001to order for March 16 2023 Ms josinski please call the roll here thank you all rise for the pledge okay so I'll move on to the first order of business which is our student representative report Michael go right ahead [Music] um hello everyone I hope you're enjoying the nice weather today and thank you always for for having me so to start off last week the World Language Department hosted a global Awareness Week where International Foods and Customs were presented in the CHS Commons dancing and trying new foods were a staple of the event and students really enjoyed that the mock trial team which is a club at CHS that focuses on business and law made it to the state semi-finals this past weekend the peer Health Educators a CHS class that focuses on leadership and
002community service hosted a unified basketball tournament yesterday athletes from Lyman Hall and Hampden High School came to play in athletics two indoor track and field athletes qualified for the national indoor track and field championship in Boston Massachusetts senior dual Captain Colin Brown ran his way to 30th in the nation in the 60 meter dash with a time of 6.99 seconds and Junior Alexis Ciccone ran her way to 12th in the nation in the 5 000 meter run with a time of 17 minutes 33 seconds congrats to these two incredible Cheshire athletes winter sports wrapped up with hockey skiing and swimming making making it to States and cheerleading qualifying for the team of the Year competition which is their first time since 2018. spring Sports begin this Saturday March 18th and can't wait to see what
003happens so this and next the spring musical The Adams Family will be premiering on March 22nd in the CHS auditorium at 7 30 pm and that's actually one of the reasons why Monaco's not here tonight because she's at rehearsal right now and they're you know finalizing everything and and getting everything ready for the big day and um yeah Castle's just been working really hard so you can come check it out on March 22nd 23rd or 24th at 7 30 in the CHS Auditorium the future Business Leaders of America Club will participate in the state competition tomorrow at Naugatuck Valley Community College FBLA is a business Club at CHS focused on growing entrepreneurial skills leadership and community service they've been working on their state events for the past few weeks and they'll get to Showcase them
004at the tournament CHS will host a challenge day on April 3rd and this day is basically a day where it provides an opportunity for students and staff to build empathy understanding and compassion within the school and last but certainly not least Juniors Alex Kalin and Noah susil put together a Leukemia and Lymphoma fundraiser at Apple Valley bowl last Friday students from CHS and Dodd got together for a night of bowling for a great cause and over 500 was raised for cancer research that night and that's all the announcements for today thank you um are there any questions oh go ahead thanks Michael um how is the um keep the bathroom clean initiative going I've seen some things in the paper what's your take so far on huh what is your take on it but the
005the name of the project is I'll take yeah so yeah thanks for asking um so far since our presentation we did on on February 15th um things have been really improving and um the the boys bathroom Improvement Squad bbis um it's received it's received like a lot of uh of positive feedback like students are really appreciating you know the fact that students are you know taking initiative everything's student-led um bathrooms are getting cleaner they're getting you know less vandalisms happening you know they're getting better and there's been over like the past week there's been a few issues but you know change is slow or no some change is you know slow but we're continuing to like progress for for better change and um a better bathroom experience for everyone and so it's definitely definitely improving
006which is a great sign thank you yeah um seeing no other questions from the board uh Michael you are thank you for your service this evening and you are free to go all right thank you so much Mr grippo have a great day everyone wonderful evening um up next uh call uh Miss ham for the Doolittle School presentation this way sort of yeah all right um I have the pleasure tonight of um introducing or presenting the school partnership award and introducing this year's recipient um Tracy Hershman who is nominated by Amy O'Brien who is the Doolittle school principal and we have many wonderful parents who help us out at Doolittle School however this year Tracy Hershman has stood out Tracy is the son of Doolittle and has been very involved in the PTA for the
007past four years she is a generous supporter of our school fundraisers and volunteers whenever she can be there she's even stepped in to help out his school lunch Aid when she's when it's needed this year she's been instrumental in getting the Doolittle School up and running again the school's school store was open before the pandemic and parent volunteers could come in at lunchtime to sell school supplies to students during lunch waves this year Tracy opened up the school store during recess waves one or two times a month it's been very very successful not only have the children loved it but it's become a very lucrative fundraiser uh bringing in about 400 a month for the PTA she has stocked the store with quality items and gives her time to do a little twice a month
008to open the store not to mention the time she spends purchasing and organizing the items this year she has even instituted a kindness Awards certificate she asks teachers to present certificates to students who demonstrate kindness in caring in the classroom students are awarded a gift certificate to the school store to purchase anything they would like for free we're very grateful to have Tracy Hershman at Doolittle thank you Tracy for the time you have given to the students and adults at Doolittle School [Applause] thank you excellent thank you we've got time [Applause] foreign [Applause] thank you Miss ham and Dr Solon for that great presentation and award we'll move on to uh the Audi audience section of our agenda um I just would like to read something before we begin um the board welcomes public participation
009and asks that speakers limit their comments to three minutes speakers may offer objective comments on school operations and programs that concern them to protect the impartiality of the board we will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about Board of Education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the Cheshire Public Schools such issues should be brought to the school administration which is always open for commentary and phone calls the board will not respond the comments during made during public comment except to clarify issues when appropriate District administration will follow up at a later point in time that being said um if anyone has any public comment this evening that they wish to express please line up uh to the microphone and um you have the floor and please list your
010name if you wouldn't mind hi do I need the microphone okay hi my name is Stephanie cocho do I have to get my address is that is there like a not real white okay so um first of all I just want to say I don't want to be here I didn't ever think that I would have to um come to the Board of Ed and voice my opinion about certain things so I just want to know I don't want to be here I want to be home I work full time so um this isn't really my thing but I wrote down some notes just to kind of keep it straightforward so um my name is Stephanie kocho and I am a mother of a second grader at Chapman Elementary School tonight I would like to
011bring up some concern I have about that safe School climate survey that the children had to fill out there's a section on the survey that says I am a and the responses are boy girl non-binary gender fluid and prefer not to say I understand you guys can't answer questions tonight but I hopefully you know as the parents we can get some answers soon so I will be emailing you guys just the questions that I have for tonight um so the first one I had was I like to know why these responses were added to the survey so Dr Solon you actually emailed my husband last night and mentioned that the survey is required by state law and it was filled out um or yeah to be filled out but in 2018 Cheshire decided to add
012these responses to the specific questions of the survey um however I was sent today the 2021 survey and the K through three so my son is in second grade so that's what I'm thinking about on the k-3 the gender choices and the survey were only boy girl and not and prefer not to answer so I just strongly feel like the parents should be notified when something like that is changed on forms that they have to um fill out second I wanted to know about an opt-out form so I did find an opt-out form on ctfamily.org and um I just wanted to know if Cheshire honors these forms and if they do how the um teachers realize like which student opts out and which student doesn't because I don't know if they're even going to know
013those things um the third thing I wanted to know is since we're talking about children that are really young you know four to eight mistakes do happen so if a child accidentally clicks the wrong response and does say non-binary and they meant to say boy or whatever happens they're so young um is there further conversation with that student I know you guys said that it was Anonymous but my son did say he did it on his iPad so I don't know if you guys can tell who does it or whatever and then if it is more conversation like are the parents aware and then my final question was I think the biggest question of all is what happens if the child does have questions so you know they're confused by things children are curious in
