001e all right I told I'll get money from her I have it everybody all set for the meeting of the April 10th U Board of Education the Bethany Community School open for business at 6:32 okay call the order and I'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance flag United States of America stand nationen all right PTO report year up States your name hi everybody uh Melissa zaldo uh BCS PTO president um so let's see we have quite a bit going on in the next few weeks leading up to the end of the school um tomorrow is our April meeting we moved it up a week to accommodate for um spring break that's happening next week um we're actually meeting in person this time will be meeting here at 6 o' uh year books uh yearbooks are
002available for purchase now they're available for purchase uh until April 24th uh there is a link online if somebody wants to purchase yearbooks we are asking that parents not purchase a yearbook for sixth graders um it is a tradition that the PTO gifts the yearbooks um to all the graduating sixth graders so there's any parents of sixth graders out there don't buy it if you have anybody else in another grade then you absolutely have to reorder by April 24th um we are in the middle of April which means we are in the middle of yoga month we are participa we are partnering with um at sa yoga uh there's a studio here in town There's a studio here in Milford um if you go on her website and when you purchase a class or a
003pass you put in the pass code Bulldogs they will be donating 20% of that purchase back to the PTO um her class is always changing and I know she's added a bunch of classes for children um younger children and older children um so always check out their website um I love her classes by the way the beginner class is fantastic uh teacher appreciation week is happening the week of May 6 and the PTO is planning on providing ledge for the staff as well as um we did this not last year but the year before we had members of PTO at the doorways and we were giving flowers to the children as they were walking in and the children were walking in and gifting them to their teachers we've been collecting vases so that the teachers
004have somewh to put them and they can make these really pretty bouquet and then for the non-classroom staff we're going to be gifting them potted plants for um future appreciation week uh speaking of um potted plants and flowers our spring plant sale is happening on May 7th and 8th uh during school hours be back out in the Pavilion back there um this is timed around the time of Mother's Day that way students have an opportunity to purchase uh flowers for their moms grandmothers aunts um or just anybody it doesn't have to be you know a mom or anybody but just if they want to make that purchase for a special person in their life we are also taking pre-orders um for the larger hanging plants and the larger patio plants um and I was on
005the website today there is a way to um designate how you want to pick that up um you obviously you don't want a kid carrying one of those big Pao plants on the bus but there is a way to let us know how you want to pick up those plants um quasy night uh quasi night is a night that we hold with uh Beacher Road School in Woodbridge uh quasi closes down for to the public and it's only open to BCS and beer Road students uh tickets are now available for that that's going to be on May 17th um and then Spring Fling the ever popular Spring Fling is going to be the following week on May 24th uh tickets are also available for that everything's available for purchase on our website um including in
006the cost of that ticket is all the food trucks all the events we're planning a lot of different events this year not just the bounce houses there's going to be a lot of different activities going on it's huge fun night um and then our last for the year is going to be June 14th is going to be um family night at the Harford yard goats tickets aren't available for that yet but they should be available probably in the next week or so um and then in the next week or so too we're also going to be um holding our elections for next year's uh board we have several positions that are going to be open that we need to get build thank you thank you very much public comment is there anybody here from the
007public that would like to speak going once going twice sold the am uh approval of minutes does anybody have any comments errors and omissions I have a comment when you're recording the items uh under public comment there were three people that spoke if you can just summarize briefly what they said or what the discussion was about it doesn't have to be you know Declaration of Independence but just to be you know sentence that um just summarizes what was discussed okay make a motion to approve the minutes oh okay thank you we have a motion do we have a second Sean all those in favor post no yeah I'm sorry abstentions where come froming he's stuck in the back okay um committee reports curriculum Angelo you're you're fired seems like seems a long time ago um
008actually there wasn't much of an update right because everything has been pretty much the status quo like of moving forward all the things that you've been discussing throughout the year um we talked about some future items of things that we would um potentially hear some reports on um some uh possibly looking at like report cards and some of the different ular areas we've heard a lot of math and um reading but possibly looking at some of um and we've heard from the specials in the past but social studies and science possibly hearing updates from them as our future items I'm sure if I missed anything Mr ke will cover it facility Sean all right um you've been busy yeah yeah facilities did not meet um as a committee this month we did sit down and
009um meet with Kay uh John Paul and Kevin with an architect we walked the whole building got an idea of what we're looking at we identified our target areas for him um he's going to go back and visit some quick things in regards to the ramp up top and the stairs maybe eliminating them and he's going to come back with a quick little um summary of what we can do what we can't do and he's going to get back to us um Kevin is still working on the quotes if we're going to do the stairs in the concrete up top he's looking for a couple more bids and he's working on the building automation system and getting some final quotes with that um and then we're probably going to have to sit down and have
010a facil committing next month and when we bring all this back and uh bring everybody kind of up the speed there's a lot going on right right now with the building and some deferred maintenance and all these things are going to come together and we're going to have a meeting in kind of come up with a plan so that's kind of where we stand right now with the building yeah the intent is and and you know Sean discovered it when he and Kevin walked around that there's a lot of deferred maintenance on the exterior of the building so it was our discussion among the bunch of us that we should bring in a pro um we're using silver petracelli he the guy we're talking to now guy by name of David Stein he's one of
011the partners silver Petra were the people that did the bus shelter they did a nice job for us and that's where we back to them and they also understand the ins and outs of um of the state of Connecticut Finance uh for school projects so they can help us there so he's going to come back in um he's going to work through K and come back in with a proposal and um one of the things we're looking at which he actually brought up is um revamping we talked about revamping in front of the school getting rid of all of the ramps um the stairs at the North End are disaster that's what Sean was talking about they have to be fixed as soon as possible and we'll figure that out but there may be a
012way to make the front a little bit more attractive uh get rid of them consolidate them uh there's new things we can do uh plantings but we have to come up with a capital plant so that's what Sean and these guys are going to do in K and we and part of our walk through Chan before I forget is we did identify one area on the other end of the building that needs immediate attention I didn't even notice it neither did Kevin he's the one who picked it up and identified it so that's something that's going to need to be taken care of immediately and we'll talk about that a little more in the facilities committee meeting when Kevin gets some uh prices so that's going to be happen in the next month or two
