January 20, 2026 - BOE Special Meeting

001We're live. >> Good evening. I would like to call this special meeting of the board of education to order. The next regular meeting of the board of education is on Tuesday, January 27 at 7:30 p.m. for the chair p the chairperson's report tonight. Um, thank you all for being here tonight. Tonight, the board of education will continue the process of reviewing the specific responses responsibility center budgets as part of the fiscal 27 budget process. Thank you to Dr. Burn and our administration for your work developing the fiscal 27 budget, which we will continue reviewing in detail tonight and over the next two weeks. We will be covering the special education and athletics proposed budgets tonight and there will be opportunity for public comment at the end of the meeting. On January 27, we will cover

002the operations and capital budgets. The formal board of education public hearing will be held on February 3rd during which community members will have the opportunity to speak and share specific feedback on the proposed budget. The board the board will vote on the superintendent's proposed fiscal 27 budget on Thursday, fe February 5th. The board is committed to providing the best possible education for our students and shares the community's desire to prioritize student needs and programming in alignment with our strategic goals. We look forward to hearing more tonight from our assistant superintendent special education and and student services, Miss Shirley Klene, and from our director of athletics, Mr. Christopher Manfredonia who will share more tonight about their 26 and 27 programming goals and budget highlights. Thank you. We'll now move on to superintendent report. Thank you. >>

003So I I have no report for this evening, but I did want to set a little bit of context for tonight's presentations. Um I was asked quite a number of times when I first came to the school district. Um, right now we're on I was asked many times when I first came to the school district what drew me to the district. And one of the things I shared uh quite frequently was the wealth of opportunities for our students. Tonight we're going to hear about two departments where incredibly important work is happening. special education and student services where we have incredibly talented educators across the system that work to meet the individual needs of our neurodeiverse students and help them achieve the tenants of the vision of the graduate. In addition, we have Chris Manfredonia who

004will present the health and uh physical education and athletics budget. really talk to us about those opportunities outside of the classroom that kids are able to find themselves, find their voice, and share their spirit with the community. So, I'm very excited for both uh presentations for this evening and look forward to a rich conversation. >> Thank you. Uh moving on to presentation and discussion of proposed fiscal 27 budget for special education and physical education and athletics. Uh, Miss Shirley Klein will be first. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good evening, members of the board of education. Um, Dr. Burn and members of the Darian community. Uh, thank you for the opportunity to present our budget this evening. Tonight, I'll review the special education budget with a focus on how our resources align with student need,

005legal requirements, and our commitment to providing exemplary services for all our learners in our school community. I'd like to acknowledge the contribution of our special education and stu student services leadership team in the development of this budget. Present here tonight are Dr. Scott McCarthy, K through2 director, Laura Straighten, ELP director, program directors at Darian High School, Janine Newell, and program director Sarah Mali from middle school, and our spe special education um and student services assistant principles in all our elementary schools. Um, if you don't mind, I'd like to just do an introduction for them. Um, we have Danielle Cummings from Tokenique, Maya Feldman from Oxridge, Christina Ross Taylor from Hinley, and Marie Gallagano from Homes, and Amanda Carney from Royal. Thank you all for being here this evening. It's greatly appreciated. Thank you for all

006your contributions to to developing this budget. We appreciate the board's continued support and we will work responsibly um for future and current demands. So to begin with on the vision of the graduate and I know Amy spoke last week but we begin with the attributes that comprise the vision of the graduate as the governance of all teaching and learning for all students and all stakeholders in the Darian school community. When we looked at the operational standards, we looked at the proposed budget for 2027 and what commitment to our operational standards. They are excellence in teaching, researchbased professional development, and continued instructional improvement. And of course, fiscal responsibility that ensures efficiency of resources, personnel, and long-term financial stability. We'll begin with RC24, which includes our K through2 budget. And the content of our presentation tonight includes

007a brief overview of our current programs, enrollment trends, and department initiatives, which comprise the basis for our 27 fiscal year budget proposals. We'd like to begin with our areas of focus. At the board of education meeting, you'll recall on May 13, 2025, we presented areas of focus that were generated from the work of our K through5 identification rate self-study. These areas of focus in addition to focus areas that align with our district strategic plan comprise the areas of focus for the current 2025 school year and proposed 202627 school year. We'd like to begin with the first operational standard. And that's our focus on professional learning and development in strengthening K through five comprehensive reading instruction. Our elementary special education teachers participated in an Orton Gillingham 5-day course training for classroom educator level certification. This year,

00818 special education teachers and two special education administrators successfully completed the training and received their OG classroom educator certification. Our OG associate level training has also begun. Our cohort one which is includes 10 teachers who began their practicum this year. The practicum is a two-year program supervised by an OG fellow who conducts observations and support and lesson planning and monitoring that OG practices conducted with fidelity. Successful completion of the practicum results in Ororton Villingham Academy Associate level certification and cohort one will complete their program in June 2027. Cohort 2 will begin next year and they will complete their 2-year practicum in 2000 June of 2028. Our operational standard of ensuring continual instructional program improvement. Um, we're looking at our SCSS collaboration with MTSS teams. As you know, um, last week, I believe, um, Amy presented

009on MTSS and the team structure. We've been participating with, um, um, our special education staff, district, and building level teams to address elementary and secondary identification trends and tiered intervention monitoring and practices. The special education co um administrators and teachers are an essential part of this planning in tiered intervention understanding design UBD assess administrators have collaborated with curriculum instructional teams on the UBD framework for educational planning and to ensure teaching from understanding instructional practices are parent and with fidelity. You may also remember I think Ronnie actually presented on UBD one of the curricular meetings last year in detail of understanding by design professional learning for clinicians. This has been a very strong initiative this year. Very often in general education classrooms there were a lot of um need for behavioral intervention and we relying just

010on school psychologists or clinical personnel to really support that. We really want to go by and go beyond that and be able to give agency to teachers to administrators to all stakeholders in the building to be able to address those needs. So during the 2526 school year, our professional learning for clinicians included a series of seminars um for psychologists and social workers on frameworks for effective behavioral intervention in a consultation model. Dr. Melissa Kolar Meek, a psychologist, BCBA professor and researcher at Teachers College, is expert in behavioral consultation and has partner with us to provide professional learning for our clinicians. She'll be returning next year. On the continued areas of programming, we looked at the operational standard for providing programmatic and financial support to achieve district goals. In secondary transition planning we've spoke about over

011the years, the focus in this current year is on assessments to inform student pathways for postsecary transitional programs. In addition, exploration of partnerships with neighboring districts for shared programming and resources to support support students in transitional programming opportunities has been essential part of our planning in our ELP and K-based plan learning. Um, play-based learning is successfully implemented in both ELP and the kindergarten classrooms. Ongoing training is being attended by Laura Straitton, our ELP program director, and one of our ELP special education teachers and general education teachers are also participating in the Yukon leadership program. and our local district consortium, which is one of our strongest initiatives for this year. We begun to meet regularly with our neighboring of New Kanan administrators and Wilton administrators to explore and consider shared opportunities for students in specialized instructional

012programs and transitional programs. We currently have students who are participating in transitional programs in New Kanan as well as specialized programs in Wilton. We'd like to expand this to look at shared practices. Um perhaps shared professional learning and opportunities with those two districts who are part of our DUI um and proximity to our neighborhood makes it very accessible for our students in terms of proximity. When we looked at our other operational standard commitment, we looked at ensuring efficient deployment of resources and personnel in district SLPs. We've been very fortunate to be able to um now have on our staff specialized language um personnel uh who provide professional learning for our colleagues and ongoing consultation. Actually, one of our providers we currently contracted with for several years and she is now full-time on our staff here.

