001recognize some of our guests we have some of our Administration team here Dr kidw and uh Mr dep pipo from the high school Mr Amory from Cherry Brook primary school and we have our uh inim business person here uh Sue H did I say that right Hanbury good thank you for being here tonight so um and we have a lot of guests and a lot to get through so as we kick off our meeting we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all okay I have another guest I'd like to introduce to everybody that we've filled our board of education spot and I'd like to introduce
002Carlin Fox who is now a member of the Board of Education she completes the board our nine members Carlin is a parent two children she's an attorney and she's going to be a great addition to the board of education so welcome to the Board of Education okay with respect to the Chairman's Corner uh just a couple things I'd like to remind everybody about um last Tuesday we accepted the superintendance uh budget um and now it becomes the board of educations budget so it's incumbent on uh each member of the Board of Education to take a look at those highlights we will try to simplify things for you with some bullet points for the public but I think it's important that we get out there now with our con our constituents and we start talking about
003the budget and some of the things that are going on relative to uh uh what the needs are of the school district in the system so now the board uh can go into um conversation and we will be able to do that right through until the um there's a quiet period that comes out right after the board of Finance um has their meeting and declares um I think the public document that comes out then and forgive the term the selling stops if you will and uh we are to um just go silent with that but we'll give you the actual dates on when that happens okay um tonight I was supposed to have a letter prepared uh and I don't have it prepared yet but one of the things we said we were going to
004do is uh to encourage the Governor to fully fund our excess cost excess cost or ECS excess cost excess cost is is uh for folks that don't know this um we were promised by the state of Connecticut all districts were prom state of Connecticut to be funded and with they call the excess cost Grant uh up to 88% and I'm not going to get into the details of how that all works but we were supposed to get 88% of a certain number and in fact the governor went back on his word and only funded us at 70% every Board of Education in the state of Conneticut was funding because we were promised that number so there there's a little bit of a wobbliness and we're going to get into our financial report because we didn't
005get that now typically our Board of Education in years gone past we never expected to be funded at a level in the 80s we always funded at 75% to get less than 75% from a governor that promised us 80% or 88% is is a real um it's a real um heart punch for the town of Canton but other towns are having the same problem so um I would just encourage everybody as you read the budget and you understand where we are today uh because we you'll be hearing a financial report and you'll hear about some some changes in numbers um but we also need the governor to fulfill that promise for next year it's so important in a very difficult every year is a difficult budget year but we had I had promised the Board
006of Education and I have going to the governor we'll try to get that done in the next week or so we'll have that out to you and you can approve that letter and then we'll get it to the governor okay um and really that's the uh that's all that I uh pretty much have so I'll turn it over to uh Dr Gman for the superintendent announcement super thank you Mr Daniels good evening everyone in public everyone online and those that will watch this recording it's been a very exciting month met for our last official board meeting I also want to welcome our Mr dep pipo Mr Amry and Dr Kidwell I also want to take the time to really honor this Canton Board of Education this board of education volunteers their time and March is
007Board of Education Month by the the state it may even be National so we presented to you on behalf of the The Canton Community and administration and the staff and teacher a bag thanking this board of education for all the time that they spend th this is something that you you may see an hour and a half two hours to tonight but there's a lot of work that goes in between each of the meetings so I definitely want to thank the board of educ thank you for the GI as Mr Daniel said I I also want to thank the board of education for supporting the administrative budget that was presented to you early December we started the the process this board really looked at where we were at that moment in time and this board
008did an outstanding job questioning the administration from where we were proposed in December at a 5.5% increase to where we landed at a net increase of 5.39 and the Board of Ed really did a diligent job asking the administration several questions that to the public and people that are here if you go on the website all our information regarding the budget is on the website we've also been sending weekly emails if not a couple times a week with budget information and when budget workshops are will continue to do that to be as transparent as we can in the budget as Mr Daniel says it's not the administrative budget anymore it's the board of education budget so we'll be sending out as much information as we can to keep the community posed on the budget this
009month has been very very exciting with many different events ranging from the coral concerts ranging from the the band concerts that was at CIS ranging to the exciting Adams Family show that is happening this week that you're boor you're actually going to have an opportunity to go down we're going to recess and we're actually going to go down for about 5 or 10 minutes and watch and I I do have to say this and I don't single sport out at all I I never do but I'm going to do it tonight I had the opportunity to go to the girls basketball game and we have our senior Captain here tonight that was the best Bas girls basketball game I've been to my entire life in in in 30 years it was just exciting and and
010to see our student athletes compete and no doubt it was a game that we were the underdog there there there's no doubt going in and those young ladies battled like I've never seen a team B battle and compete right to the end and I was sitting standing right underneath that basket that it came about an inch short from going in and US celebrating on the court and like I said I I don't normally single out a team but I've been to a lot of girls and women's basketball uh games and grew up living right next door right down the street from coach arama and I was really impressed with our girls and I I say that because I'm staring right at our uh senior Captain here tonight so congratulations on a great just a reminder
011to the community we will have a uh conferences March 19th through the 21st that that's an opportunity for you to reflect on your uh students learning and I'm very excited that I met with our students reps last two weeks ago now to come up with the next students at the center episode and this is going to be a really exciting one that the students have um a little bit of a surprise for the community in the superintendent's conversation and I do want to let the board know that tonight you have on your agenda uh a field trip an overnight field trip to to Peru I'm going to table that for tonight I met with the World Language Department today with Mr dep pipo and they have some plans for another trip um so we're going
012to table that and I'm going to bring another trip back to you in uh April for the April mean we're really looking at um different trips and things like that so we met today so I just want to let you know that we won't be going over that tonight and voting on that tonight I'll take any questions out of the superintendent's office at this time any board member have a a question for the superintendent tonight ficia just check in Russell checking down the end I can't see everybody good okay thank you for that report Dr Gman um Now we move to our student Representatives reports Maggie do you want to go first tonight or sure um I'll be reporting on CIS and I got a lot um CIS celebrated random acts of kindness week and
