001mike i assume we're okay to go in a minute okay thank you sir okay like the official call tonight's meeting the order this is the board of education special meeting of the board of education june 23 2021 uh mr zenski can have a roll call please here here here here here thank you carol i asked the board to please rise for the pledge of allegiance good evening everyone and fellow board members again it's nice to be in uh in person again welcome if anyone is watching um hopefully this won't be a very long meeting but we do have some items to go through before we get into committees do we have any audience um commentary at this point we do not we'll check in again during uh during correspondence that being said we're gonna move
002on to section three which is standing report of committees starting with curriculum so faith um thank you we will have some motions at the end of this report so um we'll entertain them then um the curriculum committee of the board last met on june 14th um in attendance were uh tony and i as well as marlene kevin hanlon mary gadd maureen reed john demeo and aaron griffiths um we first heard from cheshire resident michael sheehan who submitted a letter to through the covet 19 email address regarding the state the state education resource center or circ and the district's work related to race equity social justice and systemic racism and the upcoming elective african-american black puerto rican and latino studies course the letter was read into the full record um we reviewed but tabled the minutes
003for from the previous meeting because of discussion that was not included so no motion was passed our first order of business was to hear from uh don demaio english teacher at cheshire high school about our first post-coveted out-of-country field trip yay and um it sounds like a fascinating trip the uh board um without going into the details it will be quite quite the adventure and uh the board approved it unanimously there was no old business and we had several informational items first there will be our first ever curriculum writing institute coming up june 24th 25th 28th 29th and 30th um over 80 teachers will be involved in the five-day institute and will represent curriculum updates in the vast majority of departments at every level and will include representatives from our people personnel departments the goal
004is to include developing authentic performance tasks that are engaging rigorous and tied to the standards and demonstrate the students complex thinking also creating a k-12 digital curriculum library and developing a curriculum that embodies acceleration so with regard to acceleration that was uh put into place during covid and found um a method of or a framework for teaching that um has proven highly successful so it will continue to be the focus beyond the 2020-2021 school year over the course of the year 51 teachers did attend the connecticut center for school change acceleration workshops in march and it will contin the ccsc will continue to provide professional development related to acceleration to administrators as well as monthly sessions um throughout the year um one strategy and approach that cheshire will rely on to help mitigate learning loss
005due to kovid is elevated instructional practice and the district is formalizing coaching sorry elevating elevating instructional practice through through coaching and we will formalize instructional coaching roles for teacher leaders as we go along and then during the 2022-2122 school year cheshire will restart its partnership with the connecticut science center and kevin hanlon shared that grades one and two teachers will receive direct professional development from the science center on professional professional development day in november then the rams reading and math specialists will engage in a five uh engage in five train the trainer sessions throughout the year and science teachers will also have one day of ngss training in september and one six hour professional learning session throughout the year during the division meetings um and then under informational items kevin handlin also presented an overview
006of the end-of-year reading and math data for grades one through six and this was actually really phenomenal because the overall trends in performance for the year-end data despite all that this was thrown at the kids um mirrored the previous years in trends and students um in meeting math and and reading benchmarks uh with similar uh similar to our mid-year data re uh the reading performance um was primarily near or at recent historical levels and math performance was primarily or slightly above recent historical levels so quite an accomplishment for everybody and then finally we had an overview um regarding the upcoming course that i just mentioned in black african-american latino and puerto rican studies it is an elective and it is a requirement that schools begin to offer the elective officially next year but we are
007piloting this year um but mandated under uh public act 1912. so um there are 84 students who have requested to take the course this year and it is being developed by don demayo whom i mentioned earlier and uh let's see they dr gad and dr reed shared that the course was presented in the program of studies presentation to the board of education curriculum committee and was included in the program of studies and typical course requests process and was publicized through teachers and counselors the launch for administrators will occur in july the training for the two teachers involved will include a week in the summer as well as ongoing sessions october december march provided by circ the state education resource committee no yeah so anyway um and that was our meeting um it was adjourned but
008we do have two motion items and for the board and um the first is approval of a textbook envision algebra 2 and the motion is that the cheshire board of education approved the purchase of the textbook and version envision algebra 2. do i okay um do we hear any discussion on the motion hearing none all in favor great okay our second motion reads that the cheshire board of education approved the participation of cheshire high school students in the educational field trip to puerto rico from april 18th 2022 through april 24th 2022 with the understanding that there is no cost to the cheshire board of education do i hear a second okay uh any discussion hearing none all in favor and it's unanimous and that is the end of my report thank you faith uh up