013That's Shelley Ransom, who works both in our elementary and middle schools to support students, to support speech and language pathologists, and to learn new methodologies for language therapy. And when we look at our enrollment trends, we um our CADC report that comes out on October 1st shows that there has been a decrease in fewer classified students than the 202425 approximately 25 students. We just want to share that the decrease is noted primarily as a reflection. We had a large graduating class in 25 that contributes to that as well as in other schools but primarily of the DHS um exiting of seniors. And in our continuum of services, we've shared this over the years and it's in more detail in the appendix today, but just to go over the continuum of services of what our support

014staff and our special education administrators and teachers provide for our students. General education programs have speeches related service for the least restrictive environment. That means that our students spend the majority of their day in the general education class and go for speech and language therapy only as a related service. The next level of least restrictive would be general education with supplemental services. That would look at our ELP integrated program models, pushin services in our general education classes and co-t talk classes in grades 6 through 12. our special education supplemental services. Those are where we have small groupoup resource rooms, learning centers as designed in the high school, specialized literacy instruction in all our buildings. In addition, we have our AIM and our core classes which are specialized social emotional programs to support the needs of

015students at MMS and DHS respectively. Our modified content classes are comprehensive classes and those are modified contentbased classes that align to the general education curriculum and are available based on student needs in grades 6 through 12. Currently in Middle Sex we have modified classes in mathematics and in the high school we have modified classes in the four core subjects. And lastly, our specialized programs include our 4K through five DLC programs housed at Oxbridge, two alternative learning sectors at MMS, and of course our Excel program at DHS. These programs support our learners with comprehensive needs providing modified curriculum, adaptive behavioral, social, and community programming. our out of district overview for the continue when we're not able to educate our students in district when we've utilized all our resources and support and work to of course educate

016our students in their community schools. We have to look at special education services from the least to most restrictive environments. The programming overview out of district continuum starts with state approved day programs. Those are programs that are approved by the state department of education. Then state approved therapeutic day programs. And for students who require a higher level of support, we move on to state approved therapeutic and transition residential programs. Those are students who require a wraparound 247 program to meet their educational needs. When we're not able to find a program for students and we've exhausted everything instate, we do go to outofstate programs. And that's a last of sort. But there are educational supports in out of state approved outofstate programs that can meet our students needs. And lastly, there are times where students require

017support in hospital settings. In moving forward to our areas of focus for the 2026 27 year, we're going to continue to strengthen specialized reading instruction through Orton Gillingham professional learning. As I mentioned, our cohort one and cohort two will continue with their practicum. We will also be um this year with Amy and our department will be sharing um general education training for elementary school teachers as well as OG training for our special education teachers on a secondary level. We'll be collaborating on the implementation of MTSS screening. We'll move more toward hope we'll move more towards screening intervention and monitoring. And as Amy spoke to last week when she presented on looking at data to really inform instruction and tier participation, our continuing of development of clinicians capacity will continue training in the consultive model for

018district-wide clinicians. And I just want to take a moment to when I said it earlier. So our consultative model means that our psychologists will be working with teachers, general education teachers, special education teachers, and other members in their school to give them the skill set to be able to work with students who are having interfering behaviors to do that with confidence and with agency. We'd also like to formalize our local district consortium with shared goals and action items. Um we're actually speaking with Wilton right now about looking at um a specialized program for children that might have some behavioral intervention needs and if we can share students um I just want to mention that we were able to do this um in my former district and now that Dr. Bernice here also we had a

019consortium of five districts where we were able to really look at students because we didn't have a cohort for that program but when we looked at the other five districts and they were neighboring districts we were very successful and I believe it still continues uh and also on the area of focus for continuous secondary transition planning and post-secary planning needs when we look at our review of student cohort for 2026 um and 2027 as well is 2728 um what students that what we can do for transitional needs and can we begin to consider building our program and revisiting that. So we'll be looking at that as an opportunity as well. [sighs and gasps] Our partnership in professional learning for understanding by design UBD framework also will continue the work uh for framework utilizing teacher feedback

020and student outcomes to really determine are we being effective with our UBD curriculum framework. We'll continue our professional learning and implementation for UDL also um for the diverse needs of all learners and I know we've spoken of UDL over the years but understanding that all teachers should feel confident and competent in creating inclusive and accessible engaging learning environments for children by understanding their backgrounds, their ability and their learning styles. And we also have begun this year to look at calibrating and implementing processes for allocation of PAR educators. We know that as students go on, we look at independence and fostering independence and we need to see the specific roles and responsibilities of our para educators and to identify the need by collecting data on student behavior and student needs and making recommendations consistent with what

021those needs are. and we're beginning that this year and we'll implement it next year. And to go on to expenditure highlights for RC24 in our and they're in our narrative as well. Our consultant service decrease in district support and just changes in student need. Our contracted OT, luckily we now have a Darian district OT for ELP. We were contracting prior to that. Our pupil evaluation decrease reflects outsourcing, a reduction of outsourcing evaluations. Also covering maternity leaves for their own psychologist interns that has really been helpful in reducing that cost. And our tunition nonpublic schools, I know we've spoken to that prior to this evening. Five students returned to district and changes in students programs in outside placements and related costs as well. When we look at our expenditure highlight additions, contracted speech with a slight

022adjustment to contracted speech. Professional learning is the $10,000 that we will use to support our OG Academy. Transportation drivers, the increase reflects the addition of two new vehicles, the drivers for those vehicles. Our ESY program in 2027 will actually have nine days of ESY in the fiscal year in June. our tuition public schools, those are student programs and transition programs, our middle school special education teacher. And we also described in our narrative that the addition of the 1.0 FTE at Middle Sex is warranted to address the current anticipated enrollment of the 202627 school year. The allocation will allow special education teachers to remain team-based and permit code classes to meet the requirement of being less than 50% students with IEPs. That's compliant with the regulations. Our dues and memberships. The increase reflects Orton Lillingham Associate

023Certification fees for 10 elementary special education teachers. We will be responsible for paying for those membership dues and our excess cost reimbursement. I know Rich has spoken to that before. The change is based on projected changes in student expenditures per pupil and we're looking at 70%. I'd like to move on to EOP RC 26. Uh the early learning program as you know is an integrated preschool program. Our children are 3 to 5 years of age with learning differences and we anticipate that our ELP program will reach between 100 and 110 students this school year. Our early learning program continuum services from least restrictive beginning also as itinerant services where students attend who attend community preschools can come for related services of speech or other services. Our 19-hour program is our integrated program for all learners.

