Enfield, CT - Board of Education - February 27, 2024

I'd like to call the 7:00 Board of Education meeting of February 27th to order a moment of silence and pledge with Tina LeBlanc. I'd like all of us to take a moment of reflection and hope for anyone, including ourselves, who may be struggling now. The Pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. OK, fire. Evacuation announcement. You can either go out the doub

le doors in the back council chambers, out to the parking lot, or out these double doors. Take a left and go down the stairs out to the parking lot. Kathy, can I have the roll call, please? Missus LeBlanc here. Missus Pickett here. Mr. Ryder. Here. Missus Accree. Here. Doctor Kalman here. Missus Cushman here. Mr. Gennitis. Mr. Kober here. Chairwoman Riley here. OK. Board guests. We have Registrar voters this evening. Can you please come on up? Mr. Kindler and Mr. Fiore, he always does. That blow

s into the mic. Good evening, everybody. Yes, good evening. Thank you, Chairman Riley and Board members for having us come tonight. Can you hear me? Fine? You're good. Hey, Lou and I are here tonight to discuss the, the, the statue of the the state of the schools on the upcoming Election Day, which as you know has changed by state statue now. So that our primary is being held on the 2nd of April and we're asking the board to consider closing schools on that day because of the safety and congesti

on issues that are we expect to happen and then have happened in the past, especially at the Barnard and Enfield St. schools. As you know we have I had a couple of pictures sent to the rest of the board and if we can put them up now that's a picture of the front loop from the side going into Barnard in the morning. You see that the line right in front of there is the at that moment is the end of the parents dropping off cars with the buses in the background. The big buses go to the front loop. I

f you if I see the second picture, second picture is turned looking down. If you see the building on the left hand side that's where people go to vote and the traffic pattern with the small buses and all the parents dropping off loops around to in front of where I just was. That white car was just the other way. Goes all the way down to the back of the property. Turns around and comes back up the edge of the gym and then to where you'd normally see the 75 foot. Don't go past this when you go in

to vote and then looping back out out of the building, and if I may, that's within the 75 foot mark where basically the only people in the 75 foot mark by state statute are supposed to be voters, not not parents or not politicians or anyone else. When we had the September, little September primary Democratic primary there, it was the first time we really became cognizant of this particular issue. We witnessed it and we allowed that to happen. We allowed the parents to come within the 75 foot mar

k because at that point it really was too late in the game for us to try to change anything. It was quite evident to us there is a real problem in Henry Barnard because we're letting them within the 75 foot mark, which we shouldn't be, and if we don't let them within the 75 foot mark in school is a session, then that backup is going to end up going down all the way down Shaker Rd. There are that many parents who drop off and pick up their children at Henry Barnard and Enfield Street School. We e

xpect a little bit of a problem not quite as severe because there are some drop offs but this seems to be a little bit better a rotation of the cars more handicapped access and and we would be in if schools in session we would be in back of the building which is really unsafe for the voters but it's safe by law. So we use it because we don't use the all-purpose room in Enfield Street school. We really don't expect the problem at JFK to be quite honest with you. I don't want to try to snow even t

hink we are, you know, but that's pretty well controlled with the wrap around with the buses. It's inconvenient but it's not really a safety issue and of course we wouldn't expect any problem really at the annex for the same thing. So really the only problems we're having and we didn't meet with the assistant Superintendent Longley and and Superintendent Trezek about this about a week or two ago and I think they're also concerned is really Enfield Street school, excuse me, Henry Barnard and Enfi

eld Street School and this this happens every day during drop off and pick up. So there's about a 3540 minute window where this chaos is happening, but when it's when there's voting it, it drags that time out and it also makes the buses when they leave and when they come in late to come in and go out. So it kind of messes up some of the other scheduling out there depending on where the buses are going to in the morning or in the afternoon. So we're we're asking that you guys please consider and

and make a decision to close the schools on April 2nd. The second piece we wanted to talk about today and if there are any questions please, I can't explain it on that. If I can't, I think probably some of you might want an explanation as to why this is happening now and hasn't happened in the past because we had had elections when school is in session before working with the safety offers and everything else. So this is would not be the first time that we've had, you know, elections when school

's in session. But apparently at Henry Barnard School some of the programs were moved over there from Nathan Hale. That has magnified or intensified the the problems with this particular school in in in the traffic pattern in the amount of drop off and pick ups, correct. They used to all the buses used to go in the front and when they added all the buses coming from the other school those buses the smaller ones got soft and diverted down this path before where that never used to happen before. S

o that's the that's the logistical change that's we find ourselves facing. The other, the other thing we will, we will mention Tom and I have talked about this over the last year, year and a half is when we can't do anything about this in 2024 because we've missed that timeline. Unless a building burned down, God forbid, we can't really move voting locations by state statute because of the time allotment between all different elections. But once you have a primary you have to hold, you have to s

tay there for the duration of that election in the same building. So we we couldn't move one of the location list. There was an emergency. But we have talked about it, about moving out of potentially being able to if possible move out of Henry Barnard maybe in 2025. If we could find another location, of course we're pretty limited. That would be Prudence Crandall, which causes a lot of other problems. We're maybe going to the Senior Center which would require Secretary of State's approval becaus

e it's out of district. But we're willing to look at that as a future fix to to this particular problem because we don't see this getting any better. Even though we don't have many elections when school's in session, they can't happen. We could have a special election next month. If the one of the senators or state reps or so was leaving, the governor calls for a special election, we'd have this issue again. So but there's nothing on the horizon scheduled for when school. This would be the last

one for a long time. But we do have a problem, so we wanted to open it up if you had any questions. And I just wanted to touch on early voting for the public's benefit. All right. Does anybody have any questions for the registrar? Go ahead and just pick it. So my understanding is that if we did not close school on April 2nd, folks will be voting in our school buildings with students in the building and then you reference like the parking lot situation. So would there be increased police or traff

ic support? And then you mentioned it's in the rear of the building at Enfield Street School, That's where the buses are. So just look. Logistic. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. For first of all, we probably wouldn't have any more other than the school safety officer and what they would deem that they would need. I haven't worked with Mr. Crabtree yet on these issues, but I used to work with Mr. Harrison, if you remember him. So we had a pre pat, we knew what to do. Yes, there probably would be on their

end. That would be a question for him whether they wanted any more internal security. I can assure you if school is not closed, at least for the Henry Barnard situation, Tom and I would approach Chief Fox because there definitely is going to be a problem on Shaker Rd. without a doubt within that 8:00 to 9:00 in the morning time period and that three to four. So your answer here is we would at least approach him for that issue, but that would not solve the problem at at that door. That would jus

t keep maybe traffic from getting accidents out in the street, but the, you know, you, you, you, there'd be nowhere for the police officers to actually go. There's so much congestion in there and that's the problem. And we're not going to, we're we're in this relation, if you decided to keep schools open, which is certainly your prerogative, we're not going to allow parents within that 75 foot area. So we're not going to allow that. We did in September. There's no way we're going to allow parent

s with cars coming through the voting area to drop their kids off at the gym. They're going to be stacking up out here by that light pole. Yeah. So they had to turn immediately and which can't, can't break the law. We did it. We let it go in September because we really didn't know the magic too. It was kind of happening as we saw it. OK. Does anybody else have any questions? Go ahead. Mr. Ryder, I just wanted to clarify something for the public. So even though you're not concerned about the traf

fic flow at JFK, we still have a concern as a board that there would be obviously people in the building with our students. So yeah, and in the past, regardless of the traffic flow, that's still a concern for me. Past when we've had primaries in any of the public schools, we've made arrangements with the principal to close off that gymnasium and the adjacent hallway. We put up tape so the students do not come into that area and and the the public doesn't go to that for a security standpoint. You

know you'd have to have if you were concerned about it another security or the security person in in that in where the two meet to to take care of that we might add another one for you. But in the past that hasn't been we we've we've had a pretty that's right we've had a pretty good protocol with all four locations as far as security when school is in session and we vote we we have it down pretty pat. I know we have a new safety officer then we know we would go through all that but those are pr

etty well blocked off so that people can't wander into the school and and teachers and students can't wander into the voting area. Right. But they're still their their full program of scheduling would be disrupted. Oh yes. Absolutely. So I I'd be as concerned as the other two properties just just to say and the and the after school program too. Right. For that Erfcs in there. Yeah. Absolutely. Yes. Anybody else have any questions? OK. Phil. You sure? Phil used to work for us, so we. Do you want

to add anything, Mr. Culver, since you've witnessed some of this first hand? No. I mean the only thing I'd say is based on the traffic and the people in the school, it would make sense for us to take action and close the schools. Chair Chairwoman Riley, if I could just say for the public as a reminder to the board, I know you know this book to the public. Our students go to school 181 days. State law says we just need 180. So if you waive a day, there's no day we have to. We would have to make u

p. It would still be a work day for the staff, but the students would be cut down to 180 days, which is still within the legal rights. I I would ask in the Barnard parking lot because I've seen it multiple times if we can, I don't know, get an additional sign or something. Because when the staff parks in front of the main doors of the building, the voters just think, oh, it's already full. So they park over there with the staff while the whole side parking lot is empty. So if we had another sign

that had an arrow that said, you know, vote more towards the sidewalk so people didn't have to walk, I mean, I've seen handicapped people with canes walking all from the other side. Seen that too. I've seen that too. Yeah. So anything to help with that would be like another because of staffer in the building here. With an arrow. Yeah. With like an arrow. Yeah. Voting. Parking, right. Yeah. With an arrow. Better, right. Yeah, I think we have a vote here. Big easel that we put up in that little c

orner, but with the arrow and the parking word added to it. It might, yeah, might be more hard to the direct because when it when it's when it's crazy there, it's crazy. Oh yeah. But with staff there, people automatically think, Oh my God, it's already all full. So then they park over there and they're just, we want to thank, by the way, the Staffs in all the schools. They do a pretty good job at, you know, relaying the message like to the teachers to park at a certain part of the parking lot at

JFK or at Barnard and to leave that area for voters open, you know, in terms of parking. They've been very good about that in the past. And all three principles have just been outstanding, really. They really have been outstanding. Of course they're they're looking out for their their interests and their and their issues and that's rightfully so. But they've been wonderful to work with. We haven't been having instructions among any of them. So I just want to pass that on to you. We'd be very, v

ery happy to work with them. And with that, I just wanted to add a little public service message and we'll be talking to the council next week about the same thing about early voting, which they changed it in the legislature. Now it's April 2nd, it was going to be later in April. The public is now has four days of early voting on this primary coming up in April. And those dates will be the 26th Tuesday, the 26th, Wednesday, the 27th, Thursday the 28th. Good Friday will be no voting and then they

'll pick it up for the last day on Saturday the 30th, the 30th. And then Sunday will be no voting. Monday will be no voting and Tuesday will be the election. So the public has four days to do early voting between 10:00 in the morning and six here at Town Hall. That's the Town hall only though. Town Hall only in the info room, right? So if you go to a JFK or you go to Fermi or you go to any of the other locations, you're going to not go there. If you're early voting, you're going to come here and

you're going to go to the Enfield room on the bottom floor and we'll have a polling place for the early voting set up there to accommodate people. And it's good to mention I'm, I'm glad it's, it's a official polling place. So all the rules that we abide to at the regular polling location would be doing that town hall that day with the 75 foot, no candidates, you know, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Same rules apply. And if anybody watched the town council meeting, which I'm sure some of you did

well last time we were there, we're up in the air as far as how many people are going to show up for early voting. So Blue and I don't want to encourage or discourage. We don't want people to do what is comfortable for them, but they'll have those four days. We don't know yet until we do it whether we're going to have a 20% turn out for the early voting or we're going to have 40 or 50% for the early voting, you know. So we're planning for the bigger and hoping for the smaller, but we'll see and

then we'll play it by that. All right. Any questions on that? Anybody else? Thank you very much, very much. Thank you. Appreciate your time. We appreciate yours. We're going to stick around for your vote. OK, That's going to be a while. I hope everybody bought enough candy and snacks for this evening. OK. So item number 7, Superintendent's report. Thank you. We have two students here. I think I'm going to let Kayla go first as a senior, plus I get to embarrass her. She has been accepted to the u

niverse or the Western New England University. So congratulations and pharmacy, so congratulations. So go ahead Kayla, it's enough embarrassment for tonight. Go ahead. At Enfield High, one of our students Kiante Crawford, just got named state champion for his weight class and wrestling this past weekend and will be competing this weekend in New England's in Rhode Island. Spring sports will be beginning March 16th. Enfield High's track team is hosting A fundraiser 20% off your tux rentals for pro

m. If you're interested, just contact one of like your local track athletes and they can help you set you up with AQR code or the promo code to get the 20% off. Buzz Robotics has their Hartford District Competition March 2nd to March 3rd at Hartford Public Schools and they have their Rhode Island District event from March 15th to March 16th. Buzz Robotics is also hosting a pasta supper on March 21st from 4:00 to 9:00 PM. Ask a Buzz member to purchase a ticket, they will be $10 if you're interest

ed. March is going to be music in our schools month and we have two music events coming up. We have the Enfield Chorus Festival on March 16th, which will be in the EHS Auditorium. 4th through 12th grade will be participating and at 3:30 PM there will be a concert in the EHS Auditorium. And the Enfield String Music Festival will be held on March 22nd, also in the EHS Auditorium. Thank you, Kayla. Izzy, you're up. Good evening everyone. Mine is fairly short today for Juniors or SAT. Day is officia

lly now March 22nd, so if you have a junior make sure they're looking out for their outlook because the class schedule will be will be coming out soon. Also Friday March 15th we have our EHS Talent Show Junior Prom tickets on sale March 4th through the 8th and on top of that our Junior prom will be on the 28th from 5 to 10 officially at the log. Cabin grades closed for progress reports tomorrow. Also, we had the Blues and Beyond Symposium on March 15th, which was really good. So I hope we, I hop

e we do it next year too. Mr. Allegro is hosting Eagle Block for the Black History Month little program he's doing. It's ending on the 29th of February, so if you guys still want to look at more presentations, it's open till the 29th. Our EHS Band, Choir and Orchestra played at the Springfield Thunderbird Stadium. It was really good. So congratulations to them. And lastly, I am having a alternative waste initiative and we just added something new which is our composting bins. So I wanted to enco

urage people that have students at EHS that we have both recycling bin and composting bin. So look out for that. Thank you. Thank you, Izzy. Last one for me real quick. Tonight, Stowe Early Early Learning Center will celebrate Read Across America Day this Friday, March 1st. And board members, enclosed in your packets is an invitation for board members to come and read to the students. So hopefully, we'll see you there. And that's all I have for today. Thank you, Mr. Logging. All right. So #8 is

audiences. Do we have a paper? OK, OK, let me grab my paper here real quick. OK, All right. So during this. Any resident or taxpayer of Enfield, employee of the board, citizen with an interest in our school system, may address the board on issues concerning the schools. When addressing the board, member of the audience will state their name and address. Refrain from making personal attacks on individuals and everybody gets 4 minutes. So first on the list is Rob Anderson. Rob Anderson Bass Drive

so Mr. Drezek quit. This leaves an opportunity for the school system. I understand you want to forgo that search and appoint assistant Longey. I I think that would be a mistake to not do a search if Mr. Long is the best candidate after that, great. But to to do that without doing any kind of a search, I'm I'm not sure that's the best idea. So when you start the public comment, you'd say no personalities, no making comments directly at people and stuff like that. And Tina, you made that comment f

or two years, but last meeting you made some comments directly at me, which is fine for you, I guess, right. You made some accusations in the last meeting and mentioned obsession. I think you're looking at the wrong person, the people that you should be looking at, one of these people sitting right next to you that are obsessed with having drag Queens talk to children. You also mentioned PJ Day. You went on and on and up for a couple minutes about that. What have I said about PJ Day in past year

and a half? Two years, say a year and a half? Nothing, not a word. I do think it's wrong. I I don't think kids should be going to school in PJS. There's there's reasons that it's probably not a good idea, but again, I haven't said anything about that in a year and a half. You also complained about videos. How many videos have I put up this year about the BOE? Any any guess? One video? Just one. So are you complaining about the videos that I'm putting up on the BOE? Or are you complaining about

the videos that I'm putting up that show the overlap between the BOE and Field Pride and the UCC Church and thus Drag queen? Story hour talking to kids? Yeah, 30 seconds. Mr. Anderson, I think we know the answer. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. OK. Next up is John Power, John Power, 33 Laurie Drive in Enfield. Thank you for letting me speak tonight. I came tonight. I had wanted to see Mr. Drezek and congratulate him on his new position. I am at this point in time the veteran teacher at JFK M

iddle School and have worked for every Superintendent back to Lou Maker, if you remember him, and every principal back to Jim Mahoney. And I've worked for some great administrators during that time. I think the leaders, the current leadership at the central office of Mr. Drezek and Mr. Longi have created an incredibly good relationship between the MPL Teachers association, parents and the town. I think he we would have never got through the pandemic without his leadership. He's been Superintende

