001here I think I asked that we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance so welcome everyone thank you for braving what seemed to be cold weather earlier today now is suddenly warmed up but uh thank you for being here this evening and we usually have as large of an audience so it's happy to see such bright and smiling faces for a change welcome uh we're gonna start off our student representative report so Monica and Michael what do you got for us tonight well thank you guys for having us hope you all are doing well um first up the annual Powder Puff game took place on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving with the seniors winning over the Juniors the Powder Puff is a flag football game held every year between the Junior and senior woman and this year
002the class of 2023 became the first class in CHS history to win both while they were Juniors and seniors CHS soccer players Samir dashnika a senior soccer player on the boys team and Gabby cerato a senior soccer player on the grills team were awarded the All-American status as top players in the nation they will be recognized at a national awards ceremony in Pennsylvania players are nominative for this award by their outstanding playing abilities and athletic achievements and must carry at least a 3.6 GPA to be eligible speaking of soccer the boys soccer team took home the W in the class L Final on November 20th winning 3-1 over Xavier the boys earns their first State title since 1988. senior quad Captain Samir tishnika received MVP and had a goal and an assist in the game
003also Junior will Stearns and Senior quad Captain Kelly Kevin solarly had a goal each and Junior Alex Clark and Senior quad Captain Colin Brown both had assists meaning they helped their teammates to score the goals great job to the boys thank you uh Chester football lost in a hard fall game 21-14 on Thanksgiving but however they had an outstanding season going six and four and making it to the semi-finals all winter sports have began and contests have started this week Boys Hockey won their first game 4-3 the winter sport captains attended a league Captain's Council with League schools at the Floyd little athletic center in New Haven all the winter sport captains were presented with a guest speaker who spoke about leadership and the role of a captain last week the student Senate and the
004kids for kids club have held the annual pjs for kids day on December 9th CHS students and faculty have the option to wear their pajamas to school in support of the kids at the Connecticut Children's Medical Center students also have the option to donate to the shelter all Cheshire Public Schools participated in this fundraiser and the district raised 5 534.75 for the shelter this past Wednesday the band and Orchestra had their annual Winter concert and they played some Christmas music as well as a variety of other unique pieces auditions for the spring musical The Addams Family began this Monday and the play will take place March 23rd 24th and 25th the peer Health educators are currently in the process of planning leadership conferences for the elementary middle and high schools these conferences will take place
005in the spring students who demonstrate excellence in the classroom as well as leadership skills and extracurricular involvement are chosen to attend these conferences in addition the peer Health educators are going to Junior Health classes to talk to Juniors about post High School planning the young Republicans Club at Cheshire high school held a Toys for Tots Drive where students had the opportunity to donate toys for kids CHS also held their annual talent show on December 9th which featured acts such as an Indian dance of rap performances and the CHS fencing team and a singing performance and also dances 50 I'm sorry I'm gonna pronounce her last name wrong rajbanagi won the talent show with with her performance of a classical Indian dance also the chess club is hosting one of their first chess tournaments next week
006and the best buddies Club held a holiday party in the Commons of the CHS of CHS today and Santa Claus himself came to CHS to stop into the party and Santa's looking good this year Winterfest is being held this Saturday the 17th from 10 to 2 and kids can come and participate in crafts and take pictures with Santa and many high schoolers are participating in this and that's all for today thank you guys questions from our board members since there are none thank you so much it's okay have a great night and uh please enjoy your holidays and so much dessert time off soon yeah well have a have a great holidays everybody all right well thank you thank you again so up next [Applause] so we do have a few presentations we're looking to
007interest to get started so Dr song the first one is our school partnership Award with Chapman sure welcome and chairman principal Miss Diane Burns to the podium good evening everyone so principal Burns has informed me to say that Chapman is fortunate to have Stacy Miller as part of their school community and that would be an understatement Stacy has served as the PTSA president for several years at Chapman alongside this role she heads up our yearbook committee organizes the annual Book Fair schedules all of the Cultural Arts events leads the sixth grade parent committee for Nature's Classroom and plans family events throughout the year in addition Stacy is the Chapman resident photographer where is Stacy come up here we're talking about you girl [Laughter] she never misses an opportunity to take pictures of all the great
008learning and fun activities at Chapman School everyone at Chapman is convinced that Stacy has insomnia because we are certain she does not sleep this explains how she finds the time to do all that she does for Chapman school and somehow some way she still does all this with a constant upbeat attitude and a smile on her face it's a delight to honor and recognize Stacy Miller as the recipient of the 2022-23 Chapman School partnership award the Cheshire Board of Education thanks you Stacy for going above and beyond for the students of Cheshire thank you my husband would disagree about me not sleeping all right thank you [Applause] up next we have some student recognitions so Dr Solon sure I'd like to invite Dr Gad to the podium for uh this next set of recognitions thank
009you Dr Solon it is my pleasure to introduce some students to you who have uh really won a rather outstanding who've made an outstanding accomplishment the American Association of teachers of German commends the students and their teachers for outstanding accomplishments the students I'm about to introduce to you are among the top 100 high school students learning German in the United States and have significant promise in their continued study of German three of our students made the top 99 in the United States after taking a German exam Anna pochu Asia terabar and Lily Watson so we're going to embarrass you so come on up they took a rigorous online exam that tested all four skills reading listening writing and speaking all three students were among the 55 students from the entire United States that spent an
010all-expensive paid three-week trip this summer in Germany they lived with host families visited sites attended school in German and had a totally immersive experience their German teacher is also with us Kristen haza come from [Applause] and I will speak on her behalf she said words cannot describe how proud she is and how excited she is for all of her wonderful students they represent Cheshire and Connecticut extremely well so congratulations to our three students [Applause] oh no I didn't dress up come on congratulations okay this recognition comes with free German lessons Miss Rosenberg is it congratulations guys congratulations again and our last presentation is for our Cheshire High School boys soccer recognition so back to you Dr Solomon thank you very much much Mr pereginian before we just transition really quickly ladies I just want to
