##VIDEO ID:bz4fmOPM4kU## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e m all right good evening everyone the public has been duly informed that this meeting in accordance with the chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 by posting at least 48 hours in advance a notice on the bulleon boards in Stevenson and Churchill schools a notice to the Township Clerk and a notice to The Herald news and the progress please stand for the pledge allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States stes of America and to the repu for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all we're going to begin with our president's report so leading up to the school year there was a a lot that the board accomplished the roof project on Church Hill has been 100% complete which uh was a bonus and we'll go over this in buildings and grounds but we were able to replace the whole entire roof for less than the proposed amount for just a replacement so for the next 25 years we have we are warrantied at Churchill so the entire roof was replaced the back stops at Stevenson and Church Hill School on the main Fields were done the traffic circle behind Church Hill School to assist with pickup and drop off was completed uh several administrative offices were painted we are currently working on a Paving project behind Stevenson School to assist with and climate weather pickups and drop offs uh we were invited to our teacher kick uh kickoff in the beginning of the year thank you Ryan myself Angela Joe and Melinda were able to attend it was a huge success thank you to all of the teachers that were there uh we are happy to report we have a tenative teacher contract agreement our finance committee met on 828 that was with myself Joe our business administrator Wally our superintendent Mr Gupta uh as well as Kathleen and our auditor our Fairfield Municipal Alliance report is as follows we have several events coming up coffee with a cop is going to be held October 2nd from 7 to 9 a.m. at Manhattan Bagel please feel free to stop by our Winter Wonderland is scheduled for Saturday December 7th with a rain date of Sunday December 8th our Devil's hockey night is Wednesday January 22nd bus departs Town Hall at 5: pm the devils are playing the Boston Bruins it is $86 per ticket we are limited to 50 tickets and we will be seated in section 104 our school programs are Babs and our lead program will be in January 2025 and end in May of 2025 now on to our superintendent report thanks Anthony there's been a lot of happening since the last board meeeting so just bear with my trip down memory lane here um back all the way on August 29th was our first day for staff uh Jackie and her masio staff do a tremendous job setting up uh the place looked phenomenal but even more impressive um our HSA donated breakfast which you have to have that for our first meeting um as Anthony said our Board of Education was all in attendance we also had Fairfield Education Foundation Fairfield Municipal Alliance HSA Fairfield Police Department Department very very impressive display of support for our staff I got a few comments that you know said they had they don't remember seeing that many people at an opening of school before so it it was tremendous to see that many people in our community coming to support the schools so I appreciate all of them for being part of our first day then of course we had our first day of school on September 3rd there were tears from many uh mostly from parents at Stevenson um at Churchill on the other hand there were Tears of Joy from some parents some didn't even come to complete stops as they booted their kids right out of the car very different at both buildings um but it was exciting day for students uh parents and especially staff who's been who had been waiting for them and had a lot of things planned for their first day um despite all of the planning we did over the summer for the additional cars that we anticipated there were obviously adjustments that still had to be made for pickup and drop offs we made them very quickly at Churchill by the second day things were running smoothly Stevenson as anticipated um with parents were new to the school with younger kids taking much longer to get in the cars there were some issues there again we made adjustments if you look at it right now um we dismissed at 3:27 by 347 less than 20 minutes we're clear um but always no matter what we do with all of these things and the adjustments we make the priority is to still the safety of our students so we always ask drive carefully even if it takes a few more minutes wait till all the cars are loaded before we move on and that's always going to be something we look at and we're always going to try to make improvements if we can find a safer way to do things uh moving forward on September 11th both schools honored the memory of lives lost on 911 with readings in the morning announcements sixth graders you may have seen them at uh Churchill attended a short ceremony in front of town hall led by Fairfield council president Joseph saell other council members Town Hall staff and the police department were also present so that was a great event um again our kids don't know much about it and hearing about John salomone local person losing his life there was also important for our students to understand that that this hits home also this month our community mourned the loss of Officer Jimmy champy Church Hill students and staff watched and waved American flags as the procession drove by Fairfield Road on September 13th I know several board members were there there were families that also joined us outside um and our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to Jimmy's family uh and friends this community is it's a big loss and they'll be mourning his lost for quite some time on to some happier announcements our sixth grade field trip is a officially May 28th at Jeff Lakes I'm not familiar with the place but apparently it's the place to be it's very hard to get a date for that place and I know the sixth grade parents when they found out about it they were thrilled so that is official May 28th with a rain date of June 2nd and lastly I'm having my first round of