybe now at our events where we're making prior announcements I know it's just interesting >> we don't make this announcement on a soccer field >> that's what I'm saying is it like is it set >> we I know we do this at the basketball

101games at volleyball games we do this at games that take place in gym >> and they do like attention >> they do it at I They do it at NFA's level, you know, I mean, they're they're, you know, because they're doing announcements of the players and everything and they're >> before the national anthem. So, it's like the bottles in line. It's just what >> um >> other towns do do it. So, >> right. I mean, obviously they do it at the >> school does. >> Yeah. They they do it during rap and things, but >> but it says school sponsored activities. So, like hypothetically last night that would play, right? You don't put out your expectations. >> I think it says also it can it can be listed like it can just be you know

102assign sign and then handbook. >> Yeah, but not I was just curious if this is a required policy or if it is already encompassed under something else and we could just >> I think this is the only we have this. >> Yeah, it's >> I mean it's all >> it is recommended not required. But um and I did forward this to Andrea just to give her a heads up. Um as the athletic director, this is going for a first reading, right? >> She was excited about it. >> I think she's had you specific to the behavior >> you're then able to adapt on. If you can't do it at the soccer field and you can't do it, >> let it's good to do that. Yeah, >> we had we've had cases already at basketball games

103where we've had to >> remove parents from basketball >> deal with deal with people. >> Could we have removed Yes. From what I understood, we could have >> not only our parents, it could be a parent from another >> school. >> Yeah. Visiting teams. >> I just think I think these are very valuable, you know, on on all fronts. I mean, if you hear something a brief, you know, whatever we want to message as a as a school and a community, you know, set of values that we want at our our events, it's not just for parents, you know, the kids hear it, too, which is sometimes just to support it, you know, and and that logistics or >> Yeah. And I don't necessarily I don't disagree that we should have the policy. I just

104didn't know if he had it. If it was encompassed already in something else, >> then, you know, then my the question back. Yeah. >> I I would like to if if Andrew is the one that is kind of the overseer. >> Yeah. The policy committee could reach out to her and communicate. >> Yeah. Because I I don't want anybody from school in a >> in the constitution field in a argument with somebody that like I'm a paying citizen. I have a right to be, you know, I don't call. >> Yeah. >> So, we're sending this to a second. >> Yep. >> Yeah. That has to be. So our next one is school safety um right the preparation response and stuff. So this is all red. Yeah. All red. made their money on relatives. >> Again,

105this one is just to note that this is they're trying to cave has really been like consolidating LA. I don't know if you remember recently we we did this policy itself. This is a regulation that they are adding. >> Oh, okay. >> To res to get rid of another policy on safe and secure facilities. >> So, the rest of the policy remains. This is just the regulation and res and rescending policy 3516. >> All right, that's a good refresher on that one. So, yeah, we'll take a look. >> Yeah, make sure that >> Okay, thank you. >> That's a schooling second reading. And then our final new business first reading is the other wow. >> Yeah. oni. >> We've been waiting for this for a couple years now. I remember it's like, okay, we'll come

106out with one eventually. Here it is. >> Here it is. So, get out those reading glasses and just none for a while. We'll come back with a >> our thoughts and prayers. >> Is this is this a good policy to give to >> Sorry, I'm still reading the spectator policy. I was like, what is this? Yeah. Isn't involved in that? >> Yeah. Yeah. Have a look at it and see what she thinks as well. >> Do you guys give guidelines to the teachers related to AI in enforcing the classroom but also in their own curriculum or >> are you just not there yet? >> I don't think they're really there yet. >> Some great tools for for staff. It is like that's the thing. It's all the chicken before the egg. Exactly. You're not going

107to like >> It's good for you. >> Yeah. >> You just have to have policy when you're not. >> My wife wanted to know where she should plant her garden right in the house. She took a picture of the backyard for AI for 10p to tell us. >> It's It's so much more than we can That's nothing. >> Yeah, that's cool. It's it's amazing what's possible. It's just it's >> the implications on school. I I believe it's >> and you you'll remember Val specifically when uh calculators became >> really using and back in the standardized testing days. Well, you taught high school so in elementary world the big question was can kids use a calculator for standardized testing? And then they would write your script of when they were allowed to use it, what section

