Board of Education 5-15-25

001board today, Thursday, May 15th. Mr. Jazinski, roll call, please. Here, here. Here. Here. Here. Thank you. Please join us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. White. Yeah. U Madame Chair, I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda to move item 4C, personnel, up to right now in the meeting uh to happen before student reports. Motion on the table is to amend the agenda to move personnel reporting prior to our student representatives making a report. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Aki seconds. All in favor of the amended agenda. Unanimous. Personnel committee report. I will pass this over to the personnel chair, Miss Anne Cullinan. Madam Chair, um I would like tonight

002to make a motion to approve the superintendent's contract presented and discussed in executive session on May 15th subject to minor edits. The motion is on the floor. Is there a second? Mr. White second. Any discussion? Mr. Gripple, I get to kick this off. All right. Um well, uh uh I will be uh supporting the superintendent's uh contract this evening. Um it's a little bit of a a change uh from years past. Uh we're kind of moving out, I guess, a full three years uh this time around. Um but um we think it's a uh or at least I think it's a prudent move for the school system to ensure that uh the superintendent uh remains on uh to to see to at least see things through. We have a lot going on the next couple

003of years. Uh and um I'll definitely uh be supporting your contract, Dr. Herrian and then Mr. Eki. Yeah, this uh contract is a little different and goes out um for three years. We've been talking for a few years about um getting our superintendent salary sort of up to par with especially the superintendent in the DUI. So um this contract does that. We um I'm very pleased that we're um able to keep Dr. Solen on for uh the next little while. So I fully support this contract. Jackie Um, I'd like to thank uh my colleagues for all their efforts. We spent a long time discussing this and this is a uh a wellthoughtout contract. Uh some hard negotiation between us and Dr. Solen and we're very pleased that Dr. Solen is staying on. Um I will

004be supporting his contract and I'm very excited to keep working with him. Dwight, did you have a comment? I would also like to share that I am supporting this contract and I believe that this contract supports our belief um in Dr. Solen and the work that he has done in the past and the work yet to come. So I am very happy to support uh this contract with the rest of my colleagues on the board of ed. Thank you. Yeah, I I as well will be supporting this contract. I very much appreciate the job that the superintendent has done since before I was on the board and I think this is I've been on for five and a half years now. I I want to clarify something because it wasn't totally clear to me, but

005just so for people who are watching this, in years past, we have had a three-year contract with no salary beyond year one. So, the contract existed, but we would always vote on the salary. So the change that we're doing tonight in terms of sort of the standard contract is we're including the salary for three years. And just to put this out there, and correct me if I'm if I got something wrong here, Jeff, uh next year will be 254,000. The following year would be 265,000 and the third year would be 291,000. That's the basic idea. I uh I support this. It's a lot of money there. I do want to point out that not only do I want him to stay, uh, but also if we do end up going out, if we didn't move

006forward on this, and I believe that the superintendent could get a job elsewhere, probably fairly easily with a 10-year track record here as superintendent, and the average the average number of years, I think, is about three years in Connecticut for a superintendent now. Okay. I like continuity. Um, but another thing just that goes through my mind is the reality of um going out and looking for someone new who frankly I doubt would be I I'm sure there's somebody out there who's better. I think Jeff, you do a really good job. Um, and and I don't want to I don't want to look for I don't want to look for somebody else. And I don't mean to say just pointing out the cost that whenever we do end up going out for new superintendent at some

007point, let's say you retire in 10 years or something like that, um there is the cost of the search firm uh relocation because the town charter requires the superintendent to live here in the town of Cheshire. Um, so there's a number of costs that are baked into that that are also uh would exist most likely if we went to new superintendent. Again, I want you to stay, but I'm just pointing this out as sort of a backdrop to what we're looking at as a board. What I'm what's going through my mind. Um, and I think that, yeah, the the one thing that goes through my mind the most, I think you as a superintendent, sort of the standard superintendent role, the curriculum, I think your focus on SEAL, the complex thinking, I like it. I

008appreciate it. I think you're doing a really good job with that. Um, but the one thing that we have here that most towns don't have is school modernization and getting us through the next 15 16 months, getting the schools open on time and within budget. I have every belief that you will do it and that is that's probably my number one expectation in terms of this contract. So, uh, thank you for everything you've done and in advance for what I expect you're going to be doing in the years to come. Other comments? So, I I'm going to echo Dr. Solen. I think I'm the only one that probably knows you the longest, having my children gone through you when you were assistant principal and principal at Dodd and then principal at, you know, the high

009school and then as superintendent. Um, and I, you know, being in the business, so to speak, it's it's data driven. And, um, I've clearly been able to see from a parent perspective, from taxpayer perspective, that what you do well is that you take feedback and you try to improve um, based on the community feedback and the members on the board here, no matter what board it has been, um, that is something that I've always um, admired about you is the fact that you listen and then you apply. And so I appreciate that. I appreciate being able to navigate especially this year one of the hardest budgetary seasons ever for your however 10 years as super. So um but just to inform the public there are accountability measures um you know it may sound from what

010Mr. White has said that the salary might be a lot right um but built into that there are accountability measures that Dr. Solen is well aware of and and beyond that the board unanimously agreed that we also need to make the public aware. So his contract will be available not only by charter on the town site but also on the board of education website. So if you have any questions you can obviously refer to the board of education website for that as well too. Um but I I believe we Mr. White did you have a question? No. Yes. Go ahead sir. Thank you. Yeah, I don't think it got mentioned here at all. I just wanted people to understand why I made the motion to move this up in the agenda because people are waiting

011here. Uh not not all the members here are going to be here for the rest of the night and we all wanted to be here for this particular vote. We didn't just accelerate the agenda for no particular reason. So, thank you for clarifying for us. But, um other than if there aren't any other comments um we are going to move for a vote. Is there a public comment as well too? So, we're gonna just leave time for anybody to go to the mic if you have a comment. Nope, doesn't look like it. So, we will call for a vote to approve if Miss Cullinin, can you please read the motion one more time? I can read it. the motion um to approve the superintendence contract presented and discussed in executive session today on May 15th

012subject to minor edits. It was seconded already. So all those in favor of the motion that is on the floor, it is unanimous. Thank you. Madam Chair, if Yes, sir. Please do. Thank you. I just want to thank the board for uh their support, not only through the contract process, which is an annual thing as a superintendent, but um throughout the year to allow us to do the incredible things we do for our kids. Um also our administrative team. But uh first and foremost, I want to thank my wife who is constantly supportive of the many nights out that I do and the uh hours and um sometimes really supportive, sometimes not Facebook posts that are out there. Um and so I uh this has been a privilege for me to work here for the

013last 20 years uh in various roles as you mentioned but um the last nine as superintendent and I I really look forward to the next nine. Um so thank you very much. Thank you Dr. Solen. Okay, next item on the agenda will be our presentations. This is kind of my favorite time before we move on to the presentations. I did not forget my student leaders in front of me here. I think this is your last report. Make it a good one. Pressure's on. Testing. All right. All right. So, good evening every Oh, did you say it was our our last report, lady? This is our last report. We have one more. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. No pressure. Yeah. also make a good one. Unless you don't want It's on June 12th, the next

014meeting. So, I'm kidding. I think we have an event planned. That's graduation for anyone who's unaware. Senior skip day on June 12th. Is that what you're saying? Yes, you don't. Okay. All right. So, we seniors are gearing up for some final events to finish the school year off with a bang. We'll have our awards convocation on the 20th, our honor court ceremony on the 23rd, our senior picnic on the 30th, and of course, graduation on June 12th. Speaking of which, thank you to the C CHS PTO and Cher community for organizing and sponsoring our annual postgra post-graduation all night grad party. Now, obviously, we can't be the only ones having fun during this time of year. That is why starting on Monday, students and teachers will be competing in Chester High's first spirit week. Organized

015by the student senate and the National Honor Society, spirit week pits each class against each other and their teachers in many activities and dressup themes. The team with the most points by the end of the week will win. Our sports team our sports teams seem to know all about that competitive spirit. All of our spring sports teams have either already qu qualified for or are on track to qualify for their CIA state tournaments. Several of our teams are ranked among the top 10 in Connecticut. Back at CHS, freshman, sophomores, and juniors are getting ready to elect next year's student government officers. On June 4th, all candidates will be giving speeches in front of their peers, and voting will begin the same day. To end off the month of May on a comedic note, the Aries

016production, How to Survive Being in a Shakespeare play, will be performed on May 30th and 31st at 7 p.m. in the John H. Thorp auditorium. This show takes the audience on a journey across many of Shakespeare's stories, but with a slightly different perspective. We hope to see you all there supporting the cast and crew of Aries in what will be the seniors' final show at CHS. Okay, little disclaimer. We actually thought that this was our last board meeting and so did I. That's why I said that. Yeah. So, we kind of framed our script around that. So, the entire bottom section of the uh script is like null and void. Okay. But we are happy to be seeing you guys next month for next month's meeting. Thank you. Any questions from board members? Mr. I

017just like to say uh any uh uh one of the great aspects of public speaking is being being able to adlib if things go sideways. So thank you. Um we were not here for decision date. So can you just announce where the two of you are heading? I think I know. Um I will be attending MIT in the fall. I'll be attending Yukon in the fall. Go. Congratulations. Thank you folk that was great and we will see you in June then for sure. All right Dr. June 5th it's well before like a whole week before GRE presentations are up next if Dr. Solen. Um, we have the first one which is the CAB student leaders. Thank you, Miss Rosenberg. Um, so this evening we have the incredible opportunity to recognize five very special students with

018the CAB, the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education Student Leadership Awards. The awards program was developed to give local boards of education a chance to reward student leadership potential. The students selected tonight were drawn from hundreds of peers, uh, literally over a thousand students because they demonstrated incredible leadership qualities that were defined by the CAB's board of directors. Those leadership criteria include willingness to take on challenges, capability to make difficult decisions, concern for others, the ability to work with others, willingness to commit to a project, diplomacy, ability to understand issues clearly, ability to honor a commitment. even if you thought today was the last meeting and the last meeting is actually a week from now or excuse me a couple weeks from now. So, um you know, like I said, the students being recognized tonight

