001Miss ham here miss Harrigan yeah Mr Martelli here Mr peregini here Ms Rosenberg here Mr White here Mr chairman you have a quorum thank you I ask that we stand for the pledge pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for what it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all good evening everyone and uh in a beautiful cool normal weather evening it is I hope this lasts for a while before it turns uh to snow knock on wood uh we'll get right into it we're going to start with our student representative report and we have new Representatives this year so Dr Gad do you want to introduce good evening and it is indeed my pleasure to to introduce our Board of Education representatives
002for the 2023 2024 school year and I will say these two students are incredibly hard working they're highly involved in the school and in the community they're responsible but they are also two of the kindest students you will ever meet so Andrew Elliott Andrew is an outstanding individual who possesses not only academic prowess but leadership qualities he has a commitment to the community and he's dedicated to making a positive impact in the world around him Beyond his academic accomplishments academic accomplishments Andrew is a natural leader serving as the president of his class for two consecutive years and he demonstrates exceptional leadership skills sound judgment and the ability to inspire his peers Andrew's leadership extends beyond the classroom and he has been an integral part of our school's athletic teams including baseball and football his determination
003teamwork and sports have contributed significantly to our school's athletic success he is not only a leader within the school but also a dedicated member of the National Honor Society safe School climate committee link crew best buddies Brave which stands for bringing remembrance to All Veterans everywhere in addition he dedicates countless hours to community service his involvement in these organizations speaks to his commitment to fostering inclusivity positive School culture and community building his contributions to these groups have been invaluable and his passion for making a positive impact on his school Community is truly commendable Andrew Elliott and [Applause] Ella Paul has made countless contributions to Cheshire high school as well as the Cheshire Community examples of her leadership include being president of the best buddies chapter co-president of the student Senate editor-in-chief of the school newspaper
004and president of the mock trial Club Ellis also a contributing member of the Cheshire Education Foundation and safe School climate committee she's part of Link crew and the advisory and scheduling Committee in addition to all of these committees she actively performs in the school's drama and musical Productions every year and she's a varsity Athlete on the field hockey team she's participated in countless volunteer opportunities many of which directly work with younger children in and around Cheshire such as the therapeutic recreation program youth Field Hockey coaching the challengers baseball team and Cheshire lights of hope Ella has participated in numerous leadership experiences and training including the Hugh O'Brien youth leadership program in all of her spare time she also holds down a part-time job at a local pizza restaurant so Ella all thank you so welcome
005Ellen Andrew and thank you for volunteering and your commitment to this so what do you have for us tonight um so I was going to start off by discussing our Athletics at our school and a couple other topics um so our teams are off to a great start all of our varsity teams were undefeated and during this week unfortunately at the beginning of this week we have had a couple of losses um and some other information about our school our girls volleyball coach head volleyball Coach Sue bavone is approaching her 600th win she's around 590 currently our head football coach Don drust was named the New York Jets High School football coach of the week and he will be honored on December 10th at the Jets versus uh the New York Jets versus the Texas
006they're the Houston Texans on December 10th um on October 7th our band will be participating in Music in Motion at the high school with many other bands around town it's an amazing event I've been there in the past and even been a part of it freshman year um we were excited to have our band move this year at our football games so we could have one student section where they're not separated um our captains attended the fall SEC captains meeting this is a seasonal meeting for our Sports captains and provides them with an opportunity to meet with other captains of other schools and share ideas in regards to leadership uh the captains also heard from a keynote speaker on the topic of mental health in athletes um and tomorrow night is a great day to
007support Athletics at our school our volleyball team hosts Hampden at 5 30 and football hosts Glastonbury at seven o'clock it's a great night to support our volleyball players and football players and cheerleaders in band um and also additionally last week I believe Thursday it was we had our pep rally at our school that was a great way to introduce school spirit of the Year especially to our incoming freshmen and our seniors Juniors and sophomores who have been a part of it for a uh for at least two years um and I wanted to save our my favorite thing for last so Cheshire High School is one of a record 29 Connecticut high schools being honored with a 2022-2023 Michael's Jewelers achievement cup award Cheshire is being recognized with the Michael's Jewelers achievement cup for the
008sixth time in seven years which is a tremendous accomplishment schools that are a part of the ciac's Class Act program can be considered for the Michaels Jewelers achievement cup award and um Mr parisino I discussed with him today he wanted me to say who says people don't move to Cheshire for the nightlife first of all thank you so much for having us here we're really honored I speak on behalf of both of us for that um to kind of start myself off I would just like to say we have had a really successful start to the school year welcoming incoming freshmen and new students and just getting everyone back into the swing of things uh before the school year started we had our freshman orientation which through link crew and with the help and Leadership
009of Mrs pelz one of our assistant principals we welcomed all the freshmen in we split them into groups we did activities they got to meet teachers the new school resource officers the school counselors and get tours around the school and learn a little bit about what kind of what it's like to be at Cheshire High School the opportunities involved and of course they got to meet Dr Solon and then moving on from there we had the first day of school um we had all of our seniors and their senior shirts getting ready to celebrate for their last year and we had everyone meeting with their advisories going to their first classes and really getting back into the swing of things and being a Ram uh moving on we have some other things going on extracurricularly
010in the schools aside from the sports the fall play just finished up their auditions and are beginning their rehearsals for a show that will be in November and they have been working incredibly hard I'm not personally in it but I'm hearing some from some of my drama friends and they're really excited to present this one it's a really fun show with interesting characters so there's that we have um the NHS induction for our National Honor Society coming up on Wednesday September 27th at 7 30 a.m they're the students who have above a 4.0 GPA and participate in at least 70 community service hours and 30 leadership hours as well as write an essay they will be honored for their achievements and and welcomed into this club that participates in community service around Cheshire and participates
011in all kinds of food drives or anything along those lines so that is exciting we also have the club Fair coming up which is a great opportunity for new students and students who have already been here to get a feel for the opportunities around them whether they be fun clubs like just like ball club or career oriented clubs like Mock Trail or anything like that and we have a totally wide variety um Dr Gad always says to new freshmen that they would be hard for us to find a club that they did not like and I would really say that I'm sure that's true for all students and if they can't find one they can always make their own so the club fair is a really great opportunity to scope out all of those really
