 We will be discussing most of the things that came in your packet, the Raven Building and a few other things. We put back the ENDS reports till October just because things were not ready to be discussed until then. So ENDS reports will not be either in August or September this year but in October. So do we have someone who's willing to be the leading evaluator? Anyone who hasn't done it yet? We don't have a public for public comment so we'll move on. We're management and governance. So in order to view as the first meeting of sort of the new school year I just wanted to go over a few issues for our board. First is attendance which we are doing very well with a smaller board. We're much better with attendance lately so that's great. Preparation, everyone should have read over and prepared especially for the EL monitoring reports in preparation for the meeting so that we can have just prepared and collaborative discussions. A new thing that I've been made aware of, other boards are doing is that they're saying no phone use during the meeting so that people are all attentive and engaged. So if people would not please look at their phones that would be great. I don't think that's an issue but I am on duty until 7 o'clock so I need to be able to answer the pages until 7 o'clock which I do on my phone. That's fine. Especially for people watching on the close of the TV it's really helpful if everyone's attentive, engaged and participatory. Lastly, committee work. Committee work is one of our requirements. We are, it's part of our job as a board member is to participate in committee work. That includes negotiation teams and I do know that we had a pretty marginal attendance on negotiation teams this past year and it really does hamper lanes effectiveness and our effectiveness as community members and board members to be ears and eyes on those negotiation teams. So it really does, it's part of the requirements of being a board member. So I would appreciate, I can't insist on it, but just better engagement on all of our perhaps, on all of our parts. This year is we're entering a new school year. We are going to have committee work. Besides we have to renegotiate both contracts this year. We are going to be forming a committee tonight to review the policy review that was done by the BSBA. We asked the BSBA to look over our policies in your report. I don't know, did it come out in the, I'm not sure if it was part of what you sent online. It's in the packet. But Sue, say believe me, something like that. We asked her from the BSBA to review our policies and there are quite a number that need to be either revised or changed or amended. She is willing to meet with us, meet with us. I asked her to our meeting. She's not available on the second Mondays. So she suggested we form a subcommittee. She's willing to come to Randolph and meet with the subcommittee. That work, I don't think will take too long. She's excellent and she'll guide us through it. So further as we review those, her report later in this meeting, we will form a subcommittee. Can I just ask a question? I thought, I know that we're responsible for these. We think that we do those as well. But that was sort of, those are state ones that he needs to make sure that we are narrowed and that we're into bias. Some of them are. Some of them are his job. But as a board, we're seeing that we need to. We have to do the wordsmithing for them? Not the wordsmithing. But we do have to, you know, approve them and make sure. Yeah, sort of be the oversight. And yeah, it's our job to meet with, you know, it's our job to have someone look at them. And it's our job to, as I understand it. So you have the responsibility for the general policies. How those get enacted in the school, it's kind of like the reports, right? I get to interpret how they're enacted and put the protocols in place to make sure that they're happening. But the actual policies themselves are the board's bailiwick. You could, you know, delegate it as well to me. And what I would do is I would go out and look, talk with Pietro, because most of them are probably pretty standard across the state in terms of what people are using. And I could bring them back to the board and, you know, explain them how people take a look, see if they want them a lot of fun. I think, you know, you could be part of that subcommittee. And some of them are federally mandated. Obviously, those are easy. It's more the things that apply directly to us. I don't think it's going to be a big job, but there are a number of things that we should be aware of and we should be looking them over with, you know, the help of someone who knows more than we do. And as you guys, it's kind of like why I like doing EO reports. They take a bit of time. It reminds me of everything, you know, how to go through them once a year when we were put the thought in and thinking about them. It's a good exercise. All right. So as far as board norms, that is annual agenda. You want to talk us through that a little? Your name is on this. Annual agenda. That's my question. You know, I signed him. I remember we talked about it. And I don't know what we talked about. So we just, we moved. Oh, we were talking about free communication. We were talking about moving, removing some stuff. We said you did that. You know, speaker. You know, there's certainly things we could do. Well, that's, I think that's what Lane does now. The, like you had the Calvin Jorrell. Calvin Jorrell. That now I assume, or that's not, that's not the remnants from three years ago when we had our own keynote speaker. That's your keynote speaker, right? Yeah. And then community events, though, I don't know that we. I mean, we definitely could say. I don't know if maybe we're talking about planning for the town meetings and the meetings leading up to it. If that's what we're talking about, community events. Well, it always says board observation of school events. And I think that's a remit. Because we don't do that anymore. Yeah, that's true. And that's part of if you guys, as a board going on this tonight, you know, that could be one of the things. Is if we want to get that out. The other thing we do need to take out is the report on our TCC meetings since we'll all be at our meeting. Yeah, we'll all be present. And if you look at the very top, where it has the dates, it tells what dates those are. And I did confirm that with Jason. So he's on board. So one of the discussions that happened earlier this year is they weren't getting a lot of attendance at the TCC meetings. A lot of it's an advisory board, but it's important that it meets. This is the body that actually would finalize anything with policy or anything with substance that they could come up with anyway. So it kind of makes sense. Maybe you have the first hour of these meetings on those four days a year to actually have those meetings here. Will those be in October and December? No. We can see it on top. September, November. February and May. And then the other big change was pushing the end reports October. A lot of that is just because it's when some of the data that we're using for interpretations is not available. The Dehigh of this big proxy? I thought that was in April or May. No, it's before the fall. So is it we elect a person? Yeah. Do you have to either say you're going to do it by proxy or somebody's going to... Okay. So that's what it does. Yeah. So we have the... Right. Thank you. So does anyone update you? So you don't have to be an author? There was another thing. You've been working on it. I'll take your notes. So the policy governance training will