Meeting transcript
BOE Meeting
October 9, 2025 · Watch on Zoom · All meetings
There we go. K.
Good evening. I'd like to welcome everyone to the regular board meeting for the month of October for the Andover Board of Education. We'll do the pledge of allegiance to start. Yeah. I'm
not really sure. Oh. Except try him. Yeah. Jerry, if you can or I don't know why it's not doing it for me. It won't let you know? Jerry, you're not muted. I think it's he's lagging. You can see. Can Mine's working in the mail. It's just Yeah. So it might just be not responding.
Did you get it? None of us got it. She got it. Yeah. I just I printed it out today. I'll have to tell Diane. It's it Okay. So we'll start, with comments from the public. Holly?
She's good, I think. She's muted, but I think Jen McGoldrick? I'm all set. Thank you. Christina Fraser? All set. Thanks. Sharon, same rock? Nothing at this time. Thank you. Kim Person?
Hi, Kate. How are you? Good. Can you hear me? Yeah. We can I have a question for Valerie? Is she on? I don't see her. Is she on? She is. Okay. Valerie, I just wanted to establish something with you. You are currently working as superintendent also at Scotland schools?
This is public speak, though, so I just wanna clock in where we're going with this. Just comments at this time, not questions. I mean, if you wanna if you wanna pose a question, we can talk about it later at some point. I just wanted to know, do you work with Sharon St. Rock who is running for the board of education at for Andover this year?
I do work in Scotland. Yes. Okay. Again, if you have anything that you would like to discuss, I'm happy to take a phone call at another time. Thank you.
So do you work with Sharon St. Rob? Yeah. We're gonna we're gonna because it's not really has anything to do with our agenda tonight. So if you guys can try and keep comments to items on the agenda, that would be appreciated. Hopkins? Yeah. All set. Thank you. Happy Pilates. All set. Thank you. Sarah Goodness? All set. Thank you. And Marcy? I'm good. Thanks. Okay. So we'll move on to communications.
Does anyone have any communications that they want to share? I I do have one. Okay. I received an email, and I was hoping that I didn't hear tonight to be able to share. Received an email from Eric Becker to the Board of Education. After much discernment, I've decided to resign from the board. I wanna thank the members of the board, the superintendent, the staff for their commitment to making Andover one from elementary school. Please consider the resignation date effective December 1. So sorry that he wasn't here tonight to let you know that. So he'll be on our board until December. I'll be sure to put that on the December meeting for you guys.
Does anyone have anything else? I do not have any. Student
celebrations? Yeah. Couple to share. We are excited. We are in kid governor season, if you remember that from last year. And so we had three many, I should say, many fifth graders who were interested in running and developed their platform and their speech and all of that things. And we had three fifth graders who were the finalists. So we're very proud of Sofia Willard, Everly Lateska, and Eli Clark. And so they got to give their speeches today and were voted again. And so we do not have a winner yet. There's a couple more steps, but we'll be sure to share. So we're very excited for our three finalists and their hard work. We also just a celebration, the house of altruismo, you know, we have our houses, did a food pantry fundraiser over the past few weeks. And so we would love to give you a final count of money raised. But, of course, the children would have to roll the coins so that you can imagine how much fun that's gonna be. So missus Fraser as the house leader of altruismo has some real work ahead of her now. But we're really excited kids collected coins and and to contribute something vocal. So that was a great celebration. And then last, I'm just gonna remind myself how to share.
There we go. I just wanted to show you really quick. This is the way that we I don't know why there's so many things. Celebrate kids and how they're earning points, and you can see we have given almost over 3,500 house points, and it's about a month into school. And so our fifth and sixth graders have earned their little pictures. We want to kinda show you that. It's lagging a little because, of course, I'm sharing my screen and on Zoom, but they kinda move. And so when they earn a house point, they get to be featured up here on the board, and that's displayed in our cafeteria, but also in classrooms at different times. So it's very exciting. So just a lot of celebrations that when we think of that, to me, that's over 3,500 times of recognizing and positively celebrating our kiddos. So very exciting. That's what I have for celebrations. Sounds
Pretty awesome. Photos that the paintings a little bit. Yes. Yeah. Again again, we're lagging a little bit. It's very cute. Very cute. And the kid yes. Hey. I mean and the kids get to decide what, like, little I love it. Thing they want. So fifth and sixth has got to know. So we have approval of minutes from last month. Does anyone have any changes?
I'll make a motion to approve the regular board minute meetings of 09/10/2025. Okay. Does anyone want to second? I second it. Okay.
Don't all jump up. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye.
Okay. So will be 12345501. 501. K. Are there any agenda items that anyone would like to add or delete or reorder aside from what we have listed?
I don't I don't have anything to add or delete.
I have a question. Is the RFP for the bathroom done?
So item eight c is the bathroom project update. Got it. So that's it's been a continual item for us. Thank you. Okay.
So we'll move on to chairperson's oral reports. You guys can all see that Jeff is here. He has decided that he's gonna attend our meetings and the board of finance meetings, which I think is awesome. I mean, it's good to have that continuity to get all boards on the same page. And then a couple of other things, logistically, they did schedule a triboard meeting for next Wednesday, the fifteenth. I am unfortunately not able to attend that. We already have plans for my son's birthday. I know Brie isn't able to attend. I know Celeste is not able to attend. Yep. I don't know if anyone else from our board will be able to attend.
I know that they there was, like, a they tried to sign up a thing to see what dates worked for people, and I guess that was the one that worked for the most people. So I think Val is planning on going. Yes. Mhmm. K. So that's next Wednesday. And then Eric, the town manager, did send out a timeline for the budget, which I will forward to you guys. I just didn't get a chance to do it. I think you just sent it yesterday. It does set the town meeting date for April 8, which is a Wednesday. It is our board meeting day. I did ask if we could possibly change that to a different day on that week because last year, we also had the town meeting when our board meeting was.
So I haven't heard back on that. We will look at doing that, but I think it's in the chart, the last revision that it's the first Wednesday. It's It says it needs to be during that week. Eric what Eric was saying was, does it say that in the chart? Yeah. Or we Then we'll change it. Yeah.
And then we had also discussed previously in terms of getting communication out to other members of the town who maybe don't attend our budget info sessions or watch information about the school budget prior to the town meeting, having, like, a half an hour or forty minute meeting before when the town meeting actually starts specifically to go over the school budget again so that people could attend that prior to the town meeting if they so choose to We will get that executed. I saw that in the last meeting I watched, and I saw your email. So we will get that done. Great. Thank you. That's all I really have in terms of logistical stuff.
Yeah. Yep. Alright. So we have a few things on here. First and foremost is we have locked in oil for next year. So I know. This is always that game of roulette. I told you I played with Tracy Seer from Dine Oil, and it's the time of the year to go back and forth on a daily basis, and we're like, okay. Tell us what it is. Lock in. Lock in. So just a little history to remind you. In 2023, it was locked in with us, the town, and the consortium that I've created of $3.10, and that, at the time, was the best. In 2024, we got it down to I don't know. Gambling. We got down $2.97.
So Terry and I got really accomplished that year. $2,027.59 is where we are right now. And, Raul, we are locked in at 02:49. Nice. Yeah. So Good job, Beth. Yes. So it's it's Tracy's here is great, but it's that game of everyday back and forth email where we're like, is it gonna start with a force? You know, 2.4, 2.5, and it was getting dynasty for a while. We're off at a 02:50, but we're good. So we are locked in for $2.49 for next year. So that will definitely help. So that's good news number one. Let's see. Good news number two. Gary and Taylor and I have been working very hard going through all of our applicants for, the position for the, replacement for Carrie when she leaves at the end of the year. So as you know, Carrie's gonna be accepting, a retirement this year and leaving us, and she will get more part time as the year goes on Right. In alignment with her retirement requirements.
So, thankfully, we know we had time, which works out great because Terry said she'll be with us the whole year. We got quite a few applicants as we went through them. It was very nice to see the different qualifications. The the big difference is when you get so you're looking to get people that have a lot of municipal experience. You're looking to get people that have a lot of business experience, and you're looking to get people that have some school experience. The difficulty is with some of the and they were all amazing. I will tell you. They were all amazing. The difficult thing about taking somebody that either has business and municipal experience is very oftentimes when we explain to them our unique situation of Terry does payroll. She doesn't have an assistant because we're so small. You know, Terry doesn't have a bookkeeper. She does a little bit of a lot of things, accounts payable, receivable. When we listen to the responses, what we find sometimes is that people say, well, I oversee those people. So I I kinda know that they use me this or they use this or they use paychecks, but I've never actually done that myself. And so the difficulty there is we get a lot of people with supervisory experience. And here, it's like, all hands on deck. You know? There isn't a separate person to do. Even on the town side, there's a treasurer, part time treasurer, and somebody who is the assistant who does do the payroll and stuff. So we had to say thank you, but no thank you to quite a few candidates who they were amazing, but they were actually, like, too big for the job of getting your hands dirty.
And so we wound up, down to two. And from there, we are looking at a woman, from Litchfield right now. We don't have a a contract set. We're going back and forth to try to see what we can work, in the price range that we have. But this candidate, is somebody who has been a director of special services in another town. They've done curriculum development. They were a teacher, and they, absolutely have a lot of experience. They have an o nine two, which means they can be a billing administrator. They So they're from Litchfield? Yep. They are. That's what they were. Yep. All of the candidates were far away. That's Everybody said it's fine. The candidates were from far away. The other side Hi. All of them, honest to goodness, were probably between forty minutes and an hour and a half. My evenings feel sick. So we're kinda cool here, guys. So and it's funny. I've commuted to Litchfield before, and it's actually weird for It is a thing. Denied. It won't be. You won't. Yeah. You have chosen twice. You will think. He may not I heard
you. Yeah. Go ahead, Val. Sorry. That's okay. Yeah. So this person has interviewed with us three times. The the advantage is that this person doesn't just have that school side experience where they can fill a lot of holes in the boat that we didn't know we could fill with a candidate for that position. And so we're actually inquiring about TRV because they have their o nine two. What's TRV? TRV is teacher's retirement, and administrators pay into that too. So if a certain percentage of what you do is administrative and not just financial because she's paid into that, there's a possibility. But you're paying with the benefit. It does. Yeah. Oh, I get advantage because teachers and administrators, we all pay into our own benefits. So Mhmm. So we're looking at that, but that's not a deal breaker for this candidate. This candidate also currently serves on a board of selectmen, and they've been on a board of finance before. So they have a great deal of experience. We've called all of the references for them, and they really do seem like the perfect, well rounded candidate. And you've interviewed this person Yes. Three times? And I've spoken with them regarding what are deal breakers and not deal breakers when we start to look at a final contract.
And we all felt when we met this person that they would really be a a good fit here. And then some of the other ones I felt bad about because they're so ultra qualified. So I did speak to Eric, and I sent an email. And Chris, when she came over with checks or whatever, they're gonna do checks. And I said, if at any point in your search, you guys are looking for good candidates, by all means, I could ask permission to share those resumes because they were very good. Okay. And so it was a shame we had to say no to so many of them. We were actually really nicely surprised to do because we didn't know what we were gonna get. So so yes. So we'll let you know. What was the salary range? It was the same salary range
that we have now. So it's point eight, and it is 79.
79. K. So Just for a side thing, did they have experience in Edmonds
or no experience? Not in Edmonds. Yeah. That's very hard to find. Only one candidate. Find But with their background in some nonprofits that they worked on and and and profits, for profits,
they do have experience with similar software programs. The person that you were working for Edmunds for training is you guys are still in in touch with her? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Have But they'll put in training. Like, Onboard.
Yeah. Absolutely. And Terry's gonna be training. You know? So So there will be overlap with the new part. Okay. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, she's she's here. Yeah. Obviously, if you guys Yeah. Chat with them the whole Yeah. Of, like, the part time. Right. Right. Yep. Yep. Mhmm. Right. So, they had just a ton of experience, like I said. And so we're very grateful. So that's two things. I locked in oil, working on that candidate. After school grant, you guys know I've been going back and forth on this. We did get it, but remember we talked about the criteria where you fill out the grant and it's x number of target students, x number of hours a week that you run the program, x number of weeks that you run it, and they were supposed to earn points for this and that.
Well, I don't know if they were short staffed or short money or both, but the way they did wind up awarding them is the size of your district. And so if you looked at the huge chart that the state put out for the award, it was like everybody that was of a certain size district in town got this much money, and it was the same amount. So I know that it was not based on people's actual application. We got a third of the amount of money we asked for, so we're not ungrateful. We just have to rethink. I have a Zoom later this week with the state for anybody who was awarded the after school grant so that they could kinda tell us where the expectations would be different because they're gonna have to be different. Uh-huh. And they can't expect that we would be able to carry out a grant, for the kids. We're on the same programming that was for the original application with only a certain amount of money. So so we're working on that. So it is gonna take place. Our goal is to have that up and running for November, in some capacity. And on my Friday 04/01 ones, I will fill you in, exactly what that will look like. But we are continuing, as you know, we have the calendar out there for the, family events Right. That occur. Those are all still set to, take place. So,
you know, we had open house, and we have pumpkin carving in October. And then moving forward, you know, we'll we'll have some more set plans on that. But we did get awarded it just a programming amount of money. So that's Those grant dollars come through the Connecticut State Educational Department, or did they come through another organization? No. They come through the eGrant Management System straight from the State Department of Ed. And did we get that last year? No. No. Okay. Those are what they call, Jeff, competitive grants. And so you put in an application, and then once they figure out how much money they have, they'll work them. So those are definitely not guaranteed.