108of the math they were allowed and what section they weren't allowed. And now we're in AI world, which makes that kind of insane by thinking about a calculator. >> You know, an AI can write your paper, it could do your research, it could do so much. you know, using AI is a gigantic undertaking and having them infused that we we and this gets debated over and over again back and forth with how much is too much, >> how little is too little. Mhm. >> And I've always approached phone cell phone usage, high school levels and things like AI as how do we make it usable because it's real and but you don't want kids, you know, when you're learning how to do something using a resource sometimes is negative. you're in learning phase but so

109you're >> I have a friend who's a principal who has like kind of he has that technology >> mind but he does a lot on AI training his teacher so he's happy to come in and how good how to not use it for evil you know he's got a really but also to help >> teachers teachers really >> yeah I think we're just border It's really >> you're so used to like that old school type. >> Yeah, he really does a nice job. >> Can you see like they're not allowed to know what magnets to use that but >> I don't even know how they can go put it your stuff back in to see if it like sniffs out AI in your paper, you know? And so like >> it's just incredible. So bigger

110than the ways the biggest concern um that I think we need to focus on starting even in kindergarten is discerning information. AI has changed how information is given and received. And so, you know, I think my wife sent me a text today about um is it true that all people are going into the draft, >> right? because there was a a rules discussion about a bill that was passed related to automatically being registered for things cuz it's just using it's not like a draft but then what happens is people take a piece of information and >> create bait and then know you know how do you know when it's that versus real >> and you know during this whole last month and a half >> like right now >> is the straight or her moves

111open or closed does anyone know >> how do you even know what information to listen to or not listen to what's actual news versus what's someone's doing is >> clickbait >> commentary >> and they use real AI imaging >> to create real looking and they do it in a way where it's like wow that's legit >> that's crazy >> so the concept of how to discern is I think the biggest challenge we have bigger than the idea of a kid using it to write a paper >> I think that's the that's almost old AI usage now >> in compar like that's going to change so fast. >> And I think the that >> how it actually changes your brain. >> Well, I saw a picture and it was like of a kitchen and I'm like,

112"Oh, I love that kitchen." And my daughter looks at it. She goes, "That's >> You know that's AI, Mom." I'm like, "Shut up." >> So, like, >> it was so cool that I wouldn't have even thought that by looking at it initially. And then she looked at it. like, "Oh, that's neither >> that refrigerator has seven figures." >> But really, it's it's the what does this curriculum look like that starts in kindergarten? >> Very different, right? It's because when you teach reading, you know, reading readiness and there's AI readiness and there's social media readiness and all those things are twin that because AI is now dominates social media. It used to be social media was rough enough. Now AI dominates social. You don't know. You honestly have no idea. The kids do or they're better

113at it than we are, >> but you have no idea if you're looking at something that's real or fake. Is it made up? So teaching kids how to go back to finding primary sources >> the old days. But that's so valuable. I know when I see something that I don't believe, I try to Google and try to find any other corroborating piece of evidence that whatever that was was real. And I'll tell you, it's nine out of 10en times it is not real. It's just not it's not someone I don't I don't understand why they do it. >> Like I still haven't figured out the not like I'm looking there like a million hits. There's like 12 people looking at this. >> Why what is the purpose of this? I don't even understand. >> But

114it's it's very very very difficult. Nobody's marketing >> and it is the part of AI that's going to drive is determining is it real memor that know that is it real memor >> is it the real sound or is it a tape of the sound >> and to me that's where AI is taking schools and teaching kids how to manage a reality that exists and the more we hide that the reality exists That's not I just don't think that's going to be the answer. But this that but that statement I just made to be debated >> with equal force on both sides. >> Keep them away from it versus help them understand it. That's the >> Yeah, I think that this is obviously it's going to >> take a while to get through a couple

115of sources that we want to >> feel about and I think we're going to have a couple of rounds of discussion on it. just it's it's worth the time to take on it and and and at least as of our our group feel comfortable where we're obviously putting a tiny pin in because it's just going to we're going to see it over and over again I'm sure >> so okay here at our table what other policy things are just deferring a whole like cell phone policies or something like that like that's like >> at least you don't have a high school cell phone policy in high is a nightmare. >> Unfortunately, whatever policy you come up with is a nightmare. >> Yeah. >> Going through the process of creating a policy. >> Well, that's why

