BOE Meeting 5 13 25

001All right, I'd like to call this meeting of the Canton Board of Education Honor for Tuesday, May 13, 2025. I want to welcome everybody here tonight. Exceptional evening because we have some uh some very honored guests. Our uh CIS students are here. They're going to be getting some awards from their principal, Mr. Croto, is here. So, we're very excited about that. that is actually the highlight of being a board of education member is having this kind of evening. So, thank you and thank you parents for coming out and supporting your children. So, uh with that, we're going to start off with the pledge of allegiance and then we'll get into the meeting. We'll try to get you out of here by 11. Okay, let's go. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States

002of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay. All right. We're going to go to our public comment. So, tonight we have a microphone at the podium. I'd like to remind you that uh public comment is 3 minutes. Uh that's so we can get you out of here by 11 o'clock. So three minutes we ask you to be courteous in your comments and we ask you that you will give your name and your address. So we'll start with the audience. Is there anyone in the audience for public comment tonight? Hi. Sure. You want to come up? Thank you. Sure. That's great. Just name and address. Good evening, members of the Canon Board of Education. My name is Brenda Wilby and I live at

00310 Bristol Drive here in Canton. My husband and I have proudly called Canton our home since 2005. We have three children currently attending Canton High School, a freshman, a junior, and a senior. Our children have had a wonderful experience in the school district, and being a part of Canton High School athletics has played a big role in their growth and success. I'm speaking tonight not only as a parent, but also as a member of the Canton Athletic Booster Club. Recently, the booster club has received numerous requests for repairs and improvements to athletic equipment. Requests that quite frankly should be addressed through town funding. Right now, the high school track and fields teams is one of the largest it's ever been with around 60 student athletes. On top of that, the same track and equipment are

004used by the grown cat Middle School track team. This sheer use puts even more strain on already outdated equipment. One major concern is the timing system. Canton still uses hand timers for races, while other schools have upgraded to fully automatic timing systems known as FAT, which use laser technology to ensure accurate and consistent results. At a recent homonyy, the event lasted six hours, three hours longer than it should have because of the outdated timing system and the high number of participants. Another issue is the condition of the pole vault map. At the start of the season, it's often filled with mice and droppings, and as spring arrives, bees begin to nest underneath it. This is not only unsanitary, but also unsafe for our athletes. As parents, we pay $120 $125 per sport per season for

005our children to participate. The booster cup club supplements this by providing scholarships to graduating seniors, but the responsibility for maintaining and upgrading athletic equipment lies with I respectfully ask the board to consider allocating funds in the upcoming budget to replace and upgrade the track and field equipment at Canton High School. Our student athletes deserve safe, modern, and competitive facilities. Thank you for your time and your consideration. Thank you for your comments. Appreciate it. Hi, I'm Margaret Lynch Drive. Margaret, if you just go a little bit closer to the microphone so they can hear you in the back. Sorry. Supported by member. Um, I'm speaking tonight as a member of the Ken Athletic Roosters Club and a parent who has two high school age daughters who are currently participating in the spring track season. The Brewster

006Club raises most of its funds by recycling at the transfer station, donated bottles and cans throughout the year. According to our mission, those fundraising dollars are mostly meant to provide recognition to athletes throughout the season, special gifts when the teams win championships, and most importantly to provide scholarships to graduating students. Unfortunately, we are getting requests to fix or buy things, items that the athletic director has known about for really a long time that are just not in our budget or our mission. Brenda spoke about some of the ongoing problems with the antiquated timing mechanisms. Um, but there was also a start gun that was very faulty and finally had to have a parent buy a new one for the team. Uh, there's also the scoreboard, uh, which needs serious attention. Funding for the current scoreboard

007was from the class of 1985. Many teams use this item, and it's embarrassing that the visitors cannot see their score. Why hasn't this been fixed with the athletic budget? We all pay to play. Where's all that money going? We also do not have adequate practice equipment for track. Um, on a personal note, I have a daughter that was extremely excited about running in a steeple chase. Canton, however, does not have any obstacles for kids to practice jumping over the steeple chase. Um, so she went into a meet this a really big week this past weekend um, blind. She had no really idea of what jumping over these obstacles would be all all about. and her only opportunity to practice was right before the knee. Um, so she practiced the best she could which led to

008falling, scraping her elbow, knee, shin, you know, tripping over the thing. And when she went to run in the race, she ended up just walking off kind of embarrassed. Um, so, you know, and emotionally kind of a setback cuz now she's calling herself a failure because she didn't finish the race. So, it's really sad that we we can't um have some type of steeple chase thing. I know this has had been complained about in the past as well. Um, as a member of the parks and recreation commission, we did discuss this. Um, we just discuss kind of the quality of our fields and especially the tennis courts. Um, and and kind of discuss it at length, the girls tennis team. Um, and it was evident that the athletic director and the school district knew that

009the tennis courts would not be usable this season months ago. um you know why did we not make any accommodations for those girls to play on a real court before their first match? Money again is collected for them to pay to play. The boosters ended up giving them $600 to rent the court so that they could have the opportunity to practice on a real tennis court before their first match. Um so I echo Brenda. This really is unacceptable. The town is responsible for upkeep, repair, and the equipment that the kids should use. um let's give them the opportunities that they need to be successful in their athletic endeavors. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Anybody else in the audience who like to speak for public comment on any subject topic?

010Okay, hearing none, we'll go online. Anybody online? So, if you're joining us online, you can use that raised hand feature of Zoom and I'll call on you by your Zoom name and you can make public comment. All right. Okay. With that, we'll close out public comment. Thank you for those comments tonight. We appreciate it. Okay. Um, chairman's coin. So, I have several things for the board tonight. Number one is, uh, the Memorial Day parade is coming up on Monday and, uh, Jordan was going to lead the march, but, uh, but now he'll be doing it from a car. Yes. Um, unfortunately, no. Jordan, uh, broke her. Um, but board members, we typically march and pray. Um, we have a banner and we're in front of the band. So, board members coming. Cindy. Okay. I bought

011stuff to throw. Well, count on. Okay. And Russell's not here. So, okay. That's good. I wanted some representation today. Uh tonight I also want you to know there was an insurance committee that's been established and later tonight Jordan will give an update on uh the insurance committee. Uh there's also a bond committee that's been established. The town will be moving towards a bonding package. We heard some things about Mills Pond. Those are the some of the things that'll be in that bonding package. And uh I've appointed Russell Bush to be on that. Russell, they've held their first meeting and Russell will give I think he's online tonight. Russell will give a report on that later. Um I want to make mention to the board that we have coming up now in very short time we

012have promotion ceremonies for uh our sixth graders, our eighth graders and of course we have uh graduation. So I want you to think about that. We will have a meeting before that. We meet on the 3 this uh in June early because of the uh end of the year activities and just a reminder we meet at 5:30 that evening on the 3. Um just a word on the election analysis. So on the election we had a 16% voter turnout. Uh there was quite a uh a movement uh across the town to get voters out and um the election before or the referendum prior the year prior um the percentages were closer to 20% 21%. So, um I don't know if that's indicative of the fact that people feel that the budget is is is fine

013and that we're doing a good job as our elected officials. Uh clearly it won and a win is a win. But um every year it becomes more and more difficult. I think it's incumbent upon the board right from the start of next year and we did that this year beginning in January when we first got the first preliminary budget is to uh extend ourselves out into the community as much as we can and reminding them that uh we need to vote. So next year I'd like to see us drive that 16% back up to the 20%. I think that's important. Um I would also mention that um and we'll have a date on this. I don't know if we have it yet, but uh I know last year we had some conflicting dates. I want

014to make sure that we get as many board members to the board retreat that's going to take place in September. We haven't chosen. Okay. So, by the third, uh if you bring your calendars, I' I'd like to make sure that we can get most of the board there uh on whatever date we choose because the retreat is an important half day of planning uh for the upcoming year. So, that will either be at the end of August or early September. I just remind you of that. And the final thing I wanted to mention is uh and our our student reps aren't here tonight, which is fine uh because of sport activities. But, um Erica has done a wonderful job working with Dr. K uh Dr. Ruth Kidwell in getting our replacement. I won't say who