024And our 24-hour program are for students who may require additional specialized instruction to address their educational needs. and that occurs between 8:30 and 9:30 prior to the um integrated daily program for all learners. We provide speech and language therapy, school psychologist counseling, OTP, teacher of the hearing impaired, and our teacher of the visually impaired. We through BSBY. Our expenditure highlights for ELP, we're asking from a change from a point8 FTE psychologist to a 1.0 FTE psychologist. We're now a 5-day program and the needs of our early learners warrant that um additional support. Our professional development, this change reflects training for nine staff members, one per classroom and first aid CPR and AED use. And our ELP tuition, which that change reflects an increase in ELP tuition. Our budget next steps with Dr. Burns schedule is

025January 27th. As Miss Dson said earlier, we'll have the regular board of education meeting moving forward for presentation, discussion of operations and questions, comments, and feedback. Emails for everyone who would like to reach out. There are multiple sources to reach out to and I'd be delighted to answer any questions that anyone may have. And thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. Um this is a really informative kind of a a presentation. I have a couple of questions before we open it up uh for board and first I'd like to focus first on RC24 special education and then we can continue any questions on ELP. Um you had mentioned for the paraprofessionals par the paras calibrating and implementing a process and with with data collection. Can you expand a little bit

026more on what we are using now and what you anticipate in terms of the data collection in order to allocate resources going forward? I think right now we're using more anecdotal information or qualitative information and we want quantitative information. We want to know how often does the behavior occur? How does the student respond to the intervention? What are the interventions that and and monitor are they effective and how are they progressing. So I think we're going to move from qualitative to quantitative and have a checklist that general education teachers will complete as well as related service providers who who may be providing services. >> Okay. Thank you. Um I I had one very small question that in the personnel there was a point to FTE for elementary that I believe is funded by an idea

027grant. >> Yes. >> Um in the grant detail it doesn't show a move from point 4 to 6. So, I don't know if that's just a >> okay, >> you know, something that I'm I guess Rich kind of keeps track of all of the grant the grant funding, but I was >> the IDA grant is a two-year grant, so you have carryover and then you have a current year grant, and so it's split between the two, which is why you don't see the point two. >> Okay, thank you. Thank you. Are there board questions, Joanna? >> And can I just add one thing to that, Robin? Yeah. So, that 6, that's Deb Riley, who really helps all our elementary schools. She does additional evaluations. Um she also is able to cover miss sessions. So if

028people are attend or providers are attending um PPTs she's able to cover those classes um very effectively and very professionally. She's been an excellent um help also as teachers have not been here. She's been here to fill those while we look for highly qualified people. Great. Thank you Joanna. >> Hi. Um I have a bunch of questions but um I'll start with the tuition nonpublic. um you know it's nearly a million dollars in savings year-over-year and um out of district tuition is usually pretty volatile. PPTs might happen in the middle of the year or students might go out of district, find us not working and come back in, you know, even this past fall we had these five students that left and then came back and there's usually uh uh co uh corresponding costs associated

029with that for like support in district and uh maybe more par educators or whatever else they need. So, are there more uh or where would I find some corresponding course uh costs with this million dollars in savings that the district is now taking on? >> I'm not quite sure. I need more uh information. So, where would you find um in terms of the granular piece of of >> right? So, for instance, sorry. So, for instance, this fall, you know, five students came back and we had a surplus of $377,000. Um, simultaneously we also then had a cost for consultants of $330,000 to support those students. I'm wondering what other costs um might we have next year or where they are in the budget that you've already set. So I understand what we're you know these

030students are coming back but um or are they just graduating entirely? Um and if they are coming back you know where are our expenses going up? So the students that have returned to district, they are included already whether it's in in related service providers or in different instructional programs. Uh and you're right it is there are children who we don't know are coming back and they may return to us and we don't know that at this time in terms of presenting for our budget because as you know students who might be in out of district programs might be returning. They might be changing programs in out of district programs. So the best we can do in terms of anticipating what those expenditures would be is we um those are all um we we have PPTs

031we have conversations about if they'll be returning or not returning we plan for their return and we accordingly plan for that. So we have planned for 2026 27 for the students we know who are returning or who have returned. And that said there may be students that we're not aware of that we will have to really um um hopefully we might have to come back to the board but come back and say that they've returned in or knew it. We've had students move in in May 19th. Uh two years ago we had a student move in with a high need at May 19th and we had no knowledge of that and we really had to come back. We needed more Paris. So I think we'll just keep the board informed. I'll keep the superintendent informed

032as we learn more about students retreat return returning to district. Um, as I said, all of our out of district students that are IP placed, we conduct the IEPs, we ma monitor the programs, so we're fully knowledgeable of where they are in their um, current programs. >> So, um, just to follow up, if you recall, we did do a transfer earlier in the year for some of those students that came back. And so, when you look at the budget book and consult services, the [clears throat] original budget was 1.2 million. the budget for next year's 1.4, but we go against revised budget, which is why you don't necessarily see the increase because people already get accounted for some of it. You'll see the same thing in speech. >> Thank you. >> Can I follow up

033on that? Um, so to to Joanna's point, I think this is um a really interesting kind of throughine for us to think about. Um, for example, even as we see in this um presentation here, you know, we're adding another point to FTE of a psychologist because we moved ELP from four to 5 days. So I am curious about how we might look back to look forward when we make a change when we have a new initiative and we can't predict everything that day but as years come along like where do we kind of capture that so that it is a whole picture of kind of what happened in the history of it that's not kind of a scavenger hunt of knowing and finding. Great question. [laughter] Great question. I'd like to think about the answer,

034but but I but I totally agree if we can capture that because to to the point when a child does return it does change the the fabric of of what the fiscal responsibilities are for us in district and transfers happen as Rich said and we do that throughout the year and we've done that in in different services. Um I I' I'd like to say that I'd like to look at how we can do that to best capture that. it's it's reasonable and also informs us. Um and we know that as our students age out also when they age out there are funds that were there and where those go to. So I think um um give us give us a little time to think of the best way to present that um and to enlist

035help from >> I I think it it's almost like as we prepare for the spring update, we think about telling the story with history of different programs and how they've evolved over time. So that may be something we can think about in our >> planning for that update. >> Yeah. >> And how that's enabling us to best meet the needs of the community and our student population and where the eb and flow of the different program changes exist. So I think we could certainly do that in the spring update and there there's a good way to present that. And to be clear, I know that um all of us who are speaking on this know this, but just to reiterate, um we're talking about looking at trends in the district, not about following individual students

036and having a history on them, but really about like what are we seeing in terms of the programs and the trends. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Dennis. So to this point, I just want to I think it's for me it's been a a focus for the board and also you and your staff and I want to say kudos for you for bringing these children back into district and having you know having not have to disrupt families and transport people to out of district schools and and so now we get a I think it's a win-win for all of us is we get a savings of almost a million dollars of out of district savings, but we're also now educating children in their hometown which is another win. So, it's a great a great story.

