001Kelly here here thank you Ashley we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you and good evening everyone welcome to a uh balmy Thursday night soon to be a very cold Friday night anyway join us weather hopefully you are too wild west uh we have a packed agenda tonight glad to see so many happy smiley faces I'm sure we're here to talk about quite a few things uh but we're going to start out with our student representative reports with Monica and Michael welcome and thanks for being here tonight thank you guys for having us okay so to start us off winter sports playoffs are underway in wrestling track and field and basketball hockey and boys swim playoffs will begin later this month and last Friday senior co-captain Colin Brown had a phenomenal indoor track season
002and he placed second at the class Al state championship in the 55 meter dash moving on every year Cheshire high school has a volleyball tournament in March throughout the whole school and beginning in January the PE classes play volleyball and gym class and the team with the best record of wins and losses moves on to the tournament where all the best teams will play um in each in class and the peer Health Educators get together for the tournament then the volleyball games continue through February in the tournament in March is a great way for the students to come together as a community also rehearsals for the musical this year The Adams Family are underway and mark your calendars for March 23rd 24th and 25th the kids for kids club is a club at Cheshire High
003School dedicated to helping kids and recently they sponsored the Valentine's Day candy gram distribution where for three dollars students could write a special note to a friend or a special someone spreading kindness at CHS is what this is all about and it's run by the kids for kids club the Cheshire High School choir will be performing next week a Winter concert at Elam Park and next Friday they will do like a matinee show for the residents there and then they will have their own concert for the evening on Friday and on Saturday and student Senate will also be tagging along to spend some time with the residents the future Business Leaders of America Club mock trial club and deca which are all business clubs at Cheshire High School will attend their respective State competitions early
004in March which is like the second level and in the past our teams have fared pretty well at the state level so we're hoping to repeat that again this year on February 7th athletes from many sports at Cheshire high school plus numerous faculty coaches and Spectators got together in the west gym at the boys basketball game to honor the outstanding athletic director Mr trafone for his retirement I'm all right so on February 3rd Cheshire high school girls basketball hosted a coaches versus cancer game so the basketball team ran a bake sale to collect money for the American Cancer Society and at the game additional donations were also collected for the society they won in the they won the game in close faction fashion 44-42 so a great game for a great cause and a win-win
005CJs Juniors Molly Fletcher and Ella Paul have been working hard to plan a cotillion for celebrating inclusion and friendships this Cotillion will simulate a CHS prom and Molly and Ella desire for everyone to have an amazing memory-filled prom especially for classmates with learning or developmental disabilities because they deserve to have those experiences Molly and Ella have been long-time advocates for the special needs community and they're motivated through the amazing friendships they've made through these amazing people through the best buddies Club the event will take place on March 4th from 6 30 to 8 30 PM in the west gym and numerous people have offered to help make it a successful event earlier today student leaders met with Dr Solon for lunch today and we had some fruitful discussions on social emotional learning and complex thinking
006in addition operation CHS bathrooms is underway so I think Dr Solon has shared the presentation and the video with you guys so you guys probably I think you guys kind of know what's going on with that you know it's just kind of a mess with students having to walk around around the whole school because bathrooms are locked because of vandalism and stuff so we really trying to approve that and yesterday during advisory student leaders went around to advisor classes and they gave the presentation and they showed the video to students and so far the feedback has been great you know all the students want it to be better they wanted to have change and I think the 61 025 was a big shock to some students and I'm thinking they all want it to go
007to better towards better causes so that's a big positive for CHS and in addition the boys bathroom Improvement squad or bbis for short has just started officially started up today so this is a group of guys who go around to the bathrooms and they do a sweep of the bathrooms what is a sweep a sweep consists of removal of debris flushing of toilets that need it spraying air freshener to keep our bathrooms fresh and cleaning the mirrors as a symbolic representation of clean bathrooms and what we stand for at CHS in doing all this our goal is that we can create lasting change where bathrooms can be safe open and clean to use and a big part of this group is that we want to be a positive influence on other people we want to
