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MINUTES

WATERTOWN BOARD OF EDUCATION REGULAR MEETING

Watertown High School

Technology Center

Monday, January 12, 2009 – 7:30 PM

Board Members Present: Gina Calabrese, Chairman

Richard Mazzamaro, Vice Chairman

Mary Colangelo, Secretary

Kevin Killeen

Joseph Apicella

Mary Dzioba

Todd Griffin

Janice Pond

Thomas Lambert

Others Present: Thad Hasbrouck, Dir. of Curriculum & Prof. Services

Karen Baldwin, Superintendent of Schools

Shirley Oliver – Supervisor of Financial Services

Gary Miller–Interim Director of District Operations

Richard Mastroianni, Student Council Representative

Matthew Geary, Principal Watertown High School

Kathy Scully, Principal John Trumbull Primary School

Marylu Lerz, Principal Swift Middle School

Mary Jean Mangione, Vice Principal Swift

Fran Palmer

Emily Judd, Principal Polk School

James Perucci, Town Times reporter

Jason Barna

Jeff Barna

Other interested guests

A. Convene Regular Meeting - 7:30 PM

B. Salute to the Flag

Ms. Calabrese led the Pledge of Allegiance

C. Report from Student Council Representative – Richard Mastroianni

Mr. Mastroianni: Good evening Madam Chair, Superintendent Baldwin, tonight we return after a week of school, which followed a much needed vacation. But even though there was this break, I assure you students kept working. Seniors, for instance, kept busy with college applications. I know some people who are applying to 6, 7, and 8 schools. I cannot even to begin to fathom the workloads some of my peers have to endure, as I applied to about 3 or 4. As for the underclassmen, their minds have been occupied with our quickly approaching midterms. These tests officially begin next week and are a major part of a student’s grade. Both midterms and finals each count for about 10% of a yearly grade. When these two exams are averaged together, they make up 20% of the final report. For many, doing well on these tests comes easy, as they are simply a review on everything that has been taught. Of course, for others, these exams are difficult to pass and extra work and study time is being put aside. As for recreational activities at Watertown High School, the Student Council is holding a Valentine’s Dance this year. The event will take place in the cafeteria on Friday, February 13th, which I find is interesting. Also, the school’s annual Mr. Watertown contest has been announced to take place on February 26th. Last year was both fun and successful and we’re hoping this year is even better. So far, there are far more contestants than any of the prior events. I encourage anyone present tonight to attend that, and again that is February 26th. Finally, auditions for the school musical, Once on the Island, were held today and will also be held tomorrow. The musical, itself, will take place at the end of March. I’ll keep you posted on that as time progresses. I’ll be able to give you some firsthand information because I’ll be in it as well. As always, Watertown High School students should continue to impress you. We are no strangers to balancing out our schoolwork, college applications and extra curricular activities. If anyone has any questions on any of these events, I’d be more than happy to do my best to answer them. Thank you.

D. Public Participation

None

E. Committee Reports:

1. Advertising Committee – Mary Colangelo

No Report

2. Athletics Committee – Joseph Apicella

No Report

3. Budget Committee – Thomas Lambert

Mr. Lambert: We had a budget committee meeting and we did a quick study, walked through, quickly the budget document and as discussed with the current service issue and we did have a few questions here and there, but the Superintendent will be discussing part of that tonight and of course, we probably will have another three meetings before we’re done with the budget to firm it up. I’m pleased with the attendance that we had at that first budget meeting and we’re going forward. Thank you.

4. Curriculum & Instruction Committee – Kevin Killeen

No Report

5. Facilities Committee – Richard Mazzamaro

No Report

6. Policy and Labor Committee – Mary Colangelo

No Report

7. Cablevision – Mary Dzioba

No Report

8. Public Building Committee Representative – Richard Mazzamaro

Mr. Mazzamaro: The Public Building Committee met twice since our last meeting. I attended a meeting on December 17, 2008 where O&G gave their monthly report on Watertown High School and the Judson renovation projects. Briefly, Mr. Joe Vetro updated the progress on Watertown High School. The north parking lot installation was stopped and placed on hold until the summer due to existing soil conditions that are being addressed as we speak. Paving for the bus route and north parking area is scheduled for the summer. Site demolition in the courtyard in area A, the media center and foundation excavation is complete and the backfill was started. Concrete foundations have started and plumbing, electrical and underground piping has also started. (inaudible) in the renovation area has also started and HVAC ductwork has started. Plumbing and electrical roughings are ongoing. As of about 2 weeks ago, the structural steel was begun and you could see in the front of the building, it is taking shape now. In area B, the pool area, the foundation backfill is ongoing and the concrete foundations are about 95% complete. The plumbing, electrical and the underground pipings are done and the roughings are started in the renovation area. At Judson, Mr. Mark Sadenski reported (inaudible) contractor progress being made. He reported that windows by Cherry Hill Construction, the exterior windows is still ongoing, but just about complete. Everything else they’re working on is done. They did report to us, though, that the work is about 4 weeks behind schedule and that prompted a walk through by the Public Building Committee that occurred on Saturday, the 10th. Mr. Sadenski took us through the entire project and explained where they were and he reiterated the project is 4 weeks behind schedule, but was confident that it will be made up and the contractors are on board and he still had August 14th as the finish date as his goal.

9. Education Connection Representative – Janice Pond

Ms. Pond: I have not attended a meeting, but when I get information, I do forward it to you.

F. Communications - Secretary

None

G. Minutes

Motion made by Ms. Colangelo, Seconded by Mr. Lambert

To approve the minutes of the Regular Board of Education Meeting – December 8, 2008

Abstained: Mr. Dzioba, Mr. Griffin

Vote: Motion carried (7-0-2)

H. Superintendent's Recommendations and Report

Ms. Baldwin: Thank you very much. I just want to first welcome the full board back to our work for 2009. It’s good to see everyone here at the table and we all have the energy and the perseverance to begin this long budget season, and so I’m excited that we’re all here at the table and healthy and ready to begin this new work. Relative to item H, the Superintendent’s Recommendations and Reports, I would just draw your attention to appointments and specifically and publically recognize that the board has appointed Shirley Oliver as the Supervisor of Financial Services for the district as a central office employee and we’re very thrilled to have her. She has made significant contributions to date and will continue to do so, so I just wanted to publically welcome her and acknowledge her as part of the central office team. The board can see also, under item 2, resignations that we have received two resignations, one as the head secretary at John Trumbull, Lee Halliwell and also a cafeteria paraprofessional Lori St. Germain. For the board’s information, under item 3, we have been doing some work with the custodians and reassigning them at Swift, now that Swift is a fully renovated middle school, it is required that we reassign some custodians to different areas of the building and that is what is item a represents there under number 3.