037>> Thank you. >> One we should celebrate. >> Thank you. And we we share that. I I do want to just mention also um 10 years ago when we arrived here, our DLC program had five children in it. We have 20 children in our program now. So, it's also children that we've be able to keep here and who haven't gone out. Also, to your point, Dennis, um that's extraordinary. We have four DLC classes. Um and and that's extraordinary. We can work with them. Two ALC classes. Our Excel program when we arrived 10 years ago, I think there were um I think there were six students in it and I think we have >> 15 I think 15 students. >> Great story to tell. >> Yeah, that's >> I can tell you exactly how many >>

038Yeah, I Does anyone want to suggest anything to >> 15? Oh, okay. Oh, Greg has a question. Uh just a real quick one uh and thanks for the presentation for the pupil the pupil evaluations that are down by 100 thousand is that enrollment driven or like what's driving that and how do you see that going forward? >> Some some of that we're doing inhouse some have to do with IE how many IE are requested a year also so that that's a big portion also um some um psychiatric evaluations depending on each year of how many outside evaluations are done on that level. So I think it's the change of student need. Um and a lot of it also is brought in by um our in-house our interns have helped with that also um doing evaluations

039in house. >> Um my next questions are personnel based first of all. Shelley Ransom is amazing. So it's very exciting to have her here in district. Is she an FTE or is she just a full-time consultant? So where does she live in the budget? >> She lives under speech lines therapist. >> Speech therapist. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Um, and is she just being deployed out wherever she's how it works? >> She's using um elementary and middle school right now. Oh, no. In high school. High school, too. Elementary. >> Fantastic. Um, and then for the uh the special education teacher at Middle Sex. Um, is this an indic So, we want to be able to keep, you know, each uh each team gets one, you know, special education teacher, right? Does that mean this year

040um with the split teams right now you have uh teachers sort of floating around or how's that working this year compared to what you need for next year? >> Um Sarah could speak to it better than I >> your your color. Right now, currently on the split team, on the teal team, we do have a special education teacher that is assigned to sixth grade teal and then we also have a special education teacher assigned to seventh grade teal. So, the split team does have a special education teacher for each one of those um where the there's a is a split team in the eighth grade and that is because um those two eighth grade special education teachers also teach direct reading classes. So they make up one um special education teacher case load on that

041team. So it's kind of divied up between our different specialty programs like direct reading, comprehensive math, but the split team did have a special education teacher does have a special education teacher assigned for each grade. >> So then this might be a general question for you uh Dr. Burn. Um I don't know if you're already planning on this. Sorry, I don't remember what's in the master agenda, but could we have a general update about how the split team is working in the middle school if this is something that's going to go on in the future um and how that works with our education? >> So, it's not for next year. There is no split teams next year. um straight teams across the levels. But um I did propose earlier in the year and I'm working

042on a draft master agenda for the spring that would include um updates from the different levels. So we'll have a chance with the middle school to be able to talk through some of those. >> Thank you. >> So I'll be sharing that draft with board leadership this week. >> Fantastic. Thank you. >> Other questions? Dennis. I love this idea of the district consortium between Darian Newan and Wilton. Um but my question is and I I don't know if you can speak for the other two districts. I think where we are those are our two closest but Kanan is close to Ridgefield, Wilton's close to Westport and and um East and Weston Reading and things like that. Are they contacting schools close to them so this so we can build even more mass or is it

043just the three schools in >> we offered to our entire Der so we offered it to all to Westport to Weston to um to all of to Richfield the other the districts that wanted to participate right now were new Kanan and Wilton it may off further but right now those were the two that were really interesting >> I don't want to put more work on you know I would love to share the wealth I don't want to put it all on new Kanan and Wilton because they're they're central. But it would be great if we could all pull ourselves together and try to figure this out in a >> I I suspect I mean a a big rationale for this is the the challenges that we're all faced with the rising costs. But um those

044two districts understand what we're trying to do and I think once this shows in program then we're going to have trouble keeping other districts away from joining this consortium. Um, if I recall correctly, it it just started with the five down in Soundshore and then constantly with other districts wanting to join that same consortium. But there is a sort of magic number where it works and where it gets too big. So, it's it's a great starting point with two very motivated districts that have a lot of commonalities to us and recognize the same challenges. they're facing the same challenges we are and and we have good working relationships with them already. So, it it's kind of seamless. >> Thank you. >> Just following up on that on the shared um consortium. Uh if if for

045instance we have students that go to New Kanan for transition services and they might have a student that comes to our district for a service, do they pay a a revenue portion for that student to the district or do we pay new Kanan or how does this work? >> They charge we we have an agreed upon tuition rate. >> Okay. And >> so we pay we pay them a tuition, >> right? And and we currently have a program that they come or do they currently have students coming to deren? >> Not at this time. >> They do not. Okay. Okay. But you're looking at increasing or thinking about that. Thank you. >> Sarah, >> and building on this, I love this idea of the the consortium. Do and pardon me if you've said this, but

046do you have an idea of prioritization of which cohorts you think you would start with working >> social emotional learning for elementary students? >> Okay. >> Is [clears throat] there is there a second cohort? I'm just curious like how far down the road this could >> Well, we current um I I think that's where we're all seeing a need a really strong need for those early because those are children who very often are placed outside of the district. So, I think we're looking at that cohort right now and actually Wilton is building a program right now where they're in the process of piloting a program. So, we're kind of working with them to see how that works. >> Okay, >> other questions. Katie, >> thank you. Um, it'd be great to to have um a

047bit more information on the consortium. Um, I can I I can tell that the board's questions are echoing some of my own thoughts just about um maybe not feeling as fully read into where we're at with that as as we'd like to be. I'd be curious about um what all is on the table, what isn't. um you know kind of how how often we're meeting and what decisions might come out of that or what processes would have to go from any conversations that have on that. Just this being something kind of new. Um it would be good to just understand that a little bit more. Um I um I have a couple other questions too. um regarding the um clinician's capacity to employ consultative frameworks. Um SH can you talk a little bit more about

048that? >> I'm going to turn that to Scott because he's been coordinating all those efforts. He and Alicia Dad have also been working on that. So um they'll speak about the program. >> Sure. Um so as you know the school psychologists and our clinicians their primary role is to provide direct service and then conduct assessments and evaluations but another arm of their intervention process is consultation which is direct face-to-face adultto adult learning for the purpose of intervening on a student's um behavior. And so there's a there's a structure to consultation. It's not just a conversation. as a structure to a problem solving conversation, implementing an intervention, tracking the intervention. Um, but you can imagine that especially for our youngest learners where we're seeing the intensive behaviors that are occurring in classroom and general education, teachers

049are struggling to um to have the the the kind of the capacity and bandwidth and and skill set to implement on those interventions. Um, that's actually the space where you want to intervene. So taking a student out, providing a direct service and teaching and then putting the student back isn't always the the most research-based or evidence-based way to change a behavior. And so really giving the teacher the skills and the capacity is is what a consultative framework does. >> Um, thank you. So I I just want to clarify a couple of things. So when you are using the term clinician, are you using that interchangeably with our school psychologists? uh typically targeting school psychologists and social school social workers. >> So can can you just be a little more explicit about what you mean in

050terms of increasing clinicians capacity and who is doing that? So the professional learning that's ongoing through the year is the is is what we're using to increase the capacity of our school social workers and our school psychologists to implement consultative frameworks in schools. So okay. So then what you're saying is that you're having um professional development that occurs when students are not in school that is target that is targeted for school psychologists and social workers so that they are then learning how to employ these frameworks and then when they have this ability they will then go and start working with our teachers in the classrooms so that they can better handle issues as they're arising in the moment. Correct. And even this is reflected in the the revised Connecticut IEP. So in the old IEP

051framework, there was just direct services and then related services. So you got your special services and your related services. And now there's another um service page called the indirect services. So th those are designed to be services that are not with the student but for the student in in uh in service of the student. That's consultation. Um, sorry, there's a lot here. Um, so my question then is, um, I'm interested in in what and what the day looks like for school psychologists and for social workers, right? Like what is on their plate and and how many kind of different tasks are they juggling? And then additionally, what is on our teachers plate? Um because I think that you know a big part of this is teachers not having the bandwidth and not having the ability

