Board of Education 11-18-21

001here thank you carol i ask that we stand and join the pleasure allegiance this world good evening everyone thanks for joining us this this uh somewhat cool evening uh protocol here at town hall is masks are optional this week uh board members and folks i could choose to wear or not wear them i am not wearing mine because i am separated by plessy glass so i hope i don't see any memes on facebook later i don't wear my mask but all serious walking everyone it's nice to see some friendly smiling faces uh so we're to jump right into it um starting with our student representative reports annabelle hi everyone um as you can probably tell i'm flying solo tonight and that is because rowan is performing in the opening night of our school play um

002so this year the school play is the red velvet cake war and it's described as the southern fried family reunion comedy so it is showing tonight friday and saturday we're really excited to have those plays back because that's a big part of our school community um next the really important thing that i'm so excited to share with you all is our week of giving that's coming up in december so student leadership groups um such as the senate peer health peer advocates and various sports captains have come together um to create this week of giving for the holidays so the first part of that is the young republicans who are doing their annual toys for tots toy drive under the marine foundation um and this will run from november 17th to december 6th next we have

003our supermarket challenge and this is hosted by coach lee and his peer health class so different groups are going to be making teams personally i'm going to be on the student senate team and i think we are going to win um and we are going to try and collect as many items on the cheshire food pantry list under a certain amount of time and under a hundred dollars so that will be a very exciting thing happening and all of those all of those items get donated straight to the food pantry so that is part of our week of giving then we have our district-wide pj day so all the entire district is going to be wearing pajamas to school and making monetary donations to help kids receive pajamas for the holidays which i'm so excited

004about because who wouldn't want to wear pajamas to school and then we have our local dcf toy drive so this is specifically run by the student senate and the peer advocates we're kind of separating it from the toys for tots toy drive that the young republicans are doing so instead people are going to be making teams so either a friend group makes teams or clubs have their own team and sports have their own teams and those teams are going to collectively be bringing in toys and the student senate is thinking of really creative ideas to keep track to show the school what progress we're making as well as finding ways so that the different teams can indicate their participation in the donation so we have some friendly competition but in the end it all goes

005towards our week of giving so that is very exciting and i'm very excited to report back to you on how that goes um then we have the nhs college fair which is on wednesday so alumni are coming to share about their colleges and their experiences but something that's really important is that we are staying with our strict code protocols so we are limiting it to 11th and 12th graders and alumni cannot walk through the school which is really important they're going to stay in their designated area talking about their designated colleges and we're going to maintain our spacing in order to make sure that in the future we can continue doing things like this that will be beneficial to the school next for athletics i have a lot to share in athletics so girls cross

006country runner sophomore alexis saccone was named the sec conference runner of the year she was the top finisher in the league and ranked 29th in new england so we're very proud of her next our girls volleyball team went undefeated for the entire regular season and won the league tournament unfortunately last night they did lose in the semi-finals but we are so proud of everything that the team put in to you know their accomplishments because it brought so much school spirit and everyone was at those volleyball games and rallying for our teams and it was really an amazing thing to see especially after last year when we really didn't have that so that was probably the best part and we are very thankful for what their success brought to our school next boys soccer was runner-up

007in the league championship tournament um in that seat tournament the team has advanced to the state championship which will be played in dillon stadium this week versus farmington so a lot of us are very excited to make the trek and go support our soccer team and then field hockey was runner up in the league championship tournament play girls swimming was the class l state championship runner-up and then our final football game of the season is going to be played um in the apple valley classic against southington on thanksgiving day and this year the game will be at southington but i already know that so many of us are going to be there to support our team which i'm very looking i'm looking very much forward to um and then the last thing is our ramlan

008super bowl flag football game is in play so um it's a juniors versus seniors game seniors are gonna win um i'm on the team so i can say that for sure um and we had our first practice today and it was absolutely amazing and all of the girls are ready to work hard and have a great time because that's something that we didn't get to have last year so we are very excited that is all i have for you tonight thanks thank you annabelle any questions or comments from the board and thank you annabelle i just wanted to let you know that my students at quinnipiac university come to classes in their pajamas all the time so you have that to look forward to when you go to college i'm not saying it's appropriate but

009it does happen and you are able to do it yay i i could just add a detail real quick on the soccer uh state championship that'll be held saturday night at 6 30 in hartford at the hartford athletic where the soccer soccer team there plays and there will be buses available for students uh ram land will travel well i'm sure to that game to support our soccer team who's playing in their first state championship since i think don inaudi our former teacher of the year is here i think she was just out of her induction program 33 years ago when we played for our last state championship so we're really excited about it donna remembers i'm sure any other questions or comments from the board as seen as there are none annabelle thank you so

010much for report hope you enjoy the rest of your name you don't have to stay thank you so much everyone have a great night and enjoy your your holidays next week up next we have some awesome presentations this evening um we're going to start with the school partnership award for darcy um i guess i'll wing it here a little bit uh this even this evening the recipient of the school partnership award for darcy's school will be recognized um charlie slaughter is an early childhood prevention coordinator for the connecticut department of children and families and has a passion for children parents and providers thriving in life just so you know there's a lot of pees in this it's right up here um charlie is the program lead for the triple p positive parenting program and the

011early childhood consultation partnership eccp program charlie was awarded the first ever circle of security international award in 2013. he has been instrumental in helping to spread uh circle of security parenting uh cosp please uh correct me if that's incorrect um an attachment-based parenting intervention to connecticut communities communities and community organizations he is interested in the potential for using cosp to create a community-wide approach to build and support secure attachment in children charlie has supported the darcy school connecticut community foundation circle of security parent grant team for the past six years he continues to provide mentoring emotional support and a wealth of knowledge to their team darcy's staff are so grateful for charlie's leadership and unending support to grow this grant in the greater cheshire community the board of education thanks charlie slaughter for going above

012and beyond for the students of cheshire thank you charlie [Applause] yeah where do you want me to stand over here um thank you so much i'm just touched and i was just totally surprised when i heard from from kim we want to give you this honor and i'm going me but my wife has been laughing about you know sometimes it's hard for me to accept things but but i'm but i'm here and and i'm i'm loving it and um you know one of the things kids bring their attachment history all over the place and especially plays out at schools and you guys have the best team in the state that really is working to support kid more kids having a secure attachment and then helping those kids that don't have a secure attachment and um

013and that plays out in the classroom but we're also seeing that what happens when they get those better quality relationships it's also building capacities that kids need to thrive in life such as self-regulation curiosity but we're also also thinking it's building joy of learning and i keep telling people in today's economy you want kids that have a joy of learning because they can take that into their adult years the other thing is what's been wonderful about here in connecticut we've had all sorts of people get trained in circle security parenting but then the most amazing thing is when i'm calling this group of people attachment innovators but you've got a whole crew of people here in in with cheshire public schools who are doing innovative work i mean you guys are setting uh putting together

