001To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I hate trying to promptly like I forgot it. Okay, so let's start with the PTO report. Hello everyone. My name is Melissa Zaldo. I am the current PTF president. Uh since we last met, um we've been busy. We had our um sale last week in the gym. We had no gym because of the weather. The kids were able to come and shop for various plants. little patio pots that the kids can purchase. Um, I know the kids love shopping and I think we did a pretty good job. Thank you to everyone who volunteered for that. Thank you to Agnes for organizing the whole thing. And then last
002week about week cart. We also provided um goodies for staff as well as bus drivers. This is a way to show community that we appreciate that they show up every day for our kids. Um currently um we're still in the midst of searching out board members for the next um upcoming school year. We are last I checked as a couple hours ago. Um so if everybody's willing to step into that role send out email and it's on our website. Um we have just about every other position um currently engaged or interested. Um the other thing we have coming up this Friday which is conversation is our night feature. Quy night um closes doors down to the public in the future and toss students and families. Um the issue we're facing right now is the weather.
003Um I'm going to report every couple hours. So I know president in the future is um we are in communication about the events. Um we're going to have a call tomorrow about it. We'll probably have a call on Friday. can operate the rides in rain. They cannot obviously operate it in better length. So, um based on what I'm seeing, it looks like probably be able to have it. But again, um we're we're still about that. Um if we do cancel the event and you did purchase a ticket, will honor that ticket throughout the 2021 season, so we will not lose out on any money. Um if somebody chooses not to go, We do hold the event unfortunately to work with that ticket and we cannot refund. Um like I said do not hear from me
004regarding the status of the events. I will only communicate if we cancel um sorry our next PTO meeting is last public meeting for the school year will be next Wednesday. It'll be here. um they want to discuss or get those board members up and running and then um the two boards will meet in June to do the other big thing we have coming up a week from this Friday is our spring clean sales are up for that. Um I haven't looked at the weather. I was still really concerned about fing time but tickets are still available for that. It's um it's from what I'm hearing everything um it's going to be bigger and better than it had in the past. And then um the other thing that we're going to start doing is uh looking
005for food donations for field day. Field day is going to be scheduled for donations of watermelons. I'm also hoping to plan to get some watermelons cut the night before that. Um it's just a lot to do for the event. So I will begin to sign up out to everybody the next day or so that thank you very much for as we wind down here all the things that the PTO has been doing for all the teachers, the staff and for the kids. Okay, moving on to public comment. Board of Education welcomes public comment. Individuals or groups may address the board concerning any subject which was within the board's jurisdiction. Three minutes will be allotted to each speaker and a maximum of 15 minutes to each subject matter. The speaker is requested to state their name
006and address. And any comments online? Do we have anybody here that's interested in making any kind of public comment? Anyone online? Anyone? No. All right, moving on. Um, approval of the minutes. So, I make the motion that the, uh, Board of Education accept the April 9th regular meeting minutes as presented. Second. All right. Does anybody have any questions or edits, concerns, discussion? Um, all those in favor of approving the minutes say I opposed extensions. No. Right. All right. Committee reports. I'm tired of talking already, so I'm going to defer the curriculum to uh Miss Kisel during her report. Uh, the majority of it was about um the staff development updates, so I'll let her share all the news during that facilities. All right. We uh met the other night, the other day actually. Yeah, last
007week. It's the other day. Um we discussed the septic problem up at the uh North School that is ongoing and on track to begin when school's over. Um we had a meeting with the architect in regards to North School, the staircase, South School, and plantings. So, we're going to be dividing up the projects into three bids so we can decide what we're going to do appropriately. Um, there was some discussion about plantings and what we're going to do. Let's let's let the cards come back and let once the dollars fall, we'll figure out what we're going to do with the project. Um, we did have Matt Hutter come to the thing with the IT. We had a great discussion. um he clarified a lot of things and what came out of it is we need
