Cromwell Board of Education Meeting, January 20, 2026 7:00PM

001All right. Good evening everybody and welcome to our board of education meeting. Uh like to call our meeting to order at 7:02. Almost there. And Lisa, I'm gonna ask if you could do the roll call for us. Thank you. Okay. So, everybody has the agenda. I will just share we have a very robust agenda tonight. It's budget night. So, that always is, I told Mr. Butwell, one of our most exciting meetings of the year. Um, but we also didn't want to miss recognizing some of our amazing students and our faculty and a really cool partnership. So, we will be recognizing and we will try to go quickly so that we can give you all back the rest of your evening. Um, so I need an approval for the agenda and I have no additions to

002the agenda. >> Thank you. >> You got Katherine and Matt. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I will turn it over to Dr. McCary for correspondence. Good evening everyone. Um, as you saw in the packet, um, a few years ago, the Robins Family Foundation started contributing to, um, our, uh, food services department and it was $1,000 and then it was two and then it was five and then we almost passed out when we got this check for $25,000. Um, of course, we are so grateful and it goes towards our lunch debt. It's, if you want to look it up, it's the Ram Robins Family Foundation. I It's in the packet. Um, we are always so grateful. We don't know why they picked Cromwell. When we ask them, they just say we they randomly picked us and um

003they just continue to contribute. So, we are very grateful um because as you all know, we have unpaid meals debt. So, just wanted to share that with you. >> That's >> and I did send a thank you letter. >> That's amazing. What you think about how we can thank them? I don't think it's linked >> no >> in the packet, but >> we got it after it was sent out. Okay. Well, thank you very much to the foundation and to the family for their support. That's pretty incredible. Um, do we have any public comments this evening? Anybody here for public comment? Going once, going twice. Excellent. All right. Um, this is my favorite part of our meetings. We get to celebrate our faculty and our staff and our amazing students. And I think to do

004the introductions for this celebration, Mr. Cuckle and Mrs. Duno are going to tag team. Yes. Or Mrs. Dutuno. Thank you, Mrs. Duno. better. All right. Good evening everyone. Um, this is one of my most favorite times, too. Um, and Mr. Cuckle and I are here to present. First of all, I'm so appreciative that we have the high school right behind us, so it makes it so convenient when we do an exchange. So, thank you, Mr. Koko. Um, we are honoring staff and students tonight for a special project that was completed by our high school students and by our ECS students. Um, I'd like to introduce um the staff first and I'm going to ask that they come up and be with us. Mrs. Ms. Douly from the high school, Mrs. Amler from ECS, and Mrs.

005Cy. [Applause] They are going to introduce their students that um are here to share with you the monster feelings project. Um Miss Julie's textiles class, Mrs. Amler's preschool class, and Mrs. Cyy's first grade class all read a story about monsters and the focus was on feelings. Um the high school students in Mrs. Doulie's class worked with ECS students to create monster designs. And I have a sample here to show you of the design that our students could choose from. High school students worked with them to color them all in. Um got them back to the high school and Mrs. Miss Doulie's textile students actually created the res the uh product from the design and here it is. So here is the pattern and the high school students actually made it. This is really a lot

006of work, a lot of effort, a lot of collaboration and these ladies did a wonderful job. Students got together. These monster patterns were used for an adoptive pet for the preschool classes. They were used for reading buddies, nap buddies, and social emotional stuffies. So, what a great way for our high school students to work with our younger students to build leadership, confidence, and collaboration for everyone involved. Now, a special shout out goes to Kelly Franklin, one of our board of ed members, who was able to highlight our students with her connections with Channel 30 News. And we're going to watch a video in a few minutes of the coverage they did for us. It starts as an idea from a preschooler and becomes a reality thanks to a high schooler. The Monster Project is going

007strong. We're going to take a look to see how it all came together. So, we are doing a Monster Project today, which is a collaboration project between students at the elementary school and high school students in my clothing and textile classes. And uh we've been doing this for three years now. And the students are at the elementary level read a book about monsters and they're talking about feelings and how to deal with some of the scary feelings. And then they draw a picture and from the picture they send up to the high school and then students in my clothing and textiles class uh take take a look at their pictures and then they figure out how to bring those monsters to life. >> Okay, let's hear >> the first year we did it three years

008ago. The students absolutely loved it and it's been a favorite ever since. I have a lot of students that come ask me every year if we're going to be doing this in my class and um so we've continued the tradition and it's a lot of fun and you can see the students faces are um tell it all. They're so excited and it's great to have this kind of um collaboration between both levels of students too and um build that connection. So that's really nice. >> This was the reason why I took the class um because I knew we were doing this monster project so I was really excited. That honestly is the best part. Um I think it's a moment that the high school students don't anticipate how much it's going to affect them emotionally.

009Um because it is like a super um just really it's a moment where the elementary students become so enamored with the high school students just in general, but when they see what they've made for them and they're totally surprised. They don't know that it's happening. So they just know they're coming we're coming over to do like a um partner activity with them. They don't really know that we're bringing the monsters over. So when we present them they their eyes light up and they just get so excited and and it's very it's really fun. I think the elementary students always look up to the high schoolers and they're always curious and excited to see them what they're doing and um just to have them come down and really interact with them and create something for them

010makes them feel really all of us to witness. >> So this year we're making 34. So um I have more students than elementary students. So what we've done the last couple years is we have students make a little like adopt a monster and um so we'll have extra for some of the other class rooms because I work primarily with one preschool teacher and she has uh students first grade a class of first grade students that help her and um do them for all of the preschool students. Um we do some extras and then we have like an adopt a monster where the students in the class can come up and um take a monster to read with them or do an activity something like that. So, >> I'm going to ask our teachers to come

011up and >> introduce our students. >> Hello everyone. So, I have Rory Moahan here with me tonight and um so appreciative that she came tonight and is able to be honored with us as well because they're really the backbone of the project. And one thing that I wanted to say about the students, just to brag on them a little bit more, is when we don't actually color these in with the students. The students do it on their own. So when they send them to the high school, that's the first time the students are seeing them. And then they have to interpret the monster and choose fabric and choose colors and designs and everything to bring it to life. So it's it's even more difficult than you probably imagined. But they do an awesome job. So

012thanks Roy, for being here tonight. [Applause] >> And I have a few of our preschool friends who were fortunate enough to be here. They want to come up stand up and bring them up front. >> Let's see. Audrey willing. No. >> Is here. Audrey and Becca, come on over. Oh, look. She's showing it. >> Do you want to pass? [Applause] >> Okay, come here. Let's go. Look at that. I wish you could see the pictures that they created and how Christiey's students were able to just create these that look just like them. And actually, Mrs. do you want to bring your >> friend up? >> I have a student here, Audrey Fidelli, tonight. Come on, Audrey. [Applause] Can you want us to walk straight ahead? What's your name? >> You name everything. You didn't name

013it. I love the color. Mrs. [Applause] Well, thank thank you so much for sharing your amazing amazing friends with us. And thank you for all of the students and the teachers that are involved in this really cool partnership. And a special thank you. I wish Mrs. Franklin can be here because she was so excited about this that she wanted to share on on our um news with the entire state about this really cool activity. So, thank you for doing it. Thank you for continuing to do it and for sharing it with all of us. >> Anybody have any questions or comments that you'd like to add? >> Oh, here's your mic. >> Miss Douly. Is it Miss Duly? >> Oh, yes. Yes. >> This is amazing. >> Thank you. And I have to tell you,

014having taught >> high school for many, many, many years, >> um, how much the kids always enjoyed, we didn't, we called it homeck back in the day, but you did everything from knitting to this. >> Now, where are you getting your materials from? Because I have, >> now that I'm approaching my older age, way older age, I have all kinds of things that some of which I'm thinking I don't really want to part with, but I have to. So, where are you getting your materials from? Like the fabrics, they're not felt. I thought initially when I saw it on >> TV that they were they were all felt, but they're all different. >> Yeah, they're all different. So, um, in my clothing and textiles class, we do several projects. So, we do have a supply

015of felt. A lot of it is donated. Okay. >> Um, a lot of it was from my mom. Same situation, you know, years and years of fabric. Um but yeah, people donate it and then I take what I can because you know how overwhelming it can be. Um but yeah, people have been great about donating and um I purchase some things too just to match, you know, specific colors that kids need, but >> but they are able to choose. So they can choose felt, they can use fabric, they can choose, you know, buttons, yeah, embroidery floss, they can use thread, they can use whatever. And um so do you do the kids learn know how to sew before they come in to your class? >> I know they were doing it by hand. I didn't

016know whether or not they would be doing it on the machine. >> No, they it's all by hand. So they do learn how to hand sew um they learn several stitches with me. >> Yep. We do hand sewing first and then um they do um a project first and then this is their second project that they do. So it's all done by hand. >> I think it's phenomenal. I think the kids are great. I think the kids are great to do that. Just great. >> And just seeing them, >> I mean, the monsters were one thing, but then the day that they all came together and they were reading with them and all that, it was just that was simple. >> Oh, yeah. >> Like stuck at the leg like wanted to come back to

017the high school with us like Yeah. Very cute. >> That's a great thing to do. Talk about true collaboration. >> Well, thank you. >> Thank you all so much for coming and for sharing with us. We really appreciate you. Okay, I'm going to move us on to uh reports from our town liaison. Board of finance has not met. Um I think the town council met once, but Mr. Zroski um wasn't at that meeting and I watched it and I don't think there's anything necessary to report. Um CMS building committee, I think I'll send that over to Mrs. Lamb for just a quick update. Right. We we actually haven't met since the last time the board got together. So, no new updates other than we do need to meet tomorrow as a board for another vote

018on the PV system. So, just a a next phase of the project >> and we're included in that. >> Yes. Yes. Um I think Lisa sent out an invite to everybody. So, you should have that >> and it's a virtual meeting. Virtual 7 o'clock. 7 o'clock. I'd like to interrupt. >> Yes, Mrs. Maddie. >> I didn't know whether or not there was going to be more of um all the incredible things that the students had done. And I don't know if I'm supposed to be reading everything as closely as I am, but along with the high school, I think it has to be mentioned is the kids who did um the kids who did the the shed, which was phenomenal. And the reason I mention that is that my son who just turned 40 um

019in the house that he bought, he's overwhelmed with toys and all kinds of things and he had to build a shed. And one of the things that he enjoyed so much here at the high school was all of the hands-on things that he got to do. And I thought to myself, I sent it to him and I said, "Look, someone stole your design." And I couldn't help but think we sometimes forget there are a lot of kids that are involved in academics. That was my thing. A lot of kids who are involved in music, a lot of kids were involved in drama. But these kids who are doing the hands-on stuff. This is an amazing kind of thing. And I'm so glad that one we do it and two that you highlighted. So I didn't

020want to leave those guys out and I'm sure there was other stuff but my memory banks can only hold so much. So, thank you. >> No, good point. Thank you for adding that. And I imagine that Jacob and Marcel are going to mention that in their reports. We didn't steal their thunder. Don't worry, Miss Maddie. You're good. Um, so we do try every meeting to highlight something really phenomenal that's happening in our schools and we try to do a variety of recognitions from all different disciplines. But yes, it's really important that we recognize those kind of things. And if folks want to follow, uh, our district's really great about putting these things out on social media, recognizing, um, things in our newsletters. So, yes, there's a lot of amazing things happening. We can't recognize all

021of them here, but I wish we could or our meetings would go until midnight. Um, okay, I'm going to turn it over to our student representatives. And Andrew, I'm going to let you go first. You don't typically join us, so you're going to have to introduce yourself. And Summer will help you with the mic if you need help with the mic. Um, but we'll start off with it with the middle school. Thanks for joining us. >> I'm Andrew filling in for uh Jillian tonight. She couldn't make the meeting. Um, in the CMS drama club, rehearsals for the production of Alice and Wonderland continue with the addition of stage managers and soon the crew stage group. World Language Club continues to meet and celebrate cultures from around the world. Students recently created and decorated mass to

022celebrate carnival. Uh jazz band is practicing for their performance on February 4th under the direction of Miss Sales. Art club had their first meetings of the year with Mr. Glow on January 8th and January 15th to create many varied works of art. The ski club has began meetings for fun ski trips to Mount Southernington on Tuesdays. And the writing club published its first edition and will meet again next week with Mr. Boseman to begin producing the second installment. Uh the PTO will host a Harlem Wizards versus Cromwell Allstars game or All-Stars basketball game on March 30th. Ticket sales begin on February 2nd. Valentine's Day Grams are on sale now through February 4th. Uh, in the sports department, Coach Budsick's boys basketball team led by Calvin Forest and Jake Barton and Dr. Bosworth girls basketball team

023led by Kayla Moresy and Brianna Romaali will finish the season with one game this Thursday against Ram and two games next week. As many of as you guys know, you went to the chorus concert and the winter chorus concert on January 14th highlighted the dedic dedication of the new Croml Middle School auditorium to honor the Lake Croml board of education chair and lifelong supporter of the arts, Mr. Michael Cameeri, CMS principal and coachola, CPS superintendent Dr. Edna Enza Mackery, former board of ed chair Selene Kellaher, current board of ed chair Alisa Gatudi, >> Mayor James, Demetriottis, and town manager Anthony Salvatore all spoke to honor Miss Camel, Mr. Cameli before giving the floor to Terry, Jessica, and Megan Cameilli. Miss Cameler's sixth, seventh, and eighth grade chorus performed beautifully, and Miss Jessica Cameilli accompanied the

024seventh grade chorus on guitar for playing their rendition of Blackbird. For soar, on Wednesday, January 21st, CMS will host an assembly to kick off the great kindness week challenge. There are activities planned throughout the week for the students to show their practice, show and practice kindness. On Friday, January 16th, CMS honored the lesson the lessons and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with an honorary quotation and a moment of silence. On Wednesday, January 14th, CMS students and staff created Valentine's Day cards during what's known as a Valentine for veterans in their sore classes. This is an initiative supported by the partnership between CNMS and Carmel Youth Services. As for the robotics club in their tournament, they placed second for defensive robot and 13th place for CCWM in their competition on January 10th. >> Well

