BOE Meeting 10 8 24

001c c here and we uh we have some uh some students we're going to be making some awards to other than that we'll be following our regular agenda if you don't have our agenda it's on the table and some of the things that we're going to be going over tonight you can find those uh on the table if you'd like um I'm going to start tonight uh before the Pledge of Allegiance with just with a moment of silence uh this past week and a half uh we lost a legendary coach in Nancy Grace um and you'll hear a little bit more about that as the meeting goes on but uh sadly Nancy passed away and uh we also lost the board of members son-in-law who is also a a substitute teacher uh in our district

002Andrew uh Jason and uh Andrew passed away uh last week also so if youd rise with me for a moment of silence and then we'll turn to our question Le thank you if you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all thank you okay tonight uh we'll start with our public comment so we'll start with anybody in the audience that would like to make a public comment uh the public comment segment of the meeting agenda is set aside so the Boe may receive public comments procedurally public remarks will be limited to 3 minutes and citizens will be asked to identify themselves because the board of education is

003limited by the Freedom of Information Act to discussing only matters on the agenda the board of education is not permitted to engage in a discussion with the comments presented so having said that we'll time the the comments to make sure we keep the meeting moving is anybody in the audience would like to address the board of education for public comments Andrew thank you Andrew L for fining Drive last month I sent every board member an email and I just would like to get that email what i' said in the email on the public record so I'm just going to read the email as I wrote it to all the board members last month during the summer I found out from Anna Robins that board of ed budget just the Year 2005 was about $16.8 million

004I took that 16.8 million and put it into a website called US inflation to.com and found out that keep PA inflation since this year 2005 today we'll need a budget of just over $27 million the current bordered budget it's about $32.9 million so when compar to fisal year 2005 our current budget is about $5.8 million 12 inflation my request for the board that is to find out why are we running 5.8 million of above inflation and to do so before you go to the board of Finance with your next budget there could be legitimate reasons why we're 5.8 million above inflation for example I'm sure they're more on fronted educational mandates now than there were 20 years ago maybe the student population size has increased I'm not sure with the board ofed budget several million

005of public inflation I feel the public has owed an explanation as to why this is happening and to do so in a public meeting I was offered graciously andna offer time to to down and you know run through everything with May I'm not sure quite detail byly decline because the explanation needs to be had at a public meeting not one one behind thank you thank you an anybody else like to address the Board of Education in the audience okay hearing none we'll go online sure I have one raised hand and I'm going to allow Lisa C to talk Lisa you should be able to talk now thank you so much um I was just at the policy meeting I just wanted to thank you oh 13 din Drive sorry go ahead hogin 13-day nard drive

006thank you okay thank you um I was just at the policy committee meeting and I I want to thank you for allowing this meeting to be held hybridly I could as well um at the policy committee meeting I attended um I asked for further revisit policy for further edit um and I hope that other members of the public will also come forward and give input on policy topics in the future now that public comment is on that agenda the second comment and final comment I wanted to make was to just Express GR ude to John bishop and the Safety Committee for pursuing the safe roots to schools and for being recognized as a district of Distinction for their Vision zero program October is pedestrian safety awareness month and so although we didn't pull up the

007bike walk roll event um together for this month I'm looking forward to the event in May um I'm a member of bike won CC also we have a Bike Rodeo um plan with parks and Rex and the C and more information will be coming um in next few months but the sa FR school meeting on September 17th brought forward a lot of valuable um Engineers forwarded me a copy of their presentation and I shared that presentation with the temporary traffic and pedestrian safety advisory committee meeting last week um um and we assigned ourselves some homework work um we decided to look over the recommendations and send feedback to Mr Bishop and hopefully that will further the development of the safe roots to schol I just want to thank the administration for all of their efforts

008on the M program thank you Lisa appreciate you I have one more rais hand from chrisy Mitchell I'm going to allow christe to St christe you should be able to unmute yourself hi christe hi thank you good evening my name is Christy Mitchell I live at 14 noja Trail for the record my husband and I have lived in Canton for 24 years and we've raised our three daughters in the Canton School District I speaking tonight to urge the board to delay implementing the title 9 rewrite policies and to resend the gender identity policy 5145 53 to prevent further harm until the law is settled on this issue and I've already submitted comments and talked at the policy committee meeting at length about the injunctions across the country and all of the legal reasons why I

009think you should do that so I'd like to just share our firstand experience with these policies um and you know why it's so important that you take a step back and really understand the harm that's caused by it so back in 2017 my middle daughter Chelsea as just a freshman found herself in the finals of the 100 meter dash at the k to get State open um this is really hard to do out of the thousands of girls that compete in that event only eight make it to a final the only other freshman in that race was a male and had he been running with the other males he would have been ranked 422nd place and would certainly not have qualified for the state eight but because he ran with the girls he finished fourth

010that Year Chelsea lost her chance to medal she lost points for her for her Canton team and she miss qualifying for new englands a male took honors instead and policies like the one you are discussing tonight allowed it the next year second male started running girls track he switched from the boys team to the girls team between the indoor and outdoor season Chelsea again made the finals of the 100 meter at the State open but this time settled into her blocks with a mail on each side of her they of course took first and second the boy who took first would have placed 181st in the boys rankings but because he ran with the girls he said new meet record and beat the girls by at least five meters that same boy went on to

011win the 200 meter that day and to sweep the 100 and 200 at the New England Championship all along the way girls were losing their chance to advance to make finals to make Podium there are only eight or nine Lanes on a track and when boys are in two of them girls are being displaced this is sex based discrimination the policy you are discussing tonight allowed it by junior year Chelsea was losing state titles four of them to be exact this went on and on again the race wasn't close he the boys took first and second and he took third um that loss was hard a state Open Championship means a lot and you can go down to the gym and take a look at the banners and see how many athletes have been able

012to do that in our school's history you'll find a handful of boys but no other girls she is the only one and this mattered to her and it should have mattered to you this is sex based discrimination policy you are discussing tonight allowed this to happen I could go on with 20 more examples um I'm not going to do that because they don't have time but 15 state titles seven New England titles and 17 meet records all taken by males and girls races nobody would step in and say enough this is wrong this doesn't make sense this is hurting girls girls were silenced coaches were silent nobody dared discuss it and after years of asking for help as a last resort Chelsea and two other girls filed a federal lawsuit to for common sense and

013fairness now four years later that lawsuit is still ongoing and this school board and my family remain on opposite sides of an isue that we should be United on protecting the rights of your female students against sex based discrimination the Title Nine rewrite destroys the can can you summarize please let you go over but thank you certainly these policies fail to consider the impact on female students ex separated sports categories locker rooms and restroom facilities are just common sense categorizing these things by gender identity should never have been implemented in our school district you have the opportunity to do the right thing rather than double down on a flawed approach I hope that you will stand with the young women who have taken a stand on this issue thank you thank you Christie anyone else

014online here don't have any other raised hands that's it okay we will close out the public comment of tonight's meeting thank you for your comments uh both online and in the audience tonight appreciate you okay uh we'll move on to the administrative reports the Chairman's Corner tonight uh I report to the board um that with the passing of legendary coach n Nancy Grace we've gotten many comments and thoughts about how to honor her and I will let the board know that we are along with the board of Selectmen we are reviewing options uh and it's going to take some time so uh I know that people would like to see certain things done uh in town and we will continue to valuate those options something will be done I'm sure um but we're not really

015sure what yet um because board of education does not have naming rights of certain things we have naming rights inside the building but not outside the building so we have to coordinate with Board of Select so that's in process uh the second thing I want to remind everybody about is uh we do have another legendary coach and Bill Phelps who retired as our soccer coach last year this year last year you retired after last season after last season thank you and on 1022 at a soccer game here in uh on our own home field we'll be honoring Mr Phelps at halftime with a little reception so uh I hope as many people can make that meeting as possible and I hope the board can also make that meeting uh that that event uh been on

016Mr phelps's uh behalf uh I also want to remind the board there's a cave conference that's coming up the annual cave conference which is 11:15 to 116 and um we also received um oh it's right here uh we received from the uh Park and wreck for board members and some of you I remember I think Ken myself and Joe I think last year were at Mills pond where they did their Halloween at the park uh where they've asked all different parts of town um Everybody the Board of Education Board of Selectmen all the different boards if they would sponsor a table and hand out uh candy the uh there's an event run that day this is Saturday October 19th the event is um there's a fun run from 11:30 to 12:30 but there's also um

017Candy giveaway that also happens from 11:30 to 12 12:30 it's 1 hour um so if there's a board member fortunately I'll be away that weekend but if there's a board member that may want to coordinate that one hour uh we put our Banner out there we'll buy the candy and the kids just come by it's pretty cool they come by and all their costumes and if you want to come byy in a costume and I'll open this up to our our reps if if you want to help us out with this that would be a great too it's one hour on Saturday the 19th um the other the other thing is there's a teacher is it a teacher appreciation next we how it's Board of Education and EAC collaboration of a social okay so meet

