001yeah I'm sorry yeah [Music] um [Music] foreign he was like yeah okay um because yesterday okay our meeting was thank you Brian I apologize for uh for this being a little bit late we had a uh the safety of update today it was very helpful and uh appreciated our achievement head of security Sean Cole was here to give us an update so we ran a little bit longer so I apologize for starting me to meeting a little bit late so uh the meeting was called to order prior to that um so that we could go into executive session however we will uh rise for the uh or the Pledge of Allegiance and then we'll have a moment of silence for the uh before the teachers and staff and students of Tennessee yes okay thank you
002very much okay let's get down to business um we start we start tonight's meeting with with our information reports our public forum comes after that so that the public can hear some of the things that are going on within the district from both our students ppos superintendent and the chair so first of all I would like to say to our two celebrities that are with us tonight what a fantastic and fabulous job you both did I was so yeah if you're seeing built together I mean it was uh I was I've seen my wife those are those are my we're on the board with us you know yeah so uh it was great and what a performance Seussical was so thank you for that performance you both did so well we're so proud of you
003so so you want to lose the report tonight thank you all right so for past events uh through March 3rd was the Red Cross America week and the National Honor Society we're the chairman to read along with the Catholic who had come to lead at both Cherry Brook NCIS um March 10 and 11th select CMS students have performed at the northern regionals Festival musical I've mentioned was held on Thursday Friday and Saturday which was the 16th 17th and 18th we had a total of 110 students involved between the Middle School and High School our first night had completely sold out and then Friday and Saturday we're also fairly packed as well um lots of cheys and chair book children ended up coming after seeing us at their re-aloud so it was definitely sold to see
004some familiar faces there to take pictures and stuff that was definitely very fun yes okay for upcoming tomorrow March 29th I'm taking the SAT on March 30th through April 1st selected CHS students will be performing at the All-State musical festival at the Hartford Convention Center um senior students will be taking part in their annual water wars tradition beginning April 17th and the class of 2023 will be up will be upcoming fundraisers and the unit will have yes This was um last week but we had the conferences held at all the schools which um made Tuesday Wednesday and Thursdays last week 10 days DHS fire and band students are preparing for the upcoming trip to Orlando um Disney World um there was last week apparent and student information meeting to kind of give the final details
005regarding the trip um CMS is preparing for their Washington DC trip and this week or less I'm sorry would have been the Cherry Brook PTO book fair excellent I see the anchor of the student reps are here Khalil how are you I'm great I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person uh unfortunately got caught up at work with a party you know feel free to swing by golf Lounge 18 if you guys made by me right now he has a feeling parties after this meeting um and I take photos that was a little bit of a typo class 2023 will be holding some upcoming fundraisers to end off the year um sorry I couldn't be there again that's okay Google thanks for joining by the way Zoom so uh the expectation is we meet once
006in April and then we move into May I've talked to Mr Case uh we're looking to um move forward with a couple of things one is uh we're gonna need a new rep to replace uh both Bella and Khalil and uh so that's something we need to talk to Dr Kidwell about and the second thing is to start closing down a little bit on the um on the warrior imagery that we're going to be using as we get towards the end of the year so I'll task you both with uh keeping that in Full full motion okay yes all right and thank you for your report and as always if you have schoolwork or other things to do you can leave at any any point during the meeting okay thank you um our PTO reports
007tonight Claudia do I have a written yeah there's two written reports one from CMS and CIS for in your folder okay so I'll just uh I will just uh point the board to take a look at those and again so grateful for what the uh the ptos do and uh the sport that they have uh for our experience I I think that um parental participation that we see it from the basketball game to um even uh the folks who were helping out with the drama presentation uh is fantastic if it wasn't for our parents and our ppos um we would be in tough shape I think so um so I'll just draw your attention to the PTO reports and we'll um we'll get back with them on anything that they may need okay we have
008tonight with us our our uh our athletic director who does such a great job coming off of the the winter season Mr Case do you want to introduce yes thank you thank you Lou uh came in church Hearth is here tonight to give us uh an update on the um very successful winter sports season yeah so Kim welcome thank you everyone has in their packet um him summary of the sports season which she'll be talking to yes so I won't read it word for word um some of the highlights are that our boys basketball team on the end Triple C regular season Championship um they've made it to the semifinals of the tournament but ended up uh losing in that round um and our boys ice hockey team won the CCC South championship and that's
009a team here at co-op with uh and that Newington is a host school for that um we had seven all-conference athletes and uh two All-State athletes uh we just found out today that Sophia mates also made all state so it's not listed on your paper right here but it just got no that Sophia mates made Allstate um and the other All-State athlete is Evan Haller or boys ice hockey um and so that's that's really the the wrap of the winter season but it was uh accessible and our boys ice hockey team played in the state championship unfortunately lost um but they had a very good run and the successes it's great I found this question's been boarded um so you're ready to break out into this spring season right yes uh regular season for Spring
