001e all right i' like to call the Wednesday January 10th meeting of the Bethany Board of Education to order it's at 6:30 uh we'll start by uh Pledge of Allegiance flag uned States America stand one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all would like to welcome everybody uh so we'll start with the uh PTO report please state your name uh go slow and talk loud please I have a lingering cough when I'm sick and over Christmas so have to bear with me all right all right excuse me uh my name is Melissa zaldo um the PTO president for this year next year so um starting off this January we got quite a lot going on um restaurant nights tonight actually we're hosting a restaurant night at Billy's and then on January 16th through
002the 18th we're doing a restaurant night at Grand de Petz down the street from billies and then just this afternoon I found out that we'll be having um two more restaurant nights uh at an anonos in Beacon Falls uh one January 31st and the other March 6 all you have to do is call place your order mention that it's with you're with the PTO and oh the restaurants are going to donate a portion of their proceeds from the from that day or night back to the PTO um the big thing other big thing we have going on right now is our Glow Run um we're bringing this brand new event this year to raise money for um playground enhancements regist ation is now open um and what this is is basically over the course of
003eight school days children will learn how to be World Changers through fun and engaging videos they'll determine how to identify a need formulate a plan rally a team launch their ideas and grd it out at the end of the event they will participate in a Glow Run in the gym the gym will be um transformed with glow lights inflatable tunnels all sorts of stuff the company were part with is sending staff to help facilitate that run and um as well as music and activities to get the kids um moving our goal is to raise $8,000 for playground enhancements and as of yesterday afternoon we've raised $1,999 so just under $2,000 I haven't seen the numbers yet for today um if we get 55% of the school just register of students just registered the students will
004earn um a pajama day for the entire School uh the actual event kicks off tomorrow on January 11th and um along the way they'll be giving assignments more or less on how to raise money and um they have the chance to earn prizes between the 11th and the 23rd like these prizes are like little games and things like that they're like really not much but kids you know kids love prizes um to help get them excited for the Glow Run which will be held on the 23rd um we're also looking for volunteers to help out with daily um distribution of prizes so if anybody out there wants to volunteer um we do have a registration form available on our website uh Lego Club the first session for Lego Club starts tomorrow January 11th um as
005I mentioned before we are capping registration this this for the winter session only just because of all the respiratory illnesses that are going around we want to keep the students and our volunteers safe um we the registration is full but we do have a waiting list and students um if they are weight listed we'll get priority registration uh for the spring session um if a student can't participate and they're already registered just let us know and we're going to offer that space to the next uh student on the weight list um also uh we're planning a hockey night at quinac University that's scheduled for uh February 3rd it's at I think 7:00 p.m. they're playing against Dartmouth we had 100 tickets available and they have all sold out um we were trying to get more
006tickets but it was going to be in a different section and it it just wasn't worked out but um so thank you to everybody who purchased the tickets the tickets will be available well at will call at the arena um Ski Club ski club was supposed to start uh yesterday but because of that weather it was postponed back by a week so other things we have coming up in the future um our sweetheart dance is being planned for February 9th um that the planning for that's underway um we're also going to be looking to give a valentine popsical for the students um probably on Valentine's Day we're working out the details for that and our next two P PTO meetings are on January 18th and February 15th thank you okay thank you very much public
007comment policy uh 1 120 in the bylaw what that means is that this is the public comment uh section you're allowed to come up state your name your address you have 3 minutes to um uh to discuss what you want to discuss it's not a back and forth it is a uh an opportunity for somebody to bring something to the board's attention and if it needs action we will uh distribute it to the appropriate parties so anybody here from the public want to come up and say anything going once going twice sold committee reports excuse me approval of minutes approval of December 13 uh minutes has anybody taking a look at them you need a couple of minutes does anybody have any changes comments or author I'll make a motion to approve them as they
008printed Angelo and who seconded Amy Amy can I just ask for a no the uh under new business okay we were post we table the policies and discussion to a future meeting after the new policy committee is formed so is that coming back to does that mean that it's coming back to the policy committee on their agenda what's that the under new business minutes okay K's not in yes okay it's just Robert's Rules of Order gets technical on this I'm just trying to make sure that it's just a matter of semantics on language okay I was just looking to clarify what that meant that it's coming back to the policy committee foron yeah it's got to come back to the policy committee that was the idea we had talked about this and I'll get to
009that briefly when we go through the Committees okay we'll discuss that I just want to make sure I understood what it meant no it's so we have a motion on the floor in a second any any further discussion all in favor I unanimous all right committee reports we'll start with Finance Amy okay finance committee met last night um if you take a look in your packet at the operating budget summary as of December 2023 you'll see under general education salary and Ben benefit projections remain status quo from last month general education supplies is showing a slight deficit of $ 5,478 due to the purchase of additional iPads and increased cost of some some software renewals general education is now showing a surplus of special education still has a surplus of $441 15 under operations and
010overhead you will see there is a slight change in the estimated deficit to services and that is due to the purchase of a new time sheet platform all the other accounts under the section remain status quo operation and overhead ends the month with a deficit of $652 which is slightly higher than last month this brings us down to the bottom where we show the overall budget is now showing a surplus of $73,500 and this is still largely due to savings found in salaries and benefits as had been requested Brandy modified the table uh at the bottom of your page that will show for the prek account and the 10 248a funded account under prek the starting balance uh in July was $6,450 so far we've spent $4 44,7 46 for salaries and supplies after some
011encumbrance adjustments and deposited an additional $ 27516 for tuition payments so this leaves prek with a bank balance of roughly $64,000 46273 and that is as of 123123 for our 10 248a our our rainy fund day account our rainy day fund account um we started the year with the balance of $369,990 74 we've expended $1,987 197 and that was for salaries Pavilion work and new classroom supplies and then we deposited 82,2 19788 that deposit includes the $78,000 Surplus that we had voted on from our 2223 uh school year and the interest accured on that so far so now as of 123123 this gives us roughly $349,450 in the 10248 a account Brandy reported that she's going to begin her midyear scrub of all accounts in the next week or so and hopes to have a
012more accurate budget projection for the finance committee at our March meeting um Brandy also reported that the audit for the 22 and 23 uh school year has finally been completed and all issues that had Arisen between the Boe and town have been SED and all the issues that had been SED in the past excuse me have been corrected and there were not any additional items flagged for this year and the EFS report that she has to submit has been audited and certified without errors or need for adjustments and then um Mrs bird was going to go through a detailed budget presentation with the finance committee but it was just myself and John Paul so um I had a six son so downfall was nice therefore we opted to not do that and we'll all wait
013for her presentation this evening any questions I just want to make one comment that uh I think the way that the operating budget summary has finally been set up you're to be commended Brandy I think this is finally it's something that's easily read does anybody and if anybody on the commission has any um modifications or improvements they want to make to how we present information please say something because when we started doing this 10 years ago it was almost impossible to understand it now it's relatively simple and it's it's it's visual on top of it and I think you know Brandy and Kay and everybody involved in getting this thing together so that it's now straight like the um the reny day account account I mean it's easy to understand what we have what we
