001indivis okay I have uh just a couple of things short update uh my husband and I went to the spelling be uh couple of weeks ago we really like going I give a lot lot of credit to those kids for their courage of standing up on that stage and spelling those words uh and um and to be able to spell those words in middle school and uh I kind of write the words down as they're spelling them and um I can't spell all of them either you know so I give them a lot of credit and good luck to Sienna ring for advancing to the Regionals um tomorrow night weather permitting I guess um that will be the first meeting of the board of Selectmen and the board of Finance are having their first joint
002meeting you can attend via Zoom or in person at the Merl s room and I think it's going to they're going to go start going through the budget jointly and ask questions they do that last week they started last week oh that was last week the first one this will be the second one it'll be Wednesday it's going to be Wednesday Wednesday is when it's because they have their that's the date that's on the agenda sorry about that then I'm a we behind oh I was on vacation I hav't bill has a hand up yes Bill the meeting is tomorrow oh it is tomor can you speak up a little louder please the meeting is tomorrow and they are going through dep they're going was on the agenda but they were taken off because okay
003it on the number of workshops and them bumping up against the wall having to make quick decisions the idea with the joint meetings is what we noticed in the past was that there was a lot of repetition in the initial meetings between the that were Board of selectman and the board of Finance so the the idea here is that the first four meetings would be jointed and both boards would hear directly from the directors on their budgets so the hope is that that will streamline the budget process and ultimately buy us some more time on the back end should additional referendums be done or if things just go well that our shuts the budget cycle goes quicker than usual okay I think we all would mind I think I think it's a great idea and
004on that note I'd like to take U thank the three Board of Finance members who have been um Faithfully attending our meetings U via zoom and in person and that's all I have to say tonight okay uh any citizens comments from here or on Zoom yes state your name and address uh Lise Morrison Thompson Education Association president I would just like to invite the board of bed on March 28th from 5: to 7 we will be doing um bedtime stories again and Lindsay karco will be sending you invitations but I said I would be here so I would personally invite you uh we get 100 to 150 people that come out their pajamas and we always need readers and it's a really fun night to see the kids and things like that oh sorry I'm
005talking to somebody okay um I also have some good news but but I don't I would like this to I'm not sure how to get this out so the State Department of Education offered $4 million of covid relief money and um 31 of our projects have been funded which is $6,850 wow it's not $1,000 each the most you can get from donor is $850 but um I would say 90% of those projects were done over the weekend by teachers in their free time and I just wanted to get it out so that people don't think that where it's $30,000 that they can take off the budget this is wish list things that we would never ever ask for um you can see out here poor Jimmy Burg just thinks to use the Amazon delivery man
006there's tables people got tables they got flexible seating things that we would never ever ask for so you know it's not like money that this is can be you um saved this is like wish make your whatever you would like but you know a third of our staff applied and I'm hoping we get a few more um people have heard up until this afternoon I heard somebody got approv this afternoon oh they were that was one of the people that filed Monday um the money was open on February 1 and by Monday afternoon and that was Thursday right and by Monday afternoon it was gone so but people got funded they heard within 24 hours and things started arriving within two days W so you know we've gotten a lot of good supplies a lot
007of tables a lot of furniture like I said things that people would never ask for so it's not you know Kathleen in regards to the donor's choose um I know Elementary PTO tries to go on and search and share as much as possible on those is it possible to have both Middle School like just give them a reminder to reach out to the middle school PTO because we'd be happy to share those on their Facebook page too for any outside that wasn't already funded no no so these didn't even get posted on the page right it just went St we there is two out there that one is a high school one and one is a middle school one if you didn't put the code Connecticut in it got posted I will get you those
008two that would be fantastic um but Bes it never even went public right so right but going forward if any of them have any please reach out to the pto's because we'll happily share those yeah this was just uh you know we got an email get on this exactly so we did Louise I did share with uh the board what you had sent me but if you have that updated list it'd be interesting to share with the board I will yeah thank you I'm still waiting for a couple more people that submitted like Monday afternoon okay so hopefully we'll hear some more that'd be [Music] good any citizens comments from our audience on Zoom no hearing none none no more from the audience I'll move on to student Spotlight and our L is on report
009there was no student Spotlight for the month of February on the 10th and 7th February we had a TS PR on the 5th myself and his L had a performance at GE in on the 12th of January the FED Chanel te on the 14th of January F went to the gr game on January 29th the mystery dinner was a huge success on on February the 2 tslc rescheduled their in service on February the 3rd myself and M David for all day on February the 5th report card distributed on February the cemon on February 8 yearbook photos clubs activities and panoramic and Bo for on February 9th honoral assembly and semester awards were presented and on the 15th the 22nd and the 29th the team cabor and on 16th this Friday the tflc Will C the
010upcoming events are the Peter Pan rehearsals which are ongoing uh February 19th fcla skating February 23rd there's a tssp in service March 4th student council meeting March 5th a parent player meeting for spring Sports March 6 team HS Pops concert March 8th Midnight Madness and March 12th serial Challenge and some other news and highlights are the spth update where the girls and the boys on the girls on the seventh and the boys on the nth will have their senior nights against Plum and both one um The Freshman W attendance won the attendance compation for Quarter Two um 33 tiger PS are serving in classrooms across the district and the tmhs diversity Council commended with a goal of improving the climate and culture of Athletics thank you thank you we haven't had a student I have
011a question we haven't had a student Spotlight in a couple of months so how does that work somebody actually has to nominate someone and they haven't been yes so we are our SSA has gone Under New Management so we're having our two new advisers just getting into it but students fight will start up for next month okay let's hope because that's a nice feature okay uh approval of minutes from our last four last regular meeting in our last three budget meetings we'll actually our last yeah last three three budget meetings the one we most right okay um you want to do them all yes Kathleen I'll make the motion to approve the muting minutes for January 8th the 16th 22nd and the 29th okay awesome question second St any we have a motion in a
012second any discussion on any of these hearing no discussion I will put the motion to approve the regular the meeting and the three budget meetings of January to the floor for a vote all in favor of approving these minutes say I I and anyone not approving the minutes say no motion passes um we didn't have any subcommittees other than the budgets that way will Kathleen yeah no no okay the Kathleen Kathleen um is it possible to have a discussion about the survey under subcommittee or should that go under old business that would be under old business that's not a subject all right okay we can do that under old business thank okay caps yes um so um we have a big audience here tonight because we have six young men and women that have been
