001are live. >> Okay. Good evening. I would like to call this regular meeting of the board of education to order. The next board of education meeting is Tuesday, September 9th at 7:30 p.m. I uh spent the morning at the high school. I'd like to thank the high school administration for a very successful freshman orientation. It is not a small exercise to have all of those families and all those kids come in and pay attention. Um and then that was followed by another um the commitment um extracurricular commitment piece and then everybody's off to their sports practices. It's really exciting to see that campus already alive. So speaking of campuses, uh there are so many people to say thank you to. Um and the other folks who have been really busy on campuses are the construction
002and facilities folks who have been working at Henley Homes and Royal. So thank you to them for their hard work. We are so excited that those schools will be ready for students and that there'll be new um portions in each of those three schools that students will get to enjoy starting tomorrow. Um and of course in addition to facilities are all the people who have been working um some through the summer and some for the past 10 10 days or so. but our central office, our building administrators, our nurses, our paraprofessionals, our security professionals, um, and many, many others, our secretaries. So, thank you. This is a large, um, organization and a lot of people come together to make it happen on behalf of our students. So, thank you to everyone who's ready for tomorrow.
003Um, including, uh, me, who's going to kick a few people out the door. >> Um, thank you to transportation who'll get them all there. Um tonight we have a fairly short agenda. We'll spend some time doing a summer recap. Um quite a bit happened this summer. We just talked about a little bit of it. Uh and so the administration is going to walk us through that. We'll also go through our board goals and we'll be talking about um you'll hear us talking about what the board will be focusing on this year. No big surprises there. Um as I said at convocation, governance and communication are two really big things that we'll be looking at. we're taking the opportunity that now that we have an interim in to really look at how we govern here at
004this board table um and how we communicate and how we support others in their communication. So, we're really excited to be having those conversations this fall in an ongoing basis. Um and uh thank you to my fellow board members Joanna, Greg, Dave, Katie, Dennis, Robin, Sarah, and John who spend so much time working on behalf of our schools. Um, we're all grateful to each of you. >> And with that, um, I will turn it over to public comment. >> Good evening. For anybody in person or online who would like to participate in public comment, please approach the podium or use the raised hand icon and wait to be recognized. Please note that you have up to three minutes to comment. State your name and address for the record. We have no raised hands at this
005time. >> Okay. And with that, I'll turn it over to you, Dr. Burn, thank you for being here to kick off uh your first school year here in Derenne, although certainly not your first school year. >> Thank you very much. Good evening and thank you for joining us for the August 26th board of education meeting. My report will be brief tonight as we have a presentation uh about the extensive summer work we've done in our recap shortly. Teachers reported last Thursday for their start of the school year and we held convocation on Friday at Darian High School. Many thanks to all from the board who were able to attend and a first selectman John Serrdky who joined us as well. Our faculty, staff and administrators are all very excited for the start of the new
006year. I'd like to acknowledge our custodial technology and facilities departments for their extraordinary efforts specifically in getting us ready for the start of school with an extra note of thanks for the crews at Henley Homes and Royal who navigated major construction this summer. Earlier today, I was interviewed on WICC radio 95.9, which I thought was a rock and roll station, but is not anymore, for a back to school segment. Actually was interesting. They found us because uh my welcome back letter became an article in the local Hurst newspapers. They just turned it into an article. It was a very positive article and u Melissa in the morning reached out yesterday and said they'd love to have me on. Um, I had a chance I shared it with the board earlier today. I will be sharing
007it with the community, but it was nice to be a guest and I had a chance to talk about the really good work happening here across the spectrum uh in Darian. Tomorrow morning, we will welcome students back for the start of the 2526 school year. I look forward to welcoming students at all of our schools over the first days of school. High school first thing tomorrow. Each day I'll be at a school for arrival and another for dismissal. having the chance to attend arrival and dismissal at every school in the first few days. Uh earlier today we discovered a communication error with our transportation routing software in Aspen where some bus assignments are not correctly reflecting in Aspen. Um everyone is able to see their actual bus route, but some details are lacking for the
