001my middle is under new business currently should be under report of Liaisons from the Town Council and to that I'll also add an update on our field committee and I have no other changes anything to add or a minute Dr mackery okay so first on our agenda tonight is celebrating our faculty and staff we have the whis intervention team introduced by Chris butwell principal of Woodside [Music] the good news is I'm here to celebrate bad news is that none of them were able we all have very busy schedules so I'm going to still talk about them and I am absolutely going to to let them know what what words tonight we're recognizing a wonderful group of individuals that support our students our reading and math interventionists from our reading intervention team we have gentine Tracy
002Curran and Sabrina ruggieri and from our math intervention team we have Tom D Fiore Kate Arnold Julie Nelson and Cliff facile our interventionists are very a very important part of our instruction when data determines that students need support in an area of math or reading our interventionists will work with them in small groups worth their instructional needs they have to collaborate with classroom teachers as well as our coach Sarah Galati and our math coach Erica Ballas to determine what students need and how to best deliver that supportive instruction in order for intervention to be successful interventionists must be able to build positive relationships with their students and I think that's the most exciting part for all of us to see the wonderful way that they interact with their students they help them connect to the
003content in a way that sometimes in a new or different way that will make sense to the students and it's wonderful to see the interventionists working with their students talking and laughing with them and helping to support them in such positive ways so even though they're not here I hope maybe they're watching on the stream thank you interventionists your work is so important and appreciated several of our interventionists weathered covid with us over the years and they during the coveted years and they were very supportive and found a way to interact with kids even through video and you know all the crazy things that we had to do during that time so I just want to say thank you to that group of special individuals and let them know that they're making a difference in
004the lives of our students thank you very much Round of Applause thank you to all of the interventionists and we're really appreciative and thankful to have them with us I think this team seems like it's grown but we all know it's very important to have this small group work did you want to add anything Dr macri again thank you Jim they're wonderful our students need support um they need remediation they need to be we need to accelerate all at the same time because of kovid we always had we always had an interesting um way of of tackling these issues and it became more interesting with with kovid and challenging so I do appreciate the flexibility the hard work and doing whatever we need them to do so that they can meet the needs of our
005students and thank you to everyone who schedules and trains them and everything else well said Thank you thank you and I just want to go back to approval of the agenda we need to approve the agenda so is there a motion to do so by Jen second by Alan all in favor posed sentence motion carries the agenda is officially approved celebrating our students oh you can I guess let me just stay right here we have the whiskey Governor the whiskey Governor so I'm going to invite a fifth grader Brooklyn to come up and stand with me Brooklyn is here with her family tonight and she is our Woodside kid Governor so I'm going to just talk a little bit about the process that we went through this fall at Woodside and then we're going to
006see hear a little bit about Brooklyn and we're going to see her campaign video all right I forgot I have the remote here okay so um some of you have seen this before every year uh for the past uh maybe six years or so um Woodside has participated in the Connecticut cave kid Governor program and basically it's a mock election um where all students learn about the three branches of government voting rights leadership qualities identifying Community issues and they have the potential to run a campaign and design a platform and then each of our seven classrooms they elect one one person from each classroom and that person creates a team who creates a campaign video and then we participate in a class and school election to nominate and elect our with kidgov and then that
007kidgov goes into the state the state running just a quick uh shot here of we try to um make it make it a true experience for students in terms of filling out ballots watching campaign videos talking with students about you know watching the video and really thinking about what the platform of each uh which can't what each candidate is saying and then you know still at making a choice based on what you're hearing and what you think would be best for our school multiple curriculum connections to social studies and even more all right now to the good part so I have Brooklyn here Brooklyn is a fifth grader and she um her platform was uh to eliminate vaping and smoking and so we're gonna watch her video shall we all right okay play Peter Pan
008right now foreign [Applause] and just to a note um all of the videos that each of the classrooms produce those are all kid created um so they come up with the ideas they do the shoots in different locations throughout the building uh you can see they recruited Mrs Hansen our nursing coordinator to get her expert opinion on smoking and also had an element of humor in there which was fantastic so her team did a great job we did such a great job Brooklyn we're so proud of you this is such an important mission to speak about and I hope that you've shared this with all of your friends it sounds like you have and you'll continue to do so I can also see that you're into acting you said you're going to be in Peter
009Pan coming up so I think that probably helped you a lot in this do you agree I think Brooklyn wanted to make a comment if that's okay absolutely I enjoyed campaigning for kidgov he got Wiz and I look forward to more exciting events in the Cromwell public schools and we look forward to it as well thank you so much does anyone have any comments or questions for Brooklyn you're a role model for all of our students and if you could keep pushing this message because I think what happens sometimes the older kids get they think that the dangers are not as strong as they are and they are very serious so if you can keep pushing this for me and get a lot of your friends to do it too not just for me but
010for everyone I greatly appreciate it and good for you you did a beautiful job keep those lungs healthy for all the sports you're playing that's right and all the plays you're gonna do do you want to take a photo op you said Brooklyn's family absolutely yes thank you oh okay moving on next on our agenda is public comments and before I read sorry correspondence now we'll move on to public comments and before we do I'll read the rules for public comments if there's anyone that would like to come speak for public comments please raise your hand and I'll read the rules okay I'll read the rules first and then you can come up and state your name and address individuals are welcome to address the board of education for up to three minutes each during
011the public comment portions of the meeting but board members will not generally engage in dialogue The Board of Education chair May at his or her discretion extend the time for public comments speakers must come to the podium and share your name and address to facilitate efficient sharing of your comments we encourage you to share any comments you may have about instruction discipline or learning materials first with your student's teacher then principal and followed by the superintendent before bringing the comments to the board of education however if you do not believe your comments have been addressed appropriately or if you believe they should be shared with the board of education for any other reason please feel free to do so any complaints or concerns about individual criminal Board of Ed employees should be directed to the
012superintendent in the Board of Ed in writing rather than public comments at Board of Education meetings all comments must not include personal attacks and comments cannot be discourteous threatening vulgar or otherwise inappropriate the board chairperson Maya his or her discretion curtail any public comments or terminate any such individuals privilege of address at any time if they violate any of these rules by a late reasonable standards of decorum or boisterous or repetitious the Board of Education reserves the right to limit public comments to particular topics and the Board of Education values the well-being of our students and families those electing to make public comments at a criminal board of education education meeting are strongly discouraged from sharing identifiable information of their children in such comments including but not limited to name age and learning ability and
013are reminded that any comments made during a criminal Board of Education meeting become a permanent matter of public record that may be accessible by individuals in the future as such any person making public comments during a criminal Board of Ed meeting is solely responsible for the information they choose to share we kindly ask that you consider the privacy of your family and your children while making comments with that said if you'd like to come on up and state your name and address and you'll have three minutes for your comment please hi I'm Tom delaurata 10 Northridge Drive Cromwell I don't necessarily have comments I was reading the minutes from last uh Board of Ed meeting and I saw the the notes about the shed at on the west property I'm here to offer background or
014history on that I was I'm the one who actually got the shed back in about 2008 2009 when I was on the Little League board that I was used I was in charge of the girls miners and we were using the fields at West for practices and games and when I joined the board the Little League board all the focus was on the boys so I was there to put focus on the girls I have three daughters so it was it was something I wanted to do and one of the things was to get a storage shed uh for equipment and things at West to make it easier for the players and the coaches to get what they needed I worked with uh John Manville I don't know if he's still around I'm going to
015throw names out there that could be around they may not be around I know Bo Ryan was the principal at West at the time I worked with him I yeah um I mean he was great he was very supportive i i petitioned to the Board of Ed at the time I went before Planning and Zoning to get it approved uh that was kind of a challenge if anybody's dealt with Planning and Zoning but um it happened it worked and I actually worked with Sue shine uh who was in charge of Park and Rec at the time uh so I got money from the Little League board I got half of the money and the the park and rec contributed the other half because they wanted to use it for their activities their youth soccer and
016things like that that they had at the West Fields so that's the background on it I mean I'm happy to answer any questions that I can remember I mean it was quite a few years ago however like I said I was in charge of I got the shed through Colorado farms and arranged for delivery Etc um John Manville I know that the discussion really is about the flooding of the of the of the shed I don't recall that being a problem when I was on the board I wasn't on it much longer after probably 2007-2008 so I really don't know what happened with it after that but John Manville I think was was instrumental in in kind of choosing the location of that shed so again I those are my comment I mean I'm happy
017to answer any questions if if you have any now or at a later time but I just wanted to you know I read the minutes I saw the okay I saw that it was out there and I figured I would you know give you what I know thank you so much we appreciate that I'm sure Dr Marky will have questions so I feel highly enlightened now thank you so much Mr dalarado do you want to share information do you mind if sharing your phone number or email address is Alessandra just in case I need um to ask any questions and now that I know I can call Bo too you got him into this it'll just be really helpful so that we know um how to move forward thank you so much we appreciate this
018sure anything I can do okay thank you very much are there any other public comments good evening is that microphone on I'm sorry it sounds a little quiet hold it there you go thank you sorry uh good evening my name is Stephen Heisman 28 Wildwood Road in Cromwell um to keep everything kind of short and concise I wrote some notes down here I'm just going to go ahead and read those notes um I have a child in kindergarten Here at ECS and my wife and I were born and raised in Cromwell and attended promo Cromwell public schools and we chose to stay here because we received a great education through the Carmel Public Schools it was our experience at the administration always had the best interest of the students in mind we've always felt that
