BOE Meeting 4 8 25

001Thank you for that information. I don't know that. Hey, no practice. No, we have practice. Our game got cancelled, right? So, you still have practice. All right, I'm going to call this meeting uh to order in the Canton Board of Education for our regular meetings for Tuesday, April 8th. Uh it's 6:30. I want to welcome everybody. We have some great guests in the crowd, some students, so they're going to get some some awards, which is the uh the highlight of uh of the board of education's uh meetings typically. Um, and our me our agenda is pretty straightforward. I tell the board that I I think don't hold me to it, but I think you might be out of here by 8:00. So, we'll see. See, there's not a lot of budget things for us to

002discuss tonight. So, that's that's always good. And then you get next week off, right? So, I don't think we have a meeting next week or the following week. So, that's it. So, if you'll all stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. As customary in our meetings, we have time uh for public comment. Uh, anybody is uh is is available that would like to speak in public comment uh we'll ask you to uh to to state your name, give us your address, try to limit your your comments to about 3 minutes and we'd appreciate that. So, we'll go with the first person.

003Who would like to speak your public comment? Mrs. Luch. Okay. You can. Yeah. just fancy my car. Name name and address, please, for the record. Sure. Um, good evening. My name is Cora Munch. I live at 86 Right Road in Canton. I've lived in Canton my entire life and I love this town. I've taught kindergarten in Canton for 38 years. I love coming to work each day. Every day is great. I'm speaking tonight to encourage everyone to vote yes to pass the budget in May. I'm also hoping there will not be any more cuts to the budget. Kitten schools have received many awards over the years and the students have been recognized for many many accomplishments. The town should be very proud of our schools. The schools are a large part why people buy houses

004here in uh just recently I met with two of my former students that are published authors. I understand that making a budget is extremely difficult to get the materials, resources, and personnel to have a compact school district to have a our district function at a fiscally responsible level is not an easy task. Now, do I agree with everything in the budget? No. But do I want to see any further cuts? No. So, I give the board of ed and the administrators a thumbs up for the work on this. And again, I hope the budget passes. Thank you. Thank you. You know, Cory, I've known you so long. I said Mrs. Legette. I meant to say Mrs. March. Right. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak for public comment? Just your name and your address for

005the record. Thank you. My name is Ann Buckley, 98 North Mountain Road, Canton. Um I'm a resident parent of a 2024 graduate and current senior and a staff member at CMS. Um, as a mom who had two children, both of the Canton public school system, I feel strongly that they received a quality education and have been well prepared for the f future. My oldest son, who graduated last year, did not enjoy school and found it difficult, but always found teachers and staff who would support him and work with him to be successful, especially in the tech ed department where he thrived. My son, who's currently a senior, has had the opportunity to be several be in several AP classes and wrote in his college essay that the small class sizes were very helpful in him

006making connections with teachers and classmates to be successful in these highle classes. In fact, because of his experiences with small classes, he sought out a college that also has small classes since he feels that it is so integral to his learning. Both of my sons participated in the band through elementary, middle school, and high school and enjoyed the opportunity the music department provided them. In addition, both have played sports throughout their high school careers and experiences and relationships with coaches and friends has been invaluable. After teaching for 18 years in a neighboring community, I recently had the opportunity to come to Canton to teach my hometown and have not looked back. As I witnessed with my own children's experiences in Canon, the teachers, staff, and administration are dedicated and work diligently to meet the needs

007of all their students. The students are wonderful, polite, and eager to learn, which not only speaks to their parents' hard work in raising them, but also the expectations that their teachers have had for them throughout the district. Our students have a range of needs, and it is essential that these needs be met. Cutting programs and positions will take away mentors and programs that my boys, both with very different needs, benefit from as students in Canada public schools. I appreciate the board of education for making choices with the least impact and fighting to maintain a budget that allows all students to benefit. I appreciate the community for coming out to support our schools and the future of our world. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else like to comment? Public comment. Seeing no one in the audience,

008I'll go to online. Anyone online? We do have a raised hand for Lisa, so I'm gonna allow Lisa to talk. Lisa, just name and address for the record, please. The shirt Lisa Coggins, uh, Dayard Drive. I thank you for this opportunity to provide some commentary. Um, firstly, I just want to thank the board of education, especially those members who did back-to-back meetings um, from the policy to this one. It's like the dinner hour and it's I'm sure they've had a full day of work as well. Um I also want to thank the board of education for the support in the bike walk roll to school event um that that will be happening in May and for supporting the bike rodeo that's going to be happening on May 3rd. Um I know that um Canon public

009schools have a number of teachers and administrators who are residents and I'd like to suggest to them um to continue to promote uh bicycle safety by um participating in the bike to work event which is May 16th. Um the safe routes to school report uh made several important recommendations and the temporary traffic and pedestrian safety advisory committee forwarded um their recommendations after reviewing that report to the board of selectmen and um that committee is counting on the board of education to support creating school zones um to create a safer passage for the pedestrian and cyclists. Um I have to make some a few additional comments because I I didn't realize that the um policy committee meeting was not hybrid. Um it didn't say in person only on the agenda. So I just want to make

010a few comments about um that agenda over there. Um I had made some comments on October 8th, 2024 about the homework policy um and requested that it be reviewed. Um the National Education Association and the National uh PTA also recommended that homework be 10 minutes rule per grade. Um so maximum of 120 minutes in 12th grade and that's not what our current policy is. So I'd like you to review that and I haven't seen it on any agendas. I'm also requesting that that committee uh look at a communications policy with parents regarding staffing changes in the classroom. um whether staffing changes are temporary or permanent. Um it's really important that the kids are made aware of any staffing changes because some kids are very sensitive and they need to be informed about what is happening.

011Um, and then lastly, I wanted to comment on the well, not not lastly, there you were looking at the bullying policy, and I I do feel like the school maybe could provide some additional education and support about bullying, particularly something in your policy that's missing is silent bullying. Um, negative influence, being ostracized and nonverbal. Um, there's a bystander effect. and you know promoting positivity inclus inclusivity and zero tolerance of negativity is really important. Um but I do think that you can look further at improving um the details of that policy. And the last thing I wanted to if you'll permit me was just make comments about the mascot. Um, in 2023, I know the high school students were formed an internal committee and they were looking at, you know, polling the student body and and

012trying to come up with something. And my kids have been through Cherry Brook, the intermediate school, middle school, and high school and graduated. And there hasn't been a a visual mascot. There's been no imagery. It's just been a C, the word Canton Warriors. So, it it's sometimes really nice to have that imagery to associate with. And I would like the, you know, board of education to encourage a a mascot committee. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else online would like to speak? If you're joining us online, you'd like to make public comment, you can use that raise hand feature and I will call on you by your Zoom name. Anybody else in the public would like to speak? Sure. you just give your name and your address when you come up to the podium. When

013I come up to the podium? Sure. Hi. Uh my name is Kevin Glass. I live at 23 Westbury Road here in town. Good. Yes. Uh so I just want to talk about um I'm a resident in town. I'm a graduate from uh public school systems. I have the pleasure of being a new member here on staff and I just want to come and talk about my experiences here with the can public school system and I want to thank all the members of the board of ed for your continued work. Can such a great place to grow up in and a privilege to work for. Um I want to speak to my experiences as a student first. My parents came from New York, New Jersey and they moved to Connecticut um after the careful consideration of

014where they wanted to raise a family. Uh education was one of their first priorities. Um, and then they came to Canton on word of mouth from neighbors and loved ones. Um, and I thank them to this day that they chose Canton. Um, my time as a student, myself, my friends was more influential than I ever knew. Uh originally um starting off my first day in kindergarten with Miss Kibby when I cried uh when my parents dropped me off uh to my time with Miss McCarthy AP US history. Uh she cheered us on to take the exam where if I remember correctly I did not cry that time. Um I was close but I did not. Um the community and culture of can has been very close and supportive and has held myself to a high

