BOE Regular Meeting - March 25, 2025

001I would like to call this regular meeting of the board of education to order. The next board of education meeting is tenatively scheduled for Wednesday, April 9th at 7:30 p.m. in the board of education meeting room. I will be serving as acting chair for our meeting tonight since Miss McCammon is not able to be here this evening. Before we begin, I would like to uh make a motion to change the order of the agenda so that we can hear the musicians prior to doing public comment. So, if we could um have a motion to move the superintendent's report after the chairperson's report. May I have a motion? John and Joanna, all in favor? That's unanimous. Okay. Thank you for the chairperson's comments tonight. Um, I'm going to focus first just on the budget process. Um,

002the board of education formally presented its proposed 2526 budget to the board of finance on Tuesday, March 4th. The board of finance will be discussing the proposed 2526 board of education budget at their upcoming meeting next Tuesday, April 1st. The board of finance will then vote on the proposed board of education budget at their meeting on Tuesday, April 8th. And now we'll move on to the superintendence report. Good evening everybody and no matter what reason you are here this evening um I'm sure our quartet uh will appreciate uh having an audience in addition to uh the board of education. Uh earlier this month uh we canled the board meeting for March uh but March is board appreciation month and it's with that that uh uh we recognize the members of our of our board of

003education. Uh this is a uh a town that's known for its service and volunteerism and uh that is certainly a characteristic uh of of of Darian. Uh the pay is good around the table for our board members and the long hours and um we want to thank them for uh all of their efforts and behalf of uh all of our students. And it's with that um I invite you uh to sit back and watch a we video from our students uh with a few words of appreciation. Thank you board of education for all the fun field trips. Thank you board of education for all the nice teachers. Thank you for the support of the MMS players with providing music and just everything we need to make a beautiful sound. Thank you, Board of Education, for

004all of our wonderful teachers. Thank you for all of our teachers, after school programs. Thank you so much for putting in time week after week to make our school so awesome. Thank you, Board of Education, for supporting the sports and all you do for us. Thank you. Thank you so much for your support at DHS and thank you especially for the support uh for the world language department. Thank you for helping with the funds and stuff for the musicals and the plays and they're always amazing and super fun and without the funding it would probably be less fun. Thank you board for supporting uh the art department and providing all the materials and useful tools that we can use to make art and do what we love. Thank you for the construction to make a

005new part of the building. Thank you, Board of Education, for all the books we have. Board of Education, I just want to say thank you so much for being there and helping out the schools and making it a better learning system for us. Thank you, Mom, especially for putting in that time and work. And you're really just doing it for the better of the the people. And I just want to say thank you so much to everybody. Thank you to the board of education for supporting the tech department and allowing us to buy all the tools and equipment we need to build things like the rocket engine that I could work on here. It's uh really cool that we can do stuff like that. Um thank you for the board of education for all the

006music programs. Thank you for your support of theater 308 and giving us the tools and people to put on our productions all year round. Thank you for the education. [Music] our pre our prek uh uh to five students have made personalized some of them are personalized to the board members. So you do have a re-representation of of cards of appreciation from again prek to 5. Thank you to our quartet. Um it does have a we bit of an Irish theme because it was closer to St. Patrick's Day when this was actually meant to happen. Uh but they are going to uh play their rendition. I hope you enjoy it. Uh thank you to Titi uh Sophia Sophie um and Ronan and certainly their teacher uh Mr. Cruz here who's a strings teacher over at the

007middle school and also for Colleen Thompson behind you. Um they've come a couple of times this quartet or variations of it. So we thank you for for coming and uh in music playing a few words of appreciation for the board of education. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's there. Great job everybody. Thank you so so much. Well, it's not every day you open up the board of education meeting with that. Uh we have a lot of celebrations to do. Uh so congratulations to the cast and crew of lay miz. I'm sure you you have enjoyed that. uh to our diving class L champion uh Jake Simon uh the Fair West championship winning girls squash team and our state boys and girls hockey teams. Congratulations. I want to appreciate the uh the support from our

008parents uh to our teachers and and indeed to your children uh during the elementary parent conferences this week and also for the number of uh members of the community along with the first selectman who joined us for the anti-defination league um uh community conversation. Um very much appreciate your presence. I know well I think you've got SATs today. Were they for 11th graders? Yeah. Hope it went well for you. Um we had our grade five IDA students have um participated our gifted student participated in the uh invention convention last week. Uh so we wish them well at the Connecticut. We also had um the authentic search research program that we talked about before but the kids now all went to a different uh site at Quinnipek. Uh so we congratulate all the students who participated

009and who earned um recognition at the state fair. Uh the the elementary schools have hatched for hope on Thursday raising fund for the uh Tommy uh the Tommy fund which is uh the Batland cancer at Yale New Haven. Congratulations to our jazz students who performed Sweet Night of Jazz. This was uh for grades 5 through 12 who partnered with musicians and members of the community. Uh so that was a fun uh event as well. I hope you get a we opportunity to uh visit the West Point concert band. It will be at Darian High School on Thursday, April 3rd. It's free um as long as you can get one of the free tickets. Uh so I'd encourage you to participate. Our kids will be playing alongside them. Uh if you've heard the West Point uh

010band, you know you're in for a little bit of a treat. Uh the uh Darian Public Schools townwide art show uh is kicking off April 1st and that will be displayed at the town hall and the library. So, uh, during the month of April, if you get a chance to stop by one of those particular venues, uh, Chris Heron will be, uh, at the high school tomorrow evening at 7, uh, p.m. Uh, many of you probably sitting here will be there, so I encourage you to come. Uh, Chris has spoken to millions of students, um, across the nation with a goal of, uh, honest discussions about addiction and making positive uh, difference in your lives. Thank you to our partnerships which is the community fund, Thriving Youth, Wave Strong, Blue Wave Boosters, Darian Depot, uh

011the Darian Library, What YMCA, and the YW.CA. Thank you for co-sponsoring uh the event. Uh the 2425 school calendar has been slightly revised just to reflect that the high school PLC day uh for the prom is is moved to May 2nd. The May date was moved to May 2nd. That's just a late arrival. uh April 8th meeting will be rescheduled to April 9th potentially. We'll have a we discussion about that tonight if if the board members are free for that uh because April 8th is uh the board of finance be having the discussion about the budget on that particular night and at this point uh we do not need a facilities meeting on Friday unless people feel otherwise. Thank you. Um okay now we will move on to public comment. Good evening. Sorry. Good evening.

012If anybody in person or online would like to participate in public comment, please approach the podium and wait to be recognized or use the raised hand icon if you're online. Please note that you will have up to three minutes to comment and please state your name and address for the record once recognized. Hi, I'm Kate Havoc, 16 Hamilton Lane. My pronouns are she, her. I'm a staunch ally of the LGBTQI plus community and I'm cisgender. None of this should make you uncomfortable. It doesn't make me uncomfortable because it's who I am. I'm here today to stand up for all of the students and all of the children in this community because I'm really embarrassed. I'm embarrassed to be a part of Darianne where we're discussing and judging whether people in the community belong here for

013who they are. I'm so embarrassed, Mr. Brown, at your inability to see people equally and to waste our time talking about whether we want this is freedom of speech. You're interrupting my time. I'd like the clock to be added back on, please. I I'm sorry. We have to continue with public comment. We can address that later. Later. The suggestion that gender identity is not a valued part of our community or the Darian public school system is insulting. This is the time where we all need to stand up and speak out because what is happening in our country and globally doesn't matter. Well, it does matter, but it matters when it starts to affect our community as people and a population. I am so disappointed that we are here talking about this when every single valued

014member of this school system is important and should be considered equal. Thank you. Hi, Dan Guller. He him 10 Wsley wrote the uh 2023 thriving youth task force survey uh found that 17% of our local teens reported being bullied at school. Of students who identify as LGBTQ plus that number goes up to 34% who reported being bullied in school. That same thriving Youth survey found 9% of teens in the general population had considered suicide in the previous year. For students who identify as LGBTQ plus, 35% had considered suicide. I know that the results for this current year's survey are being tabulated and I am hopeful that those numbers will improve. Protecting certain groups of atrisisk students doesn't make your child any less special, less brilliant, less of a prodigy at whatever their thing is. It

015merely recognizes that some kids are more vulnerable than others and that we are doing something about it. If the federal government told us to stop protecting Jewish kids, would we? What about kids with addiction issues or children who are living in poverty? Which at risk at risk group are you willing to cast aside? The Trevor Project found that the suicide attempt rate by LGBTQ youth in communities viewed as very unaccepting of them was 21%. In very accepting communities, that number drops to 8%. I'm going to repeat that in case anyone wasn't paying attention. The Trevor Project found the suicide attempt rate by LGBTQ youth in communities viewed as very unaccepting was 21%. In very accepting communities, that number dropped to 8%. Which community do we want to be? Thank you. My name is Rebecca Reelier.

016I live at 6 Ridge View Avenue. I went to a middle school and a high school where sexual harassment was common. A girl might be standing in front of her locker and reach up to spin the dial on her combination lock. A group of boys would walk by and one of their sweaty hands might reach through to grope her. This and other things like it happened to me more times than I can count until in 10th grade, I left my local high school and I went to a new school where this behavior was not tolerated, traveling 2 hours every day to be there. The year I left my local school was 1993. That's one year after Title 9 was reinterpreted to encompass sexual assault. But I hadn't heard about this and I didn't know that

017I had a right to a learning environment free of harassment. I didn't know. I'm asking the board to adopt the Connecticut Title 9 protected classes so that all students in Derenne schools including those whose gender identity and expression is different from their peers will know. Thank you. Go ahead. Um, I'm Jessica McGovern, 73 Fifth Avenue. Um, I'm a parent of three children. My oldest is currently in first grade at Henley. Um, I'm here to express my strong opposition to the proposal to remove gender identity as a protected class in the district policies. A decision to remove gender identity as a protected class within our school district sexual harassment and discrimination policies would not only undermine the progress the district has made in promoting inclusivity and equality, but also harm students who are already vulnerable and

018in need of support and protection. As Dan went through in the thriving youth survey from 2023, we know that our students in our school in the in the LGBTQ plus community are already facing higher risks of bullying, harassment, and mental health challenges. They deserve to feel and know they are supported and safe in our district. Gender identity is a fundamental aspect of who a person is. And recognizing gender identity as a protected class is crucial in fostering an environment where all students, regardless of their gender identity, feel safe, valued, and respected. Removing these protections would send harmful messages to students who are transgender or non-binary, that they are less worthy of dignity and respect than their peers. It's also important to recognize that gender expression is not exclusive to transgender or non-binary individuals. As children,

019including cisgender males and females, they express their gender in various ways through their clothing, hairstyles, or behaviors. And they should not feel constrained or judged based on these expressions. By removing protections for gender identity, we are setting a precedent in our district to remove support for LGBTQ plus students and limit the freedom for all students to express themselves authentically. I urge you to keep gender identity as a protected class within our school district. This is not just a matter of policy. It's a matter of ensuring that all students, regardless of their gender identity, are treated with dignity and respect. Our district should be a place where every student can thrive without fear of discrimination or harassment. And removing these protections would take us further away from that goal. I hope Darianne School District can continue

020to stand for inclusivity and safety and foster a school culture where students feel safer, more accepted, and empowered to thrive. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, Dr. Adley. Uh, board of ed. My name is Laura Bremer. I live at 25 Hillrest Avenue in Derenne. And I am here tonight to request that graduation be moved to the last day of school, Monday, June 16th, to ensure that many of our senior student spring athletes, many of them who are here tonight, have the opportunity to attend and enjoy graduation. Uh my youngest son, Will, is a senior at Darian High School. He's a boys lacrosse player. And while this date doesn't personally affect him, unless of course there is an issue with seak eligibility of graduates, the proposed date of June 12th with a rain date of June 13th

