BOE Meeting 1 24 23

001thank you okay I call the meeting of tonight's January 24th meeting of the Board of Education this is a regular scheduled meeting welcome everybody thanks for being here Michelle thank you for being the Barbara thank you students for being here um hi Felicia so um we're gonna get right into it with the Pledge of Allegiance who would like to leave not a coin flip why not pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands okay thank you for that I got kind of spoiled after Friday's I mean I thought we'd have a full house but I guess I guess we're not to draw so okay uh we'll try to zip through this tonight so we'll go right to the student reports please all right um

002so for past events um January 19th is the 21st uh the CHS model un students have gone to Yale University where they've participated in different debates across from campus and I also got opportunity um see very well um select CHS students participated in the northern regionals Festival on January 13th report foreign close on January 20th Mr pippo had spoken to the school recently about the mascot transition says for professional development um for upcoming events Canton High Schools prisms concert will be on February 4th and Canton High School's 9th grade curriculum night will be tomorrow January 20th so ongoing students you know just finished their second quarter or continuing hard work for the third semester with final I'm sorry AP exams coming soon um basketball wrestling Unified sports are continuing to have their practices matches and

003games and CHS and CMS are both continuing to rehearse for physical reasonable which is kind of a co-op with between both of the schools um also for tonight we have a quick little presentation which uh we talked to with Mr Daniels about like highlighting certain clubs each meeting um for a short amount of time so first tonight I'm gonna be talking for the club that I uh am a vice president and with Mika slimo she's the president um and this is the Steve Thomas club uh so this is a presentation I made thank you for that can you see that you wanna you wanna come around or are you comfortable I have it on my phone okay excellent very excited Okay so for anyone who doesn't know the safe promise Pub is a club for

004young people across the country to show their leadership creativity and passion for protecting their friends schools and communities from violence before it happens it also is a student leadership initiative from the Sandy Hook promise that aims to cultivate and bolster student leaders to take an active role in increasing school safety and preventing different School different forms of violence in schools and communities um so this club was created the Sandy Hook promise Club was created after the Sandy Hook school shooting and save club is a club that just party had been a club since the 70s and it's uh students against violence everywhere and he was after a student named Alex orange got shot at a anti-gun violence party that he and his friends created and they created the club after him so the two clubs

005kind of joined together because they both kind of stand for similar things and yeah so that's what the club's about excellent Okay so here are like different activities and things like we have done that have implemented this club in our school so last year on June 8th we had um a school-wide walkout where everyone wore orange and this was right after I'm sorry I forget the name of what school shooting had happened I think in late May um and so we all wore orange to support anti-gun violence and we walked out at the end of the day and we had like this little like outdoor assembly where Mr Fury the one of the school guidance counselors talked um about how we can you know be a better Community as a whole um every year we

006put on a start with the low week where during the month of September we try to bring our community together by doing activities um and the mornings or doing lunch waves so we'll like hand out bracelets that have little affirmations on them or we gave out like the Hello Panda cookies in the morning because just to play on words and just like little things that make kids Happy And You don't have to do anything in order to get it you just you know just get it just being a part of the community um some of the student leaders in the club were at a youth leadership training program which I had mentioned previously but I only talked upon that but it was it was a good opportunity to learn um how to be a better

007leader in your community and just for students and I went on that trip and was perfect and then last year and this year we participated in making sandwiches for the homeless after school we had a pretty big turnout and everyone came and we donated to a homeless shelter in Spartanburg um yeah here's some pictures of no that's okay um then during December of this year we came together to create 26 flower pots for the 26 victims of the Sandy Hook shooting and we printed out pictures and we went to Michael's and bought like stickers and we did research on each victim and like really created something that we felt represented them even though we didn't know them personally like how their family members described them and we planted flowers and put them in the library

008uh as a display and then we also created like a puzzle mural at the school where each student during lunch wrote like positive uh words and things for other students and it created a giant puzzle in the wall and like all fit together of everyone saying different nice things um this is something that's really cool I think we started this two years ago but we have puppies coming once a year from Philadelphia which Mr Fury uses for his puppy Coco and Scooby and Everest um but they come in every year the past three years and so students can have like a anti-stress place during lunch waves and this usually happens towards the end of the year uh after like finals and stuff um and then lastly we had a speed friending activity we did this

009year where different grades were able to go outside and do like 60 second little introductions with students you might not know uh just to try to like introduce new people so that's those are just some of the things I wanted to highlight and here are some pictures the one on the left is from the leadership training the one on the rights of Sandwich making and that's a picture of the walk out on the left which the whole school participated in and on the right this is um Mary doritis one of the officers giving out bracelets on to start with hello week so yeah thanks so that's a lot of quick questions on this call anybody have any questions thank you for sharing you you lived up you exceeded my expectations because this is what I

010wanted you know a club come in and tell us more about what's going on so that was a great great report anything else you'd like to add the students recently signed a pledge yes was that related to um the safe Club kind of this is a separate uh like it's called the no place for hate pledge and it's a separate Club kind of the whole school is participating in but there's a few students who are on the student Equity team and we kind of like started this uh pledge and we created a video where everyone watched and chat and it was just saying like we don't like we pledge to like not discriminate others and be kind and just be open to other differences and everyone signed the pledge at the end of the chat

011on a Google forum saying that they don't know um I would like to guess about 20 students run the club like we created a script and video and stuff but I think almost every student if not every student signed the pledge high school so how about in your Club in the same Club about how many oh would you say 30 minutes yeah which is pretty good because we only meet like once a month so we get a pretty good turnout your teacher advisor is uh Miss Hoagland and she's the school psychologist and then uh Mrs zenya The Culinary teacher yeah thank you so much our school did receive an award when the club was first started as one of the first High School clubs to get started so I I really want to thank um

012Liz I mean um Mrs Hoagland and Mr Fury for helping you start up the club and for you and the other students who are so involved there's such Crossover with the different clubs that we have all designed to promote inclusion and safe and healthy learning environments yeah so maybe someday it'll show us the video that I hear your Mr Daniels and I heard you were in a video so we look forward to uh to seeing that at some point you said you were going to show it well I don't have access she has it it's a good meaning so when we were at the student meetings someone was a little nervous because you can see this video and she's worried about the parents so it's so it's just fun but it's good time when is

013Seussical when is that uh I think it's March 16 17 to 18. yes it's the Thursday through Saturday um yeah how's it going combined with the middle schools that we haven't idea how that's getting okay so much of one thing okay because it's like respecting like the difference just of like you know you know you wanna [Music] all right thank you very much for that report very good Mr Case okay thank you very much chair Daniels good evening everybody it's great to see all of you this evening um I have um four items uh to talk about tonight um the first one is um to let you know that we had the first of three of our community Gatherings related to diversity equity and inclusion we have the first one last Wednesday evening um the

014the point of last Wednesday evenings was to conduct our first series of focus groups um so we had facilitators from Pratt who worked with each of the focus groups um we had administrators and Board of Ed members there thank you to our Board of Ed members who attended we had um parents and community members and then a couple of uh of teachers and um this was the first in a series of focus groups and I just wanted to put this on the agenda um just to remind everybody why we're doing these focus groups in June of 2021 um the Board of Ed adapted a policy on equity and diversity and a component of this policy directs the superintendent I'm just going to quote from the policy to developed and conduct a systematic Equity needs assignment

015for the district then the purpose of that is to identify processes and practices that may need to be revised in light of our newer Equity policy so we want to get as much feedback as possible possible from our community members so we didn't have as good of a turnout to this community Gathering as I had hoped for we are going to conduct conduct additional focus groups with our teachers with community members including parents in those community members who do not have students or grandchildren in the school so we're going to be doing that again to ask the same questions and then we'll we will receive a report at the end of the year with all of the information and then we can identify strengths and areas that we need to all become educated on and