013nominated by their schools by their classroom teachers um for the superintendence award and that nomination comes from the teachers and then a committee in each School selects those nominees for me and then we get to go out to Killingly High School where the regional awards are given but before we go out next month we wanted to invite you to our own Board of Education meeting so I'm going to call up the students um and give you your certificates your superintendent Awards and then if you could face the audience we'll take a group picture Okay so the first one is Christian Burns you look very handsome yeah around this way and stand in front of here okay sure Emma Mor Ari uh was also a finalist in the spelling be she did a great job at
014the spelling be BR Vincent Madison marchelli thank you so much Maxine Hazard and we all know Maxine from her work in the theater Department the music department wonderful and Connor Pon take picture and then on March isch 26 Danielle Yeah March we're going to be off at Killingly High School you be honored for the region a big deal thank you all for being here congratulations okay next we're going to recognize the spelling be winners which I love going to as I said before this is one of the highlights of our year that and all the musical concerts that you and the and the play but this one is a lot of fun to go to if you haven't gone you got to go to it because it is a lot of fun and it just
015I do crossword puzzles so it helps okay first award goes to Phoenix Comicon and our next award to the winner Sienna ring terf [Laughter] job great thank you congratul okay and so if those students want to get outle and go home and start their homework you welcome to leave thank you everyone for being here thank you okay next on our agenda is our enrollment report okay um we currently have 856 students in the district um this past month we have 38 students at Mar off Fisher that is a reduction of three students we have 264 students PRS in middle school that's a reduction of one student and then we have 211 students at turot Memorial High School that's a reduction of two students there's been a lot of activity in and out of the district
016um as you know um it goes down it goes up right now we're at catalo um for the year um but we have been enrolling some students um at the high school and at the middle school so um those numbers are going to fluctuate but that's where we stand right now and I'll leave it to Dr Jones to talk about out of District in a little bit okay next we have um Miss Miller from T discuss the exension Daniel yep I'm on it I also have uh two paper copies that I can part with if anybody wants to look a little closer um feel free to grab them or S to me and I'll give them to you um I don't know if you have a copy of this Melinda um Danielle does and we
017have an extra copy he can circulate we just sit want to kill so many please want share sure you want share share one thank you so um I want to say maybe about two years ago we realized that we were outgrowing our building and I think that's both a good problem and a bad problem most problems are bad problems but um part of what it says is that people are willing to use teag on on a number of different levels so Teague is not only a food pantry as you know um first of all we're Food Markets we serve as a hub for other markets in the area because we are fortunate enough to have a walk-in cooler and freezer we added solar a few years ago so we're a net zero building which is
018a nice thing uh because of the activity in our youth programs which we became a youth Service Bureau for Thompson pomr Woodstock and putam in 2019 right before the pandemic and I have to say that um when I talk about our relationship ship with the town of Thompson and with the Thompson schools you have all really leaned in to that youth service work and I think that it's been a really great partnership we have your kids down at our building for many different reasons um it might be attendance it might be our out of school uh suspension program which uh we use when students are suspended they come to our building twice a week so that they're not just having an atome suspension but they're coming down down to do some work they're coming down
019not only school work but they do some community service work um we have a lot of your students volunteering working in our Gardens working in our uh markets and it's just a really it's a great thing to be on your campus I I I don't think we have a better relationship with any other school um and it's great it should be a model for ybs across Connecticut so we call together the group of people mainly the group of people that had designed the original Teague building Charlie Weeden was one of them Charlie is u a builder in palr and um Steve his name um what is Steve's name that's embarrassing anyway our architect um it will come to me Steve came in and started working on on what we could do to expand the existing
020Teague building which is right here here is where it faces the road that goes up to the um to the fields and what we were thinking was well we could do some bump outs we could build an addition here maybe we could do an addition here he did give us some options the group that met was the original group plus a few new people um because of the setbacks on the property we can't really go out this way we could put a small bump here in the office area we have three people sharing a desk in our back office area most people are in hubbies the which is the way that the building was designed so this isn't sharing a desk in an office it's sharing a public desk that's kind of out in the
021middle of everything else um we could do a very small bump here we can't go up because of the design of the building we could do a bump here we could take away some parking lot and do a very small bump here we have a generator here um and then we asked Steve Steve Lewis I'm sorry so we asked Steve to go back and to look again at where we might bump out there's all Ledge in here there's ledge back in here um so he looked again and said well you could bump to about here go this way and have your here and you'd get an EX for channel here none of that really serves what we're trying to do our community room sits right in here our community room is um used for many
022many different purposes for all ages across the population for programming for our Jun juvenile review board which meets there twice a month uh for our ASAP summer camp for Behavioral youth for our mentors to use with their mentees um we also have play group meeting there twice a week it's busy it's really busy we're flipping that room sometimes three or four times a day flipping the furniture and trying to turn it into something else and then this part of the building right here approximately this much is our market and off the back here is a freezer and a cooler so Steve gave us quite a few different uh options one was an option maybe putting something up in here with some extra spaces for parking one was an option to put a building over here
023we did a lot of calculating we did a lot of looking at this and what the committee came up with was this was going to give us the most space the most flexible space it would free up our Market our Market would go over here on the there's a we would be building a second floor on the building which would hold a lot of our community programs offices things starting in January 1 things start coming in for our auction our community programs office which is about as big as these tables is filled with things for our auction we have no other place to put those as and diapers we also run our diaper Bank out of that office um as soon as that starts to come out back to school starts coming in back to