019from Dodd Middle School and Cheshire High School stand out as real superstars among their peers. And this isn't necessarily an academic award, though all of our students receiving the award tonight have really exceptional academic performance, but uh this is a lot about character and the sort of people that you want leading your group. And so, uh, tonight I'm proud to recognize and I ask that they please come up to the podium, uh, from Dodd Middle School, Lily Giuliano, Palmer Simpson, Tatum Gutman, and from Cheshure High School, Lydia Gali, and Malachi Bea. Come on up, guys. Follow pictures. If you want to take a picture, come on. You go first. Get a little closer together. Look at me first. One more. Thank you, Dr. Sen. Dr. You're going to move into C. The award of excellence

020for Honorable Mansion. I'm sorry. Are you moving to C? B. Uh, the school partnership awards. Okay. Thank you. If uh we could welcome up Mr. Mr. Grippo. Mr. Grippo. Oh, no. Mr. Mr. White has Norton and Mr. Gribble has Dittle. Perfect. All right, Mr. White, come on down. I got a Come on. Our Norton recipient is Claire Newell. Claire joined the Norton school community during the 232 24 school year. Due to personal reasons, Clare was not able to return to us full-time for this school year, but at the same time did not want to leave her school family completely. Clare has been able to come to school each week to support our primary students, especially those in Mrs. Hart's room. Clare enters the building with a smile and leaves the same way. You can find

021her in the classroom reading with a student or assisting students in the cafeteria. The Norton School family feels very fortunate that Mrs. Claire Newell has been able to continue to share her time with us. [Applause] Yeah, you always [Applause] very daddy. [Applause] And we also have a school partnership recognition from Dittle School. So, uh, Mr. Grio, if you want to come down, we have Miss Lopa, the assistant principal from Dittle School. Do you want to read it? I wasn't sure it was supposed to. Okay. Okay. Okay. At this evening's meeting, the recipient of the school partnership award for Dittle School will be recognized. Um, Adam Grippo, the board of education representative uh to Dittle School, will also introduce the school recipient, Deianne Moore, who was nominated by Miss O'Brien. Would you like to go since

022it said your name? Don't want to take over. Go ahead. Miss O'Brien said that uh over the past six years uh Deian Moore has been an invaluable partner to our school community, dedicating her time, energy, and heart to supporting our staff and students in meaningful ways. As the chairperson of the Dittle PTA teachers appreciation committee, Deianne has gone above and beyond in recognizing and celebrating our educators. She has tirelessly organized breakfasts, lunchons, and special raffle prizes, ensuring our teachers feel valued, not just during teacher appreciation week, but throughout the entire school year. Beyond her work with staff, Deianne has actively involved students in showing gratitude for their teachers, fostering a culture of appreciation within and and fostering a culture of appreciation within our school. Her leadership and creativity have inspired students to contribute thoughtful gestures

023that honor and that honor the dedication of our educators. Additionally, her talent for organizing and decorating has transformed the doolittle school environment multiple times a year, making spaces feel warm and inviting. Her dedication is evident in every detail, and her def her efforts have had lasting impact on the school community. Deianne embodies the spirit of partnership. Doolittle is incredibly fortunate to have her as part of the Dittle family. Congratulations, [Applause] Congratulations to those um school recognitions. Uh and last but not least, we have a recognition from again the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education. Each year they u provide districts the opportunity to submit special projects that um might be exemplars for the state of Connecticut and for boards of education to try and um build practice and and um recognized excellence within our state.

024One of the uh applicants from Cheshire this year was recognized uh in the category of um educational communications. It was for the newsletter be in the No. Now, if you're in the know, you know that that is the Dodd Middle School uh staff newsletter that uh Principal Kelly Grill uh put puts together with her team and disseminates through the school each week. And it is really amazing. It is it should be recognized as an exemplar for faculty communication. It's inspiring. It's informative. Um, and it's it's uh something that you can go to, you can always turn to when you've got a question about what's going on in your school community as an educator, a professional in the building. And so, uh, we were really proud, uh, Miss Solano and I to nominate that, uh, communications

025for recognition because we realize how special it is. Um, and it's rare for, uh, principal's new newsletter to the staff to be recognized, but it really speaks to the quality of what Miss Grill puts out. So, uh, Kelly, congratulations on your award. Come on up. [Applause] Congratulations everybody. You're welcome to definitely stay because the next item on our agenda is audience. So, I will give it a few seconds for anybody to walk to the podium. Please state your name and your address. All right. Seeing no audience members at the podium, we will move on to consent calendar. Looks like and it looks like we have to have approval of grants resolution which I think I just signed to Carol. I follow directions, right? Um but we do need to call for a motion to approve

026the consent calendar as presented. So if somebody Dr. Harrian that the treasure Sure. move that the Cheshire Board of Education approves the consent calendar as presented. The motion is on the floor. Is there a second? Mr. Grio. All those in favor of the motion that is on the floor, unanimous. Thank you. Consent calendar is done. Presigned. Next items are our committee reports. We are going to go to curriculum. Miss Cullinin is not available. So I'm going to forward to Miss Lano if you can give us the committee report. You bet. got rowdy out there. I'm excited. Yeah, it is. Apparently, our curriculum committee met on Monday, April 21st, and the first order of business that night was for a new US history textbook called US History Interactive. and Tim Galvin, who is our department chair,

027was there to share some information about the book. He um noted that there was a team of three teachers who evaluated three separate textbooks. They came to the resounding conclusion that this one is the one that would meet their needs. They looked at all aspects of the C3 standards. They looked at the readability. This textbook would be um for 10th graders who are taking the uh US history course. So they start with US history in eighth grade. They go to modern world in nth grade and then everyone takes US history in 10th grade or or most everyone. Um we have some AP courses in there. This is not the AP course. This is the um regular history class. So the other material that we had was outdated. That publication date was 2003. So we really

028needed to find something new. This covers from the post civil war through national identity in the United States. They cover also the early 2008, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. As I said, this is um primarily a sophomore level class. So we discussed that textbook. We went on to talk about an algebra 1 resource. We had kept the um board updated on progress with a pilot of an I Ready algebra 1 course. If you recall, we are using I Ready in sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade. So, this would be to continue that momentum through the algebra course, which could be taught at DOT. it will also be taught at the high school. So they looked at this algebra textbook for rigor. They looked at the tasks and what they asked students to do. The curricular

029design aligns with our district definition of highquality instruction. The previous resource we had was big ideas and it gave equal weight to all of the standards across the text when that's not really accurate in the um in the in the I guess the scope and sequence. There are certainly more standards that need heavier weight. So it made sense to have both one program in Ire and it made sense to give exposure at the appropriate time to to each of the standards. Um our the company that we're working with is taking feedback on the resources and they're currently developing the things that we have talked about that we'd need. Um it will be ready for next year. The pilot is ending so we felt like we had their attention. Um I want to thank Mr. Hanlin

030for really leading this effort both with the middle school and with the high school teachers. So these both of these books were approved by the curriculum committee. um they will go out for public review and then they will come back to the full board in June for a vote. The other things that we covered at that meeting were field trips, some outofstate field trips, one to Orlando, Florida, which is the DECA conference, another to Washington DC, which is our annual Dodd field trip. We have a performing arts field trip for next February to Orlando, Florida. and yet another one for the pop culture class for April of 2026. We did have a Dominican Republic trip which was on the books but it had been cancelled. So we let the committee know about that. Following that,

031Mr. Hanlin gave us a brief overview of the high school schedule. When Dr. Gad left, she had shared a version of the schedule that she and a number of representatives from the high school had worked on. The 2025 2026 schedule was published in January of this year. It includes eight total periods, five sessions each day with 68 minute classes, which is sort of the middle version of um that the block schedule and mini classes. So this is 68 minutes through staff and student feedback. There were two main areas of feedback given. One was the rotation of classes and the other was homework. Homework was a significant concern for students and through department meetings, a student forum and a faculty meeting. Feedback was given on proposed mild updates to this rotation and planning for appropriate homework

032design. The final version of this schedule aims to apply the best practice of balancing the frequency of meetings and the length of each class. So, we were very pleased to see that that's coming to fruition and will be implemented next year. Lastly, the Cheshire Curriculum Council, which completed its five-year review, had an executive summary for the subcommittee. It was Scott Jeffrey, Lisa Bernabi, Tom Tuscano, and Jess Atnes. All of our math leaders provided that presentation talking about their goals for curriculum, assessment, instructional strategies, texts and resources, and professional development. Some of the highlights included the adjustments that we made to the middle and high school course pathways, course pathways, and continuing that curriculum alignment work K through 12. Additionally, there's a focus on instructional priorities of incorporating those math practices, responsive teaching, the consolidation process,

033and homework all were noted as areas for continued improvement. So, that is the curriculum overview. Any questions from board members? Mr. Gerbo. Hi, Marlene. Hi, Adam. Um, so two questions. So firstly, um, this rattle my brain and I'm sure the parent will now appreciate that I'm asking the question. Um, this parent sent me uh pictures uh of a her uh daughter's uh history book from uh textbook from high school that had the the line of presidents that ended in 2000 with George W. Bush. So I'm guessing this is the textbook that's being replaced. That is the one. Okay. So that parent will be very happy to hear that. Um and then secondly, um in regards to the schedule for the high school, uh when you uh mention, uh let's see, how was it mentioned? Um

034uh homework, what was it? Homework design or homework uh yeah, the students were concerned about homework, just homework in general or is it was it a matter of fitting in study halls or what was the concern? It was because the way the current rotation sits, they don't have homework in the same subject every night and so they know which night they sort of get a a night off of. They always have homework and with the extra long classes, they're able to, you know, incorporate some of that. So, they were worried that their homework was going to be the same every night even though they had, you know, um, didn't had the classes every day. So, there was conversation that Mr. Hanland had with teachers and with the students about, you know, we need to we

