001Um, we'll start with the PTO report. You're on. Hello everyone. My name is Melissa. I'm president. First, I want to apologize for my accident last month. I had surgery on the day of media and I was home recovering. So I apologize for that. Um so we have a lot of updates, a lot of things going on for PTO. Um starting tomorrow, uh tomorrow is our annual fund run. Um students have been raising money um to concepts and last I checked as of this morning, we raised over $12,000. Um the fun run is going to be held outside on the track. Um which I think um and that means that the parents will come and watch their students participate in run with them a schedule for all the grades to parents so that they know that
002child is running and I also in my weekly email I reminded them to follow the school rules about checking in with the office and sign up for student office as well. Um, and that leads me into uh from the fund last year. We raised quite a bit of money from that last year. I'm happy to say that we purchased two permanent duckets for the school that those are going to be delivering soon those very very soon. Um, our April PTO meeting is being held tomorrow evening at 6:30. Uh, this one will be on Zoom. I realized my email I forgot to post the link. So, I have tomorrow for this meeting. Uh and that us here and we're going to have some open positions available for next year. Um mainly the president um here treasurer
003the room care coordinator, teacher appreciation coordinator, hospitality coordinator, student coordinator all going to be positions. Those positions will be posted on our website after spring vacation. Anybody interested in filling one of those out, there will be an opportunity to enter their name on to our website as well. Hopefully by the May meeting, we'll have positions filled and their terms will take place starting July 1st. Uh looking forward, we have going in May. Uh the our annual plant sale will be happening on May 5th and 6th. I'm sorry, May 6th and seventh, excuse me. This is a chance for students to purchase plants uh for in time for Mother's Day. Um but they can be purchase plants for anybody special in their eyes. Doesn't have to be mom, grandma, can be dad, can be anybody. Uh
004we'll have a wide variety of vegetable plants and uh flowering plants as well as um patio plants patio plants that will be available for purchase uh pre- purchase. Um we will take cash check on the day of the sale and now we are going to offer a way to um the parents to preload almost like our um ewallets. Parents will have a chance to preload money on their credit card. We'll print out the slip and that way um kids can shop cashless. Uh May 16th is going to be our annual quasi night. Um night is when park closes it doors. It's a joint event between us and road school. Kids have free rain at the park, canvas, the water park, but it's a huge event. Um, kids love it. Kids just run around, have a
005good time. Uh, and this year's annual spring fling is going to be held on May 23rd. We're looking for um we're going to be looking for volunteers for that event. And I was asked by the coordinator of the spring coordinate, Amber Durkin, to extend an invite to all of the board members. Um we charge your names on the roster. If you'd like to attend, you're more than welcome to attend. Um it's usually it's a huge event. We have that we have playables, we have food, everything is included. So Thank you. Thank you. I have a question. You said the fund run raised $12,000 so far. Yes. Slime Tom. Yes. Yes. Yes. The goal the fun was $10,000. If and if the students raise over $10,000, Mr. Reed and special guest will be getting nice. Can
006you send an invite? Sean's like, I want to go to that. I didn't make a list. So, took seven pies to the face last year. All right. Thank you very very much. Uh we come to the public comment policy. Board of Education welcomes public comment. Individuals or groups may address the board concerning any subject which is within the board's jurisdiction. Three minutes will be allowed to each speaker and a maximum of 50 minutes to each subject matter. Speakers requested to state their names and addresses and you can submit one online. Any takers? Waste of time. Um, how many people online now? Four. Um, okay. After the approval of minutes of the March 12th, 2025 regular meetings. That is an action item and will require u a vote. So, take a look at it. I like
007motion second. Whichever any errors, omissions or alterations? All in favor? I opposed. Abstain. Abstain. Also done. Committee reports curriculum uh curriculum met and uh Mr. Keel gave us an update on the professional development that was happening. Um on March 14th the PCS hosted a full day professional development session. Teachers collaborated with the grade level teams and departments to focus on curriculum development uh data analysis and assessments. Additionally, the staff had an opportunity to engage in a wellness activity including crafting, walking or yoga and feedback that was shared with that was pretty positive. Um, grade two and three participated in coaching session um with literacy how um concentrating on the data analysis of their dibble assessment they use. Um and then we got a little bit of an update on some of the things that are
008coming up. Um, April 11th, literacy how will lead a session focused on fluency and provide research-based strategies to support students in improving reading fluency. And on May 23rd, teachers will continue ongoing curriculum work, building upon the previous efforts to refine instructional practices and aligning curriculum objectives. And we also were told um that through grant funding, the STEM summer camp will be offered again this summer according to the grant requirements. Um, priority enrollment will be given students to participate in boost and then other remaining st spaces will be made available to other students through the lottery system. Have you ever anybody have any questions, comments for Angela? All right. If not, we'll move on to finance. Amy, I sp your time there. It's all good. Uh the finance committee met last evening via Zoom and you'll
009see in your packet a copy of the operating budget summary as of March 2025. Under general education, you will see that salaries is now showing a deficit of $1,539. Uh Donna reported that she has tried to estimate sub costs for the next couple of months. It's a moving target, but our costs seem to be coming down a bit, which is positive. benefits is now showing an increased surplus of $139,250 as an additional insurance cushion was released. And again, we should have a better idea of benefits projections in the next month or so. Services is now showing a decreased deficit of $3,411 as we found some savings in grant offsets. grant offsets, excuse me, especially with professional development supplies is now showing an increased deficit of $22,499 as an additional adjustment was needed for technology software.