024school goes out and Thanksgiving comes in Thanksgiving goes out and Christmas just it just really kind of it's everywhere so um we're thinking that a lot of that storage would be over here in this building some meeting space downstairs is processing space and uh Market space and a loading dock so that we right now we have to offload off of trucks we don't have a way to get anything off of trucks we did milk during the pandemic and ended up having to move over to qvcc because we couldn't get to some some folks won't deliver to us without a loading dot so this would be a loading dot it would take up some of the parking lot yes that's true but it also does account for Extra Spaces that Steve has put in over here
025so you wouldn't lose parking this is where the gray storage container that we've named Dorian for Dorian Gray um she lives over here now um so she would be removed and this building would be here you would enter from the back and from underneath um was not really what we were thinking when we began this project we were really thinking of just a small bump out here or there and maybe we'd get a really big community room out of it it just seems like that's not going to happen despite a number of different scenarios now the other thing that I want to make really clear is the reason that we started this process was we saw a couple of really sizable grants through some of the gr pors that we work with we knew we
026needed more space so we called the band back together asked them to look at things and asked them to get us a project that would be shovel ready for a grant rather than shovel ready for actually building this project because we can't go out for a grant if we have no idea what we're asking for our original thought was to bump out the end of the market by a little bit and it just doesn't give us the room that we need it doesn't give us any more off office space it doesn't give us any more meeting space I don't know when this is going to happen I don't see it happening soon um I just I don't I don't know that we're in the position to do it right now I know we need the
027the space very very badly but I'm not telling you that this is going to happen tomorrow um I'm not telling you it's going to happen next year our goal is to do it without asking for funding from this area the building would again belong to the town as our building does now it would be you know if we if Teague leaves these buildings belong to the town they sit on the school campus um I think that's as much as I really have to say but I would really invite you to ask me any questions I may be forgetting something what is the estimated cost today obviously if you build it five years from now signicantly different it started out somebody said oh we'll go for 500,000 I think this building will be$ 1.5 to2 million
028all day long yeah right I mean that's not what we were looking for when we started this process I I don't want to build a$ 1.5 to2 million building right um we do have a board that is very active and very invested in making happen what needs to happen I think it would be it would be a great um would be a great addition to the area it would take a little bit of the parking spaces make things a little more congested down there but the cost is pretty overwhelming at this point uh I am talking to a funer next week who I'm told has a great deal of capacity and interest what if that person just came up with the money I guess then it could happen quicker right but I really don't know
029we did dig a few test pits we do know what the drainage is like there what we're looking at for ledge and so forth um but I don't know how much else my other hesitation with a building and I you know I think it's kind of funny to present a building but talk about hesitations but I I like to be really open about what my concerns are I'm leaving um at the end of November I think FK most folks know that and I a second building is it's a whole it's like saying oh the whole District's Under One Roof here right you're running three different schools a separate building is a really big deal for somebody to oversee your costs are going to be again this will be an efficient building it'll be a building
030that is is cited so that we can add solar um it's going to be sort of passively geothermal again which our building is but as you know there's more Administration to a second building there's more everything to a second building so when I was thinking that it would be an addition I was really thinking one way um this is a whole new way to think about that I have a question just I know you said there were setback restraints and stuff with with why a second building was what was in the picture and you had mentioned kind of this side and this side now you do have existing parking over here was there was there no option to put place a building a joining within the existing parking with that was really that was the
031building that we all really like there was a um but it turns out that there are setbacks there the fence Cuts right across there and that actually became a problem at one point but that fence and that property line runs in very close there's a drop yes they could be filled in but then there's a setback right there right but yes that was that was my favorite it was a lot of our favorites and it really would have done quite a bit but it just can't be fit into that space the way that he wanted to and I'm just thinking also just from from an efficiency standpoint obviously you said two separate buildings makes it less efficient um in the weather whether it be snow or or rain you know to have people having to
032go back and forth between buildings is strling you know a little bit but the other thing that I've been talking about is we have a social worker now in the market every time the Market's open because what we find is is that people come in through our markets and then access all of our other all of our other things um and now it's great when play grp happens if people have that need the Market's right there there's a lot that to be said for that so I feel that there there will be some losses in that way and we're going to have to look really carefully at how we continue that relationship if I have that social worker out there they're going to be working in the same way and let me make an appointment
033and have you walk over or let let's have the case worker come over and meet you and we have an office space here that's going to have to happen and I have just have one other question so and I'm I'm for Teague and and I'm happy for your possible expansion um but I I do hear some stuff on our social media sites so do I regarding you know folks that maybe don't think as like-minded and I just want to kind of know what what the implications are so having it be a town building on Town property um obviously you guys have paid for the building through grants or fundraising or whatever um um and I know obviously that there's been a recent issue with some maintenance on the current building and it is getting older
034so we should anticipate a little bit of that what is what is the agreement with the town of Thompson in terms of the maintenance of now potentially two buildings so what is what are what are we on the hook for if you know the roof fails or if something else happens now that there's going to be two so like a renter we take care of all of the all of the regular maintenance on the building painting upkey fixing a broken door anything under $500 the town sees nothing um and our lease is only a dollar a year we will double the amount that the town's taking in on a lease they'll be getting $2 a year right um but we do pay up to $500 on every repair so the repairs that we're talking about
035now are a failed air unit um which is an air circulation unit with fresh air and and the other repair that we're talking about is um we have a generator on that building um the um the building can be used in times when um if there's you know needs to be a warming Center or anything like that the building is fully on a generator but there's a conduit from that generator that comes underneath the parking lot and into the building you see where this is going and the mice came in and they were living inside the metal we had just had DSS um the Department of Health and the Connecticut Food Bank come in nobody knew they were mice they weren't in the building they were in this metal box in between but they were