move out of October likely because of the much increased end report that's going to take us time. I don't know. Likely we'll do it in November. Hopefully. I have no idea how long the RCCC meetings will take. We've discussed with Jason is starting sex. I don't know how other people feel about that. You know, making the RCCC 6 to 6.45 or however long it takes. It's usually 45 minutes to the most. Can people make a 6 o'clock meeting? Usually not. Okay. So, you know, that usually was the RCCC time of sex. So if we made those meetings at sex, we'd do RCCC first and then school board problem that might make it more natural. We don't need to discuss the super contract, do we? No, not this year. Because we got two years. Never. Can I? I never got 11. The principal state of the school's data, is that part of the ends? Historically it has been. I think that was the elementary. Well, there's principal's report. No, and then there's the data wall presentation. The elementary's come twice. The high school come twice. So maybe those are... But why are we having to do that? It's reports. So that's part of our ends reporting. Right. Historically it has been. I mean, part of the discussion in terms of the reports, we talked about the executive communications, is that there are other things that the board would like to see. Right. So maybe when we have our ends report, which is in October, we can say, we'd like to know or, you know, we'd like to have an update on sort of where you are with leading or, I don't know, if there's something that shows up in the ends report from the previous year that we're working on this. Because it seems like when we have them come in, a lot of times they're spending time talking about, well, then we give them this test and it does this. But we're not getting how they did on the test. We're just getting the means. We're getting how they do it and what they use, which, I mean, maybe that's sort of the rationale or the interpretation, but it's not any evidence of sort of where the kicks are at or what the benchmark is and what, you know what I mean? It's just more this is how we do it. And it takes a lot of board time. It takes their time. And if we want it to be ends, we need to give them that. I haven't spoken up during the meeting because they come prepared with what they think we want to hear, but I'm just wondering, I don't want to hear about how they're doing what they're doing. Other people on the board might feel like they want to know how, but again, we're not really deciding on how things are done. I don't have the expertise to say, oh, you shouldn't be using that test. I want to know where are the kids at? How are they doing? Where do you want them to be? And are we getting there? And at the elementary level, they can certainly do that. They've developed their form of assessments. They have two or three online tracking tools that they're using so they can easily do that report. I think this is just a holdover from historically what they've done. Right, right, right. That's why I'm questioning it. I don't want to go through that. That's the question for you. For us. I mean, these are two different things. October is the high school, and they are reporting on last year's, those results October. Right, that's the high school. December is elementary. Those are several different groups. So that would be the end. So they are going to focus on the end. Right. But those test results, they're not positive. Not everything is going to be done ready before September. They're not going to have all those. So we moved it to October so that everything will be complete. So that's high school. And then RTC did in June. And then the elementary is scheduled for December and March. As I remember. That ends report in October. It's kind of like the big written report. It's going to be at the power point that kind of summarizes everything in the district. Any interpretations we tried to do, or I tried to do at the end, some of the objectives we used. And then the data, but the data wall, it seemed like to me, the last time, I think the data wall is what you're talking about. Yeah. Where they went on and on about all kinds of stuff. But it was more what you're talking about, but a lot of it's nice. So I don't know if we want, or we need to give them some direction about what we want versus. They have the data. It's a matter of the delivery of what, it's a matter of telling them what we want out of that information. Because they have everything. They got everything. They've got it. And they're using it in their professional learning communities. You're going to see some good jumps in terms of what that should be supposed to be. It just seemed like we got to a wire. I mean, I wanted, we had asked them without any real direction. So I was going to say, hey, this isn't really what we need. Because we've got to tell them what we want. To just, not less about how, and more about what are your results leading for. And how is it going to determine your, your education? If folks are comfortable, what I can do is I'm happy to have the conversation and just have them focus on the results and their form of assessments and their form of assessments. Yeah. And not just, not just summative, but I think, you know, just teacher observation type assessments as well. Which... And I'll give you that. And they've got enough that high school is in progress because they had so much work on the mandatory, the report cards and the graduation preferences. But these guys have been doing it for two years now. So they only need to have some trend data. And it takes two, three years for a real trend that you'll, you'll be able to see what they're doing. So if folks are comfortable, I'll help them know anything. Well, is that sort of what they're going to see? Or, or is this a little bit taking deeper down in the moment? It can be, it can be. Yeah. But just to be clear, so here, and I'm hopefully understanding you correctly, Lane and you and, it sounds like you're saying that the elementary school teachers can do this successfully. Sorry, the elementary school principals, but our expectation would be the same for the high school as well. They have some things that are in development because one of the big shifts when I did the Ends report last year was getting away from subjective measures and getting into objective measures. And so they have some data that's very objective. They have some in terms of their performance in terms of within the schools that they'll be putting into place this year. They have the intern assessments that I've demanded that they use. They give them a mandatory schedule for when they have to do that as well as their own performance assessments. So they'll be in the first year of using that. The elementary schools are in the second year. So there will be differences between what just, just because of where they are in development and what we're doing. What's the theme of the standardized test of the state of New York? The SBAC? And then they have their own developed science test that we've never seen the results from. Which one is, where is that one recorded? SBAC will be part of that big overview I do in October. October? Yeah. So I reinterpreted the Ends and I have all these measures for the interpretation process a little bit. So you do an Ends report by pulling out the data that you're having. And that's going to change over time. Then we then ask the administrators to then show it in more detail. So there's an end goal here. So we reinterpreted the Ends last year. There are some devices, instrument tools that they still have to