015it is yet. She'll she'll make that announcement in June. But it will be a time for us to our graduating seniors. it'll be a chance for us to say uh thank you for their two years of service uh to the board of education as we bring on our new members. So uh those are the things that I have for my side. Any questions for the chairman tonight? Okay, we will move on to the superintendent announcements. Dr. G. Thank you, Mr. Daniels. Good to see everyone. This I believe Mrs. Cortto, this is the largest crowd that we've had this year of recognizing students. So, I want to welcome everyone here this evening and congratulate the the families and the students for the outstanding accomplishments that you'll be honored for this evening. Tonight, to the board of

016education and the community, I will be presenting the superintendent's annual report for 2425. And then I also want to congratulate and thank the CAN community for the support and passing the fiscal year 2526 budget. It's been busy. I I haven't been home too much. We've had band concerts, coral concerts, art shows, athletic events. I do want to chime in a little bit on the comments that we heard regarding track. I happen to be at one of those track meets and it was a very long um afternoon and I actually was called by another superintendent of schools that also did share in in the concern regarding a starting gun and uh the timing system. So that that's as recent as last week. So it was the first time that I heard it last week from another

017superintendent of schools, but I also actually witnessed it for myself that it's a long time for our student athletes. Track already is for those of you that don't know, track already is a long athletic event and when you have to run so many heats, it makes it even longer. So thank you for bringing that up and this board and this administration will work on that. I will speak to Mr. to provoke uh tomorrow to discuss that with athletic director. So, thank you. Next week, or actually this week, we have a fantastic art show at CIS. May 21st, we have the college signing for our athletics. I would invite anyone that would want to see our senior athletes that are signing their letter of intent to play for a college team. That will be May 21st

018at 2:45. We have an early release on May 23rd. and our seniors actually have their senior prom on that day. As Mr. Dango said, there's no school memorial day. The 28th at 9:00 a.m. we have a curriculum committee meeting. senior scholarships. It's a wonderful evening is May 29th at 6:30m. And just reminder to the board of education that we will have our final board of education meeting walkthrough at Sherry Brook Primary School on May 30th at 8:30. So I would encourage everyone to attend that meeting. And then finally, I just want to the highlight of the year and something families here should look forward to is our high school graduation is early this year. I believe it's June 6th. Is that so? June 6th. We have a assistant superintendent that has a a child graduating.

019June 6th. I I would invite the whole community to come to that event. It's at 6:30. It's going to be a beautiful day outside on our field. You're wondering how I know that because it it never rains on Ken High School graduation. But I would invite everyone to attend and honor seniors to our board of education members. Claudia will send out some details to you inviting you to that event. I'll take any questions out of the superintendent's office at this time. Any questions for the superintendent? Okay. Um, we move on to the assistant superintendent report to Bishop. Super. Thank you. Um, I I would like to be able to compliment uh Mr. Jeff Mastro, our director of technology. Over this past month, we've been working to be able to refine our uh instructional technology and

020technology strategic plan. We'll be looking forward to bringing that forward to the curriculum and technology committee uh a little bit later this month. Uh but he and his team have done a great job uh embracing future changes and trends in technology and also in the world of artificial intelligence. So well done to Mr. uh Delmaster and his team. Also want to be able to let you all know that we are continuing uh in the the the the wonderful time of standardized testing. Our students and staff are doing a wonderful job um responding to the task ahead of them, but we're looking forward to being able to wrap that up for May and be able to uh engage in our our our great work for our end of the year. But we look forward to being

021able to disagregate and dig into our data and see and celebrate all the great work that we've been able to accomplish this year. And then just wanted to be able to also thank those who were able to join us on April 23rd in a partnership with the Canton Youth Services Bureau. We had the opportunity to be able to share the the the movie Screen Agents and have some dialogue together as a community. Um just so our our community uh knows and can appreciate this as well. We do genuinely want to be able to extend and work with you all. We understand that things are incredibly busy. Um and if there are opportunities for us to be able to bring um other learning and cooperative programs together with y'all, we really do welcome them. But uh

022we appreciate the opportunity for those folks, that small but mighty group to be able to come together and engage in conversation. I'll take any questions out of my office. Any questions for this assistant superintendent? Okay. Hearing none, we move to our business manager, Mrs. Robbins. Uh just just so the board knows we are not doing the student obviously the student reps not being just for the record. No student reports. I did have one question. Are we doing um surveys again at the end of the year? Yes. There'll be a staff survey, a a family survey and a um student survey. So, I didn't know if on that there was any way to ask parents of like um workshops or things that they have interest in or timing a suggestion of timing when things are good

023for families. What is consider? That's good. I'm happy to be able to address that in uh my comments a little later around the culture and climate plans that'll come up as well. questions. Good evening. Um, tonight we're just going to talk briefly about the financial results um for the period ended um April 30th, 2025. Um the um overall forecast for the end of the year is unfavorable by $361,887 which is $51,870 worse than the previous month. General education is forecasted to be favorable at that number. We split it from general education and special education. The general education piece is for casted to be favorable 231,213 which is favorable um 28,636 from the previous month. Special education is forecasted to be unfavorable 593,100 which is 80,506 worse than the previous month. Um Salaries and benefits are

024projected to be um under budget by 144,000 roughly showing a positive change of um $54,000. And we do have some other variances in purchase services, legal services. We had a um couple of repairs uh for the high school. We had a big big plumbing um repair and we also had some elevator repairs. Um and uh that's what contributes to some of the over budget condition in facilities um repairs and maintenance. But we are winding down and uh we have one more full month. That will be the month of May and just a few days in June um to to finish up and um um you know we're looking forward to ending um the year with as accurate um an accounting as we can. Thank you, Mr. Robins. uh Mr. Bush will give comment on that

025when we get to the finance report. So give context to some of the things that Mrs. Robins has just provided. So with that we are going to go to the approval of the uh of the financial report. Can I have a motion to accept the uh the financials provided by the business manager please? As of uh the business financials as of uh April 30th, 2025. Motion Jordan. Thank you. Second. Thank you, Erica. Any any further comments, questions from Mrs. Robin? Hearing none. All those in favor? I Mr. Push. There you go. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Thank you. All right. The highlight of the night. Do you want to introduce Mortto? Sure. So, Mrs. Cortto, the principal of Candon Community School, is going to talk about your children and I believe we

026have a couple middle school students that are here this evening that were not able to be here at our last meeting. I want to let families know that you have plenty of opportunity to take pictures after with the the board. If you're if you're close enough to be able to take a a picture there, that's fine. But I promise you, you'll get a a picture after. Mrs. Cortto. Okay. Thank you. We are going to start with the middle school students. So, I'd like to call up Tess Hartley and Julia Greenlaw. All right. Canton has a long and prestigious history of supporting music and having exceptional musical talents. This year, we were once again named one of the best communities for music education. This highlights the talent pool here is deep. And from this pool, Tess

027Hartley and Juliet Greenlaw have shown themselves to be among the best. This spring, Tess and Juliet performed as part of the Northern Region Music Festival. And to get there, they had to learn, rehearse, and perfect a complicated musical piece and then audition. Only the highest caliber young musicians are then invited to participate. Tess and Juliet were selected through that rigorous process. They were obviously dedicated and have dedicated a tremendous amount of time to honoring their skills and their selection to the Northern Region Music Festival is a testament to that hard work. They are among the best of the best. They should be very proud of themselves. For selection to the excellence in the treble choir at the Northern Region Music Festival, we are proud to recognize Tess Hartley, who I don't believe is here tonight.