014nature especially at such a young age so I understand that most of these children are going to see boy girl and collect that and move on but for the ones who are curious and do ask questions I want to know who's explaining what non-binary and gender fluid means to these young children and then how they're explaining it I think that's the biggest thing for the parents and I know there's not a lot of people here tonight but I think it's because a lot of people don't know no one knew about this survey I reached out to all of my mom friends and a lot of them couldn't be here tonight which I was bummed about but they all were shocked and they were just as upset as I am um so I'm kind of speaking
015for all of them so in conclusion I just want to say that this is something that I feel really strong that parents should be explaining to their children at the time that the parent feels that it's appropriate so such a young age I don't feel it's appropriate so topics like these are confusing to everyone and they're new and in my opinion I just think that it's not appropriate for the school system to be explaining it to my children so that's all I want to say thanks thank you you're welcome so you guys can't answer any of the questions right you guys don't do that I could add some okay information maybe when other people spoke older picture okay hi I'm Olympia brucato thank you for you know spending the time with us this evening I
016wanted to thank you for your time um I think Stephanie said it you know perfectly well there's really not much more I can add to what she said but um I just wanted to show my support um I love this town I you know I think the treasure Public School System you know I I just want them to keep their focus on reading science math and I also wanted to add this and I don't want anybody to take this as an accusation but we're just having an open conversation but um I think sometimes even my daughter will Express that she feels a little bit uncomfortable when these questions are put out on the survey I don't know if Cheshire probably doesn't have any choice you know maybe you're you're bound to these surveys or maybe
017you're compelled to disseminate them and um but I just wanted to say that um I think those kind of conversations when you you know be asking a child you know what their gender identity is it shouldn't really be kept between the parent and the child I I would just be more comfortable having those conversations with my daughter I mean up until five years ago they had books out in the library saying you know you know your body is changing when you go from you know 10 years old to 13 14 when you hit puberty and they gave parents books about how to have these conversations with your kids because it's really an awkward time for them so if you have any power or ability to do so if we could just you know keep the
018survey simple because having these kinds of questions can be and all I would just say is use five years ago relative today where we are in in the world today is it just seems kind of perverted so you used five years ago relative to where we are today almost as a litmus test and I think we could all agree that would be a little bit weird and I mean I I personally feel that you know um those kind of questions coming from somebody other than a parent is just a little strange so I I just wanted to say that I just wanted to be up here you know thank you for your time and I wanted to give support to Stephanie and and the other parents that are expressing concerns about this and um you
019know if in the future if we can have the ability if they could there could just be transparency between the Board of Ed and the parents and let us know what's going on and if there's an ability to opt out at that so thank you for your time hi I was asked by some parents to be here today um because they couldn't be here finding out about the survey last minute so according to Connecticut General statutes 10 222h I understand that you guys are required to have surveys but this survey is supposed to be about bullying in the school system and when you read the statute for this particular survey that you guys are instituting it specifically says included in the survey that contain uniform grade level appropriate questions that collect information about students perspectives
020and opinions about the school climate and the school and B allows students to complete and submit such assessment and Survey anonymously so I'm not sure how it's being done anonymously in kindergarten first grade second grade third grade and asking questions to a first second or third grader about their gender is very confusing um I did have a parent tell me that their third grader didn't know what those words meant asked the third grader so how did you respond I asked my teacher my teacher said she couldn't give me any direction um and so that student chose one of the funny names instead of picking male or female so I don't know how accurate that is if these surveys are supposed to be anonymous I don't understand why we even need to ask gender on them
021and I'm not sure how it's being kept Anonymous in a kindergarten first second third grade level being done on an iPad so I just wanted to bring that to your attention I have the state statute here it's pretty open-ended so you guys can have there is flexibility for what kind of questions you need to ask on this survey and it should just be generally targeted to bullying in general and I don't think it matters what your gender is when it comes to bullying so I just thought I'd put that out there thank you thank you good evening my name is Amy Borden and I am a Cheshire resident I have four children in the school system here one of the things that I wanted to talk about tonight I never thought in my entire life
022that I would have to show up at a board of ed meeting and basically argue how many biological Sexes there are because the questions that are asked on this survey where it asks for whether you're a male or a boy female or girl non-binary or gender fluid or prefer not to say non-binary and gender fluid seem quite subjective to me a matter of opinion to either the child's or the teacher and when the child doesn't know what the answer to that question is or they can't clearly Define it because it's probably above their age range and maturity level and the absence of a parent they then have to rely on the teacher so the parents would like to know what the definitions for the Cheshire public schools are for non-binary and gender fluid that's one
023of the first things secondly I just want to point out that these changes that you're making without floating them around in the public in advance of doing so is it's dangerous in terms of liability I don't think I really need to comment further on that but I think that the climate that we're in right now people are losing their uh patients and some of these things are going to start moving to class action lawsuits that are actually crowdfunded so we don't even have to come out of pocket for it but we can get definitive answers from courts on where they stand with these issues because they are children and they're minors and they're our children they are not subjects of the public school system they are our children and they're minors so we guide them
024through these subjective times in their life and these subjective questions about gender and there's a difference between biological sex gender and identity and the parents and the public and the schools and coaches and everyone in society help to shape the identity of a child but it should never be done in the absence of a parent's permission or notification or in involvement and I think that the parents feel really left out when the survey was changed without some sort of uh Advanced hearing like this or I'm not sure if you guys have a committee or a group that tries to stay ahead of these issues because they're infiltrating our society faster than we anticipated a year ago when we were discussing these types of things I was told that this stuff was not in Cheshire Public
025Schools and some of you ended up with the word yet and so now here we are it's time to deal with it um I know that I'm probably closing in on my time but I I don't want to have to have conversations with my own children when they come home and ask me what other means on a survey when they know and I know and scientists that follow biology and Anatomy know that sex is binary there are males and females and then there are hermaphrodites that are both male and female which is still binary so it's binary right down to the one anomaly of society that has both so I think you guys should think about that because we're teaching children facts that are not facts we're teaching them ideology we're confusing them they don't
026know how to answer these questions then they're being taught what they mean and it's confusing them and it's confusing Society in fact in Connecticut you can change your gender or your biological sex on a birth certificate is that document worth anything anymore if you can change any component of it except for the day you're born and the hour is it really worth anything I implore you to please do your research on the definitions with this stuff intersex gender cisgender identity biological sex we forgot that one I hope we're still teaching it that's all thank you good evening my name is Karen Schnitzer and I live at carrier woods and I'm here as a neighbor of the new school in the North End that will be built and also as co-chair of coalition for sustainable Cheshire
027and only incidentally as chair of the environment commission but in you know for transparency there it is this may be a little bit more than three minutes but I'll do my best the building of a new school comes with a lot of promise and possibilities I would like to promote these few ideas a butterfly and pollinator Garden I propose a garden full of native perennials and shrubs to promote and support our local native butterflies bees and other insects with food and shelter such a garden will also support the beautiful birds that come north to raise their young this Garden could also be designed as a rain Garden to collect rainwater runoff and keep the 10-mile River clean this Garden should be designed and planted by people who are knowledgeable about native plants native meaning native
