Board of Education 6-3-21

001you board of ed business meeting tonight we have a packed meeting a lot of recognitions to get started on but before we get there i want to call the meeting into order mr oginski please uh have a call for roll call here thank you carol uh ask that we stand for the pledge of allegiance the united states of america and to the republic for stance one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone thank you for joining us this evening uh it's uh this is such an unusual site for us uh as we resumed in-person meetings i think last month and this is the first night we've actually had a live audience so for folks at home i don't know if you're paying the room but we actually have a

002packed house which is great so thank you for coming out this evening a lot of great stuff to talk about but before we get started on that we have a student representative report we have a solo act tonight lucy welcome thanks for being here tonight what do you have for us oh okay just want to make sure it's on um so first we're going to start off with athletics josh and i were awarded the southern connecticut conference scholar leaders for cheshire high school and our spring sports teams recently competed in their league post-season play both softball and boys volleyball won the league tournament championship and then just yesterday girls golf also won the league championship senior softball player brianna pearson was named the connecticut high school softball player of the year and spring teams will

003now be competing in the state tournament play and the season will end on june 12th some other updates we have are that junior prom is happening right now senior prom will be tomorrow night and both events will be held at aria banquet hall in prospect most recently seniors were able to partake in the senior picnic at holiday hill on may 24th students were able to participate in boating games swimming and other super fun activities now we just have some updates on end of the year events senior honor cord ceremony is june 15th at 7 30 a.m uh the award convocation ceremony will be june 15th at 6 00 pm and we are very happy to say that graduation will be june 16th at 6 pm on the turf field and this will be one singular

004graduation ceremony for all graduating seniors each graduate will have four guests seated on the field the graduates will be seated together and all attendees will be required to wear a mask but graduates will be able to cross the stage and receive their diplomas unmasked and then finally josh who's at the junior prom tonight and i just wanted to thank you all for giving us this opportunity to keep you up to date throughout the year on all of the happenings at chs and that's all thank you lucia are there any questions from the board members i also the all-night grad party is this weekend correct i think it's friday night uh it's the night of the graduation oh the 16th i'm sorry uh yes the 16th uh and i know the tom white pta and leaning

005and that team are still looking for some parent volunteers uh so for everybody watching that want to have some fun time maybe if you're on the glass under graduate or underclassman parent uh great way to see how the activities work there where if you know how to do uh texas hold them in blackjack i know we're looking for dealers for that security uh please sign up it is a fun time but um that being said jeff did you want to add anything no thank you lucy that's that's all we have for you so you get to go home really tight not that early though we have uh recognition as well oh that's right so hang on thank you dr sullin i know we have a number of presentations this evening get the show started it's

006nice to step outside of the cell and see everybody here this evening tonight i mean if there were one evening of the year that we could pick to have people return in person it would certainly be this evening the opportunity to recognize so many special people tonight is really uh it is the highlight of the year uh for us and so you know we're so excited to kick off our recognitions this evening with perhaps the most humbling uh five minutes in board history every year where we introduce the valedictorian and salutatorian because you can't hear about these people and not just be instantly humbled with what they've accomplished in their 18 years relative to what i've done in my significantly longer time on this planet it just seems i feel a little bit inadequate and

007so uh through no fault of theirs but we are thrilled to be able to recognize two very special cheshire high school students this evening just a couple of housekeeping notes here before i tell you a little bit about these two students dr gad sends her congratulations unfortunately there was a family health emergency that she had to attend to and is unable to be here this evening but i know when we notified these two in person she conveyed her pride and and just ultimate respect for you two and um what you've accomplished so i just passed that along this evening the other uh quick note is we have several recognitions this evening everybody on the dais is um fully vaccinated and not wearing masks this evening but um you know typically we go up and shake

008hands but we're going to forego that this evening is a precaution from kovid but i know that i speak on their behalf when i say that they wish they could shake hands give high fives and hugs when they hear the accomplishments of the people we're recognizing this evening so i i will um start by asking our chs salutatorian for the class of 2021 grace u to please approach the podium grace you is the daughter of dongju and ya zhao you grace demonstrates a natural intellect and academic drive that has truly made her stand out at cheshire high school grace is a distinguished student who performs exceptionally well in all of her classes and is a leader amongst her peers one of the things that stands out most about grace is her dedication in talent and

009synchronized skating most recently grace was awarded the platinum level graduating seniors award by the u.s figure skating organization and is a former hockey player myself i am already humbled selection for this award speaks to the skater's continued commitment to succeeding in their athletic and academic endeavors on top of her immense commitment to figure skating grace has also found time to be an active member of her school and community during her senior year she was elected the vice president of model u.n as well as young democrats grace is also an active member of deca the biden campaign fellowship a church leader and co-founder of cards against corona grace is able to balance all of her commitments while maintaining her schoolwork and she manages to do it all with positivity and kindness in meeting grace even for

010a few moments you will quickly notice how mature and special she is grace is so much more than the incredible academic student we see on paper she is also a kind human being with compassion for others maturity and patience we are very proud that grace will represent cheshire high school as part of the incoming freshman class at carnegie mellon university starting this fall grace congratulations [Applause] take advantage of the opportunity okay let's smile and one more very good great at this point i'd like to invite ryan michael shan the valedictorian of cheshire high school to the podium please ryan shannon is the son of feng shan and daniel shan ryan is a conscientious student who has dedicated himself to his academics and a cheshire high school community he has been involved in a multitude of

011extracurricular activities and leadership roles throughout his high school career notably ryan has served as class president and his student representative for cheshire high school ryan's natural ability to lead others remain organized and advocate for his peers has made him the successful candidate that he has been it is also important to highlight that ryan is a talented and dedicated musician he has performed in multiple prestigious choral ensembles and demonstrates a true passion for music on top of all of ryan's commitments he has consistently achieved strong academic success in rigorous courses throughout his four years of high school he is the type of student who welcomes the opportunity to take on a challenge and his efforts are always met with success ryan has a calm and kind-hearted nature which is quickly apparent to anyone that meets him

012he displays gratitude sets a good example for his peers and has a maturity beyond his years it is without a doubt that ryan's accomplishments and his academic and leadership experiences will follow him into his future collegiate career as a freshman in the fall at the university of connecticut where he plans to study pharmacy and i always harass ryan a little bit because he's generally better dressed than the superintendent which is not good for me it does not make me look he is one sharp dude i can't keep up with that amongst everything else that we have to be proud of for ryan and so it is our incredible honor to recognize you as the valedictorian of the class of 2021 ryan great job buddy [Applause] congratulations and you know certainly what i hope isn't lost

013on the audience this evening or anybody watching at home is the fact that you know we we pride ourselves on the fact that the two individuals that we just introduced have transcripts that are ridiculous frankly the the number of ap courses and ece experiences they have and the incredible success and what you don't see on there is not only the hours of dedication that they've put into being that successful in a very competitive high school but what's more rewarding is the people that they are and you know we're not about tran cranking out great transcripts that's not what we aspire to be we aspire to have a school system who produces and helps students fulfill who they can be as people and with character and i couldn't think of two better representatives here this evening

014that embody not only academic success but personal character and so it's it's very humbling for me and proud moment uh for all of us to be able to recognize you two this evening so again congratulations on your success so great job guys absolutely our next recognition this evening is for the cabe student leaders award the cape student leader award program was developed to give local boards of education a chance to reward student leadership potential this year's honorees and i i know a couple are here this evening our lady and if you when i read your name if you could come up please lydia golly brady potralala lucy helene and josh [Applause] so many goldstein lydia come on yeah one more congratulations thank you okay thank you so congratulations ladies um and in the case of

015those awards uh at the middle school i think what makes these awards so special is that uh the honorees are identified by their peers so lydia's classmates see in her a character and leadership that stands out beyond others and so congratulations i think when you know your peers are recognizing you like like that it's something special and it says a lot about you so congratulations um this next award is going to feel a little bit like deja vu and that's for lucy helene is in one of our board of education reps the students that represent cheshire high school's student body at these meetings often in person although not so much this year but lucy and josh spent a lot of time they basically you know we'll interview folks at cheshire high school to know what's