021will impact many of our student athletes. For example, boys volleyball, their state their state championship game is scheduled for Thursday, June 12th at 7 p.m. at New Town High School. Given our track record on boys volleyball and state championships, they've been there the last four years, there's an excellent chance this will be a huge conflict with graduation beginning at 5:00 p.m. on the same night. Our boys baseball team state championship game is scheduled for Friday, June 13th. Girls golf is also Friday, June 13th, and rowing nationals, while not a DHS designated sport, is scheduled for June 11th through the 15th in Florida. There is a question about CEK eligibility for the graduates as their website clearly states that the student shall be a member of that school in grades 9, 10, 11 or 12. Um,

022and a graduate or a student who has completed all necessary coursework from any secondary school is ineligible to play. When we inquired about this today, we were told that we would work with the SEAK to ensure our athletes can participate in the sports, but it seems like that is an unnecessary obstacle that can be easily avoided. The reason we were given for moving the date earlier than the last day of school was to allow for a rain date so we don't limit guests to two per student. But for as long as I've lived here, Will is my youngest child. Um there has never been a rain date except for last year. Uh my middle son graduated from DHS in 2023. It was held in the auditorium due to rain. It was a beautiful graduation. Our

023extra family members watched from the cafeteria and they joined us afterwards for photos and the celebration. I think we should prioritize getting all of our students spring athletes to be able to experience and enjoy graduation rather than worrying about ensuring extra guests can attend. They should also not have to choose between experiencing the milestone of graduation or competing in a state championship game that they worked so hard for. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. My name is Annabelle Adams. I live at 11 Point Woods Road. I'm Hope Hopka, 27 Point Woods Road South. I'm Sophie Hos. I live at 45 for Jakers Road. Um, we are here today as representatives and captains of the Daring Daring Girls Lacrosse team to respectfully request that you reconsider the date of our high school graduation. Daring girls lacrosse has

024a long successful history in Connecticut athletics. In 30 seasons, we have secured 19 state championships and in the past 20 years, we have missed the state finals only three times. The current graduation date is set for June 12th, which creates a major conflict for our team as the state championship is set for Saturday, June 14th. The girls lacrosse team is not the only team that's being affected by this current graduation date. Boys lacrosse state finals are the are June 14th. Baseball's the 14th and 13th. Softball's the 14th. Boys golf is the 13th. Girls golf is the 14th. And boys volleyball is the 12th. And rowing nationals are the 15th through the 11th. The days leading up to the state finals are critical for preparation both mentally and physically. This scheduling conflicts not only affects our

025seniors, but the entire team of 30 plus players who have worked all year for this opportunity. Our graduation is a milestone event that we want to fully celebrate, but the current timing of it would make for an overwhelming end of the year and would not only impact our performance in athletics, but also take away from a defining moment in our high school experience. The current graduation day impedes our ability to celebrate the culmination of our academic and athletic careers as a community. We understand the challenges of scheduling, but we ask for your consideration in adjusting the date to Monday, June 16th, so that our student athletes can fully participate, focus, and enjoy our graduation. an accomplishment that we have all worked so hard for. Thank you for your time and your consideration. Thank you. Excuse

026me. Excuse me. I'm sorry. We have to just limit the applause, please during public comment because we have many people who want to speak. Thank you. Um, hi, my name is Mark McName 69 St. Nicholas Road. Um, Will Bremer, 25 Hillrest Avenue. Deta 22 Gail Road. Uh George Persinger, 42 rugged on. Um we are all captains of the boys lacrosse team and um on behalf of the team, we ask that you set the graduation date for Monday, June 16th. Monday is the last day of school and even if it doesn't give us a rain date, we know that June 16th is a day um that we wait. Oh, I messed up rain. We know that June 16th is a day that will let all our classmates walk to get their diplomas. Any graduation date earlier

027than this puts it in both direct and indirect conflict with sports competition sports competitions where we ha where we hope to represent Darian High School to victory. Um, thank you. Thank you. Hello, my name is Carara Smith. I live on Nine Bates Farm Lane. Uh I'm a senior at Darian High School and I'm also a captain at Greenwich Crew. I'm speaking on behalf of many students, specifically student athletes who are passionate about their education and athletics. As a rower, we have missed countless school events such as prom and homecoming. We have youth nationals, which is our biggest race of the year, June 12th through June 15th. If it were if it were scheduled graduation for June 13th, we would completely miss the ceremony and we would not be able to attend with the rest of

028our graduating class. Um, as you have heard, many other teams and sports would conflict graduation as well with their um with all their state championships. And we really hope that you would consider changing graduation to June 16th so the rowers at Darian High School can participate in a school event and be fully um present with our class. Thank you for your time and we really hope you consider changing it to Monday, June 16th. Hello, my name is Alisa Persinger. I live at 42 Roatan Road. Um, first of all, thank you to the board for all of your hard work and time in supporting our students. We appreciate your efforts. I'm here to express my concern regarding the graduation date that has been recommended by DHS, which conflicts with the SEAK events planned for the week

029of June 9th. It's disheartening to see during what should be a moment of celebration for all of our seniors, a choices being forced upon our student athletes between representing the school in the biggest game of the year or or walking in their own graduation. The school has chosen to prioritize a rain and the convenience of the extended family's attendance over the very students the celebration is meant to honor. These athletes have worked tirelessly, represented Darien High School with pride, and earn the right to participate in both of these major milestones. Why should they be forced to choose? It feels as though we are missing a critical opportunity to support the mental health and well-being of our students. Graduation should be a time to reflect on all of their accomplishments, academic, athletic, and personal. Forcing them

030to miss one in order to experience the other sends the wrong message. I urge you to reconsider this decision and find a solution that allows these students to be fully celebrated for everything that they have achieved. They deserve that much for the from the community and the school they've given so much to. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Hi, good evening. My name is Doug Reed. I'm at for Saltbox Lane East. Um, just to add a little bit to to what everyone said before about the graduation date. To me it seems quite simple solution um to include as many students as possible and being able to to attend their own graduation after working so hard for four years irrespective of what the reason might be why they can't attend. Surely the objective must be

031to have the most students there as possible. Um and other considerations surely must pale um in comparison to that. So, um, I'd ask that you please consider to move the graduation date to June 16. Yes. Thank you. Is there anybody else in person who would like to participate? I will move to Zoom. Christie, guest, you have been recognized and unmuted. Please note that you'll have up to three minutes to speak and state your name and address for the record. Hi. Um, sorry. Let me get my video. Good evening. Um, my name is Christia Hagen. Uh, 88 Old Kings Highway South. uh she her um I'm here to compel the board to continue including gender identity and gender expression as protected classes in our school's policies on harassment and discrimination. I don't understand why this is

032even up for debate. Connecticut law already requires these protections. Attempting to remove them is wildly immoral. The district already has to comply with state law. And more importantly, you as the board have an ethical obligation to protect all students and staff in this district. As it's been noted here tonight before, but cannot be said enough. LGBT plus kids face disproport disproportionate levels of bullying, harassment, and mental health crisis. Removing these protections would directly endanger them. This is not about politics. It's about the safety, dignity, and humanity of all individuals. And this adoption should not be tabled or kicked back. It's embarrassing and appalling that there are members of this board of education that think it's okay to not protect community members who are bullied or assaulted due to their sexual identity or gender expression. Failing

033to defend all our friends and families sends a dangerous message that some lives are worth more than others. I urge you to do what's right and reaffirm this district's commitment to maintaining an educational environment that is physically, emotionally, and intellectually safe for everyone. We cannot turn our backs on individuals who need support the most. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Holly Thomas. You've been unmuted and recognized. Please state your name and address for the record and note you'll have up to three minutes to comment. Um, my name is Tom uh Holly Thomas and um my pronouns are she, her, they them uh 676 Postro Darion. I am a proud transwoman and um Darien resident. I presently serve on the um Greater Bridgeport Pride Planning Committee. I'm a member of the Peer Pride Trans Haven Legislative Action

034Group in New Haven. I also work with several other pride organizations such as the Triangle Community Center and our trans lives as a volunteer and advocate and I feel strongly that a trans voice needed to be heard here. As an elder trans woman who transitioned later in life, I can personally attest to the damage that bullying and discrimination has done to my sense of personal identity, my mental health, my education, um, and other areas of my life, including family life, and every every relationship that I have ever been in. I attended school from uh Kada to graduation in Stratford, Connecticut in the 1970s and early 80s where I was labeled as a and a both by students and teachers just because I was slight and build and presented an androgynous and feminine appearance. At the

035time I was going through my public education, there were no protections or even discussions of protections for LGBTQ, transgender, not gender non-conforming or any other flavor of queer youth. I was bullied and this is the truth almost to death twice in middle and high school. And in both instances, the blame was placed on me, even by my own family, for not sticking up for myself and not fighting back. If there was any question about the validity of trans identity, I knew I was female from the time I came into awareness as a human being. I expressed my gender by dressing in my older sister's clothes, and I was corrected gently at first and then with increasing severity. During those times, I had nowhere to turn. Um, there was no support or visibility, and I felt

036like a unique freak. I couldn't tell friends, teachers, clergy, family, anyone about the constant pain and struggle I went through. I made several half-hearted attempts at suicide. Uh, when I read the DSM2, I read that I was a sexual deviant, and I experienced a deep shame that developed into self-loathing. I somehow made it to a point where I could actually transition. And transition was both the best and most difficult thing I have ever done for myself. And it is an ongoing process, especially as an established adult. And to see trans kids being used as a political football on top of all the difficulties that just come with being trans just turns my stomach. This is not a choice that we make. The only choice that we make is whether we live our lives authentically or

037to mask who we really are. Gender identity needs to be included in the protections afforded to our children, to your children. We're out of time. Sorry. Thank you for your comments. iPhone 164, you've been unmuted and recognized. Please state your name and address for the record and note you have up to three minutes to comment. Well, hi. Uh my name is Goss Black. I live at two Dogwood Lane in Derenne. Uh my son went through uh the Derenne High School uh middle school and high school. Um uh and uh for many years it was quite touch and go in and part of his struggles with his uh his identity. Uh I don't think he would be here today had it not been for the support uh that he got from some of the teachers and

038counselors in the Darian school system. So the thought that any of that support would go away, as you can imagine, is heartbreaking to me. um because I know there's other kids who have many of the same issues and struggle and really need that support in order to to make it through. So, I'm hoping that the uh the uh school board will reconsider. Thank you. Thank you. We have no more raised hands at this time. And I will move on to the approval of minutes. Um, student representative reports. I'm sorry, Brena and Ryan. Good evening. Good evening. As we move towards the end of our third quarter, we just want to again repeat our congratulations to the cast of Blame Miz, our girls and boys hockey team and squash team, and all of our winter athletics

039for their successful seasons and teamwork and camaraderie shown across the board. Um, seniors, we just had our 100 day dinner. It was a great success. We want to thank everyone on our planning committee and our administration for organizing such a wonderful night. Our bonfire has been postponed to I believe it's April 5th. So do keep your eyes peeled for this community building event. And our senior internships are officially finalized and set to begin on May 16th. Yeah, just building off what Brena said, uh congratulations to Jake Simon and boy swimming dive for winning gold this week. Um along with that, our juniors had their SATs today. So hoping for some for some good scores from them and uh just carried on through the rest of third quarter and the final part of the year. Thank

040you. We'll move on to approval of minutes. May I have a motion to approve the following minutes of the special and regular meetings held on February 25th, 2025? I have a motion. Sorry. Just there's a typo. Sorry, where? Um pa our page six or page one the bottom says Mr. Walsh. Sorry. Hey there. May I have a motion to approve the minutes as amended? May I have a second? Okay, Sarah. All in favor? That's unanimous. I do want to make a comment just in the future any public comments should should not be singling out individual board members by name just as a matter of courtesy. But thank you everyone for your comments tonight. Um, now we'll proceed to uh board committee reports. Um, Sarah, we had a curriculum committee meeting. Yeah, we we had a

041curriculum committee meeting. Um, again, we were talking about uh the KD3 literacy. We'll continue to keep talking about that next month. Um, our next meeting is I want to say April I should have been April 2nd. Thank you. We're get getting the home stretch with that. Um, okay. finance committee update and um we had a finance committee meeting last Thursday and we'll be discussing that as items um D and E in this evening's agenda and policy committee update. So the policy subcommittee met and we have some proposed rules from Shipman and uh we'll discuss later on the agenda. They're up for first read. Thank you. Um we'll move on now to item eight, the mental health and wellness update with Dr. Dad. Thank you, Dr. Um the board of members. This is this is um