028and her selection to an excellence in the band on clarinet at the Northern Region Music Festival. We're proud to recognize Juliet. [Applause] All right, moving on to our CIS students. We will start with Finn McGee. Finn McGee is being celebrated for his role in advisory. As a sixth grader, Finn helps to create a fun and welcoming environment for our group, says his advice or his adviser. Ben continuously helps foster our conversations while encouraging others to share their ideas through laughter. Then I'm told that the blue monkeys will miss you next school year. Congratulations to [Applause] them. All right. Congratulations to fifth grader Cameron. Cameron won the Connecticut Fire Prevention Poster Contest for all of Cam. Congratulations, [Applause] Cameron. I'd like to call up Olivia Corey and Finn McGee. Congratulations to sixth graders Olivia Corey and

029Finn McGee for their strengths in the visual arts, citizenship, and cooperative skills. Olivia and Finn were honored at the Connecticut Association of Schools 25th annual Elementary Celebration of the Arts this past February. [Applause] calling up Samantha Lee. Samantha is always a willing participant in class activities. She does a great job of balancing effort, competitiveness, and teamwork. She plays the rules by the She plays by the rules of the game and her actions encourage others in class to do so. Samantha receives our sportsmanship [Applause] award. Chloe Charles. Chloe is an outstanding participant in social emotional learning class. She consistently demonstrates active listening, empathy, and respect for others. You can always count on Khloe to raise her hand and contribute thoughtful insights to class discussions. She's a true role model, embodying the values of SEAL and inspiring

030her peers to do the same. Keep up the great work, [Applause] Chloe. I'm not sure if I saw Joelle Wilson sneak in, but I'd select to celebrate Joelle. Joel's being celebrated for his outstanding participation in fifth grade. He's consistently engaging in classroom discussions and works well in our part, whether it be in a partner or in a group. Joel's respectful and shows his classroom community how to be role models during that specials. So, Joel, at this point, I'd like to call up all of our future problem solvers team. There's many board is familiar with this group. Sixth grade ACT students took the year to study the future problem solving sixstep method. Their teams completed practice problems and then worked to qualify for the state competition in January. CIS had three teams that were invited to

031attend the Connecticut Future Problem Solving State Bowl. And of those three teams, one of the teams placed second in their division at the global issues problem solving competition. So they all made us very proud. Congratulations to you all. Congratulations, Ben. Elsa. done. Thanks. Okay, next I would like to call up Cassand and Nicholas Collins. Tessa and Nicholas will be receiving our outstanding beginner musicians awards. Tessa and Nicholas both had exceptional years as beginning fourth grade band students in addition to excelling every week as leaders in their own cohort of students. They progressed well beyond their grade level expectations. Only four months removed from the day when they first opened their cases and made their first noises in band, they successfully accepted the challenge of performing the national anthem with the sixth grade band at the

032XL Center in Harvard. Tessa and Nicholas appear to be destined for many great musical experiences in their future in Canon schools and beyond. Congratulations to them. Wyatt Jimbo. Wyatt has done an outstanding job on the trombone in instrumental music this year as a student with excellent character traits, a strong desire to help others, and a great passion for music, leads by example, and is a tremendous role model for all of his peers. Congratulations, Wyatt. [Applause] And lastly, we are pleased to present two special memorial awards to two very deserving individuals, the Jamie L. Cannon and the Margaret Johnson Memorial Awards. Each year, these awards are given to two sixth grade students. And given such a stellar group of students that we have, it was not easy for our core special education and special areas teachers

033to decide upon the recipient of these awards. The first award that I'll be giving out is in memory of Margaret Johnson. This award goes to a student who exemplifies outstanding citizenship and character and who's a conscientious worker in all academic and unified arts areas and who demonstrates appropriate conduct and a positive attitude. I'm pleased to announce that this year's recipient of the Margaret Johnson Memorial Award is Wyatt Jambo. [Applause] And our final award of this evening is given in memory of Jamie El Cannan to a student who best exemplifies all-around qualities of excellence. The areas of excellence demonstrated by Jamie Elcannon were academic learning, music, art, personality, sportsmanship, and citizenship. I'm pleased to announce that this year the recipient of the Jamie Elcan All-American Award is Eden Dantis. [Applause] [Music] Those are all of our

034awards. Thank you. Thank you very much. So, so I I just want to say we're going to take pictures in two minutes, but you know, we just went through a difficult budget time and sometimes that can be divisive to um to a community. But when we get together for these types of things to honor our children, to see what you parents are doing with your children, um is just a wonderful thing. And we have to remember that. And when we put these budgets together, it's always with the kids in mind and how we can move it forward and how we can make a better community here in Canada. So, I just want to congratulate our students, but I also want to congratulate the parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles for the way that you

035are raising your children. You're helping us on the board. So, thank you very much tonight. Now, if you'd all like to get a group picture, we're going to go over to that. I got to do my little tip. All right. We're going to the the superintendent has an idea. Yeah. So, there's a lot of you. So, let's do the future problems first and then I'll call the next group if I haven't memorized. Yeah, that's new. [Music] breakfast. [Music] I want [Music] to kill your heart. [Music] Congratulations. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Our memorial. firefighters. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Everybody else right [Music] [Applause] Yeah, here. Good job. Congratulations. Congratulations. [Music] I may not record it. [Music] I remember [Music] [Applause] [Music] All right. [Music] I know my name, You know, I almost wish that we did

036you first with the continuous improvement because I think it's important for parents. It's kind of a report card that you would think that they'd want to hear, right? So maybe next year we we'll reverse the order a little bit. They're all going to fall, but we do have to say so important. You're on. All right. Thank you. Um well this is in continuation from your visit last week to CIS as I share then we started this year by celebrating our growth um and the successes from the previous years. We took the time back in the fall to memorialize our successful practices and we began taking steps to continue that trajectory. We created a thoughtful continuous improvement plan that prioritized three focus areas. broadening our repertoire to include high leverage teaching strategies to create consistency in

037instructional quality across and within classrooms and to create a safe and welcoming school environment for our students and their support persons. I'm proud to share that through the action steps laid out in our continuous improvement plan, we've made gains in service of all six of our goals. Our academic shows that as of our winter benchmarking and recent curricular assessments, we continue on the trajectory that was so positive for us at the end of last year. We spent time exploring that data at our recent meeting last week and through our classroom walkthroughs together. I'm confident that you saw evidence of our growth and the high lever practices that were focus of our professional learning this year. So as we close considering the work that we did together last week looking at that data and the walk

038through I open it to the board for any questions that you might have. Any questions? It was an impressive uh I know not everybody should make these meetings, but it was very impressive. And the growth that's going on at CIS is just uh is wonderful. And I know Rebecca's reminded us that and some of the other principles because we've had an extraordinary year. We're not going to be able to, you know, stay like this, but we will be able to be more like this. So, um any questions? Is Russ on? Does Russ have a question for I do not have any questions. So, thank you. So, again, thank you for the hospitality. Thank you for putting helping us put this together. You have a great bunch of kids. Yeah, we do. We'll stay at Thank

039you. Thanks for Okay, this takes us to our strategic our strategic plan board number six. This will close it out to us, which is good. um because at the um at the upcoming convocation end of the year, I'd like to share with the uh teachers and the staff that the board has completed uh its rework of our our mission and goals and uh I think that'll be important. So, we'll go about this the same way that we have in the past. Um you know, we've made some great progress with your comments. I know that Claudia's got this out a little bit early. I've I've taken the um the u Felicia Jordan approach to this in advance. This I I really read it and made some changes on my own. So you're not alone. Apart Cindy.