1. Appointments – (Information Only – No Action Required)

a. Ms. Denise Suvoski to the position of Cafeteria Paraprofessional at Polk School starting January 5, 2009 for 1.5 hours paid per day, at an hourly rate of $15.38.

b. At its meeting on December 8, 2008, the Board of Education voted to approve of the appointment of Ms. Shirley Oliver to the position of Supervisor of Financial Services, effective December 9, 2008, with an annual salary of $52,000.00 prorated.

2. Resignations – (Information Only – No Action Required)

a. Ms. Leona Halliwell from the position of Secretary II Grade IV, Head Secretary, at John Trumbull Primary School, effective January 5, 2009, for the purpose of retirement.

b. Ms. Lori St. Germain from the position of Cafeteria Paraprofessional at Polk School, effective November 26, 2008, for personal reasons.

3. Transfers – (Information Only – No Action Required)

a. Mr. Wayne DeMarest from the position of Main Level Area C – 7th Grade Wing Custodian to Custodian 2nd Shift, Main Level – Area D - 6th Grade Wing at Swift Middle School, for 8.0 hours paid per day, at an hourly rate of $19.18, effective December 8, 2008.

4. Three School Project Update – (Information Only – No Action Required)

Administration will present an update on the three school project.

Ms. Baldwin: Mr. Mazzamaro did a pretty complete job in terms of talking to you about the work to date. The only thing that I would emphasize, relative to the Judson walk through is that we did spend about an hour on site Saturday morning and as Mr. Mazzamaro indicated, O&G is saying that they are about a month behind, but they have developed a schedule to try and make up for that time and they are also deploying trade contractors to different parts of the facility to accomplish work. They’re moving in a different order of phasing to try and speed things up. Certainly, the weather is playing a role in some of this delay, but ultimately, they are committed to turning the building over to us in August and I am hopeful that we can make up this time and we can get in there before August 14th, obviously. It’s cutting it very close and I will be in communication with O&G relative to my concerns about that.

5. Superintendent’s Recommended Budget FY 2009-2010

Superintendent Karen Baldwin will give a presentation on the recommended budget for school year 2009-2010.

Item 5 is actually a very exciting presentation from me to the board and the community for our Superintendent’s recommended operating budget for our fiscal year 2009-2010. I do have a PowerPoint and you have a copy of it at your desk here. There is also a comprehensive booklet that we have put together that gives detailed information. While you get your reference material, I will get to the podium to present to you this budget.

As you know the process that we have in place will allow for a series of presentations to the board on major expenditure categories in this operating budget over the next several weeks, and that ultimately, in February, at the end of February, this budget becomes a Board of Education Operating Budget and then we turn it over to the town for further review and auditing, so to speak. Over the next several board meetings, we will have a personnel and benefits presentation to you going more in-depth, we will have a special education presentation, a curriculum and special services presentation. Hopefully, between these major presentations and the work that we do in sub-committee, we will be able to get all of the information and present it publically and clearly so that we can see support for this operating budget. I would say that budget development is probably the single most important task that we undertake at central administration and at the board level. It is the purposeful alignment of resources, targeted to strengthen our mission, vision and goals. Ultimately, our mission and vision is to improve outcomes and opportunities for all children in Watertown. And budget development, aligning resources to do that, is the work that we have been engaged in for the past several months at the central office. I do want to thank my central office colleagues for their tireless efforts in helping to produce this budget. This year was quite a challenge for us in developing an operating budget, simply because of the level of transition that has taken place in central administration since the development of the 08-09 budget has left a lot of institutional knowledge in different places and it’s very hard for us. We had to work diligently to gather that information to be clear on what is in the current budget and what we absolutely need for 2009-2010. I want to thank my central office staff for their hard work and efforts. I also want to thank the principals because it really starts at the building level and the work that they do in engaging their staff in better understanding what the needs are at the local level, so I do want to thank all the principals and many of them are here this evening as well. As the Board of Education’s chief executive officer and lead educator in this district, I wrestled with the development of this budget. Although we are in the most challenging economic time since the Great Depression, it is the professional and moral responsibility to present to you the needs of this district. There are not any wish lists contained in this budget. There are not any wants. There are needs and I will present to you tonight the needs of the 2009-2010 Watertown Public Schools. As this presentation unfolds, you’ll learn that the needs of this system are far greater than what I’ve put forward. There are many unmet needs that we will have to wrestle with as we continue to determine what is in the best interest of all children of Watertown. Certainly, the education that children receive in Watertown has a lasting impact on the entire community and that is what we are wrestling with today. Certainly, anytime we’re talking about budge development, we need to reconnect to our mission and vision because this is the heart of the work and in this slide, there are a couple different colors, and I highlighted them in different colors because I think this information really resonates in our budget request. Meeting the diverse needs of each student, embracing lifelong learning, having a sense of social justice, and perhaps this one at the bottom, partnering with parents and the community as a whole. This is our challenge, is to get this budge to be understood, to be transparent, for people to recognize the needs and support us as we move forward in servicing children at the highest possible levels. The last piece that I put in (inaudible) that I highlighted on our mission statement is providing the differentiated guided and resources necessary to achieve high expectations so that children can be responsible and productive citizens in Watertown. We need to be mindful of our mission as we continue to move forward in this process. We always want to check ourselves against our mission, our vision and our goals and that every budget request that you’ll see here tonight is linked to the mission and vision of the Watertown Public Schools. This is a budget overview slide. Very simply, this year’s budget request that I have placed in front of you as the Superintendent’s recommended operating budget represents a 5.9% increase in spending over the 2008-2009 school year. You will learn as this presentation unfolds that there are major contributors that I will call correctives and they are imbedded in our current service requests and you’ll begin to understand that as this presentation moves forward. This is a lean budget. The current service, or what we could also call a rollover budget, is 5.6%. That rollover budget at 5.6% does contain correctives or adjustments. I will highlight them for you so you can see how they contribute to the 5.6% rollover. New requests make up about 2.25% of this 5.9 and again, that will be detailed for you in later slides. The core of this operating budget has been cut and reduced for years and the system just cannot sustain that level of cuts so when you hear me referring to correctives or adjustments, those correctives or adjustments are to take care of all of those prior year reductions. We need to fund and sustain the foundation of this budget if we’re going to meet the needs of children moving forward.

