001Stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty, and justice. I will uh now turn the meeting over to Superintendent White to address her superintendent. >> Thank you, Chair Ponds. Good evening to everyone and thank you all for participating, those of you online and in person, including our board of education commissioners, mayor Alan Zabosasu, board of finance, city council members, BPS staff, and the larger community. Our team appreciates your taking the time to hear directly from us regarding the stories behind the numbers in this budget request. And we appreciate the opportunity to publicly share our responses to the questions that were posed to us at the conclusion of the first budget
002workshop on January 24th. This presentation will be posted on our Bristol Public Schools website tomorrow and the video recording will be posted on our YouTube page before the end of the week. My team and I have divided up responsibility for responding to each of the questions from Saturday, January 24th based on our area responsibility. So you'll hear from different members of the central office team this evening. Before answering the first question, I wanted to set some um context and remind us of the budget timeline uh from last year. So before um >> the final budget was approved, of course, I presented my superintendent's proposed budget in January of 2025. That proposed budget was $146,949,581, which was an increase of 16,414,878 or a 12.58% increase. >> You're hungry. After I presented that proposed budget, the board
003of education asked me to decrease that amount by approximately $6 million. That brought the budget down to $140,839, $680. >> Put the spaghetti $4,977 or 7.89% increase. Um when the budget uh was decreased by that amount, it stopped being the superintendent's budget and then it then became the board of education budget which was then presented to the board of finance in March of 2025. In May of 2025, the joint city council and board of finance voted to approve a 2025 bud 2526 budget which left a deficit of $3,777,865, which the board of education had approved in June. That deficit necessitated additional budget cuts on top of the $6 million that was cut from the original superintendent's budget, which required a reduction in force, which had adverse impact on school operations and continues to do so.
004Following last year's budget deficit, our principles have already made significant adjustments, including reductions in force, elimination of positions, deferred maintenance, and the reassignment of staff across schools. As a result result, school budgets are already operating very lean and has been challenging for principles and staff to operate the schools at full capacity um with the loss of staff and the loss of programming. So I just wanted to set that context in relation to the first question. Um as you can see on the screen uh for on each of the slides we actually um repeated the question so you can see the question and our response. So um when I presented the u my proposed budget on January 24th I discussed the steps in the budget development process. One of these steps is to hold budget meetings
005for principles and department heads superintendent and finance to refine budget requests. This slide describes the process we use with principles. Um it begins with um schools allocating allocate a per pupil amount based on the October 1st enrollment count. Uh because of redistricting for West Bristol School, Green Hill School, and Northeast Middle School, we use the MP planning enrollment targets. Budget line item requests along with technology request, building improvement requests, and staffing requested were presented and compiled into the master budget request. Individual budget meetings with principles, department heads, and the central office cabinet were held between November 19th and December 3rd. And on the slides, you'll see the breakdown of the per pupil as well as the um amounts for general supplies. The next question uh refers to my 11.1% proposed increase and whether um this
006increase request was conservative or truly reflective of the district needs and were there other position needs that exist. Um, this proposal really reflects both current financial realities and essential lessons learned from the finance and operations audit that was conducted by CLA for Bristol public schools last year. And that audit found that there were budget overages in prior years due in part to initial budgets that underestimating actual costs leading to recurring shortfalls. So, I felt that was very important as a superintendent to make sure I was being completely transparent in what the schools had requested, what we thought was appropriate and being transparent about the actual costs of running the district of this size. There are always other additional positions that could have been added. However, what I have proposed is in line with my goal
007at fiscal responsibility and the desire to restore positions that were not filled last year due to budget cuts and to maintain our current staffing and programming. The proposed budget is not about expanding programs unnecessarily, but about responsibly funding the services we already provide and ensuring long-term fiscal stability for the district. So, of course, we could have asked for more money, but we did want to be fiscally responsible. We want to um really think about the taxpayers and think about the burden on them. We also wanted to consider grant funding and available funding that we anticipate from the state. So, I would say yes, this budget request is conservative, but it also at the same time is trying to balance the the true reflective needs of the district. We wanted to clarify our student enrollment counts.
008Um when I did my when I gave my presentation on January 24th um I referred to October 1st enrollment counts. However, during presentations to the board of finance on a monthly basis, we may provide other numbers as of that date. And so I understand that there may be some confusion about the numbers and how many students we are actually talking about. So in this slide and in the next slide, we're trying to really verify the enrollment counts. And on this slide, we pro we provide the PSIS enrollment count as of o on October 1st. And we also wanted to make sure that we're including magnet students, open choice students, boag students, homeschool students, and parochial students. Um all these students reside in Bristol. So, we wanted to give an actual update as to the number
009of students who actually reside in Bristol um but may um attend other schools besides in our district. We also wanted to clarify our respon fiscal responsibility for parochial students. Um the district is responsible for any special education service and transportation per Connecticut state statute title 10 education and culture. Any municipality or school district shall provide for its children enrolled in any grade from kindergarten to 12 inclusive attending non-public nonprofit schools therein the same kind of transportation services provided for its children in such grades attending public schools when a majority of the children attending such a non-public school are residents of the state of Connecticut. This question came up in a recent board of finance meeting. But we we did want to clarify our responsibilities to those students. I'm now going to turn the presentation over
010to Dr. Amy Martina, our director of pupil personnel services to provide additional context regarding our student enrollment numbers. >> Thank you, Superintendent White. I appreciate the depth of questioning after our initial budget presentation as many of the questions that were posed have been of interest for our community. I'm hoping that we're able to provide further details especially around the October 1st enrollment numbers. I would say that overall October 1st the student data numbers often cause false confusion every year and we've had this actualized year over year. First and foremost, it is critical to discuss the data that is being built. For example, each month on the first my office pulls a report from P school for the monthly finance enrollment report. This is a snapshot of all students who are registered with the Bristol public
011schools for which we are fiscally responsible. The October 1st number is not a firm number. However, it takes months for the state to certify the October 1st count as students are assigned on a daily basis and reassigned to districts. uh thus that first October the October 1st snapshot is typically different than our October certified number. Last year, for example, the October 1st count wasn't certified until after April. That's an important distinction as to seeing different numbers for the October one count. We have always seen a gap in the time frame, although I know the state is working hard of closing that gap. In addition, depending on who and for what purpose the data is pulled, you will also see those numbers vary. And I think Superintendent White spoke a little bit about this. So, for
012example, if we're pulling BPS enrolled students, the report truly only reflects the students who are sitting in our seats in our schools. Whereas, if we're seeking information about fiscal responsibility, we're pulling a different report that looks at all students who are registered with the Bristol public schools for which we have fiscal responsibility. When we pull all students, this would include all students that attend magnet out of district facilities and so on. When we look at the historical data overall, uh thank you Mrs. Porton for putting together year-over-year. Um you'll notice that in some regard the data has stayed somewhat stagnant. One point of clarity however is that in previous years magnet students were previously included in the enrollment numbers at the state level and currently they are not. So you will see what appears to
013be a drop of enrollment when it truly isn't. One of the next questions that was posed to us was, you know, what is our success rate with negotiating contracts with out of district schools and is it possible to be more aggressive? I can say first and foremost, as a general rule, we can't negotiate uh out of district contracts per se. they submit to us what the tuition rates will be along with the related services. With that said, there are a number of things that we can do. Uh so one of the things my office does quite diligently is we review all bills for accuracy of the services that are build. We cross reference them with IEPs. I can share with you that on a weekly basis we see significant errors in invoices that we receive
014and we send them back for correction. Another thing that we have attempted to do is we have reached out to some of our facilities for which we have many students attending. We would refer to them as a a priority out of district facility both because of the cost of the service that they provide to us. But we have asked them if they would be cons they would consider discounting us a rate based on the number of students that we have. We've had two facilities take us up on that offer and we have received discounts for those. We also began last year tiering some of our out of district um facilities because we do see a range from 50,000 to 150,000. And so we really characterize which program is required for what type of profile of
