0016 30 i'd like to call the meeting to order um we'll start with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of [Music] for all okay do we have any comments from the audience none anything in chat oh nope okay um we'd like to move um item f1 up to c1 so we would like to address now the bcs field trip to washington dc great mr lambert um hi folks uh my name is rick lambert and um i teach just eighth grade social studies at center school um to make it as short and sweet as possible so i'm not keeping everybody from the rest of the meeting um i'm here to request um conditional approval from the board for authorization for the field trip for a dc field trip in 2022 i'm realizing
002that that final approval would have to be made based on the board's policies um and the situation at a future date a little bit of background in case you didn't get a chance to see the note that i had uh sent out our first trip in went very well and we hit the board in may of 2019 for permission and we're given permission to do another trip in 2021 spring of 2021. obviously that's been canceled that's not happening and what we are looking for um is permission to anticipate hopefully that things will get a little bit better the following year and that we would start planning now for the trip especially things like penciling in hotels which apparently are filling quickly um but again there's no obligation to us at this particular point we don't
003have a contract signed um and those are kinds of things that would not happen until practically a year from now so we've got you know lots of time to put the brakes on necessary or proceed so that's basically where i am does anyone have any questions all right nice job rick thank you this meeting is being recorded so i guess hearing none sue do you want to call for a motion to approve okay do we have a motion to approve the trip to dc in spring 22 22. ria makes a motion to approve the uh built the trip this is chris all second in motion okay all those in favor aye aye any opposed abstentions motion is carried awesome thank you everybody thank you mr lambert have a great night thanks for all you did
004to get this working i appreciate it great thank you good night okay on to routine business um approval of the minutes from november 12 2020. do we have a motion to accept the minutes so moved this is chris second this is anne okay all those in favor um can we have comments oh sorry yep uh so yes i figured you did um so uh this is on page i guess seven under the bhs update um i was reading along everything's in third person mr misali does this did that and then the fourth paragraph of the bh bhs update says finally i still receive many positive emails um so uh if we could change that to a third person narrative i think that would be more appropriate for the board's minutes um but coming across that
005um it made me reflect on uh concern i've had with the minutes lately um let me first say that i really appreciate having um the extensive commentary that is shared by the staff reproduced in the minutes and the way they are i think it's very helpful um what i've been wondering about is that since this practice started and i think it was roughly coincidental with when kovid hit there's been much less documentation of any board comments in response to the staff comments and i know in in most cases at least some board members have questions or comments and sometimes discussion ensues from those uh i for one would appreciate seeing some documentation of that in the minutes because otherwise it could create the impression to someone who's just reviewing the minutes that the board is
006simply sitting here being spoken to by the staff and not really taking a part in or asking for clarification or ensuring that we understand you know what we are being told so some reflection of the back and forth would be appreciated taken we'll work on that thank you sure any other comments or discussion okay um all those in favor of proving the minutes hi hi hi any opposed and i'm abstaining because i wasn't there okay um board of education committee reports finance committee um well finance committee met this morning and i will report that the budget is 30 expended compared to last year which was 32 percent expended and special education is an ever-changing landscape uh can i invite superintendent hecht to review the transfers and the budget absolutely thank you and um so what
007you see here before you this evening and transfers for the most part are just reclassifications uh from one uh category to another for various things that we've had to purchase uh the studiolive digital mixer at the high school uh covering the online subscriptions that we need particularly in our current colvid world for music first and sound trap uh reclass to cover the cost of powerschool enrollment express we had a failure of the freezer in family and consumer science at the high school so we needed to purchase a freezer so we moved um monies around to be able to do that and then the last piece is simply the transfer that the board approved at the last meeting you'll see it says science teachers it's just because that's the area in the um salaries budget where
008that portion came out of um as well as some savings on a custodial position and that is it for that piece and so we will uh go on if we could to the overall um budget status um as ann shared we are 30 expended we're continuing to um project full expenditure currently in regular instruction uh inst we've currently spent 49 of that budget on student support services uh our total uh there is 30 expended um and i appreciate the arrow i had eye surgery a week ago and and seeing is a real um issue so i'm sorry if in the end you only see my glasses tonight apologize for that as ann shared special education is a changing landscape we may have some placement changes that may affect the budget but we continue to monitor
