Board of Education 5-18-23

001sorry about that calls me to order uh Miss josinski please call the roll here thank you all rise to the pledge good evening everyone I'm Adam grippo Vice chairman filling in for uh Tony Perry pair of Jeannie this evening um I guess we'll go right to the student Representatives report Michael floor is yours all right hello everyone hope you're doing well um as always thank you for having me so to start off with Athletics all spring athletic teams have been winding down their regular seasons and they've been honoring their graduating seniors at senior night events all of our spring teams have qualified for league tournament play meaning they're moving on to the SEC Championship um and this will these tournaments will begin next week the Cheshire girls lacrosse team has had a strong season this

002year and their coach Dan Moore Burton has earned his 300th win in his career the boys golf team has been outstanding remaining undefeated on the season so far on Tuesday sophomore Jack to Joseph which happens to be my brother had a chip in for eagle a little [Applause] um so the Junior and senior proms have taken place and advanced placement exams have wrapped up this week students tested in a variety of subjects including government science math statistics and psychology so those are a few examples of um what the AP courses have to offer the best buddies Club a club of students dedicated to helping those with intellectual disabilities collaborated with a drama to produce a unified theater production titled unified Ever After they performed Cinderella it was well attended and their performance was excellent the

003production was entirely student-led meaning all the students did all the rehearsing and organizing so basically these students they helped organize with them the with the uh performers and it turned out to be a fantastic performance the annual spring chorus concert took place on Tuesday night the theme this year was dreams and reality the track and field team will be hosting a food drive at CHS this Saturday from 12 to 2 o'clock all donations will benefit the Cheshire food pantry the young politicians Club will be visiting the state capitol and meeting with our state legislators the CHS marching band will be featured in the Memorial Day Parade they have been rehearsing and preparing for this special event the Black and Latino class will be holding a celebration of culture on the night of May 25th from

0046 30 to 8 30 PM in the CHS Commons there will be they will host a variety of ethnic foods and dances the Aries theater spring production will take place on June 2nd and June 3rd the 2023 Awards convocation will take place next week on Tuesday May 23rd at 6 PM in the CHS Auditorium to honor those receiving scholarships and awards and the honor courts presentation will take place on Friday May 26th at 7 30 a.m in the auditorium to honor seniors receiving honor courts chs's annual B1 Day events will take place on May 31st b1day is a day where CHS promotes kindness community and school spirit that's really every day that they do that but I'll be one day is a special day where there's no classes for students it's basically a field day

005the beginning of the day starts out with student panels sharing on their stories like there's a couple of speakers selected and they share stories and then the rest of the day is basically a field day for students it's a lot of fun it's a very inspiring day and it was inspired by the Columbine shooting in 1999. after each lunch wave a large amount of trash is always left on the tables leaving the lunch Aid and custodial staff to have to pick it up when it was our trash that we produced however us students have created and released a cafe Improvement video aiming to tackle this issue and create a call to action for a positive change the goal of this student-led message is to promote a greater respect for our Catherine Commons and for our

006lunch Aid and custodial staff they truly do so much for our school it really wouldn't function without them and they don't deserve to pick up the mess that us students produce so the students at CHS are taking action to respect our school and make it the best they can be and um that's all the announcements for tonight thank you Michael um always ending on a positive note we usually have great change stories for us any questions great report as usual Michael um do you know anything about I received an invitation anyway um to London alive at CHS I believe it's happening tomorrow morning right so yeah so the London alive is um is hosted by the British literature class and basically it's a day where the British literature class goes onto the library Courtyard and

007they do all sorts of things um like British related I'm not really sure like the intricacies of it but it's um they all they make it really fancy like they dress up they do um a lot of things like British themed so they really do a good job with it any other questions great Michael thank you for another wonderful report absolutely dismissed or you can hang around we have some great presentations tonight but um yeah I would recommend you hang around thank you Mr Gribble all right thank you okay um up next we have a presentation for National Merit scholar and so I'll ask Dr Gad to come to the podium thank you so much and good evening it is absolutely my pleasure to welcome and talk a little bit about one of our students

008sagarika shrivason she is here with her parents and her sister sachita there are certain students who stand out from the pack and sagarika is one such student she's down to earth she's genuine and kind she's really involved in our community and she leads our Mecca Rams robotics team among many other involvements but of note this evening is her outstanding scholarship her academic achievements are boundless and this evening it is my honor to speak on one zagarika has been selected as a winner of the National Merit 2500 scholarship this scholarship is underwritten by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation and the corporation explained this upon receiving this honor she is now recognized among some of our nation's most academically talented students so we are so proud of you for all of your Stellar qualities and this honor

009really is just icing on the cake so we are so proud congratulations sagarika [Applause] no this doesn't happen every day yes thank you [Applause] foreign up next is that cave student leader award thank you Mr grippo but before I move on I just want to again congratulate Eureka that she's so impressive she's going to uh Georgia Tech on a scholarship for computer science uh to receive a full ride anywhere for anything is impressive but to go to Georgia Tech for an academic scholarship like that is really a testament to the incredible hard work and talent that you have dedicated over the last four years to be that successful so congratulations I'm really proud of you great job um I also have the opportunity to recognize another student uh here this evening each year the Connecticut

010Association of boards of Education shares an award program with local school students that recognizes the students not just for academic Pursuits but for what they mean to the school community now you've had the benefit of knowing our honoree this evening Michael De Joseph for the entire school year if it's not readily apparent to you why he deserves recognition you haven't been paying attention he's an incredible student not just from an academic perspective but from a character and Leadership perspective and that's what this Awards seeks to recognize and so I can't think of anybody more appropriate than Michael De Joseph to recognize with this award this evening congratulations Michael great work thank you great benefit s [Applause] you know I have to apologize I did not even realize that that award was for Michael I'm like

011oh no you can go it's fine no go ahead I'm like what yeah apologize for that it was worth sticking around yeah um okay I'm up next we have a presentation by uh antonazi Associates uh for Elementary School Elementary classroom expansion study then uh Mr Griffo thank you good evening everyone I'd just like to make some quick introductions of this particular agenda item the planning committee of the board Us in the fall had engaged a an RFP to find a firm to take a look at our options at Highland and Doolittle School in particular where we are concerned that between now and three years from now when the new schools are open that we will not have sufficient classroom space and so we wanted as a planning committee and as a board and administrative team

012try and do what a planning committee would do is plan for the future and so and to Nazi Associates who are here with us this Neve this evening engaged in a study and they're presenting they're finding the goal of this study was to look at our interior space and our exterior spaces and determine what the possible solutions are in the event that we do need additional classroom space between now and 2026. um the work that was done included you know several people you know from our staff that participated as well as Michael losasso principal and Lisa Yates architect from antoniz associates they have prepared a presentation the board members do have a copy of the presentation and I will turn it over to you Michael to present thank you thank you Vincent good evening sure

013yeah Mike Mike can show presentations that are given simultaneously like on YouTube yeah [Laughter] so uh thank you for the introduction actually you hit Upon A lot of the initial thoughts that I was going to share but um I wanted to just run through briefly our approach uh regarding the study and then Lisa will talk more specifically about the the two schools that we reviewed and more of the details associated with the costs um we visited both sites um met regularly with the principals for both schools originally the study in Vision uh Morse I think it was four schools or three schools uh but we ultimately studied uh two locations Highland and Doolittle and in both cases we looked at interior spaces anticipating that there might be a possibility to modify them to accommodate additional

014instructional space to offset the uh the enrollment increase we also investigated permanent additions to the school to accommodate increase and lastly the addition of relocatable or sometimes referred to as portable classrooms so our study uh provides it's broken out with an executive summary which details our recommendations there's additional more specific data associated with both schools as part of our study cost information and then plans both site plans and floor plans that illustrate the recommendations um there are actually I think at this point I'm just going to have you go to the to the plans we have two options at Doolittle and a single option recommended at Highland okay so I'll take us into uh Highland yeah we'll do the cost is easy to open it keeps so this is this is our main graphic for

015Highland the drawings if you're looking they're easier to find because they fold out but um when we were looking when we were looking at uh the Portables we looked at uh specifically the where the utilities come to the site in the case of Highland they already have some Portables which are off here back by the ball field which are already connected to the building via an exterior connection we also we looked at where electrical comes into the building we looked at water lines we we found the sewer line and because of the district's desire to put in toilet rooms location of the sewer alignment was sort of a driver for both of these so you see here on the right we have option one which is a series of for they actually the state calls

016them relocatable classrooms most people call them Portables or Modular Buildings but this is a a series of four um I think it's double wide units so this would be I think approximately eight units put together into four classrooms with toilet rooms in each classroom and they would be placed over here and we we believe that they could be connected via the same water as the Portables that are there already and possibly also sanitary if um if not sanitary is close by we also looked at a variety of options on this side of the building because it's already paved and it's possible but it's given the given the location of the other Portables it wasn't the most popular option it's also harder to put toilets in there so we weren't looking at toilets in that option

017we only priced option one so just to go through to prove out you know the need for modulars both schools have been doing a lot of work to expand the capacity of their schools and so there was very little for us to to do that they hadn't done already so at the Highland School this is particularly true and we were looking at breakout spaces in hallways um we were considering consolidating two small rooms into one room for the most case this has already been done at Highland um if you get a chance to look at this a little bit more it shows the option one Portables here on the right hand side and the small text is for you to review in detail with your building code official has to do with the distance that

018the Portables are set away from the building and in most cases um for portables for schools and and for in this case as well we're recommending that you hold the the portable away from the building and not do a direct interior connection even though that's lovely and we all know that you want that you can however do a covered pedestrian walkway by the code The Pedestrian walkway has to be at least 50 percent open so you can get a roof and you can get a little bit of wind break and some security one additional point about Highland which is uh different than Doolittle based on the information that we were able to acquire from the gis surveys we didn't do a formal building survey of a site for site survey property survey but we believe

019that it's on a site that's already at or possibly Beyond uh the size of the zoning regulations currently permit so any additional construction would have to uh at the very least be reviewed by the zoning officer could potentially result in a variance right and also this option will require a slight reconfiguration of the access drive that passes behind and a Switchback of the softball field to the other side where it used to be um and on the subject of one last thing for each plan we looked at this the state has specific requirements for maximum area that they'll reimburse for a newer or a renovated school and we looked at that for each school and it's kind of a good test to make sure that the school really is at capacity and so um at

020104 000 square feet based on our tabulation for 876 students your maximum would be a hundred and six thousand so you're below the um the state's maximum which supports the idea that you need to add a little bit of of space Lisa could I ask you to just walk through those numbers again pretty please so the the state threshold okay you're 876 students yes and the as I understand it over the course of our study you've been continuing to analyze demographics and these numbers are going up so if we were to recalculate with new numbers this 106 would go up and it's larger than what you have these are the existing Portables in this in this calculation not the new ones oh okay yep thank you Andrew I just want to be clear at what

