Board of Education Special Meeting: February 2nd, 2026

001But I think we have a a plan. So it is now 6:04 p.m. and I'd like to call the Eastland Board of Ed special meeting for Monday, February 2nd, 2026 to order. First order of business is pledge of allegiance. For those who can stand, stand for the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay, next public comment. Any public comment? >> Any public comment? >> Okay, hearing none, we'll close public comment. We move on to special reports and we have Xavier and Sam here from the high school. >> Um, >> do you want to move the laptop near them? >> Yeah, I think you need to just talk loud. >> Just talk

002loud, gentlemen. Okay. >> All right. Um, I apologize for my voice if it's a little um I've been a little stumpy lately. So, if you need to repeat anything, feel free to jump in. Jill and Lee, can you hear >> very clearly? Yeah, >> perfect. >> So, to start it off, um, I'd like to give some some important dates. Um, f Friday, [clears throat] February 6th, is the alumni choir concert, and it's at 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium. Tuesday, February 10th is a half day of school for students. Monday, February 16th, and Tuesday, February 17th, is no school due to the holiday. Saturday, February 21st is a winter ball uh going from 10 7 to 10 p.m. in the commons. Wednesday, February 25th is senior night unified basketball game. Friday, March 6 is no school

003for students. Um March 18th to March 20th are half schools, parent teacher conferences. the juniors and seniors. Um, now moving on to juniors and seniors can now sign up for a rebuttal program through a QR code located in the school's January 30th newsletter. There's also an early bird automotive class partnering with uh Ferman's garage that goes through February, beginning uh in the beginning of March. More details can be found also in the January 30th newsletter. Um, The Wizard of Oz is going well. This is according to an uh Andrew who's integrated in part of this. She says uh the wizard boss thing is going well. It's set up for March 13th to the 15th and they're performing at nursing homes coming up. Um she said I choreographed to be Elms Musical Newsies Junior and it

004is super successful. We got amazing feedback and turnouts from the entire community. Lots of college acceptance are coming in and people are starting to finalize their decisions. Very exciting time for the seniors. >> All right. Yeah. So with the winter ball my class 27 we just did a another fun in town. We did a little dying thing where parents, anyone can come in and just share some of the profits with them. I think we made our thousand bucks from that. And I know historically the winter ball hasn't been the the most popular event, but we're trying to win this year switching things up. Our class advisor, Mr. Daily, who I feel is a pretty popular figure amongst the staff wants to take the lead and DJ at. So that'll be a good selling point for

005us. And then I talk a little about the unified basketball senior night coming up. I'm unified sports program. So in the fall it was season five soccer now five basketball. We just had game against Waterford last week. Went really well. It's always a ton of fun. A lot of people end up showing us those and we're having a great time. I think Miss Joy who's the head has a special education program here. She uh she kind of runs that facilitates that whole thing. And then me along with three of my peers are on the team as like buddies and helpers. And then I think Z touched up on that as well, but parent teacher conferences will be starting up on uh March 18th or March 2nd and they will go to the 18th. Uh recently

006some of the counselors have been coming into junior classes to talk about uh college career choices, career paths, setting up junior planning meetings with our counselors, help I guess iron details in those. We also received our junior folders with official transcripts and other important information for job applications, internships, etc. And then a little bit about another automotive intro class at Waterford High School Nissan is partnering with. I guess that's at Waterford on our day. I believe at 7:45 on their timing. Uh students, I think it's only available to upper classmen at Ean High School, but they can drive or take a provide a van to walk high school in the mornings and and I guess learn about automotive introduction and then another van or drive is also provided. And then that peer mentoring program I

007spoke a little bit about last time. We just matched our mentees and we're currently in the process of exchanging letters and getting to know one another a little bit better. Tonight we have our rival basketball game against Waterford, a blackout at seven. And just to go back a little bit to midterms, midterms went out really, really well. A lot of classmen, specifically the freshman said that everything went really smoothly and that transition was was not as stressful and was pretty great. I think one thing I want to talk about was during midterm specifically, we had opened up both of the bathrooms, which I guess could have been a little bit of a reflection to what possibly could be could come in the future if we were to go back to the old bathroom situation. It

008was it was really well. Everyone who was taking pictures of the A-wing could go pretty efficiently to the A-wing bathroom. Same thing. And we've made that switch this year where on B days only bathroom's open. Normally on the A days a bathroom's open. So I think that worked pretty well. So if we were planning or contemplating switching back to that in the future, this could I guess test the positives. And then I know we uh I had a conversation with you or you had a conversation with us about the budget and about saga specifically. I had a pretty conversation with Mr. Be recently about I guess the economics of that and why maybe the prints versus the online lines have their pros and cons. And I told him I said well Mr. afternoon spoke to

009me about specifically saving a couple thousand dollars by leaning away from the prince and moving towards a possible online websiteed version of the Viking saga. And although obviously that makes sense because cutting anything economically makes sense. He brought this solid argument I thought to you about how students in my specifically high school struggle consuming mainstream media whether that's about current events, politics, economics, etc. No one really goes out of their way to read like you know the Wall Street Journal or read the New York Times as they should and what um having paper copies of like does is ultimately kind of force those things out of my throats because then you talk about some pretty interesting stuff near a lot of cultural stuff I think is obviously very important to consume and you brought up

010the fact that if we were to switch to to online that would ultimately just kill readership and I just want to bring that up to you guys just in case anybody was wondering but yeah pretty Thank you. >> Thanks. I was thinking maybe a budget saver, you know, because it is a couple thousand dollars that we thought we'd check to see as one item, but uh I appreciate you checking that out. Yeah. Thank you. >> Any questions? Okay. Thanks so much. Great update. Really appreciate it. >> Okay, moving on. Candace, we do have a selectman or selectman representative. Candace, you're on video. I don't know if you have an update for today or you're listening in because it's a special meeting. >> I am here. Can you hear me? >> Can Can you hear me?

011>> Y >> Okay, that's good. Um, you guys are echoing quite a bit, so I just wanted to make sure. Um, >> mute yours. Let me turn mine off. >> Okay. >> All right. Can you hear me? >> Yeah. >> Okay. It's very brief. So, we've created an ad hoc committee to create policy and procedure uh to appointments to our commissions. I spoke briefly about it at the last meeting. Um I I believe that that will be uh serving us well. Our CIP committee has been meeting and touring uh different buildings throughout the town to identify projects of necessity with the upcoming budget. Our February 4th meeting uh was cancelled unfortunately, but we should be meeting either somewhere between the 10th and the 12th from what I'm told. And that is to officially start the

012budget process and that's all I have for tonight. >> Great. Thanks, Candace. Any questions for Candace? >> Thanks, Candace, for the update. >> All right. And uh Lee, Jill, you guys are hearing us without echo. Okay. >> There is a slight echo, but it's not um >> Well, now I can't hear. >> Oh, go ahead. >> Now I can read. >> I was saying there is a slight echo, but it is not uh it's not a barrier to understanding what everyone is saying. So unless Jill feels strongly otherwise, I don't think we need to troubleshoot any further. >> Okay. Okay. Um, next order of business is we have um consent agenda items and it's a rather long list. I think there's uh Estabbon has to pull item C the uh order two. >> Yep. So

013we will pull 3C and move it to um 5B if that's okay under recognizing that 5A some of this may still enter our 5A discussions as well. So they'll go >> somewhat hand in hand. Anything else that anyone wants to pull? Okay. Does someone want to make a motion to approve the consent agenda items? >> I'll make a motion to approve consent agenda items. >> Yes, perfect. So Alisa made the motion in vic seconded. >> Um all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Bill, you're an I. >> I. >> Okay. Y. Okay. So all all eyes opposed abstain. Okay. So motion passes. So for those of you at home or here uh we had some meeting minutes approved. Um, we pulled our budget projections. We had um we have some donations I'd like

014to kind of highlight. We've had a donation from the trust. Um, a donation of 17,500 from the Charitable Trust, the East Lime High School Athletics. Um that's second or third uh large donation made by this trust and you know we can't be more thankful. Uh it is it is it is very impactful and you'll see some of the things like the the board um that we have at the the desk that we have for the scores table. I believe that was a donation from here. So, um really appreciate um that we also have a donation from the Niantic Lions um of $500, the Niantic Lions charity to the Shoreline Leo's Club activity account. So, appreciate that and that partnership that is we've had for a long time. And then we had another donation a donation

015of $500 from the Brian Foundation to the active minds club activity count. So appreciate that as well. And we also had a long partnership with the Brian Dagel Foundation. So appreciate that um collaboration. So we also had uh pol a number of policies that we needed to um go through that from all the different series. So I'm not going to go through all that. So those were all the consent agenda items that we had for tonight. Moving on, we're on discussion action items. And the first uh discussion action items for instruction is a discussion on strategic school balancing. I'll turn it over to Jeff. We had I think started maybe briefly having a conversation, but this maybe is the next step. >> Yeah, exactly. Um we had last time we spoke we were kind of

016going back and forth between uh you know the idea of looking at maybe pockets of uh redistricting versus uh potentially doing you know another you know full redistricting plan. Um and just for some context too for for the community um you know we're out of balance again in our elementary school. So um you know Nic Center is sitting around 170 uh Lily Be is sitting around 360 and Flanders is being near the mid-200s. Um so we were kind of out of whack. Um and we kind of expected we've talked about this as a board every you know 5 to seven years we'll probably have to look at this um is what we were kind of told and sure enough that's coming to fruition as it's been you know seven uh almost eight years now since

017uh we did uh redistricting the last time. Hence, [clears throat] um, in going back after we talked last and looking at, uh, either the pockets side of thing, pockets of redistricting versus, you know, a full out plan, we really quickly realized we we need to move forward with a full redistricting plan again and bring in, you know, an outside firm trying to pull pockets is going to target different neighborhoods. And I I I don't think that's going to farewell for us at all. Um, so I did a little um homework, re reached out to uh the individual that that did our redistricting um process last um time and uh he works for a new firm now um which is called MP Planning Group um willing to gave me a a proposal a draft proposal so

018you know willing to uh to support us again um has done multiple um plans uh and redistricting uh you know plans and proposals um over the years this year even just did finished trees um so works through crack 2 so we go through it's on the state bid list. We get a little bit of a discount as well. Um so we don't have to do do you know the bidding process. Um so a lot of it makes sense. Um and uh you know I won't get into the specifics yet. I just wanted to kind of get that information out there and then we come back at you know our next meeting or another meeting in the very near future and kind of finalize you know this is the direction that we want to go if

019so um and then I can work to lock in uh you know this and share further information with everybody. >> Yeah. So I think for Thanks Jeff. I think for tonight what we're trying to see is are people comfortable that we're thinking of instead of kind of looking us looking at a map and picking well what about this community that community um which may not be overly scientific is sorry I just put my bias in there but um but having an external firm come in uh and the company that did it pre not the company but the person who led the effort previously um we'll come in and look holistically at our um at eime in total in seeing you know what makes the most sense. I think that's the discussion and then if we're

020aligned with that we would then come back next week let's say or we have a meeting next Monday to go through the proposal in detail to approve and see are we comfortable then with the the cost and where is that how we're going to fund it and things like that but um because we can also get multiple bit we can do different things but you know the first part is is the strategy is what we want to do is this the right thing that we were aligned to want to do. So interested in people's thoughts and comments. >> Yeah. >> Um so one question do we have any idea of a boulevard figure how much this would cost now like maybe like how much it cost and know it little bit more expensive. >> Yep.