010Other is status quo from last month and this gets us to general education ending the month of March with a surplus of $121,879. below. Under special education, salaries is status quo from last month. Benefits is now showing a decreased deficit of $13,848 due to some benefits adjustments. Services is now showing a decreased deficit of $133,042 as some savings were found in budgeted outplacement tuition and professional services. Supplies and other remain status quo. Special education ends the month of March with a deficit of $15,135. Down below, under operations and overhead, salaries remain status quo from last month. Benefits is now showing an increased surplus of $51,74 as there were additional savings in benefits. services is now showing an increased deficit of $17,755, reflecting some adjustments for insurance and legal services. Utilities is status quo from last
011month. Facilities and maintenance is now showing an increased deficit of $24,895 to reflect adjustments for snow plowing, landscaping, and a repair on a store damaged storm damaged light pole. Student and transportation and other projections currently remain status quo from last month. This leaves operations and overhead ending the month of March with a deficit of $11,576. It was reported as well that as of March 31st, 2025, the overall budget was showing a surplus of $95,168. This is due to some grant offsets and savings found in benefits. This number is still fluctuating quite a bit. Kay and Don met with departments on March 17th to discuss their budget balances. They have until the end of April to finish their spending. Once this happens, Donna can better determine where she thinks the final numbers will land regarding any
012surplus. It's never an exact number at this point as there will still be two months of invoices that are only estimated projections at the end of April. We had some connectivity issues again at the end of March which reminded us that our network needs some new updated hardware ASAP. We received a quote for the equipment installation and we are going to put the order through. Approximately 83 thou $83,000 will hit the budget and about $13,000 of that will be offset from grant funding. A good chunk of the remaining cost will come from savings across other departments. You'll see that the reflected likely you'll see that reflected likely in April or May's finance reports that will have an impact on how much of a surplus we will have at the end of the year. Lastly, we
013did receive our insurance claim checks from Perma for a whopping $82065. Then at the bottom of the report, you'll see under our prek account as of March 31st, the balance is $60,667.77. And in our 10248A account, as of March 31st, our balance is $417181. Excuse me, $417,181.52. And that's what I have for finance. Any questions? I got a question. So, um the the expenditures in the 10248A account Mhm. was like 800 something last month and it went to 9 grand. I believe Donna that's got to do with money's we we paid another um part of our contracted um amount to silver peticelli was 8 $8,300. Okay. On top of the $830. Sean, you look like you have a question. No, no. I'm just thinking. You have a comment? No. Okay. I'll I'll talk about some
014of the stuff for facilities during the American worker case. Did the sewer Are you going to talk about me? Okay. Is the sewer repaired? We'll talk about that. We're We'll talk about that. Okay. Um this facilities has a net. We're going to have an emergency. I I'll talk about that during my meeting. Okay. Let's not get off the rails too quick. So, anybody have any questions for Amy regarding finance? Motion to approve. I'll make a motion to approve the report. Got it. I'll second it. Uh, any discussion? All in favor? I. All opposed? All policy? Susan, you're on. Uh we met yesterday evening and we'll have a new set of policies on the plate next month. There are five policies involving federal and state mandates, an existing policy with a revision and four existing policies
015with no revisions. So then we'll go right into finish business. approved for the first reading of the BOE regular meeting on March 12th, 2025. The following policies are recommended for retirement revision. No revision. Susan, you're on. Okay. Uh, let's see. I'm going to make a motion. Is that what I'm going to do? [Music] [Applause] Uh, make a motion that the board of education approve the recommended retirement of policy 3171.1. [Applause] You want to go through your vote one time or why don't you keep Yeah, we'll walk through going. Okay. Unless somebody's got when you're done, somebody's got questions. Okay. And uh we add to that motion approval of the recommended revisions for policies 1250, 1312, 1316, 1321, and 1330. And there's 1 2 3 4 five policies with no revision recommended. Those policies are 1220,
0161311.1, 1321.2, 1322, and 1325. make a motion to uh approve um the recommended retirement policy 3171.1 the recommended revisions for 1250, 1312, 1316, 1321, 1330 and approval revision for policies 1220, 1311.1, 1321.2, 1322 and 1324. Any discussion? I have one I have I have one question. Sorry. Sorry. I wasn't here last month, so it may have been hashed out. So for policy 1312 B 1312, right? 1312 the whole 1312 A and public. Yeah. Where did we get the the wording for that? like the recommend was that something that was recommended to be changed by council or there was a here filming a is public complaints and 12 on the challenge challenge material the challenge material that was you know there was the red line was very determinative and what we tried to do is make
017something big of a process to it instead so that there wasn't, you know, something already carved in stone in the policy. So, it gave more flexibility, but that was that that was language that uh K and I worked on and inserted in. But that was the intent is to to take out the determination and put in a process for how to deter kind of leaves it more open-ended this way. Is that the idea? Well, it leaves flexibility, you know, because you get into these interpretations of what the words mean and it gets complicated these days. There's, you know, you can have different interpretations of a lot of different things. But, uh, there's also, you know, a bunch every year it seems there's something in the legislature about how to do this. So, I wouldn't be
018surprised if something came forward in the not too distant future because It seems like they're always talking about it. I don't know if they'll ever pass anything, but they're always talking about it. And this would be pretty much in keeping with that. I think they might add on a couple more layers. Is that true, K? Yeah. Yeah. So that lots of things are in flux right now, but the intent is just to give it some process instead of making a termination. Fair enough. Fair enough. I appreciate the explanation. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Please reflect that uh Joel show. Okay. All right. All in favor? Oh, wait a minute. EJ, you all set? Yeah, that was it. That was Thank you. Anybody else have any questions, comments? All in favor? All opposed? Any objections?
