Board of Education Meeting - Public Hearing followed by Budget Workshop #2 - March 25, 2026

001Calling to order the West Harford Public Schools Board of Education meeting for March 25th, 2025. Ammani, can you please call the role? >> Miss Marman >> here. >> Miss Yagalof >> on her way. >> Mr. Gagnan >> here. >> Miss Hers >> here. >> Mr. Weiner >> here. >> Miss Bleach >> here. Mr. Goldman >> here. >> Thank you. Um Paul, can you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? >> Certainly. 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, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. So, good evening everyone. Um so tonight is a um a special meeting where we will actually be starting with a public hearing dedicated to the budget uh the 2026 2027

002proposed budget that um has been presented by superintendent vicinus and um so the first part of the meeting will be completely focused on that and it will run I'll go over the sort of the rules of of the public hearing process um but then that will be followed by a brief break and then we will re um reconvene to have a second board workshop focused on the budget, which the public is very welcome to stay and hear how that conversation ensues. Um, as as I will note, the board's policy is not to comment during during public comment, but you may hear us pick up on some of the threads of things that come up in public comment when we get into the workshop portion of the evening. Um, I want to start out though by

003also just um acknowledging how this process has played out up to this point has been really um from from my vantage point and I think I speak on behalf of other members of the board a very thoughtful intentional process whereby we've been presented with the proposed budget by the superintendent. Um we have then had a series of community forums. There have been three in total with some great turnout from the public and the community as well as a lot of emails that have come in through the inbox through the budget at uh uh uh the budget at whps.org or which you can continue to send emails to. Um and then we have had opportunities both at last week's regular board of education meeting and then tonight's um meeting. And so a lot of opportunity to

004hear from the public and I've just been so uh encouraged and impressed by how many people have turned out and in whatever way, shape or form they're able to whether it's in person or in writing. um and to share their um their reactions, their suggestions, their questions, their concerns related to this budget as well as the budget as it situates within the larger town budget. Um and that's what the community forums were focused on. It was kind of hearing both both halves of the of the equation and um not only a lot of great conversation and suggestions, but also a lot of great um proposed ideas and solutions and just grateful to be in a community where the um everyone is so invested in making sure um that they're using their voice and sharing their

005thoughts um and committed to making sure that West Hartford can be the best place that it can be uh both as a town but especially as we are board of education stewards of uh what is in the best interests of our students and making sure that we are always ensuring academic excellence and access and opportunity for all student each and every student in West Harford public schools. Um so this process is continuing to unfold. It is a work in progress. Um, after tonight, we will continue to receive comments and and feedback. And then next Tuesday night, uh, is when we will come back as a board on March 31st and actually make any final proposed changes to the superintendent's budget and, um, move forward towards adoption and that will go forward to the town and

006then the town will have a chance to react to that budget and there may be some additional iterations after that. Um, so just I want to paint that full picture so you see how much of an iterative process this is. Um, and again just grateful for everybody who's here tonight and everybody who came before at the uh various opportunities that we've had for for public uh input. Um, so moving into our public hearing for this evening, all comments will be related to the proposed 2026 2027 superintendent's budget. Um, and as as you've heard at other regular board meetings, uh, this is the time where we hear from the public any questions, comments, concerns, um, or suggestions that you have. Um, and when you come to the podium, just say your name, uh, clearly as well

007as your town of residents. Um, and then you, each individual, and especially because we have a larger crowd tonight, we want to be really mindful of time. Um, each individual has three minutes to present their their comments. Um, Emani will be li uh sharing or putting up a yellow card when you have one minute remaining in your comments uh in your aotted time and then she'll put up a red card when your time has fully expired. So, when you see the red card, we just ask that you summarize your remarks and then respectfully take your seat uh so that we allow ample time for everybody to to uh come up and present. Um, please note, like I said before, it is our policy that we um are actively listening while those are while the public

008is presenting their comments. However, it is uh it is our policy that we do not respond in direct uh relation to those comments. But as I mentioned earlier, we will likely pick up on a lot of the themes that come up through through the public comment period. Um, so we're going to jump in with who signed up on the list and then those who may have come in after the list uh was was brought up to hear, we will give further opportunity for additional members of the community to speak. So we'll jump right in and the first person on the list is um Sonia Chowry. Thanks so much for the opportunity to speak and for every all the volunteers time. Um I I don't really have anything new to say. Just wanted to voice my

009support. Um in the same way that I'm sure so many parents have that it's very concerning that some of the class sizes specifically at Charter Oak are getting bigger. Um and and the ones that are big are staying big. And uh you know Charter Oak is a very diverse uh community and that's actually why we switched from our neighborhood school Brayburn which was also very lovely. But we did want the greater diversity that came at Charter Oak and my kids have benefited from it in very impactful ways. I I'm not in education or in this field, but even I can understand and and see the incredible difference it makes to be around uh that environment. Um unfortunately when they make direct comparisons with other um neighborhood schools that have smaller classrooms um which are also

010large I'm not saying you know those should uh get larger um but it there is a significant difference at Charter Oak and yet the needs are higher there because there are so many multilingual families and kids that have additional needs and um socioeconomically and language wise and other issues. And uh while supporting those are important, it does take away some of the bandwidth of teachers in which case a smaller classide would obviously help. I mean I I don't need to explain that. So I just wanted to voice support uh to help uh my colleagues in education because as we know uh more and more is being placed on their back and we don't want to contribute more to the burnout of them. um you know that that's a huge issue with the workforce and that's

011what concerns me uh both the immediate issues and then the longevity of our workforce and education because as we know um the alternatives that will pop up are not great and we do lose um a lot of uh good students and families to both private schools and then homeschooling and whatnot. So I feel like we do need to provide this wonderful public education um and keep people in there and encourage them to stay. So thanks so much for your time. Thank you. Um and and apologies in advance if I don't mispronounce anybody's names, but I will do my best. Um Isan Mer Merchant. I just wanted to say how nice my teacher from Charter Oak and Quest, Miss Hadlock is and she used to work full time and now the other teachers were complaining that

012she was working full-time so she had to go work at two schools and it was really meaningful and it's like the best part of my day to have her work there. So, I really hope like any of the funding doesn't get cut off cuz it would be it's really meaningful to me. Thank you so much. Um, uh, Carol Moliti. Good evening everyone. Thank you for all the work you do. I know it's very hard and time consuming, but worth it, right? Um, and to all the parents who are here and faculty and staff, it's nice to see you all here. My name is Carol Miti. I am a resident of 20 Sherwood Road. Um I saw something on social media that brought me here to Knight and um does pertain to the budget and this

013was an issue raised regarding um the ratio of teachers to administrative staff which is a common question and was certainly one when my children were in school. And I believe it was in the early 90s a um temperature was raised regarding that and it was decided to do a study and to bring in professionals to study it. So I just wanted to let you know that there was history and an extensive study done and this group this outside group doing the research and um comparing businesses and education and education is a very complex business that can't fall into exactly business lines. um did h show statistics and research that said to have an effective system there's an effective range of managers or administrators to people who are actively doing the work and I may be

014off a percentage it's a long time ago um but it was the range for effective administration was something like 4% to 13% % it could have been 14% was somewhere in that range. Many of us were expecting to see a very high percentage of administrators to staff. West Harford had one of the lowest at the time. It was somewhere in the 6%. And so I think that it's important to address the questions that people have regarding that because it's very hard to find it in the budget. You cannot if you know looking at the budget find that because the complexity of direct interaction with students is not always clear. And also the public does not know what has been mandated that you might not wish that you had to do. So I thank you for

015your work and I um support this school system with the successes that have shown for many many years for my children and now with children in the schools. I'm going to say what someone said when I was your age. Um, I paid my taxes and I am happy to pay my taxes at this age because somebody else paid the taxes for my children. So, thank you. Uh, Jonathan Room. Dear members of the board, my name is Jonathan Rayol and I a resident of um West Hartford. My son is a freshman at Connard High School. Um I am here today wearing two hats. Last time I came I was wearing the Focus hat. Focus is a community group that seeks um to improve mental health for students in the areas of digital technologies when it comes

016to smartphones and Chromebooks and things of that nature. I'm also here in a private regard because I I I sent to you two reports. One of them went to our group and got um uh extensively edited and vetted. The other one I finished a few hours ago and it's probably still warm in your inbox. And I'd like to talk a little bit about both of those. Um the first report was on digital technologies and their effectiveness um in education. And it turns out um that uh that starting in about 2015 um nationwide a phenomena has occurred as laptops and Chromebooks have been integrated into the education system. Um um scores have started um scores started to fall after after peaking in 2015. That was the migration away from paperbased education, from books and from writing

017and um and and there are statistics that show that unfortunately where we are right now as a town with our onetoone device penetration um or saturation I should say and the daily use thereof puts um and I have here a graphic from from the report that I sent you. It puts us over here in the category of mo most frequent use, which is the lowest test scores. Um, and and anybody in the audience who would like to have a copy of this report, then please send a an email to focus.weha.com. Happy to send it to you. Um, so um, we're not getting a return on on our investment and I hope that you will consider um a multiple or a multi-year plan to roll back digital technologies into transition. Now, I realize that you only

018have until Monday to make to make changes. However, I'm hopeful that um um starting in the elementary schools um in year one of the digital transition or the digital roll back, you can you can get the iPads out of kindergartens and first and second grade and there's more details in that report. The other thing I wanted to talk about is that is the impact on the budget. Um the budget document actually has an implementation plan. Um over four years I tried to do some financial modeling and it turns out the first couple years as we're buying books, we're not canceling many licenses. Um the savings aren't very large, but by the third and fourth year on the third year I I anticipate about a half million dollar um savings. In the fourth year, a million.

019And um and um the last thing because I'm running out of time is that in that budget document I plotted the last um 10 years worth of budget increases and it's and and West Harford's is disturbingly on an upward trajectory. If you look at our peer um institutes um they are oh excuse me I I'm cutting myself off. Um um um following COVID, our peer inst um our peer districts, excuse me, um um have all taken measures to um wind down some of the spending from COVID and it's not clear that we have and it's compounded by higher special um education um identification which may be related to um some of the digital technologies we employ um in addition to higher central um um office um administ ministration levels and so um it's all in

020the report um in addition to these graphics and please feel free to reach out um if you'd like to discuss them. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um Esther Gonzalez, good evening members of the board and superintendent. My name is Esther. I'm a parent of two students in our district. One is in Sichwick, his sixth grade, middle school, and the other one is Conart, ninth grade. He's a freshman. I'm here tonight because I love our schools. I'm not from the US. I'm coming from Spain. So my background is slightly different but I'm still amazed about the good things that West Harford public schools and the American system brings to our kids. Okay. We feel the teachers are professional and caring. I can see that every day how much they love our kids. Um and we are

021grateful for that for the lead the leadership of our principals. However, as a mother, I'm very concerned. Despite the despite the school's best efforts, our childrens are still exposed to improper content in the classrooms. My middle school son told me that the students are sharing names of websites to buy by bypass filters. In his science and language art classes while teachers are busy, students open a second tab to play games. Some of these games are not just distraction. They are improper. My son even found a game based on, listen to this, Jeffrey Epstein Island. They are playing that in the West Harford public schools. I was shocked and that's why to me it's like I had to come and say this is happening in our classroom because it is currently impossible for the teacher to

022see if a student is doing their work or goofing off on a different tab. This affects every kind of a student. For my younger son who finishes work quickly, the reward the reward for being fast is a video game. This teaches him to rush rather to rather than be thoughtful. For my older son in high school, the Chromebook is a constant temptation to help him avoid the work that he doesn't want to do. I'm not here to complain about our hardworking teachers or our principles, please. They are doing their best with the tools they have. I'm here to ask the board to give them better tools. So I ask please instead of trying to block zillions of bad sites, please equip our schools with systems that we only that are only educational sites approved by

023teachers and that they can open. Our childrens are being asked h to use powerful tools. They are still childrens. They need us to protect their focus and their innocence. Please equip our schools with the technology needed to make the internet a safe place for learning, not a a play a playground for improper games. Otherwise, please consider removing Chromebooks uh for instructions altogether. Thank you for your time and for everything you do for our children's. >> Thank you. Um, Aaron Hughes. Hello, members of the board. Um, my name is Aaron Hughes. I have a um one-year-old and a three-year-old. Um, and we're in the Norfeld School District. And I'm going to speak about my concerns with screens as I read from a screen because I ran out of time to to print this. Um, I'm particularly

024concerned about the use of tablets and screens in our schools, mainly in the K through2 classrooms. Um, at these early ages, children are in a critical stage of development socially, emotionally, and cognitively. Research shows that excessive screen time in young children is associated with delays in language development, attention challenges, and reduced social skills. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends limiting screen time for this reason. I have spoken uh with quite a few parents who have children currently in mostly West Harford elementary schools um across a range of different schools and while this is anecdotal what is especially concerning is how inconsistent tablet use appears across classrooms and schools. Some teachers seem in classrooms seem to rely on them frequently while others use them mainly for testing only. This inconsistency makes it difficult for families and

025raises questions about whether district guidelines are consistently applied. Um, many apps branded as educational are highly stimulating and reward-based, making them hard for young children to disengage from. Physical books, on the other hand, support focus and comprehension without the distractions that screens introduce. Um, finally, there's no evidence that early tablet use is necessary for future success. These devices are designed to be intuitive and highly engaging. Children will learn to use them quickly when they're older. They will not fall behind by waiting. Um, so I'm asking the board to follow the research and establish clear consistent guidelines that eliminate tablet use in K through2 classrooms and instead prioritize hands-on learning and real world interaction. And I also urge the board to reconsider any further investment in educational technology due to all of the reasons highlighted highlighted

026earlier. Um, especially since tablets are far more inex far more expensive than physical books and other hands-on learning materials. Not everything available is necessary, especially for our youngest learners. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Uh, Nancy Abramowitz. >> Good evening. Thank you for being here. Uh my name is Nancy Abramowitz. Uh I am a parent to a 2-year-old and a 5 and a halfyear-old who will be entering Norfelt in August. We're very excited for that. Um I in my day job manage uh technology for a nonprofit in Hartford. Uh I also in a past career spent three years managing operations at a charter elementary school in Springfield uh where I dealt with our entire COVID response including handing out Chromebooks to children as they left for what was supposed to be two weeks.

027Um, I also manage our board relations. So, I have sort of sat in your shoes. Um, and been in those meetings in the budget discussions. Uh, and as someone who has sat in that elementary school and then also managed our social media and communications, I've seen the amazing work of our teachers um, in elementary schools. It's a very challenging job. And I recognize that there are a lot of constraints placed on teachers in schools due to state testing, the pressure to make up from COVID learning gaps, um, and various uh, challenges, teacher shortages. Um, I know that it's not an easy position. I also recognize, and this is a consistent theme tonight, that technology is a way for teachers to allow students to continue learning. And there's some great educational apps um to continue learning

028while they focus on other things like working one-on-one with students, right? I recognize that uh my sister is in implementation for a major edtech company, so I hear her side of it as well. And I think I have a fairly balanced perspective on where technology excels and where technology may fail our students. Um, and I will echo Erin's words in that in our youngest students, we've often seen the challenges. Um, I can play an audio book for my son with no pictures at all and it's still a challenge to take it away from him. And I don't want to be the teacher who has to take that away from 15 or 20 students at a time. I can't imagine being in those shoes when it's something that is a stimulating educational game um or even,

029you know, a reading app, a math app, right? I know how hard that must be for them. And while it does give them some time to do other work in the classroom, it may also create problems after that. Um, so I want to express my uh concern for the amount of technology use in classrooms. Again, speaking with other parents of kids of my son's age who have older stu their students in other schools across the district, um, I want to recommend again knowing the budgetary impact, having managed the IT team at that school, uh, knowing that it what it costs to purchase, maintain, replace um those devices being the person who has to maintain them as well it is a real cost. So both from a fiscal perspective but as well as based on again

030all the research that people have highlighted um I would love to request that we limit or minimize and especially place guidelines and physical blocks on some of the sites uh to really restrict technology usage in classrooms especially for our youngest learners. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Uh Britney uh Gridenthal Golden. Yes. Of Judy Goldenthal. Famed. Anyone know her? Um hi, my name is Britney Goldenthal. I am um a mother of a future Norfelt attendee as well as an occupational therapist at Kenneka Children's where I've um worked with families and kids for the last six years. Um and I wanted to come today and share my thoughts given my feelings as a parent and of what I do for a living and um hopefully can add something to the conversation. So the

031core of of what I do at work is very simple. I have to make ensure that a child is regulated, modulated and in touch with their body and their mind in order to learn. Um, in order to do that, um, a lot of my conversations with families have to talk about, well, how do we transition? How do we go from one thing to another thing? And when a child is sitting quietly and happily with a screen, they look calm and safe and happy. Um, and the second that turns off, their brains do not respond in a calm, safe, and happy way. Transitions are really challenging. Um, they're predictable. Um, screens are predictable. They're easy. They don't require the complex social navigations that other things do. So, it it works out really well. But the question

032then I have is, is that valuable enough to the child? um is that valuable in their education? Is that what what we want to be making important? Um and so for me as a parent, transitions with my kid are really challenging. um transitions with 20 or more than 20 in some cases. Um trying to get them away from a screen even to a preferred activity like playing at recess would be really hard because of the levels of of dopamine that these screens give as quickly as they can. Um and I don't want to be in charge of those 20 kids. I don't I don't expect our teachers to be able to navigate that easily because it's going to lead to more dysregulation and behavioral challenges. Um, I've also seen the magic of technology and I

033want to acknowledge that as well. I've seen AAC devices take kids who are silent and be able to let them communicate with their peers and let them grow and learn. Um, these devices have locks and guided access where they are locked in on one screen at one time. Um, and they allow full participation without detracting from engagement. But I've also seen kids be violent when their screens are taken away. Um, and our teachers don't need that. Um, so I'm going to give the same advice, unsolicited or solicited, to you guys as I give to my families. A transition away is really hard at first, but it's easier than 20 transitions over the course of every day. Um, so thinking about the budget and where we spend our time and where we spend our money, my