018and a meet and greet with the Board of Education and our teachers union and that is next Thursday is it Thursday 17th thank you so it's next Thursday the uh the 17th so um I I plan to be there um and I hope as many board members can be there also to uh to um have some fun with our our Union 35 teachers 3:15 goes 3:15 I think to like 6:15 or something like that so 5:30 okay um other than that that's all I have uh as a Chairman's up there we move on to Dr G Dr grman please super good evening to everyone it's great to see everyone here and person and online a lot of happenings within the the can Public Schools I do want to welcome Mr to pipo and Dr Kidwell

019here this evening and the rest of the Ken High School staff and students and families that are joining us for such a great night I did receive an email from Mr dep pipo that I did want to put out out here in let the board in the community now that Kon high school was recently recognized as an advanced placement program by being placed on the honor rule for 2324 by the College Board as far as Mr pipo and I can remember this is one of the first times that this has happened and what it does it's honoring and recognizing the schools that have done outstanding work to welcome more students into the AP courses and if you remember that is all part of Mr the pipo in the high school's continuous Improvement plan so [Music]

020congratulations as I wrote in my update to the board of ed last week and I do want to let the community know and my hope is eventually to bring this individual in the spring to a board meeting is our own Kent High School Kent Middle School music teacher Coral director Mr Brian Jones has been selected as a national finalist for the American prize in composition for his short Coral Works professional Divi division for his peace may it be so that that's a tremendous honor we wish Mr Jones tremendous luck and and we'll bring Mr Jones here in the Spring tomorrow is a big day here at Kent high school and there'll be a lot of traffic in in this uh building tomorrow so we need to be prepared for that our SC counseling department has

021work worked really hard for our college fair for our Juniors and seniors tomorrow I want to let everyone know that this Friday will be a half day in the Ken public schools that we have districtwide professional learning Monday October 14th there's no school due to the holiday and Tuesday November 5th our staff will get together students will be off for our professional election day um development and that will be at Cher Brook primary school we really haven't had our professional learning day at Cherrybrook so that will be exciting I do want to let the board know that we are in in deep into our budget process that we will be meeting with the administrative team to discuss their individual budgets they're putting their budgets together with the hope of presenting our proposed forecasted budget if

022you remember we do it I I did it a little bit different than what you're used to I'll give you a forecasted budget of where we are at that moment in time in December and then I'll come back and give you the final superintendent budget in the the January and February timeline but what the goal is to share with you where we are are within the the process of what the administrative team is looking at in December and looking at it in relative to the tri board meeting which is October 21st at 6: PM it's very important that all board members attend the tri board meeting on October 21st 6: p.m. and that will be held at the community center and I I normally don't do this but I will because it's part of my

023thought process we will be able to as part of this budget process really share with the board of finance and the board of edit why the budget looks different than it looked in 2006 or even in 1996 and give all the external factors that that make up that that that budget process so that is something that we definitely put as part of the process it's good for a board of Finance to also understand that as well as the the the board of education so I'll be asking Mr is Robins that we'll put that as part of our presentation I'm not sure and we probably should have that um by the time we do our forecast budget also um so I do want to let the board know that and the next uh regular scheduled board

024meeting will be held on Tuesday November 12th I'll take any questions out of the superintendent's office at this time any board member have a question for the superintendent okay hearing none we'll move to the assistant superintendent report Mr Bishop please might I'll be brief tonight uh Mrs cogins uh was able to share a little bit for us I want to thank you to to Lisa for bringing that up and share with everyone on uh September 13th The District in cooperation with the community received the distinction of being named a vision zero District by the Connecticut Department of Transportation this is due to the concerted and coordinated work of the district and our community in an effort to be able to promote safety uh this award was made possible by the collaboration of the school and

025District administration um uh Brandon Richard and James Mona who are two teachers at Canton High School for some of their work in developing a a bike pathway um bike technology pathway in partnership with Jan Tanner of benador bikes um and then also through work with our community members including those from bwalk hon uh the temporary traffic and Safety Committee and all of our neighbors so we're thrilled to be able to be recognized for doing that work uh I'm grateful for that uh recognition and then on uh uh September 24th we had an early release in support of teachers really focusing on using language to support and when necessary theas students making sure that we have an outstanding School culture and climate um it was work it was done in coordination and collaboration with our district

026culture and climate committee our Equity committee and our pts Department I want to say thank you to Amy GIC from CIS and Kelly d Martino from Cherry primary school and Mrs mle for her leadership and being able to help coordinate and make that day happen and then uh our upcoming professional day will'll be focusing on the data that we're receiving from our first universal screen that we provide for students this this uh fall any questions out of my office uh Mr Bishop can you give the board just a 30 second update on Cherry primary school and where we are in the building project please absolutely uh we have U we've met together as a team we're coming back together to be able to um prioritize the options that are aail a to us what we

027understand is that the board of Selectmen had commissioned the pmdc to move in a particular direction the working committee that had worked together to provide uh a potential solution um gave some additional information that's requiring us to take a step back and reevaluate further with our Board of Selectmen to be able to cast a new uh Vision going forward but the work continues um and is uh going to keep moving forward with uh the conversations with that group and eventually into our pmbc again anticipate as well thank you sir any questions from Mr Bishop we don't have any online okay thank you thank you Mr Bishop okay excellent the fun part the student report I'm sorry did I no she's she's after students like that no the fun part is students and then we get

028to [Music] business and you're a f part too some Maggie do you want to go first or how do you want to who wants to go first tonight I can start okay I'll be reporting on CIS so in the month of September CIS started recognizing students for Positive Choices by Hing up respectful responsible and Role Model Star cards Maggie can you just speak up a little bit cuz I'm getting old thank you uh CIS participated in start with below week does create a sense of inclusion and kindness C had its largest students Council this year with many ties in the race house representative the school held its first advisory meeting of the year and students created a hello brick that would be added to a start with Hello wall with the school Ela and special

029education teachers have their first PD session with Ela consultant F gold uh fifth graders went on the project oceanology field trip while a little chilly both groups had a great day uh sixth graders have their first uh their first of a two-part series with Empower leadership last Friday CIS got's first ever character car off each home room and preschool class will car or decorate their styrofoam pumpkin to be in likeness to their favorite book character and the students will vote on a favorite pumpkin in Halloween and the pto's annual prid night will be held on on Friday October 25th Board of Ed members are welcome feel free to be AC thank you thank you so uh CIS their their SCH government is uh they meeting they've had their meeting how often do they meet I

030didn't get that okay I was just wondering maybe you catch that for me Julia okay um I will be reporting on cherra um so in partnership with forti Transportation uh Mr amera and Mr Barnes engaged in a student lesson on bus safety um and this also involved visiting a parked bus that was in the parking lot so they were able to actually put into practice um on Friday October 4th CH held its second all school meeting of the year at this meeting they focused on the bare necessity um and they watched a video that the faers were involved in making and it was supposed to teach the younger grades what it means to be like respectful and to really uh kind of show the values and how to get like positive cards and at this

031point they have received over 400 positive cards as a school uh the second graders have been on a field trip to rber Nature Center uh where they're able to connect the science topics that they're learning in class the real life um and coming up uh the this month the kindergarteners will do their Halloween par to CHS and uh in the Middle School uh this year chook will be holding its Field Day in October and this will be a great opportunity to enjoy the fall and also to build connections and teamwork between uh students and teachers um and cheber has launched a new birthday book club um uh this birthday Book Club is where when it's your child's birthday you donate a book to the to gr uh library in their off excellent report thank you

032Lucas I suspect you're going to get high school yeah high school middle school and high school so for the high school we have our PSAT set up and practice day um this Thursday 10:10 and uh next I believe Thursday I not Thursday Tuesday 1016 106 we take the actual PSAT for PSAT 11 uh 10 and 89 uh which is also the middle school for 8th grade um soon uh Kent high school will be honored for winning the Michaels cup which is a sports honor the fall play will soon be taking place with hsal and tech prep well underway um the annual prisons concert is in development with the seniors selecting producers and working to pick a theme right now um currently us sport of EV Representatives districtwide are interviewing students about their goals for the

033year and soon in the high school we will have spirit week and the game day coming on upcoming Friday excellent excellent great great report so what's what's the mood out there right now we're through September and we're going talked over everybody kind of in the swing of things and yeah it's back to normal good well you guys are smiling so I you're representative of the school so I suspect everybody's smiling right okay well thank you for those reports any questions for the student Representatives okay thank you very much now we go to the other fun part this is Robin on uh the business managers report great thank you thank you good evening um tonight we um just going to talk about the September results Financial results for the district um we went um finance committee

034reviewed um all of these this the overall forecast for September is unfavorable $ 56,86282 188 special education is forecasted to be unfavorable 593 684 um which is NS after the 560 we had a little movement in Salan benefits that was positive we did have some uh to replace um hot water heater in C Middle High School um that was not budgeted um for so we'll be over a budget in that area and then again the special education over budget condition is due to having District uh transportation and tuition um um and let's see and those expenses will be offset by some forecasted revenues um for excess cost cost um were to come later on that um we did review some budget adjustments to for the month of um um September um to um reflect the

035allocation of the provision for salaries okay I'm GNA ask you a whole your questions because when we get to the finance report Mr Bush and M Robins will kind of give you an update on the uh Finance meeting today and then you can ask your questions there um okay we're of and running to uh C celebrates and our continuous Improvement plan updates by Mr depo and Dr Kidwell thank you for being here tonight we appreciate it any students here from the high school over here here [Music] so nice uh to be here tonight um and we thank the board for the opportunity to speak uh and celebrate some of the things going at the high school um Mr you you ask Lucas about how the school year is going I'd have to say it's quite