016going on and then come here and speak on behalf of the 1400 students who attend cheshire high school and they share with the board of education uh the interesting and important the events that are occurring at cheshire high and so they play an important role for their school and community and so i'm very happy to recognize lucy this evening with another award i wasn't gonna make you come and do that lucy just dear diary mr massiana made me thank you yeah definitely so this next honoree is somebody that we would typically recognize much earlier in the year um but the the pandemic made that impossible so just have the opportunity to recognize her this evening feels really good um it's overdue in a lot of respects but you know particularly this year when our entire

017teaching staff was really pushed beyond typical expectations and demonstrated uh leadership and commitment and care for the kids in our community more than i think i've ever could have imagined to represent that group of teachers is pretty special and so i'm really honored to be able to recognize her in person this evening and uh in front of you at least as an audience to to be able to recognize her and i know that you know knowing her well enough that she would deflect this attention away from herself and on to the many other teachers and professionals that she works with who help make our school system successful but there's a reason that she was identified as the cheshire public schools teacher of the year and i can't wait to share that with you so uh

018deb manky if you could please come to the podium deb is an elementary teacher at norton school and has worked in the district for over 30 years i know you would have never guessed that from looking at it like 15 years maybe she holds a bachelor of science degree in human development and family relations from the university of connecticut a master's degree in early childhood education from southern connecticut state university and possesses a sixth year professional certificate as a classroom teacher specialist with a focus in elementary math miss menke is a graduate of the cheshire public schools she attended chapman elementary school dodd middle school in cheshire high school her children also attended cheshire public schools deb began teaching in cheshire in 1987 where she taught first and second grade and she currently teaches math

019to sixth grade students a cheshire educator wrote this about deb this is amazing that is what i thought the first time i observed deb manky teaching i observed thousands of lessons but her classroom is different her sixth graders are connected to math through her infectious enthusiasm the deep and engaging questioning and personally meaningful learning another wrote deb works tirelessly to support each student's path to success she uses formative assessment to determine each student's precise understanding of the math concept she teaches she structures her class to meet the varied pathways to learning so that each minute is maximized and each student's works comfortably challenged in their specific zone her ability to personalize learning for her math students yields incredible results both academically and social emotionally deb has created a classroom environment where her stern students know

020success is afforded and she will do whatever is necessary to see each one of them succeed they know that she makes it her most important priority to know them as individuals know their full potential and motivate them to rise to it deb creates classroom systems that make it possible for her most struggling students to get second and third doses of instruction in intervention well with her while all other students are working to together collaboratively to solve problems find solutions and check each other's understanding her students take pride in their accomplishments and are true believers that they can do anything evidenced by the level of success and growth each of our students attains year after year deb menke is an exceptional teacher who embodies the passion of being a lifelong learner her dedication to teaching and

021learning is exemplified in her daily practice she has a growth mindset even during the most challenging days of remote learning deb could be heard saying it's hard but i'm learning so much and i would have never known if we didn't go remote miss menke is a gifted educator who we are so proud to have on our cheshire public school system team and proud to recognize is the 2021 cheshire public schools teacher of the year congratulations all right got it thank you thank you unfortunately our next honoree couldn't be with us this evening but i think it's important for us to publicly recognize cheshire public schools esther harvey as cheshire's recipient of the 2021 in anne marie murphy para educator of the year award the plaque will be awarded to her tomorrow at her school chapman

022elementary and diana burns chapman's principal had this to say about esther esther's commitment to providing a learner-centered supportive environment is admirable she is well versed in responsive classroom practices and is a role model for its implementation esther puts as much energy into supporting the social emotional needs of children as she does their academic needs her ability to create meaningful intimate relationships with each of her students is a gift she faces her kitties as she calls them light lights them up excuse me when she faces them they light up to when they see her past students love to visit her throughout the year demonstrating that these relationships also have a lasting impact on the children she works with watching esther in action is a treat she is a talent for engaging each and every one of

023her students she is skilled in engaging students that are unmotivated in learning and knows just what to do to make learning fun and exciting for example esther learned sign language and taught the signs of letters to her students adding this kinesthetic element heightened engagement for students and complemented the teaching of letters and sounds additionally esther uses songs to build climate and reinforce skills taught in the classroom esther sets a high bar for professionalism and ethical conduct she's always on time has almost perfect attendance and is a role model for others even when she is faced with a child that is escalating or a parent that is upset esther's combat upbeat demeanor is the perfect intervention to handle the situation additionally esther forms meaningful relationships with the adults in our building providing a positive school climate

024esther's nurturing character allows her to comfort others in challenging times and many teachers seek her guidance she is truly a rock star for so many individuals in our school community chapman is blessed to have a professional and individual like esther she has a place in all of our hearts and has made a lasting impact on our community it's my privilege to honor esther harvey is the 2021 ann marie murphy para educator of the year so congratulations to esther so um you know i did talk a little bit when i was introducing uh miss manky as our teacher of the year about the sacrifice that um our teachers and the commitment really that they demonstrated to their students i think the amount of in-school time that we had as a district this year was really kind

025of unparalleled and a lot of that was due to the efforts of our teachers and their desire to do what was best for our students and it was hard it was hard definitely but they did it anyway and so that's that's really uh something that came to the to the forefront this year but has been there for many many years and um so you know to crank out products like deb menke you needed that commitment for for years and so um tonight we're going to recognize some of our retirees some of them are here this evening and others uh i would like to read a biographical statement on because they all deserve that recognition all of our retirees whether they're here or not um so i'm going to start with jane adenolfi uh she's not

026here with us this evening but jane earned her bachelor's in special education elementary education and masters in special education early childhood education from st joseph's college and additional credits in reading from southern connecticut state university jane began her teaching career as an elementary special education teacher in the hartford public schools and taught in south windsor before having children as a chapman parent jane was very involved serving as a member of chapman's niask new england association of schools and colleges steering committee and strategic planning committee she was an early ambassador and point person for the open choice program jane also served as a substitute teacher for the cheshire public schools and a religious education teacher for st bridget's catholic church before being hired as a special education teacher at chapman in 2001 a skilled teacher and

027thoughtful colleague jane served on numerous school and district-wide committees over the years jane's students will remember the time they spent in her classroom and one of which they learned much from a teacher who was welcoming and kind congratulations on your retirement jane [Applause] i'd like to welcome denise booker up to the podium congratulations denise earned her bachelor's in speech pathology from the university of connecticut in her master's and sixth year degree from southern connecticut state university she's maintained a certificate of clinical competence from the american speech language hearing association since 1976 she has mentored students from quinnipiac university in sacred heart in independent study programs denise began her career in new britain public schools and also worked in plainville and north haven before being hired in 1989 to work at highland school denise has worked

028with students with speech and language impairments in the general education classroom setting and support services she developed a series of inclusive oral language lessons which she presented in kindergarten through sixth grade general education classes these lessons were presented orally and with sign language denise has conducted numerous evaluations over the years and is considered a leader among her colleagues she has spent countless summers supporting students in summer school and is always looking to improve her skills a true professional denise retires after 32 years of service to the children and community of cheshire thank you so much denise congratulations on up [Applause] okay i'd like to welcome lynn goldapper up to the podium please [Applause] lynn holds a bachelor's degree in human development and family studies from the university of connecticut and a master's degree in elementary

029education and six-year degree in early childhood from central connecticut state university a lifelong resident of cheshire and a cheshire high school graduate class of 79 lynn chose to begin her teaching career in her hometown at doolittle elementary school in 1987. she was highly involved in establishing the kindergarten model at darcy school in 1990 and taught there for 21 years when the district moved to full day kindergarten lynn moved to norton elementary school where she has taught kindergarten for the past seven years lynn is the quintessential kindergarten teacher she's fully committed to meeting the unique needs of young learners through developmentally appropriate practice her strengths lie in understanding each child individually assessing where they are in terms of social emotional and academic development and teaching to enhance development in both areas she establishes relationships with family