021It is a little bit more expensive. Uh last time it was a little over 25,000 uh to do it. Now um again without the discount or you know going through correct um roughly around 37 is the number that uh is in the draft proposal again you know that's first number we would want to work uh work on that obviously if I had a question I I remember when we did this last time I was I maybe I'm just don't understand the process enough but I kind of felt like there should be not necessarily annually maybe it's like we got are there districts that just constantly adjust the boundaries whether it's annually every two years is there is there people that were hiring do they offer a package that's not we're fixing it today and we

022think we got it for a while or is there something out there that allows us and and could we do a better job communicating to the parents that you know we as a community kept our three elementary schools. We like having smaller schools. We like having equity in the class sizes and you know this is something that you know you're going you potentially going to get shifted but the the tradeoff is you know there's equity along the way. I I don't know. It just seems like, you know, it seems like we got fairly out of whack in what I don't think is all that amount of >> long time. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, it is. When when my recollection was we we when we did that, we actually were like, let's stay

023on top of this kind of let's look at it every year >> was our intent, I think. But then when we went through the redistricting and having all the parents come here and getting all spending all that time, girl, right or wrong, I think we're all like, "Let's push that off for a little bit." And then I think it got away from us both probably. >> The flip side is we have parents coming to us saying, "My kids's been in the classroom with 20." So yes, we're going to have someone coming one way or the other. >> Yeah. So is there is there a possibility to do like an annual re because we could make the decision. >> So uh he could come and let's say do an annual or by annual refresh. Um we

024then could make the decision on whether we do anything with that data. >> Yeah. And we would pay for it. Yeah, I would be very concerned that if we did that, I would never want a family or students to start in one school and the next year they can move to a different school and you have to you see what I'm saying that there's that potential too if you're doing it yearly. You got to factor budgeting into that with the shifting and changing. Um there's just a lot of facts. I don't want any other just wondering >> for us to look at it and analyze it and then maybe every 3 years uh >> well maybe they could coach us and say hey this is you know here's a plan here's what we're giving you

025and here's how I would you know um yeah work it moving forward. I I don't know, maybe they don't offer anything like that, but it just seems like whether, you know, >> we're we're dealing with getting folks upset by moving boundaries, but we're dealing with folks upset because they're stuck in the big school or the big class or the um whatever. It's it's we can't win on all fronts. >> I I wonder if there's also an estab a change that triggers a refresh from us. >> In other words, >> other than, right? So, okay, all of a sudden, I'm just going to make if we had 200 in each school. Well, if if if any drops below I'm making these up 175 and another goes above 225 or something that would trigger I don't know

026what those but something like of a change that then triggers to say we better look at this because of the change but if they all stay at 200 we don't we don't need to really look at it and it gets hard because it could differ by grade and that makes it hard that's where I think >> you know it's important though because I think that might even impact, you know, our culture climate because, you know, you're feeling like you're working in this building versus that building or you, you know, that teacher always gets the the 12 student classes and this teacher is always dealing with 24 and you know, I don't know if there's a way to balance that out. We might upset a few families for a short period of time, but we might

027make the staff happier and and in the end have it be more equitable. I don't know. I just Well, >> it' be good to ask if we go down this path to say what do schools do? Do most schools do it and then wait five or seven years or whatever it is and wait a long time and do it again or is there anything that people general course just for the disruption but uh or if they you know is there something that we could look at? >> Yeah, more on a more consistent uh >> you know basis. Yeah, it doesn't we can easily ask them invite you know Mike Zuba to come and and have some conversation with us too at the board level. We're in that sweet spot of the timing too because you

028here it is February now. Um we wouldn't really even potentially if we agreed we wouldn't start this process until the spring then run the study through the summer gathering all the information and then a fall kind of you know begin share out planning and then notifying parents you know at the end of the fall the form >> for the 278 exam you had >> I'm just wondering you know so we talked a lot about AI you know I wonder like you know like >> you know eight years later like are there any AI tools that like would be much lower cost than hiring a whole firm built with this kind of things. But at the end of the day like they like there's I just googling and there's larger like huge uh school districts have

029used AI tools to like make it more balanced and whatnot but like we don't have that problem here necessarily but you know curious also like in addition to like you know looking like see if there is any AI that like that will help us see if we can with a tool like that we can hit you know on a regular basis and you know as we see the numbers fluctuating. We adjust that and >> yeah, that's a great idea. Lee, can I put you on the spot for a second because I know you've you dabble or or more than dabble in some of the AI tools where I've seen where you've pulled data and I forget what we were what the discussion we were having, but you were quickly pulling data uh using AI and

030um is this something I don't know if you have any familiarity or uh any thoughts on it? >> Yeah. Uh I'd want to noodle on this one a little bit. I think similar to how I used it for our last kind of discussion that we were I think uh I think we were it was related to class sizes. Um it's it was helpful for an initial sense of scope and possibilities and options and it was a great tool to get kind of an initial read on you know very likely outcomes. I think I'm less confident around with like this level of kind of sophistication and different kind of zones and boundaries for for schooling. I I think we could definitely utilize AI tools. I think um delivering kind of a clear clean end to end

031you know project on this we would probably need someone to come in and and champion that work. I think we could do the first like 25% and then we would probably need someone to come in and get us the rest of the way. Does that need to be a full firm like we did previously? Potentially not, right? There's a lot of consultants. I mean, a lot of districts are navigating this right now. There's a lot of consultants out there that um are are doing this quite regularly. I think there's a couple RFPs right now in Connecticut alone kind of looking to do similar things. So, um my answer to that or my hunch is yes. And I think we definitely could and we'd probably need to pair that with um someone who's like a bit

032more versed in some of the technologies >> and and maybe to build a little bit on Bill's point as you talk about that I wonder if you have someone >> kind of what you like this expert kind of end to end doing this workforce this time if there's opportunities on the interim basis to use AI >> for the small, you know, maybe some tweaks that we might make in every few years or something that that instead of paying some maybe AI can do the smaller ones that we can just look at and decide on without encompassing. I don't know. Any thoughts on that? >> Yeah, definitely. Um, >> yes, I'm less versed on tools that would be specifically designed for kind of the re, you know, redistricting portion of things, but um, yes. Yeah. And

033also, >> go ahead. Sorry. >> Yeah, I think there is an opportunity to I think there's now with with a lot of these tools and technology, there are a lot of firms and consultants out there doing this work. So I think even you know when we do consider bringing someone on we might not need the same kind of level of you know depth and intensity that we have in the past. I think there could be some lighter weight options that would help deliver the same outcome. >> Great. Thanks, Alisa. >> Thanks. Um, no, I like I like where we're going with the conversation in terms of looking at the options of, you know, the approach. I think um I guess I'm just a little guess but I would think that any of the consultants are

034also using kind of their own AI tools to you know kind of be part of their suite. Um but I think um getting some context or understanding around like the methodology that they are going to approach um you know that this this work with and give us a little bit more information to kind of understand to what degree we may need. I was on the other side of the table when it was redistricted before. So, um, so to have have other memories of of it. Um but you know I I wonder especially you know the gentleman that was involved previously if we could um get some understanding around like learnings or what was done before would would just kind of do this do the same thing is there an approach we talked about kind of

035>> you know communication with the community and and all of that I'm not sure how much you community was the consultant to do that. Um there's just other other pieces to consider. I I do think it is worth looking at what our what we're thinking about our kind of current to future strategy. So we have kind of an approach in mind that it's like not just deciding like for two years we're going to do this kind of behind it. So we you know the community kind of understands a little bit around what are we doing into the community and kind of what our objective is. >> Thanks Alisa. >> Other thoughts? So I I think you know I think what Jeff needs and correct me if I'm wrong is so we we have >> one

036proposal >> and it from from the person who I thought they did a I thought they did a pretty good job he or the company but he led it um did a good job last time. I guess the question is are we looking because Lee it sounded like maybe there's a few other maybe you're familiar with the but do we want to get a few proposals in and is this the direction we want to go is >> outside form obviously learn um where I assume part of the proposal is the communication with uh you know to Lisa's point with community or is that not or >> could be. Yeah, remember if you go else direction you go out to bid then um I just be I would caution that you know um this he has

037all of our previous information too from which helps I think helps to reduce the cost. I I think we would find much higher costs elsewhere, but just my thought. >> Yeah. >> Um >> and and this is he's his company or he and his company are in the state approved or whatever. >> Yep. They go through Yep. That's why they're aligned with CRE and they go through CRE which is a resk and [clears throat] >> oh I'm sorry CES not crack. We have uh number sorry CES um continuing ed continuing educational services sorry wrong wrong CES thank you Mariana basically the same thing they're just a different part of the state but u ces and uh we get the discount and we don't >> which saves us time money energy that sort of thing um

038again he's the guru of it uh he's the best in the state um he does just about everybody um from what uh what we know used to be with Milan Broom now has his own he's out with a partner now and uh they're MP planning um now so they uh and they just got done as they eliminated the school and consolidated. So, would people be comfortable hearing that if Jeff came back next week with um a little more details of what the proposal is, what will it include, and if we're comfortable with that and the cost. Um, so we go discussion action. We don't have to take that. If we hear it and we're not comfortable, we can still then it doesn't we're not locked into anything and we can still go out to bit

039but kind of spend a little more time. But if we are comfortable with it, we can >> do discussion action and then uh have Jeff kind of work to finalize the agreement and get things rolling over the the spring. that general belief. >> Oh yeah, just gonna jump in because I started talking about this previously, but yes, I am comfortable with that. I think that he did a fantastic job last time and I will name I think especially given our current budget context and landscape. I don't love that we would be initiating this project without doing some due diligence and seeing what other options are out there. Um and I recognize that obviously going to RFP is is not ideal. So all that to say like cautiously yes would like to see what you know

040the scope would look like and what the initial price would be. And I just wanted to name that uh I don't love the idea of not uh exploring some other options especially from a financial standpoint. >> Thanks Lee. Is there any way we can do some type of like we found some Connecticut districts who have recently done this got some rough costs on reasonably similar size districts within you know plus or minus 20% or something in size. >> We can maybe do a cas I don't know I haven't heard of any NASDAQ is the only other one but Paso survey I got about I don't know maybe 12 responses um and other than one person I think everyone else responded would anyone tell us what if we found any districts would they tell us what

041I can reach out to the people that responded. >> So that would be helpful. At least we'd have some context if we to see, oh, >> everyone else is paying 20,000, then it's like, well, maybe we need to put this out. If everybody's paying 50 or 60 in the ones we did, well, then maybe we're in a >> good place. At least give some context and then we can still We're still in a decision like we're not making a decision. So, to your point, if we talk to on next Monday and let's see if we can get some more data and then we can decide and say we do want to get more information or we don't based on the cost. >> This should be a perfect thing too for like the non-lapsing of those.