040Cindy's giving some great comments, too. So let's just go with a Well, we'll start off with the opening statement. Continuously invest in the development of skilled staff through hiring, retention, and development in order to promote continuous growth. I please so it has the word development twice. Yeah. Uh also the second use of development retention and development I I don't know what is being developed there and maybe it means professional development I'm not sure but having development in there two times I think I agree. So I I took a whack in this go first. No you go first. I took I I said continuously invest in attracting, retaining, and developing a highly skilled workforce to foster long-term organizational excellence and sustain growth. Yeah, I tried that. I like it. All right. Does that fit? So, can

041you I gave it to her already. I got it. I just want to say that that recommendation is we're now changing a board, right? So that's fine because we're creating a new strategic plan. So that's absolutely fine to change the goal. So we'll train, but we'll work with administrators to know that that goal will be different than it was just written different. It sounds like it's saying the same thing. It's a little bit it's enhanced. It says in continuency invest in attracting, retaining, and developing a highly skilled workforce to foster long-term organizational excellence and sustain growth. The only word that's throwing me off is organizational. That's fine. And organizational to me speaks more to like a corporate organization. I I don't know. That's my opinion. Maybe like district excellence or long-term district excellence. I don't

042I don't know. Or I don't know. That's my opinion. It sounds more like it's just about the attractive, not so much about the educ the development developmental their skill sets. Or could you mention something about their professional development? I have one, but it's a little bit shorter. I don't know. Yeah, please. Um, continuously enhance staff quality through strategic hiring, professional growth, and retention to foster ongoing improvement. Can you say it one more time? Sorry. Continuously enhance staff quality through strategic hiring, professional growth, and retention to foster ongoing improvement. Instead of improvement, can we say development at the end or I don't know. I like that though. It's hard. You can find yours and lose. Yeah. The sentiment of both the one we need to visual. I'm a visual learner. I I think I think we're

043saying the same thing. We're trying to word. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, what was the word organization? I just organizational excellence. So I took uh in developing highly a highly skilled workforce to foster long-term here's where it is organizational excellence and sustained growth. I think we're all district instead of organization. Yeah. I like excellence in there or professional excellence. Yeah. foster room for professional excellence and sustain that because this is about their profession as I like professional professional that's still all right so professional we agree with that then so it would read this way then continuously invest in attracting retaining and developing a highly skilled workforce to foster long-term professional excellence and sustained growth Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Okay. One down. In the professional excellence will cover what I was saying because in professional

044excellence you should be getting training development and workshops. Okay. Good. Okay. So, we have new board six. Okay. So, uh priorities continue to implement a rigorous and inclusive hiring process to attract highly qualified candidates. I was just I was just going to add um who at the end when it was highly qualified candidates um who aligned with our mission and values that's why I added we don't really have a mission with the vision of the graduate with our vision and values. Did we get rid of the mission? We are because we have a vision for graduate. Well, we do have a mission state, don't we? We have vision. We used to have mission. Correct. And now we just have gold or we can leave it off. Any I I was just curious about whether or

045not that came up later in in one of these other priorities. You mean the way you describe? Yeah. That's the only reason why I'm hesitating. In order to be qualified, they should align with it. That's one of the qualifications, right? You're saying you're just saying that they support our our philosophy, our Yeah. They have to match, right? I mean, I you know, I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with adding it, but it is kind of implied like him is saying, "Well, I'm in the west, but like just in some ways maybe is it implied? I don't want to be over the top. I I think if you're put less is always best and I think if you're going to put vision of the graduate there vision you're have to put it in a lot.

046So let's just go with well I'm fine. We continue to implement a rigorous and inclusive hiring process to attract highly qualified candidates and the qualified company. You don't have to change every well like that's the that's the overall goal and then when you're on the when you're on the hiring committee that is your job to become to know what the highly qualified skills you're looking for. Otherwise we get into the weeds if we start putting Yeah. They would be deemed qualified by being able to have the vision for the graduate. Everybody good with that? Keep it short. So, let's go to C. I'm sorry. Develop partnerships with universities, colleges, and teacher preparation programs to create a pipeline of talented educators. Do we not have anything like that today? not to a level that we need

047to. Okay. Right. Okay. Yeah. So then I think that that's great. I I I was going to add the word sustainable. Yeah. Yep. solution. Um I mean it's pretty similar to what what's there but I have forg partnerships with higher education institutions to build robust educator pipeline. I I like that better than having to call out university colleges and put higher educ if you can say that. Forge partners sorry forge partnerships and higher education institutions to build a robust educator pipeline. Yeah, you can add forge strategic partnerships. I do like the word sustain sustainable as well because it's not just created. So if we could add the sustainable pipeline to Felicia's I think so you want to read it one more time for please read again. Yeah with you say sustainable before we're just going

048to keep sustainable pipeline. Yes. forge partnerships with higher education institutions to build a robust sustainable educator pipeline. Robust and sustainable probably that and robustly sustainable. No. Um how robust sustainable robust and sustainable I think robust and sustainable. Those are two very different things. Yeah. robust and sustainable. I think the teacher preparation programs might still want to be in there, right? I was just thinking the same thing. Although I don't know if we've ever hired anybody through like the ARC program. Okay. We have I think the hire um I think how Felicia should definitive arc teacher preparation everything's inclusive of it. Okay. So forge partnerships with higher education institutions and teacher preparation programs. No teacher after institutions to build a robust educator pipeline. Unless we added another word robust and sustainable educator and sustainable educator pipeline.

049Yeah. Vigorous. I think so. Yeah. We're getting rid of of talent and diversific. Okay, here we go. Uh C, refine comprehensive onboarding programs to support new staff through a smooth integration into district practices and culture. I I I didn't like school, so I I I added We can debate this um onboarding programs to ensure new staff are effectively supported and seamlessly integrated into the district's practices, expectations, and culture. Yeah, I don't like I like that one. What was the other one? So it's refine and just starts off the same way. Refine and enhance comprehensive onboarding programs to ensure new staff are effectively supported and seamlessly integrated into the district's practices, expectations, and culture. Yeah. Yeah. I like that, too. All right. So, no hearing. No, you got one. I have one. Okay. No, let's hear.

050Yeah, maybe we like it better. Or we could combine utilize data driven recruitment strategies to address staffing needs effectively. Say it one more time. Utilize data-driven recruitment strategies to address staffing needs effectively. That's an important one. Well, the data driven part is is new. So what does that mean? What happened? Well, the data driven part is new. So, what does that what does that mean exactly? Like what what data data driven? Well, that's what we have. That's what we're the original one was use that urban recruitment strategies to identify and address gaps. That was from that that wasn't the administrators changed the data driven. I came up with that this one. Apparently, yeah, you're okay then. Okay. All right. Let's go to uh continue to offer ongoing highquality professional development tailored to the needs of

051the staff at all career stages. I don't there's any needs changes for that. It's pretty any any comments? Okay. No, I'm just glad that's in there. Yeah. Let's Let's go to E. Expand opportunities for incentives in support of staff pursuing advanced degrees or certification. I put specialized credentials instead of certificates, but I don't know you folks in education know better. What did you call it? I I called it certifications. I know I'm sorry. I called it um credentials probably a certification. Specialized credentials I put versus and if it's you're probably right. I just again sometimes it's certification, sometimes it's credentials. So and and and micro batching is becoming an increasingly larger thing. So if you have something that is a broader bucket that is encouraging people to go in that direction. So we're good as

052it sits. Good. All right. Uh F uh review and refine recognition programs to celebrate staff achievements and contributions. I think that's pretty basic, right? It sounds like we're not doing it well, right? So we're having to start a new track which we may not be doing well. I need to do that. Then instead of refine, we could put enhance review and enhance recognition programs to celebrate staff. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds more like it's being done. G provide competitive salaries benefits to attract and retain high performing staff. I like the sound. You like the sound? Yeah. All right. And H, establish opportunities for staff to assume leadership roles and engage in professional development that builds their capacity for future advancement. Yeah, that's continues to build. Say that again. Say that again. in there continues to build.

053So everything that continues continues to build their capacity for that continues to build your capacity for future development. That continues to build you. Yeah. Anything more on board six on board six development? All right. Good job. Talk about process a little bit. Makes sense. Yep. Okay. Great. So we've gone through them all. Congratulations. That is a lot of work that we've done since last summer. The goal will be Claudia will send you pretty much a final draft next week. Um, knowing Claudia, she may get it to on Friday um because she's up to date. We did add the one thing uh that Mr. Shler mentioned about digital citizenship that is in there. We put that in there. Now, what did we put that under? Belonging. Yeah. running environment. So we want to look that in.

