001e e e all right 6:30 um beic Bo of Education regular meeting we'll come to order we'll start with the pl of illusions [Music] thank you all for coming uh before we start no many people don't that's a Kim question yeah anyways let's start with the PTR report here go I believe you what we talk that perfect time right right on the nose right there okay he's right there out the window with the leaf lower hello everyone uh my name is Alissa Salo I am the current BCS PTO president in my second year um all right so since last time we met already little louder we've already been busy it's only been 3 weeks to school already had a couple of events going on uh the P provided lunch for the staff on their first
002day back for their um professional professional development days uh before students return so thank you to sah for organizing that um and then on the day of kindergarten orientation we hosted a play dat over in the playground uh for the incoming kindergarteners and their families Refreshments um kids are all playing on the playgrounds and parents have opportunity to meet each other and then they headed down here for uh kinderart orientation where we had a um welcome table we handed out gift goodie bags had t-shirt some of goodies in it uh as well as we handed out um informational folders to the parents regarding all our PTO activities U so I want to thank um getting that all set up and for I know mentioned this past weekend the school weekly letter from the school um
003I want to give a huge shout out to AG from C she worked over the summer to paint I my team is um a bunch of new um games on the pavement um all sensory walk so she spearheaded that and it looks fantastic so thank you to Agnes for doing that um we are looking for volunteers right now our room pairing we guys starting our room pair program if the link is not AC yet it will be like by this evening by this afternoon um so anyone who's interested in becoming a room parent you can sign up on PT board to do that um we're asking that anybody who's interested sending out an informational fire a little bit later this evening take a look at that make sure it's something you can do um we're
004asking and if everybody sign up by the 18th of September that way we can get room parents up and running get their class out to them and get going with that the other thing we're looking for volunteers for is open house which is um September 17th we're going to be having a table over in the gym we're going to have some BCS merchandise for sale we're going to be offering samples for um L pies today and um we're going to have some information um about ski club and some other PTO events are going on I'm looking forward um our first PTO meeting for the year we're alternating between inperson and zoom our first meeting is going to be here in a week uh on the 18th and 6:30 it's going to be in person our
005meeting will be on Zoom um September 23rd is the start of our PI sale that sales help um the funding for teacher appreciation student appreciation and field trips so um I know Ria has the information that so she's going to be getting that out to the school to the distributed students within the next couple of days so keep an eye out for on your children's holder make sure you get that information um and then going forward in October um October 6 is going to be picture day I know SAR is working on getting the information out for that as well um retakes going to be November 27 um the line in P sale will end the the day of October 14th distribution will be sometime before Thanksgiving don't have exact October 6 is a Sunday
006it's October 8th okay thank you thank you I was about to send that out it's October um I got that confused last time it's October 8 uh the week of October 2st is is Scholastic Book Fair um so I'm going to get going with that and then at theob B and the anybody any questions from elist thank you very very much do you first you want to public com public comment it's in my report you want you want to do after no my report it's all part of my superintendent report okay um okay we come to the public comment policy number uh 1120 and bylaw 9325 uh anybody who wishes to speak come on up to the podium state your name and address uh we try to allocate approximately 3 minutes uh 15 minutes to
007a topic but there's not a lot of people so if we go over a little bit it's not a big deal so our first contestant please so we do have one that was submitted online um it was submitted on September 8th 2024 at 6:34 p.m. from Mary York 340 Falls Road Bethany Connecticut um and her comment reads as follows we have been again let down by our leadership Our Town leadership due to the inaction of the town to move anything forward the interim director of parks and wreck before and after school resigned we all knew he did not have the support he needed families had two days to figure out plans for their children and jobs it seems there are few in the town willing to help and the Boe has a history of stepping
008in and doing just that as evidenced by trying to put together a program in mere weeks before school started can the Boe possibly help parents who are left in the Lurch for before and after care working parents shouldn't have to pay for the crimes of a pedophile families in this town need to support need support now more than ever and it seems we continue to get kicked while we're down help us please and to be U upfront that will be discussed in the superintendent's report um Jen capaso did a brief discussion of it last night at the selectman's meeting at the special selectman's meeting and uh we'll cover that in Greater detail so if there's anybody else for public comment uh come on down please state your name and address for the record and write
009it down there so we have a speak slowly and clearly um I'm Johanna Fernandez 108 mon Ro um I'm here just to make the comment that I do want I want to know the the steps of the school regarding the after CARE program I understand that yesterday the Elman and the board of Finance approv something for the pars and rec family there are families that didn't sign up for pars and rec because they didn't trust the stability of the program they didn't trust the current processes and there's still families that want to know what is going to be the future some of us make arrangements temporary Arrangements but we want to know what is going to be the next steps uh and if BC is actually going to have eventually an after CARE program that's
010all thank you and just to answer that question K we'll answer that in the superintendent's report no other contestants thank you um committee reports curriculum approval minutes oh excuse me approval of minutes I make the motion to approve the minutes second any discussion errors omissions comments all in favor all oppos obain DJ now we go to committee reports fire the law 9132 curriculum uh so curriculum met um one week ago and we had U an update on the curriculum of professional learning um this Cas reported on the professional development the teachers and parent Educators did through that first week of school thing um kicked off with the students all the all the activities that our teachers were involved in and parents were involved in um there was topics included math and introduction to our new
011resource for the science of reading as well as training on the new Child Protection unit um they received positive feedback from the staff in spite of the connectivity issues because' been aware of the connectivity issues we've been having here um Mr will reported on the implementation of the additional resource for the science of reading from uh amplifi and the teachers will continue to receive training this resource in the coming months um Mrs Bradford had U inquired about the data for the kindergarten students for the curricular resources and was curious to know if students continue to perform well in the magnetic reading um and we also uh Mrs Bradford being the chair of the policy committee noticed that there were some policies around um curriculum and what that's the attention of the curriculum committee and wanted
012to see if it was things that we should review we talked about bringing those things those policies that were specific BR to the curricul committee to review um and then we talked about some future topics which would include U updates on science social studies curriculum we had had discussion and uh about report cards before and get an update on where um report card stood and we talked about how cohort data would and the student presentation data for all of our wonderful sback testing would be coming up in the near future any else I anybody who have any questions Rulo going once so Mo Finance Amy you're around okay bear with me we have three months to go over so quite a lot you want me John Paul to go over each month and then approval
013or just yeah do one at the time that's okay all right so in your packet you will see the operating budget for the 20224 school year uh with the month ending June 2024 um on there you will see under general education that the salaries ended with a surplus of 14,410 which is mostly due to the reallocation of ESS sub cost and ESS is the company that the district uses subs and Staffing benefits ended with a surplus of 59,500 34 this is due to the ESS sub costs that were reallocated to Educational Services which is the deficit of 191 and 88 on the BSF BCS Services line supplies and other bu lines ended with deficits of 41326 respectively mainly due to increases and software renewals and the purchase of Technology wish list items so you'll see
014that the overall general education ended with the year with a deficit of $6 69,6 181 under special education salaries ended with a surplus of 9,623 which is slightly higher than the previous month due to sub cost coming in less than we had expected benefits ended with a surplus of 22875 that is slightly higher than May due to final billing and adjustment to estimated taxes services ended with a surplus of 93,9 due to an extra prek bus that was budgeted for but not needed and the use of the excess costs to offset the cost of outside Services thank you I was like what is this coming at me thank you Miss WL supplies ended with a deficit of 26334 due to the purchase of wishless instructional supplies special education ends the year with a surplus of