011congratulate you again and and kind of thank you because my brother's a German teacher in Syracuse and he's incredibly passionate about it and he thinks like he has the best students and I get to Peacock over your guy's accomplishments at the dinner table so you thank you um and uh I just want to take a quick moment to acknowledge for alhasa too because she is so immersive in the language and when students take her class they know it's it's it's not a class it's really an experience it's so much about being part of the culture and and also the culture that she creates in her classroom to make it such a fun experience that students Excel to this degree uh congratulations to you as well yeah great job guys um so uh is Mr paragini
012said we have the opportunity to acknowledge our state champions here this evening uh you open by talking about it being cold but this feels like the Bahamas outside compared to the night that you guys won the state championship awful Frosty out there that night so you guys know how to excel in cold weather and to provide you a more formal congratulations I want to welcome our athletic director mistress Chief trafone to the podium thank you Dr Solon chairman peregrini members of the board it's it's really my honor to present to you tonight uh to Cheshire High School boys soccer team uh along with their coaches as well and our student Mike kind of filled you in a little bit earlier but uh there's been quite a few honors uh this fall with our sport teams
013and really quite a few honors on their soccer team as well so just an overall um look at them their team finished our team finished 17 wins two losses and one tie overall last year this team made it to the state finals as well but they ended up runner-up losing to number one Farmington this year they returned to the state championship and truly dominated throughout the tournament uh winning the first round second round quarterfinals semifinals on way to the state tournament and they weren't going to be denied uh that state championship so again they earned that ciac class L state championship this year but that's not all that they did I think you know um another honor that they received is they that earned them the number one ranking in the state of Connecticut for
014boys soccer uh just as yeah that's a definitely an award yeah I also feel I love hanging those uh Championship banners up in our gym but I think just as important is this next award that they received this year was the uh State sportsmanship award which was it's presented by the Connecticut soccer coaches association and that's given to the team that demonstrates the the best fair play and sportsmanship throughout the season and that's just the character of what this team was all year long [Applause] so I I would also be remiss that uh mentioned our girls soccer team who had an outstanding uh season this year as well they also had an All-American on on the team that joined uh Shamir dasnika as well so getting two all-americans uh in soccer is quite an achievement
015and we've only had two uh samir's the second boys uh All-American in the history of our soccer program so again congratulations to those kids but again turning to our head coach Arturo Bronco he's our world language teacher uh he he oversees uh frohas as well so um congratulations there um he's been our soccer coach for 29 years he's been to the state tournament 27 of those 29 years so he has a little flavor of postseason play and uh and this year he was named coach of the year as well so thank you so at this time folks I'd like to present to you our our 2022 boys soccer championships champions [Applause] I think congratulations thank you foreign well done [Applause] foreign experience thank you congratulations again have a good night [Applause] so moving on to
016our agenda uh next up is audience is there are there any members from the audience that wishes to address the board as soon as there are none that's okay you don't have to stay sorry merry Christmas happy holidays take care all right uh uh standing committee reports gonna start with curriculum faith um the curriculum committee met this past Monday December 12th um and uh over the course of a very expeditious meeting we approved the minutes we heard um about um our um about our advanced placement dual enrollment and early college experience courses um Maureen Reed gave us a breakdown of the enrollment all told we have almost a thousand kids 979 um enrollments some of those are dual enrollments so they're in um multiple uh Advanced courses but um quite an impressive number and we're
017continuing to add to these uh programs or these courses in the program studies so our numbers are only going to grow and the reason why we're doing that is because it becomes a uh probably one of the most telling metrics for our um achievement within our school um so in our growth so our academic growth next we heard about three out of country field trips that will take place in 2024 we did not act on them and we need to work out uh confirm some of the dates but they will be to Costa Rica Puerto Rico and Iceland um they are taking board applications if you want to apply um we also heard that um we are going to rename essentially or reclassify our various levels we're going back to the old um what we're
018all used to which is um honors and instead of competitive college prep and then um just regular courses so um simplify it for everybody also we heard that we will be discontinuing um many of our um e-subscriptions for online readers which we which we bought during covid um the data obviously show the research shows that having a text in hand quality text in hand are far better um a tool for learning to read rather than a tablet and so we will be taking those resources and um revitalizing the classroom libraries which had also kind of suffered under covet as Lost Books and kind of mangled books so um a great Improvement and that will start with the K through second grade and then we will work our way through the the very the remaining Elementary
019grades and then finally we heard from Mr Hanlon that um there is a ongoing review of the six through eight math textbook over at Dodd and that pretty much summed up our meeting so uh any questions can you run through the change in the classification of Cheshire High School the CCP CP just interested as a parent which high school student yeah absolutely so we're keeping our you know ECE AP classes those are our highest level of academic rigor and then rather than calling it CP and CCP which doesn't seem to ever be really clear that competitive College Prep level of classes will be called honors so we'll have our academic classes our honors classes and our advanced placement classes you bet I know now I have no idea what CCP and CP I mean I
020get it now but like when I first saw it I didn't understand yeah it was so I think that this is a good change thank you I think this is just a comment I think this nicely aligns with our advanced placement policy Advanced course policy excuse me so I think it's a good change hey Marlene I forget when was that slated to take effect with school year that'll be in place for the following year and it'll be the language will be in the program of studies that's released when students choose their courses later in April thank you yes and go ahead apparently my colleagues on the board are too young to realize that this is the way this is going back to what it was when my kids were in school so not as big