009next is uh personnel uh tim or jeff i'm not sure which one to start with i know on b1 so um tonight i have a really special honor of presenting to the board of education our selected candidate for the role of assistant principal at norton and chapman elementary school it's a split position if you recall we sat in this room i don't know two months ago maybe and discussed our plan to bounce forward is the school system you just heard faith talk about the fact that our assessment data throughout this year is actually as good as it's historically been in language arts and in many cases historically we've beaten historical averages in math and that's really a testament to a lot of the talented people on our administrative team and so for us to be
010able to add to that cache of talented individuals is really really exciting for us the person that i'm putting forward before you this evening has a tremendous track record of excellence working for the greenwich public schools eastern reading cheshire high school and most recently at dodd middle school is an english teacher and more much much more than that she has co-facilitated or co-coordinated the washington dc trip for many years and pretty much wherever she's been she's demonstrated herself to be a leader amongst her peers and that's no different at dodd middle school where she was a team leader for the last six years if or so so um you know that kind of gives you a sense of not only the the knowledge that this candidate has but also the commitment and the fact that
011she is a a consummate team player and it was incredibly easy selection with all due respect to other candidates for uh for this position so it's my honor to welcome miss kathy carlucci as our newest assistant principal my name is kathy carley she's in the audience this evening so if you if we want to if somebody's comfortable putting forward a motion and volunteers enthusiastically i would love to put this motion forward i move that the cheshire board of education approved the part appoint catherine carlucci to the position of assistant principal effective june 24 2021 oh that's tomorrow further that catherine carlucci be compensated in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the board and the cheshire administrative personnel faith seconds the motion uh any discussion any comments from the board members not tim yeah just
012the only point to make here is that this is the wording of this i i don't exactly agree with i'm going to support this motion but just to point out for the public that these disappointments administrative appointments all of them are made by the superintendent and it's not the board actually doing this but the way this is worded it sounds like that we appoint the superintendent that's it nobody else so thank you the motion does talk about pointing not approving so thank you any other comments from the board members yes yeah i'd just like to say kathy congratulations and i'm so pleased that you are coming on board in this capacity for cheshire public schools worked with you spoken with you for a few times over the past years in my role on the board
013of ed and i'm delighted with dr solon's choice so congratulations seeing his own comments i'll just say uh i've actually not only been fortunate to to have kat uh kathy here for warnings in the past but both of my daughters i believe had you in dad when they were going through there just a few years ago and it was a great experience for them so i'm very happy that you're moving into this role and i'm even more uh excited that we're able to you know that dr song is able to grow people from within and and have those positions available so it's a very positive thing for cheshire and i know our community is going to support this whole harley so thank you and and congratulations that being said unless there's only for discussions the
014motion is that the cheshire board of education uh appoint catherine carlucci to the position of assistant principal effective june 24th 2021 further than catherine carlucci be compensated in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the board and the cheshire administrative personnel all those in favor it is unanimous congratulations [Applause] we have more tim so uh we have a review and approval of a teacher sabbatical request you want to yeah i'll make the question uh the cheshire board of ed grant and unpaid sabbatical leave to tara corcoran in accordance with article 12 section 12.5 of the agreement between the cheshire board of education and the education association of cheshire beginning august 26th 2021 through the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year second catherine seconds any discussion yeah yeah i'm just curious if jeff had anything to
015say if you want to give a little detail i would say that for us a sabbatical leave is very rarely granted and i think in the unique circumstances here john redford and the union and in tara presented a plan that made sense she'll be pursuing further education and social emotional learning which is obviously one of our core goals uh and that we were able to do so at a cost that actually was saving us money in the long run so we did uh you know decide to endorse this and that's why i put it before you this evening thank you seeing as there are no other comments or discussion top discussion items uh that the cheshire boy education grant unpaid sabbatical leave to tara corcoran in accordance with article 12 section 12-5 of the agreement
016between the cheshire board of education and the education association of cheshire beginning august 26 2021 through the remainder of the 21-22 school year all those in favor is unanimous thank you tim i think you have two motions coming out of personnel on this but i'll let you talk about that i do uh yeah so two motions uh in relation to the superintendent's contract i will start with the first one right now which is simply extending the contract and then a second one has to do is with his compensation so the first motion i move that the cheshire board of education extend the contract of jeffrey f solin superintendent of schools for the period of july 1 2021 through june 30th 2024. i saw anne first catherine that's all and seconds okay i got a uh