036happily chewing on wires in there so that's the other cost so the cost comes to I think about 6,500 and teag will pay a thousand of that but that kind of Maintenance yes the town has they don't have maintenance on our freezers or anything like that if we do any kind of improvement to the Wi-Fi any of that we do um so yes there are implications to the town with a second building you're absolutely right um we do serve that I know that read all the SE I know should um I know that another concern is you know why should Teague be paying for these other towns to use our building or why should we be providing why should Thompson be providing uh this building for other towns other towns put money into Teague just
037like Thompson does um they all work at different percentages we're trying to get everyone to 12% uh pford is actually the only Town that's at 12% we also have a market in to in pomr and we have a senior center and we have case management there and people from Thompson actually go there as well um and they go to our mobile market in Woodstock as well they go to putam for our God drama program so there really is more of a sharing but I know that a concern is why is why is Thompson paying for all of this when um and so Thompson's value of service for the year that I just reported on which is fiscal year 2223 which ran till July and of course we're asking for not the Year we're in but
038next year the value of service for that year was $882,000 the value of service for the other towns is in the 200 s so Thompson does have the Lion Share we sit right here right that makes sense and um and there is great need here um but there's need in the other towns too and we do we do serve at quite a at quite a good clip there but the fact is is that Thompson's just out much further out than the rest and just one additional thing it's so um one of the other things that was mentioned was um whether you and I assume this is true that you guys pay for your own heat and electricity um the town of Thompson does not we we just are more the maintenance of the building less
039you're deductible so to speak 500 right and we do all of the cleaning maintenance on the building the yard the um I have to say that the the folks at the school when we get a snowstorm are really helpful with helping us clean up our parking lots and so forth but any shuffling we even do after that and um we maintain our property so um there isn't any cost to the town in fact we're we're giving stuff back to the grid absolutely So yeah thank you good questions anybody else I really appreciate it thank you so much um if you want to look at any of the others I will leave another set here if you'd like and um I guess I'll be back if we get closer to where we want to be thank
040you thank you very much thank you and remember the hav a heart action next month have a heart is April 5th oh April 5th okay yep April 5th and that's a Friday night and if you want tickets just go online or give us a call we'd love to have you there it's really fun it's really we'll be hey other questions BR okay and then uh the hbac inspection report review yep and I'm going to turn that over to bill um about the hbac review so so the reason we have this HB review on here tonight is that um as you know almost two years ago now uh we had an architectural firm HF lens come in and do an evaluation of the entire hbac system for the whole complex they completed that um they had
041all their findings they created the report they gave us a cost estimate which was the basis for now two applications to the state for funding and in the amount of $13.2 million to do upgrades and uh improvements throughout the facility so part of the whole process is is that the report needs to be made public so copies can be found on the website uh the school website that go through the report Page by Page everything they found cost estimates um and it has to be made public at a board of educ which is where we are tonight so we used that report I think the building committee used that report when you actually put the RF up corre correct Absol absolutely the the report was the basis of the RFD and then that's also in
042phases right and that is in phases so so the the 13.2 $2 million Grant is phase one uh and that deals with that deals with the oldest most critical equipment in the comple what would phase two be next what would what would phase two be and how much would that be so fa so so the subsequent phases haven't been costed out yet okay um pH so the goal the goal is to get the entire complex on what's called a direct outside air system uh which is 100% fresh air and it's heated or cooled as it may need to be so that you have constant air circulation throughout the building that is uh very expensive to install very expensive to uh maintain in upkeep every cubic foot of air you bring in has to be heated
043or cooled uh but that is the best way to move forward for um you know for the health of staff and students so phase two so phase two mat would be those systems that are not quite as all yeah possibly this Century possibly in this Century um and you know so there's no cost estimates to any of that yet because the cost changes so quickly as does the technology sure the the the equipment that is proposed for this project by the time we get to phase two and three will possibly be outdated right all right thank you as part of phasee one it's my understanding if I remember correctly that there's a BMS building management system in phase one that is that is correct and and that was that was one of the priorities for
044phase one only because the uh you know thetics that are throughout most of the complex at this point are they're reliable they work very well as long as there's somebody around that knows a how to operate them and B how to repair them and those folks are getting very scarce day by day I think it's important that we understand the building management system is something that can help us on days like tomorrow where if Melinda calls school first thing in the morning Bill can log in and turn things down as a non inhabitable day right versus not um so I think that's I'm glad that's in Phase One and uh and I think that'll help us with some of our energy costs and what not moving forward it'll also help Bill maybe keep some more
045of his hair I know I got a pretty good it's not the same that's all we all set with that topic we need a motion to make that public Kathleen Kathleen do we need a motion to make that report public no we can just okay public okay it I I don't have any thoughts one way or the other than engaging do I when will we know on the on the r bits so when have they so when we put in the application they said they expected to uh have word out by Mar okay what year okay we wondered that as well okay the start with the administrative reports um M so um for the Middle School um I think that the first thing I want to say is we have perfect attendance in grade six
046on January 23rd congratulations to grade six um secondly um we met with the DT coordinator who came in for the tutoring and she gave our school at the middle school a huge compliment she said that out of all the schools that they are dealing with their company that Thompson by far the students are the most respectful and compliant and of going and taking advantage of the of the tutoring service so I'm I was you know uh superintendent Smith and I were very proud um to be part of that conversation um also uh we had our second our first semester perfect attendance and honorable Awards uh we have the um hot chocolate bar and the kids seem to enjoy that and again congratulations to our spelling be and superintendent ch aard um that was it on
047the Middle School start of the high school um it's very exciting to see the CNA program uh Awards uh that the students uh get pinned what a highlight for the Thompson School District that was amazing um big shout out to the support staff at the high school for being very open and um working together um shout out to the leadership team also the students were great giving me um some uh highlights of what was going on and uh Friday I was part of the award ceremony where we gave out many awards um and that's pretty much it thank you thank you Larry hi folks a lot of good stuff happening at the elementary school as always you know I always R about the elementary school but a lot of fun things happen uh the teachers