021you're saying right now we have 104 000 square feet State funding would be up to a hundred six thousand square feet assuming 876 students so because of that we basically have about 2 000 square feet right and it's out of out of a four thousand square foot project it's not necessarily your your full eligibility argument for the state but it just supports the idea sure that the that the schools are being efficient with the space that they have now and when they're saying my school is packed I do indeed more need more space it proves it out for us understand thank you do the units have to be sprinklered it's so if the units are not sprinklered you have to be very careful about this distance away from the building um if and if they're

022not sprinkler do you have to have an exit from every single classroom the the ones that you have now are sprinkler if it's possible to do it it's desirable but it can be done without it next up can I just ask um we're putting bathrooms in these is that the I just need to know why I I'll address that the ultimate decision what we do after this we'll come back to the planning committee as to what we want to do what what we tried to do in looking and completing this study is you know what's the maximum cost and the best case scenario and installing these with bathrooms is the best case scenario it also is the highest cost if we have to accommodate you know the utilities for for Plumbing in particular but what's

023reported in this study doesn't mean this is what we're doing that's coming back for decision and again this is planning ahead we may not need this I mean I'm anticipating that we will for next year we actually are doing some of the reconfiguration in Highland where we will move certain spaces you know into the corridors and we'll be doing some construction moving some classroom spaces around so that will be okay for next year I don't think we'll be okay the following year if we see the same enrollment growth so when we look at where we actually are in in September when school starts I think that'll be a good lead indicator whether or not we have to move forward on some of the potential options here for installing portable classrooms and the data used on

024the number of students we currently have 838 it was probably October 1st our current number in PowerSchool is 853. so it kind of gives you an idea of the growth that Lisa was talking about you ready for Doolittle okay yeah just did that recommendation I may have missed it did it include a time frame are we bypassing that issue for right now because you mentioned portable but they also could become permanent so I'm just curious if that's if that got mentioned when we looked at Cost I think we were buying them if you were to do a lease it would be probably a three-year lease that's what we discussed and there's some slight differences to the cost but it's um it doesn't make economic sense to lease him regardless of the use right the length

025of use it just doesn't make any economic sense to lock yourself in when it's a small differential got it yeah as part of our analysis we also reached out to the office of schools Construction Grants will be eligible to reimbursement we spoke with Bob Selmer one of the reviewers there and he indicated there are two one of those which I think may be applicable in Cheshire space is not if you've read them uh and it's a part of the larger project that so it's designed as a temporary structure to offset student degrees so that this is off-site technically relative to the larger projects you're doing to expand the schools but it's worth investigating further to see if you can also thank you all right so now I'm going to walk through very similar scenario at

026Doolittle School if anybody's really into Maps North is down on this map it uh all of our existing documentation probably screws me up more than more than most of you but um so we really ran through the same exercise with with the site and here we looked at three different options four Portables so over here on the right there's a nice paved area that's that's used as a flat play area has a nice connection to the building and it was originally like one of the most desirable locations pointed out to us by the staff and the principal and we are able to fit four classrooms over here there's a hillside over here on the right but we we do believe it's possible to get the Portables back there our cost estimator differed with facilities you

027thought we would crane them over versus driving them around with a you know particularly Brave portable um installer so that was and and but this option so this Brown Line and this is consistent on both projects I show the the sanitarian brown and various other colors for the water and electrical it's very far from this side of the building if we were to put Portables back there it would be very unlikely that they would have toilets the second option that we looked at is back here so you have a playground back here and right now you have a small play structure where these Portables are that this is set behind where this is these are your basketball courts um big flat paved play area this location passes over the sewer connection line and is quite

028close to this back entrance I'm zooming in here to show you that we're very close to this 30 foot setback from the the neighbors we do believe that it conforms we're looking at this I believe as a side yard so if you pursue this option just check with your local zoning and make sure that they're um understanding of what the front yard is matches ours it should but it's those things can be they can have deep precedent you never know and so as part of the pricing for this we looked at relocating or providing new play area relocating is obviously less expensive but sometimes it's not feasible um the one one of the things that you'd also have to look at is your your fire department access to the back they probably could drive in

029this 30-foot way but they'd have to be okay with that and um so toilets are feasible in this option and not feasible in that option so we priced them in that way we also looked at but did not price an option here just because if you were if you were a portable vendor or a facilities person this is where you would want it to go smack in the front of the building it's very close to all of the utilities it's on a flat area but this area is very heavily used by the school so it's it's really functionally problematic for the use of the school but uh so we we took a look and um we elected not to price it but it also you know for the purposes of this study it shows you

030another popular configuration for the way Portables are installed instead of this sort of railroad thing that we've been looking at you can do this this quad arrangement so getting into the interior of Doolittle as as we did for Cheshire for for Highland I'm sorry um there's there's an OT room that could be turned into a kindergarten there are I think four or six staff members using this room 120 which could be turned into a classroom we also looked within the media center there's an area up here in the corner that's used as the in classroom portion of the media center that could be turned into a real classroom if you move the in in Media Center classroom to this area that Stacks but it's a lot of work for um you know not not a

031lot of gain we also looked at you know there there are multiple music rooms so there are three music rooms in the stage for music practice so we we had looked at one of the music rooms uh apparently they are used simultaneously at least sometimes and the same thing with your classroom there are only two art classrooms and they are regularly used simultaneously so much it's much the same as when we looked at Highland and it's it's a little bit to the other way we're a couple thousand square feet more than you would be allowed to use now so so for 546 students again you probably have a few more now than your projections uh your maximum would be 70 512. and you have 73 419 that includes a 2 000 square foot basement and

032I mean honestly this the state standards are fairly tight so it's it's a very similar argument the Portables are sort of proved out as Justified and I think I hit zoning on that one so we should go to cost fast I couldn't before we get to the cost I'm just curious over here in the um the upper left corner uh two classroom layout would work in any of the proposed locations did you think about that splitting up any of this in terms of it or that doesn't really make sense to you just saying that's that's how they're doing we maxed out each each area that we found for the purposes of the study if your demographics changed any one of the locations that we looked at could be cut in half and you could use

033two instead well so what I was thinking is if you did two and two in two different places if you do them in multiple places you have multiple electrical and and cost increases yeah so it's better to if you can get them together and group the services yep crews are mobilizing once they're connecting once yeah no that makes sense thank you and one other thing the what appears to be the the parcel boundary is this pretty much it I'm thinking the lower left corner is a ball field but then the rest of it is the actual boundaries for the property no no but this is generally it yeah I think I think that your property goes back yeah it goes back but it's not in a place that helps you right yeah it's just ledge

034yeah right all right thank you oh what about if it just went up a level but then it gets into cost of clearing trees and you'd probably have to blast Rock anyway just to level it off is that the basic idea so to be that's true because even if it is only 50 feet it's still 50 feet and if you're talking about bathrooms and stuff it does and these are both elementary schools right yeah the teachers are concerned about even covered walkways having the kids outside at all multiple complementary security all of that stuff I get it just trying to process a bunch of information real quick thank you yeah no understood the other thing that I want to add while I have a second um is that there's no magic in four classrooms it

035was just we wanted to say okay what's the maximum we could fit if we don't need four and we need two then the cost would be probably a little bit more than half right because you have certain fixed costs with getting you know trailers cited and and located but I didn't want to didn't want you to think it's four or nothing it could be two there are a variety of options again I think that is going to come back to planning to make some decisions on on when and how to go forward with this right then it's you know we were thinking you want to get moving on this for next summer and so that gives you the year to reach out to vendors and work with them about their specific offerings and apply to

036the state which has a long long time and yeah join your join your Co-op so that you can buy from the vendor you're working with that sort of thing okay everybody's sitting down so you can go through costs now let me know this over here this is section 8B [Applause] let you guys get there because I mean I can blow up the total but it's uh it'll still be too small thank you though so so to the left I think you know if you can you can read what what our cost estimator scoped and um where's my zoom in this is um four units three year lease total in is that is that fair oh this is purchase this is foreign and this would be before State reimbursement right and state reimbursement in our case

037is 50 of eligible costs so I wouldn't take this number and cut it in half but just for a ballpark it's probably about 45 of that number you know would be potentially eligible if we go this route right and our our numbers here are you know you have a direct cost of just over a million dollars um 10 um would include your soft costs um you know you'll you'll have to look at a separate grouping of expenses that go goes with it moving you know furniture Adam and um just for everyone that's out there I know we didn't say the price and I'm sure everybody's wondering it's this is for Highland you know including markup is one million one thirteen eight seventy nine and that's again with toilets when you do doodle Doolittle you'll see

038the difference between toilet and non-toilet prices and um you know it includes includes includes the walkway to the school and at Cheshire there's already a pavilion that connects to the um the Portables that they have already so we would use that same Pavilion and and group them together my question is just around um did you say that if we get state assistance that it's only if we do temporary and not buy sorry about that um so we there are two paths one would be for a for the purchase of the units in full the other would be to to rent them and then and then discard them after you're done so we we're aware of both we haven't investigated either to any great detail but we just know that they're available and make reference to

039it in our study uh specifically with regard to the uh to the ongoing construction project that you're doing projects I should say um we thought that that might be the vehicle that you could utilize for reimbursement for the for temporary structures but these numbers are based on buying not renting which we believe is the higher of the two costs right so it could be less if yes we really were going temporary correct uh just to make sure I'm looking at this this and labor is inclusive or addition additional okay yeah just to be clear on that you mentioned before soft costs you're talking hired labor as in not Cheshire Public Schools employees right so Vin massiana's time is not part of the soft cost this is just labor labor and Hardware labor and raw materials

040got it with regard to delivery of the unit installed right okay thank you South Coast the markup generally includes costs that you you'll have to to administer this possibly but also things like escalation contingency um you know permits right return achievement thank you no that was my understanding but just for people who are listening at home right right thank you yeah the the um and actually we one of the reasons we really like our cost estimator he does he does really include everything especially for these feasibility studies where we're we're not drawing every line like you would for a better he um he has an understanding of what it takes to build it and that's how it prices it thank you Okay so here are the options for for Doolittle and it's very similar um

041looking at this so the we're looking at the first option is that one that was over on the right hand side no toilets and um the only real additional cost that you would have from messing around with things is getting getting them back there there was a little bit of a premium with that there's a there's a tiny bit of sidewalk rework you still have to to build the uh the connector back to the building and the the direct cost was nine hundred and eleven thousand dollars and including markups I'm sorry I was rounding the total cost I will not round 1 million um two thousand six hundred and twelve dollars and I'll present the other one and then we can talk about questions and so so on the other on the other side I'm

042going to start at the bottom we looked at relocating the playscape we included in the basement we included ten thousand dollars to relocate the playscape and it would be relocated around to the back of the building where you already have mulch if you purchased a new primary playscape we we are estimating around 150 000 and this is based on a hard bid for a playscape for the same age group that we did last year and uh what else is in here we have our sanitary connections because we have we have toilets on this side but other than that this is a fairly simple option we don't have the softball field swap or the access Drive relocation that we head over at Cheshire and the directions Island sorry just hi let's go you said it before