019Thank you. New business firewall 9300 healthy food option. Sure. So, um, every year we have to vote on the fact that we won't serve poor quality food to the students. And so, that's what this is. It's basically saying that we'll comply with the Connecticut nutrition standards for all of the meals that we serve to our students. That's the short version. And it's also listed on the there's a sheet that shows it. So, do the kids like the food? Well, more often than not, they do. Um, for just throwing it all away. No. And one of the really nice things is that we do have a lunch advisory committee that meets on a regular basis with students and the kids go and they get opinions from their classmates. Um, one of the most recent things and
020sometimes they want, you know, like there's a student that we have that really wants to know why we don't have steak in the cafeteria and certain things. Um, why we can't have more deep fried foods, why we can't make things crispier because we have to adhere to certain health and wellness standards. Um, but they recently asked if we could start roasting vegetables instead of steaming them. U, they thought that the kids would like them better. So, we tried it. The kids asked that. We tried it and they are eating more of their vegetables now that they're being roasted versus steamed because as um I can't I won't say the student's name but they said that um they won't be so mushy and they'll retain their natural flavor. But he's right especially carrots carameliz that was
021the one that serious. No, it's not sugar. It's natural. And of course it was natural. We started with the carrots and they were ahead. Yeah. So, it can't be roasted carrots. And we've been partnering with our our, you know, Chartwells is our our food service provider. And so, um, Terry Brunelli, who works in our office, got them to start doing a taste test. So, before we introduce a new item into the menu, they're doing taste tests for the kids to see if they like it. And so, the most recent one was the ravioli bites. Toasted. Toasted ravi ravioli bites. Um, so the kids asked for something different as a pasta option. We found toasted ravioli bites. We did a taste test. They loved them and now they're a part of our menu. It's like breaded
022ravioli. Something more than just chicken nuggets and French fries. What's the matter with chicken nuggets and pizza? Friday night. They still love pizza Friday. Yeah. Pizza pizza Friday. You know, I have no problem with pizza Friday. We had a board member who was really upset about it, but I have no problem if they if the kids will eat. That's the big thing. And that's why I joked about roasted carrots because boiled carrots, the kids wouldn't touch them, but you roast them and they caramelize them and they'll eat them like candy, right? And if you roast the broccoli, it won't smell so bad. Yeah. Roast the broccoli. They give lots of opinions. Put some garlic in it. But do the kids have a good time doing that? Yeah, they do. There was a student that we
023had who's gone on to the middle school and his one goal was to get the alle cart back and to get ice cream because all of his older siblings had had the opportunity to have ice cream and then we hadn't brought it back after co and so his one goal that's what he wanted his legacy to be for his time that he spent we we we do have the ice cream back as an alocart so that he learned something very valuable because it is a learning experience. It definitely is. He was practically carried out of the cafeteria like he was a hero. Athletic hero. Yeah. But that's great. The kids are smart. They put his picture on the cooler. You got to have a Rudy moment. And that's that was his Rudy moment. He's responsible
024for getting ice cream back. But he did it in the right way. So they learned hopefully they learned something. We have some students who go so far as to survey grade levels and come with their data to the meetings which I love. And that's that's exactly you know forget reading well you have to know reading writing and arithmetic you know that's one of the things you should be learning also is how to you know get your way without not get your way but how to get your your point across and get a positive result. Yeah they're going to I think that's more than most anything you learn in school. They're called life skills. You'll use those as you go along in your entire life. That's the product of negotiation. Yeah. In a positive manner. And
025that's great. I I He got my vote. I'll vote for the kid for class president. So basically that's what these next two are is that we will serve good food um decent food in our cafeteria. And then the next one is about um the sale of food and beverages. You know, we don't give them things out of vending machines and what it means when there's an event at school and all of those kinds of things. I'm surprised you still haven't tried to get your own margarita sheet, but that's okay. in the ward vet office. Moving on. Moving right along. Um, I've been pushing that for years. Healthy food option. Okay. So, we're going to need a motion to move the board of education approved the Connecticut State Department of Education. Um, healthy food option detailed
026above for the period July 1st, 2025 through Jul June 30th, 2026. Do we have a motion? Second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. No opposed. No abstensions. Do we have a motion to move the board of education approve the state department of education center for food and beverage items detailed above for the period July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026. I'll make a motion. I'll second. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Any extensions? So, okay. Administrative reports. K, you're on. Sure. So, as of March 31st, you'll see in your packet all of the uh data for enrollment. We are still holding steady at 435 students. Um we have had a few was as of March 31st, but we did have a couple of students return to Bethany. Um which we'll see reflected next
027month. um not a significant number but a returning family. Um and then just to note on a personnel side, this week we were able to welcome Hanessa Saledo as our uh Spanish teacher for the remainder of the year. Um she's fluent in English and Spanish and American Sign Language. The students have really responded to her very well this year. We'll continue to look for a permanent Spanish teacher next year. She's committed to us for the remainder of this year. Um and we'll keep looking for uh a suitable candidate to stay with us permanently as we go into the next school year. And then Chartwells has turnover staff. Um Miss Dena, who uh has been our kitchen lead, has left uh Chartwells. And so this week we we welcomed Christina Zimpedri uh to our team as
028a new kitchen lead. So if you hear from the students that there's a new face in the cafeteria, it's Christina. And that's all I have at this time. Okay. Any other questions for the superintendent? I do. Sean, I know we had a discussion today. Yep. I I mean, I want to bring this kind of up to respect for everybody. I don't know if you guys are paying attention what's going on. Our IT budget, we went from 28,000 to 305,000, right? We continue to have problems. So, I did a little research um in into this with some pretty substantial companies running IT departments. I know we talked about this today. I'm just throwing up for the board. I think we need to look at what we're doing, what we're spending our money on. If we're saying
029we're doing this stuff annually, there's no reason we should be having these failures in our system. That would happen. I think before we spend any more money in this thing, I think we need to look at hosting and I think we need to look at what we have for current equipment. And I'd love to know the ages on it to what we're doing, but I think before we spend any more money out of this budget and continue down a rabbit hole, I I think we need to look at what we're doing from an outside perspective because I I think Matt does a fabulous job, but we need someone with maybe cleaner eyes to take a look at what we're doing. I understand it is hugely expensive, but you know, we got $700,000 in the servers
030and switches and we keep having continual failures. I think it's something we need to look at a little more in depth before we dump another 300,000 into something. Yes. So, you'll have um So, John and I had a conversation today, so I've asked Mr. Brutder for all of that information. You'll have it by Friday in the weekend. Yeah. I I just I I know we've gone down this journey and other things around here and we've we've discovered some interesting facts as we've gone along this journey in the last year or so. So, I just think that's a tremendous amount of money that I think we need to look at with the amount of failures we've had and and I know it's challenging when you guys lose your connectivity and things go down. It it makes
031it very challenging for our staff and our kids every day, but it's it's something we need to look at a little more in depth. Well, with clean eyes, we'll have that information by phone. Yes. So, so I'll be able to give you some updates with regards to the those questions with regards to the current infrastructure, replacement and maintenance practices, strategic planning for cost efficiency, um some potential external audits and oversightes, technology planning and external partnerships, and um some compliance and legal requirements that we have. Yeah, I guess I I know that's a challenge too with all this stuff. And I think one of the questions he had is, you know, um age of infrastructure. Yeah, that's part of the infrastructure. And um so I have some of it now, but I'm waiting for Matt to