014did and so I think you guys would be commended thank you but if anybody has any changes that they want to make to the paperwork on how it's presented please say something okay we're just trying to make it easier so everybody understands what we've got and where we're going with it all right so that being done um I'll move that we accept the report of the finance chair second Sean all in favor unanimous uh now regarding the other committees we presented a list to everybody of the various committees who is involved who is chair and what your meeting is does anybody have any um Corrections they would like to make any comments they would like to make uh do somebody want to be on a committee that they're not on do somebody not want to
015be on a committee they are on you know speak now or forever hold your peace I have a question uh negotiations you have um only two people on it is that because your for chair is typically the third is it I'm on all the committees as but more importantly negotiation were're just completed we're in the first year of a three-year contract we shouldn't have to do anything for at least two years two years AJ yeah two years so um the idea that the negotiations would be meeting you know much before next year I don't know they I don't think so I think it's a wasted effort yeah I don't think there's much coming up unless something unusual comes up other contracts need to be negotiated for another two years which is a nice thing so
016does anybody um is everybody happy with what they've got is everybody uh does anybody want to jump does anybody want to change speak now or forever holds your piece well then I'll have K is going to uh put together a uh meeting date to get that done and you know we should have hit that first right about Donna I apologize let's Okay that's that's done but um one very important uh we have a new member Donna sitting here has agreed to um take on the role of uh secretary so that alleviates from you uh that uh the need to take minutes and you just have to review what Donna does so welcome aboard thank you and uh she'll be working with Kay and uh she'll be taking minutes oky doie anybody have any issues questions
017comments okay thank you Don thank you you welcome aboard thank you so no other the Committees have met yet K will'll put together a proposed meeting dates publish them and we'll get started unless somebody's got something hot on on the uh on the item that they want to discuss okay uh unfinished business none new business Boe meeting dates for the town clerk those have to be published so they are included in your packet uh right after the um Financial breakdown and they are is January 10th February 14th March 13th April 10th May 8th June 12th July 10th August 14th September 11th October 9th November 13th December 11th and then we include the January 88th 2025 meeting so these have to be published um so that uh it's normally the uh the second Wednesday at 6:30
018does anybody propose a change somebody want to see 6:00 5:30 you know midnight anybody Now's the Time if we if if somebody's got got something that they want to you know let's discuss it now or again forever hold your piece all right then I need a motion to uh approve the board dates as presented through January of through January 8th motion approve Jo second I'll second Amy second all in favor hi unanimous all right now to the me of the meeting superintendent's proposed spending plan I have a question before you start is there a reason why there's 12 copies journey in here just am I missing something oh you already made cop so what happened was I made the copies and I gave them to Donna to include in the packet when she made the
019copies and so I had the set of copies for everyone at the table gotcha so like please don't tell Matt Brer that we did that that's okay I just sure I wasn't Miss yeah there must be something different it's all the one thing different I I don't mean to be I don't mean to be uh to be critical but this doesn't bode [Laughter] well very good catch didn't she all right where we have to Mo you might want to move to the side Mr we need to call your assist here [Music] there it is all right Don's gonna click in for me yeah so good evening everyone and thank you for coming to the annual budget show so we'll get started Donna if you would so for the new board members um I thought it
020would be important for you all to kind of understand what the budget development processes um and kind of remind those of us who have been on the board for a while or you have been on the board I just come to the meetings um so as you can see from the timeline on the slide we started our budget process in September thank you to Brandy for setting a timeline that ensures that we stay on target um we had a goal of getting everything done and set before the holiday break and we were able to accomplish that this year um because this is not a new process by any stretch of the imagination it's a process that we've had here in the district for quite some time and quite honestly it just works for us so
021the Board of Ed received a budget development update from me over the course of the last few months we've talked about it in finance um we've talked about it here in this meeting so this is the official presentation I will be making um this presentation to the board of Finance thank you m uh Dr Lane for correcting that uh in the last weekly I had put that the original date of January 29th was when I was going to go before the board of Finance m co Francesco has let me know that that has been moved and now I will be going on Friday at 3:00 so uh for those who want to come see this again uh I'll be in front of the board of Finance February 2nd at 3:00 um and hopefully then the
022board will adopt the budget it's a little out of order from What U most places are it's just because of the timing of the board of Finance typically the budget would be approved by the board um this is my superintendent spending proposal um hopefully in February if you like what you see you'll adopt it as your board of education budget so right now it's just my spending proposal Donna people often ask for the why uh Excellence for all and bile that's the tagline of our district strategic plan um in order to achieve the Excellence that we've committed to um in terms of supporting curriculum instruction culture climate and Community engagement and Future Ready facilities this is why we are passing uh hoping to pass the bud that I'm presenting to you this evening Donna and
023again I know I talk fast sometimes so if there's anything you want me to repeat or slow down Sean will tell me all right so in addition to the wise that we have in our budget we have other key budget drivers um there's always you know we try to have that through line between what we're looking to accomplish in our strategic plan our goal of Excellence for all and by all to these other drivers that you see on the screen there is that interconnectedness between all of these things so factors driving our budget always begin with salaries and benefits these are contractual factors based on negotiations student need and other efficiencies that we try to find class size we take a look at historical data and enrollment projections to set class size predictions and strive
024to stay within the board's policy on class size as best we can as you know from previous reporting our enrollment continues to grow Bethany is the place where people want to live and raise their children and educate them and we're very proud of that um unfortunately sometimes that causes little hiccups because more children require more needs uh require more costs because of needs and sometimes that means extra sections in order for us to have those lower class sizes that we pride oursel on having technology as a district we remain committed to staying Forward Thinking in the area of technology which is by the way not just purchasing new Chromebooks each year this includes additional resources to support student growth in areas such as coding and other stem Pursuits which we're now seeing an uptick in
025um because of our Design Lab and the work that's being done with Mrs Stokes and Mr defasio special education state and federal mandates along with student IEPs Drive our costs in the area of special education students needs change unexpectedly and often and because of that budgeting for them can be challenging and can be quite expensive we give it our best projections based on the information that we have on the children here in the school at that time curriculum putting the right tools and resources in the hands of our teachers and students is Paramount to good teaching and learning we also need a suite of interventions and Inter enrichment resources to help those students who require extra support or additional challenge supplies pretty basic we have to determine instructional Supply costs we start at zero consider
026what we have in stock and then determine what we need and where we can obtain them at the best competitive prices I love a good coupon utilities as many of you know from the rising cost of utilities that continues to be a challenge as we move forward um Brandy has done some great work over the last year to make sure that we're always staying on top of getting the latest and greatest rates that are going to be uh more in our favor and we work very closely with the town on that our facilities through the years we've been able to successfully fund several building and ground projects to maintain our facilities and keep them updated this remains a constant in any budget in order for students to learn and for staff to teach we need
