Board of Education Meeting - Budget Workshop #1 - March 11, 2026

001Good evening. Uh calling to order a special meeting of the West Harford Board of Education. Uh tonight on March 11th, 2026, we will be having a budget workshop part one. Um, so I will ask if uh Paul could call roll. >> Miss Bleach >> present. >> Mr. Goldman >> here. >> Mr. Gagnan >> here. >> Miss Marammon >> here. >> Miss Yagalof >> on her way. >> Uh, Mr. Wer Weiner, excuse me. Uh, Miss Herz >> also on her way. >> Excellent. >> Yeah. Um, all right. Well, so we're very excited to dive in this evening. Um for those in the public, we received the full presentation of the superintendent's budget uh last week. Um, and we've had some time to digest uh the full set of materials. And then we have two-part workshop series,

002tonight being part one, followed by a second workshop on March 25th, um, where we'll be able to break down into more detail each section of the budget and ask lots of great questions to make sure that we're fully uh understanding the context of the the proposals that that is before us. um and that will inform our discussions and our uh followup and review of approval of the budget which will take place on March 31st uh 2026. So um I know that the team has a lot in store for us tonight and we're really excited to dive in. So we will turn it over to um Superintendent Vicinus and his team. >> Excellent. Thank you so much. So I will I will gladly invite my team to come forward um while I provide you some introductory

003comments. Um the first thing that I uh well the first thing that I would like to do is I would like to give a huge thanks and congratulations to Miss Barb Rua, our director of finance um and the entirety of her team. the the the work the hours that go into this are um indescribable and uh as is her dedication and I thoroughly appreciate it um as much I do my team that's here to provide you with their insights and information in and around the pages and I want to certainly acknowledge um we have members of our administrative team here normally as as you mentioned we pack the house at the budget presentation but the weather was a little uncooperative when we did that And I'm very grateful for the folks uh here in the

004audience to um hear this first workshop. Um with that, I want to give you guys a little bit of a orientation of some of the materials um as we go through them in earnest. I know that you've had time to review them and look them over. Um and further I'm aware that you know one of the key key things that we've prepared for you for for the purposes of this workshop is a is a little packet that uh Barb passed out to you that I will that that the members at the table will be referencing um just kind of as a short guide to help bring you through each of the comprehensive sections of the budget book. Um, before we do that, I'm going to ask if within your budget book, you should be able

005to find and and what is also posted online is the executive summary should be on the inside jacket of your board book, the executive summary. And um, you know, there's a lot of good information there. Um, and I want to just take a couple of moments to highlight uh, and set the context for uh, what we'll be presenting tonight in great detail. So, as you know, you received uh my recommendation uh on the budget the other day u which was a budget of $228 million. That does represent roughly a 14.15 uh million increase or 6.6%. And as I've shared, um that budget is is this budget proposal is essentially a maintenance budget. Um, but it does have drivers that we've talked about um that I want to just pay a little attention to here at

006the beginning. Overall, I did want to point out as is outlined um I'm kind of on page two of the executive summary just kind of skimming some of the highlights for you. Um the overall budget reflects a net reduction of 2.6 positions from current staffing. So it's so so we're pretty level sta staffed. It's it's a modest reduction. It's not very much. And as I mentioned in my presentation, we're down um I believe it's uh 20 positions uh over the last two years uh based on decreased enrollments and enrollments by and large are generally flat although there are some changes as we look. Um we understand that uh the salary increase is is driven largely uh through salaries and benefits and we'll talk more about that. Um transportation, tuition and utilities also represent um an

007increase of about 4.9% although tuition uh we're glad to say remains level funded. And you'll hear tonight about those efforts what we'll be able to point to what those numbers look like. Um but um the ability for us to level fund tuition is really a reflection of Melissa and her team's effort to bring back students to the district at a cost savings um offset by those increasing costs that we see with tuition and certainly um our projections on our state reimbursement. Um the remainder of the district's expenses really come under other expenses and I know uh Miriam you had asked about that last time. Um I should have just referenced you to this paragraph at the time. Um the other expenses and this if you're again if you flip your cheat sheet open to the

008first page you have a nice color graphic of a pie chart. Um that other expenses is that uh 2 and a half%. Um it consists of items such as instructional supplies, professional services, copier rentals, um textbooks, technology, maintenance, um custodial supplies, maintenance supplies, general insurance, and then rent for off-site facilities that we may use. Um as you know, this budget uh maintains class size guidelines where they are. We've had some of that conversation before. We have pictures of what our projections look like. Um I went through in my presentation to you last time all of the major increases. There are some you know we do have a reduction in our pension expense and when you do think about um my recommended changes um there is a there is a slight decrease based on enrollment changes

009which will reflect uh a net reduction in positions. Um in general education there are offsets. We do know we have increases within our special education. Um we have some non-classroom changes such as the increase just to highlight some of the things we talked about last time. Um I'm I'm suggesting increasing our middle school counseling by a half position to support um behavioral health at that school. and I'm suggesting a programmatic change which is generally costneutral um for a depart for a change in supervision of our ESOL programming. So, I just wanted to remind you of all that, but in that executive summary, if you turn all the way to page seven, what may be helpful if you hadn't noticed it is you do have that account listing. And so, it identifies all of the different

010accounting codes that you see in the big budget book um alongside their titles, but sometimes the titles aren't enough to really clue you in as to what does that really mean. So, there is a short description of each of those categories. um and some of those, you know, those budget codes are are the same across all the sections. So sometimes there might be um a slight difference in what that what that means or what that looks like at an elementary level versus at district-wide supervision. So if you have those questions this evening, we certainly encourage you to ask them. Um but I wanted to make sure that you had seen and spend some time um with that executive summary. Otherwise, uh what we'll be doing in your packet is um we have uh basically a

011formatted way that try to go through all of the different sections in the book. And to remind you, section D as in delta, uh that's regular education. So that's all of our general uh general education, our elementary classrooms, our middle school and high school course offerings um as broken out by academic departments. Um, and then it gets into uh kind of district-wide services, our school counseling, our gifted and talented, our supervision of instruction, all within that section. Then you go into section F, which is pupil services, our specialized instruction. So that's where you'll really hear Melissa's voice talking about what special education programming looks like across the district. It's also be the place where we talk about out of district tuition and any of those pieces. Um then you'll then we'll get to section F

012which are general support services. Um and you'll probably hear a little bit more of Julio's voice there. Uh as you kind of talk about a lot of the whether it's custodians, plant services, um also things like general insurance, uh our human resources department, uh basically the skeletal structure that helps the district to run. Um they will go through in your cheat sheet pages. Um they will go through uh first a description of how staffing has changed. Um and there's two parts to that. We'll talk about what you adopted last year versus what we enacted based on, you know, any shifting needs from March until September. Uh and then we'll talk obviously about what the changes are um as it relates to the proposed budget. Um the program changes that that are the rationale or perhaps

013just the curious nature of what some of the programmatic changes are will then be described and then finally we'll discuss kind of the dollars and cents of it. So each one of members of my team will take a turn describing each of those three things and then we'll remain on that page and offer the opportunity for you to ask any questions that you have about that topic. So, all I'd really ask, it won't take them very long to provide the highlights and any context to kind of bring the words off of the page to make it, you know, hopefully uh be as clear as possible and then and then the ability to ask questions within that. At the top of each of the pages in this in this handout are the very specific summary pages

014from the board book to reference. And I imagine as I've seen this play out in the past, your questions will sometimes cause us to dig into that and say, "Well, let's take a closer look at that on page D17 or what have you." All right, any questions before we begin? All right, with that then I will I'll just provide this last comment. Similar to how the graphic I guess for you it's a big blue mostly blue pie because we are a people organization and 82% of our expenses are under people. About 82% of what you're about to hear is going to go through all of the different people in the organization in tabs D and E. And then those remaining little slivers at the end uh are pretty much the last pages in this handout

015uh where you'll get to hear a lot about that because the majority of those items fall under uh section F for general support services. Um so I will turn it over to the team and I believe Mr. Dwarte is going to lead us with the staffing changes. >> All right. Good evening everyone. So, as we review the various summary pages of the budget tonight, as Supervis has previously mentioned, I want to continue emphasizing that every decision reflected in this budget is guided by our unwavering commitment to every child every day. It is often said that the best way to understand an organization's values is to look at its budget. Um, and so a budget is more than just numbers. It's a reflection of our priorities and actions. I believe this budget represents a thoughtful investment

016in programs, resources, and personnel that directly support student learning and work to ensure that each child in our district has the opportunities, support, and environment they need to thrive. Um, so with that said, as Superintendent Vicinus mentioned, I will do my best to try to remember every time to tell you which page it is in your um binder, and I will also try to reference the page on the bottom of the packet. Um, so if I forget to do that, I'm sure my friend Barb will remind me. So on page two of the uh packet here, and it reflects pages D4 and D5 of your binder, um, I'll start by saying, as you recall, we had an increase in elementary staffing by six teachers, and that was in response to actual student enrollment as well

017as aligning with our class guidelines. We are proposing to maintain the staffing level for the 2627 school year. There were minor adjustments in art, physical education, and world language staffing which resulted in a modest budgetary savings. And in the last, you'll see a transition from early intervention line that shifted over to literacy specialists. I know that Ann will speak uh in greater depth about these, but ultimately that resulted in FTE uh essentially of a neutral FTE standpoint. >> Thank you. Um, oh, thank you Barb. Uh, so starting with the teachers, uh, to go in a little bit more depth there, uh, last year's adopted budget included 196 elementary classroom teachers. However, following the budget adoption, the administration monitored enrollments closely during the summer of 2025 and due to some increases uh, in registrations in these

018month, we proactively added six positions to address the growth in specific buildings. This brought our actual operating total to 202 classroom teachers and we proposed to keep that uh level for this year based on the projections that we're seeing. The strategic shift in literacy specialist was um a decision that we are transitioning our early elementary um or early interventionist teachers, excuse me, um to literacy specialists. So you'll see a negative 10 positions in early intervention, but you'll see an additional 10 positions in literacy specialists. And this was a s strategic reallocation of resources designed to provide highle expertise across our district. We have the staffing allocations of two um literacy uh specialists in each one of our that so the total uh would be 21 and we have two literacy specialists in each of our

019elementary schools with one in our smallest elementary school. Um they have a great impact as they serve over 530 students in tier 1 and tier I'm sorry in tier two and tier three reading support. So these are students who are struggling to be on grade level with reading. Tier 2 students are pulled from class or a part of their day. I shouldn't say it's always class. Everything's class in elementary school, but they they meet in small group um with a literacy specialist who provides specific um instruction to address one of their learning needs. A tier three student is a student who has greater needs and would see that person a little bit more frequently per week and in smaller groups. So the difference between a tier 2 and a tier three student is the tier

0202 needs are a little bit less significant. They still meet with literacy specialist uh more than weekly but their group may be a little larger and their strategies might be they're different. And the tier three students a little bit more significant need smaller group more frequently. So that's one of the biggest roles these people play. They give direct instruction to students. But beyond that, they also partner with classroom teachers because students are learning reading in class and they partner with the classroom teachers to implement the most effective literacy strategies and to make sure that what they do in intervention and in classroom is not dramatically different so the children see the connection. They also assist the principles in developing um professional development for the teachers during CSI sessions and they interface with parents as well

021to help the parents understand the students growth. They also help the parents to offer strategies to support the reinforcement of critical literacy habits at home and in other parts of their day this summer and what have you. These are um crucially important people. Currently they're serving 530 students, but they have uh in past years they have served close to 700 students depending on the year. We've also seen last year we saw we don't have the exit numbers yet this year because the year is not over but last year we saw over 175 exits from tiered intervention which is a real proof point that we are able to intervene at the earliest times and get students back towards grade level work which is so crucial as they go to the middle school upper elementary and then

022middle school where they're um they're really reading to learn. Um we have another slight adjustment um that we made beginning last year. We made a targeted adjustment to the world language approach at Charter Oak International Academy. After careful review of student learning needs and consultation with the school administration, we we have been phasing out the Mandarin program in the earliest grades to focus on a single world language. And the decision was driven by the linguistic profiles of the students. For instance, there's a significant number of our students at Charter Oak with a home language that is not English, is not Spanish, and is not Mandarin. So to to come to school and to be learning English, but also be presented with Spanish and Mandarin and your home language seem to have a little bit of

023cognitive overload for many students. So this is going to allow us to uh focus it will still meet the IB requirements. It will still be rich. It will still start in in preK but it will not be two language which which we noticed as the profile of our learner has changed was quite a bit for our students to um to navigate. We will continue to look at um this phase out in the upper grades to see if it is also necessary there but it is phased out right now at K3 and we're looking at the phase out for four five and so that's the slate adjustment in world language. So, thank you. I'll turn it over to Barb to talk about the budget implications. >> Thanks. When we look at the financials below that support

024the programs that Ann just discussed, you'll see that salaries uh increase and that's consistent with the additional um classroom staff that we have have this year and are expecting to have next year. In addition, uh it reflects any collective bargaining agreement adjustments that would be required. When you look at the operating budget supporting this program, um you do see a 1.4% increase. The major drivers in operating expense at the elementary level are um departmental instructional supplies that's 63%. Library books reflect 18% of that, software 13%, and textbooks 6%. As you can see, the equipment budget is unchanged. Any questions? >> I think so. The plan is to go through one page at a time and ask questions. So, we're done with that page. So, any questions, Ethan? >> The um on page D4. It has