create and develop. There are some that they're using for the first time this year. The goal at the end of this in about two or three years, I think it's in the EL report is to get it to the point where it is the faculty themselves that are collecting this data. They've kind of taken a look at my interpretation. They're reinterpreting it to fit their best knowledge of their subject. They're creating their own assessment tool depending upon what's the best fit for them. And it's their job to be able to pull that data together. And hopefully in three years they're presenting in front of you and not me. And the reason for that is because if they're sitting down as a group and they're looking at it together, that is a professional learning group. They're going to know what their weaknesses are. They're intuitively going to know when they see those weaknesses in the data what it is that they need to do what they as a department do. We look at our data. We see where the kids are strong and where they're weak. Where they're weak, we either decide that it's something we can fix internally and we come out with a map of how we're going to do it or if it's something they can't fix internally, they use that information to come to me and say this is going to inform your budget. We need this, this and this. And so we're trying to flip things around so the budget which really controls everything it's coming from bottom up instead of top down because it's been top down for a long time but it's going to take a couple years to transition. So that's the path that we are on. We'll take two or three years to get there. So you had me coming up with your initial interpretation because there was a requirement that I report on the ends. Right? But we are in the process of engaging in the work so that it is the actual academic departments especially on those foundational knowledge ends that we'll be doing that work. How would we know that the tools they use when they develop are actually testing what we need to know? So there's a huge preamble. There's only a bias, right? I teach this is what I'm going to test on. So that's one of the reasons why I did this long preamble in the ends about validity and objectivity. It won't pass muster with me if it's not. So remember in the ends report he has to push his people to interpret and give a rationale for why am I using this assessment? What data or what professional sort of opinion have I turned to to figure out that this is the best to know and do it? Objective means your report card data doesn't fly. As fat, that's a good measure. There's half a dozen really solid tools that they have out there. They're using track my progress right now that's tied to the problem core. It's standardized. It's the same for every kid that takes it and it's tied to the exact knowledge that they are supposed to be learning. Yeah, they're supposed to learn more than that, but the exact minimum knowledge that they're supposed to learn. And so those things would be acceptable. They don't necessarily have an exam out there that may be conducive. They may have to develop their own. That's what I worry about, the developing their own. There are some national tools like foreign language. There's the national foreign language exams in each area, which is a good tool. You've got the AP testing that goes on. You can use old exams for the AP testing. But also I'm pretty skilled with testing methodologies. If they're developing things on their own, I can guide them. If not, I can get a facility to learn. The big focus right now, especially at the high school, it's math and real life. The goal is I want these enrollments to continue to increase. The best way to do that is to get those scores up. If those scores go up, people will move into town because they want to take advantage of a good school system. All of a sudden you get this beautiful positive feedback that more people are coming that are highly passionate about education. Because of that, you get more support in the schools. It just keeps feeding itself from the ground. Because you're hitting on a good spectrum. So what's your timeline to each of your departments to complete that overview and monitoring? What's your expectation so that we can have an expectation in the future? In the end's report, it's been modified a little bit. There's only one way to go around with all the HR function that I've performed in the last two years. So we've got the special education team that is completely up and running. We've got the math department that is almost there. As part of the other work that I was doing in terms of curriculum, you also have a digital literacy curriculum that is going into place in the fall. The librarians develop which you. We'll talk a little bit about it later. You have three people that are coming in to help you with this work. You now have a K-12 ELA director who will be working with Humanities, English, and Social Studies on that. So I'm going to hand it off to somebody who is incredibly capable and talented. And you now have a K-12 math person to do the same. So they will be following up and will be helping the system in that way. My question is the timeline. So school starts in less than a month. So are we meeting the teachers and letting them know or your chairs of your departments and they report out to you what's the frequency? So the goal in the end, once everybody is at the speed and the high school actually did quite a bit of work across the departments. The goal is it's yearly. The testing reports come out yearly. The report to the board is this is our progress between last year and this year. This is our three-year trend. They've also been given some other demands the principals had and that will be communicated to the staff on the first day of their two thresholds for them. The first threshold is 50% on SPAC ELA math. The way that test is structured fits kids basically to a bell curve on the scaled scores. So the majority of the people should be clustered right in and around the 50% mark. The test, they do an average of everybody that took it. The average is the middle. That's where everybody ends up being clustered. So 50% if they're not 50% across the board, they can expect me to come in and I will give them some dictates that they have to follow. The overall goal is 70%. Given our resources, given the talent quality of staff that we have 70% is easily doable. With a little bit of work, they're going to have an aligned curriculum and people have to be following it. And the biggest thing is people have to take the test in seriously when it comes up. 70% will put us in the top tier in the state. It's achievable because this particular school is already doing that ELA as a kind of on our way. The high school is the one that needs to be done. But you'll get that every year. It's also the important work that the teachers do. They've got that year end kind of summative data that guides the trends over time. But they're also doing these interim assessments during the course of the year. The smaller assessments. And that's the kind of give feedback into the professional learning groups is that, hey, we just got done teaching these four standards. The kids did the interim assessment. Or, hey, we just did the interim assessment. The kids are missing, got some gaps here. And those gaps are too important for us when we go back and we teach these in some ways. So it's the process in some ways. So you said the high school is where you need the most work. Where are they right now? You said that you've told them that you want them to be at 50. And our goal is to be at 70. Where