016that will be our roadmap for the future so again I just want to remind you we have these focus groups we'll be conducting more and we're going to do everything in our power to include as many people as we can in these upcoming focus groups then we have two more Community Gatherings scheduled for this year the next one is on March 15th and I don't have the third date off the top of my head but we'll be identifying what topic we'll be talking about for that March 15th um Gathering I'll just open it up to see if board members have any comments questions or ideas how you should do this differently moving forward anybody so I I have a question so last year I went I went through it and I I found it to

017be very interesting and thought provoking what how does how does that converted the actionable how do we start making a little bit of a difference because I I know the focus groups what we're doing there and first of all I thought this was going to be more Community Based I thought the first election was committed to to working with us to join the community it seemed like it was really School related which is okay but I mean how do we get actionable items out of this or how do we promoted or maybe we need a I don't know a big name program or speaker to come in I don't know but how do we move it along I guess yeah Lou it's a great question um last year uh was the year that all of

018our staff received professional development training on this topic and every school developed their school Equity Council and that's going strong in each one of our schools so so our schools have taken action but we continue continually learn and improve and coming out of the equity Council system would work as our sooner reps reported tonight we really want to make this to your point more more of a community effort involving people who may not have connections with the schools right and that's really what we're striving to do so if anyone has any ideas on how to do that I've talked with her selectman vessel about that and we want to continue to partner and get the word out to the community in any way that we can I know Kira will help us with that sending

019emails throughout our town email blast system there's probably a private preschools in town there's just different organizations and groups that may want to participate right this really needs to be a community conversation and we've made great growth in this area in our school district within the past three years um people that I was in a focus group with mentioned that um but we need to um to involve others along the way along our journey if I could use that I was pretty proud and impressed with our administrators and their comments and their input into the acting Joe Joe included I I was it was a little bit um I was a little bit of a disadvantage I I think I mentioned I said you know coming from a business perspective is a little bit different

020and they were able to really tie this into uh how they approach it from from a building perspective but our I thought our our administrators did a great job in making their comments and you know those questions weren't submitted in advance so I was impressed with the uh equipment presentations every every year Joe what our four schools are working at uh put that on our agenda a future agenda topics right at the end of the budget absolutely we will do that thank you any further questions from Mr Case on that that's number one okay thank you so much um the other major priority uh we continue to work on developing the fiscal year 2023 2024 budget um so two weeks from tonight that will be the major agenda item I'll be presenting my proposed budget

021to you for your consideration and so there's um there's still a lot more work to do in preparation for that Donna John and I and Barbara are working very diligently on that budget presentation um our mental health and wellness Student Assistance Program that you approved last month thank you so much um we're having meetings with the staff to answer their questions about the program and we should be rolling that out within the next couple weeks when the process as I said to you the last meeting we're in the process of setting up a parent meeting date for that um however the administrators and the support staff have had many more questions about the program how they can assist in the implementation of the program so we've wanted to make sure they get all their questions

022answered first we had a meeting today and we'll have one more meeting with our support staff and then we'll be able to roll that out and I must say the staff is very excited about this ability to get support outside of school hours is not available so they're very open to this they're looking forward to it and we will get that um going very very shortly a question on that yes Alicia um the timeline was delayed because we had to have another meeting which was important um timeline was delayed by two weeks right but that meeting was this month it was last month it was this one all of the meetings have been held as fun so we have one more meeting with the support staff and then we'll be able to have the parent

023room thank you we talked about having members of our support staff at that parent meeting that was that's important so the parents know how the services their students will receive outside of the school will dovetail with the school so we're making that connection explicit which I think will be very valuable we want this to roll out very smoothly thank you for asking that and then finally um I want to let you know that the mural you've heard about the creation of the mural at Canton Intermediate School in conjunction with um the Arts Council in Canton and some of you may have participated in the creation of that that mural I know um some of you did participate the unveiling of that mirror will be Monday afternoon at three o'clock at Canton intermediate school so if

024you can be there it's just very exciting that we've been able to put together this old school initiative on the heels of the school visiting the American mural project um in Winston you recall we did that in the fall this was a follow-up project that every student and staff member and Community member that wanted to has been involved in so please plan to come to CIS Monday at 3 if you can and those are the items I wanted to report to you tonight I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have any questions for Mr Case good hey thank you very much okay good we'll move on to the chair report get your children um first of all I wanted to thank buddy and Kira the job that they did putting together Friday for

025us uh that was a that was a scramble event to get that ball together and they did it so professionally and the uh reception was great so I wanted to thank you both publicly for for the work that was done there okay um I want to thank the board again uh for making Friday a success and for your time and commitment to that process um I also want to let you know so um we had talked about the electronic sign it's created some controversy nothing that I'm um willing to back down from are afraid of however I think the best uh thing and I tried to say this tactfully is uh I don't want to detract from the budget process we we have to use the term bigger fish to fry right now so I

026want community support for the budget so I've I've pulled that for now um uh in order to um to really focus in on the budget and some of the other things that that's that's a minor thing when I saw the type of magnet that it was uh it's it's not worth going through that right now so I hope you don't mind that I did that um and then the um other thing I want to mention Mr Casey uh February 1st um we have our our gathering there too do you want to just give a plug for that sure and I'm sure John was going to report that was in your report all right that's right so February 1st at seven o'clock we have Justine Ginsburg from the Farmington Valley Health District she'll be coming to

027do a second presentation for us this year and John you can remind me of the exact topic social media in the minds of our children so it'll be at the Canton High School um uh uh learning commas the media center uh we'll have a nice opportunity to be able to speak and then um just to add on if I may quickly it's hard to be able to get people to um in in the amount of time that they have the finite amount of time that they have to to join us to be able to work with us can be a challenge to be able to ascribe that time what what Justine brought up is a great idea is we're going to do a little snippet of a video afterwards after we do the meeting we're

028going to do a short video to say hey just so you know in 30 seconds this is what this is what this is all all about we'd love to see you in the future or please watch our recording so if we can't get people to be able to be here with us we're going to keep working to be able to get it to them so um good yeah you're excited to be hybrid or not it will be hybrid again yep we're going to try and meet people where they are they will not get cookies for any drinks okay uh thank you John the final thing is in your packet um there's a letter from me to our state representative and and this is from me I uh made sure to say that was not done

029um I don't I didn't have a board vote on this but this has to do with the uh free uh lunch program and um I think it's important that um some of the other uh board chairs across the state were providing their state representative with a little bit of the extra money that the uh the state has to to continue to free hot lunch for the free meal program and again you know when a child is fully nourished they they learn better they're more productive and um you can read you can read what I said in the letter but um I just thought it was important to um to make the statement so yeah sure absolutely and I support you know you're the better um I'm just thinking back to meetings we've had where I

030believe it's um even if a student didn't have a lunch or didn't bring one they would not be denied food right they're supposed to be given food sure um no it's just yeah this is more of a Statewide effort to try to get this done it's not it's not an indictment on what camping does or I know we do things a little bit better but this is more to what push the state into promoting neon that so but thank you yeah that's a good comment and I am proud of what we do here in Canton yeah but do uh there's some schools deny voters as state law that they must I don't know it is now um federal law that we cannot deny students food and we have a newer policy you might be probably

031adopted just a few months ago that's what I'm thinking because of the federal law and that's all that any other comments and that's all that I had thank you very much all right um so now is our time for public forum the reason why we have public appointment this particular point is so the public can hear a little bit about what's going on with the board hear what's going on between us and of course that is uh calling in tonight that has anything for public forum Zoom is being very strange right now and it's saying we have 13 attendees I apologize if you can't get on um and no one here at the public Michelle we're going to speak to you Sarah thank you Barbara so I I think that there's no other public comment