013they set the goal of collecting 150 kindness star cards in three school days and they did it and as a result each grade ended the week with a 15-minute dance party fifth grade students made and deliberate cards to all the seniors at the senior center on Valentine's Day and advisory students P thank you cards to show appreciation to our community line workers in the fire and police departments and those Center CIS celebrated bus driver appreciation day and the PTO provided gift bags to driver Monitor and cross guard and students make cards in early March astronaut Lieutenant Lieutenant Colonel Dwayne dier Cary presented to all students about his experiences as an astronaut and then students participated in breakout sessions learning about solar and lunar cpses CIS help annual student faculty B game and it was a
014huge success students won in overtime by five points and they collected a lot of food for the Canton food B thank you to the P for organizing this great Community event CIS readers have been practicing National reading month by participating and drop everything and read and a student counil SP here week and reading challenge cast members from K High School visited CIS this week to read a lot of picture books and promote their upcoming production of The Adams Family and the school went on a schoolwide trip to the Warner Theater to watch the musical dot dot dot on new musical this week is mystery reader week and they have 75 mystery readers from the community most the Merit but not all coming in read that's very good Maggie thank you Juliana okay um so I'll
015be reporting in cherra on Tuesday evening February 27th uh Cher held its annual kindergarten orientation where friend were able to attend and we able to tour what the life look like a kindergarten there would be in all the classrooms uh last week they also celebrated read the America week where uh chb students and staffs had an enjoyable week of reading and each day uh featured an exciting theme from wearing clothes with words Jam day dressed like your favorite character and they also had special guests like the can High School National Honor Society uh Cher Brook students and staff also enjoyed a performance of Adam's Family um Cher Brook has an I wonder KN which will be tomorrow from 5: to 7:00 and it focuses on celebrating science technology engineering art and math where uh the
016second grade and the seventh grade will display their stem based projects uh Cherry Brook uh second grade and first grade families were also Cher music teacher missar and also jump for heart update uh cherb bra $2,383 29 fantastic you know it's it's so great that uh we're seeing the interaction from high school down to all the way down to our Cherrybrook students and uh giving them um models and mentors to be able to look at and I I appreciate the report any questions for our student rep reps on anything you heard some exciting things going on um our our um other student rep has been kidnapped I don't know if you know this by by one of The Adams Family folks un unless Wednesday you would like to give a report no okay all right
017great all right so before we get to our to our uh our actors and actresses for The Adams Family there's one thing that I I I would like to do tonight and uh that's that's we're going to recognize the shops in Canton and and the reason why we're going to recognize them you know we're a small town and you all know this that 92% of our taxes are paid uh residentially only about 8 or 9% is paid commercially we don't have a lot of commercial uh um commercial paying um businesses here in town and when we do um you know they they they're usually smaller but the shops of our biggest uh taxpayers in town uh has always um been very much there for our schools and the Canton Education Foundation over the last 20
018years 20 plus years the shops have contributed on their own almost over $100,000 to the Canton Education Foundation which then is given out mostly to the schools for projects and things like science projects or robotic projects or the opportunity to compete in a certain uh certain area so the shops are without a doubt one of our greatest corporate citizens that we have in town and the Board of Education along with the Canton Education Foundation would like to recognize the shops for all that they've given us uh both uh the business that they have uh the taxes that they pay and the fact that they contribute every year consistently to the Canton Education Foundation so tonight we have two proclamations uh for them and I think Liz Aran is here tonight representing the shops Liz there
019she is so we'll come up to the front here please take a photo for the Box take a so so the first Proclamation really comes from K Education Foundation in conjunction with Board of Education where's this this is our hardworking um manager of the shops that's you know if you ever go to the shop you see some of the fun things that are going on that's Liz she's constantly working getting new businesses into the shops and she's a great advocate for the Board of Education also she's also on the uh the Chamber of Commerce she represents on the Chamber of Commerce and she always opens up the shops to uh to our students for schools things of that nature as a matter of fact I think are we going to do the Easter EG well
020we doing a shopop we actually be able to hide EGS in the storage but allow the St to kids it's great kids 10 and under it tiet Education Foundation I thought that um someone came to us about doing the shops and our businesses and they super excited about it so that's great so what we have here is first Proclamation says whereas the spirited community and the collaboration plays a vital role in the success and growth of the camp public schools and WS Development shops at fingon Valley a cherished partner in our educational Journey has demonstrated exceptional generosity by making substantial donations to support the educational Endeavors of of the camp public schools and the campon education fund and whereas the contribution from WS Development shops at parment Valley will have a profound impact on our
021students enriching their learning experiences and providing essential resources for their academic and development and whereas the WS Development shops with Farmington Valley has consistently shown a commitment to the betterment of our school community and the well-being we now therefore the C Board of Education and the public schools and the C Education Foundation do hereby Proclaim our sincere appreciation and gratitude on behalf of the entire C Board of Education C Education Foundation to the WS Development shops at Farmington Valley for their significant heartfelt donations being further resolved that camp board of education encourages students parents teachers and staff to join in expressing gratitude to WS Development shops at farington Valley for the dedication to the advancement of Education in the camp community and one way you can do that is to always visit the shops shop
022locally I add that so thank thank you very [Applause] much we have one more this comes from our state representatives and you can see they have more money that we do so this says from the Connecticut general assembly and [Music] and this one uh says everybody can see it's it's uh beautifully typed and it it it's a citation by introduced by Senator heleny caros the our represented from the 17 District it's Senator Lis semaria from the a district be hereby known to all that the Connecticut General Assembly hereby offers sincere congratulations to Elizabeth AR and the WS Development shops at Farmington Valley in in recognition of years of community building and funding contribution to the C Education Foundation and the Canton Public Schools the owners of WS Development shops at faring Valley are intrical are
023intrical supports to the people and the children of c and their extensive contributions have allowed for numerous non-budgeted School Pro projects to enrich our children and this comes uh signed by President proen and the Speaker of the House Matt rter and the secretary of state so [Applause] app okay oh these are for you right are okay Dr Gman what would you like to do next super thank you so we're we're here for Canton celebrates also and we have Cherry Brook celebrates that has been cancelled three times I believe or two or three times because of snow so we're so excited to welcome our youngest learners tonight and Mr Amry is going to call you up just for families we'll take pictures after we'll do plenty of time for pictures after Mr Amry does his thing