are they now? They are where they have traditionally been in the section of ELA, which is on the rise. Math has been problematic and you'll get all the numbers in October. Reason being has been the seventh grade math curriculum. Not curriculum to people. You've had two very poor teachers that are no longer here, one after the other. Last year we had an amazing teacher who went out on maternity leave in the sub that we were able to get. It was not clear. So it's unclear with the math. They actually do at this point in time seem to have a pretty good curriculum. The failure isn't necessarily the curriculum or what they're teaching. It's been in the quality of the individuals that do that. We have a superstar in this year. Tim Moynihan is also going to be doing the robotics program. So it passes the semester. But that's one of the things that's a little bit different when you've got smaller schools. Then you have one person teaching a whole grade if they're not up the bar. It suffers. And the problem with math is if you get a year or two of that it carries on. It's a foundational subject. And so how are you remediating those kids that have been in the seventh grade the last couple of years? So part of the discussion with Elijah, and I gave a lot of kind of deep talks was this idea that you know that you have kids that are out there that don't have the skills they need to be successful in the next class in line. The expectation is is that you will take the amount of time required that those students are spending a math class next year and you will increase it. How will you increase it? Well you now have the tools to figure out what the gaps are in the kids knowledge. My progress, you've got the interim assessments. You identify what they're missing you sit down with the math teachers and you talk with them about okay based on the gaps you're seeing how much additional time are they going to need to fill in those gaps. You increase the time you front load what they're weak on because they can't learn what's new until they've got this you get that teaching done and then you move into the before this year. You also have another powerhouse person I've got three top notch people and that was the I don't even know what the exact title is but the director for tier 2 and tier 3 supports. So Doreen Northman is one of our new people that is coming in and her job is literally to go through the records of every kid figure out what they need what their gaps are and connect them and make sure that they are attending to the half a dozen different programs for mediation that can she's also overseeing the 504 process as well as so the structure is there as of this year we're going to take a year to really kick off the teaching students pretty drastic improvements by the end of this year much better results if the state ever gets this year's results much better involved a lot of this construction will be can we return to the annual agenda is there anything else that we need to change or amend before this plans that appreciation we discussed right now and making it so on the teachers appreciation day it would be that so we just need to do the plan a month before to get the cards and everything and what day is that? April right? I thought it was April so March would be and it would just be one month it would be the end of March we would have to bring the cards so we could sign it and then decide who could be available and then I think it's in April is the teacher appreciation it was very foreign I don't have a connection I got the note although it could be a holiday teacher appreciation is there anything else that anyone sees that is okay so Lane you've made notes or who is I've got it we'll sit down tomorrow morning so we'll approve this next month review it okay next up negotiation teams meeting times strategies can you believe this again what do you have to say about that? so last year was fairly simple some of the negotiations got a little bit attracted the reason being was because it was a one year contract given everything that's going on with the state trying to negotiate the health insurance for the teachers next year assuming we'll talk a little bit later on in the incidentals about where the things are are standing in terms of the health care next year it's going to be very important that we're on our team because we have the opportunity to do a three year contract there were a lot of language changes in terms of duties and assignments and work that they're currently kind of required to do that they were looking to change so I have a feeling it's going to be a very kind of protracted process what would be ideal is for reaffirm who's on each of the teams and then to kind of plan out some strategic sessions we could need a half hour before the board meetings just to go over strategy we could need a half hour before the actual negotiation meetings as well but one of the things that I've talked with the union about early last year is this idea is that we need to get back to actually bargaining the good faith good faith means that if you want something you can do something in return the big piece this year is this idea of value added strategy what they are doing currently this year under the contract is basically the same as what they're doing next year there is no added value for the district in terms of that so they have a right to get paid the same as what they received in the previous year with the addition of cost of living which is usually this year it's about 2% if they want more than that 2% given the fact that they are highly compensated probably the highest compensated for this area if they want more than that 2% good faith bargaining means that okay fine if you want 5 and 6 and 10% like you're asking these are the additional things that we want you to do for the district to be commensurate with what you're asking for that's going to be a tough pill for them to swallow being that they are used to coming in asking for everything off the top it's just the union strategy without ever offering anything in return but that's why I think it's so important for these strategy sessions to get a group of people that are committed and have the availability because I know it's tough on some of those timelines to be there that if we go in as a unified front which is what the union does and basically says yeah we hear you but this is how the game is going to be played unless we go into a unified front we don't be able to change this and there are a lot of things that we're asking for that were over the top and it's hard to tell when they negotiate that way what they're really committed to is just the gamesmanship of trying to start high and working with them they always end up at 3% so instead of playing that game let's change it being new on the committee how does the logistics of the work us as board members do we come as your backup and you negotiate or do we just there for I am and to instruct PH you are the negotiating body I'm also just there for advice and counsel based upon you know if they're presenting something they're going to say that's a good idea oh no these are potential problems but that would be I think that's a strategy that the board as a whole has to decide is what capacity you want me I can lead but the problem is as people have pointed out is that if I'm the one that's in doing negotiations with them if it's stuff they don't like now there's bad luck and I started to happen this last week I started to get kind of I don't know if it became bad luck but it was kind of oh it's all his fault we don't want that he has to deal with