001We are back live. I don't know how to find out if we can hear. [Music] There's Can we see who's on What's that? We just have somebody unmute and tell us that they can hear. Okay. Testing. Testing. Can Zoom hear? We can hear. We can't see you. Okay. Now we can see you. All right. All right. Good evening. If anyone 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 3 minutes to comment. Please note your time with the chair. Okay. Go ahead. Good evening, Darian Board of Ed. Dr. Adley and faculty here in Darianne. I am Tracy Mar. I live
002at 16 Sunswick Road. Uh but I am here in my official capacity as a state representative in Derenne. I am here to inform you of um some issues we have at the state house. This year, the state of Connecticut established a new subcommittee under the education committee specifically focused on special special education. As we all know both here and across the state, special education plays a vital role in the success and well-being of our students and is facing some serious challenges. Over the past few years, we've seen skyrocketing costs, difficult experiences for families, and growing pressures on school districts financially without proper estate assistance. And at the heart of it all is the student. While some districts are better equipped to handle these complex issues and volatile costs, the reality is that special education in
003Connecticut is both costly and frank uh frankly uh inequitable. So yesterday, the special education committee held their one and only public hearing on House Bill 7277. Um, this bill proposed a number of significant changes to how special education is funded and implemented in our state. Some of these are pie in the sky, some of them we can't fund, and some of them are really thoughtful ideas. It provides special grant options for in district improvements. It looks at regionalizing some services. It proposes to set rates for outplacement services with a menu of treatment options and it um proposes adding an ums budsman. So like many bills many bills it has its good and its bad and um frankly frustrating elements. But this is a public hearing process. So it's why I'm here to let you know
004that after the input from this there will be changes. Um, and then you know a threeminut comment obviously doesn't allow much to unpack the nuances that we have here. So I would like to offer to you a time that anybody that didn't actually get to speak or have a lot to say on special education. I would like I was going to say 8:30 on uh Thursday, but sounds like you all have a meeting at 9. So maybe I can do like a one o'clock on Thursday. I don't have the time the play set yet, but please just check my um social media. I'll put it out and I'll send an email out. I invite you to come in, give me your thoughts on the bill or your thoughts in general on special education and I
005can um put together a letter for all the constituents here in Darian and make sure that the chairs of the special education committee um hear some of our issues here. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Tracy. Thank you, Tracer. Would anybody else in person like to participate online? We have no raised hands at this time. Student representative reports, Brenda and Ryan. Good evening. We hope everyone had a very restful, relaxing spring recess. Um, we've officially begun our fourth quarter. Crazy to think, crazy to realize. And today we just had our annual college fair. We thank all of our representatives and our counseling team as well as all the students who helped um and parents to make this possible. We thank you for your time and support. Um we'll have a PLC this Friday. And
006next Friday, our senior prom, something very exciting for um this graduating class as we come to the final end of our final chapter and we look forward to seeing everyone there. Yeah, just building off what Brena said, uh the spring session has begun. A lot of spring sports going on right now, well underway. Uh there our junior students recently received their SATs. Uh their score last Thursday, so hoping for some good scores there. And AP exams begin in just under two weeks, which is crazy to say. uh seniors begin their internship momentarily right after those AP exams and also have their walkthroughs uh through the elementary schools which is an exciting time for I think any student at those elementary schools to see just amazing seniors who have accomplished so much and uh our junior
007prom is May 31st so not as soon as the senior prom but still a big date on the calendar. Thank you both. Approval of the minutes. May I have a motion to approve the following minutes of the special and regular meetings held on March 25th, 2025? That's Sarah, seconded by um Dennis. All those in favor? Hold on one second. So, thank you to those of you that um submitted the typos. There was a typo in one of the names and then I had Robin's or your name instead of Robin's name once. So, I a I've amended him. We'll do it as amended. Okay. Thanks. All right. Yeah. So, one of the speakers names was Yep. changed and then and then Okay. All right. So as amended, all those in favor that is unanimous. Thank you.
