001e e [Music] roll call here Franklin here Mr here here here here Mr here Mooks Mrs shutt Julia Striker mayor any I don't believe so there's no one here from Board of finance that I see so I think we're good thank you thank you right we'll move on to approval of our agenda additions deletions and review of the highlights uh we have our ESS presentation and some regular items on the agenda this evening so with that is there a motion to approve the agenda Matt second Kelly all in favor opposed motion carries the agenda is approved on to public comments and before I read the rules for public comments is there anyone here with a public comment okay hearing none we will continue on to celebrating our faculty and staff and this month we're celebrating
002our middle school so Mrs coola will come on up and introduce good evening good evening um so we begin with our recognizing our staff and I would like to share with you um an exciting teaching unit that our very own social studies teacher Josh chabowski is creating in conjunction with our social worker ethna lontine she was out sick today so she's not able to be here this evening but as you know we are working toward and creating interdisciplinary units that Infuse real life and and um anytime we can our seal components well Josh here is going to share with you his unit that also not only ties in all this real life fun stuff you know but ties in with our standards and and um but we'll show you how um we can work in
003a very pardon the pun punny way come on up Josh good evening um so this year social work and Social Studies classes are collab cating on a garden um that we are doing with sixth grade students um and there is mulch for me to share with you uh this evening um so through a curriculum that is rooted in the book um the self-esteem Garden uh we have Incorporated elements of things like conflict resolution and being the best person we can be alongside actually growing a small container garden in the classroom um students have dug in and they use their research skills to learn about different types of plants um as well as food scarcity before they actually decided what they wanted to plant um and we had conversations about how realistic that was and settled
004on things like peas beans carrots lettuce and mint uh is the other one that is uh trying to grow right now in the uh container garden um so our UPC our upcoming unit on global goals and sustainability provides further opportunities for us to really sew the seeds of global cooperation and responsibility um and disciplinary connections are already blooming um students have been asking whether the changes they've seen are chemical changes or physical changes so they're really bringing that science connection into play here um we are in the seedling stages of this project but we do hope that it will further Bloom um and become deep rooted in the school community and other content areas um we're actually finishing an application to present and uh show this project off with the association for middle level education
005uh in November at annual conference um and we really really would like to thank the CMS PTO as well as Gardens dream for their very generous um donations which have really allowed this project to grow into what it is today thank you amazing thank you so much for that I appreciated your your wit and um all the all the gardening terminology yes thank you Josh and he'll be sharing some pictures that I can share with you the the process and the U procedures as things are going through so you know the um steps on the the plants and how they're growing and their connections so I'll certainly be able to share that with you great and then tonight I'm very excited to share with you our eighth graders where are my eighth graders come on
006up come on up I know some of our folks come on up come on up some of our folks are here um but to our eighth graders who performed in our recent The Little Mermaid and as always I'm impressed with our students commitment and dedication to performing in our drama program most importantly I'm impressed with their amazing talent and ability to be versatile for three years these folks have been involved in drama since they were sixth graders and just to see them grow and Blossom and just create just their talent just blows us away um and all of these students performed or participated as I said in the past three years whether it was um actually performing or within the stage crew and some moved from stage crew to actually perform on stage they got
007the they got the acting bug so they came up um I'm most proud of how they adjusted we had a new director this year and boy they knocked it out of the park they absolutely soared and it was a fabulous performance so I would like to congratulate and I know some of our students um couldn't be here tonight but Emily Arnold Antonia Davenport Jack Mandigo Kennedy Carter Gabe L Monica Luke Midgley Briana Meyer Riley Woods Sophia Sherer K Kayla samino Dio shalow Addie Ty Olivia saling Madison Striker Olivia clauder and Rain Manning I can't look at how many eighth graders just jumped in and performed and so I just want to give a huge shout out to these folks and thank thank them for keeping our drama program alive and well do you guys want
008to sing no putting them on the spot well we had talked about it and then they were like I don't know maybe I don't know so um but please I'd like to um give them a round of applause for being such fabulous fabulous people thank you folks thank you everyone congratulations to all of you all of our performances are so amazing at the school I'm sure it's bittersweet that it's your final year at the musical at the middle school but we look forward to seeing you at the high school productions any comments from board members questions go ahead Katherine um thank you to the eighth graders because you set a very good example and tone for the drama department and for the school itself I know that a lot of kids who are not in
009drama do come out to see the play and I know that the drama Department uh took a big hit during covid so I am super pumped to see you guys back and active and really doing a outstanding job with it so thank you very much for all your effort and time and talents that you share with us such a good experience I'm sure it's something you'll never forget okay from there we'll move on to our reports of leaon from Town Council Board of finance bilding committee um and tonight we do have mayor demetriadis with us so you can come on up and start first thank you madam chair and good evening members of the Board of Education and the Board of Education Community uh happy to be with you as I'm sure uh the chairwoman
010shared with you at your last meeting uh the Town Council did approve all of the 11 Appropriations for the capital non- reoccurring uh expenditures and those went on to board of finance and those all passed as well so we're very excited that this is the first step of uh a l long-term investment in our facilities here in town and I was talking with uh board member heinsman before the meeting started about the summer we have ahead of us to start figuring out our larger strategic plan uh and to that end um we are going to be meeting with the we with stakeholders about the fields tomorrow I know we've invited uh the field committee we inv invited the recreation committee we were invited the athletic director and some other folks to join us tomorrow at
0113:00 uh you you all as Board of Education members are invited as well um to come to town hall and we're going to kind of talk about a strategic plan with regards to the fields project now that we have the other school uh infrastructure projects on our table too trying to figure out how are we going to um work all these projects together into our cake that we call the town so uh more to come on that but we're definitely going to keep an eye towards develop in a real true strategic plan that will give us a 5year 10-year kind of outlook on all of the capital expenditures May 7th is the budget referendum uh you may notice that there's a new question on the uh ballot this year for the referendum uh the question
012asks if you vote no whether you voted no because the budget is too low or too high so uh superintendent Macker um you know I I saw those words being mou um so if somebody feels the budget was too low and we should fund it higher they could vote no and indicate to us too low um and we this Berlin does this uh and we think this is a good tool so if it does come back as a negative we can kind of have an idea do people want more investment what are they looking for and it kind of guides the conversation we'll have afterwards um and then finally I just wanted to go over the um the budget uh or two things actually I'm sorry the budget numbers for General government um with the
