001um call the order uh we do have a changes addition to the agenda we are going to move up uh D of the administrative report to the beginning um so because Larry has a guest to introduce and uh right now that guest is slated for the very end and that's not fair um so are there any other changes to the agenda okay um approval of the minutes we have two approvals why do we have two approvals We Didn't Do It Best or was that an emergency meeting that was a special meeting okay so um I will take a motion to approve this uh well there's really not much of the October 15 because that's of uh I will take a motion for the approval of September 23rd and October 15 so moves I'll second okay
002is there any discussion about either of those minutes none we see how I can do here I'll will take a road call uh Amy how do you vote I be I'm gonna vote I on the first and abstain from the second because I wasn't there okay thank you and Marie I Elizabeth I on both Mark I okay Sarah I on both am I missing anyone online Davis Hi and Megan I and N obain and then I okay thank you I guess it's okay that we did it that way know we'll just wing it I'm the boss let's do more okay thank you and I an I um on both public participation but no Larry as we are moving Larry to the to the above the administrative reports so you can still do the if you
003want to move them to the very beginning before the policy work I would like to move them after public participation and do it before um items for discussion that would be I bet would like that even more okay um public comment is not legally required but we believe it is crucial for us to hear from our community members about their concerns over issues through these meetings are board models for our students how to conduct public discourse and that the board and members of our community can approach controversial issues in a civil and constructive Manner and can demonstr mutual respect having said that please note that the board is here to listen the public comment period is not designed for discussion we start by identifying yourself in what town you reside in does anybody in the
004room have public comments okay anyone online nobody has their hand up h no one has their hand up okay I will make a I do want to make a comment in that uh I received a letter uh in which an individual stated that they were sending this email out uh as public comment um and then I informed them that and there was a little back and forth but I informed them that it's not really public comment because it's in a private email even though there were several people so um we as a board believe that letter send and are important we have a what's that folder called correspondence a correspondence folder that we put those in that then can be viewed by the public but upon legal advice at one point uh we were informed
005that public comment and public participation is limited to those who show up either online or in personal and that's all I wanted to say um thank you Larry Christine's I just want to make Lori also put it in the meeting packet for tonight oh there okay yeah clear thank you here okay so I'm gonna talk keep to the budget book Ian will talk I'm sharing my screen all right so I have uh printed copies for those in attendance um this is a new platform for us uh where um for transparency sake and um the ability to see the budget uh in Mobile uh devices and in paper and on the web um we've done to this platform and it's you know very similar to what you've seen before but all in one package uh the
006executive summary basically goes over the budget book structure um profile the supervisory Union is uh stuff um data taken from the Census I I'm going pretty quick so as I work through it um I've emailed this to the board and it was posted on the website on October 18th um the Board of Education members the leadership team of the Su currently the only thing in the budget book is the Su because we do the Su budget first to build the assessments into the local budgets and um I'd like to uh on this part of the executive summary point out the evolution of Vermont education law I think this will just be uh I think something that came up at uh the last um as you all know last budget season was a tough one around
007the state and um uh some of the questions that I got from other Town managers uh citizens was you know how did we get here kind of thing and you know it's sort of like what happened um so I you know I was able to explain to them you know act 153 and what all these acts that we talk about and uh I thought it'd be great to have it all on one page where you have act 153 um act 166 Universal pre which bill and I were just talking about act 46 the Vermont education merger law um where uh we had we got a waiver essentially to not merge Wethersfield and Heartland and as you all know Windsor and West Windor did merge and one of the arguments made to the state board was
008that we were going to both individually and collectively commit ourselves to maximizing the context of existing law the role of the current supervisor Union board strategically play in setting implementing and assessing District policy and educational operations act 173 which does affect us budget- wise is um where they went to a census block grant model which FYI not to steal the Thunder of the fiscal year 26 numbers is $192,000 less than what we got last year it used to be like Boo service and that the number of meals you serve is more money you get it's not one to one but you get a percentage back uh that's why special funding you worked until act 173 where now part of it is based like that but the other part of it is a census block grant
009model you just get what you get based on their state formula uh organizational chart which I don't think is surprising to many uh the Su board then Christine and then our department heads and our principles the budget process um this is a timeline we've been working with uh we've had four I believe um budget committee meetings one two three four four budget committee meetings so I want to thank uh Christine Ryan from Harland Sarah from weatherfield Angie uh Sarah from weatherfield and Elizabeth from mney school district who served on the budget committee uh and worked with us as we prepared this budget that you see before you student enrollment Trends I think this is interesting to look at as we look at the state over the last 10 years um the state is roughly down
0102% over the last 10 years but we' [ __ ] that Trend um not by a lot but uh we're not going backwards um we will have this updated the other great thing about using this format and I I printed it out for these for people here to see what it would look like in a printed version U but one of the benefits is when we get the October one numbers that uh call October one the ADM numbers that were work on now um I can update this chart with 20 uh 2425 numbers currently it's 23 24 is a last year but I can just update this and it's live and it happens automatically Personnel changes this is uh always an interesting part of any budget I know to Citizens when they ask about uh you know
011if the Su budget's going up are they adding Personnel um there's two main parts of the Su budget we talk about a lot which is Administration operations and special educ Administration and operations consist of the curriculum office the superintendent's office um the business office Dei um HR Tech and it yes uh I know crazy that I would forget T um so uh so in it so uh in transportation which we know is 12% of the budget which we've been working on uh so so um the non-s special Edge part of the budget um Administration operations we are down um we are proposing um through attrition one staff member cut um which is a a retirement of an administrator um Ed Connors who's been our CFO for almost the last 20 years and has done a
012great job and has been a valuable mentor to me is um writing off into the sunset December 31st and we are um proposing to reorganize his uh work duties between myself and Deanna Crow our controller and um not replacing that position in order to uh help out the local districts special education is up uh 3.8 FTE but it's important to know that those positions are currently posted positions that are not filled it's not new additional positions so just FYI I'm I'm comparing actual FY 25 to proposed 26 um those are positions that are currently posted that are not as at this moment um hired so just so in the Su right now we're looking at a net minus one in FTE essentially if we're considering those as being like all the positions were filled yes
013okay from a public standpoint I think it would be really valuable if we put budgeted FY 25 okay um in here because I was like oh we're adding almost four positions um that question I would had in mind too so it's good to know that yeah say budgeted and then actual okay maybe with a footnote that we still can't hir for people that we need yes okay so that's really abundant clear that we're not trying to add more people I'll make that more clear y um and then as a the same information um this is the next section we just went over the executive summary this is organizational information of the budget which talks about the Strategic plan um and other areas first thing is the geographic areas of our um supervisor Union which you
014are all very well aware of West Windsor Windsor Heartland and weatherfield um our mission and values and vision are listed here our strategic priorities include our p uh of a graduate and our goals strategic plan and goals and objectives right out strategic plan basis of budgeting um by the way it's it's important to note that uh the association of um School business officials asbo the Vermont version is called basbo uh the National Organization is called asbo and these uh sections are um what they consider to be the financial transparency to include these sections I know this may be different than what we're used to seeing but it's important to uh out outline how we budget um and if there's a lot of information in here that is kind of dry and accounting speak there's a
015glossery at the end now we're into the financial section which um a meet of the uh budget book um first up is a general fund there are three sorry there are four main parts of the uh Su um assessments to back to local districts a general fund which consists of the administration operations and special education and then Early Childhood Program and food service and we treat them separately as funds uh the general fund we break out in this budget book and then we also have a separate section for early childhood and Food Service Elizabeth thanks Larry can you please scroll down just a little bit y oh perfect thank you no that up up up there so we can see the bars those of us on screen thank you y you got it so I'm
016goingon to scroll through this if somebody wants me to uh stop on a certain area um if they don't have the paper in front of them or you can go to the website on your own also it's to remember the website it's a tinyurl.com f26 budget um and it's also linked on the website the comprehensive fund summary this just shows going back to 23 um the fund balance for our Su and with the uh it's basically U assets and liabilities fund balance sheet Revenue sources there are uh three main types of Revenue at at the suu there's a local which are the assessments state which is basically now the census block grant and then the state restricted which is the intensive needs part of the Su special ed Revenue it's restricted because it's a it's
017that's the uh old way of doing Special Ed where any student over I believe the number this year is 66,000 67 uh they uh the state reimbursed 90% so if the student costs $200,000 in private tuition for special ed anything over 66,000 this State covers 9 cost 65,000 we cover that's part of the block you got it um revenues by program this explains out uh regular education which is basically Administration operations and transportation and special education as you can see the majority of the Su Revenue wise goes to special education this breaks out the revenues by account so even a more granular view of the account and you can see it in the pie chart here the blue is the assessment the green is the sensus block rant the sped reimbursement is what I just
018outlined we get a small amount of money uh for state aid Transportation relative to the entire Revenue um the Highline of this budget which I'm going to go down to here is the rate of increase for um by program so Administration operations is a nonspecialized part of the S budget and special education is a special ed part of the budget and the headline is 99.3% is the uh rate of increase for the general fund for the Su for fiscal year 26 that we're proposing special ed accounting for 6.5% of that and administration operations accounting for 2.8% of that that includes the new Transportation contract the board just authorized it includes assumptions based on the high of 11.9 % which they they tell us the budget for for health insurance um that includes that reduced position