025done. Thank you both. Appreciate it. Thank you for stepping in, Andrew. And the talent at that chorus concert was really, really impressive. So, kudos to everybody that performed. Any comments or questions for our middle school representatives? Okay, passing it over to Jacob and Marcel. 2026 is already off to a fantastic start. Uh mid December, Mr. Bourja and his class did finish the shed and they're planning on creating another one um in the spring with the better weather. Um, on January 7th, the class of 2020 30 2030 got their um, very first tour of CHS. They met their future teachers, wondered if they were actually going to survive the year, and got familiar with the building. Uh, NBC News highlighted Miss Doulie's monsters project where CHS students teamed up with ECS PreK making their very own

026monsters. In fundraising new news news, DECA and the student council combined forces to raise $716 for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. And the Pulsar Project finished raising uh $492. It's midterm week uh here at Cromwell, which means next month next Monday, the 26th, we're kicking off semester 2. The student council will be selling flowers for Valentine's Day throughout the first week of February. Let's keep this momentum going. And here's to a great second half of the year. >> You haven't heard about sports since last year, so it's time for an update. The boys basketball team is off to a fantastic start going 10 and0. Last Thursday, they played at Cockenchog and came away with a 48 to 20 48 to 34 win. They're playing right now versus Hail Ray. Their next game is on is

027Friday at Old Sabbrook. The girls basketball team has a 6-3 record with a recent win over Kogen as well, 41 to 36. They play today at Hill Ray, then on Friday. Then they have a home game versus Old Sedbrook. The boys and girls indoor track teams have been doing great, too, with several records already being broken. The next meet is on Thursday at Hill House High School in New Haven. Next time, I'll provide further updates on basketball and indoor track seasons. >> Thank you. Much appreciated. Any questions or comments for our high school reps? Go ahead, Catherine. This is Russ. Jacob, I know you're not a sports person, but I absolutely love your sports updates, and I'm sure this wasn't told to you, but I did want to share that a senior on the track

028team, Nasier Andrade, has um Connecticut number one for the 600 meter, the Connecticut number three for the 300 meter, and US number seven for the 600 meter. I've seen him race multiple times. Um, and I actually saw him at a couple of meets and he knows literally everybody and every single person has positive things to say about him. He is a wonderful representation for our school and he is knocking it out of the park. So, I just want to give him a special little shout out because I don't think I don't know if we've ever had a Cromwell student ranked number one in the US. So, it's super impressive. >> He was so fun to watch. >> That's awesome. >> Thanks. >> Anybody else? All right. Well, a collective good luck to all of your

029to you two and to your colleagues who are taking midterms this week. I know the stress level can be up to here. So, you have all of our support and we're cheering for you, but get some get to bed early and study hard. >> Thank you. >> Um, and you guys are welcome to. You don't have to stay. You don't have to stay. Thank you for coming and joining us. study. >> You're welcome to, but you're not required to. >> Yes, you guys need to go home and study. >> Okay, moving on to town collaboration updates. The only update that I have is that our what do we call this committee, Steve? The fac help me >> facilities and assets committee >> is meeting on the 27th >> at 7 6 pm >> and >>

030at the town hall >> and Mr. Heisman represents us on that committee which is looking at all the facilities and assets across the town including BOE. Um I sit on that as well as exeicio. So we will report back after that meeting at our February 3rd meeting about how that went. This was our first first official. So, it's pretty exciting. Um, do we have any other town updates? Okay, then I'm passing it to you for superintendent updates. >> Sure. I'll be very quick. Um, obviously we've been working on budget and um, we'll be presenting that to you shortly. You heard from the students a smooth transition back from vacation um, which was really nice. And um a couple things that we're incredibly proud of is our students uh raised um 683 um dollars to donate

031to warm the children. And this is incredible. We have not been uh re we've never raised this much money for um PJ day. $6,39.98. So, we were just so excited to be able to to um to raise that much money. We're one of the top school districts. So, very happy about that to help as many kids as we can and their families. And the rest is all budget stuff. So, we'll get into shortly. All right. Someone who needs no introduction. Mr. Butwell, where are you? Oh, we're we are very excited. I'm very excited that you're very excited. >> Um I know we're going to talk about next year's budget later, but uh just to update you on this year's budget. Um generally everything going well. Um in the budget report, you'll notice the lines that

032are running over are the usual that you might expect. um our uh 323 pupil services um due to you know provision of student services that we weren't expecting 510 uh transportation most of which is uh student services transportation um everything else is looking um very good um as I mentioned in my memo we got our first um indication from the state about what our um excess cost reimbursement will be for this year and uh we are very close to what they're projecting is very close to what we budgeted. So, we're very happy about that news. >> Thank you. Does anyone have any questions? >> Okay, you're saving them all for later. Okay. >> Uh, thank you, M. >> Thank you. >> Okay. All right. I'm going to run through new business relatively quickly. Um, in

033your packets, you have project timelines and CNR items updates, which is reference B. Um, this is purelyformational unless anyone has any questions. There is also in your packet um B, AP honor roll, silver recognition, and that is reference C. Anyone have any questions on that? >> It's a great thing. >> You want to talk about it? If we could have >> Yeah. Mr. Mr. Cuckle, Dr. Mlan, do you mind just telling us a little bit about that, please? >> Uh, yes. So, we're very excited about this. Uh, they've started this, this is the third year now of an AP honoral system. The first year we were bronze, last year we were silver, and this year we were silver again. Uh, however, there were two indicators where we moved way up. Uh, one was, uh, a

034platinum, which is the highest you can get, the other was gold. Uh and the platinum was for essentially the kids in the graduating class uh the number of them or percentage that took an AP class in ninth or tth grade. Um so we were excited about that because that was some intentional planning. We intentionally shifted AP gov to open it up to 10th graders. We intentionally added computer science principles which again hit 9th and 10th grade. So we were happy to see movement on that and some recognition on that end. Uh and then the other uh we moved into the gold category for essentially students taking and passing in the graduating class an AP exam with a three or higher. That we were happy to see but it was not surprising because again we have

035some exceptional AP teachers that are just getting better each year um if that's possible and our students are just just crushing it on these AP tests. So we're very excited about that and essentially we were very close to getting gold recognition this year just based on performances. Um uh but again this was based on last year's graduating class but there right now our numbers are trending uh in the right direction which is what we like to see. >> Anybody have any questions? Oh just slam >> quick question. Um do you get feedback from students postgraduation? I know culture was one of the one of the areas where we're graded and it's really a preparation for college. Do they feel better prepared? >> Absolutely. We hear that time and time again. Uh and and we also

036attribute that partly to the small school atmosphere that we have where students, you know, they get the attention they need. Uh but we hear that so often from students. They go to college, they feel prepared when it comes to uh the research, the writing, uh areas that we're just very strong in, and they actually voice that they're they feel like their peers that they are with are are not as prepared. Um and we always think that one of our strengths is our size and how small we are as a district that we can pay attention and we don't lose students. Uh you're held accountable. Um, if anybody in this room has gone to a bigger high school, it's certainly easier to, you know, be missed. Um, and I think that's a strength for us. And

037again, we have some exceptional teachers. Uh, but especially those junior and senior years where you're getting these AP classes, that rigor, that intensity, uh, our students do feel very much prepared. We do get that feedback. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> I just want to commend you. I love that we are introducing AP level classes to sophomores. I think it's pretty exciting. My son gets to take AP computer science. Absolutely loves it and it really helps students to figure out what they're most interested in earlier on so they can focus. So that leads us beautifully into the next set of action items which is a whole long list of new courses that we are going to be able to hopefully if they're approved tonight be able to offer to our students. And if you look at

038some of these, they're right on target with some of the career aspirations that many of our students express. So really, really excited that we're going to be able to introduce them. And also excited that it's not going to cost us a lot more money. So might want to speak to that before we vote. >> Yep. Absolutely. Uh yeah, most of the classes here, we already have the technology in many cases. Uh so for example advanced um news broadcasting that we're going to add the sports media production we already have the studio we have we have the the the structure the infrastructure there which is expensive but we already have it um that's tapping into a very specific pathway that we are building for media and news broadcasting. Uh our evolution of pop music and treble

039choir again uh very cost-effective add-on classes. The treble choir would be another uh performance group, but it would be a way for our choir teacher to to divide up uh her class between the altos and sopranos and the teners and bases. Uh right now, if you were to walk into that chorus room, you would see about 100 kids uh in the chorus. This would, you know, give her a group of 60 and a group of 40. Much more manageable. Uh but also for instruction, a treble choir is a common thing that you do see um in in very strong music programs. They they try to divide it up. uh evolution of pop music that is we're looking for engagement for our students, a way to have a lot of students um you know see an

040elective that they're interested in taking. Uh our music teachers, they've added a lot of great elite groups, but we haven't really added anything for the general populace, if you will, for all of our students to access. Uh and so that's where their mind went with the evolution of pop music, a way to get students engaged in the class. Uh and one of their biggest things is this sometimes helps enrollment in their other groups. uh in chorus, in band, uh when they are exposed and meet new students themselves who might have an interest. Uh so really that'll s serve like a dual purpose for us. Um you know, one of the the most expensive classes on here that we're looking at, you know, the woodworking, design, and production. Again, that's a third level uh another career

041pathway uh push for us. We already buy the wood, so we have the wood. It's not we're not buying more. Uh we're just changing essentially what we offer and how we offer it. So right now students could take intro to woods, advanced woods. This would give them a third class to take before they would then take residential construction in design where they would go out and build projects in the community. Uh like you heard uh Marcel mention earlier tonight. Uh drone technology and operation that will be one of the more financially burdensome uh courses. Uh we do have drones but we would be looking eventually to expand and get more advanced. Um this class would look at a technology right now that is used by literally every group, agency, entity uh and one that is

042very important in society as we move forward. Uh and this class would embed photography in that and in many different fields of business. Uh and and again it would fit that engineering pathway that we are trying to build for our students. Uh contemporary issues pretty straightforward. It's a global issues class. Our students for years have been talking about how they want a class like this. they want to talk about current events especially as they get to their junior and senior year. Uh they are looking for that type of course. Uh and so now we're we're excited to hopefully uh potentially offer that. And then we are adding a dual enrollment uh mathematics for business and economics. Uh one of the things that we try to do is we try to give students as many dual

043enrollment opportunities as they can so they can go to college and be successful right out the gate. uh this class uh you know there'll be some money in it for textbooks but essentially what's nice about this one is this is a class regardless of where you start high school in terms of your math track. So some kids come in, they take algebra 2, some take geometry, some take algebra 1, they're at different levels, this is something that would be attainable for all of those students by the time they are seniors in high school. Whereas to be completely honest, you know, uh a Yukon Calc BC is not unless you're doing a lot of work outside of our program of studies, maybe in summer, taking summer courses. This is one that on a track we can

044get students um who can access that potentially walk away with Yukon credit that's transferred. We'll do about 83% of colleges um in an area that uh is growing and again fits our business pathway uh as well, even though it is a mathspecific course. So, we have a wide range of different classes being offered here uh and added and uh you know, we're excited to continue to evolve and adapt uh with our students and in society as it changes very quickly. So, that's what we got. Quick overview. >> No, we're just Mrs. Maddie has a question. >> Yes, >> Mr. Couple. I have a I have a couple of questions. Um, I've never seen so many new courses come up at once. Y >> is there a reason for that or is that usual here since

045this is all new to me? >> Good question. Uh, the reasoning behind it is for a very long time we really only added a course here, a course there. If you were to look at our program of studies from 2010 um in in let's say were four years ago and you you took a 10-year look back, not much changed. Uh and you know post pandemic we really sat down and took a hard look and said all right what do we have to start looking at? We need to start offering more dual enrollment opportunities for students. So last year there was a big push with that. We added a huge number of dual enrollment opportunities. This year we're adding a little bit less because of so many that we put on last year. Um, but then

046as well we are moving full-fledged into this career pathways concept where we really, you know, a name matters to a course and what you're delivering, right? You can tweak courses here and there, but you know, when a student sees drone technology and operation, all right, I got a clue what that's about. I know what that's about. I I'm I'm into drones. I think it's interesting. Um, but we're trying to tap into that engagement level, but also pathways. So, we're really focused on our engineering. We're focused on our uh our media and um news broadcasting uh pathway that we've created. We have a allied health pathway that we're creating. So, we're trying to give students um this visual and these opportunities to really take a wide array of different courses uh to get them that exposure

047uh you know at this level. So, that's resulted in us adding a lot of courses in the last two years. Doesn't mean we'll offer all of them based on student interest. um that happens or maybe we offer something every other year. Uh but we've added between this year if if these all get approved and last year, we'd be looking at we would have added about 16 new courses in two years. >> Well, I I love these. Um and again, I have to say the wood woodworking design and production. >> It's only $500. Not a big It's not a big cost. >> Um but that kind of course I think I hope would be of interest. The other question I had is I wondered if you were doing all of these new courses because um the

048faculty feels that uh the high school has maybe too many study halls or there are too many kids who are not taking electives where they have room. I I'm >> I've tried to familiarize myself with what your credits are for graduation, but I can't say that I've got that down yet. So, what I'm saying is I'd rather see kids stay in the high school for four years, >> y >> take as many courses as they can because that's the more you learn, the better it is. And I know a lot of kids think that they can get this done in three years, but they're always missing something. And what they're missing is something that I noticed um in a question that was asked about I guess asked about most of these courses, and that is

049does it contribute to student career readiness? I know how important that is. But you know what? >> Enrichment is also so so important, especially in an elective, especially for seniors who maybe say, "God forbid, um, you know, I'd like to take it a little bit easier senior year and you've got all kinds of things here." So, I would hope and I wonder if this is true that this might cut down on study halls or maybe you don't have a problem with study halls with kids having a lot of study halls or having study halls back to back. >> Yeah. Um, good question on that. It would cut down kids in study halls by a small number because that really is more of a staffing issue. >> Okay. >> You know, if we had >> Okay.

