Meeting transcript
BOE Meeting
June 14, 2023 · Watch on Zoom · All meetings
Up there? Would you like us to, or we'll still have No. Get over. Get
here. You're over at the end of the meeting. No. You're not. No. No. No. We'll get me up there. Oh, I just We're
we're inviting you to the team. I am recording. Yeah. Let's go. Oh,
you already started? Yes. We just started. Where are we in that? Oh,
we can't see us. Oh, Taylor. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. Put on your video. Start the You're not. Not. You're not. Guys, I'm out of practice. It's the last day. He's
some practice. Know. We asked all credit in the world. I apologize.
Alright. Ready to roll. Ready. Hi, everyone. It's 07:00. I'm calling to order the 06/14/2023 regular meeting of the Andover Connecticut Board of Education. My thanks to everyone in attendance for being here this evening. I wanna thank you to the Board of Education members for volunteering your time to serve on this board for our town of Andover. Please stand with the pledge of allegiance. Thank you. Okay. Comments from the public. We have any public? Yes. I hear you. She always
has problems. She thinks it takes a long time. Are mics on? Is my volume
Not muted. Hold on. Taylor's got Oh, volume. Up. Oh oh, can we not give her any Well, we heard Dawn, though. Yeah. It was
Oh, yeah. We did hear Dawn. Okay. I think we're good. What did I do to her? Well, it says, Dawn. Oh, that comes Yeah. Really? Oops. It didn't What is happening? Sorry, guys. That's it. Here we go. Hi, Diane. Can you hear us, Diane?
I don't even see her little volume thing. Oh. See how our little Oh, she is.
This is Claus. Hi, Diane. We can't hear you. Nope. I think it's us. Sometimes the microphone It doesn't look I don't see No. Microphone. Can't hear you. Zoom
is using our microphone. I know. I never thought of that. Uh-huh.
They get a lot of money off of it. Appreciate it. They work better. I've been making. Do
you wanna ask them? Go on. Can you hear me now? Yes.
Yes. Yes, Jessica. Yes. Thank you. We can hear you. We can hear you.
Diane, we can hear you. Any comments? Can you hear us? Any comments from you, Diane? Oh, okay. Okay.
Think I forgot. I think I No comments. Okay. Just no comments. Never know.
She asked for our first selectmen in our. You have any comments? Not not at this time. Not for me?
No. Thank you for inviting us in at the table even. Thank you for meeting. For coming. Yeah.
Let's see. Communications. Does anyone have any to care? Okay. Talk about that one later. Approval of the minutes. Regular meeting of 05/10/2023. We need a motion to approve those minutes. A second, talk about it, and we'll vote on.
I'll I'll make a motion to approve. Okay. Motion to approve by Celeste. A second? Second. You wanna be first? Any discussion? Yes. He will oh, you were absent. Okay.
So you I wasn't here either. I second. Oh, here we go. Alright. You got it. Any discussion?
No. I don't don't have have any any discussion. Discussion. Vote.
All in favor of accepting the minutes made sense 2023, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions?
Abstain. Two. Okay. I'm not happy. You can go ahead with that.
Next, special meeting of 05/31/2023. We need to approve those minutes. We need a motion, a second. Talk about it. Move over. Anybody wanna make a motion to approve the minutes of 05/31/2023 special meeting? I make the such a motion. Thank you. Chair. Yeah. And is is there a second? I'll second. Thank you, Chris. Any discussion? K. All in favor of approving the meet minutes of the special meeting of 05/31/2023, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed?
Any abstentions? The only thing I'll note for the record, sorry, I should have done this before, is that Steve Flesch was absent from that meeting. So that Probably '31. We're being, like, consistently should reflect that. Okay. You're saying it was here? Or No. It doesn't say anything about it. So we should just reflect that he worked there for him. Okay.
You mentioned them? Mhmm. Cool. Alright. Next. Opportunity to add or delete agenda item. I would like a move I would like to make a motion to move agenda item e four, collaborative conversations regarding the community center with the BOS to agenda item seven a. I second the motion. Thank you. Any discussion about moving that forward up up soon? Post your time. K. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any extensions? Okay. So we'll move agenda item e four to agenda item seven a. Next, we received a email request from Terry Smith. She would like to move d, financial report one, budget transfers, to e, items for discussion and actions and and actions five. I'd like to make that motion that we move that.
I second. Thank you, Shannon. Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any objection? Pass those. Celebrations. Does anyone have any to share? Yes.
The school year has officially ended today. We are very excited. We had an awesome last day. Our sixth graders graduated yesterday. Thank you, Paula, for joining us and to Jerry for joining us. It was a great a great celebration. I think it was really successful. So, yeah, so we're just excited to everyone will take an hour tonight and then shift our hats over to next year and start that planning process
going forward. So Thank you for doing such a nice job of planning it. It really I think it was really great. Thank you, Sally. Yeah. Any other any other celebrations? Reports. Seven a. Number four item, collaborative conversation regarding the community center with the board of selectmen. We have our first selectmen here, Jeff Maguire, and we have our selectwoman, Paula. You wanna
That put them in front of everybody already, Jerry, for questions as well. Oh, everybody's there? Yeah. Yes. Yep. They're right here.
Will you do you guys wanna go through these line by line or in general, or did you have a chance to say It's it up to you how you wanna handle it.
I I would like you to do what you feel is comfortable for you guys. Alright. Well,
we got the list of questions from planning and zoning. I would express to you very well, let me give you the the basics of what we believe our board is. Mhmm. And then so our board is the representatives of the entire community. We sat there with this, community center, senior center, and the goal was to do what the community wanted. So we, as a board, sat there and appointed a a another volunteer committee, which all of our we're all volunteers. We just volunteer. So, this volunteer committee went through the planning process to determine, where to put a community center, which this town desperately needs. And as Shannon would know as the remaining member of the board of selectmen or the board of education from the previous time, we all were collaborative trying to get room for the seniors, and, that did not work out. But when the board of selectmen sat there and did a, planning and zoning or the plan of conservation development, it was determined that a senior center was desperately wanted by the overall community. So we as a group sat there and and we had that we had the vision to sit there and implement it. We got funding that was not having to tax the residents, and a plan was developed. Now that's our extension of what we as a board of selectmen are really responsible for. So when you ask these questions about safety, and I've said this to you, Jerry, and I've said this to you, Valerie, we are not experts. Board of selectmen members are not experts on safety concerns,
but the people that we hire to support and and do this are responsible for these questions. And so what I requested when you gave us this list, Valerie, is I ask that all of the architect, the engineer, and everybody was communicated to to give us as good as answers as they possibly can. This will be in a better presentation to planning and zoning on the twentieth so they understand your answers were addressed. Alright? But I'll go through them, and I'll sit there, and I'll give you what we were told. So we'll start with and and I'm not sure that they're all out of order because what I did was I requested that we go to the fire chiefs and that we go to the engineer and that we go to the the the architect.
And I'm not sure that I saw the architect's responses, but I'll sit there and I'll I'll go through these. Right? So item one, you asked, we need to see a timeline of the plan for construction so we can inform parents as well as to align timing with our school year. We need to see if staging area means we need to make adjustments to our school safety and security plan. EA construction will take twelve to nine to twelve months to to do the project. At this point, start date is unknown. Until that happens, exact timeline of construction and individual subs is unknown. K? Question two, we need to collaborate with the fire department and first responders to create an evacuation route for the school from the school. Fire marshal sent us a specific email. We can certainly work on the evacuation plans, with your EOP, I believe. They usually come over to me to sign in early September at the beginning of the school year. As far as bringing a truck up to the turnaround in the proposed area, it will not be done on the grass. The truck is too heavy to take off a paved surface. If there's a vehicle parked there, it would be tight, but not impossible for the truck to get through. I measured then he went back, and he goes, I measured the distance from the fire pond on Route 316 to the end of the parking lot at the town hall where the proposed senior center is is scheduled for construction. It's less than three tenths of a mile or 1,584
feet. The layout of the, s g, I don't know what that terminate what it means, but looks good. Egress door sizes are not provided. Egress doors of 36 inch should be considered. There are no mechanical or electrical drawings, so he went off on different areas. So he reviewed what we sent them, and he he gave came back and did additional items. And you guys can if you need anything, please let me know. Alright? So Yep. Please offer more documentation on the proposed septic tank and its exact location so we can see this in reference to our playground. One second.
On the plan c c three, there there is no other documentation. It is farthest from the playground than, our current septic tank and other other leach fields that serve AES. So it's farther away than current plans. You will have an exact location on the plans. Planning and zoning will need to know this. Again, we are not experts. We're only going from what the people are telling us. But and listen. I'm gonna I wanna be really clear. One thing about this one. Is no one on the board of Selectmen that sits there and has is is ever thinking about doing anything. We would never do anything in this town if it's going to negatively impact the kids, me especially. I'll sit there and I'll just speak for my own self. We're not gonna do something that's going to negatively impact the children in this community, whether they attend this school or they don't attend the school. So we're not we wouldn't just be sitting there saying we're gonna build a a structure that's going to have a negative impact on the educational experience of the children. This is not who we are. What what you what might be out there is a totally different issue, but I'm just telling you that's not myself as a member or any of the members that are on that board.
The new addition of a fueling station, please offer the exact location and what will be there. This is coming from the engineers, so EA. It was b s BSC Engineering. There's their the exact location one second. I need to go to their letter because that was referenced there. The new addition of the fueling station, the proposed location for the temporary fueling of the construction vehicles is in the Northeast Corner of the of the fire department's parking lot. This location was chosen since it is a paved area that will help trap and support quick cleanup of any minor spills that may occur. The contractor will deliver their fuel, mostly diesel fuel, with their own fueling maintenance truck to refill the construction vehicles. No fuel will be stored at the location during construction. K? The the
the chief addressed the turning of the vehicle, so item five. So the emergency vehicle or fire truck turnaround in the proposed area, the turnaround, that is an engineered that is a state regulation of attorney circle. But I think the chief's response was, why would we ever do that? Mhmm. So his response was, we're gonna pull straight in and back straight out. Alright? How long will our AAS garage driveway be? Can a vehicle be parked in a driveway and not block the emergency access? The engineer responded that it's roughly 65 feet, but it depends upon I don't like that one. I'm sorry. Because there are answers given, and then I have the actual response from the engineer, which I'd rather read because that is more appropriate. The response exactly from the engineer is the total length of the driveway leading to the AS Garage is approximately 65 feet. The vehicle should be able to park there without blocking emergency access to the rear of the school. We would like a tree expert to tell us if with cutting of the grassy outside the gym, the two trees will be safe and secure with the loss of grassy area that will be located. We actually contacted
Christine Randazzo, a resident of the community. She's great. And we asked her to weigh in on that issue. So Christine said, with the limits of the disturbance from the map, the area of disturbance is twice the distance of the canopy, so neither should be affected. Mhmm. And she sat there and said that. Now I know that, from other discussions that I've heard, there were some discussions at the sidewalk of taking down one of those trees. We would be happy to accommodate that, I'm sure, if that's the desire of the board of education.
You mean to take the tree down or to leave the tree? One of the trees down. I I understood from the walk through that might be in the middle of the turnaround area,
like, center of the rotary or whatever. I don't think so. No. No. No. I think they were both on the hill.
Question up there that was in in question five there. Yep. And what Jeff just said was that he was told that they wouldn't actually use the turnaround. They would go straight in one side and the other because that was we're concerned about the tree. The tree that they're planting. Right? Yeah. Yes. The inability to show over the well. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's what the tree is. I wanna do. Tree in the middle. So they they they two
separate trees. So there were but there was there was some discussion about one of the trees. Those two pine trees The pine trees are either Whatever the choice is that that can be dealt with. Yep. Great. Question eight. Question eight. Fire marshal, we would like to walk through walk with the fire marshal to see our gym can still be an emergency exit during construction when kids have no place to take safe refuge outside the door. Just as a person who uses that gym, there's two exits three exits. There's the exit to the parking lot. There's the exit to your back playground, and there's the side exit that exits the side of the building, and then the fence walks us back to the driveway. Right? So there's three exits just so we're all on the same thing. I know that the chief sat there and said that they he would do that and you would do the emergency exit with you in September. Let me sit there and see if there's any additional information that was provided.
Can I ask Sure? Go ahead. When
when do you guys have to have those, like, the booklet published? Right? Doesn't it have to go to a printout before September? No. No. No. The one that goes to Demis. Right.
