001not have to tell the parents where minor children are involved this is a clear violation of parental rights third also to insist that one individual has a right to intimidate 20 other students is absolutely ridiculous a girl can change in a boy's locker room saying says this policy what about the other boys don't they have rights the lawyer says the boys can choose to change somewhere else this is bullying by The More by the minority parents have to wake up about this I can talk more and more about this issue I went to the board meeting and I took a lot of notes but I don't want to continue totally about this but I just wanted to be brief but let people know that this is an issue that has come up okay thank you
002very much thank you um are there any other um is there anyone else from the audience who'd like to speak okay we will move on to committee reports um and first up is curriculum sorry sure so the curriculum committee had a meeting on Monday November 14th we had one piece of new business and four pieces of informational items so the new business was um as we do every year we um are presented with the program changes at Cheshire High School so Dr Maureen Reed provided an overview of the recommended changes to the 2023-24 Cheshire high school program of studies and the changes include additions of the following courses experimentation and Discovery in the chemistry lab exploration of science phenomenal uh ECE course popular music and diversity in American society beginning guitar Advanced CNC Manufacturing which
003is a um Community College course as well Naugatuck Valley AP pre-calculus ECE course if you love it teach it and advanced theater oh and fundamentals of theater which both are CCP courses other changes include combining two semester courses into a full year Child Development and human growth and adding an ECE option to AP Calculus BC uh also opening up web and app design to ninth grade students and courses deleted from the programs of study include Algebra 1 CP3 Algebra 1 CCP and that goes back to what was was added for algebra for math class and also deleted his math analysis and American Sign Language and healthy ballots so that's all that's all listed and easy for people to look up as well informational items the first one was um Ms Solano shared an overview of
004the Connecticut right to read legislation the overview included the current timeline established for districts to indicate what approved instructional materials they will Implement beginning in July of 2023. and the opportunities that districts will have to submit a waiver should they not plan to use one of the approved programs uh the way it would have to indicate that a District's curriculum is evidence-based and scientifically based we had some robot bus discussion around that we believe we're doing quite well in that area already Additionally the curriculum requires a focus on oral on these six items I think there are six oral language phonemic awareness phonics fluency vocabulary rapid automatic name letter sound fluency and reading comprehension at this moment the district's waiting to see if there are any changes to the timeline or to the process so
005we'll be hearing updates at Future meetings the second informational item was from Kevin Hanlon Who provided the annual report on the number of multilingual Learners in the district um I think it's suffices to say that we are growing in numbers with our multilingual learners um and so we were presented with some very interesting statistics on that the third informational item was a coaching update Ms Solano provided the regular update on coaching in The District in addition to sending Ed and we're talking about not Sports coaching right we're talking about uh coaching our teachers um in addition to sending additional teachers and administrators to training related to coaching all members of the high school science department will participate in three coaching Cycles with coaches from the Mandel Academy at the Connecticut Science Center those coaching Cycles
006begin this month and finally we are fourth informational item was uh from presented by Dr Mary gadd who High School principal who reviewed a letter being sent to families regarding a new caap program provided by the state it's Connecticut automatic admissions program caap offers students automatic admission to participating Connecticut colleges and universities based on high school grade point average or percentile class ranking both are calculated using the college board's formula if students meet the state criteria there they will receive a letter indicating their acceptance to the participating colleges which is pretty exciting it really takes away a lot of the barriers for students to apply to colleges so the colleges in the state that in the state of Connecticut that are participating colleges include Central Connecticut State University Eastern southern western Mitchell College University of
007Bridgeport University of New Haven and University of Saint Joseph and that pretty much wraps up our curriculum committee meeting thank you I'll entertain any questions either what I just have a question really relating to the multilingual updates knowing that we have an increase in that area first off the first question is do we translate any of our correspondences to families and then um we talked about that resources parent Square does that okay and then resources for students to get access to the you know the curriculum yeah great great questions and we discussed both of those and and discussed ways to have also have celebrations of families and um backgrounds and sort of re celebrating the fact that we have students who speak more than one language in our school district and it's um it's pretty
008exciting but also how to bring them and their families into the schools we also have um a halftime tesol certified teacher at the high school at the elementary and middle school we used some of the bounce forward money to make sure that we had teachers who were T-cell certified in those roles some of our literacy support tutors also possess a tesol certification so those are some of the ways that we're getting at that support in addition to when we hired Ryan Murphy last year to be a liaison for English language Learners and their families so he's plays a big part in that too foreign I'm curious what does a typical day look like for a child whether it's Elementary School High School I mean how much I'm assuming they're in a classroom learning in English