015academic standard. Um and I just had my 10ear reunion. I graduated in 2014. Um and my class of roughly 100 about 80 people showed up. Um which is really a testament to the close-knit community that we've created here. Um you know the tulage has influenced myself and my path to become an educator. Um my love for social studies also influenced things like my friend um corner out in California who thanks to his time in chemistry he jumped into chemical engineering and he's now managing CO2 plants out in California. um he was originally going to go into construction. Um so if it wasn't for his time in Canton, he would have never realized his passion or his ability in those in that field. Um I have the privilege of also being an educator here. Um I

016never originally thought I would get into education. I liked history for my time. It was challenging. It was fun. It was rewarding. Um I didn't know what to do after I graduated college. college. I studied history at Dickson College where I was on par thanks to my education here with private school students who would brag about how highly ranked they were. Um, but I didn't really know what to do. Um, I ended up taking a position here as a tutor in the middle school. Um, where I was immediately supported in the same way as I was as a student. Um I learned to develop my skills as an educator, how to work with students, the joy I saw, um seeing them grow and you know make strides and I was also then encouraged to go

017on get my master's degree in education at Yukon where upon my finishing of that curriculum I received a teaching position. I taught other districts in Connecticut and I jumped at the opportunity when Canton was hiring this past summer. Um, so my first year teaching here, I also want to thank you for what you have created in terms of supporting me as a development teacher here in town. Um, I'm going through my team mentor process. In other school districts, I was typically just one-on-one with my mentor. Um, here I have access to veteran teachers from all across the district as I consider to home as I continue to hone my craft. here. Um, the work of the department has been outstanding, even to Miss McCarthy coming in my room this morning as we discussed better ways

018to talk about the tensions leading to the Civil War as she's presenting me with lesson plans and she's talking about different resources available. Um, I've been so supported since my first day here and I have been um, just my continued education was exactly what I was looking for. I felt that I had been figuring things out as I go amongst other districts. One minute. Thank you. Um, in other districts I had been supported by other staff, but I was worried about stagnation. Um, and just the continued support I've gotten from professional development that that makes me feel like I'm back in grad school. Um, continued support from my team mentors as we learn to gather, use data, and better inform and teach my students. I've just been very thankful at the opportunity to also then

019work with educators that inspired me as a student. um where I hope to continue to grow as an educator here so I can give the students of Canton um the same quality of education that I received in my youth. So I'm thankful to my parents for bringing me here. I'm thankful for still being in this town. I'm thankful this opportunity to um come up and thank you all for your continued support um throughout my time in town. And I'm thankful to continue to support future students of this town. and I don't want to see, you know, any major restrictions change that. I want to continue to support the students as I support it. Why I'm here to talk about my experiences. Thank you, De. Well said. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak for public

020comment in the audience? If not, then we'll close out public comment. Thank you for all those uh comments and those kind words about the uh supporting the budget. All right, so we'll move right into the agenda. We'll go right to uh chairman's uh corner. Um just a couple things for the board. I want to remind the board the town budget meeting is April 28th. Um and that would be a good time for us all to be together to support the budget. It'll be a time of questions with the public. That meeting will adjourn to our referendum. Um just so you know, next week Friday starts uh I'm sure the superintendent mentioned it starts spring break. As I mentioned, there'll be no meetings for the next uh two weeks for the board of education. Although Juliana

021and Lucas, we're going to have special meetings for you. I want to see you both there. We're going to meet Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Um so that's uh that's it. We did form an insurance committee. Actually, we did not form it. The board of selectment formed an insurance committee. Um that was something that we used to have. It kind of got away from the board of selected, so they appointed a new one. There are two um two from each board is on that committee. It's uh Jordan Tusant and myself and um the selectman have two representatives as do the board of uh finance have two representatives. That meeting uh will take place on Monday. This is a public meeting and it will be posted for anybody that wants to come to u we're going to

022hear from our insurance broker and our insurance consultant at that meeting. And the final thing I' I'd mentioned is that um tonight uh you'll hear um we'll be able to talk about the custodians uh contract which is completed and we'll be moving into the secretar's uh negotiation from there. Um and that's all that I have. Any questions for me? Is that um insurance meeting on Monday hybrid as well? It is 6:30. Yeah, it'll be at the community center. I've asked for it to be hybrid because I know the community's um interested in that meeting. Any other questions? Then I'll sorry then I'll move to the uh the superintendent, Dr. Gford. Thank you, Mr. Daniels. Good to see everyone. It's great to see so many faces that I see in the hallways at Kent Middle School.

023And I want to thank especially our our staff coming out at a after a long day. I'm going to start off by saying that it's been a busy past month since our our last meeting. It seems like there's so many events that are happening and our athletic teams are back out onto the fields and the the courts even though our the weather has not been very nice to to the start of the season and the track actually too. We had a a few things that I just want to highlight that last week we had the Cherry Brook Primary School grade three performance and that was a a wonderful event. We had uh the um last week on Friday night and I don't know if anyone was able to attend. It's one of the events that

024I think the community should get involved in. It is the Canton's Got Talent and that was Friday night and it was Oh, Juliana was the the host, the MC. And what a great night that that was. There was talent from kindergarten all the way up to high school children. And the the kindergarten kids, they they definitely I don't think anybody will mind me saying this, they definitely stole the show. Uh ranging from singing a song to an alphabet uh type of a skit and then um a poem uh that that was written. And then some of the things that we had relative to our high school students with the the musical performances ranging from a a rock band to individuals singing was just amazing and then the CIS kids that were singing and the middle

025school kids. It was a lot of singing that night actually and poetry which was different than last year. So I would invite everyone. And I'm assuming that's going to be a tradition in the the town to attend that event. We just have so many talented kids and staff members, especially one staff member the other day was pretty uh talented, I believe, at that event. The the last thing that I want to remind the community is that I know our students and our staff are looking forward to our break next week that um we go on break starting at Friday when Cherry Brook gets out and we have all next week and then we'll come back and then it's really a quick next uh month and a half, April, May and basically a little bit of

026June. So, um we're getting close and we're down to almost um two board meetings after this with May in June. And I want to remind the board that there's a curriculum committee meeting on April 30th at 9:00 a.m. Is that here, John? It will be at the excuse me, it will be in high school. It will be at the high school. So, I'll take any questions out of the superintendent's office at this time. Any questions for the superintendent? I know. Is Russell Bush online? Russell, I don't mean to. Uh, do you have any questions for the superintendent? I do not. Sorry. That was camera off. Muted. Okay. Uh, hearing no questions, we'll move to the assistant superintendent report. Mr. Bishop. Sure. Thank you, Chair Daniels. Uh, it's it's great to be able to see so

027many folks from our middle school community here tonight. Uh, just a few highlights from this last month and some of the work that we've been able to do from the district perspective and in collaboration with the middle school. Uh, myself, Mr. more missini and Mr. Tracy had the pleasure of presenting at the uh CAS conference which is connect Connecticut association of schools uh leadership conference and we uh held a presentation on uh using using metrics to be able to move mountains making making meaning of metrics to move mountains. a lot of aliteration, but it was uh it was the genuine reflection of the work that the the middle school and the district has done to be able to better understand some of the information that uh the the state uses to be able to share

028back to us. And you'll recall that information helped to be able to display the great improvements improvements that we had as a district, but also representing uh Keith Middle School as one of the top scoring uh schools in the uh the region here for us. But it was great to be able to have the opportunity to present and and share our leadership. It was a well attended session. We're really very very proud of that. Similarly, Canton Middle School also hosted the first of our uh district learning walk. So, we had all of our instructional leaders from across the district descend on Canton Middle School to be able to see a great number of these students in class working in these teachers as well to be able to learn about the work that they've been doing

029so far and then be able to develop practices that will scale out to the rest of our school community for the future. Uh so, we were really excited about that. And then we also had the opportunity to be able to connect that instructional leadership team uh together with consultants to be able to further calibrate our understanding of high-quality instruction and practices that we'll use to be able to coach into um and scale across the entirety of our district throughout this year and in and into the future. So we're thrilled to be able to see a lot of great professional learning, great professional growth, and just highlight a great work that's happening across the district. I'll take any questions from my office. Great. Any questions for Mr. Bishop? Thank you for that report. Very good. Okay,