019Cromwell Public Schools was a safe place for our children to learn and to grow and that we could trust teachers and the administration to educate our children in the same environment that we were educated in we never questioned this trust until we received an email about the correct unit on identity while I fully support teaching our children to treat others with kindness and respect despite our differences we absolutely do not support teaching our children about sexual orientation or sexual identity under the guise of diversity as outlined in multiple correspondence to the administration the board and the Board of Ed the book pink is a girl color and other silly things that people say clearly is an introduction of gender identity to children the author's website noogenderlines.com included on the back of the book States our
020mission is to recruit a highly visible Army of humans willing to proudly support transgender kids and ready to fight for their rights the also the author has also stated that her mission is to expose the world to a new normal in the reference agenda and are beginning the mission with one little book one little soul at a time any reasonable person would have objectively agree that the purpose of this book is the discussion about to introduce the discussion about gender identity another book that is listed in this unit is the Great Book great big book of families which touches upon sexuality and sexual orientation this book talks talks about and shows photos of same-sex relationships the question is why are we touching upon sexual relationships with five-year-olds it provokes questions from these for the inquisite
021inquisitive little minds and it is completely inappropriate this is a conversation that should be had at home if the parents choose to do so many of the administrators we've spoken to about these books were quick to say things like well we have children in kindergarten with same-sex parents or we have transgender children in the district well those parents and children have the right to do as they choose I also have the right to do as I choose as well just because some parents say they think these topics are a great idea doesn't mean that others do well what may be right for some may not be right for others after all isn't this why we keep religion out of school these are personal beliefs and my child does not need to learn personal beliefs of
022Any teacher or any administrator that does not align with mine besides from personal beliefs there there's a major issue with Cromwell Public Schools proposing to teach sexual health education outside of the guidelines of the Connecticut school department of education's guideline for sexual health education section two of these guidelines clearly clearly defines sexual orientation and gender identity of components that fall under sexual health education section 2 continues to State sexual orientation and gender identity and expression should be a component of sexual health education and including included in developmentally appropriate fashion as specified in Section 3 of the Connecticut guidelines section three of the guidelines provide sexual health education curriculum framework based on grade level and does not include them include the mention or introduction of gender identity or sexual orientation in grades K through four Mr
023heinzman sorry to interrupt but we're at four minutes so are you coming to a close I could have my wife finish if you'd like or I can finish and in less than two minutes okay feel free okay since these topics clearly do not fall within the state guidelines they need to be removed from their curriculum as they're not developed developed mentally appropriate lastly an email about the books to the or in an email about the books of the administ to the administration stated unfortunately these topics are not on the list of are not on the approved list of things that students can be exempt from if they're educated in public school setting we will be moving forward with the curriculum as well we believe it does not meet state and federal as we sorry as
024well we believe it does meet state and federal standards and does support 21st century skills to Stu that students need in life these statements are false and this is a discussing predatory approach to teaching sexual education in kindergarten should the school move forward with these topics that are outside the state standards they will be forcing unwelcome topics onto my child while also telling me I can't exempt my child from these discussions this is undermining our beliefs and our role as parents and I find it offensive to force these topics on my child without consent we need the board of boards help to restore the transparency and Trust in Cromwell public schools that made so many of us choose to live in this town I thank you for looking into these matters and would like to
025leave you with a few words to consider while determining your stance on this topic sex and children do any of you honestly think that these words should be associated okay thank you thank you for your comments we have all received your correspondence and we take under advisement is there anyone else here for public comment okay uh Matt Brown seven core place uh my name is Matt Brown and I'm um also one of the chroma lgbtq plus committee uh chairs I lived in Cromwell for over 13 years and I have two kids in the Cromwell school system uh similarly my spouse and I chose we went to college and then we chose to stay here afterwards to raise our family um one of the reasons why we've stayed and continued to love Cromwell as the schools
026we have found that the teachers staff and administration create welcoming environment for all students this includes helping students know that there aren't limits to their potential and everyone should be given an equitable environments to grow meeting them where they are to do it they provide a curriculum that allows that as well the benefit of books like pink is a girls color and other silly things people say in the curriculum helps teach kids that they don't have to be limited by what they may have heard on what they see on TV or movies stereotypes especially for children can have a huge impact for example women make up 28 of the workforce in science technology engineering and math and one of the stereotypes the book confronts is Sciences for boys clearly as a society this is something
027that girls and women have heard for years and it takes confronting these stereotypes head on to help make an impact there additionally all too often close colors and style of clothes can be classified as girls or boys this negatively impacts all kids especially kids in the lgbtq plus community kids should have the freedom to wear what they want they're most comfortable in as long as it complies with the school dress code without concern of what other kids might think by addressing these stereotypes in early Elementary schoolers we are creating an environment that will Foster learning and growth for all children children will only be able to succeed if they feel like they have a school environment that sees them for who they are and accepts them there is an escalating Trend over the past few
028years that attacks on the existence freedom and dignity of lgbtq plus individuals and we should ensure our schools are creating support for all students to be accepting and supportive of each other the book ends with the sentiment all people should be free to be which honestly something that I think we should all take away not just these Kinder earners thank you are there any other public comments good evening is the microphone on there should be a red light there we go can you hear me yes okay my name is Lana DuPont uh I don't have children in the Cromwell Public School System anymore thank God uh I did have three children one is here with me today and the other two are not here with me um I have twins and I'm the proud mother
029of twin transgender women they went through the Cromwell school system and although I do have notes Here it's impossible for me not to comment on what I've just heard my children starting in kindergarten were stabbed with pencils they were bullied relentlessly from kindergarten all the way through to the day they graduated high school when they went to school here they were not out as transgender they actually were out as gay I had no help from the Boe I spoke to the Boe I spoke to the Safety Committee I spoke to the school police to no avail I'm proud to say that my children are extremely successful successful today they're models they're on their way right now to Italy to work for Gucci again that's not because of the Cromwell school system they didn't have these
030kind of books then they didn't have teachers that cared I know some of the teachers in this school system because like Matt I was the co-chair of the lgbtqia plus committee here in town and they're making strides I can assure you as a parent no one no one as much as I love my children it would not change a thing is wishing for their children to be anything but themselves we're struggling to try and understand how to navigate and no one certainly says you know I wish my kids were transgender or gay no one is wishing that but I love my children unconditionally and will continue to do that for the rest of my life and I'm here today and will be here every single time my children graduated 10 years ago 10 years ago
031nothing significant nothing significant has happened to make change for these children that need it they need your help I'm asking you to help no one's saying that we're promoting anything I read this book there's no such thing going on also are we not supposed to teach our children to be kind to others to people that are not like us is that what not what they teach us in church is that not what we're supposed to do I truly hope that this book isn't taken out of the curriculum I think it's really really sad that this is what we're gonna worry about in our in our schools teach your children whatever you want at your house I hope it's kindness towards everyone nobody's saying that you can't do your thing but these kids all need to
032understand that we all have to exist together let's keep it to public comment should not be between the audience members must address us please my kids work with all through school here and at five years old they started with a stabbing my my thank you I really appreciate your comments but I'm gonna have to end it okay it's been beyond the three minutes but I do appreciate it I appreciate you listening to to my comments thank you okay this should be in public comments all together all right are there any other public comments check hi my name is Bill Thompson I'm a proud grandfather of four in Cromwell here I raised three kids that went through the school system was very happy with cromwell's school system I think the issue here and wow listen to
033what we're hearing and I feel very very sorry for her I feel sorry for her that she had to go through some of the bullying she went through it's not right we know that but there are a lot of other ways to handle that besides you teachers I know you're not teachers here I'm just saying besides teachers and superintendents putting sex in our curriculum with little children now I don't know anybody here that wouldn't think that's a perversion I mean I'm older than most of you here and I grew up where if you if you put any of that with their kids sex and kindergarteners you'd be in jail and that's the way it was you'd be in jail that's sexual assault on kindergartners and you don't take away a parent's right to do what's
034right you want you want to talk about diversity there's a ton of diversity in our school everybody's different we just heard from a couple different people but you choose to um make this a one-way Street where you're going to teach sex to kindergarteners sexual subjects sexual compliance to kindergarteners I mean if we think of those two words kindergarteners and sex what happened to us who all of a sudden said it's okay I know this woman she said her her children got bullied that's terrible but you can prevent that kind of stuff and you can't prevent it by teaching kids about at five years old these kids want to color pictures they want to learn numbers you guys have I mean I don't know about the board here but the teachers they don't have any skills
035they don't have any rights they're not sexologists or anything else or Pediatric sexual guidance counselors they're none of that there's an ideology here that's being pushed in our Public Schools remember public schools are an association we all pay taxes and I know the state funds the schools but they fund them with our taxes so there's somebody over here that thinks a certain way and somebody thinks this way you can't push One Direction first of all I don't think sex and I don't think politics and I don't think any of that should be in our Public School Systems but for some reason they're pushing these things sex and kindergartners would you want to send your kindergartner over to me and we will talk about sex well we don't want to send our kids to school and
