001leading to order for uh January 19 2023. I'm Miss jaczynski please call the roll here thank you all rights for the pledge good evening everyone large audience this evening um and vice chairman grippo filling in for uh Mr prayer Mr prayer genius evening you couldn't make it or it was under the weather actually um not that he's advocating his duties give that impression um so I will move on to student Representatives Monica and Michael the floor is yours good evening everyone um thank you for having us I hope you had a great holiday break and um so to start us off the band had their holiday concert back in December and they had this with the orchestra in the John H Auditorium and then today was the first day of midterms for CHS students and
002they're lasting until next Tuesday and then um there's also a bunch of midterm prep that was being offered in the past couple weeks by link crew which is like a freshman orientation team that also paired with scope which is up here um peer tutoring group and they um offered help to any students who signed up in the back of the library throughout the past two weeks which was very helpful and had really good feedback and then quarter three and semester two begin next week on January 25th for all students and the Winter Guard will be performing in the East gen on Friday of next week February 3rd at 8pm which is a free event also back in December Winterfest had a very successful run for their year and we don't have the exact amount of
003money that they raise but I'm pretty sure it was around like 3 000 which is very good all right so the supermarket challenge is taking place on January 29th from seven to eight pm at ShopRite in Wallingford this challenge is run by the peer Health educators um and then they they gather sports teams and clubs from CHS in groups of four to six and they raced around the store to see who can be the first to collect a hundred dollars worth of food all the food collected goes to the Cheshire food pantry so if you're shopping at ShopRite on the 29th between 7 to 9 pm and you see a bunch of students running around the store just know it's for a good cause the student Senate is running a warm Gear Drive from January
00416th to 27th gently used or new winter gear will be accepted our beloved secretary Mrs Stewart just recently retired she dedicated to 31 years to CHS and she was truly an amazing secretary who did so much for our school on her last day CHS students and staff surprised her as she parked her car by giving her a grand welcome the band played the drums as she walked in and we all lined up to cheer as she stepped into those doors for the last time there were many balloons as well at the end of the day athletes lined the doors and cheered for her also she'll be missed at CHS and we wish we wish her the best we got to welcome former Dodge secretary Mrs Braun into CHS she will be the new secretary to
005Dr Gad we know that she'll do a great job and we're grateful to have her on January 9th Dr Solon held a pizza lunch with students we got to eat some pizza and we had a fruitful discussion on social emotional learning for students and ways we can improve our school the class of 2024 just recently held a fundraiser for their prom which is scheduled to be on April 29th also bathroom vandalism is often a big issue at CHS unfortunately tens of thousands of dollars have been spent just on repairing our bathrooms so they can be usable for students this money could have been used for many better causes like buying incoming freshmen new Chromebooks or funding fun and educational field trips but instead it's unfortunately wasted because our bathrooms are destroyed not only this but
006due to the vandalism numerous bathrooms are locked and shut down causing students to in some cases walk to the other side of the school just to use the bathroom causing them to miss important things in class this affects every student in the building and everyone desires for it to be better so to try to fix this Kobe Zhang a junior at CHS and myself are creating a video to stand up to this behavior and show that we're better than this as CHS Rams Monica is actually featured it so we're making a video and yeah it's the show we're better than this and then part of the video includes getting interviews from CHS students sharing their thoughts on the issue as well as the qualities that us as students should strive to uphold including caring for
007our neighbor kindness Integrity things like that it also includes multiple groups of students saying clean bathrooms rule or vandalism is not cool to show unity in the student body and show that we were striving for safe clean and open bathrooms and we're hoping this can Inspire some change in our bathrooms and in addition we're putting up some pictures on the bathroom doors with the one and only Ramsey our school mascot to remind people to do the right thing in the bathrooms also business teacher Mr PC is starting up a group called the boys bathroom Improvement Squad which is a group of guys who it hasn't started yet but it's a group of guys who um will go into the bathroom and do like a basic cleaning of the bathrooms during their study halls and we've
008been working with Mr Todd rally assistant principal to try to develop a plan as to when and what to do to reopen our bathrooms and we're continuing to strive towards positive change um the Cheshire track and field start Colin Brown has been going off this indoor track season and recently he beat his own School record in the 55 meter dash for the time of 6.42 seconds that's impressive and mock trial the treasure mock trial team is going to the playoffs for the first time in five years which is very exciting and the trial was held on December 20th in the New Britain Courthouse and then the chorus concert was last week January 11th and they had a stellar performance and also they were joined by Dodd Middle School who performed right before them and then
009on Tuesday of this week January 17th was the first day that District chorus day was held which is similar to District Orchestra day in that the sixth graders from all around treasure Public School Systems came and they were in the auditorium and they um saw performances by the Cheshire High School choir and The Dodd choir and then they themselves gave a performance to the both of us which was pretty exciting and that's all we have for tonight so that's all thank you guys thank you and um I guess the the bathroom issue has been one that we've been trying to deal with for many years so I'm glad to see the student uh some student Solutions out there student teacher Solutions uh so we'll try and work in league and maybe further that cause are
010there any questions good unfortunately I have a bathroom question is it do you think it or do you know if it's um the male bathrooms or the women's bathrooms or the men's bathrooms so it's mostly the males bathrooms that have been vandalized and stuff um yeah it's just it's it's mostly the males and um we're just trying to show that we're better than this and stuff and you know that's not cool to vandalize bathrooms that money can be um like you know go towards positive costs and stuff and educational causes and hopefully we can try to you know make some change with that and you're teenagers you're not children right right exactly thank you great go ahead I just want to commend you on that um especially on what you're doing well with everything but