043just to avoid any questions it's not the first time I've done that ah no probably won't be the last um direct cost is just over a million dollars and the total cost with the 10 percent um markup is one million one hundred and six thousand dollars six six one one thousand and six six hundred and ninety one roughly 1.1 million dollars are these climate controlled yes so they they generally have through the wall units um you know similar to what you'd see in a hotel and they do heating and cooling like a ductless ductless ductless yes and they're Electric NADA compliance an ADA compliance I have to meet all that obviously all the state requirements codes regulations right so and this includes foundations for them so pure footings they bring them in um and the

044bottom is between I think 42 and 48 inches generally speaking and that's so that they can get underneath to make your connections they they put skirting around the bottom of of the modular unit and they come with stairs and ramps and we've done schematic stare and ramp designs for each option uh just uh one more question um the the price difference seems to be about a hundred thousand and so you're saying the one with toilets right is a hundred thousand more but that also includes the cost of of the replacing the playscape moving moving oh moving it or moving it okay add another 150 if you want a new one okay gotcha okay thank you could you give us an idea of what the lease cost would be for these I can um because we're

045actually working on modular units for for another school right now we just got lease costs for a grouping of four that are actually used they're coming to us from South Windsor from um Happy Valley Elementary School is coming off lease in the summer and for two years I believe it was a hundred and ninety five thousand dollars without with delivery without foundations because we don't need foundations there which would be another forty thousand dollars per year but but that doesn't that would include so if you look at that it doesn't include all of your ramps and your things that you're building to go along with it and those are used and it says 194 000 per year so no that's for the full two years that's for the full two years with bathrooms or without

046without bathrooms without bathrooms okay so you know and you're waiting another year you're getting new ones you're putting in bathrooms probably close to double got it I mean because I just you know the planning commit obviously we're gonna have a year or so right at least a couple months to look at this obviously it wouldn't get the enrollment numbers in September um but I'm just the opinion that this is temporary and nature I just think that a million dollars is kind of you know trying to be physically responsible here I just it's a lot hopefully we only need these four two years until the new schools come online those are properly sized so we don't have to keep them in the back of dool or Highland School so thank you yeah so I was thinking

047along the same lines as Andrew and um am I really naive in thinking that we shouldn't look at the cost of that option three is there something that's if we're really considering this to be temporary which I certainly in my mind am um you know location yeah it's not it's not great but if it's really that much less expensive and it's only for two years and we're committed to tearing it down after that then I I would be interested in knowing how much less yeah if you're working with vendors you can you should absolutely show them the third option if you're interested in that and there will be a savings I I don't know if it will be equal to the greater ease with which it could be installed it doesn't always work that way

048but there's some extent sorry yep extenuating conditions on that so you in in that particular location you have a more extensive playground area for one so you'd incur moving costs for those pieces of equipment or at least temporary removal um on the other hand you wouldn't have um the access costs that some of the other Alternatives show and there should be I would say probably an additional savings if it's plumbed because of the proximity of the utilities there being so close relative to having to get back to the building so so again it's probably in the ballpark of option two is it the one on the yeah um but but slightly better thank you I appreciate all your insights I didn't think there was a ton of equipment over there but but it's it's a

049heavily used area and it's right in front of the school so you you'd you'd hear about it if you placed in there [Laughter] thank you Adam yeah so with regard to the financing I'm wondering about if we would sort of need two different tracks for this in relation to a referendum if we're talking about doing construction next summer that means we're asking the council to go to referendum now correct when I say now it's an annual cycle that I think three years ago we would be giving this to him in June or July at this point we're actually past the sort of unofficial soft deadline right so just tell me tell me if I'm off base here so we could look at the details and whatever of the different options with vendors but we probably

050would need to go to the council pretty quickly if we're gonna if we wanted to move forward with this by next summer we do and I okay so there's a couple of things I want to point out one when the planning committee on the board approved the capital budget that actually the discussions I believe what the Town Council will start next week we did include three hundred thousand dollars in the next fiscal year for Portables and 250 000 the following year so we already have a placeholder unfortunately it's not enough so when we deliberate with the Town Council we will present this study um to the point that you know Mr Martelli and the other board members raised I I think this is probably the high water mark on cost and it's certainly not our

051only option if we get lucky and we could find some Portables coming off of lease you know from another you know local school district I certainly think that that would be something that that should be entertained you know with or without bathrooms is another question if it's truly temporary for a couple of years I think we can get by and so as I said this is coming back to the planning committee now you have in hand a good cost estimate if we were to install these permanently and then anything that you look at outside of that you can compare that cost to what it would cost to install these permanently and again this is before reimbursement so the cost difference if we place these and get reimbursed may not be dramatically different than leasing them

052so lots of decisions to come sure also as you're as you're looking at these estimates and you're looking at leasing versus purchasing um if you're looking so so here at the top we have four Portables with with no toilet rooms the the subtotal here is the 720 000 that's the number you're looking to adjust when you're going back and forth between the leases because you have to buy everything else mm-hmm yeah I'm not looking to necessarily play games here or anything like that but as we future plan it sounds like per building rough costs for a million dollars each roughly 50 percent potentially reimbursed if we're leasing used is there any path for reimbursement there I don't know that it's any different right you yeah I should have uh clarified that uh the um for

053the temporary relocatable I believe the pathway that allows you for reimbursement is that it has to be a part of a larger Capital project so so would that have to be part of our current building project then that that would be the approach I would recommend to go with the state you're saying those elementary schools are swing space yeah so we would probably have to because I I can't I don't think we could afford to draw off the money allocation for the new buildings we would need to go to a new referendum and submit a new uh application to the state probably bid for that yeah it sounds like I I um we obviously don't have uh insights into the details um but we just wanted to offer it as a possibility I think it

054really the the first step would be a um conversation with the with the state explicitly describing what it is that you're hoping to achieve and I think that they'll be able to guide you pretty easily with that I was also curious about you know if it cost a million dollars a building and a per location let's say and we bought them at State reimbursement five hundred thousand four years from now we realize we don't need these is there a resale Market that we could Leverage and maybe even net out the money almost I mean not you're probably not going to get dollar for dollar obviously but if there's a resale market for that that would mitigate the cost of this investment over the long term the southwest South Windsor was a lease from the beginning

055but but I mean I would talk with your vendors about that at the beginning right and and because I think it would be a buyback yeah so we purchased it they'll move it to the next place um you know I would I would encourage you to make your decision up front though because uh yeah right you want to make these guys make money and um you know I I know that this may not be a fair question from where we sit in Cheshire because the life cycle has been eternity on some of these but what's a standard life cycle for a contemporary modular unit I know I've personally been in a 20 I I was educated in a 20 year old portable myself so yeah yeah I think that can go that far it's not

056like they're going to fall apart in seven years right but I don't think they're going to be moving them every two years for right right right right I would um in um Killingly we replaced one that was installed in 1973 just this past year yeah it's not in great shape but it's that's what I'm saying eternity is our you know standard Norton Island yeah kind of grow into the ground right one the probably the most important point out of this is if we need additional classroom space we can do it I think that we kind of end on that note the cost aside we know we've got options and just figuring out which ones do we actually need and when do we do it yeah my colleagues in the plan committee well we have the

057information now thank you thank you very much thank you very much thank you so just to be clear then when you when you and Jeff meet with the council in a week this is going to be on your this will be included in your agenda and the Board of Ed is basically on board with that I mean I am I think we have to do something but just to give you a sense of that yeah we will absolutely share the information and you know the I know we talked about the referendum so the referendum um to go to voters is a 500 000 here in Cheshire I know you know that but that's after reimbursement so if we know that it's a 700 000 investment and we're going to get 350 000. the number for

058referendum purchases is 350 so it would be below the threshold so it doesn't necessarily need to go to referendum the tricky thing you know I think for us and then the council to decide is what number do we want to use so we'll have some more discussion around that before we get to the council and with the council thank you any more questions on this subject okay uh moving on to our next present uh thank you very much uh moving on to our next presentation by uh tecton right yes tecton um update on new school construction process we figured we would plug in yeah [Music] stop I know um members of the board haven't really had the opportunity to meet our uh two presenters tonight I take for granted the fact that we've been working

059with Jeff and Justin now for over a month now I think it's been um I'm sure for you it feels longer but uh it's been a great experience uh the tecton has been our architectural firm that was appointed by the Next Generation School building committee uh after a an outstanding presentation that uh garnered them the opportunity to design both buildings for us so uh I'm pleased to introduce Jeff wazinski who's the principal in charge did I do okay there buddy all right and Justin Hopkins who's the senior project manager like I said we've had the the opportunity now to work with them for a month and already duly impressed with the time and energy and thoughtfulness that they put into the process the conscientious effort they made to solicit feedback and really understand what our

060needs were and the plan to further engage in that process with the community so without further Ado gentlemen I turn it over to you thank you thank you so much good evening everybody my name is Jeff wazinski I'm a principal at tecton Architects um Justin Hopkins here's senior project manager hi I'm Justin we have a brief presentation for you this evening this is our first uh I'm sure of many presentations to the Boe as far as updates but we're incredibly excited we jumped in both feet into the process and have mapped out a great process design process all the way through from schematic design through construction documents and Justin will walk you through uh the details of of the schedule but the first um I should say you should have a handout here um on

061your in front of you that has a copy of the presentation and then a listing of all the the meetings that we've kind of mapped out during the design process but our team um is on the slide here it's a collection of both Architects designers interior designers Professional Engineers site civil mechanical engineers Landscape Architects instructional Engineers so Soup To Nuts what's great about this slide and about our team is we have we also have the OPM on board it's the owner's project manager which is arcadis and then they have this we have the CMR on board which is Ong construction so we have all three of um all three legs of that stool together which is incredibly important right at the beginning of schematic design so we're excited for that some of the work that

062has been ongoing the superintendent mentioned but we're up to our Tuesday will be our fourth working group session we have we have bi-weekly working group sessions all the way mapped out all the way through the end of the year and they're on the off weeks of the building committee so that we have the opportunity to work have a working session develop the design talk about the details of the project and then bring that back the following week to the to the building committee so it's really worked out really well we also have What's called the prep session with the state and that's scheduled for June 7th um that's the first of four Milestone meetings with the state you have the prep you have the SDR you have the DDR and the PCR meetings with the

063state for review and approvals so we have one coming up on the seventh to introduce our team to the project manager and then lastly and I'll turn it over to Justin and take it from here we have what we're terming Think Tank sessions which are coming up towards the end of the month on the 30th and on June 1st for Norton and the idea here is to really think Green Fields if you will to think past what's in front of you try to free folks from from their day to day what they see in front of them from a current educational environment and to really brainstorm have an interactive session to brainstorm with a collection faculty staff students representatives from the community representatives from the board to really understand and generate some great ideas for

064the development of the schematic design early on so really looking forward to that session we've collected videos Flyers handouts to really get people excited and engaged in that process without further Ado I'm going to turn it over to Justin okay thank you Jeff um so what's on the screen now is kind of is our design schedule that takes us through uh the middle of next year so as Jeff mentioned we're in the middle of schematic design which not only involves a lot of high-level discussions regarding programming adjacencies building uh building layout Concepts but also a lot of the site due diligence so from there we're targeting schematic design towards the end of this summer or the middle of this summer end of July into August design development which is really development once we assign the