019at the central office and the uh program special Le lar yes do you know how much of that 93.3% increase has to do with the fact that um the 2.8% special ed positions that we haven't been able to hire as the FY actuals versus the anticipated adding of those two in FY so break out the ones that haven't been filled right in a number no have the is FY 25 actual or budgeted FY 25 is budgeted because fy2 hasn't ended yet okay so so those people are they're budged okay so that would be zero yes okay thank you yeah uh function summary this is the typical way people think of uh departments or otherwise um these are using the state uh uniform chart of accounts so instructional Support Services would include uh Dei it uh
020student transportation is pretty self-explanatory direct instruction as you can see 56% the vast majority of the Su Central Services would include the superintendent's office the business office HR um Etc expent by account summary is basically salaries and benefits also another important thing um people are following Along online on the paper version you can see it because we print it out but here if you click on any table it'll bring you the actual you know the numbers so if you you're looking at a chart and you want to dig into more about that number and how compares the previous years anytime you see a blue arrow online or on the mobile device you can just click on it it's Ventures by function not function summary now we're back to that uh where I said student instructional
021Support Services was it Dei CIA for example now it's breaking down broken down even more uh where you can see fiscal Services uh that's my office instruction curriculum is Cia um Executive Admin is superintendent special education is the top one uh Transportation so as you can see the vast majority of the Su uh at 65% is 66% is special education and Transportation uh the next highest being it and Psychological Services which is also under the special education budget expenses by account is again down to the very granular Nitty Gritty um where we go into health insurance you can see health insurance now Larry just said it was up 11.9% but the actual year-over-year is 20% why is that well that could be because um somebody was getting didn't have insurance um or had it through
022a spouse and now because we have the 25 actuals for when we started the year um that person might have got a family plan or whatever so that's why that difference is there scrolling down fund balance this is uh assets and liability and our fund balance we have a healthy fund balance not as healthy healthy as I'd like it I would like it to be closer to 10 or 15% of the general fund budget um that's where we are right now um we're hoping to build that up a little bit for cash flow purposes as we um are waiting and the towns are waiting to uh um give us money to operate T can I yes um in the expenditures by account yeah um and also other comparing can we put the total increase of
023per okay uh every table well or only on certain tables I can do it anywh you want would def other people I feel like every table that every yeah every one of the ones it's got like FY 24 budgeted actual and then 25 and 26 because you see the percent change and you're like 42% and then you're like oh that's $20,000 yes you you have to do the math yeah so um so it like helps you scan yeah 900% increase yeah so I can um I can do that I'm obviously limited to a certain number of columns to keep it in portra mode but I can work on it I can try to find a way to phrase it if I can take these column headers and rephrase the column headers to make R I
024can do that okay yeah it's just it's more helpful yeah dollar change and then FAL by percentage change yeah would you rather I'm just asking would you rather have just dollar change and no percentage change I think they're both helpful but if I had to choose that rather enough dollar but I'm not the only one here so I think like I think for we need to make sure it's easy for people to understand and I think exactly what ni said 900% sounds crazy but seeing things in actual yeah yeah and sometimes uh we uh especially when you're dealing with uh budget in the current year to the next year if a chart of account change happens that has no that has nothing to do with anything it's no we're just shifting money around you'll see
025those huge minuses yeah and addition yeah so I can try to make it into two columns I'll work on that that's the same thing that happened when we moved different things the sh like techology yeah also one one another benefit uh of having a budget book where we have different sections for the schools as we build out the local budgets it'll just keep getting a much bigger and bigger book is uh you can um would be able to do that so if something I don't I don't see see anything happening this year but if something were moved to the Su like buildings and grounds for example You' be able to easily more easily see the zeroing out because you'd have the whole thing right and Marie I'm just curious as to um why are we
026uh like separate lining the um Administration salaries and the mid-management supervisor salaries because it seems like they if you put them into one you wouldn't have this 42% and this negative 30% yeah you're right and that's um so what we did was uh there's two things there the reason why the mid management is down is because I'm zeroed out and I'm moving into EDS line um that's one thing the second thing is uh we budgeted when we did the 25 budget as uh many on the board were were here and we remember we didn't have a special assistant special education director we added it unbudgeted for but it's now in the 26 budget so that's why it looks like a enormous administrative salary increase to answer your question and Marie I I I don't feel
027comfortable pushing them together because it would violate the chart of accounts but by by Vermont uniform shart of accounts I have to keep those separate lines okay I guess we'll just have to do some splaining yeah the main thing is the deduction of vid management is as you just as you saw yourself and Marie it's just shifting money um and then the additional is the assistant sped director which was unbudgeted for 25 and is now budgeted in 26 um I can think more about if there's a way to do it without combining the lines okay Amory I'll look at that thank you just yeah if you can do something or if not just um if you can make a real clear explanation that we can give to the voters when they ask about it because
028I'm sure they will y I understand that I thought about that myself which is why I had those reasons ready um so yeah I will uh see what I can do about that uh expenditures by account which we're already in and then um assessments so at the bottom is the assessments by District as the the two smaller bars to the left that's many cars beep or what so uh so the two smaller bars of the assessment by District uh for FY 25 versus 26 Administration and operations and that's the assessment increase as you can see year-over-year and to the right is 25 sped versus 26 special ed and below is the assessment breakout um using ltw ADM which did not um massively changed the assessment breakout versus equalized pupil um it does affect your tax
029rate but when it comes to the assessments it's a pretty much of a wash if we had kept equalized people but the state has Jud now I don't know how to pronounce that uh it's Jud and now it's um uh ltw ADM so and like previous years uh as a assessment um weather field is up 05 to 1% relative to the other districts and Harland and mount ofy are down slightly so all that means is if you went back to that enrollment screen where you saw the blue and the red which are Heartland and Weathersfield um Mount of scotney being the green is pretty steady and then as we go back to the I'll just bring it up quickly you can see uh it's pretty obvious what is happening in our schools for the enrollment
030Trends to affect the assessment as you can see down here is Alber Bridge you add that with the green to make B cutney and then you could see here 286 and 271 so basically Heartland is slightly larger uh to than weather field and the biggest part of ltw ADM is enrollment there's a lot of other formulas but the biggest part is enrollment still now moving on to Early Childhood Program question and Marine c um you're first off you're cutting in and out a bit for me I don't know if that's my or happening to everybody can you hear me I can hear you hello hello H okay um I'm just wondering if um so will we when we get the new numbers for um for I guess what is it 24 25 will those amount
031will those percentages change or are we working off of those numbers that we have right now good question so when we do the Su we all are always one year in the rears so when we do the Su budget three years ago it was using four year ago numbers when we did the Su budget last year this time we were using the previous year's numbers this year we're using FY 24 ltw ADM and next year we'll use FY 25 ltw ADM um if the board would like to approve a budget number and then have me AIX the uh because it's just changing the percentages which I know makes a big difference uh you gotta be careful what you wish for right because if we use this year's numbers Amory it's possible that uh it might
032be more drastic because it' be taking into account two years of a difference um but we could do that uh at a later date so I mean again I that's a pleasure of the board the board could decide in January after approving a budget number for the Su relatively soon the assessment calculation could be uh the current fiscal year because we wouldn't be assessing it until next fall the start of the next F year so basically Amar my answer is you can do it either way you want historically for the last 20 years it's always been one year in the re years because that's a state settled number did you hear that Amory yeah I did thank you okay um now moving on to Early Childhood Program again it's very similar to the uh what
033you just saw with the general fund revenues by account uh the Su is the largest the assessment is the largest piece of uh funding the green is the special ed part of Early Childhood Program and that's the revenue for that again you click on any of the tables and you can see the numbers um expanses by account summary like most things salaries and benefits make up most of it except when it comes to early childood program 47% is other purchase service what is that that is act 166 that was in that uh remember that earlier screen where I showed or the page if you're following along about the evolution ofont education Law act 166 is we are required and this would be one of those unfunded man that you talk about where uh to pay
034I don't remember the numb is it 3,000 per yeah it's roughly approximately 3,000 per kid uh for prek for three and four year olds and we don't have a choice we have to pay that um budgeting for it is a moving Target but I feel comfortable with this number um so that's the that's a rare instance where salaries and benefits do not make up the vast majority of a budget it's Ventures by function you can see it here again this is breaking it out by regular education and special Edge and now we have our expenses by account which is again is a midi gritty we were talking about earlier and if you go down here you can see tuition to approv instate private provider Independent Schools um that's that big $425,000 number fund balance uh
035we have a more healthy fund balance at the early child program right now as you can see that was not always the case so um we're going to move forward with that and then here is the assessment increase for Early Childhood Program um roughly $30,000 Mount of sty a little less for Heartland and more of an increase for weather field because of their ltwm difference that we were just discussing uh just so you know using last year's lgw ADM that Amory mentioned the current as of right now assessment breakout this Mount of scne is 42.6 3% of the Su general fund in early childood program assessment and Heartland is 3029 per and weather SK is 27.0% when I started in my first Su budget at 23 I think weather was around 23% so they've been
036going up about a 1% a year over the increase based on their increase enrollment uh remember as your enrollment increases that benefits you at the ltw ADM side which benefits you on the tax side so if you had a choice between more students or fewer students you'd want more students even though that means you pay a higher share of the Su assessment uh Food Services is an Enterprise fund which means it's self balancing or it has to be um and I'm going to go through this this is the one assessment that's different which we'll get to at the end um based on an SU board vote a couple years back and uh Ian can speak more to the budget and what he's um inherited but uh as you can see we have a um I
037I would say a less healthy fund balance at Food Services um remember the there's three parts of uh Revenue sources for Food Services unlike uh Early Childhood Program and unlike the general fund this is an actual place where we do get some federal reeven which is nice um roughly uh third is sorry a quarter is federal revenue a third is state revenue and the rest remainder is picked up by the Su revenues by account this is where we break out that Federal money Universal meals is the green that is the state and the blue is the assessment um another benefit of this program is the blue throughout every fund I don't know if you noticed is the assessment that way people can track it as they look through and say how much is the assessment
