001here here you i ask that we stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states thank you welcome this evening it's nice to have an audience so glad you're here uh we're gonna start with the uh school partnership awards so tim this is uh norton elementary and dr sullin whoever wants to go up there and present this honor principal grillo do you want me to read it yeah okay oh let me get my glasses oh kelly's just gonna read okay good evening everyone it is my pleasure to um present the school partnership award to the montgomery family lizzie and brian montgomery um at this evening oh should i read from there sorry here okay so the montgomery family generously donated their time and materials to renovate norton's front entrance last summer
002the gardens were overgrown and did not offer an inviting entrance to our vibrant school the work they did far exceeded simply cleaning up the beds as they offered to do the removal of the overgrown shrubs and trees and the addition of rock beds not only aesthetically replaced what was there but instead completely revived the energy our students staff and family members are greeted with as they enter our school each day norton is so grateful for the care time and resources they gave to supporting our norton school thank you so much for all that you did [Applause] hmm guys [Applause] so we're moving on to the next part of gender's public comment so there are members of the audience that wishes to address the board education you're welcome to do so as soon as there are
003none we're going to move on the report to standing committee uh starting with the curriculum committee report uh and you want to give us an update sure so i'll report on the curriculum committee meeting of monday april 18th um so we only did a couple of things it was a very efficient meeting if i must say so myself we had some informational items on the testing coming up so ms solano reviewed the 2022 smarter balance and next generation science standards assessment the parent communication sent out to families in the beginning of april and then the state assessments begin at dodd middle school next week with the ngss the next generation science standards assessment and continues during the first two weeks of may with math and ela in grades three through eight and conclude towards the
004end of may with ngss at grade miss solano also shared that the assessment information is used to identify strengths and needs from a curriculum and instruction standpoint as well as to understand student growth and performance from year to year and under old business we brought up again the and reviewed the language for the reconsideration of library books or other classroom resources and we made a recommendation for the policy committee so ms solano presented a draft policy language concerning the reconsideration of instructional resources and we reviewed it the policy draft is largely based on the k model policy and similar policies from other local districts um it's recommended that this policy be included in the 6000 series under instruction of the board of education uh policy manual so we made a motion to move that draft
005reconsideration of instructional materials to the full board for i'm sorry to the policy committee for review thank you and uh that was those were the two main items that we addressed at curriculum committee meeting awesome thank you so much up next is finance committee report thank you mr chair i will uh gladly hand the report over to mr massiana thank you mr grippo good evening everyone the board members do have in their packet the updated financial report as of march 31st i will speak to at the this report is rather brief the most notable item in this month's uh finance report is that the town council at their march um meeting and the board of ed at their march meeting approved the 1.5 million dollar increase to our budget and so if you look at
006the uh column called adjusted budget appropriation in either of the reports the total budget for the board of vet is 78 million 501.05 it was 77.001.052 prior to that edition but that money as the board knows it came in it was contributed to the medical benefits line and then it immediately was transferred into the medical benefits reserve fund so there's no additional spending capability it was money that we already had accounted for in the medical benefits reserve as far as the where we stand for the month of march which marks the ninth month of the fiscal year so three to go we are still in good shape we're at 91.7 either expended or encumbered we are actively in the process of reviewing all our accounts making our final entries for purchases and maintenance items and
007summer projects that we need to complete this summer you know as we look through the accounts some accounts are over on the maintenance lines but they're offset by accounts where we're under budget such as in transportation so i do expect a successful successful year-end close you know come june 30th the um you know only other thing that i wanted to mention this evening is that the um 2ser fund accounts that we have 439 000 in the esser 2 grant to be used by september of 2023 we are expending some of that this year i'm not sure we'll expend all of it so that would roll into next year we are again going through those details we meet now every two weeks as we approach here and close internally so again the message is you know
008we are in good shape um to close out the budget year successfully and i'll jump right to the medical benefits report and then we can come back if there are any questions so the board members do have the final uh updated medical benefits report as of march 31 this month's claims unfortunately took a significant jump to 1.29 million you know as we had reported in the prior months january when we turned the new hsu hsa plan year began our claims had come down to 843 000 in january then 7 45 in february bit of an uptick that was a surprise in march i will tell you that those are some significant large claims that are continuing to plague us so as a result the net change to our fund balance decreased by 257 000 and
009so as of march 31st the medical benefits reserve balance is one million two hundred four thousand i will share one other piece of news as i had our um the ct prime board met this morning and ct prime is the stop-loss carrier you know for the town and the board of ed as well as several other municipalities um our claims our stop-loss reimbursements actually reflected in the report you see is 361 000 but our reimbursements which we will receive total 520 000. so there's another 160 000 that is coming in stop loss reimbursements and if you factored that in it would take our reserve balance up to about 1.36 million even if this trend continues for the next three months of the year we still will have a reserve balance available um hopefully we don't
010continue to see these claims at a million dollars but you know they are what they are and there's really not that much control we have over what the actual claims will be you know the only unfortunate thing is with um stop-loss claims you know the more we receive and stop-loss reimbursement the more it affects next year's renewal right now for in the budget we've anticipated a 15 increase in our stop loss premium for next year hopefully that holds i think we will be in that general vicinity based on the board meeting we had this morning but i won't know for sure for another month and that wraps up the financial and the medical benefits report so if there are any questions i will be glad to address them thank you vincent so just for folks
011that are watching we'll be watching the recording so march we had uh 1.29 million dollars in claims you know up from 745 a month prior and our after all that and the um partial stopover same person got back and there's another couple of thousand dollars coming it's 1.2 million i was left in our trust in our reserve account so you know another month like march is going to wait about the account so in the end you know i cannot jinx us but um between now and end of june um if we that happens there's been any discussions with the town side if we need to shore up the reserve in case that does get depleted next few months we the council isn't aware of this latest month's update um but they they will be you
