Meeting transcript
BOE Meeting
December 10, 2025 · Watch on Zoom · All meetings
And all set. For? Oh my gosh. We are gonna bring a suitcase or what? Mhmm.
Yeah. Thank you. It is 701, and we will call the meeting to order. I will call the meeting to order since this is our reorganization, which means that we start the meeting with no official officers. Once we get past that point, then I'll hand it over. Can we all stand for the pledge of allegiance, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America
and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, individual, with liberty and justice for all. I was here.
Know. It's breaking out with their sense. Okay. Comments from the public. And I will just go in order of what I see, up up up on the screen first, and then we'll do the audience here. Bottom right. Christina Fraser? Nothing for now except for welcoming Sharon and Marcy. Thank you. Thank you. Liz? Nothing for now. Jenny? I'm all set. Thank you. Jamie? I'm all set. Thanks. Amber? All set. Thank you. Jenna Goldrick? I am good. Thank you.
Dawn is our board clerk. Terry? All set. Thanks. Doris? Good evening. I'm all set. Thank you.
Scott? Hi. Just to follow Christina. Welcome to the new members, but nothing else. And Anne from May? Nothing right now. Thank you. Okay. And in the audience, which which side?
Thank you all for everything you do. Welcome to new members. I did submit a, application for a vacancy that is available. My name is Haley Crodo, and I have two children in the elementary school. I have a sixth grader and a second grader. And I currently am a town employee. I do work for the Andover Community and Senior Center. And I just wanted to say upfront that, even though I do work for the town, that I would be if I was selected as an additional member, I'd be happy to abstain from any vote that involved insurance, town employees, anything that overlapped with the community and senior center. And I do believe that I can remain independent considering that Jeff is technically my boss and always advocate for what is best for the school. Robert?
Oh, just here to observe, really. Chair of board of finance in town here. I wanted to, of course, I'm interested in nine f, your backproject update. I will be able to take that back to my board next week. We have our regular meeting on the week from today. So that's it, though. We're really just here to observe. And it's mister. Right? Grindle. On
on the agenda under nine d and onwards speaking with you about the, adjacent trail to this property. K. So those are comments from the public.
So for nominations of board of education officers, what we do is I will ask for nominations for the board chair. We will do that first. We will get a, hopefully, a second, and then there can be a discussion. There is allowed to be multiple nominations, for each of these, officer positions. We will then take a roll call vote since one of our members is, on this screen. I know that's difficult. It's difficult for the board clerk too when that happens, so we'll do it as a roll call vote. And then as long as there is a majority, that person would become the,
chair, for this year, and then they would follow suit and do the same thing for vice chair and secretary position. As soon as the secretary is named, I will then switch places with whomever moves up here for the remainder of the meeting. So okay. I'll start with do I have any nominations for, the chairperson position? Any nominations for the chairperson position? Shannon? Nominate Caitlyn Greenhouse, please.
I think Ms. Loudon beat you to that. Would you like to sneak a second, Jerry? I'll take the second. Okay. Don't plead the second, though. No. Okay. Not with you.
So we have one nomination on the floor, for Caitlin Greenhouse, made by Shannon Loudon and seconded by Jerry Kerme. Are there any other nominations on the floor for the chairperson's position? Going once. Going twice. It's not an option. Okay. Well, we just wanna make sure. Is there any discussion that needs to occur? Does anyone feel that they need to say something? Congratulations.
Thanks. Oh, well, we have to take a vote yet. We do have to take a roll call. I'd like to say something. I think that Caitlin would be great because the last meeting I saw that she had commanded a meeting, and, I know there were some contention, and she managed to stop it. So I was impressed with that.
Thank you, Marcy. Thank you. And I'm sure that's why she was nominated to me. Repeat performance there. So okay. So I will take a roll call vote for Caitlin Greenhouse to continue as the chair of the board of education. Jerry, how do you vote? Yay. You know? Yay. Shannon? I guess so.
I think that's Caitlin. Yes. Sure. Marcy? Yes. Sharon? Great. Yes. Okay. If I, miss vote, six zero zero. Caitlin continues as the chairperson. Congratulations.
K. So we'll move on to nominations for vice chair. Does anyone have someone they'd like to nominate for vice chair? I'd like to nominate Shannon Lauvin for vice chair. I'll second. Okay.
Are there any other nominations for vice chair? Okay. Any discussion? Kat, do a roll call vote. Marcy? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Jerry? Shannon? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Great. So thank you, everybody. Zero zero. Zero. And
then for secretary, are there any nominations for secretary? Knowing that the role of the secretary is that you need to record meeting minutes if the board clerk is absent or if we have a meeting that the board clerk is not invited to. I nominate Jerry. You wanna do it? Do it. I'll second. Yeah. Just do it. Second yourself.
Are there any other nominations for secretary? No? Great. No. K. We'll do a roll call for this as well. Shannon? Yes. Jerry? You're vote for yourself? Yes. I'll vote for myself. Okay. Brie? Yes. Yes. Mercy? K. K. So we have elected chair, vice chair, and secretary. Moving on to communications. Okay. It is later in the agenda, but I have received three letters for intent to fill our vacancy on the board from Eric Becker's resignation. There is a fourth that we had some technology issues with, so we're gonna try to get that out to everyone. But we have four people tonight that are interested in that position. I don't have any other formal communications. Does anyone else have communications? No. For student celebrations, I didn't have the big one.
So many celebrations. Oh, no. Now I'm like, which one am I trip? I was looking at me. Look. I'm not choosing the right one. So I have celebrations. So directly related to students, we have been in our testing window in our midyear. We've talked about that. We test in December right before break, and then we come back in January right after break to do our SRBI cycle. So that's when we look at all the data, make sure all the kids are getting what they need. And I know in February, I'm scheduled. I'm gonna give you an update on what all of that data looked like, but I can tell you it's looking really good. So I just couldn't wait till February to say that, but we are definitely seeing percentage gains, which is just really exciting. So not taking tests, as you can imagine, are our prepayers. And so Doris is here tonight. We've talked talked about our early start Connecticut, LGP, and so that was the shift from school readiness to an LGP, early start. And so with that, some slight shifts in the purpose of that gathering. So with school readiness, we would meet and Brie knows. We kind of just said, here's where the money is. We expended this towards this teacher. The program's going great. Here's some activities. It was kind of really just about making sure our preschool program was running well. The state has really broadened the purpose now to make sure we're supporting families of children zero to five, whether they are at our preschool or in our community in another center or home or wherever they might be. So part of that, one other shift, is that they've add a
added a paid parent ambassador, somebody who's going to connect with all caregivers, and their role is to kind of be that liaison between family members and the states. And what is it we need specifically in Andover? But as you know, we have partnered with Hebron and Lebanon. More funding when we came together because we're all small. And just our communities are fairly similar, if not in size, in need and location. So Doris is one of our three that LGP has three family, ambassadors. And so, they work together to represent, and you'll see in the in your packet, the first two pages are just kind of the informational sheets. Now as you know, we're we're kind of flying this plane as the state builds it. And so we don't have all the answers, so you can't grill Doris tonight. But she has started some training. ISKCON is working hard, and, really, we're happy to pilot the work and get it off the ground. But as the year goes on, we'll continue to share more and more info. So I'm a turn it over to Doris for just a couple minutes just to say hello and share any, insights to her new role.
You are cutting off, so is it my turn to speak? It is your turn, Norris. You are up. Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Taylor, for the introduction and the opportunity. I'm I'm super excited to become a parent the inaugural parent ambassador for Andover. The parent leaders, we were at an all day training yesterday, and it was as promising as it was, very open and not open ended. It's it's we're in the preliminary stages. And so as a parent leader and I become the trusted messenger, and I'm supposed to spread the word about the programs and the services that are provided within our communities, and being a rural community cube community that puts us in a in a very special, category among all of the other towns and districts that I met yesterday. But it also situates us with wonderful, leadership that I've met at the community table that we had recently at a and so we're gathering resources and information to see how our our three towns can collaborate and then reach out to to surrounding towns. The community tables are wonderful opportunities, and I invite you all. And I'm hoping to get the word out more because it's it's it's made up of community stakeholders committed to working towards our you know, the this vision, for our children and our future. The LGBT community table is responsible for engaging parents and offering trainings, technical assistance
opportunities, to local early childhood providers and families. So I'm, proposing and I'm working and collaborating with our town, library and then hopefully spinning it off. I already contacted our town clerk and hoping to extend it out to the community center as well, but I've been hosting and offering read alongs at the library. I am also an alternate member of the library board. So, I've been doing this since the summer trying to establish and make connections in the community. And so we'll I'm going to be having, after Ellen Repay has her readings, I also offer the the Spanish readings, the read alouds at the library. And afterwards, I I I engage parents and caregivers because it's not only parents, it's caregivers. And we just have basically conversations and to see what it's like to be a resident of Andover with a child from birth to five and beyond and what that looks like beyond. I'm wonderfully vested in the, at the school as a substitute teacher, and so that gives me a little bit more insight, because some of our parents from birth to three aren't involved, and, they aren't, their children are not yet at the preschool or at the school level. So it's nice to engage with, families that are working on and looking forward to a future within, Andover and to build. So that's what we've been working on and I'm working on. And I'm open to suggestions, recommendations, and seeing how we can reach out to those families,
intentionally and, consistently. If you have any questions, I am free for for questions, but thank you for your time. And I am a Thank I have I have a, I have a little one that just started preschool, December 1. She's three years old. I have a three year old, three third grader that's eight years old, and I have, 22 year old twins. So, I have been a state ambassador and a parent ambassador for twenty years in the state, mostly in special needs, and I am a guardian ad litem. So I I work also with with the kiddos in the systems and in within the silos,
statewide, urban, suburban, and rural. So I hope that I can serve this this position and role to the fullest of my potential. Thank you.
Thank you, Doris. Yeah. We're really excited. So we did set the calendar dates, so I can send those finally out to you guys if you're interested. So we'll meet in January, March, and May. We will host the May here in Andover. So and then the other actual dates are? I will get them for I will send them to everybody. Both? Yep. We're alternating, so we're gonna do evening and afternoon in hopes that that That's exciting. Sometimes that one is better than the other for different parents. So, yeah, we had a nearly 20 of us, I think, at the community table. So some local day care centers are in Andover. We have a home day care, so she was able to come and kind of connect. So, yeah, it it's good. The real work is the needs assessment of the year. That's what the state wants is really to say what are the needs of your community. And so that, of course, hopefully, the state can continue to fund appropriately. Any questions on early start?
Okay. Thank you. Mhmm. Do you have other celebrations, or is that that's your one for tonight? Yes. Big one. K. So we have approval of minutes from last month from the regular meeting for November 12. Does anyone have any corrections or comments on the minutes from last month?
I'm in motion to approve the minutes for the meeting on Wednesday, November 12. K.
I'll second it. Thank you. I'm like, I think I'm the only one. Yeah. Yeah. Or I I could. But yeah. I was not gonna add. Okay. And then to vote to approve
She was in the audience. She can vote. Okay. Okay.
So all in favor? Aye. One two three four. And then Jerry has to Same. Both.
None. And then Jerry and Sharon are all abstained. K. Who was our board clerk today?
Dawn. She's on there remotely. She's been our board clerk for Okay. A while, and she does a great job. Yeah. Yeah. Nice job. She usually write little messages, like, in the chat box if she can. Give us a second. K. In terms of opportunity to add or delete agenda items, is there anything that anyone would like to add or delete?
I reluctantly move to delete 90 to kick the policy can further down the road to give us time to work on the other items, especially now that we have four candidates for the position. Okay.
That was exactly what I was gonna say. Okay. You're gonna run out of time? You're have to say.
I'll second it. Any discussion on that? K. My only discussion on that my only point would be that we did make it a goal for ourselves to get through since then. Mhmm. We're gonna do in May. We're gonna have to not keep pushing it after this month, but I do agree. Like, we need to fill our vacancy. We have four people to talk to. So
sounds like we're doing a good job because we want them and I first I went to yesterday, not a lot of schools and force have been able to get this far. Okay. So I know you're gonna vote on this in a second. Can we have just a slight caveat?
Can we, when I do my, superintendent report then, just have two minutes to explain that audit so that when I hand them to them, they know if they're gonna happen. Mhmm. Okay. Thanks. So I'll take two minutes. That's it. Okay.
All in favor of moving the 9 thousands to next month? Aye. Aye. Jerry? Aye. Okay. Aye. And then the other thing, just because we have Kevin here to discuss the Percy Cook Trail, if we can move item nine d to above nine a, the like, above the port vacancy so that he doesn't have to stay with us for the entirety of the night. Second. Sure.
All in favor. Hi. Hi. K. Yeah. Anything else that anyone wants to add or delete? No? Okay. K. Chairperson's oral report. Aside from the communications that have been very excitingly mostly last minute for our board vacancy, which I'm happy we have multiple people. The only other major thing I would say is that several of us did attend the CAB CATS conference. It was a really well done conference. I definitely enjoyed myself and and found some camaraderie there. And then upon coming home, one of one of the kids that I coach hockey, one of the girls on the team said, I saw you at the conference yesterday.
My brother was in the jazz band from Coventry, and we went to play.
Oh, I just it was it's cool. Like, you run into people from all over without meaning to. Right? But it was definitely a great conference, and Val was a member of the committee for organizing that. So job well done. And I would encourage all of you. It's every year in November, it's usually, what, the second or third weekend. It's usually the weekend before Thanksgiving. Right? Or two weekends before depending on how they fit in. It's it's always, yeah, either the weekend before or two weekends. But I would encourage you guys, if you're able to next year to either go on the Friday or the Saturday. It's definitely a a good Friday is better. Opportunity. I It's always a Because
it's a full day, whereas Saturday is a half day, and the keynote speaker on Friday is usually Miguel Cardona, the former secretary of education. He was a brilliant speaker at this time. Yeah. And there's a room full of vendors
For some interest. Okay. And so they have all free stuff. Yeah. And so they give you a bag, and you get to you know? Because they figure they have all the board members, superintendents Mhmm. There. So that's the freebie day. They're gone on Saturday. Gotcha. So And on Friday afternoon, I found out much to my chagrin. So
The only other thing in terms of general report that I would have is there has been some discussion both with myself and the board of selectmen in regards to the corrective action plan that we were supposed to submit to the State Board of Education back in July, June of our from our audit from last year, which was supposed to have been written by the town and the superintendent together to be submitted, has still yet to be submitted. I did ask all of the board of selectmen about it. And since then, I was informed tonight that Jeff McGuire did meet with the auditor, and the auditor is supposed to meet with Valerie to complete that. It has still yet to be completed. So that is definitely a concern, and the state has reached out a few times asking for it because it's way, way, way overdue. And they're now starting our next audit for
this past year. What's the consequence of the delay? Well, there's a number of consequences that could possibly happen. I mean, if we're not in compliance on certain things, they withhold money. They withhold whatever they want. And so, thankfully, we've never gotten to that point, but it is concerning. I have met with the auditor already, and I have met with Jeff McGuire already. So he's frustrated because we have been waiting for for a long time.
So we'll just continue to address it, and hopefully, that is a completed thing by next month.
Well, if it isn't completed by the thirty first, you know, I I will at least have to ask our attorney to send a letter to the state to say that we are not in noncompliance by choice. Right. Because I I can't move into the next year, too behind because they are currently doing our audit now from last year. And so they're gonna expect the same follow-up paperwork when this current audit is finished, and we are still a year out. So at that point, I will have to seek their advice and say, but I can't wait for the week to now. Right. So out of your control.
No. We'll keep you guys updated on that. Hopefully, it progresses. Val, your turn.
So thanks for the the kudos on the on the planning of the committee. That is absolutely the best thing for for words of education, you know, the whole year, really, it is. So that's wonderful. Okay. So we'll start with just the basic facility updates. We didn't have much that needed to be done in the last month. We had some toilet seals that were fixed. My tech came in and fixed those. We did have one steam trap that needed to be fixed. Those of you who were on the board many years ago, you'll remember we had done the whole steam trap. In the facility, we had done the whole steam track. I what's the word I'm looking for? Like, evaluation. They'd come in, and they've gone through every single one in the building. We have a book. That book tells us the status.