030we get to the student reports. Who's covering today? Who's got two? Um, I'll do Maggie's, too. All right. Okay, Julian, you're up. I'll start with Cherry Brook. Um, so recently they've had a couple field trips. Um, the kindergartener students uh did a performance or attended a performance at the Warmer Theater. Additionally, uh, Roaring Brook Nature Center visited Churnburg kindergarteners to reinforce some other science topics they've been learning. And, uh, Mr. John Chico, who is a DE officer, also presented to the kindergarters in third grade. And he covered topics like hibernation and, uh, animal adaptations. On Friday, March 28th, Terry Brook PTO held their fun and free bingo event. Uh this event went to full capacity and was full of smiles and a lot of fun. Um additionally, the children's fair fair will be coming up

031and that will be held on Friday, May 30th. Um this past March, all cheer book students had the opportunity to participate in um March Book Madness where basically they read books and then they put two books against each other and they pick the winner. uh they kind of do like a bracket like a March Madness bracket and after all rounds of voting the book called the book of no pictures pitchers was the winner. Um lastly uh Turbrook Unified Sports uh will have its last practice on Friday April 11th and coming up on Saturday May 3rd they will participate in the annual elementary unified sports skills day at Con High School. Great. So that's for cheer group. Um, and then I'll also read Maggie's report uh for CIS. Okay. Um, so, uh, on Pi Day, which

032was March 14th, uh, there was a bunch of pie activities and thank you to all the parents who provided pies as a sweet treat. Additionally, uh students and families grew their home libraries and experienced the joints of shrubs through the ELA's department uh scholastic book fair. In social studies, sixth graders participated in their Greek history unit with the whole like Olympics presentation. Um they also had a successful readathon and the PTO raised $7,912 which will be primarily used to uh raise costs for field trips for each grade. Um congratulations to the CIS future problem solving team who competed at the state competition on Saturday. Uh one team finished in second place for their division which is the highest that they have in a lot. So congratulations to them. And then sixth grade uh eco ecoolologist

033participated in an outreach science program uh which was brought by Ron Brook Nature Center. And then last week the student council created kindness bags which they filled with essential care items that would be donated to families in the community. That's great. You know, I I just want to say, you know, we never thank the PTOs enough, but that $7,000 that they raised is a is a is a great amount. It ensures that every child makes a field trip and we do the field trips and um that's just just wonderful what they do. So we want to thank them for all their hard work. So Lucas, last but not least, all right. So start with the high school. Uh recently, well, this is for the middle and high school, but okay. The district jazz band concert

034was March 26th where um both members of middle and high school jazz bands played individually and together and also collaborated with guest artist Evan Artson. It was great event. We love doing it every year. Jazz works for it. We love it every single event. It's uh everybody's favorite. Um, on Thursday the 10th, coming up uh very soon, the European trip to Italy and Spain will take place with, I think, around 15 students all flying over to learn about culture. Um, Wednesday, April 30th is going to be the spring band concerts at 7:30. Um, Canton's Got Talent, as Dr. Gross we already mentioned was this past Friday and students from all schools came to uh celebrate their unique talents. Um science olympiad a second year event um had students competed our second the state competition on

035March 22nd earning um 10th place overall in the state which is uh very good for a secondyear program. Um, juniors took their SATs on March 26th. Uh, junior prom will be April 25th and all spring sports are underway despite the um difficult weather. Uh, moving on to CMS. Um, on March 28th, Mr. Moore and instructional coaches and Mr. Bishop uh presented at the Connecticut Association School uh schools leader state conference which I think you still on April 1st and second CMS uh hosted walkthroughs with visitors uh coming from across the district to see the exceptional work that students and staff have been doing. Um, and CMS held their own very own version of March Madness, competing in trash kitball competitions with the champion to be named this week. Uh, and coming up soon, uh, CMS

036eighth graders will be heading to their long awaited Washington DC trip April 23rd to the 25th. It's great. Good. Uh, any any questions for the student reps? I just have a comment. one of the memorable moments from the jazz concert which was particularly a good concert. Um Lucas and Evan I forget his last name had a little back and forth which was really pretty spectacular. So very impressive job. You know I it dawns on me that Juliana and Maggie have just two meetings left. So um I think Mr. Bishop, we're we're going to have to start that interview process for uh replacements. So, actually, I'm I'm I'm thrilled that you brought that up. I had a meeting with uh Dr. Kidwell and um uh Erica as well to be able to talk about the process.

037Information is out. We're currently uh interested in any current 10th grade students who might want to throw their ring in, their hat into the ring for the process, and they're they'll be preparing for the interview process late April, early May. Okay. recommendations are due tomorrow actually. Oh, that's great. Thank you. So, so the best recommendations that come from our student reps because you know what it takes what we have to do. So, uh anyone that you can coers and then of course your last meeting that's where we shower you with gifts and all sorts of accolades and so that'll be great. So, okay, thank you for those reports. All right, let's move on to the business manager report. Mrs. Robbins, thank you. Good evening. This this evening we're reporting on financial results for the period

038ending March 31st. Um the overall forecast as of March 31st is unfavorable 310,000 um $17 which is better than the previous month by roughly $24,000. General education is forecasted to be favorable 203,000 which is $147,000 better than the previous month. Now, that favorable change is a result of finalizing plan spending for the remaining of the year through purchase order submissions. So, we're hoping that that's all finished and that these numbers um are will be pretty firm. Um special education is forecasted to be unfavorable, $513,000, which is 122,000 worse than the previous month. We had um some changes to tuition from um other towns and an excess cost adjustment which makes up that difference. Um but those unfavorable changes were offset by a favorable change in operations of about 26,000. Um all of the the items

039that make up all those differences can be found um line by line are not financial statements which are posted online. Are those posted? Yeah, Thank you, Mr. Mr. Bush will have comments on that from the finance committee today. But thank you for that report. So with that report, uh we need a motion to accept the financials of March 31st, 2025. I have a motion, please. Thank you, Peggy. Second. Thank you, Jordan. I have a first and a second. Any discussion on the financials? Any questions for Mrs. Robbins? hearing none. All those in favor? I opposed. That's 80. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for that. All right. So, I I think we move into Russell. [Music] Russ. Wow. Okay, just making sure we All right, thank you. All right, so we're actually at the highlight of

040the meeting. Uh now that the comedy relief is over, we can go right into the thing that's uh most important, which is the thing that uh really makes being a board member special is uh honoring our students. And tonight, Mr. Moore is here for us to celebrate some of the middle school students. So, Mr. Moore. All right. Good evening. Hi, everybody. Thank you for coming out tonight. This is a wonderful evening, right, because we get to celebrate our students. Um, as you've heard through a couple of other items, a lot of great work is happening at Ken Middle School. Uh, our our staff is working hard. There's some exceptional things happening. Uh, none of it would be as wonderful and none of it matters without our wonderful students. So, I have there's plenty of students

041that we could highlight. There's lots of wonderful things happening. Uh but I had the honor of uh thinking and working with the staff over the past couple of months to nominate a few students for some of our highest distinctions and we're pleased to have them here this evening. So we will start parents just so everybody knows we'll have plenty of time for pictures after. I don't want you to have to rush. You could take what you got but after we'll do individual pictures with the board and everything like that so everybody knows. Okay, Mr. Moore. So, um, I have a few groups and I'll call them up and maybe they can join me in this area and I'll tell you a little bit about what they're recognizing for. Then I have individual certificates and I

042think we'll do a photo opportunity after each after I say each group before we move on to the next one. Okay. No, we'll do it at the conclusion of every all at once. That sounds right. Okay. So then with the members that are here because they were nominated performed in the Northern Region Music Festival come on. So can we get our musicians and our our choir? You did Northern Region Music Festival. Come on and join me up in this area here. All right. Thank you very much. So, the Northern Region Music Festival is a prestigious m music event. As you know, Canyon has a long and prestigious history of supporting music and having some exceptional musical talent. This year, we are once again named one of the best communities for music education. And uh what