030families excuse me and fiercely advocates for her students lynn is also a special colleague who effectively collaborates with fellow teachers a true team player over the years she has served on numerous committees including the scientifically scientific research-based intervention committee principal advisory and safe school climate committees she was also recognized by the board of education for her leadership as captain of darcy's relay for life team for many years lynn will be remembered for her kindness and care for each of her students for effectively preparing her students for first grade and for her deep connections with families and her loyalty and commitment to the professional learning communities of doolittle darcy and norton school congratulations on your 34 years of service and thank you on behalf of the cheshire public schools congratulations on your retirement [Applause] congratulations uh

031the next honoree isn't here this evening but again i'd like to acknowledge her anyway diane may stow diane graduated from albertus magnus college with a bachelor's degree in math and earned her bs plus 30 from southern connecticut state university she began her teaching career in amity regional district 5 where she worked until she started her family when her children were little she worked as an ia at doolittle elementary school and in 1999 diane was hired to teach math at cheshire high school over the past 22 years diane has taught algebra 1 2 geometry statistics and ap statistics she has served on numerous committees mentored student teachers and has been a class advisor diane is passionate about her subject and her students she believes all students can succeed math and makes them believe it too diane

032has a great sense of humor and her classes are welcoming and at the same time challenging students in her class gain confidence in their abilities to master difficult concepts while the moment is bittersweet diane looks forward to spending more time with her husband children and four amazing and beautiful grandchildren who are a constant source of joy congratulations diane [Applause] the next honoree uh again is not with us this evening uh it's terry shulman terry earned her bachelor's in textile marketing from the university of rhode island and masters in computer science from the university of hartford and a six-year degree in educational leadership from central connecticut state university terry began her career teaching in farmington and then moved to canton public schools where she taught 7th grade math pre-algebra algebra and geometry for 16 years terry

033joined the math department at chs in 2001 and has taught algebra 1 algebra 2 geometry and pre-calculus she has worked hard to infuse technology into her lessons and expand students understanding of mathematical concepts she's been an active member of the associated teachers of mathematics in connecticut as well as the national council council of teachers of mathematics having presented at both conferences terry attended conferences annually to bring new ideas to the classroom and make her lessons meaningful and applicable to real-world situations she has served on the cheshire curriculum council mentored student teachers and was a class advisor terry looks forward to having more time to follow her other passion of directing children's theater in retirement congratulations on your retirement and thank you for your 20 years of service [Applause] our next uh honoree is also not

034here andrea sedorik andrea holds a bachelor's in nutritional science from the university of connecticut a master's in public health from southern connecticut state university a bachelor's in earth science from southern and a master's in education from the university of new haven being an educator was a second career for andrea she worked for about 10 years as a clinical dietitian before making the career change to education andrea was a university of new haven intern from 1998-1999 chs and was then hired as a science teacher in 2001. andrea has taught earth science astronomy advanced placement environmental science and additional earth science electives she was asked to create the science learning lab at the high school a program that has experienced considerable growth over the years in 2003 her ap environmental students won the rookie of the year

035team award at the connecticut envirothon andrea served on the strategic research behavior initiative committee the strategic planning committee the science curriculum council committee and the health and wellness committee link crew and was also a nia co-chair for curriculum she was a co-advisor for the young democrats spent many years tutoring students with special needs and recently had the opportunity to work with the oasis occupational academic social independent skills program andrea's strengths lie in her ability to engage students with different learning styles and needs she is inclusive and kind and make science interesting thank you for your 20 years of service to the cheshire public schools and congratulations on your retirement [Applause] our next honoree is not here her name is uh kathleen spignacey kathy earned a bachelor's degree in early childhood education a master's in health

036education and a sixth degree from southern connecticut state university kathy worked as a head teacher in the new haven uh young women's christian academy a substitute teacher in the cheshire north haven and stratford school districts and as an instructional assistant at highland school before joining the cheshire public schools and an interim teacher at highland in 1991. she began at chapman school in 1992. kathy has been highly committed to her profession from the beginning of her career her strong desire to learn as evidenced by the many professional growth activities in which she participated she frequently collaborated in reflective peers attended conferences and read professional journals she served on numerous school and district committees over the years and was a representative of the education association of cheshire in 1995 kathy was honored with the educating for high

037performance award for her work in developing a cooperative learning math lab at chapman she chaperoned nature's classroom for years and is and her students raised salmon for release in local rivers each spring kathy is known through the district as an always positive team player willing to tackle new challenges never seeking recognition kathy has an innate capacity to relate well to her students and works tirelessly advocating for and empowering each of them congratulations on your retirement and thank you for your 30 years of service to the church of public school and our next honoree is here this evening i'm proud to welcome mara weed to the [Applause] podium mara earned a bachelor of music degree in piano pedagogy at lambeth college in jackson tennessee and went on to complete her elementary certification in memphis state university

038she earned a master's degree in early childhood education at southern connecticut state university and her sixth year degree at the university of new england mara began her teaching career teaching music appreciation at the middle school in elementary music and drama at schools in tennessee before relocating to connecticut in her early years in cheshire she taught music rotating among chapman highland and doolittle schools before settling at chapman full time teaching second grade in 1993 mara moved to the general education setting at doolittle where she taught in the first second and fourth grades in 2016 the opportunity to teach music became available at doolittle and mera returned to her first love teaching music this switch was a positive one for the entire school because so many events were infused with student performances and beautiful beautiful music she

039challenged her students with difficult pieces and her students responded with wonderful harmonies and exceptional performances whether her students performed at town meetings holiday or year-end concerts they were prepared confidence and joy were evident in their faces and conveyed through their voices mara was the driving force behind the purchase of ukuleles at doolittle and has taught hundreds of students a beginning knowledge in playing the uke mayor has worked on numerous school and district committees including the safe school climate committee technology town meeting and principal advisory committees and was a representative of the education association of cheshire a professional educator in every way mayor will best be remembered for showing students that change is good in and out of the classroom as well as instilling a love of music in children congratulations on your retirement and thank

040you for your 38 years of service to the cheshire public schools congratulations thank you [Applause] so that includes our uh concludes our recognitions for this evening um this next bit of our our show is very compelling viewing but you can watch it at home too if you wish i i thank all of you for coming tonight and i'm so excited to be able to see you in person recognize you in person because you're all certainly very worthy of that worthy of that acknowledgement congratulations again to all of our honorees and thank you for coming congratulations on behalf of the board again congratulations on honorees and thank you have a nice evening lucy uh we had a pleasure seeing you this past year good luck in your post graduate endeavors and don't be shy let us

041know how things are going and let josh congratulate him as well and thank him for his service take care thank you lucy i didn't realize i thought we had one more to go but we could just call her back i guess so up next we have uh section three which is audience i'm not sure if we received any correspondence yet um we did receive a couple of items one was a question about we have had an uptick in cases at doolittle elementary school unfortunately you know we've experienced this at various points through the year at different schools and it's unique that it is occurring now it doolittle when the vaccination rate is higher and the prevalence rate is lower but um maura esposito the executive director of chesapeake met with amy o'brien and the nurse

042doolittle today renee zemitti and they didn't identify any issues at the school level and unfortunately you know these things do just creep up in pockets and i think one of the things that we've recognized is that we've shifted our uh policy from a 10-day automatic quarantine to five days you can be tested and return at eight so we have identified more asymptomatic individuals that would have otherwise never been identified in the past so uh mr esposito thinks that's probably one of the issues that we're seeing here but um we are closely monitoring it and working closely with chess per cut to make sure it doesn't become a problem and then the other question we received on the covid line is when we would be returning in person obviously we're in person tonight which is great