034vote is to take the screens a step back, especially in the early years when we don't have to take them away. We just never gave it in the first place. Um, so thank you so much for your time and your attention and I appreciate all the work you do. >> Thank you. Um, Lizzie Brooks. >> Hi, good evening. >> Um, first I just want to thank Britney and Erin and Nancy for sharing that feedback and your really interesting perspectives on on the issue of screen use in the classroom. And I couldn't support you more in everything that you just shared. Um, but for tonight I'm I'm actually here to echo uh Sonia's comments. Um, my name is Lizzie Brooks. I live in West Hartford. I have uh two children, one at Connard and one at

035Charter Oak. Uh I spoke at this meeting last year as well along with other charter oak parents advocating strongly against the proposed reduction of classroom teaching positions. Uh there was a a very large turnout for that meeting and a lot of parents advocating for the same thing. Unfortunately the outcome did not change. Um and those cuts impacted Charter Oak directly. This school year, the current fourth grade class went from four sections of roughly 18 students, which was was in line with uh the numbers of other elementary schools to three sections of 24 students, the largest classes in the district. And the same is projected for next school year. So even though there are no further cuts proposed uh for teachers um due to last year's cuts the same projection for next year and actually um

036according to the enrollment projection for next year Charter Oak will be the only school in the district with classes of 24 students in both fourth and fifth grades. At a budget community conversation last week uh in response to a question about criteria for making decisions about class sections um superintendent Vicinus said that the needs of students are considered in that process. If that is true, how can the largest classes in the district be in the school with the highest level of student need? that that doesn't make sense to me. Um, you have you have the data that demonstrates clearly the needs of of our students. So, if West Hartford Public Schools as a district is committed to educational equity, which I know we are and and we say, then please reconsider those class sections for

037next school year. Thank you so much for your time and for your hard work and for the opportunity to share our >> Thank you. Um I I think it uh Ena Ena Zami Minsky. Uh good evening members of the board. U my my name is Ian. I'm a parent of uh two kids still in public schools and one just graduated and is in Yukon. Uh I'll be concise. In my profession life, every decision is evaluated through costbenefit analysis using objective data. A school budget should be no different. When we talking about millions of taxpayer dollars, decision decisions should be driven by numbers, not emotions. And before any department asks for more funding, there should be clear data showing what the current spending is achieving. What are the measurable outcomes? What is actually working and what's

038not? And if that data is not there, then the case for increased funding or for any funding isn't there either. Right now, that level of transparency is not consistently visible to the public and that is a problem. Um there also is a real impact beyond this room and as budget increases uh directly translate into higher taxes and over time that makes West Harford less affordable for families. So my ask is um that uh please require every department to back up funding request with clear objective evidence of effectiveness. Um basically show return on investment, prioritize what works and re-evaluate what doesn't. And this isn't about cutting, it's about accountability. Um, thank you. >> Thank you. Um, Ariadna Cafazona. Hello, my name is Ariadna and I am the parent of two children in the Bugby Elementary School

039system. Thank you for having me. I've come um before this board over the course of the past several times over the course of the past year because I am very concerned about the class size and because my children both have been impacted by the class consolidations. one has already gone from a class of about 17 um in her kindergarten and first grades to a class of 24 now in second grade, 23 in second grade. My kindergartenner is um at her class is at risk of consolidation. I've seen the impact that this had on my child, but actually that's not why I'm here today. I'm here to talk about data. I've pulled together a benchmark. That's what I do for a living. I'm a corporate strategist and I've pulled together a competitive benchmark of the comparing

040our spending and outcomes against a peer group of Farmington, Glastonbury, Simsbury and Avon. Unfortunately, the findings were not were not um in our favor. We are spend our mill rate is approximately a thousand basis points higher than that of those comparable towns. per student spending is higher both in absolute terms and on tuition specifically. At the same our class sizes um the guidance for our class sizes are generally higher than what our our peers advocate for and our educational outcomes are below that peer group. I don't think any of us in this audience are comfortable with those numbers and I was I was disappointed to see that despite our year-long advocacy um we haven't actually seen any change in the direction of the current budget. I I was unfortunately my professional obligations kept me from

041prior discussions. I've tried to catch up on the video that you've so kindly recorded, but it seems to me that a lot of the discussion was around anchoring to the higher end of those guidelines, guidelines that were established before most of the elementary school parents were born in 1988. It it they were last looked at in 2012. That's that's way before my kids were thought of. And I think the people who the the kids who were born in 2012 are now heading to high school. I I really believe that our children deserve deserve an environment and a classroom size that's reflective of the needs of their generation. I think that the challenges they're going to pace be faced with whether it be internet exposure as people have talked about so eloquently today or the AI

042disruption that will absolutely hit them as they start to grow into their educational careers like we cannot be guided by guidelines that have been that haven't been revised in over 10 years. That is that's the power that the voters of this town have invested in this committee. I really hope that you guys take it up. And I also have to say that when I look at what at the drivers behind the current budget, what are the what are those uh drivers of our increases? It's it's to to Ina's point. Some of it is living cost expenses, right? I firmly believe that our teachers deserve those. They absolutely um have invested their hearts and souls into our children. They deserve those raises. The same way that the second biggest driver over the past four years was

043special ed investment. I believe my children haven't yet been diagnosed with anything. I I believe that those children deserve the best education that we can buy for them. However, I don't believe that it that it can be a zero sum game. Children, every single child in this district deserves the best. We can't be framing it as pinch from here and then that's and that's the only way that we can fund special ed. We have to invest in every child and we have to enable every child to to to lean into their potential. I feel strongly about it and I would really appreciate it if you consider this and thank you for listening to me. >> Thank you. Um and next we have Gungjan um Sharma. >> Um good evening everyone. Thank you for um this

044wonderful, wonderful comment session. I've learned a lot and I'm so proud of our community that everyone's so passionate and came out. Um before I forget, I do have a question for the board and um um Paul, which is that New York City just came out with detailed guidance on how teachers can use AI in their duties. Is there such guidance for our teachers? And if so, or is it in the works? And if so, is there a way that we can comment on that? What that guidance is? Um, I do I loved hearing from the parents of younger students today. Um, or not even students yet. Um, but my I'm here to advocate for our older students, middle and higher school students. I have taught in higher education for 22 years. And the impact of

045shortened attendance span attention spans on the quality of learning in college is stunning. Um so I ask the board um to fund physical textbooks instead of expensive subscriptions and instead of Chromebooks. Everything that was said over here I I um I see it in my own seventh graders you know life. But I want to bring in um I want to talk about I see our students basically two and a half months after they leave uh 12th grade, right? And so I'm seeing all the behaviors that that sort of are, you know, being um um solidified in their um in their um schooling. Um I also want to uh iterate that I am not talking about Tik Tok or Instagram. I'm talking about productivity software. Right? I want to bring up a study, a peer-reviewed, published

046study that was a randomized control trial that was done on undergraduates at the Virginia Military Academy or Institute, VM, VMI. Yeah. And these uh there there was a bunch of economists uh who basically randomly uh assigned undergrads into different sections of introduction to economics. The demographics were balanced, right? uh a grade prior to to um you know uh signing up for the course. Uh sex, gend, everything was sort of randomized and controlled. Different sections, some sections were assigned a policy of absolutely no laptop use. Other sections were allowed laptop use for basically taking notes. Right now, we're talking about really highc caliber undergrad. These are serious committed students, young people still. I you know everyone's human but these are really motivated smart um young people who are basically using laptops to take uh notes in

047class and the outcome from the study was that there was a statistically significant drop in almost every metric of learning in the sections that students were basically using laptops to take notes. Right? So and this was not just test scores which I know we care about students I from my own experience I know my students are obsessed with their test scores but on all other uh qualitative metrics of understanding of literally using your brain students in sections that used laptops just to take notes right did much worse and there are different um the paper I mean you know this this is this is an e economic study but they did delve a little bit into the pathways of what might be happening and one of the re uh theories they oppose it is that when

048you're typing um you can type faster than you can write. And so when you have to write down class notes, right, your brain has to process what the professor is saying. You literally have to be like, is this sentence more important? Is that word more important? You're literally learning as you are writing. Right. >> I'm going to have to ask you to just summarize your comments. >> Okay. And so the I ask our board to fund actual physical textbooks rather than Chromebooks and expensive subscriptions. I'm seeing the effect of tech use in uh higher education and it is not good. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um that that concludes the list of those who formally signed up. Is there anyone else who would like to make public comment? Going once. Going twice. All right. Um

049well, thank you everyone for your um very thoughtful and respectful comments. We um are taking it all in and really um interested in hearing what you had to share. Um we are going to take a quick uh five minute recess um before we transition into the budget workshop number two. Um so we will reconvene here at um at 7 uh 5 7:55. That that clock's off. uh 7:55m we'll come back to the board table. Thank you. calling back to order the West Harford Public Schools Board of Education special meeting um budget workshop number two. and we will um get started with um turning it over to Superintendent Vicinus to provide an introduction and then I think we'll be hearing from the rest of the the team. >> Thank you very much and good evening. uh

050appreciate the opportunity to number one to hear our public testimony relative to uh the budget and if there are comments or concerns uh from that that you know this is the opportunity for the board to have not necessarily the engagement with the public but certainly the engagement with administration relative to anything there. Uh what's planned for this evening? Uh, as you will note, I did pass out a um copy of the slides show that uh we'll begin this evening by uh and I have this I have this kind of broken into a structured component. >> Say it again. >> Oh, apologies. Is it not right there? >> There was a color one. There were seven. All right. Yep. Uh regain my train. um structured uh conversation through uh questions that were posed during the last

051workshop that required uh additional research as well as updates uh relatives to some of the major you know changes to the budget drivers uh that have that have come about. Some of those you've heard about, a lot of those you've heard about uh if you were uh many of you had the opportunity to attend at least one of the um community conversations. So, we've alluded to those, but kind of look at them a little bit more specifically. And then there were also some uh email communications that came in to my office from uh individual board members. So, we attempting to be able to address all of that up front. And then what is planned following that is I will ask the team to go through a little bit of a more detailed look at each

052of the major segments uh under regular education, pupil services, special education and um under general support services section. So three three major sections. I know that we've gone over them in summary uh but given some of the conversations that have occurred uh at the town level uh during our community conversations, we wanted to go over them quickly again with opportunities uh that you might want to uh think about or consider if if additional savings are something that is is a pursuit. Following that, you know, during that component of the conversation, you may have individual questions that I would expect. That just gives us kind of a structured way to uh take your questions um as they come up on the pages as opposed to, you know, the questions. You may have a lot of questions

053and and as opposed to just kind of having them be scattershot across random topics. Um, and then certainly at the end of that, if there if if there is the possibility uh that there's something that you had a question on that didn't somehow come up in the budget, uh, obviously we would we would uh be ready and responsive to that. All right. So, um, if I may, uh, we'll dive in, um, to the first to the first slide. Just beginning again with the overview. This is uh this is the page um at the end of the budget presentation uh when we first did it outlining what our current uh adjusted adopted budget is that the that 214 million reflects the addition of the 700,000 from the non-lapsing uh fund uh that we put specifically into

054our outofd district tuition this year. Um, we talked about a roll forward increase, which is to say if we look at all of our contracts, uh, employment contracts, transportation contracts, utility expenses, etc., and uh, understand what those services would cost in next year's dollars, it would require that amount. The recommended changes, um, is uh, only just shy of $63,000. again reflecting that uh this is a maintenance budget. There is nothing new or um different in it. Uh I know that you know one of the looking for one of the comments about you know really ensuring that any new proposal be you know be something that is welldefended based research and all the rest. So the only changes as you will recall that we're really recommending we do have some modest changes to staffing within our

055special education and then we have the major uh the only other major change of note was the change of the supervision model of our high needs uh ESA students uh from a teacher leadership position to a department supervisor position. Both of those changes really the changes that are outlined um in my recommended changes are are obviously very modest relative to the overall budget, but they are grounded in um our high needs population and advancing achievement for those students. We know that we have exceptional return on investment. Um really for um nearly all students, but the one student group that we continue to work uh to work on very diligently is our high needs. And so any modest changes that we have reflect that without any u major changes to overall programs and services as we

056heard some folks come out and really talk about um the high quality of education that we provide and and what they want to sustain. So it is it did come in at the initial proposal of a 6.6% overall increase. Um I am going to from here talk about some recommended changes uh that that we can make based on again updated information or new information that's come in from the time we first proposed the budget. Um but those are those are recommendations uh unless and until on March 31st anything that we put up here has to be voted in because the first of these if you want to next slide please. Uh if we want to talk about insurance and benefits, uh we know that's a major driver. Um I think you've likely heard me say

057that we have received an updated estimate from the state partnership plan that reflects a 1% overall decrease uh in the anticipated premium costs. Uh you may recall we built the budget on uh projection of 12.5% increase and so that goes down to 11.5. So, it will affect a savings uh a new budgeting value, if you will, of uh a savings of about a half a million dollars, just over a half a million, $550,000. So, I can't just change my budget. You know, I made my proposal. It's on the record. So, you would, I will assume, want to obviously make that adjustment in our budget um on the 31st. Uh so, I wanted to alert you of that. Um, in addition, you see there, uh, there's we have an updated cost projection for workers compensation, and

058that'll also work in our favor for a, uh, potential savings of $50,000. We are, which is to say that you are able to uh, based on the updated projections we have, take action uh, next week and reduce the allocation to the workers compensation line uh, in the amount of $50,000. And when we're here next week, you know, if that's something that you do in fact want to do, um, you'll be able to you can affect that as a savings to the overall budget or you can affect either of these changes and increase a different line. That's obviously always your prerogative. But I'd be encouraging that we, you know, and and Barb will line up what those line items are. So, we'll have simple motions for you to be able to take advantage of these updated

059projections. For those of you that are new on the board, this is not an unusual circumstance. We put the budget together. We provide it to you at the first workshop or the first budget meeting uh board regular board meeting in March. And then from the time March comes around at the beginning until the end of March or sometimes early April when you actually uh vote on a budget, there are always going to be some updated cost projections that we can feed to you. Um, and then there is of course the opportunity for us to talk about if there are adjustments to the budget that you want to make in any way, shape, or form, which will become the next thing we talk about. But while we're here on insurance and benefits, um if I can

060have you go to next slide, uh there was a question from a board member uh that had asked and and I apologize I didn't bring the exact wording of the question, but it was a question if we could have the actual values of uh for a five-year history of how the in how the premiums played out from a from a total cost perspective across the three categories. So, I think I've explained um at at least one of the meetings that when you when you look at the health insurance in general um there are three potential plans that you could be under. An employee only plan, a single plan, an employee plus one which is typically the spouse plan and then if there's uh more than one dependent uh then the family plan and obviously you

061can see the baseline differences and the costs of those. Uh there this is the gross cost of the plans. There are employee contributions that offset these gross costs, but um you know, the board of education obviously pays uh the majority uh of of the plan values. And so when we look at our total increase that we're seeing under insurance, um it is a combination of the the previously 12 and a half now 11 12% increase uh in the plan values uh plan costs in addition to um it is uh sort of the change from the projected categorizations like we project how many student how many uh employees who we haven't hired yet haven't met yet. We'll be uh on a single plan, we'll be on a married plan, we'll be on a family plan, and

062then of course we have employees under our care uh who may get married in a year, may have children, and they move across those plans. So that changes uh the costs in the total line. So while there's a 12 and a half, you know, while we had projected a 12 and a half% increase to premiums, I think our overall increase was above 12 and a half% in this area. uh based on those based on those factors. So I'll pause here in case uh because this was a question that had come in if if if that clarifies the point or if there was more discussion on healthcare premiums. >> Ethan, >> yes, this this was me. Um believe this is gross numbers, >> correct? This is this is not our cost. This is total cost. We

063subtract from that the employee contribution >> ballpark. What percentage is it of the school system versus the employee or >> uh you you might know that 20%ish for an employee contribution >> approximately 20%. >> 20%. >> And the only other thing I'll I'll state more for the viewing public at home. Um you guys have heard this. We've done the analysis on you know how solid of a plan do we have? We do feel that the state partnership plan is still the best value out there. right now. I know there's talk, there has been talk at the town level and during our community conversations about shopping for other plans. Um we we certainly do that all the time because that's a that's a component of our contract negotiations. Um so in theory, while we don't necessarily

064have the ability to switch to a new plan just on a whim in a given year, we have to do that as part of the contract negotiation unless we were to open the contract. And there's lots of reasons why it would be better to do it through negotiations on the regularly scheduled time. But all that said, we do feel that the state partnership plan remains for us the most economical plan at this point in time. And that's based on a number of factors, not the least of which is that we have a 98% ratio of claims, the the amount the insurance company paid out to individuals for their medical costs versus premiums. So, we are we are in a in a good boat. If we were self-insured, um you know, it it'd be about even

065money except if we needed to move to self-insured, it would become a pretty significant expense for us to start off because we would have to build a reserve. Um whereas we're in this poolled plan. Um and that was something that came up at a community conversation. A community member asked, "Hey, have you guys looked into a poolled plan?" This is the largest poolled plan that exists within the state of Connecticut. And if I remember Rick Ledwith correctly, he said approximately 50% of towns and municipalities participate in the state partnership plan. It's pretty pretty huge pool and it has saved us uh at the town level when you aggregate the board and the town who both participate. It has saved us uh several millions of dollars over the over the certainly in the first few years

066when we joined it and we've we've begun to see increases in the last two years. >> So just one more although I'd say last year didn't look so bad but that aside is it possible and obviously you don't have it now but is possible to get an average weighted average of each year. Yeah, we could put that together so you can see the plan participation. >> Yeah. >> In each category. >> Yeah. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Well, no, I I was looking for a cumulative. So, for the full year, >> what the cost is by category in total >> in total in average. Yeah. Because the comments been made that number of people have moved from the single employee to the family. So, that would show that. >> Yeah. I just curious >> for the

067You're looking historically or just now? >> Say again. >> Historically or just for this budget year? >> The same years you have here. Okay, >> just one more column. >> Okay, thank you. >> All right, slide, please. >> John, back. >> I'm sorry. Go back. Go back. Just a just a quick question about um the about being in the plan versus going uh self-insured. Um obviously it see obviously it seems very beneficial to us in West Hartford that we are is part that we're part of the state pool plan. Um but I was wondering if you would be able to share as to why some municipalities have elected to be self-insured. and your experience. >> I'll I'll begin with some history and I'll see if Barb maybe has an opinion on that. Um what I

