001ledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation and justice for all. >> You could please remain standing for a moment of silence for Anne Shakonsky, former Clinton public schools teacher. Thank you. To order the school committee meeting for Monday, August 25th, a motion to approve the bills, please. >> So move. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Thank you. We had a motion to uh approve the minutes from the August 11th, 2025 school committee meeting, please. >> So move. Second. >> Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? >> I. >> Great. Thank you. Is there any public comment this evening? Being none, we'll close public comment. Anything from the CTA? >> Welcome. PTA, >> of course. >> Nothing. That's
002great. >> Oh, no. I have to speak now because you weren't here this morning. Oh wow. >> Yikes. >> Sorry mic doesn't fall over or anything. Um so good morning, afternoon, evening. I do not know what time it is. Um and for all of you who are here this morning. Bless your hearts. Um it's been a long day. So we've kicked off 2025 26. Um we currently have 34 members logged into our givebacks database. Um, but we have a lot of paperwork to process from this morning which none of us have touched. So, we will do that and hopefully have an increase on that topic. Bill, I'd like you to personally to be a member and Jane, I'd love to invite you as well. >> Thank you. >> Is this just passive bullying or is
003this >> Did they go over bullying today in the opening comments of the day? No. >> No. And had I been able to actually speak at this morning's thing when Becky decided she would do it anyway, um, I just would like to reiterate that Dr. Dr. Meyer was the first person to join >> I heard that >> PTA for this year which was really nice. >> Congratulations Dr. >> and a shout out to Jenna Crafty for being number two >> because we thought it was a teacher and you did win. So there you go. Um we had a successful morning this morning. It was over in a blink of an eye even though most of you probably were still doing stuff afterwards. Great speech this morning by the way. >> Aside from calling out your
004family. Very nice. My daughter avoided the microphone at all costs. Um so sponsorship and membership is open. It is um a continuous thing. So businesses and individuals can support us through the membership sponsorship. We are not doing uh fall bingo. We do not have a calendar for this year. Those are the ways to support PTA and then get into our newsletter on our Facebook page um and be involved in events that way. Um to let's see, I met with Christie. We had um an hour chat in her office and I have to say about 45 minutes of it had nothing to do with the CPS website. Um but I did learn a lot about the history of some of the PTA stuff which was amazing. Um if you have not checked out some of the
005Greenlight Studios archives um go do that. Search Lipub and um see some great history. Okay. you'll recognize a lot of friends who are here now, which was really kind of cool for some of us who have only been a part of the school district for a couple years. Um, and it was great to see that kind of uh extra attitude that we sometimes have and it did exist before us. So, it was kind of cool to see. Um, tomorrow we're doing um the CTA lunchon with Miss Dessa and we will partnership with her um with that. The let's see, the booster glow run is opening registration on August 27th. We'll have an additional newsletter and a Facebook update when that is ready to go. The Scholastic Bookf Fair will take place during Old Home Day,
006Saturday, September 6th from 12:00 to 5:00. We are looking for volunteers for that. It's a quick span, 12:00 to 5, honestly. I mean, even an hour of register help is awesome. Um, and our first meeting will be October 2nd, 6:15 at the CPS offices um on School Street. I think that's it. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> We made it through. I think this is the longest day of the year. Is it not? >> I think for all your support. >> Thank you. >> Anything this evening from CPAC or LPAC? Okay, >> you Dr. Meyer. >> All right. Uh, couple quick staffing updates. Uh, since our last meeting, we hired two ABAs, uh, Mary Beth Ramos and Desiree Tinkati. Uh, actually met with a third one this afternoon, uh, who was also assigned on board.