021a change as you might think thank you Anne as soon as there are no other questions thank you Faith we're going to move on to finance committee uh Mr gripple could not be here this evening so uh who would like to give the finance committee report then okay good evening ladies and gentlemen there was a finance committee meeting that was held on December 6th um in attendance for Mr grippo Ms ham and Ms Rosenberg we covered several items the first of which was food and nutrition and the smart funds program that were provided by the state I'm sure the board remembers that those funds we expected to enable us to provide free student meals through the month of November initially and then we were able to extend those funds to cover us through the end
022of December was our projection and I'm pleased to let you know that we'll be able to get all the way through um January 13th which is a Friday with the free meal program again using the state funds and and we do have to supplement about two and a half days um worth of free meals by taking it from the food and service budget um you know which is going to be in the neighborhood of about twenty five thousand dollars from the reserve we did want to end the program on a Friday so parents will begin paying for meals actually Tuesday January 17th which is the day after Martin Luther King holiday notices have gone out to parents this is after we held this meeting we we did send notices out actually uh yesterday December 14th
023we notified the state 30 days prior which is one of the requirements from the state I will add that this ends the free meal program for all students in the district any student who is eligible for free or reduced meals those will kick in so those students will not have any Interruption one of the questions that was asked during the meeting is can parents apply for the free A reduced meal program at any point yes they can it's not set to an open enrollment period so if if a need arises in a household parents can apply at any time and about 15 percent of the students here in Cheshire are eligible for free and reduced meals and if you missed it and you want more details there's an excellent front page article about the free
024meals program that was written by Peter from the Cheshire Herald you did a great job capturing the essence of that discussion Peter thanks I'll just move along the next part the next um portion of the meeting was really dedicated to the 2324 budget we did provide an update to the finance committee about the things that we were building into the budget um the first was you know due to the enrollment projection we're going up about 73 students in elementary and after reviewing the numbers and looking at class sizes in order to maintain a class size of 18.8 students we will need to increase by Four elementary teachers next year um we then went on to discuss some of the new program requests that have been submitted as part of the budget process by our principals
025and department heads and those are still being evaluated uh there were requests for Staffing from across the district and in some of our departments and those will be incorporated to the extent they're approved by Dr Solon and his superintendent's budget recommendation and the um first presentation of the budget will be on January 12th by Dr Solon and then the last item we discussed at that finance committee meeting was the question about the bounce forward Staffing phase in the bounce forward program is essentially what um Dr Solon used to describe as what we need to do Post pandemic to recover from any learning loss and provide the services that our students need and essentially that program is funded through the Esser funding that we received and that extra funding continues through September of 2024 so it
026will carry us beyond the 2324 budget that they're we're developing so we we won't be phasing in any of those positions that are covered by that Grant in the 2324 budget that you'll be seeing next month um but it's in the following year to the extent that we want to carry any of those positions into the following Year's budget when we would have to fund those through the operating budget so none of that's been determined but that was the update that was provided at the finance committee meeting and that's the essence of the meeting there are any questions or comments or the Dr Solon would like to add on Bounce forward or the committee members would like to discuss all yours yeah just with regard you mentioned if I were to do correctly you mentioned
027right now based on current and Elementary School enrollment you're thinking there's a potential to ask for four new elementary school teachers for next year yes we'll we'll need it in order to keep class size at the 18.8 average that we're in this year okay so the the Elementary Schools Enrollment is increasing right now sort of the flip side of that is Dodd in high school are those enrollments falling still and so my question is basically is there any potential you know for you know some retirements there that don't need to be backfilled or you could offset it with Elementary School teachers anything you see right now that that was part of the discussion certainly and and what we're considering as we are in the Final Phase of assembling the budget but just the projection calls
028for an increase of 19 students in the middle school so we'll stay roughly flat to where we are the high school is projected to decrease by 51 students and the high school doesn't really run on class size only it's also course offerings so that is you know one of the considerations for Dr Solon and Marlene Solano and Mary gatta our high school principal whether there are you know reductions that are possible they had to offset the increases yeah the only thing I would add there been is that um I want to remind everybody that we're in the third year of a phase-in where in the contract negotiations we went from six periods that teachers taught six periods to five and there were a lot of reasons for that that you know we could enumerate someplace
029else but basically uh when we do that um there's a higher demand for for Staffing we did this intentionally during this time uh through the negotiations because we knew that the enrollment was at a lower point and that it wouldn't cost us money to to do that so we're in the last year of that phase-in next year so we're evaluating that as well as the uh has been said the course offerings and potential retirements nobody has declared that they are retiring yet at this point which is really certainly typical in terms of timing thing but we're certainly looking at all of that before I think our presentation is January 10th if my memory serves 12th so we'll have certainly a lot more conversation on that all next month sure no it's on your radar so
030I appreciate that absolutely yeah thanks no one else has questions for Mr Messianic okay Thank You Vince I assume there's no medical report I don't have medical benefits [Music] thank you moving on to policy I can't do a finance report if you'd like I'm sorry huh there's a finance report though fine I have just two things to tell you because the budget is still holding as we had discussed last month the one thing that I did get an update on eversource did release their electricity rates 24 cents roughly for commercial accounts per kilowatt hour we're currently or we were at eight cents based on a long-term lock we had with Constellation Energy what we were able to negotiate is beginning February 22nd we were able to lock in an electricity rate for all our schools