068can tell you is historically the district was uh self-insured for a number of years and we moved away from that toward the state partnership plan. Um it came at a dramatic cost savings when we made that shift. I'm aware of I'm aware that insurance costs in general are uh on the rise. Uh, I believe that Rick said at the our town manager uh made mention at our community conversations that the national average increase for insurance this year is 9%. I know that I know that we're above that. Um, I know that Connecticut is likely above that as a state because I'm aware and I've seen some of the insurance increases across other school districts. I know school districts that are self-insured right now that are facing 20 plus percentage points of increase um in their

069in their plan to to be able to deal with and absorb um you know basically medical claims. And when you're self-insured and you're you're just a school district or just a town, just just whatever your number of employees are, you have to be able to absorb any sorts of um really high cost, catastrophic cost uh insurance claims that may occur. So you can have a year where potentially you have some significant medical needs with um even a small number of individuals and it can and it can create uh dramatic dramatic gains for you. Um, so, so that's a piece of that. I know we moved away from that a number of years ago. I don't know if Barb >> No, I think that was consistent. You know, at the time our experience when we were

070in the self-insured plan, the board of education moved uh prior to the town and in those first few years, we saw a very favorable experience. Um, but as Paul mentioned, when you're self-insured, um, you know, if you have a very good claims year, things look great. Um but if you have a number of catastrophic claims um it does affect you. So it really um it just is it's it's open to a lot of volatility. >> I just also add to I know that when I sat in Shannon's chair and you have you know you're seeing a lot of the um things that people are dealing with in our organization. We're a large organization and just like any place you have a lot of people that are going through some really difficult times. I will say

071that I've never had an employee come and say that our insurance wasn't good or and they couldn't get the care that they needed for a loved one and or themselves. And certainly I I respect the the dollar amount and we want to be cautious with that. But I do think that that's something I don't want to lose sight of because at the end of the day like it's people. We talk a lot about kids and these are employees too and I think it's important for them to be able to get you know what they need for them or their family members in those times. >> Uh Latoya. Yeah. >> Yes. Okay. Um my question is just clarity around um you know just us here within the state of Connecticut and the you know the increase

072in insurance. Um just wanting clarity around is that is that increase um a result of federal policies and changes >> that I couldn't answer for you. I'm sorry. Ethan, >> I was gonna say it's if you look at the schedule that's been provided, three of the four years were relatively high. So, but the the well, my understanding of having dealt with insurance before medical insurance is the larger pool reduces your risk until you have um you have a group that says, "Well, we have younger people who don't get sick or get hurt." That works until somebody does. So, but it's usually the larger pool is beneficial financially, but you never know. >> Correct. And the and the I mean the state partnership plan does provide different increases or rate based on the counties in Connecticut.

073That much I can tell you and Hartford County is the second lowest. So again, we do feel that this is a good plan um for us at this time. So, if I can, I'm going to move on to uh the next slide. And uh this is a recommended adjustment um relative to staffing. So, uh about a week ago or just maybe less than a week ago, we held the high school uh FTE meeting. This is a meeting where we have the two principles come in and they meet with uh you know the majority of the team and we we look at what the course requests are and how those course requests impact uh the number of teachers that we need to have at the high school. So the high school is unique from the elementary

074and the middle in terms of how it's staffed. Our high school is staffed driven 100% by student course requests. So if there's a fall-off in a particular discipline for any reason or if there's a surge uh and more students suddenly become interested in you know automotive tech uh then we need to have more teachers certified for those areas or fewer teachers. Uh overall uh we're anticipating that based on that meeting that we can decrease we know that we did decrease staffing at the high school by two FTEEs based on a reduction in enrollment after a thorough analysis. uh we feel you know I feel comfortable that we can reduce an additional 1.0 FTE uh which would bring the net adjustment to a decrease of 3.6 positions overall when you look you know across every single

075position in the district just just to remind that's more of a reminder for the community that uh we are still engaging in a decrease in positions overall in the district. We're not adding positions. And again, as I've stated a couple of times, uh we have a net decrease of over 20 uh teaching positions in the district in the last two years. So, um I do feel that uh our staffing ratios are responsible. They're responsive to our needs. Uh I feel that we have an extremely high return on investment for our teachers. I've talked about our number of teachers of the year, but I really measure the return on investment in terms of student accomplishments. And I think I've talked to you guys uh significantly about, you know, the fact that uh uh we have multiple

076year-over-year schools of distinction at the elementary, the amazing things that happen in our middle schools. Our high schools sit on top of that foundation. They're in the top 2 to 3%. Uh I want to take uh an opportunity to maybe provide some clarifications to some interesting information that I've heard circulating uh through these community conversations. more than anything, and sometimes it creeps in even even tonight on a different slant with the public comment. Um, this wasn't shared here this evening, but I've seen it a few times where there was u there was some information circulating that said that there was a student teacher ratio in West Harford of 47%. Um, that was either a misspeak or just a misunderstanding entirely. That would mean if there was a studenttoteer ratio of 47%. That would mean that

077there was one teacher for every two students. Okay, that that is uh absolutely not accurate. Um you know, and I'll just point to some statistics that are highly transparent and visible in our budget. Um we have on our elementary class sizes, if you just look at classroom teachers, and I'm going to admit I'm just going to break this down. And I'm not going to I don't have the specific number broken out. Uh but um but I could do it actually quite easily because I have those in front of me and a calculator. But we're projecting an average class size of 19.4 at the elementary school next year. So that's a 19.4 to1 studenttoteer ratio for general ed. That does not include, you know, our special educators and all the rest. Understood? And that's that is

078uh on par with what what is happening currently. Currently, we have an average class size. It's the elementary. When you when you add up all the elementary sections and all the elementary students, we're at 19.5. Our projected uh student toteer ratio at the high school for next year is a 21.1. Uh and I had a note with our middle school. I don't have it in front of me, but it's um it's somewhere near uh somewhere near 19 or 20. I apologize. I don't have it. I didn't write it down. The thing that did come up that I wanted to mention, uh, one of our speakers tonight asked a very good and meaningful question. It's one that comes up often. What is our ratio of administrators to teachers? Um, and I've heard I didn't hear it

079tonight, so this is no knock on anyone who spoke, but I've I've, you know, I've heard people talk about it without necessarily using numbers. Um, we have a total, you know, first and foremost, folks may not know this. If they don't, you know, this is this is a lot of work to read all this. It's a lot of work to put all this together. I'm very thankful. But section C, I know we talked about it, I think, at our first workshop. Section C has a lot of summary information. And I'm since you're all looking, I'll I wasn't going to give you the page, but I will. Um if you basically go on to pages uh looks like C12 and C13 it's got some summary statistics on numbers of teachers, numbers of administrators, different classifications of

080the same and then it you know it breaks it down to other folks too. It goes through para educators and and a whole bunch of different positions. But if I can just concentrate on the one that's usually talked about the one that's usually talked about is uh administrators to teachers. And on that page, you should be able to find uh that the total number of teachers um is 815.26. Add to that the total number of special education teachers, which is on one of the lower pages, one of the lower tables, excuse me, is 105.3. And then for some reason, there was one teacher on special assignment listed down with the administrators. I don't know why, but but it's there. So, it's one more. So there's 921.5 teachers. Um, and then when you add the administrators,

081there's 22.6 department supervisors and 50.45 other administrators, principles, assistant principles, superintendent of schools, assistant superintendent, etc., etc. Uh, so it's 73 uh to 921.5. That's that's a 7.9% ratio. Now, I won't be surprised if I'm being very blunt and honest with you, you know, if that ratio is slightly higher than uh some other towns. Farmington, Glastonbury, Avon Simmonsberry are names that are that are thrown around around there a lot. Um, and as as I've shared with you, uh, two years ago, we added we subtracted 22 teachers from from that count and added them to our administrative count by not 22, excuse me, 11 uh 11 teachers from that count and added them to our administrators when we when I uh proposed to the board of education at the time a change in our supervision structure.

082Um I also at the same time uh and it shows on different pages in the book uh had reductions in the number of department supervisors where we were able to take teacher leader positions called curriculum specialists at the elementary school and translate them re redefine their job to be assistant principles at the elementary school as 10-month employees and had a uh correspond we had a concurrent cut within our department supervisors and other administrative positions in order to affect that change at a $40,000 savings to the district. Um, we're two years deep in that move. Um, I only continue to hear uh from the schools about what a positive impact it has been in terms of the management of the school, working with students closely, the management of our 504 students, the management of our special

083education for which these elementary PR assistant principles are responsible and repositioning our elementary principles from more management, which they had to do that to being the instructional leaders, taking on the curriculum and instructional leadership. um also as the primary evaluators of the classroom teachers. So, uh it's a move that I'm uh thankful to this board. I think it was a move that had some vision. I'm thankful for my team for for helping to define that. And uh you know, I continue to hear, you know, positive things about about that change. Um and should there be any question that that subtraction of of teacher leadership positions did not have any direct impact on students. those were not studentf facing positions. So, so that's a kind of a birdwalk from the 1.0 FTE, but I'm just going

084to pause for any clarifications on that. >> Uh Jason, >> so actually I'd like just to give you the opportunity to expand a little bit on what you were just talking about because what we've heard a lot of and you know, we get a lot of emails about it, a lot of public comment about it, which is look at Farmington, look at Avon, look at Simsbury, Farmington, they're half our size, they have half our budget, they're half our students. we should just take their budget, multiply it by two, we're done. West Harford, there you go. We saved you a lot of money. Uh there are extreme structural differences. We don't look anything like Farmington or Avon or Simsbury. And it's not simply that we have more students. We have a significant number of additional schools

085than they do, which comes with its own administrative staff, especially at the middle and the high school levels. So, I think it's important to talk about that. and then maybe the role that central office plays with the fact that you do have 16 schools and the need that that creates at central. >> Absolutely. No, thank you. I'm happy to do that. So, I'll begin with something that I always say. Uh we never shy from our comparisons to our Durby B colleagues Simsbury, Glastonbury, Avon, uh Farmington, uh for but I'm going to caveat that when I make that comment year over year and I will continue to make that comment. I make that comment relative to student achievement and opportunities for students. Um and and we also say when we say that we make that comparison

086knowing that the demographics of West Harvard are marketkedly different than those communities, but they are the communities with whom we compete relative to home ownership and neighborhoods because they also have very high performing school districts. Um so I will continue to compare us to those when we're talking about student achievement. But to your point, Jason, when we're talking about the budget and the structural differences in those districts, um, and I shared this at one of our community conversations specifically, um, those are all single high school, single middle school communities. So, if they were not, if we were just talking about elementary, um, where generally the elementary in a lot of places is a is a one-horse show. you have the one principal and and the staff, you could you could do that math. You could

087say everything was proportional. But once you add weights uh for high school and middle school, which have a deeper administrative team, so our middle schools, as you know, are two our two larger middle schools have a principal and two assistant principles. Bristo's different has a principal and one assistant principal. Our high schools have a principal and three assistant principles. Not uncommon for their size. Uh we do not have deans of students. Some districts have that and deans of students. Not not those districts, I don't believe. So once you once you factor in the idea that we have two high schools, so that's going to carry that additional weight of a fourperson administrative team. When you when you consider that we have three middle schools, that's going to carry that additional weight. It's no longer just

088a proportional reasoning problem where you could just say uh therefore the you know the administrative salaries should be no more than if if they're half the size they should be no more than uh we should be no more than twice the cost or what have you. Um and to your point, their central office, you know, supervising 16 schools, supervising the special education population that we have, which is marketkedly different, requires greater number of special educators, which requires a greater number of special education uh department supervisors and and requires, you know, robust structures at the uh more robust structures at central office in order to make the program run. So, um, they are, you know, it's been said, I know that our mayor has also encouraged the public to not just make, you know, wave of

089hand comparisons, uh, as it relates to taxes and other things because they have a entirely different comm. West Hartford has a very narrow commercial base and and some of those districts have a much more robust commercial base which creates very different um you know tax implications relative to how we fund our town budget overall. Really, ju just a follow-up comment. Um I believe that 7.9% ratio you cited puts us smack dab in the middle of the 4 to 13% ratio for efficiency that was cited earlier tonight. >> I compliment you on noticing that. >> Latoya. >> Yeah. Mine is about um the class sizes. I just wanted to clarify. I I believe you shared this with us last year, but wanted to ask um at at what like what amount of students um would warrant

090another adult to be in the classroom. So when we exceed our class size guidelines and and when we build the budget and certainly um even after we build the budget um when you know when this meeting is a little bit of a memory and we're moving into the summer, we're spending our time closely monitoring the student uh enrollment uh because kindergarten, you know, kindergarten is sometimes kind of a it's the most variable of all of them. It's kind of a it's it's it's it's our best estimated guess uh based on the metrics that are provided, but um where those students actually land in what kind of neighborhoods um can be hard to determine because it's based on so many factors. People who may sell a home may move out, people who may not even be

091involved in the school. So, there's not necessarily an easy way for us to know. So, it's only when um we've had to we've seen an enrollment above the board adopted class size guidelines that we would add an additional person and typically in the role of a teaching assistant or um to that classroom to support the the teacher with small group, you know, the ability to form small groups. We have one instance of that this year. Um, I did, you know, there was commentary uh about class sizes last year. I know there was commentary about that tonight. Uh, and reflecting back on that, there was a lot of lot of public uh outreach about those class sizes. And um I need to look to to see, you know, if our 202 that we're currently operating on

092from last year's budget when we when we went to it was one if that was a big cut. But I would want to remind the public that while the board adopted a budget with 196 teachers in it at the time, elementary teachers at the time. Um because we had a significant amount of move in and it was before the start of school, I went ahead and hired six teachers above the 196 that you adopted. Um so we we were responsive and I and I just want that to be on the record. We are always responsive to those moveins. It's only when those class letters go out that and that happens in August. Um and all of a sudden we get a couple of more moveins and at that point we won't reconfigure it. We will

093staff that with a TA and we have one instance of that this year. >> Okay, great. And then want to clarify too students who um have assigned paras are in class with them. Correct. >> They are and we're going to have a slide coming up that's going to talk about our number of parah educators. Um it's actually a couple slides ahead. So >> Okay. Awesome. Thanks. Yeah. Just wanted to ask I know uh when I was a teacher uh and I I believe our former colleague Claire would say this last year too being a teacher like I I have had classrooms where I've had 15 students and it felt like 30 and I've had classrooms of 30 students cuz where I taught I don't we never talked about uh class sizes um you just got

094what you got and I've had 30 students and it felt like 15 and so um it is interesting in terms of how folks are feeling about that and and just kind of also speaks to the power of relationships and then thinking about some of the other resources that we have in place to mitigate that and just wanted to make sure like it's not just one teacher in a class with 24 students if there are kids who have paras there's there are paras in there with them as well there's a special educa a special education teacher that's doing interventions they're also popping in and pulling out as well so I just wanted to clarify that because I think sometimes that can get lost in the sauce too >> absolutely and I and I do want to

095acknowledge I I know we've had some outreach, you guys have seen some outreach from Charter Oak parents, uh, also maybe you've seen some from Charter Oak teachers. Um, and they're at the edge, they're at the upper end of their class size guidelines. And it is true that a number of the other schools and depends on which grade level you're looking at, um, you know, are at the lower end. So they they had just crested whatever the class size guideline was to enable um you know to enable a section break. So so they're looking more roomy. Um this happens every year. It's not just you know every school goes through it. That being said, you know what I said to one of the community members um at one of the meetings we had this week was

096not so much like I I thoroughly understand and respect the argument that's being made. I think it's it's a good argument for the board to consider. It is a higher need school. We all know that and recognize that and want to support that. Um the question isn't are we providing additional supports to charter because we are there are a number of them and even the reduction of class size. We're we're honoring that. Um the question is uh are we honoring it enough you would be the better way that I would frame that question. And is the reduction of class- size guidelines, you know, from two off and whatever the statistic was 12 years ago, is it now because those demographics have changed, you know, should we be three off instead or something? Which which would

097have a thing, but it needs to be framed that way because we cannot what we cannot do is not look at other schools and say, "Oh, look, these three schools have a lower class size average. I need to throw an FTE at that." That's not a way that we can operate the budget. So, we do need to whatever the guidelines are, follow the guidelines. Um, so I'm not in any way, shape, or form wanting to put down what they've said. I want to just reframe it in a way that this board and future boards can operate consistently. Um, so I'll I'll share that and uh let that be something to think about. John. >> So yeah, so yeah, just so just following up on that in terms of providing additional resources to a school like

098Troder Oak um as we look at FTEES, how would a teaching assistant FTE compare to say a teacher a certified teacher FTE in terms of provide may maybe providing a little additional reach within our current guidelines? >> Yeah, actually that's something that we currently do. They do have a couple of extra teaching, but how would it work? You know, and again, is it enough? That's a question. But, um, it's something whatever it is, I would want to I would want to be sure that we can we can staff it and operate it consistently for schools because there's another title one school that does have 24 and 25 and fifth grade. And so, am I going to do that there? That's also a school of need. There have been times where there's another fifth grade that

099has 25. if the class size guideline at that school is 27. Am I going to provide a TA for that or not? I mean, these become the bigger discussions that we would have to have. And I don't think it's I don't think it's an overnight, you know, I I think we need to spend some time considering that and having a having a good understanding of what those big implications are. But but relative to what you're asking, the the basic question, is that a support? Sure, we do we do already do some of that. We do already do some of that at Charter Oak. It may not, you know, it's a question of is that being manifested in fifth grade next year, which is a which is a next year question. >> Ethan, >> yeah, I

100wasn't able to catch up on the position summary of teacher to admin. Is it possible just send it out? >> Yeah, I can send it out, but it's it's uh you know, just to make sure it's 73 to 921. >> No, I got that. I just like to just go through it. >> Sure. I'll uh I'll send you an email. I'm going to write it down with the page references point to the specific >> that was fast enough >> C12 and 13 I think but yes sir I'll do that >> all right thanks >> Jennifer >> uh hi everybody um I appreciate you addressing um the the Charter Oak classroom sizes particularly I think that's um certainly the school I've heard the most about and then I believe there's a parent tonight from Bugby who

