001It is 5:30. >> And I'd like to call the Monday, February 12th, East Line Board of Ed special meeting to order. The first order of business is we do have needs for executive session. Miss I'll make a motion. >> Yes. I'd like to make motion that we go into executive session with Dennis Rio. Uh this is well county tenniso and this concludes chef superintendent director students Kim Davis for pending claims of litigation in relationship to CHRO case number 24421 >> second thanks um all those in favor say >> I opposed we are in executive session so we're going to I will be next. uh 6:16 and we are going to resume the special meeting. We had a need for executive session discussing pending claims and litigation in relation to CSRO case 2440421. We've exited executive
002session. And moving on to the opening of the meeting for the pledge of allegiance for those stand als One national business public comment. Any public comment? Public comment. Any public comment? Okay. Hearing none, we'll close the public comment. Moving on to special reports and we have canvas. >> Thank you. And I'll be uh the board of select then has established an adop committee to maybe create an appointment process procedure uh for our owners of it's a welcome addition the automated traffic ticketing ordinance passed the other night we would be having a special meeting tomorrow Tuesday at 4:30 to discuss the proposed sale tower that is coming up the public hearing at the sighting council and 95 project has delayed blasting until next week. >> Thanks for questions. Okay. If you have a consent agenda want
003to Yeah. >> Can I call on 5A? Please >> meeting minutes. >> We move meeting minutes from the board of regular meeting December 82. discussion action. Oh yes, we do. How about discussion action items other 10? Anyone want to make a motion for the other consent other than >> agendas [clears throat] >> and I don't have it as a slide. >> Oh, excluding 5. So from 5B to 5D. Anyone want to second that? And that was um Alisa. Does anyone want to second that? Second. Mick. All those in favor say I. >> I. Oppose. Stained. Consent agenda passes. the there are a couple meeting minutes and then there was a donation from steady photography uh for $1,95340 to the Eastline High School's principal activity fund. So appreciate that from steady photography. Okay, moving on. We
004have discussion and action items finance facilities community. We have discussion action pending claims and litigation that relates to the CHRO case 24421. Someone want to make a motion for um for that. Yes. Move the board of education authorization of superintendent to work on the district's insurance carrier for the Council of Senator CH case 4421 pass the motion to make a second. Um any discussion? Um all those in favor say I. I. >> Opposed abstain. Motion passes. So now we have kind of a little bit more of a procedural item. Uh and Chris is here if we do have any questions, but it's the educational specifications for the Nanic Center school roof project that if we need a motion to approve. >> Yeah. Just quick 30 seconds. Yeah. So no before you were the adspect for
005the NI center roof. This particular document is a document required for all projects that you are seeking school fund reimbursement from DASCR. Um for a roof it's very small very short just lay down the very basics of a whole new school of quality defined this but in this case it's just a formality that we need actually approved by the board before we go any further exactly what we did questions >> so I want to make a motion >> I'll make a motion to approve the educational specifications for the center school room project as presented. >> So we made the motion we seconded. Further discussion all those in favor say I. >> I opposed saying motion passes. Okay. Um, sorry to rush through all of that, but uh, we have a lot to cover on the
006budget, so wanted to get to that. So, uh, next agenda topic discussion superintendent 2026 2027 budget presentation. So, turn it over. >> All right. Great. Thank you. Um, Brandon, if you can pull up that uh, slide deck. Mariana is gonna hand out your honors to the board members. >> Thank you, Marian. Thank you. >> No, they didn't have >> Thanks. Sure. >> Yeah. too. >> It's in the bind. >> It's in the I see it. >> Yeah. All your slides are under tab. >> Don't open it. Somebody says open it. [laughter] Let me first uh I just want to point out a couple things in the binder for one to reference and you know more information data etc for the important funding as we you know engage in discussions if you look under uh tab
007one is the powerpoints that I go through um tab two uh there's quite a bit of data here we just want to share with you one we started with elementary then middle and high school uh class and enrollment information. So you'll see that as you scroll through the to the documents in tab 2. Um so you've got the the guidelines of the first page then the projected enrollment for elementary seconds a little bit more elementary data to utilize um which this year. Then the middle school see the middle school uh enrollment numbers and all the high school information follows that for all of the departments and then after high school you'll see an overall general education teacher instructor some bar graphs it's like this you go further in this gives you the overall certified staffing
008for general education teacher instructor counts over the last couple years where those numbers have gone and then next after that is other certified staff the OT PT all others. So again we'll talk about all this as we roll through uh you know our deliberations and discussions over the next few meetings. The last one there was a request for some bus stop information at the last meeting. So the very last page under that is um number of bus stops some data there which again build up conversation um as you roll the next few minutes and then from there the remaining you know tabs uh you have uh just the the what you see each year summary uh by object budget summary by locationation revenue grants information we've got a capital document in there I've got a