008Board committee reports. I think we've Sarah uh curriculum committee met the date before break. Um we talked about literacy as we always do and we talked about the the um progress reports which both will be uh updated tonight for the full board. Um, we had pretty robust discussions about each and specific questions about the progress reports. So, if there are more specific questions, I encourage the public and you all to watch that meeting. Um, but you'll get a smaller update. No, finance. John and finance had a meeting April 10th. We discussed uh the current surplus in this year's uh budget and there are two small transfers uh up for consideration this evening. else. Okay. All right. We'll move on to presentations, discussions, and possible action discussion and possible acceptance of the contemplated gift for Holmes
009Elementary. Hi, good evening. My name is Kathy Jabara and I am a current co-chair of the homeschool PTO. The PTO would like to purchase and gift homeschool a new hawk mascot costume. The current costume is not used often because it has limited visibility from the mascot head, which is considered a safety issue. The new costume will have improved visibility and comfort and will be used at both school and PTO events. Thank you for your consideration. Okay, any questions from the board? Sounds exciting. Okay, with that, may I have a motion to accept the contemplated gift for Homes Elementary? That's Joanna, seconded by Dennis. That is unanimous. Thank you, Homes PTO. And thank you, Paula. Thank you, Kathy. Thank you. Thank you. Homemer says, "Thank you. Um, okay. Discussion and possible acceptance of contemplated gifts for
010the athletic department. Chris, uh, good evening everybody. Um, you have a few, uh, contemplated gifts there in front of you this evening for consideration. Uh, the first two come from the, uh, Darren Youth Lacrosse Association. Um, the early uh, gift that they'd like to give to both the boys and girls um, lacrosse teams in the amount of $5,000 each. Um both teams would like to use that money towards um coach buses um film review and huddle which is the breakdown of that film uh at all three levels of play. And then you have two contemplated gifts there from uh the Darian booster club. Uh one for the boys and girls basketball team. It's a um a shooting machine uh that feeds uh players um shots in a you know kind of a rapid fashion and
011then a contemplated gift there for the football team u which was a two uh twoerson blocking sled for the offensive defensive line. Uh the one they have is about eight or nine years old now is in in need of replacement. Okay, questions about this? Sarah, thanks. So I submitted a couple questions. Chris, thank you for for the um answers, but I don't know that it was such around, so I just wanted to um everybody be able to hear them. Um so, one of my questions was why this busing, how is it different than what we currently do? So, just we we talk about this transportation issue in in your IC just often period. So, just c can you discuss why this is necessary um and why how is it different what is currently happening? Sure.
012So, the the district does provide busing for all of our um athletic uh away contests. Um if a team requires or requests um a coach bus for a longer trip, usually out of state, somewhere in the tri area or Pennsylvania, New Jersey, um Rhode Island, um they would pay the difference what the coach bus costs minus what the school bus would cost. Um and those funds come from this team's directivity account or fundraising endeavors. Um so you have here the the consideration for um you know upgrading of of coach buses u for some of the longer trips that the teams take at the three levels of play for each both the boys and girls lacrosse teams. Okay. And just building on that so my understanding is that the teams fund raise for the you know
013for lack of a better word called an upgraded bus experience. Right. So, is this maybe I've maybe I this went over my head, but is has Dilax done this in the past? Have we had outside groups pay for this in the past or has it been fundraised by the teams? Um both uh Dax has given um you know this gift in the past and some of that gift has gone towards this upgrade of of coach buses um as well as you can see there um the the cost of the filming associated with both teams as well. Okay. I think it's it's also true about maybe two times a week in the spring that um uh we can't we can't get the first student buses as well. So we we have to have some of the
014coach buses. Robin, um I had just a couple questions on the other two gifts, the basketball team gift and the football gift. Just to clarify, is the total amount that the booster club is giving the amount that's in checked in the box on the form or is it the total amount that's on the invoice? Because the invoices had larger dollar amounts than what was checked off. So, I just want to understand if if the booster club is subsidizing all of this or is the school paying part of it? No, the booster club would subsidize all of it. Um, I think the quotes came in a little higher than we first anticipated. So, but the the school will not be subsidized any part of this. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So, the gifts are closer to about
01520, excuse me, $12,000 a team. Just over um from the booster club. No, I'm looking at the um DAX ones. Oh, Dax would be $5,000 each to the boys and girls lacrosse programs. It just has some numbers here, Chris, where it says upgrade to coach buses, which can be 5,000, film review 4,900, and huddle subscription 2400. Right. So, the difference would have to come from if the teams wanted to, uh, fund raise for the for the difference. Understood. Thank you so much. Other questions? Okay, with that, uh, may I have a motion to accept the contemplated gift for the Darian High School Athletic Department boys lacrosse program? That is Joanna, seconded by Robin. All those in favor? That is unanimous. We have a motion to accept the contemplated gift for the Darien High School Athletic
016Department girls lacrosse program. That was done as seconded by Dave. All those in favor? That is unanimous. May I have a motion to accept the contemplated gift for the Darian High School Athletic Departments and Girls Basketball Program? Joanna seconded by Dennis. All those in favor? That is unanimous. I may have a motion to accept the contemplated gift for the Darian High School athletic department boys football program. That is Robin, seconded by Joanna. All those in favor? Um, okay. All those opposed abstensions. That's Mr. Sen. Okay. All right. Thank you all. Thank you to Dy Lax to the boosters to Yeah. and the boosters. Thank you. We appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chris. Okay. Uh update on progress report revisions, Miss Roller. So, just just by just preface the these two agenda items.