nt at the worst time full on Pandemic two major building renovations and we've never enjoyed such a good relationship. Coming out of the Pandemic, the central office and the administration and Enfield have hired some of the most talented teachers I've ever seen in 30 years. And I wanted to thank Mr. Drezek for his work and Mr. Longi. Maybe you can bring my comments to him. But part of the reason why I'm I'm bringing that to the board tonight rather than just to Mr. Drezek alone, as I know you fo

lks are faced with some tough budgetary decisions. I think Mr. Drezek has given you a reasonable budget. In 37 years of teaching, I don't think we've ever worked this hard. You need to keep in mind that the students that we're currently teaching during the pandemic, they were in 3rd grade and forced on to, they didn't have one to one devices. They went through 3rd, 4th, 5th grade with remote learning, with no teachers. Right now those kids need every amount of support that we can give them. You

can't take anything away from them. And that's pretty much sums it all up. What, what? What's left to take away from those kids? We still are working to get them back on track. We've enjoyed tremendous support. I know you have some tough decisions to make, but I think you need to consider when you make those decisions, who you're who, who that's going to affect the most. I know it's a tough budget year and I think it is everywhere, but I would like you to consider that. And again with my comment

s of Mr. Drezek, he's always had the best interest of the students first, the teachers and the town. And he's been very upfront with us. And I think he's given you an honest and reasonable proposal and I would ask you to consider it. I appreciate you letting me speak tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. OK Angela Foss. Angela Foss, 16 Crescent Beach Dr. I have something I want to hand out to that I want you to look at please. So I also want to congratulate Mr. Drezek for his new position. He's an

amazing Superintendent of Schools, very honoured to work underneath his tutorage. I'm here today to talk about the budget, and I know you may not know this, but for the past two years I spoke before the town council and made a big fuss about the tax increases and I was like one of maybe two people. And last year I made a fuss about the fact that somehow the Board of Education budget was figured incorrectly and Carol Hall had presented the fact that we were supposed to get an additional $1.4 mill

ion. That did actually come to the board of Ed, but instead it was placed into the town of Enfield's general fund was supposed to be our money. Instead it became the town's $1.4 billion. Anyway, I have done a little bit of math here and you can see the highlighted numbers starting at 2015. I know that's like forever ago. And how much money percentage wise the town budget has been, and how much money percentage wise our school budget has been. I don't know about you, but my husband actually bough

t me a box of paper because the budget was shut down, closed so early in the school year that he went out to buy me a box of paper so I could make copies for my students. And I'm sure I am not alone in this. We count on you to protect the children. We have so many students coming in of other lane who are speaking other languages. I just brought that to people's attention. What are we going to do when it comes to the the SBA testing? And they need to have a person who sits beside them and speaks

Spanish or Russian or whatever it may be helping them and guiding them through the testing? Or are we going to continue being an Alliance district because these children are asked to take this test? I have a brand new student that I started working with and she cannot speak one word of English. How is she going to take the SBA test? We need? You guys need to fight for every penny. And I know I saw Chris present the budget last time and he said it should be 16% increase, but instead he knows our

town and he's going to cut it. No, not at all. Stick to your ground stick, stick to your guns. And you need a 16% budget increase. And I can tell you this right now, if you go before the town council and you tell them you want the 16% budget increase, they will find a way to cut their budget. Because if they need to cut their budget, as you can see by these numbers, everything is growing up, going up, up, up, up to the tune of we are now at 49.5% and they're at 50, 1/2% of the budget. Thank you

for your time. Thank you for all that you do. We do appreciate you. Thank you, Miss Foss. Next up is Kelsey McGuire. Bruce Kelsey McGuire Bruce 63, Neilens Rd. Education nationwide has changed so much, even in my 12 short years of teaching. Many of these changes, in my opinion, are not for the good, not for the good of students or the staff. While so much has changed, one thing has always stayed the same. Being a teacher is the most rewarding career you can ever have. Making a difference in a ch

ild's life is one thing no budget cuts, no policy, and no politics can take away from us. Ask any educator about the moments that keep them going and they will tell you it's the kids. The moments when a child who practiced making groups of 10 for weeks can finally do it on their own. The moments when former students come back to see you in the OR they see you in the store. They tell you that you're still their favorite teacher, or they, or they still remember that one time you took them outside

and played hopscotch to convert metric measurement. Well, we try to hold on to these moments to help us keep going. Just like a car or your home. Schools and teachers need things to keep running. Teacher burnout is real and the constant fight for our students needs is exhausting. Schools need work and teachers and students need supplies, and all of this cost money. Last year I came here and said we must pass a budget that at least maintains. Mr. Drezek was asking for a budget approval that maint

ained our current programs, not advanced us, but maintained Staff knew we needed more but at the very least we had to maintain. Well, I'm here tonight to tell you that was not enough. Well, we can only predict so much. So I mean no faults of anyone. When I mentioned the reality that we are in a budget freeze and we have been since November, we are unable to order materials and are making do with what we have. Teachers, as usual, are pulling from their pockets for everything. I mean the basics. P

encils, crayons, tissues. But I don't want to just talk about the materials you all know. Teachers fund a good portion of their classroom needs from their own pockets or by creating wish lists and then begging friends and family to help us. So let's talk about programs and student support. What about the fact that our special Ed teachers have a caseload of 20 plus students per teacher with 100 plus hours of service time? This is double the number of students special education teachers have in ot

her surrounding towns. Small groups are no longer small. How about another population in our schools are tier students? A brief explanation of this group is students who are scoring one to two grade levels behind. At one school, two teachers are servicing 56 students in Tier 3 math. How about our support staff, our paras, and our tutors who are essential in keeping our buildings afloat? But here in Enfield, those paras and tutors are leaving us for other districts. Why are they leaving? Well, th

ey can drive a few minutes further and make $5 more an hour and have less kids too. Teacher retention in Enfield should also be mentioned the number of staff we are losing to other districts that pay more. That's one thing. But how about the staff that lead for other districts or even careers because they just want to feel valued and supported? Remember before I said teacher burnout is real. Advocating constantly for our needs and our students needs is a huge part of that burnout. To summarize m

y points tonight, how much longer can we go on like this? How much longer can we just maintain? Everyone wants to talk about the Alliance district, but those same people don't want to put more money into the education budget. How can we get ahead if we continue to fund a budget that just maintains? The answer is we cannot. We are aren't here tonight asking for the luxuries of the corporate world like lunches or Christmas bonuses or all expense paid trips. We are here asking for basic materials,

programs, supports needed to do our job. A budget that maintains won't give us additional special Ed teachers or more tutors for our tier students. A budget that maintains won't take away the burden of teachers purchasing their own supplies or the curriculum purchasing curriculum resources that will help advance our scores. But a cut to our budget, a reduction of staff, program supports and supplies? We cannot do it. We cannot continue to underfund our schools and expect a better outcome for our

students or our town. Enough is enough. Fund education appropriately. Thank you, Council. OK Next up, Nathan Van Meter. Nathan Van Meter, 3180 St. Evening. I want to begin by saying thank you to Superintendent Dreszek for all he has done for us. Do I have to do that? Do I have to keep it pushed? You're good. Sorry. Should I start over? Go for it. OK. Good evening. Want to begin by saying thank you for to Superintendent Dreszek for all he has done for us. Enfield Educators. I'm a 7th grade scien

ce teacher at JFK Middle School. This is my third year in the district. As discussions unfold about whether to approve a budget that would maintain the resources we currently have, I want to share a quick story about an experience my colleagues and I have put together with support from our department funds for the last two years. As part of our ecology unit, students have been tasked with designing a study related to plant growth. Classes can choose to study how a plant species, amount of water,

type of soil, or fertilizer affect the growth of a plant. Students in each class then team up to plant water seeds and take turns watering, measuring plant heights and recording the data. By the end of the study, students have followed every step of the scientific method and are empowered to answer their own research question. The plant study is an excellent vehicle for delivering content and honing student science skills. However, the level of student engagement as we move through the study ha

s consistently impressed me. We have done the plant study for the past two years, and both years I had dozens of students asked to take plants home so that they could continue caring for them After the study concluded. This year, a parent shared with me that she and her son would be starting a vegetable garden the spring, as he had become so invested in caring for the plants and tracking their growth. I share this study as an example of how students, interests, passions, and possible career path

s can be shaped through the classroom experiences we teachers provide. The more seeds we as educators can plant upon entirely intended, the more likely it is that a student will find something that ignites a new passion of theirs. However, classroom experiences like the plant study ultimately need financial backing from the district. A budget is a statement of what an organization values. Do you value formative educational experiences? Whether you vote to maintain our current financial resources

will answer that question. Thank you for your time. Next up is Justin Rodzen. Good evening, everybody. Can you hear me? All right. Good evening, everybody. Justin Rodson College Ave. here in Enfield. Good evening, members of the board. Thanks for your time this evening. I come before you as a teacher at JFK Middle School, but not just as a teacher. I come before you as both a parent and a taxpayer here in Enfield. While I've taught for two years in Enfield, following eight years of teaching in

the city of Springfield, MA, I have lived in Enfield now for over 3 decades. I've been a taxpayer since I purchased a home here back in 2016 and I grew up in this town. I was a product of the Enfield Public Schools, so the state of our school department is especially important to me. I'm very aware of and can appreciate the economic concerns within our town right now. I understand the need to balance the budget, but I am here to express to you this evening that the area of education is simply no

t an area that we can trim heavily because the ramifications of such cuts could have a very long term effects on our community. Following the Coronavirus pandemic, many educators made huge career decisions and made the jump to new districts, leaving tenured positions at schools who valued them and wanted them just so they could contribute to a new setting that includes me. This is an especially this is very especially true here in the Enfield Public Schools. I'm one of the educators who did this

and came from another district because I wanted to contribute to our Enfield Public Schools who helped make me the person I am today. With the current rhetoric surrounding the upcoming budget for the 2024-2025 school year and beyond, the notion of pink slips have become a heavy concern amongst non tenured classroom teachers. Many educators who have left valuable tenured positions in previous districts to join the Enfield Public Schools, sometimes even being recruited by EPS, now face the chance

of being pink slipped. While the pink slip procedures may have been the norm in the past, proceeding down this path, this path in a post COVID era is a very high stakes gamble. The educational climate today is not the same as it was in previous decades. Quality teachers have many options. There are even towns not far from here who have incentivized signing bonuses to attract talented teachers. If you resort to sending out pink slips, you will lose quality teachers before the beginning of next s

chool year. Most teachers have their plans for the following school year finalized by the end of April. When I made the switch to Enfield, that was the fact. If there's a cloud of potential pink slip hanging over the heads of teachers in this town, they will will look elsewhere, including myself. This is especially concerning as a parent here in town for the children we service in the schools. The students will still be there next year. I have a total of seven empty seats across 10 class section

s this school year in a classroom of 24 seats. So out of 240 possible students, I have had 233 this school year. Those students will still be there next year. Will we have a quality teacher to fill that spot, or will we be filling it last minute with the body just to make sure that we have somebody in front of the students? I ask that you seriously consider how you proceed with the budget situation for the upcoming school year and beyond, not just this year. A culture where pink slips return eit

her this year or in the years to come will drive away talent who are highly capable and have options to go elsewhere. I am one of those teachers. As a taxpayer and a parent, I want our students to have the best possible teachers in front of them. As my daughter grows up, I would like to see that there should be no compromise with the staffing at the classroom level in our Enfield Public Schools. Budget cuts should not affect the classroom level. Taking such a gamble could result in a heavy, stea

dy drop in test scores for the years to come, which beyond the Enfield Public Schools, could affect the home values within our town as well. Before I finish, I do also want to congratulate Superintendent Drezek on his years in Enfield and thank you for his service. And I also want to thank all of you for your time and consideration and thank you for listening to my words tonight. Appreciate it. Thank you. OK, Next up is Leah Munson. Good evening. Thank you. I'm also an educator at JFK. I have be

en teaching for nine years total and as I've been previously stated, I have also left a tenured position to come to Enfield and as was stated, if pink slips are given, myself and other teachers that I have spoken to are going to be seeking elsewhere. Frankly, we need the job security and there are open positions that need quality teachers and we are not afraid to go other places. I'm happy to be in Enfield, I want to be in Enfield. But unfortunately if we are not wanted, if we are shown we are n

ot wanted, we will leave. A portion of the mission statement was approved by the Enfield Public Board of Education states. We believe public education is an essential component for a free and democratic society. Our mission is to enable all students to meet high standards to make productive choices in their personal lives, contribute to a diverse global society, and act as responsible citizens. To accomplish this, we must seek the necessary resources. The necessary resources for our schools incl

ude supplies and educators. This year, JFK has had a paper shortage. We were told to only print when absolutely necessary in the English department, each team of which we have 4. We're expected to read a whole class novel, but we were given a set of 30 copies that we were expected to share. Once those stories were done, I had many students asked if they could have the sequel, to which I had to reply. No, I did not have them in 7th grade where I teach, there are 16 educators in our grade. Experie

nced educators, more than anything else, are the ultimate resource. Knowledge of content area and classroom management only comes over time. First, your teachers do not have that. If teaching positions are cut, class sizes will increase and experience will be lost. In the aforementioned missing statement, it is explicitly stated that we must seek the necessary resources. Simply put, if the budget is not increased as per the recommendation of Superintendent Drezek, the necessary resources will no

t be given to the students of Abbott Public Schools. Thank you for your time. Thank you. OK, Next is Kate Fothorpe. I'm sorry if I did not say that right. My name is Kate Fothrop. I sleep in Suffield, but I swear sometimes I feel like I live at 155 Raffia Rd., JFK Enfield. Maybe that's just a dream, sometimes it's a nightmare. But anyways, I'm also a born and bred here in Enfield. I went to Henry Barnard and I can drop names to John Power. Joe Lombardo was my principal. Not only my principal, he

was my neighbor next door. I was the first class to enter JFK when all the 7th and 8th graders went to that building. OK, we were the first class to do that, and I did graduate from Fermi in 1988, so John may be the patriarch, but if you do your math, I'm probably the matriarch fall of 98. I returned to Enfield and JFK as a teacher, and I began teaching on a CART World Languages under my department chairperson, Jane Swinsky in the spring of, well, in the fall of 2003, you know, the spring of 20

03, Jane got sick fall of 2003. She didn't return to school. In the spring of 2004. She passed in one of the afternoons I was spending with her, essentially when she was on her death. But I must have been complaining, maybe constructively criticizing some of the stuff going on at JFK. And she said, she said, Kate, remember why you do this? And I really, I do remember that it's 20 years ago this March. I remember that she asked me that. So I had to stop and say why, you know? And and I remembered

I do it, 'cause I love teaching, I love kids, I love languages. I love it all, most of the time. And people ask me how do you do it? I say 49 minutes at a time and Glasgow is another one comes in. I can do anything for 49 minutes to me need to start thinking. I guess Leo was Leo was thinking the same thing, you know? Do you guys remember why you do your job as a member of the Board of Education? So I also looked up the mission statement. It says that you believe public education is an essential

component of a free and democratic society. In a partnership of family, school, community, and local and state government, your mission is to enable all students to meet high standards, make productive choices in their personal lives, contribute to a diverse global society, and act as responsible citizens. To accomplish this, you must seek the necessary resources to provide a safe, nurturing and academically challenging learning environment. For this, we teachers thank you to provide students a

nd staff with opportunities to reach their full potential. We also thank you for this. Prepare students to become productive, lifelong learners. We see some examples here tonight of young people who are on their way. Your mission is to instill in our students a curiosity and love for learning which embraces the arts in the world around them. That's just amazing. Prepare students to become self reliant, honest, respectful and responsible members of a diverse and global society. Wouldn't that be a

great place to live, to improve student learning by holding staff accountable for providing the most effective learning environment and using the most effective teaching strategies? So again, as you've heard from others, when it comes to making decisions, remember what your mission statement says and please stay true to that. We thank you. Thank you. OK, Next up, Emily Hollovich. Good evening. Sorry. Good evening, Emily Hollovich, Cutter Lane. I'm speaking to express my views on the proposal to

introduce armed security guards in our schools and to suggest alternative approaches to utilizing the allocated budget. I'm not stating my opinion on the guards. My concern rests in the fact that the town Council could appropriate the cost of the guards and not put the money towards the overall budget. While I acknowledge the importance of ensuring the safety of our students and staff, I believe it is crucial to consider the broader implications of incorporating armed security guards into our e

ducational environment. I would like to express the following concerns #1, the impact on school environment. Introducing armed security guards may create an atmosphere of fear and tension within our schools, potentially affecting the overall learning environment. It is essential to strike a balance between safety measures and maintaining A welcoming educational setting to focus on prevention and counseling instead of allocating resources solely for armed security. I propose that a portion of the

budget be directed towards preventative measures such as enhanced counseling services, mental health programs, and anti bullying initiatives. By addressing the root cause of the potential issues, we may create a safer and more supportive school community #3 Community involvement in education, investing in community engagement programs, and educational initiatives foster a sense of unity and shared responsibility for maintaining a safe school environment. Educating students, parents, and staff a

bout conflict resolution, communication skills, and emergency procedures can contribute significantly to overall safety #4 Regular safety audits and training. Rather than relying relying solely on armed security, consider implementing regular safety audits and training sessions for school staff. Ensuring that teachers and administrators are well prepared for emergency situations can be a proactive and effective approach. I understand the importance of prioritizing the safety of our schools, and