it he has to have trust and faith I don't mind playing that role but again you know there's two sides to it as well I mean if there's bad blood coming out of it at the end it's going to make it real difficult just to manage and deal with the operations and the resources probably so as an example of his past year link kind of before the meetings ever happened he came up with these are the several things that I'm looking to get out of this negotiation some language changes what monies he was thinking that we should fall in between like a kind of guideline for that and he discussed it with us that everybody was going to go and then when we got there the board members that were there it was more of once we handed them their policy or our recommendation like this is what we want to do and when we looked at it that on its face we had more knowledge than Lane did because of just the fact that we had been through the negotiations prior and we had alright they've always asked for this this is something that may be important but they always throw it out there you know kind of the background and then Lane was able to digest that information and then come up with okay if this is the if these are my inputs instead of what we did so we helped him make his decision by the end of the day he's still really he's still making a lot of decision and then for the money part it was always you know trying to bounce off what are we realistically what are we going to be able to it was good to have the what's worth the fight and what's not what's worth it I mean really we're representing our communities the taxpayers right so our constituents it's not me you are the body that makes the final determination in terms of what's good in a good way part of the strategy discussion goes back to what we were talking about the fact that you're doing the work on the N's when over the course of time as this process gets better developed when that N's information is coming up from that one of the biggest tools to meet the N's is the budget it's the biggest tool part of these discussions negotiations is hey you know we're not meeting the N's here and here and here we could if we had the teachers do this this and this those negotiations are a way to change structure so that we can do things that look like that and so it should be looked at in those terms and where we currently following short if are the things the teachers can do to help us get there okay those are the things that we want to go after and we're willing to give them a little extra if they're willing to cover the table the teachers representatives were definitely looking at us when we had questions not necessarily they're looking to us to answer the question Patreon is the one who talks but they're looking straight at you going why not this and Patreon is okay guys I'm over here I'm the negotiator of that kind of thing but they're looking to us because they know that we approve the budget he presents the budget we approve the budget it's better to have more of us there than less because it's unified instead of looks individual when there's one person and so it became some of the meetings it was just me and Lane there and that became hard it was alright Paul we understand what your view is but is this a board of things yes of course it is but it's hard to say that most powerful message that can be sent to them there's four of us sitting there and when they're asking questions do you answer the first one do you answer the second one they get that feeling that you're unified and they start to realize we can try it but they look like they're pretty solid in terms of what they're thinking so we better try it I guess I felt that the support staff negotiations went well I thought that we were we were giving them more than they wanted but they deserve it they appreciate it they appreciate it very well usually it's one meeting maybe two usually there's very usually very few issues the teacher ones have become very they ask for more then you're suggesting because I guess I felt like when we opted to be on our teams I didn't realize we would want us at the other ones so I guess that just wasn't clear to me you only have to be on the team if you're on the support staff great so if there are three people on the teachers and there's three people in the support it would be expected that the three people are there withling and then to support staff the three people who are on negotiating can be withling but we have to decide what we want to do next do we want to do that today we did I think just re-confirm odds are just for time frames the meetings tend to be around 4.30 that was new 4.30 or 5 4.30 is a challenge that's why I bring it up sometimes jobs don't work it was just a time did somebody write down who knows on what when we reorganized the board but that was from last year's I mean it was for the whole thing we were still in the negotiation I remember volunteering that I thought it was but you already had people that I can't remember who are teachers we have Paul, Melody, and Brian in support we have Anne Kaplan, Rachel, and Anne Ashley so should we have more than three people that's fine three's fine if one person doesn't show up then you're done the last meeting we did normally their meetings are like this they're at either 5.30 or 6 that's what we've always done in this past one it was at 4.30 and 5.30 and it was very hard for board members to get there so there was an unreasonable expectation so I guess if the three of us are on the board and we say this is the time then that's just going to be the time the teachers can either meet at that time or we have to pick a different date and pick a different time but we can't say 4.30 if we can't be there at 4.30 the teachers why just there at 4.30 because it's easier for them but if we can't make it it's not going to happen I don't think anybody can make that the other pieces were on the topic is the timeline the negotiations between the state and the teachers union are going well I mean they were never kind of expected to we may not it's likely we're not going to have any kind of answer from them until around December 15th is when they go to binding our immigration so maybe January or February before we can start is that for a health care? because part of it and the support staff their health care is under the same those that have it the other reason you can't really negotiate too much until that happens is you don't know the impact of the cost don't know what you can do with the other parts of the so that it may be delayed it may not be until after the version of the year which would be unfortunate because it means the entire state is going to do what our teachers want all of them perhaps so what's your plan do we want to wait until November to name to iron out the members or do we want to commit now are those the ones that we decided on after the reorganization in March so teacher negotiations Paul, Melody and Brian and support staff is you, Dan, Rachel and Ashley I would just once so Dan had decided she can't make them so they're all fine it depends on the time and the day because now I I work until five and then also now I have to reign for child care depending on the day it's just me the challenge of when it is and more time how long is the child time? 6.30? it would only take me half an hour but it also depends if I have my daughter I would have to make arrangements for child care and so I think last time the issue was we didn't take any of that into consideration the teacher simply said these are the dates were available this is the time we want to do it and we