001education meeting to order at 7:01. Okay. Uh I will start the pledge of allegiance. I haven't done that in a long time. So my turn. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Sadly, I have a couple of deaths to announce. The first is Shirley who served the school as secretary for a long time. I um I was going to Tom Angelo was going to say a few words about her, but he can't be with us this evening because he actually experienced her as a secretary in the school. Um but I knew her later in life uh as she after she had retired and she was a very lovely woman and
002thing I remember most about her is that her kindness and her generosity and her friendliness her best friend she was a staunch Democrat and her best friend was a staunch Republican and she would put everybody's signs no matter who you were and what you were what office you were running for, you could put your signs on her front lawn. Very prominent place in town to put your signs and she got in a lot of trouble for that, but she didn't care. So, she will be sorely missed. Her calling hours are tomorrow from 4 to 7 8 4 to 8. That's how uh highly attended it will be and the service is on Wednesday. Okay. The other death is the our former board of education member Chris Iikner who passed away on May 1st. Um many
003you here sitting at the table to would not have served on the board with him but Bill you did. Yep. Um and uh and Tom myself, Tom and Bill served with him on the board of education and he lived in Thompson for many many years. and he spent his whole career in education and his services will be imprinted on May 28th. Secondly, I'm of course disappointed that the budget failed on the first go round. Um the communications subcommittee put a lot of effort into promoting it and providing factual information to the public and I stress factual. Um, I'd like to thank them and the high school students who gave their time at the transfer station and at the polls. Melinda, I have been following the response of your letter to the editor as it was
004posted on Facebook in several sites. It was a very powerful letter and there are people in this town who should be ashamed of themselves for their behavior. No matter how you voted, no call for harassment of anyone at the polls. When did it become acceptable to be univilized, impolite, and uncoup? That's what I want to know. On a lighter note, the next several weeks, as we will hear in the upcoming reports, are going to be jam-packed with student activities, concerts, parades, award nights culminating with the middle school moving up and the high school graduation. I encourage my fellow board members to attend as many of these events as possible. It not only shows commitment to our school, but it is also an enjoyable experience. Uh speaking of the first one, I went tonight to the
005art show open house and uh lot of talented artists that we have. Very very wonderful show. Um and I volunteered to demonstrate next year at this at one of her classes. Wonderful. Demonstrate um textile art. hooking. Good. It's a textile art. It is a textile art. As long as you provide the context. Okay, that's all I have to say this evening. I'll open the floor to citizens comments. Any citizens comments from the floor? I don't see many citizens here. So, okay. I'll open the Zoom to citizens comments. Any citizens comments from Zoom? hearing none. Student spotlight also too just just to save some time. I told Josh he does not have to read through every single that's coming up. There's hundreds of seats. Thank you. That's okay with everybody. Yes. Yes. Thank you. [Laughter] Nope.
006All right. Right. So, this is the May of 2025 board of education report. Um, other news and highlights. We had Integrity Plus. 10 students wired at the 23rd annual Integrity Plus awards night. The event was catered by Chef Sengraph and his culinary students. Speeches were made by teachers who testified as to why each recipient was highly deserving of the honor. The Integrity Plus Award recipients are Aviana Blair, Giana Brunson, Jenny Denim, Glenn Fontaine, Paige Kelly, Julia Lewis, Jack Perry, Matteas Romano, Serena Smith, and Sophia Thurber. We also had seventh grade shadow day. So on April 24th, the TSLT held its first seventh grade shadow day. Um TMHS students put on an assembly and facilitated other fun activities in the auditorium with seventh graders. Then the high school um student leaders accompanied um the seventh graders
007to two tiger block sessions where they participated in uh various enrichment activities um including pathway programs. We also had the car cruise this month. It's the third annual PMHS car cruise and it took place on Sunday of April 27th and once again was a great success. The car cruise was planned by Miss Finelli and Mr. Goodmanson's collaborative and they raised over $1,500 to the community fire department for student voice. Um at the student council meeting on May 6th, Mr. Melon asked for student input on possible changes they would like to see for the 2025 2026 school year. The council shared their ideas with Mr. Melon, including considering changes to the makeup policy in some ways to further enhance Tiger Block. Uh we also had a student spotlight for the fourth quarter and it goes to
008Samantha Podourney. Each quarter, Turl Memorial High School student spotlight program recognizes a student who has demonstrated outstanding achievement, character, leadership, attitude, and/or other contributions to the school and community. Our fourth quarter student spotlight honor is sophomore Samantha Puggorning. Josh Carlson writes, "She is a very good student in the classes I have with her. She also taught me how to make the tissue paper merry golds." Additionally, Alexis Andrews writes, "Sam Sam Sam always dresses up for spirit week and makes it fun for everyone around her." Finally, Madison Perry says, "I feel like Sam is worthy of being nominated because she goes above and beyond when it comes to showing school spirit. She dresses up for all the spirit week. She's involved in a lot of clubs that help our school out a lot, and she does