011especially on the bathrooms and um the fact that you're cleaning them like I couldn't ever get my kids to clean them so I really applaud you guys and um I along the lines of questioning with of Ian's um is it going and you guys may be able to help is this going on during the day is it going on weekends during games do you because I would think someone would hear something or and do you have like a will you do a see something say something campaign or um yeah yeah definitely we're going to try to you know because like really it's up to us as students to stand up to the issue because we're the ones that use the bathrooms and stuff so you know it's up to us to show that we're better
012than this and definitely like you're saying you know the if they see something we encourage them to try to you know stand up for that because I'm not being snitches by telling an authoritative figure they're doing the right thing because it's causing the person that's doing the destruction to stop and it's also helping the people that have to use the bathroom in the future so it's actually a win-win situation because it stops the destruction and it helps the other people for when they have to use the bathroom and you know I guess while we're talking about bathrooms so at 6 15 tonight the planning committee met my three colleagues here and we went through this five-year Capital plan right here so this is a list of all of our school buildings and different projects across
013the district so anything you can do to stop the bathrooms being vandalized we greatly appreciate because we have to make really hard decisions as to what happens at our schools and you know it's it's better for us to be repairing roofs that are leaking than going after and putting good money towards repairing bathrooms that doesn't get damaged because there's only so much money to go around so thank you Michael and thank you Monica as well I heard you so you're in the video though so Monica is featured in the video okay and um my next you know Board of Ed meeting we should um have the video shown to students and stuff and we should have an update for you guys on on um on what the status of the video and stuff oh absolutely
014okay yeah we'd be happy to share it with you guys so I I PSA loved the idea do you have a next step besides the video is there another plan moving forward tracking any data just to make sure like okay we know it stopped for a bit but it might come back again so what's what's our next step definitely um so there's been some some proposes and stuff like when our boys bathroom Improvement Squad eventually starts up you know we hope to Mr Pizza was suggesting like you know if we can record a certain period of time where there's no vandalism at all then we could reopen our bathrooms or you know Mr tartarelli is also thinking about ways we can reopen our bathrooms so definitely it's being talked about and then change is not
015far ahead it's it's coming up soon and um you know we're hoping we can get those bathrooms open get them cleaned and um let's make our bathroom experience better oh I love that you're called the squad and I think that that is really important because you're you're take the students themselves are taking ownership of their property and that's what's going to make the difference it's a completely different thing if other kids are ruining their peers experience and their peers equipment than if they're doing it and having the adults and the authority figures as you say do all the picking up after them but if they're making their own peers clean up after them you know it's going to have an impact so I commend you for for all that you're doing thank you and um
016yeah that's the thing you know we hope that since it's a student-led thing that you know it'll Inspire some some good behaviors and stuff and you know we're hoping that the people that are doing the vandalism can get the the help that they need quick supplement uh shout out to Colin you guys made the shout out to Colin Brown he was a record Journal athlete of the week this year or this week was kind of nice to see and then uh I second that the concerts were really amazing they're available on our YouTube channel as well if you haven't seen them yet and want to check it out good stuff Mr sullen's Instagram page is a real supporter of the concerts so and okay uh well Monica and Michael uh thank you very much for
017your report you can stay if you wish but you are uh free to go and uh yeah good luck with midterms thank you have a great evening okay uh moving on I'll move on to audience um is there a member of the audience who wishes to address the Board of Education please step up to the microphone and uh give your name seeing none okay we will um move on to committee reports um first up is finance uh that would be uh uh my committee um let's see let me get the right reports here and uh as usual I like to hand off to Mr maciano thank you I'll keep it brief this evening as you've heard enough for me on finance and and funding on Tuesday night the board members do have the finance report
018through December and and really the report is simply that you know despite some of the challenges of inflation electricity you know cost of heat and energy it's been a relatively mild winter uh fortunately for us you know our budget is still holding well the the show's budget is 80 million 664 000 420 and we will meet that budget based on what I'm by all accounts and all measures at this point in time we still are holding about 50 percent of our budget funds for non-payroll expenditures in reserve as as we normally would be doing at this time of year we're about halfway through the year so we'll keep that going until we get probably into Feb February and then we could start releasing so that the schools can make purchases as as they need it
019that is the finance report and if you'd like a touch quickly on the medical benefits report which a copy was distributed on Tuesday evening at the budget Workshop but I do want to highlight some of the December numbers which again the board members do have the report the claims for the month of December you know did come down off of November which unfortunately was a record high 1.6 million and that is an all-time record high not just an annual High December's claims at 1.1 million you know were a significant decrease about a hundred thousand dollars over the one million dollars per month expected um but we did receive some um stop loss and prescription rebates during the month so even though our claims exceeded the million dollar Mark those rebate and stop-loss reimbursements actually helped
020increase the fund uh Reserve balance by 171 000. so we ended the month of December with a Reserve balance of 884 000 that's about point eight months in claims Reserve we know that we'd like to be at about two months of claim reserves so we're beneath that as we hit January the new HSA plan year begins because employees uh first dollars will be spent until they meet their deductible and won't hit our claims you know we do expect and certainly hope that over the next three to four months we see our claims are below the million dollars per month expected and so that'll help us buoy up the Reserve balance and that's medical benefits at this point in time so I'll stop if there are any questions and then there is one more agenda item