017uh as was stated a we bit earlier, these were fully discussed at the curriculum committee meeting. We did attach the pertinent parts of the curriculum committee meeting and also uh the presentations were attached to these memos. So, we're attempting to give a just a high level uh update to the board on each of these um and field any questions that the board may have. Thank you. So just to update you on our progress report revisions, the impetus for this work was um came out of the contract negotiations between the DEA and the board of education in 2023. Um we have a committee that was uh delegated by the DEA and we started meeting in 2023. We our goal was to improve communication with families to revise our indicators so that they were better aligned with
018the curriculum and standards to ensure consistency with our narratives and um to move well to look at the timing of our conferences and progress reports. This committee recommended that we move our fall conferences to October so that we had an earlier opportunity to connect with families. um they revised some of the indicators. We had a teacher survey and it was a very collaborative and iterative process. We went back and forth with teachers and um the literacy committee, the math committee and we did make revisions. We shared it with families and we had a survey and got their feedback. So, um, the board will see the final progress reports in the fall, but our next the next step of our work is to create rubrics and a handbook for families and teachers to really understand what
019all of those indicators mean and what the scores mean across the year. Um, and uh, to improve Aspen as well in terms of um, ease of usability for teachers and for families. it was a little bit difficult to print for some people. That was some feedback. So, um you'll be seeing that again in the fall. We will be maintaining comments on our progress report, but they we one of our goals was to ensure consistency and that's work that our teachers have done as well. So, that's a highlevel overview. Um are there any questions? Any questions? No. Thank you very much for the overview and for the thorough presentation for curriculum. You're welcome. Okay. Update on the K through three literacy program. And this also um and Dr. Fedig again, I don't know if you have
020anything to add. Um or Mrs. Klein, this is something that the three of us are co-chairing together. We have, as you know, um we've met with our core literacy review team for two years and we now have a smaller subcommittee that is sort of our decision-making um body. They are synthesizing all of the information from teacher feedback, from surveys, from focus groups, our student data, um um classroom observations from our administrators, and we're looking at all of that data. We established um an instructional framework that aligns with our values as well as the science of reading. and we are just really synthesizing all of that information and coming up with um a program that best meets the needs of all of our students. Tomorrow is our last meeting and we are hoping to wrap this
021up. It's been a very long process and I know that everybody is anxious to hear about next steps uh which we will pre be presenting to the curriculum committee on May 7th and the full board on May 13th. Any any questions? Go ahead, Joanna. Um, so I think you mentioned this in the meeting and also it was written in the memo um that a comparative analysis between inter reading and the district's current literacy program was completed and the data did not indicate any difference in student outcomes at this time. Could you elucidate more what that analysis was? What what um data points you use? What that looked like? We used our universal screener, Ames Web, and we looked at um fall to winter uh fall to winter growth for this year. And then we looked
022at winter over winter, year-over-year. We looked at our curriculum assessments. We looked at writing samples. It it would really be, you know, in the short month that we've implemented a program, we wouldn't really expect to see any any data. That's more of a long-term kind of thing. Katie, thank you. Um, I wanted to follow up on that question because I I noticed that as well. Um, and I just wanted to um to highlight that what you were speaking of just now in terms of those um assessments are really just qualitative data of the students this year and do not reflect um or I'm sorry, the quantitative data. and does not reflect the qualitative data that we've been hearing from the teachers throughout this year-long process because I know you know throughout multiple um curriculum subcommittees
023we've heard quite a bit of feedback from the teachers about strengths of certain programs um new areas of deficiency so I I just want to highlight that this is just quantitative student data thank you one one thing if I can just add to that point I think um one of the important things was we didn't want to just get feedback from the surveys because sometimes they're completely Sometimes people spend a great deal of time. Other times it's a quick response. So I found the focus groups that we held that we held at each of the elementary schools to be particularly informative because they involved the teachers that were involved in the pilot but also other grade level teachers that may have not been as involved in the pilot that were using our current resources. So
024it just gave an opportunity to broaden the discussion, another opportunity to make sure that every elementary teacher in the district has had an opportunity for voice, not just the people that are on the court, you know, steering committee or core review team or in the smaller group. So um that was where we could get some more of that qualitative data and hear more from the teachers. I think um that you're referring to. Robin, um just just one follow-up question. Um Amy, was that the focus groups? Was that the meeting that occurred like the day after our curriculum committee meeting? I know there was a meeting that was happening on the literacy. So, um that's a great question. So, the focus groups were held on different dates at each of the elementary schools. So, um grade