013CNR items added in it's 8.98 uh the board of education budget was the 5.88 uh and board of Finance passed The Debt Service which was 3.45 alog together that is a 6.73% increase that will be in front of the voters uh on May 7th so tell all your friends May 7th because you all worked really hard on your budget and spent countless hours so it'd be great if we got a good turnout um for that uh last item is I want to thank the elementary school for inviting me to their reading literacy night um we had a really great time uh reading a book about the the incredible if um and it was it was a really really wonderful activity especially to get all the kids really excited about reading um I was very nervous
014I have to admit because I've never read in front of children before that you know the whole I was practicing for an hour beforehand about how to hold the book and thank you to the wonderful staff at the elementary school for getting a projector uh so that I didn't have to I mean I still held the book but the pictures were behind me so I felt a little more relieved about my picture showing abilities um but it was a really wonderful event uh um oh one more thing I'm sorry last night we invited our athletes from the track team both the girls and boys track team to come to the Town Council and they were presented with proclamations uh proclaiming yesterday their day um and in celebration for their achievements this past track season something
015that I think is really important is by having these celebrations I know the Board of Ed celebrates them but I want them to know that the whole town celebrates them um our student athletes our student uh clubs they all are part of the fiber of this town and as somebody who grew up in this town and went through the school district and we didn't have Middle School Musicals we had all school productions uh and you know I'm so happy and so um proud to see how all of these programs have grown and flourished and it's because of this board's investment in those programs so thank you for investing in the students and investing in their programs I'm happy to take any questions well thank you so much and thank you for recognizing our students and
016being such a supporter um and we are looking forward to getting some projects done starting over the summer one question for you um we do need need to Circle back on that committee for the 5 years so I'm not sure the timeline on that but just connect with me when you when you know more sure just broadly to to broadly answer it the goal would be probably late May early June we we'd have our first meeting I think uh councilman U sorry board member hinesman and I were talking about having your facilities meeting uh committee have a subcommittee meeting first um maybe to have some kind of preliminary conversations amongst the Board of Ed members about what the gordian project has in it because I know you went over it as well and then we'll
017have our larger tri board committee probably meeting late May early June and then we'll roll our way through the summer um and then uh I will also make sure that we continue to have someone from the Board of Education invited to our longrange Capital planning meetings um I think that's really important that everybody is at the table at those meetings so that we have a a group strategic plan that we all buy into okay any questions from anyone okay thank you so much thank you guys for your time did you have a question no no okay all right well there was a planing meeting tonight oh right I wanted to ask about that you're right thank you for bringing that up so there's a Planning and Zoning meeting tonight discussing the uh fields and it's
018a public meeting um un unfortunately it overlaps with our Board of Ed meeting because there are three Athletic Field community members that are sitting in this room that cannot be a part of that so that's um so we we won't know what's happening until after do you have any insight into that um that you want to share it's a public hearing um the they may not vote on it tonight if they have additional questions but it is an opportunity for the public to get notice uh and have the opportunity to comment the original process that it went through at the at the Planning and Zoning commission did not have public comment on the project um and some residents were upset about that so we kicked it back and we wanted it to go through the
019thorough public comment I feel we felt very on the council we felt like it was really important for people to have public comments on it um but zoning is going to be looking at the site plan and that is what they're going to be approving or not approving and then when it comes to the council um will will approve or not approve the project and then Board of finance will approve or not approve the financing so project has some legs still left and hopefully tomorrow we'll have some clarity on what Planning and Zoning did tonight with it uh so that way we can kind of come up with a strategic plan tomorrow about where we want the project to go and how we're going to kind of move forward with it based off of what
020they approve so uh I'm hoping they prove it KN going to Wood and we can probably catch up on it if we have any energy left after this meeting if we get on there quick enough before the loop ends right that's right that's right thank you any other questions on that all right so that covers the field committee and we have building uh CMS building committee we do have a reference a in our packet talks a little bit about the excessive rain we've been having and the flooding and I know they have a meeting tomorrow night um from there we'll move on to report of our student Representatives so we'll start with the middle school all right let me see if this works this time um the third marking period came to a close in
021late March and the fourth quarter has begun teach teacher held the first ever spring parent teacher conferences at CMS esack testing will begin with the language arts exam on Thursday April 18th and Friday April 19th testing will continue the following week with math exams on April 23rd 25th and 26th there will be no esack test T in Wednesday April 24th this will conclude testing for the sixth and seventh graders testing for eighth graders will conclude with the Next Generation science standards exam the week of April 29th cromwell's track is running alive is running is alive and as and well as evidenced by the UN unprecedented turn of of nearly 100 athletes for the 2024 team coach Bosworth St o and glow are ready to hit the ground running coach penny is anticipating a great softball
022season this year that was led by eighth graders and baseball is having the selected 2024 CMS team coaches an anino Mr Miller and are excited for the start of the season the band is learning the music from the Disney motion piture Aladdin and the music of Mozart students are excited to perform in the spring concert members of Select choir are looking forward to performing St Rolling in the Deep by Adele and yesterday yesterday and Blackbird by The Beatles in their concert at Wednesday May 26th yearbooks are for sale and the Yearbook Club is making the final plans and taking pictures for the yearbook the musical The Little Mermaid was a smash success congratulations to the cast and crew and to Mr fling in his CMS victorial debut the CMS shoe crew under Mr dlay is
023successfully collecting used shoes to be recycled thank you both any questions okay we'll go on to the high school summer or Julia promise on Saturday April 27th at St Clement's Castle in Portland to enhance awareness and educate students about the Perils of drinking and driving CHS will be hosting a mock car crash event on Tuesday April 23rd on April 1st The Cromwell spring Sports captains attended a sportsmanship conference with their fellow Shoreline conference captains in North Branford in honor of Michael rera there will be a Red Cross blood drive led by student council on April 20th spring sports are officially in action baseball last played yesterday against Kagan chog which resulted in an exciting first win of the season and they play next today against old lime softball played Friday the 12th also against Kagan