015$1,599 still on June under operations and overhead salaries ended with a surplus of $ 37,5 44 this is a little higher than last month or the previous month due to final salaries being paid out and adjustments to hourly custodial and part-time employees benefits ended with an increased surplus of 94882 due to final billing estimated taxes and the final release of the insurance cushion the services Line is now showing a deficit of 22,277 due to final billing and the purchase of wishlist items and supplies ended with a surplus of 3, 432 still under operations and overhead you'll see utilities ended with a deficit of 2861 as final billing came in a little higher than anticipated facilities and maintenance is now showing a decreased deficit of 85,681 se2 as memberships and du's fees came in higher than
016expected operations and overhead ended the month with a surplus of $ 28,730 the 2324 school year ended with a surplus of 9,648 and that is 75% of the total appropriated budget we had for the fiscal year at the bottom you will see that as of June 30th the prek account balance is $84,999 50 and the 10 248a account shows a balance of $30,380 any questions on June okay I'm done with June anybody's got any questions just to to the servers at the school were impacted and they're still not uh 100% correct so um Mt Brer has been working on this diligently and that's where a good chunk of that 59,000 it's going to disappear to um I don't know if every remembers last month the phone lines were down and there were all kinds of
017interrupted so all right then I anybody want to make a motion to accept the operating budget uh as of June 2024 as presented by Amy Joe Caroline second second all those in favor I I oppos now on to the July okay July is a little bit quicker okay so next page is the operating budget for the new school year 2425 summary as of July 2024 um pretty status quo as you can see all accounts for the month of July remain status quo with the budget projections that were made during the budget process in the 2023 2024 school year we will make adjustments to salaries and benefits as those numbers become more definitive in the next few months taking into consideration new hires and benefits coverage changes we will also make adjust as needed to current
018projections for special education programs grant funding professional development and student needs done no so easy any questions okay motion to accept the uh budget summaries of July 2024 okay sh second I'll second all in favor all right okay next page is the 2425 operating budget summary for August of 2024 you will see under general education salaries is showing a surplus of 14,15 due to adjustments made for new certified staff all other general education lines remain status quo at this time general education ends the month with a surplus of 14,16 you go down you will see under special education salaries have been adjusted to reflect savings and esy coverage all other special education lines remain status quo at this time special education ends the month with a surplus of $1,419 under operations and overhead you'll see
019all line Lings remain status quo at this time at this time overall we're showing a surplus of $1 15,576 which reflect savings and salaries Mrs Miss richardi will continue to make the necessary adjustments as the settles into the new school year and as John Paul had mentioned our backup server took a hit from the lightning strike in June and failed a couple times and now needs to be replaced so there is the equipment uh and installation for that in addition to monthly storage fees with the quote coming in at approximately $27,000 plus two servers have also been having issues since the storm we are looking at quotes to repl th replace those as well Mrs Spargo has contacted kerma our insurance provider to look into following a claim our deductible is $4,000 so we are
020looking to pursuing that would you like to have us approve that and then I'll finish off what we sure okay anybody have any questions motion to approve the uh August 20124 operating budget as present motion Joe second Shannon all in favor all right then to finish off uh at the meeting uh M richardi reported on few other items to inform us that the EFS report which is a required state report has been completed and certified by the September first deadline once the Auditors have reviewed the schedules and backup documentation it will be reopened for final certification once the final certification is complete the Auditors will formally submit their findings to the state and the deadline for this has now been changed to January 31st of 2025 as far as the audit goes we have new
021Auditors this this year U Mahoney Sable and Company they were in at the end of July to do their initial testing Miss richardi sat with them to review all of our cash re receipts excuse me and dispersement processes that occur both in the Boe office and here at the school and they expect to be back sometime in January to complete the audit and submit the final certified EFS report to the state finally because even though the school year just started it's budget season already so the budget 2526 school year Miss richardi and Mrs bird will be meeting within the next week or so and to begin formulating the timeline to meet with departments to review expectations for the 2526 budget planning process I'm finally done can I I just wanted to piggy back up with
022that I've been going to the cave um cave is doing a series of seminars on budget and finance and um it's been really helpful and they've recorded the ones they've already done if so people haven't had a chance to go their interest I think there's two more coming um but they've been really helpful in getting up to okay that takes care of Finance since Sean is not here I will him facilities with K's backup uh's last night um in attendance was Shan as chairman K myself Amy Kevin uh um and what we did was we U we walked around and we talked about some of the things that have to be done should be done and will be done um as you know we hired an an architect to uh come up with some plans
023to fix the north ramp and stairs uh after some discussion it was decided amongst the committee people that were there uh that item number two or scheme number two was probably uh the best compromise it's a fairly long ramp that starts below the white pole at the North End of This of the of the of the uh sidewalk swings around the front of the building and um and ties into the middle of the uh school there is also a set of stairs to replace the stairs that are presently there now the benefit of that uh is that it's a very shallow uh grade on the ramp and it doesn't require any railings the only railings that would be there uh are on the stairs itself and we talked about that briefly because you had mentioned
024Sue had mentioned last meeting about railings on the ramps and something to hold on to and insurance companies like that what's that insurance companies like like that well I understand that but it also um one of the problems that railings caused is the fact that over the course of 10 or 15 or 20 years they start to deteriorate as they rust they expand they split the concrete and you have a whole series of problems and you can see that very well evidenced in the ramps in front and everything and that's why we're doing this so it was the consensus of the people that were there last night uh that we should try to go with number two the other consensus was that uh the railings on the North stair because of timing if we can't
025get this done by November we do not want to be doing this over the winter so we will do in the spring so rather than put ourselves in or back ourselves into a uh a corner the uh game plan is to have Kevin handle replacing the railings on the North stair and the railings uh the three railings at the entrance of the school one of them's gone and the corner of concrete is chipped the other two are in very tough shape so those can be handled administratively so to speak by Kevin then the intent is to have assuming that the um the board is acceptable to this I mean this is all it's a committee of nine people so you know everybody's got to say um assuming that the board goes along with our choice
026or doesn't have any comments to make or whatever K will be instructed to contact silver pest s tomorrow to start working drawings on that scheme in addition we talked about this ramp they came up with a scheme that comes out of the uh the door at the end and comes down across the front of the school and empties next to the stairs it was the walk through we looked at that and we think it should go the other way and wrap back and we think that might be cheaper it might be easier and it might be cleaner again we can do it with no railings uh repair these stairs and a new ramp so K is also going to bridge that assuming the board is in agreement she will bridge that with silver petrell to
027come up with a new scheme for that then icing on the cake we have a number of capital Improvement that are going to have to be addressed sooner rather than later the HVAC HVAC units Up on the Roof are um approaching the end of their useful life and have to be replaced uh the cost is somewhere around 800,000 the uh exterior of the steer of the school has a number of issues with it doors are rusted and rotted um facade is starting to fall the the built brick needs to be cleaned the brick needs to be parged there are a number of areas where the mortar is being worn out of the joints and uh there's a ramp down in front of the school that we want to take a look at sidewalk over here
028wants to be replaced so the intent is probably to do all this stuff as part of a capital Improvement in the tanks what's it oh in the tanks tanks the the there's there's a oil tanks located to the left of the entrance of the school those tanks are fiberglass and in theory fiberglass tanks should last forever however de requires a monitoring integral monitoring system why I have no clue but neither did there um and those tanks would probably be included in part of a capital budget because we don't want to do any alterations in the front of the school if we're going to just pay over the top of the tanks and then have rip them out later so even though the lifespan of those tanks is probably pretty good because they are not wired
029currently to Deep's standards it would probably behoove us as Sean pointed out they make prefabricated oil tanks if anybody's seen them uh there's two different types there's steel with a pan around it you're supposed to provide 115% containment or there are concrete tanks and these things are pre-fabricated and they they're guaranteed to last an awful long time um and we would be able to put those in the back of the school and rewire or rep plummet so and that's something to look at so what we would do is we would hire somebody like silver Petrelli to put together a program for placing the um HVAC units on the roof which requires a HVAC engineer and a structural engineer to determine the adequacy they would also have to test the uh current uh heating system so