101also um brought up class size you know, I um I think this is like obviously the big issue that we all have to deal with like we want smaller class sizes and we also don't want to increase the budget. Um and you know I feel that deeply. Um I guess my concern is are we setting ourselves up at Bugby um for this to be an ongoing challenge. So I a parent had mentioned how last year it was also around 24 and obviously again this year it's also at 24. So, like, you know, we can't every year at the budget say, "Well, next year." So, I'm I'm intrigued to know what kind of the longer planning for that is and um if we wanted to address it, how we would do that. And I hear you

102on the student class size piece that we'd have to kind of figure out. Um then my second question came from one of Latoya's comments, which I I honestly hadn't even considered. um does classroom size um equate to better outcomes? Um and this this topic that we're talking about, is there data to show that this is something we should be spending our time thinking about? >> It's good questions. We're going to have some opportunity to talk about number of elementary sections coming up, but I would just reference you to um if you wanted to look at Bugby specifically, you can. It's page number one in the data supplement. And if you're talking about 24, there's one instance of 24 projected for Bugby at this time. And I'll just say this nice and slowly. This is a

103point in time estimate. You know, I never know who's going to move in or out of a neighborhood. Um, but that's, you know, the the class size of 24 at Bugby for next year is in the fifth grade. It would appear there would be two sections at 24 and one at 23. And the current class size guidelines for fifth grade at that school and at all schools except for our magnets is 27. So by virtue of the district's guidelines, there is room for uh 10 additional students to move into that grade level before we would consider it. And if we, you know, we did this analysis last year, if we were to adjust class size guidelines to from 27 down to 25, how many additional teachers would you need? If we were to adjust it

104in third or fourth grade from 23 down to 22 or 21, how many additional teachers would you need? If we were to adjust it in K1 from 23 down to something smaller, how many additional teachers? And that's a year-over-year expense. So that is a uh that is something that was initially taken up by the policy subcommittee but given the transition of the number of members on the board uh that was a conversation that the committee tabled so that the new committee might pick it up if the new committee wants to pick it up and I'm not kicking the can to say it's a next year question. It's a question of um you know this can be picked up and and and dealt with. Uh but it's it's just not a conversation I think it's just

105not a decision that I would expect this board can easily make by Tuesday. Um but I you know but that's not to say that that we can't figure something out because there's the policy and then there's what you might want me to do budget-wise. Um the second qu I apologize I lost >> class size matter. >> Does class size matter? So yeah there's there there the answer is um yes the the the longer answer is to what degree? Uh we hear that a lot. Uh if you really dig into the research uh it talks about uh and I think I think one of the public speakers mentioned this that the younger grades it matters the most. Um, and then once you exceed, and I don't know if my team can tell me, there's a certain

106number. Once you exceed that, the impact of class size no longer really has a significant effect. I don't know if it's like 15 or something, very small, 17 maybe. Uh, and I'd have to, you know, go back and dig in. That's off the top of my head. So please, no one in the public, you know, quote that as as but I but I know it's it's something that is well below what our current guidelines are. Um that being said, um trust me when I say I am a I'm a big fan of smaller class sizes across the board for for all of our kids. I do think that there are, you know, lots of intangible benefits, but I have seen um when we analyze our data, I've seen classes of 24 show exceptional results. I've

107seen classes of 15 and 16 show poor results. So, I will never take away the most important um measure of student performance lies within uh lies within teacher. Um and they talk about the effect size of that. you know, John Hetty does, you know, years and years of research. Um, and so it's, you know, it really goes back to uh hiring uh really strong teachers and what they do in the classroom relative to active student engagement. >> Thank you. Um I I completely agree with you on on the point of like making changes before Tuesday. I just, you know, for the person saying out loud, I think the budget draws a lot of attention and like this is the time, you know, folks think to come and talk about these things. So, I just want

108to make sure that uh I can imagine it'd be frustrating to kind of talk about something and then not hear uh anything about it. So, I wanted just to make sure we we we brought that out. And I think to your point, you know, we can take it up as a board with the policy committee. Um and it sounds like maybe there is um you know, uh a good reason to focus on, you know, the younger the um K through five or K through four classes. So, that's that's all my comments for this one. Thank you. >> Thanks, Miriam. I just wanted to add um as well that and maybe again just to make it clear is that the student toteer ratio, you know, is a number, but we have to bear be very clear

109that there is a certain level of acuity in each classroom that has to be addressed as well. And so perhaps the conversation continues when we look at class size and we look at acuity and we think about policy to support both of those things together u for all of our students. >> 100% agree. >> Um I one real quick question. Does this equate then to a a dollar figure in terms of savings on the >> Yeah, we average uh for each teacher position we average 100,000 which is an average salary of about 75,000 and 25,000 in benefits. So that's pretty fair. Is that the ballpark figure? I like round numbers. So >> So on Tuesday if we were to accept that this is the adjusted decrease in pos FTE positions, we would deduct a 100red.

110>> You Yeah. you realize the savings. I don't if you have a different do like if you have it more broken out to a finer value or do you just use a straight 100? >> You could estimate 100,000. Yeah. >> Thank you. And then I just wanted to make a comment because I know that you mentioned about the ratio between um teachers and administrators. And I think another nuance layer to that is the central office compared with the administrators because so many of our administrators are very much studentf facing and like in the schools doing this work every single day. And so I think that distinction is critical. And when I looked up the central office proportion for West Harford, according to the Connecticut State School and Finance Project, um the central office percentage of

111the budget for West Hartford was listed as 1.3% whereas the state average is 3.2%. So, West Hartford's central office percentage is a incredibly lean uh seemingly efficient use of how we are thinking about the distinction between central office and all the other administrators that are supporting the schools or even directly in the schools. >> I had not heard that. Thank you. >> All right. Um, next slide, please. Uh so this next piece will come up. Uh is that the next slide? Oh, tuition. I'm on the wrong page. Uh so this next piece is tuition. Um we did talk about I did talk about in my budget proposal um introducing tuition seats within our IB program. And previously uh I had you know recommended that that the number of seats would generate revenue of about a

112100,000. So, uh Melissa has had the opportunity to go and socialize that among uh her area directors and there was great interest in that uh from our you know colleagues and we do anticipate we went back and look take a tougher look at that and we do anticipate that we can uh create uh additional revenue about a total of 200,000 in revenue. Um, and and that's that's kind of two-part. That's kind of uh looking at our seats, but also looking at the tuition costs that we would charge, kind of what we put into our first projection versus our second because we started to do some cost analysis as to when a public entity does offer tuition seats. It's not an uncommon thing um what what's the kind of the going rate. And so we do

113feel that we can affect a larger revenue stream and create an additional h 100,000 which would equate to $100,000 in savings for the district. >> Incremental >> explain what you mean incremental. >> 100. You were at 100,000. You're adding >> We're at 100. We're adding 100 to get to 200,000 incremental. >> Yes. So that would be something you know we can put up for at the 31st. I don't know if you have other questions on that. I'm sure we're prepared to answer anything. >> Any questions? >> It'll be an additional 100. >> Yes. Y >> awesome. Um also related to tuition but but impact being measured on our health care costs. Uh we did an analysis of our current 2526 budget and our proposed 2627 budget. In fact, I'm pretty certain our financial examiners got

114uh an in-depth conversation about this today. We uh based on the incredible work of Melissa and her team, we are, you know, continuing to uh be able to bring students back from out of district placement here into the district. So, not only are we containing costs um relative to what are the increased in the out of district tuitions in general, um we feel that we're going to uh we're feeling more confident that we're going to have a fairly sizable end ofear uh positive variance end of year. You know, I hesitate to use the words when I use words like surplus, then Barb makes faces at me. Um, so I want to make sure I'm saying it the appropriate way, but uh, we'll we'll have savings in in that line. And what we would want to

115do is we would want to reduce our liability and health care costs. So we contribute money out of our general fund each year towards towards health care uh, and and that fund. Um, and we'd be able to reduce the allocation by approximately 125,000. And um we expect by virtue of paying that we would reduce we would amiritize that over a period of years. So we expect to have a fairly sizable um and you're going to get to hear the full details on that at the financial examiner's report on on Tuesday. Um but the idea being that we would take that excess that we would have amveritize it over several years to be able to reduce by 125,000 perhaps next year and for several years following. Um so uh and that would be the strategy that

116we would want to use because while we could you know take a big credit for it next year then that means in the following year we would have you know potentially you know it's it's it's smarter for us to take that and and break it up over several years. Hopefully I didn't butcher that too badly. Questions on that? >> Jennifer, >> I I need a little bit of help understanding what we're talking about here. So that we're contributing for potential I guess I'm not going to try to say it. You can you help me understand what what this is? >> Certainly. So um so this past year >> Yep. >> when we when when the board at the time was here and we had our budget, you know, we we passed the budget and then

117after the fact the state provided us >> Oh, yeah. I don't mean that. I >> No, no, but that's apologize. That's part of the long story. >> Um, state provided us extra, you know, the extra money. >> We took that extra money at the time and because out of district tuition was so expensive, we, you know, we had a plan, we put it into a non-lapsing fund with the plan that in the fall we take it out of that non-lapsing fund to get it off the old books, put it onto the new books and dedicate it right towards out of district tuition where we expected, you know, significant increasing out of control costs. M um so we're realizing a savings so at the end of the year we're going to have some extra money again

118rather than put it into a non-lapsing fund the suggestion is we go forward and we put it into towards this health care expenditure um that will which is a separate fund if if I understand it that health care in order to reduce the volatility there's a there's what's called I believe you call it a risk fund um which is probably >> these are two separate pots we're we're talking about. Okay. I was confused as to why the healthc care costs were relating to the out of districts. I wasn't sure if there were like injuries. I'm with you now. Thank you. >> But I'll finish the thought for anybody else. >> Please. >> Just every year out of your general fund, you contribute money to the risk fund. And the purpose of that is because as

119we said, there's always volatility uh that that can happen there. Um and you have to you have to either uh you know some years you could be running a deficit, some years you could be above and beyond even where we are. That that will that will smooth and reduce any volatility and and amortizing it over five years means that you will be able to have that same lowered contribution out of your general fund towards that for multiple years. Ethan, >> if it's over five years, it's 125,000 annually. It's 625 in total savings. >> Yeah, it's what we're anticipating. But see, now you've let the surprise out of the bag for Tuesday's report. >> Well, I'm trying to understand it. >> You understand it correctly. Yes. We're It's It's a projected It's a projected uh 625,000.

120So the savings was in the out of district tuition, but you're recapping it in the healthcare, >> correct? >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> All right. Thank you. >> All right. So, at this stage, that's the end of what I'm suggesting as recommended edits. What we're going to do now is we're going to You had asked a couple of follow-up questions from the workshop. We I owed you followup on four questions. I want to answer those. And then I did receive a a short list of email questions that I would also like to address. Following that, I'll ask this team that's waiting so patiently uh to then run through uh the budget and they can they can talk to you about what's there, have opportunity for you to ask questions, but they can

121also identify while there are no further recommendations from me. If you were if you said, "Hey, if I wanted to realize some additional savings, could I get any here?" they would be able to talk to you about the impact of that, what it would mean and what it where it would be. Okay. Uh slide please. So the first question from last time uh folks asked about the and I apologize I can't attribute these to a person but someone asked about uh the number of enrollments in Quest. Questes are gifted and talented. I'm giving you numbers that exclude Art Quest. I apologize that E should have been capitalized. Um, and I'm excluding Art Quest because the Art Quest is um structured differently. It doesn't show up on your book as an FTE. It's a stipen that's

122paid to some of our art teachers and they deliver those services after school. Whereas our formal uh Quest programming in grades um 4 through 8 occurs through an FTE and occurs during the school day. Uh we have a total of 529 uh students enrolled. that breaks down to 316 element or uh enrollment of 529. I'll say I'm I'll say why I'm saying enrollment. Uh that breaks down to 316 elementary seats and 213 middle school seats. I say seats and not students because at the ele at the elementary I can be enrolled in Quest and I can also be enrolled in math quest. So, as a single student, I take up two seats in two different classes impacting, you know, an FTE assignment that's different. Our our at the elementary level, our Quest teachers teach Quest,

123like grade four Quest, and then they also teach a section of grade four math Quest. So, we have to program for those separately. It is not a one for one. Uh it's actually uh the overlap between students that are in both is not as big as you might assume. Um, and I could fish those numbers out somewhere if I needed to. But, um, if you wanted more in information on Quest in general, we will be talking about it later tonight. It's on page D71 of your book. I will remind the board that we reduced the number of FTEEs for Quest last year uh, from 8.7 to 8.1 actual. Um there was a lot of concern coming out of the public that we were going to in we were going to hurt the program. Um I

124you know I promised then and I feel confident now saying that uh I haven't heard of any negative effects of that. That was really that was really a combination of uh some different enrollments and some efficiencies in terms of how we scheduled that we were able to realize those savings. Uh we we average about 29 seats per elementary school for Quest. When you break that out between Math Quest and Quest, about 14 and a half each. When you break that out by grade level, that's you know great CL group sizes around seven or eight. And then there's roughly 30 students at Bristo and there's between 75 to over a 100 students between Cedric and King Phillip. So, we'll talk about this a little more on a later page, but if there's any immediate questions, the

125question immediately was on enrollment. If there's any immediate question on enrollment, I'm prepared to say I'll get back to you. Awesome. Slide, please. Uh, the next question was on testing software, and I do hope that I interpreted the question correctly. Um, but it was a question relative to testing software. or can we talk about what's mandated versus non-mandated? Um, so and I know there's separate conversations that are going around just relative to technology usage. So I'm this question is answering testing software. A lot of the testing software lives in a specific line in the budget that you guys can read that uh I believe is called testing. But some of this uh is actually under, you know, might be coded differently under so we went and and teased it all out to try to and

126and we could possibly try to do better in the future to make it more transparent, but it looks like we budget for it in in some different lines. Long story short, 87% of our district costs uh for testing software are mandated. So, we only have a handful of things that we do pay for uh that are not mandated. And I could talk to you about what those are, but in terms of when I say they're mandated, um, because we don't pay for Smarter Balanced and stuff like that, what what what these are are universal screenings. It's an unfunded mandate uh to ensure that we screen all students from grades uh K through high school uh in in uh literacy and mathematics and then progress monitoring associated with that in accordance with SRBI as well as

127gifted and talented identification. So, those those are the softwares that are up there. Uh, it's roughly 156 million. Um, excuse me, that sounds a lot better. Roughly 156,000. Um, feels like 156 million when you're taking those tests. uh the testing that we do that's non-mandated because I anticipate that question is the PSAT testing at the high school level and also testing as it relates to awarding students the seal of biiteracy at the high school level. Uh and we do feel that that testing is worthwhile. Um, we do pay for all ninth and tth grade students to have the opportunity to take the PSAT for free and then the testing costs for the 11th graders uh are highly offset if not fully offset by uh the parent uh parent payments for that. >> So Paul, with

128the PSATs um can students in ninth and tth grade take them multiple times? So, we offer the P the PSAT. I believe it's only just once for each of those grade levels. I don't know if they have I don't believe it's like the SAT where they have the ability to go out and shop for a test somewhere on a Saturday. That they do that with the SAT, but not to my knowledge with the PSAT, >> but but a freshman can take it and then retake it. >> Yes, freshman takes it and they do that with goals of specific growth in those areas in order to prepare them for the SAT. And then of course in the in the uh 11th grade year uh they qualify they they have the opport if they participate they qualify

129for scholarships with the national merit scholar program. >> Thank you for that. It sounds like a uh really good opportunity for our students also to reduce test testing anxiety as they get into the uh the bigger SAT. >> That's part of it. Test familiarity in a low stakes environment. Okay, going on. There was a question last time on nutrition services and we did want to answer this question, but I do want to say upfront that the nutrition services budget lives entirely outside of the general fund budget. It is intended to be a self- sustaining program. Um, and the specific question that was asked, uh, when you look on the nutrition services budget, which is on page G8, by the way, uh, there was an increase that got flagged by one of the board members in,

130uh, their supplies line. And the short answer is that we looked at what our current year expenditures are and found that our current year our current year budget uh, our expenditures are exceeding our budget amount. So we're we're budgeting at a higher level and the supplies line for nutrition services is far and away food supplies cost. There are also paper goods costs, you know, the trays that the kids use and the napkins and the flatwear. Uh as well as I'm sure preparation materials, things to cook with like oil and, you know, stuff like that. But um it's it's basic food cost and uh we're reflecting an increase, but it does not have any impact on your general fund. Jennifer, >> I hear you. And I just have to mention um you know, seeing paper goods

131up there, I'm sure there's folks who are thinking about this, but if we could um you know, look at using uh reusable like regular p plates and um things of that nature, u I wonder if that would help with that cost. >> I'll take a note. Can I actually um can I I meant to circle back on the testing software question because one thing I had was it wasn't my question when I posed it I'm jogging my memory to a week ago um or two weeks ago was more around licensed software in general. So, not just related to testing, but any kind of product that the district is purchasing as a software license because I know like we use um Salesforce and that's a huge cost driver in our budget in terms of a platform

132that we use for for CRM. Um so I know like P school would be one. So, I'm I'm kind of curious that breakdown. And then are there any extraneous software licenses that may also address some of the concerns raised by the public that we don't they're nice to have, but we don't need to have them. >> Yeah. So, we are I think we have a a slide on that coming up or no. But one of the things I'll start with um there is instructional software. There's a line for that. And then I believe I don't know if it's under is it under contract? It's it's not contracted services. What's the what's that line number Barb and it for powers school and our platforms. Um it's a separate line so they're not comingled and we do

133have you know and we can see because there it's a when when we talk about the platforms that are necessary to run the school district. So Power School is one of them. I know we there's some fee related to Google that we that we pay for uh to be able to have some of some of the features. There's our um talent ed which is our application system. There's um frontline which is our website service. Um there's Microsoft in general. I mentioned Google but there's Microsoft in general. um that what is what's the title of that line item? >> Uh so they have contracted services which is where the power school and contracted services and then they have some software >> but then and then separate from that is our software and there are certain softwares

