Voluntown BOE Meeting 6/12/25

001Hello everyone. Thank you for joining. We'll call the meeting to order at 6:05. I'll say we can uh raise to say this pledge of allegiance, please. We got comfortable. Ice 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. Hey, this is our our June meeting, our official June meeting. So, this is officially Mr. Burrow's last meeting. So, I want to I know we're we've got a we have some snacks here. Sorry if people on the on the video see us chomping away, but it's been a day of celebration for Mr. Burroughs and his and the retirements that happened today. We had a nice Thank you so much, Darlina, and the crew that put together was such

002a beautiful celebration and the gym looked gorgeous and um Lloyd sang a beautiful song and there were many speeches. So, it was a really lovely day to honor you, Mr. Burrows. And the thing that I'm most proud of in 19 and a half years I've never missed a regular board of ed meeting. So I don't know 20 times it's a 360 meetings. So here we are again. So I wish you the best of luck in the future and I want to thank the board and the community for all the help and support. Thank you Kate. Yeah absolutely. Okay. Well we have um we have a quorum here. I think all of our board members are present. We have some some guests and folks visiting. Thank you for attending. We have um we have our guest,

003Mr. Liber from Alliance Education Associates. Thank you for joining. I think we'll um our first piece of business is your guest presentation. So, whatever you need to do to get get going with that, that's fine. I'm ready to at your convenience. Okay. We'll get we can get rolling. That sounds great. Sure. Yeah. Start with me. Uh I understand that you probably haven't had a chance to read the report yet. So, I'm going to go through my presentation rather quickly and I'm going to suggest this. After you read the report, any questions that you have that aren't raised tonight and answered tonight, just send send an email and we will certainly respond to any questions we get subsequent to. Great. Thank you. Uh, and let me just start by giving you a little background information. Uh,

004prior to retirement, I was in Connecticut terms a RESK superintendent, uh, like Eastcon or or Crack. Uh, but we were the largest, uh, collaborative in Massachusetts. We did more different kinds of things for our member school district, most people did. And at one point it became disenchanted with the cost and the quality of transportation being provided for a vocational technical high school that we ran in. Uh and I told my member superintendent, I'm buying my own buses. I'm hiring my own drivers and I'm going to do it myself. We saved about uh on on nine buses. We saved about $90,000 the first year compared to contracting. So after that, my superintendent in their wisdom said, "Well, why don't you take a look at our transportation and see if you can save us any money?" Over

005the course of the next seven or eight years, we took over all the transportation for all seven school districts. We became the largest publicly owned self-operated bus operation in Massachusetts, running about 279 buses, uh big buses, small buses, and some vans. I built four bus depots across the county uh to service them. Uh, and I learned a lot in the process. Uh, some of it by good experience and some of it by not so good experience. But what am I ask? Lower Pioneer Valley Collaborative, seven school districts, suburban to Springfield. Okay. So anyway, uh, I've been doing this for about 13 years. Uh, been all over the country. Um, the districts as large as Chicago uh, and Los Angeles, the the districts as small as Linux, Massachusetts, which is three buses. uh and a lot

006in between. Uh with regard to this study, we were asked to look at three things. Uh one was to determine the cost effectiveness and the efficiency of the current operation. Uh the second was to review the early morning drop offs at the participating high school, Wheeler High School in particular. Uh and thirdly, to determine the cost benefit of the current uh transportation operation to that uh compared to contracting. We looked at uh population of the area. We looked at district enrollment. The reason we look at that is that the finding and recommendations that we we make, we want them to make sure that they're going to live for a period of time. Uh so we need to look forward at the dem forward demographics. And while you have a relatively uh stable population, your district

007enrollment has been falling. I'm telling I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but I'm just trying to put things in context for you as we get through the report. Uh with regard to the report itself, we have some definitions uh that are kind of unique to transportation. The first one is tier time and tier time is the time between your bell schedules that allow you to transport students. Uh and that's important. Uh you have root time uh which is the time from uh embarking to disembarking students and you have student arrive time which is from the student first pickup to the last student drop off. Uh and then you have what's called deadhead time. The time that it takes to for the bus to get from depot to the first stop, from the last

008stop back to the depot, uh or in some cases in your case from Wheeler back to uh to town elementary. Those are that's time when students are not not on the bus. It's called deadhead time. Interesting term. Uh if you if you remember nothing from this report, this slide is probably the most important slide in in the report. It describes how you determine operation efficiency for transportation. Uh and basically you have to look at the size the geographic size of the district, the transportation service area and the location and distance to out of district placements and programs. Uh in your case, while Bullettown is relatively small, when you look at your participating high schools, you have over 200 square miles of surface area uh to cover. That's a lot. That's a big area. Uh when

009you look at whether you're doing your routing and scheduling manually or by computer software, the person who does the routing and scheduling really determines the number of buses that you that you require. Uh you look at student riders, your scheduled riders versus your actual riders. We call that student loading. Uh the time available between your school starting and ending times, which is your tier time. The distance and travel time between your schools. In your case, it's it's a big area given the participating high schools that you have. Uh the population density, number of students per mile of bus travel. Uh and highway, road infrastructure, traffic patterns, and congestion. In your case, it's relatively rural, so you don't have those types of traffic congestion problem except around your schools in the morning uh for parent drop

010offs. And then lastly, uh and not least is which, uh is the community expectations for the quality of service. Parents want to watch their kids get on and off the bus from their window. Uh and so they want bus stops that are relatively close to their house and bus stops that are convenient and safe. Uh and then lastly, the morning groups generally drive the number of buses required uh as more students ride in the morning than in the afternoon because of primarily after school activities that students are involved with. Uh this one is hard to read, but it gives the bell schedules of your schools uh in the report uh starting starting ending time. Uh but the the key to to that is that uh uh is that Wheeler High School is off of the

011schedule of the other high schools by 15 minutes. Um which makes it more challenging to deal with Wheeler than than some of the uh the other high schools. Uh the other is that uh when you have a and I'll just say a 71 passenger bus. 71 passenger bus is predicated on 13in seats. 13 in being this middle school and high school kids can't fit three to a seat on a high school bus. Uh and so the industry standard for middle school and high school is two students per seat as opposed to three students per seat. Uh and so when you're looking at a 71 passenger bus, you can't always get 71 kids on a 71 passenger bus depending on the age and the size of the students. And so you see the the the matrix

012we use for 71 is 47 uh for 6 to 8 9 to 12 uh grade students. And for your 35 it's 35 and 23. Excellent. Uh the district operates a hybrid two-tier system uh with the approved high schools in tier one and the elementary school in tier two. Uh running it uh rooting is done by the coordinator utilizing a variety of Excel spreadsheets and and maps. Uh does not use a computerized routing system. You'll see a recommendation later on that you acquire one. Um, but in order to uh minimize the number of buses required, you use a series of shuttles where you shuttle everybody into uh the elementary school in the morning, then they're split up into their high school buses and they they they're transported back and forth that way. That's probably the most

013efficient way to do it as opposed to running dedicated buses uh for uh a combination of high school. The only other way that would make sense to be as efficient would be to combine your high school and your elementary school students on the same bus and have a drop off at the elementary at 6:30 in the morning and then to the high school and run a single tier system. Uh highly uh highly unpopular with parents in particular, much less unpopular with students. We looked at uh at your your district transportation cost uh because we look at uh we look at a couple of benchmarks and we look at uh your budget uh uh and expenditures over a number of years to see what the trends are. Uh you can see that your uh uh your

014uh expenditure budget have gone up a little bit. they've gone down a little bit depending on when you're buying when you buy buses uh and when you have in which case in the red of co so uh but we we look at that for another reason next slide please uh is uh we look at the the uh district transportation budget as a percentage of the of the district budget in its entirety it's a benchmark that the department of education uses. It's a it's a benchmark that industry standards use. And typically uh and for a district of this demographic size and with your demographics uh if you have a ratio of 7 7 and a half% or lower, it's considered to be efficient by Department of Ed standards. You're at about 8.3. So you're not at

015that point where you would be considered to be efficient basis on on just the basis of the cost. But there are other factors. If you remember the first slide I said was the important slide. There are other factors to consider when you look at efficiency. Uh we look at driver wages uh to see uh how you compare with regard to being able to recruit and retain drivers uh quality drivers. Uh and we look at what your wage scale is uh compared to uh other contracts in the area uh other school districts in the area. And most recently, uh, we're comparing against the teachers school bus contracts, uh, for the large bus companies because they're now becoming the benchmark for transportation costs for wages and benefits. Um, and, uh, you'll see there's a big section in