said okay we'll work it out and then it was either made or didn't make it and I think this time all we got to do is take that into account so they say these are the several what they usually do is say these are the several dates that were available we'll just tell them 6.30? or whatever it works I think we can make it later and it could be like a Thursday or Friday or once a Thursday, Friday, September, Monday and Tuesday those are definitely better dates for me too so was everyone happy with their assignments? that would be great and then we'll just be very committed to supporting the board in these negotiations and that would be really helpful for the discussion about the strategies part there I think the strategies is probably more all of us unless just the three people that are on the committee because I think it's the strategy behind it all is kind of the more important part so as an example we're willing to go here but not here that's probably a board decision and not those three people and so I'm wondering when do we want you mentioned meeting earlier or later it's obviously any kind of strategy stuff it's executive session so I'm just wondering when do we I would think in terms of what may be easiest is if 6 o'clock is doable 6 o'clock before the board meetings those committees get together we talk about it and then we can go right into executive session and continue the conversation but do we all want to have a general consensus on the strategy before then we go into the that's what it means so we're willing Paul's making a very good point because often boards do this when they're hiring they will leave the you know signing the contract they'll delegate the power to the superintendent to do that but they will say ok you can hire this individual this principal but their salary has to be between 85 and 95 thousand so you guys as a board and Paul's got a very good idea between this percentage and this percentage is acceptable because you guys stay within that range as a negotiating team can we just add it to the executive session as we lead up to it that makes sense and not like the official deal just add it as a regular board meeting executive and as an expulsion we'll know how the state is doing and we'll sort of it's very hard to be the three of us to come up with a number to represent it depends on what you're asking for yeah we can come up with a number is it going to be every happy I don't know yeah we made it ok next on our agenda is the policy review so this was the report that was issued by Sue in June it is right after the agenda so the next thing that's there you can see I think she suggested we do everybody and so you know she suggested as I said earlier that we have a subcommittee that is willing to meet with her and she will meet us here and there so I would are there anyone who would be interested or willing to do this? Rachel? yeah anyone else? I'll I can do it but it's going to depend on the schedule and how quickly it needs to be done just because of the event I'm doing right now so this would be in September probably late September and we would meet at the OSSD office in the upstairs room and she's willing to do that I'm happy to be there if you guys want me I think that's enough the four of us can do that and generally early mornings or evenings what's your guys' conference or late afternoon I have to check with her how the day will be it depends entirely on the day for me I would it's completely off the other the rest of the month so if it's a day I'm off if it's a day I'm working it depends on my shift I would but I like that idea like the 738 it would be fine if it's a day I'm off I'll see and then I'll suggest a few dates and then we'll review that our TCC meeting dates traditionally as you see on the agenda in the last 10 years we've had September February many meetings so it's proposed and Jason's glad to do that so that means next meeting September will be a 6 p.m. meeting we'll start with our TCC Jason will let the other school districts know sometimes usually the MISAC persons there and sometimes another school representative from Northfield who not Jason yeah yeah so usually there's a person or two who will come as well so I think that meeting's are we next time? okay so we'll start with that Jason alright Lane you're you have two policies that you include the other reports that you said both this is first meeting so and I'll probably start with a little bit of kind of a general conversation just as Ryan just as we've got some new board members we did a little bit of change with the report with Dal Gardner one of the it was last summer we had some discussions about what the report should look like where it's possible and pertinent I'm trying to just put the evidence right in the report in some cases like in terms of the global constraints we'll talk about in just a minute there is still a notebook in my office that has further evidence in there so if people are ever interested just call up Linda say hey I'd like to see the book for EL2, 2.0 or EL2.8 if there's other evidence that will also be in that book and the piece that's important as part of I think the board's oversight role is that if there's you don't feel there's enough evidence or there's other evidence that as a totality as a total board that you feel should be in there you just ask this process the way that you have developed that is really good because you've got the review it's happening now and this would be the time to say hey we'd really like to see this and this as well and that way I can present that if additional is needed next EL2.0 is the global constraint it's a very short one but it's basically stating that I'm not going to allow an ethical or legal practices to happen within the district the way that you do that is ensuring that the organization is behaving properly and because an organization is really made up of people it's making sure that the people within the organization are behaving properly so the bulleted list that's in there kind of talks a little bit about the HR functions that were carried out by by central office this year and then based upon the interpretation that's there this policies and components so questions on there's numbers typical? number of investigations they're high again I'm coming from Massachusetts there were some HR issues that had been long standing that hadn't been managed and so some of that is that that's been true for the last two years hopefully that has passed I think we've gotten through most of that maybe next time we review this yep but as I say in the EL report one of the things that's nice is you see all that work that was done you didn't get any grievances about it so it meant that communication that we were just in fare about what we were doing so as a central office we were hopefully also in compliance with anything you want to add about the 2.8? 