009a lot of sports. Sam comes to school every day ready to learn and make people smile. She's also very kind, funny, and overall an amazing person who should be nominated. When asked what motivates her, Samantha wrote, "I am motivated by my family to work hard. They taught me that if something is worth doing, it's worth doing well." Samantha contributes to our community in various ways. She shared she shared that as a member of the Turlot student leadership team and the student spirit association, she has helped to put on schoolwide events and activities. Some of these events include organizing pep rallies, promoting our school to the seventh and eighth graders, and helping out at open houses. Um, out of out of school, I do things like volunteering through my church, horse course horse marshalling at the
010annual turkey trot, local toy drive, and running arts and craft tables at the town Easter egg hunt. After high school, Samantha plans on going to a four-year college and pursuing a career in real estate. She is interested in selling real estate because that is what her grandpa did for so many years. Samantha shared that she admires him very much and hopes to be like him someday. Throughout her school career, Samantha has accomplished many things. She shared, "I have been president of my class for two years, and I'm running again with the hope to hold the position for my junior year as well. As the end of as as of the end of this spring track season, I will have earned six varsity letters, all earned from playing high school soccer, basketball, softball, and track. I
011was MVP of my softball team my freshman year, and I was ECC first team all-star for softball that same year. I was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society in middle school and was recently accepted into the National Honor Society. Samantha's message to her community is to my peers, I would like to share some valuable advice that is helping me to enjoy my high school career. I know that school can be a lot sometimes and it isn't always easy to come to school with a smile on your face. But it is important to know that school is just what you make it. By this I mean that if you come to school every day and expect to just appear in class and then leave at the end of the day, don't be surprised when you
012can't find something to enjoy about coming to school. Joining clubs, activities, and sports gives you another reason to show up every day. Become part of a team connect, learn from others, and have something to look forward to. Not only will being a part of clubs and activities give you something to enjoy, it gets you involved in doing nice things for your school through those clubs. In short, the best way to go through high school is by getting involved. And one more thing before I go. This is my last sport event meeting and I'm sad to leave. I know I've only been here for a year, but it's been a great great time knowing you all and I thank you for having me. And I'll speak for Megan as well. I appreciate you guys. [Applause] Thank
013you, Josh. And uh good luck. Thank you. Not staying for my speech. I thought you just wanted us to go ahead. No, no, no. Okay, we move on to administrator reports. Okay. All right. We will start with Mr. Melon. what's going on at the high school, please. So, good evening everybody. Um, as Josh, you know, gave you that report, uh, many, many dates, special events coming up. Um, I just went to the art show myself. Um, really talented students, uh, both at the middle school and high school level. We're lucky to have Mrs. Prrowy. Um, our art teacher does a great job. Last Friday we had our junior senior prom. Uh it was my first prom since 1994. Um so the kids were shocked to hear that. But kids kids look great. Uh behavior was
014exceptional. Um I did an exit poll. They all seem to have a great time. No issues. So proud of the students. Um and then you know appreciative of the teachers that volunteered. Um, so tomorrow, uh, we have our NHS induction ceremony and then the following night we have our formal spring concert followed up May 16th by that Great East Festival that the students get to go to. Another important day for us is going to be on the 22nd, the Capstone spring showcase and then students will be heading to Washington DC, uh, the week of Memorial Day, uh, the vacation and then Relay for Life. Right now, our focus items are end of the year events. Uh building on our schedule for 2526 school year and completing our AP exams. Um happy to report that the
015teachers are uh pleased with some of the at least the work ethic and they're they're confident that the results will be will be very good. Um some of the things that happened our decision day, we took a photograph out front. Um we are in the process. We do have a student uh Pavani Pab that's actually taking creating she created her own Instagram account and she's doing a really nice job actually getting pictures and little bios of every student including our students that are going on to EB or the military. So it's just not colleges. Um it's you know career careers as well and I think Superintendent Smith putting those on Facebook which has been great. I'm waiting because I'm all caught up. You're all caught up. Okay. I will check. Um, we had our integrity
016uh plus night which uh really special evening, my first one obviously that I attended and again chef and his students did a phenomenal job uh with that meal. Um we had a visit uh from Congressman Courtney stayed at least almost two hours I think at our school was very impressed uh just with our welding program. Speaking of that, five of our students are on to EB. I think one of them has to make a decision, but they got uh job offers that day, which is uh excellent. And then we had our seventh grade shadow day. Um you can see that in the picture on the right. Students really uh we did that poll before. A lot of those students really want to head towards a a career uh in the field of either plumbing or