That was what we were concerned with, and I think that the fire marshal said that he will meet with us. Mhmm. Because, Jeff, it wasn't a matter of not having enough exits in the gym. It was us having notice because that exit there right now, even if we have a town meeting, if that's an emergency exit right there, that's also the only handicapped equipped one that brings them out to the parking lot. Yeah. If that cannot be used, it has to be blocked. The the sign that says exit can't be say exit. It actually has to be blocked, so it's not an emergency exit, and the routes then have to change. So if that is our existing route with Demis, we have to provide Demis with, right, in that book, the alternative. So that's what we meant there. Wasn't that we couldn't find another route. We had to know which routes had to be relocated. Sure. Because they have to be signed off. You guys know you signed that book too, Jeff. So
I would sit there and just you know, my my mind, common sense. I mean, I thought the question was, are we going to to bring the children into the parking lot? And and I would tell you that I don't expect and I would sit there and and I know in the contract so just so you you understand, there is a whole section in the contract with the the builder who's an Andover their Andover guy. Yep. I mean, the builders have people and have children in the school. So we're not gonna do anything that impacts the kids. But the the issue from my end was are we bringing the children into the parking lot, which I wouldn't wanna do. And we'll never allow them to have construction equipment up near that ramp.
It's just that's where they that's where they that is where we currently take, especially our youngest pre k when we fire drills. So we just Yeah. Need to know where to push them. Yeah. We're assuming. I gotcha. Need to know where to change it. Yes. I don't want him in a parking lot either. Right. No parking lot. That's why I'm going out I'm going out the back door. You got it. You got it. When do you need to notify Demus that it was chain wise? So so that's why we need to Taylor and I need to have any changes to those because the schematics get given out. The DMIS book gets sent to the state. So By the start of the year. By August. Because we can't start the first day of school in August without
those plans in place. Whatever you need on that issue, we will see why it was sergeant. No problem. I got And listen. I there there is no concern that shouldn't be answered. Yeah. I mean, just understand there should no no this is not where we're going to sit there and just say, we're doing this. I don't care what you do with your children. That's not what's happening. So any concern will be addressed. It may not always be exactly. And just like anything, we all have to compromise. We all have to do different things, but this is where we'll sit there and get to. So will there be parking designated to the community center? We do not wish to say that all the parking in the AS parking will also be community center parking. That one is more of a a global common sense community issue. I mean, knowing
the last time that I came up to visit you, Valerie, and you asked me to sign something, I actually did take pictures of a parking lot knowing that all of this was gonna come down the road. Okay. The community center will not be that active. There will never be a time during the school day where your parking lot will be overwhelmed with cars. The the anticipation on my end, my mental side, is, like, every time I come here, I park in the fire department side because during the day, that is not active. We will accommodate the parking situation with you. If there are any issues that ever come up related to this, we'll sit there and make adjustments that that are necessary.
But from a common sense perspective, there are a significant number of available spaces that are out there. And we as a community also every time something gets calculated related to parking at this complex, because it's a town complex, all of the parking spaces get calculated into the calculations. So it's not just a seven spaces. There are 10 spaces over at the town hall. They all all the parking lots get doing get calculated. All the spaces because it's a town parking lot. Alright. I'm on 10. Is that accurate? Yep. Can the sign for the handicapped spot near the garage be, the sign? Can the sign for the handicapped spot near the garage be placed on the building fence up that area for wider leeway? So, yes, this came from the engineers.
Can There's a light post there. There's a light post. Yeah. Yeah.
So the response was, the handicap parking sign is required to be located adjacent to the parking stall. The location of the sign would not inhibit access to the rear yard of the school. So that's from the engineer. We'll sit there and work on that and determine where the best spot for that sign can be. Alright? 11, is it safer for construction to cease running, idling equipment during school drop off and pick up 88 to 08:30 and 3 to 03:20. That one was part of the builders, and I'm not sure I have the builders' information. My
Also safer for us to not have our garbage in recycling. I I know. Monday almost destroyed my car. Today?
Tuesday. No. On Tuesday. Oh, yeah. But, literally, this it fell down on school last week. Mhmm. I I will sit there and get with the con the contractor on that one. I'm not sure that's that's that's necessarily possible, but we'll sit there and accommodate it if it becomes problem and problematic. I mean, I'm not sure regarding that one specifically how it can get, accomplished. We'll have to work with the builder on that, and I don't have anything from him specifically in the details I have right now. I will make sure that he has that answer available for planning and zoning on the twentieth.
I was gonna say too, Jeff. I think when I was talking with Adrian with that, I mean, when we talked with him, I mean, the plan was to try to get the majority of the outside envelope done. Before school. Before school started. And as
they've said, this isn't a large building. So I can't imagine there's gonna be that large of equipment except for maybe to put trusses in place would be the only thing I can think of. That would be Well, the biggest issue the biggest issue from our from my mind, and I'm, again, no expert, just trying to, you know, push it forward. I'd like you build a house. The biggest issue for me and what this is project is gonna be is the foundation. So the earlier the foundation gets in, the more the more actual groundwork that gets accomplished as early as it possibly can, the better we'll all be because you want the building to be done, the the the foundation to be in, and the structure to be up by the time the children get back so that they're working inside, you know, as much as possible.
And I I just always think sometimes that pick up just from my perspective is certainly at times, we do have students who run just the way of elementary school, and so that is the time when kids are out. We just have more out on the curbs getting picked up. And so that was that was kind of my thought in there. It's just like, how do we make sure at that point when we are outnumbered, Right? Parents are pulling in and staff that if that one child does say, oh, truck,
you know, is off. So, you know, obviously, we are doing our best on that, but I just Well, some some of that also is gonna be, like Right. Is it when you see the actual fence, like Yes. I think that's where How fencing is it, and, like, the panels the panels that fit together that kind of, like, bend that a kid can see, like It it can do that kind of stuff. Well, knowing knowing that
that one of the principals in the construction firm has a child here, I I would like Yes. He's not gonna want his child to get injured just like he's not gonna want anyone else's child to get injured. But Yeah. We'll sit there and address that. And and and that's just not something I have an answer for you right now. Alright? The principal will need bimonthly report updates on construction to share regularly with family.
They submit semimonthly because bimonthly would be every other month. Every other week, isn't it?
I I don't understand. Like, I looked at biweekly. Biweekly. I looked at it as Biweekly, I think. Every other week. I I that's how I took it. I I was not sitting there thinking every week. Bimonthly. Okay. So the the the engineer sat there and said let's see.
It it was that the site super supervisor would provide these. And so my my issue would be that since it's right next door, those reports can, you know, be delivered verbally. I I mean, I would imagine that we can sit there and just say, hey. Listen. We just wanna have Valerie down, Jerry down, whatever member wants to come down, talk to the to the the site supervisor, and we'll schedule a time for that to make it happen. No smoking on the school side of the construction site. And after the community center is built, we want the town to alter its stance on smoking to align with school property rules during school session time. We will sit there and work to accommodate that. I am not sure that legally we can get away with that, but I will sit there and and, you know, we're not gonna allow people smoking on the edge of the community center, on the schools.
I mean It's interesting because I look back, and I didn't realize this. There's something that is around town hall that's not allowing smoking. So I'm thinking depending on the circumference of the thing around town hall, it may affect that area and be like Is there a designated smoking area that already exists? I have to ask my my Republican register. Because because to me, that person. Right. He's he's the only one that smokes.
I'm just telling you. But but in terms of in terms of talking about Wally. He's playing against you. I I thought it's Wally. Wally is the only one. That
would be the easiest thing is, like, this is where you can smoke. Don't smoke anywhere else. I
I have had that problem with school construction. It's just I have in the past. You just do because of the sometimes, the nature of the Well, we'll we'll something to be sit there and and Yeah. If if I had my way,
and and, you know, all of the issues, like the bathroom and everything, are going to be the fire department side. The the fueling is going to be the fire department side. So it's not we're gonna try But we probably shouldn't have the smoke Smokey except fuel. I'll take it. Same thing. I wish I was thinking. Thinking.
Where will the dumpster be located during construction? It's supposed to be inside the fence. Right? Yeah. I'm just trying to get you an answer as to where they're planning on putting it. Everything on the back.
It's actually So it's it's inside inside Well, that's no emergency problems. Yeah. So inside the construction fence, the location will probably be static and depends upon what phase of construction they're in. Okay. Loading zone. Can the times be posted to avoid issues? We're going to sit there and try to work that out, but because of the delivery issues and delivery requirements, you know, it's not always consistent. So the hope is that we can sit there and deliver at appropriate times. But knowing most of the deliveries that had occurred when I sat there and built my house, they were either first thing in the morning or they were just running late and they had to figure it out. This product didn't come in or not. It's not as if this world and the way that everything works, you're gonna sit there and get a driver to show up exactly at seven. He might be there at seven. He might be there at nine. He might be there at noon. We'll attempt to do the best we can, but we will definitely keep it out of the, you know, parking this parking lot here and try to have anyone sit there and become Yeah. Problematic. And and we will make sure that we let the the builder know that 08:30
h 08:30 and, three to 03:20 are bad delivery times. Mhmm. Right. And I think your question too probably is also more not just construction,
but ongoing. Right? It's you know, we we I started construction. There's gonna be early more things.
Caitlin just mentioned that they need to pick up the the garbage
thinking we were out of school this week. In the middle of pickup? In the middle of pickup. Was, like, obliterating my car. Like, I moved it out of the guy's lane at the next time. You know? So
ongoing, meaning deliveries for, like if there's a function going on, you're is that what you're talking about? Onloading, like, in the future?
Yeah. Or, you know, like, there's there's I don't know. I don't think you have food delivery, but janitorial supplies, office supplies. Or even having honestly, like, once the center is built. Right? Because we want people to come to it and go to it. Like, that's the whole point. But, like, probably trying to avoid starting times of events being in that same time frame because I my biggest concern overall is once it's built, like, I don't want there to be a parking lot accident, like, during school pickup or drop off. That's that's my biggest concern. Yeah.
On new territory that we stuff we gotta think about. Yeah. Well, I would hope that we would sit there and avoid
you know, where where the the the spot is is back behind the current community center. Right? So it's back where you are. The biggest issue I always see for I've always seen for you guys is your garage door and getting your equipment out. We will make sure that's clear, but I I envision I do not envision them
interfering with your buses or your parents in and out or anything else. Concern was more once it's built and there are people attending events at the community center that are parking in the parking lot. Yeah. The entrance to that part is right where school we pick up and drop off goes through. Well, cars and buses, like, everything. And then it would be traffic going
at each other. Well, it might be something that's just as a community we strive to address. It's not exactly as if I drive up Lakeside or Lake Lake. I'm that's not Lake Grove. Lakeview. Right? Is it Lakeview? Lakeview. Yeah. Linda, would that sound like you? Lakeview? If I drive up Lakeview at the wrong time of the day and I get stuck behind all the parents' cars, then it works out real well. So as a as a community, it might be something that we work on on that what we do related to that as well. So we'll sit there and evaluate that and make sure that I think the future part of all part of the whole big discussion.
And then, obviously, in the winter with snow where we choose to put snow Mhmm. It's gonna have a huge impact on all of us. Right? Because the places that we currently put our mounds still aren't gonna be convenient for anybody if we're not careful with that in terms of that circle and in terms of now you guys parking behind town hall and then drop off and pick up because if there is a big snow,
we're used to Yeah. Having places to put it. So I think, like, that that was the most important part of all of this, right, is just that we wanted to make sure there was open line of communication, dialogue for all of us to make this thing actually happen. Right. Mhmm. Maybe there'll be no snow. Right? Ever. It's global warming. Wait. That's right. The ticks will be very happy. Oh, jeez.
And then if you flip it over. Oops. I got more? Yeah. Wait. There's more.
We assert so we'll read this. We assert as does our attorney that we are under a statute that the board controls the school property, and we would need an MOU that no further changes to the plan on our property occur without discussion of the board of e board of education. We also want it recognized that we are not agreeing to deed the property over to move the property line. With this, we have our attorney draw up an MOU to agree to allow the community center to use our property but not give it all. This is important for precedent so that moving forward, it is understood that we affirm our legal right to make decisions for the school property. We want to ensure that all of the property is safe from this happening again where projects are planned without the proper board of education approval. K? So we'll deal with that one first.
So let's just go through an understanding of what I understand. I'm not a lawyer, but I figured out I better pay attention to this, and I'll let Shannon sit there and correct me. The town of Andover is the school district for our community. The state has registered each town, municipality, city as its school district. The board of education is the group that, provides direction toward education of the children and sits there and controls, spaces such as the building and the school building and and playgrounds and lands where the children play. The town owns all the land. The town owns all the buildings. The town is the owner of of everything. There are no deeded properties to a school or to a board of education. They're deeded to the town. The areas that we're talking about, I I would hope that we would all agree, are not for educational purposes. So the small area that we're talking about is not an outdoor classroom.
