BOE Regular Meeting - June 24, 2025

001a second. We're live. Okay, go ahead. Good evening. Today is Tuesday, June 24th, 2025. I would like to call this regular meeting of the board of education to order. The next board of education meeting is scheduled on Tuesday, July 22nd at 8:30 a.m. in the Board of Education meeting room. May I have a motion to appoint Sarah Parent in her capacity as secretary to presside over tonight's meeting since I'm not able to be there in person tonight. May I have a motion? Dennis moved. John seconded. Yeah, I second it. Sarah, you saw first. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Sarah, you're presiding. All right. Thank you. Um I am going to start by making a motion to add agenda item 7A um with discussion and possible action on the Derenne uh school custodians union

002contract for July 1st 2025 through June 30th 2028. May I have a second? Joanna has a second. All in favor? That is unanimous. Thank you. Okay, we'll move to public comment cast, please. 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, please state your name and address for the record and note that you have up to three minutes to comment. We have nobody in the audience or online. Okay. Thank you. Um I'm not going to quite turn the mic over to you yet, Ellen. Um I just wanted to take a moment to say that we had a wonderful celebration in honor of you last week. Uh we had some teachers, some staff,

003administrators, and some of your family and friends, which was very special to hear everybody speak so kindly and wisely about you. Um so on behalf of the entire board of education, these past six years have been a wild ride, but your leadership has left a lasting legacy on our schools, our students, and the entire community of Darienne. Um during your time as superintendent, you guided the district through some of its most challenging and transformative years. Your leadership during the CO 19 pandemic was nothing short of extraordinary in the face of uncertainty and disruption. You led with compassion, resilience, and clarity. Your commitment to student learning, staff well-being, and community transparency helped us navigate an unpreented unprecedented experience while keeping our focus on future. And your puppetry along with Dr. Adley's neighborhood will always be rem

004remembered fondly. Under your direction, we began several major construction projects that will modernize our facilities and create safer, more inspiring spaces for learning. These projects will serve generations of students, and they will stand as a testament to your vision and your dedication to our children. And what stands out most to me is the love for the children and the students of Darianne. You ensure that they were at the forefront of every conversation. For that, I thank you. Alan, you leave behind a district that is stronger, more resilient, and better prepared to meet the challenges ahead. While we will miss your steady presence, we know that the foundation you have built will continue to support us for years to come. We wish you all the best in your next chapter. So on behalf of all of

005us, thank you very Thank you everyone. Thank you. Now it's your turn for the last for the last one. Yes, I can say that. That's okay. Um just want to congratulate the kids. Um It seems like it's over, right? And everything you move on. Um, but uh we pause just to appreciate the wonderful ceremonies that took place, stepping up, moving up, uh, Fitch Academy, uh, and, uh, obviously the pinnacle of the school system, the the high school graduation. All the graduations were were beautiful. U, congratulations to you, David. Um, and being there for the graduation. Um they were just they were just beautiful. Uh every single one of them. Uh so thank you to the administration, the board members, uh our staff and the parents who actually rally to put these events on. They're just

006spectacular and very moving and very touching. I will say that class is a very graceful class, gracious class and classy actually. Um just very respectful in in all ways and just it was just a beautiful testament. So, uh, it was beautiful that we could get outside. Uh, we had a few various rain drafts to finish and we were we're good to go. Um, so, uh, congratulations to the kids and wherever their dreams are actually taking them. Uh, Darian Summer School and ESY opened up. Uh, we opened up around about the same numbers. There's 1450 versus 1500 last year, but still there's kids still coming the last two days. Um so, you know, a couple of classes still to open up and participate in and we're probably the same for um ESY around 370 375 or

007something like that. Um that'll settle down at that. It went very smoothly with our own transportation and uh thank you to the staff and the kids and the parents are working with the u the heat the past couple of days. Dr. Burn has been in district a couple of times. Um he goes to the end of this particular week in in New York. So he has been trans transitioning with me and uh with some of other staff members. He's also been around all of the buildings. Teachers negotiation uh commences this uh summer. So uh when we get a we bit further in in the agenda for the summer retreat, um I'll maybe talk a we bit about it there because it might be uh uh an opportunity for the board to discuss something at that

008and then I want to run by a date or two, but I'll just leave it. uh we have to find bottom line is we have to find another date to meet with the board of finance the board of education has to meet with the board of finance in advance of uh the kickoff of the negotiation process. So the the retreat is uh for the 22nd and we have a we opportunity to talk about that uh later on. Uh I will be asking for actually the 25th how that uh how your calendars look for the 25th potentially but um we we'll get there. Um and finally, as you've mentioned, uh certainly be remiss of me if I didn't just take the opportunity to thank everyone here and just share some basic comments that I some of

009them I shared the other night. It's I'll tell you that it's been my greatest professional honor and privilege. Um not just to end my career here, uh but to be here as a superintendent of schools. And uh I want to thank all the board members over the years. A special shout out to some of the charge, Tara and Duke and and Joel uh for your leadership and friendship, but it applies to uh all the board members. It's been invaluable and very much appreciated uh appreciate your friendship and your prof professional support. Thank you also to the cabinet members uh members of of a wonderful to use uh Shirley's words extraordinary team. Thank you to uh the cabinet members uh to my minister of staff, my teaching staff, my support staff, the public officials uh and

010our our parents. Yes, together we've navigated some significant challenges along the way and um I think we've implemented some practices, programs and projects that will serve the kids uh for some time to come. Uh I've said that we always get into this business to simply make a difference. when I interview couple of the greatest privilege I ever had in my life, I'll just tell you is uh giving a first-time teacher their job and also talking just talking to either groups or kids or just talking to kids. Um and when you interview a teacher, they'll they'll simply say why you want why do you want to be a teacher? I just want to make a difference. Uh so hopefully my presence here and my absence here uh will mean something. If that's the case, um uh

011I will be a happy man. I also just want to thank in particular the kids because you're right. I don't mind telling you. They make my day every day and they have done ever since I've been here. Whether it's in the classroom, on the stage, uh on the athletic fields, in the cafeteria, uh or in Starbucks, they just make my day wherever I sort of bump bump into them. I'll remember everybody fondly around this table and and the kids and and the staff. And I know and look forward to the um district's continued success. and I'm I'm a proud member of the Blue Wave family and always will be. So, thank you for everything. Thank you. Thank you, Alan. We'll move on to the approval of the minutes. Uh may I have a motion to

012approve the following the minutes of the regular and special meetings held on June 10th, 2025. Joanna makes a motion. Dennis seconds. Any discussion? No. All in favor? That is unanimous. Robin, I can't see you. Are you good? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Um, okay. Moving on to board committee reports. I think it was just finance. Yeah. Last Thursday, we had a very quick kind of wrap-up meeting on the uh on the year. Okay. We'll hear more about that later. Correct. Moving on to presentations, discussions. Um, item 7A, we will discussion of possible action on the custodians contract. Alan, you want to give a little overview? Rich? Uh, uh, yes. Um, uh, Rich and Marge have participated, uh, through the spring here in bringing the the custodial contract, uh, before us this evening. Uh, it's

013a general wage increase of 3.53 and three. Uh, so it's it's under budget uh, for a total cost of about $250,000. Uh, the district employees uh, have a 2500 and $5,000 deductible. Uh, that has been increased to 3,000 6,000. Premium shares are at 21, 21 and a half and 22. Uh there are some language changes that uh are helpful to the district operationally. And um with that, we're hoping the board um will move forward to approve uh the contract. Okay. And we have executive session about this earlier. Are there any questions at the table to ask? Okay. May I have a motion to approve the contract agreement between the Darian Board of Education and the Darian Schools School Custodians Union for the period July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2028. So moved. John first done

014a second. All in favor? That is unanimous. Thank you. I just want if I may just mention that the C like like like many of the other support staff, it it's they're instrumental in in terms of what they do. They're often the first people who are in the building with some of the staff who arrive and some of the kids who arrive. Uh you'll know it when you see it whenever things aren't ready. Uh so they do a fabulous job. And there's something that characterizes our district is the pride that people feel that applies uh to our custodians as well. So, I just want to recognize uh our custodians for all the time that they've put in over the years, particularly if they're listening to me a shout out during co uh but thank them