It tells us they're all tagged. It tells us what's you know, what's up to date with them, regular repair, maintenance on them. But we did have it was $1,500. We did have, you know, one area where the steam trap needed repair there. It's about to steam trap. Our regular update for ANA pest, we had a big gym boiler damper control that needed to be repaired at 1,500. And then there were two other seals, because we're paying lots of attention to the fungus. Lots of attention there. There were two other seals that had already been replaced on 11/20. So it's kind of two months' worth of materials there. So a total of five of the. Other than that, they're in good shape. Let's see. Let me move on there.
Grants, we're still just working on, the after school grant. It's going very well. We have, some programming that continues to take place fairly regularly, three to four times a a week, for this month. We'll see as we move along. The goal of that for us to continue, even though it was only a quarter of the funding that we had hoped, The goal of that is that we have to have, a target number of students, a target number of days between now and the end of the school year to be funded again for next year. So the attendance, is important on that, And, so we are looking regularly, and thank you. I know that Jen is on there, so is, Christina Fraser, and they do a lot with the planning to make sure that we can, offer as many activities as possible for our littlest all the way up to sixth grade while also making sure that there's some repetition there so we can meet that mandatory number of students that with the target students that, have to repeat for next year. And that target's 45, students, during the course of the year, to come forty five days between now and the end of the year. Remember, we had a parent activity yesterday. We had the gingerbread house making all of those 10 activities during the course of the year to count for attendance too.
So we'll be watching that. So you may see some offerings change as the year goes on depending on how many more we need to meet those target number of students that will get us refunded for next year. Let's see. In terms of budget then, we will move into that budget. One other grant thing, that I did wanna talk about, though, was seed. I still have not gotten that allocation from the town. I am waiting on that as well. They're just waiting for for Selectmen to, give permission. I have spoken with directly with the outgoing treasurer, and she said that she was just waiting for permission for that. I did speak with Jim Bolano, and he said the same thing. She's just waiting for permission on that. And so, the money's there. They've received the first tranche. We'll receive four for a total of 16,000. So, it is my hope that, they will give us that soon because starting next week, we will already be getting a bill for what it is that we're doing with it, which is it's an expansion. That's what SEED stands for, for expansion of special education. And what we are doing after school, and later in the afternoon is taking that money. I think the person that we've hired is gonna work by twelve to 04:30 so that if there are students that need it after school, they can certainly do it after school. But we are looking to take students that, might have struggled a bit with the SBAC or other benchmark assessments that we have within the school
and offer, extra targeted intervention for them. And a student that maybe, you know, had a a two, and they were really the top of a two, and they could be a three if they had a little bit of extra time one to one or a small group setting. And so, normally, those are things that are difficult to fund because, you know, you you never know. It's gonna take someplace else to pay that. So, Taylor, I talked about that, and we thought it was gonna be a really good use of the funds to see if that can make a difference for those kids. So, we do have somebody that, hopefully will be starting next week, and, that will be what we're paying. So it is important that we get those funds in because that will be a weekly paycheck that we need to provide. Do you think that we need to write a formal request letter to the Board of Selectmen for those funds to be available? Well,
they they should I mean, they can't do anything with those funds. I know. So you mean to say, well, they they they know about them. They do know that we've asked for them, and they answer from two locations is we're waiting for work, mister Wirard. So
Yes. I understand that. Okay. Just asking, do we need to write a formal letter asking for that so that Sure. The whole Board of Selectmen will see that request Simple. That it could make it onto their agenda. Okay.
Okay. K. Thank you. Alright. And then I'm gonna start with covering a couple of sections of the budget tonight so that we can move forward with that, but you will notice a new member at our table here. Terry is still there for backup there. She's wingman. But, you know, those of you who didn't have the pleasure of of meeting Jody Tenney, she's gonna be doing the budget with him this year. So, Jody, don't if there's anything you wanna say ahead of time. Yeah. So before Val presents,
I just wanted to kind of talk to you about how we're kind of crunching some of the numbers. So if Labanuel's gonna pass this around. I think around first. Wait time. I was a former teacher. We know more of a wait time.
Are you sure? Are you good? I don't know. We're good. Okay. Excellent. Excellent.
So tonight, Val's gonna present three different categories. Okay? So we have salaries, benefits, and utilities. Usually, these three categories districts tackle first because they're the biggest bucket. If you look at those three combined, it's usually 80 to 90% of your budget, so you wanna deal with that first. But I wanted to what I'm handing you is a copy of a page from the contract. So just just want everybody to know, salaries is largely driven by the contracts. Right? So these contracts have already been negotiated. They've already been approved. So when we're looking at these numbers, I don't wanna say it's easy per se because we still have to do that work, but we're following the contract. So I just want everybody to know that that's driven by it's the contract, and you've which has already been approved. Benefits, primarily health and dental insurance, maybe some contractual aspects in that as well. But health and dental as well is in the contract.
Okay. It might change of what percentage staff members. They usually are paying a little bit more. We crunched all these numbers. I wanna thank Terry. She's meticulous. It's been great working with her putting these numbers together. And utilities, and Val will share. But, again, Val did a a great job of getting great rates for utilities, so you'll be very pleased, I think, when you look at that. But just wanted folks to know that these these numbers are very they're they're based on contractual needs, And that is what you have in front of you, the salary scale. So if you look at the salary scale, this is the teacher. So every year, teachers go up a step. So they go up a year. What you don't have is the year prior. So there's actually a a page to this to the year prior. So teachers go up a little bit because it's a year, a cost of living increase, and they go up a step. So if a teacher is step one last year, for example, is going to be at step two. So when you, you know, are asking about how do we get to those numbers, it's it's from looking at those contacts. So each step is basically a year? Basically. Yeah. So usually which one do want? Just wanna see that. Yeah. So, usually, each year if a teacher starts late, it depends on teacher contract. If they started late, they might not go up a step. It would say what date they need to start in order to go up. But if it basically, yes. Each year, they go up a step. Okay. Mhmm.
And, Marcy, those columns, if they go over, it's for degrees. So your CPA is bachelor's degree. Okay. Bachelor's plus 15. Master's master's plus 15. So if What is plus 15? It means 15 credits. Okay. It means they don't have a master's, but they have 15 more credits. So, when we look at those thank you, Jody. When we look at those, as we said, it's not that it's easy, but it's it's it's very black and white. Right. There's you know? Yeah. She's a numbers person, so it was easy for her to come in and say, okay. Here are the numbers. You pull out those contracts. So if you have teacher a who is step one this year with a bachelor's and they earn 15 credits next year, they move up and over. They would move to bachelor's step two plus 15. Gotcha. And so that's why, the numbers year to year, and then the next set that's attached to that is the noncertified. And on the noncertified, you'll see a bunch of pages Mhmm. Because not every salary is the same. There will be wage charts Mhmm. For hook wage charts for paraprofessionals, but the same is true up and over. The only time they wouldn't go over is if a contract says they're on a pay freeze. And if that was negotiated in a contract, then they just they they wouldn't, go up to the next step, but they would go over for their degrees.
That's not negotiated where they, don't get, that. So so let's say, this year, you look at a teacher's contract or a non split contract, and it says 3% raise. The 3% raise, but then you may have employees that moved over and got an additional sum because they got another degree. And so it isn't as easy because I've actually had somebody ask me this before. Well, why don't you just take the teacher's line then and and multiply by 3% if it's a 3% increase? Because it's not just 3%. You have to give the teachers who are going up and over with their degrees Mhmm. What they also would earn. And so that's why it's not as easy as the 3% if 3% was what was chosen. So so what I go ahead. I'm so sorry. It was and it doesn't matter their what kind of teacher there, what grade or anything like that. No. Absolutely not. Same as preschooler,
preschool teachers, Yes. Yeah. Yes. It doesn't matter. Right. The certifications in the state of Connecticut, if you're a certified teacher and you are in a teacher's union, it doesn't differentiate like it does in the noncertified contract. Because the noncertified contract, those positions, right, they don't require a certification. But, Marcy, actually, that's a good point, that I I just brought up. What you will see in a noncertified contract is, stipends or benefits based on other things that they do have. Mhmm. So very common for paraprofessionals is if you're a paraprofessional and you have an associate's degree, you get a little stipend
because you have that extra. So the one on here for, like, bathroom and toilet training and diaper changes.
So yes. Because right. Otherwise, Kate brings up a good point. Otherwise, what happens in districts and this is every district. This isn't just Andover. What would happen is somebody might want a paraprofessional position that is in a classroom with, students and it's only academic versus working one on one with the special needs students that may or may not need to be diapered. And so, yes, those you'll see in the contract. Those are additional stipends. And so that is all part of this as well. We have to look at who gets those stipends, who gets the longevity stipends, you know, which teachers do we know next year. So one of the things that Jody had to do was to reach out to teachers, especially the younger teachers, newer teachers, and say, who will be finishing, more courses this year? Will that give you a plus 15? Will it give you a master's degree? Because then we have to know that they're not just going up. They're going over as well. So, the process is the process, and you did a great job of coming in and being able to do that. So when I go over this with you and,
you know, part of the repetition for people who have been on the board before or watched the videos from years past, what we try to do to make sure that by the end of our process, when there's a budget ready for the board of education to vote on, what we try to do is to make sure that every single line item then is covered so that, you know, there isn't a question in the end of, well, what was that for? And to do that, we try to do that process, you know, methodically. And so what we decided this time, as Jody said, is we would start with the most expensive things that we have in the budget. So what you see highlighted in yellow here, you see highlighted are the salaries. And so everything that's yellow, here, throughout the pages, those are everything where we have to pay somebody. You'll see the 25 adopted budget, the 26 adopted budget, meaning this year, and then what the recommended number would be based on what Jody was just talking about the finance office having to do, which is to go and say, let's look at those contracts and figure out contractually
what are we responsible for, what's a nonnegotiable. And we do that with all of the positions. And so that's where those numbers come from. And then from there, that's where that third column of the 27 recommended comes from. So, I mean, as we go through the teacher, the the line on the top, the one zero one, one thousands, the reason why the increase is there and I'll be able to give you a narrative as we go through. The reason why the increase is there is not just the teacher's contractual, but as mentioned last year during budget season, this year, the ask is that second, sixth grade teacher. And so last year, we were, in need of adding the fourth and fifth grade teacher. So this number here includes not only the contractual obligations, but it includes that sixth grade teacher so that there's two in sixth grade. The good news is once we do that, every grade then has back the two teachers per grade. And so we don't have to worry moving forward. It would be a long time before we would meet three. So, it makes us whole again. And remember, we are off 86 kips,
so, since I arrived in 2020. And so, that that had occurred during the number of years where they did have a need to reduce, and cut, we are gonna be whole again at the end of then next year where we have the two of each. So that is already built into that number that's on the top. The special education teachers is that second line. Some people have asked, why are they separated out? And they're separated out because one of the things that we are responsible to do in state reporting on an annual basis is to report to the state specifically what all of our expenditures are as they relate to special education students. And so even when we get to transportation, which isn't tonight, but you'll see that it is special education, transportation, and regular transportation. And the reason why that is is because we need to separate all of our expenditures for the state, budgetarily speaking, so that we can report that. And they do that because they're they not only wanna make sure that we are spending on our highest need students, that we are ignoring their needs, but we also have to file a report that shows what our excess cost is. And excess cost meaning over and above what the typical cost is for a typical student. And so they know that there are a lot of expenditures that are for special education students that we don't pay for all of the other students that are in the building. One advantage for districts in doing that is they know that that number is high. So when it exceeds a certain level, they do allow you to put in for some reimbursement. Unfortunately, in smaller districts,
that number is 4.5 times the cost of a typical student. And in small districts, your typical student's about 20,000. So if you do the math, you have to spend about a $100,000 per special needs student before you can put in for reimbursement, and then they don't give you the whole thing. So let's say that student is a $150,000. You don't get to put in for the reimbursement of a 150. You get to put in for a partial reimbursement of the 50 where you went over the 100. And so it's frustrating because very oftentimes, you know, the expenditures are in the 80 to $100,000 range for those students, and it's per student. So you could have three students where they wind up at $90,000, and you still can't put in because it's three separate students. So that has been a disadvantage. The state is trying to work on coming up with something that's a little bit better suited for smaller school districts especially, but we're not there yet. And so Nine tenures. Yeah. And so, unfortunately,
you know, we usually have to incur the whole 100% cost of all of our special education students' needs there. Is this line for one teacher? Which one? The special ed line? Two. Awesome. It says special ed teacher.
Yeah. It is teachers in that line. Yeah. So and the speech teacher. That is really the only other increase. It's an increase in hours, but it's actually a long term decrease in cost. So, again, I've been here six years. And, in a district, when you do not have a full time speech teacher that is in a teacher's union, you have to contract. And when you contract hours to a company, an agency, even an LLC, whatever it is, you are paying by the hour, and you will never find a contractor for speech services for less than about $95 an hour. And yeah. And so if you have very small needs, like at one time in our building when I first got here, we had very limited amount of, PT, services for kids, physical therapy. I think my first year here, we needed about four hours, and that was it. So then it made sense because we were paying for the four hours of service plus their meetings and their prep, of documentation, but we weren't paying a person to be here where we didn't have a need for direct services. So it does make sense to do that when your needs are less. And at one time, as you know, the school was over 300, and then we had dropped down to about a 174 kids. So at that time, it really, you know, was one of those situations where we we couldn't bring somebody in for more than, the hours that we needed, so we did drop that service. A couple of years ago, we wound up with another speech teacher where here, we were up to about half time, so, like, a point five
of the time. Okay? Half the time, a point five, not a full, one point o. And so we had one person that was shared with another district, and put them in the teachers' union. By putting them in the teachers' union, sure, they get the benefits of the teachers' union, but the it's not an hourly salary then. So for that person to be in this building the same number of hours in a day as teachers, Let's say three of the kids that they were servicing were absent that day. Taylor as the principal could have other things for them to do. They could do but we're not paying an hourly rate for children who aren't there then. They're on your staff at the time,
and there are other things that they could get done without us paying a $100 an hour. So there's a definite advantage. In a lot of districts, these these speech therapists, don't necessarily want to be in a teacher's union, and so they opt to go someplace else because they can make more money. So, we had a point five, and, we were sharing it with another district. And then due to some of the increases of students over the past two years, we had to go point six and point four with that other district. And we said we need this person care more because there are more hours that are needed for student services. In an elementary school, you will always have more speech services than a middle or high school because of the foundations of writing and speaking, articulating, you get more speech services in pre k k and one than you will in the upper grades. So it just stands to reason. And so that's where it's needed in an elementary school versus a middle or a high school. Not that they don't need any services at all, but
you see it more in an elementary school. And the speech services for a kid that's over the age of three that lives in our town that doesn't attend our preschool, those are still in our budget. Absolutely. Right. So, again, keep in mind that when we look at this budget,
just like when we look at, you know, other things like the enrollment summary, and I've been saying this for years, is it says AES budget, but it's really not just the AES budget. Because the budget for AES, as they say, or this board of education to vote on, it is all of our children up through and including grade six. So if there are students that attend charter and magnet schools, I pay for them out of this budget right here. If there are students that require special education services in the town, And as Kate said, they don't even attend our preschool. We are mandated by law if they require services to give those services to those students.
If they are out placed to another facility, even if they're out placed to that facility when they move here, we are mandated to pay that bill. So I know a lot of people don't realize that, but we get bills from other schools, and we have to pay those because those are residents of the town of Andover. So and in this we're not talking about that specifically tonight, but also remember too that everything related to 35 School Road is in this budget as well. So we have the largest building in the town, and everything related to this building is also in this budget. So, that's really important to understand that it's not just the number of children that are in this building. It is everything kids in grade six under and everything 35 School Road related that doesn't appear in any other budget in the town at a few years ago.
Do we have many kids that are at charter schools or don't have We
had three last year. I believe at the end of this year, there are two. But when we plan too, we're always careful because there are families that opt for all of their children to attend those schools. So when we know there's another sibling coming up, we have to plan for that as well. Because 99.9% of the time, if it's a family of three and the first one goes there and they have two others, they're probably going there as well. But we do not pay for parochial schools, religious schools. If a parent opts to send their child to, you know, a religious school, that the district does not face it.