031at 12.94 cents so it's just between early December through February 22nd will be at the at the market rate but not from eversource we're going to stay with consolation where we believe we will do much better than 24 cents I can't quote you a number yet but we just have to get from here to February 22nd and then we're locked through November 20th and the other quick update is that um we raise the cap on non-payroll expenditures from 40 to 50 percent pretty comfortable that we could do that and don't want to fall too far behind on any school-based needs so that went into effect in early December we'll continue to Monitor and um report on any changes in the budget that concludes the finance report thank you Vincent you're welcome now policy I got
032it thank you Tony uh so policymet uh policy met earlier this week I had a first reading on um strategicals performance standards policy this is um it was really a housekeeping discussion all we were doing was uh tying our strategic goals performance standards into the Strategic goals that we had that we as a board voted on a couple months maybe one or two months ago September okay so all we were doing was basically just deleting um some stuff that wasn't relevant that we had already voted on in a separate unrelated uh unrelated action but it's exactly the same topic just clearing it cleaning it up a little bit um the next topic we discussed nepotism the next policy we discussed was nepotism this was an outcrop of a discussion we had with our attorney maybe
033a month ago and the short the short story is that um I think the consensus was we wanted to tighten up our nepotism policy and during the discussion with the attorney we learned that the state law was a little bit different than our understanding and we were able to tighten it up those were first readings the second reading was uh administering medication opioid overdose prevention Jeff correct me from if I got anything wrong here but basically what we're doing is similar to having defrible defibrillators around the high school or our schools we are now going to have Narcan basically as yeah um the only people who are who will be allowed to administer it are people who are certified to do that which by and large is the nurses in the schools although there could
034be other people who are uh certified to do it so it's something we certainly hope we never use but then we also hope we never use a defibrillator either so uh with regard to the third policy readings the first one we had was the school activity fund and the only change that we're making on that was um changing a title of a person from director of management and Personnel to Chief Operating Officer so it's from my perspective that was just another housekeeping topic there and the second and Final policy that we discussed for a third reading was electronic Boe meetings so we've had you know legislation enabling this and so this is where we want to go um allowing Board of Ed meetings to be held remotely particularly in compliance with the Freedom of Information
035Act by one point on this that I've said before and I I am repeating now I do hope that people who as we enter uh you know 11 months from now we'll be having a local election including Board of Ed and I do hope that people keep electronic virtual meetings in mind because I know when I ran three years ago I was concerned about going out to meetings like we're here right now you know I've got two young ones at home and that's not something I necessarily want to do but having the remote meetings that we all learned I imagine most of us really got used to it during covid um so we're just we're allowing that and I think it's I think it's a huge plus to be able to have that for people
036who may have been on the fence because they just didn't want that many nights out at meetings but are deeply interested in what happens in our school system foreign with that I like to make a motion and then have a discussion I got it right here um that the Cheshire Board of Ed give a third and final reading to policy number three four five three school activity fund and 9321.2 electronic Board of Education meetings and direct the superintendent to put said policy and bylaw into immediate effect second Andrew seconds discussion yes so I have a question about the electronic Board of Education meetings um I was under the impression that that was dictated by state statute are we not it is and the state law now provides for these meetings to take place and they
037haven't cut back because now there's a there's a defined um protocol that you have to follow so for example if we're going to hold the remote meeting rather than one day advanced posting you have to have two days Advanced posting uh if somebody requests a in-person like an effect terminal to attend to they can do that so as long as we follow those protocols it's it's now allowable under State Statute oh great so they're they're not planning to do away with it just because covet is made yeah air quotes uh great thank you thank you Anne faith so just help me a little bit with these electronic meetings they are going to um realistically how frequent do you see them um will they will we try to keep them at the committee level um or
038is it that some people can if not Tim not say but I mean if Tim can't get out of the house because he has to put one of the kids to bed does he then just not be here with us but he can zoom in I mean how is this going to practically work if do you think I'm happy to take that to me I think the the key word here is flexibility and that um you know the policy committee actually has been kind of employing this for a while now where um you know if there's a meeting where we think anybody might show up um because it's not typical uh you know committee meetings are really designed to do the work of the board in public not necessarily a public meeting the way a
039board meeting is but with the policy committee meetings we'll um if we think anybody's going to show up with like the last last month the one that Tim referenced we held that one um in person and then this month we held it virtually if anybody wanted to be there in person I was at the office so if a one member of the board wanted to come they could have come and been in person it's just providing that flexibility and I think Tim spoke to one of the uh maybe not obvious benefits of of being able to have that flexibility board meetings are really meetings of the public more so than meetings held you know where the public can can view and so I don't foresee those being um you know virtual uh just my own
040opinion and that would obviously depend on how things evolved in time and the needs of the board and the community but I just don't foresee that happening in the near future great yes then yeah I just for me as a chairman of any committee it I would I would use my best guess as to whether people would actually show up so I've been doing I've been committee chairs on the council in here going back 20 years and most committee meetings as you know faith maybe the public doesn't know most could be yeah we have zero people in attendance except for a journalist with us um most most committee meetings get relatively few people um and so I would not really hesitate in holding a committee meeting remotely with my basic expectation that nobody's going to