032assign costs to each of those things. They're real. They're they're real solid costs. I mean, it's expensive. Yeah. I just like to make sure we're spending our money in the right way and or can we do something better so it it works during the day? Yep. Is there that in the week be in the weekly track? Is there another technology committee meeting um before the end of the year? No. Not it's not to say that couldn't have one, but there isn't one currently scheduled. I didn't know there was a technology committee. Yeah, because it's only getting worse as time goes on. We're just going to expand and we need to make sure we're moving where we need to be. Yep. Okay. And that's under case got that under control hopefully. Um and well, she got
033the paperwork. It's going to take It's going to take time to get Yeah. But we can reasonably look at it. It's the first step. Sean, you have a valid point. It's the first step. Anybody else? Cheryl, you're on. Director of special services. I do not have a report because Mr. M did an amazing job. Thank you. It helps. All right. All right, you're on, Tom. All right. Uh, so we've been busy and it just gets busier. Um, I'll try and go through a bunch of it. Also, just wanting to keep you aware of a lot of the stuff that we got coming up. I know that people have, um, you know, that the board has really been interested in attending different events, so I'll try and just kind of keep you up to speed on
034all we got going. Uh so um fourth grade this month had uh one of their field trips to the Eli Whitney Museum on that 19th. Uh they had a great time. They connected with their um unit on circuits. They come back. They've got all little projects. They were having a great time. Uh we updated uh Miss Kiesel and I updated the report card handbook. Um we're working on really trying to be able to on the report card. It's really tough. You want to be able to get a lot of information, but there's only so much real estate. And so as part of that, um, in the handbook, we've articulated out every standard that's being reported out in the exact language that is for that standard. So if you look and you see, all right, my
035kids got a three or my kids got a two or whatever they have, what does that actually translate to to the exact standard? So we've articulated that out for the entire first trimester, the second trimester. Um, and then we're now in work for the third trimester. Uh, we had conferences on the 26th and the 27th. Uh, thank you to the PTO for the taco bar. an army lives on its stomach. Um March 24th, speaking of snacks, was National Chip and Dip Day, obviously. Uh and so we had a good a really great time with that. Um the fun run, as you heard, is uh going full tilt. I asked the children to do a very good job and raise $9,995. They did not listen. Um we are at $12,841 or something like that at this
036point. Uh, so I'm definitely done for. Uh, we also have uh Nicole Rosner, uh, Ron DeFazio, uh, Bethany Griffin, and Jackie Nathman are going to be joining me if we hit 13,000. Uh, which is a nice way of saying they are also toast. Uh, so yeah, this is one of those where it sounded like such a good idea on paper. Um, we also, uh, so we've got two schoolwide projects that have been going. one on uh Black History Month. If you go in our uh cafeteria hallway, it's one of my favorite things to catch kids kind of like getting distracted. Uh so each classroom profiled a famous African-American and so they created just a a poster there and they line our cafeteria um because that's I mean this is the main thoroughare, right? So as
037kids are going anywhere they travel through there, they'll stop, they'll take a read for a little bit. Um, and then what we did for Women's History Month is each classroom did a presentation at their door. Um, either on the bulletin board or right at their door and then classes have been going around um, doing learning walks or scavenger hunts and things that way. Um, so it's really been great where kids are both doing the work and then they're enjoying the work around the building which has been really great. Uh, our March community meeting uh, was a great success. Uh we had um uh if you didn't know uh our very own sixth grader Shelby Winter uh was in my personal opinion the star of the show of um she played Flounder in Ammy High's uh
038production of The Little Mermaid. I think she still has three performances going this weekend which is amazing. Um, and like so as as a fellow like theater geek. Um, so I did that all through high school. Like the poise that she has at sixth grade in a high school production on stage with significant amounts like significant lines. It wasn't just like the cute little kid that comes out and says something like she had a huge role and was amazing. Um, so we're super proud of her. Um, Miss Kiesel, Mrs. Sparo and I have been attending a couple of job fairs. We went to Fairfield University and then Southern the other day. Um, we currently have the Spanish position open. Um, I'm not saying I jumped over the table uh trying to to get after somebody
039who had Teslaw certification, which is, by the way, not what we need, but it's like closer. Um, but we're trying everything and anything we can under the sun to try and find somebody that is the right fit. Um, but if they're not, then we're not moving forward. Um, you know, and I think the benefit is that we've had a lot of people trying to support us in that role. um you know Lisa O'Neal who's working with us through ESS um hadis who had said you know listen I'm working on this going through my master's program for education really would like to you know connect with a school kind of longer term I've got you know this experience with ASL deaf studies Spanish would like to put that to work and she's been great I mean
040you know sample size of three days but like the kids love her uh she's doing a really great job so we're excited for that and then you know we're hitting the ground as hard as we can to try and find somebody as a permanent friend um for next year. Uh BCS kids still going well. Um we had one additional student sign up. Uh staff's doing well, kids are doing great. Um status quo, it's wonderful. That being said, sounds like that's busy, and you would think so, but it's not. I'm going to try and go through it quick, but there's a lot of stuff just to keep you in the know. Uh we have our kindergarten info night tomorrow night uh at 6:30. Uh we're doing our screener the week after um April break. Uh we've
041got our Smarter Balance assessments that are starting the week of the 28th. We've got a pep rally. Get the kids all excited. Um and then they start for real on the 29th. Teacher appreciation week is the week of May 5th. Nurses Day is also in there on the 6th. The PTO plant sale is the 6th and the 7th. Uh third grade's going to the Connecticut Science Center on the 9th. This is all May. Uh the sixth grade is hosting a science fair um for their projects. Brooke is going to be Mrs. Heerly is going to have them do uh some presentations to students uh during the day and then in the afternoon to families. Fourth grade is taking another trip to the Yale Peabody Museum. Quasi night for the PTO is on the 16th. Uh
042we've got the Connecticut Sun game on the 18th. That's super exciting. Buy tickets. It's going to be amazing. Um and there's a meet and greet after game. Uh, our unifi, sorry, I lost track. Our night of the arts is going to be on the 20th. Uh, Mr. Fortune uh is working with um Mrs. Rogers. So, um we're going to have the whole school open again as a as a gallery. Um and Mrs. Rogers is going to be creating um a scavenger hunt for kids to do as we go through. Um and then Mr. Fortune is working on our spring concert to coincide with it. So, kind of you'll have some time to to walk through, then a concert in the middle, and then some time to end the evening. Our unified celebration is on the
04321st of May. Second grade has a field trip to uh Russell Homestead uh around the 21st, 22nd. Um and then we've got the spring fling for the PTO on the 23rd. Uh our sixth graders are going to the middle school for field day on the 27th. Uh the 27th, 28th, and 29th. Second grade has old schoolhouse day, which is amazing. Um, the fifth grade is going to the high school for uh steam day on the 28th. Uh, we have our night of gratitude on the 29th. I hear there's going to be a master of ceremonies. Uh, the first grade is taking a field trip to the Beardsley Zoo on the 29th. Um, then we have our community meeting on the 30th. Our drama club, we are doing U Moana Jr. Uh we're super excited for
044that. Uh we're doing our night performance on the 30th and then the afternoon performance on the 1st. Um there we go. Sixth grade is going to Camp Getaway on the 2nd of June. Now we're into June. Um and then um we've got our field day scheduled for the 4th. Um and this is shout outs to like none of this stuff happens without humans. Ron DeFazio and Laura Stokes came to me and they were like, "Hey, we don't have a PE teacher right now as we're trying to fill that position for Joe. She's coming in um on um on the 21st. So, what if we work together and trying to help kind of organize and plan field day as we approach for that?" So, when that person comes in, we're not like, "Hey, welcome to school.