007And with that, we are fully staffed. So, we have all of our positions filled. Um the just going into the opening of school obviously kind of heard we had the opening of school today. Everyone came back. Uh I think it went pretty well. Uh we didn't have any major issues going around the building. Seems seem things things seem to be pretty smooth. Uh you know it's normal stuff. Uh I saw the uh the fire chief and the building inspector were going around today. There were just some little things they pointed out. Just minor things but just all that stuff we want to get taken care of. Uh so um excited for the for the start of the school year. Um and we'll get going. In your packet, the one thing I did include and I
008can't remember if I put this in I don't think I gave this to you before or not, but there is a uh drawing of the middle school traffic pattern. Um just so we did send that out in an email to parents. Uh but the so the parent loop is reopened. If you haven't uh seen it, it's it's it's kind of tight, but it's uh we practiced by driving a bus around it and bus got through. So, um and the uh so that's all set to go. They got some new striping and uh crosswalk areas marked off in the parking lot. Um so, we're hoping that uh that should all go. They I know they've started putting a lot of the fencing up uh on top of the Jersey barriers. There's supposed to be a screen
009that'll go across that. So hopefully they'll have that up by Wednesday and uh you know we'll see how it goes. They are willing to you know when we did have a meeting to go over this a couple weeks ago and uh with the police and everybody and the you know they're willing to respond. So if we say something's not quite working they can go right out there. They'll move jersey barriers. They'll do whatever we need to do. So um right now we're going to we'll try this and see what happens. And you know, they said it can be as simple like if something doesn't work in the morning, they can probably get someone there to move a jersey barrier by the afternoon, you know, so they're on site. They can do that. So, we'll uh
010we'll go from there. But otherwise, I said it was I think it was a pretty uh pretty good opening today. Probably the biggest hiccup was uh my technology uh blunder, but that's okay. So, we managed to overcome and uh I'm looking forward to all the kids coming back. Although it seems like I feel like with all the with the freshman orientation and the sports and everything, it just feels like the we're kind of back back in the swing of it today. So, uh be good to get the school year off officially on Wednesday. Um one of the things that we did go over this morning was some of the technology updates we've made. Um, so have uh tonight we have uh Chris Tahan here, our director of technology to kind of go over a little
011bit of these uh summer projects and some of the changes and he's not going to walk you through the technology plan page by page but uh he has been putting this together with the tech department sharing with the admin team. Just wanted to kind of get that in your hands. Uh we're not looking for like a formal approval of it tonight. It's but if you have any feedback on it certainly we can uh go from there. So go ahead Chris. >> Good evening. >> Hey Chris. Lou. So, yeah, we're back. Uh, super exciting. Um, the summer went by pretty quick. Uh, I feel like we got a lot done. Um, I just wanted to start with some boring infrastructure upgrades. So, our elementary school, which has kind of been lagging behind in speed the last
012couple years, we were able to quadruple their speeds uh over the summer. So, in real terms, they went from 500 megabytes to 2 gigs. Um, we're also sharing that line with central office. So, central office was at like 50 megs. So, now it's lightning fast. Um, which not only helps obviously our staff at central office, but uh the adult ed program and other things going on in that building as well. Um, and then we also tied together the fieldhouse at the athletic fields um with the high school and middle school. So, now we're pumping uh about four gigs of speed uh into that fieldhouse. So, and that's again for future expansion um if the budget allows to be able to throw some outdoor wireless access points and kind of light up that field. So, uh
013this summer we were able to procure uh new student Chromebooks for our grade nine. So, they'll get them on Wednesday. Um we're also able to procure some iPads for our special education department. Um, so not that it's been a real issue in the past, but um, after a need is identified, then it's like, okay, a purchase orders create or quotes created, a purchase order is created, and then before you know it, it's two weeks, and then the student gets the device. So, we were able to kind of backfill both our licensing for some of the programs that these students need and the iPads. So, um, we're hoping this year, if we estimate it correctly, that, um, there really should be no overlap, meaning we identify a need, we able to get the iPad in the
014students and staff members hands that same day or that next day. Um, and then we also did a big upgrade this uh, summer at uh, CES. So, um, out of the 60 or so staff devices we purchased, um, 50 of them ended up going to the elementary school to the elementary school teachers. So, uh, we wanted to make a big push there just because of not only the size of that staff, but also the size of the the amount of IAS they have. So, trying to cycle devices and try to get our uh our general ed uh teachers and some of our special teachers some uh some better technology. Uh, I don't know if you've heard, but we're trying to go completely paperless back to school. Um, so we opened that up uh last week
015and uh we've seen some good results so far. We got about 40% of parents that have logged in and completed their back to school verification forms at the elementary school. We're at about 30% at the high school and a little over 50% at the middle school. So, um those are promising numbers. Again, in years past, we wouldn't have any of this in right now because they'd be getting it the first day of school in paper form. So, the fact that we have anything back, um around a district, we're about 44 45% return. So, um that includes emergency contacts, medical information, um signoffs and handbooks and and other things like that. So, um good information. Now, it's all stored in Infinite Campus and we're able to kind of query that and throw that into reports and