038um exp Benes by account summaries salaries and benefits like most budgets make up most of it about a quarter of it is supplies it's uh again kind of what Amar was speaking about earlier that supplies is not a really uh great term to use for food service but it's Universal of account we have to use uh the object code of supplies and but basically that's food it's not um you know it's not was cost that's that's so this the quarter of the Su uh Food Service budget is suppes food I'm sorry I'm Sayes by account and as I move down to the uh assessment notice how the green is much higher here that's because a couple years back the Su board decided to treat Food Services differently and rather than using ltw ADM we use
039the previous enrollment number in the rear uh when I say enrollment I mean actual kids in the building at that moment that we report out to the state so that does not include you know a Springfield kid uh from weatherfield going to Springfield High School um its actual uh bodies in the building and as you can see here um that's why M scny school district is 55% of the Su assessment Harland is 22% and weather steel is 21.99 which might as well be 22 again showing that uh student enrollment TR how Harland and weather are very close together in enrollment based on last year's enroll additional information right now is just the glossery of all these great accounting terms for anybody who wants to study up and that's all I have for the budget work
040thank you Larry I'm wondering if there's any any desire to go back to what we did before on some surface I doubt yeah well that's how we had that's how we uh unless you want to divy out the Staffing like that that's how we um report to the state it's in building kids oh is it so that makes sense yeah yeah lar I like this new platform a lot it was it was in reviewing it before this meeting it it is very easy to navigate and very intuitive so thanks for doing that thank you and um I have your notes and I will add them that yeah the only comment I guess I have is that with food service of course it's it's an Enterprise fund but it doesn't have to be um it we
041could we could invest in our food service more if we wanted to so it's not like it's like every school runs it as an Enterprise fund that's true most do that and you can't you do support it you you do support it because um if they run a deficit we self-correct it every year so absolutely and it's just it's it's one of those things it's a it's a different terminology because it's that whole idea of like we're investing in our food program we're not running at a deficit you know because it makes it seem like it's a drag on our budget whereas instead we're investing in feeding our children so it's just kind of terminology to think of it more in a positive note thank you okay Larry you have some introductions here yes uh
042now uh turning it over speaking of food service thank you be is uh here in person is Ian Rose um as you are aware our former food service director left us last spring and uh we had a committee um of all the lead cooks and uh administrators uh myself we had several uh applicants um we had several interviews because that's the way I do things and we had a great um nominee which you approved the contract last summer and or last previous summer and uh he's here tonight enose has done a great job uh stepping in um and I'd like to turn it over to him thank you um don't worry we can't fight could you stop sharing so we can actually see Ian oh I'm sorry thanks thanks B There You Go B yeah
043um my my job prior to this was running a a co-op so this is this isn't my first board me um like Larry said uh my name is Yan Rose um I uh have been living here in Vermont since 2016 um I'm originally from Boston area um been working in some form of food uh since I was 16 I'm 45 so it's been a long run um in Boston really was opening restaurants was kind of my my thing um I liked uh there's just a sort of a a crazy chaos to that that you can't really explain but um more than that um getting to sort of like sew the seeds of the place um is is really fun building sort of the initial team um these are things like I talk about culture and
044energy all the time now I didn't use those words before I was s of operating in that sphere before I sort of had the language for it um but that's always been the stuff that's been really interesting to me um watching people grow watch systems take place I again this was all these things that even just as you know younger adult who didn't really know what was what that I was sort of doing these things and flexing these muscles um I've been working uh with local food since before the phase farm table existed um kind of stumbled into a place um as an intern in cooking school you know where there were farmers coming in the back door with dirt under their fingernails and this is a time in the late 90s in Cambridge where
045like changing your menu with the seasons was kind of still cutting edge it's crazy to think about now um but this is just where I ended up and you know kind of went from another place to another place really on purpose going from working with chef and Chef owner um and it became part of the way I Liv My Life um it's usually Central to me as an individual as a parent um and then in the position where I get to do this at a larger scale and feing other people um I have I have two kids that are in Heartland um so I engaged with dfu as a parent prior to as an employee um so I definitely have skin in the game um and uh the challenge of feeding them has been something
046that I've always you know I've enjoyed that um I've got my daughter convinced my son it still doesn't trust me that I'll put really fun things in front of him that I know he'll like but I I like that challenge um and uh now I get to do a bigger scale um you know this was a big part of what I talked to with these guys coming in certainly doing committee interview and with Christine is U you know the quality of local food quality of food in general is hugely important to me um it does not need to be fancy or High futin um we made an executive decision the other day for example to say goodbye to liquid margarine which is gross and get butter real butter you know it's a small thing it
047costs more money but in terms of the stuff that kids are putting in their body it's dramatically better um and and uh you know I S of had the fortune so I have a my sort of I have a mentor who is also my mentor we have this really fun kind of dynamic um and he's all about the seven habits and I had that very much s of ingrained into uh to my ethos before I got here um I don't know how long we were in the community meeting before I was talking about seing and before understood um these are the things that are part of me and so they were the real easy fit into sort of like the the philosophy of of the suu um I'm used to coming into roles where there
048was no overlap with the last person um I had k a bit to being a paratrooper and sort of hitting the ground ready to go um that was definitely the case here and having to kind of figure things out as they go along um there were not tons of systems in place um I'm definitely of the mindset that if you're going to end up doing something 10 times let's focus on making it easy manageable automated if possible um there wasn't a lot of that um there really isn't tons of Records keeping I can go look at um which also means we get to build it from scratch um so you know it's it's challenging in one way but I I'd always rather teach somebody how to do something right at the first time um than
049have to sort of retrain um I always the example it's like a 16-year-old kid who's just got an ethic in them but doesn't know how to do anything but you can teach them as opposed to you know L with 20 years of bad habits that you're going to have to fight and break I'll take the challenge of the of the youngster who's got just the the the aptitude um a big part of the focus on here so for me like I have this personal belief that um you need to do well before you can do good kind of what I mean by that is like doing good typically comes at in some instances like butter for example at a higher cost um you need to be able to sort of justify that cost one thing
050but um if your books don't make sense and you don't know where your base layer is it's going to be really hard to make decisions of do we want to get do we want to lean on the USD commodity beef or do we want to lean on the local St for example um and you know a lot of the work that Larry and I have been doing is just sort of adding more detail in depth it feels like food budget is one big basket and this is just far too complex for it to be simplified down to that um if any of y'all came to me and said you know what do we spend on x amount of thing I may not be able to answer you at this moment I'm not comfortable with that
051um it's not that we don't lack those things I don't know how to do it we just don't have a sort of It Broken Out In A in an easy line item way um there's really easy ways to do that lar know leaning into his sort of it side of things and and and making a nice clean budget um so that we know where we are I don't know that I can assess the performance of the individual kitchens right now um and that's really challenging because if you had something suddenly you know go left of center it would be really really hard to figure out where it was coming from Beyond that we have folks that are helping to operate these places and so what I'm looking at assessing their performance it's really hard to
052do that right now and that's not fair um you sort of have an expectation but you can't provide them tools for those kind of things um that's the real X is another side the other side that's probably equally and then some more important to me is really the cult um and uh I inherited while we lacked systems to inherit um I I definitely you know inherited a really good team uh people that really care um and have you know also have skin in the game through family and kiddos um within the FCU and um we had a a team meeting that did for schools started on said we got 10 rules here and the first nine are feuture kids and you know I was half joking but being very serious at the same time and
053everybody's right on board with that um that's that's the name of the game and and and that's the thing we get to it I've tried to um put in this idea that like we're going to get curveballs it's not an if it's how many um and empowering folks that that they can make decisions in the moment so that we can keep feeding the kids if we got to redo stuff we do it um you know if we can't if we can communicate stuff out here menu change great if you can't you're doing it you know one by one then got um you know we don't want that to happen every single day if it is happening every single day then let's build a better system um but just feel empowered to make decisions not be
054hamstr strong um because you know the goal is beting kids I tell them I I want people to to you know to make a decision take a swing at the pitch because then we know where the ball went do you watch sale by don't know anything about your decision- making stuff um and it seems like that that's taking hold um definitely have this feeling that people are a little more involved than they used to um they'll come to me with you know not just questions but questions and answers and in some cases outcomes too love that um and just starting to see them feel a little bit more um more ownership um I will get kids say to me you know give me comments about the food being improved and I kind of gotten a
055little more comfortable accepting that but I'm not actually the one with a knife in my hand but what I've say back is I'm providing the encouragement um and obviously like the support and the resources and things along those lines but I'm you know I've had an KNE in my hand a lot this year but I'm not the one operating these kitchens it's it's lead Co books and I don't want to take anything from that they're the ones really on the front line so yes sir so um I'm I'm very pleased about the perspective data that's what I do for a living but also um I think you'll find that uh actually should begin to dive into your um your where you get the food and how much cost I'm very pleased to hear about butter
056that's a um but in this particular area um from a food perspective because i' I've been in the food business from from preparing it as well as producing um and I think a organization of this side especially if you we can sort of team up with other issues in in um um the buying power you have the opportunity to do um farming backwards in other words you have the ability to uh first to produce the demand create the market and then that would draw the producers yeah there's a lot of farmers around here and you know it's funny you say butter because you know there's farmers in the area that are interested in butter but it it's such an expensive thing to start that most of them go out of business because it's that end
