February, the order, normally, you'll read the budget for me, don't you? I believe that's chosen by the United States and to read the volume for which it stands, why don't we mission, familiarize, and divisible with liberty and justice for all. In terms of an opening statement, there are a lot of a lot of people on your tonight. Please keep your public comment short and to the point and to something on the agenda. I will try to get through everyone and I can't hear anything. If we met anyone, then maybe do like the virtual raise your hand thing. Do you mind if I start just because I have two the teachers who couldn't hear that gave me a comment, so that's okay, it's the one that's there. Okay, okay, let me tell her the answer with comments from the teacher to
already both of you. Yes, I'm not sure if Lisa's here, so she can jump on if the answer for her. I'm here. Okay, Lisa, you get to go first, I'm sorry to call you out if you'd like to start. All right, I just wanted, I didn't know if I'd be able to be here tonight and I'm happy that I'm here, so I did write down my comments that I just like to share quickly. And as always, I want to, I want to recognize the Board of Education for their time and effort. They constantly put forth to better our school. I've been here at our school for almost 20 years. I've seen small class sizes of experienced firsthand the benefits that I can provide to each and every student my class. Over the years, our class sizes have grown and that has directly impacted the time I can spend with each student to meet their needs. As a teacher, currently teaching a 90-minute block of ELA to 29 students, I struggle. I can't help but think of the future of our school. How can I divide my time to meet our student needs when I only have about three minutes per student? How can I effectively look at student work and offer productive feedback in three minutes or less per student? This is my struggle as a teacher.
How can I meet the needs of individual students under this time restraint? At this point, we have two options for next year. We can have two classes of 13 students or a class of 26. With the larger, if we continue with larger class sizes and give and give individual attention in mere minutes per student, we can't provide quality education and differentiate to meet their needs. And I could go on, I could go on about math as well. Imagine teaching a 90-minute block of math and dividing my time among 26 students. I'm pretty sure we all understand the direction we need to go. And I'm just asking the board to move forward and choose the smaller class sizes so we can give the quality education that we're all used to. So thank you again, and sorry if I took too much time but I just wanted to share my thoughts. Thank you. Did you want to read the other one?
I'm not sure to stop her Sullivan. She also lost her voice today. So I think I'm just going to read her. She had lived in Jais. Hi, I am Marine Sullivan. I'm a fifth grade teacher at AES. I wanted to first say how much I love teaching in the end over. I think the board of education so much for all of their support. I also wanted to let you know just how successful having two classes of fifth graders has been this year. These students are really thriving academically, socially and emotionally, and is wonderful to see. I'm very lucky to be a part of that. With that being said, it is very important for there to be two sections of sixth grade for these students next year so at the momentum and gains that are occurring this year can be maintained. Again, I think the board of education very much. We're having a fantastic year at fifth grade.
Okay. Carol, I'm assuming Carol Leap. Okay. Holly. I would just like to concur with Lisa. I think that the size of the class is especially critical for special education students to be sure that their needs can be met and the larger the classes are, the more difficult that is. So I fully support moving forward on respecting the class size needs, particularly at sixth grade. Thank you. Amber, Richard. Yeah, just appreciate all the hard work that's gone into working on this budget and everyone going through everything. So I'm definitely highly anticipating hearing how tonight goes. So thank you. That's why that. No, I think thank you. Just listen me. Yeah, Jamie, whatever. Hi. Oh, I get it. Timing my book. Sorry. I just want to say thanks to Val and the board for their hard work during this budget season. I teach fifth and sixth grade this year. They're 29 sixth graders in my class. And while they're the best sixth graders in the world, it is challenging. My job is at educators to make sure that I'm reaching each student at their level and taking
into consideration each one of their individual learning styles and personalities to ensure that they are learning and growing while also helping them to feel seen, heard, and valued. Again, I just want to say thanks to the board for understanding our students' needs and considering those needs when putting together the budget. Hi, Jenny Murrell. Hello, everyone. I'm here to support the proposed budget that our superintendent has created. Val puts our students and teachers first. She understands that our priority is our students. She knows what's required in order to meet their needs. We are not a staff that request unnecessary materials and supplies. We know what it's like to cut corners. We've done it before. But how can we expect a school to function without budgetary increases when the operation costs to run a school are increasing? I hate to think of what could happen to our neediest students if there are major cuts to our school budget. Will we be able to continue the same level of instruction that we have given in the past? Will our students feel the belonging and attention that is allowed now with our smaller class sizes and academic and SEL interventions? Will our staff continue to feel the belonging and support from a town that values what we provide our elementary students? I hope so. My position as an early childhood specialist provides reading and mass support
academically to our very youngest students, as well as support for students who need additional attention with social and emotional learning, SEL. This schedule does not include the many unexpected times throughout the week where I provide SEL support to students who require immediate attention. The needs are present every day whether it's math or reading or SEL. A student struggles with attention or behavior or peer interactions or even just because a student is overwhelmed with the demands of learning. These moments still need to be addressed. We cannot ignore this fact. We all know that the demands and needs have drastically changed over the past five years. The emotions of students run high, peer interactions are difficult, it is sometimes next to impossible to sustain the attention and engagement of our students. I'm sure every educator across our state, our region, even our country, feels the demands of trying to juggle it at all. Why would anyone say, let's make a decision that will make the jobs of teachers even harder? That is what would happen if our school needs to cut positions. That is what would happen if we move 26 plus students back into one classroom. That is what would happen if we were no longer able to provide the same level of intervention
for our media students. That is what would happen if there is no one available to rearrange their schedule to meet an unexpected immediate need for a student crisis. Spending a day in the shoes of an educator would really help one to understand the challenges that arise in classrooms every day and how important it is to make sure our school has the resources necessary to help our students thrive. I truly believe that is what we all want for our students at and over elementary school. Please support our budget and thank you to the board of ed for all the effort they have put into it. Thank you. Just to note, I really appreciate we all appreciate the teachers support so far, but try to keep public coming in a little bit shorter or we're going to have our entire meeting tonight. Be in public comment. There are a lot of you on here, guys. Doris Meldenato. Hi, good evening. I'm a parent and a parent ambassador. I just wanted to share that we have a moral obligation to provide what's in the best interest of the children of our children, which is supported
by strong families, strong starts, and community thriving communities. Thank you. Thank you. Two zero zero nine two zero and if you can state your name so that the court has it. Okay, John McGolder. I'm just here in the support of the budget. Thank you. Thank you. Jamie tell them. Hi, I'd like to say that I'm a parent in the school, as well as I have two children attending the school. I just want to thank the board of ed for all their time and effort and everything they do for our school. And I would just like to say please support this budget. Thank you. Scott, your song. Thank you. Hi, Charlie down. Master. Hi, how are you?
My name's Charlie and I'll master. And this is my 23rd year teaching at Andover Elementary School. As a teacher, I see firsthand how our budget decisions directly affect students every single day. Through class sizes, learning materials, support services, and opportunities that help every child succeed. Approving this budget is an investment in our students, our staff, and the future of our district. I want to give a special thank to the board of ed for the time and care that you've put into the process. And I especially want to thank valve for the countless hours and collaboration, and dedication that it takes to build a budget that reflects our district's priorities. Your hard work truly makes a difference in our classrooms, and it is deeply appreciated. Jamie Weber. She went already. Thank you. Katie, back then. We just wanted to thank the board for all the time and care that they've put into the budget. We all appreciate your commitment to our students and our staff. Thank you. Yeah. I'll join you, Bert. Thank you. I'm here on another issue. Well, I'm here to listen to everything, of course, but I just want to quickly voice my hope that the board tonight, when they discuss the AES bathroom renovation project, consider going back to the original fuss in O'Neill contract that was signed in a big part of it was to hold an open RFP process, which I think is just really fair to the town and to the school and to everyone involved that we have these experts, fuss in O'Neill, you know, honor that part of the contract since we're paying, you know, since it's getting paid for. Again, I just think their oversight would be helpful.
It was a big part of the contract that was originally signed, whether the way they decide to build is different. I just think that would be important since it's such a big monetary expense that will be coming up. So thank you. Thank you. Well, that's all that's out there. Hi. I want to start by saying thank you to Val, Terry, Jody, and the Board of Education for the attention and thought. They have put into this budget speaking as a teacher who has been directly impacted by the large class sizes. I appreciate the budget is starting to reflect the needs of our smallest residents of Andover who's voices we represent. We have been stretched thin for years and our oldest students have felt the brunt of that the most at an essential time when we want them prepared for Ram. Thank you again for considering a budget that helps our students become the best that they can be. Thank you. Daniel Rose. Good evening. I wanted to thank Val and the Board of Education for the time and effort that they have put into creating a budget that reflects the needs of Andover Elementary School and meets the needs of All of our students. Thank you. Thank you. Grace. We'll do it. We'll do it. I don't know how to do it. It's a full dark text. So as a first-year teacher, I want to thank the Board of Education and Miss Bruno for your hard work on the budget.
It really is appreciated. I feel very grateful for the strong community which includes but is not limited to the Board, parents, students, and staff. I've had the most amazing experience this year and hope to have a similar experience next year with the help of the continuation of a small class size and supportive staff. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. I am the school psychologist here and I echo a lot of what Jenny Morales said that the needs continue to grow when we're thinking about supporting kids, social, emotional, and behavioral needs. And I'm in full support of this budget to help continue with those services. Thank you. Thank you. Elizabeth Patrick? Yeah, I'd just like to say that unlike all the rest of the people who have spoken up, I think at 11% increase in the budget is unrealistic in an environment where very few citizens are getting this kind of increase. Social security and pension increases were about 2.6% and many of the employed citizens are getting similar raises. How do you expect the taxpayers to put this bill with a 2.6% increase in their income? I think you'll remember you on the next way of saying that's the job. There you go. Hi, I just want to say thank you to Valle
in the Board for everything that they've been doing. It's no secret. Our enrollment has been increasing and so of course the needs are going to increase. So thank you for putting together this budget and I hope that it's supported. Thanks. Thank you. Amanda Boyne? Hi, I just want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to thank you all for the work you guys have put in and I just am here to listen and to support the proposed budget. Hi, I'm here to listen to and in preparation for budget planning. Good luck. Thanks.
Hi, I'm a third grade teacher here and thank you all for your hard work and I'm just here to support the budget. Hi, I also agree with what everyone else has said regarding the benefits of the small class sizes. As the reading specialist, I definitely see the benefits of smaller class sizes on our students reading success. So I fully support this budget and I appreciate all the efforts of the Board of Ed with this budget. Thanks. All right, so you can rest minor. Hi, I just wanted to say thank you to the Board of Ed, Jody, Terry, and Val for your hard work on the budget and thank you for working to provide the best for our students in our school. Thank you. Happy hard night. Hi, as both a resident and a teacher in this town, I strongly support the Board of Education Budget. I see every day how critical these resources are for maintaining small class sizes, supporting our dedicated staff and providing students with the academic and social
emotional programs they need to succeed. This budget is an investment not only their children's future, but in the strength and vitality of our entire community. Amy Godwin, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody for working so hard on the budget as both the resident and a teacher. I have four kids in the school and I'm able to see the hard work that everyone puts into the school and how everyone puts the needs of students first. I strongly support this budget so that we can see our school as an asset to our town and continue to invest in our community's future. Thank you. Jody, night. Hi, I'm Jody, I'm the speech and language pathologist for and over. I just wanted to thank a Valerie and the Board for all their hard work. Thank you. Can person? Just listening for now. Thank you. Thank you. You're here in person and not mine, not in person.
Do you have any comments? Good second. Just Mary? Okay. Heather Bonpara. Just listening. Thank you. I'll go back to 00920. You might get it. And then Carol? First I might get it. That's enough. Okay. And Krenai. And for that thing, thank you for the very question you've been putting together all the work Valerie's done. I strongly support it as a retired teacher. I know that we report this office and it might seem like a lot that you really can't cut that. You'll see. Hey, did I miss anyone on Zoom? Yeah. If you'd like, I don't know if we can unmute them, you're unmuted. You're unmuted. Go ahead and speak. One of the things we are. Oh, it's Liz. Can you hear me? Okay. We can hear you. Okay. I just wanted to say good luck.
There's going to be a lot to talk about. And lots to learn before our group meeting. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Is there anyone on the chat there that miss? We're good. Okay. We'll move on to the communications. So I do have three things. The date for the time meeting was moved to April 9th, so that it doesn't inspect with our Board of Education meeting. Thank you for the Board of Slashman Board of Finance for agreeing to move that. And then we did receive both all members of the Board received two letters from two residents. Michael Beckwood, sent a letter, specifically talking about wanting the Board to help this superintendent more. When comments are made about potentially hiring young teachers,
who have set up old teachers, and positive and negatives of that. And then Doris Maldonado Mendez sent a letter specifically in regards to comments made about special education students. And we will be addressing these letters tonight very hard and executive session. I don't have any other special communications, does any and I'll have other communications to share? Okay. We have any student celebrations for tonight. I do. I put them in my report. Sorry. Okay. So thank you. Come to that. So we have a couple of minutes. We have the special bathroom committee meeting minutes. There's a modified version of those. If you guys look in front of you.
At the bottom of the second page, there's things that Mercy, a summary of things that were wanted to be added. So people started to pay attention after that part specifically. And then we can decide if we're voting on passing these minutes as an ended. So if you look at the bottom after number seven, there's a little asterisk and says an ended. We need to still lift out Jeff McGuire. I didn't lift that all the time. Don't worry about it. Yeah. So we need to add Jeff McGuire under a person who has come into order meetings. They're not up there. And why are we facing the packet?
I'm sorry. They weren't in the packet that I received. The updated was the updated was not in the packet because the amendments were not sent until yesterday. Can you ask the superintendent to include me on all the distribution on everything if they go out? Or is it just you? Is this piece of paper just here or what? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it'll then be part of the minutes. I was expecting we would vote on this during a special committee meeting. And I think that's why I thought it's going to be. That's why it didn't get out of the zone. No, no. So a special committee for a board, the minutes that are summarized from that would be voted on by the board for which it's for. Or last meeting, you said, we've been a vote on the minutes because you said you wanted to add amendments. So that's why we put it on this month. Agenda. So we'll add, well, add Jeff's name under people who were present. And then the amendments that are listed
on the bottom of the second page. Is there any other discussion that people would like to have before we vote to the group or not, if there's a minutes from that meeting? And please, I'm not on that video, I don't know. Yes, the group can vote. I think should have ordered them and it votes to a group of minutes. Okay, everyone, okay, if we move ahead. Yes, all in favor of approving the minutes from a special committee meeting from January 5th. So six year old one, down year one. So at that end, Alicia abstained. This year was an important number. Yeah, thank you. Um, and then we have to, it's just, so just I get that Shannon, you're going to, yes, and you weren't here. Who else was it here and vote? We're voting on the minutes. I don't know whether or not they accurately reflect so soon. How do you know, Regent, listen to the meeting? Yes, I get it. I always thought everyone that was on at the meeting was supposed to be, it's a subcommittee meeting. So it's a, it's a subcommittee that's comprised of people from multiple boards. Right. And the next time that subcommittee meets, that's when, so I would like to talk, maybe take it out of the minutes and tell them that's a subcommittee meeting. All right, that's the thing. There's four passes in, but people that didn't attend a trip vote, Alicia is correct in what she did not. And I'm not. That's right, I'm not. Why is that just? Because you didn't attend it. Okay, well, I need to table this discussion
because we have a lot on our agenda tonight and we need to keep going. Yeah, I wonder if I doesn't matter. They're meeting them. All right, regular meeting from January 14. There's anyone have corrections on these minutes that they'd like do that. Bottom of page two, super-dance report, it often happens when you spell out the statute's dawn, but it needs to say that's lying down at the end of statute's as bed of statutes. You always pick up on your passion, but I read it. I thought I read it thoroughly. I thought I didn't do it. I tried really hard. I just know that one is a common thing. Yeah. I make a motion to approve the Board of Education minutes for the meeting on Wednesday, January 14, 2020, 2006, with that one a minute. That's fine. Okay, all in favor. Bye. Hi. Anyone opposed? Hi. And then we have minutes from the special budget meeting from January 26. Make a motion to approve the minutes from the special budget meeting from January 26. All in favor? Hi. Anyone opposed? Hi. In terms of adding or deleting agenda items, I do need to add one item. It would be
prior to A.A. Just a very quick discussion about cool use of the building during the summer for campus. That would go prior to A.A. Does anyone have anything else with A? Would like to add or delete? I'll in favor of adding an item fire for A to discuss the cool summer campus of the building. Anyone opposed? Okay. So we'll add that fire to item A. In terms of an oral report, I don't really have anything tonight that's not covered either under the bathroom project, which has been the majority of what I've been dealing with or the budget. I don't have much else to say, but I'm different. I'm going to report somewhat similar. Let's see. So the budget will be obviously down there, so that's not a problem with facilities. The things that were done this month, January 15, we had the fire suppression system, annual check by on-board, as well as the spring learned selection. This is a visual one of the panels. These are just compliance required by law. I'm going to sync the cleared in June 20. There is one issue with the door cafeteria, door lock. We have the keypads here, and the keypads there is not working. There is a part inside where they have cement fixed. They could potentially be obsolete. It's pretty old. So what we would do is, we're talking to the company now, getting a photo of that. What we would do is, if that door, so to heavily use the work, if that door is not able to be ventured in the keypad, we would have to replace that particular keypad. If we replace the keypad, what happens then is it will be a regular part of our first
system of the rest of the doors. So in other words, somebody's code wouldn't work on that. We wouldn't have to be included. So that's the case what we would do is we would move the new one to the gym door and swap the gym door keypad with this one so that the whole rest of the building is on the same system and a new one then makes more sense down there because we have outside people like these that don't been so, that's what we would do. And then only the people that are necessary, the living building because still the human administration would be key to that pad and just for the gym teacher course too. Everybody else would know that they would not have entered through the other rooms. So
we're looking at that and we had our our regular past control content for Jade right best. Yeah, excuse me, sorry, it was my voice. In terms of grants, there's no new ones. We are, I believe Joe is still waiting for our seed money from the town. We have not received the two branches of seed money. Not sure what happens with that, but Joe is following up on that. There are no other new grants right now for us. So that's that. And then the only other thing that doesn't pertain to grants for facilities or budgets there has to do with, I did attend the board of select by May night. I apologize that anybody who's on this call, I did not know that my computer was making a noise and being difficult. People could hear on the other side that went between some of this I apologize for that because I hear it was like, oh, that was coming from my computer. But my purpose was pretty simple. My purpose was to speak to the board of select men about taking and changing the protocol that we have in place now. The protocol for general fund checks right now is that the town administrator myself sign on both steps of checks. So they sign ours and we sign theirs. And I did ask that protocol to cease to exist because it's not being followed with fidelity. And it was not something that was answered on Monday night. So I did just go back and hold the policy that we have on this rule side. And the policy on the school side is 3326. And the policy on the school side does say that the superintendent approved the invoices and the payment and that checks will be signed by the chair person and the superintendent.
