001June 29th board Education meeting Mr zescade will call to work Mr grippo here miss ham here Ms Harrigan here Mr Martinelli Mr carugini Mr Rosenberg yeah Mr White Mr chairman you have a foreign [Music] thank you this is one of the most well-attended meetings we've had since the last time before you get to actual business uh do we have any members of the audience that wish us to pay comments to the work things that are done we're going to move on to uh before sustaining committees starting with grateful hey um thank you we had a very quick meeting um and it was on June 12th 2023 I think it's a record and the it was a single purpose meeting and that was to approve uh or to approve a pet Jones request or [Music] um
0022023-24 um in which so that um we can get started on the application immediately and this would be for funding classroom libraries and grades two through three uh the committee approved g go ahead to apply for the grant and we now have to take it to the full board so you have a motion before you there's a slight change to the motion in your notes it says kindergarten in grade one it will be for grades two and three so um it's moved that the treasury Board of Education approves the use of Peck Jones funds in the amount of twenty two thousand dollars to enhance the availability of quality reading materials in the classroom libraries for students in grades two through three and we'll support the replenishment and development of classroom libraries to support all primary
003grades sure presentation questions uh brand that's already process and we have funds if we're able to draw down a year we didn't draw it down during the years where we had ample password funds the last one that we drew down was for this year and he did already draw against that and put the order in this then would be for the next year okay so the motion is moved to the potential Board of Education improves the use of Pike Jones funds in the amount of twenty two thousand dollars to the fantasy availability quality of reading materials in the classroom Library so students in grades two and three and will support the refreshment and development acrossing libraries to support all primary grades um [Music] thank you up next is finance and just a little background here
004this is usually our end of year school year Board of fiscal meeting where we're going to close out the budget and make sure everything that's out to Zero edition usually does so I know a lot of work especially this piece of numbers so that being said if you guys want to walk us through okay if it's okay Mr Perry Genie I'd like to begin with a medical benefits so for the month of May we provided the report claims for the month for 1.23 million dollars a little bit above the 1 million that we were expecting um however on a year-day basis we did better than we expected to expect it to be even as of right now we've actually had a net increase to the medical benefits reserve of 269 526. so we have one
005month left to go I know that we will be receiving an additional 150 000 payment in June for prescription rebates so that'll help fully the balance we'll see what claims come in but I do expect that we will end the year in the neighborhood of where we are right now 1.6 million that's about 1.6 months worth of claims so with that I'll just say that we did a little bit better than we expected this year and as I put in the memo on the budget closing the trend over the last six months has improved so we're not seeing this continual increase I'm not saying faith that it's going to continue downward to the levels that we were two years ago but certainly if the trend is subsiding that goes throughout the next year's plan is
006hopefully getting back to a more normalized so that is the medical benefit s um what can you tell us what happened oh no we're still waiting for what as we had made just remember what the high deductible Health Plan when we hit January everybody has to meet their deductible and so as you start hitting May June July you start to see the claims go up because people have started to meet their exercise I don't know that there's any large claims in there that are driving that 1.2 million that's going to say it's more related to the people in their deductible okay so with I know this is a formal issue when the entire meeting but we had not figured out yet why Medical Care is just suddenly so crazy expensive but like we have ideas
007process we know the types of things coming in there's no surprise there all right the question is I know there's a joint study happening in town besides we would warranty you claimed not just for or whatever in the downside to see what the what's going on but I mean there's no death medical inflation you know it's just harder that's been pre-pandemic you know to the tune of six to seven percent per year and plus we you know over the last couple of years have had a high run of large claims you know people getting sick significant diagnosis so um as I said even though this month is higher the trend is looking a little bit better so we'll see if that continues foreign [Music] members after we promotion to do the final five entries to
008close the budget for the year on just balance out but we will be balancing out at zero so in the memo just a couple of things I wanted to to know first is that all five of the main categories finished within three hundred thousand dollars of budget and no category was more than 6.6 percent of budget some categories were 0.6 such as salaries you know so we're really close within Budget on most of our categories the board knows you know from the monthly reports some of the challenges that we face it and actually pretty effectively were energy inflation which drove up the electricity Heating and transportation fuels cost of substitutes also you know was a driving factor and you know we had a nice offset in that special education across you know our local Budget