015learner and how can we ensure that a child's getting what they need at the best cost. In that regard, I can share with you that u Mrs. Courtney Decker, who's online right now, actually met with one of our highest um cost facilities and shared with them that unfortunately they cannot be considered one of one of our priority sites simply because of the cost, but also that their costs didn't also include all of the related services and that until they were able to do so, we would not um engage with them. They did however add the service that we were looking, which is a good thing because we want to make sure our students have what they deserve. And lastly, when we look at, you know, how can we um reduce that out of district cost
016every year at an annual review, it is our job to make sure that we're looking at what is the least restrictive environment. If you require a program one year, that does not mean you need it every year beyond. And so, we do actively look at that. Since my directorship, we have taken back 13 students back home each fiscal year, and we're already up to seven this year. I think the hard part is you don't actually see that in the numbers given the the number of students that go in and out of district. And then lastly, the best way to save on the out of district cost is to ensure that you have the programs in the district, which is a least restrictive type of setting so that you can service students at home. So the
017next question was thinking about the increase of in-house special education services and out of district special education services. That is somewhat hard to answer, but I can share with you that as mentioned in the first budget presentation. There has been an approximate $6 million gap between the actual expenditures in the special education department and the approved budget amounts within multiple fiscal lines within my department. When we analyze the increase of the costs year-over-year, the main driver for out of district um cases is really the tuition rate, transportation, professional services, including nursing, psychological services, and behavioral services. Within our in district, we have also seen an increase in onetoone ser uh nursing services. So, for example, this year alone, from July to December 1st, we've spent $500,000 in one nursing services. We've also seen a large
018increase in the need for physical equipment based on the needs of our children. This question was probably my favorite. So, what is truly a a cost savings that we actualize if we have in house programs? So I can share with you that over the past few years, we've actually done this twice. So during the year of 2022 and 23, we had a situation in the spring where we had six young children kindergarten who were on the waiting list for outof district programs who did not have facilities that could support their needs and the cost uh of the programs who would be willing to take the children was astronomical. Instead, the board of education worked with the superintendent at the time to open up a K- through2 classroom. We outfitted that with the materials, one teacher
019and two paras. And just for that one year, we saved $500,000 in out of district tuition. That's just one year. Those six children are still with us. And so that's a savings year-over-year that we did not pay an out of district tuition. Similarly, during the 2324 school year, you may recall that we had a transition program that was um really gaining some traction. Um so much so that we had 40 students enrolled in one classroom. So, we really had to make a choice, you know, do we consider outplacing 20 students in transition programs, which we accounted for about $1.2 million, or do we open up another classroom? We voted for opening up another classroom. However, that was not with additional staffing. We reallocated the existing staff we had in the district, including six paras to
020open up another classroom, saving to two 20 children from out of district placement and saving the city $2 million. So, these are just two examples and those are which uh those are the ones that we would like to continue moving forward with because that is where we see saving zero. Another question um that came up and I'm glad it came up because we've seen a pretty significant increase in the students coming to our district uh this year as you know I've had to add 12 PAR educators simply from students who have moved in and the question was you know what is the district's level of oversight and ability to control some of the recommendations for students who move in from out of state or out of town. So the law says that as we receive
021IEPs, we are statutoily required to meet the needs as they are written. With that said, we are required to have a PPT within a reasonable amount of time. So we do so within 30 days and we talk about what is our data showing. Does that child truly require this in our setting settlement? There are times that changes can be made and in most cases the recommendations that students came with are the appropriate ones but that generally is the process by which we have oversight of anything from artificial. I would say the biggest um changes when we see students come from out of state because states have different criteria for eligibility. So while other states might qualify a student, sometimes our eligibility makes them eligible, sometimes it doesn't. And that sometimes is related to change. One
022of the questions asked was uh really kind of an understanding of why would there be a proposal for students as well as five teachers? What is the rationale for the administrative position? will it have a dual capacity and you know why wouldn't there have been consideration for six teachers etc. Um what I want to share is what we didn't share with you the last time was that looking at our student data our case loads especially at the elementary school are quite large. When we look to uh equalize them and have them to reasonable capacity we actually need seven special education teachers. However, in working with Mr. Gravowski, based on the the redistricting, we're able to reallocate two positions to support elementary, thus making us only the classified instead of seven that we would have been
023asking for. When we look at what would those positions entail, I hope that you recall the slide that had our program seat numbers and how impacted our autism lead programs were. So, in that regard, we're looking to open up another prek lead program. We need three additional elementary lead programs and one additional high school behavior program. We do have a high school program that addresses attendance needs, but we're seeing a pretty significant level of student need that requires a high degree of clinical and behavioral services that it without this program we will be looking at out of district. So, I will get to the administrator part in a second. Um, but I do think it's important that when we're looking at uh student requirements or special education needs that we look at all districts within
024our DUI. So, this chart here, I will say that the data is a year old because we don't have the updated good in the city yet. Uh, but it is an applesto apples view. Anything that is listed in green is showing that based on the percentage of students with disabilities they uh are in a more positive standing and anything in red is showing that based on the student count we are really using much more of our resources to support. So as you look at this Bristol compared to the number of students with disabilities we have the lowest uh rate of certified special education staff. We have the lowest rate of non-certified special special education staff and I'll get to the general ed in a moment and we actually have the lowest of school counseling and
025mental health staff. In fact, when you do the percentage, I believe it is 2.8%. Um, given the level of need that we have for mental health and behavior supports, that was pretty. One of the things that this chart doesn't show is that many of these districts also have a plethora of PAR educators on the regular ed side. that's a separate number, but in Bristol we don't have that. All of our paras are special education paras and we're the lowest. So, um considering that and considering we have no paras for general ed while other districts do, I would say boosting. Um I know that there was some question around the budgets that were proposed for uh areas like PL for example, etc. But I do think it's important to note that even just in this example,
026339 students with disability is a terraic difference from our 1769 and the level of staff is actually quite positive compared to ours. Okay, so now I have to talk about that administrator. So why would the pupil personnel department need another administrator? I do think it's important. Uh we actually refer to ourselves as the Secret Service because I'm not sure that people truly know what it is that we do. Uh so I have one supervisor that oversees the Edgewood PreK. She has 300 plus students in her building and she's the building principal and the special ed supervisor. She attends all PPTs by herself as a leader doing 300 Ppts on her own. She writes IEPs. She's also the school readiness liaison. Oversees all the PD and staffing, evaluations, hiring for prek, writes the prek grant, and
027does all the BS. That's one of my supervisors. I'll go to the other end. Uh, so I have another supervisor who is overseeing all of our out of district students um, facilities, but that includes 35 magnet schools as well. That supervisor attends 600 or more PPTs every year, but because she's the case manager, she writes 600 plus IEPs on her own. She also is a liaison to the state and has to attend at least once to every facility and we have to report to the state our oversight of those facilities. In addition to that, any daily incidents that are occurring on the bus or in the school, she is the one that is the liaison to the district to address those issues. So now I'll move to my little middle group and I have four
028supervisors and one dean. They oversee not 33 schools. I apologize. That's clearly a issue there. But we have 13 schools that they're overseeing and more than 30 specialized programs. We also have to oversee all of the students attending magnet schools. We have over 20 and we also oversee 20 different magnet schools with students with disabilities. They are the case managers. They write all PPTs, all IEPs. They attend all the PPTs. They go to the facilities and then you'll see they oversee all the social workers in district, all the related service staff. They are the district pnt trainers, the district palace trainers. Some of them they oversee PD staff evaluations and staffing for special education staff just for you. So when I look at, you know, why would I need to add another administrator, it really
029is if we are going to add potentially five more programs, what starts to happen, there's a lot of research that when you have a complex district like Bristol, that a special ed supervisor should have about a ratio of 250 students with disabilities for one supervisor. It's one of our high schools. So I just want to give a comparison. So one of my supervisors does oversee one high school and a middle school and destinations 1 2 3 4 as the principal and the supervisor is the district PMT trainer is the district Alice trainer oversees a middle school as well and I can keep listing them. So there's quite the disconnect there. What happens though is their job just like any administrator is to be an instructional leader. When your leaders are pulled so thin, the instructional