028to Connecticut neighboring states or at least New England as opposed to California once installed it can be enjoyed by the school children and used to educate them about the natural environment secondly I would like to propose a vegetable garden this can be a triple win first it would be a shame to let the prime agricultural soils here go to White go to waste is it possible that the architect can leave an unexcavated area of these unmatched soils for school vegetable garden the children can learn Hands-On where their food comes from and how to grow it and the produce can be used by the school or given to the local food bank and food pantry the Coalition for sustainable Cheshire is gathering more information on these two kinds of initiatives and there may be grant money
029for one or both and I know that we would like to give a short presentation to the board of ed when that information is gathered Nature's Classroom the site of this school is currently home to Abundant Wildlife turkeys use the fields as do deer Hawks other animals the lowlands nearby are home to Turtles frogs and salamanders I know I would like this but how about some outdoor seating an area where the kids could sit and enjoy nature listen to the birds and personally I would face those seats away from the school so they can watch nature um also as this is currently a beautiful Natural Area great care should be taken when designing and building this school I know they're going to do that I just want to support that idea and emphasize it this
030area is home to screech owls barred owls warblers Timber Doodles fireflies and other wildlife the design should show consideration towards wildlife and the humans living nearby lights should Point downward and be shielded and should be warmer in tone leaning towards yellow and lower temperatures not blue and hot temperatures light can travel many feet into the forest and when it does it disturbs The rhythms of life artificial light at night also known as La I'm sorry a-l-a-n can prevent successful reproduction of fireflies and other insects Alan can cause Birds to sing more hours than is natural exhausting them it can harm frogs and salamanders and people this surely should not be the outcome of building the new school and I saw that they had picked a an architect who looks like they will do a good
031job um and I would like to support that and uh and those are my ideas and thank you all for your time and consideration thank you um is there any additional public comment okay um saying uh Dr Sol yeah I'd be happy to reply on both points first uh Schnitzer actually right now there's a meeting going on downstairs that I would typically be at on Thursday uh every almost every Thursday we meet uh the Next Generation School building committee to uh consider you know the the design of the building but that won't be done in isolation as you mentioned tecton was just selected as the architectural firm for both locations Norton and the new North End we've seen schematic designs already that were very rough in nature designed quickly to kind of illustrate what the
032layout could look like and The Architects uh thankfully every architectural firm we brought in but certainly tecton spoke to many of the issues you just mentioned now the process for the full community is that right now they're discussing owners Representatives uh they'll subsequently discuss construction managers that should be wrapped up by the end of April after that occurs there'll be meetings with stakeholders in the community about design considerations uh kind of like you just highlighted so stay tuned that'll probably happen in the late spring and over the summer and certainly we'll put out a lot of information about that is uh we're very excited to be able to move forward and offer these new facilities for our community and for our students with respect to the questions about the survey just to give a little
033bit more history and context the survey was mandated by law in 2012 as was mentioned there is a significant flexibility on our end there are a list of of questions which are included gender uh could be modified which happened in 2018 to include additional choices and I know there was a question that perhaps that didn't occur then but on our website you can see um the the we've had the data up there we perpetually put the data up there and it may be confusing if you look at a smaller building like Chapman that uh the selection of non-binary might not be labeled you can see a green sliver uh for students because it's not a significant portion of the population but that does exist uh in our buildings for K through three that being said
034you know it's a situation that students self-identify but the the question as to whether or not gender is necessary I mean that's something that we're exploring uh before the next certainly before the next Administration in 2025 you know my personal regret is we didn't send out more information in advance uh at this Administration so I apologize for that but um I want to clear up a couple of other questions opt out actually uh there's not a blanket opt out per se for all things necessarily so we if there were to be a survey we would notify family and then the opt-out provision would kick in that that process is actually being revert reviewed by the policy Committee in an upcoming meeting um the uh further conversation with students the the questions are the the responses
035are Anonymous we we don't know who responded what we do ask about gender because if we found that all girls felt unsafe in a certain situation or boys felt you know bullied in a particular place or whatever we would want to know that there can be gender differences I don't know that those exist so significantly and k-3 is they might in older grades but uh we'll look at that and certainly you know I don't know that I'm wedded to the idea of having a gender question in k-3 unless the data were so profound that boys or girls said something but I don't know that to be the case necessarily and we'll take a look at that obviously if students have questions uh like one of the speakers said you know we don't necessarily answer those
036questions first of all it's extremely rare um in our experience that a student would ask a question about gender most students pretty readily identify with one of the choices and just select that if there is a question then um we indicate like the the speaker said that you know we we're not providing answers on this if there's persistence and I I'm not familiar with the situation where that has occurred we would direct the student to speak with their family and I appreciate that you know not every family is ready to have that conversation uh as a father I I appreciate that I understand that um so yeah I think I I covered most of the stuff uh you know uh again um sorry one point about our definitions of what gender means we don't have
037definitions of what genders mean uh students self-identify and uh they select the gender that best reflects them so um you know we'll share more information we'll currently you know this is a work in progress and again I apologize for not sending out more information in advance of this Administration uh the the results from past surveys are on our website um either collectively or by building and we've posted those results perpetually since 2012 when we started giving the survey on our website so if there's more questions certainly you can feel free to direct them to me I'd be happy to respond to anything again as some of the speakers noted you know I'll reply to questions and again it's a work in progress and we can we'll continue to reevaluate and make sure that we have
038a good situation for our kids and get the information that we need to make sure that all of our students have a safe and positive experience in our schools foreign thank you Dr Solon um I would also like to thank uh every the board would like to thank everyone who came to speak this evening uh one of the reasons why I think it was back in 2019 that we moved the audience section uh from I think uh issue number six or seven to number three and so is that if um a parents or citizens had a reason to speak that they wouldn't have to wait here all night while we go through our regular business to speak um so um I'm glad that uh you all came tonight to to discuss and uh make your
039opinions known on this issue um I'd also like to say that um the policy committee um had we had actually an advertised it for about a month ahead of time uh in November we spent about two hours with our school attorney where we uh we ask questions uh I think it was Sam and I actually who are in that meeting um asked questions of the attorney uh about parental rights and about transgender issues so there's a two hour video that we have uh posted on our Cheshire Public Schools website that you can review and hear the answers from our attorney as to what state law says on many of these issues and some of them are surprising some of them might not be so I would encourage you to review that as Dr Solon said
040we'll be reviewing uh further policy to see if we can clarify uh anything that we can because the uh the uh the law that uh that guides this uh survey is does give us some leeway so we'll be reviewing that uh in a future policy meetings uh that being said um sure yeah go ahead um thank you everybody for coming out tonight and and um Jeff thank you for feeling all my questions I um you know this this kind of dropped early well just after the curriculum meeting but I I just two points that I would like to make and I you know we can read the law differently but but but the whole idea of these surveys is to get to the essence of bullying and and the climate of the school and as