021and which is an update on the 2324 budget meetings which I'll let Mr grippo you can do that one thank you Mr maciano um so uh firstly for me um I guess my only question was um you did a uh a little write-up here about our electrical rates going from eight cents per kilowatt to 24 cents per kilowatt is that locked in because you had you mentioned something else here about 12.94 and so I just yeah I'll explain so the ray lock that we had at about eight cents expired in December during the months of January and February we do not have a locked in rate so we are we are basically paying a rate based on a daily fluctuation and the we came in at around 15 cents for um January month to date
022which isn't too bad considering that ever sources rate is about 24 cents per quick kilowatt hour right now we were able effective in February to lock in at the 12 cent rate and that will take us through November so we do have a lock beginning in February it's the best we could do you know we we really went after the market aggressively but electricity rates really jumped over the last year and we I wish we could have locked something in before we knew there was a spike coming but who knew right so um you know we we will be over budget in in our electricity category that's accounted for in the finance report and we'll continue to monitor it and you know hopefully as we get through the remainder of this year we'll see electricity
023rates come down overall and you know we would be in a position to walk you know on the later part of this year and there is some good news oil prices you know have come down and kind of stabilized you know we're still below 80 per barrel you know we you know we had crested ninety dollars per barrel so that might be a good lead indicator but we will see what happens uh any questions no okay yeah go ahead thank you um so with regards to the rates what you're saying is you've locked in a rate basically below 24 cents or beginning February we're 12 12 cents and and change no I'm saying like right now no we are not locked until February right so I mean in theory if we have a polar vortex
024in the next two weeks the price of electricity could Skyrocket because all the natural gas gets sucked up for Home Heating and we're exposed to that in terms of financially we're exposed to the rates going up to a dollar per kilowatt hour or even more than that well if that happened we would just go back to eversource okay got it so that that's available to us but we don't need to do that just yet okay and you can do that like on a 24-hour cycle or something like that probably would take a bit longer than that but all right let's we could get back to eversource that is always available to us all right so yeah I just asked that you'd be mindful of it because if you're literally are out this is this is
025part of what goes back to literally Gray Davis getting recalled in California and Schwarzenegger being elected governor blackouts in California this is um those rates can so I don't know the exact rate you have but if it if there's no cap to it it could go way up not to just 24 cents but it could go way above that so just to be mindful of that always looking okay but you know you just said a dollar that's um have we ever seen that this is not in Connecticut no but this is probably that moment in time because what's happening in Ukraine and natural gas I'm not saying it will happen but literally we've been lucky that it's been so warm and it is what happened back in California 15 years ago or whatever it was
026directly related to electricity prices spiking blackouts happening um just to be mindful of it and to maybe find out what the turnaround would be if you wanted to switch over to eversource how long would that take yeah I'll check we do have a consultant that helps us with this Rachel Bogger so I'll touch base with Rachel but she's kind of looking at the markets for us constantly yeah so um she's really good I'll talk to her all right thank you okay foreign I'd say at that point if we went to Dollar kilowatt it almost sounds like you'd pull up the emergency generators and run on diesel but do that you would shut everything down you know unplug the school yeah it could be it could be an option yeah well hopefully that won't happen but
027it could from what I've seen from the weather anyway um uh yeah that's possible um let's see report on budget meetings uh so uh we had uh let's see we had the uh superintendent's uh presentation last week um let me see hold on I'll just I had a I made up a little cheat sheet actually so we could put all the fun news all in one place it's actually uh Dr Solon you put it right here here it is remember you asked me why so here we go um so um this nice little sheet here is that um uh Dr Solon made our uh a budget request uh the uh the uh budget that we are currently uh having hearings about and examining um the request is for um an increase of 6.46 percent uh
028that's five an increase of 5.2 million dollars for a total request of 85 million eight hundred and seventy two thousand dollars um uh on Tuesday we went over medical benefits uh there was a another topic uh Mr massiano if you could uh refresh me uh what did we went over medical benefits and certified non-certified oh yes yes of course all of our uh employee costs um and uh that unfortunately wasn't super enlightening because we were sort of in familiar with a lot of that already um but it's great for the public to know and to kind of know that I think we're up to almost 70 percent of our budget is uh fixed or no what was it 94 of our budget is fixed costs essentially salaries yeah it's actually uh contractual obligations such as
029for transportation right yeah everything right exactly and we went over a portion of that uh on Tuesday and we will continue to do that next week um so that's sort of what's happened in the last two weeks in a nutshell are there any comments or questions and yeah I think it's um important especially maybe this year as we go through budget season two um to just point out that we are growing as a community right uh Cheshire is growing our grand list is growing as well as our population and our school age children in this town are growing and so um that is really behind why our Bud why are budgets going up and it's and um I just think that we should all be looking at the positive side of the reason that our
030budget is going up it's it's not all doom and gloom right it's it's because we're growing so I just wanted to put the positive spin on that thank you Anne um Faith um I guess I'm one of those negatives but um I just would like to point out that most of what we're seeing is increases in salaries and benefits that are beyond our control I love that cheshire's growing um I love that my property values are growing and I do hope that our grand list is growing with actual Commerce and not inflation but um I am real concerned and I think I've made it pretty clear about what's going on in in how to bring these costs under control and how to um curb the mandates that are costing us so much uh you know