030leadership is not to the highest capacity. and you will see more um more compliance-based actions rather than high quality instruction, high quality IEP development, which I think our special education audit spoke to 10 years ago and I have a feeling it's going to say the same again when audit. Um, I love the question about the different things that the pupil service department is responsible for because it is not just students with disabilities through an IEP. As mentioned, we do oversee colloquial students, but we also see students at magnet schools who require either 504 or IEP boots. So, this just for example is a pledge. We have 53,500 for students with 504 needs. general education students that might require some level of related service or equipment needs, etc. We've expended as of February 1st $7,1841. But
031I have to say magnet schools tend to like to send their bills in June and throughout the summer. So hopefully you can get this a little bit sooner. Of all the questions, I think this was probably the most challenging. uh what could we expect? Um you know, given the fact that the state allocates a particular amount of funds that all districts have access to and the higher rate of districts applying for them. Um it's hard to say what we will actually get, but I would guess that we should minimally be budgeting for somewhere in that low to mid70 range. I mean, Mrs. Um, we typically budget for what we received in the previous year, which would make the best sense, but there really isn't a way for us to determine that because we would have
032to know the number of districts that are putting in and at what rate they're putting in for, which is quite impossible. And the seed grant, this also was a great question because we have such a great opportunity. The state has agreed that we really need to invest in indistrict programs so that we can offset that out of district cost. So we have received a subset of money for three years. But what happens after that three years? Just like any grant, they will subset and it really leaves us with just a couple options. Either we absorb the costs back into the operating budget or we have to start scaling back from those indist programs or out of district. I will tell you that one of my intents is that if we could build capacity within our
033district enough where we could have a cushion to bring more students back. That's really what my goal is. I truly am a believer of educating our students at home. I also kind of feel that our educators are fabulous and we can do some services that even out of districts can't touch. Um but we need to have the capacity to be able to do that. I think my last question. Um, I'm glad that there was a question here because I didn't realize that others had the same. So, yes, we did add 12 PAR educators this year. I did put in the budget for 10 additional parents. Um, we did not caris in the past, so we're not making up those needs. However, when you're developing programs, you also need caris to support that. So to develop
034five programs, 10 is actually quite a conservative number, especially given the needs that we already have in district and as spread thin as we are. All right. Lastly, uh the question I think this one I will share with Mr. Gowski, but are we experiencing challenges with hiring and retaining their educators? And if so, why? on the left side. This comes directly from the state department of education. We've heard that teaching is a shortage area and special education in particular. So, as you can see here, there are 2250 special education open positions in this in the state. We are nowhere close to that. I believe we have three currently. However, three is more than we want. However, 864.5 PAR educator positions exist in the in the state. On the right side, you'll see um our current
035data. So since July 1st to February 1st, the spe the people personnel service department has hired 40 staff. Actually, I received three PAFS today, so that would be 43. Sorry, I did this one last night. Uh but 43 staff have been filled. We do have approximately 20 open Farah positions. Again, compared to state averages, we are doing much better. But one thing that's important is I would say almost at any given moment we have about 20 always open. Um it's not the same ones from the beginning of the year. It's we continue to cycle through. Hence why we're looking at over 60 positions just from July 1st. Um so hard to say but I would I would defer to Mr. Kowski to share more about oh we having difficulty with t Good evening everybody. Um,
036so this was a a two-part question. So I wanted to start with the hiring um process. And I think it's important to understand how we find our paras and how our paras find us. When we look at our certified staff, so when I say certified, I'm talking about our administrators and our teachers. when we post for those positions, we post to our internal um employment page and those get synced to numerous different job sites districtwide like CT reap for example. So if I was to type into Google right now um social studies teacher jobs in Connecticut, CTE would come up. I click on it and I can see all the jobs in the state. I can peruse and easily find a position. If I was to do the same for paraprofessional or custodian or secretarial,
037Indeed might come up, which is not accurate. It's outdated. Um there there is no area for us to post onto a parasite, if you will, for applicants to find us with ease. The way our applicants find us in other school districts is by actually having to Google the individual school district to actually go into the employment page to go into the individual school to find the positions. So it's much more challenging for people to find these types of roles. Um so that creates challenges when our programmings are increasing and we need more pair professionals. One thing that we're trying to work on is us outreaching directly to the community. we're developing some plans to do so. Um, roughly maybe about 6 to 8 weeks ago, I did a blast on parent square to reach out
038to our families directly and I think between myself and uh Dr. Martino, we had roughly 20 individuals reach out to us who were interested in um PAR positions. So, what we're going to start to do is quarterly um every 3 months or so do a parent square blast out to our uh families which we touch a large section of Bristol just even sharing out those opportunities. Um people don't know what's out there until it's presented in front of them. Um so that's something we're trying to do to help attract more individuals looking at retention. Um you know one of the things that we see which it's actually a good thing is our paras as they come in um they like to move up the ladder. Um we see paras who go back and become desp
039who enroll into different teacher education programs which is wonderful because we have paras who then become special education teachers who then can serve us in different capacities. We have par professionals that become secretaries as well in their buildings. So sometimes it's hard to retain par professionals when there's other opportunities out there. Um I would remiss if I didn't share when we were looking at some of the numbers and we did see par counts and in Bristol it's a bit on the lower side. Um and anecdotally it's been shared with us that our paris are under some stress when they're in classrooms where they don't feel that they have enough support. that could be a bit challenging to retain individuals if you can hop over to a neighboring district um and have additional support in a
040classroom. So that's definitely a challenge for us to uh retain individuals. A question that had come up was uh the district's cost analysis when we are unable to secure substitute teachers we need on a daily basis. specifically the gap uh between the required number of subs and the number we actually have and what factors such as pay rates are contributing to the shortage. So this graph here goes back about two years. I just want to point out 2026 that's about halfway through the school year. So that number is lower because we're still expecting obviously more instances where teachers will have to cover. But you'll see two descriptions here. The first one is C uh class. Um and but but that code is um are teachers who might cover a class period and they're paid by
041contract. Let's say if I'm a middle school teacher and I cover for a PE teacher for that block, I'll get $8 to $50. Um on the bottom you'll see teachers as subs. primarily that code is for support staff or elementary school teachers that might cover for an elementary school teacher who's out for the whole day. They'll split up a class and teachers are paid accordingly. So, as you'll see in these instances is when we can't find a sub um the costs can be quite staggering. Last year we spent $281,000 to pay our staff to cover because we didn't have enough substitutes. Going back two and a half years, $677,000. That's quite a bit of money that we have spended because we couldn't find substitute teachers. Now I think one thing that's important to note when
042we're looking at some of the issues that contribute obviously pay is a factor which now we've increased our rates. So we are very hopeful that we will see more substitute teachers but you go to the next one thing that's important to know is our our sub um fill rate. If a teacher calls out we have a system called frontline um which is where teachers log their absences. What we find are teachers that call out uh more than a full day in advance. 88% of those jobs are filled. Um if it's over two days, we see just about a 100% fill rate. What we'll see are are those individuals that call out 12 to 24 hours in advance. 55% of those classrooms are filled. 0 to 12 hours is 46%. And you know, one thing that
043we're trying to work on is encouraging individuals and if you know you're going to be app saying, you have a doctor's appointment, please put your time at the front line. But as you know, your child might wake up, it's 9 in the morning, they're puking, school starts in two hours, you have to call out. It's hard to find a sub at that point. Um, so that's definitely something that we're trying to work on and be more cognizant on. So, there was a question about the secretarial position that was removed as a cost-saving measure. Um, and as Commissioner O'Brien has suggested, are there any ways of sharing support staff? So, the requested secretarial position in my budget is a class C secretary who will be split 50/50, Bristol Central and Bristol Eastern. The next question is
044related to student achievement. What is the real impact on student achievement if we do not fund literacy coaches and literacy initiatives? And u Mrs. Karly for our chief academic officer is here to present some data results from a smarter balance assessment. >> Thank you, Superintendent White. So to address this question uh we will not be able to uh make a solid prediction on the precise impact on student achie a achievement but we can draw reasonable conclusions based on uh recent data trends. So, first we're going to take a look at the Smarter Balanced Assessment. Let me head a slide. Results from last year's Connecticut State Department of Education state mandated mandated assessment. Smarter balanced assessment showed higher overall literacy achievement but reduced growth compared to the prior year indicating a continued need to accelerate learning
045through rigorous instruction, student engagement, writing, and problem solving. Math achievement remains largely flat when disagregated by school. Growth was most affected in schools without instructional coaches, with firstear coaches, or with higher concentrations of early career teachers in grades four and five. Our state mandated assessments happen later in this spring, so we don't yet have comparable data uh given some of the changes in our conditions this year. That said, we can share some of our current monitoring that allows us to make some predictions. We monitor literacy and math performance monthly using standardized and local assessments, comparing results to grade level goals and historical trends. This analysis indicates that middle school math achievement remains below expectations. At the elementary level, math performance is furthest from our established target with while literacy is also below goal, though to