We were lucky enough two years ago to have it and three years ago because it's a two year program. Two year. Yeah. So, and the guidelines are that they, can't simply add anything. They have to supplement your programs, and there are other guidelines with them. So I'm gonna meet with them this week on their Zoom. They can figure out kind of what changes now that the amount of money that we expected isn't gonna come in. Is it 90% of your grants really come through the eGrant system, or is it more than that? Is it a 100% of your grant? It's not a 100% of our grants. There's one grant that is a federal awarded grant called REAP, and that goes through, the, g five management system. Moving forward, the preschool dollars that used to be called school readiness now in both early start, that will come through core, and that's already set up. So those dollars go through that way.
So if last year, the numbers for Smart Start and the numbers for the preschool grant came through Connecticut, you're saying it's gonna show in a different location,
like, when you try to get information? I mean, because one of the things I'd have to do, I'd like to understand information. I know what you're saying. The information gathering, nothing's gonna change. It's the system. It's kinda like, instead of using QuickBooks, we're gonna use Acupund. You know? That's it. So we just go someplace else to gather it, but, no, nothing else has has changed. But if you were gonna go online to search to find it.
So so You would find it. On the Connecticut State Department of Ed under OEC,
you would still see what was awarded for everybody. Okay. So if I looked if it when I looked out and I I went through all the grants for last year, does $342,000 or in the range sound right for the grants that were awarded to AES? Does that include preschool? Yes. Sure. Yeah. So it includes preschool. The only thing it doesn't include is the ECS funding, which is slightly different as to Well, we don't see You don't you don't see assets. No. No. I know. That's what I'm trying to understand. I'm just trying to get a picture. Guys, in in one of our I forget which meeting it was from July
maybe. You Terry did a summary of all of the She does with her financials every month. No. I know. But that was the that that one would have been, like, from the entirety of the year last year. Do do you guys have
you guys gotten that information at your meeting? Yes. And if Do you now put that up and post it online? Yep. Yeah. Okay. What what meeting?
It would have been either July or August. June or July
for the whole year? Yeah. Yeah. And Well, the final
one will play in July. Those two those are to the board's let then
Okay. Board of finance with the report that Terry sent. Oh, that's not it. Let's pull up that that. Look. I I downloaded the the I thought you talked about for grants. Now I should They said that they're separated. My pre K is on one thing, and then the rest are No. And it should be. I I'm I'm with you. I understand what you're trying to do with them. I'm just trying to to get an understanding, you know, and I'll give this to you. All the board members, I'll send it to you. I just broke it down by different types of grants and an understanding because this number, which I'm not sure is right, and I don't want and what I'm after with all I try to do is I wanna get you the information. I want you to approve it. I don't want anything. But this information to me is additional funding for the school, which is for positive things that the kids need. All good. I just need to understand it. And that's what I'm after. And I don't recall it being in the packages because I
I went through all the packages for the last four or five months, and I didn't see it.
And so what I was concerned about is It looks like this. Okay. You can have it, Jen. And the goes to the board of finance every month. Every month? And to Cheryl every month. They go in there for a year or two. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. About, I think, a year and a half. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But when you look through them too, Jeff, you have to keep in mind that there are some of them that, obviously, are preschool. Yeah. Some of them that are supplemental,
and some of them that are able to sub plan. So the ones that are supplantable, for example, if it's the same one that's been received for eight years Mhmm. And there's a particular salary that comes out of that. There's not many of them, by the way, but that, up until recently, would have been one that that person's salary wouldn't have appeared in the budget. In the budget. Right.
Yeah. I mean, I sit there and see the Smart Start grant was 65,000 last year. In preschool. Yep. There's and and these are things that I, you know, I just, you know, I have early early care and education, which is $123,300. I'm assuming those are both your pre K. Correct. Yep. Okay. Sorry. And there's there's, like, 10 others. I mean, right to read, mental health work. Right to read, one time supplemental. All all good things that Yep. Everybody should know about. And that's all And they do. Pop on my armies. And and now if I have it and I'm with you guys, I can express to the people asking me questions about we're doing it. Yep. So the total on what I just gave you, Jeff, is, I think, about $310,000
if we turn it over. Yep. In the final thing, it lifts out all the grants. Okay. But on the far right hand side is all the grants. Yes. And I That we were presented with them in July. Yeah. And
the information that I pulled down from the the Connecticut state website shows $3.42. So it's it's it's higher. And I even thought it was a little bit it's a little bit higher because there appeared to be some money coming in in October and September that I'm not sure if it fell into the last year or if it's just part of the new year, and that's what I was seeing. But yeah. I I wouldn't know off the top of my head. I'm sorry. We're we're close. So okay. I know that the auditor
that we use Mhmm. They have unedited access to eGrant management system. Mhmm. So the auditor can go in at any time in real time and look at every expenditure report, look at all the money. That's how they balance out all of the grants to us. Alright. And keep in mind with our egrant management system that every one of our grants is a rebate. It's a reimbursement. So that money has to get spent first, and then we wait for the rebate. And so to your point, timing on the drawdowns and when it would appear, it could appear afterwards. So, the September, October time frame, we may only then be getting a reimbursement
for something that was a summer grant. Right? Yes. No problem. So okay. Yeah. And and so that would mean more more dollars. No. Than the $3.10. No. From the standpoint of this Because every awarded grant,
that actually is step one. Yeah. So, like, you may see in the newspaper next week, here are all of the school districts that were awarded the after school grant, and there's the price. So that actually recedes everything else. So it's already in there as an award Mhmm. Before we ever even get to the board. Like Like, a long time before you might Correct. So this after school grant, regardless of when we started this year, our first drawdown and our seeing that money for the first time probably won't take place till January or February. Yep. But this day already has that in as, you know, award for us. K. Okay? Yeah. And you'll see on my summary that I do drawdowns every month for the previous month because we have to show the expense report to the state before they'll get us the money. So I do it on a monthly basis because I don't wanna run out of money in the grants. Understood. So that's
Yeah. More often you take a drawdown, the better you will be from a cashmere. Yep. Okay. So, also, when we talk about the facilities and operations
stuff that we give you every month with, Scott and I. The one thing that we did this month that I wanted to make sure to share with you so let's see. We're in October. We had a regular ANA pest. We had our service station inspection of the oil tanks and the meter route. And then we also did an energy audit. So in front of you guys, you have a packet that I'll just listen. Yes. That is just so that I can kinda give you an idea of where we're going with this. Once we get to the point where we have something substantial, like, idea wise, I'll have them come and do a presentation. This is kind of along the lines of what we've been doing with the solar. So we did the energy audit. It's a free energy audit. It is with representatives, companies that represent Eversource. And my first question for those companies is always like, like, what do you guys get out of this? Like, why do you do this? Keeping in mind that Eversource has a ton of money that they use to entice people to be more energy efficient. Because the last thing they wanna do is, you know, have to just provide more energy for people. At this point, it's like, hey. If we can make people more energy efficient, this helps. So what you're looking at there is part of their presentation. I asked if it was okay if I, you need to see part of the presentation, not the whole thing. They'll come and do it another time.
It's called resource. You have mute them, please. Thank you. I can't speak. Resource Lighting and Energy. Resource Lighting and Energy is the two man show there, Jay Benson and Nick Tocco. They have done quite a few school programs. They've done quite a few, like our Ryan did, with the solar. They do there's a few things where they show you what it is this company, generally speaking, focuses on LED lighting and lighting controls, HVAC upgrades, electric vehicle supplies, mechanical upgrades. They did spend some time going through some case studies. I put one in here from a very large district just to kinda show you when they presented to us what sorts of information they gave us. So if you look at the page that says case study city of New London. So what they do is they go in, they really go through every portion of your building, looking specifically at things like the EVSEs, the lighting, the mechanical, that kind of stuff, the heating controls, And they try to find ways to align to the programs that are available through, Eversource. And they say, if you were to do this program and this program, this is what you qualify for. So this is just an example of I used a a much larger district on purpose. So they went in there. They did it, they said, we believe that we could provide you with an annual savings for this large district of a $187,068. We know that there are utility incentives available to you in the amount of $367,000. And we believe that overall, you could wind up with an energy savings of about 833,000 kilowatts. And so then they walk you through what sorts of things you can do.
Now if you flip a couple more pages where it says energy conservation evaluation process, I'm giving you, like, the abridged version. The no cost energy audit is what they have done for us already. It's taken about eight hours. They surveyed the building, the lighting, and the mechanical systems at no cost to us. They look at the investment upgrade data, the analysis, and they present. And they come up with a proposal, and they've done that with us so far here in the school. But the second part to that four hours would be they've come to board meeting. We will present it via Zoom and answer questions on the process. And it's very similar process, by the way, to kind of what we did three times with the guys from the solar company. And so so far, you know, they will tell you we've got an investment here. We really want you guys to to be able to take advantage of this stuff. If you look at the summary of savings on the next page, and I'll show you a draft in a second when we get to the last page, but this is, not where we would be. This is, like, an original, an original draft based on a couple of, missing factors. So they would say let's say the turnkey cost is $368,000. That means if they came in and they wrapped the pipes throughout the building, they changed your lighting all to the LED lighting like this is right here in the library, and they did the aerators. If they did those three things, that would be 368,000.
Again, this is a hypothetical. Okay? This is a hypothetical that we're looking at right here. They say, we figure your, operations and management savings alone by making sure people don't have to, for example, change the light bulbs, pay to get rid of the old bulbs, which are not LED bulbs. They're the old fluorescent bulbs. Making sure that all of the things that make you not energy efficient, things that your operations and facilities people have to take care of during the course of of, a lifetime there, you wouldn't have to do that. That should save you about $4,000 in their estimation.
Then they look and they say, let's take into consideration having looked at all of your utility bills, what we expect that you'd be able to save from those three things, 46,000. What would you save in actual energy? 100,000 kilowatt hours. And then they come up with, like, your annual, thermal savings. So look at the next page. Again, this mock up, and it's on the last page of this packet as well, and it's the exact same one. When you're packing, it says draft. It said draft because it they're not really real numbers right now. Because until they decide to work with us, until we say, yes. We want you to come. We absolutely are interested in this.
There's some information they don't have. For example, this was done just simply we did share with them what our current bills are in terms of oil, in terms of heating, in terms of electric, and that kind of stuff. But what that doesn't take into consideration is that they're putting solar in, for example. So they don't have an accurate amount of information. They have what we've given them so far. When they brought this to the table, the other thing they didn't recognize was they were looking at, like, Norwich. Norwich put in have you ever seen those lights that actually kind of make you think that there's LED bulbs? They're shaped like this, and then there's, like, a tube in the middle. And the tube in the middle is actually an LED, but it doesn't have the flat effect of this. They're supposed to be, like, more glamorous. Not anymore, effective or efficient. It's a different look, and they're more expensive lights. And it's funny because ever since he did this presentation, I've actually looked in all of the buildings that I've gone in now to see. Do they have these flat ones, or do they have the others? And I've seen a combination of both. Scott had a good point, our head custodian. He said, Val, in elementary school, the advantage is these flat LED lights because they you don't have the dust in there that accumulates. He said, so I will tell you. He said, I prefer these. Wait. He's like Right. And every once in a while, you get a bug in there that you have to clean out. But, you know, other than that
Is there is there a timeline for, like, when this program expires? Like, maintenance There's not necessarily a timeline for us when it expires, but,
the incentives can change on a regular basis. So this wouldn't be something that we'd say come back in two years on. It would be something that we would have to decide we're at least gonna look to apply for. Be it's not something that we can be denied, like, when we applied for the last one for the solar, and we just didn't win it the first two times. So real quick then. Let me just look at the sheet for you. So our three areas of the underground entry. That top one, there's the kilowatt savings, the thermal savings. What they would estimate without solar and based on our bills, the dollar savings would be if we went energy efficient with the lighting, the pipe insulation, and the aerator. You you know what the aerators are. Right? The aerators are on the sink, Celeste. They changed that to some water. A little. Got it. Yep. Got it. So and I didn't know. That's why I asked if you guys knew that, you know, exactly what the purpose of it was at the beginning. So, the turnkey price is what it costs to do it. And then the incentive is what we minus from it, and the customer cost would be the initial, hey. This is what it would cost, you know, your your building, your facility. And then the next one, the payback by measure is the number of years that it would take for you to say, we are not only cash positive, but we're, like, absolutely energy efficient and making money off of this now.
And so if you look, there's a comprehensive bonus incentive too if you do all great. Now the aerator one looks like a no brainer. It's, like, $1,400 to change out the aerators. It costs $848, and it we're gonna save $525 a year by doing that. That's, a no brainer. The pipe insulation and I didn't realize it was kind of to this point until Scott said, you know, if you go down there, Val, you will in the wintertime when the boilers are running, you will feel the warmth that is so hot in that room. And so the conversation that we had with these people that came in that were so helpful understanding, you know, I'm a beginner at such things, they said, once you have the pipes wrapped and they're done right, all of that warmth in there then becomes heat energy that you're gonna use to heat the building instead of heat that room down there. So I was like, that that's impressive.