009that component next page thank you with 30 percent uh expended in administration support and central services 30 in operations and 30 salaries and wages and currently our projected uh balance uh in salaries and wages is at 274 000 we still have as i've shared previously unfilled positions um not for lack of continuing to try on our part um to fill those positions i do think it's potentially possible that um should this new federal relief package happened and an additional 300 um happens for people who are on unemployment it may continue to be difficult for us um to find people to fill these positions i guess time will tell on that piece and on the final page you can see there that we are thirty percent expended at this time with a projected board balance of
010two hundred seventy four thousand eight hundred and twenty nine dollars so we will need a motion please to approve the transfers i'd like to make a motion to approve the transfers this is ben thank you ben you will second that thank you ria any discussion hearing none um all those in favor aye aye any opposed abstentions unanimously carried thank you i have one other thing to report under finance if i could um we made a request for additional coronavirus relief funds for ppe cleaning health and safety supplies uh beyond what the district already received for of a hundred and thirty three thousand eight hundred and twenty six dollars um i wasn't sure if this would happen um i thank casal for her great work in putting this all together um and in fact we were
011um notified today that we've been awarded an additional forty six thousand eight hundred and forty nine dollars and sixty one cents and you see before you the list of uh various components uh that went in uh to that amount and these are all things that we have ordered paid for and already have uh in our hands because that was another component of these monies so um i'm appreciative that the state uh took our request i believe that we were only one to make a an additional request beyond the grant process so again thank you to cassah for her great work so i just want to make you all aware of that okay personnel committee oh excuse me kristen one question where did this money come from this is um federal funds that were given to
012the state of connecticut called the coronavirus uh relief funds you may recall uh ria yes so that's where so they actually get uh you requested it from the state and the state increased the the amount correct because what happened was you know the state received the money from the feds then they made the determination how it was going to be doled out right and a number a number of districts had to return monies that they were allotted because they weren't going to have the product in hand by december 30th because that was one of the qualifiers of the money okay okay so i think once that was released right it opened up some additional funds and i thought well can't hurt to ask right that's great thank you that's wonderful thank you that is great
013news um personnel personnel met and uh beyond that it was about upcoming negotiations and we have nothing else to report at this time okay all right bhs student representatives emily my card schedule is going well all staff and students are doing their part to help stay socially distant and safe the fall sports teams are having post-season zoom meetings that are taking place within the next week to wrap up the season the ciac has postponed winter sports because of the uprising corona cases and they're now scheduled to start on january 19th thank you emily and the freshman class took their psjts last week and the seniors also handed in their capstone research rough draft paper last week and drama club has started a few weeks ago and they're working virtually on a radio broadcast of a
014christmas carol very cool all right thank you and as always if you want to go goodbye have fun thank you thank you jacob um community meeting reports does anyone have anything to share very quiet uh superintendent of schools in the sect over here i appreciate it so i'd like to turn it over um for our cte and unified arts presentation please we put many safety precautions in place for students and staff we marked our hallways to keep students to one side is the sound working well did you hear the music i heard about safety precautions sorry my fault in place for students and staff we marked our hallways to keep students to one side we spread out eating spaces and included the use of our gymnasium for lunch we maximized the spacing between student desks
015in all of our classrooms some of our areas presented a bit more of a challenge these areas are music art and our career technical areas which include business culinary and tech ed [Music] do so we have um we're following the state guidelines in addendum seven which mandate that we have to be spread out six feet apart and then actually nine feet uh front to back so i've got the first row of students here that you know they're spaced six feet apart and then the next row there's nine feet in between so there's that and then we also can only sing for a maximum of 30 minutes indoors so with choir we do all of our singing at the end of the period so that we can just do it for the last 30 minutes of
016class and then everybody leaves and the air can clear and recirculate our current safety regulations for instrumental music here in bolton follow the state and national guidelines in the band room you can see that we have moved everything into a 6x9 grid including percussion instruments in order to actually play our instruments students have to follow a few guidelines number one we wear masks while we're playing the masks have been modified by adding a slit in them so that the mouthpieces can fit into the mask so the students wear the masks while playing number two all of the instruments have bell covers on them the bell covers include two layers of black material and within them there's a layer of merv 13 fabric so it filters down to an appropriate micron level to mitigate the spread