coffee chats invitations went out I did keep it to only eight and I did an evening session and a morning session it did fill up so thank you for those of you who will be attending that um I could have a a larger venue but I just feel like when we have a small group like that people are more comfortable sharing their thoughts we can have deeper discussions and we can go from there there will be other opportunities and if we do open it up to a bigger group you'll get that email for me as well but I just want to make sure there's communication you don't have to wait for a coffee chat feel free to reach out to me email me call me I'm always available and um one more thing which might be controversial but I have to say it go Cowboys sorry and that concludes my superintendent report and with that we'll move on board committees reports and comments any old and new business uh just to touch on the negotiations committee as Anthony mentioned we have reached a tentative agreement which we are very happy to report uh just a general overview I don't want to get into too many specifics as the contract is not ratified yet but we have come to an agreement on the length of the contract the percentage of the salary increase the length of the school day we've cleaned up some language as well as increased the starting pay for Paris thank you very much Angela Joe buildings and grounds not much to report on buildings and grounds you didn't already cover um we are now working on our next project which will be the Stevenson Paving in the back uh and then obviously there are more projects to come forward that we'll talk about in the coming months once the audit is uh finalized and and we start getting into into the the school year from a finance committee perspective wonderful um we did meet with the auditor their audits almost done um you know again thanks to the vote that passed last November some concessions that were made during budgeting last year uh thanks to Kathleen and everybody that worked on that um the district is in a good position this year but the auditor will come and give a final presentation and I believe a month or so thank you very much Joe Melinda anything on HSS uh yes HSA held their first meeting last week it was very very well attended um they just wanted me to mention two things so they have a Fall fundraiser which just started so I believe uh Flyers went home in the backpack and the money that's raised goes towards class trip so it's offset uh your child's class trip and I think the goal was to raise $20,000 um so please look for that church Hill wathon which is also an HSA sponsored event is happening on October 11th and I know they'll be sending more information out as it gets closer thank you Melinda uh earlier this evening the executive board had an opportunity to meet with the Fairfield Education Foundation and they went over their process the grant process actually started a couple days ago we we're pleased to announce that uh everything they reported was spectacular the detail the thoughtfulness that was put into this the procedure in which how these grants are going to be presented and given out is is fantastic we're pleased to be a part of it and we're extremely supportive um any particular questions please feel free to reach out to the Fairfield Education Foundation you can go to their website and they have contact information on there so that went well anyone have anything else public comments on agenda items only anyone have any public comments on agenda items only please state your name and address start again hi Alis miaso 7 Southampton Drive I heard now a few times mentioned about Paving behind Stevenson and I was wondering I know it might be early days in the project but if you could share a little bit more color because one of the questions I was going to raise tonight was understanding more towards a midterm long-term solution if that we envision unlikely the busing to return and we might be using a model at Stevenson where we need to have parents exiting the vehicles understanding that we probably need more space to do so and there's a lot of concern about the peral ground surrounding Stevenson being in a flood zone I didn't know if there was an opportunity to also consider applying for either federal or state funding to get grants to help support creating water resiliency I've seen it done in other towns where it's been very successful and I think if we could partner and look for an option like that it may help offset some costs and also might get a strong Community buying and support if we then need to do any type of either ballot item or eventual referendum if we need additional funding for that so I was curious to hear what we have planned in the current state and then also just just as a question for future planning if that's something we could consider because I think that would actually help promote the overall benefit to the overall Community Beyond just the impact the parents that are dealing with the transit I I can I can answer that um yeah we're definitely looking at um the weather situation so the paving is basically going to go from that Circle right to the hard top and then the the cars would ride on the hard top to the back right now you see we're just they're just riding on the grass which is fine while the grass is dry but there will be a pave leading to that um we've already started talking there are grant opportunities like you mentioned so I'm glad you even brought that up for um bigger projects um doing something different with that maybe expanding the black top back there even farther um but that would be a larger project because like you said that soil area is is definitely an issue so for this what we're doing now for the small project of just going from the circle to the hard top that'll fix any issues of you know for snow or rain having the car stay on the concrete for the whole time and not have to go down the grass that's great thank you you're welcome you anyone else public comments on agenda items only okay we'll close that portion Joe will you please take the September agenda items for finance sure the following Finance motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools uh anything