I believe that a comprehensive and multifaceted approach will better serve the interests of our schools and community. I appreciate the Board's dedication to our schools and trust that careful consideration will be given to the concerns raised by members of the community. Thank you for your time and commitment to the well-being of our educational institutions. Next up is Bill Delaney. Good evening. Is that working? There we go. Bill Delaney, South Windsor, CT teacher at JFK Middle School and Enf

ield Teachers Association Vice President. First, I would like to thank Chris Drezek for his wisdom, his understanding and leadership throughout his time here. It's been truly inspiring. We all appreciate and respect the respect that you showed us as a unit and as individuals. I wish you good luck in your next adventure. I would also like to thank you Madam Chair Riley, for your political courage and leadership on this board. You and others did not follow the Town Council's horrible decision whic

h bans non resident employees from speaking at council meetings. Their decision runs counter to the First Amendment protections and their rationale for this decision was almost laughably steeped in anti union rhetoric. But I'll move on. We now have a we now have a presented budget for our schools. This is not an extravagant budget. It gets us nothing new. It simply preserves what we have now. Budgets are value statements. They show what the elected officials of a community truly support. Budgets

make the delta between the talk and the action glaringly obvious. If you say you care about education, about teachers, about children, about the future of this community, and then you defund education, your words have no meaning. I truly think the good people of Enfield would support this budget as it is today. What's the alternative? Do you really think our schools will make improvements if you defund us by cutting this budget? Right now, the teachers in town are at their breaking point. Many

teachers have left the district and even the profession due to mistreatment, mismanagement, low salaries, mental health and the list goes on. We are trying our best to give every child an Enfield what they deserve, but it's getting more difficult to do so as our learning community's needs are changing and political divisions are becoming impediments to our mission, which is improving the lives of our students. Our profession is in a unique and unenviable position. We are often blamed for society

's ills and then tasked to fix it through our work. We are told by some that what happens at home with students shouldn't affect their learning. Some even say that funding shouldn't matter, or that we are overpaid or even greedy. All falsehoods, of course. But what might but what irks me the most is not being listened to. When we tell leaders what we need to succeed, we are there every day. We know what we need. We know what students need. Please listen. Cuts to this budget might be about dollar

s and cents to some. To us, cults cuts would be devastating signals that leaders don't care about us and fields children. For the future of this community, please, members of the BOE and by extension, the town council, do not defund education in Enfield. Thank you. OK, Danielle, Gerard, we're up next. Danielle, Gerard, Edward, Dr. Writing the speech tonight was not an easy thing to do. There are many items on the table that are going to impact our children and staff in so many ways. Tonight I co

me to you as a concerned parent, a parent of a special needs child, a friend to many teachers and staff, and a true believer that our Board of Education will do what's best for all Enfield children. First, I want to thank all of you for what you do Every single day. I've sat in the policy meetings, curriculum meetings, and these BOE meetings and I've watched as you all have worked together to make our schools better. I've commented to others how this group is showing more of United Front than pr

evious years and I applaud you for that. Now if only others would take note. I do not envy the decisions you are facing tonight and going forward, that's not an easy seat to sit in. I ask this make these decisions with the right state of mind and with the voice of both sides as well as our residents. Listen to what they have said or what they continue to say. I know it's not easy, but do the best that you can. Our armed guards in our schools the way to go. I'm hoping that since the town council

meeting, you have all talked, researched, reviewed, whatever plan you were given. We have to put our trust in you because the residents of this town were given about 24 hours to prepare our thoughts about this topic. We were blindsided and was a very sneaky thing for the town council to do. In 2011. We had armed guards in our schools for two years and they were removed by the BOE at the time. Some of you sitting here today voted to remove them. Please remember why you did that and what is changi

ng your mind now. The needs of our children are so high now. More than half of our students are in the high needs category. My child is one one of them with an IEP in place to help her navigate her life in school. As an autistic child. We need more Paris. We need more counselors. We need more support for our staff. Not adding the above support will only hurt our students and staff. We cannot grow as a district if we stay the same. Something has to change. I think the needs of our schools need to

come before $1,000,000 armed guard decision. There are other measures that have proven to be more successful and that is where the money should be spent. Focus on the education and support that residents have been complaining about for two years now. You all campaigned for education for our schools. Now is the time to stick to your word and show us why you are in this position. Thank you. Thank you Jimmy. Amy Guzzi Rob Next Amy Guzzi I live in Suffield. I work and also, like Kate, feel like som

etimes. I live at 165 Weymouth Rd. Apt #4 parkman School. I'd like to introduce myself to the board members who I haven't had a chance to speak before previously. I also am a product of the Enfield school system. I graduated from Fermi back when it was still open in a year that started with 19 and we'll leave it at that. So I have seen what Enfield has been like and I know the potential that Enfield has. I did want to start by thanking Mr. Drezek. I would like to just go on the record and say my

same thoughts even though he's not here. I have worked in Enfield for over 20 years now as a teacher. I taught kindergarten one year in 3rd grade for the rest, but I've also worked for a few superintendents. Mr. Drezek was a breath of fresh air being an approachable, down to earth, real life person. He was not in it like other people had been for the self promotion and the photo OPS. He is in it for the kids, doing what's best for our kids, and I can hear his voice echoing in my head saying tha

t statement over and over again. So Old Saybrook has hit a jackpot getting him to lead their school system and we will definitely miss him. I'm also, because I signed up late, have a lot of the same thoughts that you've already heard from other people. I do want to just mention that Remember why you do this job. You're the board of Ed. We need to be in it for the kids, and being in it for the kids supports a budget that will support the kids. It will support the staff that works with them on the

screens behind you. It says we make a difference in Enfield every child, every day. Please make sure that the difference you are making is a +1 and one that's not going to negatively impact them. The last thing that I did want to talk about is the situation with the armed guards. I don't know how much the Board of Ed knows about the current situation where we have 4 police officers who are hired as an extra job. We have the regular shift of police officers and then there are 4 extras every day

who are tasked with the job of being the SRO, the school resource officer. They're the people who respond to the schools if needed. They are the people walking in the halls, smiling, greeting the students, high fiving all the students and then wanting to high five teachers who said absolutely not, you just touched all the kids hands. Here's some sanitizer. So those four people, every day their job is to be at the schools. If there is an issue with a student, if there is an issue with a parent, t

hey are tasked with handling that issue. If we go back to having armed guards, an armed guard cannot deal with a family or a situation or a student in crisis. What an armed guard is going to do is call the police station and ask for a police officer to come over. That police officer is going to be someone who is just part of the daily rotation, not part of any extras. So we will be pulling people off the roads to deal with that. I believe that is all for me. And like the last time, in the words

of my favorite robo caller, thank you for your time. Have a pleasant evening. Thank you, Amy. Joshua Hamry, Joshua Hamry, 52 New King Street. And I do feel that would with Mr. Cobra stepping out of the room, my message won't be fully received. So that's disappointing. This is a cautionary discussion. There's a lot to discuss to be sure. And we've had some very eloquent speakers in front of me. So I'm going to keep that part kind of brief. Your Superintendent for the last 12 years has been except

ional, as his employees have stated over the last two years. Prior to this term, he was very clear about the impact that COVID was having on our student bodies, that they were going to be very much impacted on a generational level because of the impact that distance learning has had on them. And the numbers are proving that to be true now. Two years ago this month, as I sat on the board, we had a discussion about policies regarding transgender students and bathrooms. Next Benedict, a non binary

student, was alive. This time last week non binary 3 girls beat the knot out of that student in the bathroom of the school that they were in and next died the next day. To the idea of cutting resources, supports, staff, anybody that's in a position to watch for those signals to be the intermediary between the students and the other students. Any kind of support network that is weakened by any policy changes or any budget cuts leaves this town prone to more situations that could lead to things li

ke Beck's outcome. It is my hope that, all things considered, this board continues to maintain the budget as presented and I know it's not realistic to ask for an increase. It wouldn't hurt them. It would definitely help our students to be able to maintain and thrive and dare I say, achieve their fullest potentials to the point of the armed guard situation. I would just put out the one thought about that, that when this came up 12, however many years ago, it was 12 years ago. I think it was a po

licy that was put into place because as it was stated, it was a safety concern and I would argue that it was a personnel issue. No, excuse me, it was a personnel issue. It was not something given to the parents of the district to decide on or to have a voice on this time around. It's even less given to the parents because again, 24 hours notice from discussion to action is is an embarrassment and negates the intentions of transparency and keeping this the town involved. It's also very difficult

to look at the room full of teachers and know that they're here begging for their jobs on behalf of your students, but the parents aren't here to do the same. That's the part that really stinks that the parents aren't here to to do that because they trust or they just take it for granted that things are going to happen without them needing to show up. They they're, they've grown apathetic. It's it's a sad thing that we don't have so many parents here filling the room and putting us over capacity

for the room because they're the ones that are going to be impacted by what we do as a board. Excuse me? What you do as a board, I do want to wrap up with this one thing. What you do in this term, like I did in the last term, is a generational impact. It's not something that goes two years and ends. What I did improved the status of those LGBTQ students and their families. And what you do will affect equally. I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you Mr. Chairman. OK. Next up is Jonathan Grande

, Jonathan Grande, 33, Spruce and Rd. Enfield, thank you for hosting tonight. Thank you for all your volunteer time tonight. Appreciate it both sides of the aisle wanted to just briefly talk about the the budget. I will first of all say I agree with Josh that Mister Hamry, it's it's important to have parents come out and speak their mind about how they feel about the the school, the budget. It's very important. I think equally important is to actually see what the budget is not just a a miniatur

e PowerPoint provided by Mr. Drazak. I understand his background was in finance. Yes, Mr. Longey. So if if that's true I think it'd be it's it'd be more appropriate to get a thick book like we used to get in the old days that we can pick up here to see every single line at them that is included in the board of Ed budget. It's one of the largest line items. The budget for the BOE is the largest line item in the town. So I think it's important to see the details of that, not just a PowerPoint with

12 pages that just seems really skinny. Also as a point of context, 2 points is that there are statistics available online and that's where I went to go to try to find the budget and I and I couldn't find it. So maybe my skills of looking for it are not that great, but I don't think it's there. If it is, I'd love to see it get published in an easy accessible place instead of going to the state of Connecticut, drilling down to the different towns and and finding stuff there. But I did find this

and I found it interesting. I'd just like to have this get entered into the record and for the audience to hear this as well. Over the last 10 years the budget has increased for the BOE. Going back to the school year 2013, 2014, the actual spent was $76.9 million. So let's just round that up to 77 million. I'll jump ahead five years to the year before the pandemic 2017, 2018, $83 million, quite a nice jump. The year of the pandemic $87,000,000. And then I'll just it goes on, it goes up increment

ally from there up to the year 2220 three, $95 million. Again, this is published information available to anybody that wants to find it. So to think that the town doesn't invest in schools, our school is, is just not true. We have up to the tune of nearly $100 million. We pay a Superintendent almost 1/4 of $1,000,000 a year to run and to provide services, particularly a budget. I think that's really important to get something in detail. And finally to the magnificent teachers that we have here t

onight and are part of our school. Thank you very much. However, you do have a bargaining unit that represents you. So if you have a grievance that you're afraid you're going to lose your job or you don't like how management is doing things, you have a union to go to. The residents of Anfield do not have a union. The taxpayers do not have a union, so why ask you guys? Just keep that in mind. If you have a grievance that you don't like, there's representation for you to go to. You're more than we

lcome to speak here. I'm not saying you don't, but you do have representation that the average taxpayer doesn't. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Grande. Amanda Marquez Amanda Marquez, Hoover Lane While some in the community might look at the resignation of the Superintendent as a loss to the school system, I personally like to look at the glass as half full. What an opportunity we have been given. We have the ability to cast a wide net and search for the most qualified candidate for our

district. The process the board uses to select a new Superintendent is one of the utmost importance. Before even beginning the search, this board should identify the criteria any candidate must meet, along with the qualities it wants and the new Superintendent. The board should also identify the strengths and expectations it will be looking for. A few of the Connecticut State requirements for a Superintendent certification include a master's degree, 30 semester hours of graduate credit beyond a

master's degree, 80 school months of of successful teaching experience including thirty school months of full time administrative or supervisory experience, of course study and special education, along with other state certifications. In addition to those state requirements, what does Enfield specifically want to require from a Superintendent candidate? Has anyone on this board even put together a list of qualifications that we would be looking for in 2017? There was no formal application proces

s or candidate search. Superintendent position was just quickly handed over to the next in line, which was Mr. Drezek. One could easily argue that our school system is not in a better position. Having had him in that leadership position for the past seven years, would it have been in our favor to have taken the time to conduct a search and have hired a better qualified Superintendent? Well, we unfortunately can't go back in time and change that decision. We can certainly make sure we don't make

the same mistake now. We can take this opportunity to make sure that the next leader of our school district will be in fact just that, a leader, One that will make a plan to help exit us out of Alliance district status. Better balance our budget and district needs so educators don't have to plead for basic essentials in the classroom, be open and transparent with the stakeholders in the community, and most importantly, bring back academics as the most important part of the school day. If we don'

t make the right decisions going forward, especially when it comes to matters regarding the Alliance district, we can very well find ourselves, find ourselves in receivership, under full control of the state, and there won't be a need for any of you, the board and Superintendent included. It baffles me that to change, just a single word in one of the current board policies has to be brought up and talked about in no less than four separate meetings, a slow and arduous process. Yet when it comes

to the most important action this board will likely have to take during your tenure, it doesn't seem to have the same diligent process. How come? We'll Saybrook carefully considered 32 applications and conducted rigorous interviews before making their decision. Why wouldn't Enfield do the same? Maybe if we had a better track record with this district and its transparency, there would be more trust in your decision on the need to rush this process. 975 school employees and 4900 students will be d

irectly impacted by your choice of Superintendent. This board should. This board should not settle for anything less than the absolute best candidate for the position. Our district deserves it. Sheila Monroe, I'm on, I'm on. Sheila Monroe. Stacy Lane. Thank you for having me up here. And to all the teachers and everyone back behind me, we all care about the students. That is definite. I'd like to make a comment tonight on your hiring process for the new Superintendent. A new Superintendent will

be extremely crucial and a major decision this Board of Ed will make concerning education, well-being and future of our children. In my opinion, we need a real problem solver. I'm just wondering if you guys are listening or writing or whatever you're doing, writing what you're saying. OK, writing what you're saying. Thank you. One who is willing to think out-of-the-box as well as return to the seriousness of educating us out of an alliance district. And I know we talk about that all the time, bu

t it's crucial. Attendance in town is down, I should say. Many lost to private and homeschooling and they may never return. Last year 42 arrests were recorded, 42 to me. That's outrageous. I can't believe that many thank you to the town council for implementing officers in every school and making safety for every student and staff a top priority. And I need I Needless say, Sandy Hook would be thrilled if that was in their school before they needed it. Chronic absenteeism, suspension, Expulsion f

or the district was 899 students. This is 2223 statistics. Another mouth dropping figure. And that, and with that comes a $95 million budget. Didn't help much, did it? I know we can't find Superman, so you need to advertise, interview, and fully vet each applicant. You need this process to be transparent in hopes to restore confidence back to parents that public school in Enfield is the best of the best. I also suggest you heed the warning because this decision will be all on you with any time l

eft. I have a couple other points. Instead of ridiculing posts on Facebook that you may or may not follow or talk of people you think may not truly know what's going on in the schools, or worse yet, not knowing what it is to lose someone from a serious illness or cancer. Focus on your job here. Those comments were shameful and you and I know both a person who had been very upset of you saying that Is there a dress code for students and how is that implemented these days? I know back when my kids

were there there was a dress code, an easy fix for traffic problem at the top of Benville High School. Put an officer with a cruiser with blinking lights at the top on arrival and closure of the schools. Simple. One last question to ponder. What is this new board of Ed accomplished since you've been elected? Thank you for your time. Last one. Maureen Griffin. Hi, Maureen Griffin, Abbey Road. I understand you're looking to change the rules for who can comment and how they can. This is an outlier