012know sean and i uh spoke with uh our usi consultant actually earlier this week so i'm sure that sean will report this and you know again i don't think we would wipe out the reserve but our balance will get pretty low you know over the next three months so we will you know continue to report and if if we hit may and and we still and we see that this claims rate continues we can certainly approach the council we can also look at what we have remaining in our balances before we close out the june 30th financials and if we have to undo some of the planned summer projects that is another way to contribute into the reserve fund we've done that to some extent in the past when we had availability so we'll keep
013watching and reporting and by the time the uh in the fiscal year june meeting happens we'll be able to review those that's situ if it materialize that situation we're going to figure out where to go right and we'll have claims through may by the time we have the final board meeting okay thank you welcome thanks vin i'm not sure if you mentioned this so you've got a variety of accounts that you tend to spend more at the end of the year like materials and supplies you usually have a number that you're targeting throughout the year percentage last time i heard you say you were at 60 that you'd open it up where are you right now we're at 80 now are you gonna keep it there until we get through you know into well into
014june i'm thinking at this point we are so the remaining 20 that we won't allocate you know we are yeah you know earmarking any purchase requisitions and purchase orders that go in you know we have an internal designation for summer projects so we know that we do not release those purchase orders until okay we understand exactly where we are okay all right thank you you're welcome um so when you met with the prime folks um are there other school systems experiencing the same uptick as we are are we unique for ins for some reason or no in fact um you know there's i think i've told aboard this before whenever i i meet with the ct prime board i there's a dr jekyll mr hyde and when we have high stop-loss reimbursements and i report
015at this meeting i feel good about it but then when i go to the ct prime board meeting i don't feel good about it because you know we're part of you know the losses you know for the year this year which is very unusual um all of our participating municipal members and some are like glastonbury we have uh like cheshire both town and board of ad other municipalities we have just the town or just the board of ed side this year all the communities are hitting stop loss limits and um right now we're running what we analyze is how much in premiums have we collected and how much in reimbursements have been paid out at this time last year we were about 40 percent of premiums collected were paid out as of um february 28th
016we're at 95 percent so and cheshire actually is one of the better communities this year so last year we weren't last year we were at one of the worst communities in terms of that performance so yeah the uptick is is pretty striking last year to this year and so i i think we were the anomaly the last couple of years this year we're not looking quite as bad as the other communities so that's a great question i appreciate you asking me because i can get it off my chest well now that you said that does prime have concerns about solvency no no because prime does not take on the we're not taking on the insurance risk anymore we haven't been for the last um this is the third year but we are shopping um you
017know for the renewal you know as we speak so you know we're looking at somewhere between a 15 to 20 renewal increase if we stay with the same provider last year the provider if you look at the difference between the premiums that they collected from all the ct prime members and what they paid out they were net revenue positive by three million dollars this year it looks like they'll be net at in a lost position of about you know 1.2 million dollars so over the two years they're still in the in the black so to speak and we hope that'll help us as we talk to them through our renewal but there will be an increase oh all right so you're like sitting right next to me tim's already had a question yeah i'll just
018i'll just i'm more than happy to cut him off all right go ahead uh a few months ago i don't know what the i didn't forget what his title is our broker tom kowalczyk yes so he was here a few months ago so i'm just thinking about the long term in addressing this he had mentioned that he felt there was the potential for doing um i don't know what the terminology is preventive prevent it taking preventive steps getting people to get out and walk wellness stuff like that wellness yeah just a general wellness program he thought that there might be some he thought there were some opportunities where we could uh put a little bit more into our wellness program to get some long-term benefits so i just want to put that back just remind
019you about it to make sure you follow up with him to see what he meant by that and what you could do what the schools could do with our staff about that yeah and and just to add and i guess explain a little bit so we do some wellness activities right now we have a step challenge going across not only the board but the town we also have a weight loss challenge that's running at the same time um there are um there's an active program called lavongo that's the company that has been rolled out to all board of ed employees these are for employees that have active diabetes to help improve the management and the care and the only other thing because there are more i don't want to bore you with all the details
020but we are negotiating with one of the bargaining units now you know the instructional assistants so you know we did put a proposal out and we've not completed negotiations but the board's proposal was that any employee that completes three specific measures you know one would be to complete a health questionnaire on cigna um the second would be to get you know their annual physical and and there's a third tier that's related to you know their health as well if they complete those three measures we would reduce the employees co-share in the following plan year and that is a program that you know was discussed and recommended by tom so we're negotiating through those details so there there are steps that we have been taking and we're trying to incorporate some additional measures into the bargaining
021unit contracts as we go forward thank you i was just going to ask what we currently do now and also um going back to the um esser funding with the governor's announcement for eight million dollars does that impact our current allocation for summer programming and so forth or how much did we we received last time i don't recall in terms of federal funding in total we've received about 1.8 million i think been and we didn't allocate any of that for summer well we did actually last year we did but this year we haven't really allocated that for some of the same summer programs we did last year last year we used it to bring students into the building we partnered with social services and just kind of it was more of a reacclimation program but
022we do have a robust summer program i don't know marlene if you want to add anything about what we're doing this summer i just wanted to add that we have some money left over from the transition summer programs that we did last year so i have a meeting actually next week to talk about a transition program for some high school students so we have that in the works funding from what they just disclosed the funding that they just disclosed i don't know that our numbers meet the criteria that they're looking for thank you seeing no additional questions this uh concludes the oh i'm i'm sorry mr gripper i just wanted to end one quick finance point that uh we've scheduled a finance committee meeting for may 3rd it's six o'clock to fulfill a couple of
023different objectives one you had made a good proposal back during the budget season that we have at least quarterly meetings to kind of examine you know future trends and what we'd be looking to to align our planning better fiscally for the operating budget in the future years one of the items that we're going to discuss is something that we internally had explored last year but never really brought to the board it's the department of justice has a what's called the stop grant it's students teachers and officers preventing school violence grant program and it can assist us with a lot of the different school security things we do i know that our policy committee heard a presentation from tom vivia who's a retired fbi uh behavior analyst now consultant who lives in town and we've worked