And then the lighting, like I said, it definitely the turnkey price not a $2.36 to do lights like this, to do the flat LEDs. This is to do those fancier ones. So if we want them to come up with a more accurate, presentation for us, they would have to consider the solar, and they would have to consider the flat lights because those would be the ones we'd be looking at. But if you look, the reason why these programs for schools are great is let's say it's sixty months of Eversource payments. What they do is if they say again, this is, like, worst case scenario. These are not even, like, for likes and things. The price on here says $2.00 8. This is where this number came from. They say, yep. It's gonna be 208,000 to do that. If that was the case, you see the $34.81 per month for sixty months. It's on your bill. And then after four years, it's not on your bill anymore. And if all of that $24,000 energy savings and the $22,000 energy savings is is is yours. Now the reason why they say it's cash positive is because when once they wrap the pipes, you're starting to save immediately, not after the sixty months. As I say, can you explain the cash positive part? Because it looks like we're gonna have $3,000 a month. And they say, but, yes, your energy bill is going down because of the lighting, the aerators, and the pipe immediately.
So in 90% of the communities, I I say districts, but I'm sure that they've done besides school districts, they've done municipal buildings and stuff too. He says that's the difference is all of that savings is definitely gonna be more than $3,000. So your bill should be cash positive fairly immediately. So so it's something for us to consider. If you would like me to for next month, I certainly and then look at project timeline three pages after that. The financing for it goes directly through Eversource, so it becomes part of your Eversource bill. And there's no It's not a separate. No. There's no it's it their program because it's a program, it's a 0%. So that's going on your bill, but it's a 0%. There's no interest or anything on it. So it's just they allow you to put it across your bill. So that way there's no, you know, traditional
financing.
I'd be interested in what other people's questions or comments are on this. I will say for myself, I think it sounds like it could be really cool, but I'm also really nervous about how much money is it gonna cost us to fix the bathrooms. And I would like to make sure that that is done before we commit to another thing. That's why I was wondering, like, what the timeline was on it. Right. The project timeline thing is on here. We did put that on there. But, like, how long it's good Right. For. Right? Like, if we said, like, could we revisit in three months? Like, or Right.
Yeah. So we could have them come in December or January when we have a little less on the agenda and be able to answer those questions for you guys. If you want one of those months, I can put them on there, and they can Zoom in and pretty much be able to answer specifics. You just tell me if you want in December or January.
When is the solar project gonna be finished? By Halloween. By Halloween? And so you'll at least get some Months. Initial understanding of the savings from the solar project. But I don't think we'll have a full understanding of that until we've gone through a summer. We won't. But you're you're sitting there looking at I mean, based upon their estimate and just the information that I can get from your packets, they're saying that they would save about 32% of your total electricity cost and 20% of your total oil and heating, and that's if everything worked out. So the whole thing with this That's where I'm nervous. Yeah. The whole thing with this is will they guarantee those savings? Because what they did is they just gave you a they gave you a savings that gets to your monthly costs. So if they guarantee the savings, then your monthly cost is offset. And then as Valerie said, in five years, you will then start to have a much lower electricity bill. But Yeah. It's guaranteeing that. And, you know, that's that's where you're at with that type of document. So it's something that it is I have no problem investigating. I would if I was on I was voting with you guys, I would sit there, I'd have no problem investigating.
Well, we have to in order to even know more information. Well, I guess that's my my concern is, you know, I research stuff like that from my home and that a lot of these companies are predatory. And, like, I just am concerned about the information that they're giving us. And quite honestly, something like LED lighting,
why couldn't we do that? Like, how difficult would that be to do it ourselves? Or So it's not that we're doing it yourselves. It's if you for a lot of the Eversource grants, and I know this for my business, if they're not done by a licensed electrician,
you don't get the And subsidy. And people that are subsidized to work through Eversource. Because to your point, we had two people out here already. One of them was our regular lighting, the regular electrician. We've had two visits from contractors to get prices on the LED lights for the building, and it would be about a 100,000 for us to, on our own, hire somebody and do the LED. So I do have those two quotes. One of them we got just before Scott and I knew that this company was coming. We had them come give us a quote. Yeah. And on our own, to change our lighting over in the building is a 100,000. Okay. So maybe
maybe December then just to to Yeah. I think give more information and also
see what the bathroom Hopefully, we know more about where the bathroom stuff is at that point because
If we go if go back for one thing, did you say that the the cost of the lighting was a $100,000?
For us to have a company come in Yeah. Change over our lighting without doing a program like this Yeah. To LED lighting for the whole building is a 100,000.
And and is that inclusive of the labor, or is that just with Yes. Fixtures? It's inclusive of labor. Like Okay. That's something that we need to include in your capital plan as an opportunity to sit there and do it because what they're saying to you is this program is $368,000.
Right. So No. No. That is inclusive also of the aerators and the
pipe wrapping. That's it says. Primary six, but you said that's for the sanity lights. Right. That's sanity.
He's talking about warehouse lights. Like, you would sit there and see in the gymnasium.
Right. Which when they came to this building, the two companies that came to this building to give us free quotes Yeah. We told them we were looking for the flat. Yeah. Okay. So that's how we know. But we said, no. We don't want the the more expensive fancy ones. So the work the work doesn't have OAB right now? A lot of it. Most The majority of it. None of the classrooms. Yeah. It's just They all The work you've done to determine the costs
should be put on the the potential project plan so that we can understand I know. So then we can understand the dollars because a $100,000 might be a smarter investment and done faster than something like this that's a lease. Because in all these in all these deals, you're paying a lease rate, and they just built this program from my standpoint. They built this program to sit there and say the the lease costs are just going to offset your regular cost. So it's your regular cost. And that's if you hit the number. Yeah. So, yeah, something like this. Very good. I I've it's like the solar project. You investigate them. And Yep. If they work and they financially can work
Right. So so we have like I said, we have had people out here so that we knew prior to this what we were looking at price wise so that they weren't kind of telling us, which is why, to everybody's point, when we saw that number on there, we said the turnkey price for the lighting, $2.36. Where are you getting that price from? That's brilliant. So that we had some knowledge, and they said they told us they were the other lights. And we said, ah, we would be looking for what does this potentially look like if we have the flat beds. And they're gonna get that from us. You know, they're gonna let us know what that would look like because that and and same thing with the solar. You know, when we sat down with them, that wasn't the fact they're doing either. So so to be continued and, Kate, thank you. I will put it on December's to to have them. Can I recommend January
only because Sure? We'll be dealing with the budget and with Yeah. New members, all that kind of stuff. January, RLE. You got it. Mike, do you have anything? I'm group. Okay.
So I feel like, right, worth exploring, but we're all Yeah. Slightly Put a pause Yep. About it. Yep. Yeah. Okay. So and then the other things
are onboard business down below. So everything else that I have is is down below, so we'll we'll wait on that. K. So you're good? Yep. Let's
do the fun stuff. Yeah. Okay. Please. Well, I just have to shout out. I think I have eight staff members here tonight, and so thank you so much for coming. I know that we've just been doing so much work. The staff has been working so hard, and they're out of the work they've done. And they're excited about the work we're gonna do this year. So thank you for giving me that opportunity to share, and thank you guys for being here. So I'll just real quick, though, just talk about enrollment before I get to You'll see we dropped by two. We did have a family move out of state, this month. However, we have a new family of two starting next week. So they come and, you know, they go and they come. So that's exciting. And then you, just like to point out, as you know, our pre K number, reflects
current, and I have four registered currently for coming in throughout the year with a potential fit. And you know that sometimes it's based on age, sometimes based on birth to three, special ed, all those kinds of things. So I do anticipate our enrollment to continue to climb this year. So That is guaranteed to go to 60. Okay. Four already, but I like I said, I have one potential as well. So and that's not reflected in the two 47. So that will does that make sense? Because they have not yet not in the 61, but you can Or the two forty seven. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. So, that should go back to $2.49 next week. Oh, sorry. Think The
numbers. Wrong. So it's not in the information. Thank you. Sounds good. You got it. You got it. Alright.
Okay. I tried to make this as succinct as I could. I know you guys have big agendas, but I do think it's worth taking some time to look at. So let's get to it. Can you see this? Okay. One, two.
Alright. We're gonna get to here. Alright. Hopefully, will look like the color changed to Jerry. I know. Just Jerry. It's It's Jerry. Came up now. There we go. It's just it's just Jerry. Alright. So we're gonna look at a few things tonight. We're gonna look at some summative assessments from the 2425 school year, and then we're gonna connect that to the 2526 strategic plan. And so I know in years past, we've certainly you know, I've presented data, and I've talked about next steps, but this is the first year that we've really I felt strongly about Val and I working on having that strategic plan kind of in writing. You have that in front of you. It looks like this. You know, I had that summer color fall in the front. You know, it's from us. And so that's we're gonna connect to that as we go through here tonight. So we're gonna start with summative. So as you know, students in grades three through six, for us, three through eight, take the STEP assessment. So they take an assessment in reading, in math, and in fifth grade in science. Okay? And so the state
then, based on those results, assigns a performance index. And so a performance index, we are assigned for science, for math, and for reading. In addition, which we haven't yet, but eventually, they'll assign a performance index overall, right, to ours. And so this performance index takes into account how many students are reaching each performance level. So I'm gonna show you proficiency, which is what you're used to seeing. How many kids got a three or a four? That's a straight percentage. Right? Total divided by performance index is a little more nuanced, and I really wanted to make sure we understood that tonight because often when we talk percentages, we always have this caveat of, we're small. Remember? Every kiddo is 1%. Remember? Comparing is hard compared to districts that are bigger. This is an effort to make that more fair. Right? And so what it does, instead of just saying how many kids hit a three or a four, it gives credit to students who are out of two, and it gives exceptional credit more points to students at a four. That's important because that acknowledges the work that we're doing with students moving from a one to a two as well as students moving from a three to a four. So that's how that's I'm gonna show you. Go ahead. Does it give more credit if they advance more previous to Nope. Previous testing? No. So this is how it's assigned right here. So if a student scores at a level one, they don't they're not assigned any points for us. They didn't earn points. If they're at a two, they earn 67 points. If they're a three, they earn a 100. If they're a level four, they earn a 130. So the maximum score you can get is a 130, right, if your whole building scored a level four.
We're working on that. We're gonna just let's wait. That would be the maximum because you would take all those students, and the average is a 130 if everyone scored that. The state would like us to hit 75. 75 indicates believe that's on my next slide. 75 indicates roughly, right, with most students performing at or above standard. A performance index around 70 to 80 generally means the school has a majority of students at level three. Does that make sense? Mhmm. And then summit two and summit four. If you're below 60, it's looking like a large proportion of your students are not achieving at a one or two. K? Can I ask another question? Specifically
on the SBAC scores, like, when you look at them and it gives, like, a high, like, a high number and a low number for whatever the grade level is, is that based on what the highest and lowest scores were in the state for that grade of kids taking it, or what are those Like, like, a number, like, 2,432?
Yeah. Yes. Those are that's the standard score they use. Where does that come from? Like, with where they're saying what level it is. It's set. So in fifth grade, I'm making this number up, but in fifth grade, a three is between thirty two eighty and thirty three hundred. And someone is just determining Yes. That's how they score the test. It's almost like you're scoring the next gets a number that's below
the one at or above the highest of the four on that. There is there's no minute. So minimum
would be zero. So you'll see and I actually thought it was interesting because the the state prepares the family report for us, and the reports the are a little different than if you see it online versus in person. What I didn't love about the family report this year is that all those quadrants look the same size. They're actually not. And so to this the size of a one is bigger because it's anyone from zero to again, I'm making up the number. I don't know what those are. Zero to 1,200. Right? Whereas a three is a much smaller range you have to fit in to score a three. Does that make sense? Mhmm. And the four doesn't have a max. You can only max it out to get a perfect score. So, okay, I'll ask the doctor. Okay. Confused about
Okay. Often. Okay. Yeah. You can get a perfect score. If you get every question right, and you that means you could only get thirty two eighty. That is the perfect score on the fourth grade ELA test. So you can only get to the top of a four. And that would mean you got everything right. That was my question. Yes. That helped. There you go. The test is not adaptive. Some people wonder that. It gets I I Is that where you're going? Was. Yeah. So, like, if you got to that point, does it put you into the bracket for the next No. It doesn't start testing you any harder in the way that our benchmark assessments do during the year. Okay. That was a good that that makes sense. Any other questions just about a performance index? Kinda makes sense to what that looks like. So here's our performance index. So we're gonna compare we are blue, and the state is yellow. So we'll start here with ELA of a 73.1. So we're very close to the target. This is very exciting. Again, we know in our percentage world with our small with our small population, up and down a point can be a little bit variable based on our population. And so we're gonna look you know, we wanna hit that 75 target, but we're we're right there above the state. And then you can see and you'll see I kind of indicated in the spring, I anticipated our math scores would see a little more trouble this year just based on what we were seeing in our own benchmark testing, which is pretty reliable to us back. So you'll see it's a slightly lower there at 68.7.