009for the most part I mean okay so a lot of that depends it depends on a lot of things we have students who come here who are newcomers who are brand new and don't know any of the language and then we have all students throughout the Continuum so for our students who are are brand new to learning English they are in our classes at the youngest grades they participate through immersion and we have done a lot of training we have currently about 67 of our teachers signed up to participate in training around supporting our multilingual Learners through a consultant from Aces so while that's happening they're learning some of the skills to support students in the classroom so a lot of that and I think Kevin Hanlon had sent um the group a video on
010what this sort of looks like from a teaching perspective using a lot of visual cues using hand motions it's almost if you think about charades making sure that you have a lot of visuals and things to point to in your classroom to help with instruction but we're not in the in the it's not a good practice to translate everything that we're giving to them because we want them to begin to understand the language as we all did through immersion however we will translate some things we we do translate things that go home to them and I want to make one other point about translation uh we did have um that's a good point we did have um translation services available through a web-based program during conferences as well for parents so it really looks differently
011depending on the student and depending what their needs are they take a test later on in the year called the loss which measures proficiency and that's when we're able to determine their levels of proficiency and speaking reading and listening and we also have designation within PowerSchool to make sure that we're tracking students even once they test out of the loss and have a proficiency level that we're still watching them and knowing that while they may have a proficiency level their family may not and so that would be important for us when we're going to do things like conferences so with regard to parent-teacher conferences do any of the kids have parents who don't speak English and we have teachers who don't speak their language correct and how have you tackled that or maybe the parents
012at that at this point they haven't reached out and said we want to have a parent-teacher conference we reach out to them to offer the translation services gotcha sometimes they'll have an older sibling translate um sometimes they might bring a friend but this year we we really were um very communicative and letting folks know that we have this translation services that we can put in place and it's web-based and it covers a lot of different languages because while we have top five languages spoken we have students within District who speak more than 20 languages so it's not like they all speak Spanish or they all speak Urdu it really does cover more than 20 languages total great thank you any other questions okay great um do you conclude your reports I did conclude my report
013thank you okay uh we'll move on to finance um and I guess I will um ask Mr maciano to give the report thank you good evening ladies and gentlemen Finance report for this evening is going to be kind of boring and brief because everything is is holding up just fine on our budget I did provide the board members the updated report really there's no um no additional news from when we reported uh our October 20th meeting we are still going to be holding a 40 cap on non-payroll expenditures through the end of December as a precautionary note but you know other than inflation and an increase in Energy prices our budget is sound at this point we don't have any surprises on the horizon that are coming to fruition so that is looking very very
014good um on the budget front I will add that we are in the throes of preparing the 23-24 uh operating budget so we can be ready to present that in early January so that's keeping us busy in School District Operations and I'm ready to go on medical benefits unless there are questions on finance yes thanks Adam yeah I'm just curious the numbers are relatively small but I'm just looking at certified salaries yeah first four rows they're all you know whatever 90 99 percent expended and encumbered and then I'm looking at the next you know substitutes would make sense to me that there's nothing expended or encumbered because you don't know what's going to be happening there um although you can expect that you're going to be using the full budget or you know about that
015Homebound and Student Activities what how do how does that get paid out is that on a monthly basis so because I'm thinking it would I wouldn't think there would be something encumbered there or more encumbent there I'm just curious we don't encumber um homebound because that's essentially that's tutoring Services we pay as we go so it's like substitutes in a sense the wave okay yeah we don't come with that and then Student Activities that's primarily paid on a quarterly basis as each Sports season okay wraps up oh then the coaches get paid correct okay so fall season just ended this is through October 31st correct and nobody got paid by October 31st I thought okay that's easy thank you and so we don't encumber those yeah no no that makes sense that makes sense thank
016you you're welcome uh seeing no additional questions you may continue on thank you medical benefits report you know again the board members have the report as of October 31st uh claims for the month of October were a million twenty two thousand four thirty nine which is good because our budget is a million dollars per month and if you take a look at the first four months of the year three of the four months our claims were lower than the prior month which is a good trend on a year-to-day basis our average monthly claim is about one million one hundred seventy nine thousand so that's a little over ten percent above the expected uh budget and I will tell you that there's some you know relatively large claims that are hitting that are included in these