036have the teacher talk to them about sex this is messing kids up they don't want to know about this you think I I don't know what you're thinking but if I was a board member I'd be banging my fist on the table saying no way we'll never teach our kids about this in school this is the parents job these are all parents they have kids they don't want you teaching their kids about sex maybe she did I don't know but these these people don't they want to teach and we're at our three minutes and so I'm gonna have to ask you to wrap your public comments okay I appreciate it so once again I mean I shake my head I'm 60 years old I've seen my kids grow I've seen you know I've come from
037a big family I can't believe it's gotten to this point where you guys accept or people don't expect I can't believe you're not bashing your fist on the desk right now saying this is this is not right this should not be taught in our schools and anybody that thinks those books aren't exactly what we're talking about here either I I either you're real naive all right or your Predators again we're gonna have to thank you very much all right is there anyone else that would like to come up for public comments good evening everyone my name is Jessica Liam I'm sorry about um I'm a cisgender female my pronouns are she her hers I live at 12 High Ridge Road um and first I do I did send an email and so I have some
038comments that I've submitted but um I would like to respond um gender and gender identity gender expression has absolutely nothing to do with sex I just want to make sure that that's clear and that the board and our teacher staff our families understand that um it's very different and I hope that everyone that's here tonight actually had an opportunity to read the book that's in question my comments submitted tonight are actually more about personal experience it doesn't have any this book has nothing to do with being lgbtq it's just about being open and not limiting ourselves in terms of what students are capable of and who they're going to become pink is a girl color I'm sorry it's not um I can I can find multiple pictures on the internet of people like Pierce Brosnan
039as James Bond and Dwayne The Rock Johnson wearing pink that's perfectly okay if science was actually just for boys I would not have become an engineer this book is about teaching us that those are not limiting us it's nothing to do with sex there is nothing about physical paraphernalia that we have as people it's simply about being good people to one another teaching each other respect and helping students actually work through that and how do you identify when you know what pink isn't a girl color anybody's there's colors everywhere so I encourage the folks that are here in the room to actually read the book I hope you had an opportunity to do that and I just want you to know that I fully support a curriculum that teaches our kids about gender identity gender
040expression um we need books like this other books like this in different grade levels kindergarten is okay I teach my three sons who I believe at the moment are cisgender to be accepting people I want them to learn that there are women in our lives that are going to be leaders they might be surrounded by them today so for a book like this I think it's critically important to have it as part of our curriculum those are my comments thank you thank you very much okay we do need to move on with our meetings so I think we're going to wrap up public comments for now um I don't want to be redundant I think we've heard many viewpoints and appreciate everyone who came out tonight to express them so we will move on to
041a report from student Representatives we do would you like to start at the middle school you can start on this side Jack sorry yes trying to remember your name yeah so um at CMS the the seventh grade had a food drive um which I think I talked about last Board of Ed meeting um so the seventh grade Focus classes of Mr San Andre and Mrs Pavlik hosted a drive from October 11th through the 17th um all donations were given to hinka's cupboard which is a Grassroots food pantry that operates outside of the basement of Saint Francis Church in Middletown the pantry serves any and all local residents in need which includes the people from Middletown Portland Cromwell Etc the goal of this project was to raise awareness about the polite of others namely with regard
042to local food and insecurity and teach our students the values of compassion and empathy through service related work moreover the project also reflected our school's wide soar Matrix which reflects our character values students prepared for the drive itself for two weeks taking on a multitude of jobs from composing formal letters of to local businesses in order to seek support to creating artistic flyers and posters to advertise to writing handwritten cards and to teachers and staff in order to bolster participation just in a few roles about 75 7th graders worked on this project as a school after five days of the drive we collected 1592 items as a school on Friday November 11th CMS held a whole school assembly to honor veterans the select choir sang The Star Spangled Banner and the 7th and 8th grade
043band performed a medley of service songs which included anchors away the Marines him and the U.S Air Force tune also Taps was performed by Aaliyah Cinque and David wascovis additionally all students had the opportunity to listen to stories of three veterans Anthony Salvatore William Heaney and Ashton Haswell it was a wonderful way to commemorate Veterans Day as a Cromwell Middle School community supercalifragilisticexpialidocious the CMS drama club is excited to announce that this year's production will be Mary Poppins the auditions will be starting November 29th 30th and December 1st and performances will be March 24th and 26th thank you both are there any questions for our student reps hearing then we'll move on to the high school Olivia for General announcements teachers held parent conferences both virtually and in person it was a success students watched
044the Veterans Day ceremony in the town hall virtually and were encouraged to wear camo or clothing related to the military branches both choir and band participated in the assembly and is equate a senior spoke Spanish National Honor Society had their induction ceremony yesterday National Honor Society hosted a Veterans Day breakfast in the cafeteria they are also participating in a Munson's Chocolate fundraiser CHS planned a school trip to the historically black colleges and universities college fair today at Mohegan Sun in the powder puff seniors versus Juniors game was held today after school and the second game is to be expected on Monday November 21st against Rocky Hill at Rocky Hill High School the fall Sports season has come to an end the football team sadly lost their winning streak while playing against Rockville on Thursday the
0459th they will play on the 23rd of November against Rocky Hill the boys soccer team won the game against Bacon Academy on Friday the 10th meaning that they will play in the semi-final game sometimes this week East Kenny made first team all-conference the girls soccer team won the game against Ansonia on Thursday the 9th they had a game which will determine whether they get into the semi-finals soon Lily Kenny Olivia lucitani and Cameron hickey made first team all-conference Lily Kelly Lilly Kenny also got goalie of the Year April LeBlanc and Audrey Dana made second Team all conference and Katie Barber received honorable mention the girls volleyball team officially finished their season and Brandon Kovacs received honorable mention and the girls and boys cross country team season ended last week with the state opens Dylan bathrick
046a sophomore meet second team all-conference thank you very much any questions hey hearing none I did just want to mention also that I received some correspondence that would fall into the public comment portion but I was not going to read them all as it was lengthy and they will be attached to the minutes and they were from Suzanne rutner Sierra Stone and Beth falcigno and those were all in support of the book that was mentioned this evening moving on to reports of Liaisons from Town Council Board of Finance I don't think anyone is here this evening so we will also talk about the building committee which you should have a copy of in reference reference C I moved that item up just to keep it with the liaison reports so we do have the report
047prepared by Rosanna Glenn and I'm sure you've all had a chance to read through it looks like they're looking at concept A for the building and their next meeting is tomorrow night we do also have Jessica Lam here who is on that committee so if anyone did have any questions now is a good time and maybe she would respond are there any questions on this report okay and they also have an update from Catherine Russ about the field committee meeting hi um so since Reno farisi couldn't make it and Kelly Maher our assistant chair couldn't make it I'll provide the update um the board the athletic field committee was approved by Town Council for funding of two hundred thousand dollars for two parts to our project one part being a an assessment of all the
048fields at Cromwell high school and the second part being an assessment of the drainage because that's a huge problem at most of our Fields but this one is sticking with just all the high school fields so the next step in that process for us is for approval by Town Council excuse me Board of finance and that will be this Thursday night and then we'll have another meeting in December hopefully all is approved and we can start moving forward with um getting someone to actually perform these assessments for us so that's good any questions thank you and we'll move on to superintendents updates and responses to Board of Ed comments action items from the prior meeting Dr macri um I've sent you all the updates I send them to you weekly um but I just really
049want to talk about our Veterans Day ceremony um I worked in a district where all students had Veterans Day off and coming to a district four years ago where students come to school on Veterans Day Has is unbelievable to me a huge thank you to our administrators our staff our music teachers our band directors everyone going from school to school and then going to town hall and watching our students perform and going to the breakfast and having so many veterans attend I cannot tell you how many tears I saw from our veterans just to feel the respect that they deserve from our students and our students truly learning so much about why we celebrate Veterans Day and I we have four students here and I know they're probably thinking my friends had the day off
050at another District but you've come right up it's probably been like the last 10 years where we've had school on Veterans Day and I guess I'm just enthralled by everything that you are learning and how we celebrate our veterans and I just want you to know that I'm so proud of all of you and everything that you do and that we did for our veterans they're very very happy and it was really nice to make their day extra special and we were running late so I'll admit I have an expense um my poor uh band High School band and choir was running late from town hall to Covenant living and they were supposed to stop at McDonald's and they were going to make it and I saw poor Mr Schmidt stressing out and I said
051can I help you he said they're not going to be able to eat so don't worry I will get them Pizza we got them delivered pizza delivered and we put it on the board of education credit card 261 dollars so that our students can eat um so but it was a great day and I'm just so proud of all of you and I hope you learned a lot is there anything you want to share like how do you feel about coming to school on Veterans Day besides the fact that you don't get to sleep late haha it's always been for you right you've always done it I honestly don't mind it I I love coming in and like being able to like experience because like you do forget the meaning of it when you go
052home and take the day off so I personally enjoy it great thank you I agree with you Liv any questions for Dr mackery okay we'll move on to presentations and reports of administration the 2022-2023 budget update reference a in your packet Miss Burke if you'd like to come up good evening we've put in your packet the um month ended for October 31st still really early in the year and we are um we're of about where we should be um these numbers will change as the years year goes by as not every single expense that we have is already encumbered but the vast majority of them are for example the culinary arts program we're getting a new kitchen but um so those supplies that they need on a semester basis will be ordered later in the