116I was like two ones are like going into a class >> until they don't in their ve size classroom that they have, you know. I mean, it's it's >> here is not that. It's really not a I talked to him about that early on. You said it was not really This is not a gigantic issue for us here, >> but in a high school setting, large high school >> and the and the opinions of the staff, >> you have a like polar opposite. Correct. >> From absolutely no cell phones under any circumstance to kids should have them sitting on their desk >> and with equal force, same as I am. It's like it's all very controversial. We did. >> Parents want it because of safety. >> Nap places. We have >> phone jail. You name

117it. >> Kids don't have lockers that they can leave them in. It's like we can't even get the >> It has to be in their backpack. >> Attached to their ear. >> We don't have to worry about that. >> Okay. Um so moving out of policy filing um we can move on to the board administrative goals. This is a review of our upcoming year goals. We always have our goals at the back side of the agenda next to the mission statement. We did take a um I don't know it was probably 5 years ago that we kind of took a a greater look at creating the the you know whatever eight or so that we had here. Um yeah so I have some comments. >> So I wrote three new goals at the top in

118blue. >> I was going to say >> I did those. >> So here's how I look at goals. Goals number one have to be of value not not just written. >> So having a mission inclusive of various things um is totally appropriate, normal, fine, works well. You have a whole bunch of goals here and um there's not one goal here that's bad. There's nothing. Well, don't do that. That's there's nothing here that's like that. This is a question of what you want out of your goals. So I approached it a little differently to try and identify three areas specific that can actually be targeted areas that can be discussed at board meetings or actually could be seen and assessed. >> A smart goal >> like a smart goal but I didn't write them as smart

119goals at this time. >> I convert these to smart goals. Yeah. Yeah. >> We kind of the same thing. This is just a little small backstory. It's like when you're talking about or you know just going over our reviews and so forth we're like gosh we want to have like that action list of like the smart that we're like this is what we want to focus on we get here whatever. So we're we're very much on your >> when you look at maintain a safe environment. Of course you >> of course what's the goal though like what what are you reaching what what are you applying to that goal? >> Nothing probably never mention it again. You just know that's what we do. And there's nothing wrong with having those things. I'm just suggesting if

120we add ideas that are the focus of the board rather than a board just a list of things that boards do. >> I approached it. This is just my this is like my spitball like that. So number one uh was the whole shared service thing. I think a board and like almost like an ad hoc committee >> of the board or board as a whole but an ad hoc committee is more um viable and then at board meetings that committee reports out on how are we doing with share services? What did we look at this round? Where are we going with this? Like that's really valuable and that that is a goal that you can measure. It's a goal that will have an impact on the district. All the other goals also do, but you're

121not doing anything towards them. The board isn't acting in a way towards those other goals, right? They're just things that we know to do, right? And our general behavior gets to those, but nothing specific is happening as a result of those goals. So, the second one in this case was you have a strategic plan. So, I'm here in almost a year now, and I've never heard anyone mention the strategic plan. >> They were raped. Well, it's very normal. It's what happens with strategic plans when they're not measured >> and they're not part of the fabric of how you operate. So, if we want to do a real approach to that, a reboot of that, then that could be a goal of the board. And then by the end of next year, we have a newly

122developed student plan that has all the components of stakeholder engagement, all the things that are measurable, all all the things that you want to see happen in the district over the course of a 3 to 5 year depending on how you do it. And that's probably how you started the one from exo very normal. Um, so I think that's a good and sec whenever I've come to a new place, I do them the second year. I never do them the first year because I don't have enough info to give real input in the first year. So that's fair. Yeah, I think we've been on a the double gap year because I think it was due I think we were going to do it last year and then it like was we were kind of we

123felt like it was you know >> it wasn't fair to the board situation >> knowing we were transitioning. >> No 100%. But I this is not a knock on anything. This is this is the reality of almost every student plan I've ever seen that winds up hitting a dead spot >> and doesn't really become a fabric of how you operate. So when when I built my first strategic plan, that was one of our quotes was the strategic plan should be the oxygen, right? That's how that's what you're using to make decisions, right? And so um I think we could do that. We might do it very successfully and um take what we have done, re-evaluate that, do all the surveying of the community, all the various stakeholder groups and come up and really identify. The

