Okay, all right, good evening everyone. I'd like to call to order the end-over education End-over elementary school board of education of regular meeting for Janine, or attend to 2024 Let's do the pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the five of the United States of America and to the Republic for World of Michigan Dance, one nation on the other end-over school military and justice for all Okay, comments from the public. I don't see any one public and board members joining us online Do we have any communications? Does anybody have any communications? Do you have any umbrella? And the dedicated email there more than okay. Oh, good. Okay, thank you Okay approval of minutes did everybody have an opportunity to take a look at the minutes for last minutes from last month's meeting Motion to approve I'm sorry. Thank you, Steve. All right. We have a motion to approve the regular meeting minutes of December 13 Jerry. Thank you Jerry. We'll second all in favor All right. Hi. Hi. All right. Hi. All right. Thank you. I think we heard everybody. All right, so the regular meeting minutes of December 13 have been approved And then we also need to approve the meet minutes from the special meeting of January 3rd
Which was the budget seminar Almost the way to prove the innocence of the special board of education we will We're going to study January 3rd 24 We're going to continue Thank you Jerry. And I have a second. Thank you. All right. Caitlyn will second All in favor. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. So everyone has approved the meeting minutes from the special board of education meeting from January 3rd Okay. Does anybody want to add or delete any agenda items? Since we're talking about this, I would like to talk about the possibility of doing maybe full surveys Okay for teachers. Okay. Because Well, interviews are great. Finding out what's going on before they leave is even better. Okay. So why don't we talk about that when we talk about the survey so we can we can put that on to the be item A, B, for the exit interview. Okay. Absolutely. Okay. Any celebrations? Anybody want to celebrate anything? Happy New Year. Getting home safely. Getting ring out home safely. Okay. All right. My oral report. All right. Just a couple of things. That I wanted to just kind of bring to just talk about First of all, how was what is everyone's feeling about our first budget workshop on meeting from January. Caitlyn.
Do you have any comments or anything? I don't really have a comment. Okay. That's well. Okay. Jerry, how about you? Well, this is this. This is the third time we've done this. Yes. I know about everybody else. It's kind of getting old for me. I don't know how much of how many people in the public access book. I think what's the bottom line? What's the floor? And if the goal is to get out there and present it to people in the community prior to the budget proposal that happens in May, I think that doing it is just the name itself for the very year, somebody who's new. But I always find that it's nitpicking for any things with that thing. If you want to do that for the public, it's great for us. Nobody shows up. And I know Valerie makes herself available to anyone and everyone. I have a question. I go to Valerie. Right. And, or I go to Cherry. I can get my answer. I don't know how everybody else feels
proud of it. But I mean, what are two meetings that took to present was funny, but I think we have an overview. Okay. I just want to go around the room and then we can kind of get, you know, we can start talking about it. Okay. Can I ask Christian not really having to run through them before out of those meetings? Are there actual historically changes or clarity that comes out of it? Or information that is helpful? Or is it really just this is the budget? And that's it. Because if it really is just presenting it, then yes, it's probably a waste of time.
But if there are actually changes or clarification or information that's being blamed from it, that otherwise wouldn't, then it is value added. But I mean, I agree if it is if you're just spitting your wheels, it is a waste of time. Okay. Okay. Mike, do you have any comments regarding those? The budget workshop, the first one that we had and any comments in general? Not anything particular, but just to kind of piggyback on what geriatric pain, like I think the comments have been shared makes sense to me. But I think if we go back to that idea of transparency, you know, even though nobody may attend the meeting, the fact that we can say that we were as transparent as we are, that it's on record that we talked about this in such detail. I think that that holds some pretty important meaning with the public.
So just kind of not, I just piggybacked on all the other comments. The two things I would say is number one, for those of us on the board, if we want to rewind three years. To the first time we did this, that I think we all gained quite a bit of information that we hadn't seen previously. And so the question would be at what point, okay, now we're saying we don't necessarily need it, but how long are we going to go before all of a sudden we'd lose that information that we gained last time? The other thing I would say is it's, I don't want to say plan necessarily to be important to start, but we go through kind of the low hanging fruit for, I mean the entire thing we talked about was a $25,000, $26,000, I want set of items in a $4 million budget. That is by design. It's time to start with the introduction, because if you look the first half of meeting was presenting, was presenting and less actually drilling down into a lot of the line items, because frankly, I don't know if any of us are going to sit here and argue about whether we need $500 and third grade textbooks, I think that seems like a reasonable figure. The, for the meetings coming up will be a little more, I think debatable. And realistically, there what we make it, right? We, when I think Brian, you were, you asked about, do we have the ability? We have, this is our opportunity
to say, no wait a minute, that doesn't make sense to me, or I don't, that what you're proposing, or I don't want to see this here, that's what we need to use to assess. We can, it's how engage we want to be with it. We can just sit here and listen and be presented too, and not ask any questions and say, okay, sounds good and move on and then present a budget. And we really have no, like to stand on when we get, if we get questions about the budgets, if we didn't ask. So I would just, I, I get that it's kind of boring, but if you look at what other districts, including Ram are doing, where they have six, seven, eight budget workshops, we have four, I mean, it stinks, but in part of it, I had to say maybe one of them boring parts, but it's part of our job, so that's where I'm at. Thank you Steve. How about you, Shannon? I think it's very helpful. And I also echo with what Jerry has said, just an ongoing frustration
about how do we get the public involved. So I think it's very important for us to continue to learn and for Valerie to have that forum to present the details about a budget before we just prior to this, we would get presented with a budget all at the same time that was not productive. So I like that part of it, and we just need to figure out how to engage the public more if it all possible. Thanks. Thanks, Shannon. Can you tell us what we're going to say? I was just going to say, I mean, in terms of public engagement, like if there was no application, like I put it everywhere that there could be no application. So to me, at the end of the day, like I know several towns, people that have told me for last year, and that they went back and watched them after they were recorded, but prior to like the town budget leading. So I still think it's important that they exist and they're out there regardless of whether or not those people are actively involved to be working on. The only, the only other consideration