024that we'll ask your children to come take some pictures with the Board of Ed so Mr Amry thank you Dr Gman good evening everyone yes we've been cancelled by weather but looks like there may not be more snow days which is good um I have two students friends that i' like to recognize tonight um Veronica Lindell she's um a second grader this is T class year come um she was recognized um for her her artistic talent by Mrs raposo Veronica shows her excitement for art in her attention to details and focus on her on her work her enthusiasm for creating art is evident each time she comes into the room she is kind and a caring classmate who is happy to help others she's a the wonderful Cherry Brook role model congratulations my next friend
025that I like to recognize is Camila Von a third grader in Miss mirx class she was recognized by Miss C for music Camila is a hardworking musician and a role model to her peers she excels in many areas of music and is is a dedicated singer and already shows great promise in instrumental skills particularly with the ukulele she is a calm presence and is focused and driven in music class and in chorus in addition camula is always kind fair and respectful to all others all other Cherry Brook friends Cherrybrook and Cherry Brook Music is lucky to have such a positive force like Camila congratulations some SC if we can call the students back up the board will just stand right here and we'll do our pictures if our students could come back up this is
026actually a better place for the board to bed to do you guys you all come on up behind yeah you can stand right in front and it will work you probably want to come back with us you you can stand right right here right in front of me there you go there we go beautiful and hold your hold your certificates out front like that beautiful can everybody get in can K you got everybody okay everybody look at Kira your get come on up close enough one more okay job nice job and now Mr the pipo okay very excited tonight to presenting our c celebrat can high school as I get into I just want to remind the board Mr J so nice think about the shops but something resonates for me four years ago during
027Co we could not have graduation on rounds it actually a very difficult time to figure it all out and um Liz called me personally to say hey we' really like to help you out any way and we worked as part I didn't know her she just want to help and we work we we spoke weekly for like 3 months to trying to figure it out and then were must nothing but uh helpful and supportive and I think by the end of the evening we all felt our families all students felt so supportive and we couldn't have done a l until May night you it actually brings back emotions it was so beautiful so that was a great night and here we are March 7 2024 uh way past Co but I might mention it one
028more time when I talk about this group um I'm so proud of CHS year that that we had um there's so many things that we could be celebrating and we do try to celebrate daily I think wonderful things go on in our classroom daily um we've had more field trips to that than we've had in several years as Dr Gman said we have we have this wonderful production with our drama club we have Athletics up and running we have so many um clubs and opportunities and so many um teachers willing to just uh invest their time and our students to help them bring out their passions um but for tonight um we're focusing on members of our senior class um who have made really distinct impact uh a distinct impact both academically or within the
029art with Athletics or just generally being leaders in our building and we have several outstanding seniors that could be represented here but in my mind what distinguishes this group um a little bit over some of the others is not just their talents and the productivity and the things that they've shown and demonstrated um but really their willingness to share um they all in their own way are leaders uh within their within their groups and and they spread their wealth to others and therefore we're a much better place so i' like to bring up all the seniors who are over here maybe TR come over here um so we can talk about you just a little bit um anyone else sitting when do we go downstairs when you want to this so I know on our
030minds uh you know we're thinking about the Thursday um so uh you know these awards are are very timly comments and we talk about Club but I want to turn over talk a little about projects as well as our camp students being represented here thank you um so just before I recognize the students we just kind of give a reminder and a recap for for anyone who might not be familiar that camp we we kind of affectionately call it it's our C Master project and that's really um our culminating senior Capstone that began a few years ago and we've just become really really proud of this course this is just an opportunity for seniors every senior completes this course in the fall of their senior year to choose a topic is that broad right anything
031something that they're just interested in as passion potential um future career something that they've been dabbling with and now have an opportunity to bring out to fruition and so throughout that semester seniors go through a process of identifying that that thing that topic which is usually half to battle in itself um and then going through a whole phase of research proposal um looking for an end goal actually creating or doing whatever that project may be and then ultimately presenting it um usually in January the last couple of years at an expo that we've um come to really enjoy in that evening so um kind of as Mr too said there's a range of seniors that we could have really highlighted and celebrated um from that from this year's Expo but we have three that we're
032going to bring forward so I have lla and Christy come join me over here right [Applause] just to give you a brief range of the types of topics and projects that um all three of these students went through I'll start with Christy um who really from my understanding kind of the project went in a few different directions right which is been the case with our camp projects and she ultimately landed on creating um looking to to become interested in different cultures and diversities within the school and to actually highlight and celebrate and bring those to a higher awareness um And So It ultimately created a Quon board really A visual representation of the various cultures and diversities across the student body of Canton High School and it really just became a a just a very
033powerful visual to be able to see and it's still on display in the hallways downstairs so congratulations chissy um and then we had so for anyone who actually attended in in person the Expo you couldn't miss lia's project it was the bo so that was um very impressively done and so lla again has words also from Miss Kurt who was Camp teacher to lla and Cole and Miss cley was Camp teacher to Chrissy um but miss Curt really was praising the fact that lla had no real previous boardwork skills necessarily but just worked so hard SP hours to just create that actual vote um and is planning on getting it in the water at some point in this [Applause] summer finally Cole Edwards um Cole created the Tamar language and culture and I I can't
034even begin I had the pleasure of listening to um Cole practicing a presentation a couple of weeks before the Expo and his his passion and his diligence of the research is isn't just creating and making up words this a wholeistic framework with grammar um and vocabulary that sharing that maybe your dog Converse a little bit and then back and forth sometimes so that works too but it's truly truly impressive he could probably deliver a little speech for us here right now in his language but I won't necessarily give a phras yeah that's fantastic that's amazing we got to get you a country I would like to thank all the people here thank mother and father that is [Applause] fantastic thank [Applause] you all right so we're going to bring up um you know award my