042again this the spring update suggestion I might make is that um moving forward we collapse this into the wellness goal which it really is in there um as we have this other topics in terms of unless the board wants to pull it out for some reason but um anyway with that that Dr. Dad, thank you. Great. Well, thank you very much. I'm happy to provide this spring update. Much of what I'll be discussing um connects to previous uh presentations including in if you remember in September we had Amanda Whitel from the National School Climate Center come and discuss the results of our survey and then again in December myself and Dr. De uh Miss Principal Demoolis uh presented on teen talk and and its progress at the middle school. So we'll touch upon some of

043those and some additional information. So when we think about mental health, I think it is really important to remember how integral it is to every part of our being including our learning. Um it really encompasses our emotional, psychological and social well-being. Um how we think, how we feel, how we act, how we cope with challenges. Um, and it's not just the absence of mental illness, but mental health really has positive impacts. When we have positive mental health, we see improved cognitive functioning and learning. We see an ability to regulate both our emotions and our behaviors in the classroom, on the field, playing an instrument. It's vitally important. Um, we also see that there's more resilience when mental health is better. um better attendance in school, better time management, and conversely when when individuals struggle with

044mental health, we also see things like a decreased motivation for academics to engage socially. Um and we see increased rates of absenteeism that are often difficult to overcome. So recently we had the NIAS visit and and this is also mental health is a priority for NIAS. One of their primary priority areas when they came was really to look at are continuing to develop and implement programs, practices and policies that inclate an inclusive, equitable community and prioritize mental health for all students. Um that aligns with their standard 4 through NEAS. Additional agencies and associations that prioritize mental health in schools include uh the National Association of Secondary School Principles, National Association of School Nurses, School Counselors, and School Psychologists. So, it's there's a significant amount of evidence and research related to mental health and academic outcomes

045as well as just overall well-being. And wellness is a core value. When we talk about wellness, we really are our value of creating balanced learning environments that are physically, socially, emotionally, and intellectually safe and healthy for all students. So, where we might see this play out, it's cultivated in a in an array of ways. So, an example uh up here, we see things the vision of the graduate graduate aligns with our kind of value of wellness. We also see it integrated into classroom routines and expectations. We know that there is security and wellness when there's predictable routines and expectations. Um when needed, there might be push-in lessons at the elementary level. We also focus on issues around wellness and mental health, whether that's through advisory, counseling, seminar, health courses, and of course the wellness center.

046If there's a higher level of need, we might have um mental health addressed through individual and small group intervention, consultation with outside providers. um it's really critical to develop those lifelong skills to function both as a team and a lifelong learner. So last year when I presented I talked about some previously identified steps um that aligned with the strategic plan in including multi-tered systems of support for students. We're going to go through these in more depth, but this is just a brief overview of some of the things that we talked about last spring. So, I've kind of broken these down into three strategic areas. Professional learning and instruction, school climate and wellness, acting as a community liaison. And underlying all of these and all of this work is ongoing data collection and alignment with both

047uh board policy and statute compliant compliance through the state. So with regards to the data oftentimes with mental health data is both quantitative and qualitative because causes uh related to mental health related issues also are multiffactorial. So it's not a direct cause effect impact but we recognize that data helps us identify trends. Um but then we also have to include individual variables. uh whether that's natural developmental variability, attribution difficulties, um complexity of measurement and external factors that all play into mental health. So, as we move forward in our work, consistent with board goals, we'll continue to discuss and identify which data is most relevant to professional learning and instruction, school climate and wellness, and community liaison. Well, I won't go through all the data in the appendix. I had some samples of data so you

048can see the type of data that we look at when we're looking at these different activities. So, with regards to professional learning and instruction, I mentioned uh MTSS, the multi-tered system of support. So, really what this is is a framework designed to provide varying levels of support to students based on individual needs. We really look at the whole child, whether that's their academic need, the social, emotional, behavioral attendance, family engagement, and the interplay of all of those things. So if a student is struggling, we really want to take a look at the entire range of factors that might be impacting that in a more proactive rather than reactive way. So, so far um this year we have a K- through2 leadership committee that includes administration, teachers, counselors um where we've really each team that has

049an MTSS team formerly known as an SRBI team has come together and they've done a self assessment and those individual school self assessments have been shared out with the larger group and those will be used to identify both short and long-term goals um timelines and action plan uh as we implement MTSS Really the goal we look at things like data collection for screening. So that might be on the academic side maybe the as web for the social emotional it might include information from the DESA which there was an example of that at a global level um in the packet but it also might include things like attendance data, referral data. If we have a kid who is going to the nurse uh often, that might be data that's relevant when we're assessing if there's any

050anxiety related to a specific area of performance. Say you have a student who is struggling with math fluency. It might be is it actually a difficulty in automaticity of math facts or is it maybe that there's a perfectionistic tendency and we have to help them kind of reframe that need for perfection? or maybe what recently happened this week as we were talking about it, they found out they were recently moving and so they were distracted. So really looking at the whole child and understanding all of the variability that might impact their progress in learning. Um for professional learning, there's a picture of this building. This is an example of one of the professional learning sessions that we had. Um to date every um teacher has been exposed to some kind of training varying from an

051hour to a half day with regards to restorative practices as per the mandate that came out in July 1 of this year. Um the professional learning topics came about uh in the fall of 2023. I surveyed teachers just asking what their areas of interest related to mental health would be and the majority of them we had 192 teachers respond and they said that they would like meaningful PD around behavioral principles in the classroom and inclass emotion regulation strategies. So you'll see that aligns with some of the professional learning. So for example um the strategies to help regulate emotions that was professional learning that was done for all pareducators, special education aids and elementary occupational therapists during election day. Um additional uh dialectical behavior principles and strategies through our summer mental health grant uh I was

052able to offer those strategies to a group of teachers. Um and then we also have we're responsive to the professional learning needs based on trends that we see and our most recent professional learning Dr. McCarthy and I presented on school refusal both the conceptualization and effective interventions and current best practices and that was done with our counselors some administrators from the high school um and all of the school psychologists. We continue to reinforce that through our professional learning communities and ongoing consultation. There's also some data related. We just do check out kind of um formative evaluations at the end of professional learning to see what they learned, what they want to know more about, how effective it was for them. Um so also following with professional learning and instruction, we talk about social emotional learning,

053which is really the core components of social emotional learning. I realize there's a typo. It's not responsible decision marking, it's making. Um but the core components are self-awareness and self-management. responsible decision making, relationship skills, and social awareness. Essentially, this is a toolbox of strategies that support learning. Um, and supports kids ability to access their curriculum through their own self-awareness. Right? I just read something three times. I'm not following it. I need to be more mindful. Self-management. I have to understand uh the steps it takes for me to complete my work. Um and then there's also other uh components related to responsible decision-making, relationships and social awareness. So just as an example, one of the that um that picture you have up there was one of the teacher groups when we had done some of the

054professional learning just thought about how they could use some of the strategies in their classroom. Um, so it might be something like mindfulness breaks to reregulate, but it might also be just building class relationships, creating more opportunities for that social awareness and relationships. I know we've talked about this before, but we have the school doctoral internship, which is a really unique and exciting opportunity in so far as um highly qualified candidates from across the country, many who are already working in some capacity. We had interviewed one that had been working for eight years as an MTSS coach, but really it's comparable to the medical match process where they submit their top three choices and then we submit our top three choices. It's a unique opportunity um to provide additional support not only to our mental

055health uh uh staff, but they also bring with with them a level of expertise around things like data as they're completing doctoral dissertations. Um and again it also we're we work with a consortium of other programs so that they've also offered professional learning uh in reciprocity to that that we offer. So I know we talked a bit about school uh climate survey. Uh the state had put out the fee in February they actually um released their version of a model climate policy. Um so for next year we'll actually implement what exactly that looks like. Those are the five domains and while we don't have it yet as we administer the um school climate survey over years you can see the example at the bottom where it shows model of year-over-year data. So you can see

056trends in the data in different domains. Again this is just an example. So what happens is um school teams get together, school climate teams get together, they look at that data, but you can also see additional data reviewed. This is an example of like Middle Sex where they also look at discipline data, risk assessment data, special education numbers and enrollment trends. They look at different data that's relevant to the domains. Um and then from there they take that information and they identify priorities related to school climate improvement. So there's a lot that we've discussed already on this slide, but I want to focus on a couple things. Um, as you know, the technology advisory council has met throughout the course of this uh the beginning of this year to look at things like technology use

057policy and and uh procedures. I've been a part of that. I've also been part of the subcommittee now that we've broken up into education where we focus on looking at things like um you know digital posters around education around the impact of technology on students emotional well-being um things like a way for the day and really in that planning stage of continuing to educate I have to say there was an amazing group of staff and teachers and administrators and students who really had significant get input and wisdom in terms of what would be helpful as we move forward with technology. Uh, I'm excited. So, Sources of Strength, we've talked about even I think it predates my arrival here, but Sources of Strength is a peer-to-peerbased strength focused um, group where we basically try and empower

058youth to be in a more resilient, strength focused um, approach to suicide prevention. That doesn't mean that they're counselors. It just means that we know that youth seek out each other when they're struggling and it's helping look at that support through a strength focused lens. Actually, there was just a research study that came out yesterday that was that was forwarded to to principal done that the study showed that IND uh schools that use sources of strength uh showed a 29% decrease in suicide attempts. and it's really regarded as one of the the really most effective proactive programs that you can do. The wellness center we've definitely talked about. They continue to have offerings through wellness week and on an ongoing basis teen talk. There's also data attached there for teacher wellness through the summer mental

059health grant. We've realized that um that it is also a challenging time to be a teacher as needs continue to grow. Um, so through our summer mental health grant, we're able to offer a teacher wellness program. Um, and that's primarily based on skills and strategies for for themselves. Um, also just in general, I'm often often staff will reach out to me if they have any questions or concerns or any mental health issues, whether it's how do I support my own child? Are there any resources? I work with Marge if EAP is an option. Um but but oftentimes there's just general support for teachers. Um we've talked a good amount about athletes and team supports when there's additional support needed. Um I know at the beginning of the year the hockey team had had another connected

060loss and so we really pulled in extra supports for them. And then finally uh the Serenity Garden which um I I don't mean to steal Mrs. Dun's Thunder or or the uh garden club, Darian Garden Club. But the administration is working with the garden club. They approached uh DHS about creating a reflective garden space um where it would really give an opportunity for students to reflect. Um they're working with uh building and grounds and they're in the process of kind of creating a fundraising effort and the art community um the art the students in the art program are also going to be part of that. So I won't go through all these but different community uh groups that meet I I attend those meetings and act as a community liaison both um to the staff

061and the administration with regards with upcoming events um the human services planning council in the fall. I just presented an overview of what school climate is and general initiatives around mental health. um thriving youth. Uh as you know, we have that relationship and we just completed the survey and that's been in existence since 2008 and we are so grateful for the relationship with the community fund and their funding uh of the teen talk counselor through that grant. I will not steal their thunder. Thriving youth is coming at the next meeting and we'll give indepth report out on some of the data that they found. Um it was administered in February of of this year. Um I think the response rates were higher than they had been in the past just to we changed when we

062actually gave it at the high school which there was some positive kind of impact around that. I remember Brena you said you know having a place and understanding the importance of it might be helpful. So we administered it in health classes this year. Overall we're seeing a lot of positive trends through the school. Um there's an increased connection to trusted adults which is such an important factor when we consider resilience. Um there's also increased awareness of available supports. So I think that's important even when we think about even if students don't necessarily go in and ask the wellness center or the teen talk counselor, they they know that it's a priority and it's available to them if needed. We've seen a slight decrease in anxiety and depression as well. And overall I think within the