030that's one thing then silver petrell is already working on the perimeter of the school and what we need for that we would also have silver pet while they're doing it take a look at the tanks have their P guy uh take a look at the tanks and the sidewalk and all the other so we're talking probably a 3 or 4 million dollar Capital Improvement project but again you know we're in an aging plant where a lot of this stuff which we thought was being handled wasn't being handled and now that chicken come home to roost so there's basically um we would like to try to get this stuff ready for the some of the stuff ready for the spring um it may or may not but assuming people here are in agreement with that approach
031then we would then dur a k to contact silver Petrelli get started on working drawings for that North ramp and stare and look at this design through this over here question shoot so outside stuff fine I'm curious about the the oil tanks and the HVAC unit is there any potential benefit at looking at if we're talking about replacing HVAC units and oil tanks looking at an alternative Source like is there something that might be instead of putting new tanks in there and maybe having to dig them up again maybe going to gas or I don't know is there well one of the one of the things that you want to keep in mind is that the generators are diesel they all feed tanks also so that's one thing because that's I immedately thought of gas
032but the generators have just been refurbished um and they're diesel so you would have to have a uh 1,000 1500 2,000 gallon tank just for diesel for the generators I will make that I will make that question because um natural gas has benefits um you no longer have a pollution problem see oil tanks are a source of pollution the insurance companies hate it natural gas is not a pollutant you can bury a 20,000 gallon tank in the ground and LP or natural gas is not considered blue you going bury 20 ft from the water so there is some benefit and the efficiency of these units is is always changing but understand our boilers run on diesel you're now talking you would have to rip out the boilers you'd have to figure out what to do
033with the there's there's I understand what you're saying and I will ask that question but I don't think from a practical standpoint there's going to be a benefit to switching over from um Diesel from from from oil to natural gas when soar anything what's the life span on our boilers right now where are we in terms of don't got 20 years on them we got Five Years on them we can get that that's that's a question we that might be if if it literally comes down to just the generators then maybe a temporary tank or something like that just to run through the life of the generators might not be a bad idea if it's everything else is tied into it then yeah WR your side makes sense that's a questioners are two years out
034three years out looking like they're they just did major Ren they just did they just did major renovations to those boilers and to my knowledge those boilers are good for another you know 10 15 20 years but we will get the question answered Kevin had a couple of questions last night that he couldn't answer that he uh you know how much diesel do we use yeah uh you know how much how much oil do we use how much heating oil do we use uh day week one so there are other questions and but I would ask that question anyways of a design professional is there any benefit to uh switching over to an alternative Source that's a it's a valid question and you're right you're 100% correct you're 100% correct John Paul shoot I I
035know the electricity Market's pretty volatile but I believe there's a ton of money floating around for like air to air heat pumps especially when it comes to air conditioning systems and I know the Connecticut green bank and energise CT offer some really attractive if not 0% financing for municipalities so I mean obviously it's not a fuel-based you know what I mean but it's just something to consider it's something it's something to be ask of the MEP when we retain somebody to take a look at the air handling units are there Alternatives and I would expect that discussion to at least be uh breached sure that you know is there any uh advantage to doing heat pumps is there any advantage to doing some of that stuff or subsidies what's that or subsidies going along with
036some well you got to you're making the Assumption the subsidies will be there 10 years down the road um you know you have to I I I mean the the old joke that there's nothing as permanent as a government program is valid to a point but at some point we're going to run out of other people's money but there is a follow on question I you know worth posing um the age of our school building at this at this stage is well was built what I worked on this as a 16-year-old so that's uh 1970 1971 my family my R companies on the pth on the plan so we've hit the 50e mark and that's kind of the municipal life life building our building is in very good shape we're very fortunate um the layout
037works there are things wrong we have a couple of leaks in uh the um the end building team Wing roof s yeah what's that yeah the far Corner the far corner but we've taken care of the rest of it we just re-roofed the main building 5 years ago the the building itself is in very good shape and I don't think the uh town of Bethany is going to want to see a $78 million school project the enrollment if you've noticed um peaked at 604 and when I started on the board event we were down to the low 350s we're now back up to 430 down from 450 last year so we're we're not bursting at the seams um if God forbid we need additional space the new portable classrooms that you can purchase for a
038relatively modest amount are Head and Shoulders above anything that we've had they come wired they come pre-wired for for for internet and Wi-Fi air conditioned plumbed for bathrooms all kinds of there's all kinds of of of of uh options you know we use these as off trailers all the time on on four and five year projects and there some of them are pretty palacial so it would be if we needed space it would be a very relatively simple matter of parking one or two trailers at a very attractive price rather than trying to build an own new Wing or own new school well I mean that's my really my question you know when we're talking you know multi-million dollar you know obviously launer financing project $3 and $4 million a far high from $78 million
039one one would probably fall exclusive ly on the taxpayers of Bethany a $7 million school probably goes through the state yeah but our our reimbursement don't forget the reimbursement ratios are based upon your economic demographics New Haven gets 95% right bridg park gets 95% when when when uh when uh I want to say Woodbridge went and looked at replacing their school I think their reimbursement rate was 3 % I get it so it's again it's it's a dollars and cents um calculation I don't think we're ready nothing in in 10 years on this board has led me to believe that the school is in bad enough shape that needs to be replaced I would agree but talking about millions and millions you know I just well we're talking 3 to four million and that may
040be high that may be low but we've we've squeezed I mean Kevin's been sh stringing that heating unit together and it's tougher to get parts they just uh uh Wi-Fi all the uh thermostats and everything else the all controls what's that the alleron controls the Aller system yeah and you have to forgive me I'm deficit T um so the school is being upgraded the boilers were worked on we had um I think the town guys I think that's what was said last night and if I remember right they completely went over the diesel generators cuz I asked about that because if we're going to replace the diesel tanks why don't we propane propane is so much more efficient as a generator fuel it's less problems for a number of reasons but it was just completely
041regun and those generators are strong uh there was a leak in the water line so we may be having you know minor issues like that but I think when you balance it out 3 or4 million I think is a lot more palatable than and the reason I say $78 million is because I haven't done to school in the last 10 years it was under million I mean West hav High School was $130 million and and believe it or not the guy who runs the program is a friend of mine the architect who runs the program and thinks everybody's fat sh excuse me fat they're crazy right he said the numbers are just the numbers are just unsustainable but because New Haven gets 100% or 95% they don't do maintenance they have a 25e life cycle
042and they replace their schools I can truly say that my family company built or renovated every school in the City of New Haven and every one of those schools is gone and has been replaced because they discovered it was cheaper to rip them down than to maintain them they didn't need a 45 person maintenance staff we have a very good maintenance staff Kevin's really working um to get good people he's got three people now sta what's that he's fully staffed yeah he's fully staffed and he's working to get his people trained so that we were talking about last night you know washing the face of the building know get somebody over here to wash the face of the building he's got a train to do that but we're working on it and so I think
043we're we're very fortunate and and we finally got somebody on board who really is is taking this uh to heart and I think the taxpayers at the town of Bethany are getting their money's worth I wasn't advocating for no I understand that but but I'm just explaining what the issue is the issue is $4 million is 78 million and plus where do we put another school can I ask a a followup question sure is this something that in thinking about okay like it sounds like we're in a good spot right now in terms of doing maintenance rather than a replacement um but at some point is this part of the strategic planning to think about big picture long term you know likely we'll need a new school in say 25 years so that we can