017of any potential virus number three we've moved our rehearsals into the commons because of spacing requirements in order to play inside students must be at least 12 feet apart from each other we also have time requirements or time limitations on our rehearsal so we're allowed to play for 30 minutes at a time and after that we need to provide for a 20-minute rest or air recycle period and then you can begin to play again our one-to-one chromebook program has worked out very well this fall however some of our courses still require the use of personal computers with specific software to support individual courses our maintenance team was able to fabricate plywood barriers to keep our children safe as they worked at these computers our staff was also trained to use the correct sanitizer and procedures
018to make sure that keyboards and mice are sanitized between students use our art room presented some additional challenges as well we fabricated barriers in those spaces but our instructors also made use of a slightly different strategy to support students during the pandemic the majority of materials that students have are at home students have been [Music] inspired to put together their own home studios school has provided them with individual kits of materials in which to put into these studios and long-term projects are completed at home so one obviously our main concern at this point is making sure that the students are safe and so one of the things that we do uh we always focus on safety and sanitation uh but we're focusing uh even more so uh during our pandemic so students will clean and
019sanitize areas uh that they use before and afterwards uh in addition we have special markers so that we could have the students spaced out uh ideally six feet uh so that students were are not in direct contact with each other and lastly we're using uh we use gloves uh and so more or less we are doing things contactless in terms of in terms of food preparation in technology education students are able to utilize various programs in any given class for example students can use programs like chief architect in class or google sketchup and other cad programs from [Music] home in computer aid design or cad class students were able to download a free student version of solidworks to run at home on their own pc if a student wasn't able to run solidworks on their
020computer programs like onshape are available to run on chromebook in order to achieve the same results [Music] thank you mr miceli are there any questions for mr miceli or miss malinowski or ms johnson we just wanted to give you a sense of just you know what has had to happen right to make the changes necessary to really make these courses work at the high school level for sure all right i'm going to turn it over to mr rosiers for our music department replacement cycle katie good evening good evening thanks for having me can you guys hear me okay sure can thank you great thanks um so i'm here representing the music department dan ayer jason beat myself and mary dembraskas and we provide an instrument replacement cycle every year it's generally a three year plan
021outlining our priorities for instrument purchases and replacements we reevaluate and do our best to communicate the needs based on enrollment and student needs and as the previous video alluded to we are certainly in a state of flux right now um within our programs so this was actually really a tough year um and i we just don't feel that we're necessarily able to predict two to three years ahead responsibly so we've done the best that we can right now and we'll update um you know whenever we can so um you'll see that for the 201 2021 to 2022 school year this is bcs our best estimate is that a double french horn would increase access as well as a new set of orchestral bells and that total comes to five thousand dollars so that's for the
022center school but you'll see for 2022 to 2023 in the following year again simply because we lost a lot of numbers in our programs and we're not sure what's going on it just feels irresponsible to us to say we need this when we don't know what students will have so for the high school similar except next year what what we would ask for would either be another like a practice xylophone which is a smaller mallet instrument that students could take home so what we have now should we be in this situation again is what i'm trying to say should we be in a situation and hopefully not but that's what that is talking about it's an instrument that somebody could play at home as opposed to the little bell sets that some students do or
023do not have and or we could use some cortales that's a percussion instrument that feels like a luxury if i'm going to be honest and based on the numbers of students again that might change so sadly i don't have many more answers than that other than district totals i believe is the next slide should we follow that plan for the 2021-2022 school year that would cost approximately six thousand dollars thank you katie i i appreciate the responsible uh response about two and three years out from now because we just to your point and we're just gonna have to work on on sort of a rebuild for a lot of things uh as a result of the pandemic for sure are there questions for katie from board members i understand i'm sorry sue go ahead chris
024thank you uh you mentioned that i think you mentioned that the the number of students participating in in band has decreased do you have a sense of whether that is in part because students are unable to access the instruments and if they're fully remote they don't can't afford their own or no we are fortunate here in part because of this replacement cycle that we have a healthy inventory of instruments that we lend out to students so we don't have any students who are asking us for instruments and we can't provide them we work with the families in the districts to do that the the numbers dropping have been more at the high school to my knowledge and i think uh part of it or most of it i should say is because the reality is