017numbers we will be getting stop loss reimbursements on those relatively soon which you know is good news but it's also bad news because large claims then drive the stop-loss premiums that we have to pay the subsequent year so as of the end of the um period which is October 31st the medical will Reserve fund is 1.269 million that covers 1.27 months of claims it the balance is only decreased by about 65 000 on a year-to-date basis so it's holding about where we would like for it to hold again when we budgeted this year we weren't budgeting to increase our Reserve balance we would just budgeting to meet our monthly claim um and so we'll keep tracking it hopefully in January when the new HSA plan year begins we'll start to see you know a bit
018of a drop in claims below the million dollar per month expected claim totals and that's the update on medical benefits any questions on medical benefits no um I'll just add I guess a question that's a little off topic and I guess maybe it's more towards budget season in January but um I think as we've all noticed that perhaps the financial markets have been a little volatile and I was wondering if there how are pension contributions are going to look if they're going to substantially change or does the uh uh the Actuarial contribution is that locked in for a period of time and we're not have to worry about it till maybe next year or maybe we're on an upswing again and you know maybe things have evened out any thoughts well our pension contribution is
019there's two pieces to it one is the employees that are still in the town pension which has been closed to new employees since um 2015. um so one component which is fixed is the employees that have 403 b we know that that's probably going to remain around the 300 annual budget line it's the town pension portion that is variable that and I know that that is your question so because there has been extreme volatility in the markets it doesn't necessarily mean we're going to see a significant requirement in the in the contribution we have to mix I don't expect it to change much we've been at around the 950 000 per year budget for the town pension I expect it to be in roughly that same range okay thank you Tim thanks Adam yeah on
020the budget uh then do you happen to know uh what what are the in very broad terms what are the Investments because I'm thinking it's not really that it's it's not 100 in the stock market or anything like that I'm thinking it's more you're talking the town pension yeah the part that we're participating in because from what I recall the last time I saw it it was um alternative assets I was surprised by a fairly high percentage in that um but do you happen to know what it is I I don't offhand okay I mean it's primarily invested in equities but it is conservatively conservatively invested and I could bring the pension report I could provide it to the board members by email that just shows the rough um percentage by category of equities fixed
021income alternative Investments uh thank you um and then aside from that how what's the what's the um what's your routine for getting updates from the actuaries I'm thinking annual on this annual and when does that happen typically not usually until after we complete our budget process we get some preliminaries you know possibly in January okay so there could be craziness that leads to updates from the actuary during the year but normally you're following an annual cycle so the actuaries don't make significant changes year to year based on you know what what's happening in the stock market in particular because it's a long-term Trend that they're looking at that's why I don't expect that because of the market turmoils you know over the last 12 months or so that we're going to see a significant change
022to the contribution required most of that contribution requirement is based on you know number of employees that are paying in number of employees that are receiving benefits the investment returns certainly but it's also based on what we have that expected return rate to be and the reason our pension contribution has gone up quite a bit over the last decade is because the actuaries have requested that we lower the expected rate of return which has been done so our expected rate of return I believe now is seven and a quarter percent long term yeah so I again I don't I don't think that's gonna um be a significant issue this year but we'll let you know as soon as we know thank you any additional questions no um all right uh then I guess that will
023conclude the finance report thank you Mr maciano Mr Martelli right on time I know sorry I apologize for the uh tardiness I was downstairs in the Planning and Zoning meeting presenting about Economic Development so anyway um we had a the planning committee had a great meeting back on November the 10th um to discuss the proposals I received based on an RFP that was issued for space need requirements or space needs at our elementary schools um obviously the referendum has passed but that still doesn't um cure what might be needed between now and the time that those new schools do open we decided to prioritize looking at Doolittle school and Highland School as locations for any temporary classrooms or for some space analysis of those buildings as to how to fit more students in there if
024needed over the next few years um we interviewed antonazi Associates silver Petrocelli and Associates and fire architecture um all three gave quality performances you know we're lucky we have three quality firms who are submitting for the town that would like like to work with us um we came to a consensus that we were asked Vin to go back to antonizy and Associates to look to see if they can give us a per school cost to do the analysis for the space need planning and then once we have that information back submitted to us we're going to reconvene as the committee and take a look at that and see if we want to move forward with with that group that was that was the bulk of the meeting um you want to add anything to that