This is the slide that helps us to remember that public education is a labor and personnel intensive business. If you look at this slide, you can see salary and wages take up almost 65% of our total 37 million dollar request. The other piece you realize is the benefits connected to those people make up about 17%, 81% of our total operating budget goes to the people who are in the classrooms teaching children, the building leaders, the coordinators and content of program, custodians, electricians, plumbers, supervisors, secretaries, paraprofessionals, all of these people make up the Watertown Public Schools and 81% of this budget. One of the things as we wrestle with this budget that becomes clear, is that if you look at all of these other expenditure categories, professional services, maintenance services, utilities, it becomes clear is that should we need to take a significant reduction, it’s about positions. The only place that we can take significant reductions is in people and their benefits because there is very little that make up supplies and materials or equipment or transportation and other services. This is important to understand, that it’s really all about our fine people who we bring into the Watertown Public Schools who work with our children every day tirelessly to help them learn. You will get an in-depth presentation January 26th, but I want to highlight to the board and remind them salary and wages this year, overall, across the account in this operating budget is up only 3.8%. That’s to our fine work in contract negotiations, recognizing the efforts of certified and non-certified staff, paying them and compensating them appropriately for being mindful of the economic climate and therefore, being as conservative as possible and fiscally responsible, so overall, salary and wages are up just 3.8% in this budget. Employee benefits across all of those categories is up about 10.3% this year. A big cost driver in the employee benefits account is our need to fund the town pension plan because investments have not gone well, obviously, in town pension plan, our obligation to fund that for town certified employees is up significantly. That is a major contributor right now. The actual health insurance and dental is not a major contributor to that cost increase, I’m pleased to report.

One of the pieces that is a challenge in developing this budget, is that there are still several unknowns in this budget. I would categorize unknowns at the local level, the state level and the national level. The local level, this budget and the increase of 5.9% does not include any reductions for teacher retirements. Sometimes people call that breakage, where you know you have 10 retirements in your teaching staff and you know you can bring 10 new staff in at a lower salary and therefore, you can reduce your base in your teacher account by typically hundreds of thousands of dollars. This budget that I present to you tonight does not have breakage in it because I do not know the number of teachers retirements and I think it would be irresponsible to project it or guess it because I could be wrong. We have sent a survey out to our staff and we’ve asked them to tell us if they intend to return to the Watertown Public Schools next year, or if in fact they think they will retire. Once that information becomes more clear, that’s an opportunity for us to change that figure. Other pieces, locally that we don’t know, is our paraprofessional contract settlement. We had to put a place holder in (inaudible) to account for that. Right now the place holder is 3.5%. Also, you’ve heard me mention it before, talking about the benefits slide. The town pension plan funding level, we have not received a report from the actuaries and so we worked in close concert with the finance director and he has recommended almost a 100% increase in the funding of the town pension plan. That is a significant cost driver. Hopefully, we’ll get better information as this process unfolds. Certainly, we’re all mindful of the economic conditions that we’re operating in today and that does weigh heavy on us in terms of the unknowns. The education cost sharing grant at the state level, the state board of education has recommended to the legislature that they reduce the application cost sharing grant by 12%. On its face in Watertown, that would mean a reduction of 1.4 million dollars. Certainly, there is no consideration of that in this budget request this time. Again, I say on its face in Watertown, it means 1.4 million, because it is likely that if that 12% reduction is enacted, that there will be recalibration of the grant, so to speak, so that priority school districts receive the level of funding for them to operate in their urban centers and therefore, it is likely that it would be a far greater impact in Watertown than 1.4 million, so we are paying close attention to the work at the state level in Hartford right now.

The other piece of information that’s important to us is the excess cost grant funding for our special education students. This budget, for 2009-2010 assumes that we will receive just 75%. That is what we’ve been told to anticipate. The 08-09 budget, the budget that we’re operating under today, assumes a 90% level of reimbursement. So, we’ve gone from a timeframe where it was 100% several years ago, to now 90% funding in 08-09, to budget requests of 75%. That is also a cost driver in this budget, in this 2009-2010 operating budget.

Other unknowns, at the national level is the No Child Left Behind legislation and certainly what President-elect Obama and his cabinet may do with that legislation and how that may impact us locally here in Connecticut. Also the impact of an economic recovery plan. What is that going to look like? Will it have positive effects for us here in Watertown, so that the situation that we’re operating under today, may look less weak. Also the federal e-rate program, President-elect Obama has not been a huge supporter of that plan in the past, so we wait to see whether that program will sustain. It’s been spoken about for several years as something that might be eliminated, so we’ll pay attention to that. We also want to pay attention to our grant funding overall, the IDEA grant, the consolidated grant, Title I, Title 2A. Right now we’re not anticipating reductions, but we don’t know, so all of that means quite uncertain in this operating budget.

Current and projected enrollments: this is important information and this is a big part of our budget story to you. Understanding that our enrollment projections for the next ten years. We hired a retired state department of education official to engage in a ten year enrollment study. He will be here on the 26th to present that publically to the board. Ultimately, what we learned is the trend is a decreasing enrollment at Watertown and I would point out to you that grade 8, here at Swift, this year we have 327 8th grade children, next year we’re projecting 275. This group of 8th graders, they have come through the Watertown Public schools, they are the bubble group, they are just that huge group that Watertown had fits with when trying to appropriately staff over the years course sections. This is the last large group of children coming through, according to our enrollment projections. We will never see a number like this again, according to the work that Peter Prowda did. This group of 8th graders, they are responsible for an increase at Watertown High School next year, but overall, across the school system, over the next ten years, we’re anticipating declining enrollment. The enrollment story as it pertains to the budget request, you might be asking, what are we going to do about this. Well, at Swift, we see that only 235 6th graders are anticipated next year. We have a wonderful 6-8 middle school, interdisciplinary teams, core content being provided, services, reading being provided, unified arts, we are fully involved at the Swift Middle School delivering high quality level education to all of our students. I’ve met with Marylu Lerz, the principal of Swift and shared with her this enrollment information, and ultimately, we believe that we can reduce the 6th grade next year to 2 teams, not 3. We would have 2 teams of roughly 117 children each which is comparable to the number of children on teams right now in grades 7 and 8. By eliminating a 6th grade team, we can redeploy staff at Swift to meet needs across the district. Those needs are first, two teachers can become Social Study teachers on the 6th grade teams. That was a budget request coming from the middle school, it was perceived as an additional request when we received the enrollment figures, we were able to realize that we can reallocate staff, having them teach social studies instead 6th grade teachers teaching two content areas, which they are doing now. Two teachers would go on a 6th grade team in social studies. The other two teachers, one would be reassigned to John Trumbull Primary in the area of reading, the other to Watertown High School in the area of reading because we have significant and pressing needs in literacy across the district. Another piece we were able to do because of this enrollment information is we’ll reassign a special education teacher from Swift to Watertown High School. We’ll better be able to meet the needs and balance the case load at the high school through redeploying of existing staff. That’s important to understand that a lot of good is coming out of this current service budget because we’ve been able to get solid enrollment projections, we’ve been able to harness our resources. We’re not reducing the quality of education that we provide to kids at Swift Middle School, absolutely not. 235 children, two teams, 117 children on one team, 118 on the other. It’s not different than what we have in place today at Swift Middle School in terms of size and configuration of teams. We can continue to deliver a high quality middle level program, meeting the needs of kids by reducing a team. I want to make that clear.