025that participating in a musical ensemble is a social event and i don't mean that in a social have a party way but it is making music with people and the technology just doesn't allow us to do that in a remote setting it has been incredible to make music with students in person despite being 12 feet apart with masks on and bell covers and we can't do that in a remote environment and some students were very honest in communicating with i'll speak for myself with me and saying uh mrs d we love band but this is not the band that we signed up for it's not a personal thing but i can go take a x y and z course here that transfers a little bit better um so of course i'm going to support those
026students in in that in that endeavor this year it doesn't make it any easier for for us music people but the students um have all been very respectful and the students that we have have just simply been amazing i i will add that the you know as mrs d and mr ayer and the rest of the team i think most people appreciate the crazy amount of work it takes to to put on a performance and then um watching them both uh here you know at the high school assembling through crazy technological macgyverisms to try to have something has i mean it's been heartwarming and and i really feel bad for them both as well um but let me spin that in a positive and say check out the bolton high school youtube channel posted today
027um is a a piece by our choir and you'll see it's it's magnificent but it's not the same thing and i know that mrs d is currently working on um something that we will post down the road when it's complete and it will be wonderful but it isn't the same and i'm going to just jump in a little bit and some of the great things that people might see that other places put out it takes days upon days upon days and that's not really what our program is about so all the great work that the music department is doing is just an incredible lift as it is and we really are very grateful for all of that katie i appreciate that it does take hours and hours and my current editing stake it it to
028do eight measures of music it's averaging me about two and a half hours per period um so that's about five hours for the two classes and that's only eight measures so slowly but surely and and this is with everyone right one step in front of each other we're just we're moving forward and and the kids have been really amazing as well as the support um mr mitelli and his technological help with me trying to figure out how to edit audio and video and um and just the support in general well and i want to echo the sentiments i mean they the lift you guys know right it's been heavy for everyone but particularly in music just even trying as we try to figure out like katie was all over it from the beginning as was
029dan like we got we're going to figure out a way to do this it wasn't we can't we're going to figure out a way to do it and and they continue to you know really think outside the box and and their efforts have been nothing short of herculean so to that point thank you thank you kristen but your your support and the board support to allow us to do it safely so that the students are safe and that we feel safe in doing our jobs that was a financial investment on your end and you have had our backs and uh that's that's just been one thing that we have not had to worry about so thank you i appreciate you saying that thank you so i know you had some chris where your question answered
030in the are there things that we could be well are there things that you could be doing more if if you had more funds or i mean are there other things that the board could be investing in that would make life easier i really don't think so at this point unless you're going to hardwire every student's computer to some technological whatever whatever is out there you have purchased a software that allows us to create it also allows us to record and perform and come together that way and put more options into our students hands you've you've we have we have what's out there um and what we can use it's it's just it's not the same it's still awesome and we're finding really great things i mean the positive we're finding things that like oh
031we want to do this forever even in real world like pull from here pull from this and use this they're amazing things um i appreciate that that thought chris but unless we've got some super computer happening somewhere in town and the other towns we serve it's not going to happen thank you anybody else uh this is re i just like to say that i did listen to that youtube uh chorus or it was great and i and i was thinking to myself boy that must be really hard to do and i can see you know how much time you've invested in this and i i think you're doing a great job and i i think that i know you don't feel that you can do as much as you would like but i think the
032thing everybody's learning things that they probably wouldn't have learned under normal circumstances so when this is over i think it will just be a step above where we were because we had to thank for everything thank you thank you guys thank you katie appreciate it you don't have to stick around kiddo but thank you very much all right um moving on to uh bps learning updates um as you may have seen um i sent out a communication this afternoon to families and to staff as everybody knows the number of coveted cases infection rate and hospitalizations in connecticut and in our area are on the rise i don't know if you saw today's update but our uh current uh rate in bolton is 29.2 percent up a great deal from last week um we were yellow
033last week in a sea of red and we are part of the sea of red at this point um although our current mitigation strategies and short-term closures have proven effective within our schools we continue to face increasing staffing challenges in maintaining in-person learning although we have not had any positive staff or student coveted cases in the last couple of weeks um our administrators and school nurses are spending considerable energy on contact tracing and identifying close contacts due to community spread and finding coverage for staff members who are currently awaiting test results or will have to quarantine as a result of being notified as a close contact just in the last 24 hours we have experienced a significant uptick in staffing challenges and i would um associate that with what i would call the thanksgiving boomerang