013um so is silver Petra they strictly an architect or they have an engineering arm to do mechanic stuff too no but they would when you hire somebody like silver Petra Sly they would they would be a One-Stop shop they would have a landscape architect they would have a mechanical engineer electrical engineer that they would if if that's needed that may or may not be need or we may decide to go separately there's right now we're concentrating on the exterior of the building there's doors that are rushing through stairs concrete these ramps are terrible um The Brick needs parging uh the brick needs cleaning and uh and uh we have some areas of water penetration there's the rim board around the building is starting to deteriorate there's a there's a hundred little items that add up
014to a site and that's why I I discussed with K and and Sean and everybody the thing to do is I think bring in a professional that can identify everything put together a comprehensive plan one of the things he suggested was uh well one of the things he recommended is if we're going to do any grading I got to get a site plan ready so I'll have to talk to K about that um we may have to do some kind of a half aight plant uh to give him some elevation so that he can work out the uh the ramp issues because one of the things he suggested is maybe getting rid of this ramp and circling it around to the side so that it softens the front of the school um there's there's there's
015a bunch of things that it's it's all part of one package and there may or may not be funding available you know they know the ins and outs of the school funding uh game they know who to talk to they know how to talk to him and they know what's available so he can advise us on whether or not any of the stuff we're proposing qualifies for for funding um so that's why it's it's it's a start of a process but it's a process that needs to get done soon or it's like Sean said you know like the doors the doors are atrocious shape there's 19 doors that are in atrocious shape uh so that's what we're doing and and I know we we we briefly talked about about an me for the uh upstairs
016the AC we're going to kind of keep the two products separate right now okay so that that's on the burner too all right and how we're going to address for the rooftop units and stuff so yeah that's on the burner too but the outside of the building we have some serious issues we need to address in a timely fashion okay I was just trying to figure out who the consultant oh wow well they they're not on board they have to give k a proposal yeah and you know we have to vote on it but it's something that I'm recommending that needs to be done because I was just trying to understand no that's right that's no ask any question you want please and he's also involved in the Woodbridge project right now which is going
017to go out to bid very shortly Oh I thought I went out to bid I thought they uh he he said next week oh um so it'll give us a better idea of some real numbers because they have some very similar um issues and concerns at beer so we might get a good Benchmark kind of where we stands which is a a positive thing I think true okay they do a lot silver Petra does I would say they're probably one of the top five in the in the state that do schools there's four or five slam silver Petra s anazi Associates there's four or five architectural firms that seem to do most of the schools in the state and silver pet is one them so they they know what the ins and outs and we
018were happy they they did a nice job on the buest shelter so Finance I was not here last night I'll leave it to oh Amy was here good excellent thank you okay in your packet you will see the um operating budget summary as of of 2024 under general education uh the salaries stay status quo from last month with a surplus of $ 6,682 benefit projections are now showing a surplus of $ 873 Which is higher than last month still largely due to salary and benefits under the special education section you will see that it remains status quo from last month as we have been utilizing our grant dollars for required year-end spend down special education ends the month with a surplus of $1,162 under operations and overhead you will see that all accounts remain status
019quo from last month with projections equal to budget requests or adjustments have already been made operations in overhead now ends the month with a surplus of 31,38 uh you'll also then see that the overall budget is showing a total Surplus at this time of and they have until the end of April to finish their spending once this occurs they will have be able to better determine where we think the final numbers will land with regards to a surplus um as Brandy usually tells us it's never an ex exact number at this point as there's still two months of invoices and there these are only estimated projections as of the end of April uh then she also said that we have received the first excess cost payment in the amount of $4,310.27 received sometime in May
020this year we have been spending excess cost directly to student Professional Services so there isn't an impact to the budget for these dollars and as of February 29th the prek account balance is $8,991 16 and the balance in our 10 248a account is $344,500 discussion about I I it was Joe and myself and we had a small discussion about um I I had questioned Brandy and said you know knowing what we have left like you know with the amount we have in the 10 248a with whatever that percentage is I know typically we have a 5% we have our 5% cap and we try to put Surplus to that do we feel like we have to use some of these funds for anything budgetarily as far as like Staffing and such and it was sort
021of a no but there's also the thought that we know that everything that Sean has found with facilities that you that that's our option to dip into that at some point if necessary so we just kind of tapped on that little discussion briefly knowing that until next month when you got all the numbers ready and that transcends what we have to do so it was just a little little item that we kind of just chatted about briefly so I think that's still you're right I think you're 100% right yeah so so that's about it um the insurance company their insurance number is finally firmed up right correct there's no impact or change to our budget okay and no Finance or otherwise no okay thanks Amy um we have to uh to accept the U the
022finance committee report so do I have a motion make motion SE name you seconded discussion all in favor all opposed policy committee Susan you're on hi uh we met last night we reviewed uh there was eight remaining policies from the December 2023 agenda that U had been marked mandated and so we discussed those and uh none of those revisions were caused by any changes of law so they've been reverted out of mandated into recommended land and uh we'll be bringing those forward uh at the next board meeting and I think that you know Su Carpenter was interpreting mandated by what was marked on the Boe website okay so she may have been the policy may have been mandated but the revision was not so I think that's what well confusion yeah okay and we're straighten
023and we're straightening those out and we're and we're we're resolving that issue yes so that it's clear that there's not a mandated revision it's just a mandated so that's the clarification let's see okay so that's unfinished business last policy excuse me is there anything else Transportation hasn't met and uh commit no other committees ad met okay unfinished business approv to the first reading um are various revisions for policies you want to do those to I'm sorry second read for oh second read they were presented last month as a first read so we have to read them again can question all right there are um there are a number of there's four policies three of them are nondiscrimination and one of them is for the the change then you want to summarize them well what we