Elementary school enrollment: this is another important piece of our budget request. Polk is growing relative to Judson. We anticipate 391 children at Polk Elementary School next year and at Judson, 343. Ultimately, you will see that the enrollment at Polk will impact our new staff request. We do have a new staff request that I will highlight for you and it is directly related to the enrollment specifically for grade 5 at Polk.

Our budget priorities: absolutely maintaining open communication and cooperation with the other municipal boards and the community throughout this process. Certainly, we want to maintain current services with respect to class size, student support services, the learning resources and fixed costs. Certainly, existing programs and services will be maintained or adjusted based on the needs of students in alignment with our mission and goals. Perhaps, the most important priority, you heard me mention literacy and redeployment of staff, is this 4th one and 5th one here, address and strengthen comprehensive literacy instruction for all students pre-K to 12. Certainly we have a number requests imbedded in here to go after this budget priority, but I want to remind the board why this is a priority. It’s pretty simple, in 2006, 29% of your 3rd graders were below the proficient level in reading. In 2007, 17% of our third graders were below proficient. This year, 2008, 26% of our third graders are below proficient in reading. That means roughly 68 kids in the third grade across this district are at the basic and below basic level in reading as measured by the state assessment, the Connecticut Mastery test. Do you know 68 kids, we could pull a school bus up here and stuff it with kids in their seats and there’s 7 and 8 year old children who cannot read information and understand it, who cannot decode, who cannot make meaning of print materials and who, by the way, don’t have resources in their classroom library where they can read at their independent level. This budget is a attempting to address that very real need. It is not acceptable for us to put 62 kids on a school bus and they can’t read at a proficient level, and add 6 and put them on a van and that makes up the number of 3rd graders who are reading at below the proficient level. We have to address this. If we think it’s costly now, it’s more costly as they move through the system and they are unsuccessful, so we have to target these resources now. We have to redeploy existing staff at Swift to John Trumbull in the area of reading to get the resources in early where we can make a difference and see these children soar. These are very real needs.

The fifth item here is targeting budgetary resources towards continuous support and enhancement of school learning. No one can argue with that priority. You’ll see that priority as we move towards a request at Watertown High School to extend some programming there. Overall, as I go through this presentation, you will see that this is a lean budget. It is a lean budget, but specifically focused on comprehensive literacy and trying to move this system forward and repairing the core that has been cut for so many years.

This is another chart that helps you to understand the contributions to the budget (inaudible). I spoke about this in the very first budget overview slide. Very simply, the core budget, or fixed contractual cost represents a little more than 9 million dollars of the increase of 5.6%. In terms of the budget priority, I’ve identified it as targeting budget resources towards continuous improvement. That’s the priority we’re focused on and that represents .25% of this budget. I spoke to you about correctives or adjustments in this budget. (inaudible) correctives in this budget that total almost $350,000 which is almost 1% of the budget. Refuse removal, you can find that in the 4000 series programs. Very simply, when we asked the food service director, Maggie Dreher, what do we need to do to help you run a high quality food service program. I only thing she said is that you need to pick up your half, my half of refuse removal. The board shares that refuse removal cost with food services. In order for her to operate in the black, the board needs to pick up the cost. I know that this is something that’s been done in the past, is splitting it with food service. I want to remind the board, that if ultimately if the food service program runs in the red, it’s a deficit, it’s the board’s responsibility to bail it out and so at some juncture, whether it’s a bailout of 24, which represents half of the removal contracts or if it’s a bailout of more or less, in our view, it makes good sense to put this money into the operating budget as a means to better insure that the food service program runs in the black.

Another adjustment to this budget, is that we’ve been listening quite a bit at the board level to community concern relative to pay to participate. Because we’ve made a commitment to listen and to try hard and be responsive, this budget includes a $56,569.00 adjustment to scale back pay to participate to $85.00 per participant. We are still working on what sort of family relief we can provide. We are not certain what sort of caps we can put on with that $85.00 per individual participation fee, but this is also a cost driver, obviously, in this current service budget.

Substitute teachers this year is underfunded by over $200,000.00 and I understand that having done a lot of work in personnel in my other life and dealt with very tight budgets. I understand that boards of ed will make reductions that are the furthest away from the kids and the substitute teacher account is a place that you know that you can just take the dollars and hope and pray that there’s someplace else to make it up. We’re working very hard in this 08-09 budget to find $200,000.00 to make up what is not in that substitute teacher account. Clearly, in a current service budget, I cannot go forward with only $193,000. In a substitute teacher account when we know it costs almost $400,000.00 for substitute teachers across the district. So this is a corrective, I would say.

Instructional supplies have been cut every year to the core. We have made an adjustment so that our schools can have the supplies that they need to work with kids in every classroom, pre-K to 12. That is also a corrective.

The telephone account was underfunded this year in 08-09 by roughly $15,000.00 and so in a current service environment, we have made all of these correctives, totaling $342,000.00 almost a full percentage point on this budget.

A new request: In this budget, I’m requesting a grade 5 teacher at Polk Elementary School. As I shared with you, the enrollment projection is for 391 students. What this requires next year at Polk is that we have six sections at every grade level, 6 classes at grade 3, 6 classes at grade 4, and 6 at grade 5. We have 129 fourth graders moving into fifth grade and we also know that we have 129 second graders from John Trumbull moving to grade 3. Interestingly, only 100 second graders from John Trumbull are moving to Judson. It’s just that there is a big differential at grade 3 between Judson and Polk. One of the pieces that becomes complex for next year relative to Polk is that we are in the Heminway Park School and this year, Judson is there with 16 class sections. We are moving Polk there next year with 18 which will require that we convert the library into a classroom and that library comes on a cart. It will require that the computer lab is a classroom and that computers will be on a cart. 18 classrooms in there and I know board members have spent time in Heminway Park and perhaps, even seen their own children in classrooms there. We have class sizes right now at Judson anywhere between 22 and 24 kids and it’s tight. If we move forward with this additional request, it would be the same thing for Polk next year, between 21 and 24 kids in a classroom. Very tight in 18 classrooms. If we were to not look at this, and believe me, we’ve done the exercise, that would place 26 children at grade 3 and I just think that’s unconscionable. We can’t do that knowing what we know about out student performance at grade 3, knowing that it’s a small space to begin with. If we were to reduce at grade 5, it would be 26 kids at that classroom. I don’t think we can fit 26 kids in those classrooms. Not in today’s instructional repertoire that takes place in terms of grouping and guided reading and small group instruction and how we configure space to better meet learning needs. If everybody is seated at a desk in rows, perhaps we can get 26 children in there, but that, in my view would be a step backwards, from what we’re trying to accomplish. The other piece, as I remind the board, as we make decisions around all of these budget requests, is that Polk Elementary School has made significant gains in our student achievement and in our sub groups student performance, but we are still, in terms of our NCLB status and (inaudible), we are a school designated in (inaudible) and we are in year 2 of that and I think that we need to remember that as we make decisions about how many children and how many sections. This is absolutely a need, it is not a want, it is a need that we move forward with this request. We’ve targeted a salary of $45,269.00, which is very simply master step III in our collective bargaining (inaudible) with teachers we believe we can bring in, a strong teacher at master step III level.