017carpentry or electrical work. So they got exposed to Mr. Mayor who's one of our new teachers uh who's doing a great job. So other than that, all is good. It's just a hectic, busy time, end of the year. So day by day, we take it. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you, Miss Granada. Good evening, everyone. uh extended happy mother's day to all those moms. Um also a big shout out to uh the teachers. Last week was teacher appreciation week. Um thank you to the PTO for putting out a wonderful spread. The teachers are very appreciative on behalf of Mrs. Blk and myself. We are very grateful and blessed to have the teachers that we do. Uh they work so hard and care for our students every day. And so I I can't thank them enough
018for all that they do. Also, uh tonight we had our open house for our incoming grade uh five students. It seemed to go off very well. We had a big attendance. uh a lot of excited kids and we hope that our message to them is that we are an exciting great place to be and to the parents that uh every day is a new day here at the middle school and we just want them to develop into the best uh possible selves that they are. Um we have our um National Junior Honor Society coming up on May 15th. We also have our great uh the great east music festival on May 16th. And another thing, the PTO, we have our planetarium scheduled for May 27th. And also a big again thank you to the PTO
019because um for our conclusion of ESBAC, we had two students from every home um were put into a raffle and because of their generous fundraising um generosity, each uh student chosen received either a gift card to Amazon or Walmart. Um kids were very excited about that. um RAW did a great job of also giving an incoming introduction to all our grade um incoming grade five students. So, they got to answer a lot of questions. Um and also a special thank you to um our youth commission who volunteered their time at the bike uh that was held this Saturday. And um a great thank you to Mrs. Simpson who did a spectacular job of putting together our art night. Uh please, if you haven't seen it, please take a trip to the library and see all
020the wonderful artists that we have. Um and our musicians because we had a wonderful music night last uh Wednesday and uh so we have so many talented students and that's what we like to see here at the middle school. Have a great night. Thank you. Okay, Dr. Jones, please. Good evening. Okay, so tot student population is 808 students with IEPs currently at 204. Uh 504s are at 83. Our audit district number went up by 1 to 26. The Bradley School Windham County Program um is at a low right now. We have 14 total of which six are Thompson students. We're still neighboring four um other districts, Killingly, Planefield, Stafford, and Woodstock. the percent of special education dropped down a little bit. It was at 25.59. It's at 25.24. Um I always leave in that corner
021there. Our purveillance rate were 16th. Um I just did a quick little scan of what that looks like. Just some of the districts that rank higher than us. Just quick exercise while you ask me that. Uh, Colebrook, Derby, Hampton, Hartford, Ebron, Killingly, New Britain, Northfor, uh, Regional District 7, Regional District 11, Scotland, Stafford, um, my apologies, Sharon, Unified District 1, Unified District 2. Uh in terms of the outplacement students, um again there's 26 students of which six are in our program here in Thompson. The Bradley program leaving 20 that are being um sent to seven offsite locations. We're still utilizing six vans to transport those students. Um our referrals have kind of stayed the same. We're sitting at 60. Um, just a quick update in terms of CT reef. Uh, last month it was at
022255 open special education teaching positions. Um, as of my last count on 59, it was up to 280. Uh, I just wanted you to know that some districts are offering stipens to those individuals that apply and are chosen for a position. Um the Bradley program has a teacher that was emergency certified. So that does help us in the sense that the one teacher we had can now cover a different classroom and the emergency certified teacher can cover the other room which then leaves one classroom that is vacant. Um so we're looking to transfer two students into the Bradley School Windham County program. Um, so kind of trying to get back to business as usual prior to this um, lapse, if you will. Uh, Bill Stegllet and I completed the IDA grant section 611 and 619
023that was submitted today. 619 is for preschool in K. 611 is K through 22. Um, in ESY, we designed the classrooms for the summer. Again, that runs July 7th through August 7th, Monday through Thursday, no Fridays, 8 to 12. Um, classroom teachers, related service providers, par professionals, and RBTs. And we had 60 students that were recommended. Of the 60 students that were recommended, we're double-checking the list to make sure they're all coming, but all 60 would have that in their IEP. Any questions for me? You tell us that there's 255 positions. Is that moderate disabilities or severe or combination? So, it was 255. Now, it's up to 280. Oh, I'm sorry. Is it a combination though of both lensures or what's the is it like moderate? Yeah. So they're looking for the standard comprehensive K
024to2 SER which is a 165 certification just your basic special ed teaching sir. Kathleen may add on to his report. Um the one thing I wanted to note when Dr. Jones was going over his um uh ESY uh extended school year program that is the only program running this summer. So, we are not offering any um credit recovery classes because there's lack of funding. Um we are not offering any Orton Gillingham tutoring because there is no funding. Those grants all dried up. So, that is the only program running here this summer. Um also note that the recck department will be offsite because of all the HVAC work that's happening on campus. So, um, but the only BOE budget supported program is the ESY program this summer. And that's very different from any other summer. Yes.