010starts up on Saturday if the weather the weather will go um and we are doing scrimmages and preseason practices right now and we're set to go I see all your updates so I know you're extremely busy um how are we doing on uniforms equipment and things of that nature we're in Fairly good shape I know that ordering goes on early but yes yeah good yeah really good shape um we're heading out hand out uniforms this week everybody already and the participation level for sports this coming season how do you compare that from the previous season do we have more participate about the same it's it's about the same um throughout on average it's about the same uh throughout the spring Sports we have a little bit more boys tennis players and girls tennis players um
011about the same for both boys Golf and girls golf about the same for boys and girls across uh and then also a little bit less for boys baseball and a little bit more for girls softball and you're all set with your coaches I know you had a little bit of a deficit with the uh his Mr Case was going to offer he was going to offer the girls tennis I heard that that would be fantastic I'm a quick learner all right from the board any questions for Kim on uh Sports Athletics spring or fall uh winter can this um I think this is coming is it Friday night you have the DodgeBall yes do you want to speak to that yes uh we have an annual spring Sports dodgeball tournament it it does fundraising and
012you get money and canned goods well I try not to have them bring hands because I have to bring those boxes over to the food bank and it's very heavy so we have non-perishable food items and money bringing over to the Canton food bank after the dodgeball tournament but it's always a great time each sport is represented and the winner of the sport gets an awesome like five inch Trophy and also an ice cream party after one of their practices provided by the booster club so when is that Friday night Friday night and what school at six and High School gym it is a great time if you've never been to it just organize chaos music going on um and the kids love going back and forth against each other you have to take a
013peek okay thank you for that and that's just one great example of the community service that our athletes provide back to our community with the leadership of Kim and the student athletic Council I believe that's what what your council is called it's correct the the title is Warrior Leadership Council okay thank you thanks for taking time out to be with us tonight and being away from your family appreciate it okay okay um Mr K superintendent report please okay thank you very much chair Daniel good evening everybody and good evening to those of you in attendance tonight I see many of our employees who are the backbone of what we do in our school so it's great to see all of you tonight um I want to start off just by um giving you an update
014on a few items um the first item is um to remind you that we are undertaking a building-wide feasibility study um as we've talked about over the last several weeks um actually beginning several months ago when we looked at our enrollment report we know that we need additional space within our schools we know that um because of the number of births that took place in 2020 that we need to be prepared for additional students for most students we've had in a while we need to be prepared for them as they enter uh pre-kindergarten in kindergarten in the year 2025 2026. in preparation for a possible project we have hired Friar Architects out of Farmington who are beginning their study um Mr Bishop has been working in close contact with them and they'll be coming out
015to do a tour of all the buildings within the next two weeks so that study is well underway and we're really stepping on the gas with this to get as much accurate information and options for uh the town and the Board of Ed to choose from as we determine how to add additional space to our schools and if I could just add we've done a good job case Mr Bishop and uh in in prepping both the board of selectman and board of Finance so this is not a shock to anybody they've been brought along right right right from the start and they're very much helping us accelerate through the process because we are under a Time crime so uh the town the community or the town side is very much on board with us more
016moving forward to bring forth this study thank you does anyone have any questions of course we'll keep you updated as the process moves along in your packet tonight and for those board members who are virtual tonight we'll make sure we send this electronically to you um I gave you the presentation that Mr depipo our high school principal presented to our high school students on the uh the rebranding of the warrior and the process for selecting uh the new image that would go along with the warrior so this is very well laid out I wanted you to know what was communicated to our students the deadline for this uh for the submission of images was March 24th but we've decided to extend the deadline due to just a few submissions being made so um so Mr
017pimpo is really going to put out the call for more submissions and um Bella and Simone could use your help too to continue to get the word out because I know there are many great ideas out there the goal would be to select our new image by the end of May so we're hoping to do that this year but I wanted you to see what communication had been sent out so when when was this communicated executive to the school that's a student a few weeks ago so like I regret it but not like you know yeah I don't think it was there was because I think just very recently yeah yeah I was just curious what the method of communication was because it was just you know yeah it was like they had it very
018not able to reference it and like take part so there was a school-wide assembly and um a reminder may have just gone out recently because of the deadline I think Mr him students great thank you to her okay so anyone listening out there please um we want our students to submit their great ideas I want to let you know that after a a very long uh search process we have hired our student and family engagement director um her name is Sarah Jones and she will begin on April 17th right after the April break so as you know we've had this vacancy all year long uh searching for the right candidate and as I said after a lengthy process and an interview process that Mr Bishop coordinated we've certainly found the right person so I look
019forward to introducing her to you at our April board meeting at our last meeting we talked about the choice program and how many seats we were going to offer for next year um at that time I told you I would go back and check on kindergarten enrollment numbers so I want to let you know that I misspoke at our last meeting currently as of today we have 94 students registered which is just where I thought we would be at because a year ago we had 95 at this time I moved ahead with the choice declaration and stated that we will open six seats up four kindergartners so with the 94 and six Choice students if all those slots are filled we'll have 100 students um and I believe I rejected for 108 allowing for students