063community there seems to be you know a persistent concern around underage drinking and align with the technology we see that students have mixed emotions about spending time on their phone. Sometimes they feel positive sometimes they feel less well than when they got on their phones and um and sometimes it's both. a a new new this year we um I had applied and worked with um a group in order to get a grant called hope to healing grant. So this is a suicide prevention grant that really looks at aligning what is happening within the community um with what's happening in the schools. So, every three years they'll award up to $10,000. Um, right now we just did a self-study, but they'll also some of the trainings that we've had in the past, whether that's QPR, the

064Colombia suicide severity scale, signs of suicide, they will all help as we assess where our needs are and if there's any gaps and when we look at things at policy revision, they'll also help with best practices around that. We also have two other grants um that are continuing. We're going into the third year of that. But the summer mental health grant, we were originally um awarded $92,000 for that and this is going into that year. That allows us to do additional training for staff and we're hoping that in the summer we can also do more directly with students. Um the mental health specialist grant was also awarded for $126,000. So what are our next steps? So as I mentioned, multi-tered systems of support is a large undertaking. it's moving from that SRBI uh model to

065more of that comprehensive whole child model. So, we'll continue to identify metrics and data that's important to that process. Um, and we'll also look at things like what is our timeline, who needs to continue to be part of that conversation. Uh, up for revision are our school climate bullying and risk assessment policies and the procedural frameworks. As I mentioned, the risk assessment, we're working through that grant and there's new state legislation around the climate and bullying. We want to make sure that our professional learning opportunities meet the needs of our our teachers and educators. Um, I recently applied. They had an extension for another $10,000 for the summer mental health grant that I'm hoping to get. Um, and then continuing to review and revise instructional supports and curriculum for classroom climate, social emotional wellness. So

066that might mean really looking at what we're already doing to support the learning and working with the teachers, the counselors, uh the staff that help support learning. And then we continue to have family engagement. So we've had several conversations. We had one at the middle school around the anxious generation recently. Um also that's another opportunity where parents might reach out. I had a a family reach out. their son had graduated last year, went off to college and they were he was struggling in that transition and they really didn't know where to go. So my door is always open as a resource for anyone who is a grad or a current student or a family that just where do we go from here? So on that note, I will not go through the appendices, but I'm

067happy to take any questions. Um just before we go to the board questions, I I do have one thank you for the this update and for this framework of how you're approaching this, um as the board has had the development of the strategic plan and goal number two is wellness and mental health. Um can you just explain a little bit more about what your next steps are in terms of determining the proposed data or metrics in order to evaluate the effectiveness and efficacy of all of these different programs that you're building? Sure. So I think part of it is that MTSS team is going to sit and look at like what what are our benchmarks and what data might be most helpful. I think we can use things like the data like the DESA but

068there might also be measures that are also unique to a child right we might really want to look at data that is specific to school attendance or visits to the nurses like I said. So I think um the DESA as part of the larger MTSS framework. However, I think once we get together as a team, there might be other pieces of data that might come up. So, I think the first step is identifying that data. I do think while the school climate survey is not an end- all beall, as I mentioned before, this data is challenging because it's multiffactorial. It's not like, you know, everybody goes home to the same extracurricular activity or the same home or the biological predisposition. So, I think the school climate survey will help. I think some of the things

069in professional learning I always think it's helpful to get formative feedback. So I think as a team we will sit down and see which parts of that data is most um obviously we have the teen talk data as well is most relevant to the goal. So it's in conversation. Okay. Okay. And then an output because we get the strategic updates on a quarterly basis and the data. Ideally, we would be able to get those kind of metrics alongside of that once you've developed or decided which would be the most appropriate or in conjunction with your updates. Yeah. I I think so. It depends on the timing of when like when the date is administered. So for understood Yeah. So that it'll be aligned with that. Okay. Thank you. Are there board questions? Katie, thank you.

070Uh, thank you for this presentation. Um, there quite a bit of things that we have going on in the district. Um, it's nice to see them together on one side. I did want to ask um, your thoughts on how we might be looking at student impact and some of the more practical day-to-day operations. Um, and and I want to be very clear that I'm not dismissing the value of these programs, but when you aggregate them, there are a lot of professional development for our staff and for our adults. There's a lot of kind of academic acronyms and programs in here. What are we doing to address the everyday um, student perception? We hear a lot about Darian High School being, you know, a wonderful opportunity, a wonderful place where students can really excel in so

071many things and along with that sometimes feel like a bit of a pressure cooker. There are so many smart, so many excellent students who are very high achieving. How do we counteract that so that students feel that they can miss a day of school if they are sick and have a fever without being backlogged for weeks? How do we, you know, mitigate some of the pressures that maybe are just the way that we've always done things? How are we looking kind of internally? Um, and I don't expect to get into any specific conversations tonight. I more just want to pose the question for a higher level discussion and maybe for us to also kind of post-it note some of the specific things before the meeting started. Um, you know, the discussions about the calendar came

072up like about midterms. Midterms happen in January after a two-eek holiday break. I can't even imagine having to do that as a student. Um, so something like that. I'm curious how we look internally at some of our practices that might be contributing to stress levels of our students. Yeah, I appreciate that. And it is I think it's a it's a much larger conversation. hands at the same time. I think there this is where that qualitative information becomes really important when we have things like students as part of our school climate meeting or even the technology advisory council that they they give us a glimpse into what they're actually experiencing. So I think you know we have made some changes like with with the reading days and and kind of you know at the high school

073really being mindful of saying that balance is very important for your well-being for your longevity as a learner as a person. Um so I think there's continued conversations through whether that's school climate now when we look at the data we have that in our school climate where there's where there's students available. I also think this is where areas like advisory and flex that really are meant to facilitate conversations among adults and students is where we get some really important information. Um so I think having more of those conversations and the fact that kids feel more able now to seek out support whether that's through a counselor and teacher. I think that when we look at kind of that whole child and even though I keep coming back to MTSS, part of it is taking that

074lens and pulling it back a little bit and looking at all of the factors that may contribute to that. So, I'm optimistic that that will be part of the conversation too as we move forward with that. Thank you, Brena. Um I think just as a point of more qualitative information, I think the biggest structural support that we have um for mental health and managing um concerns like Mrs. Lovelin had presented is um the amazing adults that we have within our building um people like um our school psychologists, people like Mrs. Phillips, people like um Miss Lopez who are there to help us in those situations, who are there to guide us through not only those trying times, but our, as you were saying, Miss Mrs. Loveland, our everyday life, um our everyday situations and challenges

075that we face. They are there at all times. I think we could increase their visibility within the building, but um I think structurally they're there. They're here to stay. and um I'm confident that they're, you know, are rock stars in our community and they're able to meet a lot of those um needs. Thank you. They will appreciate being rock stars. It's very powerful. Craig, just just a few follow-up questions. Um I guess first is sort of similar to what Robin was saying just in terms of um looking at the data and setting up a goal. It would be really helpful to see like what are our goals as it relates to this. there's obviously a lot of time and resources being dedicated to it and so having some objective that we've got in mind that

076we're working towards I think would be helpful so that we all know like all right when are we getting close to it when are we getting close to it and seeing how that evolves over time I think that's the first thing um the second is there's reference throughout the document related to review and revisions uh related to the curriculum um when will the board be able to see what those specific proposals are so that we have a chance to review them iterate on them, provide feedback, and then ultimately approve those. So, we have some time built into um Amy and I were just talking about this into kind of curriculum revision. So, some of the things like the advisory lessons kind of going through them and kind of formalizing them and really working on that.

077Um we talked about ideally not doing it before the summer, but maybe some during the summer. Um I don't know if there's anything that you and I would just add well um we did write some nominal amount of funds into this FY26 budget for curriculum writing. Of course we have to wait for the budget cycle to play out to see how we will prioritize and um when we go into June when we know what that looks like we'll be able to share what the curriculum priorities are for the summer and going into the next fiscal year. So at that point we'll have a better idea of how we can update the board on whatever curriculum is updated in this specific area. And what we would do is first try to write those that stage one

078which would be so if we're looking at school counseling right that's something that we need to think about with regard to student success plans and how students transition from especially middle school to high school and beyond there would be specific counseling lessons and those would be put onto edge planet with advisory. Um there would still be a curriculum those stage one documents would be put on to edge of planet as well but the timeline is kind of hard to answer now based on where we are with the budget cycle. I would also expect that there would be an update at some point um at the level of the board of education curriculum committee which you are on. Yeah, I was going to say it's going to come before the committee first, subcommittee first. And then

079but my last thing was sort of piggy backing off of what some of the things Katie was saying which I agree with is is there anything being done like more preemptively as it relates to mental health just like I don't know some common knowledge things that help you with mental health like uh regular exercise you know having a good diet um you know finding a purpose in life that that sort of stuff like what are we doing about making awareness of that and educating students as it relates to some of those things that they can just be doing on their own to make them stronger mentally. Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the curriculum areas you notice was also we talked about health because there is that integration of your physical health and

080your emotional health and well-being. So, uh we're we're constantly looking at that as an opportunity to have those conversations. All of those things really relate to social emotional well-being, right? Like how do you set a goal? What do you do if there's challenges in those goals? How do you persevere? Whether that's I'm trying to figure out which colleges to apply to or I'm having difficulty in math and I my urge is to not to do the work and how do I persevere through that. So that kind of intervention is constant and in the classroom or in counseling sessions. So that's part of that inherent kind of social emotional learning just in the process of how do you make a wise-minded decision? I'm thinking about where I really want to go, what makes sense. That's balancing

081both the emotion and the logic. So it's infused in a lot of of what happens. Thank you Dr. Dodd for mentioning. If I can just also add we also wrote into the FY26 budget curriculum funds very nominal again but for PE and health education because we have a lot of work to do in the area of articulating a preschool through grade 12 continuum for curriculum that's aligned to the healthy and balanced living framework. Um, additionally I would say that I I did prioritize um because there was not public facing documents for health education, we prioritized high school. So um very recently we published uh grade nine and 10 health health education documents. So you can see stage one many of the concepts that Dr. Dodger spoke to and referred to are within those documents and

082um 11 I believe is in draft and 12 should be in before the end of the school year. So, at least we'll have the high school um stage one for health education. And it's also important to note that the state department of education priorit has prioritized health education. And our students are required to have one credit over the course of their grades 9 through 12 experience. And as a parent of three high schoolers right now in grades 9, 10, and 12, I only skip grade 11 in a different district. developmental needs change for children. You know, pretty pretty um there's a wide range between an eighth grader coming in as a ninth grader and a 12th grader ready to catapult out into the world for college and career. So, I'm very pleased that there is

083that kind of requirement at the state department of education because then we can be respon we can be responding to the developmental needs of children as they move through those four years at such an accelerated pace. So you can check out those documents now. And um I would also anticipate at the board of ed curriculum committee that we'll not just wait for parents to go on edge planet and check that out but also be providing an update um in those specific areas. Thank you. You're welcome. There other board questions. John, h how do we strengthen the PR effort around all this? Um I know there's skepticism around things like SEAL. um just the amount of dollars we spent on the mental health initiative in recent years, but you know, talking about some of the metrics

084that we're going to develop, I mean, we'll develop some feedback, if you will, uh in terms of the payback we're getting on this, but how do we do better in terms of educating the community given that final bullet that you you had up there? Yeah, I mean I think that that is that's where that other piece about community liaison is really important because our kids walk into the classroom with whatever they had. They don't drop it at the door. So I think that I'm happy with even that that small grant because it aligns what we're doing in the school with what's already happening in the community. I will say when I've done parent conversations and community uh talks trying to be responsive to the needs in each building. Last year when I did a series

085there was a good number of parents who when they came they came together and even normalizing it is really tough to be a parent at this particular time and everybody needs to try new strategies and new skills because no one's ever had to parent a completely technology exposed child. So having more opportunities to have those community conversations um and also empowering our other mental health staff to do that I think that's a really important thing and working with our community like the Chris Herren talk but then even when we do our extracurricular participation meetings really having followup I think you know we can have one thing here and one thing another but when it's a series of four or five it it just really helps parents feel like they have their own support and recognize