050Yeah. I'm not asking for more staff, but if we had, you know, four more teachers that could teach 20 extra sections, then I can run um intro to business with 15 or 12 kids in it um because I have the staff. Right now, it becomes a numbers game in terms of what you offer and maybe what you don't run. So, for example, we didn't run environmental science, AP environmental science because I had two kids sign up. >> I can't I can't run that if I need that science teacher to teach a class of 15. So, it is partly that, but with if if there are classes that are more engaging and and students find more interesting, we would have higher numbers in some, but most of our electives, believe it or not, are pretty well

051filled up. Okay. >> Yeah. Or maxed out in terms of number. >> And you would say that most kids, frankly, they don't have, you know, too many study halls or they're not wasting. I don't mean >> No. Yeah, they don't. Uh, freshman have one, maybe one study hall over the course of the year. Same with 10th graders. Junior year, if you're a highf flyer, you probably don't have any. Um, okay. You know, same thing 10th grade year to be honest. And then it's your senior year. You try to stack so that way your senior year you can get early release, late arrival. >> Uh, so they can go work and they do and that's that's a little different. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, Mr. Cole. >> No problem. >> Uh, I'm going to ask unless

052anyone has any objection if we can take these as a group and approve or get a motion on >> Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you. Mr. Mr. has a question. >> It's a seating arrangement. Um just just um just a question about the the drone course because that that does look pretty cool and there's a lot going on there. Um >> I I can totally understand why it's why it does not fulfill the requirements for the uh the uh the lensure at the end. But I do like that it really sets up students to be able to do that on their own if they want to. Um the question was there was uh there was a statement in there about budgetary implications and it mentions um that you know the the the startup cost

053be around 5500 and there was a a comment that 5,000 would likely be covered by the Perkins grant. What's what's the what's the confidence level that it would be covered by the grant? >> It's pretty high. >> Okay. >> Yeah. We've um in terms of our applications, if you want to >> the Perkins grant is something that we fill out and it um it's designed to match the needs of our pathways courses. So we would just write it into the Perkins grant. Um and so sometimes they have limits in of how much you can request in certain categories. Um but that would be the that would be the only limitation. The Perkins grant is um is really it it's for building in courses like this. >> Okay. So we're confidence level is pretty high that

054almost that's what I want. That was what >> we've gotten a Perkins grant for the last what four or five years. Yeah. >> So you're really looking at like the startup cost in the end after the grant is Yeah. >> close to $600. >> Whatever. Yeah. Whatever supplies they would need or whatever. >> Thank you. I appreciate the clarification. >> Yep. Sorry, >> Mrs. Russ. >> Uh I have a couple of items. There's a lot of courses that are listed here. Um, and I'm a little bit confused on how they align with the um, CHS program of studies. That's reference M. It seems like some of these courses are already listed in there. I'm not sure why it's listed twice. Um, also, I think it's great that we're offering more and more variety. However, I'm

055getting concerned that we're offering so much variety that kids are going to be floundering and or have their hearts set on a certain pathway that we're not going to be able to offer. you couldn't offer apes this year because there weren't enough people. Um, I'd rather see us focus in and I know we came back and said that we changed the structure of our level one, level two, and made level one all honors classes, but in my world that's not a true honors program. I think that we should take some I would like to see us look at some of our core courses, English, maths, and make them an honors class for kids who are more elevated. that would be a smaller percentage of our students rather than the volume that comes through level one

056which we now call honors. So I do have a lot of concerns about the large variety of courses and what it looks like. It's it just seems like we're offering so much that it's difficult for students to figure out which path they want to take. >> So it's I'll do um I'll tackle the one at a time. Is the leveling question Katherine about um freshman year? Well, you told us um was it last year or the year before? Yeah. >> That our level one was going to become honors and level two was >> Yes. Well, yeah, but that's just a that's like a name change. So, we still have AP, we still have honors. >> Yeah, but it's not a true honors if a majority of students are able to take the class. >> Electives.

057So, our coreives. Yes. So, our core classes are still leveled. >> They're still leveled. I'd like to see us take some of our core classes and make pull some of those out into be honors. So there's not like our English classes, our math classes. >> We can offer some to freshman students, to sophomore students. I just don't see why we're not doing that >> right now. Dr. Katherine, one of my um real goals is to try to look at uh the international baloria curriculum which would do just that at the high school level. There's a little bit of a cost involved and we have had a lot of balls in the air with NEAS and a lot of things but um it is something that I've seriously been considering for the last couple years. Um

058so I agree and I think that's something that we are definitely going to explore. It's just the I if IB high school opens up a lot of doors for kids when they go to college to have an international balora degree diploma when they go to apply for colleges. So and it does just that. It sort of brings up the um the rigor um in the courses and establishes um a really academic baseline for students. So, um, I agree with you and I think you'll see hopefully you'll see some movement in that area. >> I mean, it's something that I've been fairly vocal about since I've been on the board, even in our policy, mostly in our policy committee meetings, which are not in that, but um, it's been a big frustration of mine that we

059don't have that. And I really think we're doing a disservice to a number of our students by not having that. So, I would like to see that put in and maybe we can talk separately so you can get give me a better understanding of what that might look like. Um, but again, I still concerning I understand that we're not going to offer these all at one time. They're not going to be offered. You know, a few years ago, we also discussed we didn't have enough teachers. We were running short on teachers. We've supplied them all. >> How is this going to look with our staffing? And how are students going to feel when they've been wanting to take this one class, but it's not offered or it doesn't fit in their schedule now that it

060is offered and there's more frustration that might be coming through. Have we thought that part through? >> Yeah, and that's um we have that now. Um you know, uh nutrition and food production is the most popular class at Crl High School, right? 300 kids request that every year. Um we can meet the needs of maybe 80. Um you know, the goal there is maybe you can get it at some point. So we absolutely think of that. Um we also think of the fact that you have electives that have low enrollment, right? So yeah, we didn't run apes for um Apes's AP environmental science as we call it. Um we didn't run because had two students in it, but that means we only had two students interested in taking it. So even though that's maybe a

061valuable elective, that's what we have VHS for virtual high school where you can take it that way. Um you know, so you're looking for you you want to engage students. We want want students to be interested in the classes they're taking. um this doesn't impact um it doesn't negatively impact staffing. It actually only positively impacts staffing um in terms of that choice for students over the course of their four years. They'll have that opportunity to take some of these classes if they want. Um it gives them it gives students more choice. I think um if you look at our program of studies, you might think, oh, we have a lot kind of, you know, we kind of have a lot. Um, you know, we can always be doing more and giving more opportunities to students.

062You start looking, you know, from my lens in my world. All I do is talk to other high schools, look at other high schools and what they do. They offer a lot. Um, they offer a lot more than we do. Uh, and and some of those high schools are much smaller than us. So, we're trying to like, you know, um, provide those same opportunities and kind of see where they go. The one thing is is the one thing that is proven is for the most part minus that AP class that I gave you the reference for our dual enrollment numbers are up. Our AP numbers are up. Students are interested in those and we are, you know, keeping that in mind. So when we add new courses, we want to make sure we add one

063or two that are that hit that. Um, but we have a huge segment of our population that, you know, are looking for other things, other options, and we're trying to better suit them as well. Um, so we're trying to balance a little bit of everything, but I'm not worried about staffing a at all in terms of this. It's just a matter of, you know, just because you've run this same class and you've had it for 20 years and enrollment stagnant doesn't mean they have to keep running it. So, we kind of >> these are replacing some of the classes that we've had, which is what the um >> the program of studies is showing. Correct. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And that and like piano is a good example. Piano is a low low enrollment class,

064right? I mean, you have five students, four students every year. It's not a huge number class. Whereas, all right, now you replace it with evolution of pop music where so I'm going to go from servicing one teacher servicing 10 kids all year to one teacher servicing maybe 50, right? And that's where we see a bigger bang for our our buck with that. Yeah. I was just going to say that um Andrew's actually been a great partner in um you know because my my part in this is really to kind of align with what the state priorities are and right now they are dual enrollment. They are increasing access to the arts. They are uh you know career readiness and so these these courses align beautifully with those priorities. um and they're also high interest and

065so it's been a great partnership in terms of you know meeting our requirements but also thinking of really engaging courses that kids will want to take. Mistress, >> just one last question. Are we in order to help our students navigate this, are we having them meet earlier their freshman year and and with their counselors in order to determine what the best pathway is and gain what their better interest? Have we changed our counseling towards our students so that they have a better understanding of what's being offered and what path they may be interested? >> Yeah, so we have that new position that was created last year. Thank you. Um, we have a career connections class that all freshmen go into. counselors are collaborating in that class with them and the the one of the bigger

066focuses of that class is you're here what do you want to do with your life what do you want to do it's career focused and then that way they they get that first semester so that way second semester when they're picking their classes they understand like okay there's this program of studies I know right now I'm currently interested in being a doctor or I'm interested in you know this field or that that would then help them pick >> Yep. Yep. Yep. They go into those classes and absolutely. Yep. Yep. >> Okay. Anybody else have any questions? Okay. Mrs. Lamb, >> are you finding with these new course offerings, are we retaining more students in the district because we have more options available to them. >> We'll talk about that during the budget. Yes. When you

067saw the uh decrease in kids leaving to go to other schools, we've seen that. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Yeah. We we've had that's we run that open house. We've had families tell us that I was thinking about vinyl and then we're going to go here now. Yeah. >> Any other questions before we move this forward? Okay. My um recommendation would be that we take these not individually because we'll be taking a lot of time to vote, but we take action on C through >> L >> as a group unless anyone has any objections or wants to pull any courses out of that list. Okay, then I will look for a motion to approve items C through L. Thank you, Mr. Schuman. Thank you, Mrs. Slam. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Extensions. Okay, congratulations,

068Mr. >> Okay, now see, I built it up before. Now, we're going to talk about the proposed board of education budget. And I think Dr. Machi's going to do the overview and then with help from some friends. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, I'd like to have um the directors come up and join um and sit at the table. Um Mr. Butwell, if you can join Dr. McClean and then Miss Morrow, Miss Oly, and Mr. Bazano on the other side. There's a few seats for you. Feel free to join the big the big kid table. And Steve, I think I'm just gonna have you click. I I changed my mind. It's hard to do both. So, while that's happening, um, as you know, um, this is, just to let you know, this is the superintendent's um,

069proposed budget, and then it turns into your budget once you vote on it. Um, for those of you that are new, um, Mr. Butwella and myself and all of the directors and administrators work starting in October and we start putting this together. Um and there's a presentation and then there's a binder that comes with the presentation that you were provided with so that you had time to look at everything. Um if you want an explanation of what's in the binder, um Mr. Butwell can provide that to you after the presentation. But usually what we do is I provide the presentation with some help with the people from the people that I called up um and then you have the opportunity to ask uh questions and for clarification. So with that being said u I a

070big thank you to Mr. Butwell. Um you'll notice that we have tried to include many things that um that you have asked for over the years um and just the formatting um may be a little bit easier to understand. Um, and we've dug really deep into this budget like we have never before, which is why I wanted Mr. Butwell to join our staff because I knew once he started to understand this, nobody would do a better job. So, I'm actually afraid of him next year when he comes to me and tells me what I have to get rid of. So, with that being said, a huge thank you to Mr. Butwell and to everyone, Dr. Mlean and our team. So, we'll start uh with our first slide, the most important one. Steve, can you why

071we're here? Um, so we have students um learning in their uh environment and our next slide is we share this with you every year and this hasn't changed. Our mission is placing students first um with equity at the center and this these are all the pieces of the puzzle and how we provide that um oper those opportunities to our students. The next slide are our goals, Crumbl Public School goals. And also in your binder, we gave you our mission and vision that was provided to you. Um, and here's our goals for um, our district. We want to increase academic performance by providing teachers with high quality personalized PE professional development. Um, we want to support the imple implementation of three through five math program. begin K through2 MA math program which we already are in

072discussion of. Um engage in best practices for leadership and professional development. Continue to develop our steamdriven curriculum for the new middle school and talk about how it aligns with the high school and continue to collaborate with the town on building and facility upgrades and maintenance and sustained programming for behavioral and social emotional learning needs of our students. So the next slide, this is um a highle overview of our budget increase by object for 26 26 26 27 school year. So this is how we budget by object. So I we wanted to show you everything on one sheet and it's broken down in your binder and then we'll get into the um the breakdown later, but this just shows you the year um what we're asking for, the increase or the decrease, the total. And you'll

073notice as we move on um that if you add the first two lines together, that equals about $2.4 million. And our request, you'll see this theme throughout the entire uh presentation, is about $2.6 million. So most of our money goes to salaries and benefits. And the next slide is a pie chart. This is budget by object. So you have a nice visual of what we're asking uh for. And again, you have uh 76% making up salaries and benefits. And then it's broken down for you. The next page, for those of you that like bar graphs, it's the same information, just a bar graph. Um those of us, you know, like to show it to you in in many different ways. We're all different learners. The following slide, our LEA, so local educational agency, that's you,

074all of us, public school system. Um these are our drivers. This is what makes up well the first two obviously make up most of the budget salaries and benefits and then student services, transportation, energy and utilities. Um we'll talk a little bit about that. Um and state mandates uh usually that are unfunded. Moving on, we have um the bar graph increase and decrease. We had some decreases by uh we're starting to see we're starting to reap the benefits of the things that we have done two three years in a row um which Mrs. Oly is going to talk to you a lot about um we're starting to reap the benefits of making sure that we provide this the best uh services for our students with um special needs and yet having it become a cost

075savings as well and keeping our students in district. So, as we move on, the budget summary. So, this just tells you the 2425 adopted budget. And we show you that because that was our last budget um that we've actually completed a year. We we know the beginning and the end and how we finished it. We've been fully audited. And I'm going to break that down for you later. Um 40,600,000. Oh, I think there's an extra zero. My gosh, Chris, how many times did we look at this and we didn't catch that extra zero? a million times. Um, which was a 6.03 increase of last year and uh the year we're operating in as today. Um, and then we're asking for a 6.61 increase. So that's 2 point uh about 2,683,399. And we are going to

076dig deeper into what makes up that. And I'm sure as you uh prepared yourself for tonight, you've noticed that a lot of it has to do with benefits, which we have a lot to talk about. The following page reductions. Uh there were other positions, other things that um principles uh directors had asked for um that we uh made cuts to to to get us to the 6.61. Um can we live without these positions for another year? I'm sure if I look to the right of me, I'll see heads shaking. No. But um I believe yes. Oh, I could see that look from her face. I could see that look on Mrs. Pigington's face from only kidding. Oh, no. I always do. They're used to it. Um salaries and objects. Okay, so they're used to it.

