001All right. Good evening. This is a inerson special meeting of the Bridgeport Board of Education. Today is Wednesday. Um it is 6:34. Um in person I'm Jennifer Perez my board chair we have Joseph Kalig um Rob Chambber Marissa Mennez Andre Woodson online we have Christine Baptist Perez and Cas. Um we'll get started. The first item on the agenda is the approval of minutes from special meeting June 2nd 2025. Is there a motion to approve? Moved by Mr. Traver. Is there a second? Second by Mr. Penn. Any questions on that debate? Um, all in favor say I. Any opposed? Any obstessions? That one passes. The next item is the regular meeting for June 9th. The lot itself needs to repair and has capital funds as well. Yes. And cost $80,820. We were given $100,000. Aren't there
002certain requirements around capital funds that require us to maintain a presence individually or something like that? uh due to the fact that it's capital funding and the city we revert back to the city if we decide to revert the building back it's still a city asset but the current condition um it's unsafe so we're trying to get this done this summer in advance of the upcoming school year the the the current asphalt is sprawling throughout so question you miss Garcia um so if in fact I'm not saying we are not one way or the I do per beard and it returns to the city. If the city guess where they're responsible of reimbursement like if the city turns it over like right away it doesn't period of time that's supposed to be held. Uh let
003me clarify the city bonds that we can right regardless it's not on not on operating. Okay. Thank thank you for that. I apologize that thank you. That's all I have. Any further statements? I see none. All in favor say I. Any oppose? Any extensions? Perez and Mr. Okay, we have three extensions. Um, we have the continuation of contract. Thank you. Thank you. Um, next we have continuation of non-active services with effective school solutions. Duncan Candy was prepared to send virtually. We can hear you. Hey Sam, do you have do you have that power? Yeah, I'm I'm not I'm not able to share from my end. I don't know if everybody can hear me. Anyone want to share? Duncan, I cannot share. The the share is grayed out on the uh teams. Yeah, giving you access
004now. So, you should be able to do that. Here's short. Sure. Can everybody hear me? Okay. Yeah. You should be you should be have the ability to do that. Yeah, I do I do have that here and I will pull up my screen. Okay, hopefully everybody can see my screen. Um, thank you for having us. My name is Duncan Young. Uh, I'm the CEO of Effective School Solutions. Uh, as an organization, we are in our fourth year of partnering with BPS to provide high acuity mental health, emotional, and behavioral support across a number of the uh, school districts uh, school buildings. Uh the board item for consideration is a renewal of our contract for $1,363,000. This actually represents a reduction versus our contracted rate for this year. Um uh apples to apples. It's actually a
005reduction of $200,000. Um we are incorporating $100,000 from a state grant that we have received that we will be applying towards this. There's also an additional $100,000 reduction that would come from the incorporation of uh Medicaid billing that allows us to keep the district's fees down. This is partially offset by an increase in the contract value of $163,000 for the provision of expanded professional development in support of the district's special education programs. A little bit of background on effective school solutions. Uh we have been proud to partner with the district for the last four years. Um our partnership is impactful. Uh it makes a strong impact in the BPS community and it largely pays for itself through a number of different cost offsets in the district budget. Over the last four years, we provided direct
006clinical care to over 425 of the district's highest acuity students. We've been instrumental in building educator capacity and we've been honored this year to partner with the district to do some things that weren't explicitly included in our contract, including partnering with the special education team on outplacement reduction consultation, uh providing technical assistance on mental health program enhancements, legislative and advocacy support, and helping to uh provide exposure to the district to statewide mental health best practices in other districts. Um the the vast majority of our fee is identified by savings from the avoidance of the need for higher levels of care for students that we are supporting in the program as well as Medicaid reimbursement. The consultative efforts that we've worked on together with the district this year have identified approximately $2 million in pl in
007savings from a reduction in uh outplacements within the district. We have a great and experienced multilingual team of 10 clinicians and staff who this year have delivered 8,733 total services with significant academic impact for atrisisk students at Harding, Barnum, Central High School, Waltersville, Marin, and BLC. The four components of our contract are as follows. We provide tier 3A direct clinical care filling a key role in the BPS mental health continuum. That's where the 10-person team that I referenced uh uh fits in. This year we provided coaching support for behavioral learning center staff on strategies and tools to support the behavioral and mental health needs of high acuity students. We will be expanding that work to a variety of other self-contained programs. This year, we will continue to provide outplacement reduction consultation for the district as
008well as consultation on how the district can continue to optimize its mental health continuum. Uh Jess, I'd love to turn it over to you to talk a little bit about our team. Sure. My name is Jessica Gaffne. I'm the project director um who oversees the contract in Bridgeport. Um so this is this is my team here. Many of which have been with me for the whole four years. Um six of which are bilingual and Spanish which has been very um effective obviously and useful within the schools. Um they're all licensed mental health clinicians and work with the students in those schools that Duncan mentioned. My name is Joanne Blanka. I work with Jess and Duncan. um and just provide the clinical administrative oversight of um all the programming. I think we're good, Duncan, on this
009one. Great. Uh just some quick data points about the positive impact that our programming has made on student grades, attendance, and discipline. This year, 71% of students participating in programming maintained or significantly improved their GPA. 73% of students who entered programming in a state of chronic absenteeism improved or maintained their baseline attendance level and 91% of students who entered programming with a history of discipline improved or maintained their behavior. As you can see down at the bottom, our district our our our u partnership is also instrumental in helping to respond to uh high acuity incidents that take place throughout the school day. 23 incidents of physical aggression, six DCPP reports, eight police contacts, one suicide threat, and three self-directed violence incidents. Uh Joan and Jess, would you like to talk about some of our parent
010feedback or I'm sorry, staff feedback? Sure. This was um a survey that we submitted to the teachers, the support staff, and administrators in the schools that we work in. Um and these are some of the results that we got back. We got 35 responses. Uh, as you can see, they're all they're all very positive. 97% satisfied with our services. Um, 94% believe it positively impacts student mental health. I do believe that you've all received a packet um on effective school solutions. So, you'll have, you know, all of this. I don't need to go through each point. This was um quotes that we got from the staff members. I I'll read just one of them because again this is in your packet. Um ESS has made an existential impact on our school community. They have truly
011blended in our school family. They support students, families, and educators with their expertise and are always willing to help. The extra support that can focus solely on mental health and students struggling with behaviors is exactly what Bridgeport needs to support our overwhelming social emotional issues and underst staff support staff. And this is all in the packet. You guys can take your time later. And then parenting. And then this is um the parent survey that we send out to to the parents. As you can see, you know, 92% very satisfied with our services, 100% satisfied with the clinician working with their student. One of the quotes we have, um I love the way the clinician keeps me informed about my son when she's working with him. She gives it her all to help my child in
012any way he needs help. Very grateful for her. And then it lists some of the ways that we have helped the students um and all indicated some kind of improvement with their child. Uh that concludes our brief presentation. We appreciate your consideration. Just in summary, we all feel very honored to work with BPS. uh myself, Joanne, Jess, and the rest of the team uh really uh love partnering uh with the with the Bridgeport team, and we really look at what we're doing together as a great model for other districts uh across the state. Uh and we appreciate your consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have a question. So, I realized that not all of our schools are listed. How do you guys go about selecting the schools that you're going to provide resources
013to? Sure. So, when we initially started, we started with a three-year contract um with the COVID money and I think the superintendent at that time had picked the schools that we were going to work in. Since then, we have made some modifications. Last year, um we changed some of the schools. We put some of our clinicians at Bridgeport Learning Center and at Central High School to focus more on the specialized programming, the Ames program and the self-contained classrooms at BLC. And I think we're doing the same thing this year, looking at the need and where we can best support. We're always willing to kind of think outside the box and be kind of fluid. So if there's support that's needed in a school like you know or FL supported one of the other district uh
014schools um we're able to shift. Okay. Well that without being too disruptive of course. Yeah that sounds good. Oh go ahead. I was going to say should should we continue with the partnership. We want to sit down with Dr. Avery, Miss McKinley and other team members this summer and just understand where best to place the the resources relative to district needs this year. there to make some clarification on that. I think one of the things that uh we've written into the contract the flexibility of changing if we need to a lot of times at the end of the year you look at the data regarding abstism the we're going to be doing some things and shifting with special education services across the district as we revise that whole program. So we may have to do
015some shifting of the support in which campuses they're going to be uh you know engaging in as well. So we have that flexibility within the contract to be able to do that. So that's uh a plus for us uh as we start the planning for the summer as well. Yeah, this one's from M. Would it be any impact on the 2526 budget or something? No, it's going to be your contributions. Thank you, Mr. Chver. Yeah. Is this paid through a grant or how there's some money coming in Mr. Triber? I didn't catch the question. I'm sorry. Asked if it was paid through a grant or where the money comes from for this. He said it's paid through the operating budget. And so explain to me what's the difference between our staff doing this and your
016staff doing. With disrespect, I saw the presentation at Waltersville. was wonderful. I saw the work that was being done. It was wonderful. But I'm I'm looking at fact that we're laying off eight social workers and counselors. And frankly, with the amount of money you're talking about, that's 16 social workers and counselors. start answer. I mean, I think the the main difference between our clinicians and school social workers is we we do have smaller case loads, but we provide much more intense wraparound services to the students. And you know, school social workers lots of times will have social work hours written in the IEP, maybe half an hour every week or every other week. Um we tend to meet with our students three to five times per week and also do family therapy, group therapy, parent
017support groups. So it's a full wraparound service the student gets. Oh, go ahead, sir. Mr. Chair, I would say that the big I mean the the reason we exist as an organization is we generally are providing a little bit more of a medical model that is specifically geared towards the needs of the the higher acuity students. So, if we think about this in kind of a multi-tered systems of support framework, a typical school social worker is generally going to be providing more of that tier 2 level of care for students with more mild to moderate mental health challenges. We really are focusing on those 3 to 5% of students with the highest acuity mental health challenges that generally would be at risk of outplacement and often would need a little bit more of a medically
018oriented model. So that means having clinicians on the ground who have some of that higher acuity uh experience who are not who are fully licensed not provisionally licensed. Um and there's also a lot of behind thescenes capabilities that are taking place as well. So data is being tracked in in an electronic health record system. There's a quality management and risk management team that's uh doing supplemental reviews of student records from a risk management standpoint to make sure that we can get ahead of any high-risisk issues with students. So, those are a couple of the differentiators that I' I'd point out as well. Also can do like home visits and f um family visits, work with students that um are having a hard time coming to school. Okay. Um and the way I always put it
019is the students that take up like 80 to 90% of the social workers time, right? Which they don't obviously have that because they have all these other students to attend to. So, um we're we're here, you know, the whole school day from the morning to the afternoon. And um we're there for the students. We do a lot of um crisis deescalation. We do a lot of um pushing into the classroom. Whatever it is they really need, we're we're there. So it's it's all day. Our clinicians are on their feet and you know just tending to these students. Um we can also I think the other part is is that we can make recommendations. So if a student needs a higher level of care, we can refer them to higher level of care. We can make
020do safety assessments. Um, we could even recommend uh med management consultation. So things like that that might not be in the realm of like the job description of a social school social worker just because that's that's how it is, right? So uh we're able to do those things and make those recommendations. I I do understand that I what you're talking about is the dream of a school social social worker. Um, and because we're putting in more resources, I mean, this is what we were fighting for the last four months in the legislature to get the additional resources so that we could begin to move in the direction of having the staff be able to add additional um, academic but mental, you know, social intervention so that we could add staff, counselors, and social workers and
021lower the ratios so that they could begin to practice their craft and do the kind of things that you're talking about being able to do because we're concentrating a small amount of our budget to doing this high highly skilled intervention which is wonderful but but that's what I'm looking at is you know the advantage of doing this versus laying off more social workers and counselors and creating more crisis at that level with the tier two as you is certain. I think to to add to that, Rob, is is I think the the other part that they're going to be able to we have to build capacity because of the the the the limited number of staff members that we have to do this massive work. They're constantly going to be able to help us retrain
022and do things that we have to continue to do. uh and we have we have to give individuals within the district, you know, the necessary professional development to to do those things that didn't they've never done before. Uh and they're helping us to build upon that as well. As we see issues, they can we can come up craft the PDPs to be able to bring that back to the larger masses as well. So, it's a continuous things. uh looking at bringing people back as we have dollars to to access to get them back is a is a huge thing for my my uh cabinet was as we start looking at those things. Yes, we got to be able to look at the funding the little that we have and how do we maximize those dollars
023to make a bigger impact across the board. I mean, and that's a lot of the things that we've cut this year. uh we're we're we're going to look at at bringing some of those options back when we have the dollars to be able to do that. So, that's going to be very important. I know the board is looking at trying to prioritize that, you know, but in the meantime, we we still have to balance it out. We're seeing more and more social emotional issues within our schools. If we just not address it by having the capacity building process that they're going to assist us with, it's going to be pretty difficult for us to maintain. So that's the the importance of this as well. That would be like in addition to the actual clinical services,
024there's um we also been working with Michelle and her team on um identifying students that are outplaced and kind of looking at different steps to bring them back. Um so it's just little projects that we have here and there. We've looked at um also reassessing and kind of looking at current um programs that you have specialized programs and just looking at that and and kind of offering guidance and coaching. Um and that did we didn't talk much about the PD hours but there's a big piece of that um this year uh one of our um professional development experts has worked in the BLC and has done a lot of work there to kind of revamp the interventions and see if it's best practice for you know students and things like that. So it's not just
025the clinical and I I completely appreciate what you're saying. I respect that. Um it's a good question. Um but just it it al also includes a couple few other things and the goal always for care of this level is we want it to be able to pay for itself. So um you know one of the things that we track is the number of students that we believe we are uh helping to avoid placement into an outplacement setting. Um Jess I believe that number is approaching 10 or so which looking at you know 80 $90,000 plus transportation per student. that's kind of cost avoidance of probably close to a million dollars along with kind of like the the Medicaid reimbursement component. We're hopeful that this program really is going to be largely costneutral because of that
026outplacement avoidance effect and that's that's difficult for a school social worker to accomplish because the level of intensity of the service is is you know not as high by virtue of the job description. Yeah, we've we've worked with um three or four students this year too who did return to district. They were in out of district placements and they came back to um Bridgeport Commissions have worked with them to acclimate them into the schools and we've had good success with that. And that's like an continued ongoing project that we started last year. We'll continue to work on that because it's not going to just be a one-year thing, right? um and continue to look at those students and see which ones the district can serve and having them out place and and conversely just I
027don't denigrate that's all I absolutely understand the value of that but conversely as we talk about trying to teach kids to read at a younger level solving kids emotional problems at a younger level we used to have counselors and social workers on the elementary side of black school. We haven't for 10 or 15 years. So, we're not dealing with those problems with those kids at a younger level. We are doing social emotional learning, which we weren't doing back then, but you know, we don't have professional staff there to help. So, you know, all of that adds up, right? Is my point. Yep. Sorry. This is Oh, you go. Super quick question. Can you talk more about the Medicaid reimbursement? How is that going to look like? Um, what does our initial out of expenditure cost?