024with them for many years we've worked with him for many years about intervention um and you know we're firm believers in intervention to head off any potential violence and so this grant will help us toward that end so again that's may 3rd at six o'clock thank you for that reminder true seeing no additional questions now not quite as bad as last month right we now officially on the finance report thank you wow very efficient thank you so up next is planning uh andrew montel andrew martelly our planned committee chair could not be here this evening and you know before we turn over to sam uh tim and vincent just a quick update we we had a joint uh board of ed town council meeting this last past tuesday night especially talk about the next generation
025modernization plan a lot of great information was shared a lot of great dialogue it was actually nice we'll sit together with our peer repairs on the town council so for anyone that wasn't able to watch it please watch it is on on the town's youtube and i guess there's some um feedback from that which i've been seeing walk us through but one of the goals tonight coming our planning is to prove the education specs so that being said i'm going to turn over to sam tim and vincent and the approval of the education specs okay i think we're just going to turn it over to vin unless you want to add to it tim well no i'm just do we want to put a motion the motion is written on here but vin's going to
026lead us through this yeah but i don't think vin can read the motions so so um this is the question i had there's two potential emotions i i assume we're going to approve the revisions to the ed specs so traditionally i would put the motion up front discuss it so if you are comfortable making one or the other motion please feel free to present it probably the second one the second one yeah if you want geothermal it's going to be the same we want geothermal so the motion is that the cheshire board of education improves the elementary educational specification for the new north and elementary school and the elementary educational specifications for the new norton elementary school as proved by the planning committee of the board on april 7 2022 and amended by the board
027of educate education on april 21st 2022 discussion okay i will give just um a brief background the educational there are two educational specifications one for the new north end elementary school and one for the new norton school those are the educational specifications that were reviewed at a meeting of the of the planning committee of the hull so the board members outside of the planning committee were in attendance as well the educational specs were reviewed approved the change is going to be in both specifications under the section for environment systems and equipment and specifically on the building system so both educational specifications have the same exact wording for building systems i will read just that section and then i'll explain the change that we would like to make the building systems incorporated into the new construction
028will be designed in accordance with connecticut high performance building standards equivalent in performance to a lead led silver rating in addition utilizing renewable energy sources including solar and geothermal as well as net zero emissions will be considered in the building design in the context of a 50-year estimated useful life that's the way it reads now and the way it's recommended to be reworded has to do with that second sentence in addition utilizing renewable energy sources including solar and geothermal as well as net zero is the change net zero energy and or emissions will be considered in the building design in the context of a 50-year estimated useful life what that change essentially allows us to do is it gives us much more options and it reduces our limitations right now the way this is worded
029would essentially limit us to having buildings that are net zero emissions and with the change we can have a building that's net zero energy meaning that the energy that is produced at the site let's say using solar or geothermal um will be fully used at the site or you would never have less energy produced than you use if you have extra it can be sold off in in the matter that's allowed if we say just net zero emissions that means our essentially our carbon footprint would be zero i'm not sure we could achieve that but by this language change we have the options of potentially doing both or one or the other and you know this is something that you know we did discuss actually with collier's colliers at a meeting earlier this week did
030have a professional that does this is in fact is doing a lot of this work at um i believe is mansfield right in mansfield connecticut so that's the genesis of the recommendation the rest of the educational specifications as approved by the planning committee would be unchanged so that's the update and i will turn it back over for other discussion possibly mr white may have something to say about it just quickly then so that was the change that we had discussed at the meeting though correct we just didn't define the language so what i read is language we included and this is one more substantive change that occurred after okay and i think this was a clarification that was surfaced a couple two days ago yeah last night actually three o'clock we we met with is
031uh been said colliers in the executive steering committee and had a specialist review this language and we were concerned about the language that we had drafted is it was relatively limiting with respect to the scope of enhancements that we could you know examine we didn't want to just look at net zero emissions which means you can't use any uh fossil fuels at all in your program and to say and or net zero energy allows us a little bit more flexibility to take progressive steps with respect to our our energy consumption um just a point of clarification these those these are always some some of my favorite conversations so the motion on the floor right now is specs as amended but the specs aren't amended yet right because the copy you just read was not amended
032so do we have to make a motion to amend the specs before we adopt the specs i would amend that yeah i would amend the the specs to read the second you know right so we can make a change to the amendment so a motion to amend the amendment so can i can i make a motion to amend the motion on the floor to include include this language yes okay ask or ask for a motion to demand ask for a second i would like to make a motion to amend um that the ed specs for new norton school and uh new um or what are we calling it the end element then school um to include the modified language that or that the language be changed to um from net zero emissions to net zero
033energy and or emissions is there a second all those in favor to amend the motion if any yes tim thank you uh thank you for bringing thank you for the motion uh in passing it and thank you to jeff and vin for making that happen if i recall correctly it was two weeks ago we were at dodd and the the intent i'm not sure of my specific words but the intent i tried to convey was very much this have the experts weigh in on the precise wording here the idea i have is to make this flexible it is not to make this mandatory by any means i would love to see sustainable construction happen and i firmly believe that the economics i think the economics will make it happen or not and i do think
034the economics will be to our benefit um it's not just a matter of the environment anymore it's it's the technology the technology is improving the economics the costs ignore covet and the inflation that we see right now in the past year or so year or two generally the costs have been falling um and so i very much appreciate it i definitely think this is a great thing for the town of cheshire to be at least seriously considering it which is really all that i've wanted from the beginning a serious consideration of it um and this i do think this will make it happen because it is to a certain extent it's it's breaking a legacy system which is based on the initial cost of construction without looking at the ongoing operations and maintenance of buildings