009capital slide as well, capital agreements, uh, object descriptions, and then lastly is some retirement incentive information too. So, you'll see that as well, and that will will engage in some conversations about the idea or potential if the world decides that you can move a forward that retirement incentive for ser. Okay, so that's the the binder. So, if you could turn back to the PowerPoint slides and we're going to roll through those. First, let me start off um by thanking uh the team um right from the schools and all of our uh our staff at school level um the administration at each school building departments for the work that they did in putting this together as we do each year. Um our central office uh staff obviously you know Mariana for all the work that she
010does with getting these numbers together doing such a phenomenal job each year. Um, but where would we be without her? And thanks, you know, to Carissa uh as well. Um, did a lot of work in putting her our her uh uh numbers, everything together. So, um, with that being said, we'll jump in. Um, first slide is the timeline. We usually show you the timeline of events uh where we started November 17th with our first workshop and then uh underneath that December 15th we incorporated that workshop and into the board meeting on December 15th but still you know was additional budget discussions there. Then um here we are January 12th uh and March 2nd is the public hearing the board of ed and then we're still waiting for a few more finalized dates from the town
011in relation to the art budget presentations for selection for finance and then the board finance public hearing is in April meeting May 11th and then referendum on May 21st. So timeline [clears throat] is there for April and we'll continue to fill those in as we based on slide three. This is basically our our breakdown of um what's transpired and where we are with the final uh increase going into next year. So the 2526 adopted budget was 63,232400 uh with the department requests and rollovers back in November when we first started some initial conversations and then December early December um we had landed on the 68 million 724 850 which represented at that time an 8.69% 69% increase over the current fiscal year. Then we went and did our homework uh dove into the budgets, dove
012into all the departments at our meetings, thorough meetings with our you know our uh each school building um administration um comb through everything uh and we uh made a a reduction. Um so superintendent's proposed budget building next year is currently at 67 million by 2879 rating. What makes up a chunk of that? Obviously those next or the majority of that are those next three items the salary increase uh 1 million610 329 employee benefits which we'll talk about 1 million452 321 and then all the other increases that are part of that which is 1 million233743 um I will say uh you know the salary increases being the largest number um we have contracts that we have uh rolled out for certified staff or non-certified ified staff. We've had increases in the impacts which are well warranted
013for our our teachers, our certified staff as well as our parent educators. Um they work very hard. We looking at the data across towns and areas you were we were not where we needed to be. So we bumped and elevated them up to where they need to be. So we've got some uh some good contracts and some uh which are welld deserved for our staff. So total increase over the current fiscal [clears throat] year 4 billion296 393 represents at this point a 6.79% increase. Now if you took insurance and we showed this at the uh December workshop took insurance out which represents right now a 15% increase we have as a placeholder in the budget. You took that out we would be sitting at a 4.52% increase rather than a 6.7 million. So we'll give
014you some more numbers and data on insurance in just a few minutes. Uh just another way on slide four to kind of went into the proposed budget process with you know where we were in November and December. Um really kind of you know in December we had that preliminary budget which I just mentioned 8169. Uh we did our homework reduced1,196,7 and brought that down uh to 67,528793 for an overall uh budget uh for total budget for chair represent 6.7%. Uh major budget drivers on slide five um these drivers make up 94% of the total increase. So you're just looking at the the increase in the budget is what this is reflected. So um again I mentioned salaries I mentioned benefits of 15%. You look at contracted services um industrial education items you know being the
015mayor represent part of that increase transportation we locked in a new 7.55 Mariana correct 7.55% increase for transportation for busing over the next five years. Um, and come to find out in talking with other area districts, we we did pretty well with with that percentage increase. So, uh, a lot of other districts are paying a lot more money. >> Our daily rate, even though we had a 7.55% increase, our daily rate is very, um, competitive in comparison to the rates for other districts. So, >> and I think their original offer to us for an increase was at 15%. And we worked with first student to bring that down to the 7.55. now. >> Yep. Maintaining the same company and uh so I think we uh we did well with u you know where we were
016at where Harrison was our expation uh dollars moving forward and then the last one in the tuition um that consists of you know our place special education uh in tuition. So you can see those five you know major areas again make up 94% of the overall increase. Uh so out of the roughly 4.3 million increase just over 4 million of it is those budget major budget drivers that's broken down a little bit further on slide six where you can just kind of see some of the particular model and the uh time um percent health insurance is a little bit further breakdown issue as well. Then on slide seven uh so um the other 5.66% 66% of that 100%. Uh the 90 almost 95% was you know those other five major areas. This is the remaining
017percent um of the increase. So uh utilities supplies equipment software repairs and maintenance and other Mariana has done some really good work with utilities um which some of you know share cost the town that we we got to bid on together. Um and we've we've had some pretty favorable fairly favorable numbers here. We've been able to produce some you know utilities coming for next year. So that should benefit us. So that is uh in all the major budget drivers and the other budget categories make up 100% of the increase. On slide E, we just broke that down in pie chart format. You can see um the entire budget um you know in in every year and I do say this every year uh salaries and benefits make up almost 80% in the overall overall budget.