012awesome groups to be a part of and meet new people and then on my last note we also have the PSAT coming up for freshmen sophomores and juniors and that will be on October 18th so of course they are getting ready for that and getting ready to start learning a little bit about what the college process is going to be like or the post grad process if they're not planning on going to college and our school counseling office has really been Helping Seniors get into their post-grad plans through senior meetings and presentations offered so that's it on my end thank you so much guys uh questions from the board members 10 10. thanks Tony yeah first of all thank you very much for mentioning post-grad options besides College I very much appreciate that two uh
013two questions for you uh the name of the Fall play called deadline and it's about a group of writers who Island and they're basically against each other and write a book the fastest something like that okay thank you and what are so community service hours I think I get that what are leadership hours community service hours might be just something like going to help out at a food pantry or something that like that leadership hours um asks students to step out of their comfort zone and really put themselves in a position of leading obviously others and so some examples of that might be coaching like the youth field hockey program like I did or becoming a mentor at one of the camps around town as long as it's obviously not a paid position or mostly
014things along those lines mentoring people is a great way to get leadership hours um I helped run a camp for young football players in town um it is usually in the beginning of August and it lasts uh the first five days of um of August so yeah thank you are these leadership hours right now I'm just curious gotcha [Laughter] thank you yeah of course come on Andrew sure Ella Andrew thank you guys I'm sure well I know your day probably started about six o'clock this morning so here we are a good 14 hours later and you're still at it so adding this to your list of obviously um pretty awesome extracurricular activities we really do appreciate it because I can't speak for everybody up here but um we sometimes get lost in all these papers
015and things that we look at here and hearing actually what is going on at the high school and all the great activities and opportunities and sports programs and things you guys are all having fun it really makes this role that we serve for the town very much um more rewarding for us personally so I want to say thank you and look forward to hearing your updates every month thank you thank you faith welcome you guys you guys are different every year I I mean just different personalities and I love it and um Your Enthusiasm is infectious and it's my favorite time of the whole board meeting and I just I have nothing more to add to what these guys have said but just hang on to your hats because this year's Gonna Fly by enjoy
016it and savor it and keep us informed as you go along as to what's going on in your lives um so good luck thank you and and then Adam so welcome you to I don't know Andrew but I'm looking forward to hearing your reports each month Ella I can't believe you're a senior yeah I'm remembering fifth and sixth grade Ella Paul but at any rate that just shows my age more than yours so uh thank you for your reports of course in the coming months and thank you for tonight's report very informative um and I got you beat I've known Allison I don't know she was like probably from birth maybe but uh congratulations to the both of you um you know adult time this is just you know uh another uh September meeting but
017it's the sixth set of sixth set of young adults we've had at least in front of me and uh so great to have you here serving uh in this capacity this year and looking forward to hearing your reports so thank you awesome I uh looking forward to your reports each month uh Andrew and Ella and Sally this is I think my 14th set of Sting around I mean it's wonderful and I just uh but as faith and utter set time does fly by and I think you have a great year enjoy it savor it and I hope that the board event meetings is not the highlight of your year because there's much more fun things than that but thank you for volunteering thank you for being here of course thanks and uh you certainly don't
018have to stay uh but uh thank you again excellent up next we have two very special presentations we're going to start with the teacher of the year and I think Dr Solon you have a presentation thank you Mr paragini it's uh as you said a special presentation it's an incredible honor tonight to be able to recognize two incredibly talented and dedicated professionals uh who work in our school system uh tonight we honor our Cheshire Public Schools teacher of the year and para educator of the year it is um incredibly difficult to stand out with all of the talented people that we have working for us but I think tonight you'll hear why is difficult as it is to make a selection it's easy to honor the people that you will meet this evening the Cheshire
019Public Schools is proud and excited to announce the selection of Catherine zukis is the 2023-24 Cheshire Public Schools teacher of the year Catherine is a first grade teacher at Norton school Catherine began her teaching career in New Britain at DiLoreto elementary school as a long-term substitute enjoying the Cheshire team in 2009 working first at Highland and then at Norton school where she has spent the last 13 years colleagues who have had the pleasure of encountering masukas's teaching know the warmth that she exudes and the way she makes each and every child feel special her colleagues and supervisors recognize how talented she is in growing her students her first graders are able to consistently meet their academic goals as a result of the caring accepting environment she creates that enables all students to take academic risks
020Catherine personifies calm Grace and Poise she welcomes every child to her classroom in the same way that she would want her own children to be received appreciated for who they are as individuals and called upon to reach their very best potential mizukas's teaching exemplifies the interconnectedness of social emotional learning and complex thinking Catherine serves on a number of committees including the new school working group she's an intervention team leader District grade level representative and has been a presenter on responsive classroom practices within our district sharing her talents with other Educators she also serves as a mentor teacher working with college student interns who are studying to become teachers in addition to her work as a teacher Catherine is a wife and mother to her two children Harper and Ford in her Spare Time Catherine volunteers
021at her Children's School serving as co-chair of the fundraising committee coordinator of family school events and maintains the Garden in front of the school Catherine stated in her acceptance speech during convocation this year how we make children feel matters she shared that it is her truest belief that only the the only way forward in our society is through education she spoke to the impact an excellent teacher can have Catherine zukis is a gifted educator who's not only talented but humble and articulate Catherine will represent Cheshire education Community with a Grace that will shine a positive light on the profession and make all of us proud to be a part of this calling please join me in congratulating cheshire's teacher of the year Catherine zukis [Applause] said that I didn't need to say anything but I
022would just like to thank the board and admin that's here parents um Cheshire is such a supportive community and I really appreciate the time and dedication that you have to education in this town thank you thank you [Applause] thank you congratulations thank you thank you congratulations Catherine up next is our para educator here and I think Robin and Carey will be presenting this one welcome everybody the Anne-Marie Murphy para educator of the Year award has been established by the state of Connecticut Department of Education and the school of paraprofessional advisory Council it was established to recognize the important role of the para educator in supporting student achievement this award is named in the honor of Ian Marie Murphy a para educator who lost her life at Sandy Hook it recognizes a paraeducator who demonstrates exceptional