014i think a model that could be easily adopted by by other schools but but you're you're a leader in this and i'm just impressed with the high quality people i get to work with so thank you so much [Applause] thank you [Music] and you know i don't want to spend too much time reiterating what charlie just shared but there really are people here that have taken the circle of security piece and continued to to move it forward and it starts with barbara stern one of our former principals in the back there barbara presented this to our administrative team uh back in 2016 and it's continued to grow through ann donnery and and certainly kim desert but maura ho and don anatti who are here this evening they presented at a circle of security webinar earlier

015this week i know i'm sure everyone in the room follows me on instagram so you probably already saw that and i appreciate maura's family blowing up my instagram account uh gave me some street cred with my kids but um in all seriousness you know that team and then you know people like scott jeffrey and other uh other there's just so many incredible professionals scott's team has brought it into their school and it's continuing to evolve and you see the number of parent participants in our community just skyrocket that's one of that was the slide maura and donna were showing that i posted this week if you go back and and check out my instagram account cheshire super it's it's really impressive to see the growth and it's it's only because it's such an incredible program

016charlie's at the heart of that so we're really uh pleased to be able to honor you here tonight so thanks again charlie [Applause] uh the next person that we get to acknowledge this evening is a retiring member of our team and i'd just like to say a few words and invite her up to the podium if there's anything she'd like to share or at least acknowledge the board back in may of 1997 kelly ann lens submitted a letter of recommendation to the cheshire public schools which said that during the five years i've served as student teacher supervisor for the english department at southern connecticut state university i've observed many new educators but kelly lens clearly stands out as one of the best once hired that year kelly would forego the traditional classroom experience to serve

017under ralph wallace and gary chesley as the coordinator of school business partnerships that was probably the last time kelly's job description was static over the next 24 years her talent and work ethic meant that she would become the director of adult education writer director and producer of cps today working with some some subpar on-air talent too i might add turn water into wine there strategic planning specialist and even the most contemporary of roles social media influencer of course this doesn't include her evolving role as a mom and ultimately a grandmother she did all of this with remarkable positivity competence laughter and grace for as much as so much has changed over the last 24 years one thing has remained constant kelly is still the best congratulations on your retirement kelly [Applause] that's okay i'll give

018you um i'm very touched by that thank you so much jeff um over the years i've had um the great privilege to work with incredible educators and support personnel and um i can tell you that to a person in this district people put children first children are at the center and um that is um something that's really special and that stands out about cheshire teams of professionals boasted both at our board level our administrative team our central office team that a lot of times doesn't get the recognition it deserves and then our teaching staff and administrators um i've worked with the best and i've been blessed thank you very very much [Applause] and finally with one last person to recognize this evening you may or may not realize with the election a couple of weeks

019ago that one of our board members has completed her term and i've often publicly stated that despite my regular attendance at cheshire board meetings since 2005 i never fully understood the commitment a board of education member makes until i became superintendent of schools in 2016. the time and emotional energy required of a member of the board is trying even in the best of times catherine hallen was first appointed to the board in december 2013 over the past eight years she has navigated the incredible highs and challenging lows that come with leadership she did so with grace dignity and a respect that earned her the position of board of education chair in 2018-19 as the leader of the cheshire public schools it is obviously important for me to thank miss halen for the countless hours that

020she has committed to ensuring that the children of this community receive an outstanding education she has been a fierce advocate over her tenure on a personal note however i can't thank her enough for the support that she gave me as a superintendent and a human being through some of the most difficult times i have ever experienced every superintendent and community would be blessed to have someone like catherine in their corner on behalf of the cheshire public schools we thank you for your service congratulations catherine [Applause] good thank you dr solon and whoops this is gonna come right out here um i just went last couple of weeks i've been thinking that i would write a really good speech and it would be very compelling and thoughtful and of course i never got paid you know

021pen to paper um but i know what i would want to say and what i want to say is and kelly pretty much just said it um i have spent the last eight years um really you know just amazed at the staff that we have in the cheshire school system from dr solin and his team in the central office to every building administrator every teacher the maintenance staff nurses i mean the the list is endless and all i know is that every school i've gone into every program i've seen has been you know just so impressive and and our kids are benefiting from this amazing group of people every single day and it has been a true honor for me to advocate for the teachers and the administrators and everybody that works here because i

022i our kids are doing so well um and so and they're doing well you know under really tough and challenging circumstances and i just want to thank all of you um who put in so much time and energy and effort and love and dedication to the kids of cheshire um whatever piece i was able to you know contribute i'm glad and i will miss all of you i'm sure that sam rosenberg who is going to be taking my seat will do a fabulous job but it has really been a pleasure and privilege to work with all of you so thank you so much for the opportunity and thank you dr solon for your support for me so and my fellow board members sorry thank you to all of you it's been a lot of fun

023we've had our ups and downs we don't agree on everything but you guys are a great team and i know that you all always are trying to do what's best for the kids of cheshire so that's all i have to say thank you thank you dr sullin uh i know it's not on the agenda but you know if any board members would like to make any comments for for kathy i certainly want to say kathy uh catherine um i i don't know what to say i i folks that have worked with you on the board administration and our educators pretty well know your commitment over the years i think everybody outside of that will actually know the effort and time and the fierce advocate you are for our students and um it's true we don't

024always agree here on the board of ed doesn't matter who it is but captain's always been a professional uh has always been a staunch supporter for doing the best we can for students staff and for the board and uh has worked incredibly hard on a number of things and as chair should deal with some you know difficult situations and let the board through that and uh certainly going to miss you i can't believe eight years has already gone by it feels like you got on board here yesterday i'm sure it feels a little differently for you and i for that matter but uh i will miss you for sure uh you know you cannot be replaced um you know um for sure but i know sam will do a great job but you're leaving behind

025a really good legacy and you know take pride in knowing that a lot of your efforts over the last eight years has helped the treasure public schools become what it is so you're leaving you're leaving us in good shape uh thank you um i'm sure we'll be in touch um and hopefully get together over the holidays and stay proper goodbye but i want to thank you catherine thank you tony that's very sweet adam go ahead catherine congratulations you made it uh we as you mentioned uh we have had our ups and downs over the years uh but it has been a great pleasure serving with you on this board so we all know it is a uh we we get paid exorbitant amount of money to sit up here and give our time and i

026just want to thank you for your service and uh to uh wish you well in your future endeavors so thank you and it's been a pleasure on policy and there were a couple other things that we've served together on so it's been been good fun thank you ian and then andrew catherine my neighbor my friend and board member extraordinaire i just want to say you know how i feel about you but most impressive is the way over the years the eight years that you have really supported the system that is cheshire public schools and um in my opinion that's what boards of eds are supposed to do so thank you for your service for these past eight years and i'm gonna miss you for the next two while i'm still serving my term so thank

