Even the directors find that.
I can't find Mr. Anderson.
In case of America, the Institute of Republic for which it stands, one nation, another God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
If we could just stay standing and give a moment of silence for Jack Allen, who was a fifth grader at Gallup Close who recently passed away.
Thank you.
Mr. Brunner.
Here.
Ms. Calhoun.
Here.
Mr. Palmer.
Here.
Mr. Fabry.
Here.
Mr. Guerrera.
Here.
Ms. Hedges.
Mr. James.
Here.
Perfect.
Thank you.
And before we dive into the agenda, I'm going to make a motion to make two modifications to our agenda this evening.
One is under information items for the student leadership board.
We'll move that up to follow right after town council liaison comments.
And then the second item is under new business to add another item I for discussion of possible action regarding the demographic placement for Board of Education position.
Second by Mr. James.
Any discussion?
All those in favor?
All those opposed?
Motion passes.
All right.
So we will open it up to any requested citizens.
Always get nervous when we have a big showing that we're going to be busy.
All right.
Perfect.
And then I see that our town council liaison is not here.
So we will jump right into the Kate student leadership presentation.
And I'll invite Mr. Doyle to come up to do the first presentation and for the benefit of the group,
we're here through our membership with Kate of the Connecticut Association Board of Education.
They reach out to the Board of Education and the administration to look for nominations for student leadership awards.
And we are very excited to present several tonight for a student recognition for a living public school.
So Mr. Doyle.
Thank you.
I'm David Dole, Director of School Counseling at High School.
And I'd like to introduce our first recipient, Eric Danick.
And who says Michelle Napp will come up and say a few words about it.
Hi, everyone.
I'm Eric Danick, Central Professor and I'm the School Counselor.
I work as an intelligence and this is the other one.
He is a high-powered student where he excelled in all of the classes.
He was a student from the top math side of students in the first class.
He is a self-motivator who passed the 6th class.
He has achieved the outer world.
And he has been recognized as an academic excellence.
They are on his sophomore and junior years.
Last year, he was the recipient of the Adelaide Point Booker Rule.
He worked with a dedicated athlete in Fenton.
He had run a faculty lover and the respect from the teammates had come to be selected
as the perfect platform since his sophomore year.
Since his freshman year, he has been an active member of our National Ocean Science Board.
The Husband, Student, and Connecticut Resolalom compete against each other in topics
relating to oceanography and marine life.
He was selected a co-club in a team where they have been in the nationals two times.
In his first run in a mountaineering sciences, he had completed several of our project-readable courses.
In his sophomore year, he successfully completed our Conturic Science Principal course,
and he thoroughly ensured the programming aspect of the class.
Through the course, he has developed his own video building
co-bounded and created a first Leicester School East School School.
Our first school is bound here to the community,
helping in a good country and for our logic field.
The other class has excellent analytical skills and the ability to solve complex problems
which fit perfectly with the first secondary oscillations in the computer technology field
with amazing arm and computer assignments.
I'm going to tell you where he's going to go in the fall.
By the fall, I am planning to attend Whatworth Institute of Technology in Boston.
Now, welcome to Dr. Wilson.
Thank you.
Okay, our next recipient is Madeleine Lavanto.
It has been both my pleasure and good fortune to have been Madeleine Lavanto's concert for the past four years.
She is a thoughtful, honest, dependable, responsible, mature young woman,
and balances all of her commitments with great support and support.
She has a stand-up in several arenas, as evidenced by her many accolades.
She is a FOIA member and current president of a local chapter of the FFA.
She has heavily involved the Special Olympics,
where she has volunteered in the swim, soccer, talent show, and spirit squad programs.
She has been inducted into our National Honor Society during her junior year
for the testament to her hard work and compassion for others
and dedication to her studies and high moral character.
She has a genuine love for animals and passion for rustback riding and training.
She is pleasant, personable, responsible, and accountable.
All qualities of a strong leader.
She was recently one of three seniors chosen to address our DAS visiting committee
during the opening panel presentation, and she did all of the projects she always does.
Madeleine did not disappoint.
She approached her speech with a quiet confidence,
and she remained calm and depressed when delivering her speech with such a great voice.
Her leadership abilities demonstrate she will be a positive and active member of the Yukon College community.
I had the utmost confidence that Madeleine would be successful in anything she chooses.
I'll try to pursue in the future. I wish her the best of luck.
This is what happens when you don't pay attention to the agenda.
So next up we'll call Mr. Fomari up for a presentation for Ledger Middle School.
Mr. Fomari.
Thank you very much.
Ms. Okatsuki, the school counselor, says her pressure is on her to be here.
She deserves her son a little bit, but she obviously is very, very happy
of endorsing these two candidates for this particular award.
So I'd like to first call if our firsts are going to win.
Layla Montgomery, please.
Layla Montgomery is one of our 2019 elements recipients of the KBSU Leadership Award,
and there is not a finer and more worthy student.
As this high honor should require, Layla is a leader by example
who holds herself to a higher standard than is possible by anyone else.
She's the type of student who serves at a bright spot in every teacher's day
and who can inspire the belief by any teacher fortunate enough to have her
that no matter how challenging a day may be, at least a chunk of it will be spent with Layla.
She commands respect from all.
Her peers genuinely like her by simply being herself day in and day out.
She says an example worthy of our own.
Whether it is in our diligent pursuit of high achievement
or in the genuine kindness she demonstrates towards literally every single human being
she crosses paths with throughout her days.
Layla is a quiet leader.
She knows what she likes and is committed to being the best version of herself always.
Throughout her brief two years at LMS,
Layla has taken advantage of numerous opportunities available to her.
She has also taken initiative to create others for the benefit of men.
She is and has been a regular fixture on her highest honors list,
earning all A's in every class for every marking period to date.