025no all right I can't give an update that and tonight oh yeah breaking news okay we do have breaking news Anthony did come back um and I did share it um with the planning committee members but uh just recently so they their original proposal was 18 500 to do all four schools um and they came back and gave an explanation as to why but if we want to just do um one school at a time and and the recommendation and the thought is let's just do Highland and do little because those seem to be the ones that will be um hitting that capacity sooner than the other two which um anyway antonazi came back with sixty five hundred dollars per School into this school four which I you know my personal opinion I don't think
026we need to commit to that now they'll still hold the 18 500. all right so we just need to get another meeting on the books and go from there good so my question is um if we don't do all four schools um well would there would redistricting be part of of taking care of of enrollment or I think the answer is that redistricting could always be part of addressing enrollment issues however that process is pretty painstaking yeah for families and school systems to go through particularly when we know that we're going to be doing it anyway in four years um and so you know and I don't know that it would really resolve much given the fact that all of our elementary schools are nearing capacity there's just even when you redistrict there's not a
027lot of room to grow so hence the the you know pursuing other options here and that has been said you know in the planning committee our goal is to not frivolously just add Portables on because it's expensive and it's you know relatively unsightly and everything else takes up a lot of space but really judiciously look at where can where do we need that where is it a must-have and we'll go from there great thank you for that so in the spirit of time the way I understand is we don't have to have a form of motion or approval so from what I'm hearing from my colleagues here to my left who make up the planning committee could we just authorize you to move forward with antoniz tonight and yes this process underway right yep all
028right I mean I know we love meetings but just I think no no no I think on this on this one we could uh we could we could we could absolutely yeah and I think it's a good call because they're holding out holding the 18 at you know as placeholder for us in you know if we decide to move forward with four which we hope we don't need to so all yours man all right I will take care of it and you know we'll set up the next step is really to set up the initial meetings you know with the principals of antonazi and the school staff so we'll get that going and we'll certainly keep the planning committee on the board updated but thank you Andrew so we're talking about Doolittle and Highland what
029okay um and the other thing uh just to mention because I didn't hear it mention here uh there has been some talk about doing this you know for the next couple years as a temporary measure um including the word Portables but one of the things that was discussed in our meeting was not even necessarily using Portables but just looking at uh yes like Sam just said space reconfigurations um to see what opportunities are there so yeah I think we definitely should be going forward with this as quickly as possible because we have issues thank you all right thank you um nothing further not to be a wet blanket but as a point of information were you just taking action as a subcommittee without a duly noted notified meeting there there's no vote required on this
030there's no voters no right yeah okay we have we asked that question uh [Music] thank you no thank you I want to be sure um I guess uh so that concludes uh planning yes thank you thank you Mr Martelli um we'll move to uh Personnel Mr White thank you Adam um yeah uh so Personnel the Personnel committee myself and Anne uh Tony paragini the chairs also on the Personnel committee but he wasn't present at the meeting what night was it Jeff just it was the night that we had Thursday November military showcase I don't remember the exact date Thursday November 3rd two weeks ago um so we had a Personnel committee meeting uh in executive session but the the broad out the broad Contours of what we discussed was uh the superintendent's goals um generally
031he he has uh in my opinion he had a number of uh good specific uh goals to achieve this year but more broadly we were discussing it in the context of the schools overarching priorities social emotional learning complex thinking and then the third big one which we now have which is uh two new schools um to begin with but School modernization in general is we have to look at other space needs with Highland and Doolittle right now and keep the conversation going on the entire school system and what that looks like so again just framing all this in terms of the superintendent's annual goals thank you and yeah I'm not sure if did you want we want Tony here for uh uh at the end of this meeting there's an item on the agenda for
032possible executive session um so we may have a meeting tonight I'm not sure but we're missing two members and I personally as a Personnel chair would like to have all seven members here for uh to be taking any sort of action on his goals at least discussion is fine but thank you yes we can discuss that when the motion gets there I suppose right um is there any questions for personnel right now no okay I guess that concludes your report Mr White all done thank you all right now moving on to policy um so uh policy committee uh met a few nights ago November 15th um we um as the speaker alluded to um earlier this evening we devoted uh over an hour and 45 minutes to a um not exactly discussion it was a
033presentation by our attorney with a question and answer session by the uh members of the subcommittee um in I guess in the scope of learning about a trans what a transgender policy for Cheshire Public Schools would look like um and that covered uh in the in the time of that hour and 45 minutes we covered state law we covered federal law uh we also um through I guess uh through a correspondence from a parent and through the scope of of the uh um of the proposed policy written by Cade um we also covered uh parental rights uh sort of pertaining to transgender issues as well as um just overall sort of sort of breached out to overall parental uh rights uh inside of a public school system um I would encourage if you have interest