015for the pride that they take in their own buildings and for their work ethic and um wish them well. Yes. Thank you. We we certainly see the hard work. So, thank you to those. Um okay, we'll move on to update on MMS and elementary schedules. Mrs. Droller and Mrs. Dillis, welcome ladies. Uh so we said we would come back and just do we update of where we are and this is what this is just to give you a we appraisal of where we are in the process and um what some of our commitments were and um how we're dealing with those. All right, good evening. I am excited to share with you that we've been very busy and also finding a good deal of success in working through our schedule for next year. I wanted

016to start by summarizing for you some of the action steps that we've taken since we last spoke in the fall. Our work has been grounded in professional development focused on being data informed keeping in mind the sharing our priorities and commitments that we made to the board and also collaborating with various stakeholders. So as you can see here we have participated in Aspen training across eight different sessions that involved learning and updating different rules, rooms, courses, all sorts of attributes related to the schedule that enabled the engine use. I want to thank Jackie Miller for her partnership in that work. We utilized course requests from our students and recommendations from our teachers in order to project out sections and based on that look at average class sizes. From there we looked at four different teaming

017models to maintain the team while also meeting the priorities. We sought feedback from our team leaders, from our department chairs. Um we also connected with building representatives for our teachers union and then um Sarah Mey has worked very closely to analyze special education services to predict case loads and co-opt ratios. When we took all of that information, we with those four teening models presented those to members of the cabinet um ultimately arriving at one model that we felt best implemented all of those priorities on top of all of that data that we reviewed. As we moved forward in finalizing the master schedule, we looked at how to most effectively utilize our classroom spaces and calibrate room assignments to maximize teaming and minimize teachers being across multiple rooms. We've collaborated with our interventionists to plan in

018advance for our students who receive MTSS and ML supports um and then ultimately participated in a week of full-time coaching with Aspen's professional schedule builders so that we could integrate all of that learning and work to get us to the point of having a master schedule. I wanted to remind that when we were last here, we had shared three commitments or goals for this master schedule and those were to reduce the number of English, math, science, social studies classes to five or fewer that were at 25. We are on track to meet that objective. We spoke about reducing the number of sections that were not rainbow by design, meaning academic sections um that were meant to be on team to instances fewer than a hundred. We're also on track to meet that and to address

019PLC time. That has been a big driver in how we have designed the master schedule and we have had great success in enabling that time for our teachers both to meet within their departmental PLC's and also in their teams. At the same time, it is important to our community to preserve the team model proactively structure for that known student need. um in particular to maintain our cot sections below 50% with enough wiggle room is the official term to start the year and address student needs as they evolve over the course of the year. We are working to balance across teams and sections. Allocate our FTE our teachers to optimize class size based on feedback from our class size report in the fall. Make sure that we're scheduling teachers for five classes. Getting those PLC's for

020all of our disciplines. allocating rooms to teams and disciplines to reduce teacher room changes during the school day and giving our teachers schedules and case loads for the summer. You'll notice that there are things that are in yellow. Um, and those are the things that we are on track to do whereas the green are already accomplished. I will highlight that we have already shared our teachers schedules with them at the last day of school which is well in advance of last year and we're on track to share case loads with our special education teachers by July 1 so that they have plenty of time if they choose to start that work over the summer to be prepared to greet our students on the first day of school. So this is a visual representation of the

021teaming model that we are going to move forward with for next year based on all of that data when we looked at how to um maximize uh balance across our average class size while also create that space for the co-op ratios to be as balanced as possible. We will have three teams in eighth grade next year and then four teams in both seventh grade and sixth grade. As you can see, there is a teal team in both sixth and seventh grade. What that means is there are teachers who will be teal teachers. They will have some sections that are sixth grade classes and some sections that are seventh grade classes. So there will be a six teal and a seven teal. Both of those teams will be smaller than the other teams in those grade

022levels, but they will maintain all of the same functions of the team, allowing the teachers to meet regularly to discuss student need proficiency to participate fully in team days with the other peers. So, we don't anticipate a change in student experience based on that. And it allows us to meet those goals of keeping the number of classes at 25 lower and scheduling comfortably for our co-taught sections. So that's the team model that we have built our master schedule using and it has been implemented historically at Middle Sex as one of a variety of different team models that the building has utilized. So over the summer we are going to finish handcheduling. While most of our students do have complete schedules already, we do need to finish scheduling particularly some of our special education programming. We

023are going to take another review through. Um, we're keeping track of any students who are placed into a rainbow class so that we can double check before the first day of school to make sure that it's absolutely necessary for them to be in a rainbow class. We are going to check section balance to aim for as balanced courses and as balanced teams as possible. And then we will communicate schedules to our students and families in August ahead of the new school year. Thank you, K. We'll stop and do middle school questions first and then move on to elementary. Okay, I'll open up to um well actually I'll just I'll start. So with the when you said you explored four teameing models, why did you choose this one versus the other? What are the strengths of

024this one versus the others that you looked at? The the major drivers in that decision were looking at that average class size. If we had gone with a strictly four teams in sixth grade, three teams in seventh grade, three teams in eighth grade, which is what we had anticipated when we spoke in the fall, that would have put our average class size in seventh grade at 23 about. Um, and with an average class size of 23, it would have been very hard to maintain five or fewer sections at 25 just realistically given the other constraints on the schedule. Layered on top of that, this year we have found that in that current grade, the current sixth graders who will be seventh graders, um there have been some co-taught sections that have been close to 50%

025over the course of the year. And that has been tight. It's forced some students off team. Um and so we want to be building a schedule that really maximizes the number of co-taught sections that we have available to our students. Um, so those were the two data drivers that narrowed us down to two different models of allocating our FTE creatively. The other model that we looked at did not allow for teachers to participate meaningfully in team meetings about the students they were teaching. It had more of a floating rainbow teachers not rainbow kids model. Um, and because we one of the elements of the team model that we prioritize and it's connected to our MTSS work is the ability for teachers to talk about students on a regular basis to make sure that they are

026known and cared for and have their needs met. This teaming model allows us to do that. Thank you. Open up to questions. John, so when you said you used the teal model previously, when was the last time it was used? I don't know the last time it was used as a year, but I do know that when I presented the models to our team leaders, some of them who've been here for a long time said, "Ah, yes, we've done this one before and that one before and that one before." So, there's been a variety. So, it was uh regular regularly used between 2008 2014. It's just Okay, thanks for Okay, thank you. Um, I want to be clear. This is not that there are four teams in sixth grade and four teams in seventh grade.

027It's that there's three and a half in each. So, that's important to note. Um, this sixth grade class that's coming in is one of the biggest we've had in a long time. We're having elementary grades that have five sections. Um, so this is concerning to me. You know, we used to have four teams per grade. Um, and now no one has even four teams, not even an exceptionally large class. Um, so I find it hard to believe that that's not going to impact student experience. Um, and specifically, I haven't heard anything tonight about how a teacher who is teaching on a teal team across two grade levels, how will they how will that affect their planning time? How will they be talking with seventh grade teachers and sixth grade teachers? Yeah, great question. I've looked

028to make sure that those teachers team meeting and PLC meetings wrap around in such a way that they'll be able to participate in both um so that they will have access to common planning time with their grade level colleagues um in the same way that any other teacher of that building or of that subject would be able to. So, how are we not asking something more of those teachers that they go to two team meeting plannings per week or per cycle? Are they teaching less classes? Are they are we under some sort of contractual obligation to pay them? Like, how does that work out? Nope. So, they're also going to be going to team meetings and teaching five classes the same as their colleagues. they will have um instead of doing two meetings with a

029single grade level, they will do one meeting with each of those grade levels. The people that were having take on the opportunity of two classes at two grade levels are people who are more experienced teachers and so we're confident in their ability to do that work. So, it's less planning time for those teachers. It is less than some of their peers, but I would note that it's still an increase over what we've had this past year. And I would also note that there are other teachers such as our math teachers who have multiple preps and so it's not uncommon for teachers to have multiple courses to prep for. So to Katie's point about the size, do you have a sense of how many children will be on the team each team? Yep. So for the