024chog and played today at 4 4:00 against old lime as well girls tennis had a match yesterday at Valley Regional High School boys tennis also had a match against Valley Regional at home girls lacrosse last played a game Thursday the 11th against North Brandford which resulted in an unfortunate loss but they play again like um against Morgan today boys lacrosse also played Thursday the 11th against North Branford and played tonight at 4:00 against Morgan the outdoor track team has a meet today against Morgan and East Hampton and golf had their last match take take place on Thursday May 11th against old lman also play today against hadam Killingworth thank you any questions is that M crash a during the school day type of event I don't know if the students would know that we could
025have Mr coak will come up and explain um I just it's for students it's not for other kids yeah okay all right thank you and we'll move on to town collaboration updates I do have a couple of items um thank you both have a good night so at the meeting last night too I wanted to mention that as part of our diversity equity and inclusion efforts I failed to mention earlier um that we did they did the Town Council approved their portion the collaboration through the community to um work with um Joel merchon who is the um consultant from EMG Group which we also retained so we have our piece and they're offering to assist with their end and run some Community forums so that that was approved and we did have a very successful
026budget season I would say I think there was a lot of collaboration it was a very lengthy meeting when we um present when Dr Macker presented but um there were many questions the administration did a great job so I just want to commend them for that and thanks to all of you that showed up um to that meeting unfortunately I wasn't able to and to Katherine for standing in for me when I wasn't there so um that's all I have on that but I do have a piece of Correspondence I want to mention before we get to your report and that is from which I did forward to you all already but just so the public knows I do have a letter from from Jenny lucier president of the Connecticut Association of school librarians and
027she wrote supporting um retaining a full-time librarian at the high school which as you know we did reduce to the point to um and Dr Macker did respond to um Miss lucier so I think you gave a very thorough response to that if anyone wants to see a copy I can forward it to you I'm sorry will be in the minutes um this will be yes yes yep thank you all right Dr Macker superintendent updates good evening everyone um there's so much that I have to tell you but I will start with let's see what's the best news um our Sr our police is fully staffed which means we were getting our SRO back um which is so exciting to have a police uh Force that's fully staffed and uh they're so committed and they're
028so committed to us so I'm just so excited to be able to have um our SRO returning hopefully within three to four weeks and after that um officer uh Mitch will not be our SRO anymore and we're going to enter into interviews um and we hear that we have two really awesome candidates so we'll be interviewing over the next um couple months to see who will be joining officer Pete to be our second SRO so uh that was really exciting news and I couldn't wait to tell Kelly um so that was the first first piece um the second thing uh I want to talk about quickly is we are beginning our interviews for wests uh the principal for wiest's elementary school this Thursday uh we have a committee of about 10 people so um it's
029very ver uh versatile and Kelly's going to be representing the board on that committee as well so we look forward to um in finding the best candidate to be the principal of whis next uh our Dei consultant we did um contract with Joel merchon uh we talked about how we were going to make this work for Cromwell Public Schools so uh what we're going to be doing is our 4H hour one one hour 4 one hour consultation uh meetings with her then we also talked about four 90minut belonging and inclusivity focus group conversation ations with students so right now Dr McLean is in the process of working with Mr cuckle and Miss COA because we're going to start at the middle and the high school of what the focus groups will look like who will
030be included how many students um because we really want this to be a rich and deep conversation so it has to be the right number um and we'll be uh collaborating obviously with Joel merchon to find out what what a good number would be um we also will have two 2our staff development uh workshops for uh on diversity acate inclusion at the uh middle school and same at the high school and that is what we have committed to and like um uh chairwoman Selena kellerer mentioned earlier the town is definitely partnering with us which is great um I know it wasn't easy uh but I also um think it's very important for everyone in the town to understand that the problem is not doesn't start at the schools racism is alive and well and we
031need to teach our students but we need to teach our families um on how to actually be allies um and that's not going to happen overnight and we need everyone's support so thank you to um mayor demetriadis and to the Dei committee who's going to be doing um a lot of the training and then participating in the community conversations which I know we'll all be happy um to attend and participate in so thank you very much I think it's a great step forward for Cromwell and our new calendar was sent out to everyone everyone should have gotten it last day of school June 13 graduation June 10th um we started esack testing like Jack mentioned so please make sure your kids get to school early uh at bed early they're wellfed and you don't nobody
032yells at them in the morning please be nice to your children so that they come to school and test really well cuz if they're in a bad mood then they're going to take it out on the test and we need them to do really well um and uh thank you to all the administrators we really did a lot of pumping these kids up um and you saw the video I'm sure from whis which was so awesome uh and the W the video contained teachers from ECS so the kids saw their old teachers um and just getting them really excited about doing their best just giving us their best shot um that's all we want from them uh we do have a little bad news and I think it's really important to share this so everyone
033please share this in the community with your friends anybody who will listen we have a $14,800 debt in our um uh cafeteria funds so that means students who could afford families who could afford owe the district $14,800 total um it's it's about I would say anywhere between 10 and 30 families I I think the high school is the highest right now unfortunately um and we of course we would never want to keep food from kids so they get a a meal um but they're not paying for their meals and we have had social workers reach out to make sure this isn't a financial burden and working with families um we've done so much it's gotten to the point where we're calling sending letters and I even have the principales calling families because that's how bad
034it is so what happens with this is we're self-funded our cafeteria is self-funded so that $155,000 is just going to grow over the next three year three months if it doesn't get paid here next couple months so although it's self-funded and we have money and cafeteria funds we are not allowed to spend that money on this so that means the Lea the local uh Education Agency us our budget has to then pay back the cafeteria because we're not allowed to use that money so I think people and and I'm hearing that the kids are having competitions on who can get their debt the highest uh and it's very frustrating because we want to feed all of our kids and we want everyone to get lunch but we have families who can afford it and are
035not paying and it's not right it's not fair it's not fair to the families who are which all of you are CU I make sure I checked your names for the list by the way um thanks for Faith Fai you are on T yes you're the first one as the chair role model um but I think I'm I don't believe in shaming but in this situation it's it's so bad and it is shameful that this is happening so uh you know as we're all struggling to pay our bills we need people to pay their bills as well um so what's the response or I don't want to say excuse but what's the reason or what is what is the obstacle do you think we'll send in a check tomorrow we will pay tomorrow we when