023skill and dedication in the performance of his or her job I'm delighted to be able to honor cheshire's para educator of the year with over 100 para Educators in our district the decision in choosing one person to honor and represent this group is a difficult one this para educator demonstrates many attributes that make her exceptional her knowledge of instructional strategies and ability to think on her feet making adjustments based on students needs our skills valued and appreciated by every educator she understands and develops strong relationships with all students addressing them by name in the classroom and in the hallways when working with students she demonstrates patience a positive attitude a calm demeanor and genuine interest she has worked with students who are challenging both instructionally and behaviorally there have been times when I've had to
024call on her to train others and to take some additional summer hours even though she may have been planning on taking a summer vacation and enjoying her time off she agrees to take on these positions because she wants the students to have a positive summer experience her day working with and for students is not done at the Bell she's very active in the PTA at Doolittle bringing many activities to the school did you know that Doolittle has a drama club she has helped produce plays and musicals I am so pleased to introduce chesha's para educator of the Year Christina vayu [Applause] what do you want yeah um I just wanted to say a quick something too just because um there's one thing I'm very excited about and one thing that I'm really honored about this
025like I grew up in town I went through Cheshire school systems and exactly what you said the education and the commitment to education in this town is amazing now coming back to town raising my own kids through the school system and working in the school system and on top of that both my parents worked in the system at one time my mom actually worked at Doolittle as a special ed secretary for 13 years up until she passed away in um and my dad passed in April so the fact that I'm kind of still kind of doing and being in education like both my parents were it's very very special to me um the other thing I just wanted to mention is that because we're very excited at Doolittle um we are about to start a
026best buddies chapter at Doolittle will be the first Elementary School in town to have a best buddies chapter um so myself and a fellow parent volunteer who's also a teacher at the high school read Mangia Sierra Matthews is going to be co-advising with me so tomorrow at town meeting we'll be announcing it we have a sixth grade Board of board of for our best buddies and we're just really excited is another fun thing [Applause] and Ella's already on board the collaboration I she's often coming home with our new little Class A lot of collaborating so on behalf of the board and in your community uh thank you for your Awards and continued service congratulations up next we have audience uh comment if anyone in the audience would like to address the Board of Education now
027is a good time to do so okay consent calendar um let me call for a motion first and then we can discuss the items if any well soon I can make emotional consent Anna move that the Cheshire Board of Education approves the consent calendar as presented second and seconds any discussion on the consent calendar items seeing as there are no questions the motion is that the Cheshire Board of Education approves the consent calendar as presented all those in favor please raise your hand it is unanimous thank you committee reports we're going to start with curriculum faith thank you Tony um we had a couple of things that um would you prefer to start with the motion um proceed as you see fit okay um perhaps that's uh the best thing to do to get that
028out of the way and then we'll just move through the other items um so um in our last board meeting on September 11th uh one of the items up for discussion or up for um a vote was flexibilities for implementing Connecticut guidelines for educator evaluator evaluation 2017 for the 2022 2023-24 school year and at this moment I'm going to hand it over to Marlene Solano to explain exactly what that means and then we will have a motion on adopting it thank you faith so you may remember that we brought this to you before since the dawn of the pandemic the state department of education has made some adjustments to teacher evaluation calling them these flexibilities and we have and you have approved us to move forward with those flexibilities for the last couple of years
029this would be the last year of the flexibilities because the state is in progress of releasing a new teacher evaluation program that our group will be evaluating this year and coming to at the end of this year with a plan in the meantime these flexibilities allow us as they say greater flexibility in that these would be inform more frequent observations that are informal so they are not scheduled and teachers like that very much administrators like that very much we tend to get a much more authentic observation in of their practice when and it's not planned and so this has alleviated a lot of time for both parties and it seems to have been effective so we would like to continue with that and are seeking your support for it so we have a motion um
030that reads move that the treasure Board of Education adopt the flexibilities to the fundamental requirements of the Connecticut guidelines for Education evaluation 2017 for the 2022-23-24 school year I'm going to say that again for the 2023-24 school year um do I have a second any discussion Samantha um Solano can you just kind of also highlight that which I'm personally happy about the fact that there's no summative writing anymore it's more based on feedback and so forth so CMD mean for the flexibilities that they released in September yes I don't know a whole lot about that yet we received that last week the flexibilities that we're reporting on now are not for the current ones they're for the the flexibilities not the new um a vowel system that's been put out as of September 14th so
031we're going to visit the new one at the next committee the we'll revisit the new ones after our pdec committee gets together and so we'll be coming to the full board with that probably in the spring okay great thanks sure any other questions or comments okay seeing none um the motion is move that the Cheshire Board of Education adopt the flexibilities to the fundamental requirements of the Connecticut guidelines for educator evaluator 2017 for the 2023-24 school year all in favor got it path thank you thanks um okay so also taking place in the meeting are were some other items um going from Top uh bottom of the report to the top we uh Miss Solano reviewed the um writing curriculum writing Institute that occurred over the summer um over 80 teachers attended this was the
032third annual curriculum writing Institute um and there were 40 Projects we kind of reviewed them um but they ranged from grade one research to high school British lit to seventh grade seventh music Innovations um so it was quite a robust experience for everybody uh we then heard about um multilingual learner enrollment um this was just mind-blowing there are now 477 students who fit into this category and they represent represent almost 50 languages um so this information isn't obviously important for future consideration um uh for What's called the Seal of biliteracy under the estate guidelines um but it just kind of gives you an idea of um some of the challenges that we are facing within the um the district with the influx of non-english speaking students and families so um and then last but not
033least we went we did a deep dive into our estate testing results and you do have that packet that I had asked everybody to receive to be sent out earlier I don't know if y'all had a chance to review it but um Miss Solano has graciously included it in the packet there are some highlights and clearly a lot of progress is being made um and there are some areas that we all recognize is in need of improvement um to summarize as fast as I can um in grades three through eight on the smarter balanced 76.4 percent of tested students met or exceeded levels uh three or four in the ELA portion of the SBA smarter balance test and 73.4 met or exceeded levels three through four and math and then 68.9 percent achieved their growth
034targets and 73.2 percent achieved there that was in the LA and then 73.2 achieved growth targets and math for the ngss which is the next Generation uh science standards we generally saw the same Trend could continue as we saw in the smarter balanced and that is a movement back toward our pre-covered levels which is to be cheered and they're moving quickly um so our bounce forward program clearly is effective and and getting kids back on our students back on track um and so in grade five um what's this was quite a quite um uh import or just uh something to boast about 80.1 percent of our students matter exceeded um levels three or four and that placed uh Cheshire number two in durg B uh we're at number three um in 2021-22 um grade 11