009on the tuition applications um thankfully we had no covert related health and safety expenses this year so that's a nice break from the private two years um in the final closing it's it's all accounted for but we did have to pay the food and nutrition services three thousand eight hundred ninety dollars to reimburse that department for uncollected student meal purchases we continue to follow up to try and get parents to pay those invoices but that is a requirement that the Board of Ed reimbursement food and nutrition program so that's factored in we um did have you know sufficient funding the way we manage our budget as before knows you know we had a maximum of an 80 expenditure on non-payroll expenses so as we got into April May and June we were able to allow
010funding to make the technology equipment Furniture purchases that we need to make for next year as well as a co-host of Summer maintenance projects which is in attachment a on their own so all in all the uh had a good good end of the fiscal year and I just wanted to take a moment while I can to acknowledge that there are two people in the room that's great Givens or director of fiscal services and Health Federal safety our operation supervisor board hopefully know that I have a very strong team behind me and [Music] Craig and Heaven for being here as well as Sultana he's a favorable Kelly and Mary mcgarrado and weasel I've got Julio in our accounting department so so mentioned on the uh unpaid Student Life purchases that average this year can we
011see that seven years higher than we've seen we have three males last year so we didn't have any other Collective grounds you know this year what's interesting is that we only had about one month one month window where parents had to pay for meals [Music] and it was during that one month period where the uncollected ballots actually went over ten thousand dollars and so that has been reduced so I would say it is higher than at previous levels great thank you questions seen as a hard one uh with someone like Nick mentioned I don't have any water to let my whistle here um what would that be Board of Education approved line item transfers for the 2022-23 fiscal year and as follows to every year in Balance uh move from employee benefits 13 315.08 let's
012move from instruction 297 756.11 move from Support Services 78 000 133.83 two salaries 668.28 moved two operations and maintenance 109 536.74 for a total adjustment of 205 dollars and two cents is there a second and the uh discussion on the motion any public comment on the motion seeing as there are none uh we will vote on the motion as articulated by Mr Ripple always a favor please raise your hands it is unanimous and thank you it was about saying I you know Greg and team are not often in our games because you're all very busy I'm sure Vincent's wife Taskmaster but uh we appreciate all the help on its finances throughout the year and I know it's been difficult time so I appreciate the artwork because it wasn't for us thanks really appreciated because if
013we're over a budget more events are responsible for us that being said we're going to move on uh up to the next is uh personal committee Fortune Mr wait it's not here yet and it was really great opportunity for for her and for us and we're excited about that but it obviously left the vacancy at Norton and so we engaged in a thorough search we've had about 30 applicants and I went through with the screening process the initial phase of the interview process carried on we then had an interview committee convened the faith was able to attend that part of it with our teaching team and some of the administrators and went through that part of the process only have a third phase that included a data team facilitation another interview with parents a student
014and faith and Sam were able to attend that interview as well the candidates that are from the finalists interviewed with Ben myself and Marlene for a third time and so to be our thrilled to go through such a thorough process and ensure that we have an outstanding candidate that I can present with you this evening we're excited to nominate Jody Rhoden for the position of Norton school principal Miss Rhoden began her administrative career as a teaching vice principal at reading Elementary School in Waterbury in 2005 to subsequently promoted Elementary principal in 2016 and would vary for becoming Seymour Middle School principal in 2019. despite your tremendous success as the Middle School principal and it's wrote that it's very excited to return to her first love in education at the elementary level she really distinguished herself
015throughout the interview process through her knowledge and instruction calm and collaborative demeanor strong background and special education and proven record of success one of her references said of Jody that I have been in education 35 years and considered Johnny Jody one of the two best hiring decisions that I've ever made another reference spoke with her strengths of leadership for special education and now managing challenging issues by stating that she truly has a talent to help him through the few situations and bring people together around difficult situations we're excited to nominate Jody for this position from school principal thank you so much um forget it if any questions yeah I knew that the the Board of Education he wrote to the position of Elementary School principal effective July 1st 2023 further Jody Rhodes is compensated in
016accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the Board of Education and the Cheshire administrative Personnel thank you very second eight seconds any conference discussion from the board of course I just want to say congratulations and welcome to Cheshire Public Schools Jody um your interview that I sat in with the parents and it's most impressive and I had a great feeling about you then so I'm very pleased that you are coming on um I just wanted you to know that I specially appreciated the way that you answered the students questions fifth grader but a very bright and energetic very well spoken young man anyways um I really appreciated that you took his question sort of head on and then corrected and answered him and such a generous way but also but you answered his question and
017um so welcome and thank you yeah I sat in on two of the interviews and um if they were all exceptional candidates to myself that um to me you stood out and um I I added away and said with regard to how you um address the student um you didn't speak down to him uh you obviously respected him he warmed to you and um I just thought that was a lovely uh important of what's going to happen over at Norton so congratulations thank you thank you and Andrew is welcome wondering um have you had any experience with civil construction because obviously you're coming in a very uh difficult time for transitioning and all of that so GMA experience with that unfortunately I do not um one of the questions was I had to rate myself
018of organization which was I have a time if that will help with that in that sense but of course I'm willing to learn Concepts you know then I'll just jump into the process and hello thank you that's so I know uh the board is very familiar with the interview process uh I don't think we talk about too much in public Mains but I just want to summarize just the number of interviews involved in what area students sure sure so the process always starts with a thorough paper screen the candidates submit all of their information as a online application resume submission letters of recommendation and certification believe it or not we have some people whose event applications that helpful certification and things like that so we we eat some people out but uh really we philosophically
019try and bring in as many people as we and he passed away event to get to know folks so Biz Marlene and I spent many hours over the course of two days uh conducting interviews to put faces the resumes and get to your uh them kind of bring their background to life for us you get to hear you know how articulate is this individual what are their experiences really like and get a sense of their depth and knowledge then we narrowed the group down I think we had six or seven candidate seven that we brought back for interviews with a diverse team with stakeholders from the building including the school nurse and the secretary and teachers reading math Specialists so we stay down on those as well we have much deeper interviews at that point
020where we were able to identify three candidates that we felt really good about at the end of that process then those three candidates came in and kind of did you know shuffling the Coconuts around at the same time where we had the same mentioned and Faithfully a panel of parents and students and the board members who were able to engage in an interview with Robin and Carrie and I think it's to know not just some details about the person's professional experience about how they engage with those different groups there are also then shifted over to evaluate our data from Norton we had a group of teachers in and the candidates led a data team discussion uh as well as I said you know been myself in Marley interviewed the candidates individually third time and so
021that process in itself was pretty thorough we got a lot of great feedback from the board parents and student as well as the the feature team that was in with Kevin Hanlon of facilitated that and then you know the just the overall experience we got a sense of Jody being our top candidate so then at that point we went through you know background checks social media the whole nine yards Jody's been slang and other things but nothing outrageous in her social media and so you know we feel very difficult true story yes [Music] that's great I I read it out because I these are all it's all just Tim White were here I think if I Channel my internet these hires um you know he he'd say that uh uh or wants to throw a
022process but two the board doesn't have to administically vote on these but we do it it is the policy this policy and frankly there's some I'm your employee yeah but um the point being there's a lot that goes into this and it's uh all hires taken very seriously so I thank you for coming back after going through all that that's weird and uh I did run into a couple parents PCL president that was very excited and she was asking what to ask God what's important thing when you hear from your parents so it's nice to see all the involvement you know let's take a trip and I'll have to say Norton's looking a well-recognized school as most of our schools are all our schools are CPS so uh I was like to say there's big