028I saw that it's $1.4 million and then $1.5 million. Are we expecting to get all that money back through Medicaid? Is it just a portion? Can you talk through that? Yeah. No, thank thank you for that for that question. So um in the last year we have been licensed as an outpatient psychiatric clinic for children in the state of Connecticut and OPCC which gives us the ability to direct bill u Medicaid for the services that we're we're providing. So what we what we have done is we have kind of run some numbers and provided an estimate as to what the uh collected Medicaid amount would be for the coming year which is approximately $100,000. And so we uh reduced the contract fee by that amount. So we were at 1.4 million last year. We brought
029the contract down by a h 100,000 because of Medicaid reimbursement. We're hopeful that we can exceed that and pass more savings back to the district. We were then able to reduce the contract by another $100,000 via a grant that we received via advocacy for the state level at the state level on behalf of of Bridgeport. So that brings us down to 1.2. And then the district expanded the professional development uh portion of the partnership with another 163,000. That brings us up to the 1,363,000 that is um uh the contract value for this year. But on an applesto apples basis, we were able through Medicaid and the grant that I mentioned to reduce the district's contract fee by $200,000 this year. Thank you. Any other questions? Motion changes. Mr. Woodson, make a motion to leave for
030this item. Is there a second? Second. Second, Mr. Mayor in a minute. Sorry. Um any further debate? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Miss Betsy Perez abstain. All right. Thank you. Um thank you Dr. S. The next item on the agenda over some policies. First one is the approval of second excuse me the approval of the second reading of the following uh policy sexual abuse of prevention and education program policy 5145.1. Yes. So um good evening all. Um this is the second read of this policy. Um it's gone through committee for the first read. Um this policy was read at the policy and percent committee meeting on May 14th. Um and at the board meeting on May 27th where was recommended for the um first read. This policy is now on
031its second read. Um and just to give a quick overview, the policy gives the definition of various terms including sexual violence, sexual abuse, sexual assault. The policy also describes sector of youth prevention and education programs and the professional development that must occur for all staff. It describes the age appropriate educational materials students in grades K through 12. Policy states the reporting expectations for all schools employees who are aware of such behaviors described. This policy also includes a sample opt out if parents do not want their child participating in the sexual abion program. Um the last thing we had was conversation um around um an opt out or an opt in process. Um so you know I I did um ask um around I couldn't find I just maybe it was one of the ones I
032talked but I couldn't find this had enough version was just had an that was just for people to be you know that just made the most sense. Um there were recommendations made to also add this policy as well um as well as letter to the student hand. So that's why we question motion step sexual abuse prevention and education program. See you. Is there a second? Accept the root. Accept the ranking. Accept the second read and adopt. See actually adopting. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Motion is to adopt the sexual abuse prevention and education program policy. Has been seconded by Miss Session. Um any further debate on it? All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Moving on. Um that one passes. The comparatability of services title one equivalence and instruction staff
033and materials policy 6161.3. Um before we go on that the this was presented at the committee and brought to the board. Um and um there was some question about the the the term comparability. Um Mr. Tal came about it. Cave actually omitted um they accidentally accidentally pronounced provide a second page to this policy. So that has been added to your portal just so you know. Um, and that should cover the questions that were at um, asked in the last meeting. So, I just want you guys to make sure that you're looking at the second page as well. Um, when you see this policy and I'll let Dr. Saki go ahead, representative. Yeah. And I think that there's some there should be copies that were given out in a vote of the new Yeah. Adam made
034copies as well. Does everybody have that or no? Um and and thank you um to Russ for explaining that there were some information that was um missing from this policy. Um and so um which has now been uploaded um onto the portal. Um there's alternative language that's being used in this um particular policy um that might address some of the concerns that were originally raised. Um this policy also gives a definition of um comfortability. Uh it breaks down certain requirements that the board has to meet as well. this. And it was also just to note that um it is recommended by K that we adopt it as um as they as they recommended it because it is um according to state title one. So um any questions on this one Mr. Yeah. Yeah. The reason
035not just brings there are different concerns I raised over comparability versus activity being the second page addressing nicely by saying what we may exclude such as um English language learners excess costs with disabilities unexpected changes in enrollments staff salary differential for employment serious failing children's policy prohibiting administration from addressing and identify problems schools didn't even reason to stick with this. We've had advocacy groups for years who advocated to get a per school breakdown of spending and when they compare that let's see say Italian might be spending more money because they've got an excessive amount of English language learners oversee a black we got a policy to point out that says look here these are the exposures we don't we can't count that as towards comparable satisfying this is what we saw the correct yes I
036understand comparability I I I understood here from building I didn't understand the issue of equity understandability and I just this Is this okay? Is there a motion? A motion to approve and adopt a second read of policy number 616131 compability services. It is implementation. Second. All right. Move and second. Any further debate? Seeing none. All in favor say I. I. Opposed? Any abstensions? If not, we have the um statement of education goals and object uh student objectives policy uh 0200. Um so this is and if you look at the um sample that that was posted um so this is a sample K policy but um the wording board was changed obviously to like raceport you know the board has its own um goals that um um they've been working on. of those boards can be
037embedded into these goals but these are um you know performance goals performance objectives um based on on on student achievement. So I think that alongside with some of the board's goals could complete this document the way it stands now. Um this is the sample that um K gave but I think there is some flexibility in terms of what you would like to add um to this policy if there something motion motion to approve the statement of educational goals and student objections Second read for meeting 02. Any further debate? None. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Passes. The next is the use of exclusionary timeout settings 5144.2. Um so this policy um had already gone through its first read um and um I admitted it from the last board meeting when the
038policies were um brought up. So I was bringing it back um for the um it's already gone through it second meeting. So also bringing it back for um the board approval and any questions Dr. I think is there a motion? Yes, there is. I'd like to make display amended to 12 back to bank board meetings to comply with finally. I'd like to make a motion to suspend bylaw 9310 for purpose of immediate implementation of policy. Which one am I on? 5144.2 5144.2 two recognizing that we didn't do it at the second the second board meeting and we're suspending the B of Is there a second? Um all in favor to suspend the bylaw. Anything sign say I. I. Any opposed extensions? A motion to approve the policy. Motion to approve the excus time settings policy
0391.112 for immediate implementation. Second. Is there a second? All right. Um any further bay? All in favor say I. Any oppose? Any extensions? Um the next item on the agenda is um to approve and suspend bylaw 9310 for the purpose of immediate implementation of policy title for the sexual harassment. Oh, I'm sorry, nine. Thank you. Um sexual harassment uh 4,000.1 and this is uh different from previous policy. This is um related for the staff. Yeah. the previous one that was adopted for students. Motion to suspend Bible 9310 for the purpose of immediate implementation of policy title 9 section resident 4,000. Any debate on that? All in favor say I. I post. Any abstensions? Um that would pass or let's go to the policy itself. Approval of the policy title n circle corrected% have anything to
040add to that one? Um it was that um this was similar to the pause but then that um at the last board meeting it's had the student version. So this is the exact same document um but this one just had additional um sample pages as compared to the third one but it's it's the same is there motion [Music] is to approve immediate we already did that it's just the motion approve the policy motion to approve policy 659 sexual harassment. Any further debate? All in favor say I. Any oppose? Any extensions? That passes. Thank you, Dr. Next, Dr. um looking for district organizational structure. So I did chair through the chair. I wanted to make sure I I circle back on a couple items that I had last board meeting those items collectively in this meeting.
041I would like to kind of go through some line items additional looking at the gap closing measure that that was proposed. uh one of those line items were eliminating the central office positions but also with those positions looking at the reorganization of the district as well. So I have placed these items in the board portal where the board members that are online can go to the portal and find the same documents that I'm going to kind of go over. Uh these items will be an extension to item number seven uh that Mr. Nico are going to go over for the budgetary piece as well. Uh as part of the uh consideration that I would like the board to consider is the elimination of a couple positions. So I would like to go through some of
042those positions uh to make sure that um there's clarity in when I show uh the the organizational chart you'll have some clarity behind that. So the first position that I am proposing to eliminate is the assistant superintendent for uh that position I feel it could be consumed by other members of the district. So that high level position is a member of my cabinet but based on the needs of the district and the financial piece I would like to have the board consider eliminating that position. The other position that I would like to be considered for elimination is uh the director of grants and grants management. Uh again in and looking at you know the financial needs of the district felt that the the the responsibilities of that position could be consumed by other individuals within
043the division. But just really looking at how we're going to manage grants, pursue grants, all those types of things. In addition to that position, I would like to uh propose to the board to eliminate the chief not not eliminate but actually reclassify chief human resource officers position. Uh with that position, I would like the board to consider, you know, elevating that position to an assistant superintendent for human capital. uh with the note being that that position uh is going to require a state of Connecticut certification uh to be able to uh that position that person will need to have that certification to be u in the position. In addition to that uh I would like to the district to uh the board to consider eliminating the director of payroll and benefits. Uh again another position
044that we feel we will be able to kind of reorganize the the work space within that division consume the the work. In addition to that the director of seal programs and student affairs uh is is the other position that I'd like the board to consider. Uh again those those responsibilities will also be consumed with other members of the district uh as we see as we see fit. Again, uh the additional there's elimination of an assistant principal position. Uh this this is but this position is going to be eliminated due to the fact that we that person does not have a certification to go back into the classroom as a teacher. So we just feel figured we just go ahead and eliminate the position instead of bringing it back as a as a classroom teacher for
045the next uh three years. In addition to that to eliminate a program service coordinator that that that position resides in the grants department as well. Uh as we look at reorganizing the grant department we felt the efficiency of being able to save that those dollars uh is going to be important as well. Uh the last item number eight, you know, as we uh celebrated today as the uh the new welcoming center is opening, we have additional five clerical positions that we could consume. Uh and so uh because all of that work is going to be housed in the new um welcoming center for the district. So you'll see elimination of of those pos five additional clerical position. So, with that being said, you know, one of the things that I I brought forth to the
046board that uh in that in in looking at those positions that I would be able to save the district $980,000 uh with with the savings, you know, thus far, it's about $1.4 million worth of savings uh with the reallocations uh and the reorganization of the district. In addition to that, uh if you look at the the next line item number 9, 10, 11, and 12, there's a couple of positions that I would like to delay uh you know, eliminating until six months six months into um the uh the next school year due to the fact that there's going to be two to two to three individuals that will be retiring midyear and then and then those salaries will be consumed at that point as Well, so the net value for when I you know Sam
047you go ahead and put up the document I shall you put that on the screen the chart. Yes. Yes sir. So uh for the public to see I'm going to display you know the the the final recommendations for how we're going to do business in the district. Uh so as you see I have uh at the top of the of the organizational diagram you have the superintendent coming down to the next level you have my office which is my executive assistant uh to the left hand side from where I'm looking you have safety and security that is all the um that is all the security guards uh that's captain Gre's office working with the city of Brisport to provide safety and security for the district and Then uh as we streamline the work of the
048district uh as a school superintendent, I will kind of oversee high school principles. Uh I've done a lot of work around high school principal leadership. So I feel very confident that I will be able to support them along with uh if you go down to the bottom of the screen, the two um green boxes at the bottom is the two executive directors. They're will be actually consuming the role of supporting campus leadership. As you go to the middle of the screen, uh you have an assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction and then you have an assistant superintendent for human capital. Uh when you the new position for the assistant super for human capital talked about the certification um that person will be uh supervising you know payroll department and in the HR department with a
049focus in on making sure policy and labor relation pieces are all involved there. uh when you look at the chief financial officer that is position that position is also going to be required a state of Connecticut certification as well moving forward. Uh and then the other position is the chief human uh human prevention officer, chief operation officer and the chief of special education. Those are current positions in the district. Uh and then when you go below that where the assistant superintendent is, the super the assistant superintendents will be managing grants, academics, counseling, uh and the executive directors and and directors. So again, it's a it's a very lean, you know, organizational chart, but I think it's very impactful to the work that has to get done. uh I feel if if allowed to be able
050to move forward with with this particular organization, we will be able to kind of at least manage uh the day-to-day operations of the district. And so uh with that being said, um again, I was a little bit over the $980,000 savings that I that I mentioned to the board at previous meetings and at uh the finance committee meeting as well. So I just wanted to make sure that visually you could see how it all breaks down and then I will at this time m open up for any questions. Thanks question on the bottom half of this page um where it says delay of administrative assistant principles and delay supervisor of alternative education during our finance committee meeting. Um you referenced that there was going to be some folks that were going to be retiring. Yes.