043um with a limited capacity crowd given the number of people that we had attending for recognition but i indicated that we're hoping to return at the very latest by the start of next school year uh to a more typical in-person meeting with the audience seeing as we don't have many meetings left this year and i know the council plans to do that soon later this month hopefully thank you it's just business meetings we do have just for the record we have school modernization meetings next week with wide open outside so yeah i know andrew is going to talk about yeah just just because you said it we don't have me sorry yeah no no more business meetings you're right so yeah this is not our first and personal meeting since uh three turnout just last

044month and we were trying to schedule in as the equipment was made available because not every location has the ability to have in person with uh the board and the members at home in the same room so tonight we lucked out those town councils had their meetings so we had to take advantage of this but anytime the first night we actually had public care so you know pretty guy lines recommendations we're getting to that point so yeah i'm hopeful we have you know wide open but safe meetings uh continued on into the summer because there'll be a lot of stuff going on this summer and just a reminder to the public in case you are watching everyone's out there you can send us emails questions comments uh during the meeting to cps covet 19 at

045cheshire.k12.ct.us and we'll check on them again by the time the superintendent gives us update later in the agenda up next we have our cassette calendar in our boardville packets we have uh extend calendar two items one is approval of 2020 2021 22 tuition rates and the other is the approval of 2022 board education meeting schedule there is a motion on this with someone like to make a motion and then we can discuss if needed adam thank you i'd like to make a motion that the cheshire board of education approves the consent calendar as presented is there a second ten seconds any discussion or questions seeing it is none the motion is the cheshire board education approves the consent calendar as presented all those in favor may be unanimous thank you up next is our reports

046of the standing committee starting with curriculum uh unfortunately both ann and faith had uh committed this evening but we did meet uh tuesday evening uh it was a short meeting um marlene team walked us through a new textbook that is being purchased depending tonight's approval we discussed the new textbook which was envision algebra 2. this is for the cheshire high school uh the cheshire school math department give us a presentation um we actually saw this on may 11th but we didn't vote on it uh we'd like to get this voted on so it could be purchased and be in place before it started a school year and essentially that was the only item the motion was made it was passed so that being said i think we have a motion and i just lost it

047one second do we have a motion type to prove a textbook all right there's okay i guess i'm getting ahead of myself no i usually go on display right and then we yeah sorry i'm trying to bypass the process so so the textbook will be on display for at least two weeks uh my guess is do you anticipate us uh the board voting out during the summer or the start of the school year june 30th awesome so if anyone is interested in that envision algebra two book please feel free to contact the central office to take a read i uh i am not a math fan so i'm not going to read the book but but uh i know a lot of folks out there that are so so thank you uh up next is

048reports of finance mr gripple thank you mr chair um i will uh turn control over to mr massiana for a according to the packet a brief update thank you good evening ladies and gentlemen this finance report will be very brief this evening because we did report at the last business meeting we we do not have the the numbers for may just yet and there's no medical benefits report but what i did want to let the board know is that we are getting everything in order for the june 30th 7 30 a.m business meeting where we'll be closing out our books everything is looking very very good for the operating budget and the grant closeouts which which we review and make sure that we're going to be fully in compliance with the grants jeff marlene greg

049gibbons and and heather from my office we meet weekly just to review where we stand with the budget and so i expect no issues we will absolutely meet our operating budget and our grants for the year so we'll hear more about that you know on june 30th and in the coming weeks and that is the finance report for this evening thank you thank you mr maciana that was very brief excellent oh tim yes thanks adam uh yeah just so typically at the end of the year i mean a common thing that could happen is you end up under spending on salaries per se and then we end up transferring money over to maintenance we have old buildings we all know that um have is it possible to have any funds left over transferred into the

050medical benefits trust fund yes okay the way the year is shaping up you know we will and as we get closer i'll continue to report you know you know to the board as updates are happening i know we have a finance committee meeting on june 10th i believe um but at this point i do believe we will have some funds that we might be able to transfer to the medical benefits trust fund to close out the year i don't can't give you a dollar we're not that close yeah no just so the so the public understands where i'm coming from on this is that the the budget correct me if i'm wrong here the budget has basically like six rows six buckets six major account categories and typically money could get moved from one account

051to another like i was saying into a maintenance for summer work to do but the medical benefit trust fund is not within those six bud six buckets it's not within the normal budget that's the reason why i was asking it just moving it out of the operating budget into another trust fund correct that's all thanks vin you're welcome thank you um uh moving on uh we have the approval of engage of engagement of uh clifton larson allen to perform student audit activity accounts um i'll make a motion so we can uh enter in the discussion um and uh just for reference this was a topic that we've been discussing i guess well for the latter part of a year i guess and uh we uh had our final discussion uh last month and um so

052this is the results um and i guess as a part of that we it looks like we went out for an rfp right uh back in the earlier part of this year to to get our final cost uh to see um what what it would be to conduct this audit um so i move that the cheshire board of education approves the appointment of clifton larson allen llp to conduct an internal audit and internal control and operational review of the student activity accounts at a cost not to exceed twelve thousand dollars ten white seconds great um is there any discussion on the motion seeing none oh yes uh nothing it's uh it's long overdue but uh as adam mentioned i we were working on this with vincent davidson before covet and of course kobe hit so

053this was not a something that we wanted to take during the past pandemic now that it's over so that does this a little bit i think we get this done and update our 25 year old policy uh but that being said it's one of just uh transparency that i mentioned last meeting i've actually worked with uh bloom shapiro which is now also this company not worked for them but in various private businesses i've used this cyber security arm and i.t assessments and even a company i work for now use lights bloom for financial audits i have no personal stake in this i have no financial stake but just transparency i am very familiar with the company uh so i will be going voting in favor of motion but just my folks know that i do

054the company very well yes tim so just to be clear the accounts that we're auditing do those fall within the normal annual audit they do they do yeah this what you're going to get from this twelve thousand dollar is a much more detailed first of all let's start with a review of the the policy as mr peregini uh stated is is dated and then they'll compare what we do to the policy and then they'll you know do a review of transactions they'll do a verification of balances in the accounts you know they'll confirm the reconciliations are are being done properly uh and then they will issue findings and a report you know would you know that would ultimately be issued to the board or to the finance committee is where i assumed this would would

055run through first and so the audit that's done annually you know by in this cla our our our auditors you know they do some test transactions but it's much more limited than what this engagement will provide okay yeah thank you i i think this is an important thing to do in terms of um accountability transparency just having a better understanding of these accounts and i do have one question does this incorporate so sports will be included here does it incorporate uh coaching permits at all or review that okay just financial okay all right so we're just hoping we do come back to that at some point but yeah i suppose i'm going to support the motion thank you is there any yes where is the 12 000 going to be allocated from well we will

056um encumber it you know from this year's operating budget funds so we'll be coming out of our budget thank you is there any further discussion seeing none call for a vote all in favor it is unanimous thank you next up is uh discussion possible approval of revised agreement with performance environmental for cleaning services uh mr massan would like to shed some light on that sure so this is uh really a follow-up the board of education approved at their meeting on april 29th the extension of the contract that we have with performance environmental who does the cleaning services for our buildings and actually very successfully for the past um eight years what the board approved at the last meeting on april 29th was to extend that contract with a an increase of 5.28 percent about 38

057000 at the board meeting ms hamm you know requested that we consider or we ask performance if they'd be willing to extend the contract for one more year so 22 23 which would be the final extension that would take us to five full years of contract with extensions with performance before we have to go out to bid again and so i did go back to performance environmental i spoke to the ceo steve sadler and he came back with a proposal that's before the board this evening so if we were to extend the contract one additional year the price increase would be 27 192 from the 21 22 contract that's about a 3.59 increase so that is lower than the 38 000 that we'll see as an increase for next year you know mr sadler offered

058a discount by making the commitment for two years at this time the other items that he pointed out which is detailed in the memo that the board has is that you know one the connecticut minimum wage will increase another dollar this august and then the following july so that impacts his cost of labor obviously and the other uh point that he made is that you know their cost of you know supplies and products that they use in our schools you know has been skyrocketing to use his words um but he recognizes that um he would like to have the opportunity to add that final year to the contract at this time and so that's why he's offered a discount and in looking at the numbers you know the the base contract increases with performance environmental