2.8 is actually one of the longer ones there's a financial executive limitations that fits about as long but that one communication board support it's really just making sure the board is receiving information about what you need to do your job well right so that you're able to make informed decision a couple of things that I threw in there just for consideration just ideas provision 7 is about sharing the board has a workable mechanism for communication two of the things that I'm going to suggest is everyone has an OSST email a couple of reasons for that is that most of the things that are happening and being discussed are can be called up in terms of public records first way everything that you guys are sending back and forth that may have to do with board stuff is on our servers and it's preserved for their required 7 years the other thing too is that if you're talking with folks in the community you may not want to give them your personal email it's nice to be able to separate the personal from the work that you're doing on the board would that have, would there be any liability or issues when you send us a confidential email about some sort of thing going on at the school that is confidential? They would still have the right to request it under public records regardless of which email address that I send it to the only difference is that actually there is no difference it would still, you know if somebody made the request we sent it past legal to say hey is this something that they're allowed to have in each case sometimes what will happen is that if you're using a personal email account for some of this stuff if a records request goes out you don't want them also being able to get access to your personal stuff that you're sending back to people but sometimes there's some entanglement that can happen so those are the reasons for that suggestion. The other possibility is we've got the Chromebooks that all the students use if folks were interested we could give every board member a Chromebook and then do as much electronically so we don't have all the good paper shuffle I don't know how people feel. Any for the meetings? Just you take it whether you use it as your main piece of communication. The other nice thing about it is that you'll have every file that the board could ever possibly want or need so if you have to look something up it's right there if somebody asks a question you can google it that's one of the biggest fun I would say that I'm a very digital guy I love that because I use for most of my meetings at Norwich I use my phone because I have my drive on here and I find it so much easier if I haven't been to this this is nice but it's you can do a quick search yeah it's it's valuable plus it saves the trees and you can carry it all over but those are decisions that you recommendations for decisions Policy 12 which is what the school was about so this is a numeration 12 under there allow the board to be uninformed with required policies and where to find them it was that executive limitation that was the impetus for the policy that's the reason we're going back and looking over the policies it should happen every three to five years because the state mandates the federal law state laws change so quickly that's generally the reason that you got every three years I'll be making that suggestion to the board but that was just the impetus for it this was another question so I'll approve these alright next is the consent agenda I'll approve them all as a slate first is the minutes from the OSISD meeting in June which were closed if anyone had any changes or corrections to those minutes okay we're going to do it all as consent we'll do it all yes we'll do all three of these the next was the professional staff contracts there was a list that was in close I like to tell you there's one person I forgot on that list and that's Harriet Hart she's a 50% preschool teacher for the new preschool program somehow I left her off the list but she's on the list that you have orders on right so there's a contract list for new hires on including in our packet there's also a support staff CDA which was in closed so that was the results of the negotiations with the support staff so it was we kind of came back the board voted to re-open negotiations with them we came back reached an attentive agreement with them it's all salary there were no other changes to the language they were especially some categories of the support staff were hideously underpaid relative to the comparables so just out of decency as well as the fact that the executive limitations require we had to get them up to the comparables so I did the big analysis of where the comparables were right if this is the comparable range this actually puts them towards the top of that so that we're competitive now hopefully it's going to solve some of the problems that we've had retaining custodial staff overall it restructured the hiring grid the salaries that they start at got most of the starting hourly starting salaries up to close to $15 an hour which will probably be the minimum wage at some point in time in the near future but it also did the people that were off that hiring grid it gave them a 4.1% increase so they were adjusted because of the hiring grid or they got that 4.1% increase so they are in pretty good shape at this point in time they are at the high in the language changes any other questions about the support staff now I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda is approved second all those employers they are can you vote next is reports and incidental information about the superintendent's report is there anything you want to add or elaborate on? unless there's questions a lot of it was about facilities to talk a little bit about the Raven project talked a lot also about the issues with the boys and the king in terms of the paving are in there in caseful have a dozen incidentals but the major part of the work was the report reports from RTCC and from the elementary administrators financial report do you want to talk to us about that at all? actually this was a little late getting the folks too because it was the year then closed out things are actually in very good shape there's parts and pieces if folks have questions but basically as far as the district as a whole the surplus at the end of this year is $549,000 a lot of that is reimbursement as it is most years in other words we have students with special needs that we have to provide services for to be reimbursed at the end of the year but we have to put it in the budget to be able to pay the services as they're rendered a bigger chunk of it was actually the kids from school choice because they're paying $17,000 for tuition our enrollments have been shooting up I expected to be able to go up again this year how does the increased number of seniors not attending REHS going fast or CCD or other things has an impact on what we call our ADM, our average daily membership and that's what the state uses to determine how much money we're getting from the state, we get $10,300 per kid from the state so it does have an impact but still even considering that we were up like $50,000 we're up at least I think primarily at the elementary level with the preliminary numbers we're up at least another $20,000 this year I'll have better numbers that gets firmed up around October 1st which kids didn't actually show up for school for the first day because it's time to weed it out but we're the enrollment role is this is happening in a good way in terms of the technical center and this is something I've got to discuss a little bit with Robin we have a surplus as well as long as that surplus doesn't exceed 3% of the moneys that they get that's based on their daily enrollment we can keep it if it's above that we have to give the excess back for the sending schools so they have about a $50,000 surplus that is coming in from this operating year which is good so we're in the black and blue schools what's interesting in terms of looking at things is that the technical center has been getting a small surplus every year for a long time they actually have half a million sitting there from all the good surplus so we're going to do some investigation about what that could be used for how we access one of the things it's going to be used for is to cover the