035award so I'd like to bring forward caral in [Music] b these two students are winners of our second annual Theater Arts Awards so with um the play on our mind um beginning on Thursday these awards are timely but these specific awards are really and years of effort by these two wonderful students our drama club is 4 years old and therefore these students have have played an impactful role as part of this club and really help to create what it is today which is a you know main stay in our building it started with just a few students um so this brings you know obviously people together to share their passion for theater um but they really use the theater as a a vehicle to create and develop their skills to use your energy and bring
036joy to all of us um so miss War Taylor was so proud um to choose these two members for different reasons first I about Carrie Carrie Carrie is a drama club officer and a founding member of the drama club she was Jan actor who has grown into one of our assistant Tech directors and these responsibilities of being an assistant Tech director car assists in coordinating the entire tech department for each of our Productions she also helps out during the school day as necessary she's been a valuable member of our theater Community both as an actress and leading the teches she's become a role model for other students as we start to bring people along in understanding all facets of the technology behind the production thank you so much Ken I'm so happy [Applause] thank tonight
037has been influential part of our drama club a little bit more out in front since the first day of the club in 2020 she's been uh she's been a drama club officer as well um for the last three years and she's been one of the leading students and she plans to run drama uh club meetings throughout the year so beyond the drama club Bella has a takeway for the future actors in the theater program she has flourished since her freshman year in a few roles uh include in being a lead in the fall and this year's musical so younger students look up to Bella for her Poise leadership her kindness and the drama club will not be the same about thank you so much for all of your work supp so Haley and Lauren tonight
038speaking of the Arts have won a wonderful State award the Connecticut High School Arts Awards annually honor two outstanding seniors froming each of their cast member schools who excel in instrumental performing or Visual Arts to be selected these students must also possess qualities of scholarship and Leadership and can high school winners this year are H Haley Catlin and Lauren Mary and they will be honored at a banquet on April 2nd at the aqu congratulations [Applause] haly is being recognized tonight for her role um for her talent in Visual Arts um according to miss Styer who our art teacher hay has stood out in the midst of her peers since her freshman year she stands out not only because for highly developed artistic skills but also her dedication to always challenging herself she not only has
039that going on for her but she's shows extreme wisdom empathy in her work as well as great determination and completion ay has pick has been picked for this honor and we're very proud of her because of these qualities have never wavered despite some hard days and challenges along the way so for this reason she was inducted into our national art Honor Society her junior year and she's the president of the society this year she also was extremely involved in the set design for the theater performance will be seeing soon and anywhere AR artistic skills are needed haly is always willing to help as her master project she started a pet portrait business and each portrait we have seen has been breathtaking which led Miss stifel to order one for herself so before uh be sure
040to ask her for some contact information if you're interested and we all miss haly next year um helping out with the art because of creativity but mostly because of her perseverance and kindness to guarantee success in all of our endeavors thank you so [Applause] much in Laura Mars he was selected for the instrum instrumental and Performing pars portion of this award Laur is a remarkable student she's a strong athlete and a wonderful musician Laur is has sung soprano in choir percussion in dance since fourth grade in her commitment to music as is admirable this Anthony to lets us know that laen at weekly percussion lessons with a college professor at har school where she studies everything from snare drum to the moraba uh to drum and set accessories La has represented our school at both
041Regional and all state and is one of the finest percussionists in our state B has worked hard uh to learn contemporary styles of drum set or the CHS Jazz Ensemble in the pit Orchestra at the newon Jazz Festival B was awarded the outstanding musicianship award for her performance with our group but like all of our students here tonight laoren is kind open-minded and openly shares her time her gifts and her talents she's a tribe and music Honor Society officer where she mentors young percussionist inter her session she's always willing to give to the great K thank you bring so in a similar type award the state represents uh two athletic awards what are known as our our CIA scholar athlete Awards um each School uh in the state selects two students to represent the school
042for this award so some of the criteria for the award are academic Excellence good citizenship high levels of Integrity self-discipline as well as having high personal standards which serve as role models for others and we believe that both abrian and Sam certainly have this as well as well as being incredible athletes we will we will honor them as part of a banquet on May 5th at the operater with all other schools in the state i' first like to talk about Avery Avery uh Dr Gman talked a little bit about uh the game the other night but when we think about ay over her four years here at K high school it's remarkable she's been a a four-year Varsity player for three Sports every year so 12 Varsity letters I'm not sure if that's been done
043um she's been the captain uh for all three Sports this year and been a captain five times in her career she's been an all conference in basketball the last two years it can still be named All State when that list comes out in a few weeks um that I think speaks to her resume but I think moreover when we talk to her coaches um especially coach Cole who spoke of May by saying she's the type of student athlete I wish all my players could Shri to be hardworking persistent determined smart and an amazing teammate he has no doubt that a will help the last team this year do great things I think another intangible to note about Avery is that those of you that have the um pleasure to watch a play this you can
044see that she's super intense she's super focused and works really hard but one of the favorite things that many have seen is her big smile when things go well for her or for one of her teammates and I think it's a wonderful balance of someone who is extremely competitive but also shows that balance by making sure that she's having fun and her teamates are having fun so we have real reservation that she'll do great at indicot where she'll be playing basketball next year congratulations congratulations Sam Lincoln SAR to Ay has had quite an athletic career he's a four-year Varsity player he's a three uh in baseball a three-year Varsity player for soccer he's been the captain of soccer in baseball this year and was a captain of baseball last year he was an all conference
045player sopore junior year in baseball this year hasn't happened yet last year was also an all State baseball player so great things to look forward to this season from Sam no pressure all right but Sam to's coach uh Mr n is the embodiment of a conate student athlete his hard work his dedication to his teammates his leadership his coachability Mak him the ideal role model for his peers to emulate while he has enjoyed incredible success on the field during his 10 Kon from being named All State team to an all Conference team to MVPs for the team he somehow manages to remain humble and puts the success teammates above his own Co has no doubt that s will continue to be an ideal representation of Canton after he graduates and moves on to achieving new