086it's a challenge right Yeah. And and then the followup is there's a perception again among some that by teaching SEAL practices that it takes away from the true teaching initiatives and you know you know candidly with my own struggles and my own health challenge you know pulling that together it's like this this light bulb that went off it take a little time out of my day to focus on my mental health and the rest of the day is going to go a hell of a lot better. So, like again, is it a PR effort here or I would appreciate any PR help in that realm? I would I'm a walking billboard right now because I mean I think if you even like there was an Ed Week article that came out in January and they

087asked like the head of Google and Southwest and they said no one builds anything at Google on their own. You need to learn how to interact with people no matter what you're right. You have to learn how to be on a team. most effective leaders know how to read a room. They know how to recognize when now is not a good time for me to engage in a really difficult conversation. And I think when we tease apart what those components are, right? Self-awareness, knowing where your strengths are, knowing where your needs are, that helps anybody. Communication is vital no matter what you do. So that's why we say it's integrated into what we do. Whether it's a kindergartner who's opening their their snack and they feel frustrated and they can't do it and the teacher

088comes over and they said, "Let's take a minute. Let's figure out what you need to do. I know you really want to eat." So I, you know, I agree. I think kind of the PR about what is it actually? It used to be called character education or on my report card it might have said classroom behaviors, right? So, so I think getting away from the language that might feel stigmatizing and looking at what the competencies are would really be helpful. So, we're destigmatizing. It's it's about your own awareness. I'm sorry, Dr. I just read an article and I can't remember if I sent it to you about leadership and how um the premise was for leaders to take vacations extra it's extraordinarily healthy. So, since it's you sent that one to me for the record,

089but It's it's true, right? You you come you come back refreshed. The article spoke about how you might approach problem solving more creatively in your place. But it's just yeah it's I think it's about um the dstigmati dstigmatizing what it is really about and prioritizing wellness so that we can everybody can do their best. But we we probably should um be thinking more creatively about the PR piece. And as Dr. Dad said, we'd appreciate any PR reps out there um with some advice. I hope that uh our students who sit here sense it a wee bit. I hope that the parents who are sitting around have had some exposure to this. Um have had be able to experience some of Dr. Dad's expertise actually. Um this board took a leadership uh stance on this matter

090um way back a little few a few years ago um when we experienced some tragedy. Uh things just don't change overnight. Um but I want to say uh one of the things for PR is this lady standing right here. U if you ask anybody around the Fairfield area uh in this particular arena who is most influential um professional expertise uh Dr. Dad is the person. So um it's not a one person thing because this is about everybody. We want all our kids to be loved and cared for not just because they can get high grades. Um and it's just a work in progress. And I'm very very proud of what this board has done and what this community is doing and how we're trying to support our kids, all our kids. Um, and a lot

091of that work is attributable to Dr. Dad, if you had been coming here, it had been a disaster, like I would that that would that would not be a good PR. Um, if you ask any staff member around a place, uh, who would you who's the go-to person for this or that around mental health, uh, wellness, uh, they will all talk about dad or dad. So, um, thank you for the support of this, uh, for all our children and it continues to be a work in progress, but I'm very confident that through balance and checks and, uh, I mean, I I think as we start to look at things, we could be looking at screen time, too, as an example, right? Um, uh, Alicia will lead us through some of those discussions as well as

092some of the social emotional discussions. But um anyway, what we say, what we do, what we don't do or what we don't say is what all our kids are looking at uh around this particular. So I thank the board and the members of the community for uh your leadership and participation in this arena. Thank you. Thank you again for your comments. Thank you. So with no more question or do you is there a question? Mr. Brown, I'm sorry Dave, I didn't see your hand. Um so Dr. Dad, I had a question and and this is not my own. was brought to me by constituents and the question was regarding um DBT. I know we had slide and they were talking about it and the idea is that there seems to be some evidence and research

093out there that maybe just doing DBT alone standalone in a classroom may not be as effective as previously thought or we have any thoughts on the research there. Are we following that and any thoughts of the validity or other ways enhancing the program? Yes, I am familiar with that research and essentially what happened to was they also had someone external come in and not really uh follow in terms of the modification of the delivery of that. So the methodology was not internal with ongoing support. It was a short abbreviated version of it. Um so there's also issues around dosage and evidence-based intervention to fidelity which I think that was a concern within the community. Um, right now we are not pushing into classrooms to do an organized program in the same way that that was

094executed. Thank you. Are there any more board questions? Okay, we will move on to the discussion of the establishing the graduation date for the high school. First, thank you to uh the members of the community who reached out today. either I spoke to you or you wrote to me um and we had some communication about this particular topic and the kids the kids must have just come right up from practice here um and just come out and got some late dinner but thank uh them for participating like let's just make something clear right away no matter about the detail of this we're not going to try and organize something where kids can't come to right um that that we have the joint goal of uh uh bringing in together as many of our kids as

095possible uh I will say a couple of things just um as we look at this the CIA this year is a particularly unusual year right um where there's a significant number of games that has impacted a lot of districts actually a lot of there's there's a variety of districts uh Ridgefield um we have got uh Staples Eastern Reading that are having graduations Thursday Friday type thing and so it's affecting the way they've scheduled it this year for whatever reason uh Yes, you could actually be graduated. It's going to happen to the school district. Yes, you could be graduated. You're going to play tomorrow. It's not ideal, right? Um but they have set it up that way and structured it that way. I will also say um uh we've had discussions with CIC about any games

096that are Thursday, Friday that if if we happen to get into the finals, I'm sure we will, right? Or maybe we won't. I don't know. But J, right? So Thursday or Friday, um they will move those games if that's the case, right? Uh so they'll they'll push them but push potentially I guess push them back. Um we did know about uh the rowing the ones on Saturday and Sunday I say respectfully I'm not as much concerned about um because it's Saturday or Sunday and uh we should be able to participate in those sports and Saturday Sunday regardless if it's graduations Thursday Friday or Monday. Um but that being said we want as many kids as possible to get to graduation. Uh yes, it was set up uh last year was the first time we did

097the um makeup day. Um particularly because we heard a lot of feedback the year before. Why can't you do like other school systems and have a rain a rain day? Um that was the main reason that that the feedback was given at the time. Um so here you have a a possibility of Monday and if it's rainy, okay, we're inside and inside can be nice, right? There have been a lot of cere ceremonies that have been beautiful. Yes, you won't get as many people, but the main thing is to get the kids in there. Um, and couple of parents in there and uh that's okay. You can we can work out the rest. Um, if you want to to have the rain day, then the makeup day, it would be uh Thursday and Friday. So,

098it sort of gets down as simple as that. I did hear from people today um as well as people who uh want the Monday. I did hear from people who wanted the Thursday, Friday. Um, but that being said, and I don't know if we if we do have it Monday, you'll still probably have people who can't make it. Um, but that's uh whenever we originally composed this memorandum, the main thing that was on the table was the rowing, right? A couple of other things have come to the table, right? Um, for consideration, uh, we can work out what the best solution is. Um, but it's not just there are things here that can be addressed. But that being said, um we understand what the dilemma is. So it's Monday if we want to have uh

099no rain day. Uh it's Thursday if we do. We have the high school principal and the athletic director on the line. Now John, seems like I don't I don't remember this overlapping like this in the past. Is is it just a calendar later this year, Chris, with CIA stuff? Yeah, usually uh the CIC calendar is predicated on when Thanksgiving is and Thanksgiving fell later this year. Push everything back a bit. Pushes everything. Okay. It's the same with the rowing. Rowing is usually the week prior. Yeah. I mean, it's very odd. Yeah. I guess Easter's late. Okay. I asked Dr. Bradley if he would declare a snow day um later this week um and get us to Monday, Tuesday and solve the whole problem, but he hasn't cooperated yet. Turn to Lakeside while we are Well,

100it could be wind. It could be anything you choose. Anything you choose. You know, I just wanted you to understand and our kids of course, you know, Dr. Adley just said that this and um of course it's about our students. that is what it's always about. So, um you know, we we were worried about the precedent that we began to set of a two-day option. Um and so that option would have forced us backwards to be consistent with to Friday, Monday. Friday, Monday as rain dates is obviously not workable. Um it's not good for people traveling. It's not good um for rentals. it's not good for even predicting the weather. Um so the reason that you know where there was a discussion about Thursday Friday versus Monday is to provide that flexibility of the rain

101date. We will have a beautiful graduation on Thursday on Friday on Monday um and um I understand that this is a a difficult call um and um the as Dr. Ali said the community was um clear in the message uh in 2023 that there was frustration that we didn't have an alternate plan. So that's what's on the table and this is a particularly difficult calendar because if it were Monday Tuesday it would be very simple but that's not what we have. We have Friday. So um we really have to make um a choice um about which way to go. Um and and at the high school, we are obviously thrilled to present a beautiful graduation for our wonderful students. So, so if you want to cover most of the bases, it sounds like Monday, right?

102If you want to essentially, it won't be perfect. There'll be people out there who are going to complain that we have it in Monday. So, just to be clear about that, um I want to be very clear about that because I heard from people today and you're going to hear from the people who aren't following this as well. So, um, just just for consideration. Are there other board comments? Well, since is this really just a oneoff or is this something we're going to have to start to contend with every year? Is it really just because Thanksgiving was late? It's just the way that just the number of uh snow days and the where where they fell to the way it's fall and now the CIC will have to look at because I'm concerned about that.

103That's that shouldn't be the case. Really? That's what I just meant. The CIC um angle, not the Monday. I mean, I we we'll have to follow up the CIC because that's not I know superintendents are concerned about that because Have you heard what any of these other schools have decided or are they still in the I believe Alan I think uh Richfield Richfield is Friday the 13th. Um Staples I believe is the 11th or 12th with rain dates. Um, New Caden is Monday, Tuesday, but they have the last day of school on the 17th. So, they did have a two-day option, which is what we were hoping for with um Dr. Adley's snow date this Friday. Um, and so, you know, there the people have committed many districts decide the graduation date at the very

104beginning of the school year. Um and so um the data set and they're going to work around the conflicts that are going to come up. Uh you know there will be wonderful schools in many state championships who will have graduated or will have conflicts and just like they do for us we would help to create dates that their students would not have to miss their graduation. And I know that there's our schools partners would also do the same for us. Um the 16th obviously avoids all of that and that's a plus around that but it doesn't um and and there may be students who can't make the 16th now because of the change. So there's no um perfect answer here for sure and um but I do think people will appreciate knowing the date and

105then we can work with that date and and help to support everyone and those who can't make the graduation we would always try to do something special for them obviously. Um, so just one other note and it may not be sort of immaterial but but the change in schedule at the end of the year for for staff means that staff technically leave uh the half day and they don't come back to school for the next day that they're done uh because that day was removed from the contract. Um so it may impact staff a wee bit attendance but but clearly about the kids. So Dave, it's Chris Allen. Um any thought on any relief forthcoming from CIC? Is this is the schedule set or we not going to change? No. Yeah, this the schedules are

106set for those state championship weekends. And unless you get into it, is that correct? Oh, correct. Yes, we would they would change it if you had a conflict. Yes. Any school, not just ours, obviously. Correct. Thank you. Um well, I hope scheduling is easier in future years. I I do think that um we could probably learn a a mini lesson here just in communication to make sure that we're checking ahead with dates when we're proposing and that we're also reminding um because we'll have a different senior class next year, reminding people that should an athletic conflict like this come about that there is some room to um to make a change. Um I think I think a lot of people got really upset um and maybe we could have avoided some of that. I did

107want to just confirm um a logistical question as well though. Um Dr. Ali um or Rich, can you guys confirm um what costs might be associated with having a rain day or not? Um I remember some discussion about, you know, just like the setup and the rentals. And so there's a approximately $4,000 uh that's set aside for a rain date. A lot of that has to do with like the audio visual work uh and then like the extra days for the chairs etc. So having a rain day is an extra $4,000 versus if we did not have a rainy date and simply just had it inside or outside on the same day. Thank you John. um was fortunate to have a Thursday, Friday for two to three boys, I think, or I I don't love