041be attending it if I have any reason to believe that even just one person could show up I actually would be pretty happy um and then I would then I would uh make it I would do everything I can to make it happen in person I I have no interest in like creating a situation where it's like avoiding the public which I mean there are some politicians that actually do that elected officials that's not the intent here at all for me at least thank you thank you Tim yeah I think this is great I know it worked well during um the covet pandemic for for a lot of boards occasion and that was uh uh really not law uh any the state and looked at it last year and I think there was vote on
042recently to let boards have meetings virtually uh every boards need is going to be different so we can utilize this as we see fit and within reason I think so far this this year and even last year uh the committee committees that utilized that utilized it well and again I don't foresee us going completely virtual uh but at least we have that flexibility should the need arise so thank you for moving this forward things that there are no other questions on the motion the motion is move the treasure board education give a third and final reading to policy number 3453 school activity fund and bylaw 93-21.2 the tronic board education meetings and direct the superintendent to put said policy and by law into immediate effect all those in favor please raise your hands is unanimous
043thank you team uh anything else out of policy uh Sam I just had two questions that was not present at the previous meeting so the first question is asked you for Dr sotel I know remember talking about Tim I think asked this about the narcon whether janitors or after school Personnel would be trained on it I don't know if we followed up on the last meeting about that um I didn't clarify with uh I don't know if you know that then did Nancy train our maintenance Personnel I don't think so I don't think so the both Narcan and AED are really designed to be uh utilized by lay people uh with the directions clearly on them the AED is literally talks you through the process Narcan has a directions on the bottle it's a nasal
044inhaler is we discussed in our policy meeting you can't hurt somebody with Narcan uh it will revive people who are suffering a drug overdose but I actually just had first aid training earlier this week and you know Narcan and like I said it's like an EpiPen It's Not Gonna Hurt You per se but it could save your life um and when people ask me why Narcan you know do we have a drug overdose problem we don't have a heart attack problem either but it can save lives and it's easy to stock so you know if God forbid it was your brother's sister or family member you know uh you you'd want to have it available so we do and then my second is really more of a clerical I wasn't present so I could not
045have voted in second emotion on the notes in spirit well but um we'll correct that though we know what you meant we knew how you felt thank you Sam I was in another committee meeting uh just so uh Narcan has actually been in our schools for some time there's nothing new but it's just making it available along with the AED locations available in the if you go through the buildings you'll see there's a white box on the wall with a yellow alarm if you open the the door it alarms quite loudly in order to make sure that uh Narcan is available in some of those locations but definitely in the nurse's office yes do we um so it's just a single dose I mean there's like you said there's nothing do we administer any other
046drugs like epinephrine or anything uh do we and how how what kind of Supply do we keep on on in stock on these things I would call The Supply limited um like aeds we really only have the Narcan with the aeds and some in the nurse's office but not a lot um uh the it's it's very limited um and the supply of Narcan that we have was provided to us actually through a grant financially so but we don't do epinephrine or anything yeah absolutely yes absolutely yeah and and most students who have significant allergies um depending on their age you either carry them with them uh and certainly stock the nurse's office and we have them available in the nurse's office as well and into these expire yes um so what's the do you know
047what the shelf life is I don't um but we adhere to the expiration dates and turnover uh stock is necessary thank you uh we actually do have understanding committee legislative Tim you want to give an update in the recent meeting thank you Tony yeah my first question before getting into that have we have we scheduled a meeting with our legislators do we have anything on the books or tentative have any have we reached out to him and asked him if they would come join us not yet um okay I think once we review this if you're you're comfortable scheduling that okay then we'll certainly Reach Out Post taste and put something on the books okay and do you do we do you know the deadline for them to submit legislation if this came up if
048they agreed with some of the requests that we make I don't know the deadline okay the the next session begins in January uh the it's usually within the first couple of weeks of the legislative cycle though yeah I just want to be I want to be sensitive to that in case there is anything that we can do because I'm thinking it could be as early as maybe January 10th full disclosure here with the items that we're listing we're not the only people advocating for many of these things so I would think that um they're on the radar but I think a personal conversation with our legislators as you recommend is certainly meaningful it might bring anything that is floating around person make it personal to them okay to their constituents okay so you have every
049expectation that bills will be introduced on all these topics I'm feeling pretty pretty confident okay okay all right so I will I will run through it now um all right so the uh the first item so this is a list I'm going to run through a list of items that the superintendent brought to us I think it's six items that we went through and I will just try to give a brief explanation on them excess cost reimbursement this is basically funding the state makes a promise with regard to how much funding they will provide for special ed students and in most years probably every year for a long time the promise has not been fulfilled in terms of the actual funding so we're just requesting the full funding of that program the right to read
050act this is uh this is a policy that came down from the State Department of Education is that well it's a the legislature passed the law okay that um through the um the uh the bill at the end of the so the implementer bill implementer thank you yeah through the implementer bill and basically indicated that the um the state must employ a reading program in grades K through three that addresses all facets of the science of reading in that process then the State Department of Education created a committee uh ultimately that committee passed down five reading programs that they indicated that districts must use in a survey of districts only 11 districts in Connecticut were currently using one of those five and they weren't the 11 highest achieving reading you know score districts in Connecticut