044right put together a maintenance schedule so that we're not 20 years from now replacing oil tanks for a school that'll have to you know that kind of thing so that'll we'll do that as part of strategic planning okay yeah yeah that's see one of the things we have to we haven't even talked about is parking lot the access road all the sidewalks you know this is all part of a 5year plan that we have to start again in the spring in the spring I'm a little busy right now we could put it off I I think Kay's got a little bit on her plate right now but well and I and all make sense to me I just think that like we're I you know I don't we don't want to get into a spot
045right where we're like oh well we just put 2 million into it and now we've got to replace it and so having a sense of the expected time span and being able to project that out I think will make make these decisions you know not for us but for the board in 10 years a lot easier because they'll know that's Jade de yeah that's the idea so could could I ask are you know the the legislature got really involved in the HVAC systems in the schools so they did a and I'm sure the The Architects and the engineer will be familiar with that but I think there are grants that there's not going to be another ground of another round of hbac Grants there not no oh we missed it as of right now there's
046there's no there's no round three oh oh well and the reason we went with silver Petrelli is because they specialize in schools they know what's available what's out there they can make recommendations and they probably designed I don't know 10 or 10 10 or 15% of the schools going up in the state right now well I I'm not questioning their their qualifications talk they would know the state's making mandates on the schools to meet certain requirements and they were providing grants to help the schools do that but I guess they're not anymore so we're hopeful that that will be refunded moving forward um and they've shifted timelines and requirements and been a little fluid in that area on some levels something that bring up to our state legislators so well right now what's sucking the
047money out of the state is transportation seriously that's that's where the lot of a lot of a lot of the federal money went the Endra River Bridge The 69191 Interchange uh you know there's a billion and a half a billion and a quarter right there uh Hartford they're talking about doing Harford Underground here's a billion dollars plus so that's where a lot of the money that would have gone into a program or funded a grant program is getting channeled right now is in transportation it was there it was there two years ago it's not there now darn it well he kept it the problem we're having with the H the H units is you can't get parts he's cannibalizing and at some point get it I I get it but that's what I'm saying is
048it's old equipment and you can't repair it anymore because people don't things anymore yeah that's right I think I beat that horse so anyways with your wise ass excuse me I'm having a bad night I apologize I apologize that's true three and I leave the um so with your uh with your approval we'll go with item uh with door number two with the uh with the ramp and K will call Silver Petra tomorrow morning and get this started and Family's got comments what's here you know it's a committee of 90 everybody's got a voice I know would rather see railings no no no I would just say but you no you I'm Leary of the insurance companies forgive me but but you had a valid point because I'm thinking the same thing that you were
049and that you got something to grab as you walk up the stair as you walk up the ramp I agreed with you but it also takes away and they're also a source of Maintenance they're a problem well this is replacing that that that northst and that the ramp that's in front that big blocky concrete thing it looks like the jail thing yes okay with that's coming out it does it looks like jail bars I you know you could do railings that don't look like that but I'll leave that alone yes okay I just that's what we're replacing the that zigzag thing with the switch back ramp heavy railings okay and we're just putting in a sloping sidewalk instead it meet ADA requirements okay it's simple enough yeah and I think it makes the front of
050the school a lot nicer oh yeah looks like hell that thing it's one Pursuit so do we need a motion to get kada um I don't think we need a motion to to to but is everybody on board or does somebody have uh comments they want to go someplace you know they want to take a different direction or what use clean language if you're make a comment it wasn't vul language it was just a little wasn't really bored like what wasn't really bored like sometimes you know Paton was right sometimes you got to you know you're you're you're polite and calm and everybody ignores you I I can I just ask I I haven't been on the board before for this kind of process so like at this point we think this is a good
051idea we're going to go to the architect is this because of the amount of money we're talking here like at what point it'll go to bit it'll have to go it'll have to go so what we're what we're saying today is we're going to move this is the option that we want to go out to this and the architect will like create all the I don't know the drawings and the documents the drawing specifications he'll advertise for bids okay and we don't need a construction manager for this so you have the architect you pay him an extra 6% and he handles everything he handles the the uh inspections he handles everything okay but we're but in terms of actually spending the money that that'll go out to bid it has to go out to bid
052process okay because one of the things we want to do is an add altern it and maybe get this done as that would be um that would be a bid item a and then add alternate if there's extra money involved or something would be this R you see what I'm saying and and just to clarify the process so that's a capital project so do we have to submit that to the no not going to this we depending on what the number looks like we'll get a we'll get a projected estimate of cost when he starts the working drawings depending on what that number looks like we may be able to do that using the uh reny day fund if it comes in crazy then we have to go back to the town but that's why
053I said the other thing the other side of this is we have to go to the town the HVAC units the exterior of the school sidewalk the other ramps you know those have to go to a um a c bonding project that would cover all that stuff but the intent is to do all that stuff at one time not to do it unless the numbers come back cuckoo yeah and that's an improved use of those funds right like so the C looks at that as like yeah we that's we talked about this that's how we're doing the the the um the servers you know we have 59,000 left over rather than giving it back to the town the server trashed so we have to replace the servers so there's you know $40 or $50,000 worth
054of electronics how long do we have to encumber that m before we have to return it is there a time is there a timeline no okay is there a cap like because I mean I think typically there's expenditures over a certain amount we would need to go to the town since we have 360,000 in the rainy day is that up to us to decide how much of that money before okay y yeah there's a recommended percentage right what was when we started this it was what 5% 5% operating V yeah and if to handle stuff exactly like this like the railings service unexpected expenses and we don't have to if you know something's coming up you you have a little extra then put it in there cuz you know it's coming up you know if
055we had $100,000 we're talking about giving back half of that to the town but it doesn't make sense to give it back to the town and I'll come back and say okay we need $55,000 for our service and that's if insurance doesn't cover or did we already expend that we're going to we just filed the claim okay y insurance cover is part of the service will we have a 4,000 to okay that's facilities and I apologize if I offended anybody okay uh Transportation um this will be shorter um the transportation committee met today um and and talked with our trans coordinator we reviewed what the processes are for any bus changes um they've been you know making sure that they're working with families who have questions or concerns looking at bus routes to make sure
056they're not too long um we did come up with one potential uh policy change that would be great for the policy committee to to uh consider at some point which is typically what we say what we've been saying to families is that if you have a kid in fourth fifth or sixth grade um then they can get off the bus on their own but that's actually not written in policy anyway it's been just sort of How It's been what's happening but it's not written in policy anywhere so we thought it would be helpful um to look at relevant policies and see if it made sense to codify it so that we've got something more specific um uh and make sure that we're we've got a good system in place to do that so that's something
057we can talk about maybe at the next policy commity sure if you have some some suggestions just pull the policy and and make a yeah I think you know we have sort of we know how it's acting right now so um and we can look and see what other districts have in writing too to see if there's a good model for check in Council see if but I think one of the things we talk about is just that it you know we want to make sure that parents know in advance what the options are and that it's being applied consistently and so thinking about it at the policy level is a good first step to that any questions anybody any questions for Shane all right unfinished business we got uh policies excuse me yeah approved
058for first reading at the Vie regular meeting on August 14th 2024 the following policies you want to read them all or just read them read them I'll assume read you want me to read them all well just there's the there's 29 there the motion you're you're the chair of the policy committee okay well you know do you want to give us a brief report yeah I'll just follow up on I said the same thing last month but there's 29 policies the for second reading uh this pile of policies closes out all the revisions prepared by Sue Carpenter under the former committee agenda and legislative changes in 2023 there's uh one mandated policy thre are recommended 10 technical Corrections and 15 with no changes uh the mandated policy is a result of 2023 legislation requiring exit