041I go through the surveys and I haven't seen the high school one or uh the middle school one but um you know I just I think that's key you know the law does identify over a dozen different characteristics of bullying or targets of bullying and I just get the sense if we identify one we should be asking about all of them um you know because I was suddenly looks end of bullying when I was in high school in in grade school and you know it's it's painful I get it um and frankly too sometimes the teachers are bullies and do we have can we capture that in a survey um I can remember my the biggest bully to me in fourth grade was my teacher because she couldn't she was upset because I couldn't do
042division you know they're there and human nature is human nature I I'm not blaming her I grew up but but I think what we need to do is with these surveys is is focus on the atmosphere we're creating in the school and not necessarily try to dig down at this stage to what is the specific cause of bullying because if you've got an adult there that the student can go to then we find out one-on-one where that problem is so that's that's all I've been trying to say and I I hope we take that into consideration when we develop the next survey so thank you okay um if there is no other further public comment going once going twice are you saying that K through three is a time when a child is going to
043identify as non-binary or gender fluid or I mean that seems a little young to have those conversations so I don't think it is age-appropriate um at that age they don't even have hormones running through their body at that stage to understand where they're going to identify and there's one thing about physical I'm a male I'm a female to sexuality that you know those are two different conversations so there's gender and then there's how you identify sexually and that's what those questions are and K through three is not an appropriate time so are you saying that you believe that K through three or even K through six which is where those questions ask that's appropriate time to ask those questions to Children um I don't think the board nor myself have ever made any public comments
044about that subject at all uh what I'm saying is is that we're going to be examining the survey and the policy around that survey to see uh what levers um the board has in being able to give that survey to our students because finding out about you know bullying is very important to us and getting that data is important because um students are bullied on their sexual orientation as well and uh again that is an issue that we will examine to see how relevant it is I mean I mean male female or I do not yet or prefer not to answer I think that would leave those questions to the parents where they belong um those conversations should be with parents it was added so we're just asking it was published without that wording and
045the parents don't want that wording in the absence of a definition that you weren't able to provide so it confuses the children it confuses the teacher and it confuses the parents and then you have kids and we just want to go back to the way it was just take it off the surveys leave do not prefer but do not prefer male female check both if you think you're both check all three if you think you're male female and other and that that is something that we're going to be examining and uh uh like I mentioned before the November policy meeting um examines a lot of those issues as well from a legal point of view so um you can uh also watch that very extensive uh uh testimony from our attorney and the questions that
046we gave our attorney uh and I think you may find a lot of answers there as well statute for this particular service and I've read it as well okay so it doesn't yeah so right yeah and we're we're going to examine that yeah a lot of things not even learning okay well we're not really supposed to have any question and answer um if you have additional public comment public comment is still open if you'd like to make more comment you can if not um you can send you can email questions to us uh and then we can answer them that way so we can answer them in writing for you okay come on up from the microphone in terms of bullying is there a policy in place that if a child does experience bullying is
047there a sequence of events or who can they turn to if they experience any kind of bullying in school yes do they go to the teacher do they go to the to the principal there is a there is a series of steps and events there's also a form um that uh parents and or students can fill out anonymously or um they can put their name to it to trigger a series of events as well so that that can be documented okay and the definition of bullying had changed I believe in 2019 to be one event it doesn't have to be a series of events it could just be one event as well okay okay any other commentary all right very good we will close public comment thank you very much for coming this evening all
048right uh we will move on to committee reports and uh Miss ham curriculum oh thank you um okay so we do have two motions I'm going to go through the minutes first and then um I'll hand the emotions over to you to read and or do I do I read that but I have I have motion I mean or I can read them I'm happy to read them but whatever makes you comfortable um okay so first of all we just met this past um Monday right um and that date was March 13th and we did approve the minutes um had a few items of new business uh first we heard about the signs of suicide program that um is being implemented at at Dodd Middle School um and uh principal Mike Woods and Jessica tressout
049and she's the counselor school counselor just gave an overview of this program um and basically it focuses on training and managing reactions we're not asking anyone to diagnose that's nobody's job at the school but simply to identify signs um and then what steps you should take um if you yourself are experiencing um suicidal thoughts or you feel you your friend is um so the mental health staff will present the signs of suicide lessons to core classes of 20 23 to 26 students in all materials and videos will be made available to parents and there will be opt out resources available as well upon request um we then moved on to the educator evaluation plan and um Marlene Solano provided an update of the work of this year's educator evaluation committee they're going to bring in
050Kim Marshall who is famous for the Marshall Plan um but um it's the same one it's just throwing food everywhere no but it's um they're meeting in anticipation the state is obvious as we all know is revising the guidelines for educator evaluations and um Dr Marshall I think he's the doctor is is noted for an approach that Embraces or features frequent informal observations with face-to-face feedback at each point as opposed to these less frequent formal observations that just to unnerve everybody um so we'll continue the committee is going to continue to meet and gather feedback and we will hear recommendations coming up um we heard of a new field trip to join three others I think we have spoken over the years of Costa Rica Puerto Rico and Iceland most of which got uh put
051in the back burner because of covid and now we're adding Germany um these are four trips that will take place well three of them will take place during April break next year and then the German trip will take place in August of this year and it is a uh exchange course exchange trip so our kids go to Germany this year and the German students will come to the U.S next year um and again we'll take up that motion afterwards as because they are out of country field trips and we must approve them um we heard from Dr Mary gadd who reviewed the recommendations for the CHS scheduling committee right now the committee is recommending that they keep the current schedule for 20 23 24 which is a block schedule and pilot shifts in the frequency
052of times of classes to shorten them up a bit but still maintain the um a lot that time that allows for a lot of interaction between teacher and student so um and then Marlene and Kevin updated us on the lovely right to read Act and the waiver has been submitted and now we're just awaiting um word from Hartford whether or not it has been approved um and it was quite a quite a report uh but the results as far as I could tell and I think Ann would agree we're pretty encouraged we're very encouraging in terms of what the the program the k-3 reading program accomplishes and that was our meeting so we do have two um motions before us the first is picking up um we actually um reviewed two textbooks and moved for
053board approval after Community review um of these textbooks and so the motion reads that the Cheshire Board of Education approved the purchase of the following textbook calculus early transient transcendentals 8th Edition and then comparative government stories of the world as recommended by the curriculum committee so do I have a second okay any discussion I just want um clarification the textbooks are digital because cengage seems to be a digital platform hardcover books were available for sorry both hardcover books were available for Community review and we looked at those at curriculum committee okay thank you any additional discussion um all right seeing none um all in favor unanimous of those present thank you okay so our second um motion is that the Cheshire Board of Education approved the participation of Cheshire high school students in the following
054educational field trips with the understanding that there is no cost to the Cheshire Board of Education first trip is Germany August 6th through 19th 2023 um second is Costa Rica April 5th through the 13th 2024 Iceland um from April 6 to April 12th uh 2024 and Puerto Rico from April 6 to April 12 2024. do I have a second okay any discussion the dates are a little sorry the dates are a little off here come on Iceland there's one one that leaves on a Friday one will leave on a Friday before spring break the others span spring break and then obviously August is summer break so on the top it says Iceland April 6th to the 13th but then on the bottom says April 6th to the 12th if you look at on the agenda