124reality is the 3 to 5 year plan is going to have a lot of the same pillars. like you can have an academic pillar, you can have a fiscal pillar. It's not like you're going to reinvent the universe, >> but within those pillars, what's specifically your target areas and how do you measure that? So anyway, I I suggest it's one of my suggestions. And the third one, um, looking at our education environment as a whole is something a board should constantly do. It's a it's a constant review of are we doing everything to the best of our ability? And everyone hears these things. They're like, "Oh, let's change it." I think I've said this before, change, when you evaluate something, it's not for the purpose of change. However, change could happen. But you're not doing

125it to change something. You're doing it to see, are we doing it in a way that's more modernized to whatever are new existing. For example, if you had a cell phone policy from 10 years ago, it's a very different cell phone policy you need now. >> But if you just never looked at your cell phone policy because you just go on it, it no longer works. Education works the same way. We all I mean forever if you were into Lucy Cawkins and the Columbia Writing Project forever that was the the way to instruct it was the way. Now it's like you're killing kids if you do it. >> Things develop. I'm not saying that's good or right or I believe that. It's just what's out there. So if we look at our educational environment, all

126of it, what do we see? Do we good? you guys did something very similar with your high schools. That was a that was like a board goal. That was an outcome based goal. You were able to look and see what you've accomplished. That's a goal. So, I was trying to think of the kinds of things that you might be interested in for that. Or as we approach this going forward, if anyone has other ideas, of course, it's your goals. But really, board goals are kind of district goals. It's kind of the way unless you're making a goal about the board. Meaning if you had a goal about board governance, board um meetings structure, that's that's a another thing you might see in a board goal versus an administrative versus district goal. >> Yeah. >> But

127here it looks like your board goals are your district goals. >> We did um I'm just trying to think of what what we did again when we were looking at the um I guess it was the eval. And so what we tried to do here was like take the goals we had, you know, currently and then kind of >> deconstruct them into bullet points that might be more actionable to the >> so that we can evaluate oursel on our goals >> on our goals like you know and >> and then do you really want 10? >> No, I think that's >> like 10's a lot. >> I did it and it was like oh okay we're going to get there from there and now we're going to carve this one out here and it was

128>> whatever. I mean, I we'll probably drop of it, but that's that's kind of where we're going with it. So, I like the fact that we can it might be broad. It might be something that it's kind of more overarching, but then there's, you know, sub stacks of it that kind of >> out what's our real, you know, activity that we're measuring for that for that year. >> Whatever we choose. Or if you wanted to do it the same way and just use the the ones, we could take those and then restructure a couple to be your target areas, right? So you're literally doing work specifically to meet those goals. >> We're always doing work to meet safe and orderly environment. But really, what is the board doing >> in that sense? Unless you're studying

129your safety procedures, you're studying your security systems, your drills. >> If you are, that's that's that becomes a rule. But if you focus I'm just suggesting if you focus you can it becomes less preuncter >> and more deliberate and deliberate work usually has better outcomes >> just in general. Now I'm not saying these are the three I just put so you you were asking on on here um D I wouldn't I wouldn't do any emotions today at all. No, >> I would say you have some idea that I'm about to give you my perspective. >> Those are not written in any specific, you know, quality way necessarily. I just want to throw something out there for you. And however you want to look at this, if you like some of the other ones and you

130want to focus on some of those, I do suggest picking something to focus on, one, two, or three things rather than just have a list of goals that are pretty common in any board's goal sheet. Well, we know that's always going to be a >> Yep. >> So, I said it's a second reading. >> Yeah, I do love the shared. I I I I I I I would I would strongly suggest that particular one, but the other ones are ideas, but the shared service one is very potential long-term very huge positive impact on our kids. So something to do with that would be a great one for the board. Nice and shiny, too. >> You can be a writer. I did not I didn't I didn't spend any real energy on the writing of these

131just conceptual >> there I was just who's the magical you know who's who's doing the editing looking at it okay we love >> um and and not no shade on the the strategic plan we really do >> yes >> we're going to get together it's going to be we're super I think you before you came we were super excited that was the direction we're going to go and we value the the 2year you know situation on that because it is there's a lot to take in for the year and >> and if you do that >> you spend time on the plan you're basically the goal is the completion of the plan the goals within the strate then become your future goals >> right so for next year your goal could be to plan but