036busy uh busy on all levels stely with the teachers and certainly with the students we are up and running there's so many activities going on um and the weather's been been wonderful so so between Outdoor Sports and indoor activities we've uh we've just really uh been portal and hectic I think but also really in a positive way I think all students are highly involved tonight I'm going to be speaking specifically about four groups but in my mind uh it's really representative of um the school student body as a whole um in terms of the activities that happen in our school early in the year it's hard to celebrate a whole lot of things so this is sort of a hybrid of celebrating certain things but also informing the board of some fun things that are

037going on and some things to look forward to I'll also be speaking about my continuous Improvement plan and in that we talk about learning environment we talk about opportunities for students and when we talk about plan planning um and budgeting um we've often added cying positions to offer opportunities for students to be involved and I've always appreciated the board support on that and I think what we'll be hearing a little bit about tonight is students who take advantage of those opportunities but not just take advantage but invest in those opportunties to the point where they become full-fledged leaders and really more than ever tonight I think we're celebrating the leadership and the maturity of this group because not only are they involved in certain capacities but they lend themselves and Lead themselves or lead the

038Endeavors to the point where um you know they just top not the first group I would for those members of The Writing Center um please come forward by Dr Kidwell we have five members tonight four are present um I'd like you to introduce you to Kendo forsland Elizabeth pelen Ariana Schuman is not available tonight and nor the BGE uh most of you on the board were able to to uh hear a brief presentation on October 2nd where they spoke at length about their um commitment to supporting students one undering of our of our student population is um the ability to outreach in the community um Outreach uh through volunteerism and and through areas where they're committed to um certain elements of of um the schools and the broader Community this group in particular has taken

039their talents um to just simply support students every day in our school um but I really feel like they're their opportuni is a little bit unique as mentioned in in the presentation they take a course called The Writing Center um wrer Workshop wrer Workshop Writing Center Writing Center all right and within that um they essentially um are selected or or asked to be involved in nth grade and take the course during their 10th grade year and they learn all the ins and outs as um we discussed last week about how to support students in their writing we have many layers of support in writing but uh these folks act as peer coaches um to help um students in all elements of writing um they're um connected to ninth grade um teachers when when they're doing

040writing assignments and it progresses all the way up through um College um essay um writing as well and I also want to mention about this group you know this group is is is um willing to give up their time but they're highly invested I mean they athletes here members of the drama music productions as well so they're very busy during this uh school year but yet they find time to work with students during the week I would also you miss I didn't mention Miss mly who who's here to join us tonight miss mly is really the the think tank behind uh the course um we had a different element of how we supported student writing when she came to me about 8 years ago and said I think we have a better idea and she

041did uh the hard work and learned through Ukon about the program and and then brought brought the course back us than Anna and I know the stud directly from Anna um and have continued to to give so I I'd like to honor you tonight and thank you all of you for your support of of student growth here in our school and being role models for volunteers and in our community so I'd like to thank first kend Forman and off you can get your certificate from Dr [Applause] IDW Ariana Schuman [Applause] B all right you guys can start we're going to a picture in a moment those here represent Mr Depo if I could just say the board that was there at the CIP we were very impressed with the with the generosity of time and

042the kindness that you show to your fellow students in helping them in their writing development so it it was a very impressive presentation that you made to the board so thank you thank you so the second group I'd like to uh honor tonight are members of our Leadership Council the warrior Leadership Council who are also um preminent athletes in our school and you you Jo I'm sorry and um again not only are the athletes in our school but they certainly act as Role Models uh and their leadership um is above reproach as their leaders in in each of their Endeavors um I'd like to introduce them first individually and then talk about sort of the collective reason why they're here uh Nick Le better is here he's on a soccer team he wrestles he plays

043golf he's captain of the soccer team this year he was all all conference in golf last year L Conor plays field hockey presently she's also been involved in indor track and softball where she's all state in both field hockey and softball as an all and all conference in indor track she broke the school record last year for shotbook and um she'll probably shoot at it again this year uh she's the captain right now for the field hockey team Juliana you know her here as as a member of the Board of Education she also runs AC cross country in and outo track and she was the Captain for uh this cross country team this year she's all conference inor trap so you see um the breath of Athletics uh prominence that we have here but also

044the leadership that they bring forward this year as L just mentioned we were honored and we had been honored a little bit for the Michael scup award and I want to thank M church here or M Mrs her here who um helped also develop that it's a combination of things that we do behind the scenes such was organization um it's also um over ly as part of our community for our sportsmanship both um in the stands and what we do in our community and then also on the field above that uh we want a Fred ball summer Sports of sports specifically this year for some of the things that these students help run I'd like to just just um it's about a 90 second video but I think it's worth watching sure here if you

045would mind just running that that kind of talks about why we want us to work for that's for for [Applause] So Yesterday members of the our Leadership Council um joined several other um High School um high schools throughout the state at um the cic leadership conference where we were um given our Michael cop and these three amongst others received the award the picture is there and so again I do believe you know as much as they are here for themselves they do represent um you know the greater good here on the athletic fields here at K high school they truly are sort of ambassadors for all the athletic teams where they represent themselves so thank you for all that you do uh individually um you know in all your accomplishments but also collectively for you

046do for the athletic teams thank you so much Nick um Juliana and so that Michael's cup Awards really distinguishes and separates Canton from the rest of the pack and what we do and when we look at a vision of canton's public schools and what a graduate looks like you know as I was looking at that video you've checked off three of the five boxes and we're just very impressed and thank you for all your hard work and your generosity and kindness uh to others so thank you Juliana Owen TR group Owen so you see a few familiar faces and a few new faces here um the triam is basically our our music um groups that support um music in terms of you know leadership uh Within the Music Department and U this group represents U

047basically leadership of that we have Owen who's the president who's also a member of our chamber singers and a future soloist and a drama leader we have Julie Adams a vice president who's also a tenor saxophone in the band and a choir and a chamber singers uh this is Shay Shaker and Shay is a secretary and she's a clarinet play the clet in the band she's a member of the concert prior and she's been in several of our uh future plays and musicals as well we you all know but he also plays a French horn in the band he's trumpet in a Jazz Ensemble and a Basse singer in the choir last year he was selected uh for the northern region band for the French war and he's going to audition again next month so

048we wish him luck there and this is Anna cop she's the historian she's also a member of the chamber singers uh she's a featured soloist in our choirs she's a drama club leader as well she's been several of our plays and musicals and she was also selected last year for the northern region course and again heading to another audition next month so we certainly wish you well Anna um verying to what I said uh about the athletic department um this group is is supremely talented uh in their own right um they give back to their um fellow um members uh in the band andic choire with their two religion leadership um they um supported um the greater good of um the Outreach that's going on right now in the music program and I actually want

049them to talk a little bit about some of the Endeavors that they've just recently accomplished and that they will be um you'll be hearing more about soon so I'm not sure we going to speak but we do have a couple sides to work for I do it but I don't know the script um basically we there was a night that was at the community center um that invited anyone who was in band singers um actors really anyone who may have to audition for entering into college or a specific field that they're looking at um and I believe Yukon was there it was represent from Yukon I believe art and maybe another College um pictures and they just kind of gave like tips about you know whenn auditioning and stuff like that and very important just

050giving information about different things that you might need to appes auditions and stuff all right I will talk about the hearts trip to New York City which occurred on September 28th it was a very fun day out in the big city where we started by going to the Museum of Modern Art for a couple of hours before going to see the Broadway show Hades town the ma performance where we then ended the day at the restaurant bubble gum right in Time Square and it was a great day for everyone that went great memories to celebrate the Arts uh this is so upcoming soon we have the first Coffee House of the Year this is the fall Coffee House basic basically if you guys don't know coffee house is an open performance night where anybody can

051sign up um we encourage it to be uh performances that involve the Arts so it could be a solo singer it could be a small band that you do on the side or it could be some kind of other performance like maybe a d like you uh do dance outside of school and you'd like to take that in like a lyrical performance um coffee house is open and it's a great way for students to go and express themselves uh basically just go out have fun everyone can show up I believe uh to next Friday not this October 18th uh that Friday at uh 7:00 p.m. I believe and the uh High School cath okay so um this group again um does a wonderful job representing the music department and all that they do again in

052house but also the public as well and you'll be hearing more about everything that the department does throughout the years this was again to celebrate the work that they've done and that they will be doing so congratul again Owen Juliana sh thank you so much so so again your words I have to tell you I do recognize some of you without your makeup from the plays but but but the plays the plays are outstanding the musicians are unbelievable the singing that goes on we we have such a talented music and arts program and you are the of it so just a wonderful job we're looking forward to the spring play that's usually a musical right I think so I don't know if that's been selected you don't have to reveal anything yet but uh we