054Yes. Y one thought that I do when you're done. Okay. um with the goal of bringing this to the board, you basically have first reads and with you providing feedback from next week over the course of two weeks with a hope I think the board chair said with the hope of approving the strategic plan at the June meeting so the administration could prepare for the year next year with 5year strategic plan. The the thing that will be important is I know we're starting that meeting at 5:30 because we have athletics uh award ceremony and I know there's some of you that are possibly going on a field trip. What we will try to do is put this at the end of the meeting for those of you that may be getting on a a bus

055and doing it virtually. that we'll do the vote towards the end of the meeting um to see if if he got any closer to to canon. Um but that's where I think we are Mr. J was that if we're trying to approve this, you you'll have a pretty good final draft next week with all the feedback that you had and over the two weeks we can send this out with any changes that have been mentioned to a client. We also talked about potentially sharing this application. Correct. If if it's approved, you'll be able to share this at the closing ceremony with staff, sharing that the work that you did in general sharing that the board, but and then in the fall, we really hit the the staff with the strategic plan. Everybody good with that?

056And you were on the June 3rd. Yeah. Everybody okay? Yeah. I just just one comment on revising. Um, I could be wrong. It's just my opinion. Um, the word continue. Which one? Well, it's throughout the whole document. Oh, I'm looking at even the old stuff. I feel like the word continue shouldn't even be in there. It should just be offer ongoing, develop, uh, provide. Like continue should be like a document like this. You want to at least as little, you know, not worrying the more you get right to the objective. It's kind of like with students, you don't put on the the the dry erase board. Continue to identify algebraic whatever. It's like no, this is what you need to do because continue should be like either either implied or we had we had this

057discussion if you remember when Mr. Sher brought that that up. if are we doing it? Are we not doing it? We we did take it off quite a bit. We changed continue to maintain. We changed continue to provide like when on on D it would instead of saying continue to offer it would just be offer ongoing highquality professional development. I thought we said provide ongoing high quality. I thought we chances to provide we keep the word continue in there and and a like I don't think the word continue is necessary any I thought maintain well I mean so the nature of goal is something that you you haven't reached it yet so just do it anyway right so but but I mean it's I don't know I mean it depends on which goal we're talking

058about I mean you know maybe some Some of these were, you know, well, all of them we are doing to some extent, but some of them, you know, maybe we're doing better than than others. Um, but if that was the case, so here's my recommendation. Let's take a look at the the draft when it comes out. You'll have another whack at this on the third. If there's areas that you want in a word, Smith something, let's Why don't you sketch it for for the final draft for the final print? Right. Yeah. We'll send it out and then take a look at everything. You'll have two hours on two. It's just continuous. So in like even looking at so repetitive and so redundant and it's not necessary. It's like an extra word before before your objective

059and your goal. But well what we'll do is Claudia will send out next week everything that you already approved that the hard work has been done. Yeah. that she'll send it out and she'll say I want that she wants feedback within a week and then get all the feedback and then she'll send it out again with the feedback that you receive. So when you're coming on June 3rd, you're not looking at something for the first time. So the the key thing will be doing the work outside of the meeting based upon the feedback that we already any changes that you get. She's asking a red line though. Well, and I think the most important thing whether or not we keep continuing there or not is that there's like consistency in the nuances of whatever language

060we're using. Okay. Good. All right. Thank you for that. Okay. Superintendent report. Thank you, Mr. Daniels. So each year the the superintendent at the the first meeting of the year sets the the the superintendent goals and I did the same thing in the beginning of the year and and we had a variety of goals that lined up with each of the board goals. So what's been important since I've arrived is to make sure that the superintendent goals align with the board goals. the the the principal continuous improvement plans align with the superintendent goals. The teacher goals align with the principal goals and and then believe it or not, our student goals are aligning with the board goals. So, I'm I'm very pleased with the work that we've done. If I start off in the area

061of student growth and achievement and we did send you this uh last week in in your packet, the continuous improvement plans are are really guiding our our work with the focus on student performance data and we saw a tremendous amount of growth this year in a lot of pocket pocket areas. Also knowing that we have some work to do in other areas. Each school developed their own profile for experimental learning through looking at different field trips that align with the the curriculum and and school visits to expand their portfolio. Kent Middle School has successfully navigated through the commissioner's network three-year plan and the the school displayed an incredible improvement in the next generation accountability report ranking as you know as the highest performing middle school in the Farmington Valley. The district continues to utilize data

062to provide global and discrete utilizations of screeners to make sure that each one of our students are growing. We started learning walks this year which we had previously in 10 years back we had learning walks. The goal will be to expand those learning walks across the district but also include you if you like in in the learning walks because they're instructional learning walks. Instructional leaders have uh met regularly with Mr. uh Bishop to talk about instructional practices. One of the heavy lifts this year was really looking at and I commend the curriculum committee and Mr. Bishop and his team looking at the new reading curriculum for Cherbrook Primary School that is doing a soft launch this year which will really set us apart from other districts that will just be starting next year. And then

063our MTSS teams, which really looks at students that are are struggling learners in and helping them really align with our strategic supports in partnership and community engagement. I do have to commend the board to for really looking at this strategic plan and taking it seriously the process that through a series of workshops, presentations, input, significant progress has been made and I'm excited to see um the opportunity to uh implement this plan. it it's something that was missing when I arrived from the to the back to the can public schools that there wasn't a strategic plan for approximately four years. So to be able to have a plan under this leadership that we're going to implement in in fiscal year 25 26 is exciting for the next five years. It really will set the course whether

064you're on the board of education or not. You will be part of that board that set the strategic plan for the next 5 years with the goal being when that plan is about to expire that we don't just let it expire. Hell, we have really set a foundation. We've also this spring it it was very sad for me to come back to notice that we have not had a Kent High School Hall of Fame induction ceremony for at least four or five years. That is something that should be ongoing. Whether someone leaves or not and whether we have CO or not, we should have still had an induction ceremony. So, we're bringing that back with the hope of inducting members into the qual in the fall. The board of ed has done under Mr. Bishop's

065leadership a phenomenal job on policies and I thank Mr. Shelder and his committee for really adopting Shipman's policies. I think it makes the work easier and aligned uh with our our attorneys and what our attorneys are trying to do with us. The the communication we still need to and I'm glad we are having a board of education goal that is really going to be looking at communication and I've charged Mr. Bishop with really developing and bringing back a communication plan that we've had in in the past to bring that back, but we're doing the best that we can with surveys, weekly communication, attendance at meetings. I'm really proud that a a group of us were chosen to present to Cape Conference on building strong relationships for school safety, financial sustainability, and efficient operations. I got

066to commend this board because this is not easy. We we spend the entire year developing our budget and looking at our budget. And I I think we need to even get that out more that we do spend this much time and we really forecast out and we do look at our capital planning, our small capital, our large capital. And I believe that we're we're this board is leading the way in in how we need to look at finances across the the the town, the business office. Mrs. Robbins, I I feel very fortunate to have Mrs. Robbins as the business manager. One of the best hires that I made since I've come back to Ken was Mrs. Robbins. um because without her, I I wouldn't be able to really focus on what we need to do

067as a the district at large, I'd be really focusing on uh the the finances and and she's just taken that and really brought it to a level which we need to get to and I know it's going to get even better. I I've recently begun meeting with local businesses and community organizations to talk to them about helping with sponsorships of events and really understanding how they could get involved in our schools and helping us from a financial standpoint. working with our chief, our new chief administrator officer, Mark Penny, who it has been wonderful to work with, very very supportive of of the schools. The the combination of bringing our accountants payable back and our payroll back and now our benefits coordinator uh back to the school has really allowed us to make sure that our

068operations are running at a very smooth. the the business manager has done a wonderful job facilitating all state grants. I believe we managed fiscal year 2425 budget really really well. As you know, tonight we're $361,000 in the red and that's completely attributed to what we've been talking about since last summer of new students that have come in to our district that uh required special education services. I I I have to mention and commend this board of education that our the our budget book was nominated as the the one of the best as the best budget book in the state of Connecticut for schools and district districts our size for last year. So I got to commend the board on that and I got to congratulate uh Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Mr. Bishop and Kira for