Perfect. So
Okay. What is so is the speech teacher going from a point six to a point eight or something? Or So the speech teacher
is a point six right now. Mhmm. But we have more kids even currently than the point six. So we are actually, this year, utilizing the one that retired last year to do some testing because there is not enough time in that teacher's schedule. And so, that teacher will probably right now, we have her at a very solid point eight five for next year. They will probably go one point o. So we have to plan for that. Okay. So the eighty seven nine, that's that one? Yes. Okay. Yes. So and like I said, it's
full teacher's contract, so that's to an advantage for us. Yeah. So And then what's the library salary that has to be Always in this budget been separated out. That is our library media specialist. But Losing a grant.
Yes. The if you recall last year, when we were short staffed without the fourth and the fifth grade second class, the library media specialist did one more day working with grades four, five, and six upstairs, and I took that out of a grant that we then lost. So that additional day that that she is here, he's gotta be back in the budget next year because we don't have that granted. And that's the same for the school psychologist. That's also So the school psychologist, you're gonna see the school it says zero. The school psychologist in two other lines let's see. If you move down to, the next page, if you just flip it and you go to where it says 320-2140, you see the 45,000 there is gonna go to zero. And that is because we had a school psychologist part time. We needed the school psychologist because that's our only support staff. We don't have social workers and psychologists full time. We have the mental health grant. And because Right here. Second page. Yeah. Actually, that's it. Not password. So because we had the mental health grant
because we had the mental health grant, we were able to increase the school psychologist's hours because she was a contractor. We were able to just draw up another contract with her and increase her hours. And because it was an additional contract, not one that occurred in the budget, you were able to use the grant funds because you weren't, supplanting. You were supplementing. It was an additional contract for additional days for her. So that's kind of how we got around that one. So this year, we didn't put it in the budget. We kept it in two separate contracts so that, in fact, we once again could use up the rest of that grant. And in being able to use up the rest of the grant, then that helped us this year by, that amount. So the 45,000 will cease to exist in that $3.20 line and move up to the one zero one line. So it's basically like a 55,000 It is. Right. Because of the Correct. As it was, that ramp had $55,000 in it. Yes. So it's just a moving around there due to that. There were some questions last year on, coaching and clubs that had come up. Now anything that appears in the teacher's contract as an obligation on our part, We have to budget for it. And so in the teacher's contract, there is a set rate, for example, if they, you know, do, the parade. There is a set rate if they have there's three, I believe, clubs that we have to allow them to do even if we don't have an after school grant. That line had always been 12,000. It had been 12,000 until almost four years ago because, contractually, if every single one of those stipends is administered to teachers that's in their contract under that coaching area and clubs,
it would be 12,000. But because we had after school activities that was that were paid for out of another grant, they weren't running those other clubs. And so we had, cut this in half, though, the the two years ago, I should say. Last year, we didn't have the after school grants, but the teachers didn't run those clubs, so it wasn't used. But this year, with only a quarter of the amount of money that we got for after school grant moving forward for next year, we are keeping that six in there because there are two of the clubs that were popular when we ran the after school grant, with kids that they've already tried to start putting in this year. And if that happens, we will have that expense. So that one does contractually have to stay in there. I can't guarantee that it will be used, but it does contractually have to stay in there because it could be something that appears. Summer school, we keep small. Up until this point, we have always had assistance with the summer school, program. Usually, it runs us 15 to $20,000 with the programs. The $61.50 is just the salaries for the, teachers that have to service the service hours in the IEPs, if that makes sense. So our obligation, our minimum obligation to those students in the summertime would be 6,150.
So anything over and above that, we'll do with Brits.
Okay. I'm gonna go back. Oh, I'm just gonna the paraeducators for special ed. There's a big jump on that. How many people is that? Paraeducators.
Oh, that is because there is one additional para this year from last year. Okay.
And that's and that's for what's in the budget from kindergarten through grade. Correct? Correct? Correct. Yes.
You talking about $1.00 6? She's talking about $1.00 2 dash 1,200 more so. Oh, okay. Because do you see how two years ago it was '89 and then 01/13 and then January?
Mhmm. Yeah. To me, when it's like a 10 to 20,000 increase That's a whole different one. For one pair in the upper grades who asked it.
K. Yep. So and then even when we do the substitute teacher lines, we look at the trends. How many days average do teachers use of their, you know, allotted days? But then we also have to look at things like what do we already know is gonna happen with a staff member next year. Do we know the staff member's already informed us that there's going to be, these are hypotheticals, a surgery? Do we already know that someone's having a baby and they're gonna be out, and they get paid while they're out as well as a sub? So we do take those things into consideration. So this line, sometimes we use less. Sometimes it'll go over if we didn't know that there was, a change of life circumstance for somebody. But based on the numbers that we have now, this is an accurate depiction for next year. The noncertified special ed administrative salary, that 36, for those of you who don't recall this, that plus the noncertified superintendent office salary, that's the same person. We only have two people in the office upstairs. One is the school secretary. The other one is
their job is to be the administrative assistant to the super, the administrative assistant for board of ed, the administrative assistant to special education, and fill in as the administrative assistant to Dale. So, yeah, there's a lot of half She only gets two halves? Yeah. She only gets two halves of a salary, Sharon. Right. Right. But the reason, again, why it's split on there is because that 36 on the top there is a special education expense, and we do have to keep that separate. So that is it's not there so that someone doesn't know what that person makes. It has to be split because it's special ed versus nonspecial ed. Yes.
For your custodial salary, is there a reason why that doesn't increase? Yes. Because
in the past eighteen months, you know, we had a head custodian that retired. Yep. Okay. And the second in command became the head custodian. Mhmm. He did not make as much as the head custodian. He's he wasn't maxed out on his lines. He wasn't the top scale. Yeah. So when he moved up, his salary was less. And then when we replaced the middle guy with a new one Not so low. That one was a little lower as well. So it's not that they're not getting raises. It's that we've already reduced. We're not gonna, you know, we're not gonna ask for something we don't need. And so we're not just gonna put a 3% in there because that's what they're getting when that money is already in there. Okay. So it is just the change from custodian to custodian is giving us what we need for the increase of salary
for next year. Financial office. Custodial overtime, we dropped a number years ago. Remember that number was fairly high because they did have extra sit they had extra assistance in the summer. They used to have students that worked in the summer. And then during COVID, there were. And we have two full time custodians and one five hour custodian, and that's worked out very well. We have three fantastic guys, and so we do not utilize this as much. What we do utilize it for is in the summer, that third guy that is a five hour guy, there's approximately forty hours during the course of the whole summer that they get extra, And they arrange that based on the waxing schedule, based on the school use, and things like that, and it's about a thousand dollars. So
okay. Any questions on the yellow section there? I have a question on Senshun. I know it's pink. Mhmm. Why is that such a big increase? Increase?
That is MERS, it's called now. Yes. The MERS and MERS. To be called MER. Yeah. It's MERS. It's MERS. Municipal employees. And we don't pay that on teachers. We pay that on the noncert. Right. So teachers pay their own pensions to TRV. So when you see their salary, that's what they cost us. When you see a noncertified, let's just say a paraprofessional, we have to pay their salary plus a portion of their pension in Andover because Andover has a municipal employee retirement account. And so that's a set percentage.
Right? That's at the state. The state dictates the percentage. So is it just a large percent increase plus we added another care educator? One more person plus a huge increase. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a way bigger increase than the previous two. That's Yeah. And that's for any noncertified person who is is is in that union, basically. Yeah. Where is the additional Thera? Our Not me. Is it 1021200?
Where do where do we need an additional pair? For a special education student.
Oh, okay. One thing, I can speak to that line a little bit too because I looked at that.
And our actuals that for this year for that line item are going to be a 130,000 in expenses. So
That's the one thing that would be nice to have on here would be Well, we don't know the actual flushes. They know, but for 2025. Like
Yeah. You could see them on our month to month financials. Yeah. That's what I keep trying to find. As the year went on But I think in this because I went to Val about this. This was one of the areas that when your budget cut Yeah. That you had to take and you you anticipated having an overage that you might have to take from your 2% nonlap spin. That was an area that was cut that money was taken from. So you you will probably be we will probably be over on that line item this year. So What did you say? Closer to one thirty? $1.30 is our projection.
Remember, we we got cut to $1.65, and so we talked about it. The board said Yeah. We'll take it out of the 2% at the end of the year. Right. So thank you for pointing that out, Jody. So that's it back in there now. Group life insurance, we don't have the actual number on that yet. But as you can see, everybody has group life insurance, and it's $14.06 64. So even if it did go up another percentage, let's say, that's not a huge expense. That is not, one of the very expensive areas. It's medical insurance. That's expensive, not, the group life.
On the next page there, there's three highlighted. Well, four, I'm sorry. The retirement, again, retirement is something that is contracted in the teacher's contract as well as the parent's contract. There is a certain amount that they get, when they retire. So if you have any teachers that are of retirement age, and we do have a few, we don't anticipate them retiring this year, we hope. But if they did, there is a certain amount that you need to budget for. They have a percentage that could be paid of their unused, approved days. And so the 15,000 and we used it two years ago, the 15,000. We didn't use it this year yet. Let's hope they all stay. But since we do have not just one, we have multiple staff members that are of that age, that's why it's in there. What's difference between pension and retirement? Well so In terms isn't in our Right. Right. In terms of their own pension. Correct. So The retirement portion is the perk that they get if they retire for, like, a payout of something that's in their contract. Okay. And it's a small percentage, Marcy, for each of the teachers.
Like, if a teacher accumulated a hundred and eighty days, you can see on there for some teachers, that's, like, $80,000. They don't get 80,000. They get a small percentage of that, which is why that line's only 15. Or their number of sick days? Based on their number of sick days. Like, percent. Thousand sick days? It's, yeah, it's a percentage of their sick days. How many sick days she has. I I know. I never Okay. So the sick days that have not been used. Right. Is that what you're saying? Yes. Or vacation days or Yeah. All the days that you have Yes. And they get a percentage. They don't get all of them. Okay. But contractually speaking, we have to give them that money when they retire. Gotcha. So we're let's not talk about retirement because we don't want them to retire. So hear that, You're not gonna retire. So okay. Tuition reimbursement. The reason why it was zero the last two years is we we didn't have Again, contractually, the reimbursement value in our contract for a teacher for courses is a maximum of $1,200. We do have a few young teachers that are pursuing their master's. They have five years to do that.
And, we do know, that 1,200 is accurate because part of Jody's job was to ask them who's taking courses toward, their next degree, whether it be a master's for sixth year or doctor degree. So that number, hypothetically, in the next couple years probably will go off. Yes. Mhmm. So but this is we've already asked them for next year. Yeah. So we do know 1,200 is accurate. K? And then benefits. So I didn't leave that for the bottom of that one on purpose, but it just fell to the the next page. So as most of you know I mean, this, again, is a nonnegotiable. The town of Andover and the board of education, they know we are part of a consortium. And that consortium, we don't have a choice. We do not get to go every year out to bid and try to find a new insurance company. It is the town of Andover, Andover Board of Ed, the town of Hebron, Hebron Board of Ed, the town of Marlborough, Marlborough Board of Ed, RAM, and AHM. All of them combined make up our insurance consortium. It's been a very good insurance consortium, but as you know, you see the news too, insurance premiums have skyrocketed. And so our premiums themselves, in comparison to some other towns are lower than some other towns. Our consortium itself, they are, you know, not out of control. But with that said, the percentage increase and, of course, it's a percentage on this instead of this, but our percentage increase, we have already met. And right now, it is at 15% for next year. Now understand what that means for the school versus, let's say, the town.
The town, I think, has six current employees that are in jail. We have seven times that number here. So a 15% increase on, you know, 50 people is a lot of money. It's a lot of money. And I did a four one one video on it a couple weeks ago, but understand that I I don't even know what people pay in the private sector world. I hear it's a lot, but it is an average the board's expense. So remember, this doesn't include the employee's contribution. We've already minus that from our expense. But the board's contribution for an individual is thousand dollars. So the premium is the 17% that the employee pays plus our $11,000. That's the total premium. The $11,000 on a single person is in here.
Their premium comes out of their paycheck. And the family will for family next year, our estimate is we're paying 35,000, and that doesn't include they're they're paying on on top of that another 7,000 plus their that's just their health insurance. So plus their dental care. So it's ridiculous. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So
it is and and that's money in a bank and say, okay. You build a possible thing. Right. Wow. Is it? So
so just for you to understand, those increases for us, you know, they're astronomical. And to be fair, when we negotiated the contracts with the unions, you know, every year, there's a minimum of one point increase. In some cases, two points increase to their share of theirs. That's not the 11,000 we pay. That's not the 35,000. But over the years, in their contracts, it goes up. Shannon, you've been on those negotiations with us. You know. That's that's a big deal. It's a big deal. So 15% increase. Now if you actually did the math on these benefits, you would see that we also It's it's we also take into consideration the fact that there are things that we do know. Somebody Somebody will come to us and say, I have a child that's turning 26 next year, and they're coming off the insurance. That's already figured in. We know that we only will have one position, a sixth grade teacher. So that's figured in, but there are no you know, well, we'll just you know, just in case somebody else gets added, we'll add in. There are, you know, places for every person or family in there with only one extra one in there for the sixth grade position that's gonna be filled. So based on everything we know,
this is the increase. And the para? Right? And the para, isn't it? Is already in there. Yes. Because that would have been in for this year
as well, that person being in there. Okay. Because they're they're already in those numbers. Okay. I'm afraid that nobody changes Well choice of Right. Covering themselves
family too. Right. That's the law. If there's a change of family circumstance for someone, there is, you know, that open time period during the year where they can come in and say, we've had a life changing, and we'd like to enroll. And,
yeah, he will. So Yep. We hope it goes the other way. Right. Right.
So, we hope that there's lots of people with twenty six year olds that come off. So and then the only last thing that I really wanna address and then, you know, as we move next time, you'll have this and a few other areas that are highlighted is the utilities, and that's the six twenty two secondtion. So it's on page five there. Purple. The purple. Right. I did do a section, a four one one on this as well, when we were talking about solar. We we do lock in every year. We lock in our oil. I have my kinda own little consortium with a couple of towns, including both of mine.
And that way, we get a better price for the oil. Our oil has been dying. You know, a few years ago, it was very high. We were at $3.10. We went down to $2.97. We went to $2.59, and our that's our current price. And, next year, we will be $2.49. So that's very helpful. It's very helpful because I don't know if anybody else was on the board. Remember last year, when they bought it that they haven't finished yet, we went over on electric. So our electricity was through the roof last year. And that isn't because, you know, there's a misuse here. We have a very active gymnasium that's used, by sports, by the town. So in terms of electricity, we've got the lights on, nights and weekends. You know, same thing with the heat in the winter. We've got the school. You know, it's not normally,
like, shut down. They were vacations shut down for the summer. We do have the pool program here. We do have summer programming here. So we really aren't able to say, well, we have big shuts down shutdowns during the course of the year that save us money. We are year round building Again, you know, the town uses us. The rec department uses us. And so we do know that, as you see here, it was '74 and then '79. We do know that there's a possibility that that electricity could go over again this year. If that's the case, Jody can do what Terry did last year, which was just to switch those two. There was some surplus in oil last year that we moved over. Any of you who are on the board remember, we moved it over to electricity. So I'm not quite sure that those four numbers will look exactly the same, but what we are sure of is the 02/2001 o 60 '2. Mhmm.
Other people said, well, what about the solar? Well, we are putting solar in now, but we will reap reap the benefits of that through the end of this year, and we will start to see it in the summer, obviously, then. But we we need a year of trend. Yeah. Can see full year. Yeah. It takes one full year of the trend data for us to see. So what we're anticipating is when we're sitting here having this conversation next year, that those numbers will go down. And we do lock in in, like, October or November for the oil so that we can get a better price. So so that's where we are with those. I don't know if there's any questions on any of those sections. Solar is a lease agreement. Right? Yes. And so why will it take so long to
see any savings? Because you have it's the actual usage. The panels once the panels are up and running, that's when they save you. They're not up and running now. They're installing them now. So once the panels are up and running, that's when we should see the savings on our own. So you don't you don't just speaking from personal experience, because I have solar in my house, on my barn,
you don't actually start making a lot of energy until the summertime. So you make very little this time of year, and you make a lot in the summer. So, like, the amount that it subtracts from our energy bill is gonna be negligible, and then and then it'll be more in the summer when, hopefully, our expenses are lower. Like, it'll but it takes it takes that, like, almost full twelve months to, like Okay. Even itself out. Fair enough. Mhmm.