025pair of professional salaries. Which of these positions are profession paraprofessional? I'm sorry. The paraprofessional salaries are reflected on DA D4 and they're under each subset of elementary, middle, and high school. However, they are accounted for in total in one location, which is page D81. And so, >> part of D5, >> they are not on D5. Um, and so they're they're accounted in total for all par professionals, elementary, middle, and high, >> but their dollars are included here. No, I got that. 81. I was just trying to put it together with what's par profofessional, what's teacher. >> So, they're not included in this FTE headcount. >> So, it I can also if if you have curiosity, it might be helpful if you look in your data supplement. The data supplement, I think, is the uh last

026section of your book. Um, and there's a paraprofessional staffing page on page 16 of the data supplement. It might be helpful since you're going to be flipping through D and E and F if maybe you pull if you guys want to pull out the data supplement and have it on the side because there could be opportunities to be referencing that throughout the evening, I would imagine. >> Which one? D81 or >> So D81 is going to have your dollar values and your and your short summary. page 16. If you if you have specific interest, more detailed questions about how the pairs play out across this building or that building and or what their classifications are, that information will be on page in the data supplement. >> And so you can see at the elementary level

027um there is an anticipated uh the positions are at the top section and you can see how they break out um and the majority are instructional in nature. This page 81. No. >> Uh, so 16 of the data supplement. >> Okay. Where in the I see general fund positions. >> Yes. Oh, everybody there? >> Okay. So, I'm just trying to understand when I look at page five, that doesn't include the pair of professionals or it does and it just merged together. This is sort of a unique uh position in the way that it's categorized in the book. The the dollars are truly in the elementary section and you see those on D5. >> Um however, the FTE headcount is on another page in the book. >> Okay. >> But otherwise, they are on the it's

028a oneto one. >> All right. I guess I'll have to figure it out. All right. Thank you, >> Mary. Thank you. I'm Thank you so much. I am curious about the literacy specialist line. Um, so two per elementary serving over 500 kids sounds like a lot. Um, so I'm just wondering if you could shed some light on what that structure looks like and what case load looks like for the literacy specialists and anybody who might be supporting them, what their qualifications are. In other words, are they teachers? Are they reading specialists? And do we have specialized literacy specialists for, you know, any number of, you know, reading or learning disabilities? So, let me make sure I answer every question. First, these people are teachers, certified teachers, and they all have backgrounds in reading. So, they

029have reading certifications. um it is a high number but sometimes students also leave intervention during the year. So although they they don't have 531 at all times of the 21 people and we also have a series of uh um people who are grant funded who can assist like tutors. So those tutors also help serve these children. Some schools have some tutors if they're larger and they have a higher case load. Some schools do not have the tutors because they might have a lower case load um or they're a smaller school or both. So um the the students are assessed. We have a number of assessments that help us determine their reading needs and students who are in need of intervention. it's worked into their schedule. And these teachers pull these students in in small group

030either sometimes in a tier three maybe two or three students at a time and sometimes maybe in a tier two more like six, five or six students all different depending on the school, depending on the need, depending on the schedule, the grade level, lots of factors. But there are two people per school. As I say in the larger school, they may be supplemented by title funded um tutors and they work with the students to progress monitor their improvements in reading and students do exit which is a a beautiful thing. Some students also go from a tier three to a tier two and that is um they're seen less often. So the tier two students may be seen twice a week where the tier three students might be seen three or four times a week in

031small group. And again more intensive the tier the more intensive the the smaller the size and the longer the intervention. So I hope that answered some of your question. It is quite a bit um it is a whole process in our office to manage students who need intervention who's seeing whom are they getting the supports they need and who's exiting to make sure the program is is effective. That's really important to us. We've seen a good strong number of exits within a year, sometimes sometimes within two years because it's so very important to catch these reading deficiencies as early as possible. And you'll see this kind of a structure in elementary where you wouldn't see the same type of structure in middle school. I hope I answered your questions. >> Yes. And and are there

032specialized uh literacy specialists for certain to address certain needs? >> Well, they have training in certain programs. There's not necessarily. So, somebody might have a specific kind of training in dyslexia or other things and they would have certain programs they're using that specialized that they might have gotten specialized training in. But our director of elementary um Melissa Barren does an exceptional job of maintain u being quite aware of what people need need and um what trainings. They also bring ideas to us on important trainings and Melissa is very uh attuned to the state advice and guidance on um reading which has taken us front and center stage recently. So Melissa's been on all of those state uh calls to make sure that um our program is meeting our students needs. I'm very proud of the

033program. I think that the the change was really um was really helpful. And I'll give you an example of why because you might say, "Well, the body count's the same. It's 21." It was 21. It is 21 except by doing this we were able to adjust the expectations of the the role. The roles were very different even though the body count was the same and numbers were the same. Um and the literacy specialists now really have a partner. For instance, before the early intervention, only worked with students, never worked with classroom teachers, did not work with the principal, did not support professional development. Now they have really co-equal positions. So they have a partner to go to and to problem solve. and they both have the experience of working with a classroom teacher who may

034be struggling with some intervention strategies during um regular instruction. Um so we really believe the model is superior to where we are and the beauty of it was it came in at an even um and you know for the budget it was even but we think it's strategically a very important change we made. >> Yeah. Yeah, and I want I just wanted to emphasize one thing that Ann said because she spent a lot of time describing the excellent work that the folks do, but at your at the root of your question, um this is a separate certification that teachers get above and beyond their elementary. Um so they do come in, they are very highly qualified. It is the reading specialist certification that that they have to get. uh we've called them literacy specialists and

035and to Ann's point with the states change with the science of reading um they have under this essentially this reclassification of the job descriptions that previously existed they have direct services to students as well as that very important uh professional development role with the teachers in the building to educate them in and around the science of reading. You may you may recall or you may have you may not have ever heard about it, but the the state previously was doing the survey every year to all of our elementary teachers about the depth of their knowledge relative to the science of reading before science of reading legislation came in that that was on the books I don't even know and five years six years >> more than that. So um >> yes >> these folks are

036um are the critical specialists to help develop obviously what we all know the most important skill for any child is to is to have mastery of the fundamentals of reading um you know certainly no later than second grade. >> Thank you >> Ethan. I I apologize, but can we go back to the pair of professionals? If I'm reading it right, it's 245 on page 16. Is that all pair of professionals or is that another group? >> So, uh that grand total is going to be the pair of professionals for regular education and special education. Okay. Okay. So, the pair professionals we're speaking on now um are the regular education um pair professionals. So, that would exclude those where it's in DC pupil services administration, we'd be excluding excluding those pair professionals and the school administration

037pair professionals. >> So, how many would be in the regular? >> So, when we look at elementary schools specifically, we're looking at um 54 pair professionals. So there's sorry 284 or 285 for regular and then another 54 pair of professionals. >> Yeah, if I can I say that correctly. >> So >> uh we're going to we're going to break down if I if I have it right like you guys are on the first page. So so we've just talked about elementary ed. Yes. >> Uh so yeah, if you if you add them up on this page, you'll be able to you'll be able to capture uh the grand totals, but uh just for elementary just to breathe more life in that. So if if it'll help the understanding at all, you see on the top

038of page 16 that you essentially have clerical pairs and instructional pairs. So clerical pairs generally are going to be working in the office. Uh you see that we generally have we have 12 there. There's 11 elementary. One of our bigger elementaryaries has more than one. Uh the instructional pairs, a lot of the instructional paras are assigned um in the primary grades, specifically in grade K where we typically use a ratio of one parah educator for every two elementary kindergarten sections. And those are the folks that can help go in um as students are learning how to do school, learning the routines um and and provide the teacher with assistance so that we can take classroom sections that may have upwards to 20 kindergarteners in some cases and be able to break them out in small

039groups and be able to provide some instruction relative to the tasks that the teacher has orchestrated. >> I'm just trying to get the number right now. >> Okay. So, so um >> just trying to understand. >> Yeah, 54 at the elementary and what was the question on totals? >> So that's plus 284 on page five >> on page five budget 2027. >> So the on D5 those 285 board funded positions exclude those paras in the in the headcount. >> Okay. So just add them together. So I'm good. Thank you, >> Miam. Thank you. Are math interventionists included in which category? >> Are the certified math interventionist? >> Yes. For elementary. They are in the budget for my office I believe for uh they are not here. Okay. Um we will come to them. >> Yeah.

040We'll be coming to them. >> Okay. >> We'll be coming to them. Sorry. They are here. The literacy specialists are uh they're housed in the buildings. >> So that would be a difference. The math interventionists move um >> Okay. >> Across buildings and there's not nearly as many of them. >> Yeah. just and I'll I'll >> they're central >> pull the curtain back a little bit on some of the math. So, at Smith STEM School, you're going to see when we get to that page, you're going to see a magnet teacher uh one at Smith STEM School, we have a math uh coach, not interventionist, math coach, uh who does work with intervention, but works with teachers as well. >> Um and then we have uh another position that's district-wide that's employed in that way,

041as well as we have a curriculum specialist. So, those two positions, the district-wide math coach and the and the uh district-wide math curriculum specialists are in council Ann's office. So, they're on a different page. And then, um at the secondary level, we have some math coaches. And so, you'll see those when we get to the high school pages. So, they're they are the way, you know, you got to choose the way that you're going to organize. So, you can organize by content area, you can organize by grade level. And a a long time ago in a board far far away, it was the decision was made to organize by level. And so sometimes some of these questions have to be answered. Hey, the pair is here or here or here and they're broken out across

042different sections. So I appreciate it can be a lot to absorb, but um if you keep levels in your head, uh hopefully that'll help. >> Any other questions? Um, I just had a real quick question about the classroom teacher and residents. Are they able to be a teacher of record and have their own classroom or are they co-eing with a teacher of record >> want to talk about that? I know we a lot of you can answer that. >> So, it depends on where they're at. So, again, remember in that first year, they're not going to be a teacher of record. They're actually going to be sitting and observing for that first year. But, we do have several folks that are actual teachers of record. Um, right now, I think we have three, is it?

043Right. I think two two two with uh >> Yeah. So, it's a two-year process in the first year. >> So, there's only two here. So, those are the two that are not yet the new Okay, great. That's helpful. Thank you. Okay. And do we have a an amount for the cost of those teachers and residents? >> All numbers I point at Barb. >> Um so we do remit a balance to crack who organizes the teacher and residence program of approximately 10,000 and then the teachers and residents are paid uh 30,000. In addition, they're paid two stipens of $2,000 uh on each end of the school year >> by the district. >> Yes. Or by the district. >> Thank you. >> All right. I think we're good. Thank you. >> All right. I will turn us

044to page three of the board packet. Um reflecting pages D20 and D21 of your board binder. So here you'll see a very modest change from the adopted budget to the current number, a 0.15 increase. Um, and we anticipate maintaining that current level. The slight decrease is the result of scheduling efficiencies in our core academic classes and you'll see a slight increase in the unified arts and that was a result of student enrollment. >> Thank you. So to add just a little more depth to that change, uh the driver of the change was enrollment trend on the north side of town at the time. Uh you might recall or you might not recall but you might recall that King Phillip we expanded from uh eight and a half teams to nine full teams and with that

045came a corresponding adjustment in the um in the uh unified arts that we had to adjust uh to make sure all those students were supported in unified arts. So it is just a slight adjustment of um.35. Um so this year we we anticipate uh the same uh number of sections and teams at the middle school. Nine teams at Sedwick, nine team nine full teams at King Phillip and CA and and Bristo runs on one team per grade. three teams at Bristo and for all of those students of course they also have their unified arts and they attend those classes. Teams are approximately 95 to about 105 students depending on the school and um that was the change to have the unified arts match the CLA uh the full teams instead of part teams. And I'm

046Oh, before you move on, I'm going to say one thing about enrollment numbers at the middle school. I was I was kind of looking at them. Um, last year, as you may recall, when we made this move to up to nine full teams at at at the two bigger middle schools, it was we had some we had some kind of untenable numbers. They were it was too big for a half team and it was going to be a relatively small full team. We we are seeing if you look in your data supplement, you want to look at the projection enrollments. We are projecting increases in our middle school, but um we essentially I want to provide you with confidence that we have room within the teams uh to be able to absorb those students and

047it'll it'll round out our average class sizes at the middle school to be uh more in keeping. They they've been comfortable this year and and they'll be more in keeping what they've historically been. Does uh would would that mean possibly taking more students to say Bristo? Uh >> no, Bristo is a is a pretty static enrollment of what 310 or so. Uh Barb, >> yes, we seek to enroll 105 in each new class. >> Yeah. But um but I apologize. I I cut off before Barb can go over the numbers and then let me have her do the numbers and then can throw in any questions. So when we look at the financials, what you see here is the salary increases resulting from these teachers and then the library media specialists. Um those are the

048two categories under salaries and that's consistent with the individuals we have in the roles and where they are. Um and then collective bargaining adjustments uh from year to year. Uh when we look at the operating budget, you'll see that uh instructional departmental instructional supplies uh are 57% of this total. Uh textbooks are 8% of this total, library books are 13% and software is 6%. Um equipment has just a minor adjustment uh looking into the next year. Uh Jennifer. >> Hi everyone. Thank you. Um I appreciate you going through this so thoroughly. Um two questions for me on this on this page. Um the first is unified arts. I'm unfamiliar with what what that means. >> So thank you. So you know our students are attending their core classes English and math, social studies, science and

049world language, but they also attend physical education, they attend health, they attend music, they attend art, and they attend a CTE class. So, those five are the unified arts. >> Got it. Thank you. Um, and then I don't know if this is the the appropriate place, but one thing I'm curious about with um maybe the library media specialists or maybe it's with the software purchases is like some of the programs that schools buy, whether it's to support kids with reading or math, what have you. Not like an app, but like a online thing. You know what I mean? Great. Um >> it's I don't know a lot about it, but um I'm curious if it seems like sometimes that's purchased through a teacher directly um as opposed to like through the library. I'm just wondering