053year so um this is where we stand right now um and as I said this is a this is about typical for this time of the year and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have for any of the um the lines or the objects or just General Financial questions that you might have I was just curious if this includes the recent water main break issue or this does not okay but that was a very minimal expense okay so not concerning in the scheme of the the overall budget okay thank you any other questions Catherine and then Lori um I'll just keep it to two for now um there are there's a large increase in our tuition um which I'm assuming that people Transportation goes along with that but also um did
054we include the effective School Solutions in any of these forecasted numbers and what is causing the large increase in our tuition tuition is driven by special education so increases in special assessments and other expenses an anticipated increases then on the ceilings okay yes so what we budget for when we do our budget is based on the current student population at that time so any given year ago like as when we budget we budget a year in advance so so we've Budget on our population a year in advance just because we we have to so we do this is something that all districts struggle with and thank goodness are they all increasing in their special heads yeah I feel like we went up a lot last year in special ed and we're going up again that's
055correct that's correct and I was um I was at a meeting of um the board of directors for casbo which is my professional group and every business manager in that room we were just we're all experiencing the same increases in tuition um so it is a it is a definitely a Statewide struggle um because we're not seeing an increase in student population we have a lot of um we're not the only ones and there is many there's a lot of conversation and legislation going on about how can we possibly get more help um to help all school districts because we are seeing an increase and obviously we want our students to get everything that they need but it's very costly um and uh we will continue to have conversations with legislators about how they can
056possibly help us but right now no extra help has come our way are you all set with your questions Catherine yeah okay Lori just on the kitchen I don't know if you are able to answer this question but with the status are we on track um for on the timeline that was told to us before for the kitchen to be ready yes we were supposed to be opening it hopefully by January 1st then we were told that we thought we might see it open in mid-December I think the electrical panel is the part that is still in question so keeping our fingers crossed for the mid-December date but January 1st is looking or January 2nd is looking more like the date Tommy's not here this evening but I could definitely check with him tomorrow and
057get back to you in the update yeah sure I just feel like we've been promised dates it keeps getting moved move move move now we're going to be halfway through the school year yeah so you know it has a lot to do with that electrical panel that's on you know back order with so many different manufacturers but we did find one that said they would get it to us sooner um so I'll find out where we are with that then let you know thank you any other questions Matt so we I know ESS is slated to start soon um I'm assuming we have not paid them yet like we haven't had to give them any money yet we have not paid when we do where and where is this like what what line item is
058that going to fall under it'll fall under um other professional Technical Services okay it could also fall under pupil services but sarri and I will talk about the best classification we do have a big book of guidance that we can look at but it will fall under that purchase Services it will not fall under tuition okay okay um and again the hope is that this will actually help curtail some of the tuition we are we're hoping uh yes any other questions for Miss Burke okay thank you old business we have none new business item a discussion and possible approval relocate Little League shed at West we have anyone anyone here for that topic no I think we can take that off of our we put it on because we said to put it on again
059but um I believe that um Jim vincetti and Jason LeBlanc are working on it with the town through Parks and Rec so as of now we haven't heard anything back they're still talking about perhaps Rising it so until we hear back from them that it has to come on the agenda I think we're done with it for now okay so we'll table it until I know what the official name of eliminating yeah we have no idea what the item would be yeah does anyone know what that would be eliminating an item versus tabling it we could keep until we get more info but yeah I just don't know the proper word for well I'll find out just the removal okay so we need a motion for that now right okay Item B discussion and possible
060action school calendar 2023 2024 reference B in your packet and we also have copies of the current year school calendar is this it so you're getting um you were sent in your packet the 23 24 calendar and you are just being provided with the 22-23 calendar just so that you can reference back because there's a few things that I'd like to draw your attention to um that obviously you set the calendar so I want you to be able to make these decisions um one um Columbus Day is technically still called Columbus Day and it is a net it is a national holiday however there was a proclamation submitted on October 8 2021 um recognizing indigenous people day by the president of the United States the national holiday is still Columbus Day a lot of districts
061what they've been doing calendars that I've looked at have either gone with indigenous people's day or have done indigenous people's day and Columbus Day um it is up to you how you would like to uh keep that how you would you know if you'd like to change it to indigenous people's day in Columbus Day if you'd like to keep it Columbus Day if you'd like to change it to indigenous people day people's day that is up to you um and your decision I just want to make sure that we we do it correctly that's the first thing the second thing I'd like to draw your attention to is that we made and it could cause a problem with our calendar if we have too much snow um but Juneteenth Juneteenth uh June 19th is an
062official holiday so we will not attend school we talked about you know if we should attend school how could we make it so that it's a learning opportunity but the problem is is that that time of year is um so filled with so many different things going on and we don't know if our kids will be here or won't be here so we could put all this effort into creating something and we may not have students at school that day um that doesn't mean that they won't have an opportunity to learn about it it just means it's more realistic to observe that holiday and not come to school based on just the way that it falls in our calendar we did observe it this year but there were no students so it was easier everyone
063the staff who works 12 months did get it as a as a paid holiday however we didn't have any issues as far as students we may and I think it's our best bet to observe the holiday with our luck we'll have school until June 20th of a day off the day before um so that's that's the other thing um you'll notice everything else we we try to streamline the calendar um for you so that it's easier to read um thank you to Lisa Hicks for doing that you will notice there are 25 one I'm sorry um early dismissal days I am asking the board to um I know we've talked about this and this has been a conversation and I obviously I need to hear from you I would like to continue to uh have
064those professional development days there has been a request from the EAC to per to consider adding four more which would make it 29 days I also am trying to be respectful of what our staff needs as far as professional development and what our students need and what our parents need so I think that should be a conversation that you should have as well as of now my proposal is for the 25 days this year current year right now we have 26 PD days which is time well spent our teachers there's a lot that's going on and we obviously have students with from all different so it's kind of a catch-22 right and that's something you have to think about we have students that that are we're trying to meet them where they are right so
065we have to plan to meet them where they are and then at the same time we have to have them here so it is a conundrum that you get to decide on and um the other thing that I want to draw your attention to lastly is the parent-teacher conference days so we have been out of compliance at the secondary level um there's a statute that says that we must allow parents to meet with teachers two times a year so it means same parents twice a year so we've been doing that at the elementary school not at the secondary levels um and when it was drawn to my attention um kovid hit and we were doing things virtually and parents and teachers were meeting quite often through virtual communication but it's time that we fix everything
066officially on the calendar so uh this is we don't have a choice it's statutory so we're proposing November 1st 2nd for CMS and CHS um one evening one uh so we'll have early dismissal on both of those days so for example let's start with that so you want to fully understand it yeah so the problem with this and with this calendar is if you look at November 1st if you go to Tuesday it's Halloween so we have a problem there with Halloween that doesn't mean we can't change it next year and have a day in between we've heard from some people and I can't say I've heard from the teachers union but I when I asked how many teachers would would like that the day in between um we were unsure on but the the
067some people like to get them out of the way two days in a row and get them done and some people would like the day in between there they are not two nights in a row so I think that has to be make sure that you understand so if we were to look at November 1st and 2nd on the new calendar so students would be dismissed at 11 30. at secondary and students I'm sorry at elementary they'd be dismissed at 12 10. students would leave teachers would have start their day with conferences at about one o'clock they would go until about 7 pm and they would schedule their own dinner or break whatever they need um the next day is not an evening conference so it's you end the school day for the half day
068release and then we start conferences right away and teachers only go to their contracted time so it's not two evenings in a row um some teachers like the split in between the day others it doesn't really technically matter the only problem that we're running into is October 31st is Halloween in that situation so uh we I propose for this year uh we leave it as as is and uh November 8th and 9th we kind of have the same kind of drum with election day so no one will be here on the seventh so we have a an issue just because of the way it is so I appreciate the new format for the calendar however it's slightly confusing for example on these days of the first and the second we know C CHS and CMS
069would be half day for conferences however it does not tell us what the other schools will be doing are they early release on that Wednesday or not there's no I can't code that you see what I'm saying no as if there's no purple see what I mean if there's so they'd have a full day of school it's only the where there is if there's nothing the assumption that it's always default to a full day so if there's no purple it is confusing well and most of these everyone prints them out in black and white so if we try printing this in black and white see what it looks like I'd be more I mean than happy to usually people go online and look at it just like click online and look at it they don't
070really print it but if any parents or if anybody ever requested a color copy from us we'd be more than happy to send one home um but usually people look at it I've always printed it yeah and more than half my kids always ask for printing copies I'd be more than happy to give any okay um so so back to some of your other issues I know we have the conferences wanted to discuss but when you were talking about that we had to make a difficult decision on with the first piece with I I was confused at what decision we had to make about the Wednesdays so you um are you saying that we can pull out the early release days or leave them in or what what would his website I would strongly recommend
071that you do not um pull out the 25 that we have in here but you wanted me to bring this forward to you every year year by year remember last year you asked me to bring this forward to you every year and you wanted to look at the the release days on a year-to-year basis I am um telling you that we have a lot that needs to be done still um and I don't believe that's going to go away anytime soon and I could have Dr McLean come up and talk about some of the things that we're looking especially with State Statute and mandates as far as a whole new curriculum being proposed for reading uh K-5 that's not going away so I asked you to really consent I know it's hard for families but