008families of approximately 34 students and we've been in contact with all of those families. The drivers will stop and pick up all students on the run, even if they're not showing on their ride sheet. And we'll do this um obviously we always do this for the first few weeks of school, but we uh we're going to continue this and hopefully get this resolved in the next day or so. Um and as soon as we have that Aspen update and that communication fix, I will let you know. And just on a community note, big event, the Darian Police Department will celebrate its 100th anniversary during its openhouse event Saturday, September 6th from 11:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. at police headquarters at 25 Hecker Avenue. Attendees will be able to see a K9 demo, a SWAT demo,
009and other specialized unit demonstrations. Additionally, there will be department tours, a child safety seat clinic, chance to meet Darian police officers, exploring patrol cars, and much more. And pizza by Antonio's Italian Beastro will be provided. So, big family event coming up on September 6th. And that concludes my report for this evening. >> Thank you so much. We appreciate that. With that, we'll take the approval of the minutes. May I have a motion to approve the following and minutes of the special meetings held on July 22nd, 2025? That is uh Joanna, seconded by Dennis. All those in favor, that is unanimous. Thank you. >> Okay. And we'll move on to the summer recap presentation which will include curriculum and instruction, special education and student services, facilities, human resources, and enrollment. Dr. Burn. >> Excellent. Well, thank
010you so much. So, we're trying something new this year. There were a number of presentations over the first few meetings of the board year, and what we've done is combined them into one big celebratory summer recap. that'll give us an opportunity across departments to share the work that we've been up to over the summer and the exciting things that have been happening in the school district. So, our focus Oh, good. It's behind me. Our focus focus will first be uh I'll talk a little bit about my entry plan implementation that has been effect since I arrived. We'll uh then focus on curriculum instruction, uh special education and student services, facilities, human resources, and enrollment. Um, I think it's really important that in any presentation we bring and anytime we're talking about the work, we connect
011it back to the vision of the graduate, which is what should be driving all of that work. And so you'll hear a lot about the vision of the graduate over the course of the year, but knowing that the work that was planned over the summer, whether it is in facilities and getting classrooms uh organized and set up and built so that they are places where kids can communicate, collaborate, uh foster independence and be creative um to the work that we're doing with teachers. It is all in service of achieving that vision of the graduate. So, when we talk about my entry plan, um you all know what I've been doing because you were the first ones that I actually sat and met with and asked those same questions. The whole point is to build relationships
012and develop trust for me to listen and learn and to engage folks from across the district, understanding what our current priorities are, what our needs, and what our opportunities for growth are. And very specifically, it's about the relationships in my goals of setting those relationships. It's creating a structure to have those conversations, to listen and learn as much as I can about the Darianne school district, to be able to speak to people across the spectrum of Darianne. So, I've met with folks who live in the community and don't have schools in the community, folks who have schools across all levels, community organizations, but just that broad multiple perspectives are being uh heard and building relationships not just with families and members of the community, but with our local officials and elected officials as well. So,
013so far by the numbers um it it has actually changed since I shared this on Friday. I had three or four more in the last two days, but I've done 110 entry meetings so far, including the nine board of education members, 41 district administrators and school administrators, eight teachers, nine support staff, 19 parents, nine municipal officials, and representatives from community organizations totaling 15 people. And there are some pretty clear messages. I'm hearing that what's valued our teachers, administrators, and staff, the commitment to all kids finding their path and being successful in our schools, the the breadth of opportunity that's available to the kids, and that students are always at the center of decisions. And even though my goals really sort of rest, my expectations rest in the goals that have been pretty uh clear, building
014relationships, what the community is expecting from me, that I will be visible in the schools, in the community, build those relationships, that I will improve our communication both within the system internally and externally. That I will bridge the gap that currently exists between teachers, administration, and the board. that I will build greater community trust in our system, build greater connections between the schools and central office and help the board and the administration focus on the core responsibility of governance and not the day-to-day operations of the district. And the challenges that have come across in these conversations is trust and and it's in a a multitude of ways. It's internal. It's internal and external, but essentially trust as a theme that's emerged in these discussions. The mental health of the children is something that's come up