016have all that information, uh you know, for everybody to share if needed. Uh we're also again just uh continuing all our integration with um Google Classroom, with Clever, with all our online assessments. So, I think we're ready to go for Wednesday when everybody comes back. I know our uh the three schools like to do their initial assessments that first week or two when the students come back. So, everything looks promising for that. And uh we've also continued this summer uh pushing our Sentinel One cyber security software on any remaining uh PCs, laptops, MacBooks that uh we had in the district. Uh Dr. Dr. Meyer touched upon it uh this morning with staff, but we are pushing uh I talked about it in the past with the school committee multiffactor authentication. I think we gave some
017great reasons why they should do it. Um so um I checked today we have about 60 staff members that have done it uh over the last 24 hours. So actually mostly the last 12 hours. So that's a good sign. Um again that just keeps their accounts safe, other accounts safe and I think it's going to limit some of the fishing attacks that we've seen in the district over the last couple years. Um, we did have a network audit in May uh through our cyber security firm. Um, I gave us a B minus. That's what he gave us, but I'm still, you know, he was C plusB minus. Um, we have another uh audit in the fall. Um, the reason for the B minus is we did have a number of rogue devices on our network
018um that were they could be security cameras, they could be old computers that were plugged in the wood shop that have been plugged in for, you know, 16 years and nobody knew it was there. So, this summer we kind of went around and were able to compile all of them together and and either put the cyber security software on or actually pull them off our network. So, we're hoping for some better results uh in the fall. Any questions so far? I got one more quick subject. Uh so plans for upcoming for this year. So we are looking to um continually uh make our uh our our scores and our assessments uh localized all in one place. So, um, this year we're looking to integrate some of the, uh, assessments that, uh, the schools do, whether
019that's I Ready, Il, or STAR testing, and actually migrate those into our LMS and Google Classroom. So, not that it counts as like a test score or quiz score, but it's actually going to be visible all in one place. And then with the Google classroom tools and the AI and the the Gemini that's built into it, uh they might be able to kind of track trends and better, you know, with the with their uh curriculum that they're providing every day in the classroom versus the, you know, three or four times a year that the students are taking those assessments. So, that's something we're working on. Uh we signed a new five-year deal with T-Mobile in May of this past year. So we are able to offer uh students that are in need um 5G mobile
020hotspots for free for the next 5 years. So we have a contract through 2030. So that's no cost to the district. So that was great to extend that for another five years. Um we are making a high priority this year to make sure not only the website continually is updated but the calendar is up to date. So we do have a district calendar in which the building principles, the admin team and all the building secretaries uh are all on. So, we're going to kind of use that and just just pound out uh as many uh uh events that we can up on the calendar and keep uh the public up to date on what's going on in the schools. Uh then the other stuff is just some capital purchases that we're looking to do in
021next budget cycle for next year. Um things through. Uh we have some configuration changes and some hardware switches we need to do between the middle school and high school to get ready for the new school system and and the dem uh them demolishing the old CMS uh school. Uh some upgraded phone system bids and some clock and PA systems at the elementary school. So that's things we're looking forward to for this school year. Uh and then Dr. Meyer mentioned you should have a technology plan that we've been working on over the last year or so. Um, in years past like technology plans were like heavily equipment based. You know, I remember presenting one like 10 12 years ago and I was like the high school is now 30% covered for wireless internet and like everyone
022thought that was amazing and if I said that to you today I'd be fired. Um so but again that was only 10 12 years ago and it shows you how far we've come where the focus of this technology report is it is focused on equipment but a lot of it is on digital citizenship and um the use of AI and the use of data and the use of analytics and public outreach um and goals that we have and uh personalized learning through the use of technology. So, um, it's very different because even though we need to maintain and continue to upgrade our hardware and equipment in the schools, those goals of being 100% covered or every student having a device or every teacher having a device or every teacher having a projector or interactive TV,
023like we've reached those goals. Now, we're just maintaining those goals. Now we're focused on, you know, the use of AI, how social media interacts with technology, how it interacts with the schools, how we can better communicate, how we can better teach our students the proper ways to use technology. So um not the easiest thing to write, but um again, look look over feel free to send me a note if you want and constructive criticism I love. So uh let me know. Um but uh and then maybe at a future date we can talk about it a little bit more in detail. you know, if I revisit that, one of the next scheduled uh technology updates later in the uh late fall, early winter, I think >> I just have one question and forgive me if
024I have the timing wrong or I missed an update somewhere along the way and I'm not remembering. I feel like a year ago maybe or so, we were trying to digitize and migrate IEPs and 504s digitally. That came with a hiccup. We decided to back off that because it was in the best interest of the district at that point in time. >> Yep. Do we have a move forward plan on digitizing those documents? Is that has that been done and I just missed it? >> Yeah, so we we are doing it. We're just still doing it through um Eastbed, which was the provider beforehand. Um but the goal of um collaboration within Eastbed and then taking that IEP and then digitally sending it to the parents or guardians for approval, revisions, I accept, I decline.