030teal specifically or just in general like the sixth grade? Sure. In the sixth grade, we're looking at between 90 and 100 on the the red, orange, and silver team. And then around 60 on the teal team. Okay. And similarly in the blue, gold, and purple will be in that closer to 100 space with the teal being closer to 40. So then that means currently they're like 80 to 90, right? They're a little bit larger than they are now. Am I correct in that? They're currently between 90 and 100. Oh, they are. Okay. Sorry, Joy. Um yeah, just to um piggy back on top of that, um when you have I find this to be inequitable an inequitable experience between all of our students um within the sixth grade and within the seventh grade because you're

031going to have students having their school within a school feeling of being a hundred kids for three teams and then only 60 kids for one team. They're going to be in class with the same kids much more often. um when even things when when you have like a a you know school culture uh building opportunity by team you know that the teal team is going to be the little team um and um so I I I would like to know I mean I find that to be very troubling. I'm actually quite disappointed by this model. Um the other thing is you know when we first were introduced to this model back in 2024 as one of the possibilities when we first engaged the consultant um it was my understanding that the one of the main

032reasons they didn't want to do this model is because it would impact PLC time significantly. So how are you going to um just how you going to rectify that? So in this past school year and for some of the preceding school years, our teachers have been having PLC time during their lunch period. So that has been as we know a contractual violation and also not an optimal work experience for our teachers. One of the constraints that we've added to an already quite constraint laden master schedule is making sure that every teacher is able to participate in a PLC that is a full 40 minutes separate from lunch. So we have I have handplaced out the team meetings over several periods as well as the PLC's over several periods um so that teachers have access to

033those not during periods four, five or six or whenever their grade level is at lunch. All of those teal teachers will still have access to that and it's an increase in the time that they will not be doing that during their lunch period and they'll have the opportunity to attend their team meeting just as any other teacher would and also participate in PLC. when you come back to us in the fall to discuss this more, could we see that schedule? Um, also when you come back to us in the fall, I would really like to see the impact this past year has had on these bigger teams. It seems like there's a lot more um both anecdotally and, you know, notified by our superintendent, a lot more incidences um that with the bigger teams that

034we weren't having as often previously. We've always had difficulties, but I feel like these bigger teams um you hear anecdotally that there's a lot more misbehavior in general and we've had such bad misbehavior that it's risen up the level of concerning the whole district. So, if we could just see data on last year versus previous years like um inclass detentions, after class detentions, you know, not people but just generalities, things like that. I'm just going to play devil's advocate a little bit on those smaller teal teams. I think there could there very well could be an educational benefit for some children to have a smaller community and a smaller team. When you place children on teams, do you consider that? And you know, do you consider those that may may be more comfortable within a

035smaller peer group to is that how you're placing kids or how do you choose who goes where? Even before you answer that question, I would just counter that. Why are those 60 kids get the better experience of a small I don't know that it's a better it for for different kids different situations are are are better so different kids could operate differently different okay so okay like how do you how do you decide who goes on what team the places that we are deciding which kids are on a team are in assigning case loads to case managers to make sure that we have balanced case loads and balanced um ratios across our special education cotton classes and and services. There are some instances where we have students who for different supportive measures reasons need to

036be specifically with or not with another peer. So those students have been handpaced on teams. Um there are some students whose specific combination of course requests um Aspen happens to say it's not going to work on any other team. This one has to go here. For the most part, we are not handpicking which team a child goes on. We're relying on this Aspen server to say what the most optimal experience is for that child in order to get the most number of their requests in while still meeting those targets of keeping students not in rainbow classes and with the classes not at 25. Okay. So, I would like to learn more a little bit about what your the experience your new experience with Aspen. So, now that you know so much more about it, you

037know, there's been talk about is Aspen the right program. Now that you've had more training and understand it better, what what are your thoughts on it? Has it been helpful? I would say it has been helpful. I wouldn't be in a position to answer how it compares to any other tool because I haven't used any other tool, but I have found that um in maximizing the mechanisms that that engine does provide us, we were able to build a master schedule and get our students into the courses that they wanted. Okay, Greg, just adding on to some of the requests that Joanna was asking about for this page. Would it be helpful or would it be possible to just add the number of students for the next time you come back to us? Just the number

038of students in each one of the teams, maybe the number of teachers in each one of the teams. I don't know if there's like if you divvy up like special ed type stuff in each one of the teams and then it'd be great to see what it is what you're looking at for this coming year and then what would it look like last year with all those same numbers. Yeah, Greg, I wanted to piggyback on that too. Um I want to say though that I think that it's very very important as we look at this data that we have to absolutely go back to at least the um 23 24 school because that is before we reduced personnel at MMS. That's when we had four teams was the standard that was the experience that that

039most of us are familiar with. This past year has been very messy. So simply putting a model in front of us today saying that it's better than the mass of the year before is not really what I'm looking for. So in order to understand the data, we need to see where these personnel changes have impacted scheduling, PLC's, lunches, and definitely students. Um I think that Greg makes a very good point about size of the teams, about case loads on the teams, um the co-eing. And I think really all the points that have been hit today would be very helpful to see over at least. So I think you'll come back in the fall and let us know how it go how it's going. Can I just ask one? Yeah. Question. Do we know what the

040size of the incoming sixth grade class is? It's the whole grade. It's the biggest. No, but do we know what it stands at now? I mean 390. It's projected to be 375. Okay, sorry. Just 375 doesn't add up to 90 to 100 for three teams and 60 for teal team. That makes it 100 175. I'll say 375 projection. Thank you. Because I know some kids do go to private school, so I was just curious. But you did, we were told in the fall, I I don't know who said it, but that after 360 that tips to a 14. Yep. And we've been watching very closely where that enrollment has been with students either going to private school or enrolling in. Uh and so I could I will come back to you with what exactly the

041numbers are on each of the teams. Thank you. Okay. We'll move to elementary, please. Okay. At elementary, our team has been focused on um music and art and this is what we have accomplished this year. So there is no change to elementary vocal music for the current year. We've used our itinerant staff. Um the revised curriculum has been fully implemented in K3 and will be continued to update in grades four five using the same philosophy and curriculum in ELP. Our music um will also be continue um just as it has in the past. for instrumental music. We are going back to a five-day schedule based on feedback um and data. And we are also going back to before and after school full band and orchestra rehearsals rather than um using wind time for that. Instrumental

042music continues to be staffed by content area specialists using itinerant staffing. For elementary art, we're returning to a 60inute block which eliminates the rotational art. Um, this is responsive to the curriculum. There's more in-depth opportunities for students. Um, they can use a variety of mediums and materials and um the our team has been able to develop a schedule with itinerants, travel and shared staff. There are two or fewer staff teaching at any given school. PLC time is provided across schools for the visual art teachers and there are time built in for additional responsibilities such as display collaboration with teachers and the PTO to incorporate art in special events. There will also be um a consultant model with ELP. That is it. That's it. Questions on it Joanna? Um just so our music are um well

043since it's still up there are all five schools have an itinerant is or do any schools have just one dedicated art teacher or everything is itinerant? I believe one of the five schools has has an art. Yeah. Um and then in order to go back to the five days a week for the instrumental did we um need to hire another teacher or we just No. utilizing the staff that we had. Are the questions? Robin, I can't see you, so just jump in if you have questions. Um um yeah, I did have one question. Um going returning art to 60 minutes blocks and eliminating rotational art. How were we able to do this? Um because I thought that that was initially a budget issue. It was actually the same amount of total minutes but we were

044utilizing the time differently. So teachers had um 45 minute classes and then there were 10 additional rotational art periods. So the total number of of contact time for art was the same but that one hour of of um art class gives the teachers just a more cohesive curriculum. they can do more with the students. So, it's a preferred model. So, so for instrumental music and returning art to the 60 minute uh blocks, sounds like it's a a better outcome. Um, which is great news. I just was I mean, it's great that we were able to figure that out. I just wanted to double check that. But, thank you. The team spent a lot of time, a lot of days on that. Thank you. further questions. Thank you to Kate and the um Colleen in particular