020who may move in over the summer so we're right where we anticipated we'd be right now with um six projected kindergarten classrooms in your packet I provided um copies of the letters I sent out today regarding the tragic tragedy yesterday in Nashville one to the entire community and and one to staff that you can take a look at and also in your packets you will find a draft letter related to a bill in the state legislator right now bill number house bill number five zero zero three So It Begins um Canton Board of Education endorses an act concerning education education funding in Connecticut so many of you um were able to participate in the uh going to Avon Board of Education Canton Board of Education um meeting with representative Jeff Curry who is the chair
021of the education committee and our own state legislator representative Fellaini um Elaine DeGraw was also present and we discussed the proposed House Bill and in this letter it highlights um if this bill passed uh what would happen what the objectives are so basically the bill accelerates the educational cost brand adjustments by several years to fully fund the grants in two years in fiscal year 2025 2026. it eliminates the requirement that the local school districts pay Magnet School tuition for those residents that choose to send their child to a magnet school so if this bill passed the educational cost share that the town receives would increase and that's based upon a very complicated formula which um it's based upon the number of students in the poverty level the number of students who qualify for free and
022reduced lunch the number of students who are English language Learners the number of students who require special ed services and so forth so based upon all of that information Canton Public Schools I'm sorry the town of Canton is expected to receive additional dollars we would not have to pay 99 000 in Magnet School tuition which we budget for out of our open Choice Grant allocation so we would receive approximately a hundred thousand dollars more because we wouldn't have to pay that out and related to the choice program for every choice student who's enrolled in our district we would get the perm pupil expenditure cost that um that the the students attending the Hartford Public Schools would receive so that's an additional five thousand dollars per student which would increase the amount of grant funding for
023the choice program if you take all of that into account Canton would receive an additional 1.2 million dollars in fiscal year 25-26 so um I'm presenting this letter to you uh if the board agrees um each board member could sign this and we can send this to our state legislators for their review and I don't want to assume that you'll agree to this I just present this to you for your consideration tonight several other boards of Education in Connecticut are sending letters just like this to their state legislators and I'll stop there for your your comments question it just remembers did point out this is uh two years down the road and a lot can happen it's like the New England weather so you know it was great you were all on the phone and
024you had the chance to hear from representative Curry but um you know you've been hearing a lot of things out in the state so we'll see what happens but um if you're so inclined to sign a letter that's great I'm almost I almost think um unless we have a unanimous corporate letter because that he believe any blank um well let's see so are you suggesting this be a vote at the end of the meeting part of the uh I would suggest that we do um a vote as a recommended action okay good all right thank you very much okay next yes so the next item is related to fiscal year 2023 2024 budget so as you know we're deeply involved in the budget process at this point so as a board of education we presented
025our budget proposal to the town Board of Finance on March 15th on Monday March 20th the board of Finance held their Board of Finance Workshop where they considered our budget and after a lengthy discussion among border Finance members they requested that the Board of Education reduced our budget by 165 000 and they requested that the board of Select and reduce their budget by 115 000. as you know um our budget proposal this year that I um proposed to you and that you endorsed represented a 7.9 increase fixed costs are at 7.5 percent so to get the budget to you at 7.9 I reduce the budget by approximately eight hundred thousand dollars to bring it to that look it was very very difficult to come up with an additional 165 000 more in reductions uh the
026finance the Board of Education finance committee met this morning and um discussed the reductions that I recommended to the committee and you have a sheet in your packet tonight the line delineating those reductions that total 165 thousand dollars I'm going to turn it over now to um to Russell who is chair of our finance committee Russell I don't know Brussels back yet Kevin he had to step out for okay so maybe you wanted all right so I'm happy to go I'm happy to go through these it's very important uh it was very important to us to um to implement the Thrive program so as you'll recall we're proposing a new program that would support our behavioral and social and emotional um and the social emotional aspect of our learners so we know a post-pandemic we're
027seeing more students not only with academic needs but with behavioral needs in an effort to support these students within our schools we're recommending a program entitled thrive as you know this would cost close to three hundred thousand dollars it is eventually going to be a cost savings measure because we would hope that we would not have to outplace as many students and we might even be able to hopefully bring back students we've outplaced with the appropriate staff in our buildings this is very important to us we're recommending that we implement this program at CIS our intermediate school and middle school high school and delay the implementation at Cherry Brook the reason for this is that most of our outplacements are at the intermediate school and the middle school high school at this time so we'll