008to readjust our heading because in reality we're really not spending money on hardware. The majority of that budget when you break it down and you talk to Matt is more of Chromebooks and our subscriptions and our software and all the stuff that drives the system to make it work. Um, last couple years we have taken some substantial hits with the with the back end. So, we're working through it. I'm a little more comfortable, but I I know we talked about maybe we need to change that line item in the budget to more appropriately reflect what the money's being spent on. And I think K's got some ideas how we could do that to be more appropriate. And and one of the other things that came out of the meeting was which I I think was
009maybe we need to do a budget workshop so people can see the backside of what's going on with the budget. you really look at it, it was 900 and something thousand and this year and it didn't work. When Matt broke it all down and explained where he's going, it's like understood. That's good news. Yeah. Yeah. It was actually it was very enlightening and he he came prepared for the meeting which I was quite thrilled. Um so that's kind of where we stand. I think we're getting ready to send the stuff out to bid. I know he was looking for a little more information in regards to our bidding practice questions. I was is this, you know, I was looking for what these subscriptions are and all the the things that go into making the computers
010work at the school and uh there's this this uh oh, thank you for that. Uh I think it's under the student privacy or something, but there's a list of contracts on the website. Is this current? Because it says uh contracts signed on or after October 1, 2016. That was when the public act 16-189 Oh, so you had to publish these. We had to have these contracts in place. Okay. So, it's been updated more recently. Okay. Yes. So, do you you guys use all these all the time? Susan, I actually have, if I remember, I actually have a breakdown to what Matt actually uses for subscriptions and software. You do? Oh. Oh, yeah. It was He was He was spot on and made me happy by the time they were done. Oh, that's a hard thing
011to do. Sean, wouldn't we come with the facts? Okay. I'm glad to hear that. Have a breakdown of where all this money is and who subscription and there's dollar figures in there and he was prepared. Okay. There was just a lot there and I was like, "Oh my goodness." Okay. So, Sean, is there with the breakdown that Matt was doing? So, is there a concern that we might not have enough money put putting enough money towards hardware or just the way it was listed made it look like we weren't doing things that we were doing? So, when you when you look at the budget, there's it in three categories and and I understand why they're there now. Um, and then when you look at the line item, it's saying servers and switches. And when you
012sit down with Matt and then and then I'm sure you guys all got that email back with the questions. You know, K I came up with questions and I know K added on some on that. And when you looked at the backside of the hardware, we're okay, but the last couple years we've had some massive failures which has driven some pretty expensive backside purchase to make this work. I pose the same question to Matt. do we have enough money now seeing where we're going? And he was pretty confident in where we were going. I I mean, and and as for like Chromebooks and stuff, it was a pretty aggressive replacement plan with a direction and a clear definitive lines in the sand, which I was really impressed with. Are we going to have to address
013things later on? Maybe. I know he says he's visiting a lot of hosting which may take some of that back end off us. We don't know where that's all going to land yet. He's working on that. So I think that's your question. I think we're going to have to see where our budget falls next year because we do have stuff a lot of hardware that's that 2018 and it it's getting there. So, I know he's going he's starting to address some of those things and the backup server was being addressed. I know we have to address our phone system, which I believe is being addressed. It just has to be migrated over to the new server. So, I want to see where we go this year. I'm I'm hoping we clear the hurdle, but we're
014going to need money in the future. Matt threw some numbers out. I'm not going to discuss those because we don't know what actually we may need to be. But we've got 311,000 this year, I believe, is what the number is. But the subscriptions of what we're doing are are pretty substantial if you actually look at the breakdown. We had co we were prepared to a point. We weren't scrambling like other places. and that's a credit to them. So, we'll see. All right, other questions. All right, thanks Sean. Finance. Amy, you're up. Okay, finance committee met last night. Uh, in your packet, you'll see the operating budget uh as of April 2025. Under general education salaries is now showing a surplus of $8,280 as the projected salary incumbrance for the Spanish teacher has been removed. Position