Oh. Yeah. At least we don't have a payment for it. Yeah. Does anyone have other questions on budget stuff? You're not at a? No. K. And
Still has a couple errors on it, so I'm gonna make sure we work on that for next month. So I do know, you know, right now, again, it says grade four and five only has one teacher. I apologize. We didn't get that fixed. I'm not sure. Do you have it? See, it's only online. I don't know what happened. I'm so sorry. The enrollment report is in the packet online. Was in your packet. I didn't put my packet. Used it. I've already sent it. You printed it. Is. Didn't print It wasn't mine either, Caitlin. So know what?
Wonder if she pulled it to fix it and then put it back in the why Oh, maybe. It didn't help.
Yeah. So so I apologize. But I can give you kind of the summary anyways. So we did just have two new students start on Monday. So they are also not in this report. So we had a third and a fifth grader start. I know. It's a it was in sixth grade. Can you imagine? I probably know because I know there's a third grade. When Rosemary hangs up the phone and looks at me, I was like, I could I'm like, please please please please be 11, 10. Okay. Jamie Jamie agrees here. So, anyways, we're excited, though. Third and fifth. So they did they're not on maybe the report you have or not have. So they go up to 25 in third and 26 in fifth. And then we also need I will make sure we switch the classrooms. The we will have charter magnet outplacements because we just really need to include, as well as at all of our kiddos that's there.
So right now, we are at 255. 256. I apologize. 256 is our number. I do anticipate in January by the end of February with our pre K, an additional four to six students. We have had a lot of Andover move ins and or remember people enter kiddos enter pre k in different ways. So birth to three services could move, could have changed, could have planned. We have some families that plan for a late entry. There's a lot of different ways, and we talked about that this summer. So at 02:56 now, I do anticipate, by February's meeting, you'll see that number over two sixty, which is great as long as no more sixth graders move in. Right. So, yeah, so it was great to see a third and a fifth grader. But, yeah, we are continuing to grow. So I just wanted to make sure you had that accurate. On the envelope. I know. I I must have the old one because I have two fifty three. Where were the where were the additions? Yes. So third and fifth, we had one new student student in each of those.
Each class? Yeah. Yep. One in the grade level. Okay. So those go to twenty five and twenty six. And our chart it should say charter magnet outplacement, that should be three, and that would get us to two fifty six. And then like I said, I anticipate around five between January and February of preschoolers. Commit to a number because we we a lot.
Okay. So that was enrollment report. Just professional development wise, two PD I just wanted to tell you about. First, we meet as a regional administrative curriculum team, I guess you'd call us, once or twice a year with Hebron, Marlboro, and Ram. And one of the goals that we have talked about on that team really since I've been here is more collaboration. And I know we've talked about that. How do we make sure all of our teachers are getting support and have being small, right, we've had grade levels that only have one teacher or two How do we make sure they're connected? How do we make sure all of our kiddos going to RAM are getting high quality experiences and coming into RAM at equal footing between Hebert and Marlborough? All of those things. So we've done a lot of talking about it, but Christina Fraser and I last month decided to take some action. So we're very excited to announce that we are running the first math PLC for the region. We're gonna be focusing on fraction instruction. You're all invited. Don't worry. But this will be we're gonna meet two times. We're just due January and March, and all teachers and are invited from all four regions. It'll be 02:30 to four. You're like, why are you giving the me the details? But just because, you know, we really worked hard, Ram teachers get out a little earlier than us. Right? So we didn't want that gap. And for the elementary schools,
subbing is really hard to find subs, so we wanted to be kind of right at that end of the day. So we're excited to get lots of people together, hopefully, and do some work specific. We don't all have the same exact curriculum. Most of us do now in math, but not all. And so really looking at how we address different topics. And, again, we're really excited. Jamie Webber here. She teaches five, six math. She'll be involved. So, yeah, so we're just really excited. We're we're going for it. You know? Collaboration can be hard, and and we're all different districts, but I think we're just pulling the Band Aid off and hoping and I I think I wrote on the flyer, you put lots of teachers in a room and good things happen. So we're excited about that. On the same vein in the pre K world, I applied to EastCon for an grant opportunity where they would come and do some in person PD for no cost as long as I could guarantee I had 10 teachers.
One of those two, I was like, you know, yeah, absolutely. We just went for it, and I said, I'll have 10. And we got it, and I already have 16 teachers from districts, surrounding districts, including Hebron, but also just varying. One one school, a charter school in Manchester. We have some other small districts. We have it it's awesome. So we're really excited about that because pre K is set especially can be a little isolated because the professional development across the state tends to be elementary esque. Right? And they're not necessarily in that. But they have very strict professional development requirements because of our grants, which is great. So we will have 16 pre k teachers here in January from around the region, which will be a really exciting opportunity for professional development, but also to connect to our program. And so those are my two PD updates. Questions on those? Or just give us a little SEO. Okay. So I said to you last month, we were gonna talk a little bit about social emotional learning today. Screen. We got a lot going on here. Alright.
So we've talked about last year, we presented our school, our kiddos survey dot, data. And one of the things we talked about for our overall kind of improvement plan was really to dive a little bit deeper into those survey questions. And, really, we we take them in May, but then some of those kiddos go off to RAM. They're big. It's June. We're not really making a lot of changes in school. And so sometimes it can feel like, what do we do with that information? And while it's good to read, we wanted it to be more actionable. So this year, Kara Ormsby, our school psychologist and our leadership team, decided we wanted to do kind of a deeper dive. So each month, the teachers in the classrooms have different topics that they talk about. Our younger kiddos, it's often in morning meeting, and they're just having discussions. And our older kiddos, it's a more structured conversation.
And then at the end of that month, whatever the topic was, we have a follow-up survey. Third through six, they actually take it. K two, the teachers go ahead and put in just some feedback from their discussions. Here's what kiddos were saying or noticing. So in October, we talked specifically about safety because if you recall how do I know about that? Sorry. You think how many years do I know how to get rid of this? I don't know. No? I'm good at this. So we talked about safety, and that question was seventy 5% on our May data for students who feel safe at school, and we didn't love that number. Seventy five percent to the board and to me felt a little bit low. And, again, we're surveying children, so we know all the variables of that. So we broke it down to what does it mean to feel safe inside the school building? And if you saw the one before it, what does it mean to feel safe outside at recess? Because, really, those are two different worlds for children in elementary school. And then in November so we're gonna do October and November today. We November, we moved in. What does it mean to feel comfortable sharing, know, your ideas with your class?
And if you have a problem at school, do you know what adults can help you? And that really comes back to that trusted adult. Alright. So we look at October. I I'm so sorry. Go away. I know. Okay. There we go. We asked two questions. I feel safe on the playground. You could see this, eighty six point one percent positive. And I feel safe in my classroom, 92.1% positive. Great increase from 75% just to October. And I think some of that is really just the teaching of what does safety mean, having some discussions, letting kids kind of talk through maybe any situations they weren't feeling safe. And then we do an open ended question. Those are always the best, right, with kids. And it said kind of what what makes you feel safe at school in October. And so we have some really different answers. Most of our kiddos already would said said school is safe or I feel safe or my teacher makes me feel safe, kind of what you'd anticipate, But there were some other different interesting things. So peer conflicts and rough play, as you can imagine, are was the biggest concern, and that's a lot of recess. Kids play too rough. I think that everybody would nod to that. That's a very I hear about the gaga ball pit Yeah. All the time. Right. Exactly. So that wasn't surprising. That's actually the answer we anticipated. What was a little more surprising is the other two. So we also there's about a 100 students, just so you know, in this survey. So percentage is about a kiddo each, 1%.
The physical and environmental safety. So those answers were like this. There was one that said, are the bookshelves in the library bolted to the wall? Someone said, I wish we had that rubber underneath the playground. So there was actually, you know, 11% of kiddos who were had some physical safety concerns that we really never considered or thought our kids worrying about the bookshelves in the library. You know? So that was just something different, and I we're glad this is kind of why we are doing a little bit deeper dive to say, okay. What's on kids' minds? Pads around under the monkey bars of should we have a fence around the playground? So, like, the some of those physical safety things came up. And then lastly, the preparedness for emergencies. Right? And those were mostly in our very older kids. You know, our fifth and sixth graders and some even younger are aware of, unfortunately, the violence that can happen at schools. So we did have some responses that said,
does an intruder know the types of drills we use? And so, you know, some of those answers that that do break your heart but are real and part of our world. Certainly at school, in an elementary school, we always on the side of more conservative when we run drills, when we talk about those things. But in any school, you have kids exposed to more and kids exposed to less, right, who are more or less aware of what goes on outside of our school. So it was good for us to know that's coming up for some kids and and making sure we're addressing it in appropriate way. Did did you guys do CPR training yet this year for Nope. January. Okay. Yes. So that will happen as well. So so this is this was all really good information. And then you can see in November, I feel comfortable being myself at school, 81%. If I have a problem, I know there's an adult at school who will help me, 78%. And so, again, very similar, kind of summarized what came up here in the open ended question. And you can see the 44, kind of the bigger one is nothing. They feel fine. Things are going well. That next big one, we we also thought was interesting because it was a lot about I wish I I had a calm down space, some sensory tools. And, actually, alone time came up more frequently than you think. I I just need a moment,
right, to, like, gather myself. And, you know, I think that's a really real need. As adults, we have that, but, again, not something maybe we would have totally verbally put our finger on for kids. Now I I we don't let kids be alone, so good good luck to them. No. But but, you know, it's something that we are considering when we have a kiddo who might be escalated or or how can we maybe? We need to provide just a little more space and time before we might intervene. Right? So that was good information. And, again, in the younger grades, this was interesting, and the support and someone to talk to, it often came up. I don't want them to solve my problem. I just want someone to listen. And that's, right, again, even as an adult, there are times that we just wanna vent, but don't Brie, don't tell me what I should do. Right? Because I probably know it. Just listen to me. And so that came up as well. So, overall, we're just really excited about the work that's happening here because while maybe it can't be quantified,
I you know, I can't tell you we'll have 42 less office referrals, things like that because it's that's just not the work we're doing. I can tell you that the conversations are rich, that kids are opening up, that we're really getting a good pulse on what our kids need at this time and not having to wait till May or June and saying, oh, shoot. They were worried about offense, and we never talked about that with them. So we will continue this work. Oh, how could I forget the next steps? So I I'm so sorry. Continuing this work. So here's some of the things we've done and will continue to do. So we had four staff, just do a mental health training through Yale, which was cool on Monday. So that was a virtual half day training, and it was about, different ways to support students' mental health in the school, specifically connected to our climate school climate improvement plan. So you all have seen I'm sorry. Our new board members, I'll get you a copy. What's on the website? Our strategic plan. There is a social emotional component to that, but the state has asked that we all schools, not us, has asked all schools to develop a little bit of a more detailed climate improvement plan. So we are working the impact team on an addendum, so to speak, right, an additional part of our plan that will specifically respond to this survey data that you're seeing.
Restorative practices, the state we've talked about that is really that is their number one priority that teachers, all staff are really trained in restorative practices as we move away from punitive consequences, and we're looking to restore, use restorative practices when kiddos are having challenging behaviors. So we do have probably two to three team members. It's incredibly costly. We're just waiting for the state to decide to fund their mandate, but it's fine. So we will only send two or three, and we'll use a train the trainer model where they will get that training and bring it back to us. And so that will happen this year. As I mentioned, we're working on adding to our larger strategic plan for continuing our small mentor group houses and then continuing our zones of regulation work. And, again, having our school psych school psychologist work really closely also with Jenny Morell, our early childhood specialist, as they kind of both take on the biggest role in our social emotional learning throughout the building
has been really great. Questions from me?
How do you choose who to send to the restorative practice as PD? I know. Right? So three just seems like not enough. So as
you can imagine, Kara, school psychologist, will certainly be a shoe in for the job. She got she got first place. Jenny Morell has has been working hard in this, and likely Christina Fraser who kind of has the unique role of supporting most all of the classrooms and being part of our support team will likely take that on, and then they'll be able to spread that knowledge. And, certainly, we are doing our own, like, reading about restorative practices. And I don't wanna say we don't know anything, but it's really to do that well, it it is an an intensive process, and we don't wanna do it poorly. So, you know, you might have heard of some of the things even as an adult, like a restorative circle. Right? When something goes poorly, a classroom can have a restorative circle. That's something you don't wanna go in lightly until you know how to do it because kids are unpredictable. Right? And so we, you know, we our always our philosophy is we wanna do what's best for kids. And to do that, sometimes you have to move a little slower. And so we're always cautious to make sure that we feel really well trained, and we're putting the best best in front of our kiddos. So those are the three that will likely partake in that training this year.
Great.
Thank you. Yes. And then next month, we will do January. We'll talk more about math. We did reading, right, last year. So SEL, and we'll do math. And then in February, we'll plan to do a mid year data update.
K. Great. Finance update? Before I go into my update, I just wanna say first, like, I've been here a month, and I just wanna say what a wonderful school it is. I just I've been welcomed with open arms. The climate here is wonderful. People are so nice. Terri is is done is just doing a great job in showing me all the intricacies of your particular school and district. And I also just wanna say I'm really pleased with the level of financial controls. You know, as a person coming in, I wanna make sure that for my own protection, your protection, taxpayer money, that all the controls are there, and they and they really are. So I wanted to assure you that I'm seeing very good things here. We'll start with just the regular update. So from the in your board packet that you received, you have two different reports. The first one is called the summary custom expenditure report. So I just wanted to let you know because I knew
Sharon and Marcy, you're you're new to the board. Right? So I just kinda wanna let you know the process. So when I look at this report, this report tells us it gives us the controlled accounts as well as the percentage used. So we're five months into the school year, so that's roughly 42%. So I kind of go through now not everything's gonna be 42 for with their reasons, but that's the first thing I look at. So if you're going down and I kind of look and the first thing I notice 89% expend us is summer school, that makes sense because we start in July 1. So summer school would be primarily expended. Down board clerk, a 100%. That's because that money has been encumbered. So that is this percent uses off. It's not necessarily showing what's paid out yet, but the encumbered money. So that money has been encumbered. Repair and maintenance services, so that is one I just wanted to bring to your attention. We've expended 73%, so I looked a little bit more deeply at those areas. And you'll see on the next report that we've had some HVAC repairs, so that line item has gone over. However, that category is still in good shape. So I'm not worried about that, but I did that was something that we're looking at. We're watching the the HVAC repairs
because they have gone over. The next one down that I, you know, looked at was tuition is at 75%. Again, if you look at that, the majority of that, that 48,000 is encumbered Yep. Because those are contracts that we have. So the money has been encumbered, and we pay that in in installments. So that jumped out as normal to me. Let's see. And that was it. So there's nothing else here that sort of jumped out. So that's kind of how I looked at that. Does anybody have questions about that initial look?
Okay. What exactly is commission? You were mentioning it before, and it was only 1,200.
So Oh, no. No. No. No. That's sorry. Outplay student. Too much on here is, like, outplay student. Outplay Outplay Outplay student. At outplay or special ed. For special ed. Yeah.
Sorry. No. Yes. Both. It's primarily special ed for an out outplacement out for an out placed student. Yeah.
So Tuition for one out placed student could be, like, 70 to a 150,000.
Yeah. Yeah. Just to give you a background, my educational background is schools try as hard as they can to keep students in district. You know? And then and then there there are IEPs which dictate, you know, by law or, you know, their meetings and it say what those students need. And in some cases, a school cannot provide what a child needs. And at the PPT, it would be decided that that child has to go to an outplacement. So and Val Val and Taylor, you can talk more about that, but that's what that is. So if we go to the the next report, the detailed custom expenditure report, you have all the expenditures through November. And, really, again, what I'm looking for here is any accounts. This is where I took a deeper dive into the HVAC repairs. But if we look at the, expanded year to date, again, the only thing that jumped out was the HVAC. Oh, let's see. So we had HVAC. We have $17,000 budget. We've expended 11,000. 9,600 is encumbered for service. So we are over on that line item by 3773. Again, not horrible. I don't think it's gonna be a problem because we'll be able to make it up in a different line item, but just wanted to bring that to your attention. Facility ops cleaning, same thing a little bit over there. But if you look at the control down the bottom did I highlight yours? Did I did I give you color copies? Oh, I thought I did. So Where are you? I'm so sorry. Page five. Page thank you. Page five. Yes. Yeah. There's Yeah. The bigger one. Sorry.