025Um, I noticed that again we don't have any elementary kids in the BR Bradley program. And is that because we don't currently have an elementary teacher for Bradley? Correct. But we've lost quite a few students. They had to be outplaced. Correct. Okay. Correct. And that's been a big issue this year. Yes. And Dr. Jones is on the phone with their leadership team. Mhm. Because if that program was up and running to no fault of their own, right? We could have started there. Okay. For sure. This restrictedly. And can you state approximately how many we would have had transition back if they had a teacher in that spot? How many would have entered that program? Four. Okay. But I know you regularly speak to their leadership. I mean, yeah, you're talking to on the phone with
026Trish MS all the time, so I know exactly what they're doing to in their efforts to hire, they've moved their pay scale up to the highest um district in Rhode Island, that being North Kingston. So, across the board, all of their staff, if they were not at that pay scale, they receive that to help retain and to recruit So, I think it's interesting and and I did ask uh Dr. Jones to get some numbers real quick and thank you for bringing that up. But the only district that seems to pop in my mind of the list of districts that continues to come in front of us is the Killingly School District. Seems to be the only one that's ahead of us in that list of 15. Um and I think that's pretty telling, right? we're
027we are when you look at what we're regularly compared to um and if we look at the enrollment down in Killing Lake, I think we can clearly draw some nonp parallels um with that. So, um I'd like to if we could um if you could Dr. Jones. Uh if if there are any neighboring districts that happen to move into that list of before us on that um list if you could just throw that in your your monthly brief. Sure. So right now it's Kellingly is the only neighboring district I heard on your your list. And even with Kellingly we have five of the students in our in our program. What number is Kellingly at? I he didn't say 14. 14. And we're 16. So, and we're 16. Yeah. So, they're not that far ahead of
028Yeah. But I I think that it's pretty telling, right, when you look at at where that is. You look at Woodstock, you look at Palm Freight, you look at uh Brooklyn and and Putnham, it's pretty telling that, you know, when regularly compared to those districts, and remember, their preschool program is a lot larger than ours. And we see a lot of kids come in through that three-year-old door with special services. Yep. Yeah. So, thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Okay. Next on my list, um Mr. Ste is not with us this evening, but uh we do have his uh finance report and it show it still shows us hanging on by our fingernails as of the end of April. um a positive variance of about $33,000. So, take a deep
029breath and we'll move into May. Okay. Um Bill Burch, Mr. Burch. Okay. So, uh, well, just to piggyback on what everybody else has said, uh, it's a very busy time of year and they've all got their events. And I want to say I have to give my crew kudos because they've got all the events. So, this time of year, they're they're like roies. They they move staging around like nobody would believe. And nobody notices. So that means they're doing it right. Uh beyond that, the HVAC program is moving along as planned. There's been a couple of uh hiccups because uh due to the things that's going on in the world with trade. People have uh gone ahead and they ordered all the stuff that they're going to need for the next year and that slowed
030down production. So there's been some delays in some equipment. uh it's not going to uh delay the project to towards the end. It's going to delay the schedule to the point that when school starts there's still going to be some guys around here working doing different things. Um but it's to this point it has been a non-issue and I believe by the end of the summer it will also be a non-issue. Uh so nobody's worried about it at this point. the uh the weather has been conducive to growing grass. So, as of this point, the uh middle school soccer field is actually starting to turn green again. Uh I'd like to thank Provos Trucking and Landscaping Products. They gave us some top soil to fill in some of the damage done by our friends that
031uh had their outing there, let's say. and uh we'll be putting down another layer of seed and fertilizer this week. So, as long as we still keep getting some rain, that'll move along. Other than that, uh we've got everything on schedule for the the normal summertime maintenance, all the things that we have to do anyways, regardless of what's going on here for construction. And uh the only thing I can say is that as far as the summertime goes, just like April vacation, best thing is for everybody to stay home or somewhere else cuz it's it's going to be a little hectic around here, but uh I'm confident that by the first week of September when everybody comes back, it's all going to be back to normal. Okay. We can use the track though. All right.