051Is that why there's a delay and not like an Yes, ma'am. That's exactly what the reason why that because I because again they're they're tenure teacher I mean tenure administrators that you know we want to kind of hang on because we we're not very clear as to how everything's going to settle once it once our budget is passed but they're willing to know you know stick around for another half a year and then retire so you'll have that that love of savings that will go back into play as well. Yes. And then my last question is um based on this it says we would still have about a million dollars worth of savings. Um what are we intending to do with that additional million dollars? Can we potentially look at restoring this? Absolutely. And that's
052one of the things that the board has is is going to be, you know, having conversations over the next several a little bit of time to think that's important that we do uh is that as we look at having additional dollars, what can we do to bring back, you know, libraries or that's something that the board is going to help prioritize for us. Uh in in in addition to that, there is there is some additional dollars that are are right now we're not real clear about uh and we're looking to have a little bit deeper conversation with with the commissioner and with um there's some dollars that that's in the seed dollars that that we'll talk about during the budget piece as well that we're just still not clear on. I talked to the deputy
053commissioner today because I needed clarity as to how we're going to be able to spend those dollars. But one of the things I'm going to caution the district district on is using those dollars when you don't know you're going to get them the next year. It doesn't need to be used on personnel. There's other ways that we can, you know, look at managing personnel and and bringing back personnel with other dollars that we can do do some things with. So we we just have to be able to, you know, work through that as well. So that is something that you know I think we're going to go through that exercise with the board myself. We start prioritizing uh and then we'll have a better feel of which things we're going to bring back for based
054on the money that we have. A great question. Did you want to add that? Yes. Sorry. Yeah, for clarity million dollars in basically savings net savings of a million dollar is basically detailing a $985,000 of gap closing measure that's already spent already the money has been spent it's part of the gap closing measure if you go to this big break that I have page three item number 15 you're going to see 985 $5,000 that money basically detailing how attained that $985,000. Yes. Never mind. I'm just saying since you had originally said you were going to save 980,000 in Gladrian this is 30,000 in the end that's Mr. Yeah, several questions is concerning around this mentioning time and time again just alluding to how we got to work together to put the initially thought there's an
055extra million dollars there and how we would have to work together to prioritize what we want to bring back. We should have been doing that right now for these one, two, three, four, four positions right here up to $418,000 because my opinion having staff stay for an additional six months and then leave in the middle of the school year would be quite disruptive and I'm even conversations with some of the board members off hands. This could bring back the entire Fox program for the entire year. save $400,000. We can only spend money once. Um, and this should have been before finance and been referred time and time again. And there's plenty of alternative uses to bring back. We could bring back maybe three librarians with that $400,000. Although librarians are here, it's not even on
056the agenda that we're making a motion to resend that people could possibly get their jobs back. And it's unfair because they can't even have they can't even speak publicly on it because there's no public speaking on the agenda and it wasn't added to the agenda that we might be putting jobs back. Now we have not as a board sat down and met and decided what our priorities are right now. Right now right no right now this is superintendent not on the superintendent. This is on board government superintendent. He asked for something he got and he may get it going to wolf for this and there's nothing else. No librarians. Would it be more beneficial to bring back more social workers for the entire year to service children the whole entire year rather than have eight
057people hang out till June that have to reallocate the district reallocate positions throughout the year and then cause disruption through school year to those places where the eight people are there for the year. And furthermore, if we are to do this, since there is no motion to rescend on agenda, it will take a twothirds vote Robert rules to reverse any of these cuts. So, we got to separate them out and only the person who made the mo person who voted on the winning side of the issue, they make the motion to resend. So, so that's that's all I got right there. And also this budget, next part of the budget is dependent upon some maybe educated guesses but guessing this nonetheless. We got $4.5 million in attrition savings I believe which was today edited to
058be $489,000. Was there a change in circumstances? Did we do another analysis of definitely decided we could find another $89,000 or we just see that we're $89,000 short and use that number? Okay, chair again if we go through reconciliation retirement to answer your question. The gas closing measures with the reconciliation of what the state adopted in their revenues versus what the board has adopted in revenue will be short 89. I have to balance the budget that's offering tighten our belt and increase by 89,000 or this budget will not. So is there a plan that took this into account that you can identify that the $89,000 could be saved over the $450,000 I'm sorry over the 4.5 million. We've identified $89 million in attrition savings that we can proactively do or are we just depending on
059luck? which we are depending on taking a string measure controlling or delaying hiring for a little longer time in order to attend the $89 million $89,000 right and and that being said we also got a projected savings of special ed to return to the district is $2.5 million which is also the best estimate which may or may not be realized. And then there may or may not be more funding coming. This is not the time to be reversing any cuts. And if we ought to reverse any cuts, they should be the board's priority cuts and not be disrupted and do something that happens in the middle of the year. So I'm going to keep that. We have set the first part. We voted the first part and in any case we got a sec got
060the second part which was voted to make the cuts in the first place. It's got to be passed by a two-thirds margin because there's some meeting from anybody else. I was just got it for the last meeting when I was there. I guess I think I I want I want to emphasize to the board that I I I spent a lot of time trying to understand with all the cuts that we we made a $30 million worth of cuts, guys. And as a professional in this seat providing guidance to the board, I want the board to understand this is it's going to be a very tough year trying to keep this and the recommendations that I'm making is how I feel we can do it and that this whole document the wholeund million dollar savings
061is part of thatation and I'm giving you my best judgment. Do I know if it's going to be 100% done? I don't know that. But I will do my due diligence with the team to do this work. I don't have enough people to do the work that I need to do. Okay? And I just feel that this is the best way to do it. and and that's why I'm being very transparent to this community to this board and that's why everything's been posted. I'll position I I cut two additional people or one yeah two additional people from the cabinet you know because that's what the board wanted me to do and I did that you know and those numbers are are very fluid uh and that's all I'm going to say on that. So I
062understand Mr. Sakovic's, you know, concern, you know, but I want to make sure that as a professional, you know, running this district, this is the best, you know, option for this district uh to be able to move forward and um work from there. Mr. Yeah. I just want to be clear if just if those two administrators are going to retire or anyway, it may be more disruptive for them to retire from where they belong into from where they are. So I don't know who these people are where they are and where they into. So it may be more less and and and I I don't I'm aware of that and I'm not I just I'm making that point in Jim hear what you're said and I'm not minimizing what you've said or argue against but
063it seems to me we have to look at this issue budget overall. I don't hear anyone has made any final decision. This is the first time since in in a while that we've had a chance to talk about the budget. We've been all sort of waiting find out what we got. Now, having said that, I I still didn't see I still don't Well, I've been trying for the last week or two since the session ended. understand we have two $5 billion chunks of money that has yet to be answered as to how we get it. It's not in this budget. I didn't see it in this budget. Um to the best of my knowledge from my source, which is very good, says it's coming to us. We just don't know how to get it. We
064have had not one person tell us how to get that $5 million in the bond bill. It's in there. It's written in there for the city. Over 140,000 people, but nobody's supposed to know how to get it. And um I'm I'm anxious to hear what you've heard. I I think you're going to touch on that in the next the next Okay. Well, I I was confused by the agenda, too, because when you all decided to spin away from this. Yeah. Let's bring it back. Go away from the budget. I'm spinning. Yeah. Yeah, we're going back to Well, it does say the agenda does say budget planning, reorganizational structure and budget planning. So, y'all spun off into this, you know, I'm spinning and the spin I got in the last 72 hours over the weekend um
065was that uh that 5 million, nobody quite knows how we're going to get it, but it's ours. Five million this year, five million next year is ours. Though nobody quite knows how we're going to get them. Um and so we have to figure out how we're going to get there. And obviously it has an impact on all of this discussion. Absolutely. Um the the librarians, the the the kids walking to school, the performance arts, the counselors, I mean all the things that we care about, you know, but we don't know. And so, uh, the commissioner, the mayor, uh, the governor's, uh, whatever council that is, uh, which includes some old rolling throwbacks, um, all have an agenda they're they're applying that affects us and our kids. Um, so we got to figure out how to
066get how we get that money. And then there's some other stuff, too. The seed money and the the spend money, you know, I get them. That'll come in the second. Yeah. So do you have any do anybody have any questions about restructuring the regularization Mr. Yeah, ju just for clarity, are we moving on to vote on the cuts at this point? Because the cuts and the go hand in that which gets me this cut the detail the detailed cuts and revisiting of there because we cannot have this conversation without going into the budget. That's the Do we have any more questions on the revational char? Yes. Do we need to vote on the chart? Technically, I don't think we do. No, we need to vote on a position. This is just you reorganizing your staff.
067Why? It's based on the elimination of position and the board has to vote on those things. So, there's many assistant superintendent um director of grants which is the chief which is in this. Yes. Yeah. Yes. I get where it's in here and that's what we would be voting on vote on the budget and that's we ask and that's what Joe's asking what he's asking when we get to this be voting on this part of the that's correct they're not going to vote on this separate tomorrow voting on the budget move on the budget later on and provisions but this has been laid out to us now as he has in mind here when we get to the budget here we can we can separate that out yes we're not it's been explained to us as
068that little piece of this package Yes. Am I joining? No. Okay. Um I I want clarity. Um I I talked to you about this already, but the grant positions, those aren't grant writing positions. Okay. And so we still have we still have a position for grant writers? Yes. Okay. Any further questions on the restructuring? Miss Cask, Miss Perez, any questions? Yes. Um, just a follow-up question on the the grant writer. So, are we looking for a grant writer right now? And how has that process been going? We have we have staff within the department that actually can step up to do that and they have been I feel comfortable that they're going to be able to assist in expanding upon the reach of getting those additional dollars to the district. I'm I'm sorry I don't
069understand Dr. Avery. Um are there several people that are writing grants or is there one person that is designated for that position? just so I understand. Hi everybody. So my name is Hannah Whley. You may have seen a couple of boardings. I've been with the district for about a year working in the grants office. I don't know what my title will be. Currently my title is assistant director of grants development and management. So in former hierarchy, second command to the former director. Uh my background is I have a PhD in rural sociology from Penn State, master's degree, three bachelor's degree. But most importantly, what you're interested in is how much money have I acquired in my lifetime independently before I came to the district about half a million in individual research specific grants. Again, came
070from academia with a horrible posttock position here. Um assuming what I think the cabinet has discussed what Dr. Avery has discussed um the position well the process in the grants offices is going to shift what it's traditionally been like to introduce Shakira Watson who's right here on the far left. Um I've been describing Shakira as my right-hand partner. Everything that I do as now point of contact for grants Shakira is partner with as well. So think of it as this way. In grants we have a pre-awward process and a postawward process. Pre is the writing. It's the identification of the grants. It's contacting potential partners, potential collaborators. Post is budgeting, ensuring compliance, making sure draw downs are submitted to the appropriate people, making sure grants are allocated in the appropriate way. Shakira and I and
071our chief grants accountant, Andrea Brick, who's been with the district quite some time, um, do everything 100% together. So it's difficult to say we have one grant writer position where we all three do it collectively. Now that said for the last year I have been writing the majority of grants the district applied for by myself. However it's important to mention that multiple directors one of which is currently on the cuts list director and student affairs has written a significant amount of grants that the district has received. So again, it's hard to speak directly as to do we have a grant writer. Um I assume it might be me, but the position that I currently have entails much much much more than solely grant writing. So that said, um I feel confident that and we can
072provide you with correct numbers of the current amount of grants that we have. It's approximately $200 million and we have how many grants currently? Um, I currently oversee about 272 grants and I build the budgets for them as well and I collaborate with Nester and as well all the academic uh, executive directors and so forth to build these budgets. So, we have 272 grants approximately $200 million. Um, I can feel confident saying to you right now um, with the opportunities that Shakira and I have presented to Nester, Dr. Avery um and other members of the team um if we are able to expand the department in the ways that we see I can confidently say we could apply for about 35 million to 40 million additional dollars. Now I say apply for policies can change
073RFPs can change but I can confidently say if you give us what we're asking for I can personally ensure that amount will be applied for in addition to the 200 million that we currently have. With that said, um happy to expand in the future or right now on what type of grants we apply for, what's the difference between an entitlement and a competitive grant. Um but know that we apply for absolutely everything that comes across our desk that we possibly can apply for. All right. So, out of the 272 or out of the 200 some odd grants that you say you've applied for, how many of those were not government or state grants or city grants? How many of them were not? Go ahead. Do you have the information in I can go print it
074out right now. Yeah. Um my my guess for the private grants, I can say that with the addition of my position. So again, having just come in this year, we've applied for minimum 45 private grants more than were applied for when I wasn't here. And that's the difference is that when you hire a grant writer or hire a new assistant director, whatever the level is, that person is able to apply for those more competitive supplemental supplemental grants that are not the entitlement federal and state grants. Um, so yeah, I can say minimum 45, but it's definitely higher. And we've also expanded our opportunities for teachers to apply for private grants as well. In the past, everything ran through our department. we typically didn't open the opportunities for teachers to apply, but something that we've done
075different this year is sending out opportunities to principles to then share with the folks in their schools. Um so teachers can independently I you know say this is an idea that I have um and they can go for it with support from our office. So we support the budgeting, we support the writing. Um, that's one of the ways that we tried to be creative and how do we increase the amount of supplement supplemental funding that we're getting um, while keeping up with the entitlement grants that were responsible for. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. And like I said, um, if a specific request is submitted on, we have documented a running tracker of what we apply for, did we get it or not, how much it was, who we collaborated with. We have that for you.