017discussion no and seconded so and second is there any discussion adam thank you um honestly it's been so long that i forgot how i voted last year i voted no i i don't remember what i how i voted last year but this year i will say that i will uh vote for uh dr solon's extension i think he's done a fantastic job he's performed incredibly well during this this time of pandemic you were asked to do things that you probably were never trained to do or if you did never thought would ever happen so i will vote for your extension thank you adam any other comments of faith i also voted against the contract last year and will vote in favor of the extension this year um as adam i won't repeat adam's words but
018um yet as a vote of confidence in the performance this year thank you faith andrew um i'll also be voting in favor of this uh your the contract extension um consistently when we asked of you for to keep the schools open to do what was right for the kids based on health and based on the right things you did that so i'll definitely be voting in favor of this as well thank you thank you tim yeah i'm going to be supporting this um but i'm going to hold my comments for the second vote i don't because it'll really be basically the same thing so that's it thank you it seems no one else i i was that i will absolutely support this and like tim i have further uh commentary on next on the next
019item but i do want to say um certainly dr sullin's been doing a fantastic job at almost every objectional measure but given the past year in general i don't think we as board members were privy to a little more i guess day-to-day things that jeff deals with and i i can't even begin to explain the immense pressure i think that dr solomon faced not just from uh you know the pandemic but you know stemming from uh union leadership in hartford if folks remember was a lot of animosity or unknowns at the time last year when school started everything's going to be safe and you know the amount of inquiries that he was receiving into among our groups who were responding to and coordinating um and communicating effectively on that was uh was impressive for me
020to see so uh for that alone i would approve a contract extension but overall i think just dr stone's performance warns it and it is up to the board to have an optional on your extension that will fully support that so uh unless there's any other comments the motion is that the cheshire board of education extend the contract of jeffrey f solin superintendent of schools for the period of july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2024. all those in favor it is unanimous thank you board thank you tony and thank you to the whole board for unanimous vote on that i appreciate that next motion i move that the cheshire board of education amend the contract of jeffrey f solin superintendent of schools to provide a total compensation increase of 13.6 percent effective july 1st 2021.
021is there a second in seconds discussion ian goes first um i will be fully supporting uh this compensation increase and i fully support extending the contract i feel that dr solon has done an incredible job not just this past year during all of the everything that cove threw at us but for the past five years that dr solon has been superintendent of cheshire public schools we have seen extraordinary rates of of increase in our student performance that kind of says it all i truly believe that we need to bring uh cheshire public school superintendent compensation up to par with other high achieving school districts and uh this compensation package starts to do that and so i enthusiastically will be supporting um this uh contract increase and and i'd like to just say thank you dr
022silva thank you man kathleen please thank you mr chair um i also will enthusiastically and strongly support um this increase to dr solon's compensation um as ann said the performance certainly over the last year but also just generally as you know over the course of uh dr solon's tenure has been really impressive not to mention all the many other years he spent in the district getting really good results with our kids no matter which way you look at the performance of the superintendent you know whether it is uh test scores or just um our position in in the state as a compared to other districts uh his leadership skills his ability to hire you know amazing people including kathy carlicci for his team i mean it's just the focus on social emotional learning and complex
023thinking which has he has successfully had it infiltrate throughout our uh school system for the benefit of our kids um you know it it's just so impressive that i'm really really glad that we're able to do this for you dr solon and um i fully support it and as ann said thank you so much for everything you do for our kids thank you katherine mr martelly so you know we all sit up here because we were elected um by the people and uh i did a little when we got the initial request for the compensation increase it was a little bit high i thought but i also thought that i wanted to reach out to others and kind of do an unofficial survey and so that's what i did so i'd like to share i
024have a couple quotes here from a random selection of people that i met either at coffee shop dropping my daughter off at school or maybe at byron rondo after a couple drinks but here we go highland school fourth grade teacher when we asked for additional preparation time as a result of the pandemic he listened and made it happen he came to highland and asked how central office can support the team now we're the only school with air conditioning and staff appreciate so much the help central office provided to us during the pandemic we aren't even complaining that we're the only ones here for a full day parent of a dad 8th grader i was at a family picnic this weekend in wolcott my sister-in-law was talking about my nephew and niece and how all their
025school trips were canceled and graduation was going to be a drive-by i felt like i was bragging saying that my daughter was going to dc on wednesday and graduating in person with a full guest at cheshire high school on june 14th parent of a norton third grader we had an issue with our daughter in her reading i was contact directed by marlene and the superintendent felt that i was not one of several thousand parents in the district but that my daughter and my concerns were their top priority darcy schoolteacher he's awesome he came to our school and talked to us directly about the potential that darcy might close as part of school modernization he let us know up front before we saw it in the paper or on social media it means a lot to