023shoes of Phil but these are opportunities to set you know new Footprints so I was so he's supporting this and yeah thank you and welcome nobody else wants to chime in yeah yes as an alumni Norton School class of being six and Mr White is also alone and my son he came in Alum a couple weeks ago I welcome you to the north family a lot of Rich history and uh a great neighborhood school and the I just we saw solar schematics of you know some preliminary of a new school it's a very exciting time for Norton school and uh I hope you're up to the task of leading the the school and the neighborhood in the future congratulations I will add one quick thing one what came across to me in that final interview
024session was very deep understanding of what it means to be a leader and that came through love and clear I believe she lives thank you I have a lot of confidence it's excellent the motion is that Cheshire education appoint Jody Rhoda to the position of the school principle the 5th of July 1st 2023 further Julie Rhoden is compensated in accordance with the concert bar and agreement between the Board of Education Andy Cheshire administrative Personnel all those in favor please thank you congratulations thank you excellent up next is yes we had a rather robust meeting back on June 20th um here in this room um we antonized we reported to this award about space planning Community several months ago about looking towards the future for enrollment growth and potential portable classrooms space ships within the Doolittle
025school on Highland there wasn't any decisions made or anything else spring matches foreign and that's where the bottom line is we're looking into it we're being aggressive cognizant about discussions oh thank you and uh I saw that Council to get the updates on additional costs or recovery trailers and so I know I think that they were very supportive of that you have to just starting to get through the construction and potential Normal book coming in as we navigate the next space so I know the planning committee is also talking about fakes too I think we have more true action on that as a summer so hopefully be a shorter process system any questions so saying that we find out we have to um expand that project to accommodate what it's what do we do I
026mean the current project yeah okay well I mean what if we find out the enrollment for these schools isn't a lot it's it's exceeding what even our high-end expectations and we get to the point where we say we you know the supplements are the South Winds are right what do we do that's a good question um and it's something that we've been contingency planning for okay so um I didn't point this out in the schematic designs and just had a meeting um where the Architects shared some conceptual drawings drafts that will ultimately as they get refined a little bit share with the broader Community for feedback and uh they're looking to hold the meetings remember when people are back in the summer trips and whatnot uh to get feedback really from the two communities most
027impacted but in those schematic drawings if you look really closely they're little dashed lines around some of the corners where they're anticipating if it were to come to fruition that we needed to add more space so that they could tack it on in those locations or eight years from now if you needed to that plot is sort of there and then so we're trying to design it to be an envelope and to be reactive if necessary um if it were to you know come to to be that we do the October 1 enrollment study because the recommendation was you know the year October maybe enrollment in to see who's actually here then do the more uh in-depth study I mean typically you guys are familiar with NASDAQ who does First Trade study but we also
028had it was formerly my loan in the room um that it became I can't even remember the name SLR and we would have them engage in another study that encompasses things like new construction will get a much better need than what the near future holds for us and we'll go back to the state if you need me to make those modifications but that's not going to be really on the table until we have that study conducted we would certainly review that in this venue and collectively and try to make the decisions about what our next steps are yeah it's a like if it was recently you're going to kind of chuckle that we have the experience phase one but you know I don't think it's a real possibility that's so I think it's going up
029a little bit closer connection to it again we'll see what happens but the other thing too is uh if it's not something has to be done in phase one phase two whatever those products sound like account for that so there's a might be both a short term and long-term or answer your question yeah there's a people keep moving to town houses keep being built so I carries right yeah okay yes I think one of the things that we just asked was the um the fact that we don't want the other schools to have permanent structures there you know not right we're doing this to avoid that right yeah yeah I think once we have like data in September we could really make a lot of these decisions like that's good so is that where we
030stand with somebody asked me about this is just the other day about with the the trailers yeah so where we stand is that we September um we're assured that there's some work that's going on over the summer to create some creative areas in order to move small systems and classrooms and shifting things around to the schools unilaterally moved one of the new uh Stonebridge Crossing development areas uh from Ohio and to Chapman in a way to try to convert some of the population growth that's going on there additionally we give both one of our intensive education programs from RC into Norton which will help kind of divert some students away from an island there are numerous reasons why we did that but this is one of them so we're trying to avoid and saying you