051um and so there was a lot of consternation about that and even legal opinion that the state couldn't prescribe how we do it they can prescribe what we teach but not how we teach it so there has been um a lot of back and forth between the State Department of Education and local districts over the last couple of months literally 5 45 I think it was today we received an email from sde about the waiver for this uh which is now due in February um it would come at Great expense not just to purchase a new program but train our people in the implementation of that program and particularly if that program doesn't have proven positive results and our reading scores are really quite good so you know I think there's a strong likelihood that
052starting tomorrow when I review that with Marlene and and Kevin and people like Pat Castle who's our reading specialist that will be applying for the waiver but more to come on that and our our point is that this the way we we would want clarification on this bill that the state is not prescribing a specific plan you know that we use Eureka for Math and we've had great success with that if the state came down tomorrow and said well no you have to use a different math program yeah I think we would be justifiably upset the same situation exists here in essence and so we want to just clarify that language and like I said you know before there are many districts um Adventure I guess all but 11 who are quite frustrated with this
053so I can tell you yeah every every Board of Ed as well it came as um against it in fact this is one of the let's say priorities that Kay voted to bring to legislature in January so it's not again it comes down to the effective program not telling us how to do it yeah no they're micromanaging at a level that is foreign accessible they should even be considering um and one of the points that I'll just make for the public uh from my perspective what the superintendent mentioned with the implementer bill so there's lots of bills that pass during the legislative session and then including the budget typically passes and then after all that is said and done there's an implementer bill that is supposed to be the technical measures required to actually Implement
054these laws and it is not uncommon for things to get stuck in the implementer bill and become law and this sounds like it's one of them um which just reminds me that I following the process is probably a good thing um teacher shortages they are not really affecting us right now directly in Cheshire but it is a topic that is affecting the state um see teacher evaluation the intent here is to change the way teachers are evaluated to make it more of a a long-term process which had something that happens over time with more and shorter conversations shorter observations so the total amount of time required for the teacher evaluation may be the same but it's not just you know three hours at the end of the year it's 15 minutes you know 12 times
055over the course of the Year something along those lines and that but that would require a change in state law the virtual learning was this sorry if you want to take this Jeff that was where they is that where they uh prohibited it no not necessarily the virtual learning piece is you know the um important point that was made earlier about during the pandemic I think we've we've learned a lot about how to be able to navigate the world uh digitally and that this isn't optimal and we wouldn't um necessarily be utilizing this much but I think the the point is uh I had a request not that long ago that hey you know the number of illnesses in this building are getting quite High you know what about having a remote day something that
056could be scheduled you know like all right well this Friday we're hitting almost 20 percent absenteeism in a building we want to knock down the spread a little bit we could do a remote day for that building with advanced notice or snowmageddon is coming and we all know that we're going to get 30 inches of snow on Tuesday with enough advance notice we could uh you know initiate a remote day if we could do that you know I'm not not asking for 180 days a year maybe a cap of three or something that um could maintain continuity we're not adding days to the end of the year uh things like that um that would be something I think worth pursuing the other piece of that that I think we would like to see in light
057of the shortage of teachers uh use the story that you know there was a point when I was Cheshire High School principal we were hiring a Latin teacher and I was seriously considering a woman who was a secretary at a for a church because she was familiar with the Latin mass that was the level of Latin that I was this was like the top uh of the pool but if we had a opportunity to provide remote classes you know through like Aces or something where as some teaching positions are very difficult to fill we could offer that opportunity for our kids and benefit that way through the collaboration so that's the virtual learning piece yes so and uh so you mentioned if the state uh uh is not allowing it so we got a report
058actually all boards got report I think a month or so ago from the state department education where study was done about remote learning and it was a task put together that us and I've talked to almost all the legislators they they know much about it long story short and I report um they talk about the benefits of remote learning covet it's very lengthy the recommendation was not to mandate a Statewide virtual learning program because of the cost of 700 million dollars so what they recommended is to study further potentially these kind of scenarios so it's still more to be had but so right now we can't even do it if we wanted to but at least the state studied it and they're trying to find SDS trying to find ways to see what parts of
059it might be feasible it could be determined you know so that's what it's worth yes yeah I would just said that you know we invested and probably other school districts as well we invested a lot of money in a lot of technology to be able to uh be more Nimble during the pandemic and in my in my senses that it only makes sense to have that flexibility when we need it and it's not the same thing if you're adding a day here and there three days a year as Dr Solon stated it's not the same thing as having remote learning it's it's just a way to supplement conditions that are unpredictable and extenuating circumstances I guess is what I and particularly when we realize that the world is Shifting to a greater degree of remote
060employees and college students and everything else that there's a benefit to be had from a learning perspective too that's all right yeah I'm not uh with my kids both being in elementary school I saw first firsthand up close I'm not a real fan of virtual learning or remote learning by and large but having our options available makes sense and I also think that there's definitely a difference I mean a senior in high school is not the same as a kindergarten or first grader I think Charter Oak State College they do a lot of stuff remote for college age kids um you know you're a senior in high school I think it could work out quite well for depending on the student anyway I think I I do want to keep our options open um education
061cost sharing the law changed it's being phased in the overall impact on Cheshire is expected to be assuming funding level State static over the course of years our funding level drops about ten thousand dollars a year for seven years but ecds it generally is it's generally not funded fully anyway right so I mean we can ask for full funding for ECS as well as full funding for all the mandates um is there anything was there anything specific that you were you were requesting for a change in the ECS the way it was the way it's being phased in yeah well at the least can we stop the phase then okay at the most can we fully fund yeah okay I mean that shifts the burden from the tax local tax base to the state um