050if there's some sort of like aggregation of those purchases to get some cost savings. >> Yes, certainly for any of the large programs there's aggregation. And if it's used townwide, it appears in a different budget because we have adopted it townwide in every school. And it really wouldn't be appropriate to sit in like a school budget. There's some flexibility at the school level for programs that um the LMS or even a principal might might want to try and they get permission of course it for privacy and all of the matters that go along with that. But um there's some flexibility for programs that are used in much smaller focus or or pilots or something of that nature. Teachers sometimes try some of their own things, but again they have to abide by Connecticut data privacy

051and they have to check uh work with our IT department and make sure they're all right. But any of the large purchases that are districtwide or even levelwide like elementary may not be a high school program but it might be in all the elementaryaries that's centralized. And then I was going to just piggyback one comment that every I don't know if it's every year every every 18 months or so it every once and again our IT department will reach out to the curriculum office or to myself and they have done an audit like if they're starting to see hey we're starting to get a number of requests for this particular software. Uh they will then say is this something that you want to put onto a district level for exactly that purpose? Um and at

052other times they'll say hey um sometimes and we'll sometimes ask hey can you take a look at this? Is this something even if it's only a small number of folks using it is it something that we really want to be using? So there are those processes for kind of auditing the usage. >> Great. Thank you. >> Any other questions? Mary. >> Hi. Thank you. Curious about the numbers. So it looks like in 5520 textbooks or some of textbooks and workbooks there was a decrease and I'm just wondering if or what the review is for you know periodicals online software things to keep track of kind of what's in what's outdated and what that process looks like to make sure that not only we're staying current but also fiscally responsible. So at the middle school level

053especially uh the department chairs, department supervisors play uh a key role in the purchasing because it's often content specific. Right? So it's um the teachers might be requesting a new subscription to something. So they will audit that. They will look at that um examine it, see how wide the use would be and see if it's something that we already have because that's important. you might already have the same resource that's doing the similar thing or if it's a newer version of that. So I would say that one of the most important levels as a department supervisor is to start with that audit. >> And I just want to caveat relative to the numbers because the textbook line that you're going to see on this page under 5520 uh that is more of a departmental level

054textbook line. So the the dollar value is not significant. Uh that's typically replacement books. I need four or five more. Um, when we get to systemwide, Ann's budget, the curriculum budget, when we're doing a district adoption, we need, you know, brand new sixth grade math textbooks for every student in sixth grade, much higher dollar value that's going to come out of her budget. Uh, periodicals, that could be stuff like, you know, that you see, that's a very relatively small number. That could be like your Scholastic News or something like that. It's it's uh typically they're they're going to be something that if if it is or isn't written into the curriculum, it's it might be something there's more teacher discretion here. When they're districtwide assured resources, they're typically in the district budget and you'll see

055bigger dollar values associated with those when we come to those pages in a little bit. >> Latoya. >> Yeah. And my mine is just a clarifying question around supplies and fees. What are those? >> Sure. So, supplies at some of the some of the same stuff supplies get broken out. Um, you're going to see instructional supplies kind of across different pages and who's responsible to purchase the supplies is dependent upon kind of what what the supplies are. So, uh, at this level, uh, typically, you know, we're giving, um, at a department level, we're on middle school, right? You know, when I was a department supervisor, I would be able to within my departmental budget be able to provide a rough amount of money, $100, $150 for each of my teachers to buy small supplies, uh

056things that they would want to use. So, it's not coming out of their own pocket, but it's not something that um is necessarily provided at the school level, at the middle school in the school's budget. you will see and that's going to come up on the supervision page. Uh you're going to see a larger dollar value dedicated to supplies and those are the majority of that is for supplies that the school is providing. So number one that's going to be like the copy paper for the whole school. All right, which is believe it or not the biggest percentage of the supply budget. U but then there are other things that schools had traditionally provided to all teachers at the beginning of the year. Now back in my day we'd be going down and getting one

057of those grade books. right now it's all online but things like that the markers that every teacher needs the the the erasers all the kinds of things that are there um but there are opportunities for um in departmental budgets that a department supervisor would control for things like hey I want some math manipulatives for my sixth grade class or I want some trade books in English I want to be able to buy a set of 10 or more something that they're not going to be going you know if if they're bothering for $150, then you know, we don't we're not managing money well because she's really looking at district-wide purchases. Um, and then what was your second question? I apologize. Dues and fees. >> Um, yeah, I guess just Yeah, fees and >> Yeah, supplies

058and fees. Yeah, >> supplies and fees. >> Uh, just give my eyes are so bad. >> So, the the dues and fees specifically would be, you know, professional associations, thing like things like of that nature that staff would need to be affiliated with, >> right? Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Is that part of the supplies and fees too or is that different? >> So the supplies and fees when it comes to the middle school level I think they're separating a little bit more fees and supplies associated particularly with their intram murals program to keep those a little bit segregated from instructional supplies in the classroom. >> Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. Thank you, >> Ethan. The um total for the middle school year-over-year increase was 6.78% I believe compares to 5.5 for the elementary and four and a

059half for the high school. Is that just a function of where the salaries fit in or >> so >> because it didn't look like there's any major items? >> So it's a combination, right? So it is where the salaries fit in. So we're literally taking you know the individual person where they are what their lane is and rolling them forward. But in the case of elementary, we also have those ele those additional positions. >> Okay. So how much would the increase have been if we didn't have those six positions. >> Um so the average teacher we estimate that they're coming in um at a particular step. So we their salary peak component we would estimate for a new teacher would be around 75,000. >> Okay. So that was figured into the as part of the

0605.5. >> Yes. And in this case we actually know who those teachers are. And so >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Any other questions about middle school? All right. Thank you. >> All right. Moving us on to page four of your packet, uh, reflecting pages D38 and D39 of your binder. So, you'll see a slight increase from the adopted current number, which reflects actual student course enrollment relative to projections. So again, when we're looking at things, we're sort of projecting out when you actually get students that'll then make their course selections and now you're actually trying to schedule them. Um sometimes it doesn't work as clean as we might hope. Um and so that's why you'll see that increase there. Um we are proposing a decrease of 1.36 FTEEs and that's due to an

061anticipated reduction of approximately 75 students. Um and we expect to stay flat with staffing across all of our other areas. So on the staffing enrollment trends, I I don't have much more to add. Um the change is as Julio mentioned due to um projected decrease in enrollment, but I would like to mention in terms of our programming, much of the programming is staying the same. Although our um we're excited to highlight um the significant upgrade in our CTE, our career and technical education offerings. We are transitioning from our emergency medical response course to a much more robust emergency medical technician course which will lead to industry certification with immediate job opportunities where the certification course was kind of an acknowledgement of your work and an acknowledgement of your um base knowledge where the the EMT

062is is a direct pipeline. Um the strategic partnership we continue to have a strong partnership with West Harford Fire. I meet with them regularly. Chief Priest is really an amazing leader and I'm pleased to partner with Ed. They provide um two staff members who've gotten their their industry teaching credential as well. Now, they're firefighters, but um they have gotten the public safety endorsement to teach and they teach the emergency medical service instruction portion. So, that's the clinical hands-on when you need to carry someone or you need to. So, our teachers do all of the normal teaching, but we invite the well, we invite we partner with WH uh FD fire department to come in and offer the clinical excellence that they have in working every day in the field. This is a great opportunity for

063our students and we're really pleased that um we've moved in this direction after much discussion and much support from both uh you know the the school administration and Paul and also uh West Harford Fire. So I wanted to note that change because it's not a dollar change but it's a program an important program change >> question. >> When we look at the oop sorry >> when we look at the financials related to high school um you see similar patterns um and so uh salaries are reflecting the collective bargaining agreements um offset by uh the anticipated savings from reduced staffing. And then when we look at operational um you're looking at about 58% for instructional supplies, 6% for computer software, 8% for textbooks, 7% for library books, and 6% for periodicals. Um and there is no

064uh notable variance under equipment. And I'll just piggyback one comment before questions is what's different about high schools which is so interesting is the you know we project based on the number of students but at the end of the day uh it's the the FTEES in a department the full-time teachers can can vary slightly from year to year just based on the interest areas that the students have and what they select. though. So our at the end of the day, the the bottom line staffing when we move from the proposed budget to where the budget lives actually on September 1 is going to be based on the course selection. So if all of a sudden um students, you know, said, "Hey, I'm going to, you know, I've decided that I really love math more than

065anything else in the world." And everyone flocked to that as their elective. Not that I'm plugging that. um in instead of something else, you know, that would that would create the fluctuations that would exist within the departments themselves. So, I I point that out. Um and in all that said, the only other programmatic piece that we've obviously talked about very recently is the potential for a change to a block schedule. Uh but as we've said during that presentation, we would anticipate that to be FTE neutral at this time. So, pending your questions on high school Thanks. Mine isn't necessarily a question about budget, but just um about the fire program that that's amazing. Um and I was wondering if it if there's a connection between that program and like the alternative um high school programs.

066Um and I'm thinking about that because I know our fire department lacks diversity, I think, right? Um and um in the past uh when I was in California, we would part pair like our alternative high school programs and like youth who went through diversion programming with the fire department and it actually resulted in a lot of those kids becoming firefighters later. And so just kind of wondering about thoughts about that. >> Uh well your thoughts about that are um you know absolutely appropriate. Paul and I have had long discussions um not they're not manifesting quite yet but we've had long discussions about our alternative program reach the reach alternative high school having a specific focus and opportunity. Now just please know that while you're at reach if it fits in your schedule because it is

067a uh program that helps you if you're credit deficient and you're a little bit older to and that it's a primary role right now but we those children can also elect to take a class at Connor. So this course would not be out of bounds for them. Um however kind of preview for the future we will continue to discuss opportunities between reach and courses like CTE and other public safety would be a nice pathway but even other things and and um we even mentioned some initial thoughts to to chief priest too so he's aware and so more work to be done but the same thinking is is happening so thank you for mentioning it. I guess following up on Latoya's question in terms of that kind of pipeline, have there been any any efforts made

068to work with the AMR company in town that provides the actual ambulance transportation service in town? Because I think I know they're they're a private company. They're structured differently than the fire department. And I'm pretty sure they are always looking to hire the EMTs to do the actual transport. >> Uh I can't speak to that level, but I first I'd say I wouldn't be surprised and I can find out if we we are in touch with AMR. I know that our new program allows for ride alongs with the paramedics who don't ride in the AMR but they they have their own vehicles but um I can find out for you because it would be those are the people also looking for for future workers. So I will I I can do a little more research

069on that. >> Yeah and I was going to say at a minimum I it's an opportunity to remind of uh we did a big uh career technical job fair. I think last year was the first year >> Manufacturing fair. Um I wonder if as we bring a course like this on if if some of those efforts are expanded to create those kind of inroads partnerships and have you know have AMR and other and other providers you know have an have a understanding that we we have the direct pipeline. So, I like the thought. >> And I'll just layer in because this putting on my day job hat. Uh we support a first responders youth academy in um three school districts currently that involves fire, police, and first and EMR and EMT. Um and so if

070you're looking for just models, I think we could be very uh helpful in just showing those. And I think there's just different ways it works in every town based on the partnerships and the relationships, but you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Um just sorry not to drag it out, but we did attend and I was thankful to be a member of the planning committee for the regional uh public safety summit we had this this fall down in we had it on the campus of the um Rocky Hill VA and we brought together uh educators, all kinds of public safety commissioners, state legislators to listen to the um the challenge of getting people into public safety fields. we were able to present models from all over um because everyone does it differently. Everyone does this

071differently and we're finding our way. But I think we're most proud of our partnership with West Harford Fire to have two of their firefighters have a teaching certificate right now is really really amazing and they've been they have been um you know just the best in making sure this program moves forward. So, we'll continue with that and we're always open to other new ways of doing it because I I think we want to keep going beyond fire. Miriam, thank you. I'm going to go back to literacy. Um, so I I'm asking um because I recognize the the need and the tremendous impact that reading support has on our students early on, right? And so looking at early intervention and the case load looked high to me in elementary. And so I'm trying to understand and

072I should have asked about in middle school and in high school. What do the are the reading support at that point? Is it still an intervention? Is it um pupil services? Um and what are their case loads look like? again looking uh especially since there's I think a bill right now in the Connecticut kitchen general literal Assembly looking at uh reading support I believe for fourth through 9th grade um as there was previously for K through three. So I'm just curious about kind of case load and um you know looking ahead to ensure we have enough support for our students who need >> Great question. So you'll see on the middle school page there are five literacy specialists who are listed and we have in our larger schools two and then in Bristo one Melissa's

073office Melissa Catalero's office also through specialized instruction provides a great deal of direct literacy support. So we talk quite a bit about our class sizes um to make sure that um you know they're about on on equal par and we've made some strategic changes to those over the past two years I would say. Um, so, uh, I I'm going to give you an estimate, but I I'd have to look it up to be clear. At the last time we were looking, we were looking at class sizes of 10 to 12. Um, but I would have to do a double check to see if that's still in the right range in the middle school. But we continue to offer literacy support through regular instruction through these five and then through um specialized instruction for students with

074more severe well who have um who have identified services but also they might have more severe reading uh disabilities. So um the partnering has um I think really been eye opening because you don't want to do this kind of work not knowing what the other side is doing. So I don't know if you wanted to add anything to that. No, I think it's just important um to note that West Hartford in particular has a long history of our two offices working in collaboration and and so um a couple of years more than a couple of years now in 2015 when the legislation changed regarding dyslexia being named as an identification category under IDA in in Connecticut uniquely. Um, we were at the forefront of those changes and to this day we have standing practices between