placed on this agenda items 1 to7 will be voted upon in one motion and I so move can I have a second second roll call M yes M yes M yes yes yes thank you very much Andrea can you please take grants for the month of September yes the following Grant motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda items one to three will be voted on in one motion I so move may I have a second second second Angela yes thank you yes yes yes yes yes Mr FEI can you please take building and grounds the following buildings and grounds motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda items 1 to four will be voted upon in one motion and I so move may I have a second second yes yes yes yes yes Miss alai will you please take curriculum programs I can the following curriculum program motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda items 1 through four will be voted upon in one motion I so move I have a one second I have an amendment on item number three so discussion yeah yes okay I'd like to amend item number three um the conference live the date from 9:17 to 10:17 and also move that item agenda item to item number two as approve and not ratify and affirm anything else that's it okay discussion closed May I have a second second roll is Miss chandoli yes Mr FEI yes Miss Street yes Miss alai yes Mr D Pascal yes Mrs alai Personnel please the following Personnel motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda items 1 through nine will be voted upon in one motion I so move may I have a second second roll Miss jandi yes Mr feedi yes M Street yes Miss alai yes and Mr D Pascal yes thank you very much Mrs Street please take policy for the month of September the following policy motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda item one will be voted in one motion I so move m a second second roll Miss jandoli yes Mr FEI yes M Street yes Miss alai yes and Mr D Pascal yes the board president will now open the floor to public comments on non agenda items only if anyone has any comments please state your name and your address good evening everybody Anthony jordano 15 Cherry Lane it's a pleasure thank you uh very welcome having a fresh superintendent in here looking forward to it hear nothing but good things um few issues dancing around the the pickup drop off the busing you know I know it's the hot ticket item here um the teachers and staff that are helping out before and after uh is this any kind of contractual obligation are they getting any extra compensation or anything like that um to be the time they send that they spend outside beforehand yeah if if they're if they go beyond their contractual time to help with pickup um then yes they do get a stip in they do turn time time sheets as we're looking at now we're ending like right on the end of the day so it's not an issue but if it ever is an issue and we have had students who maybe their parents showed up late and they needed to stay then yes we do pay them for that okay that's also one of my things I've been lucky enough to only have to do one school pickup up until past couple days and I got hit with both boy that's hard to do yeah my daughter was the last kid at Stevenson in the back two days in a row so it's it's a time crunch there so bad weather other things come in play you know I would expect the uh the cost to come in with that with with the teachers and right rightfully so they're doing a great job managing that by the way um as far as the paving behind Churchill and now the uh Stevenson one do we have costs on that so so yes I I could touch on Churchill so the middle of the summer we were contacted by the Fairfield Police Department uh asking how we can address the potential traffic backup that uh eliminating subscription busing would cause um so what we did is we uh we we were smart enough to schedule a couple meetings knowing that Mr Gupta was new so what we uh allocated for was a bunch of dates because obviously the board cannot meet in its entirety uh without uh having a quarum so we scheduled uh several dates in uh anticipation that things would come up as Mr Gupta took the position that we would have to meet uh about uh one in particular I happen to be away but they they had a meeting they zoomed me in um they I expressed the police department's concern um the next thing that I did was contact the uh mayor and the councel and I asked if they can put me in touch with Steve Barry which they did Steve walked the property with us and said hey this would be the best cheapest solution that could be approved the the quickest uh from that point we went out to bid and I believe the project cost us 42 or $43,000 in total and if you that's just for Churchill just for Churchill and uh if you are picking up in Churchill with the extended hours that Mr Gupta instilled uh with a rolling drop off a little earlier uh Churchill seems to be doing quite well with very minimal traffic on Fairfield Road or Hollywood Avenue so considering the fact that the first two or three days of school our backup was close to birch tree off of Hollywood to now on a daily basis where we are not reaching Hollywood I would say that was a success and I think it's important to mention that that's a one-time cost that will service this district for year to come years to come as opposed to subscription busing which was costing the district several hundred, a year repetitively which thank you brings me to my next portion yes uh the money that has been uh saved from the subscription busing do we have a number figure on that and to where that's been redirected to that's more of uh a ba question we're doing an analysis now that we have the student count to see what the savings are and how much the bus cost is going to be so I I should be able to put a report together in the coming months okay and that'll be for years going forward or just this current year well it could be for current year but I can't project it I can't you can't project what the cost would be you know to an exact number but I can give a rough estimate of what what we what the anticipated cost would be in the future that would be appreciated sure and let's not um I'm allowed to speak absolutely yes uh that contract is a three-year contract