053we all try to get to to all the different uh events so thank you for your time great good job right so uh that was a wonderful segue I think for the final group come on up the final group going here and um so you know there is a bit of a crossover and a blending of this group but these are the our drama club officers that I wanted you to meet um this is collaborative group that works to support the director Mrs Taylor to plan dat all the dama club meetings and in general these theater Productions that you were just referring to so it's important that that um you see these some are in front of the stage some are behind the stage but uh James Barker who's our senior recently was a in

054the Adam family last year um he'll be the lead in in Big Rock City at Candy Mountain this year Corgan pendel is a senior as well and she's with our Tech representative last year she was the assistant stage manager and this year she's looking to be the lead stage manager um we met already but and also is is in a drama club and she recently as we said uh was hug The Adams Family it should be uh Unice in big rock at Cy Mountain a junior U and again he was in ad family as well um and he will be performing this in this play um and we also have Claire CL Dr Who a sophomore um and again in the family it will be in big rock uh at Cy M I mentioned that

055a few times as you can see that we have uh our play opening November 7th so it'll be that weekend the 7th 8th and 9th and maybe James or any else can tell for a little bit about the play yeah of course I would be happy to uh so briefly mentioned uh the play that we are putting on uh this fall is Big Rocket candy mountain now I wouldn't be surprised if none of you have heard of this before it is incredibly nich but I feel that you will find it to be very very fun it is extremely funny it is cheesy and all the right ways and it is a Rance a little uh but I don't want to give too much away but I will give a basic synopsis of a little bit

056of I want to keep it short of sweet essentially a big businessman is trying to make it on his own he is not doing well uh so he sees the public as a good investment to see business opportunities to see what they can offer and a hiy comes to him and says I got an idea for you and then a grand adventure of music and love and chaos and a lot of death uh happens and it is all beautifully portrayed and I highly recommend you all see it now that is the synopsis of what the show itself is now if I may I want to give it over to uh Claire and Anna to tell you a little bit about what the drama club officers play uh the sort of roles that we do and

057what we hold the power that we hold in the drama so a lot of what we do is um gather the group together like we all meet up in the auditorium for reversals 3 days a week and so we kind of just say hey let's all get up on the stage we're going to do a warmup and we do a Qui game before M gets in we organize we just organize drun things and we do a lot of just getting the people to know each other and getting the for people familiar with not just the people in the club but the things we do in the club as a whole whenever people split up into smaller groups dur certain scenes drama Hub leaders will uh take the lead and make sure people stay on track

058uh we will generally recommend good warm-ups and team building activities to help the cast get closer and uh generally our leaders and people to look for for advice and Direction during all of the shows how many people in the drama clook I would say around 2530 that's fantastic you know what you do is not just for the district or the school but our community just Embraces this what you do people look forward to seeing the talents and the things that you do so thank you for the behind the scenes and for the in front of the scenes that you all do and James I I I I didn't recognize you in the beginning until you spoke your voice your voice is very distinct it's a beautiful voice by the way and you're going to have

059a career somewhere using that voice I'm sure here yeah so again uh congratulations to James Coran Anna and Decker and Claire all you do to support Dr program thank you so much [Applause] so the whole board pictur why memb [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you all thanks guys [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay if we can uh bring it [Music] back and Dr K going to take us to a brief presentation or of the continuous Improvement so um thank you for a few more minutes um to really just give you an overview of the CIP or our continu Improvement plan I did speak with several members of the Board of Education October 2nd you go compl in detail I'm happy to answer any questions I know all the it's part of the board packet I just a

060couple mentions in terms of the continuous Improvement plan at the high school I hope you know first and foremost that it is exactly the same as last year uh in terms of of the big picture goals um as I mentioned the other day um we had need some strong inroads in several of the goals and the plans within the goals have been effective um and many of them were were starting to emerge so we maintained uh several elements of the goals so you should see about 75 to 80% uh duplicity from from the previous year um there are a few further elements and as I handed out just a quick one pager in Blue uh I mentioned uh I kind of pulled out what might be different from the year before um so again uh

061you're well aware of the goals student growth and achievement Partnerships and Community engagement Financial sustainability learning environment belonging embracing equity and Workforce Development um and before I dive into the goals you know I do believe that within each of the goals you know we do have um some results that we're we're trying to uh work towards we also have um really strong elements the goals in terms of what administration uh does what and what the teachers do to support uh the process within the goals and I think that's the most important key that the process in the action steps are really sort of um help bring uh these goals forward um some you can you know pinpoint a number or a measure and others um you know we look forward to just general growth in

062a particular area um I'm happy to answer any questions um either from the one major or from the um the CIP itself um um board members any any questions you know I I will say that so impressed that day that we spent with with you and uh the students from the uh wri Workshop uh but the improvements have been significant across the board and uh you've made great Headway and tremendous progress and I think it's you know based on the leadership that we have and and the way that the staff has come come together and collaborated to make that all happen so um I know that day we were very impressed with some of the uh some of the information that you provided uh I know you're getting the condensed version but if you have

063any questions I think uh you know feel free to bring them to me or to Dr Gman and we can get those answered for you uh down the road okay anything else for a quick comment it was was really a wonderful morning uh I was said it that day that keeping the goals same and refining them makes so much sense uh because there sort of almost internal goals some of the areas you picked out uh and we only walked around for about 40 minutes uh but you picked up a sense of Engagement uh a sense of quiet work uh kids seem to sort of be enjoying school and you can't fake that you know that that just was imp permeated to walk around and stepping in the classroom so thank you it's great great day

064thank you okay we'll let you get home to dinner thank you so much for all your support our processes and forward to meeting you again thank you thanks for coming tonight thank you okay thr U thrill to have uh here tonight um to go over oh I'm sorry hang on one second we we I you know um is is the agenda is I want to get something out out um so that we can move it to to deal to to kind of handle things while we have our board attorney here so I'd like to have a motion that we move uh recommended actions consent agenda forward to this particular point we'll move through that pretty quickly and then we'll get to this meeting so move okay second thank you any any discussion on that you

065want to vote on them now yeah we're going to we're going to move it up we're going to take one by one vot on now okay so I have a first and second any other conversation questions all those in favor iOS sorry we're not voting on them now we're discussing no we're we're going to take the recommended actions from the consent agenda and we're going to vote right now we're V just mov the agenda yeah moving the [Music] agenda so again all those in favor do I have seven right thank you okay have have eight here have eight eight okay so eight of all right thank you H okay um so we start with consent agenda approval of the minutes of September 5 2024 uh and September 10th 2024 can I have a motion my

066motion thank so motion to C Board of Education approve the consent agenda thank you Cindy second thank you Jordan any any discussion all those in favor okay that's 80 thank you so you did the first one right so you had to do the approval of the audit it's It's all under the consent agenda all all three of those are under the consent agenda so so we'll take it we'll take it one at time approval of the audited U audited 2324 financials if we're given have a motion to approve that was given that last me right thank you Erica second thank you Jordan any questions on that all those in favor I 80 on that thank you and then the approval of the UN audited 2425 financials as of September 30th 2024 uh including July August

067and September thank you Felicia second thank you Erica any other questions all those in favor okay so that that Tak yeah going to do the trans talk about that appr that's what we just did July and a oh there's two sorry we did July and August we need to do sep I put them all together July yeah when I when I asked you a motion you did them all yep okay so now all right then we go to Anna Anna we're going to we're looking for information on the approval of the budget transfers for the fiscal year 2023 2024 terrific um this is something that we do um each year uh the board approves the budget during um the budget season in the previous year we finish out the year with some variances in each

068of the line items but because it wasn't approved budget um we do have to the board does have to authorize these adjustments in order for us to have a revised Budget on record so um again this is for the fiscal year that we've already reported on um the budget transfers are just a a separate document and topic okay I'll take a motion that we uh move cam Board of Education approve the budget transfers for fisc year 2023 2024 after I give the motion I open discussion requests motion thank you uh thank you Kim for a second appreciate that um open up for discussion anybody have any questions for Anna on this I mean this typically what we do on the transfers wean out okay all right all those in favor I oppos okay you know

069thank you very much okay uh now we're going to uh I just read okay so now I'll take a motion on uh the camp board of education approve revisions to policy 4021 prohibition of sex discrimination including sex based harassment Personnel such policy shall be considered for adoption at his second read at the next Board of Education meeting I'll take a motion oh thank you Jo second have a second please thank you s okay we have a first and second any discussion yeah this is a federally mandated U policy came up at the first policy meeting in September uh it's a little bit complicated and we felt that some additional information was necessary would be important for us to understand it completely uh so we had our board attorney come to the last policy meeting had

070a very very lengthy discussion about it where say Jordan and I asked a lot of questions over for about an hour period of time we had a fair amount of of input from the public as well uh and we recommended United members of committee there for first read tonight and I will leave our board attorney is here so we did we did uh ask the public that the public came forward I'm very appreciative of the questions that we get on this because I understand this policy is a little bit complicated uh but however um the questions that we received really had nothing to do with the policy they had more to do with the implementation so there's really nothing to further to discuss on the policy the questions were more based on implementation so I

071I have nothing to report on those on those particular questions any other questions from the board I do I have questions in regards to actual policy and how it's written okay so it just how it's written here in regards to the timelines so there there's a bunch Where the dates are brought up of 7 Days 5 days is that the only option that we have so let me give you an example Sarah just so you know exactly one talking about so this is series 5,000 so if we're looking at oh my God let me it's page nine that helps so this you know Onan we're talking about 4,000 right now 5,000 they're the same ex it's probably also still page eight um sorry yeah so page nine B and take meetings from the date of