075our two departments where we have a senior leadership steering dyslexia committee that was looking at reading very early on. In fact, we were the inaugural presenters at the International Dyslexia Association for Connecticut for the roadmap to response to legislation and we're very proud of the work we've been doing. We also have a a multid-disciplinary workg group that meets regularly throughout the year and so Melissa Barrens um Kelly Browse who oversee our department as well as key literacy specialist um and we pull in multi-disiplinary team members because this work doesn't happen in isolation and so as Ann would was describing you know one of the the success stories of some of these new legislation movements is that um we're not waiting for students to fail. are intervening through screening measures to be able to provide intervention

076very early on. And there's a great partnership between our literacy specialists and our special education teams because we see a real value in the literacy specialists who have deep intimate knowledge of literacy which many special education teachers have. But it's important to have that understanding early on. They're getting to know the students. They're intervening. They're monitoring progress. And at some point there might be a question, how is this child thinking and learning? and it might prompt child fine which does result in an evaluation. And even through that process, we um collaborate and some of the readings um some of the reading evaluations are actually done by the literacy specialists for initial evaluations to make it more comprehensive. Um and then we do some more standardized measures through our special education teachers. But this is an

077ongoing practice of collaboration, communication, and partnership that we have um at the most senior to um on the boots ground level. But it's evolving work. Um, we know that there's a lot of legislative movements and um, there's new research coming out all the time about literacy development, reading, reading research, um, intervention programs, intervention methodology, and so we're still really in touch with all of those processes. And, um, I'm sure you know there's a um, office of reading um, through the state of Connecticut. And so, they've been putting out a lot of resources and have had a great panel of very forward- facing presenters and presentations more recently. And so we're looking forward to hearing um more from the state about what you know what resources might be available. But we've taken advantage of every opportunity

078for new learning and stay in touch on our own through different groups about research and and um our teams are doing a great job responding to it. But it truly is a full continuum. And as Ann said, students might be part of intervention and they might exit intervention and um but there might be students who might need higher levels of intervention and and so we're really individualizing for each student and feel good about that collaboration. >> Ethan, >> this is more a general question um because we sort of move past it. But if I go to page C3, I believe it has nutrition service supplies. I assume that's part of the nutrition fund. >> Yes. >> Because that's a pretty substantial increase. >> Yep. And so uh C is a summary of all the things

079that we're going through now through the the supporting pages. But what's important to note is C one through three are combined funds. And so that is going to include um grants, nutrition services, so on and so forth. Um whereas C4 onward is just the general fund. >> Okay. It just the increase was pretty substantial >> for that one line item. >> Yeah. And we will get to the nutrition services funded section. >> I wasn't sure where it was. Thank you. >> Any more questions related to the high school regular instruction? All right. You can go on. >> Okay. Thank you. So, I'll turn us to page five of our packet, uh, which reflects page D70 and D71 of the board binder. Um, as you recall last year, there was a tremendous amount of community feedback

080related to any proposed scheduling efficiencies with our um, gifted and talented program. So, at this point, I'm happy to report that we're essentially staying flat um, in that area. In Esau, you'll see a 1.0 0 FTE reduction which you know again just for full transparency has actually been moved to a page that we'll get to later on and that's really related to if you remember the proposed supervision model shift um that superintendent has proposed so I know that Ann will talk a little bit more about the specifics related to that um and we are proposing a 0.5 increase to the counselor line and this would be to support the behavioral health needs at Bristo Middle School. So to add just a little bit more detail to that um we're proposing as uh superintendent Venus uh

081presented in the first meeting a shift of one Esau teacher who's been serving as a curriculum specialist to a department supervisor for Esau that you'll see on the following page. But this will not be a reduction in services but really an evolution of leadership um necessitated by rapid growth and increasing complexity of our ESOL students. And I can save the rest of the discussion for later when that position comes up. But I just want you to know it is it is not really a reduction in students that we're doing this. It's for a strategic leadership in the in the department and identifying um our response for more complex needs. Um in terms of the counseling support, you know, Bristo is our smallest middle school and a lot of parents seek it for personalized environments uh

082for personalized environment for a variety of reasons. um uh they they really value the small environment. They're looking for something maybe uh more that they feel will support their children. But over the past several years, we've heard from parents and from Bristo staff that they have needed um a little bit more um support in the area of social emotional needs. They um this addition will u make sure we have the clinical capacity to serve our uh to to to meet needs which are you know are are fairly consistent and increasing certainly not decreasing over time and um that will help us to maintain that small school personalized feel at Bristo. So that's the proposal to add a half uh counselor there. When we look at the financials, um we are supporting the staff um as

083listed and in addition the um operating expenses uh are related primarily to gift the gifted and talented program and the counselor programs questions Miriam. >> Thank you are I don't know much about the gifted intelligent program other than what I've read on the website. So I apologize. So perhaps you could um share are the gifted and talented teachers utilized for any other teaching responsibilities in the district or are they strictly specialized? And then in which um are they elementary, middle and high school? How are they um like where are they? >> Yes. Yes. Thank you for the question. So they are primarily they are gifted and talented teachers like any teacher they would help with any other duties or anything that the school um needs but they are gifted and talented teachers. They don't have

084another um assigned responsibility. Uh they are shared among staff. So the elementary schools share a portion of this 8.1. Um so most of the gifted and talented teachers have two elementary schools to service depending on size and what have you. Uh the middle schools also have uh a a portion of this uh 8.1 FTE and we offer the Quest program through 8th grade. As you move up in age though, there are more leveled classes and more opportunity to take advanced classes. So we don't have that program at the high school. We have healthy participation in in uh grades three uh four through eight. >> Did I answer your question? Yes. Thank you. Yeah, it's basically it's eight FTEEs across what uh 14 schools. >> Uh just to layer on to that, do you have a

085number of students who would be considered enrolled in Quest at any given time? >> I could definitely get you that number. Yes, we can pull that number. >> Does uh would would that number include Math Quest or is that separately counted? >> Math Quest as well, >> Jennifer. Yeah. Has I have a general question um about the FTEES like when they're proposed like here we have a half of an FTE and I think in high school it was like we're losing 1.36 are we like chopping off arms or what how does that work out? No, that's a great question. It comes up every year because it doesn't make common sense just looking at it. But they are part partial teachers who teach different um amounts. uh for instance if you taught three classes at the

086high school level that would be a certain portion of FTE versus if you taught five classes you're a 10 FTE. So there are formulas to calculate the percentage FTE but it all comes down to teaching less than full-time and then if you have more than one person doing that in the same department for whatever reason which we try to minimize but if it happens it would that's where you get some of those interesting numbers. >> Okay. Yeah, that was I was guessing that I guess and and so the um the crux of my question I guess is you know when either a when we see like the high school one of like taking out 1.36 is a teacher is a teacher that's already left that job not being fulfilled or someone >> I I could

087jump on that. Sure. Um, so what's interesting about the high school is um because because the FTE staffing there is is driven by student student enrollment and by student course selection um you can have a fluctuation and and typically most of the FTEES as Ann was saying because it's it's kind of based on uh five teaching. So so we talk in terms of 02s one section kind of being 20%. Um you can you can go up a 0 2 or down a 0 2 just based on uh a section break if you if you need two sections of something versus three versus one. Um where you get this point6 kind of stuff some of the time is with oftentimes with our PE classes because they were uh certain number of days a week. So uh

088they're not meeting five days a week. So then they they get into kind of the decimal values the you know into the hundreds place. Um and and that's where you'll see some of that. Another interesting thing, it's not as frequent, but some specific teaching assignments are budgeted differently. So, in the same way that you saw the re you seeing the reduction in an ESOL teacher, you're going to see a corresponding ad on a different page because we're we're not cutting the position. We're just we're changing how it's budgeted. We're also changing its job description. Some teachers might have a role um and sometimes that's with our department supervisors who have you know 80% of their assignment is supervision and 20% of their assignment is teaching. So 20% of their salary might land on a high

089school page and 80% of their salary would land on the supervision page and then you'll see those decimal values similarly for supervision. Um, so it it uh we do have part-time staff. Um, and the amount of their FTE when we have part-time staff is based on the percentage of a full-time teaching load that they're doing or the percentage of days or days of week that they're teaching. >> Thank you. So, so just I guess for anyone who, you know, is diving into these, they shouldn't be thinking like, oh, you know, there's minus one teacher now in um ESOL uh programming. It's like it's more of like the need for that 0.5 or five credits is now being shifted type of a situation. Is that correct? >> Correct. That's 100% correct. And then and then on

090some of the other changes, not necessarily on this page, but maybe on the previous page, what you're seeing is uh a net value as well. So you might be going up in a certain area, going down in a certain area, but what's what's on the page is like the net change. >> Miriam, >> a number question. Would you have a number for the gifted and talented gifted and talented program cost? So the salaries of just like for that director and teacher cost or where could I find that? Thank you. >> Yes. So, if you go to uh page D74, you'll be able to see um >> yes, but the like so the gifted materials cost for instance would be broken out there. So the 34,000 is is for materials there. Got it. Thank you. Sorry

091I missed that. >> Any other questions on this section? >> I'll just piggyback and I apologize. I should I could have done a better job with that, I guess. So, as you're going through the packet, Julio is going to give you those two-page references. Those are typically the summary pages. So, because this is a summary of systemwide D7071, that's going to show you everything. As you then flip over the next pages, it breaks it down to each of the individual departments. So you'll have two pages, a cost page, a staffing and programmatic description for gifted and talented. You'll have a corresponding page for counseling and so on and so forth. So my apologies for not saying that up front. I >> think we're good to go. >> All right, I'll take us to uh page

092six of the packet, which again reflects pages D79 to D81 in your board binder. Um you'll see a proposed 1.2 to increase in department supervisor line that's a result of essentially two items. The first is which we Ann had previously talked about and Paul as well is related to the shift in uh the ESOL model. So moving that Esau teacher has now got shifted over into department supervisor line. So that is the 1.0 there. Um I think Jen that's what you were sort of referencing before. And then you'll also see a 0.2 increase. And this increase reflects the removal of a teaching responsibility from one of our department supervisors to allow him to take on some additional responsibilities which I believe Ann will talk a little bit more about what those responsibilities are. Um this

093year we also had an increase of four non-certified support staff and that was based on our students needs as we looked at those. We believe we'll be able to reduce this number by two for an overall increase of two FTEEs for the adopted um from the adopted 2526 budget. So thank you Julio. Um this gives me an opportunity to talk a little bit about the the change from a the ESOL teacher to the uh ESOL department supervisor. And as I said before, it's not a reduction but really an evolution of leadership necessitated by growth um in increasing complexity of our multilingual learners. Uh specifically, we have seen um real changes in in the students who are coming to us and one one category is students who are called um who are labeled as Slife and

094Slife is an acronym that means students with limited or interrupted formal education. So these are students who have just not been in school. So they might be in a home country, they have had interrupted or limited formal education. Maybe they're studying, maybe they're going to school intermittently, but they're limited. And this group, we've seen an increase in that group. We've also seen um students who are older. So if you're older and you're coming in with few credits, now you're, you know, you're an older high school student who might be the credit level of a ninth grader and then all a sudden you have the age out issue of is it going to be good to be 21 in high school and and things like that. So, we've seen an increase in students um coming with

095interrupted education. Uh students coming without documentation on their education. So, it's hard to understand the credits. We look for them. We get transcripts when we can. Um all different types of situations that make um the need for a leadership um more significant for us. Um and also in you know by by definition if you are a student who receives Esau services you're in the high needs group and it is one of our target focuses is to close the achievement gap with our high needs group. Um especially when we we look at some other factors some of our students in this group especially our Hispanic learners were looking at gaps in attendance punctuality to school credit achievement and and outcomes on standardized tests. So this is a group of people that um of students who are

096in need that uh we believe a leadership position will help us set the direction more clearly and have um u insight into programming that can best meet their needs including different models that we haven't considered. So this is real need to have a formal leadership in this role. Um, and then going on to the other increase, this is an increase of uh taking one teaching uh class away from the career and technical education coordinator's position. And this basically builds on what I said before about fire and EMT. This person has um a great deal of responsibility for looking at students to be in internships in um job shadowing. And over the past few years, we feel like we're getting some real um traction in this area. Uh this person led a successful manufacturing tour. We

097had our first official signing day last year which was for the students who are going into trades. That was a really great event. We uh had a bus tour taking our kids. So the manufacturers in town came to the manufacturing fair and we followed up by making a bus tour having the children go visit. You don't think of West as a manufacturing center, but we do have manufacturing and it's great to promote that manufacturing and let them know there are jobs right here. So, um things like uh job shadowing, internships, manufacturing tours, bus tours, um the EMR to EMT uh change, and uh this person also served and and helped support that statewide public safety summit. So, in order to release uh this person to do more of that, which is so important to us,

098that is the other point, too. um uh point 2. So uh that is the increase you see there in that line for department supervisors. Thank you. And so when we look at salaries um we are uh supporting those aforementioned changes um and in and as for operating um we are this is where Paul had referenced earlier where some of those central school purchases made um from those those offices uh can be seen and so that is approximately 63% of the operating expense and then there are those curriculum operating expense uh purchases that Paul referenced as well earlier. Um, and so you can see that in the operating expense and then in the equipment. Um, those are just anticipated um, upcoming equipment purchases for the year >> questions. Ethan, >> so on this document has non-certified