027to provide them a safe and clean environment that is conducive to those things and Mr Fallon and his team are uh right on top of that transportation we have an obligation to transport our students to and from school and we're Bound by contract negotiations for this service as a reminder or for information for those of you who are near the board Bethany Woodbridge and Amity not orange negotiate one contract with Transportation providers and we're very grateful for those Partnerships that we have with our transportation team because many of them are uh local drivers health and wellness uh remains a focus of our district because our goal is to address the needs of the whole child uh in order to increase their opportunities to be successful unfunded mandates you hear me talk about that a lot
028at the close of each legislative session local education agencies must plan for any new unfunded mandates and there are often a lot which may or may not impact our budget most recently you've heard us talk at nauseum about the K3 reading programs which thankfully will not impact our budget because of our success with the waiver so once we look at all of those drivers we then look for ways to try to find uh balance with any other challenges that might be kind of coming our way our goal is to always create a budget that is fiscally responsible to our community and the ability to fund education while striving to meet the needs of all of our students and our staff Donna all right the journey I know you don't like to be kept with in
029nobody wants to be in suspense you have 12 copies in your packet of this very same slide um so starting with the contractual uh benefit obligations that we had for level Services we began this process at 8.11% increase Which is higher than we were last year last year our starting increase was 4.49 we went up to a summit of 959 which was again significantly higher than last year which peaked at 7.96 with what we thought would be our final destination at a 6 .62 however at the end of December we were notified of another Grant thank you Cheryl and Janice Howard that we received which would continue to cover the cost of our boost program which is a program for students that receive intervention the acquisition of these funds is what gets us to land
030at our current requested increase of 5.44% which again is higher than last year but please keep in mind that this budget starting number was higher than last year's starting number because it included the additional teacher for the extra section in grade six and the additional teacher which we added afterwards that came from the 10-4 248a account for the additional section of kindergarten so there's two extra teachers in this budget that we didn't have to have in last year's budget at our starting so that also contributes to why we started out much higher uh this year than last year what are the costs of just those two teachers by themselves the teachers by themselves not necessarily because of their salary but salaries and benefits it's about $100,000 per person um that impacts the bud almost half
031increase trust yeah and then our contractual obligation what are contract yeah so it's also worth noting that um the increase for certified staff is $234,990 increase for certified staff or a 3.12% increase to the overall budget so the teacher contract has an impact the overall budget of about 57% of what I'm proposing so I'm proposing to you a 5.44 increase in the budget 57% of that is teacher contract contract but not necessarily those two new teachers or with with those two new teachers y all all of the friends are in are in the pool okay so that 235,000 is 100,000 for teachers what was the contractual cost the contractual increase for teachers is $234,999 over what last year's was right that was what they raises in plus two teachers yes so it's all things okay
032I'm going to get to that so hit the button Donna so the total increase is$ 40, 423 or 5.44% the reason why the math may not be mathing for you right now in your head is because we have Grant offsets so when we do the grant offsets you're not going to see the full increase of the teacher cont contract on the budget because of we're a the fact that we're able to offset so many other departments with all the grants that we write okay so Donna just some additional context to the conversation as you look you can see from our slide enrollment continues in the 400s we're at 450 to be exact and we've come a long way since the dips that we saw in 2017 2020 um again since Co during the peak of
033the pandemic people were moving into communities like Bethany cuz we're great and now you know they keep coming but we feel as though we're starting to level off um I've not been able to get exact numbers and there's a couple of factors I'll go into a little bit later um with the numeration I'm working with Mr Bron over at town hall to talk about that but there's some impacts on what we had projected for numbers for this year bless you uh prior because of the change in kindergarten legislation and some other things so we'll we'll touch up one of the interesting things you can see from this graph is that uh you you see where Co hit in 2021 and the increase in the uh in the number of kids from 376 to 415 then
034the other joke is in 2024 you can see what was going on in 2021 all those kids that were conceived in 2020 2021 and outcoming due yeah but uh it's an interesting graph because it shows how we dipped to the uh into 2017 and then stayed pretty pretty even for about six years and then all of a sudden when Co hit it really sent the real estate markets really not caused people to move in and we have what we have yeah and so as I said currently we're working on the actual projections for next year but what I'm going to show you on the next slide is that the larger the grade levels some of the larger grade levels are moving out of the system because we have a large sixth grade class they're moving
035out but they're being followed by another large fifth grade class so what I've done and I don't want anyone to panic okay not yet Don don't click the button but when I click the button you're going to see a projected enrollment slide all I've been able to do up until this point because again we've got to still do some things next month as a board figure out what we want to do about kindergarten entry with the age change I've just rolled up the current classes into their next grade level okay so when you see the numbers on the next slide it may you're going to see that like in fifth grade classes will be a size of 26 that's only because I have not adjusted the the number of sections I've merely rolled up the
036grade the number of students in each grade level we currently have the capacity and I don't want any teachers who are here or listening to freak out we currently have the capacity within our staff to adjust for sections so that we can get to those class sizes that we want so when Donna clicks the button Don't Panic okay when you see the slides and you see 77 kids for fifth grade 26 students in the class we don't need to add another teacher to the budget right unless something drastically Chang and more of those families from that 20 2021 busyness come um we're in good shape it's just a matter of we might need to shift and adjust some teachers at different grade level show them the which we always do I said Donna but she
037didn't she missed the queue Donna so this is what it looks like so currently we have four sections of kindergarten right we had a large kindergarten class we had 56 students we felt that that was too much to have for those Littles in that year so we added a fourth kindergarten this year we still have four sections we might want to take one of those those sections and roll it up into the first grade we have the capacity to do that same thing with where you see that there are four sections of fourth grade we have the capacity to roll one of those teachers up to fifth grade teachers if you're listening I'm not saying anyone's going anywhere I'm just saying we have the capacity message for the ones that are listening I don't want
038them to blow up Kim's phone um so this is kind of where we are with Productions we're still growing but we still have capacity to just move people around I'm not looking to add another teacher I think that would be fiscally irresponsible for me to try to pad the budget with an extra human just in case again if something drastically happens and changes within our enrollment we do still have access to the 10-2 48a account so I would rather come back to you and say 20 more families moved in they're all in fifth grade we're definitely going to need another section I don't want to put that into the budget I would rather say may I please go to the 10- 248a and pull out the necessary money for that new teacher okay and that's
039exactly why we have that fun correct correct Donna a all right what you see next are the Departments so after we look at enrollment and all of that we go into looking at each of our departments the BCS budget came in a bit higher this year Mr Reed sale after remaining flat for the last couple years Tom asked for an additional $780 I'm working with him on that one um but that's because of consumables subscriptions more kids more materials right it's just kind of basic uh the Board of Education Randy and Donna worked uh together to review all the accounts with me to identify any of those needs that account has uh decreased part of that reduction is because of some changes in software platforms but also Legal Services last year we had a greater