059if you consider that the first two years of the contract they locked the price they actually gave us a lower price than the previous contract that we ended with so i think that from a price point of view performance environmental has been you know very responsible and have have done a good job with the pricing and they've done very very good work cleaning our schools they've been very responsible during this pandemic they successfully supplied dayporters you know across our schools which we are still using today i know many districts didn't have quite the same success in attracting dayporters to do intraday disinfecting and cleaning so i certainly you know would recommend that the board take advantage of the opportunity you know approve the contract extension for the second year at this price and then we

060will go out to bid at the you know before the contract expires in june of 2023 so that's that's the recommendation tim thanks adam yeah i mean i think it's uh i think it's important to go out to rfp every few years if we take this out to five years i think it makes total sense to lock in the contract the only the the only thing i have hesitation on is the supply chain issues and the inflation that's being seen right now i mean when did you talk to him was it a month and a half ago before that was visible to everyone in the world or and just did you have a conversation how it impacts it this is a contract but i i just kind of wonder yeah we went back and forth

061but i talked to um mr sadler late last week so it's pretty current discussion and you know we did negotiate back and forth a little bit to get you know to this number so i feel comfortable okay you know it it's um i think it's quite attractive frankly okay all right thank you you're welcome uh what i'll do is i'll um i will uh make the motion that we can enter into further discussion how's that um uh motion that the board of education extend the contract with performance environmental llc from 7-1 2022 to 630 2023 with a base contract cost of 976 dollars is there a second on that andrew all right um so um is there any additional discussion yeah tim yeah just clarity on the the base price is that is that like

062an assumed number of hours at a given rate so more hours equals a higher price basically well it's it's not the base contract includes a school a scope of work to clean all the buildings you know daily when school is in session as well as to do the various spring break winter break and summer cleaning so they have to meet the scope of work within that base contract price if they if we request additional work like we need detail cleaning in a classroom that's built separately but this scope of work covers all our needs for the entire school year in it are the needs pre-coveted or mid covet or postcovid no they're they're pre-covered okay so the the scope of work hasn't you know i should say the scope of work hasn't changed the products

063that they use and the depth of cleaning has and they didn't they didn't increase the price per se for that they just gave us a general increase for the next two years at at this point for expected labor cost and and product increase is really what it comes down to thank you you're welcome yeah i just want to say appreciate you going back and negotiating um and going from a 5.28 increase to a three point five nine i think that that's a great deal for the district it's a no-brainer and faith isn't here this evening but i think that she would appreciate that greatly so yeah thank you yeah i will definitely support this uh we're not the only um school district looking at the long-term cleaning service needs because the cost escalation has been

064going higher and i do it is unlikely we'll get a lower price if we went out to bid after the next extended year but i do want to so thank you vincent for following i do want to thank faith for uh bringing this idea to the table i don't think we really thought about it so she's not here tonight but i'm sure she'd be happy to know that uh the results came back very favorable so so thank you for working on this my pleasure i'm also saying that that i feel that the extension is um uh very favorable for the school system and reasonable actually considering uh the price the the price of commodities and how how quickly they're going up i'm glad that uh our vendor feels secure in in this type of uh

065agreement so um that being said is there any further discussion um all in favor of the motion not opposed it is unanimous motion passes thank you and finally we have a discussion on the increase of school lunch prices um mr massander would you like to do an introduction thank you i will be taking taking this one i need to do a little bit of preference uh for this item though i want to introduce you know to the board uh erica biagetti who is our new food service director who will be replacing madeleine decker who is retiring at the end of this month um so we're pleased to welcome erica i just wanted to give you a little bit about her background since this is the first time she is here in front of the board

066and she looks a little bit nervous although that's not typical for her so erica was hired we formed a hiring committee and she was selected unanimously by the committee not only for the excellent education experience and skills that she brings to the table but also she has a very positive attitude and a winning personality um she's not very shy although i'm not sure what to expect tonight and you know in the time she's been here since april she's already you know really lived up to you know our expectations across the district she earned a bachelor of science degree from uh johnson and wales in food service management she was previously prior to coming to cheshire she was the director of dining services for the guilford public schools since 2014 and she also worked as an

067assistant director in the milford public schools before that and before that she has food service industry management experience and food distribution restaurants and hotels i know she's a firm believer in the importance of school nutrition for children and she's been actively involved in the school nutrition association of connecticut and she is currently serving as its president and her term is expiring shortly so she's a true advocate um you know for school nutrition and doing it well and i will tell you that you know we served on a panel back in 2016 together at the school nutrition and the connecticut association of school school business officials joint conference and i do you know remember erica from from that session and i'm very very happy that you know she agreed uh to join us when we made

068her the job offer uh so with that we're gonna tag team a little bit i think erica you you could stay there so there is a recommendation we're bringing forward tonight um to approve an increase in the school meal prices um and i'll just talk a little bit and then if there are questions you know erica and i can address them the school lunch prices you know we do revisit them annually but we don't raise prices until we think we need to and we did so back in 2018-19 was the last time we increased prices we are dealing with at this time though a couple of things one the connecticut minimum wage you know has gone up a dollar per hour and we'll go up another dollar this august and another dollar the following july

069so you know that has clearly affected our labor costs um and it has since the minimum wage started increasing although we didn't raise any of the food prices since 2018 2019 school year and also the current cost of food and the materials we buy to package and provide meals to our students has increased so you know we believe that um it's important that we make sure our prices reflect current costs including labor that said school lunch will be free for all students next year okay so even though we're recommending to raise prices you know families will still be able to get breakfast and lunch at no cost to them for the 21 22 school year but we still believe the prices need to reflect current market prices and so that's why we're bringing this recommendation

070forward this evening and with that erica maybe you just want to run through you know what we're raising and not raising sure good evening everyone nice very unique situation welcome i almost feel like dr fauci is sitting in like a board panel over on the other side um so we are looking to make some um minor increases for breakfast um actually i'll start from the beginning so we are going to keep the milk price the same um that has been a stable market going forward we are looking to increase the breakfast at only the high school by 25 cents the high school does have an expanded offer menu for breakfast so they have more options than the other two schools currently have as well then we're looking for lunch at the elementary school in the

071middle school to both go up 25 cents and the high school to have a 15 increase in both tiers tier one and tier two and that's for the different line options and the elevated meal options and then we are keeping the teacher meal um the teacher and adult lunch the same at the five dollars this is actually something that i have been speaking about with snacks and probably about for a month or two at a lot of our meetings and different things going forward is about increasing lunch prices so it's something that a lot of directors throughout the state are having the same discussion [Music] um sure and just one thing i know it looks like um mr white has a question but you know part of what we do when we look at school

072meal prices is not only do we look internally at our costs but you know what are other districts charging for their meals and so part of the survey that was done revealed that we're we're certainly not up at the top in terms of price and we're not in the bottom we're really kind of in the middle across the categories which we think is a sound place to be tim thank you so if kids were paying for meals um does anybody or how many students actually use cash at this point or would use cash call pre-covered or does everybody use a card no we do there are which i'm not 100 sure exact cheshire numbers but there there are still overall students who do use cash um it's probably decreased maybe about 70 percent um to

073online payments but there's still a good 25 to 35 percent of students who use cash and they can use cash for buying a single bottle of water a second meal a la carte um there are all other options besides just the school mail that they sometimes use their cash for okay yeah i was just i'm looking at this going in increments of nickels and 15 cents 25 if everybody was on a card i would just think if it's eight cents do it eight cents on an annual basis but you're not there at this point right now you know they might be having to count out some pennies nickels yeah no i don't wanna i don't wanna make it complicated i'm just thinking if everybody if everybody has that card at some point then i would