So moving forward, that's the change of protocol. Next month, I will bring 3326 on the agenda. I know that we've been doing the 2000s and then the 9000s those that we're not planning I'm getting to the 3000s next month. But I will bring this one, these policies were from 2009. And I will bring this one policy out of order to the board next month, just simply because since it's from 2009, it doesn't include that second faultimate signer as the vice chair. And so it would be nice for us to have to just in case something's wrong with one of us if we're sick. So I'll bring that policy next month. So that's presented to you guys to see if we can just add that as the amended version there. The part, the way that it's being done currently, that was something that was recommended by the auditor. So I thought so, but I think that the timing of it was more
that the town administrator position was created in the charter in 1718. And I think that the protocol was put into effect. There's nothing that I can find anywhere in our notes or anything that was left from the former superintendent or policy or procedure on the town website as to why it was enacted. And yes, I had in the past spoken with the auditor about the idea of the two just two signers in general. And they always recommend two signers of course. And the best that I could come up with was that it was designed that way as a good system of taxing balances because it was too non-elected people. And so it was the assumption then that you would be rolling over those positions and they're not political because they're not elected people. So that was the protocol. So, but yes, moving forward, then, you know, KJony will make sure that it's busy. Well, we hold this in a number of that files. I'm sorry. 3326. And to legally, other districts do it that way as well. It's the super in the chair. Yes. Yes.
There are plenty of districts that only have the town sign that checks. I can list them for you. And it is an auditor request. And you have to realize that the school didn't have its own check-in account until we allowed that to happen when we split the systems. So previously, all of your checks went through the general fund and were processed by the U-processed the checks and the checks went through the town system. So, if the auditor is recommending and this was my first law, my disappointment was that it was a request during public speak to add something to our agenda, not discussing with us. And then my other part about this was, the Valerie wrote me an email and she said, we were dismissal of it. Yes. The job of the superintendent and for the finance department, this is a process checks. It's a counterbalance. And I didn't understand fidelity because it doesn't work within this concept. But I am just telling you, it's a checks and balance. Why should we change it? Well, we didn't have a town treasure, right? You have one now. We have a town administrator working on that. So, I think part of why it may be felt part in checks and balances weren't done correctly is because of not having positions filled on the town side. No, right. That was added from his very first day of work. He was added to our accounts. There was no lag in Eric to Jim. And I asked him the same question I asked you on our meeting. Why are you bringing this up? Because I signed two or three checks. Because there's a process that's supposed to be in place and it's supposed to happen all the time.
And yes, the auditor that does the schools books as well as the town's books is under the assumption that we are following that protocol. And if we're not following that protocol, then at the end of the year, we can't attest to the fact that we have a system of checks and balances. And the other part of that, I did mention the other day and an email to you, was that there had been fraudulent checks on the town side. I wasn't even notified that hey, Val, checks that have your name on them as signatory were a part of this. So, I'm not, again, I don't want us to be combative. And changing this is going to do one. It, it, the change is because why would I sign checks on the town side and say that there's
a system of checks and balances that I, in fact, see every one of the numbers when I don't. I'm sorry, the name was on fraudulent checks and nobody told you they did not. I saw it on their minutes for their names. The checks were presented to the bank and they were not cashed. Anyone can sit there and lift one of your signatures. Thank you. Absolutely. And bring each check. It happens all the time. I would hope I know that. So, I think right now we need to kind of table the discussion on this. Okay, I personally am not super comfortable being a co-signer of all of the checks for the school all the time. There have been occasions when the board chair needs to do it for whatever reason. But I think I would personally rather us be able to focus on putting the system of checks and balances back in place and having the appropriate people signing the checks to begin with and having a ledger of what the checks are. If a check was voided or not and not having checks
missing or gaps in the numbers of the checks that are being signed. So, if we can maybe table it for further discussion. Next month or at a board of selected meeting, I think it needs further discussion outside of board meeting. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Does anyone else have further questions regarding that topic? Okay. Sounds you have anything else on the report. The rest will fall a little bit. Can I ask one question? Sure. The cafeteria door lock issue are you guys working on getting estimates for what the cost would be associated with? Yeah. The company that oversees our locking system. They're the ones that we came to have it fixed. Yeah. So, they would, since they oversee that locking system, they would be the ones that we would get any reports. Okay. So, we'll remember about that. Yeah. In a month. Okay. Taylor. Yeah. Let's see as usual if I can use shares for you. So, let's celebrate. We're in our invention convention here at the school. Very exciting. Thank you for Christina Frazier, who organized and then Katie Dixon and Graceville, Darchek, our fourth grade teachers who do the bulk of the work with our fourth graders. And then we also open that up. So, there are K through six who also participate either in school with Mrs. Frazier or at home on their own. And so, thank you, Jerry, and as well for attending. And so, it's a little bit different this year. In the past, I brought you our finalists at this point said congratulations. But as we expand, we are collaborating with the region to have a fancy work like a semi-final round. So, we actually approved a 12, 12 students, the top 12
from us. They're going to go to Bram in just a few weeks, the high school, and with Hebrew and Markborough, they'll all send 12 and there'll be another round of judging with some or some more outside judges. And then we will, at the very least, a lot three and over students to the state finals. But we could have a couple more based on the judging. So, we'll wait and see on that. But it was in a fantastic event in our biggest way of 59 inventors. So, that was really, really exciting. And then, our other one is our spelling bee. Everyone looks forward to our year spelling bee. Who I like can't read on this day? Well, we did a fantastic general goal trick. I helped in Christa, Kathy Hartnett, and then Val M. C's on the actual school because again, I wouldn't be able to read. And Everley Latest go one her second year as our finalist and she will go to the state spelling bee, March the first week of March. And so, she's excited about that. I think last year, she made it two rounds, I believe. So, that's very exciting. So, she did a great job there. Where did it do that? It's in her first. Yeah, Steve's going to change it every time. And then just a P.D. update for you. We actually have
P.D. in two days, a half day on the 13th. And so, that will be led by our school psychologist, who Mrs. Ormspeap. We, I know it presented, we're doing those monthly check-ins for our SEL work this year. And so, that we didn't get to the end of the year and be like, why, just at least 70, but it's feel, you know, making up that number. But we really are checking in monthly. And so, now that we're at that mid-year mark, we're going to be talking about action strategies based on all of those results. How do we make changes now as opposed to always feeling like you have to wait till next year? You know, how do we address what the kids are reporting? So, that's been going really well. Even on our last survey result, we had kids writing about the surveys. How they like that and be able to get to share. So, that was cool to see. So,
we also had, I mentioned in January, I was leading our first regional math PLC. I shouldn't say first. I think many, many, many, many years ago. That was happening. But we brought it back. And so, we had over 20 educators coming here and from the end of her, Hebrew and Marbo, and we had one ram representative as well. And that was awesome. We did a lot of work on fractions and teaching strategies and really just thinking about how do we strengthen our curriculum as separate entities, but also more minds working together. So, we will read meet on next month. On that TV questions. Awesome. So, this month, we're going to focus on math because we didn't do that last month. So, I wanted to kind of give you an overview of what math looks like this year as we know what we're focusing on. So, we use it illustrative mathematics. That's our base curriculum. And so, you know, the word curriculum means the series of lessons and unit. So, that is our piece in guide. That says, we're going to teach multiplication in January. And then what we use is building thinking classrooms as our set of high quality instructional strategies. So, those work together. And of course, there's always the fluency piece. So, we're also looking at fluency within the number system through grade five. Grade six actually changes standards. They're grouped in the middle school world. And so, you kind of get to the end of fifth grade and you've mastered in theory elementary math. And then
you start in sixth grade like, whoa, there's negative numbers. Like, nobody told me that. So, that I am we use from cave your sense. And so, those lessons are pretty, um, description. So, there's always a warm-up. It feels like traditionally people think of a warm-up as like let's practice a problem from yesterday. But it's not the case. Our warm-ups are targeted number sense builders. So, it might say, we're going to count by fourths. And every time we hit a multiple of an eighths sit down. If you'd like to practice that right now, we're welcome to, but I mean, it's a totally different way of thinking, right? Then kind of do this long division problem we did yesterday. So, here are some examples from different grade levels. A lot of what you notice, what you wonder, and it's all oral. So, that's together. It's short. Five to six minutes, really getting that number sense and teachers can certainly target that. My class is feeling a little bit weaker on their multiplication. So, I'm going to do some number strings on that. Follows with activities each day, typically about two. And, you know, when we talk about the sides of reading, we've been focusing a lot on explicit instruction, right? Kids are not going to learn to read just by looking around or just by putting more books in front of them as some once thought years ago. They need to be taught that S says, and there's an explicit instruction
component. Math is really that bridge of both, because yes, there's explicit instruction and algorithms as you're aware, but there's also a constructivist model, right? Where students are giving word problems and saying, based on what you know, what's your next step. Where can you start? We call those entry points. So, getting students to kind of find the entry point, they already have, and then we build knowledge onto that. Most of those activities are collaborative. We know we've talked a lot about that, accountable, how. And then they end with that synthesis, so the teacher has support in knowing what strategy am I bringing forth from all the work you did today in the 60 minutes. Sure, we did work, but we know executive functioning skills and kids is not quite as developed as it is in adults. And so we have to do that work for them. We have to synthesize and say, notice how you did that strategy today was way more efficient than the one we did yesterday, and so we bring that together. And then, lastly, a couple times a week, there's that rule down where students are practicing independent. So that's on their own. They've done a lot of collaborative work. Can I now complete the skill? That's like the super fast math and a slide show, but kind of the basics. And so you walk in our bathrooms and this is a lot of what you see illustrative. We chose this curriculum mainly because of its collaborative and constructive nature. You know, if you were fed on the board for years, we did pilot other programs right when I got here. They were in a pilot and we really wanted to make sure that language wasn't holding back
mass building skills. And so there are some very heavy language math programs and we really wanted one that was heavy math makes sense. All right, so I mentioned building thinking classrooms and that's the set of instructional strategies. And so people wonder of what do you mean curriculum for strategies? That's teaching practices. So it doesn't matter. This book could go on. We could buy any program in the world. Here's the strategies that we know. The research proves help kids learn math. And so, the administration would like nothing more than to kind of introduce you to a couple of those strategies. We're going to have a little work today, so let's see you know for fairies. So I'm working well. When we're working building things classrooms, what we do is we do randomize groups. Students don't know who their partner is going to be. When we talk about how the real world, that is a lot of time how things work. I kind of prepop quiz because I'm not. No, I'm coming there. I think you're coming in. So randomize groups is part of it. Another part of it is as it was provided with one marker for a group. The marker is the one who is doing the right thing for for thinking is coming from the other person. So if you're doing the thing when you cannot have the marker, why don't we have to read the marker? That's not important. It's not your own. You're going to go to the next one selling. You're going to go to the next one selling. You're going to go to the next one selling. Is it all math? Is it spelling involved? All right. So spelling does not count during our math time. So you're good with that.
Okay. Our building thinking classrooms are start with vertical surfaces. You'll see in front of you you have table tops ones. We have throughout the classrooms. Vertical surfaces, their students can go to. You might be throughout the room and you would be assigned a group to go up and go to board number three. Those are used to get the students up and about. It's a great way to get them working collaboratively, but also being able to not be sitting in front of each other like that. We want them to be able to record the task because I tell you they're going to record a little bit of information at the top. You'll also be just having the one eraser, one marker, and you'll have to erase with care because when I write something, it might be very important to me. So you are not allowed to write what erase what I write and you need to have permission to erase anything on your board. Also, we look at what we have on our board as learning.
If you have it wrong, it's okay. You can put a line through it and show that you learned from that mistake when you went on and discovered a new way to do it. So our problem today is my Lose Ice Cream Shop has 10 flavors of ice cream. How many different two scoop ice cream cones can you make? Are there any questions about our challenge today? All right, get what we're going. You're listening at home. We hope you're trying this out. Within you, we're going to have a little bit of what the area is for this kind of report. We're going to have like, everybody can look at it, you know, the thing that we're saying, you know, you serve ten to the waist and last two glasses. And then I read the same thing.
And then one thing. Okay. you think so that you know. One hour. And then you hurry. And then you go on earth. Yeah. And then you go on earth. And then you go on earth. Now. You should not be the way. Yeah. Like net. Yeah. So what about the success of that? Very. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Not even. I don't feel like. I can be silly. I think that's definitely another tad. And yeah. What's the stand? Yeah. And all the shay. Yes. Thank you. I forgot. I remember. I remember. I remember. And then. And then. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. Yep. So. Yeah. I. So. You still the wrong way coming after me. Yeah. Whatever the math, always the language. I'd like to do a challenge here, what if you were to have free script space? The rest of the music working? That's what happens, and you get two smart kids together. Just try to do this. Look at now, it's a little bit harder than that. All right, fair fighting questions. Yeah, free scoops. And they all have to be a different flavor. Yeah. And they can say all have to be a different person. What do you mean? It's not all the other things. It feels like a proximity question. So kids often ask questions because we're close by.
And so we have to use proximity, as you've seen, kissing or doing. So that kids don't feel compelled to just, Is this right? It's for, should I do this? Because that's often needed. Well, there's a lot of failing in math. K through four. So we're going to have to think this way. No, it's not a problem. It's a teacher. I'm going to have them go over and take a look at somebody else before. So the thing that's my idea is that people come back and then Let's move on there. I'm going to let it go. We'll let that knowledge pass. Yeah. And that's what's going on. So we don't want it. No, we don't want it. Yeah. And that happens with kids. It's very like the, when you first visit, they're like, Yes. And that happens with kids. It's very like the, when you first visit, they're like, Yes. They're like, don't hit my ass. Don't hit my ass. Don't hit my ass. Sorry. Okay. But now, I'm OK. We're there some more company. Oh, yeah. After guy, So yeah, Oh, My You know, Still may have to take We're still, or something like that. So this is mint and this is mint and mint and mint is fine. All right. You're going to get the cow. Yeah. You got to get the cow to hard. You did that.