035need to manage those expectations. The homework load will also shift based on the the amount of time that you're in class. So, it was valid concern on the part of the students if you're thinking that you're going to have that same amount of homework that's for two nights every night. So, I think that he worked with them to manage expectations around that for both students and teachers. Oh. Oh, manage expectations. So not not necessarily um accommodate just to let them know that the reality might be different than Yeah. No, I think the teachers needed to needed to hear that that was a a concern for students so that they would design it differently. Okay. Yeah. So it won't necessarily be the same. It's just that the Okay. Gotcha. Anything to add there, Mr. Hanland? I

036don't want to speak for you. So one one of the concerns is because they meet every other day they decide whether to do my history homework tonight or tomorrow night. So if I'm at a sporting event tonight, I know that I have tomorrow. So this is adjusting kind of the design so that everybody can get good students. It will not be brand new for teachers because they existed. every other day for a long time. So, we just need to lean on some of their previous practice and draw that back up. So since you weren't on a microphone, um I'll I'll sort of try and summarize that basically uh managing expectations meant that um the homework situation will change, but you're working with students and teachers to make it not as bad as they might think

037it could be. Thank you. All right, white and Yeah. No, I was just wondering do the microphones pick up people sitting back there or do we need to speak to the microphone? It's better if they do. I just the reason I ask I know what some of those microphones we have in the classrooms are amazing but that's not what we have here. Yeah, just for future reference so people at home know. Um, correct me if I'm wrong, Miss Solano, but um, I'm pretty sure that we were informed in curriculum committee meetings that even though those history books were a little outdated, that curriculum is covered with supplemental materials. And so, it's not as if our students have have no knowledge of history from 2000 on. Yeah, I really appreciate you making that point. I I

038should have caught that. But yes, we had a significant conversation in our fall curriculum committee meetings with Tim Galvin there to say that they did a lot of supplementing and even with the textbook, they did not stop teaching history during the Bush administration and continued. It just might not have been in the book. That's absolutely accurate. Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. I think I I may have said I you know known this parent for a while and I may have said well it is a history book so it doesn't necessarily have to be you know yeah totally up to date but you know depending on the subject I suppose but that's good supplemental and in my mind that never even dawned on me that because the book didn't have it that our teachers wouldn't

039wouldn't be doing it. So thank you for pointing that out. I think they work really really hard to keep everything fresh and to use primary sources and um stay current. Thank you. That is concludes curriculum. No, we have one more item. Um and I'm just going to read this. Uh, in accordance with board policy, the following textbooks will be made available for public viewing in the Cheshire Public Library, Cheshire High School Library, and the Office of Curriculum and Instruction at 29 Main Street from Friday, May 16, 2025 through Friday, May 30th, 2025, and slated for approval and adoption at the board of education meeting on June 5th, 2025. The textbooks are US history interactive publisher SAS learning for grade 10 and I ready classroom mathematics algebra 1 by curriculum and associates for grades eight and

040nine. Thank you. Thank you Miss Alana. Next um committee report and looks like there's some items that are going to influence the vote on this one. So Dr. Mr. Heran, take it away as I'm chewing it. Yeah. So, included in your packet is the financial report for the 202425 board of education budget reflecting expenditures and incumbrances. I love that word. Um through April 30th, 2025. Um there are several items that we will be discussing including the financial report itself, medical benefits report, the 2023 2024 audit report, approval of increase to school meal prices, and a report on grant activity for the 2024 2025 school year. So with that, I will leave it to Mr. Masiana to uh walk us through some of these items. Thank you, Miss Dr. Harrian. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I

041will highlight uh first financial report through April 30th. The um we're down to the wire obviously as we you know enter now the month of May and June to close out our books. I will point out in this month's finance report that if you look at our projected year-end balance, instead of zeroing out, we anticipate closing our books with a $250,465 surplus balance. And that is being done because when we worked through the approval of the budget for the 2526 school year which was reduced the uh discussions we had including with the board and the town council was that if we could carry uh money from this year's budget as a surplus put it into a an account for uh use next year that that's what we would do. So, this report reflects our first

042um pass at how we'll arrive at that $250,000 balance. Um, and with that, I I will say that the overall the budget year has been fairly straightforward in that we have had no major surprises. You know, the um expenditures that you see reflected on the report are consistent with our budget. And in order to be able to end the year with $250,000 remaining, we will manage to that by reducing the expenditures we normally make at the end of the year, whether it's summer purchases or summer maintenance projects. As the board knows, throughout the year, we do not allow expenditures to be fully made against budget accounts. We've held the line at 70% for most of the last portion of the school year. So, we are um looking good, I would say, to be able to

043close out our books on June 30th, which is the last board of directors uh board of education meeting. Um and you know, we will provide at that date the final transfers to be made to end with 250,000. Again, in this report, just because the way the numbers worked, it's 250465. So, it is in the right ballpark. I will stop there to see if there are any questions before I move to medical benefits. Okay, medical benefits report. I I will start with the um benle reserve balance is 2,15,741. That's 1.7 months claims. Um we didn't have at the last board meeting, we didn't have the March report. And so when you look at the March claims, you'll see that they were 660,000, which is well below what we've been averaging. And you'll see that the April

044claims are $1.8 million, well above what we have typically averaged, which is about 1.2 million per month this year. The reason for that very simply is that in the month of March there was a large claim over $400,000 that was reversed and so it showed that our claims were were artificially lower and then that claim was reprocessed in April. So those two months really have an offset to each other and if you do the math they average in at about 1 uh 25 million per month. So it didn't have uh any large impact on our medical benefits reserve balance. Um there is some reconciliation that our carrier Sigma is doing with the reprocessing of of that one large claim. Um and on a year-to-ate basis you know our claims have been averaging 1.28 million per

045month versus our expected of 1.18 million. Um, so it's a little bit above where we expect it to be, but again, the the goal for this year was to end with a reserve balance near where we started. We started at 2.3 million. We're currently at a little over 2 million. Um, and I expect we'll end above the $2 million mark. So, we'll see how claims work the last two months. Any questions for Mr. Massiano? Mr. White. Yeah, sorry. I'm not sure if I missed it. Could you give a status update on the performance contract? I can if you'd like. Yeah, if you could. I mean, just so you understand where I'm coming from. I'm thinking it's entirely possible it ends up being like a five or 10 million contract for the town. I think it

046could be useful just because this the potential size of it is why it typically has. Okay. Thank you. Well, if there's no questions on medical, I'll do that very quickly now. Okay. So, the energy performance contract the this week actually the town council uh heard a presentation from Justin Benois uh and Alan Librio from Johnson Controls. The working group that includes uh Tim White, you know, had been meeting. We interviewed three different firms as I had explained in prior meetings of the board and Johnson Controls was the firm that was recommended to take this initiative forward and so the town council did vote in favor of the recommendation from the working group. So Johnson Controls is now engaged and will take us through the next step of the process which is called an investment grade

047audit where they will go into all school and town buildings except for the three buildings we're taking offline obviously and they will further examine and determine looking at our HVA systems, motors, uh all types of appliances that we have in our schools um determining where we can add solar, if a fuel cell or battery storage system will work, and they will work to put together a contract in which we will reduce our utility costs and that savings will pay for infrastructure improvements. The work that Johnson Controls did in this initial phase was premature, but they identified over 20 million dollars of potential infrastructure improvements, and that would generate about $738,000 in utility savings per year. So, that utility savings would go to pay over a 20-year period, the $20 million of infrastructure work. And then

048once that 20-year repayment period is over, any energy savings that continue forward, we reap the benefits of. So it is a a contract that enables us to do quite a bit of infrastructure improvements, you know, and pay for it through energy savings. It will take several months to do this examination by Johnson Controls. As they're going through the process, we will be updating the working group and ultimately the working group will review all the energy conservation measures that are identified and look at is there a contract that is viable before it gets formal approval and the town council does do the formal approval of the contract. So, it's a great step. you know, we think Johnson Controls will be a really strong partner for us as we go through and it was impressive to see

049the, you know, potential infrastructure improvements that could be made. So, thank you, Tim, for your work. Also, the other members of the working group, which includes Fiona Pearson from the town council, Chris Smith from the energy commission. Thank you for the update, Mr. Dr. Heron Herrian made me do it, but uh so just explain how a medical claim gets cancelled and reinstated. Yeah, it wasn't cancelled, it was um it was reprocessed, but it reprocessed over a two-month period. So, the question is why does that happen? And without giving you all the details, I will say that if someone has coverage from two different providers and it's processed from one provider and it's determined that another provider may have or should have been the primary carrier to process that claim, it's in that scenario that a

050claim would get reversed. um a determination is then made should it have been reversed. So it's between the insurance carriers. You know I I did learn of one rule that I was not aware of. If you have um two insurance carriers that would provide the same coverage, then they use the um date of birth of the person who has coverage to determine which carrier is primary and which carrier is secondary. And it's it does have quite a dramatic cost impact on where the claim is processed. Obviously, the primary carrier carries much of the cost and the secondary carrier carries a smaller portion of it. First time it's happened to this magnitude since I've been here for 15 years. How are there two carriers? Well, if you think about a typical situation where that can happen,

051you have a parent that has coverage for their adult child. the adult child begins working and then has their own coverage. So is that when the incident happened as to when the okay these days you don't see a lot of cases where there are two carriers other than perhaps with Medicare, right? Because the cost of insurance is so high. It's very rare that you'll you'll see two major primary two major carriers, you know, for an individual that's not at Medicare eligibility. So, is there an ongoing dispute between the two carriers? And if yes, uh will that delay any stoploss recovery for us? It will result in the same thing we saw here. There may be a reversal and a reprocessing of stop loss. But would there be a delay like a significant delay? Oh, you