031know making these putting these buildings up if we can do it by any stretch but you know we don't necessarily control the enrollment so we're just monitoring it closely and hopefully we're able to sweep through the last thing we want to do is spend money on something that's not advancing our facilities and that's not really advancing it's just sustaining um try to be lend into this process in the first place which is great I mean there's other decisions so they have conservation Developers two years I don't want to look at girls in Russell town and then also there's more foreign thank you um policy committee met there's a June 6 2023 um we attempted to review a staff cattle policy but it was unavailable for review so we will be reviewing that at our next
032meeting hopefully it will be a simple policy to remove there um we did a review for a second reading uh instructional arrangements for teachers aides um there was a dispute in language to differentiate between parent Educators and teachers aides right we're looking for legal definition we got that hashed out um and then we did our second meeting of the uh the surveys of students which is a rather robust policy replacing the one that are like free paragraph policy that we have from 1997. um and we uh we added uh language about the school State climate survey uh which added a I guess a process of accountability straight shot all the way forward and what happens if the warrant doesn't come to an agreement on language and that sort of thing so that language was also
033added um and then and so those uh two policies were moved for that was uh 61-59 that one and 61.62. 51 to move for a second reading um and then for a third reading we moved uh teacher's age paraprofessionals referencing Title One prepare professionals homeschooling which essentially sort of creates a I guess a permanent separation right would that be accurate yeah your home school and participate and we don't have you can't really remember any any requests for participating in athletics or things like that but particularly if the state is involved with the vaccination policy and when you look at things like how do you factor in academic eligibility and things like that it's better to separate so I actually I have well you know I'll uh I'll move through the error maybe before here uh
034then we moved to other which we always have sometimes discussions at the end um where uh Miss Rosenberg uh thank the superintendent for what he ordered uh more I guess even more robust policies right equity and diversity policies uh as and we also spoke about the civility policy uh and we will be discussing who will particularly suffer the fall to review again and the insurance at that point civil evening as usual that's right that's right that's right uh so um I have a motion to bring forward to the core um motion that the chips your board of education gives a third and final reading to policies four two two four two two two right teaches the AIDS paraprofessionals and policy number 6172.3 educational instruction under parental correction homeschooling and direct the superintendent to put set
035policies into immediate effect instead of a second Mr Martelli any discussion on the motion are there any cost implications for or two to two no it was just a issues with the legal language around para educator versus teacher Aid and it really started to get very confusing so we just added a statement in there that said for clarification about the roles of these positions see their contract that way if the contract evolves or changes we don't have to worry about constantly changing the policy just don't change any other questions seeing none all in favor aye is unanimous like I think yes yes okay great and that concludes my reports yeah um with regard to go to the same school climate survey all right so s b i i could I eventually lost track of everything
036that's going through the legislature so I don't know what the final language was that passed but are we not supposed to be adopting the language of the national safe School climate yeah unfortunately how does that work with this unfortunately like you I lost track of the multiple changes that occurred through the process and I haven't seen yet an update in clarification on where we are with that at one point um that you guys are familiar with the instruments are built and how things can often through the implementation of the the session and I have not yet seen clarification around that I assume clarification on some other things but there are still tweaks that are getting I get email and say I received two or three about just updates so I've not yet seen around the
037school climate one of the things that they were contemplating is indeed drawing language from other resources right now there are supposed to be questions they've been asked per the state but I mean you bind to phone find about the internet um there there was a plan to administer the survey annually as opposed to binary so I don't know where things stand to be absolutely yeah executive uh community meeting the last graduate um we still don't have uh kind of language yet back on some of the bills including the mandatory uh uniforms this year from SD at you know okay this negotiating with sdes of adopt uh it's it's training curriculum but we don't have language for most of the stuff our new board members also so depending on the outcome you may have to go