018Um so you can see that break down there and then we always show our fixed slide um our fixed cost slide. the next one. So, you know, within an operate educational operating budget, you know, 9 to5% of that budget um is is fixed cost, it's contracts. Um so, you know, you don't have a lot of leeway to be able to easily make, you know, changes to reductions because we have fixed contracts that allow transportation being one of them. We're at 7.55 now for, you know, the next five years. So um what was I showed expense slide as well? One we didn't put it in and then it was asked for again. So couple years couple years ago then there's health insurance on slide 10. So this is uh where mentioned we're at 15% for an
019increase right now. That's the recommendation from the state uh state partnership plan was saying between 12 and 15 you know most likely for an increase. Um we went on the high end. We put 15% in. Absolutely. Hoping that it comes down. We have another meeting with the state partnership plan end of January. >> Yeah. >> Is it 20th? 20th of January. So, we'll have more information at that time. Um hoping that it does decrease because you can see what that does for us. Dropping it down to even 1% saves us n just over 93 $93,000 9425. So if we got down to about 10% or 12% you know that's a couple hundred,000 that we're looking at potentially in you know savings. So we can hope that it will uh it will come down. Um but
020we are at you know the higher end so we don't want to go under have to add money back into into the budget obviously uh get insurance. So 15% for an increase down. Uh slide 11 just gives you a representation of where we've been the last few years as it pertains to the preliminary budget where we were kind of out of the gate my proposed budget to the board uh the board of education's adopted budget and then the final final adopted budget based off of reference. So you can see each year where that's where that's fallen picture there. Um slide 12 and 13 um are some per pupil expenditure. And so we we've updated these. We like to show these each year so you have it. We can have more conversations about about these. But
021uh the first one on slide 12 is area districts. So our shoreline area region basically region uh school districts that are nearby us. You know where we were in 2324 for use in 2425. It's always a year behind. And then 24 25 data is for using 25 26. So we're using always using last year's data. But you can see now these lines we've gone a little bit went from 23 245 to uh data shown 24209. But we'll reference the rest of the other districts that have gone higher um and have a higher PE you know than than we do. but also not, you know, we're at the top of this chart when it comes to uh our academic stand and achievement as well. So, you always want a lower PPE and obviously the higher academic
022achievement. So, that's area districts and the dirt. So, you can see the uh the districts as well and the movement that has occurred, you know, with towns, you know, over the last few years. On slide 14, projected enrollment was want to get we continue to track obviously our projected enrollment pretty flat pretty level. Not a I mean there's been some movement um downwards uh a little bit but uh if you look at 2526 current school year it's 2497 actual as of last end of last week with students. So pretty darn close um where we are currently versus uh you know what was what's been projected out and that just takes you out to 2013 itself continue to get that um slide 15 special education prevailance rates you know our prevailance rate against the state you
023know continues to uh the prevailance rate is the number of students that we have uh uh receiving special uh special education services um so has ticked up a little bit but um not greatly um you know but we uh we continue to uh imply climbing uh you know some of our burger rate but um nothing great uh a great number and then the next slide gives you a breakdown of those totals you have a total individual education plans IEPs which is sitting at 525 in the district off of two 2442 students >> as of last Monday I think Tuesday when I updated the slide. Yeah. >> Okay. Say 525 and total 504 um plans 291. >> Um we Kim did a nice job of breaking this down. I think somebody asked for it last year.
024>> Was that >> said she did all the acronyms? >> I did all the percent. >> Last year I had all the acronyms with you. Yeah. So, uh, it just gives you by by disability, by category as to where our our numbers are falling. Um, next on slide 17, we always like to outline and continue to outline the art of shared services and the ongoing cost mitigation measures. Um, we continue try and expand on, you know, shared services obviously mentioned utilities like a little bit of town. um the financial software platform, Ununice shared service. Um we're sharing uh we're in year two or three I think no two with the nursing supervisor. >> No, it feels like we're here. This is only the second year. Fabulous. >> Second year of sharing a nursing supervisor with
025uh and sharing a pool of of nurse subs as well with which has gone extremely well. Um you know, really well. So we're happy with that. I mean, we're we're paying we're splitting a cost basically for what would be quite a bit of money to have our own supervisor. So, uh it's it's really has been a win-win. Um same thing with our current EMT course here at the high school. Uh we have already know we have students coming from Logger, students coming from uh my old mine that take our EMT course. So, want to get this out to make sure community, anybody watching this continues to hear that message of reward. on these ongoing shared services are saving money. We charge, you know, for those students to come here. And then we send a few
026students over to Waterford for their automotive course because they have a car lift in their high school and some other opportunities that we don't have, you know, here on site. So, all in all, this has worked very well. We might have some other other districts are interested uh too. You know, Montville was interested maybe potentially trying to send some kids to our AT course next year. So, there's room that could be a third district that will be sending students to, you know, potentially east lines. Um we had another district that was down Friday looking at you know spent the afternoon with me um Mr. Kidd and Dulo uh looking at our programs. Um so word is out there of the things that we're doing is these pathways and uh you know services and care cost
027uh mitigation uh efforts. Then uh on slide 18 just [clears throat] to break down on you know let's not forget Salem because we Salem pays us for coverage for security. So Mr. Mr. Hall, our security director works for Salem overseeing security services for Salem. Uh our um facilities uh and food services, both directors here, Dr. Lund and Urban, our food service director, both oversee Salem's food service and facilities and Sam pays us services. So some good collaboration efforts that uh that was in order. You know, our community growth and partnerships. I won't read through these, but these there's a whole host more than this, but these are the highlighted ones that really have have been sustained, you know, over the last few years. Um, and have done great things for kids, continue great things for