032so we'll leave it at that all right so we'll close public forum and we'll move into presentations and I'll turn it over to you Mr case thank you very much tonight before you on the agenda you have a proposal for a sabbatical lead um one of our our most outstanding Canton features Michelle Tran timuratrop as she's known to us here is here tonight to talk to you about her proposal to take a sabbatical leave um before um Senor tribe speaks um I just want to let you know that per the contract that we have with the Futures Union the Educators Association of Anton EAC teachers are allowed to apply for sabbatical lead and I copied that portion of the contract and it's in your folder tonight for you to take a look at um sabbatical

033leaves of one half or one full year may be granted at the discretion of the board uh there are certain criteria the future must uh fulfill and you'll hear tonight that and Samurai is willing to fulfill all of the criteria she meets all of the criteria to uh reflect and sabbatically but it is up to you um in the end to approve for denying and uh you have the right to do so for the contract teachers must come to the board you must present their proposal in January and the board must get back to the teacher by March 1st so um I'm a thrilled tonight that us viewer John has put together such a proposal she's going to talk to you about that tonight of this is your chance to ask her any questions that

034you have about her proposal and then you will get back to her we'll put this on the agenda again in February for the discussion and then you'll be able to get back to Sonora tribe about whether you approve or deny their requests by March 1st so with all of that is the context um you will see in your packet it was sent out with the agenda Senora traps proposal I know that um she's not going to read all of that to you tonight which is going to give you a brief overview of it so uh Michelle Trapp thank you so much for being here tonight you're happy so thank you all for being with me for the next 15 minutes or so or so as I get to share with you a little bit about

035my statical proposal just wondering could anyone read it yet yes all right well done by the way thank you I'm going to start with a little bit of background about me uh I have been teaching in Canton for the past 12 . I know it looks like I've been here for once and I've been here for 12. I was actually first hired by Dr Jordan Grossman who's going to be our new superintendent so I've been here for a while I've taught at CIS Canton middle school and the high school and I currently teach fifth and sixth grade Spanish fcis and I teach Spanish too and Spanish 2 honors in high school I'm also really involved with the extracurriculars here I run a club every day after school I run the CIS Global Citizens Club I

036run the rotary interact club which is a service learning club and the Canton High School International club and I'm also the point person in between our school exchange with Santa Maria Del Mar which is in Academia Spain and our students here in Canton so I always knew that I was going to be a teacher and I always knew that I was never going to stop learning thankfully for me I found Canton Public Schools which has allowed me to explore so much of who I am as a teacher both inside and out of the classroom with the support of Canton Public Schools and the Board of Education in Advent I've been able to have experiences that have made me into the teacher I am today in 2018 you can see up there I was able to

037participate in a fallbight fellowship in Senegal where I worked with teachers around the world for a year in a virtual Forum this is before covid and before there was virtual forums that were so used to and then I had a one month teaching placement in Senegal that was called teachers for Global classrooms I was also granted the opportunity one year to participate or actually to just use my my personal days instead of for personal reasons I use them to go down to the border of El Paso and Juarez Mexico where I was able to translate at a refugee Center using my linguistic skills to help make the world a better a better place and most recently you can see up there that is a group of me with United States senators and people from the

038state of education in Argentina and in Washington DC I was able to represent the United States as the U.S youth ambassador to Argentina this is a position that's held by just two United States citizens every year and puts me in the same Alumni network as Nobel Prize winners and heads of state that is something that I would never have been able to do without the approval of the Board of Ed and Mr Case I share these things with you not to overtalk my experience but to let you guys know that as much as I Inspire my students to do their best and be their best in the classroom you and Canton Public Schools inspires me to do the same in my own life encouraging me to advocate for every opportunity I can to learn more

039serve more and not just be a teacher in the classroom but to be a teacher of life one of the major reasons why I chose to work at public at Canton Public Schools and still stay in this District after More Than A decade is that Canton truly values the well-rounded education of both its students and its teachers up here you can see the Canton vision of a graduate we have creative thinker Communicator collaborator critical thinker and compassionate citizen these are all things that are important to us in Canton the Mastery of these skills starts at Cherry Brook or CIS when students first enter and continue all the way on through High School even past graduation I remember reading the Canton Public Schools teacher contract all the way back in 2011 and I highlighted where it

040said that students that teachers could apply for a sabbatical because I knew that that meant that Canton value the learning and growth of their teachers not just their students I'm asking you for that chance today I hope you can see that I've implemented these same five characteristics creative thinker Communicator collaborator critical thinker and compassionate Citizen and what I do in the classroom and outside of it so what am I going to do on my six month sabbatical that is the question and you read a lot about it in my proposal sorry it was so long but it was from my heart but these are my three major learning objectives the first is I need to reintegrate myself into the Spanish and Latino community is important for me to recognize that I am an English first

041White non-native Spanish teacher my Spanish comes from a semester studying abroad in college working for two years in Guatemala and a short teaching sent in Ecuador while all of those were over a decade ago it is not enough to be an expert in my field I need to keep my Spanish current and to reintegrate myself my second objective positive with culturally responsive teaching this is something that's been a major focus of us in Canton Public Schools for the past few years for professional development we have studied what it means to be a culturally responsive teacher we have discussed the importance of getting to know each and every one of our students at a deeper level so that we can understand their culture and non-surface level background but one thing that's a constant note in our

042discussions is how difficult it is to understand each student's background culture especially when it's so different from our own we noted that learning about different cultures was something that we could do via a Google search but it's really hard to understand the deeper differences and learning underlying differences ways of thinking and learning styles just from a Google search it really comes from experiencing it and my last goal is to create Global Connections one of the major criticisms I hear from can students teachers and families and in those people in surrounding small towns is that he and him is a bubble sometimes this bubble is as small as Canton High School or the town of Canton or the state of Connecticut or New England but it's still the same our students struggle with really understanding what

043life is like outside of their personal day-to-day experiences in our 21st Century Learning expectations mission statement we state that students should appreciate the diversities of American and Global cultures but outside of a textbook we don't have a lot of ways for students to really interact with people of global cultures the international trips that are offered and the clubs that are run are few and far between and are only really readily accessible for a small number of students Canton wants to create Global ties but lacks the connections that would make it easily to do so throughout my work at Fulbright teachers for Global classrooms and the U.S youth ambassador program I've watched incredible American teachers connect their classrooms around the world I've seen teachers hold discussions about the israeli-pakistanian conflict while Skyping in students from those

044regions I've seen students learn about Roman history and architecture while doing a scavenger hunt with pen pals in Italy and I've seen people hold a community Jazz performance between Argentina and a classroom in Arizona but these teachers have one thing in common direct connections upon my return from sabbatical I will be able to provide Canton Public Schools with a multitude of Global Connections so that our piano students graduate not thinking that they came from a Canon bottle but instead saying that they worked in group projects with students from Turkey studied climate change with classes in the Amazon and learned about the rise of Technology with their Penthouse Etc my proposed timeline you guys got to read a little bit about but I'm just going to share I want to start in January 2024 volunteering again

045at the Annunciation house this is the refugee Center that I volunteered at a few years ago but I was only there for a week this time I hope to stay for at least a month I hope to serve allowing myself a much greater understanding of the process of refugees and immigration and working with these families at the center so that I'm able to best support these students when they're in my classroom one day in February I will be working alongside a fellow teacher that I know in Mexico strengthening my linguistic skills and Diving deeper into the Mexican culture an area that I have very little experience in March and April I will connect with my colleagues from the boulevard Fellowship these colleagues are teaching all around the world in Latin America and in countries such