015isn't expected to be filled before the end of the school year. Benefits is now showing a decreased surplus of $136,310 due to an adjustment for additional tuition reimbursement costs. Services is now showing an increased deficit of $82,325 reflecting the incumbrance for the new server and switches. Supplies is now showing an increased deficit of $24,436 as an additional adjustment was needed for IT supplies such as device replacement parts and copier maintenance. other is showing a decreased surplus of $4,37 due to an unbudgeted salto lock place replacement. It's for a door and general education ends the month of April with a surplus of $42,137. You go down to special education, you will see that salaries has a decreased surplus of $91,857 for adjustments made to better reflect the salary incumbrances. Benefits is now showing a decreased deficit
016of $3,848 due to an adjustment to health insurance. Services is now showing a decreased deficit of $130,042 as some savings were found in travel expenses. Supplies is showing a deficit of $4,364 thou $64, excuse me, due to some online assessments that hit this account. Other at the time remain status quo. And special education ends the month of April with a deficit of $46,396. Under operations and overhead, salaries is now showing a deficit of $1,66 to reflect adjustments to hourly employees. Benefits is now showing a decreased surplus of $44,874 for an adjustment to health insurance. Services is now showing a surplus of $19,989 due to some legal savings and an account adjustment. Utilities now has a surplus of $5,000. The forecast is looking more promising as our solar is coming in a bit higher, but Eversource
017invoicing is coming in much less. So, it's a positive. Facilities and maintenance is now showing a decreased deficit of $24,255 due to a small account adjustment. Student transportation is status quo. Other now has a surplus of $7,700 representing unused equipment repair funds. Operations and overhead ends the month of April with a surplus of $51,72. As of April 30th, 2025, the overall budget is showing a surplus of $47,442. Savings has mostly been found in benefits. As it has been mentioned before, numbers will continue to fluctuate. Donna is trying to predict based on past years and trends, but it is never precise. Donna will likely be making another adjustment to sub costs before the end of the year. As the year is nearing the end, please remember that some invoicing such as uh items for our utilities
018and services do tend to trickle in throughout the month of June and early July. So, the year will probably not get closed until midsummer. Uh we are still waiting to receive our second excess cost payment, which should come in uh this month. Those funds are already allocated for our contracted nurse and therefore wouldn't affect our budget. However, there is a small chance small that we may receive an additional excess cost payment this year and that could come in sometime in June. If we do receive that, it is not going to be a large amount, but we would use it to offset remaining costs in the operational budget for the contracted nurse or other special education costs. So, that's to be determined. You will see at the bottom of our summary, our prek account as of
019April 30th has a balance of $58,15962. And our 10248A account has a balance as of April 30th of $417,883.78. Any questions? Okay. Right. So, I move that the board of education accept the report of expenditures and adjustments to the 2024 2025 operating budget through April 30th, 2025. Any additional questions or everybody's good? All right, then call to a vote. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed extensions. All right. No unfinished business. So new business. We are moving on to policy, right? Policy committee met on April 8th and are recommending the following. Now, do I read this or is this is all Sue? I can turn it over. Good. It's all you. Okay. First, I want to say we uh the uh the June meeting got cancelled for policy committee because there was some
020scheduling conflicts and first K is scheduling conflict and then we tried to work it out and then then got a lot of family visiting at this time. So, you know, we canceled the meeting, but hopefully we can put something together um for August so that uh we can keep a pattern going and uh let's see moving on from there. So this agenda includes uh three federal mandates, two state mandates, plus five policies on the routine calendar, one with a recommended revision and the other four with no changes suggested. Uh the federal mandates involve a series of discontinued policies and replacement policies. Uh policy 4000.1 and 5145.44 44 are uh basically rolling us back to where we were last November before we changed the policy in the first place. So based that is being done based
021on it or being recommended based on advice from the attorneys in CA uh the two title N policies we just adopted last December should be discontinued and replaced with the former policies in place under the 2020 regulations. And I put in some legal excerpts because the the voluminous information coming in this regard. So I tried to just find the the the uh the excerpts that led to a conclusion and I included those with the uh the uh policy agenda. Uh the next policy is 0523 and again based on advice from the attorneys in CABE this should be discontinued in its place there is an existing policy in our catalog presently and at CAB's model policy library proposed as a replacement uh presently policy 6121 is uh uh in the education section our instru instruction section.