028kids, uh, and continue to grow as well. So, and you know what's what's awesome about this too is most these are free free services for kids that you know they're part of and many of them pay us you know for uh you know for items or provide you know our press gets materials provided uh for free which through some of these eastern work space. So um again another win-win electrical we've got students graduating going right to right to work at eBay um being hired you know on the spot. So um so the partnerships grow. Um thought I'd throw in we had a talk actually something we could bring forward or have a little bit more discussion on at some point. CHC community health uh center here at the high school uh continues to thrive. We're
029upwards of 23 students. Uh now we're we just had a meeting earlier um in the late fall about you know we want this down at the middle school too. We want another program at the middle. We got a great spot for it. Kelly has a great spot down there. So, um, we're in the process of working, uh, next steps out there. Hopefully, that's a slow little bit of a slow process. I know some of you remember it took a while for to get the high school and we always have some upfront cost, but now it's self- sustaining. So, uh, it's, uh, it's been great and has been good for kids. Capital improvements plan projects on site 21. In your binders, there's a much deeper set. Each item, there's a breakdown of information that Dr. Lump
030put together, uh, narratives, etc. a good look at those. But this is just the overview of our um proposed uh capital items going into next year. Um our first the first town capital committee meeting is this week at least two next week and they roll from there. So I know Jill, you're part of that u that committee. So we'll be meeting with the town members this week. Slide 22. Um we've used this in the past. People seem to individuals seem to like it members. It's just the reduction scenario. So you can get a picture of how much further we may or may not reduce in the budget going in the next year and what it does to the variance and the percent and the dollars overall. So you have a picture of uh you know
031wanted to be add such and such. This is how much more smearing it as we put all that together each year. Um and then uh the last two slides um certified staffing updates. You saw some of this information at the December workshop, but just to give our community an overview, retirees, we've got uh you can see up in the left hand box, we've got one FTE retiring uh in math at the high school, one global language, and we have an integrated prek retiree, and then two at NA center, two elementary teachers at NA center uh for retirement. We have one year only positions. We had a few of them. I've removed some already from the budget which you can see the staffing reductions as 112. Still in the budget is the 1.0 FT high school
032council which you know and we'll talk about all of these obviously as we forward but I just wanted to provide you with a breakdown and what I've already taken out. Um so you can see the staff reductions as of 112 the 1.0 you know, the one year, two one-year positions that have come out. And if you want to reference back the class size, the elementary class size, you can see those reflect these three staffing reductions. So, we're almost spot on with our guidelines. If we're above one tick at Flry School, um, but we're pretty darn close and that's with the removal of those three positions. Okay. again we'll talk more about in a lot of other positions and then uh lastly is u additional budgetary ideas options just things for obviously the court to be
033thinking about and this is uh there's there's many more could be more but um you know the retirement incentive for certified non-ertified staff uh there's documentation under tab E in your binder which we'll refer to as we move into you know the next couple meetings of of the board and talk further about that. We can be looking at the facilities and equipment cycles which we did last year hoping that health insurance number will go down. I don't know if people want to play with it at all, but you know it's at the 15% I'm now which we've said and then potential additional staffing reductions and hearings if the board wants to entertain or look at those this um and that uh that's it. So I thank you for your attention to that and uh we'll
034uh you take your binders obviously home. We have this electronically too so we can share electronically but we want to make sure you have all of this information. >> Okay. >> All right. questions for debt. Uh Lee >> or just a a request I don't know if you have it available but um related to the per people expenditure I know last year we had a kind of graph or chart that was able to showcase yeah >> per people expenditure um kind of correlated to academic outcomes. >> Yes. >> Would you be able to >> Yeah. I just didn't put in here yet was saving that some other data some accountability index data. Um, we've got to talk about DURG information too because we've been working off of the older DUI um versus the the United
035Finance Project DUR information. We put in a different DUI. So, we had to have some more conversations about that. We have that slide and updated ROI slide. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Y >> um I'm going to ask my usual question. Do we have any um idea if the town is close to being done their audits so that we can get line by line item budget back? >> Um they're working for me uh 2324 audit sponsor and if that gets done get line items back. Um so it that gets done they close the year or before >> yes I can run um I can run a report so they get that year done and then we can get that I have to yes because right now there would be too many years open um >>
036Joe did you have a What? What are we going to be reassigning to? >> What dirt are we going to be in? >> The Connecticut Finance Advisor puts us in dirt C versus D. >> Okay. >> But more to discuss on on that. We have some other conversations. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I had a question on slide 16, which is a phenomenal slide. Thanks, Kim. Um, and I think this might be too hard to do, but let me just see if we can. Is there any way to take the numbers 11 or whatever items and put the ones that are generally higher cost like rank them in terms of general not specific but just >> because what would be helpful to see is you know specific learning disability has a hundred but maybe that's generally
037lower cost item and maybe some of the because some of these are really high cost but it could be one could be significant and others could be a hundred less significant than the one. Is there any way to somewhat >> I can certainly think about that >> for specifics just kind of some type of gradient. >> Well, as we always tell parents at meetings there the label doesn't really drive their program. So you could have any label really and have a higher or a lower cost program depending on your individual needs and intensity of your particular disability. But um I don't know. I'll keep thinking about >> some way soon to be conversations and uh the work you'll all do moving forward. Anything else that comes up too between now and the 26 or when