045Plan something big for us." Um and so they've really been working with Mrs. Hubard, who um had previously been in that role, has all kinds of amazing plans. Um, so shout out to them. Not something they ever had to do, but it's really helping the school be prepared for that. Um, and also helping um, so that um, you know, we're not bringing somebody in and then just hitting them with it. Um, and then we get into the super fun. So, sixth grade awards night's going to be Monday of the last week of school. That's the 9th in the evening. PreK graduation is the afternoon of the 9th. Uh, your HM High graduation, if anybody didn't know, is on the 10th. The middle school is going to be on the 11th at 9:00 am. Our kindergarteners
046are going to have their moving up ceremony on the 11th. You have a board of edet meeting on the 11th. Um, and then we have the sixth grade graduation at 9:30 on the 12th and then the ice cream social for the sixth graders on the 13th. How big is your whiteboard? It's Listen, this kind of like really cues into the rat's nest that is my brain. Um what we've done so so this was something that was gifted to me and we've expanded it since I've been here is so I I hit staff with this. So we call it the last eight weeks. It's the like oh we need to make sure that we've got everything set to the end of the year. And so we just add this through. Um what I can do is
047I'll take this and just kind of strip down the unnecessary stuff. But I'll make sure that I get that um out to you all just so you have those events. Um you know so if there's something that you want to attend by the way throw a dart at the board. pick a day, you can show up and we're probably doing something as you can see. Um, and all of that is to say again, every single one of those field trips is organized and planned by a teacher. Every single one of those events is organized and planned by a staff member. You know, it takes multiple humans to make that work. Um, a lot of times going well beyond any kind of contractual hour. And I think just the joy that it brings kids, you know,
048and I think along with that, like ridiculous amounts of support from the PTO, like there's like six things coming here and the challenge that we have is making sure that we're not crossing up the PTO on the amazing things that we're doing, they're doing with things that we are. So just grateful for the stuff. It keeps us busy. Um, but it's a good kind of busy, you know? I think it's the stuff that like makes the memories, builds the community. Like happy kids are kids that learn. You know, it's what I said to the staff in my weekly. Like, this week's gonna be a mess literally sometime soon. But it's going to be a fun mess, you know? Like the kids are going to remember running around the track. The kids are going to remember
049the, you know, the kids who really laid a pie into somebody's face or dripped the green slime on the principal. Like, that's something you're not going to forget. And that joy is going to be what gets them through the door and makes something like Smarter Balance tolerable and gets them through the day. and, you know, keeps them learning and working. So, it's a lot of good stuff. You going to have a bathroom on the bus? Well, listen, there's there's uh So, most memorable thing at the last graduation. Yes. Yeah. They kept talking about it. Yeah, they loved it. They were very excited. That is that is one of the anchor points of the of the fifth grade experience is taking the coach bus. They were all fired up about it. So, you posted it, Tom.
050You forgot one important date. Oh, no. Which one did I leave out? The last day of school. Oh, well, that is not my decision to make. So, I I you know, I I see I see right now it's June 13th. Yes, the last name school. That's good. That's good cuz I scheduled something on the 13th. But assuming it doesn't snow between now and then. Oh god. Don't say that. So So whatever happened to that that reading challenge? Is that over? What happened? Oh, for the kids lip. Yeah. No, we're grinding those kids right away. It's wonderful. Um, yeah, we So, they're toughing it out. No. So, what we listen um they would have gotten absolutely destroyed if we sent them to the competition in January. So, what we said is like, listen, we're going to
051we're going to build you up over the course of a year. And they've been coming. They're meeting with us once a week, and we're just setting them on on tasks. We had a set of book clubs. We rotated that around for six weeks. uh Ron uh Jackie Reutder and myself, Ron DeFazio, Jackie Reutder, fifth grade ELA teacher and myself um put together a Google classroom. We got a whole list of fables, fairy tales, um and nursery rhymes because there, you know, they I mean when they talk like lit quiz, it's everything. Uh so they've been going through and reading up on like old mother goo stuff and Asop's fables and you know, all of that stuff for the last couple of weeks. Um, and then now this week we're getting them to do some uh
052book clubs over the April break and then we'll probably do another run of like six book clubs that rotate through the groups. Um, so no, they've been doing great. We still got a huge contingent. We a couple of kids like they were like this is a lot of reading like we said it was. Um, so we lost about four kids but we still we still over 20. We got a bunch of kids and we're I mean we're making them read, you know, an extra 20 30 easy 20 30 minutes a night keeping up with this and they're doing it independently. It's great. So what's it what's the reward at the end? So knowledge. Knowledge. No prize. They don't go. So we're going to treat it kind of like we do in conventions. So they're going
053to work through and then we're going to have a school-based competition between the groups kind of just like a healthy kind competition. Uh, and we're going to send the top three scoring teams to the state competition in January. And the other three teams are going to be quiz masters for the three that we're sending forward. Okay. So, we're going to kind of get them set and prime midfall, we're going to do a little in-house competition. Um, quiz the daylights out of them on everything and anything under the sun. Uh, and then send top three teams on up to the state, which should be kind of mid January of 2026. Do they does a state have any type of challenge like that for math stuff? It's not well I shouldn't say it's not state per se.