016the report about driver shortages and all all of that and result of COVID and the fact that uh, the average driver for Walmart now makes $110,000 a year. Uh and uh both uh uh UPS, FedEx uh and Amazon Prime have uh targeted school bus drivers for employment postcoid. Uh they offer sign on bonuses. I've seen up to $5,000 for sign on bonus. They offer full-time guaranteed overtime during the holiday season and a full benefit wage package. Very difficult for a public school district to compete against that. Uh the only way you can do that is by having uh at least a wage that's a living wage because school bus drivers today it's not a part-time job anymore. They're looking to make a living wage driving a school bus to be able to support families or

017whatever. Uh it's no longer retired firemen or retired police department people or uh you know it's people who are looking to have a career uh in driving a school bus. So in order to be able to recruit and retain, you have to pay some comparable wages. Next book, we looked at uh the uh the uh morning routes uh number of buses, number of routes, and you can see in the first graph the student ride time analysis uh based on a policy that you have of routes being no more than 45 minutes. uh you can see that your student root time uh is well under uh your 45 minutes in most cases. Uh when you look at the student load analysis uh you'll see that the uh student uh actual load is well under your student

018your bus capacity. Uh and when you look at your scheduled load capacity it's about 53%. You're using 50 you're scheduling 53% of the seats on the bus. your actual student capacity is you're using about 32% of the seats on the bus and there's a reason for that. I'll get to that. Again, same thing uh the uh conclusion that we made uh is that while the uh load capacity ratio is low, any increase would require longer routes and longer student ride times, early morning pickup times and or a change in a participating high school start times which not likely to happen. So we did the same thing in the afternoon very much similar scheduled load capacity is a little less actual load capacity is a little less but your student ride time uh for a couple

019of routes as well in excess of 45 minutes in the afternoon. Your student load analysis pretty much mirrors what it is in the morning. Uh it's bordering about about a third of the of the seats. Uh, one of the ways of arbitrarily fixing that, by the way, is by smaller buses. Uh, and that makes your efficiency number look better. But what that does is it creates a problem with for having excess capacity. And I've always said you need excess capacity because when you have a driver that calls out in the morning and you don't have a driver to put in a seat, you have to double up a roof. Doing it with a 71 passenger bus, you have the capacity to be able to do that. If you're running all 35 passenger buses, what you're

020doing is you're sitting on a bus an hour and a half later uh to pick up kids an hour and a half later. This gives you the capacity to be able to manage those changes on on a day-to-day basis. Uh again, looking at uh your uh 19 routes, your average miles are 22 miles per route. Uh and uh same conclusion uh again uh any change to an increase to increase the student load would require longer roots and more time. Next, uh we looked at the uh at the high school schedules for participating high schools and as I said, we noted Wheeler High School starts at 7:45. Some of the others are really 7:15, 7:30. Uh and as you can see, Wheeler High School, uh located in North Stonington is significantly different than that of the

021other participating high schools, uh and starts uh at least 15 minutes later in the morning. which causes a wrinkle uh in in that particular group. Next one. Um so in order for them to all arrive at their respective high schools on time, uh several of the other high school buses also have to drop off early because they have to drop off and then get back to Volunt to start their elementary routes. That's what determines the length of the route is to get that time in order to start your elementary route. Uh starting your elementary route late is a non-starter. So uh however the wait time for other the wheeler is not as significant uh because of the 15minute difference for for wheeler u in order to have sufficient time to return for the morning routs

022bus 7 which is the wheeler bus uh must drop off early around 7:00 and given that it's a 7:45 start time that's 45 minutes before the the start of uh that is early, but the students are there. They're supervised. They have other they have other students that come in early. Uh they're supervised uh at the high school, so they're not sitting in the parking lot. They're not running around the school. They're not sitting in a cafeteria. Uh but it is early. Uh that is the current route. Uh we did uh uh uh our own route. Uh we we did several configurations of a couple of routes. We did our own what if scenarios to look at uh what we could do to change uh what we could change to make transportation better. Um this is

023the current route. Next one. Uh and these are some of the options. Can you shrink that down just a little bit? Uh these are some of the options that we had uh with regard to addressing the early drop off time. Uh and we understand that there was a big issue with a a parent uh of of of one child uh that raised the raised the the big issue. But uh we could ask Reer High School to uh uh uh change your starting any time to conform to what we need to do for transucation. Not likely to happen given that you're providing 15 students to a school of 340 350. Uh we could revise the bell schedule at the elementary school to the latest start of school by 15 minutes, giving the bus more time to

024get out there uh and to get back 15 minutes later. They could drop off 15 minutes later at Wheeler and get back 15 minutes later. Uh not a very good option. Uh one of the caveats that we always say and you'll see it in the report, I don't think it's in the slide, is that we never recommend that you change school bell schedules for the sake of transportation. Transportation is a support service to the educational process. When you set the school year, you set the school length of the day, uh, and bell schedules, that should be done for educational purposes, and transportation will respond to to that as best they can. Uh, you could delay bus 7 leaving the uh, uh, Volunt elementary by 15 minutes. The students would remain here on the bus for

02515 minutes. Uh, we don't find that to be productive time either. uh we would rather see them uh at Wheeler High School supervised with their friends doing homework as a study hall whatever they they want to do as opposed to sitting in a bus uh here for 15 minutes. Um they could uh the district could provide a van specifically for the Rachel Lane student uh who is the student that's uh Wheeler that's uh that's out of the way a little bit from the from the current group. that student could transfer to high school which is closer to uh the elementary school and has an earlier starting time. Transportation management could rethink the routes to lengthen bus 7 by combining Griswall High School and Wheel Wheeler High School students uh on the same route and dropping

026off at Griswall first and then proceeding to Wheeler. What that does is it keeps everybody on the bus another an extra 25 minutes. Uh and from our perspective, do you inconvenience 25 students with a longer bus ride for the convenience of one student? Not my decision. The options uh you know and I defer to the board as to whether they want to uh make a decision in that regard. Uh uh also uh transportation man could reconfigure bus 7 to pick up the racial aid student uh after leaving the high school or the the elementary school. Uh and the board of education could also vote to reduce the number of high school options for students uh and eliminate Wheeler High School altogether and send your students to other than Wheeler. Uh and you could uh transport

027Rachel a student by Uber or taxi. Uh and you could request uh North uh Wheeler or North Stormington public schools to pick up the Rachel Lane student on one of their buses. Those are the options. Not all of those are even conceivable, but we figured that we wanted at least to create a laundry list of all the possible options. These are the considerations that go along with all of those options. Um again, Wheeler is highly unlikely to revise their time. Uh the prerogative of uh volunte schedules for the convenience of 32 Wheeler high school students probably not feasible. Uh student time on buses would be increased. Uh again, as I said, Wheeler High Schools would be bus 7 for an additional 15 minutes uh if they stay here. 15 minutes, they'd be unsupervised, pretty much

028unsupervised. Uh other than by the bus driver. Uh the increased cost for another van and a driver, it's increased cost and the optics for accommodating special interest is a precedent that we don't uh we don't recommend. Um it's a slippery slope. Uh and once you violate the intent of providing the most cost-effective and efficient and safe routes and start making accommodations for individual students uh other than for safety reasons uh or uh for uh the other reason we we see uh is if there's a uh uh hypo drop off point that is within a uh I'll say a significant distance uh to a level two or level three pass offender if you have any living in in town. Uh we we really don't want to move have any bus stops, pickups and drop offs and

029sometimes we reconfigure uh to eliminate that possibility. Again, uh Griswall students would arrive uh you know 10 minutes earlier than they're currently uh if they mix Griswall and Wheeler together on the same bus. uh and uh you would save the cost of the Grisswalt tier on on bus three, but you have increased student time by 10 minutes uh more than their current 45minut policy. Uh so having kids on buses for you know getting up to 55 60 minutes is is not uh is not particularly advantageous. Uber and chassis drivers uh they're not as vigorously screened as school bus and 7D drivers. you don't know who's driving your your child from day to day. They don't go through the same level of background checks that uh uh that uh you know school bus drivers and and

030van drivers crew van drivers do. Uh and if Stonington were to transport the student that would have to walk to the nearest designated bus stop uh which may not be uh acceptable either. Uh this is what the route would look like if you added the uh Rachel Lane student to the existing group. Uh all it does is is affects no high school drop off by only about five minutes. So you're not gaining a whole lot of time by running this route this way, but this is the most viable way of addressing the Rachel Lane issue. Uh it's been our opinion from the beginning that neither the transportation management uh nor the district administration have the authority to provide other than the most cost-effective, safe and efficient transportation. Uh they would have to be directed by

031the board to to make a change in in that policy or procedure. Um and should you wish to adopt one of the options and there there's six of them in the in the report. I just did both the the best and the worst of of them. Uh we would recommend that the uh that the board direct the administration to do so. Uh and again our opinion accommodating special interest is a bad precedent with negative optics. Um and again the caveat we do not recognize receding those schedules for the purpose of transportation. Uh we looked at the bus fleet uh and uh looked at uh uh we found ironically we found two old buses that had relatively low mileage and when we questioned it it was because two of these buses had dashboards removed and replaced.