038our next meeting is, please feel free to reach out. >> Oh, we're going to talk more after. >> Yeah, we're going to talk next week. So we can roll that out as we do again we thank you for mention that we do have that other data too which we'll bring the two thanks next been this discussion town of east line budget overview and we have first left hand overview of the town and then we can kind of discuss next steps for our budget our budget process now that we have Jeff's bud thanks oh thank Thank you. First of all, I want to thank uh you know the board for all the hard work you've already done the budget sessions and uh I know it starts very early. Um so thank you and thanks for inviting
039me here. Um I know you don't need a pep talk on how we have to you know we have to try to hold the budget and and reduce it. I know everybody knows that. Uh in the past uh we've had 2425 we saw a 5.95% increase in the budget. 2526 the budget we saw a 6.3 increase. That trend is unsustainable and it's a partnership between everybody in this room, board of finance, board of selectman, board of ed. It's incumbent on us to find ways um to improve and reduce that trend. Um we're not without resources. We have a large budget. The task and I know you've already done it and done a lot of it is to strate to to use strategic planning concepts to manage those resources and you know you have pockets of
040information pockets of of uh money uh in different places and you have to try to see where there's common areas where you you can try to reduce the expense. And there are some things that are baked into your, you know, seeing the the the graphs tonight, we all know that there are expenses that are baked in to your budget that you really can't do too much with, but there are some areas for um improvement and we all have to try as hard as we can to try to get below and we, you know, we just can't sustain another 6.3% budget increase. So, um, we're going to see a lot more detail, uh, at the board of finance meeting on Wednesday afternoon. We'll have more hard numbers to look at. Uh, you know, we've already started
041our meetings with the various departments, but it takes everyone together. So, uh, I look forward to working with everyone. We've got to try to see if we can reverse the trend. Um, nobody promised dur when we just came through elections, uh, nobody promised that there wouldn't be budget increases or, uh, tax increases. But what was promised and what was represented was that we would use strategic planning concepts and the best thinking possible to reduce it and to minimize the impact on the forces that are outside of our control. So, I thank everybody. look forward to seeing you all uh on or some of you um on uh Wednesday afternoon and uh we'll all work together see if we can get this job done. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Any questions for Dan? >> Thanks Dan.
042>> Of course. So, um, so for us, we thought we could start with something pretty basic, which is just our calendar for a second because, um, Jeff and I had met and we're going through and I started to get a little concerned as we kind of work backwards what we have to do. So, we have our public hearing February 23rd. Just a question. Are you going back to item C for this or >> it's this is this is part of the just overall budget overview. >> Okay. >> So on February 23rd um is there a public hearing? We're at January 12th. So between January 12th and the 23rd we have two meetings. So that's uh just a concern in itself to get to a vote was a public hearing on the 23rd. So then the
043other challenge is the 26 is um we have our Salem co-op group and we've had our Salem co-op meeting here the past three times and they've asked that it be at Salem which is hard to say no to um given it's been here at least the best two times. So, if we did the January 26th up in Salem, that would be at 7:00, which for the most part makes it pretty hard for us to have any kind of substantive discussion on the 26. So, I wanted people and we don't need to come to an answer today, but for me, there's kind of a couple options. Can we have another meeting sometime that week on the 26th and or do we need a meeting on February 2nd which is the Monday um between the 26th and
044the uh next week is Martin Luther King on Monday. So So we're not going to we're not going to meet on the the that day. So we'd have to move later in the week. So um given the timing of the public hearing and the discussions that we need not only on budget but we have other topics that are fairly meaty that we wanted to cover. Um it does feel like we may need another meeting. Jeff and I are meeting on Wednesday and I'm trying to plan out, you know, January through April, like what are we covering at each meeting at a high level so so we can all take a look at like what's coming up, what are the big topics and what's coming ahead. Um, and there are some, you know, big meeting topics
045in addition to the budget, which if you remember last year, we didn't get that much done other than budget during the budget. you know, we're trying to really make sure that we cover other topics in addition to the budget during that the meeting. So, um, if everyone can, you know, kind of look at your calendars, look at February 2nd, maybe look at a a meeting in addition to the 26th that week. um we can decide if they need one more meeting or two more meetings. Maybe one more February 2nd dedicated to budget and we don't have anything else on it. That might be enough. Um but I I just wanted to put that out there for everyone because it's >> two questions. Um, one, when we did this meet calendar on December 8th, it has
046the same followup meeting as February 9th. Is that not true? >> It was supposed to be the It was scheduled for the 26th. U, we were trying to move it to the 9th. Probably needs to be the 26th, >> but if we moved that to the 9th, we'd lose the ninth meeting anyway. So no matter what we'd be losing meeting, but the meeting was scheduled for the 26th originally, >> but not when we did the bud the calendar >> because the calendar has it as the night >> with the calendar we were trying to move it to the 9th. We had not I guess we put the calendar out without having discussed with sale but that the original date for the co-op going back was the 26th. Jeff, am I that long correct? >> No,
047I think I think so. We went back and forth conversation too. We didn't get uh was waiting for components from S to work but so 26 is where it's landing right now works for them um from what they're already said. Sorry confusing. Uh we'll go back and forth but u I don't know maybe locking target date and then it's some if whether it's 26 whether it was the 26th or 9th we still if we're going to there we kind of we're losing them even. uh we've been lucky enough or they've been nice enough they've come down the past few which is allowed we'll have a meeting for that or typically it's like 45 minutes or something and then we can go on and have the rest of our meeting and they lose their meeting that
048night so they have a meeting that night they come down the hill and they they don't meet after that so um they've asked that we come to them which I think is reasonable So, um, so Carissa will kind of poll, um, the board. Um, but we, if everyone can get back and kind of look at February 2nd andor maybe some dates after the 26th, that week of the 26th, um, to have a second meeting. If we can all make the second, I think we can maybe just add one meeting on the second and kind of make it a budget only meeting and that probably will get us through this the other topics that we're going to cover which we can cover on the 9th as well. >> We will need a quorum for Salem's meeting.