046a lesser degree. In response to this data, our district and school administrators are working collaboratively to analyze specific student results, target actions specific to students needs, examine and provide resources to teachers, and we're refining professional practice through further professional learning. We also had a question about how we're providing support of our teachers implementation of the curriculum. Our support for teachers understanding of curriculum follows four distinct phases which are outlined on the screen. This year the majority of our work is concentrated in the design phase with extensive curriculum writing and revisions across many areas and courses as shown on the right side. Several positions that previously supported curriculum implementation, including instructional coaches, curriculum coordinators, and department chairs, were reduced for the 2526 school year. And we also experienced a transition among our elementary curriculum supervisors. As
047a result, our current efforts focus on supporting the execution of newly revised curriculum through district-wide consultation and implementation sessions. Importantly, some of our long-standing supports for early career teachers and educators new to Bristol remain in place. These include a summer new teacher induction program, the assignment of paid teen mentors, and targeted professional development aligned to Bristol curriculum and instructional priorities. We are hopeful that there can be a possible restoration of some implementation focused positions in the coming year as the level of instructional support teachers have traditionally received cannot be fully sustained under our current. >> Thank you. Thank you Carly. The next question uh was related to athletics and student activities and whether there were opportunities for fundraising and partnerships to offset funding. Yes, there are opportunities uh with community partners, booster organizations, local businesses,
048and nonprofit groups to support our athletic programs and help offset certain costs. um collaboration with community organizations and community partners um is one of my overall superintendent goals. So it is a priority. However, they are not substitute for sustainable funding of core athletic operations including staffing safety and equitable access across programs. Many fundraising and unsponsorship a e efforts are variable and program specific. So we use them strategically. And please note that when using fundraising and donations, uh, we must adhere to our BOE procurement policies and guidelines. The next question is regards to the request for a district-wide district armed security officer. As some of you may um remember at the November meeting, the Bristol Board of Education revised policy to authorize the use and placement of armed security officers to provide for the safety and
049security of students and school personnel. It was agreed and discussed during the meeting that we would roll out the process slowly beginning next year with Mr. C. Cabllas, who's our director of safety and security, and then expand on that based on community input and financial availability. As a reminder, our elementary schools currently do not have school resource officers and the intent behind this request is to have an armed security officer who would be able to service our K through5 schools. We were also cognizant of the fact that the Brazil Police Department is currently down a number of positions and we thought it would be prudent to have some of our own staff on hand if necessary to fill in any gaps. And I think our next presenter is Mr. Telki. >> Good evening, commissioners. Um,
050one of the questions that was uh posed was, "Are you considering sharing or piggybacking uh on city contracts for cost benefits or software needs and have we done that with these needs?" Um, just wanted to say that the city of Bristol and Bristol public schools. Uh, we currently have a number of shared contracts both in and beyond the software and licensing still. Uh, these include the categories listed over to the right here. includes email monitoring, our antivirus solution, electronic forms and workflows, our copier management solution, a server virt virtualization, network and Wi-Fi management, and our void phone system licensing. Um BPS budgets for and pays for our share uh proportionally of those different platforms. uh in the 2627 budget request uh this includes our portion of the shared services software uh and maintenance contracts which
051total $330,356. This actually appears as an increase in the BPS budget as some of these items uh we are contractually obligated to but they were not included in the current year's budget. So we're just trying to make things right to ensure that we are paying our fair share of our contractual obligations for the different uh software and services that we are here to utilize to be across the board. Uh the next question uh came up is similar uh similar in nature more focused on software. Uh there's a $1 million uh there's $1 million in software licenses. Uh could these be shared costs with the city? Uh again, we work closely with uh city IT officials. Um we meet weekly to actually go through uh various goings on on both the city side, school side. Throughout
052those times, we throughout those meetings, we actually sit and discuss uh various software solutions, upcoming new licenses, renewals, uh large scale projects that we might be able to uh collaborate on to be able to combine uh feature sets together to have similar uh structures across the board and in doing so hopefully be able to garner some uh cost savings uh while doing that. Uh the next Thank you. Um so as far as software itself is concerned uh out of the total $1,91,37 uh software line um the shared software costs are for our Wi-Fi management of $100,000 uh license uh electronic forms at 11,851 antivir and our antivirus solution at 1776. Um, I also want you to be aware that there are several uh software license licenses that cannot be combined or shared. Uh, they're either
053very specific to the teaching and learning process. They're designed for schools. Uh, they would be more they be they would cost us more to actually bundle uh with the city because we we realize education discounts where municipality may not. Um, or they're simply tools that the city does not utilize. Uh so the second table on here uh kind of categorizes each one and shows the financials of each category. I do have a breakdown if you require that uh to explain exactly what those universe told us and what those solutions are. >> All right. Um and uh I added one more slide in here. I just wanted to touch base uh with you the commissioners on a topic that we had discussed during last year uh when we were in a a tight budget situation uh
054and I brought forth uh a one-time temporary uh solution to be able to get our our budget where it really needed to be. Um that savings that we realized bottom table here on the 25.6 6 savings, it was $399,20. Um, in the technology side of the budget, we are uh looking to try and make that whole again if at all possible. Uh, the good news here is that we actually don't need the full $399,000 back. Uh with the uh construction of the new Northeast Middle School, we were able to recondition some of our our computer and technology equipment uh leases that exist now, move equipment around to actually make our realize some cost savings for public. Um so in the middle table, the rents and leases, uh that that is going over each uh solution
055for what we were looking to uh start fulfilling. Again, those were that was equipment that we had purchased or uh contracts that are lease contracts that are currently expiring at the end of this year that we need to fulfill to uh get back onto our leasing site. Uh the table on the right, the other professional services uh notes are imaging services. Uh we we would like to hire out uh professional companies who who specialize in um setting up our computers a specific very specific way to what our district needs are. and deploying the machines uh in Philadelphia. So the total there is um just over I believe uh $41,000. Um and last but certainly not least um we did have um we were not able to fill a position for our student database administrator, our
056power school database administrator. Um this uh total restoration uh valuation of $293,558 would include the power school database was greater position as well. Um so overall we are still realizing the net savings overall compared to those actually removed from the next and I believe that is all I have. Thank you. Um, this question references a $2.1 million increase in our electricity for the FY27 request. I'm not quite sure where the $2.1 million comes from. So, I don't know if whoever asked the question was including something else also in there, but I did include a snip of the budget for our utilities and for electricity. We actually are showing an increased request of 586,597. Um, our facilities department when they were preparing this year's next year's budget, they evaluated our anticipated FY26 expenditures for all utilities
057and then also included the increase as recommended by Mrs. Haynes over at the city's purchasing department. She provides us with an economic forecast every year. Um, and I think this other part of the question is, are we part of a city partnership? And while we're not necessarily part of a partnership, um, the whole cost of our utilities is our burden. The board of ed pays for all utilities on all of our properties. Um, we are part of a um, we participate jointly with the city and they do secure our procurement rates. So for next year, we have a guaranteed pricing of 10.499. 499 cents per kilowatt hour. That cost um is for our electric rates and it's secured through June of 2027. Um we do have additional funding to help with our homeless transportation. We've
058had it for years through our title one grant. We do have a set aside for homeless um expenditures. And in FY26, we have 68,839 that is allocated for homeless transportation and we do um put that towards the busing costs for homeless students. As far as the equipment and capital outlay that we are requesting in FY27, um those are really just operational expenditures. So unfortunately, they do not go into the capital improvement plan. Um the capital improvement plan is for more um project related expenditures. So anything that is in our FY27 budget request is really operational. On the next slide you can see our capital improve our proposed capital capital improvement plan which we will present to the city um in March. It goes before the board of finance. This was presented at one of our
059recent I think it was the December maybe it was November or December board of uh our finance committee and you can it's hard to read on here I apologize um but you could see there's roofing uh repairs requested for both of our high schools targeted alterations at both of our high schools they project out the expenses um in multiple years um based on need. You can see Stafford School and Southside School are both on here as renovate as new. Um some HVAC upgrades for Chipins and Hubble. And then the turf fields are also on here um for much later on. Um but they will need some repairs coming up in the very near future. So this is part of the capital improvement plan and it will be presented to the board of finance in March.