077I do it to them all the time. They know I love them. Um so talking about salaries and objects and Steve you can move on to the next slide. So this is our drivers obviously right bargaining groups this is where we are and then our new teacher contract we just negotiated um begins in July 2026. We did a great job. Our teachers are happy. I wish we can give them double. I think they deserve every penny that they earn. Um but we did negotiate a a a good contract as you saw at our last meeting. Um, so the next page tells you about our collective bargaining agreements. We have a break. My god, we have a break next year. It's so nice. Um, we're not negotiating any contracts next year. Um, but this just tells

078you all the costs, all the cost shares for the district and the staff uh this the um how how much we the district has paid for premiums and what they are paying, what staff members are paying. Um the following is um a slide for new staffing that I've been talking about for a long time and Dr. Mlan has been talking about for a long time and I said in due time we will um the data will show what it shows. So as you we showed you know we showed you the data and we have a gap in math performance. Um we also have um a K through2 uh ELA specialist and we have 6 through 12 secondary um ELA coach. and you saw the benefits that we reaped. So, Dr. Mlan is going to dig

079a little bit deeper into that as to why we feel that that is the direction we need to head in for our students to improve um math performance. We also have two FTEEs for register uh full-time employees, FTEES, registered behavior technicians. We want to keep our students in uh district. We want to be able to assist our teachers and staff to assist with behavior training. And there are people that know how to do that and those are RBTs. we'd like to um increase them by two. And then we have one FTE of a custodian and grounds. Um there's like Claudio said today, there are a lot of plants outside that middle school. Um state-of-the-art school comes with a lot of different things. Obviously, it's really hard to keep up. We've we've been trying to keep

080up over the years and this just put us over the edge of needing um more support. So, that person uh you can ask questions about what that person would be doing uh with Mr. Bazano. Um later and I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Mlan so she could really get into the staffing. Um we know this is a big ask uh but why we feel that we need it as far as um our math program. Dr. Mlan, good evening everyone. So I've been one of those people that's been on that cut list for couple years. Um >> heard about it. >> She Dr. Macker has heard about it. Um I can she has she has um put up with me advocating for these but um at this point it's really pretty obvious that these

081are things that we are lacking in our district. Um and so I included for you it's really about math at this point. We have these positions for reading. I and when I came here there was no um K through2 math specialist. We have a K through2 reading specialist. Um and it really shows um that person really is is working directly with students. So that is someone that works with our um most challenged students, our intervention students, oversees the intervention program, does um assessments and analyzes data and make sure that programming is appropriate for students when they're in small group um and also works with teachers in the classroom to help provide tier 2 instruction um when they're in the classroom with the teacher. Um and these are our babies. This is where, you know, we

082want to make sure that they're getting those foundational skills um and those um mathematical concepts early um so that they are not in intervention for longer. And the truth is that um the earlier you intervene, you hope that the earlier they will be able to exit from an intervention program. Um so moving on to our um district math goals. Um, just to kind of start in that first box, we've we've been doing this for the last couple years, but it's been fairly successful. We identify 50 priority students per school. Um, and we really monitor those students. These are students that are cuspy, and we want to make sure that we get them um into proficient. Um, these are not our neediest students. These are almost their kids. Um, and we want to make sure that

083we don't miss those kids. A lot of times we spend a lot of time on our intervention kids and those kids that just need a little bit don't always get the attention that they need. So, um this is a way for us to put those particular students on our um radar. Uh the next thing is targeted small groupoup instruction. This was something that we really focused on post pandemic. Um it's a high lever strategy that not only builds relationships with teachers in in small group setting but also um provides students with specific targeted support in the classroom from our certified teachers. Um last is we have done quite a bit and it's was particularly successful at the high school. We're trying to extend um after school programming for math in particular so that students can

084um stay after school, get some support um whether it be SAT or Smarter Balanced or just math in general in um K through two. Um we've really been trying to um establish programming so that students have an opportunity to get um some extra support. Um, as an admin team, we I think I've been in more classrooms this year than I have ever. Um, we've been really trying to do walkthroughs um and provide teachers with targeted actionable feedback um and utilizing coaching um and really kind of shoring up our uh walkthrough forums and making sure that we're giving consistent feedback. Um it's been really successful. A lot of this started when we were implementing the reading program and now we're really trying to carry that over um into our math program as we work to build

085our math programming at at this point. Um we have and I'm sure if if any of you work in schools um building thinking classrooms has been something that is um there's been a big push um for this and collaborative problem solving so students can work together and they can um be thinking and and not necessarily on problems that have one answer even um really looking for patterns. um and things like that. And lastly, to reinforce fidelity to the district curriculum. So, we have a curriculum, we want to make sure that we're following it. Um and you know, sometimes, especially in math, um not only is there a shift in curriculum, but it's also a shift in pedagogy. So, the way that we're delivering the curriculum. And so sometimes that takes a little bit um to

086kind of get into practice because it is a different way of doing things as much as it is also what they're doing differently, it's how they're doing things differently. Um lastly, program development and assessment. Um we've done things like launch a schoolwide math problem of the week. Um and we've worked quite a bit on our um MTSS, which is intervention is our intervention program. Um we've been really working on establishing measurable goals and doing some very consistent and reliable um progress monitoring. Um we have tried to implement blended learning programs across K12. We're really trying to hone in on which programs are the best programs um and reducing programs that are um really game based. um also really mindful at this point of how much time students are spending on computers and um so making

087sure that the programs that they are exposed to are worth the time that they're on it as opposed to just being on a computer. Um and the last one is just kind of straight up strategic test preparation for grades 3 through 11. um we look at a lot of data, we analyze a lot of data and really when we look at that data, that's how these goals come about. Um there's a lot of my I me I introduced you to my instructional leadership team um at a meeting and I can't begin to express how important that team is to pushing forward um progress in the district academically. Go Steve. So, these are the two positions that I'm looking for. Just to kind of give you an idea of what these positions do, um sec secondary

088numeracy coach works with um both uh math and science. Um they work in and out of the classroom with teachers. So, at times they will push in and model lessons or pull a small group. Um other times they are meeting with teachers to do um planning and then the the coaches will go in and observe a lesson and then they'll provide feedback. Um this that's what we call a coaching cycle. Um they develop a lot of resources for teachers. They do they do a lot of modeling and they're the ones that sort of lead our professional learning communities. Um and they sit on on the school leadership teams. These are our um teacher leaders really. And just another so recently we had to revise our teacher evaluation plan and a big part of that is

089that teachers really get a a lot of say in what their professional goals are. And this is a really great thing except that it makes it difficult to provide individual professional development to every single teacher. So, that's really where our coaches come in because they're working with teachers on the things that they've chosen to work on. Um, and they're really building their capacity as teachers, whether they're, you know, an expert teacher that's been teaching for 25 years or a brand new teacher that is just out of college. Um we've really tried to instill a um continuous improvement mentality in all of our staff and these coaches are our inlet for making sure that teachers are getting that personalized professional development. Um the K through2 math specialist I talked a little bit about they oversee our

090K through2 intervention program. um they will help they will be integral to supporting the K through2 math program implementation. Um Jen Jones who's our reading specialist, she was I mean I don't even know how we would have done it without her um at ECS. She did a great job and we are now doing that in math and this is something that is is really important to making sure that we have a really smooth implementation. And just to mention, we have this position for reading and not math. Here's some data. We we've had some really great data. There are also some things when we look at data that we know that we need to improve on. And so this is what's driving my need to make this request. Um we're ranked ninth out of 24 in

091our DUR for overall performance. Um that's too low if you ask me and I think that we absolutely could be doing better than that. Um and we have only 54% proficiency on Smarter Balance math assessment which is in grades three through eight. So that's just over 50% of our students are proficient and that is not enough for me. Um, and I don't think any of you either. Um, grade 11 proficiency, this is on NGSS, declined from 57.3% to 45% on last year's assessment. grade eight, which has been something that we are really focused in on, um because math in particular, um declined from 46.3 to 43% on Smarter Balanced, um and they showed a year-over-year decline from 49.1 to 43%. And it's not the students because in contrast, in grade 8, the ELA scores increased

092by 9%. And the the cohort by 9.3. So that really shows you that, you know, we've we've got some work that we need to do and we need some resources in these areas. Um we have an implementation of a new math um curriculum and sort of a reorganization of how we are doing things. Um which requires um specialized instructional leadership and resource management and making sure that teachers are guided along in what best practices are with the new program. um SAT performance. This is something that I know Dr. Macker will tell you that I have been talking a lot about. Um we are not alone in this by the way. This is not something that is a crumbl issue. This is something that is you know you see this across the state. Um only 39%

093of our students in 11th grade are proficient on the math SAT compared to 68% in reading and writing. That is a huge disparity and we have a lot of questions about why that's happening and it's something that I've done a lot of exploring on. Um and part of it is that we need teachers need support in the classrooms. Um you can you can go on. These are just more justifications. Um we have the support for reading. um new implementation. The other thing that a K through2 math spe specialist would be able to do is to work with our interventionist. So we have several interventionists um but that this person would be able to train those interventionists so that they are more effective when they are working with students. Um support imple implementation and building thinking

094classrooms. Um our MClass proficiency so this is our K through two math assessment. um was at 46%. Um I talked about the oversight of the math program. Um but this also will allow for more students to be certified uh serviced by a certified teacher. Um which really is I mean we have our most challenged students. They really should be serviced by a certified teacher. And currently they're that's not the case. We just have interventions interventionists working with them. Um and we have an a new um interdisiply play-based curriculum which math is often um integrated into that and so that would add another um layer of curriculum development for our play-based curriculum. >> Dr. Mlean is very comprehensive. Um moving on to object 200 which is benefits. So, we have a 25% increase. Um, that is

095a number that we would like to not go over. Uh, we want to be a lot lower, but today we had a conversation with our broker um through AERA and he's going to be joining us for our February 3rd meeting. He's on the agenda. So, you can ask all the questions that you would like to ask myself, Miss Demorro um and um Miss Rosano were on the call while Mr. Mr. Bubble was working on the audit, so we were trying to split ourselves up into a few pieces. Um, we were told today that if we were to stick with Sigma, that as of today, the increase in our benefits would be 52%. So, Sigma came out with a 64% number. Then, we got down to 52% through working with our broker. And it's obvious to

096say that we are going out to bid to the marketplace um that we provided s the census all the information that they needed um in order to do this. We are working with the town but we are also getting numbers separately. So the town um has been asked to look into the partnership the state plan. Um we are going to look at all of our options uh before we make a decision and um miss tomorrow did I miss anything? Okay. Okay. Thanks. It was an hour and a half conversation. It didn't go as nicely as that, but I tried to be nice. Um, >> before you can you just explain how you can separate from the town to go through this? >> So, we So, basically, the town >> we don't have we're not >>

097we're not we're not 100%. It makes sense for us to stay together. It always does because you have more people. However, what we're finding uh have found and we don't have the breakdown yet. We asked for the breakdown and Sigma has to give our broker the breakdown. So, we should hopefully have that within a couple weeks. Um we've been asking for this for a very long time and we still haven't gotten it. Um we're told that our that the town even though they have less employees, their claims have been higher than ours. However, as a whole, for every $1 that we pay for insurance, Sigma is telling us that they are spending $129. So, um whether it be from town employees or district employees, um we 100% don't know. What we're hearing from our broker

098is that it is more on the town side um than our than ours. So the broker is going to give going to look at us together with the state partnership plan then with us apart with the state partnership plan which I don't think really makes much of a difference but whatever. Um and then we're going to go out to bid to the four companies right now that are left in in for us to um you utilize. And we're going to do it together as a whole and we're going to do it separately mostly because the town employees would like to investigate the the unions would like to investigate more about the the partnership plan. What I am understanding as of today, and you can ask more in-depth questions uh when Dave Castlin comes here on

099February 3rd, is that if we as the board, because our contracts are so different, if we were to switch to um the partnership plan, the state partnership plan, it may be a savings to the district. Right now, it's at 25%. And they're most likely going to be going out to bid and they use Anthem. However, it would be a greater cost to our staff. Now, we're talking about people that um they won't not no one will see their raise, their GWI, because it'll be going towards their insurance. And we don't want to do that to our staff either. So, this is really a wait and see. And so, that's why um we gave you we tried everything. And over the years, usually they'll come back and they say 25 or 30 and then they come

100down to 15 and then before you know it, we're at a three or a six or a seven. That did not happen this year. Um, so the next page gives you the if we were to get we we did a really good job this year with our budget. Mr. Butwell and I were jumping up and down and then we got this news. We wanted to cry. Um, so we just have to wait and see. So by February 3rd, uh, Dave Castle will come here. He'll answer all of your questions. we can have them prepared um ahead of time regarding what we're going to do, how we could split from the town, if we need to split the town, are we going to these are all questions that are still up in the air. Um but