052mean a repayment to us? Yeah. No, not not substantive. In fact, we've already been paid stop loss on on this particular claim. Okay. So, if you looked a little bit deeper, our stop loss uh reimbursement actually went down this month. It was higher and it was reduced. So, we've already been paid the stop loss in that. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I was expecting that question to come up actually. So, thank you for asking. My feet were held to the fire. So, like, oh, okay. Um, next item, the audit report. You want me to keep going? Because the next one is why we have delicious. Yes. Yes. So, uh, just very quickly, the town council had its audit committee meeting on April 30th, which I do attend that meeting every year. Our auditors from CLA come

053in and they provide an update to the audit committee on the results of this of the audit. This audit was for the 2324 fiscal year that ended June 30th of 2024. I did provide in the board's packet a copy of the auditor's letter. They issued a um clean opinion based on the review and obviously when an audit is done in the town, it includes not only the town but the finances of the board of education as well. So that is an you know it's an excellent piece of news that we have a clean opinion. It's not the first time it's happened. Um I will add just there are three major components to the audit. One is the audit of the financial report of the of the town. The second is a single state audit report

054where the auditors examine um the grants that are paid by the state. And then the third component is a single audit of federal grants. This year, one of the federal grant programs that was um audited closely was the child nutrition cluster, which is a a food services um budget, and there were no uh there were no findings that were problematic. So, it was good audit all the way around. And the um town's annual comprehensive financial report is available for viewing on the the town's website which also includes the opinion of the auditors which I provided. And the last thing I wanted to mention is that um CLA which has just completed its fifth year um as our audit firm, they um provided pricing to extend for two years and the town council did approve CLA

055to continue on as the town and board of ed auditors for the next two years which we're happy about. you know the you know the working with the CLA group um over the last five years you know has been positive you know certainly there are things that they find you know we work through them um they um you know are a good good group and we will just continue on with that for two more years then is there a particular rating scale like they don't rate if there if there were any kind of findings um they would identify that in the letter so It's either a clean opinion or an opinion that might have some deficiencies whether they're material or not. They would disclose that. In this case, there were not. And so, if we

056were to fall on that lower end, we'd have time to improve whatever. If they identify deficiency, depending on the severity, they would impose either some corrections that needed to be made. There's also a report that gets, you know, filed with the state and, you know, those corrections would have to be made and the state would have to be kept notified of those corrections. So, we didn't have any of that. Got it. Any questions, Mr. White? Thank you. Uh, yeah. So, clean opinion. That's great. Thank you very much. But I just want to be clear on this. Normally they would give us some sort of recommendations even stuff and and I'm not too interested in us being tisk test that we have petty cash at at the high school football games. Yeah. And I understand that

057is a control weakness but it's just not reality to do anything about that and Venmo might change it but anyway besides recurring stuff like that did they have any recommendations new ones this year? Yeah they they so they they'll typically provide recommendations in the management letter. Yep. Um, in years past we've had two or three. This year the only one they had was the completion of an accounting procedures manual that there they've been making this recommendation to us for a couple of years to document all the processes we have on the town and the board of ed side. We've been working with the town. We have a shared uh network drive that we do have our accounting procedures but it's not complete. It's one of these tasks that we've been working on whenever we have

058time. So, one of the things that was suggested by Jim Jinx was um to ask CLA if they will provide us with basically a work assistance where they would help us prepare the accounting procedures manual. So, they did um agree not to quote a price yet, but we're meeting with them next week to talk about what we need, how many different people would be involved in this review of procedures and then they'll give us a price to help us complete this accounting procedures manual. Thank you. And and part of what's driving that is, you know, the the point that they've made is they've seen in other municipalities where they have a high degree of turnover, you know, in the finance department in particular that documenting the procedures allows for continuity. So, it's certainly a sensible

059thing to do. And as I said, we've got quite a bit documented, but it's not complete and we would like to complete it. Do do you think So, including yourself, so all the way to the top of your finance department. I believe you're expecting some turnover in the next 12 months. Do you think there's any chance that you could you'd be able to get the lion share of that documented? We'd think so. The the person actually we're we're talking to is the same person that did the student activity review and made several recommendations. Jeff Ziplo is his name. Okay. So because that, you know, accounting procedures manual, we I don't think we do anything really out of the ordinary. Yeah. So if they have a good starting point for us, you know, they'll come in,

060do some interviews, look at what we do, help us document it, we'll see what the price is, but it is something that um we should be able to complete, you know, before the next audit is done. Okay, great. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Hi V. Um, so would the auditors be helping you put the procedures together? Because how could how could they audit your procedures if they're the ones who put them together? Yeah. So Jeff Ziplo is not on the audit team. He's on the consulting side. Okay. So it' be more about you would have a hire a consultant to do that. Yeah. Okay. Yes, that's what it is. That makes more sense. All right. Thanks. Okay. Okay. Are we ready to move on? So for school meal prices, I would like to introduce

061Emily Taylor, our assistant chief operating officer, and Erica Bajetti to explain the recommendation and why and how much we're recommending at this time. Well, good evening everyone. Uh before we jump into the meal pricing increase, I want to write a past wrong not bringing snacks when we talked about food. So, both Erica and the snacks are available for this presentation, so please help yourself. Thank you for the cookie bribes. Yes, they're delicious. They're perfectly underbaked. Uh, anyways, so uh this evening we're going to talk to you uh mostly Erica is going to talk to you about a recommendation for school meal impre um school meal price increases. So Erica completed a really robust financial and competitive analysis for next school year and she's going to recommend a 25 cent increase to breakfast and a 50-cent

062increase to lunch. Uh the justification for the increasing meal price there's incre increasing labor costs and food costs and our uh desire to keep program enhancements that exist so we can offer great quality food to our students. Uh there was the the recommendation to increase meal prices last year that was ultimately deferred to this year. So here we are. Uh last year we were under the target price set by the Connecticut Department um uh state department of education. The target price was 3.85. Our school lunch prices are 350, 375 and $4 at elementary, middle school and high school respectively. And so we are coming here just to talk about why we are recommending the 25 cent increase to breakfast and the 50 cent increase to lunch at all grade levels. So with that I'm going

063to turn it over to Erica. Good evening everyone. Very good to see you. Thank you for having me and enjoy the snacks. Some healthy and non-healthy versions. Um so I feel like we have been talking about this multiple times. So I'll go over the information and then any questions that anyone has of course. Um so as you'll see the information in front of you um we are looking um to increase based on all the information. Thank you very much Emily for the 385 to get that target price up. Um we do see we're we receive commodities every year. So next year part of the loss um in revenue is we are going to be down about $50,000 in commodities. It's the amount given to us based on meal sales. Um so now we're working off

064of meal sales that were less than when they were with free meals. We're looking at a 10% increase in the cost of goods. Um due to many factors including our local foods that we're having, as well as anticipating any increases in food costs and supplies going forward into next year, as well as keeping our local foods program um going as much as it has been. We've been able to introduce maple syrup, local honey, as well as lettuce grown from Torington and Guilford. Um, so that's very important to us to have that and continue to grow that as well. And having our wage increases by 5% to keep us competitive with the minimum wage increase that we've seen across the board as well as competitive in our market with the other districts of food service around

065us. Um, so we work very hard to put the best meals forward every day and as we can see in the documentation, it does show a loss for next year even with the 50 cent increase for lunch. Um, but that can hopefully be very much mitigated with us increasing our participation due to how delicious the meals are because everyone loves school meals. Don't know anyone who doesn't. Just saying. Um, as well as being able to help manage our food options and having all the choices available to students that they enjoy and they choose to uh consume and doing our best to manage all of our labor costs and hours and staffing and having full staff available. So that is mainly um we haven't increased prices since 2022 23 and that increase was actually during the

066time when meals were free. So that didn't have any direct impact to families. Um, we know that everyone is struggling right now. If anyone goes to the grocery store, everyone knows that everything is increasing. It's always, of course, a tight budget year as well. So, we do understand the impact that this does have to families and having that um increase. It is essential to the functions of us to be ensuring that we're providing the best quality food and options to our students to continue to be in the market and having that price point fit where we want our meals to be. Um, so I mean a small coffee at Dunkin Donuts is 265. So it is more expensive for a small coffee than for a complete breakfast at school. I mean and a happy meal

067is 573. So that's just over at the top. I mean we don't even have a 573 meal. And a Jersey Mike's small sub is very expensive. And our deli line at the high school is gorgeous. Uh they do put a very wide array of toppings and they work really hard to have it be very nice and colorful. So, and just the last piece I'll point out because I know there's probably questions about the finances, but in the modified profit and loss statement that you have, we've boldened the recommendation for the 25-cent increase to breakfast and the 50cent increase to lunch. What you'll see here is if we didn't change the prices, the bottom line is the profit and loss expected at $250,000. If we increase the price, and as Erica stated, a 10% increase of

068cost of goods sold and a 5% increase in wages, that puts us at uh approximately negative $120,000. And if we are really careful with our spending and actually have a 2% increase, so our cost of goods sold and a 3% pay increase, which will make us a little slightly competitive with our peers, um we're about break even, which is where we want to be. So this is kind of the implication of not changing the pricing. It's it's pretty significant. The 50 cent at lunch is where we're where we're we sell a lot of our meals, right? It's not after we've removed free breakfast, our breakfast sales went down. So where you're going to see that change and that increase in revenue is by modifying the lunch price. Questions? Yeah, just uh the comment about you're

069at break even. So just to be clear, that's the operating budget. That does not cover the capital budget at all. Right. That's just mine. Yes. Operating budget, annual operating school nutrition fund. Yeah. No, no, I understand it. Just just to clarify that. Um I think this would be a quick question. I'm hoping you mentioned the local sourcing of honey and maple syrup. Yes. Where do you do that? Um so we've worked with several vendors. Sorry, the microphone. I do just speak with my cafeteria voice so it's usually loud. Um uh we use Fresh Point as well as Cold Springs Farms out of Colchester and we have sourced um hydroponic from H2O Farms for lettuce. The maple syrup has been um Burlington Farm Sugar House. Uh we've gotten it from like four different farms. We do

070try to several different ones and the students when I've been in the cafeteria have noticed the difference um in the maple syrup being from Connecticut as opposed to we will call it pancake syrup because that is what it is. Um but the difference is dramatic. So it's 70 cents an ounce for maple syrup from Connecticut and it's less than 10 cents an ounce for traditional pancake syrup. So right there we're looking at a 60 cents a meal increase just to be able to offer the one ounce of maple syrup from Connecticut supporting our local community and our local farmers. Um and I was very impressed that all the students noticed the difference in maple syrup. I was very proud of that. Um and we do use little leaf lettuce out of Massachusetts. Nice. Thank you.