024had done was not to get everybody confused but those were mandated policies that had mandated revision okay but they had first been intermingled with a lot of other legal things that came out sh so we ones that had been proposed were strictly the mandated which did not change a lot but it added another protective class and something to do with criminal record and the age five change was mandated by state law and along with the what do you call it exception requests so you know there was not a lot of langage changed that was what was in those policies all right so then we want to move to accept them motion it's right back some Finance move the p Board of Education approve the revision to policies 118 4 uh 1118 4118 D1 do4 do4
025excuse me and that's five that's a Comm and then 511 as presented yeah that's right here okay any motion Amy made a motion Second Joe second Ed all in favor all opposed any extensions so [Applause] [Music] passed all right there's a couple of items under new business healthy food option um if you recommend a new business person inter section uh CGS 1051 5f Bethy Board of Education certifies at all food items offered for sale of students and schools under jurisdiction not Exempted Connecticut nutritional standards published by Connecticut State Department of Education will comply with the Connecticut nutrition standards during the next school year July uh July 1 through June 30th you want to Briefly summarize that sure this just means that all the food that we serve to students during lunch that are part of
026our USDA and reimbursable meals that it won't be junk food that will comply with the law and only sell the things that they say we can sell or provide to the students that they say they can provide and every year we have to have the board attest to the fact that we will actually give children decent meals all right make a motion to accept thetion Okay Sue second Amy any discussion all in favor all opposed it carries food and beverage exemptions under new business Bethy Board of Education will allow the sale of students of food items that do not meet the connec nutrition standards and beverages would you please summarize I sure we'll summarize so what this means me is that we will allow our pto's and outside organizations when they host events here to
027sell food or provide food things like cupcakes and food trucks uh at their events any questions or discussions all right move that the board approve the Connecticut State Department of Education exemption food beverage items Angel makes a motion to approve second Caroline any discussion all in favor all oppos any extensions administrative reports superintendent speak all right so in your packet you have the enrollment summaries for the last several years uh and I'll remind you that this year we started with 445 students and as of March 31st 2024 our current enrollment is 448 but we dropped three or two we dropped two we did have a family move oh okay same family uh that moved out um by way of sharing with enrollment I also want to give you an update on kindergarten uh projections at
028this time our current enumeration numbers indicate that there are 57 students elig eligible for kindergarten um we don't know if they'll all come we did receive two additional requests for information about the appeals process or the exemption for those children that do not have have birthdays um that will have them turned five before the September 1st cut off um but we looked at the dates and I don't know if there was a miscommunication but the children will be almost six uh by the time they arrive in kindergarten so we don't need to schedule those anyone else who has um requested the appeal they we're working through the school to get those set up we did have kindergarten information night and some other things I don't want to steal from Tom so he'll I'll let him
029talk about that um at this time just looking at the numbers there is no plan to reduce the number of kindergarten SE um that we have given that the numbers that we have in our numeration this year mirror exactly what we had last year so we won't need to add any sections but we're certainly not in a position at this point to say hey we can we can reduce a section or maybe just have some lower class sizes um and again there's I know that there continues to be the chatter online and in the community there has been no official or formal communication shared with the district from the State Department of Education that the appeals process is going to be removed or that they're going to push back the implementation date of the new
030September one birthday so I know there's again a lot of chatter about that but nothing has come our way when um if we had to make a uh a decision based upon enrollment when does our drop dead what's our drop dead date hope so in terms of well if if you have we have four sections correct if we start to get a lot of kids who are borderline or appeals type students it's one thing to have them it's one thing to be below our Target of how many kids in a section it's another thing these kids send us over I think it tends to to skew the discussion a little bit and what I worry about is that um when do we start the finalize um what our uh what our class sizes look like
031so we're we're always looking at class sizes for for the future um what I would say to that is that if we found that we were going to have an excessive number of students coming in so that tends to happen we do get a lot of children that move in we wouldn't be necessarily looking to add a section in the past because if you drop it down then it's like the teachers say well having 10 kids in a class is not not ideal right so we would have conversation about whether or not we need to add any Aid support or any of those things it's really dependent on not only who the not only how many children we have but kind of who the who the kids are and what kinds of needs present themselves
032but when does that discussion finally have to firm up to the point where we start to make decisions based upon the data we usually like to make as solid of a decision as we can by June okay um and then hope for the best over the summer terms of what comes in but good I just want to if I'm I'm understanding what I think you're asking is there with that cut off date then if we're that he's asking about if we're looking at whether or not we want to not add a classroom but maybe add AIDS and things like that in are we looking at we're close will that impact the waivers looking at that will we just take the waivers or is this a not sure yet or it's more of a not sure
033just kind of it's a wait and see because we don't know what those children are going to present so we could have some students that come and technically and especially by the law they could take the assessment and they could blow it out of the water the kid could be Einstein ready for Mena and we're not going to say you're not developmentally or ready for the rigor I think there's not necessarily A sorry we're filled we're not even going to take that you can never say in public education sorry we're filled so even if we get 25 students that come in the month of August literally the week before school I've got to figure it out I meant for the W for the waivers where there's no saying there's no cut there's no cut off
034waiver there could be families out there now that are like well let's just see what happens and they could all come and request the evaluation in the middle of the summer there's no cut off so and we're not getting any help from the state I'll just continue on with my report all right uh so Personnel uh happy to report that our business manager position has been filled Miss donov richardi who is currently serving as our food service and administrative specialist has been selected for this role Miss richardi brings a wealth of valuable experience and qualifications to the position with a degree in accounting and prior professional experience as an auditor she's well equipped to assume the responsibilities of business manager her dedication expertise and commitment to our district also make her an excellent choice for
035this position she will officially assume her new role as business manager on July 1st 2024 in the meantime she'll continue in her current capacity and will undergo cross training with our outgoing business manager Brandy Spargo who's now the Boe administrative executive assistant and HR person uh to ensure a smooth transition and able to hit the ground running uh with the new fiscal year she's so excited um and I have every confidence that her prior uh leadership and experience in the district and her financial Acumen uh will greatly benefit us all so donor richardi is our new business manager and that concludes my report and I think all facts considered I think we've been very fortunate because all we did was one move I don't even think they moved offices did they all you they're pretty