It's not anything that sits there and will impact the education of the children of this this community. So that's not what we're interested in dealing. That being said, the land is the towns. The town and the board of selectmen as the town's legislative body has the right to make adjustments to town property. So I would go back to, this probably, and this may have worked a little bit, smoother in the beginning. If we had done what I had asked, you know, after the first meeting was, you know, if we just talk about everything, it would have been great. But I am just telling you from a logistical standpoint, that is the status of where we're at. So why I understand what your request is, it's not necessary that we really do that. And I would tell you it's not as if I kind of relate it back to this, and I can't really even use the gymnasium because that has a totally different history. But I'll say it to the gymnasium. It's not as if we're we're cutting your gymnasium in half and telling you we're taking your land and your building that you use to educate your children and our children. So we're not taking the gym. We're not carving a path off on the gym. We're putting a building on town land, and we have a turning circle that's going to also be on town. The line may be, what you consider something that you have to deed, but that's not reality. The issue that you might address and and reference is, because you made me be an attorney, and I had to sit there and pay attention to this.
The last case related to this was New Britain. New Britain was looking to take, and put a highway a roadway in, over a school property, and they were looking to take a playground. That didn't work. We're not looking to take a playground. We're not looking to sit there and take a a place where you educate our children. We're looking to do something that's right for the community. I think everybody here realizes it's the right thing to do for the community. If four or five years ago we had gotten the use of the vacant classrooms to sit there and allow our seniors to have a place to go, we wouldn't be doing this. But we are here where we're here, and I would sit there and I would express to you very as nicely as I possibly can. It's it's a really bad situation that we're all in. You guys are all in a bad situation in the sense if you really want to follow through where you would end up going related to the memorandum of understanding. I don't think that the community in and of itself has any negative intentions to what we're doing. But we need to sit there and build a a center, and it really should just be called a senior center. I realize it's called the community center, but it should just be called a senior center. And that's basically where I stand. I'm just one member of the board of selectmen, I'll just tell you, but I know that it's you know, we've had many discussions from when we got the first letter that was addressed to us.
So there was not a conversation made to us before that letter related to it. Valerie, you may have had conversations with other people, but Jerry didn't come to me and have a conversation with me. No member of this board came to me and had a conversation with me, and I don't know if anybody came and talked to Paula when we were in this initial stage. We got a lawyer's letter. We got a threat. We we were bullied. You know? I I don't like that. I personally don't like that. And I don't like when I don't like bullies. I'm a I'm a very bad bully person, very bad, and really upsets. It upsets me tremendously. You know, I've had people who have bullied people out of positions and made them resign. I'm not big on that, and I'm not. So, I'm just telling you, the letter was not a good start for this whole process, but the position of the town and the board of select is that it is town property. We're not impacting your educational purposes, And I will sit there and look at the memorandum of understanding. I will sit there and review it with our attorney. But our I'm what we're attempting to do is go to a meeting on the twentieth with planning and zoning and move the project forward.
I don't wanna speak out of turn for everyone, but I will say I personally have been confused by the entire process. I think as a board, we felt that we had zero information, and then there was just, like, a map. And then we got a map from you guys with asking us to deed this section of land, which so that I guess that's where my confusion is because now you're saying that the town owns everything. So why We never asked we never asked for anyone to deed it. That was never our terminology. I think it came So I guess I don't understand what the what the terminology was then. That's what was told to us. I mean, the the board of education is more unfair. So
don't wanna argue about it, but there's two different So I I I would sit there I would sit there and go one way one way with this. Like and you know as a volunteer, and you know that we're all on these committees, and we do all this. There was a a committee established a year ago, then anyone could attend those meetings. Anyone. And it's not saying that that you know, maybe I'll I'll take responsibility for establishing the committee and not reaching out at the time to a board of education member and say, you should be on this building committee. I'll sit there and take responsibility for that, but they're all pub public meetings. It's not like this was done in a in a closed backroom area that we're doing doing this. But they're all they're all public meetings. And then since
May 2022 Yeah. That committee hasn't met. So this has all moved forward since that time without such a committee existing as far as being inviting the public to those. And I'm sorry to interrupt you, Jeff, but that's the fact. I know. Because I looked through all of the minutes. Yeah. And the committee that was headed by Eds Risley that was asked to be formed by the board of selectmen Yeah. Hasn't met since May 2022. So where did we just we've been in the dark. So how did all of this progress since then? What has the committee been? And until we got Chris involved, we didn't have any input or any real knowledge of what was going on. No. And And it wasn't it wasn't it didn't need to be your invitation. It it really didn't. We should have asserted ourselves earlier, but we tried to do that last fall, and we never got a response from the town, not from board of selectmen. I think it needed to be addressed by the town
and the engineers at that point. Understood. And and, you know, we when when we were so let's just go through the timeline. Letter, meeting with Jerry and Valerie at the community center where I I let everybody know it was not about the attorneys. Our attorneys should not have been involved. I I expressed that pretty clearly at our meeting. And then Jerry and Valerie and myself met again at the school. And at that point in time, there was request that we we have more participation. Chris was appointed to the the committee that was reviewing potential contracts and working with potential builders. So we definitely were not early in the process. We all made mistakes. And I'll sit there and take responsibility for it as, you know, as the first electman. And we should have done a better job on the committee standpoint to sit there and invite someone from the board of education to it. But in the end and, you know, this was something that Valerie stressed the last meeting. You know, a plan is an evolving, breathing, living thing. When I built our house, I did not plan certain things, and then it morphed, and I made changes and adjustments based upon what you find within your site. And so, yes, an initial drawing may have been built behind the the building and the current community room, but that doesn't really make sense for the best interest of the community in trying to make the most use out of what little we have. Because you all all all of us understand, a little town. Right? We're we're a little town. We're a little community with limited resources, and we have a need to sit there and do something. So the plan morphed.
Apologies from my end to not sit there and get more input earlier. But I think we're we're we're at a point where we're trying to just get the best resolution that we can. And I would sit there and express to you all that we have no intention of of impacting the children and and how you teach them. Because you guys are responsible for what for the teaching of the children. You know, we don't we as a board don't I won't speak for every member of board. I, as a board of selectmen, don't come over and tell the board of education how to spend the money that is provided for the children and how to do that. I sit there and hope you guys are good stewards of the money, and you sit there and do the best possible job. My wife is on this board for four years. Yep. And it is it's difficult. But we're sitting there on the other side listening to all of the members of the community and and having them understand that they this is what they want. We're just trying to do the best possible job.
As far as the lot line issue, I'm just expressing to you my opinion and where I'm at with it. It's a different question. Your next question, you have to deal with. I will definitely take the first draft of this because I did not see this before today. I don't believe I got it made enough. Did not have us yet. Alright. I will sit there, and I will address this with the board and with a town attorney and get an understanding of what we can and can't do. I can't guarantee you that this will get moved before the twentieth, but I will sit there and address it. Alright? We know that maintenance of the lower lot is expensive. We want to clearly establish the town. We'll maintain this lot either entirely or agree to an equitable split. This will be primary parking for the community center, and such will have much more wear and tear. This is something that I was a little bit I think we need to do a little bit better job and and definitely, we we always talk about communication. You guys have you have issues related to the parking lot or any capital improvement. We just need to go through the right channels. So if if if that parking lot needs to be maintained, it's And and I am always a believer. I don't care what we spend money on. It's Tom. I don't care if it goes to the children. I care.
Goes to the children. Goes to Ram. Goes to the to the community to do certain things. It's all town money. It doesn't I don't split hairs. I'm not like that. I'm not worried about But that's you. That's the one. But
Yeah. But but you see but you see but, also, I would go to you, and I would tell you, the more you know, doing this for eight years, will be flat honest, and I would love to tell the community. We had a terrible board of board of selectmen four years ago. Terrible. Terrible. I couldn't stand being on it. We got nothing accomplished. There was no transparency. There was no communication even among the board members. It was terrible. This board of selectmen, Paula, Adrian, Jeff Murray, Scott, do not agree on everything from a from a high end standpoint. But what we do is we work together, and we have been trying to be as transparent as we possibly can. I know Valerie hates that word, I am just telling you, we give it all up. I don't care. I've told everybody, put it all on the table. They'll either respect the fact that we're telling them the truth and giving them the information, or they'll sit there and and and reject x, y, or z. And it doesn't matter. But it's extremely good board. We work together. We track. I know your board does the same thing, but you I will I will come to you as a person as a resident. I think you're more concerned that we will attack your budget. And you got you got a lot of people like me that care about the kids.
I'm not gonna kill your budget. I do want you to be as honest as you possibly can and tell us what you can. And I know for my wife, I do know this, and the public can understand this. You cannot sit there and because you guys don't have the ability to either overspend or move money around, and you have problems with the the types of students that come into your school all the time that you don't always plan for. I totally respect that. And I, as a community member, I'm a 50% in the middle. You have 25% of them that are down here, and you have 25% that are up here. They'll vote for everything that the school wants to do, and you have 25% down here that write handprinted no signs. That's how they are. But you got 50% of us that are here, and I'm toward this end. I will sit there and vote with you guys all the time. I was glad to see the budget passed as quickly as possible. I hate doing Yeah. Two or three budget runs. It doesn't do any good.
But the more information you give, I always think the better off you'll be. Right? And if you just tell the the community, there's there's people that had kids in the school system, I mean, I can't believe tomorrow I am out. Wow. That's terrible. But you guys you guys
that that would be my request. So just So what if your bottom line is that we should ask for the we should put the money to pave the parking lot in our budget for future years. It should
go to CIP. We will do it. That's that's what we I mean, I'm just telling you. Like, when we did the roof, that was not a budgeted item through the board of education. That was a capital improvement project. On the town? On the town side. It's a town asset. This building is a town asset. It's just like the whole building, the whole structure is a town asset. You cannot look at it as if you come to the town and ask the town to pave the parking lot. That the town looks at it as that as an educational purpose. It's not. It's just an asset that has to be maintained just like our roads, just like the roof of any building that we now four years ago, the previous Florida Selectmen and for twenty years, we did nothing. There was nothing done in this community to maintain buildings or structures. You know? So we're trying and don't feel as if you're gonna come to a board, and we're gonna this board, especially, and we're gonna just, like, deny it out of hand. It goes to CIP. It goes through the same process. Shannon is on CIP. The the board of education by charter has a seat at CIP. It's just like the fire department. The fire department has come and asked for certain things, and it's kind of approved by the community properly. Yeah. Right? So I I would tell you, don't don't fear the process. Let's just do the process and all work together.
You know? But that's me. Mhmm. So So as far as doing that, I would ask you to put it on CIP's bulletin for next year. And whether we can fund everything in one year or not in one year, we will sit there and deal. Right?
Anything else I'd like to talk to Jeff and Paula from my point of view. Jeff and Paula, I I think there's not a person in the show who doesn't want that community center or senior center. I think this is a great town. I think you've heard me say board of finance meetings. It's not board of development meetings. I want what's best for my town. And I see my town as the whole community, all people together. And I think that it would serve all of us as a sound community best if we were able to reach out across the lines of the different boards. Mhmm. In other words, feel free that we could come to the board of selectmen and feel that we at least be heard or listened to. To be able to go to the board of finance and to feel that we've been heard or listened to, and that those other boards could come to us. I think the lines that are and this is not what this group. This is this, I think, goes back historically before my time even being in this town. There are strong
lines of division drawing. And I think that we need to move beyond that and start functioning as a as a single unit altogether. I have been to board of finance meetings. I've been to board of select meetings. And I think it's possible if people are willing to sit down, talk with each other, and listen to each other. I appreciate the fact that the two of you have come today to be here with us and to talk with us. I think what got a sense of the point we did was you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think it was that we felt that we weren't gonna be heard.
We felt that we weren't heard, and we felt we weren't gonna be heard. Because when we sat down with you and Eric, it was kinda scary. I don't know how Valerie felt. I don't know how you felt. I felt threatened. I felt like nobody was listening. Nobody wanted to listen. Nobody wanted to talk. Nobody wanted to I felt shut out. And I I think that's the point of her that starts people shutting down and not being willing to work things out.