032We can use the track. Okay. Anytime. Okay, thank you. [Music] Well, that I will turn to Shannon. Shannon's on the line. Shannon have anything to add, please? M Grower. away. Okay. Okay. I will turn the meeting over now to Oh, we have the approval of approval of minutes from our April 7th meeting. Kathleen, I'll make the motion. Second. Second. We have a second. I had second. Oh, you have second. Okay. All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Second. Um, any discussion on the minutes? Hearing no discussion, I'll put the motion to the floor for a vote. All in favor of accepting the minutes from our April 7th meeting say I. I. Bill, you can't mute. You can't unmute. Okay. Bless you. Thank you. You okay with that? Yeah. No, I'm good with
033it. I'm just muted. I can't hear him. He can't hear us. No, I can hear you. He gave you a thumbs up. All right. Good. All right. Motion passes. Everybody said I, so I'm going to go for the nose. Okay. um subcommittee update. Yeah. Um so the communication subcommittee had a meeting on April 28th and the highlights are we talked about the high school tours to middle school parents um and that was mentioned already um by Mr. Melon um regarding the shadow day with the seventh grade. Um we also talked about how we can integrate um parents uh not just the students um to kind of get them their their feet wet in terms of uh what Turtle has to offer um and educate them about the AP classes, college classes and pathways. Um what's
034still ongoing is the communication methods to parents and trying to minimize that. Um there's a possibility of power school but that hasn't all been um ironed out yet. College acceptance also was discussed um previously in our meeting today um and that's what we had talked about is is rolling that out which is in progress. Capstone was talked about much like um Mr. Melon had already mentioned that's happening on the 22nd. Um we had talked about um having um community stakeholders uh both the board of finance, the board of ed, the board of selectment all were um invited to participate um as well as having um video available to show um to the younger younger uh middle school and elementary schools. Um so they can kind of get a taste as to what that is. Um
035ongoing initiatives is the did you know and though it's got a little stall, we're going to pick up at some point. Um, we did talk about the uh TMHS volunteer collaboratives which at this point I think have all been completed. Um, but we will uh look at possible opportunities to highlight those as to what we did um to the community. Um incentive program um is going to um the WooCops um so that's uh something exciting and I think there was also a raffle for Six Flags or something you had mentioned that there's something uh there was um to keep the kids at prom. Yes. Um there there was several raffle items. Yep. Um and then we also talked about sports promotions, um senior nights and all of that sort of thing. Um and then lastly,
036we talked about um in light of the the budget failing, um how we can better kind of educate the public um about the vote, uh you know, reaching out to staff and parents to make sure that they they all come out. Um, and I Oh, and the last thing was uh to also try to see if we can get the the town to also uh be on board with moreformational posts to the community um in general uh to kind of help educate them on things like the fund balance and some other stuff like that. So, that's where we left it. Thank you, Heather. Can you hear me now? Yes. Oh, okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. So, I am now going to turn it over to Superintendent Smith for the enrollment report. Okay. So, um
037our enrollment, believe it or not, every month is continuing to inch up. Uh we currently have 808 students like Dr. Jones reported. Um at Marriott officer, we have 363 students. That's up from uh 361 from last month. The uh middle school is holding steady and has been for the last several months at 265. The high school is now at 179. We had um one student enroll uh late in the school year. So our total right now is 808. Um and we started the school year back in the beginning of in August um of 792 when we've gone up and down and we're settling out at a little bit over 800 students. Um and going into the next thing on the agenda, as you know, we have been uh in partnership with uh Sierra and we
038and the department of health and uh we partnered and we um uh with Mark Ions, the director submitted a grant proposal to help us with a district-wide initiative to address a very heavy topic, right? Uh suicide prevention. We know that we have um a lot of students that have uh emotional concerns. Uh we want to make sure that they're well supported in the system prior to with all of our positive type of uh programming and counseling and everything that we have in place. Uh but yet we still also need to work on that continuously. And so we have two of our well three three people from our school-based team. This whole project has two teams. It has a school-based team and then there is a community team, right? Because suicide prevention isn't only specifically um
039a a school district problem. It is a community issue that we have to address, especially in this region of the state. Um and so three people from our team. I serve on that team as well and so doesn't Kim and the other principles but um we have um Emma Emilyn Wenda Wenda sorry Emmy um Danny Amaral and also from our high school who is the actual chair of the committee Joe PZO here and Joe is our health teacher. Um, so they're here tonight to give us an overview of what we've been working on honestly all year long and it is a three-year project. So we will be working together for um a long time to come. But there are great strides that we're making already. And so I'm going to turn it over to Emmy
040and Danny and Joe uh to give an overview of what's been happening. And it would be best if you spoke into the microphone. Yeah. That way everybody can hear online. Do you want me to click through for you? Okay. Oh, sure. Um, so can everyone hear me? Okay. If I talk like this is a little louder. Okay. Just want to make sure. Yeah. Okay. So, um, my name is Emilyn Wenda. I'm a program coordinator at SRACK, the Southeastern Regional Action Council. We're based in Norwich, Connecticut. And, um, I am also the GLS program coordinator or the Garrett Lee Smith program coordinator. Sierra. Hi, I'm Joe Farzo. I'm the health teacher here at Thompson Middle School. Um, actually a former administrator from Rhode Island. So, when I was offered this opportunity from my school administrator, Mr.