042>> So, this is exactly some of the non-lapsing these are as as some of these things come up. um whether it could be a settlement, it could be a special project like this. These might be things that we want to utilize that non-lapsing account for um outside of our budget. So these these are things another thing to talk about. We have not used the non-lapsing at all and we haven't >> again is it next meeting that we're talking about or the 23rd either the 9th or the 23rd. We are having a conversation about the non-lapsing account both from how much we would have in the non-lapsing as well as types of expenditures that we could use for that. So, >> but this is something that has been discussed at FFO um of types of thing

043that we could utilize nonlaps. >> Okay, that's good. Yeah. So, we'll continue discussion next week. um at our meeting next week. Um moving on, next item uh for discussion and action for discussion the 2026 2027 detailed budget discussion and I'll turn it over. >> Let me Yeah, let me just share what you have what I pass out here and then Lee and Jill um will display it. Grant's gonna put it up on the screen and then we'll get you your copies. It's also in it's in board docs actually. If you want to look at board docs, you can connect to it if you want to do that as well. Whatever is easier. Um we based off the conversation that we had at the last meeting. We pulled additional information, ROI information. Um we pulled some

044enrollment information and dated information. We pulled um some uh versus FTE versus enrollment um last year's bus stop information is in there. What am I missing? Is that other >> Did you share that? >> So Jeff's handing out while he hands out the hard copies. You're gonna also see that in these documents Jeff has up there. Remember he had mentioned we're in DUI C now, not DR D. And they kind of reshuffled the the DURS. So this this now when you see the DUI, it's going to be our new DUR. Um the updated DUI, which is DUR C, and you'll see different towns in our DUR. So that that is something to just way too outdated where we are now. So >> moving forward, we'll continue to just reference uh >> you know DUI uh

045DUI C. Oh, and I did the other thing that's in there >> in there too. >> Yeah, there's there's a component of both area and DUI C. The other piece is software information. um and at least pulled together uh some software textbook information based off of some request >> on the textbook revision cycle and what exactly is in those requests for time to >> so um that's a new information and we we punch holes so you can put it in your binder uh under tab two which is the other information enrollment things that we provided your last meeting um and kind of you know where where do you want to start sort of thing we could go through this information or you know we could open it up to anything previous. Um I will preface

046to we Jamie sent a few questions this afternoon. So we're going to work on those try and bring those. She's not here tonight. We'll bring those you know back with some answers next week. Um and so we appreciate you know if you have other questions moving forward feel free you know to send them our way. So >> maybe it's worth if you can give a summary kind of the nurse like eight 10 slides whatever the accountability x accountability index or your per pupil expenditure and kind of showing maybe just quickly just looking because that's all new for everyone. Yeah. >> So maybe just look through that and then we can go into >> double click on any of the whether it's transportation or or other areas. Yeah. >> Um >> I think most of you

047have all seen this first. Uh we used this slide, you know, last year an Elise put this together u last year. We plan on using this with the uh board of finance as well. So this be a good packet with you know some of this information with the board of finance too. >> So you can see the guidelines the average of the per pupil of all of those districts combined and the average accountability index. So um you may you may be new to the accountability index um but that is a data point that the state provides to us as a result of 12 different indicators. Um I can tell you what they are if you like is assessment growth or academic growth assessment participation rate academic achievement the performance index on our sea. So the

048score that kids get on a summitative assessment, chronic absenteeism, preparation for postsecary and career readiness coursework, um preparation for postsecary and career readiness exams, uh graduation on track in 9th grade, graduation for year adjusted cohort, graduation sixear adjusted cohort, postsecary entrance rate, physical fitness assessment, and access into the arts. So all of those factors are are um contributing to our our um AI score. And so you can see that we look at a different grouping of the districts. Um, I think generally speaking, what you're going to see in East Line in comparison to both of those cohorts of districts is that we are just over the average of per pupil, but very competitive when it comes to accountability index. Um, you know, I don't know if you have specific questions in relation to certain districts,

049but uh, you know, we are top third in area districts for cost per pupil. Um but we are also you know um very highly competitive um probably top top quarter for accountability indics with some very competitive districts by the way we're looking at line and um you know we are we are competing in those districts as as it relates to the accountability effects >> in both the regional as well as der See, we are also very very competitive with regards to accountability and again just over that average people cost >> with our ultimate goal of getting into that bottom quadrant Steve just you see that you know that bottom right quadrant is where you we want to be kind of see Guilford on that first one you know we're just above that cusp of that

050that line cut off um we want to keep working down and we get there by lowering our per pupil and continue to increase our accountability and scores. >> You can see this. So, for example, for Darcy, there's really only two districts that are lower in peral costs, but um higher in accountability index. That's Randy and Orange. If you look at the scatter plot and Randy and Orange are much they're smaller districts. Um and Orange sends students to a regional high school. So you're talking about just a K8 comparison versus a K12 comparison. So >> that's what I was saying listed there in their just a >> not inclusive of our high school students. >> Not inclusive. >> So it would be maybe for this third C. >> I'm sorry. So that does that mean that

051>> just their four but our high school does include the Salem. >> That's correct. >> So maybe it's worth any of the K8s. Maybe it's not worth having in >> Yeah. We can talk about that. I just >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I know. Yeah. We were looking just, you know, big discrepancies in some of these um comparative districts. Um, but I did I did want to point out that when you look, you know, um, at where we are with regards to accountability, we're only looking at Orange and Grand are lowering cost, but doing a little bit better on their accountability. Um, >> the question I don't know if you know the answer so much, why are they tiny schools? They have 600 kids over 600 kids now. [laughter] >> For what it's worth, I've

052heard they're in discussions to maybe join other another district or something that small >> resources. No, they're a little bigger. Yeah. Yeah. But they've always been a higher cost. Um, they've always been at the high end of the cost. I'm not sure why, but they always This is I don't necessarily think we want to go down, but I'm looking at Salem K8 and I'm wondering if we pulled out R K8. I just looked at that. we're into that ball on the bang and and then if you know I just it's weird when you I'm wondering >> is that and how how does that performance influence our overall performance that we're looking at our job I don't know >> I can look I'm not sure if we can dec I know we do it by school

053but I don't know if we can do it by grade level then but I can check to look at a comparison. >> I I don't know if we want to go down that road, but it's interesting. It's interesting. >> Yeah. >> Is there for outlier? >> Yeah. >> Any other questions on ROI? I mean my one comment on the Durk C is I know that from an accountability index and are the only two higher but there's a whole group of schools that are pretty close to us on the accountability index who are Yeah. And I'm I'm going to use like 10% lower like or more, right? So 22,000 or less. Um because if you're if if we're 241 22 or whatever and someone's 23 872 I mean >> there's nuances of small differences I don't

054know that but if you look at see uh they overlap maybe it's Southernington or >> you're looking at looking at the accountability versus people that Yeah. Yeah. They're pretty low on the cost, but still above 80 or maybe at the 80 mark. Um not but you know, so it's something to think about is how much more do you spend to move up a little bit on the accountability um in terms of your bang for your buck. Um, and it's it's interesting. It would be these are all towns we haven't compared ourselves to before. >> So, I don't know with the previous dirt we used. I was, you know, you'd always know Sabbrook does pretty well, Stony does well, East Grammy did well, Rocky Hill did well. like you had those group of schools that kind

055of were in our same conversation of how well they do academically and then you kind of look at how they're performing or they were kind of all over the map a little bit on cost per student but I don't I don't know a lot of these schools so I'm just less familiar with it >> I know you probably just said they what determines the accountability >> to those 12 indicators >> the 12 that are there listed here or you just ran them off >> I read them off I can provide them to >> you. We should remember we should actually put that at the end like when we present. I didn't think about that. Yeah. >> Keep that in mind like you know is there something that we're doing that's really great that's not showing

056up at all on that index. >> Yeah. I mean it's it's it's the point of it was to look at a comprehensive look at how students >> I think it's >> it looks at you know academic performance of our high need students what extent are we addressing the achievement gap that's what baked into the uh score you know I will say that you know the increasing of our ML students um has actually negatively impact our AI in that we are having a little bit of gap there um and we need to we have some work to do in that face. Um, but so it's it can also waver depending on our how our demographic changes too. >> I I was just thinking of like extracurriculars, how do they get factored into that at all? >>

057The only thing that's factored in close to that is access to the arts and physical fitness. access sports and music and and um drama and robotics and all that stuff doesn't >> notation is >> important you know it's one data point too amongst >> yeah I think that you look at a graduate that has experienced you know all of what these kids have experienced here. >> Yeah. >> Um some of those other schools may not be offering that level of, you know, broad experience stuff that really I think plays out in terms of college and overall life success. I I don't know. just trying to make sure that we're, you know, it some of those things might be pushing the cost a little higher and are we willing to give those things up for for

058half a percent, you know, one or the other. Yeah, really good point. Yeah. >> Yeah. thing I'd be interested in, but definitely not for today. And there's maybe not even this budget season, but it's interesting that the regional districts or pupil expenditures are generally at the high end. I kind of intuitively think the regional districts, if you regionalize, maybe they'd be at the lower end because they get scale because you regionalize. um be interesting to understand why but again that's more of I'm curious not something that's going to change anything we do um but it it is curious any question other questions on accountability index ROI discharge the dur that we're looking at >> yeah the the last two tables just showed is um comparatively to their C with regards to um our like five