052when they have 24 students in their classroom right and and they >> you know just to get through the lessons and to differentiate and to handle everyone's needs and then when there is a a special circumstance in particular I'm curious about how we think the reality of training will be able to adequately manage manage this and do we, you know, where where do we face a tipping point of needing more adults in the room of relooking at our class size of looking at what other list of possible alter alternatives might be, you know, in a creative mindset like >> yeah, I think >> where are we at? >> I think I think there's a few layers to that question. Um, one of the layers is that consultation is an evidence-based intervention framework. And so our

053clinicians having the greatest toolkit that they have to address problem behavior and challenging behavior is important. So we want to make sure that they are um trained and and able to implement best practices. Um what what also plays out is that um students being pulled out of class for the purposes of receiving direct intervention from our clinicians when it's not the best practice model for that type of behavior is actually reducing everyone's bandwidth by taking up the time of the school psychologist to work on something that's not then generalizing. and the general teacher is still managing the behavior in the classroom because it's not been generalized. And so typically the two things work together. The school psychologist might pull the student for a certain period of time to do some skill instruction and then utilize

054a consultation framework to help the teacher generalize that into their classroom setting with the goal of increasing independence and reducing adult support. So it's it's it's designed in the spirit of increasing bandwidth for both parties. >> May I just add to that to that? And I think our teachers um are are um I'll speak as an educator are excited about having that skill because as Scott said, if you go to the school psychologist and and you're able to regulate the child and the child comes down, when they come back into the classroom, there could be another episode. I think teachers and administrators in the elementary school especially are saying we want to have a toolkit of what to do. We want to know how to manage the behavior and do that without relying on a

055related service provider or administrator because um there are students in our class and they truly truly um are appreciative of learning those skills. They really are. And it's the same way they're appreciative of learning effective um um skills in in um whether it's executive functioning or whether it's different kinds of management. knowing when you're a teacher and when you have that great management of being able to really help kids regulate and do that. Some of the teachers have it intuitively. It's amazing. I mean, you've seen that with ch teachers your child has had. Some have it intuitively and they just know what to do. And some of them really are really asking, "What can I do to help decrease that behavior? What can I do to intervene with the student and not have to rely

056on someone else to do it?" So, I think they are welcoming that training. It's not just adding more to them. It's actually making their classroom experience a much more positive experience and and giving them agency. >> Yes. So, I have no doubt about that. Everything that you described and you described is exactly as as I would expect and that all makes sense to me. To put it bluntly, um I think the question that I'm asking is we are having more and more conversations about behaviors and about the social emotional needs of our student population. So, while this sounds like a great step and a necessary one to take, how much impact do we think it's going to have? And are we approaching a crisis? >> I I would say that I think there are a

057multitude of things within not just this budget, in the curriculum budget, across the school budgets that are really going to help us be able to address those needs of kids. And if we find that we need something more, I'll be the first one to stand up here and say we need to go in a different direction. Honestly, I think the the greatest strength we could have as a system is having regular ongoing professional learning that we're committed to bringing experts in to work with our teachers and our staff to best meet the needs of kids. And what we have to be careful of of not doing is saying in a tough budget year, we need to cut this this professional learning. Our teachers should know this already because these are things we really need to

058continue to focus on. I'll also say that I think um the board's class size guidelines are quite reasonable and when I look at our actual class sizes, they're very good for us to be able to do the best job we can meeting the needs of kids. I think we've got when you think about MTSS and all of the effort and the work and planning that's going into MTSS that's going to help us better meet the needs of those kids struggling academically or behaviorally. So, I'm very optimistic and if we get to a point where we think that we need to pivot and do something different or double down and do more of something, you're going to hear it right here at this table. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. Just one final question on this

059conversation. Um are we seeing any implications of the reduction of um general classroom parah profofessionals from this year affecting >> the instructional aids? >> I'm not talking about the special education >> education in in my discussions with the principles as we prepared the budget that was not something that came up that there was a concern. >> Okay. Thank you. Are there other questions? Bill, >> just a quick question. I'm having uh I'm trying to wrap my head around budget variability. And [clears throat] by that I mean as students move in and out of the district based on their needs, of course, uh do we have any kind of historical trend? Does it cost more to educate out of the district than in the district? If we have what has a typical movement been historically and

060and I'll preface this my my concern is that we not be surprised by you know I see the tuition nonpublic schools almost a million dollars we're not going to be surprised by million-dollar swings are we? >> So um the answer to the first part of the question which is it's really based on student needs. So there are students in district that their their programs cost greater than an outside district program. That's not that unusual especially for some of our comprehensive learners. So that may be >> I've heard that. Yes. >> Yeah. So so it's really about what program a student needs and it is variable and I and I think that's what um that's what I I think earlier to find a way to see what students are going out and also students coming in

061that we need a way to to report out on that. >> Does it wash does it come out in the wash? Is it a wash or is there a significant difference that we need to account for? It really depends on student need because for instance we have if we have several students right now in transition programs there's there's a cost to those transition programs. So it depends on on students where they age out. Um students are educated till they're 22. So right now um we have close we have over 10 students are in transition programs. So there's a cost outside of district which is why we continue to consider looking in district as well. Um just thought I'd bring that up in case we go back to that. But um so I I think it's

062hard there there's not an answer to that bill. Well, there's really not an answer because it depends on the student need from year to year. It may change. >> It's just too individualized to the >> right and it and it's having flexibility within our program offerings and our support offerings so that if there and and over the last number of years, the district has expanded, as Shirley talked about, the different programs. Having those solid programs that support a wide range of learners is what's going to put us in the best position to tackle a great need on any given year. >> Well, I yeah, I I fully support that. I I just would if there was a significant like five students left to go out if they if five came back, is that a typical

063number? Is that is that going to skew our >> There is no typical. [clears throat] No, really there there is no typical and and our job >> is to build enough high quality programs and supports for our families and students that we can manage them and manage those supports and give those kids and those families what they need. >> I I absolutely I'm just thinking how to pay for how we account do we have >> any you know a leeway in the budget where we can absorb >> so we don't have any leeway. Um, so we [clears throat] do track every student that's uh going out of the district and we have what's internally called a watch list where there are students that could potentially go out of the district. You know, this year we

064had some students come in and it created a budgetary savings. A few years ago we had a few students go out and we ended up having to ask for a supplemental appropriation down. Um, so it really depends. So if uh we're to work in reverse and we had some students go out of district, typically we'll show that line item as a deficit. And if we can chip away at that deficit through budget transfers. If we have savings in other places of the budget, right, >> we will. Yeah. Um and sometimes it means that the board should cover it in whole. Sometimes we can cover it in part. And if we can cover it in part, we ask for the town support for the other part. Um and if we can't cover it at all, we

065go to the town and ask for support and give the information. >> Do you remember? I'm just curious. Do you recall when we had to go back to the town and ask for more money? How much that was? >> I believe it was a couple hundred,000. Um because we did cover a lot through internal transfers. Um we had some vacant positions and then we decided not to fill some non-certified staff positions and the board transferred money into those accounts. Um when the students went out, we did have some in district funds like consult services that we didn't spend as much because the students weren't here. So then we moved that money to uh not public tuition. Um and then you know we would piece money from salary savings and supplies and do a lot of

066different transfers. Um but then we asked for a couple hundred thousand finance supported it. The RTM supported it and then in the end I think we ended up getting back about $3,000. So in the chart that Dr. Burton showed in his presentation it was about 600 one year 600 one year and then the year that was about $3,000 that was the year we actually took. >> Thank you. That that it's just difficult to really can't predict. It's two individuals. >> It can be. >> Thank you. >> Are there other questions on RC24? Okay. So, we'll move on to questions on ELP. Um I I have a couple questions. One was on tuition. Do we have comparable tuition rates for five-day programs for preschools in our area? That's one question. And then, what is the number

067of students that are projected and assumed for the fiscal 27 budget? So the first part, yes, we um Laura went out and did um ops for uh the other local programs and that's what we based our um decision on on cost for this year. >> And then 49 paying students. >> 49 paying students. Okay. For fiscal 27. And so you're saying the 13,000 with the 4% increase is kind of comparable to other neighboring districts five days. Okay. Thank you. Are there board questions? That was my question. This is my favorite line item to increase every year. So, just making sure that it's, you know, it's it's comparable and we Okay. Thank you. >> Other questions on ELP? Okay. No board questions on that. Thank you very much, Shirley, and for everyone who's come to watch.