071No, I know that I've brought my I brought my kids to their sugar shack in Burlington. I was wondering because this is the only one in Connecticut that I believe is commercial. Yes. It's It's a fun little experience. And one last question. I don't know if this for I know you've spoken to it before, Vin. Um the uh uncollectibles. Yep. Where's that stand right now? Sure. So the negative balance um currently is about 26,000. Um so it does sound like a large amount in comparison to what Cheshire has had in the past few years. um in the climate and the culture that is school nutrition right now it is low compared to some of our neighboring districts um in the in some even the case like half some are facing over 40,000 in only two

072buildings or they're looking at 35,000 with less than 2,000 students. So the way we were able to keep it as much as it seems high in unfortunately in this kind of situation of what negative balance and school meals has become due to the state um statutes of what we have to do. Uh it's not terrible. Um it is unfortunate but we are it could be worse. Yeah. I mean there are follow-up calls being made. Yeah. we do, you know, so we try and collect, we try and be responsible with how we ask people to pay back their funds. Um, and yeah, we actually had a school business officials board meeting this week where we we talked about the issue and you know, does anyone have any, you know, ideas that you know, seem to be

073working? There was some discussion about um sending some of the larger accounts to collections. That's not something that we're considering, but um there are some districts that are thinking about doing it. And the other thing that came up, I'll just, you know, say this, that, you know, the legislature has really tied our hands with um how we can go about trying to pursue the funds. Um so it may be time to go back to the legislature to ask for some you know allowances so that we can get a little bit um more aggressive with our efforts but that may not be popular and obviously that would be something that will come through the legislative committee of the board but you know a lot of districts are facing you know 40 50 $60,000 balances that the

074board has to you know pay from its operating budget because as you know the law is we have to reimburse the food service program. Yeah. So um first of all at year end of June 30th if we're down 20,000 25 $30,000 how do we cover that? Is that basically the June 30th budget move where we're taking a reserve out of here and putting it into the food budget would be your recommendation. I guess it'll be incorporated into the final number. So once I know the final number, you know, from from Erica, I'll make sure that we cover that if that's the way we're going to handle it. Sure. Okay. Um and with regard to collections, just me sitting here, but I I am confident that you have had um significant outreach to people. I I

075am confident that there are people who cannot pay and I'm also guessing there are some people who can pay. And if you have an inkling as to who those people are, I would have zero problem with sending that to a collection agency. I really wouldn't. It's not something I want to do, but I we've we're having a pretty difficult budget going into next year with things that have been cut. And I wouldn't have a problem with it pushing people who need to be pushed. I understand. And it's it's it's not that easy to discern who can and cannot pay. Right. So, I'm asking you for complication. No. And I totally get it. I'm saying use your judgment what you think what what you think collectively. But my guess is based on the conversations that you've

076had, you probably have an inkling as to who who may be able to pay. We make sure that we do treat all families the same and that they receive the same phone calls no matter it's all based on what the balance is and then who's contacted. We give them um links to the free and reduced form, send them out the SNAP information. If they do have any way that they're struggling, we want to make sure to send that outreach. The negative balance letters um have the information. I've worked with families, the income guidelines are very low. So, it is a lot of people who are denied the benefits and then who really can't. And there's always a mix of people across the board. Um, but we do send letters, text messages, and phone calls. Um,

077and try to do our best. It we are required to serve a meal to any student who gets in line. Um, so we do have an option. Parents can opt to wave their right of refusal. So they can sign a waiver that then allows us to not serve them and not charge them negatively. So it's a parent's choice um to be able to do that so that we understand and the parent understands because no one wants a hungry student. That is not our job. Our whole job is to feed kids. No, I I agree with that completely. My my perspectives my perspective is if we've got 2,000 families, there's probably one or two who just don't bother responding for whatever reason. I don't mean to say this is like widespread or anything like that, but

078when you end up with a large group of people, you're going to have a bad apple in there someplace and holding them accountable, I think, is important out of a matter of fairness to everybody else. Yeah. And and Erica just spoke to the the income guidelines for a household of four, free lunches for about $40,000 is your gross income for the year. So, and reduced is 57,000. And our negative balance is is spread about between like 432 students. So you're averaging like 50 bucks in a meal balance. Some some are obviously higher than that, but um 430 kids. Thank you. Um I think I know the answer to this question already. Uh but I'm going to ask it anyway. Um, so, uh, a few months ago I asked if there was any consistency in the,

079um, families that weren't paying. that seemed like there was um and and u so I discussed it with a few board members um was could we add a search charge to the uh lunch cost to help pay for those families who weren't able to pay uh because the the state andor the federal government is unwilling to uh uh add additional funds for for those people who fall into the no no man's land there of qualifications. Um and I was just wondering if you could talk to that possibility. Um yes. So unfortunately any increase to the meal prices um negative balances is not able to be paid out of the school nutrition balance. It has to be paid out the board of ed balance and there has to be the exchange of funds that is clearly

080defined. So any increase in the meals will go to the school nutrition fund and that then wouldn't be able to help uh cover those 26 uh,000 costs. We do have a donation account. Um we do ask families then they're welcome to donate and any funds that we do receive in that donation. It's a school meals assistance fund that can be used to go against the negative balance to help then reduce it that the final number that gets turned over to the board. So we're always welcome. We ask them at the end if they'd like to donate their balance if they have a senior graduating or they're transferring out. Um some families generously do. Some choose not to and transfer it to siblings. Completely understand. Um so in that case we wouldn't be able to. I

081think that answers and Eric we we did use some of that donated balance before we applied the reduction um that the board of ed paid back to food service. This year your balance is 2,000 or so. It's about 2,000 and then maybe a little more. We used 3,000 um last year and we we were at about the same amount and we were able within the last month or so of school we got it down to a little under 20,000 about 18. So we are hopeful that it won't be the full 26 and we're going to work um hard and make more calls in the last few weeks of school uh to make sure to see if we can get it under the 20,000 mark. Sorry, Vinnie. Okay, thanks. So, I I guess I'll just say

082thank you to those who donated. Um, is there a way to to to put that on uh uh through uh is it through school bucks, I guess, or might is like any transaction. Can you add like would you like to add $1 for to help school lunch fund or something like that? Can you do that as far as programming? As far as, you know, anytime you buy a t-shirt or or a field trip or something like that, I always donate at Petco for the pets. Um, I don't know the answer to that question. I would have to look into it. It would be a nonprofit school. Our account is a nonprofit account, so I would just have to verify and see if that was at all uh possible and how we could possibly set it

083up. So, I mean, I suppose at the end of the day, we all sort of help pay for it anyway, but this is more proactive way of doing it. I suppose that if you because all the parents are always on there paying for something. So if it's at an extra dollar here or there, you know, that could be something I could definitely look into. I was going to say going back, Adam, to you were talking about search charge. So this isn't really a search charge, but we talked about in the board meeting the healthy food certification, which gives us a 10-centent allowance for our lunches, not breakfast. So that is a way in which you know we're we're making a little bit more by participating in the healthy food certification. That's great. And then um

084lastly, the uh that shortfall, which hopefully doesn't end up being a shortfall. Um where does that money come from? If there's a shortfall um is that that I the um if we were to be so on the recommended it does show the shortfall of like the 120,000. So, we would work very hard um in monitoring our finances and expenses monthly as we do always and currently so that we would make any adjustments. Um there's lots of different choices that we can make in food options and offerings. If we can increase our participation, that's really going to help that shortfall be less. So, some goals that we're looking for is increasing our meal options. like for elementary, we want to have two hot options for next year so that there's um a vegetarian hot as well

085as a hot uh that has a meat or meat alternate available. So, we're hoping different choices and meal patterns that we can put out will boost the participation and families will be overjoyed with the choices and more meal sales will help us um alleviate all of that. Yeah, that and this is not a an unusual activity for food service to manage to their bottom line. I you know the one thing that you have to talk about too is the labor. So you know if we have a we in the assumptions we have a 5% overall pay increase and then in the sensitivity analysis we said it could be 3% pay increase. That doesn't mean we will necessarily give lower pay increases. It means that we can reduce the number of hours employees work. So if

086our participation rate is not where it's expected to be, you know, Erica can and often does reduce hours so that we don't have excess staff and that is a way to reduce expenses. So, you know, I I'm I'm confident in Erica's ability even though we're raising prices and we're still showing a potential loss that Erica will manage to that try and minimize that loss. Thank you, Vinnie. And yes, I just want to say thank you for all of your efforts. Um I appreciate that um that there is real maple syrup in the schools and not the high fru all sugars are not created equal and um it's a it's a actually a really big step to feed our kids real food. Um so thank you for that. I appreciate all the efforts that you are

087doing um in terms of collections, but um I would like to recognize that you are not the police of of getting money from families. Um and so your your job is to feed our children nutritious foods. our job is to um try to get this the finances stuff. So, I really appreciate the package also that you've put together um with the increases. So, um thank thank you for all the information tonight. It was great, Mr. White. Thank you. And this is intended to be really quick. Uh but I think there might be a budgetary impact next year. This is just in relation to this the uh composting in relation to either the town budget or state law. Is any of that changing next year? Will you continue the two schools that you have or Yep.