And then I have science for you. Science, we are doing fantastic. You can see the reason it's not reported in '22 is because only fifth grade takes it. If our cohort is too small, the state won't report it. They'll call it to identifying. I believe that's the cohort we only had 18 kiddos who who took the test. And for the state, they don't wanna I don't know. They don't think it's okay to tell you what percentage that is on the website. I I can do that, and it was lower than where we were, but the state won't. So you can see us there. We hit our target in science. Can you compare their like, the numbers to and as well? You know I can.
Yes. So I did compare. We're gonna get to just straight proficiency, and I put the the districts up here so you could see them. It would have been a million graphs to put all of the towns of these up here. But just so you can kinda get a sense, Hebron's ELA performance index is 76. Their math, 73. Science, 77. Marburg, 76, 74. I don't have their science with you. Go back to our Yes. I can. Mhmm. So so, really, math is
Marlboro is has the has been doing well in math. Their proficiency rate is 70%. The thing is their proficiency rate is down. It was 73%. Again, for all of our districts, you know, I don't wanna no one's better than them. It's just it's hard with our small sizes and our percentage. Remember, one kiddo for us is about we had a 108 testers. So that's one kiddo changing kind of your percentage point. With Marlboro and Hebron, they have a bigger percentage. So and it brings to Hebron, I believe, that 369 testers. Right? So, of course, then each of theirs is a quarter of a percent. So, you know, you gotta make with what the data you are, you can in terms of comparatively. We do a lot with the data in house, but there you go. Alright. So then we looked at proficiency. That's what we're more used to seeing. So the top is the state of Connecticut. I try to make it easy to understand. So they have a lot of they go back all the years. Right? And remember, they don't report you could 1920, that's COVID. 2021, they got special permission. Remember from the federal government that said we don't really have to report it. We took it, but they don't want us to see it. And then here's this last year. How many testers? The state is at fifty point three percentage, 45.9
for Matt. And here we are, 64.8, 53.2. You can see our last year right here. So we were up six percentage points in ELA and down 10 percentage points in math. Wow. You know, again, I anticipated, like I said, in math, and we're gonna talk a lot about what we're doing there. But what I mix what I was happy to see and what I can't celebrate one on one because we're so worth because we're so small, you're and actually gonna see our gross score is a little higher in math than in ELA. It's because we moved a lot of kids from a one to a two. And that just can't be reflected in our proficiency because they're not at a three. And I want them all at a three. But we did do a lot of work, and that's why our
performance index is in the right range and almost getting there because we're moving those kids. So there's work to do here, and I'll show you so you can see. Our district reference group, so that's the state says, here are the towns you can compare in certain capacities. There's 30 towns in our we call it a DIRG, and I think you'd wanna see all 30 there. But, again, I these are the typically, the other four, but I can certainly get you any that you are particularly looking for. Just kind of something interesting to note. So you can see right here, like, in Andover and Boltland, we are almost spot on. Right? In ELA, almost exactly the same. Our performance index is two points higher than Boltland's because it just tells a different story, right, of where our kids fall. The same could be true the opposite way. Right? We could be the same percentage of proficient proficiency, but our performance index could be lower depending where our kids fall. And this also I again, how many numbers can you put on the screen? It doesn't kind of I didn't put all of their last years or past years to kind of see. Like, I can I can tell you, you know, I wanna hit 70% as Marlboro does? They're kind of expressing they're making some changes in their math curriculum because they're not trending in the way they want to. So you know? But that also would change your year. Right? Like, say you had Yeah. Like, four or five kids that were really good in math. I know. Great. Yeah. And then they go, and you have kids come up that are It is the balance. Right? And even my teachers, they're like, hey. Make sure the board understands. Right? Like, here's all the things we're doing. And and, yes, these these matter because the big trends matter. Right? We don't we wanna see over years that we're moving into different decades.
But year to year, it's very difficult when you have new third graders who come up, and that cohort could look differently in terms of needs, special education, free and reduced lunch, all the different factors versus the sixth graders who exit. But we do have more support in math this year. Absolutely. So we're gonna talk about that. Baylor, you said oh, I'm sorry. No. I my question is, like, comparatively, though, if you're looking at, like, Columbia, they're k through eight. Yep. So I I just I don't like, and I guess, are there any other that are that are preparing for that is is three Yeah. Oh, really? So Bolton and Columbia, that includes three eight because it's one school. Okay.
I I think you can go to other schools and break down by grade. I don't typically I'm not sure if you can, actually, if you're not logged in, like, if you're not a user. So I can only some districts have an elementary school and a middle school. You can see it by school. So, like, if I were to look at burn and say, I could look at what their elementary rate is separate from their middle. But when you're a three eight, it's reported together. So that's also you know, some people argue it's an advantage because we have more students testing, so our percentage, every kiddo is not quite as valued.
Others might argue seventh and eighth grade math is sometimes a tricky subject to test and can be tricky. So, you know, I suppose, depending on the lens you wanna look for. But, yes, Heberton Marlborough is just looking at sick sick. So we could pull rams. I don't know if this is Right. Trying to get into to fuck those numbers. Yeah. We could pull ram six a. You know, you could do that if something you're interested in, I could certainly report it for you.
So you had said that you expected the mass scores to go down. Yeah. And I know that's probably based on prior testing and whatnot. Is there any any explanation or any anything that you could point to that talked about the expectation and why you think it occurred?
So there's good news here. The good news is that our for the last two years, we have been spot on in predicting our percentage. And the reason for that is we use the I Ready diagnostic, and so we give that in March. And what we found of a 109 testers, a 104 performed the same or better than they did in March on the I Ready. So that's the first good news, and that's two years going. Great. So we have really reliable data. Do I know why? I think there are several reasons. The first was our intervention support, which, of course, is what we worked on and what we've done. So we had Christina Fraser doing an lot of math intervention, but she also was doing a lot of other tasks that we all know with the tech and the STEM and all of those things. So we needed to increase our math intervention so students who were performing below grade level could get additional support. In addition to the enrichment, the opposite piece. Right? Because
I say it again and again, we do value moving kids from a three to a four. That's important to us. Right? I think also we looked really hard at curriculum. So we had piloted illustrative math in second and third, and now this is our first year. We're ready to move it all the way up, and I think we're gonna see that make a difference. In addition to what I'm you know, I talked briefly about the building thinking classrooms and some of our really high yield instructional strategies. So it's a combination of things. Mhmm. But, really, I think the support has been huge already, and I'll talk about that. Oh, no. Don't freeze on me now. Oh,
okay. I'm gonna talk a little bit about growth. So we're all well, I think we're all so growth, the it's also reported your growth. So there's two growth scores to look at. This first one is the average percent of a target achieved. So for fourth through sixth, a student's already taken us back once. Right? They score, let's say, a two in third grade. They score a twenty six thirty two. Right? They have a standard score. SBAC, the state, is gonna set a target that they should hit next year in order to move them towards proficiency. However, everybody gets a target. Even if you're a four, you get a target that you should hit saying, hey. If you're on this right track, here's where you should end up at the end of the year. Does that make sense? It might not if you're a one, it might not your target isn't necessary to get a three that next year. It's it's moving you incrementally. There's actually a tool anyone can play with on the, state website where you can put in a score and can show you through third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, what you would need to score to eventually move to proficiency. So this is the the target is a 100%. A 100. Yes. Thank you. State of Connecticut, we would love yes. That's a great target. Students to meet a 100% of their growth goal. Thank you. So here's where we are, and I I think it's very exciting. We see the we see this big jump. We've talked a lot about bookworms. You know it was a huge focus of our
work last year, all our professional development, and students did a great job. This sometimes feel like, woah. What's happening here? You have to remember here that our scores, our proficiency scores were very low when I came, that 2122 year, that year right after. COVID. Yes. And so when we came, we were like, this isn't our kids. And so we made a big jump my first year. It was a 10% growth. And so that's that's a huge growth score right there, and that's when we were recognized for that great growth. So that got us back to kind of almost our baseline, like, we should have been, you know, post COVID, and now we're trying to get back into that high 70 range where Andover lived prior to COVID. And then math, you know, I'm gonna celebrate two tenths. Okay? We are we are hanging on. We are moving again. And you can see that's even a little bit higher than ELA even though our proficiency is low. And I think I just emphasized that that there's just so many different ways that we look at the data to make sure we're getting everything we can out of it. And, of course, we're doing this for individual students. So I can see this for a fourth grade. I can see their target growth. I can see their proficiency. I can see what they got last. We we can analyze as deep into the individual students, which is obviously the work that drives the teachers, not quite these bigger numbers. I won't make you study this too much, but I just couldn't help it to show you how the growth goes even deeper. So now
we have this average percentage of target. That's that green bar. They also tell you how many students achieved the whole target. So how many kids who got a low one hit the whole target? They they were like, this is what you should have done, 50%. Right? Some kind of trends to some interesting things to look at here. So this is language arts. You can see here that our level two, right, our low twos made 82.7 average percent of their growth. That's phenomenal. Right? Because those are your low twos that you're moving to proficiency. That's our biggest area of growth right behind our high fours, which I think is really important to acknowledge. That means we're really hitting
our kids that are right below there that really need to move, and we're we're hitting our high kids that are really high and making sure they move forward. This, of course, right here is where we're focusing on. Students who scored a low three. If you're in education, sometimes we call them pus speed. They're they're they right? Like, they they they have it, but then tomorrow, you're like, do you still have it? Like, can you apply it on your own now? That's the the focus group for us this year. Because those kids have it, have it, have it, and then they might not if something gets tricky or they don't get that reteach or they don't get that differential. In the middle, so they're not getting used They're not targeted. Right? It's the same way. So it it's a in funny in some ways, we were like, this this tracks. Like, this is the work we've been doing on the high low end. But now how do we make sure and that's really our curriculum work. Right? That's the bookworms and illustrious. That's your tier one we call the 80% of your students. How are we making sure they have the highest quality, high yield instructional strategies? You can see what's interesting in math. I mean, look at that. It's almost exactly the same in terms of trends. I mean, this is just exceptional right here. Wow. So, yeah, that's your high ones. That's your that's your kids who really struggle in math. We made they're they're 80% of them hit their whole target. Right? Eight out of 10. So, you know, I can see exactly, of course, on my end how many of the students this is. And then, again, we're able to enrich here on our really high math kids.
And here we are. Right? Yep. Our low threes. And the target for each kid is based on how much What they did. Algorithm thinks it's that they should gain in the following Correct. Yep.
Any questions about SBAC? Just wanna talk a little bit about dimples, but that kinda makes sense. And, again, we use that a bunch. So we use that to determine intervention. We use it to determine next steps in curriculum, all of the things. So we look. You can also see on our end, we can look into, is it listening comprehension? How did they do on text features? Is it problem solving? It it's not super granular. We all wish we could see, like, what problems did they get right? You know? But someday, they'll let us know that. Alright. The other assessment I think is important is because we don't forget about our little best. So we also use the DIBELS. It's a foundational reading assessment, and that is required by the state of Connecticut. And I think I mentioned earlier in the last meeting, this is data the state is going to start to collect because they wanna make sure we're doing that foundational work. And so the DIBELS is a series of one minute timed assessments. So I'm gonna sit with Terry, my student, and I'm gonna say, you're gonna read words for one minute. How can how many can you read? You're gonna split apart words. You're gonna look at letters. You're gonna read a passage. How many words? So just a series of decoding. There is also what's called the maze as they get older, which looks at comprehension. That's a passage. You might remember these from school where there's missing words. We used to call it a closed passage, and you have to circle the word that makes sense. But, again, you have a timed you're in time. K?
And so we're looking at composite. Composite is just all of those subtests combined. Again, when we're analyzing this data, we're obviously looking at each piece and what what they need. So this is boys beginning of year, and so we're looking at about 47%. This is last year proficiency moving to about 64%. This is our k three. We also give DIBELS in four six. That's not required, but we find it helpful, and that really just focuses on their oral reading fluency, how many words per minute they're reading. This is a little more comprehensive at the k three. So that's exciting to see that continue to move. So my favorite slide, and I was not doing this presentation without it. So look at this. So percentage of students chronically absent. We have made tremendous growth, you can see, over the past three years. So sometimes with the Andover, they like to report school and district. Turns out we're the same. So three three bars, but blue and yellow. Blue and orange are the same, guys. It's green. I know. So we're down to 5.6. You can see the percentage targeted by the state is less than or equal to five, so we're right there. And I think we've done a lot of work around that. Now, yes, I can't take all the credit. There were still Mike's like, don't take all the credit. You know why. He's like, I know why that's one percentage before COVID?