072we need the time with our teachers to do the planning and the professional development that they need yeah three went up at once I think I was it Jen okay thanks uh I think you're right families are not super thrilled with with the early dismissals so um maybe can we have a little bit of discussion about exactly how that time has been used this past year has it been formal PD or has it been the teachers kind of go off and do their thing I think it would be good for families to know what that time is being used for sure Dr McLean will step right up um if she would do about your supervisors or no we have every minute we do have every minute plans I don't I don't know that people love
073that either um but we do have we have a very detailed professional development calendar that's on our webpage and I can share that with you um but it does detail exactly what is happening during those times it's not you know it's not sort of extra planning time it's it's PLC time it's curriculum development time it's it's professional development time Kelly so I just feel I'm not a big fan of the Wednesdays personally as a parent and from I've heard from other staff that work in our district that it seems like a good idea at the beginning but they feel like they don't have enough time like they liked it better with the one half day Wednesday every month because they had more trunk time to have a full PD instead of this little increments and
074that they're not getting to meet with the groups that originally it was playing for and I understand everything is like book day like time to time but as hearing from them and as a parent I I mean I know it was there for covid I know we were there for doing virtual but I feel that it's not really beneficial for the personally the parents or the kids at the moment so I I could be wrong but I don't remember us taking away half days it was my understanding that we just added the Wednesdays we didn't take away any of the half days that are currently in no we have half days that are traditionally half days but for you to have every I thought it was every third Wednesday we had a half day of
075the month no no like a few minutes years ago no I feel like um it was third and I'm sorry it's before covid we definitely maybe it was before maybe it was before us but since I've been here we haven't taken away any of the half days that were in the calendar we added the early release it was Wednesdays to Elementary maybe according to this it looks like it's just three half days and then the end Coach or Sue Lynch teacher teacher conference we used to release Ramsay well I feel I'm sorry unfortunately Andrew the high school always had earlier we always had earlier every week they had early release we added it to the elementary Thursday's early release but it was never um a half day I think you also think that was only
076High I'm sorry but I think you might be also thinking of the two if you have people that you know work in the district the two hour we used to have on Thursdays they were two hour PD days for teachers after the work day I think that was on the third Thursday just as a pair I thought we always had like a half day Wednesday during the month but I guess I'm not no I I do vaguely remember that as well I just don't know what year that started days at least once a month or every other so I guess the question is do you find it effective to have these one hour weekly PDS versus having another option to be honest with you so I just assumed that this was what you know we
077had on the table um so I I didn't realize that that had happened before or that that was even an option um when that I don't remember that ever happening here so we weren't here I mean I don't know for stretches of time are better yeah there's no doubt about it because once you kind of get in the zone then it's hard to start and stop and start and stop and then by the time you get done with bus Duty and by the you know like it's really not an hour anyway and so I I would love to look at that so the only thing I okay so the only thing that I want to make sure you understand because every minute is accounted for and we need every minute that we have so for
078example something parents may not love it's fine and when we get uh you know get going when with September October um November but just notice that in December it's three hours of PD so well then we still have the two-hour PD days so it would be no they're saying Get rid of the No No they're saying just get rid of the Hour release and put in half days okay so we would still have those but we still have the two hour that's contractual now remember February there's four earlier release which would mean we would need two half days is that something that we're willing to we thought the one hour was helpful to families we as the Educators would we'd prefer to go to the half days we can have the full we we would
079prefer that we were trying to do this to help families because if someone had to leave work early to pick up their child it wasn't as early as they would need to but it's every week okay Laura you had a question yeah just to be clear I I would be in favor of instead of doing it an hour every week if you but but I wouldn't want to decrease any more student time students time in the building agree so it would have to be a matter of okay you have one half day a month instead of four hour releases so at the time time doesn't increase for the students to be losing more instructional time agreed so I got what you guys are saying you want to have maybe a three or four hour block
080but not in addition to because it's already it's already I would not go over what we already have now because I agree yeah why don't we have this brought back to the team though when you discuss with everyone and bring it back to us because I wouldn't want to make that decision tonight no absolutely not we would be more than happy to be more than happy to figure out how to do this in half day increments so that we can do half days and have it's I think the teachers will like that much better everybody will like it much better it's more effective we were doing this it stemmed from covid and we just well and the and the secondary was always dismant the high school always had the early dismissal and so it was
081at that point you know when everybody there you know like they have more time than we do and so we you know which is interesting but that doesn't impact families as much because those agree mostly right the part with the family impact is that it's not every single Wednesday exactly so every Tuesday night you have to look to say when is my child coming home tomorrow yeah I think that's the most be more than happy to go to have to half day and propose something to you yeah yeah at our next meeting you're saying that we would be required for like February in May that have four um our release days that we would have to do two half days to make up for that right but couldn't you just shift some things to another
082month no then you then you kick four in and we could look at it I mean we definitely can look at it and bring you some ideas for sure like this was we didn't I honestly did not think we even had that option right so now that you bring that to the table and you want to look at it this is up this is your purview we would be more than happy to look at it and present you with a beautiful half day schedule does anyone feel differently or dip to you in a question I agree with that I like the idea of that I think it's hard for a lot of parents at those younger levels to find child care and especially for parents with to have children with disabilities it's very hard to
083find child care so to do that every single week it's a hardship on a lot of people yeah no absolutely you just have to say that word and we will go back and make a schedule and bring We'll make a couple different ones and we'll bring them to you so to Selena's point of can we move those some of those in the prior and I can see where we would kick into the conferences would we ever consider doing conferences on like a Monday Thursday to eliminate the Wednesday confusion I am completely open to in this situation we might not even have the Wednesday confusion right if we look at a different schedule yeah it is up to you I could look at different things um I'm saying because because of those two months where we
084have four singles and Selena said can we push them to another month the two months we want to push them to you could you could actually push them to have conferences scheduled on those Wednesdays we have to be careful it has to because we have marking periods and we have to make sure that they are um within the marketers well it has to be an equal amount of time in between and Miss Coachella tell me if I'm wrong right but marking periods we have to make sure that there is split you know as evenly as possible throughout the year the conferences well that's what I'm saying like and you know the first two weeks of November put it on a Monday Thursday as an option potentially instead of a Wednesday Thursday you're talking about parent-teacher
085conferences correct make room for the half days got it does that make sense yeah and it's It's tricky because if we're releasing on a half day well it might not be that tricky because then they can have three half days in a row [Music] I don't know if parents will be so happy about that though I don't know I have two in elementary school and I know how hard it is it's not easy that's how some people's schedule is and it kind of there's no perfect answer we could bring some ideas to you and have you the the hard part of all this is that it's really difficult to have one you have to come up with a consensus right but now you see what we go through when we're trying to make these calendar
086there's it's no there's no perfect answer we spend a lot of time trying to do this um because we're not going to please everybody all the time um even within our school staff we're not going to as it is now Administration makes it work we I don't want to if you think it's less of a burden to parents we would be more than happy to do half days that I guess I think the parent-teacher conference thing we have to look at carefully so that we don't have like we said election day off then parent-teacher conference half day then the other you know so that kids are never in school that week and parents are frustrated as to how to find you know daycare but we'll bring you a few different options I think the board
087is an agreement that we just want the time to be used to the best you know and if we have all these releases in different times all the time the kids need structure you know if if you have a certain amount of time let's get the maximum out of it so um we do our best yeah but this will make it way better so do we have to approve this by a certain date no I I will go back and redo it and I'll bring it back to you in December do we want to go through all of it in December you want to check off some of these other things like the indigenous people day versus Columbus Day we can talk about that now or at least let's talk about that now this way
088we could bring it back oh sorry let's go back I said one question I know we're talking about this is there a way like pair [Music] mean candleworms so that's a can of worms that we don't want because it'll be completely disagree this is where I say to my say to all of you give your input this is a nightmare you want one thing and parents who want another and I'm trying to make the best decisions for kids and follow contracts well also okay I can I was just telling Kelly and unfortunately our two high schoolers left but the high schoolers love having once a week where they get out half a day early or majority of them do because it's kind of a catch-up day for them because their workloads are significantly higher than
089there is no perfect schedule no matter what we do as you all know um it's going someone's not going to be happy so putting this together is so confusing and I we gave you the best version of what we think but I I think um we have we know we have to follow a statue on how many hours that we have to have you know it's in order to make days complete what we interact really to court to cover our curriculum that's what we really need to make sure that we're covering everything um and we have a good idea of what that is we reported to the state department every year so we have that in mind and then we want to work around all the other things that are difficult for everybody but to
090say that it'll be everyone will give me a high five and say this is a great schedule that's never going to happen and so it puts alleviates a little pressure from you just just blame me but at the end I am looking at all of it in a you know not in a vacuum but the big picture because we'll never get people to agree um I I know that unfortunately too well so we'll go back we'll do the half days we will um Reserve uh the parent-teacher conference thing we'll I think you're telling me I I don't know how else to make it work because if I was to go if you look at in March the second round then if I was to do a day in between for elementary March um 13 14.