I think this is terrific that the two of you have come. Well, I I would I one thing, Jerry. There there's probably mistakes across all sides. Oh, yeah. Right? I would tell you from a standpoint of, you know, owning my own business, I know when I get lawyer letters, they're not always they're not good. Right? Never good. Sorry, Shannon. We send some nice letters. You never send never send a nice letter ever. I haven't sent any people. So send a nice letter to you. Tomorrow, Joe. So I've had nice letters to lawyers there. So so, Jerry, what I would sit there and say is is mistakes mistakes across everything. So We're sitting here. How we sit
there and and handle it moving forward is something different. Right? So we we will sit there and and, as I said, I I have no problem working with anyone at this table. Alright? We never we'll not always agree. We won't. But we just need to work together for the best interest of of all of our constituents. That includes the kids. That includes the seniors. That includes what we're trying to do. But I can't agree with you more. Yeah. Yep. Have there have there ever been,
like, quarterly cohort meetings? Is that not something that perhaps we should consider as a town? Or Very close. Once year Or special development. I But, like, something to instead of being separated. Because I you know, since since the time that we've been on the board, it's always just felt
divided. I actually think that's a great idea, and I think we should include the board of finance because That's what I think What what I what I think happens, honestly, is that information gets filtered Yes. By people that come to the and it would be much easier for you to talk to me, to talk to another board member directly Yes. To understand what the true context of everything is so that we can all, as a community, make the right decisions. Yeah. Because
And we have a better understanding. Yeah. Just so we all know each other. Exactly. Even if we did that, like, twice a year. And and I would propose I mean, maybe obviously, we need to talk to individual boards about it, but I think it would be a good idea if one of those happened prior to the budget being presented. You won't have them. That's the only time we all three get together, and it's in a town meeting. It's not Well, no. The board is actually That's never a good meeting. With that.
No. Yeah. Well So I I have no problem. I will sit there and reach out to Mark, and I'll talk to Jerry, and let's schedule it. Yeah. Because I I have no problem with that. I mean, this was four years on the board, and I never attended one of those meetings because it's not my purview. I I always look at it this way. I'm not here to tell you or to direct try to direct you guys to where what you're doing in your your area. I don't sit there and I don't I'm not like that. So I don't because I haven't. This is my first board meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome. Anyway,
I I do believe that is a very good idea. And I will sit there and work to execute that because I think it'd be good for you to meet the board of finance people, and the board of finance people can tell us what they think about what we're doing. We can tell them what we think they're doing, and it will be much easier to get them to come. Precedent that as a town, we want to work together. It looks it shows the town And it shows, like, the people that elected us that were working together for the better of the town. It's not working against each other.
I I do as I said, I do wanna second what Jerry said. I do appreciate you being here. Thank you very much. I I and I think that's part part of my challenge is is one on one, I think things work really well. I mean, I had some really good conversations with Adrian as we're working on the center. I don't know if you've heard, but, know, I I I helped redesign their kitchen Yeah. So it made more sense. Just one of my past skills I have. But the other piece I wanted to I wanted to say is I appreciate the transparency piece, and I think that's what we need to do
as much of in this town as possible. Yes. And and like you said, we're not always gonna win. We're not always going to agree. But if we've got the information out there and we're all having an honest conversation,
we'll end up in a better place. Absolutely. I I agree a 100% with that. I I would tell you over the last four years for the board of selectmen in the town budget, you know, we get a little pushback. And we're not being overly aggressive, but we're being practical, and and people are seeing things happen positively. And and I will tell you, I mean, because I I believe the school is doing a great job with the kids. I mean, I I do have to commend your board for for doing an exceptional job with the kids and and how well I mean, we have a valedictorian this year. We had a salutatorian last year, I believe. No. But, yeah, we had a salutatorian. Ryan Kusser. Right. He should've he should've it. He took he took advanced
physics. Ryan. But we're doing it. You know? AES students. You know? So there's lots of wisdom. And and for for various for various reasons. Now I wish we had more children. I mean and we all do. But Oh, we can all those those those are issues. Yeah. That's okay. So But but no. I mean, we need we we should have the meetings. We should all work together, and and I believe the community can't push back if you're just telling them what the reality of it is. There there will always be people that write no in grant, and that's all it is. Crayon? Yeah. Or or Sharpie. Well, they keep their they keep the sides on Lightbrothers. They keep the sides every year. Oh. It's just a repetitive put it on. No matter what is there. It doesn't matter what it is. It's the same side. And and that's okay. They have the right to voice their opinions. Okay. My sign's the same side. But if the 50% in the middle
side with the 50% over here, then Yeah. We end up But I end up We'll be positive. That we'll have that more if we continue to have collaboration.
So, like, to echo what April said, really thank you guys so much for coming tonight. It means it means a lot, and I think we just need to be on the right foot forward to have open communication for the town.
So I don't wanna end on a negative note. Yes. But I do wanna respond to what you said Yes. Because we disagree. Okay. And I think that the MOU before you get outraged by it or whatever, does reflect what we need to do to protect our rights under our responsibilities as a board of education. K. So what I will point you to is the maps Mhmm. And the deeds because there is deeded property to the school. And right on the map that was presented at the public hearing, it shows the school's deed line, and it goes right through part of the property that's the site plan for the community center. So that's all we're referring to. And it is not owned by the school except I think it was deeded, but it certainly is under the board of education control Control? By law. Yeah. And so that's what the fight has been about, about this little triangular piece of property Mhmm. That we supposedly have control over,
and our lawyers can go back and forth. And we don't want it to go any further than that. And I obviously love lawyers, not many. Mhmm. But in any event, that's what the fight has been about. So I do think that there are property lines. I do think there's a difference of opinion as to control and ownership, and I think we need an MOU so that all of that is addressed.
That's all I that's all I wanted to say. Understood. And I I will sit there and go back and look at it. But I but I I mean, we we will disagree Oh, sure. On the issue that all of the property and all of the structures within this community Mhmm. Are owned by the town. Control of this building internally in here is absolutely board of education. I hear you. I disagree on You know? Alright. In here. Totally. Totally. I get it. Exterior, right, it is your control of your property. Mhmm. Right? But that that issue that we now address is is that property used for educational purposes, and does the town have the right to sit there and move that lot line accordingly without impacting education? And that's where you and I will just have the disagreement. And that's where people would talk. And whether you want to go to an attorney Nope. To sit there and address that and then have a conflict, that's
that's something that I would ask. Know that. And bottom line, it doesn't have to be used for educational purposes. That's not what the law says. And I would But in this case in this case, I would actually argue it is used for educational purposes. It is part of our plan. Right. It is. Right. It is part of our evacuation plan. So I would say it is. Well, and on the first draft of the where they wanted to move the line, it included the entrance to the parking lot. Right? Mhmm. Okay.
And we'll we'll evaluate it. MOU. We we we just received it. We will look at it. I am telling you that the twentieth planning and zoning be done by then? No.
Planning and zoning planning and zoning is going to have this meeting. Yep. Right? And I would tell you that it's my my take that the the well, I won't speak for anybody. So I'm just gonna sit there and tell you that we're gonna sit there and go to planning and zoning. We're gonna sit there and and and move forward because it is in the best interest of the town. And I would tell you as a board, I'm just telling you, let's not fight over this. If we fight over this, it's not going to be good for the community. As a whole, it will not be good for the children of our town.
So I'm just asking you to think that through as board members, right, and as residents, as as people who live in this community. You know? It's taken us how many years to deal with the aftermath of the the four school four rooms in a school. You know? Three, four rooms. Yeah. I mean yeah. So, anyway, we will review it. We will look at it, and we will evaluate it, and then we will sit there and and and deal with this. But I do like your idea. We will sit there and become we will become more cohesive as a you know, across party lines, across all the rest of this because the one thing from our board you know, even Paula, she's a Republican, but I do love her. And we work to hence, yeah, she is my favorite. But we work that way to sit there and understand what's in. Alright?
So thank you for coming, and we'll see you on the tour. I I would love I normally stay for meetings, the entire meeting. I just got back from a trip, so and my daughter's graduating tomorrow. So if you don't mind, I'm gonna leave. I think you should. Yeah. That's gonna work. Far. And I'll read. Alright. No. Good luck. Thanks, Scott. So, Jeff, is if if there's things in here that you don't like, don't just dismiss out of hand. We'll communicate with We'll work with it. Yep. Yeah. You got it. Alright. Thanks, guys. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye, guys. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye. How's your daughter? Good. Where's it going? I'm sorry. It's important. Sorry. Okay.
Seven e comments in a couple? No. No. He did. He's just right. He's He's right. Right. We're e
two. 7 e 1. Sorry. Which No. The financial report. We haven't done We wouldn't get to 7 Oh, I'm fine. Sorry. Yeah. Chairperson. Report. Oh, that's what happened. Yeah. It's true.
Right here. You know, showing No. No. No. I can see all of the You can see my arrows. Okay. It goes chairperson.
Gonna be a long meeting. And chairperson, you'll be you wanna be here.
I'm serious. Thank you, Chris. You're getting the third person. Yeah. Super. Exactly.
I do not have a written report. I will say that we didn't talk about it under celebrations, but it was not only a successful year as Taylor's first year. But Terry has come aboard as well, midyear. So, I I think that it's not just that we're grateful for the success of the kids and the teachers, but also, you know, the the newest additions there this year. Wasn't always easy for Taylor during the year to realize at some point, like, oh, wait a minute. But sometimes she's like, I I didn't know we did that. Mhmm. And he was like, surprise. But we had met with the staff yesterday at our last staff meeting, and let them know, kind of the the state of of where we are, for the summer and moving forward and what the goals and objectives are, which ones we've got we've met. Taylor will talk in a second. I will have this summer at our July and August meeting. We are working we've kind of divided and conquered, but we will have capital plans for the next school year, tech plans for the next school year, curriculum mapping for the next school year. All of that will, you know, be something that we work really hard at this summer to make sure that we have that ready so that on the very first day of school,
moving forward, we'll be good to go. So you can expect that at the July. And that's it. Thank you to both of Yeah.
Your control report. Yeah. I too don't have a a formal written report, but I will just echo from what Val said. So we did we are getting unofficial data. They're they're calling from the state, so we we can't disseminate it publicly yet. So, hopefully, by our August meeting, I'll be able to give a more formal report on our progress numbers wise. But I can tell you it's all looking really good. We've we've made a lot of growth in a lot of areas, so we're really excited that we got to celebrate that internally yesterday. Mhmm. And and and we're excited to share that with you. We also yearly per have a staff survey and a parent survey. Yep. And we also actually survey students in grades three through six. So I can share I'll have some more kind of yes. It's percentages and numbers, but it gives you more kind of just a human view into into the year and what what our areas of strengths were and then certainly how I'll some of our goals for next year. But I will just share one that I loved from our staff survey. We asked the question, would you recommend working at AES to a friend? And a 100% of our staff
said either agree or strongly agree. And I just think that was really, like, a cool moment for our staff to be like, we're what we're doing here is good, and it and it feels good. So that was exciting. And then the only other one I'll just share informally is from our parent survey. One of the questions was, my child feels safe at school and has a trusted adult, And a 100% of our families said agree or strongly agree. It's great. I get chills with that one because, I mean, that that's pretty amazing, you know, to to have families feel that their children are safe at school but not have one if they disagree. So, again, you know, as the summer goes on, I can I'll certainly present all of that in a more formal way for you, but just some some gems, on this last day of school. I should have asked during the superintendent's report, but now I'll ask because I only know it by Facebook.
We usually invite the recipients of the superintendent's awards to our meeting, and I only know that Lloyd Blake's son, one of them for Facebook You know the one that just said Taylor has all these moments where she was, oh, we do that. This is one of those. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, the agenda for today. That's okay. Yes. We we
We we don't normally have the the board meeting the day after. Hey, Bryce. So, you know, usually No. No. No. It was Elena Shelf on the show fund. Because that's a very prestigious award. Absolutely. So congratulations in our celebration. Yes. That's all for me. Financial. Financialreport.com.
Yeah. So I'm next, and I have a lot of the policies revised, but I didn't get them to Diane in time to get to you. So knowing what was happening tonight, I will get them to you if we have a July meeting. K. Okay. They are being revised. Thank you, Shannon. Thank you. On that one. Thank you for your work, Shannon. You're welcome. Everything. Yep.
Okay. Next. Item two, scheduled date for BOE retreat to work on 2023, 2024 goals. We had a a good date.
We we had it in June last year. Yep. Yeah. I think they're both over the ship already settled. I yeah. Changed it. Like it. Yeah. Oh, no. I'm actually gonna reach with this month. All I'm saying was last year, we did it in June. That's all I was saying. I can't do it in June either. Great. Making that we did in June.
Oh, hope you guys get to do something fun when you reach good. Not really.
I I I enjoy that. Professional development. But I I enjoy them. It's it's a very good learning experience. Hopefully, our super
I know. You're just that's right. You were such a dying guy. You were so sick. I was sick last night. She's like I know.
I'm like, if you're gonna catch it, if even if she Zooms, I feel like a Christmas. I know. It was
the week of July 4, like, because I had to cancel a flight.