She is an avid and remarkably skilled author with multiple publications
and the Connecticut student writers magazine
and most recently her own publication for her poem,
Writers Right in the 31st edition.
She initiated a Writers Club, which met weekly
and ultimately benefited many of our budding writers as well.
Layla has a demonstrated interest in her science class
and seeks out opportunities to lead.
That's my spot.
And she does so because of her sincerity in helping her peers.
Her science teacher, Ms. Ford, shared with me that she has offered
to create and facilitate a jack-o-lantern with the whole class
as a way to not only make learning fun,
but also help prepare for tests.
Such an example is just one small way Layla separates herself from the rest.
In addition to academics,
Layla is a distinguished saxophonist in our LMS band
and recently was selected to perform at the Eastern Regional Music Festival.
Only one of a few honors on her.
She is a member of our band's band and has already been chosen
to participate in Jazz Band at Ledger High School.
There are a number of candidates for a session award,
as the Cate Sunilich Award, non-inspired with a real Montgomery,
who stands out for all the aforementioned reasons.
But beyond these, she does so to smile and her face
every single day and LMS is a better place
because of their work out.
Our second recipient of the Cate Sunilich Award for LMS is
Matt Scarborough, which will be shown.
Matt Scarborough is also a 2019 LMS recipient of the Cate Sunilich Award
and he too is an outstanding selection.
He has matured beyond his years
and has the ability to demonstrate his learning
in a way that is quite impressive.
Matt is an old soul who demonstrates the value of firm handshake
and looking someone in the eye on his feet
and what he's spoken to.
His perceptions of what is right
are manifested in the manner in which he treats people
which serve as a model amongst his peers.
The standard to which a particularly unified peer
is held quite literally is for the boy to ask himself
would Matt Scarborough think this is cool?
To say that Matt has impacted his peers
an understanding of the cities
like our first recipient, Matt, is quite the humble person.
His daily approach is business-like
and manages his responsibilities
and mannered, that's such an example where they're following.
He is a high achiever who works hard
and has consistently made the honorable
every market and period of his time at LMS.
His quite a confident approach
was early apparent and it was early on this year
that Mr. Rall recruited him to be part of our leadership program
and nationally recognized unified program
serving as a mentor to some of our impacted population.
To illustrate the type of leader Matt is
I'll use an example of his particular participation
recently in unified basketball game
with Mr. Glow School which Matt tweeted about post game
and emphasized the successes of other participants.
He's that kind of kid.
He gets what such a program as unified program is all about
which suggests a level of maturity
unlike the preponderance in those of course.
When selecting a topic for an essay in his LA class
the essay grade was elected on his own
to write an essay entitled
How World War II Changed Women's Lives Forever
which in our itself was impressive
but was even more so in a manner
that he was able to express himself about this very worthy topic.
The pride of which he approaches his work
is further demonstrated in digital literacy
where his portfolio serves as an example for others to emulate.
In addition to his consistent dedication and classroom
Matt was a member of our LMS basketball team
where he set the tone amongst his squad
for hard work and commitment team.
What Matt lacks in full speed
and hard work.
He's the kind of player who raises the stand for all
the moment he steps into the gym.
Similar to Layla, Matt has the capacity
to make our school a better place
and there's no doubt that he's done just that
as a result of his demonstrated leadership.
Congratulations to Matt.
APPLAUSE
On behalf of the board
our sincerest congratulations.
Well deserved.
Clearly for board members
each of you as recipients are examples
of why we do what we do
and more importantly prime examples
of why they're public schools.
So congratulations each of you again
and I know because you have parents here
if the recipients can come up for pictures
with their awards
and then we'll do another quick picture with the board.
So come on up.
Turn around very fast.
Get out of the way.
LAUGHTER
Get out of the way.
OK, and if the board could
try this up here.
Get it out of the way.
LAUGHTER
You are going to be in front.
OK, board with me.
Get out of the way.
LAUGHTER
So we move the agenda to give you the prime opportunity to exit Stage 1 if you didn't want to say for the
first time. All right, so we'll move on to our normal business of next up report from superintendent
school, Ms. Ireland. So first, I'd be remiss if I didn't just, again, acknowledge and thank
and really just express my deep appreciation to the Gallup community and all of Legend
Public Schools and our families in this community on the response to a fifth-grader
passing, which is unbelievably difficult, the compassion on behalf of the adults and their
peers. I spent the day in that school seeing exactly what it seemed to be a kernel as our
students comfort each other and our staff comfort each other as just really a special demonstration
of how the community comes together when it experiences a tragedy. And I just, again,
want to thank Dr. Austin and the entire team at Gallup for really surrounding all of our children
at the school would love, particularly during that time. On a much higher note, today I attended
the sensory graduation, the three members of the class of 2019 at Electric High School who
we had an alternate graduation ceremony because they needed a setting in which
they could be themselves and be able to participate in a graduation without being overstimulated.
It was probably the most special graduation I've gone part of. Ms. Webb was there.
But it was really special. I want to thank Ms. Short in particular who leads our program
at Ledger High School for those students and really her efforts in making this a special
day for them. We had two of our kernels that are in Ledger High School on a daily basis and
one student who has been at a specialized placement for many years most of her school
experience. So it was nice to have her come back home and be able to experience that day. So again,
it was special and I was really happy to be part of that on behalf of the Board of Education
and Ledger Public Schools. I also have the privilege of introducing Rachel Moder, our Director
of Finance and Human Capital. Welcome Rachel. Rachel's been working with us two days a week for
the last few weeks and I really enjoy having her. And we also have Wayne Donaldson who's our
Director of Building and Grounds who is joining us as well. Both great additions to the team.