057point of not having a fixed market and having to sell something locally uh same with meat to be able to look at U beef for an example is a product that um that that I buy from someone we call whole beef hamburger you take a whole cow you make into the hamburger the the quality level just through the roof and the cost is extremely reasonable but you have to put that out there that this is what we're looking for uh and then you're going to find that producers in the area go raised to that um that demand because you're able to create your own market and the big difference I mean there's quite a few differences between this Arena and and the ones I've played them before but um schools aren't going anywhere or at
058least they're not they're going somewh well after all the restaurants have gone somewhere yeah um so yeah for sure I mean um a lot of that is is is basic economics that that I firmly understand and try to try to S utilize as much as possible um we have an economy of scale right um albeit you know a modest one but but we have one and I don't know that the resources were getting as well utilized before and sometimes it's as simple as so um the menu development was really done individually and and then hand it out before now we get together once a month all of us leave lead ques on myself and put the menu together they know more than me about this uh and so I want their infut beyond that like
059this the creative part is fun part we're always gonna this going to be some challenges in this stuff but it gets sort of like the fun part is the we we're being created we're we're trying new things and making sure that they're part of that process but it also gets for people who don't see each other to the table with each other at least once a month and so we've got these positive Communications buildings of relationships and they start talking about you know hey I've got this can you use that I can't s a whole case can you split it so you know we're starting to do that you can basically scale that stuff up um so you mentioned other s um my mentor had previously been in my role at Mountain View um and
060you know she's there to answer any question I have for her person who took over for her we' sort of buddied up immediately um and so like I I spent the first month month and a half of just really getting the lay land but building netw workk getting to know the people um who can answer the questions that I'm enily gonna have a million out um but there are folks in this state that um guy Harley Sterling who runs the bell falls win Southwest um who call Cool Kids Club of the ones who really want to push a a farm to school program and the one he's got down there is crazy um but as soon as you're sort of part of that group he wants to pull you in and actually leverage your resources
061too and say you know hey I went out and found this you know pasta maker or something that would fit into our thing and you know anybody else wanted he buys things in pallets and so really wanted to um communicate out and a lot of people take part in that but but resources to get better products into this market right um yeah and it it's not rocket science that we're dealing we're not looking for the air lomness and that in fact it's quite the opposite um if we can get you got Miller milk into their stuff there which is really quite something else but as an example um you know roll with butter if you can get a local one that somebody produces that's in three different suus we really succeeded I mean that's a
062small thing but boy is it touch so many different products um yeah for sure that's that's the doing good um you know that's if I look at out a couple years getting the base layer and knowing where we are with things knowing that I can I can if I see something that's either excelling in its performance or underperforming that I can identify where it is um to know where we stand on the bottom line so we can actually kind of go out and make those commitments and find those products um in terms of sort of the food that we put out for people I really have this idea if it's a grilled cheese call it a grilled cheese let's not try and things up for kids I I make food that kids are going to
063eat um use the energy to find the better products that go into those things and that's kind of what we're here to do and the the compost bin is the barometer I want to see it empty um as much as possible and you know if you make something that's a stretch not to say that we're not putting new things out there but if you really make lots of things that are stretch for them you might lose a little of that kiddo trust um and oh you lose a lot of it yeah so you know keep simple I want to see them happy and if they don't know why their bodies feel good but instead of they do because there's healthier oils in there then great um you know I I know in my mind that
064I'll I'll I'll we're doing something good and that um even if there's not like a verbal acknowledgement of those things um well thank you Ian yeah we appreciate the time coming in and uh I mean I personally would like to schedule several meetings um or at least to be able to see you here three or four times a year uh to kind of go over in touch Bas with not just the Su board but those who are not just because the Su Bo because you have representativ of all the three so I appreciate you coming in we do need to move on y yeah thank you that was really um so number five a request for extended maternity Le so I'm gonna um I miss surprise okay so this is from uh from Danielle Ballard
065uh who for the last two years has been a special education pair professional at Heartland Elementary School she had a baby um and on June 5th she began her maternity leave with the intention of returning on November 19th of this year uh during her time preparing she'd set up necessary Child Care Arrangements necessary for her to return to work at that time unfortunately she recently found out that the child care that she arranged for is no longer possible and despite her searching she has not found a suitable backup option for her daughter on on the short notice that she has uh she has uh she has however looked into putting a a a down a deposit at a child care center for the fall of 2025 and so that being said she is requesting an
066extended maternity leave through the end of the school year and says with a new child care arrangement in place she's eager to return next year to the students in community at Heartland Elementary School um and uh just she thanks you for her for time your time and consideration and I'll just say that there is um so contractor wise um every employee has a right to 12 weeks uh with an extended based upon the um school board's approval um the discussion of the board discuss the um because we can't hire anybody um I I I don't think it would be a good idea to um alienate this employee uh because it's it is a um unforeseen situation yeah and if we say no he's gonna quit it and if we say yes then she'll come back
067in the phone she come back in the phone um so I will take motion to approve the extended leave I moved there I probably should have done this first thank you um okay um we'll go around I have a question yeah have questions um I'm just curious if this is this a Heartland person why are I'm just wondering why we're all voting or this is an Su position it's an Su position uh based in Heartland yeah okay and um and is is this with pay or without pay it's without without pay as per the contract holding just holding it spot yeah is it with health insurance though we I don't believe so okay so it's just well I guess the whole point is because she have health insurance usually with maternity leave you it's a
068longterm like short-term disability to long-term disability if you're out for I I'm just I'm curious about this too but I will I will text Tina right now but I don't believe so I believe she does not um but if you want to hold off on the vote I hold up on the vote I think that's an important very good question yeah um I would imagine she would be offered Cobra which she would pay herself I would guess but I want to make sure so I'll Texa shall we withw nomination or can we just it thank you Bo goals for fy2 well I think that it's been on the it's been on our radar yeah and we looked at the survey results last time um the areas that stood out from my recollection were um making
069sure we're examining data that's disaggregated so that we can see if we're really closing the Gap one was um superintendent um evaluation goals which would be great um and there was one that was around getting input from stakeholders in policy development so that came out as something that we could work on so you could think about it would you send out an email sure laying that out yes sure will you can then we can bring bring it back and talk more sure do that y um maybe even a Google form ask the question just have a comment section okay yeah just be three okay um happy to do that nurse sub rate yes that is and thank you Grace for being here that is um if I get this right a request for the sub
070nurse pay to go up to $40 instead of $35 an hour and that's coming from EPS money the vast majority of it is a grant Medicaid grant that we receive uh epsdt money it was spoken about with the all the nurses present in our meeting we have every spring as we decide what to do with that grant money um and as we were working through the process of Nur Subs coming in going um it was oversight on my part that we never got a board vote um so we require board vote in order to do that the Sub sub pay is a purview of the board um even though it's not normal Subs we're talking about Nurse Subs um so I uh this is my recommendation I think it's uh it's been a while and
071uh there's a 70 to $100,000 of epsd money not all of which obviously go to the nurse hubs but uh this would not the amount of money that this would affect your local budgets and general fund would be very yes hi I'm Grace Knight I'm the school nurse at Weathersfield school and this came up at our last um nurse meeting at our professional development afternoon that was a week and a half ago and epsdt stands for early prevention screening and diagnostic testing and this is federal money that we earn for our schools weatherfield earned I believe it was between 112,000 last year um and its Federal money from through the Medicaid Program I believe Larry yeah thank you and how we earn it is we provide skilled nursing services for a student body and a
072percentage of them have um Medicaid as their insurance plan and this has been going on forever I remember doing epsdt activities when I was in nursing school in the early 1990s this is a very you know longstanding Federal program and it's really essential to us because we just drown in the daily nursing visits today in Weathersfield we had 42 Health office visits passed nine prescription medications did 11 Vision screenings of students who were suspected to need a vision referral and actually sent home three version Vision referrals and so there's very little time to do the kind of Outreach to find the students who don't have a dentist and need a dental home um to do the I mean you were talking earlier about the parents who will never send in the paperwork for free and
073reduced fund the amount of hours I pour into the handful of students who don't have their immunizations or who don't go to the specialist that their Primary Care thinks that they desperately need this specialist evaluation um it is so much time and without the epsdt nurse to come in one day a week or a half half day a week to manage the regular regular flow of sore throats and you know routine concerns I can't do that deep amount of time to reach those allowed students and they can't learn if they need their tonsils out and they have a chronic upset stomach and sore throat so so what I'm hearing from you and I just want to clarify this is that these funds aren't just for having Subs who nurses are out you are asking for
074sub pay for to cover the um basically the minimal medical requirements of these students you need other people to come in and help with this this has been going on I mean I first worked okay in Weathersfield School in January 2001 so epsdt has always been there but my my sub nurses all have full-time jobs one at the VA and okay the rest at DH and $35 an hour is not even in okay of what they could well I'm I'm so I will take a motion to approve $45 an hour well that's what you asked for 40 40 40 yeah they make 35 now I'm happy to raise it does anybody have any discussion on this before I mean we do the motion we okay I motion well there is a budget there is a
075budget number you ran the numb we an agree agreement with the nurses that I would bring this to you at 40 okay I will take a motion to approve $40 an hour so move okay we have a second okay um any discussion does every school have these set nurses that come in certain times a week yeah they all do the same they all do a very similar thing I don't want say same but yes all do the other thing and they all this is an Su program and uh and uh it benefits all the kids in all the schools okay and I don't hear any discussion um I take a roll call vote Sarah I be I Elizabeth I an Marie I Mark I Nancy with us no yes oh no I mean were you