059surveys with specific criteria for teachers who leave employment voluntarily and a requirement that this data be reported annually to the State Department of Education the existing BCS policy is voluntary and uh so it was modified to reflect the mandat requirements and is broaden broadened to include all employees uh I have some legal opinions if anybody's interested in looking at them about these policies uh or this particular policy being mandated um so the uh three recommended changes or language clarifications to Aid in the general management of the school the 10 technical revisions are General language clarification updates and Corrections and the 15 other policies are have no revision at all so two questions for you the the exit interview question is is there certification like are they bound to to participate in the survey Now by
060legislation no we're bound to ask them to do it which we've always done and if they choose to fill it out they do if they don't there's really nothing we can do to make them reason for them toide from just Improvement for our department as I was thinking I think the wording has to be change just slightly because it says it shall be completed by all they're not mandated to complete it then that's the language that that we're given so we can I direct it to M Brad but that's what it says that say it shall be done but there really is no way to force them to do it like you can't hold someone's paycheck and say until you so it shall be offered to all certified Personnel to make more sense because shall
061be completed means the mo they they box you into it though okay because you got a report on it okay so you have to have the survey and you have to report on the results of the survey but they didn't go to the teachers and say you got to do it they just boxed the Board of Ed I this this is like the absences you guys have to try to make sure all the kids are in school the state pressures you to make sure all the kids are in school but then the state says the kids can have all these excused absences for a variety of nonsensical reasons more L got it so they do it without telling the teach they have to they just box box the teachers in by doing it to the
062board my second question was when you say you have Legal Information yeah this is from the uh office of legislative research do you want me to read it would you like to look it over before we vote on it I we're just voting on a reading right we're not voting to accept today this is a oh this is second um I guess that was more just for my own person supp you give I think it's going to I don't think it's going to influence my curious what what it was yeah we okay well that's the office of legislative research that's from okay supposed to be impartial and uh this is another from Office of legislative research and should been a good one gotcha if it's a language we're required to use there's no not much
063we can do right kind of that Angelo did you want please I I'm not going to question ship in a good one if there if our attorney say you have to use this then they've got the degree I don't so I just it seems like it would be different language but if the state's requiring it then what it is you can even see the public ACC say shall be shall be completed doesn't say a penalty for a non-completion is you w get out the in the chain yeah much to that all the teacher turnover that's happening right now the state's trying to track where people are going why they're leaving each of districts trying to figure out what it is I think it's a great in ende in theory great Theory but they fill it
064out they have to fill it out they have to be honest when they fill it out see the things that a voluntary you hope that I going to read the policy numbers or just would you like me to okay yeah just read the policy numbers recommended under unfinished business recommended motions move at the Bethy Board of Education approve the revisions to the following policies as presented okay policy 411 17.5 is the exit interview policy 3250 materials Services fees charges policy 3510 operation and maintenance of property policy 3560 Capital Improvements policy 3000 concept en roles in business and non- instructural operations policy 3280 gifts grants and requests policy 3313 relations with vendors policy 3324 ordering goods and services contracts policy 3514 equipment policy 35 24.1 pesticide application on school property policy 3533 employee officer bonds policy
06535412 3 Transportation contractor policy 5113 student attendance treny and chronic absentee ising and bylaw 9110 number of members terms of office oath of office so those are all the ones with revisions so we'll hit that one first you know motion to uh a motion to uh approve those policies second and any further discussion all in favor I I all oppos abstain motion carries now move the to Beth Board of Education approve no revisions to the following policies as presented policy 3110 fiscal year policy 3221 individuals with disabilities Education Act fiscal compliance policy 331 13.1 local purchasing policy 33 26.1 payroll procedures and authorized signatures policy 3434 periodic audits policy 3435 fraud prevention and investigation policy 3440 inventories policy 3450 monies in school buildings policy IC 351 13.1 energy conservation policy 353.tv and recycling policy 35163
066accident prevention and Reporting policy 3532 property insurance policy 311 holds on the destruction of electronic information and paper records policy 41136 slash 42136 remote work and lastly policy 41471 4247 point1 bloodborne pathogens so move second move gions and EJ so move second second Joe any discussion all in favor I no opposed no abstain water okay new business bylaw 9300 there is none and now administrative reports policy 2500 the superintendent K you're on all right so as far as an enrollment update we talked about it a little bit further but in your package you're going to find the summaries for 2122 22 23 and the 23 24 summaries as they will compare to what we have for this year as John Paul mentioned we ended the school year with 450 students uh on June 11th and
067as of September 1 we have 430 students so we're down just a few uh Personnel update the following people have joined our team uh since our last meeting uh Julie Ryan joined us as a third grade teacher and Karin as the fifth grade science teacher Spanish teacher is Patricia D'Or and we've hired uh the three pair professionals to fill out those positions Eddie Hernandez Kayla Grant and Susan Simon uh we are currently only looking for a registered Behavior technician uh and then we would be fully staffed also under Personnel I'm going to kind of lump in uh my BCS kids uh after school before and after school program uh I wanted to provide that update uh over the past few days I've been working with Jen cavaso from the town to find a viable solution
068for our before and after school program unfortunately we here at BCS have not been able to secure enough staff to do both before and or after school portions of the program um but Jen has been working really tirelessly to secure programming and has found an after school programming option uh with the JCC that I believe was shared with the community last evening but it doesn't include a morning program however based on the staff that I did have interested in working in our uh BCS program they all want to work in the morning um so it works out very well that we'll be able to um offer before school care here at BCS um I'm working with Jen right now to share this opportunity with the families that are that were currently enrolled or were enrolled
069in the park and wreck morning program and we're going to conduct a soft launch is what I'm calling it of our before school program starting with this particular group of students on September 23rd I'm I have a staff meeting with the interested teachers we're going to do an orientation staff meeting even though they're internal you know no one's really run you know a before school program so we'll have a meeting with the staff on Wednesday the 18th um to do some planning set up the groups and all of those kinds of things if more staff members Express an interest in working in the morning program um we'll we hope to be able to expand the number of slots to include additional students from the community that uh as we heard in the public comment we
070know that there are other families who may not be reflected in the current for you know the current most recent Park and wreck numbers for whatever their reasons were so we want to be mindful of that and do our best to still try to meet the needs um of those families um also kind of pleased to announce that the cost of the morning program will be less than the projected cost that we shared with families back in August when we sent out the initial interest survey uh we're looking at $30 a week um for the families um that utilize that service I do want to thank everyone for their patience and their understanding as we work through this transition to provide you know much needed care for our students and the support for our families
071and I will certainly keep you a breast of any additional information that comes my way if anyone has any questions they can always feel free to give me a call send me an email that's what I can update you on I have a question sure is there a minimum number of students that you are looking for I know have a certain ratio of student to teacher so I don't how many staff members you have interested in the program so is there a minimum that you're looking for to make this worthwhile so right now even though uh the last uh conversation I had with with uh Jen she sent me over the the numbers and I have just haven't had a chance to kind of plug those we're looking at doing nothing more than a 1
072to 10 ratio so we'll take all of those families and then based on also the scheduling because we're offering the flexible scheduling to our internal staff because working you know the additional time whether it be before or after is an extended day for them um so I do have at least four of our staff um folks that are willing to work all five days so that would mean we could take at least 40 students um to make it you know run efficiently if I have additional interest and I did do an additional push to the staff this morning at our faculty meeting um if there's anyone else who's interested certified teachers can only work Monday Tuesday Thursday and Friday because contractually they're required to be here for our faculty meetings at 7:30 in the morning