035uh that's a huge cost i know that i've seen stories before where i think it's commercial buildings up to 80 of some commercial buildings the cost is in the in the operations of it over its lifetime so it's a significant cost and only looking at the initial construction cost it doesn't make sense when we're talking about particularly about new construction and having a 50-year life so i think this is great um and i do appreciate the wording here saying including solar and geothermal i don't know that those are the technologies that would be best to use i'm open to anything i just think moving this direction is the important thing so thank you for this awesome unless there's a discussion on the amended motion was but you're good at that it's okay well let's see
036did i amend the original emotion uh so the uh the amendment is adding the verbiage to change net zero energy and or emissions right to the motion right that is the amendment uh all those in favor asian animus the amended motion passes we're back to the main motion with the language net zero energy and or emissions sorry we're we have to follow robert's rules of order and et cetera so do you have a question sam do you want to uh talk about that so samantha and other board members this this came up at our border planning committee hall about two weeks ago samantha in particular said said you know obviously wants to move forward but has to see something envision something and particularly our taxpayers kind of want to envision what they're gonna be voting
037on so uh there's some discussion on that the challenge is until referendum has passed and there's a budget we can't hire a design architecture firm there's a a way to possibly without getting into some issues if money was available today certainly we can hire an architect to render something um i know colliers is walking us through tuesday some implications on that but the challenge there is if you render something and we actually get to the design phase it turns out something else then the voters are going to feel like they voted on something that didn't exist so long story short there's been talks uh there's reasons tuesday night about finding a way to show what could be other projects around the state of connecticut that are similar to ours the inside of the classroom what
038they will look like conceptually and and maybe even a um schematic enough to give an idea of what you know we're looking at so conceptualize obviously when if we get past referendum uh i think we discussed tuesday council we're gonna get a ton of feedback from the community and what should be in there and there'll be no opportunity there so we're looking into it we're hopeful to put something together to visualize and exceptionalize what what could be but which i've been answering for lately it's a we love the detail but uh we've learned that uh being told to more detail put out there i had a referendum to work against you so but thank you it's a good question all right back to the main motion is any further discussion on the education specification motion
039i think we we covered it seeing as there is no further discussion all right i'm going to read it that the cheshire board education approves the elementary educational specifications for the new north end elementary school and the elementary educational specifications for the new norton elementary school as approved by the planning committee of the board on april 27th 2020 april 7 2022 and amended by the board education on april 21st 2022 to include net zero energy and or emissions all those in favor it is unanimous the motion passes thank you all right yes tim yeah before we leave the planning committee i just wanted to will we get like will the public get a brief update on one question in particular for me is referendum timing i just want before the meeting ends that's all i'm
040thinking sure just um yeah i can kind of walk through a couple of marquee issues good night and thank you thank you um so you know we've we've covered a lot of ground in the last two weeks or so from the point that you all moved forward the ed specs uh last tuesday not this past tuesday but the tuesday prior vin and i presented with colliers at the town council meeting there were a lot of great questions raised but i think the most important element of the questions was the fact that there was not a question about whether or not we should be doing this which is profoundly different than those conversations that we had four years ago there's unanimous agreement that we need to move forward the questions center around what's the most efficient
041efficient and effective way to move forward and so we started to examine a timeline there we met again is a joint body tuesday this past tuesday with the council on board where a timeline was floated that would mean that both schools would be open to students in the fall of 2026. there was a lot of conversation around that obviously all of us would love to see it open tomorrow actually if we could and as tony was just mentioning about the schematics and everything and that part of what drives the timing of when we can start is the referendum date the groups the board and council have been operating on the idea that the referendum would occur on november 4th 2022 election day the proposal was made yesterday in an executive committee meeting that perhaps we
042consider an earlier referendum date it's only an idea it's only a proposal there's nothing set in stone about that but our town attorney was going to examine you know what would happen there is colliers would reevaluate the potential timeline for school openings i think all of us if we're gonna take the plunge the sooner that we can open the doors the better and so you know that is being explored but if i were to be held right now to a timeline the referendum would be november 4th the uh ultimate opening of schools would be both schools would be august of 2026. but you know that's not been finalized yet does that help yeah i just wanted to highlight the point that uh sam had mentioned at the meeting a couple days ago which is at
043least for me i i very much agree with it if we go out to referendum this november that at this moment in time the plan leads us to the school being finished like october of 2025 which just raises all sorts of questions in the public i think in the public forum like wait the school's done you're not using it everything is there's questions raised that if we could move that up a few months i'm not saying it would happen but if it could get moved up a few months then maybe you could open up an entire year late uh entire year earlier not making any promises but that was that was my concern at least just taking an onion on occupied building for a while let's discuss the possibility of avoiding that yeah i think
044we all are remember colliers said it was a near impossibility the way the schedule is laid out to any further so um and there's more detail than the construction which we have in our timelines and i don't know the stuff i don't think this is gonna be available yeah we'll put that out tomorrow what i'm pointing to is a a gantt chart that shows all secret events so just so folks are aware there's construction that happens um that ends uh toward the late fall of 2025 and then from there forward there's punch lists fixes uh furniture furniture moving getting the the school acclimated uh custodial and and then trying to move kids and teachers toward the end of that year and you know so so there's a lot of moving parts but i i know
045that the team is trying to see if there's a way to move forward and we have something in our inbox today that shows you know for once for when i went into any details with one school opening in 2025 trying to put a prior one so they definitely look at it but you're spawn on tim you know i it didn't dawn on me until i saw the gantt chart tuesday night that there's about five six months that we're not in the school but it's gotta be clear what's happening and why so i'm with you know i i'm with you and uh man that's really pushing it at the brink of our enrollment capacity too so the sooner the better right so thank you before we uh go for planning any other comments questions awesome thank