055the motion has the 12th is all I'm saying oh okay so how long is the actual trip did you just did yeah if you look at Iceland 16th 13th and 60 to 12 there's two different okay yeah okay because above it it says the 13th so I just want to make sure we have our dates right here oh I see you mean in the link the link that we have this says 62 13th and then if you look right about the motion is the six through the 12. oh gotcha so okay so the Martian the motion I'm sorry my sheet has yeah for Iceland it has six through the 12th is that the correct date no no it's the Thursday we can commend the motion through the 13th thank you okay all right I move
056we amend the motion okay so I shall Now read the amended amended motion is um that the treasure Board of Education approved the participation of Cheshire high school students in the following educational field trips with the understanding that there is no cost to the Cheshire Board of Education Germany August 6 through 19 2023 Costa Rica April 5th through 13th 2024 Iceland just make sure I'm reading this April 6th through 13th and Puerto Rico April 6th through 12th do I have a second we have a second is there any discussion on the motion seeing none all in favor unanimous of those presents Sam did Sam if I could just answer your question about the hard copies of the book there will be hard copies in the classroom but there will be individual subscriptions for online for
057each of the individual students face does that conclude your report yes thanks thank you um okay we'll move on to finance and um I will uh always uh with great Glee uh hand the report over to Mr maciano thank you good evening everyone I have reasonably good news and short reports tonight on finance and medical benefits starting with the finance report we've got through the month of February of 2028 so we've got eight months down um we are in good shape on our budget despite the fact that we did have increases in electricity rates and um cost of fuel and heating oil you know fortunately the warm winter and the lack of snow has really helped us on our budget so as of um now we will be increasing the non-expenditure or the cap on
058a non-paralleled expenditures from 50 to 70 percent you know as we get into March and April those are really the months where we start finalizing our accounts starting cumbering for the purchases that we've held off on with the cap that we've had at 50 percent prepare for summer projects so as we get through March and April as we provide the finance reports we'll refine our um you know final budget you know expenditures more closely but we are in good shape I'm very pleased you know to report that we've we've not had any further surprises other than the spike and utility and fuel cost rates this year on the medical benefits report the claims for the month of February were 769 thousand four seventy two so you know we had a million dollars per month budgeted
059that was the expected claims averaged over the year we did expect claims to start drop when we hit January as the new HSA plan year began and it did so for the month of February the Reserve balance actually increased by two hundred thirty nine thousand eight thirty six uh that marks three months in a row that we've actually increased the reserve fund instead of depleting it so on a year-to-date basis the net change um from our starting Reserve balances it's down about 73 975 pretty much in line with what we expected we had budgeted so that we would not increase the reserve or decrease the reserve if we budgeted properly and the claims came in as expected including stop-loss reimbursements we would end the year with a Reserve balance where we started about 1.3 million
060so we are tracking that way and hopefully that continues so as we ended February medical benefits Reserve stood at one million two hundred sixty one thousand oh thirty three so that's 1.26 months of claims reserve and we hope the trend continues where we are below the million dollars per month in claims that's the finance and medical benefits report that's great news for this month right um um I guess my only question is it's not even medical benefits related um since our last meeting I think uh the lunch the school lunch program I think beginning March 1st I think went to free lunch for all again yes according to parent square and uh right and um so I was wondering if if we were if we had prepared um any funding to to help pay for
061all of the lunches from March for the end of the year is there a fiscal benefit to our budget or no impact at all and we're going to be net zero for the rest of the year no impact to the operating budget right because Food Services it's completely detached from the operating budget Food Service manages its revenues and its expenses in its own you know within its own budget the only responsibility the board has at the end of every fiscal year is if there are unpaid uncollected balances that that parents owe the food lunch program those by state law have to be reimbursed back to the Food Service program so you know one of the things that we did see when we stopped the free meals for that short period of time from January 17th
062to March 1st that there were unpaid balances that had accrued pretty quickly and we will work to get those balances you know back down by the end of the year but basically by June 30th whatever is not paid to the Food Service program has to be reimbursed to the by the Board of Ed so we'll keep you posted on that but we'll we'll continue to work with the parents that do our bounce interestingly the way the free meal legisl legislation was passed doesn't allow us to go back and use some of the funds to reduce those unpaid balances so that does not seem to be an option unless that changes you know we're still responsible to you know through our food service programs to collect those monies and get them repaid to the program and
063uh is this being done on a reimbursement basis and if so is are the reimbursement rates uh more in line with you know when our lunch program stabilized after we had that incident um that are the reimbursement rates in line with that or did they change at all no the the reimbursement yeah it is done by reimbursement so we say lunch is free but the Food Service program has to go out and procure the food pay the labor rates keep close track of the meals that are available breakfast and lunch and then we submit those counts monthly through the state and get reimbursed so that it is a reimbursement process even though it's free lunch so um you know the process of doing that all happens in the background the students aren't aware of it
064right now the reimbursement rate is still higher than normal because there's an additional 70 cents per meal that is being received as part of the USDA program that expires at the end of this year so the reimbursement is certainly adequate to cover the higher cost of food and it's been coming down you know as well as the ability to obtain the products that we need it's improving it's not certainly it's not back to pre-pandemic levels but you know that's a long answer to yes the reimbursement does cover our labor and food costs right now it's great to hear thank you are there any other questions for finance committee great where do we stand on it just can you give us a ballpark on what the um the the UN paid balance what what kind of
065around 11 000 okay which is relatively High we've never had an unpaid balance that High I mean yeah yeah but the reason I didn't you know I I'm not trying to hide the number we have to work to collect it and we'll bring it down I mean it's not unusual that we had a balance that we have to work down every year not accusing no no I know you're not accusing I just want to explain it um if there are no other questions that will conclude the finance report um and we will move on to Personnel committee um so that would be Tim is uh anyone else running the Personnel uh committee I could just give a quick update okay great great yeah this is this is really pro forma uh it's something that you
066know we've done year after year uh and uh it's an unfortunate reality with our uh budget cycle that we're required to notify uh any teachers that we may lay off before May 1st um and so this is just a motion before the board that we will not renew the Any teacher who has an interim contract so an interim contract might be we know that a teacher is out on maturity leave for the year or sabbatical or something like that and we hire them on a one-year contract but we still are required to non-renew them at the end of the year the next uh set of non-renewals is for uh generally teachers in the first year of their employment or could be multiple years depending on the budget year and how things look we and the
067number of teachers that we're talking about we are not renewing non-tenured first-year teachers at this time and then when the budget is resolved we will likely then hire them all back uh but if we don't on renew and the budget comes in dramatically lower and we have to reduce positions we'd be contractually obligated to retain them and so that's why we go through this vaccination every year I was just going to say Mr chair I'd be happy to make these motions I think that would be great go right ahead uh the first one I moved at the Cheshire Board of Education pursuant to CGS 10-151 authorizes the superintendent to non-renew the teacher contracts of all certified professional employees serving under an interim contract subject to CGS 10-151 at the end of the 2022-2023 school year