091we could actually do let me just double check make sure yeah there's already a half day in there yeah so let let us take another you know look at this but yeah we we are more than happy I was just trying I didn't think that you would ever um want the half days but we would perform that way too we will not increase so that's what another thing so we have been asked can we always we can always use more time obviously but I also understand the reality of that our kids need to be in school so that was the second decision that I wanted you to have the discussion of um I have been asked to ask you to increase the time by four more hours so I want to respect what you told
092me to do last year as a no and bring it to your attention because when it's in your purview I want you to make the decision I don't want to see that revisit it next year after we try these this new approach because maybe by having the half day versus the one hour where you can't get much done maybe that will feel like they're getting everything they need in the time that we already allotted yeah because I was going to say what's the reasoning for increasing it by four hours but it sounds like that's tied to the idea that it's such a short period of time they can't really continue it's it's almost like the learning is broken up right like like whatever curriculum is that they're working on during this time that hour's not
093enough to really cover it so it's kind of broken up over those Wednesdays it's hard to kind of follow along I totally understand that because it takes about 10 minutes to just get back on track and remember where you left off right but if you know but if getting it Consolidated into one half day um that was a huge help that would actually my media get that and get rid of that whole need for the four hours right I wanted to bring it to your attention because I knew how strongly you felt about it and this is in your purview as as Laurie said um that you did not want to increase it um I wanted to let you know that some people would like more time but I think this is going to solve
094the problem because we have a conundrum right we need our teachers to be the best and of all the PD they need but then we also need our kids in school so I'm hearing that you want me to stick to the half days and try to make it work with the time right okay and then just come back with either a couple of options or if you've met with everyone else and you've determined an option bring that to us okay yes Jen this might be just stupid my mic is really loud um this might be a stupid question but why do we call exam week exhibition week because it's going to be exhibition week from now on um Ramsay Miss Bingington would you like to come up and talk about exhibition we it's not a
095stupid question um we're trying something a little more Performance Based with some of our students and giving them opportunities but uh that's actually exactly what Our intention was to move away from in terms and final exams towards more performance-based tasks that we talk a lot about rigor and relevance in Cromwell and so moving from those a b quadrants to a CD where it's more student initiated student work student thinking rather than it being a teacher initiated task so we just changed the verbiage a little bit to in an attempt to make it more clear what our intentions were so that doesn't mean we won't ever have exams but we want to offer our students the choice and their own voice to be heard of how they want to present the information that they've learned so
096they may have every child has never experienced that yeah where we want to move towards that that's where we're going um yeah but we we want to move towards this but you're I think well it's new but I thought it was here last year too but I also think you have to be careful on what classes your students take to so like if your kids are in AP classes there's no choice but to take the AP exam we want to shift the way we're looking at things so for example this year and I wish Mr cockle was here but he's not um and I'll have him talk more about it we are getting involved with um through cap not Capstone through uh he spoke to you all about it um the beginning of the year
097a little bit about the workforce and getting our kids out in the work oh career Pathways yeah sorry Pathways thank you it's been a long day um so when you are doing a pathway when you're choosing a pathway you should still be responsible for exhibiting the work that you've done and that you've learned you're not necessarily going to take one assessment because it doesn't make sense but if you're if you're leaving school to go to work to get a credit because that's eventually where we want to get to right that you still have to then come back and show us what you've learned so the best way to do that would be to exhibit it we are not there 100 yet and if if you have children who are taking AP uh they definitely probably
098haven't experienced too many uh exhibitions uh to exhibit their work because if they don't take the assessments the exams it doesn't count it also allows us a little bit of wiggle room with our students who have 504s and IEPs in order for assessments to look different towards each individual's needs so they would still get agreed but it's not an exam it's a different way of it could be a presentation it could be a group project it could be a multiple choice question there's lots of different presentations that the assessments are looking like um so the the jargon just is a little bit more all-encompassing so the idea is that students can exhibit that they know what they've learned and every student may do it in a different manner we'd like to eventually get to the
099point where all students have a choice of how but that is we are nowhere near all of that right now that's the way we we kind of want to move can can students in elementary school could a student choose to just have a final exam instead of having to exhibit something and the reason I asked that is because like some students prefer to just take a test and be done with it like I know some students here they want to sit down they want to study they want to you know prepare for a couple weeks beforehand study 20 30 minutes a night I'm hoping some students are listening to this right now um over the course of a couple weeks to prepare for an exam and at the same time we know there are other
100students who they do not demonstrate well in exams what they learned it's not how they best show their knowledge so I guess the the ultimate the question is do they have the option to take a formal final exam instead of exhibiting something or is everyone required to do this to do an exhibit so it's looking very different uh grade to grade class class Department to Department we have some teachers who are doing a lot of student choice and that's actually a goal um it's part of our our vision what we're working on that student choice piece so some teachers are offering options for those that exam showcase window and other teachers are still at a place where this is what I need you to show me at this point in time that was a good
101question man I like that because there are some introverted students that would really opt to just take a test and I'm not saying they should always do that but if every class becomes an exhibition I could see that being you know not fair to that student so definitely keep in mind that students who have perhaps um presentation anxiety those 504s are always honored and so in that case again with a 50p have a 504 if you have anxiety no you might not but just so that we know you know a student would certainly not be held accountable if they have a plan that would deviate from this it's really about having a discussion with the student if there's and the teacher knowing their students so but remember we also want to prepare them for the
102real world too so that doesn't mean we take away how they're they're going to need to present in the real world that means we provide them scaffolds right and how so that they can do it um with support with support with support without support because we don't want them to be able to leave us and say Okay um you can't work with a group of people because you are so introverted and your voice is never heard we want to build that Scaffolding in so that when they leave us they're prepared to work and like Ramsay said it could look very differently at every teacher still have autonomy we're not taking away autonomy of that but we also want more student choice and student voice to be there thank you I just think it's also Fair
103real world you know different different jobs have different requirements I had to take a three-hour test to to get my teacher certification at some point really I don't remember that ever I'm sure right mine was six right but it was it was you know that was a test it was it was like studying for another let go of no I know that but I'm just I want to make sure that it's that the exhibition idea isn't it it doesn't exclude the option for an exam because they I just think there are some kids who would much prefer one and done hour and a half long final exam I don't have to be up in front of people I don't have to prepare you know a tri-board I don't have to do anything visual or creative
104because it's not my jam you know yeah I think I think that's the whole point of this right is to give students the choice of how they want to demonstrate their you know what they know there might be assignments and it may not be the final exam where they have to do something that to bring them out of their comfort zone but I think the whole purpose of the exam piece is how you know how can I best Express is what I know and I don't think any of that we're not going to see that anytime soon as far as that and I think it should that's something between the teacher and the student you know working that out okay so let's go back to the other questions we had to address on the calendar
105indigenous Peach people versus Columbus Day do we want to make a decision on that I'm going to reference what Dr macri printed out try to get as much information for you you can read you could read about it over the next month and make oh so you want to wait on that I don't Ma I don't mind because at this point we're coming back with the calendar anyway you could do your own research sure sure and you could um yeah this is the proclamation by uh our president and it was signed on October 8 2021. I'll have Lisa send you this so the state department of Ed hasn't told districts what to call it so it's up every District calls it whatever they want Yeah so basically it's still considered a holiday I mean if
106you look at calendars a lot of them I looked at other districts some still say Columbus Day a lot say indigenous Columbus Day some just say indigenous so I think it's up to the board uh I think it's up to you I know it's up to you to make that decision so if you want to do that same research you just click onto districts and look at it and read about it there's a lot of information out there as to people's thoughts so I think educating yourselves I'll send you stuff too but I think you should do that on your own as well and decide and determine as a board how you want to approach it but a lot of them do say indigenous day and Columbus Day they say they say both all right
107why is it the board's job to name the holiday like I mean I just feel like this is going to be our decision it should be coming I feel like the guidance should be coming from the state department of EDS and this is what the holiday is called like so what every 169 pounds everyone's going to vote on what we're calling it yeah I'm with you let's let the state call this one I I just don't I mean we could talk about this for hours you know well it's right um the official name is still currently Columbus Day why don't we let it lie and then if it changes we'll update it okay I mean it's up to you that I don't want to I can't make that decision any more than you can I'm
108not in favor of the slash that's the wishy-washy that's it okay right is it our place to name the holiday like let them change it efficiently let them change adopt it yeah unfortunately in this situation it is yours because you approve the calendar um so it's completely up to you we don't have to make any changes and leave it the way it is but you know I always tell you what's not in your purview this really is so and it's a hard decision and you should be happy that there's other things so let's just move this along by a show of hands who wants to keep the name Columbus Day we have three well we're deciding whether to just make a decision or wait so four of us are ready to make a decision and