022Forgive me, I forget. Anyway, it's been modified to change one word in the name and give it a new number to be policy 0112 and titled non-discrimination and education and this again is to comply with federal mandate. Then we have new policies under state mandate. Uh policy 5131 9111 uh is the Connecticut school climate policy. Uh this goes back to the 2023 legislative season for adoption by July 1, 2025. So we're mandated to do this by that date. uh were required to adopt this specific policy and its language. Uh the source is CABE and the policy was approved by a collaborative which is defined in the statute. There's like gobs of people have like 30 40 people involved in writing this policy or approving it. In any case, uh, three words at the end, a
023red line for policy consistency and a legal reference was added. Policy 5144.12. Uh, it's called challenging behavior prevention, restorative practices response. Uh, this policy all go also goes back to the 2023 legislative season for adoption by July 1, 2025. So, we're required to adopt a restorative practices policy. However, it should be noted that these practices were presently implemented uh at BCS without a without a policy in place and that uh K and I also met with Tom and Jackie uh to review the new policy content. Uh I was also asking to incorporate in uh for the challenging behavior prevention component um some language about the positive behavior intervention program uh which we've discussed here and it's also been active in the school so that we have something defined in policy that tells people what that
024is and how it works. Uh under the routine calendar policy review uh policy 1411 titled law enforcement officials uh has a recommended revision to make the authority language consistent as there's a variable in there about something was really vague. It was just like you had to be an employee of the school or or maybe it was the principal one time or maybe it was an administrative person another time. So we just made it consistent. And uh the other four policies uh 1340, 1412, 1416, and 1500 had no revisions recommended. I'll also note that the the motion has a typo. Those numbers, they're always making you crazy. I have a question. Sure. So, under the um new policy number 0112 um which is non-discrimination and education. Yeah. My first question is these as it's written these
025come from cave and shipment and goodwin. That's I'm just curious that's where they come from typically, right? Or like is the policy committee refresh my memory because I was only at policy for a short time. It's not that the policy committee is coming up with the terminology. it's being provided. Okay. The only reason why I'm asking is I read this and under, you know, one, equal rights and opportunities for students and staff in the school community. Two, equal opportunity for all students to participate in programs of the school. I just want to know, and this may not be a question specifically for us, so maybe it's a typo, but why it doesn't say equal rights and opportunities for all students and staff in the school community. I feel like we're using the word all in
026the second line. it should be used in the first line to encompass that all the individuals have those rights. I mean, it might seem minor, but I'd rather make sure that we're consistent. So, um, if we could add that in there, I would appreciate that if anybody agrees, disagrees, I'm open for discussion or Yeah. No, these are all just for the time for me to read the policies and um, email Susan or myself suggestions or revisions that you might want. I can send an email to you guys that way. This is just so this is just No, but in general like we can't this is not one of the ones that's like don't touch it. That is the No, this is not one of the ones that you can't touch. Okay, good question. So, okay,
027I'll send an email to you guys first read for your opinions. Sorry. Okay, to clarify, this is directly from K and uh it's an existing policy we already have in our catalog. Okay. Okay. It's just under instruction I think is one section. Okay. So it's wherever 6121 is it lands. Okay. Okay. This is 6121 with the title changed from non-discrimination and instruction to non-discrimination in education. Okay. And a new number. Okay. Give it a place in in the catalog. Okay. No problem. Okay. Then I'll send you guys an email about that what we request. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So along those lines just in looking at con you know Sue you were just talking about consistency which I agree I think is really important and for the two policies on community relations so 1411A and
0281411B um there are places where we say a district administrator should be present. So like I'm looking at 1411A. So under interview students, it says a district administrator should be present. And then in that numbered list below it, it says a district administrator or designate in a couple of places. And then in the ne on the next page in 1411B, we're back to just a district administrator. So I don't know that it necessarily matters which of those terms that we use, but it seems like it should be we should pick one of them and stick with it. Well, that's what I was trying to do. district administrator, but I didn't we didn't put in or designate in every place. Well, and I wonder if I I don't know if we need it, but if we
029don't, you know, like the particularly that in 1411A, um I've been grading a lot of papers lately, I think. Um but it like under interview of students, it says a district administrator should be present and then later on we're talking about what might happen during the interview. Now we say a district administrator or designate. So if a district administrator should be present then everything else in that document I think should also refer to a district administrator. Does that make sense? Well I thought that's what we did but well where it used to say the school right because it used to say district employee and that's now administrator which makes a lot more sense to me. And then in that next part where school principal is redlined. Mhm. Um it said the school princ before before