For the Board, the State Legislature has been busy and so has every Superintendent in the
State trying to track all the myriad of changes that are coming out. We think we
are finally down to a budget. In that budget, 251,000 more in education cost sharing to the
Town of Ledger. Of course we project revenue but we don't control that revenue and so the
Town will receive 251,000 more in ECS funding. There is additional agri-science funding and
I'll be working with the Town Council and the Board to secure and our team in the agri-science
department to determine how we will spend those additional funds. It also looks as if the
Maggot School Bus Grant is included in this budget. I know that's a big concern of the
Finance Committee and the Board. We plan on that grant to fund the transportation of
students out of district and it's a critical element of that plan and that was funded.
The Town budgeted on their side of the budget, 138,000 for teachers' retirement benefits
that the Governor was talking about transferring. That did not come to fruition and so that
is another favorable position. The Town also received about $500,000 in additional funding
related to the PQAC fund. Overall, the budget process was very good to Ledger and so I
just wanted to bring that to all of your attention. We met with the food service
provider and we will not be increasing our rates for our lunch services for next year.
The only change is we're going to have with the new facility at Ledger Middle School is we're going
to have the premium food products at Ledger Middle School very similar to what we have at the high
school so they can have a standard meal or they can get a premium meal. I would just note that
regardless of the standard or the premium meal, if you're a pre-reduced lunch student you get
that for either free or $0.44. The next work we have, I'm just previewing it for the board,
is to address the school lunch program at Julia Long and our Gales Fairview School.
So we'll be putting together a plan to bring that to the board education
later this summer so that we can execute on it next summer. So I'm excited about that.
We'll be able to fund that with our food service account.
Redistricting letters were sent to all parents of children reassigned to Gales Fairview School.
They got a specific letter and we got an open house. About 40 of our little ones showed up to
meet and tour Gales Fairview School and Julia Long and it was really neat. I know the parents
were very nervous. The kids were very nervous and the second they walked through the door
they were tons of smiles. They were running around with their friends and you know all the stress was
relieved and it was a really nice special night. We had teachers there, the PTO had cookies and
punch and all that. It was a really great day. Gallup Hill School has been running
penpal events which have been very successful and the feedback I've received from the teachers.
They're chilling from LCS walking and they see the bark and they see the upper symbolism
that they recognize from their school and there's an instant connection. It's really been
a positive transitional experience. LCS also had a very successful reunion day on May 18th
with about 200 people attending day-long activities celebrating the history of Ledgerd Center School.
And then the other topic that we're working on is Mayor Allen, myself, Shelly and Jackie Flake
has met to talk about the Imperial Memorials on grounds of Ledgerd Center School.
Came up with a plan to move some plantings and then also
coordinating with the Department of Public Works to move some of those memorials over to the Gallup Hill
campus and so we'll be working with Ms. Flake as we'll be going over there and scouting out
some spots working with Dr. Austin and myself to find an appropriate place to put those
memorials to our students and some of our faculty. You should have received the
district update so we sent a pretty comprehensive district update including dates and different
events going on in the district to our parents. If there are any questions about that we can
go into that. We had our first Board of Ed and Town employee benefit fair yesterday
here in the library where we brought all the vendors for our benefit programs.
We had about 30 members of the board or our employees join us for questions of the
vendor so we think it was a real success on our side. Unfortunately the Town didn't have anyone
who took advantage but it was still offered and it's just again a sign of us trying to work together
and create programming for the benefit of our teams. Over the next two weeks I'll be recognizing
11 teachers who are retiring from Ledgerd Public Schools with anywhere between 20 and 40 years
of service and so we'll be meeting it with them and presenting them with a small token
of our appreciation for the board education and we also have several others who have resigned
so we met that 14 target that was in our budget which I've been asked about. The service of those
11 members equals it's pretty unbelievable 271 years of education service between them.
FFA of Wars Night was wonderful as always. We installed our new officers and also I have
to give a shout out our IT team here at the high school was recognized as honorary FFA members
and so that was a nice piece and then I shared with the board and tweeted out Ledgerd Middle
School went to Horses' Heel and Humans in Mystic, kind of a stunts and part of Mystic.
It's a great program. We had about 15 students working in the barn and it's a program
we're looking to continue on and continue to work on creating that relationship with them.
Our PBIS results so as part of our first year implementation of PBIS in the schools we got
we did a evaluation so we have an independent evaluator come in and do a series of measures
and it was really proud that the average score across the three schools that were measured
our elementary was 97% with Gallup Hill being 100 so really proud of that. I know I gave a
shout out to Gales Ferry and Juliet along at the last one because I hadn't yet gotten Gallup's results
but Gallup surpassed Gales Ferry and Juliet along and LCS they had 97 and Gallup had 100 so
kudos to them and now we're building on that first year's success and starting to look at
tier two interventions. I met with the coaches today and it's pretty exciting to see the development
of that and I shared with the coaches today we've done a lot of very intentional things to
facilitate this dramatic transformation we're going to have and transition we're having this summer
and so each of our elementary schools have implemented PBIS where they have a common
language and they're discussing behavior expectations and bus expectations so when our
children go from LCS over to Gallup Hill they see pause on the wall and they're talking about
bark behavior and they have that common language that just sets an opportunity for them to feel
again more at home in their school but it also has a huge benefit for our teachers so our teachers
also have that common language and they're coming into that environment the same happened for
our children going over to Gales Ferry and then the board's supportive scheduling also again
rather than having three discrete schedules that were very very different and how they handled their
days our teachers are ready to acclimate into each school and have a kind of a footing and an
understanding of where they're going so we've we've done a lot of that and I can't thank the
board enough for their support as we continue to make these these positive improvements upon
an already great school system. No it's a great update I appreciate it. Any questions
comments from board members? All right thank you very much that's great all right school board
rest turn it to you. Okay so for the high school we have graduation along with finals next week
so very excited for our seniors almost there. For the finals or for the graduation?