068And um we're going to move on to athletics now. Um so, unless you want to stay, if you're here for special education, we'll cover uh athletics with Mr. Manfredonia next. This is each step. [laughter] >> So, we're going to move on to athletics now. Mr. Manfredonia. >> Thank you everyone. So I am excited to show you RC11 athletic budget under a different lens than you have seen in years past. Um we took a lot of time and looked at you know our requests for allocations. Um looked at what we have done with athletics um over the last few years what we plan on doing in the coming years and how that kind of ties in to the number of uh dollars we're asking from the board uh this upcoming year. um want to thank the

069board for all the support um that you have given the athletic department here at Darian High School. Um I think you'll see it in the in the joy of the kids who participate in in the many sports we offer. Um and that's thanks to the the good work that the board does. So I want to thank you on behalf of the students and coaches at Derry High School for the for the good work this board does. Okay. Um so just a reminder this is an educationbased athletic program. Um this statement is taken directly from the um athletic handbook. Um that is education based athletics. It's an extension of the classroom and as such we treat it um as such uh when we making decisions on on on our programs. [cough and clears throat] Um, and

070to be consistent with other presentations you've seen here, um, you'll see where the check marks are of the operating standards for RC11, which includes providing excellence in teaching and learning, uh, ensuring continual instructional program improvement, ensure breath and depth of academic and extracurricular programming, provide the program, pro programmatic and financial support necessary to achieve district goals, and provide timely and relevant communication. I think you'll see some of those embedded in the presentation you're about to see. um areas of focus for this current year. Um so our area one of the areas of focus is supporting the physical and mental health of our students as it is the entire district. Um which included some retraining um of QPR uh which is at suicide prevention program that um an intervention that many of our staff had gone

071through several years ago. This is a kind of a a a rebrand of that of that program that all our head coaches are continue to go through uh this year once that have gone through it um just after co and then continuing on with this year as well. Um the athletics part works closely with Dr. Dad and the director of mental health. Um she um we've had the the good fortune of having her meet with our coaches seasonally. She's an excellent support uh for our staff. um she works has worked with individual teams on the mental aspects of sports and that's something we continue uh to look upon in the future as well as um in the past as well. Um something we wanted to highlight is our captain's council meeting which meets seasonally um

072during PLC time with myself and Mr. Mone, one of our assistant principles at Darian High School. Um and the purpose and the and the goal of those meetings is to you know ensure to it's the leadership development curriculum which is um talking about the um importance role that they play as captains on their teams and and how um they can establish the culture establish the norms for their teams and being an inclusive and and um positive team environment setting those goals for the teams to have successful seasons. Um looking at some some numbers [clears throat] um you know we're proud to say that we had over a thousand students participating in at least one sport during the 2425 school year uh in Darian High School which is about over 73% of the students uh enrolled

073at the high school. Um if you look at um those are unique athletes. If you look at dual athletes students that participate in more than one sport we're over 1,700 students um that participating in um in in sports here during high school. Um, so we're proud that we are um we have a lot of students participating in in the programs that that we provided there in high school and athletics. [clears throat] Some of the account highlights I wanted to touch upon um that you'll see increases on uh coaching stipens is 2% higher than it had been uh the previous year. Um there are no coaching requests in this budget. Um the 2% is is per the board contract um with the teachers union. Um the transportation account accounts for about a 3% increase uh which

074is typically what we see from year to year. Um we'll continue to look for savings um in that account um with shared buses from athletic teams uh teams going to the same location sharing loc uh sharing the buses. Um we use uh regular transportation for those students who are participating in a practice um in town. So we're looking at we're always looking for ways that we can save uh costs in that transportation account. Um and then we look at account uh for the outside facility rentals which again is a shared cost about a 2% increase. Um uh for that account uh and in the past the district covers 30% of those costs uh with the parents covering 70% of that cost and later on you'll see a slide which kind of breaks down what those

075sports are and what those expenditures are. Uh these are the um expenditures, the additions that you'll see in some of the RC the accounts in RC11. Um stipens we just talked about in transportation officials is is up next year. We're hosting the turkey bowl. So we're accounting for extra personnel, extra security uh for that event. Um as well as supplies um supplies account really for the the portable bleach that we bring in for that event, that large event um which holds about 4,000 people at at the stadium. It also accounts for the deferred uniforms from uh last year's budget that were deferred into this year's budget which includes girls and boys soccer, girls and boys ice hockey as well as girls basketball. Uh trainers, we have a contract with Evolution Physical Therapy to provide us

076two full-time trainers that that um that contract is going up a bit uh for next year. Uh and then rentals, as we mentioned, will be going up as well as well as the fees that we use for students and teams to participate in in events uh indoor track, outdoor track, invitationals, wrestling events, things of that nature. So that account um has gone up a bit as well. Uh there is the Taylor I referred to for rental sports. Um I just want to point out that diving um is a completely board of ed contributed um uh paid for through RC11. We continue to swim um at the Darian Y uh practice and compete. um number of years ago the the well there the depth of the of the deep end of the Darian Y was not

077um was deemed um not appropriate to dive in. So now we dive and practice and compete in the Kenan Y. With that um comes a cost that we that that the board incurs um we do have reciprocity with the Y um that they use our facilities for their programming. We use their facility for swimming and gymnastics. And so there's reciprocity and agreement with the board and the uh and the Y for us to use their facility there. Uh there you see girls hockey and boys hockey breakdown of the sailing contribution is 375 per dollars per student per year. Uh that money goes into an account to um cover the cost of new boats every eight or nine years. We actually just bought a fleet of new boats for the sailing team last year which was

078used for money from that account. Um so we'll continue to grow that over the next seven, eight years to purchase new boats in the future. >> [clears throat] >> Um the next few slides are going to talk about what we spend per um per student per sport. Um you'll see those sports highlighted with a star andor start a plus. Star equals a JV program is offered in that sport. Uh starter plus includes a JV and a freshman program in that sport. You see there's a wide variety of what we offer um in terms of cost per people. Um, again, the dive stands out because of the of the the uh assumed cost the board has for the nican and y for practicing competitions. [clears throat] Looking at the winter sports, [clears throat] um you'll see

079that same high cost for uh the boys dive team again because that um that cost that the the board incurs um and the breakdown of what we pay per pupil u for those individual sports in the winter and then you'll see the spring breakdown. That's also in the budget book and on a onepage document as well if you wanted to take a look at that um on a one page. As we look forward to next year um how we can better support um our student athletes and our coaches. Uh we'll continue with the QPR training for all our new head coaches as they come on board. That'll be part of the onboarding process. Uh we'll continue of course our collaboration with uh Dr. Dad and um how we can support our students in mental health.