059year look back or four year look back um and and the growth that we've shown and you know we've um we've held firm um and the top five or six >> which I think is >> it's important yeah it's an important point >> and from 1.2. >> Okay. Well, this might be good question at the board of finance. Barry was asking me about growth and things like this. Might be a good slide digit on the growth piece. Uh I mentioned accountability index, but maybe it's also the the growth in that will be a good one to show. You know, I I'll remind the board when we when we look at our summitative assessments, we did see a hit postco, but we have continually demonstrated growth across almost all cohorts um every year. And so we're

060not where we want to be, but we continue to grow. And I think the accountability index demonstrates that. I actually wasn't really about right now, but I think you know in in our budget discussions we think about potential opportunities maybe but hypothesis that we would realize some cost savings. So I I think just something to kind of think about where you know maybe we would need you know for any of our interests we need you know more information but I think it is and they are significantly higher up in that budget. So just something to think about. >> Interesting. Yeah. Together a whole different kind of structure of feeding towns working together, but >> Okay. Thanks. Thanks. Anise, do you want Yeah. >> Yeah. Just then you go on. We just did kind of do

061that. We tried to overlay it, but it just looked better side by side. So we kind of did, you know, at each level, elementary, you know, what the enrollment's been for the last five years. um and what the certified all the total certified staffing count you know looks like. So, you know, at the elementary, you can see kind of parallels um somewhat the uh decline a little bit of a decline in enrollment um down to where we are right now versus what the certified staff count, you know, has done at the elementary middle school. Um you see a little bit of a shift. The enrollment's kind of bounced around a little bit, but certified staff count has gone up. It's ticked up a little bit. And that's mostly attributed to Kim, didn't we? We we

062moved a special ed teacher up there. We added a special ed teacher la was it last year? I think the year before, one of the two >> before >> the year before. Um, so we we've needed some more supports at the middle school level. It's part of why you kind of see that count. And again, you went from I know the bar graphs look, but you went, you know, 1.2, you know, up 75 to 76.2. So, you see, a little bit of a jump there. And then high school enrollment, you can see enrollment, you know, down some, as well as, you know, the certified staffing count. we had uh reduced um a few positions at the high school last year which dropped that down. Um so you can see what that again certified staffing number

063looks like and districtwide you know where the enrollment has gone uh as well as and this is not that number 2379 just to be clear is not including any of our preschool numbers or any of our AIM students. So our overall population is you know upwards of that 24 let's say 2500. Um this is just our you know our K12 uh students. Um >> the certified staff that corresponds with this is also only the K12. It doesn't include those other groups. >> Yes. Correct. Yes. >> Yep. Apples to apples. Exactly. We kept them out. >> Yeah. We kept them out. Yeah. To make sure that's Yep. Good point to bring up. Um, and then we did other staff by school. Uh, just I think it came up we wanted to see kind of how many

064uh just Oh yeah, just any question of those >> I was just you know just because I know somebody who works in middle school. Um, [laughter] I I was looking at the numbers of certified staff in the middle school and that's showing up, but I I'm pretty confident that the class sizes are also up there. >> So, yeah, that means we just got extra support certified staff. So the classroom I I think that that's important to look at because the burden that the the staff is experiencing doesn't necessarily reflect all of that exact or what what's going on in the classroom. Um, now granted that sports staff is hopefully providing sport, but it's uh it's still someone with, you know, there I'm pretty sure that class sizes are up in the middle school even though

065um we show a little bit of a bump there in the in the staff. It's not the case numbers too, special education, >> right? So, you know, with the KA model, you have that structure. And so what we found is because there were so many special education students over the last three years of middle school weekend they had special education staff. So for the first time there were teachers also assigned to achiev the school psychologist role. So those are two that are you know directly impactful but not on the court right >> yeah those haven't been to those you just the way the setup of the key is you've got your four core teachers and a special ed teacher and that's the that's the team nothing is shifted other than adding you know an additional

066special ed and u two and the psychologist so but yeah you're right the numbers are you know they're they're sitting and that chart is in your pre in your packet too by sizes too the middle school I was just looking at it, you know, in comparison to this Dave, you know. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions on any of the levels or the district or >> any question? I'm being a little bit dense over here. What's the unit on the bar >> number of number of staff or number of students? So the left is number of students, the right is why is this simple? Why are these decimals for the certified staff? Because you have part-time people. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Okay. >> So, um sorry, I'm let me just do my math. I

067was trying to do it in my head. Um, so if I look at the district chart and I could look at the individuals, but if I just look in total, enrollment in the five years is down about 15%. But the certified staff is only down 3%. Something to think about. I mean, I don't know what the answer is. and and but but that is you know 15% you know 20 whatever students that is um is is a material number of student decline. So that is a a question of well and it I'm not I'm never expecting that it has to be one for one and there's reasons things happen and there's scale where there's some benefits of having more people more students makes it but um but that is a question uh of just you

068know why aren't they moving approximately in line with each other? If you're down 15% in enrollment, why aren't you down for staff in that 10 to 20% range? It could be more, it could be less, but why wouldn't you be in that range? >> Well, remember, well, I think the special ed world is where that certified staff count. If you took special education away, I think or support services I should say, certified say, >> I think your general ed numbers would >> So that would be good for us to have then is to we can break this down to be able to explain. >> Oh, enrollment has gone up. Special ed has not >> actually gone up. So, so more requiring pull that piece out in some way. Then we can look kind of apples

069to apples and say what's going on. And maybe in gen ed it has gone down. Special ed has actually the uh the rate has gone up so the staff has gone up. Other questions before we move to other just to repeat what you said though that the scale factor is a part of it. It's like you know you've got >> media specialists, music teachers, whatever. And when the enrollment goes down, you still have media specialist, you still have music teacher, you know, so it can't it it's never going to match like that because you're always going to have those pieces of the puzzle. Now, >> should be moving, but it's not going to match. I don't >> Yeah, if it was 15 and you said it's 10. >> Yeah. >> Then I'd say >> we

070let's look into it a little bit more, but it's directionally moving. But 15 and three seems that there's something else going on which might be the special ed fees that's going on then and then maybe it is 15 and 10 because we have fix kind of the quoteunquote fixed costs of um you know some of the roles that you spoke >> so how would you get 15 did I do my math wrong 2602 to 2379 it's nine Sorry, >> that's okay. No, I appreciate it. I was trying to do it uh quickly while we were talking. >> But I get the point. I get the point. I'm not I'm not disputing the point. >> No, no, no. That's important. If I uh Yeah, it is 8.6. Thank you. This is why I shouldn't do this

071while while we're talking. No. Um Thank you. So, so that's 8 and a half%. So, 8 and a half to three is a little more in line. Um, uh, so, but we should still look at that. Um, and and see because maybe it would be more like 5% or something like that. Okay. So, then we have the other staff. >> Yeah. So, we just broke out uh, you know, all of the other groups um, by school that was brought up at the last uh, last meeting. You can see um you know where uh you know where those numbers uh sit currently. Um you know our admin counts for admin uh as admin and directors. We included everybody um so from you know Don Hall is the director of um security to you know assistant principles.

072So that the whole gamut is in there. Pair educators, you can see the variation custodians, maintenance, um be custodians of the buildings. Then you've got, you know, the maintainers are outside doing grounds work. Um and then two individuals that are, you know, really kind of our formally run around doing projects around the schools, electrical or this or that. Um and then secretarial and health office. Uh health office is the um nurses and the uh nursing assistants. So those are those numbers. >> The numbers that we're seeing they represent like people in >> Yes. Yep. Those are people enroll. So you could take uh the um health office uh at the end. You know Flanders there's one nurse. Um in Lily B there's a nurse and a health aid. So that's why you see two. And

073then uh Ninx center one nurse. And then the high school and the middle school both have a nurse and a health aid. So yeah, those numbers are specific to one one person. >> So I think what could be helpful >> person half a person too. >> This this chart is one is to have totals for each of these so we're not adding having to add them up like what's the total number of par educators across the district. Was that somewhere else? I don't know. And then um for the admin slashdirectionctors we're going to get we're going to ask for board of finance is going to ask for board of selectman. You've done it before where you just have a one pager with every what every role is that makes up the what's it uh 12

074>> that shows 18 I think 18.5 >> 18.5 18.5. Yeah. So just list list them out so that we can be very clear as to what those represent. I I have another question that yeah >> that the other pages are comparing certified staff to enrollment. This page switches and doesn't do that. Why don't we have that same data on this page? >> Hold on. I'm sorry. I was writing talking. >> So, can you do the f >> So, we're looking at, you know, we're we're looking at um the high school. We have enrollment and certified staff, right? Then we look at the district, we got enrollment, certified staff, but we don't have >> a comparison of like like I think it's less important to know which schools have 34 paras and three health people or

075whatever. I think it's the total number of par educators. Did they >> how does that compare to enrollment over the fiveyear period? Oh yeah. How does administrators and directors compare >> to so because because what Eric is saying is oh enrollment went down so we should have less pair of educators or less you know now obviously certain positions you can't >> you can't get rid of the one nurse at the >> nursing zone >> you know they're specific >> yeah right so I'm just but I'm just curious did those that I don't know are we >> well the parent educators and the administrators are we have they changed significantly over the period of time or not >> admin no paras probably have gone up because of the fact that remember our our special ed count

076has gone up so student need is greater so you're going to see more more >> par did we pick up some maintenance people did we pick up I don't >> nope there would >> yeah so showing but showing the five years I think >> never added people or lost people in any of >> we can read those over uh in Rome >> and maybe also um I don't know in the other groups but I think Paris we have a number of open positions we have trouble hiring if we could to know so this is these are I we use the term butts and seats but these are people in role so but we actually have >> the vacancy >> oh it includes the vacancies okay >> so it would be good to know kind of

077the number >> the vacancies >> butts and seats versus vacancies or whatever words. I don't know there's probably better words for that. Um on board um >> yeah exactly and it's probably Tara is where we're going to see that biggest delta and everybody else is probably not a lot. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah. That's the um we'll uh pull those together. Um any other I mean when >> did did anyone want to look at because there were in um >> yeah you've got other >> but in the doc you had we had some one-year positions and we had some retirements. >> Yeah that's in the PowerPoint presentation. >> Yeah. So if you go to that it's in the uh slide 23. So, one thing, we don't have to discuss this now, but um Jeff as