that I would maybe have would be for us to have some other meeting closer to one of the town meeting is that people could ask like ask for feedback because what seems to happen every year and we get to the town meeting, and then someone's there nitpicking about one specific line in the school budget, and at that point, I mean, by that point, anyway, it wouldn't matter, but like would those people show up to a meeting closer to the town meeting when it was in their head that they cared about it to find out more information? I just, right, right. So my, why only on the, like, comment, our question was, to last time, right, it was really the first time we were seeing that information. So I think for me to, having it in advance to like be able to prepare and say, okay, well, what is this? Let me write down my question. I think would have been a little bit more helpful. So, yes, absolutely. The only thing I think we need to consider, is that correct me if I'm wrong, 75% of what's pregnant, so I'd be sad to be stable and pleased, and that they have a contract. Right. Yeah, I don't want to be able to put a limited number of people here for the room. There's a lot of that, and that, if I may. No, you're enough. So I think
the difficulty is, and we've tried this a number of ways, we know ways ever going to be the perfect way, um, came into your point about, um, why couldn't we do something closer to? When you look at the town charter and you look at the way the budget operates. So, you know, the school under the superintendent will be presenting the board of education with information. Information to make sure you know what's going on, you know, curriculum, you know, the instruction, you know, uh, the contracts and the reasons why we have these things. And then that's superintendent school budget, um, gets voted on on the 14th of February and that becomes your budget. And it's no longer superintendent's budget, it's the board of education's budget. And so to Shannon's point, the purpose of the reason why we did it this way, these last couple of years is, in an ideal world, you guys should be the ones that are able to speak to that budget from there on in and what we were finding actually Shannon and I had talked about it when she was chair back years ago was we get to the town meeting and they started asking questions that the board then goes that. And so then I was on the spot to do all of that, um, answering anyways. And so over the course of time it was like, how do we not only put it out there for the public, but make sure that the board can answer
to all of the sections of the budget in a little bit more informative manner. Now the charter says in March that that document that you guys have passed as the Board of Education's proposed budget for next year goes the board of finance. And from March on by charter, it's kind of not yours right then either it's they are then on the board of finance going through that budget. So at that point, it wouldn't, I mean, you'd give in your final draft to them to say this is what we've accepted and voted on. So it wouldn't be appropriate at that point in April. And early May to say, now let's go revisit that and hear from the public because you know, if they said to you,
we now actually think that this, that's actually for them to take up at the town meeting. When that's not your meeting anymore, that's the board of finance, the board of selectments meeting to present board of finance actually, but to present their budget then to the people. So I know ideally it's like, well, if we could only this, but we could only that, but it's only ours for sure. And it's actually not even ours mine and then yours. And then the board of finance is once it goes to the town because when it gets voted on a referendum and if it gets voted down, it's up to the board of finance then to take that on. So we don't, you know, it's not us, it's not the board of selectments. So I think having something closer, it's their responsibility at that point, the town's responsibility to say this together makes up our budget. And so we
really shouldn't then be because it's their town budget then that they're representing or presenting us should say to the town's people, not just our community. So absolutely, yeah. So I guess then like the frustration in terms of trying to get people to be aware of it now, I suppose to then it seems like every time we wind up at a town meeting, people ask specific school budget questions should we in the future like you, the board, board of ed in general, not answer any of those because I think when they drive that meeting, they've always been good about kind of looking my way and kind of sometimes mark, we'll say, or Jet McGuire will say, somebody will say, like if they feel that at that point it's a valid enough question, but I do feel like if you've done your due diligence and you've had these workshops and they're posted, if people want to
get ready for the town meeting, they can go back and look at them and see what questions were asked. We have an email that they could send a question and it could get answered and then if they're not happy with the answer, if they say, no, I don't think that should be in the budget, then it's still appropriate for them to say that, but now they're educated on it. They could say, we spoke with the board and they said that this is in here for this reason and we're not happy with that. But I feel like over the years you've added all these extra steps, but I think people do have to realize that February 14th when you pass a budget if you pass it that night and you hand it over
with a letter, the less that's a letter to Mark Brickford says, here you go, at that point, you're done till the town meeting, I don't know like, can I jump in here for a second, though? Sorry, what? Can I jump in for one second? Yeah, I'm done. Go ahead, Steve, I'm just on the community engagement. It's been something that's been very important to me over the past three years and I've really pushed to try and get more and there comes a point where those questions are being asked by the same two or three people. They're aware of what we're doing. They want to choose not to attend or not to go and do that and ask, you know, we're not going to appease everyone.
I feel like there comes a point where we can do everything we can do and then, you know, we'll sit back and kind of over the best, but I don't think that means we cut back on what we're doing or we don't broadcast or do anything, but, you know, short of me walking up to their door and asking if they have any direct questions. I mean, I've gone as far as posting my personal number on Facebook and not gotten in question. No, you actually asked last year a couple of them on one of these zooms you said, you know, if you have a specific question, can you email to us and we never button email? So, you know, to your point, I understand that there are some people that are asking that question for a reason in public. They've already had the answer. They've already know the answer. So, you can't avoid that, but I think the general public, if they have questions ahead of time, these are here, they're posted for them to watch and I really do think that we go line by blind and we give plenty of time because to your point, Caitlin, they're getting this in January and a budget that's being voted on by you guys in February. So, they actually have March, a lot of time.
May, sometimes it should do a little bit of research on that. Right. And just for clarification, the salary and benefits are at 80%. We did a calculation, I think, a lot in the last year. And like, there's not very much wiggle room because it's mostly contractual. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. Does anybody have anything else something that would like to add on this kind of perspective? Just a reminder, our next workshop, is next Wednesday of the 17th at 7 p.m. It is Faisal. The topic for that one will be the special ed in pre-K. And then on Wednesday the 24th is the next one. We'll talk about salaries and shirts, benefits. And then on Wednesday the 31st, it's facilities and maintenance. February 7th will have a public forum at 7 p.m. And then as Bell stated, we'll have our regular Board of Ed meeting on February 14th, where we will go down it. So, just real quick, just wrapping it up. I agree, Jerry. I know they're tedious, they are. But I agree with what Steve said, and I agree with what Shannon said, and also with Mike, I think they're important. Regardless of people attend, regardless if they watch them, we're putting forth an effort to be transparent. We're talking about it. Not only is it educational for the town, but it's educational for us.