041Bano, and from Mrs. with the superintendent. I u took advantage of it uh wholeheartedly. Very very happy to and we're happy you did. Very happy. Okay. So, as Mrs. Smith mentioned, this presentation just gives an overview of the Garrett Lee Smith grant that Thompson was awarded. So, this I'm going to give an overview of the RBHO or regional behavioral health action council which is SRACK. Um provide a basic overview also of the suicide data. um in region three, the state of Connecticut and Thompson to kind of inform this process and also an overview of the GLS grant itself and the required components of it. So, as I said, um I'm from Sierra Health um action council. We serve the 41 towns of eastern Connecticut and we also do a lot of coalition support, education, and
042training revolving around our prevention areas of focus which to include suicide prevention, bathing and cannabis, gambling, recovery friendly workplace, an opioid prescription drug overdose, as well as many others. So, as we also mentioned, Sira used a lot of data to kind of inform the process of giving providing comps in this grant. So I wanted to kind of get into much of the data that we utilized whether it be the Connecticut data or regional 3 data which is all of eastern Connecticut the 41 towns or also Thompson data as well. So here we're looking at Connecticut based mental health data which looks at the prevalence of mental health issues among high school students and this is based in 2023. So, as you can see, um there is a higher percentage for high school students that felt
043sad and hopeless. I believe it's 35.2%. Um as well as there's also a higher percentage of mental health um where they feel that they have mental health issues or may not be the mental health may not be as good. And this just breaks it down more into of those the prevalence of mental health issues by sex of high school students. So you kind of see how females have a higher rate of feeling sad or hopeless compared to males. Um but you still also see how there's still higher rates between both groups of individuals as well. And so this graph shows the rate per 100,000 student population of unique patients age 0 to age 5 to 17 of suicidal ideiation without suicide attempt ED visits. So as you can see Thompson is in the far right
044hand corner and they have within the top two categories of ED visits regarding suicidal ideiation. And this graph is the rate per 100,000 student population of unique patients 5 years old to 17 of suicide attempt ED visits for 2022 and 2023. So once again, Thompson is within that kind of top three category as well. And now we go to the regional suicide ideiation data. So this is the rate of suicide ideiation among youth 10 to 17. So kind of from that middle school to high school range. And this is reported by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. And it goes by region. So we are region three, which is all the 41 towns. So we're in that green space. So you can see that we're kind of also within that higher top three
045range. And then there's also the rate of suicide ideation among young adults. So once again, the grant goes and applies to individuals ages 24 and younger. So when you look at 18 to 24, you can also see region three in that top three, maybe top two range as well. So a lot of the data going forward um was provided by or involves Youth Mobile Crisis. So youth mobile crisis is provided to Thompson's public schools by UCFS or the United Community and Family Services. And so this is provided 247 365 days a year by this group. and they are the service is provided to a variety of individuals and youth that have emotional behavioral crises at a variety of locations throughout the state of Connecticut. And so these professionals come to the location of the youth
046and help to create a crisis plan that helps to deescalate the situation as soon as possible. And they also this service also helps to reduce inappropriate use of more restrictive services such as going to e to departments um or or arrest as well. So, as I stated, a lot of this data going forward revolves around mobile crisis data, but this one is more broken down by zip code. So, you can see Thompson kind of in that top right hand corner is revolving around the lower bottom too for mobile crisis cases. So this is data provided by mobile crisis itself. So when you look at the top it's the northeast catchment area and it's 3004 calls were in the northeast catchment area from 2019 to 2024. Meanwhile, if you look at Thompson itself, there were 112
047calls involving 106 children. If you break that down even further, you see that there were 39 calls, six from the elementary school, 15 from Thompson Middle School, and 18 within the Memorial High School. And so this is a graph that shows the suicide ideation related emergency department and urgent care visits um from Thompson in 2024. So this is for individuals that go ranges all the way up until 17 years of age, all sexes, and it goes for a varying number of years. So as you can see there, it goes from from 2019 or 2020 to all the way up to 2024. And you can see that very large spike for 2021. So that was around the time of COVID as well. So that's mostly kind of expected too when you look back at all the
048reports and data. And then you also see the drop once it comes down to 2022, but then you also see the rise as it's starting to go up within from 2023 to 2024. So we're kind of seeing it steadily increasing within recent years and it's something to be addressed. It correlates to what's happening in the schools. So, as you can tell from the data that we showed, Thompson was is within the top two to three categories for suicide ideiation, but also suicide attempt in ED visits. But also, you can tell that the ED um emergency department visits are rising for suicide ideiation. You kind of saw that with it going up in recent years. So when we're looking at this, this is kind of what the GLS grant wants to address. Its goal is to
049address and reduce suicide risk and death among youth 24 and under with evidence-based practices and sustainable community partnerships. So with this grant, emphasis is placed on suicide prevention, intervention, and response. So these components are addressed in Thompson public schools and will be addressed with grant related objectives to implement best practice mental health and suicide prevention strategies or curricula. Properly identify at risk youth and connect them and family with the appropriate continuum of care. Provide school personnel with professional development opportunities surrounding suicide warning signs, screening and treatment. develop school policies and protocols that align with best practice as well as promoting the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline that many individuals also know or have promotional materials throughout schools as well. If you look at this next slide is the multi-tered suicide prevention team. Um the members
050on the right hand side we have 11 members of our team. It's all three building principles, Mrs. Smith. We have um support service personnel from all three levels here in the district. And then we also have uh myself and another teacher who are on the team. To the left of that, you'll see a um a tiered system that is used quite frequently in education where tier one is what we do universally for all students. Um tier two is when we break things down into smaller group work and then tier three would be for individual interventions for students who have that need. What we're doing throughout the grant is trying to strengthen each tier. So, we're trying to make it so that all of our students are being serviced in the best possible way so that
051we can avoid the global crisis and so that we can service all of our students so that they're more comfortable here and more comfortable with themselves. So, if you're looking at our individual goals, um we we've done an assessment and we've been working now um as Mr. Smith said maybe for the entire year or at least one and a half year. Um and we've done an assessment and we come up with four goals. Um the first goal is to revise our existing suicide prevention policy and to add postvention uh practices and uh protocols to the policy. Um um I say we recognized that we needed that. Um and I also have experience knowing that those postvention practices are very very important. Uh second goal was to have a community understanding to increase the community understanding
052of what we're doing here in the building. uh transparency is the uh best best policy and uh we want everyone to have a full a full understanding of what we're doing, why we're doing it, and how it's helping. Our third goal is to implement evidence-based practices and interventions um at the uh at the tier two and the tier three level. Okay, so that be the small group work um that gets done when someone is recognized as needing an intervention and then also at that individual level. And then our fourth goal is to implement evidence-based uh curriculum for all of our students. So that way there we can have a much stronger grasp on who may need some type of assistance moving forward. And um next Emiline is going to tell you about the tools that
053we're going to be using that are supplied to us through the grant. So there are also a lot of different trainings and tools that the Garrett Lee Smith grant requires, but also to help reduce the risk of suicide and also to help prevent death by suicide. So some of these the logos of different trainings such as QPR, um SOS, signs of suicide, comm counseling on access to lethal means as well as gizmo um are utilized throughout the grant. And I'm just going to kind of go into more about each of them and what they entail. So this one is question, persuade, refer or as we call QPR. So QPR is the most widely used evidence-based community helper style suicide prevention training available. And it can be used and taught to students ages 14 and above.