035also did very well um they got they jumped by nearly 12 points over the prior year on the ngss um with 67.7 percent of the students meeting or exceeding um levels three or four and our rank climbed to 10 in durg B from 15. so in grade 8 on the ngss we saw a decline in scores with 65.9 percent of the students meeting or exceeding uh level three or four which dropped CPS Cheshire public schools to uh 12th in the durg from 9th in 2021 and 22. and then last but not least the Statewide sat testing um percentage of students meeting or exceeding levels three or four fell in both Ela and math over 2021 and 22 and CPS ranked uh in our ranking dropped from 13th to 16th and overall we were 30th out
036of 118 schools in ela and 30th out of 120 in math so um obviously a lot to be pleased with and some areas that are needing um some attention and I am going to hand it back to um Marlene to kind of walk you through any other um information you might want on this so probably would you want to add on because I have a question I can wait I think you should ask your question because Faith did an excellent job yeah fade an outstanding job and I I know uh it was a great meeting I forged I couldn't be there last week but thank you again and Faith for working through this Marlene for printers together just to point out a couple things just to I know we're we're climbing back to pre-covet levels
037with s.a.t which is a good Trend but to put in perspective the the top scoring District on Ela the average score is 586 Cheshire was 544 on math it was 586 and chesh was 538 so we're not very far behind in terms of a huge gap in achievement uh I'm sure we're going to close that Gap and I know it's not all about test scores but I think for folks that were following hopefully more folks are following the Quicken committee meetings over the last year or so but last year there were quite a few meetings where Marlene or a team talked about strategies for uh learning awareness in the classrooms and we have some new materials for the middle school so I I think this year if the progress continues we'll see some some better
038scores next year but I do want to thank uh District staff for all the work to I'm going to bounce forward by trying to get back on the positive directory so that was my only comment thank you Samantha thanks Faith um so I appreciate the native language report because obviously it's showing us that the town is becoming more diverse so that would be my first question is how what are we doing to meet the needs of these Learners my second would be if if this is for a future meeting can you or send it via email a breakdown of the high needs percentage because I'd like to see how those populations are doing with regards to this this seems just the typical broad so if that could be sent to us and I really would
039appreciate maybe we have to reevaluate our bounce forward um plan because it looks like our increases based on what Tony's saying the growth is not as substantial as it should be so fit oh I think that's my request is maybe we look at it again and see because I I just feel like our pre-pandemic numbers were in the 80s and it's just slowly moving we're only moving like two percentage points since 1819. Sam I just want to respond to your first question about meeting the needs of multilingual Learners and I really thank you for asking that question every one of you in the packet has a listing of all of the Native languages of our students by school and how many students are in each school that comes to that total of 477 so you
040can see there's such a variety of languages and one of the things that we have worked towards and that we continue to work towards is making sure that our teachers have the skills that they need to teach the unique needs of multilingual Learners it's really quite impressive when you think about the fact that we have 477 students in our school whose primary language is not English they but another language and they are learning English as a second sometimes third even fourth language it's it's just incredible and I had shared this information in sort of as a backdrop for us pursuing a seal of by Literacy for our students who have mastered more than one language and especially certainly be appropriate for some of our very high achieving students who have English as their native language
041but very impressive for students who have come here and learned that language on their own so one of the things that we do in order to make sure teachers have the support that they need is to partner with a coach at Aces Aces is the regional what our Regional Education Center and we have a wonderful coach who came last week and she spent or was it this week I'm not sure one or the other and spent a full day with our high school teachers because as you can see at our high school we have um 124 students who who speak more than one language and in the coming weeks we have this scheduled for our teachers at Dodd and our teachers at the elementary school and that consultant is also going to provide in classroom
042coaching in addition to that we have our literacy our learning support tutors at the elementary school who support students in learning another language at the middle school our reading teacher as well as her para educator work to do the same thing and then at the high school we have a lovely woman her name is Amy Russell who supports those students as well so we have multi-tiers of support at each level through elementary middle and high school to your other question um Sam oh go ahead well we're still on that topic um can you remind me that um bilingual seal is brand new and it's Statewide yes it's not exactly brand new but it is gaining more momentum in the state and the state is looking towards having schools report on the number of students who
043would acquire this seal I I think it's way overdue and I'm really glad that it's coming coming to the Forefront thank you sure the next question was about high need students and you're right that wasn't in our packet but it's something that we've been looking at since the data came out in August both internally and externally and what we've seen and I don't have the numbers at my fingertips to give to you tonight Sam but um in Cheshire we've got some of the um some of the some of the top scores for our high needs students and really commended um Robin Carrie and the whole entire special ed department and as well as our general Ed teachers for some of the um the gains we've made if you remember Norton and a few years ago
044Chapman had really closed the gap or began closing the gap for those High needs population and became schools of Distinction for that reason but that is absolutely something we'd be happy to share at a future meeting I just want to clarify Heidi is not special education no high needs is free and reduced lunch it's also students receiving special education services and our multilingual learners feminine thanks Tony I I am no fan of standardized tests uh nonetheless I we we live and die by it I guess to a certain extent it's part of how we review the church Public Schools so I'm just going to Second Sam's concern just about understanding that a bit better with regard to the native language just to be clear on this it says the primary language is that are we
045saying the first language the kid the child grew up with was not English or the family and household grew up in it's the student him or herself yes so I guess the best way to answer that is when a new family comes to town and registers their child they indicate what their primary language spoken at home is and if it is not English it is listed on on this paper that I gave you as what they wrote down as their primary language in their home okay I get it okay thank you thank you um just so I can apply some rudimentary context as not an educator when we came out of covid you use the term called acceleration um and and and I and I see the uh the fifth grade science scores and I
046like you know just do a little bit of math and how old were they when covet happened I think that would be like kindergarten or first grade I guess right would that be somewhere around there um and so is acceleration still happening and if it is at what grade does it stop I love that question so um acceleration is still happening as a matter of fact the district has embraced it to such an extent that our definition of high quality instruction is really really had its Genesis in the definition of acceleration acceleration always carried this or are you going too fast are you talking about moving beyond um the current grade level and so we sort of took that definition and made it our our definition of high quality instruction with some tweaks so as