074just strongly encourage that they use electronic payments yeah okay thank you um so by increasing the um the school lunch price does that also affect our reimbursement rate from the federal government it does not so your meal prices have zero reflection on the reimbursements that are set forth by the connecticut state department of ed and or the usda those reimbursements are set um in both houses prior to the usda reimbursements rates are being reviewed currently for the next school year but they have not been finalized at this time the usda and the state are still looking for further guidance is what we hear so do you feel like we have a good handle on the program for next year like there won't be as many surprises as there were this year we are very hopeful

075we've been advocating strongly on the snack side that um they were extending this waivers that we're currently serving for all of the school year rather than going two to three months at a time which is what we incurred this past year so whatever they set forth and the guidance we get is what we'll have for all of next year and is our participation in the 100 is that voluntary is that mandatory um student participation is voluntary no i mean our our participation oh in the program yeah do you yeah you mean in the in the week but they have 100 free lunch is that is that a volunteer like do we volunteer to do that or is that so you can opt out of serving and then you would just have to charge for meals

076at these prices um if you were to approve this increase or what the prices are currently you could opt out of the program and not offer free meals if you didn't want to there's different sets of guidelines that we follow to be able to offer the meals at no charge if if we didn't if we did if we opted out would we return back to our former you know where we had you know we had our almost identified a population of need that would always participate would we revert back to that if we didn't participate yes we still um even with um participating in the free the meals at no charge of what we're participating in now free and reduced applications and their statuses are still being applications are still accepted and they're still being

077processed so it wouldn't change the fact of what they still need to qualify for them even if the meals are free for all right now so it's two different waivers free and reduced um applications and that income base based on snap and all those benefit levels those stay currently all the time the free meals for all is the usda giving us a grant that is a like a big umbrella over all of us saying it's been coveted meals are all for free [Music] if i can add i'm sorry just one more thing because i know you know adam you know part of your question was uh you know what's our p l gonna be like for next year and um at this point i'm confident that we will you know be at least break even

078next year a lot of what happened to the p l this year really had to do with participation a number of students not being served meals but that you know the p l for the second half of the year you know has certainly started to rebound because we have much more student participation we're providing breakfast to all students at the end of the day as they leave and again those are all considered reimbursable meals so i think next year no pandemic status i think will be will be fine and you know food service you know here in cheshire um you know we've always had a pretty healthy reserve and we've had a profitable you know year in terms of you know revenue exceeding costs year over year it's not really an accident you know we've

079had talented food service directors that have managed us through that over the years so this was truly an anomaly for us um and i would say that we're kind of fortunate as a school district but again it's not an accident it's it's a very well managed program over the years so a couple questions i think you know i think behind it one adam's question is you know by offering by participating in the free meals program are we going to incur a 500 000 gap like we saw this year and i i'm gonna say no but but just to circle back in that in a second so the the number of meals served is what we get reimbursed on and they it's safe to say eric i know you just got into this raw you know

080you familiar with everything that we didn't have as much meals served because kids were not in the same school and or the meal pickup program wasn't as popular as it was when we were full uh is that that's what to say so there's a few things that going that it wouldn't explain the whole debacle but i just wonder well it was we had less students in school because when we came back to school we had about 25 percent of students that didn't attend the high school our largest school only had half of the students in four days per week right so we lost a day and 50 of our students um some students were bringing lunch as opposed to taking our lunch and then you know another factor is students were not purchasing any of

081the a la carte items so when we started the year was uh pretty horrendous and you know we reacted to it obviously but as the year progressed all of those things came back on track so now only about 10 of our students are not in school um yeah and and so you know again i want to rehash the last year but work so you know i'm planning for the past year right you had to purchase supplies materials packaging and you have labor employees you know they had it show up and the meals are not where need to be those costs 10 is what's causing expenses that we incurred for lack of so fast forward to the upcoming school year unless there's another recurrence of what we saw over the last you know 14 months where

082we go full remote and we're back into the situation it sounds like to me if that were to come up you can plan for as best you can and unnecessarily hit that same situation we had last year so i'm not too worried about this recurring again the question i have is so when we say meals are free for all students it's regardless of need so you know as a parent you know my daughter you know in in high school i don't have to fund her meal card right so does that mean i mean i'm going to anyway because i can't afford to but and we're not and again as long as the meal is served the reimbursement we get back from the government will offset those costs right so that is the expectation and we

083are hopeful that they're actually going to increase the reimbursement rate for next year to give us even a little bit more um push like a little bit more funds so that we can i think a lot of what we faced in food service at the beginning of this year for low participation is the uncertainty students came back very uncertain they felt um they weren't sure what to go through they weren't sure what was going to happen i think coming into next year i'm much more hopeful that we are going to be able to build the participation off of the free meals that we need and that we would be at a break even um or positive because we're not overcoming the hurdles we had at the beginning of the year we're already seeing participation very

084high right now so it's really great news it's i had school lunch all this week and it was delicious and i saw lots of students no i think this is very positive i mean i was going to ask earlier uh which answered my questions i know a few years ago it might have been neato when she was on the board and we were talking about you know was there were families that you know couldn't afford to pay for meals every day and we talked about the process about recruitment payments but this puts a lot of families at ease if they can't even without having to go through the snap and income process you know it's one less hurdle for them so they at least give us a peace of mind that they're getting a meal

085if they can't afford to otherwise yes but things are good that's the whole reason why we did the whole free um thing in the past anyway was for that population so yeah i i don't have any other questions but by the way welcome thank you i will have erica just you know talk a little after this this piece of business is done i do want erica to give an update on some of the other things that she's working on some of which will help participation we're hoping for next year and i do want to clarify also that full meals are free to all students but if a student purchases an a la carte item like a water or a second meal those items are not free it's just a full reimbursable meal as we say

086right sounds okay just says let's make one more comment or well i guess uh just uh so um so they're the the premium the premium level meals or the snacks are will be available for next year and that parents should be prepared to fund that account if their students wish to purchase those additional items yes okay thank you okay um well then i will make a motion um a move that the cheshire board of education approves an increase in the school meal prices effective with the 2022 school year as follows high school breakfast uh increased 25 cents elementary and middle school lunch increased 25 cents high school lunch increase 15 cents do i have a second uh andrew um is there any further discussion on the motion tim thanks adam yeah i'm gonna support this

087motion i'm i'm not really a big fan of lots of different federal programs um but the fact is is it's there and i think it benefits a lot of uh people here in town so i'm gonna support this thank you any seeing no other discussion um all in favor of the motion is unanimous thank you quick update quick update and then i'm done um so i just wanted to give uh just a couple things that i've been working on since starting so one item that we do have coming up is on june 16th which is also the last day of school very exciting is we are doing a summer send-off 14-day meal kit pickup for all families with children 18 years or under so they'll um pick ups from 10 to 12 and they get

088a large cheese pizza chicken tenders waffle bites sweet potato tots lots of really good items the full menus on the website if anyone wants to see it but just saying we're doing that which is very helpful we had pick up yesterday and we had over um 225 um meals picked up just yesterday on wednesday so it was really great we're very hopeful um for the 16th as well we're also doing um upgrading our software for um school lunch to a mosaic in a meal viewer it's a cloud-based software it's going to operate a little bit more efficiently for us it's also going to boost our menu planning opportunities which is going to give families a online menu app that'll have they'll be able to see the nutritional information the allergen information there's a really fun

089feature that has little faces so the kids can like and favorite their meals and the faces have all these like funny little sayings on them they're adorable so cute um but it makes everything more at ease so families can have it on their phones they can see it on their desktop it's going to give a lot of access to families to see what the menu is as well as allergen information so that if they have any uncertainty they can click an allergen and it highlights everything they cannot have so it'll empower a student coming up in line to know what they can and cannot have for lunch and it quickly links to my school bucks which is our online payment system so they don't have to bring cash in it's a very nice feature um

090the last one is i'm working on the menu for all of next year and we are looking to offer some new recipes new items including building a panini line station at the high school as well as it's expanding their salad and deli bar options um so the high school kind of getting a little remodel it's minor very minor remodel was probably too big of a word we're moving some equipment around it's very subtle um but i'm really excited and very happy to be joining the team and i'm looking forward to next year thank you great thank you very much how much flexibility do you have in developing the menu do you get to pick out because okay so how's do you see a lot of changes coming or i'm taking we're going through everything that's