045and the members you'll support in the team uh for your work on this. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Uh moving on to further discussion and possible action on proposed changes to the 2025 2026 school district calendar. So the information that that was uh included in the packet talked about some of the questions that the board had um at the previous meeting. Some of it talked addressed issues of planning um what professional development days what are we doing during the professional development days uh what are some of the mandated uh training so we we tried to address those in the questions we tried to address uh giving you the full what the PD plan is essentially for the year uh we redid the the the calendars uh so the numbered one two and three and if

046you just put up that mean Literally that's what you see there is is what what calendar one is, what calendar two is and what calendar 3 is. Um there is really no impact on the middle schools. Uh so it really focuses you really can take the high school out of it other than moving it back to from Friday to Monday to Monday to Friday. Um but it basically focuses on the elementary uh schools for the the literacy. That's the main focus. And so one of them is Mondays for PLC's um Fridays for PLC's with both of those are would be late arrivals essentially for uh the district or for K to3 reading. And then the last one shows you specifically Fridays for PLC's and six uh early releases for PLC's that and and we confined

047them to months that didn't have professional development. Uh so that's kind of the the still incorporates the uh HHR plan and days that I think are important to plan for. So, thank you for to everybody for listening to the community and to us and going back for another stab at this. Um, so just to reiterate, there's no change at all to the DHS plan as it's been for the past few years with the exception that two of those PLC days will be on Mondays. Yes. Okay. And there's no change to the middle school. Correct. Um, and then so there are six early dismissals K to 5 on Fridays. Or are those are those on Friday? Yep. and then two Monday late arrivals for all five schools and then two late arrivals for HHR. Two additional

048arrivals. That's correct. Okay. Questions about this option three. I think to me it's a nice compromise and it seems to um check the boxes for for the community members that have asked for Fridays and for us to limit it limit the numbers. So u to me this makes sense, but I would like to open up to other people. Greg, it still doesn't seem for me it just it still doesn't seem to address like we're just taking we're reducing the number of days the kids are actually in school. That's what's happening. So the learning hold on right there. We're reducing the learning for the kids. So like that was my big ask last time which is definitely not addressed by this. This has the same number of days. We just moved them around and made them

049beginning or end of the day. I I still have I looked through this before the meeting and it did seem like there was some description in terms of like what these PLC days are being used for and I think what was it HMH is on here a bunch of times like I do wonder why some of those days can't be used in place of these and then you can take some of the I think it's yellow take some of the yellows off of this reduce from nine to I don't know five four something like that and move the training for interreing from what was a yellow day into a green day for example in February 23rd move it into the 13th. So the yellow days will also be uh K to particularly for K to3

050reading that they will be the regular like monthly instead of the half day that will be the K to3 reading day. Greg the PLC days are strictly for the high school per se right that's not that hasn't changed over the last couple of years. Uh the fact that I suggested move it to Monday is probably complicated the thinking around it but the PLC days are the they they're they're the standard practice for the house and have been for some time now. So I wouldn't I would ask you not to get caught up in that one because that's u that that's been a standard practice. It's just yes we're we're reducing the days and we're reducing the time but investing in the teachers is also I know it's like think like well no you have to

051have more time but investing in the teachers in terms of uh this particular program it's just going to be invaluable to to the to the students and you're still meeting the the guidelines that we need to have for uh state compliance for number of hours in a classroom and so on. So, and sorry, I was I had it backwards. Move the green, the late start into the yellow so that we have the yellow anyways. Why don't you we move some of the greens into the yellow so that we don't have the late starts? The green's only for high school. Sarah Sarah. Yeah. Can I just make a comment? Um the the high school PLC late arrival days has have been in place for a number of years. And I think what the option three really

052does is that it does not add additional PLC days for the middle school, nor does it change anything at the high school that already is happening. It only adds the six early dismissals on Fridays, which was in response to parents feedback that they preferred Friday early dismissal as opposed to late arrival. And then the two Monday late arrivals are around breaks. So the reason that I thought that option three actually made sense was because it really was targeting the elementary grades which were implementing the K through3 literacy. I understand your point about trying to collapse PLC days, but generally the PLC days that we have had in place that are for the entire district have been in place for a number of years. And I I appreciate the detail that was provided to us about

053what those are being used for, but it I personally think that count that the calendar 3 option allows the middle school and high school to basically have no change and it's really targeting the PLC's just to help us with in with the K through three literacy just for this one year, which I believe this is really only for a one-year time frame. And the HHR moves unfortunately are not something that we can avoid. So I in my mind it kind of served as a compromise. So if you could speak I mean can you speak to that one year comment or Well well this was designed for one-year proposal. Uh the biggest the the biggest thing you want to do is get off to a good start. You don't want an implementation dip and an implementation

054dip typically takes place in the in the first year. uh for for professional development, you want to make sure that you have enough hours of professional development uh for the one of a better term to make it stick. This is regular. The reason we're not moving the the wheels, so to speak, is to give you regular every month uh for the K to3 reading. There's a there's a time in there that's going to be uh that they're going to be able to use. So, you want you want to start off strong. There's an inter reading. The future of inter reading is to roll it out not just K through three, it's also four or five. So there this isn't just one year. You're gonna have to train those teachers. No, but the biggest but the

055biggest the the biggest impact that you want to make sure is you start strong. You have to build up the capacity of people. Now you when you build up the first year of capacity, then you have more people who have the capacity. So the first year is the most critical year. Let me say it like that. Do you want to add anything? So Greg, I think maybe are you asking about grades four and five? Yeah. Yeah. So um what I would say about that is we would do a similar process the way we did with with looking at our grades K through three curriculum and resources as we did as I'm sorry we would do that with grades four and five as we did with K through three. So we would engage in a study,

056you know, so it's it's premature to say if we would go with inter reading, we would need to we would need to engage into a study, look at all of our curricular resources, look at data, involve staff, and that we don't have an answer that we'll be making a shift with an actual resource. It could be just a curricular shift. I guess I'm just making the assumption that we've gone into reading for K through three. State is mandating it. We're going to have to go to K four through five. So eventually we'll be in the same situation for four through five and have the same. So the state is only mandating it um K through three. And that's interesting, right? That's why our approach has been right away to have a larger district steering committee

057that's actually preschool for grade 12 so that we can keep an eye on that and then articulate any curriculum shifts that we need to make, instructional assessment shifts as we go. So, we'll learn a great deal from our implementation this year that will further inform um any shifts that we may need to make in grades four through five, but this is the only mandated change right now. Yeah, you um I think that we could do a much better job at having much more efficient discussions um than we are right now. Um I don't love option three. I think that we could do better. Um, however, we are running out of time and I will vote for it today. I would like to say that again, I feel strongly that we need to have a review

058of professional development across the district in the coming year. Um, and last, um, out of pure frustration of, um, miscommunication and understanding, I think the point that Greg was trying to make is that there are three, six, but three yellow days on the calendar where the entire school is closed to students. The three before school makes sense. Teachers have to set up the room and they have to get read. But there are three in the middle of the year that I think Greg's point is, what are they being used for? Why can't that be dedicated to K through three? So, so some of these things we should not be talking about in our third discussion. Do you want to quickly answer what those three? So, the plan for the November and the January day is

059in fact K through with regard to K through three literacy will be work with HMH um reps and a complete focus on K through three literacy. Grades four through five, they'll be working with a concentrated focus on writing. So then, uh, okay. So then the like looking at the dates, I guess when I'm trying, it's very hard to read the calendar from here, but the early dismissal days, some of those are very close to those other days. So why do we need them like right on top of each other? They're not. Which ones are you looking at that look close? Like the 12th of September. Isn't Isn't that That's an early dismissal and a PLC day for the high school. Oh, sorry. 12th like November 4th and November 14th. It's also circle. Doesn't that mean