040number of dollars in that bucket for Legal Services because we knew we were negotiating contracts we don't have to do that for this year we've gone back to the you know line item uh amount that we had prior to negotiations the curriculum Department uh requested an increase for professional development for software and I want to say a lot of the PD increases aren't just you know we have Cheryl here and she lik likes to do all kinds of new things I mean she does but most of what she's asked for is because of some of these unfunded mandates that have come newly legislated trainings for staff that we didn't know until July 1 that we were going to have to do they continue to do that to us so that mean that related to the
041reading material that we're required to purchase or is that coming from W yes and no so what she asked for was what we thought we were going to need but then as again you said it the waiver the grand offsets you'll see how these numbers look really high but then they come down because of the grant increases so same thing with facilities all of our service provider contracts have gone up It software more networks more kids more Chromebooks more more kids with Chromebooks more licenses all of those things are going into uh the request for these numbers same thing around with special education increase in numbers okay so the total increase from what all of the Departments asked for um coming into this budget is $16,300 okay okay that development that's only for the school
042right like so I'm thinking about some of those mandates about board members being trained and things like that that's going to potentially have a cost so to is that a different line item we yes those line those uh costs go into the Board of Education the Boe central office so any of your the cave membership uh the trainings going to the conference all of those things that uh is reflected in the Board of Education a district office line item it's not part of the school line thank you for that question so even though Department um budgets overall have increased by 11638 to it's less than the $159 $159,600 from last year but it is what brought our budget up to 99.59% so Donna all right you've heard me talk about the grant funding that's the
043next part of our process uh as you know I've said it for the last six years love a good Grant right we apply for and rece receive a lot of revenue from lots of different Grant sources the information on this slide reflects some of those grant funding streams that we've received dollars from uh over the last 6 seven years so idea 611 and idea 619 those are special education grants so th those are dollars that they give us to offset the cost of our special education program Title One and title two those are grants for uh they look at our number of students who receive free and reduced lunch students who receive intervention and those are entitlement grants that we have to apply for or from the state they give us funding to support things
044like uh intervention and such title three are dollars that we receive for our multilingual multilingual Learners so our our El students um Miss Kel's able to apply for dollars to help support the cost for educating those students title four is an enrichment Grant um as you've heard you know we like to do lots of different creative and Innovative things with our students here that's with the title for is open choice or the dollars that we receive for the students that come to Bethany from New Haven Jamie H is a private funded uh grant that we apply for that um supports a lot of the Arts programs so when they do um magic story book and when we do our drama club we apply for Grants from the Jamie Holly fund to offset the cost of
045providing those programs to our students the rural education achievement program Grant is a Federal grant that we receive um that's a grant that you can apply for for for professional learning and Staffing um to the federal government um because we're a small rural School Co relief or grand dollars that we receive for the last several years same thing with Esser ARP Esser we were told last year there were no more of those dollars to go around um but then lo and behold they keep sending out applications for programs and grants funded by ARP eser dollars so that's the very same grant that you heard me mention a moment ago that Cheryl Kel and Janice Howard wrote that will Now cover for yet another year of of our boost program Donna so historically since 2017 you
046have you can see how our grant uh funding has ticked up that always works out in our favor last year we received $276.5 in grant funding it does look from this slide like we have a dip in our grant funding but the year is not over don't count us out okay so that's just our historical grant funding Donna in total over the last uh several years since 2017 we have received 3,557 $17.79 in grant funding so we're pretty proud of that so what do we do with that grant funding so we're able to lower our projected or proposed budget amounts based on the number of dollars that we currently have in hand because most of these grants span two years so we try to be really judicious in our expenditures of these grants so we
047know that we always have a little bit of money to help bring down any of the cost that we are anticipating for the coming year um but we can't say that we're going to use all of our 611 Grant because we don't know what's going to happen next year and we don't know if they're going to fund us at the same level especially with special education funding is kind of messy so what you see on the screen here are all of the different grants that we were able to access what they're used for and how we're able to lower the budget so using all of these Grant offsets we're able to save $23,750 from our proposed Grant uh from our proposed uh spending increase that's another piece that gets us from that 959 got us
048down to that 652 Donna and then usually I'm able to stand before you and say and we're waiting on our insurance cost and our insurance cost has gone down because they've finally given us our our our insurance number we don't have our final numbers on insurance as of yet but working with Brandy and from our meeting with uh our good friends over at town hall we have a not to exceed is number usually they say like don't exceed 9.5 or 8% so we budgeted at that 8% for the increase in Insurance knowing that they're going to more than likely come in with a number that's going to go low lower not higher but lower um so there should be additional savings to the budget um which will hopefully bring that 5.44 down a little bit
049lower and I'll hopefully have that information before we come back for the uh presentation or your vote hopefully in February but as of right now keeping it level from what it was last year so that kind of kept us at that 6.62 and then Donna you're going to see the journey again click it again sorry those 12 pages I think you might oh yeah this one is a slightly different slide it's not a 12 pager that you have in in a handout it's just that uh you see how we were at a much higher um lesser rate sorry we had lesser Grant dollars to offset before we got the ARP Grant so before we received that Grant literally right before vacation we were saving $223,700 boost program offset were able to save $286,700 uh from
050the budget Donna you're doing a good job Capital Improvements uh we know that we have a 5-year strategic goal uh in our strategic plan this year we didn't propose any Capital Improvements we have just really focused on getting all of the information we need for our HVAC assessment working on some Roofing projects and the facilities committee will be working on helping to develop a real plan once we have a a deeper understanding once we have a deeper understanding of what it is we need to help bring our facilities forward so we're not proposing any Capital Improvements for this budget uh that I'm proposing to you now because we'd I ideally like to get in on the next wave of Grants and and some other things so that if we do have larger projects we have
051grants to pay for them and we don't have to go to the town for dollars Donna all right budget history sorry it's a little small to see but what you can see here is just the trajectory of the budgets proposed budgets for the last 11 years um this year as I said is a little bit higher and those are the dollar amounts so last year the approved budget was 7,538 5955 with a 3.58 increase over the previous year this year what we're looking for is$ 7,949 next slide Donna and this is the same information just in a percentage so you can see over the uh course of the last 11 years or so where we've gone we had those two flat years we've had some low years um and again the difference between the 3.58
052increase last year and the 5.44% increase this year is largely due to the very well-deserved teacher contract if I do say so myself not that anybody asked Donna again more students increased costs so so Donna all right and that's what I have for you all uh proposing a 7, 94918 budget uh which is a $410,500 23 increase or 5.44 uh% and just lastly for some additional context the current rate of inflation is at 3.14% compared to the 3.24% last month and 7.1 won 1% last year there'll be some new data of course tomorrow um and the Connecticut Association of business officers which we call casbo is reporting an average of 5 a half to 6% for most budget requests this year some districts are coming in as low as 3.5% or as high as 8.83