109three would like more information so let's table it okay okay so you're going to do so we'll send you this but then you you'll do some research on your own and then we'll okay okay in the June 19th holiday we need to observe it so what's the decision we need to make here I I would say let's observe it and have school off it's too complicated right now that doesn't mean that in the future we don't we just have no idea what will happen we will know will know where we fall on the calendar come April and we can make a change as needed yeah the hard thing is is no matter where we are especially when you make a decision for graduation day most of our seniors are already out the door there are
110a lot of our kids who would be performing you know do it could become an issue but it doesn't mean we can't do it okay so we'll just table the whole calendar yep I have my well that's why we do this so early so because I have my all right so we'll move on are we did you did a review of Veterans Day do we have building principles yeah building principals that are here um to come up and quick and do a quick review let's start with um ECS good evening everyone Veterans Day was awesome at ECS we had two ceremonies over 39 veterans attended uh Mrs Chapman our Music Teacher if you know her she is to the detail we had singing We had poems we had speeches um and it was really touching
111because we would announce the veteran and then the child who they were connected to and some of them saluted to them it just brought tears to your eyes so it was very meaningful at ACS something that we traditionally do every year and so we're back after Cove doing it again it's excellent that's great thank you it was a beautiful ceremony and I have to say the cutest thing about the whole thing there's a lot of cute things but one little boy through the slideshow that was about three to four minutes long he sat there and saluted the entire time through the entire slideshow picture but I don't want to embarrass him um it was just it was very nice and to see grandparents with their grandchildren and you know it was it was really nice
112and their parents too you know moms and dads and their children hi everyone um at Woodside we invite veterans to come into every classroom and speak directly to the students so we had about 25 veterans visit Woodside on the day which is fantastic every classroom had at least one visitor some classrooms had two or three most of the visitors were linked to a student or staff member in that room so that was kind of special and they took about 20 to 30 minutes they talked about their service to the country maybe how they you know ended up in that position and a little bit of a story or um you know anecdote about their service and then of course kids always have questions too so they answered questions um we love this model because we
113feel like kids are able to connect directly with a veteran and they're realizing that veterans are you know so-and-so's grandfather or uncle or brother or mother or father um and that you know they're dedicating a huge part of their life to support the country and keep people safe so um that part is always uh very exciting and emotional um we had a period of time in the morning when many of the veterans were waiting in the office to go down to visit their classrooms and the teachers send a student down to pick up their veteran and bring them down to the room but just having a chance to talk with them and also hear from them that they truly appreciate the um the opportunity to come into the classrooms and speak directly to the kids
114they they appreciate that as well so we're happy to provide that the other piece is that all of our all of our grade levels have different read aloud activities that they're doing within their classrooms that are all related around Veterans Day so again stressing the importance of veterans within our community or their commitment to our country as well so it's a full day it's wonderful thank you very much hello everyone you heard from my fabulous articulate CMS reps they talked about Vietnam Viet Vietnam I'm going to go into that or Veterans Day our kids talked about our whole school assembly and that has been our um format for years so we were very fortunate to have three veterans come in all tied to our kids at school Tony Salvatore who's also the town manager as
115you know his grandson is in eighth grade so he came in and spoke he was a Vietnam vet Mr William Haney his great niece is in our school so he spoke he was also a Vietnam vet and then Mr Haswell who has on two nephews and also his mom is our night custodian he was an Army Sergeant so he came in and spoke about again a different method as to why he was also a Cromwell student and you know person who lives here all his life but talked about the importance of service and our kids were just they they amazed me I mean we had 400 and something kids in that Auditorium and you could hear a pin drop when the uh those folks spoke so I was very proud of them and it was
116very emotional our select choir saying our national anthem and then our band saying or rather performed medley of of songs and then at the end concluded with TAPS in a moment of silence so it was really really beautiful uh ceremony for the veterans thank you great thank you so Cromwell High School set the scene for the day with students and staff dressed in Camp and patriotic colors we welcome veterans in to share a breakfast with us which was catered by Alicia Keys our fantastic calf supervisor we had veterans visiting our history classrooms and we invited students who wanted to come and listen to the stories in the history behind their experiences to sit in in those classes if somebody they knew specifically was speaking in one classroom we wanted to make it available to all
117our band and choir performed at the Town Hall and we live streamed that into all of our classrooms and that was possible because our News broadcasting crew went with the band in choir down to town hall and did all of the media and Tech coverage for that so that was really exciting and then finally our NHS wrote letters of gratitude to the veterans very nice so glad we're able to do our Traditions that we've we haven't done in a couple of years and welcome veterans back into the building and I think it's really impactful to especially the young ones where it's kind of a vague subject so to have them right there and sharing their experiences that that's the best okay we'll move on to item e table of organization 2022 2023 reference D in
118your packet and this is our org chart which we do every year yep we just review this every year so that you know and it's in the packet so that if any anyone knows um it needs this information I just share it with everyone I just have one comment after a year now I could probably fill in so many names some of these people but we get the one with some actual list the individual I want the names well that changes so often but oh well it doesn't have to I mean yeah yeah I feel like I actually think I think Alan actually will actually passed next year can we have the people's names I think I sent it to you last year when you asked me for it I have the specific okay yeah
119I have this with names okay but I will yeah I mean I feel bad that Alan doesn't know everyone's name um but I wouldn't mind if you sent me one of those too I'll send it out send names right on it sure no problem sure Lori uh I was just I don't know if I asked this last year if it so the paraprofessionals they fall under the principles so they don't report to Siri I thought they would land under you he's a little dotted line there so level is first and then um District level so that goes for everything so if you go to a little time no I see it I just was surprised that it was in that column so yeah because it's Siri's not in the buildings all day right yeah no
120I know it's just that they well I mean contractually most most contracts when you have the grievance procedure it starts at the building level building supervisor and goes up so that would actually align with that as well does cbas this is just a good reminder too for us to show the chain of command so if you know someone to ask you something you know where they would flow under so to speak so they would contact First and next and then ultimately yes all right so we don't have to approve that or anything next we have action set the 2022 2023 tuition rate reference e we also do this every year and it's basically the the budget that's that was approved divided by the number of students enrolled and you have your number sometimes it does
121include durg which we don't have I don't know if that's if that really matters but um it'd be interesting at some point to see I think but are there any questions on the tuition rate find it there it is no questions okay um we do actually it's an action so we should approve the tuition rate is there a motion to approve the 2022-2023 student tuition rate dipty second by Kelly all in favor opposed extensions motion carries the tuition rates approved another action item G is approval of Board of Education meeting schedule reference F in your packet which you might have noticed is a little bit abbreviated there are a couple of combined meetings but we could always add one if needed as a special meeting yes don't shoot me but there's only one in October
122right there's a couple of months I noticed April May and October were reduced to one one for April October oh I went back I thought I saw two in April and two in May oh maybe that maybe it was a special okay April we have one because of a break right okay yeah but October we always have two every October it's a lighter agenda Beyond I'm just trying to do the best I can to keep everyone not out every single night especially those of us who have to attend building committee meetings and everything else we're out every single night same for you if there isn't anything that is uh pressing there really is no need to have two in October but if you'd like to have two we can but and if there's anything ever
123that's really pressing I have to call a special meeting you know anyway and you guys I don't want to say that we've been kind of lucky we haven't really had to that much this year but that usually doesn't happen um so it's up to you I just tried there's no reason really for us to have two meetings in October is my uh perspective based on um there's nothing overly pressing okay and the district data presentation was in October but I think that was just for this year not necessarily every year so that might not be an issue either yep okay is there a motion to approve the meeting schedule I saw Lori and second by Catherine all in favor opposed extensions motion carries and the agenda is meeting schedule is approved next we have an
124action item for approval of Board of Education sorry nope yes Motion in minutes October 25th regular meeting committee meeting schedules right okay if there's any questions on the committee meetings typo nice catch yep yes and then you also questioned to me earlier the 4 30 and that's I think because it's summer and our meeting would be at 5 30 and then that would be 4 30. yeah yeah so in the summer we did 4 30 yeah and then okay so Catherine made a motion to amend to approve the amended agenda with that one change is there a second Kelly C all in favor opposed abstentions motion carries and our committee meeting schedules approved action item I approval of minutes and motions from our October 25th regular meeting reference H is there a motion to approve
125motion Catherine is there a second Lori all in favor opposed extensions oh sorry three abstentions four okay Jen lamberson will abstain um Kelly Franklin dipty Post and Kelly Cloutier okay but it still passes they are approved laughs all right and item J approval of minutes and motions from our November 2nd 2022 special meeting reference I is there a motion to approve Allen second by Matt all in favor opposed any abstentions there which one Kelly Franklin okay all right motion carries item K action item stipend approval for 2022 2023 reference J which is for basketball and yeah basketball two basketball stipends are there any questions on those stipends is there a motion to approve them Catherine second by Kelly C all in favor okay opposed abstentions motion carries they are approved informational item l Human Resources
126Personnel activity reference K in your packets are there any questions on any of those questions what's a family school engagement slash School climate specialist we'll invite Dr McLean or serial Larry to come and explain why we have this position or both of you I can but you guys know it you hired it hold on it's uh it's the one we just hired Carrie it's not working we have two positions with very similar titles so which one are we talking about it really is so um this particular position helps us to um support our families in the district that may need some extra support in connecting to the school Community also that that particular position is going to be a choice liaison so that they can help our families from that live in Hartford have more