069being honored as one of the Bonnie B. Carney Award of Excellence for Educational Communication for our newsletter. And I do got to commend the board and Mr. Daniels for his leadership on successfully negotiating contracts with our administration, our secretarial secretarial which we'll talk about tonight and our custodian learning environment and belonging. We continue to really work hard on the mental health services of our students and promoting counseling services and social emotional learning programs. This year for the first time I created a superintendent advisory council that I met with uh primarily ninth and tth graders because I know that they'll be back next year talking to them of what's going well in in the can public schools, what's not going well in the can public schools and really sat down and edit with Mr. Deipo and

070had a a great conversation with them and they're going to in the fall meet with seventh and eighth graders about the same type of questions that I asked them. But I'm going to have them lead the conversation rather than adult leading the [Music] conversation. Each school, as we've done, is celebrating students, which is a wonderful thing. We're continuing to work on our communication forms within the our school district, work working with the Farmington Valley Health District. Example, as Mr. Bishop described screeningers, the elementary age tradition that we had. We got to continue to get more people to attend the events or find another way to get the information out. Our district has done a safety committee is one of the best that I I've seen under Mr. leadership in in working with the center of

071school safety, Kerma, and our district wellness committee has provided a wonderful wellness incentive and opportunities for our staff. Embracing equity, our district equity team has met monthly in support of our district equity and belonging plan. Our district equity team has met monthly to engage in personal professional learning. we even though we're not able to participate due to funding in the correct uh teacher and residence program and possibly not have anybody retire. Um unfortunately we have not been able to do that but we continue to look at how there's ways to increase diversity in our teaching staff and our staff in general. I continue with the mentorship and leadership development program that I started last year at the University of St. Joseph's. Administrators and instructional leaders staff have continued to utilize early release days for professional

072development. Mr. Bishop and I continue to hold quarterly meetings with the the Croup, the solidarity, equity, and education and collaboration with the community to support school operations, workforce development. I could not ask for a better administrative team. We're we're pretty much a seasoned team. It it minus um Mr. Henry who who's learning. Um we have an incredible high school principal that really leads this school to a what you would want a high school to be. And the reason that I bring out the high school because that doesn't typically happen. They're a high school principal that has been here for 11 years going on 12 years. The stability of a high school is very very important. I I never really single out a principal, but the stability that we have at a high school is a

073really important aspect to uh our our district. Ed advance has been a wonderful collaborative regarding professional development. This year I continued to chair the CAP's early childhood committee with a focus on early childhood education and it components and as I've done for many years I I chaired the capital region prek through 12 safety and emergency management committee and I also chair uh the Connecticut Commission of Women Children Senior and Equity and Opportunity meetings. and the chair of the uh the children's side. Overall, I'm really pleased with the work that we've done this year. The the team ranging from the the the staff to the administrative team to the to the families and most importantly our our our students have done what we're we're asking them to do. Um probably the the the best decision in

074my professional career was to come back to Canton and um the support that this board has provided myself and the administrative team has led to the success that we have and of course we have things to work on. We heard that tonight that we have some things to work on. And one thing that I pride myself on is that I don't ignore um what I hear. I may disagree with what I hear, but I don't ignore what I hear. And we're doing well and I appreciate your support um throughout the the the year and I I look forward to putting my goals together for for next year and going have I'll take any questions on the report. So, any questions on the report? Comments? We're going to save uh for executive session. We'll be talking

075about the superintendent's evaluation this evening. if you have questions on this board. Yes, I just have a quick question on the student hall of fame like how many years gap were there in is there any way to engage alumni to vote for students that they Yeah. So what this is is this is the K high school wall of fame and it's for graduates that graduated from K High School 10 years or more. It was something that I started when I was the assistant principal here at the high school. I haven't checked, but I believe they haven't inducted a class in the past four years. So, what we did was we sent out nomination forms this year to community members and we did receive some back, but we also have a pile of nominations from when

076I was here the last time and then Dr. Kwell was out. We'll fill those gaps for the years that aren't. We won't we won't be able to fill the gap of like not um an induction class of 2024. We won't be able to do that. But what we will do is we'll have a class of 25 moving forward. And as you're walking out tonight, if you just look to the left next to the gym, you can see and that's something that I've always said. You want to build something in a district that will be here longer than you are and that will be sustainable that when you come back 20 years from now, it's something that is still going. So, we need to re not reinvent that. We need to just bring that back. Jordan,

077um along those lines, and I know it's not here before, but are we moving forward with the anti-grace situation? Yeah. So, that's a good question. Um, so I made a recommendation to this board and to the board of selectment to I think it was three. There was three recommendations. The number one recommendation was to name the whole stadium Nancy Grace Memorial Stadium was to name the turf field Legends Field and was to name the the the field over to the right where the track participates the captain's assignment field. So that was discussed at a board of selective meeting. The last I heard is that they're supposed to have a a form on that to solicit feedback. And that's the last I slide. So the the goal would be in the fall would be to have

078a ceremony to do all that. Um the the fall would be to have Nancy Grace Memorial Stadium. Then on another day the field Legends Field and then on another day do um Cathy Design. So each three would get the the notoriety what they deserve. Kathy Designfield is where Cathy Designs is the parking lot right now which we used to have. So now we move it over to the tracking field where they do the javelin and the scale. Any other questions for the superintendent? We'll take up more of this executive session. Okay. Thank you very much. We are going to move to uh standing committee reports. We'll start with Mr. Bush and we'll work our way down. Mr. Bush, anything on finance you want to just update? Yep. Hi, thanks Lou. I'm sorry I couldn't be

079there in person tonight. Um during the finance committee, um Mrs. Robbins took care of most of the details here, but uh we did discuss the fact that we are still in the red and um we will be discussing at a future meeting the appropriation process with the board of finance. Um in addition to that, we discussed the the uh fiscal year 2026 lunch pricing. Uh we're going to get more details on that at our next meeting. Um we did discuss the budget a little bit. Um, we're going to get some more clarity, I believe, for next month's meeting on where the exact cuts are coming from. Uh, it's a little too early to discuss personnel. Uh, Dr. Gman wants to wait and see kind of how the rest of the year shapes out and who's

080going to be around next year. Um, although we did he did say that we are going to make the two technology the two pieces of software cuts uh from the technology budget we had already talked about. Uh we uh did do a uh we did get an update on the insurance but think that was already covered. Um I am sitting on the new bonding committee that you mentioned earlier. We had our first meeting last week. We're in the very initial stages but you know I'm hopeful that we're working in the right direction here and I will keep everybody updated as we get more information. Thank you. Any questions for Russell? I would just say that they are moving forward rapidly with the bonding package. They have to get to the Secretary of State with a

081question on bonding by like September 21st. So that's going to move pretty quick to make it on to the November ballot. So that's going to move pretty quickly. Um Mr. Shy on a policy. We're going to go over all the motions in a minute. Okay. Uh we met tonight uh before the meeting uh discussed uh three or four policies that are important but sort of the front through the changes are relatively minimal. Uh they'll be up for first read at the next meeting. It's on the administrative medications. Uh starting school at age five attendance truency and chronic absenteetheism. They come with a lot of regulations which we have read. I'm not sure you want to read them if you do want the regulations. Uh just let uh John know and make sure you get those.