108the idea of a Monday, but it seems like um it would meet the needs for most students by some of these conflicts. So, I don't love a Monday graduation, but I'm sure everybody can wait to party until the next Friday. I also don't think we should be doing dates around parties. No, I'm joking. Um I I just I worry I know I I want to make sure that all students are able to attend their graduation and or or most and if you know we did we are still in session on Monday. So unfortunately if you've had travel already scheduled like I it's unfortunate but it is I think we have to take everybody into consideration. So um I guess I'm in favor of the Monday even though it's not ideal. Are there other board members

109that have comments before we we do we are scheduled to take a vote on this tonight to set the date? I agree. I think Monday makes the most sense just given I mean I couldn't even keep track of the number of conflicts on Thursday and Friday. I don't I mean it seemed like there were half a dozen or more. And then if we did do Monday then the middle school graduation for 8th grade would be Friday. Would be Friday. Okay. there there would be a possibility we would bring it a weave bit forward in terms of schedule for the afternoon but that would be Friday. Okay. And so just in terms of parent communication once we vote on this the high school and middle school parents will know tomorrow or what's the plan just yeah

110we'll communicate it. Yeah. Okay. So there's a proposal on the date on the table uh to change the date to the 13th or Monday. Do I have Monday 16th, but not having a rain date? Um, in which case if it did rain, it would be held indoors. Um, do I have a motion for the Monday date? John, Monday, June 16th. Monday, June 16th. John and Sarah second. All in favor of Monday. That is unanimous. So, the the Monday graduation date. Thank you everyone um for your time and for your public comments tonight. Um and we will now move on to discussion of revisions to a proposed master agenda February through August 25. Dr. Edley. Okay. So, the main change here is just to revisit April 8th date um and April 9th date. Um I'm not

111sure we were meant to we were considering moving the April 8th date to April 9th because of uh the board of finance meeting. I'm not sure of people's availability to be honest with you. So uh madam chair I would just we actually yeah but there was some concern because I know two people at least that will not be able to attend on April 9th. Uh so it might make sense right now to see if we would have a quorum. Is anyone else potentially absent and not able to make the meeting on Wednesday? So, John, I'm out. Katie and Sarah would not be able to attend. Yeah. So, we we'd have to You're going to be And I'm not sure about Dennis because he said he may be traveling as well. Maybe we should. So, we'll

112just put It's It's not It's not a heavy agenda. I don't know if I'm back. Okay. I don't know yet. I may be back. It's Yeah, that seems like it's not it's not a heavy agenda, but I think I don't know that. We might not have a core on music. No, that's what I mean. No, I mean it's not a heavy agenda to miss. Right. Okay. So, are we cancelling or rescheduling? Well, we haven't rescheduled it technically. Um, but we'll have to res we'll have to come back with a rescheduled date or we just leave it to April 22nd. Oh, it add to the um this new once a month schedule is pretty nice. Don't get used to it. Amen to that. So, okay, if we do do that progress report revisions, thriving youth survey.

113So, we'll have to check with thriving youth. That's That's okay though. Yeah, that might work actually for the April 22nd meeting. That's okay. That's okay. Would you be okay with that if we collapse that? Okay. All right. So, we'll cancel the April 9th meeting and just have the April 22nd meeting with those items moved to April 22. Okay. Dr. Ellie, you want to go through any of these in particular as we move through? Um, uh, not not really, Madam Chair. I think they're self-explanatory. the at some point we will have a discussion of the parking lot topics of yeah before we get to that one just one sorry the May 13th we had the special education discussion is and I just want to confirm is that presenting the data that we had asked for from

114July or can you just give us a little bit of a sense surely about what you would be covering it was in response to an update on the self study and what we're looking at a proposal for what we'll be moving toward for next year. Okay, great. Studying next year. Okay, so that was one of the parking lot topics that's at the very end. And if there are any other um questions from the board, if you could just share those with the superintendent, we'll make sure that they're included. Okay, Joanna, I was just going to say it would be very nice to have the um information that we asked for in November, like referral data in particular, right? That's included it. Okay, that's that was my question as well. Okay, great. Are we are we

115going to get like that data like the normal whatever 48 hours before we get it further in advance we can actually look at it and spend time with it we get it Friday Friday Friday okay with the board packet it'll be the regular right okay right I was saying like if if it's already available some if it's like dense information data we can get that some of that sooner I don't I I personally couldn't commit to that right now. It just I would have to talk to Shirley and see just if it's available like if it if you're done with it a week earlier and we get it a week earlier. If we're done with it, certainly share it. Yes. Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Alley. Um we'll look at it and the availability of it.

116If it's ready before that, we could certainly um ask the superintendent to forward that. Terrific. Thank you. Thank you. Would any of that come before the curriculum committee or No, there's no need for that, right? No. No. Okay. U just looking at the parking lot topics. The transportation says in late April or May, should we put that in here just so people can start working on what they need to do? May 13 long May 27. Um Rich, how much time how like how in-depth do you think that is? I guess it depends on all the information that everybody's looking for. Yeah. um if it's simply like an overview of um you know the capacity of the buses and how the buses work and uh routing and things like that uh and the new special education

117fleet program not that long. Um if it's more than that we'd like to know what it was before. So I guess that leads to like what people are looking for. Right. I I in particular am looking for information on the athletics transportation how that works. um you know what efficiencies might or might not be available that kind of thing. So would would the leaders board leadership team want to take this and try and infuse it or transportation? Well, just everything actually. Um yeah, I mean can we can we just pencil that in for May 27th and then does that make sense? and then you'll come up with the and then we'll we'll work together to figure out what people are looking for. Yeah. So that's um okay. So we did the self-study for um the

118ELP will be fall 25 update on transportation May 27. I'm just looking at the parking lot topics the curriculum priorities. This was something that was tabled from the budget process. And Amy mentioned earlier that there would be she could do that in June because she'll know what the budget looks like by then. We did I believe we did that last spring as well. I think it's really good practice to talk about curriculum priorities not only because um there's a resolution to the budget cycle, but also just because we want to talk about what the work is over the summer um and to project what we plan to uh complete throughout the following school year. So, it's good practice to do that actually in June and then at the beginning of the year, the fall curriculum

119committee update should also include the work that happened, right? Did we actually hit all of those um mile markers and the goals that we set? So, do you think June 10th or June 24th? June 10th is what do you think? June 24th is pretty quick. I have that pencile in for myself as June 10th. Okay. As my plan. Great. Okay. So, June 10th. Um other the other parking lot topics we had discussion these are again coming out of the budget process discussion of the DEI curriculum seal curriculum Amy would that be part of that curriculum discussion or or these these were additional request the last four things we need more clarity around discussion of gifted and talented and discussion of the um teacher the teacher absenteeism I think was something that I had brought up.

120It was it was really just geared towards it. As we were going through the budget process, it seemed like teachers were spending quite a bit of time outside of the classroom. You don't mean like being sick. You mean like being outside of the class? It's a it's a combination of professional development, um, you know, dealing with special education meetings, um, absenteeism as related to actually being absent, like all that kind of stuff. And like number one, like getting the information to like how like how how often are teachers actually outside of that classroom? Are we are we taking them out too often? I think is is the is what we're trying to gear at. And and then collectively as a board like trying if that if we do see that as a problem based on

121the information that we get in the data, how do we solve that problem? Who would be compiling that data? We're going to need to figure out a different way to compile that data because I think as I mentioned in order to save the district money, we put absences to get coverage for those teachers. We lump them all together, but we will work on a way to get you that individualized. So, it'll be a group effort. Okay. Okay. And then maybe you can just give us an idea about the timing of when something like that could be possible so we can get it into the agenda prior to the budget process. I think that would be absolutely helpful. And like I would imagine that it's probably a different answer for like subject area teachers in high

122school versus a general teacher at the elementary school who's being like they have to go to every single one of those meetings for special ed or whatever like because they're the teacher. So like they answer it's probably maybe more elementary school focused. I'm not sure about the middle school and high school. Okay. Yeah. I want to just echo Greg. I think um as we're collecting the data and thinking about how we need to disagregate it, I think it's really important to think about how we want to use it so that we're not wasting time, but also that it's practical. So, for example, um should we have any professional development initiatives coming forth, this will inform us a better idea of what the cost already is of loss of instructional time, what the cost already is

123of substitutes and all of those things. So, um I would just encourage um the cabinet any as you going through this to continue that dialogue with what we're looking for to make sure that we're really honing in on on the right the right aspects. Yeah. Thank you. Um and then discussion of gifted and talented. I I was a little unclear about this other than just getting an update maybe like we used to get updates I think on the gifted and talented program annually. It sort of depends of how the board wants to structure of that that that are you looking at alternate ways to do gifted and talented? Are you looking at strengthening the program as it currently sits or like what's it what's the what's the the the look and the purpose and the

124scope of I mean that's just an open discussion item just to Katie some of these um bigger picture items as well kind of that really will inform more of like the future of our district and how we see the vision going I think could be good retreat topics. And I know that's been a little problematic in the past because we've been a bit behind and the retreat has become an extra long regular meeting. But I would encourage some of these again bigger picture vision planning conversations for the retreat particularly so that we can have some of those interconnected conversations as well. So this might be something that we want to think about putting for the summer and and further developing. Right. I agree. I agree with that. Um and then discussion of DEI curriculum curriculum.

125That was something else that did come out. Put that in the same category. Yeah. All right. Okay. Are there any other questions on the the proposed master agenda? Anyone? Um, I just wanted to um highlight that the we had on the original agenda that we would be discussing the board handbook tonight which was scratched and just that it would be nice to try to finish that project um by a fiscal year end. Um really it could be you know just before November but I think ideally if we could wrap it up for the fiscal year that'd be great. Great. Great. Thank you. Okay. Other other board comments any feedback? No. Okay. So, we will move on now to um discussion on financial report and possible action on proposed budget transfers. Rich, uh so this is

126the financial report through February. Uh we are forecasting a positive balance of 462,859. Uh the general education RC's are a positive 26,939 while the special education RC is a positive $435,919. Uh the swing from the prior month is uh due to the governor signing into law an additional $40 million going into the state access cost uh budget which is a swing of about a half a million of additional revenue to Darien based on the December 1st filing. Uh moving forward to salaries, uh we are forecasting a slight positive balance of 22,160. Uh we have some savings in some clubs and councils for just over $11,000. Some building substitute savings and some salary savings due to turnover of positions. Uh moving to operating, operating is forecast at a deposit 250,439. Uh we do have a positive

127balance and out of district tuition of just over 348,000 and a projected deficit in consultant services of $98,000. And this is really first on behavioral support um as we do have a leave of absence. Uh moving to fixed cost, we are a positive 53.95. Uh we did get a credit reimbursement from Kerma for 418. And then payroll taxes are a slight positive due to some of those salary savings mentioned earlier. Uh revenue is forecasted at a deposit of 184,864. As I mentioned earlier, uh the governor did put in an additional $40 million into say the excess cost budget. And so that line item is now a swing of $500,000 from the previous month or a positive $216,455 to budget. Uh gate receipts are slightly uh down by $600 and ELP tuition is a uh forecasted

128a deficit of just over $30,000 as we have a few students classified with an IEP. Uh we do have two transfers for the board of eds consideration approval. The first is for $98,000 into consultant services for special education coming out of uh some out of district tuition due to some placement changes. And then the second transfer is for 30,975 uh with the funds coming from uh tuition and that is to cover the lost tuition revenue for the students who got classified with an IEP. And um just as a followup that regarding the transfers uh committee met last Thursday and we u had a consensus to recommend the transfers. Are there any questions on the financial report from the board? Seeing no questions. Um I'd like to make a motion um or actually let me get

129my wording right here. May I have a motion to approve the February proposed budget transfers? John, second by Sarah. All in favor? That is unanimous. And just just to be clear, since we are cancelling the proposed April 9th board meeting, do we need to actually vote on that cancellation or is it still reflected as April 8th? It's actually scheduled yet, is it? It's not scheduled, but it was still scheduled on April 8th. Correct. We don't do a we've never done a motion. Okay. So, we're done. Okay. Thank you. Um Okay. So, we will move now to discussion of year-end and accelerated extend u expenditures. Um John, you want to start it off? So, so this is something we um discussed in detail. Uh there were three memos and so what I've um I want Rich