036set in their spaces I'm just going to change the plaque on the wall you know so I I think we've been very fortunate um it's worked out for for the better we don't have to bring in anybody outside and that both people are fairly fairly intensively cost trained in doing the jobs so that there's uh I I think we've been very fortunate to have this pulled up and welcome aboard Donna thank you um and I'll kudos to UK for putting this together uh director of special services you're up chery thank you so professional development we are currently planning for the April 12th professional learning day the highlight of the day we'll be having amplify come in to share the new components that were added with the right to read Grant which will support vocabulary and
037comprehension in the area of curriculum uh I shared a while back that um at a prior Board of Education meeting that we received a grant um for after school programming this is a grant that allows us to continue boost this year as well as next year uh the other component of the grant is that um we've been able to start some of our students who in boost are getting to attend Parks and Recreation free of charge so that was really exciting uh We've also been able to provide a late bus uh to have students who are part of the open Choice program be able to attend Parks and Rec as well um um and this summer we're going to be offering a steam program for students and that's science technology engineering arts and math and
038that's a program um where students will be able to from boo will be able to attend as well as our students from open Choice uh so this grant has really had a positive impact so far and moving forward it will as well and then I had mentioned at the last meeting that we had um I had applied for $5,000 Grant and we did receive that so we have a grant for $5,000 for professional development for our wonderful pair professionals that's it anybody have any questions ask a question SC okay this strategic plan we got all these like you know this like 15 16 bullets I'm not sure who to ask well ask your question ask your question somebody will answer the curriculum and instruction there's goals one two and three and you know it goes
039from 2020 to 2 I'm not sure if that's the end of the school year or the beginning of the school year how that really applies but uh how are we doing with this that's sort of my question should sure so so we've done very well hitting a lot of the targets and I don't have it in front of me so I can't quote exactly what's on each of the pages um but there are some things that we just did not get to quite honestly because we had a little bit of a blip in the world um so when we meet as a committee um to bring together the next strategic planning committee we'll take a look at it and and really dig deep into okay how far did we get on each of these particular
040goals and each of these um targets that we wanted to hit did we hit them did we not which things do we want to carry over and continue moving forward because some of the things that we had in our strategic plan are no longer necessary in terms of things that we've already accomplished so we'll be digging deeper into that we've done very well with a lot of our things in our strategic plan okay so somewhere along the way we're going to get some kind of followup yep on all these bullets and uh what what went well what did not go well and suggestions for the future is there going to be another one of these yes for the next five years yes and the committee that makes up the uh strategic planning committee it's a
041very broad stakeholder group so we've had Parents we have teachers we have all of the administrators participate and we had board members and I think there might be some people here that were on the last committee Shannon participated in the last I was on the committee the last time as a parent Angela was there as well you guys this will as a Bo you started as a board member and ended as a parent yeah so this will be coming you know coming soon I would say probably next fall would probably be the start of this process okay I was just trying to understand where we were with it okay thanks anything else principal's report Tom you're all right uh so um in the vein of we've gotten a lot done and we've got a lot
042coming up uh I'll try and get some highlights and be as brief as I can uh so in March uh we celebrated women's History Month really great project um across the school we had classes uh creating bulletin boards um and then what we did is we had the classes go around and do learning walks and they've got kind of shout out boards so if you walk through the building you'll see not only their work but then like posters next to him with um Post-it notes and other things from students so kind of kids connecting across and it was really great to see um you know I think it's always really great to see the younger kids kind of going and learning from the older kids but we had all of our students from Summit coming
043up and going around through the retunda and really um I think taking it to heart and really doing a great job there so uh it was a really neat project um and I think it was just a great way to get the kids out and through the building and connecting with each other uh our community meeting in March uh focused on uh trust and honesty great one presented uh we also had presentations on uh women's history month and a student project that focused on ending bird homelessness so it was wonderful um uh we had 93% of our families sign up for conferences on the 20th and the 21st uh and so we had a really great turnout there a lot of the families that uh might not have signed up for those conferences often are
044those who have um already had a recent um plan meeting like say for their child's 504 plan or their I um but still even then we had 93% of families um sign up um as always uh an army lives on its stomach and we're always so grateful for the PTO for um dinner and um leftover dinners for the next day um so that was quite wonderful uh our student Leadership Council is doing their toiletry Drive um we had an awesome time with the eclipse on Monday uh we had um we had the students with glasses everyone um had a really great time there um and then as uh as Mrs bird said we had our uh kindergarten info night on the 3 uh last week Wednesday so we invited all of our prospective kindergarten families
045in uh went through a day in the life of a kindergartener uh which by the way is amazing um and then you know we also addressed uh the elephant in the room around um the legislation there and so what we're going to do because we didn't want to have sort of a a one a one day for a typical you know we have our typical kindergarten screening we didn't want to have like a one day and then another day so what we're doing is um we're trying consolidate um those families that have students whose birthdays fall in that range um we're going to have them come in for one session um and then other families were invited to choose from the rest of the session so it's all kind of one day we keep all
046our folks together that way um and just work through that so we're hoping to be able to then have information from that to make best decisions in terms of um moving forward uh that being said uh also super fun this uh last Wednesday I also presented which is either really exciting or super stressful or in my case both um our last 8 weeks documents so we really try and get together and think about how we're approaching the end of the year and all the things that we're doing um and so the first part of that is a huge um list of all the events coming up so I will spare you because it goes like an entire page um couple of really big highlights that we have coming up uh our sixth grade science fair
047is happening on May 1st teacher appreciation week as you heard was May 6th to 10th uh drama club performance is uh on May 10th and 11th our night ofth Arts is May 14th Field day is May 17th and old schoolhouse day for our second grade students is the week of May 27th so we've got a lot more but those are some really um big and exciting happenings um just from the school side as we come into the end of the year so regarding the eclipse were you able to take the kids out in mass or just go out as groups and that they have was it is it a nice teaching moment it was I don't I don't want to speak for Tom but um I think it was a really nice teaching moment you'll