034in that topic that that was videotaped that video it was recorded and we don't use videotape anymore I was recorded it's I believe it's on YouTube now um in in my opinion uh it's probably one of the most comprehensive uh presentations that perhaps any board has received outside of perhaps the conference that some of us are going to be attending tomorrow um so I thank the attorney to that came in and answered a lot of our questions um as well as I guess well a question from one parent and I'm sure and as many of the board members here could say that uh maybe some of the questions uh that a lot of our constituents have been asking us over the last let's say year or so uh so I encourage those who who have
035interest on this on the topic to please watch that video it covers almost probably any question or answer you may be seeking um on top of that so once we concluded that portion of the meeting we also spoke about our nepotism policy and it turns out that we can revise that policy to sort of uh keep the Integrity uh get a little Integrity I don't know if that's the right word the intent thank you the intent of the policy that that we had passed uh in 2019 I believe it was um so we're going to be officially reviewing uh that policy uh beginning at our at our next meeting um after that we moved um uh into a first reading uh a policy of 5141.213 administering medication uh specifically uh Nar Narcan right Narcan uh
036which is a uh a I guess a powerful counteractive drug for opioid uh overdose and we found out also it may is effective against fentanyl overdose as well um and we move that to a first reading um for a second reading we moved um a policy 3543 School activity fund and 93 21.2 electronic board education Board of Education meetings uh these we had reviewed previously and we're moving to a a second reading all the policies I'm mentioning are posted on our website and can be reviewed um and then you um the the public can send questions or comments uh via our email that's posted or you can email any of the board members as well um uh finally uh for a third and final reading we moved uh 35 42.43 uh food service charging policy
037um and that's just sort of I guess it was I guess made to be updated for uh for statute purposes statute update and um which uh if uh Dr Solon you you spoke previously that we were sort of already engaged in in this practice already that's really around how we navigate charging and that don't have sufficient funds on account which has not been an issue for the last year and a half because everybody's been free the current projection is that we'll continue free meals through about the end of December um so yeah just about that time that's great um so that being said um I guess I'll I'll bring this motion um that the Cheshire Board of Education give a third and final reading to policy 3542.43 food service charging policy and direct the superintendent
038to put said policy into immediate effect so I have a second Mr Martelli um is there any discussion on the motion I'm sorry no board members on this side thank you all right seeing none I'll call for a vote all in favor it is unanimous of those present thank you very much um so with all that said for uh any board member who was not at that policy meeting uh are there any questions right now you coming I do just want to make one comment and also if the superintendent could please um first off thank you to Rebecca attorney um Goldberg who came to give us a very very lengthy but very informative session um and just giving us a lot of thought about the moving forward with the degender identity but we I did
039ask a question about and it seems to be there's misinterpretations and perceptions again um so if the superintendent can kind of repeat what was said at that meeting in that if families have questions in our need of support where are the resources of what can they do to be even more informed if they didn't get a lot out of what was given in an hour and 45 minutes hello there are definitely resources that families can turn to with questions um regardless what their circumstances are and they can reach out first of all to our school counseling office at each building uh Cheshire Youth and Social Services they are a tremendous resource on top of that they have connections to people who specialize in issues around gender identification and sexuality so those you know that's probably
040the best place to start is Rebecca said the other day you can kind of go down a rabbit hole on the internet just Google searching and you want to make sure that any sources you're going to are trustworthy and starting with the school or Cheshire Social Services probably your best bet and go ahead so my question is um around um professional development do are we have we been offering professional development for our teachers in handling issues of first of all having transgender students how to address some how to acknowledge it and maybe even how to let the other children in the classes of the other students in the classes if we're talking High School level um you know have discussions on how to be respectful around this issue great question first of all with respect
041to transgenderism one of the things that um Rebecca mentioned the other night is that we treat sexual expression the same way we treat every other protected class and all of every single employee receives annual training on discrimination which includes sexual expression gender identity so everybody has that right out of the gate then it really depends on the um the role that you play in the Cheshire Public Schools uh as to what sort of professional development access you may have so we had a number of counselors social workers some teachers at hummiston receive professional development from an expert in this field to provide an overview to to that it's not a a terribly common situation um you know it does certainly we do have students that are transgender in the school system but it's not the