030what it said was the school principal or designate and now it says a district administrator or designate right so so you should just get rid of the designate part right ah is that what okay thank you now I get it take it out because there won't be a designate anymore yeah and then all the rest of it says district administrator on the next page so then if we just take out or design there okay so we ditch the [Applause] design. Can I ask a question about the the climate policy which is very long? Um, so the last page of it where diversity, equity, and inclusion are redlined. Yes. Is that like because we're avoiding those specific words? Well, it's to be consistent with Yeah. the diversity, equity, and inclusion thing. So, the challenge is is
031that we're asked not to change the language by the state, but then we have the federal. So, we're kind of living in the limbo. So um and nowhere else in the policy does it mention this particular thing until the very last line of this. Um, and so there is discussion at the state level about what to do about that because if we're to follow what the state says and the state says that we are to adopt this policy as written with no changes and and it's a very long policy and we tried previously to rework the policy to make it a little more user friendly and when we sent it off to the attorneys they're like that's great your revision looks good but you have to take the policy as it's written. Okay. Um, but
032again, we're in this catch 22 space. So, if anything were to be redlined within that policy, if it were allowed to be redlined, it would be those words inconsistency with what we're being asked to do, but we don't have any additional guidance from the state of Connecticut yet. Okay. And this is only for the first read anyway. At this point, we would but we wouldn't we're stuck between the state and feds. terrible right now. Well, technically, what the, you know, when you get into which law applies, because I did look into this when there's a conflict between the state and the feds, there's a supremacy clause where the, you know, the the the federal directives uh rule the day and that if you tried to, you know, defend that uh oh, you're just following state
033law, that's not a defense. So there is this it's difficult unsettled world typically I think when you see a lot of those things that's where the the lawsuits come in and then they file the injunction so don't change anything until the lawsuits come they'll settle this I have no idea yes so it's like you know we want this change somebody else doesn't want to change then they file a suit so then they say well don't change anything until we settle on it likely where this is going to head so I think we god knows sit back it's let it stay where it is and let it play out and then when they finally come up with the final decision then then we know what to do once we have a final decision. Well, you know,
034you got to be careful too because we do the make there's at least one grant that goes directly to the feds without the state in between. So the the issue of of losing grant funding uh can be affected by this. Is that a climate grant? There's there's climate money from the that I'm talking about the diversity, equity, inclusion things, but this policy wouldn't necessarily it's not I don't think that that's the only place it is is that somebody stuck those last three words in at the end. So that whole policy was truly statuto with the state. Now you it's through Cab Cab was charged with writing it and this this collaborative consortium I forget what they call it uh was uh um in charge of approving it but there was like you know 30 or
03540 people and all these organizations involved in it executive problem is we have too there's too many changes to be able to navigate them and we you can't change all of our things until everything sort of gets washed out. We've got the okay, there's the new federal mandate, but we don't have a federal department of education anymore and we want states to control the education except for the one thing we've said now except for well maybe we they're trying to figure it out. Everybody's trying to figure it out and each group is trying to act but it's just it's it's government. It's this group has to then recognize where this group is and this group and till it happens you know I think we have to you know see where everything is you and I
036can tell you from on a on a different note I remember being in a particular school system where there was talk about legis changes in legislation to graduation requirements and we wanted to be the first ones at it and we made the rules about adding in extra credits to make sure we met that graduation requirement which then never ended up coming to be because they didn't pass it. And then we were now left with this extra requirement which we weren't going to take away, but it definitely put us in a bind because we acted thinking everyone said this is how it's going to be and then it turned out it wasn't. So I I think the most prudent action for us. There's no rush. We have a little bit of time. Let's first read. We
037Let's see a little bit more how it plays out. We need to do you know what we're told once once mom and dad agree what the final rule is to agree once mom and dad agree then we'll have to act accordingly but until mom and dad finish their fight with each other we have to just sit back. Well I think that this the push won't come to shove until the the money actually runs out. And if I K you can tell me if I'm remembering this correctly. I think you know so when you get the grant money it comes in frontloaded for two years and we're running through we just ran through the first year so we have another year to go on grantf funded things without running out of the money but at the