032Uh and uh therefore the mileage that shows on the bus is not actual mileage. Uh we estimated what the mileage should be. uh and uh one of them was understated by approximately 28,000 mi and the other one was understated by about 60,000 miles. Uh when we looked at the uh the metrics of your fleet, uh we found that uh of the eight buses that you have, uh the average mileage is almost 120,000 miles. Uh none of them are under warranty. Uh and uh that becomes problematic with regard to repairs and maintenance. And not only repairs and maintenance in your case because you don't do your repairs and maintenance on site. Uh tie up of a bus going back and forth and a tie up of a driver, two drivers actually to go back and forth

033to deliver a bus to be uh to be careful. We uh we then looked at uh the fact that you're purchasing buses as of March of this year. Uh and what that does to your overall uh fleet matrix. Uh and you go to the the next slide. Uh your average uh age is now four years old. Your average miles are 42,000 miles and you have 50% of your vehicles under warranty. for uh uh our recommendation uh to in order to minimize repairs and maintenance and downtime of buses uh is that you develop a capital plan for the sequential replacement of buses to keep 50% of them under warranty at all times. You're starting there now uh next year. Uh the idea is to keep uh replacing a bus or two uh every couple of years

034to uh to get to keep that level. Uh one of the things we also found looking at the fleet uh as accommodation for how it's being maintained uh while it's relatively inexpensive uh your pass rate uh has been exceptionally high. Uh you've had some minor uh normal wear issues uh that have been noted but they've been immediately rectified. So, it's it's working. Put it that way. Next one. Uh, we looked at facilities. Uh, you don't have a transportation facility, per se. You parking in a parking lot. We used to have park in a dirt lot. This this lot is relatively spacious. There's enough room for both buses, uh, driver cars, and, uh, and and your van. Um, and it was funded several years ago through a road grant and seems to be seems to be

035pretty adequate. Next one. Uh, you uh fuel at the DPW which is right adjacent to the parking lot uh in this DPW garage. Next one. Uh, and there lies the uh, DPW garage, which probably the three or four times we were here visiting appeared to be underutilized in our opinion. Uh and given that you have to outsource uh all of your repairs, one of our suggestions uh is to uh to approve overall efficiencies as well as reduce cost that the district may wish to discuss a collaborative utilization of that facility uh with the town DPW um and uh and share some mechanical cost. Uh it would be a way of consolidating everything uh in onto the the single site and certainly save some downtime with vehicles. Uh probably save time uh money and repairs and

036maintenance uh and would be more immediate with regard to u getting buses fixed and back on the road. And would also uh eliminate the need for two drivers to drive a bus to pick up and deliver to uh wherever you're getting maintained. Uh we then went and looked at the the cost benefit analysis and looked at the cost of your operation. Uh and uh we came up uh looking at your transportation budget and total cost uh equating it to 180day cost per day per bus which is the kind of the applesto apples comparison with uh private sector contracting. We came up that your average uh is uh uh $49027 average cost per day per bus for your your operation. Um comparable contractor cost in in your area uh that bill was 680 for an 8

037hour day. Your 490 is based on a 7.2 hour day. Uh was 645 for a 6-hour day. Uh and 560 for a 4-hour day. uh and transportation of America uh was 450 for a 4-hour day. Uh and so you can see that your cost uh uh is highly favorable compared to what other school districts in this area are paying to either Jackville or STA. Uh for students, which also have contracts in the area, uh they were for a 5 hour day, they were $513.58. for a 6 hour day 56858 and for a 7-hour day 62358. Uh and as I said when you look at comparable districts you look at Canterbury and Killingly uh I can share their information because I did their studies also uh that uh Canterbury is at 560 and Killingly is at

038509. Uh and so while you are extremely uh effect cost effective against the private sector uh you're only slightly more cost effective than your neighbors but still less than your neighbors because that's four hours I'm just I had a 7.25 25 hour average driver. Uh but the Canterbury only had a 4 hour behind there. And so when you when you put it all together and you make the comparisons, when you look at uh the cost against uh against uh private sector, uh you're 31 and a half% cheaper. When you look at guest first student, you're 27% cheaper. Uh and when you look at Canterbury, you're only 14% cheaper. And Fillingly, you're only 3.86% cheaper. But yeah, you're cheaper than competition or your area school, not your competition, your area school district. Our conclusion, can I

039ask a quick question on the um does that factor in like administration cost of everything? It is fuel administration cost, secretarial time. So, it's not just the actual like it's everything that's in your budget. Driver pay in there too. If you got paid and it's recorded in the in the accounting system, we picked it up. Well, there you go. Because they pay their drivers a lot more than we do. Anyway, based on the geographic size of the district, I'm talking about the transportation service area, not the size of the district, the elementary district per se. Uh, including the participating high schools, uh, in our review of the group data provided, we concluded that the current roots are as efficient as practical uh, given the current school high school bell schedules in particular. Uh any appreciable

040increase in student loading would require longer routes, added student time on buses, and well in excess of the district policy of of 45 minutes. Uh based on our review of the operations, uh again found conservative 27 and 31% cheaper than outsourcing to private contractors. Uh and that you compare favorably between 3.9 and 14% uh against uh area school districts. Uh and so we've therefore concluded that the district transportation operation is both relatively efficient but it's also highly cost effective. Uh with regard to revising the Wheeler high school start time to arrive later. As I said we investigate a number of options. Uh I won't repeat them but uh it would be up to the board as to whether you want to pursue any one of those while we empathize with the Rachel parent again we

041don't recommend revising roots for the benefit of a special interest and I don't say that in a derogatory sense uh but uh we certainly defer to the board of education should they wish to do something different u final recommendation uh is uh and you'll see in the report uh your transportation subcommittee has worked uh on the transportation issue for better part of a year. Um and they do so with very limited resources to be able to meaningful uh root considerations with regard to creating what if scenarios. What if we did this or what if we did that? uh without a computerized routing system uh you're very limited as to how much of that you you can effectively do. Uh and so uh we rec we uh recommend uh easy routing. Uh it's a relatively new

042software program. It's relatively inexpensive compared to some of the big house transportation uh softwares. Uh and we recommend that they you uh you purchase it and reconfigure all your routes for the start of the school year. High school students who live in proximity to their respective routes to their high school can be worked into those routes to the extent that that bus would have time to drop off and return to uh to the elementary school to do to do a route. that would solve the Rachel Lane problem without it being a special interest problem because you're doing it for everybody that's in close to proximity to an existing group and would minimize the time on bus for as many students as possible. Uh again, it would help minimize the high school student ride times but

043also reduce the early drop off times at the high schools. That's it. I have a question. What's the cost of the easy computer system? $4,519 per box or for the whole for the for the whole software package for the first year and then there's an ongoing license cost. I don't know what that is. $750 a year thereafter. Thank you so much. administration has been provided copy of it also. Well, by making better use of the garage, is there anything in there? Who's going to work in the garage? We Does the town have a mechanic? I don't know. Would we share with the town? I'm not, you know, I see where it has mechanic 0.0 hours, you know, further back in the discussion. Yeah. The garage when asked, they replied that they do not maintenance on

044their vehicles. They are all leased vehicles for one. So they actually have a program that they use to keep do upkeep on their vehicles and have someone work on their vehicle. Okay. So they don't have a mechanic. We we do not we did not have access to to town and promotion. Okay. I also just to as a kind of answer to your question um I realistically it would probably be Crystal and myself. um for at least, you know, on days when we need a light bulb change or we had one day where we did a very sketchy McGyvery wheelchair lift to the back of the bus thing to change out a light um we don't have the facilities to effectively and safely be able to change stuff immediately. where if we had a garage where