132then after that what's in the plan becomes the target and what year they're supposed to happen and all the stuff you probably did last time. >> Well, I know that you there is also a timeline though. I'm concerned that there's like a rush on administrative goals, right, that we need to meet to get those out. Is there is there like a timeline that we're concerned with? >> I mean, we publish in August. So >> I mean that's what I mean just normally what happens not until the start of the next school year you know. >> Okay. >> I'm just thinking like the administrative goals. So these >> again >> what's the red >> anything with this many bowls. >> Yeah. >> I I just I honestly I look at I'm like >> oh yeah >>

133this is too bad. So the rest of the meeting, but I don't see anybody else's color apron on any too many words is like it's so long. I I but this is just how we've like Yeah. This is just how it's always been. So >> this is not cool. This is what we've done. >> It really is a list of what we've done and then just what we do. It's not anything. >> I looked at I was like I looked at I mean honestly I asked Amy what this was >> cuz I'm like I don't understand what that even is. >> He's like why do you do this? >> Why do you do this? Mhm. Of course, I knew the answer was going to be. >> So, when our strategic plan overlap this and this

134is what our strategic plan is about >> because the administrative goals then are about how to achieve what's in the plan. >> And sometimes those others are objectives to meet the goal. So, >> so if if you're doing a board like you described a board governance type thing you were doing and we're going to evaluate ourselves on this, >> that's board governance. That's a board goal for the board. Right? Student of plan is the district >> and then the board should look at the strate and then say how do we what do we do as a board to help achieve this? That's that's how it works. So you have your strategic plan, >> then you have your board, then you have admin, and that's a structure that could funnel real outcomes specific to whatever it

135is >> the the string plan, you know, has been advised to do, >> right? >> You know, I I I honestly I looked at that administrative goals. I I'm going to say this. I know I'm being recorded. I didn't look at them again. I gave them one look. I spent maybe a few minutes going emailed Amy and that was really the last time I looked at those and that's not right. I'm I'm wrong in doing it that way. >> That was overwhelming. Like what which goal do you want me to target? >> I just curious what you in your experience are are good >> formats of that. So I'm happy to see attractiveness. >> So that format would be written as a smart type goal written with all the elements of a goal that includes

136a big one is measurable, >> right? >> Yeah. >> That's that's a big piece. If the goal is not measurable, it generally doesn't ever um amount to anything. >> And we got so many years of goal work and and >> but this, >> you know, that's that's what that's what the cult should be written. If we have like two like sort of like overlapping documents, this should drive. This drives what happened here, >> right? >> Yeah. So, we have to probably work on this before we work on this. >> Yeah. >> But I was only asking if there was like a a timeline that we were like bumped up against for any reason. So, if not, >> we don't you were drawing. So I don't know if if in in schools do you guys have

137um sort of required professional personalized professional development plan? >> Mhm. >> Right. >> PLC well PLC's >> but so generally you'd have a big goal >> for a teacher. Let's say >> that would be like I I want to learn how to do questioning >> better. I want to be I want my students to be better critical thinkers. that's going to require me to be better at educating myself on how to be a critical questioner. So then the work associated with that particular teacher is on how I'm going to learn to do that and how's that going to be measured. That's a >> pretty >> standard goal and that would be it. >> If if Amy's in charge of 30 or 40 goals, that's not real. It's just not like I know being critical. I'm

138sorry, but it's not it's not >> just accomplishments. >> That's fine. Not a list of accomplishments, >> but there's not an email structure. >> Yeah, we're responding back. We're changing the eval structure and then the email structure and >> we've been talking about this for years. >> Yeah. >> We're in the wrong strategic plan mindset. So once you get the mindset, we'll be able to frame it all very, you know, >> with the stringent plan. The question I I did want to ask you about that I mean I I'm hearing that that is something to do for next year. >> Yes. >> Is in the past who ran your strategic plan was Adam or did you hire somebody? >> Adam. >> Okay. So we can do it that way as well. I I've done many