068is there a second okay any discussion on the motion seeing none at all in favor unanimous of those presents great go ahead second motion for non-renewal of non-tenured teachers I move that the Cheshire Board of Education pursuant to cgs-10-151 authorize the superintendent to non-renew the teacher contracts of non-tenured certified professional employees under contract for the Cheshire Public Schools as recommended by the superintendent subject to CGS 10-151 at the end of the 2022-23 school year and further to authorize the superintendent to communicate written notice of such non-renewal to the affected teachers is there a second Faith oh we'll give the Sam this time any discussion all in favor unanimous of those present thank you I believe that concludes the Personnel committee okay great um I'd call on Mr merkelly for the planning committee but he's downstairs
069this evening giving oh Mr maciano thank you Mr grippo the um this is an update of the planning committee meeting that was held on March 7th and there were three topics that were discussed the first and uh probably the most lengthy portion of the planning committee meeting had to do with the capital budget that the board I'm sure remembers just passed last month The Five-Year request was 52 million 825 500 basically to do the the maintenance and long-term improvements that are needed at the schools that will remain after the new two new elementary schools are built um we talked about alternative ways to finance the infrastructure projects was was basically the discussion that was held the um back in 2015 the town and Board of Ed work together and um basically generated an energy performance
070contract that enabled the schools to do eight million dollars worth of infrastructure Improvement so we replaced the electric heat at Highland and over at the high school and did a number of other improvements swapped out of fluorescent to LED lighting and the Energy savings basically paid for the cost of those improvements over a 15-year period of time so it was a financing structure that was paid for by energy improvements so the question at hand that the planning committee discusses can we do something similar by bundling some of the capital projects adding energy improvements and if not paying for the full cost of the project at least to phrase some of the cost energy improvements plus some of the more traditional financing that we do through issuing bonds and so along those lines we did have
071a guest from Johnson Controls you know which is a con a company that does do energy performance contracts um made a just a presentation to the planning committee members and talked about various funding options state and federal government programs as an example Cooperative purchasing energy performance contracts and and the more traditional Bond and loan programs and at the end of the discussion what the planning committee decided to do was to continue to go down this path of pursuing our options and ECG engineering who served as the owner's rep in the First Energy performance contract worked with amaresco and board and the town and we're still a customer of ECG engineering because every year they help do the measurement and valuation to make sure that we're still benefiting from the energy improvements I was asked to
072contact ECG engineering which is now called energia we are working with the planning committee to have energia come in and make a presentation along the lines of the services that they provided back in in 2015. so this conversation is going to continue to go forward the timing is really good because we will be meeting with the Town Council sometime it's probably going to be in May if I had a guess although no firm dates have been set on The Five-Year Capital plan so you know certainly think that that's a good initiative if we can find a way to do more of our projects more quickly and the example that we used was was Doolittle which we knowing we need a new roof about about three million dollars we need to replace the single pane windows
073that's about 2.8 million dollars um and we'd like to upgrade that building to have full HVAC air conditioning so can we bundle those three things add some solar panels or some solar somewhere on the property to help defray increase decrease our energy costs to help pay for that project so to be continued but that was the the bulk of the meeting we also talked about Doolittle and Highlands solar carports where we do have Xerox approved we there was no action taken on on that item and then we talked about phase two of the Next Generation School modernization plan um and and just to summarize that the discussion was really about how do we now that we've just recently been approved to build two new elementary schools and we're working you know to find the architect
074and the owners rep and the construction manager you know is it too early to start talking about phase two and and the decision was it's not too early to start having the conversations so at the next planning committee meeting the planning members will start by looking at what the original School modernization recommendations were for phase two and then start you know take those discussions and let them lead where they may as far as phase two of school modernization and that's the minutes of the meeting thank you um I'll I guess well you know I have to ask this question now um for phase two um did you discuss were you looking at a seven eight but that I guess we're kind of like we'd be committed to a seven eight at that point right because
075we would have way too much capacity otherwise there was there was no detailed discussion okay I wasn't sure around that okay let's get the ball rolling right at the next meeting yeah at the next meeting planning committee I'm sure we'll we'll take that up and the phase two recommendations were um just put them out on record renovations to do little and Highland renovations to Dodd Middle School renovations to the high school humiston and Boe offices are to be determined so that's what was in the report but that will serve as the starting point for discussion at the next planning meeting thank you and that date hasn't been set but it will be sometime in April we hope yeah Adam and just personally because um I wasn't present on the board when school modernization so I
076wanted to kind of take a look at their notes and what they've done all the research ahead of time and then we move forward with discussions so that we don't lose sight of the fact that this wasn't a one and done at the beginning it was looking at all the schools eventually and how do we phase it out you know so that it's we're not forgetting anybody so to speak thank you uh any uh additional questions all right well uh we'll move on from the planning committee um there are no other standing committees at this time because uh policy was postponed um so I guess we will move on to the approval of the minutes when anyone like to make a motion go ahead faith um move that the Board of Education approved the minutes
077from the meeting held on February 16 2023. I'm going to have to abstain so I'm not sure what that's going to do nope not a problem okay is there a second there's a second can we have a point of order on people's abstaining because we need all votes that is on if the full committee is here in Quantum and votes I believe we're all set even if she abstains from the vote yeah she is a voting member she did not choose to vote for it right if if the other three of us vote in the affirmative then it's the if it's okay if only two of us voted in the affirmative then it would be a fail I understand but I do believe we could have some clarification you don't you don't have to necessarily
078abstain because you weren't at that meeting is that correct well and but um staying I believe is also a voting action so it's not like you're not voting right so um so that being said um did we have a second on that was that and did you second okay we had a second okay um all in favor of the motion just two oh there's two oh well that's okay surprising oh and two of them we were not here um then the motion fails and so yeah so we will uh have to do we have to vote on tabling it do we have to fit you don't have enough people I don't think to table it would get him with tables okay so it just gets tabled okay all right then we will we'll table that
079make sure it gets to the agenda for our next meeting so we can vote on that um if I recall it was not a very exciting meeting but that's okay uh we will uh we will move on uh as Mr White said we'll blame the uh the quotes that the parent-teacher conferences today was that or the uh put training tomorrow right wasn't the day after that that's right um okay so we'll I'll put an x on that one instead of a check mark um Miss Harrigan do we have any correspondence I have not received any correspondence Carol I would clarify that we received a we did receive as some of the folks mentioned tonight emails that they'd sent we received a few uh pieces of Correspondence questioning the survey we received another piece of Correspondence
080in support of SEL activities and you know basically recognition of of uh different ethnicities genders Etc but those will be available in in our minutes right but the board didn't receive those they they came through the um email today yeah actually there's one just a minute ago too so I have the board hasn't seen necessarily right those will be shared though with everybody in available in events thank you that'll be part of the record yeah okay absolutely very good thank you uh we'll move on to the of course the always most exciting part of the evening is the superintendent's report oh well thank you very much Mr grippow uh I have actually quite a bit of exciting stuff to share tonight uh first uh the school business committee partnership committee that we've had uh for