038same time the next cycle is going to come up and I think that's when the push is going to come to shove because nobody's if there become I mean obviously if there becomes a threat to you know money and things like that that we're getting based on policies. We have to review it then, but we're not there yet. So there again, I don't think we want to rush to do until we have all of the full information. K, how much is that grant funding? Uh, so the grant that Susan's referring to is the reprint that um we just I don't know, it's still Cheryl's Thunder, but um the REG grant usually is about $30,000. Um but it's specifically earmarked for things like teacher professional development. So when there are those kinds of professional development opportunities
039that teachers want and that's what we tap into. Um we're good for the next year and a half, two years. Um and potentially assuming does a really good job again um they are releasing the federal reprint. Again, we weren't sure if the federal government was going to release that to districts. They are. So we're going to apply for that. Um again, we just got that notification. Um so that would be the only direct impact to us. As Susan said, everything else comes to us through the state. So we we apply for a lot of the entitlement grants and all the other grants and we're given that money from the state. The state has received their bucket of money from the feds and then they give it out to the districts. So that's the only grant
040that we currently have that's directly connected to the federal government. Now is that $30,000 grant a front load or is that a back road? Okay. So that makes it untouchable. Once we get it, we get it and then we have you know our timelines in which we have to spend the money each year. You have to spend C not have to do an end of project, end of year um report because I know the MSP being backed as being yanked. Correct. We are not one of those districts that didn't call down our money like we get our grants, we take our money right away and then so we're not going to lose in that regard. So that the state when they apply for the their next round of grants, the ones that don't come directly
041to us, the ones that they get, when do they have to start doing that? Do you know? We don't. We are right now we just finished or just finished applying for all of our grants that we go through the state for. So our applications are in and done. I literally just certified a couple not too long ago. So we've done our part and a lot of times the state will wait to get all of the grant information from all of the districts and then they'll do their application. So we've done our due diligence. Okay. So that that would probably be coming early next year. You think? Okay. I don't think anybody knows when the money's coming. Well, you know, they got they've got to go to the to the best of my knowledge, the Department
042of Vets still exists in some way, shape, or form. They got to go there and and ask for the money, but uh you know, God knows what's going to happen then. I I don't think anybody knows where the money's coming from. Yeah, I don't think that they're going to find much cooperation on it. A lot of changes all at once makes it hard to kind of figure out where things are going. So, and very significant staff reduction. Yeah. And so we got to wait and see how things play out. So how much how much do all the the grant how much grant money is in our budget? Do we have like a whole number somewhere? Not off the top of our head, but that would be helpful just to to to know have some concept
043for next year's budget. Yeah. Yeah. the one the for the one we just passed or we're hoping the table would pass on for any grant money we don't yet have in our bank account. So all of the grants we've applied for, we have those dollars. Are you talking about how much are we applying for for the next round? Like the grant applications we just finished for the ones that they're going to that the ones that could possibly get held up. I'm trying to get an idea of what that number could be. I don't know what what the resources are. Yeah. All of our grants with the exception of like private grants like when we did some bicycle kinds of things. All of our grants with the exception of the reprant come through the state of
044Connecticut. So, but that's federal dollars, correct? Yes, they're federal dollars that come to the state and then are um given out to the districts as they Okay, that's the number I'm looking for. Do we have to to do I have a motion somewhere in here? She has the motions. You have the motions. You want me to make the motions? I think you have them. That's that's good. Cuz I was looking at this. I'm like, you know, only because I at the end beginning. Oh, I must have missed if I right apology. for reason. She reads them. You want me to do it? You You read them. Go ahead. It's all you. Okay. Recommending motion. Uh move the board of education except for first reading the federal mandates to policies 4,000.1 5145.44, 0523, and 0112. I'll
045make a motion. I'll second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? extensions. Okay, moving right along. Uh, move the board of education accept for first reading the statemandated new policies of 5131.9111 and 5144.12. I'll make a motion. Second. Uh, all in favor? I I. Any opposed? Extensions. Okay. Uh move the board of education accept for first reading the recommended revision to policy 1411. I make a motion. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Abstensions. Uh move the board of education accept for first reading the no revision to policies 1340, 1412, 1416, and 1500. I'll make a motion. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Abstensions. Okay. All right. So, now we're on to administrative reports. Yes. You got all the information. We are up to students. We are Enrollment would seem to be on target for
046a similar number of students to start the year next year. As for personnel, par educator Thomas Montenez resigned his position for personal family reasons. Um given the late time of the year with only 21 days left of school, uh we won't have the time to fill that with, you know, hiring and background checking and everything else, but we do have one of our internal long-term staff currently filling in that role and that's been working out very well. And just while I'm on my the personnel portion of my report. You heard it mentioned earlier last week. We had the opportunity to um celebrate teacher appreciation week. We're very fortunate to be um a school that has an exceptional team of educators and staff. We proudly celebrated them last week and a time is dedicated to recognizing