054So we're going to be using it with students mostly in the high school. and it is well going to be taught to all the staff as well I think during the professional development day this August. Um so this helps to this use the uses the question persuade refer approach to connect individuals to help and it's also a 90minute training and helps people recognize warning signs of suicide. So this one is called the counseling on access to lethal means and so otherwise known as comm. So comm is intended for clinical and nonclinical relationships but in terms of this grant we're going to kind of be utilizing it more and teaching it more towards the clinical staff. So whether that be psychologists, social workers um or any other individuals that kind of have that close relationship with
055students. So, COMM is a practical intervention aimed at increasing the distance between individuals at risk of suicide and common lethal methods, especially firearms. And it educates on the importance of means and provides tools for effective intervention before and during a crisis. So, there's also signs of suicide or SOS. So SOS can be provided at both the middle and high school and also it has two different models and it utilizes the acronym ACT, acknowledge warning signs, show care and tell a trusted adult. And then there's also the Colombia suicide severity rating scale or the CSSRS. I believe this is already utilized at a capacity within the school district as well. So this is a screener and it is a free evidence-based tool for screening suicide risk across the lifespan lifespan and is a validated screening tool
056and is essential for effective suicide prevention practices in any community. And finally there's also Gizmo's possum guide to mental health. So as you can see I kind of passed around all the different books that relate to Gizmo. And so this is implemented in third and fourth grade classrooms. So there's a book, there's also a PowerPoint, various curriculum. And so it talks about mental wellness as well as emotional regulation. And so it kind of gets students to think about their emotions, their mental well-being, but also thinking about the connection that they can have with a trusted adult and who they can go to for help if necessary. So as you can see, it includes what is mental health? mental health is equally equally important as physical health and a variety of other topics that are looked
057at throughout the book as well. And the book is available in Spanish as well as English for a variety of students. And then finally, as Miss Smith mentioned, there is the CLSP or the community-led suicide prevention team. So, we've been working on um with this team ever since the grant started. And this team includes Mrs. Smith, myself, Carrie Lewis, who is a Thompson parent and wellness coach, Emily Morris, who is a mobile crisis program manager for the eastern part of Connecticut, and also Jill Borau who is the Teague Youth Service Bureau director. And so this team brings together individuals from the Thompson community and surrounding areas to combine resources, ideas, and other factors to best address suicide prevention. So we also kind of talk about more of those topics that are listed on the on
058the slide as well. So unity, we bring data into the group as well, whe Thompson data, outside data, or anything that different organizations can provide. Um we we're planning so right now we're planning to kind of do more outreach to different organizations join building bylaws mission vision statement to kind of get um on the ground running in terms of looking to see all the different resources that can be brought into Thompson and those partnerships that can be formed. So we're also looking at fit um integration communication and sustainability too because we want this to be an organ an organization or a group that even continues after the process of the grant's over too. And so we've deemed it the Thompson Prevention Coalition and we're really hoping that a bunch of individuals can join and just
059kind of help put everything together and bring ideas to the table. And so thank you for having me. This is my contact information. Um, if anyone wants to email me or call um to find out more information, please feel free to. Um, so I I know you said that their preparation and all of this um has been like a six months to a year ongoing. Um, what are the terms and the length of the grant in terms of funding to help this initiative? So, it's three years of funding right now. We don't know if it'll extend beyond that. Um, but um it's a small amount of money. It's only $10,000 and it has to satisfy the work we do internally in the district and then also the community. Luckily, the partnership with Sierra allows us
060to some resources that they also have available. Um, you know, they just donated us like tons of posters and and and different I'm not going to use the word swag, but you know, stress balls and things like that that we we can use and so we distributed those to the school a couple weeks ago. So, we have access to other resources through Sierra, which I'm um grateful. Um, we have a radio spot that's going to be recorded tomorrow at W uh Wednesday at WINY. Um, where our students talk a little bit about if you need help, where to get help. Um, so we have um a male and a female student that is going to do that for us. I know you're going to be having a billboard put up um in town uh that