And then we have field day for our elementary schools and our NHS goes to help out with
that so that's a good time and then we have our middle school chorus concert and then I just
want to thank you all since this is my last meeting it's really been a humbling experience
being a part of this and it's definitely given me an appreciation for the behind the scenes
effort and it's really allowed me to like kind of give my peers a little bit more appreciation
for the behind the scenes effort so thanks. We appreciate you coming and enjoying these
meetings I know they're not always exciting especially on a Wednesday evening I'm sure you
have some other fun stuff you might want to do but it's been great and and with with folks in
the past it's been great just to have the representation in that pulse check and being
the eyes and ears back into each of us clear so we greatly appreciate that. Awesome and we
forgot the last or this past Friday Saturday was the pop's concert as well for
it was it was amazing it was I heard a lot of good stuff about that so great awesome
any questions comments for our school board reps all right thank you all right so we'll move
down to board member comments I'll open it up for board members if they don't want to ask
Mr. Bronner. So I would like to recognize Principal Fagan and Mr. Doyle for the fantastic
execution last night of the high school awards night everything went off very well it was a
great turnout and a lot of good students recognized so and this is the this is the end
of the 2019 school year for our seniors and they were well represented last night.
Thank you Ms. Gellin. So I have a couple things so I was able to attend to attend the FFA awards
night I haven't done that in the past I'm actually really embarrassed that I have it
encouraged board members next year to attend it is 25 percent of our student body really impressive
work they're doing it was a really nice ceremony. I also attended the LMS parent information night
I don't know if that was the name of it or not but we all went to the middle school to
fifth and sixth grade parents and our students had a great presentation by Mr. Pomeroy and the
guidance department down there and we're able to tour the new spaces so a lot of really great
things and I know the fifth graders went down there today for their intermediate middle school
so very appreciative of that transition for both grades thank you Ms. Pomeroy and that also
I was not a bad one okay another one sorry didn't call you out and then
take back Mr. Hartlings the parents committee of the school consolidation committee the parents
subcommittee of the anyway we've been holding different socials there's another one this Saturday
night you can find the Facebook event it's at seven o'clock in the Old Mystic Village so we hope
not just a legit center in the Hillsfield um the Hillsfield family
And then lastly, if you ever wonder about the impact that your students, that your teachers
are teachers, have on their students, I attended the Fairies Center for Jack. And to see the teachers
from Gallup Hill show up there and hug his dad, it's a partnership that we have as parents
with those teachers and I'm a huge supporter of teachers, but until I saw Mr. Doyle Hugg,
Mr. Allen, the partnership has been undervalued. So next time you see a teacher, you see a parent
meeting, that's an incredibly strong relationship that we need to make sure that we as a board
are nurturing. So there was probably four or five hundred people there and I thought
it was just a really great showing of Gallup Public Schools, our students, many of our children
were there supporting this family that was a huge part of our life for many years.
My seventh grader was able to attend the Frederick Oceanology field trip and I have to say
it was probably one of his best days as a student of the middle school. He had an opportunity
to shine, he's worked a lot, he was excited. It was just a great hands-on learning experience
and just really glad that we had that opportunity for our students. So I just wanted to share that experience.
And I'm looking forward to the middle school course.
Thank you. Any other board member comments? Alright, so we'll turn it over to these
and of course I'll keep it with you, Mr. Palmer, for facilities.
Sure, a few updates. So we had our PMBC meeting on Monday.
The permanent municipal building committee for those who don't know.
So we oversee the building projects. There was a request that we read that the PMBC reimbursed
letter public schools for fuel costs because during the construction phase we saw a very
large increase in our fuel costs that can be attributed to work that was going on
with windows where open doors were open, the building wasn't closed up and sealed the way
it would normally be during our operations. So we did get approval for that.
It was quite a bit, almost 36,000 dollars. So that was obviously a significant impact
for our budget and the PMBC recognizes that it's important that they cover that cost
as part of the construction. So I wanted to share that that was accomplished this week.
Just to start, do you have any backdrop on how that amount was determined?
Yeah, absolutely. So it was a comparison between last year and previous years and this year.
And I can tell you that at the middle school it was a much smaller, it was a small portion of the total.
It was only $4,045 difference and then for Gallup Hill School it was quite a bit, it was 31,720.
So most of that was number two heating fuel, a portion of it was gas, which would have been at the middle school.
Thank you. So yeah, it was quite a bit, but that would get covered and then obviously going forward
we'll keep an eye on fuel expenses but it'll be good to heat in a picture where we don't have half of the building
wide open, that would be good. So we have reached substantial completion for the building project at both of our schools
so that's important to note. We've spoken previously about the littered high school tunnel abatement project
so I wanted to just give an update that it will potentially be delayed a year due to unfavorable dip bidding conditions.
There's no safety concerns here, this was just a planned project that we were applying to have it delayed a year
so that we can go out to bed again and hope to get something closer to the amount that has been planned
for the expect on that project. And I just want to update everybody that the coordination of moves
from Levin Center School to all of the teachers that are being shifted around between the closure of Levin Center
and the 6-3 teachers going to the middle school, that the coordination effort has been done for that
but not to impact learning materials until the school year has ended and then obviously during half days
teachers will be getting everything packed up and moved.
So that's it. Do I miss anything about it?
No, you can't touch it.
We're running for your two page report.
So for LMS in Gallup Hill, so the majority of the construction work is done
assumption is probably substantial punch list items that they go through.
Is there anything else that we've done over the summer months or is predominantly all the work finished at this point?
For the most part it's finished. There are certainly punch list items.
At Gallup Hill School you can expect to see the rock wall around the perimeter.
That perimeter work will be done over the summer.
We have a storage building that's being put in over at the Lager Middle School
that will house equipment for our maintenance staff
and also other building maintenance and also the bikes for our bike club
and where they will learn all about bicycles and how they work.
That building will hopefully get put in.
We need to form a great slab. We're still working out the details of that.
So there's a few things that you'll see going on but we can say that we've reached a substantial completion.