101I wanted him to come and answer your questions and we probably won't have he is telling us he did say today that by our February 24th meeting that we would probably know the bids from the other four companies. I don't know if that could happen. All we know is we have to we have to inform our employees uh uh according to some bargaining uh contracts that uh 60 days in advance if we're changing carriers. So we need to know by April. Um so we are at a standstill with this uh right now. >> Can I just add so this budget includes 25% >> this budget increase 25%. But that's why we can't really finalize anything tonight because it >> could be if we stay with Sigma as high as 52.4%. >> Unlikely. Um but we

102it's a real big wild card. It usually is in the budget process. But um this this is very preliminary because that's one of our biggest cost drivers. >> And this has never really happened before since I've been here. This is the first time I've come to you without the real number um or or close to the real number. We're nowhere near the real number. Hopefully, we're not anywhere near the real number. We're not alone. I've talked to my superintendent, the friend. We have people or districts who are looking about at cutting positions. It's they're in a bad situation. So, moving on, professional technical services, um object 300. Again, this is um legal audit resource officers, contracted services for student services. Um and uh serial Larry will explain on the next page. Um we made some

103shifts and Mr. Bubble can ask the question. I'm sure some of you noticed that um 322 and 330 line are a little different. We could talk about why we moved things around. It made more sense to have them there. Um and then we did actually have a decrease in student services budget because of all of the wonderful services we are providing in district. Um, and with that being said, we will go to the next page and I'll turn it over to uh Mrs. Mrs. Oly, Mr. Olirri to talk a little bit about this slide. >> All right. Hi. Um, as you know, we we've been definitely trying to increase our in district efforts programming wise, you know, instruction, um, staffing, and this is all in an effort to decrease out of district costs and keep

104students in district, you know, in their mainstream environment, which is always the goal, um, for us in Cromwell. So, some of these are not new. So, I'm just going to kind of go through um what we've been working on as as a reminder um for you all and then obviously if you have questions at the end, please feel free. Um can I just clarify one thing? I I didn't notice it either. So, it says addition of full-time BCDA. We're referring to the addition that we made last year because >> we put that in for the date. We put it for last year. >> Yeah. So, it's not right. So, it's not a new position. >> Yeah. We indicated that it was last year's budget. So, yeah. Perfect. But, yes. So, um I'll start from the

105top. We we have two specialized programs um at ECS and WHIS that we've really been trying to um increase the programming for. So, last year we did increase um our full-time BCBA um at ECS, which has been great in terms of training um managing student behaviors um and helping improve, you know, the programming of our students um at ECS. and it also freed up the time for other BCBA in district to be in the other schools um to do what she needs to do in order to support students as well. So, it's it's a win-win all over the district. Um we also would like to add the two um RBTs that um Dr. McAfee spoke about and those are registered behavior technicians and they work directly under the BCBA. So that's in the budget um

106for next year. And again, we would like one of those at ECS and one at WHIS to help um improve those specialized programs in terms of working with the students that have our most um behavioral needs in district training staff um data collection. Um and again, all in an effort to keep our students um in district rather than having to send them out. We really want to strengthen our our indist programming. um we to be in line with our new you know the science of reading um that is happening across um the district. We also want to enhance and have started already to enhance our instruction um for our special education teachers so they can provide um stronger instruction to our students with special needs. So, um, Spire is a program, um, that we've already

107implemented, but continuing. It's an Orton Gillingham, um, based program to, um, provide training to staff, as well as Wilson Reading. Um and we're actually um working on Orton Gillingham training um to come here in the district starting this year um hopefully to have about five staff trained in district to really strengthen that reading instruction again to align with the science of reading and then continue that to get um the real certifications um happening across the district. So te teachers can really provide that strong instruction and students can stay um in the mainstream um and get the instruction they need based on their IEPs. So we're really working on that. It's in in the works and we're excited about the opportunity that we have, you know, to provide to our staff and hoping that it, you

108know, help strengthen programming for our students. Um I talked about this last year, our credit recovery program at the high school. It's two hours a day um five days a week that we offer this program to students that may be exhibiting attendance issues, having issues um gaining credits because of their attendance. So, we established it last year and it's working well. We're again we only have um a few students that attend, but it's a a great way to offer um a service that we likely would have to offer on the outside. um but we're saving that cost um by providing it in district and it's working well for the students that are um participating so far this year. So we'd like to continue that for next year as well. Um as you know we've talked

109a lot about ESS effective school solutions and right now we have three um certified um social worker clinical social workers um that work in the schools and again we would love to continue with with this programming. We are touching about 30 students um give or take if we're at max. Um 20 at the high school and um 10 at the middle school, but this is our highest level um tier three support for our students exhibiting mental health. Again, really in an effort to keep these students in district um and provide them with the support they need and their families and it's, you know, a full wraparound um service. So again, hoping to continue that um for next year. And then our CCTA, Connecticut Central Central Connecticut Transition Academy, that's um I would say in a

110great place at this moment. We started it um years back now, but it's our 18 to22 programming um that we've shared with Berlin the past two years and it's really again helped our students stay um in district. Although it's in Berlin, it's still our district program and we don't have to pay tuition for these students to go out to another transition program. And it's it's thriving. I would say vocationally the students are really um getting opportunities out in the community, learning job skills um as well as um life lessons, fundamentals where they where they gain those um efforts during the day before they go out. They're getting lessons on how to budget, if students are attending college class, how to um use their organizational skills and and all that. So these are just some not

111all of the programming that we're providing to students in district and um if you have questions at the end I'd be happy to answer. Thank you Miss Oli. I thought it was important for you to see. We've been working on this for a long time. Okay. Property services object 400. Um it's maintenance services, mechanical repairs and groundwork. Most of it has to do the increase has to do with the new school. Um, and you could see where the increases are to the right for the 26 27th school year. So, it's a small amount of money, but it's a large increase because we knew we would this would end up happening as far as getting a new school. And Mr. Bazano could explain that later if you have questions. Um, the next slide is object 500

112other purchase services. So, this is a little bit about what um the give and take. So significant drivers here are transportation um and tuition. So we've had some some increases and some decreases. Um and we provided those for you so that you have an understanding of why we're at a a negative.78 in in this line where in the past we've been through the roof. We also have fewer kids leaving uh the district which is wonderful. And we also there is a mandate where the magnet schools can't just tell us how much they're going to charge us a couple months before like they have in the past. They actually have to give us something that provides us with the actual cost and that can't they can't waiver from that cost which has been a huge help

113to us as well to be more uh specific with budgeting supplies object uh 600. These are non-instructional supplies and instructional supplies and most of it is utilities and energy. Um so we'll get into that a little bit. This includes if we were as we are right now. So the about $160,000 of this is due to um the new school and the the heating um air conditioning the utilities. So this is the increase for 160,000 approximately is for all four schools. Um if we were to get the solar panels and they would come in time and they'd be installed in time and we'd realize what we were told by the experts um it would drop between uh 30 and 50%. But we still would need uh to include service fees. So you can have questions, you

114can ask uh Claudio more about that. Um but so right now we don't have them so we can't pretend that we do. So, we're budgeting as if we don't we don't have them. The next line is object 700 significant drivers being technology equipment and instructional non-instructional equipment. Um Steve and his guys uh do an amazing job. Um we have a minor um increase dues and fees. This it's a small again, you know, when you're looking at the whole big picture, it it looks like it's a huge increase. It's a small amount of money. Um what happened last year is last year we had uh NIAK we were part of the review. So um when you're it's an observation year you don't have to pay the fee. You have to pay about $15,000 in other fees

115and it's in a different line. So that was in a different line. Um we now have to uh pay our NEAS dues again. Um and we had to pay them this year. So um it was an oversight. So that's uh our dues are $4,220 for NISK. So the next slide I I think is is what everyone has been asking for. Uh we did the best that we can and it's still um we're talking about education funding. So how does Krommel how do how do we educate our students? how much money are we spending to educate our students um with grants and with um appropriations from the town and the equalization grant. So we tried to give you a picture. We can only do it for 2425. We can't do it obviously for this year because

116we're not done yet. Um so that was our last complete year. We're just being audited and we're think we're good. Um, so 2425 the approved LEA budget was 38,290,244. The town of Cromwell was responsible for 32,724,845. we receive, every town receives um an education equalization grant that is was $5,565,399 that went directly back to the town. So the town was reimbursed to that money. Um so the total between those two things was the 38 made up the 38,290,244 which is the LEA right money. Then our other funding resources, state and federal grants, title grants, open choice, that's what we're talking about. We don't get all that many, but those that we do get equaled $3,566 um 56,49. So together, if we were to combine the BOE budget and other funding sources, that would get us

117to how much money we spent on our students in 2425. And that was the 41,856,53. So we believe this could be helpful um in helping you understand how much money we spend on our students overall. And obviously the the year was this is the best year we could do is 2425. The next page is just a pie chart that explains all of that for you for the visual learners. And then the last page is the pu purple per pupil expenditure. Um so we are DURG G district reference group D and we um it's a system of grouping uh placed on public school systems and it's based on um really our socioe economic status. So districts that are like us in socioeconomic status um just for a comparison. So, Cromwell ranks uh 17 out of 25

118districts and the average dis district expenditure is 22,837. Um a difference from the average is 1,200 and less uh seven less per student. And then the difference from the highest ranking school district is $6,535 per student. And the most important part of our job is on this last page, our beautiful students. Um, and that's them in action. So, at this time, I will ask if um, Alicia, would you like Mr. Butwell or do you all feel that after having this binder and studying it, do you do you feel that you need a little introduction to the binder or do you feel all set with the binder? and ready to ask questions. It's up to you. >> Well, first I want to say thank you because I think this was a very helpful presentation and I

119like the format that you used this year. It made it much easier to understand. So, thank you for the level of detail. Um, I'll just add to because you jumped right into the PowerPoint, but we did include in your packets and I think you Thank you because I think you did this because I asked although it's small and I can't read it. >> Put your Bill's glasses on. >> No, these aren't even mine. and I don't even wear glasses, but I couldn't read it. Uh, our district improvement plan, which includes all of our district goals, all the action steps. It includ uh our mission and our belief statement. I feel like before we even get into the details and the discussion about the budget, we should just remember that this is what we're grounded in

120and this is why we do it and this is really the guiding principles for us making decisions because our budget is the most significant policy statement we're making as a as a board. So, um that's why I asked for these to be included. So, if that's in addition to what we typically have, thank you for putting that in. and the budget is fully aligned to to what you have in front of you. Every decision that we make about budgeting is fully aligned with um the district improvement plan and everything that we just shared. Okay. So, I'm going to ask if we want we don't want to have a three three more hour meeting. So, I imagine folks have specific questions that they want to ask, but maybe if everybody has wants to pull out their

121most burning question, we can ask tonight for Mr. Butwell's guidance and then put um all of our other questions in writing to Dr. Mbury. No. >> Does that make sense to me? Copy. >> No, you combine them all. >> Okay, I can do that. So, we can everybody can send questions to me. I will weed through the questions to pull out any duplicates. I will get the questions to Dr. McCary. Um we'll get them to Mr. Butwell and we can have those answers for our February 3rd meeting. But I also don't want to limit people's ability to ask questions tonight. So um Mrs. Campwell, >> can I just make a suggestion? >> Hold on one second. Mrs. Campwell had her hand up in there. Of course, >> mine's like a suggestion, just a reminder to

122what we've done in the past. Um, in the past when we've been doing budget, we've been devoting meetings spec, you know, just to our budget and several times we started at six o'clock and it was just for budget. We didn't celebrate students. We didn't have anything else on the agenda just so that we could dive right into the budget and really focus all our attention on it. And I just wanted to recommend that we might want to think about doing that again >> for our February 3rd. >> Might might make sense for our February 3rd. >> Yeah. I mean, she said that she's we have a broker coming that that night. So, I mean, that we don't know how long that conversation's going to be. If that's going to be the case, maybe we should

123start at six. But I just the budget is so important. And in the past, just for people who are new, we were getting into a situation where we had jam-packed agendas and, you know, it's 8:30, 9:00 at night and we're just starting to go through the go through the the budget and that's we shouldn't be, you know, the budget requires our full attention. So, >> it's a good recommendation. We we have to have the broker come because those decisions impact our budget. >> I agree. I agree. I just if that's the case, >> Starting early or maybe the following meetings just budget. I'm just putting that out there. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I'm going to uh Mr. Heisman. >> So, as far >> thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Camel. >> As far as

124submitting questions, I would suggest we use either Google Sheets or Google Docs and then we can review the questions other people are asking to limit you having to weed through them all. Great suggestion. Thank you. Anything that saves me time and having to go through all those questions, much appreciated. Go ahead, Mrs. Ross. >> Usually, we look at our drop dead voting date and then work our way backwards of when we have to vote, when the questions need to be in, when we need, you know, need to be to Dr. Macker and her team. So, when we have to have them all completed by So, can we go through that right now? So the way we're going to do this um is we will do our absolute just have the broker unless something comes up

125that I abs like the courses and all of that I have to do by a certain time. So that had to be you know on the agenda but I shouldn't need anything for February 3rd. Let's hope we don't. Um, we're not going to have, we're being told by the broker that we will have a number by the our 20 our February 24th number uh meeting. I will be shocked, but I'm hopeful that we do, right? I we you have to vote on a budget and and we don't have the April date. So, it's usually the first week of April, the April uh board of finance meeting where we present. So, sometime the first week of April. I'm just looking at my calendar. Um I'm I'm going to assume it's uh either April 1st or 2nd.