091currently offered seeing what are some student favorites and then i had some different items that i was using previously in other districts and we're going through and doing some recipe development and trying like kind of uniting the two items the two menus together so i am we're i've been talking with the managers already and it's very exciting oh andrews wants to know if you're going to do uh coal oven fire cauliflower crust pizza yes how did you know i just got that recipe the schoolbox account is currently in arrears thanks tony yeah with regard to um the meals do you buy anything do you source anything locally or have that as a goal so i do have that as a goal i'm not i know that madeline did do some local farms and so um

092sourced some things here so i'm looking to figure that out within next year and be able to bring in a lot anything local that we can so as i learn more about cheshire and what we've got available yeah i guess i'm not even thinking just cheshire because you know we just don't but connecticut in general okay thank you in the whole tri-state area yeah yeah thank you yeah yeah i'm glad you uh asked that tim i i was contacted by a member of the cheshire land trust preservation and i know they're thinking about clever ways to use some of the the farmland for educational purposes i think it let that persona but uh i think ice farm is one of the uh properties that you know farms i would reach out to them to see

093i mean any i mean we have so many options here i i think you would get a lot of support from from our folks in the community just a heads up on that so i'm glad you're looking into that i think that concludes the finance report thank you adam and vincent up next is policy mr gripple again um let's see uh we held a let's see who is today is the uh city of third you're welcome and your microphone's still on just just so you know there you go perfect um so uh i believe uh june 1st we held our policy meeting it's i i think the shortest policy meeting we've had in a very long time uh i i had uh technical difficulty myself and so the meeting didn't even start on time which

094was kind of fun and uh but overall we reviewed policy 5141 student health services where we had a just a more informational discussion about tuberculosis and the physical examination um extending the fiscal examination uh certificate the 13 months so we did not change anything and we moved that policy uh to a second rating um and uh finally we um moved uh policy 6159 um instruction individualized education program special education program um to a uh or to a third reading for the board's consideration um and that's uh changing uh the age uh in which a um qualified student can receive services uh from uh let's see the exit age was 21 and now it's up until their 22nd birthday per state statute with that said i would like to make a motion that the cheshire board

095of education give a third and final reading to policy number 6159 iep special education program and direct the superintendent to put said policy into immediate effect do i have a second on that motion tim uh is there any discussion seeing no discussion uh all in favor of the motion is unanimous oh jeez sorry about that everyone the motion passes and that ends my policy committee report mr chair thank you thank you adam up next we have our school modernization update sure we're getting off easy tonight here um so i continue to push the word out to the community about the school modernization report on my modernization mondays on the various facebook social media platforms that exist here school modernization report is available on the district website and also on the town of cheshire's website under

096the school modernization tab for the full report um but more or most importantly are three information sessions which are going to be held which are promised to be one hour sessions with some fun door prizes i'm not exactly sure what those are yet um and they are as followed this coming monday evening june 7th at 6 pm at norton school following tuesday or tuesday june 8th 6 30 at chapman school and then wednesday june 9th 7 p.m at dodd middle school each of these sessions will be as i said an hour long where there'll be a presentation about school modernization where we what school modernization is where we were where we are as well as followed by a question answer period um again they'll be short they'll be informative so please please attend do read

097the report before you come so you can come prepared with some questions i don't know if the superintendent wants to add any sort of information about door prizes or any fun activities that people could expect uh i think you've given an adequate teaser mr martelly we want people to be surprised and excited all right with that that's all i have on school modernization thanks andrew i just want to also add there's been some dialogue between uh superintendent solo and his office and uh town manager and as well as leadership and town council unleashing board of ed we're gonna have an administrative uh session just talk about planning for a bigger meeting between the border van town council so uh you know by hopefully by june 10th when we move to project we have some updates

098on that but i do know just want the folks in town to know that both bodies are working towards this goal so it's going to be a busy summer but we're we're definitely all invested in this forward so thank you andrew okay there are no other standing committee reports in our packets we're not in number six we have approval of minutes uh we do have minutes from the board education uh meetings held on may 20th in our packets um we can call for a motion and and discuss if there are any changes so is there a motion mr grippo uh move that the board of education approved the minutes from meeting held on may 20th 2021. there a second mr martelly uh any changes or edits to the minutes i have none seniors are none

099that the board education approved the minutes from the meeting held on may 20th 2021 all in favor passes unanimously thank you correspondents uh uh secretary helen is not here to see anything but we we did get a couple emails uh ironically one over more day weekend for mr bestor uh talked about student data privacy he uh referred to the board a blog link that talked about um you know how the uh increasing use of online services and etc even by younger adults or students uh want to be mindful of the broader concern of of data privacy and security not necessarily related to our systems um so i did respond back then thank them for the article and you know if any questions on our policy that uh you know definitely bring to our attention but

100uh he just wanted you know really put an awareness out there that uh you know students have access to more than just the systems in our school you know their personal phones at home just be mindful that uh in this day and age of cyber attacks you know the information's comp can be compromised so heads up on that so thank you and after someone i believe you received an email from from a parent asking about the mask mandate in our schools and why it's necessary i apologize i forgot the the kind lady's name i know you responded to that uh i think it was last week correct yeah the question was about whether students would not be able to wear masks or be able to stop wearing masks in school there is an executive order

101that requires students and staff to wear masks in the school buildings and monday and through working with chester cot particularly in light of the heat that is forecast for next week we are withdrawing the mask mandate for students outside unless they are in close physical proximity for an extended period so uh that's with the blessing of the health department yeah and just for for record that was from miss sweet and and mr besser thank you we have your your correspondence and then we'll be included in our in our meeting minutes for reference uh outside of correspondent we have the much anticipated superintendence report dr sullivan it's all you mr perry genie thank you for acknowledging the excitement that is the superintendent's report hopefully we'll nail this uh quite quickly i like pavlov's dog i created

102a powerpoint used to doing that on uh our virtual meetings uh so i'm just gonna try and walk through real quickly i did leave a copy of the powerpoint for each of the members of the board and it will be available on our website tomorrow um just a quick update of our current status with uh kovid19 impact in our district uh this is really the lowest we've ever had with one notable exception at doolittle um and it seems like each throughout the year as i've been intimately connected to this you know each building will have a really bizarre kind of like blip on the radar and then you know subsides but uh right now we're dealing with uh some cases it do little um and maura esposito the health director met with amy o'brien the

103principal today and renee zamidi i think talked about that earlier and um so i think we're on the right path there hopefully that you know is resolved and by the start of next week we've talked a lot about the emotional impact of covet 19 and the fact that january we had over a thousand of our uh 4 200 students who were remote uh 25 of our students were remote on january 27th and the idea was very scary that you could miss 17 months of school at least the the interpersonal interactions and the academic experience so our administrative team really jumped on contacting families seeing what we could do to support a return to school and i'm really proud to to share that i think between the efforts of our staff the the commitment of our

104families the the current health uh status that we're down uh 600 less remote students than we had in january so and 300 less than we had just a month or so ago so we're down to 10 percent remote and i think that's a great uh sign for our return to school uh spring of events our dc trip that we made with over 200 students to uh uh washington last week was really awesome for our students at dodd middle school our eighth graders it was really a taste of normalcy for them to be out and enjoying each other's company it was great um tonight we're celebrating the junior prom and tomorrow night our seniors have their prom so it's i wouldn't say normal um but it's uh certainly much more like normal than it has been

105in a long time and our kids it's so rewarding for us to see that with our kids so really exciting um i mentioned the heat next week um and how we're shifting the the mask requirement i would want to add though i i am concerned about the health self safety and welfare of our students and staff the forecast is really insane next week as cold and rotten as it has been this past weekend twice as hot this week next week temperatures in the mid 90s for a protracted period starting sunday through friday so our buildings um won't take long to heat up with the brick and we're gonna monitor that um i we may have to adjust schedules where our non-air-conditioned buildings which is everything but highland may have to um dismiss early uh at