I have to look. I don't have that off the top of my head prior to COVID. Seriously. Yeah. Obviously,
the 2223, we were still in a little bit of COVID world. Not fully, though. There we did have an attendance problem beyond COVID, but, yes, some of that was COVID that you still had to be out so many days. There was I don't remember the rules. Yeah. But we worked hard, and so we're really proud of them to get us back where we need to be. Okay. Before I just transition, I just wanna connect now to our strategic plan. Any questions on Summative? And so what I'd love to be able to do and I what I will be able to do this year if the board is interested is is look at that benchmarking data now as we go throughout the year. I can share kind of progress towards, especially because, again, even our foundational data, even that DIBELS was at, what, 64%, that matches our back score even though it's our k three. Like, it's pretty we have really reliable data, and we can trust it even when it doesn't feel good. Even for, like, we don't like that number, it can move us to action because we know it's true. And it's more dangerous to be in a spot where you're like, they just didn't feel good that day. Like, that's not what we're doing here. Right? We really trust because we have multiple measures to make sure that we're able to intervene. So how how often is it appropriate? Or is it that So we benchmark three times a year. So I think January,
we formative, of course, throughout, but I think by January, February, depending on exactly when our board meeting falls and when we have all that data. Just prior that way, kind of, I think, a midyear check, I I'd love to be able to just show some of that Yeah. That makes sense to you guys. Yeah. So don't worry. I'm not gonna go through the entire strategic plan. You can certainly read. I know. But I just wanna highlight a couple things on it. So you'll see this is the front, the top. That top is our mission statement that lives on our behind here and on our our website. But then we really wanted to talk about what is the commitment this year. And so I I know when the board was doing their goals, they shared this about fiercely pursuing academic excellence, emotional intelligence, and community where belonging matters. And so those are the three tenants we're revisiting
and using the lens of everything. So for example, this morning, I send a morning message every day. So I send an email every day to all staff. And today, it was like, okay. In October, through these three lenses, here are October steps towards that. Right? Staff gives me a hard time because I gave this big analogy about driving to California, and that's, like, our goal, and we're still here. I don't drive, Katie. It's like so it was a real adventure to do a driving analogy. But there's steps every step of the way, and we're constantly rooting ourselves in these three pieces. These are those skills and dispositions. I just like to remind everyone that we use the same skills and dispositions
that RAM uses. We started that a couple of years ago. In that, we just met we went to RAM. We just met about Invention Convention. And even outside of that, they were asking, hey. Does anybody use these? And I was like, we do. And they were just so excited because, again, they're teaching all of that in seventh grade. Our kids should become really familiar. It's how they earn house points. They're attached to these five categories. So they start to internalize that language. And like we said, we could have invented five new words. Why would we do that? They're all around the same topics, and they'll have continuity through high school. So I'm not gonna go through all the strategies, but I'm gonna just go through the three grounding principles that we wrote. And so the first is academic excellence. So if we do nothing else, we're using that language, and I think it's important. We do a lot during a school day. Right? If you've ever been to school, there's a lot happening every minute. We have to focus. Otherwise, it'll just be everywhere. You can lose track. So we're we're really if we do nothing else in academics, we'll ensure every student engages in high quality instruction, evidence based grade level instruction every single day. We're gonna monitor student learning through formative assessment and respond with intentional differentiated support. And then we hold high expectations for student thinking, discussion, and growth across all content inquiries. Those are the three routing sentences we're using for all the work we do with academics. If it doesn't fit in there, throw it away. Right? What what does that give us? And that it's not just the math lesson. It can be lining up and how we do it. Everything can fit in there if we're intentional through it. Two goals, you're gonna see that's just increasing our proficiency and increasing our growth.
So just one example. Like I said, you can read all the strategies, but in math, for example, one of the strategies we're using is building thinking classrooms. And so it's just an example of a question that might have been posed to children and how they're solving. So students are using vertical whiteboards, which is important. There's a lot of science and research around standing when working, and so and also writing vertically. It's good fine motor. It's good for the hand, but it also is connected to their brain. And I don't claim to be a scientist. I just claim to follow the science. So that's there. And and then we're inside of that teaching talk moves. So we're focused really a lot on accountable talk. And so this is just an example in our fourth grade room as I popped in. How do we teach students to talk? We are in a world of AI, right, of information at our finger at our fingertips. What is going to matter is how our kids can communicate. Mhmm. Because they can look up any piece of information they want, right, faster than we can. So that's really the focus here. Accountable talk, just briefly, it's how students are accountable to the community. So how are you listening? How are you responding? How you're accountable to accurate knowledge? You don't get to just say things that aren't true. Right? What is the evidence? What does that mean? And how are you accountable to thinking? How are you explaining and that kind of thing? So in this teacher's room, the ones on the bottom are the ones they're working on. Those are sentence stems. So they're practicing. I heard you say this, and I wanna add on. They're practicing. Your strategy is similar to mine because. The ones that go on top are ones they've already practiced, and they're using them. You know, I didn't take a picture of all of them. It is way to hear a four year old say, well, I'd love to disagree because it it's like you just wanna, like, melt. I mean, it's the key it's it's the cutest thing ever. According to text Yes. Right? I mean, I want you to picture that because it's happening, and it's just wild.
And so we're the one we're working super hard on is, can you tell me more about what you just heard Brie say? And then you realize, like, wait a minute. Are they actually listening to each other? Because there's science around that that kids learn from kids. And so if we can get kids to be able to oh, I heard her say that, you know, farmer John could have 20 legs. Wow. That's a different type of engagement than they just Brie got called on, but I'm just, like, waiting for my turn to get called on. Right? I already have my thought in my head. I'm not actually responding to what she said. I mean, think of that as adults. We do that. We're just waiting to say the thing we wanna say. We're not actually hearing each other. So that's kind of what this Yeah. See, I said I'd keep it short, but I'm talking. Alright. Second out of three is the emotional intelligence. So here's that if we do nothing else statement.
We're gonna model and teach self awareness, self regulation, empathy, and perspective taking. No big deal. We'll get that done next week. We'll respond to behavior through a lens of connection before correction, and we'll embed SEL, that's that social emotional learning, into academic instruction, feedback, and daily routines. It's a big commitment, and we're already we're already working on it. I showed you our house points. Right? We've already recognized 3,500 instances of positive behavior. We have students contributing to a team. And so one of the things we talked about is increasing when I did survey results last month, if you remember. We want to survey a little more frequently to dive into some of those results. So, for example, this is what teachers are gonna start to work on. They'll have discussion questions common across the building for the month. And so those discussions happen in morning meeting. They happen really organically across a day, and they happen differently at different levels, right, whether you're a kindergartner or a third grader. And then at the end of the month, they'll have an opportunity to give feedback. Our older kids will fill it out themselves. This is just an example. But our younger kids, we really wanted to capture. And so when staff was brainstorming
leadership team, they thought, well, you know what? Maybe we just ask teachers to report in. Hey. What came up in your first grade circles this mean? So that we're still acknowledging their voice, but, of course, we've talked about we don't wanna survey first grade because that feels different. So that's kind of what that looks like and how we intend to just be a little more intentional on getting those data points prior to the end of year survey for students as well as developing that common language. And so missus Ormsby, Kara, our school psychologist, works on that, and then she can use that to inform, certainly, personal group work, but also across the building. And lastly is the last but certainly not least, where belonging matters. And so, you know, we had to almost cut ourselves off on this page where you couldn't couldn't fit anymore because belonging is so so important to us, and that means a lot of things. And so you're gonna see on this area
SRBI. That's how we do intervention, special education, enrichment, and family engagement because that all impacts belonging. So if we do nothing else, we're gonna ensure every student is known, seen, and valued. We're gonna ensure students who require additional academic or behavioral support receive timely evidence based interventions and progress monitoring aligned with their needs. We're gonna meet the needs of high performing students with opportunities for enrichment based on student interest and honor families as part of our team and work together to serve the whole child. So my example for this one, if you are a family, you might have seen last week gosh. The week's slow. Maybe it was week before by this point. You they for the first time, we were able to send home to families a comprehensive look at their beginning of the year benchmark testing.
So they received DIBELS, iReady, fact fluency, depending on their grade level, obviously, and what was related to them. And then I create this is it's very hard to screenshot yourself in a video, by the way, without making a terrible face. But I then sent a video home to families really walking through what each of those assessments means and what you would notice from those as well as we sent, you know, handouts because we understand again, it's not you can't just say, hey. Your students are 32. Like, is that good? Should I, you know, what should I be worried about them? So we did the again, our we call them the impact team, but the leadership team did a lot of work on how do we explain that, how can we help families understand what's going on with their students' data. So that's just one way we're we're working on that. Did that video come on Seesaw? It did. Did you miss it so I yeah. I miss everything on Seesaw. I Let me go back. Yep. You're gonna really enjoy it. Give them Okay. Alright. I'm gonna be I'll send it again. Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't remember getting it. But Okay. Yeah. Oh, good. I'll send it again. Yeah. So yeah. So that's that's again, it's a brief overview. You're gonna see there's a lot of strategies we're implementing. And this is on the website. Right? This This will be. This will be. Yep. You work the first. I like the board of ed to at least have and see what we're gonna do, and then this will go up there. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Questions?
You know, I said my bad. No. That's great, Taylor. Thank you. Answer. We're really excited. Even and I didn't include it. It felt like over the top and, again, length of time, but we're excited even to see our beginning of the year benchmark data because there's some pieces where it's already even a little bit stronger than it was last year that we're like, okay. And even the pieces where they're just hanging on, we're like, okay. That that means it's really in there. You know, we talk about summer slide and, you know, sometimes kids lose skills, and that's a question for us. Right? How do we how do we address that? How do we look at it? So, yeah, I'll be happy to report going forward. Yeah. Thank you so much. Jerry's question. Yes, Jerry.
Yeah. Do you hear me? Yes. Yeah. Do you hear me?
You're good. I wanna thank you for this report. It shows how much work you've done to make sure that every child counts. Every child makes forward motion in every way. I look at this also from the teacher point of view that I spent all those years in the classroom teaching. It's phenomenal, the work that goes into what you've done. And I just wanna acknowledge that and recognize you. And I wanna thank you from at least the teachers as well as the parents' point of view for all that you do. And I don't know if everybody else was wowed by it, but I certainly was. Thank you. Mhmm.
Thank you, Jerry, and thank you again to all of our phenomenal staff who are Thank you. Doing the work with us. Absolutely. Yes. I don't think I could comment anymore. I've used my principles. You're done. Am Was that the PD? We're doing some PD too. Okay. Yeah. That is good.
K. Does anyone else have questions for Taylor? I do not. I do not. Thank you, Taylor. Yes. You're welcome. Did actually. We're put a timeline on the boss. I told you. We'll we'll move on to the financial report.
K. You have one minute. Sorry. Go. Ready. Go. Go.
Halfway through your packets. I hope you all have one. There's the summary of expenses for the first three months of the new fiscal year. Yeah. And then there's a breakdown of the detail. Does anybody have any questions on what they what they're seeing so far
for this year? I have a question on the preschool page.
That one is further down. Where where are you? I don't That's not a page. What's the date on that one? He wants to '21. September. Okay.
Sorry. We don't have a color copy, Lucille. Sure. I'll take Well, I'm You got them. Valve that one. The preschool page. I got it. Thank you. You You added
the expenses for the two teachers and the three parents on here, but it's just what is like, what's been paid so far. Correct? Sorry. No. It's what's been paid as of September 30. Is it possible to add another column that would because, like, for the and only to compare comparison. Right? Like, on the top for the for the grants and for tuition, like, you have anticipated for this one year. Yeah.
I'll put the packet tomorrow. So the first let me let me review what each is what each section is. Oh, sorry. Yeah. It's at the bottom. So my my brain wants it to be in columns up here, like, right underneath where the anticipated is. Well You have to put that on. I know. It's just not Okay. Where I wanted to Alright.
Let's by section for people who have not seen this before. We've been publishing I've had this report for a long time, but we just started publishing. Okay. So that first section is is that first set first section, third column is what we anticipate to receive in tuition this year. Yes. Yep. We get paid monthly, of course. The next column is what we've actually received. Okay? That very last column on the top is the total with the carryover, but that's gonna be a little bit higher because my number for the carryover has been adjusted to 10,000 plus. So but that'll show on next month's report. Okay? The next set of numbers is what we've had for expenses for pre K. And like you pointed out, Kate, it is for two two teachers and three paras. Now this tuition, the expenses is being paid by what's collected above. And as you can see, our expenses are at 21, and we've collected 20, but I have about $10,000 in my drawer to deposit that I just got. So it's all gonna kind it's all timing. Okay? But we are right on track. Okay?
Then on What what account does that get deposited into? That gets in to the Berkshire Bank grant account. Berkshire Bank. And do you present to the board an accounts receivable or a tuition ledger?
What I do for the board of finance? No. No. No. For this board. No. Just just this is what they get, which is what you know, what's in the admin system is just translated
onto this piece of paper. So this is a manually created document? Yes. It is. Yep. And are you using admins to
Yes. Budget for the pre K program? Yes. Okay. All these numbers come out of admins, but but their reporting, as Valerie pointed out when I first started, their reporting is just not easy to look at.
So it's easier to look at it if I move the numbers into something like this. But this is what the board is getting out of Edmonds for the other departments? Correct. And and you can't get the pre K to work in Edmonds like that? I can. I can get it worked, but this is easier looking for. This is easier for us to look at. He wants an Edmonds He wants an Edmonds. Edmonds for pre I I mean, I would assume it's your your budgeting for this. Now I'm assuming there's there's there's this is a little different for everybody, for me included. It's there's tuition generated. Mhmm. And then there's grant dollars that you're getting to offset the cost of this program.