. This meeting having so many people speak. I'm here all the time or else on line and writing you the next day. This is an extreme outlier. If you have more than three people, that's a lot. No need to change it unless you're looking to limit people's input, and that goes completely against any idea of transparency. On to armed guards. Towns Council is not the Board of Ed. It's not their role to micromanage Board of Ed. Spending their offer of covering security, security costs, but only if it's a

rmed guards, is coercive and abusive of both you, the Board of Ed, and the administration. A decision on returning guns to our elementary schools should not be done without extensive public input and statistical evidence of them actually reducing the incident of the unthinkable. Yvaldi showed us that armed personnel is no guarantee of them limiting casualties. They trained police and guards huddled in the halls together while children were terrorized and murdered. Shooters tend to be suicidal, l

ooking for death, Death by cop. They will be drawn to places known to have armed personnel, not avoid them. What we really need is more secure buildings, not more guns. I believe this is a performative move, giving a false sense of security and wasting funds better spent on mental health supports for our kids. And I have to comment about saying what someone thinks that Sandy Hook families would think of this. That's absolutely disrespectful to those families. You have no idea what they think. Th

ank God you have no idea what they think. OK, next, let's see. The climate valuing staff needs to continue beyond Chris. These guys talking about why people left tenured positions in other districts and came here, We all know it's not because of the money. It sure as hell don't come with this little money. It's because they came to an administration that valued them, showed it and backed them. That's what they needs to continue and they need to be paid better. If you want to look long term, you

need to maintain the staff with experience because who's going to mentor the new staff to bring them up and have them become the type of teacher that that you're like, oh, thank God they're still here. When these guys all retire, we need to fund education, not just say, oh, OK a little bit. Yes, they have a union, Taxpayers have a vote. Let's see. Let's try and keep the type of administration that puts the needs of the children forward. Values the people that are dealing with the children on a d

ay-to-day basis, provide the supports that they need and the sports that they need are greater than what any of us had when we were children and any of us needed. Let's see. Anything else? 30 seconds. OK. Oh, last thing, The first speaker, I don't believe I heard any names from you, so I don't know who you were Speaking of to you. Thank you. Bye. All right, Well, then I apologize. They came in late to get a chance for the name of the list. I don't know if you have time for one more. OK, we'll do

one more. I'll make the exception because we're supposed to sign in, but we'll make one more exception. Good evening. My name is Lewis Martin, I'm a teacher at JFK Middle School and I live at Jackson Rd. in Enfield. I did want to speak briefly tonight to convey to you the importance of what we as teachers are doing to contribute to the community of Enfield. In addition to providing for the academic needs that have already been mentioned, such as the Plant Project reference by Mr. Van Meter, we

are involved in the daily emotional learning race children as well, guiding them through, you know, social interactions all the way from kindergarten play dates to their high school best friends just by being in proximity to them. Teachers have a big impact in that. I recently helped a band student with his tie before he had to go on and he was looking at a YouTube video fumbling, trying to get it to work. And I stepped in and helped them. And it seems a small thing, but these little moments are

happening every day in Enfield schools and never make it onto a teacher evaluation or a budget consideration. Yet they are critical to these children's social development. These critical moments are hard to come by when class sizes grow and staff are overwhelmed. We all want to provide the best educational environment possible for our students, but budget cuts that lead to staff shortages and loss of support programs will directly impact our students. While as a constituent of Enfield, I unders

tand it's the town's responsibility to maintain fiscal health, it is also my understanding as a teacher that it's my responsibility to provide better than the bare minimum transfer of information to my students. Teaching is more than just copy and pasting of knowledge, so I ask you to please consider that when you're moving forward. So thank you very much. All right. With that, I declare public communication is over with. OK, So, Madam Chair, can I motion to suspend the order of business and add

ress item 11 A? Oh, for the waving. The 81st on your side. Correct. Since they've been sitting here for some time. OK, so do I have a second to the motion? We have a second. All right. My Mr. Janice, do we have discussion on the motion? OK, so all those in favor, hand vote to suspend the rules and move that item up. OK, all in favor. None against. OK, so then, so Madam Chair, I'll make a motion then to waive the 181st school day for EPS students for the current academic calendar, thus canceling

student attendance for April 2nd, 2024. Second. OK, Motion made by Mr. Cover, Second by Miss Lebank. Any discussion on motion, Mr. Rider? Yes. I just want to be clear to all parents and staff that this does not change our last day of school. It'll still be Wednesday, June 12th. That was our scheduled 181st day of school. And that will not change. Mr. Ryder, Anyone else? And our calendar will be updated online demonstrating the second off. Perfect. OK. Anyone else? OK, so then, roll call. Vote, p

lease. Kathy. Missus LeBlanc. Yes. Missus Pickett. Yes. Mr. Ryder. Yes. Missus Accree. Yes. Doctor Kalman. Yes. Missus Cushman. Yes. Mr. Gennidis. Yes. Mr. Cober? Yes. Chairwoman Riley. Yes. Motion passes. OK, get back to #9. Thank you. Have a good night. Board members comments. Who would like to go first this evening? Go ahead, Misses LeBlanc. I'm going to keep this short because we have a lot of unfinished business to take care of this evening. And I wasn't going to say something, but I just w

anted to thank all the teachers who came out and shared your feelings. For some of us, you're just preaching at us. We understand how you feel and I appreciate you coming out and sharing your feelings. Also to Danielle, Gerard coming out and speaking Miss Foss, I wanted to thank you for the handout you gave because I want to point out the accuracy of it because nowhere in your document does it talk about us having a $95 million budget. So I wanted to clarify that. I would also love to have a con

versation with you regarding the $1.4 million because I think the way it was explained at the council level was misleading and incorrect. So I would love to have that conversation with you that is, you know, a ship that has sailed. But if you ever want to have some clarification we can talk about that. And just to clarify some mistruths here and 2011 to 2012 the town budget was 51 million and the board budget was 62,000,000. By the time we reached 2022, the town budget was 72 million while the b

oard budget is 73,000,000. This is all found on the Town of Enfield website and we did a 10 year comparison. So the average increase that the town increased from 2011 to 2022 was 3.13%, while the average that the Board of Ed increased was 1.31%. So that's actually at less than average of the 10 year inflation rate. So the town's budget went up from 51 million to 72 million. What other services have I received living and paying taxes in Enfield? I have nothing new, so with that being said, there

were some flat fundings. So let me look at one of the one of the years, this one for example. In 2020-2021 the town received a 10.15% increase, The board received zero. In 2011 to 2012, the town had a 2.5% five seven increase in their budget. The board received 0 and so on and so forth. We also received a zero in 20/14/2015. I mean the list goes on where there's 4% increases, 5% increases, 3% increases on the town side and we have zeros 1.72.5.56.581.62. So if you want to go back and clarify and

you can see in the most recent budget we got, we're still in the 70 millions, we are nowhere near 95 million and that is all available in the town website. The other thing I would I just wanted to share with you guys and I wasn't going to, but I think somebody that was mentioned earlier would want me to. My mother was diagnosed with cancer July 1st of 1998. And six weeks later I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. And my mother knew when she was dying that I was going to have a baby and

that if we named her after if she was a girl, we were going to name her after my mother. The day my mother died, we had known it was coming. 24 years old, a year and a half married, pregnant with my first baby. My mom was the glue that kept my family together. My sister called and said today's going to be the day. Can you cancel your ultrasound? You know, I know you want to be here with mom. I had been at work in the morning, called the doctor, they said rush right over. The day that my mom died

was the day I heard my daughter's heartbeat. And I believe that my mother gave me my daughter and I had a girl and she's named after my mother proudly. They have the same initials and I proudly say that. So when I talk about cancer and people talking about making a cancer day in honor of a teacher that lost their student and then come up here and tell me how ashamed my mom and dad would be, that's a reflection on your character way than it is more on mine. I have lost my mother and since 1998 a

nd that deeply affects me and it deeply affects me when I hear other people have lost family members. I told myself at that time I AM 24 years old. I had my mother for 24 years. Some kids don't have their mothers for five years. Some parents don't get to see their kids graduate. That is a reflection on you. Please do not speak for my mother. Please do not ever mention my father. There are five kids in my family and I would love to share with you what their thoughts are on what you said. That's a

ll I have. OK. I'd like to go next, Missus. Pickett. I would just like to add one thing. Miss Cushman, you sent me a note probably a month back and you referenced my mother. And often times in communications you referenced my mother. And those messages mean more than anything to me. And I truly appreciate that for you recognizing that in me. So I just want to add now I'm done. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So I have a lot to say, but most of my comments will be during our new business section

of the agenda. I do want to sincerely thank everybody who came here physically tonight. Just being in the audience demonstrates your commitment to our community. I really want to especially thank the staff who came to spoke to speak. I know it can be risky to come before us publicly, but what you're doing is why I sit here Kate. Your passion and your dedication is palpable, and advocating and supporting the staff, students and families is my wife. I want to acknowledge the news of Mr. Drezek's

departure for Old Saybrook. I want to congratulate him. He has always been a fierce advocate for our staff and our students, and for that I will always be grateful. Although this is a huge loss, I am hopeful for the future of Enfield. We recognize the talent and the dedicated staff that we have. I think we also recognize that the important work that's been done, the expansion into a comprehensive high school and pathways that are being offered are are robust and student centered preschool offeri

ngs. And our continued efforts ahead of supporting students, academic and behavioral needs while building instructional capacity for our staff to meet those growing to meet demands. A time of transition can be scary, but it can also be reflective, which is important. My hope for the leadership ahead is that we have somebody who truly understands the unique context of our community and the unique needs of our students. Someone who is able to create systems and structures of support for our staff

and our building leaders with cohesion and alignment. I'm going to reference March. I know our teacher union is putting up a scholarship, so folks, please check out Facebook page buy some scholarship. Every day is a raffle and there's some really great prizes on there. Enfield Street School Picture Day is coming up Everybody in elementary, I think at least report cards will be coming out on March 8th, so family should be checking power School and e-mail communications. Parkman has a special some

one dance coming up. An invention convention is this weekend at JFK. My third grader is participating. I can't tell you how excited he was leaving school on Monday with his poster board like he has it set up in our living room, like modeling what he's going to do. So I want to thank the staff who stay after and do that with our students. Thank the students for their passion and dedication and the families. There is a substantial amount of at home tasks. So thank you to everybody's participation

in that and thanks for those who came out. Thank you, Miss Pickett. I would like Mr. Kover, you're next. Thank you, Madam Chair. So like Misses Pickett, I think I do have a lot to say, but as the agenda items come up, we'll address most of it. At that point. I just want to reiterate a couple things. And I know I say these several meetings, but some of the themes I think we need to keep in mind as a board are efficiency, responsiveness, transparency and fiduciary responsibility. I think we're all

generally in agreement that potential budget cuts shouldn't be affecting classrooms. That said, I think we do need to take a good hard look at administration costs and operational costs. I'm a little surprised by the teachers that came out that state. They love teaching and are here for selfless service. But when we're at this point with difficult financial decisions, they're quick to offer to jump ship regarding the paper and supply shortage through the chair to the Superintendent. I know this

question came up, so I'd like to ask and confirm if there is a paper shortage and where this disconnect is coming from. And the last point just on this one, because I know I was doing a lot of budget work myself. According to the state, our EPS budget expenditures are $95 million as of 2022. Our approved budget being in the 70 millions appears to be difference based on grants including ARPA and stuff like that. So as we get more into that, we can explore it. That's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Co

burn. I'd like to go next. Anybody. Go ahead, Miss Acree. Good evening, everyone. First, I'd like to give a little update what's going on at Prudence Crandall Read Across America week. We'll be starting next week there at Crandall. We will be celebrating in a variety of ways. Students will have mystery guest readers from our staff teachers, and we'll share and discuss diverse books daily. We will drop everything and read together. Both Prudence Crandall and Henry Barnard will be able to particip

ate in our School Spirit Week. Please be on the lookout for information regarding our second annual Teacher Experience Raffle. The Crandall staff has more than 70 prizes and activities to win. Parents can fill out the order form as well on sale during all lunch waves on Fridays. The Book Fair is back at Crandall. Come check the book Fair out on Saturday, March 2nd from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM and then he Mr. Dupere ends with don't forget to dress to impress on Monday, March 4th for the Spring pictur

e day. I'd also like to congratulate Mr. Drezek on his new post as a Superintendent in Old Saybrook. I would also like to thank Emily for her comment about certain important programs that must remain in our district. And I like when she said that we do need to focus on mental health issues and their root causes because as you know, Doctor Cowlin and I are working very hard to maintain that. Thank you. OK. Thank you. Miss Hickory. Would anybody else like to go? Sure. Go ahead, Mr. Rider. All righ

t. I have some updates from Eli Whitney. Tomorrow is Picture Day. Thursday is our Leap day school wide assembly to kick off our Math Iditarod Challenge and also read Across America Week. Next week is Family Engagement Night that was rescheduled from our recent snow day that'll be held on Tuesday, March 5th. There's also a PTO meeting next week on Wednesday the 6th. And I wanted to speak to the job that Miss Flanagan is doing as our Eli Whitney principal. We just wanted to highlight the fact that

she's working very hard to build relationships with national organizations to bring additional free programs, including field trips to their students. For example, tomorrow the 5th graders have been offered a unique opportunity to participate in a visit from the Space Foundation. The program was called Space in the Community and was offered free of charge to you like Whitney due to the generosity of the Pettit Family Foundation. Also wanted to say that next week, I'm sorry, coming up, they're g

oing to be partnering with Buddy Bison again this year. And our third graders will be going on a fully funded field trip to Dinosaur State Park on the 6th and the 8th. Also through our partnership with Berkshire Hills Theatre Group, we received the school that is received 400 Magic Tree House books to distribute to each of our students. And I also wanted to wish all of our students at Eli Whitney as well as across the district good luck at this weekend's invention convention. Thank you. Thank yo

u, Mr. Ryder. Anybody else like to go? None. Yeah, then I'll go. Go ahead, Mr. Janitas. This is going to be the most disjointed set of comments I've ever made because I'm all over the board here. First of all, as the board Rep to JFK, the building's still open. Going back to the last meeting, I wasn't here because it got snowed out and I was off on the road after the next day. But I was really appalled by when we have audience participation. We ask that you don't make personal attacks. And I was

appalled at the fact that a board member made a personal attack on somebody or some people, a couple of them. I thought it was completely out of line. You know, you're talking about middle age, older white men without children in the Enfield school system. You don't need kids in the school system to be concerned about the school system. If you're concerned, you're concerned for whatever reason, whatever beliefs you have, they can talk about whatever they want about to be obsessed with kids. I t

hink most parents, most adults, reasonable adults, are concerned about kids, whether they have them in the school system or not or whether they had them and the and the kids have left pajama day. I'm not in favor of pajama day. I'd rather see sports uniforms or something like that. The the reason you have it to raise money is commendable. But I don't know. I I just have trouble with the pajama stuff. And to accuse these people of dividing and trying to hurt this community, that's not their inten

tion, No more than our intention or your intention is to do what you think is the best for the school. And I think that's what they're doing. They're not attacking our schools, they're attacking some of the policies and things that are being done in our schools. So I think we should refrain from attacking citizens now, shooting from the hip all over the place here. I don't know what's being taken away from our kids. I can't think of anything that we're actually taking away. Teachers. I can hear

you from here saying staff, we'll get to that. Teachers want to be valued and needed. I taught school for 38 years. I value teachers. I know what my reputation is for some reasons long ago. I love teaching. I value teachers and I don't think anybody on this board either side is devaluing or the need of teachers and to maintain a budget. If you knew how this budget process thoroughly worked, you'd be amazed. We have certain things that we have to do. The state is forcing not just Enfield but all

the all the communities around Connecticut. You have to do this, you have to do that, you have to do this. And one of the biggest ones is special Ed and we've got a huge special Ed population in town. From what I understand it's about 1500 that have Ieps or five O fours 1500 that's that's bigger than Enfield High School right now. And we have to. We don't have a choice. We have to compelled with what the what the state is telling us to do. We have insurance costs for teachers, for administrators