034effect at this point i had hoped we were gonna get beyond it unscathed but the last 36 hours or so have proven that that is not the case so in an effort to be proactive and after consulting with both rob miller eastern highlands health district director and jim rupert bolton's emergency management director the bolton public schools will be moving to remote learning for all staff and students for three days leading up to winter break which would be monday december 21st through the half day on wednesday the 23rd that wednesday was already scheduled to be a remote day and then remote learning will resume for all students and staff again on monday january 4th through friday january 8th and i will share with you um administrators can attest to this i have been back and forth
035on um that piece of it and had settled on last night that we were going to come back to school on january 4th until today happened to be quite frank and the the constant barrage boomerang effect that occurred today um with our staffing so i think that that is uh proactively in our best interest in the hopes that i can get everybody back on january 11th safely we will be returning in our current model on january 11 should we be able to do so which is our k5 students with four days a week on monday tuesday thursdays and fridays in person and six to 12 remaining in hybrid with everybody being remote on wednesdays our goal still is to get our 6 to twelve students back to the four days uh like our k5 students
036are that continues to remain be our goal um and families who have opted for full-time distance learning will also be allowed uh to continue that from home teachers will be teaching virtually on the remote days and all students will be logging in remotely to their classes every day are there any questions for me on that piece i can't see everybody so you'll have to holler out ben i have a question please um so i i hosted a legislative event today with my nonprofit and um among the things that that they talked about when we had the the senate majority leader and the appropriations committee chairperson um you know was that the connecticut education association had somewhere in the range of like 14 or 000 signatures that um had teachers really wanting to uh push this
037even through the end of january is there any consideration to extending it beyond this you know ben i think we're gonna have to see what the numbers bear right at that point in time and quite frankly whether or not we have the staff to open back up for full in person you know i will tell you that our staff has been nothing short of amazing um they have done everything that that they need to do to ensure the mitigation strategies the board has been super supportive our administrators have been amazing our nurses have been amazing but the data is really going to drive where we stand come that point in in mid-january to be honest it's a great question i'm actually really even happy to see that we've done it even to this extent so
038um yeah thank you thank you anybody else kristen it's ria i have just one quick question uh when some when you say that teachers uh you're having trouble with staffing so if if they're uh remote if they're working on remote learning are the teachers able to teach because they're just being quarantined or are are some teachers too sick to to teach and uh um what happens are do you have enough substitutes to handle the remote learning or is that becoming a problem well so today we were at the break rhea um we have some staff who are too sick to teach remotely which is why we have our our daily subs you know in our building so that they can be in the room um with you know the lessons sometimes they might be tuning
039in to another class in that grade level but the substitutes there to supervise in other situations where we have staff that have to quarantine because they've been identified as a close contact but they themselves are not sick but they have to be home for 14 days and so they are teaching remotely we also have some staff and the law allows for this up until the end of this calendar year um if they have child care issues because the district in which they live has shut down and they have small children and do not have care for their children they are allowed to um be home and they are allowed to be home and not teach and they're allowed or if they choose to and can manage to teach remotely and and you know we can
040support that we do that but i mean at this point based on what was happening today i'm going to be really honest i i am i'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can stay open and not have to go remote between now and next friday i think it's potentially very likely that administrators are going to be in classrooms trying to keep us open to be honest all right thank you thank you thank you uh kristen can i just clarify something um i thought i'd heard you say earlier that we hadn't had any new student or staff cases of covid but then i thought i just heard you say that we have teachers who are out sick with covet can you clarify with us yes sorry we have teachers who are currently out sick who have
041covered like symptoms who are going for tests or who have just had a test but we're not getting test results back for five to eight days at this point so yeah i have no cases to report right now but i guess i would offer we have a lot in the hopper right now thank you for clarifying sure sorry i was not clear all right i am going to turn it over to mr giard for a bcs update please good evening everybody um life at bcs continues to be very busy as superintendent hector everybody has alluded to we just finished successfully administering the psat 8 9 tuesday and today for the 8th graders and we had actually many students who were fully remote coming to the school they haven't we haven't seen them all year and