065appropriate sizes of spaces and adjacencies and where they are in space we get into some of the more logistical things regarding hspace uh what's the what's the Millwork requirements within the space where the teaching stations what what's the technology infrastructure that's there so we're really targeting our working group sessions to kind of work through the various phases of design so that we can have the appropriate level discussions from design development we get into construction documentation and that's really where we're heads down we're really developing the the project details for both buildings so a couple things as I'm sure you were all aware uh uh some of the Baseline data for our buildings we have the North End Elementary School and the Norton Elementary School really um the programmatic requirements uh K to six are similar

066to uh for both buildings with the exception that we're having our Early Education component in the North End Elementary School so that really is the distinction in building size building occupant load um it's and building budget so 790 students Pre-K to six uh at North End and 661 students at Norton Elementary School so as we're going through some of these initial conversations uh we have our site surveys that are completed uh so to be able to understand what our Baseline project parameters are from a site development standpoint including topography where Wetlands exist setbacks any easements on each site so North End Elementary School Norton uh the distinction between the two sites obviously is we have an occupied site at Norton so as we get into some of the planning the space planning and the building

067positioning planning will have in-depth conversations with the construction manager to talk about site Logistics so that we can make sure that while that site is under construction we're providing the minimal amount of disruption to the existing student body there so as we have begun discussing these buildings uh we we're understanding where they are uh within Cheshire and we're starting to create uh celebrate the context and uh Embrace uh the cultural distinctions uh for each building obviously the North End we've kind of targeted uh farm and field concept and in Norton the woods and trails concept now that that is those are themes that we may carry through with the working group as we get into development of uh graphics and branding and and all that stuff uh so understanding where they are within the community

068and where they fit within the existing Elementary infrastructure is very important as well so along with building programming we have certain project approaches that are part of 21st Century Learning environments and why this matters is we all understand uh that uh children spend 90 percent our students spend 90 of their school time indoors and the physical environment can impact student learning by as much as 25 so as we go through uh the programming we're also discussing some of these high-level concepts of collaboration adaptability and flexibility um providing spaces for students for ownership and personalization within the spaces making sure that we're providing social spaces we're connecting to Nature and really focusing on the whole child Wellness so some of our first some of our first discussions with the working group are about the educational specifications

069obviously those were the Baseline documents for your Grant application and your funding so what we're really doing at a high level is showing what these spaces look like from a size perspective just simple block diagrams we've gone through a couple of working sessions where we've gone through the program document it line by line we've identified some areas that we need to focus on moving forward in the design so the real takeaway for these blocking diagrams is that you have a portion that are identified curriculum program and that's all of your classrooms are on the left the left side of The Blocking diagram all of your specials your offices your admin spaces your special education are on the right all of those go into this kind of Stew of a total building that includes bathrooms mechanical

070rooms IDF closets all the stuff that makes a building a building and that's what's the big rectangle in the middle represents as far as the gross-up factor so just real simply when we start looking at these things in scale for the site obviously we're we're likely looking at multi-story buildings two-story buildings on each site this just shows the program elements that are that are on the site as if they were just laid out next to each other so this is Norton uh the North End has the same exact program with the exception of the yellow spaces that are all the way to the right of the screen that's what represents your Early Childhood curriculum that's there so once again uh what that looks like scaled on the site so that's really uh kind of a

071broad brief summary of the work that we've been doing also in your packet we included our project work and meeting schedule which shows grayed out the the meetings that we have already had and as Jeff had mentioned um all the meetings that we have from now until the end of the year to really Target uh focus our meetings to align with our design development submission so at this time we'd welcome any questions thank you for coming tonight um at what point in the process do you start getting into the um the mechanical aspect of the building the energy component sustainability I'll I'll uh I'll start that and Jeff can clean it up if I have any missteps but typically so our after our Think Tank session uh which are in a couple of weeks our

072core working group meeting number five is sustainability strategies uh so early in the process when we're in schematic design we model kind of multiple different mechanical systems in a good better best scenario where we can at a conceptual level at least cost look at what these mean within the overall project budget I will say typically most of our school our school buildings that we're designing now are carbon neutral which means that we're looking at full electric electrification of the building and whether or not that is a deferred renewable energy source such as geothermal Wells or a PV system on the roof it if it's not part of the day one system it is there as a component or expandable in the future you want but thanks for asking the question so I can get up

073on my soapbox now but uh the answer is now um to look at energy so the design of buildings today is incredibly complicated and sophisticated and the conversations that we need to have relative to energy energy consumption um did the start now and they start and and it's not just one system it's not one mechanical system it's not one thing that's going to get you to that point it's it's all things working together um collaboratively basically so the more window that we have on the building um the more thought we need to give into what what orientation the building is going to be set in you know um so there's a terminology that I'm sure some are familiar with eui you know driving down the energy usage intensity we'll we'll study that at every step

074of the way with our with our mechanical engineers energy modeling and what affects that is insulation and if um fenestration glazing the shape of the building the total perimeter of the building on the types of systems that we use the type of structural system that we may use so all of these components in a building are are intricate intricately tied together and analyzed in an energy model and we'll study that and I will say to to your point most of our buildings these days are all electric based right so we don't um something we'll we'll study we certainly will study that from a utility consumption perspective extension of utilities to the site but I will say most of our commercial kitchens layouts things like that are all electrified now not so carbon free for the

075most part um it's not the absolute we would look at options along the way so long-winded answer to say that every step of the way that we'll be analyzing that for sure I I wouldn't thank you Jeff I would only add that the way that the osc GNR review structure is and alignment with the Connecticut high performance buildings require us to have those conversations with the commissioning agent with the total project team to understand what our high performance building checklist is what points were looking at so we have those those conversations as part of the design team early and schematic design as well so we understand what how we're complying with high performance buildings and what strategies we may um we may undertake moving forward in the design thank you okay just ask a couple

076questions thank you um thanks Adam uh so with regard to carbon free you I was thinking you meant schools but then you would mention any of your construction projects have you done any carbon-free schools are there any in operation in Connecticut I'm just I don't know what your footprint is as a business I'm just curious because it's not just for me it's for people who are you know watching on TV sure just to get a sense of that I I want to make the distinction between uh carbon free and Net Zero okay um it just um I'm trying to we're currently working on uh two schools that are under construction now that have zero fossil fuels that are uh on site so that go um one in particular has uh geothermal Wells ground Source heat

077pumps uh for a portion of the energy provided on the site so I I don't think that that answers your question completely but um Jeff you want to pop in here sure so in a couple of other projects we've also studying embodied carbon for the materials that we're using and specifying so so there's a variety of different levels where where that comes into play sure um where we see it most often in our schools is is is fossil fuel free basically and driving our eui down so that we can get either a PV which is either through purchase or ppas get get that PV array close to a net zero building and that's that's our goal we've done that we're working on that now on a couple projects in design so that's our philosophy and

078our approach to our projects so are there are there any schools in Connecticut that are in operation right now that you could call Net Zero because my thinking was like Manfield Mansfield or Manchester Had A Renault and a new construction but they weren't actually didn't actually have kids in them yet and I know this is happening around the country yeah I'm just talking about Connecticut so it's relatively close to home so there's a lot of press um tskp has worked on one in Mansfield I believe I don't know if it's certified yet um but it just completed they were waiting on some I believe some equipment um to finish off that project and then there's a couple projects in Manchester we have one in in Madison right now that is targeted to be Net Zero

079um carbon free so actually built proved and validated um I don't think there's one in operation yes but there's plenty in design in Connecticut and Connecticut they do exist outside of Connecticut absolutely yeah and have been in operation for years now yeah um we have a fire station in Massachusetts that's a net zero or a project so yeah um there's different states have a little bit more advanced um advancements in you know energy stretch coats and things like that so yep thank you the um the solar aspect I I don't know what all the potential financing structures are but for me personally I don't I don't see the need for having it done when the school opens based on the way the economics work um and it with regard to doing sustainable Construction you're you're

080starting on some of these projects what are you finding for your estimates for life cycle costs in terms of call it a 40 or a 50-year project is it making economic sense not feel good or not you know the environmental the benefit of the environmental externalities but the actual costs have you have you looked at that yet and does it is it making sense from an economic perspective so that's great question um we will look at that as we develop um the design it will most likely happen in go ahead sorry yeah no not even just Chester but any other projects that you've looked at even if it's just commercial operations and stuff like that yeah we'll cost out will life cycle cost out the cost of systems the payback on on um either Geo

081exchange there's different rebates that now come into play the inflation reduction act has an awful lot to offer as well so the economics have have changed consistently and rapidly over the last couple years where it now is achievable with certain different techniques and and that's pretty exciting for us because a lot more clients are looking harder at that and being more realistic with implementing them in our buildings okay so it's not a slam dunk but it's absolutely workable is the point it's absolutely possible yes absolutely looking worth looking at yep thank you thank you thank you thanks um I'm gonna go back to the project summary page if we could um I'm going back and and looking at some of the cost estimates that were put out to folks um originally and I hope I'm

082totally wrong on this um but the tell me I'm not looking at costs that are already 28 percent higher than what we were discussing two years ago um we were talking the total I really hope I'm wrong and I'm about to embarrass myself but when we had our open meetings we were saying that the estimate for our two new elementary schools were low end budget of 108 high in budget of 130 when we had um and back in oh boy where it didn't tell me I just lost that I did um when we were talking at the referendum um our North End Elementary School budget was 63 million 600 695 957. that's uh what was put forth I'm I'm just wondering what am I missing why am I way off face please tell me I

083am well you're not off base but I'll answer the question this way the numbers that you see for the North End Elementary 89.9 million and Norton Elementary 76.6 if you had the total of those two it's 166 million that was before any state reimbursement so this is what was approved by the council and then approved that referendum uh-huh okay so even if it were 166 million dollar referendum and we're coming in at six we're already at 600 000 over that report I I guess I am concerned no no no no no I'm not sure where that number is coming well I mean when you add these up we're at 166 599 100 and again tell me they go back and do your homework but I I just am worried about construction costs these number the

084total project costs here this is exactly what we approved approved each school okay that referendum okay and then again this is pre any of the state reimbursement from osc gr okay and so I don't want anybody to think that we're already off budget we are not and we're where we need to be of course we haven't gone out to bid for construction yet so I appreciate the trepidation about escalation I think that's what I'm hearing you say is that I have an anxiety about what happens when these go out to bid relative to you know the inflation that we all know we've experienced over the last several years when um we were given these estimates by Colliers and what we put out for the community the worst thing that we could Envision is getting you

085know three quarters of the way through and saying oh yeah escalation costs of blowing up and we're way short on the budget so Collier's in that process included eight percent annualized escalation to protect us from that scenario to insulate us I should say and that is what was in the budget when we initially presented it to the council that is what was in the referendum that went to the board excuse me to the town and these numbers that you see on the project summary page reflect those total costs with escalation built in so we um have gone through a very small part of the overall scheme of the uh project in the hiring of an architect owner's rep and construction manager and we are right exactly where we thought we would be in that process