082You'll just get the policies which are relatively short. They're required and we didn't find anything of any great significant changes. Pretty straightforward. We also began a discussion continued our discussion of the class size policy that John has tightened up to accumulate. uh class size policies for a dozen different districts around the state that continue to do that also provided with some research. Uh we will tackle that uh topic uh first thing in September bringing a recommendation we hope to the whole board in October for a vote in November by vote and there are some things voting on tonight which you can see in your agenda. We'll take it. Yeah. Okay. Any questions for Mr. Shil? Was there any I looked at them? I didn't see any. But was there anything that required funding any of

083these to implement them? There was no funding. Hard to say no to that, but I don't think there's anything requiring funding that didn't come up. No, John. You know, they often Yes, they often slip something in money. I don't I don't see that. I didn't hard work. Mrs. Hayes. Yes. Um, at our April meeting, um, few of the highlights we had, we had a presentation by Canton police officer Patio. Is that right? Um, you may know. I think I know. Um, he went over the new DARE program that's going to be piloted in sixth grade for the 25 26 school year. It's not for those of you that are that can remember the old DARE program, but it's not the old DARE program. It's the new DARE keeping it real program. And um so he

084gave us an overview of that and um it's going to be great for our sixth graders. Um then we discussed the summer program coming up. We currently have 45 kids signed up. It's K through five led by two teachers. Uh we have we are fully staffed for it and it will occur during three weeks in July. We actually we're up to 60 I think 62. So do you need more staff? We're we're good and we're we're covered by a spot. Okay. And then the uh the last thing we discussed was the weeding report which is um done at all all of the different schools where the library books um are weeded out and the librarians pick which books are to be retired at each school for various reasons. Okay. How do you know that? so

085that we don't keep collecting and collecting but never pruning and weeding out the the books that are no longer useful or used or worn out physically. That's great. Y any questions for curriculum? The DARE program, how did that come about? Did that come about from the police department initiating? It did. Yep. Direct. Any other questions on curriculum? Okay. Um, communications, Mrs. Jordan. Uh, yes. So, the budget mailer was created collaboration with town went out. Uh, car is currently working on a template for the next year for the next upcoming years that improved the mailers that prioritizes more clear, concise, and full information for residents. um to also direct traffic back to the town site as well as our website to be able to provide more detailed budget so that our people are following it more

086frequently. Um students center is in progress. You still notate John? We're going to be able to get it before the end of the year. Okay. Working on with um our student DOE reps and building principles and time to find to conduct um interviews with student staff about notable accomplishments in the school. And then um there's been a few recent updates to the website um organizational improvements on the main page and staff directory. Um also um newsletter archives school here has created um newsletters from 2023 2023 24 have been moved to separate folders to make it easier to find more recent um newsletters and then added the wall landing page that has had some traffic increase um once we added that. So I I have a question. So that beautiful um catalog came out from Park

087and Rec, right? And I've seen we're down in West quite a bit. they they capitalize on their uh program and there's something from someone's elected side, something from the board of education side and and given the fact that we don't have the value president or can't we dovetail off of that somehow some way um and maybe that's in collaboration with the park park and rack uh and the selective but I I think they mailed that out every household gets it. Yeah. To be able to have maybe a page or something. Yeah. I mean what's it to add a page because it's going out it's budgeted anyway. So, I'm just wondering maybe maybe I can talk to Kevin about that. Maybe nudge me a little bit on that. But that guy was I don't know if

088you all saw that. It's pretty nice. Okay. Um any any questions for communications? Okay. Thank you. Uh you services bureau miss. No, it's not. I was out of town on 414. John, did you go to that meeting? I did. Anything that we need to be aware of? Uh, no, just grateful. And we had a meeting this past Monday night as well. Just grateful for their uh support for us overall. Uh, we'll be working with them on some planning over the summer too to be able to utilize some of their support and some of our programming as well. Great. And no prep. And sure. Um, just just a minute on the insurance committee if you would. Fine. You heard you got some information from tonight's meeting. Yeah. Um so the insurance committee met today at 4:30

089um and the committee has decided to advise CIO to stay with United. Um we are receiving a 17.05% increase which was better than what we thought was going to be and that does include our reserves at 5%. Um, and yeah, I think that's that's pretty much it. So, staying with United, yes, figure 17.5. 1705. 1705, which is a little better than where we were. Who's on the insurance? Um, it's myself and Lou. Um, Mark is there, but then Elizabeth Windsor, Steve Sedor, uh, Ryan Miller, and so there's two for Border County. Two for each. Two for each. Yeah. Let me tell you the uh the insurance knowledge on this group. I mean it's a pretty it's a pretty good group. It's a really good committee like a lot of value they remain after this temporary

090temporary now we're looking to make it permanent. Oh yeah that's is there any been any discussion or remedy from the situation that happened with the broker? So I would say that the committee is on a moving forward basis and our I think with having the committee alone um the issue that happened in the prior year will not happen again is my hope. Um you know we have a lot it it's hard to say if it was who's 100% fault. Yeah we don't. So I don't think Yeah. It's great like oversight. Yeah, we're going to be meeting quarterly. I don't think you're going to have the same You won't have the same thing. There's a lot of eyes on it now and um especially with people with knowledge of what's going on. Yeah. And we also

091gave the bond committee report. So, we're good on reports. Any any questions on your reports here tonight? Okay. Let's uh calendar of events. Um, I think it's important. Please mark your calendars. Claudia put it in there. Attend what you can. Um, and um, like I said, love to see the Memorial Day parade. Love to see promotion ceremonies. Love to see graduation, but I know there's a lot going on at camp. Can you reach out to us by email or is that not allowed about the retreat? the retreat because some of us if we're if the bus is later, we do get go on a field trip and we can't be here to discuss the retreat. Oh. Oh, you mean the date on the retreat? I'll tell you what. You know what? We'll try to save

092it to the end. Yeah. And Claudia did that working document where we could say like what date what Joe you and I can look at some dates and then do like she'll do like a way it's helpful if we do it after the school year starts. Yeah. The the the whole purpose and I'm good. The whole purpose was for you to come into the schools the day before say hello to the staff see what they're doing. like you've been most of you have been in the school so much that I have no problem. Well, and if you go to convocation, I mean that opening day, that's we're there for that. Yeah. So, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Okay. Let's go to the uh consent agenda. And are there any changes or or

093concerns about the consent agenda? Hearing none, then I'll then we consider the consent agenda approved. uh then we'll move on to the u to the various motions. We'll take them one at a time. What I'll do is we'll make the motion and then we'll go to the discussion. So there's a motion to move that the camp board of education approve the board of education bylaws is presented on the memorandum of understanding dated April 1st, 2025. And I have a motion or a first. Thank you, Joe. Second. Thank you, Jordan. I have a first and second. Um now I'll ask Mr. Uh Shyler, you want to give any overview on that before? Sure. You've all heard about the bylaws? You probably wanted to. Um that we've vetted them all. Uh nothing that can't be changed if

094we left something out or we don't like something next year. It's not state laws or policies or bylaws for the board of ed which are affected by state laws. I've had no questions had no questions. Lou either John uh from what's been out there now for a couple of months. So I would ask you to approve and I would would ask you that you would uh I would we approve effective July 1, 2025. I don't see changing anything for one meeting that we start new in the next year if you will. Questions hearing no questions I'll call a vote. The vote is motioned that the camp board of education approve the board of education bylaws is presented on the memorandum of understanding dated April 1st 2025. All those in favor I opposed none. It's uh

095880. Thank you. Second motion. Motion board of education approve Connecticut school climate policy is first read. Have a first motion on that. Thank you Joe. Second. Thank you Cindy. Mr. Sh. This is actually a big deal. Uh it's a very important policy that will affect every school in our district and across the state. Uh it's a new policy. We are state law passed the law and directed cave to write the policy. Uh so K's written the policy and we are expected to adopt it as is. Uh that we can't amend it and change the language. That's not part of the deal. Uh so it's important that we understand what we're adopting. Uh it's sort of complicated. It's sort of long. Uh there's a 10 or 12 page memo from Cape explaining it. Uh a lot

096on the plate for the for the principles next year. And John, you have a brief overview and we're going to get an overview from uh legal counsel on the retreat. George, would you say? Yeah, we'll we'll when the every year we have our attorney come in, they'll give us a legal update on that. Yep. We let John take us through it for five minutes. Yeah, just quickly, I'll give you some information here. So, in the past, we've had a school climate policy and a bullying policy. The the state general statute um has shifted uh the general assembly uh made a vote and has shifted away from that process to now saying um we're going to promote a school climate policy. So really focusing on developing the foundational practices in support of a healthy school climate

097and then where necessary to be able to respond with to to negative items. In the past, it focused more on district expectations. This is focusing more on providing action and direction to schools to be able to do the work. And so there are two things that work through this um uh through this legislation. Uh, and again, they're both required for us to be able to to adopt um and be in service by July 1, 2025. So, there is the school climate policy, and in a moment, we'll talk about the restorative practices policy as well. Um, but the the policy does direct the development of school-based climate plans. These climate plans are developed based off of five national standards around school climate. Uh the climate standards are developing a shared vision and plan for uh school