046goals and hopefully playing baseball in the future same looking for here [Applause] congratulations she got out of the tonight we're going to bring her back in didn't recognize so Simone um tonight actually is being recognized for all her work here mostly um as we all know Simone has been the CHS Board of Education te representative for the past two years she's put incredible incredible amount of time and effort into this position as I know she takes it very serious I think the board would attach that she is an amazing communicator and she's brought a real important points to this board and her perspective um and and the student voice um is much needed and helpful words um as I mentioned Simone is an amazing communicator and what I've always appreciated about her is that she
047can come forward with the student voice she can listen well and she can kind of reframe that thinking in a common mature way to represent the students behind the scenes um during our our monthly meetings as well as in front of um the public um in the board or as part of the board and for this we want to give our superintendent award it essentially it's a leadership award for being part of this board and represent um and I think the board knows this but it's important that the public knows as well as this is um as Dr Gman was talking about a huge commitment to be part of of this board mon last year we had two meetings a month hours on end supporting the board roles but she's so active in school um
048as you can see we're pulling her away from the dress rehearsal right now um and she's one of our leads in the play she's been a main um C to our drama club she's been a part of several Productions she's a student leader um in terms of student council she's been a class officer and um she's been in several clubs and and Sh leadership in several clubs too many to announc so we want toensure that you were um represented tonight you try to get out of the we want to make sure tonight recognize you for all your hard work thank you so [Applause] much um our opportunity to um see students um you if your direction um we could head downstairs unless you want to say a few words yeah so we we will do
049that we're I think we'll adjourn I'm going to take a motion to move out of order so that we can move downstairs but I just want to tell our students how impressive you are and what a contribution you've made to our schools our districts you're going to be so missed but we hope that you'll come back and um I don't know if you know about Mr Bush here he was at once a student now he's a successful businessman and he came back to Canton and now he's on the board of education and I hope maybe someday Simone maybe someday we'll see you here or whatever Community you land in but I just want to wish you on behalf of the Board of Education we want to say thank you for your contribution come and visit
050us again and good luck okay on over everybody come on over for a quick picture and then you can go down then we'll go down so I need a motion we're going to move out of order to go downstairs motion to move out of order and then we'll come back to Mr yeah and then we're going to adjourn so can I have a motion to move out of order Mr Mr Sher and Peggy Stein all those in favor we move out of order unanimous then I'll take a motion to adjourn Felicia motion to adjourn second second uh car car's car all those in favor okay now we can take the [Music] picture High School can you get us [Music] all yeah come back 8:00 so we're going to go down to the auditori Mr Bishop
051can leave us down [Music] [Applause] [Music] there 7 and we are back in a session and uh that leads to Mr di pipo to kind of give us a summary on the continuous Improvement plan very much glad go down there so um Dr rman just asked um that I Through summary um to look forward a little bit to um you know our work on our Improvement goals um last week I really appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with MERS Board of Education I thought we had a nice visit um and an opportunity to really uh dig deep into this document there's a lot of words in this document there's six ongoing um continuous Improvement Ro plans articulated um I'd be happy um to have any you come back to school through um you know
052working with Dr Gman if you want if you didn't get a chance to to walk to the school and you like to try it or if you want to talk a little more about some of this uh some of the information here you have so if I could excuse me Mr dep pipo so we are going to take you up on that so some of the members that didn't get a chance to make it we'll set the date that's convenient for Mr depip and Dr Kidwell and Dr Gman but um there there is a lot of information it's good information um so you know Carlin you weren't part of the board if you I was I was away so I'd like to take part of this anybody else who would like to do that we'll
053set that time I don't know if you have to uh go through the um the school but I I'd love to go through this in more detail because You' worked hard at it and there's there's a lot of good stuff in here and just like to understand it better yeah it's hard because even the day that the group was here I would spent a good 90 minutes discussing it we we actually got through four and a half in the goal okay so it was great n great questions and and it was dur a conversation but it is hard to kind of pinpoint exactly because I think each and every one of the goals are a bit of a story um but I think what you should know is that in each of the gold plans
054there there's there's a working plan in place that there's outcomes already that you know what you see here is a blend of sort of things that we're doing and and things that have been done and some outcomes as well particularly proud uh I can maybe just mention something brief about each goal um to kind of go through through the document partners and Partnerships and commun engagement um so proud of some of some of the extensions this year and the the the bullets are blocked off almost into three segments but really the first segment sort of what kids are doing ground um the middle is a little bit about some of the Outreach that the administration does and the third part is people sort of coming in to help and you've heard and um the C
055friends for the art it's really a parent driven organization but it's it's such a great partnership because we have key people in the building that that work as outlets for them so there's there's constantly sort of a back and forth going on and we've had two or three already excellent opportunities with some of our um shows at night where we have the open m evenings the coffee houses and we'll have the talent show next week or feil 19th so there's great things happening with with the Partnerships um and they just continue to actually grow there's more in there um if you like to ask a question later um the second of the goals is learning environment and belonging and I really do feel it Blends into embracing Equity but in terms of learning environment and
056belonging I mean I think what you saw demonstrated tonight what you're seeing I mean my kids are invested in involved in the schools I think and I praise the the board every time I can to to you know kind of clear the pathway for that um through you know showing that we have all of these clubs and uh opportunities for students the second of those bullets I think are as important this year um the first bullets kind of talk about things that we do the second of actually talk a little bit more about structure and routine I think um as we have evolved out of the co World some of the some of the steiness pre from preo is sort of been left behind and I think this year more than any we we are
057um really working with our staff on climate we've worked with our staff on making sure students are feel like a strong academic along Class Connect academically and feeling good about being in in their classrooms and you know some of our policies get really stuck to this year whereas we have to have some um I guess some flexibilities over over the co years kind of coming back in about attendance kind of really focusing in on expectations to se time are are you know a nice outcome that's that you can it's quantifiable is really our our um referrals on the way down and I think that just sort of shows the connectivity that students are back in school in a focused way and again I think that rolled into embracing equity in that um some of the