038back and request notification okay so I don't know how much this notification piece would be amended but it would definitely adjusts how we do things okay well sure you'll probably get it we'll probably get a model policy and then sort of visit and crash but but you know those of us on the policy committee are used to The Other Board under the state updating the law and you know the graduation policy and changes look at excited minutes and it changed again this year and then they proposed Equity policy is that um is that available online can we get that yeah yeah I understand it to you guys okay yeah we looked at four or five different ones for equity and for civility I think it's just one yeah and nothing is right after reading so
039my question was about the climate survey a language as well so it sounds like it's a second it's had a second reading but that's the language within the survey it's about the policy itself it's about notifying parents in the in the approval process or the survey so the search the survey would go specifically the climate survey would go through the critical Community okay that's what it is this isn't this doesn't say what the language should be or anything that is just the approval notification process and that's why I faced as I said look at the if the language changes it really would affect this policy okay thank you sure and so that is second meeting that can still get delayed right in the fall thank you and there's I mean unless the new state statute
040says you have to do that in September you're nothing would surprise me I know I I should have even said it because but um any other questions on policy his name is again do we have any correspondence uh I had no correspondence we actually do I forward an email from a parent regarding me uh record I would say we can't do it tonight not handy we can do the next meeting it's regarding weeks on yeah sent from this is really more of a town issue yesterday but he just made a sense it's in the backyard of an Island School letter I could read it pretty quick his residence Association were ready to express our concern regarding the equalizer status of each time is located between our community and the school unfortunately this asset has been
041typed out of town for a number of years and as a result of the health of the behind his computer we are seeing increasing the base elevation of the pond at this silt comes through Culvert beneath our road from Honeypot Brook as the base has risen the warmer temperatures in the May through October green to a massive growth and algae at a minimum that happened to Memphis I'm attractive to look at but more important Liberty health hazard so the residents of our communities of the community then fish is new on the pond while the crime is still an amenity used by residents of the entire Community for fishing other forms of passes for our creation its utilization is winged as the algae problem is compounded over recent years we are concerned with the short-term Savings
042of the economy simply lead to a longer term need for a major Capital repair that will be more across the opinion During the period of defect the residents of the community are being deprived from fully utilizing the disability and of course about years of time to engage in an active advisory Management program this is supported by those residents who have signed the calling page further questions contact me Patrick Wilson president Castleton Association and there's a competency nutrition I understood um sessions and I hope you're familiar with that as well great I think they kind of have to let the capital budget meeting then discuss this then we're certainly aware of like I do think they will take some action I just don't know when and then you know the board approved in its capital plan
043180 000 to make an investment including that after a classroom back to the state because it wasn't myself tried to see if we can coordinate the descriptive account to do whatever they need to do to make the plan better awesome thank you for helping us uh there's no whole business a new business like we don't have an update all right I just imagine we had a cab a meeting um we're finalizing the final language coming from legislative number of things as soon as that's ready cable definitely also remember our seminars probably about a month or so we are gonna I'm gonna call for motion the adjourn to Executive session to discuss the transportation Concept in a minute but it's just a little bit of logistics uh we have a personal committee a whole meeting that's
044uh supposed to start about 6 30 more like we're gonna start summer after seven that will be going into an executive session on the agenda so I just want members know that you don't have to hang around because if you do come back yeah but this meaning we're going to learn exactly like a session and the shot again you know nothing personal um but uh so that's Logistics so uh I just want to say welcome to school unless she oh so if you snuck out uh welcome and uh not yet but uh again glad you're here and uh thank you everyone for time this evening and try to keep this quick that being said I have a motion to adjourn into executive session so the emotion is impossible a journal executive session the stuff's Transportation
045transmission contract and the president thank everyone