Yeah. You said that, but it's too big. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just to stop. Just to stop. You got the cow. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. I hope it's a big one. I'm sorry. Guys, you've got to take. I also want to do that. This is the three we got bigger for. In the corner of your board, you'll see what's called a accountable talk. That's one of the initiatives that we've worked on this year. And it's a little hard that shows. Do you think the language or did they can use when talking with a partner and so that's nothing for now. Really useful. They need some. I think so. I think so. So. Can you talk about your disagree and. Not sure the patient on a very important. This is most of all the issues. I love it. All right. All right. Good. That's a fun thing. Yeah. Well, you can build some of you've even stopped. You're in, and that's what I do. Yeah. Like, there are ones that in it. They're standing. They're talking. They don't want to stop. Yeah. Everybody might have killed her. I thought that was a lot of those. So your answers. Yeah. Yeah. Sharon. Okay. Yeah. I like to enlighten the group about your answer. The first initial problem. Oh, if there were 40, if it were. I thought that way that I do kind of should have said that. It could not be the same paper. Yeah. It said different. Then it answers for you. Okay. Okay. Okay. If you have a letter of engagement for the teacher who said, what if you have.
Then it becomes 55, because it's and factorial versus nine factorial. Okay. It's an imagine what that would look like gathering around that board. Sharon, now talking more. You want to give me a minute? I have to give you all the light. I want to take a picture of all the five. I know it's like yes. We could just tell you about it, but there is something about kind of And they're excited about doing this pretty pretty girl. Right? And so there's just a level of engagement. And there's a lot more, right? We just acted out about four pages of the book, right? But there's a lot of different layers of that work. And so it's been really cool in our first year of implementation to see the engagement first and foremost rise. And that's what's important in math. Because as many of you know, there's, for many kids, there's a mental block of just like math or math is hard. So we need that engagement first even. Sometimes before we can break that down. So when is the answer so that I know how long I've got to see it? You know what? I'll do my scripture. The teacher will not tell you. So that's going to be up to her. So when is that? Sometimes I think that jack-o.
Oh, are they all right? So I did want to just quickly though. And I'm not going to answer. Yeah, again. We like to give you torture. Give you just a peek into some data. So normally the board really only gets to see and talk about our aspect data unless in the aspect test is important. But it's a summative assessment, right? The state collects to measured growth and to measure proficiency in really a comparative way, right? To make sure the state as a whole. And we know, um, while sometimes our percentages aren't exactly where we want, we are very comparative at the state level. But so while that's a great data point to measure a certain condition, we're more interested as you can imagine at the school in the nitty-gritty every day what can kids do and where do they need help. And so I just wanted to share two data points for us for a mid-year. We talked about the first is M class and this is an assessment that's done K through five on the computer. So short, it's 20 to 30 minutes. Um, and it's measuring all foundational math skills. So, um, align to the common core of that grade. So you can see at the beginning of the year that's what boy means beginning of year and September when we gave it. Um, green and blue are proficient. Blue is above grade level. Green is at yellow is approaching red is below. Um, so you can see, uh, our percentage there and then we gave it again
in December. The M class is a tool we use three times a year. But in between the nice thing is we can do progress monitoring. So if a teacher is teaching about fractions, um, every two weeks if she wants to give a short three to five question progress monitoring to make sure that they're making growth on that target area. Um, so we were at 62% and we're at 73% now, which is awesome. Of course, we know that our S back score was around 53, 54%. Last year and so this is great. It's really high at that 73%. But we ask ourselves, why doesn't that match? You know what, what is going differently because we feel strongly that this assessment is measuring really good skills. And there's a couple things one is stamina. We have to remember we're talking about S back is seven to eight year olds to 12 year olds. And so this is like I said a 20 to 30 minute versus the S back, which takes approximately 90 to 90 to 90 to 2 and a half depending on the style of the learning hours. So we also give I ready, which is a more aligned, more better predictor of S back because it is again a more benchmark longer test. It takes kids short of an S back, but typically an hour
between one and two hours. And we give that three times a year. So we've jumped up to 27% to 58%. Are I ready, growth? Are I ready proficiency? The last every year I've been here is either the same or our S back proficiency is either the same or a little stronger than I ready. If that makes sense, we only had five students in the school perform lower on S back than they did on I ready. So it's a very good reliable tool for us at the March score. But at December 58, if the exam is already higher than where we were in May at S back. So that makes sense. We were at 53. So this is really exciting because we still have a lot of months of instruction, of course. And then lastly, just the growth. So I ready says, OK, a kiddo score is right here in
fourth grade in September. Based on all the fourth graders, it's a nationally normed test in the country who score right here in September. If they make typical growth, they'll probably go to here. And they set that target for us. They also say, but if they're going to accelerate, close a gap or go above, they need to go to here. Based on where they start. We had 26, a quarter of our students hit their typical growth. The end of the, that they, I ready said they should make all year in December from September to December. So that was phenomenal, really.
Like it was just kids were so excited. I ready our scores. They can see and kind of start to understand various grade levels. Of course, how that, that goes. I mean, we actually have three percent of about four or five kids who hit their stretch growth for the end of the year in December, which was amazing. So I know we just talked about math, but I just want to make sure you saw it in reading just because it's that mid-year. It's even wildly more impressive in reading. And we knew that that was coming because we're in year two of the course. You're one of implementation, which is where we are in math with I ready and it's tricky. You're one is a lot of change. We are now into your two of bookworms, which we knew we would start to see that growth pay off and you can see it here. So we were at 34 percent on that. I ready proficiency and we are now already at 65 percent. Our SPAC score, if you recall, was 63 percent in May. So I mean, we are shooting and look at this over half of our students
hit their typical growth rate in December. Almost a third hit their stretch. In December. We didn't test in December last year. I am a huge proponent. I promise I will not over test for kids if I don't have to. We, the staff felt strongly. We should try a dip in December. And let's just see if it gives us information that's actionable. Rather than waiting till March. And so the jury still out. We really need to ride that year up. See if it was worth that hour or two of testing. We don't like to over test. But that's very exciting. The top one, I'm not to skip it. Sorry, is our dibble. That's our K3. That's when kids can do decoding. That's all phonics and decoding. Those kiddos don't take I ready. Of course, yeah. And so you can see smaller growth there. But growth. Typically in that K1, the most growth you see is from January to June. That's done not until the end of the year. So that is not concerning to us. It's smaller growth. But that's very standard with what we've seen until that June. So I just wanted to give you the picture of the growth. We're really excited about a lot of that progress. A lot more work to do. We don't want to sit in the 50s and 60s with proficiency by any means.
But we're starting to see that growth momentum, which means over time. We'll start to see proficiency. Thank you for a lot of time there. But I thought it was important. Any questions for me? Those are awesome. Yeah, really exciting stuff. Teachers are working like crazy. So that's really our goal 70% in both. Unproficiency in I ready and as fat. And we're, you know, that's a 20% growth in math. So, you know, is it. Are we going to hit it? I can't promise you we're going to hit it. But we're we're so we're in for it. And I think that's what's important because that's moving us forward. So. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. I always make that feel humble to do on entry slope. Yeah. Thank you. Don't do that. But I think it's it's a good. You know, it was hard. Um, okay. Um, do you have anything else to learn? I did. I'm good. I'll move on to the financial. Yeah. Great. So you have your standard information. The packet. Your summary, um, customer's signature report. You can see we are 55% expanded. So that is on target. Um, just so you know, I'm working on projections now.
Uh, and Terry's, um, going to double check those for me and give me a little a second eye on those. So we're working on that to know, uh, kind of a better sense of where it will be at the end of the year this year. Um, sorry that you have two different, um, pre-K reports by accident. And did you notice that or at least like, um, so you should just look at the, um, most recent one. And that has the updated numbers on our pre-K, um, tuition. Um, intake and our, our grants. And then you also have the monthly summary. So everything's end of January that has our expanded year to date and we've heard, uh, the balance and our, um, general fund bank balance, uh, which I already just looked out there and get out today. And we got our next payment. So that was already more of a February. Um, and I think I mentioned last time just one thing to keep in mind. We only get those town payments through April. So in April, it might look like, oh, we've got a lot of money. Oh, we're not, but it's because we don't get more money and also to keep in mind that, um, most of the teachers are on, uh, get balloon payments.
So even when I look at the 55% you know, it's, um, some teachers get a balloon payment at the, they get 27, you know, a five, five page checks at one time at the end. So they do have a big balloon payment for teachers. So nothing. You know, any questions? Do you guys know why not? It will be, like, to me have an idea on that. Yeah. I know Terry just finished something. And you've been in touch with, with all of them. So they are in the middle of finishing a few things now. And then they said they'll start from that.
So, um, I'm not so mean that it's, it would be within the month. Okay. So we could potentially anticipate that the, uh, that unexpected fund for last year will be gone from there. That's month or maybe two months. Yes. As soon as the auditor is complete, and he has a number. Then yes. That would go about. Yeah, that's a good point for new board members. That includes that bank balance includes the money that, um, Yes, in there. Yeah. Yeah. On the, um, On the, uh, cosmic venture report and then the key goes, why have we spent so much on substitutes? Or what's the status of that? Yeah. I mean, teachers subs. So we've got a balance of nine thousand. Actually, it's not so bad. Um, no, I'm looking at the, those could be IA subs. I'm sorry. There. Oh, it's structured. Yeah. Those are the pair of professional, um, subs there. So again, flu season. And I have to say like this time of year. Hopefully. Now I'm seeing fewer subs there. In, um,
December January. There are more people out with viruses and flu. And things. So hopefully we'll see that the sub line. There's a good chance of that. My group. Yeah. Well, in 95% today. Yeah. Sorry about that. Yeah. Um, as far as the repair and maintenance of 107, um, what is the quote unquote safety expenditure? Because that's from the detailed report. Yeah. So safety. I printed those out. So safety. Safety of a lot of that is sprinklers. So let me look. Southern. Your maintenance. Yeah. This sprinkler testing. Um, safety lens. Interior. Safety. Um. Nothing. So that's safety. That was a that one. The 8,000. We started 8,000. 8,000. Yeah. Um. Yeah. So we'd a service call. Kitchen suppression inspection. Emergency exit light inspection. Full functional fire alarm. Oh, so sprinklers somewhere else. So I'll get quarterly sprinkler inspection. It's also a new. That's just that. And the art and building operations. The HVAC. I expected. But I didn't know what the security was on that. Yeah. So we're watching that. We're obviously together. And you could see what I did because we have some quotes of work. So we've expanded 55 and 24s and comfort for quotes of work. That still hasn't to be done. So on that line. I'm going to be really careful to make sure as soon as we know something's going wrong. I'm going to, I'm going to come bring that money right away. Right. So like the, the cafeteria door locks. I would be within as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not in here. Yeah. So we will be over on that on that line item.
Again, that's a reason why we're doing the projections to see where it will be under and over. And we have then down the 105 on the printed and binding. Do we end up being much more? We're at 105 on that one. Yeah. So we've moved from, we had old Canon machines that are for our copy machines. And we have a new contract. But they were old. And then they weren't able to be serviced because they're so old, not making the correct parts and things. So now this year. And I think that was negotiated after the budget was put together this year. So we have a cost us, you know, like 650 to 700 in the copy leasing fees. And then another approximately 1000 a month on the actual copying fees. And the new curriculum has a lot of some of the curriculum has in these a lot of copies. So we are going to be over in that area. And I've been working with Terry and we're looking very closely at that contract. Just to double that everything and make sure they're charging us correctly. And we're analyzing that right now. Thank you so much. So that is the lease, right? It's part. So it's set. Yeah. It's a contract. It's for the equipment. It also covers the service.
Even the old, we have a few of the older printers. For example, like the printer, my office. It covers all the parts and service on some of the older ones that we did. I'm never looking at recently at other town budgets in that line out. It was about the same, but they had the word lease in there. And I was wondering if that was if we could if there was a similar type of thing. Yeah, the contract and the lease agreement and it's all around $10,000. Yeah. And the printers. Yes. It's it's comparable from what I saw in it. Thank you. Go on down. Yeah. From voting. From pain. Yeah. Very bottom of the first page. I'm just looking at where I was highlighted. The first page of the very first of the summary. Here on the summary again.
A bottle and a bottle. A bottle. I don't know. Oh, sorry. File gas. When I looked, it was broken in the details, right? A bottle gas. Yes. Yes. I'm not confusing at all. No. Yeah. I mean, protein is. No. No. Yeah. But I was. I didn't look at it in question. Why are we bottling gas? Yeah. We are bottling the oil and heating. So I don't know. I don't just. Yeah. I like the ones and they have the learning. You know, around 100% in more only 55% through the year. So that's why I was asking about those particular. Yeah. I have a follow up question. Don't as a parent maintenance because we did not adopt an increase in the budget. But we are clearly over running. Do we think that this is going to. That was why I had asked last month to look at that specifically because I was worried about it. Okay. The budget. Yeah. And I did go to Val because I did say. Val said we'd be doing a transfer now. And we talked about that that the board last year at the end of last year. New that's certain be with the budget cuts that certain line items would be running over. And we talked about it last month because we did decide because I did say,
what do you want to try to do transfers now? Make your transit right. But I do think it's. We said a better to wait as long as the board knows that where where we are. I mean, I'm hoping. What is that requirement. What is it for? What's it for? Because you did the transfer last year at the end of last year. Yeah. Do you have that? Well, I have that too. So I actually can show you. So that. Talk in a consistent area where there's. Yeah. So just so you know, I did go. To the board of finance meetings and the first meeting. There was a question about transfers. So I said I said a brand new. I'll look into those into that area for you. So what I found. You know, that. Too many. Too many papers here. I might even look up there. Yeah. So and if you scroll to the bottom a little bit. Okay. So. This was this is just the H. That line because that was the why so the question was the H. Fact line. There was. There was money transferred at the end of the year. So I said I would look into that. So we looked at so H. So it was over also when they just want to point out this. Um, this five year. Um, H. Fact inspections one dollar. So it so we were short. Um, But then the and then the board decided looked at transfers and said, Okay, where can we transfer.
Are they transferred on the board. Maybe a decision to transfer 1212,000. Which would bring that line up to 127,000. However, not all of that was spent. So the actual expenditures for that. Uh, H. Fact line item was 84,000 dollars. And then the rest of it was part of the money that went into the the surplus and the 2% Um, and then one thing I investigated talked about. So as you know, the state has new air quality requirements and schools. I think they have five years to do a school a year. We only have one school. So um, so what we did so what I wasn't here. But what you guys did is did the five year H. Fact inspection, which was required.
I'm assuming because you knew you were going to have a little bit of a surplus. So it makes sense to to get that done sooner rather than later. So big chunk of that that 84 was that 22,000 for the for the H. Um, air quality inspection. And Falcon's talk more than this. Actually, just that there was a surplus. They are those members who are new to the board. It was that at the time, when that new legislation was passed. Um, they had it attached to funding through the A S. And they said, um, that there would be grant funding for the. Which I'm first serve. Um, for any of the things that you found in your eye five year H. So a lot of small districts, especially when they're ready to get it done. Because, you know, we need the money. And unfortunately, as soon as a lot of the districts got it done, they had called the freeze.
Um, it was budgetary at the state level. They had put a freeze on that funding for anything that was found. So the good news was we got it done. The bad news is now is half the week or funding to open it up again for any of the small things that they found. Um, that they would want to be addressed. So there was nothing major that needed to be addressed. It was mandatory compliance issue, but that's why a lot of the districts did it then. Um, and we had voted on them at a meeting. So I saw the transfer. The transfer was out of salaries. You, you guys all got it. And it's first meeting I got either. They can't find the actual documentation. But the question that the board of finance member asked you was they wanted to see the details on that account. Because it was such a significant transfer. And what you said was you had to come back to the board of education and show the members.
So is this showing the members? This is showing the members. Okay. I mean, you're going to provide to the board of finance. The details they ever answered this. I'm not. You're going to provide that. The A, A board of finance member requested all the invoices. I am not going to provide all those invoices. I'm going to be very honest. I have a. Yeah, so this and then then by the end of the last meeting. That it seemed to be the consensus of the board of finance that asking for invoices was was not necessarily. Wasn't necessary not under the purview of the board of finance because the board of education. I was on a purview of the board of funds. I wouldn't say is that level of detail. So they agreed at the board of finance. That they wanted a list and my response was I would like to give that list. I wanted to bring it to the board of education first, especially since we have new members. And I feel that if there people are going to come to them and ask questions. That they should be the ones to see the information first.