027you catherine um i just wanna thank you for um when i took over as the chair of the planning committee the first couple meetings he really helped helped guide me helped push me through the agenda and i really appreciated that and over the past two years i really enjoyed serving with you and i always appreciated when we were be talking about the superintendent's contract how you would always stick up and stand up for him and um i think we voted together a couple times on that and so i'm gonna miss you but i hope to see you around town for sure thank you catherine you're welcome tim [Laughter] efficient and to the point thank you everyone uh moving on uh we have audience uh if there's any members of the public that would wish to

028address the board you're more than welcome to do so as soon as there are none we will move on to committee reports uh starting with curriculum and that's you hi so we had uh the curriculum committee met for the sole purpose of approving a couple of textbooks and so i don't have a committee report per se but i would like to make a motion to approve a couple of textbooks so based on our review and following the public viewing period the curriculum committee recommends to the board approval of the purchase of the following textbooks inspire earth science mcgraw-hill for grade nine and precision machining technology cengage grades 10 through 12. so the motion is that the cheshire board of education approved the purchase of the following textbooks inspire earth science and precision machine technology as

029recommended by the curriculum committee it's very second time i'm sorry adam seconds any discussion yeah could somebody just i mean it looks straightforward to me but could somebody just explain it a little bit the textbook marlene or jeff or ann so we have a couple pages in our packet on each each of those textbooks including the cost per unit and the total purchase cost and um also the criteria used for material selection so what what i'm just just wondering about also for the public is what's the content of the textbook just curious i see a math book i see algebra one and i think okay i understand this that's pretty straightforward but this is a little bit different so i was just curious sure happy to elaborate on that yeah so the um the textbook

030that's precision machining and technology that is a text that is used in the advanced manufacturing certificate program through nagatok valley community college so when we aligned our course with them we also need to align our resource and so that has post-secondary readability and matches the the credits for the courses that they would get at the community college so um that is the information on the those the precision machining technology the other is updating an earth science textbook and that really is because the others were very outdated and that was prior to the implementation of the ngss the new science standards so the that they had to do a review of new textbooks to see what they can get to align and this one they like specifically the readability because it's for a variety of levels

031both the cp and the ccp earth science of course thank you one that say you mentioned that it the precision machining technology that actually helps students get credit at what you said in nagatok valley is that auto tuck valley it's a dual enrollment course is that the waterbury community college okay well i know there's there's a few community colleges around the state and that one's the one yeah okay so that that's fantastic so thank you i know you know when i got on the board two years ago i spoke with the superintendent and one of the things that i'd like to see is i i believe i'm a firm believer a strong advocate of education continuing throughout one's life um but i'm not a believer necessarily that it needs to be a formal education or

032in this instance necessarily like a four-year bachelor's degree that any students need to go on to i think education is important and i think a community college to be able to take advantage of that and you know not spend quite as much money and take on as much debt i think that's a i think that's a great opportunity for students so i just wanted to highlight that so thank you and uh miss lana quit if i'm wrong but this also i believe the expansion of the machining program at chs also helps students gain certification or steps towards certification steps towards it i think with what sean has presented to us in the past about how he wants to use the perkins money is really for us to build upon and create a certification program but

033that takes a few years to get these all aligned so this would be a course towards that thank you uh adam and then ann uh just quick question um the units that are mentioned um in the uh the write-ups here are those actual textbooks or is it a combination of textbook and e-book or how does that how does that look nowadays we had two textbooks that also have a platform component or i should say that the earth science has a platform component but the textbooks themselves were on display both at our offices and at the public library so there is a hard copy textbook that will be available to students but the online um portion of that has just a depth of material that isn't found only in the textbook so it's more so the

034if the intention is it the main uh body of of the uh text is more an ebook and not it's a textbook if you want it but it's more of a interactive uh book yeah okay yeah thanks i just wanted to add real quickly that i have seen some enthusiastic proponents of um of our programs at chs but none more enthusiastic than this manufacturing courses as they've been evolving and coming to fruition so um it's it's been wonderful to see and i i agree with tim i do think it's it's really um it's an important addition to our curriculum for our high school students and uh just the last comment and i my mind uh is lacking here but was it this past summer or last summer that we that sean won that big cnc

035machine multi-access uh that we was able so i mean he's just been the point has been building and building and building so it's awesome to see this take off so uh kudos to the team i will pass that along yeah please let him know um that being said the i lost my motion the motion is that the cheshire board of education approved the purchase of the following textbooks inspire earth science and precision machining technology as recommended by the curriculum committee all those in favor it is unanimous thank you i think that concludes the curriculum committee report up next is finance mr grippo thank you mr chairman um i will give a much less exciting uh finance report than vin could as reflected in the above summary which unfortunately is no one else can see at

036least except for the board members here um through october 31 2021 our approved budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year is 77 million uh 1052. and we have ex expended and encumbered 60 million 520 318 or 78.6 percent through the first four months of the fiscal year the vast majority of our encumbrances for payroll transportation and outplace tuition accounts have now been entered with only minor adjustments expected through december at this time there are no major budget variance concerns to report with that said the recent increases in fuel prices are expected to negatively impact our budget lines for transportation fuel and heat and energy but since these line items are relatively small the overall impact to the budget is manageable as reported previously we expect that there will be lingering uncertainty as to the extent of

037coven 19 pandemic related expenses especially for student and staff health safety and protective needs such as tent rentals intraday cleaning as well as the purchase of ppe and disaffecting supplies while these safety related expenses are not expected to negatively impact the operating budget if they become excessive they will reduce the funding that is available for learning loss and academic needs that we intend to allocate to the two available elementary and secondary school emergency relief esser grants that total one million three hundred three hundred thirty seven thousand seven hundred six dollars as detailed below esther grant thirty 439 thousand five hundred fifty nine dollars to be used by nine uh i guess that's september 2023 and the uh arp esser uh eight hundred eighty nine thousand one hundred forty seven dollars to be used by september

038in line with the above the relatively low infection rate at this time and the launch of booster vaccines for adults and vaccines for five to 11 year old children will hopefully ease the health and financial uncertainty and mark the beginning of the end of the pandemic we will continue to monitor and report on our budget including the status of esther grant's uh ester grant use as the 2021-2022 school year progresses and that ends the financial reports um i guess dr solon for me i didn't get a chance to look at the line items here but the the one concern that we had actually well not one one of many concerns that we had during our budget process last year was actually was fuel cost um thinking that you know it was going to go up