036the P the the most effective strategy has been the Principal calls you which is really hard because the principal has a million things to do and should not be doing that and then you're trying to maintain a relationship and then asking for money is is very difficult that has gotten us um a really good response um but the excuse is that there is no excuse It's just oh I'm so sorry we're busy we'll pay it but then two three four weeks months later um we have some students who owe up to5 or $600 so it's it's become something we've never seen before and we're not alone because we obviously went to the free lunch and then now we're not and this is where we're at um and next year it may not even pass with
037free breakfast so uh we may have to pay for breakfast which means our debt will could possibly double um so people really we need to be responsible and we need to pay our debts and we will never keep food or uh say anything to the students because we just we don't do that um but it's the adults here that we need to work together and to you know accept responsibility and um pay their debts so if you can help us get that information out that would be great so I I know there's been cases in the past not not in this District but in others you said I things I've heard I guess but um do districts ever withhold like report cards or transcripts or anything like we can't do that allow no we're not
038allowed to withhold anything the only thing I can do is hire a collection agency which I really don't want to do to families um some districts have started doing it because it's become out of control um we talk hundreds of thousands of dollars so uh but yeah we can't withhold anything that's part of the law and our policy and yeah you can hold up graduation for not paying your um your dues though correct never mind let's move on um we do our best tech no maybe okay um and so just one final thought we have my payments plus is one way to pay you can send in a check you can send in cash in an envelope if you're struggling that's not the issue call Sandra Shaw if you don't want to call her you
039can call the social worker we can work out a PL payment plan with with you we will do whatever um it's just not acceptable to not to not pay um if you could afford it and we will do anything and everything to help you fill out the forms and whatever if you if you qualify for free and reduced lunch whatever we need to do to help you we will help you okay so so that's my little Spiel um and I think I covered everything and I we talked about you all know our uh budget first time ever uh the full request from the board of education has been approved I don't want to say ever but in a very very very long time 5 no last year it was decrease two years ago two years
040ago yeah it went down they cut us 200,000,000 but the year before Oh the two years years ago and that was the first time that was the first yeah you're right you're right I forgot about that see because it was only a 3% and I needed more anyway but 5.88 and all of our CNR projects which is thank God because we really need it we need it um and I was very I was remissed at uh the the the meeting because I was a little nervous not really nervous about presenting um but you forget sometimes but I don't do this alone these people in this room Mr shettle and all of my administrators um we do this together this is a huge job and it starts in October and it doesn't end until this year
041it ended April 4th um these are amazing people who work day and night and I can't say that I don't have one team player um we what 18 administrators and every single one of them has worked incredibly hard to uh look at their budgets very carefully and help each other and help figure out what we need to do um so thank you to all of you and I'm sorry for not saying thank you that night if I didn't but um there's absolutely no way one person could ever do it so thank you so much and thank you for being uh a Unity being so collaborative and working together and um for standing together and what we really believe we need for kids so thank you to all of you and I think did I miss
042anything no I think I got everything right any questions for Dr Macker no can I just sure so um yeah just as you were thanking everyone um I know a lot of what was presented has been presented to them throughout the school year too and Selena keeps in close contact with chairman um with chair John Ireland and I go in and I present a lot but it is overwhelming the amount of what we present to them the amount of what we give to them a lot of the concepts they had seen before but they're they're overwhelming we deal with them even on our board more regularly than they do so there were a lot of questions that came about again even though we've we've gone through them before and that's okay because they need to
043have a full understanding so I appreciate the amount of effort and work that went in on the board of finances side to really comprehend what's happening with our budget and everything because we do we do spend a lot of time with them but it is a lot our budget is extremely overwhelming so you're right and the concepts are you know like the mcken vento act the the yes the the reading waiver all of those things are they're they're a lot to to digest so and it's so strange um and I really what I appreciate because when I first started it was not a kind meeting it was very contentious and it was in it was sad because I'm like we're all we all want what's best for our kids um and so the collegiality and
044the kindness um be was very much appreciated by by me um there's no reason we all we don't all necessarily agree with how or what but our kids there was as you all saw there was no movement and I was so happy that they are understanding that and I'll answer the same question 25 times over if I have to because it is it is it is overwhelming for them to yeah they're trying to look for ways to say do we really need the sin yeah so they're going to ask again and or ask for clarification and that's okay and that's what's built this amazing relationship so kudos to all the people have been working on the board of finance and so openly with all of us on the board of I agree and since ch
045um John Ireland has become chair I feel like he's reached out to us and he knows what his people need to see to really understand the budget so I think uh the collaboration between him myself Dr Macker and everyone on the board has been has been beneficial to all of us yep we have nothing to hide we will show everything all right if we're all set there we'll move on to presentations and reports of administration item a is the 2023 2024 budget update reference be in your packets and Mr shutle if you'd like to come on up we do have a letter explaining the budget here good evening the largest diff difference as you saw in my memo to Dr mree is really the excess special education cost grant that we're getting approximately $62,000 less
046than what we had forecasted um if they had given us at least the 75% level uh we would have almost been at a break even point in our budget right now uh so it that that basically is the reason the projected deficit at this point has gone up from month last month to this month um if you look at all the pluses and minuses comparing February to March that's the driving force I mean we had few extra dollars in salaries uh some minuses in other areas but when you look at that $62,000 that was the driving force to increase the deficit projected deficit right now um I'm not saying we're going to end the year with that deficit uh but you as of March that's what it looks like but on a daily daily basis
047we're looking at that and we're trying to find ways uh to come out at least at a zero uh so it's it's probably is achievable unless something again drastic happens which we can't foresee in the future uh but right now again not to repeat myself but I will the excess cost is the driving force from February to March any any questions okay Kelly then Allen the $15,000 of lunch debt is that forecasted in here of us having to pay that would it come out of this fiscal budget or next fiscal budget if we needed to cover that no it's not it's not forecast yet that's a that's a question we're we're trying to get an answer from uh I'm not sure we've put it to the state agency yet uh it might be something that
048the organization I belong to uh Connecticut Association School business officials U might be a able to ask the state department of V Child Nutrition but I believe the governing Rule and regulation is a federal governing Rule and regulations saying you can't use Surplus from the Food Service account uh to pay for those students um the state department of V Child Nutrition might be asking uh the federal government either for a waiver or a a further clarification on that because it seems a little dis functional if you have a balance in the food service and you're able to pay that debt off why not I guess the interesting fact is and you might know this is that technically you're not supposed to have more than three months of a surplus on your food service books if