047to get rid of that um confusion so it's happening at all grade levels and throughout and the reason I'm confident in saying that is because when the teachers and our teacher leaders came together and we were talking about the concept of acceleration everyone agreed that this is the right thing to do not just post covid or during covid because this is good teaching so the answer to that is yes we are meeting all of our students where they are but making sure they have access to grade level instruction so that would be true for a child you know with special needs it's true for a child who's been severely impacted by covid and and anywhere in between or above that so to push back on that a little bit in 1819 it looks like man
048we are right there we were really succeeding then we hit covid and then we use acceleration and now the recovery does not seem to be as quick so is that an is that a commentary on the Damage Done during that let's say year and a half that it was so substantial that the recovery to sort of uh come back to that 1819 level of uh proficiency is not possible anymore or how how should we turn interpret that that sort of drop off you know and then recovery I think what we do when we get these scores in and into Tim's point the reason why we sort of always look at these scores it's because it's the only Apples to Apples comparison we have to to as a as a ruler to measure ourselves against and
049if you look at other districts we are not unlike other districts that people are still striving to get back to pre-covered levels we happen to have a really great year pre-coven and we could feel things gelling and knew we were headed in the right direction and we're I'm confident that we will get back there we're not back there yet if I could just jump in with a couple of quick points when you look at growth in terms of our percentage of of students who achieved the growth Target or met the growth Target um from 22 to 23 Ela and math combined we had the highest growth in durgby um let's see we were 16th in the state of Connecticut in 2016 our achievement for Math and Ela and three through eight was 35th in Connecticut
050um you're correct in that we were fifth of the the K-12 districts in 2018-19 before the pandemic um we've we're now nine or eighth um so you know the school districts that are out performing us our New Canaan Dairy and Western Westport Madison Wilton and Ridgefield and not by great measure um and so you know I don't hear that people are saying oh my God the world is ending of course we want to be top five again but it's not we're not 35th either um we're achieving an incredibly high level outperforming almost every other school system in our derg and many who spend dramatically more money than we do in that process so you know I I don't want to sound defensive but I want to create perspective here that um we're far from the
051sky is falling to Faith's point though when you look around and we you know we evaluate a million different data points there are certainly places where we want to continue to improve um and we're more than happy to continue to elaborate on that but I just wanted to remind people that perspective that I shared at the opening of schools meeting I yeah I I wouldn't take it uh personally but I know it's difficult not to be good but I think uh from again I I think for all of us this is this is what happens when you set the bar high right yeah our students are achieving something happens we want to get back to make sure that they're getting all the support and growth they need and that's where we're coming from so I
052appreciate Adam raising the uh yeah absolute Damage Done kind of mentality um so we'll work through this a couple notes so last school year uh the curriculum committee we had several meetings on Deep dive on English language Learners and supports for our staff um uh sat the new curriculum uh at that et cetera we're going to probably revisit those again probably I I would think in the springtime once you have some traction so stay tuned um I just want to ask that when the curriculum committee agenda is mailed out that all board members get it because there's a lot of good information there I'll try to pull up the videos from last year related to tonight's topics because uh it'd be nice to have that Baseline as we look at in the future how things
053are progressing um and one last thing so I I think I asked this last year in one according to community meetings and my one of my assumptions is I have to wonder if the SAT scores not being as high as they used does that little reflection of the fact that arguably colleges now are not really requiring SAT scores um our our students feeling less pressured to take it and I don't I don't say they're going in not seriously but I don't know if that plays a role when they take the test knowing that that's not the only Factor anymore for admissions yeah that could be a fair that's a fair question to ask what degree do kids uh place an emphasis on the SAT before they take it and um if if it's diminished at
054all I would be surprised if it was a Cheshire only problem right like so I I think that when we look at everybody our peers that we compare ourselves to I would think that if the if it is a diminished uh intensity when it comes to the SAT everybody has that so we still want to improve uh significantly where we are in that respect not just curious I'm not hearing that fair questions Point yes one other point um Marlene and I had talked about this and and my question was is this a especially with first of all I don't know that the I don't believe the SAT reflects the caliber of our kids of our students at all I um case in point two cases in point tonight um I but there's there's just something
055not matching up and and I um so is it a question of the their interpretation the reading of the questions uh the problems that are presented is it applying formulas what is it and and as Marlene said they they're analyzing the data and all I would ask and um I don't we don't need voluminous reports but just every now and again as you analyze um the results and and break down the data just give us um maybe at the six month Mark in an update on what you're finding um so um because it'd be it would be interesting to hear what's happening I mean is it just a disinterest on the part of the kids and whatever this is going to be you know they don't need this anyway or do we have some problems
056that we need to look at curriculum with or something like that um just so we're staying on top of it that would be my request great thank you up next is our finance report Mr grippo or Mr maciano yes I would be happy to good evening board members and all the board members do have the finance report in the in the package and tonight's report should be quick it's only the second month of the year our budget approved for 23 24 is 84 million 993 429 as board members you've all been here for more than one cycle so by August we haven't entered all our encumbrances for payroll or Transportation yet so we only have 24 of our budget expended or encumbered there are no um concerns or issues to report at all for this
057fiscal year yet and we hope that continues through the year I did want to know two things and it's in the report very quickly one is that we just learned this week through the governor's office that the Connecticut minimum wage will increase from 15 per hour to 15.69 cents per hour effective January one that's the midpoint of the year we did a quick review we don't have many employees that'll blow the um 15.69 minimum we have some that are between 15 and 1569 it's about 40 employees so we'll adjust their salaries on January 1. those employees are all 20 hours or less generally speaking um it's some of our lunch uh lunchroom and playground AIDS bus aides and now sub secretaries so that's not going to have uh you know any kind of neg any
058kind of concern as to the salary budget we will make those adjustments and as far as energy goes I did put some detail here but you know we did lock most of our Commodities fortunately when we saw a dip in the markets I will tell you that you know I don't have a crystal ball I got a little bit lucky because we we purchased when oil was down to about 72 dollars per barrel and it's now at 90. so these look really really good but our heating oil is locked at 258 a gallon propane at 229 a gallon a diesel fuel at 269 a gallon and gasoline which we use in some of our vehicles at 252 per gallon so all of those will enable us to meet our budget for this year and electricity