076in the room because sometimes you're in the room and online just online I thank you um that it Amy yeah Davis Amy Amy hi oh there you are okay there's too many of you here Davis Hi um Megan hi hi and I thank you you made a whole lot of nurses very happy um thanks let's uh next after next budget season let's punch the numbers again okay we meet Every Spring with teams um I I can't emphasize enough of medical don't care how important it is yeah yes I have an answer Tina okay okay she says uh no she will be removed from all benefits just allows us to hold her job for you thank you y okay is there any more discussion regarding the extended umy thank you okay uh I will take a
077vote to approve extended attorney leave Sarah Beth hi Elizabeth I an Marie I Mark I Amy I Davis Nancy Nancy doing so good I was doing so well hi thank thank you Davis Hi Megan hi Nikki hi and I I excellent thank you thank you Dina for being so yes she is always okay uh policies we'll try to whip through these as much as we can y uh I will take a motion to approve the local wellness policy so V this is any second okay um is there any discussion I'd have to say this is a fantastically worked on policy overall is there any other discussion I think this is actually probably four I think it is yeah okay if there's no discussion I will call a call vote across the board Sarah I Beth
078I Elizabeth I and Marie I Mark I Amy hi and Nancy hi Davis Hi Megan I I and I'm an i okay I'm opening this up to I actually do have some comments um fori board member conflict of interest um it is the ethical and legal duty of all school board members to avoid conflict of interest as well as the appearance of conflict um is definition I read the same as when I read it this afternoon oh here it is definition conflict of inst situation when a board member's private interest as distinguished from the board's members interest as a member of the general public would benefit from or be harmed by their action as a member of the board that's extremely difficult to understand yeah that's just I mean which is it benefit or and
079whose benefit and who's harm but I I think the idea was to that the it can't be well any conflict of interest has personal gain okay La so the word in some way that it's the that the board member has a um a game or the board has a um is harmed in some way I think that just needs to be lay out very clearly where where is this definition coming from do we know VBA this is the vba's wording I would agree because I would say that every one of us in some way has been hared by the our act that we're on the board right every single anything would be a conflict of interest but I think the definition is and I don't know even understand why harm is in there right because
080a conflict of interest isn't necessarily that the board is harmed in that way but someone is put in a position that uh they do something because they gain something personally right that's a conflict of interest it's not that the board is necessarily we were talking about eggs earlier if I uh negotiated with the Su and was able to sell eggs at $10 a dozen um I I guess that be a conflict of interest I would be gained and the board isn't harmed the Su is harmed yes there is so I think it was talking about why the word harmed is in here is the inverse of that situation where you have a private interest that maybe just at in its starting state is good and an action of the board could negatively impact that private
081interest therefore you would therefore you would not support it that's what it's saying is that you are making a choice based not upon your interest as a member of general public that benefits from the general actions of the board but by some private interest that you have that could be negatively impacted so and so yeah I I think I have less trouble with this I have less of an issue with this wording I guess that I'm hearing because I I think it's pretty clear um but if there's a way we can make it a little bit more like lay readable that's that's cool but it and it just may be the fact that it's just one big run on sentence yeah maybe that's man yeah you want me to try to turn into two sentences
082yeah I guess one of our goals here at we started is that to to be more transparent to the public and if I can't read this someone who spent years and years teaching writing it I can't fully the meaning of it doesn't easily jump out at me then I think to the general public it's gonna be confusing Davis so that that makes sense to me and I I do think that you know we we want to make sure that our policy does have that kind of lay readability I do worry a little bit about going fully into edit mode in things in sort of operational definitions of things like COI yeah so what I wonder it maybe is an alternative of going in and editing it would it be possible to maybe seek out a
083few alternate definitions out there that that have the same meaning but like already exist and maybe have a little clearer wording yeah I think that might be about for time trying to risk I don't feel I mean I could probably come up with some suggestions but I'm I'm not a lawyer to be able to communicate yeah I and I feel like somebody out there has probably written this and if we make changes like that we should probably run it by our honestly yeah so I only my idea an idea is to say materially harmed by their actions because I mean I read this and I was like I'm harmed in every meeting right and but I'm not materially harmed everything and that does seem to have a legal is it the person like it's harming
084the whole PE like the group as a board I'm reading it at the end see that's where I'm confused I guess yeah I'm sorry did hang on Elizabeth thank you also Amy had her hand up she's lowered it um oh I'm sorry can I make a suggestion that you you might not like okay that is uh what if we run it through Ai and say put this into plain language but keep it keep the legal um sentiments accurate yeah I'm open to any suggestions Davis yes the other was really reading your screen except I I think that the conversation I'm here in the room about this is that we have the def definition of COI up here but we're not defining what private interest is right right because that's when we say oh well I'm
085to REO me it's like yeah but we're not talking about your private Interest being harmed right we're talking about that like you we can conceive of if we're not defining private interest it's really easy just to say like well I you know X Y and Z har or benefit is happening in any any moment of this you know what we're doing here um so maybe another thing we could do is make sure that like that we're actually having aidea what when we say private interest what exactly do we needan um you know and I think I can think of examples in the not to distant past where not having an operational definition of that has led us to some some situations yeah that's actually yeah and I really want to get this right because yes
086having a board member at one point be wrongfully accused of having a conflict of interest it just needs to be clear Amy so this is mainly the conflict of interest what I have understood it to be is if as a member of the board for instance Bill your example of eggs I would highly recommend that instead of selling eggs to the Windsor Southeast supervisory Union that you sell them to a different supervisory Union so as not to create right even the the look of conflict of interest it's also when in terms of contracts if your business or your brother's business is submitting a contract that that could possibly be seen as a conflict of interest if that contract wins the bid right there would have to be a really really strong support for that or
087if you're hiring all of your relatives or if you as a board member have a child who is receiving special ed services and you go to all of the IEP meetings and get really demanding that is also potential conflict of interest and it's so it's either benefiting the board member or if a certain board member is is receiving something that is deemed conflict of interest then we're being harmed by that and other board members are being harmed by that yes yeah so I'm I'm yeah I'm not arguing against what they're writing I'm arguing against the fact that um when reading this that is not clear yeah so Elizabeth it's how just I I guess I beg to differ it could be that it's because I've worked with you know being on the vsba board for
088as long as I was and seeing this policy for as long as I did and and I also believe that people who work in businesses also have to have some understanding of conflict of interest so I I think we need to also understand that our public does have more understanding than we're possibly giving them credit for I'm I'm I'm not arguing I'm not saying that the general public I I'm generally saying is that this statement of policy is doesn't clearly Define what a conflict of interest is and I believe that um my reading comprehension is um high enough that I feel if I can't understand it then there's probably a portion of the public that can't understand this passage Elizabeth um and I just want to add that uh part of the reason that this
089is being updated is that the law changed this past session regarding conflict of interest yeah Davis I'll just throw out one more thing because I thought Amy's illustration of like what some examples are helped helped to clarify the language right is it permissible to rather than changing the language maybe we could put in a a definition of private interest after that and then maybe examples of what that would look like I don't I don't see why not because maybe I think that might actually do what we needed to do because again I I I get a little weird about making edits the legal language I think that like there's a reason that those words are in that order the way that they are especially when it has to do with a law changing um you
090know and to A's Point too I think there are it really depends where you're at like that because I work in and around Academia I have to deal with this all the time so it's like yeah that's COI like it's not it's a it's a common concept and operational definition but I can also understand to your point that not everyone is depending on where you're at you're not necessarily going to be coming across it all the time yeah so yeah maybe maybe we can just scaffold around it rather than trying to rewrite it I like the idea of defining public interest yeah private private interest and then I think Amy's some of Amy's examples would really clarify for me yeah as long as you have the language that it's not limited to those examples right
091yeah yeah some examples include but are not limited to and then you know we'll have we'll have another reading and we can okay thank you everybody um volunteer and work study students so then in reading this get back to what it is um one thing I I won't read but I I'm struggling with what's happening in this policy it the second sentence the first sentence is recognizing the value of volunteer and work study students and I like the fact that both volunteer and work study students are defined in the second sentence it's basically saying that has the um that the school district has for the education and safety of its students I I I think that one thing is missing and I may be wrong be wrong before is that what is the supervisory Union
092going to do to um for or do for the volunteers that works on are we supervising them or aiming um well it says appropriate supervision so we would be supervising them appropriately right but it says that the appropriate supervision appropriate supervision of volunteers and work will enhance it's not saying we are going to appropriately supervise volunteers and work study it's just I wonder if it relates to the the screening part though that's explained down below oh under the administ responsibility that's how I read it but okay it's almost a procedure within a policy yeah I don't read it as like ongoing supervision making sure they're doing their job it's like checking to make sure they're safe to come work in our schools or volunteer in our schools that's just me yeah it just it seems
093sort of strange to me that there's nothing in the statement policy that we're going to supervise the volunteers and work studies it's just the statement that says that super appropriate supervision will enhance their constiution yes Davis would that kind of broader definition of supervision fall under General Personnel like more General Personnel policies I'm assuming that a volunteer would those would also apply to them so that may be something that sort of ancillary to what we're talking about here they're not not really actually okay even as something something as as defining what um I don't no there's no there's no statement about what the issue will do it does Define volunteers yes it defines volunteers and defines work study students it just doesn't say in the policy statement what we're going to do it it does