060This next question is frightening. Um, you'll see on the next few slides I do have the grants included in here. We receive over $22 million in federal and state grants and if they were to fully go away um it would be catastrophic. we have, you know, we're very heavily um staffed through these grants and obviously if they went away for Bristol, they would be going away most likely for many other if not all districts in the state and country. Um but obviously it would involve I don't know it would be detrimental to our district. I can't imagine if they ever went away. Um we'll have to encounter that when we you know if we get to that point. Um on these next few slides I do have our grants broken out. These this first slide
061are federal grants. So our idea grants which support our special education students. All of the title grants which are our entitlement grants. Um the Perkins grant which supports our career and technical education and program improvement projects. That particular grant supports our adult education programs. Our 21st century learning center grants are on here. Those are our afterchool grants. We keep every year we keep expanding those grants. They're great. Um West Bristol, Bristol Central, Bristol Eastern, uh Bames, Hubble, Ivy, and Southside all have ongoing 21st century grants right now. Um, some of our grants that have expired just this past year are also on here. So, those are no longer there, such as Ed Rising and our dual credit expansion. There are two ARPA grants on here. This question came up at last week's uh board of
062finance meeting also because we still have ARPA funding. We do still have some ARPA funded grants. Just these two. They're the last of the ARPA funded grants. They expire on June 30th of this year. Um I don't expect to get them again next year, but you never know if there's leftover ARPA money. We'll be we'll be seeing some opportunities there. Um but these two grants do expire. We have until June 30th to spend those funds. Um we had past couple of years we've had a FAFSA challenge grant which has been great for Bristol Central and Bristol Eastern have both taken advantage of that. This this had to be a year off for both of them. So, no, neither one of them got it this year, but they very well may have an opportunity next year.
063Um, and that is that is it for this year's federal grants. On the next slide, we have our state grants. It's our alliance grant, which I'm going to talk about in a second. We have our bilingual grant and our F FRC grant, which supports all three of our F FRC um centers at West Bristol, Green Hills, and Southside. our adult education grants. School readiness grant supports our preschool funds many of our preschool teachers and par profofessionals. Um quality enhancement grant is a carveout of the school readiness grant that we received through the city of Bristol. We're not sure yet this year if we are getting this grant. They're changing it up. So we may receive it but it would be later in this school year and it would carry over until next year. Primary Mental
064Health and Parent Trust Fund also support our F FRC centers. And then the new seed grant is also on here. You'll see that for 809425. And we'll have that grant recurring for the next three years. Um I did want to make a note that we received notification today from our contact um at the CSTE regarding the alliance grant that we very well may be flatfunded for next year. Um unfortunately we do have some of our new positions. Four and a half of our new positions that we are requesting for next year um are projected to be funded through the alliance grant. It's our IT specialist, the student database administrator, the armed officer, the T-OL teacher, and our 0.5 library media specialist. Uh we were projecting to have those funded through the alliance grant next year.
065Those salaries total 350,184. If Alliance grant is flatfunded, that grant cannot support these positions next year. Um they would have to be taken out of that grant and proposed elsewhere. Um and we also may have to cut other positions also for from the alliance grant because the grant would not be able to support the increase in salaries and benefits next year if we are flatfunded. On this next slide, I just have it broken out a little bit. If you include our general fund request, including all of our grant resources, our total 2027 funding is 174,488,322. Our federal grants, state, the federal and state grants make up the 8,677695. The alliance grant is the 13,445627. The Connecticut cost share, that's the ECS portion um of funding from the state that goes directly to the city that
066they use to offset our appropriation. That's 41 million 657314. So that is a that leaves 110,77686 as the burden for the taxpayer. That is what the city would have to appropriate towards our budget um from taxpayer dollars. This next question was how much money are we expecting from the federal government for the school lunch program? So this year in FY 26, we are expecting five based on what we've built out so far and estimating what we're billing out through the rest of the year, we're expecting approximately 5,115250 in federal reimbursement and 175,000 um in state reimbursement. Uh unfortunately, it is the district's responsibility to fund the deficit. If we do run into a deficit, and historically we do run into a deficit in our food services program, we have we're still running on a surplus
067right now because during our COVID years, we were funded from the government at 100% reimbursement and we are still chipping away at that reimbursement. We anticipate we have maybe about another year to go in that reimbursement um until we'll probably start running into a deficit again. Um unfortunately food costs are rising and the cost of paper goods has gone through the roof. Um we are part of we either purchase through our state contracts or we do go out to bid every single year um and go with the lowest cost bidder for all of our items. Um but costs are just rising exponentially and we don't charge um for the for the program. So this next slide is the budget for um the food services budget for next year. So we the city requires our school
068budget to have a zero bal a zero balanced budget annually for the calf program. Each year we estimate our expenditures. We have some costs we can pretty closely estimate such as our labor substitutes and the insurance. um those are those are known expenditures. Everything else is an estimate based on this year's um both revenue and expenditures. So the next year for FY2027 we are estimating 5,560 250 and net income and net expenditures creating our um net zero budget. >> That's all I have. Thank you. That concludes our presentation. Chairpots, thank you. Um I will now um open it up to any commissioners who would like to make a comment or ask a question based on presentation. Um so I was just looking at the original presentation with the um budget components starting with the full
069budget of request of 152,000 and it lists out the educational cost share cost and then what the city's responsibility is. and we were just shown a new one with the total f fiscal year 27 funding showing 174,000 instead of 152,000. And so I was just questioning the different total there um because I would think that would make the taxpayers responsibility less if we have the cost share grant the state and federal grants and the alliance district which wasn't shown in the previous one if that makes sense. >> The the I can answer that. Thank you. >> I don't have it in front of me. I apologize. Um the 174 is inclusive of all of our grants. So that is not a tax burden. It's just the 152 is our general fund budget. And then when
070you take off the ECS grant funding, the 41 million and the 13 million for the alliance grant, that's what leads you, that's what gives you the 110, >> right? Um it's still just like not adding up to the original one that we had. >> Okay. I'll have to take a look for you. >> Okay. >> Which page are you looking at? at SL well slide 90 in the original and slide >> you know slide 40 has the same 110 for the taxpayers the 41 for the cost share >> it didn't have the federal state grants or the alliance and now the total total of funding is 174 um million when the request I thought was 152 million >> the the still is >> the yes for general fund the 22 million >> that you just
071that's the that's Those are our federal and state grants. So that is funding for us for the board of doesn't impact the city's cost share at all. >> Okay. So that I guess my question is like why doesn't that get taken off? Okay for the city >> it does. >> Okay. >> So the city doesn't pay us that money. It comes from the state, right? But it's just included in our total budget to give us an idea of how big the budget is and to tell the public how we use that 22 million. Okay. >> To cover. >> So we really need 174 and not 152 >> total. But we're going to get that 22 is what those are entitlement grants. Jody, >> the ones you just >> they're all of our grants. So they're
072both our entitlement grants and the grant the competitive grants that we applied for. We didn't get competitive grants. In the case that that didn't happen, >> we'd have to ask for 174. >> No, we wouldn't be able to provide >> the programs that the competitive grants support. So, if they're after school grants, >> right? Right. Right. >> We wouldn't have an after school program. >> Gotcha. >> Do any of the competitive grants cover operational costs like teachers or things that would then create a hole if we didn't receive them? >> Uh, yes, they could. They support our support staff. Um, you know, some of our mental health support staff are covered through there. Yeah. They support the F FRC grants. So, it does support staff. >> But are those grants that are competitive already known
073for next year? >> No. >> So, so yes to Yes. So, some things that we count on would not happen unless we were to get >> We don't have those programs unless we get those. >> I just hadn't seen that number before the 174. I just got confused but thank you >> the chair car I I had the same thing last year. I think I got a whole argument with Shelby over so I was very confused by it too. >> Just hope I can explain it but it is complicated >> through the chair. Similar yes similar topic. Uh, I appreciate it understanding um the um reliance on the grant funding to fund certain positions that are being asked for in this budget. The IT specialist, the DVA, Tesaw educator.5 library media specialist and the um