086and we you know we'll design the building and yeah 18 months roughly from now we'll start going out to bid and get a much better sense and I I know that there's a sensitivity with the next-gen school building committee with our Architects uh with the other two firms we've hired that you haven't had the benefit of meeting yet certainly our owner's rep in maintaining a very very very close watch on this budget to make sure that we come in um hopefully you know our Target is on time under budget and so that's what we're working towards but it's really premature to say if we're ahead or behind and you know but we we're right where we thought we would be yeah the escalation fact to use was eight percent per year and you know that

087was a considered conservative at the time so we will you know time will tell but the other thing that I'll add is in the on the product summary page the 637 per square foot for North End 649 uh for Norton from the presentations from tecton and some of the other firms they believe those numbers would absolutely work and again the goal is to manage within this budget um yes because managing outside of that budget is not something we we want ever to happen so the one thing that we didn't mention um and it's in the schedule uh sheet maybe I can at each phase of design schematic design design development construction documentation where we have a cost estimator that will be going through the documents the project narratives to develop a cost estimate the construction

088manager has a cost estimator so we'll have two third-party cost estimators their estimates include escalation to the midpoint of construction so if you're talking about an eight percent annual inflation if the midpoint of construction is 2025 they are measuring that inflation out to that point so by having two independent cost estimators we can then do go through an exercise that's called reconciliation where both at both estimators say this is this is what we saw in the documents this is what we're hearing in the market they reconcile those assumptions to get to a reconciled cost estimate so we and then if there are any we identify any issues any Targets for potential savings those become embedded within the document so it's it's kind of a wash rinse repeat cycle through the three various stages as uh

089you know just as a safeguard uh through the design process I'll be quick um well first of all having served in school modernization for the bipart of three years I'm really glad that we're having this conversation tonight with the actual architectural firm so I really do appreciate that um also I've worked on a lot of projects with Architects and I really do appreciate the whole celebrating the context and culture which I think is hugely important because the people did approve these projects and uh I think that's great selfishly I live adjacent to the North End project so I do really like the whole farm and field concept and in surveying my neighbors just um just kind of uh casually I think that if you could integrate that building in and pay homage to the 200

090years that property has been farmed I think that you'll have a lot of supporters in the adjacent neighborhood there but to the neighbors I see in the schedule wherever that was so if I'm a neighbor I mean I'm going to be involved because I'm on the Boe and other roles here in the town so I see that there's Community conversations in late May and early June for the Norton school and then so for the Norton school neighborhood and also the North End Neighborhood which I think is great so that would be kind of following up after the think tank meetings internally with Town staff and members of the Boe um so then I see again the community or the neighbors are talked to again in late September early October which I think that would be

091we'd have some sort of schematic design to present to them okay so what's the next phase do they get to see or weigh in the final design prior to the project going out to bed is there a third or is it just the first two so I think um I will say this in our conversations with the administration and the Next Generation School building committee there's a a heightened sense of making sure that the public is informed along the way I'm not sure that we have a third session currently booked um and so that will be something that we can take back to both the working group and uh the building committee yeah I just think it'd be important if like they might not have to be with the Severn neighborhood groups with just one

092last public kind of presentation as to where everything this is this is your building presentation right and I think that that would that would go a long way I mean I I work for the town and my other day job here and uh I've heard from Norton school neighbors and they you know I think there's a lot of questions I think we could do the best job advertising possible and there's always going to be people who just aren't aware of what's going on and so I just think the most times that we're out there in the community the better um so I appreciate that thank you great it's just a piggy bag off of Andrew I thought that these meetings were recorded or live streamed at least the next gen meetings on this schedule yes

093NextGen is yeah okay all the next gen meetings if you go to the Cheshire Public Schools website there's a banner at the bottom it's the school modernization you can click on that and it takes you I mean all the documents are there linked to the meetings the videos should all be on our website so you any the school modernization committees the next gen uh meeting that the Town Council assigned that group to Are all uh publicly accessible both in person and live stream um certain meetings we like interviews and things like that or not when we interview firms um but most everything is operating in public and we have uh look look uh we were just talking about in the process we'll have public meetings for Community feedback designed specifically for that purpose so just

094the next gen then in Person Public participation but none of the core working group meetings are publicized no that's just uh you know what what steps are we taking next what you know uh Logistics when are we yeah the logistical stuff of how are we getting these people together when are we doing this and we hold those every couple of weeks just to stay on track yeah thank you sure and before I forget where are our manners we have our building committee chairman uh I think who is happy to be in the audience and not on the hot seat that one yeah I was going to thank Rich gustenburg uh who's kind of discreetly sitting in the back but is uh really been at the front of this process is the chairperson of the next

095gen School building committee does a lot of work behind the scenes and we appreciate everything he does and even coming out tonight to support the process um uh before we conclude the presentation I just had one question um going back to Mr White's uh line of questioning um you you had mentioned that it's your firm's priority to build I guess fully electrified buildings uh so does that mean so we're we're just discussing Mrs ham the the um the approved amounts for each building do you feel that you can achieve these cost goals by not using traditional Heating and Cooling methods so um just to clarify my statement the electrification we've seen is mostly is in the is it in the kitchen area equipment we'll look at multiple different mechanical system options um for the building

096committee to consider the district to consider um I would say that um the mechanical systems have progressed rapidly progressed towards a more efficient systems utilizing electricity um that's just kind of the direction that they've had headed that won't be the only option we study we'll study a multitude of options for consideration and that'll include you know energy consumption day one costs life cycle costs maintenance I'm all host of of considerations so the trend is definitely looking at different systems or different or hybrid systems in order to minimize the use of energy and most of those [Music] um land in the in the category of electrified um mechanical mechanical equipment so because I I only ask because like we just went through where we're sort of you know we had an energy Spike this year and

097one of the biggest concerns in our own budget was electric electricity costs so even if you were to Able able to go to heat pumps and um uh geothermal we were the one thing we really couldn't control was the actual electricity even if and because you're you know Mr y was just talking about if you put solar panels there's the cost of that on the buildings and all that kind of stuff so definitely consideration because I know even when we are doing our planning uh way back when we're talking about you know bringing in a gas line from what from Macy's I think right Andrew um and then of course tearing up 42 to bring gas down to the new school um you know those kinds of costs so you know I hope you're considering

098all those those will be looked at as well in fact we talked about that at the last building committee meeting yep right thanks no go ahead thanks Adam yeah just one point on that with regard to uh electricity costs the the idea in my mind is Electrify first and then decarbonize you put the solar panels in and you're buying them and generally speaking you know you have a financing cost for say 10 20 30 years whatever it is that doesn't change there's no budgetary volatility with that financing cost so I actually think from a budgeting perspective it could make sense this is all based on the way our Energy System is currently structured and that can change but I think it makes sense to look at it and I do think that it could work

099I'm sure I'll be considered thank you are there any other questions okay thank you very much for the presentation we look forward to this was the first the many many times we'll likely be here so we look forward to getting to know all of you thank you um okay moving along um uh normally we would have had public comment before any of the presentations just how the the uh agenda was put together tonight uh so here we are five after nine but we're in the public comments section of the agenda so is there anyone who has any public comment this evening yeah please come up to the microphone over at the podium my name is Tucker Deming 230 Oregon Road well um certainly a great deal of efforts being put into this I want to

100bring up something that is totally not about the new school and it's an incident that I believe happened about a month ago it involved a survey that was issued throughout our school system to every grade K-12 and it asked these children to pick one of five genders my first question is where the heck did that come from who authorized it and how how in the world can you even think that this should be a situated or a discussion with someone who is in kindergarten is mind-boggling so I guess there's no answer for this but somehow we're going to find out the information here how this happened now I understand recently another survey was issued much more realistic in its intent to list either male female or not interested in talking about it that's an excellent

101way of dealing with it the first was egregious now for last two years or so since covid the pandemic we've put our children through hell how can we continue to distort reality look let's stop pretending mail x y female X that's it out of the eight billion people on this Earth not one has been born other than a woman have borne all 8 million okay so what's the confusion all the confusion could be simply mental illness so as you as we progress through our societal change here Let's uh note the Damage Done to the young children and their reaction to it because I I'm not thinking it's going to be very pleasant uh on the other note about your schools if I could more shift in the discussion you know Net Zero is once again

102one of those things where we have to stop pretending about uh there's a great deal of evidence that we use fossil fuels over 80 percent of fossil fuels our energy source and we're not going to rapidly change quickly rapidly off that energy is our life let's not play around with a sudden transition it's going to spell disaster thank you thank you Mr Deming um okay yeah foreign Houck and I live on Cardinal Lane and last month I spoke about school safety and I just would like to address that issue relating to the school shootings again uh your aunt you answered many of my questions last time and I was very proud that Cheshire has done so much for for the town and for the schools I just would like to address uh one concern of

103mine and that's the security officers that are not in the schools we have two resource uh officers or security people in the schools but there's no officers or security people in the elementary schools there have been studies I think there was studies or other school systems have been putting in security guards or officers in all their schools Fairfield has uh developed in 2013 a need for police presence in schools they have two resource teachers in the officers in the high schools and they have 14 public uh public and private schools that have school safety officers so this is kind of important Glastonbury has joined that with uh 12 school security officers going in Ridgefield has uh is now in the process of hiring a security director and a full-time a full at full-time pay and

104they're going to be hiring nine school security officers for the next year the reason is that I understand that the Cheshire 2019 to 2020 budget had a school security director position posted and interviewed but never was hired and it was not included in the request in this upcoming Year's proposal for 2020 23 to 2024. um so I'm wondering why isn't it filled why aren't we going to be more concerned about this because the elementary schools are the soft targets and we've seen things happening in the elementary schools that we don't like no matter whether we have bulletproof glass or doors locked at all times I think we need that security person that can be a great presence and determine for other potential Target people that want to Target the school also um they uh are

105a good presence because they are First Responders number one they create a presence they get familiar with the floor plans they have emergency contact information they also provide training for the staff they get to know this uh the students and it just is overall Good Feeling to have a security person in each school I think the parents should start talking about this and pressuring the Board of Ed or Town Council for this budget to go through I personally think this is more important for the school safety and our children's safety than buying books or anything like that so this is our precious value our precious Commodities are the children thank you is there anyone else for public comment Jane bate 454 Riverside Drive and I left my reading glasses in the car so my apologies

106after I read this I do have a quick handout which I'll put on that table for anyone who would like it I've always thought and by always I mean in my life as a student and as a teacher in the Cheshire system that what's taught in schools is that which is true preferably provably true things such as math facts or of certain musical note lies on a given staff on a different line art facts such as yellow plus blue equals green you get the idea of course in certain subjects such as the Arts and literature there is room for plenty of disagreement and such Lively discussions on what makes a piece of theater literature or music move us to tears or laughter are I believe very valuable all such experiences help to form our humanity