The other new request is for a 4/10 art teacher at Watertown High School. We intend to take an existing staff member and increase that staff member by 4/10. This is to expand course offerings in art. It will provide for interdisciplinary programming in humanities. It will compliment the honors cohort work that we’re doing. It will expand offerings in ceramics, sculpture and other electives, which is very simply, best practice, to provide children these opportunities in the fine arts. It also does respond to the NEASC accreditation, which, by the way, we are responsible to sent to NEASC for February 1, a progress update and that will be on your January 26th agenda, as well. All of the work that was presented to this board just a couple of weeks ago by Matt Geary and department leaders is all part of best practice and what we’re trying to accomplish and it’s in response to moving the high school forward and making this a banner school. The high school really needs to be our flagship school. We’re working on the infrastructure and the facility. We now have this opportunity to expand offerings to better meet the needs of children at $28,000.00 for a 4/10 increase in art.

It’s always important to share with you some of the fine work that has taken place and tries to save money and or contain costs. Most recently, in our teacher contract negotiations, we were able to, through changes in plan design, changes in the prescription drug formulary, changes in co-pay, we were able to save $150,000.00 in our health insurance renewal. Tom (inaudible) from USI has confirmed that as you recall, I wrote to you about the settlement agreement we anticipated $150,000.00. That’s confirmed. That reduction is taken in our health insurance account right now in the budget request that I sent to you. We have reduced it by that amount. Additionally, there has been an insurance buy back program as part of the health insurance plan available to teachers and administrators. Buy back was very simply, if a teacher chose not to participate in our health insurance program, the board paid them a sum of money. In a self insured environment today, that’s just not something that we need to do, and in contract negotiations, we were able to remove that as part of our agreement and so we’re also saving $26,600.00 from that decision. I applaud and commend the board for all the hard work in collective bargaining of teachers to get some of these savings. Other areas that we are focused on every day in our overall operating budget, is just through the e-rate program that we participate in. It provides technology to the schools at a savings of $90,000. Medicaid is a new program that we’re bringing to the school system this year and in the near future, we’re training our psychologists and language pathologist, OT and PT on how to enter the data into the system on some of our students who qualify for this. We can receive reimbursement. Ultimately our intent is to reduce our special education tuition budget by that amount of money. The Medicaid program is an excellent program. We’ve also partnered with Connecticut Light & Power for the sign out computer software. It deals with idle computers. If I left my computer on at the office tonight, if it gets left on for 90 minutes unattended, it shuts itself down. It’s a software that we’ve purchased that will shut the computer down if it’s idle for 90 minutes. We project a savings for $50,000.00 for that program. Additionally, through Gary Miller, through his fine efforts has been able to negotiate. We pay, right now, for 6 fiber optic lines and we really only have 5 schools in use. Moving forward, we will only pay for 5 fiber optic lines and so the reduction of one line is a savings of about $22,000.00 and so I would point out to you that $370,600.00 does represent more than 1% of this total operating budget, so if we hadn’t done that we’d be looking at roughly a 6.9% budget. This is good work and it’s always important to keep track of our efforts in this domain.

Other important work that takes place at the board and the key obviously is textbooks, curriculum, assessment, technology textbooks. The next several slides deal with this information. We need to refurbish and replace textbooks all across the system. At the high school, you can see that we have a cycle intended for 2009-2010 to replace English, Spanish 3 and 4 and 5 Honors, Pre-Calculus text as well as AP US history. This is a very modest curriculum or textbook request. Textbooks are part of our supplies and materials piece of the budget. As you saw early, in the pie chart, supplies only make up 2.2% of our budget. This is a very small request, but it’s significant because if you had an opportunity to talk to students or see some of the texts that we have in the district, they are completely outdated. We need to move forward in a cycle, just like we moved forward with a curriculum vision cycle, we now need to move forward in funding a textbook replacement cycle. I would also draw the board’s attention to the elementary level of $46,000.00 request for Story Town. The board basically approved this last year and it deferred payment to 2009-2010, and so we’re just displaying that. I know we are quite conversant and familiar with that. The other piece that you see at the primary level and I’ve made mention of it when speaking about the need to redeploy staff and our focus on comprehensive literacy this, again is a very small request to begin funding what I would call classroom libraries. Our classrooms, at all levels, pre-K to 5 do not have sufficient classroom libraries. Children who might be in a grade 2 class who are really reading at a kindergarten level do not have a book that can meet their needs as an early reader at a K level in a grade 2 classroom. We need to develop classroom libraries provide, what I’m calling leveled readers, so that every classroom has an assortment of books that children can choose from and enjoy and read independently at their level. We also need to improve the number of non-fiction reading materials that we have at the primary level. That helps build important knowledge and skill base in non-fiction text. Overall, new textbook acquisitions, those are the big ones, there are other ones in there, but I think it would be tedious to go through every one. We can tell you if you have questions about that.

In terms of technology, this can be found in the instructional equipment category. The technology request represents a $50,000.00 request. It is an increase of $35,410.00 over last year. Very simply, it’s needed to replace outdated computers at John Trumbull Primary School. John Trumbull came on-line in 98 and so we still think of it as a new school. It is a beautiful school and is well maintained and looks fantastic, but when you think about that, we receive computers through the building project, those computers are outdated. This request is to begin a three year lease program at John Trumbull and we need to begin to replace machines across the district as they fail. As you’re aware, the building projects have been the source of our technology acquisitions, really to date. We need to begin now planning for our own cycle of replacement.

We have work ahead that we need to mindful of in terms of curriculum revision. This budget anticipates curriculum writing in the summer of 2009 in K mathematics and English language arts K and world languages 8-12 and through 13 different courses at Watertown High School as well. And again, those courses at the high school, they will look a lot like the rigor that the board saw a month or six weeks ago from the presentation from the high school staff. It will be aligned with our academic expectations and our mission statement, focused on critical thinking, focused on 21st century learning skills. That work absolutely needs to get done. In the future, we need to continue with a textbook replacement cycle that is aligned with the curriculum revision. We also need to be mindful of our science curriculum and we do test in the Mastery test in science now and we need to get materials in our classrooms at the elementary levels to support that standards based learning in science.