058structural changes have created just a more wellbeing environment but I think the key element of this embracing equ is highlighting diversity voices um you know ch's um Camp project is an example of the smoy voice um in another Camp project that actually was highly successful was student Equity team um that That Grew From the camp project that continues to present to our school um trying to Mar that idea in our chat which our is our advisory time um something else we've done is um we brought our ninth grade and our 11th grade chats together we brought our 10th and 12th grade chats together so students can interact in ways that they never happy before answering questions AC mentorships and through that chat time student team volunteers to further support some of their messages so I
059feel like there's a nice blend of student input and structural emphasis around you know Shing that that students have success in the classroom because I feel like that is also an equitable component um you know looking out for all of our students so I was to move on from there I think the Workforce Development um I'm really proud this year and actually also want to acknowledge the board for the professional development days that continue to be offered in our calendar um this year more than any um we sort of we haven't had a like a district initiative where we we Ser a lot of that time um for for important things it's sort of been left of the buildings a little bit more with some guidelines and what we've been able to do is really
060tap into our staff and our professionals um to work with our other staff members so we're using expertise from the staff um and this fluidity um about sharing um you know knowledge and um expertise has really been nice throughway you know so really developed um using data in instructional new instructional approaches have really been a highlight to our PD and I have to acknowledge who SE D wey who's our um instructional help literacy coach literacy coach all right I feel like she knows a lot more than that um but she is amazing and again that came out of our budget a couple years ago uh being able to hire that position I mean the dividends that staff has got from her exper is is amazing so that you know so again we're promoting her leadership
061but also then spreading her knowledge and that's just one example and we have many there the financial sustainability efficient operation you know I I I just I thinkk the board so much for the support of the budget um working through us through Dr Gman and I'm feeling really good about um where we are in and again um J has passed us to to really do a good job in our long range planning and I think that's Healy efficiencies lastly and it's both an achievement and it's hard to say lastly I I you know there's a lot of information here that I think deserves you know much more time than I take but the the the cop letting me down a little bit we had a lot of green and red in here you can see
062the red but you can't see the green so well and conceptually the idea is that if it was green you're advancing in that place and exactly doing a go for a light and if you might see red in some of the data that's an era that we might have brought short or we're still working on much of this data that's been presented to you is uh really TW fold it's PSAT data which which we kind of monitor yearly so we look at growth over time um and then other data is called star data which is more incremental that we give three times per year and we're looking for growth in that and um basically language arts Reading Writing um and um there's some success stories in here that I'm very proud of um and there's
063some eras that that need to continue to grow with but I want the board to know that for us we can look at all these numbers and we can maybe you know like point in on the number and asking questions but at the end the most important thing that I say is because of this data we know where every kid stand literally we know this student is below this student is above the teacher know there's a plan for that student there's support for that student or there's enrichment for that student different opportunities so that to me like we can talk about the the goals keep us on track but in the end of the day that data helps us to know where our kids are for most important and then last I'm really proud of
064the work um it's been a collective effort with Mr Scher uh John Bishop of working with um some of our TX Community College T to try to build pathway opportunities we want our students to be able to do at some point is if receive um either on their way to certification or internship hours or U manufactur ing positions or gain college credit for a dual Credit Opportunity and we have many of those already as we discussed we have PC opportunities we have AP opportunities we're trying to expand that out so I'm proud to be able to say that we'll have EC CH Mandarin 3 next year that we have EC economics next year and those are nice next steps and we're working hard with cons and when I think next October I'll be sitting with
065with the board sub committ to talk about several courses for the following year we're ready but um to move but but we've been it's been a bit of a SC Cas working with some of universities that are overwhelmed right now with a lot of people asking but when we built a partnership and relationship with the these um institutions this year and I feel like we're ready to pick off so I I you know it's like a two to four year full s through big step next year and then um in into some some some deeper um thinking so Haven answer any questions excellent any questions for Mr pipo Dr pwell I have a quick question um so how long after that um testing date of March 27 do we are we able to get data
066yeah so you know the ngss is March it's digital now is from last year so in years past we Haven made a present till the next October I think we'll have the information so by the beginning of the school year you'll know that will be our summer work thank you Mr Sher I just I'll share a few comments that I shared with through at the uh the end of the morning uh we were there for 2 hours and we stayed 20 minutes over and we could have stayed another half hour over that was really an excellent discussion and and uh uh and a very impressive morning uh that your goals are clear we knew that from the fall uh your indicators of success are clear uh the areas where you didn't get where you wanted
067to go that was clear as well um it was uh was very informative and very impressive and and uh you and Ruth did a great job and your staff is a great job the uh uh couple things quickly uh we heard about a math course for uh ninth graders who struggle in math uh and the two gentlemen were quite good and the data they brought was really significant I thought with the youngsters who don't like math and had struggle the math and now seem to be turning it around at least in large part uh that was a program worth worth seeing certainly I think I said it the other day uh you don't expect to learn much in 5 minute visits to eight different classrooms learn a ton uh and the biggest thing I learned
068was the the level of Engagement across the board uh whether the teachers know we were coming or not you can't fake that uh and uh got joke that I found one student out of the eight classes that didn't seem to be engaged everybody else was in what seemed like very engaging work uh so it was a very very worthwhile uh morning very informative morning and uh a lot of evidence of the great things that are going on at your school uh I uh I think I mentioned this to Jordan before but would it be some board members just can't go you know you have a job you can't go uh but would it be better uh if we scheduled these visits for first thing in the morning for people to get there maybe Bo can
069let Jordan and know that yeah we're going to work on that next year time like I like I mentioned that day this is the first year that the principal have done that done these visits so we've been we were pretty flexible but when we meet as an administrative team next year I anticipate that the high school and the middle school will go from 8:30 or like 8:00 7:30 till like 9:30 10:00 and then I anticipate Sher Brook and C to go from 8:30 to 10:30 if that makes it easier for folks because it's really really very worthwhile didn't I can't not mention uh a 30 I just did the math a 30% reduction in office referrals it's no small achievement uh it's very very impressive achievement uh for the first what six or seven months