099support staff. Are those a pair of professionals or is that something else? So the non-certified uh staff if you look on D81 it's uh C it's broken out. So that would be your second part of the page there ties to that group. >> Yeah. So that's all all your school secretaries, your TAs, your paras. So there's oh so it's got teaching assistance of and 71 pair professionals. >> Okay. >> Correct. >> Is it possible late not today but later on to get it by uh unit like elementary versus middle school versus high school. So I think is that there's part of that summary does live in the data supplement specifically on pages give me one sec 16 and 17. So you have your pair of professionals on page 16 and you have the teaching assistant

100staffing on page 17. >> Okay. >> So if that's the major focus area then you know if you wanted secretarial or something we could do that as well. But um I just wanted to since I have my mic on take privilege to um just reference in case there's any doubt at all. There's for the ESOL supervision uh that was a a teacher leader position that didn't have direct service hours with students and so the shift will not have any impact on our students. We're going to have a teacher leader position just be recategorized as a department supervisor. So I just for you and for the viewing public um no impact on um no no reduction of service on our students qu any questions. Um I I had one question just related to operating expenses. Um,

101are you able to separate out what costs in there are sort of in compliance with testing software you would need to have in order to meet state requirements versus optional uh testing software that we're choosing as a district. I guess I don't know if that makes sense. >> Yeah. Well, let me let me take a stab and I see they're ready to jump in too. So at the state level um I don't know that there are no direct costs for the SAT or Smarter Balance or anything. You know the the the indirect costs are you know you need to have the appropriate number of devices. You need to be able to refresh those devices. Uh the state does provide us guidance with um what the minimum requirements are. Uh you certainly need your network to

102be able to handle the volume of traffic. So those are kind of the indirect costs and those those things um we can we can at least I can't pinpoint what percentage of that you know is related to the state testing but we can talk about what those costs are. That's coming up I believe in section F. Um but then in terms of there there are costs uh for testing software and some things that would be uh especially if it's there through the curriculum office it would be I would imagine partly here. >> Um well your question raises a really good point. there has, you know, one of the uh we do have some items, especially with the new legislation for reading that required us to have um a specific kind of program and give it

103three times a year. So, if that's what that's kind of thing you're talking about. >> Yeah. I think there's just so so much out out there now and then there's things that I think you have to h you don't really have a choice because the state is imposing it versus what choices you're saying this is something that West Hartford is >> I don't have the number here but I can tell you there's a number of things um one pops in my mind right away that I mentioned to Barb that we need because we really don't have a great choice on it and we needed to we had something but it was not used as much and so the state was pushing certain um assessment platforms better than others and so we've had to change which

104was a actually a very significant increase in that line item. I don't have the total number though but we could look at that. >> Yeah, we have them combined here so we'd have to take a look um to see which were required. >> Yeah, so correct me. That's dibbles. That's >> dibbles is the >> ML >> Dibbles Mc-class is a product and that it was a significant increase in requirements that we did and it also has a a subm module called RAN >> that we have to have we can't not have I mean we have a choice of three products maybe but the cost but we can't have none of those three we have to have one of those three at least and uh it is a significant uh increase that year in that particular

105part of that line but I don't have the uh breakout Thank you. All right. Oh, Miriam, >> one quick question. Um, on page D79, looking at the summer curriculum workshop, could you speak to that, please? >> Yes. >> 5188. >> I just wanted to make sure I see it. Um so it each uh summer um well I shouldn't say each summer during the year the stu the the department two adviserss and our director of elementary and secondary will be uh mon and the teachers are monitoring adjustments in curriculum. So you imagine English teachers are sitting around CSI on on a Wednesday and they're talking about their needs and they're they're noting some changes they'd like to see in the curriculum something that they'd like to adjust. They they take those notes for a period of

106time. when the when the um needs start to be more significant than a minor adjustment, they make recommendation to their department supervisor to do a revision of the existing curriculum and that is they send a by October usually they'll send a request to my office. we need to rewrite something or at least revise. Um small revisions are made as they go, you know, nothing specific, but when these revisions become more significant or there's a new um initiative from the state, for instance, like the we we referenced the science of reading 10 times tonight because it's such a big change. So, we had to re um look at although our curriculum was approved by the state, it needed some adjustment and that you're rewriting six grades K through five in one of the most important areas

107um in elementary school. So, um those requests come to my office and we aggregate those requests across K12 and all of the departments and then we have to prioritize which projects will go forward each summer and that is that's the process. Um, so, uh, sometimes we'll say, you know, we we can't do it yet, but we'll put it on a priority for next year. Sometimes there's new courses. You might have remembered the African-American studies course and Latino studies course that the state was was pushing, we wanted to make sure that although they had curriculum that we had reviewed it and understood it and were prepared to deliver that. So, sometimes there are state initiatives, sometimes it is a change. Um, sometimes department supervisors can also request a new course if they say a need because

108times change. You don't want to just do the same thing all the time. There's needs and changes um that arise. So the process is they they make requests and then we uh prioritize and we write as many as we possibly can. A lot of it's revision. Um full write full rewrites are not common um only when new courses arise. I have one more question. Um, also on D79 and I asked this truly with the most respect just looking at numbers while the percentage for these two. So looking at line and 5115. Just curious about the numerical change in the difference. So is that are those contracted increases built into salary or >> did you say 5110 and what was the other >> um for the secretary and clerical salaries 5115 just looking the first one

109the difference is two 242,968 and the other secretarial and clerical looks like over 100,000 >> yes and so um the rates would be contractual and consistent with their collective bargaining agreements and then any staffing changes that are made. >> Good. Right. Any other questions? Okay, we can move along. Thank you. >> Okay, great. I'm going to have Ann pass the baton to my friend Melissa now, too, I think. Um, since she's been sitting there patiently. Um so again, this will reflect page seven of your packet and uh pages E5 and E6 of your board um binder. So you'll see a proposed increase of 1.5 in the intensive academic program. This is a result of the planned expansion for the upcoming school year. And then you'll also see um that due to student needs, we had

110to increase our FTEEs in the resource program by 2.2 FTEEs this academic school year. We plan to maintain this current staffing level resulting in the proposed 2.2 increase. >> All right. Thank you, Julio. Um I Good evening, everyone. Um I had the pleasure of presenting and sharing some information about pupil services not too long ago. We have the honor and privilege of serving students ages 3 through 22 who have individualized education plans to support students with disabilities. And we are currently serving over 1,900 students in the district. And while you heard trends of decreasing enrollment in some places, what you'll notice is that we have an increasing enrollment in pupil services. And to that end, I do want to ask you to reference your supplemental data in the back starting on page eight. Um, as

111I share some information about our students in our program, it's really nice that Barbara has made these beautiful visuals to kind of highlight some of the trends that we're seeing. And um one of the nice things is it provides a 10-year look back on that first page, page eight, and you can see that there's been almost a 40% increase in our intensive academic program alone over the past 10 years. Additionally, if you turn the page to page nine, you'll see our student prevalence rate in graph format to help you understand the trajectory of growth that we're seeing year-over-year. We attribute this to a number of factors. First, we see that there is a higher incidence rate overall and we're similar with the state, but we also know that we are a destination district for special

112education. You know, we receive calls from families who are looking to relocate specifically to access highquality resources and special education programming. And so, the students who are the families who are looking for our programming, we have a a high level of service for students here and our own continuum. You'll also see there the information on our out of district placements which I'll talk a little bit more about. And then if you turn to the page 10, you'll see our um resource students and related service students. And then um if you turn one more page, you'll see the trends in our intensive behavior program and our intensive academic program. And on page 12 is our early learning center program. And so given our large population of special education students, we do have our own continuum dis

113in district and we have highly specialized programs starting at the youngest ages of age three with our early learning center. We have intensive academic programs servings servicing students across all age levels. Our intensive behavior program which also includes an alternative high school program called strive and our post-secary program which services students until age 22. Additionally, I'd like to highlight that we have the largest deaf and heart of hearing program in a public school in the state of Connecticut, which is something we're very proud of and it's a very active community and I hope you've heard that there's a mural that we're working in collaboration that's made the news, which is such a beautiful thing. Um, when we look at uh the changes in our programs, one of the things you'll see is that our intensive

114academic program has been growing at a much higher rate as shown by these graphs and some of our other programs. Um, we expanded last year by adding three classrooms, two at the elementary school and one at the post-secary level. And those were actually offset by the seed grant. We talked a little bit last year about the underfunding of excess cost grant, Governor Lamont's funding efforts to really refund special education. There was a bill that was passed for $40 million. we were the recipient I think of um I just reference my note um 1.3 um to really offset the shortfall of the excess cost grant which was a huge savings for us and we also are the beneficiaries of the seed grant which really helped us in our are expanding program needs for intensive academic and

115if you reference that line for this year what we're seeing is that our students who are metriculating for ele from elementary to middle school um we will have a larger cohort of students so we'll be adding two intensive academic classrooms at the middle school level in response to student needs. Um our programming staffing levels will be stable at the elementary level given the uh number of students metriculating from the early learning center up to the elementary that require the more intensive programming. Our intensive behavioral programming is stable staffing. What we've noticed is a little bit of a stabilization in our trend in those programs which has led us to think about ways we might actualize savings in that way and service more students. Um area districts have looked to have tuition seats and um Canton

116just opened a program. Many of our public schools have programs that have tuition seats. We've never explored that opportunity because we've fully utilized our program. There were no seats to offer um even when somebody had asked. We at this time have that opportunity and we're looking to open tuition seats. But I think it's important to for you to know that there would be a very clearly defined process for any referrals or student tuitions that we're looking to explore. Um as well as involvement with the school administration, our school-based teams, our board certified behavior analysts, and all of those related service team members as part of that process. and it would no way, shape, or form impact the services or staffing that are part of the program as it stands today. So, our students would still

117have access to the program. We're not looking to expand the overall threshold of a case load in that program, for example. It's just that our current enrollment is is low enough for us to consider that at this time. Instead of closing or collapsing the program, we can offer tuition seats. So, we're looking forward to having that opportunity. In the resource area, what we're seeing is that our number will be stable. As Julio mentioned, we did add um FTEES this current school year and um you know, as we sit here today, all of our numbers are our numbers in a snapshot in time in the moment. And this is for us PPT season, we're having many annual reviews and all of our work is driven by student need. So, as meetings are held and services are

118determined for students, that can impact and shift the level of staffing that we need. And so, we are always closely monitoring that. And so this is a representation in the resource field of of an exact example of that of us understanding um what our students needs were and having to add FTEES after the budget had already passed. Um and right now at this present moment what we're seeing is that the FTEES will be stable but they will shift between levels. This larger cohort of students it's um the last of our COVID cohort so to speak um of those kindergarters will be moving up to middle school. And so there is a larger cohort of students with individualized education plans. And so those FTEEs will move up to the secondary levels to follow the student need.

119So everything's really driven by that need. Our early learning center um is staying stable in terms of staffing. Um and then I just want while it's not on here, it's kind of embedded below in the operating expense. I do want to talk a little bit about our out of districts because they are part of our continuum and and there is a a financial component to those. Um we have done significant work around our audit of district placements to ensure that students um have high quality programming because they are still our students. We conduct regular site visits. Lauren Dell, who's here tonight, is one of our department supervisors who oversees our out ofdist programs. Um we conduct regular site visits. We're in close contact with families and we work with multiddisciplinary teams both in our schools

120and the teams at those out of district schools to have an effort to bring kids back. not just for the purposes of bringing kids back, but to ensure that they have high quality outcomes for their education. And we do believe that they'll have the best outcomes with us. And so to that end, um last year at this time, we had 140 students that were placed out of district and at this present moment, we have 125. We've brought back eight students fully to district as of this present moment, just this year. And we have several students who are on what we call bifurcated programs where we're in the process of transitioning back where they might be taking a class or two at their um home school but also spending some time at their current placement. And

121we do that very slowly and gradually to ensure that the transition back to their least restrictive environment is successful and meets their needs. And so that is um one of the the processes we're engaging in. Um right now um we have 10 students that are in process of we're exploring return to district of that total number of students who are outplaced and we have 20 anticipated graduations or age outs. And I'll say that with a caveat, put a star next to that because um students who might be graduating might also need a transition program. So that number might fluctuate a little bit. Um I'm going to turn it over Barb to share a little bit about the budgetary component and then I'll answer any questions you have. Thank you, Melissa. Um, and so, uh, when

122you're looking at those financial impacts below, um, that's exactly it's capturing exactly what Melissa was speaking about. So, it's those staffing changes. Um, the additional grant funding impact and then, um, as it relates to operate the operating budget, the largest share there is the out of district tuition. That's over 99% of that operating expense. Um, and then there are just a few very small adjustments within Melissa's everyday needs. >> Questions? >> John? >> Yeah, I just had a question about transitioning students back from out of district placements. Um, do those transitions happen during the school year or or is it is it the kind of thing you look at from year to year? It can happen at any point in time quite honestly because we respond to student needs. Once once a team meets and

123they find a student's ready to return, we start to craft a very careful plan that really starts with um the family's engagement. We bring them in, they might tour our current programs, they might revisit their home school. Um we have a team of professionals that will go out and observe the current outofd district site to better understand that environment, what's led to the students success and what supports we might need to put into the transition. And it could look different ways. We've had some students, especially some of our older students, who've have agency and can say, "I'm ready. This is my time." And they've picked a date. And they've fully transitioned back. We've also had um plans where we have throughout the school year started with one class at a time or because we have