046as Senegal Morocco and India and I will work directly with these teachers to create classroom connections that we can continue working with when I return to the United States lastly in June I will Shadow teachers in Finland and Switzerland countries with two of the highest ranked education systems in the world and I will bring back extensive research into the most recent best practices as well as create collaborative connections it is really important to me that while I'm on sabbatical my students back home are still receiving a stellar World Language education for that reason I recommended the proposed coverage of splitting my sabbatical year with Mrs Mendez Kyle Senora Mendez Kyle is a current tutor at CIS she's been with us for a few years she holds a master's degree in international relations and is currently

047going back to school to be the Spanish teacher she's completing the certificate in the arc program at Central Mrs Mendes Kyle has suffered me many times she's even created lessons for me when I had coveted four times so that's a lot and she's even started rcis Spanish club a club that I've always wanted to start but I run a club every day after school so I didn't have time so she created this it means on Friday mornings while I'm doing door Duty I get to hear what the Spanish club is doing and we most recently had a two-hour dance lesson where we had over 40 students come and learn three Latin American dances which is really cool if you get sixth graders to learn Latin American dance so she's amazing and I know she would

048be able to take over my classes in a way that I feel comfortable and most importantly since I know it's really hard to find a Spanish teacher exhibit a Canton we she is willing not only to take my intermediate classes but also my high school classes a position that is almost impossible to find so she would be a great choice what are the benefits to Canton Public Schools my participation in the sabbatical will greatly benefit Canton Public Schools as a whole not only will I be returning back to Canton as rejuvenated veteran form taker but I will be able to share these skills with my students and their colleagues alike my students will have a teacher who has made a conscious point to immerse yourself in her subject matter both nationally and abroad I will

049bring more culture realia authentic stories experiences and connections than we have ever seen my students will be able to collaborate with the classrooms I have connected with in Latin America and we will be able to have true Intercultural learning in addition my colleagues from Canton Public Schools will also benefit from my learning they will gain International connections with classrooms studying their subject matter abroad they will be able to work together to do group projects or product seminars and all other kinds of creative and collaborative work with internationally diverse classrooms I will host workshops collaborative professional development opportunities and be open and available to share what I have learned regarded culturally responsive teaching and best practices through my sabbatical experiences similar to what I did when I came home from Sandoval from TGC I want to

050see you for that my participation in this sabbatical will allow Canton to have someone on their teaching staff who has experience exploring the world connecting with global classrooms and learning about diverse cultures that most teachers will not be able to have in my opinion I think it would be a gift to have Canton have a teacher with this experience who is so dedicated to sharing all they know of maybe not you could picture in conclusion over the past 15 minutes in cancer I recently attended the tragic Memorial of Raheem Nelson and sitting on this bleachers as a soccer players students and families read their tributes all I could think was candidates my family although I never had Raheem the students that was a rarity I had every single other one of those students I spoke

051about that day so multiple times have been a part of all of those student lives growing up ever since they were just 10 years old those kids are my kids those families are my families and I love every single one of them watching them come together to remember and celebrate one of their own was incredibly powerful sitting in that gym and on that field as I cried with fellow teachers and hug my students I truly felt this is my family this is my home I'm so lucky to be part of this community this is where I belong and where I'm honored to be at the memorial Mr Phelps read a poem that he said stuck with him for the past 50 years and I know it will stick with me the same it's called the

052dash I'm going to read a little bit before I read about my husband stood to speak at the funeral of a friend he referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning to the end he noted that verse came the date of birth and spoke the following the date with tears but he said What mattered most of all was the dash between those years for that Dash represents all the time that they spent alive on Earth and now only those who love them know what that little line is worth where it matters not how much we own the cars that house the cash what matters is how we live and love and how we spend our Dash my Dash was predicted to be shorter than money and at the age of 33 I've already

053outlived my life expectancy by eight years that is something that I live with as a celebration and badge of honor but also a fear every day however if it does teach me one thing it is to make sure my Dash is everything I've ever hoped it's available I want my Dash to say an unspoken words that I live my life to the absolute fullest that I wasn't afraid to take a risk that I was a teacher of life that I stayed true to who I was and the experiences I wanted to have that I loved and made a difference to those around me and in the world the sabbatical is a dream of mine it is something I'm going to do regardless of your decision it is something that will help hold in my Dash

054into a teacher I am proud of it is something that is truly me and hopefully something that will be a ripple in benefits for the dashes and the lives of those around me thank you for your consideration Michelle thank you so much [Music] we'll now open it up to um did you say you were gonna and June you're gonna go to Sweden or Finland or something Finland here [Music] at least it's on the next page oh it is yeah okay oh there it is I didn't realize you had double I did have a question but one of your uh last slides already answered it and I I think it's um in so many ways what you're describing is a gift for a person in the schools honestly and you know bringing back those experiences and

055the learning not just to the students in your classroom but also uh to teachers through like professional development and stuff I think sounds sounds amazing I also understand what you're saying about um you're not a native speaker and you're living in Canton or you're living in Connecticut I mean it's it's hard to find people to speak Spanish with around here so I so that I understand as well and there's nothing like the total immersion um to really like revamp your your skills your your language skills so that makes sense to me too thank you any other questions so I would just say that you are a remarkable person and uh your embody everything that we would want to see in a teacher in your presentation was an A plus that we had the grade in

056and we appreciated this so the next step will be the the board the board will discuss it and uh we'll we'll probably take a vote on it in March if that's okay you just wild the heck out of me so I'm a little speechless right now which is never happened thank you very much for listening yeah absolutely thank you thank you and Michelle for you to even recommend to like your substitute to me I listen to the universe conspiring because that I actually added to my proposal in the last bit um but when she told me she was going she stopped for me she's such a good person but every time she came into my classroom she was like I think I want to be a Spanish teacher she goes that is her years she's

057like I'm finally going back to school to be a Spanish teacher I was like I'm doing the sabbatical she's like who's your long-term sub so for that line up and just like financially because um I'm not an expensive teacher she is a long-term sub we're not the like we're not losing money as a school I think um without having a an end like that I know when we had a submissed when we were missing a Spanish teacher in the last few years we had to use an online program and now I teach all those students and they're like I didn't learn anything and I do not want my students to have to go through that so I want a seamless trans sense of transition in it thank you feel like the universe kind of yeah

058you've done it all you've put it together so you should get a referral for me I just said you know you always get us to that okay okay Michelle thank you so much all right um so closing out that portion um another person that embodies everything we would like to see in one of our administrators one of our teams so Barbara I'll let you go ahead and make that thank you so it's a great night tonight as it's my pleasure also to introduce to you uh this is Barbara who you know is our newly appointed director of special education and related services um Barbara's going to talk to you tonight about uh what she's seen in Canton so far in the area of special education and related Services I know Barbara could talk to you

059for two hours about what she's seen but she's going to give you a brief presentation tonight uh just highlighting uh the different aspects of special ed talking uh someone about the finances also I'll let you know that Barbara did an outstanding presentation for the town Board of Finance last night just explaining our special education costs and our out placement costs and in your spare time you could always view that presentation as well but I know Barbara will talk about it tonight Barbara has hit the ground running since day one um 40 days on the job were a little bit just about 40 days or so I know I think your presentation that's what I titled it the first part again 40 days no it's there first 40 days so so welcome thank you for being

060here tonight Barbara oh good evening everyone thank you for having me uh thank you super interested in case for those lovely words um chair Daniels I appreciate being here um and having the opportunity to speak to the entire board tonight about special education uh since I've started here part of my entry plan really has been to uh hit the ground running as we keep saying and immerse myself in uh all things special ed so some of the ways I've gone about doing that are I've taken a really good look at our special education data to understand our prevalence rates our disability categories um and I've spent a good amount of time talking with parents and teachers para Educators and even students and my reason for doing that is I believe that there's a combination between