059we you know have had been you know reviewing the market working with our consultant we did lock through October of 2024 which will take us through the end of this fiscal year at 11.7 cents per kilowatt hour it's hard to look at that number relative to where we were but that it will enable us to meet our budget as well so you know even though Energy prices are up we did lock these Commodities so we'll be in good shape meeting our budget we did increase the budget for those line items because we knew heading into this year it was going to be difficult in terms of energy prices the only commodity we don't have locked is natural gas which we use for heating and a little bit for cooking we looked at it with our
060consultant and the recommendation was that prices are just not attractive to lock in we'll stay on our market rate with ever Source it's worked for us the last four or five years so we hope that that continues so that's the finance report obviously as the year goes on we'll continue to update and then I'll hit the medical benefits report very quickly and we'll see if there's questions I only have the report through July 31st we don't have the August numbers yet for medical claims but as of July 31 claims were about 1.07 million we're expecting them about 1.1 million dollars per month we started the year with a Reserve balance of two million 50 000 which is a little over um it's almost two months claims 1.9 months worth of claims we ended the month
061at 2 million ninety nine thousand in the reserve so that Reserve is reasonable you know we would like to be at two months or above it's just a little bit under we hope that continues and with that are there any questions [Music] sorry then that's okay it's a night um I know you say it's not that big of an impact but you have do you have some numbers for the increase in the wage less than ten thousand dollars probably closer to five yeah it's really going to be minimal now that's only a half a year yeah and the employees that we have to raise most of them are going from 1550 to 1569 so that's why the impacts minor I'm just wondering if we budgeted for these incremental well we this one came as a
062surprise but generally speaking the the salary budget increase for this year was three percent you know across an interest Union contracts different but we do have some non-union contracts so we budgeted three this is not going to impact that it's not going to move the needle and um so this is the first time Connecticut made this economic adjustment to wages the the minimum wage Grew From ten dollars to Fifteen dollars over four years that was scheduled so I really didn't pay attention and didn't realize that this was going to happen so did come as a little bit of a surprise to not just me but everybody that that learned this was happening it's a 4.6 increase it's it's pretty substantial it is that's why I'm asking so you're saying it's not going to impact but
063because it's only 40 people okay yeah but 40 people ads over time if we didn't consider budgeting for these surprises that's all right well you know for next year's budget I'm assuming this is going to be an annual adjustment so we'll have to you know look at our crystal ball and figure out something it'd be nice but we we you know because we have increased and um negotiated with the unions we are above the 15 and really close with most employees to 1569 so you know I'm hoping that this doesn't become a budget problem every year it's going to need a little tweak so that economic indicator adjustment is when does that come out we will it be out by January when we budget um or are we just going to take a guesstimate because
064if it's like the CPI it could go way up and I doubt it was going to come way down but it could but how do we prepare well I can't tell you I have to look at the law but it the law says that beginning in 2024 hourly minimum wages in Connecticut will change yearly in response to a national measure of inflation in the labor market called the unem called the employment cost index so I don't know what date these are going to be set each year the governor announced it on September 18th to be effective January 1. so we could presume it might be the same every year but I'll look into it some more this starts January 1 we're not even going to be hit with the you say when you say it's
065back on January 1. so we're not even getting a full Year's worth of this increase right in this year's budget it's six months okay all right for small favors I guess and then with regard to medical benefits my favorite topic um so do you re I think at the end of June we were in the 800 High 800 we ended June it like the high 800s do you remember where we were a year ago because I mean is this million 64 or whatever is that in keeping with last year or are we teeing up another year of hold on hold on is that in there I have no it's not in there but I have a sheet nope last year's Celeste July's claims were one million 139 okay right so we're in line good thank
066you um firstly uh faith and glad you're running again who knows we miss those great comments assuming you're successful uh we'll continue for many years um I'll end on a positive note uh Vin um are the uh the companies that you locked in these Energy prices with are they going to still be in business because these locks are incredible so I just like to give you a comp compliment there because well you can find these prices anymore you know the fuel oil diesel fuel heating oil that's East River Energy they're very large company and they hedge so when we you know they had what whatever we lock at so don't worry about them and propane this year we locked what FF Hitchcock which is a local company so I yeah we're not putting anybody out
067of business with these trust me the East River Energy and all the principles they're going to do just fine and they always do fine prices go up prices go down they still make money yes yeah then correct me if I'm wrong but I think one of the things that might be getting missed here is the school's government pays about a dollar less in taxes for the rate so when you're saying 250 for a person sitting and watching TV it's more the equivalent of like 350 a gallon or something like that so that's one of the pieces ruined in my high note sorry just want to explain it that people if they go looking for 250 a gallon they're probably not going to get it that's a great point and that's why we Supply fuel for
068the buses that's why we purchase it because we don't pay tax and if we had the bus company purchase it they'd pay tax and of course that's a pass-through anyway so that's a great point thank you sorry thanks anything anything else uh thank you I just want to add that the wage increase that was a surprise to a lot of uh a lot of folks in school districts and the cave is uh is hearing a lot from uh different districts so I I know we're working with uh representatives in Hartford to try to have better heads up each year for budgeting purposes but we're not the only District that was coffee I just so I'll end with uh it just shows the importance of um why we have our legislative committee meeting that will be
069coming up so we can discuss these issues that I guess show up and I get I would assume this would have been in the implementer bill because we did not know about this the last time we met with the legislators so they had no idea about it correct so yeah we'll make sure maybe we'll get a schedule from them this time it'll be more known okay thank you you're welcome thank you everyone up next is uh Personnel committee uh Tim thank you Tony um I think there's an executive session after yeah so there's there's two items here under Personnel the first one we had a personal meeting on Monday night to discuss the superintendent's goals for the year um so the Personnel committee met with the superintendent in executive session I I've already heard back
070in the past couple days I've heard back from a couple of board members so I'm not going to really add anything more to it other than to say I am planning to schedule another Personnel committee meeting just to look through the goals and hopefully we can meet and chat with the superintendent a little bit more that is it for me on that for now and oh I guess one other point is one of the things I heard and that I'd like I'm hoping to get a bit more of is more of what I've said before which is the the smart goals specific measurable achievable and then the second item on the Personnel report is approval of a bargaining unit agreement between the Cheshire Board of Ed and the Cheshire administrative Personnel so just for clarity