026us and i hope we get to be a part of the design wherever our program may end up iaf sir ia was 25 years of service at dodd middle school jeff was our principal here he knew every student's name and every teacher's name my quiz is a different approach and well we missed jeff especially in the cafeteria he would keep those lunch waves under control like no one else was able to i worked under florio and while his suits might have been better tailored jeff connects and cares about these kids he really cares about this district so those are just a sampling of about 13 others but those were some of my favorite um but then kind of in closing you know the town council did approve a pretty substantial compensation package for um kind
027of your predecessor or your counterpart for the tower manager so sylvia nichols said this her reason for voting in favor of the increase was under sean stewardship we've grown our grand list maintain our tax rate and our credit rating while supporting the services that we all expect here in cheshire we're embarking on school modernization updating technology town wide and town is growing he has by a guiding sale to us during the pandemic so in comparison i'd just like to say under jeff stewardship we've exceeded expectations about special education and general education rankings maintain outstanding quality of education and value to cheshire taxpayer kept the budget in line while supporting the services that we and all parents expect and embarking on school modernization updating technology and the school population is growing and he has been a
028guiding style during the pandemic so with that i'm happy to grant you um whatever it is you know whatever the contract is tell people in favor of this motion thank you thank you andrew any other board members uh yeah tim so my first uh so i have a couple questions so this is really going to uh tony and catherine you were on the board when jeff was hired oh you were two in okay sorry i wasn't sure all right so any of the three of you when he was hired uh so part of what's going on here is making his the the idea here is to make his salary more competitive within his peer group and when he was hired five years ago was there any understanding that he was lower than the peer group
029and was there public discussion about it too like recognizing it at that moment in time so the public understood that at that moment in time yeah i'll try being then certainly anna catherine uh so the answer is yes so i for a little history here um i'm sure most folks know dr flores presses her predecessors i'm sorry dr solon's predecessor was dr fluros we have 20 doctors uh but it's a good thing to have right um and this about five years ago uh actually over five years ago we performed a superintendent search uh when dr florio uh wanted to retire and uh it was a slightly actually pretty different board back then but the katherine and myself and ann are still left over from that iteration i think we had approximately 32 candidates apply for
030their role we use the facilitator from cave to help do the search it's very comprehensive and um you know it was very thorough i won't get into what we actually did in the search but uh it was very involved data and objectively to get to a you know three or four finalists and um i do recall that dr sullins compensation dr solin uh was literally at the bottom of the list in terms of compensation of those candidates now that that wasn't the only factor in fact that wasn't a factor at all um but also remember that you know at the time jeffrey stalin wasn't yet a phd was high school principal didn't have uh superintendent experience quite yet so but um coming into the role the salary in total compensation was based on the fact
031of his experience here and you know as tenure as new superintendent so you know we knew um and quite frankly it was on par more or less with dr sullin's salary so uh so yeah we knew that going in there but uh i know in conversations publicly when we made that decision we also had talked about you know um again that was the then board but you know certainly if people are performing over time you know we bring folks up to par and includes dr solon so yeah it's definitely out there i don't know if those are recorded but you know i'm happy to go dig them up but we definitely talked about this publicly i know if anna can't disagree but you can certainly add some more texture to that if you want oh
032yes okay thank you um question for jeff so we're talking right now the motions on the table is a 13 increase for you and you have several unions that are not getting a 13 increase the most notable being the teachers at what two percent about um why is it different in your in your opinion why is it different for you than it is for the teachers i mean rather than just saying two percent is good enough for the teachers it's good enough for me because first of all you know i i would start by saying i don't care what bargaining unit that you're in or even if you're not in a bargaining unit for the cheshire public schools the work that those individuals do is tremendous and is incredibly valuable i am the leader of
033that team and therefore responsible for a lot substantially more than pretty much any individual who works in our school system that i'm responsible for a 75 million dollar budget for the academic health and welfare of four thousand two hundred plus students uh for the safety welfare and success of 800 staff members the scope of what i do is dramatically different than the scope of what other people in the organization have to do tony just mentioned as well that you know when i was hired i came to this position with no experience but 12 years of commitment to the cheshire public schools i have 16 years of commitment now to the cheshire public schools uh over the course of the last many years i've proven i think that um my guidance and the you know probably
034more so to hiring people like kathy and marlene i i was only on vin's interview team i'd love to take credit for hiring him but i can't i recognize that you know the decisions that i've ultimately been responsible for i think have led to tremendous success for the students and our for our community you know our adam mentioned our academic progress andrew others have mentioned we've made tremendous growth and success this um this raise is i think um commensurate uh in some way with what my peers make uh i think that it's a commitment to me i don't have a collective bargaining agreement and you know like other you know teachers would have um and i think you know it helps me to continue this commitment and this you know relationship it's very much i