Oh, so you remember. Okay. I think it was right when I started. You were like, I have I think you had gotten sick. Yeah. I like, I'm very sick. And I was like, okay. I was for my first day at this time. I can't remember those. So if we look at the
the next one on there, which is the meetings, perhaps you could coincide it with July or August's meeting. That wanna accept that. Okay. Make it easy for me. Well, you could do the meeting via Zoom
from wherever you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. You're doing the the retreat. Right. Right. Don't off-site retreat, but then have to staying on a Wednesday? You could. Yes. July 12. So you're starting out It'll that's not My life, like, no day is good. Right. But I still need to hire another vet. But you guys just But other than that
I I went to work at five this morning. Thank you, Amy. Bye. Bye, Amy. July 12? August.
August. I feel like we should do a thing for August. Yeah. I think so too.
So July 12. Yeah. So I said. Okay. Tell all of the animals that come to your No. It's very big. No. No. No. I'm just telling you, you know, just tell all the animals you're not looking to sit Well, last year, we did it up at vacation.
Up at. It's a Yeah. In Westport. Yeah. I think just for convenience, it was I mean, I loved being at Water's Edge. Oh, please. You know? But Bolton,
you know, I just think I don't need to go somewhere for Erwin. Yeah.
I don't I don't wanna meet in the library if that's okay. Yeah.
Alright. So You mean this library? Yeah. Yeah. So I've gotta make sure that I find some available dates. So I'll look local within a town or so. Yep. Yeah. And we'll just see who has Oh, July 12 available. Okay. Yeah. And then I can send you some And this is obviously, this would be during the day. You know, like, how we had it. Like, it was, like Or later in the day. Okay. Going into the evening. Sure. But you can gate it. Three minutes.
Great. And do the Yeah. That would be good. Do the meeting. Okay. The former Lakeview restaurant Right. Is now four dads. It's very close by in Coventry, and they're great guys. But now that I'm saying that I don't think they have a separate room for us to meet him. But at that time in the afternoon,
we could go up. I I think they do actually because I think we had John's thing there last year for the school at Lakeview? Yeah. It's separate room. It's that big room. There's a big That's where we had the kids' retirement party. Right? Okay. So they do have room. So moved. Yeah. So I would prefer to be on the patio with sunscreen. Okay. So I'll look at that one first.
Do you wanna consume You can say a time or no? Like, later? She was that was she was suggesting later in the day, so then then we can move right into it. So,
like like, three or four or or something like that? Okay. Yeah.
K. Yeah. That help? Yeah. Give you a little more. Said pause. But I don't want you to help me.
Right now. Provide all the suppress. So gold doesn't So what what do you say? Well, come on. Become my house, I mean. Up in Maine.
But, really, I'm serious. You can use my house. My house. Oh, I have a very large conference room at my practice. Not that So you're gonna stay at your house. Katelyn really wants be
located. Yeah. To be here. Yeah. Can sit on deck. We can sit on my deck. That's fine.
Okey dokey, folks. Okay. Thank you, Val. I'll find something here. Great. I'll send them to you, but at least we have a Super duper. Just mail. See what's available. You
got it. And then and then at the same time, right, vote to retain or cancel the meetings. Going to We're doing that tonight. No? Oh oh, I'm saying, like, right yes. Yeah. Segue. Segue. Nice nicely done. So I think that we should keep the meetings? Yes. Oh, you are voting to keep the meetings. I would make a motion that we keep the meetings for July and August. I second. Okay. How
many in favor? All I'm saying You're taking a lot of now. Okay. I know. We can't do this anymore.
You know, this is this is called. We're not getting any We could go backwards, and you guys should vote on the dates? Yes. I make a motion to So you're do the BOE retreat on July 11. July 1212.
I'll second it. Thank you. All in favor. And you just said Thank
you. No good. She's never coming back. Got a couple of future future here. All in favor? I don't have any. Any opposed?
I would say abstentions. Do we have any no. We don't have any. Joanne. Joanne. Oh, I mean, we don't have more. No. Another group. No. No. No. Was not. Mike was naked. Okay.
Now it's Were you No. Did you just say ask for public speak? No. We're not at that point. Correct? Not yet. No. You had trouble with it. There, Julie. We're we're almost there. I can say that I'm I'm only saying this. Sorry. I know I'm breaching. There are elected officials in town that do attend, like, almost every meeting. Just I I love that point that he made. So I'll get back to that in my public speak. Thank you.
He said there are elected officials that attend all the other meetings because Joanne does attend the board's electing in ours. So she was just making that point. She wanted to make sure they got in there. They do attend. Yep. Yep. Next. Sorry, So avoid meeting schedule. You just did it.
No. We didn't we didn't I didn't officially do it. She made the motion. I second it. Okay.
Who made the motion? Caitlin, second it. Second it. Any discussion? K. All in favor, say aye. Aye.
Aye. The only discussion I would say is, clearly, we need July. And I think in July, we can determine if we need August, but given construction center, it's very likely we will. Yes. Correct. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So we're all set with that? Yes, sir. Now now we've
Sometimes you gotta know. Now it's me. It's Terry. My turn. It's Terry's turn. Shine. That seemed it's
Okay. Well, you all received your packet, I believe, last Thursday. Thursday. Yep. And I'm not sure if you had a chance to review at all. But the bottom line is that there is monies that after everything has been encumbered, there is about $2.25 49 available. Thank you to to Val and all her hard work in getting these grants, and it's really it's really helped. If anybody wants to go if does anybody have any specific questions to any particular line items, or do you want me to just go down through and say, you know, this is this is where we've saved money on the grants, but you've kind kind of been hearing from Val on that for the past six months,
but I'll be happy to reiterate that. I just said, just think it would be helpful if you didn't use it from Valerie, you'd like to kinda go through because, clearly, that's that's not where we expected to be a couple months ago. Right? I mean and so I think it'd be really helpful for us and for anybody else who's listening or listens later Yeah. To kinda walk through a little bit as to how do we get here. You know, we're not Yes.
And a couple of months ago I mean, we were with Taylor and I, it being our first year, we're being very conservative. You know, we really needed to see, you know, all the different avenues and what happens at this time of the year and what's being paid for at that time of the year. And at this point, we feel very confident, obviously, in these numbers. So if you wanna start with the first section, the teacher salaries, like I said, Val has already discussed this. We did have some, grant money that was able to help us out. Sarah, do you I know you didn't bring it. Do you want me to share the grant
things as you go through it so that everybody knows what If you have anything to add, that would be wonderful. Okay. Let me know if you want me to share which grants they are. Okay.
Or does the board want Val to share what grants we're able to offset our we're able to offset think would be good if we just briefly go through them now to keep prescribing that. Yeah. Whatever you want. Okay. So next section, instructional assistance. Salaries also offset by the grants. We had some money left over in the sub areas. The real only real need was in the pre k, but that was paid out of the pre k. On
page two, under support salaries, there's an overage on the custodial salaries because in the past, they they had the custodians working. It sounds like they weren't as you know, they were they were working a lot more hours. So now there's a savings there. Okay? Is that because of, like, COVID non COVID? Think it was previous administration and how they how they ran things. And and Val and Taylor are running a tight ship now, so we've got some money. Okay. That's the truth. What can I say?
We had no retirement buyouts, so we're saving money there. What what happens with that? That doesn't roll over ever. Right? The retirement It doesn't. That's that's one of those lines that you have to plan by you have to plan for it in there, because by union contracts, they're entitled to something. Yep. And so if it doesn't happen, it can be moved. But as soon as you don't put it in there and there's and there is no negotiating on that one front. Remember last year, we did actually I know it was two different last year. Right? Yes. We had two different things that we had to pay out. Yeah. It will pay more than 15,000. Yeah. Right. It was, like, 20 So we're on paid. Yeah.
We're on page three right now. I just mentioned the retirement buyout. We didn't have to use that. We did have some savings once again in our benefits line, and that is actually kind of what led us to be able to reduce our request to the to, for next year's budget by the 16,000. So we have had some, you know, many good changes in our favor for that. We also had down to the bottom section there for professional services such as PTOT PTOT psych. Those are also being offset by grants. And remember, these grants are one and done. So, like, if we didn't use them this year, we would lose the money, and we and we do not want that to happen. So, like, when you look under, like, psych psychological
services Yes. It's not it's not that we didn't actually spend 60, like, 65,000. It's that,
like, 40,000 of that was We're able to offset it. Would be grants. Okay. Yes. Just wanna make it clear. That's not, like, how Those are the ESSER grants that are those are coming to a Well, you know what? I'll have you finish, then I'll go through the names of them. That way you guys know exactly where it is. I don't wanna interrupt you, Carrie. Sure. Okay.
Yes. So there's somebody there. In the section under staff training, we did ask for 4,000 more, and it's based on the fact that we did have some more staff training that was done at the end of the year. The following section under under other professional services, we're aware of what's going on there. The lunch program is going to we have that money because of the free lunch, or the free lunch is due to
But we didn't know when we did this that the lunch is gonna be free. Yep. So that won't be needed again.
On page five, many of these expenses are can or can be we can use grants that don't expire till future dates, or we can use general fund money, but that's gonna be up to the board as to how they wanna do that. Moving right along.
And if anybody has any questions, I don't wanna go too fast. Page six, as Val has mentioned in the past six months, we had some outplacement money that was not needed because a couple of students or one or two students, one had returned and one had moved out of the district. Yep. So that, you know, that resulted in a huge savings right there. Right. Page seven. Page eight. We like I said, we have to make some decisions. I didn't want it I wanted that not to say budget transfer tonight. I really want it to be a discussion on how you want to use the money. Okay? Okay?
And that's obviously the board's decision on that. Let's see. I mean, there's obviously a lot of overages in the tech tech lines, but we do have E Rate money. If we had to, we can use it because it has not ex that's not one of the grants that's expiring this year. Okay? So keep that in mind. Thank you. So that brings us to the bottom number of 225149. Any other questions? Now Val and I have talked about how we think the money should be used, but we also know that that is up to the board. And if Val, do you wanna go into some
Well, I actually wanna address this first so that we know. I'm sorry. Just So Well, I don't think just so we know. Think I don't think we could celebrate the that we've received I got you. Because it's a huge dollar amount. It is. So we Yeah. So, yeah, that part's not all just grants. What happens is this. So we have our regular, what are, like, entitlement grants. The word entitlement means that as long as your school district or school, in our case, meets certain criteria, you are practically guaranteed it as long as you do the application, you follow through, and everything, gets done with the state because it's based on nothing spectacular that you did. It's based on your data. It says you have a certain number of free or reduced lunch kids. It says you have a certain number of special education students. So that's what they mean by entitlement grants that I didn't have to toil hard at work to try to apply for them and hope that in a competition, I was going to get them. It means that everybody's gonna get them who meets that criteria as long as that was the homework and puts it in. Those include IDEA, which is a special education grant. What we use that for is a salary that's not in the general fund. That one did not save us any money this year because what we utilize that for salary wise, that person does not have noted. Yeah. In the general fund. So that one is something in addition. Title one and title two, ADA for those consultants they were?
No. Okay. I don't have the exact number. I apologize. So an IDEA does vary slightly from year to year. The title one, it's I don't know if you guys remember. We did lose title one two years ago. Yeah. Because, again, there's a formula. Right. And we lost it, I think, by, like, one kid in this formula. And so title one is title two is very small. Title two is less than $2,500. Title one, generally speaking, can bring us in about $10,000. But, again, I wanna be clear. That is not why there's a surplus with the entitlement grants because those grants are not figured in because we usually get them. Where we get a hiccup is if we lose an entitlement grant. We're like, oh, no. We didn't anticipate that. And then we try to make up the difference someplace else. So that is in addition. School readiness and smart start and preschool quality enhancement on the top there. School readiness is always about a 100,000 with our current number of seats in school readiness that can qualify.