039in our in our light almost was was we thought was a little light but at the time you know that's what it was so um our how is that is that going to be um it says here it won't be a major impact but the price keeps going up and have we successfully we converted many of our schools from diesel or from oil uh if i recall yeah yes but we're um generically speaking more oil based heat but nevertheless you know nobody could predict where prices were going to go where the pandemic's going to go and it's still incredibly hard to do that but our entire budget line for heating oil natural gas propane you know gasoline diesel fuel amounts to about seven hundred thousand dollars so with a 10 increase we're looking at a

04070 000 variance in the budget even 15 percent is just over a hundred thousand um so in that case i mean we'll continue to look at other areas that are you know under have come in under the projected budgeting amount could be outplacement substitutes who knows we'll continue to track that but what we do historically in our budget implementation is you talked about mr grippo we have only encumbered 60 of the 77 million and so anything that's kind of a variable purchase that we might be able to delay a bit in order to better get a sense of what the fuel will be particularly going into the winter months we're going to do that but like i said even with a 15 20 percent variance is a hundred and forty thousand dollars we can you

041know account for that in one way shape or form through our budget um it's not anything that has us really concerned but closely monitoring are there any are there any other questions too yeah so uh washington just passed the big bill trillion dollars do you happen to know were electric school buses in there i know they were talking about ev charging stations right i i do not know specific to electric school buses but i know that a substantial sum was committed to electric vehicle infrastructure but i don't know specific to electric school buses yet okay i'll try to find out yeah i'm sure you know and the other thing is i know that you know i heard the governor saying the other day that of the money that's committed to connecticut the state also has

042to match some of that funding and so you know i'm sure there'll be a legislative process to identify that but you know hopefully we are able to move toward electric busing and other you know green efforts for schools sure and i just want to say that so i i have a this energy transition that we are undertaking right now that will take decades it started a long time ago and will continue for a long time it to me it's not just about the energy transition um it also gets to public health i have asthma so this is for the public i have asthma and i have absolutely no doubt that that is in part because of emissions that happen across the country the power plants the coal plants out in ohio and the winds just

043blow across to the east the emissions from the buses um and they're cleaner than they used to be but they're still there and i don't my my hope my goal is to not have the kids inhaling those emissions even if they are cleaner it's still better to not have them around for any of us particularly the kids who are right there within a few feet of the of the exhaust pipes so that's it thank you thank you um i just had one last question um so it was about this time last year that the the school lunch program little problem kind of popped up i don't see anything like that here is it safe to say that um that problem has been solved and we we seem to be uh moving along nicely this year

044yeah great memory um i think what caught us last year is you know with the free and reduced and how that with free everybody was free um and we weren't really prepared nobody was to navigate that as a matter of fact i think we emerged uh in a much better position than most districts uh because we did notice it and make some changes and providing breakfast as well this year we are in a much much better place our biggest lunch issue is not necessarily finance access to food that you know our uh food services director is working really hard to like change menus all the time so i know eric is always focused on making sure we provide a nutritious meal breakfast and lunch but how do we you know also get access to food

045she's driven herself personally to go different places and collect food just to make sure we're able to provide that for our kids so i appreciate her her commitment there one last thing that i would mention on a different note is uh when you went when you started to talk about last year about this time and i started to think more about medical benefits and we hadn't gotten there yet yeah i i know i don't want to steal your thunder for january but um that's always a really really challenging path and so you know we have vin and i have begun uh conversations with arnett and jim and sean on this side of the street to try and devise a solution for budgeting that provides us greater stability um because if you recall we um intentionally

046as a community agreed to kind of underfund um the medical benefits account which is you know it's okay right now it's stable but in order to close the gap in our budget we're we're going to need a significant uh operational increase to do that and um you know just it seems uh like we're always in this position where we're chasing medical benefits so we are working um as requested by the board and council last year to advise a solution that might provide us greater stability moving forward so more to come on that too great true um since there's uh no action needs to be taken um i will move on to the medical benefits uh report as as referenced um for the for the month of october claims were um 998 677 dollars which um

047puts us overdrawn by um 168 874 leaving us with a uh net medical benefit reserve amount of 1.81 million dollars for according to this two-month reserve which i believe is uh lower lower than what we would normally like it's like three months i think something it's it's at the fringe yeah right there um so uh if i recall from the last meeting vin had mentioned that there was going to be a detailed review of the claims i don't know if had that occurred yet or yeah that's still in process and i would you would add here too that we will be receiving stop-loss reimbursement and uh more prescription rebates that you know will help buoy that 2.09 months a little bit higher to make us a little bit more comfortable like you said i think

048we're still kind of the fringe of being uncomfortable with that number and i know that as part of the budgeting process the council had said you know we can revisit that with them if it becomes an issue um but i think right now we're still okay uh but i as you mentioned i know um van and the team are going through that medical benefits claims and they'll be ready to share more information in our next meeting great are there any questions on medical benefit yeah so not a question but i just think it's important to always be pointing out that that million-five one-time contribution that went into this year's number is really the only thing keeping us at two months over or two months of reserve so um you know let's keep focused on that

049too because we didn't budget it that way we had to we had to get that infusion after the fact so thanks though thanks for the report adam tony i i you know we're it's interesting because we had talked during the budget process of budgeting 900 000 a month in claims um came in at 800 000 i think still marginally better than last year because we're hitting two three hundred thousand dollars in some months over the allotment i i guess the concern i have is if the gimmick that's being looked at for the reserve fund is to lock it down that's all well and good but it doesn't address the fluctuation in claims which is really the root cause so i i hope um yeah the analysis will show us something but um but i don't

050believe we're just it's just the board of ed's side that's facing slowness i know what town is exactly so i'm sure working together we'll figure it out so i appreciate that vincent team is starting to look for that be curious to see how the year goes but thanks for the report any other questions that concludes my report thank you thank you adam up next is mr gripple again on policy committee i think i'm sorry i bypassed tim personnel committee update sorry no disrespect yeah a personnel committee met on i think it was wednesday november 10th uh the meeting was basically held in executive session the topic was uh the superintendent's goals for this year we will i thought it was a good conversation i think that we all felt that way and we will be

051having following this meeting we'll be going i anticipate we'll be going into executive session to have a discussion of the superintendent's goals among the entire board of less faith who's not here tonight but that's it thank you thank you tim it's the grip off nexus policy it's been a long time mr chairman thank you um so uh on november 9th um the policy committee uh uh convened and we reviewed several policies um uh first up was uh policy uh 5131-9 student hazing and bullying um this will be brought up for a second reading let me just make sure we have a okay so uh so we moved this policy forward for uh a second reading um in this in this review of the second reading um our attorneys at is it bertram moses yeah um

052did a thorough review of the policy uh because the the first time that we saw it was sort of an amalgamation of different things from cave and i guess legislation was all kind of mashed together so they went through and i think we all agreed that the final form that came before us was probably the best version we had ever seen of of the the bullying policy was really well done it had great references and it was easy to understand by anyone who read it so we were quite pleased by it um i guess the the one of the i guess the major concern was was of course the the changing of the definition of bullying um that came down from legislation um which seems to conflict with itself a little bit um because um