035very much want to be here and um you know i appreciate you know the board considering you know making this commitment to me and and even longer relationship thank you um yeah so uh one more question and then i'll have some comments could you uh detail for the record this 13 increase that we're discussing sure the majority of that is in my base pay which is uh 215 520 at this point there's a two thousand dollar retirement increase to actually it's more of a uh let's see two thousand dollar retirement increase and um i'm entitled to a two hundred dollar or two thousand dollar doctoral stipend with an additional increase of uh four thousand dollars in retirement roughly so the the total comp was 212 uh and goes to 248.49 849.240.84 thanks for clarifying that
036okay um all right so thank you for that uh yeah so you've done a great job this year hands down thank you uh you know back the beginning of the year my request was keeping the kids in school and by and large you did that uh when most schools were not uh when most when most districts were not in school and this was despite widespread and understandable teacher opposition to remaining in school particularly during the holidays there were also some difficulties at the high school uh but progress was made throughout the year and it even really kicked off in the beginning of the year in early january which was you look at the peak i mean it was right about january but based on the discussions you had with many people including public health officials
037you were making decisions on what was best for the kids overall [Music] in collaboration with public health officials you at one point i was saying i really want to reduce sports in last fall i was really really concerned about what was going to happen worried about it you said no and you were proven right i was proven wrong and when i say that it was it's just based on you know there was no community spread in any significant way at least um with the kids playing sports even though they were in my opinion like something like soccer is a contact sport even if you don't call it a contact sport there is contact so i was concerned about that but you were proven right on that so i appreciate that um also about the keeping
038the kids in school uh you know one of the things why it was so important to me i just want people to understand this this is actually it's going to be a little difficult for me to even say this so for me personally with my with uh my daughter who was in kindergarten at the time it was really tough last spring when they were not in school there was a lot of regressive behavior um at one point i called up the superintendent but not because of my person not because of my own daughter but when i got some feedback from other parents and i really i came to a conclusion that there was you know more to this than just my own self-interest the regressive behavior was widespread widespread among the kids and i was
039basically you know i was probably crying on the phone it was just so sad when you have a little kid like that um fast forward to september and we were in school and we were in school for the most part most kids throughout the year and i just feel like that is that was so incredibly important um for the kids to be there even with the masks that drove everybody nuts still drives people nuts um but it was just such a huge huge accomplishment and i really sincerely appreciated so much what you did this past year in a measured and deliberative way with other people other you know public health officials and probably other superintendents and stuff you're talking to um so uh yeah as i was alluding to before you were hired five years
040ago and relative to your peers you started very low so that's part of why i'm going to support this motion tonight um one thing that i'm looking forward to uh in the upcoming year not to get too far into it but um i do want to uh have better i've gotten your commitment to work on more of what i'll call smart goals looking forward smart being an acronym for specific measurable actionable relevant and timely or time-bound to have more detailed goals so that we can measure things better we couldn't really do it this year i don't think we could other than keep the kids in school and that's it we nobody knew you know nine months ago 12 months ago what was going to be happening my last point of hesitation that really does go
041through my mind a lot on this is sort of the you know the bigger questions about uh you know the superintendent gets a significant a large raise compared to anybody else in the school system um and it raises the questions of wealth inequality income inequality for me and it's really difficult for me but i do think that this uh i do think they think that you just did a fantastic job this year absolutely absolutely fantastic i appreciate that and with that i'm i'm going to support this motion tonight thank you thank you tim uh faith i just want to start this by saying um echoing much of what my colleagues said in terms of your accomplishments this year they are truly um laudable and so thank you for everything you've done having said that i
042cannot support such a large increase for many reasons and it is not in any way a reflection of my opinion of you or the performance um you know there are a number of points that have been raised starting with what's going on relative to other salaries in the districts and i i fully support a raise i fully supported generous race but i would like to see a raise that is more in keeping with what our teachers are seeing and what our key administrators are seeing um i i um everybody under your leadership worked incredibly incredibly hard and so um i just have a i can't accept such a a wide disparity and and yes i understand wanting to be um to be in a at a level with your peers and um i kind of