028get more bang for our buck if we have to implement this program in phases this would be the first phase phase um this is what um this is McLean our director of people Personnel Services is recommending so we would eliminate the need for one certified special ed teacher we're also recommending and these are not easy reductions we're recommending that we not hire two special ed para educators that would save 44 000 so while every student would be supported some creative scheduling would need to happen with certain students that Mrs McLean and the staff wouldn't discuss professional development for two special education teachers would need to be delayed at a cost of five thousand dollars we're recommending reducing the homebound tutoring line item by five thousand dollars this is a line item where we never know
029how many students will need homebound tutoring students may become ill in the middle of the year or be injured where they can't attend school and that's where we would need to send tutors to their home or another location um we wouldn't increase it by 5000 which we projected we have money in that line item to cover the tutoring services that we know of so we would reduce that line item by five thousand dollars we increased this year the special education legal fund account um we had budgeted twenty five thousand this year we're spending a little over 50 000 because of various um situations um within the district that caught that where we need the legal advice we were going to increase the budget by 000 in that line Adam I'm recommending we increase it by
030only five thousand and take that Force reduction out of special and legal again it's a risk but it's the hope that we will need less legal services and special education next year in special ed contracted services with the implementation of the Thrive program it's hope that we will save approximately twelve thousand dollars in the number of hours that our behavioral specialists will be contracted to work and then we took a close look um Donna John and I and all of our supply accounts throughout the district and we're saying let's reduce are all of our supply accounts by twenty thousand dollars which represents uh six percent of our supply accounts this wasn't easy because we already cut these we already reduced these Supply accounts um but needing to come up with a recommended 165 thousand dollars
031those were the items that we recommended to the finance committee this morning after a great deal of discussion uh the finance committee is recommending these reductions to you tonight which we will ask you to approve under recommended actions but I'll stop there and see Lou if you have any comments or members of the finance committee still questions Felicia yeah I have a question so um you're stating so item one and item three are completely eliminated the other ones are just force reduction but I think what would be helpful and you know it's something that I can look up but what that number is Regions items that's staying within the district as far as the budgeting one of those like I know you mentioned like the um twenty thousand dollar course reduction is but what what
032about with staying there I guess thank you 30. we we have budgeted 30 000 for special ed legal for next year okay an increase of 5 000 over the 25 000 we have had budgeted this year and then on those other I mean if you don't know the numbers I'm just curious about like each item I know because item one and item three are completely eliminated correct and the other ones are just reduced that's correct that's correct from the original so I'm just looking for that original amount that it wasn't just about sure so the second line from the bottom special ed contracted services what we currently have budgeted um Donna I believe it's twenty thousand you know I'm thinking of a different number all right Donna Donna will get that number for you and
033I believe that's the only one the only other code I think the others are pretty quite our page 213. page 213 is that where it is um we know well let's do this yeah I will say this that we were fortunate Barbara McLean at the meeting this morning and uh the cuts that we were making into the special education components of this and into Thrive she felt very comfortable with and uh we asked her uh why not start a Cherry Brook and work our way up and she said because the greatest need tends to be into middle school and in CIS so we start there it's a phase in and she was comfortable with that with that phase and but we'll get you those uh those other numbers I know I think uh Mr scheidler
034asked about the um supplies and uh that 20 000 reduction was I think we said a six percent in the uh it's a significant cut but we felt there was um the uh your administrative team thought that we can get by with that and it's over the poor schools so it is and Athletics right and the contracted Services we were budgeting 93 000 for special ed contracted services thank you so this is a difficult cut 165 but you know as we talked about this morning we went in with a 7.9 increase 7.5 percent of that is fixed the 165 um while it hurts um as I talk to other talents it could have been a lot worse so um we should be able to make do with that I want to go to the folks
035up um on the screen any questions for Mr case I don't want to leave you uh leave you out on that Ryan you good Kim K and Erica you're all right okay okay so uh you'll be asked to approve these and then we have a board of Finance meeting on April 3rd it's Monday night we'll be promoting these to the uh to the board of Finance here's where I have a little bit of a problem because uh our CIP budget is tied to the selectman's budget so we we approve a CIP budget which are the improvements they are the things long-term Investments things that we need there's a sheet in your your budget packing here and when the board of Finance cut um made their cuts to the budget they are instructed the board of
036selector to make cuts of CIP were kind of held a little bit hostage because then they are responsible for the capital Improvement plan and um I I don't and and so they tell us what we're going to get cut um for another discussion at a later time I'm not comfortable with some of the cuts where that came from but that's a debate with them there's nothing we can do about it it's not in my control right now but I'd like to make it in our control in the future so just remember that's something that we're going to talk about down the road okay Mr case anything further nothing for me thank you I'm sorry Cindy and Peggy do you have any at us you're good Felicia you're good until you were there okay okay all