074additional armed officer. In the past, we received budgets that would describe for us what the plans were for how to spend the money in the new budget requests. Meaning, um, what are you allocating out of the general budget towards new investments or new asks and what were you expecting to come out of the alliance and the other grant funding? This way when we see changes in the allocations of grant funding, we knew what your plans were for that money and then we'll have a better understanding of why you're making shifts should the budget adjustments come. And so this ask obviously isn't going to be able to be produced tonight. But if we could have a better understanding of that piece of information which we had received in previous budgets, I think that's helpful for us
075to have to explain um well, you know, potentially uh questions from the public as we're going through the budget process, the budget revisions. Um a lot of people in the public don't understand the difference between the general budget ask and the grant funding ask and that there's restrictions on what we can spend some of those grant funds on. So it also helps us to explain to the public who asked us questions during this project piece. So that would be helpful. Um thank you. Anyone else? >> Hi the chair. >> Yes. >> I have quick question for Jody. Um um just it's a small number but fresh fruits and vegetables on the school lunch menu. It says zero. I know we always have a question when it's zero one year and you're asking for money the
076next year. >> Um last year Mrs. Bair in her budget she had it included in the line with the state reimbursement. I broke it out because I think it's nice to see it separated out because it is two separate grants. >> Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, >> don't go anywhere. We'll try to ask all of the Jodie questions before she has to go. Go ahead. >> Uh in regards to the um slide 38 which has the federal grant funds >> and then the uh slide 39 with the state funds. Out of the ones that are not funded for 2026, >> we have one two six of them uh for the fed and three for the state. Were those because they're on a rotational basis and we weren't qualified to um Thanks. I just have to
077look to see which grants they have. >> Okay, perfect. Site 38. >> Okay. Yep. So, see those 21st century grants where it says Bristol Central High School. So, that's a zero. Um that's because she has a new grant. You'll see it down below. Um it's now combined with the Bristol Eastern um 21st Century Grant. Um the Ed Rising mini grant, ARPA dual enrollment, that was one of those ARPA funds. Um so yes, those are gone. Uh FAFSA, we have to go on a rotation and you have to take a year off with some of these grants. So you can't reapply, but next year we can reapply for some of those. Um same thing with the other 21st century, the Northeast Chippins 21st Century Learning Center grants. Those are they did not reapply this year. Um,
078and the other that bottom one is another one of those ARPA grants. I can tell you on some of our state grants here, the alliance district increasing diver educator diversity. That grant is no longer funded in 2026. It was a carveout of our alliance district grant, the large grant. They no longer carve it out. So, we still have the funding, but it's just embedded in the 13,445627 um quality enhancement. That's the one we're waiting on from the city. And so if we It's normally between $5 and $8,000. And if we do get it this year, it'll be later in the year and we can carry it over into the next year. Um and then the multimedia school security grant, those school security grants come up every couple of years and this is just one that
079we happen to get back in 24. We don't have it's not ongoing right now. >> Thank you. >> Can I ask a few questions? >> Yes. Um, one would be for um, Jeff actually. Last year when we thank you so much for all the savings you found us last year, but in one of the discussions um, it was you were going to help um, train some of your staff on how to handle powers school or uh, parent square rather. So, so there was an ask for the database administrator. Um, is that outside of the work that you were able to train staff or is that still something required? >> Uh, no. Actually, that is well within the scope of that position. So the person who had previously filled that role uh had a few uh
080different duties. A lot of them are data centric along making along the lines of making sure that our systems are communicating the data is flowing properly and uh people are in correct applications. So the power school database administrator um previously was also in charge of good mission parents. They were in charge of making sure that data was flowing in parent square and that people were set up uh correctly. So that would fall into this realm as well along with any other uh data systems related uh tasks that need to be done state reporting, federal reporting etc. >> Thank you. Y >> I had a couple questions for Dr. Martina. And I'm trying to to scroll back there. Okay. So, this is an ask for um if it can be provided after this meeting at some
081point. So, not tonight. Um it is this slide is not amended. It is the one that gives the actual expenditures and the approved budget. This slide, excuse me. There was some quite a bit of variation between 21 on the bottom of a slide due to it. Okay. So, it's either 10 or eight if I were guessing >> this one. >> Correct. Thank you. >> 10. So there was some wild flu fluctuations in the um ECS grant funding during these years. I think it would be great if we can identify what our ECS percentages were for those years too because they could explain some of the overages in what we were anticipating we thought we were going to get and what we budgeted for that year for ECS grant funding and then the state came back
082and didn't fund us at the level that we thought they were going to fund us at. It just again helps us be able to explain this a little bit better to the community when we're asked. Um so if we can add that to this slide and then have it be reset that would be great. I think that's a great point. our media's bonds out for that. But oftent times, you know, there's question of was there an underbudgeting alo just particularly the special education and yes I mean clearly there is and sometimes they're intentional because we're expecting certain percentages from access from someone else. So yes, that that would fully explain some of this, >> right? Because you use reasonable logic to to say correct at one year I think it was and I'm going to
083butcher the numbers and but you'll get us the real ones. We were expecting somewhere around 7374 and they came in in the mid60s. Correct. >> I mean that's that's a huge difference. Um while you're there, the slide in regards Oh, also thank you as well for demonstrating savings and where there's opportunities as special education for savings. Um I think equally in the community um there's not as many people that have a good grasp on what special education means, who it covers, the wide variety, the umbrella of types of students that fall in there. And so it it shows that savings are possible when we invest in the right programs to bring things back into the district when they can. Um, one of the questions I had though was on the prek Edgewood dean position and
084having explained the duties of these administrators on that slide was helpful. Do you know off the top of your head the the current enrollment numbers for Edgewood PreK? >> I would have to get those back to you. Um the reason why I'm asking is one of the bullets was that that single administrator has to handle 300 plus PPTs and um for the public's knowledge an administrator is required to attend all PPT meetings there has to be an administrator there. It's part of the IDA statute and so it's a big responsibility if you happen to be an administrator who has a large capacity of that population in your in your school. But when I saw 300 plus PBTs, I thought our ratio in the Edgewood 3 preK Academy was about a 50/50. It is 50/50. Um,
085so when you think about the 300 PPTs, we actually calculated them a year old. It is over 300 because every preschool student will either have the first PPT as they're entering into our system. They also require their annual review and or they require their transition PPT to the following year. So we really are only counting like their first PPT and then the recommendation for next year. So every child has minimally two, >> hence the 300 plus. >> Okay. I thought, wow. >> And that's just assuming nothing else is going on. >> Right. Right. Right. Okay. That explains that question for me. Thank you. Um >> one more. >> Okay. This is on our hiring practices. Um and noticing that um with the par educator problems multiple um and trying to attract talent and also the
086uh what you explained about certain pair of educators why do we you know do we have an attrition problem there and that some are reporting that they don't feel supporting the classroom. So, uh, long-winded way to ask, when we are hiring for teachers in our classrooms, do we give preference to any teachers that have had a past experience either in special education or pre or certification in uh, special education, but they're no longer seeking a special education position. They're speaking they're seeking a general edition. Is that one of the criteria that's used in hiring practices >> for educators? No, for teachers in the classroom because if a teacher has a background in special education, they I would think have a bigger grasp on being able to support their PAR educators and special education programming in
087an integrated classroom. >> I would agree, but I I will say that anybody with a special ed, I can try to steal them for special education, >> of course, >> but he could actually answer your question, >> but they also might not want to be there, right? So, >> it it it depends. Um, I know there's a lot of programs now for elementary education where they become dual certified. University of Harford, um, you come out of your undergraduate with the special education s K through 12 and, uh, K through six certification as well. Um, that really depends on preference. If I was an administrator and I was hiring and I saw someone with that, I prefer to snag them up because the state is stating that they have the capacity to step into that role.