076Great. Is anyone Thank you. any request restructuring for the um policy. We go on to the operating budget. We put up where it says update 256 adopted by FY 26, right? Yeah. FY 256. Yeah, this one. Uh Make it bigger. Uh good evening everyone. Um this is basically the board has practically done most of the work or done most of the work relative to district budget. However, we did take some we made some best guess or best judgment based on this movement we had at the point in time relative to some state revenue mainly certification except for the environment. Board members recall there was a time that the legislators unanimously agreed among themselves and proposed $124 million additional bure but everybody thought it was going to pass but I did make it clear to the
077board that you know was in favor of both bipartisan fies the Republicans and the and the Democrats. However, we get to pass but that's the best tax that would have given the district point district 5.88 million next year in that $124 million imposed excess cost act it ended up not passing. So basically what it means since it did not pass they came up with other alternatives or other funding sources we came in two buckets. One was the $40 million statewide which is repeating the $40 million this year which entitled us again to $1.8 million next year. Then they added another $30 million kind of an addendum and call it special seed month or seed grants which is ER for expansion and development of special education. So it's not really a reimbursement. It's for enhancement and
078development and expansion of special education. So in my view that that money which is uh $2.6 $6 million. We cannot use it. The district cannot use it and should not use it as a re as a reimbursement. Have to develop the program. However, you can use or pay some personnel that you're currently paying for from that program. Other words, you can pay personnel that are currently in our regular payroll, but you have to surely state program management. It doesn't mean that you're going to have to go out there and hire brand new personnel. If you can reallocate the personnel you have, you still just shift the state how what program they're developing. But but again let's go through it. When the board adopted u the last time the board adopted the budget to increase the
079use of internal service fund from 7 million to 9.5 million. That was just a random number that the board member decided to buy on the floor. But you know was a flaw number. But when I went and calculated everything, it ended up that the budget debted that night was had a savings or a surplus of $639,000. So we are still carrying that surplus forward. And that's the surplus you're seeing here. But we have to reverse out the 5.88 million of special education that the board had adopted that is not material. That's what the negative received. We're reversing it. Now we're putting back $667,000 in additional money in alliance. The board had adopted a $10.4 million increase $10.4 million increase in alliance. However, the state final adopted alliance money or adopted alliance allocation was $11 million.
080So that's a $667,000 increase from what the boss had adopted. That's money $667,000 to the good. Then we have to apply back the $1.8 million that the state reinstated they didn't honor the 5.88 million. That's the excess cost reimburse. Then we have to add the sped seed grant of 2.6 624 million which is Bridgeport allocation any I have the calculation they already did the run so I have the run these are the actual indust for next year for Bridgeport district by the time we're done with ins and outs we ended up with the budget would have been $89,000 deficit that's why I decided to increase the attrition from $4.5 million 4 4.589 of doing it either either that or you lay off another person. Just have to tighten our bells and delay recruitment for you
081know food every time. After all, budget is assumption. 89 $89,000 be very honest with you compared to the assumptions we made here pretty nothing with everyone. So um but that's where we ended up. That's what the change is and that's why I call the reconation of what the board had adopted versus what actually happened. This is the verdict. Final verdict obviously about everybody has to. No, I was just saying and the mystery 5 million. Okay. If yes, Madam Chair, relating to $5 million, we did talk to the state technical team, the overseeing supposeding overseeing brickwood. Yes, there's 5 million commission answer your question direct in your is not in board of education the school district does not have control of that money to answer your to answer your to to answer what I've been told
082is the money will come to the school district but you don't deserve the state commissioner decided yeah let me chair yes for clarity for that I did talk to the deputy commissioner probably at four o'clock this afternoon and he and I asked the same question. He told me that they're working on providing clarity to the district and as soon as he gets the clarity for that, he will advise me on that. I have probably next month I have been a meeting with the commissioner and I'm sure she will provide that clarity to me as well. Uh next month we've been meeting we're meeting once a month, you know, to make sure that she has, you know, contact with me regarding the things that's going in the district. She wants a budget this month. Yeah. Yeah.
083But she won't get much clarity till next month. They're still when I was told that they're still working through the legislative language because this is new and they it's the first time they've had the this type of money given to the commissioner to to kind of distribute to the district. uh and and they're still working through those uh leg, you know, those legislative, you know, uh intent of what's supposed to happen with the monies. Uh and so that's where we are right now. That's what I'm So, so that's he said that's that's coming soon. But I get it. I understand where you're coming from. Then I see something that said that the mayor has something to do with the money artificial too. That's that's a whole that's a whole another issue. That's a whole another
084that's a whole another process of tapping into another $5 million for next year and $5 million for the following year. Yes. I I wasn't done then. So I feeding off of what that's where I was going too. Are you telling me that's two separate sums? My understanding is that the commissioner has dollars as well. But it could be it could be a combin because everybody's interpreting it different, right? So that's where the getting confused because my understanding is that the five million involves the mayor and the commission the no and the um the finance advisory commission which is part of the governor's department which I know that the commissioner of the governor votes but the finance advisory commission is not the state department of ed um and So it that's where it gets quite confusing.
085Um, so honestly, if I may honestly the commissioner and pressuring for the board to adopt school district budget based on this information we have the other information over it from that they'reing that we want to everyone pressuring Dr. agree that the board are done the budget based on the information they have which is what we presented the year. The other part of money, the different part of money we will get to it later. The commissioner is pressuring us to make a decision to get rid of our librarians when in fact we may not need to get rid of our librarians or to get rid of our social workers or to get rid of our performance art program or to make our kids walk further when in fact we might not have to do that if
086we actually knew what money was coming in next year that the legislature voted on. doesn't make sense to me. I'm sorry. I I I hear what you're saying, Nester. You're just passing along what you're interpretation or hearing, and I hear you and and I I I I agree with you. That's what I'm getting the sense to. But it's just nonsense. Frankly, why why should we where on on what go what what square of this earth does that make sense that we should tell our librarians sorry tell our social workers or our performance arts program you know go away when in fact we might have the money for something bad enough to have to make those decisions to make those decisions and then a month later be told Oh, you did have money for that. Thank
087you, Madam Chair. I really This situation made me upside down, made me sad, made me angry, made me everything because everybody wouldn't be in shape, but everybody make solution. We have the CO, we got the budget, we got commissioner, we got superintendent, we got the board members, we got everyone, but nobody have done something. They don't need that every make decision as a superintendent. The commissioner want us to do something. The board of this harbor, they want to do do something. We did it. We gave it to them. What else they want? What else they want? And I know they got extra what the cabinet everybody give it to them because you know we have this many people getting lay off. They're stressed. They're depressed. They're in line. They do what I going to stay.
088What am I going to do? Where I'm going? And nobody make a decision. And if bridge for make a decision bridge for the back one but I know that's the nobody know let's say for the record that bridge for g hard for everything what they want we did what they want so nobody can blame for public school and not because it's a state and I can blame I can blame and I can say it that the commission is the one put us there go back and forth like you said that Trevor maybe give go for these people. They don't make sense. Made me, you know, made me upset, made me angry because the people they are here, they worry about the family. They worry about life. They worry. They care about the students. They can
089leave for another long time ago. They don't want to because they care about people for school. They care about our students. They care about parents. It's day, night, seven days. We are working not only the board, the cabinet, you know, Dr. everyone here back and forth. So they don't make sense that they give us go around and around and around but when you make decision Dr. every whatever decision you make and you make stop I was supporting because enough is enough and given that we have these people you know um waiting for us but they cannot blame us because it's hard thank you yeah um get everybody's wait then I'm I'm going to give a reading because we're talking about 5 million and 5 million but section 322 grants and aids support local board of
090education the the commission education shall determine the use of such proceeds not exceeding $5 million not exceeding $5 million. It doesn't say $5 million will be given. And then when you refer to the portion of Bridgeport, you go to section 138 which reads, "No later than September 1st, 2025, the mayor of the city shall submit to the commission a report in writing that includes a plan for corrective actions to ensure the city will not require supplemental education granted aid in future physical use." Just basically an impossible impossible impossible test that they didn't work. Such care plan should not limit to cost containment policies, adjustments to fiscal policies, collaboration with municipalities or regional boards of education, ways to maximize federal funding, identifyation of responsibility. And this is um this language is not withstanding prior to receiving
091any grants and aid pursuant to section 13 and 32. Now realize 32 the last one I just read. So this is referring to the $5 million. We got to jump through those hoops before the commissioner gets to spend up to $5 million of something in of her choosing for our district. So that that I can only read what the legislative legislator wrote between the lines and we can only count on the money that's in our hands. It would be wonderful to have legislators to actually write and understand the legislation they wrote before they vote on it and tie our hands like this because this is unacceptable. And I hope people realize how unacceptable this behavior is. I mean, we've got people deciding what to spend our monies on. And even if it's the year one
092or two, this is non-recurring revenue. So if they decide to put back buses, we may have to cut buses again two years from now. And the second and and how can we not rely on the state? We're in the second year. The ECS is flatfunded at zero zero increase for the second year. We got 10 to12 million in increased cost. So we got to find a way to cut 10 to 12 million in the next fiscal year in order to satisfy in order to satisfy the C. So that we're not going to read 20 20 22 23 million because of the 9.5 internal service fund that's not Thank you. Yes. So even make my point even think and that's even worse. This is especially why we are not in a position to bring back a
093single position at this time until we got clarity on all of this. That's all I got. Madam Chair, again, I've said this before and I'll say it again. Come 2027, this district needs no less than 22 to 24 million in the community. 9.5 of service will not reoccur 12 to 14 million nor increase. You're looking between 22 and $24 million. fiscal year I have funed in 2023 that's for the record I told you the three state technical chain office two days ago said show them the numbers and for all practical go let them know 2027 request is re with 22 to $24 million. It's there and it's not going anywhere. and just really briefly talk about the $5 million and I was intending on saying we need to meet so that we can discuss which
094positions we going to bring back especially the librarians. Um we have a bunch of them here today. Um after this discussion I feel a little bit deflated to be honest with you because it doesn't seem like it'll happen based on fact that we're getting additional funding in. However, we're still going to be at a deficit because of cost of living increases and so on and so forth. But I did want to bring up one thing um which was about public comment today and the necessity of ensuring that that always happens in every of our meetings because we need to make sure that not just our teachers, our staffs, our parents, everyone's voices are heard. we're implementing on their behalfs and we're our decisions impact them. They need to have a voice in these meetings. Um,
095so I'm very deflated with this financial conversation, but I just want to make sure whatever decision happens that we always have a voice and a spot for them to express themselves. Go ahead. And I I people think people they think parents they think is the glorification. It's not us. We're trying to find to the edge because my question and for the record everybody listen where are all this that represent where are the people represent sports? Where are the people they say they care they love this before public school? They care the school and they support the teacher where they are because we do community forum. We do meetings. They know what we want. They know what they need. They know everything. And that made me angry because when it's election time, they kiss kiss your
096butt. Let's put it this way. Sorry. They are there looking for you because they need to vote. But when they we need us right now, disappear. They know who they are. It's not only the board members, you know, we fight for you guys. We fight for our kids. We fight for all the staff. But if they from over there, they don't give it to us. Nothing we can do. So I said the same thing want to say guys. We try best. But I never forget. I always tell always this my sister karma never forget. And less coming soon. And it's time to talk. I'm telling all the parent, it's time to talk. Staff, it's time to talk. You know who they are. You know who you can call. And you know who care about you
097about students. Thank you, Madam Chair. Are there questions on the operating budget? Is there a motion to approve the operating budget? If I may, could you bring up the other screen? Because the board is going to be approving a total appropriation of the money. That's what the number that the board is going to be approving. one single number which when he brings it up uh we try to receive the number that will be a total budget for fiscal year 25 you can see it um if you look on blowing up a little more I'm sorry illegal here. Oh, sorry. Okay. Where you're looking because you've got the document. I can I'll find it on the right there. Look on see. Okay. The second on the right hand side. You got one there. Yeah. Yeah. But
098it won't show on the board. Show the board. It does. It does. Okay. This row here, this is where this is what you're looking at. FY26 proposed budget. This is the where you're looking. What do you want me to see there? I'm going to go through the line items. Um the city the the city the city of Bridgeport allocated $245 million $860,982 to Bridgeport school district in their operating budget in fiscal year 2526 that basically the city gave the board of education $3,125,000 [Music] increase fiscal year 202. That's how much increase the city gave to board of education towards each year. Education cost hearing that $3.1 million increase will keep reoccurring every year. The city must maintain. Then in the state alliance grants, the state alliance grants went up by 11 million. 11085. That's how
099much the state alliance went out including allocations the state alliance grant they have 5% on DEI diversity and equity so that's why you see the negative there the reduction of the city then the $1.8 $8 million in excess cost that we talked about. That's going to reduce expenses because it's a reimbursement. The expenses were budgeted on the gross going to reduce expenses by 1.8 million.862 million. But the other spread grant seed grants you cannot use it as a reimbursement. You have to appropriate it as the project or expense. That's why it's being put there as part of the operating budget allocation that we earmarked specifically for that project. That's when the state is going to want to know or see the program expansion development program established and how we are spending that money to the
100account that we're expensive coming up with initiative of new program. Then we board voted to use $9.5 million of internal service fund. That's pretty much all that's left. Put it that way. So if you add up all those numbers, you will come up to 304,69,933. That is the total appropriation or total budget that the board will end up to as board of education budget for fiscal year 2025. Question. Sure. So one, you confuse me putting numbers in red that are actually It has the same effect. It has $7 expense because you it's a reimbursement is reducing your total expense. Yeah. No, I'm just g I'm not a I'm not a I'm not a so just Yeah. So I followed you what you said. Yeah. So our budget is 304 million. Last year, our budget when