046you everyone for passing that motion that's a very critical step to moving the process forward for the grant application as well okay up next we have policy gay policy uh thank you mr chair um we had a meeting i think that was last night wasn't it wow okay so we had a meeting last night um so uh just to kind of move through you know what we did um for a uh we reviewed uh policy number uh 4118.1 i read it correctly this time um uh where we uh change the policy where the statistic recognizes uh that is a discriminatory prac discriminatory practice to request or require a prospective employee's age date of birth dates of attendance at or date of graduation from an educational institution on an initial employment application unless requesting or requiring
047such information is based on a bona fide occupational qualification or need or when such information is required to comply with any provision of state or federal law this was a second reading there were no changes made by the policy committee to this and we moved this for a second reading and that policy will be listed on the fisher public schools website um we moved on to uh do our final review of uh policy number 1101.1 for community relations parent involvement which related to parent-teacher communication um and policy allows for two required parent-teacher conferences to be filled fulfilled by the use of telephone video or other conferencing platforms uh so that was more of a modernization of the uh policy in addition uh to the two required conferences uh shall be conducted during periods when district
048provides remote learning oh so this is a an update if we had to go to remote learning for three consecutive weeks or more hopefully that will not happen for a long time or never again maybe and they're for a very very long time um so we uh we made no changes to that policy or no additional changes um graduation requirements uh policy 6146 uh was about um let's see i'll just read the caption instead of paraphrasing and creating such student access plans considerations shall be given to career and academic choices in computer science science technology engineering and mathematics the student shall the student success success plan shall be created if possible in collaboration with each student in the student's parent guardian on or after july 1 2022 the student success success plans shall to the
049extent it does not conflict with the career choices of the student or his or her parent guardian include an academic plan that is in the compliance of the board's challenging curriculum policy um and but it was made to uh change the graduation date from 183 days to 180 days it was essentially what it was oh one okay let's say okay 185 thank you um next policy 6146.1 grading system where we um this policy although it's been in practice uh in this school system for quite a while that we officially endorse weighted grading there's a the gist of it there um no additional changes were made um 61 uh fafsa completion program this is again something that our school system already engages in to to help prospective students of all potential trades and or future education
050to to complete this application we also had an additional discussion about the merits of that and how can be applied and no additional changes were made and finally uh policy 6159 individualized education program special education um this was the addition of uh allowing a birth to three coordinators uh and was it other qualified personnel to participate in ppts and um what was the other term uh iep yes ieps um and again something that we already have in practice here but um again all of these uh policies that i previously mentioned were all uh subject to changes in statute although a majority of them we are already doing in practice here at cheshire public schools um so with that being said i would like to make a motion um that the cheshire board of education give
051a third and final reading to policies 1101.1 community relations parent involvement 6146 instruction graduation requirements 6146.1 instruction grading systems 6148 instruction fafsa completion program 6159 instruction in the individualized education program special agent education program and direct the superintendent to put said policies into immediate effect do i have a second second sam um is there any discussion on the motion yes and so i think we've talked about this before but um i'm having a reaction to the policy 6146 graduation requirements with this language on career choices starting grades 6 through 12. could somebody remind me what i know we had this discussion and i'm just wondering how we're getting around this idea that we're talking about career advancement starting in grade six sure it's not you know asking sixth graders to pick the career of their
052interest i'm still trying to figure out what i'm gonna do when i grow up um really what it is is and people would reinforce the idea that i haven't grown up yet some people on this panel maybe but anyway um the they start by looking at what your interests are the idea is about opening ideas and exposure to different uh interests and activities you know when you look at a lot of fifth sixth graders they want to be actors athletes you know the things that maybe they've been exposed to sometimes business people doctors the people in their community not recognizing that there are a myriad of other opportunities so from sixth grade through twelfth grade we're really encouraging students to take interest inventories to explore different courses and careers that's really what that process is
053about it at its heart i think it is a bit of a misnomer almost to call it a career pathway i mean ultimately it might help you find a career but the idea is to broaden your exposure to a variety of activities and interests and start you to think about that so that you might select courses particularly at the high school level where there are more options for you as electives and clubs and activities that might align with what your interests are and explore those things thank you for that explanation um is there any additional discussion on the motion uh seeing none i'll call for a vote all in favor it is unanimous those present thank you mr grip on policy committee and this team and administration for all work and the policies are um
054are never ending task on the board of ed is there kind of so i know it's a lot of time and commitment and i know our community appreciates to work on it so thank you uh mr chair before we move on i just had one more comment absolutely um so uh primarily uh this for most of this year we've been reviewing uh uh policies that are mostly uh sort of statue revision in nature uh driven by uh changes in laws from hartford um so moving forward you know there's i guess been some hot discussion this week about speech and expression and that sort of thing um so we've identified seven policies uh that pertain to these particular items and it was discovered that a lot of the policies that we have on the books have
055not been reviewed since we suspect that the law regarding speech and expression has changed quite a bit since then so that we're going to begin a review process on those policies i believe um mrs rosenberg had brought up a policy that we'll also be reviewing on i think what it was about gifted and talented and um hopefully uh we we have an audit review in for um the uh student uh activity account which will hopefully uh then uh have allow us to begin our review of the i guess the the six the 26 year old policy on internal controls for for that account as well hopefully uh they're not a lot of violations were found and that there won't be a lot of uh revision needed in that because it did seem pretty sound when
056we read we did an initial read through but you know we'll see if something gasby showed up that we'd have to do so uh there's going to be a lot of a lot on our agenda in the uh coming final months of this school year so i just want to bring that up oh just so we found seven of them that need some revision um i don't know dr review at least can we at least um refer to cape if there's language that has been updated that we're not aware of as well yeah so um you know adam sent those on to me this afternoon i passed it on to carol we're pulling the cave versions so that we have points of comparison from caves updated i mean for those people that aren't familiar we
057literally have thousands of policies and regulations and um there was a period where really i mean we made the major legal updates um but then about four years ago adam maybe we we had an audit done i think as you mentioned we identified probably a hundred policies we think about each one taking three months to basically get modify we got through that laundry list and now we're going back to the ones that were just really dated like adam said i mean what hasn't changed in the last 26 years so we're going back and reviewing those and we'll continue to do that process into next year i'm sure yeah uh just for our clarification there was no board discussion at all about uh speech but i'm sure that the song they talk about is sometimes update