048there's a number of teachers that have been OG trained at the elementary school I've had the opportunity to go in the classrooms it's really a structured approach to teaching literacy and these teachers are really doing a bang up job of that and we're getting a lot of uh great feedback from Parents emotional parents calling the school crying you know my my child is actually able to read now so it's it's truly been really a life changer for some of these who knows to to Mrs Smith to bring you that in um I will be getting pied in the face on February 23rd there's gonna be a lot of teachers and students that are gonna want to see that so um that that will go to the grade that um gets the most pennies in the
049penny War challenge that's being held uh by the PTO whoos again the PTO they just do a lot of great stuff for the element we have a Valentine's Day Bingo coming up on Wednesday I'm gonna be the uh it's gonna be the third annual Zoom Valentine's Day bingo at mirar Fisher Elementary School students really enjoy it they love it it's great to be a part of Will Parker came to uh the elementary school last last month again once again thank you to Mrs Smith will par Parker in his makeb believe band the kids really had a great time hoodsy cups ice cream cups were provided to those students that participated in math and reading challenges we had National Popcorn day we celebrated on January 19th we celebrated the 80th day of school by dressing up
050in the 80s gear a lot of teachers had a great job I I would say personally Mrs canoer probably had the best get up for for for the ages CH fourth grade students recent recently completed the uh National assessment of educational progress we had 50 randomly selected fourth grade students that participated in Reading in math and kudos to those students really stressful for four grade students you get the KN well not anymore but you got the SS you got the national assessment tests you got interim assessments the teachers are challenged the students are challenged they come to they come to school every day excited to be there and then finally we had a midyear MTH screening for kindergarten students and first grade students and that was completed by Patty Chenille and the reading Specialists and
051um yeah everything's going great can't complain I qu but nobody would live thank you okay all right Dr Jones yes good evening um as superintendent Smith uh spoke to earlier we have 856 students of the 856 students we currently have 181 students um under special education with 23 referrals which puts us at a total of 204 our IEP uh 504s rather are at 81 our out of District placement is at 20 that is up from uh 18 last month so we're up two uh Bradley F Windam county has a total population of 23 eight of our 20 are in that program we are neighboring seven other districts in the Bradley program um in terms of uh prevailance rate our percent is 23.8 3% that should say decrease from 23.8 n% we're currently 14th in the
052state when you look at the total population in terms of special education that percentage that I put on this report or 14th out of 1167 districts when we look at that um there something to keep keep mind of um we're still utilizing five Vans to transport our students to other placements um so of the five Vans we're working with seven other out placement schools um I wanted to just make note of again the excess cost this year it's uh 96214 last year it was 9679 um so it's slightly lower that's the threshold of tuition and transportation combined um of that anything that goes over we would receive 72.8% uh last year it was 76% so it's slightly lower um right now we're on target to claim for students that are outplaced that would meet that
053threshold um and then just lastly we just running some data today at the high school um to date in terms of out of school suspensions um we've had 12 students that have been suspended from day one to where we are today um for use of vaping just wanted to bring that everyone's attention as well um referrals last year total we had 36 referrals to special education this year we're at 54 um so quite an uptick in that area and then lastly some open positions um some AR professionals that we're still looking for yes have a question um you said 12 students have been suspended for Vaping that is for this whole year that's from day one to today okay are there repeat suspensions from the same students one thank you K yes um so it's
05414 out of 167 were 14th in the state what are we regionally wind County would you mind for next month please thank you sir if if we can get that emailed to us sooner I'd like it for Budget season if Poss thank you I can hear the beginning of the question so he mentioned that we're 14 out of 167 Statewide I asked for regally so County where do we sit I think it'd be interesting to know where we sit when it comes to budet season good question yeah we'll get that for you might be a nice slide dad fact Chris yes can you just repeat the percentage for that we get for the reimbursement over the 96 too yeah so this year as long as the threshold of tuition Transportation as long as that h
05596214 m we would get 72.8% of anything that goes over that okay thank you and just as a sideb that we anticipated 18 180,000 reimbursement this year but uh the new calculation that we received we're down to 150 correct yes and is the reimbursement percentage down does that yes 722 it isn't the percentage it's that the state had um put money aside they actually were supposed to increase um cost um cost share reimbursement however there was a miscalculation done and every single district has seen a decrease in their reimbursement right the percentage of Reimers yes the actual cash reimbursement which we thought was going to be 180 this year is now down to 150 and every single superintendent is complaining about that I I have a question but go ahead go ahead is anybody at
056the state accountable to anybody else they just randomly seem to just do stuff and say oh oops ex that's exactly right and there's no accountability okay just making sure I got so because of the miscalculation um the money doesn't exist yeah so but there's a surplus yeah thank you let's not make it up but yeah don't have to can you explain to me just so in layman's terms so I understand um what does the we're currently 14th in the special education prevalence what does that mean are we just it's just in relation to every border report I put the percent on there so I just wanted to just kind of hone into that so when you look at other districts the total population of students in the district in comparison to the number of students
057that qualify for special education our percent is 14th out of the 167 we have the 14th higher highest percent okay based on the number of our population okay app I it's more of a statement I just I'm dumbfounded as to how we've reached out to our state reps and our Senators and we we've gotten bumped down we haven't we're not even going in the right direction to help us I think this is where we really need to have Windam Count's Board of Ed members get together and hold hold somebody accountable as Matt said like this we're going in the wrong direction we're not we're asking for help and they're giving us less help and you know this is and we're 14th in the state highest ranking like what how does that even happen like what
058what are what were what are all our emails and all of our stuff going to where this is just it it's got to I don't know how we do it but we have to stand on a higher platform whether we start writing newspapers or we start reaching out to Other Board of Ed members or we start bringing that them back in and asking them how this even happens are the referrals that you're seeing are they coming from Mostly new students or students that have been in District for many years it's a combination a lot of kids come out of RTI too can't stop that Services right that kind of that kind of rang the bell to disproportionality with the speech and language yeah kind of about that already do you think that it's still related
059to the pandemic or I mean a lot of those preschools are that was we were 24% before the pandemic too though yeah I wonder if the bar has been lowered to qualify for special ed so I don't know because I don't think so I can't go you know I can only go back to when my kids were in school I can't go back to when I was in school because didn't have those kind of services to the extent that they have them now um but when my kids were in school they we didn't have they didn't have and maybe they suffered for it you know um but there weren't special as many special I mean they were dyslexic there were special reading teachers and there were those types of things and my son went to