So I don't want. I didn't want a board of finance member to say hey. Tell me about this and then have a board of ed members say I. I'm sorry. I've never seen that before. So I'm happy to now provide this to the board of finance members. This list. This list correct. Why do you question just then need to provide invoices? I really don't understand. I have been drawing invoices. I don't know. I know you pay them share. No. I don't trust that we only pay the invoices. They were in gasoline money. I really don't understand. I haven't gone there. What are you applying? What you did? What you did is the board. The board of finance doesn't have any authority to tell you what to spend and where to spend. There are reactive organizations. They determine the amount of money you get to spend. So it's very difficult and even I when I go to these meetings. If you don't, if you move $112,000 in salary line and put it into a parent maintenance line. You didn't go to the board of finance and say we have these repairs or these capital infrastructure issues they have to deal. So I don't have one problem and this is where I'm a problem with a whole issue of not sharing information. I have a real problem with transparency. Give anybody that wants the information the information. So they can sit there and make an educated decision. And watch what you do. What you do? I do. I do. I do. I do. Stop. Everyone stop for a minute. We need to maintain the forum.
We're talking about stuff from a budget a year ago. Those transfer requests were approved on sex 11. I have a year. I have a look at it. So they came off from just salary, but from teacher salary and from benefits. Right. And then my question for Jodi rate, which, which lets redirect this conversation back to what matters, which is, how is it going to affect the budget line that I'm for repair and maintenance on our budget that we're supposed to look at approving tonight. So can you go back to that? Well, can I answer that again? Because you made a reduction of salaries of 180. I'll give you 100,000. Let's just call around number of 100,000. You made a salary reduction with benefits. And you're asking in this budget for 360, 180,000. So it has an impact.
So last year, as you know, we talked about it at our budget presentation. I know right of where I'm from where things are on the agenda. I apologize, but one example of what we spoke about was when we got the mental health grant last year, which is going this year. That actually made a salary for the psychologist. When the monies are available during the course of the year that we don't know are going to be available prior to we do a budget. And it can offset a salary we do. We're responsible with those grants. And so it is very common at the end of a year for a school district, not in a disability because it's different. It's very common at the end of a school year if a grant comes up during the course of the year. And they say they're paying for something that you will have surplus at the end of the year a few years ago. There was a right to re-grant that only covered curriculum. That right to re-grant covered curriculum and districts while across the state of Connecticut that had budgeted for their curriculum. Found themselves at the end of the year as large surplus is incorrect. If we were to get a grant for HVAC, that would give us a surplus in that line. In this case, the grants that were available to us last year gave us a surplus in the line item for salaries. In the benefit line item, as you know, we plan according to the information that we know at the start of the year. If it changes, we could go over or under. When we go over, maybe a family plan was added for somebody, maybe a baby was born, maybe a spouse, somebody got married, or maybe someone went off of our insurance.
So if there's a surplus at the end of the year, it would be changes that occurred during the course of that year. That is very common with school budgets because we never know at the start of the year. In my presentation, I mentioned that we knew about IDA grants for next year. We know about title grants. At this point there are no other grants available for us. If that could change dramatically in the next six or eight months. If it does, we put it back into what can we put back into, but they all don't allow that. If it can't be put back into the general fund and it's something else, then we pay for the something else with it. Have you provided to the board, because I haven't seen it, but if you're privy to the board, a summary of the grants on an annual basis as to here's where I expect my grants to be.
Here's where I get them monthly. They get a lot of things. We're all volunteers and unless we're going to sit there and go do mass on a high level, like an accounting at forensic account. It's very difficult to get that information out of your report. I understand I looked at Jodi last month and I appreciated that you put the grant information in. That's not from the prior year because what's happening in my head is you have grants. Yes. Like the psychologist. You had a grant for the psychologist. And what's occurring now within this budget is that grant is gone. But the psychologist costs is not. Right. So we're asking for more. So you have to explain it in a very easy way for us volunteers to really get it. I can tell for all of them. We're off topic right now. We're in the financial section of the report. We're not on the budget for this year. The question that's pertinent. The information that's off there right now is what are the expenses that we incurred in that budget year that may that line a guide and go off by eighty four thousand dollars. And are they things that we are going to incur in this coming budget that we need to look at adding into the line item for repair and maintenance?
What I can say now is what I think what I've said before is we need to do and deep analysis of our HVAC system and get people into evaluate it and get quotes and we feel we can get through. And we're hoping to validate about this. We feel we're fine for another eighteen months twenty four months. But I think let's just like your own burner and stuff in your in your home as things keep going wrong. We're fixing it up we're fixing it now. This is a huge building. It's a really big building. So I think we aren't are looking at saying, okay, we're at the point where we need to really look at all of these repairs and say, okay, what is our plan? We have a capital that was working on a capital plan. It all um, it all ties together. So I think I think we could all agree that. I don't think any of us want to be spending seventy five thousand dollars a year on repairs and certainly the HVAC. So we don't have two budgets. Most districts do. Most districts have an operational budget and they have a capital budget. So when you're looking at the operational expenses,
you're normally not looking at a child. It doesn't exist in their operational for service calls and things of this nature. It exists in their capital. We don't currently have one. We have not had one up until this point. So you put on a line. If you put a line item on the last budget of fifteen thousand dollars for repairs and maintenance for HVAC. That serves contracts. That's the service contract. I think it's seven feet. Actually everything in the building. How are we looks like we did good with technology repair maintenance. Yeah, fifty thousand dollars in there and we haven't. We needed to use it and set. Send a service contract for technology in the building. We contract to East. Because we do not have an IT full time person here. So, on EastCon provides. It's a two half days a week of service. That's the time contract that we have. East time which is our best. So when do we have to pay that? Is it just on the summer report. It's there's nothing in comfort under. Yeah, 430 to. I take a look at that one to see if those are contracts that we paid. There is one of the contracts I believe Terry up to investigate. We do pay at the end of the year. I think so that it could be that one. I will investigate that line item. So, so I guess from from the repair and maintenance, right? Not just keeping herping on it, but I'm still stuck on it.
I was stuck on it last month. The next year's budget it sounds like. My question is based on last year based on where we currently are, which is at a hundred and seven percent of that area. Do we need to increase that line item in the budget for where currently stands. Well, I'm going to be honest, I don't know. I mean, we're we're being conservative and using rolling over, using the same amount. You know, also, these are just my conversations with Terry that. If something has been neglected and you've had a lot of years of. Negatives that things necessarily things didn't necessarily get. And I think what you might be seeing now and it's, you know, I'm new. What you might be seeing now is some years of neglect that are catching up. And things haven't been serviced properly. Well, then they have been service properly. I think what Kate is referring to is, should we be worried enough to put extra in for the what ifs. That's what I'm going to hear as we can. And what do they think? Well, actually, right in for the what ifs. It's got to come from someplace else. And so if you notice up there, you'll see a service call for something. We had the expansion tank replacement. That was the expansion thing. That's what I'm wondering. Because to me, and that expansion tank repair is ungodly expensive.
To replace a, I have four sitting on my desk and my other office. And they are all at 47 or high. So you have four quotes, you're saying correct. And you have another expansion. And I'm saying my other office, so I know that that 4700 is not exorbitant for a replacement of an expansion tank. I'm 100% sure of that. And what is the 22,000. Boy look. That's on the fact, inspection. That was a mandatory. Cost. $20,000. $20,000. $0.8,000. $0.8,000. And you're basically telling the board of finance that cannot see any of the details. The board of finance line will see any expenditures and build it. The board of finance has to determine the next fiscal years budget. The only way that they can evaluate the only way to do their job is to look backwards. That's it. What is it that they have to decide on online items. They have no determination in line. That doesn't happen. That's not the issue. It's not about the. The items are not going to tell you how to spend the money. The only thing they can do is tell you how much money you have to spend.
And if they can't look backwards, if you refuse to give them the details, they can't really do their job. Did they want the crown receipts too? I mean, like, well, deep down. I think they actually want. They need to move on right now. They want. Yeah. That's what they're getting. Yeah. My figure question was. Our current budget has $75,000 in it for this area. We're a hundred and seven percent expanded on $75,000. Our budget for next year has 78,500 dollars in this area. Is that a lot of money? Our budget will be forward. It has no what ifs. That. And has everything we need. There are no what ifs in there. So it's what you want. No, it's what we need. There are no. We want such. They are what we need. Why don't you give them their receipts. They're just looking for those lines on the services, right? They're just that line. They are that list of the. Maybe they just want to see the receipts just to make them feel better. Why won't you give them to them? Marcie, what is a receipt? Gonna do it respectfully. Okay. Let's see. I'll do it. Can you do it? Look at it and wonder. How do you spend that much money on certain things? And maybe it would just help them to know it. So let's start. Let's start with the list. Yeah. What we all just looked at. I thought we can understand what that money was spent on. Right. We knew what it was spent on last. May when we approved budgetary transfers.
So this is just rehashing to try to make sure to budget is correct. May. Oh, I thought this was rehashing because that's really. Jimmy and promise that she had to come to the for. Example of education before she provided even that level of information, to the Board of Finance. I believe that's correct. That's correct. I'm asking that. That's what I was about. Well, also because I specifically asked about this line, I got lots more fun. But for different reasons, other than what we need to see individual receipts that have written that. Okay. We're all those same company I wanted, but I just wanted. We're all those same company, all those same bills. there's. Does anyone have other questions on the finance report of the current year effort in for concerns with question for journey? I know it's ELA set for an English language arts and looks like we haven't spent much for two line items. I just want to honor with that. Why that would be both. Yeah, so we'll order those in the spring for next week. Okay. That's going to be true for most of the things that are set files. They'll end up, they'll happen at the end of the year. I'm really interesting. Yeah. Okay. Does anyone have any of these on the court? No, no. Okay. Okay. So we're going to move on to A A A or whenever E A that I got it. So I'd like to make a motion to allow the principal on the superintendent to work with the representative from pool to do a basic fit and administrative lead to allow some of the usage of the bill and for that program. All set of
the motion. Thank you. I have a question. So if we are going to have, they wouldn't use that portion of the bill. I know exactly. I'm just going to say this is just something that they make sure every year that the Board of Education votes for the use of the bill. Because pool is technically like an outside agency. It's not part of Board of Education. So you do believe that. In like in past years, if there's something going on in another part of the bill, they wouldn't use that. So they could use the jam. They could use the cafeteria. They could use other sections. And I do know that pool has some late tents that they use outside. So in fact, last year, they early in the report, they did actually do their check-in outside as well. So that's a great question. But yes, we've already said that they will just be provided the emphasis space. And that's why they need to work with Taylor to schedule that. Yeah, that whole section of the bill would need to be closed.
Correct. That was my only thing to be up there. What section of the building? If we're doing a bathroom repair project, the whole section of the building where the those bathrooms are would need to be closed. So they wouldn't use it for the summer. Right. That's what you're going to do. Yeah, that's what you're going to do. Clear it for me. Yeah. I did not understand that. Thank you. On just the work clear on location. When you go in upstairs, like for the main office is, it's the wing of the school. If you facing the front office, like walking in, if you turn right, that whole section. Does anyone have other questions about the school? Where's the new cool room? Actually, it's not upstairs. Where's the right area? Right area? Okay, it's got a safe. So I didn't know that. It's in the corner. Should I do it? I mean, you saw a hole. But actually, the front hole, you're not allowed to walk in here. You have to wait out in the bridge of the freezing cold outside the corner child. Maybe from like 10 minutes later, if you're in my child, it's really enjoyable. Anyway, I'm going to be meeting my whole been along. Yeah, I did make a motion. I said, can you? And you're talking to the police?
How do you go in the boat? Or does anyone have further discussion about that? Okay. All in favor of allowing the principal and the superintendent to work with cool to do summer usage, as they see fit. I'm going to go in. I, I, I, I, anyone opposed? Thanks. We're seven zero zero. Okay. We'll move on to discussion of the budget. Okay. So I'll give you my ahead of time stuff. I don't get everybody right there at the original presentation. So I won't do the whole presentation. I'll do the highlights. And then Taylor, I do have that one thing that we could put out there for our spectator. The short version of that snowy Monday night that we had to have the bathroom zoom. The short version was that the 2627 school year, we pay six. So I'll have two hundred students. In the building, we'll have 270. So this budget reflects 35s who rose with facilities and the students, the student population. We are growing. I did refer back to the new POCD that's in draft form on the town side that plan of conservation and development for 2026 to 2036. Where they spoke about the vision and vision of the town and the vision mission of the town being that we want to make sure that we provide economic housing, educational, recreational,
civic opportunities. We did talk about enrollments reports and referenced the fact that in recent years we have had probably the highest largest classes that we've had and we went through the enrollment summary to show that of the number of times that we had 22 or more students. They were all within the past six years. Taylor actually when they were to show us tonight, some of the positive results of the choice that we made as a board in myself and my recommendation to make sure that great board and grade five were reasonable this year. And we've mentioned in last year that we should have done four or five and six, but we knew that that was going to be huge. And so we did four and five. And so we did have a year's notice that we were doing six this year and that would keep them where they needed to be. We had also reviewed the for people's spending. In our dirt, there are 30 towns in Durk C. We had the only one that's from 2023. Actually went down in our spending and that we are number 17 down in the list of for people's spending. Then I showed you what you're looking at up there on the left-hand side. You guys haven't in front of you. Everybody here in the room, but it's up there.