094in the responsibilities right yes it does but again the statement of the policy is really the driving force behind the policy so in the version that I'm reading like there's the red part is taken out so is that how it was written before okay so it looks like before the policy part did have more of like what you're kind of asking for and it looks like it's been kind of separated now into two different pieces right I don't know if it's helpful but I wonder I wonder why why they did it like that but it they're both about screening yeah they're both just about screening and I think that's what they mean by the supervision like we're gonna do the background checks required for them to be in our buildings I don't know it's weird
095word to use but it feels like almost the name of the policy is a little bit broader than it needs to be like screening of volunteers and work study students actually defines what this is doing yeah so I mean with that with clarified if we just added those words to the the header of the policy because this isn't really the overall high level volunteers and work study students policies this is the screening of is there an additional procedure about how I'm just curious like I to what Davis is saying you know that this is just the screening part is there additional things that once you know a volunteer is in like how that supervision is happening or the same thing with work study students or is this it well I think um I think it
096comes down to definition of what that what this is doing are we talking about this the the screening portion of and the supervision of the volunteers or are we just talking about the supervision of the volunteers I don't know I I I'm just confused by it yes DAV so the other the alternate recommendation I would have is that so on the one hand if you wanted to really clarify like this is pretty narrowly a policy about screening you can change the name of it so that when you're looking through policies and see it you know what it's about right the other thing is under and I I don't know I'm assuming we have the ability to do this but under administrative responsibilities we could add a an item four which can come up with some
097more General L which about creating procedures that outline the expect the supervision expectations or you know just something something that covers I think more what you're talking about right like how because Personnel General Personnel policies are not covering this person right this is a statement that says that you know we do have procedures for the current policy which do outline that a little bit okay currently but we revisit them Nancy yes I think you're making it more difficult than it is it's really rather simple and um I think it's just as it's stated that's my yeah but but again my issue is that in the statement of the policy which is the meat of it it should kind of give a hint what this policy is about and it either's in the title or is
098in the statement of the policy this is about uh this is really when you're looking at the administrative respons this isn't just about the screening that's it so so write it at the top and move on I think yeah yeah okay screening thank screening okay um F3 Fire and uh emergency prepair this drill this is really new um this is the first read this is actually the secondary that was I kind of thought I'd seen it before just messed up um and someone went through this and uh did some nice edits um I think this has been cleaned up quite well does anyone else have any other comments straight forward so next month it'll be third read right along prevention of employe employee harassment kind of work on our way to a big voting session
099y next time so on the new name of the policy is employee alel harassment right and uh and reading through this I I thought it read quite well it's clear concise and it takes out some and again Elizabeth um I think this has to do with a change of the law Elizabeth that is exactly right I was I I uh presented this bill um and so any questions that you have about the new law um it really is meant to uh the the Law changes um expands the protection away from um requiring severe and pervasive um uh harassment and uh it also and I hope that that when I hope that you'll have uh um uh procedures that go along with this Christine and and roll it out well to the um staff but a
100couple of couple of things to highlight about it um One is because it doesn't have to be it because severe and pervasive has been removed from the law it does not have to be the person who was targeted who um who uh reports the harassment um and it also does not have to happen the the new law states that it does not have to happen on school grounds or on on the grounds of the place of employment so for example as I I've told Christine um there was an incident last year where uh there was an employee who uh some parents there was a teacher who some parents were talking about on the ski slopes at out at mon Ascutney and uh those those uh parents could have been um had a complaint filed against
101them so uh unfortunately the other side of it is we tried to get students included in this law and I plan to bring that back this year but it means that students uh can have more um protections at their after school jobs than they do inside the classroom and it also means that employees have more more protections than students do but uh yep Christine I did I did um you had a question Elizabeth last time on um uh regarding uh students as employees and I did reach out to our legal councel and their response was um in terms of whether a student can be an employee it likely depends a student who is doing an internship or work study for school credit is likely a student where student paid Tre like an employee so Elizabeth
102thank you I I if if this policy um shows anything um on on on how well the law was written I want to thank you for that this really is a very well written policy I think it's really exciting um yeah I I I think it's also I think we were the fourth state in the country to adopt something like this um and we're the first to make it as expansive as it is so um exciting stuff okay once we once we pass it please spread the word far and wide among employees so that they know definitely that that might be an employee blast yep E20 Community use of school facilities this came up in discussion uh I believe the last regular school board meeting about concerns about I believe was it concerns about um
103use of facility during the day the fields yes yeah um when gym classes are down there yeah yeah and I was looking it over just to see where because we talk about maybe it fits into this policy and um I think we can massage it to include grounds and Fields under administrative responsibilities I mean it does already say superintendent shall establish procedures for the use of school facilities by community members which a minimum may include reasonable time place and manner restrictions on the use of the facilities so I think it's just like clarifying that the grounds are part of that yes just want to go through and and say anytime it says facilities we just say grounds and Facilities yeah is that okay yeah okay then I'll bring it back next month with that no
104is is there any discussion about adding that um I think uh this was brought up in turn to uh especially at Winter High School in which uh there are activities outside on the athletic field and people show up to use the athletic field and that that creates sort of a safety concern the it uh you know not necessarily that it is a safety concern it does create a safety concern yes it is yeah I think I mean my impression of this is that I don't even think the int of this has changed I think that that would just make it a lot clearer exactly what the scope is so right and I think all schools have outside places I don't think we can um expand I don't believe we can expand this to outdoor classrooms
105off school property probably not and I don't think that's the intention of this so okay thank you y field trip um great job well I have one question for you SC that's that's come up um and I have to thank laoren and and Katie Burk who really helped with this as well there is one place where the lawyer is has some concern yeah that is under the procedures okay and it's under um administration of medication perform procedures as delegated by a parent says note only the teacher staff member delegated by the parent May provide the care to the student the delegation cannot be transferred to another school employee unless the parent trains and delegation to that person and signs a new form and what Sean has said is um uh while students are at school
106including on a school field trip they are in your care in local par parenes I believe that the school nurse is your point person for health and medication issues and the nurse can delegate certain nursing responsibilities to other staff I do not think you want a parent as opposed to the nurse to be training people how to administer Med medication okay so this is about it's I think we just change take that language out the parent shouldn't be training no the parent should not be training the person so it should be the nurse so it should be the nurse training the individual who is who is giving the medication yes now there is again Harper does this um there is certain medications that students self-medicate and so for high school students they allow uh parents
107to give approval to their High School okay student to self-medicate um during the field care course these are just yeah these are not narcotic based medications y um okay but that is in the procedure I think you copied that procedure as a reading over yeah we did we definitely did y okay so I'll just think that adjustment bring back we should be to go thank you for get legal advice on that y um school age policy we had some changes made yep at the bottom um my only concern and this is not a concern that I want to answer right I think that um the special ed Department should probably answer this um the application the way I read it a parent can apply by August 1st yes and I think we talked about this
108last is that going to be enough time for them to organize and give the assessment can we say July I believe we said July first I thought it Chang I thought we changed it it was June and the concern was that school's not even done yet and no one's paying attention and I believe we wanted to change it to July July first and so then they had time to plan it yeah it's a very small amount of students who could apply because it's just students who were born in September and they should know as long as this policy is in place you should know well in advance of July so I I'll have Lor change that I thought it was okay I thought we said July think you it's just that you've got yeah in
109service starting August 24th yeah okay that's an easy one I I'm still concerned about the parents having to pay for the like the equity and that piece of it is I understand why we're doing it I understand you know like you've explained but I still just want to voice that I still have a concern about the equity of that piece of it yeah okay any I mean we could put in here if it if it's a hardship on a family we could take that into consideration um call scholarship scholarship yeah I don't know so basically we're not asking them to pay for the assessment so if they had to go find someone else private like I had I it was $1,000 right actually 1100 U we're not asking them to do that we're asking them
110to reimburse the suu if we happen to have to pay someone to come in now if we have if we know and maybe this could be part of the paper application if we know somebody is going to struggle paying anything then we could look at arranging a um a salary person to do it so for example um last year I don't believe anyone had to pay for anything they paid for the they paid directly to the staff member last year okay we bought the we bought the exam as you bought the test of the assessment and then and it cost uh roughly $100 the time but we could find a staff member that we wouldn't have to pay it would be the special ed director or assistant specialist director could do it for no cost
111yeah Katie's done it before yeah the prior year I think if we could put I don't know how other people feel about it but that to me just was still a concern and that's may be a question about within the actual assessment their ability to in the waiver application in the waiver application yeah we can add something add something so if that's going to be assistance be requ yeah assistance required yeah we can do that okay we'll bring that back then yeah so Megan I I agree with you that's that's one of the things okay anti-racial policy this is just a review so I will I just read it over today um does anybody have questions concerns we have want to say DEA but this is not FBI there were some letters sent in I
112don't know if you had time to read them Elizabeth um I my understanding is that one of our problems is that it the policy does not include any kind of recourse or or the procedures I mean I think we should be looking at we because we adopted both policy and procedures at the same time um they're they're both equally important in this particular policy yeah I I I think the issue that came up recently in this a situation that uh what are the part of questions is what are the consequences exactly and and it's not so much that we want to define the consequences within a policy but it might be nice to give some direction somehow yeah so which is why I think we should be looking at the I don't think we necessarily