025These are the reasons. We're we're doing that all through uh Docu Sign. >> Great. >> Thank you. Yep. >> So the whole paperless um you know the signatures and all that and all those you know parents of today don't get to do the lovely form filling out when you have multiple children. >> Um is there is there like help like help line or something that a parent could call if they're either they don't have the technology available to them or whatever to be able to fill it out or >> Yeah. So that's a that's a great question. So, we do have an email that's dedicated to that. Um, you know, Christy Leil and I both look at that email. Um, we try our best to get back to everybody as fast as we can. Um,
026to me it's sometimes too it's about timing because we're we're trying to time the release of the forms with sending out like activation codes for parents that don't have maybe an online portal. And then, you know, after that all settles, okay, who's still struggling and let's reach out to them. Let's coordinate their email. We'll get them a password and we'll help them navigate through that. Um, but yeah, it's uh, you know, over the last parents were were we had just posted the forms last week and Dr. Meyer's email hadn't even gone out yet saying they were available and we had like 40 done within the first like 20 minutes. >> Oh, that's great. Um, and like we were getting emails from even staff members that have students in the district saying, "Hey, uh, this link
027is broken." Like, well, it's we just posted it. Like I was going through it to make sure everything looked good and they didn't give us enough time, you know. So, um, >> so yeah, I'm I'm very very happy. I think in years past, I think I've come like, oh, 50% of parents have portal accounts and 60% now. We're at 86% right now um of of at least uh one student or a student having at least one parent with a portal account. So we're down to about 14% and again I haven't looked at that number over the last week but um that number is much higher. Um but yeah to answer your question we we do have a dedicated email that is shot out by the building principles, by Dr. Meyer, by myself and um we
028try to be as responsive as we can to it. And I think a lot of times too we try to uh usually remind people of that on like the open house nights and that type of stuff and maybe have like family outreach available. Uh sometimes our family leaison can help particularly if uh there's any type of uh language barrier that could be um hindering the ability to do that too. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Thanks Chris. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh some more building updates. Uh in your packet is the uh revised committee. We sent this to the MSBA um each year kind of following elections and everything. We just try to kind of update it just to make sure that once the
029new boards have appointed their committee um and so we had a few changes on here this year. Um and we will uh so we'll continue to uh just work off of that. The um groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for September 5th. Uh that is next Friday uh from 11 to 12. Uh, so we've been working on finalizing that program, getting the speaking and the arrangements going. Um, so, uh, Matt, I think you and I talked about you probably not having a school committee speaker, I believe. >> Not if you're going to have those other like half a dozen or so folks. I don't know that it really makes a lot of sense for us to have to worry about that. >> Okay. Um and then um we will have you know we do have a representative
030from the MSBA speaking uh Senator Cronin's office uh make coin's office representative KO's office I think uh Julie Cruz is going to say some things for the selectman so they'll be there'll be a lot of speakers >> you're speaking as well right I'll be doing I'll be doing kind of the walk and uh Tyler will do uh brief remarks with some students um so we'll get that set up it'll be down in the corner kind of near the construction entrance sort of right in front of school. Um, so we'll kind of have the state we're going to probably put the graduation stage there kind of on the sidewalk with some chairs in the driveway in the parking lot and um the sound system so that when you're facing the podium, you kind of see the
031construction site in the background. Um, and we'll go from there. Our rain plan it would be just to move the speaking component to the inside uh in the gym and then we would just go from there. So, um, you know, it's I was kind of already working on some remarks and it's like, you know, clearly we've already broken a lot of ground. This is more sort of ceremonial so that we can thank all the people that helped make get us to this this point. So, um, and our next meeting, uh, I think right now it is the 17th is what they're shooting for. Uh, it was originally going to be September 9th. Um, but I think that they there was a request to push it back so that we could get the back the the