061understanding what the numbers and and percentages are telling us but also that on the ground level data so you can really get a sense of where our needs lie and what the story is so taken a lot of time to do that and I do feel ready to provide all of you with an update on what I've seen so far so for me as a leader it always goes back to the instructional core which is what you see on the screen in front of you our goal is at the heart and Center which is improved student achievement outcomes in the way that we achieve that the secret sauce so we like to say is connecting the dots between engaging our students as Learners providing academically challenging in rigorous content and then the teacher and they

062should have actually LED that the teacher the teacher is the most important research tells us across the board that the teacher is the number one driver in improving Student Success so we want to make sure that we are giving all of our teachers whether they be Care Canton parents teachers starting at the very beginning to our Educators and para Educators we want to make sure everybody has the skills they need so that they can reach all of our Learners excellent so how do we get there well these are some of the initiatives within people's Services I'm not going to read every single piece on here and I did provide on the very last page the abbreviations and acronyms and these people are wondering special education we have our own complete language so I will try

063as I'm talking this evening to Define some of that for all of you but the things that I really want to draw your attention to on this slide are the fact that we are learner or focused first and foremost and that is the center of that very first slide that I showed you for improved growth of all learners from there we're focused on building our Community Partnerships streamlining our organizational Effectiveness and cultivating the talent and that's building up all of our Educators so some things that we've done in the first 40 days are just going to highlight um that aogpe that is or in Gillingham training which is gold standard training we sent three teachers just this month one from each school to the classroom educator training and that's going to benefit our students with

064dyslexia who require structured reading support so we're already starting to build staff capacity and training towards meeting those needs we've also by the end of this month will have trained 90 teachers in non-violent Crisis Intervention Through The Crisis Prevention Institute and we have John Pierce and Scott Lorac over at CIS as our lead trainers and they've taken the initiative in doing that so I thank them for their effort I came to them early on and I it was maybe my first week on the job and I was like hey John I need to make sure from a safety standpoint that all of our staff have this up-to-date training and we just got right to it and we got those scheduled right away so we're very very proud of the work we're doing specifically within people's

065Services we launched a brand new IEP system this year called CT says and our teachers go to monthly webinars and trainings on how to access that um so we are embodying that lifelong learning is is really what we're all about here in Canton and go to the next slide so briefly I'll just share with you that over the last 10 years we are noting an increase in Canton in our percentages of students being identified as having disabilities our October 1 number isn't on this slide but we are at present 16.9 259 of our students have IEPs in District next slide that include 504s no but if we if we include 504s we're up to around 20 of our student population and that's October of 22. October 1. yep the October 1 count is what we

066use for our numbers every year okay so this slide is from edsite and one of the reasons why it piqued my attention was because when I got to Canton I said I want to make sure that um I wanted to see where we lined up in terms of identification and make sure that uh we were identifying at an appropriate rate and the good news is that we are on average in the state of Connecticut um we're around the state is around 38 we're about 43 for identifying students with specific learning disabilities or sld dyslexia so that's pretty pretty on par and then our next two highest are other health impairments and autism and we are really at the state average I think it's about 14 and 12 alike um and again you can't really get

067a sense of the need when you look at this it's not the most exciting graph I mean a lot of it looks kind of Flatline it's when you have those conversations with your parents and your teachers that you really understand where the needs lie and through those conversations we found that there are real significant needs in District in terms of supporting students with Behavioral next slide please thank you term that isn't necessarily a physical location we all know that as local Boards of Education it's our responsibility to provide all students with a free and appropriate public education um and there is a why Continuum for what that can look like our goal is to start with the lre which is the least restrictive environment and that is a general education classroom with basic special education

068supports and maybe some related services such as speech and language occupational therapy things like that from there you can move from resource room support to self-contained support which is a more restrictive level of support in a school system to homebound all the way to the other side of the Continuum which is out placement when you start talking about out of District placement you're looking at some pretty significant costs so now as of last January so January of 22 we had 22 students out placed between January of 22 to January of 23 we added eight additional students and I'm sharing that with you because that's a big driver to the tuition and transportation lines in special education and it could really range based on the student and their particular needs some students might require a special

069education teacher the tuition could range anywhere from 80 000 to 145 000 depending on the school and then depending on what Transportation looks like if we're able to offer a ride share sometimes we can bring those costs down but other times we're not able to do that for a variety of reasons and you could be paying upwards of sixty five thousand dollars related Services could also add-ons so these are all things that we're thinking about and it's an opportunity to look at what we can do in program to start thinking about bringing in some more and District therapeutic supports if we were to bring those students back we could save almost eight hundred thousand dollars so that that's significant yeah yeah so it's exciting a little bit put it through that lens um if you

070can find drivers like yes so coming to Canton being brand new I said well eight you know eight additional students that's pretty significant it piqued my curiosity so I wanted to take a little bit of a deeper dive and look at this this slide's a little bit busy but on the bottom it breaks out um based on primary disability category where the students um fell so there there wasn't really anything that specifically told me a story there and it was kind of across the board however when I had the conversation with case managers and um our department chairs what I learned was over 83 percent of our students that were out placed were out police because they required some level of Behavioral therapeutic support so that was like aha right that's something that we need

071to take another look at a deeper look at to see what we can do in District to start to continue to address some of those needs if half of those students moved into the districts over the summer yes so half of the students were not even on our we didn't even know them in June right they were they identified prior to or no yes four students this was the presentation the board of Finance saw right I mean these comments yeah okay great thank you yes so these are these are the numbers and the breakdown of the eight students this is the impact to the budget I shared this last night but I think it's really important for all of you to be aware of this as well so tuition the additional eight students is an

072impact of about eight hundred and two thousand dollars in outside Transportation impact is 138 thousand dollars so some of this will be offset through excess cost funds that we receive back and there's also the credit card bill back which will help but but these are significant costs and if we can find ways in District to prioritize and build our programming um we can ensure more sustainability for our students over time we want to keep our kids here this is a lovely Community we care about kids and and we want them with their peers whenever possible does a parent prefer that their student is out placed and they believe that they're getting better service when they're outplaced than when we're keeping them in-house not necessarily okay it really really depends you know I've the director I've

073been on both sides of that I've been in situations where we're experiencing um a student that's really significantly dysregulated and we're bringing in Specialists and we're using all of our resources and we have a one-to-one and we're still struggling to get instructional control and we're talking about exploring out placement options and Karen's like no no I want them here we got to figure it out here so I've got that side of things um and and that's a testament to the fact that they trust our district and they want their child here and they believe in in the work that we do um and then there there are other instances where there are some families that think oh gosh you know my student has dyslexia or my student um you know is presenting with behaviors um

074that are pretty significant I'm not sure that we can do it and I maybe I want to push for an out placement so we go through the whole process and we really try to work with our families and give them where they're at and show them all the things and opportunities that we can do to support their child here first and foremost and and we work on it so oftentimes I found the collaboration it's it's not an adversarial thing it's very collaborative on both ends of the table next slide okay so they're all my big needs analysis right I went through I you talked to the people we looked at the data we looked at the numbers there are two areas that I really think that we need to keep our focus on and in

075thinking about this and thought about what we're doing really well in the strengths column and then our opportunities so we want to make sure that we're designing IEPs that are rigorous all going back to that instructional core we want to see growth over time and we want to see meaningful growth not Minimus growth meaningful World um so some of the things that we do really well here and that we're incredibly proud of my partnership with John we've talked a lot about how we've expanded Universal screening to make sure that we're identifying students as presenting with dyslexia early on in providing them with good sound intervention we still have training and work to do in this area this is an area we're growing in but we are absolutely on our path so we're incredibly proud of