Copied, actually. I yeah. Okay. But so on page five, when you look at the control total that's highlighted in gray, that first one, we still have $20,000 in in that account. So but, again, I just wanted you to know what I'm looking at. The other one, next page, art supplies are a little bit over. Again, not worried. It just happened this year. You know, art supplies, they have to replenish. Like, in a $30 range. Right. Exactly. No. Exactly. Dollar Exactly.
So that's, like, jump change there. And that was it. So that's
So what what happened in the safety? Repair maintenance safety pretty much all of it. So would you like me on that page five? Page five. Seven. Yeah.
You know what? I can take it. I don't have those purchase orders. Which line? 71? 2670. Safety. The 2670. 2670. Page five. Repair and maintenance safety. Wow. We budgeted 15,900. Page five. You're on page five? Yeah.
Do you have any big projects? Any, like, new doors? I was gonna say that could be the lobby door. It was just to be because the lobby door
Upstairs? Yes. Yeah. When you come in the front lobby, the two doors, the one going toward the nurse and the one going toward the classroom. Classroom. This year so you can look that one up. But this year there, we did have replacement that needed to be done on that lock. And those are special locks because we have the security that locks them in a lockdown. Mhmm. The other thing it could be and so just write yourself a note to get it going for next month is the door to Julie's, that outside metal door that Okay. So Oh, and the music? Yes. And that is the Saint Jude's Fairy door because it's an outside door. So if you could check on that as to which one, because I'm not sure where you guys had it in there, but those were the two larger expenses that I can think of that we've done in the past
few months. Right. Yes. I'll look at those, and I can bring those next board meeting. And I'm hearing a lot about HVAC.
It seems like this HVAC expenses are, like, out of control.
Nope. Not out of control, but that's always a common thing, especially in older school. Mhmm. You know, it is the regular repair and maintenance with with boilers, you know, things. Is it the Balimo or Balismo? I don't know the name of it, that part that had to be replaced in OGBT speech Mhmm. You know, in the radiator there. Oh, so it could be heating? Yes. Okay. Yeah. It's that. It is heating. It is mostly heating. Oh, you made that with air conditioning. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Mostly heating. Yeah. Mostly heating. Mostly air conditioners are, like, way newer. Yeah. They're those
Those ones. Yeah. Split things. And we have the splitters. So they're not inside the big expensive hampering units that we're worrying about. It is it's the
yeah. Yeah. In the old buildings, every school I've looked in and started that. Kind of regular structure. As, you know, Val is putting together the capital plan, so, you know, that is something that, you know, institutions have to look at, you know, the aging HVAC systems. And at one point, does it become a larger capital ask or, you know, you need to replace bigger parts and stuff? So I'm sure Val's looking at that and but we're keeping keep an eye on that. And then pass this around. Sorry. You got a lot of lot of papers and numbers today.
May I ask a general question? I I guess as you're learning the software, my understanding Edmunds is like a municipal software. Does it provide any, like, earned value metrics or KPIs for, like, how we budget and how we perform, or is it, like, strictly just accounting? Strictly accounting. Yeah.
Their support has been great. I have to say them. I've been I'm experiencing some frustrations, but their support has been excellent. But, you know, you don't wanna be on when you're on the phone an hour with support. It's not the way you wanna spend your time, but they were very good. So, okay, so the next this next packet, just it's tracking, and we will give this to the town treasurer and board of finance. But it's basically tracking our appropriation from the be you know, from the an annual budget. Sorry. Excuse me. Then the extended year to date, which obviously is increasing. So our expenditures, if you look at the November 30, it's still on the first page of this one, We're 1,560,000 in expenditures. There's our encumbered money,
and there's our balance, 2.917. There is our percentage used, 36. So, again, right on track there. This is our bank balance as of November 30. And then you can see we're tracking the grants that we have received. So we've added the grants that we received in November. So it's just a running spreadsheet. Any questions about that? Okay. Next page. So we have a few accounts where the money is held on the town side. So the treasurer is giving us monthly reports on those. And I thought for new board members, this was certainly a learning learning curve for me, just learning what accounts we have. So I think it is really good to go over these a little bit for the new board members. So we have the school improvement reserve fund, and I also have the bank statements. That is sorry. That's our 2% nonlapsing. So that is also I'd love to fix the naming of some of these funds. So So this school improvement reserve fund, okay, are we have 259,000. It's called a it's a 2% non lapsing fund. I will talk about that a little bit more in the next page. Then we have about half $1,000,000 in the capital fund. On the bank statements, it's listed as the AES expansion fund, but that is the fund that the board is looking using the the bathroom renovation.
You can see there's 11,521 of expenditures on that, and that is for Fasson O'Neil for the construction administration. That so that fund is actually like, it's partially in a bank account at M and T. So the majority of it is in different funds invested on the town side. Yeah. So Like, all in one place. Okay. So that's why I wanted to give the board this balance sheet because when I first looked at the bank statements, that's when it came to Val, and I said yeah. I was like, oh, Val, I thought you had $500,000.
So supposed to close that account and move it into Yeah. Go to financing. Sorry. Can you say that again? Where is it all? I said So if you look through Yeah. There's one that says M and T. Yeah. There's an actual bank account page that says AES expansion fund. That's how it should be thousand dollars. Yeah. That's a really, really, really old account from, like, when they built an expansion onto the school when they built the gym.
Yeah. Yeah. So that right. So the for a couple of days. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. Right. So the bank statement only that's where I got confused. I'm like I was like, god. I thought we had a lot more money. Yeah. And then so it's just not all reflected. It's in another another account. So just when you look at those statements, I wanted everybody to know that, really, it's the it's the bala it's the the activity not the activity.
It's a balance sheet that you wanna be looking at for the total. It's so it's in the town's its account because they can invest it and earn interest that way. So they have a lot of money from all different funds that's in that account. So it's you're not looking at, like,
a bank account statement. Got it. Okay. Okay. And then I just on one of the bank statements, so for the 2% nonlapsing fund, I didn't highlight these either for you, Color. Yeah. Okay. So
what I just wanted to provide, especially for new board members, the 2% nonlapsing fund works a little bit differently. All all these funds, you know, they're a little bit different in certain certain requirements. So this two percent nonlapsing fund falls under state statute 10 dash two forty eight a, and it has very prescribed uses. So I just wanted members to board members new board members know that. So, basically, districts can put into that fund up to 2% of any budget surplus or money that's not spent. So which gives schools more incentive to try to be as tight as they can even if they're tight already. So this is very it used to be capital fund only, but now it is can be used for so the second one is each expenditure must be used for educational purposes. So this fund has to be used for educational purposes, and the expenditures are authorized both by the local board of education. So even those the even though these funds are held by the town, all what goes in, what comes out, that is all at the discretion of the board of education, and that is by state statute. So so just wanted to have a little bit of background. Whereas the other fund, the capital fund, the town, the board of finance will be looking at expenditures like your bathroom project. The board of finance will be involved in that. And then the last, and I'm is I know you've been talking about a lot. It's just the Norton School Fund. And, again, this is the bank statement. It's my understanding that money is also invested in investment accounts.
Right? And that this is just the interest or something where some of the money so as, again, as you're looking at the Norton School Fund, there's more money in another account, not just what's in this bank account.
And that's it. I love this idea. Suggesting interest. Yeah. Do you know what?
We don't know, so We don't know. Okay. It just Oh. Yeah. We can talk about
our agenda. Yeah. We can Yeah. Yeah. Table Norton because Yeah. I we're on a lot. One thing on this, though, for the new people on the front, keep in mind, please, that when you look at every month when Jody gives you the balance of the account, we only receive our allowance through April. We get 10 ACH transfers that started July, and they end the end of at the April 1. So our account has to accumulate enough money in it to get us through April, May, and June. And there are five teacher paychecks at the end of the year because they get 26 pay periods and 21 during the school year. So we have to pay them five more times with that money. And I mentioned that because around about March, a lot of people in the community will start looking at our balance going, well, if the school year is almost over, why do they have a million dollars in there? We'll need that because we won't be getting any more money to pay our bills and pay the staff five paychecks in in April, in May, and in June because we have to pay them July and August out of this year's as well, not next school year's. Okay? So as you're watching that accumulate,
just know it has to accumulate by the end of the year because we only get 10 pains. We do not get 12. K? Sorry.
I didn't wanna forget that. No. That's great. That's great. And I think for now, really, for especially for new board members is just knowing that you have all these different accounts is is the place to start because we'll be talking about them. But Mhmm. It's a little bit similar up. So Yeah. Send the money. Yes. Send it and all the money's not in there. I forgot that. What account is used for operating expenses? That's our the General. The general fund. Yeah. The general. I thought you said Joe. I thought you said interesting on there. That's, like, the actual balance of the account that's used for Which one? For everything. For everything. Right. So This one? Yeah. So yeah. But
you we have the M and T Bank. This. It doesn't when you look at this, that's the devil fund. No. I'm
when you write checks. Yes. Which So just so you know, the what we have, we have our own M and T Bank account Mhmm. Which is our general fund. And at, you know, when I at the time of this report, it was 7,783,000.
You don't have that. You don't balance. That that's what I'm kinda confused. I thought that would be here too. No. And we, like, traditionally, as a board, have never looked at that. The only ones that have the printed balance sheets are the accounts that the town holds that that the school doesn't like, we don't have. They give those to us once a month. Right. This is because the town is giving These are the these are the town bank. Right. And we give their we give them ours.
We we we give Oh. Yes. So We give believe we give. Yes. We don't see ours. I'm kinda confused by that. Well, because you're seeing the balance. We're summarizing it so not to, like, overwhelm people with paperwork. Okay. You know? So we're giving you the balance. So Okay. Again, we reconcile it. You know, if the board ever decided they wanna see reconciliation sheets, we would do that. But we we do get a a statement from M and T Bank as well. Alright.
Okay. Does anyone have other financial questions? Okay. Great. We will move on. Liaison reports. Did you have a senior meeting? K. Anyone else have a liaison report? Excellent. Okay. Great. Moving on. We're gonna move on to the Percy Cook Trail. Yay. We're so excited that Kevin is here. Thank you for being patient. Where would you like me to be? Do you mind coming over and sitting next to Brie, actually, just so you can be on closer
to the speaker so Jerry can hear you? Excellent. I was gonna say there's a optic to everyone for the best location for both speaker and videos. Here's our tearless owl. The owl says He will find you.
Took me a moment. I was looking around the room for that owl, and I see many of them. I took me a minute to find this one. Presuming that we've got a screen share with PDFs. As far as this plan that I have, is that
They have they have it, but I can send it to her.
Okay. I've got eight and a half by elevens too if you don't have printouts in the bin. They've all received it. Okay. Thanks. I would love your I would love your pad if possible. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Alright. So for the record, my name is Kevin Grindle. I'm an associate with the firm of Barton and Judas in Glastonbury. Been I've been working with with Eric and town staff over the past couple years on pedestrian connectivity onto this campus, onto the primarily to the town hall, but effectively this campus as a whole. And the current focus is connecting the Percy Cook Trail, from this campus down to the Hop River Trail, and that is kind that's the focus of this conversation this evening. At this point, we are in a very preliminary phase, and the graphics here that I've provided you are really just for kind of a starting the conversation, start starting the kind of dialogue about the good, the bad, and and and opportunities here. So the overriding principle, the grant through the DEP rec trails program that the town received was to improve the existing Percy Crook Trail and make the connection down to the Hop River Trail in a in a safe and handicap accessible with Handicap accessible. Handicap accessible. That is what we're currently looking at.
Wow. Yes. So I I ride that trail. Yes. I horseback. Uh-huh. That's a ginormous undertaking to say Yes. It is. Small words. Will the horseback rider still be allowed?
So and those are that's the feedback is to say, you know, what are the trail users, and what are those opportunities? And wheelchairs. And that So Not now. Not now. So That was my initial dialogue, or that was our initial dialogue with Eric, is to say what would it take to get users off the Hop River Trail in a handicap accessible component? And that's, you know, effectively an 8% grade up. That's what we're currently looking at. It is a challenge. Steep trail. It is a very, very steep trail as it stands. So we're looking at feasible alignments coming from Hop River up to effectively the top of the mountain, and then from there coming onto this campus. Looking at that as kind of two separate projects at this point from kind of a design aspect. This campus to the top of the hill is fairly flat, fairly accessible, and fairly easy to achieve that that handicap accessibility. There is a kind of feasible and prudent alternative component here is to say that is the charge of the grant. But I will be the first to say that in the past, I've worked with these grants for twenty plus years. There are times that I've raised my hand and said this just because it's feasible, it's not a prudent opportunity
for us to try and achieve. I've not raised my hand on this on this project yet, and that's the reason we're here. That's the point to this to to this kind of preliminary or conceptual design phase is to say, can it be done? And then should it be done? As far as the handicap accessibility, the improved connection as a whole would be you know, that's kind of the secondary component here is Eric's original charge was making that connection better. And by better, again, the handicap accessibility component comes in when we start talking with with with the state and with DEP. Is that
is that, like, a a necessary required part in order to get the grant associated with it? Is that there has to be No. An accessibility component? It is not a requirement, but it is a nice to have. Okay. So
this the grant the town has received is a design grant. So the expectation is that we're providing the the best and most feasible design in that in that in that connection. And then from the next step, we then go back to the state and say, if we can't meet accessibility,
well, then what does that do for our scoring for construction grants in the future? Are you guys planning to try to tie it into the the trail that exists currently from the side of 316 Yes. That goes so because that's not on here. Right? I'm missing that. Nope. That is not. Because that part, you could make accessible fairly easily. Absolutely.
From the part from 316 up to the very top of the hill, that is a a fairly easy lift to make it accessible. Yeah. So and and that is also the dialogue. That's a conversation we've had with Eric and with others is to say, you know, there may be the charge to say that accessibility component is primarily getting getting occupants just out into the woods, and an out and back trail is not a bad thing to have. That out and back trail to the top of the hill and overlook to, you know, the Eastern Hills, that may be the best we have. And that also already has its own parking area. Yes. It does.
So that is that is part of this overall project. The the dialogue here or the the graphics here, it was Eric's hope to make the Trailhead be the town hall because it's providing an opportunity for Trailhead users to have accessibility to bathrooms and accessibility to services that the parking lot on 316 does not offer. And frankly, the majority of the Hop River Trail does not offer. So one of the charges here is to say to occupants of the Hop River or the users of the Hop River Trail that the town of Andover provides facilities that many other towns do not provide or do not offer. So that was the reason that Eric was primarily focused on the town hall being the trail head to this Percy Kirk connection.
So you said there right now, the only thing that's been funded is fully funded is the design grant. That is correct. So that's been fully funded. So anything from there moving on, you have to acquire additional grants for or pay out back. That is correct. Okay. The
rec trails program has historically worked in that fashion, that they like to see projects funded in the design aspect. Once the design is in some semifinal or final component, then the applicant would go back for additional monies for construction. So they like to see the design, kinda programmed out and agreed upon by the community. And then in some, like I said, semifinal final phase, so they can say, well, if we're putting construction dollars to the project, we can then kind of we can determine it is in fact constructible. The town has reviewed it, approved it, the design is in place, and the plans are ready to go. So then when they're design when they're funding on the on the construction end, it doesn't have to be shovel ready, but it's gotta be close. And that's not that that's not in writing, but that is kind of their preference over the past decade of how
they look at these grants. So it was very intentional on the town's behalf to go at this grant in this fashion, design first, construction dollars later. But the expectation is that this project would be funded through grant funds coming from the state. This would not be an out of pocket depending on the grant amount and grant, excuse me, depending on the avenue of that grant application, it would likely be an eighty twenty match. So 20% town, 80 state is the is the expectation at least to how this project would get funded for construction
in the future. Sorry. Can you say that one more time? What's the percentage? Eighty twenty. They would fund 80%? They would fund 80%. Okay. Yep.
Is there a design for additional bathrooms? No. Oh, so it would just be when town halls open? That's correct.