A fair amount of kind of how we wound up in a year where we're looking at 11% or looking at 499 goes back to years past. If you look there in the bold, I just bolded 2015 and 2025 because that's a decade right there. And you can see that in that decade we went 4.32 to what we have now, just 4.56. And that's a decade where you're only looking at the total increase in the budget of $204,000. That's unheard of. In 10 years for a budget number to only have been increased. While the reasons why you could see there, we had a large number of years where it was huge gouging reductions. The end is coming down to that margin. Thank you. So if you noticed on that chart, you'll see that there was about $418,000 in the course of that time
period there that was reduced. It looks like it's reduced by 10%. Yeah, it was a huge significant level to take that $4.80. Yeah, I mean, it was huge. It was definitely now I arrived here in 2020. The budget that had just passed for the year that I arrived to here was that negative 4% that minus 162,000. And then from there down for the budgets, since six years I've been here that we've written together. On the right hand side, you're looking at the same years, and this is student enrollment. And you'll see that our current enrollment at two 60 is fairly equal to about where we were a decade ago. And that includes Krita. That number right there is the whole school. We're going to get to you. Yeah, yeah, it does. So those numbers are all here. Yes, it does. So if you love, you'll notice that we've had and this is in the plan of conservation and development. We saw a 26% increase. And you'll notice
with these numbers here that our student enrollment has gone up significantly in the past five years. And the thing is is, God, you're going to build you up. Thank you. And the thing is, is that there's been a lot of misinformation. There are a lot of people that do look at these budgets year after year, and they are under the assumption that in the past decade, our budget has gone up. And that's just misinformation in terms of the percentage of growth over the last decade. The numbers are there. It's $244,000 difference from a decade ago. The other misinformation is that it's only preschool that has grown. These are preschool numbers. And you'll notice there's one year there, even from 2020 to 2021, where we had a loss of two kids and three schools. So the growth completely of the 20 plus kids then. There was 18 that year in K6, and we lost two in preschool. You'll notice now that it's about a 50 50 split in terms of the 86 87 kids that are new to and over about half of them are K6. And the other half are as a result of their school. So it just isn't true that they're all preschool. We don't have that many preschoolers say so. Now the other thing to consider is, there are a few people then that say, well, if they lost all the money over those years, where it was read on the top teller, those years that $418,000, then they must not have needed it. And that's just not an accurate depiction. If you look at the bottom, because when I got here, I thought, okay, we're we're these cuts coming from. What if they
cut and when you look back, you see they have cuts during the times when they had that huge significant gouge of $418,000. They cut a reading support person as a student count went down. They cut assist at principal. They cut a classroom teacher. They cut that eye to a team manager. They reduced the business manager from full time to part time. They reduced the speech and language. They reduced the librarian. They reduced the art teacher. They reduced the Spanish teacher. They reduced custodian. So during that time period that that money was cuts. They were reducing the human's capital, the amount that we have for staff here in every area. There wasn't no Spanish teacher or my older son was here. We as well as she had retired. We for third grade. She had retired. Yeah, there were definitely years that he did not have Spanish at all. He might not have, especially the band back then, because they did reduce down means significantly. So, so what it equal to in that time period was a loss of six and a half full time personnel. That's
a lot. It wasn't coming back because even when, if you can slide up just a little bit now telling people at home could see it. Even when some of that money came back in the small doses that we were getting from, we didn't get an increase at all in 21. So we were already behind me at all then. Staff had been reduced as low as it could possibly go. And in 2021, when we were planning the budget for the following year, we were talking about the increases to the benefits and to the salary line item. That's really all. That was to make sure we could pay the increase to the bills. It wasn't until last year when we were solidly at 240 there and we had gone up by quite a bit. We gone up by over 60 kids that we then brought a budget to you guys and said, in looking at this, we must have. We cannot have those class sizes of the 22 to 28 anymore. And thank you because the board did a great. And we had the eight and a half percent budget last year. We knew going into the budget season that that was, they weren't wants, they were needs. That last year when we presented that budget that we needed the eight and a half percent. We did not get the eight and a half percent. We got five percent. So that meant that we were starting this year off. We had to have those teachers. So we hired those teachers. But we knew that we were starting this year off already in a deficit by three and a half percent. You guys said already decided at the end of last year when we did
have a budget that passed that five percent instead of eight and a half that we would have to deplete the non-obsing account this year to pay for that difference of the three and a half percent. And so in putting a budget together this year with just the needed expenditures. As we mentioned before, even with HAC, there's no what ifs. There's no let's put in a contingency in there for something that's not an expected expenditure. Our budget is anticipated expenditures only. That's what's in there. There's there's no fluff in there. It's anticipated expenditures. It's what we know. We have to pay for next year and that's what's in there. And yes, it does include the sixth grade teacher. And so with that in there, that's the 499. 11 Hertz, I know 11 Hertz, but it is because of those areas where we had such a loss all of those years in a row. And I know
that that's a tough ass. But this town, not only in their plan of conservation and development, but in the six years that I've been here, I'm countless board of finance meetings and board of select meetings. That dedication to the town has been there. I've heard it. I've heard that once there was the town administrator that started in 2017 that there was a level of commitment that was made to the town to the roads. I hear that all the time where everybody says the roads are way better now than they were ten years ago. Why? Because there was a dedication that was made and a commitment that was made to the roads. I hear people all the time talk about how much better the trees are. There was a dedication and a commitment to that. We are there's now a public work structure. And we all know how hard a job it is for public works. There was a dedication to that. There was a dedication to making sure that the trucks were fixed to the fire department
to making sure the seniors and the senior center. I know the town understands that there has to be a level of commitment. I'm just here to say that it's our turn this year. All of that that happened as a result. It's now that we're back up there. It's time for us to make sure that we give that level of commitment. That we make sure that's what is needed. That what's wanted, what's needed is taken care of and you heard the teachers tonight. And they have been great. We have the best teachers everywhere. And anywhere. We do. And so we have a budget. I love teachers. My likes would teach her. And I have to ask a question now. You're saying next year's number is 200. That's your students and not pre-guided. Correct. 200. So you're going to go up eight students. We anticipate that. Based on the numbers that you're looking at on here on the top there. You see, there were 18 students and 21, five students and 22, eight students and 23, 34 students and 20. So if we look at the K6, yes, we anticipate. So your increase was one student in 2023, 10 students in 2024, 11 students this year in eight next year. What do I know? I have the numbers. I went through
and I tried to do this to understand the increase because I don't think everybody on its board understands my problem that I have my biggest issue with in the budget. And with this boundary, honestly, is the pre-K. And I do focus on the pre-K because the pre-K is the pre-K mandated. It was mandated two years ago or year ago. Is it mandated right now? Is it mandated that we provide pre-K education? Even though I believe in it, I'm asking you, mandated. It is mandated. That's children with means with special needs. Correct. We have to be educated in preschool. So yes, it is mandated that we have preschool. I don't know who is running math. Can you put back up her the set? That's what we just have? Yes. Right. And can you go down to the bottom of that boundary? And just so I get this, can you explain to everybody on the board before I get into a pre-K minimum budget requirement? Yes, please. Minimal budget requirement is the state singing that K-12, a town has a minimum budget responsibility. And the state takes ECS formulas because the town receives $2 million to educate K-12 students. They take that and a bunch of other things in a formula and they come up with what your town's minimum budget requirement is. Yes. So if you explain the minimum budget requirements, it's basically saying that once a budget line is set, you can't decrease from that based on certain criteria is that accurate? It is accurate.
That's a generalization. So yes, that's true. Because I went to an NBR seminar ram a few years ago when we were unsure. We were trying to understand NBR requirements. And Taylor, where does the school sit in state rankings? Because I know that has more than- Or do you mean in state rankings? In state rankings, if you're in the top 10%, they don't rank the LMS. Yes, we don't get ranked. If you don't, if you don't rank, they get in 2019. No, they don't rank down my principles. Okay. So MMR, MMR does have an impact on us as a town, as a total town, in that the higher we go, the less room we have to decrease, just asking. I'm just trying to get this all out for I don't think I understand your questions. So your state, you don't want to give them anything. I know me because if you do, next year you'll have to continue to give them what they need. I'm just asking you, I'm asking you a question that the number cannot be decreased. No, if you have a decrease in an enrollment, that's right. That's right. That's an enrollment. That's a qualifying example. Yes. That's a qualifying example. Yeah, it's a qualifying exception. So if we can go and just go back to your pre-K, and I've got to ask something. Not part of MBR. I have a question. I've been not part of MBR one second. So the increases on an annual basis for pre-K
that you had were 5, 9, 17, and 7. So we've escalated our pre-K, the pre-K is escalated significant. And I've always asked you, and I've asked you this multiple times. You told me that the pre-K would not cost the town any money. Yes, it was cost neutral. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, I'm not, can I finish? Yeah. What I've said to you is there's no line item in the budget. I wouldn't add a line item in the budget. That's those expenses that are pre-K only expenses are expenses that are paid by a grant or we have two grants actually, or tuition. That if somebody attacks payer, no, hang up, if a taxpayer in this town says, M.I. paying for people to put their kids in free school. No, the families that utilize free school are paying tuition for their child to come to free school. Nobody else is paying for that. Unless there's a lot of left- There's special education. And I have no problem, but are you covering as this board got an analysis that the pre-K?
We have because for years, there was an increase. Are covering all of the costs of the teachers, the parents, and the benefits, they're a part of that. You ask me that all of the time, we're not discussing benefits again. You keep putting that in there. There is no line item in this budget for free school. You get the financial every month report that says there's an anticipated $247,000 that comes in intuition. We also receive $123,000 in what's now federal early start and $65,000 from the smart start. All of those combined pay those eight salads. All of the eight salads? Yes. 100% of the eight salads are cut on the nut that is on there every month. It is receiving a lot of stir being to me that all we ever wanted to do is to talk about free school, what it's not a wide item. That's a slice. Every single month. Okay, can I ask a question? Because this is now been a top of the conversation for several years. And it's we're literally talking about a budget that this is not in. Right? It's not part of it. So it shouldn't even be part of our budgetary discussion right now because it's not in the budget. So not all of this information is part of our budget. We want
to put free school into the budget. Right? Put in all of the costs, all of the expenditures, all of the money that we received for free school. I personally have a couple of copies. So copies of what? Because I'm getting this question asked of me a lot of how to free school because the taxpayers are concerned that the tax, the enrollment for free school has gone up so much that it's actually one-third of the student population. So I know every year. So Marcio, where are the going? When you're active on there and I've asked about honestly to do this as an actual monetary analysis, the cost for us to provide special education to the students who qualify for it that are in the free school. If we only provided their special education costs and we did not have free school classrooms for them. The cost of those services, you know, they can see. I'm not yelling. I'm trying to, I'm far away from the microphone. So if people online can hear, would exceed the cost of what we currently don't have in the budget because it's covered by grant. It's safe in this money. It is. Okay. So if you go through that and you know because I'm never going to get all my information unless it's about benefits though. If you average the number of staff in this this whole building and divide it by the number staff with all of the benefits and added up you still are only going to get like $30,000. That's a great point. So I don't understand why. I don't know. I'm not. I've done this. I'm after the concept of you have a
you're having free K that has certain levels of income that can come into it. It's, it's, it's grants, it's tuition. Right. And what I'm asking the board, have you ever seen an analysis that the grants and tuition equal the teachers and the pairs. And if not, you increase tuition. It's not a really hard concept. And they have, yes, it's already now. We've seen one of the 30 to say they down and then and $35 extra over the cost of those salary. The salary is a little just the salary. Correct. And we just told you. So with benefits you're like maybe $30,000. Not on a 30. Yeah. So you're insurance and you're in our money car. I just hit the math. I would just love to see it in an analysis. Right. Well, you were part of the school ready to talk to me about it. I never came to one of the meetings. You never invited me to any of those. Yeah, that's not true. Why did you mock me like that? You weren't invited. Yeah. And I did not, I did not attend. Right. So taking this time now. Yeah. When you had 10 years of being invited to meetings to go to and you did it. I haven't been first in 10 years. But that's okay. I, I, I, I should have been coming for more of them. But you know, it was a whole time. You know, listen, we are here because the budget is going to increase in your telling, you're telling the town, you're telling the town that, that, that, that they, K through six
populations got to increase by eight students. Probably based on the trends. That's what you said, eight students. And the increase is how much? The increase of what? The total budget increases how much? For those eight students? No, you're whole budget. For the, everything is $499. $499,000. And we're increasing the student population K through six by eight students. But that's how long that's. But we have grants that are going away that are clear. Then you have to cut the expenses that relate to the grants. That's how we're saying. I mean, there's no way what it's like. You're not seeing about trying to, you're talking about what, would you like to get rid of the school psychologists? That's not what you're listening. I mean, here's the point. Each of you need to know this. Yes, going to be. We have had so many analyses of pre-K in large part because of the separation of you and a number of members of this community on 3K. It is really gotten out of hand. How much you guys have focused in on 3K given that it's not even in our budget. So let me tell you this. We had an analysis done by Holly Mayerano, our head of special education. We had an analysis done. You can look back in the minutes of how much it would cost. This is already been
excuse me, Marcy. I just want to acknowledge it would be cost to take care of all of the needs of everyone that we are required to provide for them. Well, statutory special needs, right? That exceeded the amount that we have for our pre-K. So if we have to bring in and we also have it within our school to be able to provide it. That will also have to potentially be able to go and provide our special needs and students within home care. So I just, um, um, absolutely flabbergasted. Thank you as an accountant. None of them will get them in numbers and figure out. Yes, we have never even presented those costs to the public. Yes, we are happy to be done. They were presented in a board if they were done more than one board of education meeting, which you were not in attendance at. Okay. So you don't know. And they're in the minutes. Yeah. They're recording them. Yes. Yes. Yes. There is there is there a summary that you can provide. What they to me or the community, just to sit there and explain this in a very simple page showed you and should be able to do it. No problem. Here are the grants related to this.
Here is the real tuition I asked. I came to a meeting I asked for the tuition. We haven't even got to out of town residents and students that are participating in these programs. So out of this number, out of this number, $99,000,000 are free school expenses, right? None of the increases. That is included or you consider to be the increase is related to preschool. Okay. Zero. I will say again because we are on record. Zero dollars of the $499,000 is an increased cost because of preschool. Okay. Zero. Okay. And I will say can I have one more second please because I don't like to raise my voice. But my problem, Jeff, is I like to consider myself an expert in my field.