049>> Yeah. >> As well. >> Yeah. So we'll we'll make sure people we could we'll have enough people will be up in Salem for 7 o'clock on the 26th. >> So not six either. >> They have uh committee meetings before their meeting that starts at 7 >> the 26th. So in two weeks from today is the Salem co-op meeting in Salem at Salem School. >> Yeah. >> Five from the second. Are we open to non Monday meeting dates? Will those be involved in the >> if people are both? >> Yeah, if that's if people are open. I mean, if we can I mean, ideally, we want because we're going to be discussing pretty the budget, so it's something that if we can get 10 um that would be really great. Um don't know if we
050can. So, people want to provide a few dates to Carissa and she can pull the group and see if we can get to one. Um, I'm open to whatever we however we can get a meeting, I'm I'm definitely open to whatever way we can have a meeting. So Ben, um, any other questions on the calendar? What do you want? Wait, it's a non Monday meeting has to be a Friday. Okay. >> Okay. >> So, it's going to be really hard to get us all together uh for another meeting. So, we're going to do the best we can. And again, as some people have to zoom in, >> as long as that's we are flexible about that, then it doesn't matter what day. >> Okay. Okay. Yeah. I mean I think we have to if we're
051adding a meeting I think we have to I mean we have a bit flexible anyway but we work we work pretty well with the zoom um I think it's important that you can have the discussions. Okay. The other um part of this is I thought it would be helpful if we can all if there's certain areas that we want Jeff and the team to kind of look into more not dig into currently but just like what are the areas as we're looking for to understand get more information and understand more. nearly helpful that we kind of give some of that context to Jeff um so he and his team can work on it as we prepare for whenever that next meeting is so they can come in and kind of present and and do a
052deeper dive on whatever those areas are. So, I don't know if there's um I can start. I know that um but I know there's a a slide on transportation. Um so, we can maybe spend a little more time at the next meeting to go through that transportation slide. Um are there others that Oh, there's the high school. Um so, thanks Mr. P for putting together. There's not only do we have the um student um class sizes in um elementary and middle and there's analytics in each of those tabs for those two. We also have something on the high school. So we can take a look at that. So we'll probably want to spend some time asking questions going through and seeing what we can do from a class size perspective at all levels. So class
053this is a the a general kind of conversation. Oh there's >> it'd be interesting and this might be in the budget binder. I'll find out when I dig in but more information around I think the like textbook software piece and kind of specifically like usage and impact. So uh like I know we brought on a few new kind of software tools like magic AI for instance. I'd be curious to see kind of what percentage of our students are utilizing that tool and kind of just a general like yeah cost of breakdowns and you didn't just tell me that's in the binder and I'll do my own research. >> No, it's actually it's not we have a whole soft real listing um of every piece of software that we use and usage rates. So >> usage
054rates. Yeah. Uh if we have like multi contracts with different vendors, it would be help in another big bucket. >> And on top of right in line with that and I'm going it was six, seven, eight years ago. We did a consolidation of software because we had different schools and we're using different softwares and I think we did pretty well. But is there any opportunity for further consolidation on that single soft look at the utilization and all that you can also see is there some way to negotiate more with langu um and I'm missing it and what information has already been provided. Um we have we have the teaching staff and we have the you know certified instructional information available here in these fields is there what is the administrative stuff beyond the teaching is
055there some summary of that we didn't pull it together we easily can yeah with a list of I mean we did no changes with it but we can we can put that listing right in So, yep, we'll build a a slide to that or a chart and maybe it's just we would it be helpful to see just secretaries, custodians like each paras. Are there any um repairs, maintenance? I guess that was what opportunities have. >> Yeah, those will be uh they're in um >> that's different than the capital >> that's different expense under 5,000. >> Yeah. >> Mark. So yeah, there are a few items that are in there. I'll give you the example of uh you know middle school bargaining. Another year of middle schooling that's in the budget about this stay in does
056it go. So um there's a couple other items too. when we start walking through and you're looking at breaking down um you know magic codes and summaries and so forth we can start having conversations about it for sure. So that'll be part of that kind of facility cycle. Who else? Okay. Well, that's a good start. So if we can get a calendar and we can focus on these topics um that will be a good start for having budget discussions and again this you know so we have the public hearing on the 23rd And then you so that in March we're going to be presenting the board of select many board of finance generally mid March they present have deliberations the early March I guess. So, um, you know, it all kind of comes together pretty
057quickly and there's a lot of work that we're going to have to do in that time frame. Okay. So, I know that we [clears throat] have a couple of people on the board of finance and they're really asking for metrics and I think that we're going to need to be ready with those metrics like student outcomes and um you know what I'm talking about with like money invested in our students and the students performance and I think we need to be ready with that. I think another thing that I would like to suggest is that if at all possible, we do not reduce staff at all because we know that that really gets our community excited. Not in a good way, but kind of in a revolutionary way. And I think we need to be
058really careful with that. The third thing I think is that we really need to think about any grants that might be available. I know we've talked previously about having a grant writer within the district and having that person he or she have money have their salary paid for based on the salary on the grants that they would receive. And then the last thing is putting it out to so this would be four points. The fourth point would be to putting it out putting it out to the student senate. I know we've talked about this previously, but giving them the opportunity to think about um how we can save money, how we can reduce costs, given what um our first selectman, Mr. Cunningham, just said to us and hearing from people um that I'm not related