101we voted on it was 309 million. And then when you came in, you reported it had increased to 315 million. Okay. So, I'm stating what I recall now. You can correct me before I go on. You clearly have something to say about that what I just said. Absolutely. I saw your finger go up right away. I know. I know. I was a teacher. You want to school me? Well, if everybody if everybody recall when we started this whole budget process, the entire monetary need, if you look at the next column, the entire monetary need was $348 million. Yeah. To the left. The board I see 3092 over. One column. action. Actually, we're taking the board cut out almost $33 million almost $33 million in cuts already this year. Excellent. Thank you. So, that's what we're
102doing. We did it already. What? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. They're done. But how much did we cut out from at to where I was headed? Mhm. was we made cuts starting in December. Okay. We made actual cuts. Yes. Immediately with your with your help, with your advisement, with your consultation, we made cuts immediately. Mhm. So, I'm seeing I'm looking going back across where I was going. We had a $39 million budget last year, 350,000. And then um I'm seeing 322 million projected. Mhm. Uh so is that the 315? Because initially you came in and said 315 320 322 was projected was projected but look at the actions. That's why I'm so I'm glad I still maintain this current year. Look at the actions that the board took in reducing the gun. So,
103so you're saying that we went um on both the wrong paragraph. I'm glad I did this. So, I guess what I'm asking you is how much did we save already this year? Not what we're not what we're going to budget for next year. How much do we already save this year? For this current fiscal year. Current year. Yes. This current fiscal year. The savings you're getting was moving program into granting the amount of $10 million to the $10 million solution. That's a gap that we took. Sorry, I didn't hear you. How much? 10.1 million where the nutrition center internal reimbursement district for the retirees. That's a million. Then if you recall $983,000 districted the money for the boiler, one of the school boilers. The grant has already reimbursed the district. So that form we fronted
104was part of the project and deficit. Now we got to take the credit here as a reimbursement to reduce the board approved gap closing measure which is positions that board approved. I'll send that in the unemployment cut and everything because it's a very short time frame. the savings you're going to get for that little short time for month 2.1 million because you're not getting the savings for the full year 2.1. However, when you go into next fiscal year, you will that's where you see this 7.9 million. I'm glad I didn't get rid of one million, right? But so how but but this year then you're saying we say 12 million you got you have to go down all the way. There are still some Okay, you just tell me there's still some actions taken by
105the board. Use the deficit. $42 million is your total deficit closing gap this year. Pages see the portfol which is inclusive of the $1.8 $8 million equipment which came in media. Yeah. The actions are outlined line by line this for current fiscal year and next year. Okay. But I'm just saying this fiscal year money can be saved actual money steps we took the board to $42 million in order to bring this budget into bine we started the deficit with 42.458 four five minutes. All these actions the end of the day total portable four five minutes. Yeah. And you have a balance budget. That's why you have a balance budget is assuming all the assumptions work. The same the same scenario the same action we're taking to next week. Well, I I this is this is
106why I do just get irritated starting in January up at the State Department of Ed. I think that we were extraordinarily responsible. I have to admit there's a lot of numbers bl I I think we were extraordinarily responsible and we we we moved as quickly and expeditiously as we could to take take responsible steps to correct the problem. Y and that seems pretty responsive to me. Um so now we're we're we are you know trying to deal with it for the next year or two but that seems like that's a pretty good pretty responsible features of the budget and uh you know it's it's it's sad that we have to look after the next year but it's still we did what we had to do to get ourselves into this position. Um and uh feels
107like they had don't have respect like getting the respect for what we did. So, but thank you, Nester. Mr. I think you make a very bad very very and the thing is that you got people trying to keep the district afloat and we're struggling and people have to understand that we're human. We can only do so much and so we're going to try to keep it up and I think it's important for and the board you guys have done a great job of getting us that $42 million cut which is I hear from many different quarters and I won't elaborate irresponsible earning our money and I look at this and I think well I think language I can't speak at a public and it's Go forward. Huh? I say go forward. No, I won't go
108forward. But it just mean that's just not true. So looking at fiscal year 26, the board proposed budget, there's a $13 million deficit. We're talking about an additional $5 million um in this fiscal year and then next fiscal year. Can we potentially bundle the five and five for 10 and only have a five per year? So you can't combine it for one year. You can't do that. Five flat next year in the bond bill. Yeah. It's just trying to think creatively to, you know, to lessen the impact. To give you some hope, I've already heard state reps talking about a special session. Okay. And it's a special session. We will do our due diligence. make sure. Yeah, we will to make sure because once you see this once if if this is passed tonight when
109you see that in 2027 you we're going to be with that 13 and that nine you're going to be at 22 23 million deficit and the only way you're going to make up that deficit is you're going to cut more people and I think all you have 85% of your budgets is is is the people that work in the district. We can't cut anything else. So I'm just like if I may. Yes. Just for clarity on one board funded I have to consolidate the numbers. What I mean by that is where you let's go to where you have $7 million in the internal internal service fund. I have to modify that number to include the 2.5 million. make it then whatever I have the 2.5 at the bottom I'll just delete that way somebody can
110know the total use of internal service if you have it in four five different places completely available so on the board adopts it I'm going to consolidate it send it to the board to consolidate the version but it's still going to have this so you can start to you want to look at the details of the sequences of How important it could very well do but for my own the way my petition I like to be consolidated hear me several things um First of all, before we take any vote, we got to separate this out and look at this first because these numbers again affect these got to consider this first, which as I stated before is going to take a two3 vote to send any of the votes we already taken out of public
111um one two again we've got about 10.49 49 million in estimated non-G guaranteed best guess spend that may or may not materialize say 50 60% 70% 80% we could always we could fall short by a million or two any anywhere anywhere of these estimates we we could be overestimating we could be underestimated fall on either side it falls on the conservative side but I'm I really don't tend to think so on this budget and things. I think um so that being said in the C grant especially I explicitly asked this question that is to be used for expanded services only and there's penalties if we do not. So we got to tread very very carefully because we got the state watching us. We've got forensic auditors, I'm sure, are tuned in this evening to watch
112how we operate and how we move as a board. Um, see how we're going. Now, we already said we're going to try to use that seed much. We've got to use it outside the operating budget basically for new services that are being added, not already existing services, new services which are not incorporated into the projected expenses. It's only incorporated into the effective revenue. So therefore, that puts us out of balance potentially $2.6 million. If we have to use this money, we can have $2.6 million in expenses and $2.6 million in revenue. So including this as a revenue in the budget in operating budget, but we cannot use it for things in the operating budget. That's about 2.6 million. Now there some things we can probably use it for that we expanded that start in August
113and September find a few things for that but expansion grants with the scrutiny that is not that is on us the explicit knowledge that this is for expanding services and new services it would be foolharding to have this in our budget to count on so I'm basically in my head I'm counting that we try to spend it and they say uhuh you can't do that and they pull it back and then we end up in a hold for the tune to $2.6 million. That's the one end of 4.5 nutrition savings. I don't even know when the last time we've had over $2 million in nutrition savings year year over year since I've been on the board. That seems to be an astronomical amount that seems to be overzealous in my opinion. $2.5 million in special
114education that we are relying on to bring back into the district is dependent upon parents accepting IEP changes and all all this other things. So we can't count on that money. So again, I'm going to reiterate it irresponsible to bring back any positions before we actually know what money is in our hands. I mean because as a board we are responsible for a balanced budget hearing things that we're saying now and people looking back at this meeting having the warnings of potential deficit spending. We as a board are responsible for they don't they don't say they don't say the superintendent is liable for overspending. It's the board of education that is liable for any expenditures and then they can come after doing to recoup any expenditures. that support is us our asset our liability of
115our homes that is that is what we resonate now they never came after us but as the law is written is the board's responsibility to deliver a b balance margin and in my opinion if we don't make our best efforts to not add to the problem we could potentially be held liable not being now if we are to move forward with accepting cuts of budget is a reflection of the values of the budget makers. So today accepting this recommended from the super recommendation from the superintendent to bring back these delay and two administrators on special assignment for six months. Four assistant principles for six months. School counselor for one year session and delay supervisor alternate education for six months. We are saying you only spend money one time. We're saying we value this since we're
116spending this money on that. We value this more than bringing back an entire arts program. We value this more than bringing back four or five school council positions for the entire year. We are saying we value this more than three say three librarians saying we value this more than five or six teachers perhaps that we don't have to access so we can put back in place. We are saying we value this up over everything else. This is why it was imperative for us to meet before now to decide on the board's priorities because priorities reflect the values of the people asking you and my values this does not reflect my values to bring back positions for six more and then be in the same boat where we're short-handed next year anyway. So we can bring
117bring back arts programs for an entire year and have kids benefit have counselors for an entire year and have them benefit exponentially for the whole year and we just we got to make sure we separate this out so we can have separate votes on this. I'm confused about described our need to be fiscally responsible. Um, I'm not restoring any positions because of the speculative nature of this budget. Um, and I understood your points. Um and as you have often pointed out your greater experience than anyone else on this board in creating a budget, though I've certainly sat through uh a lot more the employee side. Um there is that nature and we have that fiscal uh responsibility and I understand your point. Um so you were talking about not restoring physicians um would be irresponsible
118and so uh I I understand and hear that point quite clearly. Um and so um that is something for us to think about and one of the things that I've heard you articulate also clearly is our need to think about what our priorities are that if we did realize some money what it was what it would be that we would want to restore and I understand the need to do that and have thought about that myself suggestion. Um but as I understand this, it seems to have irked you. Um these positions with the exception of the school counselor um as as administrative positions are going to get paid $1,000 less than they would get paid otherwise. And so by bumping them into a teaching position for 6 months um which would be through January, July,
119August, September, November, December, January, uh it's needed. Um saving us $6,000. Um, so for those 6 months, if those people are going to retire, it's not going to get us the arts department of the performing arts department. Um, it's going to get us one, two, three. See, it's two, four, six, uh, seven positions, $7,000. Um, so it's it's not it's not that much money doing one way or the other. So, I just think that we need to like be clear about what we're doing. You may still be opposed to it, but it's not $400,000 and we're not if I understand your first point, we're not in the point of arguing restoring $400,000 for arts. No. Um, you're not recommending that anyone until you leave. So that's what I'm confused about because that suggestion that I
120hear Dr. injury banking is to let those people work for 6 months and save that 6,000 that $7,000 a month whatever it is and not displace those people who are they would displace so far uh I just want to say I agree with Olaf rehiring people about the board priorities. Also, I just want to state on the record, I just have some concerns regarding the bumping rights of the admins. Like, is it a bump into a teacher role or is it a bump in like let's say a principal out of position? Uh because we have to just be aware of it. And so, I agree with the majority of what was said and I don't support um restoring positions given the nature of the budget. Did you want them to answer the bumping question? I
121mean, that would be very helpful given that you're talking about administrative roles and bumping. If someone's in in the administrative role, why would they get bumped down to a teacher when they have bumping rights over principles? It just I mean if that can be explained but I'm still firm with what other members have stated regarding budgetary concerns. You're right Miss Baptist Perezo administrator assignments would be able to bump out principles that they're more senior to and then the principles would potentially bump assistant principles that they're more senior to. assistant principles would go into open teaching positions or if there were none, they'd bump a teacher that has less seniority. Uh for the assistant principal, they would go into teaching positions if available um and they had seniority, but didn't we just get rid of all
122the assistant principal roles for like 18 different buildings? So, what assistant role would they be bumped into? That's almost a facade. I'm sorry you broke up a little bit. I didn't hear that. I'm sorry. We eliminated 18 assistant principal positions. So where would a principal be bumped down to an assistant principal? Well, they would do have the information regarding the number of principal retirees to ensure that none of our new principles are bumped. Um I'm not sure about the number of retirees. uh our new principal would be bumped by these two administrator on special assign on assignments. That's that's a certainty. Yeah. No, thank you for clarification that was just awarded for being an outstanding first year principal. But thank you. You didn't catch that last part you were breaking up. And based on what's
123being said, we just had a principal at one of the last regular meetings awarded for being an outstanding first year principal. And so what I'm hearing with the bumping rights is that we would bump out our awarded principal for these two admin roles that we've already voted to get rid of. And so I'm not doing that. Uh hopefully you can hear me. Um, but I'm not going to do that. Yes, I heard that. And that's you you've uh explained it perfectly. That's exactly what would occur. First of all, I'd like to draw people's attention to single sheet 9, 10, 11, and 12 to the column on the right. in red was four numbers 205 537 which is the loss of six months long-term substitute savings two positions that is more than $1,000 for assistant principles
124$9,00 and and so restored the one school counselor. That's 100% savings because it's for the entire year. And then delay supervisor alternative education 23,350 again for the loss of six month long-term subs savings. Even though they're bumping down, you're going to need less long-term subs and there be a savings that's incorporated into this fac. So in fact, say we don't have $45,000 in actual savings there is not correct. And Should this board prioritize our returns like we should have a long time ago, we could in fact bring back the entirety of the arts program or the entirety of another program or just leave it as is as I suggest right now until the numbers become more stable. So we know what we got until we know what we could afford to bring back until we
125as a board take control of the budget and the future of our city and prioritize what we believe should be brought back first. because we are the ones that have lived here for 20 or 30 years and better and know what our community values. Well, uh, honorable board members, the only thing I can say here is at some point board members have to give the superintendent the managerial authority to run the district in the sense that he knows Administrators who are capable, administrators who are talented, administrators who have good potential fun. Sometimes it takes money to make money in the sense that if you force these administrators out left with not the best of them all they retire fully retired. Now you're going to be going out there start looking for new employee. Good luck