we've talked about it a while back we have the need under state law to have an assistant director for adult ed but there's no adult ed anymore because the adult ed that the state put in right in the building downtown is to his state and all of our schools we still have to pay for that position so it's a problem with the law what we've done is we've minimized the cost of doing that we now have about $3900 a year but we still have to pay but that had been happening for a number of years even before I came so they had built up a debt of about $50,000 so we're going to use this money to pay that amount so that's covered because you know a lot of it that grew up in more than three years it had been thin growing for a while we checked with the other tech centers around the state to see what they're doing what they have been doing is they've been using their tuition money to actually pay for that which is illegal although I use tuition money to cover this so this money is surplus and it's been carried over from one year to the next it doesn't fall under the category of tuition costs so are we doing any kind of advocacy to try and get this rule or law changed have spoken to folks but remember it affects seven buildings around the state so it's not going to be a high priority but it was brought up with the legislation but hopefully our legislators are aware I mean it's got to be affecting all of them and just should be addressed and it's a quirk it's a quirk of the law because those organizations well they're always tinkering why don't we get them to tinker on something that's I was trying to get them to commit to a five year moratorium in terms of adding new mandates so that we could actually clean up the ones that we have right they did listen they didn't listen they couldn't tell much about the expressions so we're in the black in both which is good other incidental pieces there were a few just a couple of fun things that I didn't add in so one of the things that's been on folks mind in terms of the high school was this lack of kind of stem of coding there are two coding classes that are going into RUHS next year they are full at this point in time in terms of the students that have signed up for it we have also built a full robotics program the students have the DEX kits we have an online curriculum that we purchased and we have a teacher so that is happening in the fall the innovation space that's in there has been expanded now and one of the things that I'm really excited about that Betty Young our K-12 math person is involved in the innovation space is we've got students that are struggling to learn the mathematics in the classroom they are developing curricula that can be used in the innovation space to bring the kids down and actually do hands on work it's going to be pretty exciting so that's in place for next year in terms of we've had some discussion about a lot for the struggling learners what are we doing for the advanced learners we had a lot of conversations and we generated a lot of ideas this year at the high school especially about mathematics and allowing kids to advance if they are able to they had put in using the tools that we bought the interim assessments and let them attract my progress they had put in an exam that was pretty well developed at this point in time to be able to see if the students have all their eighth grade master's skills down so that is happening now so we've been quite a bit of work we already talked about the power trio our ELA director of mathematics and then our two of them three support director two of them are specifically there to improve curriculum and outcomes for kids and the third Doreen, her work is actually because of this so the high school should be much different next year that's a good thing any other questions and the student records training notification is that for us? just like the teachers there's training that you're mandated to have yearly it's on things like FERPA and being a mandated reporter there's a little power point that you would be sent probably by September 15th between the first week of September and September 15th it's important that you go through it there's a little quiz at the end take the quiz and then print it out and then that gets submitted to Laura who we can then put it on in the record books in case the students look and say that you guys would do this so that would be kind of the as a state? they should my guess is if there's ever an issue like if somebody should have reported or if they didn't that's the first thing they're going to ask would you guys do your job? making sure the people are trained we're validating right now I thought we had a great meeting one of the things that I think we can work on this year is just sometimes just sort of being figuring out exactly what it is that we want in terms of the output of the agenda I don't think you know because I think sometimes on the agenda itself? well I know about on there but you know what would sort of sort of like with the annual report you know like I like that we had some discussion about it because it allowed us to sort of talk about why we're doing what we're doing but then these took some notes but I'm like am I supposed to remember what we're supposed to be doing so just I don't know I just sometimes I'm not clear exactly what you're looking for so that's why it was diversity of viewpoints were sought out and considered a lot of times that I'm like not clear exactly are we looking for an opinion or is it a lot of times it's just sort of a report out whatever it would be nice if there was a question just to sort of kind of whether discussion is expected right right information or action right right right that would just be something I think maybe we could sort of work on because sometimes I ask questions and I'm like oh I waylaid us really long on that one but I felt like it was a fruitful discussion and I think I would so just looking at the current agenda we've got approval of agenda and goals that was a discussion one so if we put discussed and in approval would that right maybe or that was a discussion the review of policies was more the review we didn't really discuss that discuss our TCC meeting dates that was a discussion right so like review OSA policy review that's almost misleading so I sort of spent time reading through all that but really what the thing that we were going to do was just who would like to be on a committee well she that's true but between the agenda meeting and today she had asked to attend a board meeting so we were going to review with her and then she just told me she can't she would rather work with a subcommittee so that's true it was I thought it was going to be something different right right yes because we spent a lot of time in this section which I think was all useful but we did not in our agenda planning not allow enough time for right or just sort of and just sort of noting what it is the outcome that he wanted out of the discussion just to give us a little more direction so that I know that sometimes I'm asking questions and maybe it's not really I think it's always appropriate to ask questions I don't think there's a time where it's not yeah and I thought everybody participated everybody listened I feel like we're pretty open and I'm feeling like it's a more open board to just sort of asking questions and not making the assumption that everybody knows exactly what was going on because we're all at different levels of experience I'll second that notion I'll wait alright alright unless there's anything else we're going to now enter exactly the session