I'm sorry for one more question.
So regarding the maintenance equipment, I know we've discussed in the past
just the need and recognition for additional equipment.
Has there been any discussion with PM through PMBC to seek funding to purchase additional equipment to support?
Absolutely.
So a couple of examples just to highlight,
we did get two pieces of equipment for snow removal.
One for each side of town with all of the additional curving and sidewalks.
That was obviously something different that we needed to accommodate
so we could purchase those.
And then going forward, actually, Mr. Donaldson, our new director of facilities
was able to find two lightly used aerial lifts
for maintenance at each of the new renovated buildings.
So we're looking to purchase those.
It was probably a 30% savings, 40% savings to purchase those two
and they're lightly used.
So that's going to be great.
So that was presented to PMBC and then also equipment for stripping and waxing the floor.
As you know, we have a great deal of floor maintenance that we're going to have to keep on foot over the summer
and it's just not reasonable to expect our maintenance staff to keep that on
without some real equipment.
So we're looking at purchasing items in that area.
Anything else?
Yes.
We're looking to request as well.
I know you're bringing that.
Okay.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Sorry for the questions.
That was great update.
Any other questions for our facilities?
Yes.
Was there any discussion on the status of the bids for the high school track and field project?
So the bidding, I'm glad you brought that up.
Thank you.
So the bidding deadline is tomorrow at 3 PM.
And so at that point the bid will be open to review.
Thank you.
No, it's coming forward.
Yeah, no, I'm glad you brought that up.
Thank you.
That's for the design phase.
Yeah, design phase of the track.
Any other questions?
Policy, Mr. James.
Policy met on May 13th.
It was great to see the turnout from the town.
But we had some very exciting policies to weave through.
There were four.
We're going to go through them later tonight that were kind of intertwined and overlapping.
And a lot of work actually over the last couple of weeks working on these specific policies.
So we'll go over those tonight.
The work that we accomplished and what we're going to bring forward.
Our next meeting is going to be June the 17th.
It's a Monday.
Please make sure you come to that one because I don't think we have one scheduled in August.
Let's be the last chance to really enjoy it and all of that fun.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Any questions for Mr. James?
All right.
Mr. Braun.
Hey.
So we have two items first.
Finance did meet tonight.
We meet always before this board meeting.
We welcome the public to come.
Again, I'll provide a quick highlight here.
But if you want to hear the details behind the discussions on how we come to our decisions,
you definitely would want to come to our finance meetings.
They are not sure there's exciting as policy, but we do have some good discussion.
As far as 2018-2019 budget, we're currently 79% spent.
And again, our reserve for this year appears to be about $135,400 to $69.16.
Again, that's a very small percentage out of a roughly $32 million budget,
and that is subject to change as we go through final purchase orders
and any other things that happened in this last several weeks of the school year.
We also later tonight will vote on some budget transfers that we reviewed.
We're simply moving funding from one line item to another to align with reality.
There's no actual overrun or underrun on those accounts.
It's just admin cleanup.
As far as the 2019-2020 budget, Mr. Hartling explained the status of where we're at there.
That's good news that we're not taking reductions from the state at this point.
Our budget is currently intact.
We have no changes to it.
Come August, Finance will discuss any adjustments that have to be made
as we go into the new school year based on lessons learned and things that come to be.
We also discussed substitute teaching rates 2019-2020,
and for this year we decided not to make any changes to those rates.
So that topic that's in our board package later tonight will have no action.
And I'll move to the negotiation and then we can go back to questions.
No, perfect. And I do want to just again thank Mr. Hartling, the administrators
and obviously the board, especially Finance for all the hard work that went into, again, another budget cycle.
Thankfully the budget passed and we have a few months off before we start to process all over again.
So yeah, two more months.
It just says you might be excited for finals.
We're super excited for both the conversations to start.
But thank you again for the team effort.
It was definitely, I think we finally have a process down
and appreciate the intended feedback from board members.
And then all the work obviously from administration standpoints.
Thanks.
Before I call on Finance, welcome the board to Ms. Moser.
Thank you.
Glad to have you here.
Looking forward to you keeping us out of trouble.
On the negotiations committee side,
we'll continue to work the secretary's negotiation this month.
We'll also start with the custodians group.
And tonight you'll be voting on the paraprofessional handbook which we have updated
and that was in your read ahead package.
We'll discuss that later tonight for board votes.
Great.
Thank you.
Any questions for Mr. Bronner?
I am ready to go back though.
Oh sorry.
So for Learn there's a new executive director that will start July 1st.
Dr. Eileen Connolly has retired.
So this week you may, at least on the Galesbury campus,
the teacher recognition, the grant pliers went out.
So take a look for those.
That's how you recognize the teachers at the end of the year
and don't want you to leave so that we can give back to other public schools.
Keep an eye out for those.
And since I have my nickel back,
I did not mention, so I'm a soccer mom
and so I happened to be at the middle school
when the company came and sprayed for grass at the middle school field
and a few parents and myself noticed that they didn't quite finish
it seemed that they had run out of grass seed spray
and then we come back since the practices
and we've noticed that we still have that missing area
and at the bottom we have more weeds than we have grass
and so since I've had several comments
I just wanted to share that that has not been finalized
by our building project.
We've not accepted the grass as complete
so if you have any concerns as did I
that is being addressed and we will have more grass than weeds
That's so funny, I was there for the bike race last week
and I was like, what is this on the ground?
It's like grass everywhere, so that's a no.
It's not that, and they acknowledge it is not that.
It's prep work for volleyball fields.
Any other, I apologize if I'm trying to remember
from skipping a random one.
Any other board member updates,
leaves on committees?
I think we've got them all, all right, perfect.
All right, so I will turn it over for our finance update.
Hello everyone, thank you for the one welcome.
I'm very happy to be here.
I work forward to working with all of you
and our staff and our community.