071that's a that's a our administrator's Union and that's about 20 people or so okay so this is not the teachers hundreds but this isn't much of our Union so if you'd like you could go into executive session to discuss yeah we do have a motion okay for that they're going executive session with possible action to follow you can read it so wait a second where's the we have a motion for going into executive session I'm not sure what it's supposed to say oh wait no I don't have that in front of me I have the motion to approve if we wanted to approve it what were you going to Executive session first to review it so okay make them so I'll make a motion yeah to go into executive session to discuss the approval of
072bargaining unit agreement between the Cheshire Board of Education and the Cheshire administrative personnel to also invite in the superintendent Vincent and the Board of Ed the Board of Education and Vincent messiana and the assistant superintendent uh Marlene Solano I suck him all those in favor the motion thank you we're going to join executive session we ask that you leave hopefully won't be too long but we will be coming back uh possibly the vote and continue the board meeting you can sneak in here too oh you know what we're going to go a different room my bad thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign just reconvene right now to call the store again so thank you everyone for uh for waiting we try to make it speedy so we are reconvening our regular business
073meeting um pretty much like to make a motion and then we can discuss details thank you Tony that the Cheshire Board of Education approves the collective bargaining agreement with the Cheshire administrative Personnel for the period of July 1 2024 through June 30 2028. every second Faith seconds uh discussion thank you Tony I don't have the I apologize I don't have the numbers in front of me so I'm not going to be able to give you the details somebody else is going to have to do that however I just want to say um thank you to the administrators uh I appreciate you negotiating in good faith I think it's a reasonable contract for everyone involved and thank you for your efforts and I look forward to it for the next four years thank you faith um
074I sat in on these negotiations it was eye-opening for sure and it was done in good faith I can assure everybody and um I Echo Tim's comments thank you guys for the work you put in to your schools it's um appreciated more than you know so so this is our cap contract and and uh so just some some highlights um it's a four-year contract and just to summarize the the increases uh year one which is 24.25 excuse me I'm in a wrong paragraph So it's an average of uh I believe three percent 25 26 is three percent 26 27 is 2.75 percent 27 28 uh it's 2.5 percent uh this you also made some changes to the high deductibles uh plans uh some changes to vacation days for new hires um I'm sure the details
075uh once this is executed will be made available but um just highly not because this is a very very fair agreement and I I too iterate um my thanks appreciation to to to our administrators um and I hope that this being a four-year agreement uh oh makes you realize that it's again we're making our commitment to you normally we don't do four-year contracts but this is favorable to both of us so we we want to retain and attract the best that we can and hopefully this four-year uh personal emphasis on that so thank you and I do appreciate faith and everyone who's involved in negotiations as well as your representation for I heard it was very smooth very collaborative and that's wonderful um I hope we can do that with all our Collective Department agreements
076but uh very appreciative this as it uh sets some certainty for us then uh in our budget so so thank you that will support this Adam thank you um I just want to say I had the opportunity to read through the uh entire contract um I found it uh very fair and as a chairman of the finance committee I also appreciated uh the stability it gives to our budget for the next uh four years uh if we do end up approving this this evening so uh like I said I believe it's uh fair and uh Equitable for the administrators who do a great job for us and I will be supporting the contract thank you anyone else seems that there are no comments uh the motion is move that the Cheshire Board of Education approve
077the collective bargaining agreement with the treasure administrative Personnel for the period of July 1st 2024 through June 30th 2028 all those in favor please raise your hands it is unanimous thank you the motion hashes congratulations [Applause] uh in our packets we have minutes from the June 1st June 30th and September 7th meetings uh so I'll move that the Board of Education approved the minutes from meetings held on June 1st June 30th and September 7th 2023 the second and seconds any uh modifications to the minutes yes Andrew on the June 1st meeting I'm listed as being here and not here we're here in spirit so I was not I was not attended to that meeting so I think Vin you were in charge of those meeting minutes at night so thank you Andrew anyone else we
078lost 10. you have to abstain I suppose I'll try to draw this off for a few more seconds but a pregnant pause if if I make yes please Mr Ripple uh that I thought the uh the the minutes were uh very concise and well written and uh very informative and uh they matched up to the YouTube videos that we have that if anyone uh does uh want is interested in uh what occurs during our business meetings they can always go to Cheshire Public School uh Channel and uh view the meetings themselves I uh I would I would chuckle but Adam is serious I'm 100 confident he matches up the minutes to the videos if I may make another please Faith another correction here um on Page Six of the June 1st um it says Miss
079rosenblatt I think it was supposed to be Miss Rosenberg unless there was someone else in the room no so we need the men's rosenblatt with Rosenberg for the June 30th June June 1st that was tough meeting June 1st no no I've just made for whoever's taking the minute Zing that was great as long as Carol coming back hopefully next week it's completely oh there's in all seriousness so the motion is so my apologies uh move that the Board of Education approve the minutes from meeting South on June 1st June 30th and September 7th 2023. those in favor please raise your hands is unanimous that motion passes um Madam Secretary do we have any correspondence so we had uh an email exchange from Mr Michael Sheehan um regarding the seventh grade curriculum reading uh the fiction
080contemporary fiction um couple of the books and that were choices in that um in that section and that is being addressed in um by superintendent Solon so um I would just add that um I would really appreciate when Mr Sheehan thinks he's addressing the the board with an issuer or questions that he include all of the board members in the email exchange um interestingly the two board members who represent the minority voice on this board were omitted from that email request so if you're addressing the Board of Ed please include all of us thank you up next is superintendents report Dr Solon thank you very much Mr peragini um I just want to try and Buzz through we have a few quick items here all exciting stuff uh Cheshire High School be holding a special
081breakfast our culinary Department getting an authentic opportunity uh for National First Responders day uh recognition for our firefighters police and EMTs along with our Community Partners like social services and our Public Works folks on Friday the 27th CHS at 8 o'clock if you guys are available to stop by that'd be great um we're our science department at the high school has been doing some really exciting stuff uh they just received a grant for the plant Mars challenge through the Connecticut space Consortium additionally they've been working with Aces and Aces is facilitating uh between the department of Ed in South Korea and um high schools in America a science collaborative where students are given various challenges and so our Cheshire high students will work collaboratively with students from high school and South Korea to solve these
082challenges in the spring there's a symposium where our students are invited there to present so that that may be a field trip request coming forward because we had really strong interest we had 22 kids express interest in participating in this science challenge so that's really cool they're excited about that at Cheshire high school and to just give a quick update on the high needs student population performance for three through eight in um in Connecticut we ranked ninth in K-12 districts in 10th in math and K-12 districts overall we were ninth there as well for our high needs student population so pretty solid performance I'm glad they're you know I know that they were I knew that they were performing on par with their their peers in terms of rank and of course we want to