088Um, so I'm not sure I'm really answering your question, but do you >> It was somewhat rhetorical. I have faith that we're going to take those that have those dual certifications wherever we can because, you know, they they're they fill multiple roles and multiple reasons why we'd want both of them. But, um, I was just curious if that was a demographic that you, you know, go after and look for. >> And I'll I'll piggy back on that and ask a question that I think might help get the answer. So when we interview for teachers, the administrators in the building are involved and teachers in the building are involved. And th those questions are designed based on what the position requires. And if that classroom had a large special ed population while you were hiring, maybe
089the question could include, right, what is your experience in doing so? Because the questions had been designed by the administrator. Correct. >> Yeah. And I I I don't think I have never sat on a panel where any applicant from administrator down has never been asked about specialized instruction or students diverse needs. So that's a it's a general that everyone's going to get. But if we were to have a classroom with that many students, you would have a special education teacher who would be coming in to support that teacher as well. Um but they work very closely together, co-eing, etc. >> Barbara has a question. >> Um Joe, this is for you as well. I I think as um as there are academic programs um and graduate programs that integrate teaching with some special ed certification
090or special certificate, I think that you know it's it's obviously a bonus and I've always been a big believer that especially K2 teachers I do think that if they have some kind of a special ed background that I think I don't know maybe um I don't want to put words in um person's mouth, but that someone who has uh a little bit of knowledge, it can go a long way in preventing maybe a child being pushed towards 504 because this child isn't doing well in the classroom rather than just assuming it's a a special ed reason that um that the teacher may know strategies and coping skills to help that child, assist that child's support them so they they may put off being identified or identified unnecessarily and have some eventually that would you know
091leading cost savings too but I would think that um it's a no-brainer for Bristol to try and hire people of that kind of background. >> Anyone have any other questions >> through the chair? >> Yes, I do have one more question for Dr. Martino. Um, so in looking at the two example programs that you were talking about on slide 11, um, that allowed us to have cost savings for the programs. So with the new positions for the prek lead and the other elementary lead programs, I know that those had um, we had we didn't have space for people. So now you're getting those teachers to build those programs. So I know there are high need areas, but is it possible that with these additions and the dean that we would be able to have some
092space in the future to have to, you know, people come to us or is that just something right now we're just filling the need because we have over capacity? >> I would say right now with what we've asked for that will really just allow us to be at capacity. we would need to ask for additional resources, but knowing that we came and asking for, we need to be mindful of that. >> The one thing I did want to just share is that >> um I don't think that the community is aware that every single year starting in January, my department in particular, we do transition meetings with every um grade band change. So, preK to K 5 to 6, 8 to 9, and we review every single student. We actually look at every single program
093who's graduating, who's moving up to a grade so that we can predict where we have spaces. And so my first year as a director, I think there was 10 positions that we reallocated. It's because we do that level of data analysis. >> We have done this already a lot of done with and there is no >> I thought so I just because our m our programs are capacity. So follow up on that. Now that we have space in the 2K8s and because previously we were busting at the seams, we didn't have room to to add those classes. So it you had spoke at the first budget workshop saying um that you get calls constantly or out of placement and the price that Bristol sets is pretty significant. And so if we were to receive funding
094to open up two classrooms, let's say, in autism, because we know that that's an area that we excel in in educating. Um, do you have a prediction of if we were to hire staff and then if you were to bring in a certain amount of students, what your surplus? I know you had the 2 million uh number for one class of our students, >> but would you be able to predict something like that for us to share with the city so that we can see if we do have the space and we were able to do this what types of revenue we could generate that could help us if we were to have a deficit let's say next year? >> Yes. Actually, there is one particular uh I'll say facility or group that I would
095and feel like we could confidently do very well with um we couldn't do it for this next fiscal year with what we've asked for. But if I could uh theorize if we did have say an extra teacher with the clinical staff that we were required to do a cost analysis taking those number of students home which would be approximately 15. Um, I could definitely share that cross. >> I think that would be great for us to just add that number. Absolutely. >> Um, Dr. Martino, since you were up there, um there was a mention that some of the challenges with securing PAR professionals and Bristol public schools might be the result of um paras not having support in the classrooms that they may be experiencing support in other other districts in our Durk or other
096contiguous districts. So my question would be um do we know what supports paras are maybe not receiving in Bristol because that sort of parallel with what um Mrs. Foron was mentioning about how this lack of instructional support really cannot be sustained over time and the fact that we're seeing our students facing increased needs striving to improve test scores but we're doing so with less support than students in surrounding districts. I I can understand the need for um positions and I can understand the asks. So, there's that piece and then there was a mention about uh special education case loads and you know I'm curious about what those numbers look like and also reminding folks that there are 504 plans that need to be written up and I don't know that that was necessarily included in
097the overall um snapshot of what your team's doing or what other supervisors are doing in the district but um writing up IEPs obviously is one piece But also writing up 504 plans and meeting um for 504 plan meetings for students yearly, sometimes more than once a year also um is a part of what supervisors are doing. That was big. There's a lot in there. I think I've got them all. I'll start with the PAR educator piece. So I think we do know some of the challenges. Um I do send out a parah survey every single year in the spring to really ask them what do you think well this year? What are some frustrations this year? They're all anonymous. What do you need? What behavior? What supports would you need to be more successful etc
098throughout the district unanimously said we need more support in how to manage behaviors in the classroom. We're seeing a lot of behavioral escalations that we don't know how to address. Um we do have required 18 hours of PD which we gave them. my department actually presented when all it was around deescalation, behavior management, cycles of escalation, how to communicate. We had our VC viewings come in. I think the challenge, however, is how frequently they get that. So, I know one of the one of the things that was asked in contract negotiation was the reduction in Wednesdays, but Wednesdays was a perfect opportunity for professional work. The challenge that we've now had is that everybody is vying for those Wednesday schedules and there's just simply not enough time to provide it. Uh so we have offered
099additional training time to in paying them outside um of their time, but people have other commitments. So I think the ask is we're really struggling with what our kids are showing up with every day. We don't know how to address them. I think there needs to be more handover support more regularly than just the front load of the 18 hours and the perhaps once every poker when you can grab them because no one else has them. Um so there's that piece. Second to that is when you look at some of the other districts, there are multiple paras in classrooms where we're spreading them so thin where you might have 12 kids to one parah in a general classroom where that wouldn't be the case elsewhere with so you know I'm sure any of us could
100imagine and we're the sole provider to all these needs at some point something has to be >> and I think if parents are having those same um struggles I would have to question the our general ed teacher are also experiencing the same challenges with managing behaviors, not having enough um embedded supports for um student behaviors, but also learning. And if there are stronger supports on the front end, there may be less need for behavioral reports on the back end. Um I do think that behavior has changed drastically. I've been in education for more than 20 years. I remember as a psychologist what I dealt with 20some years ago and I have to say the things I'm teaching now is how do you prevent a child from running because we have a lot of runners. We
101have a lot of children who are biting and hitting and throwing and destroying and you know that's communicating to us that they have some big emotions but I'm not sure that our adults yet know how to address that while I'm trying to teach rigorous curriculum at the same. So that's the but I did forget the second part of your question. I apologize. Oh no, no worries. Um there was a question about uh case load. Oh yes. So it varies across the district. Um in addition to us looking at programs throughout the year in the springtime, we pull every single student with disabilities including 504 and then we analyze the IEP for high need versus learning and then we effect. So if uh school central has a certain number of should school Mountain View has a
102certain number of special ed teachers and parents and you don't just get every year what you got before really is based upon the number of students you have by you setting. One of the things that happened two years ago was you realized that there was one case manager with 38 kids on their case where others had 17. So that was quite inequity that was corrected. there was movement of special education in Paris based on an equity degree view every single year. Um but I will say when you look um from high school down high school has the lowest case load anywhere from 17 to about 22. Middle schools were averaging around 20 kids and then elementary has the highest cases some of them hitting hypnotherapy still >> through the chair. I have a question for