113need to um change anything in the policy but I think we should look at the procedure the procedures which were also adopted by the board which was unusual for the board but nonetheless uh we should look at the procedures and outline a procedure for violation of the policy yeah so just we are um based on that situation working on an anti policy which is has been sent to the grou Council because we have to do that uh I asked them where they're at they're they're working on it it should be I I hope it's done before our next meeting okay so we can bring that as well to look at and might help um now now I'm not going to push back what Elizabeth said because what she said is AD too I just want
114to point out in if we while while reading the procedure and and um to to be able to allow administrators to there may be something within the procedure that we might want to look at the policy to give administrator that legal ability to enforce the procedure and um but that's putting the horse before the cart and so I I agree with Elizabeth is that we should focus on making the procedure um a more workable uh to a more workable I don't how I want to put this um document when situations arise but after we create that it it may be a good idea to put something in the policy to give it bad and also um they don't necessar they should refer to each other I think yes yeah yeah I agree Davis no I'm
115just I was just looking at because it yeah number eight in our policy statement is that link to like and you will make a procedure to effectively yeah effectively deal with racially motivated conflicts I mean the only change without looking at that procedure and seeing how they can better toward each other um I only wonder if we would change regally motivated conflicts to incidents that's the one and there may be a really good reason the word conflict is there because this actually pre I wasn't around when this initial thing came up but um conflicts almost feels like it's broader in a way that may not be that may that may kind of go beyond the intent of this policy whereas incidence I think is more to me what this talking about yeah but that might
116be again a long discussion that wraps in the procedure well I I I think that came up um with our students joining us and that it was clear that um those that were in that situation were not directly part of the conflict but they were just as affected by those who were um because racm affects all who view it in our present to it Elizabeth maybe we could add and incidents yeah and incidents I think kind of both the other thing is that um uh having read through the comments that were received by the board um I mean by by the letter writers I um um one of the things that Tony picino pointed out was why only anti-racism and when we wrote this policy we uh or when we went through we didn't write
117the policy went through the process of creating the policy um we agreed that uh it all starts with racism we might consider um having another policy that points to other um uh other uh margin conflicts and and and uh conflicts and incidents of other marginalized groups well no I I I was just going to say we might consider having a separate policy that uh refers to the rest another group of marginalized groups that just points to the anti-racism policy um so that the anti-racism policies a standalone but the same rules apply to other groups that's an interesting concept Elizabeth is there any other discussion I think we touched yes what we were getting at is the the no tolerance like that was a question that came up a few times like is that something that
118is going to be addressed in the procedure and like no tolerance means something to to me but it clearly means like things in different situations and how can that be defined and Nancy I agree with Elizabeth that there are many more groups that might uh not fall just so nicely under anti-racism that all have to be addressed okay somebody's pointed out to me where we no tolerance language is located it wasn't in this zero Toler sorry I don't think it was in this but it was in I think it's in the procedure okay and it had come up at with families and other things before so it's on the statement we're supposed to post in our got it as well I think that that underscores the value of looking at them next to each other
119B I is zero sorry I said it so moving on I have to apologize we we've had some wonderful guests tonight and we are at 8:30 um but I will hand it off to uh the administrative report do you um I am happy to um sit out if if the board so chooses and let Angie go uh she's worked really hard on a data report and I want to make sure she gets to it tonight okay is that okay that's sorry you thought you could go is that okay with you an yeah um do you want I can just share my screen um Ian thank you for coming thank you for staying what's wrong um my apology to the board for not getting the data report to you um I've been uh just to say
120I've had nine Title Nine cases since the beginning of the year U one of those was a hold over from last spring but it disrupts my work tremendously and also requires immediate attention so um I will share this out with you um because I think it's going to be challenging to see some of the numbers on on the slide so um I was thinking that if there was any comments or questions people could always um I don't know how to how would I address those would they email me separately or would we address them next time we could address them next time yeah yeah yeah I think that probably makes you know if if sharing it out and then allowing people time to digest it and then yeah I am more than happy to a
121little bit okay thank you for being flexible just's been working on this diligently I want her to be able [Applause] to another window open somewhere like oh jeez TS sorry about that trying to get it I never TS just get rid of this other oops and myself sorry about that it's already too late off I po right off the screen now oh I didn't expect that you were going to um I know I just was looking at the time have to present I do not have um anything about the summer work I'm thinking back we had about maybe 20 um folks we had a team come together in um July that worked on got started on the local literacy plan which is part of the um agency of education's approach to early literacy and providing
122um certain things that or outlining what things schools will provide to support early literacy and um then that was in July and then in August right before school started we had um a couple groups come in to work on actually we had different grade level groups come in to work on curriculum uh looking at the scope and sequence um coming to an agreement of what units and and the Order of the units and how they would proceed in terms of what might be left out what might be addressed and that work will continue um on November 1st justay do you see where that tab is cu it's right below that and I can't get to it to say okay what's your screen size is you got it got it I guess I just wanted it
123to go faster go here and I turn into the slideshow then I should be able to scroll through the slide because I I don't like this thing showing can I get the bar to go down you're asking a lot I auto there we go all right sorry about that so well I guess it's not too bad and I can't I can't make it larger um so we had um so what what you're seeing so I'll go through it I have slides for the star reading and I have slides for the star math so um and this is an assessment given to um in the fall given to first grade through 10th graders um and in Winter kindergarten join so the it says K8 but the fall data really um only includes um first through 10th
124for Math and second through 10th for reading because we give our first graders in the fall the early literacy assessment what this um and I think you can see the the size of the bars the top um set of numbers is the levels and these cor correspond with State assessments so red is um is significantly below Ben uh below proficient uh the next one down right here is below just below um proficient then the blue is proficient and the green is above proficient so this shows us we started with star reading you may recall we piloted it in at the the last half of 2223 school year and then last year was our first full year so what we're um what we're looking at here is we're comparing fall to fall which gives us an
125idea of whether or not our programs may we could do a theory of action that our programs may be impacting um learning in in the way that we would expect so I think I think the language is that the red is an urgent need and the yellow is in need of intervention and so and I think St uses those languages even though it's yet level one two three four yeah and because I use the Vermont state levels it pro it gives it to us in this this came right from yeah edge of climber so um so you can see that what we're what we want to do is we want the top two bars to get to shrink and we want the bottom two bars to grow in this second in the bottom graph and
126there is a slight there is slight movement toward the bottom two bars increasing in terms of percentage so we went from um aditions from 23 to 24 and a half% so almost a full more than a full percentage point but okay but what always confuses me with star is that when looking at the State Testing in the State Testing green is at ver and blue is above so I I was thinking that maybe this vertical bar graph is a little bit um well it's a horizontal bar graph but it's read vertically down the graph might be easier to show the relationship between the top two bars from year to year and the bottom two bars from year to year um and then I continue to follow the same pattern throughout so then ninth and tth
127graders take star and then our math scores so k a uh it's really first through 8 we uh that top bar went from 38 to 34% and then the next bar down goes from 21 to 24% so that shows that we're moving some of students out of the significantly below into the below um and then our uh blue and green go up respectively um 20 from the blue goes up one whole percentage point and the um the last one is relatively the same it's about a half percentage Point showing some movement forward which is encouraging overall yes and just one thing that you know because the I'm assuming because the numbers of students are different it's not necessarily it's not necessarily saying that we're losing people in that highest category by like by students it's
128just the number is changing because they're that's never gonna be a perfect exactly no but it is based on a percentage of students y so um but in in if this was live which it's like in CL you can hold your mouse over and you can see the numbers and that sort of thing it's clearly turning in the right direction which is great the other thing that happen I know about is that the comp no no the computer adaptive piece is not based upon a single test it's it's cumulative and being an only only a 20 minute test uh about the fourth time a student takes the Tas then they're starting at the correct location so each time you take a test it starts you at the corre at your level that you ended up
129last time instead of so if you get a new student and it's the first time they taking star your accuracy is going to be not as high as it's your your reliability is not going to be quite so high as a student who has Tak it several times and if they use it for Progress monitoring in between the testing Windows this only reports the testing windows that also is training the program for that particular student it's not just Bas testing so we um this is not super encouraging our uh top two uh have increased on the for this year we are doing a lot of work in the nine um n particularly with our nth graders and our 10th graders in math and um at Windsor School in particular they're also looking at math practices
130from grade sixth seventh and eth into the high school as they those programs feed into their high school and is it the same ninth and tth graders or is it last year's nth and 10th compared to this year's and 10th it's that's last year that's the same as all of them are comparing two different cohorts of students but it looks it it's more a an explanation of the curriculum so if you look at it there you might want to dig deeper in that like so why are more students um below and significantly below than were last year um it seems like instead of going uh in the direction we want them to go they went the other direction so that would be a good question to them dive in into that data deeper and which