008lead by example and be positive role models for CHS and we want to strive to inspire others as well as we do this um yeah that's all the announcements we have today thank you guys so much for listening thank you Monica Michael uh before I say anything any questions or comments from the board yes Mr Ripple uh Michael I just wanted to let you know that um your your presentation from our last meeting inspired me to inquire and ask the planning committee to look into a uh hardened security for the bathrooms to add uh RFI it was RFID technology or explore that yeah to add to so you can check in and out of the bathroom to see what it'll cost compared to you know the actual damages we incur every year so we're hopefully
009we'll embark on a cost benefit analysis of that so thank you for the inspiration absolutely all right yes Ian quickly I think that acronym's gonna stick bbis yes well it's interesting Dr Sone shared your presentation uh with the board and a couple questions and wonder can can uh can we make this public uh yeah it was available publicly okay um I will certainly be promoting it I think it's a great uh great cause great way to help stem the issue um when students are speaking up for students I think that goes a long way so thank you all of CHS for doing this but I really love the last slide with the with the Cheshire Ram where the slogan is vandalism is not cool keep that clean bathrooms rule which has t-shirts for that that
010might that might supersede your I don't know don't move the Comfort yeah anyway um any any other questions for Monica and Michael Cena's Aaron thank you so much for the update much appreciated thanks for your time for being here as well so hopefully uh you have to stay but if you do no problem enjoy your evening absolutely thank you so much for having us our pleasure up next we have a school partnership award for Darcy's School Mr gripple and Dr Solomon good evening everybody um so uh tonight we're going to be uh awarding a school partnership award um for Nicole Potter and I will be using the words of principal Kim desert uh Nicole Potter became part of the Darcy Community several years ago attending the parent center shortly after that her daughter Addison became
011a student in the preschool Addison is now in first grade at Norton school and Grayson followed in her footsteps attending Darcy Darcy preschool last year and this year is participating in our Smart Start program in a few years Darcy is excited to be getting her third child Preston instantly Nicole became part of the Darcy Community by becoming a PTA member and helping wherever and whenever possible Nicole is always a smile always has a smile on her face and can and it can do attitude whether it be organizing teacher appreciation week or selling Darcy spirit wear if you have if you have had the pleasure of attending pizza night or the ice cream social you were most likely welcome and assisted by Nicole and her husband Austin with other obligations presenting themselves to our current PTA
012president Nicole has stepped up and jumped in since September picking up the PTA mail fulfilling t-shirt and sweatshirt orders and making sure PTA news gets out to parents this past December at our book fair the court the book this past December at our book fair the coordinator had a sick child at home when Nicole heard this without being asked she came to Darcy with baby in tow it in unpacked set up broke down and packed up the book fair well um without Nicole the book fair would have been not ready for families in the midst of the book fair hundreds of poinsettias were delivered to Darcy Darcy school and again Nicole jumped jumped right in and unloading and sorting the plants Nicole reaches out for the benefit of Darcy students families and staff never expecting
013recognition we are extremely fortunate to call Nicole Potter a dear friend to Darcy School the Board of Education thanks Nicole Nicole for going above and beyond for the students of Darcy School congratulations Nicole [Applause] sure [Applause] thank you [Applause] very much so it's not working yet up next we have a Cabe Award of Excellence which is me so we have a special award from Cade which is the Connecticut Association of boards I can't talk my back towards people but I'll try uh and for a record normally this award is presented by Liz Brown who is the president of Cape Liz cannot be here this evening she's been trying to present this for a couple months now and we don't want to prolong it any longer so I was asked to present it full transparency I
014also belong uh to the cave board of directors as an associate throughout their exact committee but I have no influence on this award uh you know Matt earned this all on his own so I do have the honor and privilege of presenting this award this evening this award is called the Bonnie B Carney Award of Excellence for educational Communications and is given to entries who meet all the following criteria first projects contain a Clarity of message image and consistency second the projects mean height standards of readability graphic quality presentation design and value Cabe has been honoring school districts with the Award of Excellence for educational communication since 1975. in 2016 the award was renamed in honor of long time cave staff and their member Bobby B Carney in recognition of her 47 years of dedication
015to education focused on Communications the award is intended to recognize hard-working people in school districts for tremendous efforts to communicate effectively tonight's recipient has won this award so many times I am sure he has plaques that predates that need to change a name to Bondi B Carney award uh Madison comes up regularly every year and I believe our recipient has won the award almost every year that I've been on the board going back to at least 2009. so this year's project is a compilation of how-to videos created by Middle School students including such topics as making sushi beautiful artwork and the one that caught my attention was how to spray paint a planet with those topics you cannot help but get engaged and watch so those are very clever please join me in welcome and