126with what you found. 18 we just laid off in the middle thing that I did want to mention about the delay of these positions. um studied quite a bit on business administration component and the biggest thing that we we have to restabilize central office. We've gotten rid of so many positions. I truly believe if we do not stabilize central office and basically stabilize it to the fact where Dr. Avery is reorganizing the structure. We will not be able to provide the schools the proper resources. So, we can go ahead and vote for all these positions to get eliminated and then not delay the positions. But if someone from a school needs something, who are they going to reach out to? There's no one going to be potentially in these seats. So we have to look
127at these cuts in a holistic manner. We have to look at them. Hey, if we make these cuts, where can we bridge that gap to make sure that the schools still have the the the proper resources. So I just wanted to mention that that it's not just a matter of let's cut here and hopefully we'll we'll balance the budget. You have to look at the full picture. Any further questions? Anybody want a motion? M. Yeah. This this 418,000 is based Oh, I I'm asking I'm looking at you because you're buying that essential number and it's based on um the fact that they all bump down into a position that a long-term sub is working right now. And if they don't, then we're still going to pay for a long-term set. If they don't, we say
128the whole entire salary. If they don't, they leave. If they if they retire, if they retire, you have to replace them. Have to replace those positions they retire from. If you let if you let this this administrator go down and those employees retire six month from now, you have to back from this. That's what I meant and what I say by good luck with what you find going out there to get a new employee. So you're saying we we have a better chance of hiring somebody right hiring somebody right now retain retaining employees retaining high for represented employees that is the key of work but we're retaining them for only six months six months they say that whole whole six months right here because because employees have express intent of retirement Then your new employees
129that are in the role, they end up getting bumped or leaving the district and now you have to hire a brand new person to replace somebody who retired and you already have the principal of the year here. I would caution in on people because our budget got to be balanced with command is not figuring something. The other thing too is that by delaying these positions because you know these people are retiring you can train those people in that so that when this person new person takes over completely the gap the knowledge gap is non-existent they can literally just hit the ground running. Okay, student chair. So these administrator on assignments are not newer employees. They are 20 plus year administrators. When these principles retire, they're going to go right into those positions and we don't
130have to worry about a thing. as opposed to less veteran administrators who might go into these positions. We are by doing this we are picking the best of the best of these professionals. Miss Baptist I just want to say that the the bump first I have a question actually. How long have these administrators been on special assignment and not actually in a school building? They they are in school buildings. They were moved to administrator on assignments. I believe last uh the last superintendent uh changed them to administrator on assignments, but they are in schools acting as APs right now. So, what you're telling me is that they're going to go from an AP and bump out a principal. I'm I'm just confused. No, because the the way the contract works is administrator on assignments are
131what they call a category 2 uh administrator. So, a category 2 administrator is just like a it's on the same level as a principal of a less than 10,000 student school. So, that if they are laid off, they can lay off somebody in their same category, which is a category two, uh who has less seniority than them. I don't know if that did that was that clear. No, but thank you for your explanation. Uh what I will say is that given the nature of the cuts the board has made, we would essentially bump out new principles, decorated principles, but we've already in certain facilities, we've already bumped out the assistant principal, we bumped out the social worker, and we bumped out the counselor. you we essentially this vote for some of the facilities is going
132to bump out the entire administrative office and support staff for children and so it would have devastating impacts on some facilities who've already lost the AP the counselors the librarians and and you have to be very mindful of it is yes you may have been in a role for for a long time, but what's going to be your actual return on investment will potential? Um, but I like I said, I still agree with what was said by fellow board members in terms of not rehiring at this time and I don't support taking the risk of bumping out quality candidates that show potential as well as the potential in this district. Um, what's going on? We we've already made those cuts before we got separate this out. Folks, does this fe this document the first document
133fees to the second document any different ways? No, was adjusted before you focus because we voted affirmatively as a board six 63 54 whatever the vote fell out these position cuts. We're doing what's known as a motion to resend a board vote taken at a prior board meeting and that takes twothirds. None of the rest of this takes a two vote. Budget adoption is a majority. budget cuts are a majority because they've been properly noticed on the on the meeting. And the motion to resend on the bottom part of this page has to come from somebody who voted to make those cuts in the first place. So, so the best the best way to handle it is take the cuts on the top first since that's only going to take a majority and then go
134through the restorations on the bottom which could line by line. It could have an effect. Maybe one gets kept, maybe none get kept, maybe they all get kept. Whatever the outcome of the vote is, we'd have to feed into best document that we can move the chamber. I'm looking at what we voted on in the past. There's not. No, no, we voted to eliminate eight positions. That was the above. No, that was on top. We voted the last budget, we voted to eliminate conditions. Hey, call office position on page three of this one, eight to nine positions. Eliminate a number of good teams. Yeah, you you are correct. That being said, these aren't these are on the table to be rescended. We voted we voted on number 15 on pat and we voted to eliminate
135eight positions. We may not vote to eliminate particular positions voting to eliminate the particular positions by Dr. If anybody can make motions because are you just so you're arguing Joe to be that item 15 only covers the apple part I'm sorry and 15 we have something more terms no he is correct But as we voted on it was we voted to give Dr. Avery a latitude to eliminate 8 to nine additional central office position 14. I could swear we had something more specific. But on other I think we voted on both things and we we voted on position but not an exact proposed on 985 is what 89 position that I put there in aggregate could have been three positions. What was the 500 that's on the item number item number 14 we assigned five
136principal administrators on special assignment C um I'm sorry to ask this again. I don't see it on here. Um, when we eliminated the librarians, what was the total for the librarians that we eliminated? Library was one, $710,000. $1,710,000. Item item number 25 on page three. Is it 25? Item number 25. Gotcha. Okay. No, I found it. Okay. So, 1,710,000 and I I'm just concerned. I I I really want to find some way. the these kids are the majority of our kids are are not reading and you know and and the math levels are just not not good. So, I'm just really concerned about eliminating librarians. Um, and I don't have a solution to that right now. I just want to express that was already voted on. Yeah. And I I know that it was voted
137on. I just wanted to just to mention that that with a district that could barely, you know, with a majority of our kids not reading on their level, I just want to express my concern about the librarians. We just cannot do without them. Um, and that's all I wanted to say. Thank you, Mr. Casmir. I by sharing your concern. So does uh Miss uh Esme said the same thing a moment ago. We have librarians here um at the meeting. It sort of if you look behind me I knew I knew that they were there the whole entire time. I knew that. Okay. I couldn't see they I know what they moved back here just to make sure you could see them. No, I can see them. I knew that they were there as you were
138speaking to make sure that you knew. Um, I wanted to make sure you saw. Um, but uh, if I understand what I need to do, I need to make a motion that we revote. I'm going to ask that we take a recess so I can talk to attorneys to see how we're voting on this. Okay. Make a motion that we take a 10 recess. All in favor? I die. I don't know what this headline was. All right, we're back. Um, we have um Marcus, we have Marcus Estad on to kind of confirm what we're doing. Um, I did have a talk with him. Um, so I don't Do you want to explain what you're saying? I'll give it to you. Want me to explain it? Uh, yes, Mr. Anastasia. Um, part of our agenda is
139including restoring cuts that we have already affirmatively voted as a board majority to make specific cuts to specific positions. up before us right now is those cuts for restoration which in effect is rescending the vote that we took before and according to Robert's rules 35 35 requires two3 vote um couple of quick things I don't have the agenda in front of me does the agenda specific speifically talk about a potent rescending a prior vote. No, sir. Okay. Because if the u item of rescending a prior action was on the agenda, you would only need a simple majority vote. If rescending the prior action was not on the agenda or no prior notice was given to the board to that effect, then you do require a twothirds vote in order to resend a prior action. Okay.
140Thank you. Yes. on the agenda is approval of the fiscal year 2526 operating budget which specific specific go ahead we didn't approve we I mean that could have been in that could have been intended to include this but I don't think that's the type of specific notice that's required I'm looking at I'm looking at the question is did did you approve a budget before we heard we we approved a budget gap deficit. We haven't approved the budget yet. We improved the budget gap deficit. Okay. Occup. Let me clarify. Is more of more like the budget and appropriation committee approving line item changes. Okay. Approving amending the mer proposed budgets. Then at the end they will vote to approve a final total budget appropriation. So what happened here? The board had approved line item amendments or
141position amendments or basically positions to be laid off for cuts. Now those some of those cuts are being asked they're being asked to resend or delay those cuts. Okay. But was there a apart from adopting a budget proposal, was there a separate vote to actually sever those positions? Ah, at a previous meeting. Yes. Yes. Well, then the severing if there was a vote to sever the positions. Oh, yes. and and you're and you're now looking to either reinstate those positions or delay the effective date of severing those positions. I would think you would need to first reconsider the vote to eliminate the positions and then it's back in front of you and you can do whatever you want. But since there does not appear to be specific notice that you would be rescending prior votes
142to lay people off or eliminate their positions. If it's not on the agenda, then I think you need a twothirds vote or you need to put it on a subsequent agenda with notice and then you only need a majority vote. Okay. Consider the previous vote. You can't reconsider unless you voted at the last prior meeting. I don't know. It sounds like this is something that was done a few meetings ago. Therefore, you can't reconsider, but you can resend. Yeah. Okay. I move to resend the vote of June 4th. That's what it is. What it says in the bottom. Oh, no. No. Prior to that, April 28th, right? Okay. All on second. I move to resend the proposed the proposed fiscal year 2526 budget. We need to put a date on we didn't we didn't vote
143on Okay. You voting affirmative if you motion. No. No. No. I'm not going to make motion because I disagree with it. But I'll help you free them. I I I can make it. Okay. Go ahead. So, um I move to resend the vote that was taken for um on April 28th um for the elimination of the administrators on special assignment, four assistant principles, one school counselor and the alternative education to Verizon. Y point of information if I may chair this vote right here is just to get it on the agenda correct to debate consideration. Um I think it that's a good question. Um, that raises an interesting question because for FOI purposes, I think you probably need to take two twothirds votes. One would be to put that item on the agenda for FOI and
144then the second vote would be a twothirds vote to reconsider. And if that passes, I sort of missed that piece and thank you for reminding everyone. I I think there should first be a vote to put the item on the agenda uh for consideration. Take back. I did. Okay. I'll take back my motion. My new motion. Do you want me to make it or you want ahead? My new motion is to I got to stop I have to stop you. I hate I hate to raise another issue. Go ahead. Is this a regular meeting or a special meeting? It's a special meeting. We can't add to the agenda. You cannot add to the agenda at the special meeting. So the only other question would be the only other approach would be if the item of
145the entire budget is sufficient. I don't have the agenda item in front of me. What is the agenda item that you have that you're operating under right now? Of the fiscal year 2526 operating budget. Yes, I missed the very beginning. Approval of the 25 fiscal year 2526 operating budget. Okay, that's a very general proposition and I think these layoffs are part of that budget. So I think um within the context I think you can skip the FOI vote but you still would need a twothirds vote. Somebody would need to have a discussion and and I think you probably already have and say look it as part of this adoption of the budget before we vote on the budget I want to resend this prior action and then I want to amend the budget to reflect
146that. Um, so I think it's within the parameters of the budget process because it's clearly a budget issue. Uh, but you need a two-thirds vote because there's no notice. You need a two-thirds vote to resend and then amend and then amend and then approve as amended if that's the way the vote goes. All right. So, back to my motion. I I move to resend the vote on 428 for the positions of two administrators on special assignment, four assistant principles, one school counselor, and one supervisor of alternative education. Just I'm probably stating the obvious, but that motion needs to be seconded. And then it's debatable. And it's also it's also amendable if somebody wants to amend it to add a different position or delete one. Can you please repeat those positions just one more time, please?
147Yes. Um the two administrators on special assignment, four assistant principles, one counselor position, and one um supervisor of alternative education. I I don't have anything to debate on this right now. Well, has it has it been seconded? It's been seconded. Yes. Yeah. I' I've got a motion to amend motion to replace four allocated positions with the restoration of the art program in its entirety so all our students could enjoy the arts for the entire year. It's eight positions. The I'm sorry. Thank you. The eight positions. Is there a second to that? I'm sorry. Just so I understand. Can you repeat that again about the eight positions? He wants to amend the He wants to amend it to to eliminate the to replace those positions that Dr. recommended with the arts department positions. Thank you. Is
148there a second to his amendment? Just to be clear, that's in lie of not in addition to Dr. Avery's positions. Okay. Yes. See see no second. The original motion is still on the table. Resend. Is there any further debate? Uh yeah. I'd like to make a motion to separate the eight positions out and consider it by launch by line. Each of which would need a two-3 vote. Correct. Um let me just see. Bifurcating the vote. Hold on. He I may give you an added point consider all these was voted all of these were voted on separately in the affirmative originally correct they were voted there was a motion was made 536 they weren't voted on separately original motion was my six on the way home class that that's not accurate. Maybe maybe maybe not because
149it was um what the original the original motion back when we vote on 428 was to what class? I'm sorry. Let me um get a clarifying answer from um Mr. Just to piggy back on that a bit. Since what you're doing right now is rescending the prior vote, you would need to know what the prior vote was. If it was one vote, then you resend it with one vote. If it was six votes, you take six separate votes. It was one vote. Okay. Well, I don't I'll take your word for it. I don't have that, but I I assume you're accurate. So then then I would say it's uh it's one up or down vote to resend And what page is this on the on Mr. Nicole's budget that I have in front of me
150for tonight? Just so I'm following along or is it on here? It's on the the page that um it says list of fiscal year 2526 H9 central office staff to be eliminated for gap deficit closing measures. Can you give me the page number at the bottom of the page? What page number? It's page one, but there's a few page ones. Okay. You know, I'll text it to you. I'm fine. It's one of the attachments that I sent this this evening, but it's in your portal and I sent it this evening. You're going to see it. Oh, got it. You got a two page. You got two page attachment. The next one that we're talking about before, I just sent the email. I sent the email also. You can look at my last email. Oh, the
151email that you sent. Okay. Okay. Email that I sent. So he's just checking on Thank you. The very first attachment in my email. There are two attachments. The very first attachment that has two pages. I sent it to you. I got it. I'm printing it out right now so I could have a hard copy. Thanks, Yes, it is new, but it's been here for a few weeks. Okay. Are were you able to find the pull line by line? Did he answer it? Oh, okay. I'm sorry, Mark. Waiting on second. You're waiting for me. Yeah. Um we we just Yeah, we established it. We voted as a whole. We can't separate it. Okay. If you voted as a whole, then you'd resend as a whole. All right. So, any further debate? Yes. Go ahead, Mr. Solo.