131uh Bridget Fiel is doing with her team uh with the team after high school and with the whole math the middle level and the high school math yeah so the question I would have is the blue above were all those 10 most of those 10th graders who have moved on to 11th grade this year right I think it is a cohort strength too so we had a um if you looked at eth grade last year that might give you an indicator um because many of those ninth graders would be in the 2425 data okay so now we're going to look at our marginalized groups data I and I put these this is a really small so I apologize for that so the top this is our economic Advantage so the top is students who um
132Can who qualify for paid lunch and the bottom is students who qualify for free and reduced lunch so the top is are economically advantaged from 23 from Fall of 20 three to fall of 24 last year fall to this year fall and there is some forward movement I'm particularly focusing on the bottom two bars as they are showing that they are getting longer and that's that's how we want them to that's closing the Gap that starting to okay so but then when we look down at the economically disadvantage it's comparing all students who are paid in who qualified for free and reduce to all students who qualified for free and reduce from one year to the next uh our percentages in that that category did go up and I'm not exactly sure how AG of
133climber takes that data if it's if it's the same cohort as students or if it's percentages from previous year to this year so um but still it shows that the um the blue the the reddish the top are bar is shrinking and the the bottom two bars are are not losing anything and actually gaining a little some to see the three levels Nancy reduced um what would the do you have the number of students in that I canot yeah I can't I can't give the number of students because it may be identifiable um in in these in these graphs so in the marginalized I don't have any of the numbers just the percentages of students this graph you're looking at Compares male at the top to female students it is showing that both groups are
134making gains for reading this is reading keep in mind any questions on gender this graph is showing our students who are not on IEPs at the top and something was happening with edge of climber and I could not get the 24 25 like I couldn't get this fall so just and I also so I had to I created it in sheets and so I can't mess with the colors in sheets so anyway it it's the same bar the same bar so the top one is red then it's yellow blue and green um and so Rel even though that it's the the scale is different relatively um here in the fall you had about 26 and 34 so what's that 60% last year who were at or above provision and this year you have about 65%
135at or above so that's for students who are not on IEPs in the bottom um graph we are looking at students who are on IEPs so we are showing some slight movement in the top bar from significantly below and um then the yellow is almost the same it's three difference but that blue is very encouraging showing that we have moved um it's going from 10.6 to 15.4 four the third bar down so because this is students on IEPs also keep in mind it could be that a student with an IEP moved in a student with an IEP moved out and so it might not be Apples to Apples exactly it might be um we just have to be careful about drawing to uh that being super confident that what we're seeing is that thing we
136just have to know that there's a possibility that it's not exactly that so over time it becomes more reliable as we if we continue to see this trend okay math so math for the this is the economic Advantage Slide the top is showing students who are paid are a paid lunch status and the bottom is showing students who are paid reduced I mean I'm sorry free and reduced status both graphs show that the significantly below is shrinking from the fall 23 Administration to the fall 24 Administration this is the male to female top is male bottom is female you may have expected larger gaps between male and female um and this is these graphs are not showing that to be true overall yes you the top graph is for students who are not on IEPs
137let me tell you that number so in the bottom two grids it's like 28 and 17 what's that 55 you make it do math 28 and 17 45 to over here is 28 and 19 so 37 no that can't be right I 47 47 so 45 47 a top math I can't actually add on the Fly the red is concerning in math for students on I APS one of the things we've been talking about in the mtss coordinators uh meetings is looking at math interventions we um purchased curriculum uh the curriculum office Grant last year that was one of the Esser funded little grants for um Bridges interventions which is a um it's a foundational Intervention Program for math um so even if you have students who are middle level or above they could still
138use those materials um to help support students in learning foundational um Concepts and there are some uh we were discussing different interventions that are used for students on with IPS who are being serviced with special Educators and the programs they're using so this is something that that team is looking at one of the things that worries me just from a personal standpoint on the math is that um the math score is highly influenced by the reading ability yeah so you're not even just testing ma you're testing that and reading that's right and I think but I think the um there's we want to we want to make sure that we're not forgetting this is about conceptual understanding too so um we hear that and we think that sometimes that's why reading gets more attention than
139math and it should be right no I know right yeah um it's just hard when get things wrong because they couldn't read the question and they try to mitigate that because this can be read to students the test has that but it still isn't the the same if you still have comprehension issues you can have them orally right yeah so so that can be read to students yeah not it depends on your on your accommodation accomodations yeah okay so this section is talking so we had some data that overlaps um these two areas of our strategic plan this is attendance data and in um in edge of climber our rate a rate of than 95% is what's desired so this shows um by this by the school district two as of this says November 15
140this is last year's We're not gonna look at that this one's this year's okay the look at last year's 91.8 five and then 90.67% to for Weathersfield and overall Windsor Southeast is 93.78 last year as of November 15th WSU was 94 so were all the other schools as sick as Heartland this fall or is Heartland particularly sicker last fall yeah I guess they just sicker or they keep their KS yeah or we keep our kids then 912 um this is last year's 94.87% and this year 94.0 7 and I mean we also have 15 fewer days on here too or 18 something like that think I need that one so then looking at culture and wellness we looked at the minor behaviors so this is uh the top graph the darker line is 2324 data
141and the bottom line is to date so that's 24 to 25 data so these incidences so each of those sections is 200 so it looks like the difference from this to this is over a 100 yeah can you scroll that way to see how the year end it out or is that not no oh it's that bar does not work and then major behaviors again there there's um it's it's tracking significantly less great um that's encouraging I hope that that can I wonder if in the buildings they would rep agree that that's feels like that are measured results actually two things can be happening and and both of them are positive right one is there's just fewer behaviors the other positive possibility is that more behaviors are are being handled internally by teachers itself right
142I guess the third possibility is they're just not reported reporting so and we also got rid the Cs that's right I was gonna say this is year to with that policy I mean I'm not saying correlation to this causation here we have the cellep phone policy and I mean we are essentially fully staffed this year and I think that you know when you're not that the stress translates across every involv in the system and I it wouldn't shock me if there wasn't closed this will be interesting to look compare the whole year to absolutely so the measured results assessment is the leader and me survey that we do at the end of the year and I'm putting this slide up and there's a few more um uh descriptive slides so overall in our continuous Improvement
143plan we're looking for a five point increase on this and so that would translate to two to three this year and then two to three next year um this does include the four buildings it starts with Albert bridge then it's Weathersfield then it's Windsor and then Heartland um I will tell you a little bit more about what's contained in the leadership culture and academic scores when we go to the next slide so leadership includes um so this is just the score I think it's on a 100 point scale but I'm not exactly sure um so the family leadership includes family community engagement which is family school and Family Partnership family engagement Community engagement so the questions on the measured results assessment address those particular areas um student leadership includes personal development positive well-being self- advocacy
144interpersonal development and pro-social behaviors and then staff ership over here which is this blue section of the ply graph personal Effectiveness and interpersonal Effectiveness so our leadership um our leadership leader team leadership leadership team um addresses this is the focus of their work is um working to improve these areas then our culture team is looking at two things supportive environments for students including student enement School belongings School climate and trusted relationships and the other side of that is supportive environment for staff which includes staff voice and Collective advocacy so we have a 76.2 score and a 75.2 score there and then academics looks at four different areas life Readiness which is group collaboration and future Focus goal achievement which is student goal support student student goals and school goals and those are our wigs which
145you hear us talk about from time to time um and also those are um em embodied in our student Le our student portfolios leadership portfolios that students do and then just talk about at their student Le conferences in the spring it looks at empowering teachers for instructional efficacy and student Le practices and then empowered Learners which looks at social supports and academic selfefficacy um students leading narrow learning essentially there those scores around that P life Readiness was 80 empowered empowering teachers is 72 73.7 five for empowered Learners and 69 for goal achievement our M doesn't get um a ton of uh participation we need to include that so that's what one of the things that we're working on we we this gives us a lot of interesting data to be actionable and we just need
146would like more people to take it it happens in May though and that's our time of year so we just have to figure out how to get more there's no other assessments happening in May no other no other surveys either yeah no not at all so thank you that's what I have for you thank you okay I will apologize that uh another half an hour I think we tried to pack a lot into did did um Tracy's on the docket I can deliver my report at the local meetings if you want most of it yeah um because it's a repeat I pull out things anyway I'm happy to do that yeah I can go next next month we have just my report and the budget discussion item is budget adoption if we're ready for that
147next month yeah and I'd like to cut down on policies yeah I because what we had nine that we looked at we had I don't know how it got that big to be honest with I think next month we're gonna Sunset most of them we had a couple come back we had a couple come back there's a big W that all kind of came yeah I mean after that starting in December we've got um well we had four but we had a curriculum development and cordination on request work on loc yeah and to help move the budget along I will I've got all your notes about the percentage of the money and uh an Marie's note about the chart of accounts differences and the salaries and I'll uh what I'll do is when I when
148I get all your notes into the budget book I'll just reshare it back out to the board okay it's a live document it's on the website so it'll automatically be updated but I'll just let you know that I've done it and it's here you go your notes you want to move Tracy to next month yeah and I'd like to give her more time they give more time cut down C things but I will say I will share one like something that was anecdotal because I think it connects to what we were just looking at with major or minor like some of the folks in high school were just sharing in at a meeting the other day about how they feel like students are doing some some things less than they were because of how we
149responded to some of the things that have happening year I just want to share that there may be you know that may also be think maybe some of showing up that's great all that data look encouraging thank you I will take a motion to end this meeting so move 8:0 8:30 bill is good ear do what do you want me to well we can talk about the policies I mean most of them should be like yeah quick but we'll take less maybe just third just third reads next month