130to do is briefly uh run through the the first two memos regarding you know the past history of what we've done with um surpluses as well as um the year-end spending request if we were to spend the surplus what the priority list is. So I'll have Rich run through it and I'll just follow up. Uh so as we just mentioned, we are forecasting a positive balance of $460,000. Um if the board of ed wishes to spend down that surplus, they would have to purchase items that could be expensed by June 30th, which is the end of our fiscal year. Uh there's uh past president to do this. Uh in fiscal 21, uh the board did approve pre- purchases of items, primarily technology and textbooks, uh in order to mitigate their budget reduction due to the

131during COVID. And then a couple years ago, we did pre- purchase some funds related to the H an HHR project, moving a playground that was not part of it. Um, and in those cases, just like this year, the additional funds were largely due to changes in reimbursement for excess cost. And so, was discussed at the finance committee, we did outline some items that would fit that parameter if you were to pre-purchase. Uh, the first being, uh, items that were either reduced or deferred in the budget process that just took place. uh primarily being the bonics at the high school that was supposed to be in a four-year replacement cycle year two of year four and then the lab desktops um at the middle school and then uh the uniforms. We didn't mention that uh if

132you were to go that route, our focus would be the two technology items. Um, if you wanted to look forward even further down the road to fiscal year 27, there is some technology that's in the replacement cycle, including uh the year three of the fusics, office desk desktops, wireless access points, uh, laptops, and then we did get some news that our HVAC building management software system is being uh, end of life. And so that is a software upgrade that is new. And then if depending on what happens with the budget uh coming up, if there is a reduction, you could take a similar approach that you did in fiscal year 21, which would be to pre- purchase items that are in the fiscal 26 budget to bring the budget down. Items that could be considered

133are the items that are remaining in the technology equipment account, which is the elementary teacher laptops and the grade five Chromebooks. Um, one thing we did mention is that the money will not actually be in our possession until the end of May. Um, that's typically when the state will release the second uh portion of the excess cost reimbursement, though we're hoping to know the final number probably by the end of April. Any board questions or discussion? I was just going to wrap it up. So, um, if to put this all in context, if you remember last year during our budget discussions, we made a downward adjustment in the ECR assumption, the percentage of reimbursement late in the budget cycle. Um and Rich, can you just define? So, originally it was uh we had budgeted 75

134and then we brought it down to 70, right? So, and then um you know, so that was a late adjustment in the current fiscal year budget. Um now, of course, the board of finance has its decisions to make, but um from what I understand, you know, as they frame their fiscal year 26 budget, um they would like to know if there are any surplus funds going back to the general fund. Um so I was again we can't really make any final decisions but um the my recommendation outline you know we we have need to have items that are nonrecurring um that we could very well use a surplus to spend down on. So it' be my assumption um that we would probably not have a very large if any surplus to to go back to

135the general fund this year based on these items. Um so I'll just leave it at that uh with further discussion amongst the board members. Any other comments or discussion? Katie. Uh well so um we haven't yet discussed the other memos the interconnected component of it. Um because it the other another option is to the formation of a non-lapsing account. Um yeah and we'll we'll definitely discuss that. I was going to weave that into. Yeah, I just wasn't done. Um, so my point being that um I think it's difficult to have a conversation on pre-bise when we don't know the end. We I think it's too early for specifics personally, but um I don't even think that we can weigh in on whether or not we would have a surplus, what we might spend it on

136if we'd be returning back. big part of that conversation is is alter option B which is the formation of a non-lapsing account. So I think we need to have those conversations concurrently and we and we the goal is to have that once we know what the dollars are and that that was going to be a third option. I mean I I wanted to try to structure the disc this discussion so it was organized. So these are options. Again there's other options out there. Um but we wanted to be transparent as possible to line up what some alternatives might be. He heck, we might get a reduction to our um requested budget allocation. We might be playing from a different um standpoint. Um and we won't be talking about a non-lapsing account or we'll be talking

137about a non-lapsing account to form and not fund it, right? That that's also an option. So, um I guess we'll roll into the non-lapsing account discussion unless others is the board of finance looking for like our view of what we're doing with this money before they appine on the budget or I mean I I I think based on a conversation I had today with the chair it would you know he he said we equate you know what the surplus is going to be and my answer was well I don't know what the surplus is because one we don't have the dollars and two I don't know what the priorities are going to be and three you know it's a chicken and egg type discussion. I don't know what our fiscal year 26 appropriation's going to

138be. So like you know so you know I think the way I tried to li lay out our discussions is lay it all on the table like if we had a surplus it amounted to this these are the we focus on based on a b and c you know so again I know we can't make decisions but I also want to be as transparent as possible and what we might do um if we are found with a sizable surplus. So they can take that in account. We have uh there's a there's a I think a board finance meeting next what was that? Next Tuesday Allan and Rich will be there and uh you know board leadership so we can answer questions then too. Joanna um so while I agree with Katie it would to have

139a concurrent discussion would be very helpful right now. I do want to say that I don't know if the things that we would pre- buy are have to haves. I feel like what we gave the board of finance we absolutely have to have for next year. And if I had an extra $500,000, I don't think I would use it to buy Vonics or what, you know, what have you. So I want to be very careful and think and when we say if we go that route that it's and you know because if we say actually we don't need to have that amount of money next year because we could spend it now then and then then they take you like we don't want to be the chicken or the egg. Do you know what I

140mean? We kind of lost you again. I we again we tried to there were there were items reduced or deferred from the fiscal year 26 budget right but these are things that we chose to defer because we felt that we didn't have to have them there were things that we chose were could I mean uniforms we have to have right uniform athletic cycle right but we made other um arrangements to I guess I think we're saying the same thing like there's things that we're eventually going to need um they're not um subjective things But if we took if we paid for say Vonics or let's not even say a real thing. If we decided to buy some chicken hutches um because we had a program that we wanted to launch but we also need the

141money that we put in the budget for next year that you know for $500,000. We need that money to actually pay the people that we wouldn't take out of this. Then we're reducing we have the op we're potentially getting a reduction in our budget for next year for things that are not the things that we would be using to pre-by. Kind of lost you. I'm sorry. So I think that I think I think there's kind of two conversations that we need to have. One is we need to understand what our options are as board members and we need to understand the philosophical component and the practical implications which I think Joanna was just speaking to the practical implications. Some of the things on these lists might seem like oh great we can offset next year's

142budget right but there's a ripple effect of that. If if next year's budget comes we take out you know whatever it is half a million dollars right then for that year we're going to be half a million dollars down. So the next year our percentage increase is going to be facing that gap, right? It's almost like a grant where we paid for something and now we have to pay for it. So we need to be looking always forward thinking. We cannot be just looking at our immediate situation. So I think that that's one component is what what are the options in front of us and what are the pros and cons of both of them and long term. That's the conversation that makes sense to have today in the abstract and in the theoretical because

143we don't know our finite end of the year financial situation. When we know that information, when the budget for next year has been completely approved by town bodies, when the spending is done and we know if we have a surplus and what that amount is, that is the time to then make the discussion to have the conversation about what are we going to do with that money. So, I think part of the problem right now is that the conversations have gotten co-mingled and it's almost like we need to make a decision on what format we want to go based on what we want to do in this moment. Um, and it's become overly complicated. I'm sorry, there was no decision tonight. No, just to be very clear. John, I don't think that you followed, so

144I'm happy to catch you up later again and explain it to you. Katie, can I just clarify? I we we made a request during the finance committee to have these memos put together so that when we do have the information on what dollars are available later in April, we would be able to have that kind of discussion and be prepared in May to have a discussion about a non-lapsing account or a pre-by and be able to compare both of those. and Rich has put together the memo right now about what a non-lapsing account could be, but there was no plan to have a a vote or any kind of detailed discussion about what we want to do now because we really don't know right now. Right. So, as as I said, um and I understand

145everything that you said. I was at the meeting. I' I've read all the memos several times. So, the thing is we we are already having discussions about like what we might do with the money and that's what's getting confusing. Um I didn't say that a decision was being made tonight. Um, I'm simply saying that I think our conversations have gotten off track and that it seems to me that the prudent thing to do is to understand completely the options in front of us without attaching either dollar amounts or specific spending items to them. Okay. So, from that standpoint, we could talk about the non-lapsing account right now because I think that's what's missing right now. Um, just as uh just for a point of understanding, if you are to go to the pre-by amount, you

146do have to make that decision prior to knowing what the final end amount will be because you will have to have those expense prior to June 30th. Um, a non-lapsing account has existed in Connecticut for a while. However, under prior law, a town's board of finance board select bin and appropriating authority, so in this case, the RTM would have to authorize that amount to be spent. uh starting July 1st, public act 24h45 now authorizes the board of education to make that decision. Uh so the board of education could decide to create a non-lapsing account. And so there would be two steps. One, the board would have to vote to establish a non-lapsing account. And then the second step would be to vote to fund the non-lapsing account. Um you can choose to not uh not

147create the non-lapsing account. You can choose to create the non-lapsing account and not fund it. You can choose to create the non-lapsing account and fund it with the entire surplus or in some instances communities who have a non-lapsing account will fund uh fund it with a portion of the surplus and a portion will go back to the town. So there's a mixture of options that you can do. Um typically you would not want to use a non-lapsing account for any kind of reoccurring expense. So you don't want to use it for uh you know the increase or addition of staff members because non-lapsing revenue is by definition one-time revenue. It's not going to continually reoccur. Uh so typically things that are used in other districts that have non-lapsing account are one-time items such as technology

148equipment items, textbooks, um professional development facility repairs like emergency repairs, uh furniture as an example would be used. Um some will use it for special education deficit. So if an unexpected placement occurs, you could use the that money for that placement to kind of bridge that gap. So you wouldn't necessarily have to ask for a special appropriation. Um, a non-lapsing account does have to be under 2% of your appropriation. So, for us, that is a couple million dollars. So, it's not likely that you'll end up with a couple million dollars unless something catastrophic uh changed or happened. Um, but you do just have to be aware that you could not actually exceed that 2% of your of your um appropriation. And then if you were to establish a non-lapsing account, we would include in the

149finance report every month um just a breakdown of how that non-lapsing account is tracking. So, if we ended up putting $450,000 in a non-lapsing account and you decided in September, you know, we want to get the Vonics as an example, then we'd show that reduction and you'd show what was left. You'd show that $300,000 and you'd carry that forward until you decided to buy math books or whatever it might be that you've designated for the nonlapsing account. Thank you. So as we discussed again this is part of the toolbox that will be up for discussion later on. We have a better defined uh surplus and the timing is is more defined and we might have an idea what our fiscal year 26 appropriation is as well. Sure. So we the the idea of a non-lapsing

150count we talked about this and I don't a few years ago and there was it wasn't up to us that that the law had not changed but can you talk to the conflict that was Yep. So I think it was in 2021 it was right around COVID. Um we had talked about whether or not we could establish a non-lapsy account. We knew there was a potential for having a surplus because such so much uncertainty given the co pandemic. We did go to the board of finance to discuss the possibility of having it. there wasn't uh an appetite at that time. Uh the town uh financing bodies were more interested in kind of reducing different reserve accounts throughout uh both the board of ed and the board of selectman whether that be budget control as an

151item or um there was a special ed reserve account on the town side for an example and so they were looking to reduce the number of reserve accounts. So there wasn't an appetite from them on their side to approve it at that point which was required in order to have a non-lapsing account. The narrative uh from the board of finance has relatively always been if you need something come and uh we will essentially try and provide it if it's of an emergency situation or otherwise. Sometimes these budget control or well there you go call it budget control right um but the the non-lapsing accounts can just simply be a method of the board of finance just offsetting your budget next year by that amount um if that's the case. So it it's a it's a

152we political thing. It's a practical thing. It's a trust thing. Um I'm I'm not a big proponent of it. I'd rather like work with the system and be transparent about everything. Um but doesn't mean to say it's a bad idea. And when you go to board of finance, I can't be jumping through every hoop. If you're coming and saying if you've got a need, bring it to the table and we'll listen to it. Um but there's pros and cons to both sides. So in and and just back to the pre- purchases or accelerated purchases when we went through this exercise in fiscal 20 you know we basically said to the administration you know list your priority of items that again non-recurring budget items and you know that's that's how we executed it back then we