107and cause us to question what we value and why but we should all value truth above fabrication and I would go so far as to state that to place a high value on truth is or should be one of the principal lessons one learns throughout one school experience why then has it become commonplace to mislead children by suggesting to them in one way or another that they can in fact change their gender and why is this being done deliberately in many school systems without parental involvement my handout is a brilliant poem by Rudyard Kipling called the gods of the copy book headings which speaks to the danger of denying Traditions that have worked not only for Generations but for millennia in the poem The Gods of the copy book heading stand for Pearls of Wisdom

108such as the early bird gets the worm a stitch in time saves nine make hay while the sun shines and so many more Oldies But Goodies likewise in Kipling's poem The Gods of the marketplace refer to each shiny new bauble that distracts us from the important lasting values we cannot afford for our children to be distracted from truth and goodness with the help of the adults no less to whom these younger ones have been entrusted thank you thank you is there anyone else for public comment okay seeing none we will move on to item four which is our consent calendar um if I recall is there usually um we can you know share what's on the consent calendar okay it's the approval of Grant um make a motion okay I have the motion and you

109have of during our discussion okay um move that the Cheshire Board of Education approves the consent calendar as presented is there a second Andrew second um discussion or uh any comment no nothing we're good all in favor opposed Faith did you vote in affirmative yeah yes okay it's unanimous as uh for those present thank you sorry turn microphone back on uh Mrs ham curriculum thank you all right so we met uh the curriculum committee met uh May 8th um large cast of characters there uh the big I'm just gonna kind of go quickly through this in the interest of time uh the major items were the unveiling of the um new i-Ready classroom mathematics program for uh six through eight um we it is now available for public viewing both in the pub uh Cheshire

110public library and at homestein um the committee approved it because well as as the committee relayed to us um it really was the best choice because it aligns with current standards it's user friendly it's flexible um it will um it just be a a welcome replacement for existing curriculum two-day training will begin in June um then we moved on to reports on an out of country field trip to Italy all chaperones are already taken so by the curriculum committee so you guys are out um but we'll we will need to approve this with a motion at the end of this report we then heard about pupil attitudes to self in school which is a k through acronym of pass it's a K-12 survey um it provides you know just assesses kids on their feelings about

111school their uh their own perceptions of their learning capability measures their self-regard preparedness attitudes about attendance just a whole host of um it kind of uh just scl type um attitudes and feelings with regard to students in school so after that and that was just an informational item we also heard an executive summary on the um uh English language arts curriculum review um and generally speaking some of the major ideas that um emerged from this ongoing review process and goals established for the next five years include increasing student choice in writing um just through varieties of styles and types providing opportunities to discuss vertical vertical alignment between grades and finding balance between paper and digital texts increasing numbers of selections so that we can develop and developing high quality reading instruction to engage all Learners

112at all levels and generally that was it now we I think in we wanna pass out the pass to take a look um going back to the past survey we're just gonna pass what this is just repeating here we're going to pass out the past survey so you can take a look at it see what the questions are being asked and then we'll collect it again um again there's no action that we need to take but this will give you an overview of what everybody what the kids will be asked you're seeing I'm going to hand it over to Marlene but um this is the K through 12 list of questions so the the attitudinals survey that's coming around you have questions for K through two and also for three through twelve so as we

113discussed the other day at curriculum we were talking about how social emotional learning is one of our Marquee issues that we've been working on for a number of years and that it would be very nice to have some data around this this is a survey that really is looking at Children's attitudes about self and others and it's referred to as the Swiss of surveys because it really does not talk about anything related to drugs or alcohol or have anything in it that would be considered politically Hot Topics rather this is a tool to help identify some underlying barriers to Student Success as Faith mentioned it talks about students connectedness their self-efficacy motivation and confidence and this is really a tool that's meant to give children a voice in their school experience this is something that

114we could administer in the fall and then again in the spring and would give teachers a lot of great information as we talk about embedding social emotional learning into academics this would help them to do things in the classroom to support students so we began by you know in working with this company we sat down we included our PPS director we included our curriculum coordinator we then brought this to our administrators also the school counselors and now are bringing it forward to you as well so that you can get an inkling of what these questions look like these are proprietary questions but as you can see they're all pretty mild this is done in in done by individual students as opposed to some others that are done and completed by teachers and this would give

115us both individual student results as well as school level results and District level results so it would help us to get a good idea on what our students are are thinking about does it ask a threshold demographic question all of that information comes from power schools there are no questions about demographics thank you is this survey anonymized no students their actual actual students would be tied to these things and the reason for that is so that teachers can intervene if they are feeling not successful in school or if they're not feeling prepared for learning or if they don't have confidence in learning there's all sorts of strategies that teachers can employ to help you know increase that success in the classroom so does that mean there would need to be a form of Parental notification

116or no your reference survey policy that we reviewed only if it means things like political affiliation uh how much money you make there's a specified list that you'll see in the new survey policy and this doesn't fulfill those we would still engage in notification anyway but it's not anything you need a parent sign off for right yeah I didn't ask about I don't think I asked about permission I just about notifications like it's happening yeah yeah I think we you know we talked about at the committee level about just you know putting certain things in to specific notification even if it doesn't meet those eight standards and I know we talked about specifically including safe School climate committee and I think ultimately we'll decide whether or not you know if this if we move forward

117with this sort of instrument we would notify on that too something like that right some of the comments there were some of the concerns I had somewhat addressed at um at the meeting is number one um if you got the student like I was in high school who just said oh yeah yeah sure oh you know who really did not take it as seriously as you as one should um but also the student who's having a bad day versus a bad year and I um as I've thought about it more I am concerned we you know we did talk about there are perhaps um ways to determine for about lack of a better word that knucklehead who just wants to kind of Breeze through but it's the student who has the bad day who may

118be identified as having some kind a um be moving toward a crisis of some sort when in fact it was just my best friend turned her back on me at lunch so how do we ensure that we don't go overboard um and and um reaching out to this child uh if it should be that case and you know they don't necessarily need that level of intervention yeah this this type of a survey is not high stakes and it's not something that gives any kind of a diagnosis or gives any it's not evaluative in any way it's simply a tool for the teacher to have another piece of information maybe that whole class is feeling a certain way after test right or or maybe it prompts that teacher to have um more of a casual conversation

119with let's say you faith and then finds out that you just had this breakup with your friend and you're suffering from a a friendship you know debacle so then there can be you know some some strategies put into place I don't think we're talking about anything significant or big but more getting on the level with kids and getting more info listening more information from them to help them have a successful day week year school experience okay thank you you're welcome do we have to hand these back now yeah oh question go ahead um I just want to go back to the new math resource for a sec sure sure first off I do appreciate that we're moving away from Big Ideas and being a math person [Music] um the cost covers text digital Suite access

120and all initial teacher materials I'm assuming that the digital Suite access has the personalized learning factor in there as well too because that's I know the company well enough to know that that is accessible for any student that may need additional support but we're not providing it to all students because based on their diagnostic is what then will be planned for instruction then correct yeah so the the cost that you're seeing here is currently being negotiated this actually has to be on review for several weeks before it comes back up for full board approval but Sam you're you're absolutely right we're looking at both the text and the digital Suite access and we've been on the phone and specifically Kevin Hanlon and his support team have been on the phone trying to to break that

121out because we do know that the diagnostic is a part of that we don't need that immediately we're looking to see exactly what we need to pay for now based on what we need and then be filling that in great I think we're moving in the right direction um going with them because they are very Innovative um so thank you for all the hard work can I just add to Sam that we were I think I I'll speak for myself I was very impressed at curriculum meeting with the amount of uh research that the committee did over a very long period of time and many hours of work put into um making some comparisons across several um programs and to come down to this one which you know you've heard about because you're in you're

122in the biz but I um I hadn't heard of but I have so much confidence in the decision that came up with this program because um after being explained how they went about choosing the program is very confidence if I could just elaborate on that yeah I'll let you know that for just for the rest of the committee members who weren't there very early in the fall they convened a group that included the department chair at the high school the folks from the Middle School including the division leader our elementary coach Kevin Hanlon Kelly Grillo as a principal rep and teachers and they first started with our philosophy and we discussed that at length in the beginning and then went through all the gates and met with numerous groups and checked Ed report and went

123through everything that you see in the in the proposal and really met numerous times and went back and questioned so they they put a lot of work into it and I think they came out with a really excellent result so I want to thank Kevin and Kelly and Alicia and the rest of the team Tom and and Lisa they did a really amazing job and we're very excited about moving forward with this just for coherence I know you're selecting Middle School obviously for certain reasons but I've future planning K-8 would look nice because the routines and structures you're moving from K5 68 is completely different animal as I'm sure you all know over there so I'm hoping we can look into it just making it more of a K-8 resource I know we're headed looking

124at the high school from here but currently because Eureka is so new yeah and we've just you know we've gotten good results from that so far I think that isn't necessarily the next Pinnacle but High School is is where our focus is next but I understand where you're coming from Sam yeah no I know um and I really would encourage all of us and then um the audience as well to seek out this book and review these this text and review it um so you you know what we're using in the schools so um we do have a motion we need to approve and it is um I don't know if anyone wants to read it we have to move that the Cheshire Board of Education improve the participation of the Cheshire high school students

125in the educational field trip to Italy from April 4th 2004 through April 14 2024 with the understanding that there is no cost to the Cheshire Board of Education with the second okay in seconds and yeah discussion can I just uh clarification I thought I heard 2004 but it could be late right now 24 you probably did sorry 24 24. one more time okay sorry um that the treasure Board of Education approved the participation of Cheshire high school students in the educational field trip to Italy from April 4th 2024 through April 14 2024. with the understanding that there is no cost to the Cheshire Board of Education thank you discussion uh all in favor okay that's the end of my report thank you thank you okay um we'll move on to finance um I guess we'll

126go with uh the Mr mass in if you'd like to go through the actual Finance report first before we get to the other business of the evening absolutely thank you Mr grippo the board members do have the financial report through April 30th just one thing that I want to say tonight on the finance report everything is is lining up quite nicely we have a fiscal year-end meeting scheduled for June 30th to do the final transfers we are well underway preparing for the year-end clothes we're doing all the things that we do every year looking at any open purchase orders adjusting them closing them as necessary we also have to finalize grants and the revenue accounts and then at the same time we're working you know with all the principals and department heads on the final

127expenditures of the year so things like instructional materials school and office supplies Furniture equipment and maintenance needs for school buildings those would all be prepared and encumbered getting ready for the year-end close so that is really the long and short of Finance tonight we are in good shape we will balance the budget this year as we always do if you'd like I can do medical benefits yes please okay so the board members do have the medical benefits report I will note that we just received the final report just before the board meeting and which is included in the linked agenda the numbers got a little bit better April's claims were 849 000 984 so below that million dollars that we have budgeted we also received additional stop-loss reimbursement of about fifty thousand dollars so for

128the month of April the net increase to the reserve fund was 205 804 so as we close the month of April The Reserve balance is one million eight twenty one eight ninety two that's one point eight two months of claims at the budget level it does Mark the fifth month in a row that we're actually adding to the reserve um you know let's hope it's a trend that continues on and as I said earlier in the finance committee meeting if you look at on a year-to-date basis the year-to-date claims are averaging a million ninety six thousand a month and that's up just one percent over the last year to date so trending in the right direction are medical benefits and that concludes finance and medical benefits are there any questions okay um it says here