I have 30 plus years of experience as the teacher, as an administrator, and as the superintendent. Have you ever worked in a school before Jeff? No. So I mean no disrespect because I'm certain that you are very good at your job. But for six years, all I get is a challenge that I'm not good at mine and you do it publicly. And this is our board of ed meeting that you are on as an ex-official and I have no problem with that. But for six years you've questioned every single time my self is an expert, the Board of Education, a teacher, the principal, and it really is very difficult. It's very difficult. I assure you that I am not asking for $499,000 for preschool. There are no new increases related to preschool. Valerie I can just start it to attend Board of Education meetings in October. You can watch the recordings for the last three or four years. No, no, don't do it. Don't talk. Full. No, it doesn't happen. So that's fine. Sorry. That was pretty cool. You need to move on. Can I move on to the superintendent, uh, increase? In her salary, please? Sure. The lower pay superintendent in the stable. Well, yeah, well, we're in a bunch of crumbles. Absolutely. Yeah, so I just wanted to make sure that we all knew where we were Jeanne because we were so far a bunch of we're talking about the budget. Yeah, so let's okay
So you guys have put in an increase That's perfect Have you approved for contract? Yes, yes, I was shown. Yes, yeah, when was it improved um it was approved when we gave her An increase in salary. Why was this a hero? They met knocked over. Yep, so I probably signed that And I'm no first one. No, you did the first meeting that I was here was knocked over Did you do it in did you do it in executive session? Yes, we did you voted in executive session Okay, please provide me the minutes where that was approved because it's not trying the October meeting And I understand K. When I understand everything have to be a fight. Yeah, I don't know why doesn't it have to be a fight
No, can I tell you can I tell you what I found today because because because I knew Marcy once again I knew Marcy sat there requested the contract. She wasn't provided the contract. Yeah, I'm in I'm in person Let me let me say so. I'm a new board member I'm looking at the budget and I see that Valerie is gaining an 11% increase and I want it to know So I love to see if the Public public document should be publicly on a website somewhere and I didn't find it. So I asked for the contract And I was told that I had to meet Valerie in person and look at it over her shoulder In private now I think it's inappropriate for our superintendent to try to meet with people Probably you're bored and remind my board member. So why I don't appropriate. I don't think it's appropriate because There's a lot of Intimidation going on and it's and it's going on right now So That's so I don't want to say I don't want to be disrespected and I think it was it should have been a five minute deal Ask the contract. Here you go Bing bang boom done but instead it was Conversations emails back and forth back and forth. Tell me I had to come in. I wanted to meet with Valerie townhall. She wouldn't do that So So I finally said why did you want to meet with the superintendent at the town hall? I don't not want to meet with her privately. I'm sorry
So that's a problem which we're gonna talk about in a deputy to session nice. So can I you're on the school when I go back to my Yeah, so this contract that Marcy was asking was not posted anywhere and I have another Do you guys have a fireproof safe in the school? What does that have to do with anything because there's a statute staying that you have to sit there and put all contracts in the fire and proofs Stay if that's why it should be in the town clerk's office So I just wanted to know if you had a fireproof state. Okay. Hang on. Yeah. Yes, okay Carol is on the clock and I'm gonna ask I know it's at a border, but I
Carol can you on mute yourself and say yes, so we know you're here You're gonna have to unmute her because you had to mute her earlier so she can't I don't think she can on the other stuff Carol it doesn't matter. There's a statue here Carol was my contractor in the last three years provided to you when you were the town clerk It's a matter if yes, yeah, that's in the down there because you're referring if the town if the town's responsibility to post it somewhere They want to it's posted on the school board website. It was it wasn't when was it was it wasn't posted one day was posted recently this week Yes, so that you could sit there and say there was posted to no That's not why okay, because you post it on trying to talk She's trying to talk so someone muted her on this and she can just mute again. Just to it. Oh, there's two seven scene. Yes. Well, there we go, Arianna She said it's not like But your question about Valor's contract is about why there's an increase. No, no. I know I got some questions I was about the increase because it's excessive, but I have a question when you voted and you're telling me you voted in executive session because we didn't It is not in your vote. It's not in your minutes. Yes, it is if the vote's not there. What they maybe they didn't vote when they came out your group It is I chose not to participate Out of the door if you voted it is not in your minutes. Now. I got to ask for is you signed this December 10. This was done in October, right? Why are you doing it on October? Because we had an election in November
Why are we doing it now because because it was that to the side or it was within six models. I expiration No, it's not this is a July first house, right? That's not six months. Well close to six months And when you are planning a budget Jeff. Yeah, you need to know what number you're planning for you know It would be great if the public could have saw this in a timely fashion Jeff affordable Jeff communicating in a meeting of hope and meeting Jeff At this meeting we shouldn't be arguing about this, but not a single one is in the public eye on the town side The town administrators is not posted. Well, the anybody at town hall is not posted. We will make sure they're not so open I need to stop right now. We need to try to move on from this. Okay. Do you have a question in Much of a raise at point six of a full-time To try to get her in line with a majority of the towns that are Relatively close to us. Yeah, because the town administrator salary was 102. That's reasonable, right? It was
And you are going to be hiring a town administrator now. I'm sure it's probably the same thing for four days Well, let's get a number and it is just to give you examples because you guys are acting If you were the superintendent in Hebrew, you had the same end of the night using the same formula for a percent of time First allering would be roughly 125,000 right in commentary would be 153,000 in Lebanon and be 117,000 And how many building students and everything else which are three days in Salem right Salem is tiny Salem's the same as that right in Salem and be a hundred and six thousand So we did all this cost of theirs and yeah, we didn't relish him all your places in our area And you share it all send that to me. I think it part of it. No, no, I'm not trying to go She's not an open discussion. I don't know it's like the town administrators salaries not in discussion and who determines that The board is what correct and your determines the salary of the superintendent Board of Education. Okay, and did we do our job you determine that and open meeting for the town administrator? We have it every year. We put it right in front of our wall wall The discussion in open meeting in front of the public Okay, we don't go in executive session either we and we didn't open
Okay, I like it. No, I think it's just like to see you and if not I remember we'll have a vote if we'll go to the court if anyone has to have a vote in public Okay, the whole point in that kind of everything that's going to be biased until July Why did it why didn't you not so far see if it could have been asked for our seal them the first request was made And um again, we did have conversation with one another via email and I said to you You actually asked for that and an evaluation and I said to you a money and we'll sit and have a chat. No problem Because I can explain to you what's ever in the it is appropriate for the board of education In members and the superintendent sits and meets You said no You didn't think it was worthwhile to meet me. No, I didn't say those words, but I said oh, they were close And you said for I heard it's not worth it You didn't want to come in that was where your words was so I then said to you We are having our meeting the following Monday on the following Monday. I would be happy to give you a copy
We didn't meet person I then said to you that if you came in again the next day to the school to pick it up And you said why do I have to come in? Okay, and we don't need to waste time But I'm telling you it's not should go on. It's not showing after it for you to say every few is to give it to you That wasn't you know I said do you know two years ago? We're only to other time. I came to a board of education meeting really Was to Express my discomfort over the bullying that I really considered that was going on at this board Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's because in this truth isn't sure and I really do think that this board should sit there and look Some of the emails and I do believe that some of the the resignations from this board should be looked at Just telling you and I'm I'm talking to you I hear you loud and fear Okay, I got it Anything else on the current budget that we're supposed to pass tonight or make amendments to to pass tonight Do you have more questions already? I just sit there and tell you for the increase of $500,000 for eight students an increase of eight students is Excessant and I don't I say that with with all of those persons any regard as to where those numbers I was telling you that Telling you that as so do you disagree the way me to do six great teacher? Do I disagree with no because I never did yeah That is a list of where you're coming from never coming to your board
We want to tell you how to educate children. That's not why I'm here. I'm here to represent the town Okay, and the town interest is a financial and so you ask and you call us Okay, but let me talk We also have an obligation to represent your town Graph okay, so when we analyze a budget We not only have to look out for our priority which is educating our students Which is a constitutional and statutory requirement We also have an obligation to look out for the interest of the town and take that into account You're way of talking about us and to us has been so disrespectful in front of the board of selectman and the board of finance That I was going to attend your meeting on Monday and couldn't because I had to go sit Chiver with the friend who had lost his mother So if we want to talk about bullying Jeff I'll get into that, but not right now What I want to ask you is as an ex officio member on the board of education Where would you cut the budget? It's a very difficult thing to sit there and cut. I totally get it I do understand I know So I ask what you want I sit there. I would tell you what my recommendation would be Yeah, I would like all of the information to understand the tuition collected all of it in a very simple manner tuition grants because Shannon if you lost grants if you lost grants
Yeah, yeah, you have to You know Recommendation then if I'm understanding you correctly because we've said it twice now is that we should cut the school Psychologist because we've asked that for if that is never your thing that you need to have happened That is one of the choices in this board we need to make do you think you're going to or Oh, yeah That's what every other board to say don't know me It's what ever a third floor does it you I am what is actually you know when I am I'm an ex I'll just try to budget. I do finding what is this What does this type how does do? You tell me you're the expert so how do you know you say that out or at least when she explained her budget I was on the zoom fault, but when she explained the budget she said that it provides the mandatory testing. Yes, the state requires So all the things but but how can you propose it cut to something when you don't even know whether it can be cut or not No, I made it out board when I was going to find a budget to do I
I made my analogy when I proposed the budget I don't pretend to be Town administrator material but to a person who doesn't know we have 30 streets and we have Five guys that take care of the streets to a lay person those numbers are awful Why do we not only have three people in public works and age take care of ten streets? There's a lot. I don't know Jeff, but it would be remiss if I go to a board of Selectman budget meeting and say you need to cut down to three guys. I don't know what I'm talking about So it would be an appropriate of me to go say what's the board of finance supposed to do Jeff? You can't have five guys you have to have three That would be inappropriate. I'm not educated enough to know what they do Valerie in the last two years Right We've increased 17 students You're like a few students. Why so folks don't do it because I have to be what else can I be? No, there are some expenses associated with the building that I've nothing to do with whether we go up three
In the eight kids are of your entire increase in your tire and increase as I look at it It is in your line item related to sound is perhaps because whether there is you know 29 children in the Class 26 children in the class, there's a teacher. That was a cost. It is very difficult and I get it. Your job is difficult When my wife served on this board I know it's difficult. It's not easy, but what you're asking for What you've asked for is basically you know $500,000 increase in this current here. You got up they increased last year 4% you know what was that? 200,000 you know I my numbers off a little bit but you got an increase of last year right 2017 1600 10 to 600 700,000 dollars over two years No, that's what's happening? No, what is that been a hundred thousand dollars? Yeah, you're asking for a 500,000 dollar increase with this budget But but Jeff, when we look at the increase you have to also consider everything else that's paid for besides the eight students. You you want to go back to a student. I want to say eight students equals the increase is 500,000 that just isn't the case. Especially not first of all. If that was the case
I mean we have 129 kids that attend ram from from the town of of Piano for you. So you're going to take and divide that by the number of kids. That is a difficult. It's a silly ask me saying we have we have 30 streets. We have an increased streets. Why do we need more money? We've had 30 streets. Exactly. So hold on I just need to ask because I've asked before you're you're an accountant, right? You've had all this information. You were able to attend a budget meeting if you chose to you know we're all this was explained. You have all the information in front of you where do you believe we can cut from the recommendation of the superintendent to meet the needs of the students in the school for this next budget year Jeff. You sure? Yes sir. If I sat there and went through with you and I said I would make salary reductions. That's right. Somewhere along the line because that's where most of your increases are. What would happen to you as a board if you said you had to live with the current budget that you'd have currently. What would you do? We couldn't. You would have to. That's how you guys have already made a contractual obligation to increase teachers salaries by about 3% which this average, excuse me more. The board does the contracts with the
teachers. We already have. That's what I'm saying. It's just good. It's I dream that you're after you're after here. These are contractual obligations. They are. What I just realized is that these are contracts that the board negotiates with the teachers. So. Right. And those raises. Yeah, and are really pretty crazy. These raises are appropriate for all of those teachers. Great. It's $60,000 increase on your current salaries. And the benefits are increasing by 60%. Okay. We should be per cent. $50,000. I'm joking. I am asking you. I'm 100,000. I am aware of that. That's not what she's asking you. You're saying you as a board of education need to make cuts to this budget. Yeah. So where's the title league? So I'm asking you as an ex officio member. Same thing she's asked you three times. Where would you recommend that we make the first time? I want your version. I would like is the real detail information so I could understand the line-ups because I've
always been asking for that. I would love to see it. But I would sit there and tell you, you have most of your increases in salaries. You have to make choices. And so it's not easy. It is terror. I get it. But I am telling you, you're going in a, in a, in a, in a direction with this budget, with what's happening. You're increasing it's such a level, it's such a rate. It's not going to be positive result for the community in the end, which is my job. That's what I'm here for. So you would like to cut how many teachers? I would tell you, if I had my way, I would like you to sit there and keep your, your increase to 2%. That's what I would like to see. And I would know how many teachers would you like on the cut? I don't know. I don't have, I don't have. I don't have the video. I don't even have the details of the teachers information. I'm not provided that. I can't
get that. I asked that to, to Joanie and she sat there and said, okay, I asked, how do you do a budget? I asked you guys, how you did your budget? Because I wasn't participating yet. Did you get a spreadsheet that sat there and showed all the teachers and steps they're at and where they're, they're getting their compensation and the 3% raise? I mean, because that's what we do at the time level. We sit there and go through years, everybody. Here's what their rates are going to be. Here's their benefit related to it. Did you see that? Did you as a board as a chairperson see that in your over site? Why do we need to see that? Because you have to know what the number adds up to it. Why don't why don't we have air last week the number that's on the budget? It's helpful to know how many Marshal sees me? What would you tell? No, I'm just asking. Why I'm just saying, let you know, helpful to know. Because when I saw the teacher salary in 2021, we had, I think it was 19 teachers of the 22 we had, we're making $85,000. And that was in 2021. So now we're going, that's five years ago, they're probably at 100,000 now and that's most of the teachers.
Also, how does we all try to, how many full time globally? We don't need to add another adventure. And the teachers are very good teachers and they can handle the sixth graders don't want a lot of parents following them around or teachers following them around. They probably want the large class. The problem is 26 students did you do some of the teachers I wanted to teach you how to explain it. Like they read it from a script. They said the same exact thing. And you don't believe that they were sincere, but they read it from a script. I, you know what, if you're interested, I'd jump. Excuse me, I'm a Marshal. I, I've been a teacher too, Jerry, so just so you know nothing on the person that's the spent a teacher. I don't want your
kids and it, and it was at a church. So every, every Sunday, I've got a bunch of kids and I'm telling you, you know, when you have a bunch of kids and they're all different. Yeah, right? So what I'm saying is a lot of a lot of a lot of giant stuff. Yes, honey. I was just saying that you when you have a lot of kids, especially when they're older, they don't want to be baby. We have words for the teacher. I don't know what they will need. Well, that's a fun day. Mars teacher. Like an elementary school teacher, certified masters level, credentialed teacher knows, watch an elementary school teacher need. What, what elementary school children need. So please don't equate me in a Sunday school teacher to know a, what an elementary, it's an elementary, it's just kidding. Well, I think it's far into what you just said. I don't care, please. When we have a superintendent who, who,
works, who's our employee, she's our soul employee, who is hired and works for our finance person to come up with a budget every year, right? And they look at all of the different students who are going to be in all the different grades and we have a wonderful way to be able to do that because we have such a small school. It's not that six graders don't want to be follow the round. It's what do we need to educate our six grade students? Knowing the needs of those six grade students. So specific six grade students, you haven't been in separated classes for that past, what, learn four years. Knowing what's coming after that, we have been, it's been advocated to be hired another student because not only do you, teacher, thank you, we don't need any more snowing needs or students. Anyway, because not only of what this sixth grade needs, but what fifth and fourth grade coming after that need. Because what I know about this superintendent having worked with her doing COVID is that we didn't make a mistake that a lot of other schools made and hired a significant number of parents, educators, and teachers to address the needs during COVID, and then have to look at firing them. So what I know I'm exactly here for 10 years is this. We have an incredible faculty. We have an incredible faculty that we have to pay because they continue to want to work here. It is to our students benefit that we have teachers who have been here 20, 25 years.
They want to be here. We have an incredible class thing that. I'm waiting for you. We don't need to add more. You're going to be based on what Marcy, because I have an expert here who tells me that they have looked at all the students going in sixth grade and she's for the, oh, she's not doing that one second yet. I absolutely believe that if Valerie didn't believe that we needed a sixth grade teacher, she wouldn't be advocating for that. Because Valerie doesn't want to have to ask her a letter of presenting increase. Nor do I. We have complete classes. Well, that's what I'm trying to help us avoid is that is at our site with the time. We're asking you and we're asking Jeff. Okay, I'll wait. You don't. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. Do that. You got a Jeff. You got 26, 26 students who came to classes. So what's that 13 students class? Sure. Next one. Second first grade. No, I'm not there. I have no expert in class. I'm in class of 20. I cannot be considered. I cannot be considered. I'm just sitting there going through the numbers that are aren't they're issue related to time because it's it is about students and unfortunately and unfortunately it's about teachers. Okay, because my wife, my wife, many years when she was not a tenure teacher, got a pink slip. Every year for Manchester she would get a pink
slip and she might be fired at the next year because they have a budget issue that they have to deal with and have to deal with teachers. It's a difficult thing. It's not anything any family wants to do. I don't want to sit there and do this to any teacher. I am telling the group. If these increases continue, continue, you are we were going down a very, very difficult road for this community. And that's what I'm here for. I'm only here for that. I'm only here for the overall community. I respect what you guys do for kids. Taylor, you guys and your staff do a phenomenal job. That's not about you. It is not personal. It has nothing to do with anything related to that. It's about the financial health of this community. And if you keep going, if we listen to what you're going on on your keep going, can you look at your paper that you're reading? How many classrooms? How many grades have two classrooms? If I'm in my understanding that you're lying next to the totals of the teachers. So cases 14 and 12, that's too fast. So there are two classrooms. Each is all home is a classroom. Okay, so what's the number? How many? What great or mean? That's over on four. Four classes. Four. The number is quiet. No, that's the number of classrooms. I'm asking your college. You have 17, 18, 17, 16, 17. Yeah, you have three kiddos. Four classes. So these are the totals either the two classes. I got them. Yeah, yeah. And what's next to the total? What's that song? The total number. So number of students.
No. The last one is the total number of students. Yeah. I have the number of classes. Well, that's it. So I was a quick, you know, I was a quick, you know, teachers. Okay. So they're for every little classroom. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So I'm just asking you when you're talking about four cast of looking ahead. Yeah. I just want you to look at this very carefully. Yeah. We have two classrooms for every single grade, not including pre-K, except for which grade. Six grade. Six grade only has one class. Yeah. So if we add a six grade teacher for an next year for these kids that are in grade five that have been in two separate classrooms. Yeah. The majority of their education. Yeah. Where else are we going to add more teachers? If you're talking about us, continuing to expand, they're really something else. I mean, I mean, so, so this is, you're telling me if the community agrees to fund a $500,000 increase, they'll be no teacher increases. I mean, you're, you're the, I'm telling you when I look at this. Yeah. And I know what my kid went through because he was in a class of 22 and they were always one class of kids. Yeah. That if we had another sixth grade teacher, I personally on this board having been on the board for a few years. Shannon's been on for way longer than me. I wouldn't anticipate that we need to add another classroom teacher for quite a long time based on the demographics of our town and the kids moving up from kindergarten all the way through.
And I would look to the people who are, I do, I do, I do understand your logic, right? But you're still dealing with a financial impact. And what I've mentally set there and tried to go with, Caitlin is, you know, I sit there and what are the grants? Like really, what are the grants? What did we, what did we fund with grant money? When it was available? When all the funding was out there and all the COVID funding was out there and we have this money coming in. And, you know, from now you, you have to as a board, it's your responsibility to sit there and make some hard decisions. And if this is, this is an easy decision. What you're putting up in front of the town is an easy decision. It's just easy. You're, you're, you're taking what about and Valerie is not doing anything bad for the kids. Get, don't get me wrong. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not about that. She's doing a great job. She's trying to educate the kids the best and, as I said, Taylor's doing a great job. Her teachers are doing a great job. But that's an easy decision. It is an easy decision. It is an easy decision. It is an easy decision. It is an easy decision. It is an easy decision. Go out. Yeah. And the parents will have that. And the parents will help
us to decide if they would like the tax dollars to go into the classrooms. So that's where the research shows that those classes should not be over 22. That in fact, we abide by that. And they will vote hopefully to make sure that the resources that we've provided for every other area of the town make its way to the school. So that in fact, all of the needs of the special education and regular education students are met and that our staffing levels were made fair. And so Kate, I would just say at this point, you're, yeah, I would like to move on. I know Terry's been waiting a really long time to say something. I don't have to read this to the group. It was my experience as a teacher in a classroom one year in West Far Korea, as a power professional. And 17 years of self-winderk has a great four-grade five-teacher. I think a lot of the teachers, I would love to express what it is to be a teacher and how you appreciate.