042they came in to take the psat which was great to see uh we had a great turnout november 23rd and 24th at parent-teacher conferences and for the teachers they did a tremendous job of setting up the technology to host those meetings that each other and making sure parents weren't waiting and there was a little bit of a gap between meetings and of course there's always a little bit of hiccups and parents were extremely flexible with those and a couple had to be rescheduled but for the most part everything was very successful great turnout um and something along those lines could be used in the future i mean it doesn't replace in person but it could be something that we utilize down the road if we needed to incorporate more meetings a quick update on the
043buses the school bus is the bus company has been doing a very nice job of being on time um helping to ensure that students are staying in their seats wearing their masks and listening to the bus drivers the students have been amazing i think i can count on one i've seen a student without a mask when they got to school and that was because they forgot and there was almost tears in her eyes and they were like wait i'll go home and get it i'm like no no you're good we have some extras so the kids have been amazing very very conscientious about it we continue to have more elementary students running the bus than middle school and give you a little bit of data here uh i kind of averaged the numbers the bus
044company's been giving the superintendent and myself a bus count every every week and there's an average of 16 students on the bus in the morning if i took all the buses and i averaged the numbers it was 6 30 in the morning and there's about 20 students going home in the afternoon and then i took a look to see what is the most number of students i've seen on a bus and it's been 30 at any given time 30's been the most that's been on a bus at any given time for the bcs runs uh as we continue to look uh so that's that's some good news and if you have any other questions about the buses that can answer those but the buses are going very well we're continuing to look for some positivity
045and excitement to bring into the school and mrs safran did a very nice job recently working with the pbis committee uh setting up some spirit days for holiday break and you've probably seen your children walking out the door with some crazy hair because we had crazy hair day recently uh flannel and stripes day uh bolton blue day we actually have uh pajama day for ccmc tomorrow so the students have really been enjoying the spirit days and students at home can part can uh participate in that as well so it's been it's been a nice addition i want to give a special thank you to the bolton booster club who reached out uh recently and said that they wanted to buy a small toy for every student at bcs because i know that we're struggling a
046little bit with recess it's not the same type of recess we've always had students aren't able to share equipment they're not able to use the playscape so it's very limited but they purchased either a hacky sac a yoyo and a rubik's cube cube for every student at bcs that is very generous and it came in within days and the kids have been ecstatic we offered them the option to pick and the students gave us uh the numbers and then they were just really amazing um and i know superintendent heck is going to talk a little bit more about that donation a little bit later in the meeting last but not least and you've heard a couple of times about the teachers which is that they're they're really putting on the face they're doing an amazing
047job of keeping upbeat and bringing the excitement and positivity each day to the classroom in their online lessons and that positive energy really is contagious and the students are feeding off of it we're actually seeing we've done some home visits recently and doing some other things and we're seeing we're getting some kids involved into school who who haven't been and we're struggling with this model of learning so the teachers have done an amazing job and overall things are going well like it's a lot of work and everything isn't perfect and we're learning as we go on some things but everything is going well and mrs safran is going to give an update on remote learners for bcs all right good evening everybody um so looking at our numbers as of monday we have 91 students
048that are remote and that is now 19 of our population it is up from last month it kind of just is an ever-changing number so if you look at it going across you'll see that there was no change in grades k through three but we've had um one or two students from fourth fifth sixth seventh and eighth grade uh move uh to the remote so it's uh again as mrs nanoski often reminds us that uh us one of our students makes a change a lot in our percentages but um just you can see there that it was really in the um upper grades and uh families have been great they've been really reflecting they write me um lengthy emails with their rationales and reason why but they're just you know being you know cautious like
049many so um but we're still the teachers are really working hard to reach out to those families and work with those students to make sure that we're doing our best to provide them with everything that they we can do to help them have a great learning opportunity thank you any questions uh for mr giardo safran okay hearing none like to turn over to mr vaseli for an update for bolton high school please uh so similarly um numbers creeping up at the high school and as uh ms zafran said you know i get the emails um really caring families trying to make good decisions um always following the guidelines and sometimes you know even making more conservative decisions than the guidelines require um but doing a nice job of keeping in touch with us so we
050know um you know who's in and who's out so we're up to just to tick over 20 percent with 53 of our 261 students if you're really watching the numbers very carefully you there has been a an enrollment change by a couple of students in and out over the months as well which also kind of plays with the percentages but overall um most of the cohorts anyway you look at them are up slightly um in other news at bolton high school um you know as you know bolton athletes do pay a pay to play fee and those fees are used to cover the cost of officials and with the fall season being cancelled our excuse me shortened there were fewer competitions than was originally planned for so we did return uh 20 to accounts of