072the written notice Prov into subsection 3.3a the parties will have 30 school days to reach a resolution so that's just an example I guess my question is is that our only option um for most of them I don't want to say it's for all of them about going through but for most of them um the title 9 Federal Regulations say that you have you have to choose something that's reasonable um but there beyond that you do have flexibility for changing some of those exact time frames okay so like for instance we're filing a complaint on page 13 fining a complaint be filled within 30 school days of the alleged occurrence when you're saying school days I just want confirmation here let's say a a grievance needs to be filed of something that happened in May

073or June there a school day over the summer um so school days is defined on page six okay and defined means the day that school is in session and designated on the calendar posted on the district's website and its discretion and then equitably appli and with proper notes to the parties the district may consider business days during the summer recess as school days is if such designation facilitates the pro resolution the okay so then it's the current has happened in let's say the 24 to 25 school year over the course of the summer it would need to be filed then it could be it would fall within we wouldn't need to wait until the fall the school days correct okay well I mean based on this definition that if the district May useit our business

074St during the summer recess I just wanted a clarification on that and then is our title n coordinator work year round outside of the school year so do she working through the the course of the summer 12 months 12 months yes no so how would we handle that so partly that in that case the if you look at school days if you don't have somebody being able to do a prom resolution and it doesn't sorry I lost the definition I go back and look the exact definition um if you don't if such designation does not facilitate the pr resolution because you don't have the the people to do it then you because part of it is too that you can't necessarily do an investigation if students aren't in the building depending on what the the

075issues are right you don't have students to talk to okay so that's it all together okay so is there room for us to say that this could be within 90 days just to cover the summer I guess I guess that's what I'm looking for is to make sure like where's the administrators are still in compliance but we're not asking the coordinator to come in over the summer we're asking students who might be traveling to do the actual full investigation is there en way in that actual time period so I think what we have decided in terms of put putting 30 days in there 30 school days is and the definition of school days is kind of giving you the discretion to use business days in the summer but you don't have to is because I

076would hesitate to expend expand it more because Title 9 says that you have to promptly resolve from L and so if you put [Music] 90 what I don't know school days business days whatever I think you run into the potential of being outside of that reasonably C time frame and so by having it as 30 days 30 school days in in most instances that's going to account for it and in those certain instances where we don't have the staff or we don't have the resources to do a promt resolution you have the flexibility there to um to not be not in comp Sarah you talking regulations or the policy that's in the yeah so this conversation is the regulations not policy correct the policy yeah the policy is the first four pages corre cor and

077that's implementation correct okay all right that was really my biggest one is I just wanted to make sure that we would still be I guess the regulations even if it something happens let's say the last day of school and there needs to be an investing grievance investigation process and we don't have our Title 9 coordinator for those whatever 12 weeks okay so you're saying that that would be covered okay that was really the biggest piece that I wanted clarification on and then why is there no difference between the students and the Personnel the right like I read through this in are basically like copy and paste there is no difference and that's intentional corre okay okay so I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything okay um I think oh one other question

078that I had uh and this is my last one I believe is um I believe that there oh so if I read in the stud or in the Personnel it says and this might be the regulations again so it might be out of line with the policy here but it says if um an expulsion needed to happen so there could be like a prompt expulsion that would have to have to happen with a student but would we still use the word expulsion in regards to an employee board um I'm not sure exactly okay let me see if I can find that exact page and it it's past page four so again might be out of questioning I guess but okay so it's page 18 and letter e it says if and this is in the

079Personnel so if expulsion is recommended reers student respond to the board for expulsion proceedings pursuant to Connecticut law but I didn't see anything of with Personnel if they're found to be guilty of whatever this is and they need to be terminated I'm just looking to make sure I so it's remedies and disciplinary sanctions yeah so if you look at the okay um possible sanctions being included but are not limited to discipline up to an including expulsion for students and termination ofemployment okay I I'm trying to read all of the a lot and I'm not an attorney so okay all right thank you that's all I have for questions that thank you okay we have a first and a second close discussion all those in favor all those in favor for what motion okay moving it

080from first reading to Second did you go please yes8 thank you okay now um I need a motion that the C Board of Education approves revisions to policy 5030 prohibition of sex discrimination including sex bias harassment students and such policy shall be considered for ad option at a second read at the next Board of Education meeting we have a first thank you Felicia second thank you Erica discussion hearing none all those in favor iOS he up okay thank you very much and the final uh motion tonight move that the camp board of education approve the homework policy 6154 I have Mr uh shy uh speak to that in a second can I have a first Mr Shyer second Cindy thank you very much discussion Mr sh just on it was uh somewhere in this gigantic

081folder it's one line added recognize when the policy was written it was a seven period day the new policy is an 8 period day with two days of of uh long extended periods so it allows uh teachers to give homework on Thursday or Friday so that not help me out here one line it's it's page two homework may only be assigned on it it changes from Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday um and it's simply to homework may be assigned on the days in which the classes are session this classes don't meet us today that was my okay any other questions on there I do have one question are we allowed to approve it because this is just because it's an amendment because don't we have to do a SE any policy change we are you could

082you could choose to to approve it on one read yeah it's it's the C Board of Education approve the H policy system and that this if you remember that the policy committee though will be discussing homework in general General at a future poliy meeting this was just a a quick change that was actually brought to um the the Board of Education several years ago to make this change but to let the public know because it came up at policy committee meeting tonight the policy committee is going to look at uh H more which just looking at the technology committee and the bylaws uh right now and this will be a future agenda item so this is just to move basically practice at High School just really because of the BL class correct so we have

083a first and second are of the conversation questions hearing none all those in favor I oppos 80 okay thank you very much thank you sir thank you so much all right now it's my pleasure to introduce mrle who's here tonight to give us an update on uh special education and the Thrive program so can I just uh jump in before Mrs M goes there's been um some questions from the the Board of Education just to provide an update on tuition and programming which aligns very well with this's continu Improvement plan so there was some specific questions related to that and we'll also be asking Mrs mle to make this same presentation when we go to the board of Finance in November it it it goes a little bit into uh the the public common question

084that we've received today regarding budget one of the major shifts that has changed in 10 years is special education that far out seeds the inflation rate and Mrs I'm mle will talk about it so we're very fortunate to have mle us me uh so good evening everyone uh I appreciate the opportunity uh to provide you all with the tuition and programs um and as Dr grman um so eloquently stated and you actually stole a little bit of my intro of this presentation is directly aligned to board World 3 which is financial sustainability and efficient operations which is directly connected to my continuous Improvement plan and the continuous Improvement plans of all the administrators in the district uh I want to begin with two things one programming for students with disabilities is incredibly complex um and

085there are multiple variables that are constantly in play and when we um anticipate our budgets at the very beginning of the year uh it's virtually impossible to anticipate all the possible changes um in programming or movein with students and that's why you often see um big swings in the in the special education tuition and transportation lines I also want to take this opportunity um to celebrate uh what we do as a department in collaboration um with our families our students our outside providers um we do not work in isolation we are a team uh I'm incredibly proud of everyone from our secretaries to our par Educators our jenet and specialed teachers and administrators and all of your support here at the board um we could not do the work that do for students about quers

086um so with that I will jump in and begin so screen's a little small my vision at this hour is not ideal so I'm going to peek up my notes a little bit um but you'll see on this slide over the three years I wanted to share um a couple of points here one is that you're going to notice that the uh K12 all student count in the state um is decreasing but you'll also notice that the prevalence rate in special education continues to rise at the state level and in Canton um and one example of this is um in the area of emotional disability uh that has G up in the Last 5 Years 10% in Canon so 5 years ago we were at 24% and now in that category or 34% and it's

087our fastest rising identification category in this District um so coming in and um thinking about how to advance our programming through Services through briide is a key step in addressing those student needs so this slide uh my intent here is to give you an example of the wide range of variability within costs in special education when I mentioned it's incredible complex on the high end if you have a student who requires wrap around behavioral supports therapeutic uh possibly locked facility you're going to be on the higher end of the tuition well over 200,000 uh our average based tuition rate is around 100,000 that's not accounting for specialized transportation and the low end would be services that happen above and beyond the academic school year think extended school year um to during additional summer therapy that

088go above and beyond do during our regular course of year you say the transportation a little okay so the also the average cost for transfer is $44,000 annually per student per student exp what that is so that's uh that's the rate caught so many times students who are in an out of District placement uh may require solo transportation for uh different reasons does that include if a nurse is onic reason it could be a medical reason but it could be for a monitor could be the need to just add an individual run if the student is placed at a school that we don't have other schools um that we can ride share with so every time we have to add a run to a different school it's an additional $44,000 here I answer your question

089but you also need to understand that the the tuition cost that is not regulated by the state of concut it's not regulated so that is talk right now within State legislative bodies that superintendents have gone to our representatives to ask for regulations to regulate the the increase that schools can to can charge so for example Barber does a great job with and says 3 to 4% going back to inflation of what is typical 3 to 4% schools can say well you know what it's going to be more like 9% so if we budget at 3% which is responsible growth and sometimes far they budget 4% I'm like no go three and half because I'll split the middle with you because it should be three but you'll get a bill it's a 9% increase it's not