047their incredible work for all those who educate, support, and uplift our students every single day. Um we want to just make sure that we took a moment to extend our gratitude for every member of our BCS team. They call it teacher appreciation week, but we know that it's more than our teachers that make our school great. So, from classroom teachers to pair professionals, administrators, support staff, each person plays a vital role in helping our students become the very best versions of themselves. Um, we appreciate your dedication, your passion, and your tireless efforts. They do not go unnoticed. The countless hours you invest, the care you show, and the highest standards that you maintain to help create a learning environment that is not only safe and supportive, but also inspiring for our students is appreciated. 21
048days. You're not counting down, are you? I mean, the kids are very excited all over the place. You're counting right there with them. That's good. Okay. [Laughter] All right. Cheryl, you're up. Okay. Um, for professional development on May 23rd and next Friday, teachers will be continuing their work on curriculum and they're going to be refining bird's eye view and assessments. Uh, this is a time where teachers can reflect on the air and refine their work with curriculum. And um, STEM camp is in the process of being finalized right now. Um, it's being opened up. That's through grant funding. that we're able to do that again this year and it's going to be offered out to families in the newsletter and it will be a lot. Um this summer we're hoping to have staff focus on
049vertical line of the curriculum throughout the school year. They concentrate on instruction at their individual grade levels. So this next step is essential to ensure continuity and coherence across grade levels. And last night we had a parent academy and that was to focus on math. We had a presenter coming from I read and the focus was on sharing families how to best support their children at home with that. Um and then I know Kay talked about the grants but I wanted to give a little grant highlight. There hasn't been much news in the grant world but um we had a biders conference today for the afterchool grant which is what allowed us to have boost program. So Kay and I attended that today and I will be applying for that. It is a competitive grant
050and last year there were over 150 people who had put in for that. So I'll do my best. I will apply for it and let's hope that it comes through this be very helpful. Question for you. How did um how was the attendance for the academy? It's pretty good. I mean considering spring and all of the sports we had 17 families and some had multiple parents there. So um so it was good turn. Will it be available? Like is it something where it was like recorded or anything like that? We did not record that one. um probably would have been a great idea to be it was it was in person. Okay. And starting to look and plan for next year if that's what might be able to offer as well. Thanks. Anybody else? All
051right, Tom, you're up. All right. Um I I'll just kind of do a a quick overview what we have coming up because there's a lot. But um uh since we met last, we had the fun run which was uh really successful. We had it outside this year which was really great. They ended up having kind of two tracks which was fun. Um so we were able to generally have kind of two grades at a time which was nice. It was able uh to be able to have teachers coming out with their classes. A bunch of families came uh which was wonderful. Uh and then we raised over $15,000 that's going to go to support uh the work for the spring fling. I know that PTO's working really hard. They got a lot of amazing things
052that are coming through. Um, and the benefit is that we're able to continue. Um, and I think this is really helping to be able to add to that without adding to the cost to families. So, it's really something that has a very very low um threshold for cost for people who attend, but has a really high um impact and a lot of stuff for them to be able to do. uh members of the Connecticut Sun organization came and we had an assembly uh with them uh the Friday before uh break there. So that was uh for all students K6. That was really great. When we came back from break uh we had our kindergarten screener going. Um we had our April community meeting. Uh we focused on responsibility and Earth Day and then nothing else
053happened. um like six gallons of slaughter and in fairness I mixed it so it's all on me. Um uh we have been going through uh Smarter Bounce. So we started with uh so we started with ELA and then we did math um and we're getting through that. Our fifth graders have been taking the science assessment. Uh at this point we're really just in the finishing up and the makeups. Uh and so we're getting through that. As you heard, teacher appreciation I think was a huge success. Again, thank you to the PTO. Um we had a wonderful lunch from them. Um and then a treat cart. They kind of bookended the week which was really wonderful. Uh we had plant sale. Uh third grade had their field trip to the science center. Uh and then as
054you heard, we had our parent academy. And um well, it's kind of purely anecdotal. I feel like we're starting to get more and more. We've had some that had kind of very few folks here and I think as we're going I think it's both um I think you know we've got some regulars who come to a lot but also I think you know as people are requesting things we're trying to really you know align with what people are asking for and I think that's something as well. Uh BCS Kids is still going strong. We're just kind of finishing out the year. Um, and then we've just got a ton. We've got like our science fair coming up, a lot of field trips. Um, we've got Night of the Arts next week. Super excited about that.