043I mean by that is that the talent pool here is deep. Um and from that pool we have some of these students that have shown themselves to be exceptional. To perform at the Northern Region Music Festival, students must learn, rehearse, and perfect complicated musical piece and audition. Of those who audition, only the highest caliber young musicians are then selected to participate. These students have obviously dedicated a tremendous amount of time honing their skills and their selection to the Northern Region Music Festival is a testament to their hard work. They're among the best of the best and they should be very proud of themselves. So, I will introduce those that are here and then read the names of some others um that are not here with us tonight and I'll also let you know their instrument

044or the category in which they they were uh invited to the Northern Re region music festival. So, first um so we have um Christina Kapinsky who was uh auditioned and participated in the band for the flute. [Applause] Congratulations. Now, here tonight, Luke Greenaw uh in the orchestra for the French horn. here tonight. Sophia Diazi in the band for the [Applause] flute. Juliet Greenlaw was in the band with the clarinet. Olivia Angel was in the treble choir. So, we have singers and band musicians that uh that participate here tonight. Hadley Tucker in the treble choir. [Applause] Adela Castillo is al also in the treble choir. Tess Hartley is in the treble choir and Stella Corwin is here tonight. All right, we congratulate our musicians on their participation and we'll invite you back after for a photograph.

045Well done. Thank you. Just so you know, the the four or five kids that were not here, we'll invite them to the CIS meeting and if they can't make the CIS meeting, we'll invite them to the Charter Brook meeting. So, they'll have a couple opportunities. All right. Um, sticking with music for a moment. Um, so we've talked about um our exceptional music program. Something that Canton is noted for is jazz. And so, I'm wondering if Abby Gen is is here tonight. So, could have you join me up here, please? So, while she comes up, our CMS jazz band has had plentiful opportunities to perform throughout the course of the year and uh blow people's minds with their with their talent. This is something that is unique to Canton. And one of the favorite things that

046students did this year from your own account was to perform in a huge a in a huge crowd of other middle school jazz bands in front of college level musicians and the faculty of Yukon's music department at the Yukon Jazz Festival this spring. Our entire band performed and received positive feedback during uh well they per they performed and then did breakout sessions and got some feedback in their specialty areas. Our entire band received positive feedback and stood out in this crowd of otherwise talented musicians. But one Abby Gert was recognized for her exceptional talent and she received from the Yukon Jazz Festival for her performance on saxophone the Yukon Jazz Festival soloist recognition for her exceptional talent. Abby, congratulations. When the board was uh visiting with you last week at the continuous improvement plan, Abby

047gave us some insights to uh some of the things that she enjoyed most about being in the jazz band. That's great. Yep, you did. You just recently met with her. Um I've got some athletic accomplishments to highlight as well. So, looking back, are my wrestlers here tonight? Yes, they are. Craig, you going to come on up? All right. While they make their way up here, uh, I'm pleased to recognize some exceptional athletic accomplishments. So, CMS has a growing and relatively fledgling wrestling program. Uh, and the entire team practiced hard, improved, and performed well, uh, improving over the course of the year. And two of our wrestlers stood apart. They qualified for the middle school state wrestling championship. And that in and of themsel in and of itself would uh have me bring them here before

048you tonight to qualify for the championship and go and and perform there is a huge honor. Not only did they go though, but they performed beyond expectations. So I want to highlight first of all Hugo E who in his weight class placed fourth in the state. Congratulations Hugo. [Applause] And then I'd like to highlight the performance of Rean Murphy who um I was talking to her about her her her performance and she uh filled me. I don't know if you guys could tell uh I'm not a wrestler. I'm not a particularly impressive athlete. Uh so I had to learn from her about uh the wrestling world and something she told me is that there's uh fewer female wrestlers than male wrestlers. So as such sometimes at the competitions they actually collapse the weight classes and

049so Rean had to perform up. So you normally get put with people uh you know about similar size and stature and Rean had to go into a tougher class because of the size of the competition to make the tournament. So fighting up a class, wrestling up a class, uh she scored second. She was second in the state tournament. Congratulations [Applause] And I'd like to end with two academic and uh um leadership awards. And so first are Eleanor and Lucas here. Eleanor and is Lucas Senator here? All right, Eleanor, you get this glory, but I'll tell you about both of these students. So, Eleanor uh both and Lucas Dener are the recipients of our CABE student leader award. So, CAB is the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education. And each year they reach out to ask

050schools to nominate um students for one of the most prestigious awards that we give, the Cave Student Leadership Awards. We take this recognition extremely seriously and have very high standards for it. There's multiple rounds of voting within the staff um where they think through students um that show a willingness to take on challenges. They must show a concern for others and they have to show the ability to make the community around them a better place. Eleanor and Lucas certainly demonstrate those qualities and are very deserving of this one of Canton Middle Schools and Canton Public Schools highest honors. So, first congratulations to our Cave student leader, Eleanor Butler. And we save this also for the audit recipient Lucas Stemp. Great. Thank you. All right. And finally, I have both of our cast scholar leaders here

051tonight. I have Saraphina and Hugo join me up here, please. So, I'm pleased to have Saraphina Sri and Hugo EC uh up here as we talked about the Cass Scholar Leader Award. So, CASS is the Connecticut Association of Schools and each year they reach out to seek nominations for the Cass Scholar Leader Award. Another one of our most distinct and prestigious honors. Cast scholar Leader Award recognizes students who also like Cape have a positive impact on the school climate showcasing dependability and integrity. They also have to show the highest levels of academic achievement. So to be performing at the highest level uh academically in all classes and be giving back to their community and helping those around them uh these are certainly students who deserve to be recognized. multiple rounds of voting, passionate uh uh

052nominations from their teachers for their hard work and contributions to Cam Middle School throughout the middle school career. I'm pleased to name one of our CAS scholar leaders to Sarah Phoenix [Applause] and Well, that's great. I why don't we take a a photo op and we'll go over here to that wall with the board of education. We'll get some pictures. How's that? All right. Come on up. [Music] [Applause] I'm a little bit smaller. You need to move. Okay. What about if I go that way? Okay. All right. Everyone look here first and then parents can get their phone after take as many as you want. Congratulations. [Music] Thank you. Thanks for coming. Thank you very much. Very nice. Congratulations. She works hard. She does. That's quite an award. Okay. See you later. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

053Uh for the board members, um we had we had a great turnout for the uh continuous improvement plan as we walked uh Canton Middle School. We heard some great things that were going on there. This was our second visit. Uh this was our spring visit if you will and Mr. Moore enlighten us in a lot of ways and so did Miss Samini uh who participated. We met with some students, but the board members that weren't there uh Mr. Moors agreed to uh to to give us the highlights of that meeting. So, thank you, Jeff. Of course. Uh, I appreciate everybody for being here tonight. Um, even Miss Smeia was like, "You're good. We'll see you." Um, I'm excited. Even the board member left. She will be back. Just kidding. But the student rest, they did.