015a lot in talking with families and staff. Um the notion and the the need to recruit a highquality superintendent for the long term and the inefficient uh functioning of the district governance team. And when I say governance team, that's all of us at this table. It's the combination of us as the board and the central administration and that finances are always a challenge that are going to be something that we're facing. There is never going to be enough money and we have to be efficient and uh fiscally responsible in that work. All right, any questions on the entry plan piece? I'm sorry. Feel free at any point you could ask questions. Joan, >> um I was just wondering um that since you only interviewed eight teachers, um if you thought that was good number, if
016it could be higher, if if it struck me as like a little low compared to some of the other numbers. Um >> it's a good number for during the summer when teachers weren't available. And I already know that number is going up because there's a lot of them scheduled to come in and meet with me. Uh so that that will definitely increase rapidly in the next couple of weeks. >> Anyone else? >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. Good evening everyone. Um for curriculum and instruction update from summer, I think the most celebratory thing is we had approximately 75 staff members who were involved in curriculum projects this summer. They're across all schools and all departments. I I think it's really also important to note that when we're writing curriculum and working on those projects,
017we're doing that as general education and special education team from the very beginning of all of those projects. Um, from a curriculum and instruction perspective on the professional learning side, because you can already see there are some of the projects with regard to the levels and departments, we've done a lot of work, as you know, this summer in preparing for implementation year one with H.M. We had our entire elementary team together yesterday with some um coaches or representatives from HMH and most importantly our pilot teachers who are leading that work who have one year of experience under their belts. We've also done some work surely and I together with our teams um to have our year one of an Orton Gillingham Academy. That work will continue as the year progresses. We are on pace with
018our curriculum writing. As you know, we have a writing and revision calendar um where we're planning out our projects, which also helps to align to our budget cycle. We're on pace also to develop a scope in sequence for every single course and grade level. That's something that's legislated. We learned about that during our board retreat um and also with our administrative retreat with um attorney Moody. And we're also on page to complete our stage one projects which will all be um up and running by the end of the year in Edge Planet. Um just gratitude again to the board for expanding the educ planet license so that all of our families will be able to have access and all administrators and staff. So that will be new this year that our staff will actually all
019teachers will be able to go on and view the curriculum there. So that's great. And that's my update for curriculum and instruction. >> Any questions on that? >> Thank you. I always look excited about explaining that ESY actually is fun. We've already proven the premise that school can be fun in the summer. And I just want to acknowledge and thank all the um special education and general education staff that work with us on ESY, the administrators, the related service providers, the PAR educators, um the Department of Transportation and those bus drivers who are out there every morning greeting families and children. So just a special thank to to all their inddehatible efforts and successes. Um as you can see from um the first slide in terms of enrollment it is consistent um over the years
020K through 12 extended school year. You you'll note that there's always more recommendations than students who attend. It's usually about 100 in in the differentiing. That's very often because students and families choose to do vacation or have summer plans or other activities they do or camps. So that's been consistent year-over-year. But as you can see, our attendance is almost identical year to year in the um K through 12 plus ELP. And you might ask the question, why are the recommendations much closer to the actual attendance in ELP? Um ELP often is seen as a 12-month program. Students are involved in those developing classes um very often attend and look at as a 12-month program. for the highlights if you just to note that the left side of the ELP staffing um that's been consistent also