We need smart board technology at all grade levels. We also need site licenses in software for supporting research based reading intervention programs. That is critical. We have obviously, as you know in 3rd grade, 26% of kids reading below proficient. There are intervention programs that we could use with children to help get them back up to goal and we need to do that. We need to invest in some of this so that we can meet the needs of all of our kids. This budget really is about kids. This is about placing children first. It’s about meeting the needs of all of our diverse learners and it’s not focused on anything other than that.

Unmet personnel needs: positions that I could not bring forward to you because obviously at 5.9%, I am mindful that it is a challenging budget figure in this environment. These do represent needs. A reading language arts consultant at John Trumbull, we pitched the salary at a 6th year degree in order to be a language arts consultant, you need that 6 year degree. I think in order to attract the best and the brightest, we chose a salary schedule at step 9. We did not bring that forward, but it’s not because it’s not needed. It’s clearly needed. We didn’t bring it forward because we just didn’t think we could sustain the request. A behaviorist is very simply a behavior management specialist. It would be someone with special education certification, evaluating and developing programs for our children k-12 who present significant, whether it’s aggressive behavior, inappropriate behavior that interferes with the learning in the classroom, but also with their own learning progress. You should know that each year, the board pays anywhere between $40,000 and $60,000 for contract services in this area. For consultants to come in and do this work, to work with staff and the parents, in the classroom to meet the needs of 10 or 15 challenging children district wide. We really thought if we could bring in this position ourselves, overtime it would defer costs in terms of outplacements for students, also it would help us as we try and move forward and consider some alternative educational programming at the secondary level, both the middle and high school. Our unmet certified requests are a little bit more than $125,000. That we did not bring forward to you. I can tell you that there are other very legitimate requests that didn’t make it to this slide. Things like library media specialist at the elementary schools and primary schools, positions such as guidance counselor at the elementary schools. Numerous positions that did not make it to this slide. There’s also non-certified positions that are not in here. Probably of most interest, would be a nurse at Watertown High School, split between Watertown High School and Swift Middle School. We have over (inaudible) children here at the high school and just 1 registered nurse. We have large numbers of children at Swift Middle School and just one registered nurse. The needs of kids, the level of care, the plans we have for children, whether it’s severe food allergies, medically fragile children. The life of school based personnel is very different than it was even 10 years ago, and so John Trumbull does have a R.N. and an L.P.N.. That model helps John Trumbull to be a safe and productive learning environment for our children and families. It’s that same model that really we should be looking at Swift and Watertown High School. This did not make the request. I could not see putting this in. Also at the middle school, a responsible thinking classroom tutor is all part of a positive behavior supports program that we’d like to put in place at the middle school, grades 6 – 8. It would require classroom space and a tutor who helps children develop personal responsibility and works with classroom teachers and also administration on developing plans for children to make better choices and change their behavior and engage more positively and fully in school life and we think that it would improve the climate, culture and ultimately student learning at the middle school. Again, that was not funded. It did not meet the level of request today.

This is the last slide just reminding us of the work ahead and what we need to do and these are all important. These are our present and future needs. We need to pay attention to our learning resources, to our technology and textbooks. We need reading intervention and comprehensive literacy. We need to recognize that we have increasing numbers of children who do not speak English as their first language. That is a population that is changing here in Watertown. We want to maintain class size, we also want to develop a capital improvement and maintenance plan. This budget does not really address that, but we’ve done all this work in facilities, we need to now begin a budget a cycle of repair. Also early intervention. Our work with our youngest children, so that we can keep them in the system and learning. Alternative education program, there is a segment of this population that we continue to be challenged by at the high school, we need to find innovative ways and programs to keep them in school, reduce drop-out and increase success and then, certainly curriculum development, professional development and leadership development, all with a focus on enhancing student learning opportunities and outcomes. This represents to you, the superintendent’s budget at a 5.9% increase with a 2008-2009 level of spending. There are correctives in this. It’s all based on need and focused on putting kids and their learning opportunities first. If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them now.

Mr. Killeen: I’d like to reiterate a point that you made. It’s not reflective of any reductions, state reductions or federal reductions in what we do presently. If we were put in the situation of a zero growth budget, have you thought of the effect that would have? Just thinking forward, if this budget was approved, and the impact of the state and federal was a 5.9% decrease as we suspect there will be a 12% decrease, then we’re still at a net loss of 5 and change. Doesn’t seem like we’re dealing from a good hand.

Ms. Baldwin: Perhaps not, but I think what is important though, is to be clear what our needs are, to recognize that certainly revenue in the state is completely decreased and that there is way we are going to see the same types of funding that we have seen in the past coming from the state, whether it’s 1.4 million through a education cost share reduction or some other figure. Certainly, anytime we move forward in developing an operating budget, at the same time you have a list of reductions and so you sort of march in line that this is the request and that the other side of the page, there is possible reductions. This is what we need. This is the need. We will wrestle with reductions once that information becomes necessary, but none of that will be easy and all of that will have lasting, negative impact on children and this community.

Mr. Killeen: Last year, we had a negative impact of about 1.3 million and I do think that it was a dramatically negative effect. I’d hate to see us reverse direction in spite of whatever current trends are happening for the national economy or even the state economy.

Ms. Baldwin: Your points are well taken.

Mr. Mazzamaro: (inaudible) a number of teacher retirements. I know you mentioned you put a survey out. Do you think you’ll have that number when the final budget is done? When do you anticipate having some information back on those retirements?

Ms. Baldwin: Teachers are not contractually obligated to tell us, so I put the survey out January 5th. I have asked teachers to respond to the survey and get it back to me by the 20th, so next week. To date, I have 2 retirements. One came into my office this afternoon, so I know two. It’s a moving target because they don’t have to tell us, so we will put a board of education budget to the Town Council the end of February. It is possible that we still don’t really know what that figure is, but as these reductions become clear, we can take them and make a point of that, thereby reducing the operating budget accordingly. It is possible that teachers retire with that decision, July and August, different things compel them, they decide not to come back and there is no way for us to anticipate that. That’s just one of those unknowns.

Mr. Mazzamaro: Also, the ECS, the Education Cost Sharing, you talked about possibly being cut about 12% which would subtract about a million dollars of money that we get from the state. Any idea when that decision would be made?

Ms. Baldwin: It’s part of the current legislative session. I would think that, typically these decisions take place, and we’re lucky if we know in May and in light of the economy, it may take all of that time and then some for us to truly know. The other piece about that, that remains uncertain is the level of impact that that type of reduction has on the board side. How much of that reduction in the cost sharing grant is shouldered by the board and how much is shouldered by the town?

Mr. Mazzamaro: That’s one of my biggest concerns.