129to ask you about the audit report results if you'd like I can do that too yes please the um Town Council uh audit committee and then the Town Council met on April 9th with the results of the audit for the year ending June 30th of 2022 CLA is the audit firm I'm pleased to announce that we received a clean audit and when I say we meaning the town and the Board of Ed because CLA does a comprehensive audit of of all the books and records of the Town including the Board of Ed so the main audit was clean there's also separate audits done of federal grants and state grants also both clean and those include reviews of on the state level certain grants including the birth 3 Grant and on the federal level the Esser

130grants that were used during 2022 so you know always like to point out to the board remember this this is a year where we had an absolutely clean audit and in the event that there's not a clean audit you just remember this year as an offset okay but it was very very good results of the audit and the management letter that we received just confirmed some of the things that um you know we had agreed to do last year we did get them done over the course of this audit year so no bad news to report on the finance side or the audit side this evening go ahead thanks Adam were there any were there any findings that you feel should require action or should be action should have taken action no the and those

131when I say the order report is clean there are no material weaknesses or deficiencies that were discovered what we get from CLA is a separate management letter yep and it you know that's what I was referencing to some of the things that are included is the for a tip hotline we implemented that both town and Board of Ed so you know if any employee or anyone outside of the the district or the towns employee uh wants to report uh suspicion of fraud that could do that that's in place we're using a third party company to provide notification we are working on an accounting procedures manual this is everything that's in management letters so there's nothing here that is of concern at all so I just want I just want to try to clarify so you're

132talking about stuff that they recommended a year ago and you implemented is the management letter this year have any additional recommendations that you're thinking you might want to implement no no so okay like the accounting procedures manual that's something that was highlighted last year was still working on it yeah no I I understand completely when you say clean audit I know what it is and I know there's always exceptions because you know somebody drops a dime out of a cash register it's not the end of the world right those things happen um but generally speaking that's great thank you then you're welcome um congratulations to you and your team for a clean audit I know you guys worked hard and the town yeah I know you guys worked hard to to you know make all

133those changes from last year so it's really great that it was reflected in the report um you'll see any other questions um well it says here I have to ask Miss Solano about Grant activity yes all right so this is a sort of a wrap up on the year of our grant reports our our title grants so I can sort of walk you through some of those Consolidated grants Title One those materials I'm going to give you an idea of what we spend the money on in each one of those categories so Title One those those monies typically go towards or have gone towards reading support personnel and materials to support our struggling readers that has traditionally always been at Darcy School the money that's been out that will be allocated for the following year

134will be at Darcy and Doolittle it's just the way our numbers shook out for next year Title II supports that money is spent on Consultants both for professional development for professional development materials and to defray the costs of the curriculum writing Institute title III English language Learners some of that money is used for an Aces consultant who this year worked with well over 100 of our teachers who have multilingual Learners in their classes the money is also used to defray the cost of a summer enrichment program for our multilingual learners The Immigrant Grant um ten thousand dollars is something new this year that we haven't been eligible for in the past but this year we are going to receive ten thousand dollars and it will go again towards defraying both of those items that I

135just mentioned the Carl Perkins money that money is used to pay teachers for curriculum writing in dual enrollment classes that are in that tech ed business and family consumer science of those departments it also pays for training there's an online manufacturing skillshare membership that does on-demand classes that we participate in also pays to send some of our teachers to the Connecticut learn and works conference it to phrase the cost of transportation for field trips for students in those areas in those depart uh you know Tech ad business family consumer science Etc and also goes towards supplies idea as you know and have heard Robin Kerry speak upon about that really defrays the cost of instructional salaries so we're looking at perhaps around eight teachers and seven and a half paraprofessionals it also defrays the cost

136of services for some school psychology speech language therapy and OT in uh in places like St Bridget when we where we have to support tutoring also pays for tutoring um as well as has bought about five Redcat sound systems that we use across the district in our preschool that is used to pay teacher salaries and also for some services at the local parochial schools our open Choice numbers that has gone up a little bit this year due to the increase in the number of students that we've taken in from the program and that has both gone to pay for our Connecticut teacher in Residence as well as to pay for the mentor teacher and some costs associated with that some of that money has also defrayed the cost of salary when you look at adult

137education that is paying for the cost of brochures printing mailing salaries for the the staff and Adult Ed in the evening conferences and supplies Peck Jones we just touched on last time we met about the books that we're buying for kn1 classrooms Smart Start is for salaries and consultation and that's a flat flat 150 000 each year and then um again the the Esser for the cares act that was not applicable for the 22-23 school year but we've talked um quite a lot about our bounce forward plan so that that really wraps up where the monies are spent for each of those Grant categories thank you uh are there any questions on this report okay well thank you very much you're welcome um and then the last part of the finance committee uh finance committee

138the whole met earlier this evening and we um and the committee approved additional reductions or additional reductions to the budget increase for our uh 23-24 budget and the amount of 364 692 dollars um so I will read a motion for the full board to consider um that the Cheshire Board of Education approves an operating budget for the fiscal year 2023-24 of 84 million 993 429 as appropriated by the Town Council representing a reduction of 364 692 dollars from the board of education's recommended budget of 85 million three hundred fifty eight thousand one hundred twenty one dollars is there a second Mr White um any discussion on the motion seeing none all in favor unanimous for those present thank you and that concludes the finance committee moving on to um Personnel Mr White thank you Adam

139let me see uh so I'd be happy to just give a quick overview if you want to then hit the um motions yeah I will I'll make the motion right now um then just very briefly what we're doing here is uh there's some administrative or Personnel moves that are happening that I appreciate um what the superintendent has put in motion thank you very much for that uh these are administrative positions and with that I will read the motion and I will let the superintendent do a little bit more of the explanation because there's quite a bit to it point of clarification is that one at a time we're all three together it's one at a time okay um so you know to to move things along I I think uh these guys won't be too

140hurt if I don't give dissertations on their careers um but I I would be remiss if I didn't share publicly uh and for you the the impact that they have on our community and why they're made why we're recommending these changes I would say quickly that um the first appointment we have is Mr Mike Woods who's our current Dodd Middle School principal um he will be appointed or we're recommending his appointment to the position of assistant director of operations and Community engagement uh Mr wood is Mr Woods has been a member of our administrative team for a decade uh most of which he's also served as the Cheshire admin administrative Personnel uh Union president and uh in his new role he will engage with parents and students that attend attend our schools through open Choice

141support our multi-language Learners visibility of curriculum through the CPS website manage all facets of summer school and uh complete special projects as if the other stuff wasn't enough in addition to working to support as Miss Hulk would be happy to hear our school security issues and efforts that we make toward that end he has a tremendous reputation with our students and Community I know who make have a great impact in this new role so I'm happy to nominate Mr Woods for the position of assistant director of operations and Community engagement motion that the Cheshire that the Cheshire Board of Education appoint Michael Woods to the position of assistant director of operations and Community engagement effective July 1 2023 further that Mike Woods is compensated in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the Board of

142Education and the Cheshire administrative personnel is there a second faith sir uh any discussion all in favor it is uh unanimous yes okay sorry okay that's one congratulations Mike [Applause] uh the next position we have is um for the position of assistant principal of Dodd Middle School and I am very proud to make this nomination as well Mr Ryan Murphy his been with us now for about a year and a half and in that time has been really a tremendous asset to our students and school system I would describe him as conscientious student-centered a knowledgeable educator with a strong work ethic prior to coming to us he had experience in Bethany and East Hartford including a lot of work at the middle school level and among his accomplishments here he's brought translation services for families

143to better communicate with our our multi-language Learners to be able to speak with their teachers is such a powerful piece he's been a liaison for open Choice families and made their experience here stronger and tied them more closely to our students Community which has been incredibly positive as well as the work that he's done to support our agreement with the Wallingford adult education program so without further Ado I'm proud to nominate Mr Ryan Murphy for the position of assistant principal at Dodd Middle School that the Cheshire Board of Ed appoint Ryan Murphy to the position of Middle School assistant principal effective July 1st 2023 further that Ryan Murphy is compensated in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the Board of Education and the Cheshire administrative personnel is there a second [Music] any discussion all

144in favor unanimous thank you [Applause] it's been smooth sailing I know this next one won't be a nail biter either not allowed not allowed because there are I'm just kidding there are maybe for personal reasons but professionally this is another obvious appointment uh that Miss Kelly Grillo be appointed to the position of principal Dodd Middle School um Miss Grillo has a long and successful career in the Cheshire public schools that actually began at Dodd Middle School as a teacher there before she went on to serve as a part-time assistant principal at the middle school or elementary schools and then as you know very successfully as the principal at Norton school for the past seven years you may have heard um that it's been a National Blue Ribbon School we've taken some pains to announce that

145and it's something Kelly and our school system is justifiably proud of so as I said I think this is another no-brainer opportunity and as I close out this final nomination I would say that um you know I I can't remember a time in my career where you know there were opportunities that were so obvious to support and benefit our school system in as many ways as making these three moves do and so uh today I think is a really proud moment for us because we can look into the future and see a lot of bright Skies based on the work that these people do and so again without further Ado I nominate Kelly Grillo for the position of Dodd Middle School principal that the Cheshire Board of Education appoint Kelly Grillo to the position of

146Middle School principal effective July 1 2023 further that Kelly Grillo is compensated in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the Board of Education and the Cheshire administrative administrative personnel there's a second okay um discussion thank you Adam yeah just just a reminder here for people watching at home the Board of Ed we hire and fire the superintendent and everybody else here it's all strong on the Fire it rhymes um anyway uh everything else is officially done by the superintendent um it's his call on this and this is really more of a show of support on our part um rather than actually hiring anybody here or making any of these promotions by ourselves thank you just as I read policy though we do have a role in this so it isn't it isn't just show

147I just want to make that I mean I understand what you're saying this is Dr solon's decision but according to policy we also do have to approve it so just saying for administrative posts okay thank you foreign on favor uh is that yeah I keep missing your hand okay all right maybe I'm colorblind or something it is unanimous I know we kind of did a batch effort but if you three wouldn't mind coming up and shaking hands with the board that'd be great to recognize you besides it gets you up out of that chair if you can walk at this point in the evening it'd be great yeah I don't feel them a little wobbly well I think I need it we'll take a nice picture out by the wall there congratulations congratulations congratulations just

148you don't want to be in it [Laughter] yeah we're gonna do with that nice new backdrop that Mr Martelli is orchestrated painted it yourself too right laughs okay moving on to policy uh we had a marathon meeting on Tuesday right was that Tuesday it was I think it was Tuesday we had we hadn't had a long uh long policy meeting in a while it's been several years I think um uh firstly I just wanted to note that um uh Sam was in attendance that's all but other than that I know I know you worked to put that together right right right um okay so as far as uh policy uh we had a robust discussion section uh we discussed Transportation policy where we agreed to um re-visit um a an overview of that I think