025level teachers um from kindergarten through through grade five. Actually, um we only primarily those K through three teachers that attended. did we did actually have K5 but they mostly were K3 teachers but K5 were all included and invited. Um they were done at each of the elementary schools separately um so that we could hear each school has a little bit of a different community and um has maybe had a different focus with some of their professional learning. So that was really informative and instructive. We shared that focus group information back with the group that you're referring to and that's our smaller subgroup committee that's really synthesizing all of the information from the larger group and there's representatives in that smaller group from each of the elementary schools. Um there's also um a member of the
026special education um student support services department that's working with us on that. So it's just a you know a more focused group that again has representation from across the district. So that's the group that met the day after our last meeting. That's the group that will be meeting again tomorrow for our final session together. Thank you. To wrap up our analysis. Yeah. Can you just remind us what administrative members are in that committee that will met we'll be meeting you tomorrow? Sure. There are um uh Shirley is in the committee. I have been to every meeting that we've had. Um Mrs. Droller is there. We have two elementary school principles. Thank you. And again, teachers from different grade levels that represent each of our five elementary schools. Yeah. And I'll be in and out to
027listen. Sorry. I will be in and out to listen. All right. Thank you both again for the memo and the extensive work that accompanies it at the curriculum subcommittee. Thank you. Okay. We'll move on to uh finance discussion on March 2025 financial report and possible action on proposed budget transfers. So this is the financial report through March. We are forecasting a positive balance of 429,940. Uh the general education RC's are projected deficit of 5,979 while the special education RC's are forecast at a positive 435,000. Uh moving to salaries, salaries does have a positive variance of about $38,000. We have some salary savings of just over $20,000. Some savings in uh building subs for about $5,500 and some clubs and councils that are not running for $1,800. Moving to operating. Operating is a positive 169,754. Uh
028we do have positive balance and out of district tuition of about $219,000. Uh we do have a deficit projected deficit for a pending superintendent search firm for 30,000. Uh deficit for contracted services for a contracted power professional to get us through the end of the year for about 16,000. And then uh a pending purchase for cell phone um bags at the high school for a trial purchase of 3,700. Uh moving to fix, we have a positive balance just over 6,000. This primarily comes from some credits that we received from Kerma for workers compensation for $4,600. Uh revenue is forecasted at a deposit of 216,24. This is primarily due to um the excess cost reimbursement of $216,455 and this is due to the additional funding that uh the state legislature put forward here. Um we are
029still waiting for that uh reimbursement to be received though. Uh we do have two transfers we are recommending for the board approval. Uh the first is for 3,710 and that is for a trial purchase of about 200 cell phone bags at the high school. Uh and we are recommending taking the funds from the credits received from workers compensation. And then the second is for $16,000 for uh content services and special education for a contracted substitute parah. And this is just due to a vacancy in the par profofessional line item and it's just due to the lateness of the resignation time of the year. Thank questions about the financial report questions about the transfers. With that, may I have a motion to approve the March budget transfers? That is John. Seconded by Sarah. All those in
030favor? That is unanimous. Okay. Second reading of further discussion and possible action on proposed revisions to board of education policies 4118 and 5275 prohibition of sex discrimination and sex based harassment personnel and student versions policies 1300 4111 5710 non-discrimination community personnel and students March I mean we at the board's request we included shipment goodwin's actual legal opinion and other than that I don't know whether there are Any questions, guys? Questions about Shiman and Glenn's opinions? Can you just summarize the legal opinion? Well, the legal opinion is that Connecticut law still protects um students and staff from discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression. Um and it's unclear at this point whether an executive order has the force of law to invoke the supremacy clause. We're still required to follow Connecticut law. Um, and
031we do need a Title N policy. The Title N policy on the website right now has been deemed by the courts and the federal government to be invalid. John, I was well I just I was had the opportunity to go to a development meeting of a large public school and um this issue came up in in a Q&A and you know the president basically indicated that right now we're all dealing with a lot of complexities between some uh differences between federal mandates and state laws. And so, as I stated at the last meeting, I think we should follow in the, you know, as this kind of unravels, if you will, or develops, further develops, I think we should follow the the guidance of council. So, I'd like to make a motion. Okay. And that motion
032is to adopt the policies as it represented the policy committee with the elimination of the reference to title 9 policy in uh in policy 5275. Okay. That's what it's what's in the packet. Yeah, exactly what's been outlined in the recommendations as outlined in the packet. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Do I have a second? Joanna, all those in favor? Okay, that's si parent Nelson Moroni Llin Walsh. All those opposed Brown. All those abstaining Bramley. Thank you. Uh, any follow-up action items? Can I just ask was that vote on the Title N and the non-discrimination? Okay. No, the the action items, Madam Chair, are as you see here, uh, we have a couple still in the works. the communication uh plan uh primarily and the crosswalking with the um uh the strategic plan. So we're we're nearly finished
033with that. Okay. And then and the board handbook. We're we're still with with that. That's with me right now. Okay. Any any other uh portions for the follow-up items? Okay. 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. Please state your name and address for the record. And please note, you'll have up to three minutes to comment. We have no raised hands or people in person. Okay, with that, may I have a motion to adjurnn? That is seconded by Dennis. All those in favor that