054That's fine. Uh, I'm incredibly proud of what K Middle School has done over this this school year. Um, and this is an easy report to give. Uh, we laid out a plan in, uh, the fall and I'm able to report that we followed through on that plan and are seeing wonderful results as a as a, um, part of that dedication. Staff is working incredibly hard. As you can see, we have incredible students that are doing wonderful things. And so, I'm here able to report on just a year of what I see as great successes, um, operational improvements, um, great learning, great teaching. and I anticipate being able to see you in the fall and see those outcomes on the upcoming state assessments, right? We take those mainly in the first two weeks of May. So,

055I can't uh you exactly predict that for you yet, but um great things are happening. You saw them in classrooms and I'll give you the highlights of the plan that we wrote and um what some of the major action steps were this uh this past year. So, first we are um celebrating our growth and taking uh continued steps forward on our our path to even further improvement. I focused this year, we focused this year on revising some team structures to make sure we're addressing climate, culture, attendance, and operations. We focused on curricular standards alignment and um infusing a few high lever teaching strategies throughout the school. Uh you could ask any teacher in Canton Middle School. know that our focus for the year instructionally was learning targets and success criteria. Um you've been able to

056see those and see our improvement with them over the course of the year and it is my firm belief and the data bears out that it is having a positive influence on teaching and learning in the classroom. Um so to align our action steps with the board goals first looking at the area of student growth and achievement um we executed year one of our commissioners network plan. So, as you know, last year we were in a planning year. We wrote a three-year plan for improvement in in comm in collaboration with the community, with students, and most importantly with the staff. Much of that work happening right here in this room. So, this was year one of that three-year plan, and we executed our stated goals for year one with the delegate. Um, we implemented a

057student support team to support student growth and uh in their areas of need. We gave IABS and FABS and STAR just because we've got a lot of acronyms in our industry. Those are diagnostic tools that help uh see where students are in their learning journey. We gave uh those data points as we have been for a few years. This year we really enhanced our understanding of what they mean for teaching and learning to help support every student. Um, as I mentioned, we adopted learning targets and success criteria as a common teaching strategy, and we taught students lessons proactively around executive functioning and organizational skills to help them uh excel. In the area of partnerships and community engagement, we continued our partnership with our wonderful small but mighty PTO. Um, we are welcomed community members in

058for community wellness day. That actually is a future tension that's happening on Thursday. So we have close to 30 sessions occurring that will involve community members whether they be parent volunteers uh local organizations and even some members of the community that we are acting like we're the theme of it is personal wellness through community wellness uh through acts of service we take care of ourselves by taking care of others so our schools will be filled on Thursday with those acts of service and acts of self-care uh through the is one of the ways that we're helping our students get back to the community. That's happening on Thursday. Um, we also continue to focus on communication with families in a world of so much information. We've tried to hone and enhance our weekly newsletter and our

059week at a glance in the area of financial sustainability and efficient operations where uh at least within our building, right, the part of the budget that I control, we are on target. I'm just going to avoid contact. Uh we we submitted a responsible budget and stayed true to it through the course of the year while also wisely utilizing commissioners network uh funds to enhance the professional development of our staff and resources we were able to make in in uh make available for students and wisely use those and forecast forward for that funding as well. And to that too, we've also in the course of this year made a responsible budget for next year utilizing commissioners network funds and also thinking about taking care and setting uh the mill for success moving forward without any like

060financial cliffs of what happens when that commissioner network ends. We're very mindful of doing things that are sustainable uh for the long term. That's great. For a learning environment and belonging as I mentioned we incorporated resiliency lessons or these proactive lessons. One of the things that we have invested in for years in Canada is the idea of resiliency particularly at the middle school in a partnership with the Farmington Health District. Um they have a program called resiliency grows here. They were teaching it before the pandemic. They were coming here and instruct and teaching it. We've worked in great partnership with them namely Justine Ginsburg who's an amazing resource. We're so lucky to have her in in this uh in this area. She's partnered with us so that we can become the teachers and facilitators of

061those lessons and is basically presenting to students in a proactive way some of those real life conversations of what you need to deal with the stress of school and life and and self and and wellness. Um so to help uh foster that in that um that positive learning environment we are using advisory time to teach those lessons. We've promoted the CMS way. uh I came into the school where where the CMS way was already written and it is it remains the cornerstone of what we do and our school climate team is rooted in making sure that the CMS way of responsibility, kindness and respect is infused throughout the building and as I mentioned we've restructured teams uh both in terms of academic teams but also operational teams to make sure that we are best supporting

062students promoting engagement and uh enhancing their performance. In the goal area of embracing equity, we have numerous and ever growing for such a small school, right? Not just a a you know comparatively small school district, but the smallest school in the small district. The number of student organizations and student leaders leadership opportunities that we have to me is astounding. Um easily, it is easy to say that most staff members are involved in hosting something that promotes student engagement and leadership uh and equity in our building. So the student leadership organization promote kindness and student voice. Our learning this year for staff has uh focused on high expectations teaching practices. The idea that when a student comes to you, one of the most equitable things you can do is get their mind on the learning task

063and the stated objective. This is what's going to move you forward and give you those skills and opportunities. And so uh we're focused on the strategies that help make sure that every student is engaged in that way. And we've got members of K Middle School that are um leaders and members of the school of the district's equity team and they are members on our school climate team to make sure that there's constant alignment between the work of the district and what's happening in the building. And finally, in the area of workforce development, um we we did a lot. Uh the the staff of Ken Middle School deserves tremendous praise for the um hard work and dedication that they've put in to stay true to the plan as as was written and to make sure that

064we're doing the best possible work for each and every student. And one thing that uh so some things that they that we did to um develop those folks and take care of folks um one is we infused data work better than ever before into our stu through the work of our student support team giving teachers actionable data. We have more data than than ever before and we have a structure now to make sure that it is usable and translating into action for students um to help take care of folks when you're doing a lot of different things. I made sure that I was exceptionally focused or I tried I guess I would say I I aspired to be clearly focused with our professional development uh aligned and connected to our plan. Everything was connected to

065uh to the main points and main objectives of the year. My goal there was um for things not to feel like 30 different initiatives but merely steps working towards a common objective and one or two areas of focus. So I hope I accomplished that. We implemented a revised teacher evaluation system and within that uh teachers every CMS teacher had goals related to our adoption of learning targets. See there's the alignment and also our district uh our district focus of high expectations. And finally, um, our we supported staff collaboration to accomplish this demanding work. Um, using funds, using commissioners network resources to make sure that teachers had collaborative time, that they had access to consultants, that they had access to professional development, uh, to learn from and with each other to do the best work possible

066on behalf of our students. So, these are some of the priority steps that we did this year to, uh, put K Middle School in a better place and keep every student excelled. I I have to say when we were there, I mean it's impressive the growth and the trajectory that you're on and uh of course we're I think you're putting in all the uh the right treatments to make sure that we stay on that path. So any any questions for Mr. Moore? I I came through the to the walkthrough and it was fabulous. Was fabulous. Kids were engaged. Interesting lessons. Good. Did the debate take place yet on the uh daylight savings time versus uh Yes. Yeah. They debated that unit is wrapping up this week to finish. Do we know how it made out?

067Because it's very important. You can visit the class during public comments. Yeah, I I don't know. I think it's different in each class. I'm not sure where we're pushing for the the pro. I I know. Yeah, I remember. All right, Mr. Moore. I want to thank the the board for their support. I couldn't do this without you without you and uh so thank you very much for your support um throughout the this year and throughout this process. So I appreciate you. Thank you for giving up your evening tonight. Of course. Yeah. Good. Okay. Um we move right along uh to strategic our strategic plan and the hope is to uh to complete that this year. We have uh board of education goal number five that's in your packet. And uh tonight I'd like to as

068we went through the uh the last several is to uh just to go through that and get your comments, suggestions uh and changes. So board number five is embracing equity, strive to create an inclusive and culturally responsive learning environment that celebrates diversity, fosters a sense of belonging, and prepares students for a global society. The opening statement. any questions, concerns about the opening statement? Now, I'll I'll go to and you can stop me at any time. So, let's go to the priorities, which is a ensure systemwide practices and structures are in place to support implementation of the Canton Pools Canton Public Schools equity and belonging plan. Felicia. Um um that's fine to me, but I just suggest um having the link to the plan there. I'm sorry. Having the link to the plan there underneath a

069like what it references the PN public schools equity blogging plan. Yep. The link to the plan. No, the link like the actual go. Yeah. Okay. Any other suggestions? already enforced. Have we already implemented it? Yeah, that was uh believe it was last year brought to the board today. Y okay. It I guess it just reads to me are in place to support the implementation like that we're that we be implementing this not that we're continuing to have it. I don't know. Maybe not. Yeah, actually I think you're right. I think you could take out implementation because we already have implemented it. So support and okay. Oh, go ahead. Anything else? Well, ensure systemwide practices if we already have it just that a reads as though this is something in the future, not that something's happen.