090regulated right so why don't we just pick another place then Barbara why don't we pick another place I know the answer but I because uh schools are there's a it's complicated there are many reasons one is that uh we are limited in our options for highly therapeutic programming in the state of Connecticut um and the other is we are faced with a situation now where the weight list to get into some programs as well over a year and a half um so if we have students that require a therapeutic placement sometimes we're looking at transferring them close to an hour to get them the supports and services they need um so we don't have a lot of options they really have a monopoly and they're privately run and funded they have their own boards um

091and I've experienced uh tuition increases of close to 11% this year in some of our facilities which is just sticker sha right so this next slide gives an overview of actual expenses for out of District students this particular year um so it's took it's a great care to make sure that this uh data is anonymous um so it's not tied to a specific student um that I would reference but you can see here the base tuition for student a is 205,000 uh when you factor in the alart services for OTP speech behavior um that's an additional almost 8500 Transportation if the requireed monitor is above that 44,000 so in this case we're at 54,000 so we're at a grand total of 268 uh for one student um so you can see here that the swing

092is fast you look at students they have a base tuition of almost 73,000 they don't have related Services um they they have a parent transport or situation um and and that's the cost so so the board understands $268,000 in the year 2024 was now $268,000 in 2004 it could have been 50,000 2004 it's just that is the the how quickly things have changed when something is unregulated next slide um so there was a question about what were there any documented savings from our IND District programs um and these are savings uh from the last fiscal year uh so I'll draw your attention to what was thought in the tuition budgeted section um so just going by student and we budgeted 11 19,700 um with our Thrive program we were able to bring uh couple students

093back to District um in this case um we had a a tuition savings coming back mid year of almost 61,000 and we also had some Transportation Savings of 24,79330 594 um and what I want to point out that's most important is those savings could then be reinvested into our district programming to make those programs that much stronger so um we build to S practices we have extra resources available to us for able to then reinvest those saes back into our program l a good question um I know like on this other one it's student adnc is this school ADC meaning different schools within the district so different schools I the next two slides down the operational clost to run Pride program and our learning lab program in District as you know both of those programs

094we offer districtwide um and the Thrive program in total cost see where the numbers are coming from uh and again I'll say this reflects our commitment to offering high quality in District programming programming and services in order for Thrive to thrive as a program it needs to have behavioral support and therapeutic support so it requires Social Work support embedded and behavior consultants and behavior text to support individual student needs then turn to the learning lab program that program operationally costs 870,000 um in the swing here the difference is most of the students in our learning lab programs require either a one toone par educator support or a two to1 support um so there's a higher we have I believe 18 par Educators supporting that program are they fully staffed are they fully staffed we are

095much Clos CL ER to being fully staed than we were last year at this time we still have about four par educator positions that need to be filled so this slide is I think it's my favorite slide of the presentation I'm going to point out the key to you um and try to break this down and explain where it's coming from so so canton's um PP is our per people expenditure so it costs on average $1,575 per student to educate a student in C Public Schools when you require an out of District placement it's four and a half times that amount so that's where we get per people amount of 88,000 for a special education student that needs outp and that's just their tuition when you factor in the average cost of Transportation I came

096up with an out of District base cost of 132,000 per student now in the program potentially this is all hypothetical but potentially we have 18 students in five if those 18 students required an out of District placement that would cost over $2 million when you factor in the operational cost of $551,000 you have a potential Savings of 1.8 it's very tiny print so I'm not going to the exact number uh and then in learning lab if you do the same exercise you have a potential Savings of 1.7 does everybody understand that because that that that's a big chart so what Barber's saying is that drive costs $551,000 to to run if we didn't have Thrive the potential of those students being outplaced would be a total of $2.3 million right by us having dropped 551

097th000 1.8 is savings that we are generating from this another example of why our budget looks different than it did that's 51,000 that's operational and the same thing with learning lab so right there if you total it all together by my simple math it's approximately two 2.6 Barbara of six if we had to outplay children so investing in our industri programming and making that as strong as possible is a key step to maintaining that fiscal responsibility that we talked about in our board goal next slide so this slide is about XO plus and it's very very general anybody has specific questions about exit plus i''d be happy to follow up with you um outside of this meeting if need be um but I wanted to point out that in 2324 we received % so that's

098a significant hit and what this cost refers to is anything above and beyond that threshold of $888,000 so the district has to eat the cost of the $888,000 no matter what if your cost is if it's a $100,000 outplacement you get 70.5% of what's left of that let's just say it's 20 grand you get 70.5% left of that um so it it helps but you know we're advocating strongly directors in the state superintendence to fully fund excess cost it has yet to be fully funded Barber what's the reason for the discrepancy if the state said 88 yeah I appreciate that question so I asked the same question to uh the state department and it was explained to me that what they do is they annually they look at all of the school districts in the

099state of Connecticut and based on the level of need in um some of our larger districts uh they have to re reallocate the amount of funding that's available um So based on that redist redistribution provided with us yeah answer so so I intend to invite our state representative state senator to the board of Finance meeting a so they can hear our financial report and B I think Barb's report was so so enlightening that they need to hear this also so I hope they can make it but I'm going to get on the phone tomorrow and invite them both welcome that conversation I know so [Music] I if it cost $100,000 to send student out place you subtract the 20 that should have cost you subtract it 88,000 on that 100 okay that's your thresh four

100and a half times per people whatever is left you get 70 and half% of that that's question just to follow off with that so the 19,0 575 does that include uh specialized services or No like is is that so that's what it cost to educate with nothing extra so the the state does a Formula based upon and help me out because this is complicated the state does a Formula that generates looks at your tax Bas how much your budget is how much um your town could afford and then they come up with your per pup expenditure that's what it comes so it takes out the special education takes out the out of District um special education cost okay so this would include prog 19,000 I would I would say that that's the average amount for

101a general education student and then a student that requires special education related Services they're above and beyond what they get during the school day there would be additional cost to educating even there there's such a thing as a high cost IND District student that would go above and beyond the 19,000 so it just depends on the student and their their IEP needs totally understand that but I I guess what I'm a little bit confused about is the actual calculation of that number and it sounds like so any student within the fry program would be attributing to this okay okay so these are key steps to mitigate high costs um the first being investing in programs like learning lab and pride um keeping our students in their home District where we set the standard for our

102rigorous high quality expectations for all Learners um is key and we're training our staff and we're building our capacity um so when I think about budget forecasting um I think about what needs do we have in our student population and where do we need to invest in training supports and resources to make sure that our programs are um align to best practices and that we're ensuring faith for each and every one so fa is a free and appropriate public education and all special education students are G students first they're entitled to that um investing in District Services goes right in line so that's looking at recognizing the need um when I joined the district a couple years ago that we needed behavioral consultants and behavior Texs to support some of the emotional regulation needs that

103we were seeing in our Learners um we've successfully built Partnerships with Quantum behavior um to ensure that we have Consultants um meeting with our programs regularly and also with our PBS teams regularly our school-based teams meet and we consult on individual student needs and put together plans um also I mentioned budget forecasting leveraging our grants so every year I write uh the idea Grant which is the grant that um helps us supplement the cost of Services um and we try to we work very very hard to be incredibly thoughtful around um programming and planning for what our needs are through that and we're always monitoring these programs ride is new it's still in its ady stages it's only been around for a little bit so we are still learning as a team and coming together

104in our meetings to to think about what we need to do to continue to make that program strong and sustainable for many years to come we do the same with learning lab in our preschool programs um our structured literacy we have structured literacy staff in each of our schools to support students with thisa so it goes much further than Pride um we look at it for all of our programming in the district um and then lastly I just want to say that Community collaboration is so critical so we have um Partnerships um and shared services for example uh 18 to 22 program with Randy bear um is our program for students who require Services Beyond Canton High School from 18 to 22 and sharing the cost of that um helps mitigate what it would cost

105a small town like can to in to create their own transition program so we share those resources um we also have a partnership with c and behavior and they're running a hybrid Clinic um it's the first year of that program uh we have as you students who are participating it's incredibly successful they spend a portion of their time at the clinic and then they're with a on toone Behavior Tech who goes with them to school for the second portion of their day um and it's keeping them students here it's creative programming with Community Partners to make sure that we're continuing to meet those individual needs I just start talking about some of this yeah um so I will summarize but our 18 to 22 program um is key our Behavior text um embedding uh things

106like talk therapy with our social workers through Pride helps to enhance that program to make sure that we're giving opportunities um as a group of for students to work through areas of need such as etive functioning or emotional regulation um we are also exploring this year starting a home visit um protocol uh and the intent behind that is we have uh because of those needs with emotional regulation um and emotional disabilities that we're seeing in the district we are noting that we have students who are experiencing School avoidance um and we're looking for opportunities to re-engage and reconnect them with the learning process so that starts with those core relationships at home and making an effort um to do that Outreach and even if it doesn't work right way planting those seeds and eventually that