048get to see some photos of that uh forthcoming but all of the kids went out and they were very excited um some people saw flying saucers some people just saw the eclipse so take it for what you will but it was really nice to to see the students come out they went out as classes um they weren't out at the peak because that was the time that they were going home but the teachers started bringing the students out just around 2:00 uh to see what they could see yeah it was cool I mean it's it's yeah it was it was really cool yeah and I think them having the glasses was really great you know so they could you know cuz I mean there's a lot of there's a lot of great little engineering hacks
049that you can do with the boxes and the holes and all of that but you're not you're not really kind of fully experiencing so I think it was really cool for the kids to be able to have that so the kids had a good time for the eclipse yeah so did the adults I was going to say like the adults might have been really excited it was really nice to see during pickup um the kids kind of running out and you I saw the eclipse and the parents kind of like looking we like don't look up at the sign the parents CLE you know the students had taken to heart more the the instructions than the parents did but the kids giving their parents their glasses and the parents kind of having that moment with
050their students standing outside looking the Cass it was really nice yeah see that's that's that's a wonderful thing indeed anybody got any questions I got a question for you Tom yeah we've been seemly wrapping up a pretty fabulous year this year it sounds like from everything we're saying can you tell me a challenge that you seem to be facing going into next year from this year that we or you may have to address um I think increasing enrollment is always presenting a challenge right so if I look at it when I started five years ago um when I did the math on it we've increased like 33% so when I came in one of the first things that Colleen said to me was like here's this building we have space upon space upon space which
051was super helpful for a lot of things I think you know when we needed separate setting for assessments or we needed an intervention room we had all kinds of things um and I think what we've gotten to now is we are utilizing every square inch of this building multiple times over and so I think that that from a space standpoint creates a challenge um I think programmatically it also um starts to create a challenge in terms of Master scheduling um in terms of thinking about interventions in terms of just overall services for students the more students you have and the more services that you have just by sheer size of number creates overlap and I think like in a perfect practice we have our morning meeting oural time right and we say that's going to
052be sacren it's not going to be touched and so the challenge is that as we're having more classes more students more needs all of that it's slowly those needs are slowly creeping into something like morning meeting time that we're trying to say hands off you can't use this time and we're finding that we just don't have the minutes in the day and so I think that some of that just you know it creates a challenge of logistics um you know and everybody's thing is really important so trying to be able to balance that and do right by everyone I think that that I've seen that that's been a challenge that's been going now with that said is there anything we could do to support you in getting there or addressing those challenges I put on
053the spot I don't right now I don't I don't have something you know put on the spot but I think I think here support I think what we try and do is we try and look at what are the you know what are the day-to-day the month to month the year toe challenges and I think um you know when we come with that I think you know being those Partners to say you know if it's something overall like in this or if it's something that we're coming dayto day or month to month trying to help us in terms of solving that problem I think having that open mind to to try and help us get to a creative solution I think is always really valuable because I think that that's the challenges is sometimes you
054look at it and you're thinking well I don't know if this idea will work you know and knowing that we can bring that forth without judgment to try and think about how we recognize a challenge or a problem and be able to attack it as partners I think that that helps us feel confident in trying to go after things yeah because we're always here to support you I'm just always curious to know what you guys actually need and sometimes it doesn't come out until you're kind of pulled out of you yeah well there's a question appreciate ask there's there's an interesting question that was just raised um you're saying space is starting to get a little cramped Colleen and I talked about it many many many moths ago but the we took the old portable
055classrooms down the odds of Ever Getting permanent additions to the structure I think are relatively minor but conversely the new temporary classrooms that they're manufacturing or are you know for short term and by short term for most school boards that usually means forever but um we have an architect looking at the overall exterior of the school and then maybe one of the things we could have him look at is if we had to park a couple uh temporary classroom trailer someplace where should we park them you know if if I I truly don't believe you're ever going to see 600 kids in this school again that doesn't necessarily mean we and maybe it it may be worth the discussion with with the architect just to have that discussion if space becomes an option uh if
056space becomes a problem you know what are our options because you said one of the things you want to talk about is how to reutilize this which is at some point we're going to have to have that discussion with you y um to the Strategic plan it's part of the Strategic plan but strategic planning you know it's we may need that sooner rather than later and so the discussions always take forever the implementation takes forever and there's money involved and money takes forever so that may be something worth you know Sean may have hit something there and Tom may have hadit something that maybe that's something we want to take a a look at or at least put on the radar as facilities can we get through some of these projects first by his mouth
057the fish is caught you know you you you started but you have a valid point Sean you know Tom's identified an issue you know he's right when we first came here we were What 354 now we're at 450 yeah it's like 30% and we were fortunate we had we we we still got space you know we're not crammed in yet because like I said this school accommodated 600 kids 604 I think uh was the maximum you know but I don't think we can do that again because at that time we had both annexes and the portable classrooms so and the challenges that are are good in our favor right now is there's no rolling stock for sale in town yeah so you know what we have is what we have and they're going to be
058not like we've seen in the past where there's houses just flipping out well Bethany Farms was we always we could never make a number of people understand that Bethany Farms was an aberration you know 84 Lots just don't that's a big subdivision anywhere yeah but now we have that turnover so now you're going to be looking at you know 430 450 480 maybe 450 430 480 again who knows but we may have to start playing for [Music] that just something to keep in the back of your mind I have a question I I know this is weather dependent and mother nature L has not been her kindness but what are your potential plans on the burner of using the outdoor Pavilion not so much to piggy back off of the space concern but just the