031this is money that needs to go to our students it needs to go to our facilities and a lot of what we're seeing um and I'll raise more of it as we discuss it to me is um borderline frivolous uh and I don't know how to get the message to Hartford that they have to cut us some slack but um Ian I totally agree with you I am very happy that our community is growing as it is and that we're seeing the growth in our elementary kid Elementary grades uh because that is the future of Cheshire um but there are a lot of people who are going to be hurting with this budget and so um you know that we have to be mindful of that as well so thanks thank you Faith any other
032comments okay uh seeing none uh that will conclude the finance committee uh we'll move on to the legislative committee uh Mr White I think thank you Adam can I back up for one second on just a question about medical benefits uh yeah go oh yes yeah go ahead yeah thank you yeah just um an administrative question so we we're budgeting a million dollars a month for medical benefits for clients um so we have a balance right now about eight or nine hundred thousand and we've now hit a peak of close to 1.7 million for one month administratively we could I don't think it's crazy to think we could go into deficit in one month it would be highly unlikely but it could happen so here's my question at what moment in time does that really
033matter to us is it in February when it happens or is it at the end of the year in June can you just move the money around from a timing perspective that it doesn't matter right now or would it matter right now well if we did go negative we would have to make sure that we we buoy up the reserve so we could one way to do that would be to reduce our expenditures and as I said we have a 50 hold right now on non-payroll expenditures the other thing we could do is request funds from the Town Council as part of the as you know part of our normal course of action um but I will say this if we do you know go negative the likelihood we would go negative is from a
034large claim or series of large claims and so there would be reimbursement on the stop-loss side so I as I said here today I don't believe will be negative for the year so it could happen yeah so in short initially we're drawing off operating budgets to cover the business right all right in time if you know been talked about a stop loss reimbursement you net all that out there comes a point where we have to spend operating and we can no longer draw off that to cover the balance that wouldn't be February that would be May perhaps if we're still in the red we need to have a conversation with the council if we're not then no harm no foul kind of thing okay something we're obviously we're closely monitoring has been said January uh
035the historic trend is as we enter the new claim year the claims are less than they have been in previous years but as you saw in our budget presentation what's driving costs are not sniffles they're on on really unfortunate substantial medical issues that some of our employees have endured um the likelihood that that continues is small and we pray that that's the case for those individuals and us but we're going to closely monitor it okay yeah no thank you for all that yeah my my key concern was just could something happen in the next few weeks where we actually need to act in a quick fashion and you're saying no we need to be on top of it but we still have through the end of the year to the end of the talent fiscal
036year to work through it okay that's all I was wondering about thank you thanks Adam legislative committee uh thank you Adam so uh a week ago the legislative committee met of the committee of I'm the chair's chair of the legislative committee um we met to uh discuss possible requests of the legislature their session opens in January it runs until June when they I think that's when they would usually be done with a lot of their bills um anyway we brought forward I don't think we didn't bring forward anything from any particular board members of course we're all welcome to do that maybe in future years something like that will happen but what we did bring forward was a list of I think six items that were requested by the superintendent um I think we all
037agreed that they were um worthwhile requests of the legislature and with that I will give it to the superintendent if he has if he wants to add any commentary to it about the particular items or anything else uh you know on our website we have the legislative uh items that were submitted to Hartford it's an ongoing dialogue over the next couple of months is um you know Senator Sampson Representatives upcus indicated last week you know will probably be asked to share our perspective anything that we share certainly all of us are welcome to do so individually uh not as representatives of the Cheshire board of education but remember you're a member who sits on the board and have it have a unique individual perspective if there's something that is going to be testified upon from
038a representative of the the body that should come through us on the legislative committee or the bore full board um that I would submit testimony on or one of us could submit testimony on um it's just kind of a how this should play out over the next couple of months the legislative session uh formally gets underway the 25th I mean bills are submitted now but the the actual session starts the 25th doesn't close until June 7th so this is an extended session that they'll be meeting this year and um I think it's important to note that um probably the the biggest point of discussion with the uh the right right to read legislation which um you know we're just talking about you know testimony for legislation and it was at least for me it was
039revealed that I'm sure some of you knew that already but uh that that legislation was not did not have a hearing it was part of the implementer bill if I'm not mistaken which means it was put in uh right at the end of session where there was no opportunity for uh public discourse um so in that case we weren't able to uh Administration or board members from apparently all around the state as uh chairman uh paragini uh uh not testified but uh said at that legislative meeting that uh you know not none of the school districts and many of them are sort of against that legislation um didn't have an opportunity to speak about it um but it is important that when we we have legislation we're all interested in I know a few years
040ago there was a one on regionalization of some kind of services or regionalization in general where we're able to submit written testimony um and so that that's something we that we have that ability to do um so that we don't have to actually attend and you know travel to Harvard to attend a person that we can submit written testimony unless of course it's banned for some reason which I don't know if that's ever happened but it's made maybe it's happened uh but I just wanted to add that comment yeah in fact I'll make one more comment on it when you mention the right to read uh there to me there are probably at least two different issues here which is the actual program that's being that the Public Schools across the state are being directed