, for other people who work in the school system. And that is a figure that just gets totally out of control. We don't know to the last minute almost what those costs are going to be. It's what the only thing we can control are things that basically the state is not telling us to do. And I know you can come up here and say we have to do this, that and the other thing for the kids, the kids, the kids, the kids, yeah, we have to do as much as we can for the kids with what money we have in this tow

n. You look at the demographics of this town. We have a growing older citizenship. We have. The number of kids in town now that are on free and reduced hot lunches is enormous, which is saying you have a poverty problem. There's a lot of people in this town that need help. It's not just the kids and I I commend you for coming up and and speaking up for the kids. But this is Enfield. It's not Avon Simsbury and West Hartford and all those places. We can't afford it. Somebody mentioned about giving

bonuses to to entice teachers out. We have enough trouble paying people, never, never mind enticing people with bonuses. We're going to lose quality teachers. I know when I started teaching, I went seven years on that pink slip thing. We had enormous amounts of teachers coming in from Massachusetts. Why? Because the salaries were that much better in Connecticut and now Massachusetts, I guess has surpassed us. So being on that, that list of the fear of getting a pink slip, it's it's nerve wracki

ng. It really is. And there's no other way of saying it if you have a chance. I used to, I used to counsel, teach young teachers, student teachers. I would tell people, go teach, do your student teaching where you want to work, and I would suggest a rural area where you don't have the problems of communities like Enfield or the urban areas. Are we going to lose some quality teachers? Damn right we are. Because I always thought the best teachers were the first seven years of your teaching career

and then that, that I I forgot the word. The honeymoon period. No, not the honeymoon period where you you just you're tired out, you're burnt out. You you can't take it anymore. You work so hard. The younger teachers spend more time in the middle of the night doing things. I remember as an older teacher, I would stay awake thinking of things I could do. But but it's it's not easy being a young teacher and I think we're grossly underpaying our teachers and the younger teachers in this town grossl

y underpaying them. So it's one of the parts of life if you want to be a teacher and because you love teaching which I think most teachers do. It's something that you're just going to have to put up with and and get through if if if you feel like you're not wanted and and that's a reason for leaving. I I I think you're you're playing with the wrong words because I don't think there's anybody that doesn't want you. It's just can we afford the education budget. Somebody mentioned defunding the bud

get. Nobody's defunding the budget. You can't defund the budget. When you have a budget and you pass it from year to year to year, you can't spend less. You can't spend less. Now are we not all of us, Not in favor of having AI? Guess it's an 8.7% is where we're standing at now. Are we all in favor of having that much of an increase? No, because I don't think the town can afford it. I think this town has had over our history a declining enrollment. When I was teaching, we started teaching. We had

13,500 kids. We're down to just under 5000 now and yet we still have about the same amount of employees. You go figure it out. I know, I know education has changed drastically the just a few months that I've been back on the board now I've heard things that I I just shake my head that I can't believe the changes that have taken place. And I I know times make things change, but I don't think all the changes have been for the better. Talking about having a budget to support our kids, we're going

to, we'll support them as much as we can afford to to support them. Dresdek wasn't Superintendent for 12 years. He was only Superintendent for seven. The budget book, I I want a budget book back. I I, I I think what's happened the last couple boards, especially the last one where I think you got what, 4 pages or something like that, that's that's ridiculous. If you want to know why we are the way we are, we have to know where the money is going, exactly where it's going. And then you have to mak

e cuts accordingly. You can't touch special Ed. There's other things that you cannot touch. You can't touch those. So the only thing we have to work with is a budget book that says this is where the dollars are going and people are talking about paper. I remember we had to sign out at one time how much paper where we were using at JFK. It was crazy. As far as allowing anybody to speak, I will to the end of the day say if you're a resident of entail, you have the right to speak. If you're not, I

don't think you have the right to speak Democratic. The average salary in this town is around 40 to $45,000.40 to 45,000. You know what US teachers are making? The administrators know what they're making. If you work in this town, you know what you're making 45,000 around that that area. That's not a very rich town. We're not in a rich town. The budget whether the whether it's on the town side or or the board of Edge side, it keeps going up. I mean inflation and cost of living and everything. Yo

u have to pass it along to the union, the people who work here, their unions come in there and represent them. It it's it's a never ending battle. School enrollment is down the town one one thing I I I didn't I think the somebody was playing with figures when they were talking about budgets and stuff like that going up and and not increasing very much. You have to realize the town took over the maintenance of the buildings. We don't do that anymore. We used to have to do all of that stuff. We ma

intain the buildings 100% and I can't remember how long it goes. Maybe 10 years ago or so. Longer than that that that that the town, the town took over the maintaining of the buildings. We have trouble with roofs leaking. If you knew the process of getting money from the state to fix these roofs, it's incredible. You submit the paperwork and then you sit on this stuff and fill out more paperwork for like 6 months. It's not a matter of just saying OK, we have to fix the roof, apartment or whateve

r school building it is and let's get it done. You can't get your money from the state until all the paperwork and the the TS are crossed and the IS are dotted. It is a it's a stupid process. Feels good to have a rant once in a while. Thank you. OK. Does anybody else? Does anybody else want to go? I'm not giving a report today only because Kite and Stow Early Learning aren't going to be meeting until the 6th of March. OK, thank you. Anybody else? No. OK, so then I'm going to, I'm going to go las

t then. OK. So I only wanted to address a couple of things that happen with audiences and a lot of people brought it up. The budget is online. We got the budget book. It's right here and it's online and it's got every department and there's items on there. So it's it's there. It went out the next day after we had the budget meeting. But I find it confusing that multiple teachers and I thank you guys for coming because that says a whole lot when teachers come but parents don't. But we specificall

y asked in our budget meeting the other day, what's with the paper thing? Like is there a paper shortage? Why are we hearing this? We got told there isn't a paper shortage, you just have to order it and it will come. So that's the impression that we were given by the Superintendent. So if that is not correct, then we need to find a way to rectify that because there's obviously some miscommunication somewhere. So maybe we can talk about that offline afterwards. A lot of my comments are going to c

ome when we vote on things. So you know, but I did want to say a couple things. I wanted to thank Mount Carmel for trivia night for use of their haul and all the donors and attendees that came. It was a successful night and some of the people that are sitting in this room actually came. So thank you. I just wanted to add that the invention convention is at JFK this Saturday at 9 and one of our student reps already said, but if you want to go on Saturday or Sunday, Saturday, 11:00 to 6:00, Sunday

, 9:30 to 4:00. Buzz Robotics is at the Hartford Public High School. They sent a couple of videos and I'm going to send them out to you guys. It was really, they have a really cool robot. I went to the legislative breakfast, Mr. Drezek and I went it was interesting to network with legislators and superintendents and other BOE peers. We had some good conversations and we swung for the fences. For Enfield, it seemed that at least the legislators were possibly listening to the issues that we have w

ith their ECS funding and unfounded mandate after mandate. The reading, the mandatory reading and the kindergarten age were hot topics that day as well. But it seems also from watching the news lately, it's a full court press on education. So like I said last meeting, hope for the best and expect the worst from the state. Amanda, I wanted to let you know. I do not. I know that you were at the last town council meeting but I don't know if you stayed for the end where the solar flashing light scho

ol zone sign. They passed the town council, but let's not get our hopes up completely yet because it has to go to dot. So a lot of things remain at rest at the dot for quite some time. But we we we got movement. So I just want to lay know that. So we're going to move on. Can I just say one thing? Yeah, go ahead. I'm always saying this because I keep forgetting it every time. Why are the lights on JFK on so long? Particularly they're not solar, are they? And with the cost of Eversource and electr

icity, I mean, you drive by, you guys drive by last night at 10:30, everything's, it looks like a prison. So that's that's got to be a few bucks. OK. All right. So we're going to move on to next item, 10, Unfinished Business Policy Revisions. Second readings Miss Cushman Policy 9120, right? So for the February 14th meeting of the full board for current policies with proposed revisions are being recommended for a second reading. The first of the revised policies is Policy 9120, Officers of the Bo

ard of Education. These revisions just update the language. And so I'd like to make a motion to approve the second reading of Policy 9120 as revised second motion made by Miss Cushman, seconded by Miss Pickett discussion. Can we read what it was? Motion. This is the second reading. So this has been in our packets, the last couple of meetings, last meeting. So this is the as in your packet. This is the second. OK Yeah, I hold on what policy number? It was 91204. Officers of the Board of Education

. Officers of the board. Yeah. OK. So Chairman, the chairperson. OK That one. And then defines our duties as being chose by statutes and. OK. All right. Any other discussions? OK. Sensing none. Roll call vote. Kathy, please. This is LeBlanc. She just stepped out. Yeah. This is Pickett. Yes. Mr. Ryder. Yes. This is a Cree. Yes. Doctor Kalman. Yes. This is Cushman. Yes. Mr. Janitus. Yes. Mr. Kober. Yes. Chairwoman Riley. Yes. Motion passes. OK, Janet. Policy 9132. The second of the revised policie

s is 9132. Standing Committees. The primary purpose of the revisions of this policy is to update it as form requirements for committees. Another significant revision addresses remote attendance. Oh, thank you, sorry. Another significant revision addresses remote attendance, making it consistent with the recommended revisions for Policy 9325.3. Participation at board meetings by remote methods. I'd like to make a motion to approve the second reading of Policy 9132 as Revised. Second Motion by Mis

s Cushman. Second by Miss Pickett. Any discussion? OK. Sensing none. Roll call. Vote, please. Kathy Missus LeBlanc. Missus Pickett. Yes. Mr. Ryder? Yes. This is a Cree. Yes, Doctor Kalman. Yes, Missus Cushman. Yes, Mr. Janayus. Yes, Mr. Kober. Yes. Chairwoman Riley. Yes. Motion passes. OK Missus Cushman. Policy 93239323. The third of the revised policies. This recommended revision brought into the means by which a board member. Three Question item. I have an agenda for a regular board education

meeting versus a special or emergency meeting. Sorry. I'd like to make a motion to approve the second reading of Policy 9323. Second motion made by Miss Christmas. Second by Miss Pickett. Any discussion on this one? Sensing none. Roll call vote please. Missus LeBlanc. Yes. Missus Pickett. Yes. Mr. Ryder. Yes. Missus. Accree. Yes, Doctor Kalman. Yes, this is Cushman. Yes. Mr. Gennitus. Yes. Mr. Cobber? Yes. Chairwoman Riley. Yes. Motion passes. OK Miss Cushman 9325.43 The 4th of the Revised polic

ies. Participation at Board meetings by remote method The recommended revision expands the list of approved reasons A board member may participate in a meeting remotely. Revisions also include the time frame of when a reasonable effort should be made by a board member to inform leadership of plans for remote attendance. I'd like to make a motion to approve the second reading of policy 9325.43 as amended. Second Motion Date 9. Miss Cushman Second by Miss Pickett. Any discussion on that one sensin

g. Then I'll call. Kathy. This is LeBlanc. Yes. This is Pickett. Yes. Mr. Ryder? Yes. This is a Cree. Yes. Doctor Kalman. Yes. This is Cushman. Yes. Mr. Genitis. Yes. Mr. Kober. Yes. Chairwoman Riley. Yes. Motion passes. OK. All right. So moving on to item 11. New business we already took care of AB is policy revisions. First readings. This is Cushman. You're up again for 5111. OK, so per our February 20th meeting of the Policy Committee, there are five current policies with proposed revisions b

eing recommended for a first reading age of an initial entrance into the School System Policy 5111. The recommended revision reflects recent changes made during the last legislative session in which the age of eligibility changed from five years of age honor before January 1st of the school year to five years of age honor before the first day of September, which will be effective January 1st of this year. I'd like to make a motion to approve the first reading of Policy 5111 as revised second mot

ion made by Miss Cushman, second by Mr. Culver. Any discussion? So Madam Chair, I'll just mention this is one of the ones that we've, we talked about where the directive basically came from the state regarding the cut off for kindergarten. So this policy is just being updated to comply with the revised statute that takes effect this July. We're also adding just one sentence that's referring it to another policy that goes into more detail about ages of attendance and dropouts. Thank you. Mr. Cole

. I just have a question for the Policy Committee. So when I filled in for Mr. Ryder, we were going with The Cave policy because the state hadn't made a formal decision yet. Are we is this still basically in in accord to The Cave policy at this time? Because the state still hasn't made a decision. OK, all right. I was just double checking that by some act of anything that they would actually make a decision on this for us. So, OK, thank you. Why we have the reference right within that policy bec

ause we actually maintained the language of our current policy, right. The Cave policy had a lot of overlap, a lot of repetition. So we just maintain what we already had and just changed the date and added the sentence, right. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Any other discussion? Sensing none. Roll call, please. Kathy. Missus LeBlanc. Yes. Missus Pickett. Yes, Mr. Ryder. Yes. Misses Accree. Yes, Doctor Kalman. Yes, Misses Cushman. Yes, Mr. Genitis. Yes. Yes, Mr. Kover. Yes.

Chairwoman Riley, Yes. Motion passes. OK, misses Cushman Policy 5112 Policy 5112 Ages of attendance and slash dropouts. These actually were two separate policies proposed by Cabe since there was significant contact content overlap between them. The recommended revision combines the two policies into one. Since the Policy Committee met, there is one additional amendment to propose. I would propose that the last paragraph that's under the section residency under the that heading be moved to the en

d of the dropout section. This paragraph actually addresses the voluntary termination of enrollment by a 17 year old student and would align more readily with the content of the section on dropouts rather than residency. OK, so motion for so if I made yeah so if I make a motion to approve the first reading of policy 5112 as amended as amended, I'll second that second I missed. Can I just get clarification of where? So under the residency I see the red residency. Yep. Which paragraph? So the. Let

me just look at mine. So Missus Pickett, it's the one above the cross out paragraph that begins with a child who has attained the age of 17, who has voluntarily terminated enrollment and then continues on. There it is. So it's. Yeah. The very last paragraph of the residency section, this one here. We're going to be moving it down to the last to be the last paragraph the third paragraph of the dropout section. Any other discussion I I I appreciate the streamline I guess I'm I'm for the policy I

struggle with the language of dropouts like it just seems like such a deficit based and what and the real intent of the policy here is actually ensuring that we're providing alternative school placement. So I I think the naming of the policy is just weird but I think if you read the content of it it's really about supporting students to actually stay enrolled. So it's really around retention of students not encouraging dropout. So I just think that's important to to put out for the public. Anyon

e else OK sensing on roll call please Kathy OK to approve it as amended. Yes. Missus LeBlanc. Yes, Missus Pickett. S Sorry. Yes, Mr. Ryder. Yes. Missus Accree. Yes. Doctor Kalman. Yes, Missus Cushman. Yes, Mr. Genitus. Yes, Mr. Kober. Yes. Chairwoman Riley. Yes. Motion passes. OK. The next one, I just. I did want to go out of order. OK. For the next one would like the third policy. If we could consider first policy 9325.2, the order of business and meeting conduct on our agenda, it has 9321 list

ed first, but that one we would only need to address because it has to do with a change in time. So only if 9325.2 passes do we need to address 9321. So all right, 9325.2, let's do that one. So for this particular policy, order of business and meeting conduct, there are several recommended revisions to this policy with the overall intent to better define terms of the agenda as well as to establish clear expectations for all who attend and are able to participate in our board meetings. I'd like t

o make a motion to approve the first reading of Policy 9325.2 as revised motion made by Miss Kushman, second by Mr. Cobra discussion. Go ahead, Mr. Ryder. Yes. So I just wanted to raise the same objection as I had in the policy meeting itself. So just two things. I'm OK with it as written as revised with two exceptions, 8 E would limit public speaking to 60 minutes and also .18, our adjournment would move from 11:00 PM to 10:00 PM. It was 10/30 as recently as of last term and we moved it to 11 a

nd we rarely ran into that case. But I do have a problem with eight E limiting the public audiences to 60 minutes. So if everybody got 4 minutes theoretically, you know, and it takes a minute or two for each person to get up and down, we're not going to hear from the same amount of people. I know tonight was an anomaly. It's not an often occurrence that we have this many people sign up to speak, but when we do have an issue, I think it's important that they be available to do that. So those are

just the two things I brought up in policy in the subcommittee conversation and wanted to address them at the mic. So Mr. Rider, I'll just to respond to that. I know in in committee we did bring up both those topics. I think we had a healthy discussion on them. I think one of the consensus points for both of those is creating an exception with simple majority vote for both of those. So if we do anticipate audience communication lasting longer than an hour, we can approve that with a A5 person vo

te. Same thing with extending the meeting. Previously the extension of the meeting required a 2/3 majority 6 votes. So I think one of our reasonable compromises is dropping into a simple majority, again with the goal of increasing the efficiency of our meetings. Thank you, Mr. Cooper. Any other discussion on Miss Pickett? So thank you to Mr. Ryder, our party representative on the policy. So I was able to share similar reflections on this while it was in subcommittee. I am not in favor of limitin

g our public comment section to one hour. I think tonight is a perfect example. We have a loaded agenda with many important topics. I know we could do a majority like waiving the rules. I just think when things become contentious topics or things become long nights, making those decisions puts us in that hot seat where I'd rather just keep. We don't have lengthy agendas. We don't have this many speakers often. I don't think that we need to limit anybody. I also agree with 18 not in favor of movi

ng up our agenda. End time. Again, tonight's a perfect example. Our duty is these meetings regardless of how long they take. So I think it's important that we keep those in there. And the last I would add is under #9, which is under our board member comments. I was under the impression that we were streamlining and looking for redundancy. So there's all this added sections and comments a through GI hope that we all understand our duties of how we act here at the mic. But to me it feels like this

is some slight ways to control what we're saying, how we're saying it and infringing on some of my First Amendment rights, for example. Who's going to define what's respectful? Obviously there's disagreement around what we can say and can't say at the mic. So I think this is a slippery slope and I'm not OK with how it's written. And don't think that those are necessary. Anyone else? Yep. Go ahead, Mr. Denitis. OK, the part about who can speak if you have an interest in the board or your town em

ployee, it's everybody who works for the town of Enfield, whether you're picking up trash or working on the roads or sewers, working in the central office, library, wherever. Everybody has union representation. And when you look at, and I'm going to venture to guess maybe everybody out there that is a teacher hasn't looked at it except for maybe Delaney. When you read what the NEA and the CEA and the ETA say about your representation, they're the people who are supposed to go and speak for you.