080um which would include sources of strength training which is the studentbased club uh that we look to incorporate at the school. Um youth mental health first a day training uh which is two half-day training for coaches. It's offered through the town at no cost. Uh we had a couple coaches take that program a couple years ago. Um so we're looking to offer that for our coaches for next year which is a it's a certification course that helps uh coaches better understand mental health issues and respond accordingly to others who may be experiencing distress. Um, in an effort of um, increased communication, uh, we're looking to launch a seasonal athletic newsletter, which will provide information on how teams are doing and functioning, uh, throughout the season, as well as updating our athletic handbook, um, which, um,

081for students and families to talk about how to go more in depth on student evaluation during triyouts and how cuts are communicated as well. [clears throat] Um, there you see next steps, budget meetings coming up. I guess the next email, next slide is email contacts and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have regarding RC11. >> Thank you. Thank you very much for the presentation. Um I just had a couple very small questions. First on the athletic trainers, um it's increasing 10,000. Is that just contractual increase for the two trainers? Correct. >> So it's not a number of trainers? No, it's still two trainers. Uh, two full-time trainers about 40 hours per week each and it's a contract for an extra. >> Okay. Thank you. And then the there's a rental fee revenue

082of 120,000 or so. What what is that from? >> So that's the that's the third that's the 30% of collection, right, Rich? That we that we uh collect from parents uh for for their students participate in the sports of boys ice hockey, girls ice hockey, boys. Okay. So that's the money that we take in as part of the 70%. Um, >> right. No, it's not really increase. I was just curious. Thank you. Are there board questions? Katie, >> thank you. Um just feel the need to point out that um swim and dive is one team. Um I know all the aquatic parents um are listening and thinking about that. Um but they do compete together um even though they're broken out in this sheet as separate classs. Um Chris, um rugby is an FCX sport,

083not a club. >> So it's it's a varsity sport at Darian High School. both boys and girls rugby, but it's not an FCA recognized sport. >> Um, so rugby is not in a cost sharing. Did I miss that? >> It it it is not. No, there's there's no rental fee associated with boys or girls rugby. >> Okay, thank you. Um, and then um this is a I guess a bit of a comment and then I have one final question. Um, regarding the mental health, I'm really happy to see that that's a continued area of focus in Darianne. Um, and I'm really happy to see that we're looking to update our athletics handbook as well. I think, um, there's always [clears throat] room to improve our communication between families and community and expectations. Um, regarding the

084mental health, um, I'd love to see us think about um, how we might support our students through injury. um especially in a competitive town like Derenne um we can really tie a lot of our identity to certain aspects of ourselves like being an athlete or being a certain position um and it can be quite devastating um and very confusing um if suddenly you're no longer able to actively participate as that part. So I'd love to see us think intentionally and maybe track how we can support our um student athletes who are facing such a challenge. Um and then in terms of um kind of like that tracking component too to understand our students trajectories, do we track participation over the course of four years? Um so like for example um you broke out how many

085unique athletes that we have participating and how many total. I'm curious to look at how many seniors are participating in athletics and then compare that to how many of that same class graduating this year were participating as freshmen. I think that um the more we can understand you know barriers to participation things that might have kids drop out opportunities to get involved later um yes all of that um just the way we do with academics you know curriculum we look to say what's the trajectory of math and if our kids start out you know in freshman geometry what are the paths I'd love to see us do that with athletics as well >> can I just add on to what Katie said about um uh other mental health um angles to look at and support.

086Um I also would love to see or find out if you do anything with disordered eating. Um you know a lot of athletes uh uh could use nutri you know nutritional [clears throat] help or in some athletics you know people gain or lose weight to do specific things. So it would be um interesting or helpful to know if you have any sort of um institutionalized help that way. It's a correct idea. >> Thank you. Other question, Dennis. >> So, at the same point as Katie on swim and dive and actually in your photo of the swim and dive team, it says swim and dive. So, I think we really need to stop except I realize that there's a cost and maybe we have to figure out how to do the cost for the diving, but

087the swim and it's like saying the the track and field is are two different sports. They're >> we can certainly improve upon that for next year. >> But Mike and and thank you for this presentation. It was very interesting for me of how you laid it out. Um, specifically the fall, winter, and spring sports. And when I sum up the fall, there's 621 athletes in the fall. There's 639 athletes in the spring, but there's only 461 in the winter. And and I'm assuming well I'm going to Is there a limit on the number of students who can participate in in indoor and out indoor track boys and girls or do they just or because there's 90 girls who do cross country there's 100 girls who do track and there's only 40 girls who are think

088or something but it's a much less number doing indoor track and we're we're almost 200 kids less in the in the winter and I'm wondering why andor and then the second question is what can we do about that? Because it seems like there's 600 kids who want to play sports. Maybe they don't want to play year round, but I would bet I would guess that they might they might want to if we had opportunities for them to do so. So, to answer the first part of the question, no, there's no limit on the numbers of track athletes who we take on the winter for boys or girls. Um, I have some some assumptions why the the numbers are lower in the winter. I think the winter uh season uh encompasses two vacations, the Christmas and

089and the February vacation. I think there's less um I think there's less participants in those se in that season because of the commitment that the athletes would be here during the vacation than and probably the want to go away. Um you see um in the fall and the spring some of our um if you're looking at the the aggregate number of those two seasons you know we have a lot of a lot of students that participate in soccer and football and I think that number that brings those numbers up for the fall. Uh in the spring we have boys and girls across which again I think is our larger uh larger participants. So, um, you know, so we don't we don't limit uh for for the winter season for track or any of the fall

090or spring season for track. So, um, I I if I had a guess, it could be that that the two vacations over the over the winter season could be prohibitive of of students. It's also not a unique phenomenon to uh this is very similar ratio for us in Ry previously and I imagine if Chris checked with his colleagues in our neighboring districts you would find the same pattern. >> Just just something I noticed and wondered if what if if there's something we should or could do. >> Well, I mean with the with the uh success of Marty Supreme maybe uh table tennis [laughter] will come in. >> Other questions? [clears throat] I noticed on um the cost share for parents boys ice hockey >> it's getting over $1,000. Is that correct for per student for

091a parent to have their uh son in ice hockey? >> It is. I think it's over a thousand for the girls as well. >> And is is that getting a little bit out of line? Should you look at at supporting that more? >> It seems high compared to the other sports is why I'm asking >> it's high because of the cost of ice quite honestly. So that's that that's why it's the highest. Um, you know, we haven't >> limiting participation too because it's a little >> um we we we've had a lot of numbers a lot of uh boys specifically come out for the boys team. So I don't think it's limiting uh the number of participants. Um you know it's something that we I guess we could discuss and look at but you know

092we we've always had that 7030 cost sharing. Um >> are have you heard any push back complaints uh about that that we should >> discuss? I should I haven't but that doesn't mean there's that there aren't um some issues with no >> and >> I do [clears throat] think if if we you know I my understanding is that the board at some point historically made a decision about that ratio that would be a good larger conversation looking at all sports uh you know not just looking at that one in isolation but considering the multi >> or we look at the 7030 ratio and then we cap out of pocket expense for a parent maybe >> something to consider But I understand there's some heated conversations over the years. >> I think historically historically >> I