070Sure. You could put you can make it as simple as continue to support the I public schools equity and belonging in just make it just like that. I think that's what you mean. Continue to support. Okay. Thank you that Claudia. Y Okay. B incorporate global citizenship education into the curriculum to help students understand and engage with global issues. Incorporate global citizenship education into the curriculum to help students understand and engage with global issues. Is there a specific curriculum? I would question what is is it specific education or is it just broadish? I would say that it's it's not a specific curriculum that we're looking that we would look to adopt, but understanding that the world goes broader than canon and ensuring that there are multiple perspectives and that there's an understanding of operations within the

071broader world as well. Questions? I suggest um changing to help um to empower curriculum to empower students. sound like that better word students two or something. Okay. C provide opportunities for students to participate in international exchanges, virtual collaborations and service learning projects. Very straightforward. Okay. D promote awareness and action on global challenges. You promote awareness, but you're not promoting the action necessarily, right? Promote awareness and action. You're not promoting action. Yeah, I know that. What like what's an example of that? An example of how we Well, that so Mr. Bishop just said to me, and the more we look at it, and we've read this a bunch of times, I think B and D are very similar. That if we're looking at global citizenship, it all comes into B. That if you take out D,

072I think B really comes within global citizenship and looking at awareness and talking to kids about what our world is. I think they can be combined. Well, I had a um ending to that statement peri just wanted to share see if anyone go ahead. So I have um promote awareness and action on global challenges through educational initiatives, collective integrity and community involvement. Well, that just Yeah, I was just going to say that that changes nicely. Can you say it again? Yeah, I'm sure. So after challenges it would be through educational initiatives, collective integrity and community involvement. So what if you took out because I think we combine those and D using some of her words and maybe F as well cuz you're kind of touching upon F with the I don't know. I like what

073you're saying for D. Um, but I'm worried that some of these are going to become redundant. B and D talk about students. Yeah. And and and instruction and activity. Okay. F and community involvement talk about your community. We don't use the word issues in B, but we use the word challenges instead keeping challenges in B. Maybe B is more about what if you can add Felicia's what if we go back and take B and D put them together in the B but combine um what Felicia said through educational initiatives collective integrity and what was it involvement and community involvement and give us some time to take B and D and combine them but get Felicia's line and words in there through educational initiatives, collective integrity and community. I think as we're going to come back

074for final reading of it, you'll see that it's all combined. I have um I mean I think an easy way to combine it um in so if you go to B um incorporate global citizenship education into the curriculum to empower students by promoting awareness and action on global challenges through educational initiatives collective integrity sure get that clutter you wanted to say it one more time yeah say one more One more time. Oh jeez. You got it. You got it. So you got it. No, no, you got it. Okay. So B is just if you start with the beginning of B. So incorporate global citizenship education into curriculum by or into the curriculum to empower students by promoting awareness and action on global challenges through educational initiatives, collective integrity and community involvement. Yeah, got it. Yeah,

075I see. Perfect service. Thanks. Yeah. Excellent. Good job. Uh so we go to D. Provide professional development to teachers on effective teaching practices and strategies. I I I think the beginning of that should be I mean we're already provided, right? So I think it should start with offer ongoing professional development. And what if we said for staff because it should be our entire staff. It shouldn't just be teachers. You want me to read what I have here? Yeah. So, um offer ongoing professional development for educators. Oh, staff. Staff. That's one of our educators is good. Everybody's an educator. Everybody. So means everybody is an educator. I have um I don't know. I have focus on teaching practices and strategies that support diverse on focus teaching practices strategies. Yeah. Support diverse what? Diverse learners. Learners or

076all learners whatever. Oh, you got all learners is all learners is all learners is the right way to do it. Okay. F is involve community leaders in organizations and school activities and programs to enhance cultural community perspectives. Do we do this at all today? And if so, how? Well, we do, for example, at um CIS, they do the culture, they do the uh international Um, yeah, international days or night or whatever. Well, go ahead. I mean, how else? Yeah, I I think that's exactly right. And then there are different guest speakers who will come in for for different scenarios, but I I think this hits at the point of of being able to to make a concerted effort, being able to um talk about the representation of of the the community and broader community than

077we have in the C area. Okay. Does anyone else find the last four words awkward? Enhance cultural community perspectives. Yes. I I don't have an alternative. Um, so I have strengthened partnerships with community leaders and organizations to enrich school activities and programs to enhance cultural communities. What Why don't you just give us change? I only one more time, please. um strengthen strengthen partnerships with community leaders and organizations to enrich school activities and programs to enhance cultural community perspectives. So if we take um right you got that. Okay. So F you don't have any changes. So that was that was I'm sorry. So on G we'd probably do the same. Ju just one minute thing because I think Joe you were you were hung up on on the enhanced cultural community perspectives. Could we just flip

078the words cultural and community enhance community cultural perspectives? Well, that's not what I thought you said. I think you said cultural community. Oh, cultural and community perspectives would be the way to be able to do it too. Put it I think that and is and that's I'll take credit. You get that? I got it. Yeah. So, if we go to GP, do we change it short again like we did uh before? We could say continue to support or continue to provide all students access to advanced coursework, that kind of thing. Got plenty. Yep. Any other changes for Jean? Well, what is the advanced course? I understand extracurriculars and enrichment programing, but what is what's advanced courses? Honors, honors, AP any any of those advanced pathways. Okay. And then the enrichment is what we would look

079at at the elementary level. H address barriers to participation by providing resources such as transportation, financial assistance, and academic support. That's important. I like I mean I think that's an important bullet. Address barriers to participation by providing resources such as transportation, financial assistance, and academic support. That we're not limited to those things, but that's such as examples, right? Say what they're participation in. cultural enrichment opportunities. I don't know what we're going to say is um I just had address barriers to aid in greater participation by and then the rest is the same. Cindy, what did you want to add? Well, I'm not sure if it makes sense with what you just added. Can you say it again? Address barriers to aid in greater participation by aid. Yeah. Oh, to aid in participation. To aid in

080greater participation. Yeah. Yeah. Press movements. Okay. And I I was just saying like participation of what or in what? I don't know if that needs to be added. I know they need to be kind of broad in general, but to participation in what exactly in cultural enrichment opportunity, but I don't know what it's supposed to say. what what might be the opportunities to be able to qualify what engagement looks like. So, how do we know that our kids are engaged in a lot of things? You see kids who do a lot of stuff. What does that actually look like? And one of the big one of the largest predictors of a good school environment and um student performance is that a kid feels well known by a trusted adult within within a community. So, I

081would keep it broad and then be able to ask for evidence of what we're doing to be able to get to that. I I I agree with Cindy that I I think that's one that we got to look back to what the overarching goal is and the overarching goal is to create an inclusive and cultural responsible learning environment. So we go to age, how are we doing that relative to to the goal, right? So I think you're 100% accurate, but I think we have it up above too. Okay. and I organize schoolwide events and activities that celebrate and honor the diverse cultures, traditions, and backgrounds of the school community. I think that could be another one where it says continue because we do that now, which is continue to organize. Yes. Okay. Is everybody okay

082with that? Okay. Okay. Okay. So, we'll make these changes and we'll see them uh back in our our May uh meeting with Mr. D. M just add something about the process. Go ahead. So, just so the the board knows, we're at board goal number five and I believe we have one more or goal number six, which is workforce development. We will bring that to the the June demand meeting or force development and then the goal would be to bring the book like this that we got in the beginning. We're we're going to change a whole bunch of this book around now that I look at it. Not the words. We we'll put all the words that you wrote, but some of the pictures and some of the things that I want to just take it

083out and just focus on the words. I think that's most important. and to bring it to you in June um with a possible vote in June or a possible vote at your retreat whenever we do your retreat in the beginning of the year so we can look at it one more time if we're ready to vote for it in June which you may be because we'll have everything in there from the May meeting. You'll get it literally probably within a week after the May meeting but you know it could be June or September. Well, the reason why I like June is because at your convocation, I'd like this to be better. So, um there is a closing part, too, that we should go over. Yeah. And I don't know if I'm going to have that