021and you can see um the number of different providers in terms of the from par educators through related service providers. One notion to look at also or notation is that this year on the K through2 staffing at DHS you may see there are more members in different disciplines more SLPs that are there this year more PTs um and some more psychologists. The reason for it over the years is some of our providers have asked to work three days a week instead of five days a week. Um they have other obligations and family and working all year. So we're fortunate that we had more providers in order to fill all of our um recommendations for students. In our survey um that was answered by parents. If you notice, what was notable is that in our um
022update, we really have been more successful in our um ESY schedules coming out and being easier to understand in the new format. We've been very successful and again, shout out to our transportation department for pickup and drop off at consistent times and families also responded all in the 90 percentiles of how much they appreciated the information that was received in a timely manner. >> Thank you. questions about ESY. Thank you. >> Good evening everybody. In the facilities world, we can summarize this past summer in two words and that would be teamwork and effort. We received a tremendous amount of both. And I just wanted to say a quick thank you not only to our HHR construction team, OMG AP, uh, but our in-house custodians, maintenance staff, um, my assistant director, Nester Aparicio, we worked really
023hard this summer to, uh, accomplish a lot in the capital world as well. Every building was touched on some level of construction or renovation. Some projects, as you can see from the memo, are still ongoing while others are completed in their entirety. And with that, I'll take any questions you might have. >> Questions for facilities? Dennis? >> Um, question on home the portables at the schools. Do you know how long they've been there? Does anyone know >> which portables? >> Any of the portables? >> All the portables have been demolished. >> Understood. But how long? I so I was talking with a colleague who said she's in her mid60s and said she attended third and fourth fifth grade in Hinley. So portables are at least 50 years old in Derenne and we're finally rid of
024them. So I think that's something to be very >> that's definitely cause for celebration. >> It's been a long a long time. Hopefully we've never seen >> expected lifespan is about 12 years. I don't know if they're the same portable, but but it's still a long time we've had something on those campuses. So, >> good point, Dennis. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> No. >> Thank you to your team. Truly, >> you truly >> I think they deserve a little. Yeah. >> So, we had only 33 certified staff openings, 33 teacher openings, which is the lowest by half since I've been here. This is my 11th year. So, we're doing >> Say that again. >> Yes, I will. I will. >> It's lower by more than half than I've seen in any of the
02511 years that I've been here. So, um we've been up in the 70s and the 60s. Um the bad news is that there is a teacher shortage. Um we were able to fill most of those positions. Um you can see on the update that we did um interview a special education teacher yesterday that was not a successful um applicant. The chorus teacher was and it we're very excited. He's going to be a great addition to the staff. I do want to mention that two of the positions at the high school, a special education teacher and a math teacher, are being covered internally by our staff taking an extra class and we are so grateful. That's a big ask of them, but they stepped up so that we didn't have to settle. Um, and then uh
026par profofessionals. So what happened was recently we had a lot of paras who had been here 20 30 years retire and so now it's starting to churn a little bit. So we have more par openings this year but we are staffed with the exception of one at this point. >> Okay. Questions for HR. >> Okay. >> Enrollment. Is that you, Rich? >> Nope. Yep. >> Uh so overall enrollment is 4,493 students. Uh we're down slightly by 29 students from last year. Um since July, we have two section changes. Uh we did break uh homes kindergarten and then uh tokenique in fourth grade. So we have a total of 108 sections going into the school. >> Okay. And can you walk us through the budget piece of that? >> Uh so we budgeted 107 sections and
027so we are one section over. Uh so at the finance committee in September we'll bring a recommended transfer to cover that. Um we do have savings in other places so we will be able to cover that shortfall. >> Thank you. Hey, any questions about enrollment numbers? >> I just wanted to reiterate what something uh Dr. Burns said in his radio interview this morning that you know the question was should should the district be concerned about the declining enrollment. If you just reiterate what you said because there's been some you know media >> you know coverage of our declining enrollment. >> I I would say that the headline of that article was quite striking but it wasn't reflective of the actual numbers. Um there is a tremendous amount of turn that happens and unpredictability with enrollment