032bills are getting a lot bigger now and there's a lot more backup for them. So they the request was to get that documentation to the committee prior to earlier so they could review it more thoroughly. Um, so they wanted to push it back probably to the to the the week after and uh the 16th, but the 16th we already have another permanent building committee meeting for the library projects. I believe it's going to be Wednesday the 17th will be the the school building committee. And uh I think that's all I have. Okay. Under the chairperson's report this evening, uh, Kelly, thanks for listing all the new advisory committee arrangements. Um, I know we have a safety committee meeting on the 3. I think we could probably start thinking about when we want to start the
033other subcommittee meetings up again. I know with like marketing as an example, I think we used to pick like whatever it was like we picked a a Monday start we come a little earlier. So if that if that sort of if that works Tina for us we could probably do that again >> and then we'll round up and get together and just make sure I I would say the goal should be from a subcommittee perspective. let's get a first meeting on the books between now and say like you know end of September just so we're kind of kicking off the year unless there's something Steve that is specific that should wait um based upon your opening of school things you're kicking off and if there's certain subcommittees where it makes sense to wait then I'll
034I'll look to you for direction on that >> yeah I'd say I mean I just September sometimes goes by pretty quickly with all the other things so maybe more like mid October but we'll get something on the books pretty soon yeah so we have it >> at least get everything scheduled by No, that'd be great. I know safety usually comes with the opening of schools anyway. >> Probably the one action item we have tonight is the negotiations one. So, we do have the IA MOA in your packet. Uh the IIA had a union meeting today. At the end of the day, they did approve the MOA. Um so, if the school committee approves it, we can move forward with that uh agreement and we should be able to make the changes for the first payroll.
035I'll entertain a motion to approve the MOA with the IIA. So move, Mr. Chairman. >> I'll second. >> Any discussion, questions? >> All in favor? >> Great. >> Awesome. >> Yeah. >> And just to be clear, I have no problem with it. Could be a conflict. So think >> All right. Um, I'll just say it's really not under advisory committees as much as just because under facilities. I did have an opportunity to talk with uh Brian Farrager. I think I called him on like a Tuesday in the morning and wanted to set the schedule for walkthroughs of the different buildings and the facilities. And within that same hour and a half or so, I had talked to Jane, I talked to Brendan, and Brian's like, "Let's do them today." So, we all were able to
036get together and cover, I don't know, four buildings and the grounds within a couple of days. So, those have all been done. Everything looked great. Um, I specifically was at the high school, but um everything's, you know, ready to go and the the building was in great shape. I think, you know, we had we had heard some buzzing from the Tina's Tina's old buzzing sound in the auditorium that we were like, "What's that buzzing sound?" You know, they figured out what that was and and that's that's a fix that's coming. So, it's great. Uh but ultimately, you know, I think, you know, we had the report the previous meeting from Brian. I think Brian does a great job, right? He notifies us. He keeps us in the loop of the projects that are going on.
037We always have a readout of what's in flight and what's planning for the future and sort of what he's doing to work with the town to make those things happen for the for the staff and for the kids. So, overall, I thought they went really well, but I'll defer to my colleagues for the walkthroughs they did if there's anything specific that they wanted to talk about, but we did get those done this week. Just as a side, Mr. Chairman, I've taken it upon myself to try to visit the fifth facility of the school department on a weekly basis. I take a walk through on the project. Superintendent has been very gracious, giving me the courtesy I need to get around and just keep eyes on things. Very professional management project. >> That's great and valuable
038for us for sure. I mean, we want to make sure we're getting everything that we had hoped is in a project as large as it is. So, that's great. Awesome. Um, anything under old business? Anything under new business? Nothing under new business. Okay. I get a motion to adjurnn then. So, in favor? All right.