088So currently um the goal is to continue the two schools that we have. Um we haven't gone back to speak with the town council yet. We are um still composting at Chapman and Doolittle this year. Um and I do have those numbers. Oh, thank you so much. Look, you're very quick. Um so Chapman has composted so far this year 6.8 tons and Dittle has composted 7.6 tons um of food waste. Right now we are looking at we just started a pilot of them stacking trays to help reduce the amount of volume of the waste that's going into the recycling bin so that we can try to lower the cost as much as we can. So when we go back and review the pilot after this year and give our findings back to the town council,

089um we'll be able to have done everything we could to maintain the um program as it is and having it be easy for students, our staff um and uh students and staff really. So we're trying to get those costs down. So the stacking started at Chapman on Monday and it will start at dittle next week. Um so right now it does cost about 20,000 for the two schools and we're looking to reduce that as much as possible so that the program can be sustainable um going forward. So the law requires us to compost starting July 1 of 2026. So the following school year as wherever we have 26 tons or more of compostable materials per year. Mhm. So, right now the schools where we're composting wouldn't qualify. We would like to, if we can get

090the town council to agree to continue to provide NIP funds, we'd like to try DOD next DOD next to see um middle school, you know, as a middle school, do we have less materials or less food waste? Um so that's our goal. We'll see how it goes. It's been going very well in both of test schools right now. And just as a reminder because you mentioned the $20,000 cost, there is a cost avoidance as well, right? So you mentioned about 14 14 tons that have avoided the waist stream and that's redirected in it. So it would depend on the the town's um waste contract, which I'm not familiar with. The tipping fee, which I'm just taking a guess, it's probably at least 100 bucks a ton at this point. It's around 125 now per ton.

091So yeah, there's some offset but not enough. No, it's small but directionally if that cost continues going up because we're already shipping to Ohio. It's just something to have in mind. Thank you. Is there any way to renegotiate that contract? I still don't understand how composting works since we're paying them to take their free input to then take it and make money on it. Um, so that is a great question. The contract I don't know if it's necessarily negotiable. So we do combined our compostable trays in with our food waste. So, it was just brought to my attention. I just became aware that our compost does not go to Southernington. It actually due to having the compostable trays mixed in with it, which are acceptable composting material, it has to go to Massachusetts to a

092facility that does accept when the food organic waste is mixed with a compostable tray um waste. So, we are working with Blue Earth um who is our hauler currently to negotiate that contract for next year after we finish off um this year to see what we can do and if we were to bring another school on um how that could better help the financial aspect. But yes, they do have a great business model because we pay them and then they get paid and then we buy compost for the greenhouse from them and it's a great business model. I can't I can't fault that at all. And we do use Blue Earth Composting. Um they do give composting for our greenhouse. So, it's a nice full circle from Chapman. Yeah, there I mean I'm pretty sure

093our town counselors know that there is some cost savings with not all of all of that tonnage. It's not a lot right now, but it is going to grow and it is going to be required. So, we're on top of it. And I feel good about that. Even though it's not making money, it is saving money on the other end. It has to be because we're not sending that much material off to wherever where are we sending Ohio garbage. Yeah. Our garbage gets sent as far as western Pennsylvania. This is what it is. So, um, you know, I'm all for this composting project. And I will say the town council's been very supportive financially. Yeah. Um, they don't have enough funding to cover all the schools, so we'll have to, you know, we have one

094more year when before we're required to do it. So, we hope not to have to increase our budget next year just to compost. And you know, Adam, to your point, the cost is all in the hauling. You know, that's the sad part of it. U because it is a separate hall that Blueart does. Um but, you know, hopefully those dynamics change because we're not the only school district. All school districts are going to be subject to, you know, the composting requirements. We're ahead of the curve because we've been doing it, you know, well ahead of most, but we'll see. Hopefully there'll be some either state support. Yeah. Or there'll be a better there'll be better efficiencies along the way too, right? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you ladies. I mean just for the record I always

095this is coming. You know we do have families that have insecurity, right? Um and you mentioned it earlier when we increase I worry about the deficit account that already exists that's going to go up. So, I just hope ultimately it's a longer conversation. Obviously, it's more involved than what we're trying to figure out here. Um, but I do I the the long-term impact that I appreciate with the composting is that hopefully our generations to come will understand how to and make sure that, you know, we're obviously sensitive to the environment as well. So, thank you for that. Um, but we do have to approve your requested increases here. So if Dr. Herrian, can you please read the proposal to increase motion? Happy to. I'm looking for Oh, here it is. I move that the Cheshire

096Board of Education approves an increase in the school meal prices effective the 202526 year as follows. Elementary, middle, and high school breakfast 25 cent increase. Elementary, middle, and high school lunch 50 cent increase. Is there a second for the motion, Mr. White? Any other further discussion? Mr. I just uh figured this this was a good point time to say it. Make no mistake, I'm not opposed to compost. It's I I love the stuff in my gardens. I just uh I highly question the business model where you we're paying someone to get stuff that they make money off of. That's all. Thanks. Agree. Any public comment for the motion? Mr. Hanlin, you're welcome to make any statement you like. Okay. Thank you. All those in favor of the motion that is on the floor, unanimous. Thank

097you. Thank you. I think the last item for for this Miss Sano has grant activity. Okay. Happy to share an overview of the grants. So, first up, and I think you all have this page, correct? Yes. Okay. Sure. So, when we're looking at title one, I want you to know that that money is spent on reading support personnel salaries. You can see the the money we were allocated for in title one was a little bit more last year than in this current year. Went from 137,000 to 117 thereabouts. Um, same is true for title two, which is for teacher support. We defay the cost of um curriculum coaching there. It's also what we use to defay the cost of consultants that we bring in for things like social emotional learning. There's also a significant um

098chunk of change for supplies. In title three, we also use that to defay some salaries. In addition, that is used to pay for um a multilingual learner enrichment program in the summer for our youngest learners, those multilingual learners who are um entering first, second, and third grade. We use some of that money to pay the cost uh to ACES for a consultant who has been instrumental in helping us craft our multilingual learner supports and has provided training to teachers in grades K through 12. About $500 of that is in supplies and another $500 goes to St. Bridget School. I should also say that in each of the grants there is a a small portion that um is allocated to St. Bridget and that's by that's by design a requirement. Um title three immigrant grant some

099of that money is going to defay the cost of um coaches who work with our multilingual learner students. And this year we also used about 3500 for transportation at the high school level. We took our multilingual learner students to local colleges on a trip and our middle school students went to the state capital for a youth legislative experience. The ARPA school mental health specialist that you've heard us talk about during the budget process. It defrays the cost of a school counselor who is at dittle school. the ones that that I skipped over um idea part B transition and extended support para educator those two grants are ending and they're not available to us next year so that's why you see that they're grayed out the school mental health specialist will also be ending I think

100this is the last year of that grant if you ne go to the next one adult education that is money that we get awarded to us and that pays pays the cost that we contract to Wallingford adult ed services for title four um in the amount of about $10,000. That grant helps us with a number of things. It helps defay some of the cost of teachers participating in summer curriculum writing institute. It also goes to um folks who help give us feedback on those units. And then about $700 is go is allocated to St. Bridget School. And then the idea grant really defays the cost of special education teachers, para educators. Smart start defrays the cost of supplies that we use in that program as well as um defrays the cost of teachers and pareducators

101over at Darcy. And lastly, the Perkins grant. That grant is used for a um a multitude of things out of the career and technical education department at Cheshire High School. One of the things that we pay out of this grant is a stipend to the future business leaders of America and also DECA, the co-advisors. DECA, as you know, is a club for emerging leaders and entrepreneurs and focuses in on marketing, finance, hospitality, and management. And then the other things that that helps to defay is the cost of supplies, particularly some um small equipment and training. and especially when we had a new teacher spearheading the CTE department, he has used that to be trained up on some of the equipment we have in the lab there. Any questions, Adam? Um, so for 2526, yes, it

102all the federal grants. So that looks like that's title one through four and the idea grants because ARPA is going away, right? Um I'm the uh at least from a state level, a lot of money is at risk because of uh uh positions that state government is taking on certain positions. Is that same money uh for us um subject to the uh positions that the public school that this system takes or are we subject to let's say the positions that the uh the um state department of ed takes? So is is any is all of this money at risk? Uh, is it potentially out of our control or is it in our control to make sure that this money remains intact? That's a great question. I'm pulling up an email that I got just yesterday

103from the person who manages the title one grants at the state uh with it was an update. Basically, the update was we don't have any final word for you yet. we will be in touch this summer to give additional information. So that's that's what I I have as far as information. Jeeoff, I don't know if you have anything additional. It's tricky because there's a continuing resolution on the federal budget right now. there's not an adopted budget and typically the executive branch issues the draft budget in April uh late March early April. That hasn't been issued yet. There's been a lot of conjecture obviously that there would be reductions in a variety of places but nobody's ever seen any of it. Um I believe that the current allocation would be good through next year but um

104things are always subject to change. Now the question about whether it's through the individual district or the state I believe the federal government allocates directly to the state and we brought our portion out of that. So we're like a sub we're a subgrantee. Okay. You know but You know, it's so hard. I think one of the frustrations that many municipalities and and school systems have is there's just no predictability and there's no clarity around what the financial forecast will be, which I mean, you see volatility in markets and things like that as a result. So hopefully soon it'll be forthcoming and we'll know kind of where we stand better, but like Marlene said, it's probably not going to be till July. I think I forgot the PC Jones and what I wanted to say about

105PC Jones is that we did not draw upon any funds for this year but um as I've told some of you meeting with um department leaders and also really looking at what comes out of the curriculum writing institute it's very likely that um because of some some things that we're doing that we'll be looking to purchase some science supplies from that for fifth grade. We're we're leaving an online resource for science um that I've shared with curriculum was never um never a resource that we thought was the beall endall but got people through some some time and gave teachers a resource. Now with our science coaches and the work that we're doing this summer, things will be much more hands-on, but we're going to need materials. So, it's likely that um after this summer, we