060the learning Clinic because he had ADHD but there weren't the services in the school so much that that we provide all the students today I guess there weren't as many state mandates as maybe what I'm trying to say I think they do a much better job identifying now than when our kids were in school that's and so they're really doing a bang up job but at a cost at a cost well it's yeah at a cost to the district but certainly not a cost to the student no no no I mean it's great that they're doing this but but for me when I think of that question that you asked Kathleen and I think of you know I've been doing this for 40 years um I think when we start to think about response to
061intervention and the types of things that we're asking our classroom teachers to do at the tier one level classroom level there's a lot more pressure on the classroom teacher to try to meet the needs of the students before they even go down the road of special educ ation by the time they get to an RTI team they've already exhausted the teacher has already exhausted everything that he or she can do and now they're looking to the support service providers to give additional support and so that's the area that we've been trying to build up over the years right is that tier two tier three intervention so that the students can get even more so I think Bill's right we we we've identified students early on we've asked our classroom teachers to go really above and
062beyond general you know teaching to the middle that no longer happens and then even at that with that level of support we still have students a good chunk of students that still need additional support beyond what the classroom teacher can give and it's those services that you've seen escalate because of that population and um but over the over time you are right we have identified more but I think that um we are looking harder at our students um and you know there's a big push K3 that most students need to be reading on grade level by grade three or the Gap gets so wide that we can't we can't remediate it um so that's why that whole right to read bill is very important and they've forced us into certain reading programs because they believe
063that if we follow that um we're going to see less kids in tier one interventions and less kids in Special Ed but that whole response to intervention I think is it 20 years old now yeah it's about 20 years old so I was just going to say 20 years ago the student had to be two years behind grade level before they qualified for services which was almost criminal but that's the way they did it and held back and they would be held back and if they didn't if they don't learn to read by third grade they'll never read with fluency it's just the way it is so the early identifying is so important we're also asking a lot more of our students younger which is a huge thing and I do believe that I don't
064know we speaking back tell me if I'm wrong I do believe that the new five years by September 1st we will see a reduction because I think a lot of the kids that qualify for services tend to be on that younger side so we're giving some of those kids time to just be kid and you know when we were all in kindergarten we didn't have to read and write and they do now so that has made a big difference no I agree with you I think it's a great thing I me if it's something maybe we should be proud of we're 14 because we're catching them and we're putting them giving them the services they need yes s so the 14th number doesn't scare me or alarm me I I think where where 14 concerns
065me is if we're one or two in Windam County I want to understand why we're one or two in Windham County and I think some of that might be because we are a Border Town right there is stuff from Rhode Island there is stuff from Massachusetts we are there there is a a rental popul and I I don't want to put it specifically on this but there is a rental population in town that is transient and they will go where the services are best and e even if if my child needs it and there's better services in another District I'm going to move to that District to do what's best for my child um so I I think understanding some of these numbers and understanding where we sit regionally I don't expect that you can
066pull numbers from Webster or bville or any of the the borders but if you can that would definitely help us in this discussion as well um I I'd like to understand regionally where we sit because maybe we're one or two regionally and that kind of gives us a little bit more clue of where we sit budget wise and why we sit where we sit budget wise and maybe hartford's not paying attention to the northeast corner we need to get into okay sorry thank you [Music] Chris Mr Deets pleased to say we had another solid month from the finance perspective the budgets on chain at 20.6 million years spendings at 1.8 uh actually down a bit from where we were at this time last year uh year to date uh incumbrances are almost fought on to
067where we were last year so can you add all that up some indicators are are some some good indicators are are showing which is great to see uh projected spending at 19.6 million 95% of the budget at this time last year we were projecting 99.4% um I know as I've mentioned a couple months in a row that will tighten up as we get closer but as of right now uh it's some pretty good news uh and I would also like to emphasize that there are Department currently in a including um as you guys know the budget process is is humming right along thanks to everybody for chipping in uh from the teachers all the way up through the administration everybody has been really very helpful in pulling together that package as Kathleen mentioned earlier tomorrow
068night is the the second joint meeting of Finance board select on the town side uh the first meeting I think went pretty well uh both boards enjoyed I think getting the getting the information directly from the directors on the townside I'll hope that continues and I hope it it helps tighten up the process over there okay thank you bur you have anything to add to your um I just want to stop by saying that as a three o00 this afternoon all the snow removal equipment ran upd tomorrow with this including the new hand me- down including the newest hand me down um we've done we've done well on F oil so far this winter due to the mild weather however I found in the last few years that spring comes later and later and tend
069to use that farther into even June in in sticking with the hbac theme we did identifi today there is a leak on a hot water coil that Services the high school gym and we looked at it today we identified the leak and we are containing it but this is something that uh we're not going to fix it until we shut the boilers off that's certain and at that it is um it's it's going to be a major problem to get that meting coil out of there and probably substantial expense to replace it I'm if the hbac grant comes through and the unit is replaced then maybe some chewing gum is going to keep it together until the new equipment comes in um but but it's going to be a major job one way or the
070other okay kathle just a quick question so if some were to happen with that heating coil are we looking at potential damage to the gym floor no okay the units actually the units are over the locker rooms that we just remodeled all right but they're more durable than the gym floor right yeah I just that's it's a big gym floor and those are those are those are expensive is that unit from this Century or last century the unit dates to 1986 so techically that's what I meant by last century yeah definitely okay I'm from the last century too no I don't think so either okay um Heather has burn so in the last 30 days we've revolved around 251 ticks um that doesn't that number doesn't seem to be going down so my technicians are