124the earlier release Wednesdays um tried Wednesdays as a starting point. It really has been individual. We have had mostly students transition across the school year, but we have had students who've started just new and clean and fresh at the beginning of a school year, too. So, it really is just unique to each individual student, their program and profile, and how we could best set them up for success. And we take into so many considerations and factors that might lead to that success. >> Jason, on the um the tuition seats, do we have any idea of what kind of revenue stream that could possibly be? So using some of our um neighboring towns that have offered seats, uh we have estimated approximately 100,000. So it would offset about one teacher and their benefits. >> Jennifer, did

125you question? >> Uh thank you. I I know I missed the beginning of this. Um I'm I'm curious about um the social workers and psychologists. I'm guess I guess the first want to confirm this is um because I feel like I've seen counselors on other pages. So I guess my first question is like who are those people in particular versus a counselor? And then my second question is um do you feel like I mean I think we've spoken a number of times at separate meetings about some of the mental health challenges that kids are facing now for many different reasons. Um it's I mean I'm assuming from the proposal you feel like you have enough but I'm just curious like from what you're seeing you're into things. Do you think this is sufficient to meet

126um the students needs? >> So you're a little ahead of us. You're on the next page. But I >> it's his fault. I was cheating off of him and he was ahead. But um I'll I'll answer I'll answer the question about the programming and staffing when we get to the next page. But I will just share that they are different than school counselors in that they provide direct therapeutic services. Thank you, Latoya. >> Yeah, my question is also about the tuition seats, not the not the money part, but um could you speak to why we have some open seats? Are those direct results of the like the success of the program and why other folks would want to come? Yes. And actually we um we just had a number of school districts that had reached

127out. They come and tour our programs all the time to get ideas um which I you know we we appreciate. And so there has been interest in the community and there have been questions asked about the opportunity for tuition seats in West Harford. Um so there is that opportunity. We do see great successes. Um, we have had students transition back from out of district to a program and then transition even out of the program into resource and and sometimes even out of special education which is a real celebration. So, um, yeah, we are seeing that and it's a it's a wonderful thing and we're hoping to be able to serve more students in our community. Um, but it has been an area of interest and we just have never had the opportunity to offer it

128more widely. just about the just a question about the tuition seats, you know, going going back because we're all really interested in the tuition seats tonight. Um, does that mean that say in a classroom where there would be where there's tuition seats available, we have a teacher staffed in that classroom teaching and we basically just have three spots open. For example, a class laser class of 12 students and we we we budget for 12 students and there's nine students from West Hartford enrolled and there's three openings. Does that mean that those those three openings are just available and the teachers there anyway? >> That's correct. So, it's fits into our current staffing model. So, there would be no extra resources. The only thing that might be a consideration is if a student does have um

129a one-to-one or some type of adult support staff, but that will be part of the contract with the other school district. So, be part of their tuition if there was any additional staffing. >> If we if you had a student who had a onetoone, would the sending district pay for that one pay for that onetoone person as well? >> Correct, Ethan? two unrelated questions. Um the seat you're selling isn't in the budget though, is it? >> Um yes. So, uh the it is in the budget and where you see it is we are still maintaining the teachers up in if you look on page E6, um you'll still see the teachers inherently there, but where you see the delineation is if you look in our current to budget for a tuition funded, it goes up

130one seat. I'm sorry, one FTE. >> And so, um, this year in this category, we do have some positions that are they're they're not tuition seats, but they're, um, funded by services that we bill other districts for. >> Yeah. And if you'll recall from the PowerPoint presentation when I presented it, it was the, you know, I had very few superintendent changes. That was one of the dollar values that was highlighted on that page, but it'll it'll live in a line item where the money will get received. >> Okay. So, we're assuming one indiv one >> we're assuming $100,000 of revenue. >> That's fine. I wasn't clear. Second question. Um, you went from 140 to 125 hopefully. >> So, that's like about a 10% >> talking about out of district. >> Out of district. Yeah. I'm

131sorry. the line item is flat from year to year. So that assumes that the cost goes up 10%. On the 125, >> we always assume that the cost is going to go up because while the overall number of students is is going down, this is the first year we've actually seen financial benefit to the efforts that we've made. Um we've seen great benefit to students, but the financial line hasn't changed because every year tuition goes up at the state. It's important for you to know there are efforts a foot to regulate costs for outofd district providers and private providers. That hasn't quite happened yet, but I'll use Massachusetts Commonwealth as an example. The Commonwealth sets rates. So, every school, every private approved school in the state of Massachusetts can only charge the same rate. So,

132speech and language services in one school is the same as the next school. Here in the state of Connecticut, it's not currently regulated. So there's great variability amongst cost of special education programs both in the total tuition and whether they're allocart. So um in the future we actually think that that's something that's moving forward. We know that there are several efforts underway um to gather data and information um some of which we're involved in with the state. So we do believe that that's a concerted effort um that will take place in the near future which will give us more certainty about the rates of tuition where we could base it off unknown. >> So that's interesting. It raises a different question the percentage of uh kids that go out of or do the out of

133out of district tuition wherever. How many are in the state of Connecticut? How many in other states especially Massachusetts >> ballpark? We most of our students are in the state. We have very few students who are out of state. >> I'm sorry. Say again. >> We have very few students who are out of state. >> So then it because I was thinking somebody could choose to go to a different state, but that's probably difficult logistically. >> Well, there's no choice because it's a PPT placement. So the way it works is when a planning and placement team meets, we go through an exploration process and the team will actually decide the placement. So it, you know, sometimes out ofstate placements occur because there's a program. We're a very small geographical area. There might not be a

134specific program located in our geographical area that can support a student's needs, particularly students who require a very high level of care with um more advanced facilities. >> Okay. Thank you. Can you speak to uh what proportion of out of district placements result out of the say the due proc out of the out of due process where we're required to uh send students? >> It's a very good question. We we have not had any fully adjudicated cases that have come through due process, but certainly the legal landscape can impact student placements. Um I wouldn't be at liberty to speak about specific information because the the N is so small. might be personally personally identifiable, but it is part of the legal process in the state of Connecticut where by which there might be some other

135factors that lead to out of district placements other than PPD decisions. >> Thank you. Now, one last question about the tuition seats, at least one last question for me. Um, how how would those seats be say marketed to other districts? So, um, what we would want to do is put together an information packet that would be available and we would share it with other area districts and directors who are always looking for placements. Um, Canton re recently just started their own program and it was as simple as them sending out a flyer and um, I think they filled their seats right away. So, um, I think you know just getting information out there that there will be availability will help us market it. a structure that Melissa participates in relative to uh formal meetings of

136uh directors of special education. So there's a there's a tight network. >> Great. Thank you, >> Miriam. >> Are these numbers solely um for students with IEPs or does this take into account 504 plans? That's question one. >> These are only students with individualized education plans. >> Thank you. So my next question is um how many students do we have with 504 plans? Is that number increasing? And then how is the district measuring the impact of students with 504 plans on staffing needs? Great question. So our number the last time I checked was well over a thousand for students with section 504 plans. That is another demographic that continues to grow. um it grew most in response to legislative changes that came out of ADA. Um I'm gonna think it think it was six years

137ago now that really kind of opened what um a qualifying area of disability and impact on life functioning could possibly mean under section 504. Um we there are very few direct student services under section 504. Section 504 is generally for accommodations only. So when we think about the differences between your your section 504 plan and an individualized education plan, your section 504 plan provides you ramps to access and ways to to um access your education that doesn't change the content whereas your individualized education plan includes specially designed instruction which may modify curriculum in some way. So the the modifications and specially designed instruction really live in an individualized education plan whereas a section 504 plan really is focused on the accommodations. It is possible that there might be some related services that might be part

138of a section 504 plan but it's it's very un it's not the norm. It's it's more the um you know the outlier. >> And I was going to piggyback but I don't you looking at me to piggyback or you had something you wanted to add first. >> Yeah. I just wanted to add that um there are no as Melissa said the bulk is is in IDA but >> I'm sorry um but there are demands on the staff through 504 to holding meetings annually and um that is our 504 coordinators who at the high school are our counselors and uh we have 504 coordinators in all of our elementary schools. So to schedule those meetings, hold those meetings, go through that process and to have someone oversee 504 is is is not the same type of

139cost, but it is certainly something that we have to monitor and we have it, you know, legally um mandated. So we have to make sure that all of the provisions are followed. So it's a different kind of cost to I think account for uh but it certainly comes in the at at the in the way of time that our our folks are devoting to those meetings, scheduling those meetings, taking those um holding those meetings, contacting all of the all the types of things they do to implement the plans. Although the plans are very different from yeah >> from >> that was I was going to say pretty much the same thing that from a financial perspective and it'll come up and so I'll just I'll signal it. it'll come up where in a page or

140two here where you or maybe we passed it already. You see a fraction of a supervisor. Uh the other because we have a we have a an o person who oversees 504 for us for the district. Um and so half of their job is related to our alternative high school program supervision. The other half of their job is related to 504 management at the district level. uh then our school counselors are especially at the secondary level are the primary um overseers are assistant principles at the elementary level. Um so that's that's an area where hey in the past we've looked at with enrollment trends could we provide any reductions there and the risks generally are the increases that we see with behavioral health needs and then the increase in in demands for case management for

141504. So, we've maintained level staffing um for those positions and of course did the redesign of the elementary supervision model uh last year, two years ago, last year um in support of those kinds of needs. I guess a follow-up question to that is um you know so if we let's say have 30% of our district receiving accommodations and specialized services looking then at the teacher load to make sure that we're accommodating and so I'm thinking about the impact on the teachers on the ground and managing a class and 30% of their classroom who has accommodations of varying kinds and curriculum you know required individual education plan. So, I'm just trying to understand how that translates into staffing and budgeting and anticipation of needs. It's a it's a lot of you know a lot of that

142can live within professional learning especially you know we we had uh it's it's a little dated now but we brought experts in back in the day when universal design for learning was um more more of a new term um to basically provide recognition that you know if there are accommodations that are going to support someone who has some form of whether it's a learning disability specifically or just a need based on a life skill as identified under section 504. Whatever that adaptation to your instruction might be to make that uh content area instruction more accessible is not going to just be good for that child, it's going to be good for every child. And so there's a lot of professional learning that we try to continue to do, continuously refresh to support teachers with that

143load. But uh please know and please let any teacher who's listening know you know we we do hear that that we recognize the demands um are significant um on teachers in terms of what they have to face and be able to react to in order to provide the high quality of expect of education that we uh that we expect and um it it is it is not anything that I would would say is without challenge. >> Thank you. Any other questions, Jennifer? >> Um, I this is a a a curious question. Um, when when uh I talk about budget with um neighbors and such in the community, one of the recurring comments I get as well, the budget's so high because we're a destination district for um kids with special needs. And so families with

144special needs with their kids, they move here and like our budget then, you know, is so much higher for that. And I feel like in the short time I've been on the board, it seems to me from discussions that's actually not the case. Um, but for anybody like watching or looking at this, I'm just intrigued if there's any commentary on that perception at least. >> I think I I'll take that. Um, you know, we we definitely are a destination district and I think we take great pride in that. Um, we have a federal and legal obligation and I'd also say moral obligation to support students with disabilities. And I feel like West Harford is such a special community that is so embracing of of individuals with disabilities. And I look at the next chapter bookstore

145and the magical place that that has become because of the beautiful community of West Hartford being so inclusive. So I do think there is truth to that that we are definitely a destination district. So I I do want to just be clear. I I do believe that you know I get calls from people who are moving from California who say where should I move because I want to go to this program. Um, and so, so we have those conversations, but I think that in terms of our operating costs, I think we're very fiscally responsible. You know, I think that in terms of the cost that we, you know, we are going to always be responsive to student needs. Student need drives this budget. Student need drives these projections. And this will change. And you see

146even the changes tonight like I estimated that resource teachers would be down, but they were up and we responded to that. similar to class section breaks like we have to be responsive to student need. We'll always be fiscally responsible. We are always thoughtful about that. But at the end of the day, I think student need will always be our top priority. >> Oh, did you have a question? >> Sorry. Um, yeah, I was gonna say thank you for saying that. I think it's it yeah I think it's good and thanks for asking that question like I think that is something that we do really well here and there's a lot of families that can speak to that and I also wanted to um speak to the 504s too and like my own experience as a

147classroom teacher um when I did my due diligence and like understood all of my students 504s that's how I taught my class and my first year teaching um my students were like they were considered English language learners. And I do that cuz I'm like they're bilingual, triilingual, like smarter than we are. I'll say that. Like we learn one language, they learn two or three. Um but they were, you know, labeled English language learners. They were behind in reading a year and a half. Um and I I ran my classroom from that lens of like how do we how do I provide the accommodations? How do I work with the parah? How do I work with the community? Um, and and I'm just sharing that to say like my first year teaching without a teaching credential,

148my students broke state records and grew 2.2 years in one year in reading. And that was because of exactly what you're saying that I allowed the information that I gathered from my individual students to drive my instruction. Um, and I didn't have to learn that in a credentiing program. And so I just want to like put that out there because I do like I I like our approach to it and I think um I strongly believe in like how do we push that into tier one and support our teachers in that part like you're saying and like see it from that lens. So yeah, thank you. I just wanted to share that insight because I think there's a benefit to having a teacher here at the table. Ethan, >> to follow up on the destination

149location, have we statistically looked at what percentage of um special needs or per capita we have students versus other towns in nearby? >> We do have that data. So, the state um I think is at 19% and we're right in line with them in terms of incidence rates and it it's comparative to other areas. Um, but when we look at our moveins, to give you an example, um, I don't I I think it was July 1 to the beginning of the school year, we had 73 moveins with individualized education plans just just before the school year started from July 1 to the very first day of school. >> Okay. But statistically, you're saying we're in a line with everybody else. >> Per prevalence rate >> for the state, I want to qualify. That's a state

150average. when when you look say at Durb B or something like that, we're very we're very distinct. But >> is that what >> uh the demographic reference group that uh DUI B that West Harford is in? >> Okay. Is there any way to look at a comparison of I guess more difficult cases versus you know other places or >> Well, um I think what you might be asking is based on trends. So what you're seeing here in the response to the trends that we're seeing is is that overall we're growing but in particular we're growing in our intensive academic program which serves high need students. And so that really is reflective of exactly what you're asking is is that we're seeing within the trend of growth that specifically that area is an area we're seeing

151a larger population. >> Okay. And you just you're making me think Ethan of Melissa the at the end of the year we do the performance and profile report and there's a breakdown in that report that we provide you annually that identifies the number of students by disability category and sometimes the disability category kind of hints to different degrees of complexity of need. Um and there are comparative if I remember correctly there are comparative statistics for where the district is versus where the state average is. >> Okay. So we can I can point you to last year's report and I can show you some of that if that's of interest. >> That'd be great. Thank you, >> Miriam. This is a kind of gen more general comment uh in response to my colleague Jen and that

152is that our budget has increased over $50 million in five years and if we continue at the trajectory uh that we're going forward potentially in another decade our budget could be $500 million. And so that really raises the questions of who can afford to live in West Hartford if our taxes are going to be so high. So there's certainly a question about affordability and what our budget looks like for our town and for the future. So that's just one comment there. >> Jason, >> I I would just add to that. I I I'm not downplaying affordability. Everybody knows that's real. But every time that Paul presents his budget and the budget that you guys put together, one thing stands out to me and it's this chart that shows where we are on per pupil spending.