107that will um get our Learners re-engaged with school um and then uh lastly the um last piece that I want to mention I've had the opportunity I was invited to join the working group with um CPAC which is the contic parent Advocacy Center um around language equity and access so a law was passed this year um requiring um translators and interpreters and um an understanding of the parent multil language Bill of Rights um so we're working really hard to get the word out around that um and that parents are entitled to that we want them to be engaged in the PBT process um so encouraging that homeschool connection is is another wonderful partnership that we're incredibly proud of so as you can see we're working really super hard in PBS um but it's not in

108isolation it's in Partnership Mr Bishop grman Rob so it it takes some Village um I'm incredibly grateful and to the team in this district for all your support thank you bar great presentation I know one you kind of touched on this a little bit and I know the board of Finance was interested in this when we uh when we were talking about th and I know we in the infancy there was hope that maybe we you were talking a little bit about this we can expand and maybe grab other towns with with a more reasonable tuition than they they would get outside how far away you think we are from maybe getting something like that in place I think that every year that we build in stronger practices we get one step closer to that

109so I think if there are opportunities to explore that um even this year I would be H into it if an opportunity came I'll share with you uh another school district reached out to me today asking questions about what our learning lab program looks like and ask to come and visit the program um to get a sense of how we're supporting activities in daily living at the elementary level um so you never know we're talking as directors we're exploring and they may come to me and say hey I have a student that we're struggling the program for would you be open and those are kind of it happens organically um to start and then we can formalize the process but it be open to exploring that opportunity one one of the original Advocates of of

110Thrive one of our supporters Andrew La is here tonight he was one that you know they they saw the U they saw the possibilities and the opportunities and I think I think the board of Finance would say if there was a um additional seeing these numbers if there was an additional investment so that we can do something like that to allow you to to in and get there I think there would be um you're going to get question I'm sure appreciate that how about other board answer this and I miss that I apolog are was able to bring any aners back who were out place the numbers that you haven't had to out place is great but anybody who y so the earlier slide where I spoke of the 179,000 those were um three students

111that we brought back to District last year yep and I anticipate um at this time on forecasting that we're in the process of bringing two students back fantastic Kim just we wondered just like there surveys and formal feedback that they get at the end of the school year you know for all the schools do you have any process or getting feedback from the families speciic specifically involved in Thrive and then also the population of students that you service thank you for that question I appreciate it so I don't have a formal process um but we do have like PBT uh during PBT we have a opportunity for parent input around programming um so we take that as anecdotal data and information um to help gauge you know with how how our students are feeling about

112the program and our our parents and honestly I think as as our Learners get older we really want them to be able to communicate clearly around what's working for them and what's not so encouraging them to be part of the PBT conversation around their programming and what their needs are um is is critical it's essential feedback to help us go back and Provine our program thank you the only other question I have was the piloting home visits so that's new is there a certain percentage of students that are part of that we we are just in the meeting stages in exploring what a protocol would look like we have some students who are not coming to school and that's your that's a strategy you're using to thanks Kim other questions so who does the home

113business so we're developing that protocol I've been working very closely um with Francisco beers at crack um and the recommendation is that we have Behavioral Health person attend um with another adult that is that has a relationship with with the individual so that could be an administrator it could be a teacher um it could be um corre liaison it could be a lot of different people it really just depends who the right person is but we always care that person for safety reasons who go cars um care that that person with another individual that we can connection with any other questions that was just a great presentation a good warm up for you for the board of Finance meeting that's right thank you very much excellent good numbers thank thanks s for helping on that

114too yeah thank you okay fantastic all right so let's uh move to you know one one of the things that uh we talked about at the retreat was uh the board has been a little bit Tardy on this is is getting our strategic plan in place and the way we decided to uh to approach this is uh the superintendent has helped us develop um against our goals and priorities um what the Strategic plan should look like what our priorities should be over the long term tonight you have the first uh board goal and don't forget you saw it in Packer from Mr dep pipo the vision of a Canton graduate kind of you know is one of the lenses that we're looking this through but what I'd like to do tonight is take that first

115uh first Board of Education B of priorities for number one student growth and achievement and just go through to see if you have any thoughts or changes on a through I so I I think I'll take I that says align standards based curriculum instruction and assessment across all grade levels and service of the vision of The Graduate any questions yes so I have a question about the word align so there's there are different types of alignment we're talking about vertical alignment or horizontal alignment I think it would be both so when we say alignment it's broad enough to allow the administrators within their own continuous Improvement plans to say we're now going to be vertical in line with our ninth grade or we're trying to be for so it allows the flexibility so a line

116for a strategic plan would be broad so that's what well ask on that all right and just a reminder to the board the whole purpose of the Strategic plan is that when you're seeing the continuous Improvement plans they're going to be able to put by their goals they're exactly what Cindy just asked where if they put something in there say align standards within English vertically across they're going to be able to put board goal one a so we know exactly which one they're doing so you're actually sitting there when you're meeting at the schools or here to check off which part of our strategic plan did we had so thank for asking that actually Drew pipo did that in our last uh when we met with his continuous Improvement he actually aligned or he checked

117off which board goal that work so perfect good question B expand career in college Pathways to provide more opportunities for Future Ready cour work I have a question about that too so is that Future Ready like is that how that ised fure OPP for Future Ready y okay okay thank you see identify Trends and gaps in student achievement and to guideance structural adjustments um I had a question about that one too only because it reads a little bit like a like a typo that and in there so give us an example yeah give example give an example of what it should be identify Trends and gaps and studed achievement uh to guide take out you got that order so take out the hand okay Hannah's Hannah is our person that's charting this all out and

118then plotting remember this isn't final folks this is just kind of going through then y great D Implement draft uh Implement datadriven personalized learning for students to address individual academic needs and learning preferences put the word instruction in there somewhere I don't knows I feel like after personalized learning and instruction it's like personalized learning and instruction for students to address instruction so it would read Implement datadriven personalized learning and instruction for students instruction and learning yeah Implement data personalized instruction and learning instruction you say no a yeah Implement data personalized instruction and learn I like that we so much I like that that's good good suggestion establish regular feedback protocols with students and parents Guardians to ensure that they are informed about academic progress in areas for improvement that makes sense can I just ask

119a clarifying question there obviously I know like you said it's meant to be broad um but when you say feedback protocols with students like rubrics and with parents and Guardians it's like power school or or whatever like parent teacher conferences I mean it's that I think the whole thing needs to be looked out one of the things that we received from the the survey that we gave out last year to families it kept coming up of feedback providing more feedback so we have to analyze administrative team has to analyze what type of feedback families are looking for that's going to take some time and that's why there isn't direct answers to that question that we got we know we have to do better job providing feedback Pre K through2 saw that right you good F

120develop and expand Partnerships with local colleges universities and businesses to provide students with real world learning experiences I have I would add the word like Community I know there's the word businesses but like Community I don't want to say businesses again something with the community like you know preschool we have nursing homes we what about what about businesses and Community what if we said develop and expand Partnerships with local colleges universities businesses and community the organization and the community just overall and the community that's good you got that Hannah you don't have to AG no no it's a good good suggestion excellent that's what we're doing this for okay G train teachers in high leverage instructional strategies to promote deep understanding and Mastery of content I'll turn to our two teachers High Leverage What does

121that mean I don't know yeah so so there there is meta research on the impact or E efficacy of individual strategies there's some things that work really well and then there's some things that are nice that we may have held on to in the past that we like but they're not really doing enough to be able to drive student AG gen in terms of instructional strategies correct okay I I sometimes think that pairs is an essential teacher so I would say [Music] staff train staff yeah that's good good catch got that Hannah that is it is it teachers and staff or is it just sta yeah instructional strategy deep understanding you good Cindy what are you thinking through um well so the the teacher training and high leverage instructional strategies uh that promote deep understanding

122and M of content for students is that what that means yes okay we can for students I mean I don't know I don't want to be like the more we put students in there the better um that how about as John just said uh train staff and high leverage instructional strategies that promote deep understanding and Mastery of content John and supportive student learning and supportive student Lear very good that's awesome I I'll take Jordan's R in this you got that Hannah isy all right eight continue to explore international certificate based programs to expand students Global competency remind me what international and certificate programs are so there are a couple things that are out there there is the um like a World Language duel uh dual language uh certificate that's out there and part of it

123too is just looking for more those opportunities to Brad the perspective of of students beyond the C public schools there are some things Jo that are out there that haven't been even utilized within the the local area that we would be able to Divine Define and be able to lean into the idea of being Global Citizens would that include um John like the international travel that they do or it very well could and it's about being able to to state this is these are expectations that we have as a district or as a as a high school and experiences that we want students to be able to have and then we are able to say through our process we can certify you that's one way to be able to go about that um so I

124had a nups to move 1 H to five and to take 5G to one so sorry you say change the order uh no oh so taking from board B five y g which is ensure all students have access to Advanced coursework extracurricular activities and enrichment program move that to one there's a St that staff to GB that's work yeah so I know that we're only focusing on one but I'd like to move 5G so that from embracing Equity to student growth and achievement and then what would you move out of one I mean we don't have to move anything out of one but I also thought that 1H would fit better in four go five I I don't know if you agree but we talk about International exchanges Global a lot more in the embracing