053per. in districts with greater increases many of those increases are due to either the negotiation of a new teachers contract or they fell off the arpa Esser spending Cliff meaning they used all their dollars to go go into salaries and personnel and now if they want to keep their classrooms staffed with great teachers they have to find a way to pay for it so um and again before I take any questions I'd just like to thank the leadership team the department heads for their due diligence in developing the budgets that seek efficiencies they're fiscally responsible while at the same time we don't compromise in the quality of Education or student support here in Bethany Cheryl Kel our director of special services curriculum and instruction and her administrative assistant Liz harsh Tom Reed Swale principal at
054BCS Jackie nathman the climate instruction specialist the school secretary Denise Sheek Val trudan Brandy Spargo business manager extraordinaire Don richardi food service coordinator Boe clerk your new Administrative Assistant Kevin Fallon and his entire facilities team Linda saffron Matt Bruder Chris y yigu Puma um I appreciate each of your uh support I'm grateful to the unwavering commitment you make to our students our staff and our town when preparing your budgets and for what you do in the district every day questions I know it was fast and it was a lot but I'm here no I think the first thing what does any have a question but the second thing is does everybody understand what we have where we started where we ended up and does anybody feel the need to have a workshop to go over
055this stuff in the past that's always been an option but that's why we try to start this thing with in September and the problem with having the elections in November means that we're now bringing people on in the middle of the of of this process so sometimes the the new people don't get up to the speed in time but um I think this is pretty straightforward but this is a committee of nine so if anybody feels there's additional information that they would like to see they have question questions um you know let's get it out and you know maybe somebody missed something I will say this much the 5.44% increase you had asked a question before three change of that is the new teachers contracts which is appropriate yeah I'm not denying that I'm just
056saying that you have to understand that you know you don't need to understand the people need to understand that that is well but that's why I'm I'm I'm I'm reiterating that because it's a very important point you know there's been there's been discussion about we don't pay our teachers enough well they renegotiated the contract I think everybody's happy with that contract I haven't heard anything yet and so that's what the results of that contract are coupled with the increase in students we're not doing too badly but if anybody wants to have a workshop on this you know that's it's up to there's nine of us here it's not my decision to make it's everybody's decision to make okay can we just have a quick like a recap for everybody um the process now you're going
057to the board of finance committee on February 2nd but you know where that goes when we're expected potentially to vote all yes so uh as I said at the beginning I will be going with John and anyone else who wants to come and sit in the audience we'll be presenting this as the superintendent's spending proposal um the only reason that we're presenting it as a superintendent spending proposal is because the timing of the Town Board of Finance meeting um to get this information about our budget is before your next scheduled Board of Education meeting um in any other time and space ideally it would be I would come back before you see if there's any questions if there's any other information put this before you for a board vote so you're not going to vote
058on it tonight you have time to think about it but I'd put it before you for a board vote if the board votes to accept the superintendent spending proposal it then becomes the board of education budget and again if timing were in a different order then the board chair and myself would then go to the board of Finance present this budget see if they had any questions or any feedback for us about things that they wanted to see changed attitude whatever um and then we would come back and we work it if we needed to um that again is not the case this year I'll go to present it to them uh as not your budget but as my spending proposal that I presented to you that hopefully you'll approve in February that information will
059be provided to them following that all of our budget information gets rolled up into the town budget and then we don't really have anything to do with it until we have the town meeting in May or later in the spring um when the whole board budg uh The Whole Town's budget goes before the community for for a vote and approval see and that's why I I made the the the I threw it out there that we have a month excuse me please we have a month if somebody feels that there's information that they need um or they wanted we've had workshops and we haven't had them in in a long time uh because the material presented is been uh been pretty straightforward distinct there's really not a lot of wiggle room so to speak I
060mean it's not a uh it's it's I just want to remind you of something because you said it goes to the prior to that in April we will excuse me just for a second um the first select woman would like to say something I just want to remind you there a step entire budget goes to a public Hearing in April prior to everything being approved in May the annual meeting okay thank you I skipped that part miss one step but if if there's information that people want or if there's something they think is missing or if they want to question it we have a month if you want to have a workshop but it's up to you guys I have a question I don't feel the need for a workshop personally but I know there's
061still a lot of uncertainty about the kindergarten change for next year how if at all is that reflected in this budg so it's reflected by leaving that section um for kindergarten right now if we looked at the projected numbers they were in the 50s from what um had been previously projected a year and a half ago um I'm working with Mr Brinton over at town hall to see how many of those students that were in that projected enumeration for kindergarten actually meet the September one cut off and how many do not um it was in the town bulletin and we have received six so far families who would be interested in learning about the process for writing the appeal having their child evaluated to see if they'd be appropriate for kindergarten um some of those
062children have birthdays that are September 2nd some of them have birthdays that are at the end of December um so and kind of a few in between so right now um I have met with the kindergarten teachers you know they said worst things worst case scenario every every body comes into kindergarten we still wouldn't need necessarily need four classes we would need three but if we have we find we have a lot of those students who have those later birthdays we might want to use that four section to keep those numbers low because we have those kids who just kind of made it in uh by the Skin of Their Teeth so that's where we are and again I hope to have more information on that when I get the information from Mr Brenton I
063won't you know wait until the board meeting I'll provide that to you in an update any other questions I don't have any questions about the budget two things one one of the slides you showed provided information about how much on a yearly basis we get in Grants but you had said not to Discount yet because the year's not over so can we um like in the May meeting get like a recap on how much we've received and see how close we get to last that was one but two um having work with EJ and when Dr Pinter was on the board on the negotiations and we had a town representative here um and everybody here I think agrees the teachers needed the money that the contract that we put together and voted on to put
064through um strengthens in numbers so I really um suggest highly to all the Board of Ed members here all nine of us to try to get to the April hearing because I have a feeling knowing how there are residents in this town who complain about the fact that education is so much now we're coming in at an even higher number um I I think it's just for showing support of what we did for our teachers for our community for our school if we're all there to have a presence so once the date is available and is put out in the bulletin if we can all try to be there I mean we'll be there working but I mean as Board of bed members I think to make a bigger showing it could really make a
065big impact to make people see we did what we did it was a right thing to do because I guarantee someone's going to get up and have an issue with it which is how it always is thank you that's a valid point but the budget don't forget the budget is still in flux this could very well you know if our insurance cost if our insurance costs come back uh astronomical which a lot of people are getting you know wakeup call bills you know this could very easily become 6 and a half% 7% it could just as easily go down a little bit more so um you know this is the best guess at this stage in our lives yeah I mean his what have we been running for I mean for surpluses every year somewhere
066in the area 300,000 correct yeah that's a real number that's a huge dent on that that 410,000 and if you add in we lose grants you're almost $900,000 we got to come up with just need to be mindful of all that so it are all these grants that come in are are very valuable to your budget yes and uh is they go in perpetuity I mean is there any danger of you know have you heard anything that besides the covid-19 things right the only grants that don't kind of exist in perpetuity right now are the ARP Esser grants Title 9 is money is federal um title n idea 611 619 those are federal dollars that come into the state and then the state you know allows you to apply for a certain amount of dollars