It's an opportunity for us to ask questions and to go over it as well. So, you know, I don't know if we can squeeze them in or make them any less, but I think they're necessary. And I think we need to go through with it and having that dedicated email regardless if anybody emails us. It's there. It's out there. So, you know, yeah. One more, so another thing on my report, I just wanted to talk to you all about we did a walk-through last Friday, really not a walk-through, more like a meeting in the hallway of me, Valerie Eric Anderson, and Steve Campbell, our custodian. It's the town's intention for this year's budget to put money into our capital fund. And Eric was looking to get an idea of what it is, you know, what concerns we have here at the school, so that he has a number that he can put into this, you know, fund, and when he presents the, you know, to the board of select and then he can say, well, you know, we did a walk-through. So, you know, we identified a couple areas of concern,
the top two areas of concern that we identified for this year's, you know, budget would be the funding. I know we've talked about that before. You know, we have three non-functioning bathrooms in the, like four, five, and six weighing, if you will. And we've had a company come out and give us an estimate, and to the tune of all those $200,000 to fix that. And then the other, the other area of concern would be the elevator. It's functioning. It's working. It's fine. However, if any part were to break, all of the parts that are in there now are obsolete. So, if anything were to break in that, there's no part to replace it because the parts that are in there are obsolete. So, Steve had talked to the elevator company. He's going to get us a quote, a non-binding quote, but rough numbers. He was told by them would be anywhere between 50 to 60,000 to kind of bring it up to code, bring it up to modern, you know, to where they would replace all of those parts, and then if something were to break, now we can, you know, we can fix it. Another thing we talked about was getting the back, back of the building, the back of the black top, crack sealed, and after the meeting, I believe Eric and Steve went out there and took a look at that, and then also we talked about the parking lots, the upper lot being paid, that's on, you know, the towns agenda, if you will, to get that paid this spring, and obviously the lower
lot, but that's, you know, that's kind of farther down the road. We do talk about doing upgrading tour lighting, it's working, it's fine, but we would like to eventually go all LED to make it let's more obviously cost effective and energy efficient, but there are re-dates and things that we can work with ever source, but again, that's, you know, kind of farther down the road, it's fine, it's working, but that's something on our radar, and we also talked about the roof, and the boiler system, you know, the gym, which, at the time, we thought was much older than what it actually is, Steve found out that it's a lot younger than it was, so overall we're very, very good shape, you know, Valerie and Taylor and Steve do a fantastic job of
maintaining everything, having things looked at, but the two things that we're going to ask for are going to be the plumbing and the elevator. That is all I have for my or report. Valerie, we're taking it away. Yep, I know I don't have too much more in here. Yep, we, we did talk, though, and we'll bring, have to bring it up when we get to that workshop about these projects being capital projects on the town side. Right, so not to appear in our operational budget. Right, so that's definitely something that I just want to make sure when we get to that last topic, that we are very clear about, because that would be something that they would oversee. In terms of the budget seminars, it's soon as we can, I know some people have asked,
like, why can't we get like the power points up the very next day, so I did just want to clarify that we don't put things on the website ourselves here. We go through our tech, our tech vendor, because we have to be compliant, what it's put on there with like ADA regulations, and so it has to like be maneuvered so that it can go on there, so that's somebody could access it, like with the TDD, is a TDD or TDD, it's only because we're out of here. Yeah, so for people who are using devices for people who have any other jobs, and so I know sometimes it gets frustrating for people because they're like, why can't you just put it the next day? We don't actually post that it goes first through them, and so sometimes it takes a few days.
We do have access to the, obviously, I haven't access to the slides, we have access to the recordings, but it does take a few days, and I just wanted us to say that, because I know a couple people have said it on our skin, and I mean it was two days ago, and we sometimes just have to wait till they get that on there, so it takes a few days to be patient with that. I did, let's say, to other things, we spoke about this ahead of time, we have Taylor will talk about some of the curriculum and instruction professional development, the professional development that I've been working mostly is safety and security, and so I'll update you on February on that, but that's what I've been participating in in terms of what we can do to make sure that we are up with not only mandates, but suggestions. When you get to board business, there's one policy here tonight, the other thing that I am doing now, and then I'll meet with Shannon or whoever us who's that winds up the policy liaison, but I'm going through the cave and shipment, new 2024 legislation to find out what has to be in our book, so that we're not just going through the sections, and updating our existing ones. For example, there will be some my acknowledgement of AI
in our policy, so might be some of our obsolete, or in the case of shipment, they often will go through and add that to a existing policy, so I won't meet with Shannon until I have all of that from cave or from shipment as to what their recommendation is for, but the next set of policies we'd be going through are the legislative requirements now for 2024. And the last thing, I thought that was it, yeah, that was it. And then in terms of grants, we don't have any new ones right now that we're waiting on, so for the most part we're chair, and I've just been working on, is making sure that any new ones that are closing out at the end of this year, they generally speaking will close up June, so now we go back through and we see what's left in each of the particular line item sections and see what the approval expenditures are and see what we can put in there. So that'll be like the next two months when those existing grants. So that's that.