054This is just an organ it's an organization that just loves to get kids reading and so they have kind of a so it's not part of the department of ed or anything. No, this is a thing outside. It's outside of um and there's this kooky guy who wears this big top hat and asks all kinds of kooky questions and the kids love it. Um and then you have a a national uh like national semi-finalists and then national winners and international winners. Um a couple of a couple of groups from Cedric Middle School uh and West Hartford. I only know because they some of them were former students of mine. Um went on to like the national competitions and stuff. That's how I found out about it. And then we did it um in my previous
055school. Diane Leia who was the lit coach when I was there and I was the STEM coach. Um we kind of got that in and we sent a couple of groups up. Okay. because you you think they need some kind of reward or something or award or some recognition for all their hard work. Yeah, we're going to I think we're going to keep them going and then we're going to we're going to give them some shine kind of in the fall as they're going. They've been really working hard. It's awesome. Okay. And is there some other like like a math organization that does the same type of thing? There are some different math competitions. Um I haven't kind of narrowed out the one that I want to go after. There's also some like creativity ones.
056So there'll be like Odyssey of the mind, uh, future problem solvers. There's a bunch of that stuff that goes that way. Ultimately on the math side, um, what we might end up doing because it's got like kind of kid ground support is a is a chess team. So Kathy Ell's has been taking one lunch a week um, and inviting kids down and they're just playing chess. I walked by them today and they were over there like going, you know. Yeah, it was finding Bobby Fisher with our fifth and sixth graders. It was awesome. Right. Because you got like the invention convention and then you What happened with that? This wood thing. What happened with what? The teams who sent to the invention convention. It's not yet, right? The state competition hasn't happened. No. May. Yeah.
057Yeah. Okay. May. It's May. Yeah. June 4th. I knew it was going to happen. June. The national the one or the national one is in June. June 4th. We heard from the last. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, we'll let you know after they win the national competition. We're speaking we're speaking positivity into it. So, after they win the national competition, we'll bring them back and announce that. Yeah, there's a there's a couple of those where there's some neat like kind of, you know, academic competition sorts of things. Um, I mean, the tricky part, you know, you got to be ready to kind of be in it because, you know, they got all kinds of rules and stuff that you got to follow. You got to prep the kids for how it's going to go. So, looking
058into a couple of those as well. You got a lot of energy over there, Tom. You got to these kids. I listen, my my age demographic is three three to 12. You got to keep up with them, you know. God bless you. Okay. Do you Sorry. Go ahead. For the children that are part of your um the reading competition because it extends into doing something internally this fall. Is there like a structure that's provided to them on what they can do over the summer to keep up those reading skills so they don't kind of fall behind? Yeah. So, so part of it, one part of it is like kind of pushing them and the other part of it is is empowering them. And so, we've really been talking a lot about like, you know, a
059kid will come to me and they go, "Well, I I didn't finish my book." And I go, "Okay." Like, "No one's here yelling at you." Like, you know, like it's kind of like, "Did you have a catch over the, you know, over the winter before you came to baseball practice?" Like, we're trying. So, as we're going, what we're trying to do right now is kind of build that rotation and that skill set in them of like the planning. And then what um Ron and Jackie and I want to do is kind of start building a list of like, hey, here are the the titles we think you as a team should start addressing, you know, um and then we're going to give those to them and kind of give them an outline of how they
060might want to spread their their day across, you know, as they or their week across um through the summer. The other part of it is that as we hit the next year, right, we'll have sixth graders. And so we're going to take the sixth graders, we're going to send them up to competition. We're going to bring in a crop of fifth graders. And those fifth graders are going to go and they're going to build a year kind of getting themselves set and then they'll become through and then we'll just have that rotation. Um, you know, so that way they can they can kind of prep and and learn from the model that we've got with the kids that have already been in it for. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I just want to know who
061gets to slime you. It's a good question. So, I think that I mean that is the that is the internal question. So, what we'll probably do is we'll go through and we'll take any kids that um that have uh gotten donations for the fund run and we'll throw their names in a hat and then we'll pull um names from I'm willing to bet if we do it right, we'll have like multiple kids with semifull buckets of stuff to dump upon the principal. We tried to get it one kid per grade level last year for the pies so that like it was you know dramatic effect of the you know um we told told several of the students like you know be careful you know don't break the face um but yeah it should be a
062lot of fun and Jen Gaelic has um sworn up and down that she has a slime recipe and I'm trusting her um that isn't like going to stain every part of my person. I don't want like green ears for the next two and a half weeks. I'm terrified actually. I really am. I'm going to be purple for like There's a slime museum. There's a slime museum in New York City. We could get you tickets for the Dad. Let's not lean into this any further than we already are. It's going to party. It would be good. She said there's some water-based slime that like doesn't stick to like all your clothes. I my kids made me touch literally 20 different kinds of slime. So I can actually Yes. Any any any feedback would be It was
063awful. Yeah, that's the one thing we don't allow in the house. But you know, while everything else glitter, we have a we have a sign in in our kitchen about that slime is not allowed in this house because it is ruined and there is a list. Oh yeah. Every time Charlotte breaks that, we add it to Hopefully you don't have to write my face off that list. I seriously just just remember you know the poet Bonnie Burns best laid plans of mice and men gang after the glee. You opened your mouth by his mouth the fish is caught. Listen you know at the end of the day the number of children who are absolutely out of their minds excited for it is worth every bit of it. It's a big deal every time it fine.