073on Wednesdays so they can't do a Wednesday so that's why I have to make sure I have enough staff like through PA professionals Etc and I and I do still have um the posting out there for the general public there were four applicants two of which I would not put in front of our children and the other two just came in so I have to sift through those and vet those to see if they would be qualified to participate um and to see maybe we're starting to see some afternoon but everyone honestly that has said that they wanted to come and work have asked for morning hours because it's a little easier to come in do a part-time job in the morning and then go off maybe like CU they're college students then go do
074their coursework and then kind of go on about their day that that time frame of 3:30 to 6:00 is really tricky it's really tricky question for speaking of time frame what is the morning drop off time frame that you're looking at we're looking at 7:30 um for the drop off I may if I get additional teachers I may be able to bump the hours so that the teachers could come in at 7:15 um but 7:30 is really what we're we're aiming for 7:30 to 8:30 and then a second question I have for you is you're looking at a soft opening you're looking at doing for the students that already people already enrolled in park and w y do you have any kind of projection on I'm thinking about how Park W runs and they don't
075really it was just you paid for your care you didn't pay extra for before care it was everybody got that option so you don't know necessarily how many people were using it unless you had those numbers from them of how many people were using it plus we obviously don't necessarily know yet how many of that group would also now want to do it do you have any kind of projections yet right now the number is around 20 uh is what she last sent me but she did send me another communication I just didn't get a chance to look at it before this meeting so she and I met today you're look at around two staff members to start and if was a one to 10 right but you know we would try to keep those
076groups a little bit smaller and again the goal is to try to provide you know one staff member with a small group that that he or she is going to be responsible for and kind of move as I had explained the afternoon program so that let's say you know am is a teacher in my program and she's going to have the first grade group so if Amy wants to have her first grade group she's going to be you know under the you know our support going to be responsible for making sure that those kids are safe and engaged for that hour if she wants to go into her classroom and do special activities with them they can do their special activities in the classroom versus trying to do something in the gym or the cafeteria
077you know some of those larger spaces the only way we we would really consider having kids in smaller groups and going into teacher classrooms um is if the teachers were the actual staff people because our teachers are great they come in early and we don't want to you know prevent them from working in their classrooms so that would be a final question I kind of answered it but I just want to make it clear sure so staff members would be the expectation is the staff members are engaged with the kids during that time more so than they're just watching them all just hang out and play together right so but if they if they want to go outside and play a game with their with their students they can go outside they can they can
078do those things if a student comes in and they maybe they didn't do their homework the night before because they might have gone to the yard gos game um it's a thing um they can come in they can you know the teacher is there or the parent professional is there parent educator is there and they can have them sit down and do whatever their homework is if they want to do board games what we're planning to do is create um very similar kind of um piggybacking off of the idea of what U PTO did for the classrooms like having each of the staff members tell me what are the things that you're going to be interested in and want to work with if you have the kids that are the first grade grp group and
079putting together these like little rolling carts that they can kind of check out that'll have like the putties and the different board games and all those different supplies because if they're going to be doing the program even though they are still all of our kids I don't want a teacher to use their own classroom supplies for that um so we've allocated you know the funding to be able to provide resources so that they have their little before school kit and it can be filled with art supplies and markers and games and things that they can do um with the students but it's definitely not going to be out you come in we're going to slap you know Bluey on the TV and you're going to watch Bluey for an hour before before school so the
080expectation is that they I know F so it's very nice to see this yeah no the expectation is that they're still going to you know one keep the kids safe to engage with them and engagement is going to look different for every grade level so you know if they want to do some sort of stem activity at the older grades great do your stem thing if you want to go outside and play a game with your students cuz maybe you have the youngers in there really as early in the morning morning um take them outside play with them that's okay but you can't just say all right you guys go over there and no the expectation is you're going to engage with kids so I have a couple questions um one is if you have
081a sense of so presuming that you would do the soft open on the 23rd If you have a sense of when we might be able to tell the rest of the school Community if there will be an option available yeah my goal would be with within 2 weeks right because the goal would be U I'm going to again I'm working with Jen this week to make sure that we get the form stack link out to the families um share with them the draft of our little handbook um for that so parents know what to expect in the program and then let's get those folks in let's get them settled see how the dust shakes out some people may come and maybe our before school program isn't their cup of tea it might be a little
082too structured maybe they do want you know a different version um but that's not what they're going to get here right so maybe they like it maybe they don't but if you give us two weeks to kind of make sure it's up and running as we expect it to run then we can say Okay I I do have some additional staff you know even though I have the four staff now I have a couple of teachers that are interested in coming and so that gives me six so in theory it could be I could take 60 kids but I don't necessarily love the idea of groups of 10 like making it a little more manageable a little more you know personalized for the kids that are coming to the program So within two weeks we
083should have a sense of do we have more staff that want to come and join us or are the side staff worthy of coming to us and then we go from there okay and then could you talk a little bit about the um the funding like the financial side so you mentioned funding for supplies which makes sense obviously paying for teachers so the the price tag that you came up with the $30 a week covers all of that it'll cover the Staffing and then we um had some Grant funds that had to be utilized for the after school program they were funds that we had set aside um in a grant that Cheryl had previously for kids that were going to go to the summer program at park and wck as one of those um
084specific grants that she had written those funds weren't utilized because those families chose not to go um so we were able to kind of rework it to get some of those supplies so it's not a hit to our operational budget and it's not going to be something that we have to pass on as an additional cost to families so that's how we came at that price we're able to lower it down so okay given you know the the reason that we find ourselves in this position position is there a way to share with both the families that are entering into the program but also the community at large just a synopsis of the safeguards I mean I think there's probably a ton of legislation that requires you as a school and employees of the school
085to do the background checks and do like mandatory trainings and stuff like that but just a brief reiteration of those things I think would probably go a long way to um showing people that we're we really inv in in the kids safety you know like some of those policies might might be worth sharing outwardly you know certainly with the parents that are incoming you know or the parents that are inquiring but I I think probably the people in town would like to know like hey what what are you doing different maybe you know what what are you doing in addition to maybe you're even taking some extra steps which I I I would presume you are given given you know why we find ourselves in the situation in the first place so sure if if
086you'd like I can make so I'm actually in the process of getting ready to write my Bethany bullton article because we have to write our articles for the month before so if you'd like that to be the focus I can make what we're offering to families I can make the community aware that way otherwise I don't really have a mechanism beyond what I put in the bulletin to to blast that out I can go certainly on our web page but I can make the the the program offering the focus of my article that the town would then receive in October I think that be sure and then could it maybe be one of those the the those annoying things the pop-ups on the website sure don't show again I don't it's and then you click
087the bottom that says do not show again yeah I get it I do the same thing long that actually works they do not not everybody watches the board of Med meetings unfortunately or attends that but I remember you specifically in August so this is a huge benefit that by being able to utilize a professionals and staff there are already people that are mandated training they're around the students so we know that they are up to Snuff so there is one huge advantage and knowing that you're vetting people under that same criteria is exactly what the community needs but to EJ's point you know we hear that we know that people sitting here know that or are watching us know that but because this has become such a situation that the community is interested in then