084like that. That was just kind of like architectural type of things just to show you what it um strategic plan looks like. My gut says I'm going to take a lot of that out and just make it what you all have done already and then a letter from Mr. Daniels in the the beginning. Our vision of a graduate and then that's it. That's all it really should be. I was just trying to make it that's more like a mission statement which each school has. Correct. Correct. I was just trying to get this out there, give Claudia more work to try to do with my vision. But now that we're going now that we're going through this, I think all that needs to be in there is your board goals, a letter from the um the

085board chair and then we're putting these all over the place and then you're having them at your meetings that when people are talking about your their continuous improvement plans, you could just check it off. And I agree with Mr. Jango, if we could get it done by June, the continuous improvement plans will have in there board goal 1A, board goal 3B, board goal for tonight 5D. So, you can actually see to uh Cindy's point, if somebody's working on wherever it went, if somebody's working on the one that Cindy said, let's say it was H and it was 5H, we'll be able to say that's what the principal is working on. And here's an example of that. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. So, if we could get it going for the June meeting, that would

086be great. And we'll do our best that we can to provide you our final draft on um before the probably a week after the the board meeting if not earlier. And just the one that resonates that we still got to find a place to put it is we haven't forgotten is Mr. Shler's digital citizenship where we'll we'll we'll find that that's really the only thing that's left and citizenship and we did review a bit of that at one of our uh curriculum committee meetings so we can bring that back into the the document as a recommendation table. Super. Thank you. Okay. Thank you guys. Um all right. So let's go to the uh calendar of events. The only thing I'll highlight, it's in your kit, but I I'll in your package. Oh, I was trying

087to meet you up. I know you're saying I just Okay. Finance finance. Russell, anything you want to talk about on finance update on today's meeting? Excuse me. Yeah. So, um, we met this morning. Uh, Mr. Robins covered pretty much everything that we went over for the March financials. Um we had a brief discussion just for kind of following up with our last, you know, whole board of ed meeting. We went over the possible cuts associated with reductions in the budget. Um we didn't get into too many specifics and Dr. Gman's going to bring something back to us as we get a little closer after the budget's passed. Um, then the only other real notable item that I that I'd like to bring up is that we are still waiting for the board of select men

088to put the resolution together to form a committee for Cherry Brook for the addition whatever we need there. And I I I will push them on that a little bit. I'll get a hold of Kevin tomorrow, but thank you. Any questions for Mr. Bush on the finance committee meeting this morning? Okay. Policy, Mr. Sh. Uh we met before tonight's meeting. Uh we finished our review of the uh bylaws. Uh I can tell you we we read them all. We looked them all over. We are moving mostly to the shipment uh version of bylaws, but we're some of the K bylaws we currently have. We're going to keep some of those, combine some of those. Uh the Peggy, Jordan, myself, and Lou have looked at them very hard. We would ask you to uh look at

089them as well. If you have any questions, uh please get them to myself and John. John's been a great great source here as well. Uh before the next meeting, we're hoping tonight that you'll endorse what we've done as a first read uh that still allows time for for changes. Um we have just a couple of undecided issues that we're looking for input from the whole board on. Uh when adopting a policy, Shipman suggests using a majority vote. Uh some members of the committee suggest using a twothirds vote. Our current bylaws require a twoth3 vote. Uh I give you the pros and cons of each of those probably figure it out. Happy to. And the same with removal of officers. We elect officers for a year and the shipment bylaws say well if you want to

090remove an officer uh five majority vote would do that. And and uh some of us are suggesting that should be twothirds as well. uh if it's only a year, if you aren't happy with the vice chair, you know, either get twothirds of the vote for it to support that uh or wait till the following year and get somebody else. Um personally, I hate to see things decided on a 54 vote, but if we're going to adopt a policy that's controversial, we ought to be able to come to an agreement with at least twothirds of it. That's why I pushed two/3. Uh the downside to it being um we might not have enough people in a meeting. You know if we have seven people in a meeting it becomes harder to get six folks. U so

091if you have any thoughts on that share them now if you uh don't so so anybody want to chime in on that? Anybody feel strongly one way or another 2/3 versus a majority? Felicia any any feelings? I mean I like two3 vote but just my personal consistent keep the way it is. Um Peggy and two3 Kim so I was for majority and the main reason for that was I was concerned about um attendance and what we would do in that instance. So it would be a delay and possibly pushing something forward. Um but you know I'll go with the majority. I'm just kidding. Um, but we saw that this year with a policy that that passed with an overwhelming majority but not six votes. Correct. Shown on attendance. Yes. So that was my only concern

092really. Cindy, I would be on the board with the two/3 vote. 2/3. Russell 2/3 or 50/50? Two3 cup. Sorry. Took me a second to get me. I think I have your answer. Okay, great. Thank you. Uh, second item. I'll be quick here. that school climate policy uh has been approved by the state legislature and we are obligated to uh retire our current bullying policy and add in the new school climate policy. Spend an hour talking about it uh tonight. So, it's important that we understand it. It'll be up hopefully for a first read at the AP uh the main meeting, but ask you it's not that long. the school uh it's called called school climate policy and then there's a restoration practices policy. Actually to try to read those for the next meeting uh and

093it would be good to get any questions and issues out do a presentation on on what our understanding is but it's a big deal. It's a big deal one that that we are presented in our packet tonight. Did you make any major changes yet? Okay, we can't. Okay. You didn't like discuss. We can't add or subtract from what's written. It's a state so we will just agree to adopt. We have no choice. Well, you have to adopt um because we follow we follow law. But um if you have questions, I I think it's very comprehensive. I I suggested that in our journey meeting is to maybe have a when we go to a to approve it is to have more of a deeper dive presentation. Maybe maybe Mr. Bishop can give us a small presentation

094on it. Yeah, it's it's it's a change and I hope for the better. Seemed to be. So, it's important we all understand it. Thank you. Okay. I understand this. Jordan, you're going to give the um Are you going to give Who's going to get Oh, this is two sons. Yes. Um Okay. So, the curriculum met on um March 26 and Miss Mski uh reviewed the new Connecticut State Social Studies Standard for Middle and High School um that Canton is in the process of implementing. Uh the new standards focus on four main areas, history, economics, geography, and civics. This standard passed in October of 2023 and our expected timeline for full implementation is in two years time. Um we also have an overview of the personal finance course by Mrs. Hartley um including a compare and

095contrast with the economics course that this the um personal finance is replacing. So the semester based course which is partnered with current global issues and then it's a deeper focus on day-to-day personal finance topics. Um it talks about applying for financial aid uh taxes uh planning for your future savings developing a budget. Uh it was very comprehensive and I think the program is great and will benefit our students greatly. So, um, yeah, that's it. Any questions for Jordan? Okay. And then, um, Cindy, you service bureau. Yeah. So, there there have been, um, two meetings with, um, YSB, one in January, one in uh, February. And, um, there are two issues that carried forward from the January meeting to February. And one that they've really been pushing is this viewing of um the documentary called Screen

096Aers. Uh and they were pretty bummed out that they really just didn't get the the turnout that they've been looking for. So they showed it twice already like in January and they're looking to show it again a third time um Wednesday, April 23rd in the CIS cap. Um there's a little a little issue with um communicating it to the to CIS community. I I don't know what happened but um also somebody was saying that it didn't get good reviews but but but you know I it's really you know what they were saying it's really about just like opening up that conversation. Um, you know, I mean, there's not anybody here who has children who doesn't, you know, understand how important that conversation is. Um, things that I see and hear about as a teacher in

097high school and the stuff that goes on through like social media, it's it's such a disruption to the day. We fight kids. I fight kids every day with their cell phones and their technology and their iPads. It's exhausting. Um, so I would love to see, you know, I would love to see them get a good turnout for that. And by the way, this is a um an elementary edition, so it's more geared toward like upper elementary, middle school age kids. So it's like 10 plus um but you know, again, everybody knows, I mean, kids younger and younger are getting, you know, on social media and they have, you know, technology and so are they to shift a little bit younger. Are they grabbing the PTO on this to try Mr. Bishop has an update how