098positive school climate. Policies that promote social, emotional, ethical, civic and intellectual uh intellectual learning. Uh practices that promote that learning. An environment is created where members are welcome, supported and feel safe. And then the development of meaningful and engaging practices. So in these plans, the work is to be able to define what are practices in support of a positive school climate and how are we consistently working to be able to improve that. The work on that is done through a survey. So we catalog what is currently in place, analyze it against those five standards, and then the survey provides us information on how to be able to move forward. We're required to be able to utilize a survey that is based on um a standard practice. We're going to continue to use the survey that

099we've used in the past that was developed by Panorama, but there are some opportunities for us to be able to engage in some other broader question for the community. But we'll be using that information. The schools will be using that information to be able to guide their improvement process. So, in the past, you might have heard about a rating in at a particular area that showed uh an opportunity for growth. Our administrative team is going to be doing more of that work again as well. So, it's really the survey to be able to drive the improvement plan and the improvement plan is brought to us as the district um each year and it is co-constructed with the administrator and multiple staff there. And one other thing that is a little bit of a difference here

100is what's called challenging behavior in place of just bullying by itself. Challenging behavior is what we would consider essentially a catchall. When someone uh has a concern about behavior, that information is brought forward via a form that documents the the information and then subsets of challenging behavior can include things like bullying, assault, harassment, teen dating violence, physical violence, threatening. What happens through this process then is when information is brought forward, it allows the administrator to work through the process, identify the next step and then be able to support it in an effort to get uh the right mitigation or mediation practices in place and discipline restorative when when possible in place to be able to support our students with that. Um and so so those are the main elements that are a part of this

101plan. There's a lot of more finite work that we're working directly with um some folks at the state. We actually just had a meeting yesterday with Amanda Picket from the state to be able to speak to a caps group about this and we'll have um some uh rest state partners come to be able to work with our administrative team um a little bit later this month and again over the summer to be able to continue the support for this. One of the things that Mr. Bishop and I spoke about is we're definitely going to have to educate families and that'll be done in the beginning of the year and he's thinking about a possible video. This way parents can watch it at their leisure, not have to attend the event. So that's something as Mr.

102Shler said, this is going to be new for ministers. It's going to be good for families, new for teachers, new for um students, but it's state law so we can't change it. The state and cave have high hopes that this constant emphasis on improving school climate will pay dividends and I hope bullying issues will be addressed before they become bullying issues. Not that that's going to be perfect or anything. Uh I've read the explanation a couple of times. I've actually discussed it with one of the general write it and they have high hopes for it and we'll see. Okay. A quick question. Sure. Um John the the surveys that are already in place. So the survey goes out to staff, student body and parents. Yep. As well. Correct. Yeah. Yep. Any other questions? All right.

103The motion on the floor is that the camp board of education approve the Connecticut school climate policy is first read through first and second. All those in favor? I opposed. 80. Thank you very much. move that can board of education approve the restorative practices practices response policy is a first read Joe second Erica I'm looking at you and I say Erica Jordan see it's after 8:00 I'm usually done by now um I have a first and a second it's part of the same law required to adopt it as is uh John you comment so you Did you handle that already? I I I think you got the gist. Okay. Uh it's a first read first read. Any questions? Now I have a first and second motion on the floor is move that camp board approve

104the restorative practices response policies and first read. All those in favor I thank you very much. Next motion moved from the can board of education approve the retention of electronic records and information policies for first read. Erica have a motion. Thank you. Felicia, I'll go that way. Second. Just keeping everybody awake including myself. We have a person second. Mr. Sh goodness knows I'm sorry about all of this. Um the this is pretty easy. This is what we have to do in terms of records. Uh, and there's all kinds of specifics that we need to pay attention to. Anything to add, Jordan or John? It's pretty basic. I have a first and a second on the floor. It says move that the camp board of education approve the retention of electronic records and information policies of

105first reading. All those in favor? Do you have a question? I'm sorry. No. Okay. Thank you very much. Motion. Can board of education approve the employment student teacher checks policies first read. I have a motion. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. First to second. Bless you, Joe. Okay. Same deal that that when you're hiring someone or doing there there are state required checks to make sure the person doesn't have a criminal record practice. Uh and it this just simply revises a policy that we've had longstanding for for years. There are specific questions you can certainly get to them. Approve questions. The motion on on the floor is move that the cam board of education approve the employment and student teachers checks policy is first read. All those in favor 80. Thank you very much. We're going

106to move into the healthy food certification and read this once um for the record and then we'll take the motions. moved pursuant to Connecticut General Statute Section 10-215F the camp board of education where governing authority certifies that all food items offered for sale to students in schools under its jurisdiction and not exempted from the Connecticut nutrition standards published by the Connecticut State Department of Education will comply with Connecticut nutrition standards during the period of July 1st 2025 through June 30th 2026. This certification shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimburseable meals at all times and from all sources including but not limited to school stores, vending machines, school cafeteria, culinary programs and any fundraising activities on school premise sponsored by the school or non-school organization and groups. Madam motion thank you

107Kim. Thank you Cindy. First and second. Joe, you want to give that just a quick I Oh, Anna, sorry. Anna, yes. Do we have to approve this? I mean, this is a law or Yes. Yeah. If you don't approve it, we don't you know, the only the only thing I had non-school organizations had out that Snapchat some crazy stuff I was going to ask about there's criteria around that because that's an event. It's not one half an hour drive school. So, it does meet the criteria cuz the crazy donuts I ate during the fall were just ridiculous. All right. I have a first and a second. Uh, we'll take the vote. All those in favor? I 80. Thanks. Thank you. I'll ask for a motion to move that the camp board of education or governing

108authority will allow the sale of two students of food and items that do not meet the Connecticut nutrition standards and beverages not listed in section 1021Q of the general uh of the general statutes provided following conditions are met. One, the sales in connection with an event. Oh, here we go. The sales in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend. Two, the sales at a location or event. And three, the food and beverage items are not sold from a vending machine or school store. Period. An event is an occurrence that involves more than just regularly scheduled practice meetings or extracurricular extracurricular activities. For example, soccer school plays in inter school debates or events, but soccer practices, play rehearsals, and debate team meetings are not. The regular

109school day is the period from midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the the official school day. Location means where the event is being held and must be at the same as the food sales. Same place as the food sales. I have a motion. Thank you, Jordan. Second. Thank you, Felicia. Anna, anything to discuss on this? You pretty much I think hit. All those in favor? I opposed. Thank you very much. All right. Um, we are going to go into executive session. For executive session, I'm going to invite the superintendent. Uh, we're going in for the purposes of secretarial negoti negotiations for purposes of superintendent school evaluation will come out and we'll be voting uh after that. So, with that, we have a motion to go to executive session inviting superintendent schools. Thank

110you, Felicia. First, second, Erica. Thank you very much. All those in favor? I. We are moving to executive session. We'll go across the hallway so stays came into my class and and then when I I told him to leave, I tried to close the door with his foot and then Okay. Uh the f the first thing is uh I I'd like a motion that we are going to table the um the vote on the um get the take we're out of the executive session. Yeah. Out of executive session you moved out. Oh yeah. Okay. So we're out of exe just for the record. We are out of executive session. We are going to table the uh the approval of the contract between camp board of education the local 1303 status 304 council 4. asked me

111and Lel CIO the secretaries union we will table that we have a motion thank you first second uh Erica appreciate that all those in favor okay uh now I'll take a motion the board of education extend superintendent contract by one year to June 30th 2028 as well as authorize the chair to finalize and execute the terms and conditions of superintendent contract motion thank you Joe second thank you Cindy Cindy one year it's it's so he has a three-year contract one year's up so this is the additional one right good question any other questions all those in favor I opposed watch out of here now it passes congratulations you get to stand another three another three okay um any any other business come before the board of education if Not. I move that we uh I

112we just adjourn until we just slide out of here. Thank you, Cara. Thank you, Russell. Thank you, Board of Education. See you on the third.