078part of his budget, the superintendent's budget, removed some three three positions. >> The three positions at the bottom, those are those those were removed. We have the retirees. So, we have five retirees and one one-year position that are more easier decisionable. Um, if that meaning that the retirees, it's an open position. If we remove the open position, no one would be losing a job. Um so those are things that we can look at in relation to um staffing and the other impact of of what that means. So um I just wanted to point that out and not that we have to analyze that now but those are the those are the roles that are a little easier um if we were going to reduce by any of those. Okay. >> And it would uh well

079we can bring it about later regarding high school and >> you know taking a deeper dive into that would make sense to pull together I think a smaller committee >> you know so much data in there. >> So Henry did a thank you Henry did a great job. He pulled together somewhere in our binder on the class size. That's section two. >> Yeah it's under section two. Yeah. in the back of a little >> there's a whole uh analytics on high school and classes and courses and Henry did a great job of pulling together these analytics but it's a lot of information and we thought that maybe we could have a a little bit of a deeper conversation next week on it but in the interim that maybe a small group gets together sits with

080Henry and kind asks and and Jeff and kind of go through some of the initial kind of questions and it's more of a it's very much a you know numbers uh not not a not decision- making it's just going through the numbers and saying you know does that make sense why is that or or maybe we need to frame it you know like when we look at I always remember the journalism class I think has two or three classes together so you might see three or five students or whatever it is in a class but it's not five students in a pass because it's five in that level, but then there's two others that are in. So, you have to combine them all to say it's, you know, 11 or 12 or whatever the number

081is. So, um we thought it would might be good to for a few of us to get together um this week to kind of go through those in a little more detail. wanted to see if um I know Vic had interest and I know I had interest but wanted to see if anyone else had interest in sitting in >> um this week uh okay Steve okay and Steve um maybe can send out a tenative time and see if if they can make it um >> and we can do that because we thought it'd be helpful >> spending some time and then we can kind of hopefully summarize it somewhat when we come back as a as a board of ed. >> Yeah. Just not much information there I think to dive into as a as

082a large group. >> Okay. Oh, Steve, can I just I this is just I'm I'm learning I mean the one thing that I've definitely noticed is level educators at the middle school. Just wondering if I could get more information on that. Yeah, I mean it's it's a um it's our place where we've seen the most growth in special education over the last two years, I would say. And so um I can toggle to a different spread. Um but you know, it just it varies building by building. So there's um I think 180ish students in the building with IEPs. Um, and we have a couple specialty programs there which focus on um like social emotional behavioral learning uh and then also more of a functional life skills based program um and communication skills. And so those

083programs tend to be supported with a higher student to staff ratio and then across the KAS we provide support for differentiation and implementation of individualized behavior plans. So that >> so that high number, >> right? No, it doesn't it does you can't match it year by year, right? So yeah, you're welcome. >> Okay. Um >> I think the next was the transportation discussion and looking at >> bus stops that we currently have. also talking about kind of some historical perspective. Um, did you want to say anything? I don't know if you had any specific questions or did you want to open? >> I'm open to question. I we the program allows us to do a one-year look back. So, I also included another sheet tonight in tonight's packet with the 2425 numbers and just I

084did some quick comparisons in most um most buildings that have less bus stops this year than they had last year with a few exceptions like there's two additional stops at Flanders, but that could just be you know people live in different places every year. So um and you know the number of stops on a route can vary depending on if the route is along Boston Post Road. Those are more individual stops. Whereas if you're in I call it the Bird neighborhood, you know, if you're back in a subdivision, you're stopping at intersections so that kids have to come out from their culde-sacs and we call those group stops. So every year we're looking for more opportunities to create group stops because it improves the efficiency of the route. Um, and we're very cognizant about the

085time students spend on the route. So, you don't want so many stops that you have a long a too long bus ride, right? So, we try to keep rides between 35 and 45 minutes at the most with 35 really being our sweet spot, if you will. Um, we run 20 buses and seven what we call type two buses, which are the smaller U buses. We also call those vans. U, one of those is wheelchair accessible. uh and they support, you know, students uh with special education needs as well as sometimes temporary injuries and um things like that. If you can't uh get on the regular bus, you might, you know, ride that. And we also have one um minivan the company calls a caravan also for extenduating circumstances that we run, but doesn't have a

086regular route. So, I don't know if that helps. So then some some runs along here, you'll notice like maybe they have only nine stops. That's probably because they stop somewhere with a large group of students like um the King Arthur Court area has like it's a condominium complex, so all the kids come out to one stop. So if you have 20 kids getting on at one stop, that bus is the the route is naturally going to have fewer stops than somewhere along a neighborhood. So um >> thank you for opportunities today maybe you know maybe eight or nine years ago I kind of remember the rout that my son was going to school I actually I not question anything anything that is that is existing from middle to uh and and also the federal that

087we have. So I think those are those are the need. I'm not I'm not going to dis I'm not going to get into any analytics for those. I think we probably do need to look at the high schools and high school bus how much that will save us. I think that's a conversation because I I know my son when in my neighborhood when he went to middle school he used to walk down maybe 1/4 of a mile to get the bus >> in high school he was getting picked outside of his door. >> Okay. >> And I don't I don't necessarily agree with that level of >> Right. No, we try to avoid we call those house stops. Right. Yeah. Yeah. >> So, and I have that's my only anecdotal evidence that I have. Sure.

088>> You know, and I see I get out in the morning. I I pick my mail up early in the morning and I see the high school bus. It's pretty much empty through my neighborhood and I know there is a stop right outside my house and it there's no nobody ever there. Um, so my my request is basically that let's look at it. look at the high school uh bus route, see what efficiencies we can gain. Um I did do some again some analytical anecdotal analysis by talking to some other other parents who do not sorry other residents who do not live on coast. they have you know um kind of my type of neighborhood which is which is away from school and they they also mentioned that yeah there are there are maybe a

089few too many stocks in in their so with that information and I kind of did the a quick check yes the number of stops this year for the high school routes total number of stops is is on the lower end um would it could to be given get more efficiencies I don't know but I it's just a open question that you know one if you want to get some efficiencies how much money you would save and second is there an opportunity to get any efficiencies that I think is you should definitely >> sure I think you know certainly efficiencies in time by looking at all of those stops but I will say we pay a daily rate for each bus so I don't know if one if tweaking the high school route will ultimately yield

090an easy pay. >> Yeah, we would still be paying the daily rate for the bus. >> But you still need that same bus for the middle school and the elementary pay for it for all day. If you took took seven buses from high school, you're still paying for the same amount because those buses have to run the middle school and the elementary like per round. You don't pay per run or per hour, right? >> Contractually. It could be something you know where I want to go. >> This problem needs to be looked at from a contractual level perspective because this this may not be or just look at the high school. I think we have to look at it contractually. Okay. for every round we really need that implication with for students to say hey

091example we have seven fewer buses running in the high school there's got to be some savings in the year let's talk about eliminating a bus holistically but there's >> they're saving money >> we Yes, we pay the fuel. >> We pay separately for the gas. >> We buy the fuel from the town and the buses come to the town lot and >> Okay. >> So, first student pays the bus drivers or we pay the bus drivers. >> Student pays the drivers. They're their employees. >> So, they have to figure that component out because you have a driver working less hours, >> right? That would be a less attractive route as I understand it from their union perspective. They bid on the routes they drive. So that's that's as deep as that. [laughter] >> That's what

092I've been told. And so um yeah, so I don't it would have to it would it would ultimately lead to possibly reopening the contract, but um we can take those things into consideration. >> We probably need to first make an assessment that okay, if the contract was negotiable, how much money is it going to save? I I would say that even if we end up you know we combine some routes we might looking at the gas we save and the number of the cost per bus that we say it comes down to 50 100k I mean that's not small you know 25k I that's a conversation question about transportation. >> Sorry, we couldn't get those. We checked to see if we could find, you know, previous years. I'm sure the routes have increased in number

093over the years. >> Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, like just when when we were going through redistricting, we also happened to be um updating the software and going with a new software tool. And so we definitely did lots of bus stop cleaning at that point to, you know, remove un well like dead bus stops plus, you know, ones that weren't necessary. Bring those group stops um into better focus. Uh and we do, you know, for an age perspective, we have different levels of group stops for an elementary versus group stops for the high school. So and middle school, but middle school and high school operate kind of on the same criteria of parameter versus elementary. And then sometimes we make some small tweaks for the kindergarten year and then we bump them up to

094an elementary group stop depending. Um so yeah we definitely have cleaned up and you know when we redistricted we tried to reduce two buses you did >> and was >> very bad. We used kind of used the AI system of what the software offered us and the software said you can do this you know on paper it looked very good in practice it wasn't so um you know that was it more of an impact in the uh like the students that that the parents that are unhappy were they more middle school and elementary school or were they high school? It was everywhere. I mean, it just seemed persuasive. I mean, >> if it is elementary and middle school, I I would be Yeah, I would be I would be with them as well. >> Right.