so this is not like we would know three years what you're what you're going to spend but then when the third Year's up that they hit you with that that price increase so that's something where you get past three years you don't know what the bus company was in charge we knew that it would go from 5 something to seven something we didn't do it so it doesn't really matter so the savings is going to be skewed by the fact that you don't know that bus increase that contract increase is going to be every three years that's you know I don't know how much it's going to play for somebody that's new to the district but W's pretty sharp so you probably have something good for you I think it's important if you know pre prior to co um from our busing contract prior to co to after was roughly a 46% increase which we have no control over and we're currently in the first year I'm presuming since we had to change the no that was the third year that was the third year we well currently I'm saying oh um no that wouldn't be that's for the mandated yes for the mandated now that's still there that's a good question I believe it's our first year of renegotiated it's year number one yeah with mandate so his fixed cost will reflect the next two years which we know the the percentage increase if any Goa do we know how many kids are mandated within the mandated busing schedule I believe we do yeah yes we just touched on this in executive have 160 that are mandated and out of that 160 124 are actually on the bus thank you very much appreciate your time thank you public comments on non-agenda items you might want to sit on the end not speaking um um so Alison may also 7 Southampton Drive I know last school year we talked about that due to budgetary constraints we had to reevaluate the Staffing and as a result the kindergarten AIDS were being reallocated to being moved to other Aid positions across the district and I understand the challenge that led to that but I'm curious to understand I guess maybe it's Dr go uh Mr gupa question for you um I've noticed the impact I have a child who's in kindergarden and I know that they're losing out on valuable instructional time where they would do small group instruction in their reading and I seen a strong sentiment from the parents on how they could potentially help the teachers and so I appreciate that there's protocols that would need to be thought through but I'm curious if we could look at leveraging some type of opportunity where through volunteerism if parents were interested they could possibly have a opportunity to come in and maybe help with or do some small group instruction reading just to help give the teachers a bit of assistance and also help to reinforce that learning that's being lost so I understand it's not a decision that you could ever take now and it's not really a Bard topic I appreciate it's more for the superintendent but I just wanted to raise it here to see if there's ways to to explore that I know we have a strong call continuously for volunteerism or people who want to participate as aids for helping with lunch and with um recess duties uh I think although this is a bit of a different type of Engagement I think particularly in this community you're going to see a strong interest in it so if there's a way to make it work I know there might be background checks or different things that might need be put in place to make that viable but I would like to see if that's something that we could pursue thank you yeah I'm just gonna gonna say thank you for bringing that up absolutely there are were always constantly looking for things outside of the box we absolutely did not move the AIDS because we didn't think they were needed we knew they were needed but unfortunately when you can only have a certain number of AIDS and it's mandatory elsewhere we had to make the move but we do knew it was going we do we did know very very well that it was going to impact those kids and it's it's something we wish we didn't have to do so if we can compensate in other creative ways we will absolutely look into to that and if it's a matter of me reaching out to the community and saying here are some things here are the steps we can take would you like to be a part of it I'm more than happy to do that and if something that um we as parents can also help to further encourage once a kind of plan is put together a protocol is put together we're more than happy to do so as well thank you thank you so much anyone else public comments non-agenda items Rose Lapras 12 Bates I just want to say thank you to those who are involved with the I'm only familiar with the Church Hill pickup because I don't have anybody at Stevenson anymore um but just to Echo what Anthony was saying that seems to be down to a science that's much appreciated to everybody that puts in the additional time we're in and out of there in like 12 minutes so exceeded my expectations at least that's it thank you very much and to piggyback you know on that we'd like to thank our Police Department because they were an intricate part in the First several days at Churchill um I don't have the privilege of being at Stephenson because uh I only have a child in Church Hill now but yes but uh you know without the police department the first couple days would not be possible so officer Tracy thank you I know you were there front in Center the first couple days you know I would joke with our um with our police chief and I'd say listen we we got a lot of brass out here you know and we had a lot of the a lot of you know Captain Diaz Tracy it was just it was overwhelming and we're extremely thankful that you guys were there to assist until we ironed you know our hiccups out in the in the first couple days so thank you very much it means a lot to us thank you anyone else on non-agenda items with that being said we'll move on to our next meeting be resolved that the next meeting will be held in person on October 24th 2024 Public Work session beginning at 6 PM followed by executive session with the public session resuming at approximately 7:30 pm at the Fairfield Municipal Building motion motion SEC we'll get that one to Joe to Joe I roll call yeah thank you thank you so much so much