Well and those are the sec second two sections are the grant dollars that we've received. Okay. So there's The last two sections.
There's 61 children now in the program that you do as a decrease. I agree this thing up. Yeah. No. No. No. I understand. But but everybody is supposed to get $6,000. No. No.
Okay. So if I understood the documents that I had last time, which I was trying to ask some questions about, there's there's children that are of you have all of the information that's up online related to enrollment in this program. Mhmm. And there's so many levels of enrollment, and there's so many dollars that they would sit there and offset. But you're telling me and the board that there's not $6,000 in either tuition or grant dollars associated to each child. No. No. Okay.
Do you report that to the board? So we did an old I'm gonna interrupt for one second. The old school readiness council Yeah. Would have been the one that knew what those adjustments were because special education services and or families that asked for adjustments based on things. Okay. So that governance council is now early start. There will be a parent ambassador and other members of that. It won't be that is not the decisions on the adjustments to tuition are not governed by the board of education. They're governed by a separate body. Okay. So that is why the number that you see here on the bottom, they list all the anticipated revenue, 247,000 from local tuition, 123 from, Early Start, 65 from Smart Start for a total of $4.35. It wouldn't be ethical to list it by students because I'm not asking. No. I know. But I'm just saying that out loud. Yeah. Because that kind of accounting that Terry has on the computer would indicate whether or not there is a student that is special education, a student that is discounted due to another situation. Mhmm. So I know what you're saying. It does seem like it would be easy to say x number of students times 6,000,
but we do not receive 6,000 from every student. And that's okay. I think as a board, you would wanna know what you receive in totality. Right? So Yeah. That anticipated
number Yeah. The two the the anticipated number of $2.47 Yeah. Is takes into consideration the tuition agreements that Terry and and Taylor already have for each family, which is why we can't come up with an anticipated number until late in the summer when we get back from all of the families those agreements. K. So if we could get a new kid tomorrow, and if the new kid comes in tomorrow, maybe that child is a $6,000
child. Maybe they're not. Okay. So we have 61 students, four classrooms, and projected revenue for the program of $247,000 or in addition to that? $247,000
in local tuition. That's the tuition. And then you add in the the grants down at the bottom for early start and smart start. It's I had to circle it because I put it's not in the top part. No problem. So so 33,000.
I'm just trying to get to my number and then 65,000.
123 and 65. Over on the left hand side. So it'll go over your left hand part. I left the entire It's not in the top. 59
On the very bottom? Not in the columns. So we're on the lower left hand side. Oh, yeah. Over here. There you go. See, you're so you're the same as me. So this is that's what I asked them to add to this from last month, and I looked through it. And make it bigger for your eye. Yeah. No. I don't yes. I know what a math. Like, your main color. You take 61 and you multiply it by 6,000,
that's 366,000. Mhmm. So why do we have a 435,000? Because there are grant slots that are utilized by kids and still currently in income for them. So the the, state gives us money for that slot, and there is an additional revenue. Likewise, there are students that don't have that revenue.
I would recommend from an accounting perspective that you get a separate bank account for the tuition so that you can really the board can really understand the total tuition dollars that are deposited into this account so you can track this. Because, Valerie, I'll come back to you in in from the beginning, this program was supposed to be a cost neutral program to the town. And I've always been concerned about this program as how it's run. And I think and reading everything, Taylor, reading everything, tremendous. I have no problem. I mean, there's a few things on this program that I'm concerned about that I think the board this board should really get details on and understand it so that we're all on the same page. My my question on the bottom, though, Jeff, is where are you seeing it not be cost neutral? Well, no. I haven't even got revenue is 435,000.
And it says the anticipated salaries are $3.99 with 36 for the supplies and classroom expenditures.
I'm not sure how it's not possible. So I I'll ask my questions then. Right? So if you have four classrooms, I do you have four certified teachers? Yes. You have four certified teachers. So four. Mhmm. And do you have four paras for each one of the classes so far? That 399. Listen. Just understand me. So I'm not not being I'm trying to understand. I've always been trying to understand. And I would sit there and I would go if I was if I was always here, I would ask you, can you sit there and break that down by the the the staffing level or the step that these teachers are on and then break the board pairs down by the totals, take into account take into account their benefits. Right? And then you can sit there and understand as a board if it's cost neutral. You putting these numbers on here is great. You're giving people information, but I'm asking for details to understand that it truly is cost neutral. And then you have the whole other issue of, are those grants guaranteed for this year? Yes. They are. Okay. Alright.
And next year is the last year that the state will do grants because in 2027 Yep. It the formulas will change because Connecticut will become the second state in United States to have universal preschool. Okay. So we will be inspired then. I'm excited to supply and do that. For free for families under a $100,000.
Okay. So now my next my next question would be, how many students of the 61 are Andover students, and how many of the students are out of town student?
I don't have that number in front of me right now, but for the financials, it doesn't make a difference. No. It makes a difference for me, and I'm asking the question. I I don't have the answer. In fact, you're right now. I can get that upstairs for you. Okay. But If you financially not affected the difference.
Because I wanna understand because in the documentation that's on the website Yes. Every out of town student is supposed to be approved by the board. And I wanna know if they were approved by as well. K through six. Absolutely. Because they are tuition based
to payers for k through six, and that is the requirement for us to have a a fee, a set fee. If you look at the anybody's policies district to district, you have to have a tuition. I'm
sorry, guys. I just it's 8 it's almost $8.40, and we are nowhere near through our agenda for tonight. And we have an executive session to discuss the superintendent's contract, which we need to do tonight because of where we are. And I just I'm I feel like we need to table this to an How about if I how about if I do this? How about if I send my questions to you, Caitlin? And I'd appreciate it if I could get the details and the information so that, you know Yeah. Next time, we'll be back. And I'm here to say we're prepared for questions tonight.
So I'd just like to address the board of education. Do you have any more questions for me regarding the financials this evening? I have one question. Yes?
On the on the summary report Yeah. There's a line administrative service. It's 03:10, like, halfway down the first page. Yeah. It's not a lot of.
Sorry on the summary. There's a lot of reports here. Like, under the medical Underneath medical and dental benefits? It says administrative service.
Oh, is that our her phone number? Is that our doctor?
Yeah. Which one are what number are you looking at? 002310 and then all zeros.
Oh, administrative services? Yep. That no. That's our board clerk. That's the board clerk. Thank you. I just Yeah. Okay. I know. They only just say board clerk. Right? Hasn't covered. Yeah. Yeah. It's a year. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? This
is what you get as a board like this is ideally because I was concerned that not everything I was wondering if there are other documents that you guys get in your package. Is there anything else that I'm missing? Because I didn't get the whole package. Well, we are missing something from the town. The town sends us our statements every month. And then the detail. Correct. I saw the the Norton's fund and your 2% lapse income that I heard about in the last meeting that the town sent you the bank statements. Do you ever include the board of bank statements in your package?
Do you ever include the board of do you include detailed reconciliations in your package? Because the expenditure reports and everything in here has everything on here. K. If you look further down your package, there's a monthly summary that goes that has the bank balances, and it goes to your board of finance and to your town clerk every month. So they've been getting this for at least a year and a half. I don't know why they wouldn't be sharing that. Town clerk gets that? Your town clerk gets a lot of information from me every month.
Does it go to the treasurer's office? She gets my bank statement too. I know she gets the bank statement when she you know, the last one. Yeah. I and I I went today. No. And the last one we got was June. The same. Yeah.
I know it's sent to the board of finance every Mhmm. So It's in the town clerk. I mean, town treasurer. K. And and one last thing. I'm sorry, Caitlin. I just gotta go to this point.
I I watched your entire meeting, and I was really I was a little disappointed in the freedom of information request. And then I have to sit there and say that the first freedom of information request was put in by the treasurer to the board of education, which I was unaware of. So I was a little disappointed in that. There should never be a freedom of information request that has to be put in between the town and the the the board of education. I believe that's the second or third. No. No. No. No. But what I'm saying is is please come. We we've got to get to the point where we share information, and it is not a negative to sit there and have the necessary information. Yes. When I heard that and then I went to talk to to the treasurer and asked I wanted to see the freedom of information request that that submitted, and she told me that she submitted one to you guys because and I'll go, Valerie, I'll look at you. It was related to the Northland Fund issue.
If there is information that you have that really has no bearing on the budgets for the town or anything, please just share in the information. With the town administrator
Yeah. One on one in my office Yeah. With this whole packet. Yeah. And we have gone through it page by page together. Mhmm. And I've explained what we are still waiting for, and that's next on our list. So if you wanna move to that, that's fine. I mean, we got liaison reports. So Any liaison reports on We have an upcoming CIP meeting. When is your meeting? I
believe it's next Thursday or so. Okay. Because we finally got something to address. K. Anyone else doing anything? PTA is doing great.
Dude, we had a high turnout. We had a good turnout Yeah. On Monday. Yes. Doing good. Yeah. Yeah.
When's your CFP? Next I'm sorry. Next Thursday. Next Thursday. Okay.
Norton, I wanna update. So I sat with the town administrator. Mhmm. We were talking about that. I've been working on this for a year.
For over a year You know what? Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. This thing has been going on since I've got on the board of Selectmen. I was in the treasurer's office trying to deal with this. I understand your problem. That's a nightmare. You've gotten farther than anyone else.
Now Yes. I have. Yes. And it hasn't been easy because I haven't gotten information. I finally did find out last week because I was told that nobody at Town Hall knows anything about it, but I did find out last week that, Eric, you, and Jeff Murray are the signers on this account.
So yes. On the board on the Bank of America account for the stock? Yes.
So I've been unable. I've been told by the first by the town administrator. Yeah. I have been told that nobody can help me because nobody has these records. And so I also spoke with the treasurer, and I was told, we can't help you. We don't have these records. But I can't have access to that account to even get any back documents, which is why I had to ask her for them because not a signer on the account. There's no person on the board of education that's a signer on the school fund account. So that was the first problem. So I met with Eric in my office with great detail because what happens happens to precipitate this was the town received statement that says you didn't cash your check. They said this to the Norton Commission. The Norton Commission said that's not us. It's the school. Nobody could figure out what happened with this. I met with Aaron in my office, and he came over to sign Trex. I went through every single bit of paper that I have, every expense that ever came out of there, every everything back in the nineteen fifties. And I showed him everything. And I said, have absolutely no problem. We have to fix this. Because long after this board and Val Bruno and you, Eric, and the first electman, somebody's gonna know what's going on with this account. And he agreed. But then this last week, a check came, and somebody from town hall walked it over to me, dropped it off in the office, and said, here you go. I can't even deposit this. So
there's definitely a difficulty in kind of what are we gonna do about this account? Because the three signers said they didn't even know that their names were on the account. So I will flat out tell you, there's no way, unless there's some legal issue with Shannon you can get it to, that I'm a signer on that account. And and I will tell you. Can I happened with Yeah? I think what happened with it is every time, like, here, when we get a new board chair and vice chair, they go to the bank, and they sign, you know, with me. I have to sign again Yeah. On our account. I will guarantee you, Jack, what happened was when there was a turnover, when Jeff Murray became vice selectman and your selectman, you guys probably went to the bank to sign the No worries. Listen. That's not a bank. That's a stock. But there's it's twofold. See. There's stock, and then there's cash available.
The bank account is M and T Bank. That is that is There's two things, Jeff. Because there's interest and dividends.
Because there's $14,000. If you look at last month's bank statements from the town Yep. There's $14,000 in the actual fund account Yeah. Plus the stock.
The stock is not in the bank account. So let's get this understood. So that account still earns interest at a very nominal rate from M and T Bank. Yep. It just keeps going into the Norton fund, and it's always been there for years and years and years and years. Thousand in there. And it's just it would just accumulate because everything just happened. It's it has I
have the bank statement. I I I do, and I looked at it. The stock is a different issue. The stock is a nightmare. I will live I understand with you. I am not a signer on that one, and and I I I'm with you. But the information that you've obtained,
just please do me a favor. Sat within a I know you're can you give it a I know you give it What needs to happen on a go forward? Because I so, basically, the rest of us on the board, you two are talking about something up here that I have zero knowledge on, and I don't really think affects anything of how this building functions or how we It's how you get the availability to the money to spend it on valuable
things within the school. Which we have which we have not. We have not. No one's gone over the over the entire time I've been in office. Correct. No one's done any yes. Nobody.
So how do we solve this going forward? If you'll allow access,
I can go back and find the gaps that are in here in the documentation by looking at the old statements because there's a question about a certain time period of what what happened from the Bank of America stop and the money that's in there and the last purchase. And there's there there's questions. So if I can gather the rest of that information,
then I have the ability to give you the full picture of everything. Good. I will sit there and work with you to get everything done related to that as best we can because what we're gonna have to do is go to CompuShare or whoever that is holding the stair shares and get them to put it into the towns into some and if I don't even know how to do it, I don't even know how. It's not in the town thing. It's just in an account. It's like it's like Right. The the the only the town side has access. Only yes. Norton Fund, whenever he established this in 1800 blah blah blah. Well, all I'm asking you for is is the treasurer is asking you for some of the information you have. You said you were going to present it to the board of finance. Please just give her what she needs and what she's asking for. That's all I would ask for. I will do everything I can with you to get the comp you share
signed up to somebody within the community that can handle it. And we have to get it so it rotates because it's not an easy thing. It's not not like a bank account. I'm just telling you. Like, all the bank accounts, whenever we've changed, we've signed. But M and T I do know those are the sign ups. Yeah. This is outside of that whole spectrum. So And the the And it is a lot of money. It's 60 some odd thousand dollars.