067same thing with the title 1 2 3 and four so those are those are grants that are existing in in the sense that they come from the federal government into the state and then districts can apply uh for those grants the Jamie hly Grant those are again um grants that we use to support the Arts programs with the school and those grants it's really contingent upon how much they R in their fundraising each year um that they can allocate to districts um and again the ARP Esser grants are the only grants that you know they keep telling us there's no more money there's no more money and then Boop there's an extra you know $600,000 that districts can apply for for this program that program uh the other the open Choice dollars those dollars were
068only eligible for so long as we have open Choice students that attend the school so it you know you have some HVAC stuff coming up and that would be from which kind of grant that you could get some money for them those would be from the Department of it's D what is that in stand right out of my head it's not an educational grant it's from a different branch within the government do you remember what that is Services Department of administrative Services sounds good but it's it's a different it's a different arm of of the government so they're not education all right because I thought there were there was specifically uh grants for schools that you have to go through the department of administrative services oh really yeah okay so they control education when you
069when you apply for school funding to build a new school that goes through the educ the Das Department of they control the construction for the state of Connecticut and they have a uh school department that handles school um construction and so if there's grants coming out to uh upgrade the HVAC units upgrade the windows upgrade the security Das handles it through the educa their through their education Construction Services Department okay all right so it has nothing to do with the S funds no with what the Esser funds no no it's a different there's it's it's a different department okay those to correct me if from wrong like those special education reimbursement grants that we get we get a percentage of what we apply for is that correct so we can't really if we apply for
070100,000 we get 20,000 not not that not that low but yeah it's never fully funded we usually get about 70 to 75% back of what we hopeful we're hopeful that we get 70 but we could get less depending on how Rosy the financial out look of the state well it's two things really it's not just how Rosy the financial uh State of the State is it's also the students that you have in your district and what you're expending because in order to qualify for excess cost you have to spend four and a half times the amount for a particular student um and so as students come in students go out you know we might have a particular year where we have a lot of students that we're spending extra dollars on because of the services
071that they need if that student graduates we no longer have that you know return on investment if you will um for the cost of those special education dollars so it really depends on the kids that we have in the seats there there's definitely been leaner years when I first came to Bethany we didn't get a lot of dollars in excess costs but we weren't also putting out lots of dollars on special education so and we also had a couple of one year we had a couple of Heavy Hitters we had a couple of student I think two students were accounting for like $250 or $275,000 and cost um Ju Just two students yeah we've had students that were outplaced that's and that's what you have to deal with you know this is all the problem
072with the special education budget because some years it's some years it's here and you really have no way to allow for that because you don't know who's coming into the system how many how many special education students do we have this year kisel we have about 91 right now it's increased yeah a couple years ago there were 63 you know that's a question I always ask because that's a big unknown know in the budget process is in August if a kid enrolls who's a very you know uh who who whose needs are you know you may have to bring in a nurse you may have to bring in no one knows what that number looks like thankfully we do get a lot of that as reimbursement but it's never 100% no else okay thank you
073so I'll ask it one more time does anybody think that we need more information uh any additional breakdowns anything now is the time to do it all right then sold American we now have our marching orders okay thank you all right administrative reports well look it's me again well wait a second before we go into that um we're not everybody seriously everybody's happy with what was presented um no one sees any holes no one has any questions okay administrative report superintendent all right so my report this month is rather short um again in your packet you should only find one copy of this particular document uh it's the enrollment summary for 2021 2022 22 23 uh this year we started the year with 445 students as of December 31st 2023 our enrollment is currently at
074450 students we gained five additional students this month uh Personnel uh following staff of resigned from The Physician and and Katherine harzog the special education teacher will be transitioning to another District in February um the administration is working to hire the replacement for her and they are also in the process of interviewing candidates for our open fourth grade position my report question so other than two two uh two teachers were fully staffed we still have um the opening I'm sorry there is one other one it's the part-time custodian Mr Fallon is uh got a finalist coming to meet tomorrow at 10 o'clock so we might be fully staff in the custodial Department how many do we have now we have two three fulltime and part time custodian so we're filling the part-time custodian position uh
075speaking of the parttime speaking of the custodian have uh somebody asked it last month uh oh Sean I read the report I wasn't really nice are you satisfied with what I'm good okay no it's I'm not trying to be factious I mean dead serious you got a question let's you know yeah no I was thrilled with that know little things is people have to feel safe and people want clean bathrooms in clean thing to operate it that's what they want and if they don't have those things they're never going to be happy so I was thrilled what I actually Mr F and his team are doing a great job yeah all right so that takes care of that Cheryl iron thank you um on Friday January 12th we will have uh different professional learning activities
076going on for teachers special education teachers will be working with literacy how on the topic of Dyslexia grade five and six Math teachers will be continuing their work on problem solving and a few grade levels be reviewing student data results Specialists will be working on the standards in their curriculum and under curriculum uh students started the midyear benchmark assessments uh this week and the teachers will be reviewing this data to determine any areas and of need needs and strength and Grant update we plan to use the $74,000 grant related to our reading waiver to add to vocabulary and comprehension modules to our amplifi platform we've had access to parts of the module because amplify is currently used in the district and fortunately it's one of the state approved programs teachers already have um had some
077professional development for the portion um for portions of the module and um we would just need to pay uh for the additional parts of the module the grant will cover all the expenses and will not have an impact on the budget at all uh will also be in compliant with the State Department of Education in area of special education planning is underway for our extended school year program you may have heard it as esy summer school for new members this is a program where students who are identified as students with a disability who require Services over the summer so we're in the process of planning that now any questions so there there was something thing that you had to get back about the reading waiver and I might have missed it in what you said
078I had to get back um the state gave you a waiver but you need to add resources we the other day the C the um orange and Woodbridge didn't get their waivers correct I think that's what she's asking about no no I got that but didn't you have to add something on they said oh you're you're you're okay but you need to just do one more so so what Miss Kel explained is that we have um the amplify program already here in our district okay we hadn't been paying for the vocabulary portion we' kind of done our own homegrown version of vocabulary and when they said you need to strengthen your vocabulary pieces of your your reading program amplify is one of the programs that they're saying is approved by the state to use you