051all of those athletes and in a similar way uh as my students in their report earlier mentioned the cia has delayed any possible start and that's a possible start not a start on the 19th that's just the earliest they'll start we had already collected money for winter pay to play and all those checks have been returned with just the uncertainty we didn't we didn't hold families monies uh and lastly um as mr giard mentioned at the center school we also had a very successful psat program our administration uh here i'd like to thank school counselor mrs destiny and our guidance department uh for the smooth psat administration at both schools um and she along with mrs jones our administrative assistant mr ginsanti our other counselor uh really made sure things went went super smoothly the
052bhs faculty proctored the test it was one of the smoothest administrations i've seen amazing attendance a couple of students could not join us because of quarantining issues and they have begged for makeup and the college board actually granted us permission which is kind of out of the norm to allow that so we will we'll be real close to 100 participation which is which is great and i also really want to um make a public thank you to m j our bus company for their assistance um so our administration here was on december 2nd which is a wednesday when we're typically fully remote uh but they provided transportation not just for our boltman bolton freshman but for the ninth graders from hartford and columbia as well so all the students were able to join us thank
053you um mr g.r do you also want to comment about pay-to-play as well please i don't think we had that in there we should have sure um so we follow a similar model where we sent the school messenger out to all the families of fall sports and again with winter sports saying that they had the option of proportion of the pay-to-play fee either rolling it into an export season um or getting a refund so the parents have been very appreciative and communicating with our office and we've cut checks to the families who wanted it back and we've rolled it for those that wanted it rolled to the next season so yeah it's worked out well thank you are there questions for mr miceli uh very quickly if i might uh this is chris um i
054i believe i saw something in the news either today or yesterday from the governor's office announcing a new initiative to challenge high schools to increase the number of students who complete the the fafsa student aid application each year have you seen that and will bolton be doing anything to you know to participate or try to encourage more of our students great question i i had heard about that and i honestly um didn't reflect upon it much because really it is the goal of our counselors every year to try to get a hundred percent uh participation uh mr jan santi is uh spearheading our senior uh team this year um he's already met with all of the seniors you know once through um and i know he he he does a lot of things to support
055the the fafsa we sometimes have a financial person who comes in and does things and obviously that's not working for us this year um so he's done much more personal approach um and and really i'm kind of going above and beyond for those families that are struggling it it is a tricky thing so for the board members obviously mr dave you know but uh for the board members who don't know what we're talking about it's the it's the federal government forum it's it's nothing the su schools can complete themselves it it involves the financial information from families and you know traditionally in my you know my my tenure here at the high school we do sometimes find families that become very uncomfortable when you want to help and you want to talk about it because
056you know it involves their tax returns and their bank accounts and those kinds of things and and that's of course not our goal is to get into that but you know we're we're trying to say well this is what you need to gather and this is how the form is filled out so it's a it's a balance um but his personal approach this year um with the members of the class of uh is is going very well thank you i'd like to just add to that a little bit joe you may not know this on the side but uh mr giancante and i have had a conversation since last year when the state actually provided some fafsa information on the ed site secure website and so he and i have been just like how do
057i use that data to make sure i stay on top of this so he's already been on top of that since last year thank you any other questions okay hearing none thank you all very much nice job uh unfinished business i do not believe we have any this evening and madam chair if it's okay we'll move on to new business go for it thanks all right we took care of our field trip uh we're taking a look now at the 2021-2022 school calendar uh we will need action on this this evening in the past we did two reads not certain why that ever was the case and i did check with the board's attorney and that is not a requirement so um are there any uh do we have the calendar to put up or
058no no okay are there any questions or concerns or could we have a motion to approve the calendar i'll make a motion to approve the calendar um just so that we can have a discussion about it great thanks do we have a second thanks ben discussion uh yeah so uh in looking over it i noticed that there is a six-week period from the end of april vacation until memorial day weekend where the only gap or break is a half day on may 6th that's the the longest stretch in the whole school year um i was wondering if if there might be any benefit in moving one of the two march early release days to say may 27th um just so there's a bit more of a breakup in when students have time off and also