152Yes. Again, again, I would like to reiterate our budget not clear. Have too much money in flux that we don't know if we're going to get bring back these $418,254 in cuts. That is less money we have and more cuts we need to make. Should we not get a balanced budget? Should the state not come through? But there whatever the heck hoops we got to jump through to get that extra 5 million. And again, money can only be spent one time and we're placing the volume on these four these eight positions higher than everywhere else. And we as a board never weighed in and never establish a hierarchy of our values or things to return. And I would like to strongly strongly suggest that the finance committee meet and place on the agenda restoration of
153cuts because these this is our budget. We own this. We go out into the community and we tell people. So if in fact when uh the commissioner says I'm going to allocate these cuts, she has something in front of us that the Bridgeport community has spoken to and then we could have some new way. But if we just sit here until passively until September against the um commissioner says, "Hey, spend it on buses, but we're not giving you the money next year." And then the buses are gone and we're in the same exact position we are next year and we don't get to save the things that we've been with saving. So we definitely So I'm totally opposed to rescending any cuts because our budget is not clear. We are not in balance. We got
154close to $10 million in numbers that are guesstimates and I think it would be irresponsible at this point to move on and I think I'm beating a dead horse at this point. So I stop. I I just want to add I just I want to agree with Miss Mr. Mary Menz who said earlier that this is you know we we we've eliminated so much from admin already that this is just the bare minimum that we can do to keep us afloat in terms of um administrators next year and just as a debate to what you just said you you said we shouldn't be doing this but yet you were going to replace it with the arts department that we would have to eliminate any work. So it's this is a you're saying we don't have
155the money but then go ahead and make a a point vote to put something else in this place. I agree. I agree it's hypocritical but it's also called mitigating the damage. I think it'd be more hurtful to bring back these positions rather than those and it's entirely clear that this board is ready to vote to bring back these positions. So, I was trying to limit the damage to our district because I think bringing back the arts is much more impactful to our students because the arts are already suffering in this district rather than bring back people for six months only to lose them. And my final thing before I pass Mr. Traver is that we would bring these back to defer the the layoff like to defer the the eliminations for six months. We're deferring
156it. Not we're not going to have to restore it later on because we're gonna just defer it at this point. Mr. Traver. Yeah. I I we're we're isolating this discussion. That's the problem I have. Um and it can't be isolated. Uh Dr. Avery sat down and figured out how to change a million $980,000 in savings to $1.43 billion in savings. So he increased the savings from downtown department by a significant amount in reshuffling things here. Um and to his credit that's not should not be uh you know that's a significant savings and reshuffleling reorganizing his department if you will um resulted in another half million almost in savings. Um and in doing that he asked that we allow this latitude for reasons that he's described. Um, and I think we ought to honor that. Um,
157I think that it allows us to not disrupt other things in the in the district in the district. Um, but I don't disagree with you about the arts at all. I had the discussion with Dr. this afternoon when I was in high school. Save Our Sports was the most I mean it happened all over the country. I went to the Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the largest in the country and we were going to eliminate high school sports. That's what we got rid of because we were so broke in the late7s 1971 I graduated. Um that's what we were doing. Eliminating high school sports and I I said to Dr. Avery, why aren't we eliminating some sports and saving arts? Because performing arts are important. I you know I I don't understand that.
158And I I do want to have that at some point discussion about what's the difference between arts and sports. And then and I told them I was triggered by something I saw over the last week about the importance of performing arts. I I completely written things just there's been no discussion about coming back on sports. Uh sports is like de facto. Okay. But performing arts we get rid of. And I I saw something and I thought what's wrong with this picture? So I I agree with that. But this is not that. This is simply an administrative shuffle where he very creatively came up with a way to increase the savings in his department and use that to reshuffle things temporarily and and come back with still more savings than he had initially proposed. So I
159admire that and I support that and so that's the reason for my position. Just a real real quick I agree I agree with Mr. Trey, just one one one point is I I I agree on the reshuffleling in the staff, but the the reason these are happening in a vacuum is because these votes on the bottom were affirmatively made. The votes votes on the top don't require twothirds to resend because we never voted on specific positions. We voted on eight or nine positions and now we're voting to get rid of those positions. So those would take a simple majority. Correct, Mr. Anastas? Yeah. Um, I'm not sure. I'm not sure I understand the question to be honest with you. Um, never mind. We all we all got clarity. Mr. Amst I'm not arguing otherwise. We're
160all I just want to one thing I do want to be clear on though once assuming that this motion passes and you have rescended the prior action since we are taking the position that this is part of a broad discussion of the budget. any one of you can make a motion, a new motion to get to lay off a position or six positions and and a specific date attributed to that position. I'm not sure I fully understand how long these six are coming back for. Is it for instance the whole fiscal year or is it until a certain date? But what takes five months? Okay. Well, once they're back in, I I think somebody needs to make a motion at a minimum that these positions are funded or a part of the budget for six
161months only because every other position in the budget, I'm assuming, is funded for the full fiscal year. So, you want to be clear on that point. Number one, and then and then any member, Mr. Kolovich or anybody else can now make a motion requiring a simple majority to pass it to get rid of any of these individuals six positions or any other position in the budget. Just so I'm not trying to encourage you to do that, but I'm just saying rescending is simply undoing what you did before. And it doesn't sound like because you're rescending it and you're bringing these positions back at a minimum you want to be clear how long they're coming back for. Thank you. And um see so I'll I'll make a motion to amend a motion on the floor to
162delid for a period of to include a period of six months in I may have caused some confusion. I may have caused confusion. You first have to take the vote to resend. Then you can make a motion to limit those positions to be funded for only half the fiscal year. But you got to undo what you did already. All right. So let's I see no further debate on this. Let's take the vote. Roll call. It's going to be a roll call vote. Roll call. Trader. Yes. No. Yes. Professor. Yes. pass Christine that please just for clarification this is to resend to uh get those four administrators. It's two administrator special assignments, four assistant principles, one school counselor and one supervisor of alternative education. Okay, great. No point of information, Madam Chair. Yes. This is to
163resend them being laid off. That was originally passed. Um, wait, wait. Sorry. Say that again. Mr. This is to resend them being laid off as we originally voted in April so that they won't be bumping. Oh gosh. One second. So this vote is we voted in the past to lay them off. Correct? I just need to understand and we're voting to resend that to undo that. That's the vote. That's the main motion right now. Yes. And if we do that, that triggers bumping. No, we do that. Then we're there going to be a another motion to defer their layoffs or defer the defer the Can you say that again? The next the next motion would be a motion to defer their like terminations or layoffs. Okay. So the again point of information six months I
164point of information wait when too many people are talking it's already all right I'll give you Mr. Traver has a point. The the next vote would be on the budget which would include deferring their their uh deferring their their uh terminations the elimination of their positions for six months and which time they would retire and there would be no bumping. Yeah, that's perfect timing. Okay. Um, and so I'm going to vote in favor and I thank you all for your clarification and your patience. Yes. Back to Mender Woodson. Yes. Back to second. Yes. Yes, that one resend it. Mr. Yeah, I'd like to make a motion to approve the superintendent additional cuts 1 through eight. Is there a second? I I have a bunch of clarification. Okay. separate this out. No, this does anybody want
165this? Are we going to vote the whole budget? You can vote on the budget the whole or you can vote his way. We separating him. Why are we separating out clarification? That's his motion. Thank you. I mean this this one doesn't even take two turns to be a simple majority and then it gets incorporated by the vote to support the superintendent decision to eliminate these positions and we own it as part of our budget process and take another budget. Yeah. Including this which would include them as six months. That's the second part. The these are there no six months. There's no time delay on this. There's a vote on the budget of the entire budgeting as recommended by Madam Chair just for clarification this the bottom part 9 through 10 with the exception 9 well
166with the exception of line number 11 that's not 6 months that's a full year that's a full year the school counselor the school counselor let's be clear Yes. All right. So, if there's a second peric motion, we'll take the vote. If not, somebody else you don't want to. Oh, no. I want I want I have a question. Okay. Go ahead. Why is that a year? Um, my understanding is we have to bring that to council. I think it's in BMA BND justice center the law requires it does require the number 11 number 11 school so number 11 is a year yeah the law required we have to have a full sorry it's just that I apologize and just if I might just because I'm catching most of this other than that one position. The document
167that the superintendent Oh, I'm sorry. Uh the document the superintendent has submitted reflects that the other I guess five positions or however many there are are only funded for six months. Is that correct? It does. Yes. Okay. So, you have a question. The motion that Mr. Sakal made it satisfy you, Mr. Sakala, if we vote on this document as it's laid out, right? I I would like to affirm the at least get on the record that I support Dr. Avery's cuts. Not that they're the best in the world and but the situation we got he did a good job coming up with these cuts and I think we should get behind him affirmatively and affirmatively tell him and the community that we support these cousins no matter how disgusting they are. These are the best
168we could do under the circumstances. And I believe after basically knocking knocking his suggestions down five minutes ago, for myself at least, I need to affirmatively say I support this 100% because we need to we need to live within the budget that the governor and the mayor have forced upon us and these cuts because this is the board's budget. We can't I cannot reiterate enough how much this is the board's budget and us taking an affirmative vote on these eight items actually show that we own the budget that we own rather than making all right so you said Mr. of exposion would separate this. So we went to dig another vote too guys. So um any debate on that voting on this no not the just wait just one through eight vote eliminate those position
169that we have to vote no yeah now have to vote on the operating budget. So any further debate so the first this this is just to eliminate one through eight guys. Yes. Eliminate non support to support the what was your motion motion again at this point motion to eliminate what items one through eight as presented by the superintendent. No support said eliminate we are eliminating position to approve approve to approve the recommended eliminations of superintendent by items one through eight as presented. Yes. Are you okay? And we seconded that. We got a second. I'll be second. All in favor? I I hold on. Just so I understand what we're voting on, it's number one through eight, meaning one, the assistant superintendent through the clerical positions. Yes. Thank you. Um, roll call vote, please. Andrew Woodson.