028pieces. Um to me in looking at our numbers and looking at them over the last number of years um there aren't patterns that say there's something arai. Um people move in, people move out, people decide to go to private school for a variety of reasons. Um and that's just something that occurs in school districts everywhere. um you know being within 30 Rich said 29 I thought it was 25 29 somewhere around there that's a pretty respectable number and and I will say that demograph demographic studies as I'm sure you've all scratched your head and wondered when they've been presented in the past you might as well bring a magic eightball and use that to do your demographic studies because in communities like Darianne the birth rate is inconsequential when you're predicting school enrollments and the
029real estate market fluctuations have tremendous impact on whether or not you have people coming and going and uh what I said this morning in my interview is these numbers change all the time. So, you know, people don't buy and sell houses on the school district cycle. Um, so we'll have students that come to us throughout the school year that move to Darianne and we'll have families that may move out of Darian throughout the school year and it's certainly something we will monitor carefully and if at any point we think that there is something that's concerning, we'll certainly be talking about that publicly, but there's really nothing that concerns me in the numbers. Um, everyone I've talked to is excited about being in Darienne, excited about having the kids back at school and and I think
030that's a it's a great place for us to be at this moment in time. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> Okay, great. Thank you very much. >> All right, thank you for the recap. It's nice to have all of that consolidated into one presentation. uh further discussion and possible action on 2526 board of education goals. Um this is just an update on what we received before. The only thing um that I think we could consider we already have five goals which is typically enough but we've talked about about governance being something that we want to take a look at the number of meetings Greg the um some of the some of the length of some of the meetings that we've talked about. So um what we focus on so we could also add a sixth
031goal just specifically focusing on governance if we had any interest in that. Um so I would say if the board is feels that's of interest say yay or nay u but regardless we're here to just um agree to at least these five goals. If we want to add a six we can. Any questions about the goals that are here? Yes, John. >> I would I would echo your comments and put it on as an additional goal. we've actually started the work. You know, we're going to discuss the frequency of meetings amongst committees and such. So, >> we got that. >> Yeah. >> So, I definitely >> Yeah. Great. Eric is talking about looking at the master agenda and and refining some of that. That that's a piece of it. Transparency and how some of our
032materials are are used would also go there. Yes, Katie. >> Thank you. So, um, when I was reviewing these goals, I I had a similar thought just in thinking about what do we as a board want to accomplish in the next year. And, um, and I wondered if that couldn't be uh, captured in goal five and maybe it is maybe it's better to separate it, maybe it's a rewarding of it. Um, but I kind of read goal five in particular as like, you know, um, just the board improving its its own work, right? So, some of that is relations, some of that I think if we if we take a a closer look at how we operate and how we can improve, some of those other things will come along naturally. So, um I'm fine
033with adding it as a separate one or um you know, lumping it and maybe altering five. >> Great. Thank you. >> Right, Dave. >> Yeah, I would echo John and Katie. I'm all for looking at it whether it's goal six or whether it's the bullet point three of number five. either way. But yeah, I think we should definitely take up the work this year. >> Okay, great. So, this will come back to us next meeting then. We won't vote on it tonight um with with an addition. >> Right. Thank you everyone for taking a look at it. >> Uh further discussion and possible action on proposed schedule of 2526 board of education subcommittee meetings. As a reminder, administration went back and just took a look at whether or not we could um have a few
034of our subcommittees meet at a at a slightly different cadence, meeting more like every other month. Any questions about that? So, facilities and policy are more every other month. Curriculum and finance stay on the same monthly schedule. Katie, >> thank you. Um I just I just wanted to highlight that um there seems to be a slight disconnect between setting the calendars now and the change up that the board experiences in a couple of months. So I just wonder if um if there's another way to do this if we wind up having to revisit it. Um you know can we postpone this to November? Do we need to take care of this now? Um just a thought because I do find that sometimes we wind up like you know kind of forcing a fit um versus
035maybe making it optimal >> I for the actual dates meaning you don't know if you want the facilities and policy to be every other one because curriculum and finance they're staying as they are. >> Yeah. I guess I I mostly mean about um it's it typically comes down to like which day of the week, right? Depending on who the committee members are just because the committees change every November that setting it now in August and then you know we are setting it without knowing who are on those committees and if those particular dates work. That was really my point. >> Gotcha. Uh, I I would suggest that we go ahead and put something down and that the new board take as as an action item to take a look at the um at the calendar