095Right. >> High school kids, a lot of them, right? >> Yes. >> So, I think we really need to look at that. >> And I will say just back to the par question at the middle school, I was remissed to say there is a teaching assistant, which is a paraprofessional that's automatic with every KA. That's just part of the model. So that accounts for nine pair of professionals that are always at the middle school as part of the muzzle. So you're welcome. >> Yeah, that's the last grouping uh that's in there and uh uh did a deeper dive. Thank you. Um hone in on you some of our software textbook information. >> Yeah. So the first part of the in uh that part of the information in this packet is on um sort of where

096we are with regards to textbook adoption and our curricular revision cycles by department. Um middle school they are currently using a a very old NA National Geographic textbook that's over 10 years old. Um when I first came in five years every five years we do a program red. It doesn't mean we purchase a new textbook but we take a step back. We look at the resource. we identify what adjustments might we need to make. They decided at that point not to make an adjustment. We're entering in that review now and um they are in the in currently piloting two different resources across the four grade levels. Um so that's a projected cost as they rego full adoption 58. Um high school science we're coming off a six-year digital textbook renewal. Um, so this is to

097renew for 5 years to align to our more closely to our curriculum revision cycle. Um, I will say one of the cost savings with this course in particular is that they purchase one class set of the physical books. Um, that rotates across all um of the sections and and the students access the digital textbook mostly. Um, so that is a fiveyear renewal. So that's a one cost every five years. 6,000 high school science. This is for a actual physical textbook aligned to our college and career prep class for biology. Um, and this is this uh includes the purchase of 125 textbooks, five digital licenses for teachers and five digital license for students who might require um speech to text audio and other um access supports. Elementary school math is currently in program and so we

098are looking at um a few different programs uh with a potential pilot this spring. We already uh budget for math consumable supplies and so this really wouldn't be a big lift for us. I I budgeted an extra 10,000 just in case with an adoption of a new program there might be some additional costs there. Um, and that's based off a pool from a different vendor that we are going to be piling at. Any questions on textbooks? >> Superintendent budget. >> This is all any new textbook requests. I budget for any um textbook replacements the school buildings budget for. So any anything that comes with a program review or curricular revision cycle I take on as that big big process up front and then they're in charge of maintaining it until we come to program >>

099and everything moving forward in these pages is in the >> this is allud >> um so moving on to software. Oh, sorry. >> Biology tech. This is the high school >> college and career prep biology. >> Yep. Um, it's a McGraill book. >> Uh, let's see. And then if we could decide nothing would school social studies let's delay that for a year say $32,000 do I have that right should >> theoretically yes >> um so software I did uh do it a deep dive with regards to usage and we have had our eye on a couple of programs over the course of the past three years. So I'll just review um sort of where we are with these programs and um what my um my thought is. So Lexia is an online um foundational skills

100program for our our our little learners. Um, in order for the program to be effective, we have to have 20 uh students have to be have to meet a certain of usage every week. And so I can go on and see how many of our students are meeting their usage every week. And we are not we're at about 25% of our students meeting usage every week. Um, I attribute this to um lots of things being added to the plate over the course of time for teachers and no not enough time to fully implement. um this isn't uh uh you know anything else but I think there's just an overflow of resources and we need to identify a space where we can pull that. With that being said, I would really hate to pull the rug

101out underneath of teachers who are using it that and the students are meeting their usage in the first year. So, I would suggest if we're looking at this as a cut, we would roll it back next year with a full cut in in future years. Um, and give those teachers who are using it with fidelity time to back off and supplement with other resources. Um, is an online math program that um, again has usage requirements for it to dee be deemed effective and we are not meeting those usage um, across either the middle school or the high school consistently. So again, I would recommend rolling back and only utilizing the licenses in those spaces where it's using where the usage meets the effectiveness level. Um and mystery science is a supplemental online resource um used

102K5. Um it is uh essentially our only science resource for teachers but when I look at the usage not all of the teachers are accessing it as a resource. So I do see room to cut it back and as we enter I do think there's an opportunity to shift away. I would really like to move our science curriculum off of a digital resource and have it be more authentic, hands-on um through some of our the work that we're doing through play. And so this is an opportunity to kind of make that shift, but not again pull the rug out from underneath from those teachers who are utilizing it as a resistance. So if we were to sort of reduce licenses um these three programs I could see us us with a you know a potential

103reduction of 25,000 across all three programs. A total of 25,000. I'm familiar with and I did not it did not appear to me that I teach this students kind of do self learning with that software right >> yes but there is a teacher portal where you can log on and see how your students are doing and if students students are not answering 15 questions a week. It doesn't have the impact that it's intended to have in terms of supporting that growth over time and many of our students are not meeting that threshold. >> But that is I found to be a little bit more on the elementary side in terms of what what what it was offering that that I'm not saying that it is not but cannot be replaced by something like Yeah, there's

104definitely other resources that we could look like for example at the middle school um with the Amplify Desmos curriculum that we just adopted if there's a redund redundancy there and the teachers actually would would much rather use Amplified Desmos than the ISL program um at the at the high school. I've I've been in conversation with um Miss Gross, our our curriculum instructional leader in math, and we've talked about, you know, what other supplemental resources might be more beneficial um where there's more usage. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um so, yeah, there's potential for other programs, you know, um but I think again it comes down to time. There's only so much time. Um and I think the ISL program is probably being more used in our tiered intervention space more most effectively than in the core. Yeah.

105And that's why I'd say let's reduce the license but not just cut it entirely. Some of it overlaps because I was I just wanted to comment you know as we add AI software does is there overlap or there's some redundancies in whether it's K Academy or some other place that we getting the same thing but the I might be remembering this incorrectly but the Lexia are those things that are often like homework that the parents are supposed to be working with their kids on. This is all in school. >> Yeah, because we don't send the computers home with kids in elementary school and it's a computer program. >> Okay. >> Um and so >> I thought I remember being on computer when they were in elementary school have been the case. We have since changed

106our expectations of laptops going home at the elementary level. Well, I think our own computers, too. Yeah. [laughter] >> I just was, you know, because I I um I don't want to get into the whole homework when they doing homework, but certain things like >> getting your math facts, you just got to do it. You know, however you do it, you gota gotta do that's was the usage thing a parent [clears throat] and student issue versus teacher thing and then tools that um yeah so that's the next page. Um on this >> Oh yeah, sure. No, no, no, no. Um so you know I guess two things. One, it sounds like you're somewhat recommending 25,000 or you >> section 25,000 if >> it's underutilized, but we think it should be more utilized. We got a

107way to get students to utilize it more and we think that there'd be great economic benefit if they did utilize it more,000 that I think is other tools that people are using. There's other ways and they're getting this and these just aren't connecting for whatever reason then >> let's grab the 25k and maybe over time it'll be more than 25k. >> I I really appreciate that question because that's really important to us, right? just want back out of a program that we were we thought was really beneficial. Um, but this has been trending this way for quite some time. Um, and we've had the conversations and I've sort of been holding on and we've we've done a lot of work. We've done PD with teachers on getting the kids in and getting on and trying

108to make it happen. And I I honestly think with the adoption of our written wisdom resource and our new focus on small groupoup instruction um you know we are in a space where we can offer teacher resources um without having them get on to the Lexia program. There's also been, I think, some conversation around um that screen time of kids, you know, and the difficulty of getting the computer open and them logged in in K1 is can be challenging. And so I think those types of things have just um you know had been they've been barriers for teachers getting kids on successfully. Um and the program runs an old old Java. Um, and this is where my computer tech skills, but it runs on an antiquated Java program and so sometimes it can be really

109sluggish and so there's been some feedback around that too. >> Okay. >> I've spoken to the literacy coaches about it. I've talked to the building principles. Um, you know, we have and the and the piece the piece of feedback I did get was that there are some teachers who are still using it. you know, do we look at reducing a couple of grade levels to start? But I think we can still do that with with the savings on on suggesting it. >> I guess if we if we do take it and we made a mistake and we see that actually they're seeing it during the year by the savings elsewhere, but we should take it if we can and then it goes. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So >> one important point I just too things

110like this like we identified we're kind of saying we think maybe we can reduce 25k process has a spreadsheet so anything that we had reduced we have a running total we'll start a board deadline and now so we can always go back and say okay what have we talked about two weeks ago that we said so we'll have a running list of those things and then we can continue to watch that track from there >> and Sorry. Go ahead. >> Redundancy. >> Yeah. So, um it's this isn't so much a redundancy with Magic School. Padlet is a digital post-it note program um that we brought in during co and um since then Google has sort of created a spin-off called Fig Jam um which is essentially a free digital um post-it note. I have yet

111to take a closer look at that to crosswalk how close it is to padlet, but I'm pretty confident that we can make that shift. Um, so that's a potential savings. And then um one of the one of the redundancies across um our magic school platform is Edpuzzle. So EdPuzzle is a digital tool that teachers use. um they can assign students videos or articles and they watch them and read them and then there are questions that are built in over time. Uh Magic School has uh you know um a YouTube uh video question generator and so we could get teachers into Magic School. But I will say that um this this could you know this there are teachers who are using ed puzzles quite frequently and um the learning curve of leaving that behind and take

112and trying to do it in magic school it won't look the same and so we might need some space and time to kind of work through that. Um that's the feedback I've been getting as I've been sort of sharing this out with my curriculum groups. But um you know you asked for a potential redundancy that is a potential redundancy and it could save the district 7,000. Um or we could roll it back and again apply licenses to only those who are really fully using it and not recommendation. It sounds like you'd like to not >> I think it's only fair to because honestly I haven't we haven't had the time to look at the tool in Magic School to see how close does it meet with Ed Puzzle. This would be work like our districtwide

113tech committee might do or I might have you know a teacher who likes Ed Puzzle to do the same and give me some feedback. I just haven't had the time to do that but um it is a potential to run. there's there's a potential savings program >> like there's 30 to $35,000 of savings and we can do some more but but there's something there that seems like that we should take advantage of those and do them >> based on reports definitely from those Any other questions? >> Sorry. >> Textbook. >> Yeah. >> Why are you buying textbooks digital versions? In general, there's no real cost savings, I don't think, for the the digital versus the hard copy versions because it's the IP that you're buying, >> not the physical paper in that, >> right? So,

114>> people say, well, what if we just don't buy these and just get digital versions? It's like, >> well, you have so it's interesting some of them are digital. integrated is digital five year >> and bio is the hard textbooks 125 lices. >> So you're looking at >> you know um those bio books will be good for 10 years they're costing 13,000 digital licenses a little bit more expensive. So it does it's not necessarily a cost savings all the time, >> right? >> Okay. >> And really we we we like to sort of I make that decision based on the course and you know their preference of the teachers um and the students involved in the needs. >> We'll pull together that based off of the packet that you got the other information that came

115forward. So thank you for >> for that >> any other meeting or the meeting after that we'd like to see a little bit of a deeper dive next meeting we'll have a little bit more discussion on um high school class sizes and stuff we can pull that together um is there other areas that people want to see I I was just wondering this might be a 10 second question. Someone parse out what the tech and other capital items are the original slide deck 21. >> So capital is um absent or outside of all operating budget. have a separate entity al together. So none of those are in the operating budget proposal. So what we're doing for those town meetings that um I put the update Candace mentioned earlier tomorrow that presents their capital. So um

116that will but it's a whole separate entity um for the tax capitalist. So totally separate from our operating but we are doing >> an acquisition. Yeah, there's one conversation on the capital plan 23rd. >> Yeah, I think I think so. >> Yeah, we will know what the town committee has approved recommended to the boardment that's bring that forward so the board is aware of what might change with all of those items. So we'll have our operating budget discussion mainly what we're talking about but then separately we'll have the capital budget discussion >> and probably few weeks a time what's what's potentially moving forward because we start deliberations it's actually Thursday right Mariana with the capital committee is red we're done with all the departments tomorrow is the last day for departments so um so yes