059fact that we have this beautiful Pavilion yeah just to get the kids outside and you know at some point does even the board do we have a meeting out there although I know that could pose a challenge with um having the ability to do um and I think the insects with have phone but you know you we have it so what are what are our thoughts on using it yeah so I think I think one of the initial um considerations that we have is when we um when we have the the better weather months really looking at our community meeting being out there you know and trying to think about how that translates I think one of the challenges is um the screen projection right because it's it's much easier to project something if you've
060got say like a video that you want kids to watch um you know but then I think the the beauty of that is it might Force us away from while I love the videos it might Force us away from like here let's watch this video of kids and more of like let's get kids in front of kids um you know so it could present some good challenges to face um but I think that that's an initial one um we've also you know thought about different events or or also um you know trying to think about you know when we get say a whole grade together or something that way utilizing that space in that way as well and if weather works is graduation going to be out there is that the plan as we thought
061yeah it's a thought I think the challenge becomes with that is that that that event becomes so late in the year that we really run the risk of either a planning for it and it rains or B planning for it and it swelters right and the last thing that I would want to do is because the way in which if you think about the Pavilion and that volume of people we can't keep everybody in the shade so I like the idea of it um I just I want to be considerate of that recognizing that like even when we were out on the field it gets toasty but if you're sitting over there on the black top then you're radiating up on people yeah you know so I I I just want to be thoughtful of
062that but yeah I think we're we're trying to think about considerations for those things when we have you know greater numbers of folks and thinking about how we can get on there okay okay I think John I was trying to in in the way that you put but I think the other thing that I would ask from the board I if I if I really search my heart and I'll speak from a personal standpoint because I know it affects other folks but I think that there's often times in which the reality of a situation doesn't match what the conversation outside of that situation might be um and I know that there have been multiple times at which a situation that I have direct understanding or knowledge or even participation in and the conversation that happened
063outside of this building and around it doesn't match what those facts or those situations actually were and while I recognize that part of that is that we're a small community right and people are having conversations and all of that and it it comes to you all I would just ask that we take it with with an aspect of curiosity um you know and not judgment and I think often times it can be a spot at which something can get exacerbated I've had folks who have come to me with something and thinking the complete opposite of what might have happened and I recognize that that could raise alarm or concern but I think the initial to say you know trying to make sure that we're not fueling that and trying to understand what the situation is
064um and and trying to get that support because I think it translates to challenges that at least I can speak from a personal standpoint become challenges for me in terms of trying to do the job do it well and then also having to fight misinformation or misunder understanding on that and then I think that that also translates to stress that happens on staff who live in that space and I think that that's another aspect where if you're just you know Tom reedo principal like PS went to school again I signed up for some of this like too bad so sad put your big boy pants on and deal with it but I think you know if I think back to being 26 27 28 Tom Reed well fourth grade teacher right I think that that
065really can strike right down down your spine you know and and can really make you kind of question and so I think that that's an essential part of helping us do the job of helping teachers do the job of loving children yeah and and I'm very mindful of the power of the keyboard yeah and and a lot of times you know I I have a lot of I'll call them tailgate conversations yeah and I've worn the rifle through that and some of the stuff I agree with you it's it's not fair because it's not that somewhere within this realm of this conversations you hear is the reality and sometimes you're you're right the reality does not come out and it's not fair to you guys it's not fair to our teachers it's it's it's wrong
066but you're never going to fight the power of the keyboard it's easy to hide behind it versus have a conversation so I I think one of the challenges and I'm sure every District in every state faces is that social media as you're saying is just so powerful and taking over and us as board members are taught are understood about foi and what you say because like I mean you know I have left groups in this town that are like parent groups just because I don't want to see the bashing but as much as I want to speak up to it as a board ofed member to support it's that fine line sometimes so um so you hope sometimes people do have an actual conversation to be able to verbally I don't want to say put
067them in their place but make them understand if you looked at both sides of the situation you know give people Grace you know and um so I know that that sometimes is a struggle so can we hold this for five minutes yeah well we'll come back to this yeah okay let's let's get through reports and then we will come back to that um so we're done with Tom uh Chairman's reports there's a reason I want to come back to it that way okay chairman report um first off uh we had discussed last month um having a fall uh open Forum since then I understand Amy and Caroline have discussed the possibility of doing a spring one my suggestion to K and now we can discuss it as award is that at next month's meeting we're
068running out of time there's not a lot of time on so in an effort to uh to follow through on that uh we have a truncated board meeting next month and have the open Forum follow I I'd be open to that I just think I apologize I wasn't here last month but no that's okay but I just I I was listening at home and I just just felt that um you know attendance is not as much as we would like from the community members I mean we're 400 and something kids and you get you know 30 parents but it even as we all know lacks just from us as members and I feel like if we don't give the community the opportunity to have that chance to bring forth whatever it might be you know
069those are the people that voted us into these positions and I don't want to feel like we're stifling them so that's kind of like I was like let's find a way and that's and that's why I suggested um there's nothing there's there's nothing um of any great import on the horizon uh we should be able to get through uh standard board business in 30 to 45 minutes and we have it we're here uh one of the complaints that we heard was that only one or two board members show up now you have the entire board so I think that kind of is an elegant solution uh assuming everybody here is on board with that so I got a question do you do by Zoom or do you do in person well we would be here
070and if anybody wants to show up the downside to that is I don't know how the techn the technological end of that would work so the technological end of that would work the same way it does for board meetings people would have the opportunity to submit comments as they do um when they submit for public comment but we don't have the ability to in this forum have a back and forth conversation with people online sort of a question coming in and donor or somebody trying to feverishly type in a chat um but there's no ability to respond directly to people um in the form that we have right now and is that because we can't do zoom out of this building we just don't have the technology in this building so then is it even