Yep. There was also the conversation had with Eric that the ebike program that is based at the town hall, there would be an opportunity to have this Percy Cook Trail connection at the same location that those e bikes would be loaned out of. So there would be some continuity there for trail users to be able to use the bikes that, you know, under town ownership. Trailhead parking would be right there at that at that bike loading location. Where the bike where would it be? Where the fire department is? Yes. Yep. So the fire department parking would be The parking trail. Side. Yep. Yep. The yep. The parking lot between Town hall and fire department, that was Eric's hope is that I believe the bike locker is on that back corner of the community center
by the community garden. By the garden. Yeah. Yep. So Can you explain? Because I don't quite understand the white lines that are on that. Those are not the existing
lines of where the property lines are. So what are those? Those white lines are the property lines taken off of the town's GIS software. So those aren't correct for the school property. And and that's I'm I'm making no no determination of correctness on that. Yeah. I am purely just overlaying town data onto our mapping. At this point, our understanding was it was all owned by the town, so there was no no additional ownership or easements that would need to be acquired for that this project to to move forward. Okay. But, again, if there if if there are clarifications necessary, once we're into a design development phase of this project, there would be additional or there would be, surveying efforts done primarily to pick up, you know, features like topography, stone walls, and so on. And as part of that, there would be determination of boundaries if in fact, primarily along the gas easement, because the gas company would require that of the town. Yep. But at this point, that's,
we're getting ahead of ourselves. That would be forthcoming, in in the in the design effort. The
other picture that you sent us, Kevin, can you just tell me roughly where would that be? Absolutely. So if you can go back to the first photo or the first first page,
on that right hand image, you see two heavy and forgive me. They're also gonna be white lines. There is a line there that says AA and one that says BB, and one running kind of plan north south and plan east west. Yep. Yeah. The line that says AA running north, south, if you go to the next page, you will see the top section called section AA and the bottom, bottom image called section BB. So those two cross sections,
correlate to the two lines shown on the plan. Oh, that's cool. Can you go back to the other one? Just I just wanna make sure I understand. So they those stone those tree Yeah. Barriers Yep. Would go this way
and this way? Yes. So if you look at section AA, the one running north south, if you then flip the page to where that section AA is shown, those trees are the existing deciduous vegetation. Those are the existing woods that you see on the on the aerial plan.
So that's a person standing on the far side of a Right. Towards the school. That is correct. So go back to the other one now.
So they're standing So they are They're standing opposite. Way, or they would be created this way? That so that would be and forgive me. I'm trying I'm being mindful the people on Zoom by trying not to point too much here. Okay. But on section a, where you see that person on the left of that image, that person is standing on that orange line. Around it. Yeah. Yeah. So They're looking at the spool. So they're looking So at the the tree line
goes this way or this way? The tree line goes along be created. So these trees are existing. No. That's right there. There. That's our woods right there. Yep. So the trees all the way up to here. No. With that picture. Look. No. Look at this one. And then Valerie But did you look at the other side? If you look at the picture we're gonna look here. I guess that's here. Gotcha. Yep. Got Yep. That's a soccer field, I assume. It That is direct. Right here. Yep. Okay. Yep. So If you look there, it says at the bottom start of soccer field is where it's at the end of that image. Yeah. Can't Sorry. I can't read that from you. So that so that's actually going from, like, here to, like, where the soccer field is. Yes. I think you can. Yeah. So what these images are
are are rendered to show is that from if there's a person on that trail in Section A, you've got about a 120 feet plus or minus of existing woods before you get to the cleared fields for this school, for the elementary school. And then we're also saying that you got from starter playground, you've got about 350 feet from the starter playground to where that trail would exist in the woods. Are you implying they can't see through the woods to see the kids? Is that what we're trying to get? That's what we're trying to get to. Okay. That's what we're trying to get to. Clear
for all of you out there. If people haven't been back there, I because because I do ride my horse as everyone knows he's been loose on the full grounds. Are existing trails there. You can ride on this trail currently. We think That's correct. We use them. Yep. So
kind of the the the in a nutshell here, the the goal of these of these images is to say that we've got about a 10 foot elevation change between the trail to the soccer field. So the trail's about 10 feet below the soccer field through about a 120 feet of woods. And then continue that onto the playground, you've got 350 feet of separation and about 27 to 30 feet of grade change. So I'm not trying to downplay the components. Obviously, I've heard a lot about safety and having a small child myself. I am well aware of the safety component here, and that is the reason that Eric and I had agreed that I wanted to be here on the very early conversation, to make sure that there was no there was nothing I was overlooking. I've been doing this a very long time, and I will still say that there are things I overlook. I have, some great examples of things I've overlooked and had to walk away and say, you know what? That's I'm gonna fix that because I missed it. I wanna make sure that that's not the case on on this project. So do you need anything from us as a board of ed? I want I want some gut check, and that doesn't have to come
tonight immediately. Yeah. But I would say in the next, you know, month or two as we start progressing this design, You know, frankly, if I could set a timeline by the next meeting to provide some, you know, either via meeting minutes or something, Val, if you can get to me. Yep. Just some dialogue and some concerns you have or some opportunities. I also don't wanna put blinders onto the fact that this, in my mind, is a real opportunity to get kids out in nature and in doing so in a more safe and inviting feeling rather than a single track trail through the woods that may have concerns as far as, you know, surface treatments and and so on for kids. I I look at this as a real opportunity, but I also wanna make sure that I'm not overlooking the concerns you have collectively as far as screening, you know, the soccer fields and screening playscapes and playgrounds and so on. Right now, the alignment that we're showing does not run along the edge of the tree line, does not run along the soccer field, if you will. It gets out and into the woods as quickly as possible
so that understanding if we're trying to welcome people who are using the Hop River Trail up to the town hall, we're also not encouraging them to come on to kind of the school collective property. And the signage, informational kiosks, and so on, that can be kinda that that's the granular detail that we can work into. You know, some opportunity where I understand there's, you know, there's a fine line between kind of signage or lack thereof. Sometimes you wanna promote the signage. Sometimes you wanna not promote signage. You don't wanna highlight, you know, you know, adjacent land uses too. So those are the things that I would like to hear from you. And,
again, if there's kind of some preliminary feedback this evening, great. But, again, Val, I can use you as a conduit to get that feedback to me. Can think about it, look through this. Yeah. Send it to me, and I certainly applaud them. I'll tell you my personal feedback, which has nothing to do with the board of edit. I would recommend there's a few people in our town that do use the trails for horseback riding currently. Yep. There is a a trail association for the state of Connecticut. Yep. And it's a multiuse trail system. So in terms of accessibility and making sure that that's still accessible, that that would be a major
there are a lot of people who would want that to still be accessible in multiple ways. I I would I would wholeheartedly agree with that. I've I've I was surprised by my interactions with the horse council in the past, primarily in the town of Portland when we were extending the airline trail. I had I had, no indication that or or no no hunch that the the Portland extension would be as as well used by horseback riders as it has become. Yes. So,
yeah, I'm And if you need contact or feedback for specific people in our town, I'm more than happy to get you in touch with them. Absolutely.
Absolutely. You know, the intention here is that at least a portion of this is a paved service, and that was something that Eric and I had had had talked back and forth about, understanding that the Hawk River Trail is not, But looking at this as more kind of accessibility to and around the campus, a portion of that becomes paved. And right now, what we're looking at doing is saying, there is an eight foot section of pavement. Well, is there a component there that's a stone dust or grass surface on the other on the side of it for Yes. My myself as a trail runner, I don't I I I run trails so that I'm not running on pavement. Right. Horseback, same component is I don't want this to be solely focused on a paved surface. Right. So I am mindful of that as well. But that level of feedback is what I would be hoping for. Also, if there's an opportunity as far as distance or preference or kind of the the buffering, Obviously, long term maintenance, I try and shy away from kind of fixed objects, be it fencing and so on. It's an attractive nuisance. It's expensive to maintain, expensive to fix. And if a tree falls in the fence, that's everybody notices that you have something broken on your trail. So I do shy away from those wherever at all possible. And that's the reason I'm looking at those sections saying, hey. Between elevation change and existing woods, I'd like to be able to use the existing kind of geographic and topographic features as that buffer that we're all looking to maintain, for the safety of the kids at the school.
Great. So with that, like I said, I'm happy to take kinda graciously accept any comment you have whenever you haven't. This is a long lead time project. I would not expect to have this completed in, you know, eighteen to twenty four month time frame is the is the is the ultimate goal. So, I would say in the next three to four months, we're still looking at kind of the very preliminary design phases as it goes. So we do have time on this. The grant that was received is a three year grant to to to extend all of the funding through that grant. So we're not up against timelines. We don't have any expectation of getting funding for this immediately. So we have time to think about this. We have time to plan it correctly
for for a success in the long term. So with that, I know you have plenty of other things on your. So
Thank you very much. You. So we'll we'll follow-up. For Yeah. Yeah. We'll discuss more, and then we can get feedback. Thank
you so much. Absolutely. And have a good rest of your meeting and rest of the evening. So thank you all for Thank you very much.
I'm not sure if there's Caitlin and the board. So there's, like, chat that happens, and I don't know if you want that chat open. No. You want me Not not It's from Jerry. Okay. So I sometimes I just didn't know the policy of because it's Nope. Because it would be like a public debate. Right. So I I just want to make sure that I was doing it right, but I get to see the notifications. But
Okay. So we're gonna move on to filling our board vacancy. We have bunch of people who submitted letters. I thought we'd let them all talk one at a time. I did just forward Jesse's letter to you guys. We had some technology issues. So if you want to read it, it is in your email now. But we'll let you talk as well. Yeah. So Great. Thanks.
So we'll go in order of submission, if that's okay with everyone. So, Haley, you're up first. Okay. Thank you. My name is Haley Proto.
I did a little blurb at the beginning because I didn't know if I would get time during the middle of the meeting to talk. I moved to Andover in 2017, and we specifically picked, ended up moving into an Andover house for this school system, for this school specifically. So, you know, I was commuting to still to New Haven until the last year, and so I haven't been very involved with the PTA or the school very much. But now that I'm working more locally, I've been trying to get more involved. So I did hear that, you know, there hadn't been many Paper. Applications.
And Jerry as somebody that wants to support the system.
So sorry. Wait. Make sure Jerry can see you. I'm so sorry. That. That is I'm sorry to interrupt. I just I can tell that Jerry can't see you. I'm so sorry. Is that better? That's perfect. Okay.
So as somebody that wants to always support the school system and support what's going on here, I and I try to regularly attend the meetings so I know what's going on as people tend to come into the community center and talk about whatever they're reading in whichever newspaper, and then I can speak in a more educated way about things. And so I threw my hat in the ring as an attempt to support and keep things running. So, I will be here regardless of whether I get voted into this position.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Jesse, do you mind coming up to that same seat there just so Jeremy can see you? There. You
said you were doing in the middle? No. We're gonna go in order. But that way that way he's there when it's his turn. Gotcha. Alright. Checking. Doris, you are up. Go give us, like, your little blur. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yep.
Hi, everyone. Thank you. I moved here in 2023, and this will be my third year sharing my interest, to become a member of this board. My dedication to the children and family representation is reflected in my current roles in the state and in the town as the Connecticut parent adviser for Bridging the Gap Advisory Group at Children's Medical, parent adviser on safety disparities steering committee in National Children's Hospitals and the project advisory committee member of for Family Voices, Family Solutions, Engagement, and Leadership Systems of Care. I'm also Guardian Medlytem as youth sponsor with Children in Place met and an adviser for the Unitarian Universalist Worldwide Youth Network. I mentioned earlier that I have I am your new, ambassador parent ambassador, but I also offer extensive experiences as founder and founding member and president of Newington CEPTA, elementary school, special education tutor, and k to eight religious teacher with a certified master's in education. My nonprofit leadership has included guiding various boards, meeting members' needs, and empowering community driven conversations that are strengths and solutions based. Oh, we lost you. And financial literacy
has equipped me to design accessible tools and resources for families regardless of demographics, age, and abilities. I'd also like to highlight that my dual strength in education and nonprofit leadership post, positions me to contribute more effectively, than before, to the board's mission combining academic experiences with practical community engagement that supports all of our learners. And across all these roles, my focus has remained clear as a parent to protect and promote what is in the best interest of all of our children, And I believe strongly in the strengthening of foundations via students and fostering community collaborative so that children benefit from nurturing connections that are rooted in our own backyards and at as AES at the heart.
I'd be honored to serve, and bring my experience and perspective within my commitment to your board. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Alyssa? Alicia Lee?
Hello, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes. You're good. Okay. Alright. My name is Alicia Lee. I thank everyone for their consideration. I was born and raised in Andover. I've lived here for forty one years. I attended the elementary school myself, and I currently have my my niece actually just started middle school, but I have my two nephews in the school. I want this position because I've always loved to be active in town. I served on the board of finance briefly years back, and I'm currently on the recreation commission as an alternate. I've always been active in town, volunteering at town events, whether it be senior events. I attend all the kids' sports and concerts. I take pride in the education that I received from Andover Elementary School. I have my associate degree in general studies from Manchester Community College, my bachelor's in nursing from St. Joseph College, and my master's in business management and public health from University of Hartford. I currently serve as a general manager managing partner. So I handle and manage budgets on a regular basis. And I also manage over 50 people. So I feel that I'm a great people person.
I take pride in Andover and the elementary school because of its excellence. And I encourage families as well as the school, I believe, to move to town. And I wanna support the school and the students. I've owned a home in Andover for over fifteen years. So I've been a taxpayer, and I've always taken pride in supporting whatever the school wants even though I don't have my own children because they're the future of our community and the future of Andover. And I'd rather support them over something that maybe the town doesn't necessarily need. And like I said, I've I don't know. That's pretty much it. If anyone has any questions for me. Sorry. I like to do a short and sweet, but I can answer any questions if needed.
Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And then Jesse Prasanth? Hi.
My name's Jesse Prasanth. I was born and raised on Pine Ridge in town. I went to this school a couple years ago. I spent forty two years at Pratt and Whitney. I'm currently retired. I got a bachelor's degree in business administration from Eastern, and I just like to help. I've been I volunteered a couple days up the Air Museum in Bradley. I like to volunteer. Like to help.
Thank you. So I just have one question for for all four of you. Are all are each of you either a Republican or unregistered, unaffiliated voter currently? Unaffiliated. Sorry. Sorry. That was gonna be my question. I don't know anybody's pretty affiliation. That matters, I guess. Right? It matters just because of the demographics of our board and what we're required to have. So They're all nodding.
Yes. Yes. We're all we're all yes on either one of those. So we both Okay. Thank you. K. Perfect. So I think we'll open it up to for discussion. Can we ask them questions?
Yeah. That's something I Yeah. I mean, I guess so. I would I would like to try to keep things kind of to a timetable because we have other things on on here still. And we don't have to make a decision tonight if we don't think that we're ready to. Okay. I do know that a few things have come up in terms of Doris subs at our school sometimes. Obviously, Haley works for the town. So in terms of conflict of interest, I know that has been something that's been on people's mind or how how we address that. It is ironically in our 9,000 series today. Doing tonight that I spent all day yesterday. Well, yeah. Well, thank god you're not doing it, ma'am, if you Oh, I'm I'm yeah. So That was a good deletion.
I'd like to ask Ms. Lee. She was, I was at the caucus, and, you reluctantly accepted the placeholder position. I'm just wondering why you chose to to
interview on a board now. Okay. No problem. I can answer that. So I I had taken the placeholder position because I wanted to give some thought into it because I wanted to make sure I could be fully committed. And I do make my own schedule every month so I can commit to the meetings, but I wanted to make sure that I would have time for it and not just commit to something I'm not gonna put my full energy into. And while it was decided on who they were gonna put in that position to run, I was out of the country country in Germany on vacation. So I was asked while I got back since I missed that Republican town committee meeting, I was asked to write a letter so someone because someone else had because someone was voted at the meeting already to take that position and run since I was out of the country and not able to attend to explain myself. Yeah. Thank you.