053it doesn't before it was uh was it pervasive and i forget what was it repeated it used to be uh yeah used to be repeated repeated and pervasive or whatever oh yes repeated acts of of bullying um but at their uh the new definition has that you could have one single act if it's significant enough could also be considered bullying um so we are a little bit um we're trying to figure out what exactly what that meant so i guess as we come along we'll have to the administration will have to figure that out um and i think really the the second part uh if i recall was whether or not um people uh i think was it administration and and it looks like seemed like any employee of us of the school and potentially

054even parents could also be included uh as perpetrators in this bullying policy it's not entirely clear if that's true the way it was the way that the final form was written it wasn't entirely clear and it wasn't entirely clear in the original legislation or the um policy that came from cave either so i guess that will also be another issue that we'll have to keep an eye on as we go forward but other than that we unanimously uh uh voted to move it forward to a second reading um and then uh for um uh lastly as a third reading of the uh policy uh 41 18.11 42 18.11 nondiscrimination um uh here uh dr solon explained there are no changes this policy since the first reading um revisions are required due to changes in statute

055the following language that is being added is race and quotes is inclusive of ethnic traits historically associated with race including but not limited to hair texture protective and protected protective hair styles protective hairstyles and quote includes but it's not limited to wigs head wraps and hair styles such as individual braids cornrows locks twists bantu knots afros and afro puffs um and so i have a motion to be considered um this being blocked here here we go uh motion uh that the cheshire board of education give a third and final reading to policy 18.11 slash 4218.119 nondiscrimination and direct the superintendent to put said policy into immediate effect i have a second tim um is there discussion on the motion seeing none um all in favor it is unanimous to those present um thank you uh

056and that concludes my report mr chairman uh thank you adam and thank you policy team for helping get this one done uh just on the on the bullying policy we didn't get a chance to i just want to mention something about it yeah please um yeah so with regard to the the change that you're talking about adam moving it from you know multiple repeated offensive to a single offense that is really concerning to me um i get it it's the law um but just in the interest of you know sometimes kids can do stupid things not understand the consequences of them and not i don't really want them to have that mark on their record in perpetuity when it was a one-off thing that they they were spoken to and they and they took the

057lesson heart um so i just confirmed with the superintendent you can clarify if i get anything wrong here but let's just say a kid does something it's stupid it's not the right thing to do if the kid basically has a good record following that i mean let's say you're in elementary school they do something wrong by the time they get to elementary school or you know they finish up a dot if they did something there you could get it wiped from the record is it i mean is that sure i think is a base response to that answer i would start with the fact that connecticut has a records retention protocol that we follow with respect to discipline generically you know there is a latitude within statute for the superintendent to review and expunge records

058at different uh transitions in a student's education so you know as part of that review i won't say that it happens with regularity um it's probably more the exception than the rule but there is the possibility to expunge a student's record um like i said at different points okay yeah it's just and we use good judgment you know obviously and would require um like you stated that uh we would need to see that there this was a learning experience tremendous growth had been made um but it's like i said it's more the exception than the role thank you thank you tim up next is school modernization update mr martelly i'm going to have uh dr solon give the update tonight thank you mr martelly um the uh process has been kind of moving in a

059lot of different directions here so the first component that we're really exploring is darcy school and so dan hansen who was referred to us through collier's has been working with the darcy staff to identify the programmatic needs there because if you recall the uh two elementary school plan incorporated darcy moving to highland and at a review that was done several weeks ago there was a real question about capacity there and programming and we obviously want to measure twice twice and cut once and not realize we've got a major problem in the middle of this so dan has he toured the darcy school with principal kim desert uh myself and mr massiana he toured highland with principal jeffrey and mr maciana and i did that several weeks ago he uh has pretty much finalized his review

060of the programming at highland he will be meeting with highlands staff representatives tomorrow to finalize that mr jeffrey concurrently has been reviewing upon redistricting to accommodate the two new elementary schools what sort of space will we have at highland and he's identified classroom we're trying to put classrooms together to accommodate darcy and what would that look like so our plan is the timeline is that by mid-december we will have a really clear picture about whether or not darcy's programming would overlay into highland and if it doesn't we will also have at that time recommendations of are we talking about it it's really impossible if that's the case we would be looking at do we need to add darcy or other programming we could make a recommendation into the north end school at castro tunnel property

061is it really close and we need minor renovation to make this uh happen then we we could talk about that but the bottom line is mid-december we should have a real good sense of what where darcy stands in highland and whether or not it would work there which will in turn allow us to do ed specs for the two other buildings um norton and the castro town on north end elementary school along those lines gncb has been contracted to do the soil boring process to confirm that we can do construction in those two sites they will be at the casertano property on the 23rd of november and on the 24th that afternoon they'll be at norton with the machinery to do that unfortunately as much as we wanted to try and expedite that this is

062expedited in the world that we're living in right now and they will try and get those results as quickly as possible upon completion of those tasks so really that next step is once we identify how and if uh darcy fits into highland we can you know really go gangbusters on ed specs for the other two buildings and move forward a couple other uh one other real point and note uh you've probably heard the name casa diamantis in their conversations over the years who's the head of oscgr at the state he was the person we met with last year he has resigned from his post so there's a new leadership hasn't been necessarily put in place yet but upon chuck warrington from collier's his recommendation i'll be drafting a letter on behalf of the schools to

063send to michelle dixon who's uh the interim in charge asking to meet with her um so we can just you know kind of update them on where we are on our project and what's going on and make sure that we're on that radar so that's the update on school modernization uh quick question the [Music] the ed specs for birth to three and also for alternative high school right because they colliers needs that to help us determine fit location but also ensure that the costs are captured right so are we gonna also have uh confirmation on the low and high cost or phase one of that plan in december yeah so pecking order right now is really that darcy to highland thing and then getting the two elementary schools specked out in there will be a

064review of the educational programming at the alternative school plus space review for our board of ed education offices those are all things we're trying to accomplish as quickly as possible but the the two elementary schools chuck and john have kind of prioritized that uh so that we can get that in the in the process for reimbursement thank you so what i'm hearing here suggests that the um two elementary school plan is basically the only one that's going to be investigated really thoroughly and presented to the public um you don't have to say it's fine um and i since this is my last board meeting i feel that i must um reiterate my concern about the way that this process has unfolded and the fact that the community that the [Music] the plan that became designated

065as the quote-unquote preferred plan sort of took a lot on a life of its own and the six to eight middle school possibility has been shoved aside and in my view and with all disrespect to everyone who sits on this board you know it has become a politicized thing and not by the board um but by others and i am i think it is a disservice to the community to just ramrod this thing through as if there is no other alternative and not even give the community the chance to weigh in on um in the same way that you're giving all of this information all the attention to the two elementary schools that same effort should be devoted to to the six state middle school and you know i respect the work that the school