070of school so that's great thank you Peggy you were there How would how did you enjoy the it was terrific there are a lot of interesting um assignments that the kids were everybody was engaged and um yeah was good ask kids questions they knew what was going on and they could converse with you and it was wonderful Kim you were you were there yeah it was a wonderful visic Drew and Ru always do a nice job being really have a strong w on you know what's going on in their school and the curriculum and the data um but I love seeing you know the different activities the different modalities the teachers are using and then um when you ask it's really the best part of being on the board of B the visits seeing the
071students getting to speak to them and really every every student I asked questions to they they were very thoughtful and reflective and honest and you know we ask different questions and it's really neat to hear their answers about why they like a class class or you know and it was nice to see that you they were able to be in charge of a lot of their learning obviously it's lends itself to the age group but um it was a great visit and to see the math class which we worked on in curriculum to like you know we worked on in a meeting we talk about it and we present it but then to see it in action and to see the benefit and how it it really creates a you know a thread between the
072board of and the decisions we make to see it red out and those teachers were fabulous they really I mean they they love their job and love students and and my my takeaway really was that no matter all the stuff we spoke about I felt good knowing that you valued the one of the most important things you spoke about Drew was relationships that the building the relationship with the students and you know really caring about them is is really how you help them you know so that was great I think you both got this back on track I feel the momentum there's a momentum shift even when you come into the building there's excitement again the kids are happy and the trajectory now on a lot of the things that you're doing are going is
073going in that direction so you're doing great work so thank you thank you for your time tonight thanks for being away from home all right thank [Applause] you okay uh this takes us to the uh review of the February financials Dr Gman super for um this morning the the finance committee met I want to thank Mrs Hur for putting this report to together for us uh with uh Mr Amos um just on the the cover page of your memo fiscal year 2324 end of the year forecast 31 m865 1998 which is unfavorable to budget by $119,000 there is no change in general education but special education is favorable this month by $61,000 so we have from the difference between the January and February were actually favorable from last month I want to note to the
074Board of Education that we are estimating a reimbursement from the Harford public schools for $541,000 as Mr Daniels said earlier that if we didn't have to lower our excess cost by additional $140,000 based upon the the data from the state of Connecticut indicating that canton's reimbursement rate is expected to be 70.5 if we did not have to reduce the excess cost our current possession would actually be $220,000 favorable that that's a big shift from when we started this whole budget process when I arrived in Canon to where we are now so so we're going to have to really watch that closely to see if we get the excess cost um up there's talk still but we're anticipating 70.5 I do got to commend the special education pupil Services office and Mrs McLean that we are
075better 61,800 so if you go down to the the the bullets I want to explain a few things with special ed so if you look at the bullet down special education purchase Services anticipated unfavorably unfavorable of $21,000 we're unfavorable $21,000 due to we had to bring in some consulting services for some of our students from outside resources for uh to fulfill their IEPs but if you look down the bottom two bullets transportation for special education is favorable by $29,000 and our tuition is f favorable by 53,8 because Mrs mle uh moved to uh change programming for two students so overall our special education program we've done a really nice job reducing the deficit that we're at so if you just go to page one of the the the statement of accounts you could you could
076see on the bottom of the first page AG that $21,000 that I was talking about in special education purchase services with outside consultant then if you go to page two on that you could see that the $29,000 Savings in transportation in the middle of page two and then you see the tuition line item where it's 53,800 that's where it Nets out if you go on to the last page I'm page three that's where it Nets out to the total general fund that were $61,000 better than we were last month and then if you look the third line up from the bottom and the finance committee does this we go through this much slow slower that you could see that we're $119,000 in the red which is $61,000 better than we were last month so General
077Ed is favorable by $144,000 special ed is in the red by $133,000 so that that's where we net out the $119,000 and then the last page page four just explains the the special education breakdown so overall I'm very pleased where we are we'll explain that to the the board of Finance next month of how we are moving along within our financials we'll really spend the month of March in the beginning of April really looking at our regular Ed line items such as substitutes supplies and really see if there's any savings that we may have that funds that have been encumbered that we may not be using so Mr Bush I don't know if you have anything to add based upon the the financials that we went over this morning no I think you covered everything
078went over a little more detail any any comments on the finance component do you want to mention anything on CIP or Russell do you want to mention anything I Russell do that one we atance report okay thank you for that report um assistant superintendent report Mr Bishop y I have two quick things tonight I want to thank the uh curriculum subcommittee for their support uh through the commissioner's Network um Improvement plan process U Mr Moore did a great job presenting recently and I'll let Miss hay share a little bit more but we're excited to be able to bring that plan to the state uh by the Friday deadline and then we expect to be able to hear more back from the state um May 15th is what we're expecting and that's uh should be when
079we have um directives going forward from uh our plan from there uh the secondary piece then is uh our our literacy Review Committee at Cherry book Primary School uh we have engaged in some consultative work with Hill for literacy uh through uh straight State grant for us they're working with us to be able to review three programs to be able to um have a goal of bringing forward a recommendation by the start of the school year so that we can uh begin to further Ved into the curriculum committee and develop budgetary requirements around again this requirement for a uh uh a state approved model curricular for we're doing great work with that and I'm very thankful for the leadership of our literacy specialists Cherry Brooke and the uh uh widespread committee that is working to
080be able to do the work there that's all from for me right now any questions out of my office any questions for the assistant superintend that's good report John thank you thank you thank you okay this brings us to our public comment we'll First Take anybody in the audience and we'll go online for public comment um so uh with respect to public comment anybody online that uh chooses to to speak I'd ask you to keep your comments to 3 minutes uh on anything that you'' like to speak about identify yourself and your address before you uh get into your comments so we'll open it up Kira sure so if you're joining us online you can use that raan feature Zoom um and if you'd like to make a public comment I'll Zoom call on you