079can only choose from one of the approved State programs so once we found out how much money they were going to give us well we already have it we just haven't been paying for it and if they're going to pay for it seems to be the easiest one to to choose since we already have amplifi in the district okay I think you said that I just couldn't yeah pull it out the narrative okay thank you any more questions or comments for for Cheryl all right Tom you're on um so we've again been really busy uh coming on the tail end of December we had our holiday toy drive that was a huge success uh those toys were donated to troop I and the youth Continuum uh the last week of December we had our spirit
080week for students and staff uh our staff did a secret snowflake uh Miss nathman and I went around um on Friday with a snack cart um in Lou of our uh December community meeting we had a holiday sing along on the 21st uh and we had several different holidays represented through songs um so we were really excited for that uh on the 22nd we had our annual uh Summit volleyball tournament congratulations Miss Walkin um The Victors uh so so we wearing that wearing that badge of honor quite proud uh and then um and then uh we started our winter Benchmark uh this week so we have those Benchmark windows for our assessments like I ready um and so we gave that initially in the fall we're giving it again now in the winter and then
081we'll be able to take a look through our data team process um and and our case reviews uh and really look at students and their progress and their um their growth towards their growth targets uh looking forward this month we've got our Winter concert coming up on the 17th next week uh we have our January community meeting scheduled for the 26th uh and our agenda is really full we're focusing on kindness and Martin Luther King day uh presentations will be brought by the kindergarten classes um as well as our MLL students will be presenting about their Heritage so we've got a lot of things uh that are coming up up for that community meeting um we're also working to schedule midyear goal meetings with uh certified staff as we get that Benchmark data in it
082really allows for staff to be able to look at the goals that they've set for this year here um and be able to take stock of where they are and what we can do to support as we move forward um and then we're currently in the planning stages for work around Black History Month in February women's History Month in March um and we're in discussions with uh Deb Sansone uh regarding drama club for this year so we've got a lot of things that we're working on as we move forward um you know we're can to plan those and get those set as we as we look to the end of the year thank you Tom anybody got any questions for Mr re whale I think I had it on my list to ask what if
083you dressed up for the snack cart was there a discussion costume there was there there was a costume the uh the hats were were a little undersized so we had to do a little bit of hat adjustment but there was definitely some costuming going on we we were elf Baristas this time so I'm sure miss nathman the next time we decide we will have new outfits so anybody else I I kind of got something down I don't know where this will fit in maybe can give some inl I greatly enjoy when the faculty come in and do presentations I don't know what the board's feeling is but me personally I'd like to see two teachers in two grades come once a month before the board take up a seat and tell us about what they
084do let's hear their gripes let's hear what's going on in the sixth grade let's hear what's going on in the fifth grade let's hear it right from our teachers is that something we could inter entertain if the teachers are willing well there's nine of us what do you feel I that's I mean I I like when the teachers come in it's pretty enlightening to what's going on in the building the the question if they're interested in doing it so so it' be a request that the board would make of me and then I would take it to the teachers union and see if there's an I was going to say one of the things you have to first off you have to find a couple of people that want to come in on their time
085off and I think it may be a great idea um I don't know what anybody else thinks I think it's a it's an excellent suggestion but I think it's also an inconvenience on the part of the teachers and they're going to want to have to do it I think we could make a motion to extend an invitation yeah it's I have no problem if you want to do it as a motion or just do it as a you know the board consensus that we would like to have a discussion I have a an upcoming meeting in in February and we can bring it up at that meeting it it's really cool when they come in and they do the presentations they're just informative and you pull out the little details of what's going on the
086life and let's give them a seat at the table let's we'll we'll present it to the teachers and we'll see what we can do yes I think it's a great idea I know we've been we had them come in some curriculum meetings you know some of the Specialists especially would come in and share get they doing what's that get them in first so they can leave we won't make them to the end yeah that's fine it's we can we can we can we can make the presentation and see what comes back you would like to see two I'm just two different grades the same twice a year to come in tell us what's going on I just think it' be an opportunity for the teachers to do something what's that yeah um put that on
087agenda any interest in parties yeah however they want to do I'm just I just tell us what you guys do let's try it around the ring and see who wants to write it okay so we we'll make a note of that anything else okay Chairman's report um since this is the first one I'm doing uh we'll start with some basic and then we'll go from there I meet with K once a week usually Tuesday Mornings at 8 to go over things usually doesn't take more than an hour um the last couple of weeks have been involved with the budget and some other issues um one of the questions that came up is we don't have anybody who's handling Aces even though Sue is still listed in the book as the bethle rep yes you're but
088didn't know there there's two questions here that this is a two-part question one is do you feel that it's [Music] worthwhile going to Asus it's you know it's not a committee okay it's you you become it's like another whole Board of Education it's taking this body of people and doing it again with the probably you know a lot more money I don't much more you know but is it of any benefit to us I've been trying to figure that out I don't think so okay because I don't see you know I've talked to K about this I said you know how can I help Bethany at Aces and and I don't know EJ did you you know I think the only way you can do it is to to sort of report back to the
089people here so that you know for the public record you have an idea of where cuz some of your tax dollars go there you know I mean some of the citizens of Bethany's tax dollars go there some students from Bethany May filter through the programs that they support do we have any K program we don't have any AD currently um you know once the kids get up into the high school level they might be more interested in like the ECA program some of the Arts programs it's not necessarily only special education programs that they administer um they might get into the Early Head Start program before they enter into our system um so it's inexpensive there's a lot of money that flows for that both state federal local tax dollars and so having someone there
090to say like do we need to spend that yeah you know I I thought Sue had a unique perspective on some of their real estate transactions you know like do we really need to get but that I really couldn't have commented on from an intelligent perspective you know but you know I was often there just to be a face in the room you know from Bethany to say you know okay yep you know well do we have a volunteer then it is it's an interesting um exercise in Regional governing it doesn't have to be decided upon tonight give it some thought you don't have to make every one you know if you make every other one just to be a face in the room I think it's an a valuable experience they probably liked you
091better than me do I have a volunteer when do they meet uh daytime usually it's the day after this meeting but in the middle of the day yeah but you can do a zoom you know I always did zooms well they don't have that one I used to be in personal I did it oh really yeah oh well they they they come Zoom every time well give us some thought maybe next month we'll we we'll we'll figure out a Vic them um I'm sorry I said give it some thought and you know we need somebody to do it if somebody if if you guys feel that it's worthwhile and you can find somebody who's willing to give up some time then we can go with it okay it's just my my point was that it's
092was a much greater responsibility than I expected okay because you're actually become it's another whole Board of it and it's much bigger than this so it was it was sort of shock because I thought I was getting on a committee but it wasn't anything like that what's that there's information about about it okay I'll take a look at this I'll I'll read it over the next week or two when I've got nothing to do but they got you know another whole set of committees you know they have their own finance committee they got their own policy committee they got you know the whole fall wax duplicated that just at a much different level okay uh the second thing so then it's it's something to thought give it some thought if somebody wants to do it