093see some people twitching at >> we had we made the decision to provide ice hockey as a sport and the cost was because you had to rent rank space and so it was agreed that in order to be able to have this as a darian high school sport they would pay that money and I you're right it it gets expensive. point of order. That was 1969 when that was done. [laughter] >> And as a so this RC code also includes uh regular physical education classes in the in the schools. >> It does. Yeah. >> And are there um so Joanna mentioned nutritional health but not just for is is I would assume that is that part of the That would be that would be something that's certainly covered in the health curriculum. Uh we have

094had guest speakers though um come to some of our teams talk about that exact um topic. Uh how important nutrition is in healthy eating? Um but something also covered in the health curriculum as well. And is health separate from the physical education in >> it would be also consider in in in RC11 health and yeah >> I know Dennis um Dennis and Katie already mentioned it but why is there no uh parent contribution for diving? So again, I think the the the history has been that um there's reciprocity um for the swim and dive team to um use a Darian YMCA. Um the the swimmers uh practice there. The well at the Darian Y is too shallow. >> That's the previous state, correct? Not our current state at New Kenan. >> So that's that that's

095the current I'm sorry, it's the I think it's the number of participants in dive. Um I think if you look at the participants, girls is about six, boys couple. >> Yeah, that's what it is. If you if you were to apply that formula, you would have one student paying 70% of $18,000 in order for there to be a swim and dive team. And without a diver, the swim team cannot be competitive. >> So asking one person to pay $15,000 in order to make an entire swim team competitive is >> that makes sense. >> Yes. Other board questions. Greg, >> thank you for the presentation. Just as as we've as I've been listening into some of the questions, it's sort of for me at least like sports was a big part of my upbringing and Darianne

096um being a member of a lot of different sports teams. Um it seems like there may be a broader conversation that we want to have and I don't know if it it's a different thing [clears throat] at the board table or we're talking about mental fitness, we're talking about um nutrition. There's a lot of different elements that's that are integrated into sports. there's obviously a lot of kids there. So, just maybe understanding like for me like having a separate conversation around like what is the ethos that we're trying to drive to our athletes, how are we trying to get more students to be physically active through sports and if it's not through sports, you know, through physical education or otherwise to get people understand like the benefits of that. I think that that's a a

097big topic. >> Yeah. And you know, I'm just suggesting maybe there's another not for today necessarily, but another point in time when we could get your thoughts. >> That's a great idea, Sarah. >> I'm pretty sure Mr. Gavlin just suggested a deep dive into RSC. >> Um, anyways, sorry. Um, I don't, it's actually not budget related, but that number, the 73.4 of enrolled students that have participate in a sport at DHS was it's huge. Do you have any idea of do you track that like who does rowing or equestrian or fencing or you know how many of those students that are not doing sports at DHS? I'm just curious like if this >> So we don't track the non DHS sports. We we do track though. So we have our signing day. You've probably seen

098you know social media posts. We do track we do invite those students that u participate in those programs that are not offered DHS to be a part of that. So we do know we have um you know some that go on to to compete at the collegiate level. We do though know that we don't but we don't track um specifically how many >> I was curious what the percentage of the entire population. >> Dave, >> so I was going to ask one question. Um I see the bullet point here regarding the student evaluation during triyouts in terms of the uh update to the student handbook. >> Are we going to go into a little bit of detail into the um evaluation and selection of leadership? I know I've had a number of questions from constituents

099over years as to how we do that and how we select captains or other leaders on teams. So, I'm hoping we can have some guidelines and transparency so people can understand how that works as part of this update. >> Thank you. Uh Joanna. >> Yeah. [clears throat] >> So, um when I think about athletics, I think about um the student experience for and there's always these questions of equity. Some students that aren't athletics at all feel like the the athletes get more attention and more money. And then even within the athletics budget, some teams feel like they get more money or attention than other teams. Um a and so in order to try to understand, for me at least, you know, what are the differences, um I tried to go through and find out things

100like uniforms, uh protective equipment. Um it's really hard from these handouts to parse out exactly what each athlete for each team is getting. Um like for instance this year the cross country cost on supplies is like $1,000 for 90 kids and that's because two years ago they got their uniforms. Um, so it it would be really helpful if possible if we could get like list of the cost of uniform and equipment per athlete per each sport um over the course of the entire uniform, you know, cycle replacements. Um, especially since as a board we've now uh sort of put two so half the kids on a four-year replacement cycle and half the kids in a three-year replacement cycle. Um, >> so we could just understand, you know, >> Sure. work with it. >> I I

101think there's a Dave, I think your comments are really important for us to think about as we put together the handbook. I think helping families understand when we revise the handbook like what comes with participating in that sport. I think there are great ideas coming across the table that I think will be helpful in that process. Just to follow up on that, I would just say that I think it could be really great to involve the community in the development of a handbook, asking, you know, some of the captain's um the captain's parents who are heavily involved, you know, like what's working, what's not, what would you like to see updated? be a great use of the new public information officer to to help us in building out a quality handbook. Sorry, just a plug

102for [laughter] next next week's presentation. >> Uh, good. Any other board questions? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Manfredonia. Thank you very much for this presentation. And, uh, I think there were a couple follow-ups just on the kind of the mental health side with having some kind of an agenda item. I think that we could have more discussion around that and then with the handbook development um to have more transparency in all of this that would be great. Um so if there are no other questions we can move to public comment. Good evening. If you would like to participate in public comment please approach the podium and wait to be recognized. Once recognized please state your name and town of residence and note that you have up to three minutes to comment. Please note the time with

103the chair. Am I recognized? >> Uh, Jack Davis, 197 Street. I want to go back to something that I didn't hear during your sports conversation. And please understand, I had three kids play in college and had about 15 varsity letters. I also had my daughter was the first girl in Darian High School to win three FCA and three state championships in three different sports and was captain of two of them. Having a sport helps that student go through the ladder and separates them when they have the same SATs, the same grades to get into some of the students that they want. We've seen that kids who play on boys lacrosse who never saw varsity field but because they were playing for Derriad are accepted into division three schools because they were at Dered. I think

104that you have to look at the total picture of what this gives to kids. Many of our divers actually dive in college. So yes, it may be one or two and Katie's right. Without that, we don't have a swimming team that's competitive. And I think we have to look at the full picture of what these sports are offering. To Dennis's question, I know in one sport that I'm familiar with, and it may have changed in the 10 years my youngest is 34, but if you're not on JV as a freshman, you're probably never going to see a varsity field. And that is on several of these others. I know that PE that kids are ranked of where you stand in varsity lacrosse. We've seen kids go all-American, all-American, but they only played varsity as a

105start of one year because the prior kid was an all-American. So, we just have to look at the full picture of what this offers the children. The other thing that's important with two daughters, sports is the one of the top places to teach women teamwork. Boys have it more often. sports are an excellent opportunity for that learning to exist. So all I'm saying is that when you start looking at sports and I chair of FMB so believe me I look at numbers this is beyond numbers and so the same thing goes for the arts program that we have and some of the other programs there our kids continue so it is more important than the numbers that we're sometimes spending. Thank you. >> Thank you. Are there other public comments? All right. I would like

106to have a motion to adjourn this meeting. Is there a motion, Sarah? Seconded by Dennis. All in favor?