043wish these increases were coming you know more regularly through the earlier years so this wouldn't have to be such a huge leap um we're i'm committed to getting you to that level but just not all at once um and you know i do want to see some we are doing incredibly well in the you know in the s back area but we're still in the middle of the pack in our peers with sats and i'm i'm encouraged with the progress i'm seeing in high school but i'd like to see some more and um so for that reason again thank you for everything but i am going to have to vote no thank you faith mr grippo i'll be quiet i believe i'm the only one who hasn't sent anything yet i think um so i'm
044going to start with take us a trip back to march 2018 when i sat a little further down on the dais and i looked you in the eye and said that the buck stops with you it is is your responsibility to look over this school system um since that day things have improved right uh month by month year by year a lot of the things that we've put out uh in front of you have um gotten better it's not perfect there's always uh things to to that need to get better and hopefully as we go back into a normal year we can you know continue to work on those things um and uh at the beginning of this i think it's this year right september right um we all you know even me personally i
045felt like it's a matter of uh uh life and death and in time uh time that cannot be replaced that the kids needed to go back to school and we didn't know how long it was going to be and some of us had to personally excuse me risk risk their lives to see their children go back to school and stay there sorry and you made it happen um through all the things that you know you kept us up to date um on all the things you had to go through all the people that you had to fight to keep the schools open and there's so many people who appreciate that um and so and and so here i am standing with this massive raise i mean it's really huge um and and i keep asking
046myself what what what's the price of having our schools remain open um where our elementary schools and our middle schools were full open the entire year and the high school was as open as they could be until we got past january and then they're open even more than they could um and you you work with the health department sometimes even battle with the health department and sometimes even the governor's office and the teachers unions so that we could be uh one of the most successful districts in the entire state as far as remaining open and and have maintaining our academic rigor and then being prepared as we move forward to be probably one of the most prepared districts in the state um and so even though it it kills me to to vote for this
047massive race um that i don't think there's any other way uh to for for me to as i represent parents and and uh and the children to say thank you thank you adam some last one to go i so my i will definitely support this and uh i actually been struggling with this probably going back to dr solon's last review because even then we were discussing you know above normal pay raises and i knew that at some point you know we'd be talking about it again so i'm not going to really get into whatever else talked about i do want to say this though uh my support for this is not just for the past school year and cove it's largely larger because of that but this is to put in perspective i i like
048so many of our colleagues here we hear from everybody and i will tell you this past year it's been actually a lot of great feedback no one out there has really complained they asked a lot of great questions concerns so we hear from parents educators you name it and uh but along the way i i don't think i could ever fully do this justice i i said earlier i folks don't realize um and and again it's not that's not just dr solomon's entire staff but the pressure that this leadership team has seen definitely going back to last march by the start of school year um whether it was politicians whether it was the governor's office the state of our education health districts other areas dr sullen had to navigate a lot of different groups some
049of which had the best intentions some of which i don't know what they were thinking um but largely the it was all around because people didn't know what's going to happen with the school and covet um i i think perhaps the biggest um uh accomplished i've seen jeff perform this past year is working with our local educators our teachers our administrators our support staff our family here at cps and because many of those folks were also in that vocal majority about hey are we going to be safe in schools hey how are we going to be protected hey and uh i'm really happy that our our folks here uh were willing to work with us uh and if i call correct there are at least three or four uh tie three schools where the board
050got letters last year about hey let's make sure we're safe uh so dr song was able to navigate that and and bring our own team um to feel comfortable and come back to school and handling protocols not to mention anything else around them so i again i wish i could get in more detail but do know it is not just the board uh that that someone was working with this past year was a number of different groups also you know i know folks are thinking well you know dr sullins one person is true he's but he is the head of our school system he has 800 plus people to work with to motivate to coach to manage to make sure concerns are being dealt with and opportunities are being addressed and uh you know to
051navigate that ship through this past year was you know is challenging in the best of times so you know that of itself i think is well warranted for folks that may be wondering well you know those are talking about 28 000 increase uh when it's all said and done i'm certainly not doing this to put dr sone number one on our drg district resource group b le b uh group um but the point of perspective the you know out of 19 districts that we're grouped in for relative school size and other attributes dr solon has current salaries uh third from the bottom more or less so he's you know 17th on 19th and mostly there are school districts that are above us in terms of total compensation there's almost a gap of almost a hundred
052thousand dollars some cases you know some don't perform as well as we do and it's not all about test scores it's about social emotional learning uh moving things forward and not all of them were able to have school as much as we did this past year whether it was hybrid or other in fact i think it was uh your own children dr stone that i don't think even saw a day of school a full day of school at uh where they were but so many other districts weren't as lucky as we were um so when you look at that you look at the leadership i i think he definitely deserves a pay increase now i'm can't say i'm never going to do this again uh these are a fairly large increase but if i also