016congratulating Dodd Middle School Technology teacher Mr Matt planeta on his accomplishments congratulations Matt [Applause] congratulations [Applause] foreign [Applause] 19 update Dr Solomon sure well you know the the theme could be it ain't what it used to be um and that's great news for us uh last week uh and if you have a question or you want to track at home our covid data we update it weekly now on our website it's under uh information for parents and you'll see covet update uh last week a week starting February 6th we had uh very few cases actually there were three buildings that had no cases Dodd had four Highland had won the high school had six um Chapman had one for students that's for students and then for staff also very few cases one at the high
017school one at Dodd one at Highland for it Norm but really those were kind of coming off the weekend before and we didn't have any throughout the rest of the week so uh knock on wood but things are looking really good uh the cold and flu season thankfully has been we had a tough spell for a bit but with the current weather that we're having it it helps things so we're in pretty good shape thank you Dr so any uh questions from the board that's good news thank you for sharing that absolutely uh before we move on to our community reports are there any members of the audience that wish to address the Board of Education see as there are none we're going to move on to reports our standing committees starting with curriculum unfortunately
018uh faith cannot be here to see anything so I don't know if uh Ann or Marlene want to give a quick update in the last meeting yeah sure so the board of education curriculum committee met on Monday February 13th um several things were discussed um Dr Mary gadd gave us an overview of the PSAT results for the fall 2023 Administration highlights of the results include improvement from eighth grade smarter balanced assessments to PSAT 9 scores that's the class of 2026 as well as sustained Improvement for the PSAT from one year to the next for the class of 2025. CHS is providing instructional support for grade 11 students who did not meet meet benchmarks and CHS continues to engage in curriculum revisions as well as strong collaborative practices regarding instruction and data collection and Analysis to
019support continued student growth and achievement uh we had a couple of new textbook recommendations presented to us Lisa bernabe gave an overview of the recommendation for calculus at the high school calculus early transcendental eighth grade Edition textbook um eighth edition I'm sorry I knew it was High School we have probably probably have a couple of students doing eighth grade calculus but this is a high school textbook this recommendation is for a new addition to the to an AP and ECE course UConn requires this text on their Calculus BC syllabus and some hard copies will be available but students will have access to the digital text at all times a second textbook is was presented to us by Matthew Swanson he gave an overview of the recommendation for the comparative government stories of the World by
020Karen waffles the text will be used in the half year AP comparative government course this text is the only text available that is directly aligned with the college board's thematic structure and each theme has its own chapter the design makes it easy to read to use and to take notes by the students and the tasks mirror the rigor of the AP exam free response questions so those two textbooks were will be passed were voted to be passed along to the full board for approval and of course they will spend their two-week period on public review then we had some informational conversations uh the CHS scheduling committee update uh Dr Gad also gave us an update on the scheduling committee for students and staff surveys were administered and reviewed by the committee and we're looking at
021the benefits of block scheduling and also seeking ways to slightly increase the frequency of classes so the subcommittee is drafting questions for parents for additional input and feedback and then the committee anticipates making a recommendation by late February or early March we also talked about the grade six through eight math textbook review Uh Kevin Hanlon gave an update on the work of the grades six through eight math textbook textbook and ad hoc committee the committee has met several times since the fall including most recently earlier in the day of our meeting for this most recent meeting the group observed and debriefed a lesson from Illustrated math which is one of the texts being vetted so the goal of the group is to try to get the most accurate understanding of how a text would actually
022support learning with the students in the district before making any recommendations the committee will continue to be and possibly bring recommendations to the Boe curriculum committee in March or April other informational items um we got an update on the science of reading waiver um Ms Solano Mr Hanlon gave an update on the district's work to submit a waiver to the state to continue to use cheshire's current curriculum um for k-3 reading this waiver is part of the state right to read legislation as part of that legislation districts need to make one of three decisions and uh the first is to state approved reading programs thus by the 2023-24 school year which is coming right up upon us the second is to indicate the district intends to adopt a state approved reading program but delay until