071a thought and this could really be jumping the gun here but do we do the meeting out of the Board of Ed building in that conference room I mean we're all you know tight in there then you can't have the public I that was the piece I was just going to say just we hold it as Town Hall Town Hall Town Hall but isn't the whole P of the point of this the forums to have that back and forth interaction that they're not allowed to have all year I think it's important to have that interaction you you're I I understand what you're saying Amy because I thought about doing it over there also because they are set up but if I wouldn't expect to see more than three parents but in the event that all
072of a sudden 10 people showed up then what we now have an issue so that we're stuck kind of we're kind of stuck here and for the time being we're stuck with the technology that we have uh I would hope that if the parents want to talk to us and when I have the discussion they would show up it's you know I I realize uh it's sometimes an inconvenience but right now it's the only way that works for us I think moving forward once the Town Hall Gym is complet yeah but commission room can you do Zoom from up there I have a question are we talking about Zoom instead of in person are we talking about simultaneously Zoom casting and person that's really tricky yeah to run we learned that all through Co instruction
073I remember our town meeting where we tried to do that and then the people on Zoom weren't really heard so all it did was frustrate them more like it's a I think we it's either got to be a zoom meeting or an inperson meeting where in a structure where people can question in I think trying to run them s we're just asking the town hall has the owl which tracks people and it's more of an interactive mechanism I know they use it like the Planning and Zoning me but again you're constrained by space you know that's why I I think for the time being given that this is a not a last minute but it's it's a uh you know we're trying to accommodate a um you know request I think we have to work
074with what we have and that in the fall hopefully by then that if the um if the uh Town Hall Gym is finished then you will have that capability because that's one of the things you're supposed to be doing what about providing an Avenue for uh people to pose their questions ahead of time they always have that yeah they have what could we they can do that now for meetings they just haven't gotten one right but they would be able to do that for this as well yeah AB we you know they can be answered but that's still I but still you can't do the the back and forth could we do the board meeting here the way we regularly do and then adjourn for five minutes and go over to the board of V
075office so that we're in the conference room but everybody else is on it's still the issue of if people wanted to attend in person so if somebody wanted to attend in person we only have a finite amount of space in that room we have enough space around the table in the conference room for what about what about the commission room that you were talking about that would be aest the town hall I don't know if they have other meetings at that time or anything that happens we have to check the town hall okay so we can investigate that you're not going to be able to set it up between now and getting it published I I think it's it's a um a question of trying to get the logistics involved we can ask the question
076but I don't think we're going to be able to resolve the logistics in 30 days we can always ask that's what I said we'll ask okay that's the best we can do M so we'll plan on doing a truncated Boe meeting uh and then we will go and move into an open form is that everybody's everybody's okay with that yeah I just wanted to suggest you know there's this owl thing that they've got over the selction room that you know spirals around to whoever's talking I don't know if it's interacted you know people can talk from home or not we'll find out but I just wanted to mention maybe we could put the owl over here but it I don't think it would be much different than what we presently have that's what happens at
077the board of Select meetings they can have a dialogue between people at home and people in the room can they yeah okay because I didn't know that all right yeah but the owl I mean it's not that the owl is the speaker right it still has to be you still have to have the zoom or the Google meet or something that allows right they have to they have to yeah we can investigate different the other thing you have a zoom account that goes past the 45 minute window yes okay Tock yes I would hope so we're no longer just relying on [Laughter] freezer okay that's the first thing out of the way now we'll server back to Tom's comment and am's com Insurance com there was a letter sent out from the teachers union regarding
078uh I'll paraphrase this the lack of Civility in the part of a number of parents and the role that um social media plays in promoting that uh attitude um I promise K I would behave myself so I'm not going to go into it any deeper than to say that uh I think as a board we've since I've been on the board I'm 10 years now the biggest complaint we've heard from parents consistent complaint is that we do not keep qualified teachers I've heard that for 10 years uh and then to start to have this garbage start going around doesn't make the job any easier we have a new contract in place which helped to uh Rectify some of the problem there's nothing we can do as a board or as a community as a society
079it's going to stop these fools from talking on social media the way they do it's unfortunate there's nothing we can do about it so long as the teachers understand that if there's a complaint it will be investigated if it's investigated and the teacher is exonerated or by not Exon that's the wrong word to use the 95% of the time I would assume that most of the stuff is probably just maybe a misunderstanding and maybe it gets resolved by further uh maybe there has to be something just modified but for the most part if a parent has a problem China a command is you go to the teacher they're not happy you go to the principal if they're not happy you go to the superintendent you're not happy and then finally if they're not happy with
080the superintendent they can come to me but the idea of yapping on social media and and not doing anything about it is aborn and all they are is just pouring gas on a fire and that fire is going to eventually cause the people that were trying to retain and keep to say I don't need this hor let's get and it is and it's I apologize but I don't apologize you know this is bullying pure and simple well that's why I think it's appropriate to ask other parents that may be online and witnessing some of this to step up and help shut it down it's you know I'm not going to ask anybody to do anything the thing that's the thing that Bo the thing that bothers me the most about this whole stupid thing is
081that not only are they bullies but they're teaching their children to be bullies you know so you want to look at the next generation of School shooters and Bullies you got them right there and these are the parents that are causing and if I have to tell somebody who's 40 years old that they shouldn't be doing this I well that's why I'm saying it's you know BCS is a community the parents are a community and I think that people need to come together and support the positivity and support the mission that's that's being done and I think it's appropriate to ask people you know if you if you see something online that's not appropriate be brave step up and say you know have you spoken to the teacher have you gone through the proper channels
082maybe this isn't the appropriate place to be you know conducting this type of dialogue i' like to a motion to go into executive session after the public comment so that we could talk about some examples of what's Happening since there are Personnel issues it's not appropriate I public meeting I I don't think I want to go into the weeds with this for a number of reasons not the least of which it gives Credence to some of these people that I really don't want to give any support to the teachers get our support MH if a teacher's found to be um less than uh up to our standards then hopefully the superintendent and her staff have that under control and will help to remedy the situation but I'm not going to give any play time to