139of these but um sometimes it is nice to have no one and outside. Sometimes you can never be the master of your own house. You can never be an expert in your own home. The value in sometimes but the downside to that is very expensive >> even for small. I can see it costing 20 grand >> to to do that. >> So in that sense I think we just do it ourselves. >> Yes. >> We can chat GBT can. Um >> but a really small town. >> Yeah. I'll just take one meeting but like it's the surveys. Did you guys do all that last time? Well, it's usually the the input of like we'll have like a I' I've been to a meeting. There hasn't been one, I think, since I've done work. So, been

140chairs. >> Um, but there's been breakout rooms like >> and then and then then there's from there they send out >> a long time ago. >> Yeah. Quite a while. We kind of just use the same thing. Yeah. Every year. >> This is normal. It's not like voluntem. This is this is what happens especially happens when there's so much so many words. >> Yeah. >> Rather than very small >> deliberate targeted goals >> that you can achieve those. >> It's the same thing you know with everything you don't anyone's bandwidth is only what it is. >> Yeah. >> But I think Amy should do all those. >> I think she has >> by Friday. >> Yeah. She'll come up with three. >> Keep it simple. >> Right up on each. >> I'm sure there's lots

141that offers forensic way to go. >> I think that reach out to Mary. >> Yeah, she's probably a very knowledgeable. >> I don't think we're interested. >> No, >> they know we would never do that. Yes, we may need a good job. >> That's a good um Okay. Well, good good launch point on the discussion there and we've we're good, you know, you work to do and we're very pleased with that work. I think that's the year though. >> I feel like we're we're >> 75% there. >> Let me I know. Let me give you one one more example. So, one of your goals is is hire, support, and retain top teaching talent. So, what did the board do in the last two years for that goal? >> That was a force mandated, >> no,

142>> right? But that could be something that the board does want to focus on and then we create action steps and we create ways to assess and all that. It's not a good one for us. We we're that isn't really but it's just having stuff written down the loots. It's just the loots >> the work. >> Okay, I'm now done about you should have >> I just told her that while she's doing all the goal work, I'm going to schedule you with all your free time to come talk about. >> You know, I'm very busy. >> I have a thing. I have a thing. I got to do my hair. Well, we hire top talent because we lose, you know, we tend to like have to hire somebody every single year. Our hiring process is

143and very very pleased with top talent who have secured. We try not to lose any of our top talent by providing a culture of excellence that so we have to obviously work within the state federal and district guidelines and resources they give us which is nothing. So we use all of them. We use all they're all that um so there we are. Um, capital improvement. >> So, we we we just really really quickly we talked about what what we did this this the plan. There it is. So, this is very simple. The big deal here was the meeting this morning and the meetings we had with the building committee on these $85,000 for generator. We needed that money freed, not hung in this generator world that might not happen for 10 years and you can't

144trust this money. But no, there was no appetite, no interest in getting, you know, just taking more money for the sake of getting more money. So we devised a plan to call the critical infrastructure utilizing the building committee. That way the town always knew that it was going to be used for the appropriate purpose it was put in there for, which was a critical infrastructure meeting. Right. And so we've been working on that and today I think we got a good breakthrough on that. And so pretty much the immediate immediate needs uh one is happening next week. It's the plan to do the HBAC in the library. Next immediate need is we have a 30,000galon water tank holder in the basement that looks like it is about 90 to 300 years old and it looks

145like it's about to blow any minute when you look at >> it didn't pass coke right >> no it didn't it didn't fail anything today failed >> I passed it I put a big sticker on it with a smiley face >> it is when it goes if that was to go we got problems So, it's basically going to corrode into the entire basement. Like, that's the problem. It's more of a corrosive element. So, >> the other problem is that the basement was built around it. There's no way of >> you have to chop it to pieces, >> pulling it out without chopping, >> but we don't have to remove it. So, the beauty is we don't have to remove it. We can repipe it, kill it, leave it there dead. There's enough room in that

146room to put We don't need 3,000 gallons. It's 3,000gallon tank. We can replace it with brand new uh plastic tanks. Uh four or five of them. I think it's five 400gallon tanks. It's $30,000. And it is currently at the top of our list of >> got to get it done. So by removing the restriction on the generator account and using the drip funds that we are using for the HBAC project applying the other 10,000 to this project we will use about 20,000 out of the 85 keep the other 65,000 in a critical infrastructure account. Um and then each year we can decide how we deal with that so we don't have to keep going to taxpayers >> for things that we can try to manage long term. Can they accomplish that through a special town

