January 18, 2024 at 7:00 PM - Bethel Board of Education Regular Meeting - Superintendent's Proposed Budget Presentation - Part II

Rationale:  Dr. Carver will present the Superintendent's Proposed 2024-2025 Education Budget.

Rationale: 

• Bethel Education Foundation 2024 Education in Excellence Awards (Elementary & Secondary)

  You may have seen on social media on Friday that the Bethel Education Foundation awarded their 2024 Education in Excellence Awards (Elementary & Secondary).  I am pleased to announce that the recipients are: 

  Debby Tierney of Bethel Middle School and Jake Craybas of Rockwell School

  These recipients will be honored at the BEF 15th Annual Benefit Gala.  The Bethel Education Foundation is renewing its formal gala this year (formerly The Barnum Ball).   The date of the event is March 2, 2024, at the Candlewood Inn.   Tickets are on sale now.  We hope you can attend, as it is always a fun event.  See the attached flyer for ticket information.
• Congratulations to Ms. Christine Manalo for receiving the Heart of the Arts Award from the Connecticut Association of Schools (CAS).  Ms. Manalo is being honored for her work in Adaptive Music.   We are very proud of this accomplishment and appreciate her dedication in serving students with disabilities.
• Congratulations to Willa Zalaznick and Jack Woleck for coming in first place in the varsity division of the debate tournament today at Fairfield Warde High School!  They beat a team from Joel Barlow in the final round. 
• Congratulations to Yee-Jun Ng who set a school record in the 1000M.  The old record lasted for 40yrs!
• Thanks to all of our amazing volunteers, cadets, boosters, contributors, and Barts Tree service who helped make the 22nd Annual Bethel High School NJROTC Christmas Tree pickup a great success!   They picked up over 350 trees in just 3 hours and our cadets cleaned up the back lot and courtyard at BHS.  Bravo Zulu! 

Rationale:  Gifts

• Bethel High School - $1,000 for scholarships, workshops, or special projects, Anne Breecher, Danbury, CT.

Rationale:  (Please note:  The Board welcomes Public Participation and asks that speakers please limit their comments to 2 minutes.  Speakers may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them.  The Board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about Board of Education personnel and students, nor against any person connected with the Bethel Public School System.)

Rationale: 

The Board Chair will bring to the Board the 2024 Proposed Standing Committees Assignments

Per Board Bylaw 9132 Standing Committees -"Committees shall be established through action of the Board."

Proposed Standing Committee Assignments 2024

Policy
Chair: Dan Nostin
Vice Chair: Kara DiBartolo
Bill Foster
Jen Larsen
Alternate: Pat Rist

Curriculum, Assessment, and Professional Practices
Chair: Jennifer Ackerman
Vice Chair: Jen Larsen
Courtney Martin
Kara DiBartolo
Alternate: Jen Lewis

Resource Management and Business Operations
Chair: Bill Foster
Vice Chair: Dan Nostin
Jen Lewis
Pat Rist
Alternate: Courtney Martin

Community Outreach, Alignment, and Communication
Chair: Courtney Martin
Vice Chair: Jen Ackerman
Pat Rist
Jen Lewis
Alternate: Jen Larsen
 

Rationale:  Monthly Data  -  We include in the BOE agenda the monthly data as requested by the BOE.  

Rationale:  We need to finalize the 2024-2025 calendar for the next school year.   We are presenting this as an update this month, and would like to approve it the following month.  There are some changes:

• There is not a need for three professional development days prior to school starting, so we moved the professional learning day back to October.  From a staff learning perspective, this is a much better model.
• We moved up the staff professional learning days and students' start dates by two days, to begin the last week of August.  Starting with a half week is developmentally more appropriate for our preschool and kindergarten students.  Moving it up two days also better aligns with all of our neighboring districts.  
• We had to move the conference week to align with the PSAT date.  
• We made the Wednesday before the Thanksgiving Holiday a non-student day. We actually gain 1/2 of a day of instructional time by making this change.  I will bring data to the meeting. We also have significantly higher student absences on that Wednesday.   

Rationale:  There were no suggested changes to the policy, only the regulations. There were many suggested edits to this regulation as a result of changes in legislation.  All suggested changes are from Shipman and Goodwin's model regulation.   There are changes in definitions, which consist of "in attendance", options for 17 & 18-year-olds who might want to withdraw, and  monitoring procedures for students who have withdrawn.  Attached are the tracked changes to the regulation in pdf format.  The regulation is currently in effect.

Regulation 5113 - Student Attendance and Truancy

Rationale:  This policy was suggested for revision by Shipman and Goodwin.  The current Board of Education Policy was from 2001 and did not reflect many legislative changes ov there the years.  As a result, the policy got a complete overhaul.  Due to the fact that there were so many changes to the policy itself, we are recommending deleting the regulation.  The policy includes:  

1. Legal disclosures at the time of application.
2. DCF and other background checks.  

Policy 4112.51 - Employment & Student Teacher Checks
Deletion - Regulation 4112.51 - Employment & Student Teacher Checks

Rationale:  There were several legislative changes that occurred this session affecting substitute teachers.   As the policy had not been updated since 2005, there were a number of other suggested changes to the policy.  Those changes include: 

• Background requirements for substitutes.  
• Use of building substitutes and daily substitutes.
•   Statutory change in using the same substitute from 40 days to 60 days.  

Policy 4121 - Substitute Teachers

Rationale:  This policy is not in compliance with federal and state law.  Specifically, you can not refuse a student a lunch, nor can you give students an alternative lunch.  Lastly, a parent can not be required to pay off a lunch balance.  

Policy 3542.43 - Food Service Charging

Regulation 3542.43 - Food Service Charging

Rationale:  This policy was adapted due to the change in month (September) for the start of Kindergarten.  There are other sections with recommended deletions because they are redundant to other policies (remove withdrawals due to policy on disenrollment). 

Policy 5112 - Ages of Attendance

Rationale:  There are no suggested changes to the policy, only some to the regulations.  There were many suggested changes to the regulations.  


Policy 5112.4 - Disenrollment
Regulation 5112.4 - Disenrollment

Rationale:  This policy has not been reviewed since 1992, therefore many of the attributes were outdated.  In addition, there were a number of legislative changes that were included in this revised version of the policy.   The highlighted areas reflect both the law and district practice.  Dr. Sipala, Director of Special Education and Pupil Personnel made the suggestions that are reflected.

Policy 6159 - Individualized Education Program/Special Education Program

Rationale:  The Administration of Medication policy required an update because of some legislative changes to the use of Narcan in schools.  All the adjustments are due to those changes.  This policy was reviewed by Mrs. Davenport, the Health Services Coordinator.  

Administration of Medication 

Rationale:  There were legislative changes on construction and posting of agendas.   In addition, in reviewing the model Shipman Policy, there were some language items that were clearer than our existing bylaws.  

Bylaw 9323 - Construction of the Agenda