055Um, Chad has been, Mr. Fortune's been working really hard on the music side of it. Um, Mrs. Rogers has been working on the visual arts and it's just gorgeous. A lot of really neat and unique um, projects uh, that's going there. Uh, we've got a unified celebration next Wednesday. Um, spring flames year is coming up. Um, and then we've got the night of gratitude uh is coming up for our staff and we have what 50 53 something like that which I mean an early is a lot but is is a huge increase. So that's really great. Um I think that's a huge shout out to Brandy and all the work that she's been doing kind of organizing and you know really kind of taking that on as a as a labor of love. Uh and
056then um you know then we hit all of our stuff for the end of the year. We've got a lot a lot of the field trips and then we've got our uh kindergarten, prek, sixth grade uh graduation that kind of finishing out our year. Um and then uh as we had shared before, we had sent out both for for family, students, and staff uh the climate surveys and those are starting to wind down. We're trying to just get all those results compiled and then we'll uh try and get those out to um staff and just really look at um yearover progress and and that as well. And then we're in the process of class placement. So we've gotten feedback from families. We're making sure that we're making decisions programmatically um taking all of that input
057across the board and putting that to practice. So staff the last two staff meetings have been working on that um in the morning as teams with other certified staff support. So that's kind of what we've got going and what's going. So it's been pretty quiet now. Yeah. Really not very much. It's kind of boring. It's really really kind of lowkey. Oh, sorry. Um and then drama club. Uh very exciting. So we've got drama club uh has our evening performance on the 30th. Uh and then our afternoon performance on the 1. Really excited about that. and we just got the t-shirt order in. We've been working uh with a a local company over in Prospect. So, that's really great. Um so, just super exciting about that. Are you still doing those coffee hours? Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
058Every month, uh every month, uh 9:30 or so. Um and that's a thing. So, uh so spoiler alert on the climate surveys, that's a thing that's come through often. Um, we get feedback that it's and I get it like I'm have a tough time as Tom Reville the dad showing up to a coffee hour and working. Um, so the hours are tricky. The the hard part initially we had them um in person and then co hit and we kind of went virtual and we tried to do like every other um and we found that the in person really it was tough for people to show up. Um, so we've been doing virtual in the morning. I tried some afternoon ones. We really had low attendance. Um, and so we're trying to think about how we
059we might be able to leverage that to be able to get more andor varied folks, you know, because I think it works really well for some folks, but I think especially, you know, based on who can attend, who is attending, and the feedback that we get, it doesn't always work for everybody. So, we're trying to figure that out so we can get feedback from as many people as possible and like conversations with people like that's sort of the point is you know we try to present some stuff people ask questions and you know it's a chance just to have conversation yeah it's a good it's a good communication vehicle it's a good thing to do I how many people do you usually get it depends I would say a low is usually like seven or
060eight and then a high would be like 30 so it depends okay yeah in the basketball game on Sunday yes sorry and we're going so we got the season opener for the Connecticut Sun. Um, and that's on Sunday. So, super excited about that. Sure. It's 5:00. All right. Thank you. Um, chairman's report. I got nothing. Um, well, John Paul regret, but I had a question. Maybe a you could kind of fill us in and relay to John Paul. Sure. What happened to the spring open forum for parents for kind of [Music] didn't we have I was actually just thinking about that when Tom just said something I was thinking didn't wasn't there a discussion about we were combining something or we were only going to do or we just drop the ball on the spring
061one. We voted to keep them both right because Amy had sent out an email saying that she felt strongly we should have two and then we discussed it at the next meeting. We should have felt strongly last month so we could have talked about it for I think I think it was left off too that we were going to revisit it never got revisited but I will shut up. Can I ask Donna um how many people are watching um online right now? Do you have a number six before nine? I'm just curious. John, I would be so glad you asked. All right, Joe, thanks for bringing it up. Um, correspondence. Do we have anything? Nothing. All right. Public comment part two. No. Anybody online? No. All right, then. It looks like we're done. Do I
062have to hit this thing again? I I don't really care. Do I need to? It's tradition. You have to have You have to move to a You have to move to You have to move to move to ajourn. Now I'm going to start hitting something. Did you just call me Carolyn? I did. She did. Jump.