071very busy um today we've rolled out a new digital Hall Pass system in the high school um so the students are requesting their hall passes all online now um I think it was pretty successful and it's a program we can build upon they'll be able to request appointments with guidance counselors so they don't have to go down wait in line and waste precious class so I think it it will be a good thing um we're slowly rolling out um last year we purchased uh flat panels for the Middle School we're slowly rolling those out this year um Bryce is doing individual training with teachers um which works really well um he's teaching them all kinds of fun tricks with it like they could use their phones as a laser pointer um they can do use
072a polling feature so the students the teacher could ask a question and the students can respond with their Chromebooks and they'll see in real time on the screen what the responses are with that um so that's really fun um right now I'm looking into partnering with other schools for power school support I'm just finding that um other schools out there are definitely willing to help us um setting up some reports and various other things that we might be struggling with um now that we've closed semester one um it's a lot different we actually have data in the system now as opposed to over the summer when we were all trained and set this up there was really not much going on so um so right now you know as we're getting more comfortable with it
073we're getting a lot more requests from secretaries and whatnot um I think that's about it Denette continuing with our state reports as usual thank you we do on Hardware last month did we lose any um i' have to look I don't believe so I know we're constantly replacing Chromebooks but I'm not sure I think for the most part we've been able to there all of them the 251 tickets were within the school and the town Town Hall okay do we know how many of those were School uh no but I can find out please for next month please we can if we can break that out I'd appreciate it thank you okay guy sorry sorry well if the town's got 200 tickets and we got 51 maybe we send our students down there to teach
074Mone mean the finance director okay hello um we currently have uh a elementary school nurse position open that we are interviewing a candidate on Friday for we have three par par professional positions one in the elementary school two in the middle school that we are canvasing applicants for um it still is a process with that um that group um we do we've had a couple candidates apply but unfortunately they either do not call back or they don't show up for their interview um I am currently closed the survey this morning um so I'm waiting for the results to start um trickling into the system um so I checked I checked it before I left today and there were no results in there of yet I received our fingerprinting system last week it was installed Heather
075Bryce um Patrick myself and Danielle will all be trained on the system I had two people come in for fingerprints last week one a catapult um um high dosage tutor and I had a um substitute come in last last week one person took 12 minutes to come back with our with State and FBI results and the other person took an hour and a half um instead of waiting a week or two weeks um so that is the game changer for us we will get the r quicker we'll be able to on board quicker and get them into the classroom quicker Kathleen yes do either of you have not to put you on the spot but do either of you have the final percentages from the survey as far as schools they were gonna go out
076tomorrow we Michelle send those to me today um I didn't get it out today that's yeah um we we're we're at the about the same 300 parents that fill out but the good news is the faculty and staff responses were good um so we've got a and that was the point right so we do have very good uh response from the faculty and staff um and the students obviously because the teachers you know did that during class so those uh surveys are pretty robust um and the parent surveys are around like 312 I thought I saw this morning yeah and so G put out the final percentage but Mary officier was ahead the whole time um so Larry and his PBIS team and I will figure something out for the students at Mara Fisher said
077he enjoys being it very easy to um create the surveys once they had obviously with every system and every every company we there's always a hit here and there but once I was given the access I was supposed to give creating everything um getting the results everything came like F on every day um it was a great system and again and I've said that before in the meeting they were amazing to work with great any question I thought they were super responsive they were right there um there are tutorials for me to go in and start to we get you know every phase is tutorials for me to do or the live webinar I can go on and actually talk to a instructor about something it was a great program so I expect that the
078results will be ready for the March board meeting that's realistic right abely Kathleen Kathleen um so obviously you know I was a part of doing some of this but I will I will say that um and we knew it was kind of very robust and very thorough which we knew going in um some of the parent feedback and a little bit of Staff feedback was that it was really lengthy and took a lot of time people with multiple children had to do it twice you know so and I and I totally get it so and I know and we knew this going in but I think as a first pass I think it's awesome you know and definitely if we continue with with it in future years you know obviously it would be worthwhile to
079Zone in on the critical aspects that I think we are trying to really call out of it now that we've seen it right we've seen everything that that's going to come out to um you know there's ways that can be um you know and you can the one thing I did find out um because I am actually working on a diversity equity and inclusion project with Melinda and Danielle um you can actually go in and things but there's actually background demographics that um weing the family survey but not in student sa survey or the um faculty survey so those can all be tailored in I can send out just a background survey for ourc if I need to um so is a great for yeah we're hoping that the results once we get them and
080it's analyzed that we can kick out a lot of those questions that aren't going to matter right exactly thank you you're on Zoom good evening um I guess I just want to say everybody should keep washing their hands frequently uh we still have covid around um a lot of strip throat and there's some neuro virus out there which is a stomach virus there's not any big pockets of it in any of the schools but it's just kind of around and about we hover around 20 to 25 kids out per day in each school um I'm able to order free covid tests still through um the Department of Education um and that we can do weekly depending on what our needs are um I've sent one order in and received it back um I also have
081to order from marianapolis so I've been doing that and I think that's about it we I Michelle mentioned that we have the opening for the nurse and Elementary um his last day is March 1st and I don't know if anybody has any other questions for me thank you Shannon have a good night thank [Music] you and that's it for the admin rep reports you had an item for old business yes for the surveys in the survey we talked about right just to reiterate what Heather said there were numerous complaints about the length and a lot that they weren't able to drill down to respond to what they wanted to provide responses for okay um so something to keep in mind read through it I didn't answer it obviously but I read through it it was
082long yeah so I think it it was long so I heard the same um I had some feedback from some parents in town and some staff um that it was long and um they would have liked to have been prepped for the length of it um um you know be prepared to spend an hour to two hours answering wow I mean if you're going through them thoroughly it took a fair amount of time to go through and answer the question I think it was 141 140 um and parents were the parent survey was 131 times two kids um so it it does take a level of time um and I thought when we discussed this it was we were gonna kind of make a smaller chunk at the first pass I thought that's what we