If you live in this town and you're a teacher, sit up here every meeting if you'd like. But if you don't live in town, then go through the the association. It's it's it's as simple as that to me and your your bigger organizations that you pay dues to spell out in detail how they will represent you. And I think that's very important if if you, if you want to speak here, from my opinion, living in this town, if you teach in this town and I think there's over 300 people who don't live in town, don'

t live in town, you have the right to speak in your own town. I'll wait. You have the right to speak in your own town. I know there are people in this town who were born and brought up and raised in this town, became teachers and moved out of town. My question is why? Why isn't the school system good enough? Excuse me. Yeah, I'm sorry for the audience here, but if it's not back and forth, then we were quiet when you guys spoke, so I would hope that you would afford us that too, which was difficu

lt for me, Bob, Bill, to me, you want to live in the in the best place you can for your family. It it it makes sense. You want to go to the best school systems for your family. It makes sense. So go into those towns and speak if you're not happy, but don't go and leave this town and then come back and teach here and think you can just come up and rail on and off when you want to. Come on just just I can, I can, I'm going to, I'm going to close and ask the I'm going to support a border rally. So

if we can't be respectful of each other in the audience and up here, I'm going to have to just ask that we leave. It's only one person. No, no, don't go to, don't, don't go to that limit. OK, So then So that's just my that's, that's my point of view. And I know I'm sitting on here aboard with with eight other people and I know I'm, I'm probably the only one who thinks this way, but it's the way I feel. OK, OK, go ahead and I'll be real quick. I know everybody's tired, but I think numbers speaks

volumes. It's one thing to have a representative from a union speak and they may be very cogent and very convincing and compelling, but what's really compelling is seeing 20 or 30 or 40 teachers lining up to to express their views. And I don't think we should try to limit that. I believe that teachers who are working here for the benefit of our students have a right at least to speak up and speak their mind when it comes to issues of the budget. They may not live here, but they are being profoun

dly affected by it and I think they have a right to speak. And I just want to clarify that for the public we are not. The proposal that we are voting on does not limit non resident staff. So we are we are proposing that staff can continue to come and be part of public comment. Go ahead Mr. Black. I feel like we really can't pick and choose here. I would much rather hear from a teacher who works 100 and almost 200 days with our kids than somebody who lives in town who doesn't have kids. Because y

ou guys understand what is happening every single day. And I understand why people leave town. I've been here since 2011. I understand people leave town because of the underfunding in our schools, and they say our taxes are too high. But what I want to say is we can't pick and choose here. I'd rather hear from somebody who works with our kids and can tell us exactly what's happening day-to-day. Then assumptions. Yeah, I'm going back again. Yeah, the teachers, the teachers know best what's going

on in the in the schools, they they work with the kids daily. I'm not arguing that point at all. Are you proposing an amendment? Excuse me. Wait, Miss Pickett, please don't interrupt. The teachers know more about the kids than anybody else in the town other than their parents. And sometimes the teachers know even more. But the point is you you grow up, you go to school. You you do your thing, you get a job, you get paid for doing the job. Now, I have all the compassion in the world for the teach

ers and their knowledge about the kids, but I still think just you have to live in the town in order to speak. I don't care how much you know about the kids. If you have things to say and you want them kind of expressed to the board, then you go through the association. Thank you, Mr. Janice. Is anybody else? No. OK, So I'm just going to add my two cents. I welcome people to come and talk. So I know that we differ on that. I we wanted to limit it to an hour, but obviously on a night like tonight

, we would have extended it. So we're not trying to limit anybody. We're just trying to streamline our meetings, that's all. So does anybody else have anything? OK, go ahead, Mr. Wright. No, no, just point of clarification. So who can ask that the time be extended? Anybody can. Any board member, any board member, and it would be seconded and approved by a majority. Simple majority. Doesn't even have to be 6. I just want to thank Miss Cushman for her proposed language and revisions on some of the

se items in the policy and then having a good discussion when I filled in with both Phil and Miss Cushman. So thank you for the revisions and having thoughtful conversations. OK. Anything else? OK. Sensing on roll call Vote, please. Kathy, this is LeBlanc. Yes, this is Pickett. Yes. Mr. Ryder? Yes. This is a Cree. Yes. Doctor Callan. Yes. This is Cushman. Yes. Mr. Gennitis. No. Mr. Kober. Yes. Chairwoman Riley. Yes. Motion passes. OK, so now we can go to 9321. Yes. OK, so policy 9321, time, plac

e and notification of meetings. So given that Policy 9325.2 was just passed for the first reading regarding meeting adjournment being no later than 10:00 PM local time, the recommended revision to Policy 9321 would actually now align this policy with Policy 9325.2. So I'd like to make a motion to approve the first reading of Policy 9321 as revised second motion made by Miss Cushman, seconded by Miss Pickett. Discussion on this Madam Chair. I'd just propose a further amendment on this to the para

graph in This one still requires the 2/3. So we would need to revise that language just to reflect simple majority for the extensions to the time of adjournment. OK, so a motion to approve as amended then with the with the phrase symbol majority. Any other discussion? OK, so roll call to vote as amended please. Missus LeBlanc. Yes, Missus Pickett. Yes, Mr. Ryder. Yes, Missus agree. Yes, Director Kalman. Yes, Missus Cushman. Yes, Mr. Janitus. Yes, Mr. Kober. Yes. Chairwoman Riley. Yes. Motion pas

ses the last 19325.3 meeting in parliamentary procedures. The recommended revision to this policy includes a reference to and heading of other methods of voting to better align with the actual practice of the board. So I'd like to make a motion to approve the first reading of Policy 9325.3 as revised Second motion made by Miss Cushman. Second by Miss Pickett. Any discussion? Sensing none. A roll call, please. Kathy Missus LeBlanc? Yes. Missus Pickett? Yes. Mr. Ryder? Yes, Mrs. Akree. Yes, Doctor

Callan. Yes, Mrs. Cushman. Yes, Mr. Genitis. Yes, Mr. Kober. Yes. Chairwoman Riley. Yes. Motion passes. OK. All right, moving on. Item C, discussion and action, if any, regarding the fiscal year 202425 budget. So I would need and then we can discuss a motion to approve the fiscal year 2425 budget as it currently stands as of February 27th, 24 per the town charter requirements. Even though the document continues to be fluid with outstanding unknowns from the state. So moved, second moved by Mr.

Rider, seconded by. This is the blank discussion on this item. I would like to go ahead Mr. Cover. So thank you Madam Chair, I'll start off. So one of my concerns jumping into the budget is shortly after we took office in late November, I reached out to the Superintendent's office requesting some information that included line item salaries and the number of employees that we had to date. I have not gotten this back from the office of the Superintendent. I'd further like to stress that this budg

et that was presented to us, we got it the meeting before this because of the snow day. We lost the day. So we ended up getting this budget 13 days prior to this meeting. While we did get a thicker booklet than we did get in previous years, the budget we have is still a aggregate of department totals that essentially suppresses line item costs. So I know I personally can't approve a budget where I don't know where each dollar is going. As board members, we're, we're fiscally responsible to the p

ublic approving this budget is signing off on that. Earlier I talked about potential for reviewing administrative reductions, operational costs and thanks to that extent. So one of the examples where I was able to actually get some line item budget is in central office. We have 4 administrative, administrative positions. Each of these administrators make over $150,000 a year, according to the organizational chart for the district. These four administrators don't have any subordinate staff that r

eport to them, and being administrative, they do not instruct students. So this is an example of something that I would like to further review prior to approving a budget. I think going into the budget, I think it's our responsibility as a board to take a good hard look at each department and each line item in order to make reasonable reductions to expenditures that we cannot afford. The current proposal is an 8.6% increase over previous years. If you guys do the 10 year look back each year, it'

s gone up either 0 percent, 2%, maybe 3%. It's never gone up 8%. If you look at the interest rate at the Fed right now, it's about 5.3%. So we're asking more. I understand this is fluid. I understand there's some unknowns regarding insurance costs, funding from the state and things to that effect. That being said, and I know we've been here for a while and I think my point's really clear. So I I think we need to be more stringent with the budget. I think a lot of us campaigned on, on fiscal resp

onsibility. None of us want our taxes going up and this is something that will contribute to a tax increase. So I will be voting against it. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Cover, who would like to go next? Go ahead, Miss Pickett. I'll be clear. I'll be supporting this budget. Actually, I was hoping to see a a larger increase. So we need a budget to reflect what we've learned and heard through our Board of Ed presentations and committee meetings. Our students need more proactive supports, but the clea

r and robust academic and social curriculum. Our staff need support too. They need professional learning, coaching and support. I understand that this is a large ask, but to be fully transparent, we have never, never, never even in our last two years. I wish we actually did more, never funded what we truly need. I think Miss McGuire, Bruce, you referenced this, is this in your comments. We need more than to maintain. We have never really been presented with a budget with robust supports, interve

ntionist at rear at Tier 2, more intensified behavioral supports, the special Ed staff that we need. I've asked continuously for a greedy budget and we've yet to get one. Our students and our staff deserve it and I'm hoping to actually see more. We can all agree that we've had concerns about our academic data and our alliance designation. You actually campaigned on that as well. This budget does not bolster the supports of our kids and our teachers. I'm not sure if you were paying attention in o

ur data presentations, but 39% of our third grade students met Benchmark for English Language Arts. That means 60% of our students did not. This is concerning. This is the problem we need to solve. Kids who can't read become kids who can't access their learning, who become kids who have behavioural concerns, who are kids who would drop out, who are kids who don't meet the, who don't reach the goals that we have set for our community. You need to feel this urgency here. Our kids and our teachers

are begging for help. I think it's also important that our public understand that this budget is just one piece. The town council still makes decisions on our facilities and our school modernization plan, which ultimately impacts our decisions. These aren't separate decisions we make here in a bit. We're going to talk about $1,000,000 investment the town council is willing to make in the security of our schools with no promises that they will support our fully asked of our educational needs. We

have folks who won't even support it here tonight. So I don't know how we can say yes to something without first addressing the educational needs of our students. And so I will always fully support the ask of our needs of our staff and our students. And I'll be gladly voting yes and actually hoping to see more. Miss Tickett. Miss Jack, Go ahead. Yes I I I'm also going to vote for this budget. What worries me more than anything else is that 25% of the students are of our student population, our c

hildren with special educational needs and we cannot. Even if we for some bizarre reason wanted to cut our support for those students, we can't. We're legally obligated to meet their educational needs. And this the the increase in the the budget that we're asking here I think is a bare bones in my opinion, a bare bones minimum suggested increase on the budget and we we have to pass it. Thank. Thank you. Thank you, Doctor Cowan, anyone else going on Mr. Ryder, I will also be supporting this budge

t and the increase is largely due to running out of government gift cards if you will to simplify it. Our COVID relief monies, there was various revenue streams that we were able to make last through Mr. Drezek and Mr. Longi's leadership longer than other districts did. But we've run out of those dollars and that is the majority of this increase. And I also wish that it was higher because this again just maintains the programs that we currently have and it doesn't add anything. And I wish that i

t did, but I do support the budget. It will not remain 8.68. It will come down some. This is a living, breathing document, but this is the number we're looking at tonight and I would support that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ryder. We don't print money. We we just don't print the money. With everything that everybody said, I I I can agree with you. I used to be on those wish lists. Wish lists, you always said this is what we would like and then we always found out this is what you're going to get

and you have to live with that. In this time period. It's the budget I think is fluid with people who run the the schools. You have to keep track of where the money's going, how it's going, being used, is it really being productive, is it not? And the cycle just goes on from year to year to year. And I think what we have to do is keep more vigilant on that cycle and get this budget book. First of all, we need a budget book, as Phil was explaining, and get it in a lot earlier, I mean January 1st,

January 15th, someplace along that time. So we can all sit down and digest that book and see what's in there and see where cuts are made. We can't cut mandatory programs, but we can't. The only thing we have control is what's not mandatory. And I hate to say this because I fought so hard to to get to this point, class size, there's a place that you can fiddle around with right now. I mean, I remember having 38 kids in a class. We got it down to under 20 and that took a long, long time. But if t

hat's the only thing we have to control, then we may have to increase class sizes. I'd rather increase, increase class sizes than cut any teachers at all, if that's what we have to do. It's not the best, it's it's, it's not even desirable. But we don't have many choices Now when you're talking about approving for an 8.7% increase, that ain't going to get by us, and I I hope not and that I don't think it's going to get by the town council either. It's we have to learn to work with what we have. W

e've established and and put more things in place over the last few years and a lot of it had to do with federal monies. It's not there now. You can't hire or go into any business and take the federal money and throw it in and say, OK, here it is. This will solve your problem for now because that federal money is going to run out. I remember when we were on No Child Left Behind, no, not Race to the Top, Tina, we said no to that because just like what they did with the police officers around the

world, country, they were giving them money and saying here's the money, we're going to give it to you for three years. But you have to continue those programs after three years. And Race to the Top was basically the same thing here. We're going to throw a bunch of money at you. But once that time period is up, you got to keep those programs going. No, it just doesn't work that way if the community, community can't afford it. That's right. Yes. This is not OK A couple thoughts on that. Scott has

the budget book that we received. Peter, I I looked through it. He's got it. You said you didn't get a book. Yeah, but you said you didn't have a book. Said a couple times. I thought you were talking about the other thing. Packet. No, I I got the book today. OK. But it was posted on and what we got it. Yeah. So again, I wasn't around you got, you know, full iPad. All right, let me finish Some of the budget numbers that I did talk about earlier in 2011 and 2020 and 2012 when the town was a $51 m

illion budget, that was after they took over buildings and grounds, just to clarify that fact. It wasn't. They took it over and then that happened to our budget. So this budget analysis is after they took B&G from us, because I was sitting in the audience just like you guys, but I was a parent. When we talk about having to fiddle with class sizes, I think that when one in every fourth of our students is special Ed, that is a great impact on class sizes. And I do want to go back to Miss Foss. One

of the things that we've talked about is our English Language learners and how they come here and they know we just had this conversation. I think in leadership, they they know no English and but they're expected in that school year to be speaking English and being able to perform on a test that is measuring their success as a student. So as teachers, you're under pressure, right? You have those students, and then if their their success isn't being measured the following year. But often times,

if the student's not speaking the English language, neither is their family. So it's a definite challenge and I feel that there are so many things that point to how much support we need in our district. The 50% free and reduced lunch, the special Ed. If you want to know where our money is going, our money goes to special Ed and that's you know we we created the therapeutic day school to try to keep the kids in district. I think that every year. So I've been sitting here since 2011 budgets every

year. We just strive to maintain and strive to get by. And we got all that COVID money, and we learned exactly where that COVID money went and how we tried to be sustainable. We hired social workers and thank goodness with our numbers and special Ed, we get to keep those social workers. But all the money people like to think that the money that we got was just carelessly spent. But all the money the schools got had to be spent in a certain capacity by the government. We couldn't just have a free

for all and just spend our money any way they wanted it. And now the money's run out and we have town projects we covered in this, in our in our funds. We shouldn't have had to do that. At the end of the day, based on this analysis, based on teachers sitting here, based on the fact that my three kids went through Enfield Public Schools, I will be supporting this budget. And no matter what happens with the budget vote tonight, I will always be supporting you. Thank you. I'm Miss Kushman. So I re

cognize the financial needs of our district are impacted by the increasing needs of our students. As it's been mentioned, one in four are now children with educational needs. Then there's the grant funding reductions that we've experienced and the legislative impact of unfunded mandates. That's really taking its toll. And I understand the document that we were given by the Superintendent outlining our district needs is a fluid document and that the current requested increase could be drastically

reduced based on what our actual insurance increase will be on the state budget. When that's finally passed, will there be availability of funds through grants again such as the excess cost grant, the alliance grant, as well as a cap on the magnet school tuition? There's a lot of unknowns. And so I when I look at the document and when I look at how already there have been meetings with our membership here on the board, with our town council membership, our leaders with our town manager that the

y are making every effort to work collaboratively, to do what our both what our town can afford, but also what is in the best interest of our students. And so I will support moving ahead with it knowing that there's are those collaborate, the collaborative work that's being done. If if you want to get more money in our budget, I would love to see the 15 schools that are Alliance district in that category and get the teachers and the parents and the boards to go to the State House and protest. Gi

ve us some of the money that we need to run the schools efficiently and what you would like the way the schools to be run, that it's the state that's doing the damage to us. Very true. Go ahead and miss bakery. Simply as a retired teacher, I'm going to support the budget because I know what the needs of students are, especially in 2024 after listening to certain people talk and having discussions with teachers. And I just feel that the needs of our students should come first. And I do understand