066modernization committee has done truly i do because the board did that very same uh work and it took months and months for the board to do the same work uh a few years ago and we came up with a plan that was about the same amount of money and no one on the town council at that point would allow this you know any sort of proposal to go to the public i i cannot i i find it just so disheartening that there is no one that's that is saying okay the 68 middle school has some real um benefits the two elementary schools i still have not heard a single thing that is compelling about creating the two new middle elementary schools since we could deal with the enrollment issues by doing a six through eight

067middle school and you know uh building a new chapman and so i just feel like i have to say this my last opportunity although maybe i'll show up and speak as a member of the public about this but i would urge my fellow board members to take a look at this again and really with fresh eyes and from a fresh perspective and without the political overtones that have like sort of driven this now the school modernization committee did what it did the board had previously done what it did let's let the community figure out that between the two options which one makes more sense but i believe truly in my heart that for the kids of cheshire the six state middle school is going to benefit the students in a much more fundamental way than

068the two elementary schools and i'm i the end that's all i have to say thank you for giving me the opportunity catherine i was waiting for you to try me at some point i was going to say something earlier well so the good news is i i expect sometime in december we'll have a planning committee meeting but a board of ed because uh the other aspect of this is which you know folks don't like because reality is also financial so until uh we actually know what the town council feels is a palatable appetite for finances if we can fund the full phase one andy's main piece of information it'll be up to the planning committee to move forward a recommendation to the full board of ed for a final vote uh last i checked consensus

069still seems to favor scenario six anything is possible so i would say to all the other board members that are staying on and new ones coming there's an opportunity to make your case in december and beyond so stay tuned but uh for sure i could tell you uh i received no confirmation from town council that they're going to look at anything else and based on the consensus of the board recognize anything else but let's see what happens anything can happen at this point uh that being said i would hope that uh because of your work on both plans catherine uh you stick around because if we think a little longer term when something will go to referendum um i just had this conversation someone the other day is and you know again steps to get

070there but there is a timeline to meet for the board to put something from council officially they have to discuss in public put the referendum and as a period but there's also committee work that has to happen both on the board uh and ultimately if it's the public building commission down the road there has to be a user committee involved and we're going to need folks to help with that so i i would hope maybe down the road you can still stick very close whether it be a member of public or not but um so i would say stay tuned see what happens okay hey you wait this long was a few more weeks i'm just joking thank you katherine anyone else andrew anything else you want to add yeah yes so i would just

071add just a wee bit more because catherine you stated that very very nicely thank you um that i'm not sure why we are waiting for or something from the town council um is there not something that we should that we should could be doing um sort of in advance of that what do you think from planning is there anything planning can do in the meantime well until we have though so we have the information in mid december for uh to test fit to the school sites i don't know what else we could really meet to talk about so we're planning on having a planning committee being at the hall on december 16th the superintendent i spoke about earlier today i'm just wondering if you know if we're going to ask the town council to do

072any kind of putting together information or numbers on the sixth great middle school option we should discuss that as a board before we go to them with that and if we want to survey the public still create a survey we still have time to do that but if we wait until january february we're not going to have we're not that's not going to be an option at that point um so i'm just you know i feel like we're twiddling our thumbs waiting for the town council to act and and they're not even looking at the alternative option we've gotten a lot of feedback on that sixth grade middle school and i don't think it's sufficient to just tell people we hear you we're waiting to see what the town council does i i feel like

073there's action that we could take be more proactive about um putting together our information based on us being a board of education and what educationally those two projects look like for us absolutely and there is certainly opportunity for planning committee to do that which is where this resides right now so if the planning committee wants to request more information to town council it can meet and decide that for sure so i would work that avenue and i think i sent out an email second was last week before detailing what the steps are in protocol so i know andrew is reachable so please work through andrew in preparation for that meeting let's see what we can discuss yes mr grippa um the only thing that sounded like really changed was leadership at oscgr is that the

074correct acronym um so a lot of times when someone leaves a position like that it's either they retired or for some other philosophical reason sometimes so i was just wondering if you've had any notion as to whether or not there's a philosophical change at that uh office and whether or not we will receive a response from your letter before our uh planning meeting on december 16th and i guess the kind of piggyback on on what ann said it seems like all the testing and ed specs and all that that those final results will really kind of tell us if whatever plan we're looking at is real and doable anyway because it may not be the soil might be bad and then you know we you know we don't know if we strike out at castertono

075yeah we're in trouble regardless of what we're trying to do so um i it's a great question i think it's a fair question about shift in philosophy that's part of the rationale for meeting and just go talk to them face to face and and see where where things lie at that point and the challenging thing is with an interim head will it be different you know a month two months three months later with a different person or might you know this be the same person so who knows but um you know we definitely need to try and go and solicit some feedback and share our you know where we are in our process and um see see where it stands but hopefully we can do that asap and hopefully before the 16th of december i'll

076make myself available before that time you know whether or not they can is you know not my court but we'll try good question adam i appreciate that and i and jeff i appreciate that um that you want to keep us on their radar i think that's that's the important thing so thanks thank you up next is we don't have any understanding committees to report on in your packets there are meeting minutes from the last three meetings i believe pull this up we have meeting minutes from october 21st 25th and november 4th before we uh get into it with someone like to make a motion on approving the media minutes tim question to approve the meeting minutes so the the motion is moved that the board education approved the meeting minutes for meetings on october 21st

07725th 4th is there a second and seconds any updates or changes to the to the minutes since there are none the motion is moved at the board of education approve the minutes from meetings held on october 21st 25th and november 4th uh all those in favor it is fault i'm sorry i'm going to abstain because i i actually had some questions about one of them and now it's too late for me for me to say anything so i'll abstain no if you can can we pull one of them out well is there any changes to the minute well maybe i mean if it's substantive i mean you can make it you can make it suggest it and offer an amendment true i don't want to do that publicly right now so the motion is move

078the board of education approve the minutes from meetings held on october 21st 25th and november 4th all those in favor raise your hands is one two three four in favor any against any abstentions can be abstaining or no i voted against it just because of what anne said i could have missed something i i don't know i'm i'm not that concerned about it okay well the motion passes uh the votes are noted thank you up next is correspondence secretary helen do we have any correspondence this evening so we do not mr chair thank you and that's probably the last time i'm going to that it's my last report up next is superintendent's report dr sullin thank you mr chair i try and uh pet this up and make it the the most exciting part of