127access to the Cromwell School community and sort of get a feel for what their needs are so that we can better service their students so this was a replay we had another position that just went obsolete at the high school so we took that position because it's not it wasn't needed anymore and we talked about what we needed um so when we um thought about everything that we needed um the intent of that position was to be this uh how it ended up that's not how it ended up so that person resigned and got another job so then when we reposted it we looked for something that um we wrote the job description so that it matches what our needs are so they make connections like they make school to home connections right they're someone
128that if we've got struggling students and struggling families we have lots of struggling families um this person is sort of a a connection to the school so that we can connect them to the resources that we know exist in the community um they're also helping to support our families from the choice program so that they can be more connected to the school Community as well it's really apparently liaison between the school and home to workers social workers and school psychologists and principals it's it's a lot of it's a lot of hands on deck it may actually um I know we had gotten a resignation from Mrs Fox the Spanish Middle School teacher that said she's leaving in December but I see that we don't have one listed as vacancy did we find a replacement for
129her after December that's the Spanish teacher that that resigned I know the response I'm just not sure did we did we hire someone because they're not on the list yeah I know she said she was leaving at December oh okay it went internal so we when we post we have to post following the collective bargain agreement many of the collecting bargain agreements um in our district were very lucky post in and out at the same time so if someone internal had their credentials in that Union and they got the position so they start in January okay and so it doesn't get listed on here no because they're ready an employee in this in the union yep any other Catherine so just to confirm resignations are people who are completely leaving the district resignations are people
130who are completely leaving the district yep there are two on here that have been here for quite a while yeah uh it's heartbreaking yeah I'm really really sad to see them go because they are such positive influences on students and parents in the district so let me have a Dean at the high school and I can get her back graduation she can do that for graduation she cried we went and had celebrated she um I think you all know what we're talking about uh she's talking about Clarion oh Claire oh she's wonderful too yeah she's retiring she's ret oh yeah that's a retirement so I was very confused yeah I'm sorry that is a retirement she didn't list it as her retirement she listed as a resignation but she's kind of doing both okay yeah
131okay she's been almost all of the schools I think she has been yeah and she's been amazing for parents and students so like she just has such a kind she's way about her and we're gonna miss her and I'm just wondering if she's gonna come back to dresses for graduation because nobody else seems to do it for sure I've I have a connection with her so I might be able to get that and make that happen um yes she is we're going to miss her we're going to miss all these people I mean obviously some of these are part-time positions and but they've been such a huge asset yeah the sad part about us is it's it's we're a smaller District we don't have is um as many administrative positions so people need to go
132elsewhere but then they like to come back we saw that with Dr McLean we've seen that with Mr cockle we've seen that with Miss cochiola so people go and they spread their wings and they get their experience and then we bring them back and that's my hope in this situation any other questions comments thank you Michelle the oh sorry there was one sorry I didn't speak up quick enough um vacancies we have two special ed teacher vacancies does that mean that other special education teachers in those buildings are kind of taking on an increased load caseload um one one of the positions we got advance notice on that they're going to be leaving um and we already have one already filled so the one at the middle school went internal again and so they're moving
133um in January that was like a chain reaction and then the one on the opening at ECS that's posted but the person doesn't leave until the end of December so hopefully we'll fill it by then we have high expectations anything else Matt are you all set up okay all right thank you moving on to the informational informational principal reports LMN and oh are there any questions on those that we resolved the numbers should I not ask and if we didn't the principles are here so you can ask them worms okay should we move on to policies Alan are you sure all right so we have first read physical restraints occlusion of students and use of exclusionary timeout series 5000 policy from shipment and it's reference p in your packets are there any questions on that
134one hearing none is there a motion to approve it made by dipty second by Lori all in favor pose abstentions motion carries and the policies approved what am I doing shoot okay can't we second read okay so that was dipty and Lori so okay just change that to Second read okay all right and all right Item B first read policy regarding student use of the district's computer systems Internet safety is there emotion to move that to Second read can we can we skip it if like a motion to skip second and approve enza what do you think so your bylaws and with policy and I and I'll be honest with you I don't agree with Emmy I don't agree with them but that's something for all of you to yeah you're bylaws say that unless
135it's an emergency and you have allowed me to skip it when we really needed to this yes you have and this is not an emergency however now that the can of worms has been opened up I would love for us to have a first read and then go to the board for two reads um like policy one read and then bring it to the board for two because then you have everyone in the room I I just have never had two policy reads it holds everything up but that might make for a really long regular board meeting though because you spend a lot of time on each policy and committee right I don't that I could look into that I don't know if that's um I don't know if that's allowable I look at your
136bylaws hold on Lori had a thought well I did feel like sometimes at policy we look at it once but then we come back and we have further discussion I like your board meetings longer it would definitely make the board meetings longer like to iron it out during policy and then bring it to the full board when we feel confident in it right that's what I think that would be my recommendation you can look at your good look into doing that and yeah okay I'll follow up on that for the other yeah yes okay motion motion by Catherine is there a second I'm moving that with Alan all in favor pose abstentions move that to Second read and then we have none on for second read tonight board committee reports we have reference R in
137your packet informational meeting minutes and then facilities and Technology we did not meet our next meeting is scheduled for December 13th are there any topics for future agendas that anyone would like to add all right go ahead Catherine uh we looked at schedules at the middle school and at the high school and we changed everything post block scheduling and everything so this is our first year going through um and I don't care if we push it to the summer or the end of the school year but can we get an update from teachers and and or principals on how the new schedules actually went I'm hearing a variety of things from the middle school so I'd like to know at the end here oh yeah from from students teachers and parents they all had a
138very I mean the staff had a very big a lot of input in creating that schedule but we could that's not what I heard so but I mean that's why if we could get an update at the end of the school year or somewhere we could definitely give you an update um but keeping in mind as I will always tell you I will give you we will give you an update but the scheduling there's so many things that come into play when you're making a schedule and we have to follow so many different things so not everyone's always going to be happy and as you can see we haven't found one yet that everyone's 100 happy and that's not something that we have an interview for that no no but it would be nice to
139get an update on her we are always happy to share information but you'll never ever get you'll never get a consensus about it I understand that but it's varying from between the high school and the middle school and that's a little discouraging it has to because it's summer the comments about the schedules are varying from the high school and the middle school because it's credit bearing so at the high school you're kind of locked into stuff we're at the middle school you could be much more creative and there's a team approach so to answer the question yes we can have an update um and we will do that probably not until um after budget any other topics for future agendas I thought I saw Matt did were you going to suggest something I was just
140wondering if December would be too early to get maybe just a glimpse at how ESS started out sure we're right in the middle of right now we have the contract um when you're looking at a contract that you know that size we like to run it by a council so Council just returned it back to us we're in the process of calling a discussion with karma that's our insurance carrier to make sure everything is okay sarri and Ms O'Leary tell me if I'm missing anything and I we've hired the social worker already correct as far as ESS yeah so that's yeah I was sorry I was in my mind it was starting I thought today well it was until I wasn't crazy I didn't love some of the wording in the contract and then I'll
141always make sure that I send it through Council together I prefer caution with something like this as well but I but if it started today that's why I was like maybe we can just see how the first month yeah okay oh it's still the contract is still in we're almost there all right we'll do comments updates and announcement announcements from board members and administrators we'll start with Kelly nothing dipty line actually I do um just wanted to I mentioned earlier in the athletic field committee report um that we are having a the board of Finance look to approve our funding and as you all know that's going to be something that directly impacts our schools here at the Carmel High School so um if you would like to just even sit there and listen it
142should be closer to the start of the meeting just to show support for our Athletic Field committee to hopefully get this passed you don't have to give public comment if you don't want just having numbers there usually makes them feel that we're we care so we just want them to know we really care strongly about this project to get a better facility here at the high school 7 P.M 7 P.M Thursday night feel free to bring a high schooler if you know him or anyone who's interested in improving the high school facilities thank you for that Dr macri anything else Lori Jen Alan and the veterans say I'm very I think it's very appropriate the way we do it and I'm very pleased you know that to hear that how it was done I agree
143thank you and Matt yeah I actually the the veterans they you know I've been a teacher for 20 some odd years now and I remember a time when it was a day off and I remember the first year that it was put into place in the district where I teach where you know most of us were like oh we just lost a day off and it's actually turn evolved over time into this awesome awesome event and I want to make sure that we you know recognize the the veterans who came in and gave their time to come meet with our students and staff but I also want to recognize that planning an event like that for the day there's a lot of Manpower that goes into that there's a lot on the administration to organize
144stuff and there's a lot of time put in by our staff including our teachers for you know additional preparation and that's kind of going above and beyond what they what they do on their day-to-day they're taking on some amount of responsibility so I want to thank them for that as well because I do think it's a huge benefit to our students to see some of the history um and to actually meet people who are veterans who serve this country so thank you to all those involved in the planning and organizing I do appreciate that okay is there a motion to adjourn Kelly second by Laura