Smart start, the same. So you guys know that we've never had preschool in my three years anyways in our general fund simply because one's a 100, one's 65, that pays mostly, the salaries of the two teachers. And then when tuition comes in, the paraprofessionals as well. Mhmm. So we've never really had to put anything related to preschool in there, and those are entitlement grants. So that right there, the planned, expenditures and the expected ones, those are different kinds of grants. Can't take credit for those. Then when we move down to the grants that, as Terry said, are one and done, they were things that I was able to apply for either because they were ARPA ESSER type grants, and they were competitive still, but, we made sure that we were able to, transfer over expenditures or be able to supplement additional expenditures. We have the ARP IDEA, which I said IDEA is an entitlement grant, but we got $7,600
additional because the state passed along opportunities to share the wealth. So that 7,600 then was not something that we planned on getting, so the 7,600 was able to come out of the general fund. The ESSER SPED recovery activity one and two, I applied for, and that was really what saved us here with the psych services. Because when we wrote that grant, it was the intent that we would be able to expand psych services by one day with the 25,000 and the 30,000. We weren't able to do that because our current psychologist, she couldn't work another day. And so then we did supplant, and we did say, okay. We're not gonna get an additional, so we're gonna be able to take and pull out our existing psych services that was allowed. So that saved us right there about 55,000
over the course of eighteen months. That wasn't a twelve month rent. So some last year into this year. There was another one called the SPED stipend. That was 10,000, and that assisted us, last summer into this school year with exceptional special education things that we didn't realize we were gonna have. And as you know, we had a special education student move into district in June, so that actually defrayed some of those costs for the first six months associated with that student. So, poof, that helped us a little bit because there was a lot of training of staff involved with that particular student, and most of that additional training was covered with that $10,000. As you know, the summer enrichment, that the 42,000 that Mike wrote a nice article in the paper about us in Colchester, which I thought was great. We have the 42,000 this summer and next summer. Doesn't affect the general fund at all that was in addition to. We have CT SEDS implementation grant for $10,000
because the state required us, excuse me, required us to switch over from IEP direct to CT SEDS. They knew that districts were gonna have to pay more money, so that one's 10,000. We only used 5,000 this year, 2,500 toward our special ed director and 2,500 toward our administrative assistant, which, again, comes right out of here. And the other five will roll over to next year, and we'll be able to do the same thing as they work toward ironing out the glitches with CT SEDS. Title four title four is back. When you lose title one, the next year, you'll lose title four. The next year, you'll lose REAP. And so because of the way the formulas are attached to one another, just what happens. So we knew two years ago we lost title one. So we knew the last year, we lose title four, but it's back now. That's 10,000. And so going into next school year, we know that that $10,000 for next school year will take 10,000 off the salary, so about an eighth of our remedial reading teacher because that's what we always use that for.
They had the ARP innovation after school grant, as you guys know, 221,000. It didn't affect the budget, but what it does do for us then moving forward is make it so that all those extra enrichment activities after school don't have to be put in here for the next year. So school readiness enrollment was an additional grant. Again, they said, you guys get opportunity to apply for more, and you guys get that was 10,000. And so $10,000 makes a big difference for us. What it did for us was it wasn't psych because we already had that covered. But what it does for us is when our preschoolers come in, sometimes we require extra screenings and things with service providers. It makes it so that we can take that out of there. And then ERATES, as Terry mentioned, ERATES is a nonexpiring. We applied for that. We can't apply again until 2026, but we had applied for that as a rebate to cover the costs of a lot of the wireless that we had pre and during during COVID and post COVID, I mean. And so that is what Terry has just started to mention is what we were using when the three of us sat down and said, okay. We need your tech plan. But then at the end of the year so so Taylor was on a very strict amount of money of what she and
Christina Fraser could spend, and it was like, can't go over it. But then here now at the end of the year when we are sitting with extra money, it's do we then use the grants that we could save for around two for phase two, or do we take it out of here? It would make more sense to take it in here so we know we're already funded. And next year when we do our general funds to the taxpayer, we don't have to say, oh, and by the way, we need to add in here phase two of our our tech plan because we'll already have the money for that. So that helps. And then REAP. REAP can be used. REAP is the rural education grant.
There's also a certior for small town. But this one, we, generally speaking, can rely on it, but we never rely on it with our budget because if it goes away, we're stuck. And that's 16,000, and that can be used for a salary. So these allowed us the 25, the 30, the 10, the 10, and the 16 allowed us to whittle away at different pieces of the budget, mostly salaries and service providers. So when Terry mentions that there was a change to outplacement, remember, we had one move and then one come in after the budget, and we went, okay. It's probably gonna be a wash. But a lot of the services to that in placement that moved in were able to be covered with fees. So that's what made it so that we were gonna have a bid there. And then it was proper to place one student who had been placed out back in March end of February, I should say, beginning of March. It was proper to place them back in a classroom here as the least restrictive environment for them. So in doing that, the fourth quarter of this school year, we didn't have the tuition, and we didn't have the bus. And so Mhmm. Right. So that student is not included now, you know, in our summer plan, our program, and so we we don't have that moving forward. So that helped us.
We also had, if you remember two years ago, the ESSER ARPA money, it was a $133,000. That's where we did the majority of the air conditioning with because, again, you know, it was available to us, and that was one of the things they were pushing. There are a couple of things in here that we were able to take out as a follow-up to that, maintenance on that. And as we took those things out, because the money expires June 30, we started to whittle away and take the things out of the general funds that could properly go in there or we were gonna lose the money. That would pull a thousand dollars maintenance for HVAC. That would pull things that they needed for exhaust, like those sorts of things. And lo and behold, we said, alright. Now we've got more money left there.
Terry said that everything else is encumbered. You guys voted two meetings ago to hold off on the floors until July 1. That's actually with the Esser ARPA money remainder getting flushed into the general funds. That's actually in her proposed plan here for you guys to decide if you wanna keep that in here. So that would be paid for in here in addition to that 02/25. It does not have to roll over to the next year. Okay. And the age of those tiles and the condition that the tiles were in, it's appropriate to put into the category of that s s SRR. Okay. So we're okay with that. Okay? And then I don't know if you remember. Remember when we lost title one last time Yeah. When they gave that Esser money to everybody and put in the newspaper. Every town got it. And we said, nope. There was five of us that didn't get it. Do remember how angry I was? And we went Joe Courtney was instrumental. Yep.
Yep. Instrumental in us getting that. We didn't know we were getting it at the time, and so we used part of it, but we still had money left in there. And so that's been flushed through Terry's numbers here as well. So and that one was a $59,000 original amount that we had there, and I believe we had, like, 18 that still had to get flushed through here. Otherwise, we were gonna lose it at the end of June. So so those things all made a difference. They absolutely made a difference in here. And, you know, it's we feel confident moving forward that, you know, there will be other opportunities. You know, I'm waiting for three grants now. They haven't said no yet. So, oh, boy, it's taken them a while, but they haven't told me the big n o yet. So I'm gonna be optimistic. And then with with any of the curriculum needs that Taylor has next year for reading, we have the Right to Read grant that's already been sent through and accepted. So, you know, she didn't have to buy at the end of the year a lot of things associated with the reading curriculum. Instead, she'll have that $6,500 next year and $6,500 the following year to use toward it. So it's just a lot of moving pieces, but we were able to pull out quite a bit of stuff from here. Can't promise you that miracle next year, but it's here now. And so
Okay. So now the board gets to decide. I mean, basically, we have been getting proposals and quotes on different things that do need to be done here at the school. And I guess it's your decision to decide if we move forward with did you wanna talk specifics about what do you have there? Yes. Thank you. Yeah. So
there are a couple of small we've we've done a lot of because we have the had the money available, we did a lot of in preparation for creating permanent summer capital plans, we did a lot of the maintenance and said kinda tell we tell us where we're at. So for example, the traps. We have the traps in the building where they can end up I'm trying to explain this right because she's laughing because I'm like, you know, I'm doing this. We have these traps in the building that normally get just cleaned out. But for $2,500, they could come and tell you which ones are on the brink, so to speak, so that we would know. So we had that done. We're having that done because that's gonna help us this summer when we're looking in that department to figure out if next year we're gonna have a problem. We also had a little issue with a smell that Taylor really was convinced was a dead mouse. I know it wasn't a dead mouse. I had one in my office last year. I knew it wasn't a dead mouse. In in the closet in the storage closet down here where our supplies were, we couldn't figure out what this smell was. Bad. So it was bad. Yeah. I don't wanna lose this one. Yeah. So, no, it's actually not a bad thing. Water. The
The fact that we have been doing a lot of the the preventative maintenance right now is it's bad in one hand that people are starting to say, you know, you gotta think about doing this because you haven't done it in a while, but they're telling us, you know, you have to think about doing this instead of you're in crisis. Right. Lo and behold, if you start to walk down the stairs from the main office, like, you're coming downstairs, there's this little, like, trapdoor, like, troll sized trapdoor in the wall. There's a big, like, black pipe, the original plumbing that kinda goes through. It's my understanding, and I could be saying this wrong. Everybody's a plumber's going, oh my god. I can't believe she said it that way. But it's my understanding that the original plumbing that was here,
when we did put the additions on, we expanded that and extended it to the new bathrooms, and that there was very limited new construction of the original Piping. Plumbing piping. So it does seem that there was one spot, totally fixable. I'm gonna be spoiler alert here. But one spot where there's a urinal in a boy's bathroom that nobody would have a reason to know, but it had been leaking. And so it was a little sewagey, and that's where that smell is coming from. And so smells is is subsided. We're good that this is being fixed this week. However, then in speaking to that particular person, they said this is your four year plan that you'll need to do moving forward with that. Not right now. This is something we definitely need to have time to have people come and go through. But, of course, I said, well, how much money are we talking about? And they don't wanna give you a number. And I was like, I promise not to hold you to this number, but I have no idea when it comes to plumbing. Are we talking about hundreds, thousands?
And they said, it's it's eventually gonna be a $200,000 job because you're going to need to replace that original piping there and then go through and rejuvenate the bathrooms with new fixtures. And if you're gonna do new fixtures, at that point, the floors in most of the bathrooms would need to be redone. So my I said, I really don't mean to sound naive, but if it's, like, 50,000 a year for four years, would that put us in a crisis, or could that legitimately be something? And they said, yes. Now you're thinking the right way. So that's gonna be something that we know is gonna have to be a plan moving forward. We're not in crisis right now, but if we know that going through at that point, you know, the proper channels with the CIP, with the board of finance at that point, and saying, how can we make this happen? That's a definite in the next four years. So that's why we were discussing
what can we take care of now that won't go to the taxpayer. Because if I don't get miraculously get a a ton of awesome grants Mhmm. In the next four years that would cover plumbing, that's gonna be something that we are gonna have to look to get assistance from the taxpayer on. And we know that it's probably gonna be to the tune of about 50,000 a year for four years. I'm sure, like, that depending on which experts come in, the price would vary, but that just gives us some kind of idea in our head. So that's gonna be on my mind for the next couple of years, making sure that we can get that funded, and I will be looking for grants where that could go through. But those are tough ones for schools. They don't, generally speaking, like to offer you those sorts of capital grants because schools generally have capital accounts that are funded by the town. And so those are few and far between to come by, so
we'll worry about that on the next couple years. Do something.
Periodically would clean out. Yes. Mhmm. Yes. Of course. That's why this is an That's why I was wondering if maybe Yeah. No. Did the
where that urinal was leaking, did all of the, like,
whiteboard or or whatever It went through the floor. You couldn't even tell. So that was the problem, Kate. We couldn't locate it until we smell it. Right. Because it's in the wall. Yeah. You can It's not, you know And it's, like, concrete. It's, like, block walled? No. There there's there's actually one section that's not. The rest is. Yeah. But it's in the part of the wing over there where, you know, downstairs, all we have is the teacher's work room, the the supply closet, the and they were the special ed rooms, the remedial reading, which is now gonna be the art room again down there on the Spanish room. It's that wing that unfortunately doesn't have a whole lot of use, so it would it's not right. It's not a place where people smelled it at all regularly. And the door to that closet where it really reaped was closed most of the time. So it wasn't until somebody would open that door and go in and they'd say, oh, smells like something died in here. And it didn't And then close it. Right? Yeah. So
Broome that fella. When do you close that window? We were like, let's go come down there.