064I think maybe some adults should sign up for that one too. No throwing them ahead. I mean, it's not taking it. You're joining. Is the slime date on that list? So, please No, no. Yeah, we got to figure that out. We got We have to try and find a way to shoehorn that in. Yeah, we'll probably add it to um to the April community meeting. Oh, great. Okay. A pie throwing contest should be fun. That was that was last year. My poor tuxedo can only take so much. All right. Hey, I got one for you. Here we go. You ready? Uh oh. Couple years ago, we did a survey. Yep. And some of the biggest things, three things that came out of that survey was our building and our bathrooms were dirty. No one felt
065safe and no one's felt appreciated. You remember that survey? I I do cuz it was pretty resounding to me sitting on the board. Okay. Where do you think we would stand right now if we did the same thing? I I would hope a lot better. Um we're going to give that spring survey. So what we've tried to do is we've tried to um each year we give the comprehensive survey in the spring. Comprehensive meaning block the climate survey. So it's okay. Yeah. It's it's the big the big one that we've seen. So we give that one every spring and we try and do year over. We try and keep those questions as static as possible. Sometimes we shift them a little bit just because like you get data from it and you're like this isn't
066really actionable, you know? So you you modify the question a little bit here and there, but that's been pretty steady. the six years that I've been here. And I think we'll I we can answer that fairly soon. Um and then the other part that we've been trying to do is in the fall, we've kind of carved out from that and said based on this previous spring survey andor things that we're noticing in the building, you know, what do we want to focus on this year um as we move forward? And so some of that has been you know like in previous years we've looked at like you know uh feedback from administrators or curriculum or you name it and we've tried to you know narrow that in for students. We've looked at like um you
067know how many trusted adults do you have and things like that. Exactly. That's exactly this one I'm talking. So that's that was that's been a huge one and we've seen a huge increase in that and part of that's been like mindful effort to really think about what helps a kid connect with adults in the building. um you know and so we've really moved that needle pretty well on that. Um you know we'll have that we should have that out and able to report to you um middle to end of May um because we're going to be giving that out the end of April and then we're going to meet with the climate committee. Um they just met this Tuesday. Uh so on Tuesday we met as a climate committee, looked at all the questions um
068looking to get some feedback from them and then Miss Nathan's gonna um spearhead that and get it out to staff, students and families because there seems to be a huge change in the team and you know you seem to have a pretty successful year again. So I'm just kind of curious, are we going in that right direction or do we as a board need to do something to help you get where we need to be? So, I'm really curious to see what that says because I was rather upset when I looked at that other one. Number one, the building was dirty in the bathrooms. Yeah. So, I I think we've definitely fixed a lot of stuff. I'm just kind of curious where we kind of stand right now on that. Okay. Yeah. I I have
069sorry I just I have a related question which is and maybe this is a a curriculum question but the um the unit that we that got added this year around safety for students during time. I'm curious if like what kind of evaluation you're doing and if you're thinking about continuing that into next year. It'll continue Yeah. into next year. We haven't evaluated it um because we haven't gotten all the way through the year, but they're doing the lessons. We've got the behavioral staff, you know, pushing in the teachers and doing those lessons. And so far so good. That's actually why um we had to get helmets um because we have little scooters that the kids can use for their breaks and because we did a safety uh lesson on bike safety and wearing your helmets.
070The kids were like, "Well, we can't use the scooters anymore until you guys buy us helmets." So, we had to buy helmets. Yeah, they called us right out. So, everything that they're learning, they'll call us right out on it, which is great because that's what you want. You want them to like take and then recognize, oh well, you're telling me to be safe and I need to wear a helmet when I'm on my scooter, but you've got scooters here at the school and I don't have a helmet. You're right. Let's get some helmets. I also understand there's a song that they learn as part of it. There's I don't know. My kids are walking around singing a song about safety. There's songs, games, all the things. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
071Okay. uh chairman's report. Uh mostly my stuff has to do with facilities. Uh the facilities is going to have a special meeting next Wednesday. We got the uh the uh stair stuff back from uh Silver Petraelli. We have a bunch of questions on it. Um and so we're going to have a special meeting next Wednesday at 9:00 with the facilities committee 9:00 via Zoom and uh we'll report back to the uh to the board. On the same token, we did get uh you know, we we've had the problem with the uh pipe in the uh septic system with part of the tank being in the school and everything else. You don't want to talk about that now? No, no, we can talk about it. Just the pipe under the building you're talking about? Yeah, just
072the pipe under the building. The the the committee meeting, the facilities committee meeting is mostly about the stair. This is something I want to bring up to the board because it should be discussed by the board. um the pipe under the building. Um Kevin came back with the idea that maybe we could just leave it for about $20,000 or uh we have a proposal from uh Griger Excavating to replace the tanks, fill in the tank under the building, put in a new pipe, which is correct way to do it for approximately $83,000. And the question was, what should we do? And based upon my own experience, since I do a lot of this for a living, uh, get the tank out of the building, get the pipe installed, and do it right and do it
073once. Because if we just sleeve the pipe, even though it's a $28,000 versus an $83,000 fix, it's still going to come back to bite us in five or six years. The tanks have to be tank has to be replaced. The tank in the building has to be filled in. A new pump has to be installed. And so my suggestion to the board is that we bite the bullet. We spend the $83,000. Now, where would that money come from? Well, proposed budget surplus is around $95,000, and we know that's going to go down. So, the odds are we will have a budget surplus of x amount of dollars. We'll know better next month. That will pay for part of it and then the rest of it will come out of the rainy day fund. That's exactly
074what the rainy day fund was designed for. So my suggestion to the board is it's okay with you guys will pursue having everything done and we would do that after school is done. So that would be starting we tell them start the 13th. Well well I mean you got to remember too I I I was here for a couple of the the meetings going into the show that the pumps are 1996 that are currently in there. It'll be 14 15,000 plus 28 if it fails. It just doesn't make sense to do it. There's a 4 to 8 week lead time just to order the tank. So, we need to move forward cuz I'd like them to get shovel ready and have grass growing before the kids come back to school. Well, hopefully that that replacement
075should go quickly. So, if we know we're going to do it, if the board is okay with this, then K and I will work out the details in the next week or two. and uh we'll get Billy on board to start ordering equipment and uh get it ready to go so right after school closes we can start the work. Does anybody see a problem with this? How quickly does any sort of the summer programs and booths and things begin? Like is there the last day of school June 13th? Okay. So you got STEM is starting right after and I don't think but they can be we can the these can be shifted around just a little bit. Um, we have spaces they can go. Okay. Right. And it's only going to affect that end of
076the field. Um, because the half the building goes that way. So, you know, they can even use the the thing and Billy can pump it if the tank needs to be emptied once if they're using that for some one of your programs. But my suggestion is because they are so old, they're coming to the end of their useful life, spending $28,000 or $20,000 or $18,000 and then having to go back in four or five years. That's what we're doing now. We're mandating it and we've been Yeah. And so it's just let's get the damn thing done and and be done with it and we'll meet the current code. So we'll meet the current which we currently do not. Does that have to go to RFP? What's that for that amount of money? So, that's what
077I was just going to ask. We got because that particular if we go with that particular contractor, they're already under the town and this could be considered an emergency repair. So, it wouldn't need to go and it comes out of and it comes out of the rainy day fund that would be replaced by whatever funds are left at the end of the year. But, we also have to remember that we also have the um IT uh repairs going on. And then one of the things we're going to talk about at the facilities meeting next Wednesday is the stair. Uh there's some things we're going to want to change, some things we may want to do differently, but we all felt that uh the numbers a bit on the high side, but that um I'm going
078to give this uh I have a client Colona Concrete throughout Woodbridge and I'm going to call Cody next tomorrow or the next day or two and see if Cody will give me a better budget number. Let's see if I can pour a lot. They pour a lot of concrete. I do a lot of work for them and so that's why he owes me. So I'll see if I can get what? They're all out of Norwalk. They even working over this way anymore. They love them. Norwalk. Norwalk and and Norwalk loves them. Stanford loves Grasso. So I can get, you know, I'll try I'll try them first because they're local and then if they don't work, I can call Grasso. But I've got two contractors that I can call and get a better number on. Okay.