134uh educational softwares that we sponsor at a district level. uh those include things like reading a toz which uh provides uh some online reading resources that enables differentiation with uh additional leveled readers and I don't know if they do translation as well in that >> some translation I know we have some science softwares um to support and >> and then Lexia was in our testing, right? Um, but teachers do have some flexibility to be able to have uh some educational softwares and and and I'm glad you're bringing this up because I didn't want the public commentary on uh both screen time and I kind of hear folks talk about, you know, if somebody's on an instructional software, is there a gamification? and students rushing. So, I've I've had I've heard that um not only from

135the community during our budget conversations. I've heard that we've been hosting uh you know some of the groups to include the folks group at school events in partnership with our school leaders um and we've been having these conversations um as an in you know as a as an educational team um and it is an effort that we are undertaking. Uh mind you, it's somewhat budding. I know that we're all kind of coming to it at the same time. Uh and we do want to see uh we want closer we're we're going to be enacting closer scrutiny over, you know, I need I need to be able to treat teachers as professionals and give them some professional license, you know, but at the same time, we want to give them those guidelines as to um what's

136the amount of screen time that's appropriate versus inappropriate. And I heard a comment that I jotted down today about if there's a disparity, uh, I've got, you know, Mr. Jones for second grade and you've got Mrs. Smith for second grade and you're on the computer all the time and I'm not, you know, that's not, you know, that's tighter tighter guidance and tighter supervision that we can provide. Um, so so that's just reacting to the commentary that, yep, I I'm in alignment with that and we're going to work on that. uh relative to the to the budgetary impacts. Um I would not be subscribing to the notion that we have a bloated budget for um for instructional software that's that's running out of control. the the percentage of, you know, singular apps or things that teacher

137might have that are not in our that are not built into our curriculum is is fairly insignificant relative to the big picture of the instructional budget. The overwhelming majority of costs um are in those contracted services for the big platform things. And Paul, I just I wanted to follow up on one of the other questions that came from focus in terms of uh the educa the educational software and a push to get back to paper based learning. Are we to what to what extent are we still using say traditional textbooks in the class in in the high schools and actually even at the elementary level in terms of say like the math book that we all grew up with? >> Yeah, I think it varies by uh grade level and course. I don't know um

138if you have a ballpark idea. what I you know I do know that the market is going highly towards you know so while I I respect >> sorry just wanted to add the market has gone that way so even when you buy text and we still buy texts a lot at the high school level especially um they all have digital subscriptions that go with them and so they're to say it's going is is probably not giving in the full picture. It has gone that way and but we still get a lot of requests for high school texts um when appropriate. Um but they almost all come with digital subscriptions that enhance that learning which is very interesting um approach because uh you can't always separate them and those subscriptions run out every six years. So

139you're you know you might have gotten 10 years out of a text, right? So now you have the text without the support. So it's a conundrum sometimes that you're in of what's um well financially is one consideration. Quality obviously is the most important consideration. Um but it's it's a very we we look at it. We think about it. We talk about how long those licenses are. I taught years where we wouldn't change a text for 10 years because or if there was a bad budget maybe 11 years, right? but that's less of an option or or you lose some features of it because they're intermingled. I don't know if that helps but >> I think it does because you know my other thought is you know going to the budgetary impact again you know in

140terms of textbooks if you have a hard copy textbook and you're stuck with you know hundreds of copies of hard copy textbooks and information and history and information changes so fast you could wind up with a very out ofd book in five or six years and then you're then so you know I was saying that could be even a different cost driver beyond the educational licensing. Yeah, I mean our teachers are our teachers are very good at supplementing all their texts with um other materials, articles, um other kinds of publications, um supporting materials. So they're they're quite good at that. But um but there's hard decisions to make around it, especially the way they bundle things. Bundling is uh sometimes things are bundled with an assessment here that you need and the text, but the

141text is also online. So there's there it's quite complex. Um it it's not as simple as buy books or have online subscriptions. It's a little more intermingled if that helps. >> It does. Thank you very much, >> Latoya. Yeah, I was just going to layer on to that um that I'm in graduate school and all of our texts are online and so just thinking about to higher education like literally all of my classes, all of our texts are online. Um and it's it's mostly an equity and an access um issue so so that everyone has access to the material. Um now I've brought a lot of those books myself because I I do like books and like I have some money for books. Um, but some of those books are like $150 and then online,

142you know, they're like 10. And so, um, yeah, just thinking about that and like for students too and and and access when they're able to get it online, their parents might not be able to buy them that book. The school might not be able to purchase 25 copies of of $80 book. Um, and so yeah, I know it's tough thinking about how we have to kind of move with the times and tech and are we doing too much or too little and like the reality is in within higher education like a lot of that stuff is going to be offered online and it's helped uh families save a lot of money. >> Thank you. Um, and just to piggyback on a some of my colleagues comments too, I think it raises an issue also of

143like at what point are we investing in technology across the school system. So certainly there's a lot of concern about digital use and what's you know necessary and the impact at such a young age. And so certainly it seems like with textbooks and digital coupling, you know, in the older grades that seems like, you know, we're in the times where that is the standard perhaps. But again, we're looking at our budget spending as a whole. And the question is then how much are we spending in technology and licensing and in programs for perhaps let's say younger kids that we don't necessarily need. It's not required. it's not mandated. So how much is that and is that an area where we can say this is something that we're going to explore as a board as a

144policy in terms of digital use etc. Um perhaps an edtech audit would be really helpful um to better understand the cons, you know, how technology is being used, you know, across um our entire K through 12, even preschool. Um and to look at for right now purposes like how much are we spending that we don't need that's not mandated, that's not required, that's might be nice to have per se, but again with the concern that even that digital use is not healthy, it's not productive. And perhaps better savings would be, you know, arguably for younger kids to have more pen and paper, pencil and paper. >> No, you you bringing me right to a slide. I'm going to skip uh two or three slides ahead to technology infrastructure, and I'll come back to this one.

145Uh because I I think you're hitting on that, Miriam, and I appreciate the the question. It has come up. It came up at our community conversations as well, but this was also emailed in by one of the board members uh specific to the inventory of devices. Uh because I think you're right. I think the usage part and I think you know that's something that we're already on. So I don't I don't know I don't know that you you know I don't know how to write you a policy around that. I think that's a that's a practice that we can look at and report out on to you. But um but relative to the technology infrastructure that informs that and the devices this you know folks were looking in uh the data supplement DS is short

146for data supplement on page 18 and they were asking about current inventories and do we have too much and and where this came up at least during the community conversations was uh related to comments that were part of the CNRE funding which is actually uh part of the town budget not necessarily part of your budget. Um, but I think I think questions were asked, hey, how much is the district putting into the technology infrastructure in this budget? I know I heard it here tonight, don't spend any more on technology infrastructure. Um, I don't think you have relative to actually buying devices, you know, a significant amount in this budget. Um, just to explain what's on that page D18, if you go look there, uh, it has the current inventory of Chromebooks, iPads, and desktops. Um,

147K2 is the primary user for iPads. And the iPads are primarily used at K2 level for those universal screenings. That's the the device that they use. They don't know how to use a Chromebook. They're intuitive. Um there are some uses. There are some apps that teachers will use and I think we control for that in the way that you said in terms of looking at what's what's what's the digital integration from a curriculum lens. I think that we can deal with that. Um but in terms of the fact that we have to give these universal screenings, I need to have these iPads. Like I I don't have much much of a an alternative. The Chromebooks do get picked up beginning in grade two because their state assessments are on the Chromebooks in grade three and

148so we teach them keyboarding in grade two. Um but they're primarily used in grade two just for keyboarding. Um they're used in grade three certainly for state assessments and then as it's developmentally appropriate there is instructional content that we may begin to use. And again, we can monitor that. And I had we had this conversation last year. Middle school was coming in and they were concerned about device usage, middle school families. And uh we did a walk and you know I would agree that the uh we need to put some um you know we need to make sure that I I think it was one of those where as as teachers were trying to do things with technology integration which was like a wasteland a couple of years ago before the pandemic and then it

149got turned on you know full speed during the pandemic and people haven't eased off that enough and the cumulative effect of it because as the English teacher, I don't necessarily see what the student did in science and social studies and math. And so that is the conversation. Um, we've started to have that conversation and and are there even smart choices about what was being used? So it's so I so I hear the message. It's a bigger K12 conversation that we are having and will continue to have, but relative to devices just to do it just to talk it through. the money that uh was looked at in the CNRE was not necessarily for devices. Uh the devices that we have that we're enjoying and you can see that there's an excess uh more devices say

150than there are students at certain levels. Uh there's a reasoning for that. First and foremost, uh there's been a decrease in enrollment. Secondly, when we buy devices, we buy them um for carts. We do not have a onetoone. I know I've heard that phrase be said thrown around a few times. Uh but onetoone has a specific meaning. It means that I hand you a Chromebook. Um and it's yours assigned just like a textbook. Um we tried that at middle school uh for a year and we moved away from it because the students were continuously dropping the Chromebooks and damaging them. They did not have the responsibility, maturity nor physical dexterity. Um, but we use carts and when we use carts, we typically outfit carts with 25. So, uh, because classes can get up in that

151number and then every once in a while, you know, one's on the fritz, one's broken, one's not charged. Um, so, so yes, there may be um the current inventory may exceed uh the current actual enrollment for those reasons. Now, the good news with that is there was a $1.2 $2 million grant that we got a few years ago that bought most of those devices separate and outside from this budget. Um, but in terms of how those devices are replenished, um, there's an industry standard that says you should try to replace those devices every 5 years, we replace the devices uh, when they reach end of support, which is to say when they turn from digital devices into bricks. We do that on average about 10 year lifespan. So um which translates to if we're being

152good stewards of the budget, we should try to replace about 10% of the stock every year. Uh what we're investing our money in in terms of technology for this coming year in my conversations with Jared Morren, our director, is switches and routers. and he explained that we are five years out of support with our switches and routers which creates a security problem. And uh if you've you know read any of the headlines in the last year or two about districts and towns being held ransom by you know malware and and uh the uh fishing threats and all that. Uh that that's that's where our money uh that we will be spending on hardware typically will go. We'll replace the smartboard here and there where we need to. Uh, you know, we've got, you know, I

153know Griselle just took over for Lori and she was saying, "Wow, this desktop is 8 years old." Um, you know, so we replace devices as we need to, but um but not in significant ways. So I hope that helps, >> so I I think in large part one way to look at this is an unfunded mandate from the state, which is you have to test. In order to test, you need devices. It's I mean, that's what it is. >> Absolutely, >> Jennifer. Um, so I I appreciate all that's gone into this and I also appreciate the many state and federal unfunded mandates um that are constantly coming at you. So, this is not a criticism of of uh you know, you guys or anything like that, but I think there's two different issues here. Like

154there's one, you know, we have all these Chromebooks and iPads, which I want to make a comment on, but I think secondly to me, which is not the budget issue, but the bigger issue here is like how they're being used. So I can tell you um anecdotally, they in grades K through four, um they are not being used just for testing. They are being used every day often. And the kids are asked to bring in headphones so that they could put their headphones on again, not just for testing. Um, and I think the concern I want to make sure that's broken through here is that, uh, you know, younger kids, which again I'm I'm um, biased towards that's where my personal family is, um, are on devices for a good chunk of their day. And

155I agree that this is different among um, elementary schools, and I hear that anecdotally as well. Um, but the reality is is like kindergarters are coming home and they're like, "Hey, have you heard of this thing called YouTube?" And I'm just and you know, they're going to find out about it, of course, but I don't think the kindergarten classroom is that place. I think um, we have a lot of concerns around how devices are used. So I don't want to take time here, but I do want to emphasize that there obviously is a budget issue of the devices, but there's also a uh you know programming so to speak issue. Um the other piece of that I want to highlight is is kind of like I'm going to call it apps. I don't really know

156what they are, but I know that you know my kids and my friends kids um are given homework that they're supposed to complete on like some sort of platform. I don't know what to call it. A place where they go learn math or they go learn reading. Um, and you know, my kids and others are thrilled to come home and tell me, well, my teacher said, you know, I have to do this kind of a thing. And I don't, the teachers are fabulous. All the teachers I've met are all fabulous. Again, not a hit on them at all. They're trying their best to use all their resources. But again, if you have a kid in kindergarten, sp second coming home and saying these things, it's a challenge. Um, I think the other point though that

157I just want to go back to as far as devices for purposes of the budget is, um, I hadn't really wrapped my head, I guess, around the fact that we're doing iPads and Chromebooks. Um, you know, I find that intriguing. I'm sure there's many reasons why that's the case. You know, one idea which we kind of don't want to dive into now, but I'm curious about is like even AI, like if the kindergarteners completed their assessments on paper, could like, I don't know, you run it through some magical AI machine that then grades it. Um, I'm just wondering if there are other creative ways where we could, you know, two birds with one stone kick out the iPads, at least in K through two, as a small step, and figure out another way. again, not

158before Tuesday I get, but just I I don't I I feel like often times in these budget conversations like the bigger issue kind of gets pushed to the side because it's like not the immediate need and I just don't I don't want this to be pushed to the side. This is a really big issue that I think we have to figure out. >> Yep. No, I appreciate that and just make sure it's clear not only to you but to the public that part of the issue. I'll acknowledge it again. something that we're working on, something that we would can attack through our regular meetings. Um, and we got it, we hear it. Relative to the budget, relative to tonight, I just want to reiterate, um, you know, the infrastructure that we have is necessary relative

159to testing. So, that's the thing that I'm talking about. Um, and the expenditures that we have are not heavily related to device replacement. Um, so I just that's the clarification I'm trying to offer for the purposes of the conversation tonight. The only thing I'll say is uh it may well be true about homework and apps. We can figure that out. But anytime any student comes home and says my teacher said, I'm just going to encourage people to reach out to that teacher because I got that at home a lot too. I have to clarify just in case any of those teachers are watching that there was in fact a paper alternative. I completely acknowledge that. I I just want to point out that you know you're already arguing with your kid about homework. I mean

160it's just it's something we got to address. I'm thrilled to hear that we're going to do that. >> Ethan, >> I just wanted to go back to the you said we should buy 10%. I realize you were just talking. Could you instead, and I don't know your accounting rules, reserve 10% instead of buying them, just like you're doing with the uh healthcare. So, if you wanted to, you could start putting money aside, but it' be reserved. So, you wouldn't be going out and actually buying the >> Yeah, I I certainly >> buy it when you need it. So, you >> create the budget, but we don't um we're not going to buy unnecessarily. I was just sort of saying that that would be the strategic way >> to start expensing it so it's on a

161shot. I realize it's not a lot of dollars but >> and typically you know Jared the director of of um technology that he is looking and planning and that's a part of the CIP so they are looking ahead and trying to have that in you know >> and we just spread it out over >> Yeah. And so it is smoothed out over the years. >> Okay. Latoya, >> would it be ju just throwing this out there, would it be helpful um or or has it been thought about in terms of families uh potentially donating devices? Um I mean a lot of students do have uh Chromebooks, iPads, and then I know there's software um I know just in organizations I've worked with where it's like almost like blockers. It's like so they wouldn't be able

162to get on their own personal stuff at school. Um, but I don't know, just thinking about that and and how we could create a >> it pool for that. >> It doesn't work divi uh donation wise unless everybody's donating the same thing in terms of the support. Uh because this is what happens when people have, you know, we've gotten great gifting and things through PTO's and everything and then when when it's all different brands, there's different supports, it's it's a nightmare for being able to support those devices over time. um you know so but that said I again the the I I just want to reiterate the number of devices is not a drive is not a big driver in this budget it's it's really the um the the switch well that's that's on the

163CNRE side it's the uh it's the platforms it's the power school it's you know those are year-over-year required costs um but uh but you know there's going to be more conversations separate from in the budget in and around technology. So, I want to >> Yeah. No, for sure. I'm just It's so tight. I'm just thinking about anything. >> I hear you. No, I appreciate it. >> I appreciate it. I'm going to ask to go back a couple of slides to get to the one that has uh There you go. to the There you go. Special education trends. And I do remember this question, Ethan. I think this was you. uh you you had asked a question about special education trends uh as it relates to kind of um we've mentioned that the complexity of need

164for our students you know has increased over time and so I had suggested at the previous meeting that we could look at the performance and profile report and I did a you know so what's up on the screen is the snapshot from that report of the 2425 uh distribution of disabilities you see our count of students in each of the disability categories, the percentage that that reflects out of the overall district percent uh population, and then you see the sideby-side comparisons to state rates of prevalence for the 2425 year. I then went back and looked and said, let me make a comparison to 5 years ago and 10 years ago and average that. Um, and so the big category that we see that that that has increased certainly is autism. We've had a 37% increase

165in autism. We went from, you know, an average of 211 students using the five and 10 year figures to uh last year. Uh the ED category has been flat uh from 63 to 64, no real change. The ID category has had some growth. It's grown about 27%. We were somewhere near 33 students. Now we're at 42. LD is the big growth. Uh LD we've almost doubled the number of kids. uh who are qualified as LD and that's you know that that explains uh the increase in our special educators uh kind of across the board from 323 to 610. Um and then speech and language impairments has also had a 30% increase. They've gone from 180 to 235. So so those are the figures and the trends. Uh I don't know if uh if well what

166what goes with that is the is the PAR educator staffing to support those needs. So if you want to run to the next slide, you can see a trend here and there's a bigger blow up of the graph, but um this is a three-year trend that Melissa prepared that shows PAR educators uh they have a relatively flat trajectory with modest increase. increase mirrors the increase in our intensive academic population. Um, which which kind of speaks to I think that that trend that we talked about relative to um autism if I'm correct and speech and language. So, if you just flip to the next slide, you can see that graph a little better and I'm sure Melissa can say more intelligent things than me on this. >> Yeah. So, um, as I've shared with the board

167table, our trend in special education has been increasing, but what's nice about the performance report is it really highlights the eligibility categories and reflects some of the acuity of the student need um, based on those eligibility categories. So, seeing that percentage of increase in autism, for example, correlates then with our increases that you're seeing our specialized instruction staff and also related services. And then I know there's been some questions about um our student support services, so PAR educators and student aids. And so what we did was pull together some data so we could reflect for you the the growth over the past few years that reflects our student population growth and prevalence rates, but also how the PAR educators have grown alongside of that. Um and so we have two categories, PAR educators and student