083had discussed but um I think if we if we do it again um and we are able to focus it on a much smaller question set I think we'll get a lot higher participation I think the rumors got around that it took time I think people got 30 questions in and gave up um I I do know myself I attempted it twice and just said finally I bet better do this at 11 o'clock at night because there's no way I'm getting this done during the day I can't with the attention span at work um so just that's that's my feedback and that's feedback I heard from other staff and other parents as well that it was just exhaustively long yes I heard the same feedback as you guys that it was long and that people
084weren't able like Jeff said to um they didn't really have the questions I guess that they were looking for about the client about interactions and also I had quite a few people ask me what some of the questions meant so maybe some of the language yeah so after this first pass because it's a baseline year I think we can pull back on once we see the results I think it's going to give you a good flavor of what kind of questions we can that are redundant we don't want to use anymore and um take that when they're doing their presentation uh and pull it back um you know there might be questions there that the board specifically really wants on and we might Whittle it down to 10 or 20 questions um that way it'll
085be more doable yes I know I did not do the survey I don't have a child in school um but if I was doing if I'm doing any kind of survey I I kind of like doing surveys just because I if if somebody's voice needs to get heard it's fine great half hour is kind of a limit I mean if I'm doing it after that like you know so have you know I I'm just saying no I totally understand process was to leave it how it was not Whittle anything down so that we would have a baseline on it so this is all great feedback I do know it was long I did right I had many staff members stop me and me yeah know it was very long but they did it for me
086yep yep I think M likeit I had had it up on my computer started going through it and then had to walk away and when I I came back it was back to zero again start so it's like I was at 35 and now I got to start again and then I get to 35 again oh that's and I didn't remember my responses from the last round so question again test all over again okay all right any new business that we want to discuss or have to discuss we have some corespondence it's in your packet there's a thank you card from Michael nello and just to give you some context on that um Michael is um runs ewib and they with the agency that funded the uh cost for the CNA certification program um the
087workforce board and um they also were invited when Congressman Courtney came to visit and so um they were really impressed with the networking that Michael Joyce and myself and everybody did to um enhance the pathway so they brought in a team of people from across the state um and asked our team a lot of questions about well how did you do this because what they're I guess impressed about is the fact that a little school with 213 students was able to develop Pathways um and basically put together a lot of different soci different agencies and funding sources to make it work so they wanted to get inside our heads and and ask how we went about that and you know Mike Joyce one of the movers and shakers up there at the high school um
088you know he he said this didn't happen overnight this has been happening for for years now and it's just all come together um at the right time um and so um you know uh we were able to share what we knew and um we learned a little bit from them and we're hoping that we're going to maintain that relationship with ewib and hopefully they'll consider funding us another year for um the certification so we were happy about that and the thank you note was very lovely what is ewib uh it is the Eastern Connecticut Workforce board initiative board um so they do have some dollars because they're trying to stimulate um High need areas like um nursing assistance and other areas like ewib I mean uh East electric bat so they're they're interested in in
089that pathway trying to find uh good paying jobs for citizens in this state right so are they are is ewib able to help place they graduates of these programs so we have another so we have another agency that's kind of offshoot of called CT ready and CT ready has an employee that comes out to the high school uh one to two days a week and what she's doing now specifically is working with the CNA students to have them get their resumés ready um you know there's sign on bonuses and all sorts of little advantages now to kind of entice people to apply so they're schooling the students on what to look for and then they're also working on getting the students that are interested in applying to um electric vat getting their resumes in so
090they're here um once or twice a week Michelle she comes twice a week yeah she comes twice a week um and she spends a good amount of time with our students so we're hoping that that's going to expand so as of now I'm I'm not looking necessarily for specific but so somebody our our CNA I I'll say graduates is it you know certific certificat whatever um are they almost I don't want to say the word guaranteed but they they're basically they can come out and get a job tomorrow um actually on the night of the pinning ceremony um Kyle Kramer the CEO from day Kimbell Hospital brought a welcome bag because they did hire one of our CNA graduates and so they gave a little bag to her um but they were really trying to
091entice some of the other students to apply um because they put an investment there but there was a method behind their Madness right they want a pipeline to um some some workers but a lot of the students are going to do that for a summer job or you know after school so your daughter was yeah I was just gonna say uh she's 16 though she can't work at G Kimble but Kyle Kramer's working on working the legislation where if a 16y old can get the certification yeah 16y old should be able to work right so they're trying to work with the hospital she could work in a nursing home but she can't so he did he did um encourage her that he was going to be that she' be the first person know let know
092or something that yeah it was it was a great night and um very proud of all those students a lot of work on top of the regular school work I'm sorry I miss the idea that all 14 pass is a good test to the instructor she she worked really hard with them and the kids were right there with her so now was she we a a regular person like for next year um I do know like just having my son's girlfriend took the class as well and and received her certification they they loved her yeah um so I just didn't know how that how that worked in terms of so she's an employee of Connecticut state you know Community College qu campus so she was hired through them to us but she would love to
093come back so I think I think that's um I think that will happen okay yeah we already have 16 students signed up for next year it's it's meaning and me that the students um when we surveyed the students that was one of the pathways that they were interested in thank you congratulations okay we have another um C I guess you new members got this letter already um for those of you who are not new anymore it's a welcome letter to the new members of the board um you got it with a packet you got yours right we all got ours I don't think we I had to go to a oration to get my packet right we all got welcome packets and duties so okay um any citizens comments I don't think we have any
094citizens left out on the floor any citizens comments from the zoom audience and make it quick I just want to say thank you to Bryce um he was invaluable at the elementary school PTO movie night um he is great thank you to Danielle for fixing the snafu that we had with the uh School dudes were making sure we had tables and everything and uh that program went out without a hitch so thank you yes we are grateful we are grateful to Bryce for many reasons right he our next uh budget Workshop is February 21st it's Wednesday I will not be able to six o'clock here Media Center I may not be here Bill Steve's getting operated on please I got you I may be zooming in or I may be driving back from Stanford I'll
095be I have a shift at the salon so thank you okay motion to adj second