117we'll have more information on that but the good question. Um you were you were talking last night about engaging the student to them about trying to think about um I sat with them for a while uh and talked about you know we love to hear their input things that they think you know where we might see as as cost savings things that are important to them. Um, you missing anything that uh >> No, we had a good No, I think we had a good conversation with them. I think that's probably why S, you know, commented a little bit on the saga because there was a lot of ideas being thrown around and I think they kind of latched on, you know, latched on to that as an example. Um, tonight you're competing with um, you

118know, the water slide game. [laughter] uh but I think they would be more than happy to sit and listen and you know participate in the conversation based on um you know the meeting that we had with them last Friday but if I have to sacrifice it to help the community I'm open to it am I am I going to suggest it probably not but I'm open to the conversation >> I think we print you uh you know just for uh off the top of my head you know we have roughly 890 students I think I really think they're they're printing about 300 copies of the saga uh you know so um you know we're not printing a thousand um or even one for each student um you know so um definitely something that there's all

119sorts of ideas out there and you know I think that's that's one I think the kids and um I think you find the staff on saga feel very strongly about having that paper copy. Um, you know, but obviously there's lots of ideas and I think you have three um engaged students who would be more than happy to sit um for longer and and have a conversation with you. Um, you know, just based on our conversation with them, I think there's a little bit of a learning curve, you know, as well as far as the budget and the process overall. Um, uh, that, you know, would be a part of the conversation. over a little bit trying to explain, you know, how how it works and what we were looking for for input. But, you know,

120I would recommend too was probably to make the like I think they were kind of stuck with do I stay, do I not? I know they want to be at the game, but maybe our first genes is budget. So, they're here and we can get right into it and maybe have them part of those conversations sort of thing for as long as they could stay. What do you think about engaging the nurses classes and seeing if they have some ideas in hand with I don't know which classes but classes with what they're learning from a theory perspective say okay what are some things I don't know in addition to the the phrase maybe that's something um you could charge the students. So yeah, go back and ask like I didn't know that he was gonna

121go talk to Mr. Beetle about that. So we use that as an example of a costsaving measure. So to go I didn't know but [laughter] >> so um >> that's an option too potentially. >> Yeah. other questions or followups. Okay. So, we will continue these discussions next week. Um we have removed um consent agenda items. We move the boardification fiscal year 2026 quarter 2 projection to 5. So we'll go through. So you want to ask questions reviewing the uh the projections you know really question from a bunch of other people. So wanted to take a look at this and kind of like out there looking and like when we look at the bottom line like you know the projected surplus,000 which is only 0.12% of the budget. So that tells me that we the amount

122that we asked last year for the budget tax right now, right? That can't be can't get closer than that. But when we're looking at individual line items, there are some variances that kind of like got my attention. So I did uh send an email to Jeff and Mariana this morning to like ask some of the questions and I want to just ask him again you know so that people know that we are looking into this and we're just not looking just to you know I don't want the impression that we're cutting the budget the compensation area. four questions I had. Question one and two kind of go hand in hand. Um but the question the first question was that like if you look at the salary there's a few salary lines for savings specifically like

123um you know non-certified staff and um in this have like over 400,000 in um savings. So I wanted to ask like what was the like the reason for that like the context for the like unfilled positions or like you know I guess that my first question um with the salaries and one of the hirings I will point out the uh the OTPT OTPCBA there's a credit in there that I just have to reallocate to a few different accounts. So that number will change um as I look through it. But just for purposes of budgeting like when I do the budget um I have every single position and vacancy identified. So that's what I budget for. Um because obviously if I didn't and every single I can't control if every single position isn't going to be

124filled and if it's filled um you know there's a basis and there's support for all of those numbers. Now as we go through the year we have vacancies which identify like there's a school psychologist right now that we don't have anything that's appeal so we I will be asking for transfer from the salary line to cover um right now it's being contracted so that will go that'll reduce what we have available in services but that's one of the reasons why uh the people services account is forward quite a I don't know what other reasons, but same thing with par profofessionals get control and they're going to be uh the vacancies are um in addition we have a literacy coach at Lily Hayes that has not been filled. We have multiple teachers that take leave that

125sometimes is unpaid. They don't have enough sick days, but they're on leave. So, obviously, we're not paying them. So that accounts for um the reasons for some of these uh in uh you know the extra money that we have. So we're certainly not cutting the budget. We are somewhat fortunate because on the other side of the coin we can't always control what happens with special certainly for him but then someone helps offset the big overage that we have right now. It can certainly explain what has happened with regard to special part of that question because we have substantial amount in tuition and teach services that like that's like we're more students unexpectedly than you know than we did the budget. I was thinking those kind of >> right because it's always a challenge you know

126we we follow the direction for zerobased budgeting so we budget for the kids who are have a contract and are placed out of district and then after the budget was already submitted we had a number of students from March last year March of 2025 to July or August really of 2025 who needed uh out of district replacements for one reason or another or Yeah. So um so that's a tough cookie you're you know so do we you know add in like some level of buffer or do we just you know run it what we know and then we know we might be over and hope that there's other areas in the budget that will help us offset that. It's I struggle with it every year right because >> we've had conversations about it. >> Yeah.

127Yeah. That's a good conversation for next week because the past two years I remember the past two I don't remember we've been over in special edition >> you know for different reasons all good reasons but we were so do we need to build a buffer because things will happen in those six months of time and we need to have something in there because If we go into the budget and we have known or or unknown but becomes known uh in likely negative, we're always kind of working beyond and trying to find work versus if we built it in and we don't and we okay on that line then we'd actually have a pretty big [clears throat] understand and in that case you know something we could always get back to the town or figure out

128what we want to do with that. But I don't I don't have a good answer. I don't know how I feel. >> I feel like we could look back 25 years and every year special [laughter] would be over. So snapshot and everything happens after that good or bad is >> uncontrollable. It's it's a very definitely moving target. So >> yeah, let me know. And that's conversations. The other question that like me was health insurance >> as I know. So three years an issue and what is that short of $420,000 this year and I know I think there's more adoption. >> So you know obviously same situation as Kim there's a point in time in which I have the count and that's what I used to budget for next year and I tend not to have

129this to happen because usually the pluses and the minuses will offset. Uh I think I have like one additional one person or two person built in but um I provided a chart understanding when I look to see what was the budget what it is now's addition that insurance we had 11 uh additional multi family plan um that represent represent $48,000 increase we had individuals 100,000 increase and then person that is not disagree I don't know. I don't want to have that just truly has not someone leaves they come on insurance has not ever been an issue for this year like we know that we know that there were changes in the federal you know subsidies for healthare so I don't know if we are going to expect more people somewhere but they can't um they

130cannot go to the marketplace and take insurance if they are eligible for insurance so they would have to take it um so I don't think that will be an issue Eston but we may get depending on um you know who who is employed. We may just get a different you know type of way that maybe will need insurance versus some that we haven't on the spouse's plan and um we also had quite a few people shift from um to from that children speaks to our counts. I mean, we're at the highest number for individuals out on FMLA. It's it was at 50 two weeks ago. 50 individuals across the entire district that are out were out on FMLA or are out and coming back. So, it's the highest number we've ever seen. >> But it

131was high in the ter and sewer bill that we had estimated 83,000, but projected it to spend 178,000. So, I was like over 100%. myself like going out with the water. >> Yeah. And my it's 166% 1.6%. So um in the email that I sent um so basically with the ball fields we are now being charged at an irrigation rate. So the initial rate we were being charged um in the previous years was $853 per thousand gallons of water. We are now being charged $22.73 per thousand gallons of water. So that is 166% in. So we did have a little bit of usage increase at the baseball wheel but not by much. The biggest reason why it's that much is that rate increase which I'm assuming is going to continue. So I did um increase

132the budget for 2627. So you'll see that in there. I hope it's enough. Um, and then at the high school there was a sewer rate increase of three and a half%. Um, but then there's there was also a water leak that I hope you know we believe it's been resolved. Chris Lond has reached out to the water department just to because they can monitor now with the new meters that they put in they can monitor and I think like they were seeing that there was usage like at night when no one was there. So Chris um and his staff worked to resolve that issue. I think it's the >> All right. So, let me just understand this. So, >> we have one water meter. >> no, no. Multiple. >> No, no, we have multiple, but

133there was a new one put in at the high school and at land. >> Yeah, both ends. Right. Right. Or central office entrance to central office. >> Is there a separate meter just for the irrigation system or is it tied? >> That's another Yeah, that's another Yeah. So, >> they have Yeah, they have carved out. >> Yeah, there's different meters. Well, if they're different meters, how come we're paying the irrigation rate on all things? >> No, no, we're just paying the irrigation. >> Okay, that's what I was confused. >> No, no, no. The ball field. So, it's two separate um issues or um things that have happened. >> One is the uh ball field and the the ball fields in the back are on one meter. >> Okay, >> they're being assessed at an irrigation

134rate and then the baseball field meter being assessed at the irrigation. So, that's one of it. Okay. >> So that obviously the increase quite a bit and then the high school was the other issue where there was a significant increase in the usage and um it was believed that it's it's water leaks resolved. Chris has reached out to the water department and he's just waiting to hear. So hopefully we will not see there's still an increase in the sewer charge but it's not to the level that it will be. When I looked at the usage um on that bill versus the usage we had previously, it makes sense that it would have been for the SW because pipes in this building when >> so those are the those areas was it the east line water

135decision that irrigation versus >> yeah it's new I have I'm going to I'm going to reach out to to Joe Burgal who's the public ports director just to understand it more. I I truly you know I know they increased the rates. Um that is you know it never that's like a huge >> Yeah. It's I mean it's $14.20 more for thousand gallons of water. It's significant when you know the especially in the because that bill that we had was November. So that covered like the summer months that's built twice a year. So, you know, for 955 gallons or 931,000 gallons of water, that's significant. >> Makes the turf field look like a bargain. >> It has drier one because it was in >> Yeah, I looked at the um I looked at the usage. There

136was a little bit more usage this November than there was last November, but really the bulk of the reason why >> it's such an increase is that additional $14.20 20 cents per gallon per thousand. >> Okay. >> Thank you for bringing this forward. I appreciate it. >> So the reason we vote on it is um we also we share this with the board of finance, but it has to come here first before we send it to the board of finance. So, we do need a if we're okay, we do need a motion for the approve the to motion to there it is to approve the board of education fiscal year projections for school year 26 for quarter two. So we can just say so move. Yes. Estabon. So moved. Uh is there a second? >>