081many years has kind of revamped a little bit we had a little bit of a Hiatus during the peak of uh school modernization and are back in force with kind of a different approach in the sense that we're had previously been grounded in sharing information basically with members of the business Community this uh new approach is more of a workshop format designed to have exchange of ideas and support the growth of both the schools and the business community and the first Workshop that we're going to hold is in early April around uh the trades mechanics construction and Manufacturing and uh we want to provide a brief overview to some of our business partners about re opportunities our students already have but then solicit from them strategies to support student interest in those fields maybe things
082like over the summer they could do a one-day Shadow or a couple of days what other ideas do folks in the trades had what inspired them to get into the trades and then uh how do we educate our parent Community as well and Cheshire uh the vast majority overwhelming majority really uh move on to four-year colleges or universities and some people think that maybe that's off the table if I want to go into the trades and having conversations with people like Doug Johnson from Marion manufacturing or Jason Viennese from Richard Chevrolet you know that's that is absolutely not off the table if anything it might support your path through college or university so uh we're excited about that uh Workshop in April and May we're gonna meet with local Realtors we did that once several
083years ago it was very successful very popular and we look forward to doing that again as well uh speaking of Realtors we have seen quite a bit of population growth and uh the enrollment projections for next year particularly at the elementary level uh were adjusted based on the amount of growth that we saw but Highland for example was projected to be 878 students that is super high our current enrollment however is already 852. uh Doolittle was projected at 546 it's already at 5 24. Chapman was projected at 377 and is at 362. Norton was projected at three at 421 and is at 433 already so our enrollment uh in that 1K succeeds the projection not capacity but projection uh Highland is already at capacity which has led us to really look at some of the
084new projects coming online and how do we accommodate our students in the best way possible so uh Mr macciano myself uh Mr Miller are as well as our town uh planner got together we were looking at these new sites that were coming online if you're familiar with dickerman Road those are condo units that are almost ready to be occupied and will be certainly by the summer that area is slated on our map to attend Highland Elementary which uh is not good so you know we've looked at that and will likely be kind of redistricting that new development to Chapman to try and better balance the numbers after the new school has built those students would go to the North End school anyway so they wouldn't be switching schools at that point they'd be moving with
085their peers from Chapman to the new building so we're trying to be creative in about and and really scrutinize how we make these sort of decisions and support our students so they're not making new transitions we're not going to redistrict students that are already in our buildings to new buildings and uh even if we tried there's not a lot of room to do that anyway so we're trying to be sensitive to how these new developments come online and where the kids go they just wanted to share that with with everybody and the community uh some really good news uh the new niche.com rankings around I I don't put a boatload of uh you know weight into these uh it's just interesting and uh basically uh as much as I don't know that they're the most
086uh credible measure of District success they are something that a lot of folks look to and probably drive people to those new places in dickerman and other around town so just to give you a sense in 2021 uh Cheshire was ranked number 516 in of all school systems in America which is you know arguably very good um this year where 330 up from 345 last year so uh we continue to climb uh the the rankings and we're proud of that success uh and I want you to stay tuned because very soon there's another uh National acknowledgment that we're going to receive uh for some of the work that we're doing in our ahr department uh we'll look forward to sharing that but we've been told we can't share it publicly yet until the National Organization
087makes their announcement so soon uh tomorrow is a super big day uh and I you know being of Irish descent Irish citizen myself you might think that uh I'm talking about St Patrick's Day but uh it's actually Marlene Solano day we have professional development and I have to give Marlene and Kevin Hanlon and Marlene's team an incredible amount of credit you heard tonight from The Dodd teachers who talked about choice and the Power of Choice we have so many incredible workshops for teachers tomorrow uh and Marlene has spent in it in an inordinate amount of time not just securing great presenters for our staff and really leveraging you know this opportunity to provide professional development but providing the opportunity for 400 teachers across the district to find something that's meaningful for them and you don't
088ever see this level of differentiation in professional development across a district and so kudos to Marlene for me to forgo St Patrick's Day is a big deal it speaks to really what she's put together here it's really incredible we can't wait for tomorrow right down to numerous food trucks here for staff to take advantage of during lunch it should be fun and exciting day of learning for our our team and uh congratulations to Marlene and Kevin like I said her team for putting that together great work uh another incredible acknowledgment if you follow me on Instagram or Twitter uh I think it's super Cheshire or something but uh I posted earlier today uh last night was the YMCA uh even the awards dinner the annual Awards dinner and it was really an awesome event in
089part because one of our seniors Aidan McCauley was recognized for use youth leadership and to hear him get up and articulate how Community Service uh and then how that how that fostered leadership within him was really you know at the core of what we talk about for SEL and that pure personal growth and you know we've always said we don't graduate transcripts with people and Aiden was the perfect example of that last night very proud of him uh and then of course uh a dear friend and colleague Steve trephone our outgoing athletic director was the first person in the history of the Cheshire YMCA 30-year history to be named their person of the year and Steve was himself very gracious humble uh and and genuine and responding receiving that award and talked a lot about
090uh the honor it's been for him to be able to work with our students and have that experience and and hopefully somehow shape them uh to be more successful in life uh certainly Athletics but uh congratulations to Steve and and to Aiden uh on their recognitions last night that's all that I have for my report thank you Dr Solon uh any questions for Dr Phil just have a question about like I love the choice board idea did you solicit via survey of interest um and then obviously finalize what pieces just trying to see how many people are going to go to certain you know areas too yeah a lot of this came from conversations with teachers so all of the systems and structures that we have in place for two-way communication through grade level meetings
091right down to building level Representatives meetings hearing what the goals are for each of the Departments and and working with everyone on our definition of high quality instruction and okay so what's everyone working on to get there and that's really how we came up with all the offerings thanks for asking any other questions yes I was sort of more moved by the food truck choices so I'm wondering can the public go to Cheshire public schools and and partake of yeah so we have over 400 teachers and um we wanted to make this a fun and exciting day filled with learning experiences and you can't learn if you're not well fed so part of our conundrum there is 400 people and getting people back and forth you know out into the community is is tough are
092there different trucks at different schools no we're all at Cheshire high school so K through 12 we're going to be together so um all of the sessions are broken out so that you have representation from K through four from five through eight and then from nine through twelve so they're mixed together and we have six food trucks coming in some including some that are representative of our local community so the blender bar will be there and Jersey Mike's and and a couple of others so we're hoping to get everybody fed in pretty short order thank you so to just put a cap on this tonight uh I appreciate I wish that our full board was here uh for the recognition but uh March represents board member appreciation month uh and for people in the community
093who hopefully will watch this later or don't know perhaps that the amount of time and energy that members of the Board of Education as volunteers put in I had no idea before I came up became a superintendent uh the commitment that they make because of the passion they have to support our students and education and make sure that our community continues to thrive and be successful is really amazing and uh we have some small token gifts for you guys from the Cheshire public schools for the time that you put in uh could never be tantamount to the amount of time and energy you put into it nobody could ever afford that but we do want to just say thank you and appreciate everything that you do for our kids for us up here on this