0232024-25 school year and the third which Cheshire has chosen is to submit a waiver to the state showing evidence that the current District curriculum has all of the components expressed through science of reading legislation the waiver is due to the state by February 28th and a small team is working I'm adding tirelessly to to draft The Narrative Report with artifacts and appendices directly from the curriculum to report on required student performance data in early reading indicators and grades k-3 and to submit an action plan for continued Improvement so all of that is being done and um I personally would like to thank our staff for all the work that goes into putting together that waiver finally we had some out-of-state overnight field trips presented to us by Maureen Reed Dr Reed and um Marlene Solano
024um I believe it was the cheer group going to Ocean City Maryland a CHS group going to Boston Massachusetts for model un thank you and um three of our sixth grades going to Nature's classrooms and uh that's the overview of the report that I have for tonight thank you Ann any questions on the quick report as soon as there are none we're going to move on to finance Mr grippo thank you Mr chair um hand over the report to Mr maciano thank you Mr Griffo good evening ladies and gentlemen the board members do have the finance report and I will provide a summary for January so we've completed seven months of the budget year and our budget is um still looking fine no significant changes from last month's report I did put a kind of
025a long-winded explanation of where we are with our electricity uh price locks but because it's been warm we benefited and that we're not locked our December to January electric rates came in at about 8.7 cents average and if you remember the price lock that expired was 7.8 cents per kilowatt hour or so looking pretty good also I was able to lock the remaining accounts that we have our larger Accounts at 7.9 cents per kilowatt hour through November so if you look at where we are Blended from February March through November we're set at about nine 0.16 cents per kilowatt hour this gives us time to continue to shop to find a better long-term rate the long-term rates are still kind relatively High you know we're a little over 10 cents per kilowatt hour it's come
026down from 15 cents where we were getting bid prices in December January but I don't think we're quite there yet you know we're still working with our consultant so hopefully between now and um early summer we can find an electricity lock that will take us for the next two to three years you know as far as the the rest of the budget we are still keeping that 50 cap on non-payroll expenditures through the month of February but based on where we are right now I think we'll be able to lift that probably to 70 percent to start getting ready for some of the summer projects and purchases we need to make and that's really the long and short of the finance piece of the report Mr grippo I can do medical benefits if you're ready
027are there any questions on this report or go ahead thank you also the board members have the medical benefits update which there is some good news you know for a change this month January's claims were 795 000 as we expected January Begins the new HSA plan year so employees are paying for their medical expenses through their um the deductibles first so the claims did come down we budget a million dollars per month so because claims were below the million dollars we were able to increase the Reserve balance by 204 000 this month and that brought the Reserve balance up above a million dollars again at a million eighty nine thousand so we have about 1.09 months of claims in reserve um our average claims for the year are in at about 1.18 million we're expecting
028about 1 million per month so if the trend continues for another couple of months we'll be closer to the budget that we had for medical claims so as always we hope that that continues with medical claims and that's the medical benefits report any questions on the medical benefits okay see we uh we had plenty of questions during our budget uh uh hearing so I think we're kind of questioned out for now because we I don't think we really found any satisfactory answers there either so I'm still recovering from all the questions so we'll just hold tight I guess um all right um Mr chair that concludes the finance thank you Adam thank you Mr massiana up next is uh personnel thank you Mr chair um tonight is really a special night for me uh professionally
029and personally because uh we have a very tight-knit administrative team filled with really uh competent and dedicated professionals and uh to know that one competent and dedicated professional in in Steve's your phone is retiring those are exceptionally big shoes to fill and I know that at some point down the road more about that um but this evening we have the opportunity to appoint his replacement and um it speaks volumes about the person that we're putting forward tonight that we certainly believe that he can step in and not be Steve to phone um but be the next generation of leadership for athletics at Cheshire high school and within our community I don't have to tell you that there is a deep passion for athletics in our community and the person we're pointing tonight is a product