149what next fall or something to that effect right I'm sorry for which one Transportation Transportation yes the fault yeah as we get more um uh information about where students population yes yes yes uh we also reviewed on equity and diversity policy um we had a discussion about that and that we're also going to be um reviewing a cave policy correctly because the first one we the one we reviewed on Tuesday was put together by the community right community group um and then cable also has one we'll be reviewing that um we reviewed a civility policy which was I guess more directed towards uh Schools staff and students and potentially parents visiting on school campus right was sort of the kind of the focus we're bringing in there but not uh nothing no decisions were made

150on on that policy um and then we also discussed the international uh travel uh policy revision uh for I guess the superintendent I suppose uh for any International policy or international travel that may occur in the future um for uh first reading uh we reviewed um an instructional arrangements for teachers aides um policy 6159.1 um and then we also reviewed a uh a new robust policy on surveys of students 6162.51 um the only one that we moved to a uh first reading was or no did we move oh no we didn't move we moved one of the two one of the two I thought we held off so we held off on teachers aides because it says we held off on okay all right so we held off on uh the teachers AIDS uh teacher

151aids uh policy I don't remember why say why I don't remember why but we're going to be revisiting that oh okay right right we're getting clarification on yes between paraprofessionals and that was a little joke we had earlier I was like three hours ago I think so yeah so off we moved to a first reading um the survey of students um and we're going to be adding some additional language uh at our next meeting uh to cover the school safe climate survey that it didn't specifically uh cover uh in the robust language that it has so we'll be adding to that um we moved for a second reading uh policy 4222 teacher Aid paraprofessional and um policy 6172.3 educational instruction under parental Direction homeschooling we had reviewed those um at our last meeting and there

152were no changes to those policies and we moved those forward for a second rating um and then for a third reading we moved a curriculum uh I'm sorry policy numbers uh 6140 curriculum and 6142 uh for a third reading um and there were obviously no changes made to those policies uh and I will make a motion um that the Cheshire Board of Education give a third and final reading to uh policy number 6140 curriculum and 6142 basic instruction and direct the superintendent to put said policies into immediate effect do I have a second on that Mr White is there any discussion on that motion yes this is him uh I understand that this is uh these revisions are to comply with state law that was passed last year but I have to go on record

153is saying um it the recent uh results from the naap tests are demonstrating that something is seriously wrong in our history in Civics instruction and I contend that it is um the bifurcation trifurcation mincing of our history at an early level um I think we're losing sight of what history instruction should be at um the K-12 level to begin to break out into various um uh movements within history and groups and their progress and or progress in history at such an early age these are these are top that really I feel should be um dealt with in college and I think there are wonderful survey curricula treat um the the various um cultural groups minorities um citizens in this country with Grace with a critical eye and I think I understand these are electives but

154at the same time um I think those naap studies or tests are demonstrating that um our kids just don't know our history well nor do they know our Civics and I'm not so sure that having so many different levels of history is going to solve that problem and it's my opinion um and again I will vote against these policies um even though I know that they have to be implemented according to state law so thank you are there any any other comments on the motion none um all in favor yes okay we have a few people here like we have five uh Against One so 541 against that's right I have to talk um there aren't are there any other standing committees that need to report this evening no okay all right um let's see

155was that the uh Cheshire Board of Education approved minutes for meetings held on April 20 uh April 20th 2023 and May 4 2023. is there a second this is Rosenberg uh any comments or visions on the minutes seeing none all in favor all right it's unanimous thank you um Miss Harrigan any correspondence I have received none thank you thank you and of course the crescendo of the evening is the superintendent's report the um you know the the first 20 minutes of the report is not as exciting as it usually is but it really picks up after that so um I'm gonna try and keep this brief given the late hour um a couple things I just want to share that I'm excited about I want to touch upon first is that we've done a lot

156of work to revamp our school Business Partnership and in that process we've tried to shift to more of a um Workshop style where we invited in a couple of months ago maybe six weeks a number of folks representing the trades to talk about what we could do to uh looking at the economy and forecasting and knowing that there are extensive shortages within the trades um what can we mutually do to support that and support our kids and um so after a lot of conversation brainstorming we wanted to provide some opportunities for kids who maybe didn't know what those uh you know careers entail and so we just put out a survey earlier this week after I met with the economic development committee um Tuesday morning we put the survey out to Tuesday we already have

15736 students in grades seven eight and Rising seventh eighth and ninth graders who expressed interest in doing some sort of Shadow or learning experience over the summer in the trade so that's really exciting stuff for us we're really happy about that another um similar Workshop meeting was held another day this week that I can't remember was that yesterday Wednesday Wednesday right so it was yesterday Wednesday yesterday so um yeah we're we got a lot going on but uh we met with 30 Realtors from around Cheshire um and they were great of course the highlight of the event was our culinary class who came in and prepared uh scones and carrot cake and it was fantastic the kids did a great job but um we had the opportunity to engage with the Realtors and some back

158and forth fourth conversation Andrew was there with his hat that was the economic development coordinator and you had to agar the president of the Cheshire chamber was also there and we talked a little bit about the uh residential development in the community and what we could do to support Realtors what um you know sort of information was helpful for them so there was a great give and take in that process um I don't really follow niche.com much uh you know I don't know that uh that's the barometer that we measure ourselves against per se but in doing some research from this group because I know that they follow it uh I realize that I know that we had our best ever ranking of in the top 500 districts in America we are now 330th and

159we've never been that high we were the top 15th top District in Connecticut um the I think we're underrated with the 18th uh District the 18th rated district for the best teachers in Connecticut but um we're the number two District in New Haven County Amity was number one for those keeping score at home but they're only grades 6 through 12. um all elementary schools in Cheshire are ranked in the top seven in New Haven County Norton was one Highland five Chapman six do a little seven so all of our schools are ex you know exceptional in this respect CHS with the number four High School in New Haven County I was number 25 out of 206 in Connecticut uh and I'm really proud and Kelly will be happy to hear that Dodd Middle School and

160Mike I'm sure number one teachers in New Haven County and they were the number three Middle School overall so um great I really appreciate the Realtors coming um I think it was really mutually beneficial and a good use of our time and thank you to you Andrew as well for being there and uh Ben and Marlene also um the last item is is also really uh neat you know we believe uh there's talking about the trades but there's also a ever-shrinking global economy that our students uh and I I know our families that live in this community are engaging with people from outside the United States on a more regular basis than we probably ever have in our lifetime with the acceleration of technology and travel and everything like that and so we think it's

161important to connect with other cultures and have an understanding uh globally of what's going on uh to give our kids the best opportunity for Success when they leave the Cheshire Public School System toward that end I was contacted by the Jackson Mundo Office of Education that is the equivalent of a State Department of Education in South Korea who was interested in um they we had been referred to them by others in Connecticut uh which they've had a previous experience for a district that might be a good place to partner with an exchange of ideas and so um we will have visitors the deputy superintendent of the the goe will be here uh next Wednesday and Thursday with a small team to observe the instruction in the Cheshire public schools and we'll explore the potential for

162a partnership with them if it you know we find that it can be mutually beneficial and helpful for our students and staff we'll certainly entertain that but it's still regardless of how it shakes out it's it's nice that other people recognize us as a leader in our field and somebody worth exploring to do business with so that'll be going on next Wednesday and Thursday so that's it for me um appreciate the opportunity and certainly entertain any questions yeah um not a question but a comment you would say a big concern for me is alternative Pathways positive outcomes for the students also kind of avoiding these huge massive debts we have for the country a recent article that I was reading about the trades specifically about electricians earlier tonight we were talking at least I was

163mentioning the possibility of electrifying the new schools rather than using the fossil fuels so I was reading a story about this in which it mentioned that the expectation over the next 10 years for electricians in the U.S is another million added which is a significant number I mean um but one thing that the the focus of the article was actually about women and it said electricians really I guess it's not that surprising to me only two percent of electricians are women and I think that there's a huge opportunity for for uh some of our you know female students if they were so inclined to look at something like that and have a real opportunity to do that it the article was clear that there was some real drawbacks when you're working in basically a man-dominated

164occupation a lot of guys are really nice and some not necessarily so nice but there's a real opportunity there again it was only two percent of women are electricians in the US and that I found that a little surprising at least initially yeah I wonder how many women would be interested in hiring a female electrician now I mean I would think that there would be a very lucrative opportunity there where women would feel more comfortable perhaps and for whatever reason but um I think the point is clear that it'd be great to have more girls exploring these fields and um I share that um that you know Desire with you and I I when I looked at the number of students uh very early this morning before I emailed Ms Solano I was excited to

165see that there were a few girls in the group and I think we can do more to um that you know encourage more females to consider and explore there's no commitment you know you're going to see what it what it entails um and you may find out this is nothing you do not want to go down this path and that's fine um but you may find out you do and so we want to encourage as many kids as possible to engage in it we'll continue to put that out for people that like I said in 48 hours we've had you know 36 I didn't check it again today but 36 kids sign up so that's encouraging and we want to definitely you know encourage more girls to sign up as well construction is another uh

166space where I don't think there's a lot of women who work in it and I it might have been five years ago I was reading an article about a woman who started her own construction company because she didn't feel like dealing with guys anymore and she painted her construction equipment you know like a backhoe and stuff she painted it pink and her business just like took off she had women who wanted to talk that's why I have home renovations I have some home renovations that we do my wife is in charge room the guys who come in the contractors they try to talk to me I said she's the boss talk to her anyway uh and then just one other point on uh electrification right here within the schools um then messiana organized uh an

167event today to have our school bus provider service provider datco come here to town with one of their electric school buses they've got 11 they said it's not Cheshire but they've got 26 towns probably hundreds of school buses at least they've got 11 of them right now they brought one of them they brought a propane powered School Bus as well but we got on the electric school bus and it was basically silent when it came on it was fantastic and that has that in my opinion I've mentioned it before but I think that would have a very positive effect in reducing complaints from kids and parents related to school buses because you don't have the engine running the roar or the engine with the kids screaming over it just to talk to each other so

168just more of the electrification of America thank you I'm sorry I know we've been here a long time but I just want to say um I know the superintendent quickly gleaned over all of the other work that he is doing out in the community and you know it's we're in this every day but it's just important to know that not only is he running this gigantic school system he's also having all the Realtors come in to talk about the work that CPS does and the students ensuring the business Community attending the economic development commission meetings not like I'm inviting him he's just coming and making himself be there I'm part of the agenda um and just the community large really appreciates that so I just want to say thank you because I know you have

169it's important that we get the word out about what CPS is and thanks for that of course any other questions or comments for the superintendent okay does that conclude your report yes sir all right excellent um we have no old business to my recollection uh we have no new business on the agenda I don't think I just lost it here let's make sure uh it says chairperson's update which uh Tony did not provide me with one um and then so I guess I'll just read the upcoming uh meetings here it says Wednesday May 24 7 PM is a Personnel committee meeting um Thursday June 1 7 30 is our uh business meeting um June Tuesday June 6 at 6 30 PM is policy um Monday June 12th 7 PM is curriculum committee Thursday June 30

1707 30 a.m is our um uh year-end fiscal meeting in the uh at the humiston boardroom um and that's uh that's all I have is there a motion twosier second all in favor all right