A lot of money. And the other issue is that if you look at the audits because I've gone through all of the audits. I spent a hundred hours on this. From 2015 till now, if you look at the audits, there are changes to this, and we need to look and see what the changes up and down to this account were. That's what I requested was
I mean, the the auditor must ask for information from your finance department annually on this account. Otherwise, how do they do it on He gives them the fair market value of that stock based upon the information off of the dividend. So that check is gonna tell you how many shares you have in Bank of America there. Okay. So what's what's our what's our go forward? We have to get someone to have access to
Can you do can you can you make it so that I have access to the paperwork from the bank?
Can you put me on there? You have all of the paperwork from the bank. You get it monthly.
I see. Goes into the shares. It's in it's been in your Can we have a file. Where I just It's been in your file. We just get a statement. That's all we get. That's all that she has? But it only reflects $14,000.
Correct. And and, again, the the the stock is not in that bank. If we don't get those, she gets those. I get them. I have never even started getting them. This is what it says right there. Town of Andover, 17 School Road, the Norton School Funds. The business office at Town of Fall receives this monthly. I I understand what you're saying. I have never seen that. I have seen
the checks in the past, and I can go back because I had records probably to 2015.
What's our so I'm just gonna ask one more time because I'm frustrated now. What is our plan on a go forward? How do we resolve this to move further forward? Can Valerie meet with the town treasurer? Can they work together? Why do we need Tahiti and, like Let's go. I'm in for that. If if she would work with the treasurer and provide just so she can because you've done a lot of work, There's documentation that the treasurer I mean is what I'm asking. We will make sure that they provide
everything that I ask for. If she has it, she will provide it to you. You have to remember, the same time she went to Edmunds, we went to QuickBooks. So they're off two different systems. So the individual transactions are not available.
It's not They are the bank, though. We can get them on the bank. I can give you. You can get all of the bank statements for that account. They won't give them to me. I will make sure that you He's going to get them. That's what he did. Okay. Let's bank on. Okay. So the moving on is Val and the treasurer are gonna meet. Jeff is gonna get the bank statements so that Valerie can have them to figure out the rest of us. We move that back. Forward onto the next thing. Yes. Solar project update.
Okay. Solar project update. We as you've noticed in the parking lot, parents have picked up their kids. Did you see the Yeah. Great news out there? And we did send home that video so that, everybody was aware. And it looks like it's it's a hit because people know what's in the parking lot. So even the kids were looking outside, and one of them said to me today as I visited a little classroom, they said, that's a lot of panels. So they knew there were panels. So that was fantastic. And what is their
Right. So the time period on this is everything now has been, dropped off. And, within the next two weeks, our, team, will be and it's Ken Wilhelm is the construction manager, with Green Skies. They will be, placing them on the roof. And the plan is before Halloween, we will have everything in place, and ready to then, give you more of an update as to what what the strategy is. And along the way, they will be hopefully doing some lessons in classrooms about it. So it's it's installed. That's that's where we are with it. Great. Good. K.
Bathroom project update. What's that? So last week, Fuss and O'Neil was in charge of helping us complete the process of choosing a contractor as well as subcontractor inside RFP. Front back. Yeah. We just. So
the last the last that I've been informed of where our progress is on this was we met July 21 with a representative from Boston O'Neill. His name is Josh Bruno. And we did create a subcommittee specifically for this project, including a member of the board of Select and a member of the board of finance. Bill DeRivers was not on that meeting. Jeff Murray was. And then we talked about what to do with us and O'Meal. We asked for the RFP to be posted on the town website, and then we went ahead with them doing the RFP process for us following what's been done previously with other school projects in the past not going through the town clerk's office. And I did do some pretty significant research looking back on that over the past twenty five or so. I don't see a very clear RFP process in in anywhere for our town. I think that from the school side and from the town side, that may be something CIP or or the board of selectmen. Like, I don't know how we go about having that so that it's clear for everyone to follow the same process or what process needs to be followed. The place that we are right now is we're waiting to meet with Fuss and O'Neil again, but I haven't heard do you have an update from Josh as to where Yep. Sign here.
You see at the top, says, along with the architectural subs consultant, have completed the restroom renovation design. F and O has produced a hazmat assessment, which I do have a copy of here. I copy that and send it. For preconstruction and provided report on 08/19/2025. That's this one. Well, F original contract was to provide bidding support, including bidding conference and responses to RFIs and CA services, including a submittal review and construction inspection. F and and O is currently working on providing a design build proposal and requesting annual enrollment to school in coordination with subtract subcontractors, and that is what we're waiting for. I did already speak with just Bill Degrocers, for example. We apologize for not making the last meeting. He's asked when the next meeting is. I let him know as soon as we have that design proposal,
then that's when we'll schedule the next meeting. After He said that that's
done. The DV approach is still approved. It's still approved. It's gonna file the f and o to oversee the construction phase of the project and eliminate the need for any further traditional bids. The benefit of the DV process, approach rather, is to provide a less time consuming turnkey solution to the school of the highly qualified RightFit experts. Caitlin just went through the background. That was the meeting. All attended, it was at that meeting where Jeff Murray did ask that we post something on the town website for anybody who is interested in sending an interest to F and L. The write up was sent to, Eric Anderson and to Jeff Murray. To my knowledge, the town did not post it. F and L was given, the go ahead to make the decisions on our behalf. They decided the names that were best suited, and I shared them at the last meeting, The Richards Corporation, Kraft Mechanical, Markel Electric, Spectrum, and Central Connecticut Acoustics. When asked about the choice, this is Josh's response. I wanted to put it in writing for you guys. Richards Corporation was selected based on the long standing working relationship with proven experience in school renovation projects such as this type. As is typical in a design build arrangement, Richards have identified the preferred subcontractors to work to support the work. The proposal reflects the turnkey design build approach, which we believe offers more streamlined forward.
And to clarify, we were not contracted to contractually obligated to solicit multiple contractors. Well, we did tell them our policy was three. Our recommendation of Richards is based on the qualifications and the confidence in our ability to deliver successful projects. Let us know how they want us to proceed. So this is where we are now. Moving forward based on them and the town admittedly in, the inability to support the RFP process. Eric cited this as a reason that they went to MECOG, lack of experts in town, the board of education, consulted there was consulted, the chair, the superintendent, and we decided to move forward in this manner. That is when we had that meeting July 21 after that. There has been some interference, phone calls, and emails from single board of select members and board of finance members directly to f and o. Because of that, they were waiting for us to have this conversation now to make sure that moving forward, this is what we were doing. So the plan of action would be to meet again with F and O plus. The team is ready. I have spoken, like I said, today with Bill, and he says, I'm ready to go.
To review that hazmat disc right here, which is what was given to Richard's group, and to meet with them. We would review it before we met with the Richard's group. Review their designs and plan, which we have not seen yet, and overview of the costs. Then to go to CIP, the the new estimated costs because we have not received those yet. We would receive them as soon as we say yes, send them to us, we're ready, and come up with the plan of action. Then we would meet with the Board of Finance after CIP for approval of the money of the capital account, and the work would be done. Okay.
So I gotta ask. You announced at the last meeting, the general contractor. I would assume that when you announced the general contractor was a Richards Corporation, that you had some financial understanding of what they were gonna charge you. Is that not the case?
I do not have any documents with numbers. We've been working through the hired company of Fuss and O'Neil.
So you're telling me and the board that we went to Fuss and O'Neil, got design done. Fuss and O'Neil decided who they were going to pick. They're recommending them to the board, and we have no numbers. We are at that point now, mister McGuire. That's where we are. That's where you are. Because because in any project I've ever been associated with, when you announce the general contractor, you understand the dollars.
We are at the point where we are going to be meeting with the suggested general contractor. We have not met with them yet. That would be our next step with Bus and O'Neill and our subgroup. And if you can understand the problems internally,
Anne Kerme, who has entered entered your meeting, actually listened to your meeting accurately. She gave us and our board an honest reckon recollection of what occurred at this meeting because at at 01:30 twenty four on your tape that I went through last night, the superintendent announced the general contractor, the mechanical and plumbing contractor, the electrical contractor, the tile contractor, and acoustics company for ceiling. Yes.
I've got to believe this is just me as a resident. About zero. So my frustration right now Yeah. Is that since we had that meeting in June Yeah. July. I'm sorry. July. Yeah. I've had zero other knowledge of anything about the project. And that's a problem for your board. That's a problem.
That we need to move forward. You need you need to move forward. But if you're announcing the general contractor, please, you've got to tell me. Any project, you gotta have a number. What's the number? And you're all telling me we have no number. We are in the process. That's where we're at the process. The last thing we do is is do $104,100,000.
Then again, I will sit there and go back. This town and the town has run multiple capital projects. Right? We built the senior and community center. We've had bridge projects. Those are all capital projects that have been managed by the town administrator in the town of Andover. We do as a group as a group, the the board of education, the the board of segment, we've got to do a better job of working together to manage project. 100%. Yes. We do. No other questions. We've got to do it. We've got to in we've got to gain the knowledge that is out there with the community of people that have skills in that area, and I am not one of them. And and that's why when we created the subcommittee, like, that's why we tried to invite you that by having Eric Sanderson look at plans and and help us And and and Jeff Murray was also on as well. And he, you know, he's engaged in that, and Eric Anderson should have been on that committee, you know, just from a standpoint of of the skill level that they all possess. They all bring different skills to the table. But,
Valerie, I'm still sorry. You announced you announced a general contract, and you gotta you gotta know
the number. There's either number or nothing. So at this point, though, we don't know anything else. We need to have another meeting. I have a copy of the architectural plans. If you haven't seen those and you'd like to, they're here.
And and and and the only thing that Anne did tell us that was not accurate was that the information would be up on the school website. And that was the only thing If there's nothing Because there is anything. You don't have anything. Anything. Well, then in the future in the future, don't announce the general contractor for a project if you don't have the numbers.
No. I I I shared what I knew at the time with the board. That is what I do every month, Jeff. I share what I know understand
what the people that are interested in the dollars of this community are about. When you say that, they're they want the details.
There's members of the board of finance that want the details. There's members of the board of Select that wants the details. So when we when we have the next committee meeting Yeah. We'll announce when that meeting is occurring, and anyone is welcome to attend it. K. Alright? Let's let's yeah. We can actually move forward because now we haven't had a functional bathroom in that waiting for what are we going on? Four years? Three years? No. No. No. No. A year. Last year. With all due respect, they had to do the hazardous materials testing,
and they didn't do that till the end of August. Yes. No. We're only at October.
I know. K. But I want it to go fast. No. You know what? Come on. Progress is slow. What can I say?
Policies. K. Policies. So I I'd like to make a motion. We jump on these. Yeah. Maybe. Yes. Was he doing? And there's, like, the opportunity to be through that. Table it one thing.
If you're tabling it, just know what you guys are looking at in the packet. So that way it's tabled, and you can manage to see this at home is do you see the red? Yep. What I did was, Diane and I went through the ones that you guys had last time questions on. Remember we flipped through them, you were like, yeah. Yeah. We need to see more about this. Can we see caves? Can we Right. We took that information in this packet that you're looking at. So if it's in red, it was a suggested, change from you guys. If it's something that's attached to it, that's Caves template, and we wrote it right on there so that you can see as you go through samples under each one. Because you guys had, like, maybe 10 that you asked me to get samples out so that you could then compare what we would do based on that chart that we had from the policy audit. So this whole packet in this order, by the way, is ready for you to go through,
look at the notes, and if it's and we colored it we copied it in color two. So if you table till next time, you should be prepared because if you go through the We'll now well, I'll have the time to read through it. Okay. Second the motion. Do that. Any further discussion?