062I mean I guess you could make the argument we're paying it one way or another but um I think we do a pretty good job managing our resources locally supporting the you know the state the state ECS as it was written who I think would be a great step forward for our community um so that was that was it for the superintendent's requests uh you wondering um we just have one more page with the main oh there was yep oh yes yeah actually a page and a half of mandates oh the list of mandates okay so I don't know if Mike can see that here here's the list of uh unfunded underfunded and uh other mandates which are simply restrictive in nature I guess I'm thinking that probably covers everything there um many of which
063have some sort of uh Financial impact on us so yeah simply fully funding them would be great now we didn't so the the policy committee did not actually vote on the superintendent's uh requests I think we could get the legislators to come speak to us what I would like to ask is if anybody had anything else that they might feel strongly about in terms of a discussion that we would raise with legislators uh I I think if legislative get together and review response as you could and we're not gonna do that tonight this is just a committee report not a legislative committee meeting okay but I I just want to make sure we get stuff if there is anything out there yeah just um ping me about it yeah I'm trying to also uh get
064a list of the legislative priorities that Kate voted on last month it's extensive there's actually a book uh we went through everything from everything that's listed here through uh more opportunities to recruit teachers because the teacher's shortage uh fully funding ECS people are very livid about that because um some some this phase is affecting a lot of communities to uh even the way um School construction projects are reimbursed and uh you know uh chesher they kind of knew about Cheshire wondering how our rate went up when I forget the gentleman from a town where theirs is like 27 reimbursing I'm like I guess you gotta talk to your legislator so there's there's a whole slew of things there they're publishing it now so I assume we'll get that probably first week of January but I
065I think there'll be more ideas there but I did nothing out of the ordinary it's just I think we're just asking folks to fund what's being mandated at the end of the day you know but better than that I think that I think the my main concern is this I appreciate everything that the superintendent gave us but I don't want anyone on the board of ed to think in any way that we're you know I want it to be limited to what the superintendent's thoughts are I mean I hope that all of us you know bring forward ideas in the discussion one of the things I mentioned was gender identity that I just want to raise with the state legislators when they're here but just want everybody to bring some thoughts great faith the only
066one ideas here we go um I look at this and um you know for example the right to read the man hours that we're going to have to put in to get the waiver are just I don't even know if you've even begun to calculate that um uh the teacher evaluations we have a flexible evaluation system here that you have to get a waiver for every year um you know we have three pages I don't how many mandates are we here some of them probably obsolete none of them carry a Sunset date none of them are ever reviewed to see if they're even still value valid and I go back to the this is quixotic this will never happen but the way educational law is set up in the state we all are agents of
067the state we all have to work in accordance or act in accordance with State interests and the state is now arguing let's just take right to read that they need to tell us when we have a great reading program what we have to do something's got to change you know this is about District autonomy and we don't we are at the Winds of the state and we're seeing that especially with this particular Bill once this gets resolved there will be another one so I am just I on my bully pulpit here but I just we have got I think to argue for our autonomy we're a good District we are not going to sell our kids short and I the distrust that is behind this just kind of is um discouraging I think so um
068if I could wave my magic wand we would somehow fix this but uh I can't so but anyway I got it on my record so or on the record so thank you very much for letting me say that thank you faith maybe we'll just schedule a time to bring folks and I mean this isn't anything that is a formalized platform you know we can review things I can share the cab information when it's available we you know you can review this this is in no way shape or form the only things that we can talk about I think we would design it to be conversational this is just gives us a little bit of structure if we wanted to add more to the structures Tim mentioned I would encourage you to reach out to Tim
069in the meantime if there's an appetite for it I will reach out to our legislators and try and schedule that at the next available opportunity looks like there isn't that Faith would uh knock me off my chair if I didn't no so yeah absolutely no definitely is I think I remember asking reaching out to our Representatives uh last month to see a development and I did talk I did meet with two of them uh separately because uh they couldn't attend a cave conference but they were great enough to meet afterwards I told them that this was being worked on and they absolutely want to be here great uh once they have some dates and unfortunately I reached out to all of them I only heard from two but it's usual too so not worried about
070it great thank you uh go ahead and then then Sam well I'm sorry did I jump in I just want to share my frustrations and in agreement with faith on the right to read um I think it just goes to show what happens when the legislator throws things in in the 11th hour and that's that's just not good policy it's not a good way to operate and um maybe that should stop so thanks for saying it faith I agree that the that practice may not be the best in the world but when you honestly when you full transparency here when you look at the um the legislation itself it's it's really not onerous um that's more suggestive unfortunately I feel like the breakdown occurred after the legislation with the way that it was uh put
071into practice uh not to throw anybody under the bus but I think you know uh it got a little sideways with the the committee in the sde unfortunately but you know hopefully we're working that out it was when it went to committee was when they that's post committee like so the legislature there's not a legislative committee this is a committee designed by sde uh with reading specialists and there was definitely a breakdown there yeah yeah I get it thank you yep so I I appreciate the listing Dr Solon that you have here because obviously my day job the impact over there is greater than what we are experiencing here but the message that I would like our legislators to understand is what happened next door is clearly going to impact Us in some way shape