058again the non-issue but uh just the fact that it's important to keep our policies consistent so that the messaging is consistent then you know there's transparency so i'm sure a policy will work through that that being said we're moving on uh there are no other standing committees however in our board of ed packets we have minutes for you tim two minutes yeah just uh for mostly for people on the board but also for the public uh annual review for the superintendent is i mentioned to him he gave me some dates but may june time frame i think it's worthwhile for us to get some meetings together the full board um to have those discussions right thank you yep and as soon as the dates are set we will publish those thank you tim for amendments
059that so up next is approve our minutes in our packets we have minutes from the meetings of march 17th and april 7th uh before we get into it uh is there a motion for miss adam um move that the cheshire board of education approves the minutes from meetings held on march 17 2022 and march 7th 2022. very second sam suckins any changes to the minutes yes ian i have a just a technical change the minutes of the board of education middle school showcase meeting um that was held in at dodd middle school no yes okay so that needs to just be changed because it says held in town council chambers great catch that was a great meeting by the way thank you anne for catching up any other changes revisions just double check one last
060thing seeing as there is no further discussion uh all those in favor do i need to change that motion as amended or anything no no it was a terrible update though okay in the the motion itself is sound oh thank you it's good point order uh all those in favor is unanimous thank you to motion passes up next is correspondence i think we only have one correspondence letter from mr bestor and it's up to you if you want to walk through it or summarize but it's nice to hear from john from time to time um i think i will read it into the record it's not all that long to the members of the cheshire board of education once again our students return from spring break to have their school routines disrupted by multiple hours
061of controversial and discredited sba testing i fully understand that the usdoe mandates this testing and threatens to withhold much needed dollars if certain participation thresholds are not met but i think it is important that elected members of every community's boe understand that the nefarious history behind standardized testing and its toll on the education of our students i also understand that our teachers and school administrators do what they can to minimize the impact but that still does not ameliorate the additional stressors placed on our students by this week plus of testing i know that i know you feel that as boe members this is out of your bellywick and that you must comply with state mandated directives but i would hope that as elected officials representing what is best for our children students and their parents
062that you will find your voice in speaking out against this ongoing failed practice of mandated standardized testing even if you are unable to address these concerns at public boe meetings your voice can be heard in other venues like cave or with individual state legislators or perhaps by informing parents that they have a right to refuse testing and that parental refusal has been honored by the district in the past misinformed parents do not necessarily know what they can do if no one lets them know mr bester includes a link to a blogger who writes on this topic and closes with unless knowledgeable advocates like yourselves speak out this destructive practice of standardized testing will continue unchecked and unabated thanks for taking the time to consider my concerns respectfully john bester thank you mr buster for communicating
063with us certainly keep that abreast in our curriculum yes jeff question for you do you happen to know so my understanding is over the last few years some of the i don't know if it's just graduate schools undergrad they actually have been getting rid of standardized testing as one of their metrics do you have any idea like how many schools that is any sense like of a proportion i mean i i know at least one of my schools has sure you know i i couldn't give you an objective number i do know that certainly through the pandemic a lot of schools uh were test submission optional okay uh having a high school junior right now and going through the process i can tell you a number of them have shifted back to requiring sat or
064act but not um all by any stretch so we're i think we're still in a bit of a transition period not as flexible as it was during the pandemic but not as restrictive as it was in in terms of having it be a requirement pre-pandemic and i know that uh miss solano is you know pretty familiar with the process too i don't know if you have any objective numbers no thank you thank you up next as much anticipated superintendent's report uh you can move to the edge of your seat now uh i just want to start off by you know when you approved collectively the educational specifications you know maybe i'm too sentimental but i almost got a little bit emotional because it was seven years ago before i was even a superintendent in that
065i remember sitting in this room with perkins and eastman i know vin marlene you probably remember that uh and tony where that we were talking about school modernization and the need for that you know my my son who i was just talking about getting ready for college was 10. um my other son was only four or excuse me six my math isn't great but anyway you know tonight i don't want to overlook how profound the decision is and how powerful it is for our kids in our community the decision that was made and i look forward to the council as i said earlier i know there's really strong endorsement of this plan because it really makes sense fiscally logistically and it's necessary very necessary so thank you very much for all the time and energy
066that you have all spent on this as well on the topic of the town council i was in communication with town manager kimball they are going through their budget process i will remind the public i don't think i have to remind you that after a couple months of deliberation we as a board adopted a budget that was really incredibly lean because in in most part we knew that there was a 1.5 million dollar hole that we had to fill and felt it was probably fiscally uh negligent to really to push the budget so what we did was out of 50 about 55 major line items in our budget 25 of those came in at zero or less than zero pretty much all of our discretionary accounts either were flat or took a cut because we
067knew that we had to really increase not only the medical benefits but the the staffing we have so much enrollment growth that we have to increase that number um the council went through there is still in the process tuesday they'll be voting to adopt it but the latest agreement they have out of their finance committee is a reduction to our budget of 450 000 that you know certainly will impact us we have to identify how we mitigate that impact and to be fair i have had conversations with sean and finance committee chair borrowing about you know where we are today because you know we adopt a budget in january things evolve we've had five retirements which would net us again budget wise i can't guarantee it but likely about two hundred thousand dollars to the
068positive uh there was a pension uh actuarial account that came back that would be seventy thousand dollars to the positive in the next couple of months we'll probably have more uh updates things like some insurance accounts that we'll get feedback on that could be positive or negative but you know on may 3rd meeting we'll probably set a date for later that month to once the the budget is adopted by the town is a finance committee meeting of the whole to evaluate where those accounts will change um i don't think you know it'll be a tremendously long meeting but i just wanted to make you aware of that and we'll schedule that hopefully in the next couple of weeks um school modernization and strategic planning have been a real focus of our time over the last