153was a size so so this is intended for information for discussion for tonight but once we get a number at the end of April, then we can have more substantive discussion about what the options might be. Joanna, sorry. Um, just in general, I like the idea of a non-lapsing account for several reasons. Um, one of which being that normally our surplus comes just from ECR. Um and and that has to do with our uh special ed expenses which we can't always predict to to the tea or like you know we were down before and then there was 40 million dollars added to ECR and then we were now we've swamped back to the other side. Um, I think talking about how um our special education costs are increasing, um, it it it does seem to

154me to make sense that, you know, if someone has a placement in the middle of the year that we are legally obligated to fulfill and then that puts us back, why would we not want to have a fund where we could, you know, bring ourselves back to zero? So, sort of a rainy day fund for special education costs in particular. Um, on top of that, I also feel like in this environment, as you brought up, Robin, at the finance committee meeting, it is very hard to imagine big investments in things like a bus depot or uh um you know, in-house dyslex dyslexic program, anything that would help these costs go down in the future. Um I feel like we don't have a lot of wiggle room right now to even consider anything that would be

155a substantial you know investment to begin and then on the back end you know maybe it's a couple years before we would ever see any savings from that. So also it's another thing I think uh non-lasting account could be um very useful and helpful for. Thank you for your comments. Anyone else have any anything else to add? Just in terms of timing, will you all come back to these? You the finance committee will come back to these in May and then we will vote on these both these things in May. Yes. Yeah. We again we'll we'll see where we stand. We'll see where the surplus stands. We'll see where the fiscal year 26 budget stands and go to Richie Allen and look for a uh list of priorities and then bring that to you know

156look at a committee and then bring that to the board for the decision. All right. And that that will include a discussion about a non-lapsing account um option as well. Yeah. Just again the non-lapsing account I think Allan alluded to it. You know it's out there. So if we were to budget for a non-lapsing account then you know the fiscal authorities can look and say okay now you have that whatever dollar amount it's $500 right but we trust the board of finance to trust us right? So if we said we're putting this money a like the sailing team puts money aside to buy boats every couple years. They don't you know that money is not swept every at the end of the year. So like if we said we're saving money for a bus depot

157presumably you know the board of finance would be like that that'll give you a return on your money in x amount of years. Great idea. That would be eliminating the trend of eliminating some of these excess you know that budget control. And so it would be going the opposite way. I'm just pointing that out. It's not my decision. All right. Um, so no other comments on this. We will move on to the policy discussion. Um, and uh, Marge and then Dave is the chair of the policy committee. So, do you want to start? Yeah. So, we had the sub policy subcommittee meeting last week. Um, we had some questions were raised. We had some clarity back from council. I don't know if you want to speak to what we have at the high level here.

158for the three different proposals and what the recommendations are. Can I just ask about the gift proposal first? Gift policy. Sure. Um I just I wasn't sure since we changed it. Is it still is would we be voting on it tonight or is it considered a second reading? Right. Right. That's the second reading for the gift policy. Okay. Even though we changed it from the first vote as amended or as presented. Thank you. That was cool. So I guess we're on item two. So policy 41 uh whatever that is. and yeah. So, right. So, I do want to clarify that um the explanation under paragraph 2 is Shipment and Goodman's legal opinion. I should put that in the memo, but that is their legal opinion about um the question of whether to leave the statements

159relating to Connecticut law for on discrimination based on gender identity and expression in the policy or to remove them. And I think when I asked the question, I made the aside that, you know, it's probably going to be very difficult for them to answer. They probably don't even know what the right exact answer is at this point. And I think that the guidance that they give us really confirms that. There's a lot of different things going on right now between the federal guidance between um energetic energetic executive action that's taken place, what the status is of the administrative guides that were promulgated from um the Department of Education versus again what we have for the state. And I also comment that I thought that the subpolicy committee was in a bad spot to be able

160to answer those questions. As Shipman Goodman points out, most of these are going to go to court, going to be resolved by courts. It's going to take a long time to resolve this. I would suggest that this board as well is in a tough situation to try and resolve this uh because of all the legal issues that are currently in play right now. And so I think that while we do have time to contemplate before we vote on this next time, there's a lot going on right here. And this is not clear to me. I'd be amazed if it's clear legally to anybody in this room, to anybody on the board. Certainly isn't clear to our council necessarily. So really, this comes down to administrative recommendation at this point. There is no legal guidance. And

161either case we take, we risk losing funds either federally or we risk losing funds from the state. So we are in quite a quandry having this before us. Um so I just would like to point that out. So shipman Jo say when I read the memo with the advice from shipman I read it actually pretty clear that we need to have it in now and if courts change the law then we've changed the policy and that if we don't have it in now um in fact we you know the superintendent has to certify that we followed Connecticut law and we will not have done that if we took that language out. Correct. I agreed that point there as well about the certification, but I don't think that's the only action that has to happen here

162from our superintendent. Also, again, as mentioned in the memo, there's a preeminence issue. I mean, just very simple basis like federal Trump state and so we're going to we're going to choose to walk into we will willfully choose after I understand. What I want to what I want to point out is that you know there has been guidance from our state's attorney after they examined the executive order after they examined the dear colleague letter and after they examined the frequently asked questions all released by the federal government and they said even given all that information you still have to follow Connecticut law. So I appreciate that's correct. However, the question is the state can choose to take a position that goes against federal law and the state can put themselves to risk getting a federal

163funds. They can put themselves in other jeopardy legally from the federal government. That's their choice. If they feel that's the correct legal position or political position they want to put themselves in, fine. As the board of ed, we want to get ourselves into that kind of fight because we don't have the same lawyers as state commercial. We don't have federal questions that would be asked. We don't have constitutional questions the same way you would have between the state and federal government. I don't see why we want to walk ourselves into that kind of jeopardy. I I I I I think I don't think we'd be walking ourselves into that kind of jeopardy action, but I guess that's that's the difference of opinions. Um John. All right. So, as somebody who watched the meeting and read

164it a few times and still it's kind of confused because the issue is very confused uh given different directions from the federal and state. Our attorneys right now are saying what Jim and Goodwin's model policy that covers both students and personnel includes the state language. They are con in all fairness, they are continuing to do research to see the first of all the force and effect of an executive order, whether that is a federal law and what the potential um complications for districts that adopt the language might be. But right now, the model policies do include that language. And the only thing that I will say is that one way or another, we need to get back to some of the definitions and procedures in the 2020 policy because the ones we have now on

165the website are no longer valid under either law. Okay. But to be clear, Mar, I mean, this nobody's going to shut us down tomorrow because that language has been wrong for a little while now. No. So, we're go but we're going to need to No, but I mean you can't we can't kick it down too far because Understood. Yeah. But this is not like a dire we have to decide this evening. No, but to be clear, I would be working under the old I'm not redlining unless this board tells me to a class of kids out of out of this policy. Right. Right. So, I guess my point is to follow council's guidance until otherwise stated. And I realize this is an issue in flux. So, we might be looking at this in another four

166weeks based on guidance from the federal government. I'm not worried about losing federal government funding over the short term because it's so in flux and if it looks like and we get advice from council to make some changes so we don't lose that funding we can get up here and within two weeks change our policy to adjust to it. So I agree like listen federal, state, local, but right now there's in congruence between federal and state and so I'm just I'm just I've done this for 12 years in P&Z and now board of ed. If you follow council's guidance, you rarely get yourself into trouble. And so that's that's kind of the default I'm going with until otherwise advised. And I forewarning everybody out there, there's probably going to be changes sooner than later. That's

167right. I have a just a Joanna um what happens right now if someone does want to have a logic complaint. So we will give them the policy on the website and tell them that we're following a different policy and here it is that it hasn't been adopted but we assume it's going to be adopted because the the policy on the website has been declared ineffective by the federal. So we've had to do that before when there's been changes and the policy has lagged a little bit. It's not we can do it. Okay, March, just a clarifying question because this memo states that you've gone back to the 2020 title 9 regulations as opposed to what we had approved which was the 2024 changes. So the my understanding was that the draft policies that were before

168the policy committee and now before the board are the 2020 version correct that we're doing the first reading on and then that that would come back at some point in time for a second reading on which we would vote to go back to that 2020 policy and the drafts that are currently kind of envisioned right here. Correct. And the only not to confuse things even more, but the only change in policy 5275, which is the student version, is that Shipman and Goodwin is advising to remove the reference to Title 9 from the title because Title 9, the federal law does not cover gender, identity, and expression even though Connecticut law does. And that's it's just a very technical change, but that is a difference from the 2020, okay, policy. Okay. But the guidance from Shipman

169currently is to do as you've talked about in this memo and that the drafts would go back to the 2020 Title 9 definitions which previously had been in place. The discrimination policies which follow the Connecticut state law would continue to be in place which we have to follow because that's the Connecticut law that the superintendent has to certify. Correct. Correct. But but those I believe remove the reference to the title n right federal when we change the name of the title n student policy we would then have to remove that reference in the non-discrim just to avoid confusion the title correct okay but we're not voting on this tonight so the time for the timing standpoint this would potentially come back to the board for a vote um when would that be our april 22nd

170April 22nd. So basically a month from now. Will you have any input? Sorry. Oh yeah. Would you have we have any input from uh council incremental input? They're working as fast as they can but there it's you know it's as you can see it's a lot of intertwined issues. If they do then we I don't know whether we have a policy committee. We may have a policy committee scheduled before the 20. Uh I don't remember. I can we can figure that out. But yeah, but in the interim, obviously this is all changing. Everything's in flux. Everybody knows. So, we'll see. But but Shipman in the meantime is working on the research and and further followup that have been requested. Greg, but if we get to that meeting and there's still seemingly a ton of ambiguity,

171are we able to push it or do we have to vote? We have to vote. We have to have a policy in place current policy in place and it would go back to the 2020 policy which previously had been in place as opposed to the 2024 right now which is invalid because of the title 9 changes. Correct. Um but that's one month from now. So I mean things could change. Just policy meeting is April 29th. Yeah. So it's after. Thank you. So maybe we would wait until after the policy meeting had occurred to Well, if there's just a second reading, why would we need another like if there's no material change? See what happens. All right. Okay. Yes, Katie. Thank you. Um this is not about the substance of the policy, but I did just

172want to flag it um as we are continuing to go forward. Um thank you for including the forms in there. It's helpful to see. Um, I did notice that there's um some inconsistencies in there and it looks like they all have this, but it um and if there's a reason for this, please let me know. Um, for example, I'm looking at one right here that's the complaintant form and it says date of alleged sexual harassment and then it says name or names of the sexual harasser. It seems to me that everything should be either alleged or to change back and forth almost um presides a presumptive guilt. So I would just suggest that the language is consistent throughout all the forms. And are there Oh, Dave, I was just I didn't mean to interrupt if

173anyone else had another comment or question on this. I was just going to mention that there was a comment on gifts that we had to take action on. Right. I was waiting until we had finished this discussion. Are there any other comments on this on these policies? Okay. So, we'll move forward with a vote um on policy 5610 on gifts. Um may I have a motion to approve the proposed revisions to board policy 5160 gifts as presented? Joanna seconded by Sarah. All in favor? That's unanimous. Okay. So, moving on in our agenda, we have follow-up action items and what I had written down would be that we need to add the um the BOE handbook will get added to the master agenda. Um I believe there was some follow-up work that was being done, Dr.

174Abu, um on that and then we'll add that into the agenda so that it's done prior to your end. And then the parking lot items that are currently in the master agenda, we will work to get into the master agenda. So ideal is that we can discuss some of those during the board retreat, etc. Um, okay. And so then we are open to have public comment. Good evening. If anybody in person or online would like to participate in public comment, please approach the podium or use the raised hand icon and wait to be recognized. Once recognized, please state your name and address for the record. Note that you have up to three minutes to comment. We have no raised hands at this time. Thank you. May I have a motion to adjourn? Joanna, seconded by

175Sarah. All in favor?