106may be asking the town to look at some of those Pec Jones funds. So, I didn't mention that one, but that's the reason why it's gray right now. So, it's gray because it's not sunsetting. It's just that we're in budget this year. Exactly. Questions for Miss Lo? I think that's it. Thank you. We move forward because we amended the agenda. Personnel has already been done. Um, next committee, Mr. Eki is not here, but I believe Dr. Herkin, you're able to report on this for policy. I would be delighted. Um, so at the last policy meeting, which was held on May 5th, um, we reviewed uh policy for the fir for a first reading on uh suspension and expulsion and uh there is a new definition from the state for bullying and so we talked about

107that and and what that means to some of our other policies as well. So um that will be coming to us also down the road and it is also part of our policy that we have for a second reading. U we looked at the school climate policy and regulation. Um Dr. Solen noted that the uh committee began their review of this policy in February and put it on hold because legislators are reviewing it again. Um but anyways, that one it came up for a second reading and uh we'll be seeing that one um maybe next month for a third reading. And uh thirdly, for a third reading, we have policy 5131.81 on electronic devices. And uh there were no changes to this reading and so it's up for a third reading and a vote tonight

108by the full board. Uh the policy mimics what our practice is now. So in grades K through eight, cell phones are not allowed. Um, teachers have authority to allow students to use phones if it's needed and if it's um I'll just leave it there if needed. At the high school level, cell phones are not allowed in the classrooms and students are not allowed to bring their cell phones into the bathroom, but there are uh times lunch and in between classes when they can have their cell phones out and and in use. So, uh, we've been talking about the electronic devices policy for, um, several months now and we've put it into practice and so we feel that we are now ready to make a motion and vote on that. So, I will make the motion

109hopefully get a second and then we can have discussion on that if that's amendable to everyone. So I move that the policy committee bring forward policy 5131.81 electronic devices to the full board for a third reading and approval. Your second Mr. Gripple move into discussion which I would like to ask Mr. Gripple to at least um clarifies some of the meeting discussions if you will for us. Um one of my questions maybe Dr. when you step in here is how is then the idea of you're going to the bathroom, you can't use take your cell phone with you. So, where where am I as a student putting that um and so forth? If you can kind of give me a visual of how that's being put into practice. Sure. They they just leave the cell

110phone in the classroom. Um you know, Kevin's had the opportunity to to live it. I don't know if you want to weigh in on it at all, but basically, you know, having walked through the halls of CHS and been in classrooms over the last many years, um what I've seen this year is a dramatic improvement in the amount of cell phone engagement that I see among kids. Um certainly in the classroom, but um even in between classes and hallways, um you know, yes, they they do have phones and some kids will have an earbud in but still engage you uh in the hallway. Um but the vast majority of kids don't um which is a tremendous improvement from Land of the Walking Dead. um cell phone experience over the last few years. So um it's

111a I think it's still very much a point for improvement, but um significantly better and trending in the right direction. I don't know Kevin if you want to elaborate on that at all. I'll step up to the microphone this time just so everybody can hear me. um you know in terms of the practice of how it works practically we we simply ask students to leave the phone as collateral as they're they're getting any pass to the bathroom during the day. So that's and we reinforce that with um kind of resetting spring expectations uh with teachers and we ask them to do so kind of after April break because as the year goes on everybody starts to feel more comfortable with um with some of the policies and practices and those start to wayne a little

112bit. So, we asked everybody um to kind of make that a point of emphasis coming out of April break to reaffirm kind of our practices around cell phone in the schools and the expectations and things just like um leaving the phone in the room as collateral for your going dur using the bathroom during class. Thank you. Mr. Gripple, do you want to highlight any other points? Um I I guess I just wanted to speak to the general thought process and Dr. Herrian can add to it. uh at least from my point of view um I remember when I was uh starting out uh you know my career um that we used they used to offer courses uh this place called William CVY I don't know if you remember William CVY but uh I took this

113course called the currency of trust where uh the uh you start out at the highest trust level right and uh and then you get as much freedom as is allowed through the uh through what we're setting out here and If that trust is violated, then the clamps start getting a little little uh little harder on you because you've lost trust. And so I I like to think that this policy starts at that highest trust level because our students are now going to be making their way through a more restrictive environment up through 8th grade. And now that hopefully the the all of our CH uh students will have the that understanding of the how uh social media can affect them. Hopefully we're we're going to be talking to them about that as there as their

114career goes on. Um and uh we've talked about how perhaps we even we treat that social media more like drinking or smoking. We would in the past because it's just as dangerous as we've come to find out. Um that um you know we're starting with the this of you know the I think you call the personal responsibility Dr. Solen right that we're we're we're hoping for that at the high school level. So I think that's sort of what we are shooting for instead of that total clampdown that some other systems are doing. Um and so that that's why I'm I'm supporting uh this the imple implementation of this policy in its current form is to is I guess to start with hope and then if we have to adjust we will. Thank you. I do

115like the fact that you're giving the teachers the discretion of how they want to manage that, but also some of those guard rails as well for our kids. Um, but Mr. White did have an experience today. Did you want to share your experience? Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. So, first thing to be upfront, I'm not planning to support this motion tonight. However, I do very much appreciate the work of the policy committee and everything you've And I appreciate your words here, Adam, listening to it. Um, I did I visited CHS because I'm super skeptical [Music] about I I'm I'm a parent and I'm just uh furious about social media being designed to be addictive. Tik Tok now legal, illegal, I don't know. It just I feel like this stuff just needs to the

116addictive stuff. It's bad. Nonetheless, um yeah, I visited CHS. I wanted to see for myself with my own two eyesh what was happening. And I was there for about five minutes during passing between classes. What I observed was probably I'm just guessing about 25 to 33% quarter third of the kids had phones out but only about half of them were engaging with their phone and they were just carrying it which seemed perfectly reasonable to me. So it was probably about 10 or 15% of the kids were focused on their phones which to me didn't seem like anything terrible by any means. I mean, I think it's perfectly reasonable to, you know, be curious about the weather and that has nothing to do with any sort of addiction about getting a heart or a thumbs up

117or something like that on social media. Um, so I I did I did very much appreciate seeing that. One thing I didn't do that I wish I had done, but it also is left me a little uncomfortable. I didn't want to distract anybody. But one of the things that really goes through me goes through my mind about phones is my own personal experience. That's what I bring to the table here. Um, and when I was at when I was at CHS, uh, 1990, so 35 years ago, um, I made friends when the bell rang and we got up from our desks and so there were students in the hallways talking with each other. But I suspect, again, this is my own experience, but I suspect that when you're in the hallway, that's different from the

118person sitting right next to you. You're not necessar I would not necessarily go introduce myself to somebody walking down the hallway. When I'm sitting there at my desk and the bell rings, whoever I'm sitting next to, I'm going to probably chat with. Oh, what's going on this weekend? What are you doing? Whatever. Um, so I didn't see that and I I don't know what's actually happening with there. Like I said, I didn't want to do that explicitly because intentionally because it'd be distracting looking in a doorway and I've I have no interest in doing that. Um, a couple of uh a couple of other thoughts that go through my mind right now. Co I feel like I learned and I think probably others learned as well. there's a clear difference between freshman year and senior

119year with the executive function in students. Um, and so that's not a great situation because I certainly would want to give seniors, students with a, you know, a stronger executive function a lot more leeway to do what they want. Um, and then the the last thing that goes through my mind, um, is it's just a long-term consequences here. I am convinced that there is a real problem with social media. I don't know what the answer is. I think it's I think it's really great that we're saying no phones up through 8th grade. Um, I'd probably extend I I would extend it further than that, but like I said, I I have zero interest in trying to control an 18-year-old who has, you know, could get drafted and sent off to war. Like that just is

120that that doesn't make any sense to me. But high school's a pretty varied age of development. So, with that all said, um, I won't be supporting this tonight. I would like it to be stronger probably mostly because of the long-term consequences that I just feel there's a great deal of uncertainty about um I'm not as of a few days ago I was 100% against this at this point it's now more like a 5149 and I'm I'm glad to see us moving forward on it. Um, with that I also say this is an unusual vote we have here tonight because we normally have seven members and we only have four people here. But I say this knowing that a 3-1 vote passes per our legal be per our attorney. So I'm totally comfortable with that and

121I want to thank the committee superintendent principal everybody who's been involved in making this happen. Thank you. Thanks Mr. Wright. Can I make a few real quick points? First of all, um Adam, your point about like hopeful. Yeah, I guess we're hopeful, but we don't hope kids learn when they go to class either. You know, we we try and teach them the skills uh to be successful. I think that's part of what we're thinking at the high school level. We did issue two surveys to parents and students about the cell phone policies and use that as feedback in our process. Also um you know the the policy committee did a lot of deliberation about like what about a threshold you know and practically you know delineating between a 16-year-old and 18year-old without stopping them and

122checking for a license or something about like what or even in study hall what grade are you in how old are you? um enforcement of an age sort of ban or grade level ban became really impractical. So, another consideration we had. So, you know, I I totally agree with everything you've said, Tim. I mean, I think we're on the same page when it comes to this stuff. Um and um we're just all I think evolving. Uh and this represents an evolution in that in our approach. Um, and maybe not the end of the road. You know, to your point and to Adam's point earlier, what did you have? Well, Jeff kind of beat me to the the punch there. No, I just wanted to say we did consider or at least I I I made

123the suggestion. I don't know if there was support for it ever or not, but about a um a continued band through uh through sophomore year uh just because of that, you know, you're an upper classman, usually considered upper classman junior year. And so that there's a huge difference because, you know, you're starting to drive and you're being way more independent um than if you're a sophomore or a freshman. But again, uh Dr. Solen brought up the point of the enforcement part which would have been very difficult. So hopefully it sounds like you know uh Dr. Solen and uh uh Miss Solano they they have plans to perhaps uh through education build awareness and responsibility. So that's what we're hoping for or not hoping or whatever. Tim Thank you. Yeah. One other point that I learned