168aids that we hire in the district. And we look at that on an annual basis. So we support our students and we are always promoting independence with the understanding that there are going to be times in a student's development where they might need additional support. We provide that support by thinking about several key domains. The first one is health and safety behavior specialized instruction that students might need such as applied behavioral analysis or discrete trial methodologies within their day and across their day. And then also inclusion and opportunities that students might need. So we heard a question earlier about you know classroom teachers and um I have a classroom of students who who might have varying levels of need. How are students who might have disabilities included in that classroom? We leverage our adult support

169staff to do carryover instruction and our teams work collaboratively with our adult support staff to create ongoing training so that a student's program is cohesive and maximized across their day. Um, we do look at that every year because the students needs, like I said, change and we're always looking at how do we promote independence and so not all students are supported in a one-on-one model with adult support staffing. It could be a twoon-one model, a threeon-one model, or just for certain parts of the day. Um, I'll give an example of a student who might be experiencing some difficulty under on um in less structured times. So a student might have adult support, but it might only be for recess, lunch, and specials. Whereas other students might have a very different need, which might involve inclusion

170and academic access. And so that student might have adult support for academic periods only and not for the recess, lunch, and more social times of their day. And they might do very well independently during specials. So, we really are looking annually at that and sometimes even more often to make sure that students are supported, but that we're also promoting independence. And as we talk to families um who have adult children who are going out to become um adults independently, you know, one of their their reflection points is, "Oh, I worked so hard to get this one-on-one and now I can't get my student to." And and so really looking at that longitudinal lens and helping um teens and families understand why independence is so important and finding ways that students can develop self- advocacy skills,

171communication skills to navigate their environment. But um we're you know we this is a modest increase comparative to our population. So you see that top line is our resource students. There are some students who participate in the research program who do require adult support staffing, but a majority of our density is in our more specialized programs um with our adult support staff. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have about our paras and student aids. >> Ethan, >> yeah, I'm sorry. The blue line is what? >> The blue line is students who participate in our resource program. >> So, it's students. >> Yep. All of aside from the green line, am I looking at this correctly? The green line is our para educators support staff, but the blue line up top is the

172number of students who re who participate in our resource program. So those students have pull out services or pushin services. The red line represents our intensive academic program students. So those are students in our very specialized program who might require more intensivized academic and a constellation of um highintensity related services. And then the bottom trend line that's relatively flat is our yellow line. That's our intensive behavior program that supports students with social emotional behavioral needs. >> So the the red, yellow, and blue are students. >> Correct. >> Green is PAR. >> Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. Jason could sorry >> yeah looking at schedule 8 if I'm reading it right I thought the staffing was 263.9 for all special needs >> 263 for all parah educators and um oh >> this is just par >>

173correct >> okay doesn't it doesn't say that thank you >> y Jason, >> so I I suspect you you may have seen a critique that is going around which essentially says that we provide too many services in terms of of this group in terms of paras, pts, OT's, speech therapists, what have you. I I wonder if you can speak to that and also the interplay between what the state might require in terms of taking care of, let's be honest, these students who need us the most and what we provide. So, I'm going to guess it's not as specific as the state says you must do this and have, you know, this many paraprofessionals or this many PT, but in order to really adhere to the law, the spirit of the law, and to properly serve

174these students, we have to have these roles and and I just I want to give you the opportunity to speak to that and respond to it. >> Yeah, I appreciate the question. And so when students I'm gonna back up to zoom in. Um so when students are found eligible for special education, they're found eligible for specialized instruction including related services. Our related services include our clinical so social workers, our psychologists, our speech and language pathologists, our occupational therapists, and our physical therapists. And we are required by law to have all of those. And as you also know in addition to those areas of specialties, we also have students who might be blind and or deaf or heart of hearing. And so we actually have students in district who have very highly specialized supports with brailers

175and um braille tutors. We work with who is our um blind liaison. We also have many students who are deaf and heart of hearing. And so under the law we are required to have the professionals who could provide the the specialized instruction related services. um that are required to implement a student's individualized education plan and that is determined by their child's planning and placement team. And so we are going to always be responsive to the um to the child's planning and placement team decisions that creates their IEP and how we can best implement that. And it does change over time. Um the state and the federal government have eligibility criteria for all these domains. So, as Paul shared that performance report that talks about um what eligibility categories exist in some states, it's that um

176you could check off many eligibility categories. In the state of Connecticut, you're required to determine one primary eligibility category, which doesn't necessarily prevent students from having a multitude of services. It just begs the question, what is the primary disability by which this child will be served under? And then the IEP drives all of those services. Um, and so when a student is found eligible, they have the specialized instruction and then also the related services. But it's important to note that a speech and language pathologist, for example, they're responsible for many different things um beyond what people initially think. So people hear speech and language and they think articulation or the way that somebody might form their words, but they're also responsible for pragmatic language and social language such as interfacing with peers, engaging with adults,

177understanding social nuances, um building and maintaining friendships. They're responsible for concepts in language like understanding concepts of above, below, under, beneath, around that are really important to build comprehension at um the lower levels. and more advanced comprehension at the higher levels. They also work on fluency such as stuttering, pros, and just the volume of speech that students might need help with. And more recent legislation also yielded that because dyslexia is a language-based disability. They're very involved in our evaluations and programming for students with dyslexia. As Paul highlighted, that was a very large area growth. We saw that growth come out of two different pieces of legislation. The first was the change to add dyslexia as one of our key areas. Again, unique to the state of Connecticut. This isn't across all 50 states. This is

178a Connecticut legislation to identify dyslexia. So once that changed, we saw an increase of um identification of students with that disability category, which is part of a learning disability. So it's actually a specific learning disability named as dyslexia. So it's really one area. And then also that growth in autism because we know that autism as a profile comes with areas of deficit in social pragmatic language. And so even for the eligibility um components of initial child fine and reeligibility, our speech and language pathologists are involved in all of those initial and re-evaluations because that's a key component of the eligibility checklist under the state of Connecticut. So that's just one simple example for the work of a speech and language pathologist and how broad their scope of work is um for students who have individualized

179education plans. But it's also important to note as a school system that we're not only responsible for the students who have individualized education plans but also the students who are serviced through our um response to intervention process and tiered interventions. So, a speech and language pathologist might also be providing tiered interventions for students who might have articulation or fluence diff fluency difficulties on a tiered basis for short-term targeted intervention that's being monitored over time before they're found eligible or maybe never found eligible because of those early intervening services which might be through a 504 and or through tiered intervention. Similarly, our occupational therapists and physical therapists and our clinicians also in addition to their mandated services case load are also part of those intervention services. And and the philosophy behind that is if we can

180intervene sooner and and once we notice a student struggling, maybe that early intervention will yield the results that we want and we won't need to go through child fine. And it really is an effort to say that not all students who have learning differences have disabilities and that we always try to intervene instead of that old model which was more of a waitto fail model. Um so we've really advanced beyond that but um when we look at our general staffing there are also staffing guidelines. So there are bodies that oversee certain um aspects of our work. So ASHA is the organization that oversees speech and language pathologists. Um, similarly, OT's and PTS have a governing board and they have state guidance around case load, workload, and so we adhere to all of those. So, we're

181we're within those guidelines. The state is looking at adopting um a workload case load model. So, um there's a lot of debate around, you know, whether or not you should look at case load, which really looks at the number of students and the number of sessions in particular that a case manager or speech and language pathologist might have on their case load. And so the state is putting together different work groups to look at the workload model which would take into account different factors. So for example, we do consider some of that. So for our intensive academic programming, for example, a speech and language pathologist um might only have 15 students on their case load because those students are seen almost every day for speech and language services. Whereas at the high school that speech

182and language pathologist might have 35 students on their case load because they see them once or once a week or maybe even once a quarter or once a month. So as you look at the density of services, we're looking at what is the the need of the students and how do we balance those case loads. >> And we're really good at this as a district. And so we see the increasing numbers, the increasing complexity. We're dealing with the increasing complexity so much so that we can offer our services to other districts as we saw earlier tonight. But if we don't provide these services, we're sending these students out of district. Correct. At much higher cost to us. >> That's correct. So going back to the the individualized education plan, once the PBT creates that individualized

183education plan, if we we then say based on this, can we implement this here in the district? If we're unable to implement, we're bound by law to find a placement that can implement that individualized education plan, which is in essence the continuum that we explore, which would result in an out of district cost, which is, as you know, very expensive. Uh so uh in that critique that that was circulating as well, there was this interesting theory which I thought you guys might be able to weigh in on which was having invited so many MDs into the school, we're seeing an increase in diagnosis which then leads to more work and the need for more MDs. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. >> I I do actually have some thoughts on

184it. So um you know I think it's really important that people understand that eligibility for special education h comes with a lot of safeguards because all students are general education students first and there are a lot of safeguards to protect students rightfully so to being identified as a student with a disability if in fact they are not a student with a disability. We certainly always want to intervene which is why we have a plethora of services and tiered intervention to provide intervention early so that we can have safeguards to ensure that students are always taught in the least restrictive environment with the least amount of intervention and that we're not not overidentifying. Um you know we have safeguards in place to monitor those measures and we're monitored and and overseen by the state in that

185way. So all of our eligibility documents and criteria are things that must be submitted and we have accountability for those measures. Um at any point in time the state can randomly audit us on our eligibility measures. Um we one of those measures is disproportionality looking at eligibility across racial and ethnic groups. And so they look at whether or not we're even disproportionate among the eligibility categories and um race and ethnicity. So, those are things that we're um accountable for to the state and we have not been found to be disproportionate in any form or fashion. In fact, we're right in line with the state if not below the state and relative to our dur um many of our school districts in the area, while much smaller than us, their percentages are right in line with

186us. Um so, we're really just seeing a density in this general area. So, we're not standing out in any form or fashion. Um but we do adhere to all of the strictest of federal and um state guidelines for eligibility. So we're not overidentifying and we haven't been found to um be overidentifying in any area. >> So there is no data that you're aware of that would see support the medical educational industrial complex theory. >> Not at this time. Um and I I'd also add that you know so for some of our providers that do span medical and um educational it's always a conversation we're having with families much to their chin because many students who might be eligible for private medical services are actually not eligible for public school services um for for those related

187services. There is a big difference between the medical model of occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech and language therapy and also the educational um access for those same services. >> Miriam, thank you. Um I guess it's just a comment and maybe a concern at the same time. So given our very high budget, I am concerned um about it and you know these case loads to me look high. Again it as you said Miss Cavayo taking into acuity is certainly an important factor just by looking in at the numbers too. Um, and I almost wonder given, you know, the very high increases in some of these specific areas, you know, if there were to be excess areas where we could reallocate funds, perhaps, you know, in certain areas where there have been more more growth. Again,

188looking at, you know, reading and literacy, etc., and early intervention, those case loads again seem pretty high to me. receiving, you know, early intervention or I apologize the term you used um in elementary. You know, I I would support certainly finding ways to reallocate money to ensure that we really have enough enough support for our students with high needs. Um and so that's that's just one thought. And then I guess my other question is looking at outplacement and perhaps could you share with us are there patterns at which students are outplaced at in their academic career and perhaps when they come back. Have you seen trends within the district of when that happens? >> There isn't necessarily a clear trend across age bands. Um it's very individualized based on the student. Um we do see

189students who um require a have higher level of need ear I'd say earlier on um but we do see students who might require that also through adolescence um it just changes depending on the reason so um for example um students at the earlier ages might need it for developmental reasons whereas students in adolescence might need it for mental health um mental health reasons. So, you know, it just can depend. Um, our continuum spans many different domains. So, because we're serving students who um who have so many different varying needs, it could be medical reasons, it could be mental health reasons, and it could be academic reasons. Any other questions? All right. >> So, I'm cognizant of the hour. Um, I wanted to ask if there were specific questions like, you know, the team was prepared

190to go through page by page with you or quickly or slowly. >> I think there were a couple slides back. We didn't >> There are some smaller questions here that I um they're kind of the explanations. There were I think there were more technical questions that >> Yeah. >> Um, >> preschool. Yeah, that's I'm happy to go over any of that or if there's something more specific, uh, we're prepared to dive into, uh, specific areas within the budget book if you guys had other questions. >> Jennifer, >> um, one of the, um, public speakers brought up, uh, COVID spending. Um I'm curious if you could share with us like was there additional I'm assuming spending during COVID has that been pulled back? Uh do we see that in this budget or is that um been

191taken care of? >> Yeah. No. Uh there was definitely additional money during COVID. There were three separate ESSER grants. Uh and the and and those funds are thoroughly expended all expended. Uh the money is all gone. Uh the only thing that we held on to from COVID, we had brought on five or six elementary school, it was five five elementary school counselors. Um and this board or previous boards um asked to retain elementary school counselors. We've reduced them uh down to three and we've maintained three elementary school counselors um since that time. >> Thank you. Uh Ethan, >> Two questions. Um going on the data supplement page um actually page one is 202 elementary school teachers. Then page 16 shows 42 um pair of professionals in the elementary schools. So one that's like a ratio

192of 5 to one. Um my question is is there cases and I know we have the matrix and I don't want to I realize the matrix has needs but is it possible to um reduce the number of assistants put in teachers and still come out ahead budget-wise? I'm looking I'm looking to save dollars. >> Understood. Say the question again. Is it possible to reduce what? You have 42 pair of professionals and I assume they're instructional because that's what it says here if I'm wrong. >> 42 instructional. Yep. >> Okay. So, my question is, is it possible to reduce the number of pair of professionals where they're assisting and have smaller classrooms that >> three? It would it would depend obviously. >> Yeah, it's it's two to three. So, so I don't believe you know I

193I think I hear what you're saying. if he's asking. So, so we've shared in the past that generally we staff instructional PAR educators uh based on the number of kindergarten sections um using a ratio of uh for every generally for every two kindergarten sections we have one instructional pair. >> So, the pair of professionals are just kindergarten. >> That's how we base it. They don't necessarily just work between kindergarten. They'll they'll often work in a school between kindergarten and first grade, but it it depends on the class sizes, if they're larger or smaller, if they need to be spread around. But I hear what you're saying if, you know, and it would almost need to be if we nearly eliminated the instructional paras at the early grades, could we take that money and divert it

194to create additional FTEEs and smaller classes >> and say also save money >> and save money at the same time? I It's a >> All right, next question. >> I like that speckled unicorn. I want to see if I can buy it. I'm going to We'll look at it. >> And I don't want to screw up the matrix because I think you need a matrix, but I figure this is one way to hit two two two things. the um page eight I'm gener I'm really confused because it shows 263.9 or as I read it 2639 staff but it we're saying we have on page 166 um paraprofessionals so because some of these positions I don't believe would be pair of professionals on this what am I I'm missing something >> so on page I so

195I'm checking. So on page 8, special education enrollment and staff and page eight of the data supplement. What uh what line are you looking at specifically? >> The second the bottom blue line 263.9 I believe is the number of people work in special education >> or people services I assume. >> Yeah. So that's that's staffing levels. Yep. For our related services or teachers or toods and then you're comparing that to what exactly? On page 16, I see pupil services administrative and instructional. >> If I may, Ethan, um, on page eight, y that that staffing is the certified staffing. So those are the special education, teachers, related service providers. So that's certified staffing. Those are not PAR that that's not inclusive of PAR educators. >> So the PAR professionals will be another 166. >> Correct. >>

196Okay. Would there be anybody else on that or is >> um student aids? >> Student aids. Which page is that teacher assistance or something else? >> Um Barb, where is that coded? >> The next page 17. >> It's on 17. Ethan >> 17. Oh, it's a teacher assistant. >> Yes, they were rebrand. So there's 91 plus plus 263.9. Okay. Any other questions or >> I'm good >> topics you want to go on into deep more deeply. >> I just have a quick number. Uh Jason, >> this is probably a question for Barb, but could you uh give us kind of a dollar value of the shortfall in state funding and what that means? So for instance, on the excess cost grant, right, we get 67 68%. What's the difference between 100% and that 68% and

197a dollar value? >> I know it's a big number. >> I do have that. I don't know if I have that with me. Um but I can get that to you. And just to follow up on that, I know we aren't eligible for 100% reimbursement, but what are we do actually due per the state? Is it 80 or 85%? 85%. Oh, Ethan, >> just to go back to my question, just so I understand, we have 20,03 students. And if I add the 263 plus a 172 91, I have 526. So, we have basically a ratio of four students to one professional or one one employee. It doesn't really necessarily work out that way because you have to remember that these are the this related services do not have a classroom. They're servicing a much higher

198case load of students and they're pulling students out for related services. So, a special education teacher, for example, a resource teacher might have 20 students, but on their case load, one of those students might only have two hours of math services, but another student might have seven hours, which might include five hours of direct literacy instruction, a couple hours of math instruction, writing instruction, and also that student might have a pareducator because they require support for inclusion and um support when they're in the classroom without the special education teacher. So every student case is very unique and different. So it doesn't work out that way. I understand you're looking at a density report. You're trying to like pull together it that way. It just doesn't work out that way because um the way the adults

199are assigned is very different and unique compared to like a classroom teacher for example. So if if I myself was a student who had a disability and had an IEP and I might have a PAR educator with me, my PARA educator might be a one-on-one because I have health and safety needs and that person cannot do any perform any other test. So my density might be higher whereas um if Shannon had um support, she might only need some resource pull out support. >> No, I'm not questioning. Okay. >> Because I it's case by case, >> correct? And I assume you're going to have ones that are one or two to one and you're going to have others that are 10 or 10 to one. >> Yeah. >> I'm just trying to understand. >> Okay, >>

200Miriam. Thank you. I think what I'm trying to wrap my mind around is the current state of the budget. And to me, from what we've heard certainly from parents, from people in the community, various sources that it seems unsustainable. like this amount of growth is really a lot and I understand that we have these fixed costs people were a people organization and and there's a lot however what I think I'm certainly missing is again somebody said earlier and I've asked before is accountability for each department to really show the effectiveness efficiency impact so not just output but then how are we really looking at student achieve ment because that's our charge here. So in this state right now the question is where what what do we do um and how do we make some changes