Okay. So we'll move to put that on next month's agenda. And then the last item we have on here was specifically in regards to our fourth pull for this year, which was looking at other districts' capital plans. I did look through a bunch of websites throughout the state of Connecticut. I looked at small schools. I looked at big schools. I pulled some just for comparison. And the variety of what is out there from a school district is all over the board from, like, a one page document with three things on it to, like, the town of Cheshire, which has, like, 50,000,000 things because they have 50,000,000 schools. It's like That's Marlborough. This is Marlborough's from last year, and that's what they requested for the year. And there's no more, like Simple. Information other than what's on that one page. Yeah. And that's They did have an outside person come in last year and do, like, a town school evaluation in terms of, like, what capital plan in the next ten to fifteen years should be. And there's, like, a separate report of that, but it's not
anything more than That was the request for the year. Yes. That was the request. Not a plan. No. And there isn't a plan. Yeah. There's just a thing that a guy came and recommended maybe for the senior. And and and from listening to your meeting yesterday, I'm assuming that Eric did get this to you. Yes. He sent it to me. He sent it to you? I copy it for everything. No. And and this is what I wanted you to have Yeah. From listening to the meeting because, you know, Anne was attending at that meeting, and the only group that can understand the issues that are needed within your building are the management team within the building. Yeah. And and when you sit there and you go, are we gonna have to do a roof? You're gonna wanna put that on the plan. I you don't need to sit there. It's a priority system. Yeah. That that's why all of this is a priority system. It all needs to be rolled up into one big plan to sit there and say, this is how the community can sit. So I got this from Eric yesterday. The rest of the board hasn't seen that yet. Yeah. And when you search on the town website for Andover, you can't find No. This this would be in our
But I've never seen it in previous years, officers. No. So So when I when I did this research just to look at different towns as examples, it was in an effort to see, like, where where should ours fall. But I think now that we have this from the town side, it gives us something to model after to try to make it similar to that. So and that's Cheshire's that we just had before. Same
The more experience. $36,000,000. It's every Oh, wow. New buildings altogether. And it is also a capital plan, but it also incorporates things that are in other people's operational budget. So that one right there, those spreadsheets, back up slightly right there. Go ahead a little bit up. So this per for example, this is the $22.23 fiscal year. This is education. This is a high school model. They they would put this in here. And if you look down, there you go. They're showing you how they're breaking down the $438,000 into one year of the 2627. They have one of these for every single thing that we've done in Cheshire. Right. But, again, they're Yeah. And then can you go to Scotland?
So Scotland, I think, is really cool. This is where I would like to see our town get to, which this is, like, combination of what is what's our road map over five years of, like, what are our biggest projects inclusive of the school and all the town buildings so that it's all in one place. Yeah. Because in reality, like you know? We should we should model that. That's where we should be. We did. Thank you, No. The the town should move a little bit in inclusive
Like, altogether. Altogether. Yeah. Yeah. Altogether. So Yeah. That one right there, he brings that we had put in there. Yeah. That one is actually more academic. That's all academic. Yeah. They have they have a goal of creating a capital thing just like we had a goal of that, but there is no capital plan in there. It's just talking about wanting to make one. I mean, like, your your lighting program could be a capital request.
Yeah. It might not be high on the priority list until we sit there. Anything until it's actually on the list. On the list. It's not gonna be anticipated as a possible expense for the community.
So so this one, Val included, this is what Sally used to do, and it's not Not this one. It's just numbers kind of. Yep. There's not a lot of That was Sally. Sorry. Not this is Sally. This was Salem. That's Salem. Oh, sorry. Yeah. I'm Sally. Because I know you asked who to look for. Yeah. Do I have the selling? Yep. Right here. That's it. It's one page. Oh, I got it. I'm
sorry. I I have been really. I wanna go with the town of Plainville. Okay. Just the language of it. Like, it has an introduction. Has a definition of what a capital improvement is. It has the Which that was even something we struggled with with Shannon when it it No. I mean, it it's really I mean, and I I'm I didn't make copies for everybody, but, you know, it just says here, the five year capital plan is a comprehensive list of major public improvement projects which are proposed for the town and the board of education for the next five years. The first part of the plan is a summary of all proposed and approved projects. And then it says capital improvement expense description. A capital improvement is a major nonrecurring addition or improvement to the physical infrastructure, land building, and equipment of the town, which does not include ordinary recurring repair or maintenance. It gives gives some examples. It gives, an aggregate cost of more than 50,000. Just thought it was great. That's that's
no. That that is that is exactly what I had in my head was $50,000. Yep. That was plain old. Reoccurring is a great term because it would take into account anything like an air conditioning system Probably we talked about heating upgrade or an HVAC upgrade. And then All of those items, you would sit there and you incorporate in the. You
want this one from Eric? Mhmm. Yep. I put it in front of everybody, this one. So this is the one that I have a ton of pot. Jeff was talking about. Just no. And I did find the ton of pot now. Just why don't you do some research? Yeah. No. I Okay. I think I didn't realize that we were gonna get this from him, like, yesterday. No. No. No. But I just days ago. Yeah. He sent it to me. He said this is something I owe you when he sent it to me on Monday. Okay. So I got it yesterday. Yeah. He sent it to you because I requested it after watching your meeting. Yeah. I appreciate it. Thank you. If you go through his, you'll see that we're number one on there. It says, Anorama Elementary School, 35 School Road. And if this is the model now that the town is gonna use with their new capital plan, we wanna model that. So the good thing is if you look at the first page, when you flip just to the next page, that's where, he has a little history of Andover Elementary School. So he does talk about the roof in 2017, and I wanna thank him because he also writes in here, and the building is currently in excellent shape. And he talked about how in 2122, we took care of the air handling systems. In '23, we addressed the issues with the septic, And that now we're addressing the issues in 2024 that came up with the plan. So, I appreciate that. If you go through this, light reading, you'll see that he does this for all of the other buildings. The only thing that I wanted to do differently with this is
it doesn't tell you, like, what was done. Like, says on one of the pages, it says kitchen area completed in 2022, and that is for the Public Works Building at 12 Long Hill Road. So what it doesn't tell a reader that's not a town administrator is it doesn't say what was completed. Was it a full renovation? What's the life expectancy? You did this in 2022. How much did it cost? What can we expect to have in the future? Is this now gonna go on a five year plan, a ten year plan? It doesn't really give you any information except that that was a project that was completed. And so if you're looking at it, you have no idea moving forward. Like, when can we anticipate that kitchen coming back on a list? So if you look at this one that I put there, see the yellow on the top? The past forty eight hours. So it's not complete, but in the past forty eight hours, I put something together to show you what our portion of it would look like and that, you know, I'll be looking to finish it in the coming two months of all of our systems so that that can be added to the draft that Eric put together for capital improvement. So I did the kitchen first because I knew that we had been doing some work there recently. So it talks about number one there. In 2024, we installed the dishwasher. You can see the cost was 33,000,
that it came through the food service, money. It was not something that was in the the general fund. There's the model, the Hobart. It's seven to fifteen years, so it's an excellent condition. Priority one low, and I even have a picture in the authority. The second one in 2024, the Vulcan stove, ten to fifteen years estimated. It was 5,000. So excellent and low. So moving forward, you can flip the pages. The kitchen is done in here. I've done everything. I put in there the commercial convection oven is good for ten to fifteen years. I have a picture of the other things. I I didn't quite get that in there. But I've included the life expectancy. I've included the cost, and I've included the overall rating and the priority so that you guys have that. So then if you look at the next one, it's maintenance and facility equipment. And I went through the lawn care just because you guys had already approved last year the purchase of the scag.
So that's why I started with that one because I knew we had 10 pieces of equipment, and they don't all fall to the $300 or more capacity, but I figured this is a really good working living document for us to use. And so even those 10 pieces of equipment, if they don't fall to the over $300 threshold, I am still gonna put them in because they could potentially not be a capital improvement, but something that needs to be replaced. So then I just did the research as to, like, on a SCAG, the life expectancy for that is two thousand to three thousand hours. Figured out that we use six about sixty hours a year, so we would not have to put another large lawnmower on here until 2045. So this long after you guys as a board, me as a super, anybody can look at this then. And the information that it gives us that the town one doesn't, like, yet give us is the ability for anybody to be able to moving forward do this. And then you'll see the heating system. Remember, guys, in August '23, we did that extensive evaluation with the steam traps. So I put that one on here since we had already done that. And unless we do anything with energy efficiency updates, this tells us that those 117 traps are are are good. We have repaired 100%
of them. And then you'll see the other headings that you can expect to see, the AC, the electrical system, including the bio panels in the elevator. I did do the elevator because we've just done that. So it's the Dover DMC. You can see the TK came in in June 2025. The cost was $22,006.91, and it would not wind up back on a capital improvement plan until roughly 2035. You see that on the bottom? Yep. So this is what you can expect every month. So what other categories do you need to add that aren't on
here? I'm assuming caving or parking. Oh, we're gonna be doing everything on here. Yeah. But I just in terms of, like, what the
You do mechanical. You do electrical. You do HVAC. You do, like, the heating and cooling. Obviously, the boilers will be part of that. The air conditioning units will be part of that. We'll do lighting on there. I'm gonna pretty much just go through. Now remember, what we've been doing every single year is we have that regular revaluation, and so we pay that fee every year to have our big fat book that you've all seen of the revaluation that lists every single thing that the school owns and is tagged, and we get that every year. So that makes it a little bit easier because, for example, I look up a garage. So I go to the garage that's on here. When we get to the section on technology,
we will go to the technology section, and it'll list every single computer that's in the building. It'll list when we've got it, what the, depreciation is, when we can expect to replace it. So it's gonna be comprehensive. We were just kinda all this time waiting for that that one, the model, and now we have the model.
We just got it this week, so you'll have to bear with me a little bit on on time to get this done. But I thought I get at least one section done for you, you can see where we're going with this. Yeah. And I and I think where we would want to get to as a town, right, is combining those together and then get to what Scotland has where it's, like, five years written out and, like, what your bullet points are for those five years. What your plan is, and your plan might change, but this is what we're thinking we can accomplish Yes. Within our financial what those financial obligations. The other thing that I'd like to see
is if you're if you're saying something is going to the lifespan is 15. The cost now is $33,000. But if you go, like, by the PPI index in fifteen years, it may be 45,000. So if we are going to plan ahead, we need to plan appropriately. And I, you know, I think everybody knows recently inflation had not been transitory, and there are lots of indexes out there that should help be able to predict what it's gonna be in five, ten, fifteen years, and that's how we should be planning the future.
Yeah. So We could add that in there. The thing that Sally used to use, that's what we plan on using our our new CIP plan for is to then create a five year like she had with the dollar figure. But to your point, Brie, we have the backup material. We can look at that other big comprehensive plan and say, this is how we know town that we're gonna need 10,000 in that budget, 10,000 in that budget because we can go back to that comprehensive plan. So the old Sally one would be a result of this new one. So in the five year plan. So so we're made great progress. And now that we have the town one, that's the template, and and we will just add our additional stuff
to it. Anyone else have further comments?
I I do not. Okay. So we'll open back up to comments from the public. Holly? Say no? He doesn't. She's unmuting. Mhmm.
I don't know if that works when I hit the ass. Yeah. No. I'm I'm okay. Thank you. Thank you. Amber Pritchard? Yes. Okay. Jenny Morell? Nothing for me. Thank you. Thank you. Christina Fraser? All set. Thank you. Jenna Goldrick? No. Thanks. I'm good. Sharon St. Rob? Nothing at this time. Thank you. Kim Persson? Nothing right now. Thank you. Okay. Hopkins? All set. Good night. Good night. Sarah Goodman? Nothing for me. Thank you. Mercy?
Hi. I I wanted to make a comment. I I've been a contractor for over thirty years, and I've also been a general contractor for fourteen years, hiring a lot of subcontractors and, refinishing bathrooms, paintings, all all kinds of things. So I have, some experience. And as a general contractor, I just wanna let you know that there's some things that need to be understood. It's vitally important that you obtain all the information regard regarding the complete scope of the work and the company's bid before you decide to hire them. Without having these details ironed out first, you risk paying too much and noncompletion. Our company spends an obscene amount of time planning each project, and it's a normal process to do a lot of work before being hired. So when a customer seeks to skip these steps, things can go awry and can derail a project. So I just wanted to, you know, let you know that it's it's real, really important if you want a project done well, on time, and within the estimated cost, you really need to do a lot of homework before deciding on who the contractor's gonna be. Alright? Thank you. Thank you.
And, Tess Krausz? I am all set. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Okay. So we next up, we have an executive session to discuss the superintendent's contract, which is up this year.
So make a motion to go into executive session. Think it's 09:23. I'll
second the motion. Okay. And then we would like to invite Valerie to stay in the past. Okay.
Dawn, that was Celeste that seconded it and Shannon that made the motion. We'll take a look, or do I stop it? Can you go? Stop?
Yeah. She will. Yeah. We can just tell her what time It's okay. K. Impressata is still holding. Yep. Alright. So I'm letting her in. Alright. Great. Thanks. Okay.
We are recording. Okay. So it is 10:01PM, and we came out of executive session. Does anyone have any other action items for tonight? I do not. No. Okay.
Our next regular board meeting is November 12, and we will put the 9,000 series onto that meeting. Are there any other agenda items that people want on there that are No. I would just like to formally recognize Celeste
for her years of service on the Board of Education. Thank you. And just say thank you for all of your work. And I know you'll continue on with the PTA, so you will not be far. But Okay. And we'll plan on seeing you every second Wednesday, I'm sure. Oh, absolutely. I need
somebody to move for a tournament. I know. Thank you, Shayna. I appreciate Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. And with that, I will make a motion to you. Hold on. I wanna say thank you for
Thanks, Jerry. I wanna thank you for your kindness, your help along my my journey You're welcome. And for being there and supporting me. Thank you so much. You're welcome, Jerry. Thank you very much.
Alright. With that, I make a motion to adjourn. Second. Okay.
Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Alrighty. Press stop. Alright. That's because the digits oh, right here. Yeah. I see.