037right that that takes you to the chair report which would be very very uh quick and I know I know Mr Bishop was going to mention our Canton Public Schools our first edition but a lot of credit has to go to this young lady right here Kira for putting this together this is a lot of work and we are very proud of the Prairie publication I know Felicia had a hand in it uh also but uh very proud that this is coming out and we like to do this more often and this is the um this is the advantage of the value of having someone like yourself to be able to do this so thank you very much it mentions uh and I had the opportunity to go to Cherry for Primary School the other
038day uh on Monday yesterday uh yesterday and I'll be there next Monday for Sam cards uh chorus program that she has and to see these smiling second graders all excited and the program that she has and the excitement that we saw on the teachers and the Paris faces watching I was watching their face as much as I was watching the children's faces because there's such great um excitement that goes on with this so um it was a wonderful program and this is something a little bit new that Sam started and uh we appreciate what she's doing there so that's all in that uh in there um and I did want to just mention Michelle Nook and uh Diane blogger did I say that right last name correct okay it's my American accent um anyways uh
039Michelle and Diana just did a wonderful job to it as I mentioned Bella and Simone how they did um I I do want the board to recognize Michelle and Diana for their efforts and the cast of hundreds that you know between parents and staff and stage crew and all the things that are running around back there was quite the production so I have to tell you I'm getting my season tickets for next fall pretty quick I expect to see you I know we won't see Bella but okay so that's that's really all I had which leads us into a public forum and uh I see a lot of some familiar faces and we haven't met everybody but I'm I'm glad that you're here and I know you have some things you'd like to talk to
040me Lord about tonight the only thing I'd ask you is that we keep these because we can go all night uh we keep our conversation at three minutes of course we keep it respectful and the board is not going to respond to each of the comments we take it all in it's recorded for us we we talk about it and we see which what's the best way to respond on it um I may have a comment or two afterwards when you do make your comment you can stand at your seat just mention who you are and what your address is okay because that's that's what we need for the record uh even if you're out of town we understand you may want to say you're a a teacher or a parent at a certain school
041that's fine to do too but for the record we require those things okay so with that said who'd like to go first for public forum no you go ahead and read your statement I think we can uh if that's where we are that's I think the floor is fine with that thank you um so my name is Claire Clark my address is by Maple Avenue um I work at Cherry Brook as an srbi tutor um and I'm here with many of my colleagues as you know um first of all I just want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to be heard um we know busy agenda we appreciate it um so we'll just get right into it I fear that we're on the Precedence about crisis without them in our schools if we're
042not already there are not nearly enough non-certified staff visually service students who need additional support the vacancies of non-certified positions have increased since the beginning of the school year there are currently 12 non-certified vacancies at Cherry Brook Primary School alone we're in a district in an economically thriving Community our schools themselves are beautiful we only hire the best certified teachers and staff we take pride in being a lighthouse School District in almost every way so why can't we retain non-certified staff and more importantly why are we failing those students who need that extra support these aren't open-ended questions that I'm just going to ask in the lead uh honestly the answers are quite simple we need to pay our non-certified staff more money time and time again I've heard from both my current colleagues and
043those who've had to leave their positions at share a book about how they love their job but can't continue doing it because they can't pay their bills there have been seemingly endless rumors about opening the para contract for revision for rumors of yielded waiting waiting and more waiting there's a quote by Warren Buffett that prices what you pay and value is what you get we as a school district have seen the tremendous value that our non-certified staff gives to our children on a day-to-day basis anybody who's ever set foot in a school knows the difficulty of the jobs which people do and do day to day with smiles on their faces we know their value but we haven't paid the price for this value and should be told we'll never be able to there's no
044way to assign a numerical value to the amazing job which they do enthusiasm with which they work and the love and support which they give to our children with this being said it is starting it is clear from the starting Lehigh turnover rate amongst non-certified positions that the current numbers are not high enough not retaining staff creates efficiencies in school's ability to service all the children which it has the obligation for service the constant need to scramble and Shuffle staff around the building constantly disrupts any sense of the normalcy for children and causes a sense of Chaos simply put it's harmful to both the staff and more importantly the students and that alone should be motivational change as it is the non-certified staff which we currently have and stretch as far as it can possibly
045go coming to Cherry Brook and you'll see the tutors work in a cafeteria when it isn't being used and plan out lessons in a hot noisy crowded hallway parents who are supposed to be one-on-one supporters students are doubled and tripled up with kids at times having to rotate from classroom to classroom many of my colleagues and I are doubled up on monitor duties due to a lack of our ability to recruit and retain monitors tutors are constantly pulled in order to sub in classrooms every time that happens those students in our tutoring program simply don't get the service that they need there have been times when our students have gone two to three weeks without being tutored two to three weeks without being tuned out of the 130 something school days this year many of