126I don't want to make an assumption. We have to ask them to set that date. The following um or the following week um the 6th through the 10th. So, it's it's somewhere in between there. We'll have to ask John. They usually don't let us. They usually don't have it figured out yet. >> They don't have it. >> No. So, uh, we have a board of ed meeting on March 10th. So, March 10th would be there. It's never a final, right? March 10th, you should be voting on the final budget of what you want me to move forward to with or you want to adopt as your budget because right now it's just mine. um the administrations. If you you can't decide because we don't have the insurance number, we may have to have a special

127meeting and that is we won't know until we until February 24th comes. Um and I'll know a week I hope I'll know a week ahead of time. He uh Dave in the past has come to us on the day we have a board meeting. We give you all the information and then we come prepared with it all changed for you. Mr. Dr. Bubble and I will be more than happy to do that if we get that number by that date. Otherwise, we should work backwards from March 10th. Um, so I would say February So February 3rd is our next meeting. So if you can have all of your questions to uh Miss Dudy to Alicia. Yep. By I know this is hard. um because we have a little bit of time in between. So maybe

128by um Chris, how do you feel about then you and I will be >> a week from today? >> That's that's what I was thinking. January 24th would be >> I'm sorry. I'm in February. Ha. This 27th. Yes. January 27th. >> Yeah. I think Mr. But I could bang it out. Yeah. questions. >> So, we're saying questions to me by Can we say the 26th so I can make sure that give give wiggle room by the 26th. We can get the questions we we have the easy job getting you our questions. >> We have the hard job. >> Yeah. So, if we Yes. If we can get them all to If you can get them all to us by the the morning of the 27th and Mr. Butwell and I will >> get them to

129me by the 26th. I will make sure you get them by the end of that day. >> Perfect. And then we'll map out our Okay. We'll map out our schedule and then um you know, we'll come with responses to your questions on February 3rd and then it's a waiting game for Does that sound like a good plan? >> Mr. Were you gonna ask a question? >> No. Okay. >> Okay. All right. Um, >> and then let's think about if we want because we know we have the broker conversation. If we want our meeting on February 3rd to start at six o'clock, the only challenge is we have policy that night. >> So, just quickly to ask car uh Dr. Mlean, anything that we has to um is urgent. >> We have a ton of policies

130um nothing that is urgent, right? Like so nothing that can't wait. So there's a lot. >> We do have a lot. >> Yeah, there's a lot >> to get up to statute. >> We shouldn't skip it because we do have a lot and it'll just >> I don't think we're behind on anything though. Like I don't think it's anything that's going into effect right now that we wouldn't have a policy in place for. >> Okay. >> They're all the new November >> Mandates, statutes. Mrs. for us >> um to have us go through a lot of new policies and to go, you know, compile all of our budget questions. It's a lot for us. Um >> yeah, I don't I don't think there's anything that can't wait. >> So, if we can push it till

131after we have to get our questions, >> I just get nervous because you guys knew where you were seven years ago when we got here with policy. >> We're not we'll never let that happen. >> These are like the most updated like we are caught up so we are in a pretty good place. Okay, Mrs. Campwell, are you comfortable with that? That's your committee that you're chair. >> Oh, okay. So, the February 3rd we had policy. What? So, um February 24th, is that facilities? Is that an a requirement? I mean, because that's could we do policy on the 24th? I mean, what's the facility situation? >> I will leave that up to you. You guys let me know what you want to do because I don't want anyone to think that we want to cancel

132the meetings. >> No, no, no. I'm just I'm just trying I just want to make sure not too much time goes by that we don't with our policies. But um >> can we run run both on the 24th? >> No, because we have some overlap. >> Can Lisa, can I work on a schedule with you that I can coordinate then with >> Mrs. 24th and do a special like one at 6, one at 6:30, you know, you have your regular Oh, we can't. >> That's not enough time. >> We won't get through policy and policies. >> I'll work on the schedule and I'll coordinate with um Mrs. Kent and Mrs. Franklin. >> So, right now, should we just put that in limbo? >> Just raise your hand and I'll call you and then you can

133I think yours mic is still on, Dr. McClean. Okay, Mrs. Maddie. So right now our policy meeting we'll just put it in limbo but know that it's coming soon >> to be determined. >> It will likely not be on February 3rd given the complexity of the budget conversation point well taken from Mrs. Russ that it is a lot just to wrap our brains around and also to prepare for um potentially on the 24th >> January 3rd will be a 6 pm meeting. >> Well we haven't gotten there yet. That's what we're trying to decide. Okay. >> Um >> I don't want to miss it. >> I would say we if everybody is everybody available if we made the February 3rd meeting just by nodding heads. Yes. Okay. So then I would suggest we hold our

134February 3rd meeting starting at 6. It will just save us from being here until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. That typically is our very deep dive budget conversation. Um and may require more time than we than we expect. and we will try to keep the rest of the agenda items to a minimum for that meeting. I hate not recognizing students at a meeting for board of ed, but um during budget season, that's what we're going to have to do. >> Do I have the broker coming at 7:00? Do you want me to have him come at 6 instead? Do you want to do that first or have him come later? >> I think he should probably come first and then he can leave because he's gonna >> come at six. whatever he shares with

135us is going to dictate a lot of our conversation throughout the evening. >> Okay, that being said, so we're good. We've got a plan for February 3rd. We will figure out between policy and facilities what we can do. Um any >> Can I make a request? >> Yes. >> We have um a serious leak that Mr. Bazano needs to take care of. If anyone's if can we have Claudio answer questions first? Um it needs to be addressed and it's at our new middle school. So we just got a I just got a text about it. So >> I would say we should let him go and any questions we have we can put in writing. It's not going to matter between now and February 3rd. Please go fix our school. >> Run. Run, Forest. Run.

136We're we're excusing Miss Coachella. Don't worry, we won't do anything with your budget. >> It's so minimal. >> Miss Middlebrooks is here. She's got you. Okay. So, we are going to get the majority of our questions in writing to me who will get them to Mr. Butwell and Dr. MRI. But if anyone has any burning question that they really want to answer or ask tonight and want an answer to, I want to give opportunity for that. So, Mrs. Cwell, >> mine's quick. Mine's for Siri. Excuse me. Just to clarify the BCBA. So, do we have two full-time BCBAs now? Okay. And does one like cover ECS and with the other one covers CMS and the high school or they kind of just go wherever they need them to go? Sorry. So, we have one BCBA

137um that works 5 days a week and that's at ECS. Our other BCBA is actually she's a 4 day a week BCBA, but she covers the rest of the district and um CCTA. Yeah. So, that's how we split it. >> And can I just ask a followup? >> Sure. >> Those those behavior tech positions that you're um recommending that you want too. So, they would report to the BCBA, would they be kind of their supervisor? >> Yeah, they would have to oversee them and they have to provide um like hours um towards to maintain this RBT certification. Um, so yes, they would be their direct supervisor. I mean, >> no, >> the BCBA, they would oversee them, but >> no supervisor. >> I mean, I I I was going to finish that with I'm I'm

138their the top supervisor, but they who they they report right to them, the BCBAS, and then obviously anything else that that comes up, it would it would be myself. Um, >> is it kind of like the way a PAR educator report to the special ed teacher, that type of relationship? >> Exactly like that. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Um, and are those mostly are those for students with IEPs or student? Not necessarily. >> It is for students with IEPs. >> Mostly for students with IEPs. >> I mean, obviously they can consult and provide training. Um, we've already done some training with um regular teachers um and all PAR professionals. So, but the the bulk of their position is to provide um support to students with IEPs that have behavior goals and objectives or behavior plans.

139So would the impletor on their IEP be like BCBARBT or would you specify that? I'm just thinking about like an an IEP like how you would do that. >> Yeah, it would typically right now we put BCBAs under the consults under that new kind of section under indirect consult and the RBT would also go under there um to support the goals and objectives. >> Okay. >> All right. So I'm going to ask for our next meeting because it's a request for two new positions. if you could just give us a little description. You don't have to do it tonight, but um what is an RBT? What are the credentials required? What does the training look like? Because some of us know, but some of us don't. >> Okay. Sure. >> Okay. Um I think Mr.

140Sprouse has a question. >> Sorry, I'm going I'm going to to Carrie with this one actually. Um >> Oh, we didn't know who you were laughing at. >> I'm laughing at myself for asking the questions. Uh secondary numeracy coach. I I I love your passion behind this and I know I know what it's rooted in. I I'm involved with a number of different districts through communication. I This is something that multiple districts are dealing with are these low math scores and everyone's trying everyone's clamoring to try and figure out why um and put things in place to to you know try and circumvent it. With the secondary numeracy coach, is that could that possibly be a hybrid? Does it have to be just one person, one position? Could it is is there potential for it

141to maybe be a more experienced teacher who's got maybe some more advanced experience training so forth where they they taught maybe fewer classes and then took on uh some of the responsibilities of a numerousy coach and and either had a stipened or I don't know the teachers contract like the back of my hand but maybe it's like a10 additional uh salaried position or something along is there potential to do that or you think that is it's too big of a job to try and do something like that? I think it's way too big of a job to do something like that. Um I think some districts do try to do that. Um I've never been a fan of that just because students will always take priority. That's what happens with teachers like that's going to

142be their priority and really in coaching it is the adults um that should be getting the support. Um and I don't think that we have as we don't have a need for more math sections at this point. Thanks. And then I I have one. >> Go for it. >> My my other one and you know, Mr. Larry and Miss McClean, you might end up tag teaming this a little bit. Um when we look when we were looking at the efforts to reduce student services costs, uh the second bullet down and then the third sub bullet under that, the Orton Gillingham uh classroom certification level, associate level. Um I understand the reputation Orton Gillingham has. I know uh you know numbers of parents who have students who experience dyslexia. It is considered to be highly effective

143uh program to help students in that area. Um what is the how long does it take to actually get someone Orton Gillingham uh trained into that certification level? >> So that's a great question. >> It's a two-part question. So that's the first part. >> Two parts. So, there's a 30-hour course that we um are actually looking to offer this year um to some of our staff, but next year it's a year-long, I would say, practicum to them to then actually become this um >> classroom educate um educator level. Um and then the associate is even more um training after that. So, it's pretty long and we don't have anybody currently in the district right now that has that level of training. We've had a lot of staff who've taken like the three-day for Gillingham, which

144I'm sure you're familiar with, but we really want to strengthen the instruction for our students and the the training for our staff. So, we are looking to and it it has been a request from some some families. So, we're looking to really strengthen that. Yeah. >> So, the reason I asked that question is because I know a number of districts are looking for um for reading specialists, right? uh and literacy specialist and a lot of other districts are in their in their postings indicating that they're looking for people who are Orton Gillingham trained. My concern is we spend the time and the and the money to train folks and then they're going to be poached by other districts. How what's our plan to prevent that? Because or people who are trained in Orton Gillingham, reading

145specialists who are trained in Orton Gillingham are high demand, high value. I'm concerned that we train them and then lose them almost immediately once they go through the year and a half with us. Good point. >> That's always a concern and you know I can let Dr. McClean too. Um I think culture and climate for our staff is very important um to keeping them um wanting them to stay here. Um I do agree with you. >> So is so is >> the financial aspect of it. We don't like to talk about it too much, but we just lost >> some staff in special education and most which are going to be making about $20,000 more. >> And and you're totally right. Now, >> I'm just it's it's a concern only because is it going to

146be an ongoing training where we're constantly training people in this so that we always have someone at hand to do it? Are we looking at this as a oneshot deal? We're going to do this training like I'm I'm looking more longterm because the I love that we're that we're looking to train people in on Gillingham. It's got a great reputation. I'm just concerned that we're setting ourselves up to train people who will then be poached by districts that are paying more. >> But then if we don't do it, it's a disservice to our kids. >> Definitely the reality. >> 100% agree. >> Just so you know, we are looking at all different. So if we have five that we're looking at training, they're across the district in terms of levels. So we're not just picking

147all teachers at WIS, right? So and yes, the hope is that they stay. And I I can't we can't say with certainty, right, that that they will, >> but >> well, that's why I'm I'm saying is this going to be an ongoing we're we're going to constantly be looking to train folks in this. What's the cost of that training? All all those things kind of come into play, but I just want to make sure I recognize the value of having Orton Gillingham trained reading specialists. I I'm I'm 100% with you on doing this. My concern is is that are we going to continuously train people so that when we do lose people, we've got a next person up in line to to take their spot or and if we're if that if we haven't thought

148about that yet, do we need to consider that going forward in the future? I'm just throwing it out there because I've seen >> the number of postings for reading specialists and nearly everyone is looking for experience and certification in Orton Gillingham. And you know, as a special ed teacher, just saying like we lost a couple special ed teachers. I shared with uh Dr. Macker before this meeting in our casual conversation, I'm averaging at least one and often more uh emails per week from other districts who are looking for special ed teachers to leave their current district and go to others. And I'm seeing things like, we'll give you a $10,000 signing bonus at the end of your first year. And so the the the opportunities for people who are well trained in this are out

149there. And as we know from the last several years, it is becoming the the education environment, particularly for well-trained teachers is becoming one where they have a lot of opportunity to go and make more money elsewhere or, you know, change their their situation. So, I'm just concerned and not not concerned. I want to do this. I think this is great. I'm behind you 100%. I just want to make sure that we're looking at are we going to keep this going so we're always going to have someone trained in that >> and we'll definitely keep that in consideration. And I think starting with uh multiple levels of staff that work in all the buildings is super important so we're not just focusing on one. >> Absolutely. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I'm

150shocked. Okay. Oh, Miss Maddie. All right. And then Al and then Mr. Schum. >> All right. Now, I'm I'm hoping that I can ask a question about this because I'm not sure I'm in the right spot because you all seem to be talking to just these pages, but um on page this can't be page two. On page two of um systemwide, can I ask a question about that? So, it's uh location 5000. I have no idea what that means. Is that behind the bleachers or what? Um, anyway, it says object 322, instructional program improvement. Guess what? Wrong page. Next page. Page three, where it says still location 5,000, but it's down at the bottom. It says homeless transport. And it was um actual for 2425 was $2,328. [Music] Adopted for 2526 was 60,000. Was that

151a typo or something? >> Mr. Butwell, >> what is homeless transport? And >> he's going to talk to it. >> What the heck? >> Boy, that's got to be a hit. >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, homeless transportation is something that the district is obligated to provide, you know, for students and families that find themselves in that situation. And, um, the the difficult piece about that line item is that each year we don't know what the need is going to be. So, um, fortunately last year it was a very low amount. Um, but in previous years, um, if you go back five years, that, uh, line was as high as $130,000. And so, we also feel concerned by putting in 60, is it going to be enough? Um, you know, based on what needs we don't know