147meeting or are they waiting for the budget? >> It has to be through um the budget time. It's going to be an add-on. >> Okay. >> I'm going to explain it at the budget meeting. >> Um so we make sure the town understands not one's asking for $85,000 more dollars >> because that would be the easy thing to >> confuse, right? >> And we don't want that because we want it to pass so we can free up money to use it instead of having to because if we don't do that, >> where am I getting $30,000 to replace the oil to replace the tanks? >> Yeah. I have to either budget it, town has to budget, someone has to budget it. >> But since the town's people already agreed to this money, let's utilize it

148to the best of its ability, >> call it, >> and then slowly build back up for the fire panel, which will be next. It won't be the generator. It's going to be the fire panel. >> Once we have the flatter panel figured out, uh that will be the next big project. But right now we have, like I described in the budget presentation, we're saving for the roof, but the air conditioning goes, you don't not do the air conditioning just because you save money for the roof, you still got to deal with it. It's the way it goes. >> So, um, this is a very positive thing. >> Now, when PL gets the state of the office, >> this is what this is what the way you go now. >> Even with all the stuff on

149PBC, is it? >> No. Yeah. Again, someone someone smarter than me could describe what kind of plastic this is. I mean, I don't I don't really know that, but it is the standard. >> Okay. >> And it's it's manageable here because >> without busting through, you can see if you go down there, the wall, you can see how they got that thing in. >> You know what happened there, the whole wall. So, you talk about digging into the ground, you can't the expense to remove that was more than the project itself, like quite a bit. >> So, we can leave it just kill it, leave it there, and do that. So, that's a project we're looking at for the summer. So next month um I'm hoping this is an easy pass for the budget during

150the budget talks or whatever that process is in the town and then that will free up that money to go to work on that project. the HBASC project we're using drip funds so there's no so again it's using what you have maximizing that so we don't have to keep asking for money you keep asking for money all the time then when you really need the money it's oil cried wolf so I think I told you probably during process if I asked for money it's because I don't have any other solution otherwise I really don't do that so >> I see here on miss it says on the building committee Jack Wes I'm looking to got a tank removed by a bonded company. >> We we we had the company give us a quote on the

151removal of the tank. >> Okay. >> It's a no. >> Okay. It says to make extra money, but nobody wants it. >> Well, freebie. No. >> No. >> We're paying someone a lot of >> money. And it has to be a license. >> We We would never let anyone on nonbondage down there. >> Yeah. I just saw that thing up there up there. >> Yeah. Yeah, Brian. Brian, you're Brian. >> He uh was down there also. >> That thing's got to go. >> Yeah. I mean, listen, it's it's it's uh it happens. It's it's it's old building. What do you do? >> Older than the old oil tank, you know? I mean, like that's it's definitely lived its life for sure. >> It's just it's interesting like when you think about it, it wasn't leaking

152at the time. Like wasn't doing okay, but it's just it's had its time. It's run its time of course. Um that's what these things have. I mean the fact I know the fact and we've talked about it and it's >> a number of years. >> Yeah. And we are down the path together moving at options like that's that's really the the research stage we have to be at. It's not you know like it's going to be fine. No, we're researching what really all the different levels of what we need basics done and what the kind of where the future can go with it. But we have to budget for that. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> So that's we >> got that one going. Um 8th graders last day of school and graduation date. I see

153that. I knew you would be trying to do three years to figure it out. Two years to figure it out. >> Like we can't have siblings. The problem is we always do anticipate like who has a sibling at a high school that's graduating and there are years when that happens and there's a graduation on Friday night of a sibling. So we don't want to do that to a family and make them have to choose. So it has to be Monday doesn't say on the agenda that's a Monday or graduation. So get those out catering on Monday. >> Like I can't have it on Monday. We want to have a Friday, too. >> So, the last day is >> snow and everything. >> So, the last day will be the 12th. >> Jackie's not here anymore,