059to that are on the board of finance, hearing what they're saying about the board of finance and the budget and what's going to happen. I think we need to be extremely judicious and careful and thoughtful and I just want to kind of go into this with um our eyes wide open and our ears listening and doing our best. And I know we always do that, but I just [gasps] want to take a deep breath and just say let's let's do it to the best of our ability. And thank you guys all for listening to me. >> Thanks, Gate. And and I wonder if can we give we have three high school student representatives. Can we ask them to take an action to work with students in the high school to see if they can come
060up with some ideas to talk to the maybe we could use them as that conduit to share us some further information or thoughts as well. >> I think it's good. >> We want them more involved. This actually gives them something to get involved in. >> Yes, we are going to get more metric type questions. I think we need to be prepared for some of those as well. But it I definitely support engaging the student community. Um but to to get get make it useful and make it worth your while. Maybe you should probably also incentivize it in terms of not not not in a monetary way but more in terms of um you know maybe some kind of a certificate or commendation uh if they come up with an idea and it gets adopted it's
061something that we should probably do and we probably also want to provide them some parameters to work with. You can't just say that we, you know, we find find some money to save. We probably need to provide some guidance to them and I I leave it to Jeff and they start to kind of figure out what those parameters will be. But um incentivizing them and giving them parameters actually gives them guidepost what they need to. Second second I wanted to say in terms of outcomes um and how how we are benefiting the student community is test scores are one way of of of looking at it that's that's always available. Um but then the other other uh uh component of um our training is whether the students are able to achieve what they wanted to
062do. I don't know how to capture that other than asking the students that okay did you get into the type of you wanted to go to did you get into the type of you know service industry you wanted to get to how was our training then I don't know what is available but if there is anything available I think we need to leverage that and if you're not collecting that kind of information you probably need to start that's kind of my my but I definitely ag of what what Kate just suggested especially in terms of of of engaging the student interesting on your your second point is the question what do you think so if we pull and we need people to respond but one year post high school so wherever they end up and
063kind of the general question abroad would just did these line schools prepare you forever whatever whatever you chose next. So for college, for trade, whatever it is, and do you feel like you were well prepared? Yes. Why? No. Why not? Um or what still what could do better is because I worry about the did I get into the school I wanted? A lot of kids a lot of kids get into great schools, but it's not the one, you know, it's not not the one that we we we have. So we have a lot of high hopes. >> That's the best I could come up with. But there's a discussion on how >> maybe in some Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that outcome data, >> you know, it's it's not you're not going to
064get 100% response. The thing is if if you go out a year, it means you'll probably not get enough response. >> Yeah. >> Okay. If you tie it to before you graduate, you need this will be a requirement for you to at least answer some basic questions. You at least have an answer. Yeah. >> For for the graduating class for for that. So now again, I'm not mandating. >> No, it's a good idea. No, it's a good idea. It's a good idea. >> Yeah. And to to some of your point, Vic, I just was spun up and to Kate's point as well, I wanted to mention, you know, when folks are asking for accountability or finance is asking for accountability, I'm going to direct them to Edsite. Um, it keeps growing with more and more
065information, um, you know, our accountability index, student growth, student achievement, um, comparisons. It's starting to do some of that alumni stuff as well. Um, you know, so it just it's a great site for folks to go to and you you can do so many comparisons and gather so much data specific to Eastland. So you have it up there. >> I always have it up there. >> So Edite Yep. Yep. CTV, state of Connecticut. Type in Edite and Connecticut's official source of educational data >> and you can pull up everything. >> Yeah. So all of these things are uh are there um give you educator counts you know too for different uh areas um assessments accountability graduation and beyond. Here's a fab right here. So um graduation rates college career graduation beyond. So take a look
066at it u because I'm going to be referencing this uh in finance. market. >> No, I just I just just want to say that I think that that that type of data is great and I think we should definitely leverage that. I think we need to we need to add a little bit more context to it from hearing directly from the student community so that >> it's not mean at the end of the day it is not what is considered statistically pure data but that's not the point. The point is for us to you know collect enough anecdotal information so that we can continue to react to the needs of the community at the same time maybe rely on the more more u what you call uh robust data sets to come at the bigger
067thresh >> um so I just I'm going to piggyback on the metrics while I think it's a great idea um I know I have not kept my dislike of standardized testing to myself. Um they are just one snapshot of a child. They're not the whole child. They're just that one moment in time. Um on standardized testing day, they could have had a bad day and they could have failed miserably and that doesn't really show you what that student can achieve or who they are. Um metrics could be I mean if you're looking at how many kids went to college, is that a fair metric? Because some of our pages are not meant for college. They're meant for real life. So, I guess you're going to have to figure out what metric is measurable by achieving