036at that time and see if anything needs to be revised to that. >> Can um can you just make sure that we highlight that like as we as we have our Thank you. >> Okay. With that, then I will um take a motion to approve the proposed schedule of 2526 board of education subcommittee meetings. That's John. Seconded by Sarah. All those in favor? That is unanimous. Thank you. Discussion of June 2025 and N year end financial report and possible action on proposed budget transfer. Rich. Uh so this is the year-end unodudited uh finances for fiscal year 25. Uh we did end the year with a positive balance of 590,625. Um it actually should be 523,000 was related to special education. 67,000 related to general education. I did want to note that if we did not
037receive the $40 million additional appropriation to access cost, we would have ended the year with a $62,000 positive balance. So that really is what drove the difference between where we ended and what you see now. Um on the next slide, uh salaries did end with a positive 56,656. We did have salary savings in just over 22,000. Curriculum writing uh was a positive balance of 19,000. Then we had some small savings in substitutes uh ESY and facility overtime. Uh moving to operating uh out of district tuition stayed at that positive balance we were tracking at 281,000. um accumulation of a v variety of operating accounts like textbooks, office supplies, teaching supplies, consumables ended up with just under $18,000 as a positive balance. And then legal fees, primarily special ed legal fees, ended the year with a
038positive balance of $15,000. And then textbooks were a positive $7,700. Uh moving to fixed, we ended the year with a positive balance of $20,000. Uh we did have a little bit of positive balance in electric uh for 13,000 and a little bit in water. And then uh payroll taxes were slightly better than anticipated by about 5,000. And then workers comp and insurance by less than a thousand each. Uh moving forward to equipment, we were uh under budget by just over $1,000. Uh classware equipment was accumulative of $955 and assisted technology $68. And then finally in revenue, uh we ended the year with a positive balance of $190,000. And again, the bulk of that was excess cost related. And again, that was due to the initial additional appropriation of $40. Um, and then we had some
039shortfalls of uh field advertising, Medicaid, rentals, and then ELP tuition that we talked about previously. And then overall, there are no transfers for approval at the end of the year. >> Any questions, >> Joanna? Well, my first question is, are we getting the same report when we have the finance committee meeting? Because I like smaller nittygritty questions I would normally ask only in that context. >> This is it. >> Okay. Um so I was just wondering why you thought the filtering and field rental short of expectations. >> So a lot of what we uh rent for field and building depends on the number of participants that we have and so we assume a certain amount of participants are going to uh be there whether it's for specific field rental that fell short a little bit.
040Then building rentals it depends on the amount of hours that they use primarily at the high school auditorium. So, if we thought it was going to be six and then ended up four, we'll collect a little bit less. And that's primarily why we're short. >> Another one. >> Um, I also wanted to uh inquire about the curriculum writing. Um, we seem to have a significant am amount of savings there. I was wondering if something changed in your plan um or how that could be captured in the future when we're budgeting. So part of that might have also been because we had turnover with um two or three positions in that department. So the department chairs who developed those budgets were not the department chairs who were executing that work during the course of this school
041year. Um so that was a little bit different. Another strategy that we're using is to actually write curriculum throughout the year instead of just trying to cram it into those summer months. that's more effective, I think, not only from a budgetary perspective, but also so we can ensure that the quality of the work coming in is closely monitored and that we're you know with administrative close eye on things what the curriculum looks like before it's finalized. >> Thank you. >> Welcome. >> That's it. >> Okay, John. >> Um Rich, when you look at the May to June close and it was a $64,000 difference, can you comp that versus previous years? I mean, was that more or less? I know last fiscal year for the previous fiscal year. Um, we close the books a little
042early because of budget pressures, but maybe just put it in context. >> Uh, so we were much closer in terms of what our forecast was than we've been in the past. I mean, $60,000 on $120 million is pretty negligible. Um, and it really came down to curriculum writing and utilities where 40 grand of that $60,000 change and then everything else was pretty pretty small. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Rich. All right. The appointment of an impartial hearing officer for student disciplinary matters, expulsion expungement requests, and for and for hearing school accommodations, appeals, including transportation appeals as provided by statute for the 2025 2026 school year as they arise. Reminder, this is something we do yearly. Dr. Ber. >> Yep. It it's an annual appointment. It's a individual that is in the packet that