154>> correct? Jackie. >> Jackie was always graduation. >> Um, okay. So, >> we should have to just um approve, make a motion to approve the the last day of the eighth graders is Friday the 6th. 12. The 12th. Sorry, I had the 12. >> Sorry. 12. >> The last days. >> I had it written down. >> I gave it to her. >> We did. We did that already. This is just the graduation. >> I missed the motion. >> She motion. >> All right. Second. >> Thank you. All >> in favor? I go on her passes. Uh out of state field trip approval motion >> until they're getting tired. >> One motion all personnel. >> Okay. >> Sorry. So I've got reading here. Um >> I'm so sorry. >> What a motion on personnel. >> Just

155do all of that. >> Yes. To appoint Laney Martin as a bus driver to appoint Robert. >> She's awesome by the way. Roen as a middle school teacher. >> Robert Loen. Okay. Um >> pending. No, I'm just I'm just interested in the positions now. Oh, yeah. What do I do? Um pending certification practice test and fingerprint testing results and appoint Caitlyn Stockford as a summer school special education teacher and to accept the resignation of Lydia Snder as a custodian effective June 30th. >> Motion. >> Second. So, I just shared a little bit why Lydia is leaving. Lydia is going to Johnson Wales >> and I did make her promise to bring me pastries. >> Good for her. >> Yeah, Lydia is going to John Well, so she's been great for us. >> Good for her.

156>> And the middle school teacher, is that a replacement for >> Karen Brett? Karen Brett. >> Yeah. Kate put these people through a lot. Interviews them, then she makes them do demo lessons, >> then she does stuff to them. I don't know. But um uh we had a really we had a solid group like you know we did the first round of interviews and really solid group and uh it was not an not an easy selection. He was fantastic but the other candidates were also really good. >> So it was really nice to have such a good group. So all the teachers are involved. The whole middle school team was involved. So just run runs a nice shift for that. So he's a good guy. >> How do you say you go by Bobby? >>

157Bobby. Okay. >> All right. Yeah, we started the motion. I need a motion. You said motion. All in favor? I any opposed? None heard. Um and that's that's all decent news. >> Yes, we have a G and an H, right? A propane and >> No, we have more to go. I'm just excited. Is that the personel? Like that's just personnel. So now Yuie cookie >> go >> the board will get cooking. >> Right. So first >> we still Nice to see you. >> I know. Feels good. >> It's a lot of fratizing going on over there. >> Uh, okay. We will um take up the propane vendor. >> Okay. >> Well, can I the motion for the for the nonrenew? >> Oh, sure. I didn't know if there's an order. Thanks. I >> I just

158really wanted to say the other one. >> We wrote it this way specifically. This is this is solely about this is solely about but this is not even budget it's enrollment. It's like we weren't looking to reduce we would love this person to stay with us great person just we're situation we can't you can't do anything about this you can't can't do it but um if anything changes in the future years and we get more kids back then hopefully we'll have an opportunity. So, I did want to say that out loud publicly as well, but you know, I think she's, you know, hate to see this. It's not one of those fun things. >> Good day. >> Yeah. So, so we just need the motion that we as that the board pursuant to Connecticut General

159Statute 10-151 renew the contract of non tenure employee number 193 effective at the end of 202526 school year and that's superintendent be authorized to provide written notice to the teacher of this action and >> motion requests >> um by serious requests. It's just >> yeah, >> it's not something we like to do as board generally and it's um it's always a tough thing and that's considering the discussion we've had around it. I think it's you know it >> just a tough thing but the size is what triggers it. So hopefully we get back. Um all in favor >> I opposed. Um any extensions heard? So motion does pass to do more. Okay. A propane bedroom. So we all heard that we are getting quality um at a better price and service hopefully service contract because

160they can all us for a better price >> when they want to and then services what we need to >> good all in favor motion passes to authorize repentant to sign a contract with wallet I Hi. Hi. >> So, um we need a motion to um invite Scott Superintendent Scott better for the purpose of discussing personnel as per CT statute 1-26A. We have a scheduled second floor meeting tenatively for May active vote in case it fails. like the 28th or whatever it would be. Does it have to be done now or be done at the main meeting? I >> think it done later. Um we might take a second >> meeting or special meeting. I think that's what we've done in the past is just relied on our our plan. >> Okay. And then I

161think if we've gotten if we've gotten then we had to do some some >> creative dance. >> Okay. Um so yeah so with that enter at >> we need a second. I didn't hear >> Oh sorry second. >> Thank you. All >> favor. Thank you very much weather >> next week. Next please.