106some point i you know i hate to do that i know the disruption it creates for families but we also don't want to risk the health and safety of our little ones and masks and buildings um so uh there's a chance for that and i'm just you know trying to give the community a heads up on that um as a parent i know i would appreciate it the uh the other conundrum we have is that we're starting to collect chromebooks because we have to inventory thousands of chromebooks and fix them and everything else in preparation for next year so the possibility of us using remote instruction during that time is is dramatically reduced so um depending on the day the time whatever we may not be able to go there it may just be like

107an old school weather uh early dismissal um but i just wanted people to be aware of that another event i want to give mr martelly a shout out we attended the uh ribbon cutting ceremony today for reread books in the watchtower shops there they employ a number of our our current and former students and are a great partner for us and so it was a real who's who of cheshire folks there as mr martelly was there this afternoon at that ribbon-cutting ceremony so thank you for doing that um cheshire graduation as lucy mentioned we're on right on track excited to be having a relatively normal graduation ceremony with four tickets per graduate outside and we're praying for good weather on june 16th we administered the school climate survey to parents and students and staff as

108well throughout the months of april and may just highlights participation numbers for parents were generally lower than uh in 2019 i think we had about 800 parents uh participate which is generally pretty good but um you know we always want higher participation uh the pandemic had an obvious impact on perceptions of school so for example when you look at 70 of parents reported at the middle school that their child seldom or never participated in extracurricular activities this year that makes sense to me i mean it just didn't have them i think one of the challenges we faced at the middle school was it is trying as much as it was great to be in school every day it's trying to not move when you're 12 years old and move between classes and i think that

109was a real challenge that you know you may pick up on in the results there and then again where the places where school was most normal at the elementary school had the most positive experiences so what we do is take all this data review it in buildings based committees in a district-wide committee and develop plans to support continued positive climate for our schools into the future all of the data that we have is available on the cheshire public schools website under district information you'll see a heading that says school climate plan and a safe school climate plan and all of our data is available there um so i would encourage people to check that out and certainly reach out to marlene myself any of the administrators if you have any questions and then as um

110andrew said yes we do have school engagement uh school modernization engagement meetings coming up the next three excuse me monday tuesday and wednesday next week i've sent out a few emails we'll put the times on our website and locations colliers is the representative firm who's worked with the school modernization committee there'll be a representative there from colliers at these meetings and we hope to really educate people on where we are to date and then you know where we're seeking to move forward what the next steps are and so we certainly appreciate any parent feedback that we can have or community feedback teacher feedback in that process we welcome you to please attend those those meetings and with that that's all i i have for the superintendent's report thank you jeff any questions from the board

111uh adam dr solon uh in regards to the uh the outbreak of doolittle do you have a breakdown as to uh percentage of asymptomatic versus uh any symptoms do we get that kind of information it's a good question adam and i i don't have that i don't i don't necessarily catalog that whether the individual was asymptomatic or not but what in my conversation with miss esposito today what we've seen is we shifted from a 10-day quarantine period to a five-day quarantine then you can be tested and return on eight days and that picked up a couple of asymptomatic individuals that we wouldn't of otherwise necessarily known about which is good i guess you know that we want those people identified not returning to school asymptomatic with any potential for spread but what we've seen throughout

112the year is that doolittle this may have been the second incident of we had one that we can identify doolittle that may have been a in school spread that would be the second um potential in school spread in the district what are we 170 days into school all day um so you know that's still really good i would say over the course of the full year but when we've had a few uh positives it it does i mean we investigate because we're concerned but we feel like not we i'm not the medical expert but more esposito feels pretty confident that we're in a really good place i mean it's tailing down we have less than six positive cases so um at the moment so we're we're in a decent place it's just uh something we

113need to investigate we did um and and uh just to follow up the the school uh climate survey that's online we can get that on yeah all that information there the the surveys the the results from the surveys open-ended questions um are available on the website and is that under the usual format we had to put you have the pie charts in the beginning and then you have like the written comments at the at the end like that's the okay thank you yes mr tim so thanks for working with maura to get the masks removed for at least outside particularly you know during recess but i do have one additional question to the playgrounds the cones that segregate the classrooms are they allowed to come down i apologize because you emailed me about that okay

114i was in washington last week and i know um marlene had some information for me and i neglected to reply to you so i apologize for that and i don't recall it off the top my head do you remember that thank you so the playground that you're inquiring about is a smaller playground and also for the younger children so they put up some cones as a visual for those kiddos because they're so young i get it the back playground is much bigger and students can self-monitor a little bit more but i i checked around and um from all of the the playgrounds that one tends to just be smaller outside for the younger kids so i have to i have to i have to share the bad news that the cones are staying okay thank

115you at least for just a couple more weeks that's okay thank you any other questions see is there and then thank you dr sullivan for your report uh on their old business we don't have any old business on a new business i have just a quick update for a chair update and then i'll talk about the upcoming meetings i uh i actually had an opportunity to visit miss wilderman's uh culinary class at transfer high school two weeks ago yeah almost two weeks ago on a friday and how we got there was interesting and uh and chatting about something say hey why don't you come in during our you know our culture foods awareness and and uh and i i just i had a blast that class those kids were awesome uh we we did a

116uh uh an old dish an austrian dish from the wash factory when uh when that was open marcus we did chicken schnitzel with potato pancake and bean bundles and you know i was going to equip earlier you know have we put that in the menu earlier this year we were cleared that gap no problem because we uh i think there were about 20 or so kids that and i think and i i think miss william just pulled kids out of the hallway they started smelling the cooking and just came in and we had i think almost 52 pieces of schnitzel gone obliterated all the pancakes were gone the beans were gone the sauce was gone it was like it was awesome so uh so i just want to thank her and when i got home

117this evening i had a nice uh handwritten note from from the students thinking experience so uh i i think we have many future top chefs in that class uh and uh there were two young ladies i forgot their names um they have never sauteed anything before so or sauteino schnitzel so they started out you know very cautious by five minutes into it they owned it they sauteed everything they you know they were like it was it was great it was uh so i mean shameless plug here if you know if you have kids if your students like mine are uh treasure high school ham take advantage of that program because uh if nothing else it builds up the self-confidence and you know and cooking and and and also seeing as a possible career path there's

118a lot of as you know erica uh a lot of avenues and different career paths and everything from business related to you know the to the food line so i just want to thank miss wilderman for having me there and hopefully they have too much of a mess behind so uh but that was it other than that um we do have some upcoming meetings while uh everyone is off and graduating on vacation we're we're we continue working and we're not complaining about it but it's fun stuff so upcoming meetings on uh thursday june 10th at 6 30. we have a finance committee meeting of the whole we're going to be talking about the approved budget that was passed by a town council the same night at 7 30 there'll be a special board of ed

119meeting to adopt said budget it'll be 7 30 p.m on monday june 14th we have a quick curriculum committee meeting at 7 pm tuesday june 22nd at 7 pm we have personnel committee to hall executive session to discuss the superintendent's evaluation and on june 30th at 7 30 a.m we have the board of ed fiscal meeting um where as tim mentioned earlier is uh several accounts at the board of ed has to close out you know per various statutes so we're reviewing the our state of financials at the end of this year which has been challenging um and as mr martelly mentioned i'm going to put out there again we have three school modernization engagement sessions that the board is hosting beginning june 7th at norton elementary school at 6 00 p.m june 8th at

120chapman elementary school 6 and june 9th dot middle school at 7 p.m these will be in person outdoors under tents where possible adequately spaced uh so we hope to see you there and you know please bring your questions hopefully this will be informative uh for you all uh that being said that's all i have for new business and last item is a german do i have a motion to adjourn a meeting so moved is there a second ten seconds uh all those in favor it is passed the meeting is now adjourned thank you re1 that showed up earlier thank you erica thank you team marlene vincent carol ferstein the slate good evening you