045we could pull in on a rainy day or a windy day um or or in the winter minor repairs of the parking lot in the winter even even for just the small maintenance you have a shelter to pull it in. You don't have access to that garage. No, we have access to only the fuel pump. We don't have access to anything else. Is that garage always in use or full? I don't know if you'll ever look in the window. I mean, you can blame You can blame me on the on the four or five times we were here. We found it to be underutilized. Okay. I'm just looking at that statement on the road a lot. They're out doing town. That's okay. I'm not I'm not criticizing them. I'm just saying that the facility is

046there and it's a resource that uh owned by the town school district basically owned by the town. Uh you know should have some type of collaborative effort. Two things Darlina. We need to draft a letter to Tracy to talk. Maybe you've already started that. And Rich, I missed it in the editing, but our elementary go 184 days. It's in there. So, you know, there might be a little bit more cost savings in comparison to the other towns. Yeah. When we did your cost analysis, we did it on 184 days. Okay. Not on 180 is the standard, but our kids go four more days. So at the elementary level so that's but for the other districts uh we did that the cost uh based on the number of days in their school year whether it was

047181 or 180 u only because ultimately it's the cost per day per bus which is which is the apples to apples comparison. Okay, one more thing. We provide preschool transportation for our, you know, preschool program and that's something that not every school district has, but it's been a cost-saving factor for, you know, grants and other things for the community and it's been very very helpful in the achievements of the students. So, you know, there's just a couple of little things, Rich, but uh I I enjoyed your report and thank you. have a question. I know we mentioned like the one student, but I think there's a handful of students who are also just talking about the wait time in regards to about getting there at 7 and unfortunately their start time is what it is

0487:45. I think we can fix that next year if we that's also to ask through this system that we use in reconfiguring routes. Do you think that would be helpful in decreasing the the students weight it's going to increase the time between the elementary school and I'll pick on Wheeler and Wheeler is going to increase uh because you're going to zigzag and pick up some kids along along the way but it's going to those kids will not have to come to the elementary school and then get back on a bus and go back in in the same direction that they live in. It's going to minimize their time. the students that live on the opposite side of town from Wheeler, they're still going to have to get shuttled to the to the elementary school, jump

049on the bus and go, their ride time is going to be we could route most of Wheeler, maybe most school, I think our south of here next year. So we're picking about on the way to Wheeler and not you have just generically just generically so going to NFA somebody who lives like right leaving town might get picked up when the bus is going to NFA versus once you locate it all the students on your on your digitized map the computer will say you need to go from point A to point B leave and people it's gonna it's gonna pick up as many kids as they can uh in in that amount of time in order for you to get back. But as I said, the non-starter is you can't get back to the elementary school

050late to start the elementary run. So that's going to be the limiting factor as to how many students you can pick up on the way to Griswald or on the way to Wheeler or on the way to Norwich or you wherever wherever you're going to go. So, I just wanted to answer um the software would make that a lot easier because like Rich said, I use I don't it's not Excel, I use Google Sheets, but I that's that's how I do all my stuff. I have all these different scenarios and then I have to run all of the students and all the terms. Um so, the software would make that a lot faster and a lot easier. Um right now, we do have a couple students that live beyond where we pick up. Um, we

051have one that lives on route to Griswald. He gets picked up after instead of walking to the school because it's not a really safe spot. Um, and I I don't honestly I don't think there's many Wheeler kids that we'd be able to pick up along the way. Um, the software would let us know if maybe taking an alternate route to NFA or taking a different way to Ellis might help with that. Um, but as far as Wheeler next year, um, I had one day where both my wheeler and virtual drivers were out due to a two-hour delay and I had to go to both schools and I was able I met at VES. I picked up the few Wheeler kids that were standalone and then the standalone Grizzled kid dropped off at Grizzle and dropped

052off at Wheeler and it worked. I can't I don't know for sure that it will this coming year because I haven't had a time to do that. But you know, like said there is a chance that we can do that. That's what I would like to do this year. But I also have to see how it affects driver hours because you're not doing this just for Wheeler. You're doing it for all the participating high schools. And and so it's not a precedent that you're setting just for Wheeler students. It's a it's it's a reconfiguration of all of your routes to make them as efficient as effective and minimize student ride time to the extent that you can. Did you look at anything going north like over to Ellis Tech? Buses going north over to Ellis.

053We looked at all of them. But we always but our report was keyed on Wheeler because that was the worst of them. None of them. Plus, we're losing the kid on Haj that they go and get and then drop off on the way back to school. He's graduating. So, we won't be back. So, we're looking forward to the afternoon. when you when you reconfigure for September, that will all show on the computer uh and will help you to improve improve your your routing. But like I said, you're going to get kids added too. Uh I don't know. I don't know. We did it based on this year's school population and who was going where. Very comprehensive. Thank you. Thank you so much, Rich. This was really, really helpful. Addresses a lot of the questions. Okay,

054thank you for that. And again, if you have questions subsequent to tonight when you read the report, feel free to email us. We we're happy to uh to respond and if we uh if we need to come back uh we certainly will do that. Well, thank you very much. This was really helpful. Thank you for your time and we'll be in touch. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? No. Okay. Thank you, Rich. Beautiful. Sorry. I forgive me. I um I didn't say the mission statement when I first started, so I I got to say it. Good luck. Another survivor. Yes. The Valentinetown Board of Education's mission 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

055of society. We commit to help educate, challenge, and inspire each child to excel as lifelong learners who can adapt constructively in an everanging multicultural and technological world. I know several several you know guests are here for the the presentation. I but citizens comment I'm opening it up as well. I didn't do that earlier. So, if there was any comment Okay. Okay. We can move on to the rest of the agenda. Hopefully, it's fairly short. So, I'm hopeful that we're um we did want to add on um sorry, in terms of old business um kind of in light of the transportation update that we just heard, but the high school um choice topic. Um if we have a motion to add the high school choice just second. All in favor? I motion passes to add it

056to old business. We'll do that under three. Okay. So, the consent agenda. Um, has everyone had a chance to take a look at that? Questions or concerns? We have a motion to move it as presented. Approve it as presented. Motion. Second. All in favor? I. Motion passes. Okay. Move to administrative reports. Mrs. Saltto. Happy last day of school. So we we have had a very busy May in June. Um and every year we try to plan ahead for that and it never works out. Um and it ends up being just super busy. One of the highlights was graduation on Monday. Many of you were there um in the rain. Mist. We keep saying miss in the mist. We were in the mist. It was a day. Yep. and we survived. Um it was great though.

057We had uh 20 20 or 21 or 22 I can't remember graduates um one of our smaller classes but it was really nice um to have everybody there. Our band played um excellent speeches. Yes, it was good speeches about and really nice job on their speeches. Yeah, absolutely. So it's a long-standing tradition in in Ballen Town and one that you know I see for people keeping because that it is you know a priority for people and they look forward to that. um to graduation. We did hold field day yesterday, so finally a nice day of weather. Um it was a lot of fun. We were outside for a long time. Everybody was tired hopefully when they got home. Still are. Yeah. Still are still still are recovering from that. Um one of the important things

058to note is the uh preschool grant when we had talked about it that was kind of shambles through the early start Connecticut. We are actually um going into a regional collaborative with learn. So it's Griswald, Volunt Lisbon, Ledger. So we are going to form a regional collaborative under learn. So learn becomes the one who kind of maintains and runs um the finances, the paperwork and things like that. And so we'll just be encompassed with all of those other towns, which is great just at least for our program. Um we have a small program. Norwich has a big port. So being able to work with them, um I will go to a meeting later in June at Lauren and and meet some of these other people that'll be working on this um so we can secure

059our money for early child Norwich Ledger Lisbon yeah. So that is super important. Um would you like me to talk about food service in my report? It's not on the agenda. It is number two. I didn't realize I want to follow the order. So, we've really had really have had a great year. Thanks to the board of education for supporting all the things for our students. They really have had um you know, amazing success and and we see it and hopefully you know continues in the in the stream of the next year. Did you mention the boys basketball award? I left it on there and I was like, did I say that last time or not? So, I didn't talk about it. Okay. So, the boys were honored. Yes. Um Oh, and then we didn't