049you do then you have to apply to the state department of Ed and show them literally how you're going to spend it um you can't spend it to pay down student Deb you can spend it on equipment and things of that sort so it's a it's an interesting dilemma for all sides saying if you know during pandemic I had colleagues that had a quarter of a million dollars in debt now we've come out of it most of my colleagues were able to somehow make up for that so again the question becomes is why can't you use if you have enough surplus funds in your food service account to cover those costs that's a question that hopefully we'll get an answer to sooner rather than later yeah they're asking the state is asking the federal government
050if we can have like uh Gary just said if we can have a waiver if we can use the money that we have in our account um we it's never happened before we I'll let we'll let you know otherwise it'll be part of yeah it'll be part of but it's not in it right now it is not there now be another bad guy that's that would be another another bad guy yes and Alan go ahead two things one with the uh you said it was we used to get 75% and we projected 75% and we get less yes cwell or is that across the no that's everybody as I had said initially the legislature for decades and I mean that we've gone after we've asked the legislature to fund 100% of excess special education costs
051literally for decades my organization has been very strong has been very strong in supporting that uh this past year uh the legislature reduced the state department of Ed's request by $80 million uh up to that point there was a sliding scale again depending on your town gr uh demographics and it was actually pretty good I believe the lowest was 81% and the highest was going to be 89% reimbursement Cromwell was would have been in the mid 80s uh the projected costs for this year uh legislature cut the state department of Ed's request by $80 million uh for the coming year interestingly enough the difference between what all school districts put in for reimbursement and what the state funded is the difference of $80 million okay so if they had funded it we would all been
052getting the in the 80% level right now uh we projected I projected 75 we're going to get 70% uh so it's across the board yes oh everybody's getting for the most part the 70% across the board and I just done I me on a collection that for the student on the higher cases in the banking world I frequently made myself used uh small claims court that might it's not very inexpensive okay Michelle deoro and and it might did you talk to did you speak earlier today cuz that's what Mr tomorrow I think it's $95 and that might they have a contest who can run after the most debt maybe go after a few small claims court cases might misso is so happy right now cuz she agrees with you Mr judge JY that's what I
053said the two of you could run it how's that guaranteed we'll get it back perfect record the Judgment colle was another matter oh there are two of you that are crazy in this world I'm kid any other questions all right all right thank you for your report we'll move on to new business and our first item under item a is the ESS update reference C in your packets and we do have um representatives from ESS with us this evening would you like to introduce I don't know their names com okay oh Siri o l will introduce them actually go up there are we on I think it's yeah are we on hello we are um very excited to have our ESS update I'm standing over you sorry Erin I want to say your last Chanel
054I knew I was going to butcher it Ain Chanel is here um from ESS and we um work very closely with Aaron um weekly we meet um Miss Bennington has been um in very close contact with Aon regarding s and we are pleased um I know Dr Macker had mentioned some of the updates uh at our finance meeting but very pleased with the the updates and the progress and we also have one of our clinicians all be introduced so uh tonight we'd like to welcome shanira Christie one of our clinicians our other clinician was unable to be with us uh tonight unexpectedly uh equally fabulous her name is Franchesca LaFontaine and we'll have um Ain start with the thank see if mine is failing to do you want me to pull up on mine it's
055up yes yeah please technical difficulties sorry thank you so much for having me tonight um so I'm going to provide an update um I know that my colleague Amy Conlin was here and you know I was virtual with our RVP um and our ACD back in December um but I'm going to provide some updates tonight on our ESS data okay if you if you could just speak a little closer to the mic when you continue that'd be great got it okay so is the mic on was it just so the first slide that we're going to talk about is just this is just some statistics on the youth mental health outcomes and how they continue to degrade um the most interesting ones you know include suicide is one of the second leading causes of death
056uh this is for teens and young adults the range is 10 to 34 22% of the high school students are seriously considering for attempting suicide which is up 16% since 2011 um roughly about 30% of Youth have been hospitalized or have it been admitted to hospitalize from 2016 to 2020 to 2020 and those were linked to mental health Needs school refusal has been up and it affects 15% of Youth 70% of teachers principles and District leaders said that students are misbehaving more now than ever um on the next slide we have discussed this in our previous um presentation but ESS does provide um you know in Alliance with the mtss aligned approach to complement and strengthen District mental health efforts so while we're providing all of these um pieces from the founded foundational support and
057up we currently operate here at Cromwell at a tier three level we're providing intensive in school clinical supports so the programming is for the students with the most intensive mental health needs um it's highly structured it's longer in duration and it's what we consider wraparound Services family um group individual all the components could you just remind me what the acronym mtss stands for multi- tiered systems of support okay thank you okay so on the executive summary slide um it's just going to give you a quick overview of some of the things that I'm going to highlight today uh utilization of our services here at Cromwell has been very high 1942 total Services have been delivered and um the students are receiving an average of 4.3 weekly Services students in the ESS program have shown signif
058significant academic improvement with an average of 57% of students improving are maintaining their GPA 70% of students are improv improving or maintaining um in attendance and 88% of the students are improving or maintaining in discipline so those disciplinary actions or log entries um we we're super excited about seeing these numbers and we hope that they'll continue um to improve as the students are receiving our services um the data that we're going to look at today is from the beginning of the school year so from we pulled it from August 27th through March 23rd during that time um we've had an average number of students that is roughly 14 to 15 students that were receiving Ser Services consecutively um maximum at one point was 18 and we just feel that the quality of the partnership between
059ESS um and the school staff continues to be healthy and strong we most recently conducted a professional development on the youth mental health first aid and we hope to continue to offer some professional developments in the next school year on the next slide um this goes over our service delivery and engagement so we had that service breakdown so of that 1942 Services we've provided clinical supports uh and which includes um therapeutic check-ins um and learn um sorry do you know this one off the top of your head I'm forgetting it's therapeutic checkins and no PRN is separate um I'll pull it up in just a second um and under individual we have individual sessions admin is like any administrative meetings 504s IEPs prns are crisis or as needed sessions so a lot of our students