060that it's early elementary school? So the November 4th and November November 14th, don't forget is not a a K to3 literacy day. It's a PLC day. It's it's the wheels that the wheels combined with the yellows essentially. What we tried to do is I think exactly what you're looking for really space the time so that we can um frontload each module for the K through three practitioners. So we did try to space them out so that at the beginning of the year we can have a strong start and then each of those other they like look like little wheels right those little um cogs in the other months that are not with the green in the center. I know they're kind of hard to see, but those are intended to be for a roll out

061of the module and to look at data and you want to do that intermittently as as different assessments are administered. Okay. Further questions? Yeah, that's just that's typical. Robin, do you have anything else? No. Okay. Other questions, comments? Okay. Then um we will go to um have a motion to approve the proposed changes which is this calendar three um for the 2025 2025 school district calendar. John seconded by Jennis I I second. Oh sorry. Okay. All those in favor that is John Sarah Joanna Moroni Katie Robin. Robin. Thank you. Opposed Greg and Dave. Anyone seeing? That's everybody. Okay. So that passes. Thank you. Moving on to discussions, sorry, further discussion of possible action on the 2026 2027 calendar. So uh you have the same calendar for 2627. Uh not the same as what we've just

062discussed, not same as previously uh shared with the board. uh this gets completed the same way as this year's got completed this year but the major dates for excuse me uh the holidays vacations and so on are on it. Uh so we put that together we did have a student who came and and talked about other uh religious holidays uh faith holidays. So we put together we uh chart um thanks uh to Kessie for putting this together for us. It shows you the holidays that are uh various districts either honor or maybe respect in a way of no homework or no test on the other days or otherwise. Um we did get a uh bar's got uh Tom to just uh opine a little bit on and give a we bit of a perspective on

063the days that we have to do um the the current holidays in January and December and also to take into consideration uh things like how how much of an impact would a particular holiday have on the school's operational Merlin. Uh so uh that's that's a big thing that people take under consideration. Is it going to be disruptive to the school um to close it? Uh because the board has to make a decision if there's essentially 100 people or 100 families. Is that enough to close the school system down or otherwise? I do think that um the nuances of this. I do actually think that for some of these holidays, I think there's room to be clear about when kids are uh honoring these holidays that whether it's tests or well tests or other ways, right?

064we could be considered uh homework and so on. I know it's difficult but uh there there could be cases where we honor that a we bit more consciously right and deliberately um but I do think just even in having this discussion and even getting a we bit of uh feedback from shipment a good one I think we're at least paying uh due respect to the request that was made I think you need a we bit more deliberation moving forward on this and reflection because it's not just quite as straightforward as as it could appear to be Um I I would suggest that the board continue to engage in the discussion in in some form. It could be it could be through it next year, but that's okay. Thank you for that. So in in looking

065at this in reading the memo that Tom put together, um my the first of all, thank you to the student that that brought this to our attention. I think that was that was brave and I'm glad glad that she did that. Um I am curious what how do we more formuli formalize that procedure of you know if you are celebrating a a holiday you know how do teachers know not to do that. So is there is this a is this a formal policy is this a directive by the administration what what it could be it could be either or okay do you have you have you seen this done in other districts and in in what form? uh in in some forms it's done culturally maybe in some smaller districts and so on that it's

066it's easier to handle in some ways right um but you can certainly you could certainly through uh do it through policy if you want to do that okay Margie you lean an end to that discussion there or so the only thing I'm familiar with is in my previous district we sent out um a memo to the teachers at the beginning of the year that said students may be celebrating a holiday on this day no homework no tests and you know we were as inclusive as possible about the holidays that we listed. Okay. So, I mean I I see that happening, but how does that you know the the I love red pajamas religion like how do you where where do you delineate and how do you delineate is that I think that's a discussion you

067would have to have. Okay. Um sorry that's a lot to come back from. Um I have a question about board procedure and this is not particular to the conversation but I I am curious about how much what sort of cost we incurred by having this memo from um Shipment and Goodman. The memo is already existing. They just updated the dates and checks the law. We're not the only district asking for it. Okay. Thank you. Um so my reason in asking is that um I I want to make sure that the board is following its current process, its proper processes and that it it's not um incurring costs and um ordering work based on a single request and that it is um the appropriate number of board members that are inquiring. Do we do we can

068we or do we know the percentage of students who are certain religions? I I don't have that percentage and we I don't know that we can we can ask or not. I don't know if that's is that so so I think the question for me and and I think it was brave and thank you for the student bringing it and I think it we have to I'm trying to be as fair as possible and I don't know what what the demographics are to determine how fair we need to be but I think I like this idea of at least alerting the school that certain students may be celebrating a religious holiday and and we shouldn't be penalizing them because they believe in a different religion than majority of the students in town. However, I also

069think there needs to be an an addition to that that it shouldn't just be the day of the holiday. It should be the day after the holiday, too, because who wants to study during the holiday for your exam the next day. So, to me, I would just add that little caveat in there, but or it could be the day before, right? I would also add like no extracurricular um sports or yeah like sometimes if you miss I mean I had this exact thing happen to me growing up you know I didn't go to school on certain holidays and then I wasn't allowed to play in the soccer game so just to make sure it's inclusive across all extracurricular activities and academics. So is this something that the board would like policy to look at or

070should we talk this further with do we want to add this to the retreat? How do we want to handle this? Anyone have a preference? I wouldn't personally throw it out to retreat. Have a quick discussion on that's okay. All right. What specifically are we talking about? just how to handle religious holidays and you know do we do we direct the administration to be have their teachers be aware of you know not not assigning work for ED or Ramadan or whatever it is because there's a note here sorry yeah no there's a note here that says not day off but recognize in the holidays to make staff aware so I'd like to understand kind of how that recognition is made and how that communication in other districts y how it's fairly applied as well so

071I'm wondering and I guess Amy this would fall to you is there any way that you could do a little intel before the retreat and just what other if other districts have a memo like that or something? Absolutely. Okay, that'd be great. Thank you. Okay, so that's that. Um are we voting on that? Is that different? Is that different than just that different because it sort of summarized? Well, it just more of the if if administration director teachers if there's something tangible that we can see how our district handles that. Um okay. So there's possible action on the 20 I think that's this there's a little there's a there's a table right but I mean like is there a memo like can we is there does does west mar that westport had a said tier

072teachers these are the dates don't don't have work assigned I was just curious how do how do they the administration communicate okay that sounds like a really slippery slope but that that's what that I would just like to see what other what other districts have thought but if it's going to be a lot then this but Um, okay. We need to vote on this 2026 2027 school district calendar. Is there any questions or concerns about the way this calendar is set up? No. Okay. So, may I have a motion to approve the 2026 2027 school district calendar? Joanna seconded by John. All those in favor? That is Robin's in favor. Thank you. That is unanimous. Okay, moving on to discussions of revisions of the approved board master agenda February through August. Alan, uh I think

073you have the the colored copied version. So, we you know, we've been keeping track of what we've been adding, what we've been taking off and um we've we've um tried to build in the parking lot, some of the parking lot topics into the uh retreat discussion. We can talk about that when we get that far. But this is just a working copy of where we are with the maintenance. Any questions on this? And as Alan alluded to, I think some of this does fall into the retreat conversation. So, um, Joanna, just some of the parking lot conversations there are say they should be having this summer and clearly they will not be happening this summer. Um so that you know the next plan back to us be and I still will be after it's time

074course but it would be nice to have those actually in place in months like the DEI seal gifted and talented um anything that was supposed to have happened but the two meetings over the summer that no longer will be but they're actually in place. Can we just move them into the 22nd meeting? There is no time. I mean there's only to be done by the end of the day. Yeah. Um, you know, I think there will be a conversation about the strategic plan during the retreat. So, I think some of that can get molded into that a little bit. Um, but I don't think it can be a explicit conversation. Also, in deference to Dr. Burn, who will have just been here for 10 days, like those are pretty, you know, those three topics require

075some, you know, historical knowledge and and, you know, and knowing what actually goes on here. So, I would like to give him a little time to get up to speed. Katie, um it's been requested multiple times that uh discussion on typewriting um on typing and handwriting be added to the curriculum committee meeting. I don't see that on this list. Um additionally, um the PLC discussion I do not believe should just be a discussion in curriculum. I think that we need to um I would like to request to have a full review in front of the board, not just an update on should we I think what I'm hearing you saying is that you would like an expanded kind not just PLC but PD in general an overarching conversation. Um, so whether that comes, you know,