076that Sabrina process we're also continuing to look at data or progress monitoring our sit teams are being revamped and enhanced to make sure that we're looking at the right kinds of data and that we're putting together actionable plans to move forward and monitor student growth and we've got structured literacy in place teachers are using foundations they're using hegarty some of our staff started using a program called Spire which is another phone image-based program for structured literacy and teachers who have received training are starting to use the support and Gillingham approach which really is best practice for reading so we're going to continue to work on that where do our opportunities lie well we want to continue revamping and enhancing our work and of our sits which are student intervention teams uh and working very closely

077with John to look for ways to support the behavioral needs one thing that I've done in districts that they started we have a partnership with behavioral Consulting Quantum and harwinson and we have behavioral consultants in our schools five days a week and they are working on staff training parent training and making sure that staff have all the tools and resources they need to meet our students where they're at and that has made a big difference just in the last 40 days that I've been here we've already started to see improvement with them we have a lot of work to do um so I don't want to Sugar quote that we're but we're we're making good steps uh and then you know we have an opportunity again if we can strengthen our in-district programming and expand

078what we have in our learning Labs uh then eventually down the road this could be a possible Revenue Source where we could offer spots to neighboring towns and they would be paying tuition to us to send their students to our therapeutic and District programming so there's lots of potential here which is super exciting my vision for this just so you're all aware transparency I would see it kind of highlighting what this looks like ideally if all goes through with the budget next year and then fine-tuning things in year two and then by year three hopefully we'd be able to offer some spots so it wouldn't be an overnight thing but it would be something that we're absolutely working toward in the future next slide please um okay so the other area that we want to

079really hone in and Target on are to make sure that we have good systems in place to recruit hire and retain high quality staff uh we have quite a few para educator openings right now and we have some certified special education teacher openings as well happy to share and I filled one of those special education teacher openings today in one of our learning Labs so I was like um that's a big celebration uh and then strengths here we are yes have these been open since since September since July no no Friday no the the Asian ship how long have these positions been opened for the eighties yeah currently we have eight para educator openings two special education so with the para Educators um you know people are leaving so we're filling we're filling vacancies or

080are going on maternity leave or fmlas some of these people will be returning hopefully from their leaves yes and then with special ed teachers um we had one resignation um um I'm an antennier teacher at Cherry Brook that we just filled a very a very very important position in our learning lab yes where many students identified with autism received their education and uh we also have um maternity leaves coming up for a couple of our special ed teachers so um so we're filling those vacancies now before they leave so we can have that transition how are they doing with the preschool search the name yes I did I made an offer though I've actually built the two special education teacher opening so I wanted is to cover a long-term leave um and uh that person

081has accepted and then we offered for the learning lab today a teacher with almost 30 years of experience in autism so that is very rare so is that number technically like the eight but not that tunic well once those not the two we still have we still have para openings yeah yes and that is really evolving on a day-to-day basis so that number I have to consistently stay on top of it fluctuates between five to eight eight and it has seen that there's been a bit of a pattern where we hire a person we fill it and then and then we have somebody either teaching a leave or moving on to another opportunity so it's just it's something we continue to work at So speaking of all that and thinking about it you know we

082want to focus as an opportunity on incentivizing and retaining high quality non-certified staff so we want to make sure that we are aligning our our contracts with area Market rates and think about what other towns next to us are offering as the hay rates for their para Educators so that they can be in aligned with the cost of living additionally we're also exploring Partnerships but community colleges and agencies as other creative ways to support those needs okay so what what else can we do to mitigate our impact here right so this is uh what I like to call the professional term is theory of action I call it a big bet though it's what we think that we're going to if we do this then this could potentially be our outcome so if we continue

083to build these Partnerships and continue to cultivate our talent then we'll essentially our opportunity is that we'll strengthen and expand our District programs will become sustainable we'll be able to withstand um challenges and and uh that done continuous need of complex behavioral situations that are arising and becoming more and more frequent we'll be able to withstand some of those challenges over time and then hire and retaining that's that we want to keep our teachers here we're investing in them we believe in them so we want them to to be here and to stay so those are some of our indicators um for success and things that we can do reduce outplacement costs and eventually hopefully have some additional Revenue sources once we have those strong programs here in Canton and then the last piece that

084I'm just going to mention is a point of reference for all of you is our 2223 excess cost projections so this projection is a better rate of 65 um and we feel pretty confident that we'll get um that amount we hope for more you can get usually up to 70 75 um but this is not always fully funded so 65 is is a conservative way to figure this and we're at 639 941 for that number and that coupled with our correct buildbacks will help to offset some of those High out of District 8 additional students that we post questions welcome questions at this time too oh I'm sorry okay well um so my question is uh you know oftentimes I'm I'm a teacher and I've taught in a few different districts and oftentimes um when

085we talk about um special education purposes and all that kind of stuff um we don't really talk about uh gifted and talented and so when I'm looking at your triangle like the instructional core and I'm just so I'm just wondering about those students and kind of what is happening for them and what kind of support they're getting yeah thank you I appreciate that um so that's that's a very thoughtful question and uh by law the Ben special education we are required um to identify students as gifted and talented um and then from there I'll be perfectly honest with you I haven't dealt super deep in my first 40 days is into what we are doing but sure I'm a better person to answer that I know it's only good in 48 but um but I

086wonder if maybe um Mr Bishop could he could help describe a little bit more yeah so we're still learning thank you um so uh our our process does begin at the the CIS level um and then there is correct and then there's an enrichment program that's available through CIS that we that we provide and then once you move into the middle school some of the opportunities that we have based on your honors level or other Pathways that's what we get to be able to ask individual homes for them and then we also look to be able to provide additional opportunities through clubs and co-curriculars and and things like that as well because of your support of the budget last year we added halftime enrichment teacher at CIS okay so for the first time we have

087the Serve by teacher in that role to help challenge our students thank you yeah thank you for the question all right thank you for your report that was very helpful I was delighted to hear that you're looking at uh opportunities to keep youngsters in our town and our school if possible and I do believe the majority of parents would support that they prefer their child was successful and stay across the home you probably can't answer this at this point but I assume there'll be some expenses associated with that will there be some savings and there may be some space needs and and again as you look to plan that and it would be important we know what you're talking about in terms of additional space maybe some additional personnel and a training that sort of

088thing and the expense of the volume at that space could be a really big issue correct I appreciate those comments and absolutely I've been working very closely with superintendent case Mr Bishop and Donna and we are already thinking and mapping out in terms of budget projections about what we think we would need um in short in terms of ensuring that we have resources to get started with this next year um and we're also exploring what our options are for space opportunities but you are absolutely right space the space is a vector that's something that we need to continue to look at and we'll be having future conversations and we will keep you up to date throughout the whole process I think I was just going to say what Joe had said too but I'll just

089add on like I couldn't agree more like you said the teachers are the number one driver right right so I think even if we get the space in the building and funding program is only as good as the staff absolutely hopefully we'll be creative ways to recruit because I mean having the outpaid care as sure is a challenge but I know canton's not the only if this is going across the country at all scraps but Maybe by that time they'll be surge of applicants you know the reason Barbara is celebrating today is because uh thanks to Barbara's efforts we were able to recruit the very experienced teacher that's wonderful many times we look to hire you know highly qualified teachers but with less experience right that's a fiscal movement and this time we brought in