083do everything we can to support closing the the Gap that may exist between there performance and our folks the students who are not identified in that group but more to come on that I'm sure look we promise we'll share more data with you guys [Music] thank you that's so any uh questions on Dr Sean's report yesterday did you mention modernization at all or oh my gosh is that a separate item the one thing yeah modernization um I hate to steal Andrews Thunder now that he doesn't do it anymore it's like he's so yeah he's yeah there used to be his thing but anyway um next week we are hosting two special events thank you so much Tim uh on Tuesday night at Chapman school we'll be hosting uh community members for the north end program
084and if you're not familiar with what we're doing please see our website if you go to the Cheshire Public Schools website there's a banner on the bottom with a link to uh school modernization we'll give you all the information you need to know so Tuesday night at seven o'clock we have a presentation from techton on that um on Wednesday night we have the Norton edition of that uh down at Norton school and again at seven o'clock tecton will be presenting the schematic design for that building uh soliciting feedback from the community uh and again this was mailed to every address in Cheshire several weeks ago to give people ample time to be there uh in subsequent weeks we'll have some virtual sessions as well if you can't make next week's sessions and then next Thursday
085night for the uh School modernization Trifecta we have the next gen school modernization committee meeting which occurs um just about every other week at seven o'clock downstairs twice a week or twice a month I'll be downstairs in room 205. that meeting will focus a lot on the Mechanicals um you know I know Tim had inquired about uh you know what can we do in terms of reducing the carbon footprint and the costs of energy and whatnot and so our mechanical specialist will be there next Thursday to talk about that Tim and Adam thanks Tony yeah so with regards to the thank you for the addition to the modernization report with regard to the meeting next Thursday I look forward to it I hope other people will attend people um whatever their concerns are one of
086my main concerns is sustainable construction but it really comes at it from a perspective of life cycle costs I really feel that it's critical that not just here in Cheshire but the schools the town government the federal government households when possible when you're making when when energy decisions are made it is really valuable to look at life cycle costs and and I mean it seriously when I feel like it needs to be a serious conversation whatever the decision is that's one thing but I think there has to be a serious conversation about life cycle costs because we part of the argument in favor of new construction rather than a renovation was 50 years rather than 20 years of use so we really I firmly believe that we need to be looking at the life cycle
087costs and if we're spending Less on the initial cost right now oftentimes that means you pay more on the back end so we're paying more for the next 50 years at least in that sort of simple scenario I don't know if that's the case but that is what I look forward to getting a better understanding of the life cycle costs associated with the different options for our basically our Energy Systems at the two schools that's certainly smart to evaluate you know what is the immediate versus long-term costs in these things and that was communicated to techton and their team and so I look forward to hearing more about that next week thank you Yeah Tim thanks for that and thanks for keeping us on task conservation part of these really big projects that we can
088do a lot with if we're in on the ground floor with it and you've been really good about keeping us there I just wanted to uh publicly thank the bill committee um for their great work and I think those flyers that were mailed out to all residents were and the presentation at the Fall Festival was laid out really nice lots of visuals pictures people seemed really interested in getting that information I feel like that committee has done a great job whether it's the committee the committee working with um the professionals that we have working with us um to me it seems like the community is very very well informed and involved so I I want to thank everybody who's been involved with all of that Adam [Music] I was trying to get the uh meeting
089dates here so I'll get them into my calendar just wanted to make sure I wanted and I also want to seek so my questions are um about the images we received updated images on the North End I wasn't sure if those were public or not or if those are going to be unveiled next week and then my other question is I don't think we received updated images of the Norton project but it looks like there's something up on the on their uh the Next Generation Facebook page and so I just wanted to make sure that the images that are on that Facebook page are updated and then find out if the ones that we have for the North End are public I'm following you I'm with you so the North End images that were just
090released uh Tuesday have not been updated on our website yet um soon but just not yet the updates to the Norton facade have been updated and those are on our website so when you click on School modernization you scroll down a little bit on the left hand side they should be within that PowerPoint that's from the last meeting that uh the tecton facilitated that presentation I think that's it thanks that's it doctors I think that's it Dr stolen thank you for the update uh old business we don't have uh old business new business on chairpersons update just a couple items uh Cave had a director's meeting last week and we actually uh were graced by having Dr Russell tarker and attendance by herself with the keyboard directors in the room which everybody knows how busy
091she is it's almost impossible to do so I just want to thank her for her hour and a half of answering every question we post to it which ran the gamut in the cave should be sending out some meaning minutes which are four some very good content there but one thing I want to highlight that she spoke uh quite a bit of was uh trying to help with the teacher shortage issue in Connecticut she had mentioned that now there's I believe six to eight states with reciprocity uh I think Rhode Island is the latest one where it's teachers certify there 'll be able to teach in Connecticut using that certification and short summary I don't remember all the states are but she ran them off pretty quickly but uh she seems making progress there and
092I believe there's already two teachers from Rhode Island I'm teaching in Connecticut this school year it took um took his advantage of that she also mentioned that I don't know if it's in this legislature or it's coming but she mentioned about the possibility adjunct faculty be able to teach uh in public schools as another Pathway to help with a shortage of a Summits in progress so uh again I'll get the medium minutes out and again but it seems a lot of work is happening between her department and um and Harford to help with that shortage um that's really it uh as far as upcoming board meetings our next board meeting is October 5th uh it's an open it's an open Forum meeting here in town council chambers and the open Forum setting such that we
093break out into our respective committee groups and we invite members of the public to sit down with us and address topics what is finance planning curriculum Etc it's always well attended so we're looking forward to this one policy committee is October 10th at 6 30. curriculum next curriculum committee meeting will be October 16th at 7 pm in the Houston boardroom and October 19th is our next Board of Ed business meeting we'll be here in town council chambers at 7 30. yes uh just to add the open Forum meeting is off mic so usually people feel more comfortable really being open with us when we discuss yeah and we had a really well attended one last year at that and a lot of great things came out of that so we're looking forward to this thing
094so that's it we will not be during the executive session so we've already cover that topic so that being said I'm asked for a motion to adjourn Andrew Faith seconds all those in favor adjourn the meeting raise your hands it is unanimous thank you everyone this meeting is adjourned