060will be either prompting that based off their reset plans or maybe teachers are sending their St those students to ESS education is our learning strategies um and um any classroom observation or interventions I do remember the clinical support was um structured lunches also and then we have our group sessions and our family sessions as well so the graph um more towards the right indicates you know the fluctuation through the months of the Ser the average Services per student that exceeds our Benchmark so utilization is very high um and overall of all the months that breaks down to an average of 4.3 Services per student on the following slide we do use a a couple of different measures to monitor the progress of our students so I know in the first um ES presentation we talked
061a little bit about how we utilize the phq9 and the Gad SS so we continue to utilize this to monitor the diagnosis as well as any um improvements or declines with our students in relation to their their depression and um anxiety scales another measure that we utilize to monitor progress is a um self- rating scale that our students utilize each week and our clinicians will also give them a rating scale this is based on 1 through five so you can kind of see the rating categories um a little bit higher y it'll show you exactly where they what they'll identify each week this helps us either assist our team in monitoring any decreases or increases in the students uh symptoms patterns or perhaps even sometimes need for self awareness improvement with the students on the
062next slide this is kind of like our meet potatoes with our data so this is where we're showing that um there has been a significant Improvement you know for example in the attendance we've had a decrease of 49% so absences at Baseline for students was an average of 18.35% De decrease where students disciplines as you can see were at .56 um and have declined to 0 40 so that's again in average for all of the students and the GPA have risen so we have a 5% increase in the GPA um so from 1.68 they've gone up to 1.72 and that is through the year to date so through uh what did we say March 23rd the next slide um we every with every marking period we do send out a parent survey link so all
063of our parents can hopefully participate and share their feedback with us we comp compile that and we put that into our data um report what we call report cards what I'm presenting to you tonight and we had very strong in um responses you know all of the parents that did participate indicated 100% satisfaction felt that the program was helping them cope um felt that the counseling staff understood them um felt they felt that they had um been treated with respect so it overall just very satisfied with ESS services um and 100% of them that did participate in this also indicated that they see Improvement in their children on the next slide these are quotes derived um from that parent survey which can be very really impactful um parents have said thank you for your care
064and guidance you've been an important part of my child's Journey um I can't overstate the positive impact you have made on my life this program has been excellent and without it my child would not have made it through the school year the ESS program has been so very helpful to my child grandchild um and to our family we appreciate this so very much we have a high praise for staff members and are most grateful for their understanding and care for the students of Cromwell High School the next slide indicates um some of the things that we have been working on with our administrators with our superintendent um with our DSS everyone involved um so we have really worked on continuing clinical and administrative oversight site ongoing assessment of the program implementation this year we've continued
065to identify school rules and make sure that those are being implemented uh with our clinicians in in our programming the student engagement has been very high um so these are all things that have been really working this year clinicians are really consistent with our students um I I coin them our Dream Team I I appreciate our clinicians so much here the collaboration and feedback with the ESS clinicians and teachers has been extremely positive and we have had a great positive parent feedback areas that we want to focus on um maybe things that are already ongoing that we just want to continue to work on so continuing to work collaboratively and receive constructive and positive feedback from the districts we want to continue to assess for the appropriate groups and learning strategies that serves the most
066effective um effectively to the students and the right appropriate interventions we want to assess for appropriate referrals and start to discuss any possible ODP returners we're developing an assessment period for lack of Engagement and continue to explore creative parent engagement strategies and so that is where I wrap up our presentation from ESS thank you so much for that I'm sure we'll have some questions if you don't mind um if before I forget if I could just have you go back could you go back just for a second to the year-to day academic impact it's like two slides back and in the section for discipline performance against Baseline I'm just a little confused on the numbers it says improved 13% declined 133% seems like a wash and then over to the right we break that down
067so if they have for for example sometimes what will happen is like say a student doesn't have high disciplines they come in in at zero and then when we con conduct our data it's still a zero that will just show a maintenance um so that's where we consider the they've improved and maintained that combination of the 13 plus the 75 equals that 88% of improved or maintained okay thank you yeah all right who'd like to start with questions um Ellen go ahead we this program is designed so we try to keep students in the chromal school system as opposed to losing them I'm assuming we've lost a few students based on the numbers of that's gone up on the a special ed and things like that are those students is that data in these reports
068or is that that data kind of disappear not in these reports if we lost a student yeah lost students due to an outplacement yes yeah so this data does not include that this is only for students that are participants of ESS ask so so if they if again if this program didn't work for them those numbers would have been higher and now they're out of it and the numbers right well I yeah I guess I it's not Apples to Apples and I would have a hard time giving you an exact number because I don't want to be personally identifiable regarding anys student that may have been outplaced but ask your question again and maybe we can kind of help um if a student who had difficulties and was in this program left the school district
069would he or she take that data with them and this report would not reflect their yes deine if a student correct you if they have left and they're in an alternate program this data would not um reflect them any longer if that's what you're asking would show them from the start which so the data could look worse because we lost them the program didn't work for them so if they're removed from this program the data looks better I think there's an assumption I just want to clarify that every student who was outplaced was in ESS first yeah if they were and they're out yeah if they were and they're out then this would look different but not every student who may have been out yeah was not part because of their particular disability situation they're
070Rob was that was that do you answer your question yes okay I was just saying and and and also for talking about students who you know get outplaced this is this program is also current currently functioning at the high school so there in any other schools in out place they would not be in this day exactly yeah yeah all right did you have a different question yes just um you mentioned I think it's it might be one or two slides earlier um but that's okay the the um the family sessions um which I'm I'm you know personally a big fan of the right there the do they take place in the school building where families come in or are our clinicians or your clinicians going to the home we do a combination so um we
071do try to host those family sessions here at school usually after school hours um but say for example if we can get the family to be engaged but they will only participate virtually we will offer that um but we can all we also do conduct home visits as needed typically we're doing that as um you know intervention for school avoidance okay um but we can and we have been flexible and can so it really kind of like depends on each situation but our clinicians and I'll I can have sh speak for the clinician piece but you guys have been quite successful in having families come in person um you know we also host once a month a parent support group as well it's that's typically usually very hard for parents to commit to in addition