6. Student Artwork

Ms. Baldwin: I just want to draw your attention to the artwork on the walls here in the technology center and recognize our young artists in the community that do a fantastic job.

The artwork that is on display this evening was done by the following young artists:

Jolie Galasso -Kindergarten, John Trumbull Primary School

Marissa Maccione -Grade 1, John Trumbull Primary School

Sarah Harte -Grade 2, John Trumbull Primary School

Danielle McClendon -Grade 3, Judson School

Rebekah Johnston -Grade 4, Polk School

Kali King -Grade 5, Judson School

Kathleen Smith -Grade 6, Swift Middle School

Matthew Minicucci -Grade 7, Swift Middle School

Anthony DiZinno -Art 1, Watertown High School

Lindsey Parenteau -Art 2, Watertown High School

Julian Focareta -Art 2, Watertown High School

Amber King -Art 2, Watertown High School

Elise Miller -Art 3, Watertown High School

7. Discussion on Capital Improvement Plan

Ms. Baldwin: This is an item that came up at our Budget and Finance sub-committee meeting last Thursday evening. As board members may recall, last year, as you worked on your 2008-2009 budget request, you placed in the budget an item called capital improvement plan. It was a line item. It’s intent is to work on refurbishing and paying attention to a refurbishment and maintenance cycle at the high school for the track and the athletic facilities and so the board last year had a request of $50,000.00 in that capital improvement plan line item. Ultimately, was not able to continue funding that. That become a reduction along the way and so it’s not in this 08-09 current fiscal year. It also is not the 2009-2010 budget. We have some monies in our projects to maintain facilities, some dollars, but certainly not anything to the level of $50,000.00 in a capital improvement plan. One of the pieces in our discussions last Thursday evening in Budget and Finance, was the view that says, this is really an info structure and a facility need and it should truly be funded by the town, in our view. The board’s operating budget should not absorb a capital improvement plan of $50,000.00. What that does is it increases our operating budget, but to no benefit of kids. We would be reporting our per pupil expenditure as greater that it is truly is which would also impact our funding relative to Title I and the consolidated grant. What we wanted to engage the board in tonight is just discussion on a capital improvement plan and how to precede because this is an important item for us as a body, to make sure that we pay attention to our needs. I turn it over to you, Mrs. Calabrese.

Ms. Calabrese: I’m sure people have their own thoughts on this topic. Mr. Lambert, do you have anything to contribute. I know that you’ve given this a great deal of thought for the last few years.

Mr. Lambert: We have a track that has a lifespan. Some say that it would cost another $600,000.00 for the sake of a number, maybe $800,000.00 to replace this track with a new surface and possibly a new track itself. Turf generally costs about 2/3 to replace versus the original cost. You’re looking at quite an expensive situation and as with the fire department and fire truck funds, it’s prudent to put away a certain amount of money each year in order to fund the ongoing expense for the future of it. You have to think at least of the track, as a town situation where town residents enjoy our track just as much as school children do. They walk the track at night and during the day to get exercise and it seems to be more and more residents are taking advantage of this. It seems to be prudent in my mind to put away a certain amount of money each year so we don’t have this big, huge 1.5 million dollar expense in five years, ten years.

Ms. Calabrese: And we know it’s coming.

Mr. Lambert: There’s no way around it. We will probably have another turf field at Mills complex in the not too distant future. Maybe in another year, year and a half. That’s something that requires a certain amount of money to be put away every year. It’s the prudent way to go, it’s the right way to go, whether we can have our town cooperate with us in treating it as an info structure situation which I truly believe now that is the right way to go. I would like to see that we do approach the town fathers to see if they can help us support this kind of situation and do the right thing.

Ms. Calabrese: Thank you. Would anyone like to interject or add anything to the discussion?

Mr. Mazzamaro: I just want to add that I also agree that it is prudent that we put money aside and Mr. Lambert made a great point in saying not only do we have one track, but soon we’ll have two and you know for a fact that there’s a finite life on the turf, it’s about ten or twelve years and it needs to be replaced and to put a huge expense like that on the town all at once would not make financial sense. It makes sense to put money away, like we would do in our own households for expenses that we know are going to come, driveway, roofs, whatever, we put a little bit away, as much as we can every year and it may not be as much as we want every year, but it’s certainly prudent that something should be discussed. As chairman of facilities and subcommittee, I hadn’t even thought about having as info structure the cost of that makes a whole lot of sense and other costs are put in that category, so I think that’s a good idea, as well. We should approach the council. I believe the council was receptive to this idea last year. I believe they thought it was a good idea and they approved us making a line item, so there is support.

Ms. Colangelo: What came to light last week at our meeting was the fact that it does affect our per pupil cost, which is something that we weren’t aware of.

Ms. Calabrese: Which makes perfect sense, but really, I hadn’t thought about it that way until the superintendent pointed that out.

Ms. Colangelo: Given that fact, I think we should approach the town.

Mr. Killeen: It seems to me that we can no longer do things the way we have become accustomed to doing them. I’m not speaking as a board, I’m speaking as a community. We have to begin to look at things entirely different than the way we have. I know it’s been my experience with this board, that they’re totally sold on the best possible education environment for our children. I don’t see that focus changing. I think that we need some forms of renewed community participation, the idea of a professional learning community is that everyone who’s a stake holder is involved and has input and we have the transparency and we spend our dollars best and we have our interest well placed. We simply cannot depend on the state or the federal government to do what’s best for our children. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but we have to encourage our neighbors and our townspeople to give education and give the town another look and glance at the way we do things. Teachers everyday have ideas out there that can make things better and sometimes they get good shelf life and other times they don’t and I’m not sure what brings all of that about, but it’s time that we did it. The session closes the first Wednesday of June for the state, I guarantee we’re going to be crying in our soup then.

Ms. Calabrese: It doesn’t look very promising.

Mr. Killeen: I’m just frustrated, airing some sentiment that I feel, as a board member I wanted to express.

Ms. Pond: Who’s going to approach the town. We all agree with the idea.

Mr. Killeen: The last article that I read by the chairman of the council, she said that in the article that she participated (inaudible) the Town Manager, so hopefully there’s some ground there where we can move forward. It’s going to be painful, but we have to keep our eye on the prize.

Ms. Calabrese: I can certainly authorize the superintendent to initiate that discussion at this time. If it’s worth my own opinion, I think at this time, in terms of just judging the situation, it might not be the time to really push this idea, but just to at least initiate discussion and accustom certain people to the idea and the logic of everything that you’ve said and we can only hope that it will matter to them. I think everyone is looking at everything as very, very bleak, not that we don’t think it’s bleak, but I also think that we do have a moral responsibility to explain what our needs are and we can’t pretend that we don’t have needs. That’s why this budget, the way it is, is a starting point. We have to at least express what our most dire needs are as a school district and maybe we can frame it that way when we bring it to the council, that this is a need and there’s increasing level on the board level that it should be handled on the town side.