088I think EJ's suggestion is a very good one to get it out there otherwise I do you way yeah Beyond families we don't really have an Outreach so I'll make my bulletin article for October all about what we're going to offer for before care for the Community sure um can I ask one another logistical question what's the plan for um days that there's a delay so days that there there's a delay it would match the delay so if we're going to open up two hours later for school we'll open up two hours later for that and that's simply because and I know I've had this conversation and I know things may have been done differently on the town side as the superintendent you know one I love a good snow day but if I call
089a snow day I'm not going to have a program open on a day where I think it's too dangerous for kids to come to school if I call a delay I'm not going to expect people to be here before I think it's safe for kids to come to school so it's got to match in terms of time shifting what we're going to do for school opening and in the whatever documentation that the families that utilize the program have will that be black and white spelled out it's in the book I have a little handbook ready to go it's in there thank you any other questions thank you for the work on that and being able to come into the and it's not solo I have have a great team but I mean you guys you
090know you did a lot of work trying to put something together and now we the community finds itself in a situation where I know Jen did a lot of work to help sh up the afternoon but the morning was an issue so knowing that as the public comment know the district seems to come in sometimes and be proactive I know many people appreciate that so thank you to all of you so everybody understands they've been working on this since the week after this thing blew up Summer it's been all summer you know and and Kudos de K Tom Cheryl and everybody else it's it's been a it's been an all hands on deck but it's actually started the week after this thing blew up this hasn't been something that we just put together in two
091weeks this this took it this this took a inordinate amount of time and one of the things that people don't realize is that when Park and wreck blew up on Friday K spent the weekend with staff trying to figure out bus schedules that was really Mr Reed's Wales well regardless it's people don't realize that how that trick there is there there is a what for every action there's a a reaction and the reaction for Park and the action for park and rec closing is now you have 40 or 50 kids or whatever number all of a sudden you're scrambling for bus coverage and you got to spend the weekend so Tom spent the weekend you know trying to figure out how to make this thing work so the kids aren't screwed up on Monday morning
092you know nobody else gives that a thought this is something that came from us nobody else and everybody just thinks it just happens magically these people gave I I think the town owes K and her staff a very large debt of gratitude we're still not done yet you know there's still a long way to go on this but I think in the long long term this could have some extremely beneficial uh programs to a school system as as Kay said this is not just babysitting 101 so I think this is a is a positive out of a negative yes that's my report thank you any other questions Cheryl on director of special services gck Inland instruction this is the world's fastest report Mr did such a great job my report angel said all the things
093thanks for the notes you guys passing notes to each other on the table so I don't leave anything I'm I'm the note taker at the at the subcommittee meeting he say he's my chair I let him know what I'm going to write before it gets to Don be posted so you've done Cheryl you weren't kidding she wasn't kid she was you weren't kidding all right Tom you're up all right so uh just to go over a couple of things uh since last we met uh as you heard we had our orientation for kindergarteners on the 22nd we actually shifted it to the afternoon um and we're trying to We're just trying to think of different ways to make it more available to families um we had seen before that it was tough in the morning
094and um for our staff coming in they're already here for 4 days on that week before um before school starts we were trying to be able to alleviate a little bit of their week too so they had you know some time to breathe um so that went really positive uh the kids had a ton of fun they get to do their little ride on the bus around they had an awesome time um and it's a great chance for them just to get in get some stuff in get acclimated meet the teacher you know name and face and all of that uh first day of school the was the 26th um we've continued to do the first two days as uh as an early dis Missle um and that's been really positive for us to be
095able to just kind of as a staff debrief uh give everybody a little bit of a a slow opening um and we've been able to utilize it for some different professional learning in the afternoon um so all around that's been a win a win-win we had our first fire drill uh evacuation drill on the 9th that went really well um you know we've we've been really looking at just making sure that we're monitoring those practices we got another uh couple of those scheduled in the next couple of weeks uh huge thank thanks uh to the PTO and army lives on its stomach uh and it was just great to have that um for the food on that Monday uh especially since Jackie and I were kind of you know we were all kind of scrambling
096to get a bunch of things going not having to worry about getting all the lunch that was really uh wonderful uh and though I don't want to dive down the rabbit hole I can't um leave without sharing a couple of things we have our report for uh smarter Mounds the family reports are going on on the 13th so that's this Friday um so uh now officially and publicly uh the data for smarter balance and NGS is out there uh so 77% of our students met or exceeded in ela 74% of our students met or exceeded in math 81% of our students met or exceeded in science all three of those are the highest levels of performance that we've seen um to date for each of those uh those uh spaces um you'll hear me say
097it all the time it's not the only measure um but it is a good way for us to be able to take a look longitudinally um could you say that again yeah 77% of our students met or exceeded in ela 74% of our students met were exceeded in math and 81% of our students met were exceeded in science um to put it in context against the state we were in the 95th percentile for math um and Ela um and did quite well comparative to our boa counterparts which I'll tell you more about in in a more full uh report I also um and I can't share out because of confidentiality I can't share out for our students um who don't qualify for Smarter Balance they take the um they take the uh Connecticut alternative assessment
098um but a huge shout out to uh Jamie bow her students did really well we had several students who took that and confidentiality wise I can't share their results um but they did exceptionally well and we're super proud of them as well uh so things that are coming up we have our first coffee hour on Friday we're just going to go over some things for open house which is coming up on Tuesday uh so we're just we're changing that a little bit in terms of the timing so we're going to have our uh our sort of community uh our community get together and our overall School presentation starting the evening um so we've got a bunch of Partners Chartwells uh BMB Lions Club PTO a couple others we're still working on getting in um so
099we're going to do that to start and then we're going to have two classroom sessions that um that follow that uh Mr Fortune Chad Fortune is all fired up he is ready to go with choir and band so we're just getting all the documents and the things set for um all the sign up for choir and band and we're getting that going um so we should have some news on that front really quickly um fourth grades working to connect with Amity High School for infinite possibilities uh and they're setting some dates for that our September community meeting is going to be on the 27th National Coffee Day is on the 30th and Miss nathman is all fired up with some plans for that um we're excited custodians day is uh coming on the second so
100we're going to honor our staff um we got a bunch of new folks in there and they've been working um just night and day just grinding out um really hitting the ground running uh especially a bunch of them coming in kind of Midsummer so they really just kind of they had trial by fire and they the whole crew has been unbelievable uh the Lions Club is coming in for their annual third grade dictionary event which is awesome so they're coming in on the 4th uh after school volleyball is starting in two weeks uh picture day as you heard is on the 8th and then fire prevention is going to our fire prevention day is going to be on the 9th so the Bethany volunteer fire department um the guys are coming in uh our whole
101crew there has been really great so um and they've really done some they did some neat things last year we had over on the uh Pavilion black top over there so we're excited to see kind of how we'll go you know we had some Junior Firefighters coming being you know officially approved so that that was fun that's what we got going currently can I ask you a question about house ask what I don't I know this is sort of short notice if the JCC is not already one of the Community Partners that's participating it might be great to ask them if they would like to opportunity for yeah for sure so could you I didn't get a copy of the parent newsletter lately so I'm sort of in the dark could you tell me about
102the open house yeah so for our open house so it's a parent event um so we um so uh what we do is we have in the gym so we'll have a bunch of Community Partners and uh non-classroom staff kind of set up around the gym uh and a chance for people to kind of meet you know special ed staff related Services uh they can meet like our our school psychologists the social workers The Specialist teachers all of that um and then we also invite in like Chartwells if people want to just kind of learn a little bit more about lunch and all of that um and then we're also um Miss nathman and I are just working on on an overall presentation just kind of getting people up to speed on some of the