152about right now. So, um, last year definitely was a low year. um other years um well over a h 100,000 and I believe um I averaged the last five or six years together and the average is about 120,000 a year. So >> what does that entail? What what what is the the school pay what is the board of education paying for putting people up who are homeless? >> Um it's for transportation. So if if um >> and Sarah, if you can add on to this, I'd appreciate that. So it's where? >> Yeah. So we have students um under Mckenny Vinto um students who let's say a student um became homeless in um Cromwell but they moved to Middletown because they were displaced and now they're living in Middletown. But we under Mckenny Vinto have the

153right to provide consistency for those students. So we say you can still attend school in Cromwell but now you need to get transported from Middletown to Cromwell. we actually end up splitting the costs with Middletown. Um so let's say the cost is 50,000. We split that and we pay 30 um for the year. So that's technically how it works and it could be any town in Connecticut that we're doing that with for students who become homeless. And it es and flows. Another example is if we have a student that is in Cromwell and they go live with a family member that's in Rhode Island. Um we still have to provide transportation and and we have had situations where um on the cusp of Massachusetts and back. So you could only imagine um the the amount

154of money that that would take. So, >> and this is a and this is as a result of >> McKenna Vento law >> McKenna Vento. Okay. >> We could send you we could send you a link, Donna, if you want to read about it. >> Yeah, I I would be interested. >> Siri can send you a link. >> Sure, I'll send that. I'll send that >> if it isn't a big deal. >> No, it's not a big deal. No, we'll >> Good question. And actually across the state that homeless homelessness is on the rise. So, we do have to be very mindful that that could affect our community as well. >> And the definition of homelessness is So, Dr. Macker is just adding the definition of homelessness within a school district is different than what

155we traditionally think of as homelessness. So, it does expand our obligation for transportation and for other services. >> Mr. Schuman, >> what's the grant environment look like? >> Well, we did talk about at a meeting um Steve, you were there. Matt was there. I think it was the facil and we talked about perhaps putting in a part-time grant writer um and the town would put in the other part-time, but we did call and there didn't the town there didn't seem to be any interest in in adding this position. So, we didn't add it to our budget because a part-time grant writer really we should look at writing grants for the town as a whole, right? Because that's where you're going to save money. Um and we probably wouldn't get anybody as part-time. But anyway, we

156are not, and I've talked about this before, right? We're we're considered uh one of the we're not very very wealthy. We're not very very poor. We're right there. So, we don't qualify for a lot of we don't even qualify to apply for grants. If we know there's any opportunity that we could apply, we apply between Dr. McClean, um Clauddio, any of us, we will apply. Is it uh >> the Robin family seems to like us? Honestly, >> if you read read their website because I don't even know how they picked they picked us. I just >> someone's watching out. No, I think I asked I was like, are you you know, they're wonderful. But yes, we um usually it's it's I we I've already sent the link to her to apply for other grants. >>

157Um so, in terms of our title grants, I'm a little concerned about our title grants. Um the beginning of this year, we were really unsure about some of the federal title grants that um we were going to receive. Um we did receive those grants in part because that money had already been appropriated. Um so there is a big question as to whether that money will be appropriated again um into those grants. So um I haven't heard one single word about it. So, like literally not one single word. But that has always been a concern of mine because um which wouldn't necessarily well I mean it would have an impact. It would be a bigger impact on year two because those grants are two-year grants. Um but it would it would still have some impact but

158the bigger impact would be on the second year. Um the answer is I I don't know. >> There's another current this morning the states running a nice you know another surplus you know. Yeah, that >> they're talking about the >> they're committed and yeah, it sounds like they're committed to fun whatever needs to be funded. So, um although they've got a lot of priorities, I read a lot of priorities in there, but I know that there has been a lot of support at the state level for funding education if it's not at the federal level. So, um especially the grants, the title grants really target our most needy population. So Connecticut, like Krie said, is committed to making sure that we get the funding. Who knows? It could change overnight. So you're you're right. We

159don't know. We just cross our fingers and our toes and >> hope I won't know until um believe it or not, I won't know until uh some of the title grants were just approved in December, right before the holiday. So they, you know, like it really won't be till late fall, early winter that we know what the state what we're going to get for federal and state grants. >> Alan, there is it's significantly different from the philanthropic world, the um family foundations like this grant that we received versus government because the family foundations are are inundated with a lot of organizations that have seen their federal funding cut and they're not able to get any other support. So they're reaching out to corporate foundations, family foundations, even some of the community foundations. This is what

160I teach at Yukon. So I would uh strongly advise us against hiring a part-time grant writer because grants are much more effective if they come from the passion that we heard around the table today. Um but it's a lot of work and it's an extra it's an extra thing on top of everybody else's already full plates. So that's the challenge >> where our work is. There's a lot of different non you know senior housing projects and some boards are very inactive. Other boards they get some people who are writings and there's some serious money millions coming in. So people are writing checks. We had a we had a grant writer where our last district was and but it's also a district in need and it was an alliance district but the money that was coming

161in by some of the extra grants that were being written paid for that person's salary and about 25 million more. Um but it was also a needier district. So yes, and I get it like we're we are small. We write them all the time. Um, but we also know the ones that we are not going we don't even really we're not going to have a chance. >> There's also wealthier >> wealthier districts have grant writers and they get a ton of money too. I I don't want to say that I disagree with my board chair because it's only my second meeting. >> You can disagree with me. I think it would I don't I don't think it would be a loss if we did it together like we had discussed at a meeting as far

162as with the town and hired one person for who's who has the experience in in grant writing and is looking for grants that would benefit both the town and the district or the whole town you know in general because we're one town. I also agree, you know, there is passion from the people who write and the the little monies that we get from from the grants, but you don't know until you try. I've seen it work, but I it was also a very different district. Um, that's my my two cents. >> Okay, Mrs. Are you Mr. Shim, you good? Okay, Mrs. Russ, >> thank you. Um, I have a couple questions, but I'm going to start backwards since we're talking about grants. Are there grants available? I believe I've heard from other districts that they

163have had the math grant available grants in available for math specialists but um that will have come in and service. Do we have >> I I've never heard of anything I we had there was a um grant a couple years ago which I did apply for and we did not get which is was a afterchool tutoring program. Um it was postcoid um and they were um giving districts um money hire tutors, >> but that's the only thing that I know of. And we did apply for that, but we didn't it was really money that they were trying to allocate to alliance districts. >> Um, so, but if there is one, I will certainly apply for it. >> Okay. >> So, if you know of one, then I would be happy. >> I'll see if I

164can find out. Um, but just along the lines of the math um, specialists that we want to that you know, you're looking to add in, our math scores were low. They seem to be consistently low at the eighth grade level for the past few years. I don't know if it's due to um different testing or new teachers that we've had because haven't we had some turnover in CMS math teachers there. >> Grade eight has been challenging. >> Yes. So that could contribute to it. But the flip side is the other pieces. Um and actually Mr. Cuckle stating that most students who go to college say they felt extremely prepared after coming out of Cromwell High School, especially in the core classes. A lot of students who go to college are required to take math classes.

165So, it's surprising to hear that our SAT scores were very low. However, I do I have heard that they've been low across the state. Is it a one-year thing? Do they test differently? Why are they all low? And what is like it it just seems strange to me that this is like one year that it's taken a hit and we haven't been this low in prior years. >> We've been consistently low in math. Um math has not and those are great questions and there are questions that I've been asking um all along really and not only us, you know, like really other districts. We >> um traditionally in Cromwell we do a great job of um educating our really bright kids. um where we need to put some time and energy is to um our

166intervention students and our um you know so our high-f flyers do amazing um but we have work to do with sort of the general population of students and that's where when you have you know we do fantastic on our APs but then you see we have 39% proficiency in math overall for 11th graders >> on SAT the other thing that is really interesting is, and this is something that is baffling to me, we have some kids that are not proficient in math on SAT, but are getting >> threes, fours, and fives on AP exams. So, it's not that they can't wrestle with um curriculum, it's something else. And so that is really like that is the most that's the most baffling thing to me because we did a we did cross reference it and see

167it's not that these kids are are just underperforming. They're underperforming in math >> on the SATs and is it curriculum is it instruction is it I think it's a combination of things >> but the math SATs are mostly driven based off of um algebra and our students do well >> in their algebra classes. We don't really offer algebra AP because they don't really have it, right? >> But um >> yeah, we have a lot of kids taking algebra 2 um you know, freshman year. Um those kids do great. >> Um it's our level two. If you look at the scores in our level two classes, they are wildly different. So that's really where we have to focus >> coming out of eighth grade already lower than they should be. Okay. >> Right. Right. Exactly. And

168then we have a new curriculum in the middle school and now we're um >> hopefully you know that will shore things up. It takes a little bit of time but hopefully that will shore things up curriculum wise. Um but instructionally there's still work that we can absolutely do. Um and it's this has really been an interesting problem for me to kind of open up and take a look at. Do >> you see what I'm poking? Like it doesn't make sense. We have we have think tanks >> across the district across the state but they're not deep enough. >> We talk about no one wants right everyone wants to blame the test. Is the test partially to blame? I believe it is. However, we have students that we keep calling highf flyers. To me I was

169not a highf flyier math which meant I didn't get it the first time but if you put the resources into me I would get it the second or third if you explained it in a different way. And we are not offering students those opportunities because we are not coaching teachers because teachers who teach math usually are good in math. So they have to learn a different way. Sorry, I'm passionate about this. They have to learn a different way on how to instruct students that may not get it the first time through an algorithm. And that's where we're falling apart because we don't have enough resources to go into the classrooms. We noticed that in reading. We we saw a problem. Um Amy, Carrie, the coaches all together um came up with a plan. Look, look

170at we're thriving. Are we still where we need to be? No. Are we worlds? Yes. Julie is doing this with one coach across the entire district. You cannot get into the classrooms and provide the teacher. When we talk about instruction, there's particular types of instruction that all students can access. Are we providing those resources to the teachers so that they know how to access their students? We're not providing those opportunities because we don't have the coaches. We know the coaching model works. It has worked. It's proven for us. It's expensive, but at the risk of of of what um to what is happening is the gap is increasing. Um Julie probably can go in and and tell she'll tell you we have an exceptional group of math teachers. they are killing themselves. But yet, they

171still need to be provided with instructional strategies that they can use on the spot with the coach right next to them and there's a coaching model that we use and it works. So, I don't think we're going to see because we have districts who are performing, right, who the students are performing in math. Um, and that's the that's the difference. So, when we talk about high-f flyers, I I don't really like to say that. I say we have kids who if they have more opportunities and they're instructed in a different way with different methodologies, they will learn and that's what I'm hearing from a lot of our students as well. >> Okay. I'm going to just Mrs. Russer, are you >> just one quick question? >> I thought we had credit recovery already and it

172says here that it was the first year was in um I'm sorry I can't read it. Um 25 26 school year. I thought we already had the credit recovery program at the high school. We've always had credit recovery. We changed the model of it. Do you want to speak to that? >> So there there's two there's a credit recovery in the summer that you might be thinking of. This is specifically for students that most of them have 504 and IEPs, but we did implement that last year um by hiring a teacher after school. Um and we didn't offer that like a true program in the past and now we do. We call it a credit recovery program. and we have a teacher that um is available every day to work with the students two hours

173a day. So, we've had similar but we haven't had a true program that now we we do. >> We haven't had a class like during this >> sorry we haven't had a class during the school day as credit recovery. >> Yeah, this is after school. It's it's two hours after the school day. Um >> so we have not had a class. No, but in the past we did have >> they have worked they we have had credit recovery where the kids would go during the school day. Yes. >> Um and then we >> Andrew, do you want to I don't want to say the wrong thing and I don't I know that you know more of the details on this. Do you want to >> It's so Yeah, Katherine, to answer your question, we did

174have a credit recovery class. Um, but now uh that was run staffed by a teacher during the day, but now you don't do that because of the online world that we have and the online programs. >> So, credit recovery is offered during the day uh for some students, but it's an online based program. >> Okay. Thank you. Just just one second, Miss Maddie, because I I have to I have a couple questions. My first questions. Um unless anybody else that didn't get to ask a question yet. Okay. Um I am incredibly concerned about our health insurance and what that could do because we have the best intentions with what's in front of us. that this could all be moot if our health insurance numbers come in really really high and no one else um undercuts

175what we already are given by Sigma. So I'd like to just understand if there's any positions because there's no reductions in this budget for positions. Are we losing any positions due to attrition that would then lead to potential vacancies that don't need to be filled because we have less kids at that particular grade level or we can consolidate classes because we have smaller class sizes. Just putting it out there. It doesn't have to be answered now, but something to think about for our February 3rd that we should look at because I do think we need to have some contingency planning if we um don't do better with our insurance numbers. We have um we know how many students are every in every classroom. We have our eyes on all enrollment and um we look at

176that all the time. Um we made a mistake a few years ago by saying we're not going to fill positions through attrition and that got everyone into a histy fit. So I'm going to hold back >> and say >> I I didn't mean to steal anything or scare >> anybody flipping people. So, we we definitely are looking. We definitely have that um we have our eye on that as well. Do we have some smaller class sizes um than we would like? Is there some movement? We believe so. Um but that can also change and we wouldn't um we wouldn't make that decision until we absolutely had to make that decision. But yes, to answer your question, yes, are we were looking at everything. >> Okay. Thank you. Anybody else that didn't get to ask a

177question yet? Okay. We'll do one for round two, but I'm not gonna open it up. Show everybody for round two because we are going to be here all night. So, just one, please. >> I'm wondering with the math scores and you know, they are kind of sad and why that's happening. Obviously, you've spent a lot of time on this. I'm curious if there's a correlation since only 37% have um 30 37% >> 39% finish my sentence 39 >> proficient in math >> are proficient in math on the SATs. >> How does that correlate with what these kids are getting for grades in math classes? Because you know what, and I I'm just going to say this from the perspective of I told you that I I read those goals. Man, that sounded so cool to