They're up. They're right. So first thing, just to talk a little bit about enrollment, I did reach out to families this week just to get the ball rolling on pre-K and K enrollment. We have, we do anticipate, as we've kind of talked briefly with the kindergarten each change, that enrollment for preschool and kindergarten may look just a little bit different. And in some ways we don't quite anticipate how and when, but just in this week, I'm already getting kind of enrollment in grades for even the following year, like the 20 or about 2021. That sounds like it's so far away. And I think that is really just a sign of what's to come of families being really proactive and trying to ensure they have a pre-K seat. So we are appreciative of people getting the word out there. So in terms of enrollment right now, just want to share, we are your reports as 213. But we anticipate four students starting this month, one in pre-K, one second, one third, one sixth, which is exciting. That will put us to 2017 and then anticipate one more enrolled in the following months. So let's us to 2018. So it's exciting. Yeah, and not just pre-K, it was exciting to see some kind of the upper grades. So
only one house, I think, in the market, and that's it, guys. The three content should have been just saying, not that we look at every day, but we do. That's one of the three. So it's exciting. We're continuing to grow. So the enrollment is looking good, but we'll keep you posted certainly throughout the spring as we look at pre-K and K enrollment. And we're at with that. Professional development, we do have a TV day coming up on Tuesday. So a lot going on that day one of the events on that day, which I haven't talked about too much this year, is we're working with a reading consultant, Barb Goldleb, who works with a lot of local school. She's a published author. And she is a reading consultant that comes into the school and provides kind of that what you need now. So she does some instructional coaching, where she's in rooms, some modeling of her own instruction, and then also PD sessions where it, like on Tuesday, where she's doing that curriculum work with the teachers. You know, we have, so we are participating in the 10-day state mandated science of reading PD, which is great, but that's if you picture kind of the one-size-fits-all,
right? That's every district in Connecticut participating. But what has been really powerful for us with this, with having your reading consultants, we can take all that knowledge and what actually fits us here at Andover, our kids, our scenario, our classrooms are all those things. So it's just been going so fantastic. So I did ask Val to continue to increase that amount of professional development. We're working through her, which is great. We've been working with second and third, and she'll be able to do a little work with kindergarten and first grade now. So we're excited about that. I'm sorry, what was your name? Barb Goldleb. Yes, Barb Goldleb. So you can certainly go to the website if anyone wants to see her. Okay. Yeah, she's been here. Yeah, I have worked with her prior to here, and so just teachers really like her. She, you know, it's kind of, it's, it's relevant, like I said, she's in the room. Kids have met her now. It's so, it's great. And then the other piece of professional development, that is the other most pressing pieces are Niagara accreditation. So we are nearing and nearing the day in just a couple of weeks, we will submit on February 1st to say, hey, we're ready. We're here. And then there's a three month grace period where they say, we won't come for three months. Just in case you're not
ready. So I give us like that 90 days of wrap up anything we need to do, which means we anticipate they will arrive between May 1st. They have a six month window. That's May 1st to the end of October. We hope it's this year. It just would be nice to kind of get that all resolved, but pre-K and K are we'll be working furiously over the next few weeks just again to dot those eyes and get everything up to date. So we are ready to go on that. Do we miss anything? I just want to mention just so as you, the board is discussing later, just because you brought it up just for your information. We do give a staff survey every year. That's anonymous following same time as the parents survey and students survey. So last year I did share portions of all three of those. So that's helpful for information there. And the spelling bay and I'm benching. Selling me an invention. You mentioned our dress. Take a lot out of me. I know it takes a lot of the kids, but a lot out of me. So we are this week conducting all of the classroom. First round, classroom B is we'll finish on Friday, second and fifth, but we need to finish. And then January 30th is the spelling B the
fixed bang here. And then we will be excited to send our winner to the state level. And then invention convention, the fourth graders are moving along nicely. And then we have about 15 students in our after school program, working on their inventions. And that's been kind of fun because we haven't had the younger kids do it yet. So we're making some really fun things with five girls. Really, really enjoy it. It's the highlight that we have a good time with staff who are writing it because you're trying to ask the questions. So that'll be exciting. That's right at the end of February March. And then we will have four. Our groups a little bit smaller this year as we kind of change our dynamics. So I actually just got the email today. It will have four inventors move on to the state level. So I'll definitely keep you guys posted because I'm sure some of you might volunteer to judge with us. So I will give that invitation out shortly. What is spelling the on January 30th? Can parents come to that? I can hear it. Yeah, so typically we invite the families of the 15 spellers. What time do you know yet?
Yeah, I took out high. I know that. It's on the calendar here. Just asking for that. Let's see, January 30th, school's going to be 10 30. Okay, cool. Yep. So we'll send that out and those winners. The 15 winners will get their study list on Friday as well. Right. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions for? For Taylor or for Val? I'm sorry, did anybody have any questions with Taylor or for Val? Folks online might see Shannon, do you have any questions? Nope. Nope. How about you, financial report, Terry, how we doing? We're good. We're right on track. Part of your packet about halfway through. You'll see the the financials. This pretty much includes salaries through the end of December. Like I said, we're right on track. We've only had nine
pay appearance for the salary people. So we still have 17 more to go. So you're not going to see 50% use there. You're going to see about the theft, which is what it is. Does anybody have any questions about anything specific, specific line items on the budget? I think it's a kind of task for nine questions. I guess my question is there are line items in here that are more than 100% extended, which ones they could be summer school for instance. Summer school, that is, well, it's more than 100% but we had to move money over from the grant to cover the overage. Yeah, and there's a couple like that. I guess my question is, yes, why don't report it as a negative in the balance? Why are we, why are we showing we're like whole? Well, the expenses for summer school, like we have the 2260 that is there is for the the ESFI program that we've run in July only. Now, we did have a summer grant that we were using other things for that money did not come through until August or September. And so we had to pay for some things out of there. And then when that money finally did come in, it offset that amount. And that's why it shows 100%. So basically, we used the 2260 for ESFI. The additional was for
other summer programs, but that was reimbursed by the grant. Okay, so we're just we're not seeing that money back here. Not seeing all the the drill down is what you're not seeing. We have a lot of questions for professional education services for PT and OAP. What's the number? Oh, sorry. We read three 20s. Okay, PT and OTP. Um, they're both at 100%. Is that because they're like contractually like those are paid? I encounter those. I encounter those because I was a little concerned at the end of the year that we were it was there was we were spending a lot of money. That's why I'm acting. I just wanted to make sure we have enough for the year. So I encountered it. Um, obviously with our mental health
we might be able to offset some of these expenses. But right now we're right on track. Okay. And those and those providers are like you know what yes, they're paying. They're very correct. But you know, even even though they have their they've got contracts at a certain dollar amount and you know, they are still in the very beginning of the year, it seemed like, you know, things are going over a little bit. So I got a little concerned and made sure that we had enough in that budget line. But now we're on track. Okay. Mike or Steve or Shannon, do you have any questions for Terry? Look at you. Yeah, no questions. I'm all set. Steve. Okay, liaison reports. So I just want to talk a little bit about the exams. I know in the past we've had liaison and now this is a good opportunity to look at them, decide who wants to be certain liaison, maybe we have new liaison, maybe what we've had before. We don't necessarily need any more. So I just kind of want to talk about the ones that we've had in the past and then if anybody has any suggestions about, you know, any new, you know, liaison, new liaison going forward.