042majority of our students by any stretch um and so we provide more targeted professional development to those people who need it and there are certainly uh opportunities for those that want to pursue more information to do so if they wish but I wouldn't say that we've done a lot with respect to all staff members getting more intensive PD on the issue foreign any other comments or questions all right um seeing none I'll conclude the policy committee report and um I don't think we have any other standing committees that need to report this evening so um we'll move on to approval of minutes one second Adam uh sure on the standing committees yeah do we have an update that Council just created a standing committee I guess we're just a liaison it's not a board the
043building yeah it was just stress that okay yeah just to mention thank you um so uh approval of minutes would uh anyone like to um make a motion uh Mr White I raise your hand I thought maybe you had it ready to go that the Cheshire Board of Education approved the minutes for meetings held on October 20th 2022 and November 3rd 2022. is there a second oh wow that's a three-way uh I'll get I'll give it the Sam this time oh okay Mr martelly Seconds is there any discussion or amendments to the minutes seeing no oh yes I have a minor change Carol on the um the Showcase meeting under adjournment it was seconded by me to adjourn that meeting we need a little name change know this know the spelling of my last name
044is yeah it's right at the beginning but that's minor yeah yeah yeah yeah thank you okay um I don't think that's gonna that's not really an amended minute right because it's spelling is not okay so um again we have a motion on the floor to approve um all in favor it is unanimous for those present thank you very much that's my spot here here we go just gotta check everything off Miss Harrigan do we have any correspondence I was given no correspondence and I have received none so hot off the presses I just received an email uh 739 asking about the progress toward establishing access to gender neutral bathrooms in our current schools and what plans will be considered for these bathrooms going forward and building the new schools it is required that there is
045a general neutral bathroom in each school it's easily accessible uh through a handicapped bathroom at the high school in middle school elementary schools are using more right now than nurses office at this time however um and the construction of new schools I mean because it is statutory it'll certainly be implemented and be one of the many code and legal updates that we'll find as we move into a new school so thank you for the question who is that from that is from um Jody Daniels and Jamie Lundgren thank you sure thank you um well that's a great segue because we'll move into the superintendent's report thank you very much um this is the first opportunity that I've had to really address the public in this way since the referendum passed and I I just want
046to give a few thank yous and acknowledgments for the effort first of all you know I really appreciate the community taking the time to access all of the information that I know many people work diligently to make available uh including the members of this board to make it clear and accessible for the community so that you know most votes could be passed or cast I know that it wasn't um you know it's never going to be unanimous and um Everybody voted in their conscience and I appreciate people just coming out to vote um and I'm certainly obviously personally glad that it passed but I wanted to thank the board and the council for working so diligently together for so many years um certainly predating many members on both you know bodies that this has been
047an effort and I really appreciate the persistence and perseverance toward this end uh I want to give a shout out in that respect as well to the school modernization committee who spent so many nights over the course of multiple years evaluating uh an incredible amount of information seeking out more information making sure that that information was uh you know comprehensive in in providing due diligence to to overturn all rocks that they needed to to find out you know ultimately what was the best plan and there was no magic bullet there which made it more difficult and I think what we have is a great compromise earned through many hours of their work so I really thank them um you know I'd be remiss if I if I didn't certainly highlight uh do a little parent
048and the chair of the political action committee Matt kohlhauer uh his he worked so hard over the course of particularly those last two months to again make sure that there was a lot of information and people who supported that project reached out to him and um you know he he was an incredible asset and a big reason why this passed uh to that end I want to thank also the treasurer of that that political action committee Mike Federico if you you may not know Mike by name but you probably know him is the the guy who makes a killer steak sandwich at the uh at the concession stand at Cheshire high school or many other uh food Delights over there Mike's been an incredible supporter of our students our community for many many the years
049and has been honored here in the past for that work so thank you to him as well you had to Auger and Phil Newton is the the chair of the Cheshire Chamber of Commerce and yet at the executive director I think it was important uh that early on that that body the business Community endorsed this project because they saw the the future and uh I think they deserve a lot of credit for that because it's not always a popular opinion but like I said they they saw the future and what was possible and uh they deserve a lot of credit for for that uh because it took some bravery to to step out and endorse us so thank you to them as well and then certainly last but not least by any stretch of the