046us have subbed over a third of those days I have students of mine coming up to me on a daily basis and asking Mr Clark do we have tutoring today this is not a question which they should have to ask me you should not be a constant uncertainty for a child about whether he or she is going to get the opportunity to win there is no sufficient excuse for this if I were the parent of one of these children I would be enraged then again I might not even be aware this problem's happening bullying tutors to sub May save the school district money but it's our duty and responsibility to serve all children not to Simply serve children when it's convenient and cost effective these are fixable issues I'm here tonight because my number one
047priority is our children and I can say the same for my colleagues and confidence presumably you serve on this board because you have the same priority I don't share these issues with you in an attempt to assign blame to anyone complacency can sneak up on the best of us but if we don't strive to address these issues with a certain urgency then we must understand that we'll continue to lose quality non-certified staff and our children will be the ones who ultimately suffer for it we plead that you do not let that happen thank you okay thank you for that statement does anybody else want to follow up before I make a couple comments would you like to say something sure good evening some of you already know who I am but I'm Denise black I
048am a special ed here at Cherry Brook and I'm also the building in Europe I live at 109 Wellington Heights Road in Avon and to kind of piggyback off the Tanner since our copying conversation with I believe it was in February I've had six non non-certified staff come demand to say the pay is not fixed I will not be back in August we cannot afford to lose any more backbone of our community we just can't and we can't lose any more of the great people that are here tonight and on the camera because we love our students we love this community and we want them to continue to grow but we can't do that when we're being pulled three thousand dollars thanks thank you for that statement would anybody else like to add to that
049you know make a couple comments for you okay first of all thank you for speaking uh tonight uh number one number two I think you've heard from since I've come on the board and from others that our parents are Mr Case mentioned it in the beginning that you are the backbone of our education system we know that you don't do it for the money but we know you have to be paid fairly for the value that you provide but we understand that this board has had numerous conversations about the fact that we have a problem we understand that and we are trying to address it within confines of a budget within the confines of the difficulty in hiring and we understand that some of the the issues are are because of financial uh when it
050comes to the hiring we get all that and I will tell you that we've set up a meeting because your union rabbit has come to us again and said as you had just said how are we going to fix this we do have a meeting set for next week we're going to sit down and I can promise you we're going to try to put some underpinnings to this to try to fix the problem within what we can do as much as we can to as a board um so I'll leave you with that I I'll have to say more to come I know you hate to hear that because you've heard that before but as this board sits here today I can tell you that we're going to try to get our arms around the
051problem and fix it so I I thank you for your comments I thank you for how hard you work with our children every one of these board members has a child or grandchild that's in this that's in our district and we are so proud of it we want to see it function and and operate correctly so um the board hears you loud and clear okay so thank you for coming tonight yes answer your comments and um having spent quite a bit of time at Cherry Brook this year I've come to know many of you and I see firsthand um how hard you work and I just want to say I appreciate your flexibility because uh Tanner as you said we're all here to support our children and there's no doubt in my mind that every
052one of you in this room is here for that purpose and I appreciate it I've heard some things tonight that I did not know before so um Tanner I'll be reaching out to you just to get some more information as we continue to try to solve these these issues so thank you okay uh anybody else for public forum anyone online that would like to speak so if you're joining us online tonight you can go ahead and use the race hand feature at zoom and I will call on you by your Zoom name and you'll be allowed to talk I I've raised hand from Jamie Neiman I'm gonna allow Jamie to talk hi Jamie you might be on mute there you go you have a few minutes go ahead hi I'm just calling because um I
053did not send in my PTO report and I don't know if you want me to speak on that or if you want me to send it to you electronically what would you like to do you want to give us a quick report Jamie sure I mean I'm here I can if you would like okay so um so uh Cherry Brook PTO we just had our book fair which was well received from both parents and students um this was the first time that those third graders experienced a book fair and you could see in their eyes that they were very excited so it was really nice to bring that back some normalcy back to Cherry Brook we had um we supplied along with our families teacher meals for the staff at Cherry Brook during conferences we
054finished up our Munson's Chocolate fundraiser um last week and we have our Panera night scheduled for next Thursday that was it yeah that was it excellent uh you're doing uh Jerry Brook is doing such a great job you know um along with the um with the book fair is there still is is that is there still a children's fair that happens at Cherry Brooker no longer oh we are knee-deep in planning the children's Fair um that will be June 2nd uh first Friday in June great thank you thanks for hanging on the phone you're welcome anybody else Kira if anybody else would make like to make public comment go ahead and raise your hand and I will call on you okay thank you then closing out public forum thank you everybody for your comments thank
055you for being with us tonight we'll now move on forward with the rest of the uh information reports we start with assistant superintendent Bishop thank you chair Daniels I appreciate the opportunity to be able to address everyone tonight I'm going to give you some information in a couple different buckets as far as operations for us um I wanted to share with you uh in the effort to be able to continue to reach out into our community and be able to find support and resources for us I had a conversation with our Yvonne Canton Rotary Club uh to be able to discuss some some partnership and opportunities for um cooperation we discussed the opportunity to be able to work toward a grander vision of course on Outdoor Learning spaces that they were very interested in being