081by your Zoom name okay we'll close we'll close public comment thank you very much um new business do we have anything Dr Gman nothing under the new business so let's go to the board reports and we'll start off with Finance Mr Bush um a couple things you want to mention from this morning yeah so that Jordan covered the financials we went over financials um he discussed be hiring consult a little bit more diing into uh this year get a better handle on everything um in ter one of the conversations short please help me out I'm thing is that the board of Finance selectman is going to be looking for bonding project proposals for us be working on that in yeah so at the last Board of Finance meeting there was a discussion on possible bonded
082projects and the philosophy what I've learned with the bonded projects is that the Selectmen will put together a list of bonded projects that they need to approve the Board of Ed will be part of that but then it has to be presented to the board of Finance who ultimately have the the final say what they are willing to bond for so there'll be discussions I know the Selectmen are talking about that at their meeting tomorrow night um yeah and then I think the only big thing that we talked about was uh fre a replacement over at Cherry correct that's it any questions uh for Mr Bush second up policy Mr shyler I'll be brief uh we are close to being done with the marathon review of all of our policies all the shipment policies I
083have to say special thanks to Peggy uh who's been to all the meetings and to John who's become an expert in policy um that what we uh have to do with the April meeting is there are I don't know probably a dozen policies we ask John to get some more information on uh before we move to adopt them uh we'll bring a motion to the board um soon uh which will list the policies the shipment policies that we're suggesting that the board adopt and the policies that the the uh uh we currently have that we we would suggest that we keep and you'll have time in advance to you want to look any of those up but it's been a pretty thorough review it's been a long process and uh it's almost over great thank
084you Mr sh any any questions on policy curriculum and Technology Mr St so we actually met have met twice since our last board meeting oh you're a Taskmaster yeah we're overachieving um but like Mr Bishop said we um mostly heard from Mr Moore about the commissioner Network turnaround plan um we went through the details of that and um the committee was for Mrs Fox can you just give a brief overview of the Commissioners sure can you do that in a or two um let's see so our Middle School was identified as um being a school that could benefit from the um well they were identified by the state as being a school that would benefit from uh being a part of the Commissioners Network which is which means you get all kinds of services and
085um money to improve the school so um we well the school has put together this application which is quite Hefty many pages a lot of work a lot of people involved um and so if we get accepted then we will potentially have this support for 3 years which comes with a significantly higher amount of money um staff tutors things like that so it would be it would be a real benefit to campon Middle School um so like Mr Bishop said we have a um we had a deadline of the 15th to submit it so we the committee was able to meet virtually on the 8th and um we voted unanimously to support the plan and have it be submitted great y great and that was pretty much we went over the the assistant superintendance monthly
086update um let's see in your next meeting is er um 3:21 at 9:00 a.m. and we will be doing textbook updates and Mr DM I believe is scheduled to be there for us as well okay so we'll get our technology meeting in great anything else no any questions from Mrs Hayes Communications Mrs Jordan um yes so we met on February 27th uh we went over we also had we had another meeting right after that oh that was the last one sorry that's the last meeting um we went over our newsletter that was just published we have um upcoming newsletter which print date will be April 5th it's going to be a combo with the town on like a budget Edition really great um and then our next meeting is March 25th at 1 p.m. okay
087great so as far as communication goes again it goes back to the budget I can't emphasize enough of getting out and talking to people about the budget especially now that it's out there it's online anybody can take a look at it I think it's important to answer questions and to give a a complete understanding to where some of the areas of increase are coming from and and how the uh the 5.39 budget was developed so um so part of it is going to be written communication part of it will be electronic communication part of it is good oldfashioned word of mouth talking to your folks when you're in a soccer game or a lacrosse game or whatever bring up the budget and make sure people get out to vote the selectman I don't think have
088set the date although it's I think it's tentatively set for Tuesday May 7th uh if I have that right okay um any questions for communications uh just as far as cal cal vents goes on 320 that's when we present to the board of Finance so um typically the Board of Education although it's not an official meeting of ours um you're there uh to show support So if you put down 3:20 at 7:00 p.m. I think it's in the community center in the old room that we used to uh meet at that will be the um presentation and discussion of our budget what time is it I think it's 7:00 although I got to check CU sometimes they start early is it 6 yeah sometimes they start early for these because it could be a long
089long night Dr Grossman's checking um any board member announcements anything you want to bring to the board anything 6 o' thank you very much so it is 6 p.m. um and I believe we're the only thing on the agenda I think the select and go another night but in any event if you could be there at 6 p.m. on the 20th that' be great Lou I just have a quick comment on the calendar of events for the um musical the times I believe 7 7 and 2: p.m. not 7:30 7:30 and 2:30 oh that's a good point cuz I think it is 2 p.m. cuz I have Saturday I'm pretty sure it's 2 p.m yeah there it's 772 yeah okay make that note please excellent catch any other announcements for the board uh action items
090that we have to come back to other than policy I don't think there was any action were there the last time just get questions to you no from this meeting I think there's anything from this meeting n okay let's go right to the uh consent agenda Dr Gman anything so that you have the approval of you have to do the approval of the minutes and then you have on here the approval from when we went over at the last meeting that Mr Bishop went over the increasing educator diversity plan which is in your packet as I told you that you'll um I'm tabling the trip to Peru the high school wants to come with a another proposal um so you would have to do separate motion I have to okay so let's take the consent
091agenda uh can I have a motion that the camp board of education approve the consent agenda is provided thank you Joe thank you Erica we have first and second any discussion questions all those in favor I opposed extensions one exstension Mrs Fox Okay so we're tabling the trip uh uh so I need a motion to we move the Canton Board of Education approve the Canton increasing educator diversity plan first and a second please thank you Kim thank you Felicia first and second any discussion on that all those in favor I opposed extensions Mrs Fox all right at this point um uh I take a motion that we go into executive session for the purpose for inviting uh Dr Gman you and uh Mr Bishop uh for the purpose of District safety and a collective bargaining
092discussion we have a motion thank you Erica second we'll get Mrs fox in so Mrs Fox on the second any discussion on that well favor I unanimous do we have nine members here 1 two 3 4 5 6 she we should take our picture we never got we never had okay uh so thank you so we'll uh I don't I don't expect the executive session move more than maybe 10 or 15 minutes I suspect okay what you think yeah we're going to go into the science room oh we're going to move okay so we're going to move so you guys can stay yes we're going to move we're going to move where they have pizs