041to use so the first point is using the program the second point is also the transition and this is like a fast track like do it now oh transition which just doesn't really in my opinion I just think it's really wrong I think if the state wants to direct the public schools to do things that's within the right in in general terms but I also think that for any transition uh you should be given some time to make it happen in a deliberate way and that's not really happening here in this situation with regard to the right to read legislation Sam yeah um you know I appreciated the dialogue and them coming in to speak on what our ask was and so forth and I did ask the question of what their agenda um plan
042for an agenda moving forward um wasn't very much a clear answer but at least representative zepkus gave us that she was forwarding a bill on um education I guess um as part of the process I appreciate the ongoing dialogue so the question is basically you know we have allegedly breakfast coming up soon what's our next step because clearly we're not the only District that has concerns um and so for people listening what what can they do to support our ass and so forth the I would I think if you're new to the information the a good place to start would be reviewing the PowerPoint that our legislative committee and board put together that's available on our website from there certainly you know I I appreciate that our uh Representatives our delegation from Cheshire is accessible
043you know by reaching out to them um you can just Google Cheshire delegation or uh go on the state legislature website and reach out to the individuals who represent our community the legislative breakfast is invitation through you know board members and and local representatives to engage the delegation the area representatives and that'll be coming up uh in February for you I sent out an invitation if any of our board members are interested in attending that and available that morning uh certainly welcome to come and we can express to that audience there that day as well our perspective on this issue and and provide that feedback anyone else It's Quickly um I think we need to be mindful of something that was brought up at that meeting which is um perhaps trying to have that meeting
044with our legislative Representatives at an earlier date than right when the session is starting so later in the fall yeah so I agree on that I think I don't know if you remember Jeff I think that I probably brought it up in November we tried to bring it schedule something in December nobody was available from the legislative we also had you know the the November referendum was uh yeah real priority at the time the other reality here is that we could hold this in September but what happens is two weeks like what's occurring now before the session where there's really uh a lot of meetings around these things all these proposals come forward um I think you know the lesson the takeaway is early but ongoing communication so I agree that you know maybe an
045initial connection earlier in the fall is beneficial but there's so much spaghetti that gets thrown at the wall that you could never anticipate um at the beginning of the session that it's important for us to follow that up and uh to give you a sense I'll share with the board some of the proposals that have come forth I sent you an email the other day but every day at this time of year there are new um ranging from uh nonsensical and outlandish to potentially meaningful well it gets passed forward so I'll share that with you thank you for that extra for that explanation same but to Anne's point though having an early yes but also kind of recapping it and I know we don't have meetings in the summer but somewhere close to when the
046session ends I'd love to have them come back and give us an update here's where we started in the process and how did we end and moving forward what's next step for the next session that's all Oh no just as a a point of clarification Tim I think you said something about the the state uh Department of Ed can impose their will on board of educations I believe you're incorrect on that we are we enforce state law which of course is what they did they they got they got a law passed for this uh right to read which is now they're imposing their administrative powers to enact the law just as a point of clarification you know I I yeah I was avoiding the Nuance I just so the legislature had to sign off on
047that and they did whether or not they actually knew they were doing that uh I don't know if I can give them benefit I will let's just leave it there it was in the bill and it passed so um is there any other uh comments uh for legislative committee no okay uh moving on to planning committee Mr martelly thank you Mr crippo um tonight actually the planning committee Matt in this room at 6 15 and started looking at the preliminary draft of sorry I started looking at the preliminary draft of um The Five-Year Plan with the 2023-24 projects just to reiterate or to remind folks we look at the five year but we approve projects uh each year moving forward um so you know this year it's different than my board service over the past
048four years on the planning committee as we actually have an idea as to what projects are gonna well we know what projects are going to happen so we aren't looking at doing upgrades too schools are going to be coming offline so now we can really focus um available dollars towards projects to stabilize and continue to maintain our existing School infrastructure um I don't think it's appropriate to get into specific projects tonight we just saw this for the first time this evening and we're going to work as a committee to kind of Pare down and look to see what makes the most sense for 23 to 24. um additionally we the names escaping me hired a consultant to do space needs look Anthony and Associates um we they met over the past month or so I
049did start looking at our existing school facilities to start the space planning needs for the future it doesn't look we're going to be in situation for trailers for this coming year but moving forward we're going to keep a close eye on that once we actually have a report um we can share that with the full board that's that's pretty much that's the update if everybody has any questions um if I may um so the uh consultant uh Anthony um for the trailer so there's has there been any uh initial analysis on needs or that's what we're hire the consultant to sort of a report on that's what we hire the Consultants to work on and we we met with um Emmy O'Brien the principal at Doolittle and and Scott Jeffrey the principal at Highland along
050with Richard facilities director uh with Associates from antonazy they did a quick tour of the building they have the layout of the building they have the floor plans and more detailed construction documents for both buildings they understand what our potential need might be over the next three years based on enrollment so they're going to start in the background you know working on some ideas and we'll have a follow-up meeting you know to sit and go through and and talk into some more details so work's begun we'll have the information we need from them in in a few weeks for further discussion with the planning committee but it'll be two to three months for them to issue the the report that we're expecting from them and the series of recommendations may not be and I don't