as a retired teacher the stresses that teachers are under and the support that they also need. So yes, I will be supporting the budget. Sorry, I just want one clarifying comment. And I think it's important to to put out there is that our leadership has always been in a challenging seat of making a budget work with not enough resources. And I want to thank the creative fiscal nests of our central office, the grants that are written and brought in. It would be nice to see a comprehensive like jus

t how much work you all are doing on your own to ensure that we are getting supports and staff since we're not fully funding those pieces. I understand those grants are available and it's nice that they are, but I think it's important for us to know the hard work that you're doing. The other part that I think is important is that this ARPA, Federal relief money money, it was known that it was disappearing. Like that was not a secret. Mr. Drezek and I don't want to speak for him, he's not here to

night. But from my understanding he was put in some pretty tough spots where he the first year spent spending was on iPads and things to separate classrooms and like the necessary things just to keep school open. And then this. He had the opportunity to add additional supports, behavior, techs, paras, staff, social workers. And then it became this piece of we were never fully funding our part of the budget. And so there was some swapping of how we funded things. So we supported that staff in our

budget and our security line item became funded through ARPA temporary funding. So that is important information to kind of understand how we've come to this place. I also think it's important for staff to know and the public to know, not just staff, the public to know that we doubled our security budget during COVID for many reasons, JFK being under construction and wanting some additional security for students there, behavioral needs coming back from COVID and the unfortunate incidents in Tex

as. So we did some temporary responses. But I think it's important to understand grant dollars coming and going and the money tricks that have to be made in order to get the supports and structures and resources that we need in our schools. And I think that's part of the discussion as well. Just just a quick supplement I want to offer in because I missed in my initial comments. So one of the things I brought up was transparency. And for for those of you that are familiar with with the state, sta

te runs an office, There's a website, it's called open connecticut.gov you can go on there, any State employee, any State Department, you can go look up an employee salary, fringe benefits, what the department of dot spent, what their contracts are. You can go on that website and look up invoices and see what the state is paying for everything. Several members said we received the budget book and I will reiterate, we received a aggregate total. But I would like someone to open that budget book a

nd tell me, for example what the superintendent's salary is for next year. And if you see that in the budget, please share it with me because all I see is district wide admin, four people, approximately 600,000. Thank you. Yes, I was like, so if this budget didn't pass or let's say it passes tonight and it goes to the town council and they don't pass it, it comes back to us. We are not going to be the ones saying what's going to be cut from that budget. It's going to be Mr. Drezek and Mr. Longi

looking at class sizes, seeing where they can best fill in the holes in the district. So trying to get as granular as that would just be informational for you, but you would literally have zero say and being able to tell them where do you think they should cut. They're the educational leaders of our district. They know they're going to listen to the building principles. They're going to listen to central office staff as a board. We do not get into the granular line items and tell them exactly wh

ere they can cut, especially like if we even tried to think that we could even, you know, question special Ed numbers. I mean we are federally bound to those numbers. That's all we do. We don't look at the granular items. We can have it for informational, but we don't make that final decision. We make a final decision on a number, but we do not make final decisions on line items. Anybody, anybody else want to go, OK, so to kind of piggyback off of Missus Pickett, which stinks about the state, is

we did our due diligence and we did put supports in place. And then when we asked when the chance was given to get more, we got denied because we did what we were supposed to do. So the state slighted us big time there. But the whole budget process and a lot of people that have sat in this seat have said the same thing, is backwards. It's completely backwards and we don't we don't really have an option. So I'm a yes. However, I think it is important that and I will work and strive to work with

the town council with leadership to negotiate something reasonable once we actually get numbers in from all of the unknowns that we don't even know. It's important to work with the council on this because we have to make it clear to them what it is we need and they need to understand that implicitly. And we also have to keep in mind that we have families in town that can't even make ends meet. You know, we have a high poverty level in town, so that is another thing that to keep in the back of my

mind, I was just in a meeting yesterday and we were talking about people getting evicted from their houses. Where are they going to send their kids? How are we going to house them? How are we going to help them? The number of homeless people been envied increases by the minute. So when I I want to give us all of the things that we need and I will fight for it. But you have to understand, we still live in a town where there are so many people who have to decide, do I want the lights on or do I w

ant to feed my kids? And that's the whole nother problem that we have to deal with. So yes, I'm going to vote for the budget, yes, I'm going to fight for us. And I think the town needs to understand that the Board of Education has taken many zeros. And maybe, and I know I'm going to catch Flack for this, but maybe some of the town needs to take some zeros to even things out. That's just a suggestion. So one more, one more. OK, OK. Just to clarify what she's saying, the Board of Ed starts the who

le process, the budget process. We look at what we want, what we can afford, yadda yadda, yadda. And we come up with a number. It would be nice to have 8.7%. I'd love to do it, but whatever we do, we give it to the town council. We're under a deadline. Tonight's the night. We have to vote. We've, we've had this about two weeks and we have to make these decisions and we have to vote. We have to give it to the town council. And then the town council will have a time period and they'll have to come

up with something at some point in time after coming back and arguing with us. And then once the town council sets everything in place, it then goes to the state and then the state can just shove it on us and we're stuck and we have to start all over again. It is upside down. It's backwards. That's good. I can I just add one more thing. I would propose that as part of our responsibility, you know for the budget that maybe we should think outside of the box and maybe we should have. I know we ha

ve Finance Committee, we go over our current spending, but maybe we should have quarterly financial meetings so we can better understand where we are positioning ourselves for the next year. That's just a suggestion for maybe next year. Oh, I wanted to add, I really appreciate you going down the state Capitol because we know what they're trying to do with we go on from a year, a budget term of you know the most amazing public education funding to this year being like, oh, we're going to switch g

ears on that. I appreciate you going to the capital. I also wanted to say we already know what the state is going to do with the ECS cost sharing grant because we were flat funded for two years. So what we got last year is what we're going to get this year. So we already know. The question is, is the alliance money and excess cost? And the excess cost, everything is A and the cap on magnet and the cap on magnet. So there is a lot going on. Charlotte's doing a great job keeping in check with the

moving parts at the state because it is true that the state really does not make our lives easier here. But we do know, we already know what we're getting in for the ECS cost sharing grant and that's the money that goes to the town for their share of funding. Sorry, and I know we want to get to vote and I do too. But I just, I like your idea of having like quarterly meetings to be more prepared for this. I'm with all of us here. I think it becomes a last minute kind of decision. I don't like. I

don't disagree with any of those comments and I understand the process is challenging. I would also like to say and I know I said it in our last meeting, I think it's really important that town council watches these meetings and are informed. However, I also think it would be nice if we could have joint meetings, their decisions. Again, like I mentioned, it's not just our budget, it's the facilities, our our school modernization work and thinking about how do we have collaborative conversations

with our town council counterparts. I know Doug Finger agrees with me on that. Being being able to have more than just a budget presentation from the Superintendent. OK. Anyone else? OK, so roll call. MO. Kathy. OK. This is LeBlanc. Yes. Missus Pickett. Yes. Mr. Ryder. Yes. Missus acree. Yes. Doctor Kalman. Yes. Missus Cushman. Yes. Mr. Genidis. No. Mr. Coburn. No. Chairwoman Riley. Yes. Motion passes. OK, all right. Line item. Madam Chair, I make a motion that we table item 11D discussing an ac

tion, if any, regarding the 2425 school calendar on the basis that we did waive policy 6111 and we are not be held to a deadline at this time. OK. Motion made by Mr. Koberg, second, second by Mr. Gennidis. Any discussion? Yeah, I would like to say that we have been getting bombarded with people wanting the approved calendar for next year, especially around April and Christmas break because of the way Christmas is falling and spring break for Mr. Tresik said at Riley's dance competitions and all

those dance competitions in Florida. So I'd rather approve this tonight. OK. Any other discussion, I would just say I know that our caucus has a lot of other questions on the calendar regarding to half day PD days and such. And I've actually seen a lot of discussion on that topic from other board chairs and I think if it's going to take a lot of time to ask those questions right now. So I would say the deadline is next meeting we're gonna vote on this if as long as we can ask our questions. Does

that sound fair to Mr. Cobra? Yes, that's reasonable. OK. Alright. So then any other discussion? No. OK, so motion to table show of hands, those in favor to table it raise your hands. OK. So that's five in favor and those against tabling it, four against. OK. All right, 11 E action, if any regarding enhanced safety and security measures. OK. So I'm going to need a motion to approve Memorandum of Understanding with the Town of Enfield regarding armed school safety officers to be provided by and

at the expense of the Town of Enfield. So moved, moved by Mr. Kover, second second by Mrs. Cushman Discussion Who would like to go Doctor Kellen. Well, I think the obvious rationale for armed police in our schools is that it will allow for a timely response to the presence of a shooter and may also serve as a deterrent. But we really don't know if this is true. In fact, in an article in JAMA in 2021, it was suggested the opposite, and just to quote a couple of lines, results show armed guards we

re not associated with significant reduction in rates of injuries. In fact, controlling for the factors of location and school characteristics, the rate of death was 2.83 times greater in schools with an armed guard present. So this was a small study and it would be nice if it could be replicated. Nonetheless, it was really very well designed and and and certainly should give us reason for pause. So we can't even be reasonably certain that the presence of armed police in the school will really a

ccomplish its objectives. In fact, it may be counterproductive. So I'm concerned about what impact an armed police presence will have on our kids. At least some of them will conclude that the police are there because of a very real and imminent threat of a killer in the building. They will be reminded every day that the school is not a safe place. And this isn't the kind of environment conducive to learning, playing and thriving. And there is the concern about so-called a so-called school to pri

son pipeline which impelled the Los Angeles school Board to drastically reduce the number of police in their school system. Police aren't generally, Excuse me, Police aren't primarily trained to deal with social and emotional challenges confronting young people, or to patiently and adeptly counsel a highly dysregulated adolescent. For example, the options available to a policeman are limited, making punitive action, including unnecessary arrests, far more likely. So the town council is offering

to pay $1,000,000 for an armed police presence. I think the money would be far better spent on a few more social workers and behavioral health technicians. And I just wanted to ask just a parliamentary question. I would like to to make a motion that we postpone a vote until after the citizens of Enfield have had an occasion to discuss this matter at a time and place to be determined by the leadership committee. Can I make that motion now and or I can so I'd like to make that motion OK Motion mad

e by Doctor Callen. So you're I second clarifying of the motion. Sorry, I liked that. OK, what I was make a motion for it was to postpone a vote. Oops, to postpone, darn it, to postpone a vote on this matter until the citizens of Enfield have occasion to discuss this further at a meeting convened at a time and place determined by our Leadership Committee. Motion made by Doctor Kellman. We need a second if you wanted to move forward. Second. Second by Miss a Cree discussion on that motion. Yeah.

With all due with all due respect, I think people in this town have come to the conclusion what they want. I mean the the the town council set it off when they did what they did. And I think if you have a meeting, people are going to go, those who support it are going to get up there and yell and scream that they support it. Those who oppose it are going to do likewise. So I don't know if it's going to be advantageous to do it, to be honest with you. I think that there was a major push that ther

e was running on transparency and I feel like people have not had a chance or felt that this wasn't a transparent process. Anyone else I would. So I'm going to, I'm going to and I'm not sure exactly Peter, who you're referencing as far as the town council have like consulted with folks we as a board didn't know until January 23rd. So I'm not sure exactly where this proposal is coming from. I firmly believe that whatever is decided should be done publicly transparently and include staff, students

and families in the decision making. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think, you know, Peter, the last time we were, we did this, we had community conversations. We engaged our staff and our families and this went back and forth with bipartisan on both sides. So this hasn't been a simple easy do. And after our last budget conversation where folks don't want to support our education budget but are ready to put armed guards in school, I think our public deserve to be part of this conversation. And

we've had armed guards. We did away with armed guards. It's it's I don't know if there's really an answer to it. No matter what you do, people are are going to make take a hard stance on it one way or the other. It was no secret. There are some people that came here today and spoke about it or mentioned it, so it's not like it's been kept under wraps for sure. They know because I've posted about it. I said they probably know because I've posted about it and put a video out that has over 2000 vie

ws. They don't know because of what was done in our budget. The town council, it wasn't the resolution wasn't even in their packet. Town council members didn't even know about that resolution till they got their full packet here. And this is, I don't believe there is any intentional fault, but it wasn't even known for the public until 24 hours notice. That was my mistake and and I don't think it was intentional Charlotte and I don't and I don't when I read it, I don't think there was intention b

ut I just think process wise that's facts. So Madam Chair, just just a couple comments. Obviously I think I share some of the convictions with other board members regarding transparency on this. I reiterated that probably three or four times tonight. That being said though, safety and security is one of the FOIA exemptions regarding this particular issue. It did come up through the Joint Security Committee back in December and it's worked its way through. So this is a perfect topic where there i

s a delicate balance between public discourse, public input which we all welcome, but with the same token getting into security vulnerabilities and operational practices. It's just something we can't do in the public sphere. So that being said, I do welcome people coming in and talking about this audience is coming in contacting us. Overall though when it when it comes down to it, school safety, school security is a priority. I mean we are talked about our fiscal responsibility. We also have a r

esponsibility to protect the students when they're dropped off until they're picked up. We did talk about budget and we talked about funding for the security guards and and how that river is is running dry. So this goes hand in hand where this line item is being moved out of the school's budget into the town council budget. So it is, I think someone at the town council said they're dangling a carrot at this point. I think we do have to take the freebie because we can't afford it otherwise withou

t making cuts to other departments. As that being said, I will be supporting this proposal, Phil. Well, you were out and there's another motion on the floor that they want to. To put table this until leadership can come up with a date for a public meeting. OK, yeah, I did miss that part. So we still had the main motion on the floor, though. So does this, this, this is an incidental motion at the table. OK, so I'll be supporting the main motion. I don't mind tabling it either, so I'm open to that

. OK. Well, go ahead, Miss Pickett. Sorry, I I got. I got a few more comments. So, Philip, I think it's just interesting that you wouldn't support our our school budget tonight yet. I don't know. That presentation that we got from Chief Fox was an executive session. I have 0 artifacts from that. I have no idea what's being proposed and you're ready to support it. So if we don't have a clear understanding of what our current security program is, my babies are in these schools. I want my babies sa

fe, but we need information about how we got here. Guards is one part of a comprehensive safety plan, putting an armed guard in front of a building that doesn't provide basic physical security measures. Many have been mentioned to councils before. Doors that lock from the inside, Safety glass, double locked entries. None of that is being promised to be supported by our town council. Emily mentioned some great points about our process and our protocols and training for staff. None of that is part

of this. So in order to vote on this, I need a clear understanding of my current security program and protocol. I refuse to add more staff that our leadership does not manage without understanding how decisions are currently being made about our EPD staff. So again, I want to clarify from the public, I'm going off of recollection of what was presented to me in executive session around this armed Guard security program. From my understanding, all of those armed guard security officers would be e

mployees of Enfield Public Enfield PD, not Enfield Public Schools. So we would not manage their schedules, their responsibilities. There would be an MOU, but they would be employees of EPDI have shared my concerns about the number of protective custody calls we have been notified about. These calls are students who need significant support that are transported to CCMC. They are not armed intruders. So guess what? This program does nothing to support our students and staff with our raising behavi

oral concerns that we're experiencing. The decision that some of you will be willing to make is to make an appearance of safety because let me be clear, you can't even ensure safety with an armed guard. Example, Maureen mentioned what happened in Texas. So instead of ensuring we have a fully funded budget with supports for our kids and our staff, you're ready to support armed guards in front of our buildings. I really don't understand from what I recommend. What what I recall these armed guards,

there'd be 22 of them that would be paid $30.00 an hour. Our paras currently starting paras make $15.00 an hour. They are the ones who are supporting our students, some of them toileting and bathrooming, our students restraining our students. Our teacher contract is one of the point of order. Madam Chair, we have a motion. I'm making my argument for what I think is important for us all to consider. And I have the mic, Peter. Point of order, OK. I'm making my argument for why, how I'm voting and

what's the point of order. But you're you're not commenting on what Jerry offered. I mean, he wants his, the need for the public to be involved in this decision, Peter. The public needs to be involved in this decision. So the decision also impacts people, Peter. So I might actually get a little emotional on this one. It's going to be hard for me to get through this. The security guard at my son's school will lose his job over this decision. And you know why? He's amazing. Yes, he provides comfo

rt around physical safety, Peter, but he's a valued member of the school community because he builds intentional relationships with staff, students and families. He supports students who require some extra TLC. He does things that are not in his job description. This is who and what we need, not a gun. So I want to remind people that EPS already has a collaborative relationship with our EPD. We already have those four SRO's with support of our schools. They make a regular presence in our school

and they have weapons already. There's a town council member who repeatedly mentions referendums and how the public should be in charge of big ticket items. Well, this is a huge ticket item and there's been no public input in it. So what does that say? So the reality is that this town has never fully funded education. We have some dirt on our hands and we need to make sure that our money goes to our kids, not to more police. So if you ran a campaign on transparency and getting us out of an Allia