079the meeting although i don't think we're going to get there tonight after our presentations anyway kovid really quickly um i'm disappointed to report that this week has probably been the toughest week we've had all year long right now we have excuse me 48 students quarantined and a number of positives the high being six at highland but every school has a positive student except for darcy that's much different than anything we've seen so far this year i want to remind people to please take precautions over the holidays and and be you know smart hopefully get outside as much as you can wear masks where you can't uh relative to last year however to put this in perspective i went back and looked at the data from november 20 november 18 we had uh students quarantined it

080at chs and hummingston another 22.142 at highland at this time last year so those totals 284 last year compared to 48 this year we'll take it that's a really a testament to our mitigation strategies including vaccination i want to thank chespercott and doolittle for facilitating our vaccination clinic for five to 11 year olds we've so far vaccinated 535 students in that age range we have another 200 slots available on excuse me net 200 slots available we have another 200 appointments that are scheduled on saturday there are still spots available there though um so by that point just at that one clinic site we will exceed uh or eclipse 50 percent of our 5 to 11 population in the cheshire public schools so i appreciate maura and her team at just for cop making that possible

081point of comparison at this point um 12 to 17 year olds that live in cheshire this is not exclusively the cheshire public school system but just live in cheshire of our population vaccinated 79 percent of the 18 to 24 population is vaccinated in cheshire 25 to 44 years of age 76 45 to 64. 79 percent and the 65 percent or 65 age and up is 100 vaccinated so um just some information there to share with you uh another little neat thing uh tomorrow at 11 o'clock we have horses from rivendale farm in durham uh they're coming to dodd for as part of a therapeutic activity with our life skills program and uh it's really an exciting day we've they've been working with our school system for the past five years and it'll be really a

082special treat for our students to be able to engage with horses uh on the dodd property kind of a unique thing there um i wanted to touch really quickly on our this next item we're required to review our district profile and performance report each year and the most recent year that was published recently is 1920 the 1920 school year if you recall that's the year in march can recall if not forget that we um were impacted so dramatically by covid um what i did was take a look back at 1617 to see if there were any substantial differences worth noting right now you know as of the 1920 school year we we had 4 199 students at that time we've rebounded back since then closer to 4 300 students now at that time in 1617

083our enrollment was 4 358 so kind of illustrating that we troughed out and we're rebounding back as the various enrollment studies have indicated some interesting points of note our suspension and expulsion numbers were significantly lower of course several months of pandemic but that's always a positive sign in in my mind the full-time educator equivalent at that time we had 274 uh full-time teachers and instructors now 268. so we see you know that as the enrollment declined so did our faculty i know sometimes there's the allegation that that never happens which isn't accurate where we saw a dramatic decline as well as in media support staff from 12.7 to 6.0 probably more a reflection of our budgeting um at the at the time and a couple other you know items i'd like to point out and

084this is this report is available in your packet and online and you can as a member of the public go to edsite ct.gov which has incredible detail and data on every school system in connecticut one of the things that i saw and really appreciated in terms of an improvement was that in 1617 we had 71 percent of our 11th graders taking college and career readiness courses during high school 71 in the 1920 report it was 98 so our students are accessing a lot of college and career ready coursework uh the jump in 12th grade went from 92 to 97.8 so our i always thought as high school principal it was really important that whether or not a student was going to college that they had exposure to at least one college level course uh upon

085graduation and this tells us that we're getting there um in an appropriate number as well another note as we embark on budget season our local percentage of the budget has risen from 81 percent 82 percent to 84 percent and as a balance to that our pilot money at the local level has increased so it's probably close to an offset there but when you see that number it may jump out to you but you know of course there's more to the story there the persistence rate is something that i think is really important for us students who enter college as freshmen what percentage of them continue on to a sophomore year and there can be a myriad of reasons why students don't continue on or persist however it's something that we think is really important um

086we were at uh roughly 94 we're at 95.6 as it moved up a little bit one percent could certainly be um reflective of different variables but um it's still incredibly high that persistence rate and that's something that we're we're really proud of our four-year cohort graduation rate is exceptionally high at 97.6 percent uh basically if you enter cheshire high school as a freshman you're gonna graduate four years later as a senior um and most of those those students who aren't are receiving extended services perhaps transitioning into our quinnipiac program most of the rest of the report is really you know absent given the fact that our standardized assessments were compromised by covid we were impossible actually so um i just wanted to kind of walk through that report and certainly if anybody has any questions

087they can reach out and the last item that i wanted to talk really quickly about was the fact that this is the 100th anniversary of american education week and in my message to the staff i shared with them that you know particularly over the last two years the role that public education has played specific to the cheshire community has been critical in permitting our students to attend school every day to have those social and educational connections continuing in their life we have been the metaphorical shelter in the storm and as such we thought that an umbrella would be a nice gift for our staff as well as cheshire public school masks the umbrella if you haven't noticed yet has a neat little quirk it comes with an app that if you plug in a particular

088percentage of precipitation chance it will geo-locate you and when the precipitation chance exceeds that number that you plugged in you'll get an alert on your phone that says cheshire public schools has you covered don't forget your umbrella so it's kind of cool a little quirk and you know certainly you guys is critical members of our public education team we thought you deserved an umbrella too so thank you and happy american education week thank you dr sol any questions on his report tim thank you tony yeah i was just jotting down some notes um uh a story i heard on npr hopkinton mass in the past probably about three weeks ago they had hit a 98 vaccine rate which is quite different from us as you were just talking about the numbers but they made mandato

089they uh eliminated the mandatory masking rule you know what i'm talking about no okay okay so ann knows what i'm talking about this is not made up at all no so but so so they did that um but what i'm wondering about is have you begun to think about metrics guardrails for unmasking at this point and i know we're under a state basically executive order right now and it's not going to happen that goes until the end of february but i'm just wondering you know are you are you thinking that through on the potential of unmasking and what would be the the key determinants for you the criteria you would use in doing that sure so we started thinking about that in july august when it was uncertain as to whether or not the state

090would require masks as you mentioned is it is state law we do require masks we follow that but at that time i had sent the state department of ed a proposal to review around a combination of variables including vaccination rate within the building staff and student the positivity rate in the community uh hospital hospitalization rates things like that specific to our community and pinpointed to the greatest extent possible at a building level and it's you know a moot point at the moment but um it is something that we're conscious of uh i'll i keep coming back to what we all believe is most critically important is getting every student in school all day every day and what steps support that so um vaccination and and i'm not you know an epidemiologist or you know any

091sort of public health expert or medical doctor but the i rely heavily on people who are to advise us about what steps support that stated goal and beyond being here all day every day then it's as close to typical participation as possible which would include not having a mask on so the advisement is that access to vaccination is a step that will get us toward that so we continue to employ those strategies we continue to employ mitigation efforts like distancing to the greatest extent possible at lunches and the cleaning protocols that we use long-winded answer for yes we are always trying to get there um and taking every step that is advisable to that end sure thank you um yeah and just for the viewing public so the the town that i mentioned hopkinton mass