061reminds people that there's places to get help. um we are going to see the selectman um and tell them that we're starting this coalition here in Thompson as an outshoot of this program. And really what our goal with with the small group that we have for the community is really to start getting the town involved um around uh the topic of uh suicide prevention and take a more um active role in in that in that regard because we know that from all the data and training we've gone through uh that even beyond uh age 18 to 24 uh there is a significant number of uh suicide attempts with a a male um mid30 population seems to be um a higher uh number. So uh we feel that it's really important to get out there in
062the community. So we're going to be working on that. Um but this is the first look see that anybody has seen obviously has to come to the board first. Uh so we're doing that work. I know that at the elementary level we we don't use the word suicide, right? It's about self-regulation and and learning about our emotions. As we move through the grade levels, we're going to be very sensitive how we approach that and roll that out. We know our health teachers, Joe being the one at the middle school, um, teaches that as part of their curriculum anyway. So, what how can we, you know, take advantage of these resources and really enhance the curriculum. There's some policy work that needs to be done looking at our policy compared to sample policies and that'll come
063before the policy subcommittee. It'll probably take us the bulk of the summer um into the fall to uh really work on looking at all these model policies and then putting one together that works best for us. Um our policy doesn't have a whole lot of work around post vvention. Um and um that's part of the reason what we did when our selfassessment was we have a ton of things in place, right Joe? I mean we have a lot of things in place. They're not organized well. Uh and I think that's the bulk of the work that we're doing now. And it was nice to see a lot of the alignment um with the resources that were being given from Sierra things that we're already doing. We're already doing a lot of them and there's a
064lot of alignment what's going on here in the building. We just want to make sure that we're reaching everyone and that that's part of it. And then also the post venture part was something that was recognizably missing and something that's really really important experience. Yes. So, um, couple of questions. Are you guys partnering at all with I I know you said the emergency room or the emergency department, so you're partnering a little bit, having conversations with D Kimble. Are you having conversations with even the local EMS uh in town? Um, that's that's something I would very much suggest having that conversation with because they're the ones that do the transport when it happens. Um, I think you' mentioned it, it was going to be one of my comments. I think in identification and intervention and
065suicide prevention is very important but that postvention piece right might have done well for today but that maintenance piece of it um you know could be one one bad grade one tease from another student um and we're right back in that same spot again or you know worse home with a parent or guardian god forbid Um, so I think it is our responsibility to protect the student while they're here. Um, but I applaud the work that you guys are doing and hopefully we can expand the outreach to the town because I do think it is important. Any other comments or I guess Thank you. Thank you. Thank you um Emmy and Danny for coming out and Joe for being here this evening. I so appreciate it. So I know it might be getting past your
066bedtime. Okay. Uh the next item is layoff recision. Yes. So we had one person that was on the original list that I had given you. Um and really the only reason that that person appeared on your list was because certification wasn't um submitted and we needed to have the certification. Um but that teacher I am pleased to report has been certified and uh so we are rescending the letter. Okay. So we need that position. It's not a position we can cut because of budgetary constraints. So um but um it did get us what we needed um for our own paperwork. So, okay. Okay. Very good then. Um All right. But you will need to vote to um Oh, we do call call that teacher back. I'll make the motion, Kathleen. Okay, I'll second. Second. We
067have a We have a a motion and a second to resend the layoff of this particular person because the paperwork is now in order. Um, any discussion on this? No. Hearing none, I will call for a vote on the motion to resend the layoff notice on this person. All in favor say I. I. Thumbs up. Okay. Chairman votes yes. So, uh, there's no nos and the motion passes. Okay. Any old business to discuss? I have none. Any new business to bring to the board at this time? other than keep our fingers crossed. Um the budget passes correspondence. I do have some um we got two lovely letters. As you know, the culinary department um every spring uh invites the community in for a lunchon and uh we got a uh thank you note from Lucille
068Langlo who said it was a good job and the meal was delicious. She loved the music and the residents of Carriage Square complex on Main Street had the pleasure of enjoying a delicious meal. uh they wanted to say thank you and for the presentation of the music department. And then just so the board knows, I did send um Nicholas Provos from M Provost Trucking and Landscape Products um a thank you letter uh for the top soil that he delivered last week. Um and I know Bill took full advantage of that. Um and he is right. Uh the grass is growing out there and let's hope that in another year at this time uh we're back on the field. Thank you. All right, citizens comments. Um any citizens comments from our Zoom audience here? Okay. Hearing
069none, I'll call for a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Thank you. [Applause]