So I'm glad that we found it when we did because we were very lucky that somebody's able to come and say, okay. We can fix this for now for not a huge amount of money, but we are doing, maintenance wise, as what we would normally do maintenance wise with making sure that, you know, obviously, going through the the heating and cooling system, you go through, the the traps, as I said. You go through making sure that everything kinda checks. And we're working on making sure for the board's sake that we work with the custodians this summer to have more down on paper. Sure. Because a lot of it's in Steve's head Mhmm. Campbell,
and we're trying to make it out because he's a huge valuable resource for us. But what happens when he's here to be that huge valuable resource for us? So we're gonna work on that this summer and promise you that'll be in good shape by the fall. So What's the what's the age of the fixtures in the bathrooms? Well, it depends on when the the Which which part of it? The wing was done. Yeah. I can tell you that and you can walk through, Chris. I can tell you that there's only one bathroom that I think has newer. And when I say newer, the wing was done in 02/2007. I think it's up to 2000. We say newer because I forget 2007 to 2023 is still quite a distance now in time. So, you know, that's a big stretch. So
and then the other ones are older than that. 50 or 60 years old. That that well, that's why that's why I was wondering. Yes. Pretty corny. So if you would like to go to the supply closet Nope. Be like that. I
I was invited to be in there, and it was just so lovely. I volunteer I volunteer for us. He's not here to be. And
and it's Well, you it did yeah. It's a I tell you, really, I'm just like, come take a walk with me. No. You did not. And she was like, woah. It hits you. Pipes in the wall or I feel like No. The pipes goes through the wall. Yep. So they have access points. Like I said, these little things, the patrols can get no. They have access points. But if you open that, the access point's not right there, then you have to go I don't have to go to find where it goes. And Steve pulled out the custodian had pulled out the plans, and we did have someone come, and they were like, yep. This is where it's going to. So so that'll be our our biggest push for the next few years. It's not urgent. I don't wanna say, oh my goodness. Like, if we don't do this, you know, like, by the start of school, but that is gonna be a big way to know it. Yeah. And then we know too, the other one that Terry alluded to was the other thing that Steve Campbell has been working on for month and a half now. Because as some of you know, we pick up your kids. We had put a cone out on the upper lot when you dropped off and picked up from the upper lot for a while because that that Mhmm. That ditch The drain. Yeah. Where the drain is, we had had a big spot there. And and Eric was kind enough to come patch it just before the hundred seventy fifth,
but, you know, they just kinda filled it in a little bit. But we know there are huge gaping spots in the top. Actually, joke with Amy who was here. We were out with the preschoolers walking on the basketball court with the little preschoolers, and I said to her, don't let anybody's foot fall in. We may lose them because there's a huge gap there that's literally about On the court? The bass it goes right across the middle. So we do know that this upper lot needs to be done, and that's obviously not gonna interfere or be relevant to anything that you guys spoke about with the board of selectmen. This is kind of not anything to do with that. Did you guys get in? We did. So and, again, I was like, I have no idea how much these things cost. So during
the last month plus, Steve Campbell has spoken with or they've been out to the site here to to do a walk and give give prices to Constantine Paving and Ceiling to Fuller, to East Coast, to SealPro, to Seal Team, and then Redline Striking. So I did know about how much striping cost because we had done that when I first got here because we needed to change the drop off and pick up with COVID. So we had those little stations. So I I did know about that, but I had no idea about the rest of this. And it looks like as we look through here,
you do have two options. You can repair the big huge cracks in there and then seal the top and then restripe on the black top for the basketball court, but not really out here, kind of far beyond that out here. So seal team gave us a price for the striping, and seal pro came out and actually I think they were actually here twice. They actually forced Steve, had not only given us a full quote, but then separated it into exactly what it is that we're paying for if we went with them, which I thought was great for somebody who doesn't necessarily know. So it said, like, the main lots in in, you know, the Lower Lot 55. They they did, by the way, just out of courtesy since they were here, they kinda did a very long walk around the whole property and said, you know, if you guys were to do the the walkway in the back, if you guys were to do the upper and the lower, if you guys were to do the lower, understanding that, you know, maybe these things would arise. So they have estimates here. It looks like the price like, with Fuller, for example, the price for reclaiming the existing existing pavement and removing the curves, hauling out the extra reclaimed material, removing the basin top, fixing the blockwork and reinstalling the top, grading, compacting, paving, binding, installing the curves
around the edge, drainage in the mulch area, and connecting the downspout for the ramp water, and then lining the parking lot so we wouldn't have to go with any of the others. That's a range of 70 to 84 for that upper lot. So yes. $84. Okay. Terry, the cost of the one was $2.20.
Yeah. So out the door, like, just about $80 up there. Out the door, about $80. Okay. Right. And that's including that's including the basketball?
That includes up until it. But if we wanted to do that basketball court over to where you guys did you know, the area that the children would be playing in to make sure that all of that is kind of to the back Mhmm. That's an additional amount. Okay. So it well, it's all spelled out in here by the different things, so it would depend on so depends on how much you say do. It all does need to be done. The sense of urgency, as we all know, is that upper lot, though. So And the basketball court. I think that stupid did not do the basketball court with the upper lot. That Kate is the one that has the biggest gap. So I know. To do the basketball court, like, to do it over, not to, you know, to Not to not to dig it out and start again, but to pretty much put, like, frosting over the tops of the whole Right. Right. Right. That's that's additional. That's not included in the Right. So we would be talking about Probably a 100,000. Right? Probably a thousand. I would I would say between ninety and one ten Mhmm. Out the door things done to do that whole area up there that you know we use for, like, outdoor events and stuff too. Yep. That wouldn't include going the sidewalk through the back of the building all the way down. Yeah.
So so around a 100,000. Yes. And that's a good job.
Right. Not a cheap out. Correct. Yeah. That's not like a I'm gonna put, like No. A mandate on a shop mandate. It's not putting the frosting on the cake because I just heard Yeah.
Is it pretty much frosting? I I mean, I'm not a big fan. Yeah. No. No. You get what you're looking for. I Yeah. I I believe that. When would they logistically do that work?
If we said go today, what what would they get? Because is it the summer camp only up there? So well, actually, Amy and I have had a conversation about what would they do if. Remember, we do have one advantage. We have a number of exits to this building. Mhmm. So if they were doing this upper lot for five days a week, there is a way from inside for them to exit to go to the other direction. And so it would be inconvenient, but it would get it done for the fall. Right. And That's why I would ask them. And so that would be the goal, which is kinda why it's also a little time sensitive Mhmm. Because that would be our goal to say, let's contract with them. Let's agree,
you know, that we would use this and get that done. And are they available to do it? I haven't gotten that far because Okay. We have to decide it. Right? You guys need to make that decision. So what is the what is the criticality of getting it done? And so, you know, to to Jeff's comment about working through CIP, is that it does that take I mean, I mean, that's something that that needs done now,
or we're gonna have problems being clear. But do we have to go through CIP if we have the money? Right. I don't think I'm just I'm just I'm just saying that that was that was just we should go through them. But I I had the same exact thought. So the interesting thing being the liaison of CIP is we don't have a meeting, which would have occurred tomorrow because we didn't have any issues that were brought to CIP that needed to be addressed, because I didn't know what would happen to me. And we would have had to get the agenda in before now anyway. So the interesting thing and I was trying to look up the charter, but the account's website was down before this meeting. So my understanding on CIP is that we make recommendations, and then it requires a subsequent vote of board of finance and or board of selected. So it is a lengthy process. So for example, you remember, we recommended one of the cloud trucks. We recommended one of the fire trucks, and then we all had to vote on it as a second part of the budget.
I don't even know if we had a referendum on it or whatnot. In any event, that was certainly eventually became part of the budget, but only after I've gone through the whole process. And I don't think we need to do that, as Celeste said, because we have the money in our budget. It's already been appropriated to us as to what to do with it. So it's not a future capital project or improvement that we need to plan for, and we need approval to go forward with that. But certainly in the future, and especially given the timing that we need to get it done before school year starts,
we don't have the time to do
CIP board of finance board selected. And sounds to me, like, certainly the basketball court at least is a safety issue. Safety issue. So we need to address that certainly. As is the parking. And that was gonna be my question. Is the parking lot also a safety issue by the presumption that there's a a code there? There was a code there. I have to presume that it's a safety issue. Yeah. You know, that's Yes. And do we know
and maybe you haven't gotten this far, but in any of the estimates, does it say how long it will take for all of that to be done, or we haven't even gotten get that because I didn't know what you guys wanted to do with honestly. Yeah. So
The you said the money for the the floors that need to be fixed up there, that's already in Yes. This. Okay.
Yes. So and remember that we do have currently, and the the board of finance is working with us for moving forward to be able to then have a capital account. They had made a recommendation to the board of selectmen. And so, you know, our goal that next year, we wouldn't be in this situation because we would say, that's fine. We'll put it in that account. And,
you know But we're not able put money in the account right now. Right? We can only put our nonlapsing account, but not in a capital account because the account doesn't exist. Right. We can currently put, Caitlin, to I wanna make sure we say that transparently.
We can currently put up to 2% in a nonlapsing account that we do have there. Those, generally speaking, are supposed to be for unforeseen things. So that's why I said I'm not terribly concerned with the short term with the The piping. With the piping because we're gonna plan for it, and we're gonna work on capital, and we're gonna work with this new account that we'll eventually have set up. Mhmm. But if something went in an emergency and we said, oh my goodness, all we would have to do is, you know, graciously go to the board of finance and say, hey. We didn't expect this to happen. Can we use that account? And that account is 2%, so, it is roughly 80,000 of the money that's left here that could go there. And I think it should. Yeah. It should. Yep. Dipped into it last year. We about 20,000 last year. Yes. So I believe there's a 180 in there. I think there's a 180. Well, yeah, we haven't had to use it except for that 160. 140 when we were doing the outtakes. Yeah. I thought so too. Yeah. So It was $1.16 then. Right. Yeah. And then it was down to $1.40 with the outtightening. But they also had not been put in. Oh. Remember, they're waiting on audits to be done. That's right. So there was about two years that couldn't go in. But either way, let's say it's between $1.50 and $1.80. Okay. So should we wind up in a bind with our capital
for the, right, for the plumbing,
you know, what we would have to do? And I'm sure that they would say yes to that. Ask in terms of the paving? To me, the only other question that I would really have is any of these companies that would do the paving, would they give us some kind of discount if the upper lot and the lower lot were done at the same time that's substantial enough to make that a reason to wait and do them together. If if the construction's happening or when the construction's happening in the community center, I would just be concerned of how it might affect
I know. That's why I'm saying No. No. No. I'm just saying it's not gonna be complete. Exactly. Yes. Right.
So I think we need to go ahead with that before we Unless they were gonna give us, like, a Oh. 30 or 40,000. I mean, I I'm just I hear it.
But it sounds like we can't wait on the upper lot. Right. Right. Not on the basketball court. Yeah.
So So do we make motions? What what would you prefer to do with them? What would your recommendation Well Your recommendation
I'm gonna make recommendations. The three of us don't get a vote. Right. I would say that it would be most appreciated, I'm sure, by the people who do use the building to know that they will not not have access to be able to use those grounds. So, you know, for me then, you know, speaking speaking up, have the ones that go out there. But at some point, with the basketball court, I my concern would be if there's littles out there playing and they get stuck or they trip, then they fall. If the adults that use our basketball court in the afternoon, in the evening Yep. If somebody's hurt out there because it is a gaping situation. So I would say what is my recommendation, if we're gonna do it, we do have to do both of those sections. It would be kinda silly to say, well, let's just fix the little piece that needs to be done there, the little piece there, the curves here. So whatever decision you guys make, I'll respect. But I think it would have to be those two sections up there for the 100,000 or not at all right now. Right.
I'll make a motion that we appropriate should I Up to give no. Should I give it up to 120,000 to be able to address the paving of the upper parking lot at the school and the basketball court?
There was something. If I can make a friendly amendment Absolutely not. Due to safety issues.
Due to safety issues. Thank you very much. I appreciate your friendliness. Thank you. Caitlin seconded You second, Caitlin? Yeah.