201that still honor uh you know every child every day um and also be responsive to you know the the growing increase and tax burden that we'll place on our community. So I think that's kind of where I'm thinking and what I'm looking for information about where potentially and certainly the the board concern you know or you know of my colleagues if we're concerned about that and where do we go from here. >> Sure. So I don't know Ann if you want to lead some start with some quick discussion in section D but um you know it begins it begins with um you know section D is broken out elementary middle to high school and at elementary as you know there's plan 202 I'll I'll let Ann talk about kind of any highlights on the page

202but in terms of return on investment for each piece um you know opportunity to correct Some things I heard something about, you know, we have lower test scores or something like that. Like our math achievement this year at the elementary level is the highest that it's ever been. Um when you disagregate our language arts achievement, we have a high needs population and we need to provide supports for that. But our for our non- high needs population, um our achievement is the highest that it's ever been. You know, our need in literacy does center around our high needs group, our special education students, our multilingual learners. and let me let you talk some. >> Well, hello everyone. Um, nice to see you. If I would like to go through the board book, but certainly wherever you

203want to go. >> Well, I'm I I guess I want to get because I think we we could do that. I also am trying to I think where I and we you've talked about this. I think I wonder how we would ever do that in terms of measuring true ROI on any one intervention or resource or support we provide because you cannot separate things out and do anything. You know, I work in education. We are constantly asked to show that we had the impact that we set out to have. And we can never isolate. uh it it never is in a standalone vacuum that we are applying that intervention or that resource and therefore attribution is impossible and so I think as a on a bigger level macro level I think it's looking at I

204mean we I know you have a strategic plan we have a strategic plan as a district we are holding ourselves accountable to meeting those goals and targets and KPIs and we are hitting them and we are and move and so that is our ROI I I think the question is to what extent do we keep keep doing any one thing because we think that is the thing that is getting us closer to that result and I don't I really just don't know how we would prove that as a is a social science it unless you do randomized control trials like one of our commentators said you can almost never make that proof. Um, and so I do and then I wonder also what we what any one person you ask would care most about in

205terms of those outcomes because we are knocking it out of the park academically, especially when you think about all the types of students we're trying to serve. But then I think about the things that don't get credit in our state like the performing arts and the music program and the sports program and like the list goes on and on. And that makes this public education system something so remarkable and so special. You can't put a quantitative value on that. So I think I'm I just and I appreciate the question because I'm a I have an MBA. I'm very much about ROI in the most practical sense, but I think when you apply it to an educational setting, it's it's an it's an impossible question to answer. I think you have to look at what we

206are getting as a result holistically and it's a pretty spectacular thing in West Harford. So I I'm just gonna leave it at that. But >> yeah, um appreciate that that comment and also just want to add I think you know um and I appreciate the question Jason around you know the the the the 67%. um and just that continuous decrease from the state. And I think, you know, we we do our best to do our charge and I think part of it too is educating the public on the fact that we are not we we need the state to step up. Like that's the bottom line. Um and like that that includes, you know, people coming here and speaking publicly, but that also includes people going to the state. We have state delegates. We have

207a governor who's running again who just had his fundraiser in West Harford who you know we have the state takes credit for West Harford when it invites people and talks about how great Connecticut is. It talks about West Harford. And so I think continuing to try to chip away at the budget is an impossible situation because we're not being funded properly by the state. We're not at that 85%. It was never 100, but we're not at the 85%. And so we're going to be put in a difficult situation every year if we continue to get that decrease because what we're doing is we're making we're we're having to make it work in spite of and I think we're doing a a pretty good job, you know, to not be getting what we deserve. Um and

208and and so I just kind of want to put that out there like to the public like I think we as a town need to we need to call the state in on this. Like it's a big problem and we said this last year and it's continued to be a problem. Jason, >> I'll piggy back on that because I think what you've identified the way is we're trying to solve for the wrong problem. So if we start chipping away at at the things that make West Hartford West Hartford to Shannon's point because of these external drivers that we have, if you look at the drivers of the budget, right, and we're trying to solve that by getting at the core, you know, core functions of West Hartford, that that's a problem. Um, the other thing

209I think I I don't want to get lost is, you know, it is a big budget increase. It's not an outlier in the state. I I just pull some data. Bristol 12.83%, New Britain 15%, Avon 6.79%, Canton 6.62%, South Windsor 7.91%, Southernington 6.89%. Um, this is something every district in the state of Connecticut is facing. And what that tells you is it's these external drivers, not the internal drivers. So I I I think we need to be very careful if we're going to start to try to fix external issues by chipping away at the program because once that's gone, everybody knows that once it's gone, once we take it away, it's not coming back. That's not the way budgets work. >> Ethan, >> well, I wasn't complaining to say anything, but I think you got

210to balance. We have a responsibility to the taxpayers as well as to the school system and there needs to be a balance and some people can't afford. I mean the most one I remember from last year when we did this was the parents who had kids who were below elementary school and they had daycare they had to pay for and they had to pay taxes. I have kids in that situation. That's really tough. I mean you also have the senior citizens. I don't want to but so I think we need to take into account this has impact we want to do it in a way that's intelligent but just to say we the state I mean I have no faith the state's going to now they did come last year but I don't think you

211can depend on the state so I don't know I I wish there was a easy answer >> I'll say that my I'll say my concern is that to Jason's point about you know these these things like the performing arts and uh and and sports and all of our all of our extra programs that make West Hartford West Hartford. if we do start chipping away at them and we achieve really fairly minute benefits in terms of in terms of the overall budget, you know, I think I I my concern is that we would decimate again what makes us West Hartford and really drive down the value of the education that we provide and also the value of our homes which is propped up by the perception that West Hartford provides the outstanding education that it does.

212So I I think there's a greater risk if we start slicing away some really our special programs that very that very rightfully um convey the value that West Hartford Education provides and again does support our property value. Um I would be very concerned about going down that road to achieve what really would would be very minor changes in the budget. And and just to follow up on that, I think minor changes are still important and can still make an impact. And I don't think I'm certainly not suggesting that we make drastic changes to our core. Um, but I would say that there are probably areas, like you said, John, you know, where there could be, you know, minor changes and that's where if we as a board felt that that was important, that would be

213the area where the superintendent would identify perhaps where additional changes could be made to lower that increase. So, I think, you know, that's something that, um, I would be in favor of. Um, and I think, yeah, so I I think I I don't I'm not looking at um drastically altering what we're known for and where we excel, but rather are there areas that, you know, perhaps could use some trimming. And if we need to reallocate to better support, great. And if we can cut, also great. Um, so I think that's that's where I'm coming from. And I I you know I would want to make sure that just to emphasize that I am very sensitive to the cost of living and to all the drivers that affect uh that affect the budget and of course

214really hit all citizens all around the state and especially in our town. Um I you know I'm certainly I'm certainly cognizant of the impact of the budget and you know I think we are all feeling it but I just would want to be careful about you know doing things that would have the effect of being you know really pennywise and pound foolish in terms of the overall effect on our school system. >> Ethan having problems with that. I just think you want to balance it and that there should be things that we should be able I mean unfortunately this is a discussion we probably should have started last September if we could have seen where the tea leaves are going. We knew where the contracts were. It's 2020 hindsight. So we want to start this

215year looking for next year because it will come and if the contracts are all at 5% plus then we're going to be way above inflation. So, but I I just think we we have a responsibility for everybody, especially the students, but also for the all the families. >> Yeah. And if I may, I I respond to, you know, the question regarding um trims versus cuts. Like that's something that I that I do and um I really try not to bring a budget to you guys that's inflated in any way. So there are areas where we can make additional cuts, but they will be they will mean potentially providing for something that is different. So you know if that's a conversation that you want to have, but that that's what it means. It means um it

216means and not wholesale elimination of programs, but the delivery of programs would be would become different and would be less. Um and uh you know we can always we can always look at we've looked at that in the past. We've we've talked about big things like you know um we talked about not teaming at middle school and changing the entirety of the middle school. We still have middle schools but that would part would look different. you know, we mentioned, you know, we we've inserted uh and really think it's important to have those behavioral health supports uh not only at uh our elementary, but you know, what our ratios are at a high school. We can we can trim, but that's going to that's going to be felt. We have our class size guidelines. Um we

217can look at our class size guidelines uh and find savings there, but again, that means running higher classes. Um, so and and there's something on each page that we could be prepared to discuss with you, but but none of those like I want you to have confidence, Miriam, that the efficiencies that we can find and and without disrupting um what we're doing, uh, we've taken. So um so beyond that it's it's sort of a question of I you know pain points if if if that's uh a need to find further cuts. You know that's that's what we're here to do. Uh we're here to deliver the best possible services um under the conditions that that you set for uh for the district relative to the overall budget. Jason, >> I mean, I I think we

218should know what those are just because I think it's easy for for us to kind of kick things around in the abstract. But I think knowing what, you know, what we would cut if we had to cut, I think, is is important. And, you know, I we did not hear a lot of parents as we did in past years because we haven't planned to cut programming. Um, I think they they should have some advanced notice if if that's coming down the pipeline of of what that would even look like. So, I I think it's a worthwhile endeavor notwithstanding the time of Ethan, >> I think we just owe that to the taxpayers. So, I think that would be good. I mean, some of the things you said I would definitely say I would vote against,

219>> but I think it's important to air them. So, >> okay. All right. >> Yeah. Can I just insert for one second? I just want to be cognizant of the time. It's 10:15. Um, we we got to find a better way to do this. I mean, if if you guys were going to come, which you did mention in the beginning, with possible cost savings, I think we got to we got to figure out a better way to handle these meetings because bringing it up at 10:15 is not helpful to anybody, I don't think. Um, so I would highly encourage a very highlevel version. I do not think we need to go page by page. I think if there's like top five or top three things, but you know, we we got to rethink this because

220this is not an efficient way to do this. Go ahead. Okay. I will do my best. Um there are some >> not a reflection of you. >> No, no. Um I will do my best. Um D7 and I will not go line by line, but I will hit some of the things that we have identified. D7 is elementary classroom instruction. There are 202 elementary sections based on current enrollment. As you know, last year at this time, we projected 196 sections, but we had three ready to go because we knew that there could be increases and there were that exceeded that. At this point, we believe we need to maintain the 202. However, if you had to look at a savings in this area through requirement, through no other choice, um we could look at the

221adherence to glass guidelines and look at a small number of sections to cut that would increase class size in some areas. Of course, we would look over the course of the summer where that um would have to take place. >> A little bit closer. >> Sorry. Right. Yeah. >> Yeah. You were saying the cut would increase class sizes. >> It it had the potential. Yes. >> Okay. If we cut >> How many How many would that be? >> What would >> How many How many >> pro? Depends on moveins, but could be two to four if you look at the projections on the data supplement. >> I was asking how many uh teachers how many teachers would be cut? >> Two to four. Two to four. Okay. Two to four class. Okay. >> Two to

222four. Um Okay. uh we have the classroom teacher and residence. We did not see uh something we we stand by that program. Uh it helps to diversify our workforce. It helps us to um in a shortage area of special education where we've placed these people and it's a cost-effective program. We do have one library media specialist per school. Um I don't need to go into what they do. I think you are pretty well aware of their work. Um any savings in this area if the board would like to consider that would require reallocation of staff across schools and going into part-time or eliminating positions in elementary schools. That's on page D17. Oh, I skipped. I'm sorry. My pages are back to back. I'm sorry. Sorry. Going uh let me refer you to page D 9

223through13. 9 through13. These are special area teachers in the elementary school. These are teachers who teach art, music and physical education to our youngest learners. Um they are staffed in relation to class size. If class sizes d if I'm sorry to class um number of classes to currently 202 um if there was a reduction in the overall number of classes there would be a slight uh partial reduction here. This is a longstanding and valued program. Um, if there were some additional cuts, some of the things that could be affected is specials programming for pre-K children. Um, we offer modified specials in our IBIA schools. Um, we could uh we off we've offered for a long time elementary world language from grades three through five. Um, and we also offer unified sports in our IIA schools

224and that that has a a part-time extra FTE allocation. These would change the nature of our program, but if the board had to realize savings, um, you could consider some of these. >> Thank you. What about non- studententf facing staff and opportunities? Um >> they'll come up in a little bit. Okay. Okay. >> Sorry. >> Uh but if you want me to jump up there, I can. >> Could um do you have um like a guesstimate like let's say we did all of that? Like how much money are we talking? >> I would have to work with Barb. I I couldn't guess right now, but I mean we know that if there were elementary section cuts, those come with a pretty round number. We could if there were two it would be 200 plus portions

225of other people but I I wouldn't be ready to say it right now. >> We measure um for every million 10 teaching positions um you know or or the equivalent. So >> okay. Yeah. I mean I think you know the other piece of this is like throwing out these ideas I think is is helpful. Um but without a dollar attached to it I don't know. just um I'm concerned about that. But I guess let's let's continue and then we can figure out the second. >> I would just say these are all small portions of programs, but I think what you're indicating is most of the things you said you don't want to cut entire programs. So these are trims and it's hard to calculate a trim right now but these were these are possible trims

226that you know they would change our programs but um you are asking for some suggestions. >> Ethan, >> is it possible to get it for hard copy? Get a hard copy and come back to this Tuesday because you know we're doing this on the fly and I'm trying to write it down but not doing a very good job. >> Yeah. what it comes down to and the short answer is yes, but we we would go through and we can go through, you know, everything in section D until you get to the end or, you know, some form of some form of a teaching position. It's all staffing staffing at the elementary, staffing at the middle, staffing at the high school. Any any trim you'd want to take, you know, you take each individual teacher, it's

227100,000. Um and typically what we do when you know often the board will say hey we're seeking to reduce the budget by this dollar value please come to us with recommendations which is very different than please identify you know potential cuts across every single area. I can I can identify AC across every single area, but when it's driven by a dollar value that you're trying to achieve, um now I can give you multiple courses of action based on the analysis and say here's one way you can get to it. Here's another way you can get to it and and break it down. Right now for this evening, you know, we've come in uh the dollar value uh that I presented at the beginning of the presentation uh was would be a realized savings of $925,000.

228Um, so if there's a dollar value beyond that any, you know, and that's, you know, I I've said I'm looking to preserve the programs that we have. Um, with Fidelity, I found the efficiencies. We found some greater efficiencies and some other changes. Um, but if there's an interest on the board to to go beyond that, I can I can feed you different scenarios as to what you might do and then have you be able to spend the time to chew on that. >> I personally pre Well, I prefer to do that than just But I need you to tell me. >> Well, I can give you a number, but it's going to be different than their number. Then it's going to be different than her. No, >> but at least it gives me something because

229right now it's >> Oh, >> I'm not recommending anything that we're saying. So, I can give you a whole laundry list of things that I don't recommend. Um, and it can it can it can vary from >> um they'd all be different from what we're doing. they would all have an impact. But uh you know you can go you can go all the way from some pain to nuclear and it it it's a context that's helpful. >> I mean >> can I throw out a number or >> Well no hang on >> Jason >> so with the 925 that brings us to somewhere around 6.1 6.2% increase. um >> 6.3. >> Sure. Uh so so what I I I would just say is um I'd be wary of just throwing out numbers. Um I don't

230think that's a great way to to go about this. I think what this has given us is an idea of we've got the efficiencies have gotten us down to 6.3%. If if Ethan's math, I assume Paul is saying 6.2. I'm going with 6.2. Um >> I did 800 people. what what this has given us a flavor is if if we come back with something, it is going to cut programming in some respect. It is going to have an impact in the classroom. I think that that's my take away from this. So, we've got the efficiencies where we can get the efficiencies. Um anything else, regardless of whatever number anybody is is inclined to throw out, that's going to have a direct impact. >> That is correct. Latoya. >> Um, just my last comment on this

231and um I'm I'm just going to say it. I I guess I shouldn't say it, but I'm a black woman and I live on the chopping block, so I'm just going to say it. I think one of the things that I find interesting about the public um and like folks coming to comment on the budget is we're looking at all these different areas, but we're not talking about the 1 almost $2 million spent on Quest. Um, and I'm just going to put it out there. Maybe we're not solving for that this year, next year, but it it's an equity issue. We have a public school. Uh we have a public school. We have public school education that's basically a quest for all students. That's like West Hartford high achieving. We've got the arts. We've got

232academics. We have the special education. We have all these things. That's like the quest. Our district is the quest for kids. And so when I look at that, I'm just thinking about like it it it's still it symbolizes a golden ticket. It's really um expensive. Um and I just think about all the kids that are not getting that experience because they're not fitting into certain buckets that would put them in quest. Um and so I'm putting it out there because I am an equity champion. I'm putting it out there because I am dedicated to anti-racism. And I'm putting it out there because I'm also thinking about all the privilege that's wrapped up in that and why people are coming out and speaking about all these other things, but no one's talking about the 1.2 mill

233on Quest. So, I'm just thinking about that. Um, and I'm just putting that out there while I have my time at this table. So, and I don't disagree. I mean, I think there if any one of us is going to probably have like similar and different ideas for what these cuts could be, and I just feel like we maybe need a different forum in which to have that meaty conversation. And I don't know realistically if we're going to do anything like major by Tuesday. Um, and I wonder if back to Ethan's comment about like what we need to do now to start planning for next year is would allow that space and time to really think thoughtfully and not act rashly. And anything we do now will be absent real input from the community if

234we're now proposing it on Tuesday when we then vote on it. And that makes me nervous because we've heard if if anything, yes, we we are all taxpayers and we feel that pain. But the constituents we're hearing from, if anything, tonight we were hearing, you know, definitely cuts around things like digital technology, but a desire to invest more to have smaller class sizes, a desire to invest more to have more resources for students with special needs. So it's like we're we're in this impossible position as the board because our responsibility is to the education of our students and we also are wearing hats as taxpayers. So I think we just need time to process it and think and then we're going to agree and not agree on a lot of things but we can't I

235think figure that out by Tuesday. So, um, so I'm I mean I would say like unless someone's proposing a specific cut that you want to have a conversation about tonight or ask questions about tonight, we would come Tuesday knowing there's a $925,000 recommendation we would be making to decrease the budget by any other proposals could also be put out on the table on Tuesday. So you could suggest something that night and then we go to a vote and each item each line item is a vote by the whole board. So we kind of see what comes out of that. Um but I don't know Ethan, do you have >> Well, I was going to ask that we still see the suggestions so we can at least look at those and my hope is next year