098how it's being discussed? I'm not sure. All right. Might have a few. Well, I have I have the 23rd. Yeah, it's it's gone out from uh every school up to um CMS. Um it's gone out through uh CIS again as well. Um, we've got uh uh it through our social media and everything as well. And um I'm sorry, on the school calendar. It's on the school calendar. Did the email come out coming out? That comes out tomorrow. What? Tuesday the 23rd or Wednesday? Wednesday. John, I appreciate your the work you've done to support this happening for the school. Thank you. And um wanted to say the information going out has been great and I've read it in the in the newsletter from CIS. It would be helpful to parents because of spring break to have

099a reminder which I know we have to opt to remind people but because of spring break in particular reminding them possibly through the schools or the flyer right after spring break uh there. So right after spring break. Got you with that. So it'll come out from me uh tomorrow to the community as well. Is it during spring break? I mean the 19th. No, no, it's 23rd. Yeah. So parents are reminded like that Monday. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. It kicks off this week. Sorry. I'm just being living reality that I what we hear from parents that or just two other things that came up. So, something that's um that I love to support and donate to is the sub substance free graduation party. Um that I guess you guys probably I get a a

100little letter in the mail with the envelope send in a donation. Um I So, it's it's fundraised um by the senior parents and then the volunteers supported by junior parents. It goes from 1000 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. Um, when I volunteered, you know, I think I got home about 1:30 in the morning. That that was a little rough for me, but but um but it's if you could see what they do there, it's that big sky. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Like, and there's there's something there for everybody. There's a quiet room for kids if they just want to chill, if they kind of spin themselves out and they want to just go and and relax. There's food, there's games that it it's it's really uh an amazing event for the kids and just keeps them

101safe and keeps them, you know, that one big, you know, last big night uh together. Uh and uh then the only other thing and I think John you mentioned this at one of the meetings over the past month or so but they keep talking about uh like family counseling and therapists that are of no cost. Um it's free at the rec center. And I don't know who Lauren Vito is but I have her name written down. Yeah. She's one of she's one of registered social work. Okay. Okay. and and she's the direct connection to be able to make recommendations, but getting folks to be able to engage is often part of the problem. But they're saying, you know, they're not getting any referrals. And I don't know what to do about that, but I'm just

102throwing that out there. My understanding is that the referral goes to the families, not a referral to them. Well, whatever. They're not getting any referrals. Anything else? Good. That's it. Okay. Thank you, Felicia. Onations. Uh, so we had a meeting on March 24th. We talked a little bit about uh collaborating with the town for communications. We did hear back from town that we were putting together some communication with the town. Worried about that go out to the community. Um, and then we have the student at the center video that we're working on that will be coming out and going out to the whole district and communicated on all field newsletters that go out from the schools and our next meeting is Monday, April 28th. That one Thanks. Do you do you know um when the

103town piece is going out or uh Mr. Penny reached out to me this week uh to be able to uh set some plans around that. So I don't know yet cuz last time the three of us put together a little commentary. If they want us to do that again, I hope they can give us a little time. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. And I know there's no credit report, but thank you. Okay. Anything else on those reports? All right. Now, as I mentioned, just uh just make sure you mark your calendars for the annual uh budget hearing on the 28th and uh I think it's 6 Do I have that right? 6 p.m. I That's what I wrote a note out the 28th. There's no there's no time on the district. Is it the community

104center? I have six, but let me just I did too. I had six too. Yes, community center. Just look days. We used to do it in the auditorium because we used to be so packed and then there was an overflow to the cafeteria, but I'm pretty sure this is community center. Okay. Uh we'll get that report in a second. So, uh you had a chance to look at the consent agenda. Are there any changes or any concerns about the consent agenda? None. Hearing none. Then the consent consent agenda is approved. Move on to the um nonrenewal of certified staff. You want to give us a second? Yeah. By state statute, we need to um let teachers know that they're nontenured by May 1st if their um contracts are going to be nonrenewed. And we don't

105like to do this too often because um we don't want to lose our teachers to other school districts. But with the budget being where it is and the the confidence that um we're not sure if the budget will be approved or not approved. Um I put a three uh staff members down here that are latest hires for elementary because that's where the possible reductions would be. Um all these individuals have been spoken to and not based upon performance but based upon budget. And um tonight you have the names of Ashley Clark, Erin Herszog, and Veronica Sullivan. They know that you're doing this tonight, this action. And if you do vote to um not renew their contracts, I will meet with them tomorrow or Mrs. Cortto or we'll meet with them tomorrow to let them know.

106Can I have a motion that the contract of employment of Ashley Carr, Aaron Herszog, and Veronica Sullivan not be renewed for the following year upon its expiration at the end of the current 2425 school year and the super schools is directed to advise such persons in writing section first. Thanks Cindy. I need a second and we'll go to discussion second. Thank you for the second. Thank you. All right. Have you second any questions for the superintendent? any concerns standard. I have a question. So, does this mean that in the event that we need to fill a position that we cannot offer it to them? Oh, no. They they they would be offered the job. Okay. So, this is just for that exact position is being eliminated. But if they want what this now what this

107is being used for is let's say and I'll just call out the class size is let's say our third grade gets we discuss that we that we get a $100,000 cut and we decide to cut a third grade classroom the one of the third grade teachers or someone at Cheroke would go to CIS where one of these individuals are. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you for sharing that. You got it. Any other questions? I have a first and a second on the motion. Take a vote. And the vote is to um that we move that the contract of employment of Ashley Cart, Aaron Herszog, and Veronica Sullivan not be renewed for the following year upon its expiration at the end of the year current year 2425 school year and the superintendent schools is directed to advise such

108persons in writing this action. All those in favor I opposed one oppose. Okay. 71 71 um I don't have the exact time and um on the district calendar so I want Claudia to check out when the annual budget hearing. Yeah, sorry. I have it up right now. I I had it that's on the town. It's the community calendar that says 6 p.m. Okay. Just want to make sure. I'm I'm going to backtrack. Uh move the camp board of education uh I'm sorry. Move the camp board of education approve the board of ed education bylaws as presented on the memorandum of understanding dated April 1st 2025 is the first read first Mr. Shler second thank you Jordan discussions Mr. Sean, do you want to bring anybody up to date on that or just Yeah, you guys

109know what's going on by first read. Okay, no questions. All those in favor I on the first read Russell 80. Thank you. Okay. Uh now we're going to move that the uh board of education enter executive session at 8 8:08 p.m. for purposes of the discussion of attorney client privilege communication regarding budgetary matters and referendum issues and for the purposes of custodial contract negotiations. First thank you Joe. Second Jordan any questions on that? So, just so the community knows, the board will be going into executive session. We'll be closing, not closing out this meeting. We'll be pausing the meeting. And when the board is done with the executive session, they'll be coming back into this meeting um and Kira will reopen up the uh meeting um for you to possibly vote on the custod contract

110that has to be done in public session. Russell, I can put you on my phone so you can listen when we go into executive session. Okay. So, I have a person a second. All those in favor? I opposed. We're going to move to the room over there. This won't take uh very long. I'm sure Lou, you want to just fill me in after. I can fill you in after, too. I can leave you on the phone or I can fill you in later. Just fill me in later. We're coming back in here, folks. So you can leave your stuff and uh administrative staff is leaving. You want to say record? Wow. So, Kim Mhm. or So, we're going to go back online and then Kim, you're going to handle this. Okay. The board of education

111is back in session at 817. Call 8:18. And um my hang on one second, guys. Yeah, I think she picked up my my agenda. I mean, I had there. All right. Um um so we move that the Canton board of we just walk out. We don't need a a vote on executive session moving on. So I need a motion that we move that Canton board of education approve the contract between the Canton Board of Education and the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America UE local 222 sublo number 10 school custodians. That's the union they belong to. Can I have a motion please? Thank you Peggy. Second. Thank you, Felicia. We have a first and a second on the floor. Any uh any further debate? All those in favor? I opposed at 70. Any

112objections to uh adjourning? Then we walk out. We adjourn at 8:20. Thank you very much.