125Equity so I thought that flip would make sense but I mean I was looking I have no problem if the board would want to move H in bringing that conversation when we get to board goal number five just to slide it over there we can put it in both spots right now folks uh um that that's not an issue there's a recommendation to move H to five we could keep it in um board goal number one right now slide it over to board goal number five because the administrators haven't even looked at board goal number five yet okay and then when we get to board goal number five come back to that one Jordan for G right so that's the one that I wanted to move to one though so should we talk about that

126one now sorry wait so I wanted to take 5G and move that to what well and that was the one you said Jordan it could exist both and both but it would have a different meaning because in five it's about this is about diversity correct equity and inclusion and in one we're talking um we're talking uh curriculum and instruction but okay I just think uring all students have access to foror extracurricular activities and enrichment programs is so G the theme of G and like I said the administrators haven't got here yet the theme in G is just access and access to make sure that students and staff have access no matter their their color their their gender that they have access to Advanced coursework extracurricular activities enrichment programs that one is not written based upon

127student achievement that's just based upon access student achievement may be a result of that but it was just written on access um the the inter the the letter age I I I can go I think the ministrators I think one administrator did say that that could go to board goal number five also and we wound up with in number one but I think it's worth since we're in writing form and we're going to come back I think there's been a question that I think we put H in board goal number one but Hannah let's throw it in board go number five also and then we can come back to when we nail it down does that make sense and then we can always come back um because we're going to remember this well I know

128I'll remember this we'll come back to letter G and when we get to board goal number five and then we'll have this conversation again does that make sense yeah it does I I I do think that agent addresses student growth and achievement but we can take a look at it okay uh I utilize contemporary Technologies to maximize instruction and support of Future Ready learning I don't know if I like the word contemporary Cutting Edge or I don't know contemp hard to be it's hard to be cutting edge in any school district contemporary is the stuff but you would expect it to be contemporary would you well and and what I would say too is as much as we want to be U Cutting Edge there there's there is a there is a leading bleeding edge

129that's a part of some kind of a given 21st century we're already in two and a half decades into well I I agree with you that I didn't have a that's just a that's a that's a buzz so you know if you just want to make it simple you could make the recommendation we leverage Technologies to maximize instruction I said how about relevant instead of contemporary utilize relevant technology how about [Music] leverage Technologies write theology specifically when they do continuous okay so how do you want to write it use I like relevant uze relevant Technologies relevant as in like well contemporary it's another way to say contary got a student um I just had to I just see fut [Music] missell go Maggie your dad's going to walk say question where does citizenship says Ure

130students are College and Career race where does citizenship and digital citizenship is it coming somewhere here or is it later on Joe that's a good question [Music] and the the carrot that I had there after Technologies would be something like in Associated practices to um in support of Future Ready learning so I was trying to think of that same that same perspective Joe uh when we were talking about technology like how are you ready to be able to not have it use you but you use it for good so I don't know if that Associated practices is the right way to be able to say it the idea of being Future Ready is kind of that concept of being able to use those things well and for good well I think digital citizenship and citizenship

131are pretty important and I think they ought to be specifically referenced up like maybe somewhere else would you think Future Ready learning and citizenship I don't know maybe learning environment aot no that needs to go somewhere I'm thinking about supporters like you know 21st century Global Citizens that shape of changing world not to Ste maybe just think about it why don't we uh how about current current can you ask your principl why don't you come back with us to un eye see if there's better way to write that next meeting when we take a look at the second one would that be all right because we're not voting on anything your principles might have a better but what it means to be a good of the United States is not important so and and that's

132what I'm wrestling in my head I'm wrestling in my head is that a continuous Improvement plan or is that within like broad enough grad like is it is it broad enough like to write digital citizenship and citizenship is it broad enough my head says it is broaden up right and that the the principles can drill down without within their continu play that is one that we got stuck in the mud when we met as administrators so so so Joe are you saying that citizenship piece is missing there is that just ask where is it where is it I could find so for sure yeah Compass yeah compassionate CZ where is it in the goals yeah so we'll we'll come back at the next meeting when we go over board goal number two a through that

133one's that one is partnership with Community engagement and that's actually a shorter one so we'll come back if that's all right to with I with it Rewritten and then we'll look at board goal number two administrators have not looked at go number two yet so what you have in the the book the draft book that I gave my gut says it will look different than what you have but you will get a copy like you did tonight one with all right thank you that that works fine all right thank you for that that was excellent input by the board and I I appreciate that very good so let's let's move to our standing committee reports I'll move to uh Mr Bush and Mrs Robbins for finding [Music] the um only other thing that we really

134discussed other than the finances uh was that we're going to be talking about uh ease for athletic events uh moving forward if we're charging students and or parents or adult residents for sporting EV by the basketball games charge for right now we will have anything else you want to add any questions for the committee okay let's go to policy Mr Shyer we did not discuss Title Nine tonight we did it the September 23th special meeting I've already filled you in on that we adopted the first read tonight uh we did have lengthy and I think really productive discussion than you Jordan John and who High School principal was there too about cell phone use technology use in school um preliminarily we seem to think the current policy just adopted last year is is good as

135it stands it's the regulations behind it uh that are yet to be determined especially through 12 and uh Ruth and Andor Drew are going to back to us hopefully in November with proposed regulations so we had to made some of good progress I thought it was a very good anything any questions for our policy we're looking at our bylaws too yeah they need to be refresh and then on to curriculum Mrs Hayes yeah so curriculum we met um in September and we just give you a couple of highlights we um heard the assistant superintendent monthly report um successfully on boarded 12 new certified staff members um we looked at our curricular legislative updates uh one of which will be implemented um second semester this year at the high school the personal finance management and financial

136literacy um class that is a requirement now and will count toward students stem credit requirements um and then we also looked at our Canton educator evaluation and growth plan and reviewed the state required amendments um to that which were fairly minor and then lastly we uh looked over the fall District standardized assessments and that was it our next meeting is going to be October 30th 9 to 11: a.m. at Cherrybrook and we are going to be um hopefully hearing about our reading resource selection thank any questions for uh curriculum and Technology I want to make sure we get that title curriculum and Technology onto Communications pass yeah so uh from from our perspective uh we continue to work on information to go up for the the public through a video for uh our chry process

137as that continues to crystallize for us we're also um working on a new newsletter that we intend to be able to come out right around right around November um early November with highlights from the the Board of Education opening the school year um Lucas also stole the lead there too with the next installment of you did are good uh with the next installment of the students Center video that the student board event the student board event reps are are providing to be able to talk about um goals as we think about our our Focus this year as cultivating growth um going out and being able to look at in addition to the goals a district what are the goals of our kids as part of telling the story for us as well that's great I'm

138I'm interested at getting that newsletter out any anybody have any questions on Communications Okay calendar events I'll just remind you again the ca uh mixer is 10:17 Bill Phelps um is 1022 at halftime tri board meeting is 10:21 Nancy Grace's celebration for life is 10 28 at the firehouse in 26 I'm sorry 1026 at the cant Street firehouse and again is uh Eric just mentioned curriculum is 10:30 9 to 11 in the Middle School both States primary school I'm sorry primary school for oh it is primary school sorry is is that where it is now permanently or just for that okay thank you primary school thank you for that correction any any questions for the chair any issues on calendar anything else BR sure it's I think in regards to the Strategic plan but I

139guess my question would be like if we don't see something in there should we just email you that's a solid point so if you see something in student achievement for example which just stay one go thought so if we didn't discuss something tonight yeah email um Claudia and Claudia will make sure that we're going to put it in no matter what so if somebody emails I'll put that in red for next meeting and then we'll have student achievement when we went over we know we got to look at i h we'll make the changes that we made and then if there's anything in student achievement that we didn't discuss t i put it in okay I guess I just need some guidance on like where occupational learning would fit in it's basically what I'm touching

140upon is like an occupational learning especially Cherry for the younger students and like hand washing things like that cleanliness going into um uh you know flu and sickness season and just learning environment okay okay thank you okay finally I'd like to ask is there is there anybody that wants to volunteer to man for man a table edit for an hour on October 19th to give candy out to the kids that's at the park that's Ms Pond Park right we got two kids so you guys are great pardon me I'm part of it for the as thank you okay okay so if we could just get one just from uh setup is at 11: but it goes 1100 at 12:30 would you mind me okay great uh I'll talk party about arranging get candy and the

141table CET Banner that we put so you know supported that thank you so much for that can I just add one thing Jordan just answer your question because I want the Strategic PL is a big part of the board so what Jordan gave examples of like hand washing and and different things like that and this guide and learning learning environment and belonging where that will go is Implement Wellness programs and initiatives to promote the mental and physical wellth being of students and staff so specifically if it was one of the continuous Improvement plans that would fit right in there and I guess just really quick I know it's Le um when or where will you see like the plans on these items so so like we see you know that one Implement Wellness programs like

142where would we continuous Improvement PL so if you go yeah so if you go into Drew's plan tonight that's in your packet if you look at his goals he would be able to go into a student achievement and look at what we discussed tonight and I can guarantee he actually that I crosswalk he matched them up every every continuous plan will match up against the goals and strategies great okay can I take a motion to adjourn please thank you thank you Cindy second K any any discussion on this we can go for another 20 minutes if you all those in favor at 8:47 8:47