030of that passion and shares that passion for uh all things Cheshire High School so without further Ado I'd like to invite Dr Gad to the podium to introduce our candidate good evening indeed my honor to speak on behalf of John pericino our hiring committee's recommendation to fill the position of athletic director as you know John has served as a physical education teacher at the secondary level a coach throughout his career in Cheshire and has spent the last six years serving as Dodd Middle School's assistant principal where he has distinguished himself as a trusted level-headed and deeply committed leader the committee was impressed by John's deep regard for Cheshire public schools and the Cheshire community John approached the interview process in the same thorough and comprehensive manner he has used in approaching his work in the
031Cheshire schools over the past 17 years he connects everything he does to further our district goals of developing our students as complex thinkers and developing students who are ethical poised and socially and emotionally skilled not only is he a professional in our district but he is a product of our school system graduating in the class of 2000. John is a school person and his philosophy is student-centered and guided by creating strong and supportive connections with the community the committee and I unanimously support John parasino and we believe John is the very best candidate to continue the impressive work of our Cheshire Athletics program so on behalf of the high school we are more than honored to have John join our team and to recommend him to all of you thank you take a motion I
032wasn't sure if there was more oh that's okay so hey thank you um I'm sorry wow the gravity of that speech let that sink in you had me mesmerized in all seriousness and I meant that uh is there a motion Tim that the Cheshire Board of Ed appoints John pericino to the position of athletic director effective July 1st 2023 further that John parasino is compensated in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the board and the Cheshire administrative personnel thank you Tim and I believe Andrew seconded awesome discussion by the board so uh full disclosure uh John John I've known since uh Highland Elementary School uh we graduated Cheshire high school together um I was I can calm down I've known it for 20 30 years um so I sat on the interview panel um
033the selection committee and um we had a lot of really great candidates that were looking for to fill this role and I wanted him to be the best candidate when he got in there and I've never known him kind of in that capacity and I have to say that he knocked it out of the park he answered every question on point you can see his passion for the district his love for the school system he gets Cheshire he gets the Athletics and I couldn't think of a better person to fill his position so I'm proud of you um look forward to working with you and my various roles in the community and Professor High School class of 2000. so congratulations thank you Andrew Tim yeah thank you for this congratulations I just want to make
034uh two small points one this is really a ceremonial vote superintendent hires and fires he's in charge of that for everybody superintendent reports to the board of ed so I appreciate having these votes as a show of confidence but I just want the voters to understand how the system is set up we're not we're not really hiring you as a board um or yeah selecting you um the superintendent does uh and the second point I had a separate conversation with the superintendent and just in general for people to know I was curious about it in terms of hiring externally versus promoting internally within the Cheshire Public Schools when you look at all administrative educational staff and what I'll call more administrative staff operational staff HR Finance over the past five to ten years it's been
035I think a little bit more than 50 percent have been internal promotions and then the balance being external hires I don't know what the Right Mix is but I am a firm believer that it's good to do both I really do believe in in promoting internally I think this is great I want people to believe that they can get promoted within the system but I also think there's there's a balance where you can bring in people with fresh eyes new ideas and I think that the superintendent is doing a really good job in balancing that um getting both groups of people uh into his into the Cheshire Public Schools so for that thank you as well thank you Tim anyone else otherwise I I did oh what what uh Andrew and Tim has stated and
036um again I think John's a great person for a role I know John since I've been on the board of ed and he's spoken very highly uh throughout the community in the school system uh isn't a lot of respect by his peers students and colleagues so I'm I'm happy that it was a lot of interest in the search like great candidates both internal next terminal and um you know I have confidence in the process at the end of the day you know the best candidate was chosen so I'll definitely support this and I thank you everyone being a search committee and Andrew for representing the board and community so mostly on the comments or questions um the motion is as follows that the Cheshire Board of Education appoints John pericino to the position of athletic
037director effective July 1st 2023 further that John parasino is compensated in accordance with a collective bargaining agreement between the board and the Cheshire administrative Personnel all those in favor please raise your hands it is unanimous motion passes thank you congratulations [Applause] I bought it completed a picture yeah thank you [Applause] up next is our planning committee update Mr Martelli and Mr Messi and I suppose all right so we met back on Monday evening February the 13th um just give me one second yeah cut back tough act to follow um so a couple things I'm gonna do my best going through this um