069several months i've attended pto meetings at many of our schools and and marlene and i just did chs the week before break we still have doolittle highland and dodd on the agenda but marlene and i will be hosting preschool parent meetings to talk about school modernization certainly answer other questions that they may have but we have those scheduled on may 16th at 8pm may 17th at noon and 8 pm uh may 23rd at 4 pm may 25th at noon all virtual trying to make it accessible for young families to be able to participate and hopefully be able to engage them in where we are as a school system not only with modernization but where we're focused in terms of our uh strategic planning and i look forward to later next month and and by june
070really updating you on where we are with that process a lot of positive feedback a lot of data collected and powerful stuff um i would just use the opportunity to remind people to please enroll for kindergarten if you haven't already uh as you know we're expecting larger numbers this year so we're trying to really get everybody through the door as quickly as we can we'll likely be holding a um another couple of sessions for encouraging folks to get in uh tony mentioned a little earlier uh the components of about free speech you know a lot our students uh we have 40 4 300 kids with very diverse backgrounds and stories uh i know that everybody on this board believes that we embrace all 4 300 students and understand that you know kids are exposed to
071a lot of different stories but it's pretty narrow swath to be honest with you of backgrounds and diversity within our own community and the vast majority of our kids go to places that have much more diverse stories and we respect all kids and they come to our schools with passion and feeling and we uh encourage that uh there was a there's a small group of students at the middle school who uh we're recognizing tomorrow is a day of silence to acknowledge the silence that had been imposed on students that were gay uh transgender uh lesbian and uh that you know i think caused some stir with some people you know on on the internet and uh you know that's i think it's good to review these things but tinker versus des moines is a very
072famous uh supreme court case where students don't leave their political opinions at the schoolhouse gate is the is the the quote and so we embrace all kids we just need to be able to do so respectfully and i'm sure we'll talk more about that at policy committee meetings in the in the near future but i also want to you know thank tony for his leadership and and the board when concerns are brought forth i think it's great that we have open communication between the community and the board between the community and our administrative team starting at the classroom or building level certainly you know vin marlene and myself are available to answer questions but the principles at the building level is really where a lot of that takes place so again if if families have
073questions we encourage them to reach out to their teacher then their principal central office or board um is always available but thank you for that um i feel compelled as much as i hate to say the covid word uh to give a quick update because i know that you we hear about numbers increasing in the community uh as an update we have eight positive students at highland norton chs and dodd all have less than six chapman darcy hummiston and doolittle all had zero as of this morning so it's not bad um we're still in a really good place any case you don't want to see any of them but we're still in a pretty good place town white art show if you haven't had the chance to see that before it's mind-blowing it's april 29th
074from 5 to 8 p.m unless you can get there during the day uh from eight to two that's at norton elementary school and finally i just want to shout out to our birth to three leadership team particularly jennifer buffington and and also our former cheshire public schools teacher of the year and still working with us in a consultant capacity don and what they do is so incredible with terms of this program called circle of security you may remember that darcy's community uh acknowledgement went to a guy named charlie slaughter who was instrumental in us receiving grant money to do this circle of security work it's really about attachment between kids and parents and that work is so powerful and the work that they've done over the last several years is so meaningful that the state
075has actually shifted now that the training that our people do with these families that have such significant needs is reimbursed now insurance reimbursable because it's the the data is that it's that much that much of a positive impact and that beneficial for kids that they are reimbursing that moreover they've asked donna and jen to literally be responsible for training all birth to three programs in connecticut now we've trained enough people to be birthed to three facilitators that they can do this on the side and and cover it and we still sustain our level of service but in effect cheshire is being asked to train the entire state of connecticut on this and so that is a real testament to the job that they do um and i know as you know we heard ben and
076i heard multiple times today that they feel the the leadership that you as a board and us as a school system and community provide have led to this and it's so beneficial for kids what we started doing in town is now available statewide and so that's awesome it's something to really be proud of and i know we deal with a lot of challenges and a lot of you know consternation and things but this is something that is is changing a lot of families lives not just in cheshire but across connecticut so i needed to share that congratulations to you and to them on that incredible work that's it for me [Music] um on your uh road trip around the town uh your tour um what is the reception been so far of your presentation um
077i'm what standing ovation i think is the only way to explain it um now uh we we uh when we were giving most of the presentations that i've done so far i haven't had finances to share with them so i think it's fair to contextualize like there's only so much information that we can provide yet um i think like the council they understand that this work is really necessary and that we have to try and find a way to make this happen um so they've been receptive you know now moving forward we'll have some finances attached to that the data that jim jascot the town finance director has pulled together indicates that basically over the next 20 years it's about 45 a month now that's the worst possible case scenario if you know that's assuming
078that escalation of cost stays at eight percent a year for the next three years which isn't really likely but we're conservatively very conservatively budgeting this that um the the reimbursement rate from the state is where it is even though we know we're going to be applying for and likely to receive a higher reimbursement rate so we've we've set the the floor low because we don't want to be in a position where we were miscalculating being overly aggressive and then having to ask for more money so i mean 45 a month for the average cheshire taxpayer it's um not you know i think anybody would want to you know try and keep it as low as possible i think that's the work that the council and the board and our leadership team have done to keep
079that number as low as possible we will have to spend substantial money if we don't do this by the way on building repairs on um trailers for for schools and stuff so we'll see how it goes i know that was kind of a long-winded answer but after we we start doing the ones next week i think we come back next week with highland i do highland next week i just want to add to adam's question um i tend to kind of worry about the attendance in those you have a smaller crowd is there are you doing a follow-up um you know phasing as as we move along and then could there be a full presentation so that those that couldn't attend could either watch it or or something to that respect yeah yeah so we