051expect it to be limited to just adding trailers there may be ways to repurpose some of the spaces that we have or any other creative ideas that you know they or we may come up with um you know to try and get through year one year two and and year three when the new schools are built and we would be able to redistrict so it's just really Bridge strategy to get us to when the new school's built thank you any other questions for planning committee okay moving on to policy committee and call on myself um so uh we had a uh well a rather brief um uh policy meeting on uh let's see what was uh Jan on January 10th um by the way I believe I did figure out my technical problem but that's
052a whole nother story um so uh we reviewed uh two policies for a second reading uh strategic goals performance standards that's a zero zero two five um for let's see uh what was the change that we did oh two oh to adopt the Strategic goals that the board had already approved I guess we started to do that one backwards um and uh we uh had all of our questions done a meeting prior so uh we moved that for a second reading uh uh the second policy the second policy move for second reading was our nepotism policy uh which we um uh again in a prior meeting had uh strengthened our policy to sort of reflect um current events so that it can remain strong and fair [Music] um uh we moved to a uh next
053we did a third third and final rating for the administering of medication opioid opioid overdose prevention uh the admit the emergency administration of naloxone which is a um an inhaled substance that uh prevents um or helps prevent overdoses from fentanyl or if you have an overdose from fentanyl it perhaps prevents uh death or Serious injury right right um and so we will be uh moving that hopefully uh into uh enforce this evening um and that we can concluded uh around the source at 6 51 PM according to the uh notes I have here um so I would like to make a motion um that the uh Cheshire Board of Education give a third and final reading to policy number 5141.213 administering medication opioid overdose prevention emergency administration of naloxone and direct the superintendent to put
054said policy into immediate effect do I have a second on that motion um Sam so you can go up first uh is there any comment or discussion on the motion seeing not oh and go ahead basic question that I'm almost embarrassed to ask is is Narcan the same thing as yeah yeah yes okay thank you yes good question I don't know my drugs yes I guess what's that's the uh official medical name for it I guess um so all right uh seeing no other uh further comment uh all in favor unanimous of those present thank you okay um are there any other standing committees that need to report I don't see anything on the agenda no okay next we'll go to the approval of minutes for meetings held December 15 2022 and January 12 2023
055uh would someone like to make that motion uh Faith go ahead move that the Cheshire Board of Education approved the minutes from the meetings held on December 15 2022 and January 12 2023. for a second Andrew uh any discussion or edits or amendments seeing none all in favor unanimous of those present thank you this Harrigan uh is there any correspondence have no correspondence this evening okay thank you we will move on to of course the highlight of the evening the superintendent's report I appreciate that Mr grippo in Sam stole a little bit of my thunder um with her acknowledgment of the Cabe legislative breakfast coming up in February but no worries there the um just two real quick things um in addition to what I'm going to touch upon with the school building committee but
056Economic Development Council I appreciate um you know Mr Martelli inviting me to participate in a meeting earlier this week uh very productive where we talked about how to um you know kind of propel our our symbiotic relationship between the Cheshire public schools and the business Community uh some really good ideas came out of that and The Great Exchange we look forward to continuing that as we evolve our school uh Business Partnership committee that had been meeting um and really needed reinfused energy our newly infused energy I guess so I think we're we're making good progress there I look forward to that group working together the other thing I wanted to share make sure everybody was aware that we had applied for a grant for a new Greenhouse in the planning committee meeting the members talked
057about the really decaying condition of the Cheshire High School greenhouse and we received the state Grant which is really exciting to be be able to build a greenhouse on the humiston property right next to the existing trailer we have there the storage trailer so that can be used by students across the district and including humiston School supports um Our Food Services Program and allows us to do more like local Farm to Table in a community that Prides itself on our bedding plants and our greenhouses I'm excited to be able to you know continue to move that forward for our students in this community uh go ahead no sorry actually I just got from the assessor we have 2.2 million square feet of greenhouse space in town holy smokes we'll add that to the count yeah
058so yeah I don't know if it'll it's not going to move any comments on that uh but anyway so uh there's there's that piece the um Next Generation School building committee continues to meet um actually I really have to commend the volunteers on that committee we are in essence meeting weekly now uh with special meetings on the odd weeks that we didn't already have planned meetings on on Thursdays tonight is a rare exception to that uh the request for qualifications have been sent out for Architects for each of the two projects um we're currently receiving questions uh clarifying questions from architectural firms about the two projects as we receive those questions on the town website that posts the rfqs um we add these addenda uh as they come as the questions come in and we
059answer the questions they have to be posted for everybody to see uh though that's on our RFQ page or our I think it's our titled RFP page on the on the town website um but we should be receiving those in the coming weeks we'll be evaluating those and moving to the Town Council to issue contracts for an architect which is is really exciting stuff so that's where we are right now in the process we started to evaluate requests for qualifications on an owner's representative which will be the next um phase that we issue and I think that will happen sometime next month we're targeting February 9th I think it is um so the process is moving along pretty well right now um I want to thank Sean Kimball the the town staff for their assistance
060and uh the town attorney Jeff D'Onofrio has been super responsive and and very helpful in our our work so thanks to everybody that's it for me thank you Adam um so with I know I mentioned last month so with regard to the RFP was there a request for qualifications with respect to sustainable construction history knowledge so the RFQ is yes we we do I think then right we've talked about um in the our we're asking for what are your qualifications as an architecture sure an inherent in there Inc and and that's actually one of the agenda that's going up is about um sustainability and you know are we adhering to just the lead silver uh requirements or is there more in there uh for that so I think when we get the qualifications of the