092i think it's right outside of boston it was a story on npr probably a week ago is when i had heard it that was pretty much like right around the two-week mark so at the tail end of when you could begin to see the covet cases something like that but i just while we were sitting here i just googled it and i didn't see anything pop up under there and i i'm just guessing that if there was a big story about it a big explosion it probably would be in the news like they made a mistake now again they had a 98 vaccination rate i'm assuming at least the high school i forget if it went through the elementary schools and stuff well probably not through the elementary schools because that would have only happened

093in the past few weeks the vaccinations yeah um but i just want to i want to keep the kids in school absolutely that is the number one priority but i also want to be mindful of the masking and trying to get beyond that as soon as possible one other point i'll just make that i saw as a parent last summer and a conversation with our pediatrician last summer was you know my son's got a cough he's got a fever she'll bring him in for a covet test yes bring him in for a covert test but to be frank he probably doesn't have it because we've seen an explosion because everybody had been masked up for a year and a half and then when everybody unmasked probably last may or something including kids over the summer

094time outside there's an explosion of all sorts of other viruses because all those viruses are out there and kids get fevers and stuff like that so i just want to be mindful of that if if at some point hopefully before the end of the year we do end up unmasking there could be a whole slew of things that could get people concerned and rightfully so but not necessarily covid it just could be other viruses that kids get all the time adults get them too and the one other thing that i was wondering about i don't know if you mentioned it like i said i i was looking up something about hopkinton mass um mental health uh any concerns anything that's going on right now within the school system it it's a concern for me not

095among the entire student body but probably at an increased rate concerns among the students relative to prior years sure we talked to open the meeting really almost opened the meeting with circle of security and attachment issues and what we've seen is not just among youth but adults the transition and i think some frankly some of the social storm impacting people um of all ages and and certainly kids can be more sensitive to that and so yeah i mean we definitely are closely monitoring that and we have seen um an increase i mean certainly over behavior last year but last year was really hard to to gauge because we had much less students in school and we are continuing to work really closely with students and families to support them part of the issue there is

096that mental health support in the broader communities it was hard to come by pre-pandemic now there's an excessive demand and a real dearth of service which is is creating a problem uh or exacerbating a problem the problem is already there so um we work very closely with youth and social services uh and other providers in the community to try and link up kids particularly who may be in you know greater need than others um and and that's nothing new but it's it's definitely more pressing this year and we're doing other things um you know i mentioned those horses that's a therapeutic intervention we have our pet partners our therapy dogs um you know are working with kids across the district which is helpful we are focused very much on mindfulness and other strategies to support

097self-awareness in and emotional regulation things that we have really ratcheted up in the face of this transition to support kids tomorrow or excuse me next week we'll have scott driscoll come in who does a lot of internet safety presentations for students and parents that'll be a dodd middle school so you know we're really trying to do wrap around supports for students we had a special had a workshop for parents recently so we're trying to address uh all facets of it but and it is a significant issue not just it's not a cheshire issue by any stretch it's a an american issue right now probably a global issue yeah no i i understand that's my thinking too so thank you yeah yeah thank you any other ones have questions another former school counselor can't not chime

098in on this i just wanted to add that i think the importance that all of you have contributed to sel being a focus area means that we have really looked at ways to embed those supports into regular teacher instruction and one example of that is today we had a speaker come to our administrative team and talk about ways of promoting that even in a math class and how you couldn't teach frustr de-escalation and first how to handle frustration if you know how to deal with frustration with a math problem you're more able to then apply that to other situations in your life so i think the importance of us embedding those sel strategies within instruction is is really important i just wanted to add that thank you thank you marlene as soon as there are

099other no other questions uh we have no old business new business uh so for announcement meetings uh dr sona i had a chance to attend the cave caps conference it was already a week ago last friday yeah uh which was nice because it didn't happen last year due to covid and even though there was uh not full attendance it was pretty well attended so it was nice to win in person it was sold out based on the the cap on the on the numbers which is a good thing who would have thought a cab conference actually sell out but that was actually a fun thing we yeah um we actually had uh our education secretary uh mr cordona uh uh streaming live from washington that was pretty exciting uh he obviously holds connecticut in high

100regard especially for education and so i selflessly hearing that i'm hoping that this funding in the bill a lot of it comes to connecticut especially for schools maybe electric vehicles tim but uh so it's good to know that we have a strong proponent in washington for our education system here in connecticut which was freshman year uh dr stone i got a chance to do a pre-conference session on leadership and divisive times with patrice mccarthy that was pretty interesting we're not the only board that has seen public uh commentary for last lack of a better word every school board in connecticut is facing some kind of um scrutiny um various topics and i was actually on a cab chair meeting today um and by the way tim the topic of uh when we get back to

101potentially optional mass in schools depending what happens to covet what are those metrics you know is cabe come up with any recommendations yet and all i heard was uh certainly working with the department of ed and department of health but there's nothing firm yet my guess is it's going to be up to working with superintendents soon so i'm hopeful that we'll have some answers going into late winter i'm hopeful that spring we can relax this but uh but it's good enough we're not going to look at that which is nice um oh one last thing i was an aces governance ball governance yeah ball which was a ball ace's governance call today on the board and uh if i heard mr cook correctly on curriculum they uh aces offers that teacher residency residency program that

102dr sullin mentioned to us uh a few months ago and that's uh part of crack where we uh they can find a fast track for folks to become educators people of color to help fill that gap in diversity and if i heard mr cook correctly at least for aces the organization they now have more uh candidates enrolled in that and have seats available which is incredible because we can't find enough folks uh to fill those positions across the united states so i know aces is a very small aspect but that was pretty awesome to hear that that program is up and running and so hopefully maybe ending the next year i know dr stone tried to uh find some folks this year but uh it's very positive so but you should know that and that's

103all i really really have so upcoming meetings the december 9th at 7 30 is the board of ed organizational and board of ed business meeting here in council chambers monday december 13th at 7 pm is the curriculum committee meeting thomaston boardroom tuesday december 14th 14th to 6 30 is policy committee at the hudson boardroom december 16th potential planning committee meeting uh possible as a whole to be determined and i'm not gonna get into that after the new year budget schedule was kind of sad but uh that being said that's the upcoming meetings that's all we have on the agenda night for business um we are going to be adjourning into executive session after this with uh no action to follow so folks are free to leave once we make the motion but before we go

104there do i have a motion to exert adjourn an executive session catherine one fine i was i was either waiting for a second enter motion but it's yours i moved that we adjourn into executive session oh sorry um to include dr solon to discuss the superintendent's evaluation with no action to follow thank you katherine is there a second 10 seconds all those in favor it is in favor we are joining executive session you all leave thank you for staying on tonight you