056able to work with us on and also being able to support um in some of our academic areas coming to the coming to the need of some of the time-based and resource-based scenarios that we have within our schools to provide support particularly right now looking at our summer program to be able to provide some reading and additional support with that as well so we're going to connect with our Leo and rotary interact Club as well for our students to have an opportunity is right um but I'll have some additional information coming forward for that as well but grateful for a Community Partnership um and the the vein of continuing to move the the academic program forward for us one of the things coming up is our state testing um this is a required element from
057our our uh our state of Connecticut we have our smarter balanced assessment uh which is our English language arts and our math assessment and we also have an ngss assessment that's the Next Generation science standards so that typically begins in our late April time so our windows are really the 26th and 27th and then moving on into the early part of of May for those assessments um we we do find Value from them because they provide a sense uh holistically of the the health of our instruction in our program and we also understand that they're only a momentary litmus test of the individual performance of students and we want to always be looking at the continuous data points throughout the year to be able to see how our kids are growing but it is one
058of the important elements that come up in our in our school year that we're required to be able to do um and then I also wanted to be able to provide a highlight we had a professional professional learning day today for our staff which really focused on um culture climate and wellness and so we had a connecting in Collinsville um where we had an opportunity to do a small service project uh be able to support um one another with uh a staff service project and then had some treats that were provided by LaSalle market so music provided provided by one of our teachers Ben gowett and then also the historical society was open for some some conversations there to to lead tours we had some work with our search Club to be able to leave
059some environmental walks and we had opportunity for our staff to be able to connect and collaborate with one another around some a list of educational subjects topics for um to be able to reconnect and recenter ourselves begin to just try to provide the opportunity to Share value that we have for our staff so we are thrilled to be able to see how that went for us for today and then I also wanted to be able to share that I've been working on Gathering the information on our field trips and experiential learning and I'll be providing an update and uh providing an update at our upcoming curriculum community meeting on on the 5th we'll also provide some guidance around how we will structure the the um the development of those experiences going forward just wanted to
060be able to provide those for you any questions any questions for Mr Bishop anybody online questions from Mr Bishop anybody on the floor okay John your report then very concise appreciate that well Don I've always worked with you tonight so explains even more concise and I appreciate that okay um so we go to recommended actions we go to the consent agenda Mr case thank you Lou one thing I wanted to mention before we get to this I didn't mention in my report I just want to thank Judy who the ptos for all of your hard work is just unbelievable how you support our students and the teachers and um Jamie a shout out to you for organizing the book fair and and the meals at Cherry Brook I know you've spent all day every day
061uh last week uh helping out and I'm sure it was the same with our other PTO volunteer so thank you all as part of the consent agenda tonight we have um minutes to approve so we have the approval of minutes for the regular meeting of March 14th and the special meeting on March 21st so I would ask that you approve the consent agenda approving those sets of minutes so can I get a first on the consent agenda please thank you Peggy can I get a second thank you Joe any discussion on the consent agenda hearing none all those in favor I opposed we are unanimous and that's 80 80. okay thank you um you want to go into the public schools calendar or you want to what would you like to do next yeah so
062I would like to um on the agenda is approval of the 2023-2024 school calendar two weeks ago at your last meeting you voted on this calendar as a first reading and tonight it's coming before you um for a vote um are there any board members who may not have had an opportunity to ask questions or make comments about the calendar would you like to do that information um I don't know if they may have been discussed before I know isn't at the last meeting but I know we have 183 calendar days versus 180 that most other districts have and I'm just curious to know why it was already asked it may have been but it's a great question Alicia so um several years ago when the teacher contract was negotiated there was an effort to
063increase students instructional time which in my opinion is a great thing and so that's when it was decided there would be 186 days overall for teachers 183 student days so there are three full day professional development days for teachers in the 183 student ends the state of Connecticut says that schools need to be in session for a minimum of 180 days so we have continued with the 183 days I may have had a couple parents asked me as well the surrounding District they're closed up there at the 180 years and this also gives us additional flexibility if there were emergency closings if there were many emergency closings that had us end later in June we could stop our school year after 180 days right and the second part to that question is since there's 183
064days if we were to have three snow days why would we have to go three additional days if we're already going three days over the state requirement s the board um has not discussed that okay yeah I have uh I mean sure more of a common building on what Felicia said but I actually have been approached by a couple of teachers from the district about the 180 even three words that they know I understand because that's true I'm a teacher but um uh so I I the the question was from the teachers is you know how we used to have a February break that was like a week-long break you know I don't know if that would ever be reinstated I know that a lot of other schools also cut that February break unfortunately um