050imagination uh I need to give an ad to Mr maciano he does so much incredible work behind the scenes um and he never gets flustered he's unflappable he's incredibly dedicated to a fault he uh I will never forget you know sometimes you you hit home runs and sometimes you don't and uh we you know would go out and we'd do the road show right we'd go to different homes over the summer and you know pitch pitch this to people um and Ben and I went out to one and I mean God Bless the people for for hosting but it was the host one neighbor me and Vin and so Vin spent you know an hour of his summer evening hanging out with me for the 1800th time listening to us talking about school modernization but
051never a complaint never a complaint just quietly ate the cookies that were handed out and uh you know pitched in and always contributed and that is him in a nutshell that he is uh a quiet uh Ambassador and contributor and um you know I don't think we're sitting here today without his efforts as well so uh thank you VIN and uh amen amen amen and and the fact that I get to embarrass him is just another Delight that I get to add to my day anyway um to just put a bow on school modernization as Tim mentioned Tuesday night the uh chamber excuse me not the Chamber of Commerce the Town Council uh created a school building committee uh that uh committee will soon meet and they are really at the reins of this project
052they will um initially probably determine if we'll have an owner's rep similar to what we did with Colliers and we I think could all agree that they were so instrumental in this process to help us understand what was necessary um so they'll probably start there and then immediately work on an architect and so there's a lot of work yet ahead and it's an exciting time but that group will get us started very talented and knowledgeable group I know Sam you are in that selection committee so I appreciate that um in terms of a you know I guess continuing the Cavalcade of recognitions uh tomorrow at the Connecticut Association of Board of Education and Connecticut Association of public school superintendents joint conference that's held annually uh down in Mystic the Cheshire Public Schools will be the
053Board of Education will be acknowledged for your work you're receiving a a board leadership award a board of Distinction award from from Cabe so you know something to put on the on the uh yeah congratulations on the refrigerator when you get home hang that up very exciting but it I think it's a testament to not just you know being content with showing up every day but you know really evolving as a group and and committed to doing the job right so congratulations to you guys uh another recognition last night I had the distinct honor of accompanying our Cheshire Public Schools teacher of the year Don DeMayo she's an English teacher and theater genius if you will at Cheshire High School bring musically yet that's another part of the Cheshire night life you have to have
054to savor because it is really just so amazing and um so she was there along with the other Connecticut state teacher the local district teachers of the year and the lieutenant governor spoke Charlene Russell Tucker the commissioner of education and was really a tremendous night to hear some inspiring speeches from some tremendous Educators so congratulations again to you Don um and then last but not least here uh I want to thank Mr grippo and his lovely bride who pushed uh gave us informed us of the 21st annual Travelers Actuarial and analytics high school day which um doesn't sound like something a lot of kids would leap at but they did you know we actually had six students who expressed interest in participating in that and I think it's a tremendous opportunity for students again to
055just kind of broaden their Horizons and their awareness and so tomorrow that event will take place and we have six students attending that so thank you for putting that on the radar so that's all that I have questions uh okay Tim go ahead yeah so first of all you had a meeting with vin in somebody's house and it was just the homeowner and the neighbor and I I do recall having seen pictures of people running for president out in Iowa who who have that many people attending their opening speeches so you should feel in Good Company even though there's not a lot of people new schools to the White House literally [Laughter] uh and a more serious question um CNN's been mentioned a couple times I'm just curious so to be totally upfront I don't
056watch CNN I really don't watch a lot of TV news I find it to be much more opinionated than factual when I do see it that also I think when I when I have followed it a little bit is probably more prime time than school day so I don't know there could very well be a difference yeah I appreciate you bringing this up to them because I want to clarify some stuff there okay I think uh you know it's easy to walk away with one impression of what's Happening um and it's we're not watching CNN there's a pro there's a package program called CNN 10 and it's available on YouTube I encourage people to go check it out it is if you didn't it just happens to be produced by CNN okay if it was
057produced by Fox if it was produced by America only Network or whatever you know I it is absolutely um non-partisan in any way it um is just brief clips of current events and when you mention things like geography and Civics and this is exactly what's in these brief videos that students watch for contemporary awareness of of events and it's funny because you'll hear some people say kids these they don't know what's going on all they know about is Tick Tock and things like that well they don't they they watch you know little brief videos um and they're really informative and again I would encourage you to check it out on on you know you can Google CNN 10 and it has every episode I mean there's an incredibly transparent um in speaking of transparency they
058did recently change their um self rating it's not um an outside rating and they said you know for 13 and up kind of thing I emailed them to ask you know what prompted that because when we evaluate this video it seems to be appropriate for our audience I haven't heard back from them yet but you know we'll continue to look at it and people like Kevin and and Marlene and the principal and the social studies you know department chair the division leader at Dodd um they all evaluate these things and uh there's a lot of thought and care that goes into that but it is you know just a neutral contemporary piece of information again it happens to be produced by CNN 10. yeah no I'm a believer that facts facts still exist and CNN