076there's been a lot of overlay with that and budget is there, you know, I'm just curious about what timing. What do you think makes sense for there or is that something that we need to have Dr. Burns input on as well? Yeah, I would think we would block this. Okay. Uh, but we could we could certainly broaden that topic to be professional development in general, not just PLC's. Okay. Um, anything else on this master agenda? I I'll just say that we didn't avoid putting these topics on, right? Um, the discussion with our executive leadership team of the board and myself as we talked to tried to draft a some at least a draft of the summer retreat was to build those topics into the strategic plan discussion. If the board so desires to pull them

077out, then that's good. All right, moving on to the first reading and discussion on proposed schedule of the 2026 regular board of education meetings and subcommittee meetings. I just asked you, this is just a I would just ask you to look at the uh calendar review of the meetings. Um, so Saturday the 10th and of January, just note in April, that's a different that's a different date than April than we would normally have to. So just pointed those out. Why did Why were those changed? What was that one? Um the April one. It's because of break. April break is during the second Tuesday. Gotcha. And January 10th. Um last year the retreat was right off the break off the holiday break and I believe that was a comment that maybe we should move it to

078the following week. Okay. But those are all for discussion. Okay. Yeah. This is a first read so we can contemplate and then come back next time. All right. Moving on to the annual report on donations. Rich. Uh, so we received $105,37.73 in donations uh this year from various community stakeholders. Uh, this does not include any inkind donations that don't pass through our system or paid directly by an outside organization. Uh, we do want to highlight some um, athletics received over $50,000 from uh, various parents, booster clubs, youth groups. We did receive the $25,000 donation for the high school library. Um and as we are every year, we're very thankful for all the donations that support the school system. Thank you. Do you have a sense of it? Um you know, it says it this is

079these don't include inkind donations or the PTO's. Do you have any sense of what that larger bucket is? Do you know like at the PTO's spend? We'd have to reach out to each individual ones. I don't have that um offh hand. A lot of times the PTO's will like sponsor like a guest offer for example at the elementary schools. Um those are typically, you know, in the $500 to $1,000 range. Yeah. Um but there are other items that they obviously support. I mean, just just to highlight that that's a significant donation and and thank you to the PTOs for doing that. Katie, um I would appreciate seeing uh the next time we do this a um a representation of um like perhaps a pie chart of how much is going to athletics, how much is

080going to the arts, how much is going to within athletics, how much is going to boys teams versus girls teams, specific teams. I think that um I I appreciate this list and seeing it together, but being able to disagregate it into the percentages of donations that are going to specific places would be very helpful. Okay, further comments? All right, thank you for all these donations to those of you that donated. All right, onward discussion of on May 2025 financial report and possible action on the proposed budget transfers. So this is the financial report through May. The are forecasting a positive balance of $527,13. Uh the general education RC's are forecasted at just over 15,000. Uh while the special education RC's are forecasted at just over $5,000. Uh salaries are forecasted at deposit $13,000. Uh we

081do have salary savings of just over 10,000 and some small savings in building subs and in clubs councils. Uh operating is a positive 293,000. Uh this is largely due to some um savings in that district tuition and then a small balance available in special legal. Um fixed remains a small positive balance of $1,300 in payroll taxes and then we did get a couple of reimbursements for the federal workers compensation. uh revenue is forecasted at a positive 218,60. Uh this is driven largely by the additional 40 million that was provided by the state legislature for excess cost reimbursement. We did receive that final reimbursement this week and so all money has been received uh that is owed for excess costs. Uh and there are no transfers for consideration as well. Okay. Thank you. Questions, comments about

082the financial report? Joanna, um Rich, at the uh financial committee meeting, I asked uh if we needed to proactively vote to have our sub our surplus uh sent back to the town. Could you just explain to everybody what you explained to me? Sure. Uh so the board has until June 30th to spend or obligate their money. Um anything that's not spent or obligated by June 30th does go back to the town. So the process is it does take a couple months to close out the books. Um, typically we'll try to close out that first week in August and then there's what's called the town board of ad reconciliation where we reconcile our accounts uh within the town and then the town will make an entry on their side of the books to move that uh

083money into the general fund whatever that balance is. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Since there are no budget transfers, we will not have any action. All right. Now, moving on to the draft agenda for this summer retreat. Um, so Alan, Jill, Rabbit, and I worked this past Friday to brainstorm and come up with some ideas. Alan, you want to? Yeah. So, uh, we reviewed what we've done in the past a little bit. Um, and respecting, uh, that that Dr. Burn is coming on board. I'll say that it's a we bit of a higher level discussion. Um, I'm not saying there's not specificity there, but um, but it's just a higher level of discussion of of how the board would like to operate with Dr. Burn and uh, him understanding some of the what the board

084would like to see or otherwise and sort of flushing that out to start with. So, um, this was just to try and get the wheels going a little bit and try and do a we bit of preparation and transition planning. Um it looks like uh we will I'm hopeful to that prior to this it will be uh well not prior you can have an executive session before a meeting and during a meeting or after a meeting. This is right at the start of the meeting. We anticipate that u uh there would be uh an interview of the um director new director of elementary education and hopefully with the appointment of that director in the actual uh open meeting regular meeting. So the first part of it is really to do the uh the interview and

085um hopefully with an appointment. You don't have to make the appointment afterwards but obviously the sooner we do the sooner that person has to give his or her 30-day notice and uh so that the sooner that happens uh the better. Uh so it it's a we bit the same as it has been in nature. So I'll go through legal updates and board operations that includes board of ed social media and state mandates uh with uh Tom Mooney. I'm still waiting for the confirmation from Tom. Uh he's in on a cruise. Um so that sort of the social media part is he should be able to uh comment and get direction on that. The board evaluation that's a process that you've gone through before and um it said to be determined. Uh Patrice uh the executive

086director cannot do it. She's in Africa. Uh but Nick Coro who has been here once before can do it. I would suggest that in order for that to happen, the questionnaire survey has to be sent out and if people could get it back to us by the week that Dr. Burn is here, that would be helpful because it would it would help him and um help that process go through. Uh there was only one thing changed here which was communications. Um that was an opportunity Dr. Burn wanted to add into that uh discussion. So this is this this traditionally the the self-evaluation the board goes through a preliminary discussion on the FY27 budget in the past certainly the past year we were more specific with what are the priorities what what are things that are

087coming uh what are you going to have in the budget type thing identify those areas that's I would say that's bit early in order I think you'd have to have the discussion of how the board the budget's going to go what the board's opinions of that are Dr. Burn's opinion just as he enters in discussion on long-term fiscal planning can include things like technology how are we planning for technology non-lapsing account it gives an opportunity to have that general discussion and the same of the goals in the strategic plan um as opposed to coming back with what are the proposed goals for the board or what are the proposed goals for the strategic are they any um further direction in the strategic plan it gives the opportunity for the board to just have that discourse

088work both with cabinet and also with the new superintendent the enrollment is uh as it has always been that level of specivity and we can we'll be able to do that uh enrollment seems to be going fine uh we haven't broke any other sections at this point I'm don't anticipate that and uh the proposed board schedule so uh that's a draft it's it's just open for a draft you're also having the the uh uh teacher negotiations that start in August 5th. So the members who are on the that committee, you may be able to utilize Tom um in a non-me situation before this to discuss about processes and how the board would work uh around the negotiation process. Uh so that's something you might want to think about. The the board has to meet with

089the board of finance. It could be all everybody or it could be as many people are available or not. Um the date that uh I've solicited a couple of dates from the board for finance. One of their dates that uh is most helpful to most of their board is July 25th. I don't know what people's availability of that is. I'm just trying to just announce it now because it's just hard to track with the date and uh trying to get a date. We just need to you just need to do that. Um that's a statutory requirement. I don't know if people are free that date or could do that. Yes, I think it was the eight or niner. Okay. Um, we can send out an email. Robin, you can send out an email about if