124that I think is a positive thing that high school parents will already know is a change that happened at the high school, I think this year. Um, one of the concerns I have is distracting kids, distracting classrooms, and parents, they send the text message to the kid because of whatever reason. It may very well be a good reason, but it's not necessarily a good enough reason to disturb the classroom. And the kids are going to respond. It's their parents. Most likely they're going to respond. Maybe they won't, but most likely they do. It becomes a distraction. I I foresee it being I envision it as a distraction. And one of the changes that I understand happened I believe this year was that first of all parents as a result of the efforts by the superintendent

125there's probably been a reduction in the amount of parents contacting kids in the classroom which I thank the parents for that because it's not just your kid it's all the other kids that are getting that could get distracted but one of the other physical changes that has happened is parents used to sports equipment, whatever it is that was forgotten at home, bring it right into the principal's office, the main office. Um, and that no longer happens. It now happens. Uh, stuff gets dropped in the man trap and the the front in the front part of the high school. So, it's a relatively that in itself is relatively small. It does in my mind reduce the distraction because I know when I've walked into Norton school and I end up getting like a crowd around like,

126"Oh, Mr. white, Devon's dad, blah blah blah. I I don't want to do that. I just there's certain things to get done. Um, but by not going in, I think that's a I think that's a benefit for the school and also just to reiterate the point. This is part of this is one of the reasons why I appreciate the work that you do. um is the outreach I've done this year with parents to increase awareness about the problems. And I have I have gotten extremely little feedback from anybody saying kids should be able to use their phone. I've gotten basically two responses from parents, which is yes, yes, yes, or yeah, I I get it. I they don't necessarily want to change, but they do understand it's a problem. And I think having you lead

127on that has reinforced it and gotten parents to say, you know what, we we do have to change. That's my feeling about how this has happened. So, thank you for that. So, I get these kids when they come out of high school and they go to Quinnipak University and they take my French classes. And so I'm um I'm all for teaching that personal responsibility to high school students. They are old enough and there's variation in firstear students through 18 year olds when they graduate. It's huge. But they do need to know these these are with us now. They're with us. They're with our kids. uh they're part of our lives and we just we need to learn and our kids need to learn how to use them responsibly because they're not going away. Um so

128I appreciate all the evils of social media that we now can get with the push of a button or two. Um and I see already my new grandbaby who just turned a a year old. She's captivated by screens because she can put her finger on my Fitbit and make it move and it lights up and it's really pretty scary actually. Um, so we do need to keep it away from the younger ones because we can. It's it's fairly easy. But I really um and As Dr. Soulen said and others, we did a lot of deliberating on on this issue and we've read the book uh Jonathan Hate's book and um and we know from our own experiences of using this and uh using social media and it it takes um it actually t it's a

129skill to learn how to monitor yourself around something that's as addictive and entertaining as um what we can get on our cell phones. But um I like this policy as it is right now. All policies uh are subject to change as the times dictate. And when we're talking about technology, these policies will change over the years because technology is changing at a rapid rapid rapid pace. So, um I'm ready to vote on on this policy tonight and uh we've I just want everyone to know we've spent a lot of time talking about it. So, I'm happy with it. Thanks. Thank you, Dr. Herrian. Um yeah, I do agree. I think this is um developmentally appropriate and um I appreciate that because we're considering the user uh which is our students basically. So, um, and I

130do hope that be because technology changes fairly quickly that we come back as a board and a policy committee to make those amendments like Dr. Solen said, you know, the buck doesn't stop here. There's opportunities um, based on the data we receive that we modify this policy if necessary. So, thank you for all your hard work. Um, Mr. Gripple, the rest of the policy committee. So, we do have the motion that is on the floor. Dr. Hurricane, can you just repeat it again for those at home here? That the Cheshire Board of Education give a third and final reading to policy 5131 uh.81, electronic devices, and direct the superintendent to put said policies into immediate effect. Is there any other public comment? No. All those in favor of the motion that is on the floor.

131Three. All those who oppose one. The motion passes 3 to one. Thank you. Next item on the agenda. Are any other standing committees? Um we do not have at the moment. Mr. Perina is not available tonight. Um there are some items that came from CABE, but I believe that we're just going to have um to wait till next meeting to get that information from him and as well as Dr. Solen, which we know there were some things that came down that we still need to uh review first. So we will move to the approval of minutes. Um we do need a motion for the approval of the April 10th and May 1st. Mr. Gripple, can you read the motion, please? move that the treasure board of education approve the minutes from meetings held on April

13210th, 2025 and May 1st, 2025. Is there a second? Dr. Herrian, thank you. Are there any additions or corrections that you may need to make? Dr. Heran, actually I think my name is spelled incorrectly on one of them somewhere under finance on the earlier one. minor. No, it's Harington instead of Harington and it's like 8,000 other times. It's correct. But of course, I noticed the one needle and hack. Great. Any other corrections or additions that need to be made? Seeing no other, all those in favor of approving the motion. Well, it will be corrected or amended. Thank you. Um, that is on the floor. Unanimous. Thank you, Mr. Grio. Is there any correspondence? Um, I have no correspondence. Great. That was quick. Thank you, sir. And then we move on to the superintendent report. Dr.

133Solen, sure. Uh, very quick update on the school construction. We are humming along. It is incredible to see the skeleton at Norton. Um, you know, multiple floors going up. It It looks amazing. Um, and I appreciate the team OMG over there, uh, taking our kids out onto the field site to inspect everything and see the the school construction in action. Uh, they're thrilled about it and, uh, so is OMG. So, it's been a win-win. Um, I also wanted to just recognize that early this week, uh, do a little principal Amy O'Brien announced her retirement. And so, uh, certainly very bittersweet news. She's done a phenomenal there job there. Um, really, um, creating an academic focus. Uh, and it's, you know, certainly to the benefit of our students, staff, and community. Um, so we regret to

134see her retire, but um, we've already initiated the process of trying to hire a new principal. So, um, I've put out a survey to our staff or excuse me, to our parents and I've already got great feedback there. Uh tomorrow I'll be spending the day at dittle uh doing interviews of staff members about uh what they'd like to see in the next principal and um we posted the job internally within the administrators cheshure administrator's bargaining unit as is required by their contract for 10 days. Um and then at the conclusion of that process we'll make decisions about where we're moving forward. Uh but I just wanted to provide that update this evening. That's it for me. Any questions for Dr. Solen comments? No. Thank you, Dr. Solen. There's no old business um nubousness. Um I

135do I was not unfortunately I was not physically in the room for our um budget meeting and showcase. So, apologies to Dodd um that I was not present. But I did want to on the record um just make a comment um about the process in general. Um so I'll just read it for the record. Um and um you know again as chair of the BOE, I just kind of want to acknowledge specifically like the concerns and the engagement shown by our community during this year's really tough budget season. Um, I just felt like it was really the most complex. Um, I've experienced a lot of complex budgets in my in my day job. Um, and I just didn't think that we would have to face it here in Cheshure. And I I definitely recognize there's

136rising costs like Miss Taylor said earlier when we were going over the food budget. There's growing enrollment as we've known. Um, and then just increase in service demands and so forth. So, it was a really difficult decision. Um and you know one that I I I also want to acknowledge that the town council had to make and we as a board have to make our decisions legally and ethically too. So um because we do have a statute that we have to follow. Um so I I just again throughout the process I appreciate the transparency because that was a priority. We did have a town budget talk that was held with both the municipality and us um to present to the public. So thank you Dr. Solen for being present for that. Um, and we heard

137a a really overwhelming um just overwhelmingly a lot of from families that obviously our schools matter, right? Our district matters. It's what brings them to the town, what keeps them here. Um, you know, the family shared that the the public education system again is their primary reason. Um, and the quote stands, Dr. Solen, nobody moves here for the nightife as we heard in that budget talk. So, so I just want to kind of, you know, express my appreciation especially to Dr. Soulen and Mr. Masiana, um, just for your leadership, your transparency, um, and just ensuring that students were at the center of this budget. Um, and to my colleagues here at the board, again, it's it's wonderful to sit here with you because we do have very respectful dialogue and and I feel like we're

138collaborative. We have differences in opinion, but it's a really collaborative um group here. Um, and then Mr. Kimbo, um, because I totally understand that, you know, we we also need to get an understanding from the town's perspective, Sue. So, I want to thank Mr. Kimmel for his guidance throughout this process as well. Um, but most importantly, I say this to the residents of Cheshire. Um, I want to thank them for showing up, for speaking up, and and hopefully we continue to do so if we ever have to face this ever again. Um, and I recognize their concerns. There's obviously going to be a tax increase. Um, but I think overall we remain pretty grounded in facts. So it this budget reflects not only our statutory requirement but also the input from our community and the

139shared belief that again investing in our schools is investing in the future of Cheshure. So thank you. Uh we remain committed to the transparency, the fiscal responsibility and ensuring Chester continues to be a community for families to choose because of our strength of our schools. So that is my comment um that I had held aside since I was not present for the last meeting. Other than that, we do have some upcoming meetings. Um so I will read those upcoming meeting dates. We have June 2nd at 700 p.m. policy will meet at Human Boardroom. June 5th, 7:30 is our business meeting here at Town Council Chambers. June 9th um will be 7 p.m. curriculum committee at Humston boardroom and then June 30th will be our BOE fiscal meeting at Human Boardroom and that changes the time

140which is 7:30 a.m. not PM. Um and then we do in the month of May move to Memorial Day weekend May 26 which schools and district offices will be closed. Um, and graduation I believe is June 12th, Cheshire High School, 6 PM. Well, so we're ready for that. We're really excited. So, there are other promotions, graduations. We're doing the tour for the sixth grade. Okay. Getting ready. Um, and also DOT does do their promotion um on the 12th at 8:30 at the high school field as well, too. So, we hope to see you all there. And that would conclude if I can get a motion to adjurnn. Mr. White. Second. Mr. Gripple. All in favor for adjourning. It is unanimous. We are adjourned. Thank you.