103stuff that we got going for the school year um so we're going to do that to start that's going to be right at 5:00 and then um at 5:30 we're going to have a classroom session so people are going to disperse out to classrooms um and it's a chance for you to meet the teacher kind of learn about the curriculum learn about you know communication lines all of that um and because we have a bunch of families that have multiple students we don't want to just have one of those sessions cuz then you're kind of missing out you you go to one but you can't make the other you have to split out as a family so we have two of those sessions so we're going to have one at 5:30 and then one at
1046 okay so this is basically to to involve the parents and and just the regular activities of the schools so everybody acclimates okay exactly yep yeah and a chance and a chance for them to be able to ask in person you know and connect with the teachers and and just you know get a sense of anything that they might be wondering you know especially as we have folks who are coming up in the summit they might want to know like how does this really operate you know it's a chance for them to be able to meet the teachers and kind of learn about them okay thanks got that's what I got anybody have any more questions for Mr Reed whale thank you Tom uh Chairman's report now most of the stuff has been covered already
105but there is a couple of things one of which is um we talked about it last spring and we did our open Forum it's coming up uh and the last time we did it we kind of hybridized it and that we had a truncated Board of Ed meeting then we meandered over to the uh School offices and had the open Forum there I would like to recommend that I think that works very well because one of the complaints we've gotten in the past is only one or two board members show up and if we do it this way then the entire board is there uh there's really nothing other than probably going to be a report on the soft opening and the stat of the uh before school program and after school program of any
106great shakes I think that's probably going to be the topic of conversation so I would like to make a recommendation that we do the open Forum at the next Board of Ed meeting regularly scheduled we have a truncated meeting and then we Meander over to the superintendent's office and have our open form does anybody have a problem with that anybody make a suggestion something different so then I'm trying to remember I think did we give people the option of like for community members coming in person or doing it via Zoom yeah it's it's a hybrid meeting that's why I said it's a hybrid meeting uh you have the option of coming in person or doing it via Zoom but the zoom uh capabilities at the superintendent's office are a little bit better than they are
107here so who we're working on didn't do hybrid when we went over to your office though right because we did we had we had four people in the room that was actually offered as hybrid I just thought they were yep it was offered as a hybrid option they came and then everyone else was online what was the feedback from the spring what was the feedback from the parents did they did they like it I think they appreciated see well they appreciated seeing so many more board members present um in terms of the conversation um it wasn't anything you that's always been our biggest problem was really just the participation yeah they appreciate think it worked I think it worked out well because we were all there and we could have open conversation amongst ourselves as
108well so it's not that awkward waiting for Zoom to finish and like get you on camera so right thought it was a good fit I think it's cleaner and I think it works nicer and I think it hopefully will attract more people I think everything everything is good the only issue we could have last time if then if it was only four people that came in we were good okay so it could be a little tight last night at the special Board of Select meeting they didn't have it in the gym they put it in the regular meeting room and there was people in the hallway around the corner because more showed up than anticipated I don't think we have that problem we don't usually have that problem we have like 200% more people in
109the audience now we do and we appreciate but still it's very good significant increase if if we suspect that there is going to be a large amount that show up we might consider that just yeah so Mr BR and I are still working on how we can outfit this room um with the owls and some of the other things and if we can't do it in here maybe it is that we find a way to do it in the gym um it's a pricey piece of equipment in terms of having to prioritize we I really need to prioritize getting our servers up and running for the stable connectivity um but Matt is also working on that for me to get another owl because it's the owl that you utilize to have the larger you know
110to put in the larger our meting has figured out need microphones to hear so we''re already one step above so right but that's that's the other piece of it so we we just need to make sure that the tech that we put somewhere else can match so ideally we'd move to the larger space or have the option to be flexible in our space that would be our ultimate goal um but like these microphones right here are connected to you know the BNN and then we have a different set of microphones that's connected to what works out over in um the gym area so trying to be mindful of not being you know spending money we don't need to spend yeah you know what's the best way to some great classroom utility to that device you
111know as far as like maybe being in two classrooms that are really dis sprit you know maybe one of our you know different country for instance in Spanish class or something like that just be able to get a whole rooming us well in the classroom it's a little bit easier because of the tech like they have the smart technology on the TV um and so once you plug in the camera you can just kind of you know work with the cameras that you have available to you on your computer but when you're talking about a large enough space and being able to hear what is actually being said that's what we want to be mindful of sure and that's why the board of vet office Works nice because the Acoustics are pretty good in there
112and even with like as Angelo just pointed out the Acoustics everybody have their own mic are much better but in the big spaces the Acoustics start to fall apart real quick if you don't have the microphone the speakers to connect to it if you don't have the the and as K points out we have other things to spend money on right now could we is it would it be possible to ask the town use like the commission or something they they Acoustics in there terrible I mean I could hear okay with the I mean said like that for the special board ofman meeting like it wasn't big enough for that crowd but it's bigger than the conference I think we're okay for now I mean in the gym I can't hear anything in the yeah
113so so what I'm hoping to be able to do is we have if you remember like when you first walk into the Board of Ed conference room we have the big table in the middle but then we have tables along the side to move those tables and then we can put more people in yeah the last time we didn't the tables were still in there so we'd be able to fit all of our lovely guests that we have here today if they wish to come and be in person um so we we we'll be able to fit more people in the room yeah I think until if we were getting 60 or 80 people in a board of ed meeting that'd be one thing but as you pointed out you know tonight 200% increase great
114so we'll set that up but it's something to look into and I think that's the only thing of any great shakes that I have for a Chairman's report I thought that that covered everything we covered everything during the course of the meeting so that's next month yes okay this next month we would have a truncated um uh Board of Education meeting then we would break and walk over to the superintendent's office and have a open form so October so you probably want I don't know how everybody finds out about it but hopefully there's enough time to inform the people who would attend the open Forum that we're having one I'm sorry say that one more time she wants to know how the people will know oh I'll put it in my I'll add that to
115the Bott in my bulletin and the bul article yeah and we can add it to the family weekly as well would we'll tag that right in and and so people will get it three or four times by the time good okay and then I think in the past right there was a separate push out like in thek 12 swiftk12 we said that East yeah yeah and it's the popup that you don't on the website all right anything else Chairman's report's over correspondents we already read the uh letter from uh Mrs York M York so we're uh back to uh public comment policy 1120 and bylaw 9325 anybody's got anything they want to say come on down please state your name address speak slowly and clearly so my name is Jess pagones I'm at 348 SP
116Road um first jump Paul I heard you say that that Kai and team have been working all summer since the issue broke out about options for child care and I've been at every Board of selected meeting I've been at every special meeting I've been at every meeting now possible and this is the first that I'm hearing of it so if there were other child care options in the mix and I know that the board of selectman and the town parks and wreck their child care is obviously separate from what the school is able to put together um but that comment just kind of C guard um throughout the whole situation and then I wanted to reiterate johanna's comments that I didn't send my daughter into parks and W because I wasn't comfortable with the level
117of support and stability um and I didn't have much confidence in the program as it stands um I understand that Nick was given kind of and dealt a hard dec of cards um but I didn't feel that he had the necessary resources so I didn't put my daughter into program what I would say is that there's still so many parents that need child care options and we were really looking to the school to be able to provide that so I know that you've done a great job getting together the before school but i' still hope that we're considering other options for the after school and I understand the contract with the JCC means that it's for the entire year through June and that 46 p and the minimum of 25 and making sure that that
118is fully staffed but I bet if you continue to that survey that that 46 cap you're going to find a lot more kids out there that need after school care um and parents that would appreciate it so thank you very much anybody else going once going twice sold the mirror um motion to adjourn the meeting second all in favor [Applause]