053look back you know the last four years i was talking about earlier i was on the board when we did a superintendent search and you know a lot of great candidates um but you know the board at a time felt that dr sullivan bought the best mix of um social emotional learning where he wanted to go with actual achievement and you know being a figure in the community and other attributes was right fit for a job but obviously we could not you know pay him these drg salaries without the experience so we we knew that down the road we would address this so i think it's well deserved but it's not something i can do every year unless there's some extraordinary other achievements so um so dr sullin i just want to say you know
054thank you uh besides those curveballs that kovit threw at you i know um and i have thrown a few curveballs at you the board has thrown a few things at you you've uh you've tackled some interesting situations over the last few years you've ever seen his last last year uh there's always room for improvement but uh i and we'll be working on that going into this fall for the next school year uh but uh by and large it's it's much deserved i think uh you know are we're so not trying to keep up with the joneses with the town council and you know obviously both bodies feel that we need to reward our performers and make an investment in them so i so i fully support this and i just want to say thank you
055on behalf of all members of community parents especially and our students and staff that trusted in you this past school year and also trusting in you to open up uh and your team to open up this fall and uh you know i certainly look forward to working with you and and we have some other challenges coming but i hope this is uh is taken as a commitment from the board that uh we support you we recognize great performance and by almost every uh objective measure uh that we have before us you're you're definitely knocking those out of the park and you know we'll improve upon that so uh this year i'm willing to do it uh last year we couldn't really do a meaningful increase for a number of reasons we didn't know what the
056fiscal situation was going to be at that time if you remember we had to cut back our budget fortunate town is in great shape right now thanks to the leadership in the town council we're looking in decent shape i'm pretty confident we could absorb this increase in our next budget for next year uh so it is physically responsible in that regard so that being said uh that's all we have to say so again uh dr sone congratulations on this i soon will support it and if there's any other questions or if you have any other comments from the public i don't have any public input on this so unless there's any other feedback the motion is that the cheshire board of education increased the salary of dr sullen a salary increase of 13.6 effective july
0571st 2021 all those in favor all those opposed motion passes six to one thank you congratulations dr salt if i could just uh quickly express my incredible gratitude to the board um you know i i've been a member of the cheshire public schools community for the last almost 16 years now and for you to demonstrate this commitment to me at this time is is really humbling i represent uh hundreds of people in our school system and i just want to be very clear that you know at no time was the board like saying you know if it will only give you a raise if you if you keep kids in school um and i would it would be shameful if anybody walked away with that you know perception we focused from day one our default
058position was kids are best served academically and emotionally by being in school with their peers frankly i think our staff is probably best served emotionally by being around our kids in person too how do we safely do that and of course that took a lot of work and a lot of energy on the part of all 800 people i tell our our people every day nobody had their job just go on business as usual during this year everybody's job was different everybody's job was significantly harder and i would be remiss if i didn't you know indicate to that our teachers union was incredibly supportive they were a partner from day one you know to whether it was us working creatively to trade teachers with meridian it's the first time i think that's ever been done
059in order to have teachers be able to provide remote teaching safely in meridian we got an in-person teacher back and other services and or them just expressing you know what are my needs realistically whether they be through ppe and vin would swoop in and and solve a problem or you know through curriculum and and how do we pare down what we're doing this acceleration model and marlene's team would would swoop in you know my job was just to try and help coordinate all that and i work with a lot of really talented and dedicated teachers and administrators and ias and caf people it's those 800 people who kept it open and you know certainly my role was to help coordinate that but those all of those people deserve i guess a high five now that
060you can do that without covid and uh the the community their their eternal gratitude for doing what they did for our kids so i just want to thank all of them for their incredible effort and commitment throughout the year and and they made it happen at the end of the day so thank you to the board again for demonstrating this faith in me i look forward to our continued partnership to to support our kids our staff our community and uh thank you again for all of our cheshire public schools employees and and families for putting faith in our our our system in having a great school year for our kids at least as great as it could have been under the condition so thank you all very much thank you dr sullin that's it tim
061right on personnel i think this last agenda item yep moving on to policy uh mr grippo thank you um i promise not to cry during this one yes it was it was uh i believe four minutes long which occurred i don't know about was that six six o'clock or something tonight um so uh tonight uh we only had one thing um and uh it was to uh move a policy to a final reading to the third and final rating so mr chairman i have a motion um move that the cheshire board of education give a third and final reading to uh policy number 5141 student health services and direct the superintendent puts said policy into immediate effects thank you uh catherine seconds is there uh any discussion on the motion right yes thank you okay