080appreciate that as we come closer to really crystallizing you know tonight i think was a big step you know we know exactly what we're doing with the ed specs we have a better picture of the finances this week is that information starts to crystallize i really don't want to put out a ton of information and then have to take it back or amend it um but as i said to marlene the other day i will go anywhere anytime any place we've done the garden show already we've had pretty good attendance actually the record attendance at the schools we had over 30 at norton for pizza and that's not great but it's the most the most highly attended pto meeting they've had same with the record at chs um mike woods is talking about giveaways for
081his dodd pto meeting we'll get there we'll add the preschools then we'll we'll end up putting out a video i think to really kind of make it available we're going to put together carol and i were talking about a mailer to everybody in town once again once we have that a little more solid plan and really i think that'll pick up after may 10th that's the date that the town council is set to adopt the three resolutions that are required um and then that then it'll be i think rock solid and we'll start really getting information out after that that's the plan yes sorry thanks tony uh so yeah a few things jeff i just want to make sure i heard you right 45 a month is what jim jascott the finance director suggested at
082the high end there's not like a high end per se that's the average over 20 years based on the highest total cost is that yeah yeah the gross cost based on the net cost percent inflation okay right that's so that's what that is is the the net cost after reimbursement for both buildings uh that includes an eight percent inflation rate per year it and includes um the reimbursement from the the uh state at the current rate that we're at but i think i've explained before that we're anticipating that to be higher than we we have it budgeted it does not include the sale of darcy or chapman property which could further reduce the the impact on us so that's the average over the course of 20 years now some years it'll be a little bit
083higher some years it'll be lower but that's the average over the course of the 20 years okay yeah no i just want to um and i support this going forward but i just want to i just have to say that this we're talking about phase one right now and a big problem that i personally have had for years with the state of connecticut is we're largely based at a local level on the property tax which is regressive it's not based on ability to pay and that's one of the problems we face in speaking to that um you would mention the roadshow you're doing and you what i heard you talk about was basically connecting with parents of school-aged children right now okay one day we recognize that this is a community issue not just a
084parent issue and one of the things that goes through my mind i mean like the senior center or but one in particular really is i think of elan park and you know in from from one perspective i'm thinking the people in elan park they they have their own village there but i know people in england park who the grandparents of the kids sure so they moved out of their house over in the avon adams avon neighborhood the kids moved in the grandkids lived there now and they moved over to england park over to southwick there are a lot of people there with a vested interest both on the tax side as well as on the the services side and i think it would be very valuable to take the road show to as many people
085as possible i mean we can get a decent-sized group not you know yeah um but i'm a firm believer that there are uh many seniors in this town my parents i'm not sure how they'll vote on it but they have grandkids in the school system here um so i just want to make sure that you have those people you have seniors in mind too and it's not just a thought process well senior do we have a date yet for elam park i know what we're doing you have it on your list already we do fantastic um that's included we're you know you get the school modernization show we throw in pet partners for free because they picked up the cost on the pet partners so highland is bringing students and the their pet partner dogs
086to go to elam park at some point here in the spring too we're trying to arrange that date with them gotcha so we've got those bases covered okay again like i said i know this isn't just a parent but a a community issue and we're going to try and get to as many people as we can in the next several months thank you um thank you you had mentioned i wanted to try to understand this you mentioned that some of the birth to three program was insurance reversible all of the birth to three program all of it really is paid for by the state fee for service so we're the only school system that does this usually it's private contractors who are hired by the state to go to a family's home and provide service
087for that family they submit the bill to the state of connecticut who pays the contractor it's the same thing for us you know it's basically state insurance that we go through with our birth to three services so we'll send an ot professional to the home to provide support or some other educator works with the family they have to submit it through billing which is why we really need a secretary dedicated to that we have one that's dedicated really just to this process they submit all that billing paperwork to the state the state sends us back money when i say us i don't mean the cheshire public schools they cut a check to all of our revenue revenue goes to the town of cheshire um but that's factored in during the budget process okay so basically
088what it is is the private insurance companies this really was the state i say yes they said insurance it's really more state reimbursement okay yeah um and then the the last point i just like to make is uh the the town wide archo i think that's great i know of at least one super duper kindergartner i haven't seen it yet but i'm looking forward to seeing it tomorrow it is amazing yeah april 29th uh eight or nine to two uh five to eight thank you good stuff yeah she does incredible stuff um unless there's any questions thank you dr sloan for the update um we have no old business there is no audience tonight no new business other than i uh the only update i have there's a cave board director's meeting i'll be attending
089next wednesday i hope to hear some insights on what's happening with the legislature in hartford and some items though not to get into uh at all any kind of legislative discussion tonight uh but i'll talk to tim i know when we're talking about trying to get a date together for this legislative committee just to hash out a few things but um i think we're all getting cave updates as board members to email addresses there's one that was sent out i think last week about the ecs funding one of the items out there has been proposed as a sliding scale based on town is worth town worth but um so long story short that's the proposal i don't know where is the process depending what cheshire ranks you know we can see or you know less
090or maybe 90 reimbursement if you follow anyway it's a proposal but i think i'll certainly get information i have out to the board but i'm thinking maybe sorry by the end of the school year let's just meet see what's coming back discuss um and maybe gear up for next year i know we get a chance to do it back in january but again once that's more information on what's happening at cave i'll afford it as always other than that uh before oh i didn't want to show you something by the way cabin has a new website oh that's really nice we i i didn't want to say anything because i really don't want to say anything but we have been diligently working on that i got an update today from tom leewock one of our
091tech people he said you know we are cruising along should we soon almost all due respect to cave i think uh we're gonna be there if not better sorry but there is a new because there's those antiquated too i'm just saying it's uh if you want to see what could be i encourage the board to visit the site uh that being said the upcoming meetings uh thursday may 5th at 7pm with high school showcase at cheshire high school monday may 9th 7 p.m we have a curriculum committee at the hummington boardroom on tuesday may 17th at 6 30. we have a policy committee meeting at the homestead boardroom and on thursday may 19th we at 7 30 p.m we have a board of business meeting here at town council chambers certainly should any committee meetings
092uh be scheduled between then we'll certainly post those that being said do i have a motion to adjourn tim first and sucker did all those in favor this meaning is adjourned thank you everyone