As Mike said, we have a forecasted reserve
of $135,459.
That represents just over half a percentage
of our total expenditures this year.
So as of May 27th, we had spent $25,236,000.
We are approaching the end of the fiscal year. This is kind of an ever-moving target and
never-moving number that we keep, you know, update on and keep forecasting what gets us
to the end of the year. So we do have that reserve of about $135,000. That's largely
tracking from some savings in our salaries accounts. This is because of various staff
changing, open positions, unpaid time off, and various other scenarios that contribute
to that type of savings. And we also have forecasted subs impossible overtime from now
until the end of the year. We are going to have to use some of that reserve in those
salaries to offset some over-budget expenditures and professional services.
Professional services are notoriously difficult to budget for, so we do have a
little bit of a deficit there. So we're going to offset in that way. And we also
have a savings of about 320,000 left over in our transportation tuition
insurance and communication accounts. That's largely due to some changes in some
special education scenarios. And that's also going to be utilized to offset some of
the costs in our various professional services and supply accounts. We also have
a deficit in some of our supply accounts that's largely tracking back to
utilities, which is not outside of the norm. So that is going to be offset
with those two savings areas. We received the end of our excess cost grant for fiscal year 19.
Our total incoming grant was $758,744 that exceeds what was budgeted
at $656,548. So that came in in really good shape. Any questions about that information?
Appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Excellent. All right, so next item up is the approval of the Board of Education
Minutes from May 8, 2019. So I will make a motion of the Board of Education
to approve the regular meeting minutes for May 8, 2019. Seconded by Mr.
Bronner. Any discussion? Yes. So I have one change in the paragraph nine.
From the Finance Committee report, the amount forecasted reserved is
incorrect. I have the corrected amount here. So it'll map with the Finance
Committee minutes. Any further discussion?
So we state the motion to approve the regular May 8, 2019 meeting minutes
amended as discussed. Seconded by Mr. Bronner. Any further discussion?
All right. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you.
All right. Ms. Cahlin, communication correspondence. So we received five.
One was from Ms. Benzing about the bus that goes to Gallup Hill School
from May 13. And then we received emails from four different students about
what their civics and action project. Thank you. All right. Moving down the
information item. So first up is the 2018-19 donations received by
Electric Public Schools. So the information is in your packet that outlines the
donations received. And that's in accordance to policy 3-2-8-0,
which outlines the requirement that for any donations above 5,000 have to be
listed out and presented to the Board. No required action area. Just
information for the Board's reference. If there's any questions, comments. I'll open it up.
So we'll move on. All right. Next item up, update on current issues class.
And I'll turn that over to Ms. Hargis.
All right. Good evening. Hi, I'm Ashley Hargis. I'm the Instructional Leader for the
Humanities Department at the High School. And I'm just going to take you through a quick
overview of one of our electives that just went through the curriculum revision process.
So on current issues, it was originally adopted as a social study selective in 1993.
There's been several rewrites since then. And most recently, it was rewritten last
year to align the new social studies frameworks, common core standards,
and to align it in the new social studies inquiries curriculum template. And throughout
the course, it's been consistent in maintaining as student choice, as a student choice
difficult course. So course overview, students investigate timely news events.
They study the impact of new media technologies in relations with audiences.
They study global trade, immigration, environmental issues, terrorism,
and the role of journalism in society. Facilitate the use of primary and secondary
materials to form opinions, to propose solutions to problems, as well as generate class discussion.
Research and prepare major oral presentations that trace the development of current
and or controversial issue. And we're working towards them publishing authentic
writing connected to issues that they study and to take informed action towards change in
the problem. So that would be like publishing in the Kernel magazine.
And that would be cross curricular as well, working with the journalism class.
Our course resources are, well, current issues. Plus, in 2015, we purchased,
the department purchased, the Brown University Choices Program. And that curriculum,
it includes curriculum units, student readings, lesson plans,
activities to accompany and compliment readings and articles.
It went through two reads at Instructional Council. And here we are.
Any questions?
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thanks again for coming up.
That's a great question. Yes.
So that looks silly for Ms. Hargis to answer. But so with the high school, maybe Ms.
Hobson or Mr. Hartley would know. I'm sure we all remember from our college courses at the
end being a student survey, which would be, you know, for impact
in what students thought could be different or better. Do we do anything like that at
the high school? Could be really provide feedback. Does that make sense?
Yeah, no. I mean, some teachers do it like individually at the end of each year.
And it's kind of like informal. And then I know they did that like me ask,
or they used it for some of their me ask data where they sent out surveys
at the end of the year. So we do those each year, too.
But those aren't specific to like one class. You can say like what your favorite
class is or what your most like impactful teacher is.
But yeah.
If so, it would be interesting to get some student feedback.
You know, if not nine through 12, we at least like,
you know, seniors and seniors that have lived through some classes and could give us some feedback.
Great. So we'll move on to new business. And the first item up, I'll turn it over to Mr.
Bronner, which is regarding discussion of the action regarding 2019, the point of 20
paraprofessional students. Why move with the Legislative Board of Education approved
the Ledger Public Schools Paraprofessional Handbook for the year 2019-2020?
Second. Second by Mr. James. And just for purpose again for the board, the modified
document is in the board packet that was sent out. And for the public that is currently online.
Could we just give some highlights of some changes?
Like, is there anything wonderful and great in there that we'd like to share?
Well, I'll tell you what I'm particularly proud of is at the end of it, we are expanding our
educational benefit as a learning organization. I think we should be supporting our paraprofessionals
or supporting their educational opportunities. And I greatly appreciate the board's support
of that effort. So there is an educational benefit in paraprofessionals,
which gives them reimbursement for three courses per year at a maximum of $500.
And when I met with the paraprofessional committee, they were quite pleased with that
opportunity. And I hope a lot of them get the image of it.