Okay. Kate, what happens if we don't vote tonight? You said that was an option. I didn't realize that was an option. I mean, it's kind of not really an option. If we don't If we We could not out tonight, and then the part of Selectmen can appoint someone. Okay. That's the option. So, like, we have Correct. Okay. You know, excuse me. Let's be really clear. We have thirty five days on December 1. So So we can have another tonight, but if we needed to have another special meeting Okay. Got it. There's two weeks of vacation in that time period. Yeah. But we Who had two weeks of vacation? Yeah. Well, I don't I'm actually Thank you very much. Sorry. Okay. We're gonna finish up tonight. We're gonna keep
keep going. We're we're gonna do it tonight. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. But we're gonna do it at the end of the meeting? No. We're gonna do it right now. I know. Okay. Does anyone have more discussion that they would like to have or any more questions for our candidates or any more questions in regards to
potential conflicts of interest? Can we can with current policy, can we actually hear it? Or Yes. So we did there there's two factors here. The reason why, you know, I I I did bring that up is $92.70 is a policy. It is a conflict of interest policy. We have utilized that on this board before. The last employee was Amy Knox, and I have permission to say her name. She was elected highly elected, as a matter of fact, to this board roughly seven and a half years ago, got the most votes, and then interviewed for a position as a paraprofessional. And that was more important to her, so she did take that job and stepped down from the board. And so that has been a policy of ours. And if you look at our policy and you look at the legal references, it goes back to a reference to state statute seven dash four seven nine. And that is one of the few, I guess you could say, policies where they don't separate because it's all municipal money. They don't separate at the very beginning of that title seven. It says, for the purposes of this section, municipality means any town, city, borough, school district, taxing district, fire district, district department of health, probate, and so on and so forth. And they go on and they talk about any money, contract, or compensation.
And so I do know at Monday night's meeting at the, board of selectmen, they are on their their side currently dealing with a situation with an employee over compensation issues there as it relates to potentially a person who is an elected official having a say or not in the salary of that particular employee. The other part of that conflict of interest, yes, it is a financial one. It's a comp a compensation matter. But the other part of that is the autonomy of your board. As you know, board of education is an autonomous board. It's a dually an agent, but it's an agent of the town and the state. And so as an agent of the town, there is no order where we fall under the leadership direction or control of the board of selectmen. And so what happens with it is that as actually, as Haley mentioned at the beginning, the the conflict of interest portion of it is if a person works for the town side, any position on the town side, their direct boss is the town administrator and the selectman. And so All the selectman. Right. All the selectman, but that's where they take their direction from. And so the conflict of interest then is whether or not they are able to then be on this board and not to take direction from them to tell this board what to do. And does the selectman and the town administrator then wind up having a say in the board? And remember, you guys have one employee, and that's me.
And so that also is a factor is whether or not then that person falling under the direction or people falling under the direction of the town administrator or the board of selectmen having them have a say in overseeing me. And so that's why these laws are in effect. Now Haley did mention at the beginning a great point. A lot of towns, that have overlooked it, they say, well, that person or people just won't vote. The reason why that's not generally recommended is because you then could have two or three months in a row where a number of the things that you are voting on, and we've had a lot of them in the past year, are things that would be contrary interests to the town. And if that happens and you have a meeting where you only have four people and that person can't vote, we no longer have a quorum to vote. And so it is very admirable that a person would say, I absolutely would abstain. But we know if that happens, then you don't have a full board or maybe even a quorum. And so that's why these are in effect. You know, we wouldn't have and I know this is a silly analogy, but we wouldn't have the town administrator on our board. So it it is just every position there on that side then has to be treated the same way. So it isn't personal. It's just they wouldn't they shouldn't do it on their side either. You know? If I was a resident of the town of Andover as an employee here, I shouldn't be on those boards because that would be a conflict of interest if I was the superintendent here and a town resident to be on those boards. So that is just, you know, the the the rules there. And that's our policy that references state statute? Correct. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Okay. So having said that,
would somebody such as
I think it's the town of Andover. Yeah. These these go by town, by municipality. Yeah. It would have nothing to do with another town. It has to do with this town. A board I can be on a board in Glastonbury. You know? I live in Glastonbury. I work in Andover. There is no there's not gonna be a reciprocity to somebody being in another town. No. Absolutely not. Well, I see Andover. It is an Andover thing, Marcy. I know where you're going with it. It's an Andover thing. But you you are you are No. It would it's I know where she's going with it. Well, it's a pretty Tell me where I'm going. Because it was brought up last time that is it a conflict of interest if somebody else works in another district that I either reside in or work in? No. That's not what the statute says. It says that municipality. Okay. Well,
I was, you know, at the Cave meeting last night yesterday, they talked about even being a parent is sometimes a conflict of interest because there's a lot of, nuances that maybe you guys have felt it, you know, other, you know, when you're talking with a teacher and the teacher's concerned about things that, you know, you may bring to the board.
Or I will say that I have not felt that as an issue. Other parents maybe might three people here currently that are parents. Yeah. And we've had more than that. So Right. And that's when he when they were talking about that, it was like, I can understand how some parents may have some difficulty,
perhaps, you know, disagreeing with the superintendent because maybe they might be concerned about getting their, you know, their kid being bullied. Or I'm not saying that you would do that, but, you know, there's there's there's those kinds of things. You know, I just went through a sexual harassment training, and it could be similar with bullying training Okay. When you have somebody over you. And I'm not saying that's I know. I just respectfully saying that that's a conflict of interest that could occur just having you know, being working for those people. I'm not saying it's a statute. I'm just saying it's it's Okay. Could be felt as accomplished. So, respectfully, can we address how does that pertain to the four people that are applying for this vacancy that we're trying to fill right now?
Well, I mean, I believe, Sharon, you work for your nurse. So we're not hiring we're not hiring No. We're not voting on her right now. Saying. Sure. Okay. Okay. So Oh, okay. So for the four And then four people right now Doris. So Haley, Alicia, Doris, and Jesse. Those are the four people that we're trying to decide who we want to appoint to this position right now as a board. Yes. In a minute, we're gonna take a roll call vote where everyone says who they want to vote for, and then we're gonna appoint a person. Okay. So Yeah. Is there anything more about conflict of interest or any other questions that people have that we need to further Did I see that Doris is a substitute teacher for the school? Yes. Yes. Her letter did say that something And did say if she were tested. Yeah. And she said if she were appointed in her letter that I forwarded to you guys that she would resign or step down from from doing that. Okay. She would be forced to. Anyone else? Nope. No. Sharon, Brain. Jerry, do you have any questions for anyone?
You're muted. Muted. Muted there. I have no questions, but I would just like to say it's not easy to ask people to volunteer for any town board, any town committee that or a small town. We don't have that many people Yeah. Choose from. People are busy working. People are busy raising children. People are busy paying for their homes, cleaning up their yards. I think it's admirable that we've got four people who are willing to give up their time and to serve the town of Andover. I it's important that people understand we appreciate them whether or not they get appointed. Everyone's everyone's a part of this town. Yep. And everyone wants to see the best for this town. I certainly do. And for that, I ask that the people volunteer are respectful of each other and for the board and the superintendent in general. That's all I have to say. Thank you for applying for this job.
Okay. Is is everyone ready then if we do a roll call? Vote is ready.
Would you like to start us off since you're unmuted?
Okay. I my vote were I would choose Alicia Lee. Okay. Brie? Alicia Lee.
Sharon. Alicia Lee. Mercy. I would choose Jesse Persson because we are overrepresented with parents. We need this board needs to be a representation of the town, and the town doesn't have enough of that sector of people. Okay. I vote for Alicia Lee.
And for that reason, I vote for Alicia Lee. Which one? She's not a parent. So she's a representative of a nonparent and doesn't have potential conflicts. And as much as I greatly appreciate Hailey and Doris, just Yes. No. I was no. I was gonna say for the potential conflicts and then Jesse for the what you just said, Marcy. I just I screwed Alicia.
Okay? Well, congratulations, Alicia. Congratulations, Alicia. And thank you to all four of you for for giving your time
to us tonight. We really appreciate it. And please stay in touch. Just gonna say I would ask too if you are really, really not able at all to volunteer. We would love to have any of you volunteer the way Doris has with being the parent ambassador. If there's any capacity that you would like to, please, by all means, let us know if there is room for that. If you enjoy bathroom renovation.
Solar panels. You've done well to come. Thank you very much. I just want I just wanted to say thank you, and I I look forward to working with you all. As to Alicia. Thank you so much. Okay. Is that train whistle? Oh.
I love it. I love it. So we're gonna move on to the solar project update, which hopefully should be a great Yep. That one's quick. There is no new update from last month. They're almost done. We have on Saturday, we have a shutdown gonna happen This Saturday. This Saturday. A shutdown gonna happen in the morning for a few hours. Thank you, Taylor. She's gonna come in and have her coffee here in the morning so she can let them in. The shutdown will have the panel put in so that after Saturday, they should be ready to move on to the final phase. So they that isn't the interconnection day? No. It is to make sure that the parts that they're putting in are working and that our
electrical panels. Like, shutdown, electric shutdown? Yes. Yeah. What The tech department knows that? Yeah. That's good. But Because we have a basketball game. Yeah. 01:30. Correct? Okay. No. Yeah. 01:15. Yeah. He's on it. Gonna go out and
excited. It's called glow in the dark. Yeah. It's called that you'll probably be out and running by that.
You know that originally, there was discussion about it being this past weekend during the holiday. They couldn't start at 10:30 then. So Oh, that was a nice time. Yeah. Should be done. It should be done. We've had basketball delays before. But Yeah. We yeah. Yeah. You're right. And then we have the bathroom project update, which so
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Two secs. So these things that you're reading when you go home, board member, just because it's been a month it's been a minute since we've done this with the 9 thousands. Yes, sir.
Yes? Can I have debunk starting? Yeah. Yeah. I know.
You're so funny. But I really I really in all seriousness, I may email you to ask if you would like to help us with the bathroom renovation project. Like, I'm not joking on that. Okay. So Somebody's got my cell phone. I have your email. Yes. You can. That's that's fine. Yeah. Terrific.
Thank you, Karen. I know that Marcy picked this up already, and the rest of you already have it. Darren View one. Thank you very much for your time. Right here, we did a CABE policy audit a while back. And they came in, and they went through our whole policy book. Right. And they created these charts that said in every section, the two hundreds, the five hundreds, the seven hundreds, the nine hundreds, Here are all the ones that are fine. Here are the ones that need a little tweaking, and here are missing ones. And so when they did that, then we have all of this nice paperwork that told us how to fix it, and it gave us direction. We've done the 2 thousands and the 9 thousands we are working on now. So what you have, Marci, pick that up today. Yes. Because I I heard you looked very beautiful today. Oh, thank you. So
these are the 9 thousands as they appear. This is that Okay. That checklist. This is just the 9 thousands Okay. Here on that checklist. And then the other one is the one with the changes that they've discussed so far. Okay? So that way you'll be all ready with your happy meeting or next. Who knows? And then
before we go to the bathroom project update, I realized I skipped over the dates for next year. Oh, right. Because this is a holiday. Right? Does that matter? What is a holiday? Is it is that what is that? Is Is that true?
Just double check it. I felt like I don't think so. Does not matter. It's not Oh, November 11 Veterans Day. Yep. Yeah. You're correct. Yes. Always Veterans Day.
Okay. Right. So let's go to November 11 and twenty sixth is a Wednesday. So would it be the eighteenth seven.
No. Twenty sixth, you're ready. Yeah. Right. Yes. It sucks. So you It's a Wednesday. It's a Wednesday. It's a Tuesday, but it Right. The tenth is That's what it is. Okay. So we it's always November 11. Oh, right. Yes. Yeah. You know why I'm having a Tuesday in my head? Okay. So we could do the following Wednesday, which is the eighteenth election? So
you have the choice then of going up or going down. I will say the problem might be that if you go down to the eighteenth instead of up to the fourth, we don't know if that'll interfere with then the weekends. That would give people Wednesday night that they would have the board of ed meeting and then the conference. Yep. And the following week is Thanksgiving. So, I mean,
we I would prefer to have extra time rather than less time.
Extra time when? To go to the eighteenth instead of moving it up to the fourth. Or could we could we move it to a different weeknight? Like, could we go to the seventeenth? Or Why? Wouldn't move it to a different weeknight.
Of other board even then. You know what I mean? Like, there used to a Wednesday. Yeah. That's far enough in advance.
So So you're suggesting the fourth? Well, that's only three weeks after our prior one that well, anyway. Yeah. That's why I said the eighteenth. But if you think It's up to you guys. Well, here's what I'm pointing out. So if we go on the fourteenth, because I'm looking at the calendar, then December everything has to be done by the twenty eighth to get it out to meet on the fourth, which is two weeks,
which seems pretty ridiculous. I think the opposite will be true for December. Right? No. But if you look at but if you look at December, December has five weeks. Right. So we could actually move the December meeting to the sixteenth also. And that way they're equally spaced, and it won't then it won't really matter when we get to Yeah. And January's the thirteenth. So that's very good point. Problem solved.
She doesn't like it. Her face then is probably not helpful. You already have vacation. No. No. I'm I'm literally just worried about other boards. We hate when they do that to us.
We hate when they plan stuff on nights that happen to be our board bed meetings when they have special meetings, and I don't know the town's schedule. Does Can I just throw you a crazy idea out there? Can we just have our meeting on the eleventh, or are we not able to do Holy crap. I don't have anything. Is there school that time? It's a Wednesday. There's no school. Oh. But, I mean, you have you have to show I should be at work.
I mean, that's that's probably the best idea because the one that I don't wanna infringe. To having it on that day that is still better than I'm working either way. As long as wanna I just don't know. Estonian works. Gotcha. Okay. That's fine. I think I could borrow the lights on. I'll have to do it. So that's the only thing I have to just So then Can't remember. Can we vote to approve this as I make a motion to approve the annual board of education meeting scheduled for 2026
as set forth in the document in our packet. Great. Anyone wanna second that? Second. Great.
All in favor. Aye. Aye. Thanks, Mary. Revising. K. And then we'll move on to the bathroom project update. So the update is basically after pressing us and O'Neil for comparables, not just, like, a quote from one person, from one group. They eventually got back and said that there are no other quotes. This is it it's they did it as a design and build with one vendor, and and that's what they're giving us. So our options are to proceed with that. And I think we have to vote as a board what we want to do. Do we wanna proceed with that without having any other estimates or quotes? Do we want to pull back from that and say thanks and then submit their plans and go through some type of more formal RFP process that we would probably direct through the school because it's not a town project? Or do we want to pause on the design and build and on our own get comparative pricing from a couple other places to see if the price they gave us is appropriate before we move forward. And then fourth option would be, do we want to abandon ship and say, here, town. Please fix our bathroom. You can have this.
Feel like option three made sense to me when we just went through it really quickly. Have we we've already given them money plus some of them? Yeah. So my understanding and know it was design and build when we were involved in all this stuff was that we basically were hiring them because none of us have expertise to act as our consultant. Right. They basically say, look. We're gonna go all through this for you Yeah. And give you our recommendation. And having paid them to do that, I don't know why we're not prepared to take their advice, but I understand that other people have had input and said, we should go out to RFP. We're required to go out to RFP. I don't think we're required to go out to RFP. So we're not required to.
I will say I personally am scared about just moving forward with here's here's the quote Yep. Okay. Without having anything to compare. Like, I as a business owner, like, I would never Yep. Do that. How are you gonna get the comparables? That's what I'm saying. If we go with choice three, door number three. I don't I I think we would have to go to RFP, I mean, quite frankly. And I don't and I don't know why we wouldn't. Like, I mean, I do you know, working in government contracts, like, there's usually a really good reason to go sole source. And just because we started with somebody is not a good reason. So they they told us, I think and, Bella, tell me if I'm wrong in paraphrasing this, that the reason to go sole source and why they picked this particular contractor, which is the Richards Group, is because it's a very small project, and they know that this contractor does a good job with
projects on this size. Scale. Scale. And gets them done in a timely fashion.