083these people I'm not going to pull personalities into this you know is I'm not even on social media I couldn't tell you I don't I don't have any social media account but I think it's important for us to have a understanding of what types of topics these are circulating around is it a a test grade is it a you know I I think I think we've got and we're going to get dragged into the weeds I think the superintendent has it under control I think Tom has it under control to a point as much as you can control these things these are wildfires and they're going to burn where they go whichever way the wind blows so all I suffice to say is that uh it's an unfortunate situation um hopefully it will remediate itself
084which I really don't think will but you can pray um and just understand that what they're doing is they're giving um they're giving a lot of grief to the people we're trying to keep to teach their children and that at some point you know you keep doing this and people are not going to want to come to work in bethle they're going to say what the hell I have to put up with this stuff for no amount of money is worth it we're going to start losing the people we have and we're going to start getting the people we don't want so that's as far as I want this to go I mean I I suggested and to be honest with you Joe I did suggest the same thing K and I talked about it
085um and we felt uh at this stage it's not worth it but personally I don't like bullies and that's all this is is Garden variety bully I think one John Paul one thing I want to to say too that it's important to note is you're going to get people that have an individual concern and they air it inappropriately on social media or out in the community and as you said we're not going to be able to stop that what I think is important to understand is a lot of times the teachers and administrators can't defend themselves because they can't give away information about that child to say big there's false narratives and so they're put in a position where you only get to hear so this is really for the neutral people that are sitting
086back listening and wondering what's happening they only get to hear one side and start to think that that is the only narrative because the teachers in administration are are put kind of they're stuck in this situation they can't defend themselves so I think it's important kind of to what Caroline was saying it's important for those neutral people to understand that and not give Credence to one person's issue if it's a personal issue about their child or their situation they should deal with with the School directly it doesn't involve anyone else there's a chain of command there's a proper chain of command that's there for a reason and part of it is child confidentiality we go into executive session now we're starting to talk about individuals you can add one and one and get two and
087I don't think it's fair to the child I don't think it's fair to a lot of people I don't think it's fair to the teacher and again staff can't the staff can't share those individual things with us in executive session about individual students they can't do that so so I I think Tom in in in a lot of respects we share your pain we understand what you're talking about and I think everybody on this board is on board with the idea that we have to support as best we can I mean if there is an issue with a teacher then hopefully you guys find it and correct it so I have a question you have the the the bethney Education Association and what are their expectations from the Board of Education on this topic and
088you know how do we as a board encourage constructive and respectful dialogue when we can't really address it you know we always feel like our hands get tied because we can't speak directly to something I'm just point at this St I understand that but at this stage the best we can do is what we can do now at some point God forbid we may have to dive into the weeds I hope we never get to that point I truly you know i' I've watch witnessed a number of board of educations that get into that stuff all the time we don't want to go there we truly do not want to go there we may end up getting dragged there and what if one of these persons that uh being unkind uh shows up at our
089our open forum and then we deal with it at the open Forum okay and uh I don't know if that would be a good thing or a bad thing but you know it could go either way it's future we have no way of of of of governing that so you know to to show respect for the the uh the Bethany Education Association part of our open Forum I think should be targeting a subject of constructive and respectful dialogue between the teachers and the parents and the administration and so there are guidelines that come out like when we assuming we're going to follow the format that we have in the past where it's you know guidelines of what can be discussed you know individual student concerns can't be discussed there can't be any targeting of any
090you know individuals during that discussion it can be a back and forth dialogue about policies procedures things that are happening at the school but it it can't be about anything about any individual who will get shut down no personal attacks correct yeah and it's got to be so and you know what Sean said before about the keyboard warrior in my time on the board and the open fors I can tell you having seen what those keyboard Warriors say in social media you see their face on zoom and they don't have the wherewithal to be able to say what they're thinking or typing so you you kind of go oh here we go and then they they just they don't have the the guts the lack of better term so you kind of hope maybe we
091just stay in that trajectory but you just never know okay you have to be careful I I understand that but I don't want the teachers to feel like we're just blowing them off I think the teachers know exactly where we stand and I've said it before and I'll say it again I think we support them and and I think the teachers are well aware that our hands are tied is just as much as their ours a point with with with the response and something someone said to me a long time ago you can't argue an idiot they'll beat you down with their training and experience and and that is so true with a keyboard hero because no matter what you do they're going to type what they're going to type and they'll never put their
092face to it yeah we just have to accept that and it's a terrible position for our faculty to be in badly keyboard hero but there's nothing you can do about it I I wanted to add to something Caroline said earlier which is like I think for for parents who are listening to this and and wondering what they can do um you know I can talk from my own experience um often you hear when there's a problem and you don't hear when things are going well and so I think you know Caroline's suggestion of like if you see something on social media that you think might that's making you uncomfortable it might make other people uncomfortable speaking up to that I think is a really smart decision um but I also think if you're seeing something
093that's really good tell that teacher put it on social media tell the board tell the administration um I think the number of people who are having problems um is not the the the noise that we're hearing about it and the amount of time it's taking up is disproportionate to the number of those folks who really are are in the community and one way to man it doesn't solve the problem I'm not suggesting that but I think one way to approach it is not just during Teacher Appreciation Week um to make sure that you know if you're you know like Caroline and I got to go to The Parent Academy last night which was amazing I mean the folks who ran that were great the parents in the room like the conversation was all supportive and
094encouraging and I'm having this problem too this is how it works for me and like when you have those experiences with a phenomenal BCS staff member make it as loud as you can and I think that's one of the steps that we can every one of us do um to try to address this absolutely agreed okay I think we've beat that dead horse hopefully we beat it to death um anybody else in any comments I've got nothing else I think that covered everything um okay correspondence nothing public comment anybody from the park want to say anything going once going I'll be damn if I said Dam okay any com in online yeah I was going to ask you that if we've gotten any comments all right motion to adjourn so moved second second we be
095out of here thank you thank you thank you everybody Kim is this thing turned off turn it off turned off