065so I was just wondering about that I guess it's more of a comment because I don't think that that's a possibility that that would ever be reinstated but just thought I'd throw it out there Cindy that's a great comment a great question um several years exactly several years ago um it was decided to call the schools in parkford County yeah in the correct region would follow the same calendar and so Canton is a rule follower I'd like to follow the rules yeah and we are following the calendar for Harper County so we are all that makes sense we are all supposedly supposed to be on the same schedule all the schools in the correct region and so that is that is when it may have been when the full vacation was eliminated or maybe Canton
066did that before but who eliminated the the who did that so the Board of Ed did that I was on board all that time so so we we did that in in concert that um you know we were getting out like around the 15th 18th sometimes the 20th of the month and people wanted to get out earlier June seemed to be a hotter month there was less learning that was going on so we peeled it back in February and it seemed like everybody else followed suit just like when we decided to reinstate Veterans Day is a learning day as opposed to a day off we were the first and everybody seen the fall suit so we've been leaders in that um it's it's not anything that can't be discussed again I mean we can't do
067it now right have a calendar but if that's something listen we can always we were trying to set once we could do it again it's something we can always look at down the road and if you want to bring that up as a something to be studying for the next school year we can do that thank you just a quick commentary today's winning two and three were negotiated with the teachers that's right and paid for as part of a contract settlement and that goes back I'm going to say it in the 80s it goes way back teachers got more money it was actually exactly tonight right so if um if it was ever decided to reduce the number of student days um teachers would still need to be required to work before 186 days that's
068just important to keep in mind okay all right um any other questions from board members about the calendar or any feedback you received over the last two weeks you know so I received feedback from a few teachers at Hanson Intermediate School that they would prefer the school year to start on a Wednesday and not a Monday so according to uh this proposed calendar teachers would return for two professional development days on August 24th and August 25th to Thursday and Friday and then students would return on Monday the 28th um because we know it's a long week for our students that's why uh we proposed the half days the early release days on Monday and Tuesday to ease the students back into the week but I did want you to know that some teachers spoke to
069me and they said please consider having us start on Wednesday as it would be a shorter week for students and um [Music] that kind of came in at the 11th hour and we have to get this calendar done so um my recommendation is to proceed with this current calendar however uh the teachers I spoke to also had some great ideas about scheduling professional development days in certain ways and I've already shared that with Mr Bishop for consideration for the 24-25 calendar so my recommendation is that uh if you were all good with this that we adopt this for 23 24 and then take a look at some of these creative ideas beginning in the year of 25 26 with uh Mr Bishop and Dr Rosenberg so that would be my recommendation okay so if the
070hearing needs superintendent's recommendation can I have a motion to adopt the calendar is presented in our packets please thank you thank you Erica and we'll take Ryan we'll take them off the screen all right we have a person in second a further discussion on the calendar hearing none all those in favor I one two three it's like that's that's 80 70. okay all right so the calendar passes alignments okay we're gonna add um consideration right so um Mr case provided us with the uh the letter right this is the letter so the letter uh on um House Bill 5003 um I'd like to either all sign it or if there's some uh controversy to it then uh then the board would approve it just was the case and I would sign it so I need
071I need a unanimous on this so um okay so you're moving okay well let's just take a a struggle Ryan are you in favor of 503 okay Erica okay okay Joe sure okay so I think I I think I know Russell would be innocent uh and uh Kim so then I would ask you then to approve people all sign uh the letters provided by the superintendent can I have a motion in that regard Joe uh on her first and Felicia on a second any further conversation on it so whoever's here tonight can sign in whoever not Claudia will just have him come stop down to your office and sign him so no further discussion all those in favor aye opposed okay so um is this the letter so we can start right here what do
072you have do you have extras yeah which one can we start with the one chair Daniels house okay please don't leave without signing it okay and then um as far as the cuts go do we have a motion okay can I have a motion that we are going to prove the 165 000 Cuts as presented by our finance committee and approved by our finance committee kind of motion on that thank you Peggy thank you Cindy okay first of the second uh any further discussion on the cuts okay hearing none all those in favor aye Ryan you with me post okay 7-0 okay thank you very much okay anything else for tonight okay any board comments we miss anything tonight anybody have anything to say just quickly assure the policy committee met before this meeting uh
073and we agreed to meet again for just a half hour on Tuesday April 4th at 7 30. I got a program for that um who put the finishing touches on the expressional materials policy and the uh you're all welcome to either zoom in or or it'll be the superintendent's office 7 30 Tuesday just to highlight off that we are going to add to our website going forward the policies that we improve upon or that we act on in a given year uh they will be on any their native modifications of changes in these board the board approves so the parents teachers Paris staff can see uh the policy work that goes on on the board going forward okay um anything else for tonight's meeting okay hearing no uh motion to adjourn Joe second thank you
074Peggy all those in favor aye we are adjourning thank you thank you all for coming tonight I appreciate your comments thank you