Mr. Lambert: I think it’s the sentiment of the board to authorize the superintendent to discuss this with the council and town fathers and see if we can get them on board. Certainly, we have to do the right thing, the prudent thing. We know what our needs are, we know what the right thing to do is. We have to see if we can get them on board.

I. Report from the Chairman

For my report this evening, I’ll be very brief. This evening, our Superintendent of Schools delivered a very thorough and thoughtful presentation of the recommended budget for the upcoming school year. I think we should realize that even during much better economic times, our school budget has been seriously underfunded and that has led us to the situation that we find ourselves into today, which makes it all the more dire. We are now facing significant educational needs in a very harsh economic climate, so it’s certainly is necessary for us to work together and to engage the community in making decisions that will address our most serious needs, but will avoid the kind of devastation that will set our schools back even further. We have to be prepared for that eventuality and in order to avoid that, we have to put every ounce of effort into promoting whatever the final budget ends up being. We have to promote that budget and we have to do our very best not to sink further into the past because it will only make it harder in the next few years.

J. Action Items – Adoption of Items to be Approved by Consent

1. Consideration of the Approval of Family Medical Leaves of Absence

Motion made by Ms. Colangelo, sec. by Mr. Mazzamaro

a. Ms. Patricia Davies, Grade 1 Teacher at John Trumbull Primary School, requests a Medical Leave of Absence, commencing February 2, 2009 through February 27, 2009, with use of accumulated sick time.

It is recommended that the Board approve of a Medical Leave of Absence for Ms. Patricia Davies, Grade 1 Teacher at John Trumbull Primary School, commencing February 2, 2009 through February 27, 2009, with use of accumulated sick time and a medical doctor’s note to return.

Motion passed unanimously

Motion made by Ms. Colangelo, sec. by Mr. Mazzamaro

b. Ms. Jody Field, Art Teacher at Judson School and Polk School, requests a Childbearing and Childrearing Leave of Absence, under the Family Medical Leave Act, beginning approximately March 24, 2009, until the end of the 2008-2009 school year, with use of accumulated sick time and then leave without pay.

It is recommended that the Board approve of a Childbearing and Childrearing Leave of Absence, under the Family Medical Leave Act, for Ms. Jody Field, Art Teacher at Judson School and Polk School, beginning approximately March 24, 2009, until the end of the 2008-2009 school year, with use of accumulated sick time and then leave without pay and a medical doctor’s note to return.

Motion passed unanimously

Motion made by Ms. Colangelo, sec. by Mr. Mazzamaro

c. Ms. Jennifer Longo, Grade 2 Teacher at John Trumbull Primary School, requests a Childbearing Leave of Absence, under the Family Medical Leave Act, commencing May 1, 2009, for the remainder of the 2008-2009 school year, with use of accumulated sick time.

It is recommended that the Board approve of a Childbearing Leave of Absence, under the Family Medical Leave Act, for Ms. Jennifer Longo, Grade 2 Teacher at John Trumbull Primary School, commencing May 1, 2009, for the remainder of the 2008-2009 school year, with use of accumulated sick time and a medical doctor’s note to return.

Motion passed unanimously

Motion made by Mr. Colangelo, sec. by Mr. Mazzamaro

d. At the Board of Education meeting on June 30, 2008, the Board approved of a Maternity Leave of Absence, under the Family Medical Leave Act, commencing August 26, 2008, through January 5, 2009, with use of accumulated sick time and then leave without pay, for Ms. Elizabeth DeCicco, Kindergarten Extended Day Care Teacher at John Trumbull Primary School.

Ms. DeCicco requests an extended leave of absence from January 5, 2009 through February 23, 2009, without pay and without health insurance benefits.

Motion passed unanimously

2. Consideration of the Approval of the Acceptance of Gifts

Motion Made by Mr. Mazzamaro, sec. by Ms. Colangelo

a. The Leever Foundation would like to donate a check in the amount of $4,000 representing the final installment of the 2007 Lever Foundation grant to the Watertown Public School District for salaries and program expenses for the Watertown Family Resource Center.

Motion passed unanimously

Motion made by Mr. Mazzamaro, sec. by Ms. Colangelo

b. Mr. Michael Magas, III, Teacher at Woodland Regional High School, on behalf of the Region 16 School District, would like to donate back up parts to the timing system at the Watertown High School pool with an estimated value of $8,000.00.

Discussion: Mr. Killeen: Mr. Magas is doing the kind of thing that this community needs. He recently became a member of the public buildings committee, as well as appeared before this board on numerous occasions and if he was here tonight, I would certainly, personally thank him. I won’t miss that opportunity when I see him. It is the kind of thing that apparently, he sensed a need, put two things together and that’s awesome.

Ms. Calabrese: We are very grateful to him.

Motion passed unanimously

Ms. Calabrese: It is recommended that the Board accept these generous donations and letters of thanks to be sent to the donors.

3. Consideration of the Approval of Transfer of Funds

Motion made by Mr. Mazzamaro, sec. by Ms. Colangelo

It is recommended that the Board approve of the attached Transfer of Funds for fiscal year 2008-2009. (See Attachment A.)

Discussion: Ms. Baldwin: This was in your Friday packet, we also discussed this briefly at our Budget and Finance Subcommittee meeting last Thursday and when the board approved of the 08-09 budget in July, there were several bottom line cuts that were made that total $123,253.00. In order for us to move forward appropriately in the development of the 2009-2010 budget, we need to accurately affect certain line item reductions. In a memo from Gary Miller to me, I put that in your packet. We’ve identified $29,128.00 in athletic transportation, $15,000.00 in maintenance projects and we’ve reduced the natural gas line item by $79,125.00. Those are the transfer requests that we are seeking so that we can identify them properly as we move toward the 2009-2010 budget.

Motion passed unanimously

K. Future Agenda Items and Board Members’ Comments

Ms. Colangelo: Just a reminder, we were supposed to approve a job description at this meeting. Can we have it on the next?

L. Public Participation

None

M. Executive Session

Motion made by Ms. Colangelo, sec. Mr. Mazzamaro

To go into executive session with the Board Members and the Superintendent on a contractual matter at 9:10 pm.

Motion passed unanimously

N. Regular Session

The meeting came out of executive session at 9:40 pm.

Discussion and possible action on contractual matter.

No discussion or action taken.

O. Adjournment

Motion made by Mr. Mazzamaro, sec. Ms. Pond

To adjourn the meeting at 9:40 pm

Motion passed unanimously

Meeting adjourned at 9:40 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Colangelo, Secretary

Board of Education

Patricia A. Barber, Minutes Secretary

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