060have a meeting. So, I think that's what happened. They were honored before the last May meeting with the Roger uh Lefrena Senior Sportsmanship Award. Um and ironically, this person that came was the brother of Linda Christensen who used to work here. Yeah. So, it was kind of full circle. he came and he talked about how, you know, his sister had worked here. Um, but they really exemplified and Joe Nate Lazur, they run a a wonderful program for boys basketball and um it was really honorable and we brought the whole school down. They were invited to come and see the presentation of the award. Um, they received a plaque and we took pictures and things like that. So, it was really um a great accomplishment for them, you know, at that time. You service What did

061you say? Youth service bureau. We now meet quarterly. We didn't really disseminate that at the last meeting. It's a no. It's not every and YSB paid for the inflatable. So, thank you, Chris. Yes. At yesterday and prek used it. They were ecstatic um that they got to go on there, but they did do that. So, YSB quarterly. Okay. the collaboration actually between YSB and the school district is what allows YSB in many cases to have the quality of programs that we do and Melinda just did um as far as they have their separate meeting but just so everybody knows like they did um the fishing they did the fishing derby which is great kids love that and then they did the kayaking again which kids love going out on the water so that was recently

062too in June so really good sponsored programs through ISB they did cheer your vest um they went to a center tumbling like it was it was really good. Um Y does a lot for us. Yeah, it was it was a lot of fun. Okay. It's great. It's broadsp spectrum interests, you know, like there's there's a little bit for everyone and that's that's really important for I mean we we don't have a huge population but there they have different interests and needs and and they go surf. Yeah, exactly. But kaying is such a great like that's that was I love that like and we're local to you know many people go out on the you know or you live on the on the bond and they don't feel comfortable until they they're taught properly and to

063have Nest come in like a organization like Nest who is incredible a local resource that we have either for sailing or something like that water sports is that's just a gem and and that's all coordinated through YSB. So thank you. Yep. Okay. Well, thank anything else. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. You you've u you're going to sleep well. Okay. Um Dr. Johnson. Yes. Just a couple of items. The uh transition meetings um eighth graders going to their selected high schools are concluded. They went very very well. Um, as I also know in my report about our summer program, ESY, extended extended school year services, they're um required for students with uh disabilities if the expectation or the documents documentation indicates that having the whole summer off without uh academic support would result in

064regression. So, it's to event regression and um we have six students from grades six through seven that are going to participate in that program. We also provide um occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech therapy for a small number of students. They got about six students who who need those uh therapies in order to keep their their their physical and speech skills up again from regress. And that's it. It was a very good year, very busy year, but a very good year. And uh we celebrated the retirement of one of our special education teachers today stands. She's a wonderful job. We still work from Eastcon a few years back before I came and she's done. She's done very What was What was her balloon number? 12. 12. Well, yeah, I love that they had everybody's, you

065know, years of service with the with the school up there and just wonderful representation. But yes, thank you, Julia. Really good training and experience. She created a program for our intellectual students and really down to earth practical. She did a great job. Any questions for Dr. Johnson? Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes. Thank you for successful year. Okay. Superintendent report. Superintendent report. You'll notice there's not a calendar of events that I have for my list, but it's been very very busy with a number of things that were happening. And of course, uh there was a wonderful going away for the five people that are retiring. And uh Lloyd just mentioned Julie Julia there was also Jackie Valancort, Lynn Lawrence and uh uh Margaret Bolan and uh me. But uh the thing is that and

066I said it at the last board meeting, our population has been declining and the board has made strategic moves for reduction in force. So that the teacher salaries for next year are actually less than what they were four years ago. And the public needs to understand that. But in relationship to the people that are leaving, we had some transfers. So we had some cost savings with Mike going over to math and the learn technology services have been fantastic and they've already come in and they've already offered us some services. And then uh with special education staff, we've had some reductions in the number of hours that teachers have been here because uh with a special ed student that might need an outplacement, we've hired a behavioral consultant from Eastcon and that has been very helpful

067to, you know, to not, you know, outplace a student which offers very uh very you know, health and things for our budget. I want to explain again in the middle of this year, we had a student that started out in special ed out placement and the cost of that was over $200,000. And then in the middle of the year, we had a cost required placement that also cost $200,000. Well, the people move their residency. If we didn't have that, then our budget, we'd have to find $400,000. And I'm not sure where we would find that. And of course, you know, the excess cost, the state reimbursement for special ed students, even with tuitions like $200,000, has never been fully funded. And they they have a formula, but they never fully fund that formula. Now, people

068say, "Okay, you had a student with a $200,000 tuition and they left. So, what did you do with the savings?" Well, the cost the court play student, it required us to pay a a retroactive transportation and tuition back to November 1st. So we had to pay that bill based on a court order. So what happened is we thought that we had savings. We were dancing that we could try to, you know, pay a little bit more into the buses or do some other things, but this new student came in. Fortunately, there was a change in res residency. And this is a very important thing to ha have the public understand that that we sometimes are faced with uh outside placements. Now, when I got here almost 20 years ago, I told the board that we

069would always fully fund our special ed out placements. And right now, uh you know, we're returning $46,398 back to the town. But part of that is a reimbursement for some of the special education and it wasn't as much but you know if we fully fund it then we we give the money back to the town if grants come in and that's been a standard operation. I want to thank the board. There's one final thing and I think in this transition you need to know that we have a structure for school improvement and this board of education reviews a list of committee assignments and many of you serve on those committees and there's a very structured decisionmaking process plus we require agendas and minutes to meetings and uh you know the transportation committee the building committee

070meeting, the curriculum meetings are all in place and there's people who are assigned to that and very experienced. Good example, Jackie Valancort retired and she was chair of the math committee for a number of years. Well, two years ago, we switched and Mike Curro took that over. So that we've had these transitions and that's what's happened throughout the faculty. Now this now next year there will be three specialed teachers rather than four but that's because we're trying to get some you know services and support for Eastcon and this is how we've we've gone through that. The school readiness grant of $27,000 has been changed. There's a local governance council program and right now we are looking at they want you to regionalize with other communities and I I just signed uh an agreement to work

071with Grizzled uh Lisbon um Norwich and who was the other one. Yeah. So, you know, and and what we'll do is we will serve on that that council, but one of the things that I really stress with the membership is I want our office to be in control of the budget. And remember 207 to 180 that's, you know, a drop in in in funds. So what happens is we had to adjust you know how many paras we might be paying for out of the grant. We haven't had to. Okay. We've been able to have a slight reduction in the population and the needs of the the students, but the school uh the preschool program has always been able to meet the needs of birth to three students. And we have been very very fortunate because

072we have had students that have come into the district and they were participating in the birth to three students. And I'll tell you, 20 years ago, we had a tuition of $52,000 per student, transportation, nursing service, OT, PT, and the total bill was that for about $102,000. We created the program for three year olds that year, and the board of ed wound up paying about $52,000 for the program. and the child was not did not need to be outplaced. We met the needs of the child here at school and that's the philosophy that will continue and the special ed staff and Amy and everybody has worked to do everything possible to keep children here. One final thing and one of your greatest challenges. We used to educate specialed children to age 21. The moment they

073turned 21, the state came in and they paid for the educational program of that identified special ed student, age 21. Then there was a change and it said age 21, but if it's on July 1st, you're responsible for that child until the end of the school year. Then it changed to age 22. And there was a recent legislation proposal by the superintendent to say when the student turns 22, the state should take over. It didn't pass. So, we may have a student that turns has identified special education needs in the transition program and July 1st if if they're if that's their birthday, we're responsible to educate them into age 22 and 264 days. And that is a a considerable amount, you know, within the budget. And as you develop your budget, you'll see what happens

074with that. So, I've just outlined some of the uh challenges. Wednesday, June 18th, 700 p.m. in the Volunte. And please remember, we just cut uh $49,999 out of the budget proposal that was defeated in the in the referendum. And I have to tell you, there are not too many margins for, you know, extra challenges that are coming in. We budgeted just for the number of outplacements, just for the number of high school tuitions and some of the other projected. And next year you could be faced with, you know, the possibility of, you know, having to go back to the town for an extra request because uh we could we could start school and a student requiring a $100,000 tuition could move into town and and how do we make adjustments? Fortunately, with essential spending and

075some of the techniques that you could use, we never went back to the town for an additional dollar. And I'm quite proud of that along with never missing a board meeting. End of my report. Okay, good luck everybody. Thank you. Thank you so much. Wishes to you. You know, we're set up for we're structured in in the most Yeah. positive way and that's been the core of our our school system thanks to all the work you've done over the years to to provide consistency and the interwork and this doesn't rely on just me the way that things are set up the transportation comm you know department knows what they need to do the curriculum committees the special education all of these all of these people work you know with with authority ity and and make

076recommendations and can save us money. And quite frankly, there's wonderful decisions that were made. One of the finest decisions that we've made was Amy's English language arts committee that selected a reading program three years prior to when the state mandated reading programs and we were able to just check off one block. We picked one of the five programs that the state eventually required school districts to use. Those school districts that purchased other programs ran into considerable expenses. So the research that our committees do is is right on target. And we have people who have served and have helped and made contributions that have been helpful. And one final thing, the kids are great, just fantastic. So, thank you so much. It's been a wonderful run. And for the community, volunteer. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you.