068it because I think our students graduating and going to work at EB and having a great life is awesome. Skipping college, no debt, and they're doing great. Uh, going to be a mechanic and they're loving life and they're happy. I consider that a good metric because they achieved, they went out, they did they didn't go to college, they didn't get debt, but they went out and they are happy and successful in their choice of life. So, I just would like to be careful with metrics because it doesn't show all of our children and how wonderful and capable they are. It just literally shows that one day that they took a test and it's not who our kids represent totally. It's just my only concern with metrics >> and I I completely agree. I do not
069want to rely on on standardized testing as as a key metric. Yes, it is it is a metric. It is one of the several things that we need to consider and when it comes to looking at you know it it doesn't matter whether you went to college or not. It's did you get what you wanted to do? I think that's the that's the key question we need an answer to. It does not matter what line, what discipline, what vocation you choose. It will be preparing you now for what you want. >> I think that's the key. How to how to get that information? >> We'll have to brainstorm. I I don't have it here. >> Yeah. Um, I I want to make a comment about the class size thing and the work at the that
070the high school did to provide this, which I don't think we've ever seen this level of detail and yeah >> and breakdown in terms of what type of course it is and all of that. Obviously, that's a tremendous amount of work that went into this these pages and that's appreciate that. I I remember when we talked about that in the past some of these classes and I don't know what percentage or how easy that would be to put I mean it's I don't know that it's even possible but for example and I know it happens at my school like there's a section of creative writing for example and advanced creative writing and they're both in the same period yet the average number is not really showing like what how many student I guess what I'm
071getting at is some of these numbers don't actually reflect how many students are in a given class. I think in it like if you look at journalism all right >> it actually says >> it does say that okay >> that's combined like for one seme right you have it where it's like one semester first semester this one and this one are combined and second semester so you >> did not I tried to make note for you all where there are combined courses >> okay >> um you know but you know certainly was a lot of you know numbers to weed through so if you do have questions yeah >> um you know to follow up on no problem but I did try Yeah, I'm sorry I missed that journalism. >> Yeah, no problem. Yeah, >>
072we've had the data for all of 10 minutes. [laughter] But certainly if you have questions that you want to follow question move on from budget um board of finance or sle thank you for coming you're more than welcome to stay but we're going to move on to our other topics but thanks so much >> thank you appreciate >> um moving on committee on boards You haven't had it, right? >> Supposed to say it was supposed to be meeting today. >> Tomorrow >> it's not for today. >> Yeah. >> Oh, sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Like uh not um Yeah. uh well part of that but there was a student blogging experience committee >> I was going saying but I was like >> so do we get an update on >> okay um we have a lot going
073on we're start about to start to get very busy um Wednesday is the legislative breakfast from 7:30 to 9 in Mville if anybody can mitch um Carol is the area 9 director She is from Rockville. Um we are going to kick off the uh next K convention. Um in two weeks we're having our first meeting if anybody wants to join that convention committee. We have a lot of superintendent on it. >> There are a lot of board members. So if anybody wants to, you know, join that meeting, that's going to be fun. Um we have our board of directors retreat next week on the 20th. Um the next week we head to DC to do some legislating. Um marching on Capitol Hill. We're there for like a week. Um and then the next week we
074have a board of directors meeting. And then the next week uh March 11th is day on the hill at 9 in Harford. If anybody wants to come to that, we meet our legislators. We do another march on the Capitol. [laughter] A lot of marching on the Capitol. Um there's also one, two, three finance webinar series coming up. One is the 13th, so tomorrow at 12, deep dive into budget development. Uh there's one on February 25th at 12, deep dive into the budget adoption process. And then there's one on March 19th, best practices for financial oversight. That's what I got. Any questions for >> give a quick learn. We learn meeting on this Thursday. Um the most relevant items for us. Um we so we going through similar [snorts] budget stuff for learn. So we're going
075through their proposed salary benefit increases. So you go through that whole whole process. Learn is a little different because they don't have taxable taxing authority. They don't tax people. So they have to have enough revenues coming in to to manage theirs. And so they do have a cushion um that they have to have you because if things go bad and and enrollment declines or anything like that, they can't just in theory tax more. Not that we can just go out and tax more, but they have uh less ability. So kind of interesting again going through that and their increase um pretty similar to what um you know like union agreements that are pretty similar increases to what we've been doing and their non union walls or 2.75% increase um just kind of general weight increases.
076So that's what they're uh proposing and this the large portion of the meeting. We also had a the new board member uh this was is the turnover meeting when new board members joined learn. So they went through a new board member orientation. So that was a good chunk of everything. Okay. Um, any questions I learned? We have a high school vision community meeting next week. This week, >> Next week. 20th 20. Um, what was the board for global language? Yes. speaker. I need to talk to um because we've had to move that meeting. >> Okay. >> So um yeah, I think we need to kind of set the stage with I know we were I know our next regular board meeting we got talk about district again. So we're to discuss directions we're going here.
077>> Okay. >> Timing. >> Okay. Well, we do have need for executive session. So, we want to maybe notice she'll move us into executive session. I got it. I'll make a motion to enter executive session to include Superintendent Jeff Newton and security director Don Hall for the purpose of discussion to consider security strategy um for the deployment of security personnel or devices in accordance with general staff. >> Thanks. I'll >> make motion seconded. All those in favor say I. >> I opposed. Extained. We're in executive session. Thanks everyone. Um, hey, you can make >> Yeah, I'm real quick Go come back for more.