072to those family sessions they've hosted one they had it's a small engagement but nonetheless some so thank you thanks Katherine had a question um yeah so I'm I'm sad to see that only four families participated in your parent survey result when we had 14 to 15 students engaged in it um but and I am excited to see that the GPA has gone up for some of these students are we looking to identify as we move forward with this program students that are coming out of the middle school so we can catch them early on like what's our what's our work with CMS to try and catch them off the right off the bat so we don't have to tank so we can be proactive as opposed to being reactive to situations yes um so we
073started those conversations last year with the Middle School um most specifically with our students who had 504s or IEPs and had been diagnosed um with diagnostical diagnosable disability and the middle school is doing a fantastic job of communicating to us hey we have the student in eth grade really struggling and then we're having the conversation with the middle school because they don't have that firsthand experience with ESS in terms of what type of student is really benefiting from a program like this it's less behavioral and more an emotional piece and we're really partnering together to get in front of it so last summer we had enrolled um a small number of students prior to them even coming to the high school so the intake took place during the summer um so that the family and
074the student already knew the clinician prior to coming into chomel High School Services were already in place and that way as of day one the student knew where the resource room room was located and knew the staff member and that's conversations that are continuing happen now as we move through our spring ppts and transition 504 meetings thank you and for the current students will there be Services over the summer in any way continued so um the wonderful part about esss is so long as we have esy or summer school going on in the building they will offer their services as well um so the clinicians typically alternate days so somebody will be here two days somebody will be here 3 days they're in the building between 8 and 12 um available via Zoom or in
075person appointments great any other questions from anyone Alan go ahead someone there's School District at two that has this is your what your opinion has basically banned phones they've taken phones away the social media thing and after a week or two of a little adjustment they report better attendance better class participation what's your opinion on that um I I personally do agree that there is a there is a high correlation um with a decline in mental health um I think you know I as a parent I also establish some of those rules at home because I do clearly see a connection um you know I've consulted with a few pediatricians too I think that there there definitely is a connection um you know it's not it does not teach students grit it teaches them IM
076mediacy and to get their needs met by Cheap dopamine um rather than how to stick it out how to be bored um things that you know when I was growing up I I didn't have access to so you know fortunately or most of us hopefully in the room um so personally that's my opinion I agree um there research there is research on it yeah there's a lot of research on it yeah is that something we should consider lat isn't it up for uh or did the bill die I don't know I know he was I'm not sure if it's still alive is it still alive the bill I I last I knew Lamont was in favor of it but it was going to take a legislative action I think to oh sove forward I hope
077he does to be honest with you you will never ever see me again I have more parents calling us and emailing us about you don't have the right to touch my kids's phone you don't have the right to have them put it somewhere it's my child's material we paid for it I want my kid to have it on them at all times in case there are emergencies we're talking headphones we're talking phones even if we have a policy in place this first time you get a warning second time uh you lose it I've had parents come in screaming and yelling at me at 5:30 in the evening when the Middle School takes the phone away and they've been notified that it was taken away I we've even had Parents call the police on us to
078let because we've taken a very expensive de device from their child so we I'm I'm looking at my administrators some of us would love to be in phones every single one of us but we will be we might as well just get write a huge check to Shipman and Goodwin because that's where it'll land us I'm sure our student reps are really responsible with their phon oh I'm sure they are they never have them out in class come on Julia Julia doesn't even bring it to school summer I don't know you leave it you leave it in your uh little pocket thing right I just know I could tease you so that's We wish all right well it's not a problem we can solve this evening obviously but good point well taken and thanks for
079your response about that um any other questions on the overall presentation no all right well I thank you both for being here this evening we look forward to another update at some point and hope it continues to to go in this path thank you so much for having me thank you thanks all right next on our agenda we have an action item for approval of a CCSU PEX study reference D in your packets and who will be introducing that um I don't see Mr Zone here so I assume kri is here is it Dr mle will come up uh Dr M yeah like where is she exciting so um Dr vzone Who we work with on a variety of different things approached us about a study that he's working on and asked if um we
080could have crall participate um he's doing it in conjunction with u Maria Melo who actually um Dr Mack and I took a class with when we were at Southern um so we know her as well um they want to come in and do some interviews with only adults on our professional development and evaluation Committee just to talk about the process in building a new teacher evaluation plan and they're doing some research on that process and what that looks like and what were some of the priorities for um the PC committees in developing their plans um we are in a very good position because we are just about finished so um we're a good candidate for a study so I feel like we always have this revision going on with um the evaluation so is his
081study to find something that's more unilateral that everyone could use or is it specific to I think his re I don't know the exact research question but the sense that I got when I spoke with him was more about the process of developing this particular teacher evaluation plan and kind of talking about what were the priorities for the for the committee when we were developing it and to get a sense of what the the priorities are kind of across multiple districts um um when it came to developing plans so I don't think there I don't think there's going to be any recommendations for developing a different plan I think it's really just a research study and see you know where everybody's priorities lie all right there any other questions is there a motion to approve
082the study Kelly second by Catherine all in favor oppose extensions motion carries and the study is approved move on to action item C approval of minutes and motions from our March 6th special meeting referenced e is there a motion to that was our virtual meeting I believe is there a motion to approve those Lori second Matt all in favor opposed extensions motion oh sorry oh sorry Allan's abstaining Steve Wolstein and Kelly cluder Wolstein all right motion still carries and we'll approve our minutes and motions from our March 26th regular meeting reference f is there a motion to approve those Allan second by Matt all in favor opposed any extensions oh Lor was here for that yeah Lori you were here for that maybe she left early but she was here you were here right Lori
083okay okay I couldn't remember which one you were virtual two okay I don't think we we voted on that last time we voted on that last time okay just thank you okay motion carries the minutes are approved yeah they're kind of out of order because of the March 6th one we are catching up on all right we'll move on to action item e styman approval 2023 reference G in your packet provided that we get to keep him for basketball still just saying is there a motion to approve the stiens motion by Catherine second by Kelly all in favor did you want to say something yeah Mr cuckle would you like to do a dance Instagram post ready to go actually though he's going to be he is an excellent role model for our students and