077It's hard to move right on to old business, huh? Okay. But I guess has to be done. Um, well, transportation update. I know that we we did just receive our our um our update that long awaited you know um evaluation which I thought was you know well thought out and well planned and and a thorough presentation which is great. Um but what what are thoughts on on that in terms of I know we from an evaluation p perspective I think we'll just think about maybe multi-use with the town you know if there's anything we can do with the town office I mean the town garage and then um you know if that routing system is a a feasible thing I mean obviously it's extra dollars but we'll have to kind of weigh that out and

078see what that looks like but sounds like it's It's a honestly it takes me normally I start my rooms in April. This year I started them back in October I think when the first question came up about Wheeler. Um, but I I still don't have them done for next school year partially because I've been, you know, trying to do coming up with what is Ellis look like as a standalone. But to have software, Rich ran the roots that he did within a couple hours in one day where I like I said, I have to plot out, okay, this bus does this and then it's these kids and how does it work and oh, that doesn't work. So then I have to go on to the next thing. It would save a lot of time for

079me and a lot of redundancy to be able to put these are the kids I want. Does this work? And have it come back sooner and I'd be able to focus on I'd be more available to drive. Um, and I I didn't think to ask Rich. Terry just reminded me. Um, he had made a comment about some of the software programs. I don't know which ones. um that you can get the package comes with multiple licenses and that if you're in close proximity to another town that uses it that there may be an option for cost share um and Rich had used Canterbury as an example. He did an audit for them recently um and that if we were close enough to share a program they would have their town on one license, we would

080have our town on another license and So that is also something to explore. I think um I'll just comment I think the report was really comprehensive. I actually think it would be good for the transportation committee to maybe meet digest the report and then come back to the board. That would be my recommendation. We come back to the board with a set of recommendations based on based on what was because there's many there there are a lot of recommendations in that report. Um So an options I would like to read as well. Right. Yeah. I think we all need some time, right? Of course that's that was the um on Chris and Sarah's comment. Is it possible to have you know to set transportation committee meeting? I think that's a very good idea. but also

081give the board members time to read the report and come up with any questions they have because that was part of our problem in the beginning was everybody had questions but there wasn't an even communication. So if if they read the report and say well hey these are the questions I have and these are the questions then we can focus on addressing those in the meeting and come back with answers. Yeah I that's a good recommendation. I think that's the the goal is that everybody on the board goes through and has a chance to to really review the the presentation and then um I mean we're not going to set it up for next week. So I think um you know you can send any questions or comments you can send them to me because

082I'm on the committee and then I can bring them back and we can address it as we need it. Okay. Sounds like a plan. Okay. Food service finally. I um I did give you a paper. I don't know why it printed weird like that, but just go to the back page. Um so I did meet with you, myself and Darlina. We had a virtual meet with um the director and then two of the ladies that work and run the program. So basically uh you know what we talked about was what are you going to do for us and what's the cost? Um I just wanted to know the bottom line of what is it worth investing in this or not. Um, and so as you look down through the first part that they talked about

083was because we run close to deficit, this for them would be a pilot taking us on because they need to see sustainability within the next two to three years of our school lunch program. So I was a little offput by that. I was like, well, we can't get rid of what we have to run a pilot and what if you decide that we're not workable and then what are we going to do in two years? Um but as they talked they talked about all the things that um when we had met they would train our staff. They would meal plan so we would retain our people. Um they would meal plan breakfast and lunch compliance. They would take care of all that through the state the ordering the money collection. So they have their own

084software system. So when it gets put in it would go through them. Obviously we would take the deposit but it would um go through their software system. Any of the state requests um they would do the determining official paperwork. um lunch application, direct certification list, that's kind of stuff that I do. We don't we don't get a lot of lunch applications. Um so it's really not it's not like paperwork, a lot of paperwork. Um so full financial responsibility is still within the board of ed and payments through the board of ed like as paying our staff. They would maintain our staff though, so they would supervise them essentially. um we would be under our sponsor name before moving into their like small little collaborative they have. So we still operate we have a certain number

085that we operate under. Um then they would need to evaluate are we sustainable enough to become part of that? And then I said well what's the bottom line? And she said well about $45,000. I said okay when do I need to let you know about it? And I was like, absolutely not. Because for what we pay now, for the amount of money of what they're going to do right now, it still works. We have a food service director to to spend another, you know, 20 plus thousand dollars on something that we're already doing and working. I just don't think it's really feasible to to move in this in this direction with Eastcon. Um, I gotten back to them and they haven't said anything yet. I said I have to call the board meeting and and

086talk to the board um if the board wishes to investigate more into what this is. Um but that was the ballpark figure that they gave me when 45 45 and right now we pay um you know to have coordination and all of that done about 18 18 yeah it's a significant it's not like we're saying 18 and like oh 25,000 and then I would have to do lunch I'm going to continue doing lunch applications for that amount like we're not I just don't think it's feasible to spend that. I'm hoping our coordinator can take over that because the salary has gone up. Yeah. So, there's a couple of things that he and I are going to meet about about what um you know, he can continue to take care of, etc. And we'll work that

087out between ourselves, but um you know, that's kind of where this went. Yeah, I'm going to assume just like when I had talked to um them initially when they gave us the feedback about if you go to another company, not like I don't even know that's going to be if this costs this much, I can only imagine how much it cost to run a very small program for a 100 lunches a day. It's not, you know, it's not significant. Um, but that's, you know, I think our deficit came this year from the low numbers after the COVID numbers and the full reimbursement last year still for breakfast and they got rid of that. They even though it was in one of the budget things, it didn't go through. Yeah. That reduced lunch. People would all

088become free lunch. Yeah. But that didn't pass. So, we're where we are this year and we know where we are as opposed to we thought we were getting more coming in and then that disappeared again, you know. So, will the new budget contain any No, no. No, they had I was looking that up specifically. They had I called uh they had one part that where they wanted all free free lunch. Reduce lunch would become free lunch and breakfast would become free again. That got shot down. It's not in the budget that they passed. So nothing different than this year. But this year we thought we were going to have a lot more breakfast because of last year was great. But now that it's paid, we know what we're going into next year. what we have

089I think will we can we can budget for it and not run way over like we did this year. I think it was because the change in the breakfast program especially I mean and we flourished during co I mean because we everything was free we got full reimbursements but you know we removed a lot of that um you know we spent it wisely got equipment and and those types of things when you have to draw that down um but now we're kind of back to the hope the normal. Yeah, some of that would remain. None of that really has. In general, we were a lot smarter than a lot of other school districts in the state with COVID funds in every aspect of from HVAC to food service. Yeah, we really do well with those.

090We've been from many districts from what I can telling things funded positions with and then they they're saying we got to lay off all these people, but why did you hire them all with that money? And we still need capital improvement. They still need money for capital. They hire I think East Slime is one that has huge number of um staff. They hire the code of funds. They hire intervention, math, intervention, reading, people that are easy to kind of cut off the bottom, but you need and that's what how they supply their push significantly two years ago. Right. when you try to keep them on and then people are unsure why we hire if you really didn't need them why did you hire them? We really needed HVAC. Yeah, we really needed asbestous removal. So,

091it's good we use those funds for that. It's it's very nice. We did some outside work too for the kids and stuff with those funds. Yeah. So, and I do think some of this work, I mean, it's it's I'm appreciative of our research into it and seeing what our options are. I know we're not super happy with our um our rev tracking of it through Powers School and I know it puts a lot of pressure on I mean, not a lot, but it additional work for Amy and and others, you know, that aren't necessarily, you know, food service people. Um, but it's also good for, you know, Mr. are coming in and and and he can have eyeballs on some of the work that's been done and you know evaluations. Yeah. Yeah. So I think

092it's it's all going to we'll make we'll be able to establish our efficiency for the next few years and kind of really make a strategic plan for that. So because we just got to break even. We don't have to make money. don't want to lose money, break even, which we did for a number of years before CO hit. We were always right on the on the nose with it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Um, do you want to run away? Well, we've um, so we added the agenda item, the high school choices to old business. So, that's item number three that's on the agenda. Um, And so with that, is there anything on on this report yet for that or Yeah. Did they put it on there? Did they Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. From there.