So remember, what they did instead of a traditional RFP is they sit around all of us in O'Neill people sit around like we are right now. And they say, okay, guys. Here's our project workup. It's Sanover Elementary School. This is what they need, blah blah blah. Of the 50 guys we have, 50 companies we have for plumbing, of the 50 companies that we use for general contractors, of the 50 electricians we use, let's brainstorm. Which one is appropriate for this project? Well, they want it done quicker. They want it done with, you know, small like, with a a a renovation. They are a school, so we're working at certain hours. We wanna make sure that the price point matches what we're gonna tell them at the beginning it's gonna cost. So the quicker you get it done, the less likely it is the price is gonna keep going up. And they've done other projects here. As a matter of fact, one of the ones they recommended was
Crest, who knows this building inside and out because they serviced us for years. So they sit around and they make that, you know, recommendation, and that's where that's what that build design is. And so they come back and say, good news about the 50 guys we have for this. This the Richard's group's the one we recommend for this project. Of the 50 plumbers, we spoke with Richard's group. We did this, and we said this would be the plumber that we recommend. So, you know, that is the advantage to doing, that, build design on a smaller project such as this, all of those factors. So they do that work for you. Because if we go to an RFP process we say we wanna do the build bid design, we take those RFPs here, as Kate said, here, not on the town side, and then we open them and look at them, and what are we looking at? They're still gonna need some guidance and advice to say, is this a good price? What is it that they're doing? What's the difference between this one and that one? So, like, I I have an email from Bill DeRoziers from the board of finance where he said it very eloquently. I wish I had it in front of me where he said, yes. These are new. Not a lot of people do these, you know, build designs,
but they're perfect for environments where you don't have full, you know, facilities and operations, where you don't have licensed staff either at the school or even at the town where you don't have licensed electricians and plumbers and all of those expertise. Kind of the same reason why the town was talking about should they hire a firm to hire the new town administrator? Because they were like, we've never done this before, like or once or twice. Maybe we need some help on this. So small towns do do this probably increasingly. We had a conversation about Litchfield where Jody is from and how this is something now that they are looking at for that purpose. Because ultimately, they have the expertise, and we chose the method three. So at the beginning. So so that is where it isn't a traditional RFP,
but, yes, they've done that legwork for us. And so that is where we are with that. How do we know that there's nothing
no. How do we know that there's no conflict of interest there or that there's no We don't. So I can so I can tell you I'll read a portion of an email that is from Jeff Murray because he looked at the plan and and what was given back to us with the Richards Group. And and and there's some differences of opinion. Right? Like, he would want the RFP process to go through the town, which it very clearly does not need to. But doing an RFP process eliminates accusations from the public and contractors with bid rigging and big steering, which can happen with a no bid sole source contract. It keeps the process open, fair, and transparent, and gets the town and the board of Ed competitive bids with the best price and value for the whole project. The negative to doing that is that it is going to take significantly more time than where we are currently. And is your sole goal
do we want the cheapest, or do we want the most appropriate? So that's the other thing. And, you know, I understand perception. The person who oversaw the project when they built the community senior center was Eric Sanderson, and he's a he's a town resident. So I I do understand that people said they went out to RFP and wound up with a town resident. So there's a possibility that somebody said something about that too. Like, wait. Was that a real RFP front? So there's always gonna be that opinion. I feel like, ultimately, we made the decision, you know, a while ago to find a person, a company that that, you know, we worked with before on other things that have worked with these projects to see this through with us that has the expertise. And we looked at all three of those, and they had the most expertise. So, ultimately, it's the board's decision. I hope Jerry can hear us well, but that is the difference. It is, you know, a a build design. And then we still do need to have, as Kate alluded to with Jesse, we do still need to have a school committee that kind of follows this through. Mhmm. We don't hand everything to them and say, just call us when it's finished. Nope. There's still meetings with them to go over. Kate and I had meetings with them. Jeff Laurie was on one of those meetings. We had two only two, where they, you know, will give us options as you go through. Flooring options, for example, Kate was able to say, have this in my office, you know, at the veterinarian office, and, yes, this is one of the things we like. So we are still looking to have that committee of people with expertise,
in certain things. Like I said, Kate knew, how to do, the the flooring from her own experience. I'm sure Marcy's gonna have, you mentioned last time, some experience in in such matters. Jeff Murray was helpful with us in looking at, the toilets and trying to you know, they gave you four or five options, and Jeff gave us a few. Our custodian here said, you know, yeah. No. We want this kind of toilet with a seven year old. Well, not gonna give us that many options. They will. They'll they'll they'll let us choose, like
like, different options, but not pricing. Again, you know, the pricing is the only criteria
that you guys have, that's a different story. Robert has his hand up again. I don't know if that's a thing that you want to. I've been trying to talk to.
I agree with these two that we should go we should do go with the RFP process. You know? I have experience in contracting. It's not just one simple thing. So any
so I just think that, you know, we should fill with the RFP process. So who's going to facilitate? If we pick going with the RFP process, process, who is going to facilitate that process?
Number one, who's gonna decide once we get some bids? How are we gonna make a decision on
the bids? Every other bid process, just so you know, historically went to the business office and the superintendent's office for the past twenty years. Yep. And then how did you pick? You picked the lowest price? Like They did not. And don't forget. You don't wanna hurry up and and choose somebody and then because that that doesn't save you time. When you hurry up and choose somebody, it does not save you time. That often very does make it longer, and you have a lot of changes and things happen to cost for it to cost more. You take it's you know, the ounce of prevention. What is it the saying? The ounce of a pound of. Can't remember the the the saying, but, you know, you take a lot of time to make the planning. And then once you do all the planning and everything is all set, then the whole construction phase goes really quickly. I do a lot of contracting, so I'm telling you that you spend I spend a lot of time looking at every, you know, possibility,
every aspect of the job. And, you know, even our customers think, wow. It's taking so long to on what we're gonna do and how we're gonna do it and how much it's gonna cost. But once we sign on that dotted line, then everything's all figured out. There's no more, you know, wondering, you know, what are we gonna do with it? It's just boom boom boom, fell asleep. So just to be clear, like, that that is what we have submitted back from with
the Richards group is a complete here is your package. Think I their estimate was 380,000 if I'm remembering correctly. And our original ballpark was, like, 3 to 400,000
is what we thought the project was going to cost, like, back before we even And now with everything that you're talking about time, I'm looking at tariffs. I'm looking at the economy, and we've already spent almost a year Okay. Dealing with this. I didn't realize. So you they're one of three that you
chose, and you've worked with them before. Yes. Yes. Okay. I didn't No. No. Yes. On other things. The company we have, they have done our Ahora asbestos.
But we didn't look at three we didn't look at three bids. We looked at three consultants. Right. Right. Right. Consultants. Right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Robert, as the head of the board of finance, I know you've had your hand up for a while. Is there something you wanted to say?
If you're willing to let me say it. I know it's not part of your meeting, and I'm not part of your board. I was just gonna throw out there a question that I had vis a vis your options. If you were to bid this out but still wanted Fuss and O'Neil to kinda shepherd the process,
would that cost you more money? Would they want you know, what would that cost you to do that? So that that was built into our original contract with them was for them to oversee Guidance. The construction and guidance through the construction process, like, through to completion.
So that shouldn't cost additional money. Like Do that original, like, 47,000 or whatever that we've paid them would encompass that? Yes.
But I I would So, I mean, I just you know, my own personal opinion, and I'll shut up now, is that that seems like a a good way to go. But, you know, just to allay people's concerns, I don't think you guys have been acting irresponsibly or anything. I just think that there are people who are just looking at this from the perspective of what's the process and what would we do on the town side. You know? I think we have a purchasing policy where it's something like, you know, a project's more than, off the top of my head, $20,000, we have to bid it out. And so, you know, you're talking about almost 400,000 project. So that, I think, is where the friction's coming from. And if Fasson O'Neil could help you because I completely agree with your kind of almost board level humility on this. I and I'm the same way in that I don't have the expertise to sit there and look at this proposal
and tell you if it's right or wrong. Good good lord. I'm an insurance claims handler. So I get it. So that that makes total sense to me. You need expertise. You need to bring these people in to tell you whether this or that bid. It's not about the lowest bid. It's about the right bid. It's about the people I've seen projects where people went with the lowest bid, and it's a disaster because it's the wrong choice. So that's my that's my 2¢. I'm done. Thanks, guys. I appreciate you letting me break in there. I know it wasn't my turn. Have a good Thank you. Jerry, did you have anything to add?
Well, I'm gonna
Jerry, I want you to hit the button. It should just pop up. I asked you to unmute. I think there's a button that should Yeah.
There you go. Yeah. You got me. I said, I I don't have the expertise either. And that's why we agreed to hire a company that knows what they're doing that we have faith in and trust in. We we can't micromanage everything nor should we. I think that Robert makes good good point. I think Shannon makes a good and I agree with the superintendent. This project is being put off, put off, put off. I'd like to see it move forward and be finished. It's been a long time. And, Caitlin, thank you for calling on me. I appreciate your listening. Thank you, folks.
Yeah. Well, we have we have multiple options. Right? So we can option one, again, we can proceed with the Richards group, which is what was recommended by and vote tonight and say, yes. Let's move forward. That's what we want to do. Option two, we can pull back and say, no. We'd like to do a formal RFP process with review through the school. Right? And then option three would be we could say, wait just a minute for us and see if we could get comparables from two other places, not as a formal RFP process to know that the estimated cost that we got from the Richards Group is an appropriate ballpark figure and not like, it's a $200,000 project, and they're charging us 380,000.
I think it's gonna be a hard ask in the townspeople to not get other bids.
It's a it's a big it's a huge project. Yeah. So is there any other discussion on that? I just I just wanted to go to Make a motion. Like, those are the three options. So There would be a motion on each one. Another quick question. You said you estimated it was gonna be $400,000. Right? With that $304,100,000. Okay. And that's the number they came back with what you want to get back to? Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Yes. Okay. So would someone like to make a motion for one of those options? I make a motion that we go with Fuss and O'Neil's recommendation and go with Richard's group.
Right. Would anyone like to second that? I would like to second. I think I would like to second. It's taking me a minute to Any more discussion on that motion before we vote? Jared, can you hear us okay? Yes. I can. Thank you. Okay. He's good now. Are you good on wanting to vote on the motion to move forward with what was presented by Foss and O'Neill, which is to move forward with the Richards Group? I would like to vote yes, please.
Okay. All in favor of that? K. Jerry, Shannon, Sharon. Yes. Great. So we're gonna be three three, but I'm gonna vote against it. Okay. It left either of you as abstaining. I'm not abstaining against it. K. Okay. Would we like to put any more options forward? I would like to put option Doesn't matter the number. It's okay. I would like to put put it out for our For, like, a formal RFP process? Yep. Okay. Would anyone like to second that motion? I'll second that. Okay. Okay. All in favor? Okay. Two. All opposed. That's opposed. Sorry. K. We'll think about option three.
Okay. Okay. That two of the three. Do we wanna go through the third one? The third one. Try the third. Let's try the third. Move forward somehow. So with the town?
No. We would stall things. That was that was number four. Like, crazy. Stall things for now and then get additional quotes. Jeez.
Why wouldn't we have the talent? I mean, wouldn't it take it that pressure off of us?
No. We're the board that decides this, Marcy. It's our Friday. Well, she had mentioned it. I I'm just Yeah. No. I'm just I'm not saying that I are you saying questioning. You know? Why
do we, like because we've always we've done it that it's our
It's our routing. It's our skill. We're responsible for it. Okay.
Alright. Fair enough. And we've always done it this way. And you know what? I don't like to do things. I don't I don't like that either, but there's no, like, facilities department in our town that would have any more expertise than we would have. And I think we should do it ourselves. Well, they did it the battle of the community.
Beg to differ. So Okay. Okay. Let's move on because we're off topic. So we're on to option three right now, which to review was to make a pause on This is your motion. To make a motion. I'm making a motion that we pause on what we're doing with Fuss and O'Neil and say, great. Thanks for this estimate from the Richards group. Try and get two other comparables by showing those plans to a couple of other companies just to make sure that it
is in the ballpark of where it should be before we move forward. Just to clarify so I understand your motion. You're asking Fuss and O'Neil to get other No. They've already said they will not do that. Got it. Thank you. So we That that's what I heard. We need to do that. So to get to other con Yeah. We're going to do it. K. Does anyone wanna second that? I'll second. Okay.
Kinda confused by that. Let me explain that again. I'm sorry.
So instead of going through a formal RFP process where we're putting it open out to bid for anyone and their brother to submit bids, and we might get some and we might get none, I'm saying, like, let's go to two or three other let's say two so that we have three things total, contractors and say, here are plans. What would like, is this a project that you would do, and what is the estimate for what you think it would cost? Okay. Alright. So you're looking for two other general contractors? I guess so. Yeah. Two other bids. Mhmm.
As opposed to us doing all the bids. Because there's a general contractor that does all the Yes. That's what Buss and O'Neil was Yeah. Buss and O'Neil would would leave. Yes. Yeah.
Can you call the question? Can we make a motion? Yeah. I made the motion. It's three seconds and it's I call the question. Okay. Yep. So All in favor? Aye. Aye. I can go with that. Okay. Compromise to get it done. Jerry, yes, no. Are you a yay or a nay? Thumbs up. Thumbs down, Jer.
I know. We can't hear you, Jerry. I'm so sorry. But can you You're muted, Jerry. A thumbs up or a thumbs down? I think she'll just say she said yes. Gary, thumbs up. Thumbs down. There. Now now you can talk. Yes. What what what is the exact vote? Or the question. The question. The
question is to make a motion to go get two comparables from two other general contractors for the entirety of the project. I I think that is not doing that.
I I think we're involved to the extent we need to be, so I would vote no. Okay.
So Five one zero. Five one zero. Yeah. K. Okay. K. So that motion passes.
So our plan right now Is for you to get two comparables. Yes. Yep. I can help you with. Yeah. Absolutely.
Okay. So so our hope would be that we can get that and move forward. Yes, ma'am. And that we have some footing to stand on when people are like, why are we paying $380,000 for this project? Yes. Okay. Okay.
That's a question. If a company comes back with a lower quote, then are you potentially going to use that
company? It depends. I think we would have to discuss that further. Yeah. Okay. Just wanted to know, but they need to know that. Would also want Fuss and O'Neil's advice just to have them look at the bid. Yes. It's okay. Yep. Yes. Okay. I think we're up to comments from the public on agenda items. Do we have any public remaining? Yes. Robert.
Thanks. I've I think I've said everything I had to say. Thank you all for the consideration you put in with regards to the bathroom project. I appreciate that you guys went the route that you went. I can take that back to my board, you know, report back so that everybody's, you know, in the loop and understands what's going on. I really appreciate it, and I hope you guys get a couple of good competitive bids. And I think as everybody discussed earlier, you know, it's not about getting the cheapest bid per se. It's about getting the right one. So best of luck on that, and I'll be following along. Thanks. Thank you. Scott's all yet?
Yeah. I just wanna say thank you to Hailey and Jesse and Doris, and congratulations to Alicia. And I think she'll be great. Thank you. Jenny Morell?
Hi there. I just wanted to say welcome to all the new people. There's a lot of changes with people on the board. There's a lot of changes from our state with SEL and climate, and I'm looking forward to having things move forward positively. So welcome to the new people. Thank you. Terry Smith. I'm all set. Thank you. Yeah. Liz Lottek. Liz? Yeah.
Sorry. Was trying to I was trying to unmute. No. I'm I'm all set. Thank you, and appreciate the route you're taking on the bathroom project so we can all just feel good about the final quote. Thanks all. Yeah. Kim, Harsan? I'm all set. Thank you.
K. Elise, Elise. Can you hear me? Yep. We can.
Sorry about that. Can you say that again? It was breaking up. You wanna say anything more. If you had any public comments. Oh, no. I just I just wanna thank everyone. I'm I'm really excited. Thank you. Have a great night. You too. You too. Jenna Goldrick.
Oh, Jenna Goldrick. Yeah. Just wanted to say real quick, thank you to Val and Taylor and just the commitment they have to mental health and our school climate. We appreciate all that they do for us and and ensuring that our students are in their best. Thank you. Haley? Yeah.
Thank you for all you do. Congratulations, Elise Alicia. And, I just wanna assure people that no matter what you choose to do with this bathroom, people will have opinions about it for years to come.
Decades. I think you've made the right choice because I hear you're so senior son. Yeah.
You know? No matter what Keep doing what you're doing. I think we're gonna gold plate it and create a shine. Yeah. Do the bathroom.
Alright. I'm glad. Okay. Who would like to No. Other action items. Do we have any other action items? No. No? Okay. Great. We'll see you adjourn. That's it. Okay. All in favor. All in favor. Alright. Bye. Do you.