094day I said uh for our community so thank you and happy board member appreciation month foreign wanted the food more than anything though and you could come to the food truck okay you know that's what you want for board member appreciation month thank you Dr Solon um next so that concludes uh your report okay thank you um see we have no old business um but um my agenda says we have new business and I will call on Mr maciano thank you again so tonight we have a new business item called healthy food certification and this is an annual uh requirement for Boards of Ed Under Connecticut General statute 10-215f those school districts that participate in the national school lunch program each year must certify whether the food items sold to students will meet or not
095meet the Connecticut nutrition standards so I'm going to give you just some quick backdrop because there are three very lengthy motions that all relate to healthy food certification renewal and in a nutshell what these motions enable us to continue to do through our food service operation is one continue to comply with the healthy food options that are required if we maintain healthy food certification and this applies not only to the reimbursable meals but anything that we sell snacks and a la carte items to students during the day so the first motion just essentially states that we will comply when we are selling food to students during the school day including a la carte items and then the next two motions allow exemptions those exemptions are for food in the second motion and for beverages in
096the third item so why do we need those exemptions those exemptions allow us to sell items at the concession stand at and other events that occur after the school day so that if there's a bake sale that's being conducted by the PTA that can be allowed to happen so that's the purpose of the three motions the language that's in the Motions are the exact is the exact wording that is required by the State Health Nutrition family services and adult education division and just two more important points one is by participating in healthy food certification we do get another 10 cents per meal added to the reimbursement for a reimbursable breakfast and lunch meals and also I wanted to let you know that 96 of districts in Connecticut um are taking advantage of the healthy food
097certification that's 184 out of the 192. and all of those participate in the national school lunch program so there's really only a handful of communities that don't participate in the national school lunch program at all but we do and and certainly this is something that we do every year we think it's a good thing we we like to you know follow the regulations and make sure that we are providing our students the most nutritious and delicious meals that we could possibly provide so that's the backdrop there's questions before you read the Motions that we certainly happy to entertain them but you don't have to ask anything if you don't want to uh do we have any questions for Mr maciano before yeah go ahead then is there an I mean there's 98 like you said
098but is there a negative if a district doesn't want to participate pros and cons well it in the national school lunch program yeah it would cost parents yeah yeah that's that's really what it comes down to to our benefit to participate basically in all aspects any other questions from Mr massiana um I guess I'll get the ball rolling I I don't think I talked too much this evening so I'll start um move that uh percent let's see a good start move that pursuant to CGS section 10-215f the Cheshire Board of Education certifies that all food items offered for sale to students in the schools in the schools under its jurisdiction and not Exempted from the Connecticut nutrition standard standards published by the Connecticut State Department of Education will comply with the Connecticut nutrition standards During
099the period of July 1 2023 through June 30 2024 this certification shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimbursable meals at all times and from all sources including but not limited to school stores vending machines School cafeterias culinary programs and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or by non-school organizations and groups is there a second it's Harrigan uh is there any discussion on the motion seeing none oh yeah sure track I mean you say they try to provide the best lunches nutritious and delicious are they well I think so yeah come to the food truck but you could come to school okay okay I mean do we ever track how much gets tossed or how much gets left out of that tray so that is a loaded
100question do we track it there is you know there's certainly items that are disposed of and not eaten and you know this this the reason I say it's a loaded questions because it is a Hot Topic right now one of the things that is a requirement if it's a reimbursable meal it has to include you know for breakfast that has to include a grain of fruit and a milk and if the child does not want to take the fruit it's no longer reimbursable it's not a reimbursable meal and right now we're in a period where all meals are free to students but reimbursable so we have to have that student take that fruit even if they don't want it and so that sometimes gets disposed of so we try and do things to counter so
101that students eat their fruit so instead of giving a whole apple as an example we would give fruits fruit sliced apples as in a baggie if we can and so this is a a dilemma that we're all having in school districts across the state it's gotten worse since the free lunches have been made available so yes there is waste do we we don't track it by pound but you know there's no school district that's happy about you know food that isn't eaten by the child but they are nutritious in the sense that they meet very stringent requirements that are put forth you know by the state through the USDA so low sodium low fat um has to have protein and very technical in nature and participating in in healthy food certification does obligate us to
102make sure that what we're serving meets all those standards I would just add that students children have been rejecting food for long before healthy food was um mandated and um I applaud our efforts at looking into composting said food and I know that it has it is being looked into has been looked into and um I continue to support the efforts on composting food items so thank you welcome any other comments or discussion seeing none um all in favor of the motion red unanimous of those present thank you um what the heck am I I'm warmed up now um motion two for food exemptions moved that the Cheshire Board of Education will allow the sale of students that was pretty good uh let me start again um move that the Cheshire Board of Education will
103allow the state the sale to students of food items that do not meet the Connecticut nutrition standards provided that the following conditions are met one the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend two the sale is at the location of the event and three the food items are not sold from a vending machine or school store an event is An Occurrence that involves more than just a regularly scheduled practice practice meeting or extracurricular activity for example soccer games school plays in interscholastic debates are events but soccer practices play rehearsals and debate team meetings are not the regular school day is the period from Midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the official school day location means where the event is
104being held and must be the same place as the food sales it's their second and um any discussion yeah I'll just say I appreciate the specificity of that motion yes exactly very specific uh any other um comments or discussion seeing none all in favor unanimous of those present thank you and uh motion number three for beverage exemptions uh move that the Cheshire Board of Education will allow the sale to students of beverages not listed in section 10-21q of the Connecticut General State statutes provided that the following conditions are met one the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of regular school day or on the weekend to the sales at the location of the event and through the beverages are not sold from a vending machine or school store an event
105is An Occurrence that involves more than just regularly scheduled practice meeting or extracurricular activity the school day is the period from Midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the official school day location means where the event is being held and must be the same place as the beverage sales is there a second and seconds any discussion or questions on the motion seeing none all in favor unanimous of those present thank you thank you yeah I told you I got better as I went on it looks I got that word oh yeah um okay that concludes new business or whatnot doesn't include new business there is the chairs update uh chairman peregini is not here this evening that's all I'll say right um but there are upcoming meetings uh Tuesday April 4th it says
106here there will be a policy committee meeting it says virtual um I'm going to change that to TBD that might be in person um Monday April 17 7 P.M correct uh curriculum committee hummus and boardroom Thursday April 27 30 is Board of Education business meeting Town council chambers um April 7 April 7 through 14 uh is Spring Break um and May 31st is Memorial Day so those are upcoming holidays and vacations also says Good Friday in there says that means spring break starts on Good Friday April 7th is that what that means no late eat late Easter this year lent continues [Laughter] um Okay so that things um is there I have no other items on this yet on this agenda um I would like a motion to adjourn into executive session to include Dr
107Solon and Mr maciano um with no action to follow and I just want to see if I had to say anything about the contract negotiation ah okay let me just I'll try that again adjournment uh move that the meeting be adjourned into executive session including Dr soul and Mr maciano to discuss bargaining unit negotiations with no action to follow all in favor or excuse me is there a second Mrs okay there we go and all in favor all right we are adjourned thank you have a great evening