137Second. >> Bill first bill seconded. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Abstain. Motion passed unanimously. Okay. Uh moving on to item six. Okay, we have discussion action item other um discussion on a proposed security strategy or deployment of security personnel and I'm going to turn it to Jeff who's going to have been up but it's for us um to have the public discussion of a lot of what we've been discussing um in executive session. that we pass for a while. >> So, just a little bit of um background obviously for you know our community um as it pertains to some birth security and security measures. We have had um Don Hall as our uh as an SRO um school resource officer uh for nine years um prior to this year where he was

138a police officer, an armed police officer that was going between our buildings and uh doing the DARE program. um he retired. We hired him as our director of safety and security and uh that position hasn't been filled has been able to be filled. I know the police department is working very hard under the great new leadership with the new chief of police um Chief Glenn and they are trying to rebuild and and add officers. um anytime soon we're going to see uh an additional one SRO or what we would like to have even more um SRO two three but it's going to be some time um potentially you know a few years before we may see something of that uh that nature contin um hence we've we've a little bit backwards with that we still

139have a great and robust security um staff uh one you know uh that's dedicated to the front door of each building and you know here in this middle schools more than um but we would uh like to look at the options of the talking about trying to go back to you know having arms component sorry across our schools which we want. So um hence I know have some discussions in executive session um want to kind of open that back up for for discussion public session and then talk about just some potential next steps. >> Yeah. So Jeff that was great great summary and I think where um we were as a board is we've had a number of discussions but we have been in executive session and now going public we want to hear from

140the public like we want to hear more from our our staff our our teach our our parents our community um and get their thoughts as we move um at some point to making a decision on this. So, um, hearing feedback and and opening that up is kind of where we now are in the process. So, um, I do want to open up for any of the board event members if there's any comments and then, um, we can talk a little bit about, you know, sending a communication out to our, um, parents and and staff, including ways to communicate with us. um numerous ways to communicate with us, but I do want to first open up and see if anybody wants to say anything kind of publicly in terms of what we've been discussing. We don't

141need I'm I'm putting out I don't know what it would be so I'm not I wasn't looking for anything but I did wanted to give this. So, um, we have pulled together a communication, um, that that gives a lot of what Jeff just summarized, a background of where we were, where we are now, what we're thinking about, and then we do want to make sure we really want to collect feedback and and get input. And we have, you'll you'll see in the communication, but we've kind of opened up four different ways to communicate. most importantly is we will have a special board event meeting um on March 12th and we'll give you the details at 6 PM but that that's kind of a public forum. So really just opening up we'll give you some we'll

142present uh to give a little background but somewhat redundant to what we're saying and what we're communicating. there's not going to be a lot of new information at that point from what we're saying now, but really to have a Q&A um and to get information. We are also um we are putting together and a frequently asked question document. So that's something we will put out on um to allow people and it'll be a living document. So it'll be constantly being updated. So if people have questions or continue to have questions, you can go there. We will actually utilize that somewhat as we do the public forum that probably a lot of the questions people have are the questions that we've been thinking about and going through and we'll put in this FAQ document. You also

143um you'll see that you can submit uh written public comment prior to that meeting and and submit it to Carissa. Um again the email all that information will be there. We will just so everybody knows with written um submitted comments those will be we will all read them but we will not read them out at the public forum then to be at the you need to be at the public forum to to read those out but we will read those u and if there's something that comes up and creates a new FAQ frequently asked question we will then add that to our document and we'll also you can email we have set up a special email that if you want to email the board um there will be an email address that you can directly

144email the board so we can collect information um via email that way and then um you can also always um call Superintendent Newton uh with your thoughts and questions as well. So we're trying to give a numerous ways for people to communicate so we can collect um and really get feedback and input um from our staff and our parent community. anything just in terms of um the board kind of learning and um part of how we've been getting informed is by Don just um as one of our you know resources in terms of helping us you know understand some of the questions and so he's been um I think he'll continue to be a great resource as we get in more questions involved. >> Great. Yeah, I can believe that has been valuable to discussions

145and and thank so far and talking today too in addition to the FAQ piece um that uh you did a great job setting up. He's also working on like a a links site too where you know different you know data information that uh could be referenced as well. So we will put both of those out there. Um and I think you know important too we'll talk more about this you know at the forum but that difference between I don't know if I would articulate SRO versus ASO in the direction right now of looking at ASOS armed security officers which are different than than SRO those are our own employees um who have to have a background have to identify being a police officer some general statute we we'll talk more about be the community we

146don't have any public here but um for you know those listening watch this eventually the the day in um uh you mentioned Wednesday March 12th there will be at East Middle School we talked about the high school auditori middle school's cafeteria is the high school auditorium should go by so we can't use the we've secured the school so far cafeteria And we will stream that. >> Y live stream it. Um so that's confirmed. We will tape it as we uh we've stated previously. >> Um >> Jeff, when will this communication obviously think this week even as early as tomorrow, Wednesday the latest to get out? That gives a full a full full month of time, a little more than a month of time before, you know, let people time to send us information and then

147we can send some reminders out as we closer to about soy select room. >> Yeah, that's good. We can sh we can give it to you to their office to be shared before you know it's a good to. Okay. Um that closes our discussion action items for the night. Moving on to administration reports and superintendent. Um, one uh just a quick reminder if anybody uh we're trying to get a count from I know it's again a month away but March 3rd um we were trying to look to do a high school walkthrough. Um the time has kind of gotten away from us with everything. So we're trying to do high school walkthrough in the fall and here it is you know February because we won't forget about it but we're looking at March 3rd so

148in the morning we first see in the morning um probably around 8:30. So if we really want to have it, we should have five board members that do commit to it because again that's real challenge on admin and staff is you know only two show up certain thing and so if we can get you know five you know members to be able to commit to that um March 3rd will be a day. So please let me know on the for reminders to go closer and start. Um it's really yeah a lot of this has been you know budget engaging in so a lot >> and seeing fellows >> um you heard a lot from me tonight but uh I I'll just wrap up from our PD from um half day last week went really well

149um gearing up for another one next week they're kind of close together and then the full day March 6. So spending a lot of time of circling back to our school and district improvement plans doing some mid maybe your reflections and identifying what are some of the things we want to um you know um address moving forward AI being one of them. I'm looking forward to updating the board on some of our work. >> That's on. >> Great. Budget budget >> budget budget went out. 1099 went out. things uploaded to the appropriate places. >> Jamie just had a cave report. She's >> Oh, she did. Oh, perfect. Oh, yeah. Yeah. >> Again, not not a lot. She's down in DC um right now and is there until Wednesday. Um so she uh she's down at

150Cave and NSBA um learning about advocacy and leadership. Um so going on she said not K related but NSBA is offering an AI certification class if anyone is interested um reach out to her um specific or reach out to me and I can talk with her. Um there's a lot of AI advocacy and funding conversation she said in Washington you know right now um she's engaging these and uh not sure about the day on the hill which is supposed to be tomorrow with the shutdown effect. So I'm not sure what's going on or not. I didn't hear you today. But um that's just a brief share of a bunch of questions which speak. So that was was it just quick Jamie? >> Thanks. Thanks Jamie when you watch this. Um >> can I just for

151um our culture, climate, and innovation meeting? Bill and I connected. It's scheduled for our before our next board meeting or one of our board meetings this month, but we know that that time doesn't work well for our committee members. So, Bill and I connected, we are going to reschedu till March on a day where we're, you know, there's five Mondays in March. So, to provide some space and time and not overburden folks with scheduling, um we'll we'll push it out. >> That sounds great. Five Mondays. [laughter] five Mondays but two meetings. So, you know, we've we we're going sort of back to back this month. It's a lot. And so, just thinking about being mindful of people's time. Um, but we decided to push that out. So, we'll let you know when the rescheduled date

152is and it'll be more of the six o'clock time frame. That works better for folks. >> Okay. >> Thanks. Okay. So then uh moving on to board comments and future agenda items. So I just um we have one quick one related to comments and future agenda items. So um Jeff sent down I think in your Friday note about the future agenda we can get about the next few meetings and agenda topics. seven year probably that matter or some versus central yeah we shared the board yeah >> some so one of the things was I can't remember how we commun sent it out and you may have missed it um so one of the things we're trying to do is look at the next three four five board meetings and saying what are the topics that

153we're trying to fit into those meetings they sometimes will shift one up, one down as we try to actually get the agenda together or just the timing of when things are available. But if you look at those and say, "Hey, we when are we covering ABC, it's not even on the list." If you can let Jeff and I know, then we can see where we can fit into the list that we may have missed something. Um, but it also you can also look ahead and say, "Oh, I was wondering when we're covering this." Oh, yeah. It's on February 23rd. That's on the Canvas. So, you can start looking kind of ahead at the next few meetings at what we're trying to cover and they're the bigger meteor topics. There might be could be policies to

154review or other things and we're not putting that on there. We're we're putting the kind of big meaty topics that we're we're trying to cover. Obviously budget is on number of these. Um but there's other topics like the AI meeting we have the special yeah Kim we have the when our administration are coming to give report outs we have those on there as well. So lapsing. >> Yeah. >> Well recognition next >> set up. So if you can't find it, um maybe Carissa can re can send it out. Double check. I don't remember how we sent it out. Uh so >> it was through the Winkly update. >> Send out that. Uh Persa, thanks for pulling that together. Um and sending out to the board the future agenda. And then we'll just keep that as

155a running list and then Jeff and I meet we'll add one or two you know keep adding to that to the next couple meetings as we get through some so I have that running list of what are meetings and what we're trying to cover with a purpose one is that we can all look ahead but two also that we stay kind of on track that we don't get too distracted by budget. budget's obviously really important, but we want to make sure that we also have other topics that are really important too are just and we don't lose focus on those. So that's part of the rationale for trying to have that list and and go other board comments future agenda items. I just have a question. So I notice in the personnel notices there is

156a resignation and two retirement. Um which of them are required to >> um I have to go back and make a video and look at exactly which two are. Um why don't we need to do is we need to update that chart of retirements. Yeah. >> Let us update that chart and then next week we can kind of share some of that information out. How's that sound? That's a perfect >> Yeah. And that chart is good if it if we just keep updating that that document because that does >> give us some ideas of that it's decision point. Okay. We do not have need for executive session. So does someone want to make a motion to adjourn? Made the motion to adjourn. Do a second. Bill second. All those in favor say I. I opposed

157that say we are ajourned.