236will be improved because of the changes we made with the financial examiners. So that hopefully will take care of next year. We'll see. But I I would like still like to see the proposals and they probably won't go any far but at least we could intelligently look at them. So thank you. >> Possible to kind of summarize the the like >> I can summarize I mean it's kind of open-ended. So it's I'm not going to use the word suggestions cuz they're none of these are the things like in any page you know it's just their options like you could just read the headings on you know I'm I happen to be on a page under reading and literacy which talks about our number of literacy specialists would be reduce the number of literacy specialists um

237it's it's sort of just describing what the program is and then saying, you know, we can alter or or do less or or not do a program. Um there's I'm happy to try to give you that language, but it's not uh you know, you get to the middle school. We're not obviously going to not do math, science, world language at the middle school. So the option the option on that page is to change the team structure to try to create efficiencies uh you know run eighth grade as you would a high school. Um, >> excuse me if I if I just may. I mean, I think there that part of the confusion here is I think there was a uh at least it seemed as though you were offering up other cost-saving uh possibilities, let's

238say. And for sure, but it sounds and correct me here, but it sounds like >> you have suggested the 925 that you think is reasonable to save. These other suggestions are um or these other options are not a recommendation of the staff. And so I think we have to be careful about asking staff to put things in writing that that they aren't recommending. And I also hear you uh Ethan about like they started to give a list and like we want to see the list. So we're kind of like in this situation now. Um so I hear you. Um I don't know how we resolve that. Uh but it seems to me like the question is are there other things to cut? And I think that's up to you as a staff to like deliver

239that list, whatever that may be. And if there aren't any other things to cut, then there's no other suggestions. And you know, what we discussed tonight was um not what you would prefer to do. But I I we're going to be stuck in this limbo. So I I get it, but we have to kind of like make a decision here as far as what we are asking staff to do. >> Other things recommendations. >> Well, I mean, I don't want to call these recommendations. These are a list of other cost-saving items. >> That's what I'm I'm trying to get a a clarification on. What we didn't want was a list of of things that aren't being recommended. >> So I think we all know I mean what the possibilities are which is again impacting direct

240programs. Um so I think there is no other list of recommendations. That list has been shown to us. >> Ethan, >> so I disagree. I think that we should have a list of possibilities or options. doesn't mean that they clearly they're not recommended. We get that. But I think at least we owe it to to to me I owe it to the taxpayers to at least look at them as opposed to say there was nothing here because otherwise there's there's no value. I mean and and I my assumption is most of these we will say not going to happen and the ones that some people want others won't but at least we need to go through the process. That's what this is about. I'm just cur like I know you were came prepared to talk

241through like specific options that are the the most like suboptimal options. Is that is was that a defined list or are you kind of going through and giving examples of here's a place where we could cut, here's a place where we could cut because then I think that's not so much a list that we're getting as much as this is the process we need to go through in a workshop format probably looking at next year's budget to then have these conversations and as we're going through page by page saying like aha this is a place where we have consensus or we're getting closer cuz I think it's imp go like random and pick any page in here and go do what Ann started to do and that would we would be here for the rest

242of the week. So >> yeah no those understood those are those are driven by need >> as opposed to I think as we're saying recommendation um >> not yes so it's not those things are not recommended they're driven by need and the need uh you know the need is defined um based on the budget that you're that you're that you're trying to pass or based on factors outside. You know, you know that the town council can always uh provide you with a different number and then you have to go find those things and then you're basically arm wrestling over uh what are the things that um need to be shaved in order to in order to create savings. But at the end of the day, it's, you know, the the performance of a list is,

243you know, in some way, shape, or form fewer of any of these things. Um, typically in service to, you know, you what's, you know, what's preferable? I can't I can't come to you right now and say, uh, I would rather you cut this instead of that. um in a vacuum. It's it's sort of defined by the magnitude of need that you have relative to passing a budget. Um and I you know I think I think we all know it. I think it's you can you we can we can we always start our cuts as far away from the classroom as possible. Um we would look at those we would look at those factors. Um, as you get into the classroom, we try to we, you know, we know that the programs that really make West

244Hartford special, the pieces that we do above and beyond, the gifted and talented, the amazing arts programs, you know, these are things that we don't want to put into jeopardy. Um, but those are those are typically the things that are going to go before you say a classroom teacher uh just because there's a need to, you know, have this student in school for six and a half hours every day. Um, so, you know, there there's not a there's not a mystery to what would be there. They're all, as I was saying, they're all basically the page headings. I think high school, you know, there's there's not a lot. I wouldn't I wouldn't be recommending anything specific in high school. It would just be, hey, find me this many FTEEs and I'd have to increase class

245sizes at the high school and not run certain courses. You know, it's like there isn't a there isn't a magic to it. Um, so it that becomes the question wrestling over the difference between class size and program impact. Um, so I, you know, I would, I I I don't know what a, you know, exactly what a list looks like at this level other than um because if there was something there that I thought we should do, you would have already seen it. >> Jason, >> I I think as as a practical matter, how this would work is either we would come to you or we pass our budget. the town council says you got to take another million, another two million. They'd come back and we'd come back to you and say what's your recommendation

246and you would holistically look at the option of worse choices that we have to make and say these things kind of move together or if you pull on this string it's going to affect this. Whereas if we get a list now and start saying kind of alakart we want to cut this we want to cut that we're not seeing the entire picture. Whereas if you had a number to work backwards from, you would then implement kind of that you triage it. >> I I think the other I think the other risk out there is even if we did come up with a number arbitrarily today, there's no guarantee that that would be the final number, >> right? >> So we'd be in in many ways bidding against our own students. >> Yeah. >> If you

247give us a >> Yes. Exactly, >> Ethan. >> So I think we should be proactive. I also think you probably have town council members watching. So if there's any incentive for them to cut, this would be it. I think we should be proactive. I whether it's 2 million, 3 million, I I mean I can pick a number and again it's not to put you guys in a dilemma. It's just simply what are the possibilities and then we have the responsibility to say yay or nay and it's very likely it won't change. But at least I think we need to go through the process instead of saying, "Well, we'll wait till the town council comes back." >> The problem with that is where I think we've landed is anything we do now will impact in-classroom instruction.

248It'll affect programming. And so if we're at that point, I mean, are are we willing to start throwing out numbers? Are we willing to say, "Yeah, we're going there." I'm not at that point to say, and I can't in good conscience right now say to our students and our families, I'm comfortable with you getting less than you did last year. That that we can no longer sustain the the level that we're at. >> Yeah, I would I would say right now, right, I'm I'm with Jason on that. And I would also say going to the point about looking at the equity issues with Quest, I I would rather address the equity issues um more programmatically than through the budget. So I just have a question though um to my colleague Jason for example like if

249our secretarial clerical line increased quarter of a million dollars that seems like a lot to me. I mean not they're not directly related to student achievement. They certainly support staff. I recognize that and shout out to the great secretaries and clerical staff who we all have interaction with. But I'm just wondering again, you know, would that potentially be an area and to say that it impacts student learning? I don't know. 4 million dollars. This is a question for the executive team. >> Yeah, I can look at that. I I didn't have that figure. Um I'm certain that there's a component to that that must be contracted. Um but I can look at that. But my my point was going to be, you know, as as numbers were just being thrown out, two three million, you

250know, I just want to make sure everyone understands 83% of the budget is people, whether they're whether they're teacher people, whether they're secretary people, whether they're custodians, security. So, uh, the only way to impact, um, the budget in a substantial way, you know, if if we lost one secretary here, two secretaries there, we can affect, you know, we, if that becomes a piece, that's not going to have the substantial impact of a$2 million, $3 million uh, to cut. That's, you know, you're talking at that point, you're talking third, find 30 people for three million, find 20 people for two million. So, those are those are programs. Those are significant. Um so uh whether it's a whole program in one fell swoop or whether it's you know you ask us to go in and modify three

251or four programs to to to accumulate that. But you know that that is why this is a maintenance budget because um you know you heard speakers come out who were hopeful that we were going to reduce class sizes and have more teachers. Um we didn't. I know that's the will of the people. That's my will. uh that is not this budget's will and and you know so so and there's competing you know that's that's a thing that I'm hearing there's competing odds here as you begin to reduce that secretarial support or you begin to reduce other infrastructure um but you're going to have greater number of classes well you know or greater number of teachers if that's a goal by reducing class sizes well now you don't have the supports in place to help that

252run so is that going to run as efficiently as you want or are you going to have you know people who are doing their own thing and you know the whole you know goes right back to the technology if we don't have people to to to supervise that and ensure that things are happening you know there's you pull on one string and it and it does a lot of pieces so so I think that point of kind of figuring out um is the is the $925,000 enough of a reduction and if it is not um you know we can be prepared prepared to um to talk through adjustments uh on Tuesday. >> Latoya. >> Yeah. Sorry, >> my knee is killing me from sitting down so long. Um a couple things. One, um want to

253just kind of uh respond to to my colleague too uh about Quest. Again, one of the points is like around equity is I'm just thinking about that the $1.2 $2 million and it being used for 500 something students. Um, and just thinking about yeah, again, all the students that aren't getting that and like that amount of money being used for that for a small for a small percentage of students and thinking about how to how to reinvision those resources so that all students could get that level of project-based learning and maybe it wouldn't be as as expensive because it would be more I guess curriculum based or program based on a holistic level. The other thing is I other thing I was thinking about that I had forgotten about was um the world language um

254in elementary school and um you know I know it's uh it is a small amount of time that those students are getting um access to to the world language program and I'm just thinking about how we potentially create pathways u leadership pathways with our older students in high school. some of our advanced uh um our our students that are in advanced language that are maybe like the Latin honor society or that are advanced in Spanish, advanced in French and like how we can create um opportunities for them to maybe uh jump in and help do like supplement that like teach some of that like how do we start to build some of that and especially because it's not it's not that many hours. So, I don't know, just thinking about how, not that we necessarily

255would take that opportunity away from students, but how do we reinvision something like that where we're um having the older students, you know, support the younger students, especially since it's such a small amount of time and small exposure. Miriam, >> just to piggyback on that, curious if changes were made to Quest, if more, like you suggested in terms of curriculum, if more curriculum then could be pushed in to help students with, you know, different levels of learning kind of more organically in the classroom if that there were to be a shift. Thank you for the language. And then I just had a question too um about equity and I was just curious, Miss Wrangler, if you had any data for us to show equity scores um equity uh changes in the district. >> Oh, I

256was going to you had asked me before um I was prepared with uh equity. I wanted to talk about I have some numbers for you. Um right now the equity office uh which is Teresa and two two other individuals supported all 16 of our schools. They've uh each of those members have individually had more than 20 plus school visits uh per staff member. Uh they've conducted over 30 restorative conferences. They've had 78 multilingual f family engagements to uh support them through dedicated information sessions. They've run three parent education workshops. They've had three separate courageous conversation events. They've hosted four community partnership events outside of the school day. Um there have been three one community leadership meetings and one community open house. They're currently involved uh with youth engagement uh through a grant-f funded program supporting

25760 students from each of our three middle uh across our three middle schools. They operate uh a six-w week program three days a week and half days on Saturday. Upcoming they have um a trip to visit H.B.CU uh universities uh with in collaboration with two partner districts. Um they've run three full day professional development workshops in a train the trainer model with one more pending bringing them through those uh six modules. I think we gave you the equity modules earlier this year. Uh that translates into 12 hours of professional learning that all of our K12 staff will receive. Um in addition to that, they've done specific lessons in and around uh hate speech, recognizing hate speech and its impact to all fourth and fifth graders. Um these are just some of the highlights. Uh in

258terms of the metrics, u we're working on that for end of year. uh there'll be some survey data that we're trying to uh capture that demonstrates uh the impact of that as well as through our discipline data that you guys have asked about. >> Can I ask one follow-up question? Thank you. And how much does the entire department um cost? >> It's on page uh it's three individuals, so I don't know. It's going to be somewhere between three or 400. Uh but it's on page Help me with pages. >> Give me one minute. I'll find that for you. >> Ethan, do you have a question? Go ahead, Mark. >> So, uh, the costs of the equity, uh, group are included within the superintendent's budget on page, uh, F8. And so, if you're, if you're looking

259specifically um, at the staffing, you see that on F9. And so, everybody's listed there. And then I can, if you >> ballpark, do you have a number? Oh, ballpark. Um, so I can tell you the non-personal cost, non-personal services costs are approximately 36,000 and then the staff look about 350,000. >> Thank you, Ethan. >> A bargain. >> Two unrelated questions. Uh or two, one's a comment. Uh last year when there was talk or there was a reduction in Quest, was it last? Yeah, we had about a what a.5 reduction without >> it was a large outpouring. >> It wasn't that big. >> Oh, it was pretty big. >> On back to the issue or back to looking at options when I look at the budget, the number that still sticks out to me is pair

260of professionals 1.6 million. And I don't doubt that they're all doing good things. I don't know what they are. So I what I'm trying to avoid is coming back next week and saying let's cut here just totally blind. So that's why I get you're not recommending anything additional. >> No, that's why I was hopeful that the artifacts that we provided today were ed were going to be useful and educational relative to what our pairs do. Our pairs break across uh you know general education and special education. The bulk of them being in special ed. Um and Melissa really gave excellent uh explanation in terms of how they are. You also see a trend line for the last three years. Uh so I talked about you know in in response to your first question the trends

261of uh growth within special ed over a 5year period. Uh in the last three years uh you can you can still see that upward climate a little bit less than from 5 or 10 years ago. uh but it's still significant and the number of pairs is generally pretty flat as that graph was demonstrating for special ed. It's a big number. >> I was looking at regular instruction. >> Uh regular instruction we had gone over that once before. Um and I know you asked a question and I took a note about >> could we eliminate paras bring in more teachers obviously more expensive but still reduce the budget. And I don't I don't know that that's really possible, but you know, I just want to I just want to identify how those PAR educators work. Um

262there's there's an office pair for each elementary school that works with the with the secretary. And >> that was outside the 42 though. >> Yeah, that's not that's not part of the 42. The 42 are those instructional pairs that work across uh the youngest grades and and we were talking about how they were assigned. So that was the question that you asked me. Is there a way? So, I can get back to you on that question, but >> but I'm just saying that's the type of thing that we could at least look intelligently and say this makes sense, this doesn't make sense, or this is a possibility as opposed to right now it's we have nothing. So, >> yeah, I don't I don't imagine, you know, if you wanted an answer now, I don't imagine

263that's going to be that's going to work out easily because one of the things uh that the pair educators do, the instructional pairs do in a kindergarten classroom or anywhere else. sure you make the classes smaller. They're in there to support uh you have pairs dedicated to prek. They're kind of covering naps and and other things and ensuring the breaks. So there's there's >> No, I get it. I I I know I don't know. So I don't want to assume, you know, I'm just trying to look for things that >> I'll come back and give you an honest answer. Yes or no. >> That's fair, John. >> All right. All right. So, right now I'm looking at line uh 5345 for people for people transportation. So, the transportation that we provide right now is are

264we providing it at a level that's required by state law or are we beyond it? So, I'm I'm looking I'm looking as a fairly large as a fairly large expense. I know obviously gas prices and diesel prices aren't exactly going down. >> No. And you know, but there's a lot to balance with the transportation. So, the transportation office is looking at how long the students are on the buses. Um, some of it's with you. We look for opportunities to cost share. If we in another district are going to another school, but or if we have students going to, for instance, out of district students, say in Manchester, and there's more than one school there, we'll try to put them together in the morning. Um but we are required to provide the transportation. I mean in

265fact the town side also even pays for transportation to to private schools. So there are some requirements around transportation by state law. Um and I think we do our best to economize. >> In terms of the in district transportation, do we track how many students are actually riding the buses on any given day? >> Yeah, we we track all of that. And I know that our our transportation office, I mean, they do some, you know, when I'm down there, I'm shocked. Honestly, it was one of the biggest learnings I had in this new role was watching what they do day in and day out. And they're running their own little sort of traffic control center. And I can tell you, and I know sometimes they get to Paul's levels, the the parents asking for more

266stops and closer stops and personalized stops. Um, and I know with this winter, it created a lot of additional um, issues that we really appreciate public works support and PD support, but I think that we're really maximizing um, you know, what our limits are for for those transportations for students. And anyone that has someone on the bus, they know that those lines can be, you know, fairly far to still be considered a walker. I'd like to propose something. Um, which is I feel like we're at a stage now where we would be like sort of grasping for straws and nickel and dimming things and and we would then have to all agree that we want to do that thing which I don't know that we're going to figure out again between now and Tuesday. I

267would feel and I'd like to suggest we come Tuesday knowing that we're going to be proposing $925,000 in cuts. um with any other individual ideas. People can ponder further, think about ideas. If you have something you feel really strongly about, that is the time to put it forward, make your case, justify it, and then if we're all like, "Oh, that's a great idea." We will vote in favor of it. If we're like, "Nope, not the thing I want to go to bat for," then it's not going to pass. But you, that's where we put it out. we get to the place where we feel like we will then vote on a budget that we are putting to the town and if it then at that point is still not at a place where we've done

268sufficient cuts I would say that we would need to regroup as a board and have another workshop and schedule that and give ourselves the space and time to have these meteor conversations in a really thoughtful way. um because this should not be rushed and the public would deserve also to have that transparency. So >> I I would certainly agree I would certainly agree with that because right now we're throwing around ideas that it's just not fair to it's not fair to our constituents. >> Yeah. >> Any of us? >> So are we comfortable with moving forward? That doesn't censor anybody from coming to Tuesday with an idea. So if you have a good idea, bring it to Tuesday. Um but I think it gives us the the space to have more conversation after Tuesday. Should

269it be necessary? >> Sorry, just to clarify with with a list as part of this process. No. Or Okay. >> There really isn't a list. It was almost more an exercise. I think my understanding of a going through page by page and thinking through what could be possible, but you are not recommending that. And I agree with Jennifer. I don't think it's fair to ask for that to be put in writing when it is not a legitimate recommendation of the school district. Um, all right. So, and then we will continue to get comments and feedback through the email um uh process and we'll be back together again on Tuesday. So, with that, seeking a motion to adjourn. >> So, moved. >> Second. >> Thank you, Miriam. Uh meeting adjourned at 10:57 p.m.