093Okay. Um so our committees I'll actually let Sarah Your refresher. No cry. Yeah. So um our high school choice committee um we've met. I think we've been trying to keep the board up to date on our our thinking um around the high school choice. Um so just level set reminder, we we did vote to remove QMC. Um I think that was in an April meeting. Um and then last time we had talked about um uh removing some high schools as designated. And the link to that as a reminder is if we have a high school that's designated, we are obligated to provide transportation in the context of declining enrollment um or especially over the next few years. Um we can still support uh tuition but not provide uh transportation and that is in line with

094a a lot of other area schools. Uh so you know I think it's the committee's recommendation that we um phase out transportation to marine science and to Ellis uh tech um and that we um remove villain killing boag and replace that with ledger. And so those are the three recommendations that have come from the committee after looking at um area uh other area school districts looking at our own enrollments uh also considering the change in applications to the tech schools that they are again as a reminder pure lottery base. So um and uh looking at where uh our students are going. So for any students currently enrolled at Marine or um Ellis, we would continue to provide transportation for those groups of students um through their graduation. So that's the phase out of the transportation

095over time. Um and then we would um drop killingly and and go with leger for our program. I love to ask a question. Um I sorry it's it's not open for that. Okay. Should we look at Wheeler? I mean I know we just added them but Yeah. So I I think seems to be the odd. Yeah. I think the feeling from the committee is that there is additional work to be done to look at what I'm going to just deem three regular high schools. Um so you know we offer uh NFA Excuse me. God bless you. And and Wheeler and I'm just call I'm lumping them all together as the three regular high schools. Uh there's a small, a medium, Griswald, and then a large. And I think that is a discussion that the committee

096wants to or work that we want to take as our next phase, but we would like to wait for um Scott to join us. Um, I think that will have uh a whole series of of other and longer discussions for us. Um, but I think we felt like these were some immediate changes we could implement that would have some cost savings um that would help us um with transportation quite frankly with u would um still provide um choice and optionality but also be fiscally responsible for what we're seeing in terms of rising costs and declining enrollment. um and to bring our um the offers that we have to be more consistent with our surrounding wi with our neighbors. We are an outlier. Um I think that was what it was really clear is that our

097school district is quite an outlier for the number of choices we have. So um this helps us start to take some steps forward and I we think additional consideration is warranted but this is about as far as I think the committee felt comfortable taking it. Um, but yes, to your point, Chris, I think we do I think we need to look at the three regular high schools and make some decisions there, too. But we're not prepared to put that proposal on the table. A lot more chairs. There will. Yeah. Yeah. And and there will be and I think we recognize that the majority of our students choose one of those three high schools. So, it is it is not without significant. Do we know anything about how the lottery system will work? Will a certain

098number of students from each town get picked? No, we don't. It's lottery under the lottery. I have that information because my cousin did, but I don't know how many entered for zero. I know zero got received it, but I'm curious how many out of like 38 38 kids that apply um only from like some like Canterbury realized heavily one got the odds are against Yeah. Where are they all coming from then? Like the new London I'm talking like probably out of even Manchester. Who else goes into there? Putnham goes into there and those people Brooklyn. Brooklyn I think goes up Palace Brooklyn Day all those places. It's a blonde draw with all the kids names supposedly supposedly. We're not quite sure how this is there. Is there any sort of sibling? Like I know sometimes

099the magnet schools have a sibling. Yeah, that does not apply. It doesn't. Okay. To the N. It's very devastating. Very very devastating. We're trying my cousin is trying to to configure the matrix about the how this works currently. So are you looking to get proposals tonight? Yeah. So I think if I were to can I can I make a motion? Yeah, we can make a motion and further discuss. It's more I mean I think it's approve. Yeah. So I guess the motion to ask the board's approval is that we would like to phase out transportation. I can at a time phase out transportation to marine science. Remove it as a designated school. Remove it as a designated school and over time phase out transportation. Motion second. All in favor? Um to remove Ellis as a

100designated school. I have a question before the motion. Is this something that should the lottery system change or we find because I know was the last meeting we were talking about it like as these towns start to not have students going there might be a need for like a collab collaborative type of approach whereas like maybe playing field like we could do some sort of collaborative. So my question would be could we could we pose the motion in a way that either um number one should the lottery system be removed we reinstate and also and then um and then also should students res be entered or be accepted that we review the opportunity for a collaborative type of approach. I don't think they will do that because they haven't done that with the STEM schools

101at all with the STEM any but the difference is and alsoation cost right there's a difference too so I can just adopt the transportation right now after four years is what we're yeah so so right now we have no students entering 9th grade in Alice right so for the current students who are going into 10th 11th and 12th We would continue to provide transportation. Um it's just for any um student who would I'm going to get the years wrong, but next year's eighth grade class, it would not be a designated it would not be a designated high school in the list. If what I would say is as information about the lottery or if the lottery changes, right? like we can readjust this decision at any time, but this just helps us scope transportation and

102things over over even if it's not designated, they can still go in the lottery and their own transportation can Yeah. I just think I personally just think that Ellis Ellis provides a very um good opportunity for students particularly students that may not be looking at the college route and it's definitely for Yes. And it doesn't cost us anything. So I think that um you know if we I I totally understand like we can't be transporting one one student. I totally get that. But um I do think that the minutes from this meeting from with the motion should reflect that the board intends to re-evaluate should that lottery system be re or if if ball town gets like a you know mandatory three spots or two spots. I think we should definitely have an open dialogue

103and a um you know an ongoing conversation about it. Yeah. Um so one other factor uh a few years ago we had a student select Three Rivers as a you know school and uh we said well if the parents wanted to you know provide transportation we would pay the tuition now was 15,000 three rivers was 3700 so it was a cost savings to the board and the board could always not have schools on a designated list, but the policy allows parents to come in and make a request and then the board can decide on the basis of that request. Yes. And I think we have to remember that people can still they could still apply to Ellis. We still have a ban going to Ellis just that one, you know, once that you know it's

104four years from now, right? You wouldn't Yeah. It might by then they'd be a senior or junior. They wouldn't, you know, If four years from now we find out that no, now enrollment at Ellis is down. We want to start accepting students. I think it's definitely in this in the board's best interest to reinstate that as designated. This is so this is just but I was at a dinner with a a table full of people that are going to Ellis to work. They're eliminating loads of programs from Ellis is their plan. Okay. you know, but people have been very happy, I think, with with their education in all of our designated schools. I I speak I mean, Marine Magnet, I will must say, is is a phenomenal school, you know, academically and and for the

105purpose that it is. It's it's very specific in its its lane that it serves, but every community member from Volunt that's gone through it has been very successful and it's one of the top schools in the country. Yeah, it you know it is distance-wise farther. It's um unique in in the subsets that it doesn't provide sports and it does require you know your own transportation back and forth for that and um some kids just don't you know care for that. They want to have their clubs and and whatnot. But for what it is for our students, it's been amazing. And and I think, you know, I think we still want to offer it. It's just it's that um in in all of this research that we're doing, we need to be mindful of, you know,

106so the analysis and we don't have a ton of people no asking to go, you know, and they have a lottery system. So, it's it's I feel like there's there's a there's a theme here where it's, you know, we have students that, you know, have lots of choices and if they're going to get shot down every time. It's like it's not a really open arms to come to high school there. I'm not sure that Volunt will be at the top of the list in the lottery system. Neither Canterbury or Lisbon. I mean, in theory if you're from Voluntary, it's just a lottery. Well, I'm not, but I I think we'll see. Yeah. At the state level, there's going to be, you know, like why don't schools have a designated number of slots? Like we're all

107right. So, I think we're going to probably see or maybe not. Maybe nobody will, but I can't imagine. Yeah, I can't imagine that this isn't going to be an ongoing conversation. I think this fits into our role well of utilizing taxpayer money properly, too. If we're having two or three children or Why? Why even a vehicle to go in one direction? It's unnecessary. All right. Can we finish? Yeah. Can I make a motion to um remove Ellis as a designated high school and to phase out transportation over time? Motion. Second with the Yeah. With the minutes we're I think the minutes will I I think we should have the minister I I'll honestly say I think for all high school I mean I think all high schools yeah that this is a iterative process process