072or form to a you know hopefully not a higher degree um I'm particularly staring at number five with the virtual learning and you know the opportunities I think we discussed this in the past already with students being able to um you know a language is one key item you know we may not have the course options here for kids but if they are able to virtually you know sign in and access that we're just losing a lot of opportunity here um and I I definitely agree with the right to read act the cost implications are massive and um I'm dealing with it now but I think at at some point the state does need to realize that if you're asking us to differentiate instruction for children you need to differentiate for districts as well too
073so thank you everyone so any topics uh for our potential session with our Representatives please send to Dr song and Oregon CC Tim and legislative committee um and I'll try to get out what k um try to get us sooner and later so you guys can get ideas some things that are out there but um other than that thank you very much for the update and discussion uh up next is approval minutes in our packets we do have uh minutes from the meeting held on November 17th with someone like to make a motion and I move that the Cheshire Board of Education approved the minutes from the meeting held on November 17 2022. 8 Seconds any uh discussion or changes to the minutes seeing as their Andrews I was not present yeah neither was I
074but uh let's see here or I came late you know what I was present I came late never mind I'm sorry Andrew you're lost sorry Tony wasn't here though as soon as there are no no changes or discussion uh the motion is we move the Board of Education move to the board education improve minutes meeting held from on November 17th 2022 all those in favor all those abstains I was not here that night I was being I was being blindsided by representative Linehan so thank you to motion passes the secretary do we have any correspondence I have not received any correspondence thank you and finally Orlando or ultimately the superintendent's report thank you I wish I could play some kind of things finally we felt a little bit uh maybe finally like oh we finally
075get to dessert uh the superintendent's report um this is uh I think maybe the theme today is a little bit of um careful what you ask for right so we've spent many years praying um and working diligently to pass a referendum and now it's like wow there's a lot of work associated with it and I want to thank Vin uh for the amount of time that he's had to put into this well juggling our budget preparations it's not easy by any stretch Marlene will get her share when we start working on the you know building layouts and things like that but um just as an update really uh exciting stuff we went and toured the sites with the state department of Ed uh or excuse me oscgr a couple of weeks ago um Vin as
076a trooper lost a shoe in that you know walking through the bogs of his uh you know I said Vin you sure you want to do that oh yeah he's being a trooper and then he's uh about shin almost knee-deep in the mud uh over at casertano farms and I still let him get in the car because I'm a nice guy like that anyway um we did that view after that the at least there was a benefit to that we received notification today that we are officially approved by the state for both sites very exciting we're officially yep we're officially on the list uh which means that I'll go before the legislation legislature uh this winter and assuming that they approve it which nobody was aware of districts being taken off the list who have
077been asked to be um I think we're in good shape there so we've fulfilled that across that hurdle we did a tour of the school building committee uh did a tour yesterday of both properties as well just so they could kind of put their eyes on the sites if they were interested and so that is squared away our next meeting of that committee will be held Monday night in room 207 here at Town Hall where we will be reviewing uh requests for qualifications for Architects and owners reps at least um then you know really worked on putting that together and Jeff dinofrio the town attorney and myself have reviewed those uh Sean's reviewing those now the town manager um and we're we're trying to finalize the construction manager RFQ potentially for Monday certainly the prioritizing
078the architect and the owner's rep at least to be able to hopefully get them on board as sap will be posting that information publicizing it after the New Year it's a solicit requests for qualifications other than that is um you saw and heard this evening we we've had just an incredible fall Sports season like I could never remember where we had every growth sports team win the their Championship the uh at least the at the conference level and with soccer and football had a great season as well for the boys side so there's been a lot of positive stuff going on at CHS across the district and we're looking forward to moving through winter that's it for me with regard to the building committee you said Monday December 19th right right what time 7 P.M
079thank you here hear it in 207 200. now that's really a working committee um where they're going to be going through the drafts of those and the drafts are you know probably 15 pages long uh for each RFQ and they'll be going through the drafts of those rfqs to identify any issues or any questions they may have we hope to finalize those like I said for publication in January how many responses have you gotten well we haven't published those yet those are the rfqs have to be finalized oh by the committee on Monday got it okay sorry I put those out in January and as we kind of I've said jokingly we'll do an Intergalactic search for the best qualified Architects and uh everything like that and we'll hopefully the the we'll start doing interviews
080uh end of February early March to to nail it down I hope they have some sustainability background yeah yeah there it is there it is probably Fusion yeah we're moving there you can just hold out another couple of weeks sorry any other questions for Dr Solon on his report uh thank you Dr Solomon sure thank you uh we have no old business uh new business I don't have an update other than to remind us that I believe um is December 20th there's a town hall holiday get-together for elected committees and officials so if you're going I hope to see you there'd be nice to see everybody it's been a while I mean everybody um so there's that I don't have anything else I'll see you there Tony I will be there again maybe wear an
081ugly sweater contest or something I don't know but we'll be there with bells on I guess uh other than that uh before we adjourn executive session just uh remind our large audience that we we have no other meetings this month um we will be coming back in January uh Monday January 9th at 7 pm is a Kirkland committee meeting uh Tuesday January 10th is policy and uh on January 12th uh here in town council chambers is the presentation of the superintendent's budget so looking forward to that and then there's a whole slew of budget meetings on January and February so looking forward to seeing everybody in the new year uh I've been suffering that's watching and Peter if we don't see you enjoy your holidays have a happy New Year hopefully I will be in
082touch uh if not please uh have a safe and happy holidays so uh do I have a motion to adjourn into executive session Tim motion to adjourn into executive session to discuss the superintendent's evaluation and that is to to more more precisely goals annual goals yeah so the motion is uh move that the meeting be adjourned executive session include Dr Solomon with no action to follow and to discuss the superintendent's evaluation so all those in favor is unanimous thank you we are adjourned into executive session