079Okay. And that's what I'm going to do in the next day or two. That's a just a rough idea before we go to RFP. Well, we he came back with what 200,000. Yeah. Yeah. Just And I think that's I think that's a a bit high and b there may be a couple of things we can yank out of there to get it down. But you know the old joke about an engineer's estimate is the cost of construction in heaven. And they're never right. They're either too low or too high. Plus 2%. Plus 2%. You're you're talking about the stairs. What? You're talking about the stairs now? Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. Cuz you know, we just did this like two months ago. It was 175. Now it's up to almost 200. But but understand I talked
080to an excavator yesterday. Still an estimate. Same thing about the price of eggs. Yeah. Ash ashalt went on 15 bucks a ton. And when I said to him, I said, you know, what's the justification? Because oil's coming down and that's what aphalt is. He says, "Oh, they're talking about parts, labor, and everything else." So price gouging, I can't call it that, but people are starting to take advantage of what's going on and they're jacking their prices um maybe artificially, but the bottom line is they're going up. They're not coming down. Yeah, I noticed. So, let's see what happens. I mean, try getting I uh I don't know what the heck we were talking about. You said pumps before. Um, I talked to somebody the other day that the price of pump 12 $16,000 on a
081job. I've heard other things the same way. You know, the the price of of computer the price of computer parts, you know, IT service Yeah. is going to go through the roof for a couple of months. So, there's going to be a period of adjustment. So, we can either sit on it and wait or we can get it done and be done with. And my suggestion is as far as the pumps go, get them done and get it be done with and just bite the bullet. And at the end of the day, it's probably going to save us money because the pumps are going to be smaller and run more efficient than what we have. Which reminds me, are we saving any money on our electricity? No. From the solar? No. No. Yeah. Just Okay.
082I have to Were they Were they a lease? Like were they fixed the price or were they like we get the overage and all that? The whole town's under a lease. I drank that Kool-Aid. I was on the board when that was proposed. And I'll be honest with you, since that time, I've done a lot of digging. Brandy Brandy did our numbers and it would be cheaper to pay the electric bill when she did them. Last year, it was it cost us more money to have solar panels than the electric. So, I I will give you a piece of advice. If you're thinking of solar panels, you're buying. You do not lease them. Yeah. That's that's the Kool-Aid that everybody they get everybody to drink. It's cheap. Uh-uh. Buy the system 40,000 or pay them
083127,000. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Buy them and bite the bullet. Take the 40% off your 30% off your income tax. Can Can we go back to the um the 83,000? I I I I agree that it seems to make sense to pay the higher amount for the repair rather than just put a band-aid on it. But do we need to make make a formal motion? Does it need to be technically added to the agenda? Like is there anything we need to do to make sure we're how does that following procedures? So when we have the final number, if that is in I want to make sure we have the actual final final number and then to vote on it so that the money can be taken out of the 10248A account. Okay. Because I know there
084was a question we have a solid number on the tank. The question that was still pending is between the new control system and the old control system what we were going to have to do. And I know they were looking into that but I mean that's a little bit. So that's why I said the next week or two we'll chase Billy. We'll get a firmed up number and the 10th number is the the 10th number from Gregor reservation is firm that because that's a special order. Yes, that is a firm number. The electrical I guess some Beth in the electrical is supposed to go over and look at it. Well, we'll come back with the board with that number. But it's something that So, what do we want to do, John? Do we want to
085do we want to How do we do this not to exceed number so we can get that in place and we get the tank ordered? We got to talk to Bill first. We We should We should We should get a firm number from Billy Greer, make sure that he's covered all the bases, and then that would be a not to exceed um maybe add 5% for uh for uh contingencies, site conditions, you know, once you have a firm number for the bill, whether it's 83, 81, or 90. Yeah. and uh and then proceed on that basis. It'll be a cool town too because they're setting it with a crane. So if we do that at the May meeting, that's still enough time. Yeah. Yeah. May. So it'll be at the May meeting. So you need
086like a motion just of support, you know, to move forward with it. I think right now I think we the May meeting we'll need a motion to spend the money, right? May that gives us just just this is more of a next month when we ask you to vote on this. You're going to say yes, right? Sure. I mean, that's a fair question. You don't want to want to go through the effort if there's no why say why you he you raised the valid point because May, it's the middle of May. If you're saying four to six, 4 to 8 weeks a special order tank, we're going to be into July. The installation it the installation I'm not worried about. I'm worried about getting the tank ordered. But it makes no difference. He would order
087it now and it'll be in a July installation, but it doesn't have any impact on the school program for the summer. Correct. So, it doesn't matter whether because putting it in should take them no more than a couple of weeks maximum. Yeah. Yeah. But I just like to have grass back there. What's that? I like to have grass. It is what it is, Sean. We'll do the best we can. All right. Put side in the mix. Let's not get carried away. Okay. So much money in the rain account. What? We have so much money in the race. I would I would I would say we could put some astroturf astroturf. But I I'm sure we're going to fight on that one. Chrome rubber. Um but that's the big issues that we have going and like
088I said, we'll straighten the uh we'll get the stairs straightened out next week at the facilities meeting and we'll bring that back in May so we can get that started also. Anything else? [Applause] correspondence. Anything? How many people are online? 55. Oh, we picked up one. Okay. Public comment. I'm not going to read this again. There's nobody here. Do you want to Do you want to say anything? Still good. Motion to adjurnn. All in favor I [Music] They're taking all the trees, huh? What? They're taking off.