So I know in the past we've had, you know, for example, Shannon, you've always been our policy liaison. I know Jerry, you've done curriculum and instruction. Caitlin, I think you've done like communications. I think I was kind of like public relations and then I know Steve was our like financial liaison. Um, I think all of those are extremely important. I think we could keep those. But does anybody feel like we need maybe another liaison, maybe like a capital improvement, or, you know, something like that. So I kind of just wanted to open it up for discussion to see number one, if what you've done before, if you want to keep doing that, if you don't want to work you want to change it. And then if there's maybe a different one that we'd like to do for this year. So I'll start with you Caitlin. Since trying to have the tribe word meeting, I would, I think that having that position in terms of liaison, we didn't think that word liaison. Yeah, it is on. Sure. There you go. Um, the other head boards. Okay. Um, I think it's important. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. So I think it was communications. Um, I think, I think that is simple. Okay. All right. So then Caitlin, if you want to be the communications liaison, I think that would be great. Um, Jerry, I know curriculum instruction. I don't know if that's something that you want to keep doing. Okay. Um, I know Bradus is your,
your first time here. Um, you know, before I kind of had, it was, was it public relations? That was it called Val or what, what was community unity, community unity and engagement, programs. Okay. Okay. Those are kind of things. Okay. Okay. TTA. All right. I don't know. Where is that something that maybe you would be interested in? Sure. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um, Shannon, are you still interested in being our policy liaison? Yes. Thank you. And I also would like to continue as the CIP liaison. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. I have that written down as well. Okay. So Shannon, if you could be the policy and the CIP liaison, that would be great. Um, Mike, I don't know. If maybe I know if, if you would be interested, I don't know Jerry, if you would be interested in having like help you with curriculum instruction. I know Mike is a teacher. I think that that would be, um, like if, if you would be interested in, and helping Jerry with that. I would be more than happy to assist Jerry in, wherever way he needs me to. Okay. Great. Thank you, Mike. Thank you. Welcome, Jerry.
Um, so one of the other ones that we never had somebody that was able to do, because, um, it's 11 o'clock. One's a long day. Um, could be jewelry in person is we're supposed to have somebody that goes to school readiness. They're supposed to be a board of ed school readiness liaison. And, um, we haven't really ever filled that position. I love it. Because when I was on that, as a parent, the meeting for at like, more 30 or something. No, what? So, once I got here, they're there, they're there during the days that teachers go to town. They're actually at 10 30 this year. We partnered with Hebrew, so we have a combined school readiness liaison. So now, how often are they? What's about less than much about what now we went to wait for five a year.
When? Stay. That's a bill. When has day is like a hard night. I have to triple check it. Other days. I'm, oh, them. Are those you mobile? Have those? Most people zoom. Yeah. I mean, I, I could probably do that at once a month. But, uh, see, what was February 8th? Is our next one the day that we kiss that? Let's go. Thursday. Thursday. Thursday. Thursday. Thursday. Good day. I have a lot. I have a lot. I have a lot. I have a lot. I mean, I do that at 10 30. Yes, so there are four remaining. One in February. That's where you're meeting. One in April and one in May. There are Thursdays and there are always Thursdays. The one in February, the April 18th, I'd have to look it up and may night. April 18th is a Thursday and may night is a Thursday. So we must update Thursdays. So I can't do Thursday. Okay. I can do Thursday. Okay. Okay. So we're in a school readiness school readiness committee. We're going to love every minute. I mean, well, so I should ask how long do they typically last? Does that make me less? Okay. Yes. It's been exciting. Okay. Thank you, Greg. Thank you.
And Steve, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Okay. Okay. So we were talking about liaison. I know you've been our financial liaison. And if you would like to continue with that, I think that would be great. Yeah, that's that's fine. The two comments I would have just as we're talking about liaison is I feel like number one, you mentioned I know Shannon is our liaison to the CIP committee, but I do feel like just from a maintenance. At one point we've had when I believe it was Adrian was here and I don't think ever got to feel like a maintenance or some kind of projects liaison making sure that kind of stuff happens. So I'd like to see that filled and that would be something I would mind involved with. The other thing is I think as liaison is the one thing that we try to with on-board, we try to with a couple different things. We need to find ways to hold ourselves accountable for deliverables. And I don't know that as a board, we're very good at doing that. Where we say we're going to do this. And you know myself included, you know, making sure hey, we're going to have a timeline for the budget meetings. And like I think we need to come up with
a formal way as a board, whether that's using, you know, we have access to Google. I think there's taskless in there where things can be assigned and whether that was overseen by a secretary or the chairperson. I think we need to, if we're going to have these liaison roles, aid to find what they are. Frankly, we are now liaison and I don't know that there's anyone here could completely define what exactly it is. We would just agree to do. So I think we need to look at defining those and then making sure we hold ourselves accountable to whatever it is we say we're going to do. Well, this is Shannon. I think there's a difference to last between what we decided to
do and I wouldn't really call it liaison. So however you want to define it, liaison is really liaison between committees or between boards. And what we were really doing is instead of establishing subcommittees or committees of the board, we were having kind of point people in charge of different issues or different areas that the board is in charge of. So that's what I saw. Steve is, you know, kind of in charge of the finances myself will take on policy and policy related issues or whatnot. But the other thing I was going to ask is it would be great to have liaison to other boards. And I think that's too much of a task to ask of of Caitlin in and of herself. Typically, the liaison attends the other boards meetings. So for Caitlin to have to attend all of the Board of Finance and Board of Selectman wouldn't be fair. But it would be good, I think, to have liaison or people who are responsible to those other boards to be able to come back and report what's going on and those other boards to the Board of Education, presuming that not everybody gets to attend all those board meetings. So that would be a potential role as a liaison. It almost sounds Shannon like we might need to come up with another term then because I agree they're an actual liaison person who's going to serve as a middleman between our board and the other boards or and what we're talking about is yes. Instead of having where larger boards have the ability to have subcommittees and have a finance committee to have a policy committee. We don't have that. We're having a single point person. On that single point person idea in lieu of the subcommittees