061firm and refine that down to the interviewing and request for proposals that was something that we had talked about in the rating scales okay for when we actually interview these people okay but I will certainly you know reinforce that when we get together with the group next Thursday to talk about the rating scales and my second question when are these are public meetings yeah okay and their video as well and and when are they happening Town Hall generally town hall seven o'clock um in room 207. okay but they're also simulcast uh generally as well oh okay so seven o'clock 207. okay is when they usually are they're usually every Thursday for the most part they're often on Thursday okay uh I would check almost every Thursday but uh certainly definitely next Thursday there's there's a
062meeting on the 26th which is a little problematic for our budget meetings sure um so depending on what that agenda item is and what the budget meeting is we may Ben and I may have to split some responsibilities there but and this is this is an organization or a body formed by the council not by the Board of Ed correct and so is it getting are they getting the meetings posted on the town website yes okay all right great thank you if you go to the Cheshire Public Schools website as well um at the bottom there's a banner it's it's still there school modernization if you click there there's good information on that page now it's been revamped from like why do we need schools to basically what are the process what's the process including
063agendas minutes RFQ like anything you could want the the membership that it's all there okay so I would encourage people to to visit that site make more info just a point of clarification so the town and the board did select the committee that's working on it now right who's helping to facilitate it as they're moving along so the chairperson of the committee is Rich Gusenberg uh the uh both myself and Sean Kimball or ex-officio mem voting members of the committee um and the esteemed Mr Vincent messiana is often present to help guide us as well Jeff D'Onofrio Town attorney has been really helpful um so it uh this is this is a big item and I'm just curious if of all the information that you are putting out for all of us do you have
064something just a basic tracker for the townspeople too Financial tracker you know this contract has been awarded for this amount when the funds start coming in this much has has been expended um I think I do think people are going to want to be watching these costs and I'm not sure if anything has been set up but um yeah I'll watch it but yeah we haven't reached a point yet where anything's been at all expended so um ultimately yeah certainly we can do that we just haven't we're not there yet a few months out for that the next the uh Council will ultimately appoint uh uh architect um Vin do you remember the day I want to say it's March 13th in that neighborhood sounds about it's in that that neighborhood it's the it's the
065March Council it's the March council meeting whatever Andrew you probably you might not remember this off top of your head but we talked a lot about scheduling and um kind of backed into the opening of the schools are we on target with the issuance of the RFQ for the architect are we ahead of that schedule we're ahead of the schedule we designed there's a lot of talk about the schools are going to be done in and again I am not trying to pensional I understand like you know we could have a monsoon we could have a snowstorm like all these things will definitely change and I don't wanna I wanna under promise and over deliver the other way around but does it look like we're getting closer to closing that window perhaps where the schools
066so the initial um timetable was established I want to say almost a year and a half ago with Colliers um and our group has been very diligent uh and you know relative to that initial timetable that was established we are ahead of that timetable pretty significantly good to hear thank you Sam did you have a comment s um I guess uh question is to uh if uh someone were to want to get uh caught up in all the meetings are these lists are the are the uh videos listed on the uh Town page or the uh Cheshire Public Schools page or both Town page okay I could go back to our just for ease of access I could go back to our minutes and Link the videos in in there yeah for easy use um
067and I know that uh I attended the kickoff meeting uh where there were discussions about whether or not to have you know an architect for each site or an architect for the entire project has there been a thought as to how they'd like to proceed as far as that or is that sort of not been determined yet that hasn't been determined yet um architectural firms are invited to submit for one or both projects at this point foreign and finally just as a sort of a point point of clarification for Faith and anyone else I believe um all of these meetings are open to the public and that if you have any recommendations or suggestions that they also take public comment as well during the meeting so if perhaps uh Faith your great suggestion about a
068cost tracker uh may you may want to have that entered into the public record of either whether written or in person so just as just as a thought there um are there any other questions or go ahead just I'm going back to what the superintendent said about you so we applied for the the greenhouse Grant we don't have a turnaround time yet for it then are you familiar with the turnaround we applied no we we got it right but is there a decision we got the grant oh you did yeah we did oh awesome so my next question is what's the enhanced the curricular enhancement I know we're going to use this sure we offer courses like AP Environmental Studies biology is uh life sciences or studied through all grade levels really I mean there's
069certain certainly focuses at different years but life science is a is a significant part of our curriculum so there there are tie-ins the greenhouse uh is not going to rival uh Castor title Farms or something Kurtz Farms or whatever they um it's certainly not on that sort of scale so it would be smaller groups that would go through there maybe a class at a time um but we don't want to get out ahead of our proverbial skis or or plants or whatever you want but we certainly see the connections there right now it's smaller scale hoping to build into something bigger so we have some sort of scheme of I'm just thinking like Hydroponics and I don't know what the plan is I'll share the um the uh Grant with you so you can all
070see like basically what it entails in scope um size and the whole nine yards uh it's really exciting to be moving down this road it's awesome thank you yeah I'm just wondering do you have a location for it I know you've mentioned something before but yeah the um you know the rear of the humiston building there's a large uh storage building that it would be next to that on the interior side not the street side gotcha thank you sure it's getting questions right now oh sorry um so actually this may be for Marlene so you can take a break um are there uh opportunities you know we do a lot of uh intern and apprenticeships have we started to reach out perhaps since we are the betting plank capital of the world um I'm sorry