084I've worked with them in Middletown and here and honestly besides uh Kelly Maher it's really hard to find coaches like that so we are blessed to have him working with our boys and I know he will reach out to our entire student population and working with our girls um as well so I'm just thrilled to have him and I Mr cuckle wanted to tell everybody last month so I'm sure it's already out there yeah sure you hit send yes we're related to have him and it looks like we also now have a softball uh coach for the Middle School cor Mr Penny stepped up he stepped up do we have a team yes okay CU I I wasn't sure last time we met great well that's great and we're very happy to have all of
085them so we had a motion in a second all in favor opposed extensions motion carries siens are approved you're abstaining okay from the from the Sens yes okay informational item F Human Resources Personnel activity reference H in your packets any questions on that no questions for Mr Morrow all set okay we'll move on to the principal reports reference I J K and L anything there Matt just I'm just looking at suspensions in school out of school it just seems like a high number I I feel like Allan may have brought this up in the past but the the total of in school suspensions across CHS CMS and whs for the month of March for just in school was 26 and out was 18 I I know that you know Behavior has been an issue and
086it was just pointed out in the ESS presentation I I know that anyone ation feels like they're seeing it more but does this to me this feels like an increase are are we seeing and I mean I know March is kind of a long month anyway there's not a lot of breaks um but I'm just kind of wondering from ad does it feel abnormally high like are you getting a sense are you looking at w I'm looking at really the the total of the three buildings CHS CMS and West I mean you know the middle school had 16 in school and 12 out of school that's I mean I and I know historically Middle School you tend to see more behavioral issues because of the age and development and so forth I'm just curious if
087it if from the administrator's point of view does it feel like we're seeing more of this because it just those numbers just struck me this time more than they have in the past I would say that the administrators will tell you that some of the behaviors that we see are increasing increasingly troubling um if we give an out of school suspension we've pretty Prett much tried everything else unless we find it egregious unsafe um to someone else or themselves um we have a really difficult decision to make as Administration right now we don't believe that in school and out of school suspension is the answer to everything but Over My Dead Body is this District going to be in chaos because of behavior years so I strongly support the administration they call me we talk
088things out if it's wishy-washy um and we've I I like to say that it is higher than it's been but I can't use the word unusually because that would mean that I believe that it's not going to continue and that would be uh not being honest with you um to be clear I'm not I'm not questioning Administration I 100% support you know a steady hand with discipline yeah I also think that if you let things go that you shouldn't that leads to more things happening you know I I I do believe in the you hold people to the policy and and the expectation and there are consequences for actions and that's that's very real and and appropriate um you know it also kind of sets the tone for the entire building so I'm I'm 100%
089in support of administration levying down appropriate consequences for appropriate behaviors I'm not questioning that at all I was just noticing that to me it just it's it's the one thing that stuck out in all the reports for March which was wow these all just that's a lot of in school and out of school I mean particularly out of school 18 18 out between three buildings that that's a lot of kids and I know sometimes it's a one day sometimes it's a two or three I I get that it just felt and um repeat offenders yeah all right any other questions no no all right proposed education budget update we did go over it earlier is there anything else you wanted to add um no everybody said everything I was going to say okay I thought
090so policies we have none on for a second read and we have a a through L on for first read are there any questions on oh and we do have some that we're repealing so a through J or for first read so are there any questions on any of those a through J yeah I had one on the superintendent's design um it seems like we're waiting for something to happen to have someone in that spot like basically reading the policy you know it's upon an issue that you'll appoint somebody so if anything was to happen immediately if it was probably God forbid not going went Remember When something did happen Dr blean gets the award so I guess my point is the way the policy's written if something God forbid does happen to you and
091you can't make that appointment it's not really the guidelines of having someone already in that spot really aren't in this policy I think that's the point of the policy though isn't it to have someone in that can I answer that because we we did discuss it in our meeting we're leaving the flexibility of who she can designate it to um because at any point in time if there's a change in um our administrators then we don't need to go back to change the policy so it is more of an open policy but we do have like she has like an informal thing in place I 100% agree with I think course Steve is saying is that if I drop dead tomorrow sorry Steve immed now we got to stay the rosary and throw salt over
092my mother will not be happy with that but I I know what you're saying yeah in that situation we could you could say it but truly you guys come to my funeral and then make a decision at least come to my stream the board will decide but in general we're leaving it open for her to be able to but internally someone in your office knows who that person is and then they will reach out to me but could we make that decision at the funeral do sure would they have a party to end this conversation right now see I I'm a good person to joke with this see we we didn't openly discuss that and the administrators are fully aware of what will happen um but we are leaving that flexibility in case something is
093with one of the that's right but it's a great question and I had kind of the opposite question if I if I take it a little I'll try I had kind of the opposite thought where three days didn't seem like enough because weekends could be she's considered follow-up question does cab have an award for the Board of Ed that had the most morbid discussion during the meeting we would definitely win that you got if you don't laugh you're going to cry so all right sorry about that so A through J any other questions of the nonmorbid type funeral all right is there a motion to move them to Second read Mo by Lori second by Matt all in favor opposed exensions motion carries I'll all move to Second read at our next meeting and then
094we have K and L which we're repealing which basically means we're revoking in the policy deleting it they're not needed not mandated all right is there motion to repeal K and L Alan is our second Lori all in favor opposed extensions motion carries and those two policies are now repealed board committee reports policy met this evening anything you would like to share Lori no okay thank you all for being on that committee there were a lot on there tonight so thank you for that and facilities and technology technology we have nothing um topic for future agendas and possible action to approve additional topics anything from anyone who the PA bearers are going to be what's that stop I said who the Paw bearers are going to be I oh my God I I guess just
095um something from you know my personal side in in being in the business world is we're always seeking continuous Improvement um we do an you know have um evaluation for the superintendent I think we should consider also doing evaluation for the Board of Ed um self evaluation cable put it on at no cost um I'd like to discuss that in a future agenda okay so sounds good all right we can add that um we'll go around and see if anyone has any updates Matt would you like to start all right Allan Kelly Lori anything else all right Katherine Kelly Steve anything all right motion to adjourn actually we don't need it meeting is adjourned at 8:20 thank you everyone