090a person because we needed to really enhance what we were doing in that program that's going to have a fiscal cost to us so you'll see in our next financial report but we're going to have to put money in now for a long-term investment and I know I know most of you here agree with that the last thing so on February 7 when I present the budget you'll hear more about what Barbara's talking about everything we know who will build that position who was cited yes go ahead Barbara So Andrew Brown is the teacher that will uh be taking over at the end of February at the learning lab in Trevor and she has 29 years of experience um teaching students with autism she comes from um an out of District placement therapeutic schools so

091she really has a deep understanding of what's required in terms of support for students with high needs and behavioral support means and I truly believe she is the right person for the job and she came along at the right time um right yeah so we are referral that was like hitting a grand slam we wanted to come to campus she did she only applied to Canton and she was looking for a small community District um that she could be a part of and you know she said she wants to be here for you know at least the next 10 years of her career and um we're thrilled to have her other questions question how's the adjustment when working with the High School population then um it's it's been different um so I will be honest

092with that it's um very different personality at the high school level compared to my background as as many of you know is is in the elementary age but I haven't found challenges or barriers I found what works really well um in terms of supports and working with families does also translate to high school and uh so far they've uh the teams have all been incredibly receptive parents have been receptive um and they they appreciate the approach I guess that I'm taking to being open and working with all of them as we navigate some some complex situations so so far so good okay yeah but it is different yeah yeah [Laughter] I mentioned that you um select one teacher from each school for training so just curious to know the process of how they bring that

093knowledge back to the school Community to other staff yeah so I love that question thank you Felicia um so they are going through their process right now it can tell you um Liz broadbar over at Cherry Brook is so excited um and she was already we had finished a PPT and she was already um talking with members of the team's speech language Pathologists kind of organically and naturally just some different strategies that we can start thinking about in terms of programming on a more formal level we use our weekly seminar meetings to share out on new learning from training so we do that whether it's the CT saids training modules um or something like Orton Gillingham so they'll be able the teachers will be able to go and kind of summarize what they've learned in

094high level big takeaways and strategies as an opportunity where they can model a strategy and encourage their their colleagues to try which is great and I often find that if you find a few teachers that are really passionate about teaching a certain subject let them go off and do it and model it and then you start seeing when we're meeting and talking about progress monitoring you start seeing that student growth and it gets the buzz going and it gets greater interest from other teachers so we are at the very beginning stages of that but there seems to be at Cherry Brook at Cas the middle and the high school there is a real want and desire to keep learning and to figure out these best practices are so yeah we started with three but I

095plan to expand that every year and budget I budgeted that in so yeah anything else well this is an impressive presentation I I wasn't here for the uh for your predecessors but uh this instrument's enlightenment thing and informative maybe in June you can come back and tell us how the first six months have been I love it I'll have to come up with any catchy titles thank you so much thanks for being out on that you know Tuesday night thank you good times and if you'd like the regular routines I think I think tonight you can see why uh Barbara was selected um Barbara as you can see is a true a true visionary a true collaborator which is one of our three most important values here here in the Canton Public Schools but along

096with that she's boots on the ground so Barbara said every school visiting classroom was collaborating with teachers um it's it's hard to find a person who has all of those strikes but we found her so Barbara we're so glad you're here great thank you kudos to you for for finding her okay thank you thank you all right um okay so moving right along we go to miss division thank you all I have a quick report tonight just wanted to let you know how we continue our work with our uh developing our literacy uh program waiver uh continue to have good conversations with the state um also with um representatives from our current uh curriculum uh our teachers College unit of study and we anticipate putting in our our waiver by the due date of uh

097February 26th we will have an opportunity to be able to with Americans from Craig and some other districts as well on Thursday to continue to be able to refine the waiver process but we're doing we're doing well with that and and we're anticipating meeting our goals um I wanted to share with you as well um that uh great work that Kara has been doing so far but one of the things that you might not see or understand just yet is that there is some some underground work that's being done or some background work ideas on on our newsletter so we're working to be able to revamp the newsletter that we've had in the past I was able to develop an electronic and print version of that that will go out so um may see her

098around in different staple photos doing interviews and working with folks to be able to put information together I know Mr Daniels will have a conversation with you about an element for us to be able to have in place our vote for that is to have that out by the end of February early March to be able to go in in sequence with some of the other major initiatives that are happening for us in the district I also want to thank Felicia for joining us um as an opportunities uh and uh Community engagement uh conversation coming together so thank you for being willing to join in Johnson the big deal on this is going to be how we promote ourselves for the budget yeah so you know how we plant those seeds and uh work community

099in informing them and educating them so they can help make a good decision one of the things that one of the things that um that we have done in planning our our newsletter is we did look at past newsletters that we've had here in Canton we may have also looked at some possible newsletters that were coming out with Grandview as well to be able to help cast the vision of what we're looking at to uh to move ourselves forward so I think you're absolutely right telling the story of the richness of what we do and the value of continuing to be able to support that is exactly where we want to be so we'll we'll talk further about that on Friday and be happy to be able to give some more of eggs um and

100then finally I just wanted to be able to give you all a quick update on um our our numbers um from we we received information from NASDAQ last year on what a projection for bodies look like for us going forward we did receive an update from them that is a little bit less aggressive but still contains the same kind of information that we were seeing that we will have uh a bubble in the in the relatively near future for us I'm competent in the the work that the board has been doing so far in having the conversation around that work and we'll continue to work with some consultancies to be able to provide us with the resources and possible next steps there so so the space issue is just not um it's it's classroom certainly

101it's new initiatives that's right uh that we're talking about it's also uh where our where our sexual office is located and how we're we're disjointed and we don't have that kind of same synergies and and uh we don't know what the future is going to bring the State Board of Education continues to look at mandatory Pre-K full day Pre-K I think it is right um which would which would add even more issues for us so so we're at the point right now where we're trying to be proactive we don't want to be reactive to our space um so so I think what John is doing right now and the plan that we're putting together and we're going to come back to you with a proposal of how we want to move this forward and touch

102all those bases for the uh for the education um this Pre-K um like three and four-year-olds and then five-year-olds would be kindergarten so it's adding two grades which is part of what we're offering right now Julie and that's exactly what we want to be able to do is continue to be able to ingest those early Learners to be able to have early intervention and early supports for those kids and not just the research is very clear on that in the sport for for kids as they continue on however it would be a bit of a change in practice from what we've had so far with only having one one class and then we doubled that to two this these past two years so okay anything else shown on Space uh that's it that's it for

103me right now okay thank you John good report thank you Donna let's kick it off okay tonight we have to approve the CIP so Donna was nice enough to the CIP meeting the Russell Brand and then she went back to the office to revamp what we talked about so thank God [Music] the church um a couple things there's one uh section there are one one page that I just handed out that is a summary of the grants that we also shared with the order Finance last night uh so that's just kind of an FYI so you can see what the grants are what we use them tours uh the date and it's just kind of an FYI I just figured I'd get that to you since I handed it out to the board of Finance

104last night um foreign okay so the CIP um you can see um the top item is uh boilers which is a we put a little bit uh away each year started that last year so uh and that's just basically the cost of a boiler because of the age um underground storage tank uh building up for the removal of the underground storage tank at Cherry Brook uh plate play playground repairs um relatively okay so that fifty thousand dollars on the Underground oil storage tank that's fifty thousand dollars to an existing sinking fund to take those out right which has to be totally removed by summer uh end of summer you know 20 times so that's not the whole cost that's not the whole box now uh okay the uh Turf and track replacement 74 000 that's

105an annual amount that uh I believe when the Trappers put in the board of Finance asked us to set aside each year uh 26 000 uh this is for uh this is the room that uh Camden Intermediate School which are really uh in dire need so uh that is a truth quote for twenty six thousand which is a great price on that um the AC units the rooftop units that's another one of those things that because there's so many uh and because of different ages of the units um we are starting to put aside twenty five thousand dollars a year for those units and that again began last year uh security upgrades uh this this um is basically the uh film if you remember last year we had some of the buildings front entrances uh