090people's availability for that, please. Okay. Uh, Dr. Edley, there were other dates as well, correct? July. Yeah, there there were a couple of other there were a couple of other dates um that weren't as lucrative to the actual process of get putting this in a timeline, but um I can certainly set send them all out. Just put the preferred date. Yes, the preferred We'll just put the preferred date. Okay. Um, right. But Dr. I'd like just one question um just to clarify because I think if if a number of board of ed members are not able to attend on the preferred date that the board of finance is proposing I could we also potentially talk about the other two options I believe that yes I'll send proposed okay I'll include those Rob I'll do this

091for you I'll send those out okay thank you um so just some general would love some general feedback about this like I have a couple bullets here that I wrote like preliminary discussion on the the FY27 budget to echo what Allan said that's going to have to be a very high level conversation just because Dr. Burn literally will have just gotten his feet wet. We don't have a teacher contract which is in a major piece of that contract. So that you know of the budget so that's a huge unknown. Um but I envision that conversation being more about the calendar the cadence the you know how do how can we improve upon what we did this year. Um, Greg. Um, yeah, I have a few thoughts on the on this agenda. Um, it seems like

092we've got a few items on here that are I feel like would be better suited for just like regular board of ed meetings. For example, number seven, like appointment of director of elementary. Um, like the update on enrollment, like that stuff seems like it's just ordinary stuff. I feel like the this full day should be devoted to more high level strategic conversation on here. We've got only 30 minutes dedicated to the board of education goals and strategic plan for 202526. I think that should be like the bulk of the day. Surprised it's not the bulk of the day and we should have sub topics within that of what we should be focusing on for the day versus just glossing over it. 30 minutes. So to your point on the first two like this is the

093only army only meeting in July and we need to get those things done. out. Yeah, we're not talking it's 2025 2026. The next meeting is in during the school year. So, how are we framing what we're going to be focusing on? What's next? No, the the director of elementary education and the the other like the meeting dates like Oh, you're saying I mean those are those are quick that we have to get done before. Sure. So, make those five minutes and make some of these other more we usually don't adhere to the time. Joanna, um I would like to see us have a discussion on long-term fiscal planning and all the possible things that that entails before we talk about the fiscal year 27 at all. Um I know we might not talk specifics, but

094we always accidentally end up talking about specifics. So, I'd really like for the board to talk about what we envision um our goals are um and all these other thornier issues that we've been discussing this year. I'd like to have the board discuss that before we talk about um anything and then specifically this year. So, your idea would be to move B before A. Yes. Anyone thoughts on that? Does good Dave? I don't know if it's appropriate for here but you know five 10 minute conversation tops just to hear from uh Dr. burn just in terms of entry plan I don't even need down like 30 60 90 which is kind of like broad hey you know delighted to be here and gonna do xy yeah so I mean I kind of he's got that

095superintendent report so that'd be great yeah I think that's um and Greg I I hear your point about that that's 30 minutes is not a lot enough time for that so we can we can go back to think about how we um how we distribute the time. Um, on your point on the budget, I think like getting clear on like what that process is going to look like and I don't know if you guys going to have thoughts on that or not, but yeah. I think it'd be interesting to see what, you know, what he's done in the past and what, you know, absolutely. Um, and now I don't we're not ready to move on to our next agenda topic, but I envision the handbook coming back to this meeting and I think uh Dr.

096Burn's request of communications. That to me seems to be a nice entry point for that to be discussed. Other comments, Robin? Um I I agree we need to spend more time on the strategic kind of piece. Unfortunately, just especially with the budget items, we had talked about more strategic budget initiatives in the past, but unfortunately since Dr. burn is new and he might have other thoughts. I think you know in some ways as much as we'd like to spend a lot more time on the strategy piece we're going to have to I think to some extent take our lead from him and have a high level discussion of what he would like to focus on and then kind of move from there. But I agree with Greg that more rather than less time should be

097spent so that we really can talk about more long-term fiscal planning and strategic kind of items. And and again, this is really a draft at this point. And anyone who has additional suggestions or um things that they would like to see on here, please um definitely send them so that we can um further amend this. Is there anything glaringly missing or that anybody is Let's see. Okay. I I know uh just one thing Sarah, I know Jill had mentioned that she was going to speak with Dr. Burn also about special education planning and things like that because the costs are rising significantly. So I don't know the outcome of that discussion, but in my mind that could potentially be part of what we would be talking about with him as as an item that also

098would be a budget related discussion as well or long-term fiscal planning. So, um, again, this is a draft and I think we need to also wait for some feedback as well from from him, too. Okay. Thanks. All right. We'll move on to just just one thing in that legal update and I think there's a couple outstanding things um legally that we might want to get an update on. Thinking like the high school lights that kind of we haven't heard anything on that. So, if you could put in a little bit of an exact session, I think it just anything legally outstanding that we get a update on while do we have anything or do we need to do anything in this for the update on the new superintendent search? I can't remember about that other

099schedule. Well, I mean, we we don't really have anything to announce yet because we have we still have to work meet individually with with them and then come up with so nothing's really going to kick off until the fall for that except for our individual meetings which I need to set up or we need to set up for the over the next couple months. Um, okay, moving on to the handbook discussion. Um, as I mentioned, this is a not the last time we will talk about this handbook because we I think we should talk about it um in more depth on the on the 22nd. But this Alan, do you since I I don't know where this K you know the steps of where what are we looking at? All right. So, this is this

100this is the uh draft of the handbook. Thank you to Katie and um uh we have tried to sort of coordinate and sort of and sort of help organize a little bit. Um so that's what we've done. any sort of highlights or a couple of other things are there for I've got some questions about um I took a we few liberties here and there but not excessively so um and if if you know any of them you can certainly comment on them and be happy to uh talk about them but perhaps for some people this is a this is maybe a first time through even though we've looked at it come back and and made some changes so I don't know Kate if you want to go through it with me or I'm happy to

101to touch base with a couple of issues um or a couple of topics and couple of things. Thank you. I um left the notes at home. Um so I don't have um my specific talking points in front of me. I'm happy to obviously have any conversations and ask any questions about this. Um to Sarah's um question about how this came about, the board has not had a handbook. Um, and we've had an individual onboarding process when members are first elected. Um, but there's not really a resource for board members to go to about how things work or um, even some of the informal processes um, outside of our policies of course which are on um, the website. Um, and after attending a CABE conference, um, there was an example of one that was posted, um,

102I think it actually won a communication award, um, from the Vernon School District. Um, and Dr. Adley very kindly was able to facilitate us getting a copy of that to use as kind of a road map for what we might include. Um, I think that there's a lot of good information in here. Um, I think that there are a few things that still need to be developed. Um but that's sort of the um generation of um the genesis of how how it began. Well, I'll just uh we we did pay recognition to Vernon on page one. Page 10, uh it's highlighted um be expected to kids uh the student reps be expected to attend all the board of education meetings. There's be there's a conflict there because they're not expected to attend all of them.