093you know we can use somebody to uh if the board feels that it's worthwhile chasing and so far according to Susan EJ it sounds like it is worth while then we need somebody to to sit in on it um second thing uh now that we have the committee chairs um ironed out I tend to be a processed person um in order to keep things relatively stable and San um I'm not looking to micromanage anything but I would like before people start contacting K or the school for information I want it coming through me first I don't say I'm going to get involved but I don't want nine people calling K what could be the same thing so all I do is all I'm asking is that before we start making phone calls to the school
094call me first we'll discuss what you want to do and nine times in 10 I'll probably say knock yourself up but I just want to be kept in the loop because there has to be a a process there has to be a chain of command and partly because some of this stuff may involve money in other words if we go looking for information there may be a cost associated with generating that information so we don't want to go off willy-nilly sometimes we may already have the information but all I'm saying is that before we uh um before we start making phone calls to the to the uh to the superintendent I'd like a phone call first if that's not too much okay can I'm just you started talking about committees are you talking about specifically
095committee related work or you want everyone on the board to go through you for any contact there should be there should be no reason why the Board of Education members are contacting the superintendent for anything other than board of Education work right I'm asking if are you only things related to our committee assignments or any contact we have with or whatsoever no because you may have if you're having personal problems if if you need to get a hold of Tom re or somebody else that's I don't want to be involved in that I'm talking about Board of Education business I'm talking about the committee chairs I'm talking about the members of the board sometimes things come up and people want an answer to a question question I may already have the answer and if I
096don't I may say you know I meet with K on Tuesday I'll find out for you I just what we don't want to do is have nine people calling the superintendent most School uh Board of educations have that policy in place they they don't want um random phone calls just generated and that's I'm not trying to be a control freak but far from it it's just allows everybody to be on the same page because sometimes something may come up and you know you talk to her direct and I don't know anything about it somebody asked me about it I'm sitting there like a you know what I'm saying so if it just WR routed through me first and then odds are nine times in 10 I'll say yeah talk to K or I'll bring it
097up in Tuesday's meeting I'll get back to you but it keeps the process intact it keeps the chain of command intact that's all it's I'm I'm not looking to step on anybody's toes I'm not looking to to to to be a dictator or anything else I just don't want um I just don't want all of us you know there's nine of us if if if we keep coming up with questions you know she's going to spend half her day answering our questions and that's what she's not there for if anybody's got a problem with that now's the time to talk about it I I got a I got a question on you know the the the Committees themselves okay the agenda that gets set so how does that work or does does the chair of
098the committee set the agenda yes okay yes so K are do you get in touch with the committee chairs and say what do you want to do next time or something so usually when we have the committee meeting it might be a little bit different this time because a lot of people are new to different committees we'll set the agenda for the next meeting in the meeting prior and if there's something else that changes usually the commit chair would reach out to the office before we have to post the agenda for the town and say please add this thing to the agenda or within the meeting itself they could make a motion to add something to the agenda would it be reasonable to just like you know maybe send the agenda to the chair first
099before it gets published and say you on board with this or is there any changes and then let them respond and say yeah there's usually that back and forth whether it happens through an email communication that the committee is on or if it happens um as I said in the meeting prior we usually say you know the committee chair will say so for example your policy what are some of the things we'd like to cover in our next policy meeting and then we'll put that at the bottom and so when those minutes are written up and that is used to create the next month's agenda then reach out to the chair and say this is what we have is there anything else that needs to be added or changed to the agenda okay I've not
100done that in the past it was usually Sue perview to do that but now it'll be Don or myself okay I'm just looking to get into how the process works it's a touchy feely thing so you know it it it's we're all learning do you want to be involved in that I'm already a member of all the Committees okay well do you want to approve agendas for the Comm I don't no that's John Paul if I could so as I was listening to what was what John Paul was saying before in my mind I'm thinking of it as this as chair of the curriculum committee if there is something related to me in my role as chair that I need to reach out for then we would deal with that as chair back and forth
101but if all of a sudden I had a question like you know when are you replacing the freezers in the kitchen and I start calling up and going hey what's the can I see all the specs on the freezers and how many freezers you got that's the kind of thing where John Paul's saying hey you know call me first so this way we can get everything together and he can go during his meeting and say okay I got a question from a board member about the freezers can we get this information cuz if I ask it and Sean asked it at the same time because we both heard the same thing in town about somebody complaining about the food not being cold enough or something then we're not three or four of us all contacting
102the office and then so something that's outside of the purview of our role as our our chair in our our committee meeting then that would be corre the chair the chair the chair is responsible for their own committee I am a member of all the Committees so I'll see the agenda eventually but it's your B I'm not going to tell you how to run your committee unless you run it off the rails but I don't expect that yeah I don't expect that you know you're you're you I I I expect everybody you know to to to do what they think is best and how best to do it and I'm not going to tell you what the best approach is everybody has a different approach to everything I'm just trying to get you the process
103for how it works that's all I'll give you an example I think you you called the attorney no I just you call K I was trying to access yeah no I understand policies and password basically see something like that give me a boo give me a call we'll talk about it see what you want to do I and then we'll run it up the flag pole and send it to K and have get get the information okay but you set your own agenda as as a chairman of of a committee you set your own agenda you run it the way you feel you want to run it okay but I didn't call the attorney I just I know that what you know I understand that get a password but that that may have been but
104that may have been a bad example but but that's what I'm trying to say is that you don't want to be going you want to have one Central clearing house that's all okay I so K when did when did you want to try to to set the the the dates for all these are you going to communicate that again to the chair of and say I was thinking about this that and the other thing and then coordinate yes so what I will what I was asked to provide is in um a future update probably by Friday um is to say you know if we follow this meeting pattern so for example the curriculum committee usually has met the Wednesday prior to the Board of Education meeting so I'll look at all of the dates for
105the Board of Education meetings and I'll look to the Wednesday prior and I'll set those as tentative dates and share that with the curriculum committee chair and say do these dates work for your committee as the chair and the same thing for for finance Board of Finance point is always Tuesday night before the meeting yep and then uh Transportation or they may only meet once or twice a year at the beginning of the year and Facilities may meet once every 3 months okay but it's it's all how you guys decide K will be in that particular case k will provide you with what we've done in the past and then you can modify it to suit your own you know you guys may decide you want to meet on the Monday night or something who
106knows whatever whatever float your boat okay um other than that that was the couple of things I think we covered everything else the Committees which is the only thing like I said just figuring out where we're going from here and the the big one is the board is the uh is the board budget is the uh school budget that will get ironed out next month and hopefully we'll have a little better uh a little better handle on it correspondence unless anybody else got anything they want to talk about nope thank you um correspondence nothing okay uh public comment anybody from the public want to talk um now's your time okay then I think anybody got anything that they want to discuss before weour all right motion to adjourn second second third four all in favor
107thank [Music] you [Music] I'm glad to see somebody other than me having