is where I was specifically talking about accountability and ensuring that if we say we're going to do something and getting those things done. So I don't know if for clarification reasons it would make sense to come up with another term. Well, I thought we had kind of deemed that these are and I don't know how valid it turned them before. I know that we had basically said this person is in charge of this that and every other thing. But yes, Valerie, you, I can see you. So do we remember Shannon? I think we're pushing two things. We've evolved that liaison. When they began they began because we would have 10 some committee meetings a month with everybody in the room here. I mean if we did that because like you said, we're just much smaller than everybody else. And so we utilize that almost four years ago to have, you know, a board member be able to be liaison to the school and you are absolutely right with the roles and responsibilities of the Board of Education. So I think if it's expanded, it's expanded to include not just liaison to the super and the school,
but then also to those other boards and community like I see we have a guest on tonight Joanne Heber from the Board of Finance. She usually logs on to our meetings and then brings that information back to the Board of Finance. And so that would be just in addition to, you know, so it was kind of originally when we talked about it a few years ago, it was so that when we get to like capital or when we get to policy and things like there's been a meeting between the school ahead of time and that person policy, you know, you would know ahead of time what all season needed to be worked on because I would be sharing that legislation with you ahead of time so that you could get those things prepared. So yeah, so I guess it kind of means both do we hold ourselves more accountable just in terms of what Steve was saying if instead of like just
on this writing the A's on reports if we actually wrote out what the categories are because then when we go through a meeting like you see that word and maybe that triggers and memory that yeah, there was something to talk about in that case. It could be even smaller. What I do my other agenda is it's smaller that's italicized and there's just a list of them. That's done writing things out of the way. Yeah, so that it's always that way. It's always there. That's right. Okay, I know like the same as the stuff that we added to the alphabet. Yeah, right. And then so then we can go around and we can say, okay, you know, Caitlyn, right. How are we doing it? Because I would like for every month to be able for the liaison to report back on on it. Like, you know, okay, Caitlyn, how are we doing with communications? Well, the next, you know, we're working on the board meeting. How was the school readiness? You know, so I think it would be helpful if it was put out in the agenda what those liaison are and then going forward every month. We have something
to report that that took check back. Exactly. Exactly. So, so I think that way, Steve, I think that will kind of hold everybody accountable. But I also think it would be helpful to just know exactly what it is your liaison. You know, like communications, like what what does that mean for you Caitlyn? You know, and you know, obviously bringing out with, you know, school readiness and with the kind of public relations, um, I don't know if we have, well, I think I've got to be wearing the shoes or I think your February meeting will probably solidify that for you, because we have Nick coming. Okay. And so Nick from came coming in February to be able to say, these are very distinctly your roles and responsibilities as a board. And so maybe that's what you guys could be doing is kind of jotting down notes, like, okay, actual readiness, like what sorts of things, you know, in my role, would I be, I would also be looking at curriculum for preschool kindergarten. I would be looking at the policy changes for preschool kindergarten, you know, finance,
what sorts of things are our responsibility, like, so I think that, you know, that conversation of what falls under my firm U.S. this liaison would probably be best suited right after Nick tells you, you know, okay, so should we go ahead, sorry, no, go ahead, should we as, what we just went through and said, try to write down for ourselves, what we think that means, yes, and then we have not ready to burn, I think. Yeah. And just for brave, we can, you know, I, we didn't have from right exactly because you, yeah, obviously school readiness, but the other one kind of the public relations town engagement, yeah, we can help you with that. So just, just so we know what we're writing about, just so I, you know, so everyone knows Caitlin, you're, we'll be the communications, three, you'll be like public relations town engagement and school readiness. Jerry and Mike,
you will be curriculum and instruction, Shannon policy and obviously you're on the CIP, but you're also the, the liaison for CIP and then Steve, financial and capital improvements slash maintenance. Is that what everybody has? Okay. All right, so then at the next meeting, if you all can just put together a blurb of what you think that means of what communications liaison, what, you know, curriculum and instruction, and then if the February meeting, we can kind of solidify what those roles are, so then going forward if we have new members, they know. Does that make sense? Yeah. Oh yeah, question that I did. I feel like I did see like in prior years, there's one for like safety. Okay. Yep. So that would probably be one of the ones that would fall into two categories. Shannon would be dealing with the policies that are surrounding that, you know, anything
professional development that takes place in the school would be a curriculum and instruction kind of category. When we talk about what it would cost us to do that, Steve would be taking care of that. So there's a lot of overlap. We also one time when Chris was here, we had something because there was a need at the time for technology. We were upgrading our wireless devices. We were upgrading our internet service and so he was instrumental at that time. Right now, I think that that would be embedded into a variety that potentially could be a capital project in the future at some point.