071Connecticut um thank you the world is good okay I think it's Connecticut of New Haven County um but is it I have has you know is there an opportunity um for because you know from a farming background myself we are a shrinking number so um you know what have has anyone come forward anyone expressed an interest or anything like that to engage our kids in career opportunities I don't know of anyone who has stepped forward but I know through Jeff's work with economic development and looking at now that covet is over we've been branching out more and more with getting back to our internships and really reinvigorating that after the shutdown so there's lots of opportunity there and I think that the opportunity that this greenhouse while small perhaps in size is really going to
072give us some really nice opportunities for the future and I know you've also been in touch Jeff's also been in touch with some local folks with greenhouses to talk about possible opportunities but nothing set in stone as of yet okay yeah AJ Kurtz was great about providing us some guidance on different things and so you know we definitely want to leverage the resource that exists within our community and tie that together and if I could just add Faith to that point um so Dr solo and I have been talking about my other hat I wear for the town um we are really working to identify students who might not be who aren't dragging towards the college route and how we as a town can work with the board and with the school district in order
073to identify early identify those students early on and really start setting up programs in order to get some of the kids into either the manufacturing trades or agricultural trades that exist here in the community because there's a huge need for employees in those dish in those Industries and when I started going out and meeting with the manufacturers I mean they wanted to be part of so we set up this manufacturers Roundtable it's been hugely successful already and going into treasure high school and making those connections for internship programs and getting kids there and also like reaching out to the parents and you know four-year colleges aren't for everybody and a lot of these kids are able to go right into and in two years able to buy a house with no debt and that's a
074really real thing in trying to help facilitate that so it's in process and we had a great meeting on Tuesday Morning um Dr Solon took about two hours of everyone's time but it went really well and at the end of that we came up with a list of different different programs and things that we could start to work towards and on the economic development commission with the town there's a lot of business owners and folks that are deeply rooted in the business community so um we're working towards that so can I ask a question on the Practical side because in my mind greenhouses are pretty movable even after they've been put up so when the day comes that we are replacing the humiston building um moving us all out moving the kids the students out
075we'd be able to move the uh Greenhouse as well correct um I would think so it's not it is as you say it's it's uh mobile wow it's big enough to not be easy yeah you know you'd have to take it apart but um definitely flexible great thank you Dr Solon uh this is does that conclude your report it does sir thank you any other questions or comments okay great thank you Dr Solon um I I don't think we have any old business on the agenda here um uh chairman peregini did not supply me with a chairperson's update so um we do not have anything there um I guess before we adjourn I'll go over um some of the uh upcoming meetings here um let's see this one looks a little bit more up to
076date um so January uh 19th we have a planning wait is that today okay we'll skip maybe it's not a maybe this one is more up to date Okay so yeah um all right so I want to start down here with the budget stuff so uh January 24th we have another um uh public budget review uh meeting and that's at Dodd Middle School 7 P.M uh January 26th um we have a public information meeting uh with a board member responses to superintendent's budget and with possible adoption um we'll we'll see about that uh on January 26th at 7 p.m at Dodd Middle School um we then have on February 1st as the calendar committee meeting um I'll just add a personal note perhaps there will be some information about those reverse half the reverse uh
077half day things that we've been doing uh what are we calling that uh delayed delayed open delayed opening not really dismissal it's the right opening um I know I certainly got feedback about that in my own home uh so pros and cons yes perhaps you'll have some data about the the effectiveness of that or if it was uh like by our staff um let's see uh February 13th uh is a curriculum committee meeting uh that's in hummus and boardroom uh policy committee uh on February 14th uh 6 30 and that's going to be remote live stream and February 16th we have our next business meeting and that will be in town council chambers at 7 30. um yes sir I'd just like to add um tonight we decided the next planning committee meeting reviewing the
078capital projects is February the 8th um and it's going to be a virtual meeting at 6 30 p.m would that be of the whole or is that just a uh just of the planning committee planning committee okay fantastic thank you um all right I think I've run out of things to say here so um oh uh comments yes I just have a because my Polar Plunge partner is not here but he would support the you know we highly encourage that any other boardmans we would like to join the team I know Dr Solon wants to do so this year um Southington had a really major turnout and I'm kind of competitive so if we can I've emailed all the Cheshire faculty and we have a donation page that's up and running I haven't checked it
079since it started last Friday but and I there are many leapers will call them ready to go including football um yeah right uh the water if you the water is about waist high for me so it's not that real deep yeah uh Tim go ahead thanks yeah I should have mentioned this before this is probably for event I have a secret inside source at Norton school and she told me today that none of the kids get hot lunch anymore I asked her about it because we stopped doing yeah we started paying for meals this week I think yep and so just something to have on your radar if that is a significant thing I mean I didn't ask her about numbers but she said she noticed everybody went from hot lunch to take home meals
080in some way so just have that be aware of that oh if there is something there I don't know well aware that the Food Service um sales are way down this week okay yeah and was expected is just a question of how far down and so it'll take some time to build back up but no doubt that we are serving less breakfast and less lunches okay you know since the um families have to begin paying again gotcha okay yeah thank you thank you that's a good a good reminder that I have to put money into my son's account uh do that tonight oh you'll be getting that reminder tomorrow because it is it is pizza Friday right so that's usually a popular one at least for my son so sales went down and outstanding balances
081went up from parents so those reminders going out tomorrow um okay any other points of personal privilege seeing none uh motion to adjourn Tim second come on all right there we go all in favor all right we are adjourned thank you