043has been appointed in the past. So >> discussion >> questions. Okay. With that, I'll take a motion to appoint attorney Steven M. Cedor as the impartial hearing officer for student disciplinary matters expulsion expungement requests and for hearing school accommodations appeals including transportation appeals as provided by statute for the 2526 school year as they arise. Dennis seconded by Robin. All those in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Uh okay. Okay. Then we have possible action on proposed contract agreement with the Darian School Maintenance Association that we discussed in executive session. So there will not be any questions uh unless they're uh just about process. May I have a motion to approve the contract agreement between the Darian Board of Education and Darian School Maintenance Association for the period July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2028. Dave, seconded
044by Robin. All those in favor? That's unanimous and okay discussion and possible action on approval of a 02 FTE resource allocation for world language at Middle Sex Middle School. Dr. Bird, >> so this is a a request just based on need. Um we had additional students uh wishing to take French at the middle school uh in the tune of about 25 students and this would enable us to accommodate those requests. Um so my um recommendation is doing an overage. We have French teachers that have it the ability within their schedule to teach that additional course and it will enable us to satisfy the schedules for those families. >> Okay. And can you give a little bit of context about how uh we ended up here? We certainly I would imagine somebody can can disagree. I
045would imagine happy to fill student need but it's just helpful to understand. >> Yeah. I I don't know a ton of the there was some uh discussion in the spring about this potentially happening and then um as the schedules were finalized last week it it was brought to my attention that we had some families that were reaching out um they were concerned they wanted their children to hopefully get their preferred language. I had multiple conversations with Kate in the counseling department and Amy and the reality was it was a simple fix that um the budgetary implications and talking with Rich or something we could navigate, >> right? >> Um and it was really just communication with the families and and frankly the communication has been wellreceived and and much appreciation and trying to make that
046work. >> And part of it's because uh why because we now have three languages at the middle school and so it's a little bit more. Or is that what's going on? >> Yeah. Yeah. With Mandarin, Spanish, and French. >> Okay. Does that mean there's an overage or, you know, underage of another language or there is somebody teaching? >> Well, what what you what you will typically see is lower numbers in Mandarin. Um, and that's something we have to certainly monitor and keep an eye on. Um, because it is a a very very challenging language to learn. Um, you know, Spanish is traditionally the most popular among the kids and then French, but it's something for us to keep an eye on as we go into budget planning for next year. >> Okay, Joanna. Um, this
047is a particularly large class. I think it's the largest grade in the district. Um, so are you going to need to make this adjustment every year or do you anticipate being able to plan for it? >> I I would imagine that the numbers will be pretty pretty consistent going forward. Uh I don't know what the incoming class numbers are of right at this moment in time. I'll probably be better at that in a couple months, but um you know and depending on what the class size that will be in eighth grade that's moving out, but it was it's something that we will look at in our budget development and really make sure that we're planning appropriately and and hopefully we don't end up in this place next year. Well, thank you for to all of
048you all for getting on it and getting a staff person in place. We appreciate it. Um, okay. May I have a motion to approve a point 2 FTE resource allocation for world language at Middle Sex Middle School for the 2526 school year? Dennis, seconded by Robin. All those in favor? That's unanimous. Okay. Personnel report March. >> I don't have anything to add. >> Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Follow-up action items. I didn't take note of any other than the governance goal, but that will that will come from administration. Okay. Uh with that, we'll open it to public comment. >> Good evening. If anybody in person or online would like to participate in public comment, please approach the podium or use the raised hand icon and wait to be recognized. Once recognized, state your name and address
049for the record and note that you have up to three minutes to comment. We have no raised hands at this time. >> Okay. And no one in the audience is at the podium. So with that, I will take a motion to adjurnn. Okay.