It's going to be my ongoing effort to make sure that all of our bargaining units, as best as
I can, have an opportunity to get an educational benefit and expand their horizons.
And I think it's kind of a basic. And so I'm happy to be able to do that. So thank you for
or in advance for your support of that. The other piece is the compensation program.
So we have moved our standard rate, which is the starting rate for paraprofessionals,
at to $13. And then paraprofessionals who have been within in the system
would receive a 75 cent raise. I will just tell the board that as the minimum wage laws
change in the state of Connecticut, that legislation has been passed, we will see that
we will have to keep up with that with our paraprofessional compensation. And that
we'll have a pretty significant budgetary impact.
I didn't want to, I think most of the budget or the thing posted, a paraprofessional came
up that is actually interested in becoming a teacher and asked about it. So I think it's
moving in the direction that you wanted it to move us. Is that $500 per class?
Per course.
Any other discussion?
All right. Any other discussion? All right. All those in favor?
All those opposed? Those in passes one, stay Mr. Guerrero. Thank you.
All right. Ms. Hox, then we'll turn it over to you for discussion of possible action regarding
the approval of the EP statistics. All right. In your board packet, you should have a copy
of an EP statistics textbook approval form that was submitted by Sean Law, one of our
teachers sitting in the audience this evening. As you can see, he has done his due diligence
and gone through the book with the IC as well. And on the back, or as you scroll through your
minutes, you will see we are requesting that you approve this for the purchase price of $4,614.16.
You'll also note that another purchase that we will make to support this course are some
calculators that will help the students to get a higher level math.
Thank you. Mr. Law, anything you want to say before we turn it over to the board for discussion?
You don't have to just go to the board.
Didn't want to put you on the spot. Sorry. All right. Any questions from the board members,
or Ms. Hox, or Ms. Law? All right. This was one of the courses that we recently added in.
All right. So I move that the Board of Education approve the textbook for the EP statistics course.
Seconded by Mr. Brauner. Any further discussion?
Just go. This is a fantastic course.
All right. All those in favor? All those opposed?
All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. So next item up, discussion of possible
action regarding the LHS trip to Costa Rica for April of next year 2020. So again,
information is in the board packet. I'm not sure Mr. Harling or anyone wants to make any
comments. Otherwise, pretty self-explanatory. So I will make the motion that the Board of
Education approve the LHS trip to Costa Rica for April of 2020. Seconded. Seconded by Ms.
Calvin. Any discussion? Questions, comments? Yes, ma'am. Yes, yes.
Annie and I both went to Spain and it was an amazing experience and I'm sure you know
something I'm going to be here at Costa Rica. I hear many great things about Costa Rica, so
I will not name myself a shopper. That actually works well for this microphone, so.
All right. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor?
All those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. And next item down to Mr. Brauner's point
is regarding the substitute teaching rate. So that was discussed at finance and has not moved
cons. So it's just opened up for discussion. Anything, Mr. Brauner, you want to bring up there?
Nope. So the finance committee did review the current rates of rates in the surrounding
communities, our ability to fill substitute teachers on any given day, and there were no
driving factors that increasing the daily rate would affect that at this point. We have some
other incentives that actually would kick in on the teachers contract for next year that
we're hoping will help some of the challenges we have in getting substitutes. But at this
point, yeah, there was nothing, no data that said that an increase in the rate would affect
our ability to fill substitutes. So we decided to take another year and see how the rest of
the policy changes work out or the contract will change the work out.
Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Brauner? All right. So I will turn it over to Mr.
James. We have a series of first readings.
And as I kind of give a prelude to these four, we're really overlapping and retwined.
In some cases kind of convoluted, some cases contradictory in some of the wording.
So we spent a lot of time going back and forth between all of them.
So I'll start with the first one. It is policy 4118.111, 4218.111.
It's the discrimination grievance procedure and has went through the definitions.
Who is covered by this policy and then walked through the complaint procedure.
Second one. Any questions?
Second one is 4118.112, sexual and other forms of harassment.
Again, this policy, there's been some changes in wording since the last time this one was revised.
Legal definitions. So we went through the definitions.
The process to go through if any harassment occurs.
And we also, there's outline and alternate complaint procedure.
Understanding the sensitivities of some instances.
There are ways to go through this with respect to those sensitivities.
Outlines how to proceed through the investigation.
And outlines the requirement for annual training.
And not only what constitutes, but how to handle or what to do if you observe any questions.
Next one is 521.1, Equal Opportunity Plan.
In there we updated the protected classes as those definitions changed.
And we created some consistency with the grievance policy.
In the wardings and kind of the district's stamps.
So that the exact same wording is used throughout.
Where we believe we should be, how we should treat people, et cetera.
Questions?
And the last one, and I might have that number.
This is 521.1.
This actually was, it wasn't a policy for.
It was a regulation.
So going through the research and all this to realize that this should be a policy.
It needed to be a policy.
So it's a discrimination complaint procedure.
And this is a requirement for the district to have this.
It's outward facing.
It's a short version of how we handle any complaints.
So we wanted some consistency again with the other policies regarding the same topics.
So what is to be done when a complaint is filed?
The requirement to publish this kind of guides the brevity and the contact information, et cetera.
So that we have all that easy for other people to find.
And like so we publish any questions.
Thank you, Mr. James.
Excuse me.
Thank you.
All right.
Next item up is discussion across the action regarding budget transfers, Mr. Bronner.
Thank you.
Why move with the Ledger Board of Education approve the following requested budget transfers as approved by the Ledger Board of Education Finance Committee.
First is to transfer $7,500 from the Ledger High School Project Odoos and Fees account to the Ledger Middle School Project Odoos and Fees account.
Second is transfer $12,000 from the Ledger High School Coaches salary account to the Ledger High School's administrator salaries account.
And third is to transfer $119,193.40 from special ed tuition public account to special ed other professional services account.