It's not a math money, Jeff. There's plenty of fields in this world in this country, where people can make a lot more money than a classroom teacher. I do appreciate it. And the other thing I want to tell you, Jeff, when I don't say this to you up, it's very many people, but I'll tell you. If you work and we send the residents of hand over, I'm a resident of hand over to, but I just want to tell you something. At every budget referendum, I'm going to submit a confession here. I vote yes. Whether it's the town side or the school side. I'd probably yes, because I want my town, our town, to be at the top of the heat. I want them to be the town that every money is in the end of yourself. They want to go to hand over. And in 2008, my taxes on my property, on what's for what? Where 9,748 dollars a year. And then in 2024, my taxes were 11,59 dollars a year. Total increased over that span of time was $1,311. That's an average increase of $8 a year. You look at the number in millions, but break it down. I as a resident, I'm willing to pay. They want $250,000 a lot more. I vote yes. I can. I know. I'll be honest. I'm a fiscal reserve conservative, but, but this budget, I don't even think it's enough. It's not. No, I mean, we are doing it. I moved to this town about 10 years ago. And one of the things I was looking at
is schools. If we don't fund these teachers, we are going to lose those parents who are looking for a good school system. And I don't want to get into it, but I'm just going to say, I believe the town about a 16% increase, one or two years ago, two years ago. And if we're going to fall apples to apples, Jeff, bottom line would Valerie says it's our turn, it's our turn. So, trying not to be despised at the, and I'm paying ourselves to each other. I think your portal, mercy, mercy, we are. We shouldn't do that though. I think it's hard in mind, it's hard. I don't pay them. I mean, with you, I don't think so. I just want to finish my statement. So, why I was saying that is because of this, because Jeff has said for a number of years,
it's a third or third or third or third, right? A third for the town, a third for Ram, a third for eight years. Well, you got your 16% for the town. And like Jerry said, I voted for it. Why? Because that benefit of the town. Now it's time that we need to invest in the school. And why we need to invest in the school is for all of the reasons that have been discussed for the last couple of weeks and the last couple months and many, many years. And you just started coming to these meetings. That's fantastic. But I know you have a wife who's a teacher and I know that you know about the importance of the investment and education. Oh, I want to know. And we haven't reached it yet. And I don't want to know it tonight.
Is what in this budget is love or not necessary or expendable? Because I don't see anything here, Jeff. And I've sat here 10 years now. And you like to say that we never cut the superintendent's budget on you. I never said that. No, no, no, you like to say that we rubber stamp it, correct? Right. That's what's happened in the last few years. Right. So, to me, doesn't that mean that we don't cut it? That's what they're stamping is kind of equivalent to not cutting it, I think. So, that to me says that we don't do our job in assessing the superintendent's budget. And we do. Listen, and Shannon, you know, that's okay. I can hire to get that. But what I'm driving that is, and it all comes, I do business, right? A lot of business person, right? So it's about numbers and it's about how they all fit together, right? And when you fit them together in this manner, yes, you have small class sizes. And when you sit there and put the full number on the plate for the town and the residents, even though Jerry and I are probably in agreement on a lot of what we've done over the past years, right? I'm just telling you, this is not this, this one, this 11% is a significant number. Last year was a significant number in this town, the way the town works and you know it changed. The way that you did in the front of it, right? So we asked for 8.5%, we got five, which is why we'll come back and say, okay, we didn't get what we needed last year. We've already talked about tonight, how we don't even need our repair and maintenance service needs. So we didn't even work.
Yeah, I think it should be higher. Yeah, honestly, right. I think the best thing we can do is cast this budget onto the people of the town and go to referendum, if they don't like it, they'll let us know if they agree with it, they'll vote yes. I'm just worried about the reaction. I want to worry about it. I mean, it's very close already, if anything, I wouldn't vote then we can increase line items. It just feels like whenever, you know, when you ask for 11%, we ask for 11%, they're going to be angry and feel like, you know, who are these people and they're asking for more and more every year? It's hard. It's a we are in five years, we're telling it has a lot of young people who have that decrease. You're going to say we're saying, you're going to take the reality of the market and you're really, really. It's not okay, and it's a difficult matter. Okay, that's the moment of the world. I think at this point, we're sort of saying this is a great majority. And we need to take a vote. And we have a few thoughts. So there's one,
I think you're no, there's something I'd like to mention, the paper that I gave Taylor and Valerie had exes on it, and I wanted to know if the free school kids have anything to do with those line items. So like the first one is each. Do you have an Fanny of the unintended? You have an X next to superintendent. Right. You have things to do with the preschool kids. Right. If we did not talk about preschool, he would have a lot more time on your plate. Right. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. Correct. I know who I'm saying is, I'm correct. No, no, no, no, no. But it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't answer. Part of the thing I would get payment different amount of money if there was no preschool here. I'm just saying you would have less work to do. But we're not even going to do it in the contract. I don't know if we need to move on.
We need to move on. It's a good school discussion. It's going to be null and void and it won't matter. It's going to be founded by the state and out of the town. Oh, so more fun. And apparently I'm saying, I would like to call for a vote. They're on the budget. It's a good question. We have moved in five minutes. I'm in a motion. One more, and we have a motion and a recommendation that we approve the budget for the 20, 20, 6, 20, 20, 7 years that was given to us five. We superintendent Valerie Runa. Do you have any vote on vote? On vote? On vote? On vote? Oh, yeah. Yeah. We need a vote. Yeah. On second the motion. Yeah, second the motion. All right. For the minutes, do you want the amount? Oh, I don't know. Yeah, that was in her 99, 99, 91, and for reasons increase. That's the increase. Yeah. So, five million, 63, 651 for a to have 20, 6, 20, 7, 2 years. I'm on. We're going to do the vote as a roll call. Just for a bit more of a car. I'm free. Yes. We should. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. 6, 4. 1 again. Okay. Okay. We're going to move on to the energy update and the next steps. This is for the energy efficiency upgrades through resource lighting and energy that was a program with adverse source. There's a photo poppy of the estimated summary of savings, but you want to pass that
on down to Java. There's one in front of everything. Oh, except. Yeah. You didn't get it. Oh, you have that one in the pocket. Yes. Yep. Okay. Okay. Okay. I didn't know. Okay. There's a question. Did anybody talk to Chris Ward who's the electricians at I guess he changed a bunch of the LEDs. This reflects the LEDs when they came for the walkthrough that need to be part of the replacement yes. Okay. So it's not lower the lights. Yeah. Because the word pain last year and only did the ones on the stairs over there and so it was those were already completed when are I needed to walk through. Okay. So that came for a quote to do the rest of them. We did originally before we looked at this, we did ask him how much it would cost to do the building and that's how we determined that we couldn't afford to do the building. I don't know. So I confused isn't this so Chris come to see Ward is not somebody that is working with the incentive program with adverse source. So if we, oh, if my notes do the work, we would not get the incentive for that. It has to be a vendor that works with adverse source because they don't fill us, it goes through adverse source. So to get the adverse source incentive, you have to go through somebody that does the ever source incentive. Yes. Okay. So how many vendors are there in the state that could I, I don't know, I mean, I've no idea how many vendors.
Usually I've mostly these programs like you say, oh, I want to do the program and then they assign you to a vendor and that's who comes in. Would they reach out to you or would I have any answers? You have a choice, we have a choice of calling to vendors. It won't change the incentive. Consentant at all because it can change the incentive, but it might change the estimate. No, it won't at all. It can change the full and it could change the estimate because this is not guaranteed, right? The savings, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, yeah, all the time. The average source would come and do an audit and then at that point they would tell us if this was correct or not. What was the first part of the. What you said at the. At last, the last one was meeting when they discussed it, they said ever source before we signed a final contract would come and do an audit and verify that this was accurate and we would get the You do know you've been going to have had another time meeting on this. It's by next. It's it's paid for by the savings from your electrical.
Correct. So it's just written into our electric, like it's on our ever source bill. Is the savings guaranteed? Yes, that was a specific question that I asked with the presentation last month is when after we say yes to them and have a source of funds like free just stated and does their Other audit then the savings is guaranteed like it's written into stone the way that it's put into your. Bill. Okay, it says annual energy savings and that's how it's paying for this. Correct. If that's the case and it's written in stone, we have to get that qualified. It's the same thing as your soul and progress and my. And I'm and it may be wrong, but I'm just telling you it's. I don't really see it as that because we're not putting anything on the outside of the building. Like I think it's stupid to not just vote yes and go forward with this all we're going to do with saving me. But that's my own two cents. I thought that last month and we wanted to think about it more so. But we even make sure they're telling us, you know, they're not just telling us what we're going to hear. Which is what the Emory source audit. Tell us when they come. If they're guaranteed, I mean, yes, I make a motion that we contract with resource energy and lighting. Or the incentivization program that they've offered the annual elementary school through ever source.
Second. And. Jerry not here from the bathroom. She was a farm. I mean, we wait. I'm sorry, I didn't. No, that's okay. I'm. I was saying yes as long as it's the energy. But yeah, that that was the like to your point. That was the question that I specifically asked the last time because I was like, wait, this is and what it is. And they were like, no, ever first would come. They would do and audit. Then they give you the actuals and what you're signing as a contract like guarantees that that is what you will get. Well, what I thought about is you that you have a solar solar panels. Do you understand what the savings is from solar panels? No, no, but that's don't know it's on top of that. No, it's it's that's our electrical costs so. It's there's a lot of layers to this and if it's guaranteed that is a definite. Do it. I would pull for this. Yeah, right, which I can, but I would vote for this if it's guaranteed if it's not guaranteed. And you're probably going to have to go to town meeting. Yeah, that was specifically why I asked that question. That's the good for meeting anyway. I don't know. I don't know. I have to see the documents. I think that would be determined based off of the actual adverse source audit. But I based on what they said. It doesn't sound like it. I mean, it's 177,000. Actually, it's more than that. No, there's 177 customers cost them a cost. Customer costs. By an answer, 292 2955 a month and they're coming down and they're saying that's your financing cost and they're saying it's financing costs.
Yeah. And then they're saying monthly energy savings and they haven't asked for it. But I don't see the other part of the asteroid. Hey, about regulations does not include O and M savings. Got it. I moved the question. And then we can ask, Jerry, if you want. Okay. Okay. Thanks. All in favor. I. So we're. So value can reach out to some for next. Okay. So bathroom project update. You guys will all be a little packet and kind of you. We have a few different estimates from a few different companies. So I just tried to make like a spreadsheet on the top with all the different like total cost estimates. Most of those companies asked for a contingency anywhere between 35,000 and 55,000 really just based on what their estimate was. So if you're thinking total ballpark cost, it would be the cost estimate plus the contingency. The average of all of those together is about 350,000. And then we did do a walk through this past Tuesday with Downs construction. Their their estimate was 316. Thereabouts. The walkthrough was informative for me. It's the first time that I've ever actually seen down the scary tunnel where all the types aren't. And and really just saw like the district care of the bathrooms that currently exist in that entire ring of the school. So I personally, I would say my viewpoint is that I'm not really comfortable moving forward with any of these because these are all out of my comfort level and just like, oh, I'm going to pick the one in the middle because it's in the middle. I'm going to pick the cheapest one because it's the cheap like I'm not comfortable doing that.
Well, you look at the detail, you know, you look at the contract and the detail and you know, you put a lot of weight to the person that actually saw the job. You know, and you look at what, you know, what kind of a contractor they are what, you know, what their history is. There's a lot of their variables to look at, you know. Yeah, I just think. In this case based on the the wide range of being both. But you know, I do think we should go back and get an RFP like we originally. Would you say and get an RFP? Which I actually all agree with formal RFP process. Oh, like put it out to bed and yeah. Well, be good to have, you know, the actual design. Straighten out the design is there's no problem. I said it's approved. I kind of question because. Lesson onel said that they use the same layout. Correct. So they didn't really do a design because when you. Well, so some things are significantly different. If you look at the plans. But they perfect the things that are different pertains to plumbing specifically could that the issue that we're correcting. And if I recall the reason why we use the same layout is so that we wouldn't have significant cost increases. That's correct. I'm going to occur more cost removal wall. Yeah. I don't know. I would I would entertain it. You know, whenever I do a project, I look at the whole thing and a lot of times. You know, just taking whole thing apart and making walls putting things into different places is more cost effective. And it's a lot better. You know, why would you go forward with something that has doors that hit.
That's just ludicrous. So if you actually go out there and look at them in person because I did the walkthrough last Tuesday, like I was there. So two things I've explained to me during that walkthrough. These bathroom doors for safety reasons when kids are in the school and they're using them, they are always prompt open. So the main bathroom door is always open. So there would be no interference between that door and the stall door because the bathroom door is propped open. It's not closed. In that specific room, like the way that the end of the wall is where those two stalls are where the one door would potentially hit the main door. Unless you get rid of a bathroom stall, there's no way to move those stalls so that you don't have that interference.
Or if you put the door facing the other direction, which I think was like an ADA compliant thing for a school. So unless you want to make the least me, the renovation cost significantly more money or decrease the amount of bathrooms that are available within the space. Like you're going to leave that the way it is. But I don't, but regardless of what the plans look like in regards to that, like is anyone comfortable taking one of these and moving forward with that. I haven't even, I just saw this, I haven't had a chance to look at this, you know, it was put on the desk pier when I got in so I haven't even. I would look at them more thoroughly and see, you know, they include everything and and there's always going to be a contingency about, you know, what they don't see right this does anybody have any. You know, sometimes they chart they'll tell you how much they'll charge for like if they're digging per square foot or linear food. Yeah, so that relative range for contingencies wasn't including that it's just a big number. I'm just saying, no, I'm saying is, you know, if you're digging like if they have to dig how much is it per linear foot, you know, that kind of. What's been asked? Has time pipes if they have to dig more in deep trouble. They're all in case and hungry. I know, they're all in case and country. We should. That's what we need to know. With RFP and please think about getting the pipes. Coated like can we do some different. Construction method that that's not the original pipes from one of the school was about.
Well, no, you can sit there and take those pipes and. They spray material inside the cast iron pipes. And but listen, we have other issues that have to be addressed related to this because. These go out to the lead field and are, you know, that's where I'm really concerned about it. It gets out the door and the cast iron pipes. They want to replace all the cast iron pipes. Where does it hit the lead field there? What time, what, what height, what distance none of that was in the original plan? I would ask you on behalf of me as a board of select member first, just call it to an RFP and save you guys save all the activation that you guys are going to deal with if you don't.
Yeah, it could be a can of worms or this kind is really scary. You know, we need to address the infrastructure of it. Yeah. So the walker that I had was a week ago with one company. All of the other estimates. How long has it been? Oh, that's all. I just want to know. Since. Before January of September. Maybe. You signed the original document. You had the original work going on with Fresno Niel. In January of 2012, this spent a long project. Yes. And then it came in and you signed the document with Fresno Niel. In September, I told you, you pivoted on that and now you're here. I think the plan. I think the plan weren't complete in September. But we've got a full year. But Jerry, don't say that we want to rush into something. You can do your P.A.A. In the summer. The other thing that I did learn at the walker just so everyone is aware in terms of a standpoint of time.
Was that because of the has not study that was done in the fact that there's lead paint. None of the like demolition can be done during when school is in session. Like it has to be a summer project and that wing of the school has to be closed. So yes, we're in a position right now. We're timing wise. Like. We need to make a decision within. I think the next month or so from experts or shall I have been told. In order for this to be completed during the summer. So Eric Sanderson's on. I just I don't know if I'm free to speak. I just want. So I don't think that we have a streamlined invitation for people to be able to give us proper bids right so. I think one of the things that we should do and I don't mind doing this for the town is creating a traditional RFP and I can give a sample and pull it up on the board right now if we want a screen chair, but.
It's making sure that every contractor is bidding to the same exact thing right so. In that situation, um, they'll be in RFP. They'll be a specific date in the time. They have to drop off a sealed envelope to the town. They will have to then go through all the documents that are listed in the RFP. So this will include everything down from the hazmat report. Right of the abatement to each drawing section. Some type of milestone schedule that the town wants to or the school wants to put into it. Um, obviously. No parent wants their kids to be sitting there through an abatement right so it's a summer project. Um, and that will honestly decrease costs by stating it's a summer project. So, you know, if we had to put up 10 walls and negative air machines and all these things because kids are in school, it's going to increase those costs dramatically. Um, so, you know, I have an example. If you guys want me to screen share it, but it's very simple. You have terms and conditions you have order of presidents. So, so this document is better than this one. If there's a contract negotiation issue. Um, you know, the drawings will be president over the terms and conditions based on what it is. Um, so there's a lot of things that can be done in RFP. And this is one RFP that I did for a, about a $1.7 billion project for electric boat. Um, so it's the same RFP I use for those contractors.