153And I don't know that you could ever say we spend too much when we're 90th in the state. >> All right. Uh we can move on to the next section. >> All right. Thank you. So I'll take us to page eight of uh your packet which aligns with pages E21 and E22 of your binder. Um you'll notice a modest increase of.5 FTE for a social worker which will be allocated to the post-secary program to address student needs. Um additionally there is a 02 FTE increase for speech pathologists also driven by student need. And then finally we are proposing an additional point4 FTE for an occupational therapist to support the district in response to growing student needs in that area. So in addition to the services provided by our special education teachers, we rely on our

154related service providers such as our social workers, our school psychologists, our speech and language pathologists, our occupational therapists, and our physical therapists as well as our teachers of the deaf and nurses um to support students in all of our schools. And so what we're seeing here tonight is a a small increase to um support our postsecary program which continues to grow, one of the largest post-secondary public transition programs in the state of Connecticut. And we are looking to have more students next year and with that we are looking to increase our clinical support to help students navigate the social complexities of adolescence and adulthood. Um we also added um the 02 was actually an ad this year to make a speech and language pathologist whole at the high school. So that's a current ad. And

155then next year again in response to that that trend we're seeing with the increase of our intensive academic program we are um making um taking a 6 occupational therapy position and changing it to a 1.0 to support the needs of the program students um because we anticipate that at this time. Um, we certainly know that again, you know, these are all snapshots, you know, to Jennifer's excellent question about, you know, mental health and and right now based on what we know, we do anticipate that this is an appropriate projection, but that can change in coming months as we continue to survey what student needs are. Um, but I would like to share that we do have a great partnership with the bridge. um that it both includes um a partnership where by which we have

156contracted services that provide individual counseling, mentoring, and groups for students across all grade levels, as well as a middle school program where the bridge actually rents space for us. It's completely no cost to the school district, but full cost to students and families at the middle school where they can access a full-time clinician during the school day for private therapeutic intervention. And families have really um appreciated that opportunity because it um allows them to have access to a clinician what who otherwise might have long wait lists after school where everybody's vying for that availability and they have competing obligations with sports, intramurals, extracurriculars, music and so on. And so that's been a really nice um partnership with them. And we actually just spoke with them recently and are looking to expand that program into the

157high school for next year so that the high school students have that opportunity as well. we had a previous relationship with Harvard Healthcare and um that individual um no longer um is able to work in the school setting and so this partnership will allow us to continue to offer um an expansion of our clinical services but again no cost to the school district but also offers families a really valuable resource. I'll turn it over to Barbara to share more about the budget. Great. Thank you. And so when we're looking at these financials, we're looking at the individuals uh that are in the positions and making estimates for those additional increment changes. And so that is reflected in the salaries. And then as you can see, there is a little bit of variance between operating expense

158and equipment based on anticipated need for items that Melissa's group needs, including um instructional materials, psych tests, and things of the like. >> Thank you. Any questions? Miriam, >> I have a question. Um, is any revenue generated from private insurance or Medicaid for any of these services in the schools? Is that a thing? >> Uh, we do file for Medicaid reimbursement. We uh have uh a quarterly filing where we are reporting um staff time and also um any services that would be eligible for reimbursement. And so we do work to to do that and we generate about um I think last year was about $200,000 in revenue and that's used to offset um the costs. Thanks. Um just I had a quick question about the post-secary program. Um similar to what we were talking about

159earlier with the intensive academic program. Is there an opportunity for tuition spots in that program or expanding that program since it is such a model? Um we we currently are too full to offer tuition seats, but I know that it's a big area of interest and I think if we are to have the opportunity to expand tuition seats, that would be another area for us to look. Um we certainly um are exploring different opportunities, but right now there's also physical constraints with our actual physical location, but we are also looking at that as a possibility for the future as well. Thank you, Ethan. For the budgeting purposes, the reimbursement is that are we budgeting a net number or a gross number? >> Um, so we're budgeting the revenue against expenditure so it doesn't stand out

160as a line of its own. So we are we are budgeting the net number. >> Okay, that's what I and I assume the same for the seat that's supposedly going to be sold. >> Correct. >> Multiple seats. >> Okay, thank you. Uh Miriam, one other question. Um where do um you know any assistance for the ancillary support come into play? Where are those listed? Because I imagine with these numbers the case loads also are significant and potentially people would need support. >> Do you mean like par educators >> or I was thinking more like do the OT's have assistance? PTS have assistants who are helping you know implement. >> So that's a very good question. So occupational the we do have occupational therapy assistants and their FTEEs are coded in with with the actual OT's

161I believe. Correct. >> Um we do not have any physical therapy assistants. We do have a few speech and language pathology assistants. Um one of the the nice things about having an assistant is they could implement direct services. One of the harder things and the reason why most of our staff are just OT's or PTS or SLPs is they are unable to conduct formal evaluations and they have to have oversight by the um the occupational therapy. So if I'm an OT and I have an an OTAA aod um they need oversight hours. So there is a push and pull there between obligations and whether or not it really ends up being a support um because they're they have a they're not always independent and they require supervision hours. So the occupational therapy um therapist who

162has their case load then has to find time for supervision of the the assistant case load and monitoring of their any other questions. All right, we can move on. Great. Take us to page nine of our packet which aligns with E33 and E34 of our board binder. Um the only change on this page is the difference of 27 FTEES and that's related to the non-certified support staff. Again, these changes are the result of student needs and our hope is to remain flat from our current staffing numbers. So, as you might remember too, this is the second year of implementation of a a major change in our administrative structure in pupil services where by which now we have a full-time pupil services administrator at all of our school sites which has had a tremendous positive impact

163on student parent relationships um and also great oversight of support for our special education teams. We've really um benefited from the leadership of Kelly Browse as our assistant director. She's done some wonderful things in her leadership and I'm so appreciative of her. Um really the only change you're going to see here as Julio mentioned is in our adult support staffing that covers our para educators, our student aids, our registered behavior technicians and again that's all driven by student need. And so what you'll see is there was an increase from our adopted to current and then um we're looking to stay stable at our proposed but again that might increase next year. Thank you. And so as you can see in the salary line, uh those staffing increases are reflected um for those additional positions in

164adult support. Um and then in addition in the operating expenses, uh that is primarily professional services. And so that relates to um services that we might have to to pay services for. Uh things like interpreting, inpatient hospital tutoring, um things of that nature. and uh equipment is level funded to support needs. >> Thank you. Questions, >> Ethan? >> I missed this before when I was going through it. You had that much of an increase year this year over the budget >> in terms of the number of non-certified? >> Yeah. 308 to >> I'm glad you're asking that. Um, if you look on page E33, um, and specifically on line 5185, I believe. >> Is that right, Barb? Is that were those teacher assistants? >> Yes. The teacher assistant, the categorization. >> Yeah, that so so

165what we had, I believe in the uh in the adopted budget um 2526 where it was reflecting the 272. I don't know if we had the uh the 100% accurate categorization of all of our um of a position which were called parasubs that were recatategorized under their contract negotiation um to to then to reflect so the bodies were hired and they were categorized elsewhere um to reflect the current staffing level. So if you if you kind of read across that as I understand it that salary line 5185 teacher assistance which is where their payroll lives um you'll see more modest incremental change year-over-year from 23 24 25 reflecting their um their typical uh negotiated wage settlement. Um so it does look like it's a big jump but it has more to do with the categorization

166of the bodies. Now that being said there are increases. I don't know if we've teased out exactly how many um additional non-certified support staff we may have had. >> I don't have an exact number of the total increase other than what's on the budget book in front of me, but I I can get those figures if you're looking. >> Yeah, I just we look at it from the financial analysts or I don't remember it being that big, but that's just my memory. But the pair of professional numbers even higher you know the increase over the prior budget >> and I I do think this is also in reflection of student need as you know as students have the need then we're staffing for it. So that's just again a reflection of that and as you

167see those numbers and enrollment numbers increasing pupil services >> there will be a correlation between staffing especially in adult support staffing in this area. All right. Just so large. >> And for budgetary purposes, both the um increases in the pupil the pupil support specialists increase and the paraprofessionals would both be in that paraprofessional categorization line. So those increased positions would both be in there. >> Where does this student aid where does that go? Because that's a big jump of people too. >> I'm looking at 34 to 33. So, student aids function similar to a PAR educator. They're just hired under a different hiring category. >> No, no, no. I I understand, but I'm saying I'm trying to figure out which line item they're under for expenses. >> That's 5185. And so, the teaching >> the

168teacher assistant, >> the teaching, it's an old name and and it'll need to be updated. >> That's fine. I'm just trying to understand. Thank you. >> Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong. Just to get a better picture of it. If we looked on page 16, Barb, for the that uh pair of professional summary sheet, um it provides under pupil services, it's it's going to provide you, Ethan, some year-over-year figures to give you maybe a a more accurate picture of how the actual numbers, but you you'd want to be looking specifically at pupil services. And so you see it went up over the last three years by about 20. Um went from 145 to 159 and we're projecting um we're projecting it at 16 I can't read that 165 or 66. Do we >> I was

169wondering I was going to say this for later, but do we look at per capita just year-over-year students for special needs versus per capita for students uh under regular instruction just to get a >> uh rephrase it for me. So >> I'm trying to understand where the increases are coming from. So what I'm wondering is we you look at the in total per capita which was what Jason referred to. Do we >> per pupil? >> Yeah per pup people I'm sorry per pupil. Um do we also look at we have a certain number of special needs the total expense of special needs divided by the number of students. >> Oh I don't know if we've done that a per pupil expenditure for special education. Um >> I just think it'd be interesting to look year

170over year to see where where the increase is coming. Is it the number of students or is it the pense per student in total aggregate? >> Yeah. I know it could be an interesting you know the the difficulty is um while I can look at that and be an interesting number and you know it what happens obviously within special education is um the individualized needs of any given student are assessed during a planning and placement team and the services that are required you know u become they're a legally mandated piece which are outlined it's it's a it's a team decision and the school has u you know has obviously a a big role in that decision >> change the outcome I'm looking >> no I I understand that's I just don't know that we've looked

171at it in that way while while it may have some interest from a what do we do with that information because we know we have that legally mandated requirement >> I don't think it would help well it wouldn't help it might help me um but no show where the increases are coming on a relative basis you know did you how was the increase um you know regular instruction driven or was it special needs driven or was it just general expenses? >> What >> increase in what? >> Per expense per student. >> All right. >> Yeah. I think I think our effort to do that is by virtue of how we've divided the budget book with between sections D and E so that you can because because section D is your general education budget and your

172costs and section E is you know really all of the costs related to specialized education. So I you know I think I think there's an organizational structure that's trying to support that. Excuse me. I find it helpful to understand where the increases are coming from. So, but it's more just to understand. >> Any other questions? All right. In the home stretch. >> All right. And I will take us to page 10, uh, which aligns with pages F2 to F5 of your board binder. And here you'll see a 1.0 0 reduction which is the elimination of a currently vacant clerical position in our IT department. Great. Um and so salaries uh reflect that that change that Julio mentioned. Um and then there are a number of other categories within salaries uh that have adjustments. For instance,

173you'll note that the deferred compensation appropriation reflects um a higher it's increased um and that's due to uh the benefit that new employees receive which would put them in the hybrid pension plan. Um and so that's for non-certified staff and so you'll be seeing that in that line and we should see an inverse relationship ultimately um under pension. Um and then similarly um when we look at and there's in the next page there's a very detailed list of all of these changes. Um and then there's other changes including um you know teacher substitutes consistent with uh anticipated fill rate and need for when teachers are also on longer term leave and also um for the short-term substitutes as it relates to minimum wage changes um to inform our daily rate. When we look at benefits

174um which is our biggest driver, we've talked a lot about the health and medical insurance. Uh the budget estimates a 12.5 premium increase and anticipated staff uh participation. Um as we did see a little bit of fluctuation compared to what we budgeted in which how many employees were participating and in which categories. Um and then uh you can kind of go down the line changes to our disability insurance or anticipated costs, group life insurance uh based on the benefits received and the anticipated costs for those. Um social security uh follows the payroll. Uh and then as I mentioned uh we did see a decrease in our share of the actuarily determined employer contribution to the pension plan. And so we make those contributions at the town's instruction consistent with those uh folks that are not