106uh we added film and uh on the Windows security film so we were hoping to do all of Cherry Brook uh as well as provide some ballards and some door upgrades at the high school and then in February we will have an executive session just to talk about our specific security measures and specifically what this look like right right exactly uh floor machines um for lack of a better word these are the uh machines that clean the floors some of them are pretty big they're the like buffers and things that have not been replaced in many years and are are pretty aged uh so this does not cover all of them it just covers like warning gear and we'll have more in the outer years uh as we interview um the second flooring and hallway

107ramp this is in addition to the project last year last year uh you remember we um allocated uh 110 000 basically for being revamped of the tech ed uh shops and uh during that time it became apparent that a ramp I don't know if you remember your walk around the ramp leading up to that the tile needed to be replaced so uh uh that tile has been removed uh and this is the cost to actually replace it uh bathroom upgrades uh at the high school high school slash Middle School really but this represents one bathroom this is again we're hoping to do this over a series of years to upgrade the bathrooms at least in the old wing of a high school uh including the fixtures and that hasn't been done I don't know ever

108so they are in need of uh some new pictures and repair so that totals the 402 and 500 that um the finance committee uh came up with uh this evening who else do you want to add any color to that or um no I mean we went through it and prioritized it from the last meeting so it was pretty well vetted by the finance committee that's what Donna ran out to uh go back to the office there's a lot more we wanted to ask for but clear minimum further questions on the ciph I'm just curious on the um rooftop AAC units these are 25 000 set aside for a year so out of the 16 total how much do we have set aside we know we only started the last year or so for two

109yeah and the floor machines you said started last year no that one started I'm hoping to start this year and the bathrooms that was the bathrooms is new this year they were identified last year interesting bare minimum is there something that's not on here that really should be on here getting done are we gonna be okay so you what you have to understand is 402 is one of the larger requests last year you got a pretty good sum but typically as you know the Board of Education gets between 150 and 225 on a request so we went we we uh put Donna help just prioritize that's how we get to 4025 I'd be shocked if we get it but um we'll we'll go from there any other questions you'll vote on this uh at the

110end of the meeting tonight audit report okay the auto report uh are the Auditors actually presented to the board of Finance last night uh but we do have um audit reports available for your for I only have six um what the bottom line is it was a clean audit um there were no findings um and so everything was uh really good as they said it was a really boring uh presentation because there was no fun there were no findings so cool what we like that's a good thing why don't you why don't you leave the books and anybody who wants to take The New Daughter whoever wants one could grab it and there were no um recommendations in a management letter for the board of education so that's a lot to be proud of and

111I thank Donna and our business office for ensuring that ensuring that everything that we do um followed proper procedure and protocol thank you thank you so much Diane no problem any other questions for Don on the finance report of Russell okay let's go to the recommended actions and let's go to the consent agenda if the case okay thank you for the consent agenda uh the one item is the approval of the meeting minutes from the January 10 2023 regular Board of Education meeting okay can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda thank you Russell the second delusion thank you any discussion all those in favor all right unanimous 8-0 thank you the next item is um something that Donna and I come to you a couple times a year are regarding and this

112is our Capital Improvement uh Project Reality so it's important that once a project is completed we move that money to another project that is yet to be completed and that's what Donna is requesting that the board do tonight move the monies under the recommended actions from one account to another okay so um so you want this right into the minutes or you just okay um Russell why don't you make this as a finance chairman you want to make this motion do you have it in Florida go ahead uh move that the Canton Board of Education we're allocate following funds within the poe Capital Improvement budget in order to eliminate residual balances between the projects eleven thousand dollars from Project number 048.00.994.59455 CIS sleep sleep roof repair fund project number 048.00.994.59463 CIS chimney repair um and

113then 455 dollars should be moved from Project zero four eight.00.992.59463 cbps brick and sidewalk prepares to fund the negative balance in Project number 048.00.994.59461cis correct and sidewalk repairs and then lastly 3615.75 project number zero four eight zero zero dot nine nine six now five nine four six one CHS 88 boys locker room to phone the negative balance in Project number 048.00.996.59459 cahs Ada girls collaborative thank you second please please thank you Erica um discussion I I have a question so um so Cherry Brooks brick and sidewalk was fixed and there was excess funds and it's being moved over to CIS to fix that um is that how that works yeah I mean it's we've been it's basically the CIS brick and sidewalk repairs were done but it went slightly over budget okay um basically so

114it was a negative balance of 455 dollars so we have to cover that somewhere where's that repair them where was that I walked that pretty frequently yeah yes yeah uh it may not have been very very recent oh um is uh okay the CIP only comes out quarterly and I think it's been there for about important what exactly was done to the locker rooms uh that was actually last year on the girls locker room uh naked Ada yeah showers uh I'm not sure if the showers are done I'm not sure exactly um I know it was different uh uh lockers and movement around so we so we did work on the boys locker room and then we sure we also did work on the girls like we went last year okay one of the things

115I might recommend is um another opportunity for board members to walk to schools again to see what's been completed what's not completed uh I don't think we we should do that once a year so I'll leave that to you later on the schedule thank you all right so I have a first and second uh we've heard of discussion hearing none all those in favor I opposed to say oh thank you very much thanks Russell okay and uh the final is to adopt the CIP do I have a motion for that or are we just gonna make one of them on the CIP oh it's great it's fun so what do you want to make a motion to uh that we adopted 20 23 2024 Capital Improvement plan thank you Russell so I can thanks very

116much any discussion any further discussion on faculty hearing none all those in favor aye close eight zero thank you on that okay good work any any uh further board member comments on anything at hand um I know we're looking to make a couple hires on the um and we have another round of interviews set up okay your anticipation in that hire would be about when I would like to come to you on February 7th okay with our recommendation great yes okay um anything on meetings that we need to know about anything special coming up we know February 1st the next boarding meeting is February 7th and then is that the is that the blood pressure but okay that's the project and and those who can make it tomorrow is the annual time meeting at seven

117o'clock in the uh it's a high school mission thank you okay anything else for comments nice sure the second question because you had on committee updates I'm very I didn't know we we don't you heard findings I didn't call him Erica for curriculum uh and Joe we're still working on constant policies they'll come forward at the next meeting But Eric I didn't mean to we didn't yeah thank you for that thank you for keeping me on track okay Joe did you answer uh yeah and a couple equipments I should ask our news report a Nature's Classroom go or no go or not don't know we're going to vote on that in the future so let me check on that also the third one uh because you got the budget for uh the proposed sabbatical yes

118can you ask that again I'm sorry can you put you guys a budget for the professionals you'll have that before the next weekend are we having an executive session a follow-up on class meetings executive session that we were going to get updates on you won't get an update until the next meeting okay yeah we're we're just completing um she hears something for the seven yeah our school calendar for 20 for next year yep are we updating that or modifying that or is that saying yes yes but we look at that in the spring we usually look at that in March okay um but to Joe's point I'm not even I haven't even looked at that yet so do you have a question about it or no I just I was looking ahead obviously because a

119lot of parents have asked and I interact them to the website and it's there um it was adopted in 2021 whatever advised in 2022 but I don't know if it has come does it have all the early releases and stuff someone's asking I just didn't know if it was it wouldn't have those need to approve those again yeah the last year one but I didn't see them on next year and I know how important essential those were for yeah I think you did a calendar um happy March right yeah I mean we're just second meeting in January I didn't know if we did a multiple year I just don't know how many years in advance foreign thank you Joe and Kim anything else anything else all right hearing none what would you do a journey

120at 902 . thank you Russell the second thank you all those in favor thank you everybody thanks does anybody wanna