And I would suggest like, you know, we can use the same terms and conditions. But also, we need to make sure that, you know, in this RFP that we're stating. All the rules of the school, right? So even if it's summer, there's still going to be some cool programs. I have kids that go there, right? So we need to make sure we have that included and the contractors understand that as well. Um, so I don't think it's great to jump into something. Right now, based on the big difference between all these contractors. And I don't think they really have the scope of work down correctly. Um, and the reason being is, is this project prevailing wage? Is this project have to be bonded?
Right. So those are questions we need to know. So everybody's on the same playing field when they're giving you a bit. So if we have to do a payment and performance bond, that's a 2.5% of the total contract value that needs to be given. And that's going to make sure that the contractors can't go back and lean your property. Um, it makes sure that they can go and do the work. And you guys are not responsible for anything that comes out of it. So, you know, in my opinion, yep. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, in my opinion, I think there should be a payment and performance bond on this, just to protect the school and the town from the contractor. But I don't think it goes and qualifies into prevailing wage. Um, so because that would increase the cost by about 30%. So it would be, you know, you're under million bucks. We didn't have to do prevailing wage on the community center. So it's, you shouldn't have to do it. And Jeff, I see you laughing. What's what? What?
No, failers, failers, failers, failers, make me laugh. I'm doing a face, I'm trying to laugh. Can you sell any prevailing wage? Oh, 30%. I said unions. Yeah, we don't need to do that. But, like at the end of the day, or all the contractors bidding this thing the same exact way. Right, that's a point of a specific RFP that includes all the documents. You can hold in contractually to it. Um, so, you know, I, I think that's the way to go. And I think it's in the best interest of literally the school and everybody to make sure we save the right amount of money to get this done. I, I, I do think Fussonoon Neal's drawings are, are very good. I think there's always going to be issues on a project. Um, and those are going to come out during the RFP process, because we're going to give a time for the contractors to represent their RFIs. Um, and those kind of costs or change orders,
that will be done in the future, get, get weeded out during that process. It, Erg, um, so I guess I have, I have one comment and one question. The comment is, um, Jensburg, those who are writing things in the chat, so that you guys are aware that RFP process is not part of the original Fussonoon Neal. The, we were not paying them to, to write the RFP and administer that. We were paying them for what they've done so far. Yes. So, I, I believe. Yeah, that's because I, a couple of people have misstated that we were paying Fussonoon Neal for. Yeah. So, I, I, I think what at some point you did is, is you created a CS agreement, which is a construction services agreement with Fussonoon Neal, which means, during construction, they will handle RFIs, they'll handle job site issues and all that stuff.
So, that's usually a CS agreement, and it's typically a small amount of five percent. Um, what does the contract value is? The question that I have is, um, if we were to go through a formal RFP process, um, as the school, is that something that you would help us with, as a volunteer and a taxpayer slash town member? Yeah, 100 percent. Um, it, it, it mainly used to only be my job to do these types of things, so it's very simple. I have, you know, we would obviously have to merge town terms and conditions and stuff like that, but, um, I have a very good RFP, like I said, and, and the billions, um, that we use for national security projects and stuff like that. So, it's, it's a really tight-knit thing that, one keeps the contractor, um, on the hook for specific things that he doesn't state in it, right? So, you can, like, in mind, I have a qualification exclusion page, like they can, they have to fill it out at the time of the RFP, and qualify and exclude anything that's not included in their price. Um, so if they go and try and change order you later, it's already spelled out. Like, they, they can't come and change order you for something if they've already excluded it. So, by doing this specific document in this RFP, it saves the town money, it protects the town, um, protects the school, and it's just a good way to do it,
especially when you have this big of a gap, um, between the pricing. Right, because nobody's going to go sign up the guy that's 228,000 when you have, you have another price for 416. It, it just throws out red flags. I would say a 228k bid when everybody else is above 300,000 is an unqualified bid. Um, it just doesn't make sense. Yeah. Um, since anyone else have questions for error for anything about project. Wouldn't anyone like to call any kind of question? I'm going to screw this up. I would like to make a motion to go to a formal RFP process, and it Derek is willing with it. Yeah, I have a drive already made with the school picture on it. Obviously, we can change things as we do it. Um, I would like to make sure, and maybe I can talk to Jeff and, and talk to this, to Val to make sure like some of the school's conditions are met and put into the RFP.
Right, so there might be specific times with cool and deliveries and all those things that you have to keep in account. So maybe kids are being dropped off the cool and the summer at 7.30 a.m. So we're going to ask for no deliveries at 7.30 a.m. Just for that fact, right? So on those days, you know, we have to have deliveries around 8.30 or 9. Um, and that's a typical thing that contractors have to deal with. So it's, it's not like we're asking for something out of the blue or or more than should be, but, um, you know, making sure we capture all that stuff in the RFP. That's important.
The RFP process, like it would, it would come through the school, not, not through the pound. Um, but I don't, I mean, that's a semantics thing. Um, so we are motion again. Oh, you want me to repeat it? Yeah. I make a motion to go to a formal RFP. Process with heritage. An RFP is would be an RFP. It's collected on the school. Wait, is there a time limitation, which we have a deadline? We mean to get the, like when the RFP would be submitted by, uh, yes, would be too. But I'm not sure if I can jump in real quick. So typically in an RFP, you have your main page, right? So that's the cover letter, explain some project, all that stuff. Then you get into a few different elements of it. So in this case, um, we would have an RFP, right? So we would have to do a walk through with all contractors. And I think the best thing to do is make it mandatory. And if they don't come and they're not on the sign-in list, they cannot accept their bid. And the reason for this is because they could potentially come back later. And say, oh, we didn't know this was the existing condition, or something along those lines, and try and get you a fair exchange order. So I think making a mandatory walk through is important. The next thing we do is we create, uh, a milestone schedule, um, along with an instruction to bidders. So the instruction to bidders can be like, hey,
the payment and performance bond to make sure the town building can't get leaned. Although I don't think you can lean town buildings, but I still think it's important to pay that two and a half percent over the total project cost to have that. Then we get into a milestone schedule. And this is a simple schedule, but schools out, they need to mobilize the day the schools out. And they need to finish within a week. If I ask a question. Yeah. Eric, freeze question was, how long would it take to execute all this? And what Jerry's asking, how long would it take to get the RFP in place? What would be an appropriate schedule for bidding and from walkthroughs? And everything you need, how soon can this get accomplished? Yeah. So the RFP would take me probably about three days. I have most of the documents. I have the hazmat stuff, everything. I have the format of what we need to do so three days, right? So you could say by, let's say end of week next Friday, we get it out to bid. I think 30 days isn't reasonable time for contractors to go ahead and bid this.
I think after day 15 of those 30 days, they need to have all their requests for information in. So RFP is, right? So anybody that sees a clash or anything to do with any of the construction of it, right? So putting it together. So those RFIs would be due on day 15. We would have to talk to Fussano and Neil to make sure they can turn around those RFIs within five days. And then the contractors would have an additional 10 days to take those and capture the additional costs into their final proposal. I think it should be as sealed bid. Then I think we should take two weeks as a town or committee or whatever we want to do to review it. We should take two of the lowest bidders, potentially three, bring them in for interviews. That's another week. So altogether, I think we're looking at six or seven weeks before we could issue a contract. Which is plenty of time to start to gear up and get all of our information to pull our,
our hasmat permits and all that stuff. Because sometimes it hasmat permits can take like 45 to 60 days. So, you know, so that gets us in a good position to get it started by summer. And, you know, it's, yeah, this is not a big project. One thing I will say is I think the project will move faster with a smaller contractor rather than a big contractor. A big contractor, you're going to get really good professionalism. But when you're trying to get somebody that does attend to 20 million dollar projects for every project. This may take a back burner with them. I've noticed. So a smaller, well-defined contractor would, would probably get this done over the course of the summer. A bigger one, I feel that would probably draw things out. Because they can and they have the money to do so.
So, that's my advice is probably to a mid-level contractors and, you know, maybe fuss can give a couple more people. You can make this a public bid, right? So, we'll get a lot more bid, some we currently have. And, you know, we'll get this thing on track for summer. Well, I want to leave you some eight to 12 weeks. I want to leave quotes that she got on Wednesday, eight to 12 weeks. Okay, so the question is, if you made a motion, and she said, an RFP to be completed by an authority in construction to be completed by a Monday. I don't think you can put that in the motion. I think great for that. The motion that the board is voting on is a motion to go out to the RFP and include Eric Sanderson to help with that. We, she made the motion, someone seconds up. Oh, sorry. It's a great question. Sure, yes, it's a question. You can ask you about timeline, but that's something. Just bold enough. Let's go. Okay, he's not going to do that. So, I do have a question there.
How is it going to get posted, right? How are you going to make this a public bid? Uh, Barcelona deals, poster assist us in that. That's what part of that. I mean, where would you host it? And we'll need to reach out. We'll need to reach out. Yeah. We'll need to reach out. Yeah. Yeah. But what I see typically, it gets posted on a town website. So, when I bid on things, I bid them on a town website. It doesn't matter if it's her school or part or whatever it is. So, my question is Jeff, is, is the town going to be able to, to handle that and get that bid out on, unlike a public forum?
Yeah. Just like you did with the bridge and everything else. Okay. So, we, we would cross that bridge after we actually voted. Oh, no. It's actually not this. Okay. So, brief me the motion. Jerry seconded. Any further discussion? Marcy, Sharon, Alicia. Can I? Okay. All in favor? Okay. Hi. All right. Sorry. Raise your hand if you're in favor. I. Okay. So, for. And you're in favor or you're not. You seconded. I'm in favor of the motion as it was raised here. Yeah. That's what we're voting on. Okay. Right. All opposed. Okay. Okay. So, motion passes five. Two. Okay. We'll move on to comments from the public. Yeah. Does anyone have a comment? Raise your hand. Use the hand. Yeah. Raise your hand. I would like to speak. Yeah. Go ahead. So, first of all, Val. I want to thank you. Taylor. Thank you. Board of Ed members who support us all the time. Thank you. This time I'm speaking from the heart not from script.
Some of you know me. Well, some of you don't know. Some of you I've had your children in my class. Some of you I've had your children in our tree. I had your children back in the day where there were small classes. I knew your children. I knew how they learned. I knew their families. I knew their hobbies. I knew what motivated them. I had a connection with them. They had a safe place to learn. They wanted to do well for me. I knew exactly what they needed. I didn't have to look at benchmark testing. It was personalized instruction. It was the best possible case scenario. Last year, just to put it in perspective. Last year, the third trimester. I taught 77 students a day. 77. This year I see 42 students. I teach sixth grade math in the morning. I have 14 students. I teach ELA to 29 students, which the room is physically not even big enough for the 29 students.
It's a challenge. And then I end my day with 13 fifth graders from math. They're all wonderful children. I love what I do. It's frustrating to me that I don't have the time to do what I need to do with each and every one of them. I thank all of you for your hard work. This was a hard meeting. It was hard to even just sit here and hear everyone's comments. But I appreciate all of you. Thank you. Thank you. God, so yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to comment on something I heard here. Jeff mentioned the. He brought up bullying. But his very. You, have to tell us, is telling Sharon Rock the. Stop talking. Is it absolute. So I'm. And it's not appropriate to these meetings. That's it. At It. I agree with Lisa. My. Hard goes out to all of you who are. Working hard hard hard to come to a agreement through the. agreement through discussions, and it was some tough discussions, difficult to see the tensions that we're rising, but on behalf of our entire staff, that's the certified staff, the non-certified staff, every single person in our school from the bottom of our heart, thank you for standing your ground, thank you for discussing the different things. And we appreciate all that you are doing for us. I know that
the decisions that are going to be made will continue to be tough. It's not easy for us, or it should say you to manage these things and to decide what is important over something else. I know we will make it through regardless of which way it goes, and hopefully it will go the way that we all want it to. So thank you to all of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'll tell you at the top. Is there anyone else on Zoom that would like to make a comment on their hand as a panel? He can't win. I can't find it's Joanne Heber. I can't. Thank you. I can't find my raised hand thing. I'm desperately trying. Listen, to everybody that spoke tonight, I mean everybody was speaking
heartfelt. Budget season is always going to be difficult in any town. It's really not to be taken personal. I think people that are here are just trying to be involved, trying to listen, trying to be part of it. Obviously, I work in a school. I love schools. Understand that these times and budget cuts are tough. But, yeah, so I don't want anyone to take it personally. I think everybody just has a job to do. I'm not on the board of finance anymore, but I'm still very involved and want to hear all the discussion. So it's just going to be a tough time, but know that the school and the work that everyone does, everyone is appreciated. One of the only thoughts that came to mind when all that
conversation was going on, but you didn't have the number of teachers in any of the classes was obviously, if you need a new sixth grade teacher, maybe rearranging some of the classes that have smaller sizes. That was one of the thoughts. Other than that, thank you so much for already having pivoted to back to the RFP process. My only thought on that with being on the board of finance was I thought that when we approved that contract for the 486 or whatever it was, 48600, you know, and maybe I misunderstood because you said out loud, I thought that fuss in O'Neill was one of the services they were providing was the whole RFP budget process. I loved the gentleman that spoke tonight. I learned a lot. I always like to learn. He explained the process. It's great
that he's involved. So good luck with everything. That's all because I don't think you as the board chair Caitlin should be having to, I wouldn't be an expert at dealing with the contractor. So I'm glad we're putting it in some experts hands. Thank you. Thank you. And for my little impact. Oh, well, that's all I've got. Hi, I also just wanted to reiterate what Jenny and Lisa said. Thank you to Val and for our supportive board members. Before Val came to my staff, was not in a very healthy place, but Val has been extremely supportive of us as a staff and is always done everything she can to help us tailor, show those scores of how well our successful our kids have been recently. And I think that goes to show how much happier our staff is now and how dedicated they are. So I just want to say thank you again for this support. Hi, anyone else that we must? Hi, I make a motion to go into executive session for the purpose of interpersonal BOE communication and BOE staff evaluation and invite the superintendent to join the executive session. Hi, and 1020. Thank you. On paper. Hi. Hi. Hi. Sorry. Hi. So is that recording? Is recording? Yeah. Yeah. She's an amazing motion to come back out of an executive session on 1127 p.m. and Jerry second and second in that motion. We need to amend the previous vote for item 8b, which was the energy update in next steps to be a vote of 7000 to include Jerry's vote as a positive.
In terms of our next step coming meetings, our regular board meeting is March 11. And our plan is to finalize the 9000 series at that meeting. So hopefully we will get a copy. Well, so I want to apologize on the record and I'm glad you said it. I have almost all of them done. It matters me working with Diane to get them to all of you. Yeah. And that's been really, really difficult. So I apologize. I wanted to get it done. I just couldn't get it done by last Wednesday and it's a matter of when Diane is available to work and when I'm available to work with Diane. So we're going to have to process that bridge somehow. Yeah. And I will get, I will
make it happen. I mean, you know, you printed or could it be electronic? So I'm trying to even get in electronic. I mean, it's like Diane needs to revise it and put it in the format. So it's a matter of Diane and I working together. And that's been tough to bring about. So hopefully we'll get there for our next meeting. I'm going to get there. And I'm just reminder of a town town meeting is April 9th. If everyone could try to be there. And we're going to try to see if it has any to do. I board an education like informational session, at least like a half hour prior to the actual town meeting. So on the same night. Oh, that's fantastic. That's yes. That's awesome. Great. It'd be a cooperative report. Um, okay. We did one person show us. We never did
another thing. I don't know. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. It will probably next next meeting with being updated of what Eric's Anderson and the RFP has done and we're in that urgent process is I make a motion to adjourn. How about that? Is that okay? Yeah. I can okay. It is 11.29. Okay. Morris, you seconded. All in favor. All in favor. All in favor. Okay. Stop the recording. All in favor. All in favor. All in favor. All in favor. Yeah. We done? No, yeah. All in favor.