103So, we just have to work through that conflict. uh when a committee chair person is absent. I think that um that might what do we that that's the next page page 11 uh needs to be flushed out because I think that refers to it primarily referring to if it if it's a subcommittee I'll call it subcommittee subcommittee if a if a charge absent who runs a meeting just to be just to clarify that I think that's what it is right okay um uh then page 14 uh reporting concerns uh I inadvertently the top of that You can see policy 9170. Yeah. Uh that should be down beside 9180. Uh so those should be uh together because those are the two policies uh for removal of a board officer or censorship. Um those are essentially the

104two things that you can do. You can't remove somebody from the board. Um but those are the two that that specifically address those. So I'll move 9170 down. I'm sorry, Alan, if I can just jump in. This is an area that I had flagged um as um as an area that I thought we could build out a bit more because the policies are um very prescriptive um and I don't think it really addresses um some of the more day-to-day things in terms of like what do I do if I have a concern? And I had actually spoken to someone um at CABE um asking for guidance. Um Jill and I had spoken about this too whether it was appropriate to ask Shipman and Goodman. Um but again because the policies are more about the legal

105statures and this is more about what's the right protocol and chain of communication. Cabe um had helped advise me and I had drafted a paragraph um and again I'm sorry I don't have it in front of me but it essentially kind of lays out you know that your initial step if you have a concern is to speak with the board chair um and then beyond that what if the board chair is the problem then who do you speak to what if you know you speak to the board chair but it doesn't get it's basically the exact same thing that we have within our schools right like where it's classroom teacher and then to administration chain of communication Exactly. So, I do think that that is an important piece um that we should revisit and I'm

106happy to share um some of the language um that was drafted via email. So, actually right under that section is the section that um Jessica uh from Shipman actually suggested that we put in that was that was her contribution list. You might recall we asked her to take a look at it. Uh so pages 14, 15, 16, and 17 uh were Jessica's contributions. I didn't have any other um uh changes uh to it. March evening, sorry. I want to thank Cassie for going forward with the the edit. Thank you. Can I ask a question? Yeah, go forth. So, Cape's got a great I mean they have a whole section in a handbook that you know when I was the new board member was provided to me. I mean do you guys look at that or

107I mean it's I I feel like this is pretty redundant to what I remember from the cave board member handbook that they gave new board member. It's called new board member handbook actually. I think the value of this is that it's specific to Darianne and it is a one-stop shop. So this has all of Darian's policies linked in it. that has resources linked in it. It has um acronyms. It has um a note from the chair which is something that we should discuss on the 22nd also about does that get updated every year? Also the handbook, how often does that get updated? Does it follow a policy um cycle cycle? So I think what's valuable about this and Cape is a great resource and it's linked in here. Um, if people don't look at it,

108I encourage them to. Um, but I envision this being something that we could print potentially a limited number of copies, but also have as a digital resource that is when I have a question about something, when I'm uncertain about something, this is where I go and it's specific to Darianne. Yeah, I think there's value. I mean, there's there's new new board members that, you know, it's it's helpful. Um, I have heard from a couple board members that it's a little maybe concerning is too strong a word, but to to hardcode the language within the handbook instead of just including the link because if the policy gets updated or whatever, what are people's thoughts on that, Dave? Um, I Yeah, I mean there's probably a way to do it. Publishing software not a big thing. I

109guess the real question I had on this and like I like the Roberts rules cheat sheet that was nice. Thank you. Um but you know a lot of what's in here is you mentioned you know some of the very prescriptive in the 9000 series to deal with board operations. I mean that comes from statute or town ordinance. I mean we don't have a lot of wiggle room there. Yeah. And so I hear the notion of this is like what to do when you're a new board member or what you want to do over time. It's nice to have this as kind of like an FAQ, but I don't really know where this sits in terms of president and what's the impact. So, if we put something in here that's like you should try this and

110you want to try something else like do you lose your board subchair seat because you didn't follow this handbook? And I I don't really know how that's handled. So, I think that maybe a question for Tom, but to me I I don't know where this sits in sort of the the chain of what controls how we operate. So Alan, did you say that pages 15, 16, and 17 came from shipton or is that did that come from was that newly generated? Uh, yes. The legal responsibilities that started at the Freedom of Information Act through those couple like there's, you know, communications with the superintendent, communications with staff, like all that came from Jessica. Mhm. So maybe maybe there's just like a disclosure at the beginning of this that's needed to just say like the board

111is governed by the board policies to your point where like those supersede anything that's in this no matter what. I don't know. I'm just making that up. But you're the attorney. I'm not an attorney. Um I I you know you have plenty of situations where like you know security stuff you have the law you have the rule then you have documentation then you have the guidance but you know guidance isn't really binding. So, it's just kind of a thought. I like the idea of having something that like pulls everything together. I mean, there's I think there's other things we could probably add to this value to it. Like even like the strategic plan, people may not understand that you do that every five years, right? It's a full process and you update it and you're

112working on the old strategic plan when you when you up you when you enter the board, you're working on the old strategic plan. There'll be a new one at some point like that stuff. Um, and like I think like re like even putting in here like here's how often this handbook will be updated for example. I don't know that could be in there. Okay. I think it shows a nice to Yeah. Hold on ra board member coming on board as a resource. Yes Robin. Um and and thank you Katie. I think this is a really good resource and it's nice to have everything in one place. I guess some of my feedback, and this gets to some of what Dave was talking about as well, is that the hard coding text from existing policies as

113opposed to just including a link to say, you know, to find out more about this, you know, do this link. And I know you have links in here, but my one concern I have is that that would end up creating essentially double work to keep things both updated when really our policies are what govern us. So, that's just one one comment. And then on the the communications piece, which is kind of toward the end, um I note two policy links were included, but those policies do not actually include any of the the bullet points that are included here about, you know, communications with community or staff or with superintendent or information sharing. And um I I I think the board is governed by our policies and specifically like for instance the social media bullet point

114that's at the very end. Um we don't currently have a social media for board member policy. So, I mean, these are just questions that I have because I think the handbook is really useful, but ultimately I think our policy committee needs to um determine if there are things that we are missing that we might want to have a policy for that would be helpful. For instance, if there are questions that we have, then then maybe some of this potentially could be looked at further by the policy committee in areas where there might be questions about how how things should operate. and and that's something that I think our policy committee might have more thoughts about. So again, in a formal process, sorry, um I think this falls nicely into the conversation that we'll have on

115the 22nd about communication. Um and then if there's questions for Tom, we could, you know, think about that on the 22nd as well. So I agree with that. Yeah. Yes. We good on this one? Okay. Marge personnel report, please. Did I try Did we have that on the Well, it's under explicitly called out on the uh it's not explicitly called out. It could be. Do you want? Yeah. Maybe. Do you want to have the handbook explicitly called out on the agenda? Yeah, that's okay. Okay. Sorry, Mark. No, we're in the middle of hiring season and um it's challenging this year, but so far so good. But there's a real teacher shortage getting worse. Where are you seeing the shortages? Special education. Um, how was our resations this year comparatively? They're less here so far, right?

116They're low. It's about 25. I'm sorry. They're low. It's about 25. 25 teachers. Any and how many administrators the two just two. Okay. Great. Thank you. Um, can I give you a reminder just to point that out? Not pointed out to point it out, but just a reminder. lunch is on your own for like technically for the board at the retreat as breakfast. I mean just I'm just saying because Yep. Okay, we got it. Will the water fountains be on? No. Dave, it's a quick question. I don't No, I just taking the temperature of the room here. Like I kind of enjoy Tom Mooney's little hypos and you know geeking out. But does anybody else do we need to do those and move on or maybe a little less of that this year? Do you

117want to skip those things? the hyper. Wait, what? One question. Are you talking about at the board retreat? Yes, I am. Yes. Um I I thought that was something that um had intended to also cover and I'm sorry, I just lost the agenda. Sorry about that. Dave, you were saying um let's not talk about the new laws. You were just saying let's not do that. No, he usually does the regulatory update, which I think is valuable for us to know what's coming so we prepare for Hartford because some of these will have budgetary implications. They'll have curriculum implications, but then he does these nice little scenarios like little Johnny's mom comes to you and says XYZ. What do you do? They're great. Like I can geek out and do those. That's fun, but it's not

118really great use of everybody's time. So, I enjoy them, but if everyone else like to do a little less, I'm at the same I'm okay with a little less. We can work Davin and and Jill can work with Tom on what he's going to do. Um, all right. So, follow up. Um, but just he I I think it was also the intent to cover the board of ed social media and also state mandates which are I think Tom was also going to be used for some of that too which gets into I think some policy discussion as well but I think there was more yeah okay um followup action items we did clean up this agenda what else was were we adding um that was it right wasn't the holidays. Yeah, that's coming back to

119on the 22nd. Okay. All right. Pass public comment, please. Good evening. If anybody said, sorry, I just want to did you say 22nd? Those things are coming back. No, the handbook of the the we were going to talk more about the calendar. I second with Dr. B. Sorry. Okay. Good evening. If anybody in person or online would like to participate in public comment, please approach podium or use the raised hand icon. Please state your name and address for the record and please note that you have up to three minutes comment. We have no raised hands at this time. All right. May I have a motion to adjourn Dr. Atley's last meeting? Index.