059or fox or MSNBC could stick to facts yeah I don't know that they do like I said I don't watch it much MSNBC and fox I know I watch them a bit and I think there's a lot of opinion in there a lot of Leaning going on but it's but it's definitely possible for any of them to actually report facts without a serious I mean everyone is biased to some extent the editors or whatever but to minimize that in large part and to just do the news the the facts I think that um I I see it as being totally plausible what you're saying yeah and if you disagree let us know okay nice to hear your perspective thank you sure so I know the superintendent's being modest but hats off to you sir because
060there is a ring master and you did a fabulous job you know pulling in the troops and just putting that stuff on your car to promote you know walking the the parade every a community event I think your name was out there so it's it really kudos to you so thank you for all you did and I know there's more to do Ben no pressure but thank you as well too thank you thanks I mean I think the uh harassment I took from my wife children and Neighbors about the stuff on my car for several months is worth the Applause alone thank you um so let's see when my political career began I think in 2006 when Mr White recruited me to help him with his Town Council campaign um I think was that maybe
061the town pool it was maybe that was the first respirandum I don't remember when I know the pool uh the pool passed I believe in 1999. oh wow it was way before that but there were multiple there were multiple pool votes after that they were like before and after the actual one when it passed yeah so there were like three votes on a Town pool over the course of years I if I recall um and then we had a battle over turf field which was a million dollars which was partially already paid for um by outside funding and so here we are today in uh 2022 where um uh and I want to thank the the voters of Cheshire because I don't know if you really appreciate what happened I'm sure many do but the
062margin of victory of of the referendum passing I was I think well over 2 000 votes and that's like the huge the largest margin of victory that anything has ever had in the history of Cheshire if I recall for schools roads always get 80 or 90 all right something that's really oh no yeah as far as the school who goes this is the margin of Victory is is unheard of here in Cheshire so for the town of Cheshire and the people of Cheshire to to really appreciate um what your team had put together and all the people worked on the uh the school uh planning committee um to put this plan together and to sell it and then for the the the town to understand it and embrace it is really uh Quite a feat
063so congratulations to you and to and to all of us not us but I mean the town of Cheshire to understand really this generational uh project that we've we've decided to to take up take on so uh I hope all goes well fingers crossed so congratulations and if I could just add a little bit more so today I was I was a guest speaker at the cost which is Connecticut organization of small towns all towns under 35 000 residents and um the town planner and I did a presentation about different economic development activity that's going on in the community and one of the things that I had to talk about was that we passed 166 million dollar School referendum here and after I was done with the presentation presentation was pretty awesome but after I
064was done with the presentation um we had a luncheon and I didn't have one or two or three but four different towns came over to talk to me specifically about that we passed the referendum how they had they were the Envy of them and how we did it and asking all those types of questions and so um I had to say that our superintendent was borderline annoying with getting the word out to just about everybody so no so congratulations to all of us just want to throw that out there that it's not just us that's noticing it but other communities across the state so good job any other comments or questions always fake me up does that conclude your report Dr song it does okay fantastic as close to sustainable construction as we can do
065it hey I had to get one one line in there one [Laughter] um okay uh I did not uh let's see there we have no old business on our agenda and I did not receive a report from our chair so um we have no uh chair report I guess uh what I will do is um read off um upcoming dates um so for uh Board of Education uh our next meeting is uh December 12th uh 7 P.M it's a quickly curriculum committee meeting at the humiston boardroom December 13th is policy committee 6 30 p.m um most likely virtual um a board of education business meeting uh December 15th 7 30 p.m uh council chambers um and let's see oh and then we have a whole bunch of looks like let's see these are dates in
066January wow that's a lot of dates um so uh yeah it's budget season so uh we're gonna have a lot of uh uh budget meetings in January I'll just say that how's that um and then upcoming oh it's like uh days off and or vacation is a Thanksgiving break November 24th and 25th uh winter break is uh December 23rd through January 2nd and Martin Luther King day is January 16th so make sure to to note that on your calendars um let's see so uh we have a motion to see pot okay go ahead I make a motion um that the meeting be adjourned into executive session to include the superintendent to discuss the superintendent's evaluation second including yeah to include the superintendent to discuss the superintendent's valuation does anyone else can be included so quick
067discussion I'm not expecting any sort of vote tonight but we're all here I think we just have a brief yeah get an update quick discussion all in favor thank you unanimous okay we will um uh adjourn into executive session have a good evening everyone thank you very much