nce district, I can promise you that what you are doing here does not provide transparency. Armed guards do nothing to get us off the Alliance district. What do we truly need? Academic behavioral intervention staff. Better pay for our staff, professional learning and supports for our staff that enhance our stuff. This is this is not a help. This is not a gift to the Board of Ed. The Town Council wants to truly support our schools, support our modernization efforts, and fully fund our education a

nd get our families involved in decisions. Go ahead, missus. Black history repeats itself in 2011. During that term, I voted no against armed guards. And then I voted no again. Unarmed guards in in 2015, maybe. I remember the votes were were very bipartisan when they were approved and they were bipartisan when we didn't intend to carry them anymore. I think that the issues I have mirror Miss Pickets in a way that we do need so much more support in our school. The Paras, the behaviour text, the t

eachers. I mean we've heard it all tonight. 25% of special Ed. I'm trying to word this correctly. I feel like I was given a this, that or if or not. So we had some things we have to look at in our budget and it's kind of like making a decision of do you accept what they're wanting to give you or this is the situation I feel like I've been put in, or do we keep what we have and then have to look at staff to keep those bodies in our schools? It's not a good feeling. I really hate it. I'm not sure

why the money couldn't go to what we our current situation with the security guards. I just want to hear what else the board has to say and I can speak to that some more, but I really feel like I've been in a in a been put in a situation where if I don't do this then you're not getting this. I also think that if this doesn't pass tonight, there's going to be a narrative that's already been suggested that we don't care about the safety of our kids, which is absolutely false. And I've had conversa

tions with leadership that work for the town of Enfield and their feeling on this. And I don't know that the due diligence was done to actively hear or actively involve thoughts on people trained for this situation. Any other discussion, OK. And then I'll just add my two cents. So whether or not we table it, don't table it, whatever, doesn't matter. I mean, yes doesn't the safety, I didn't want them. I didn't want them gone before. The safety of our students and staff is number 1 to me. I've, I'

ve heard the opposing viewpoints. I mean the one that sticks out to me a lot and it's come up you know, is questioning school repairs and hardening and mental health supports. And I would venture out to say that once those items are completed and there's a real tangible shift in the mental health, maybe we won't even need the Ssos. But even if we passed a referendum tomorrow to fix the buildings, the windows, the doors, it's still multiple years out from completion. And mental health isn't somet

hing you just take a pill for and it's gone. It's OK tomorrow. No, you know, this is just, this is a rather immediate solution to our children and staff safety. We live in an upside down world. People are at the absolute ends of their ropes. The tiniest things set people off. I mean, just sitting here, people can't even sit in an audience and without getting upset or up here without getting upset, you know, I just want the kids to go to school and the parents to feel good about it. The teachers

don't have to worry about anything and they can just focus on learning, teaching, socializing and being kids, doing school things. I mean, when this came out, I I thought we were going to have some sort of one public hearing and then we were going to go. The town council already voted on it. We have to vote on it. So that's in our lap. The ball is in our court. I mean, it ties to the budget. Plus the timeline also starts immediately because we need to, we need to put the job out, we need to hire

, we need to have interviews. A lot of those guards that we have currently already have the requirements to fulfil those positions. So there's a lot of things that have to be set in motion for this to be ready to go. They have to be fitted with their equipment, which is personalized to the peoples. That takes time. They have to come into the schools, meet the staff, meet the teachers, be ready for the students. All of that has to happen. So while I felt that way, we've been well, here we are. So

I'm saying we just got to vote on it because that's what we promised the town council that we would do. So that's where I'm at. But I'm one of nine. So here we go. Anybody else? Go ahead, Mr. Ryder. So I don't agree with Phil or Peter in general or at all. And but I can tell you that I'm also a member of the Joint Security Committee, as Mr. Culver is. Charlotte has been there as well. There are some things that we have to talk about in executive session related to security that we can't talk ab

out here. If you say you have something going on in one supermarket store, then you're implying that the other supermarket store doesn't have the same thing, whether it's fruit, security, whatever. We talked about our budget. We talked about the fact that we are hurting. Our budget is hurting and our line item budget for our current security also will run out on June 30th. And I am not pro guns at all, but I don't want to ask Chris and Andy to serve 24 pink slips so we can fund security if we ha

ve an option that the town council will pay that for us. I don't know how we got here in the last few weeks, two months, etcetera. I don't. But everybody knows, whether they vote for me or they despise me, that I care about our kids and their safety and their education to me go hand in hand. Again, I'm not pro Ssos. I just think that this is something where the town council has made this one promise. That whatever that line item was for our security, just like whatever our line items used to be

for taking care of our parking lots and our lights, is now the town's responsibility. And again, it's all one budget. But if that money can stay with the Board of Education, as we were promised, I'd rather the town council pay for security in our schools, then for us to turn in another 2425 pink slips to teachers who may or may not be back in September. Miss Bigot, I just want to clarify, there's no money coming back to us, so the money is gone. So there's no gift of money coming back from the t

own council. The what I call dirty carrot that's being dangled for us is we will pay for security under these conditions. I think if we're willing to make an investment in security even, there's more cost effective and alternate ways that we can do that and that hasn't been explored. There's been no collaborative conversation on that. I offered. I went to the town council as a resident and spoke. I couldn't publicly speak about the armed guards because it was done an executive session. Nobody fo

llowed up on a conversation with me about other ways that we might be able to support our budget and our students. It is discouraging to me that we are ready to make a yes vote without having details of what we're making a yes vote on. It was presented to us in executive session. I'm sure none of us recall the nitty gritty details that was presented to us about the program that we are voting on. I think we are also forgetting the mission of this board. Our mission is not just to protect kids, bu

t to also educate them. I just wanted to clarify something that was said earlier. They will be supervised by Enfield Public Schools, not APD. They do not have arrest powers. I know that was something else that came up in our caucuses. So I just wanted to clarify those two points. Correct. Go ahead, Miss Lee. Something that I fear is the ramifications of us not supporting this when it comes time to fund our budget. Because on several occasions the mayor has said, do you want me to go after flags

at schools? I've got the votes. Do you want me to do this? I've got the votes. It's no way for us to be working together and creating a constructive dialogue, which I thought we had established a few weeks ago in leadership. Like I left that leadership meeting. I was feeling great, like, OK, we can do this. We can work together. There's a bridge there. And then these remarks come, AI guess this is a question that we're not going to have an answer to, but other departments have been asked to cut

from their budget. But yet we have found this money to do this. And I just don't understand. I just don't understand it. Again, I'd like to see the money go to the supports inside our schools, because that's where we actually need that money, could go towards giving the supports in school to help us get out of an alliance district. This is not helping us get out of an alliance district. And I like Scott. It's do I support it so we don't have to layoff teachers. The last comment I'll make is I re

member last year there was this desire by the Republican minority to cut our budget by $1.4 million. I can't, I'm not the Superintendent. We don't get to decide where that cut would have been made. But my guess is that the additional security that we might have purchased that was a nice add on probably would have gone. And so the cuts that they were willing to make last year to our education budget probably would have drastically impacted what we currently have. And so I think we need to have a

better understanding of what we're doing, why we're doing it and how it supports our students and a long term plan. Charlie, I'm with you. If we have a support for a modernization plan of our schools and this is a short term fix, I'm willing to have that conversation. There's been no conversation. OK. Is anybody else OK, So we are going to vote on the motion that Doctor Callan put on the floor to table the item until leadership can come up with a date for a meeting. So was that straw of hands, t

hose in favor of table of tabling, I would can I am I allowed to make an amendment on the amendment? Because I'm in. I'm in favor of tabling it. But I'm in favor of tabling it. If we can have a meeting with the town council, I I can't. I know you speak for that. So that's that's like I need a motion to table it and then we can put the stipulations of what it is. I just, I I I just keep it simple. I think bottom line is no I want to keep my motion just as it is. I I think that that's OK, but I I

just I think we're just losing sight of the the central issue. The people in this town have a right to, to give their input on this issue regardless of what the town council thinks regardless of what we think. We need to hear from the people of Enfield. End of conversation. OK. So show of hands in favor of Doctor Kelton of tabling the item 1234, those against tabling the item 1234 and those abstentions 1. So it doesn't, so it doesn't pass. So we're we're back to the main motion, we're back to th

e main motion. OK, OK. So then, so Madam Chair, I'll just offer the further discussion on the main motion then because as we talked, it reminded me that we do have a timeline based on that. This is essentially tethered to the budget that we do have to hire and we do need to get them all ball rolling, so. To move forward with the vote on the main motion. OK, All right. So then is there any other discussion? I would just make a, to your point, Peter, we also need staff for our schools to teach our

students and that budget is just as important. That needs to be fully funded and that's not happening. And so again, making decisions about one piece but not the other. You know, Amanda, you're assuming you know how I'm going to vote on this thing. I'm sorry. I meant to say Phil. I meant to say, Phil, I apologize, Peter. I know we're good. Are we good? Maybe not. I hope not. I hope. I don't know how you are. All right, all right, All right. Here we go. So let's vote on the main motion on the fl

oor, the roll call vote. Kathy Missus LeBlanc The motion Yes to approve a memorandum of understanding with the Town of Enfield regarding armed school safety officers to be provided by and at the expense of the Town of Enfield at some point. This is the blank Europe. Yep. I understand. Yes, this is Pickett. No. Mr. Ryder. Yes. This is a Cree abstain. Dr. Kalman? No, this is Cushman. Yes. Mr. Genitis. No. Mr. Kober. Yes, Chairwoman Riley. Yes, 2345 motion passes. Thank you. Five. Yes. All right. I

tem 11 F we're going to address item 11F after item 16. OK 412 Board Committee reports Curriculum Committee. At the last curriculum committee on February 15th, Deb Gaskell from the English department proposed changes to the English courses at the high school. That support expanded opportunities for students, namely freshmen. Also, Miss Brown and Miss Beebe were in attendance and they discussed a unified steam course that's happening at JFK. They discussed the benefits of the addition of such cou

rse. Miss Beebe also suggested that the course should be called Integrated STEAM. The next meeting is March 21st. Thank you, Finance Budget Committee. Madam Chair. The only thing to report is the next meeting of the Finance and Budget Subcommittee will be Monday, March 4th at 5:00 PM Policy Committee. Our next meeting is March 19th at 5:30. OK. Leadership Committee, last one was February 1st. Obviously we've met multiple times for multiple meetings. So maybe next week hopefully we will have a me

eting, whether it be just us or with the council that'll probably happen. Joint Facilities, that was supposed to be the 22nd, but it was canceled because we had our special budget meeting and the next one is March 14th. JFK Building Committee, OK, Joint Security, Our next meeting is March 8th. Enfield Mental Health Committee. We just received the surveys back from the principals at JFK and Enfield High and also David White. We are reviewing Dr. Callan and I, the data and we will be scheduling a

meeting with Mr. Longi in March. Thank you, Enfield Culture and Arts. The next meeting. The next meeting is Tuesday, March 5th. OK. All right. Item number 13. Approval of minutes. Special BOE meeting minutes, February 14th, 24. So moved. Second motion made by Mr. Rider seconded by Mr. Kober. Show of hands in favor. There is 9 in favor. Zero against Special Board of Ed Meeting minutes, February 22nd, 2024. Show of hands. So move for approval. Moved by Mr. Ryder. Second, second by Mr. Cobert. Show

of hands in favor. 8 in favor. One abstention. Yeah, I would. One abstention. OK. Approval of Council Payroll. Madam Chair. Nothing to report at this meeting. OK #15 Correspondence and communications. Nothing Mr. Ryder. Nothing. We have a lot over Madam Chair. Do you just want to summarize the superintendent's letter with the effective date for for course of resignation? Correct. Yeah. So his letter of resignation was given to me in person and that it said that his effective date was May 20th,

2024 and he enjoyed serving the Enfield Public School system and will miss us. Thank you. And then OK, so I need a motion to go into executive session and then we will come back out to address item 11F after that so moved in order to discuss personnel matters. Can I ask a question? So it's it's going to be after 11 when we come out of executive session. So do we have to make a motion to make it now that it's going to extend? Because executive session won't be over by the time the meeting comes.

OK. So can I rescind that motion? No one has seconded yet. OK yeah, it'll just fall to the floor and you can do another one. Let's go. So I make a motion to extend the Board of Ed meeting of February 27th past 11:00 PM. Second seconded by Mrs. LeBlanc. Show of hands. Those in favor is 8 in favor against. You said no. Yes. Oh, OK One. Eight in favor and one again. I thought Jane said no. Sorry. I thought she did too. OK. All right. So now I need a motion to go into executive session. So moved sec

ond. All right. Moved by Mr. Clover. Second, by Missus Lebank. Show of hands in favor. All in favor, none against, and right. We'll come back to finish up. All right. So we are back from executive session and we are going to address item 11F now, action, if any, related to personnel. So I need a motion to hire Mr. Andrew Longey as Mr. Christopher Drezek's replacement upon his resignation effective May 21st, 2024. So moved, so moved by Phil, seconded by Mr. Gennidis. Any discussion? So Madam Chai

r, I'm going to be real brief and this is not predicated on the nominee. I think bringing this item up to a vote is very efficient and will streamline the transition of the administration. The only concern I have is the rapidness and the inability to share with the public the process that got us to this point and increase the transparency. So for that reason alone, I would have been in favor of hiring a acting Superintendent and creating a committee. So for that alone I'll be voting. No Thank yo

u, Mr. Kover. Any other discussion? OK, I'm just going to say my piece. So I know that there are people that want a process of getting resumes and interviews and then hiring. And at my first knee jerk reaction, I thought that. But then I stabbed myself. I took a step back and I reassessed the realities of the situation. This wasn't an overnight thought. I was aware of this possibility for a couple of months ago. So here's what my train of thought was. We're in Alliance District with a large popu

lation of special needs, free and reduced lunch. English as a second language learner. English as a second language learners and a very engaged community at times, which you could see by tonight. We live in Connecticut, which has its own set of state mandates and policies that are obtrusive at best for our schools. Mr. Long, he has been here 20 years as assistant principal at JFK, assistant principal at Enfield High and principal at Enfield High School and now assistant Superintendent and he sti

ll wants to be here. He successfully LED Enfield High School when it was renovated and merged with Fermi. He's done student discipline, schedules, report cards, teacher evaluations. He even started as a history teacher. For seven years, he's been in almost every single situation you could be in in a district. He's a strong advocate for curriculum and academic excellence. He wants our students to read, write and be prepared for life after school to be successful and productive members of society

with whatever abilities that student may have. I, as many of us up here have worked with and some directly under him, his interview as well as the one he had with us has really been his last 20 years here. His list of accomplishments is long and to take a gamble on the unknown, looking good on paper versus actions witnessed, a known track record of leading when put in a position to do so. And he presented to us a pretty solid plan to reinvigorate and set our students up for success. For me, I'm

only one vote of nine, but it makes sense to do this and to not waste money that we clearly don't have and to go out and search when we have our answer right here. Go ahead Mr. United. I concur with just about everything that you I concur with everything you said and having worked with Andy at the middle school, he does have a great background. I think he's well respected by the teachers. He knows education. He's been at the multiple levels, serving in multiple positions. And I think he is the r

ight man for the job at this time. At at any time, really. I I'm going to be very happy to vote for him. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Anyone else? OK, so Kathy isn't here. So you're the recording secretary, so. That's correct. Scott Ryder, can we have a roll call vote, please? Yes. Miss LeBlanc. Yes, Miss Pickett. Yes, Mr. Ryder? Yes. Missus Cree. Yes, Doctor Callan. Yes. Missus Cushman. Yes. Mr. Junitus. Yes. Mr. Kobler. No. Chairman Wiley. Yes. Motion passes. Motion passes. OK. None. I need, accordin

g to Policy 2151, I need a motion to approve Mr. Andrew Longie's nomination of Mrs. Michelle Middleton as Assistant Superintendent effective May 21st, 2024. Moved, moved by Doctor Callaman, seconded by Miss Acree. Any discussion on that motion. So the only discussion offer Madam Chair that we did get a the interview as well during executive session of the candidate for assistant Superintendent and I think she will be a good fit for the job. Thank you. Thank you. Any other discussion I would furt

her that if we want to focus on curriculum and student supports. Michelle is the woman for the job and I'll leave it at that. Nice and simple. OK. So roll call vote. Mr. Ryder please. Miss LeBlanc? Yes. Missus Pickett. Yes, Mr. Ryder? Yes. Miss Decree. Yes. Doctor Callan. Yes. Miss Cushman? Yes. Mr. Colbert? Yes. Mr. Junitus. Yes. Chairwoman Riley. Yes. Motion passes. Motion passes. OK. Can I have a motion to adjourn? So made second by Mr. Colbert, Second by Miss Length. Show of hands in favor,

All in favour, none against. Thank you and have a good night. We are adjourned.