It potentially could have something to do with curriculum instructions. So it's fluid in terms of what the needs are at the time. There may be a need to have another who liaison if we go through policies and there's a policy that's huge, do we say, okay, we have to figure out what to do here. You know, so yeah, a lot there's going to be overlap and that's where they go be able to help you guys when he's talking about these are your world's most popular buildings and you say hey, that falls under mine. And she says that falls under mine and that falls under mine. So
and I also think Shannon brings up a good point about attending meetings. I think it definitely needs to happen, whether we get on a schedule, whether it's, you know, everybody takes a month and you're, you know, you know, January, you attend the Board of Sleckman and the Board of Finance meeting and, you know, February or March. I think that that is extremely important and maybe we can talk about that in the next meeting and kind of come to an agreement on how we're going to do that because, you know, to Shannon's point, it's not fair to just have one person do it, but I think if we rotate it, then everybody gets an idea of how the Board, how the meetings are held and how they're run and who the players are. So maybe we can talk about that or we'll talk about that in the next meeting. I'm maybe putting together a schedule on who's going to attend those meetings. Any other discussion on the liaisons, the reports and what we're going to do for next month? Does anybody have anything to add? Just as the CIP liaison, we didn't meet last month and we only ever meet when there's something to discuss right now. There are no capital projects or capital improvements in the town, but that's all they have. So as soon as we have a meeting, I'll report on that and it's later on in the agenda, so I'll say that for what happened with the
Board of Finance. Okay, thank you, Shannon. Okay. It's Liaisons. He are meeting next Wednesday as we continue our budget workshops and using email, we have questions. Yes, yes, thank you. Thank you, Steve. Okay. All right, so I was for discussion. We have the 2024, 2025 budget. Any discussion on what was presented in the workshop? Does anybody have any discussion? Yeah, I agree. Just want to go through the agenda. Okay, anybody online? Mike, Steve, or Shannon, do you have anything to discuss? I know we've kind of talked about it, but just to kind of go through via the agenda. I'm good. Yeah, I'm good. Okay, thank you. Okay, and the next item is the Exit Survey Interviews that First Greetings. Go ahead. So this is one of the mandated and so there's more of the ones that shipmen and cave both kind of came up with the words for so it'll look similar in almost every district. It is now the mandate, you'll see on the bottom, the public act that it's involved in the act concerning teachers and fair educators. And it is the end of a more education, shall develop an exit survey to be completed by certified professional educator who was employed at the board and voluntarily resigns. So those are two
keys there to this act. It's certified meeting. It's only teachers that it's required for and it's not somebody that we let go. Obviously, that would taint a possible exit survey or interview. So those that voluntarily resign. The survey will include questions related to the reason why they are ceasing employment, whether or not they are leaving the profession, the demographics of the certified educator and the areas to which the certified educator fought or served. Eggs and interviews are viewed by the Board of Education as a good way to gain insight into problems difficulties into satisfaction that otherwise might not come to the schools that comes attention. Such interviews could also provide information of suspected problems as well as information needed to begin to practice the problems. Therefore an employee who is separated from employment within the district will receive an exit interview. The attachments, the appendix to a 401, 7.6. This was standard with both of those agencies and it does include exactly what it is they are looking to have us collected in terms of data. And then if it's in here it would, because it says, viewed by the Board of Education. So it would be mandatory that when these interviews were conducted, first of all, in half a lot of them will, that it will be then information will be provided to the Board of Education. The answer then they will be viewed. And it says viewed by the Board of Education, it doesn't necessarily say matter public record,
of course, anything that's reliable, but somebody would have to ask us for that information. And so I thought that they were pretty easy and straightforward and this would go into effect if voted out of the next week. What are they asking for scientific information? Demographic information. So are you a math email, Blackway and Hispanic? What age are you? Were they somebody who talked with a career in Connecticut? And Tom's county would have county. That's the demographic information that they would be looking for. A little precursor to this is in March. We are also required at that point. And I'm sure that the two of these are connected. We are required in March to put together and submit to the state of every district plan for how we are going to try to improve and retain minority educators. And that will be statewide something that's required in March. And so I do think that kind of hand in hand with that they're looking to see if it's young people leaving, why are they leaving? If it's black teachers in suburban Connecticut, why are they leaving? So I do think that this is one way for them to better gather information because these are people that had existing positions. So in March, one of the things we have to put together is how do we get people into existing positions?
And this one says you were there and you left why? But I think it's to make sure going forward that there aren't things that are being kind of washed under the rug and sort of districts. So I don't think it's a bad idea. I definitely don't think it's a bad idea. I just wonder, how often will they collect that data from us? Because that will be important. Don't ask us to do this and then that the interest is going to be out to the boards of education. And so I do think that that is something that I'd like to know more about go through. But how, so when somebody says I'm leaving, do you let them know that there's going to be an exit interview? And then do you give them the form then? How long do they have to like, so they don't, it's a question and answer. I mean, you don't give it to them and say, fill this out because that's really not the purpose of it. Okay, Jim Purpose is for us to sit down and say, you know, I'd like to ask you a few questions. I would actually probably put an front of them as we were talking, so that they're perfectly aware of what it is we're asking. And remember, I mean, I would always tell somebody you have the right privilege to opt about to answer any of these questions. I'm hearing the purpose of it. I would often
know the policy, but I would say this is the policy, this is the public act, this is the reason why. And I'd like to know that it's not, you know, anything that's fully in the crucially. But they could opt out because they don't want to do it with anything. I mean, with state-mandated testing for the kids, if someone says, I'm not doing this, they can't. And I would just fill out what I know information wise, salary position, the demographic space that I information and I would put in there and don't stay up to nothing. That's a good question. Okay, Mike, are Steve or Shannon, do you have any questions or feel anything that all know this is Shannon? I found, I don't know why it was, maybe nobody else found it. I found the first sentence very confusing, only because it looked as though we were requiring ourselves to complete an exit survey by another professional educator if that makes any
sense to anybody. That's how I read it. So I would just say, shall develop an exit survey that shall be completed by a certified professional educator. If that makes any sense to anybody, I know we're going to be looking at it the second time, but the very first time I read it, I was like, wow, do we have to hire somebody to prepare an exit interview? That's just my initial comment. Thanks. It also reads like the person doing the accident is going to talk about that, because it's sort of something that we can bring about, sort of something. Some will just change if any. What, what, what is your sense? If you change the word, if you change A to any, so to be completed by any certified professional educator, it was employed and voluntarily reasons. I have that change also, Caitlin. Yep. But they're not developing it. They're completing it. The person who is exiting is, they're not developing it. They're, no, they're bored about it. The board shall develop. The board shall develop an exit survey. That shall be completed by any certified professional educator who is employed by the board and voluntarily
resigning. Yes. That's on. Yeah. Yeah. Did you get that? Okay. And it around as I do with the other draft policies. If that's okay. If there's anything else, I looked at the public act and there's a lot of other stuff at the public act. So I don't know if this is yet been codified in the general statutes. I was trying to find that also. Shannon, it's funny that you asked that because cherry has not seen that public act. And she said, I'm confused why the name of the act was in act concerning teachers and parent educators, but that this was just for teachers. I know that Shannon said, these acts may add on and things on before they pass. And so that's why it's actually now called teachers and parent educators because there's things within that act that pretend to each. This is just one of the things that pertains solely to the teachers. Michael, Steve, do you have anything to
add or any questions? Yes. What's our date that this needs to be done by in order to meet the require legal requirements to meet the act? Is that March? No. This needs to be done now. March is when I have to send in my sample plan for what we would be doing within the school to hire and retain minority. What do you mean now? Because there's done the action item to vote on it. So when are we out of? No, because anytime you have a new policy, the first time it's presented is a read. No, no, I understand, but the state legislator saying we need one of this policy completed by what it's as soon as possible. Like, are we in violation of policy? Yeah, because they had hoped that people would have a policy already passed in January, but you guys are reading it in January.