059possibly giving families a bit of a head start on the holiday weekend yeah so part of the reason why we don't we didn't move that march day to the may is because we still have a fair amount of pd and work that needs to be done in march as we work towards finishing teachers goals as well as pd and so if we back-ended that the end of may to sort of give families a little bit of a longer weekend or get a hit jump start on memorial day weekend to be honest i it would sort of be like we'd be sitting there looking at each other wondering what we're going to do with that time that afternoon so that was that's the rationale why um so just to make you aware of that okay no
060i thank you for the explanation certainly reasonable yeah no problem any other questions comments um all those in favor of a proven calendar i any opposed abstentions unanimously approved okay great thank you and the next one is the 2021-2022 board of education meeting calendar again i'm sorry i don't i don't have that up there but um it is it was in your packets um this is something apparently that has to be done by january 1st and i just learned that so that's why we're doing it tonight okay do i have a motion to accept the board of ed meeting schedule yeah i'd like to make a motion to accept the schedule i'll second who seconded that please anne thank you sorry i couldn't hear you any discussion comments okay all those in favor say aye
061aye aye any opposed abstentions unanimously approved and now we are on to building committee for bcf roof and ac project thank you so um we need to the board needs to appoint a building committee for the bcs uh roof project uh at this point so that we can continue moving along with that project that's one of the requirements that the state has for us to move along with this project do we have any volunteers can can we simply appoint the the members of the building and grounds committee yes that seems appropriate are they willing maybe um ben andrew and scott um to do it um scott in particular because of his experience he's not on the buildings and grounds committee anymore but because of his particular area of expertise and the fact um i think
062you know he could be a great asset to um both andrew ben and john casal and i scott is on the buildings no i think it's ben on buildings and grounds andrew you and i think i don't know you could be right i don't know i think it's scott and ben buildings and grounds and me and scott on kappa oh got it okay maybe that's what yeah okay you're right so i they are all three of you willing to do that before we tell you you have to i am yes i think i think that's who's appropriate okay do we have to do a vote on that you do please okay do i have a motion to have ben anduin scott be on the building committee for the bcf roof and ac project oh and
063got it i'll second it okay any discussion comments okay all those in favor aye aye any opposed abstentions unanimously okay and now we're on to policies chris you want to take that one it's uh short and sweet this week um first read of policy 6161.21 fees fines and chain and charges um as you hopefully saw there's only one um relatively small although i think important change which is to add fees for sports to the list of fees that can be assessed to students by the administration for whatever reason uh fees for sports that the pay-to-play was not ever included in our policy covering fees um i happened to notice that a while back and brought it to superintendent hex attention she spoke to the board attorney about it and they agreed that it certainly would
064not harm or be harmful in any way to include that and it would help to clarify things so that is why we brought that to you this evening thank you and this is just a first read so we're not voting correct correct okay any questions or comments on that okay donation okay so um as mr giard shared with you uh the booster club generously donated uh 358 dollars and 54 cents uh for individual recess toys for every student in grades pre-k through eight and we are most appreciative that was a great idea on their part and we greatly appreciate their donation uh it's certainly going to serve our students very well and again we're just so thankful i would also like to share with the board that a bolton high school graduate approached mr miceli
065last spring about uh supporting a program to update the brandy street signs for both bolton high school and the board of education offices after careful research and design we are moving forward with this project this alumni has coordinated with a few other graduates and a donation of 23 150 is being made to the bolton public schools to cover the entire cost of the fabrication and installation of the new signs we are so incredibly appreciative for the various very generous donation from our amazing bolton alumni awesome okay um future business i think chris had something chris did you have something yeah sorry i couldn't unmute in time uh i i was just wondering are we allowed to know who made the donation or is it anonymous um the alumni has asked to remain anonymous which is
066why i did not announce the person's name very good thank you but we will be um sending letters to both the booster club and our alumni thanking them and certainly so that the alumni can take full advantage of the you know the tax piece on it as well but we are so appreciative of uh the support our groups are giving in our alumni to our schools for sure can you tell us the year they graduated so we can narrow it down i will not do that okay we're ready to move on to future business anything i don't believe so unless somebody has something all right now we adjourn to go to executive session and invite superintendent heck to join us did i do that right yep to attend the superintendent's mid-year evaluation review of goals
067good thank you do i have a motion to adjourn so moved this is chris all those in favor all right abstentions oh sorry um opposed sorry absentian's okay moving to executive session thank you the recording has stopped good night everybody i'll see you in executive session good night happy holidays all thank you to administrators very much