178me. That it sounded great. Are is are they really doing that at Cromwell? Uh I hope to God they are because >> we really are. >> I'm so proud of that. But then again, I look at all the kids who are on the honor roll. I don't know anything about waiting, but I'm hearing Katherine talk about um you know, it's not really an honors class if blah blah blah. So, I'm wondering whether or not this correlation is also happening in the classroom where teachers are going to have to say, "Hey, look, these kids are not getting it. They're not doing well enough." And maybe that's part of the reason why they're also not doing well on the SATs. >> That is a um loaded question in a lot of ways. >> Yeah. >> Um >>

179I taught for 35 years. >> There is I I cannot sit here and be honest with everyone and say that we do not have grade inflation because we do. Um a student's grade in the classroom is based more on more than whether they do well on a test. And so it's not always an accurate measure, especially in our lower level classes, um to say that um our students are proficient in grade level material in particularly our lower level classes because in math and this is this is part of the big problem and this is pro this is why when we talk about math, it's a systemic problem and It's not a grade eight problem because if a student, we start leveling kids very early in math. >> And so if a student by seventh grade

180is not in our higher level math class where they're getting grade level and higher material, then they got gaps. And then when they get to the next year, they're filling those gaps and getting more gaps. And so then it compounds when they're going up because in reading things spiral, right? They're the same skills over and over with a different text um complexity. In math the it is a progression of skills. So when they have holes, they only compound and if it you know a teacher can only work on so many holes. Um, and so that's really why math is a much bigger nut to crack than other subjects. Um, but to go back to your question, um, sometimes, especially in our lower level classes, they're they're doing okay on the material that they're seeing, >>

181right? But that may not necessarily be grade level material because that teacher is backfilling in skills >> and has to take that kid from where he is to the next point. >> Yeah. Because there's no Yeah. You can't go >> and especially in skills based like math. Okay. >> Okay. If there's no other burning budget questions, I'm going to move us on and we will await the list of questions and answers um for our February 3rd meeting which will start at six o'clock. >> You're going to give us questions. We're going to come prepared. >> Everybody's going to send me questions in a Google form which Steve's going to help me set up and um >> come prepared to >> every and you will come prepared to present the answers to those questions. Yes. Oh,

182and Lisa can send out a Google form unless you want. >> Thank you. Sorry, I'm sharing my lack of technological proficiency. Okay. Um, >> right now, >> thank you, Lisa. Uh, we have a couple of things that we still we're on N under new business. Approval of minutes and motions for the December 9th meeting, which is reference N in your packet. May I have a motion to approve? >> Motion. Thank you, Mrs. Russ. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Zrowski. All in favor? >> Anybody opposed? Okay. Abstension from Mr. Heisman, Lisa. Oh, an abstension from Mrs. Canwell. Thank you. Okay. Uh, statement approval reference O in your packet. >> Can I please you want to raise your you want? Oh, what the what it is. I don't have it open right now. I could

183tell you. >> You're good. >> Okay. Yes. Related to softball and an indoor track assistant position. Um, may I please have a motion to approve the stipen as um >> as presented. >> Thank you, Mr. Schuman. Second. Thank you, Miss Lamb. Uh, all in favor? >> Anybody opposed? Staining. Beautiful. Thank you. uh human resource personnel activity isformational in your packet. I will point out as we mentioned earlier um we we have some positions that are very difficult to fill particularly including special educators, pair professionals um we are seeing that every district is seeing that um but something for us to definitely keep an eye on and be thoughtful about. Anything you want to add, Mr. Mo? No. Uh we're just actively recruiting. Um it and uh we do have applications coming in very quickly. It

184just it's very fast how when when we interview a candidate, we see them taken by another district very fast. >> So um as Matt uh talked previously about um special education and how um right now it's it's an area that's very hard to find. Um, so that's what we're seeing. And, um, hopefully we're going to get these positions filled as fast as we can for this school year. And I just want to also point out we've got some retirement notifications. And I don't know if Dr. Macker, you want to add anything about staff that have served a lot of years with our community. >> Some of them haven't. Actually, we um these are people who have not served a ton of years here, but what they've brought here um all three of these people, Sal

185uh Erso, Mr. Erso, uh decided that from um he was going to finish his conclude his year here in Cromwell after 35 years. And um this is someone who was a principal and then went back teaching and he really put in extreme effort to be the best science teacher that he possibly could be. lesson planning. Um it was as if he was a first year teacher again. Um and we really appreciate him helping us during a really difficult time um in science and we were grateful for his his his finishing his years of service here and wish him the very best after 35 years in education. Um the next one is Louise Gothier. Um Louise came to us as an ESOL again a shortage area um and has spent the last five years here. Um

186you could tell she really loved it. Um, but it it is time for her to retire and enjoy her retirement. So, I wish her the very best. Um, well, she says it's time for her to retire. I don't think it is, but she does. Um, uh, I wish her the very best in her future um, and in her retirement, and we appreciate her service. And the last one, you know, hits home. You could read it yourself. Um, I did, um, work with Mr. Leki, and I feel um, like I told Mr. lucky. I feel honored that after how many years of service in the other district um that he worked in that we worked together in that he came here um and any teacher any student whose life he was able to touch in three

187years is better off because of him. He is an amazing educator. It's sad for me to even see him retiring. Um I told him no when he he gave us the letter. I said no, come back next year. He deserves the most incredible retirement. He has given every inch of his life to students in Middletown and in Cromwell. Um he just I can't say enough about him and I feel honored that he came here and that I was able to receive this letter of of of retirement from him. Um I can't wish him enough happiness and joy in his life. And that is it. Congratulations to all and best wishes to them on a well-deserved retirement. >> Okay. Uh principal reports are included in your packetformationally and in terms of committee reports we mentioned already

188policy did not meet. Uh but facilities and technology did. Mr. Heisman chair that meeting. Do you want to just give a quick update? >> You're on. So, we discussed um some of the ongoing CNR projects. Claudio gave us a list which was actually included with this meeting for information. And then we also reviewed um the capital five-year capital plan which was prioritized uh specifically for fiscal year 27 uh for the CNR projects that are get put forward for this budget cycle which Alicia I don't know if we wanted to >> make recommendations. >> Yeah, I don't know. I don't think anyone's seen it yet. That's the thing. >> It was in your P. Everybody got it. >> Everyone got it. >> Yeah. >> So, I don't know if we wanted to make a motion to

189approve that to move forward through the budget process. >> Yeah. >> So, we need a motion. >> So, I'd like to make the committee. >> Yeah. I'd like to make a motion from the committee to approve the fiscal year 27 uh capital plan for CNR expenses for the this year's budget cycle. >> Is there a second? >> Thank you, Mr. Schuman. All in favor? >> Yep. >> Um, any discussion? >> But you got to use your mic. >> You know, I taught for 35 years. No one had a problem hearing me. Even when the kids were in the >> Oh, that's right. That's right. Even when when the kids were in the bathroom, they could hear me. Um, is this is this um Steve, is this the uh is this the plan that the mayor

190wanted to put together with community people and all of that? >> Correct. Uh for this cycle, we're just going to approve the first page of the plan and then the rest of it for the next five years will be something that the facilities and asset committee will look at, provide feedback to the the board of ed facilities committee. So, because I went So, you're you're asking us to approve the first page. >> Is that what you're saying? >> Correct. >> Okay. Okay. And um did And then at this point, you didn't have a whole community group or did you? >> No, not yet. Just the timing because the first meeting for that group is the 27th. >> Okay. >> So, there just won't be enough time to modify this and we've discussed it here and

191>> feel it's appropriate. Thank you very much. That's all I needed to know. >> So motion's on the table and seconded. All in favor? >> Okay. Anybody um opposed or abstaining? Okay. So this recommendation then passes and then we have to move it forward to the next steps with town council board of finance. >> Okay. So this draft >> well it's approved by the board of ed but it has to go through town council board of finance. >> Okay. We think >> yes. Ste's saying yes. Okay. Thank you. >> Um topics for future agendas. So we already talked about our next several meetings are going to be completely um taken over by our budget discussion. We do have an ESS update scheduled for March, but my suggestion would be that we don't have that because

192we might still be having budget discussions. We talked about moving that to June >> doing end of the year. >> Thanks. >> That that would be fine. >> Um and the others are on your >> uh agendas unless anyone has anything else that you would like to see added. >> Okay. >> Um and >> we're at the point in our agenda where we just go around and anybody that has any comments or updates for the rest of the board, this is the time to share. So um Mr. Heman, I'm going to start down your end. Nothing. Okay, Mrs. Lamb, >> just a couple quick things. Um, I want to echo um the retirements. I unfortunately didn't know a couple of the teachers, but I do have students that had Mr. Lucky, and what a gift.

193>> Um, to have my kids who don't tell me anything about school, >> come I know. I'm going to cry too when I saw it. Um, but to have them come home and smile and tell me about math, I mean, amazing. So, he's definitely going to be missed. Um, please stick around. Um, and then the other thing I want to mention, um, the auditorium dedication was phenomenal. It was so wonderful to honor Mike that way. So, thank you for doing that. Mr. Zowski, >> uh, two quick ones. First off, thanks to um, our administration for putting together the presentation tonight and taking the time and thought to answer all our questions. I I absolutely appreciate not only the time and effort you put into it, but the passion you have for the success of this

194district um and the advocacy that you're putting forward uh to provide the best education for our students going in knowing full well that it's probably going to get cut in different places, which I know is like painful. I know you've done the best you can with it. Uh and the other one is um just another retirement note, uh Mr. Erso um to my one of my children has him uh currently and I got to tell you as I've been teaching for 23 years and um a lot of times you see a teacher who you know they're they're putting in their last year. They know it going in. He and I talked about it before the year started and it's easy to to kind of do what you have to but skate a little bit too

195and I don't get the impression at all that that this man has done that. As a matter of fact, I think he's actually probably worked like harder than he has in some past years um to make sure that he's providing the best education for the kids. And I just want to thank him for that because I think it's generally been a good experience. >> Mrs. Russ, >> let me quick um yep, the middle the middle school auditorium dedication was phenomenal, very emotional. I don't know how Megan camei listened to her mother speak and turned around and said, "Okay, kids, first song is going to be." Um, she did a fantastic job. It was amazing to see his kids. I've known Mike since I was really little. We grew up together. And so, it was a

196really emotional and special night. So, um, thank you to everybody who put that on. They did a fantastic job. I couldn't believe how crowded it was. And, um, there were parking issues at our new middle school, which was a good thing for that night. But yeah, thank you for all who put put their hands in that because they did a fantastic job. >> So, I also got to see um so many smiling faces and just the talent of our kids that night was pretty awesome. And a huge thank you to the folks that gave their time, talent, and expertise on the CMS building committee because that building is phenomenal and it's something to really be proud of. So, thank you so much, Miss Lamb, and your colleagues that did that. Um, I just want to

197point out every meeting that we have, our student representatives talk not just about athletic talent and not just about academic talent, but they talk about kids who are stepping up and giving back to the community. And it really struck me in our last meeting and I want to recognize some of those students at a future meeting when we're not doing budgets. But I really want to bring those kids that give their time and energy to fundraising and philanthropic efforts and helping those that are less fortunate and being leaders in that realm. I don't think they always get recognized and it's just it struck me that it was it's been a common theme throughout our students reports and it's just says a lot about our community and our um schools. So, thank you for them and

198thank you for those that inspire them to do that. >> Okay, Mrs. Canwell >> say what everyone else said about the ceremony. It was very touching. >> Yeah, it was such a nice night. So, thank you >> Mr. you're showing. >> I'm glad we went with a lot auditorium. Definitely from that night it was super crowded and we need a logo on that podium up front that's just big piece of wood that needs something. >> Thank God the whole building is beautiful and I knew No, I'm kidding. We agree. We want to say Middle Brooks is here. She'll take >> No, we want to do something um in the inside the room. We're thinking about there where we will put Michael J. Camelio Auditorium in um letters. We just haven't gotten that far yet. Miss

199Maddie, do you have anything you'd like to >> I do. Um, I said to Carrie when I came in that I was just blown away by these first few pages on the uh district improvement plan and the various question of practice, which is a new term for me. Um, but all their goals. So, it was about four pages worth. I I think it's phenomenal if this and this is what I say. If this is really what our schools do, it's it's amazing. It's wonderful. I hope so. And then these are the best teachers who should be paid as much as we possibly can pay and give them the insurance that they need because this is exactly what should happen if in fact we are going to have a stellar and a superlative school system. And

200this is wonderful. It just warmed my heart and then I had to go on to see those little adorables and then it was oh my god all the budget stuff but that is phenomenal stuff that I get to do. >> So whoever is responsible and fun whoever put that together hallelujah that's all I can say >> and I didn't forget that Mrs. Canwell asked us to put in the budget new table so that we can have a better setup for this for this room. >> I could buy them right now. to say the word. >> I'll tell you, we we debated going into CMS. We debated going someplace else to have this meeting. >> We could repurpose these tables. I already talked to Andrew >> presentation or the speakers were in the corner. >> Room

201800 could use tables like this because we use that often. So, we could repurpose these tables. We leave some in here and I can get a a use our kids will still utilize that table if you guys want me to buy it. I put myself >> I we yeah we did the best we can with what we had >> Mr. Bwell and I and Mr. We'd be more than happy to to make a a you table purchase that would really works for for boards and we >> Mr. is not here. We'll put it in his budget. >> Oh, don't worry. We Please, are you kidding me? He asked for everything every day anyway. No director is shy about asking for anything in this place. The only one who gives back is Steve >> and Michelle

202doesn't. The other ones are like, "Please, Carrie and Siri, forget about it. I would I think we should I think we should purchase furniture that allows us to be able to see each other better." And >> Okay, we'll start looking at furniture. >> All right. Motion for adjournment, please. Thank you, Mrs. Ross. Second.