170Traver. Yes. Yes. Paris. Yes. Paris. This is for the first roles including the assistant superintendent, right? Yes. Okay. Yes. How about yes? Passes. And there's other items. Move to approve the uh recommendations 9 through 12. No, we No, we did. We did. No, we could still approve the superintendent's recommendation of items 9 through 12 as written. I'll second it. Any further debate on it? All in favor? I can you clarify what was the motion? Motion to approve the superintendent's recommendation items 9 through 12 on that page. The six months delay the six months delay. Uh items 9, 10, and 12. Six month delay. Item 11 is full year. Full year. And I'm sorry. And your motion is to what? Sorry. To approve it. Okay. I have a question. Go ahead. The for those roles, does
171that impact bumping? No, that's going to that because they are going to stay up to six months. Those people will stay in the positions they're in uh until they retire, which would mean the people who are they would bump won't be bumped. Everybody's bumping. Thank you. Yeah. All right. All in favor? I roll call vote. Andrew Woodson. Yes. Does this sound right? No quick explanation. I don't think our budget was clear enough and we may have to come back and cut another 415 418,250. Jennifer. Yes. Mice. Yes. I abstain. Christina, please. Yes. [Music] Yeah. I move to approve the operating budget as presented tonight and as amended by the previous two motions. Madam Chair, you have to call in the amount you are moving into 304,169,33. That's right. A second. Motion, excuse me, amend to
172specifically add that these are only six months delays. That's it. So is it Mr. Anastasia? Is that sufficient? It says he did say that it's on the dump. It's undoubted. He said that as long as he said he said as amended by the previous motions is that acceptable unless there were other amendments that would be sufficient. Okay. Um Dr. Watson, yes. The trailer, yes. Yes. Reservations. Perez. Yes. Minutes. Yes. Abstain. Dr. Barrett. I'm staying fix to obstain that passes. Um thank you. Um now we have um just some just board and this next item is board um presenting the evaluation you have oh evaluation process of the I'll repeat I'm sorry um discussion of possible action on the evaluation process for the inter superintendent um I I do apologize this was supposed to be in
173portal I I forgot to build my vault so I there's an email for you right now and it's in the portal and I have the polies and I talked with after the last uh board meeting and the recommendation um to referral begin this process. So um I talked with Nick from K to see um if there is a pro since Dr. only been with us for Mark we're all set. I don't know if you want to join us for the rest of it but the Okay. If if you need me, uh, Danielle will send me a call and I'll come back. Otherwise, good luck. Thanks, Mark. Thank you, Mark. Okay. Um, so I talked to Nick and um he is recommending that we follow the the this process where it's um a midyear rout like
174similar to a midyear review since Dr. A hasn't had a full year. We don't we just established some goals. Um and so in this process it'd be a little bit different than last year where last year we numbered we we ranked on a a scale. This would be more of a recommendation we come together and like have a conversation about the questions that we pose here and kind of have a you know talk it out with the superintendent on on if we just what we our thoughts are based on these um questions and then we come up together as a board with his evaluation based on our thoughts. um more of like it would be like more of like a workshop type of situation where we kind of just um kind of work together and
175bring ideas together. I'm but sit in the middle. I know right there but this is this looks like mutually agreed upon between the superintendent and us. So um you know this is just one part of it. Um, you know, there's other we could use the scale we used last year, but I also don't think that would be fair since we haven't really established those goals yet. Um, but that's my opinion. You guys can go ahead, Mr. Holiday. Yeah. Um yeah, no real issue with with a baby evaluation type format, but um I'm just wondering where the state weighs in on our obligation to evaluate the superintendent every year. I mean because it's not a whole year yet for not clear whether this count of the year and those contract has certain language over midyear evaluation
176and end of the year evaluation as well behind on the midyear evaluation. I have no issue doing the media evaluation, but I think it might us to keep in mind because there may be areas that he's excelling in or needs improved with and I think we need to discuss all of those, but keeping in mind that he's only in the sheet for x amount of time and to be um evaluated and quoting these we definitely need to get closed boards and have these conversations somewhat in the executive session. Um, and of course the final documents is going to be public public knowledge. So we got we got to be mindful in doing this that he is a new superintendent in his district and he is picking up from a very bad spot. So that's got
177to be our rating focus. not to conflate the past with the president with the premium or what have you and still give him opportunities for the world where he may or may not be in court. [Music] Well, I was also considering um you know I know Dr. did have a end of the year kind of sum up like you were preparing something for us. So you know you can obviously present that if you know I'll give you more words to I think I know you already said that. So, um, and then we can, you know, like you said, get behind closed doors and and talk it out with Dr. A on it be with Dr. A type of Yeah. suggesting I mean they I know I similarly and others um locked on this notion of
178torturing the boss um um the uh but having a chat I don't think we're behind much um because we really got started in December and it's it's about halfway through the year. So, it's it is a good time to sit down and talk about how we did and it's nice that it's sort of at the end of the school year um to talk about how we're doing. Um so, you're that's what you're suggesting is an informal chat or semiformal chat with informal. That's not a quick word. But um are we doing this form before or after we chat? We would do it together in the room. Yeah, together. And then um I would compile everything that um we talk about. I would put it together in evaluation, send it to you guys, you know, bring
179back to you guys for to make sure I get stuff up. Um and then we move to superintendent. Um so that was like Nick's recommendation. He also could he work with the district on it um specific like and we want him to be involved in that as a facilitator. We can we can use him again. Um you know I don't think it hurts but um that's I would not mind that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I don't mind per se. I just have concerns if we're going to treat this as a midyear evaluation then his end of the year will be December and we have to give him an end of the year evaluation mid year but to be explained with state statute it's not required every a yearly evaluation of the superintendent I mean
180state statute says the board shall evaluate the superintendent every year shall it's not it's not a or now being as we're in the middle of the year. I I like this recommendation, but I believe we should be more formal just so we could Nick's recommendation was that we use the midyear as Avery's evaluation. Not that we do another formal yearly evaluation. We're using because here because he's only been here mid year, so like use this instead of no objections. And then we start the process over. Then the second document or the other document that you have there if you seen this last year is like you have a timeline where you know you know next month we would begin the process of establishment goals and evaluation process and we can work on the timeline and
181uh flush that out. But this right here would be using the midyear as his end of like end of the year about it mutually agreed upon. So Dr. He's like, "No, I want two evaluations." Let me let me kind of clarify something. My my current intram schooling contract has nothing in it about evaluation. You know, it does it does it does. So, I think I think the mid I can I can agree with that. I think it's a good process to be able to go through, you know, as we look through moving forward. I think it's I think it'll work out fine. So, we just need to find a date. Yeah. Um, as far as states for this, um, you know, it's a race like it feels like it's longest already, guys. Um, there I'm
182thinking if we can come together obviously sometime this summer because the school year is over. So, um, you know, July or or early August. Is early August too too far? Too far. You want July? say sometime in July. All right, we could do like mid July. I think that's reasonable. June is over. It's not over. June's halfway through. So, I think it was over. Okay. No, you're right. You're right. So, July, but I know there's there is a board member wave this week. Um and then Dr. AP does have an announce will be away um in the last week of June. So, um so I think maybe early July would be the second week. Maybe the second week of July for sure. Did you do you guys feel like second week of July? Maybe a
183Monday night. There's a week in July. I'm away. Yeah, the week of July 20th. Give up. Give us dates. J. That's what I'll do. I'll send out and then two or three dates and see if they work. Okay. Do we like Monday nights? I know we were doing that for the trainings. I've seen on Monday Wednesday night, right? I I like Monday nights. Um the other So, okay. So, um I guess we could change. We need to take action on this. Take action. It's ready to take action. I don't really think we need to because we're going to We got to agree the format. I move I move to approve the format as you presented it. No second. Okay. So some Monday in July we will have a superintendent evaluation guys. All in favor? Any
184opposed? Any abstensions? Um we have two more guys. Two more guys. Sorry. Two more. Yeah I'm sorry. It was big night. Um I'll go quick. Um the next item discussion approval of a calendar to update board bylaws specifically board member decorum during meetings along with the method of how to respond to members who violate the standards. Also the subcommittee structure this is a calendar. This does not mean we're going to establish this by the start of the school year. This is something that this is over this the course of the next few months we can establish our bylaw a little clearer. Um, you know, I believe Jod in in one of the meetings said that some boards take years to really go through everything. I I know we don't really have years at this point,
185but we definitely don't need to do this like next week. We have to have this, but I think this is something we have to talk about. Um, because it's been such an issue. Um, and so I think I just wanted to bring it out to you that um, you know, by I would say by the beginning of the school year, we'll have this established in the calendar. Um and so uh thoughts on that mad madam chair is this going to be worked on as a committee at a whole is it could be pushed through policy because the policy chair is president at the moment that's that's part of the discussion about it um would you guys like this as a committee like I'm open for this like if we want to push this through policy
186they have a lot of policies to review still yeah I think this could be ad hoc at the committee Yeah, Eliah shared the work being done in the committee. Everybody's welcome to the committee meeting and to be honest the mechanism mechanisms are already there. We just have nothing utilizing them. So I don't think there's going to be a major sweep but there's there's nothing we can do other than throw somebody out of office which would be illegal. Sure. We got anything all we could do our system not enforcing the policies. We got maybe when we do discuss it, we have some affirmative thing that the board signs or whatever have you that's could be discussed. So I I don't think it's heavy as heavy as a lift as and the subcommittee structure is important part
187too because that's something that has been kind of messy. So I know Jod's working on that with us as well. So Mr. Traber. Yeah, that I was looking to get there. Um, that's been an issue for the last two years. Um, as I understand it, but you know, before I got all there was a minor tweak tweet was then a major wedge. We've changed it differently. So, we need clarification about the committee function that needs to be cleaned up. The language could language. So that's actually will be something we want to clean up. So with that I I'll be like ad hoc committee um and so anybody who wants to join that um you're welcome to join that just email me and and we can okay move the table design you want this is national
188item table we can table agree with you. No, we could table it and then you know I was going to say I I think we're better off just cutting out the middle of it. Make it a committee make it a committee of the whole and whoever wants to show up shows up. I'm sure we get five people enough to have a forum on these issues just handle handle them. Okay. because every everybody because any because we're going through a committee or half committee it's got to come before the full board anyway and then we got to debate everything all over again but committee a whole chance to debate and vote skip a step miss. Yeah. So, this is a probably not technically a question, but as I'm speaking with other school districts who are in
189the top five of the state, I'm just wondering how a superintendent like Dr. Avery feels about nine people who don't have his same degree evaluating his work. And I'm not insulting anybody at all. I'm not insulting anybody's intelligence on this board, but one thing that I do think about is how, you know, do people like him that are in districts like this where there's no standard as to the education of the board members that are sitting on the board. It just makes me think about, you know, how he feels about that. That's all. And he doesn't have to answer it at all. That was just a statement actually. It wasn't a question. Miss Cather, we're on the next item. So, um Oh, my bad. I'm sorry. Um, so do you want to table them? Yes.
190Okay. Uh, number nine is to move the table. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right. The last item for this time. Um well then we uh this is an update update on the board of education committee forums. Um per the the the goals that we set um and the recommendation from the state um they are requesting that we have four forums by August 1st and these forums are for board forums on the vision of the district on establishing a vision for the district. Sorry. And so we want to obviously have community input to see what you know um what the community wants because that's important for our vision. Um and so we are going to have four forums in the month of July. Um this will go along
191with a survey that will be sent out by August 1st. Um and that'll be well that'll be out throughout the summer actually to the the community. um for this. I do like the the the approach that and this is just suggestion and um that Chris Horin had shared with us at the um last board training about know really having an interactive forum with um hearing from the community themselves and having at different tables and whatnot um and using a facilitator. So um I I am I am in contact with someone to facilitate this who will do it for free. Um and we're looking at um also holding it. We have to hold them in parts of the district. So the north end, east end, west end, south end. Um so my idea would be to
192use um two days where we do the libraries, two of the libraries, north end and and downtown. That'll cover north and south. And then on the east and west, we can use one of the schools. I would say the libraries there, but they're kind of small. We do get a big turnout. So I talked to uh MS but they haven't program so we have you get a date or you got I'll contact her. Perfect. I'll contact her. Um so yeah so east end. So I don't have location but I'm just throwing out here again. The west the west end we can use one for new schools or other someone. Yeah and that would be a good way to get parents books. So if there's four and we're doing north, south, east, west, you're forgetting all
193of the hollow. Well, I'm not doing downtown. Downtown would be the library downtown. Okay. And that would kind of cover the hollow. Yeah. And the south end. I was thinking, but that regulation is the four um in July before August 1. not just July, but um so um possible dates I was thinking um you know Wednesday and Thursdays and if you guys want to knock them out two week two two in a week that way we're not every week having a meeting um what time evenings so this will be in the evenings to get um the parents involved if we come at the works. Um, what time she's going to probably 6:00 so that we can all be there too. Um, can I also suggest that people send in concerns because there are people there
194for like second and third shifts as well. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we're going to have this experience survey for that too. Okay. Um, so this be specifically for the vision of the district. Um, what what do they want to see in the district? And um, and so the facilitator would need that. Um, you know, I would I would have a conversation with her about it and um and we we'd be there to listen. That's that's the point of the forum is just to hear from the public. Um, you know, they have a vision about the state revital. My vision is my um but that again um if there is if there are weeks that you know you're not going to be in traveling or whatever, send that to me. That way I can arrange some
195times. Um that way we can as much as many of us be there can be there. Um and if you guys I'll send out possible times if two in a week is too much we can spread them out throughout the month. Um you know we don't really have committees in the month. So unless something pops up that's very important. Um and so that that's just a recommendation. Um I'm trying to make sure I said everything I need to say about that. My other ask of the board members um is that like we really do our best to recruit people for this. Um we know the turnout for forums are not the best really. Um we haven't had um a lot of attendance. I know Dr. A has in some of his forums, but especially the
196ones that we had recently Dr. kind of low turnout. So um really in inviting as many people as we can. Um, I like the idea of using this center um and and reaching out. Yeah, we could reach out to our community partners to um see if they um will bring bring out the turnout for us. Um because it's going to be hard to get turnout in July, I think. Um we're going to try. We have to do it. So, I would recommend if the board would know, you know, make a path that everybody would bring every board member bring at least five people to the forum with you. then that will give get you a good amount of people and then we're going to promote help you guys promote it and do all that as
197well. But if you can commit to get five people I think you guys can have five constituents to be able to come to to the meeting and that will help you drive the vision that you really want. So that's a it's a good way. I've seen it done that way before and it was worked out really really well. No, if you just mean why are you liaries? The libraries are um you know the schools favor cleaning school. Yeah, there's a lot of programs going on. I mean there's a lot. That's why I'm asking though is that where you have summer schools, you have lighthouse, where you have lighthouse, you have parents picking up their kids. Where you have parents picking up their kids, you have human beings coming to that building. And so you have
198a greater likelihood that somebody might be educated than what somebody might decide to stick around for a pizza or for something and want to hear and participate in a meeting. Um and so you might increase your term limit. That's a good point. That's a good point. I'm raising I mean and so at the Ralph Taylor Center you have Dunar which has beautiful auditorium you know. Well I don't want to use auditorium. I want to use like cafeteria type setting. Okay. We like nice cafeteria too. Um so I'm just saying that you do have the possibility um Dumbar's worst Dumbar ra and the library have just the parking problem. That's the worst case spot over there is parking and so you know where we can do it that we can you know where I don't know
199where we have summer school this summer but that's where you have the human interaction people taking their kids I'll learn Dr. babies off. Yeah, I'm listen those schools and we can kind of I can help kind of navigate around that train that way audience for 5:00 or 5:30 when they're picking up their kids. Then they might get you know 10 or 12 at the meetings like little the questioner or something. Oh, at the the the that's a good idea at the lighthouse programs and stuff. Yeah, that's true. Even that day that get the kids and tell us what you think. You know, listen, I'm telling you, I know it's hard because they have to eat. That makes sense. The problem with the meetings we tried to do last week was half days. People had gone
200to them. They weren't coming back 5 hours later to a meeting. Um that's just that it was you know, you know, well intentional, bad organizing. And and the question is how do we get people out to meetings? Your idea to bring five people, that's always a good idea. Um but the more you can sort of schedule it when people are getting deemphasized at one end that are offering and I get the time the things that are complement when you do this sort of whole to me you know being there your parents are picking up their kids and saying hey come on in. Yeah. All right folks. So um I will I will follow up an email to everybody on on those three items. Um, so at this point we'll need to adjourn. So move. All
201right. Second, second. All in favor? All right. We're at 10:37. Happy Junth. Happy Juneth.