So luckily, we have no one leaving at the month of January. So we're going to have those by your two latch. So if anyone has any major changes to this, we need to be ready to pass this in February because this can't go any further than that. Yes, yes. Might do you have any questions or any comments? Just a clear figure. Val, I just want to make sure I heard you write. This is just for teachers. It's not applicable to a pair of educators. Correct. Okay, just make sure it thinks. Read you on the list. Yeah, no, I just, yeah, I mean, I get the the Google at the end of the year. I just think once a year, maybe two late to kind of like, into action plans. Generally, there's a few different companies that do full surveys. Some of them are even geared towards teachers
parents, students, et cetera. You're usually like five questions, allow for comments. Give you analytics. If demographic information would even give you that. If it was something that you needed to do for your policy and then say, okay, here are your top areas where you need to improve development action plan and they're generally given quarterly, but they could be more often if there's problems or lots of often if there's not problems and they kind of allow the school district to get ahead of problems, retain the teachers and not allow them to exit. So do you mean a pulse survey on how well the staff feels the board of ed is doing?
It could be whatever they are customized well, but it could be like, do you feel supported? Do you feel like it could be, do you feel supported by your friends at all, by other staff, by the board of ed? So it could be, it's whatever you make it. But I meant like when you, when you brought it up when you said pulse, when you say the pulse, because one thing we have to remember with other aspects is the board doesn't evaluate Taylor. No, I'm not. So I think sometimes what happens is when those surveys go out and it says, you know, do you feel supported by the administrator by the principal? I have actually gone back and forth with another board before where they did try it and realized we can't even use this, we can't even look at the results of it because the way the questions then were answered, were then a relative in nature for the principal and that's not a role in responsibility of the board. And I'm not saying I don't want to look at it. I'm saying if we, if we as a community,
want to retain features, one tool that schools can use is a full survey. Whether I see it or not, don't care. You guys have to see it because we are required by a law to have a student survey and to have a staff survey and to offer a family survey. And that's what Taylor's talking about. And the board is she is required to give us those results and have us give them to you guys. So you, you will see those results. And we required by law to do that. Yeah, and I'm just saying taking extra that step and if you were trying to hire and retain it in my opinion, understanding as the year progresses, where your pain point aren't being able to create an action plan right then and there is better than waiting to the end of the year. Yeah, I think that, you know, what you're saying is important with that retention piece. I think we would agree right now. We don't have a retention issue. They're good. And so I think we're in good in a good space for that. But I know what you're saying. I've certainly been in organizations that do more frequent staff survey. The other tricky part is our size. So we are relatively small with usually one to two people in unique positions. And so it is difficult to have an anonymous surveys that provide information that don't, I know exactly who wrote it because you're the only one who does that job, those kinds of things. So we've worked hard to try to how do we go
about that in a different way. And so we did this year increase a lot of art to just daily touch points with different staff members because that was a piece that came out of our staff survey last year of how were we communicating across the building. Which was good. So we did make an action plan for that we are addressing it. I hear you on that kind of health frequently. That happens. And so I think right now I would assure you that frequently we're doing that just not an anonymous survey fashion because it hasn't always suited us currently. But certainly something to keep in the background. Thank you, my thoughts. Thanks, Bill. Do we have a bunch of superintendents advisory committee or would we provide them committee? So it's not called that. I'm wondering if you're thinking like a leadership team is that kind of a world or like they just only know we're kind of getting off the agenda item. Jerry, go ahead. And South Windsor, you pick Union reps to go or have
a monthly annual with the principal. Yes. Talk about problems and things. Absolutely. Yeah, I beat monthly with them. Co-presidents of the Union. Okay, good. Thank you. Yes. All right, any other action items? Okay, you're in none. I know we have a couple of members of the public here. Now what's that? Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Shannon. Okay, I was just going to chime in. No, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. That's okay. Shannon, take it away. Okay. So as I reported everybody, the Board of Finance did not hold their meeting that was scheduled for December 27th. So their next meeting is scheduled for January 24th. And I'm intending to work again with Robert England and attend that meeting as I was supposed to do at their last meeting in December to talk about hopefully getting to the point of having a joint policy. And I'll report back on that in February. I made therefore have to miss a little bit of our workshop that conflicts on
the 24th. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks, Shannon. I appreciate that. Sorry, I skipped right over I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. All right. No other action items. I didn't hear any. We do have some members of the public here now. Joanne Hubert. Do you have any comments? Just trying to unmute. Thank you. I'm always a pleasure to join in when I can. I love whoever advocated for when you can. Again, I understand everyone's busy schedules. But I feel it's really important to join your meeting as well as I always make it a point to go to the Board of Selectment meetings. When I, you know, I do have the time to do that. I like to hear my information firsthand who make my opinions to which is so important. You know, as we're all trying to join together for the benefit of the town and not getting second hand things are getting something swayed the way the person wants you to hear it. So great. I look forward to, you know, for their collaboration down the line and seeing all of you. But I always a pleasure listening in. Have a good night. Thanks, Joanne. This is where I. Hi there. I'd like to piggyback on what Joanne just commented on. I think it is important to have that connection with other boards. I mean, even within your own board where you're talking about that person that's going to share back within your own board. I know as our teachers union, we do that coming to your board of Ed meetings and then we share back wouldn't we have our monthly meetings. And I think I hope I think it keeps all of us really connected with what's going on within us, but also outside of our own organization. So nice job. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Brown. Thank you.
Okay. So our regular board meeting is February 14th. We will have Nick Coruso there from K. He's going to assist with a new order that member training. So he'll be here. So if you have any questions or anything, please, that that's the time. And then also we'll talk about what those roles for the liaison will be that would be been opportunity for us to talk to him about it and he can kind of really help us kind of, you know, really nail it down. So I think items for next meeting, the blurps about what the liaison roles will be. Does anybody have any other items for next meetings that they want to talk about? We don't have to know right now about how to handle but probably about the budget. What's that? And it proved the budget. Yeah. And then the joint of policy update, Shannon, will be able to give us that and then finalize. And finalize the right, the exit survey the policy. Okay. And if there's anything else, you know, just let them know. All right. I need a motion to adjourn. I'm going to go ahead. Sure. Caitlyn. Okay. One second. Sure. Thank you, Jerry. All in favour? All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Take care, everybody. Have good night. Bye. Bye.