Perfect.
So just for clarification, one motion for a three noted budget transfers as stated.
Is there a second?
Second.
Second by Mr. James.
Any discussion?
All those in favor?
All those opposed?
Motion passes unanimously.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bronner.
All right.
Next item up is discussion and signature change form ED 099 for food services.
So I have a motion to revise the authorized signers of the ED 099 agreement for child nutrition programs.
Jason Hartman, Superintendent is the first signer authorized to sign the ED 099 agreement and to sign claims reimbursement.
And Rachel Moser, Director of Finance is the second signer authorized to sign claims reimbursement in the event of the absence or incapacity of the first signer.
Second.
Second by Ms. Calhoun.
Any discussion?
All those in favor?
All those opposed?
Motion passes.
Thank you, Ms. Moser, for that as well.
All right.
Next item up is discussion of public action regarding the LCS underground storage pink removal, which was, you know, discussed, I believe, at facilities and then brought up tonight at finance.
Anything, Mr. Palmer, or do you want to bring up from a facility standpoint or Mr. Bronner to finance?
Well, so just for awareness so that everybody understands what this is about at the Leonard Center School property, there are two underground storage tanks that must be removed prior to the sale of that property.
For anybody who attended or forgot the information from the mayor's recent presentations to the town regarding the sale of that property, he explained that prior to the sale we'll need to remove those storage tanks.
And then if there is, if environmentally they find that there's anything, if there are any leaks from those tanks, those will have to be addressed.
So I'll make the motion, but I just kind of wanted to explain what that was all about.
I appreciate it.
And this is, these are reimbursable by the time.
So that was part of the presentation from the mayor.
So if you have, if you want initial information, you can bring it closer to that to what was distributed during that time meeting.
Okay.
So making a motion to proceed with work quoted by top environmental to remove two underground oil tanks from Leonard Center School with a brief reimbursement for all working over just from this on the subject.
Seconded by Mr. Bronner.
Any discussion?
So just for clarity, there's absolutely no financial risk for the board.
This is all on the town.
And for the town, this is something that we really need to be done whether the property is sold or not.
Correct.
Yes.
Those tanks have hit the 30 year limit.
Right.
And if anybody wanted, so for amount, there's two tanks, the smaller tank was quoted at $4,950 for removal, the larger tank at $6,950 for removal.
So that brings us to $11,900 for the removal of the tanks themselves.
If there's any leaks found during the environmental study, that would be in addition to that.
Great.
Any further discussion?
Thank you.
There's no point in asking about this.
Great.
Thank you for clarification.
All right.
All those in favor?
All opposed?
Motion passes unanimously.
All right.
Thank you.
All right.
Next up is our unfinished business and back to this.
Oh, my gosh.
He skipped your eye.
Sorry.
Ms. Byter shows.
I had it on the written paper, but not on the online version.
So apologies.
So back to my earlier motion to amend the agenda.
The next item up, which is not in the agenda packet online for that bit of anyone watching, is item I, which is discussion impossible action regarding replacement of vacancy of Mr. Strickland seat.
So just for purposes of public, if a member of the board resigns, that position has to be filled with the same political party.
And Ms. Bytish is up for that replacement.
Ms. Bytish previously served on the Board of Education.
And the most recently was not on the Board of Education through our, which we have another election cycle coming up this year.
So Ms. Bytish has stepped up to the plate and we're excited to have her back.
The board did meet with Ms. Bytish earlier this evening to have a conversation, quote unquote, interview.
So with that, I will motion that the Board of Education approve Ms. Bytish to fill Mr. Strickland's vacancy on the board.
Second.
Second by Ms. Caldoun.
Any discussion?
Yes, I have a comment.
There are many people in any community.
This is a particular ledger that I would say have propensity to complain about status quo, but don't have the conscience to do something about it.
I think the ledger is very lucky to have someone like this that's going to bring a level of passion and concern to the Board of Education for the kids.
And I'm excited to see this happen.
Appreciate that.
Any further discussion?
I don't have words, but I'm just going to say ditto.
Very excited to have Janice back.
All right.
Put up to vote.
So all those in favor, all those opposed, welcome back almost.
So next steps will just for clarifications, all send notifications in the town clerk to advise them on the Board's vote.
And then you'll have to get sworn in and then you'll be official.
So welcome back.
And I notion that we put Ms. Vitish on PMVC as the sole board member.
Second.
Excellent.
All right.
Sorry about for skipping over.
All right.
So Mr. James, back to you from unfinished business.
Two second readings of possible actions of two policies that are up to Laura George.
Second reading.
First one is policy 4118.113.
It's about polling.
Through this, we added in the definition to outline who this covers.
It's only for in district.
We'll make that clear.
Clean up some of the other definitions.
We also added guidance for instances where a student who has a disability that is involved, particularly maybe as the perpetrator,
how to field that, how to create intervention prevention strategy
and also change the climate assessments from bi-annually to annual.
Any questions?
I move that the Board accept policy 4118.113 as amended.
Second.
Seconded by Mr. Schneider.
Any discussion?
All those in favor?
All those opposed?
Motion passes unanimously.
Second policy is policy 6146.
Graduation requirements.
We had to adjust to match the state requirements, plus one elective.
Also have in there the existing requirements for the existing students,
but this is for the new students that will be entering.
We also remove the PGR language because it's not used.
So I move that we accept policy 6146.
No.
Now, 6146, graduation requirements as amended.
Second.
Second by Mr. Kevlin.
Any discussion?
All those in favor?
All those opposed?
Motion passes.
All right.
At this point, I motion that the Board of Education
move into an executive session and invite Mr. Hartman.
Second by Mr. Palmer.
Any discussion?
All those in favor?
All those opposed?
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, we'll take it.
But let me take a five-minute process
for stretching and whatever other needs to be there.
Yeah.
Thank you.