108that can be revisited at some constantly evolving process um okay so motion second all in favor I I any opposed anyone heard motion passes last motion is to uh remove killingly Um, as a designated high school, we do not have any students, so we do not have to phase out transportation. And that we would replace um, our BOAG choice would be Ledger High School. Motion. Second. All in favor? I I opposed. Unheard. Motion passes. And if we end up getting that thing he said about the buses and she can she can uh, you'll be able to Yeah. set out what if we're not doing this, how much would we say? Absolutely. I'm very much looking forward to having that software. It sounds a lot more efficient with the times actually with that. That's not a

109high school that's in our system. So, we will have to do the whole, you know, on boarding process that we did similar with Wheeler. So, just stay tuned on that. Yes. So, I'll I'll reach out to Ledger. Right. That gives you authority to reach out that we're interested. I'll reach out to Ledger. whatever that process is for him to acquire us just to find out how many type students they would take into correct just a suggestion reach out to Griswald find out if they have a bus going from Griswald to legend and then we could collaborate with them okay thank So we've whittleled that number down to much more reasonable and going to the high school more in depth stuff for it. It's a touchy subject too. when we get into the other high schools,

110it's going to be we still have to, you know. Okay. So, anyway, let's move on to uh this is a highlight for our our board and our community. I wanted to um to add it as I was kind of speaking with Amy over the course of um this past, you know, month um that we wanted to add a teacher spotlight and um and I think we we as a board don't don't do this enough. I mean, it's hard. We're very busy, but there's um there's a lot of things that are going on all year. And one of the the cool things about summer session is that a lot of our teachers really do um so much tremendous PD and um and and professional development programs and apply for these great programs. And I just um

111oh I I personally I spoke with um Mrs. Britt and she is just she was rewarded a really unique one. She's one of 36 um applicants nationally for the summer institute at the Peekquant Museum and she um it's nationwide focus to use u primary and secondary sources to examine um the indigenous perspective that she'll use in her 8th grade unit for um history. So that is um a really incredible um I think just a a local thing that she's going to do and um and kudos to Karen for being one of those chosen to and selected 36 nationally for that um opportunity. So um that's great. And then going down I mean once we once we started like digging in I this is pretty incredible. But Chelsea Burns is going to the now conference. Um

112and the the now conference what is now do we know what now is it's an art conference yes it's an art uh and and another another institute in old lime so she's doing she's doing art beautiful things and then um Lauren Rodrik is traveling to Africa to study biomes I mean really that's incredible yep and Joanne Weir and Angela Orzelle are going to the elevate conference and the summit conference And I know Val Lord always conferences somewhere. So she's she's got a 10 session science of writing webinar that she's working on. Um and then um and Megan Glidden, she highlighted a cool one. She's finishing up her sixth year in technology integration from the Dominican University of Cal California. Her what is it? Dominican what is that? Dominican University of California. Her PD is related

113to one of the many courses on AI, including the AI, imagination of schools featuring Dr. Neil Gupta, the human touch in an AI world with Angela Meyers, navigating the AI landscape featuring Adam Garry, and AI integration and teaching practices featuring Kathy Kavanagh. these are hosted through a full curriculum and so she's finishing up her six years. So that's pretty amazing um interesting future work. So I think that is the and um you know I will I kind of I do want to keep keep this on you know as an ongoing thing. It's I think could I make a recommendation could in like instead of teacher spotlight could it be like community spotlight? So if Amy wanted to talk about a student, are we allowed are you allowed to like if you have a student that

114attended something or are you allowed to say like the name at the meeting? So I would like a community spotlight versus just teacher you could Sure. I I didn't mean like ongoing, but I just for the summer if there's somebody that we missed. I don't want to I mean, you would want to consider every month giving us that you report out maybe a principal just somebody who I know we've talked about that maybe having like a you know a student come in to give a you know highlight on that. Yeah. Or like the National Honor Society folks that came in and just give a quick update on the emblem and and what that meant to the their their process. like the job they get. I know too. We would love to see students present to

115us. They probably give them whatever they wanted. So thrilled to see that. And that's something I can I can put that in my uh report or you can have it as a separate agenda item. I think either way right invite them too. You know, I was I it's been very busy and I I I spoke with Mrs. Brit, you know, about I was like this is incredible. Oh my gosh. You know, it's cool. He said, "Who else is going somewhere?" Then we got 10 emails and then I didn't say like, "Mrs. Brit, come to our meeting." And then I could, you know, really just do it in person, but it's you're online. I know you are. So, um, and everyone maybe like in September. Um, I have them come and just like would love to

116just hear from their conferences. I I know. Or African. I knew I knew about Karen's um work that she's doing, but I had no idea about anybody else. Yeah, I would say good. That was that was all right. Well, I guess our new business items are both interesting. So, last meeting we um Chris Wilson brought up the idea of something special for um for Mr. Burroughs and and his dedication to our community and and this school and thought of suggesting something like naming the White House, you know, after Mr. burrows and we said that's that's an incredible idea and I think we just wanted to make it you know a a more formal discussion of how I I forget what we were going to do like the we were going to check with the town

117if it was okay to use like to name school buildings but no I think we we weren't sure what we wanted it to officially be because it it's the central office but Adam's white house Adam used at Chris White House. I always said central office. Oh, yeah. I I think it's a very gracious office proper, but you know, I'm I'm just fine with, you know, just leaving whatever legacy is there in the back of people's minds. I kind of like the Adam Burroughs building and then people can refer to it as the ABC building, Adam Bur central office, you know, whatever. You know, just a suggestion is for some reason the whole building can't. There was a longstanding board member, you met her, she helped you with your search. And there's a there's a room

118at the high school that's dedicated to her. It helped to be the auditorium. So, you could dedicate this conference room to that. That's a good idea. I'm not saying it's better than the whole building, but barrier. Yeah. With building So we should make the motion pending investigation research statuto um that it's okay with statuto I can't imagine that we might want to school district I would not the building is owned by the town and there's a lot of you know things okay so you think more a conference room is more appropriate he doesn't want anything but that's because he's so so modest. But I um I think that's yeah I think we should make a motion to research it and and maybe suggest the the conference room and with the town things well the building

119or the conference room as an option and that it's an op that makes you have to come back one more time Adam dedication and rested I want to motion okay all in favor I I motion passes to investigate that the dedication ceremonies come up upcoming the ABC building. Okay, that's that's great meeting. Okay, so yes, we um we obviously have our did we do we have a July meeting? I know that we um we don't we don't have August or did we probably have to have July and August coming. Will we need a second? We always have a July. Yeah. Well, we need a second one either. So, we'll keep July just because that's going to be an intro introduction. I know he's he's officially start start date is July one and but he's also

120Yeah. So, I think we should keep that. Do we need to tenatively schedule a meeting for this fourth week Thursday in case the budget fails again? I don't think it can fail. up three. I think that Tracy said something like, "Well, it can definitely fail." But like there's another like layer and then I think she said she said there were two more and then if not then it goes to the same I just I remember her saying another layer. I know it can fail. I think she said there were there was another layer. We have to go back to last year's budget. We'll tell you if that's that will be that will be at a special meeting. We need to do it to ours better than the town. Yeah, I hope everybody say that. I

121I just Yeah, I think I think it's an important Yeah, it's important that we show good faith in our support of our process and our spending plan and the work, the dedication that we've all done to to get to this point. The well dry people have had they don't feel they're getting a return on investment. and it all fit. Well, they are if they cool if they have they've been getting Wednesday, July June July, Wednesday, June 18th is that meeting in the gym. So, that's the definitely when you want to be on your calendar um for the vote and make everybody related to vote and vote. Yeah. And then so we have our board of ed meeting July 10th and then our board Yes. board meeting July 10th. Yep. And now that's the end of

122our regular meeting and we just need a motion to move into executive session. We move that the board enter executive session to discuss the matter that would result in the disclosure of public records or the information contained therein as described in the Connecticut General Statute section 1210B10. Further that the superintendent of schools Adam Burrow is be invited to attend the executive session. Okay. motion. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Uh, we need a motion on the floor to authorize the superintendent to work with the board of ed chair to facilitate the classified contracts as agreed upon by the board of education. Motion. Second. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Any opposed? None heard. Motion passes. Okay. Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjurnn. Megan Wixs. Kathy Grant. Yeah. Okay. At at 8 51. Megan and Kathy.

123Okay. Thank you very much. Let me give you my number or I'll just put Chest.