062that concludes my policy report i i think that is the shortest policy committee meeting we've had the entire school year which is great and i i and i say that in jess but i do want to thank the policy committee as most folks don't realize there's a tremendous amount of uh policy and procedure that comes our way and that kennedy spends a lot of time working with with the staff to to work these things so again i want to thank you for that um up next is correspondence doctor slim do you have any further correspondence thank you um superintendent's report i'm just going to keep this super short today concluded the second day of our in service uh we need to again credit marlene for working with our leadership group the committee that put together
063our professional development we're focused a lot on acceleration how do we support the needs of our students and acceleration you can get the idea that you know we're trying to move kids ahead we're basically just trying to make sure our students have access to rigorous a grade level material i think a lot of places you know they've talked about going back how do we fill in all the gaps that were lost over time and you're perpetually behind if you're constantly working in the past and so we've tried to stay on grade level and make sure that our students get what they need and our data really illustrates that that that process has been fruitful for our students and so our administrative team was looking at how do we continue this into the future so um
064i want to commend them for their long days uh working with us and and continuing to move that forward for the kids in our community that's it for me thank you dr sullin any uh any questions on dr silland's report as soon as there is none uh there is no old business new business i really don't have a chairperson's update other than uh as a board we're working with dr sullin and team to find a date this summer that works for um a board of ed retreat which is it's not a lake compounds trip but it is actually a yeah as a is a working session where uh and we've done this a couple years ago but uh [Music] figure out you know what it is that we want to try to accomplish upcoming school
065year a little bit of board member development you know get some feedback of dr sone as he prepares for opening schools but uh you know there's a number of topics we'll go through there and of course we'll report on that if we have that meeting uh before this school opening once we determine that we'll certainly post it and announce it so folks are aware of it uh beyond that we have some we have uh at least two upcoming well two upcoming meetings um and there'll probably be more i just want to give the board a heads up i know andrew asked me earlier tonight yeah coming on school modernization on tonight's report um we can we'll definitely have that at our next meeting which will be uh wednesday june 30th at 7 30 a.m nice
066and early in the morning which is our annual board of ed fiscal meeting where we close out the school year uh financially and give some summary updates on some topics we'll we'll cover school modernization there but the reason i bring up school modernization is uh the town council uh also began its journey on uh the school modernization plan uh a few weeks ago i know they met last week meeting a few times um and they spoke with uh town council chairman rob boris a few days ago uh we're planning to get both bodies together board of ed and town council might get some time after the fourth of july uh talk about next steps see whatever their analysis uh i i do know that uh a couple weeks ago they approved to uh fund additional
067money for uh call years yeah colliers for any additional test site so there's there's more to come on that so i expect an active summer on school modernization as we solidify what is available for first for the buildings and make that available to the public some more comments so more work to be done there and i know andrew have more details to share on june 30th uh other than that the next official board of ed business meeting will be thursday august 19th 202 uh 2021 at 7 30pm town council chambers and uh if there are any additional meetings we'll certainly announce those and post them but uh rest assured it will not be uh that quite of a summer for us as we ramp up for the fall but that being said i have no
068other updates from a chair perspective yeah mr white i'm wondering if you might entertain depending on what the superintendent says entertain a motion to add an item to the agenda but personnel i and i may have gotten this wrong but under the personnel committee uh he had wanted to discuss the family family and community engagement coordinator position but because we were at 7 30 i just said let's end the personnel meeting and bring it up under the regular board agenda so i apologize if i mess stuff up okay without it yes okay okay but yeah oh yeah well i didn't know if you wanted to thank you though talk to the public about it that's all i appreciate the yeah and uh we can certainly if jeffy you want to talk about it on june
06930 if you can there's really no action but i know we wanted to talk about just for point of order you know for for foyer and other reasons you know if we have a motion to adjust an agenda item we do at the beginning of the meeting and requires a three-quarter board approval so do this late i okay i don't want to do it however it's not needed right now so i think yeah but thanks for pointing that out and you were kind of felt a little empty here so i now know what it was yeah i i just just so the public knows we were at 7 30. i just wanted to start the full board meeting at 7 30 and end the personnel meeting figuring that it would be on the agenda and
070i didn't bring it up under it so sorry about that well the good news is there was no action on it but we'll definitely information covered next meeting uh that being said uh there's nothing else in agenda so i call for a motion to adjourn tim makes the motion adam seconds fake thirds all in favor unanimous thank you thank everyone thank you carol van kathy and mike for sticking around for so long as well as marlene you