103you as well. Dr. >> Sure. Um I was just wondering um what would be considered the best practice range for one supervisor to like how many uh IEPs and PBTs should one supervisor be doing in a school IEPs? Well, that is challenging because I'm not sure that there is the right answer. Um the suggestion based upon east load is really about the complexity of the district. So I had shared that generally based on our the details of our district they saying each supervisor should be overseeing about 250 students facilities. If I were to ask for that that would be such a burden to this district that we do share with our building leaders. So the one is actually quite conservative. Um, I don't think I even wanted to guess what, but it would like >>
104I just have a question. Do we know how many homeless students are in the district? >> I thought it was reported a couple years ago, but I was just curious. I don't have a number. Okay. And one other question. Um, with the lunches, the school lunches every day, if there's excess food, what happens to that? I think we'll have to get back to you on that. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Were you circling back to something else? >> Yes, I remembered about the section 504 oversight. So I think so I'm here talking and really representing special education but I think you know building leaders would also say they're stretched in. So depending on the level building administrators not only have to attend PBTs or 504s but at certain levels like the elementary school it is either
105the school counselor the psychologist or the uh social worker and or administrator who is the case manager for all 504s. He writes all those fields. Um, so I don't know that it's a well-known thing, but there are a number of additional tasks that are as new initiatives come on, people are taking on more and more things that are taking loved parts of their day. May I just have one quick followup on um, so if we were to build out our special education um, programming here? So you had said like bringing back a classroom of students would require maybe a teacher to um cars and then what do you what what would be the requirement for like clinical staff for classroom classroom is student so it really depends the sorry excuse me If uh the group
106that I'm targeting, I'd be really looking for at least one teacher, probably three or four paras, and either an existing clinical staff or adding a clinical staff and that could be social workers, psychologists, etc. If we're looking more at bringing an autism level program from out of district back in district, then we're talking about different levels of services because if you have a student on a spectrum fire out of district, it's because it's above and beyond what we can do. So we're looking at intensive therapies with related to language and communication probably beyond that we can go probably additional OT support PT support ECBA support so there's lots of auxiliary staff that come with that hence why that's me as a leader kind of thing whereas there are other groups of students that I do
107think that we could easily address Any other questions? >> One quick one about the KTAs and subbing. Are KTA still eligible to sub and are we using them to sub? >> Short answer, yes. Um and and what it comes down to is um if we can't have us uh building administrators try to get very creative um with trying to use support staff that we would not have to pay like a KTA to cover a class before they would dig up a class. Usually if a building administrator is asking a teacher to cover and to pay them, it's the last absolute resort without having an adult presently there. chair. Yeah. Can I just add on to that? Um kind of as a devil's advocate for that. Um having been a kindergarten teacher and um knowing the
108need for teacher assistance really in every kindergarten classroom. Um and we don't get that or we didn't get that as it was. um when we ran into periods of time during the school year where there were a lot of absences, we would use our TA uh for that um purpose. But what happens is if you're planning in your literacy program that you're using your TAs as a um as a center for instruction, you know, if we we had a plan where we had two people, two adults in every um in every classroom to facilitate those rotations. But when you keep using that person, you're constantly readjusting what you're doing from instruction that day. Or perhaps perhaps you don't have any other body and then you're switching around what you're giving that group to do when
109otherwise it's very purposeful planning and that TA is part of the instruction process. So there's some suffering that goes along when you're constantly using the TA. I totally get it that in cases you may have to, but I would just caution that we don't use that as the the answer for it. >> And and that's a great point. I I failed to mention earlier when I was going through my sub analysis. Um there are other sport stuff that get pulled. Uh T-OLE teachers who are servicing ML learners, special education teachers, absolute last resort, but that might happen. um our ISTES math and literacy could get pulled and then the intervention that students are supposed to be receiving that day get on hold and and not for nothing but you know as a as an educator
110that's kind of hard coming in the night before you have lesson plans you plan out your day your groups you come in and you're asked to cover you can't meet with your students then you start to feel that you're not meeting the needs of your own students so there is that psychological impact as well and we see that at the compounding effect on the academic side um not just even on financial side of things. >> Thank you. >> I just have um a couple questions and then we'll close the meeting a little bit early maybe. Um so Jeff, if you could go back to the first and second slides like the second and third slide that talk about the previous asks. Okay. So when last year when Superintendent White asked for 16,4,878 to the board
111before we made any reductions. That was the first time I had ever saw the true representation of what it would cost to run the district. And so that wasn't an ask based on pie in the sky. That was if we got that amount of money, we wouldn't have had to lay anybody off and we could operate the district. Can you go to the next slide? And because we were told by uh you know the city that that was absolutely never going to happen, we went back and said, "All right, let's find a number where we don't have to lay off essential staff that touch kids that work with kids that directly would we see an impact. Yes, all of the positions impact the way the schools operate, but this number would have provided us with
112the possibility to not lay off the 42 people that we laid off. And so, so we reduced it with the idea that then that would have been considered like what we absolutely needed. And that was the first time in my six years on the board that we reduced it. Kristen and I do you ever remember reducing before that from the original ask? Not not not the city, us like the board itself saying to the superintendent, we want you to lower your ask >> 100%. >> Okay. I never remember ever doing that. I don't think a superintendent ever got >> out of the out of the board itself before it goes to the city. Just like the the Kate would present her budget to us and then we would approve her budget to go to the
113city and then it would come back cut and then we would have to decide how things got cut. But I believe you if I maybe >> maybe 2008 I'd have to go back 2018 but the but that wasn't um >> I I think >> so maybe once in you your time. >> I would just say that I can't say with 100% certainty about 2018 but certainly when Dr. Harbone was here she didn't get her asks what we didn't get it when it left us but once it leaves us it's our budget. >> There's always been challenges to the superintendent's budget since I've been on board. >> Okay. So, in my experience, in my memory, and I could be wrong because I'm 52 now and it's starting to be harder to remember things, but um typically
114what happened was we would put forth what we were told the district needed, but we didn't last year. And so what we did is we reduced it hoping that we would get at least that the board reduced it. Yes. Before it left uh by six million. So now can you go to the next slide? So now we get the 137061 and compared to the original budget that we received in 2020 for 2025 which was 129 129,89,000. That's where you see the $6,527,12 increase, right? That's what it looks like. But what it but there's a slide missing in my mind. And because at during last year, we had a deficit that was predictable in special ed. We we've been carrying the same deficit forward every year. So we the city had to give us an additional
1155.9 million to the original appropriation of the 129 which meant our total real expenditures like what it cost us was 136 364703. So when you look at that, it's not 5%. It's not 6 million, 6.5 million. It's really 700. It's well, it was a little over 600 what? 697,112 was the total increase from what it cost us to run the district the previous year and how much the city gave us the previous year to how much we got that year. And then I have to just mention that another 250,000 was taken away from the budget because the city has a reserve for insurance and they help us when they have a surplus. And so the previous year we got 750,000 in a reduction from our costs for benefits. But then this year we only got
116500,000. So then that creates another hole in the budget. So that reduced us by another $250,000. So that means our real increase was only $447,112. And when you look in in the budget book for this year or last year in the first presentation, there's these there's a page called budget drivers. And those are the things that are non-negotiable that cost that are increased every year. And the biggest line items are obviously salary because of our um contractual obligation. So if salaries increase by a certain amount of money, we know what it is. It's predictable. Then we have to put that into the budget. If we don't, we create a hole, right? Same with transportation. Same with insurance premiums. We go up. We went up 3 point almost five million in an increase in insurance at
117a lo alone. That doesn't touch special ed. That's just the insurance. So just for salaries, transportation increases and insurance we were up close to 11 million. We only received $447,000 of an increase. So to be at a5 or $6 million predictable budget again deficit right this minute is predictable. So we continue to do a cycle of it looks like we got that but we really didn't get anything. It's essentially flat funding which is going to create the hole again. And so what we really want to do, which I really appreciate, and I think that this budget workshop and the first really allowed for the truth of how it's impacting the district to come out. And I appreciate all of the hard work that everyone did in the district to really demonstrate that in a way
118that anyone could understand because it's complicated and confusing and you know, it's easy to say we're overspending. We're not overspending. We're trying to meet the needs and the needs are enormous and we've been losing money every year and never catching up. So, I'm grateful for this conversation and for the honesty of every staff person and the hard work that you've done. And I I I'm surprised our deficit isn't larger considering and I know how conservative you all are with funding and I'm just uh hopeful that better better days are. But thank you very very much. And with that, thank you Superintendent White for steering the ship through the storm. Uh and the meeting is adjourned.