Any more discussion? No. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? You got it. And
the only other question I have, I don't know if you guys would need to make a motion or something. I don't think they need to make a motion, but we just wanna be sure that because we set it out there, and we wanna make sure that you're okay with keeping phase one of tech in here and saving the E rates that doesn't expire for phase two so that we do not have to plan for that in next year's budget. Absolutely. I did. Okay. Yes. I thought you would be, but I just wanted to double check on that one. Yep. So I personally would like to hear about the tech plan at some point in time. So these two right here are the two that are I'm well aware. So you can absolutely make an appointment with them. Yeah. Our guide this summer. Well, do we but am I the only one who cares? Taylor, would you like to speak to that? I just don't care. I don't
Don't on the spot. Go ahead, Taylor. And I can you know, we talked to you in August more about curriculum. I can kinda go more, but we I will go quick. I know. We're ready to be done. So No. I said I care about curriculum. Thank you, Caitlin. I appreciate that. So, you know, we were able to go one to one before when when the pandemic happened. And, know, obviously, in that sense, we were all forced to go that way. All schools were elementary. So that was exciting, and I'm glad that we're we're there. But as you can imagine, those devices have to be replaced, and they have to be on a a schedule. And so as we what we don't wanna do is spend thousands of dollars without really kind of thinking about what type of technology and what really we want kids to do with it. So
when Christine and I talk and when we talk with teachers, we we do a great job. Kids type their stories. Right? Kids do some research online. Kids are doing the things you might imagine on a Chromebook, some pretty basic features, but, certainly, to see seven and eight year olds do it is really is really awesome. Yeah. But what we wanna do is kind of take tech out of the tech special that we've always had and really empower our classroom teachers to do more. And so we started to look at iPads and perhaps what the function the functionality would be for young children to do more things like coding, to do more video process, to do more kind of interactive presentations, those kinds of things. And that's kind of what we're, where we fell. And as we're replacing devices, do we pilot using some iPads with keyboards, at, the four five six level and the two three level. Now our youngest kiddos don't use like, k a one, they don't use Chromebooks a lot. We we believe in play based learning. We're we're not sitting on technology all day, which none of us want. However, they are most comfortable with touchscreen devices. That's what they use at home. That's what they use from their parents. And so getting kind of that to be we're gonna be implementing an app called Seesaw. You might have been familiar. Some of the younger grades did it during COVID. We're gonna use it. Smorel did that. A lot more of its fuller potential. Yep. It's actually a parent communication app in addition to student work. It was it it was great. It was cool. It was cool. And so kids can build portfolios on that, which our younger kids are gonna be able to do most easily through that touch that can take pictures of their work, put it right into a journal. Yeah. That's that's what we did during They can like it. Teachers can take pictures. Teachers can then if you're familiar with the Remind app, it will replace that. Okay. So CSAIL will do kind of everything for us. So that usability
on the iPads is something we're looking for. And then at the upper grades, Nick with Eastcon, our new tech guy this year, has really I I say to him all the time. He's I'm like, when you're wherever you are next week, like, see if they're doing anything cool in that school. You know? Like, this is we have to stop relying on ourselves. I don't know everything about tech. Right? And so I'm okay with saying who's doing it better than us and what are they doing. And so he came back the next week. He's like, I saw some sixth graders, and they were, like, making video games with math. And I'm like, alright. How do we do that? You know? So so we are we are, you know, just and and Christina's the same way. You all know her. She is always looking, seeking what's new. And so,
again, we're really looking to take her skills out of just teaching a tech class next year we won't have and actually being able to be in classrooms implementing technology into our curriculum and not just kind of isolate it on a forty minute once a week. So that's a really quick like I said, I'll tell you more in kind of how it might fit into curriculum, but kind of the the bigger purchases are we're we're gonna pilot some iPads and look at that cost wise, how it compares to Chromebooks and and the replacement cycle and and and kind of that And then we, you know, we have our ViewSonics. A lot of our SMART Boards are are slowly dying as you can imagine. They're not really the thing anymore, and they're not they're not meant to be maintained. So we will replace begin to replace slowly our our classrooms with ViewSonics, and then the iPads will actually, via Apple TVs, be able to project. So kids are creating something, and they can easily just go ahead and show it up on the screen and and what the the kids are doing to other kids. So there's a lot of cool things, and we'll work on PD. Like I said, we have a few teachers who are gonna kinda pilot that tech, for us. And,
obviously, Chris, always happy to I just say if you wanna pick my brain Yes. Let me know when. I'm happy to be joining the conversation. Yeah.
And and Taylor and Christina also were working with not just curriculum in the sense of math science and the social media, but, you know, she's not gonna tell you. I will give her kudos for this. We have a a sensory room. So this is gonna be developed a little bit more next year with the students that have social emotional needs and our school psychologist and our school social worker and our special education department in making sure that that room adjusts as well, and they've got some, you know, very, very inexpensive sensory things. But then she's got some amazing ideas for use of technology within that room as well. And so it's not just your your traditional classroom that she's looking at. She's also looking for how she can develop special education programs a little bit further and some of the needs with our support staff. So I'm really excited about what they are doing, and so that's why I'm like, listen. If I can support you guys and and help you in any way, and the board, I'm sure, agrees, being able to, you know, offer the resources. And that's why I really did want to make sure that we were able to keep that erased because that guarantees us phase two because there's nothing worse than piloting something.
And I've done this in the thirty year career that I've had so far where you've been in phase one and you pilot something and it's going well, and then there's no money or resources to continue it, and it's gone. And so that little bit of padding will mean we don't have to put it in the budget next year. And whenever they do find success with, we will be able to support them moving forward. Through the Through the E E rates next year. Right? That's great. Yeah. That's great. You know, I think it's a great idea integrating technology in the correctness 100%. As opposed to having a. Yeah. And she's a little good at that.
You know, it's little things. Like, we have an awesome three d printer, but we can't just have Christina know how to use it and and write it, it it won't reach kids the same way. And so, know, she has to have the time and space too to be into a third grade classroom and working alongside that teacher saying, okay. We're gonna make a project, and how does that connect to your math unit? How do you know, it's a lot of and and those things happen over time, but
we're excited about that. And I think it also helps with differentiation and instruction. Mhmm. Yeah. Right. Because that makes it easier for you to target in where an individual student needs more or less. Right? Absolutely. I think that's a great idea. Yeah. Okay.
So we still have approximately a $105,000. Yeah. What are we gonna do with this? I just didn't Yep. Do we need No. They would need to make a motion to put 2% in our nonlapsing. That is we dealt with by motion. And do we do it now or after we have a relatively exact amount? I think we have to do it now. We would like I
think we can wait till July. You know what is different this year? We we both forgot to mention this, Tara. What's different this year is remember, at the request of the board of selectmen last year, we have our own account Yeah. Now. And so the quick push to come up with that number Right. At the end is not there Right. Because our audit will be separate. Okay. And so if we say at the end, you know, what is the exact number that we do need to then turn over to Board of Finance to put into that 2% nonlapsing account, That could be done at the July meeting. So I I don't want you guys to feel pressured. Like, do I have to tell them now? No. But we could make a motion for them to stay 2%
and then Yep. That it goes in this So that it's all this whole year.
Well, what is the well, we'll make motion to put 2% of whatever remains in our current fiscal year's budget into the board of education's nonlapsing account. Okay. Yep. I'm all set. Alright.
Oh, you want the okay. Yeah. Okay. Shannon makes the motion? Yep.
Is there a second? I can yeah. Great. Great. Any discussion? Thank you. Yep. Better? Okay.
And we take a vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion passes. You got it now.
So do we still have to do anything more in this fiscal year with other 25,000 or so that we might have?
Well Got little projects. I was just gonna say, you know, everything done yet. Oh, okay. Yeah. Because remember she was mentioning we were mentioning The pipes, the floors, the They're they're we've got quotes on exhaust fan, like, fixed things that have to be fixed, maintenance. I'm sorry. I'm not a maintenance person. So Okay. But there's little things here and there. So I I do think that that 20 that 20 to 25,000 will be eaten up with those small projects.
We don't have to vote on that. Right? Nope. No. No motion. No. Just do it. Just needed a major step. K.
So anything else in finance? Just real so so hope so it's the intention to get that upper driveway and basketball done before fall. It is the intention. Okay. Yep. Okay.
That'd be great. And with your week tonight, week move forward Yeah. Tomorrow or later? Yeah. No. That's great. 50. Be nice. Anything more on financial?
No. I'm all set. Does anybody have any other question?
Thank you for the job you've done for us. Yes. Thank you, Carrie. Thank you. Coming on. Thank you so much for coming to the Thank you, Taylor. To the concert. Like, I thought it was so awesome. What you've done. Listen. I I have been in education for twenty five years,
and I always worked at central office. And I love the fact that I'm working in a school now. And I just feel like I wanna be part of the part of the group here and part of the team, and and I love seeing the kids, and I love kids. So so it's a little hectic at the end of the school year. Let's just say I was not expecting all of the stuff that happened the last two weeks. Yeah. That was a little hard for me to get used to, but, otherwise, I love it. I really do. You guys should introduce her at, like, one of the things in the fall to the kids. You said you're ready to the kids. I've gone to, like, the whole school.
First graders. Classroom. And now they're like, hi. This is not do you remember what I do? I'm like, oh god. What do they think they used to? I don't know. Told them, like, I pay everyone. They're paycheck. I don't know the most. They
barely know what she does. Yes. Taylor's little boy thought that what she said. You know? That's what's going on. The superintendent goes, she reads to us. I
know. They know we have a secret agent. But the judge came in with the secret agent. That was the best one. Oh, that's great. We like to keep it. Maybe we'll have an after school program next year. Be all over that. It's be by my sister. I think that would be, like, a little karaoke club or something like that. My sister sister would do that. We should be, like, in New York. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I I engaged our reports that I already gave.
Alright. Anybody else engage on report? Okay. Comments from the public on agenda items. Christina? Joanne? Thank
you. Yeah. I do have you guys have a record for the longest meeting. I think I've come to one of yours, but I'm happy to always attend. For those of you I know most of you have seen me. I do have a couple comments because I think this was kind of a breakthrough meeting, and I'm so glad that I, you know, got to witness it. I am an elected official in town that wasn't trying to say anything smart. I just it's interesting, to hear Jeff say, when I got elected, I just thought it was important that I like to hear things firsthand. You know? I I have gone to so many meetings because I am all of you have seen me. Val's been at a lot of them, and she sees my little name up there. If it's my meeting, you know, my face will be there. But,
you know, I like to just get firsthand information. I like to hear it, make my opinions, and and so that's what I do. I'm not saying, you know, twenty years ago when I was raising my family and putting I couldn't go to everything. So now I do have more of the time, and I make it an effort to do that. So kudos to all of you for suggesting that maybe we can have, you know, like you said, a group meeting like that. That would be great. Getting back to that, I did jot down a couple things as I was getting tired, you know, because I didn't wanna forget because they were important for tonight. So I appreciate that you all came to the table today. I know at the Monday meeting, some of the selectmen thought it was gonna happen then, but maybe there was miscommunication. So it and whatever happened there. So whoever could make it tonight came. Jeff came. I always see Paula involved. And I thought Jeff, you know, handled everything, all the questions really eloquently and went over them. And and I agree as a board of finance member that there's no one in this town that would want anything but the best for the kids that go there. You know? As you saw this year, we added
with the safety concern. You know, right away at one of our meetings, we got those waiters in there for you. So there's no nothing that you know, I'm kind of I got elected as an independent. I'm on my own thinking person. I do as Terry knows. We were we were coworkers back in the day. So glad to see her at your table. So got elected on my own by being involved. And so, anyways, so that being said, it's it's really good to have the one thing that I have been disillusioned for in my seventeen years of being here, raising my kids, seeing them do great, and I have gone on to bigger and better things, is just the the push and pull on the groups in town. You know, I didn't get involved. You know, I just kinda you know, and and so, hopefully, this will start mending bridges or whatever because, really, it is a community. And and I think I brought that up at the public hearing. I also took the time to go to that public hearing, the zoning thing,
because I wanted to hear that as well. I went in and met with Val personally and Terry on just different things for board of finance. But the thing that I did say, and I wanna say this too, this isn't a knock on anyone because when Val came on board, I think she's a great spokesman for the district, having worked with superintendents, principals, etcetera, impressed from the from the go. You know? And I feel like the first meeting that I saw her at was really rough, and and, you know, I said that to other people. So, anyway, she's she's a great spokesman for the town. She always sticks up for everything for the kids, the school, that kind of thing. But I also wanted to say at that meeting that families are families. So, you know, we talk about parents or town or this and that, but families are part of the town too. So I feel like that kind of resonated with Jeff. He said that tonight, everybody's part of the community.
And the one community that I really, really embraced me when I came here seventeen years ago, tried to get me onto the board of finance then. I just didn't have time. Is the seniors. There's so many of them that I have grown close to, have, you know, kept in contact with, are just wonderful people. So I hope that we all can come together for them. This is just an independent thought, not even a board of finance, any thought. They're just they've been so sweet. They've kind of gotten not a bad end or whatever. They've just accepted whatever came their way. They tried to have a couple rooms here and there. It didn't work out. So I hope that we bridge the gap somewhere and we can get all these safety issues, which are very important done so that some of those people that I knew seventeen years ago will be able to walk through those doors. You know? So that's important to me. I just wanted to look at, so got that. The last thing that I did want to say that came up as I was listening to you with the the time things and, of course, with the drop offs and pick pickups with the community center. That's so important, of course.
But we also wanna think about what if the community center is gonna offer, like, a karate session or, you know, like, a new dance class or something. There might be times that some of the parents might wanna take advantage of an after school activity that maybe so that teachers are you know, can walk kids over whatever you have. I and I also work in a school, as you know. So, you know, someone, it's just something that we don't wanna knock off the table entirely because maybe some in the community, which our parents and kids, will utilize that space because there's, like, a great art program going on or a great dance class or that's all. Thank you for the time. I listened to everything. Thanks for letting me get all my thoughts in, and good luck with everything you do.
Joanne, thank you so much for your comments and for being here with us. We appreciate your support and your kind words. Thank you. Any other action items? Upcoming meetings. Now we have down here regular board meeting on July '23. It'll be a regular board meeting maybe encompassing our After our PD. Right. PD. Right. Right. Okay. Anybody have items for next meeting?
Your turn. So I'll make a motion to adjourn. I second. All in favor. Say 100. My
dog appreciates that. No opposed. I'm up with my own. Yeah.
At least you take out anybody who's opposed. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Dawn. Thank you, doc.