175in TRB, the teachers retirement uh pension plan. And then in operating you see some of the other things that we've talked about that are material in nature. So for instance, our utilities and the fluctuation that we see there um resulted with anticipated heating increases and usage. um our transportation budget, which is the biggest driver there. And so that's looking at our contractual increases. Um and then also what we're seeing for route need um for both in district and out of district. And um other changes include a favorable variance in our workers compensation, property, and liability insurance allocation from the town. And so those are other insuranceances um that they manage and uh because they are the property owners and so they uh let us know what those rates are set at and that's based on

176experience, employees, um risk, you know, risk of positions, things of that nature. So they give us that calculation. And then um there are a variety of other accounts. I'm happy to answer any questions, but there's also um just some routine contracted service increases. Um and then equipment u related to our anticipated um technology device replacement program. >> Uh John. >> So I have a question on the utilities line. Um which I guess you know we're all sort of grimacing here. You know I think the exact opposite of our reactions to you know to the tuition seats. Um but uh is so you know I know that since Paul published this um published the original budget toss there's some certainly been some geopolitical changes to put it mildly um is this going to be revised further

177um or how how does that process work >> as it relates to utilities? we are in communication um with our energy specialist and so she is a part-time employee shared by the town and the board and so she really works with energy brokers to determine where she thinks our rates are going to be where she thinks rates are going. Um she also you know will provide in uh additional information for instance if she thinks we might see a savings from some virtual net metering related to solar farms that we participate and things of the like. So I'll definitely be in touch with her this month um to discuss that further. >> Ethan, >> the healthc care um we have a stop gap type of uh loss ability with >> we don't because the um liability

178for those catastrophic claims are on the state partnership plan. If we were self-insured, we would need that stop gas gap insurance, but we're paying on a per capita rate on the employee regard. So it's just per capita. >> Mhm. Yes. >> So and it's based on the entire state or is it based on >> They actually set the rates based on county. And so Harford County is um so Talon County has the lowest rates and Harford County has the second lowest rates. >> Okay. But I would just think with the size of the pool, I'm surprised it has that much of a fluctuation. >> Uh the fluctuation is based on the claims experience that they're seeing. And so they actually publish a report and you can, you know, see what their claims paid out and

179their um uh pharmacy claims and things of that nature. For us, we did take a look to see um as a percent of the premium we're paying. What are the claims we're seeing? Um and in the last 5 years, you've seen years where we had more claims than premiums paid, and then you've see years that it's the opposite. Um but over a 5-year average, we see that our the claims that were paid on our employees behalf uh totaled 98% of the premiums we paid. >> Okay. But so this year's increase, is it a function of catchup from last year or is it a function of what they anticipate based on what they're seeing? >> So it's a combination. Um in the current year we made assumptions based on employee participation and we did did see

180a little bit of additional participation but where we saw fluctuation was we saw less participation and these are these are not huge amounts but less in the individual category and a and a shift in those new signups to family. So some of that is driving it, but the bigger the much far and away uh bigger percent is related to the rate change and we're getting new information from the state partnership plan and um hope to have uh more specific news and updates for you on that. >> So then I guess I misunderstood. I assume the increase came from what they were charging per individual realizing there's a difference between families and individuals but is is is >> so they they had a aggregate change of 12 and a half% to their to their overall um

181and that's the major driver of it the secondary driver um Barb was just saying is our plan participation has seen shifts to a greater number of folks uh in the family plan. So, so the increases across this line are, you know, number one, it's the 12 1.5% increase in the state partnership plan. Number two, I think it's the family stuff. And then number three, when you take the positions like the six elementary positions um that we added to the budget, we also have to here add their contributions to to this. So, those three things are the three biggest drivers. Um I would just want to share bar as Barb just said we have ongoing communication with the state partnership. They provi they continue to provide us with um updated uh cost projections and it was

182announced last night at the town council meeting that the town received you know the same notice that we received that they have an updated cost projection which should provide us some savings. So once once that conversation has matured a little bit and we've been able to do the analysis on it, uh we'll probably share that information with you. Should you have the interest to lower the budget by that amount? >> Well, it yeah, no answer. >> Just a thought. >> No, it just it seemed like a very high number, you know, very high. >> It it is and and uh I think I can't remember. I was talking to someone uh on the way in the cost of uh insurance across the state. We're seeing this as a very common and significant trend. Uh I'm

183aware of self-insur districts that are self-insured that are having 20% 30% increases in this line. Um we are fortunate as Barb said in Harford County our our rate is a significant increase. However, in other we're the second we're the second lowest in the state partnership pool and if and there are districts that are you know other places geographically that are having even higher uh increases through the state partnership plan. >> So is the 12% a function of what they anticip what what already happened plus what they anticipate or is it >> Yeah, I think that's what Barb was saying. It's a combination of the experience with claims, so what they're seeing, how much they have to pay out, but also they're trying to I think build their reserves. So, so it's so it's twofold, >>

184right? Separate question unrelated. Transportation, I think at the previous meeting had asked for a breakout of how much transportation was due to out of district tuition versus how much was due to just cost decrease of >> Yes. Uh sorry, should have mentioned that. So in um in our transportation breakout 70% of our transportation costs relate to in district transport and 30% relates to outofd district transport >> in the fluctuation or the increase was all >> so it's a combination of things. So uh we do have rate increases in our contracts with our two bus companies. the one that provides in district and out of district and then in addition um you know trends that we're seeing as it relates to outof district routes um because that is a little bit more variable right because we

185need different vehicle types depending on the students need they may need a monitor they may not and so uh that projection is based on a combination of rates but also um the trends we're seeing you know uh depending on the schools attended the day number of days of schools so there's a little bit more fluctuation as it relates to the out of district transport Okay. I was hoping to get like an understanding of the out of district went up this mountain. The in district went up this. >> If you don't have it, you don't have it. >> Sure. Um I uh I do have it here. Uh I just don't have I would have to calculate uh well not it's not broken out by out of district and district here, but I can get that

186for you. >> You could that would be great. Thank you. >> Can Oh, can I >> can I piggyback one thing? I want to uh there's the one good news story that that lives in there despite the increase. You know, I was talking with Melissa today. She was sharing about efforts that we're taking that are ongoing to keep our costs contained as it relates to out of district transportation. You were talking about some ride share. Do you want to >> Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, this is something we're monitoring for a number of reasons. Of course, you know, when our students are um traveling to a school that might be in the state of Connecticut but still far away, um we are looking to ride share. And so we have a couple of partnerships with

187area towns actively, but we are seeking to do that more often. Um, and other towns are seeking to do that as well. Um, where they're reaching out to us to ask us if we have a route that might be going their way um, heading to a school in that direction. And so we have partnered with them and that does offset some of the cost. And so we'll continue to explore that as an option. I was just going to ask a question about transportation because we're seeing this as a huge pain point everywhere across the state and I'm sure across the country. Um, and it seems like those prices like we we hire buses all the time and they are growing exponentially by like the month in terms of charges. Is there any discussion about how

188to regulate that better at a statewide level? Um it's clearly not as big a number as the outplacement discussion, but it's it's just keeps ballooning and I feel like something's got to break at a certain point. >> Yeah, great question. And we are seeing this across the state. Um the state did put in um in the legislative session talked about regionalizing the transportation efforts. And so I haven't heard more about that other than I know the legislative session and the work that they did around out of districts and out of district costs. They looked at a lot of different factors and transportation was one of them and they do want to look at regionalizing. I haven't heard more about what that might look like or how that might um be, you know, ruled out, but

189I'm I'm looking forward to that. I think it would be helpful for a lot of us in a district because we're, you know, often transporting in the same direction, but we might not know. So, more to come on that, but I do know it's a focus at the state. Jennifer, I've been so excited to ask this question. Um, I have a question about trash. So, um, I'm wondering, I guess, if I was trying to look in here, but I was not able to find an answer. Does the district pay I mean, does does um do schools pay separately for trash or does the town kind of like take care of that? How does that uh play out? And the reason I'm asking is because of some of the composting programs. Um, so the waste is

190part of the town budget. >> Okay. Um, because I from what I understand from the town, like and I know there's a whole composting ongoing discussion that's just smoothly moving along. Um, but at least in Whiting Lane where my kids go to school, they they've started composting. I think maybe other schools too. Um, and it's my understanding that trash, like the food waste is like the heaviest part, the most expensive part of trash. Um, and so I'm I was just intrigued like if we can roll this out in other schools, the composting piece, and theoretically reduce the trash load from the schools, um, if there would be any potential cost savings there that we could then, you know, put somewhere else. Yeah, I can speak to that. So, I know that we've looked at that

191at various schools and in fact I know um you know when I was principal of Connor we actually piloted a whole thing did videos and all that and you know unfortunately we just didn't see the success we were hoping for with the students and so in some of the conversations I've had with uh you know some of the people that are really taking this on and passion about it is their belief now is to really start that at the elementary school and sort of just make it like hey it's what kids do and so when you get to the high school level there's no no change that's just what you've always done and and so I think That's been a real strategic sort of shift in their mindset because I think >> I can't imagine

192training a high school student to do that. >> Well, to the high school students. >> No, no, the video was outstanding that we >> I'm sure the video was great. I'm sure the video was great. I have to tell you, the elementary school kids picked it up right away. Um, so I do think there probably is something to that. >> Yeah. And so that's really where the efforts are focused now is taking a look at a couple of the elementary schools really starting to do that. Really see that the kids have embraced that. They're excited about it. there's a, you know, a piece of, you know, doing good for my community and it aligns well with our vision of the graduate and all the other pieces that are in there. Um, and so the hope

193is that as they continue that and sort of that, um, you know, branches out that we'll start to see that growth and so that eventually it'll transition to all schools including our our secondary and high schools. >> Thank you, Latoya. to add to that. Um, if you need a high schooler, my daughter is very passionate about composting. She actually did the commercial for the town. She's really, really passionate about composting and like the environment in general. So, maybe we can use her. >> I'm I'll make sure I write that down. I know Teresa also has a real passion in starring in a video related to that. So, >> um, Miriam, >> I'm just curious about the information technology line on page 10 looking at 15.5 positions. What is is that the entire department? What does

194that include or who does that include where potentially is that impact in school? It's on page 10 of our um packet. So there is a breakout of all of the IT staff and it is on page um on F21 you can see um the IT staff break out there. Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Any other final remarks or closing comments? Oh, Jennifer, >> I may have missed it. Did we do go over um prek already or is that not part of this? We did. I missed it. Great. I'm sure it's fantastic. I'll catch up. Thank you. Um, I just wanted to take so there were a lot of comments that I took down um and and you know programmatic ideas but just relative to excuse me just relative to data requests uh just to

195make sure I have my notes. Um I'm going to look at coming back to you with some quest enrollment numbers. I'm going to look at coming back to you with a dollar value for the assessment platforms related to mandatory universal screening. Um I'm going to look at coming back to you for um our special education trends from our performance and profile reports. You were wanting to know about kind of how kids broke out from complexity. Um, and then I just heard that additional question about the percentage increase uh for transportation broken out by indistrict transportation versus outofd district transportation. Um, I may have missed something. I know there were other ideas and things that were talked about, but those were like hard numbers that you guys were looking for. So, if I missed anything, please

196let me know. Just generally, we're not seeing u much by way of email communication or anything from the public on on the budget yet, are we? Thank you. So, um there have been uh a limited number and I will uh be working to I I imagine tonight we'll generate more. Uh that's generally the pattern I've seen. Um there was an email that was sent jointly to the town and to ours that that um really the majority of the questions were geared toward the town, but I will uh be looking to send you probably every couple of days a summary, but as of right now um not too many. I think I think the total number was three. There was a there one of the other ones had to do with uh a question just on

197class size um and looking at those enrollments, but I'll make sure that you have the full uh picture of all those emails. >> Um and I was just going to mention I know there is the community sessions coming up um and that's what you were going to talk about. So I won't do >> I was just going to say for um different ways or mechanisms by which people can give feedback um just a reminder of what the email address is first often. >> Yes. So the uh the email is budgetwps.org um as a as a general email for uh any budget inquiries. Um and then we do have those three community conversations. The first one is on Monday, March the 16th. Uh I believe that one is at the senior center. Um and that is

198the morning afternoon session 2 >> 2 to 4. And then that Wednesday uh the 18th from 6 to 8 and is that one at the Faxon Library. And then the last one is on that following Monday, the 23rd from 6:00 to 8 again and that will be at uh right here in the center at Noah Webster. Any other comments, questions? All right. Well, um thank you all for your incredible uh diligence and hard work in this. I know that this is not easy. Yeah. Can we just give a ROUND OF APPLAUSE? AND I SAID THIS THE LAST couple years, but just because of the work I do um across the state in the K12 system, we see a lot of different districts present a lot of different budget information. And there is no district that

199I've come across that does it with such transparency and competency and ability to find all the things in all the details. So, thank you so much for that. Um, and we're really looking forward to the part two workshop on the 25th, um, where we will have also a public hearing, another opportunity for the public to to give input, um, and to for us to go further on, uh, any questions that we all might have or that may have come up through, uh, comment that we've received from the public. So, um, it will continue, but we are just really grateful for all that you've done and for the time you've spent with us tonight. So, thank you. If uh through you, madame chairperson, if you would entertain a motion for adjournment. >> Can I seeking a

200motion to adjurnn? >> Second. Sec. Thank you, Miriam. U meeting adjourned at 9:45 p.m.